People Matters: It's time for a change - April 2019

VOL X / ISSUE 4 / APRIL 2019

BIG INTERVIEW Dr. Robert Hogan

M I T

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P E R FO

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Founder & President, Hogan Assessments

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TECHHR STARTUPS In the Race

TechHR Singapore Startup Program 2019

FFrroom m tth h e E d i t o r ’’ss DDeesskk 4

Leap forward to real-time review

T

he traditional performance management system is passé.

Organizations now focus on facilitating a holistic development of their employees using a real-time 360-degree review. The tech-savvy millennials are now accustomed to receiving feedback on a real-time basis thus helping lead the shift. However, it is our expectations towards focusing more on quality and not just quantity that validates the overall “impact” that is steering the broad change.

There are challenges along the way given that the nature of the workforce is now diverse and includes contractors, consultants, and contingent workers, as well as the generational shift. For organizations to clearly define, measure, and reward performance as equitable, competitive and appropriate, they require talent strategies and performance conversations that suit the diverse needs of not only the generations that are or will become the part of the workforce, but also those who are not “statutory employees”.

While it may be a tectonic change for the companies and their HR teams, this is the truth of today.

| April 2019

So, how will HR practitioners looking to stay ahead of the curve evolve their performance management strategies in 2019? What performance management trends can we see organizations adopting for a workforce that comprises of a mix of regular employees and gig workers?

The cover story in this issue attempts to decipher the shift and answer questions facing the HR community trying to implement the real-time feedback system.

For the Big Interview this time, we have Dr. Robert Hogan, Founder and President, Hogan Assessments, who talks about the evolving nature of leadership, bridging the gap between psychological science of talent and common real-world talent practices, the criticalness of evaluating personality, identifying talent with empirically-validated psychometric devices, and high potentials.

We also have Bethany Tate Cornell, Vice President - Leadership, Learning and Organizational Capability, Boeing, who shares her perspectives on the underlying L&D framework that guides the employees at the company, behaviors, and leveraging diversity.

This edition also features the Startup Program of the People Matters TechHR’19 Singapore Conference which saw the participation of 48 startups from across the globe and showcased their solutions to investors, HR and business leaders.

As always, we would be happy to hear your views, comments, and suggestions regarding our stories.

Happy Reading!

Esther Martinez Hernandez Editor-in-Chief follow

M > @Ester_Matters F > estermartinez > ester.martinez@peoplematters.in

THE COVER STORY (BEHIND THE SCENE)

Box jumping? That don’t impress me much!

From jumping to aiming! Good move.

Umm...

Add some spice.

Yaye

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Artificial Intelligence

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contents 38

A pril 2 0 1 9 volu m e x issue 4

Performance Management in the “New” New World of Work - Overwhelming or Opportunity?

By Michael Bollinger, Global VP, Cornerstone OnDemand

41

Performance Management simply isn’t simple!

By Clinton Wingrove, Director, WantToBeGreatManager

44

Accept and adapt

By Paneesh Rao, Chief Human Resource Office & Head of CSR, L&T Technology

Services Ltd. 46 cover story

36

C O N TE N TS

By Richard Smith, Ph.D., Professor of Strategic Management (Practice), Singapore Management University

Measuring impact

48

Measure performance, when and where it happens

By Vikrant Khanna, Lead, HR Transformation & Change (Asia), Alight Solutions and By Abhilash Kumar, Sr. Consultant, Alight Solutions

By Suparna Chawla Bhasin

Explore alternatives now! - Performance Management in the Multi-Dimensional Digital World

51

Go beyond performance management to create emotional investments

By Saakshi Saxena, Regional Lead: HR Program Management (Asia & AnZ),

Microsoft

22

the big interview

28

Interview

The right perspective

At the leading edge

Dr. Robert Hogan, Founder &

Bethany Tate Cornell,

President, Hogan Assessments

By Yasmin Taj & Suparna Chawla Bhasin

Vice President of Leadership, Learning & Organizational Capability for The Boeing Company

By Yasmin Taj

Editor-in-Chief

Prakash Shahi

Senior Editor - PRINT

Photography

Suparna Chawla Bhasin Senior Editor - GLOBAL CONTENT

Yasmin Taj

Marta Martinez General Manager - Sales

Rubi Taj rubi.taj@peoplematters.in +91 (124) 4148102

manager - content

J Jerry Moses

Manager - Sales

Associate editorS

Abid Hasan | Mastufa Ahmed Features WriterS

Manav Seth | Shweta Modgil Vallari Gupte Design & Production

Shinto Kallattu 6

Digital Head

Esther Martinez Hernandez

| April 2019

Saloni Gulati saloni.gulati@peoplematters.in +91 (124) 4148102 SUBSCRIPTION Manager

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Reproduction in any manner without prior permission from the publisher is prohibited.

This issue of People matters contains 98 pages including cover

contents contents

70

18 Ne w s Fea t ure

Equality + Diversity = Innovation

By Manav Seth

20

In the race

TechHR Singapore Startup Program 2019

The critical few - Selfdisruptive leaders

By Drishti Pant

By Dhruv Mukerjee 25 P er f or m a n ce

Beyond count & comparison - Measuring performance outcomes

62 L ea d ers h ip

By Abhijit Bhaduri 26 Tec h n olo g y

C O N TE N TS

Starting the journey - The AI revolution and the leadership challenge

By Gulshan Walia, Founder of Infinitzus Consulting, a human capital consulting practice that focuses on behavioral skills training, HR strategy, OD, leadership development, executive coaching, performance management and HR process consulting.

32 Management & Development

An Agile Performance Management Process

By Sridhar Ganesh, MD & CEO of Adrenalin eSystems Limited 54 I n t ervie w

Technology and democratization of work will fuel the future of work

Ravin Jesuthasan, Managing Director, Willis Towers Watson, and an author

By Yasmin Taj 78

Women, claim your rights

Maria Teixidor, Board Member of FC Barcelona, lawyer, mediator, and businesswoman

By Yasmin Taj

8

| April 2019

Effective leaders don’t innovate, they protect those who do!

By Pavan Soni, An Innovation Evangelist and Founder of Inflexion Point Consulting 56 C orpora t e S u f i

The Many Shades of Disillusionment

64 T h e R oa d L ess Travelle d

The Yin and Yang of People Productivity

By Gurucharan Singh Gandhi, Author of national bestseller ‘Kabeer In Korporates’ and the Head of Learning & Development with a leading conglomerate

By Visty Banaji, Founder and CEO of Banner Global Consulting (BGC)

58 O r g a n i z a t io n al L ear n i n g

80 R ou n d t a b le

Augmented Reality and Organizational Learning

By Pinaki Chakladar, Senior Managing Consultant with the Talent & Engagement Practice, IBM India, in the domain of Change, Learning & Performance

By Biswapradeep Basu, Managing Consultant with the Talent & Engagement Practice, IBM India, with over extensive experience in Organization Change Management and Organization Design.

- The HR Contribution Business Leaders Miss Most

A clear vision - Building accountable teams in a VUCA world

By Shweta Modgil

regulars

04 From the Editor’s Desk 10 Letters of the month 12 Quick Reads 86 Knowledge + Networking 88 Blogosphere

Featured In this issue Bethany Tate Cornell Maria Teixidor

Ravin Jesuthasan Dr. Robert Hogan

CONTRIBUTORS to this issue Abhijit Bhaduri Abhilash Kumar Alfredo Behrens Clinton Wingrove Gulshan Walia Gurucharan Singh Gandhi Michael Bollinger Paneesh Rao

Pavan Soni Pinaki Chakladar Ravi Roopesh Kannepalli Richard Smith, Ph.D. Saakshi Saxena Sridhar Ganesh Vikrant Khanna Visty Banaji

Personal impact is the first step towards organisational excellence.

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West Month

Program Titles

Dates

City

April

High Impact Presentations

April 8-9

Mumbai

April

The Dale Carnegie Course : Communication and People Skills

April 22-23-24

Mumbai

May

Train The Trainer- Master Class

May 20-24

Mumbai

May

The Dale Carnegie Public Speaking Course

May 27-28

Mumbai

June

The Dale Carnegie Leadership Training For Managers

June 10-11-12

Mumbai

June

The Dale Carnegie Train The Trainer

June 17-18-19

Pune

June

Developing A Self Confident, Assertive Attitude

June 20-21

Mumbai

Month

Program Titles

Dates

City

April

The Dale Carnegie Course : Communication and People Skills

April 10-11-12

Delhi

April

High Impact Presentations

April 29-30

Delhi

May

Train The Trainer- Master Class

May 6-10

Delhi

May

The Dale Carnegie Leadership Training For Managers

May 15-16-17

Delhi

May

The Dale Carnegie Public Speaking Course

May 30-31

Delhi

June

Winning with Relationship Selling

June 6-7-8

Delhi

June

Developing A Self Confident, Assertive Attitude

June 24-25

Delhi

June

Developing Leadership Potential

June 26-27-28

Delhi

Month

Program Titles

Dates

City

April

The Dale Carnegie Course : Communication and People Skills

April 15-16-17

Bengaluru

April

High Impact Presentations

April 24-25

Bengaluru

May

Train The Trainer- Master Class

May 13-17

Bengaluru

May

The Dale Carnegie Train The Trainer

May 22-23-24

Hyderabad

June

The Dale Carnegie Public Speaking Course

June 7-8

Bengaluru

June

The Dale Carnegie Leadership Training For Managers

June 12-13-14

Bengaluru

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Letters of the month

Ma i l

Women for Women The cover story beautifully encapsulates the journeys of extraordinary women leaders from all over the world. From the moment they enter the workforce, women employees have the odds stacked against them – they have to manage professional and domestic roles, dispel prejudices and assumptions, and work harder to prove their mettle. Having been a working professional for over two decades now, I have witnessed and experienced deep-rooted misogyny and gender bias up close and personal. I believe and hope that the next generation of leaders is more diverse and that women continue to break barriers, shatter stereotypes, and lead from the front. As most of the contributors state, the onus of enabling future women leaders is on us and we must take it seriously. Thank you People Matters, for celebrating the Women’s History Month in the most wonderful way and inspiring your readers with stories of success and determination.

- Tanvi Rastogi

Going Beyond Gender I agree with Fons Trompenaars that diversity and inclusivity shouldn’t be merely defined by numbers and targets. His analysis of the current situation in the business world is rather precise as organizations are assuming that hitting their diversity quotas will automatically result in an equal workplace that provides the same opportunities to everyone. While, in the past few years,

the discourse around the challenges that women face in the workplace has gained momentum, I believe we need to reinforce the commitment and effort to change the status quo. The action strategy provided

by Mr. Trompenaars can go a long way in helping leaders and employers inculcate a true sense of diversity in their organizations and also reap the business-related benefits of the same.

- Anshul Kalra

Trust in a Hyperconnected World

Abhijit Bhaduri makes a sharp observation when he says that in today’s hyperconnected world, trust is currency.

While on the one hand we have become comfortable in sharing information about our personal lives with strangers; on the other, we have also started, rightly so, mistrusting the medium and question how much we can trust technology to maintain our privacy. In the business world, trust is a fundamental foundation and how an individual navigates through a challenge can make or break reputations. Companies need to embrace this and learn how to be more trusting in order to be trusted more. It is, as Bhaduri says, that reputation is what people say about you when you are not in the room and that being flawed and making mistakes is what makes an individual trustworthy.

- Soniya Mohanty 10

| April 2019

March 2019 issue

Changing workplace dynamics: The impact of Global Talent Trends LinkedIn Global Talent Trends Report has been a real eye-opener – not only it analyzes the changing employee-employer dynamic but also identifies four critical workplace trends that are changing the way we work.

It is so true that soft skills have never been more desirable and that employees need to go beyond the technical specifications of a role in order to achieve success. Similarly, the increased focus on conversations around sexual harassment at the workplace and maintaining a healthy work-life balance have undoubtedly helped make the workplace safer and more flexible for the workforce. I believe organizations are also making a genuine attempt at being more inclusive in order to attract the best talent and leverage the diverse perspectives and skills of their workforce to ride through disruptions.

- Shishir Gupta

Interact with People Matters

People Matters values your feedback.

Write to us with your suggestions and ideas at editorial@peoplematters.in

Indorse @joinindorse #Indorse at TechHR #Singapore 2019 Yep, Asia's largest #HR technology event!

Help! The CHRO I picked is a Lemon

Dorien Herreman’s interview provides delightful and nuanced insights on how technology is impacting the music industry.

It is interesting to learn that an industry that was founded purely on creativity and talent is also using technology to improve its functions and processes. The evolution of the consumption of music through LPs, cassette tapes, CDs, and now streaming, is an apt example of how technology is continually helping businesses innovate and expand. Dorien’s observation that current jobs are not being replaced, but rather, integrated with technology is applicable to several other domains as well. I think we need to have more of these conversations in every industry in order to understand how technology will impact jobs and how we can prepare for the same suitably.

- Muzammil Hussain

- Rishabh Sama

- Kushal Thakur

Tiya Jaison @tiyajaison Tiya Jaison Retweeted Ester Martinez Wow.... That's amazing. @PeopleMatters2 #HR media company in India changed their logo for celebrating #WomensDay #EmpowerHer #SheMatters .way to go @Ester_Matters #SheInspiresMe #socialinfluencer CANON India@Canon_India Ms. Shikha Rai, VP & Head of HR, Canon India talks about the 'Reboot' initiative that aims to build a seamless transition for working women returning to work from maternity leave. @PeopleMatters2 #EmpowerHer #International WomensDay Ruchi @rucsb Valuable insights and wisdom for #HR and #Business Leaders to adopt to take their business to newer heights and succeed in dynamic environment . Thank you @PeopleMatters2 #WomensDay #InvestInWomen Monster Singapore @Monster_SG_1 Monster Singapore was at the People Matters TechHR conference held at Marina Bay Sands last week. Check out these images to see what we were up to at Asia’s largest HR Technology conference. @PeopleMatters2 #TechHRSG

The Journey Ahead: The State of HR-Tech Startups in 2019 Everyone in the HR community has experienced the integration of technology in their processes and policies over the last few years. Having joined the industry just a few years back, learning about the trends in the HR-Tech startup ecosystem and the challenges and opportunities in the industry is really interesting. The increasing number of startups providing seamless technology solutions for HR challenges has facilitated the growth of a value-driven culture where innovation and ease of adoption are given prime importance. I am really glad that investors and venture capitalists are willing to bet big on startups that are solving people challenges. Furthermore, I am positive that in the near future, Indian HR-Tech startups will also successfully find their place on the global map and provide creative tech solutions to companies all over the world.

Great job @PeopleMatters2! #TECHRSG #HRTech #SkillsFuture #HRTransformation #SkillsValidation #Coding #Developers #HRSolutions #Startup #TechSkills #TechnicalRecruiting #Asia #TechRecruiting pic.twitter. com/alzCHWxrva

Ma i l

Visty Banaji’s open letter to CEOs brilliantly illustrates the many challenges of hiring a suitable CHRO. The rising significance of the CHRO role has necessitated the need to devise an objective and effective methodology to pick the right candidate for the role. In appointing the CHRO, the company is essentially setting the precedent on how it will create, sustain, and engage its workforce and that’s why it’s critical to scrutinize the pick at each stage. As rightly stated by the author, in order to identify the best talent, CEOs and leaders need to design strong processes, a critical part of which is robust screening and referencing.

I am an avid reader of Mr. Banaji’s columns and I must commend his ability to discuss the most topical and critical issues in the HR domain in a fun, unconventional, and insightful approach.

It is important to integrate technology in the way we perform our jobs

Responsible Technology I really liked Y Shekar’s column on using technology responsibly and limiting its adverse impacts. The current debate on the advancement of technology presents a polarized version of the issue, and people usually tend to believe one of the two extremes. However, I think that artificial intelligence and machine learning will automate tasks, and not entire jobs, which means that we will require new skills to work alongside machines. Shekar’s perspective that puts humans in control of this process and questions the ill-effects of technology needs to be echoed by other leaders as well. If we begin measuring the utility of a new technology by the positive impact to the society, as suggested by Shekar, I believe we will pave way for a much more equitable and inclusive future of work.

- Dinesh Reddy

Randstad India @RandstadIndia Closing words from @Paul_DupuisRSTD, 'Own your ambition is my message to women. More women need to step up to take their rightful place.' #RandstadWomenAtWork #DiversityandInclusion #DiverseWorkforce @PeopleMatters2 follow

M > @PeopleMatters2

{WRITE TO US NOW BY SCANNING THIS CODE} April 2019 |

11

Skilling

Benefits

q u i c k

r e a d s

Novartis introduces equal parental leave regardless of gender

12

Simplilearn partners with NSDC for skilling in digital skills The leading digital skills training provider Simplilearn has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to upskill learners in digital skills. As a part of the MoU, 33 of Simplilearn's courses will be accredited by NSDC, making Simplilearn a part of the government's Skill India program. The first year of partnership aims to train 3,000 learners from across the country. Simplilearn will provide essential training and upskilling solutions to all the registered candidates of NSDC in various digital skills through its 33 courses. The course details will be available on the Skill India portal for

Acquisition

Zoho acquires ePoise Systems

Novartis will begin offering equal paid parental leave of a minimum of 14 weeks to all new parents regardless of gender.

From July 2019, Novartis will begin a phased roll out of its new global parental leave policy, which will offer equal parental leave to all parents through birth, surrogacy or adoption, regardless of gender. By 2021, Novartis Group company employees across the world will be able to benefit from a minimum period of 14 weeks paid parental leave for both parents, eligible from their first day of employment. The company feels that the new global parental leave policy will enable them to make the right choices for the health and well-being of their families, by offering flexibility and financial stability, so that they can enjoy the moments that matter with their loved ones. The organization believes that their investment in an equal global parental leave policy will be more than outweighed by the long-term benefits of higher engagement and productivity through increased loyalty, job satisfaction and greater degrees of in-house knowledge, and the ability to attract top talent.

| April 2019

Software products company Zoho has acquired ePoise Systems, a hiring automation product start-up for an undisclosed amount. Zoho's business applications in areas of CRM, HR, Finance,

the interested candidates. Simplilearn has helped more than 1,000,000 professionals across 150 countries to upskill, get trained and be prepared for the digital future. Last year, it launched a New-Hire Training Initiative that significantly shortens this time-to-productivity via a structured training curriculum for campus recruits.

Office productivity and Customer Service are used by 45 million users worldwide.

They are available separately as well as under a single user license as Zoho One. Founded in 2013 by Sachin Agrawal and Bishan Singh, ePoise automates multiple screening steps for each role including a set of assessments leading to a video interview thus bringing significant efficiency to the hiring process for high volume recruiters. The combination of Zoho's global footprint and depth of product portfolio and ePoise product capability and talent will add value to Zoho’s customers.

Jobs

India’s unemployment rate highest in two years The unemployment rate in India climbed to 7.2 percent in February 2019 according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Even though the total number of job seekers has dipped, the rate remains high because of a reduction in labor force participation. In February 2019, about 400 million people were employed in India, a six million drop compared to last year. The high unemployment rate of last month beats the previous highest rate from September 2016. Last year, the unemployment rate was at 5.9 percent in February. In January, a CMIE report showed that about 11 million people lost jobs in 2018 as a consequence of demonetization of

Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes in 2016. Another reason for a loss in jobs could be the GST implemented in 2017 which affected small businesses and medium-sized enterprises.

The monthly workforce participation rates are lower than they were in 2018 when measured month-on-month.

Labor Market

Blue-collar jobs to drive India’s labor market

Diversity

Compensation

2019 sees highest percent- Aon’s salary increase age of women in senior survey projects 9.7 management globally percent average increase for India Inc

2019 till now has seen the highest percentage of women in senior management on record at 29 percent which is an increase in the proportion of women in executive roles around the world, rising five percentage points from 24 percent in 2018. This is the first time the proportion of women in senior leadership has exceeded one in four.

However, positive progress has been slow in coming: improvements stand at only 10 percentage points since 2004, while, by 2018, that numbers had remained static from those recorded in 2009. Encouragingly, over the last five years, the proportion of global businesses employing at least one woman in senior management has risen by 20 percentage points – 12 points in the last year alone.

Global professional services firm Aon, providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions released the 23rd edition of its annual Salary Increase Survey in India. The study analyzed data across 1000+ companies from more than 20 industries. As per the results of the survey, companies in India gave an average pay increase of 9.5 percent during 2018, reflecting improved business sentiment compared to 2017. The projections for 2019 are stable yet favorable at 9.7 percent as companies expect a positive economic outlook backed by high economic growth

r e a d s

rashtra is expected to create more than 4 lakh jobs followed by Karnataka with an expectation of over 3 lakh jobs in this sector. Bangalore was cited as the largest job creator amidst other Tier 1 cities at 2,35, 000 jobs closely followed by Delhi at a projection of 2,25,000 jobs. Hyderabad and Chennai were identified as emerging markets for blue-collar job growth while Kolkata lagged behind with a score of about 24000 jobs per year inspite of being on a growth track.

The Naukri JobSpeak Index for February 2019 showed a 16 percent increase in hiring activity from February 2018 (2,087). The IT - Software industry seems to have been on a hiring spree in the last one year. The industry clocked in a growth of 38 percent in hiring, making it one of the fastest growing industries followed by Construction and Engineering industry which saw an increase in hiring with a growth rate of 16 percent and IT - Hardware (22 percent), and BPO (12 percent). Some of the other industries that reported positive hiring trends include FMCG (7 percent), Auto & Auto Ancillary (6 percent), Pharma (5 percent), Telecom (8 percent) and Education (10 percent). However, industries like Banking and Financial Services, Oil and Gas, and Industrial Products saw a dip of 12 percent, 6 percent, and 4 percent in hiring activity, respectively. Hiring in HR functional area witnessed a positive growth of 20 percent, although the demand for IT – Software professionals remains highest with a rise of 29 percent hiring.

q u i c k

A report by BetterPlace reveals that about 21 lakh blue-collared jobs will be created in India within the next 12 months because of the emergence of gigs and freelance assignments. About 14 lakh jobs out of the total projected job growth is expected to be in the gig economy. The logistics sector is likely to see an addition of about 4 lakh jobs while the demand for drivers in the transportation sector continues to rise with an expectation of 6 lakh jobs in the next year. Gig-based jobs have become more attractive than traditional blue-collar job roles such as security or IFM with higher flexibility in work hours and locations in addition to better incentives, according to the report. About 40 percent of the blue-collar job creation will take place in the southern states of India including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana. As far the state-wise list is concerned, Maha-

HR

HR function witnessed a growth of 20 percent in hiring from last year

expectation, high domestic demand and low inflation. A decline in voluntary attrition and controlled incremental hiring continue to keep the sentiment mild and while there is an improvement in the overall increment projection, pay increase budgets across sectors are increasingly tending towards the overall average. Sectors projecting a double-digit increment have come down over the years with only five sectors projecting a double-digit increment for 2019. These include sectors such as Consumer Internet Companies, Professional Services, Life Sciences, Automotive and Consumer Products. The increment projections in other sectors are also a reflection of the expected growth prospects during the year.

April 2019 |

13

Talent optimization company, The Predictive Index’s 2019 CEO Benchmarking Report, which surveyed CEOs, presidents and chairpeople across industries revealed the challenges and anxieties of high-performing CEOs, what drives them, what their challenges are, and what keeps them up at night.

Employee-related/labor costs

What keeps top-performing CEOs up at night?

64 percent of companies have employee-related costs that constitute at least half of their overall costs

Two of the three top issues keeping highperforming CEOs up at night are people problems

23%

26%

q u i c k

r e a d s

The economy

50-74% of all labor costs

30%

Customer satisfaction

32%

42%

Hiring the right people*

22%

28%

36%

Competitive pressures

0-24% of all labor costs

39%

30%

16%

9%

3%

3%

Strategy Development

Talent Strategy

Operational Execution

Strategy Alignment

Predicting Market Trends

Competitor Analysis

CEOs #1 priority

The biggest challenges Four of the top five biggest CEO challenges relate to talent optimization

CEOs need help with their talent strategy!

10%

CEOs need help developing leaders, managing employee performance, and leveraging pre-hire assessments—i.e., talent optimization activities

Increasing the agility of work teams

11%

Dealing with regulations, compliance, etc.

