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Gender Inclusive Transparency is Key
While firms are adopting virtual strategies to balance business continuity and employee retention, the key plan of action must involve transparency. Since these are unchartered waters, companies are encouraging employees to be as transparent and open as possible when it comes to working from home, especially with deadlines in place. Although global reports have reported an increase in productivity due to the culture of remote work, the verdict may differ in a developing country versus a developed one.

Take the social dynamics in a typical Indian household, for example. Working women who are used to a certain nine-to-five lifestyle are suddenly finding it more tiring than men to juggle work from home. "A typical Indian woman, on an average, spends 300 minutes more than a man every day attending to household chores,” says Saundarya Rajesh, Founder-President, Avtar, a diversity and inclusion strategy firm.4 They're not able to find that balance which they earlier had segregating their time for both their office and household work. This may also be due to the stringent measures being taken during the current lockdown which inevitably translates into no help for these women. Managers have started getting calls from female employees who are, unfortunately, finding it difficult to cope with this new normal.

“Each manager is handling a diverse set of people whom they have to assess on their level of engagement during this time. We’re also looking at working on research projects in the interim so that we get a head start once all this is over.”
- Preeti Sharma
General Manager, Human Resources, Hines

Acknowledging these gaps is the first step towards helping women combat the novel coronavirus and its remote implications. This ensures top-down commitment towards building a culture of equal access to opportunities and resources.5 Developing a more robust support network by shifting focus from "time spent" to "quality of output" would be well appreciated and replicated. Another way would be to review all new policies from a gender lens therefore offering a more valuable assessment of your employees and their work. Using internal communications to share tips and tricks on how to home-school, delegate household chores, and even create a home workspace are also some ways to ensure you don't unconsciously miss out on the gender divide.

Other aspects to keep in mind pertain to the socio-economic status of each employee. There may be individuals who are dealing with the elderly at home while others, for example millennials, are living on their own in a new city without a family or help to support them. Global real estate investment firm, Hines, is approaching each case with an individual lens. "All employees have been given bite-sized goals which are more realistic and cater to each experience separately, " says Preeti Sharma, general manager, human resources for the firm. "Each manager is handling a diverse set of people whom they have to assess on their level of engagement during this time. We’re also looking at working on research projects in the interim so that we get a head start once all this is over. "