The 21-day lockdown triggered by the spread of the coronavirus has entered into the last 10 days and entrepreneurs, the original hustlers, have had to make a plenty of changes to their daily routine to adapt to working from home (WFH). Their daily schedules have been disrupted and their long drawn out usual meetings have been replaced by video calls. Not to mention the stress of a looming economic slowdown and pressure from investors.
Moneycontrol looks at how a scrum of business leaders is dealing with these fast changing times. In this edition, Moneycontrol’s M. Sriram speaks to Vamsi Krishna, co-founder and CEO, Vedantu.
You can read other editions of Virtual Leaders here.
Edited excerpts from the interview:
Q: What does your average day look like now, given your normal routine must have been disrupted by the 21-day lockdown?
A: We started with offering free access to the live classes on our platform. During this lockdown, we have seen a rise in students logging on our platform to 130,000 new users in just 15 days.
Yes, my personal routine has been disrupted, like no badminton in the mornings, which I used to play. But I somehow manage by doing light stretching indoors. Average day schedule has not much changed, except that all meetings, etc now happening on calls/zooms
Q: How do you manage your office teams now? How are you keeping your staff motivated? Could you share some unique experiences that you have had during these 10 days of the lockdown while dealing with your teams/colleagues or investors?
A: We have provided facilities and infrastructures to all our employees to make sure that they can work efficiently during the lockdown. We connect every hour through virtual meeting apps to ensure that the teams are working jointly. We have also launched a #21daylearningchallenge where we are encouraging everyone to be motivated and keep themselves engaged.
Our team managers are also playing major roles to ensure that there is equal workload shared and conducting some workload counselling for the employees.
The challenges right now are unique. New employee onboarding and giving critical feedback are bet done personally. I also miss the 1:1 lunches I used to have. So now I’m looking to have virtual coffees.
Q: Have you found some means to e-socialise with your teams outside work, given all of your colleagues might be remote?
A: Coffee huddles with teams, lunch with my co-founders, and doing AMA (ask me anything) sessions really help.
Q: Now that you are working from home, how much time are you spending with family/kids if any? Any specific activity that you undertake regularly with your family members, which you thoroughly enjoy?
A: Earlier it would become extremely difficult for all the family members to be under the same roof. However, due to the announcement of the lockdown, families are getting to spend quality time and do things together. I see this lockdown as a golden opportunity for me to spend some excellent time with my family.
Earlier with even say 30 mins gap between two meetings, it would be tough to break off. Now since everyone is working from home, even a 30 mins break helps me spend some quality time with family or get into a small play time with kids. Apart from this, I am finding this very time very productive given commuting to and from the office itself used to take time and that obviously is getting saved here.
Q: Have you always had a separate workstation at home, or did you set that up because of the lockdown? Can you share with us how have you set it up?
A: I used to, but I did not use it much. Now given this situation the office room is getting used quite well. Setup is a comfortable chair and table with lighting. Nothing fancy, basic setup.
Q: Was there a hobby that you had given up because of work pressure but you have been able to resume now over the last two weeks?
A: Most of us, due to heavy work constraints are unable to keep following our hobby. Hobbies are not simple pastimes but give one a sense of happiness and contentment. My hobby is to play the flute and try my hand at portrait photography which I have been able to resume in the past two weeks due to the lockdown. It has not only given me a sense of accomplishment but has also left me with a desire to learn more and more.
Q: Did you manage to catch up with any old friend or a relative in this time period, someone who has not been in touch with you for a long time?
A: Not really. It is just because of COVID-19 being a pandemic. Enquiring about the well-being of all friends, WhatsApp groups of batchmates etc which were dormant for long have been reactivated.
Q: What is that one major piece of management learning that you have gained during this forced lockdown?
A: Realised the importance of communication and motivation more.
Constant motivation is the key for effective output and in times like these it gets a little lonely and demotivating. Constantly re-emphasizing the purpose and what everyone is contributing towards, goes a long way in helping. Communication is another key element, especially when people are not seeing each other.
With this social distancing & work from home situation, we ensure all the teams are aligned on the major goals & action plans through communication & collaboration tools such as Slack. Effective meeting cadence is vital to keep the team members both motivated and engaged. We do stand-up meetings every morning to keep a tab on the tasks & to get the work done effectively & efficiently.
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