Organizational

Behaviour
Assignment

Akash Sharma
Himani Sharma
Kareena Shah
Priya Jain
Rajarshi Gupta
Taruni Jain
 INTRODUCTION

The outbreak of Covid-19 created a crisis on a global level which deeply impacted the world
in varied ways. While lakhs of people lost their lives, the pandemic left long-lasting scars on
pandemic survivors in numerous forms. The entire world witnessed a collapsing economy,
where some lost their jobs and some lost their lifelong savings. 

This pandemic shifted the focus towards the volatility and ambiguity of the changing times.
Where “work from home” was an alien concept for the majority of the organizations
operating in India, it suddenly became the buzzing phrase. No shift is smooth and
pandemic-led shift in the working cultures was definitely not an exception. While the kind
and amount of struggle encountered by the organizations were unique, the effects were
indeed far reaching. 

We interviewed 6 working professionals from different companies to have a deep dive into
the methods and strategies adopted by them, their teams, and their organizations to cope
with the change in the working conditions that the pandemic brought along.

Below are the details of the working professionals interviewed by the team members:

Student Name Interviewee Name Organization

Akash Sharma Mr Rahul Sharma ICICI Bank

Himani Sharma Ms Apoorva Prabhakar EY India

Kareena Shah Mr Satyam Choudhary DLF Ltd

Priya Jain Ms Charvi Shah Oracle India

Rajarshi Das Gupta Mr Rishav Mohan Yellow Messenger

Taruni Jain Mr Soumya Kanti Nath Coforge Ltd

 
We have collated the answers that we received from each organization to highlight the
difference in the strategies that varied across industries. Followed by each answer, we have
provided an analysis from the team.

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QUESTIONS – INDIVIDUAL

1. How did you redefine your work life balance during the pandemic?

ICICI Bank: Earlier there used to be dedicated work hours but now there is no end time in the day.
Sometimes it can stretch beyond midnight but there is flexibility to attend other non-work-related
works during the day which is the brighter side of the work from home.

EY India: The blurred lines between work and home have certainly been a challenge during the
pandemic. To attain work life balance during virtual working, it is critical to establish clear
boundaries and communicate the same to our stakeholders, team, colleagues, and superiors. I
personally make it a point to switch off from work outside office hours and on weekends.

DLF Ltd: Organisation was supportive and respectful of the fact more than ever to provide flexibility
in working hours. The major change that resulted in work life balance was defining a specific place to
work on. This not only helped focussing on work efficiently but also to set boundaries and spend time
with my family. Also, keeping in touch with my friends via video calling mode always kept my morale
high and I never felt alone in the lockdown.

Oracle India: I generally take short breaks twice a day and try to spend that time having Tea/Coffee
with my family. On weekdays, I manage to fetch some time in the evening for my yoga classes. Other
than that, my company allows me to work as per my convenience, so work life balance is not a major
issue.

Yellow Messenger: Creating an office-like workspace at home was important, the organisation
offered funds to help WFH setup for us. We spent time with others outside our immediate circle.
Remember back when we could grab coffee with a colleague and chat about work, social activities,
weekend plans, or just about anything else? Many people feel overwhelmed by meetings these days.
That’s in part because of what’s missing: small talk. Connections. Reach out to a colleague or someone
you haven’t spoken to recently and catch up over a 20-minute virtual coffee break.

Coforge Ltd: This pandemic affected work life balance hugely. Being at home resulted in longer
work durations which lead to an imbalance of work life balance. I am still working to figure out a way
to redefine my work life balance.

Analysis: Most of the interviewees still do not have a good work life balance. Their work hours have
been extended and they are expected to finish their work regardless of how much time it takes. The
companies are taking advantage of the fact that employees do not have to leave their workplace at a
certain time, possibly because they want to cover up for the losses due to the pandemic. Some have
figured out ways to balance work life slightly. But in a few cases, the employees do not have to put in
extra hours and are not facing any issues regarding this. Their companies respect the fact that the
employees should only work for the hours that they get paid for. However, this is the exception and
not the norm.

