When the pandemic hit, it didn’t take us much time to realize that even though the virus spread uniformly across the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the economic repercussions it caused hit people in different ways, especially those working blue collar jobs and those working directly in the service industry.
True, even the office-going, salaried crowd suffered to a certain extent due to layoffs and pay cuts. But most of us somehow adapted into the work-from-culture. But not all who put food on the table for their families work jobs that can adapt that way. Case in point - barbers.
Barbers working in typical barber shops, or ‘saloons’ as we like to call them, suddenly had to deal with this ‘new normal’ where almost all of their clientele was gone. People stayed in. Showing up unshaven, with long hair on video during online work meetings became a normal thing. But what might seem like a ‘long hair phase’ for us, is a ‘no food/money’ period in most barbers’ lives, whose income depends on the amount of footfall at their barber shops.
The government has asked barbershops to stay shut to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Even those who have chosen to provide their clients with hair-cutting/shaving-at-home services, now have to travel more with their equipment, which comes with its own set of risks.
Keeping this in mind, Gillette has decided to take its Barber Suraksha programme to the next level. Last year, during the first wave of the pandemic, Gillette provided barbers with safety kits. Now it is providing barbers with a special Health insurance cover of up to INR 1 lakh, that covers barbers and their family members.
This video tells you the whole story.
As lockdowns ease up, and the barber community gears up to return to their work, the Gillette Barber Parivar Suraksha health insurance comes as a relief to them. By helping ease the burden of their and their family’s medical expenses, Gillette is committed to helping barbers feel empowered and confident about getting back to business. This is not surprising at all seeing how Gillette’s parent company, Procter & Gamble, is showing the way forward by earmarking Rs 50cr towards COVID-19 vaccination efforts and also covering the cost of vaccinations for all 5000+ employees and their immediate family members.
Through continuous and sustained engagement with the barber community the program aims to reach 50M+ barber shops.
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