EKAGRA 3.0

E H T

T A E GR E SRI G N A T I O N MY T H O REA R LITY ?

tête-à-tête: Great Resignation or Great Contemplation?

Retaining Talent in a Pandemic Featuring: Companies with Impeccable Retention of Talents Top Appointments in HR

Book Review: Outlier: The Story of Success - Prof. Divya Tripathi Article: Effects of Great Resignation Across Industries Startups, HRM & The Way Forward

JANUARY 2022

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DR. NAGARAJAN RAMAMOORTHY Director, IIM Amritsar

Greetings!

The greatest asset of any organization is its human capital. The key competitive advantage of any company is having the right kind of people at the right place at the right time and having them perform at their full potential. Organisations attempted to achieve this by keeping the voluntary turnover low through proactive employment practices during periods of low unemployment and didn’t mind resignations during periods of high unemployment to reduce various costs associated with recruitment, lost productivity, the lag time in filling the vacancies, etc. However, the pandemic has changed the equations for both the employees and the employers. The great resignations, notably in the technology and health care sectors and particularly among the mid-career professionals have posed great challenges for the corporations and has also opened a window of opportunity to reflect, rethink and reconfigure. Stress and emotional burnout have been known to cause employee turnover and lost productivity. The pandemic caused stress and strains to employees and created uncertainty about their future.

What is different now is the ability of the employees, particularly knowledge workers, to not only switch careers but also find alternatives in completely different industries. They have realized that they have many choices! On the positive side, the pandemic has also opened up windows of opportunities for the employees who were laid off. The uncertain period has resulted in newer work arrangements and also flexibility for people to balance their life and work without significant loss in productivity or profitability, barring a few industries such as the hospitality sector. Employees have realized that they have “choices”. No longer are they tied to any single organisation. The modern work arrangements provide them with the flexibility they desire – the ability to do things they like to do and even change their jobs and/or career if they choose to.

Working for a company or even self-employment as an option has created opportunities for exploration of one’s broader and varied interests, and life’s choices and purposes than merely meeting the economic needs. While great resignation may appear to be a problem for the companies, on the positive side, they also pose a great opportunity for organisations to equally explore, reconfigure, and redeploy their work arrangements to make the job meaningful for employees and yet enhance the productivity and its competitive advantage. The various pieces appearing in this issue will likely create a healthy and thought-provoking debate.

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CONTENTS

TALENT IN A PANDEMIC 05 RETAINING AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MR. SRIKANTH KALYANASUNDARAM

08

HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS BUILD A SUCCESSFUL PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS MODEL FOR EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT? ARTICLE BY FARHEEN KAUSAR

02 04 07 10 13 15

great resignation or great contemplation?

Exclusive interview with Shivani Chaturvedi | CHRO | Former CPO at mjunction

effects of great resignation across industries

Article by Vishnu Dhas V | PayPal India | EMBA 01 Batch | Student | IIM Amritsar

road to my emba journey

Article by Anirban Meghamala | TCS | EMBA 01 Batch | Student | IIM Amritsar

Startups, hrm & the way forward

Article by Krishnaprasad V | MBA07 Batch | Student | IIM Amritsar

Budding hr startups

Feat. Zoojoo.be, Jedhru Informatics and Hirewand

Companies with impeccable retention OF TALENTS Feat. Hyatt, Southwest, Ericsson and many more

- THE STORY OF SUCCESS 11 OUTLIERS BOOK REVIEW BY PROF. DIVYA TRIPATHI

17 19 20 21 22 23

top appointments in hr

Feat. Sudeep Patnaik, Jasneet Kaur, Vivek Tripathi and many more

about our events

Activities at a Glance

team hrithvi

The Torch Bearers of the Club

contributors

Companions in the Ride

photogallery Life at The Holy IIM

on a lighter note HRScramble - A Gamified Learning

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The Great Resignation - A Wave of Change Greetings!

Across the various articles, interviews, and workforce trends published in 2021, one term that best captures the Zeitgeist of this year is “Great Resignation.” This term has been rephrased by many as “Great Relocation,” “Great Reshuffling,” “Great Awakening,” “Great Questioning,” etc.; whatever it is the central theme refers to the seismic changes that are happening in the sphere of “Work ITSELF“ in the organisations across various sectors. Workers worldwide are not just quitting but are constantly rewiring themselves and rethinking their options and worth of staying in a particular profile and organisation. The pandemic has fueled this thought in everybody’s mind: what are the expectations one should have from their work.

Various trends spotted worldwide suggested that around 20.2 million workers resigned from their jobs between May and September 2021, and many are staying out of the labor force in the US alone. But contrary to popular opinion, some economists believe that this period is a “free agency” period. Low-income workers had to switch jobs to make more money and some early retirements catapulted due to the health safety issues projected by the pandemic. The truth is that millions of people are rethinking their options of work and life integration and not merely a balance. This looks more like a permanent and long-lasting change in the workforce, and it might be good for workers and wages but will put employers under duress.

DR. VARTIKA DUTTA

Faculty Mentor, HRithvi Chair, Executive Education

Assistant Professor, OB&HR, IIM Amritsar

The pandemic has fueled a new movement amongst the workforce, realizing the power of mobility that one is experiencing anew. If the employee doing the work remotely does not feel engaged to the work and the employer brand, it will be tough for any organisation to hold on to this talent in this superfluid workplace. In these times, the organisations need to focus on employee experiences to make sure by the employer branding exercise to craft the perfect employee value proposition. They also need to create a career lattice for the talent to move freely internally and have a clearly laid skill and job architecture. The need for the hour is to bring in the CEO, CHRO, and CFO on a roundtable to plan strategically and put the money where the mouth is. Talent Management has to be a top priority for the entire organisation, focusing on retention strategy by well-designed benefits programs, end-to-end well-being programs, and digital tools to enhance productivity.

