COVID-19 took everyone by surprise. No one had the time to think as to what needs to be done or how it should be done in such a situation. Though all my plans were thrown aside in an instant, it was a welcome change in terms of the “me-time”. For long, I had been wanting to work on a few things, but was unable to due to paucity of time.
The first issue that confronted me was how to manage work. We have around 3,500 clients and we couldn’t possibly leave them. So, the six core members of our company started working from home after working out the new logistics. We reset everything. Online meetings began. It was difficult to begin with as none of us had this kind of experience but over time we became experts. You have to do firefighting if your house is on fire.
As days passed, things became clearer and business recovered. In fact, we have had a phenomenal recovery and I am sure this is how the business will be run from now on.Our work involves a lot of prepaid cards, rewards and expense management. Among these, the virtual card business shot through the roof. It was simply unexpected, but a huge and welcome change for us. The segment showed us a 600 per cent growth. As business picked up, it reduced our tensions. A few days later, we informed our employees that all they needed to do was work four to five hours a day and enjoy their “me-time”. I also do that. And this has helped me appreciate smaller things in life.
Personally, during the last 20 years plus of my professional life, I never got an opportunity to take a clean break like this. And here I am – working at my own pace, on schedules I decide – four hours in the mornings, one hour in the afternoons and a couple of hours in the evenings. Rest of the time I spend trying to figure out how I can improve my life.
The “me-time” is also spent indulging in a lot of self-introspection – on what I did when I did and what would have happened if I had done this and not that? I want to see a better me post COVID-19.As I had shifted to my farm just before the lockdown was announced, I am spending quality time doing farming, reading, watching Netflix movies and attending webinars. The farm was once home to a lot of bird species, which had disappeared over time. All of them are back now.
We are also indulging in CSR activities – distributing PPE kits to hospitals and food packets to the needy within a radius of 10 km. The aim is that no one should go hungry. We have also adopted 14 villages where each one of us, on rotation, visits to check the needs of the villagers and then tries and fulfils it.
One major positive and welcome change during this period in me is that I have started respecting the police force a lot. From being ‘police against people’ they have become ‘police for people’.
(Raj N Phani, the Founder of Zaggle, an award-winning FinTech company, spoke to Rajkumari Sharma Tankha)