“The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose.” – Charles Dickens
And how do you define your purpose for life? For most, life is all about going through it and living it as it comes. And for some, life is all about making it worthwhile – not just for themselves but also for those around them.
From a business’ perspective, the ultimate purpose or goal is to make profits. Still, some businesses consider profits as just one aspect of their purpose in addition to other critical elements such as people, relations, service, and the ultimate success of their customers. This belief is central to GAVS philosophy. Believing that its success lies in its Customers’ Success is core to GAVS’ DNA.
A privately held IT Consulting and Systems Integration company, GAVS is perpetually obsessed with the “Why” for everything. This drives everyone at GAVS to bring their best to work every day. This thought process helps everyone at GAVS to drive creativity, take quick decisions, and stay on top of customer needs and perceptions.
Core Strength – Employees
CEO Sumit Ganguli shares, “GAVS is truly committed to become a true employee-oriented company, with strong values of Respect, Integrity, Trust/Teamwork and Empathy. We believe that our people centric initiatives and investments enhance our ESAT, CSAT, productivity, growth and innovation; and GAVS will be able to recruit and retain the top-drawer talent from around the world.”
GAVS believes in nurturing intellectual humility across levels, to establish a deep-rooted connection to the greater purpose or the “Why” is critical – thus making a GAVS a transparent, empathetic, and purposeful company.
The Litmus Test
Leadership in uncertain times requires resilience and empathy. GAVS’ response to COVID-19 was guided with this belief. We ensured frequent communication across the board, where leaders were visible, accessible and employees were heard. The leaders took time to understand and address the fears of all GAVSians alike, around uncertain times. They were quick to adapt to a digital working environment, seamlessly transitioning to remote work while taking measures to ensure psychological safety.
GAVS ensured that all infrastructure needs of employees were taken care of employees’ homes. There were efforts taken at the offices too. “We ensured our offices across the globe had contact-less entry points with digital entry cards, facemasks were made mandatory, and hand sanitizers were available across the premises, and we stepped up the cleaning regimes,” shares the GAVS Management. GAVS management believes that our transition to times post COVID will be about instilling a sense of safety and well-being.
While monthly celebrations, relaxing workspaces, ping pong tables, and catered meals show employee experience in a physical dimension, there was immense focus on ensuring a humane approach is shown by how employees are treated, ownership levels, mutual trust – even in a digital environment.
While most of the IT companies in India and around the world, either deferred promotions and increments this year or suggested a reduction in the overall compensation, GAVS ensured that all employees received their Annual Performance Appraisal letters on time in addition to promotions and increments being awarded to all those deserving of these.
A Culture that Celebrates Everyone’s Contribution
GAVS espouses and engenders a zero hierarchy and a zero-bureaucracy mindset. Mr. Ganguli says, “We promote a flat, egalitarian culture. We celebrate zero tolerance towards Disrespect, Lack of Integrity, Complacency, and Apathy towards our employees, clients and all stakeholders.” In the New Normal, wellness initiatives at the workplace were transitioned to virtual yoga sessions for mindfulness, teleconsultation sessions replaced physical medical practitioner visits for availing medical guidance, and a 24/7 COVID 19 helpline was set up to address ongoing employee queries and address any level of increased stress and anxiety. Interactive sessions with health experts were organized to ensure mental well-being as well.
GAVS made important information available to all through a COVID 19 Updates page on its intranet. Virtual live events, contests, and informal catchups were launched to maintain collaboration, and regular tips to stay engaged, healthy, and productive in a pandemic were shared via mailer campaigns. Water cooler conversations happened through virtual coffee meets of the teams. It started online Friday happy hours, as the company wanted to keep its people engaged, and alleviate stress in the remote work set up.
Caring for the Society at Large
GAVS, through the Private Equity firm Basil Partners, is involved in an initiative to nurture and support a small isolated village named Ramanwadi in Maharashtra, through a project named Venu Madhuri (www.venumadhuri.org). The volunteers involved in supporting this small village have brought success in several areas of rural development and the small hamlet is inching towards self-sufficiency.
Basil Partners along with Apar Industries (GAVS’ sister concern) seed-funded (www.annamrita.org) an NGO that has been feeding over 1 million underprivileged students through the midday meal program in India and has served over 17 million meals to the displaced migrant workers and other poverty-ridden families during the COVID 19 pandemic. They have also promoted the Bhakti Vedanta Hospital in Mumbai.
“The celebration of conscious capitalism is only complete when wealth is shared with the society,” quotes the CEO.
Technology- The Galvanizing Partner
In the New Normal, GAVS recognizes that embracing newer technologies will be the key. Having been an early adopter of Digital Transformation, GAVS is well placed to use new age tools and resources to be productive, creative, and secure. With the intent of keeping the experience seamless and consistent for all employees, we leveraged technology for learning and upskilling in these uncertain times. A mix of micro-learning, and virtual sessions were launched to enable learning needs.
With lines between work and family becoming blurry, GAVS’ culture of “listening with intent” is something that we have nurtured further. Mr Ganguli explains, “We are in the process of setting up a platform to gain insights through real-time employee pulse – as it will really help us keep a daily dialogue with our employees and act as a probe to get our employees’ opinion about GAVS, and this is truly important during these remote work practices, that have been inflicted on us.”
What Next?
Post-COVID-19, GAVS envisions a workforce that will be more technology agile, diverse, and comfortably productive being remote. The management team would want to nurture this mindset change with newer workplace practices, experience, and governance. GAVS has always strived to be among the better places to work for women, especially for returning mothers, and we would want to enhance our workplace practices to tap into a wider pool of talent with flexible work arrangements, redefine roles where appropriate, and look at productivity and performance again.
Mental and Psychological well-being of employees continues to take precedence. Workspaces will be redesigned with temperature checks, the safe distancing of cubicles, and spaces for occasional social interaction will be created. Continuous and real-time customer and employee feedback will remain critical, to be nimbler. Last but not the least, empathy is the need of the hour in the New Normal.
