People at Sartorius: Meet Iswarya Sathiyamoorthy and Ganesh Kumar
A pandemic, a new job and a homebound kid
With a change of jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sartorius expats Iswarya Sathiyamoorthy and her husband, Ganesh Kumar, faced special challenges as parents. Sartorius helped them to successfully manage both their jobs and family even in these troubled times.
This article is posted on our Sartorius Blog.
Iswarya and Ganesh with their son, Pravahn, at the Sartorius Day Care Center.
Iswarya Sathiyamoorthy and her husband Ganesh Kumar have been with Sartorius in Germany for four years. “I started off in one of the strategic marketing teams. After taking a year off to care for our newborn son, Pravahn, and settling back in, I was ready for a new challenge at the beginning of 2020,” Iswarya recalls. So she took the opportunity and started as Marketing Communications Manager in March.
However, she had a virtual first day at her new job due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of dropping off little Pravahn at the Sartorius Day Care Center and introducing herself to her new colleagues at the open-space office in Göttingen, Ganesh played with their son at home while she met the new team virtually in her living room.
In the following weeks, Iswarya and Ganesh managed to schedule meetings and work times in a way so that one of them could take care of Pravahn. “As a two-year-old, he naturally demanded our attention. He wanted to play, read books and romp through the garden. We had to do all that and at the same time manage our jobs – just like many colleagues,” Iswarya describes this period. “Luckily, at Sartorius, the working hours are flexible, so we can organize when and how to work. My new team is very international and used to working across time zones. That provided me a lot of freedom to operate. Moreover, my new team was very sweet and even in a virtual environment, they made me feel very welcome and sent me flowers on the first day of work.”
With both parents working full time and a project getting underway for Iswarya, Ganesh stepped in in terms of child care. “I was just coming out of a project and had some leeway, so I took the flextime offered by Sartorius. I spoke to my manager, who has been very cooperative, she understood the challenges we were facing and supported me,” Ganesh explains.
While little Pravahn enjoyed the extra time with his parents, he also missed his teachers and friends at the Sartorius Day Care Center. To pass the time, the teachers sent videos to the children every day and Pravahn would watch them first thing in the morning. “It showed us how much the kindergarten is a part of his life. He sees the people there as a second family, another home,” Iswarya said. After three and a half months, the day care center finally reopened and Pravahn returned to his friends. “We are glad that he can go back now. As expats living in Göttingen, it is very reassuring and convenient to have him in close vicinity to the workplace,” Ganesh explained. He is especially fond of the educational approach to celebrate and nurture the children’s eagerness to experiment and their creativity. “This is indeed a unique experience not only for the children, but also for their parents.” Iswarya added: “Sartorius is a company that has family at its core. They understand that parenting is a big part of our lives and make allowances for that. This helps us in everyday life and especially in these bustling last weeks.”
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