In the last Edition of Ekagra 2.0, we urged that HR be in the Driver’s Seat. In this edition of Ekagra 3.0, we recommend organisations to refocus and reorient themselves to put their people strategy first, and the rest will follow suit. We have an exciting repertoire of articles focusing on the various issues which led to the Era of Great Resignation and what should be done in the Indian Context. The buzz captured and conveyed in this edition might act as a harbinger of hope and positivity for all of us. We might try to get suitable heuristics to make the right talent decisions. The team has curated interesting viewpoints from industry veterans and students to force us to think how can we reconsider our old and comforting ways of planning for our employees.

As we usher into this New Year we hope that this newsletter will urge everyone to pause and reflect to see how we can reverse the trend and create more purposeful engagement for our workforce.

We sincerely hope that you will read and appreciate the effort put in by the students of the HR Club - HRithvi. Do write back to us for any further comments and suggestions.

Here’s wishing all of you a very Happy New Year 2022!

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Great Resignation or Great Contemplation?

Do you feel there will be a reversal for 'The Great Resignation' in the coming years?

This mass exodus has served as a wake-up call and put the spotlight on individual concern areas for each organisation, and as long as Corporations internalize & solve the issues appropriately, the situation sure would stabilize. As per Anthony Klotz - the organisational psychologist at Texas A&M University who coined the phrase “The Great Resignation”, the need to remap priorities in the work-life equation is the way ahead. Finetuning this definition confirms that culture (a term that loosely encompasses everything from managerial style, growth opportunities, fair pay, work hours or even an existential crisis) has created the push. The trick is now for organizations to strike a balance between profit-making and managing employee expectations!

As the global workforce prepares to enter the post-pandemic reality, what would you consider the most pressing challenge organisations must address to sustain work motivation?

So, each organisation has to define the problem statement for itself purposefully. That said, the market forces continue to call out the need for the collective consciousness to move from a survival mindset to a sustainable “thrive mindset”. The key issue is thus acceptance that “disruption is continuous rather than episodic, and a willingness to use disruption as a catalyst to drive the organisation forward” as per the 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report published by Deloitte. Rebuilding the dynamically evolving worker-employer relationship in the backdrop of individual aspirations, leading Companies to

growth while staying aligned to nuances of ESG and doing all this with agility continues to make the industry pundits think on the double.

There is a good side to every evil act.

Would you say that the good side of COVID (in terms of career) is that it acted as a catalyst for people to switch to jobs they love rather than those they think they loved?

Disruption, caused by the global pandemic has led to an existential crisis. Per HBR, numerous studies show that when people are thinking about death and other heavy existential topics, they become more focused on what makes their lives feel fulfilling because meaning reduces existential anxiety by helping them feel like they’re part of something larger and longer-lasting than their brief, mortal lives.

This search for meaning has definitely influenced job-related behaviour and decision making — including about where & how to work. This ties back into the handling of disruption by individuals & organisations, mentioned earlier.

Today's workers have shown a willingness to quit jobs that the country has not seen in decades — and they are leaving because their jobs are not fulfilling, do not get paid well, or take them for granted. So, how can

BASED ON AN INTERVIEW WITH SHIVANI CHATURVEDI FORMER CHIEF PEOPLE OFFICER, MJUNCTION

A thrive mindset recognizes that disruption is continuous rather than episodic, and embraces disruption as a catalyst to drive the organization forward

companies use the Great Resignation to transform the workplace by considering all of these reasons?

Deloitte, 2021

Leaders of most organizations agree not to let a good crisis go waste! And the COVID-19 fuelled Great Resignation is one such opportunity.

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Basis exit interviews, social media posts, polls & discussions, companies are triaging concerns and planning strategy accordingly. And while policies, processes & growth paths get defined at a micro level, countries and societies continue to revisit laws & governance mechanisms in the context of the new normal.

Forces of collective-evolution continue to sweep the land and winning organisations surge ahead with engaged leadership, breaking down of functional & level based silos, communication at every step, purposebuilt healthy & inclusive culture, and responsive managerial & administrative interventions. The mantra for companies to rebuild, refresh & rejig is to not only focus on what else/ new to do but on the how else to do things. Transformation of the workplace would thus be far more effective if the responses and the very definition of the VUCA world is replaced with that of a Rapid, Uncertain, Paradoxical and Tangled – in short, a RUPTured world.

The most common, layman, and pertinent question regarding the topic is this; while many people are unemployed and ready to

As far as talent is concerned, the market keeps changing from being demand led to supply led and the other way round, depending on the industry & the timing. So, while the Healthcare, Pharma, Hi-Tech, eCommerce, IT/ITeS industries have been dealing with high rates of attrition on an ongoing basis, workforce in other sectors are adding to the trend. In some industries, organisations have been slow in responding to the needs of the workforce; however in pockets the concern is with the employees themselves who may make the right sounds about upskilling/ reskilling yet pushback when it actually comes to moving out of their comfort zones. The issues in the industry about finding the right talent are just as real as the concerns about employees finding their dream job. Both stem from employees & employers rejecting change or not staying committed to contemporary responses to modern-day issues, as opposed to the traditional-methods only approach. The problem indeed is about successful implementation & adoption of the transformation agenda at a Company, Industry or Country level.

get a job, upskill, and re-skill themselves, why does this problem arise? What can it be attributed the most to; people not being thankful for what they have or a false sense among companies that they can retain employees without much effort?

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EFFECTS OF GREAT RESIGNATION

ON HEALTHCARE, IT, HOSPITALITY AND MANUFACTURING It was spring 2021 and something weird happened. Do you know how many employees resigned from their job since 1st BY Quarter of 2021? It’s more than 19Million VISHNU DHAS V and this is a record-breaking number which PAYPAL INDIA is disrupting many businesses. We are now EMBA 01 BATCH hearing the terms like “Great Resignation”, IIM AMRITSAR “Turnover Tsunami” etc... which are all saying that a lot of people are leaving! Many sectors are affected by this, but some are suffering greater losses than others. some personal time to refresh and rejuvenate to work more. This created a negative This pandemic made us to look the world experience and discontent with healthcare from a different perspective. There were altogether and that in-turn resulted in the curfews, quarantines, and limited & restricted resignation of 2.6M employees from this access to goods & services and even jobs. sector in last 5 months.

