OYO has rolled out many employee well-being and work-life balance related initiatives to foster growth, happiness and holistic development of its employees. With a focus on wellbeing and work-life balance, OYO announced that all employees across teams will have a 5-day work week starting August 2020. 

In addition, a ‘weekend curfew’ will also be implemented where everyone will be encouraged to avoid calls, meetings, and messages on weekends and holidays. Managers and leaders will spearhead the initiatives to ensure employees have mandated work hours, take a personal time-out, avail annual holidays, and encourage a balanced approach to work-life, even while working from home.

The company also announced a series of other initiatives in this direction, and to help employees upskill and prepare for the changing needs of the hospitality industry. Some of these measures include-

Five day work week, weekend curfew & new ways of working: With effect from August 2020, all Saturdays across regional and corporate teams will be a holiday. There will be roasters for field roles that require working on Saturdays to ensure a five-day working week. There will be no scheduling of work calls and meetings or sending emails or Slack messages on weekends and holidays, ensuring complete weekend curfew unless it’s an emergency.

Hybrid Workplace Model: Employees in India will continue to follow the Hybrid Workplace model, giving them the flexibility of ‘working from anywhere’. Employees will be encouraged to make use of OYO’s co-working spaces for meeting as required.

OYO X Cure.fit: OYO has also partnered with Cure.fit to offer its 12 month-membership at specially negotiated rates, where OYO will bear 50% of the fee. The membership will offer unlimited access to digital sessions on fitness, dance, yoga, meditation, and health & wellness content, and a chance to participate in closed group corporate-level challenges.

Upskilling platforms: In order to offer upskilling and career growth opportunities by investing in employees’ professional growth, OYO launched Data Science Academy & Young Turks program. The Academy is designed to help upskilling existing talent to build a world-class data sciences and advanced analytics team and Young Turks is a capability building and functional learning program for OYO’s rising stars. The rigorous learning journey will be a mix of social, experiential, on-the-job training, and formal sessions.

Surprise Holiday: OYO also announced that it would offer employees a surprise holiday to showcase gratitude to employees, on Monday, August 17, 2020, in India (christened as OYOpendence day) so that employees can use the long-weekend to unwind, follow hobbies or simply catch up on pending personal chores.

Many firms are now introducing a host of wellness initiatives as employees struggle with striking a work-life balance in the pandemic. Recently, Razorpay, as part of some of its remote working initiatives, it has announced that the second Wednesday of every month will now be a ‘No Meeting Day’. This step is specifically meant to address the too many internal meetings that its employees end up being a part of because of the limited facetime with each other.