Virtual Leaders | Will hug buddies once we get back to office: Vivekananda Hallekere of Bounce

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 Their daily schedules have been disrupted and their long drawn out usual meetings have been replaced by video calls.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 Vivekananda Hallekere, the co-founder and CEO of scooter rental startup Bounce.

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: I get to save a lot of time not travelling, and end up eating and going to bed on time.

Meetings are more to the point and efficient. Documentation is better. I am also making use of this time to learn Spanish on an app for 30 mins a day and have started spending more time reading books. I have also started working out. Now weekends and weekdays feel the same.

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: Now, I know more about my colleagues, their kids, what their kids are up to. Video calls have kids as well in them. I am keeping the team motivated by sharing and talking openly about how we are feeling. Each member in the team keeps others excited about something. For instance I picked learning Spanish from Bharath (SVP, Growth). Shan is making sure we all stay fit. So each one of us are keeping other members in the team motivated.

These are also tough times. So we are actually bonding more than what we could have seeing each other face to face at the office.

Q: Have you found some means to e-socialise with your teams outside work, given all of your colleagues might be remote?

A: I am finding a lot of ways to e-socialise. I do a lot of meetings and the day has become efficient. Although these are tough times, I am seeing our teams smiling more and laughing more. We do videos along with the kids at home.we share fitness challenges in the group. Few of our folks are also working out together through video calls.

Q: Now that you are working from home, how much time are you spending with family? Any specific activity that you undertake regularly with your family members, which you thoroughly enjoy?

I spend a lot of time with my niece. She is a year old and my biggest stress-buster. In a way, everything around us has slowed down. My mom is the happiest because she gets to see me throughout the day though she keeps asking how many more calls I should take for the day.

Having coffee together at 4 pm is a great pleasure in life. I am realising that there are a lot of small things which can give great amounts of joy. I am also realising how social human beings are. Probably, once we get back to office, the first thing we would do is just hug our buddies and scream out loud.

Also Read: How Indian startups are jumping onto the work from home bandwagon

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 always had boards and a table set up in the room. Had a rocking chair which I never used to use. Now, I spend my time sitting on the ground, table and rocking chair.

Q: Was there a hobby that you gave up because of work pressure but you have been able to resume now over the last two weeks?

A: I always wanted to learn the guitar as a kid. But, I could not afford to buy a guitar when I was in school. Recently, my girlfriend bought it for me for my birthday and now I am trying to spend a few minutes every week to learn the guitar online. My mom would be really happy to see me play the guitar.

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: Spoke to a lot of my relatives asking them to stay safe. Met a lot of new folks who I haven’t met yet in the real world but we are working together on our initiative Startups vs Covid. I realised the real power of humans to get together for a common cause. A group of 4 is now more than 1000 people from all walks of life spending substantial amounts of their time doing things to fight covid ranging from testing, information dissemination to building drones. I’m amazed !!

Q: What is that one major piece of management learning that you have gained during this forced lockdown?

A: Humans can unite and get together if the cause is powerful enough. You can make people get together to work towards a common cause. Money doesn’t matter though it’s incidental. Cause should be super relatable and powerful. If the cause is good, big and powerful you can unite people from across the globe, from different walks of life to put their life into it!