The Challenge: With the pandemic looming over our heads, the shift to remote working was a necessity. In one of the largest implementations at our organization, we had to shift 1500 users to a work from home model. Can we chase an aggressive timeline of 1 month, even though the experts proposed a 6-month timeline?
Story:
Who is a warrior? Warriors are people guarding the border, holding down the fort, and protecting our core business operations. In IT, our warriors are our hard-working engineers – the people who made our professional lives easy during the pandemic.
Even before the pandemic, the remote working model was part of our business continuity plan (BCP). But it was limited to a short duration, a few days or weeks at most. In due time we realized that this was the new normal. We had to secure our digital workforce and safeguard against potential risks.
To ease our woes, we approached Microsoft for a quick resolution. Their proposed timeline of 6 months failed to meet our urgent operational needs. SSG team rose to the occasion and worked relentlessly. We undertook one of the largest implementations of the organization. Working long shifts, my team shifted over 1500 users to a remote working model. The youngsters stayed 24/7 in the office, holding the fort and addressing every issue that came through. Each targeted 10-15 systems and worked in shifts to complete imaging on an average of 100 laptops per day, till we met our quota. All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the joint team effort of all our colleagues.
Don’t focus only on your payslips, your life is also important. Give prime importance to your personal and family life.
Fifteen years in this reputed Global Organisation Bahwan Cybertek Pvt Ltd, I deem my workplace my second home. My zestful team has been with me, working together as a close-knit family. We have experienced certain challenges during this pandemic and still fulfilled all the work requirements by working in unison, encouraging, and trusting each other.
It was unfortunate that one of my team members met with an accident and it was very comforting when the entire organization came together to help him. I received the call at 5 AM from my distraught colleague for immediate medical care. I reached out to the doctors in my family, arranged for a bed, and helped him get emergency treatment. When our Group CEO Mr. Durgaprasad. S heard about the incident, he took over his medical bills and ensured that he received the best possible treatment.
COVID has taught us an important lesson of taking care of people and being sensitive to their needs. Treat everyone as a family; money is important but maintaining good health should be of prime importance. My sincere gratitude to our Group CEO Mr. Durgaprasad. S and our reporting head and CIO, Mr. Chandy for being our strong pillars of support.
I am sure that the work mode followed now will be the new normal. Not all of us will be able to get back to our workplace. Most organizations will adopt a hybrid model of working. We look forward to the change in the work environment and have prepared a long-term BCP plan. To stay ahead of the pandemic crisis, we’ve taken crucial steps in ensuring information security. Being a security-conscious organization, we’ve ensured the protection of our digital assets with detailed work from home policies, security awareness initiatives, and security training. We’ve performed a thorough risk assessment for operations and asset-based information security. A detailed system support group matrix has introduced the culture of process institutionalization in the organization.
The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”. True to the words from Socrates “accepting and adapting to change is a continuous practice in my personal life.