Many businesses have furloughed their If we look at the IT sector, many MNCs employees, and some fired their workforce asked employees to work from too. The remaining people started working anywhere/remote and this resulted in a time from home for a very extended duration of high uncertainty and stress. Now they are which becomes the “new normal”. requesting their workforce to return to the With this disruption, employees have contractual office locations, and this is not changed their views, and that raised a fitting their current work style preferences and question to every individual: “What matters so many are quitting and looking for fully the most to them?” and this self-reflection remote work from their new base or a hybrid has led the workforce to rethink of their type model. Another reason here is, post career paths. You knew what has happened pandemic the businesses started growing at then! “Resignation”. As mentioned earlier, scale. This creates more job opportunities and some of the sectors suffered a greater loss firms are ready to hire the potentials for more than others. Healthcare, IT, Manufacturing salary than what employee is expecting. and Hospitality were just few in that long list. Let’s dive deep to see what has On the manufacturing sector, at time of happened. pandemic, demand went down and so companies laid off many employees especially During the pandemic, the healthcare hourly/daily wage workers and even shut employees worked very hard and faced down their plant for many days. These setups many challenging situations to save lives. are very new to the employees, They have put to work continuously day & and they are not adapted to such night by their employer to treat the affected environment. They even paid less due to no people. As vaccines became available, they work. Manufacturing is a “Salary sensitive” got some room to breathe. The employer sector that is prone to movement of labor failed to address that the employees need and so many quit and joined with other

organisations for higher wages. Now market become active, demand increases but these resignations cause to hire employees for higher wages. Companies are now raising the salary and benefits to attract the labor (which is costing more to employer than they anticipated).

During pandemic, several roles were made redundant in the hospitality sector and so many got laid off which makes them to look for alternative jobs (outside their area of expertise). This made people to think of this sector as a sensitive one incases if similar situation in future arises. Many have transitioned their roles to other sectors, and they cited that they would not consider working in this industry again. This makes them not to apply for those open roles even after the economy is opened.

I would like to end this with a new view that rather than saying as “great resignation”, we can call as “Great Reshuffling” of people and business around the world!

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Retaining Talent in a Pandemic Many talent acquisitions and leadership development programs have always made sure companies find the best of best, but those at the top of the funnel are constantly struggling. Is there a way to help them?

Building talent and leadership development programs are like building a Great Space Station. Once the Space Station is built up, then there is a need to operate the space station which is not an easy skill. A specific skill sets, and a great leader is required to drive the team to make the space station successfully to operate.

In similar way, Leadership Development BASED ON AN Landscape demands employee to adapt a INTERVIEW WITH constant change through co-creating a culture SRIKANTH K A L Y A N A S U N D A R A M of Learning. Today there is pressing need of re-skilling and up-skilling. The way of learning DGM HR, has brought a tremendous change that J O H N C O C K E R I L L I N D I A L T D employees want to have their own control of learning. Many problems don’t have readymade solutions, invent as you go along.

Teamwork is the most essential for success.

There has to be a common vision if we have different diversified cultures, like Astronauts having one common goal for success.

Building Talent and Leadership Development programs are like building a Great Space Station. Once you build, there is a need to operate it, which is not a easy skill.

There has been a lot discussed relating to the healthcare worker exodus after facing the brunt of the pandemic. However, service industries such as retail, hospitality, food service, etc., are continuing to see the highest number of workers quit in any sector. Why is the demand for these jobs and retention fading from the labor market?

These said functions/roles are very critical in nature. No one has expected that pandemic would hit in a big way across these sectors.

However, during the pandemic, it is of great importance for organisations to show ‘WE CARE FOR ALL OUR EMPLOYEES’, and it's

that human connection plays a pivotal role and need to demonstrate human values which was need of the hour. Not only employees, its equally important to see their family members too. ‘Design from our Heart & Head, that will demonstrate the essence of Resilient Leadership’ Second part is analysing the risk factor. When pandemic has hit a big way in certain sectors, it is of great importance to have in place “RISK MATRIX” which will be able to ascertain the extent of analysis to understand why employees are leaving and what is the main reason for leaving. This analysis will help in implementing innovative systems & processes which will result in good employee experience, ultimately leading in less attrition.

People with high experience are often seen as going up the ladder despite them having less knowledge and comparatively lesser skillset than people working under them. Do you think that this culture is one of the causes for the series of resignations that we are witnessing? If so, what positive steps can be taken to change this?

It’s not because of experience people moving up the ladder, one is moving up the ladder who are having leadership capabilities, right skill set and a great team player. Today younger generations are moving up the ladder very fast because of their capabilities and skill sets. Knowledge everyone has, but it is the ability to demonstrate, learn, un-learn and relearn. The key positive changes one has to bring across the table is through implementing a Reward & Recognition Program - a System of Continuous Feed Back, Demonstration, and Communication of Organisation Values inculcating in each of the employees in the organisation.

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When we talk of Recognition, it’s not only about the monetary benefit, it's all about appreciating the good work. Giving a “THANK YOU” card, one can see the sense of happiness and they feel part of organisation family. These are very small things for employees to bring motivation and create a culture of a happy workplace.

Being a corporate leader, what changes do you feel this pandemic followed by the series of resignations has mandated the corporate culture to adopt? How are you incorporating these changes?

This pandemic has brought immense change in Organisation Policies and Procedures. If we don’t re-look at these policies and procedures, it’s a death knell for any organisation to lose their talent. Today no one will afford to lose a good talent. Changes in the Policies towards Safety, Health & Mental Well-being should be the topmost priority. Learning System has changed due to the pandemic. Now it’s all about the e-learning module one must look at and how self-directed learning help employees to grow in their career ladder. Rewards and Recognition are not through monetary benefit, it's an appreciation for the good work done.

Frequent feedback is the key to success for a successful performance management system.

Demonstration of values & trust holds the key to retaining the talent. Experience is what you remember when you recover from failure. If the failure is curve is fast, then the learning curve will also be fast.

Talent is scarce and companies know it. The talent war is vast as well. Do companies (or their company for that matter) analyse the employees on their behavioral patterns end to end to understand what drives them; would it not be better to have an analytical approach with constant shadowing to find exactly what motivates a particular employee and cater to their needs?

