<br /> State-run Airports Authority of India is eyeing the international markets at a bigger scale now. It could become the third Indian player in the overseas airports space, after <keyword id="6555177" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="GVK">GVK</keyword> and <keyword id="6380521" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="GMR">GMR</keyword>.<br />
<br /> "<keyword id="47439" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Aai">AAI</keyword> has the expertise and capability in airports development. Besides developing and managing its own airports, it has also helped some Gulf airports in the past in the development works. We now want to leverage our expertise to other international markets at a bigger scale," highly placed sources in the company told PTI.<br />
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Of the 125 AAI-managed airports, 18 also cater to international traffic, 78 are domestic, seven customs airports and 26 civil enclaves at defence airfields.<br />
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"We have recently modernised and developed several airports including those in Kolkata, Chennai, Lucknow, Jaipur and Chandigarh on our own. These are all modern airports and reflect our expertise and engineering capabilities in the area," they said.<br />
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Moreover, AAI also has the advantage of a vast pool of manpower, which can be best utilised in executing overseas projects, sources said. AAI has a work force of over 18,000 people.<br />
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AAI employees union, which is opposed to further privatisation of airports in the country, has several times in the past alleged that the handing over of four more airports--Chennai, Kolkata, Jaipur and Ahmedabad--to private entities could result in mass lay-offs.<br />
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As of now, private players GMR and GVK groups, which run Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bangalore airports under a joint venture agreement with AAI, are present in overseas markets.<br />
<br /> While the GMR group is developing Mactan Cebu International Airport in the <keyword id="3750" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Philippines">Philippines</keyword> in collaboration with a local partner, GVK group is executing two airport projects in <keyword id="8692" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Indonesia">Indonesia</keyword>.<br />
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"We have not yet decided which market to begin with and are exploring several geographies globally. But any decision in this regard would be based on the growth potential in that region," sources said.<br />
<br />
Sources also said that AAI is open to various business models while undertaking projects abroad which include development of Greenfield airports as well as management contracts.<br />
<br />
(Image credits: Indiatimes)

Know all about AAI’s international plans

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NetApp</span></p><p class="caption">NetApp CEO Geroge Kurian</p></div><p></p></div></div>The myth about identical twins is that they can simply switch places when they want to, so that being a twin is like having a best friend and a clone wrapped into one.</p><p>For George Kurian, the CEO of NetApp and Thomas Kurian, Oracle's <span>president of product development that myth is practically true.</span></p><p><span>They are literal doppelgangers who rose to the top with so much togetherness, at one point they literally got up and switched jobs, sending each of them on their current path to success.</span></p><p><span>George Kurian was </span>appointed CEO of $5.5 billion storage company NetApp about a year ago after a fast, meteoric rise at the company. </p><p>Thomas Kurian has spent nearly 20 years at Oracle. He reports to Oracle's executive chairman and CTO Larry Ellison, and has even been rumored to be<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oracle-kurian-insight-idUSKBN0KL0BL20150112"> in line to become CEO when Ellison fully retires</a>. Sources close to Thomas tell us he has Ellison's ear because he's hardworking and smart and will challenge the geek-at-heart billionaire on technical product issues and tends to be right. Ellison loves a winner.</p><p><span>Business Insider recently met with George Kurian to talk about his career, his twin, and how he plans to revitalize NetApp, a $5.5 billion company with 11,000 employees, at a time when the business is facing major challenges.</span></p><h2><span>A progressive Indian mother raises four rambunctious boys</span></h2><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/oracle_images/5011597023/">Flickr/Oracle PR</a></span></p><p class="caption">Thomas Kurian, Oracle president</p></div><p></p></div></div>George and twin brother Thomas are the youngest of four brothers. (George is technically older by a few seconds, he laughs.) </span></p><p><span>The Kurians were born to a self-made business man in the scenic, laid-back beach and agricultural state of Kerala, India. Their dad was the son o</span>f a farmer who educated himself and became a successful in the manufacturing industry. His mom was born to Indian parents living in Sri Lanka. She immigrated to India to go to college which was "unheard of" for a woman in that day, George tells us.</p><p>"We were all held in line by my mom. She was loving but tough. We were all raised with those Christian values and she did things very different than most Indian parents," he says.