Business dynamics are under a tremendous shift as organizations re-look at the workforce and adapt to a changing work environment. Even though no one can predict what tomorrow will look like, the surest way to stay on the growth path is through talent transformation. Dr. Raju Mistry, President, and Global Chief People Officer, Cipla, explored this in her closing keynote, as she examined the nuances of building a workplace that is enabled to be smart and future-ready.

Cipla: A Rich Legacy of 鈥淐aring for Life鈥�

As a pharma company, CIPLA has a proud legacy of over 86 years of caring for and supporting patients from all over the world. With a workforce of over 25,000 employees who serve more than 80 markets – this is a company that truly believes in 鈥渃aring for life鈥�. Its vast portfolio of 1500+ products caters to every known ailment and manifests its mission through patient centricity.

The Cipla Palliative Care (CPC) is another such example. Founded to support patients and their families in their most difficult of times, beyond medicines and treatment, its Pune center provides free-of-cost care to terminally ill patients, allowing them to spend their last days with their families. The Cipla Foundation takes the company’s socially conscious legacy forward through various outreach programs in Health, Skilling, Education, and Environmental Sustainability & Disaster Response.

While caring for life has always been and continues to remain its guiding purpose, Cipla allocates equal importance to “daring for life”. With initiatives like those focusing on HIV Aids and an 11-year long fight to change patent laws, Cipla has brought inclusiveness, accessibility, and affordability to the center of healthcare in India and overseas.

Challenges Amid Uncertain Times

COVID has taught us to question many things, one such long-standing belief has been “People are resistant to change.” The many changes in the last two years and the ways people have adapted and adopted them have turned this belief on its head.

Transformation and change are not new to Cipla. It is the reason why a company with such a rich legacy has survived and thrived in these changing times. But the question remains, “How do we manage amidst all this chaos?”.听 The answer is by doing more 鈥� by multitasking, and juggling between multiple priorities, and focusing on doing more than expected.

Two of the most crucial aspects of this pyramid are ‘Enhanced IT and tech solutions’ and ‘Empathy and Nurturing’. Over the past two years, IT and technology have become an integrated part of our lives, at work and home. IT teams all over the world have got together to ensure seamless connectivity and transition to a digital way of working. And people have shown an amazing amount of resilience and adaptability to this new way of life.

At a time when face-to-face interactions are at a minimum, empathy and nurturing have also proven to be crucial focal points. For leaders and managers, this is the only way to truly understand the ground reality of their people and effectively connect with them.

Driving Change with Digital

The landscape of transformation is diverse and all-encompassing. A lot is happening in the transformational space including things like touchless factories, virtual site audits, environmental protection, phygital interactions across fields, and much more. These transformations touch every aspect of life, but it is up to the people to deliver on them.

It is at this switch from physical to digital workspaces that the challenges for HR come in. HR leaders need to find new ways to enable their people for the newer ways of working.

At Cipla, we use 51风流SuccessFactors as our HRMIS to simplify most of the HR processes. Not only does this make our processes more accurate, eliminate the drudgery that comes with all the transactional work but also brings in the ‘wow’ element to both HR and the employees. With more than 20 processes running digitally, 1100 digitized SOPs, and a chatbot that manages seamless support to the employees, our HR is free to catalyze transformation and motivate shifts that will reinvent our organization.

Ever-changing Landscape of Talent Imperatives

In the era of transformation, three key components are critical to hiring talent听 鈥� Digital Savviness, Empathy, and Leading Virtually.

Previously viewed as a means to manage data and provide analytics, technology today has evolved into much more. Today it has become crucial for people to visualize and solve problems with a digital footprint and perspective. This shift will require everyone, from individual contributors to enterprise leaders, to think digitally and articulate problems in a way that they have digital solutions.

Two other aspects to building, identifying, and developing leaders in the new normal are:

• A requisite level of empathy and emotional connection to help leaders better impress on their teams in a non-physical space
• Leading and connecting virtually is becoming more critical as we move from physical to hybrid workspaces

Company Culture 鈥� The Foundation of Sustainable Transformation

Sustaining company culture is one of the major concerns for many organizations. Culture is the bedrock on which all processes are done and decided. While a physical space made it easier to maintain common company culture, the current shift to a virtual and hybrid workspace brings new challenges on how to maintain this culture and percolate it down the line.

Critical to sustainability, culture weaves the company together and forms a strong backbone for every employee and process.

At Cipla, we base all we do on our five pillars of culture, each combining parts of physical and technology components.

1. Openness and Transparency –

• Transparent communications
• Multiple listening forums & annual engagement survey

2. Accountability & Ownership

• Reassess org structures and roles
• Promote collaboration, teamwork & tiki-taka

3. Result & Impact Orientation

• Objective performance goals 鈥� feedback mechanism and appreciations for changing reality

4. Managing with Respect

• Inclusion & Diversity 鈥� how are you practicing it?

5. Engage with Empathy

• Giving back and making a difference

And while our offices are now open, we have positioned them as engagement centers, where people are not mandated to but have the option to come in when they want to connect with other employees or for team meetings. Offices are no longer centers for conducting business reviews, but a place where people come together to understand each other, have a cup of coffee, and build critical connections and relationships.

In conclusion, as HR processes mature and become more important, having a technology bedrock will become a strong enabler and facilitator for organizations to move ahead.

Check out more posts from 51风流HR Connect 2021:

HR Connect 2021: Evolving Employee Experience from HCM to HXM in Hybrid 2.0 – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: CEO’s Perspectives on the Changing People Paradigm听听 – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Meeting Business Priorities in a Hybrid World – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Thriving in the Vaccine Economy Through Human Experience – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Code to Cracking the Talent, Technology & Cost Trifecta – 51风流India News Center

The post Enabling Talent Transformation in a Changing World appeared first on 51风流India News Center.