12%

Training managers

14%

Managing expenses and cash

15%

Developing new products and services

19% Culture

14

25-49% of all labor costs

8%

Employee Performance and Productivity*

Strategy development and talent strategy are CEOs’ top priorities

75-100% of all labor costs

16%

16%

17%

21%

21%

Getting my executive team on the same page

Getting people to work effectively together

Beating the competition

Building a solid business strategy

Creating a great work environment

22%

28%

28%

37%

Getting the most out of my people

Aligning my employees with our strategy

Building better operational processes

Finding the right talent

| April 2019

29% Succession planning

13% Executive coaching

13% Executive team alignment

26% Organizational design

27% Post-hire talent management

30% Employee engagement

32% Pre-hire selection

33% Employee performance

37% Leadership Development

newsmaker of the month

Jacinda Ardern - The wave of Jacindamania “It takes strength to be an empathetic leader.”

T

q u i c k

r e a d s

hese were the words of New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who has exhibited true leadership during a crisis involving a mass shooting in New Zealand recent.y From displaying strength, resilience, empathy, compassion coupled with the action, she has not only shown her resolve and decision-making capabilities but has also set an example for exemplary leadership during this crisis.

Her display of compassion and empathy has shown the positive sides of being a woman leader, and her resolute to own the responsibility and lead a nation in grief has put forth a new type of gendered leadership.

Ardern is currently serving as the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand since 26 October 2017.

She began her career working as a researcher in the office of Prime Minister Helen Clark and became MP in 2008 which she held for almost ten years until her election to the Mount Albert electorate in the 2017 by-election. She was unanimously elected as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in 2017 and became Leader of the Labour Party.

Ardern is not only the world's youngest female head of government having taken office at the age of 37 years, she is also the world's second elected head of government to give birth while in office when her daughter was born in 2018.

“I have the power to change things, too. It just depends whether you want to take that as a weight of responsibility or just the opportunity of a lifetime.”

- Jacinda Ardern Compiled from online resources

16

| April 2019

Mercer appoints Arvind Laddha as CEO for India Mercer, a global consulting leader in advancing health, wealth and career has appointed Arvind Laddha as the Chief Executive Officer. Laddha is currently the Deputy CEO and a board member of JLT Independent.

Mercer | Mettl appoints Siddhartha Gupta as CEO Mercer|Mettl has appointed Siddhartha Gupta as the Chief Executive Officer. Siddhartha’s previous role with Mercer|Mettl was of Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).

CNH Industrial Capital appoints Amit Kakkar as MD CNH Industrial Capital has appointed Amit Kakkar as new Managing Director. Amit holds more than 17 years of experience and joins CNH Industrial from Clix Capital Services, where he served as Business Leader for the Vehicles business.

DXC Technology appoints Rajiv Bansal as CFO DXC Technology has appointed Rajiv Bansal as Senior VP and Head of Finance, Americas.

Bansal has about 25 years of experience and has worked with companies like ABB, Infosys and most recently, Ola. Mondelez India appoints Saleel Panse as Talent Acquisition Leader Mondelez India has appointed Saleel Panse as Talent Acquisition Leader, India. Panse joins the food company from MSD India, where he worked for five years as Associate Director, Talent Acquisition. Panse has worked with companies such as Cipla, Ray & Berndtson and Personnel Search Services in his twodecade-long career.

Under Armour appoints Tushar Goculdas as MD India Athletic apparel brand Under Armour has appointed Tushar Goculdas as Managing Director India. Tushar Goculdas joins Under Armour after nearly a decade with adidas where he most recently served as Brand Director, Emerging Markets and was based in Dubai.

Uber appoints Manisha Lath Gupta as Head of Marketing Uber has appointed Manisha Lath Gupta as the Head of Marketing for India. A seasoned marketer, entrepreneur and leader, Gupta comes with over 20 years of experience across consumer goods, banking, ecommerce and fintech.

Coca-Cola India appoints Nishi Kulshreshtha Chaturvedi as Head HR Beverage major Coca-Cola India has appointed Nishi Kulshreshtha Chaturvedi as the Head of Human Resources, India and South West Asia.

Prior to Coca-Cola, she has worked with companies working with Schneider Electric, Cairn Energy and Baxter Healthcare.

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Adidas appoints Dave Thomas as MD German footwear and accessories major Adidas has appointed its India head Dave Thomas as the Managing Director for emerging markets. Dave has been working with the Adidas Group since February 1998 and has held various leadership roles.

Toshiba appoints Ryuji Maruyama as MD Asia Pacific Toshiba Asia Pacific has appointed Ryuji Maruyama as the new Managing Director of Toshiba Asia Pacific, who also assumes the role of Corporate Representative – Asia of Toshiba Corporation.

Maruyama began his career with Toshiba Corporation in 1988.

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Mitsubishi appoints Ashwani Gupta as COO The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance has appointed Ashwani Gupta as the Chief Operating Officer. Gupta is currently senior vice president for global light commercial vehicles business at the alliance.

Clarks appoints Giorgio Presca as CEO Casual footwear brand Clarks has appointed Giorgio Presca as the Chief Executive Officer. His most recent position was CEO at Golden Goose Deluxe Brand, where he led the operating transformation, rapid growth and global expansion of the business.

LimeRoad appoints Shashank Teotia as HR Head Online fashion platform LimeRoad has appointed Dr. Shashank Teotia as Senior VP for People and Talent Development. He joins LimeRoad from Women on Wings, a non-profit organization working towards co-creating one million jobs for women in rural Indi Condé Nast India appoints Zeenat Burji as HR Head

Condé Nast India has appointed Zeenat Burji as the new HR Head. Before joining Conde Nast, Zeenat Burji was working with EY Perthenon as Head of HR. She has done her Masters with Honors in Human Resources Management from London JK Tyre & Industries appoints Sanjeev Aggarwal as CFO

JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. has appointed Sanjeev Aggarwal as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Sanjeev is a CA with over 27 years of experience in finance and related functions across various sectors in large corporates.

Info Edge appoints Pawan Goyal as Chief Business Officer Info Edge India has appointed Pawan Goyal as the company’s new Chief Business Officer. Prior to joining Info Edge, Goyal was working with Adobe as the General Manager and heading Print, Scan, and TechComm businesses.

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Equality + Diversity = Innovation

Building a culture of equality is not just an ethical imperative, but a business priority for organizations as a culture of equality in the workplace acts as a powerful catalyst to enhance innovation

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By Manav Seth

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aking a case for revamping your workplace culture and making it more equal and diverse to the CEO just got easier. A recent research by Accenture has shown that a culture of equality is the strongest driver of innovation in a workplace. While experts and industry leaders have long opined and demonstrated the positive impact of diversity and equality on innovation, Accenture undertook a global survey to explore the linkages between the two. The ‘Getting to Equal 2019: Creating a culture that drives innovation’ study is a one-of-its-kind analysis of how an equitable workplace not only acts as a multiplier of innovation but also provides purpose and motivation to the workforce. Based on a survey of over 18,000 employees from 27 countries and a phone survey of over 150 C-suite executives from eight nations, the report builds on Accenture’s 2018 study ‘When She Rises, We All Rise’ that identified and measured 40 workplace culture factors that influence advancement and characterize a culture of equality. Let’s dive deeper into the findings of the report.

The impact of workplace culture on innovation At the very outset, the report states that for driving innovation in organizations, leaders need to go beyond hiring the best talent and also focus on creating the right culture for their talent to flourish. “A culture of equality – the same kind of workplace environment that helps everyone advance to higher positions – is a powerful multiplier of growth and innovation.” As a matter of fact, equality has the highest impact on innovation mindset (the willingness and ability to innovate) more than factors that differentiate organizations, like, industry, country, or workforce demographics like age and gender. Employees working in most-equal workplace cultures also see fewer barriers to innovation and are less afraid to fail. Across all genders, sexual identities, ages, and ethnicities, innovation mindset is up to six times higher in most-equal workplace cultures, as opposed to least-equal ones. Similarly, improving the workplace culture has an impact that is 42 times greater than increasing compensation. “This means that building a culture of equality is not just an ethical imperative, but a business priority. If organizations want to thrive, they have ‘get to equal’”. Organizations all the around stand to gain tremendously from acting on this advice as the research suggests that the global domestic product can increase up to $8 trillion by 2028 if an innovation mindset in all countries is enhanced by just 10 percent.

Understanding the culture of innovation The significance of innovation has only increased as 95 percent of the business leaders surveyed view innovation as ‘vital’ to competitiveness and business viability, and 90 percent of the employees want to innovate as well.

However, the bad news is that there is a glaring disconnect between what entails true empowerment for innovation

The global domestic product can increase up to $8 trillion by 2028 if the innovation mindset is enhanced by just 10 percent in countries 18

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The research also revealed that in Indian organizations that have a healthy culture of equality, employees have an innovation mindset that is three times higher than in least-equal companies. Furthermore, when diversity is added to a culture of equality, the innovation mindset score becomes nearly five times that of less equal or diverse organizations.

Forbes has also previously reported that a diverse workforce is a critical component of innovation and success.

On the other hand, the differences in opinion regarding workplace empowerment was narrower in India as 76 percent of the executives said that they empower employees to innovate, as opposed to 68 percent of the employees who feel empowered.

However, like their global counterparts, employers in India rely on financial incentives to motivate their employees as well. This indicates a need to shift the focus on other crucial factors that foster

Radhika M. Menon, Chairman & Senior Managing D, Accenture India

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Innovation and inclusivity in India

Continuous innovation is the path to business success in today’s disruptive environment, and workforce diversity is key to developing a culture of innovation. Yet, organizations need more than a diverse workforce. Our research shows that an organization’s innovation potential is truly harnessed when workforce diversity is combined with a culture of equality

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at the workplace. While 76 percent of the business leaders stated that they empower employees to innovate, only 45 percent of the employees felt that they were empowered to innovate. This disconnect can be attributed to the overestimation of financial rewards and ignoring purpose as a stimulant for innovation.

Additionally, companies haven’t been able to fully understand the extent up to which workplace diversity can impact a culture of equality. The report suggests that while diversity might be measurable in numbers, a culture of equality ensures that employees don’t just simply check a box, but, are valued for their differences, are free to be who they are, and are empowered to contribute. Although diversity has been identified as a critical priority for organizations recently, its ability to act as a multiplier of innovation needs more recognition.

A 2015 report from McKinsey & Company showed that organizations with a more diverse workforce perform better financially. Industry leaders have already reached this conclusion and are going out of their way to be a truly diverse and inclusive organization. In fact, Apple wears its diverse workforce on its sleeves and says that “The most innovative company must also be the most diverse.” Other studies too have shown that diversity increases retention, maximizes talent and productivity, enhances decision-making among teams, improves market reputation, reduces the risk of fraud, and even strengthens the company’s CSR initiatives. Accenture upholds that a culture of equality is based on three important pillars: “Bold Leadership (a diverse leadership team that sets, shares and measures equality targets openly), Comprehensive Action (policies and practices that are family-friendly, support all genders and are bias-free in attracting and retaining people) and an Empowering Environment (one that trusts employees, respects individuals and offers freedom to be creative and to train and work flexibly).” Among these three, an empowering environment is the most critical, as it constitutes eight of the top ten workplace culture factors that impact an innovation mindset.

an innovation mindset like, providing relevant skills training, offering flexible working arrangements, and respecting work-life balance. It would help to focus on the six elements that comprise the innovation mindset, as listed by the report: purpose, autonomy, resources, inspiration, collaboration, and experimentation.

The study also touches upon the interventions taken by industry leaders like MasterCard, P&G, and Microsoft to drive home the point that focusing on diversity and a culture of equality is an indispensable business priority today. There is now empirical proof and objective data that establishes a direct relationship between equality and innovation, and HR leaders and professionals must leverage the same to future-proof their organizations. The essence of the findings can be best summed in the following excerpt from the report: “No matter who or where they are, if people feel a sense of belonging and are valued by their employers for their unique contributions, perspectives, and circumstances, they are empowered to innovate more.”

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The critical few - Self-disruptive leaders

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A majority of leaders can’t make decisions and take smart actions quickly enough, motivate people effectively, or build trust — all of which is needed to ensure their organization’s survival into the future Changing the scope of modern-day leadership

Disruptive forces are driving the future of work. And to ensure that organizations succeed in a rapidly changing business environment, new kind of future-ready leaders are needed. But are corporate leadership structures evolving to maintain pace with disruption?

By Dhruv Mukerjee

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hen it comes to the English language, more often than not, the excessive usage of a word leads to it losing its significance. The same can be said about the word ‘disruption’ in today's business context as disruptions are slowly becoming the norm within many modern-day business sectors. The advent of what many have been calling the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the collective impact of changing technological prowess of modern day businesses and evolving talent preferences, holds the key to just that — to disrupt how current businesses perform, earn profits, interact with their consumers, and take talent decisions today. And to do so successfully and often proactively, it is important to have qualified leadership at the helm of it all to guide such disruptions to meaningful ends, or perhaps a leadership structure that remains open to ‘self-disruption’ as a way to remain ahead of the curve. But before we begin to define what constitutes a ‘self-disruptive’ leader, it is important to see how the current crop of business leaders have been performing.

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In a recent global leadership study done by Korn Ferry, more than two thirds (69 percent) of investors within the Asia Pacific region highlighted their dissatisfaction with the current crop of leadership. Given how the future is shaping up, many in the report stated that today’s private-sector leadership is “unfit” for the future. The study, aimed at capturing investor perception on the future of businesses and on the capability of the current leadership to navigate incoming changes, paints a grim picture. In India, over 72 percent of the investors interviewed stated that today's corporate leadership is incapable of building an organization ready for the future. According to a Korn Ferry study, The Self-Disruptive Leader that reflected the sentiment of nearly 800 investors more than 150,000 leaders – corporate leadership is ill-prepared to meet the challenges of tomorrow and “A majority of leaders can’t make decisions and take smart actions quickly enough, motivate people effectively, or build trust — all of which is needed to ensure their organization’s survival into the future.”

As market changes are redefining business processes, a corporate leadership structure that remains responsive will always play a catch-up game. Given how corporations today have become the economic engine to India’s economic growth story, a lack of preparedness on side of leaders could have long term impacts. The Korn Ferry report highlights that the investors in APAC are almost overwhelmingly aware of the urgency of the situation and hence the critical nature of building right leaders for tomorrow. Globally, this is a major concern as investors in countries like China (96 percent), Indonesia (91 percent), Singapore (91

percent) and India (90 percent) believe organizations are currently being confronted by disruptive challenges and are anxious about the lack of future-ready leaders in their markets.

Talent and Priorities

The Self-Disruptive Leaders group includes individuals who can: • Transform themselves • Help their organizations transform • Question and shift their own and others’ mindsets • Base their leadership success on their way of being rather than their skill at doing

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Self-Disruptive Leaders

The need for transformation will make leadership more important to a company’s performance within the next three years

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For many across the globe, the ability to prepare for future challenges hinges on the short-term pressures of corporate leaders. Over 70 percent of investors reported that pressure for short-term performance far outweighs the need to be future looking and this has worked against the ability of leaders to deliver innovation. Aspects such as building digital literacy and evolving business processes can only be undertaken if short-term pressures are balanced with long-term goals of survival, and by tapping into latent opportunities.

And for companies to do be able to do so, corporate and business leaders have a big role to play.

The importance of corporate leadership is highlighted not only across regions of APAC but around the world. Over 78 percent investors interviewed globally in the Korn Ferry report insist that the CEO remains a critically important figure when deciding in which companies to invest, and 83 percent cite an exceptional CEO as critical to an organization’s success in disruptive times. Such dependence in the face of creeping incompetence to be future-ready is a cause of concern among investors.

The ability of senior business leaders to navigate the uncertain times has been brought under the scanner on multiple instances. For example, when it came to dealing with disruptive nature of digital technologies on reshaping business processes, an IMD study1 noted a large gap in comfortability levels across CEOs. The study revealed that even though over 92 percent of leaders reported to be feeling the full force of digital disruption, less than 15 percent of them claimed to be “very prepared” to guide their companies through such market changes. In addition to such disruption trends, instances of cyber-attacks are on the rise and millennial talent preferences are evolving.

Investors across APAC recognize that the need for transformation will only increase the demand for effective leadership in the very near future. The Korn Ferry report highlisghts how globally, investors see the critical need for future-ready leaders to face the problems of tomorrow. Over two-thirds (66 percent) state that they value future vision and orientation over past performance as a key metric

while looking at CEOs of companies to invest in.

The report also noted that over 69 percent say the need for transformation is going to make leadership more important to company performance within the next three years. The challenge then remains of finding and building the right leaders.

The importance of the HR teams to create effective leadership development programs and support them with robust, data-driven succession planning will increase in the coming time. While a recent Skillsoft report2 notes that only 41 percent of leadership development programs are successful and effective in creating the right leaders, HR professionals have a growing challenge in front of them.

To tackle the problem of leaders being illequipped for the uncertainties of tomorrow is by building the attitude of “self-disruption” within leaders. Called by many other names before, the idea is to focus on developing leaders with the right balance of technical management skills and an adaptive attitude towards the changing business environment. It calls for leaders to be “self-disruptive” by being agile learners who possess the right social and emotional intelligence while being able to proactively modify attitudes and methods to make best of a technologically evolving business environment. Although India stood among the top few nations with the highest number of leaders who could be categorized as “self-disruptive” at 17 percent along with nations like Singapore, a significant portion of the journey still remains.

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The right perspective

In an exclusive interview with People Matters, Dr. Robert Hogan, Founder & President, Hogan Assessments talks about the evolving nature of leadership, bridging the gap between psychological science of talent and common real-world talent practices, the criticalness of evaluating personality, identifying talent with empirically-validated psychometric devices, and high potentials

By Yasmin Taj & Suparna Chawla Bhasin

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obert Hogan is the founder and president of Hogan Assessment, which leads the world in personality assessment and leadership development.

Dr. Hogan was the first psychologist to demonstrate the link between personality and organizational effectiveness and currently is the leading international authority on personality assessment and leadership. Hogan earned a Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley and was McFarlin Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at The University of Tulsa from 1982 to 2001. Prior to that, he was Professor of Psychology and Social Relations at Johns Hopkins University.

You have researched extensively on leadership and the domain of ‘personality’. How do you really define leadership and how does the personality of a leader make a difference to corporate results or the successful operation of an organization?

Leadership is the ability to get a group of people to work together towards a common purpose and to do it efficiently. Leadership is about building and maintaining a high performing team and beating the competition — it is not about getting promoted and getting a salary raise but about building a team that can beat others, almost like how you prepare the army. We know exactly how the dimensions of the personality are related to capability and most of the people get it wrong. What happens is that due to the wrong personality, the staff gets alienated, disengaged, they quit, or stop working hard.

This phenomenon can be easily observed in athletics, when we say that the coach has lost the team and they won’t play for him anymore. The exact same thing happens in business – the manager loses his team as the team won’t perform for him.

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Leadership in times of continued transformation is changing just like other workplace dimensions are. How do you think this affects managers, and how can managers be supported in addressing turbulent times in a way that is true to their personality?

People talk how much things are changing all the time but as the French say, “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose” which means that “the more things change, the more they’re same”.

Similarly, in the business world, circumstances change, financial crises cause disruptions, invasions come and go, plagues and pestilence cause havoc, but human nature is pretty much the same. We’re pretty much the same people today as we were two hundred thousand years ago — human nature is the constant part of the equation that you have to really get right, and the rest can flow on by.

Leadership is not about getting promoted and getting a salary raise but about building a team that can beat others, almost like how you prepare the army

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potential for success as leaders. Why do you think that is the case?

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Organizations struggle because they use interviews as a way of finding talent. Talent cannot be evaluated on the basis of interviews because the only way to identify talent is with empirically-validated psychometric devices.

There’s absolutely no alternative to it and the data on that goes back to the 1940s. The problem is that the presence of politics in any organization is rampant. Many people in organizations don’t care about how well the organization performs – they care about their own promotions. If they cared about their organizations, they would use validated and empirically-justified scientific procedures to make decisions about talent.

Psychology should be the main science for understanding people and a pivotal tool for solving talent problems – yet most companies play it by ear, and waste their time and money on futile interventions to attract and retain the right people. How do you think organizations can bridge the gap between psychological science of talent and common real-world talent practices?

The basic technology for identifying quality leadership has been around for 50 years, so for anyone paying attention, it is actually the old that is new again You have said in the past that “leadership should be defined in terms of the ability to build and maintain a high-performing team, and evaluated in terms of the performance of the team.”

But the vast empirical literature on leadership tells us more about the success of individual managerial careers than the success of people in leading groups, teams, and organizations. What do you have to say about that?

That’s the fundamental problem in the study of leadership all over the world. Researchers have looked in the wrong places and tried to study leadership from the wrong perspective, attempting to understand it in terms of who gets to the top of the organization. But good leaders are humble, understated, and care deeply about how well their team is performing. Bad leaders, on the other hand, are all about self-promotion, being in-charge, showing up on the TV, and posting on Twitter.

The competition for talent is fierce, and the future of many organizations depends on finding and developing leaders for key roles. However, most organizations struggle to find accurate and useful ways to develop people with the most 24

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A lot of what goes on in the HR is just about having an idea and pursuing and chasing it.

There has to be a systematic and analytical method to gather data and analyze it correctly to solve challenges. However, the challenge is getting organizations and particularly the HR fraternity to start paying attention to data and empirical analysis. Many people believe in a fact-based universe but fail to realize that we are the ones who create the facts and that truth can be discovered empirically. It’s just that one has to care and be willing to do the hard work to find the answers.

Organizations still don’t have a clear definition of high potentials. Does ‘potential’ mean ‘performance’? Tell us, what is the best way for organizations to define, identify, and retain high potentials?

The workforce or the employees always know who the good managers and who the bad ones are. The way I see it, the best single way to identify high potentials is to ask the workforce who the good managers are. Don’t ask about the bosses they like, instead, ask about the subordinates they prefer.

What will be the significant trends that look very likely to shape how we assess employees within the HR field in 2019?

There’s this constant search for the new, glittering, shiny new objects and you have an array of vendors selling these shiny new objects in the market. However, the basic technology for identifying quality leadership has been around for 50 years, so for anyone paying attention, it is actually the old that is new again.

Abhijit Bhaduri

Beyond count & comparison - Measuring performance outcomes

If machines are going to do all the repetitive, boring tasks and leave humans to do only creative work, performance management has to be redesigned to measure creative work and creativity

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Beyond count and compare But creative work cannot be measured in numbers – this is a qualitative aspect not quantitative. To design performance metrics for creative work can be a huge challenge as millions of managers across the world, who still face difficulty evaluating the performance of remote workers, have to be taught how to evaluate what can’t be counted.

It is easy to measure outcomes when they are concrete. The number of widgets produced by one worker can be compared against norms to determine how much they need to be paid. It is easy to compare one sales person’s outcomes to another.

You simply need to count and compare.

Reputation of the organization The modern enterprise is built on intangible measures like reputation, behaviors at work etc. Google had to let go Andy Rubin, the “Father of Android” because of inappropriate behavior. When the terms of severance became public, it led to 20,000 Google employees walking out in protest and leading Google to kill its policy of forced arbitration.

Most managers still manage performance by counting and comparing. But we use Performance Management systems that do not address the intangible elements like trust, teamwork and collaboration.

Performance management systems have not evolved beyond count and compare.

Performance is a human process Guidance is a pre-requisite to reaching a goal. A manager has to play the role of a coach and a skill-builder rather than be just a weighing scale, figuratively speaking.

Work is getting increasingly complex that needs multiple viewpoints and collaboration beyond silos. It is time to measure the intangible elements underlying performance. Count and compare is at loggerheads with workplace behaviors like collaboration and creativity. Managers often focus on tangible measures to appear objective.

Employees care about “fairness” and equity.

Weak managers often keep noise levels low by distributing rewards equally.

If all that matters is the results, then a machine could keep score. Why do you need a manager to evaluate performance? The role of the manager is to not just measure and judge output; it is to build skills that will help the employee to do the current role better, prepare for more complex roles in future, and be a better organizational citizen.

Intangibles matter Intangibles can be measured through the value they create or erode. Take two areas where intangibles matter:

From Input to Value Creation or Erosion Elon Musk creates value with his ideas and erodes it with a single tweet. Even today, training departments are measured on archaic and meaningless measures like number of training days or the number of employees “covered” even for soft skills like collaboration and creativity. A student from an art college can reproduce a painting by a master. The role of the manager is to turn that employee into an original artist who goes beyond replication.

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ork is an outcome of the collaborative effort of humans and machines.

This is not surprising nor unknown, however, just to highlight how work is a collaborative effort, we can take the example of algorithms that help stock exchanges buy and sell at lightning speed, or the case of Alibaba that launched its biggest sale on Singles Day in Nov 2018 with their warehouse equipped with 700 robots who supported a handful of humans. Alibaba ended up selling products worth more than $30 billion on that day in a 24-hour period — a feat that could not have achieved by humans alone.

