Hari Kumar Somalraju is truly a man with a vision. His outstanding team work during the
pandemic has been widely appreciated. Here’s a glimpse into how Somalraju could make significant decisions professionally and kept his entire team cared for.
Armed with over 23 years of experience in leadership roles in the transportation sector in India and APA region, Somalraju obtained his Bachelors & Masters degree in Civil Engineering from NIT Warangal and AMP from IIM Bangalore. Somalraju is currently officiating as the Managing Director of Systra India, which is a leading French engineering consulting firm. The firm is undertaking design and project managemen t consulting projects for majority of rail and metro projects in India.
His zeal to always deliver more than expected indeed kept him going during the time he himself contracted Covid-19 infection. His planning style evolved during this phase. Somalraju is a habitual planner. Even in his official duties within the organisation, he efficiently aims to deliver enhanced value to the clients. All the clients gladly recognise this attribute about him.
WFH GUIDELINES
Covid-19 crisis has led all the industry leaders to adopt to a quick decision-making workstyle. It has been more challenging for companies like Systra, where WFH (Work From Home) was relatively a newer concept.
Thriving for excellence with connected teams has been my vision. This is what makes Systra a true market leader. It was challenging to provide a great working environment for the employees during WFH. But with constant motivation for employees, we were able to achieve the increased production efficiency during the crisis, says Somalraju.
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FITNESS & TRAVEL
I have always believed that a healthy mind resides in a healthy body and have continued my 45 minutes morning exercise daily during the pandemic. During my meetings, I encouraged and motivated my employees to do physical exercise once a day to ensure good physical and mental well-being, Somalraju adds. Hoping for better days ahead to travel freely and explore new cultures, Somalraju says, Travelling has been my passion and I learned a lot by meeting new people. I am looking forward for the pandemic to get over with so that I can simply travel again.
TRUST YOUR EMPLOYEES
Connected Teams as a vision of Systra has become more important than ever during this pandemic. We have ensured that our teams are well-connected through various platforms like Teams and Skype for effective task execution. Employees can consult their team leads in case of any requirement . work or personal. Increased trust in the employees enables them to take enhanced ownership of their work, Somalraju concludes with a happy smile.
Working from home is an expense, it includes these five costs
Costs of WFH
(Based on text by Devashish Chakravarty)
We have all adapted ourselves to this new mode of working and the new worklife normal, ie. work from home (WFH). What started out as a temporary arrangement to counter the spread of the novel coronavirus, has now become a prolonged reality for many companies and employees.
The notion of WFH is often accompanied by the understanding that one gets to save on many expenses due to the lack of commute to office. However, that may not be entirely true. You are incurring certain higher expenses too. Identifying these hidden costs of working from home may give you the much-needed motivation to ask for a pay raise or quote a more satisfactory figure when you next consider making a job switch. Here are five costs that come with the WFH arrangement.
Utilities
When you work from home, all that you consume is out of your own pocket. An entire day at home with several appliances on adds to your electricity bill. In cities with extreme temperatures, air conditioning/heating costs can be immense. Other expenses may include your personal computer, printer, office supplies. Coffee, food, snacks, beverages replace free coffee machines and subsidised canteens. If you support your family or run the household, the utility cost of all family members being at home entails major expenses too.
Insurance policies
If you are a contract worker on WFH, your biggest sensible expenses are health and life insurance, which are otherwise covered by your employer. If you are a desk worker, your health deteriorates and medical costs increase as activity levels drop further without the mandatory commute to work. Moreover, keeping in mind the highly contagious and infections nature of covid-19, the burden of medical expenses is overwhelming too.
Isolation and distancing
Intangible as they may be, they are big costs nonetheless. Your relationships and sanity may be impacted as your social skills take a hit. Remote working isolates you from the contact and connect that an office provides. Even if you previously kept your social life on the down low, going to office provided the bare minimum amount of meet and greet and human touch, which is essential in life. Cases of depression, anxiety and loneliness have been ample in this lockdown. Finally, fewer professional relationships and slashed networking opportunities lead to a drop in opportunities and income.
Uncertainty, lack of clarity
If you are at office, working on a project or in a team, you are exposed to constant professional interaction in the environment which gives you valuable information on the state of your company, manager’s priorities and office politics. Without that, WFH reduces your control over career outcomes and thus increases uncertainty and stress.
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