HR Diary 3: An OB Case Study: Whether to Make a Corona "Stressed" Patient Work From Home

March 24, 2020: As Raghwan,a young clould computing programer, working or Suvarna Enterprise, was getting ready, to leave for India, the news that the nation has gone for a lock down, sent jitters through his nerves. He was aware of the way things were becoming serious due to COVID19 breakout, but he had little idea that it would become difficult for him to reach his home. He was now officially stuck in USA, where has been deputed as an expat on an H1B visa. 

March 25, 2020: He is now stuck in the apartment he was allotted. Things were not extra ordinary for last fifteen days, but life was not that miserable for him either. He had moved around freely, went for a walk and shopping. Though there were no reported cases of infection in his area, the spread of CORONA had started to bother him a little bit off late. He was now wondering what would happen next. Though his company had allowed him to work from home, the anxiety of not being able to go back to his home country, was not making thing better either. 

March 26, 2020: As he was following the news keenly, he realized that there were many like him. He had also heard the unconfirmed news from some friends that the US Government might revoke H1B visa! That, for him, would be, the last nail in the coffin. He became more tensed with such news and he noticed that he was not enjoying the same work, which used to be his love four days' back. His smoking level had also gone up a bit in last three to four days.

March 27, 2020: Today's morning didn't turnout to be a pleasant one. The COVID19 situation was becoming more serious. Raghwan could not sleep until three AM last night, leading to fatigue. He was in touch with his family, who were equally worried about his home coming. His boss and colleagues were in touch with him too. He was a star programmer and had almost monopoly in certain modules related to cloud programming. So, it was natural for the boss to take care of him. 

March 28, 2020: It was probably for the first time in his US visit that he as having such a terrible headache. He woke up at 9.30 am and saw 27 missed calls and 10 urgent messages from his boss. His boss had been trying to reach him for quite some time. As soon as Raghwan saw these missed calls, he dialed back to his boss. The boss looked quite annoyed but tried to hide his frustration to the best of his ability. The boss had called Raghwan as their cloud server had developed a technical glitch. Other programers tried their best, but none could succeed. In their opinion, it was only Raghwan, who could solve this problem. Each minute of disturbance was choking the customer care phone line and hundreds of emails were being received from the irate clients. The social media hashtags #Survarnacloudwithoutwater were being used by the competitors of Survarna Enterprise to malign the impression of the firm. Each second was important. 

In this situation, Raghwan's inability to respond in time only added fuel to the fire. It took him ten minutes to gain his composure. He did try to look into the problem, but the problem/glitch was too complicated to solve in a few minutes. Plus, Raghwan conveyed his boss that he was too stressed to handle this and, if possible, this may please be referred to someone else. The boss, on hearing this, made it clear that the extra perks enjoyed by Raghwan were for handling such situations only. And if he failed to solve this in time, the company will take a strict action against him, which may even lead to termination from the job. Getting a new job would be difficult for someone like him too and he (Raghwan) knew it very well.

Raghwan, who had been with the company for more than a decade, and had contributed immensely to its growth by sometimes working for 18 hours at a stretch, thought his company was being unreasonable to him. 

After thinking for sometime, Raghwan clearly informed his boss that he was not ready to handle this as he was too stressed.

Who is right - Raghwan or his boss? Is the company justified in asking Raghwan to work from home, under the situation, mentioned in the case? What decision would you take if you were the boss?

Feel free to share your feedback to me at pvariya@gmail.com