</p><p>For instance, with all boys and no girls, she didn't follow the typical gender role stereotypes.</p><p>"All the boys took turns in kitchen, did house chores, had to be responsible for clearing dinner, doing everything required in the house," he says.</p><p>She was famously strict in the neighborhood. She would call the boys from their Cricket-in-the-street game at 6 p.m. and by 6:01 they had to have their hands washed and be at the table or they wouldn't get dinner, he says.</p><p>It worked. In addition to raising two multi-millionaire tech execs, her oldest son is a private equity investor in Bangalore and the second oldest is a pediatrician in the U.K., George says. </p><h2>Twin <keyword id="6354910" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Careers">careers</keyword></h2><p>The twins moved to the US together to go to college at Princeton, earning scholarships to study engineering.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NetApp</span></p><p class="caption">George Kurian prepares meals during NetApp's Executive Chef Day where an executive and a summer intern serve lunch to employees to raise money for the local food bank.</p></div><p></p></div></div>"It was a good thing that we came together. It gave us a friend to navigate the big cultural transition between India and US," he says.</p><p>While in college, George worked any odd job he could to raise spending money: "parking cars, working in the cafeteria, being a pizza chef, bartending, you name it," he says. "It taught me that it takes all kinds of people to make a business work."</p><p><span>Thomas </span>got a job at Oracle straight from college and Thomas landed as a consultant at McKenzie.</p><p>A few years later, each of them wanted to try the other's job. So in 1996, they switched. <span>George </span>went to McKenzie and became a consultant and Thomas went to Oracle to be an engineer.</p><p><span>"It isn't that we intended to that. It's just that we both had good experiences and were interested in trying it out," George explains matter-of-factly.</span></p><p>"I worked at Oracle before he did, and introduced him. He's had a spectacular run there, going on 20 years," he notes.</p><p><span>George </span> moved to Boston to work for internet network company Akamai and met his wife. In typical style, Thomas married a woman from Boston, too.</p><p>They even went to grad school, earning their MBAs at Stanford together. Now both brothers live in the Bay Area.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">George Kurian</p></div><p></p></div></div>But the twins don't share an extravagant lifestyle that most other multi-millionaire Valley execs do. No private plane for instance. </p><p>"If we got a private plane, our mom would smack us down," he laughs. "You cannot grow up in India without realizing that so many people have so much less than you have."</p><p>One more thing his mother doesn't let him do? He can't act superior to his twin because he's a CEO.</p><p>"When I told her that I was named the CEO, she said, 'Great, but we don't carry business cards at home,'" he says, laughing at the story. "She constantly asks me if we're being good husbands and fathers. That brings you down to earth."</p><h2>Fast rise at NetApp</h2><p>While Thomas climbed Oracle's ladder, <span>George </span>spent nine years at Cisco, NetApp's partner. That's how he got hired away to lead NetApp's flagship storage management product OnTap.</p><p>NetApp was in a dire situation with OnTap. It had to be modernized into a "clustering" storage management product, something the company had been working on for years, not very successfully. In the meantime, competitors were eating its lunch, overall revenues were sinking. The company had more than one big layoff and morale was low.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NetApp/photos/pb.14209292613.-2207520000.1461249950./10152107075082614/?type=3&amp;theater">Facebook/NetApp</a></span></p><p class="caption">NetApp employees</p></div><p></p></div></div><span>George </span>had no experience building storage products. His background was in networking and servers. And he took a lot of grief from his team for that.</p><p>"I was reminded every day," he says.  </p><p>He listened to everyone's ideas and he also challenged people. Some people didn't like it and left the company.</p><p>He told the ones who stayed: 'We've got to make this successful otherwise the company ceases to be relevant in storage," and with the future of the company at stake, "everybody set aside their personal agenda and worked on it," he says.</p><p>The product shipped and customers are buying it. Today it accounts for "80% of new shipments. It was essentially zero when I joined NetApp," <span>George </span>says.</p><p>Some customers have become downright fan boys. The clustering technology means they don't have to schedule IT downtime on nights and weekends to do their work.</p><h2>Ordering more layoffs</h2><p>Now George Kurian needs to carry the success he brought to the OnTap group to the rest of the company. </p><p><span>When NetApp's board asked 10-year CEO Tom Georgens to step down in June 2015, they made </span><span>George </span><span>interim CEO hiring him permanently a short time later.</span></p><p><span><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot/YouTube</span></p><p class="caption">NetApp CEO George Kurian</p></div><p></p></div></div><span>George Kurian </span>joined NetApp in 2011 and was CEO four years later. He had never been a CEO before.