People Matters: The future of HR - June 2019

VOL X / ISSUE 6 / JUNE 2019

With the world of work changing drastically, HR leaders of tomorrow need to think bigger and contribute to the larger vision BIG INTERVIEW Low Peck Kem

Government CHRO at PSD, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore

INTERVIEW Worawat Suvagondha Dean of SCB Academy, Siam Commercial Bank

CASE STUDY Mindtree’s Case for Pay Transparency

By People Matters & SAP SuccessFactors

THE COVER STORY (BEHIND THE SCENE)

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

Brain scan?

4

Bullish for the future

T

he world of work has undergone dramatic changes in recent years.

And one function which has been at the center of this change is the HR function. The economy has changed, the workforce has evolved, and the way technology has disrupted the workplace has completely overturned the expectations that organizations would have from their HR teams. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and data science are changing how we work and how we think about and design jobs. Will automation take over jobs or is this just a myth and what role will HR play in such a scenario?

The future of HR would require HR leaders to be agile, forward-looking, out-ofthe-box thinkers, and they will have to be tech-savvy and nimble enough to deal with an increasingly agile and restless workforce. To be able to manage the freelance workforce, monitor real-time performance of employees and most importantly, lead change around the new combination of human and automated workers, human resource leaders should be at the top of all the changes taking place in the workplace today.

Moreover, in the next three years, 120 million jobs in the world’s 10 largest econo-

| JUNE 2019

mies will need retraining or reskilling.

To adapt to this new environment and help shape it, employees need to embrace continuous learning. Amid these changes, HR needs to not think, act, or be like traditional HR; they need to understand their job is now “human transformation”.

According to a report by KPMG, out of the surveyed 1200 global HR executives from 64 countries, 39% of forward-looking and confident HR leaders are harnessing the resources and insights to redefine obsolete models and implement technologies such as analytics, digital labor, and AI. However, a large number of them still remain confused and overwhelmed by so many changes. This makes it compelling for HR to look more at change, transformation, and future of work. They must play a proactive role in enabling employees’ true potential and helping them play an impactful role in delivering results as an organization. Our cover story this month focuses on what HR leaders and organizations need to consider today to prepare for tomorrow.

In this issue, we have an exclusive interaction with Peck Kem Low, the Government CHRO at Public Service Division, Prime Minister's Office, Singapore.

Peck shares insights on her contribution in uplifting the capability of HR in the country, the transformation of HR in general, and best practices that HR leaders should follow. We also have an interview with Worawat Suvagondha, Dean of SCB Academy, Siam Commercial Bank, Thailand; and a rapid-fire interview with Leena Nair, the Chief HR Officer of Unilever, who will join us as a speaker in Asia’s largest HR and Work tech conference, People Matters Tech HR 2019, scheduled for the 1st and 2nd of August at The Leela Ambience, Gurugram. We invite you to be part of our journey in making HR mission critical to the business.

Happy Reading!

Esther Martinez Hernandez Editor-in-Chief follow

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contents

J U N E 2 0 19 volu m e x issue 6

46

Curiosity, continuous learning, and AI Anshul Sheopuri, Vice-President and CTO, AI & Offering

Strategy, HR, IBM

48

Augmenting ‘humans’ in the workplace Jeanne Meister, Founding Partner of HR advisory and research firm Future Workplace

52

Talent choices in the ‘War for Talent’ Dave Ulrich, Co-founder, The RBL Group

56

Unlocking employees’ potential with Digital HR

Sreeni Kutam, CHRO, ADP

58

Driving the next Value Transformation

C O N TE N TS

Shai Ganu, Managing Director and Head of Rewards business,

THE FUTURE OF HR

Asia Pacific, Willis Towers Watson cover story

44

Tomorrow begins

60

62

64

Editor-in-Chief

Assistant Manager, Content

Senior Editor

Senior Associates, Content

Yasmin Taj

Associate Editor, Print & Online

Mastufa Ahmed

Manager, Content

Jerry Moses

Drishti Pant Neelanjana Mazumdar

Abid Hasan

Senior Features Writer

Shweta Modgil

Digital Head

Printed and Published by

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

Manav Seth Vallari Gupte

| JUNE 2019

Manager, SUBSCRIPTION

Shinto Kallattu

General Manager, Sales

Features Writers

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

Design & Production

Photography

Anarchist at www.ClintonHR.com

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Prakash Shahi

Associate Editor

6

Anushree Sharma

Moving beyond perceptions

Clinton Wingrove, Director, Principal Consultant, and HR

By Mastufa Ahmed

Esther Martinez Hernandez

The next big battleground: EX Jacob Morgan, Founder, Future of Work University

With the world of work changing drastically, HR leaders of tomorrow need to think bigger, be techsavvy to deal with the 21st century workforce and contribute to the vision of the business

The boundary-less talent pool Abhijit Bhaduri, An advisor on talent management to organizations and a top influencer on social media

Mahesh Kumar on behalf of People Matters Media Pvt. Ltd. Owned by

People Matters Media Pvt. Ltd. Published at

People Matters Media Pvt. Ltd. 503-505, 5th Floor, Millennium Plaza, Tower A, Sector 27 Gurgaon-122009

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Printed at Polykam Offset C-138, Phase - I Naraina Industrial Area New Delhi - 110028 Published at 503-505, 5th Floor Millennium Plaza, Tower A Sector 27, Gurgaon-122009

This issue of People matters contains 84 pages including cover

contents 24

the big Interview

Employees to dictate the future of work

CEOs want HR to be the change agents: Peck Kem Low Peck Kem, Government CHRO at the Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s Office of Singapore

Chris McCarthy, CEO of

20 N e w s F e a t u r e

Fixing talent issues in Indian startup landscape

By Dhruv Mukerjee

22 How much work is too

much work?

