IHCL

In line with the TATA Group ethos of serving the community at large, its own employees and setting new benchmarks, IHCL launched what can be termed as the four ‘S’ programmes.

Society

• When the country locked down, IHCL worked with the local authorities to provide nutritious meals to healthcare professionals, migrant workers and the police force. The Taj Public Service Welfare Trust (TPSWT), created in the aftermath of 26/11, spearheaded a large-scale initiative to distribute meals to healthcare providers and migrant workers across the country.
• The group hotels distributed over 2.6 million meals in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Agra during the time and hosted over 70,000 room nights for the medical community. Started on March 23, TajSATS, IHCL’s air catering arm, provided nutritious meals that were distributed with help of local state and central government bodies.
• IHCL also opened the doors of their various hotels to medical professionals. These rooms helped doctors and nurses spend less time commuting, thereby lowering the risk of viral transmission.

Soul

• The group hotels launched an ‘Employee Well-being Program’— a scalable app-based technology solution to positively impact health—in association with HealthifyMe and an ‘Employee Assistance Program’, a confidential counselling service.
• For associates whose livelihoods were adversely impacted by loss of business, especially at their partner-owned hotels, IHCL launched a benevolent fund under ‘Taj For Family’ to extend requisite monetary support in a transparent and fair manner.
• The group partnered with Cross Knowledge, a learning solutions platform, to access modules that have been created by thought leaders and experts from INSEAD, Cornell, Wharton and many other Ivy League universities.

Safety

• IHCL undertook several measures to re-strengthen their commitment of Tajness as a mark of assurance of authentic Indian hospitality. Among them: Renewed and heightened safety protocols, touch-less yet personalised guest experiences (I-ZEST), safer and regularly sanitised rooms and public areas, altered layouts for physical distancing and extensive training for all associates.

Stragility

• The hotel group launched a strategic framework called ‘R.E.S.E.T 2020’ to bring together all their efforts under one umbrella and ensure that their response to COVID-19 is executed with agility.
• R.E.S.E.T 2020 outlines initiatives in the areas of Revenue, Excellence, Spend Optimization, Effective Asset Management and Thrift and & Financial Prudence to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on their business so as to survive, revive and thrive in the post COVID world.
• In response to evolving guest needs, IHCL launched new business verticals such as Qmin—a repertoire of culinary experiences and innovative customer-focused initiatives to drive demand, such as 4D, Bizcations, Urban Getaways and Taj Wellness Retreats offers.

Rohit Khosla, Executive Vice President – Operations, North & West India

Covid-19 is an unprecedented challenge and the travel and tourism sector has been profoundly impacted with far reaching consequences. A few weeks into the pandemic, our immediate priority was the safety of all our guests and employees whilst being of service to the community and the people within it. Keenly aware of our commitment to societal responsibilities and as a purpose driven organization, IHCL worked with the local authorities to provide nutritious meals to the medical fraternity and migrant workers.  We distributed over 2.6 million meals during this time and hosted over 70,000 room nights for the  medical community apart from offering many of our hotels as quarantine facilities. 

Prabhat Verma, Executive Vice President – Operations, South India, International & Ancillary Businesses

“Whilst uncertainty still surrounds us as we don’t know long the pandemic will play out its course, we remain confident that with agility and our team’s single-minded pursuit of excellence, the company will weather yet another storm, just as we have done in the last 117 years. .The trust and emotional connect our brand evokes with its’s guests is unparalleled. Taj, our flagship brand, was recently rated as India’s Strongest Brand across all sectors by Brand Finance. This confidence reposed in us by our stakeholders gives all of us at IHCL the motivation to continue shaping the next phase of Indian hospitality”   

Frontline Heroes

Mohit Madaan, F&B, Taj Palace, New Delhi

During March and April, when the country first entered into a national lockdown, Mohit Madaan was part of the core team that delivered nutritious meals to frontline COVID warriors at hospitals in New Delhi.

He ensured that the delivery of lunches and dinners to the doctors and medical workers at LNJP Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College was being done on a timely basis. He was trained extensively in the protocols and guidelines as prescribed by local authorities. He also stayed on at the hotel amidst the lockdown to service the rooms of fellow citizens being repatriated back to the country as part of the Government of India’s Vande Bharat Mission.

As he says, “When the world is undergoing a difficult time, we must put in whatever efforts we can to the best of our abilities in order to serve those who need us the most”.

Chef Satyanarayana Adabala, Commis II – Food Production, Taj Krishna, Hyderabad

They say help comes in the most unexpected ways and from the most unexpected places. This surely held true for the hundreds of families who got help from Chef Satyanarayana Adabala.

Deeply disturbed by the sight of the lives of downtrodden families during the lockdown, he took it upon himself to procure groceries, make meals and distribute them in multiple slums where families were struggling to procure food for days.

Seeing his fabulous work, many of his colleagues and friends came forward to be a part of the initiative. In a matter of few days, the team of good Samaritans managed to reach out to multiple areas in Hyderabad such as Mehdipatnam and Lakdikapul, where impoverished families were in a bad shape.

Chef Satyanarayana extended his reach to help multiple other families in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh, where, too, people were in dire state. His journey led him to set up a sugarcane juice stall for a family whose breadwinner was paralyzed. He also assisted a pregnant lady whose family was unable to manage the hospital expenses during the lockdown, who was blessed with a healthy new born.