</span></span></p><p>He knows he's got his work cut out for him. NetApp is still shrinking. At the start of this year, he announced <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/02/17/netapp-lay-off-workforce/">another huge layoff, 12% of the company or 1,500 people. </a></p><p>He called it an "incredibly difficult decision" and says he wants to fix the company so he never has to do it again. </p><p>In December he bought Boulder, Colorado-based all-flash storage maker SolidFire for $870 million in cash.</p><p>NetApp desperately needed to get into the all-flash storage market, the new direction for corporate storage. It's late to this area but George has a come-back for that criticism.</p><p>"Being first to market is not necessarily the successful outcome. Violin and Fusion-io were first, look where they are," he tells us.</p><p>Fusion-io hit a tailspin a few years ago and was bought by Sandisk in 2014. Violin Memory's stock is currently trading for less than $1.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NetApp</span></p><p class="caption">NetApp former CEO Tom Georgens</p></div><p></p></div></div>Still, NetApp isn't out of the woods. It <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/pr/16501316-netapp-reports-fourth-quarter-fiscal-year-2016-results">reported a disappointing fourth quarter in May</a>, with a miss on profit and revenue and dimmer-than-expected guidance. And there's endless speculation that its low stock price will make it an acquisition target. It's down about 21% from a year ago to about $26. (Likely buyer Cisco says it doesn't want it.).</p><p>Kurian admits, "We've got a lot of work to do," but he says he's also made progress in his first year putting in new leadership, revamping business processes, updating the products and buying SolidFire.</p><p>He says its his job now to "just execute."</p><p>Thinking of his mother and brother, he also knows says he must "be humble about knowing you are not expert in all disciplines." </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/exercise-workout-shape-routine-2016-6">An exercise scientist reveals exactly how long you need to work out to get in great shape</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="hzamwyNDE6XH_rIq5Z2V-8yxA0I6rbAN" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

How NetApp's CEO and his twin brother won the Valley after they switched jobs

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Incoming Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins is wasting no time showing the world that he's going to grab Cisco by the horns and make it his own.</p><p>As expected, today he announced sweeping changes to the executive ranks, with some big surprises.</p><p>These are the names that are out of the new administration: </p><ul><li>Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's CTO and Strategy Officer</li><li>Wim Elfrink, Cisco's Chief Globalization Officer;</li><li>Edzard Overbeek, Senior Vice President of Cisco Services;</li></ul><p>These are the names that will lead the new administration:</p><p><strong>Hilton Romanski</strong> is taking over Warrior's role as CTO and strategy officer. Romanski was working as Cisco's deal-maker responsible for some of Cisco's biggest, most strategic purchases, such as Sourcefire, Meraki, and Airespace.</p><p><strong>Ruba Borno</strong> is a new hire from The Boston Consulting Group.</p><p>She will become VP, Growth Initiatives and Chief of Staff. Borno holds a Ph.D in electrical engineering and has been an Intel fellow at the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. So she's got game in the kind of tech Cisco builds.</p><p>It looks like Borno's role will be to serve as Robbins' consultant on how to manage and possibly re-organize Cisco's massive 70,000-strong employees, and be someone who came from outside the John Chambers era.</p><p><strong> Pankaj Patel</strong> has been confirmed as the leader of Cisco's enormous 25,000-person engineering team.</p><p>Cisco just spent two-years changing up its engineering under Patel, culminating in a massive re-org last fall, designed to eliminate product fiefdoms and to create groups that are supposed to work together. It would have been risky for Robbins to have cut Patel at this juncture.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><strong>Rebecca Jacoby</strong> has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Operations.</p><p>Jacoby was formerly CIO meaning she ran all of Cisco's internal IT. She is very well-known and well-liked in the industry at large, frequently on the speaker circuit. Guillermo Diaz has been named the new CIO reporting to her. In addition to running IT, she's running operations and supply chain.</p><p><strong>Chris Dedicoat</strong> is taking over Robbins' old role as head of worldwide sales, as previously announced. He was running European sales under Robbins, so Robbins knows him well.</p><p><strong>Joe Cozzolino, senior vice president, services</strong>. He was previously running Cisco's Service Provider Video Infrastructure Group, a critical unit of potential growth as service providers spend millions to upgrade their networks to handle the world's YouTubes, Netflix and Facebook videos. But there are a bunch of new, competing technologies to help them do so, so this unit  had been hit-and-miss on sales and growth.</p><p><strong>Francine Katsoudas</strong> will continue running HR.</p><p><strong>Karen Walker</strong> will continue running marketing.</p><p><strong>Mark Chandler</strong> will continue to be Cisco's top lawyer.</p><p><strong>Kelly Kramer </strong>will stay as CFO. She took over last fall replacing 10-year CFO Frank Calderoni at the height of Cisco's multi-year internal reorganization.