An unexpected epidemic has made this Spring Festival quite unsettling. During a time of crisis, it is also a time to show social responsibility. On January 26, TAL Education Group established a special fund of 100 million yuan to fight the epidemic, with 20 million yuan donated to the Wuhan Charity Federation and 80 million yuan allocated for educational initiatives to maximize support for children across the country in "Suspending Classes Without Stopping Learning."

Many TAL members are fighting on the front lines of the epidemic, using love and technology to promote educational progress. Their efforts are driven by mission and supported by the company's humanity, which, in turn, transforms into continuous motivation that tightly binds TAL members together.

40 Masks, Keeping Our Hearts Together

Xiao Wenli, a 24-year-old from Hainan, did not expect to face such a big "hurdle" at the beginning of her zodiac year. Xiao, who graduated last year, joined TAL Smart Education in September, realizing her dream of working in education. Her job location was in Wuhan, the city where she attended college. This was her first year working away from home, and she had already bought a ticket to return home on January 23 for the New Year.

However, the atmosphere in Wuhan started to shift from the beginning of January. On December 31, a media outlet reported cases of pneumonia caused by an unknown virus in Wuhan. From January 1, TAL's Wuhan office began comprehensive disinfection. On January 3, TAL shipped 3,000 masks to the Wuhan office from Beijing. On January 20, Academician Zhong Nanshan publicly stated that the new coronavirus was definitely transmissible between humans and advised that people not go to Wuhan if they could avoid it, and Wuhan residents should stay in the city if they could.

To go home or stay? Xiao Wenli had never felt so conflicted. On the morning of January 23, as soon as she opened her eyes, she saw the news that Wuhan had "locked down," finally relieving her of the conflict. But this was just the beginning of difficulties. Having visited all the nearby pharmacies without finding a single mask, Xiao started to panic. She took stock of what she had — a bit of rice and vegetables that could last four or five days, but only one unopened mask was left.

Zhou Yuling, a HR teacher at TAL Smart Education, learned about Xiao's situation through DingTalk. After Wuhan "locked down" on January 23, TAL immediately started collecting information on employees stranded in Wuhan. Upon hearing of Xiao's mask shortage, Zhou Yuling, who was at home in Chengde, Hebei, mobilized her father and sister-in-law to visit five or six pharmacies, finally securing 40 masks, which were sent out via SF Express on the same day. "Most other colleagues in Wuhan are with their families; only Wenli doesn't have her family around, and we are all anxious for her," Zhou said.

On January 28, Xiao Wenli ran out of food, and orders placed by other colleagues for her were canceled due to the lockdown, but fortunately, Zhou Yuling's masks arrived.

In this special period, employees' health is a top priority for TAL. To understand each employee's health status, TAL launched a daily health check-in, and TAL Smart Education required that everyone report their health status first thing during the morning video conference. "Although we can't see each other, our hearts are always together," Xiao Wenli said.

98 Stories, Letters Draw Us Closer

"We know that openness and transparency can best alleviate anxiety. To ensure our partners receive timely and accurate information, from today onwards, ‘Apu’ will act as a little reporter to broadcast daily anti-epidemic news. Let's hope that in the new year, our partners will be at ease, satisfied, and happy!"

On January 24, TAL employees received a push notification on DingTalk titled "Together Against the Epidemic." The "Internal Information Updates" section provided health statistics of all TAL employees and the latest group developments, while the "News and Information" section summarized daily epidemic updates and authoritative news. The "Apu’s Classroom" section also shared small tips for epidemic prevention. Since then, such bulletins have been sent to TAL employees daily.

"Seeing the daily push notifications makes me feel secure. Especially the internal information updates, which make me truly feel the love and collective destiny of over 40,000 TAL members," commented one employee.

The anti-epidemic daily bulletin also set up a message board for TAL employees to cheer each other on. Messages included "United as One, the Future is Bright!" "Go, TAL people!" and "Stay strong! The epidemic might be scary, but we are strong!"

On January 26, TAL announced it would support children nationwide by "Suspending Classes Without Stopping Learning." Behind this commitment were countless efforts of TAL members. From January 30, the daily bulletin began sharing stories of TAL people fighting the epidemic. Employees from the Operations Department ensured the normal operation of all machine rooms, servers, equipment, and networks for free live classes to primary and secondary schools nationwide. Facing the domestic shortage of masks, Liao Wenheng from the Policy Research Department coordinated resources from foreign companies and organizations to obtain over 20,000 masks for TAL frontline workers. The headquarters of Xueersi organized blessings for Wuhan, and normally reserved programmers used strings of code to compose encouraging messages and well-wishes for their colleagues...

From January 24, the daily bulletin shared 98 stories over 28 consecutive days, totaling over 170,000 words. These warm words connected the hearts of TAL members.

20,000 Computers, Ensuring Our Fight Goes On

"Have you resumed work?" became a common greeting after the New Year, and some WeChat accounts even collected the return-to-work dates of various internet companies.

On January 28, TAL announced that the safety and health of employees were the top priority and that delaying the return to work and working from home were the only choices. After the Spring Festival, the company set the unified return-to-office date to February 10. With the development of the epidemic, TAL extended the work-from-home period to March 6.

Upon receiving the notice, while employees felt reassured, some were troubled because they had not taken their office computers home before the epidemic broke out. Therefore, TAL collected related information, and each department and business unit organized special personnel to mail computers to employees. To ensure accurate delivery, administrative personnel scanned the asset codes of computers and verified them with employees online. According to incomplete statistics, 557 personal computers were sent out from Beijing alone. In response to the epidemic, Xueersi Peiyou announced that all offline classes would go online. To ensure the effectiveness of teachers' classes at home, TAL urgently purchased 8,000 workstations and 16,000 monitors, sending them to over 20 cities, including Jiamusi in Heilongjiang and Bayingol in Xinjiang, fully supporting "Suspending Classes Without Stopping Learning."

Large-scale home office work has been a challenge that almost every company has never experienced before. To ensure the efficiency of employees working from home, TAL leveraged its advantage as an educational technology enterprise, completing the planning and production of the "Three Knives for Home Office" course within 48 hours. Tens of thousands of employees took this course online.

"Today, nine people worked briefly, and 16 temperature measurements were taken with no abnormalities." Every evening, TAL publishes statistics of the people who entered the headquarters office area that day, along with photos of the day's disinfection of various corners of the office. Hangzhou's policy required that people entering the city from outside apply for a health code. Therefore, TAL's Hangzhou SSC created a health code application guide and a return-to-work manual, pushing it to every employee in the form of an H5 presentation. Similarly, TAL's Shenzhen SSC prepared a fresh produce purchase guide for Shenzhen, summarizing and analyzing major physical merchants, e-commerce platforms, micro-business channels, and food delivery platforms, with added food storage tips. "There are all sorts of guides online, but our company’s guides are the most reliable!" commented a TAL Shenzhen employee.

The epidemic is not over yet; the struggle, warmth, and care also continue. A popular saying within TAL is that one person can go fast, but a group can go far. Facing the epidemic, "being together" becomes the warmest phrase of this winter. All TAL members believe that no winter will last forever, and a beautiful spring is coming soon.

This article was reprinted from Banyuetan