Office buzz

What’s the one thing that can get employees to voluntarily stay back in office for, post work? Cricket, of course. A host of companies are using IPL matches to do some informal team-building and bonding activities. At co-working place GoWork’s Gurugram location, where 37 companies have offices and over 5,000 people work, come evening you can see the action shift to the big LED screens. According to Sudeep Singh, CEO of GoWork, many of the offices at the facility are 24/7 enterprises so the evening shift workers like to catch the IPL action – but so do some of those whose shift ends earlier. GoWork has created ‘predict the winner’ contests around the matches. Ditto at the 80 people-strong content platform Momspresso, which is also organising a slogan contest around the IPL. Interestingly, both GoWork and Momspresso report that men and women stay back — women more so!

Ice cream brand Havmor, a wholly-owned subsidiary of South Korean Lotte Confectionery, is back with its Coolest Summer job campaign (on from April 8 to May 25) where it hires a few chief tasting officers (CTOs). In the third year of this campaign, Havmor has roped in chef Saransh Goila to mentor and guide the tasting officers. The key role of CTOs will be to taste various ice cream flavours as well as invent new ones that will appeal to the Indian palate.

It’s a serious job and can lead to the birth of some great flavours, says the company. In previous seasons, for instance, winners invented and introduced flavours such as the Chai Biscuit, Jal Jeera, Mojito, Rose Petal Punch, Fruit Custard and Fruit Punch. Candidates can apply for this job at: www.havmor.com/thecoolestsummerjob

Device-to-cloud cyber security company McAfee says it has achieved global gender pay parity. McAfee defines gender pay parity as fair and equal pay for employees in the same job, level and location, controlling for pay differentiators such as performance, tenure and experience, regardless of gender.

Through an extensive audit covering 45 countries and more than 7,000 employees, McAfee identified gender pay gaps in nine countries. Closing the gap required an investment of $4 million. Salary adjustments were made on April 1, 2019, and the company says it will continue to monitor and address pay parity annually.

Stress levels in India are very high compared to other developed and emerging countries such as the US, the UK, Germany, France and Australia, says a survey by Cigna TTK Health Insurance. The “2019 Cigna 360 Well Being Survey – Well and Beyond,” which surveyed 13,200 people in 23 markets, reveals that almost 82 per cent of India’s population is suffering from stress and those in the sandwich generation (aged 35-49) are most affected, with around 89 per cent reporting some level of stress. The major causes of stress in the country today are work, health, and finance-related issues.

Contrary to global findings, in India, men (85 per cent) are more stressed than working women (82 per cent). Similar to other markets, the majority of women (87 per cent) think that workplace wellness programmes need to better address the specific needs of each gender, while 63 per cent feel that senior management do not seriously support these programmes.

Tech workers in China are protesting online against the 996 work culture, which refers to the 9 am to 9 pm workday, six days a week, in the country. Several posts on Microsoft’s GitHub code hosting platform have gone viral. In these, many workers shared examples of excessive overtime. “What’s the difference between these 996 companies and the old landlords who oppressed peasants?" says one post. Alibaba Group Holding, JD.com, and drone maker DJI Technology were among the firms employees shared their angst about.