You need to identify the right set of

behavioral top skill training for the employees.Once the behaviour of employees changes, the atmosphere changes which in turn changes the culture of the organisation.

Most of the times people don’t open up because of the lack of trust they have towards other employees. Here communication is the key! Better the communication better will be the understanding. In order to do so, behavioural trainings play a vital role in an organisation. In Behaviour, happiness starts with “I”, that “I” creates the happiness around the individual.

When cost-cutting is unavoidable, and one still wants to retain the talent pool, how should one evaluate what to choose and to what extent?

Every human being is unique and every human has a potential. Cost-cutting doesn’t mean you have to remove the talent or remove any person from the organisation.

During the pandemic, many organisations have done a wonderful job by not removing the headcount instead they had multi-skilling training programs, where they moved the people from one program to another and tested them with multi-skilling ability. Multifunctional skills play a major role in this era of great resignation, post multi skirling they reviewed them and provided them feedback.

For nonperformers they provided 3 months’ notice period as well as many organisation helped such employees to find a new job.

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Road To My EMBA Journey One of my favourite quotes, as it resonates completely with our lives and career.

A journey of thousand miles begins with a single step

Lao Tzu Talking about the miles I have covered in my journey, I had pursued engineering in Electronics and Communication from SRM University, Chennai and have been working as an IT Analyst in TCS for the past 7 years.

Working as an IT Analyst has made me understand how the activities of different departments are intricately interwoven and how can we enhance the overall effectiveness of the organisation by making information available in real time and prompting decisionmaking at different levels of management. It also provided me lucid understanding of Insurance and Asset Management IT systems along with Data Migration, Data Analysis, Business Intelligence and Business Analysis as I was working with leading Fortune 500 companies of US and UK. A few years back, my organisation gave me an opportunity to work as a Key Senior Analyst for one of the leading Insurance Giants for a benchmark project worth 70 billion pounds in asset in which the company was strategizing and performing data migration from a bespoke product to platform-based product due to one of the mammoth value acquisitions of the company. This experience has aroused my interest in areas such as sales and marketing, financial management, operations and human resource management of which I knew a little. I wanted to acquire holistic knowledge of all disciplines of management and how they are seamlessly

BY

ANIRBAN MEGHAMALA TCS

EMBA 01 BATCH IIM AMRITSAR

integrated in the functioning of an organisation as it will help me shape my career and grow in the field of IT, Management Consultancy and Strategy. I believed that the Executive MBA program at IIM Amritsar was the next logical step of my career. I had vision that this program will act as a catalyst for my transformation from a technical role to a managerial role which requires strategy, business relationship management, effective team organisation, understanding budget constraints, careful planning and execution.

Further, an Executive MBA from a premier B-school like IIM Amritsar which envisions itself as “Globally connected, locally responsive, offering quality management education, advisory and research” also helped me to widen my network, boost my intellect and helped me to transform into my better version so far.

I know we are all students of life and battling different battles at the different stages of our life but in order to grow

We are all students of life and battling different battles at the different stages of our life.

I just wrote my last paper of 2nd term of EMBA recently and so far, it has been an enriching experience with a lot of value addition especially due to the guidance of our honourable director sir, respected chairperson, esteemed professors, my learned batchmates and amazing support staff of IIM Amritsar.

Our batch comprises a blend of energetic people who has an experience range of 5 years to 25 years from different domains and fields which helps us the most in learning and applying the concepts.

and move ahead in life we all need to take some important and logical steps.

So, to battle the constant changes in the business as well as for a holistic and concrete view on any domain of business, EMBA at IIM Amritsar is definitely one of the best places to launch as well as relaunch your journey.

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HOW

CAN ORGANISATIONS BUILD A SUCCESSFUL PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS MODEL FOR EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT?

From Personnel Development, to Strategic HR and then finally Talent Management, HRM has been continually evolving in the past decades. It has changed from a Business Function, to a Business Integration as a part of the organisational strategy. HR is not just about attracting the best talent anymore, but developing, engaging and retaining that talent.

The pandemic exposed some of the shortcomings of the organisations across the world. Even industry leaders struggled to keep their employees engaged. A bird’s eye view of this problem revealed how engagement was indeed not an induced problem, but a shortcoming rooted in the modern HR practises itself. Gallup recently announced that employee engagement in the United States had increased to a 34%, but should we really settle for these numbers?

The answer to this question is a definite NO. So what is this Employee Engagement? – Researchers, Human Resource Professionals and Global Leaders, all have different definitions for engagement. Some define it as the emotional commitment, some as the extent of enthusiasm and dedication to work, and others as a working condition. This proves that engagement is an exhaustive topic. It can’t be a limited checklist of behaviours/deliverables at the workplace. As the context changes from organisation to organisation, the definition too would vary across employees in that organisation. There is no doubt that it is imperative for Human Resource Management to be Data-Driven and Predictive Analytics is the next big thing.

However, given the hype around people analytics, the execution is somewhat negligible.

BY FARHEEN KAUSAR MBA 06 BATCH IIM AMRITSAR

Human resource isn’t a thing we do, it’s the thing that runs our business.

- Steve Wayne Let’s understand why.

The goal of predictive analytics in people management is simple - Manage Talent Better. This includes predicting future performance, effective succession planning, improving quality of career and performance metrics in conversations, predicting the learning and development needs and finally WINNING THE WAR FOR TALENT. Employee Engagement is not just an initiative, it is an amalgamation of Hiring the right Talent, Performance Management System, Feedback Mechanism, Learning and Developmental Needs, Leadership, Succession Planning and the Perception of Justice in the organisation, which ultimately translates to meeting Talent Needs.

So why are organisations not satisfied when they use data to run their Talent needs?

That is because data only tells half the story. Predictive Analytics for People can’t be implemented without people.

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Let’s simplify this thought using basic human behaviour. A person is more likely to accept a solution or a decision when he/she is involved in the process.

No one likes to be told what to do. In an organisational context, the intimation of this behaviour is seen everywhere.

For example, an employee is more likely to effectively undertake a learning and development intervention when not just the organisation, but the employee himself feels that it is required for his career growth in the organisation and understands the implications in his life.