Machines augment us, our ‘human’ capabilities at the workplace, and even in our personal lives. For example, we routinely pull out calculators or use spreadsheets to do the work had we been using the old-fashioned notebook. And while we delegate our menial and repetitive jobs to the machines, and dedicate ourselves to only do the creative work, the concepts of productivity and performance need to be reevaluated and redesigned, especially performance management that has to be renewed to measure creative work and creativity.

Learn from the “Mad Men” Advertising agencies are judged on two parameters. The clients evaluate them on the impact they had on the additional sales and trust in the brand. The peers compete on the number of awards won. The industry judges the agency on the thought leadership and breakthrough thinking. The senior leaders are judged on the number of awards the team members have won under their leadership.

If work is going to be all about creative output, maybe it is time for performance management to be designed along with people who have figured out how to evaluate and nurture creativity – the mad men.

About the author

Abhijit Bhaduri is an advisor on talent management to organizations. With more than 850,000 followers on social media, he is a top influencer on social media. He is a bestselling author and columnist who has been writing for People Matters since 2012.

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Gulshan Walia

Starting the journey - The AI revolution and the leadership challenge During these times of disruption, the most crucial question that many leaders ask pertains to adapting to the AI revolution and facilitating the adoption of AI at the workplace. But what are the habits that can help leaders get started?

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achines replacing humans! It has happened before, and it will keep happening — from Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century which impacted the jobs of scribes and copiers, to mechanized agriculture in the 19th century, which reduced the need for manual farm labor. In more recent times, Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) affecting banking jobs, and digital money and cashless transactions reducing the need for ATMs — are just a few examples of changes that have provided great opportunities for businesses and led to improvements in productivity, efficiency, speed, and cost savings. They were necessary for mankind to make progress and also created new jobs. From jobs related to running printing presses, factory jobs due to industrialization, to jobs related to Internet banking, many new jobs came up. It’s the same old story of change.

Of new taking over the old – a universal truth.

Whenever such changes occur, leaders have a huge responsibility to understand the changes, leverage the opportunities offered by them, and lessen the pain of the transition to tech. In the case of

Artificial Intelligence (AI) too, it will be the same rigmarole. It will create new revenue streams, for e.g., drone manufacturing or neural network applications in customer preferences, and will lead to job creation in AI and its related disciplines. Of course, some jobs will also get automated. But how can leaders make this transition more appealing to the organizations? What habits that can help leaders get started? Here are three capabilities which leaders need to enhance within themselves to ensure a smoother transition to an AI-enabled business.

Developing Curiosity & Awareness A leader needs to be sharp and curious, always scanning the environment for changes impacting the business. Like a sponge, a leader has to constantly absorb knowledge and learn from varied sources. A well-developed curiosity enables a leader to seek out knowledge and form connections between existing practices and new insights while focusing on understanding the implications of the changes and new ways of working on his functional area or business. Leaders in every function and business need to be aware of the developments in AI overall, and specifically in their functional or business area. Irrespective of the sectors, it is imperative for leaders to be aware of the market disrupting potential of AI in all spheres of business, think through the opportunities created by data insights, and formulate optimal strategies and decisions with AI-based predictive analytics.

To gain an understanding of AI and its implications, immersive learning experiences in AI are essential as they are capable of triggering conversations on the applications of AI in the business.

A leader who cultivates a strong awareness of the ways in which AI impacts his business or function

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Disciplined Adoption & Abandonment AI may prompt the adoption of new practices and abandoning the old practices, however, both involve change, which human beings are usually resistant to because they like to hold on to the familiar and established ways of doing things.

However, the first step is to identify the processes, practices or ways of working that need change.

One needs to avoid the temptation of a herd mentality and hop onto the AI bandwagon simply because everyone is doing so. This requires a detailed and thoughtful understanding of how adopting a new practice or abandoning and old one will impact the organization. It is important to create a business case for the proposed change outlining the clear benefits along with potential risks. A systems thinking approach – understanding the interrelationships between all the moving parts is critical when making changes. It is also important to have a logical chain of thinking, which progressively frames questions around the multiple ripple effects of each action, and seeks answers to them for example, if practice A is adopted or abandoned, how it will impact practice B, outcome C and department D. The answers to these then may fuel more questions, leading to greater clarity into the implications of an action.

This is called “disciplined” adoption or abandoning that is carried out only after a very robust and thorough thought process versus one which is frenzied and haphazard.

Compassionate Foresight & the People element The “people element” is the most complicated

Leaders have a huge responsibility to first understand the changes and leverage the opportunities offered by them component that needs to be addressed when adopting new tech. Leaders have to grapple with questions related to the skills that will not be needed anymore, the business unit or department that could be made redundant going forward, or if people will be made redundant. To manage and answer such questions, leaders require compassionate foresight which means the ability to foresee or prepare for the future and simultaneously having a deep awareness of the suffering of people being affected by change. A leader should be aware of the possible changes, which maybe far in the distance now, but could impact people when they actually take place. This foresight enables a leader to evaluate the possible consequences of the impending change, change the course, or come up with creative solutions before the change actually happens.

Leaders need to take a deep look at their organizations and understand how AI will impact them, and then work in a disciplined way to get the benefits of AI, while reducing the adverse impact on people.

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is already a few steps ahead in coping with change, compared to another leader whose antennae are not sharply tuned.

About the author

Gulshan is the Founder of Infinitzus Consulting, a human capital consulting practice that focuses on behavioral skills training, HR strategy, OD, leadership development, executive coaching, performance management and HR process consulting.

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At the leading edge Giving her perspectives on values that drive the Boeing company, Bethany Tate Cornell, in a candid discussion with People Matters, shares the underlying L&D framework that guides the employees at Boeing, Being Behaviors, and leveraging diversity

By Yasmin Taj

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In t e r v i e w

ethany Tate Cornell is the Vice President of Leadership, Learning & Organizational Capability for The Boeing Company and is responsible for implementing the enterprise learning, cultural transformation, and workforce development initiatives to support Boeing’s business strategies and goals. Cornell is the co-executive sponsor of two business resource groups: Boeing Generation 2 Generation and Boeing Employee Pride Alliance. She is also the executive sponsor of the Leadership NeXt program, championing leadership development for all employees across the company.

Additionally, she also serves on the Chief Learning & Talent Officer Board for the Institute for Corporate Productivity focusing on critical global issues for learning and talent. She has spent more than 25 years leading talent development and learning innovations at five companies, including GE, Gap, Ethan Allen, IBM and Interlock Group. At GE, Cornell held several roles, including leading the culture and learning strategy for a $9 billion renewable energy startup, launching the company’s first Crotonville Learning shared service for design and technology and leading culture and engagement for the company’s largest industrial acquisition.

Behaviors, systems, policies, and processes are all important aspects of driving values.

How has Boeing ensured that leadership is aligned with all these different aspects?

While Boeing remains an industry leader, we have a great opportunity to adapt how we work to build a culture that allows us to continue attracting top talent, growing the best team and reaching even higher levels of performance.

We’re changing how we structure our work, our interactions and our norms, which all sum up to our culture, to speed up innovation and unlock top performance. To ensure all employ-

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ees, including leaders, are aligned and supporting this effort, the “Boeing Behaviors” are now incorporated in the Boeing Vision. They define the approach we need to take to our work as we strive to achieve our goals. The Boeing Behaviors are a big part of our continued commitment to improve how we work by investing in the development and growth of our people and teams to accelerate our performance. The Boeing Behaviors act as a “simple framework” that employees can demonstrate in their day-to-day interactions and use in their professional development plans.

Being a role model is critical to driving the right organizational culture. How are you supporting the leaders in their journeys?

Research suggests that the biggest obstacle to transforming culture was “day-to-day decisions that essentially pay the bill, but undermine the stated strategy to change”. How do you reflect on this challenge?

Boeing has committed to a set of core values that not only define who we are but also serve as guideposts to help us become the company we would like to be: integrity, quality, safety, diversity and inclusion, trust and respect, corporate citizenship and stakeholder success. The aforementioned Boeing Behaviors are grounded in our Enduring Values and serve a roadmap that give all employees a simple, unifying set of expectations for how to work together as we strive to achieve our strategy and goals. This approach ensures that day-to-day tactical actions align with our values and support our strategy and goals.

You’ve had a long career in learning and talent management, enabling companies to align their global learning strategy to the business. What are things that companies get right and what do they get wrong in the process?

I’ve undertaken three different transformations at three unique companies and in “getting it right” it’s communicating the clear path forward,

In the past, Boeing has advocated crowdsourcing ideas on learning from the employees. For a company the size of Boeing, it must have been a challenging exercise to make sense of the ideas that are worth trying and those that don’t. How did you do it?

Our people are our greatest source of innovation and key to our success. So we wanted to hear directly from them about areas that matter to them. Their input is very important as we chart the future of learning and development.

That’s why we crowdsourced ideas about future learning and development from our employees.

Communicating the clear path forward, how the team will get there, and making sure to bring people along in the process is essential for any transformation

In t e r v i e w

In addition to the above, we have started integrating awareness building and practice of the Boeing Behaviors in our formal leadership courses, by weaving them into course materials.

Most importantly, the Boeing Behaviors are being used as “design principles” to guide our systems for managing performance, rewarding and recognizing people, acquiring talent and considering changes to our decision-making and approval methods. We are also steering our learning program in a direction that offers unique learning experiences customized to individual needs and mapped to professional development stages versus a ‘one size fits all’ approach. We’re providing possibilities so our employees can effectively prepare themselves with the skills needed today and in the future. Additionally, our Boeing Leadership Center facility and courses bring employees throughout the world together to learn best practices, network, and learn skills that they can bring back to their home organizations.

how the team will get there, and making sure to bring people along in the process. That includes the internal HR team as well as the customers and partners the organization serves. When the North Star isn’t clear, when people aren’t open to iterating on a plan, there is danger in that. Transformation cannot be set in stone; it’s a process that continues to be tweaked and refined as it is implemented; and always making sure that the voice of the employee and customer or partner is paramount.

That effort generated more than 40,000 responses from employees around the globe. Employees told us that improving technical development programs and reskilling for jobs being affected by technology disruption were of the highest importance. Following that response, we launched a learning portal that provides access to books, videos, online lessons and certification courses.

We also launched several new virtual learning options to help employees enhance their technical skills and understand the newest industry trends, tools and technologies. Initially we’re focusing on big data, analytics and digital literacy, which are key enablers to Boeing’s growth strategies. This is just the beginning of what’s to come as plans are underway for other programs in areas like systems engineering, software engineering and cyber security.

What is Boeing’s “Federated L&D approach.”

How do you deal with the challenge of ensuring that there is alignment with business goals?

Our federated approach to learning is designed to strike a balance between agility (being agile at point of business need) and efficiency (centralizing and standardizing what makes sense to drive April 2019 |

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ship, communication, and teaming skills that are essential to our collaborative work environment.

We place a high value on engineering and science fundamentals, management, business and financial acumen, the ability to think critically and creatively, a capacity to collaborate and adapt to change, and curiosity and desire to learn.

You’ve spoken about how curiosity and innovation are at the core of the company. How are you nurturing these traits through learning?

Boeing has a longstanding commitment to the development of its people and building a culture of continuous learning. We offer employees mentoring, training, rotational assignments, communities of practice and collaboration tools that help them learn from one another. We’ve invested more than $1.5 billion in tuition assistance for employees’ higher-education coursework and current and aspiring leaders attend classes through the Boeing Leadership Center.

In t e r v i e w

What is it that organizations should do to empower their diverse workforce?

Transformation cannot be set in stone; it’s a process that continues to be tweaked and refined as it is implemented down cost while ensuring a consistent learning experience across the enterprise). At Boeing, the learning function has lead on strategy and solutions, but in some cases, there are learning groups within key functions that align with us, use our tools and methodologies, leverage our supply chain, but work autonomously to meet the needs of that business unit. We jointly govern this ecosystem with a board made up with senior executives across Boeing, chaired and sponsored by the learning function. This Enterprise Learning Board sets the people development strategy for the company, and all learning teams across the enterprise work together to execute. This helps ensure that we are staying very close to the business goals and priorities, because the business drives and shapes what we support.

What are the key skills that will be critical to navigate the future, especially when large swathes of manufacturing processes are being automated?

We want individuals to be prepared with technical knowledge, skills and abilities to meet our expectations. Equally important are leader-

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We know that diverse teams deliver better business results. And we are proud of the intense and sustained focus we put on the value of diversity and inclusion. It’s one of our Enduring Values and an area where we have made a lot of progress and will continue working at in the years to come.

Boeing’s Enterprise Women’s Strategy includes five focus areas: executive engagement, workplace support, a culture of inclusion, best team and talent, and marketplace engagement. Everything we do to recruit, develop and retain female talent rolls into this strategy. This encompasses many activities and includes a business resource group dedicated to elevating women in the company.

Boeing Women in Leadership (BWIL) is one of the most popular employee-led business resource groups in the company, with 27 chapters worldwide, including eight in non – US region. BWIL has played a key role in supporting 16 Empowering Women Forums we’ve held over the past two years.

The resource groups provide women and men with an opportunity to continue conversations and explore themes surfaced at the forums.

At the end of the day, everyone must acknowledge that a gap exists. Industry studies have shown that right now 50 percent of men believe women are well represented in leadership when only 1 in 10 senior leaders are women. If we look at the very top, of the CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies, only 32 are led by women. Second, I also would encourage more mentoring and sponsorship. We talk extensively about the importance of mentorship and sponsorship for career success, but sometimes see that these relationships do not cross gender lines. Men can play a big role here.

While it’s important for women to have female role models, it’s equally important for them to be exposed to those in top positions, and those individuals are often men. Encourage men to be sponsors and advocates.

Sridhar Ganesh

An Agile Performance Management Process Employees no longer want a checklist of objectives recited to them but expect to be involved in developing their individual goals and the plans for achieving those goals. So what will be the future of performance reviews?

Management & Development

While clearly communicating company and individual goals is an essential step for any business, communication alone is not going to get you far

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erformance management has undergone several changes over the past few years. The most dramatic of course has been the introduction and practice of the 360-degree feedback system. The traditional performance review meetings between supervisor and employee were in most cases a tick in the box! With time, those got reshaped into a more results-oriented performance management process. Recently, though, forwardthinking companies have begun adopting an agile performance management process — an approach with the adaptability needed in today’s workplace. Agile performance management essentially mirrors the modern work environment, and the people in it. Workplaces, particularly in the knowledge economy, have evolved from a hierarchical top-down structure to an open, collaborative one where multiple teams and management levels join forces to achieve a common purpose. Employees

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no longer want a checklist of objectives recited to them. They expect to be involved in developing their individual goals and the plans for achieving those goals. This mind-set results partly from a connected world, wherein messages and texts fly instantaneously: Millennials are used to instant communication. Workplaces today are as connected as any online social network, so employees and supervisors communicate in real time. Performance feedback doesn’t need to wait for a yearly review.

As businesses increasingly embrace the concept of “agile”, organizational processes have also started to show signs of agility.

Agile Performance Management Agile performance management is an approach to employee appraisal and development that replaces the traditional annual employee reviews with an ongoing and interactive process. This approach

emphasizes goal setting, measurable results, collaboration, frequent feedback, flexibility to meet the changing organizational needs and effective coaching. It builds on a basic performance management model by being frequent and regular, yet flexible enough to accommodate organizational changes and every employee’s unique abilities and ambitions, and requires supervisors to be more facilitative as distinct from being directional. The basic performance management model that businesses claim to practice has in most cases fallen short of employee expectations in terms of clarity of goals, evaluation as well as the frequency and quality of feedback. To begin with, here are some simple steps to get the Agile PMS right.

Define Work Goals and Objectives for Employees It is unfair to expect employees to meet performance expectations or company goals if they have not been clearly outlined.

Doing this is the first step towards effective performance management. And the second step is to communicate the goals, and thereafter, constantly review these goals in the light of the business environment. They ought not to be seen as cast in stone for the year! Quite often HR heads have a common complaint that employees are neither

responsive, not do they come forward to ask questions when they are confused or unclear about something. The reason for this is that almost always, employees are either unclear or uninformed about their performance objectives. This problem can be avoided with clear communication and frequent dialogues. In order to set their goals and ensure that each employee is informed, reduce the scope for ‘loss in translation’ due to poor communication, and digitize the process. Most good HR software systems have built-in goal-tracker options that allow for objectives to be defined, goals to be set, and milestones to be recorded.

Don’t Ignore Small Details of Peer Reviews Peer reviews are useful because they allow co-workers to praise other co-workers and highlight positive aspects of their perfor-

Management & Development

Track Goals, Don’t Let them slide While clearly communicating company and individual goals is an essential step for any business, communication alone is not going to get you far. It would be a good idea to integrate these goals into the HR soft-

not about giving (as is commonly misunderstood) but is indeed a dialogue with an employee to identify, what is going well and what is not and having strategies for improvement of the latter. This process of a dialogue cannot wait till the HR gets into its annual review cycle. Instead, it should be done in real time and integrated into the company culture. Timely performance feedback conversations are the best way to reassure your employees and their work while also shaping their work effectively.

You would be amazed to know how many younger employees thrive on the involvement that the management shows in their progress, and the direction they get from the reviews.

Work towards Pre-emptive Management The end-goal of an effective performance management system should be to have a workplace that practices pre-emptive management. In simple words, this means that your employees always know what is expected of them, and they also have a digitized, trackable progress record.

And finally, rewards and incentives are the most effective way to show employees

Almost always, employees are either unclear or uninformed about their performance objectives

ware that allows for goal-setting tracking and an alert system if targets are slipping.

In order to foster a ‘smarter’ workplace, one needs to invest in a smarter system. If your company’s HR management system doesn’t have scope to customize these settings, it’s time to consider an upgrade. This would also be a good time to listen to your employees. Are they complaining that the existing system is hard to use? Or does your present software low on employee engagement?

Engage in Frequent Performance Dialogues The single biggest distinction of the Agile PMS is its ability to engage in dialogue frequently to track and review performance. Good performance feedback reinforces strong skill sets and positive behaviors while showing opportunity areas with a clear path for improvement. Feedback is 34

progress meetings, these meetings can be held monthly, quarterly, or as often as you think fit. Some companies have weekly reviews, but we believe that such frequent meetings could cause fatigue. Group reviews are more effective in shorter durations, while individual performance should ideally be tracked on a monthly basis.

The meeting objectives should include: • Follow up on goals • Addressing peer reviews • Recognizing high performers, discussing their goals and growth trajectory • Discussing company goals and aligning all employees to that goal

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mance, as well as point out where improvements can be made. When this function is digitized, there is further scope to help employees to work together, build better communication, and assess where they can improve themselves while watching their colleagues. However, it is very important that all peer reviews should be studied to ensure that no claims, concerns, praises, or other comments go unnoticed or unaddressed. The right performance software should be able to help you collect frequent feedback, giving you options to implement and customize the reviews.

Set the Agenda, Set the Frequency Extending on the strategy discussed in point no 2, setting aside time to meet with your team and seeing how things are going with your set goals and objectives is important. Also known as progress reports or

that you care, that you have noticed their efforts and you want them to keep up the good work. Validation and recognition go a long way!

These six strategies for effective performance management may seem simple, but they can work wonders when implemented. When companies get their people involved, see them as contributors not just cogs, the right work environment for success is guaranteed. However, there is no single agile performance management definition. Each organization has to decide how to structure its own processes to best suit its needs. An agile performance management process engages employees in a year-round, continual process of individual development so that they become active participants in cultivating their strengths in ways that benefit themselves and the entire company.

About the author

Sridhar Ganesh is the MD & CEO of Adrenalin eSystems Limited

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Measuring impact

By Suparna Chawla Bhasin

April 2019 |

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n a world that is changing by the minute, and where the nature of workforce is changing to include contractors, consultants, and freelancers, organizations require talent strategies that are suited to the diverse needs, and more so, design systems that understand their appetite for work and productivity. The millennials who grew up using technologies and are accustomed to receiving continuous feedback expect nothing less than a similar cadence of communication in the workplace.

Even the contingent workforce’s performance needs a different way of management. From a move away from the annual appraisal systems to a focus on the quality (as well as quantity) of feedback, although organizations have a come a long way, there’s still a long way to go. To be effective, organizations need to clearly define, measure, and reward performance as equitable, competitive and appropriate. So how will HR practitioners looking to stay ahead of the curve evolve their performance management strategies in 2019? What performance management trends can we see organizations adopting for a workforce that comprises of a mix of regular employees and gig workers? Will personal development be the front and center of PM discussions with dynamic agile goals?

Will performance management be about productivity or efficiency?

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What performance management trends can we see organizations adopting for a workforce that comprises of a mix of regular employees and gig workers?

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Performance Management in the “New” New World of Work - Overwhelming or Opportunity?

Organizations require talent strategies and performance conversations that suit the diverse needs of not only the generations that are or will become the part of the workforce, but also those who are independent contractors Michael Bollinger Global VP, Cornerstone OnDemand

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STORY

f you do a quick web search on “Performance Management”, you will often find a definition like this “...Performance management is the supervision and oversight of employees, departments, and organizations with the objective of seeing that milestones and objectives are reached in an efficient and effective manner. This niche aspect of overall management involves defining what effective performance looks like.”1 Well, I don’t know about you, but I hardly find this definition relevant or compelling in today’s world! The past practice of continually tweaking the ratings, forms, and competencies falls short of producing an effective result or moving the “needle” on impact and results. In fact, it has become such an eye roller that over the last five years, many companies have shifted from “annual

44 percent of millennials say they are more likely to be engaged when their manager holds regular meetings with them but only 21 percent of millennials meet with their managers on a weekly basis

reviews” to the 360 Degree reviews, to the ratingless reviews, and now to the continuous reviews.

And yet, the controversy regarding what is the best performance management system trudges on unabated.

Many argue that the changes in performance reviews have been driven by the millennial generation of workers; but the “rise of the millennial” is over — the generational shift is here, and the millennials have cracked the shell. The rest has simply followed.

However, this shift is driven by all of our expectations and it has had a real impact on us as we try to steer the conversation towards focusing more on quality and not just quantity, a far more admirable goal because it validates the “impact”. However, it presents challenges where the nature of workforce includes the contractors, consultants, freelancers, and contingent workers, as well as the generational shift. Organizations require talent strategies and performance conversations that suit the diverse needs of not only the generations that are or will become the part of the workforce, but also those who are not “statutory employees”..

This breaks down into three areas that we need to consider: 1) Continuous Conversations - Elevating the conversation

Millennials became the largest generation in the labor force in 2016 U.S. labor force, in millions 70

66 Boomers

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Gen Xers

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41 Millennials

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2000

2005

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2) Compensation Implications - Annual reviews can’t be about the score 3) Supporting new worker types

Continuous Conversations Perhaps what seems the simplest can be the hardest for us. “Continuous Conversations” are a part of a new strategy and skill of all stakeholders of an organization, and managers, employees and HR practitioners all play a role in making this approach successful. This is one thing we need to get better at because research shows the critical nature of it. 44 percent of millennials say they are more likely to be engaged when their manager holds regular meetings with them, but only 21 percent of millennials meet with their managers on a weekly basis.2 For what it’s worth, I see this as not a “millennial” thing but a “human” thing, it crosses all generations. Having regular communication has no downside but in our current consumer-driven era, we all expect clear and crisp communication regardless of the generation. Words matter, intent matters, and ownership matters. We in HR can help with some simple techniques by coaching both, the managers and employees.

Guidelines are generated from the classic approach in our tools, and the performance management annual scores. Having continuous conversations doesn’t mean that they can’t roll up into an annual score however, they don’t have to. i. Historically, the annual review has been tied neatly to the compensation conversation and even supported the notion of “differentiated comp” which mean that the scores were intended to reward the highest performers.

Another principal on my team, Jeremy Spake often cites the fallacy in this...