</p><h2>Surprise exits</h2><p>The biggest name on the out list is Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's CTO and Strategy Officer. She is  well-known and well-liked outside the company as a visionary, and known inside the company for pushing innovation.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>We expect headhunters are pounding down her door right now. We wouldn't be surprised to see her land a CEO role somewhere else.</p><p>Wim Elfrink is known for opening the global headquarters in Bangalore, India and he helped Cisco establish a new unit to take on the Internet of Things, which is Cisco's Next Big Thing. But he wasn't that unit's leader. That's the job of Cisco Rob Soderbery.</p><p>Edzard Overbeek has been at Cisco for 15 years, most recently running Services. Prior to that he was running Cisco's Asia Pacific sales, and was Robbins counterpart and, perhaps, internal rival in the company's sales world. Overbeek's career rose under Chambers and now Cisco is Robbins' baby.</p><h2>Cost cutting versus strategy</h2><p>Cisco has mostly grown through acquisitions over the past decade, which does tend to create a messy organization of people and business units that still "belong" to the companies that were bought.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Robbins has <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-cisco-ceo-more-changes-to-come-2015-6">repeatedly said </a> that he wants to get Cisco's sprawling 75,000 employees and 18 different product categories into a leaner, meaner machine.</p><p>His new team is full of leaders that have cut costs, as opposed to leaders known for their vision.</p><p>We wouldn't be shocked to learn that Robbins first acts as CEO will be to weed out some of those underperforming products and cleaning out some of those teams.</p><p>Now everyone is waiting to hear if Robbins will institute more cost cutting, including layoffs. Cisco has had annual layoffs for the past four years.</p><p>But he can't just cut his way to a vibrant company.</p><p>The company's bread-and-butter networking industry is under attack as new software makes networks cheaper to build and run. He's got to start articulating how Cisco will survive this trend, and what the new Cisco will become.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-floyd-mayweather-spends-his-money-boxing-2015-4">Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="NiaGVpdDqdBR4NCmtjL5odLe14N1R4Hp" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Confirmed: Padmasree Warrior and other execs are out as Cisco's new CEO anoints his own team

BANGALORE: TCS has become the world's third largest employer of people in the technology sector, with over 3 lakh employees. And given the pace at which it is growing, it could become the second largest employer this year, crossing Hewlett-Packard, and would be fast closing in on leader IBM.<br />
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In India, it's one of the biggest creators of jobs in recent years, possibly even the biggest. Besides the Indian army, government departments like the Indian Railways and India Post, and PSU companies like Coal India, there's perhaps no other company that has more employees. And unlike the government departments, which are mostly reducing their staff strength, TCS numbers are rising each year by between 25,000 and 35,000.<br />
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<strong>READ ALSO: <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/TCS-joins-top-10-global-IT-services-companies-club/articleshow/34067479.cms">TCS joins top 10 global IT services companies club</a></strong><br />
<br /> In the last fiscal year, the $13.4-billion <keyword id="146310" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Tata-Group-company">Tata Group company</keyword> hired 61,200 people, with the net addition being 24,268, discounting those who left the company. The net addition in each of the past several years has been along similar lines or higher.<br />
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On the contrary, for some of the leading global tech companies, numbers are dropping given the transformations they are going through to deal with shifts in technology towards areas like cloud computing and mobility. HP had 349,600 employees in 2011, but that number is now down to 317,500. IBM, which has about 4.3 lakh employees, is also in the midst of layoffs.<br />
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TCS has said it will hire 55,000 people this year. If the net addition is half of that, it will be well ahead of HP's number by the end of this fiscal. Among Indian IT companies, Infosys is almost 50% of TCS with 1.6 lakh employees.<br />
<br /> Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, says TCS is ahead of many of its Indian peers in identifying new areas of growth, making <keyword id="6362476" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="investments">investments</keyword> and all the right noises. "It is betting big on the Digital Five Forces—mobility, big data, cloud, social media and robotics," he said.<br />
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Analysts also find it remarkable that it has grown its people strength so quickly, and yet created an organizational structure nimble enough to handle these numbers. Equally, it has kept its people costs under such control that it is seen as a major factor in its extremely high operating margins (over 28%), perhaps the highest among large companies in the global IT services industry.<br />
