Managing Work-From-Home Efficiently During COVID-19 While there is no cure yet for the virus, our strength lies in our ability to act as one and take steps that are responsible and caring towards others.

By Gautam Chopra

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

graphicstock

With COVID-19 reaching pandemic status, new challenges have cropped up in all spheres—health, social and economic. One of the key measures propagated by health organizations worldwide to alleviate a spike in the virus is "social distancing'. Social distancing in simpler words means reducing close contact with people to slow down the spread of the infection. This includes avoiding large groups of people.

While there is no cure yet for COVID-19; our strength lies in our ability to act as one and take steps that are responsible and caring towards others and thus, help reduce the reach of the virus. To be able to "work from home' is one such action that not only helps to reduce our own risk but also safeguards our colleagues and families.

As India's technology start-ups lead the way in challenging old business methods, it is also important and incumbent upon us that in a situation of crisis, we set our best foot forward and demonstrate leadership and compassion towards our organization and inspire others. At BeatO (a diabetes management start-up) we have proactively facilitated "work from home' as a part of our plans to deal with the ups and downs COVID-19 has brought with it.

Being a healthtech start-up with users who are elderly and dealing with chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, we were naturally following the COVID-19 data and news actively. Current data suggests that people who are elderly and have underlying conditions are at high-risk groups in terms of severity and mortality rate of the virus. As soon as things moved beyond China; we pre-empted a list of problems and made a plan of action both for our users and our employees. We can't be looking after people with diabetes without looking after the people who care and work hard for their good health day in and day out.

Being a technology-led start-up, it was already in our DNA to come up with solutions that allow us to be agile and flexible in our work. We have teams working in different cities and knew what it takes to manage work easily without being physically present.

BeatO's work-from-home plan encompassed the following seven commandments to make it a smooth ride.

# Strong and active communication with each other to avoid any gaps in understanding.

# Use apps and software that work for different teams based on their needs. Some of the one's we like using are Zoom, Slack, Jira, Trello and Smartsheet.

# Lay down clear objectives, processes, metrics and tracking methods for each team and did a few trial runs.

# Set up the right virtual governance (check in/check out, scrum calls, stand-ups, etc) for managers/team leads with their respective teams.

# Help individuals overcome challenges they may face working at home, example, Internet connectivity by handing out dongles, or SIM cards for data.

#Have clear business metrics/reports published to review the progress of business every day, ensuring we take corrective measures immediately.

# Anticipate challenges of not being physically present and make a plan B, plan C and even plan D for such situations.

A crisis can make or break an organization but being prepared or rather over-prepared can ensure that it brings out the best in leaders, people and makes one business stronger to tide over any wave. At BeatO and several other Indian tech start-ups, we have approached this challenge in a systematic way ensuring timely action to build the business and trust of all its stakeholders.

Gautam Chopra

Co-Founder and CEO, BeatO

Business News

JPMorgan Shuts Down Internal Message Board Comments After Employees React to Return-to-Office Mandate

Employees were given the option to leave comments about the RTO mandate with their first and last names on display — and they did not hold back.

Business Ideas

70 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2025

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2025.

News and Trends

Recur Club Announces Credit Offerings for Startups Beyond Series A and SMEs

In FY 24–25, the platform also plans to deploy an additional INR 2000 crores through its Recur Swift program for startups.

News and Trends

NeoSapien Secures INR 80 Lakhs on Shark Tank India 4 for AI Wearable

Founded in 2024 by Dhananjay Yadav and Aryan Yadav, NeoSapien aims to integrate AI into daily life through its wearable technology

News and Trends

Accel Fuels Sarla Aviation's Flying Taxi Ambitions with USD 10 Mn Investment

Angel investors, including Binny Bansal (Flipkart co-founder), Nikhil Kamath (Zerodha co-founder), and Sriharsha Majety (Swiggy co-founder), also participated in the round.

News and Trends

PAG Acquires Majority Stake in Pharma Packaging Player Pravesha Industries

This move underscores PAG's continued focus on India's burgeoning packaging industry, following its recent investment in Manjushree Technopack.