Virtual Office Policy — Introducing the New-Normal of Company Operations

Version 1.0 [Discontinued]

Work From Home policy (as part of the Attendance and Leave Policy) has always been an integral part of McKinley’s Employee Value Proposition (EVP). The policy ensures that working from home is beneficial to both, our employees and the company. However, in light of the unprecedented strain caused due to the coronavirus epidemic, the policy required major amendments to ensure that the company is prepared to adapt to the New Normal way of working, and hence the Virtual Office policy for both the Noida and Pune office was framed.

Considerations while framing the Virtual Office Policy-

a. The Virus would be here to stay at least for a couple of months if not years.

b. There would have to be a logical conclusive end to the regular WFH system.

c. Safety measures would have to be incorporated to be a part of the work culture.

d. Strict social distancing norms would have to be implemented.

Implementation of Social Distancing Norms-

a. All team members would be mandated to work from the office (WFO) for 3 days/ week against the existing 5 days/week. The remaining 2 days/week would be on the WFH basis.

b. The team would be divided into 2 sub-teams, preferably based on the TLs the team works with i.e. teams lead by the TL-1 would be WFO on MWF, whereas the teams working with TL-2 would follow a TTS system.

c. For the teams working on Saturday, Monday would be considered as a week off.

d. Similarly, team HR, team QA, and team Marketing would also follow the alternate work-day system.

e. This single step of staggering workdays would reduce the chances of exposure to the virus while helping the company ensure that the social distancing norms are implemented with ease.

f. All teams working under a Tech Lead would be recommended to follow a stricter WFO pattern i.e. follow the same working hours. { Mandatory 9 hrs/day + Core time from 11 AM to 5 PM as mandated by the Attendance and Leave Policy would follow.}

Incorporation of Workplace Safety Norms (WFO)-

a. Daily thermal screening would be conducted at the entry gate of Ithum.

b. Wearing masks would be mandatory for the entire duration of the workday.

c. Sanitizers along with Dettol wipes would be placed on each workstation.

d. Alternate work stations would be provided, i.e. a gap of one work station would be maintained between 2 people.

e. Work stations would be marked for each employee and no shuffling, inter-changing would be allowed.

f. The use of meeting rooms would be minimized and a section of the office floor would be used for conducting meetings.

g. The team would be mandated to have lunch on their respective workstations while maintaining the social distancing norms.

h. Access to 607-Cafeteria would be restricted and the essentials would be provided in 602 itself (Noida Specific).

i. The work stations and the touchpoints would be sanitized 3-times a day.

j. Hot water/tea/beverage would be served at the work station itself limiting the need to move around.

k. It would be mandatory for each member of the team to carry their own water bottles and mugs to minimize the chances of cross-contamination.

l. It would be mandatory for each member to have Aarogya Setu downloaded on their phones. The same would be verified by HR in the first week of Operations.

m. More measures would be added to the list as and when required.

WFH/WFO Project Management Charter[ EXISTING]-

Identical charters would follow for both WFH and WFO. The same has been notified below-

a. All Account Officers(AOs) would be mandated to carry out the Start of Day Meetings (SOD) with their fellow team members (referred to as Engineers hereafter) first thing in the morning.

b. All AOs would be mandated to carry out the End of Day Meetings (EOD) with their fellow engineers at the close of the day.

c. The SOD meeting would happen project-wise as per the notion charter. The AOs in this meeting would need to review the previous day’s work and chalk out a plan for the current day’s work. These meetings would be attended by the Technology Lead (TLs) as well to enable adequate project discussion, query resolution, and efficient project planning.

d. The EOD review would be slightly longer and would entail a full review of the tasks completed by the Development Team during the day. The EOD meetings would be attended by the Project Lead (PL) and the Technology Lead (TLs) as well to enable adequate project discussion, query resolution, and efficient project planning.

e. A ‘Meetings Calendar’ would be maintained by the PM to keep a record of all essential and Ad-Hoc meetings to be conducted within the team.

Platforms

a) Google Hangouts would be used as the platform of choice to conduct virtual meetings in the case of WFH.

b) The client meetings are required to be recorded by the AO/PM and uploaded to Google Drive. The link to the recording needed to be attached in the Minutes of the Meeting (MOM).

Communications

a) The PM would be authorized to maintain MOM for all meetings except for the daily EOD review. In case of the absence of the PM, the MOMs were needed to be maintained by the AO.

b) All communication would be conducted on the particular project’s Slack channel.