March 23, 2020

Dear Sherus,

As we all watch the COVID-19 (novel Coronavirus) pandemic extract a heavy toll on not only human life but also businesses around the world, there is nothing to compare the situation to in our repertoire of experience that can prepare us to deal with it. We are closely monitoring the developments and doing everything we can to ensure the wellbeing of our employees, our business and our society. It is very important that in this hour of crisis we remain calm, support each other and respond to the adversity with unity.

As a provider of financial services we are in a business that is critical for the functioning of the economy. Moreover, the novel Coronavirus has wreaked havoc in the stock market as well, causing heavy losses to our customers. It is our responsibility to be present for our customers in their hour of financial crisis. We must, therefore, keep our establishments open to maintain essential services for our customers.

We are taking guidance from the market regulator SEBI and the stock exchanges as well as the BNP Paribas Group to which we belong, to deploy the right technology, infrastructure and security solutions so that the maximum number of employees can isolate themselves and work remotely.

As you may know, there are certain platforms and systems that cannot be accessed safely and reliably from home but that are crucial to perform certain tasks. Hence, some of you will be required to come to the office. It is our earnest endeavour to ensure that only those employees who are needed to perform these specific tasks come to the office.

For those who will continue to work from the office, please rest assured that we will be doing our level best to make the environment as safe as possible for you—your well-being is top priority.

Hence, for the staff required to come to office premises, we will do what we can to enable safe passage between the office and home, including providing travel assistance. Further, we will be distributing masks to all staff coming to office premises and will ensure even more rigorous hygiene standards are followed at our office locations. Serving our clients and society to weather this crisis is critical, even as we place your well-being and safety at the core.

Business continuity plan

We are ready with our Business Continuity Plan (BCP) so that we can continue to serve our clients without any disruptions and with the least number of resources having to work from office. As part of the plan, we have already identified the head office staff who are critical to the business operations and who need to be present in office due to compliance and technology requirements. This BCP team has been provided with the requisite infrastructure including laptops and dongles.

Alongside, we have put in place the split-team strategy by splitting these critical employees into groups that would operate out of different locations in Mumbai. Thus, members of the same team have been told to work from different office buildings to ensure business continuity. The Information Technology and Operations teams are currently working in split mode. We have also tested the remote working strategy with these two teams successfully should the exigencies of the crisis demand that they work remotely in the days ahead.

Staff protection plan

We have adopted many precautionary measures over the last two months to keep you safe and our goal is to keep it that way.

Staff movement

• We have implemented a work-from-home policy as part of which we are moving 50% of our staff across the country to work from home to ensure adherence to local norms.
• All staff who have a company laptop or a personal laptop or desktop are being given access to company e-mails and have been instructed to work from home. All sales staff have also been told to work remotely.
• All staff that are high risk or are recovering from a medical condition and the staff who are pregnant or nursing can work from home.
• All department and cluster heads have been directed to allow all non-critical employees who do not have access to a personal computer at home, to stay at home till further notice.
• We will continue to work on migrating more staff to the Work from Home mode, but this will be done in a gradual and structured way.

Human resources

• The Human Resources team is proactively tracking employee travel programmes – personal and official.
• The team has suspended all international business travel to and from India and restricted domestic business travel.
• They have urged the staff to exercise utmost caution and review travel advisories from various countries/governments before undertaking any personal travel (domestic or international).
• They are also collecting health information via questionnaires. Wherever required, employees are being quarantined, especially if they have travelled to high-risk locations or are exhibiting any flu-like symptoms.
• To avoid large gathering of employees, all business related events have been cancelled; and all picnics, team outings including those for corporate social responsibility or team-building activities, business or reward related lunches etc have been postponed indefinitely.
• Inter-office travel has been banned and employees have been advised to strictly work from their assigned location only. Nobody is allowed to move from one office location to another.
• All staff have been advised to participate in work related meetings via phone, Webex or videoconference.
• Every new joinee has to fill a self-declaration on travel and health. Joining is being deferred wherever relevant.
• Interviews are being conducted over telecons or Skype to avoid visitors from coming in contact with our employees.

Security

• Vendors have been advised to not deploy any guards who are unwell, specially with flu-like symptoms.
• We have provided masks and hand sanitisers to all security personnel. The security guards of the Lodha and Empire Plaza offices, the BCP locations, have been provided with thermal thermometers to check the temperature of all employees and visitors at the entrance.

Transport

• We have arranged for a separate bus for the staff who have moved to the Empire Plaza office as part of the split-team arrangement. We are in the process of arranging a bus service for the critical staff who shall be working from various office locations.
• While additional measures are being put in place by us, we highly recommend employees to avoid the use of public buses and trains, and advise them to leverage alternative means of transportation.
• Vendors have been instructed to ensure that no unwell drivers report for duty. They have been advised to increase the frequency of cleaning buses.
• Alcohol-based hand sanitisers have been placed in all buses which employees can use while embarking and disembarking.

Cafeteria services

• All service employees have started wearing sanitised gloves and hair covers. These employees are now regularly cleaning the tables with approved disinfectants and clean wipes. They always wear gloves while replenishing paper napkins and tissues.
• We have provided mask to the cafeteria team in all locations and reduced the number of tables and chairs to allow for social distancing.

Facilities management

• All pantry and facilities staff have been provided with masks and sanitisers, and advised to ensure maximum personal hygiene including regular changing of gloves. We have ensured there is adequate provision of cleaning material including sanitisers.
• Office furniture is cleaned daily with disinfectants and clean wipes. Frequently touched surfaces like door handles are cleaned every 30 minutes.
• Vendors such as Sodexo share a daily report on unwell employees and the nature of sickness along with medical reports. Any employees with flu-like symptoms are not allowed to work.
• We have restricted the entry of delivery staff to office premises. Only courier delivery staff are allowed to come till the lobby of our office buildings to hand over parcels.
• We have postponed all meetings with vendors indefinitely.

General awareness

• We are putting up “Dos and Don’ts of COVID-19” posters in all locations and have released a WhatsApp video on the topic to create awareness among the staff.
• We are sending regular updates on the evolving situation to all staff.
• We have also created a webpage to display all internal communications on our plan to fight COVID-19 and other relevant critical information including the World Health Organisation’s answers to the frequently asked questions on COVID-19.
• All employees are also constantly updated on the travel advisories issued by both our government and our group.

Once again, I assure each and every Sheru who needs to come to work in these difficult times that we are taking all possible measures for your safety and are there for you. For those colleagues who are going to be working from home for the next few weeks, each of you is playing an equally important role in fighting COVID-19 by ensuring that we can practise social distancing at our workplaces so that the critical staff are exposed to minimal risk. I understand working from home brings its own challenges such as home distractions; reduced communication with team mates and line manager; and enforced social isolation. Please stay in touch with your colleagues digitally and offer each other encouragement and emotional support. We are a family and we stand together, whether we work from home or office.

I seek your support in this difficult period and urge you all to stay positive, exercise caution and practise social distancing. Your contributions are recognised. Please reach out to your manager for guidance if you have questions or concerns.

Thank you once again for your commitment and for working as one team. Together we have weathered many storms in the past. I am confident together we will get through this crisis too and emerge stronger.

Warm regards,
Jaideep Arora