By – Varun Khaitan (Co-Founder, Urban Company) Mission Shakti is an initiative by Urban Company to protect the health, safety and well-being of its customers, service partners & employees. “...
4 min read
Mission Shakti is an initiative by Urban Company to protect the health, safety and well-being of its customers, service partners & employees.
“Tough times are inevitable in life and in business. How we compose ourselves during these times defines our spirit and also defines our future” – Richard Branson
In the first week of March, the excitement levels in the office were at their peak. The onset of summer is the busiest time of the year for us and, just like the previous four years, we had set our eyes on doubling the business between February and April. Everyone at the company had been preparing for this period since September 2019.
The COVID-19 crisis hit us just as we had pushed off from the starting blocks for the big summer season of 2020. Our first reaction was to protect our customers, partners and employees. We immediately provided free masks and sanitizers to our service partners, instituted hygiene protocols, such as hand-washing, purchased health & income insurance for all 27,000+ of them and moved all our 1,300 team members to work from home. Over the next two weeks, the situation rapidly escalated nationwide, leading to a complete lockdown that we are in today.
Learning about the nature of the disease and its impact across the world, it became quickly clear that the COVID-19 epidemic is going to significantly impact all our lives for the next 18 months, if not more. Hence, we started to think more strategically about the world post lockdowns. How should Urban Company protect the health, safety and well-being of its customers, service partners and employees in the months ahead?
Listening to our call of duty, we decided to channelize all our energy and resources towards a company-wide initiative — Mission Shakti.
“Inches of performance are worth more than miles of promises” – Unknown
The goal of Mission Shakti is to safeguard our employees and service partners, and provide to the country a safe platform for their service needs.
There are three key pillars of Mission Shakti aimed towards each of these goals –
As we slowly come out of the lockdown, most of us and our families will be in need of a haircut and other common services such as a beautician, electrician or an AC technician. In a world where it will be unsafe to step out into a market or call strangers home, we are working on multiple initiatives to make UC services as safe as possible. These include –
Additionally, we will be launching new categories like sanitation and disinfection.
A detailed blog on our efforts in Project Kavach is here.
There are 27,000+ service partners who depend on the UC platform for their livelihood. To help them in the current environment, the company instituted several measures.
A detailed blog on our efforts in Project Vishwas is here.
In these unprecedented and ambiguous times, we’re doing our best to keep the UC team well-connected and energized. Our measures are focussed on 4 key areas –
Interestingly, in a recent pulse check survey conducted in early April, our team NPS was at 55 — an all-time high in the history of Urban Company
A detailed blog on our efforts in Project Josh is here.
The human race has always risen to the occasion in times of crises — both in helping the disadvantaged among us and in evolving our capabilities for the future post the crisis. This time will be no different — we are seeing unprecedented commitment from governments, the medical fraternity, civil society, corporations and researchers all around us.
Whenever we come out of the lockdown and are slowly ready to resume our lives, Urban Company will be there to serve your needs in your home while ensuring safety and high-quality service delivery.
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