If organisations want to successfully build Predictive models to drive employee engagement, the first step towards it is understanding that they need to change their approach from building algorithms to make decisions for people to building algorithms to help people make better decisions.

People need to feel empowered in an

organisation. Over-engineering this process can have negative implications.

What is required is for organisations to enable their employees to become decision makers by providing them with relevant information. Using this data, employers need to tell their employees how they have performed, show them the roadmap, the plans the organisation has for them, how they can progress. It has to be a two-way conversation.

Google, a tech Giant, known for its People Analytics Initiatives in their engagement framework, derived a program called gDNA from a longitudinal study. The results of the same were astonishing. But what was it that they did so differently, which made this program successful? They transformed their approach from making decisions for their employees to making their employees the decision makers. As Prasad Setty, The VP of People

Operations at Google, said “People should make People Decisions”.

Employee Engagement is not an isolated function of HRM anymore. With HRs as facilitators, employers across domains and functions have to participate and drive engagement on an individual, team and organisation level.

Employers need to watch out for Dangerous Correlations and Feel-Good Metrics. Vanity Metrics look good on paper, but they can’t accomplish much.

Engagement cannot accomplished by a mechanistic method that manipulates employees' loyalty and emotions in order to obtain discretionary effort. Employees can easily see through such efforts and become cynical and disillusioned. They need actionable metrics.

Organisations have to become better at connecting the dots, understanding, analysis and drawing meaningful insights from data – they have to become powerful story tellers. Analytics that needs to be introduced should be from the perspective of the employees capabilities and potentials and building an environment for them to nurture their careers whilst building a successful organisation.

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Startups, HRM & The Way Forward Startups have been the most significant economic driver in the world economy recently. Be it about employment generation, economic growth, wealth creation, or any aspect regarding the development of a country for that matter, startups nowadays have taken the front seat. They are looking to be more transformational as well, with the increase in ambitious and energetic youth in taking the road less travelled. However, most studies indicate that 90% of startups fail, and this is no surprise. Startups face a lot of issues coming up, and while enumerating the top 10 reasons for a startup failure, we see points such as ‘knowledge and skill gaps’, ‘hiring the right people’, ‘leadership’, and ‘lack of buy-in from employees’. What does this point to? Lack of proper HR practices in startups, obviously. Where to take it from here?

Specialized HR Department?

Byju’s and Cred, despite being startups, are striving for and achieving a specialized HR setup. However, we can discount such companies from the discussion, as they have valuations well over $4 Billion. The focus here is on Seed to Venture level Startups, and having a specialized HR department would be near-impossible for them. The key is to have a structured HR system, if one cannot afford on any capacity a specialized one. It would all feel rosy when the founder themselves can deal with HR specialized areas such as Employee engagement, Compensation and Benefit, Recruitment etc., but the gaping holes get evident after a few months. It is imperative that the company has a well-defined HR department which can structure the processes. The days of going by the book are numbered for sure, and

therefore a flexible yet structured HR department can be recommended. The structure must be such that it aligned with and conveys the company culture as well as its mission and vision. It is suggested that companies with Series A funding or having 25-30 permanent employees must invest in having a dedicated HR personnel in their payroll.

Diseases and Cures Now that the stage is set and the constraints understood, it is time to look at the challenges and their possible solutions, starting off with Talent Acquisition, where startups wage wars for the best personnel. The person recruiting should be able to first align themselves and then the prospective employee to the Mission and Vision of the company.

They must first understand whether the company aligns with a High Commitment Work System (HCWS) or HighPerformance Work System (HPWS) style of Mission, and recruit accordingly. Legal Protection of the company is one aspect many startups neglect and fail gloriously at. The structure of HR practices in the company should be in such a way that there are people up to date with the latest labor and industry laws to avoid any sort of hassle. Since startups are a highly volatile environment, keeping the employees safe through proper Employee Engagement practices become imperative as well. It is suggested that companies which do not have an HR personnel in their payroll should at least have a “people person” assigned such that they can act as a medium of communication for the employees.

BY

KRISHNAPRASAD V MBA 07 BATCH IIM AMRITSAR

Way Forward There are various dimensions of challenges in a startup which are not discussed here, including but not limited to onboarding, hard-retention strategy, documentation, and organizational structure transition. The following are some additional suggestions that a startup can incorporate to address most of the issues.

• Investing in relevant softwares, like say HRIS which can help out in a lot of above-mentioned challenges.

• Outsourcing specific HR functions to specialist companies.

• Training the key stakeholders of the company in various domains of HR with the help of professionals.

• Embracing a culture of transparency with a pinch of formality in the organizational structure, to deal with transition as well as employee well-being.

Startups must, therefore, phase the HR policy in a judicious manner that the policies grow progressively as the company does, and neglecting it altogether would never be an option. Long term vision is what makes or breaks organizations or anything for that matter and investing in HR best practices is something which never will go awry.

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Outliers

THE STORY OF SUCCESS

BOOK REVIEW BY PROF. DIVYA TRIPATHI ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, OBHR IIM AMRITSAR Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’ is an enticing, hard-to-put-down kind of a read that invites you to mull over the theories presented much long after you are done reading. It offers an almost post-facto analysis of whom we call ‘successful’. His book tries to convince you that a common ground explains why it is not the smartest that wins or the brightest. Or even the genius. And he does it quite convincingly. As an insight, I believe it is also a relief to hear that lack of success is not an individual responsibility, but sheer luck, or the lack of it. Nevertheless, to me, the book lacks a prescriptive component. What can we learn here that we can use in our lives? How can we avoid making these mistakes? At times, it does feel that both the author and the reader are trapped in their confirmation biases and are just nit-picking examples that prove their very point. One is left wondering if he rejected any research findings that did not support his argument or perhaps contradicted it all together. Some examples do present as dicey (such as children born in January are good at sports and school, which has not been proven in research otherwise), but overall, the book sells itself. “It is not the brightest who succeed, nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift.

Gladwell presents a brilliant summary of a successful person. Details about the Beatles, Bill Gates, and a very prominent community of New York Jews substantiate the exciting theory. Every successful person included in the research has a story, a background that almost undercuts the grandiose of their success.

