Dubai Chamber: Strong Leadership And Regular Communication Essential For Ensuring Employee Wellbeing During The COVID-19 Crisis A Dubai Chamber webinar explored strategies and measures to maintain employees' wellbeing during the COVID-19 crisis.

By Aalia Mehreen Ahmed Edited by Aby Sam Thomas

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Dubai Chamber

Maintaining open and regular communication and providing financial advice to employees to help them reduce financial stress during the COVID-19 crisis emerged as two main pieces of advice during a special webinar by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Titled "Health, Wellness and Safety for Employees in the Midst of Covid-19 Outbreak," the online seminar was organized by the Dubai Chamber's Sustainability Network Task Force on Employee's Welfare and Wellbeing, a unit established by the Chamber's Centre for Responsible Business (CRB) to support the private sector in adopting the best plans and strategies.

In order to help entrepreneurs to reduce and overcome the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the webinar explored the strategies, practices and measures companies can adopt to maintain employees' health, wellness and safety during the crisis.

It featured Mahdi Mohamad, Chief Operating Officer of Support Services at Dulsco, Jihan El Saghir, Country Head HR at HP Inc Middle East and Saudi Arabia, and Manisha Mishra, Deputy General Manager at Transworld Group.

Related: Dubai Chamber Launches "Business Connect" To Assist The Private Sector Through The COVID-19 Pandemic

The three experts advised entrepreneurs and/or organizational heads to maintain open and regular communication with the staff and to empathize with their concerns which might include providing flexible working hours, holding virtual coffee chats, conducting surveys on strategy and policies towards common organization goals, as well as creating awareness through multilingual video and audio instructions on how to maintain hygiene, avoid potential risks, implement preventive measures, and report methods for suspected COVID-19 cases.

In addition, the attendees were recommended to provide financial advice to employees in order to help them reduce financial stress and consider saving plans.

Since launching in 2004, the Chamber's CRB has been tasked to engage the Dubai business community in assuming greater responsibility for the emirate's social and environmental needs. Currently, it counts 64 members, with 17 new companies joining and eight task forces being established only in 2019.

For more information about the upcoming webinars by the CRB and its Sustainability Network Task Force on Employee's Welfare and Wellbeing, please visit their website here: https://www.dubaichamber.com/crb/centre-for-responsible-business

Related: Dubai Chamber Calls On The Private Sector To Contribute To The Community Solidarity Fund Against COVID-19

Aalia Mehreen Ahmed

Features Editor, Entrepreneur Middle East

Aalia Mehreen Ahmed is the Features Editor at Entrepreneur Middle East.

She is an MBA (Finance) graduate with past experience in the corporate sector, and was also co-founder of CyberSWIFTT- an anti-cyberbullying campaign that ran from 2017-2018 as part of the e7: Daughters of the Emirates program.

Ahmed is particularly keen on writing stories involving people-centric leadership, female-owned startups, and entrepreneurs who've beaten significant odds to realize their goals.

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