By Manav Seth

28 E x p e r t C olu m n

C O N TE N TS

Building trust for a positive employee experience

By Richard R. Smith, Ph.D., Professor at Singapore Management University where he also serves as Deputy Dean for the Lee Kong Chian School of Business

36 C lic k e d

How to fall in love with your job, once more?

By Farzana Suri, Victory coach, numerologist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, motivational speaker, trainer and a die-hard optimist with an unstoppable mission to inspire and empower people 38 C o r p o r a t e L e a r nin g

Fixing corporate learning programs

By Dr. Pavan Soni, an Innovation Evangelist and Founder of Inflexion Point Consulting 42 I n t e r vie w The talent experience space is in its infancy right now

Deena Fox, Founder of Brightfox

By Shweta Modgil

66 Ro a d t o r esilience

Ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance

By Leela Bassi, UK based multilingual keynote speaker and Transformational Coach 30 Data driven leadership:

New imperative for the digital era

By Subramanian Kalpathi, Senior Director at KNOLSKAPE, a learning, and assessment platform 32 I n t e r vie w

The journey of becoming an agile workplace: SIAM Commercial Bank

Worawat Suvagondha, Dean of SCB Academy, Siam Commercial Bank

By Yasmin Taj

8

| JUNE 2019

Degreed

By Abid Hasan

By People Matters Editorial

68

Interview

regulars

70 L e a d e r shi p

Myopic HR education: Preparing present and futureready people practitioners

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

74 An a l y sis

Building a culture of responsible autonomy

By Shanti Sundar, HR Head, Pegasysyems India, and a member of the India Executive Leadership team of the company

76 C A S E S T U DY

Mindtree’s case for Pay Transparency

By Anushree Sharma

04 From the Editor’s Desk 10 Letters of the month 12 Quick Reads 18 Rapid Fire 80 Knowledge + Networking 82 Blogosphere

Featured In this issue ABHIJIT BHADURI ANSHUL SHEOPURI CHRIS MCCARTHY CLINTON WINGROVE DAVE ULRICH DEENA FOX JACOB MORGAN

JEANNE MEISTER LEENA NAIR LOW PECK KEM SHAI GANU SREENI KUTAM WORAWAT SUVAGONDHA

CONTRIBUTORS to this issue Farzana Suri Leela Bassi Pavan Soni Richard Smith

Shanthi Sundar Subramanian Kalpathi Visty Banaji

Letters of the month Nailing employee experience

The changing composition and priorities of the workforce has dynamically altered the expectations that employees have today. Organizations have taken cognizance of this and have ‘consumerized’ the employee experience, thus, honing their workforce as one of the strongest advocates and ambassadors of their brand. Your cover story, in this context, provided brilliant insights on how HR leaders are fostering a healthy employee experience and their approach towards the same. While it is true that a satisfactory and fulfilling employee experience can propel innovation, productivity, customer satisfaction and ultimately the bottomline of an organization, not many employers and leaders are fully aware of these benefits. We still have a lot of ground to cover in cultivating a compelling and engaging experience for the workforce. Nonetheless, I am extremely pleased to see strides made by the industry on the whole and the critical role that HR has played in the same. It’s also really nice to see the behind-the-scenes work that goes into designing your cover!

- Shaily Kaushik

Leading with Design Thinking Diane Gherson’s insightful interview sheds light on how global pioneers of technology like IBM are enabling their workforce with the right tools and resources. I agree with her that the traditional degrees will soon no longer be reliable indicators of skills and we need to start thinking differently to find the right talent. These ‘new collar’

roles, as she puts it, will create opportunities for talented individuals from all walks of life to be a part of the digital economy. We need more dynamic leaders like Diane who not only have a clear vision of the future, but also a comprehensive understanding of the emerging tools and technology in the market. Thank you, People Matters, for introducing us to such a prolific leader.

- Aakriti Thakur

Leading with authenticity, influencing with inspiration

Prabir Jha’s humble lessons on leadership are a reminder for all leaders and managers to introspect their own journeys.

He has eloquently described the role of a CHRO in today’s world and pointed out the areas where HR leaders need to be more assertive. I also agree with him on the fact that the challenge of digital is less in the technology or the mind but, it is more about the heart and the willingness to change the status quo. I will be sure to check the books he mentions as a major influence on his life, career and leadership style. At the end of the day, leadership is, as Prabir says, all about authenticity, the willingness to give and to influence with inspiration, not authority. I am positive that his new venture will prove to be a great success and I wish him the very best for the same.