Average Performer

Top Performer

Difference

$50,000

$50,000

---

3.0%

4.5%

1.5%

$1,500

$2,250

$750

Increase per pay period

$58

$87

$29

After-Tax pay period increase

$43

$65

$22

Annual Salary % Increase Annual Increase

So, the net of this is simple: Is $22 per check enough to recognize and incent superior performance? ii. A new notion has sprung up though, the idea of separating the compensation conversation from the annual review. Instead it should shift it to the high performer/high potential talent review step. The notion is simple and powerful at the same time.

iii. Ownership: Finally recognize that we all must own our part of this. a. Managers need to practice as they shift their roles from being evaluators to coaches. This means new skills of active listening, curiosity, and being able to ask clarifying questions like “what development can be included in next steps?” Ensure that the conversations include such aspects and the hard goals – it can’t just be about the work. b. Employees need to come prepared, and to talk about what is going well. Focus on areas where new skills and experiences are to be gained, and ensure that growth path and development in your career. , insure you communicate your priorities, expectations, and personal progress. c. HR needs to coach our audience to insure that employees are coached on holding consistent conversations and that such conversations have merit. We need to provide a useful frame-

P o t e n t i a l

Does not Meet Expectations

Meet Expectations

Develop

Stretch/Develop

Exceeds Expectations Stretch

5%

9% or 5% Base plus 4% Lump Sum

Observe

Develop

Stretch/Develop

1%

4.5%

7%

Observe/Exit

Observe

Develop

0%

1.5%

5%

2%

STORY

ii. Intent: Distinguish between “talent mobility” and “career mobility”. Talent mobility implies supply chain thinking and is employer-centric.

Champion the notion of Career Mobility is an approach which suggests a shared mission and responsibility of both the employee and the employer. Conversations, results, technology tools and evaluations should be focused on common outcomes because of that emphasis.

Compensation Not Tied to an “Annual Review” Number

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i. Words: Championed by a Principal on my team, Dr. Tom Tonkin, we suggest the simple change in phrasing from “Why” to “For What Purpose”. The “Why” requires justification, and “For What Purpose” implies value, and aspiration. Coaching our leaders to think and converse in those these terms improves the quality of conversations.

work, and the skills coaching to our leaders, THEY are the multiplier effect we seek.

Performance • Allows budgeting by Department • Use hybrid of a base salary and a lump sum adjustment • Critical to give High Potentials raises that differentiate performance April 2019 |

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Depending on whom you ask, the rise of the contingent worker is either upon us or is overhyped

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STORY

traditional ‘employees’. This year, the Foodora platform (online food delivery) established a European works council and signed an agreement with trade unions in Germany and Italy.

Riders who use bicycles to deliver the food are formally recognized workers and one rider is a trade union representative on the company’s supervisory board.

The point of bringing up this 3rd pillar, is that the first two items we talked about apply here as well. Thus, having continuous conversations focused on outcomes and development, and tying compensation to something other than an annual review will prove especially useful as the “lines blur” with new worker types. As humans, we all still crave feedback, and rewards for our work. These simple techniques support such conversations regardless of statutory status.

In 2019, performance management is continuously evolving – as most of our craft is. We are seeing rapid changes from the traditional to the emerging which are driven by new expectations, reflecting the new demands of the work, and supporting many people types and worker relationships.

The evolving Performance Management systems Traditional

Although this takes a little more work in its execution, it is mostly an effort on the part of HR practitioners. The strength of this approach is that it is a continuation of the conversations that should have been occurring with the manager and with the employee. It also forces good thinking for those same managers AND their leaders in terms of its focus on developing and supporting people.

Supporting multiple worker types (The “Gig” Economy) Depending on whom you ask, the rise of the contingent worker is either upon us or is overhyped.

Recent research from McKinsey cites a key trend, predicting that 50 percent of all workers will be freelancers by 2025.3 The term ‘gig’ came from the music industry and there are defined characteristics and traits of a ‘gig’: It implies that an individual can keep up with trends in their role, have their own tools,, understand the lingo, is prepared, and knows what is expected of them., They know what is considered good work vs. bad work, and can articulate and defend their position to the toughest critic.

If we use this as our definition, then it makes sense that this would also include multiple generations and the older workers might like this type of arrangement even more so than any other group.

Regardless of this, it appears it is here to stay.

Interestingly, in Europe, social advocacy is blurring the lines between gig economy workers and 40

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Emerging

Annual Event

Ongoing feedback

Compliance

People-centric

Emphasis on Appraisal

Emphasis on outcomes and development

Focus on existing leaders

Focus on developing leaders

Tenure based

Develop on-demand

Corporate learning programs

Learning experiences

Experts push training

Employees pull training

Focus on internal learning

Internal AND external learning accounted for

Lecture based

Experiential

Learn specific skills

Learn how to learn

It’s a great time to be HR, and our team(s) need us more than ever.

1 2 3

Investopedia Terms Gallup, Research on Millennial Engagement How disruptive technologies are opening up innovative opportunities in services – McKinsey 2019

Performance Management simply isn’t simple!

Have the attempts to “simplify” performance management failed to produce effective solutions and trivialized it?

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veryone is getting excited about how to manage performance when using outsourced labor and gig-workers (contractors, consultants, freelancers), or when operating in a multi-cultural environment.

Performance Management simply isn’t simple

Clinton Wingrove Director, WantToBeGreatManager

What does not work?

• Annual or other short-term goal or objective setting. It does provide some means by which to track progress and determine success, but its motivational value is seriously questionable.

Indeed, it probably has little effect on those who need their performance to be managed, and a negative effect on those who don’t.

• Episodic reviews such as annual and quarterly

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OK, let’s start by being honest! Performance Management, in any organization, simply isn’t simple! It may have been simple back in the days when you could tell people what to do and then beat or sack them if they didn’t perform well. But we have known since the early 70’s that so-called “traditional performance management” didn’t work, doesn’t work, and never would work. Sadly, it has taken over 40 years of failed attempts for many to grasp that reality, despite almost universal hatred of the processes by both management and staff.

The evidence is staggeringly clear that attempts to “simplify” performance management have failed to produce effective solutions and, in most cases, trivialized performance management.

Performance Management simply isn’t simple! But that does not mean that it can’t be easy. The two are quite different. Whether we are dealing with direct staff, indirect staff, outsourced labor, temporary staff, etc., the issues faced are the same.

STORY

Each one of your interactions with anyone (including ignoring them!) has an impact on the performance they afford you because of: (a) what that interaction does to your credibility, and (b) what that interaction triggers them to feel, think or do

April 2019 |

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reviews. They may create the illusion of working but consume time and emotional energy with little return.

• Financial incentives. Some individuals are highly motivated by money but they are rare and tend to take jobs that explicitly remunerate in that way e.g., sales, investment management, trading…For others, the impact of financial incentives is often negative or at least distracting.

performance they afford you because of: (a) what that interaction does to your credibility, and (b) what that interaction triggers them to feel, think or do.

So, if you are to impact another person’s performance, what do you need to talk about? Here is my list of seven critically important topics which apply irrespective of cultures, whether they are internal or external, or your relationship with them:

If you need to influence someone else’s performance, you need to realize that you are doing it all the time!

Here’s the reality. If you wish to influence someone else’s performance (and, isn’t that precisely what we expect people-managers to do?), you need to realize that you are doing it all the time!

Each one of your interactions with anyone (including ignoring them!) has an impact on the

1. Priorities Do they understand the longer-term goals, why those matter, and therefore what the current priorities are? Don’t just tell them; ask them to explain the priorities, as they see them, to you. This way, you learn whether they really do understand why their performance matters. Individuals like to feel that they are contributing to something more than a blank “ToDo” list.

Reset their perceptions if needed.

We have known since the early 70’s that so-called “traditional performance management” didn’t work, doesn’t work, and never would work. Sadly, it has taken over 40 years of failed attempts for many to grasp that reality, despite almost universal hatred of the processes by both management and staff

2. Standards You will have expectations of them in terms of standards. On any aspect of their performance that you know or suspect to be falling short, ask them to explain to you the standard of performance that they should be achieving.

Do that in terms of the WHAT and the HOW i.e., the results they should be achieving, and how they should be performing the work in terms of process, behaviors and style.

Reset their perceptions if needed.

3. Development Given the rate of change that we experience in all walks of life, development is crucial; without it, we deteriorate or stagnate.

Ask them to explain to you the specific knowledge or skill that they are currently focusing on developing. Check that they understand that around 70 percent of our capability is developed and refined on the job.

Reset their perceptions if needed.

4. Self-awareness Every interaction is an opportunity to check how self-aware they are. Without self-awareness they are unlikely to improve their performance.

Ask them to explain to you what they have achieved, how they have gone about their work, and/or how they have grown and to tell you how that compares to the expectations of them.

Reset their perceptions if needed.

5. Evidence of current performance or development Every interaction is also an opportunity for you to learn more. Actively seek contra evidence to that you already hold. This will ensure that you have a complete picture. Ask them to explain to you what they have achieved, how they have gone about their work, or how they have grown.

Guide the conversation and/or reset their perceptions if needed.

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6. Feedback on their current performance (output or behavior) In critical situations, it is sometimes necessary to provide prompt and specific feedback.

This should be positive as often as possible because you want them to know about and repeat any good performance.

It may also be in the form of feed-forward (rather than criticism) i.e., things they could or should do differently and better in the future.

It is the cumulative effect of your thousands of interactions over time that leads to better or worse performance from those with whom you interact

STORY

• (Priorities): “So, what are the two most important things for you to be working on over the next few days.”

• (Standards): “Tell me about the processing of the claims we are getting, what are the key standards we should be meeting in how we handle them?”

• (Development): “What are you currently working on to increase your knowledge (or skill) in this area?”

• (Self-awareness): “I like to keep up to date. So, talk me through how things are going. What do you see as your relative strengths and what is possibly holding you back?”

• (Evidence of current performance or development): “What have you achieved this month?”

“What aspect of how you do things are you most pleased with and why?” “What development have you engaged in this week?”

• (Feedback on their current performance output or behavior): “I double checked and you have hit 5 out of 6 of the targets. Talk me though the other one” “I looked at the report you gave me yesterday. I liked the structure and you made a very good choice of tables for the appendix. You could really polish the next one by including a punchier executive summary right at the beginning.”

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7. Enable One of the most motivating of conversations for some is being asked what they need or expect to enable them to perform well.

If you have recently clarified priorities or had a discussion about the expected performance standards, asking the other party a question like, “So, what do you need from me or others to make that possible?” can be valuable. At worst, it brings out their reluctance to take ownership for their own performance. Sometimes, it brings out genuine issues that you need to address. On other occasions, it merely shows them that you care.

The above topics apply whether you are dealing with direct staff, indirect staff, contractors, temporary staff, even vendors and children! So, how do we use these seven topics?

Every time you have a meaningful interaction (i.e., more than two or three sentences) with each one, select one of the seven topics to add in. This can be done explicitly or even casually e.g., adding the phrase, “By the way …” or “That reminds me …” enables you to quickly redirect a conversation adding on something like

• (Enable): “What do you need from me to enable you to... ?”

You can keep each conversation short – I typically recommend no more than seven minutes.

It is the cumulative effect of your thousands of interactions over time that leads to better or worse performance from those with whom you interact. Using the above topics and choosing the most appropriate one each time with each person will dramatically increase your positive influence.

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Accept and adapt This is the age of gig-economy where career experiences take precedence over the brand value of the company and employees’ personal branding and marketability is more important than that of their employers. While it may be a tectonic change for the companies and their HR teams, this is the truth of today!

Paneesh Rao

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Chief Human Resource Office & Head of CSR, L&T Technology Services Ltd.

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n the three decades of my professional experience, I have observed that the more people gravitate towards newer modes of communication, their ability to wait for responses comes down. Since the advent of social media, a sense of urgency has infiltrated the personal and professional lives of the people, especially those who are digital natives or have embraced the digitalway wholeheartedly. This is in stark contrast with the older generations that lived in an age when a 12-hour wait for a trunk call was considered ‘lightening quick’. This proclivity for quick turnround-time has also percolated into the organizational work-culture across the globe. Performance management has ditched the TTYL approach and even ASAP has been deemed too slow for the future of work! Modern day workforce performance management is all about communicating Right Here Right Now.

Modern day workforce performance management is all about communicating Right Here Right Now Millennials constitute a large percentage of today’s workforce and they seek a different experience than their predecessors driven by culture of openness, better and more frequent communication, teamwork, timely mentoring and career progression programs. Traditional approaches are bound to fail in the technology driven dynamic corporate environment; therefore, a modern performance assessment perspective properly aligned with business growth, employee aspirations and organizational values is essential.

Evolution of Performance Management Employee assessment has come a long way from the days of confidential reports which defined the draconian Bell Curve method imposed by companies to segregate the workforce into best, average and poor performers. This enabled the managers to control and define the distribution of payment especially for the variable component for the previous performance year and compensation revision for the future. However, this method was quite rigid and did not allow employees to alter their performance instantly as the feedback to their work-routine was shared by the managers once a year. Due to this rigidity, organizations started 44

looking towards other alternatives that facilitated instantaneous feedback and evaluation.

At first, removal of the Bell Curve started as an experiment but gradually this practice has found its way into most progressive organizations. They have realized that it is virtually impossible to attract and retain top-class talent without giving them assurance of constant feedback, engagement, and a defined career path. Modern-day performance management framework has ditched the old and dead-beat approaches and embraced a more holistic outlook that aims at balancing professional commitment with personal development.

An indicator of this development has been the rise in the corporate trend of reserving a substantial part of the compensation as variable, sometimes with no upper cap for high performers. This practice not only motivates professionals to strive

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harder, learn more and be more efficient, but also help companies in implementing feedback driven meritocracy.

Trends that drive the new-age work culture The past decade has seen major revolutions in performance management as the business sectors have continued to steer away from conventional once-a-year appraisals bringing in effective practices that symbolize the future of work. According to my experience, HR practitioners are aggressively looking to stay ahead of the curve and evolve their performance management strategies. Some such notable transformational approaches are: Rise of the authentic company culture The foremost change in the performance evalu-

ation system has been the rise of the authentic brand i.e. a company ecosystem that treats employees as an integral part and not mere means to an end. Today’s professionals want to be part of the decision-making process especially pertaining to performance assessment; they like being spoken to regularly and addressed on-the-spot rather than being in doubt about their credentials and performance. While the new-age work culture revolves around how much trust an employee has on his/ her company, it is also necessary to distinguish continuous assessment form irritating interventions and prying. The social media savvy workforce of today is quite temperamental and their threshold for tolerating needless meddling in their day-to-day work is pretty low. The managers and the HR division have to efficiently harmonizing their business requirements with the satisfaction levels of the employees.

Cognitive Performance Management Today, the singular characteristic trait of a successful company is the extent of technology integration across its various operations. By harnessing the power of technology, HR professionals can identify organizational readiness to take up new projects. Depending upon the require-

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New skills and challenging projects A few decades ago, employees were not concerned about evolving their skill sets and were content with repetitive nature of work. The new-age professionals, on the contrary, do not like redundancy and whether permanent or contract-based, their priority is the enhancement of their profiles and competencies. Companies are accordingly aligning their scope of work with the preferences of their employees and facilitating necessary trainings such as those related to data and digital literacy.

One such trend has been the provision of learning and development tools to the workforce, customized to their career preferences and tailored to enhancing organizational productivity simultaneously. Identification of skill-gap becomes an input for development intervention & for future career management for HR team.

No more are permanent employees more valued than those on contracts and thanks to the gig-culture, the management focus has shifted to nimble teams comprising of both employees and contractors or freelancers

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Agile industries covet agile talent As companies look to leverage emerging technologies, they have turned their talent management approach on its head. No more are permanent employees more valued than those on contracts and thanks to the gig-culture, the management focus has shifted to nimble teams comprising of both employees and contractors or freelancers.

Companies have embraced the notion that genuine talent cannot be assigned a label and while employees on fix payroll maybe at the core of their offering, it is often the freelancers who bring in the x-factor. Naturally, companies are seeking talent wherever and whenever it can be found and allocating them projects that suit their skill-sets and career aspirations. Trends indicate that enterprises prefer hiring contractual employees on need basis than keeping a bench of dormant employees.

ments, the existing employees can be exposed to new skills and technologies or people can be hired on temporary basis with the required expertise.

Emerging technologies can help the HR system of a company to move beyond mere employee engagement and retention and facilitate detailed insights on managerial and operational issues. According to Deloitte, data driven tools can churn real-time insights to analyze employee work-patterns, time management, productivity levels, tendency to exit the company, fraud risk and level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the existing process of the enterprise.

HR Teams, take a note!

The seismic shifts in the thought process of the modern-day employees can be correctly attributed to the rapid pace of digital innovations. A 2018 report by Hootsuite highlighted an interesting fact, 82 percent of consumers expect immediate response on sales or marketing questions from the brands. This social media driven exigent behavior is the new normal for the modern employee who values evolving job profile and rapid career growth over longevity of service. This is the age of gig-economy where career experiences take precedence over the brand value of the company and employees’ personal branding and marketability is more important than that of their employers. While it may be a tectonic change for the companies and their HR teams, this is the truth of today that they have to accept and adapt to.

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Explore alternatives now!

- Performance Management in the Multi-Dimensional Digital World Richard Smith, Ph.D. Professor of Strategic Management (Practice), Singapore Management University

Earlier, business was not quite as dynamic, employment was intended for the long-term, and the idea of pay linked to performance was quite a defendable model. But as we examine the tradition of performance management in light of today’s digital business models, there are a number of new questions that emerge

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hile there have been a number of questions about the annual performance appraisal over the last several years, many firms decided to totally abandon the decades of tradition that lay at the core of many HR processes. In 2015, Deloitte made headlines when they reviewed the evidence and considered the value of the process relative to the time involved across the management teams. Other firms like Accenture, GE and Microsoft have also taken similar actions. While there seems to be a rally-cry for abandoning the annual appraisal, it seems that it might indeed is time to rethink the entire concept of performance management in light of our digital era.

Many of the HR systems and processes can be traced back to the industrial revolution when management needed systems to manage employees at a large scale. The rise of unions and workers councils required fair and consistent processes in organizations. Having a clear performance rating that was determined each year as a basis for then awarding incremental pay raises and promotions was a simple way of organizing management

actions. Business was not quite as dynamic, employment was intended for the long-term, and the idea of pay linked to performance was quite a defendable model.

As we examine the tradition of performance management in light of today’s digital business models, there are a number of new questions that emerge. Computer engineers are familiar with the fact that in the physical world, we deal with three dimensions, but in the digital world we can create complex relationships across many dimensions. As we consider performance management, we ask ourselves new questions related to time, relationship, job, employment, human, diversity, and progression. Let’s take a closer look at each of these dimensions.

Time: The cycle of performance management is already a question. How long should a performance cycle be? While many organizations are moving away from an annual process, what is the right timing? Some digital firms are working on a monthly process or even shorter. Other questions begin to emerge about synchronizing the timing in the organization. Does the performance cycle need to be the same for everyone? What about our shortterm ‘gig’ workers?

Relationship: Most organizations have systems that assume that a manager works with his or her employees and has a relationship with them.

However, in the digital world of work, we find that we may not share the same physical space or even meet. What type of performance management is appropriate for the virtual world? Sitting down to have a discussion about goals or performance with your boss may become an old tradition.

Job: One of the basic building blocks in the HR system and in performance management is the job.

We describe the job, set goals for the job holder, and estimate the value of the job to the organization.

How can we anchor performance management in the future when the concept of a job is not present?

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As the lines between human performance and machine performance begin to blur, how do we evaluate and address the performance of humans? Should we also evaluate the performance of machines?

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In the evolving digital businesses, people take on dynamic roles by working in teams or squads. The dynamic nature of agile environments does not have a provision for something called a “Job” as a unit of evaluation or description. How will we anchor performance management in the future when the concept of a job is not present? What are other ways we can think about anchoring our HR systems?

Employment: The rise of the “Gig” economy and notion of short-term engagements has raised new questions by regulatory bodies, employers, and societies about the way we think about employment. Even in traditional companies, we often see contract workers, outsourcing providers, and other agents providing what used to be “Employee tasks.” How do we address performance management when the nature of employment is less clear?

Human: As the lines between human performance and machine performance begin to blur, how do we evaluate and address the performance of humans? Should we also evaluate the performance of machines? If a human creates a machine that performs his tasks with great results, how do we acknowledge the ongoing performance? While some may argue that the blurring lines of humans and machines are a long way away, many experts suggest that we are quickly progressing towards a blurred distinction.

Diversity: Even start-up businesses find that they are quickly operating in a global context and must accommodate for different cultures, backgrounds, and ways of working. More established organizations are working hard to embrace diversity and inclusive ways of working as they understand that diversity can improve decisions, innovation, and quality. However, addressing and embracing diversity in the digital age in our

performance management systems is still unclear.

How might we create ways of addressing the power of diversity in our HR systems?

Progression: The old model of a career progression ladder was clearly understood and encouraged as people generally aspired to move “up” in an organization. As we consider the young digital talent today, the ideas about career progression may be very different. In fact, progression can even be defined as how quickly one can get out of an organization! Often times our performance management systems are also linked to career management, succession planning, and promotions. Perhaps it is time to re-think our mental models of progression inside an organization?

While there are many questions about the future of performance management that have not yet been answered, it would be great if progressive human resource leaders begin considering these questions. We first need to understand the limitations of our current systems and be prepared to try new approaches. Making big changes to performance management processes and systems will have wide-spread implications for management and employees. By beginning to explore alternatives now, we will be more prepared for the multiple dimensions of our digital future.

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Measure performance, when and where it happens The intent of the Performance Management program should scream “development”. But is that the case?

Vikrant Khanna

Abhilash Kumar Sr. Consultant, Alight Solutions

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Lead, HR Transformation and Change (Asia), Alight Solutions

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et’s just tell it like it is…performance management is under stress and the people running the show even more so. Even in the most progressive organizations that have reportedly made the leap towards a more modern performance management program. Practices that are thought to be outdated (ratings, reviews etc.) are slowly being shown the door and more progressive practices like no ratings and continuous feedback are hogging the spotlight.

Organizations are struggling with what happens when you take away decades of practices that managers and management were used to.

What happens when the tools to make core decisions like promotions, compensation are taken away? How can organizations start making the shift towards a more contemporary Performance Management Program?

CHROs today are under pressure to link HR programs to the productivity gains that an organization expects. That’s what happens when you get a seat at the table, sometimes you are also expected to set the table. Performance Management is the catalyst that triggers talent activities within organizations. It informs recruitment on the kind of people that succeed in the company, it informs how the Learning Management program needs to be structured and it is the most critical input into the succession management strategies and tactics of an organization. These expectations along with multi-generational workforces and the need to

drive growth in an increasingly complex environment have legacy approaches stressed.

Shifts in the practice of performance management There are 5 major shifts in the practice of Performance Management that we see today. These shifts are not only evident today but will continue to drive decisions around the practice of Performance Management over the next 2 to 3 years’ timeframe. These will test an organization’s ability to adopt and manage the disruptive and incremental changes that will follow.

Shift 1: HR-owned to business-owned Expectation from the practice is to move from softer behavioral aspects to more tangible business results. This means that the design of the performance program must allow execution at the level where the performance is taking place, at the level of the employee and the supervisor. As practitioners take a back seat on execution, they will be required to take a front seat on change management to ensure adoption.

Shift 2: Review-focused to feedback-focused Businesses are worried about sustaining in the future; however, performance reviews focused on past performance may not have relevance for the organization in the future. It is increasingly important to recognize performance, when and where it happens. With this feedback loop in place, it can be expected that employees and managers will be able to move away from dissecting the past to planning for the future. Continuous feedback done well is a beautiful thing and can make annual reviews painless for all involved. However, organizations need to be cautious that feedback not utilized can result in higher disengagement from the program and derail participation and adoption.

Organizations need to be cautious that feedback not utilized can result in higher disengagement from the program and derail participation and adoption 48

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Performance management is changing

Performance Development increasingly replacing legacy approaches to Performance Management

Performance Management 1 HR owned Driven primarily by HR and linked to activities & tasks that the employee is expected to do.

3 Opinion based

2 Review focus Only happens at certain times in a year defined by a delving in to the past with limited focus on the future

Manager / skip-level manager evaluate an employees’ performance based on memory

4 End-result focus The end-result

overshadows the bright sparks that may have defined the performance

5 Limited

Differentiation

The end-result overshadows the bright sparks that may have defined the performance

Performance Linked to Business 1 Business owned 2 Feedback Driven by business and linked to business outcomes and strategy

focus

An always-on process based in improving behaviours and performance for the future

Open

Multiple data points considered for the evaluation of an individuals performance and potential

4 Balance of how

and end-result Recognize how the end-result may be affected by the milestones in the year.

5 Differentiation

Driven

Strong linkage to rewards and career with a high degree of differentiation for high performers and high potentials

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Let’s face it – you can only have so many points on a rating scale and current practices are just not tuned to differentiating within a highperformance organization

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Shift 3: Subjective and opaque evaluation to an objective and open discussion The activity of performance evaluation is a stressful affair for everyone involved. Often, important decisions are being made based on people’s memories of how they did than real data. Biases and opinions make the process even more hazy. Modern practices look to remove the amount of subjectivity caused by memory, biases and opinions. This can only happen if the design of the performance program enables the capture of information throughout the performance period. Taking the form of more frequent formal reviews or enhancing formal reviews with continuous feedback. The additional data brings in the objectivity required, and the focus can shift to a more open conversation about the future.