Gladwell claims that birth month, childhood, parents, school attended, classes taken, etc., all play an exhaustingly critical role success of people. Interestingly, he also writes that when people look back at their past, their explanations of reasons for success are grossly inaccurate. They attribute their success to their idiosyncratic ways focusing more on the individual and less on the circumstances.

For all the reasons mentioned for success, there is one that I endorse- ‘10,000 hours is the magic number of greatness.’ Practice does make you better. Perfection may not be an accomplishable goal, but ‘better than the best’ certainly is. It may not be 10,000 hours, but the number does not matter. Gladwell cites Gates as an example of someone who already had 10,000 hours of experience in programming in his early 20s when others were just starting. He certainly was at the right place and the right time and had the right kind of opportunities that he took. But he also did not give up. Beyond talent and luck, 10,000 hours represent attitude, grit, and perseverance, which Gladwell presents as an undercurrent throughout the book. The book is well-received by critics and has been on the bestseller list for a long time. However, I believe that Gladwell oversimplifies highly complex social phenomena, and in the process, misses a few major determining factors that

10,000 hours is the magic number of greatness. Practice does make you better. Perfection may not be an accomplishable goal, but ‘better than the best’ certainly is. It may not be 10,000 hours, but the number does not matter.

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Influence the success of a person. For example, Gladwell presents little to no analysis on the role and placement of gender as a determining factor. Society has pushed away sections of society and discriminated against them based on their gender identities.

Although the book's agenda was to bring forth the veiled statistics and underrepresented circumstances of successful stories, mentioning just talent and luck does not cut it. For centuries, many gender identities have borne the burden of their previous generation and their misfortunes. It seems unfair that Gladwell ignores the genius of different gender identities because they had 'bad luck'. An insight into the role of social and temporal embeddedness of people would have contributed towards making his thesis much more lucrative.

Moreover, Gladwell does not give an objective definition of success throughout the book.

Therefore, it means that the idea of success may differ from person to person. Evidence of this can be seen in the phenomenon of 'The Great Resignation'. A deeper analysis of the great resignation reveals that people are redefining success. Employees are now less connected to the world's definition of success defined by resume, paychecks, and status.

Instead, there is a shift towards a more intrinsic, intangible, and sustainable definition of success- i.e., to embed well-being with daily work experience, resilience, happiness, recognition, and appreciation. If the phenomenon of the big exit continues, it compels us to ask the question- would the theories postulated by Gladwell be relevant in the post-pandemic era, where success may not be defined only by achievements but by wellbeing and happiness? On the whole, Outliers is a pleasure to read. If we look around deep enough, we will always find examples of people who did things differently, were unafraid to grasp opportunities and practised hard. Gladwell provides a thoughtful examination of success and postulates that the success of individuals is much more than their hard work and decisions.

- Malcolm Gladwell Success is a complicated event that happens when the right attitude, circumstances, and forces of nature combine to make a dream reality. For now, it is easier to find solace in the collectiveness of his theory that is also the building block of any society- good institutions, ample opportunities for everyone, and a push to aim for greatness.

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BUDDING HR STARTUPS

Estimating Happiness through Habits, one such arising player in the HR Technology space is Zoojoo.be.

Established in 2012, with the mission to 'quantifiably further develop bliss on the planet', the organization trusts that the method for estimating satisfaction is through propensities. Pinpointing that a solid way of life can be shockingly hard to accomplish, Zoojoo.be through its cloud, and versatile based wellbeing stage, utilizes game mechanics and conducts demonstrating to draw in clients and causes them to comprehend medical advantages. Making health as a worker commitment methodology, the organization through its interesting ramifications of 'Amazing Innovation, Gamification and Social Engagement' application help associations in accomplishing the flawless by acquiring a positive change in the representative’s propensity. Settled in Bangalore with 30 part mastery and recognizing society as the primary concern, the organization has made a culture playbook that traces their worth on 'Think, Act and Grow.' Developing north of 400% year on year, Zoojoo.be's wellbeing application is today accessible on both Android and iOS stages and has 190,000+ clients. As indicated by a report by SHRM on the effect of conduct change on Zoojoo.be's foundation, expresses that propensity development of Zoojoo.be has prompted a 26% decrease in feelings of anxiety, 16% expansion in work fulfillment, and 13 percent are probably going to remain inside the association.

We accept that the propensities that we have essentially affect our prosperity and satisfaction. Accepting that prosperity will be a significant piece of the evolving job, we are centered around working towards that future.

Avinash Saurabh Founder and CEO

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The excursion of Jedhru Informatics spins around when Narayana Murthy was working with a multinational firm and was taking care of the finance administration division for different multi-country payrolls. While working in the HR business for around ten years, Murthy saw that one of the main parts of the board's human resources is to deal with finance handling. Murthy chose to use the insight he had accumulated to help the organizations deal with their finances. It keeps workers redressed and drawn in with their positions and compares different public and global difficulties of finance re-appropriating administrations.

Hence Jedhru Informatics appeared in 2011.

Today, the organization is viewed as one of the quickest developing re-appropriating organisations in the country, settled in Hyderabad with a group of profoundly experienced experts. Jedhru Informatics centres around giving excellent finance administrations in a timely & practical way. Being a supplier of a particular instrument, Employee Self-Service (ESS), the organisation permits a worker to get to the online interface and Mobile App & acquire data on payslips, repayments, charge data, leave strategy, and others. The demographic of Jedhru incorporates ERP Analysts, Launchship, BSOL Systems, and more. It fills in as a reference to organisations or people who need to give finance administrations an extra advantage to their customers. Right now, Jedhru has its essence in Andhra, Telangana, and Karnataka.

We will work out our BOT and Virtual Assistant to assist with eliminating the manual screening and short posting.

For scaling our business, we will zero in on mid-enormous size organisations and staffing/enrollment firms in India, US, English talking portions of Europe, East Asia, and Australia

Shiva Maran Founder and CEO, HireWand

A more significant part of organisations relies greatly upon outer hotspots for their recruiting whenever there is another necessity. They tend not to zero in on or esteem their inner data set. As a result, they don't endeavour to develop this data set utilizing their image.