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Pradeep Mukherji, president and managing partner in global management consulting firm Avasant, said TCS is managing the huge workforce by breaking it into smaller business units that each function virtually as a smaller company. "The depth and breadth of middle management and work delegation, managing a good onshore and offshore mix are some of the key drivers in managing the employee pyramid effectively," he said.<br />
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TCS' employee cost has risen from Rs 90 billion in 2007 to Rs 319.2 billion in 2013, but the cost per employee has barely risen in these past seven years. The cost per headcount has grown from Rs 11.5 lakh in 2007, to Rs 12.4 lakh) in 2013, an annual increase of a mere 1.2%, said a report by US-based IT advisory firm HfS Research. "A conservative estimate of 8% annual wage hike in India, 2% hike in developed countries and 4% hike in developing countries will lead to about 7.5% weighted average annual wage hike for TCS' mix of employees," said HfS analyst Pareekh Jain. In other words, TCS has been able to offset its salary hikes through other measures.<br />
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One of the biggest of these looks to be a sharp increase in its fresher intake relative to the intake of experienced employees. The percentage of freshers hired (of total hiring) increased to 81% in 2013 from 51% in 2007, finds HfS.<br />
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"They have stretched the employee pyramid with an army of junior employees. TCS is aggressively hiring in tier-2 and -3 cities that offsets cost to a large extents TCS has also focused on automation and reusable software tools and frameworks to improve employee productivity," said Sudin Apte, CEO of IT advisory firm Offshore Insights.<br />
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Jain believes that hiring more freshers has given TCS the flexibility to deploy them in lower value and transactional activities, thus freeing up experienced resources for higher value work. "Secondly, training freshers for new skills is easier than retraining old resources for new skills," he said.<br />
<br /> <keyword id="1643718" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Ashish-Chopra">Ashish Chopra</keyword>, IT analyst with brokerage firm Motilal Oswal, noted that TCS had also significantly reduced the proportion of employees at client sites overseas, thus reducing the salary burden.<br />
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But some also caution that adding employees in such large numbers may not be the best way to go in the longer run. "Linear employee growth is not a sustainable solution in the long run as newer technologies are nudging IT firms to explore non-linear revenue growth, growth delinked from headcount," said Mukherji.<br />
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Gogia echoed that: "With new technologies, especially automation, shaping the world, it's only prudent that TCS utilizes its employees effectively."

TCS May Soon Be World's Second Biggest Tech Employer

<ul><li>With the increasing number of <keyword id="8763838" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="covid-19">Covid-19</keyword> cases every day and job layoffs, it is becoming extremely difficult to stay calm and keep working for a lot of people.</li><li>A lot of agencies have upgraded their policies to help their employees navigate through this tough period and to push them to take care of their <keyword id="6354774" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mental-health">mental health</keyword>. </li><li>From sharing their <em>chai </em>time to appreciating their personnel’s cooking skills to playing online games, agencies have put their best foot forward to fight together, despite being miles apart. </li></ul>As of April 29, there are 29,435 positive COVID-19 cases in India. To top that, an air of despondency is looming around because of the fear of the unknown, blues of working in isolation, pressure to overperform in a dismal atmosphere, lack of job assurance and security, and salary cuts. <br /><br />And those who were already battling with mental illness such as OCD, anxiety, depression, or autism—have found their stress levels kicking through the roof and struggles intensified. <br /><br />In such a challenging scenario, it is quite normal to feel dejected and lost. Therefore, there is an urgent need for better HR policies, counselling sessions and human contact today more than ever before. It is critical to check on their mental well-being rather than seeking updates on their daily tasks. <br /><br />Agencies are coming up with creative solutions to help their employees to cope and stay upbeat. From digital Antakshari to making sure they see each other virtually every day during their <em>chai </em>time to one-on-one sessions with medical professionals, experts have left no stone unturned to ease out their employees’ struggles. They claim that they feel closer to their employees today than ever before. <br /><br />We reached out to a few digital, media and creative agencies to find out what measures they have taken to help their employees look after their mental health and asked to share a few tips on what we need to do as an industry to make sure we don't forget our teams' mental health amidst a crisis, and here is what they said: <br /><br /><strong>Anupriya Acharya, CEO, Publicis Groupe South Asia: </strong><br /><br />                  <div type="image" title="Anupriya Acharya, CEO, Publicis