Vayana Network CEO says he's always believed that coming to office every day not an obligation

Ram Iyer, Founder and CEO, Vayana Network says his company is an employee-first company.
He told ET Panache, "Our teams in Pune, Bangalore, Jaipur, Vadodara, Mumbai, Delhi, US and Singapore started working remotely much before the lockdown was announced. I have always believed that coming to office every day is not an obligation. It’s up to the employee to decide if he/she would like to go to office or not."

At Vayana, the processes, procedures, infrastructure is all geared for work from home. "I have been using tools such as Slack, Zoom, Google Meet to stay connected with my colleagues and stakeholders. I have been using general apps and prefer writing down things on my notebook. I do have a dedicated office space, which is shared by two other people i.e. my son and my wife. I do have a separate dedicated space for myself too," Iyer said of his work.

The company has always been a casual dressed one and have not followed any specific dress code as such. But during client meetings, they make sure that they put on their smart business casuals.

"Work from home dress sense is left to individual people and their preferences. One of the biggest challenge is a simple infrastructural set up. That is actually to have uninterrupted network, being available for phone calls and to have a smooth conversation with the colleagues and stakeholders. We have all had to invest in multiple different sources of infrastructure," Iyer shared.

The Vayana Network founder has always had a seamless segregation from the start for family and business.

"I have a habit of getting up at 4-4:30 in the morning. I read a lot and also go through all the emails and everything required. Then after 10:30 am, I get back to talking to people. Between 10:30 to 6:30 pm I am busy. Then I go for my walk, post that there is family dinner and then I wrap up the day with some reading again," Iyer said.

Since he loves to eat, Iyer reads a lot on interesting cooking recipes and experiments them.

"I have learnt to wash vessels without leaving detergent mark on it. I have applied a lot of industrial engineering principles to washing vessels. How to stack them up, so that everything is very efficient. I have got the opportunity to spend a lot of time to spend with my family and we all end up talking a lot more to each other now. This phase helped me discover a little bit more about my family," he ended.