Building happy teams

Leading successfully through COVID-19 pandemic is a test every business leader is grappling with at the moment. As leaders across the globe face unforeseen, complex challenges, we are inviting business leaders from India and Kenya to share their experiences of dealing with this unprecedented situation.

In this week’s “Business (un) Usual” series we have leaders from India and US share their experiences on managing the business in the pandemic, how they are navigating WFH with their teams, and more.

In this edition, Anoj Vishwanathan, co-founder and President, Milaap and Sandeep Deshpande, General Manager, Redaptive Service Private Limited, and Joe Bell, Manager, Business Operations, Redaptive talk about how they are finding ways to grow in these difficult times.

How has COVID impacted your business or businesses you work with (positively or negatively)?

Anoj: Milaap has always focused on individual emergencies. Though medical causes are our primary focus, we are also open to other social causes. Irrespective of the corona crisis, treatments like chemotherapy, dialysis must go on without any delays. Hence, we continued to do what we have been doing.

When the COVID crisis set in, we opened our platform for fundraisers around the crisis. When the Janta curfew was announced on March 26th, we realized it is going to affect various segments of society and as a policy (natural disasters and relief initiatives) we waived off fees for COVID related causes as well. But we certainly did not expect it to be of this magnitude.

We raised over 100 crores in a short span of time. This overwhelming response resulted in an increase in the cost, but we choose to stand true to our commitment as always. Of course, this had an impact on the business in terms of the cost involved, the traffic on our site increased by 4x, server cost increased by 3x and our communication cost increased by 10x but we made sure that it was under control. We cut other expenditures so that we continue to support these causes.

The way we look at it is – the usual 5% fee that we charge for our campaigns is Milaap’s contribution to the community because the only way to fight a crisis at this scale is to do it together.

Sandeep: We’ve been able to use this time for internal process improvements at our company. Additionally, we’ve taken time to hire new talent to start during and after COVID. Overall, we’ve made the best of a bad situation.

What is the biggest impact on your day-to-day life given the recent changes due to COVID?

Joe: Although I am used to operating via video call for much of my job, COVID has reinforced the need to actively build strong relationships throughout the team as we can no longer rely on grabbing a cup of coffee or sitting down for lunch to communicate and learn about our individual co-workers. COVID has also given us the opportunity to reflect on internal business processes and begin to critically assess and improve upon our systems.

What’s one tip you have for working remotely? What has been something special you or your company has done to make it a bit easier to WFH and/or preserve team culture and spirit?

Virtual pets day for Milaap team

Anoj: At Milaap, we believe that it is important to invest in employees because how businesses handle things now will undoubtedly determine how they bounce back when things begin to look up. This starts with supporting them through mental health counseling sessions, training, and education that helps develop new skills for a rapidly changing world.

We are glad that we started working towards these at a very early stage. We have tied up with ‘The Alternative Story’ which provides individual and organizational well-being services. We encourage our employees to take up online courses. We expanded our policy to include home office equipment, such as desks and ergonomic chair cushions and UPS too (since power cuts are a routine problem in the city) we are also reimbursing our staff’s internet connection and electricity bills. In the spirit of keeping the business, as usual, we are trying our best to shift our offline traditions online. We had quarantine karaoke, virtual pet’s day, doodling sessions, and a lot more to keep the team connected.

WFH for Joe

Joe: I believe that the most important part of successfully working remotely is learning how to re-create work-life balance. Our team has done a great job of hosting informal game sessions which help lighten the mood and bring people together without the need to think about work!

What’s your favorite thing about WFH?

Sandeep: No commute has been a pleasant surprise.

Joe: My favorite thing about WFH is no longer having to commute!

Do you think that this will signify a shift to more remote work in the long run?  Why or why not?

Anoj: It is likely that remote working will last longer than we thought. A lot of companies, especially tech companies seem to be taking the concept seriously resulting in revised work policies. Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Square, and a lot more companies have opted for the WFH model on a permanent basis. The shift to remote work has enabled many companies to continue to operate and ensure the health and safety of their employees.

