Online Medical Consultation, Mental Health Helpline & Free Wellness Sessions: MeeFit is helping Meeshoites make the most of Benefits &Wellness initiatives during this lockdown

Guest Blog by Johncy Sanoop, Head of Compensation & Benefits

Employee Safety and Wellbeing are among the top priorities at Meesho. Over the past year, MeeFit (Meesho’s health and wellness initiative) has introduced a diverse range of Benefits based on employee needs and feedback gathered through focus group discussions, surveys and several open forums. Meesho has introduced and implemented several benefits such as the Corporate Library, Gym Benefit, the Education Assistance Programme, which were also some of the highly sought after benefits by Meeshoites. Read more here about these benefits.

For instance, the Corporate Medical Insurance Benefit is something that has been perceived as a basic, important need and has benefited several employees and their families. And our Wellness Programmes that include a package of several fitness and wellness activities such as pottery workshop, desk Zumba, self defence session, diet, nutrition and medical consultations, have all met with an enthusiastic response.

But this was life before COVID-19 struck the entire world and India. The kind of Benefits and Wellness initiatives that worked before COVID- 19, now no longer held true, because the world came to a complete standstill and Meeshoites (one of the early adapters to the work from home format) were now working from the confines of their own homes. This meant that the Benefits and Wellness programmes had to be re-looked and re-designed to adapt to a changing world and its demands.

Building awareness in March

In mid March, when we started, the wellness activities were more focused on awareness building and exploring various ways of staying healthy by building immunity. MeeFit then held frequent webinar sessions with experienced medical practitioners to build awareness and we also had virtual fitness sessions to keep people active. Instagram live sessions with our resident fitness freaks and viral social media challenges such as the #10pushupschallenge set the stage for a daily fitness routine, virtually for all Meeshoites.

Creating virtual medical facilities in April

Gradually, as working from home became the new normal, we started adapting to changing times and extended our Benefits by introducing new tie ups with renowned service providers for virtual medical consultations including e-pharma and e-diagnosis formats.

We tied up with service providers such as Practo, Fitto and 1mg for e-consultation, e-pharma and e-diagnosis services. While Practo offers video, call and chat-based consultations for over 21 medical specialties, with a coverage of 30k doctors and in 40 cities, Fitto is specially focused on Covid 19 related consultations and mental wellness. The tie-up with 1mg is to provide benefits majorly for e-pharma and e-diagnosis.

We also emphasised on making some of our existing benefits much more resourceful during these times. For instance, Klib (a known Corporate Library Platform) that Meeshoites love to use especially to borrow physical books during the pre-COVID era, is now being used for e-books, audio books and sound relaxation.

Along with physical ailments and the looming Corona situation, we realised that our employees were also prioritising mental wellbeing, in fact it has been one of the top priorities during the lockdown, for everybody. .

Fitness fundas for May

Creating and introducing holistic wellness programmes was the key here, and through this we tried to touch base on various aspects of wellness such as mental wellbeing, stress management, mindfulness, financial wellness, diet & nutrition, family/social wellbeing and physical wellness through webinars and virtual activities.

MeeFit also tied-up with Fitternity a fitness network giant for daily virtual workout sessions ranging from functional training to Tabata and Pilates to Bollywood Zumba, all conducted by certified fitness experts. We have also included regular Hatha Yoga as part of our wellness sessions.

And all of this hectic physical activities and wellness programmes needed a fun twist to it, and that’s where we included an exclusive wellness quiz series that ran for a whole week, and was facilitated with the support of Prudent — our Insurance Broker.The quiz covered different relevant topics each day and attracted a good participation and engagement from different teams.

And the journey continues..

The wellness and fitness programmes will continue as this is a changed world and a new work environment (even when the lockdown lifts finally), so helping Meeshoites in staying healthy, positive, productive and calm is even more important for us now and going forward. The journey will continue and we will continue adapting to the changing environment by re-viewing and adding more and more to our Benefits & Wellness programmes based on the need of the hour.

Are you following us on social media yet? You might want to head over to Life at Meesho’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages if you are a fan of fun and positivity.