Guest
Dr Shahid Amin Trali
In order to defeat this pandemic, not just a few sections have responsibilities rather everyone in the society has to contribute in a positive manner. Businesses and organizations around the world too have been at the suffering end. But it’s they who have to sense and play a key role in this hour of crisis. The private sector in particular must join the frontline of this battle against Covid-19.
Businesses must understand there is an opportunity to earn the best image and reputation and emerge as true brands. They need to identify their unique capabilities to meet society’s immediate needs. Those organizations will be remembered for a longer period of time that will shift their focus to producing sanitizers, donate masks, offering facilities for quarantine etc. There is a need to keep essentials ready and affordable. The businesses need to shun away from earning huge profits and hoarding practices. These kind acts in this hour of crisis will not be forgotten by the society. In fact it will build goodwill among the wider public for a long period of time.
Employers have a good role and must take care of the health of the employees who are active and working for the welfare of the society. They must put good protections in place for their employees as well as their customers. The employers should provide facilities for hygiene with clean water, soap, sanitizers, and paper towels. All work surfaces and the surrounding area should be regularly cleaned. The need of time is that employers should remain calm and boost the spirit of their employees. The employees must not be pressurized and given threatening calls for being unproductive and costly to the organizations by falling short of their targets. The situation has become uncontrollable and no one may like to sit idle deliberately. Everyone is in trauma and we never know the situation with the employees and their families who are locked inside. Most recent research studies have found that employees and consumers increasingly reward those businesses that use their powers for good. There are companies which uphold high values to advance a large societal benefit regularly exhibit stronger financial performance.
Working from home is an idea whose time has finally come. In order to save the environment and the resources the work from home model is a viable one. The work from home has already been tested by some businesses but now it is catching much the hype. There is so much of pollution nowadays and time may demand us to focus on work from home model highly in future.
Life and work must go on and thanks to the technological revolution to support this work from home model. It is truly appreciable to see everyone going online and contribute be it teachers, doctors, consultants, researchers, engineers, businesses, students etc. But work from home model is not free from limitations. It requires extra focus and determination on part of the employees. The families too have to be highly cooperative and understand this responsibility to work from home. They have to support their working members in ways as much as possible. But then there are employees who are still not comfortable with this work from home. The challenges posed to such employees may be due to lack of proper trainings, facilities as well as the inefficient environment. Employers must also take note of such cases and try to involve them in some more meaningful works rather than pressurizing them for work from home. Human resource departments must be engaged at best to understand the cases one by one. It is never good to release a general policy and put some effective employees under increased crisis. Employees must be encouraged to speak their heart out and learn their challenges. There are also students who belong to far flung areas of the country with many problems in terms of network and lack of resources etc. They must also be given good treatments as they may have genuine issues not to attend online classes and submit assignments etc.
Good gestures in this crisis by the employers towards their employees will be highly praised for a longer period of time. The employers must stay close to their employees and truly care for them. It can potentially win their loyalty and develop sense of ownership in them.
(Author is Assistant Professor, School of Management, ITM University Gwalior, Youth Ambassador, IYS, Editor in chief for startupdailytips.com and a Regular Columnist for The Kashmir Monitor. He can be reached at- [email protected])
