How Is TurboHire Ensuring Employee Well Being During Covid?

Treating employees with respect, showing appreciation for their work, and being an encourager will create a desire in employees to also treat customers and clients well, according to Ridhhi Sanghi, Director of People Success at TurboHire. It will contribute to higher productivity levels and profitability. It makes employees want to come to work and not dread it. It inspires and motivates them to work harder, produce more, and become more engaged.

Read as she gives insight into how TurboHire is building a culture that is genuinely committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of its employees every day.

Employee well-being isn’t a goal that must be met — it is a foundation that must exist for any further possibilities to happen in one’s life.

There is enough science and research to show the linkage between chronic stress and our mental and physical health — and we are all aware of this. Our mind is processing information every second — and is deciding whether the environment around it is safe or a is the source of threat, leading to a complicated dance of chemicals and hormones which leave an impact on all physiological functions. Wellbeing, therefore, doesn’t happen over a single day or through a couple of events — it is formed by sustaining a state of homeostasis over a long period of time. One hour of workout, an optimum diet, a counseling session followed by 8 hours of working in a high-stress environment may not necessarily lead to a state of wellbeing.

And this is where ‘culture’ comes into play.

At TurboHire, we understand that the very first step towards building genuine, sustained wellbeing is to create an atmosphere of wellbeing on a minute-by-minute, day-to-day basis. Every interaction, every information exchange has the potential to add to or deplete our wellbeing. And by paying attention to these details, we seek to build a culture of trust and belongingness — where members know they are safe, where fears and defenses are lowered, where one can thrive.

The core values at TurboHire were created to reflect this fundamental approach towards work and life.

These values are a summation of what each member brings to the table every day. The culture code values at TurboHire stand as:

• Do things the right way
• Help each other succeed
• Keep Learning, Keep Innovating
• Punch above our Weight
• Humor it up.

A few examples in which these core values of TurboHire play out and help strengthen employee wellbeing are:

1. Build And Display Genuine Trust In The Team

Trust is displayed when there is a risk involved to the organization and yet, the organization chooses to believe each member will behave in the best interest of everyone. At TurboHire we do not have an attendance system, there are no ‘work timings’, and we have an unlimited wellness leave policy that does not require the manager’s approval.

Our team meetings focus on resolving issues faced and giving each other direction — and not monitoring each other.

We work in a space of very high autonomy — each member is allowed to decide for oneself — not just one’s schedule and where one wants to work from — but also the work one wants to take up. More importantly, one can comfortably say ‘no’ and debate it out.

What happened when the pandemic struck?

The inherent sense of trust allowed members to comfortably take time off, as much as they wished to, to take care of themselves and their loved ones. Most importantly, they did this without any fear of repercussion or doubts of perception management. Team members willingly supported each other by taking up more tasks and work schedules were moved around to ensure maximum support to each other. As a result, trust deepened and members became more committed to the organization.

2. Be Comfortable With Mistakes And Failures

At TurboHire we encourage experimentation, trial, and errors, and make it perfectly comfortable to fail. Research shows, and we understand, that mistakes and failures help in deepening learning. Our Product, UI, NLP parsing, etc. — everything has undergone multiple revisions. All done in the spirit of continuous learning and delivering better and better outcomes, without fear of failure.

What happened when the pandemic struck?

Members knew it was ok to not be ‘productive’ at all times, there is nothing wrong with slowed down performance during emotionally challenging times. This allowed one to focus on recovering in a guilt-free manner.

3. It’s Okay To Be Vulnerable

That’s a part of our core value system, and it’s how we like to experience life at TurboHire. In our Town Halls (known as Team Huddles) and informal team connects (known as Chai pe Charcha) the entire team gets together to spend some quality time together. The leadership is comfortably vulnerable — allowing the entire team to express freely.

What happened when the pandemic struck?

The team got together and created ‘A Safe Space’ to share what each one was experiencing. All members took turns to express, creating an even stronger bond within the close-knit team. Some of us ace the art of cracking jokes — we keep at it at all times, making the general energy of meetings light and free-spirited.

4. Listen With Genuine Interest And Act Upon It

To become a ‘listening’ organization, one needs to go beyond merely conducting annual engagement surveys. At TurboHire, we have frequent 1:1s between the Managers and the Team Members, and with the HR. Inputs are taken from various sources — including questions asked in Team Huddles, results in surveys, etc. to get insights on what the team thinks, feels, and needs.

Before the subsequent interaction with the individual or a Team Huddle, we ensure actions are taken and every question asked is responded to. What each one thinks is therefore out in the open with no surprises — an absolute must for an organization to be able to take the right actions.

5. One Team Spirit

There is no us vs them, favoritism, and unnecessary politicking at TurboHire, which can potentially drain out one’s energy. Our focus on the common mission is clear. Our OKRs are designed to highlight interdependencies and ensure no silo thinking gets created. Our organization structure uses the representation of the system of being a part of one whole, rather than the siloed pyramid structure.

It is necessary to look at wellbeing proactively rather than purely reactively. Multiple studies have pointed at India being amongst the most depressed nations globally, while one claiming a whopping 42% of employees in the Indian corporate sector suffer from depression and general anxiety disorders. Various chronic conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, thyroid imbalances, PCOS, etc. have been steadily increasing in the millennial generation. A chronic health pandemic was always looming large — the current pandemic caused due to an external virus amplified it multifold and finally brought this topic to the attention of the corporate sector.

When faced with an external threat beyond one’s control, such as a pandemic, a strong internal support system helps the team sail through the crisis and doesn’t add to existing woes. And that’s exactly what we at TurboHire have been gunning for.

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You can also read our article on how global recruiters have been continuously striving to improve employee well-being and have been trying to navigate a way around the covid crisis. Click here