Idaptive is Rising to a New Challenge
Idaptive is rising to the challenges presented by COVID 19 while ensuring employees retain the sense of belonging that is so integral to our culture.
Unprecedented times like the current COVID 19 crisis require organizational leaders and Human Resource teams to step up and rally together employees to build a community that supports each other. The ongoing pandemic has disrupted lives and livelihoods and forced us to confront new realities, both in the workforce and outside. Remote workers are here to stay, and organizations and HR teams must adopt and adapt to this paradigm shift towards virtual teams.
Our goal from the very outset of the outbreak, has been the safety and health of our employees, customers and partners without causing business disruption. We are incredibly fortunate that our technology ensures data remains protected, while enabling all of us to stay remotely connected and productive while staying healthy.
While the shift towards remote working has been seamless, what remains a challenge, is ensuring employees retain the sense of belonging that is so integral to our culture. Rising anxiety levels fueled by isolation and an uncertain environment have given employee engagement and interaction a whole new level of significance.
We have discovered that the best way to alleviate employee fears and anxieties during uncertain times is to keep communicating. Our communication to employees has taken many forms, from weekly email blasts and newsletters to virtual all hands and coffee sessions. We have tried to leverage both formal and informal channels of communication to enable a variety of interactions. From peer to peer interactions through chat channels and encouraging mangers to hold more frequent virtual team meetings, we have gone a step further to promote virtual video sessions to enable the entire organization to hear directly from the leadership. Our goal is to ensure employees remain connected to not only their immediate teams but to the larger organization as well.
At Idaptive, we realize the importance of encouraging employees to have fun as a stress buster, especially during crisis. Crossword games, online Easter egg hunts, community Games like Pictionary, Guess the Song, random polls have helped build a vibrant community of employees that enjoy the company of their colleagues and are not afraid to reach out to any other member of the Idaptive family for help and advice.
We also want to keep promoting our knowledge sharing culture, and weekly brown bag sessions hosted virtually have helped tremendously in ensuring employees are able to learn through osmosis.
At Idaptive we also believe in making a difference in the local communities that we live and operate in, especially when there is so much going wrong with the world around us. We have partnered with Kaiser Permanante to sponsor meals to health workers who have been at the frontlines battling this pandemic. Their courage deserves our appreciation and we are fortunate to be able contribute towards making their jobs a little easier.
It would be presumptuous to assume the current crisis is likely to fade away soon, nor are things likely to go back to the way they were when all this is behind us. As all of us prepare to adapt to a new world order, we at Idaptive, are lucky to have an incredibly talented community of people ready to explore new ways to adapt to a new reality.
Puja Singhal
Puja Singhal leads Idaptive’s global human resource function. She is responsible for the company’s human capital strategy, and oversees workforce planning, talent acquisition, talent development, compensation, rewards and engagement programs.
Puja brings more than 15 years of human resources experience to Idaptive and has worked across a variety of industries, including technology, media, Internet and consulting, ranging from start-ups to established multi-national businesses. A seasoned leader of global teams, she has expertise in championing change management across diverse functions and regions.
Prior to joining Idaptive, Puja spent a decade in consulting, advising C-level executives on change management, upscaling, leadership development and resource optimization.
Puja has co-authored 3 books on women entrepreneurship published by Penguin Random House.
Puja earned her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Master’s Degree in Business Management.
CHAMELEON-LIKE SUPERPOWER
If Puja could have any Chameleon-like superpower, it would be the chameleon's eyes, which can move independently of each other, enabling them to look in two different directions at once. “With a full 360-degree view and ability to focus eyes quickly and enlarge what I am looking at like a camera lens, I could probably finish reading a book twice as fast.”