Frequent trips to the kitchen have replaced the office coffee and cookies, and play sessions with kids and pets have taken the place of work breaks with colleagues. At Myntra, as we transitioned into a ‘new normal’, we realized it is extremely important to keep our young and dynamic workforce engaged fruitfully. In the times of social distancing, employee engagement initiatives have taken precedence. We explored several tools and undertook initiatives to ensure a seamless transition for our employees.

Nothing can keep us away from learning!

We believe that working remotely can give rise to many new opportunities to learn and upgrade skills. Myntraites have taken utmost advantage of learning and development resources. We have a variety of digital learning offerings, with partners like Udemy and O’Reilly, Safari, Business of Fashion, and many more. There can never be a bad time to learn from the brightest minds in the industry! We seamlessly transitioned some of our manager development programs online; few teams also participated in learning how to ace presentation-making skills, in a session by the Dale Carnegie Institute.

We have one of the most energetic and dynamic workforces in the industry, making it necessary for us to blur the boundaries between work and play for them! They may be missing the TT table, cricket nets, or foosball table, so we have a lot of virtual engaging activities where they can let their hair down and enjoy the break.

Using game mechanics on platforms like Zoom and Hangouts, we devised sessions of virtual board games that sharpen skills such as stakeholder management and influencing. Besides that, the Myntra Learning League is a one of its kind experience for Myntraites. It is a game based learning format on building skills on negotiation, conflict resolution, leadership and team management.

Employee well-being is our foremost priority

One of the key initiatives has been to iron out teething issues related to working from home. We have been sharing interesting productivity hacks with employees to make their ‘new normal’ experience even better. This adds to a sense of being part of the same community, as employees realize that we are all part of a similar journey, on the work and home front, and jointly try to address those. We also created a learning path on Udemy that has every resource to learn about best practices to work from home.

As our employees embrace the change, we strive to provide them with multiple avenues to take care of their health. We launched Myntra Fitness challenges and organized sessions on mediation and rejuvenation, to provide access to physical and mental fitness lessons for all our employees virtually. Myntraites can take part in these challenges and win prizes!

We have a round the clock Employee Assistance Program available for employees and their families. As an essential service, we have also enabled “Doctor on Call” for our employees. Additionally, they can avail guaranteed food delivery at their homes during the lockdown. We have also hosted financial wellness sessions to support our employees during these challenging times.

On the lighter side – it’s important to have fun

Working remotely can sometimes take a toll on people’s stress levels or leave them feeling bored. This prompted us to introduce various lighthearted campaigns to keep things interesting and motivating for our employees. Through campaigns such as the WFH Mantra, Myntraites have been able to share their WFH activities and what motivates them and gets them through their quarantine ordeals.

To add a cuteness quotient to our campaigns we welcomed into our world, their furry friends, or Furry Cheerleaders, as we’d like to call them. They were playful and enjoyed attending work calls and zoom meetings as well!

And while our Myntra family may be working miles apart from each other, the team remains in sync as ever. The Catalog Video team demonstrates how they are breezing through WFH!

Virtual onboarding at Myntra

We are continually working towards the well-being and engagement of our employees during this tough period. At the same time, welcoming new members seamlessly, while ensuring their safety was also a priority for us. We were able to quickly adapt to the evolving conditions and remotely onboard all offered candidates on time. We have transitioned our onboarding processes – for both lateral as well as campus hires, including interns – to a virtual setup and continue to keep the engagement levels high.

As we strive to make the work from home experience as engaging and employee-friendly as possible, we hope to emerge stronger and wiser at the other side of the new normal.