As we reimagine our world in a hybrid way, organizations need to put extreme ownership at the center of their EX strategy. Emphasizing the same, Harshvendra Soin, Global Chief People Officer, and Head Marketing, Tech Mahindra, presented an in-depth case study of how his organization rewired itself, placing human employee experience at the core to rebound with resilience.

Extreme ownership and how we develop talent to display it have become a key facet of facing the many upcoming challenges of the pandemic and post-pandemic era. Organizations and professionals recognize the many opportunities that lie amid this chaos and are trying to tap into them.

Let鈥檚 start by looking into the many paradoxes that companies all over the world are grappling with today in the new normal:

• Saving cost or investing in growth
• Changing employee expectations, whether it is from remote working or at office
• Customers expecting companies to deliver digital yet personalized
• Changing market dynamics in terms of competition, resource availability in a heated market, and changing legislations

With this context, we move on to explore the many challenges and opportunities that this new normal has to offer.

Challenges:

• The need to cater to the physical and emotional wellbeing of the employees
• Connecting, communicating, and engaging everyone to a common culture in a virtual environment
• Building a resilient and future-ready leadership

Opportunities:

• The rise of gig working along with diversity, inclusivity,
• A chance to reset for surviving, reviving, and thriving in a post-pandemic era

To refocus on resilient and future-ready leadership, we need to start by understanding why extreme ownership is important.

Leadership teams “make or break” organizations:

• 95% of investors state that the most important non-financial performance indicator is the credibility and experience of the leadership team
• 9x likelihood of reaching above-median financial performance when the leadership team has a shared and clear vision
• 33% of transformations failed because the leadership team’s behavior did not support the change (silos, competing agendas, turf wars, indecision)

Looking at these numbers, it is not rocket science to understand that most companies that do well are where extreme ownership is made the basis of moving forward, and the top teams are all aligned to the critical goal.

Extreme ownership is not simply a new business jargon. It is a set of 7 everyday behaviors that can change the very course of an organization’s growth.

1. Inspirational coaching 鈥� that teaches an organization to be bold
2. To be visionaries 鈥� reminding people about the larger picture beyond the business
3. Create ownership mind-sets 鈥� exploring competition as opportunities, taking each challenge head-on
4. Culture broke by on black hole. Build connections through the spine of culture.
5. Cleanse our sponge frequently. Create both capacity and speed for change.
6. Think different and innovate to out-hustle and out-muscle your competition.
7. Erase energy sappers from your everyday life! Bring in the energy stars!

As part of our journey to create a culture that adapts to extreme ownership, Tech Mahindra formed 5 transformation offices with clear outcomes 鈥� Growth, Delivery, Innovation, Process and customer success, and probably the most important – the People Transformation Office.

The objectives of the people transformation office were always very clear:

• To build a high-performance culture
• To have talent refresh that ensures the agility of the workforce
• To have young leadership and capabilities around young leadership
• To be an employer of choice
• To be able to achieve cost-optimization

For now, let’s narrow down on three of these critical objectives 鈥� building a high-performance culture, young leadership, and capability building and becoming an employer of choice.

Extreme ownership always flows from the top, it flows from leaders being aligned to a common goal. To achieve this alignment of thought and actions, at Tech Mahindra we created dashboards for our top 300 leaders. These dashboards were automated straight from financial data and provided monthly reviews of not only the harder aspects of the business but also gave insights into the softer aspects of performance.

These dashboards also allowed us to set customized goals. Not just cut and paste job where everyone is measured against the same yardstick or expected to deliver the same outcomes. With our customized goals we ensured that there was reasonable upskilling, reskilling, repurposing, and refreshment of talent across the organization. This meant that new talent could be brought in, and existing ones could be upskilled to face the new challenges of the post-pandemic era.

As part of this initiative, all top 300 leaders were reviewed monthly. And 30 of them were reviewed by the CEO himself. This brought in a lot of rigor and alignment in the way things got done within the organization.

Secondly, to encourage young talent within the organization we took on something that we call “reversing the pyramid”. This move helped us ensure that the power is refocused on the ground level 鈥� turning account managers into CEOs. To infuse some young leadership talent, we also introduced several interesting programs like LEAP, Global Leader CAD program, Management Training program, AIMER program. All these programs were specifically targeted at youngsters from outside the industry 鈥� positive thinkers and doers who would take on extreme ownership. Next, we encouraged women within our organization through our Women Leadership Program. This program yielded a significant uplift in revenue for the organization, as we not only upskilled our female employees but also placed them in higher job roles immediately.

Giving higher-visibility roles to early leadership and continuous performance tracking, mentoring, and upskilling was the hallmark of all our initiatives. There were some common attributes that we looked for in all our young leaders like 鈥� pursuit of passion, curiosity, persistence, digital prowess, an entrepreneurial mindset, and of course attention to detail.

Thirdly, as part of our initiatives to organize the extreme ownership culture we were continuously inspired to do more to become an employer of choice. The many awards we have won are simply an outcome of the efforts we have put in. As an organization, we took on initiatives that encourage diversity, young leadership, and career-building, very early on.

And we got recognized for our diversity, usage of HR technology, upskilling, our response to the pandemic, for being the best place for careers, best workplace for women, and being named as one of Asia’s Best Workplaces in 2021. All of the external recognition’s that came in reiterated for us the fact that we were on the right path to organize ourselves as a company with extreme ownership. This is a continuous journey for us and external recognition’s like these only inspire us to do more.

In conclusion, it would be right to say that managing ‘change’ through basics turned out to be the key for us as an organization, whether it was a process, policy or people change. In the post-pandemic era, we are empowering our leaders to go and WIN! We are hype personalizing, we are adding collaboration and skin-in-the-game and we have rewards, recognition’s, and schemes including new incentive policies in place to spur our people on.

