In the post-COVID world, sustainability, learning, resilience, agility, productivity and well-being are the words that are spoken and heard endlessly. These are not just spoken words but ideas which need to be implemented across industries. As we are moving into a new dimension, the companies and institutions need to find and seize all new prospects that are available in the environment. It, therefore, becomes imperative to collect data and get insights regarding the issues that impact all industries.

Companies are questioning normed perceptions on how work needs to be done. One shoe will not fit all. Each organisation needs to find their unique size. Each organisation needs to evaluate the talent required, the roles that are relevant, the culture that will lead to excellence, redesign work processes that are required and many more.

Employee wellbeing is defined as the overall mental, physical, emotional and economic health of your employees. It is influenced by various factors such as their relationships with co-workers, the decisions they make, and the tools and resources they have access to. Hours pay and workplace safety also have a significant impact on employee wellbeing.

It is the employer’s duty to provide their workers with the necessary support and care for their physical and mental health. Despite this, many organisations still do not have a dedicated well-being strategy. A well-being strategy can help employees feel valued and supported at work. It can also improve employee engagement and motivate teams companywide to reach their goals.

In this issue, we try to gather our understanding regarding the education sector about employee wellbeing and sustainability and also find the learning styles of postgraduate students. An empirical study has been done on capital structure and firm performance. Lastly, a study during the COVID pandemic has been published to see the impact of ban on e-cigarettes in India.

Globally, during pandemic tobacco has caused enormous health burdens and fatality, especially in the LMICs, inspite of continuing efforts under the umbrella of FCTC. India, representing a complex pattern of tobacco use, both in smoking and smokeless forms, remains the second largest tobacco-using country. A well- designed, online or CATI interview-based survey was conducted in eight large metropolitan cities of India. The study, done by Dr Banerjee, Dr Kaur & Dr Bharadwaj, involved over three thousand subjects to derive meaningful and statistically sound conclusions. The total sample size was 3,005 (ST: 1,193, SLT: 966 and EC: 846). The study finds that the COVID-19-induced lockdown and restrictions affected ST and SLT tobacco as well as the EC user groups albeit differently.

Ms Tripathi, Dr Aziz and Dr Joshi conducted an empirical study of Indian companies to assess the relationship between capital and firm performance. The research used vigorous models on selected listed non-financial Indian companies on an index of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) for a period of 21 years (2000– 2020) to investigate the impact of capital structure on their performance. The empirical results indicated that all components of capital structure (debt to equity ratio, debt to market capitalisation ratio and debt to total assets ratio) had a negative impact on financial performance (return on assets, return on net worth and Tobin’s q).

 Two studies have been done on the educational sector. The first study conducted by Ms Jadeja analysed the well-being of teachers through occupational stress factors and concluded that major factors contributing to the feelings of being stressed are sense of insecurity due to poor skills, unable to meet deadlines, lack of clarity, violating formal procedures, uninteresting work, poor quality due to heavy workload, fear of losing job, and lack of training and preparation. The author has also suggested that the symptoms and dangers of stress can be reduced by raising awareness, taking remedial action and engaging in appropriate stress- reduction activities.

In the second study in the education sector, Dr Sant and Dr Kashive conducted research with the postgraduate students to analyse the learning style amongst postgraduate management students with their specialisation and whether there are any significant differences among learning styles concerning gender and specialisation and personality.

One of the important questions that all companies need to ask is whether the culture the company had, is the culture that company needs. An organisational culture will be enabled if it supports the organisation’s objectives and helps in its growth. It has become imperative for all organisations to recognise the gap between what is and what should be. The cultural norms will need to be realigned with the new reality or if required imbibe completely a new set of behaviours and norms.

The 2020 Global Talent Trends Study by Mercer has found that employees are eight times more likely to be with an organisation they trust that will provide them with a career, and four times more likely to work in an organisation which has a culture that supports an individual career. During COVID, not only did individuals and groups endure but the organisation’s culture was also affected. Issues concerning onboarding, disengagement, fatigue, no informal touch points, and unclear and opaque relationships made a majority of employees alienated. As known, for any culture to support an organisation, its human capital needs to be heard and understood. Employees need to be engaged and valued. Companies are still having some groups working from home and others working from office. To create equity between the two is a challenge, that needs to be addressed by the organisations. Organisational leadership will have to support teams and individuals to adjust to the new normal. Effective conversations need to be held to engage people at individual, group and organisational levels. Thus it is important for leadership teams that they understand individual, personal and work-related needs to create more communication among its members for shared understanding, creating an environment of integrity and shared values.

 As Richard Branson says ‘There’s no magic formula for great company culture.The key is just to treat your staff how you’d like to be treated’.

  Satish Modh

Editor-in-Chief

VESIM Business School,

Mumbai Maharashtra, India

E-mail: satish.modh@ves.ac.in