- Sharique Ahmed 10

| JUNE 2019

May 2019 issue

Fostering innovation through research It was really fascinating to the perspective of a global academician on reforming the education system, using research for innovation and the role of technology in the workplace. Professor Edward (Ted) Sargent provides a direct insight into how leading universities and institutions are training the next generation of leaders and equipping the future workforce with the right skills. I am sure that his students benefit tremendously with nuanced understanding of technology and its impact on our lives and work. I believe that one of the reasons why he has an adept understanding of the current challenges in the business world is due to the many hats he dons – that of an academic, entrepreneur, and author. Kudos to the interviewer as well, for framing the most relevant and pertinent questions.

- Akhil Shukla

Interact with People Matters

People Matters values your feedback.

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

Whose job is it anyway?

The journey of authentic conversations It is seldom that we get a direct opportunity to understand and learn from the policies and initiatives of industry leaders on how to create a culture of continuous learning.

Anant Goenka’s interview stood out for its frankness and authenticity, in addition to giving us an insider-view on how the company is committed to helping its workforce progress.

Having more than a decade of experience in HR, I firmly believe that helping employees succeed in their personal goals is an essential ingredient for organizations to grow and create a strong employer brand. It is really heartening to know that the leaders at CEAT are prioritizing employee learning and are testing innovative approaches for the same. I am also glad that there is a continuous dialogue in the HR community on how to make the workforce future-ready as well.

The news feature on the lack of resources to help employees initiate their own journeys to be future-ready is a timely reminder for business leaders to create more inclusive and expansive strategies while preparing for the future of the work.

I believe that the disconnection between the workforce and employers is a result of the limited platforms and mechanisms that allow individuals to be a part of the overarching process to be ready for the future of work. It should be a great cause of concern for organizations and leaders that a significant part of the Indian workforce is ‘sleepwalking’ through their careers and that a majority of them already consider themselves to be equipped with the skills needed in the future.

- Saloni Jhalani

I was extremely glad to read the interaction between Priyanka Anand and People Matters regarding what the future holds.

Her sharp observations and innovative ideas can be attributed to her career of nearly two decades, spanning several reputed companies and countries. She is absolutely correct to point out that talented professionals will be one of the biggest challenges in the future and that the courses and curriculum offered by educational institutes are not able to meet industry expectations. I also agree with her that the need of the hour is to invest significantly in creating modules and infrastructure to build up technical competencies that can keep pace with the changing requirements of Industry 4.0 and the future of work, but more importantly, to create a synergy between the different efforts toward a common goal.

- Ananda Roy

@RaghuPol As we look toward a future where #AI augments human workers, you’ll need to know what jobs and skills will define your #FutureWorkforce. Find out @PeopleMatters2. @pauldaugh @ hjameswilson #HplusM @Quovantis Tarun Kohli (@tarun_kohli) was one of the #panelists at @PeopleMatters2 Total Rewards & Wellness Conclave 2019 where he spoke about "Employee engagementFrom measurement to action". Here's a short video from the session buff. ly/2LFhMdb #EmployeeEngagement #Conclave @ISBedu Discussion on ’People, Planet and Profit’ with @Ester_Matters, Founder @ PeopleMatters2, Gurdeep Singh, Head @ VedantaLimited Harjeet Khanduja, VP @ reliancejio Palash Srivastava, Deputy CEO @IIFCLProjects; Shilpa Ajwani, CEO, Unomantra; Sunil Bajaj, Partner @EYnews. #Abhyudaya2019 Anish Aravind @anisharavind Looking forward to #connecting to the #Learning curated by team @ PeopleMatters2 via #TechHR19

- Abhishek Kant Pandey

Creating a future-ready workforce

Pearl DSouza@pearl_dsouza1 Doing a great job with the cover pages @ PeopleMatters2 .. if it intrigued this lil fellow (who i know well) to sit down and leaf through the mag, the layout, visuals are attractive all right! @Ester_Matters pic. twitter.com/JfxM9eYaI7

The connect between satisfaction and commitment Paul James’ innovative model of employee satisfaction is a comprehensive tool for employers and leaders to get a pulse of their employee sentiment. The meticulous graphs and equations reminded me of my college days, wherein we relied heavily on theoretical constructs to understand real-world issues and challenges. However, Paul‘s fantastic work has proven that the seemingly complex models can be applied rather aptly and simply in the workplace.

The exhaustive model, which takes into account a variety of factors, can help a leader effectively perform his role, as Paul puts it, to attract, develop and enable its employees so that they can build the business. I would like to thank Paul James for sharing his work with us and also thank People Matters for providing him a platform.

- Shanthi Indukar

Pushkar @pushkaraj7 Always believed in the #HR world we need to learn things from great marketers & brand guys. Specially aspects like #EmployerBrand #EmployeeExperience #EmployeeBehavior Who better to learn from than veteran Ad man of Asia #PiyushPandey @PeopleMatters2 #TechHRIn @Ester_Matters follow

M > @PeopleMatters2

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

11

EMPLOYMENT

q u i c k

r e a d s

India to add three million new jobs by 2023: Report

The Indian tech industry will add another three million new jobs in the next five years, as per the ISF, the apex body for the ‘flexi’ working industry. With these additions, the size of the country’s tech industry will be seven million by 2023.