Groupe South Asia_" msid="75427669" hostid="261"></div> Talent has always been our top priority and focus and we have consistently engaged with employees on health and wellness through various modules on yoga, meditation, fitness routines etc. Furthermore, we are launching an Employee Assistance Program that will offer 24X7 counselling and wellness solutions. This will help employees deal with various work-life challenges.The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated our efforts in this direction. In order to address the isolation and uncertainty that employees may feel in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is our effort to create a safe space for them… Where people are free to express their fears and anxieties and to give them the courage to carry on against all odds. We have facilitated a lot of remote learning and engagement programs so as to keep people stimulated and connected and to not feel the sense of being alone, remote. This includes fun and play, fitness, meditation and music sessions along with a lot of knowledge-sharing and interactive webinars. We frequently check in on each other and are in fact more connected than ever through virtual meet-ups. We are also, at local levels, doing one-on-one connects via listening posts to help employees with their grievances, queries, and are taking suggestions on making this new normal way of working, both productive and comfortable.<br /><br /><strong>Rohit Ohri, Group Chairman &amp; CEO, FCB India: <br /></strong>                  <div type="image" title="Rohit Ohri, Group Chairman &amp;amp; CEO, FCB India" msid="75427774" hostid="261"></div><br /> Isolation, the fear of contagion and the uncertainty can be nerve-wracking for anyone. And everything that we are doing through these times for our people is towards their emotional and mental well-being. Our focus is on ensuring that our teams stay connected and bonded and have multiple outlets for stress relief, even as they work remotely<br /><br /><ul><li>We are constantly emphasising self-care. Both physical and mental. Every day we send out a tip on self-care #lockdownbreakout with easy to access resources, whether it is exercise, meditation, self-reflection or other techniques in positive psychology.</li><li>We provide opportunities for people to virtually connect over recreation activities right from group yoga to Bollywood dancing to a weekly My Happy Hour which is a platform for talented employees to stage an hour soiree on Instagram Live of their talent whether it be singing, dancing or stand-up etc. This engagement encourages all employees to take time from their busy work schedules to come together to support and be entertained each week through the love of creativity.</li><li>We put out a curated list of things to do every week in the space of learning and entertainment Cool Sh*t To Do. One thing the lockdown, globally, has created is opportunities for all of us to enjoy artists across the world and nationally online. There is so much happening every week, other than streaming your favourite shows, that our employees can check out. This gives them the opportunity to discover new things from cooking, engaging seminars or even the opera.</li><li>We have ensured there are processes in place by which our leaders are constantly communicating with their teams through virtual meetings and town halls and addressing their issues and concerns. Open channels of communication are critical at times like these.</li><li>Most importantly, we have made sure that our teams have access to any sort of medical help from home through an app Doctor 24x7. This is an app-based service which provides our employees the opportunity to speak with doctors and health specialists across the country at any time. We understand the challenges faced with physically seeking help medically right now, so we wanted to open a channel for employees to feel like they can be looked after through this partnership. The app also has a section dedicated to mental health with qualified therapists readily available.</li></ul>I think mental illness in times like these is an outcome of fear and insecurity. And while it is important to be open, honest and transparent, we as an industry have to be cautious of the messaging that we put out, especially through the period of lockdown. Constant negative coverage spreads anxiety and apprehension. This is the time for us to be supportive, show empathy and inspire with positivity.<br /><br /><strong>Anand Chakravarthy, Managing Director, Essence India:</strong><br />                  <div type="image" title="Essence - Anand Chakravarthy" msid="75427857" hostid="261"></div><br />Most businesses require a close collaboration of different functions, and years of working together out of an office cannot be completely replaced overnight with remote working. One of the key challenges of entire teams working remotely from home is the dip in energy and engagement, which can be easily sensed by one another in an office but not in a remote working environment. This can lead to reduced productivity in uncertain times. To help mitigate such situations and ensure that we are able to positively impact the mental health of our teams, we introduced initiatives in three areas of focus:<br /><br /><ul><li><strong>Driving engagement</strong></li></ul>At Essence, we have always had our voluntary affinity group, Pirates, who are the culture champions within the agency. During this remote working period, they have been constantly innovating to create a new initiative each week to keep our teams in good spirits. These include