3 Objective &

ing within a high-performance organization. It is becoming more important to introduce data points that help to separate the true standouts from the high performers. More contemporary performance programs are looking to leverage data from more sources to help take these decisions. The base of this remains that feedback and feedback providers can be anyone. Employees are being encouraged to seek feedback to help differentiate their performance.

Shift 4: Focus on the result to focus on the way the result was achieved There is very little discussion happening today around the activities that are helping the achievement of performance goals simply due to the lack of focus on immediate and relevant feedback. Due to this, the end of year achievement, good or bad, overshadows the bright ideas and sparks that may have been defining moments for the employee. All done within their daily routine. Doing your regular work well is seldom given the importance that it deserves.

What this means for organizations looking to make the shift?

Shift 5: Increasing the amount of differentiation of talent Let’s face it – you can only have so many points on a rating scale. Organizations are focused on hiring the best and developing their people to be the best.

Current practices are just not tuned to differentiat-

1. Development at the core: The intent of the Performance Management program should scream “development”. This intent is the core guiding principle for the design of the program. Sustained messaging around this principle will be needed to drive adoption.

We are witnessing many organizations faced with the decision of making changes to their Performance Management programs. As they consider these shifts, organizations should keep in mind four very basic guiding principles.

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What we have learned from successful organizations

Our point-of-view is based on current research and our experience in deploying PMS modules for clients

01

Development at the core Focus on performance development at the core of the PM process. This results in more frequent conversations and increase in performance process effectiveness

02

Simplify the performance process The focus is on reducing the administrative burden that the process brings resulting in an increase in the time that managers can spend on having quality conversations with their teams

03

Build managerial capability A development focused process requires greater commitment from managers to elevate the quality of the conversation that they have with their teams

04

Design and deploy the performance process in a way that it can be run within modern performance management systems.

Systems can enable tracking and analytics at levels that would not be possible if processes remain manual or too complex to be automated

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Invest in technology that enables higher order reporting

Most organizations with existing Performance Management programs in place would benefit from incremental changes rather than try and disrupt current practices altogether 2. Simplifying the performance process: Execution of the program will move to managers and employees. With adoption of the process being key, there will be a need to simplify. This simplification should cover all aspects of the Performance Program like, the rating scale, the number of goals, the ease of launching and closing the process and the ease of access of reporting and dashboards.

3. Build managerial capability: The role of managers and supervisors is expected to increase exponentially. They will need to make two major changes in how they work. One, they will be required to elevate the kind of conversation that have with their teams and two, they will need to adopt a more digital work-style

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to leverage data, reports and dashboards that will be needed to support their conversations.

A higher level of capability coupled with a cultural move towards digital will be needed.

4. Investing and technology and higher order reporting: Organizations will be required to evaluate and select technology differently.

Technology should be able to reduce the level of administrative burden. It should be able to increase the number of data points that advise performance and link effectively to other processes like Learning and Succession. As managers adopt the new program their dependence on data will also keep increasing.

As organizations consider these guidelines, a clearer picture will begin forming on the level of change needed and the amount of effort that will be needed to make that change and sustained over time. Most organizations with existing Performance Management programs in place would benefit from incremental changes rather than try and disrupt current practices altogether. Changes can be easily aligned to each of the four guiding principles noted above and advise the overall program philosophy as the organization makes the shift from Performance Management to Performance Development.

Go beyond performance management to create emotional investments

How do you find valuable members for an organization and ensure that every person is able to find their passion, performance reward, and allegiance?

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t was 6.00 AM and the surgery was about to start. There was silence as the team quietly prepped for something complex – sterilizing and double checking the equipment, testing levels of the anesthetic, and other critical tasks. A young surgeon starts with the incision and preps the area for deeper surgery, ensuring the vitals are running well… and in all, the team worked quietly like a humming warship. At 6.23 AM, the “visiting” super specialist entered and after 180 minutes of continuous effort, removed the tumor, re-checked the vitals, thanked the team, gave instructions for next steps and moved on to his next surgery. The

team proceeded to ensure the closure and finally handed the patient to an efficient and wonderful nursing team, who would ensure that the patient was able to find the strength to get back to a normal life. Over the next two weeks, the specialist surgeon will spend 12 minutes every day to ensure the patient is fine, while the young surgeon and the shift doctor will follow the specialist, their role model, through his rounds to learn and grow.

Through their 48 hour shifts, rushed lunches and high stress, this A team of doctors, nurses, specialists, ward boys, IT specialists, anesthetists will work tirelessly.

Saakshi Saxena Regional Lead: HR Program Management (Asia & AnZ), Microsoft

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The new workplace is about bringing the hearts, minds and hands together bound by shared values, individual passions and a common higher order purpose. The traditional stochastic approach of managing performance through ticking boxes of loosely defined measures and narrow pigeonholes of bonus and raises may be completely misplaced in their target and execution

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There is never enough time, there are always too many patients, and it is almost always late by the time patients reach the hospital. Every surgery is its own reward, every complex case comes with a new learning, and professional networks add perspectives to those learnings with every new discovery. So how do you find the most valuable member in this set up and how do we ensure that every person is able to find their passion, performance reward and allegiance?

The Fourth industrial revolution is here to stay and it impacts not just the nature of work but also the pace, time and nature of the workforce. Gone are the days of fixed outputs, manuals, processes and dare I say fixed measures of performance.

Martin Nowak in his book SuperCooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed says that the sheer existence of Life force is due to “an extraordinary level of cooperation between molecules” and that is the only hope to “redeem humanity”.

Surprisingly, in today’s world, the temporary workforce follows the extreme ends of the spectrum, niche-end skills like surgery, professorship, productivity consultants and completely fungible skills like operations, admin support etc. Both these sets are beyond the scope of traditional performance management approaches, both of them spend too less time for motivation, engagement, and long-term retentions and would be like floating resources, stepping in to solve an immediate need and moving on to the next challenge.

The challenge for HR in this new era of productivity is to find the right balance of skills, of permanence and impermanence in workforce without breaking the flow of business revenue and productivity, keeping the team together and keeping them engaged towards a common purpose.

Easy peasy, right!

Let us see if there are ways we can understand this and begin at the beginning. Solving this challenge is a systemic process and will need the “house” to be set in order. In my humble opinion, initiation of performance management does not start at performance management; it starts way before, at recruitment, where you need to find the right role models, the right skills, and the right values into the mix. A few other aspects that may work: • Find the right Leaders: To find, retain, and grow the right talent is not just HR’s job. The function enables leaders and processes and culture, but no amount of benefits, perks, awards and recognition can discount a value disconnect with the organization or the manager. Thomas Huynh, says, leaders can change the tenor of the workplace and create harmony in motion toward a favorable result.

So every time you say to your team, "Let's rock and roll," make sure you have already set up the stage to where they can actually perform like rock stars.” Management of performance is just that, setting the stage: Well begun is half done: Set the right accountabilities/core priorities o Set the why? Set the values you want people to work on as they go about delivering their priorities o

Despite the continual rise of the knowledge worker over the last 60 years, we haven’t done enough to question “how we’ve always done things” and redefine effectiveness in organizations” - Crystal Kadakia Ensure the milestones: Milestones with the right areas of focus, not only create the communication and feedback channel, they also help you support your employees in course correction. We no longer live in an era where you could make yearlong plans.

The VUCA world is about constant innovation, course correction and edits. When you set in focused conversations throughout the year, you give yourself a learning opportunity and an opportunity to connect more strongly o Harness the individual passion with the team purpose: The best work happens when there is an overlap in what you love doing and what the team is doing. o

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My experiences with management trainees is a living example of the perfect work environment and the perfect workforce, a team that signifies stronger collaboration, stronger connection, and a stronger sense of purpose of doing the best work, every day of their lives

• Communicate, communicate, communicate: In the new world where HR is becoming more and more strategic, helping GTM and leading transformations, some of the traditional practices of being a sounding board for employees and being connected enough to know what is happening, might take a back seat.

This is an opportunity lost; spend that time, go for lunch with your business, spend time with your millennials, connect with your diverse employees. I have always validated my external market research on trends with my internal benchmarks of employees. If you are connected and trusted you will hear, competitive hiring patterns, comp packages on offer and vulnerable talent and while this would feed into your talent management, development agenda, it will also help you retain your best talent.

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• Embrace diversity and focus on inclusion: Enough has been said about the merits of diversity and the needs of inclusion, but my point on this is simpler and better explained with an example. I have been a part of a team with 13 different nationalities and during an offsite session of “that’s my game” everyone shared one game from their country. The most fun 45 minutes of my life. When you have a diverse team, you find whacky connections, beyond work stories, new words & languages to learn, places to visit and cuisines to try. It stimulates the part of your brain which needs new learning and socialization and thus happiness making everyone more productive.

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• Work on the culture: Research shows that employees look strongly for a belief that the organization’s performance management is fair and that everyone is measured with the same yardstick of values and outcomes. Creating a culture of visibility, fairness and consistency is critical and the primary responsibility for the leadership and HR team in today’s workplace.

As I penned this article, I thought about the best work I have seen in organizations and went through a mental illustrious list of interns, management trainees and contract workers, who have been part of my journey. My experiences with management trainees is a living example of the perfect work environment and the perfect workforce, a team that signifies stronger collaboration, stronger connection and a stronger sense of purpose of doing the best work, every day of their life.

They managed themselves through a community of fellow interns, went for trips together, played football, had beer pong games on Friday night and found time for side projects, core projects, travel and laughter, igniting the organization with their inner joy.

What makes us give the kind of freedom we do to interns and trainees? Is it our inherent belief that the younger millennial will bring a new point of view? Is it our faith in the untainted nature of a fresh college/university graduate? Maybe it is this aspect of it being temporary which allows us to be more flexible, and the lesser we try and manage, the better the outcomes seem to be. There are no answers but the right questions are the starting point for enquiry, reasoning, and action.

Whatever it is, it seems to be working. My question to everyone then is what happens when that trainee gets his/her final posting? Why do we try to fit them into the mold of being an employee?

Why do we teach them the script to find their selfworth with the feedback and percentage of bonus received, instill a fear of failure and in short teach them to comply with a cause and effect linkage?

“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute”- Drucker. Let us go beyond the Gaussian performance management to create emotional investments and create an organization of the future to cater to the customer of the future.

Note: These are the author’s personal views and do not represent the organization in anyway.

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Technology and democratization of work will fuel the future of work In a compelling conversation with People Matters, Ravin Jesuthasan, Managing Director, Willis Towers Watson, and an author talks about how technology enablement and the democratization of work will give corporates the ability to take work outside the organization and distribute it anywhere in the world giving anyone or anything, in the case of AI, the opportunity to perform a task

By Yasmin Taj

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In t e r v i e w

avin Jesuthasan, Managing Director and Global Practice Leader, Willis Towers Watson, is a recognized global thought leader and author on the future of work and human capital. He has led numerous research efforts on the global workforce, the emerging digital economy, the rise of artificial intelligence and the transformation of work. Jesuthasan has also lead research projects for the World Economic Forum including its ground breaking study – ‘Shaping the Future Implications of Digital Media for Society’ and the recently launched ‘Creating a Shared Vision for Talent in the 4th Industrial Revolution’. He recently co-authored the book - Reinventing Jobs, A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Jobs along with John Boudreau.

Based on ground-breaking primary research, Reinventing Jobs provides an original, structured approach of four distinct steps—deconstruct, optimize, automate, and reconfigure—to help leaders reinvent how work gets bundled into jobs and create optimal human-machine combinations.

In this exclusive interaction with People Matters, Jesuthasan shares his insights on what the workplace of the future will look like and how organizations will be completely constituted of an agile workforce.

What do you envision the workplace of the future will be like?

The workplace of the future will be one where there is going to be a combination of continued growth and automation, but it will not be one where automation will be destroying jobs. It will be one where automation does one of three things to work – it either substitutes what the human does and augments human work, or creates new types of work for humans. So, yes, we will see a lot more automation in the workplace but it will be applied differentially across work and will not destroy jobs wholesale 54

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the task is, what are you trying to solve for and the role of a particular type of automation in solving that problem and delivering one of those three outcomes — either to substitute the human task, augment it or create new human tasks.

From the perspective of an innovative workplace with the optimal combination of humans and machines, how would you describe the workforce of the future?

The workplace of the future will increasingly comprise an agile workforce that has the visibility to how automation is transforming its work and the skill and will to continuously reskill itself. The renowned futurist Alvin Toffler said in his book ‘Future Shock’ in 1973 that the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. That is what is going to be asked of talent in every organization; to continuously retool itself to stay relevant.

Now coming to the topic of reinventing jobs, how would you conceptualize the idea of reinventing jobs in your own words?

How will reinventing jobs impact organizations as they seek growth and success in an era of change and digital transformation?

We think that the tools and framework we have provided need to become a core competency of every manager and HR function because otherwise you are faced with the binary choice of either automating work or using humans, which is a false dichotomy. Every manager needs to understand that the concept of a job, which we have had for 150 years, is getting in the way of them realizing the optimal combinations of humans and machines.

Will the workplace of the future be shaped primarily by technological

The framework that we have put together is intended to be a guide for business leaders in thinking through how to responsibly and sustainably apply automation to work change or by changes in people’s thinking and attitudes towards work, or both?

The first step is deconstructing the jobs and categorizing the tasks, the second step is understanding what we are trying to solve for — are we trying to solve for minimizing errors, reducing variation, improving productivity or achieving exponential improvement or transformation. The third step is to understand the three types of automation previously discussed and the fourth step involves combining humans and machines to achieve one of the three outcomes – substitution, augmentation or creation.

What talent challenges do you foresee in the workplace of the future?

The biggest challenge is going to be the capability of the organization to deal with the plurality of the means for work. Do I know when and where to use an employee versus an independent contractor versus an outsourcer versus a gig worker on a talent marketplace or AI or robotics. Being able to make those informed decisions for a particular body of work and having the tools as well as the mindsets to be able to make those decisions and change them when needed is going to be critical.

Today, many of us focus on the technological changes when we talk about the future of work because those are often the most visible changes, but in fact there are two major changes that are happening.

The first is the technology obviously, but the second is the growing democratization of work. So, the ability to take work, pull it out of the organization, distribute it anywhere, give anyone around the world the opportunity to perform a particular task as a result of how connected we are, is also reshaping the workplace of the future. It’s both technology advancement as well as the democratization of work.

How do organizations stay on top of these technological trends as work and automation continue to evolve?

How, when, and where should organizations apply automation? Is it a stark choice between humans versus machines?

It is going to be very critical for us go beyond the notion of a job and to understand that until we get to the foundational tasks and skills, we are not going to be able to get to the optimal combination of humans and machines.

And this is why it is essential that we move towards a skills-based economy.

No, you have to start with the work as opposed to starting with ‘I have got a great technology, where do I use it?’ You have to start with work, understand exactly what

In t e r v i e w

There is a reason why we chose to write the book Reinventing Jobs. There is a lot of data out there that talks about automation destroying jobs. The problem is that the job is not the unit of measurement.

The unit of measurement is the task and until you deconstruct jobs into tasks and understand the nature of work, you cannot really understand how to apply the three dominant types of automation, which are – Robotic Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence and Social Robotics. Once you have done that, what you see is that for certain types of work, automation substitutes for human labor. But for lots of other types of work, it augments the human being, raising their performance and productivity. And in many other instances, it actually creates new types of work for humans. So, the framework that we have put together is intended to be a guide for business leaders in thinking through how to responsibly and sustainably apply automation to work.

Can you share a bit about the 4-step framework that you have written about in your book?

I think that is going to be really critical. As automation continues to accelerate and you see AI move from one domain to another, there is going to be a huge premium on organizations staying on top of the evolution of automation.

And the good news is there are lots of data sources now, so we can understand and see how automation is evolving.

Is there anything else that you would like to add to the subject of the future of work and reinventing jobs?

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Gurucharan Singh Gandhi

The Many Shades of Disillusionment What is the threshold after which a disappointment becomes disillusionment?

What are the ways in which we observe people around deal with it?

E C o r p o r a t e

Suf i

nough conversations on tea, coffee and other sundry spirits with friends, acquaintances and strangers have revealed this to me this – everyone is a WID, which is ‘Work-In-Disillusionment’ (a rip off from WIP meaning work-in-progress).

WID roughly means that just everyone around carries with him/herself a shade of disillusionment. There are only two spices that makes the dish of disillusionment different – first is the detail on whom, what, where and when; and second is to what degree. Anyone who says or believes that he/ she is disillusionment-free must either be a liar or God. All literature about human pain and anguish is nothing but a chronicle of disillusionment. Everyone and everything to some or the other disillusions – it’s just a matter of time. People, relationships, institutions, systems, organizations, and in many cases, even nations – all. Sometimes early on, but eventually. Details might differ, timings might differ, circumstances might differ – but all of it appears to be hurtling towards the final ines-

capable eventuality. Everyone in this is trying to remain calm and composed, dealing with sometimes the dawn of disillusionment, sometimes the prospect of it.

Now this narrative sounds very defeatist or pessimistic. Let me clarify. The intent is not to bemoan the issue of disillusionment per se, for there is no point in doing so but really dwell on two downstream issues – what is the threshold after which a disappointment becomes disillusionment, and the second is, what are the ways in which we observe people around deal with it. From the two possibly might emerge a better threshold, a better palliative – for a cure does not exist so far.

People deal with illuminometer in various ways. Some are blissfully unaware of the machinations they are subjected to – they are the happiest.

I feel they are blessed. The second are those who have attained a kind of ‘state of no expectations’ from anyone and anything. They are rare but they are also the happy. The third are those who have concluded that if you are part of the game and you have been dealt a set of cards, you better play the game well. They will maneuver their self-interest and ambitions through the maze of influencers and the powerful. They get to their destination.

They are also happy. The rest suffer – themselves and their circumstances. They may rationalize their inabilities, they may give it the cloak of high moral ground, or in rare circumstances even the color of principles but they remain united in their misery.

Some have a very low threshold of disillusionment. Even a small disappointment can make them sulk, lose faith and become bitter. They must do some soul searching. As they say profoundly – ‘the world is not here to serve you; it was here first’.

They must realize that everyone is entitled to a bit

Disillusionment with people and systems is normal and natural to some degree. It almost is a proof of being human 56

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Disillusionment can be very draining; there is nothing more agonizing than keeping on playing the game you don’t believe in

C o r p o r a t e Suf i

of self-interest just as we are. In the pursuit of selfpreservation, there will be times that others might have an upper hand, in what might appear as at the cost of you. Sometimes the system must take a decision that might not go your way. Learn to live with that. Improve your threshold.

Disillusionment can be very draining. There is nothing more agonizing than keep playing the game you don’t believe in. Hence, they say, don’t sulk at the system you want to be a part of but do not have the courage or energy to change it. Leave the table, turn the table, get new cards, change the rules of the game or change playing squad if you must. Only then will the circumstances and hence the feelings change. People change nations, religions, partners, and organizations when that point comes.

However, there is huge variation in disillusionment of people. Two persons in similar circumstances do not suffer from similar degrees of disillusionment or similar onset of it. The answer then may not be in the circumstances but in individual response to circumstances – predictably like everything else. Some deal with the imperfections in people, the cracks in their personality and the anguish emerging out of rough edges in their behavior with either a spiritual maturity (which is a stance that people, circumstances and life is inherently imperfect and hence there is no point in haranguing about it) or a cultivated nonchalance (which is a stance what gives a damn to everyone else because one is so focused in his/her own journey).

There is variation also in how people deal with the disillusionment that has already set in. Some come out of it early – shake off the dirt and move forward. Some take a while to come out of it – a few days of getting on. Yet many get sucked into the abyss of believing that nothing is worth their

effort and energy and let the thread of inspired action slip from their fingers. They play and replay the narrative of disillusionment so many times that it becomes their absolute truth.

A final word on this. Disillusionment with people and systems is normal and natural to some degree. It almost is a proof of being human.

However, if we do feel the onset of it, we must quickly arrest it. Overcoming the tendency of getting disillusioned is the ultimate victory over a base human instinct. That is a proof of being human again – and a better proof, I guess.

About the author

Gurucharan Singh Gandhi is the author of national bestseller ‘Kabeer In Korporates’ and the Head of Learning & Development with a leading conglomerate. The book was recognized in the Best first Published book category at the LIT-O-FEST, a literature festival in Mumbai www.gurucharangandhi.com Views are personal.

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Organizational Learning

Augmented Reality and Organizational Learning Augmented Reality has been used as a learning tool for decades, albeit in a very basic and crude way — but what’s new is its affordability and the exciting range of uses in business

By Pinaki Chakladar & Biswapradeep Basu

A

few years back, we were unwittingly caught in a ritual that trended virally the world over - throngs of people (kids, teenagers, adults alike) running around parks, shopping malls, museums and other public spaces with their smartphones looking out for “Pokemon.” For most of us who didn’t play this game, all you need to understand is that the players in this blockbuster game called “Pokemon Go” are required to interact with reality in order to play. “Pokemon Go” accomplished this by making millions of people run around outside looking for cute little monsters sitting at sundry places, like park benches, rocks and train stations, that they could only see through their smartphone or tablet.

Part of the magic stems from the fact that this game presents a novel concept and format, superimposing objects from the game library – little monsters and objects – into the real-world environment to present a real, 3-Dimensional context. For those of you who can’t relate to this game, just think of the simple Instagram filters – flowers, dog ears, fancy noses, etc. – that you superimpose on 58

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Pinaki Chakladar

Ravi Roopesh Kannepalli

your favorite videos. Makes them fun and exciting, isn’t it? In essence, the real magic lies in how the game integrates digital content into specific geographic locations based on the GPS coordinates of the participants – this makes the participant feel a real player in the game, directing and coordinating the moves. The ability to immerse oneself inside a game and becoming part of it makes the game challenging.

In technical terms, the immersive technology behind this game is labeled as Augmented Reality (AR), a cutting-edge technology that interacts directly with real-world situations and scenarios using GPS coordinates and real-time camera footages and then supplementing them with new forms of content. This technology widens our physical world, layering it with digital information. This is different from Virtual Reality (VR), because it does

not create entire artificial environments to replace real-world environments.

When AR adds digital imagery and data (say, by adding graphics and media) to enrich the views of the real world, it provides users more information about their environments, and effectively integrates the real and virtual worlds, thereby enhancing and enriching end-user experience. As a result, this changes the end user perception of reality. To summarize, AR can be broadly defined by three primary characteristics: (1) blending virtual images and objects with the real world, (2) registering digital data in a three-dimensional context, and (3) offering interactivity with these objects in real time.

AR in Organizational Learning

Curiosity

Exploration

Immersion

Adoption

The first phase, Curiosity, is what stokes the learner’s interest to embark on his/her learning journey. It is the reason why the learner is motivated to pick up a learning roadmap. The second phase, Exploration, sets the ball rolling in terms of egging the learner to search for and pick the most appropriate learning roadmap, one that takes the learner through various stages of learning the subject of his/her choice in a lockstep manner.

Immersion, the third phase, is where most of the learning happens – the learner participates in the learning process via the delivery mode of choice – whether it’s virtual learning, e-learning, traditional classroom-based learning, or social learning. This is the phase where Augmented Reality (AR) can make a significant difference to the learning process.

Curiosity

Exploration

The problem with most traditional learning methods is with ‘learning transfer’ — more often than not, learners face the problem of transferring the concepts learned from learning settings to real-life settings easier to grasp abstract and difficult content. This can be especially good for learners who use visual cues for learning and, for that matter, anyone to translate theoretical concepts into real world adaptations.

Other potential applications for having an AR-based Learning model could be: Books with Codes: Books with codes, such as the QR, make it possible to visualize three-dimensional objects and watch videos with the help of an application installed in a technological device.