Rituparna Chakraborty president, ISF, told that all these new jobs would come up

in digital technology areas such as AI, machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), data science, analytics, big data, blockchain and AR. Jobs would also be created in newer technology areas that are presently unknown but are expected to emerge in the next few years.

There is a visible behavioral change happening in the IT and ITes sectors.

India now has about 1,300 captive units.

Some 400 new captive units are expected to come up in 2019. This shift is attributed to a sharp rise in hiring by existing and new global in-house centers (GCCs) due to technology innovation activities in India for their global markets.

Staffing organizations in India are going to play a vital role in helping the industry reach this hiring milestone as far as identifying and sourcing talent is concerned.

HIRING

Online hiring growth in Singapore witnesses a steep upswing The IT, Telecom, BPO/ITES industry led this growth from the front with a whopping 40 percent YoY rise in online hiring demand for March 2019.

Online hiring growth in Singapore saw a steep upswing in March, with a 17 percent YoY growth as compared to March 2018, according to the latest Monster Employment Index. This is a significant rise from previous months – January and February which witnessed five percent and three percent year-on-year growth, respectively.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Amazon shuns the idea of losing jobs to automation The current technology is limited and the cognitive abilities of humans are still superior to be able to completely replace jobs in Amazon's warehouse.

Scott Anderson, Director of Amazon Robotics Fulfillment said, "In the current form, the technology is very limited. The technology is very far from the fully automated workstation that we would need."

While in the long run, the company can benefit from technology for a robot to pick

12

| JUNE 2019

COMPENSATION

Genting head Lim Kok Thay is Malaysia's highest paid CEO

The highest-paid CEO of 2018 as per the report was Genting head Lim Kok Thay. His annual remuneration stood at RM284.61 Mn (US$68.6 million) and came from his two positions as Head of Genting Bhd and Head of Genting Malaysia Bhd. While he is probably the richest CEO in Malaysia, he is the world’s 436th richest man and Malaysia’s seventh richest man, with a total wealth of US$4.4 Bn (RM18.25 Bn), according to Forbes.

The list of top 100 CEOs based on their pay has been released by Corporate Governance Monitor report published by Malaysia’s Securities Commission (SC).

The list has been made after assessing the total pay of CEOs of the top 100 listed companies on the Malaysian stock exchange’s main market. The companies have been selected based on their market capitalization as of December 31, 2018.

a single product from a bin without damaging other products or picking multiple products at the same time, it seems a far fetched dream currently.

Although automation has helped Amazon in many ways and currently the company is exploring a variety of technologies to automate the various steps needed to get a package to shoppers, it has dismissed the idea of running a fully automated warehouse in the near future.

Anderson made all these comments and shared the information on his recent tour to Amazon's Baltimore warehouse. The tour was planned as labour groups and other Amazon critics raised concerns over poor working conditions in its warehouses and for increasingly automating jobs and reducing its dependence on human labour.

JOBS MARKET

11.5 lakh jobs to be added in the first half of FY20 A report by staffing firm TeamLease services on the employment outlook predicts a three percent rise in net employment outlook and a net addition of 11.5 lakh jobs between April- September 2019.

Sectors that are expected to lead the growth in the job market include Travel & Hospital and BPO/ITes, both these sectors are expected to witness a job growth of four percent. And of the 19 sectors ana-

SKILLING

An annual study of the ideal employers in Hong Kong reveals that the government remains the most ideal employer for young talent. The survey, which featured among business, engineering, and natural sciences students, HKSAR Government retains the top spot as the most ideal employer.

Interestingly, this is a position it has held for the past two years for business talent and the past five years in the engineering and natural sciences sectors. The Hong Kong portion of Universum’s annual global talent survey draws on more than 6500 students across eight Hong Kong universities. When it came to the business sector, the HKSAR government beat organizations such as Google, HSBC, and J.P. Morgan.

The top 10 employers among business: HKSAR Government, Google, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, EY, PwC, Cathay Pacific Airways, Deloitte, Morgan Stanley, Apple.

Meanwhile, among engineering/ natural sciences, HKSAR government beat MTR Corporation, Cathay Pacific, and Apple.

GLOBAL

Uber drivers are contractors, not employees

r e a d s

Google has trained five million people in Europe and five million people across Africa and the Middle East, bringing to a total of 10 million people, who have participated in training across these regions alone.

Launched in 2015, Google’s Grow with Google initiative has reached job seekers, business owners, teachers, developers and students in more than 80 countries around the world, says Matt Brittin, President, Business & Operations, Europe, Middle East and Africa, in a blog post.

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai tweets, “#GrowWithGoogle has now helped train 10M people in digital skills across Europe, Middle East & Africa since 2017. It's a great milestone and we will continue our work helping people learn new digital skills, find jobs and grow their businesses.”

The company plans to help an additional one million more people in Europe find a job, grow their business or build their career by 2020 as well as training an additional 10 million people in Africa.

ECONOMY

Hong Kong government remains employer of choice for talent

q u i c k

Grow with Google initiative trained ten million people

lyzed by the report, 11 of them projected an increase in net employment outlook and 8 of them anticipate a decrease in outlook.

According to the report, “The positive outlook in the job market is attributed to the increase in investments, the revised FDI regulations and the new governance policies across sectors.”

The report estimates a five percent jump in hiring across medium sized businesses. Large and small enterprises are also expected to report a growth of two percent and one percent respectively.