online quiz sessions, an online music concert, sharing of pictures of our home workspaces and pets, and even online Zumba classes! <br /><br />There is also our global ‘Essence Olympics’ which takes place throughout April 2020. Employees can take part in the four categories of distance, daily workout, nutrition and mental power. They thus have something fun to do and look forward to on a weekly basis, keeping spirits and energy high while working from home. <br /><br />Additionally, we have a series of town halls conducted online, where both our India and global leadership address entire teams, give prompt updates and answer questions. This process of continuous communication in a very dynamic environment has been instrumental in keeping all employees informed and engaged. <br /><br /><ul><li><strong>Ensuring mindfulness and empathy</strong></li></ul>Extended weeks of working remotely does take its toll on everyone. It is certainly not easy to be working like before while being at home, especially with our varying personal and household responsibilities. We encourage everyone to maintain a daily schedule, just like working from the office, by starting and ending the day on time and avoiding late calls or working on the weekend.<br /><br />Globally, we have weekly ‘Mindfulness Moments’ live streams, which are designed to help employees take time out to pause, breathe and find a centred place.<br /><br />Our global ‘Connect’ newsletter serves as a guide to staying connected during times of social distancing. It is updated weekly to provide the latest information on policies, remote working tips and tools to bolster employees’ physical, emotional and mental health.<br /><br />To support employees and their line managers, we also put together a series of workshops called BRIDGE and TRAVERSE to provide practical tips on how to approach remote working and manage work, while still recognising challenges people face. The aim is to help employees thrive in the face of this new status quo, stay connected no matter the distance, and continue to deliver on our mission to our clients, all while taking care of their own well-being.Access to counselling is available to all employees as well, should they want to speak to a professional counsellor about how they are feeling.<br /><br /><ul><li><strong>Enhancing productivity </strong></li></ul>Technology has played a key role in enabling remote working, and fortunately at Essence, we have always been using Google Hangouts for internal meetings across our India offices and with teams in other countries. Using technology effectively has contributed really well to staying connected and productive.<br /><br />The second space is in the area of upskilling and training. We have devised and launched a series of training programmes across different disciplines that employees can opt in for.<br /><br />-Organisations should have existing systems and processes in place to ensure the holistic wellness of their employees. Essence has an established employee well-being ecosystem that supports staff through both professional and personal challenges. <br /><br />Encouraging more open dialogue around mental well-being is an important first step, as it impacts the productivity, physical and social well-being, as well as the quality of life of employees. There is more that can be said and done about workplace mental health, and organisations need to take it upon themselves to make it a strategic imperative.<br /><br /><strong>Gautam Reghunath, CEO, Dentsu Webchutney:<br /></strong>                <div type="image" title="Gautam DAN - horizontal" msid="75428075" hostid="261"></div><br />Our industry is such that we frequently delight in the joys of work and life – new pitch wins, awards, celebrations for things big and small and more. We’re inherently celebratory, both for work and life achievements. Our hope for Webchutney has always been that we try to bring our whole selves authentically to work and that includes us not shying away from the hard stuff, such as anxiety, grief, burnout and stress, especially during situations like the one we find ourselves in now. <br /><br />To help us with this, we’ve been partnering with an institution called HNI, a not-for-profit that provides services in mental health, workplace stress management and other individual and organizational needs. They’ve been our partners for nearly a year now, first with a pilot in Bangalore and now for all our offices recently. These are completely confidential one-on-one interactions as would be with any therapist or counsellor, with the advantage that over time we’ve also helped HNI’s team understand the nature of our work and workplace better. Their long-term role will be to help us build an open &amp; progressive work environment where individuals can thrive and perform, and where one needn’t come at the cost of the other. <br /><br />More than anything we need to remind each other that it is okay to not always be okay (my favourite piece of wall art from the Bangalore office is below). Webchutney has been lucky to experience tremendous highs over the past year, and as we try and continue in the same vein despite current limitations, work can often ask a lot of an individual. And dealing with these work pressures, managing personal commitments &amp; relationships especially in this current climate now is guaranteed to be tricky and stressful. We need to encourage everyone to talk openly and show compassion. It may be as small as recognizing when others are going through a tough moment and allowing them the time and space for themselves. It may be