The COVID-19 pandemic has created a significant change in the functioning of organizations all over the world. Business continuity is more important than ever before, which has resulted in a better level of openness towards the work from home (WFH) model in all sectors. Here at Access Healthcare, we have seen great success with the WFH model under the right governance and monitoring controls. Now, we want to adopt this model into a key section of our mainstream operations by assigning a dedicated group of 2,000 existing associates to work from home on a permanent basis. We are calling this the Home Pod model.
The goals of our Home Pod model are summarized as:
Create a social impact by generating employment in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and other rural areas enabling us to hire prospective candidates who are not currently residing in cities where we have offices
Provide a sufficiently flexible, balanced environment and thus better employment opportunities for women who may otherwise be forced to put their career on hold for personal reasons
Save our people a significant amount of time which is being spent in commuting between the workplace and their homes
Strengthen our business continuity plans to mitigate any natural disaster or crisis in the future
The Home Pod model will be piloted in our Chennai and Coimbatore locations out of the five (5) states in Southern India (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana) and four (4) cities in Manila (Baguio, Batangas, Bicol, and Clark-Pampanga). By the end of November 2020, we will migrate approximately 2,000 of our existing associates (1,700 from India and 300 from the Philippines) to a permanent WFH mode.
Home Pod members will not be required to be physically present at our offices at any point of time after their orientation and training are completed. Therefore, from the current workforce, preference will be given for those associates who are based in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 city and consistently exceeding expectations in their performance metrics like production, quality, and attendance, especially during their current WFH phase. Apart from that, they also need to ensure access to suitable infrastructure in the home location they wish to work from.
A reliable broadband connection with 20 MBPS speed and at least 100 GB of data per month
UPS or suitable power backup for the broadband modem to ensure there will be no disruption to network connectivity, even in case of power failure in the area
Backup internet connectivity, such as through a strong mobile data network
Once we have successfully moved the existing associates to their Home Pods, we will proceed to the next phase of this model by hiring 500 new recruits from the Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities in India, in accordance with business requirements. These new associates will join and work from their nearest Access Healthcare facility in their first week. Onboarding and induction will be completed on the first day, followed by four (4) days of pre-processing training and asset handover. From week two (2), the newly recruited associates will continue their training in a virtual environment right up to graduating from the Quality Certification Program to the Ramp Phase.
To effectively govern the Home Pod model, a robust set of governance guidelines have been drafted, including the administration of daily huddles, work allocation, hourly monitoring of production and work hours, knowledge and quality management, and periodic performance reviews. Employee engagement will be a key focus area, and there will be platforms for weekly one-on-ones, skip level sessions, team building sessions, coaching, and feedback.
In addition to the governance model, technology will be leveraged to give real-time performance metrics to the associates on their laptops and mobile smartphones via our arc.in application. Apart from monitoring the daily performance of oneself, the app will provide the functionality to review weekly and monthly statistics, manage assets and raise network tickets for IT and HR concerns. To ensure the security of data is not compromised we are instituting remote monitoring tools to verify the authorized user of an asset with facial recognition and also imprinting watermark on images with the asset’s username in case screenshots are taken. To manage employee learning and career progression, the existing knowledge management, and learning systems are being upgraded to offer domain and soft-skill eLearning programs to associates at their homes.
At Access Healthcare, we always strive to empower our employees, to bring more diversity, and to create a positive social impact on the communities we live and work in. This is another step in that direction.