We have simplified all our designs and amplified all our communications. And that is how we have energized 1,26,000 employees and associates in this new normal. Extreme ownership is the only response to this global pandemic. How we work and lead has completely shifted with more priority and focus on clarity, compassion, and connection.

Check out more posts from 51风流HR Connect 2021:

HR Connect 2021: Evolving Employee Experience from HCM to HXM in Hybrid 2.0 – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: CEO’s Perspectives on the Changing People Paradigm听听 – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Meeting Business Priorities in a Hybrid World – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Thriving in the Vaccine Economy Through Human Experience – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Code to Cracking the Talent, Technology & Cost Trifecta – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Driving Talent Transformation Strategy with Resilience – 51风流India News Center

The post HR Connect 2021: Extreme Ownership at the Center of Talent Transformation Strategy appeared first on 51风流India News Center.

The pandemic revealed the best and the worst in organizations. While the worst is not yet over but with the best elements in place, employers can rebuild resilient brands, cultures, and experiences for a diverse, human, hybrid world. Yashwant Mahadik, President – Global Human Resources & Co-Lead Business Transformation Office, Lupin Global, shared some incredible insights as part of his case study on how resilience has transformed their organization from within.

Over the last two years, the best employer brands have rewired themselves, placing human employee experience at the core and rebounded with resilience. As we reimagine our world in a hybrid way, organizations need to put resilience at the center of their EX strategy. To do this most efficiently, we need to review the situation we are in and identify “what have we learned” and “what we can do differently”.

One of the first things that this pandemic has taught us is that there are more types and kinds of disaster scenarios than we are prepared for. While most organizations had some sort of disaster planning in place to ensure business continuity, not many even imagined the kind of scenario we are currently in. When companies prepare for disasters, they mostly consider 鈥� electrical grid situations, floods, nuclear plant leaks, hurricanes, etc. as disasters that can disrupt businesses. Not many had painted a disaster scenario of a pandemic where the whole world would shut down.

When the pandemic started it affected every industry differently. Certain industries like airlines, hotels, tourism were affected more than others as they shut down overnight. From week one, these industries had to worry about cash conservation. On the other hand, some industries were under a different kind of stress. Industries like healthcare, pharma, and other essential commodities had to keep operations running continuously, without even a single day off.

HR leaders have been confronted with challenges of business continuity from day one. The biggest issue for most has been the jobs that cannot be performed from home, such as manufacturing, hospitality, etc.

The learnings we have gathered are probably as diverse as the problems we have faced during these challenging times. We as organizations have learned numerous new ways of engaging with our talent through technology. While processes like assessing talent and recruiting were easier to adopt virtually 鈥� but the step of onboarding proved to be one of the first challenges in HR. Over time many similar processes had to go through some massive transformations for HR to seamlessly transition onto a more virtual world.

We also learned that simply being sensitive to our people’s needs is not enough. We need to genuinely care and show assurance towards our talent and others within the community. Most companies did exceedingly well on this front. However, this also resulted in the suffering of business results for some. As costs for many companies shot up considerably. For example, at Lupin Global, we doubled our insurance for our people. The cost of doing this outweighed any savings we had made over time. These small steps to assure your commitment to your talent’s well-being are critical. It makes them feel assured about working for the right company and leaders -who have their hearts in the right place.

On the other hand, there have been companies who have had the intent but lacked the resources to provide any extra support to their people. At the other end of this spectrum are organizations that had to lay off employees barely 6 months into the pandemic and file for bankruptcy. Imagine the kind of stress and impact this dynamic created on the talent market.

Adapting to these scenarios meant that the talent had to recalibrate itself. And we as an organization needed to find new ways to connect with our talent. To better understand the ground reality of our employees, yearly engagement surveys were not enough anymore. We needed to conduct pulse and dipstick surveys on a quarterly and sometimes even a monthly basis.

Priorities of the talent have also changed with the changing times. Ongoing trends suggest that most employees want to move out from the big cities and go back to the smaller cities. To live with their parents and care for them while working from home. There are so many similar situations that one had to learn and become sensitive to while taking care of the talent.

On the other hand, we also realized that our productivity per person did not suffer. People ended up working more and were able to turn out more when at home. Mostly because they saved a lot of time due to the elimination of travel time, and also people genuinely cared enough to give their best 鈥� which was amazing to see.

Check out more posts from 51风流HR Connect 2021:

HR Connect 2021: Evolving Employee Experience from HCM to HXM in Hybrid 2.0 – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: CEO’s Perspectives on the Changing People Paradigm听听 – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Meeting Business Priorities in a Hybrid World – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Thriving in the Vaccine Economy Through Human Experience – 51风流India News Center

HR Connect 2021: Code to Cracking the Talent, Technology & Cost Trifecta – 51风流India News Center

The post HR Connect 2021: Driving Talent Transformation Strategy with Resilience appeared first on 51风流India News Center.

A fireside chat brought together a panel of talent leaders, moderated by Pallavi Kapoor, Head HR- APAC, Coforge; and including Madhu Srivastava, Group CHRO, Vedanta Resources Plc, and Prashant Deo Singh, Head HR, InterGlobe Technology Quotient.

Acknowledging the pandemic’s impact on digital transformation, the panel shed light on how companies have been forced to rethink their operating models and accelerate investments in cloud technologies, AI, and automation. And reflected upon how CHROs can become the ultimate partners to accelerate digital transformation for a better EX and continuous organizational growth.

Moving Forward: HR Technology in 2021

Kicking off the discussion, Pallavi Kapoor discussed the pandemic’s massive impact on the adoption and role of HR automation across industries. And how with almost 99% of employees working from home, there has been an increased focus on the potential of HR technologies to better engage and support a virtual workforce.

鈥淎 recent ISG survey worldwide found 46% companies are now using an -x`as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. A 20% rise from what it was just two years ago. Looking to the future, the survey also found 57% of organizations expect to be using a subscription-based SaaS by 2023.鈥�, she said.

