‘The pandemic has acted as a catalyst in rebuilding employer-employee relationships’ – 20 quotes from India’s COVID-19 struggle

Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous edition here). This special series of compilations focuses on India’s COVID-19 struggle. Share these quotes and excerpts with your networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.

See also our pick of Top Quotes of 2021 on Entrepreneurship, Investment, Digital Transformation, Storytelling, The India Opportunity, Pandemic Resilience, Failure Recovery, Design, and Art.

While people think about health care as curative, things have started to change now pushed by the onset of the pandemic. - Aniruddha Sen, Kenko Health

Much of the progress that had been made in [menstrual hygiene management] over the past few years was undone during the COVID-19 pandemic. - John Roberts, CRY

The pandemic has impacted all of us. In fact, it’s been the toughest on health workers who were out there saving lives. - Sunny Leone

[Menstrual hygiene management experts/champions] have played a key role on the ground during COVID-19 by teaching others how to stitch sanitary pads at home due to lack of access to menstrual supplies during the lockdown. - John Roberts, CRY

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The pandemic has acted as a catalyst in rebuilding employer-employee relationships. Employees today are looking for more flexibility in terms of the working hours and the location of work, along with other things. - Senthil Kumar Muthamizhan, CultureMonkey

While empathy has always been critical, it’s earned a new meaning in a post-pandemic world. Active listening forums or formal/informal pulse checks are a few mechanisms that can help leaders build a culture of empathy and compassion. - Prashanti Bodugum, Walmart Global Tech India

We showed a lot of resilience in the last few years to survive in tough times with very limited cash, solve for business problems in a tough environment due to the pandemic. - Rashmi Daga, FreshMenu

We started building our app in March last year 2021, and the second wave of COVID-19 made things very difficult. Medical emergencies kept pushing the deadlines and we could launch our first version only in September 2021. - Shashwat Agarwal, TOTOKO

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We would tell [customers] that it might take longer to get their spectacles made. Some of our customers had been visiting since very long so they understood our position and waited patiently. - Jigar Gangar, Gangar Eyenation

During the pandemic, our platform became a big plus as a lot of people in the automotive industry started thinking about going digital. - Jay Vijayan, Tekion

Our growth trajectory is back on track, and we don’t foresee 'post-COVID-19 ramifications' affecting our growth rate anymore. - Deepinder Goyal, Zomato

We observed that ecommerce was growing at 3X of the normal growth because of the pandemic and there was a huge opportunity that every new vehicle added to the last mile delivery had the potential to become electric. - Vikash Mishra, MoEVing

The pandemic has been a pivot point for all of us. What has emerged clearer than ever before is that technology will be the differentiator and also the catalyst. - Nidhi Bhasin, NASSCOM Foundation

2022 is an important year. Not only it calls for recovery from the pandemic but also marks the arrival of Web 3.0. - Vikram R Singh, Antier Solutions

The onslaught of COVID-19 accelerated digitalisation and reinforced the role of G2P (government-to-person) payments in helping countries and governments deliver social assistance rapidly, effectively, and responsibly. - Lamia Naji, World Bank

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Digital government has played a major role in COVID-19 response. - Abiyot Bayou Tehone, MInT

Technology shift towards LTE and recent 5G deployments, and broadband service adoption fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, continue to drive the demand for increased backhaul capacity by the mobile network operators. - Juanita Clark, DCA

Even during the global pandemic our startups continued to create wealth and value. - Prime Minister Narendra Modi

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).