2. How do you generally handle disturbances or interruptions when working from

home?

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ICICI Bank: I have made a corner of the house as my designated work space and conveyed it to all
flatmates to avoid making any unnecessary noise during work hours.

EY India: One must not feel guilty if there are interruptions and disturbances. Leaders need to be
empathetic and understand that these are unusual circumstances and not everyone has the privilege
to have a separate room to themselves. I am fortunate enough to have a separate workspace that
allows me to isolate from the day-to-day disruptions at home. It does get distracting at times and
these are the moments I choose to work on operational tasks and save strategic ones for later.

DLF Ltd: Dedicating a specific workplace was the key factor to avoid disturbances. My family knew
about the workplace and the general working hours, so they knew their limits and didn’t interrupt
during my working hours.

Oracle India: I work from a spare apartment so I haven't faced this issue much.

Yellow Messenger: I usually sat in an isolated environment and concentrated hours of work so that
I could complete my daily tasks at a faster pace and then went on with the household chores during
breaks or once I am done with my day.

Coforge Ltd: You cannot get that office-like environment at home and there will be some
disturbances/interruptions while working from home. To handle it, I generally try to schedule my
other works accordingly so that those do not come up during my working hours. And if they do, I take
a break and stretch my day to complete my work.

Analysis- One thing which was common in all the interviews was that each one of them created a
dedicated workspace for their official work in an isolated area of home. Also, they informed their
family members or flatmates to not disturb them during office hours. During these unprecedented
times, the biggest support of these employees were their families who were understanding enough to
provide them space for working. But still there are times when there are unavoidable disturbances. At
that time, they tend to complete their operational tasks and at other times they try to complete their
strategic tasks.

3. What are the means you generally use to cope with the stress and digital fatigue
during this period?

ICICI Bank: I take a stroll below the apartment building or nearby market.

EY India: I ensure that I take regular tea/coffee breaks as I did when working from the office and I
also ensure that I get into informal conversations with my colleagues from time to time. This breaks
the monotony and enables us to fight the mental isolation fatigue of working remotely.

DLF Ltd: Spending more time with family is the golden activity that this pandemic has taught us.
Before this, spending family time was only limited to having meals together, but during the pandemic
we soon started playing indoor board games and watching comedy series on television.

Oracle India: Taking constant breaks helped a lot. Also, yoga helps me to reduce stress and focus
more.

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Yellow Messenger: I used to Trek and go to places which are scarcely crowded. I enjoyed the
natural and scenic landscapes to the fullest, this also gave me a chance to explore the hidden venues
in my hometown.

Coforge Ltd: Switching off from digital life completely for certain duration, meditation, listening to
soft music.

Analysis: Owing to the work from home in the initial months it was difficult to maintain a work life
balance and the digital fatigue took a toll. It meant working for long hours, staying glued to the
smartphones and laptops. However, while navigating to these disruptions, everyone came up with
ways to beat this work from home induced digital fatigue. Some of the ways which were followed by
our interviewees included taking frequent breaks, learning to switch off digital devices during break
time, indulging in extracurricular activities, spending more time with family, and venturing out into
nature.
When we take a close look at our lives right now, we have realized that we also spend a considerable
amount of time on our smartphones and round-the-clock internet because of which our lives have
completely changed. Work, fun, socializing, transacting, and almost everything has already switched
to online mode for a while now and so has stress and digital fatigue. The first step is to embrace the
fact that digital stress and fatigue exist and then taking necessary steps to reduce it through
recreational activities, like walks, hikes or run, switch off pop up notifications during the breaks, and
spend some time on self-care and self-talk.

4. Share your experience with setting up your home office. How would you like to
improve it?

ICICI Bank: I chose one corner of the apartment as my designated working space and I would like to
set up an office chair and table in future.