A large majority of these roles will be based in Mumbai[1,67,585], Delhi[1,59, 051] and Bangalore[1,50,120], with sectors like Retail[1,66,000], Logistics [1,49,000] and Educational Services [1,17,000] creating maximum opportunities.

The general counsel of a US labor agency has said in a memo that drivers for ride-hailing company Uber Technologies are independent contractors and not employees. The recommendation by the office of general counsel Peter Robb, who was appointed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

by US President Donald Trump, was made in a memo. Uber drivers set their hours, own their cars and are free to work for the company's competitors, so they cannot be considered employees under federal labor law, the memo said.

A ruling on the case is to be made by an NLRB regional director, according to a report by Reuters. Under the National Labor Relations Act, independent contractors cannot join unions and do not have legal protection when they complain about working conditions. Employees are significantly more costly because they are entitled to the minimum wage, overtime pay and reimbursements for work-related expenses under those laws. The US Department of Labor in a memo released last month said an unidentified "gig economy" company's workers were not its employees under federal wage law because it did not control their work.

JUNE 2019 |

13

Mastering the Role of Leader

A discussion with Tom Roth, Michael Leimbach, PhD, and David Yesford, Wilson Learning

What is Leadership?

Some see leadership as command and control.

Others see inspiration and values Executive leaders Executives responsible for the overall leadership of the organization

q u i c k

Executive

Mid-Level

First-Level

r e a d s

Mid-level leaders Managers of departments or functions

The purpose of a leader is to engage others in committing their full energy to the creation of value and success

First-level leaders Managers and supervisors of individual contributors

Leadership Survival Skills You can’t just get the job done yourself anymore; you need to do it through others

Establishing Leadership Credibility The Essence of first-level leadership is the shift of moving from solving others’ problems...

Motivating employees Communicating effectively Defining tasks and goals

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE

LEADERSHIP

Delegating with confidence

(Engineering, Finance, Operations)

Observing behavior

Expertise as your source of credibility

Providing feedback & coaching

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE

LEADERSHIP Leadership as your source of credibility

...to helping employees learn how to solve problems themselves

Resolving conflict Helping others solve problems

14

| JUNE 2019

First-level leaders often resort to “leading with their technical expertise.” The challenge for new leaders is to rely less on their functional credibility and instead establish their credibility as a leader—something they must earn in their new role.

From a leadership Essence (character) perspective, new first-level leaders require the wisdom to make leadership their source of credibility.

As leaders move into mid-level leadership, their focus shifts A mid-level leader needs to shift more to Growth Skills (Form) to help grow others’ capabilities and help the department and, ultimately, the organization grow.

This critical shift requires leaders to understand the importance of building capability in others, rather than being a Heroic Manager who controls or micromanages people.

Leadership Growth Skills

Team goalsetting

Many new leaders tend to rely on getting their signals from external sources

Moving into mid-level leadership is usually a big step.

There is often a big increase in responsibility and greater span of control, causing leaders to focus on what they think they need to succeed.

As a result, many leaders start taking their signals from external sources.

do

be

I need to have power, authority & control.

So I can do more, create change, and improve.

Then I will be successful.

Powerful leaders have learned to focus on internal, not external, signals

Rather than taking their signals from external sources— “I must have, so I can do, and therefore be successful” —the job of mid-level leaders is to take their signals from internal sources.

This leads them to consider...

Delegation

For a Purpose- and Value-Centered Leader, an internal focus leads to a renewed set of values Having a clear sense of Essence (character) provides the foundation that makes their leadership skills (Form) effective.

EXTERNAL

INTERNAL

Appearance more important

Depth more important

Responds to signals from others

Responds to values

Success is measured by appearance, position, title Life is lived on "approval"

Success is measured by contribution to others Life is lived on “purpose”

r e a d s

Have

CrossNegotiation functional collaboration

q u i c k

EXTERNAL

Problemsolving facilitation

Character at all leadership levels is the culmination of the leadership Essence journey

Having a clear sense of Essence (character) provides the foundation that makes their leadership skills (Form) effective.

inTERNAL

BE

do

HAVE

What kind of person/ leader do I want to be remembered as?

Therefore, what do I need to do as a leader?

Then I will have a sense of how to contribute to the success of others.

A leader who, instead of seeking power, empowers A leader who, instead of seeking control, frees you up A leader who, instead of being served, serves A leader who has a strong sense of his or her essence A leader who is seen as courageous JUNE 2019 |

Source: WilsonLearning.com

Leaders at all levels must make the transition from

15

newsmaker of the month

Flying into the sunset

q u i c k

r e a d s

O

16

n 17th April, Jet Airways, India’s oldest private carrier halted its operations. The airline dominated the Indian skies for over two decades. In 2018, the airline completed 25 years and was known for its crew and service quality. In its time, the company waded through many external challenges including – ‘steep hikes in aviation fuel prices, global currency fluctuations, industry challenges and fierce competition – both global and domestic’.