Object Modeling: Object Modeling empowers users, amongst other things, to create virtual

Immersion

The final phase in the learning journey, Adoption, involves the application of the learning to real-world contexts. These final two phases – Immersion and Adoption – could clearly be influenced by the incorporation of AR. Traditional forms of learning might be effective for simple,

Organizational Learning

While the AR technology could have several potential applications across a host of functional domains, the one domain where this could be applied right away, leading to meaningful outcomes is Organizational Learning. In order to understand the application of AR in the Organizational Learning domain, it is important to first understand the Organizational Learning process, comprising four key phases:

procedural and behavioral learning scenarios, but are ridden with adoption inhibitors for more complex learning scenarios. The reality is that most of life’s skills are continuous and complex, and therefore, require the learner to understand a multitude of integrated concepts and how they work together in real life. As an example, Psychomotor learning, which involves hand-and-eye coordination tasks, such as driving a car, catching a ball, shooting a target, or operating a lathe machine, cannot be addressed by mere classroom or virtual learning contexts. To imbibe these skills, learning has to be grounded in a real-life context, where, by the end of the learning activity, the learner will be able to apply the skills into reallife scenarios right away. This is where AR comes in – by embedding the learning in the learner’s immediate environment (using GPS coordinates and camera visuals, and overlaying them with digital cues and aids inside the learner’s environment). Additionally, AR-based learning models can be used for any kind of subject that is difficult to conceptualize and learn by turning those concepts/objects into 3D models, thus making it

Adoption

objects in order to manipulate them, detect anomalies, explore their properties, and interact with other objects.

Use of standard applications for teaching purposes: A clear example of this is Google Skymap, an open source application that not only April 2019 |

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more about routine maintenance operations, by simply holding their AR-equipped smartphone on equipment, such as a turbine or compressor, and the relevant job aids and learning videos could pop up showing how to do maintenance for the selected equipment, thereby enabling the plant maintenance trainees to accelerate their learning on the job.

Organizational Learning

Challenges

AR offers accessible learning materials anytime, anywhere with portable and less expensive learning materials, and makes learning content become accessible and mobile allows learner to view the stars by focusing the camera of a mobile device on them, but also overlays relevant digital information onto their physical image.

Benefits of AR-based Learning models AR offers accessible learning materials anytime, anywhere with portable and less expensive learning materials, and makes learning content become accessible and mobile. Interactive, gamified AR-Learning can have a significant positive impact on learning as it keeps the learners engaged and makes learning fun, effortless and improve collaboration capabilities.

The problem with most traditional learning methods is with ‘learning transfer’. More often than not, learners face the problem of transferring the concepts learned from learning settings to real-life settings. This can be addressed effectively through an AR-based learning model since it offers accurate reproduction of in-field conditions. This, in turn, can help master the practical skills required for a certain job, and adapting to the learner’s needs by providing personalized training, thereby making the workplace training more efficient and effective. As an example, plant maintenance trainees can learn 60

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Innovations that turn out to be truly disruptive and require changes in deeply entrenched habits are difficult to address via AR-based learning compared to those that simply involve changes we already familiar with. This is because AR demands a whole new way of visualizing the world around us, accessing information, and, by extension, of learning and knowing. Thus, the potential downside of having an AR-based Learning model could be that technologies for supporting AR-based Learning model are still in an early phase despite recent developments. For example, the rapid prototyping tools to design low and high-fidelity prototypes are still lacking, which can be deterrent for creating AR content more easily. Too much attention is paid to virtual information due to the novelty of this technology, which may cause loss of interest when the novelty factor wears off and may affect the emotions experienced by the learner.

Learners who use AR applications frequently may also become cognitively overloaded due to the vast amount of information they have to process, the multiple technological devices and platforms they may have to use, and the complex tasks they have to perform.

AR technology has been used as a learning tool for decades, albeit in a very basic and crude way. What’s new is its affordability – with players like Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Facebook, etc. jumping onto the bandwagon – and the exciting range of uses in business.

This is not to say that AR systems will replace traditional organizational training, but when it comes to training workforce to perform complex operations on the field or providing them with the experiencing of real-life situations over a virtual environment, AR technology can help with the additional contextual information and operating procedures, getting them ready for the job.

About the authors

Pinaki Chakladar is a Senior Managing Consultant with the Talent & Engagement Practice, IBM India, in the domain of Change, Learning & Performance.

Biswapradeep Basu is a Managing Consultant with the Talent & Engagement Practice, IBM India, with over extensive experience in Organization Change Management and Organization Design.

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Pavan Soni

Effective leaders don’t innovate, they protect those who do!

When it comes to innovation and change, often playing the ‘enabler’ role is far more important than being a symbol of change, or being in front and center — (real) leaders don’t innovate, but protect those who innovate

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ave you heard of Kelly Johnson? Perhaps not. But have you heard of Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird – two of the most sophisticated fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, the maker of F-16 aircrafts? Most likely, yes. Kelly Johnson ran Advanced Development Projects (ADP) at Lockheed for decades and gave America its first fighter jet capable of Mach 2. However, the most famous of his creations was ‘Skunk Works’, the team that he so passionately ran and, whereby, made one of the greatest contributions to ‘managing innovation’. The term ‘Skunk Works’, used to refer to small, self-managed teams that mostly operate under the corporate radar and delivers technology breakthroughs, is replete in most management conversations, globally. Kelly famously laid down the 14-rule of managing (innovative) teams, which are as relevant today as they were almost half-a-century ago.

How about Geoff Nicholson? He’s another one of those organizational geniuses who marshaled an idea through the organizational toxicity and made it into a world-famous product – the 3M’s Post-it notes. Based on a failed invention, which 3M dubbed as ‘a solution looking for a problem’, the Post-it notes were originally

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conceived by the duo of Art Fry and Spencer Silver, but the ‘failed idea’ would have gone nowhere but for the stewardship of Nicholson. In Nicholson’s words, ‘every great new product is killed at least three times by managers.’ These are just two of the rather famous examples.

In India, we had Vikram Sarabhai, and Satish Dhawan of ISRO who inspired the likes of APJ Kalam and India’s Moon and Mars missions. We have MS Dhoni and Rahul Dravid who are inspiring a young crop of players, and not just in cricket, beyond their individual excellence. And more honestly, we see them all the time around us, albeit in the background.

When it comes to innovation and change, often playing the ‘enabler’ role is far more important than being a symbol of change, or being in front and center; and that’s where I propose that (real) leaders don’t innovate, but protect those who innovate.

The key operative here is ‘protect’, and this calls for some explanation.

As one moves up the organizational totem pole, the graduation happens, in essence, from doing, to directing and then to enabling. From a bias-for-action, the temperament has to shift to a biasfor-thought, for the skills which were highly useful so far are suddenly not as much valuable, if not entirely counterproductive. In a way, the core-competence becomes core-rigidity as one attempts to secure a greater role. An expert engineer doesn’t make a competent manager, or that a specialty doctor seldom makes for an able medical superintendent; the task is different, the ask is different. From being a creator and a ‘problem solver’, the role evolves into the one that offers psychological safety, enables resource leverage, and draws on rich experience to increase the odds of success. Let’s discuss in detail.

Offering psychological safety

Enabling resource leverage In any organization of any size, there are always a set of critical-to-compete resources in scarcity. Even at Google or Microsoft, there could be only a finite number of resources, both inside and outside the company, to tap into for critical tasks. Most ideas then die as they fail to secure crucial resources at crucial moments. One of the most important being the ‘attention of senior management.’

Ideas, talent and capital – the three ingredients of innovation have largely become democratized, of late. Thanks to the Internet, rapid globalization, and the ensuing information symmetry, there is no reason to believe that an organization can hold on to critical resources for far too long. However, the attention of senior management on which ideas to bet on over others remains a very critical one, and the innovation champions (read real leaders) channelize that attention.

Innovation is a venturesome affair — the odds of success are relatively low and risks are typically personal in nature, and that’s why the very deed remains elusive Drawing a leaf from the world of management consulting, both Bill Bain at BCG and Marvin Bower at McKinsey were great lieutenants to their founders and steered the fortune of the two consulting powerhouses in their signature style. Bain did that under Bruce Henderson by bringing in the rigor of matrices and measuring the outcome; while Bower infused the signature professionalism at the Firm.

Were these ideas original, or proprietary to the two individuals? Certainly not.

However, the two masters helped in the evolutionary logic of variation-selectionretention to give visibility to such notions.

Once the management attention is secured, other resources do flow.

of hand. For a sizable organization, TypeII errors are costlier, for once an opportunity is lost to a competition, all future avenues might also get sealed.

Leaders can play an experienced hand in navigating the project team, or the innovators, to not only execute efficiently, but also help make the right choices, whereby minimizing both Type-I and Type-II errors.

While the very nature of innovation is novelty, however, there is always a virtue in having old hands on the deck, because a large portion of innovation is still routine, highly predictable, and the manageable bit. That’s why the brilliant founders of Google, Brin and Page, hired an old hand, Eric Schmidt, to manage Google, and ditto with Facebook’s Zuckerberg in hiring the seasoned management consultant, Sheryl Sandberg.

Back in India as well, scores of family businesses value the virtue of getting seasoned executives run the show, and the more future-oriented functions, such as R&D or internationalization.

Tata Group got Chandra to manage the empire, Ambanis and Birlas routinely infuse senior leaders from across industry, including from outside of India, to operate their key functions.

Remember, innovation is not entirely new. It’s just about 20 percent new and 80 percent routine, grit, and good-old flawless execution. Larry Bossidy, the former chief of Allied Signals, puts it eloquently – “Execution has to be a part of a company’s strategy and its goals. It is the missing link between aspirations and results. If you don’t know how to execute, the whole of your effort as a leader will always be less than the sum of its parts.”

As a leader, it’s not about innovating, as much as enabling innovation and protecting those who innovate from organizational toxicity. This is best done by ensuring psychological safety, enabling resource leverage, and guiding based on the leaders’ experience. Keep in mind – not every great player can become a good coach, let alone a fine captain. It calls for a different set of skills; skills that take you further from where you have been.

L e a d e r s h i p

Innovation is a venturesome affair. The odds of success are relatively low, and risks are typically personal in nature, and that’s why the very deed remains elusive.

The status quo is like a drug – it has its own inertia and a high exit barrier for the addict. The leaders must offer a safety net for people to take risk and fail, such that they can bounce back and fail often to succeed sooner.

The ‘Medal of Defiance’ at HP is one of the most known ways of encouraging psychological safety at the organization. In the words of company’s legendary founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard, “the greatest success goes to the person who is not afraid to fail in front of even the largest audience”. And they had in place robust routines and policies to enable failure, such that they can foster a culture of innovation. Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, used to work at HP and deems his experience at HP that fuelled his imagination and work ethics towards engineering and product design as the harbinger of great work at Apple1. He talks about the open culture, free-flow of ideas, and a belief that an idea can come from almost anywhere – notions that made HP one of the hottest companies in Silicon Valley to work for several years. India’s Tata Group identifies failed innovations and shares learning therefrom through the ‘Dare to Try’ Awards as a part of Tata Innovista — the Group’s annual innovation event2. The key for the leaders and not just the founders is to offer an assurance to the employees that it’s okay to fail, and that failure is not personal.

Guiding based on experience The journey of innovation is prone to two key types of errors – Type-I and Type-II. Type-I is ‘failed innovation’, also called as false positives, and Type-II is a ‘missed innovation’, or the false negatives. Type-I is an execution problem, while Type-II is a selection problem. The cost of Type-I mistake (failed innovations) is known, whereas that of Type-II (missed innovations) is notional and hence can spiral out

About the author

Dr. Pavan Soni is an Innovation Evangelist and Founder of Inflexion Point Consulting April 2019 |

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Visty Banaji

The Yin and Yang of People Productivity

- The HR Contribution Business Leaders Miss Most

The Road Less Travelled

Given the importance business heads attach to productivity, HR’s perceived (and possibly real) inability to contribute in this domain poses among the greatest threats to the relevance of HR for business

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onsidering that it is at least two decades since the clarion call was given for HR leaders to become business partners1, it is disappointing to find how little most business leaders think of the contribution they are getting from these SelfAppointed Partners (SAPs). For the past year, I have been probing the reasons for this dissatisfaction with a large number of business heads. Their answers, of course, differed, but if I were to extract a common theme, it was that simply understanding the business, which many CHROs consider their ultimate competency goal, was just the price of admission to the CXO table – by no means did it fulfill all the expectations the business leaders have of HR. What they were looking for were contributions only HR could make. When asked to give examples of what these unique contributions could be, the answers again varied.

People productivity, however, appeared almost at the beginning of nearly every business head’s list – only to be dismissed by most of them as something HR just wasn’t equipped to deliver. Given the importance they attached to productivity, HR’s perceived (and possibly real) inability to contribute in this domain poses among the greatest threats to the relevance of HR for business.

Having identified this gap in HR capability pointed out by business heads, I pursued the topic further with several CHROs. Almost all of them confirmed that productivity occupied little of their time.

Some of them were surprised it loomed so large in CEOs’ expectation-sets. Then there were those who thought the problem was for line managers to solve and that HR had contributed what it could by contractualizing a large part of the workforce.

Finally, there was a significant number that was both aware of the importance of

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A CHRO who does not take responsibility for and possess the skills to monitor and guide the improvement of people productivity doesn’t deserve to be in that role people productivity and owned it but had very incomplete and rudimentary ideas on how to go about improving it. It is to this last group that the bulk of this column is addressed. But first, we must get past the prevarications of the precariat2 purveyors.

CHROs are never tired of claiming parity with CFOs and rightly so. But if they are to do so convincingly, they cannot step back from improving the productiv-

ity of the prime resource with which they deal. The CFO who disclaimed responsibility for profits and returns on capital because line managers have the prime responsibility for meeting profit targets, would not have even a day’s tenure. By the same token, the CHRO who does not take responsibility for and possess the skills to monitor and guide the improvement of people productivity doesn’t deserve to be in

that role. The argument that contractualization has made improvements in people productivity irrelevant is dangerous. The large-scale denudation of the permanent workforce to which industry in India has become addicted is unfair, unsustainable, and futuristically fragile.3 The rest of this column, of course, is directed to those HR leaders who want to play a key role in people productivity improvement but face difficulties in making it happen. For them, I plan to describe some of the fundamental pillars supporting such improvement, for the want of which, the arch of productivity gain can come crashing down.

Why a 'VRS' Very Rarely Succeeds

There’s Always a Better Way Eliminating pointless or wasteful tasks is only the beginning of the productivity improvement process. In any extant enterprise, there will always be some tasks that are essential and the productivity with which they are carried out depends on these Ms: • Method • Measurement • Motivation • Manual or Mental Skills The first two of these appear so simple and obvious that it hardly seems worthwhile to spend any time on them. It is true that Methods of Work and Measurement of Productivity need no explanation for HR professionals. The tragedy for them and for most modern corporates arises from the fact that very few organizations any longer have the internal resources or access to reliable external expertise for undertaking these even if they wanted to.

Till a couple of decades ago, most large enterprises had substantive and capable Industrial Engineering departments.

Admittedly, I spent a fair part of my time during the formative years of my career at the Telco (now Tata Motors) plant in Pune in conflict with worthies from Industrial Engineering. But there is no gainsaying what I learned from them and their methodical approach to measuring work and improving the efficiency with which it was carried out. Years later, when I led HR for Telco, we recruited some of the brightest people NITIE (the National Institute of Training in Industrial Engineering) and the company’s factories had to offer for building productivity planning and improvement expertise at the corporate level. It was in those years, during my regular visits to Telco’s Jamshedpur plant, that I learned the tricks of the Industrial Engineer’s trade from my friend Ravi Mukherjee (now no more), who led the department there. Over endless Charminar cigarettes and cups of tea, between the time the first shift started at 6 am and the formal agenda for my visit began a

Have you ever wondered why, after all those drastic downsizings announced by corporates that can’t think of a better way to slake the bloodthirst of some baying shareholders, their performances continues to be in the doldrums?

April 2019 |

The Road Less Travelled

Have you ever wondered why, after all those drastic downsizings announced by corporates that can’t think of a better way to slake the bloodthirst of some baying shareholders, their performances continue to be in the doldrums?4 In fact, there is evidence to show their results falter even further after they slash their workforces.5 One of the reasons for this paradox is that unless there is significant slack in the system, reducing people will only leave work undone, apart from the other demoralizing effects downsizing has.6 Assuming that the work was necessary, the consequence can only be poorer quality, safety and service levels, even if some of the durable employment gets substituted by a contingent workforce.

The mistaken assumption many organizations make while slashing their workforce in the hope of cutting costs is that the work that the terminated employees were doing will vanish with them. Considering how obviously false this assumption is, it is surprising how little these organizations do to cut the work to be done or improve the efficiency with which the remaining workforce operates.

It is almost thirty years since Michael Hammer made the case for obliterating needless work instead of automating it.

To the fad for automation, which Hammer criticizes, in our context we might add the penchants for outsourcing, contractualization and the use of AI, but the message remains valid all the same. As Hammer puts it: "At the heart of reengineering is the notion of discontinuous thinking – of recognizing and breaking away from the outdated rules and fundamental assumptions that underlie operations. Unless we change these rules, we are merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We cannot achieve breakthroughs in performance by cutting fat or automating existing processes. Rather, we must challenge old assumptions and shed the old rules that

made the business underperform in the first place."7

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The Road Less Travelled

couple of hours later, Ravi would share the intricacies and problems of improving productivity while contending with a throttling incentive scheme, a strong trade union, and a frequently unstable external environment. Much of what I learned subsequently from Kaizen experts about the 'machine that changed the world' could not have been easily assimilated or implemented in the absence of such a foundation.

If today’s HR leaders were to look for similar guidance, even in those manufacturing units where Industrial Engineering continues to exist, they would find departments that are pale shadows of their former robust selves and which command little serious attention in top management deliberations. Rebuilding this capability will also not be an easy matter. The supply of smart Industrial Engineers from educational institutes has dried up – doubtless in response to dwindling demand from industry. It goes without saying that the masters of Industrial Engineering who taught us its nuances are more likely to be engaged in pushing up daisies than productivity and the Charminar (whose smoke was an essential catalyst in the transmission of tacit knowledge) is strictly prohibited in

the antiseptic factory environments of today. Faced with this bleak resource horizon, some CHROs turn to manufacturing process consultants – frequently housed within the glossy confines of 'the big four'.

This can at best be a temporary expedient, not just for reasons of cost but because the expertise they command in this domain is extremely shallow and operationally inexperienced. The only solution can be to reconstruct a modern avatar of the Industrial Engineering function internally, updated with appropriate learnings from the Japanese revolution in manufacturing and augmented by other proven methodologies such as TOC (Theory of Constraints).8

HR for BOP Unlike Methods of Work and Measurement of Productivity, most HR departments do have the capability to build up the other Ms: Motivation and Manual/Mental Skills.

What prevents this capacity from being used to make a major impact on productivity is the myopic concentration some HR departments have on MOP (Middle Of the Pyramid) operations. This is just one instance of the disturbing trend of focusing more and more HR effort on a smaller

Eliminating pointless or wasteful tasks is only the beginning of the productivity improvement process

and smaller part of the employee population. Pious expressions of the intent to devote a fair share of HR attention to the Bottom Of the Pyramid (BOP) seem likely to materialize no quicker than it took to find King Senebkay at the bottom of another pyramid.9 After years of running engagement surveys for senior and middle-level employees, the number of corporates that have extended these to the large numbers (of direct and indirect operatives as well as contract employees) whose efforts have maximal impact on productivity, is still negligible. It is as if these surveys were Bacchic mysteries and the punishment of Pentheus10 would pulverize anyone who dared to open them up to the uninitiated.

Yet this reluctance flies in the face of mounting evidence that higher levels of engagement are among the key ingredients for improving people productivity.11 Admittedly, the situation is somewhat better where skilling is concerned.

Permanent employees at the BOP do get training and an opportunity to upgrade their skills. For the precariat, however, there is little beyond safety training and, even if there were, it is questionable whether such trained people would be retained long enough for the organization to benefit from the skill enhancement.

In sum, while Methods and Measurement require hard-to-acquire competencies to be re-built, Motivation and Manual/Mental Skills call for existing HR competencies to be deployed creatively to populations which are relatively neglected in most HR game-plans at present.

The Great Balancing Act The Yin of reducing the need for people (by eliminating wasteful work and using the four Ms to increase efficiency) must be balanced by the Yang of downsizing.

Unlike the Yin of cutting the demand for manpower where, as we have seen, most HR departments either lack the key competencies or are reluctant to expend them on the BOP, they undertake the Yang of cutting head count with unseemly relish. It is almost a rite of initiation into the big boys’ club in HR to have a couple of downsizings under your belt, like a grisly Celtic token.12 I do not gainsay the need for headcount reduction, provided it really is a last resort and accompanied by the equity-checks I have detailed in an earlier column.4 It cannot be stressed enough, however, that of the three Rs of Yang, Retrenchment is the last. It must be preceded by Re-training and Re-deployment. Every Rupee spent on these two prerequisites can save tens of Rupees in 66

| April 2019

Make Productively in India Speaking of predictions, I don’t want to be the Laocoön of forecasters but I have to point out that the competitive advantage India enjoys internationally will be ephemeral if it continues to be based on arbitrage, as it is in several industries.

The manufacturing sector is over-reliant on low cost contract labor both directly and, even more so, though its vendors. The export-oriented service sector also relies on wage differentials between its markets and India. For obvious reasons, neither is a sustainable competitive advantage in the long-term.

In the case of manufacturing, models and methodologies for people productivity improvement (many of them pioneered by the Japanese automobile industry) already exist. In fact, several Indian corporates were well set to attaining these standards when the seemingly easy gains offered by the lower wage costs of a contingent work force, side-tracked the effort. When they resume the more strenuous (but far healthier) journey of making permanent people productive, they will also be better positioned to implement winning strategies, such as Reverse Innovation14, which demand

While Methods and Measurement require hard-to-acquire competencies to be re-built, Motivation and Manual/Mental Skills call for existing HR competencies to be deployed creatively to populations which are relatively neglected in most HR game-plans low cost delivery without any sacrifice in quality or commitment.

The truly golden opportunity for worldbeating productivity gains, however, lies in the knowledge and service sectors, which still await their Toyota. Please don’t imagine that AI will provide the answer and that the pursuit of productivity in tech can be left to the tech mavens. That would be like imagining automation, by itself, could have solved the productivity challenge in manufacturing. In fact, US auto-makers tried precisely that response when faced with the Japanese productivity miracle decades ago – and it proved to be spectacularly unsuccessful.15 As study after study has pointed out, dramatic productivity gains demanded far more than a quick tech-fix and included a total change (at least for Western companies) in their ways of working and in the culture of the firm.16 If an Indian IT major creates the equivalent of the TPS (Toyota Production System) in the IT and tech space, it will

The Road Less Travelled

'voluntary' retirement payments and a further ten times of that cost by avoiding the intangible damage to belongingness and morale caused by such slaughtering sprees.

Striking a real-time balance between the Yin and the Yang is as much an art as a science. Manpower Planning becomes the critical bedrock for grounding both sides of the people productivity dynamic.

Its task is hugely complicated in larger corporates where different units, products and future skill requirements might demand significant intakes just when outflows are being triggered in other units by market declines and productivity gains. In coping with these complexities, the tools available for quantitative projections grow more sophisticated by the day. But they are not the last word in making accurate forecasts in uncertain and turbulent conditions.

Research in recent years has yielded a wealth of insights into how forecasting capabilities can be improved. Among the more readable compendiums of both the research and the means by which the capacity for prediction can be improved is Superforecasting.13 Every manpower planner would do well to read this slim volume and even super-busy CHROs should read its eight-page appendix which contains the 'Ten Commandments for Aspiring Superforecasters'.

consolidate India’s predominance in the sector for a long time to come. From that launching pad in knowledge-work productivity, the next leap could be to make radical improvements in the productivity of innovations. The organization that first makes such a jump will be assured a place in the Business Hall of Fame for all time to come.

About the author

Visty Banaji is the Founder and CEO of Banner Global Consulting (BGC) April 2019 |

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T e c h HR S t a r t u p s

In the race TechHR Singapore Startup Program 2019

The Startup Program at the People Matters TechHR’19 Singapore Conference saw the participation of 48 startups from across the globe and showcased their solutions to investors, HR and business leaders while providing them with a platform that enabled them to broaden their reach, refine their products and solution, and launch themselves in the business ecosystem

By Drishti Pant

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W

Startups in the Tech HR 2019 program While a majority of the startups were from Singapore, many startups were from countries like Russia, Australia, Spain, Indonesia and also India, among others.

Out of these 48 startups, 27 are catering to recruitment related challenges and about 5 offer L&D solutions for corporates. Other participants provide solutions for HRMS, Compensation, and Benefits and People Analytics.

Overall, startups are increasingly relying on new age technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Chatbots to attack specific problems in the HR domain. Most startups also seemed to focus on the user experience and many products showcased were around creating a mobilefirst environment.