listening and about having each other’s backs. It’s an ambitious industry by nature but there’s a lot more that advertising can achieve by slowing down occasionally. <br />              <div type="image" title="it&amp;#39;s okay picture" msid="75428203" hostid="261"></div><br /><strong>Rohan Mehta, CEO, Social Kinnect: <br /></strong>              <div type="image" title="Rohan Mehta, CEO - Kinnect" msid="75428242" hostid="261"></div><br />During a crisis like this, it is common for everyone to experience increased levels of distress and anxiety, particularly as a result of social isolation. Luckily at Kinnect, it didn't take a crisis for us to understand the importance of our employees' well-being. As part of our #GetALife program that encourages work-life balance, we facilitate one-on-one sessions with a mental health professional on a bi-weekly basis. An external professional conducts these sessions, and we ensure confidentiality. Keeping in mind the current situation, in March and April, the sessions were facilitated through calls/video calls. <br /><br />All leadership is mandated to do team catch-up calls every day, preferably starting the day with a video call. Thus enabling them to stay connected and build better team relationships. We have a designated team that reaches out to all Kinnectors, and discusses at length about their health and work from home scenarios. I make sure to interact with the leadership every week and keep myself updated about each of their team member’s health. We also do virtual engagement activities and training. We encourage our employees to take up activities or learn a new skill, to grow personally as well as professionally in a time where they might feel stagnant. #KinnectFridays are a mainstay as part of the #KinnectCulture. Keeping with our tradition of a monthly #KinnectFriday, we recently did a virtual #KinnectFriday BYOB version where we had our team members across Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore strum instruments and sing along to uplift spirits. <br /><br />  <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div><br />Agencies have young employees, specifically millennials, and they are not used to being around family for extended periods, making the situation unique to them. At a time like this, it is imperative to integrate and streamline digital infrastructure. Interaction is the key. Communicating regular updates to your staff, keeps everyone calm and creates trust among employees. Consider including a daily update on their health and well-being in your on-call meetings. Communicate clearly, and be always available to listen. Understand their current work settings, and acknowledge that working around family, and a combination of working and supervising children can get tedious. Hence, maintain some semblance of a structure while allowing that this is an unprecedented situation. Help them plan their work schedules around their homes, and most importantly show kindness and patience toward others as well as ourselves. <br /><br />  <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div><strong><br />Harshil Karia, Founder and Managing Director, Schbang:<br /></strong>            <div type="image" title="_Harshil Karia, Founder and Managing Director, Schbang" msid="75428310" hostid="261"></div><br /><ul><li>We have collaborated with <a href="https://www.mindhouse.com/">MindHouse</a> to give our Schbangers a 3 Month Subscription of their Application which gives them unlimited Access to Yoga and Meditation. This allows our Schbangers to relax and recharge and stay mentally healthy. Preventive Mental Health is the need of the hour.</li><li>In addition to that, we have initiated lots of Clubs: We have a Cooking Club called Schefs of Schbang. From Schefs - some of the recipes have already started seeing the light of day. </li></ul>            <div type="image" title="Schefs of Schbang 2." msid="75428328" hostid="261"></div><br />We have a band called Schband and we're working on something very cool and musical to release. We have 2 Fitness and Meditation Tracks - 1 for the Morning and 1 for the evening<br /><br />Below is also a screenshot of our Internal Portal which has them easy for all to access: <br />            <div type="image" title="schbang website" msid="75428368" hostid="261"></div><br /><ul><li>We also recently collaborated with Humans of Bombay where we took shots from our Schbangers and included them in a video.</li></ul>            <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div><br />Now we are collaborating with Humans of Bombay to come up with a version of the #DontRushChallenge. See it here:<br /><br />            <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Image"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div><br /><ul><li>We have catch ups with the team via Hangout and then we have some extra special catch ups. We recently had Ranveer Allahbadia popularly known as BeerBiceps catch up with our Top Managers on a Video Hangout where we discussed everything from Meditation to the state of Influencers to how he's staying positive in these times.</li></ul>            <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Image"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div><br />You can see how our Schbangers are staying conected come 5 PM over Chai:<br /><br />            <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div><br />            <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Image"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div><br />

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