EY India: It is important to have a ‘work from home desk’ setup. It can be anywhere you are most
productive – your couch, dining table, bed, or that cosy spot by the balcony. Personally, I prefer
having a proper desk and chair as it helps me stay focused and maintain the right posture. I have set
up my work desk in my bedroom – well-lit and comfortable corner with a clutter free desk.

DLF Ltd: I don’t have a fully set-up home office, but a dedicated working place where I carry my
laptop and files to work with the team virtually. 

Oracle India: I didn't do anything fancy when it comes to my home office, simple table chair set up.
Since I was working from a different apartment, what I ensured was there was enough healthy food
around me to munch. So, I stocked up dry fruits, makhana, chana and peanuts! As of now, it seems
fine and I wouldn't want to change it.

Yellow Messenger: Our organisation helped us set up our home office with funds as well as goodies
delivered to our home, such as laptop tables, chairs, routers, and UPS. There is no scope of
improvement here as they have done their best making our work from home experience an awesome
one.

Coforge Ltd: My room is my office now and I don't think I would like to change anything. Maybe a
new chair! This one has taken a toll.

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Analysis: Initially setting up a dedicated space was a hassle as no one was accustomed to it and there
were inevitable disturbances. Some experienced bloopers but eventually everyone got used to it. The
importance of having a workspace with proper amenities was important since long hours have to be
spent there. The organizations were supportive enough and also invested in having a proper remote
workspace for the employees. Also, the working environment plays a key role in influencing employee
motivation, happiness and productivity. 

QUESTIONS – GROUP

1. How have you managed to maintain a healthy work relationship with your colleagues
during the pandemic?

ICICI Bank: We plan informal group calls twice a day on a regular basis which helps us to resolve
the doubts we all have which earlier could be resolved by approaching each other’s cabin or desk.

EY India: Virtual coffee breaks, virtual team activities (quizzes and other games), frequent informal
connections with leaders, knowledge sharing sessions and Partner webcasts.

DLF Ltd: Having regular team calls and meets didn’t allow us to feel the distance. Connecting over
calls with colleagues informally during free time also helped a lot.

Oracle India: Constant talks offline, not particularly pertaining to work, helped me develop a bond
with my colleagues and helped me to know them better.

Yellow Messenger: We used to have evening beverage sessions every Friday, where we had coffee
and snacks together. Also chatting during our break time to discuss what exactly is happening outside
our work helped.

Coforge Ltd: For this, we planned out a routine to try and complete the work that gets assigned for a
week by Thursday or latest by Friday first half so that we do not have any status calls/meetings in the
evening and can have some fun games online and take leave early. 

Analysis: It is very important to have healthy relationships in the workforce, staying connected with
the organisation and ensuring sufficient engagement. Mostly everyone tries connecting with their
colleagues offline and to interact informally which leads to a better personal relationship.

2. How did you ensure that new joiners get accustomed to the work culture of your
team/department?

ICICI Bank: Initially for a period of two to three months, a new joiner is allowed to learn work
during which a joiner is included in daily meetings to observe the work and how the work is done by
his/her seniors.

EY India: Our senior leadership has been personally connecting and engaging with the team
members, including new joiners to ensure their wellbeing and extend support wherever required. We
also have internal buddy programs where each new joiner is mapped to an employee to ensure

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smooth onboarding in the system.  We also conduct team calls to especially welcome new joiners and
interact with them to get to know them better.

DLF Ltd: Regularly connects with new joiners before joining and introducing the organisation over
call. Taking inputs from the new joiners to modify work pressure in the beginning made them gain
confidence over our organization. Frequent calls with managers boosted their confidence to new
levels. 

Oracle India: There was no hiring during this period in my department. 

Yellow Messenger: We greet them with a joining lunch sponsored by the team, delivered on their
doorstep, we sit and have lunch together and help him familiarize with the work culture and his own
experiences.