Selection process & Mentors To be eligible to participate, the startups needed to be less than 5 years in business with a scalable and unique product or service in the space of Workforce Experience and Productivity, Enterprise Benefits, Workforce Healthcare, Gig Economy and Robotics/Automation.

At the conference, the startups were asked to present their ideas to a panel of 28 mentors that included top investors, VCs and HR leaders. The startups were allotted 6 minutes (3 minutes to introduce unique

features of their product and 3 minutes for Q&A). The mentors then evaluated the elevator pitches of the startups and their HR tech products on three major parameters: • How well the company is solving the industry problem?

• Is their product/service unique and scalable?

• Is the company making an impact on the business/industry that they are claiming?

The mentors included names like Kevin Low, Venture Capital Investments, Singapore Press Holdings, SPH Ventures; Angela Toy, Director, Portfolio Strategy & Operations, Golden Gate Ventures; Maclean S Raphael, HR-Southeast Asia Region, 3M Asia Pacific; Simon Childs, Managing Director, ENRG Hong Kong Limited and Nikhil Kapur, Principal & Investment Head (South Asia), GREE Ventures, among others.

tunity to not just pitch their ideas to some of the key investors in the industry but also allowed them to exhibit their solutions to their end users, the HR community.

Recruitment tech startup SmartDreamers shared, “People Matters TechHR Singapore was like a dream come true opportunity for HR startups.” In a blog, a Romania based startup mentioned, “With so many HR leaders from diverse companies and industries present at the conference it was easy to learn about what tools are currently being implemented and to what ends. And also gain insights from speakers and innovators on their visions for the future of the HR software ecosystem.”

Another Singapore-based startup, Botbot.AI that enables organizations with self-serve dashboards to power up their productivity shared that the significant exposure the conference gave them was extremely useful. Chelsea Sim, Co-Founder Botbot. AI stated that, “The one to one

48 of these startups from the HR technology world showcased their solutions and participated in the People Matters TechHR Conference that was held on 28th of February, 2019 at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore HR tech Startups: The future ahead The 48 emerging startups solving challenges in various function of HR represent the growing HR tech market and also reflect how the solutions are becoming more mature and how more and more innovators are leveraging newer technologies.

While on one hand, this flourishing sector brings good news and a variety of choices for the HR community, it also increases the level of competition in the market. How these different emerging startups make a place and increase their market share in their own segments is to look forward to. In the coming years, as the competition among these startups get tougher, the entire HR industry will benefit through the emergence of newer and more mature solutions for their people and work related challenges.

The startup experience People Matters TechHR Singapore Conference 2019 gave these 48 startups an oppor-

T e c h HR S t a r t u p s

ith nearly $1.2 bn invested in the quarter three of 2018 in the HR tech space globally, the pace of venture capital investment in the sector is picking up. It is stipulated by a report by Grand View Research Inc. that the global HR industry is projected to reach $30 bn by 2025. Technological innovations in the field of big data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) are already making an impact in the HR tech space and many new startups in the space are emerging all over the world.

48 of these startups from the HR technology world showcased their solutions and participated in the People Matters TechHR Conference that was held on 28th of February, 2019 at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. For the last five years, People Matters Startup Program was being hosted in India as part of People Matters TechHR Conference. But this year as Asia’s largest technology conference marked its footprints for the first time in Singapore, the scope of the startup program got wider and encompassed startups from across the globe.

sessions with mentors allowed us to have a deeper conversation with great investors about the business, its opportunities, and growth.” Taking the lessons from the experts at the conference and their experience, Botbot.AI will now focus on integrating with other HR tech companies and partnering to learn more about the market.

Even IoT Talent drew the same lesson from their experience in the program and stated, “Collaboration through the ecosystem will definitely be a key strategy to grow a startup. Partnering with another company with complementary expertise can ultimately enrich our content, offerings and attract a wider engaged audience as a result.”

While Botbot.AI and IoT Talent will focus on collaboration, another startup with a solution in compensation and benefits space, Swingvy will now work on building a more unique value proposition and build a combination of HR tech and Insurtech.

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HR tech startups at TechHR Startup Program Singapore 2019

48 startups from across the globe participated in the People Matters TechHR Startup Program, showcased their solutions to investors, HR and business leaders and pitched their respective ideas to a panel of 28 mentors. A sneak peak into the participants of TechHR Startup Program Singapore 2019

T e c h HR S t a r t u p s

Breakup of Startups in TechHR Startup Program Singapore Recruitment

L&D

HRMS

Comp & Ben

People Analytics

Engagement

Culture

27

5

7

3

3

2

1

Gpayroll

HireXP

Benefits, incentives on Blockchain

ThompsonBridge

Peoplewave

HackerTrail

Helpster

Blonk Group

Found In: 2015 Founders: Sean Kim, Henry Ling Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Gpayroll is a SaaS payroll & HR solution that takes away all the pain points you as a business owner or you as an HR manager face every month. The platform has add-on HR modules which enhance the efficiency of leave, expenses and time & attendance management. Timesheets, punch cards, claim forms add on to the mountain of paperwork that the HR department and line managers have. Moreover, manual forms might be easily misplaced, resulting in employees not being compensated accurately.

Found In: 2018 Founders: Yamika Mehra, Sumit Kumar Gupta Based out of: Kolkota, India The challenge they solve: Benefits by Infimonk is an incentive suite built on blockchain that enables businesses to link incentives to everyday activities of their employees, customers and channel partners. The blockchain powered incentive suite enables organizations to reward employees for use of internal processes while the AI enabled platform helps customize incentive roadmaps for individual channel partners.

Found In: 2016 Founders: Damien Cummings, Phil Aldridge Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Peoplewave's software suite called Wavebase is a blockchain-ready platform that provides ongoing verified employee performance information. Peoplewave offers 3 key products First 100 Days - a new hire onboarding tool; Performance Wave - a continuous 360-degree performance appraisals tool; and the HR Command Centre analytics suite, which unlocks employee data and insights.

Found In: 2015 Founders: Matthew Ward and John Srivorakul Based out of: Jakarta The challenge they solve: Helpster aims to revolutionize the informal labor market in Southeast Asia. Helpster's flexible staffing platform instantly connects informal and casual workers to businesses in their area who need help, giving them access to a consistent, reliable, and trustworthy source of income.

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Found In: 2017 Founders: Vikas Kakkar Based out of: Gurugram, India The challenge they solve: Backed by a strong analytics framework, HireXP takes all the guesswork out of recruiting; allowing you to intelligently customize and automate key hiring processes, as per your evolving needs.The platform streamlines the hiring process and simplifies the Applicant Tracking so that recruiters and hiring managers can focus on what truly matters: hiring the right candidate. It offers a recruitment software, a candidate experience software, and an onboarding software.

Found In: 2018 Founders: Adam Thompson Based out of: Bangkok The challenge they solve: ThompsonBridge is an HR analytics company that brings science to the art of HR. The company’s Eureka HR AI platform matches candidates to companies based on culture and skill fit by using engaging predictive assessments and the latest machine learning technology. The startup relies on cultural dynamics, six core performance indicators (soft skills) and technical skills to match candidates with the right corporate culture.

Found In: 2014 Founders: Tushar Tejuja Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: HackerTrail is a cloud-based recruitment solution exclusively for the IT industry. It uses a combination of social recruitment and gamification to connect top talent with the right job opportunity. The gamified solution prevents interview fatigue and empowers hiring managers to focus their resources only on the right candidates.

Found In: 2014 Founders: Vincent Maillard and Lynn Tan Based out of: Paris The challenge they solve: Blonk is a mobile matchmaking platform created in Silicon Valley in 2014 that directly connects recruiting managers and candidates preselected by a matching algorithm. Headquartered in Paris, Blonk helps companies reach top talents. With Blonk, candidates swipe jobs anywhere anytime. After a mutual like, they get a match and can chat directly with hiring managers in a straightforward way.

Payboy

Evie.ai

Hireplace

EngageRocket

Urbanhire

Janeous

Panalyt

Bid4skill

Jobable

Xobin

Found In: April 2016 Founders: Nigel Lim, Terence Toh, Ivan Poon, and Henry Chua Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Payboy offers an intuitive and easy-touse HR management system. As a fully updated and compliant Human Resource Management System (HRMS), it simplifies the hard stuff so companies can just focus on what matters which is to access the full utility of their employees. The HRIMS enables businesses to minimize discrepancies and maximize employee satisfaction with our IRAS-approved payroll software.

Found In: 2018 Founders: V Ventures Asia Based out of: Malaysia and Singapore The challenge they solve: Hireplace provides an employee referral program that turns any talent search into a contest. Currently in beta and invitation only, it gives employers the power to determine the prize per hire and the participants that could access the contests (jobs), either its own employees, external recruiters or through Hireplace’s regional network of talent scouts.

Found In: 2017 Founders: Daniel J West, Yusuf Raza, Pratyum Jagannath, Iwani Zoë Mawocha Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Panalyt integrates data across all HR systems, providing dashboards, benchmarking & predictive analytics to enable better people decisions. Panalyt puts actionable people analytics in the hands of managers across your organization, based on data drawn from all the tools, databases and excel files you use to store people data.

Found In: 2015 Founders: Richard Hanson and Luke Byrne Based out of: Hong Kong The challenge they solve: An innovative digital employee boarding experience is at the core of the Jobable. The portal boasts of a technology that would instantly guide job seekers to the most relevant jobs and employers to the best talent, solving the challenge of the dull, paperintensive, dull and time-consuming onboarding process.

Found In: 2016 Founders: Dorothy Yiu and Leong CheeTung Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: EngageRocket is a SaaS solution that helps leaders and organizations make better people decisions using real-time data. The cloud-based software automates employee feedback and analytics to improve employee performance, thus enabling every leader to use data to make better people decisions. The startup offers an Employee Engagement Pulse module, through which users can monitor the employee experience in real-time, analyzing trends and response to policy and management changes.

Found In: 2017 Founders: Blake Hawkins Tromanhauser Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Janeous aims to increase the quality and number of effective interviews that companies can perform by providing a fully integrated talent identification system which leverages the network effect and multiple algorithms to reduce the time spent interviewing candidates. With over half of Singaporeans rejecting a job offer after 8 weeks and the increase in the time it takes to hire someone (now 30-68 days), a better talent identification solution is needed.

T e c h HR S t a r t u p s

Found In: 2016 Founders: Benson Kawengian Based out of: Jakarta, Indonesia The challenge they solve: Urbanhire is an HR-tech startup in Indonesia found with the aim of making hiring more efficient and enable companies to get the talents they will love. Urbanhire’s tools empower companies to inspire and make their culture visible. The startup provides end-to-end HR solutions to the Indonesian mid to large enterprise market and reduces the complexity of operational processes by offering an integrated HR platform.

Found In: 2014 Founders: Lee Jin Hian Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Evie is an AI assistant platform that can enable fast seamless AI-powered applications to be deployed across the enterprise. Evie's capabilities include scheduling meetings and interviews, booking meeting rooms, tracking to-dos and integrating with backend enterprise HRMS and ATS systems.

Found In: 2017 Founders: Zeus Khambatta Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: For most companies, finding the right trainer or coach involves a time-consuming search and a sub-optimal decision-making experience. Bid4skill aims to solve this challenge through its selective network of the best independent experts in the training and coaching industry across North America, Europe, and APAC. Through its online platform, it connects companies seeking training with a selection of the best-suited providers.

Found In: 2016 Founders: Guruprakash Sivabalan and Amrit Acharya Based out of: Chennai, India The challenge they solve: Xobin is a machine learning and psychology-driven talent assessment platform that helps recruiters predict successful hires 3x faster. The platform provides a mixture of psychometric and skills assessment for more than 100 different job roles.

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Swingvy

Grow

Botbot.AI

Workulture

IoTalents

North.AI

Talkpush

Ubidy

ConnectDott

Mathilda

Found In: 2016 Founders: Jin Choeh, Tho Kit Hoong, Hyojun Lee, and Jahun Koo Based out of: Malaysia The challenge they solve: Swingvy is an all-in-one HR, payroll and benefits platform that allows SME businesses to engage and manage their employees effectively. The platform allows seamless and automated HR, payroll and benefits, thus automating every administrative work without hassle. It promises to do away with complex paperwork and spreadsheet fatigue through a clean, easy-to-use dashboard.

T e c h HR S t a r t u p s

Found In: 2017 Founders: Hong Ting Wong, Elvin Li & Chelsea Sim Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Through their solutions, Botbot.AI enables organizations with tools such as conversational interfaces, robotic process automation and self-serve dashboards to drive productivity. One of the most popular chatbots automates the onboarding process, facilitating knowledge transfer to new hires without the burden of to-do checklists for HR to maintain.

Found In: 2015 Founders: Sei Wee, Eric and Michelle Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: IoTalents is an online community and platform for employers and IT Workforce (Employees, Contract workers and Virtual Talents) to intelligently connect and transact. They help organizations and recruiters in identifying and sourcing niche candidates in an extremely prompt fashion, through a precise combination of data science and human expertise.

Found In: 2014 Founder: Max Armbruster Based out of: Hong Kong The challenge they solve: Through their Conversational Recruitment Platform, Talkpush leverages the power of messaging and social media and helps employers to build a pre-qualified talent pool that is engaged and responsive. By automating the top of the recruitment funnel, Talkpush allows recruiters to evaluate and hire candidates faster than ever before while delivering a dynamic and enjoyable candidate experience.

Found In: 2017 Founders: Suresh Kalpathy, Bala Narayanan and Daniel Ong Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: ConnectDott specializes in Business Applications, Software Distribution and Development in the Asia Pacific region. Currently, there main focus is on two verticals, Human Resources; where they represent People First – the next generation HR Platform that defines the future of Work and Marine Crew Management; where they bring forth a unique digital solution Ankaa to collect, store and process seafarer data.

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Found In: 2015 Founders: Rudi Ramin and Rolf H. Frey Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Based on proprietary team development methodology, Grow embeds development in the work by giving teams access to digital solutions and expert guidance that enable better, stronger teams. The online platform helps facilitate leadership development of individuals and teams through online leadership development solutions and supports both collective and individual change.

Found In: 2017 Founders: Chan Wai Hong, Liew Tet Fah and Than Htike Tun Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: To help organizations in capturing employees’ voice real time Workulture offers a SaaS-based platform, mobile app for employees. The mobile app offers a suite of feature to collect feedback from various touch points like feedback, pulse survey, recognition, comments on company posts, etc). With "always-on" features, employees are able to give feedback anytime, anywhere.

Found In: 2016 Founders: Evgeniya Dvorskaya, Vladimir Li Based out of: Russia The challenge they solve: North.AI is an AI-driven platform that helps in sourcing and in communicating with candidates for recruitment.

The AI-based solution allows recruiters to screen and rate each CV to assess its match to the job description and requirements. It also contacts the most suitable candidates on recruiters’ behalf and explains the vacant position, answers questions, and ascertains the candidate’s attitude, schedules and records video interviews with candidates.

Found In: 2017 Founders: Allen Tyson, Jared Church, Vern Wills Based out of (& Regional headquarters in): Australia, America, Singapore, Philippines, Middle East and the UK The challenge they solve: Ubidy provides recruitment management software to efficiently connect employers with some of the world’s leading recruitment agencies. It connects the two important stakeholders and helps employers to source passive and active talent in real time, through a premium cloud solution for medium to large enterprise businesses.

Found In: 2017 Founders: Josephine Chia Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Astarel’s solution has been built by combining modern technology with the values of old school hiring ethos.

With Mathilda, the team brings forth creative solutions through design thinking which can bring back the human warmth of the traditional recruitment process. Some of the key features of the solution include SelfService Timezone Scheduling, Smart Feedback and Hiring Leaderboard.

FastJobs

Snaphunt

MyBlueprints

Koach.AI

Talscale

Veremark

Visume.Online Inc

JobKred

YesElf

JobHop

Found In: 2015 Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Officially launched in April 2015, FastJobs has since been transforming the way people are connected to jobs, with over 1 million mobile application downloads, across the region. In 2017, FastJobs app rolled out two new features to better match employers and job seekers for blue-collar roles. One was a chat system that would enable employers to contact job seekers directly and would be able to field a number of automated questions to potential candidates. Last year in August, FastJobs also launched its first kiosk at Radin Mas Community Club as part of efforts to connect older workers with job opportunities near their homes.

Found In: 2018 Founders: Raghu Bharat, Shubhanshu Srivastava, Dheeraj Lalchandani and Nirmaan Agrawal Based out of: Bangalore, India Talscale creates the first pool of pre-assessed Software Developers and helps companies to build top 1 percent technology teams with their talent.

Talscale has taken the first steps in promoting ‘The Future of Work’ with developers finding the best remote opportunities globally.

Found In: 2019 Founders: Parag Grover, Ritu Agarwal, and Manish Minocha Based out of: New York, USA The challenge they solve: From smart evaluation, video engagement to collaborative board, Visume’s platform provides recruiters and hiring managers many services to streamline the entire recruitment process.

Visume also allows organizations to retarget the earlier candidates in the historical databases (organic or acquired). The candidates are continually matched for new opportunities that match their skills, and the most relevant candidates are automatically engaged.

Found in: 2016 Founders: Peter Simún and Ladislav Gazo Based out of: Slovakia, Europe The challenge they solve: YesElf is a platform for providing personalized and predictive step-by-step walkthroughs for any enterprise software (like ERP, CRM or HCM) which makes employees more efficient without any additional personal training at right time by applying artificial intelligence and user behavior analysis.

Found In: 2018 Founders: Tamal Bhatia, Radhika Sarma, and Ishira Bhattacharya Based out of: Bangalore, India The challenge they solve: Koach.ai is a conversation led platform that uses the science of coaching to help people achieve goals. Through AI Led Conversations, learners can chat with a coach avatar of their choice and also collaborate with colleagues. Organizations can also capture insights on human potential and get data on performance.

Found In: 2018 Founders: Angus Bankes, Daniel Braithwaite, and Nick Johnston Based out of: London and Singapore Veremark is an automated reference and credential checking platform for the recruitment industry. Having only soft-launched in February 2019, Veremark is being piloted within a select group of global talent marketplaces and large recruitment firms in the UK and Singapore.

T e c h HR S t a r t u p s

Found In: 2017 Founders: Laurent Vuibert, Michael Bertrand Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: MyBlueprints allows organizations to design their multidimensional coaching programs and engage with their clients in between the sessions. Coaches, both internal and external can create program timelines to share the right content at the right time and enhance the impact of their coaching. With MyBlueprints, they can also schedule multiple sessions for multiple clients in one go and optimize their coaching time.

Found In: 2017 Founders: Tulika Tripathi Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Snaphunt is an intelligent hiring platform that matches talent to roles for a skill and culture fit and helps firms in hiring white-collar talent across multiple specialist. It also acts like a job search concierge for job seekers. After they have signed up and completed their profile, Snaphunt proposes them jobs that match their profile and they can apply or decline with a simple click and also get realtime updates on the status of their applications.

Found In: 2015 Founders: Gary Gan and Steven Lee Based out of: Singapore (with operations in Vietnam & the Philippines) The challenge they solve: Companies can use JobKred, which uses AI to identify where the company's Skills DNA is today and helps them evolve their Skills DNA to where they want to reach. The SPRE platform provides self-directed career development, personalized learning, and AI-powered course and job recommendations for employees, while helping HR and management identify future skills, build and track the futureready capabilities of their organization.

Found in: 2016 Founders: Kevin Tung Nguyen Based out of: Singapore (with head office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) The challenge they solve: JobHop is a SaaS (Service-as-a-Software) startup that leverages the latest AI/ML technology to help companies in SEA, starting with Vietnam, recruit faster, easier, and cheaper. JobHop ATS (Applicant Tracking System) helps companies streamline their recruitment process, enhance predictive analytics, smart reporting to ultimately save time to focus on candidate engagement.

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Canopy

Visits

Pulsifi

CRUX HR Analytics

Indorse

Empowered by Enthralltech

HR Lead Consulting

BCN RESOL ODR SOLUTIONS SL

GrabJobs

SmartDreamers

Found in: 2017 Founders: Estyn Chung and Julio Orr Based out of: Hong Kong The challenge they solve: Canopy is a next-generation job platform for millennial and Gen-Z talent that helps companies showcase their office, team, and culture using short video and rich media. This allows employers to promote their employer brand and attract great talent. By bringing jobs to life, candidates can get an inside look into companies and find jobs that fit.

T e c h HR S t a r t u p s

Found in: 2016 Founders: Peter Yoong and Jay Huan Based out of: Malaysia and Singapore The challenge they solve: Pulsifi gathers data to reveal deep predictions of individual soft traits (such as personality, work culture, interests, behaviors and attitudes) as well as hard skills and competencies to present employers with predicted work outcomes of an individual. These outcomes are then benchmarked with other employees and candidates to find out if they are fit for a role, team, and organization.

Found in: 2017 Founders: Gaurang Torvekar, David Moskowitz, Avadhoot Kulkarni, and Dipesh Sukhani Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: Indorse is a coding skill assessment platform that leverages a community of expert coders to review the skills of candidates to help organizations find the right developers faster. It can be used by both learners and organizations. Programmers can use it for skill validation, find better jobs and earn valuable rewards. Companies, on the other hand, can use it to find better candidates and streamline their process of recruitment.

Found In: 2016 Founders: Craig Baker and Luke Farley Based out of: Perth Australia The challenge they solve: HR Lead August Consulting started its journey in 2016. Later in 2017, it launched Skopes test product to enable organizations to take a data-drive. The final product launched in 2018 is guiding companies through the system selection and implementation process.

Founded In: 2016 Founders: Emmanuel Crouy, Mark Melo, Kyaw Myint Tin (Zac) Based out of: Singapore The challenge they solve: GrabJobs is a mobile-first jobs platform and recruitment automation solution that enables employers and job seekers to connect seamlessly. Through in-house developed Interview Chat Bots, it allows Job Seekers to apply for jobs without CVs and automates the applicant screening and qualifying process on behalf of recruiters.

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Found in: 2014 Founders: Masaru Matsumoto and Kyoto Shimabayashi Based out of: Tokyo The challenge they solve: VISITS is a data-science company that helps organizations make data-driven decisions possible in fields that are volatile, ambiguous, and uncertain. Their core technology marries the human insights with machine intelligence to quantify the qualitative input.

The tech is used in improving decision-making, talent management, and organizational culture integration.

Found in: 2019 Founders: Rahul Ghatak, Sarajit Mitra and Govind Sandhu (Board Member) Based out of: Mumbai, India The challenge they solve: CRUX integrates large, voluminous and fragmented people data available in organizations into a single data cube or repository; makes it usable by transforming the data and collecting new data. It also allows organizations to do diagnostics on the data to identify anomalies and then run analytics on the data. The platform leverages data science and machine learning capabilities to then throw and bubble up actionable insights.

Found in: 2009 Founders: Sammir Inamdar and Asma S Thorve Based out of: Pune, India The challenge they solve: Enthralltech is a Learning Solutions company specializing in Gamification mapped to business outcomes that supercharge and engages the modern workforce to learn faster and better. It has been created to empower organizations by managing their eLearning, mLearning, classroom-training, assessment and certification functions. The native mobile apps provide just-in-time and just-enough learning while the self-curated learning features help address the needs of the now globally recognized 70:20:10 learning model.

Found In: 2016 Founders: Maria Teixidor, Meritxell Bosch, Marta Mendez, Natalia Flores and Josep Figols Based out of: Spain The challenge they solve: With their Whistleblowing & ODR (Online Dispute Resolution) management solutions, BCN RESOL ODR SOLUTIONS enable employees to anonymously report any kind of concern or misconduct to the staff they trust in the organization. All of this is done using a very intuitive app. Through this app, organizations can easily manage and document the incident according to compliance rules.

Found In: 2014 Founders: Adrian Cernat, Alpar Major and Mihai Ceusan Based out of: Romania, CEE (with offices in Singapore, USA, London) The challenge they solve: SmartDreamers offers end-to-end Recruitment Marketing Automation Software to help global companies reach, engage and attract better candidates, accelerating their talent acquisition and employer branding efforts. The platform uses AI and RPA that is integrated with the most powerful social media and online channels.

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Women, claim your rights In a candid conversation, Board Member of FC Barcelona, lawyer, mediator, and businesswoman, Maria Teixidor, talks about strengthening the role of women in sports, and giving women the voice and platform they deserve

In t e r v i e w

By Yasmin Taj

Maria Teixidor with some young women football players

M

aria Teixidor is a lawyer, mediator, and businesswoman in the LegalTech sector. She is one of the only two women on the Board of Directors of FC Barcelona and has developed her career as an advisor to cultural companies, publishers, foundations, associations, and technological startups, also specializing in the area of alternative conflict resolution. As a partner in BCN RESOL ODR SOLUTIONS, S.L, she created the first application for detecting bullying and mediation in schools.

