How Edelweiss General Insurance's WFA Policy Invests Towards Employees' Wellbeing
With organisations welcoming their employees to office after almost two years, there is a need for open, vibrant, transparent workspaces. The idea is to reiterate open culture and an employee friendly atmosphere to bring out the best in them.
BW Businessworld spoke to Melvin Gladstone, Chief HR Officer, Edelweiss General Insurance to know more about the company and the office redesign. Excerpts;
Edelweiss General Insurance has redesigned its office, what was the thought behind it?
Coming back to office after close to 2 years of working out of home, is not easy for anybody. We wanted to welcome our employees back to a vibrant, open, transparent, comfortable, yet professional work environment in a hybrid model. This gave way to our new office design!
Our office now has a lot of open space and bright colours, typical cubicle set-up has made way for couches, bean bags, bar stools, lounge chairs and swings. An atmosphere that takes away stress and anxiety, while portraying a professional set-up for our clients, partners, and customers.
The new design allows one to operate out of any space without being concerned about the hierarchy and designations. This is a part of our effort to promote an open-door culture and a friendly workplace to bring out the best in all our employees.
How are the employees adapting to the new workplace, what has been the feedback like?
We have received extremely positive and welcoming feedback from our employees for the new workplace that is modern yet contemporary.
Our office now has a play area, a karaoke area, an area to brainstorm, a corner to catch up one to one over coffee, to name a few. This is further complemented with the placement of a lot of natural plants to bring in a fresh and relaxed feeling.
You have an interesting work from anywhere policy, do share the details?
The pandemic has changed the way of working and made organisations re-evaluate their workplace strategies. Our work from anywhere (WFA), a hybrid work model that aims to empower and enable employees with their choice of workspace ensures optimum work productivity. Despite working remotely, we continue to leverage technological tools and platforms for seamless collaboration and business continuity.
We have equipped our people with conducive infrastructure, requisite access to business applications and collaborative tools, to enable them to contribute to organization’s success at par with pre pandemic levels without the location constraints
While working in hybrid mode, how do you foster camaraderie, motivation and team spirit amongst your employees?
EGI has rolled out several initiatives to ensure that we maintain the human touch while working remotely. This is led by our CEO through an informal platform called ‘CEO Coffee Breaks’, where employees across functions, engage in a light-hearted, non-work related conversation with the CEO.
We have regular engagement Initiatives such as monthly birthday celebrations, fun Fridays, business milestone celebrations, festival celebrations to name a few to turbo charge our people.
Our rewards and recognition program recognises, rewards and motivates employees for their outstanding performance and exhibition of adherence to our code.
How are the employees adapting to the challenges of post pandemic?
The pandemic has presented an opportunity to analyse and understand creative and productive ways of working and engaging with our resources. Our flexible WFA policy is an investment and commitment to employee happiness and well-being, ensuring their safety is never compromised and work productivity is also maintained.
Besides this, we have 24*7 online tele consultation with doctors to address any medical and health related concerns. There are counselling sessions with Psychologists to take care of mental wellness, webinars on various topics around health, wellness, fitness, and stress management. These sessions and consultations can also be availed by employee’s family members who are part of our Medi Insurance Policy.
Every 3rd Thursday of the month is a ‘no meetings day’ to ensure employees have a breather and their personal focus time at work.
We also extended financial support through our salary advance policy to all employees to take care of Covid related exigencies. Additionally, our Covid taskforce provided assistance to affected employees and their families 24*7.
How would you like to define the DNA of Edelweiss General Insurance and how do you implement it in the organisation?
EGI is a new age InsurTech organisation with a vision to make insurance easy, friendly and transparent and we have aligned our employee approach with this vision. We call it our Code!
All our policies and processes, be it performance management system, rewards and recognition programme, talent acquisition, etc., have been designed to reflect our code.
As part of our people strategy, we introduced Tech 101, a comprehensive technology training programme for all our employees to improve their digital prowess for a digitally transformed workplace, with a digital first culture, for boosting productivity, leading to better business outcome.