This will always be our top priority. The lessons learned from the pandemic will reshape the future of office work especially for e-commerce and IT industries. This means less office space, less commuting, fewer business trips, shorter breaks, and greater focus for employees and this might also reverse the popular trend of job moves to big cities. All of this might inevitably add up to more jobs offering a better work-life balance and a more flexible office life but the key to be successful in the long term requires a structured approach.

Sandeep: I believe this will lead to some temporary changes. However, in the long run, people will want to get out and socialize with their colleagues. The impact of physical interaction simply can’t be replicated on a video call. People certainly miss the ‘chai’ and ‘coffee’ breaks with their colleagues.

Who’s someone that motivates you?

Anoj: There is no one source! In fact, it is the job itself! At Milaap we see stories of aspirations, of hope, and of change every day. Be it the stories of the families keeping the fight alive to save their loved ones from a life-threatening disease, or individuals raising funds to make a difference in their community, an astrophysicist leaving a lucrative job to help farmers to an 11-year-old kid raising 10L through crowdfunding to help the needy during these uncertain times, all these put together drives my motivation to continue providing for the needs of the community as an entrepreneur.

Sandeep: My team motivates me. They bring in a lot of positivity and good energy to all interactions I have either 1:1 or in a group. The way everyone’s stayed optimistic and believed in Redaptive motivates me.

Joe: From a global perspective, it is motivating to see how the world has worked to combat COVID. Although we could always do better, I am motivated by all the people around the world who are doing their best to create a better, safer, and healthier global community. From a local perspective, I am constantly motivated and inspired by the entire Redaptive team. Even before we knew the true impact of COVID, the entire team banded together to improve the company. We’re continuing to learn from this pandemic and set the stage for a successful return as the country continues to re-open.

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Look out for the next piece in this series where we’ll continue featuring advice, insights, and tips from business leaders on how they stay adaptable and move with change. You can also read our first, second, and third features from this series featuring companies in Kenya and India.

At Shortlist, we’re working hard to make sure individuals and companies have the support they need at this critical time.  We offer help both to companies looking to hire and to those who are seeking outplacement services to support a team that you may be transitioning.  We also have great tools for professionals at any stage of their career development journey. You can learn more about these initiatives and sign up on our platform below ⇓

Though the Pride month has ended, we thought it would be great to catch up with a business leader who works tirelessly to level the playing field for the LGBTQ community professionally.

We invited Praful Baweja, Founder, Six Degrees, and Innovation Lead at The Event Studio to share his thoughts on Pride month, what it means to him, what is inspiring and how companies should create a more inclusive environment for LGBTQ community.

Here are the edited excerpts for the interview, you can watch the full interview below.

Shortlist: What exactly does pride mean to you?

Praful: Personally, Pride means being me and not really shying away from celebrating everything that is me. So there are multiple nuances to being who we are, right? So sexuality might be one of the layers. Intellect, ability, class, caste, everything. They’re all that it takes to make up a person. It is about being proud of all that there is to each of us, you know, as we are who we are.
It is embracing, flaunting, celebrating oneself. All of it – celebration comes along with embracing who we are; it’s part of that whole journey.

Shortlist: Can you tell us a little more about the work you do for the LGBTQ community?

Praful: The work I do has two aspects because I am part of the community, so, everything I do reflects for the community as well.

I am a Marcom professional majorly in marketing communication that I have been doing for 18 plus years now, so I am a kind of dinosaur 😊 For about 15 odd years I have been working closely with the organizations in an individual capacity on Mumbai Pride. That was my first interface way back in 2008 when the first Mumbai Pride happened, I could walk as myself. Then almost for ten years, I worked behind the scenes.

After almost a decade-plus of working behind the scenes as a volunteer, bringing things together, I started a professional network 6 Degrees, for LGBTQ++ professionals – a business network, but it’s called a growth network because it is not only a business perspective, there is mental health that is important for people, peer learning that is important for each of us. It is helpful in going forward and growing as a person, as a community. Industry leaders and people who are on top of their game – sharing one hour from them with 40 people who are struggling, would change the course and pivot it around. We have seen it time, and again, that pure skillset and insight into their process goes a long way.

It has been three years since we have been having monthly meetups. We have grown immensely. We have Vividh which is India’s First Diversity job fair in Mumbai. We had a showcase at a seminar where we spoke about how there are openings in the public sector which people with disability can apply – whole reservation and people do not know about how to go about actually a) finding and exploring and, b) utilizing what is available to us. And this information is not easily available outside, so getting those experts onboard.

