An issue no less important than others faced by an organization during the COVID-19 outbreak is how to take care of employees and staff so that they are safe from the infection and spread of the disease, and to help employees maintain a healthy work-life balance in the “new normal.”
At Ngern Tid Lor, the key strategy used by our executives to get more than 5,000 employees safely through the crisis when the number of COVID-19 cases in Thailand skyrocketed, and to keep the business operating smoothly is:
Stay up-to-date and stay informed by updating and analyzing news, both domestic and international, to find directions and develop policies and measures, and by communicating them clearly and quickly in order to keep employees informed and ready to act.
Communicate Regularly to Keep Employees Feel at Ease
In Mid-February when the number of COVID-19 cases in Thailand was still low, Ngern Tid Lor announced a plan to protect employees from COVID-19 by prohibiting employees from traveling to at-risk countries and publicizing ways to protect themselves from infection such as wearing a face mask, eating hot food, and not sharing spoons.
We also adopted new ways of working. In the past, we used to encourage employees to share common areas to build close relationships, but now we are encouraging employees to practice social distancing, including using remote conferencing technologies, setting up tables and chairs at a safe distance, and cancelling all club activities, to prevent the infection and spread of COVID-19.
The central administration continues to communicate with employees on a regular basis, perhaps even more frequently than usual. Because the results of the survey we conducted in the early phase of the crisis show that employees were worried about their health and work, we decided to use multiple forms of communication, including communication from executives to build employee morale and various activities through the organization’s social media to relieve employees’ anxiety and promote workplace confidence.
Caring for Employees Through Comprehensive Welfare
To build confidence and alleviate employee concerns—especially branch staff who are frontline employees providing essential services to customers—we have issued an announcement regarding the right to receive medical treatment for COVID-19 which is already covered in the insurance plan Ngern Tid Lor offers to all employees. Moreover, we have measures for screening employees who are at risk of infection, and we send them for COVID-19 tests at our own expense. For example, when it is found that a customer infected with COVID-19 or who has had close contact with a COVID-19 patient visits a Ngern Tid Lor branch, the branch must notify the COVID War Room at the headquarters in order to close the branch for disinfecting before sending the backup staff to work at that branch, while the branch staff are quarantined at home for 14 days.
COVID-19 tests are available at no cost to employees who are at risk because Ngern Tid Lor has an explicit measure to be responsible for all testing costs for at-risk employees.
Furthermore, to boost confidence and create peace of mind for employees’ families, Ngern Tid Lor, as a major insurance broker company, offers a privilege to employees to purchase COVID-19 insurance at a special price for their family members and relatives.
Employee Safety and Survival Come First
Ngern Tid Lor has prepared its IT system to support work from home. It has had a policy to allow some employees to work from home in order to reduce congestion in the headquarters since before the lockdown announcement.
In addition to providing tools and equipment for reducing the risk of infection and spread of COVID-19, such as cloth face masks, hand-wash gels, thermometers, gloves, and plastic shields, to our employees at the headquarters and branches, we also reduced the working hours of employees at certain branches so that they could return home safely before the curfew started.
To eliminate concern about the curfew, we also rented a room at The Quarter Hotel near Ari Hills Building, where our headquarters is located, for our IT staff who worked overtime to support equipment and the online operation system to enable both branch and headquarters staff to work and serve customers without disruption.
When the number of COVID-19 cases in Thailand started to rise and the government started to send a signal to lockdown Bangkok and Thailand in order to slow down the infection rate, nobody could tell how long the lockdown would last.
Ngern Tid Lor’s executives decided to pay monthly salaries and annual bonuses ahead of time in order to allow employees—especially those on low salaries, to have money to buy food and necessities, since many people were starting to stock up food supplies and essential items, and some necessary goods were becoming scarce.
This is one positive aspect of COVID-19 that attests to the caring and sincerity of Ngern Tid Lor’s executives; a key factor that gets us through difficult times together.
At Ngern Tid Lor, the key strategy used by our executives to get more than 5,000 employees safely through the crisis when the number of COVID-19 cases in Thailand skyrocketed, and to keep the business operating smoothly is:
Stay up-to-date and stay informed by updating and analyzing news, both domestic and international, to find directions and develop policies and measures, and by communicating them clearly and quickly in order to keep employees informed and ready to act.
Communicate Regularly to Keep Employees Feel at Ease
In Mid-February when the number of COVID-19 cases in Thailand was still low, Ngern Tid Lor announced a plan to protect employees from COVID-19 by prohibiting employees from traveling to at-risk countries and publicizing ways to protect themselves from infection such as wearing a face mask, eating hot food, and not sharing spoons.
We also adopted new ways of working. In the past, we used to encourage employees to share common areas to build close relationships, but now we are encouraging employees to practice social distancing, including using remote conferencing technologies, setting up tables and chairs at a safe distance, and cancelling all club activities, to prevent the infection and spread of COVID-19.
The central administration continues to communicate with employees on a regular basis, perhaps even more frequently than usual. Because the results of the survey we conducted in the early phase of the crisis show that employees were worried about their health and work, we decided to use multiple forms of communication, including communication from executives to build employee morale and various activities through the organization’s social media to relieve employees’ anxiety and promote workplace confidence.
Caring for Employees Through Comprehensive Welfare
To build confidence and alleviate employee concerns—especially branch staff who are frontline employees providing essential services to customers—we have issued an announcement regarding the right to receive medical treatment for COVID-19 which is already covered in the insurance plan Ngern Tid Lor offers to all employees. Moreover, we have measures for screening employees who are at risk of infection, and we send them for COVID-19 tests at our own expense. For example, when it is found that a customer infected with COVID-19 or who has had close contact with a COVID-19 patient visits a Ngern Tid Lor branch, the branch must notify the COVID War Room at the headquarters in order to close the branch for disinfecting before sending the backup staff to work at that branch, while the branch staff are quarantined at home for 14 days.
COVID-19 tests are available at no cost to employees who are at risk because Ngern Tid Lor has an explicit measure to be responsible for all testing costs for at-risk employees.
Furthermore, to boost confidence and create peace of mind for employees’ families, Ngern Tid Lor, as a major insurance broker company, offers a privilege to employees to purchase COVID-19 insurance at a special price for their family members and relatives.
Employee Safety and Survival Come First
Ngern Tid Lor has prepared its IT system to support work from home. It has had a policy to allow some employees to work from home in order to reduce congestion in the headquarters since before the lockdown announcement.
In addition to providing tools and equipment for reducing the risk of infection and spread of COVID-19, such as cloth face masks, hand-wash gels, thermometers, gloves, and plastic shields, to our employees at the headquarters and branches, we also reduced the working hours of employees at certain branches so that they could return home safely before the curfew started.
To eliminate concern about the curfew, we also rented a room at The Quarter Hotel near Ari Hills Building, where our headquarters is located, for our IT staff who worked overtime to support equipment and the online operation system to enable both branch and headquarters staff to work and serve customers without disruption.
When the number of COVID-19 cases in Thailand started to rise and the government started to send a signal to lockdown Bangkok and Thailand in order to slow down the infection rate, nobody could tell how long the lockdown would last.
Ngern Tid Lor’s executives decided to pay monthly salaries and annual bonuses ahead of time in order to allow employees—especially those on low salaries, to have money to buy food and necessities, since many people were starting to stock up food supplies and essential items, and some necessary goods were becoming scarce.
This is one positive aspect of COVID-19 that attests to the caring and sincerity of Ngern Tid Lor’s executives; a key factor that gets us through difficult times together.