Coforge Ltd: This is really a tricky one for me to answer as no new joiners are there in my team. 

Analysis: Many employees who were hired during this time started their careers working remotely,
which itself was a challenge because of lack of physical presence. A number of ways were sought after
by organizations and individual departments to ensure new joiners got accustomed to the work
culture. A number of steps were taken by different organizations like having a conversation with them
about departmental values and expectations, expectations, frequent updates and constant
engagement. However, in some organizations and departments there was no hiring at all. 
The advantages of engagement are manyfold and no department can compromise on work culture.
Even when we joined as students at IMI we were made accustomed to its culture through various
formal and informal events like know your seniors and simulations. All of us got a glimpse of how
MBA journey is going to be and how to get along with the culture and diversity at IMI. 

3. How is team bonding being affected due to work from home?

ICICI Bank: The team bonding definitely had an impact as the normal chit-chat over the coffee was
not possible anymore. But to overcome this issue the daily scheduled informal call helps everyone.

EY India: It is different to connect virtually as we don’t have team outings. But the leadership team
puts a great focus on strengthening connections with our people and making them feel involved and
included.  We have regular virtual meetings with teams through various forums and Team Huddles.
Focused efforts have been taken to keep people informed and updated on what we as an organization
are doing to address the challenges brought in by COVID-19, reiterate the importance of coming
together, staying resilient & positive.

DLF Ltd: Initially it was a cumbersome process, but with trial and error we soon came up with a
system that worked efficiently for us. Frequent informal calls helped a lot for team bonding. 

Oracle India: It is obviously different from what I thought it would be, the personal touch and
connection seems missing. Sometimes, understanding someone's point virtually becomes challenging.

Yellow Messenger: Since we are not meeting in person it definitely has affected the team bonding,
the real joy of working together comes while we are under one roof working with a high team spirit,
also this helps understand each other better.

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Coforge Ltd: Everything is done virtually. Be it work or team bonding exercises. So the charm of
working together being on the same floor or while taking part in various fun games is missing greatly.

Analysis- While working from home, team bonding was the most affected factor among the
employees. People whom we interviewed shared their experiences and told us the impact on team
bonding. Major challenge was to build an understanding with each other due to less personal touch
and connection between team members. 
The only possible solution, which was common in all the organizations, was to have regular informal
meetings to build team bonding. These meetings are much needed to build understanding of each
other and to create a personal and healthy connection among team members.

QUESTIONS – ORGANIZATION

1. How did your organization cope innovatively through Covid-19?

ICICI Bank: From the organisation's business perspective, our bank brought in plans to digitally on-
board the customers and also re-evaluation of each sector and product fitment according to that.

EY India: There has been a lot of anxiety and stress among people about what the future looks like.
We have rolled out counselling support, tied up with an external partner, and now employees can call
up and talk to experts. We have also rolled out online doctor consultations with an external partner,
because people understandably do not want to go to hospitals unless absolutely necessary. We are
leveraging virtual learning capabilities through a tie-up with Udemy, where employees get free access
to over 3,000 courses across the board. All these initiatives of ours are seeing good usage.

DLF Ltd: During the pandemic we introduced employee well-being sessions to help them stay
fit mentally and physically. Frequent counselling sessions for employees were held and informal calls
made us sail the rough sea with ease.

Oracle India: I have recently joined Oracle and certain impressive policies that I came across were
Covid Vaccination drives for myself and my dependents, Monthly Ergonomic session with experts to
manage long WFH working hours and personal counselling sessions for employees who are suffering
mentally owing to Covid 19. 

Yellow Messenger: My organisation offers me a complete work life balance with 4 working days in
a month and a strict 9 AM - 6 PM work timings which lets me have enough time for myself.
Additionally, we had a lot of team-building exercises virtually which was and kept our energies high.

Coforge Ltd: I don't feel that my organization could cope up innovatively.