Bangalore-based HireWand Technologies carries that innovation to assist organisations with utilizing their interior data set and not be everlastingly reliant upon outside hotspots for recruiting for their prerequisites as a whole. HireWand chiefly targets mid-enormous size organisations where there is a desperate need to employ employing. These organisations have a suitable size for the current and approaching arrangement of resumes. HireWand has clients for the most part in India and the US today, with a few of them from the Middle East.

HireWand is exceptionally centred around a solitary objective – Finding extraordinary competitors from the organisation's data set, with zero exertion. With this concentration, the organisation visualizes building a matching motor that self-learns the competitors you will like for the different jobs without even a JD and track down those possibilities for you.

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COMPANIES WITH IMPECCABLE RETENTION OF TALENTS Richard Branson Founder - Virgin Group helps this giant hotel chain industry in hiring almost all of its employees. The average for a housekeeping staff staying at Hyatt is more than twelve years. The retention efforts by the company are huge, and they reflect on the average duration an employee stays at Hyatt. The company has recently also adopted the model of ‘Change the Conversation,’ which is based on the principles from a school of Design that emphasizes listening. This is the level of trust it shows in the people who work for it. The hotel company has been declared as the best employer in Human Rights Campaign.

Hyatt - Employee Referral Program

- Giving free chocolates to employees is not the only thing that it does to make them happy, but it also prefers to show its appreciation to employees for living up to the values of the company. Quality, responsibility, mutuality, efficiency, and freedom are written on every wall of every Mars office. The dedication and discipline in the values are reflected in its employees’ behavior also. The turnover mentioned at the start was 5%.

MARS Cholocate Company

- The level of autonomy given to SouthWest employees is unparallel to anyone else. They are free to design their own official uniform! The rule that this company follows is that employee happiness is above customer satisfaction, and this just shows why the retention rate is so high at this airline company. What more? The CEO of the company gives a weekly shoutout to those employees who work hard and go the extra mile for the company.

Southwest Airlines

attaches great importance to employee retention. Their HR department actively strives to create an engaging and collaborative environment. They have an annual survey known as ‘Dialog’ to track the level of engagement among employees. It provides valuable insights, which helped make changes and improve policies. Their ‘Career and Competence Model’ is used for internal career mapping, another vital part of their employee retention strategy. They believe in having flexible working hours to improve employees’ work-life balance.

Ericsson

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has a low attrition rate and they provide great benefits to their employees, such as medical and dental coverage, life insurance, paid vacations, etc. They also provide a health care account for all its employees to cover all the health care expenses which are paid by their insurance companies. They have short-term disability benefits in cases of injuries or illnesses so that they’d be paid throughout that period. They also have a retirement plan for their employees. To enhance the potential of their employees, they bear the entire tuition costs for relevant degrees and courses. This strategy is working wonders for Pfizer.

Pfizer

provides a health plan for all its employees that extends even after their retirement. Their employees have flexible working hours. They encourage their employees to educate themselves by providing tuition subsidies for various courses. They provide financial counseling for their employees and have a diversified retirement plan through which they can either opt for a pension after retirement or a savings plan. They also have various Diversity programs for their employees. All these benefits contribute to their employee retention..

Procter & Gamble

pays even during the time off period of its part-time employees. They fully pay their employees when they must attend to their families in case of any health emergencies. They provide tuition reimbursement for employees pursuing eligible degrees.

They invest a lot in training their employees to improve their skills and knowledge. The employees are encouraged to understand the customer’s needs and make their experience better. They encourage innovative ideas to boost up their sales. This strategy helps Best Buy enjoy high employee retention.

Best Buy

ensures high retention rates by providing strong mentors who focus on improving the individual and team-building skills of the employees. They have a standard procedure to find the right fit of employees and evaluate them after a probationary period.

Bonuses and profits are shared based on the team members’ performance. So, they empower their employees to work in teams and constantly motivate them to perform better.

They also reveal the performance figures of all the employees for transparency. The managers invest their time in constantly motivating the employees and taking feedback.

Whole Foods

is an American Company that produces energy foods and drinks and has a record of a 97% retention rate. The company values such as people, businesses, brands, community, and planet attribute to this outstanding retention. The employees of Clif bar share a sense of responsibility and work for a common goal. The company founders Gary Erikson and his wife co/owner Kit crowford decided to go for the employee stock option in 2000. The major focus is given to the core values of the company. The company has prevented large corporationsfrom taking hold of it to preserve its core values.

Clif Bar

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Top Appointments in HR

Sudeep Patnaik HR Director - India & Group Talent Acquisition Director, TCDX TDCX, headquartered in Singapore, a leading provider of business process outsourcing services in customer experience, recently appointed Sudeep Patnaik as Human Resource Director - India & GroupTalent Acquisition Director. He is responsible for building TDCX from scratch in India by looking after talent acquisition in the country. He looks after building the top 3 priorities for making world-class organisations, i.e., Attract, Retain, and Engage. He worked on-campus recruitment and hiring for the strategy & Analytics and M&A businesses in Deloitte (Offices of US), where he had a decade of experience in talent acquisition.

Umanath Nayak Head HR, Wakefit Wakefit has appointed Umanath Nayak, Head – HR, having over 13 years of cross-functional industry experience in the HR domain; He will be managing round-the-clock HR functions – from talent acquisition and talent management to HR analytics and business partnering. His previous work experience is with diverse businesses, such as Global Franchise Architects, Papa Johns, Gionee mobile, and FreshMenu. He is expected to develop dexterity and deftness to the company and its workforce.

Soma Pandey Head of Talent Management, Cognizant IT major Cognizant announced the appointment of Soma Pandey as Head of Talent Management. In this role, she will look into and execute the enterprise talent strategy for the organisation, including addressing critical people practices, talent and performance management, learning and leadership development, culture, and employee experience. Pandey has over 25 years of HR leadership, with experience ranging across diverse sectors and roles in Accenture, Randstad, ITC.

