ERGO Hellas: Back to office after the Corona Lockdown

In comparison to the difficult situation in other countries, Greece has proved to be one of the most successful "first movers" in the fight against the pandemic. The first thing to do was to cancel all bigger events. With the lockdown from 23 March, ERGO Greece employees also continued working at home.

After roughly one month quarantine at home, coming back to his office at ERGO Hellas was a relief for Fotios Gardounis. Gardounis has been working for ERGO in Greece for almost eleven years, first in the area of motor policies, then in customer service and for two years in the Underwriting Department. He has never before experienced a situation comparable to the Corona Pandemic.

The personal contact was missing

Although he was glad that he had the opportunity to remain productive and work safely from home at the same time, he missed the interaction with his colleagues and personal communication with his cus-tomers. As a junior underwriter, Gardounis is in constant contact with insurance brokers. His job is to review insurance applications, gather background information, assess the risk and ultimately write of-fers and prepare terms and conditions.

Like other colleagues abroad, he experienced his first day at the office as rather uncomfortable. Alt-hough they were just a small number of employees at first and cautious to each other, it did not take a lot of time for them to return to a pre-quarantine office routine (as far as allowed). 

ERGO is well prepared to keep the business going

As much as he enjoyed his wife’s company at home, returning to the office, gave him a feeling of joy and recognition. "I enjoy working with my colleagues and superiors and the friendly environment in the office", says the ERGO employee.

Conscious of the fact that this year is going to be a particularly challenging year for all of us, Fotios’ perspective has changed after the lockdown: “Hopefully, we will not have to go through a second quarantine period. But even if we do, it’s good to know that ERGO is well prepared to keep the busi-ness going.”