Shortlist was a part of one of the meetups and great support. Shortlist presented a report and we were privileged to have good partners on board for that.
We have Queeroes where people who work behind the scenes for the LGBT community, majorly allies, and people in the media, are honored. We have been doing that for three years now. This year we partnered with Thailand Tourism who brought, a drag Broadway show from Pattaya.
We have created a first-of-its-kind program – NH7 Weekender, which is as you know, is a very large and popular music festival. We created a program for sexual assault prevention, mental health which we implemented with a set of counselors and with help of Humsafar Trust because their domain knowledge is epic with 25 years plus into the whole spectrum. I know how to design modules and they know how to implement programs on the ground. We got a great response for that.

We will be announcing 6 Degrees in a new format soon. It will not be networking only. It will be a whole lot of – skillshare, having good conversations because sustenance counts not just hiring. So, we will be looking at it from the career perspective and where, who is in their career trajectory, what’s required for a leadership role, what’s required for an intern, what kind of toolbox can be created. We are working on that so a whole lot of new things, as you will see.

Shortlist: You have done so much work for 6 Degrees and behind the scenes with other initiatives. Now, why is this work so important to you?

Praful: I am privileged in my own ways. So many of us are. It is not about being an apologist. It is not about trying to level the playing field etc.

But this dream about you know, understanding where you are and operating optimally from there. There is a whole lot of bullying, trauma around people being who they are. It is taboo in so many ways.

Personally being labeled a criminal for something as basic as exercising my rights as a person, as a human, to select who I can love and who I can express my love to and how I am being in my bedroom, was not great.

A lot of straight people did not know how it affects them as well. There is a taboo speaking about sex and sexuality and thereby about gender, which causes an imbalance in the social spectrum at home.

What is it that we can change? Everybody has their own way of doing it. I had that outlet which was personal. It is something that affects me daily. So, changing that is important.

Shortlist: Who inspires you?

Praful: Let me be vain and say it is me. Self-care is a big part, and I have ignored it for a long time.

There is somebody who takes Pride permissions for 12 years, there is three months plus work that goes in it. Somebody with a meager salary of 20-25,000 and a groundworker at Humsafar Trust who does it beautifully, diligently.

He knows each new officer, old officer that is on duty, how sensitized they are, where they come from, their conscious bias, implicit bias, how to deal with them, which language and what kind of intervention is required.  And this person is effeminate, this person speaks Marathi more than anything else and I feel honored that we could at least show a token of our appreciation and give one of the first three rows to him.

There is this person, then there are parents of LGBT people; my own parents were there at Vividh manning a stall along with my sister. I see them walk, petition, support with donations, produce movies and so much more. It is always a humbling experience. I think what is it that we cannot do if they are doing all of that, right? So, at that age, with their schedules, priorities, and everything.

When I see TikTok and see somebody not privileged and doing their best and being a top of their game, I get inspired. I think I take inspiration from everywhere, but these always remain – workers, parents, me.

Shortlist: What do you think are some of the tangible things which companies can do to create a very inclusive culture for our LGBTQ community and in general?

Praful: Dialogue. Not talking about it, ignoring it, is living under a rock. If you are not inclusive, it’s nobody else’s loss. It is the firm’s loss.

The UN has three policies; they are very simple. One is no discrimination in whatever communication you put out in the world. Two, employees, whatever your employee conversation, your employee interaction should be non-discriminatory, and third is on the vendor front. These are wise, tangible policies. It is clear yet there is a lifetime of work to do.

These three will always remain your back-end- as suppliers, your employees, and then finally the world. If all three are inclusive at whatever level, you will move from diversity to inclusion to belonging, you will do that journey.

However, whether you want to be an ally, whether you want to be a person who doesn’t like labels, and says, okay all identities are not there, all hierarchies are not there, we treat everybody as just the professional tag that they are. Yet, are you pushing things under the carpet, or are you practicing it? These are the parameters with which you can actually gauge.

Praful shared more things about his 20-year picture, what he loves to read, and do in his free time. Watch the complete interview below.

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