Jasneet Kaur CHRO, BharatPe BharatPe, a merchant payment and lending network company, reinforced its management team by hiring Ms Jasneet Kaur as Chief Human Resource Officer. This appointment came when BharatPe was going through an enormous expansion phase. Her responsibilities revolve around the organisations' rapid growth through strategic talent management and the dissemination of the company's central values and culture across the organization. Jasneet has 21 years of cross-functional Human Resource Management experience across DHL, PepsiCo, Maersk, Microsoft, Mercer, Reliance LifeSciences. She was awarded 'Titan of the Year', the peak annual award for spearheading HRTransformation at Maersk Global Service Centres.

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Top Appoinments in HR

Sumedha Pal Parmar Senior Director HR, Honeywell India.

In June 2021, an MNC headquartered in Charlotte promoted Sumedha Pal Parmar as Senior Director HR, India. She will look after the entire spectrum of people and culture functions for the operations in the country.

Before the promotion, she worked as Sr Director Talent Acquisition & Diversity – APAC. She was responsible for leading talent acquisitions and diversity for Honeywell in the 15 countries in the APAC region. She has established strong business partnerships, re-organized the team, improved recruitment capabilities and supplier footprints. She has been with Honeywell for more than 16 years and managed the designing and executing leadership, talent, and culture strategies to achieve the business-specific needs of the APAC region.

Jyoti Singh Global Head of HR, ZapCom ZapCom, a global Product Engineering and Technology Services company, has appointed Jyoti Singh as Global Head of HR. Singh is a senior HR leader with a proven track record of helping organisations evolve and upgrade as they transform and grow. She focuses on building a people-first, conducive, and creative work environment through trust, repo-building, and open communication.

Before joining ZapCom, Singh was associated with companies like Datafoundry AI, Si2 Microsystems, and HR Yantra in HR leadership roles.

Neha Mathur Senior VP of People Success, Urban Company

Vivek Tripathi HR Chief, AU Small Finance bank Vivek joined AU Small Finance Bank in November 2020 as a Human Resources Chief. He previously worked with SBFC Finance Pvt. Ltd and handled internal as well as external customers. He was a part of CXOs and the core management team. His responsibility was culture building, HR strategy formation, and HR practices. He has 13 years of experience in Bajaj Finserv, Mahindra Finance, Bajaj Capital Ltd.

Mathur recently joined Urban Company as Senior Vice President of People Success. Her responsibility is to empower millions of service professionals by delivering services at home. In her previous role, Neha was the head of HR at India and Korea Ridesharing at Uber Technologies, where she focused on building a highperforming and inclusive culture for the multi-faceted workforce. With over 18 years of experience across global organisations, including Accenture, Coca-Cola, GE, and Reckitt Benckiser. She has worked across North America, Nordics, the UK, Singapore, Australia, and India.

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About our Events YUKTI | The Annual HR Conclave In August '21, Yukti - The Annual HR Conclave of IIM Amritsar was conducted. This conclave provided a platform where the veterans from the industry interacted and reflected with the students on recent trends and developments in HR. With the massive disruptions bought by the pandemic, the panel discussion revolved around the themes of 'Reimagining HR in the Era of Technology" and "Work from Everywhere: Breaking away from the notions of yesteryear." The industry veterans had an insightful discussion around the theme. Some of the eminent speakers were Mr Amit Gupta (Head – Skill and Organisation Development Indian Oil Corporation Limited), Mr Suraj Chettri (Regional Director HR Airbus India and South Asia), Ms Namratha Roy (Human Resources Leader Ex Microsoft, Ex Cisco), and Dr Anil Kumar Mishra (CHRO Magicbricks.com). The students interacted with the experts to gain industry knowledge related to the recent transformation.

HRapid | D2C Case Competition In October, we conducted HRapid - the D2C case study competition involving real-life case problems. The event saw a fierce cutthroat competition amongst 208 participants from various top B-schools across the country. The case was sent to the registered candidates, and they were required to submit their analysis in the written format. The top 6 teams shortlisted from round 1 presented their analysis to the panel. They were evaluated based on creativity, content, and practical applicability. The judging panel consisted of Mr Vignesh Menon, an HR professional with more than 15 years of experience in various facets of Human Resources, and Mr Ravishankar Kommu, an assistant professor at IIM Amritsar.

Mind Your Choices! | Engagement Event In the month of September, we conducted Mind Your Choice - an event filled with learning and fun. The event had two rounds; the first was the online quiz - "Google It!" which contained categories such as HR, sports, general knowledge, etc. The second round was "Bid to Win," the teams bid for questions and answered them. This round tested several qualities such as team player, leadership, and distribution of work based on competency.

Career Clinic 4.0 | Anual Guest Lecture Series We hosted our annual guest lecture series, 'Career Clinic 4.0'.

We invited Lt. Col. Ipsa Ratha, Human Resource Specialist, an army officer with over 22 years of service, expertise in

To help understand ourselves better and grasp the trends related to the future of work, Lt. Col. Ipsa Ratha addressed the students on the topic 'Career Resilience.' We were highly honoured and privileged to have her as the speaker. She interacted with the students and answered all their doubts and queries. establishing and developing HR processes.

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HRithvi Team

Dr. Vartika Dutta Faculty Mentor, HRithvi

Assistant Professor, OBHR

Senior Coordinators

Alisha Ramteke

Anjali

Kugan R

Nithin Babu K

Vishal S

Junior Coordinators

Akshay Kumar

Anand S

Eeshita Malik

Malika Gupta Mohsin Pathan J a n u a r y

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A Heartfelt Thanks to the

Contributors

Gayatri

Rakesh

Harsh

Tejas

Krishnaprasad

Tirtham

Naehal

Vaishak

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On a Lighter Note SOLVE THE ANAGRAMS TO REVEAL THE LETTERS FOR THE FINAL MESSAGE! ILRTVUA OERPENTMEMW ARSPIE YSNYERG GOE LGOSA BLAEOTALOCR PINHIKS

Use the circled letters from the words in the top part to complete this final phrase at the bottom.

Each circled letter is used just once.

Kindly mail the solutions at hrithvi@iimamritsar.ac.in

Credits: Calvin And Hobbes by Bill Watterson

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It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they tell us what to do.

STEVE JOBS CO-FOUNDER, APPLE

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