There is a notion that the Corona pandemic has affected the job market, and the employment rate degenerated during last year. But there is a Mumbai—based company scope T&M Pvt Ltd, a power sector enterprise that has set an example before the world by generating new jobs during the pandemic with increasing profits.
Scope retained the existing workforce and recruited new employees as the country faced a critical crunch in the job market. Sanjay Kulkarni, Chairman and MD of Scope T & M Pvt Ltd, told the Organiser that when they decided not to cut jobs during the Corona lockdown, all employees welcomed the decision. The lockdown started on March 23, 2020, and the company sustained it thru April 2020. But as the situation proceeded to deteriorated, they had to take hard decisions.
When the national and global industry sector was witnessing layoffs due to the Corona lockdown and the economic slowdown that followed, Scope decided not to fire a single employee. Sanjay Kulkarni took employees into confidence and proposed a small salary cut instead of layoff. “We decided to implement a two tear salary cut. Those employees who have salaries between 25 and to 40 thousand had to accept a salary cut of 10 per cent. Those employees having more than 40 thousand salaries had to accept a salary cut of 20 per cent. The employees happily agreed to this arrangement as they all are going to retain their jobs,” Sanjay Kulkarni told Organiser.
“As we had intimidated well in advance before starting cutting the salaries, our employees were able to plan their expenses like restructuring loans and cutting down their needs. We built trust among the employees by delivering the salary cheques on the third of each month. We never defaulted on the salary date,” told Sanjay Kulkarni proudly.
At the initial stages of lockdown, the company begins with ‘Work from Home’ strategy which enables them to maintain the back end processes flawlessly. Simultaneously, they worked on improving the production capability of each employee. The company also ensured that each employee gets training in every department
The employees of Scope worked hard and delivered quality work on time, which helped the company turn around. The company actually started registering a growth during Corona lockdown. After reviewing the situation in June 2020, the management of Scope decided to take a cut on the salary cut by 10 per cent. The company’s economic situation improved by the third quarter of 2020, and it started registering profits again. Sanjay Kulkarni gives credit to the hard work of employees. He also praises the Government for releasing dues on time. Scope actually started expanding and started recruiting new employees by the start of 2021.
Sanjay Kulkarni, when asked about the process his company adopted to overcome the bad economic situation during the lockdown replied that the company adopted multilayer strategies, unique training processes empowered by SWOT Analysis. At the initial stages of lockdown, the company began with the ‘Work from Home’ strategy which enabled them to maintain the back end processes flawlessly. Simultaneously, they worked on improving the production capability of each employee. The company also ensured that each employee gets training in every department. For example, now each employee of Scope is trained in Marketing and Customer Presentations. This creates a motivational atmosphere and the company started to grow and steadily overcame the economic crisis faced during the lockdown, said Sanjay Kulkarni.
As India’s first company to indigenously design and develop Test & Measurement products required in the energy distribution sector, SCOPE specialises in instruments used in strong electromagnetic induction environments prevailing in EHV & UHV substations. The company also has a forte in installation and maintenance of 400 kv and larger EHV and UHV substations and transformers, automation and protection of power generation, and distribution system protection. It has indigenously developed IOP based solutions, sensors and software required in the power generation and distribution sector. The company registered 8.88 per cent growth in turnover during the financial year 2020-21, owing to the unique practices it adopted and actually fulfilled in its vision statement, which mentions “seeking customer satisfaction, highest quality of work and employee satisfaction through transparent interrelationship and continuous learning,” says Sanjay Kulkarni.