She added, 鈥淒igital transformation is the clear mandate for organizations. It has accelerated the kind of growth that was envisaged as a 5-year journey and compressed it into a 3-month time frame.”

Making HR Agile: The Digital Transformation Journey

Detailing the digital transformation journey Vedanta Resources – one of the world’s leading diversified natural resource companies, took on during the past 2 years, Madhu Srivastava explained, 鈥淒igital transformation has been a top priority for us even before the pandemic began. But given the circumstances, we have definitely stepped on the pedal to increase the speed at which we are bringing in this transformation.鈥�

She emphasized the rising need for digital transformation by asserting, 鈥淲e strongly believe digital is the true differentiator between any two companies, in any sector. Only an organization that is going digital can enhance its productivity, increase volumes and reduce costs. It is the only way to thrive in the current scenario.鈥�

Listing a few of the initiatives her organization took to keep up with the times, she revealed, 鈥淲e started by hiring 鈥楥hief Digital Officers鈥�, not only at a group but at business levels. We also formed a 鈥楧igital Management Committee鈥� for each of our businesses. These committees were assigned to continuously review the kind of transformations that can be brought into the business. Not just in terms of digital technology, but data, analytics, AI, and the whole gamut.鈥�

“Next, we set up a “Digital Advisory Board” where we had the best of global technology experts come in and interact with our teams 鈥� to train, share knowledge and work on outcome-oriented projects with them.” She added, “We want to be known as a technology-driven company and encourage everyone, including employees, contractors, and business partners, to have tech-enabled processes.”

Speaking on how technology is being driven as the top priority on the HR front, she said, “We have already deployed technology in bits and pieces. Now, we are planning to move our end-to-end HR services online soon. Ensuring data is available for us to make decisions based on analytics.鈥�

Touching on InterGlobe Technology鈥檚 transformation journey, Prashant Singh added, 鈥淥ne and a half years ago, we as a company took up digital transformation as a strategy across. Not just HR, but every function within the organization moved towards it. When the pandemic struck, this transformation was fast-forwarded.”

鈥淥ur focus has been to integrate our HR system. Previously we have had disparate vendors and modules for various systems. But we felt that integrating systems onto one single unified platform is critical for the sake of employee experience.鈥� Elaborating on the importance of finding the right partner, he said, “Rather than jumping onto a partner and implementing ad hoc modules, it is better to spend more time researching and identifying a partner who can take care of all your business needs.”

Decoding a few key elements that can help navigate this journey successfully, Prashant summarized, 鈥淗aving filters while choosing the right solution for your organization can be quite useful. During the process of getting our tech in place, we looked at viability, functionality, features, support services, and finally the cost of the solution.”

鈥淵ou should also be ready as an organization before deploying the software.鈥� He explained, 鈥淎t our organization, we refreshed all our HR policies and SOPs to get the best-in-class outcomes from the solution before deploying it. It is critical in this journey to involve people from across functions and teams, and for everyone to learn and be part of the experience.”

Listing some of the challenges faced during this journey, he added, “We had a lot of legal entities which faced separate challenges. Data handling became a major concern for us there. There were also many issues relating to access rights that needed to be addressed across the organization. Finally, the pandemic itself effectively delayed our project by putting people from our team and our vendors out of action. Despite all this, our resilience and resolve helped us push forward to our ultimate goal of getting a great .鈥�

Success Partners: Changing CHRO & CEO Dynamics

Throwing light on the increasing importance of the CHRO as a partner to the CEO, Madhu explained, “As I see it, the CFO and CHRO work as two hands to the CEO. And all three roles are critical in driving the business towards the right direction.鈥�

“As CHRO, our role is to think of ourselves as partners to the CEO. Not just for executing but also as part of the strategic decision making and enabling the CEO to make those decisions. Starting from the business plan to organizational design, the CHRO has to partner with the CEO to translate the vision for the company into a roadmap that can be executed to deliver expected outcomes.鈥�

On the rising role technology plays in this evolution, she said, “The CEO looks up to the CHRO for advice while making critical decisions. CHROs now have the added responsibility to ensure they are enabled and equipped – in terms of data, analytics, knowledge of trends, etc.鈥�

Adding a key perspective to the discussion, Pallavi mentioned, 鈥淗uman experience is a complete experience that a person has with a brand, both digitally and physically.鈥� She emphasized, 鈥淢ost organizations and customers are undergoing digital transformation, and it is important that the entire element is viewed together, integrated across, and then taken forward to create people experiences that take them to the next level. HR must be agile and make faster decisions. And technology is taking the front seat in bringing all of it together to ensure a seamless employee experience.鈥�

Commenting on how technology has taken center stage even in job descriptions, Prashant added, “Even when hiring for HR, we look for people who have experience in implementing HRMO solutions. Work-from-home has been institutionalized. People are moving out of office spaces, and technology is taking up a major role in integrating employees and consumers. HR is having dialogues with CEOs & CXOs on roles can be permanently moved out of the office and technologies that can enable employees and customers.”

Elaborating further on the critical role data and analytics plays in business success, he observed, “Today everyone in the c-suite is looking for visual analytics in real-time. We can’t have HR spending precious hours creating excel sheets and presentations for reviews. We would rather take them directly to a system visual analytics, where they can view realistic data directly. That’s the kind of absolute visibility into predictive analytics that c-level executives expect, and that’s what the digital platform delivers.”

Amplifying Employee Experience: What does the future hold

Talking about the future course of their transformation journey, panel members agreed that to unlock true value in this digital journey, it is important to ensure that it is adopted across functions within the organizations.

Sharing plans, Madhu mentioned, 鈥淚n terms of HR, Vedanta is ready to launch its 1^st phase in October this year, and by next year, we will be 100% online. What is important to us and we will continue with, is bringing in external partners- to not just help us get the system in place, but to guide us as we adopt technology for a better employee experience. We also keep the internal communication that helps us communicate the value and benefits technology brings into the lives of our people.”

