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COVID-19 Pandemic And Our Journey Of Struggle, Survival & Success

The first COVID-19 case in India was registered on January 30th 2020. Since then things have been changing for Indians in a fast forward manner.

It was in the last month of 2019 that this pandemic started to spread across the world after originating from China. The spread of this deadly disease caused a huge ruckus across the world. Even the developed countries like the US have been witnessing large scale causalities to the disease spread.

In order to control the spread of disease and reduce the number of patient deaths, government of India came up with many steps. This included spreading awareness among the people like using sanitizers to keep the hands clean, regularly washing hands using soaps, and covering nose and mouth with masks. In the following days, government of India started urging people to stay at home unless and until it was necessary for them to venture out. Malls, cinema halls, parks, and other public places were closed down to restrict people from interfering with others. Social distancing was the new norm!

Closing down workplaces was the next big step taken by the government. Respecting the government’s decision and understanding the need to maintain social distancing, majority of the companies in the IT sector went ahead with “Work From Home”setting. Silicon IT Hub Pvt Ltd was one of the few companies which had started to think in that direction even before government’s declaration came out. We started to look in to the matter very seriously as our clients’ projects and employees’ healths were equally important to us.

Shifting the whole office environment remotely was not an easy decision, nor was it earlier thought of. This was new as we never faced such a scenario in the past where we were to make extreme changes in the work environment. We came up with a plan where we decided to help our employees setup their workspace at their homes by providing them with the needed devices, hardware structures and software solutions. We even offered them with continuous IT support to make the transition process smoother. Senior staff even came forward to help their teams to settle down quickly in the new situation.

During the initial days, things were very difficult for everyone. No one had done this before and now they are working from homes, which are going through a total chaos. Some had their other family members working from home while others had kids at home with nothing to do at all. Seriously no one was prepared for this situation, nor for the days to come! It was nothing less than any Hollywood apocalypse flick!

Issues with electricity, on/off internet connection, stress and other health issues – was making it difficult for our team to establish the work-life balance! Eventually, things started to get better. We managed to establish a “new normal”! Regular communication and collaboration was maintained using different conferencing apps and over calls. Project management tools like JIRA helped our teams from all over the place to keep the project status updated and get it completed as per the schedule. In the end, we ensured no client projects suffered and everything was delivered on time, with quality.

Each and every team contributed their best to make sure all the projects were completed on time. We ensured no client projects suffered while working remotely. It has to be said that our sales team worked for extra hours to grab the best of sales opportunities and that is commendable.

It is true that it would not have been possible to keep the business running without the full support from our employees. It is their dedication, sense of responsibility, ability to adapt to the changing environment and determination to work against odds that has helped us to stay strong even in the scenario where other businesses were struggling to survive. We appreciate their efforts and zeal.

Lockdown phases normalized the work from home setup but soon we started to miss our office spaces. Home is definitely the place where we love to live but office spaces gave us a different identity. Catching up with colleagues and friends, afternoon chai, evening breaks, meetings for idea sharing & brainstorming, laughter, giggles, etc. – work was definitely fun on floor!

Sticking together and hoping for the best was what kept us going! In the time when businesses were suffering and jobs were uncertain, our management decided to keep everyone on board intact. They made it a point that no one lost their jobs. The decision was tough with no idea about how the days ahead will shape and how hard recession can struck the business. But, they had made the choice! We thank our management from the bottom of our hearts for securing jobs in tough times and ensuring everyone’s survival.

Finally, we are back! We have taken all the necessary measures to ensure the office premise is clean and all our employees are following healthy practices. COVID-19 is going to stay here for a long time and so such lifestyle changes are the need of the hour. Definitely, it has taught us the greatest life lesson- ‘survival’, the hard way!

We have much lockdown experiences to share. We are busy with the projects. Yes, we are thriving and moving towards normalcy!!! So as Shakespeare quotes, “The show must go on”.

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