Budding startup Finshots wins applauds by prioritising employees over work in COVID-19 pandemic

The pandemic has been affecting everyone for more than a year now. The second wave and the mutated variant of covid-19 came in like a tsunami and has spared no one. Such trying times play havoc on everyone’s well being and what people are looking forward to is sympathy, understanding and support from family, friends, fellow mates and most importantly, their Employers.

Finshots, a budding start-up by an IIM Ahmedabad Alumnus, Bhanu Gurram, is a three min daily newsletter which provides a daily dose of the latest and the most important Financial developments in plain English. Despite being a new venture with a lean team, Finshots took a thoughtful decision to keep their employees well-being over profits and work. The Start-up took a call to temporarily suspend their daily newsletters for a week or two, so that their employees could get some time to recuperate, take care of their families and themselves.

On 27 April, Finshots posted an update by Shrehith Karkera, the lead editor at Finshots, who shared, “Several colleagues of mine (or their family members) have tested positive for Covid-19 this past week, including my parents. And while we tried to stitch together a makeshift plan to continue our strict publishing regime this past week, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to ask my team to keep working anymore. So, in light of these developments, we are stopping coverage for a few days.”

This announcement by Finshots is winning hearts and people are applauding their sensitivity towards mental and physical well-being. Being a small startup, with close to 2,00,000 subscribers now, Finshots has displayed a strong sense of integrity and an epitome of true leadership.

It is not feasible for a budding start-up to suspend work at the cost of its growth, and doing so involves integrity and empathy. In a conversation with Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete) Shrehith Karkera, explains what made him take this step, “ We understand how such situations can take a toll on your mental health. Everyone is going through a lot of mental pressure and although we tried forming a makeshift plan, we knew we will have to pull out the plug eventually, so suspending our daily newsletter seemed the most prudent thing to do.”

Apart from the decision to temporarily halt the newsletters for some time, Finshots made sure to inform their subscribers so that they were well informed about their absence. “Since I'm tending to my parents who have tested positive, I was resigned to the fact that I could come out positive as well and I wanted to make sure we didn't just disappear overnight without actually intimating our readers in advance, I wanted to make sure that we communicate with our community.

Finshots has a community of over 2,00,000 plus subscribers and most of them are their ardent readers who look forward to their daily newsletters, but hearing of their suspension for a week or two did not disappoint them, rather, as Shrehith puts it, “It was almost unbelievable when I was told that we received more than thousand emails in a day, they were of people getting back and telling how happy they were with our move, at the same they were genuinely concerned about our wellbeing and offered their support. You know, that's the beauty of an organically grown community. We know we’re in this together and they are all loyal to us.”

He ends it by telling Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete)that, “Everyone was in our support, they all took it positively. We’re looking forward to resuming the work again as soon as possible.”

Here's what people had to say about this decision of Finshots.

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