“We definitely want to live in a digital world where everything is available online, so we can stop making excel sheets and PowerPoint slides. Instead, we can just walk into a meeting and log into a system where all data is available and reviews can be conducted directly on the system.鈥�

Recounting the takeaways from the past 2 years, Prashant added, 鈥淲ith technology taking center-stage, boundaries have all but disappeared. One should keep in mind that while the beauty of an integrated tech platform is extremely important, instead of having a bolt-on system we should integrate APIs wherever possible.鈥� Ending with some critical advice, he said 鈥淚n this entire technology race, we should not lose the human touch.鈥�

Pallavi summed it up perfectly when she said, ” The human touch can’t be taken away, whether it’s the people, HR leaders or the HR platform, the guiding principle is that we remain agile and flexible, and that will be the future forward for all of us.鈥�

Check out more posts:

Evolving Employee Experience from HCM to HXM in Hybrid 2.0 – 51风流India News Center

CEO’s Perspectives on the Changing People Paradigm听听 – 51风流India News Center

Meeting Business Priorities in a Hybrid World – 51风流India News Center

Thriving in the Vaccine Economy Through Human Experience – 51风流India News Center

The post Code to Cracking the Talent, Technology & Cost Trifecta appeared first on 51风流India News Center.

2020 ushered us into a new way of working. Organizations are now moving to investing and setting up infrastructures to provide a superior work experience to their people鈥� Hybrid 2.0. 51风流organized the 51风流HR Connect 2021 to throw some much-needed light on how we can design employee experiences for the hybrid 2.0 world that are holistic, progressive, agile, technology-driven, and most importantly, more human!听

Jason Averbook, CEO & Co-Founder, Leapgen, conducted a workshop听delving听into the ideal way听of carving a winning employee experience strategy. Where he provided a step-by-step guide to听planning a pandemic-proof EX strategy that听transforms听employees into growth partners听as we transition to newer work models听for our brave, evolving hybrid world of work.听

The last couple of years has changed the world of work, forever.听HR has had to greatly accelerate its pace of developing and implementing experience strategies and tools听for employee experiences听that have听become critical to driving impact for organizations.听听

Getting to Hybrid 2.0听

Transformation is a word that people bring up a lot, but not many truly understand what it means. The word “trans” means radical change and “formation” means how we do things, in this case, ‘how we work’. In听the world where we have lived in听there are 2 types of “trans” 鈥� there is technology transition and there is true transformation. True transformation comes only by following three听key听steps 鈥撎�Strategy, Deployment & ROI (Run, Optimize, Innovate).听

The听concept of Hybrid 2.0 needs to be attacked in a very systemic way. And that starts with developing the right Digital People Strategy. Deploying the strategy is the next step and requires a very large effort that includes programs, change, adaptation, unlearning, organizational听model听and it may also at some point involve the implementation of technology.听听

Implementation is a part of the deployment. A lot of organizations are great at implementation but not deployment and that’s where a lot of strategies fall apart.听听

Once the strategy has been deployed, the third step is to think about how to sustain the value we get from it. This is where ROI or RUN, OPTIMIZE, INNOVATE comes into play.听听

The World听of Work听in听2021听

In the world we live in today, building strategies is听really hard.听Previously, there was a point in time where we could make 5 –听3 year听strategies/plans. But in today’s day听and age of听uncertainty, there is a much higher need for agile strategies 鈥� one’s that can shift, flex, contract based on the things happening around us.听听

We are human inside of work as much as we are outside of it. In the world of HXM, this means that we need to be听listening at all times听to the signals and the people and react with our strategies intact.听听听

We need to respond by going to our core 鈥撎齩ne that makes us all听human, and听think about recovery听by focusing on听being human-centered.听Because people are our most important assets and how we make them feel is what is going to allow us to get through these changing times.听听

Some of the impacts we听are seeing on the NOW of work:听

• Human-centered recovery strategy听

• Need for systems and tools to drive efficacy听
• Hybrid work is not a fad and will be here forever听
• HR听to act听with agility and response-ability听
• Digital & distributed models of work听
• Concerted policy efforts听to drive systemic change听

• Optimism听and听uncertainty听at the same time听
• Attracting and retaining labor now looks vastly different听

Right now, HR has the largest opportunity that it has ever had – to shape the NOW of work.听听

Digital听Equation for Success听

Remarking on the pandemic鈥檚 effect on every aspect of work and life, Satya Nadella, CEO听of, Microsoft said, 鈥淲e saw two years of digital transformation in two months鈥�. The question that now remains is if this is also the case with the HR function?听

Digital transformation is meant to touch everything from marketing to sales to everything done in Human Resources. The shift from HCM to HXM is essentially about transformation and the need for every HR organization in the world to digitally transform.听Most people think that digital听is all about听technology, but that鈥檚 not true. Digital is not听just technology, rather听it听is a component of听it.听听

It is time we rethink how to better design and deliver services. This听starts听by bringing back听the focus on understanding the purpose of our organization and how we want to serve with it.听HR leaders have put this purpose into action by digitally transforming their functions. They can do this by focusing on 4 key areas:听

1. 35% of digital success comes from ensuring听you have a clear, concise, understood听mindset听that is听aligned to the purpose听and has strong measures of success.听

1. 30%听is听designing for the audience听of NOW.听This comes from truly听knowing听your people- not just skills and qualifications but听what allows them to bring their best selves to work.听

1. 25%听comes from听designing听journeys.听Processes generate data, but journeys create feelings and connections听between people and their purpose.听

1. 10% of success comes from the technology听deployed (not just implemented) to support the people and processes.听Essentially acting听as听the听fuel needed to create journeys.听

Digital transformation is made up of each of these components. Leaving out even one of these reduces the effectiveness听of听the overall transformation.听