In 2015, Teixidor joined the FC Barcelona Board of Directors as vice-secretary and was also nominated as the vice president and secretary of the FC Barcelona Foundation. Currently, Maria is responsible for Women's Football as the

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President of the Club Control and Transparency Commission, and as the President of the Grup Edelmira CalvetĂł which is an entity set up by the Board with the intention of reclaiming the legacy of the role of women in FC Barcelona's history and as members, promote women's participation at the club and debate the role of women in sport.

Maria has also been a member of the United Nations Association and 50a50 Association, a lobby to promote women's representation in all spheres of influence in society, advancing women's participation and equality in decision making bodies in all areas.

In this interaction with People Matters, Maria spoke about what it feels like to be a woman in a male-dominated career domain, charting one’s own path and carving a niche, and encouraging the participation of women in sports.

You are a lawyer, mediator, businesswoman and a board member of FC Barcelona. Tell us how you started on this journey and where you are today?

How difficult or smooth has this journey been for you to reach this position?

I think it is not only about being a woman but also about being a person who looks at diversity as something that enriches the debate. This is not exclusive for women but for men also. It also depends on how welcoming your male peers are and how much they believe in the possibility of change and how much they believe that women issues are important. I worked with a President with a clear decision to empower women and walked on this path with the support of others.

Sometimes you are the only woman in the room, but if you have your colleagues supporting what you do, it is a change.

You mentioned that one of the triggers for you to start your own practice was the difficulty you faced as a woman to fit into a male-dominated world. Can you tell us something about that?

How do you feel about your role in encouraging women to seek an equal footing with men whether in sports or at the workplace?

I think at some point in life, you suddenly realize that you are here only once and that what you do really matters. I am a mother of two girls and what I leave behind will matter for them and for what they will be able to achieve. So, it is about seeing yourself as a part of the bigger story, the story of humanity.

It is important to build a diverse and balanced world where both women and men lead equally

In t e r v i e w

I started out as a lawyer, and then became a businesswoman, a mediator, and I am currently one of the two women in the FC Barcelona Board of Directors. As a lawyer, I worked in the intellectual property field and realized how the new developments were changing the business ecosystem from all perspectives and that we were not giving the right answers for the legal challenges in a world where information was freely available. So, I started my first company that developed the subways to catching piracy and copyright infringements on the Internet. I had to make this move also because as a working mother, I realized it was hard for working women to fit in the male-dominated organizational structures. So it was a mix of wanting to lead my life and set my own ways of doing things which led me to start my own practice, company, and story. Thereafter, I started a second company which develops an application for detecting bullying whereby kids can notify their schools of any harassment or conflict they have. It has now evolved into a whistleblowing channel for companies and allows workers and stakeholders of any conflicts they face. I am also involved in another company where we are developing compliance software tools.

Both initiatives are important for me in the sense that they bring technology to solve problems and conflicts which we, lawyers, are meant to do as peacemakers and agents of change.

At the FC Barcelona Club, I had the opportunity to run for the 2015 election with President Bartomeu, which we won and I became a member of the board where my duties have been evolving.

Currently, I am in charge of the women's football and women issues. On the other side, I am the secretary of the board and the president of the ethics committee of the Club. This is something I do besides my job as a lawyer and businesswoman for the Club’s success.

Yes, it is a male world and you notice it much more when you become a mother: you suddenly realize that the path that they are offering you is a different one. The only answer for maternity seems to be reduced hours and salary as men think that women are not going to work as much or as well as they did before becoming a mother. So, the perspective of building a career is harder. I found a lot of women around me not daring to get pregnant and to embrace maternity just because they were afraid about its impact on their professional careers. I found this very sad and a huge loss for a developed society. It was hard to suddenly realize that women were looked at differently and that they were discriminated against in terms of salary, the ability to climb the ladder or to succeed in the same terms as their male partners who were also fathers.

I feel a part of the change and I am very proud of being able to lead these with the help of members of the club, colleagues on the board and also women who are fighting together with us. It is important to build and work for a diverse and balanced world where both women and men lead equally.

What advice do you have for women who look up to your journey and aspire to be like you?

We, as women, need to ask for things and for what we believe is fair. Sometimes we are not used to asking because culturally, we have been taught to not ask or bother anyone. I think we need to look for companies that embrace the new ways of working and accept diversity as a whole. The other point is about sorority and womanhood and being a support for each other. When one woman is being attacked, we need to look at it as an attack on all of us and we have to react as a whole. Finally, it is about asking for more balance in our workplaces. My advice would be that life is something that you build day by day. Every action matters and everything leads somewhere. Whenever you find yourself struggling or are not treated fairly, let people know and move on. So, dare to claim your rights, because you deserve it. It is all about making things happen and believing it is possible!

(Image Credits: German Parga / FCB) April 2019 |

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A clear vision

- Building accountable teams in a VUCA world In a round table hosted by Lee Hecht Harrison under the “LEAGUE OF LEADERS” initiative, industry leaders shared their perspectives on building accountable, formidable teams that deliver and outperform in a VUCA world

By Shweta Modgil

T

R o un d t ab l e

he world that we know and work in is experiencing a period of unprecedented change and disruption — Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA) have become the new constants. Organizations across industries and geographies are experiencing disruption in the form of new digital technologies, sweeping demographic changes, increased regulatory pressures, political and economic uncertainties, threats from non-traditional competitors among many other disruptions and changes. To thrive and not just survive, businesses are undertaking transformations to steer their companies back to growth, accelerating growth in new markets, or in some instances, making revolutionary efforts to ensure their survival in today’s environment.

They are redesigning the ways in which they work, moving away from the traditional hierarchies in favor of a network of high performing teams that are being rapidly assembled to quickly respond to the market changes and deliver on the overall strategy — such teams are becoming

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the central cohesive source of driving successful transformations.

This is validated by a survey conducted by the world’s leading integrated talent development and transition company, Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) in association with Human Capital Institute which polled more than 250 professionals and revealed that over 92 percent feel that high performing teams are essential to the success of an organization. This is a radical change compared to a decade old set up when strategy was driven from the top and teams were informed of the details on a “need to know basis” — and were only aware of a small piece of the overall strategy that they were responsible for delivering. These teams worked in silos and often centralized team structures, which allowed them the luxury of finding their own pace and comfort level of working with one another.

Their understanding and clarity of the ‘big picture’ strategy was limited and their commitment to delivering on the overall business results, minimal. Today, things are distinctly different.

Teams are made up of members from across the

globe, they are decentralized, they are cross functional and members move in and out of teams on a continuous basis. Their success is driven by their shared values and culture — they have complete clarity and insight into the goals and projects they work on, and there is a free flow of information and feedback. The expectation of these teams is also far greater; long gone are the days of a “need to know basis”, today, these teams are held accountable to drive immediate business results and show measurable impact against the overall business strategy.

But how exactly can organizations build accountable, formidable teams that deliver and outperform in the VUCA world? What are the critical components of team accountability in the VUCA world and how can leaders set the tone for the same? This was the question probed in great depth at an industry roundtable organized by LHH as part of its initiative “LEAGUE OF LEADERS”, a discussion moderated by Marco Valsechhi, Country Manager & MD, The Adecco Group, India, in the presence of leaders from various organizations such as Wockhardt, Thysennkrupp, Johnson & Johnson, Welspun, Citibank, L&T Hydrocarbon, Armstrong, Menarini, Enrich among others, along with Ian Lee, CEO, Asia Pacific, The Adecco Group.

The discussion kick started by inviting views on how prepared today’s teams are in the VUCA world. With the changing pace of digitization, no team can say it is completely prepared. Ian revealed that the APAC region is a mixed bag itself and not all countries are well prepared to keep pace with the fast pace of change. Digitization is just one part of the story. Organizations have to now understand that they have to be continuously changing the ball. Interestingly, on similar lines, an industry survey conducted by LHH with found out that 88 percent of business executives/CHROs rated their teams as average-only and 6 percent of them rated their teams as truly exceptional.

It may not be about teams at all!

An interesting observation made by the group was that it’s not about the teams. As organizations begin to grapple with operating in this new structure, it is important to understand the connection between the leader and the team — if teams are not delivering or performing, it’s not always a team issue, but could be a leadership issue. The dilemma is that most of the leaders are not able to understand that this new way of working requires a new kind of leader and it is possible that even the most experienced leaders and business unit heads may be the wrong people to take charge of these teams.

In order for the teams to be successful in driving transformations, they need to have leaders who are committed to actual leadership — managing people, inspiring teams, addressing performance issues and building culture. However, a research lead by Lee Hecht Harrison has found that most companies have a weak leadership culture, in fact,

There is widespread agreement across industries that if a company has a weak leadership culture, it creates risk. The organization will not be able to drive change, achieve longterm sustainable success, or attract the best talent

R o un d t ab l e

Are teams prepared to drive change and deliver results?

only 27 percent of organizations surveyed stated they had a strong leadership culture. There is widespread agreement across industries that if a company has a weak leadership culture, it creates risk. The organization will not be able to drive change, achieve long-term sustainable success, or attract the best talent. Lack of accountability at the leader level can have a cascading effect throughout the team.

The delegates concurred that to lead in a VUCA world, leaders need to have clarity and drive the organizations with a purpose. And to drive this purpose, leaders need to communicate ¬and also ensure that their teams speak the same language, are trustworthy, have a sense of belonging, an understanding of the big picture, and know what it means to contribute to it. Also, aligning stakeholders and building resilience in self and teams helps leaders to prepare their teams for all dire situations and enhances their capabilities to bounce back from any set back. While leaders need to be cognizant of the merits of the old business models, they should have a firm footing in the present and also look into the future.

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Lee Hecht Harrison Global Perspectives

72%

1. Set the tone as a truly accountable leader 2. Assess current levels of accountability & diagnose gaps 3. Address the mediocre & unaccountable leaders of your team 4. Reach out to teams across the organization

31%

Believe leadership accountability is a critical business issue

Satisfied with degree of Leadership accountability

The ingredients of an accountable team

R o un d t ab l e

So what makes an accountable team? The discussion revealed two factors — Shared Purpose and Alignment of thought processes. Accountable teams focus on the far reaching effects of their work and not just the tasks at hand. They are aware of the impact their work makes, have the freedom to challenge notions, give feedback while being transparent, are comfortable with setbacks, and are self-aware. Such teams acknowledge individual and group strengths and address development areas candidly through feedback. For such teams, collaboration, be it across teams, geographies or even across companies is the cornerstone of success. Accountable teams are open to ask for help and are proactive in creating knowledge sharing platforms that signify solidarity, singularity of purpose and trust.

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1

Understand the context in which the team leads

2

Build and deepen relationships through sharing

3

Explore ways to be more deliberate and purposeful as a team

4

Identify and set up to the teams a obligations

5

Resolve to tackle the hard work of team leadership

6

Connect with colleagues to build a stronger community

The role of leaders in building accountable teams One of the most important things leaders can do to build accountable teams is to know what their teams expect to do rather than give them directions about what they need to do in order to be accountable. If leaders themselves are not modeling accountable behaviors that deliver outcomes, then it is less likely that their teams will recognize the efforts that are needed to drive and deliver their mandate. LHH’s Leadership Accountability Gap Survey Leadership that included 2000 business executives worldwide revealed that 73 percent of the surveyed indicated that leadership accountability is critical to the success of their organizations, yet, only 31 percent responded that they were satisfied with the degree of accountability demonstrated by individual leaders.

LHH Global Perspective

What does a Truly Accountable team do?

The accountable leader

Diagnosing and addressing gaps

There is widespread agreement across industries that if a company has a weak leadership culture, it creates risk. The organization will not be able to drive change, achieve longterm sustainable success, or attract the best talent

Every leader needs to know the aspects that need to be amplified in the team. From demonstrating

92%

Belived that high performing teams were essential to organizational success

Thought their teams were delivering on goals and missions

88%

23%

Rated their teams as average, below average, or poor

R o un d t ab l e

A leader’s job is not only to drive the change and success but also to own the failures, to support, to coach, to communicate, and to drive the same understanding across the board. In this respect, a leader should not drive competition in the team.

Rewarding behavior that fosters competition among individuals in the team will only lead to the team collapsing. A leader’s responsibility is to care, coach, and support the team when it fails.

the organization’s values, building talent and capability in the organization, and empowering people, leaders also need to train their teams to identify risks in the organization. Leaders have to walk the talk, be consistent, and should be able to translate the company’s vision to their teams and align it with their individual visions. A leader has to show his/her team how what they do fits into the bigger picture and adds to the results and how it is a valuable contribution. Another important mandate for the leader is to measure and review the teams’ outcomes as it is important for building accountable teams.

Driving Commitment Lastly, leaders should not be insecure. Leaders should have a sense of security of their own jobs and imbibe the same in their teams. If the leader is able to show that he is invested in the growth of the team and believes that if his team grows, he also grows — such trust will drive commitment and engagement. Ultimately, leaders should allow their teams to make their own decisions, allow them to make mistakes, focus on driving a feeling of commitment in their teams rather than forcing their own ideas.

(This article is based on the third round table conducted under the “LEAGUE OF LEADERS” initiative by Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) in association with People Matters at Mumbai on 6th March, 2019.)

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Infosource Consulting Private Limited Human Resource Executive Location: Bengaluru / Bangalore Job ID: 455910 Description: Screening, Ssourcing, recruitment, head hunting, shortlisting.

SandStone Infra India Private Limited HR Executive Location: Hyderabad / Secunderabad Job ID: 503139 Description: Handling end-to-end recruitment processes, excellent communication and negotiating skills, should be aware about recruitment life cycle.

GlobalHunt India Private Limited Manager -HR Location: Delhi Job ID: 509052 Description: Handling the entire gamut of Hr generalist activities, significant hands on experience in managing full spectrum of Hr services, initiatives and programs.

Quess Corp Limited HR Executive Location: Bengaluru / Bangalore Job ID: 503754 Description: Functional area : Ites, any graduate/post graduates(predominantly Mba), 0-1 year of experience, excellent communication skills.

Diraa HR Services Human Resource Executive Location: Coimbatore Job ID: 501991 Description: Responsible for performing HR & IR Generalist roles at a professional level, carry out responsibilities in functional areas such as: industrial relations, statutory compliance etc.

Alchemy Techsol India Private Limited Hr Management Location: Mumbai Job ID: 504117 Description: Good Knowledge in excel, word and powerpoint, excellent communication Skills.

Linosys Solutions Private Limited HR Generalist Location: Pune Job ID: 496222 Description: Handling resource requirement as per skills, maintaining policies and HR records, maintaining organization staff.

Ace Alliance Hr Recruitment Location: Mumbai Job ID: 493541 Description: Experienced candidates in - HR/ recruitment, telecalling, sales and marketing

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Past Month's events

Knowledge + Networking

How to Leverage New Digital Leader Assessment Tools People Matters and Center for Creative Leadership 27th March 2019 Online Kris Downing, Vice President, Commercialization and Innovation, Center for Creative Leadership; Holly Downs, Senior Research and Evaluation Faculty, Center for Creative Leadership, and Steve Young, Senior Research Scientist, Center for Creative Leadership shared some examples of how organizations are using digital assessments to accelerate leader development. They emphasized on the need to use more such digital tools by highlighting the benefits of using them with real cases. Some tips on how HR leaders can integrate these new tools within standard talent management processes were also shared.

Quantify your organizations’ technology skills – Skill IQ & Role IQ People Matters and Pluralsight 13th March 2019 Online Innovation and the ever-increasing pace of change poses a variety of challenges to technology leaders and the teams they manage. Some are eager to identify the relevant emerging tools and platforms they need to stay ahead of competitors, while others seek more effective solutions for up-skilling and investing in employees to stay ahead. This webcast gave an industry view on the various ways of quantifying the technology skills for organizations and the speakers of discussed how L&D practitioners in the industry are using various platforms to quantify technology skills within their organizations. Krishnan Unni, Director, Customer Success, Pluralsight and Ramakrishnan Krishnan, Senior Director, Cognizant Academy highlighted the need to stop benchmarking the employees manually and shared how skills are the new measure of business worth.

Illusion of effective performance management system People Matters and Adrenalin 8th March 2019 Online Most companies have traditional processes where goals are set at the beginning of the year and then they are pulled out again at the end of the year. Based on this performance, employees are categorized, rated and awarded. However, the current methods of performance management only give the illusion that employees will get feedback that helps drive their performance.

In the world where businesses are seeking exponential growth, performance

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management is not just about goal settings, measuring goals or bell curve, but about building and enabling culture centered on care and technology.

Krish Shankar, Group Head- Human Resources, Infosys and Sridhar Ganesh, MD & CEO, Adrenalin eSystems Limited discussed the major challenges with current ways of performance management system and talked about the future of performance management. In an interactive webcast, they shared how organizations can build a performance management system which is centered on care and technology.

Driving digital HR for a large and distributed workforce People Matters and Darwinbox 12th March 2019 Online Driving an HR technology transformation is no easy feat, even more so when it involves a large and distributed workforce. Be it the complexity of processes, elaborate organization structures, multiple levels of approvals or the efforts needed towards change management HR professionals are presented with various challenges all along the journey. To discuss various variables, obstacles involved in a transformation project Deepak Rao, CHRO, Bisleri, and Manoj Kumar Sharma, CHRO, Aarti Industries came together on the webcast organized by People Matters and Darwinbox. Both HR leaders shared insights from their own journeys and gave some tips on how HR teams can build a case for change and ensure stakeholder buy-in and lead change management efficiently. Both the leaders emphasized on the need to build a strong foundation for leading a successful transformation journey.

Enabling employee selfservice: Automating specific HR workflows People Matters and DronaHQ 7th March 2019 Online While the market place for HR technology is largely focused on ready-made product suites, there's less focus on bespoke solutions that could have the specific impact organizations are looking for.

In such cases, it makes more sense to building own product to suit specific organizational needs. Poonam Davre, HR Head, Raymond Ltd. and Jinen Dedhia, Co-founder, DronaHQ talked about the importance of designing own digitized HR workflows.

Upcoming events People Matters Talent Acquisition Conference 2019 - Talent Acquisition: From Action to Impact ence this year will bring together 400 CHROs, TA, Sourcing, Assessment and Technology Leaders and many biggest service providers in the space, on one platform. The league of the most progressive Talent Acquisition leaders will share insights, trends, and present case studies that will help the entire community to fuel the competitive edge in business – through the right talent. The conference also includes the segment of ‘Talent Acquisition Awards.’ These awards bring the best of TA practices in India and recognize different aspects of TA which have enabled HR as a function to strengthen its relevance and role in the larger business context across categories. Best in campus recruitment, Best in candidate experience, Best in diversity & inclusion, Best in employer branding, and Best in recruitment technology & analytics are some of the award categories.

People Matters and DDI 1st August 2019 The Leela Ambience, Gurgaon People Matters' 'Are You in the List?' in association with DDI is an initiative to identify the future emerging HR Leaders. In its 8th year, it will involve an intense qualifying application process, a series of assessments and face off with the panel. It is a platform for HR practitioners to showcase their potential and get recognized as the 'Emerging Future HR Leaders'. While the final winners will be announced in August, the application process has already begun. If someone is from the age group of 26-35 and has a minimum experience of three years in HR and is currently working in HR as a role, they he/she can apply.

https://taconference.peoplematters.in/

https://areyouinthelist.peoplematters.in/apply-in-the-list

Knowledge + Networking

People Matters 29th May 2019 Taj Lands End, Mumbai As we stand at the juncture of Industry 4.0, massive disruptions are taking place in technology and the socio-economic fabric. Artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, genetics & biotechnology are all converging towards a new world, creating a dichotomy in the world of work where there is shortage of ‘right’ talent and unemployment. It is no news that the ‘right’ talent will be the differentiator of success for any organization. The onus therefore, lies on the Talent Acquisition function to enable the organization in achieving its business outcome by having the right talent on board at the right time. The TA function, which used to be in the passenger’s seat until a decade ago, has now moved to the driver’s seat. The future of talent acquisition is now about making an impact.

But is the TA function ready to make an impact? To answer this and more such questions, People Matters is back with its 5th edition of, Talent Acquisition Conference 2019. After having delivered the mega event for 4 years, the confer-

People Matters Are You in the List 2019

People Matters TechHR India 2019 Conference & Exhibition People Matters 1st and 2nd August 2019 The Leela Ambience, Gurgaon Since 2014, People Matters TechHR has been driving the evolution of talent transformation and HR technology in Asia. After hosting over 3000 leaders in 2018, in 2019, People Matters TechHR will bring together thought leaders, HR practitioners, HR technology product leaders, startups and investors to build a vibrant community that will redefine the future of work and raise the bar for productivity, innovation, and growth. The propel-

ling discussions on technology, talent, and transformation led at the two-day conference will be about disrupting the future of disruption and reframing perspectives. These conversations will be invoke creativity, inspire and guide leaders to design the best of tomorrow, today. https://india.techhrconference.com/

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Blogosphere

>> Alfredo Behrens

Affection, belonging, and control are three agents that contribute greatly to anyone’s relationship with others — and this is the essence of people management

Managing people through crisis

M b l o g o s p h e r e

others would not vaccinate their children against ravaging epidemics.

Vaccinating children against polio made little sense when they were as likely to lose their limbs to land mines. Sending them to school might have exposed them to shrapnel at the turn of a corner. It was not the lack of affection that shaped this bizarre behavior.

Investing in children´s future, like through vaccination or schooling, made little sense because there was no future. Two decades of civil war had wrenched off people any sense of tomorrow or control over their lives. Yet, affection, belonging and control are three agents that contribute greatly to a person’s relationship with others — this is where our interest in people management comes to play. An Italian friend of mine living in San Francisco told me earthquakes did not worry him. Yet, just in case, he would avoid sitting in his car under a flyover during traffic jams. He would rather wait before the flyover until traffic had moved on, opening enough space for this car at the other side of the flyover.

The recent border skirmish at Kashmir should naturally make people wonder whether their world could end tomorrow. Very much like my Italian

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friend´s reaction to earthquakes in San Francisco, the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, even if not imminent, shapes peoples’ behavior, drawing their attention away from their larger concerns.

This is about belonging to this world, about the lack of control over issues of paramount consequences. At work, a drop in any, affection, belonging or control, shifts the attitudes of people from a focus on progress to one of prevention. The first infuses people with a sense of empowerment to overcome obstacles and enhances innovation and productivity. Prevention, on the other hand, focuses on limiting damage; it hampers both

At work, a drop in any – affection, belonging or control, shifts the attitudes of people from a focus on progress to one of prevention

From a people manager’s perspective, guiding people back to their ecstatic path requires an increase the sense of belonging, removing the dullness of their work, adding to a sense of purpose, and providing challenges attainable with their skills

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innovation and productivity. After the Kashmir border skirmish, even if an election campaign increasingly draws more attention, it is quite likely that people’s focus, including those of people managers, has shifted towards prevention, which only makes matters worse, like sitting in a car until the traffic jam looks brighter.

Few managers have control over national events, but they do have some over people at work.

That is what they are paid for. To bring back the focus on progress, it may help recalling the role of ecstasy in people’s lives (not the role of the recreational drug) but of the overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful excitement growing out of personal involvement. People have sought ecstasy, perhaps all through mankind.

Today we are reminded of that search through the effort put into buildings where peoples seek ecstasy, like Christian cathedrals and bullfighting rings, or into earlier Roman coliseums and Greek amphitheaters. The feeling of ecstasy is associated with happiness, which is why people seek ecstasy. People can also experience ecstasy on their own, at work. Indeed, those who have been fortunate enough to experience ecstasy at work, refer to it as growing out of work that one loves to the extent that one loses sight of the rest.

Naturally, full ecstasy cannot be experienced round the clock, but it is something that people cherish and look for and which might make life less miserable at times of great distress like what was brought about by the threat of a nuclear holocaust.

From a people manager’s perspective, guiding people back to their ecstatic path requires an increase the sense of belonging, removing the dullness of their work, adding to a sense of purpose, and providing challenges attainable with

their skills. It also requires reinforcing the sense of belonging, particularly among those who may have been singled out based on any parameter.

People might not forget the demanding issues of real life, but they should be able to find solace in losing themselves at work, to the extent they will want to come back to it with a smile in their faces.

About the author

Dr. Alfredo Behrens lectures with Harvard Business School Publishing and coordinates subject areas at the IME Business School, with the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain. His most recent book, Gaucho Dialogues on Leadership and Management, Anthem Press, 2018, was nominated to be turned into a TV series.

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