'This is the time to walk that extra mile'

As the industry takes up the work-from-home (WFH) culture in the wake of concerted efforts to stem the COVID-19 threat and to ensure business continuity, Ashish Bhasin, CEO APAC and Chairman India, Dentsu Aegis Network shares his viewpoint on this unprecedented situation and the approach to WFH. 

Speaking about the WFH culture, Ashish states, “I have spent 32 years in this industry now and never ever have I been much of an advocate of work-from-home (WFH). This is, therefore, as much new to me as it is for many of us across the world.” This week marks the biggest ever lockdown in the history as India declares work-from-home for almost every industry. This sure will require a unique kind of preparedness from the individuals and the institutes as a whole to maintain any kind of business continuity. “People are anxious at times like these and so, it is doubly important for leaders to connect more, and not less, with their teams,” says Ashish.

DAN has created a WFH culture within the days leading up to the lockdown. Ashish comments, “We immediately formed and activated a Management Incident Team which became part of our Business Contingency Plan framework pertaining to Covid-19. It met every week and monitored the situation right from the time the first case was announced in India. IT and tech-support were systematically put in place to support WFH in anticipation; travel advisories were issued and everything that could potentially prove to be a roadblock to Business Continuity was discussed and taken care of.”

Ashish Bhasin draws to the attention that this is no time to sit back, but rather, walk that extra mile to keep the business running through every means available. Ashish thanks his hardworking team for their efforts to arrange and adapt to this new working setup, saying, “We are leveraging technology to engage in face-to-face communications and getting used to video calls in our everyday lives. For now, work continues as usual. And yes, hats off to my hard-working team in APAC and India who keep surprising me by their incredible commitment as top-class professionals.”