Ultimately when we think about HXM, what we need to do is LISTEN & ACT. Listen to the people and act on it immediately 鈥� not once a year on an engagement survey, but NOW! As organizations and HR leaders we need to do a better job at listening, to truly understand the human side of our workforce.听听

Experience Needs to听be:听Shift to B to Me听

The听real goal of HXM and true transformation is the shift from a B2B focus (where the tools听used听are in place to make听the听HR听function听more efficient) to a B2Me focus. This shift will enable employees and managers with tools that make them successful 鈥� not the HR but the organization.听听

B2Me means personalization, the kind that can only be achieved by truly knowing our people. We need to build workforce tools that not only connect people but build connections between the people. And we need to do this with a concept called –听Hands, Heads & Hearts.听

听

The formula that defines experience is simple:听

Transaction + Interaction = Experience听

Adding听interaction to transactions enriches it to create an experience. The interaction is where the trust is built. The Hands, Heads & Hearts concept is a simple way to think about how we need to shift work as part of the digital transformation.听听

Machines are exceptional at hands work, or what is called RAD (Repeatable, Auditable & Documented) work and that is where we should leverage technology. People, on the other hand, are good at the heart’s work 鈥� at building connections. It is time we start building functions in a way where the machines are doing the transactional work, while people focus on building stories around the data provided by the machines.听听

The True Value of Digital听

Digital is not about eliminating the human element, rather it enhances it.听听Work no longer looks the way it used to 2 years ago, and that’s why HR can’t act the same way it did previously.听HR听needs听to become听agile in these fragile times.听听

In a recent survey, Future Workforce found that if HR could double its budget, HR leaders from most organizations would like to allocate these additional funds to improve the employee experience (44%) and existing technology (37%).听听

Before the pandemic, we used to have 2 types of experiences 鈥� Physical & Digital/Technical. Today, we have only one听–听the 鈥淲orkforce or Human Experience鈥�.听听To achieve听this experience听to the fullest, we听have to听stop implementing technology and move to deploying human capabilities.听听

Adding technology doesn’t change the HR function or its interaction with the workforce 鈥� but it听definitely helps听with it. However, we听have to听remember that technology without change is nothing.听And for people to adopt transformation, organizations will have to adapt.听听

Human-Centered Design Leverages Personas听

You cannot talk about HXM, without talking about humans, and the voice of the employees/customers.听Deploying technology was听previously听done as a single spread. This听approach听doesn鈥檛 work anymore. We need to meet people where they are with an empathetic听lens to the work they do and how they do it.听听

We need to create personas by listening to people who seem like the persona and study them more carefully to understand- the best ways to communicate with them, their needs and expectations, roadblocks, etc. When we understand a persona at that level, we can deploy messages in a way that meets the persona where they are and with what they need.听听

Benefits of personas:听

• Companywide understanding of your workforce听

• Encourages empathy-driven design听听
• Digestible workforce segments听
• Uncover workforce needs/common frustrations听
• Test, refine, and improve experiences听
• Anticipate future opportunities听

When we have this kind of insight into our workforce, we can take the “Whole Person Approach”. This approach looks at every aspect of the employee 鈥� Physical, Emotional, Social, Spiritual, and Intellectual to听design solutions that听attack听every听problem from all angles.听听

COVID has given HR the passport to reset, rethink, reimagine, and realize that the next normal is probably going to be no normal that we are used听to听and that growth is coming at a very large scale. We need to plan and prepare for this by shifting focus from using technology for transition to using it for transformation.听 And embrace the fact that everything about the digital workforce & HXM is now HR’s responsibility.听

HR needs to now deliver experiences, not technology 鈥� solutions, not toolkits; enable not monitor; people capabilities, not technology features! And all of this听has to听be done while considering the measurable outcomes of the business.听听

One of the most magical things about the shift from HCM to HXM is realizing that technology is the fuel that will allow us to drive to what the NOW of work is.听听

Check out more posts:

CEO’s Perspectives on the Changing People Paradigm听听

Meeting Business Priorities in a Hybrid World

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To get a CEO鈥檚 perspective on the evolving paradigm of the talent agenda the event held an exclusive CEO Dialogue. Chaired by Ester Martinez, CEO & Editor – in – Chief, People Matters, this esteemed panel included thought leaders from leading organizations –听Kulmeet听Bawa, President & Managing Director, 51风流Indian Subcontinent,听Dilip听Shanghvi, Managing Director, Sun Pharma, and C. P.听Gurnani, CEO, Tech Mahindra.听听

While discussing the COVID situation, the power-packed panel revisited the talent transformation agenda and reflected on how it has once again become the center of board room concern. They acknowledged the role of technology in helping businesses reinvent themselves to continuously realize value听as they听inch from recovery to growth.听

Following are the key听highlights of this insightful discussion:听

Revisiting听The听Talent听Agenda听Through听The听Pandemic听Lens听

Kicking off the discussion with his thoughts on COVID, C.P.听Gurnani听termed it the accelerator for one of the greatest workforce transformations of our lifetimes.听Emphasizing听the听lasting impact of recent听changes to the ways we work, exercise, shop, learn, communicate, or where we work, he stated听鈥淗R听today means how it affects me as an individual and my 13,000 associates.听鈥�听

Reflecting on the听initial phase of the lockdown, he mentioned “The first few months were about arranging chairs, tables, renting out hotels near workplaces and creating a secure environment.听It听was听like听mechanically responding to an emergency听鈥撎齝reating war rooms to provide essentials.听But very soon we realized that transformation is essential as much for听customers, for managers听to manage a remote workforce, and as much for the workforce to balance their personal & business lives.听Technology has provided the fabric and the听answer, but听knowing what the challenges are and being able to address them is the need of the hour.鈥澨�听

