Awards for Excellence 2020
|
|
Businesses and banks in Belarus have faced a particularly tough challenge during the Covid-19 crisis due to the refusal of the government not only to impose any national restrictions but also to acknowledge the risks of the pandemic and implement any measures to mitigate its economic impact.
That put the onus on individual organizations to step up and protect their staff and customers. In the banking sector, Alfa-Bank Belarus stood out for its rapid, imaginative and comprehensive response to the situation.
At the start of the coronavirus outbreak in Belarus, the lender – part of Mikhail Fridman’s Alfa Group – moved nearly all its employees to remote working, including call-centre staff. Frontline workers were divided into shifts to minimize infection and rigorous protective measures were implemented, including a free taxi service to avoid public transport.
|
|
|
Alexis Lacroix |
Alfa-Bank also committed to retaining all staff on full salaries and implemented an average pay rise of 12.5%, as well as upgrading medical insurance provisions.
To make remote work more comfortable, it organized discounts for employees on food deliveries and material for creativity, and free access to online libraries and English courses.
To keep staff morale up, the bank also produced ‘Alfa-Bank Show’, a programme inspired by Jimmy Fallon’s ‘Tonight Show’, with the chairman and host randomly calling employees to check on them and chief executive Alexis Lacroix singing with Alfa-Band, a pop group composed of bank employees.
Meanwhile Alfa-Bank customers were offered a range of flexible options to ease loan repayment burdens via fully digital channels, as well as cash back on pharmaceutical purchases and a free subscription to eastern Europe’s largest online movie theatre.
The lender also revamped its online offering for entrepreneurs, transforming its discount programme Alfa Clients Club into B2Free, a platform where any business in Belarus can offer unused resources and access those shared by other businesses.
It also transferred online all the seminars of the Academy of Business, a joint project of Alfa-Bank and IPM Business School and made them freely available on its educational YouTube channel, Alfa Hub. The channel also hosts a new business podcast, where representatives of sectors particularly affected by the pandemic share their experiences and best practices.
