Learn how you can Unlock Limitless Customer Lifetime Value with CleverTap’s All-in-One Customer Engagement Platform.
What started as a temporary work from home or shelter in place situation has continued for well over four months, and may continue through the end of the year. But organizations the world over have figured out a way to keep work going by taking things remote. In fact, 88% of companies have encouraged or required their employees to work from home due to the crisis,* and 74% of companies plan to permanently shift to more remote work post-COVID.*
The challenge now for both employees and organizations has been to balance work demands with sensitivity toward the fact that we’re all trying to succeed in makeshift locations with unique challenges brought on by families and schooling.
Between late night work calls across time zones, working parents forced to homeschool their children and keep them entertained, and team members feeling disconnected or less than productive, every organization has to demonstrate that they care for their people. This is done by defining policies that address the twin issues of the health, safety, and overall well-being of colleagues while ensuring business continuity.
It has been one of our top priorities to trust and empower our CTzens (our team members) to work with their colleagues, establishing working norms that allow for flexibility while taking ownership of outcomes. In order to facilitate this, we have a simple 4-point policy that has been implemented across all our global offices.
Sticking to the definition of “reasonable” working hours, CTzens have the freedom to decide their availability for work, meetings, and calls. And to facilitate collaboration with offices in other time zones, certain overlapping time slots have been established so that meetings can be scheduled easily.
This approach to work schedules ensures things get done and aims to strike a balance. The simple process of adding one’s work hours to their calendar can help notify meeting organizers who should also invite only those colleagues pertinent to the meeting.
In the hopes of getting CTzens to look forward to relaxed weekends again, we added an additional day off on the second Friday of each month through December 2020.
This also gives everyone an opportunity to effectively contribute to chores at home without feeling guilty or stressed. We also look forward to listening to some of the long weekend plans and experiences from our colleagues during our informal chats in the coming months.
The CleverTap teams that need to be available for customers, partners, and vendors will still be there for them. We’ve worked out team rotations and shifts so everyone gets to enjoy additional time off while ensuring our high standards for customer support are maintained.
Part of the challenge of working from home is ensuring internet connectivity can handle the sudden load. Which is why CTzens will get additional financial support to meet part of the connectivity expenses every month they’re working from home.
Hopefully this helps cut down on wasted meeting time asking one another if we’re audible, or turning off video because it’s eating too much bandwidth.
For now, our colleagues can surf for gourmet recipes, catch up on their favorite show, or even sign up for an online yoga class, without worrying about a bigger internet bill.
CleverTap has come a long way over the last few years as a true product-led company, where we promise a scalable technology platform to our customers. It is imperative that we practice and demonstrate that our own internal processes are also scalable.
In every area of our work, the test of our process orientation lies in the fact that we can plan and take a mandatory leave of absence at least 2 weeks in a year — and we will work seamlessly towards ensuring that none of our external partners or internal colleagues are affected by this.
While circumstances have changed, our values are as relevant as they were before and maybe even more in difficult times like this. So we’ve taken these initiatives as a way of emphasizing the corporate values of “Taking ownership of outcomes” and “Helping each other so that we achieve together” and hope our CTzens benefit from these efforts.
It is exciting to see how these initiatives have already been welcomed by our colleagues. And, as a company, we hope to inspire working professionals around the world to find a way to thrive in the midst of these uncertain times.