From being grounded for non-payment of lease rentals, to suspension of operations, the events leading to the closure came quickly this year. Jet Airways had debt in excess of Rs. 8, 500 crores and at the time of halting operations, the company had 15,000 workers. The company’s FounderChairman Naresh Goyal who held the majority equity stepped down amid the crisis. By the month of May, the airways saw the exit of four top-level executives—CEO Vinay Dube, CFO Amit Agarwal, Chief People Officer Rahul Taneja, and Company Secretary Kuldeep Sharma.

| JUNE 2019

Jet Airways’ abrupt closure holds a number of lessons for businesses and leaders. Despite multiple attempts to reboot the company, the company was unable to control costs. The company’s leadership was unable to navigate a clear roadmap. And the company was unable to take its employees into its stride or keep their jobs. But the responsibility for the crisis is not just the responsibility of the senior leadership in the company; commentators have pointed to the lax bank oversight on loans, which have only caught up to avoid a situation similar to Kingfisher airlines. From government to regulatory bodies, a number of institutions have come under fresh scrutiny.

As for the employees, a number of companies from hospitality to business process management and technology services have now come forward to tap into former Jet Airways staff. Even as senior employees have expressed interest in staying on longer to see if the company reaches a resolution, the fate of employees still hangs in the balance.

Jet Airways had debt in excess of Rs. 8, 500 crores and at the time of halting operations, the company had 15,000 workers

HSBC names Kanakanjan Ray as SEA head of Financial Institutions HSBC announced the appointment of Kanakanjan Ray to Head of Financial Institutions Group, Southeast Asia, a newly created role in the Bank’s Global Banking and Markets division. In his new role, Ray will be responsible for driving the bank’s coverage of financial institution clients across all Southeast Asian markets.

Ex-Airbnb executive joins Nurx as CEO Nurx, the healthcare company that offers online access to medical providers and gives home delivery of medication and testing kits, announced that Varsha Rao has been appointed the company's new CEO. Rao is a seasoned entrepreneur and executive with decades of experience in rapidly scaling startups.

Uber’s APAC head steps down after four years Amit Jain who was handling Uber APAC has decided to step down from his position. The US-based cab aggregator promoted him as head of Asia Pacific business in May 2018. Later in July, he was given more autonomy to run the entire region and report directly to Uber COO Barney Harford.

Twitter appoints Managing Director for its India business Manish Maheshwari, the former Network18 Digital Chief Executive has been appointed as the Managing Director of Twitter India operations. Manish will lead the company's strategy and execution in India and also be responsible for growing Twitter’s audience and revenue growth in the country.

Vistara’s VP and Head of Marketing steps down Solomon Wheeler, Vice President and Head of Marketing, Vistara, is stepping down due to personal reasons, according to media reports.

Wheeler joined the joint venture airlines between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines in March 2017 replacing Kishore Mardikar at the time.

Food major Kraft Heinz CEO to step down Food maker, Kraft Heinz CEO Bernardo Hees will step down from the post and be succeeded by Miguel Patricio in July. Patricio worked in various roles at Anheuser-Busch InBev over 20 years, including serving as Chief Marketing Officer. He's also worked at companies including Philip Morris, The Coca-Cola Co., and Johnson & Johnson.

Ex OLX COO joins Udemy as India MD Online learning and teaching platform Udemy has appointed Irwin Anand as the company’s India Managing Director effective immediately. Anand’s responsibilities include opening Udemy’s first India office, growing the local team and deepening the company’s investment in the

region.

MAIT appoints new CEO Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT), the apex body representing India’s ICT & Electronics hardware manufacturing, R&D and training service sectors appointed its new CEO. George Paul brings 30 years of industry experience in IT hardware products, electronic subsystems, mechatronics, avionics, mechanical engineering, aerospace & IT services.

Fullerton India appoints Executive VP & Chief Risk Officer Fullerton India Credit Company Limited, a nonbanking financial company has appointed Pavan Pal Kaushal as the Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer, Fullerton India Credit Company. Kaushal will be responsible to oversee the overall Risk management for Fullerton India, as well as supervise the Risk functions of Fullerton India Home Finance.

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Publicis Media India appoints new Head of Technology Publicis Media India announced that it has roped in Roopesh Pujari as Head of Technology, PM India. Roopesh Pujari comes with over 22 years of leadership experience in technology and has worked extensively in the US apart from India.

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McAfee appoints new Managing Director for India McAfee, the device-to-cloud cybersecurity company has appointed Sanjay Manohar as Managing Director, India. He will be responsible for building and leading teams to drive product revenues, increase adoption of cloud-based products, strengthen customer relationships. Sanjay will report directly to Craig Nielsen, Vice President, APAC, McAfee.

Viacom18 ropes in People Group CEO as COO of Viacom18 Digital Ventures Entertainment network Viacom18 has named Gourav Rakshit as the chief operating officer for the Viacom18 Digital Ventures vertical. Rakshit will join the organization this month & will report to Viacom18 group CEO and MD Sudhanshu Vats.

Udemy ropes in a veteran technology leader as CTO Online learning and teaching platform Udemy has appointed veteran technology leader Venu Venugopal as the company’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Venugopal was working with Expedia, where he was Vice President of Engineering for HomeAway, the world’s leading online marketplace for vacation homes.

OYO appoints new HR Director Unicorn start-up OYO rooms has roped in Siddarth Tyagi as its new Director. He will be leading the Talent Acquisition for International markets. Before joining the hospitality chain, he was working with Publicis Sapient as Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition; he worked with the company for five years.

