India Inc chalks out safety plans for life after Coronavirus lockdown

By: Kala Vijayraghavan & Lijee Philip

Mumbai: India Inc has started preparing for life after the lockdown by chalking out Covid-19 risk mitigation plans including social distancing, remote working and even temporary succession planning to ensure business survival even as the pandemic remains a clear and present danger.

Wearing masks, isolated workspaces and remote working will be a norm when the lockdown eases up and corporates try to return to normalcy, top industry officials said.

Companies will have to strictly follow guidelines to ensure that employees are safe and business risks can be minimised, said Sangita Reddy, president of industry association Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci). “Employees, too, have to be proactive and compliance issues should be followed strictly. No casual attitude (in terms of social distancing) should be tolerated.”

Corporates should parallelly focus on business continuity and maintain regular cashflow, she said.

Ficci has chalked out multiple scenarios of how the Covid-19 can evolve and issued guidelines and advisories to corporates on ways to tackle various challenges at workplace. “Prepare temporary succession plans for key executive positions and critical roles and analyse if there is any high-risk work or any paper-based processes or processes that cannot be easily moved online and need a separate work plan,” it said.

Venu Srinivasan, chairman, TVS Motor Co, said, “With this complete uncertainty, the safest act is to make sure your business doesn't go bankrupt because of cashflows. Financial continuity and viability of the business is most important right now.”

Vivek Gambhir, CEO of Godrej Consumer Products, said there’s an “urgency to get factories to open”.

The Ficci advisory said organisations need to “communicate with employees frequently and with the right specificity” to keep the workplaces prepared for infection prevention and ensure health and safety of employees.

Harsh Mariwala, chairman of Marico, said wearing masks at workplaces will have to be a norm. “For a while, at least, letting people who can do work from remote places (to do so), and ensuring minimal gathering at workplaces, keeping the social distancing while working or lunch places, will be important. "

Biocon has already ensured use of hand sanitisers, creating zoning in offices and factories where people from one section cannot go to another, and satellite food courts, its chairperson Kiran Mazumdar Shah said. “I think it’s important to continue remote working for a while and only allow travel of essential work people or logistics.”