Analysis: Answers hugely varied in this section, as the various companies have different approaches
to deal with the pandemic. Counselling sessions were one common approach taken by a few
companies to look after the mental health of their employees. Also, while the methods themselves
varied, most of the companies seemed to try to boost the morale of their employees. This is reflected
in several of the activities organized by the companies such as team building sessions, vaccination
drives, virtual learning programmes, etc. Out of the six, one company doesn’t seem to have made any
innovative reforms to make the lives of the employees easier (according to the employee). Also, while
this is an answer shared by only one employee, it is pretty obvious that more and more companies are
going for virtual onboarding. 

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2. What steps are your organization taking to bridge the communication gap between
team members?

ICICI Bank: As I am working in the head office of a financial institution, the government has
provided us liberty to allow few people to attend office and our team has planned one day in a week to
assemble and resolve the doubts over the meeting.

EY India: Our leaders are staying actively connected with teams; managers are connecting with
employees at least 2-3 times a week where the whole team comes on a video call. Managers are tasked
with being responsible for building alignment and helping employees understand the new kind of
work they are doing, checking on their personal wellbeing, and making sure they are fully engaged.
Teams are now having more regular huddles over video catch ups. Our overall connection has
increased.

DLF Ltd:
● Weekly team meetings and informal calls never made us feel the distance.
● Having weekly team meeting and organising monthly lunch for team for better connect

Oracle India: Regular team meetings, official and unofficial. Team building events and town hall
meetings.

Yellow Messenger: We have a lot of team-building exercises organised by our HR, planned team
activities, Fun-Fridays which helps us bridge the communication gap between team members.

Coforge Ltd: We have to take multiple audio/video calls in a day to ensure everyone is on the same
page. I don't think there is any communication gap between team members.

Analysis: As the pandemic hit, companies had a huge challenge in front of them to cope up with
management of their human resource as they were working from far flung areas and inter team
communication became a hurdle. Communication between team members is the most important
criteria to bring all the people working on a project on the same platform so that there is info parity
among the team members and consensus can be brought in. As per our analysis, we found that team
calls over different platforms like Webex, google meet or zoom was the go-to solution. Among other
things was weekly meetings in town hall or monthly lunch.

3. How did your organization measure employees' productivity and review them?

ICICI Bank: Frankly speaking I don’t have much idea about how HR works. But there is a weekly
meeting held with HOD wherein he takes updates from us.

EY India: We’ve had a bit of an advantage in this respect because as a consulting organisation, we
don’t really have fixed teams. Our teams depend on our projects and employees may be working out
of other offices and not necessarily always in front of their managers. So, our people are quite used to
interacting remotely. However, during these times, we have felt more strongly the need for regular
feedback, recognition, celebrating achievements, and appreciating extraordinary efforts. A lot of input
has been given to managers to ensure that they’re continuing to talk to their teams, discussing goals,
giving, and seeking feedback, discussing outcomes, and allowing the team to react, recalibrate, and

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adjust to ongoing uncertainty. Our performance management structure has always been very
qualitative in nature, and we are continuing to rely on regular conversations to keep the ball rolling.

DLF Ltd: Frequent one to one interaction with the manager. Providing daily updates to managers
and publishing the daily dashboard of productivity.

Oracle India: N/A

Yellow Messenger: The employee productivity was measured by their performance and the Targets
they achieved every quarter, also the new responsibilities they take. 

Coforge Limited: By using time tracking tools and by having monthly meetings to review
performance.

Analysis: An employee’s productivity is measured by checking if they could meet the target assigned
to them over a time period. In the sales domain these are well-defined targets, while in most others,
they are less so. Productivity is measured typically in two ways- either with the help of tools which
track the work they do or the time they work for, or via meeting with a superior who takes updates
from the employee about their progress. Performance is almost always reviewed during one-to-one
sessions with their managers/supervisors on a regular basis.

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