Surviving In The Pandemic

#Post-Covid19 #Leadership #Safety #ESG #HSE

Josy John

The world had come to standstill due to the recent pandemic and every industry had to adopt the new ways of working to survive in the difficult phase. Mr. Josy John, Corporate Safety Head, Tata Consulting Engineers Limited, Pune India shares with Pro MFG Media their journey in the testing time of pandemic and the strategies implemented by them.

The year 2020 has been a black swan period for the entire industry and an unexpected wave of uncertainty impacted businesses across globally. The world was totally unaware of any such pandemic approaching and apparently, the recent pandemic was not close to its predecessors such as SARS or MERS.

COVID 19, a novel coronavirus just didn't have the highest mutation rate but was highly infectious compared to the other virus. The governments across the world had to shut down the public places in order to contain the virus and of course the world and global economy went standstill. The government had to resume certain segments and restart the economy but they had to implement strict regulations for the organizations for safety.

TATA Consulting Engineers (TCE) has a wide spectrum of engineers, designing as well as project management services which have been working enormously. The numerous sites were shut in the pandemic and restarting, meant that we had to bring in the workers back to the site and thus the company structured a standard operating procedure or guidance document which helped the people to follow the updates as it was uploaded on the website. In the early days, all organizations could access the document which served as a useful instrument in the process. The entire procedure was distributed while they communicated via internal meetings within the organizations. The sole objective was to keep the virus away from the workplace. It was essential to implement stringent measures so that employees could work safely. The organization implemented precise instructions from the initial phase which included information on the medical tests employees had to go through, the government specified workplace setup, ration stocks, sanitation facilities and monitoring facilities. TCE kept connected with the local government authorities with respect to the quarantine facilities. Apart from that, they remodeled the huge labor camps wherein 2000 people were hosted and usually the rooms which once were occupied by 10 to 15 people now had to be occupied by only 5 people. They had set up the isolation rooms in case of any worker getting infected thus placing the entire system according to the norms set by the government.

The workers have been monitored daily in the labor camp, they have been cooking for themselves and have been strictly maintaining social distancing norms established by the government. The workers are trained for the entire sanitation process and are provided with protective equipment like gloves and masks thus ensuring zero human contact. It is essential to create an environment wherein people are forced to follow stringent regulations. The entire world is moving to a no contact economy these days.

The biggest challenge was to work in a contactless system which resulted in low productivity and with only 30% of the workforce available. Eventually, businesses have to move ahead for returns on investments.

Another severe challenge was restarting the work on the equipment after shutting it for quite a long time. It was essential to pre-check the equipment for the safety of employees before starting the operations. The whole focus was to achieve success but insync with the physical safety of the plant or the stock and thus we ensured implementing stringent monitoring programs. The digitalization in the process helped immensely which created a sound atmosphere for people to work.

There have been situations wherein it has been difficult for the organization to control the crisis but yes, they were managed properly. The company’s self-belief and self-assurance helped in keeping the virus away from the sites. Currently, they are back with full strength but still with caution and in fact, now the workers monitor themselves by abiding to all the codes and regulations. The employees have understood the importance of sanitization and social distancing and have accepted the fact that we are living in odd times and it is essential for us to overcome the phase. The awareness campaigns have helped the most. Even the Government of India has been highly supportive of the efforts as many of TCE projects are in the government sector. The standstill economy has at least started moving and meeting the planned targets.

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