Project Kavach: Safety Protocols and Measures by Urban Company
By – Aditya Varma (SVP Business)
At Urban Company, we’ve always put the safety and quality of the services on our platform above everything else. In these unprecedented times of a global pandemic, we recognize the need to re-commit to and strengthen all existing health and safety precautions on the platform.
To this end, we are making crucial changes to our standard operating procedures to significantly enhance the safety and quality promise to our customers, our partners and our employees.
To protect our community, we have put in place 8 clear SOPs that together are a part of the UC SAFE program.
1. Daily temperature checks: We have instituted daily temperature checks for all partners on the platform. Anyone registering a temperature over 99°F will be asked to stay home and consult a doctor. The partner can return to work only after a minimum of three successive days of running a normal temperature or the recommended duration of rest prescribed by our empanelled doctors. To ensure that our partners have access to the advice of expert doctors, we’ve partnered with Pristyn Healthcare to make quality tele-medicine services and advice available to partners free of cost.
2. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): We have procured and shipped a Safety Kit with mandatory Personal Protective Equipment to over 27,000 individual service professionals who are associated with the platform. As we resume services, all individual service professionals will be equipped with a 3-ply surgical mask, protective sterile gloves, goggles, a hand sanitizer and a sanitization spray. In the post lockdown world, this is another step that can significantly reduce the risk of contracting infection for both customers and partners while delivering services.
3. Sanitization of tools and single-use sachets: Sanitizing tools and using single-use sachets and disposables whenever beauty services resume. Additionally, for home services like appliance repair, electricians, plumbers, carpenters etc., the protocol is to ensure a contactless service experience.
4. Health and safety training: The COVID-19 world calls on all of us to introduce new precautions and standards, and imbibe them in our daily lives. For our partners, we’ve launched Project Kavach — a certification training programme to help them protect themselves and take necessary safety precautions as they go about resuming their daily lives, vocations and routines. Our Kavach certification program will train over 27,000 partners on personal safety and hygiene standards, PPE usage and service SOPs through a staggered 7-day virtual training program.
5. Suraksha holidays: The economic consequences of the lockdown have been most severe for lower income and gig economy workers. To provide sustenance and income for any partner who needs to self-quarantine, if running a temperature or so advised by a medical practitioner, Urban Company is providing a weekly income grant of INR 2,000. This is to ensure that our partners can get well without having to worry about lost income. Over and above this, we have purchased insurance cover for any partner infected with the disease, covering any hospitalization expenses and a per-day allowance.
6. Aarogya Setu App: We are encouraging use of this government app for all partners, and partners are required to show their current status on the app before entering a customer’s home. The Aarogya Setu app uses contract tracing via mobile phones to check whether a person has come in contact with an infected person/chain. Partners have access to doctors and Suraksha holidays via the Suraksha Grants program if they develop symptoms.
7. Containment Zones: We have developed in-house technology to ensure that
(a) No requests are taken from people within containment zones; and that
(b) Partners residing in containment zones are not allocated any jobs to ensure that the government measures on quarantine are respected.
8. Contactless Service Experience in Repair & Maintenance Services
Across all repair and maintenance services like appliance repair, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, disinfection, cleaning, painting and pest control services, we have trained our partners to adopt contactless protocols during the service delivery.
These are some of the initial steps we are taking to ensure the well-being of our customers and partners. We are constantly evolving and will continue to implement more steps necessary to help us deliver on our promise of safe and high-quality services.