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Rapid-Fire with Leena Nair

Chief HR Officer and member of the Unilever Leadership Executive, Leena Nair gets candid with People Matters and reveals some personal and professional secrets

1 Up-close

Change & Transformation Agent, Adaptability and Resilience, Performance Coaching and Casting, having a heart!

One thing that makes you passionate about HR? My purpose – which is to Ignite the Human Spark to build a better business and a better world

4 Expert-take One must-read book for CHROs and HR leaders?

R a p i d - F i r e

What was the turning point of your life as an HR professional?

One leader you closely follow and one hallmark of that leader?

Satya Nadella who said at Davos Becoming a truly digital organization is as much about culture and purpose as it is about technology.

One perception you wish to change about the HR function?

That we are always filling the cracks for the business and not laying the road

What's your learning mantra?

Learn. Unlearn. Relearn.

3 key talent priorities for Unilever, currently?

3 Tech in HR How do you make decisions when you don’t have all the necessary information?

Capacity, Capability, Culture

Be humble and ask questions to the people who would know

2 Quick choices

Things HR professionals must keep in mind while implementing tech in any HR process?

Gig Workers or Permanent Employees?

Both

Flexi work or 9 to 5?

Flexi

HR as a business partner or HR as a business driver?

HR as a business driver

Appraisals based on rating or rating-less performance management?

No ratings! No boxes, labels, lists!

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The book I am about to write

When I shifted careers to HR actually!

I am an engineer by profession and my turning point was realizing I wasn’t meant to be an engineer and found my passion in HR

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Create learning loops. You will never get it right the first time. So ensure you create learning loops – build, measure, learn, repeat.

Next big HR deployment Unilever is working around?

It’s a secret

One HR tech trend you look forward to?

AI to help us be more human

Core HR competencies no technology can replace?

Your advice for aspiring HR professionals?

Dream big and make it happen

One question you ask in every interview?

What’s your purpose?

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Personal Best career advice you've gotten?

Embrace Failure

What's your favorite holiday destination?

Iceland

What do you think about when you’re alone in your car?

I don’t think, I meditate and do mindfulness exercises.

What’s the last thing you watched on TV and why did you choose to watch it?

Tidying Up by Marie Kondo because I was in the midst of moving houses.

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Fixing talent issues in the Indian startup landscape

Indian startups today are showing healthy signs of growth across the board owing to increasing technological access among the general populace. But have they also been successful in tackling their talent issues?

By Dhruv Mukerjee

T

he startup ecosystem in India has been rapidly changing; its landscape markedly different from what it is five years ago. So much so that today it resembles a microcosm of young new age companies experimenting with established norms and operating with its own set of rules that often aren’t reflected in the larger business world outside. Many successful startups today are defined by similar characteristics like an agile work culture that fosters techdriven innovation and where often creativity and domain experience trump over other aspects as key skill sets.

With a proactive approach to problemsolving—often as a result of running on tight budgets and funders scrutiny—and an

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active integration of technology to improve key business processes, the startup ecosystem today is redefining working parameters across the board. This tech-intensive approach to business has, in turn, reshaped many traditional internal functions.

Although today technology has heavily influenced how startups undertake talent decisions, challenges still remain. While factors such as hiring remain a relevant part, startups also face new challenges when it comes to developing, engaging, and retaining talent. Many startups face work culture issues which can range from uncoordinated and disengaged teams to the culture getting labeled as “toxic”.

Although the standard response across many startups has been to ignore many

of such talent issues often at the cost of higher productivity and returns, sustaining the ship for long becomes a herculean task without addressing such talent issues.

And while using technology to increase the efficiency of HR processes, it often falls short of tackling such problems incompletion. This is what makes the role of HR professionals and founders even more complicated.

Talent pools and hiring Access to the right talent has been a global issue for many years. The rise in techdriven job portfolios, in combination with changing demographic preferences and inequal skill distribution, has created a serious shortage of talent across the globe.

The latest of the Manpower Group study1 on talent crunch—a report being published since 2006— reported that 2018 had the bleakest findings ever. In the case of India, it was reported to be in the top 10 mostadversely impacted markets as 56 percent of employers face challenges in finding

suitable talent to fill vacant positions. Such labor markets trends are similar when it comes to startups and pose a severe challenge in their steady growth.

But hiring trends don’t limit themselves to a shortage of talent in the labor markets.

When it comes to hiring, reports show that many startups experience a relatively short time while filling senior positions, often paying hefty amounts. According to one such research2 by Trifecta Capital, a large proportion of startups are able to recruit senior talent within 6 months. The report noted that many—over 80 percent of startups interviewed in the report— preferred to recruit talent from other startups as familiarity with the work culture and clear understanding of deliverables

Compensation and managing attrition Indian startups in the last few years have witnessed the departure of key talent, and in turn, startups spending hefty amounts to attract suitable talent, often going for experience by targeting western markets.

Today, in addition to hiring the right talent, their retention is a growing concern among founders and young companies, even ones who have successfully raised funding in their early stages of working.

Although many suggest that dedicated HR functions towards hiring and managing talent are of low priority during these stages, it’s also in such that many young companies bleed their talent away.