Kulmeet听shared, 鈥淭he world has听changed听and we are grappling with certain issues. While we miss the coffee corners, office huddles, personal connections, and travel, we听have听witnessed听a prominent听silver lining in the form of much higher levels of productivity听and a lot more time with our customers and teams, which is phenomenal to me.”听听

Commenting with his perspective of the future of talent agenda, he added听鈥淭here听has been a clear emergence of a听brand-new听culture, that demands a听lot more agility and nimbleness. From a talent perspective, this means employees need to possess a lot more digital dexterity and mental resilience.听We as leaders & HR as an organization will need to be a lot more conscious of how we bring in this new talent and hone them to be successful. Secondly,听the changes we are听seeing today require a whole new paradigm in terms of leadership. We need to break away from the traditional hierarchical chain-of-command model听to cater听to the huge millennial and Gen Z workforce听that we are bringing on board听and balance their need for instant gratification.鈥澨�听听

Speaking on the challenges faced by employees,听Dilip听Sanghvi added, 鈥淎nother important challenge we faced was – because we have people working across different time zones, the boundaries between personal and professional time were blurry. We had to set clear expectations, otherwise, people are left with no time to work, guide recharge or relax.”听听

Creating听Positive听Employee听Experiences听That听Enable听Productivity听听

The more employers focus on what鈥檚 best for their people, the greater each employee鈥檚 experience will be. This means actively catering to your people鈥檚 needs and, more importantly, actually caring for them.听听

On SAP鈥檚 and his personal experience听as an 鈥渙n-screen leader鈥澨齩ver the last 13 months,听Kulmeet听said,听鈥淓mployees听today truly trust organizations that care for them.听At听51风流our topmost priority has听always听been the health and safety of our employees and the broader community.听I am touched by the spirit today, where I see every 51风流India employee听is听going beyond their charter by miles to deliver on the shared vision that we set up for ourselves as teams.听鈥溙�听

Commenting on the need to create moments of truth that holistically support employees, C.P.听Gurnani听added, 鈥淭his war has been imposed on us and has meant that听we听need to get into a wartime General mode. But you can鈥檛 be a听General who听is not concerned about an employee’s spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental health.听Today more than ever, the future of work is the future of worker well-being.鈥澨�听

听

In an effort to help employees manage the stresses of听work-life integration,听Tech Mahindra听has听appointed 鈥淲ellness Officers鈥�. Clearly communicating the company鈥檚 intention address its people鈥檚 emotional and physical requirements.听He added,听鈥淐OVID听has been a method of redefining business. My business is executed by people, they are my flag bearers and if I听can help them to redefine themselves, I will automatically be redefining my business and winning the hearts of my customers.听鈥�听

Echoing the sentiment across the panel,听Dilip听said, 鈥淭he last few quarters have been some of our best. This is the result of the significant contributions of our employees听and听helps us to look at business very differently, and听learn continuously.”听听

The Role of Technology听as a Strategic Enabler听听

Technology is rewriting the rules. In the hybrid workplace, it听is no longer playing a supporting role.听Instead,听it has proven itself to be the听critical听driving force enabling employees to achieve听overall operational听success.听听

On technology鈥檚 increasingly important role,听Dilip听Sanghvi听said,听鈥淭he听greatest contribution听of technology in improving processes has been its ability to remove subjectivity from evaluating performances. Making it a transparent process听that rewards people based on their contributions and success in an unbiased manner.听The speed with which technology has enabled us to work in this changing environment is only going to accelerate.鈥澨�听

Reflecting on听its critical role听in underpinning the talent strategic changes seen in the past year, C.P.听Gurnani听pointed out,听鈥淭he shift towards digitalization has been accelerated by a minimum of 5 -7 years.听I鈥檓 convinced that if听employees听had听not听embraced technology the way they did, some of the results we are seeing would never have been possible.听It is employees that grew, learned, and used the tools that were made available.鈥澨�听

鈥淎s employers and company leaders听we听will have to continue to invest in our people听and听give them a learning environment, where they can听create a听significant听impact听not only in the short-term but also in the medium and long-term.”听听

Talking about the emergence of a new mindset and its importance in the experience era,听Kulmeet听added, 鈥淲hile we talk about digital-first, I have witnessed that the digital-only strategy is coming up rather quickly. The questions we get asked today are no longer about the 鈥淲hy鈥�, but about the 鈥淗ow?鈥� – How do we do this faster? Or holistically? How do we do this cloud-first so that we are more agile?鈥�听

In the 鈥渆xperience era鈥� of ubiquitous, personalized experiences in the online world, technology is facilitating a real-time merger between science and art, between content and data. Commenting on听the need听for a renewed focus on fostering human connection, he explained,听鈥淲hile听most leadership tenets remain the same, some like the need for communication, enhanced need for empathy, and authenticity from leaders has gone up from a technology standpoint. We must humanize ourselves through various technological channels and forge the kind of bonds that听help us grow closer as people.鈥�听

Fostering Human Connections听in听a Changing听Workplace听

“We need to nurture a culture of trust within our organizations, by rolling out trust-based models. At SAP, we are in the process of implementing an initiative called “Pledge2Flex”.听 We hope it will help us dive deep into a flexible workplace model, agnostic of geographic boundaries and time zones.听It is time we ensure that the amount of flexibility should move at the same pace as what the world is demanding.鈥�听

Discussing the needs of a changing workforce,听Dilip听mentioned, 鈥淢anaging the new millennials needs a new mindset. A transparent model that gives them freedom, respects their abilities, trusts their judgments while rewarding contributions, and gives honest feedback can be the best way听into the future of work.鈥�听

Concluding the session with some advice on听creating听a high-performing workplace, C.P.听Gurnani听suggested, 鈥淢anagers need to adopt a parental style of leadership, where you understand your employee will need some help to uphold values, his/her contributions and his/her relationship to their own family. I believe it is our job to keep the workplace happy and听I can only do this by communicating and listening.听All my advice听boils down to 3 words 鈥� Listen. Understand. Act.听听

Also read about the keynote address at HR Connect 2021听

The post CEO’s Perspectives on the Changing People Paradigm听听 appeared first on 51风流India News Center.

As part of the opening keynote, Prashanth Tripathy, Managing Director & CEO, Max Life Insurance Pvt. Ltd.,听shared some critical insights into trends that are creating lasting听impacts on听the workforce and workplace. And the importance of building听progressive employee experiences听that expand the definitions of productivity, collaboration, and employee well-being in the post-pandemic world.听

The unfolding events of the COVID-19 outbreak have undoubtedly impacted the way the workforce is interacting and working with each other.听Organizations听are looking for creative solutions to听maintain balance between their 2 main objectives of sustaining rapid growth and creating a positive employee experience.听

Explaining how Max Life Insurance experienced its best 18 months since its inception 20 years ago, Prashanth pointed out some key trends. And shared how his organization tackled these ups and downs to achieve business goals of hyper-productivity, agility, and flexibility through a progressive employee experience tailored for a hybrid world.听听

Key Trends听Transforming Employee Experiences听

Rise of True Digitization听

Before the disruptions caused by the pandemic and the consequent lockdowns, the digital journey was simply a fad that every CEO seemed to be on. The current work scenario has created a paradigm shift.听听To deliver on business outcomes more efficiently, while remaining a great place to work听organizations across the globe听are听re-evaluating听and doing听more to support their听move towards digitization.听听

Global Talent Competitiveness听

The shift to remote work also means that we are now competing for talent at a global level. People today can work from any market, serving any company. The entry-exit barriers created by geography have slowly but surely dissolved, leaving us with a new challenge听to find creative ways to retain our position as great employers, among almost the whole world.听听

The 鈥淧hygital鈥� Workspace听

As a critical enabler of business and economic continuity, remote working has shown us that physical presence for work is out of the window. It鈥檚 a new world and听organizations need to differentiate themselves based on flexibility to meet employee needs. Creating a听鈥淧hygital鈥澨齱orld 鈥� that brings in digital and interfaces it with the physical set-up to perfectly fit in the new normal听which听seems to be the way ahead.听听

No One Solution to Fit All听

Organizations will have to strike the optimal balance between the physical and digital, that works best for them.听Solutions cannot听be generic for industries or the world at large, as every company and its employee needs will differ depending on their听work models and business goals. All companies will have to strike their own balance.听

Importance of Company Culture听

The culture of an organization, its purpose, and values are some of the most important things that anchor and bind the workforce. At a time when departments within organizations are physically divided across geographies, the consequent flexibility can impede creating strategies that align the workforce and is a challenge that needs much thought.听

Supervision is Passe听

The last 18 months have made it clear that most organizations do not need supervisors. It has been observed time and again that if we are not careful this supervisory layer can create havoc by shifting the balance from discussions, creativity, or brainstorming to mere reviews. Instead, organizations need to divert efforts to engage and create deeper connections with employees, so they feel heard and appreciated.听听

Work-life Balance Matters听

We have all experienced the slow deterioration of the quality of work-life balance since the beginning of the work-from-home era. A direct result of the reduced productivities听as compared to听how well we used to work cross-functionally in a physical set-up.听It is not as simple as just walking up to someone鈥檚 desk anymore. Collaborations of any kind today, require setting up calls and setting aside time from our already busy schedules.听

How Max Life Insurance Re-invented its Employee听Experiences听for Hybrid 2.0听

As soon as the lockdown was in place the team came together to outline a purpose and path to differentiate themselves in the market.听Keeping a close watch on trends and tirelessly working toward creating a unified purpose,听helped听Max Life Insurance听to听realize and outdo its business goals, despite the challenging times.听

Prashanth detailed听some of the actions听his organization听adopted to maintain听the听equilibrium required between employee centricity, morale, motivation, and听the听business outcomes that were expected.听听

• Launching a special program called ‘Mission Possible’ with a focus on surviving against the adversity of the pandemic. This was done via different reward and recognition mechanisms, listening forums, engagement avenues, as well as presenting a simplified way to operate in a digital setup.听Successfully mirroring, replicating, and creating听an optimum way听of work resulting in a steep increase in听market share, rather quickly.听

• Secondly, they always listened. The need to listen has multiplied many times over the last 18 months. While earlier listening avenues were restricted by hierarchy, the team now spent at least a couple of hours were spent talking to people, to identify听problems. Pulse surveys were also conducted every 2 months to understand the ground reality and quickly finding solutions to the reported problems.听听
• As the workforce shifted from the physical workspace, the organization made huge investments to enable teams with tools, training, WFH infrastructures, and designing a world-class hybrid workplace.听This new adaptable workspace will be welcoming its head office staff of over 2000 employees, to a hot-desking setup, where people can come in anytime they feel like.听听
• People communication and cutting down on meeting time is another area of focus.听In the era of zoom and teams, meetings can eat into a lot of productive time. To combat this, 鈥淒o-Not-Disturb鈥� time has been scheduled between 1-2 pm every day. No meetings are to be scheduled, and people are discouraged from calling their peers during this time. The company is also contemplating declaring a couple of days a month as 鈥淥ff-Meeting Days鈥�. This will give people time to prioritize work deliveries, rather than attending meetings.听听
• As a workforce predominantly consisting of the sales team, 85% to be exact, Max Life Insurance acknowledges that is never going to be a 100% digital company. It believes that to maintain a great culture and value system, human face-to-face interactions are foundational and is working towards bringing back its people to the office slowly. At the same time, they are committed to being mindful of the personal needs of each employee.听听

In closing, as an organization run by people, we need to recognize the importance of the human touch, but what is required more than that is to continue inspiring people to deliver on the expected business outcomes by aligning our people with our strategies. Ensuring that there is a common thread that ties the entire workforce together can help in this endeavor. 听

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