The problem is retaining talent is also reflected in how often startups and young companies feel spending huge sums in replacing talent is more worth than spending on retention and engagement

The way forward Irrespective of tech-driven business model which often forms the core of many new age startups, pivotal shifts across the landscape haven’t been undertaken without access to quality talent supporting startups to undertake a successful journey. Driven by evolving talent consideration and changing nature of the business, startups today face their own set of problems. Talent considerations have been rapidly changing and today with the scope of AI and automation on the rise, many see further changes reshaping skillset demands within the startup ecosystem.

This problem of evolving skillset demands, when taken into consideration with the fast-paced work culture, makes it a tough job for HR professionals and recruiters to find the right talent.

In addition, while some of the larger startups in the country today have begun restructuring their company policies to create a more gender-balanced and diverse workforce, diversity still remains a major issue within the startup ecosystem, especially tech facing companies.

With the rise of mobile penetration across India and many getting connected through easier access of the internet, jobs across tech facing startups are going to increase. In addition, startups are key in ensuring India’s tech talent pool is able to work on cutting edge technologies like blockchain and AI. But even as jobs across such areas grow in the country, addressing its growing talent issues would be an important barrier to overcome.

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are important considerations to remain productive in fast-paced work culture. It also helps startups to fill specific positions with talent that possess the relevant domain experience and don’t require an extensive hand-holding period to begin working. This, in turn, has also fuelled the competition for talent within niche areas across the startup talent landscape and has resulted in rising compensation packages and hefty joining increments to promising candidates.

But these still remain short term solutions to the overall shortage of talent that startups face today. The moniker ‘Build, Buy, Borrow, and Bridge’ is often advised to leaders and employers to face the talent challenges of tomorrow. As startups and founders step into an uncertain future, a workforce that is adequately balanced in technical and soft skills will be of critical importance. Organizations need to accelerate efforts to upskill and reskill employ-

a diverse workforce, HR policies have to gear towards creating one.

strategies. A combination of such ignorance towards HR practices and a work culture that remains uncertain in its functioning during the early years, one which has traditionally seen employees ‘jump the ship’ during tough times, today has meant that retention has truly become a big problem in front of startups in India to tackle. For Startups around the world, raising funds has become easier than to retain talent. In a recent report3 by Accel Partners, a similar sentiment was highlighted and the survey went on to explain that getting people in the initial phase and asking them to stick to the company has become a herculean task to many startup leaders.

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Technology has heavily influenced how startups undertake talent decisions. However, challenges still remain. Startups face new challenges when it comes to developing, engaging, and retaining talent

ees for the new world of work so companies succeed and people have employment security for the long term. Although this might sound counterintuitive for startups that are based on the philosophy of buying talent rather than building one, it remains a highly relevant option today.

While hiring to find the right skills remains a significant challenge in front of startups, creating a diverse workforce often takes a bask step when it comes to hiring. The participation of women across key positions within the startup sector remains low. Plagued by both systemic barriers to access both skills and opportunities and often a startup culture that has traditionally remained male-dominated means that startup workplaces have a greatly skewed workforce. To benefit from

References 1 ManpowerGroup Talent Shortage Report 2018 2 Human capital in the new economy 3 Startup Pulse 2019 report JUNE 2019 |

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How much work is too much work?

What is the ‘996’ work schedule and why has it stirred a heated debate in China? Are there any other work schedule models that are gaining momentum elsewhere? Let’s find out

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By Manav Seth

China when he said that working overtime should be viewed as a “huge blessing” for young employees and those who want to achieve success must be willing to put in the extra time and effort. These remarks were in reference to the concept of ‘996’ – a practice of working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. While the idea of ‘996’ has been prevalent in the country for some time; in the past few months, a couple of leading e-commerce websites in China has officially adopted the same. According to the labor laws in China, the maximum working hours of an employee cannot exceed more than eight hours a day, or 44 hours a week, on an average.

Asian countries like China, Japan, South Korea, and India are infamous for their culture of overwork and headlines regarding employees cracking under immense work pressure are routine.

996.ICU is a response to the rising popularity of the ‘996’ culture. Set up by anonymous activists, 996.ICU is a domain that describes the dire situation wherein programmers and developers are made to work at least 60 hours a week. The ‘ICU’ is to reflect the severe health implications of such a work life and to convey that following the ‘996’ work schedule might result in employees flocking the intensive care unit (the number six rhymes with the letter ‘U’ in Mandarin, thus, making it a catchy phrase). According to the website, employees who follow the ‘996’ work schedule deserve to paid 2.275 times of their base salary, as per the law; but, employees who follow the grueling schedule hardly ever receive overtime remuneration. It is important to note that Ma isn’t the first entrepreneur to openly advocate for an intensive work week. Elon Musk tweeted in November last year, “…nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.”

The ‘996’ work schedule refers to a practice of working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week

H

ow much is too much? Managers, leaders, experts, and employees in China were forced to ask themselves how many hours an employee should ideally work every week when a wellknown entrepreneur suggested that the road to success is paved with excessive overtime at the office. Let’s take a look at the recent events, the controversial ‘996’ work schedule and the simultaneous rise of a diametrically-opposite alternative, the four-day work week.

What are 996 and 996.ICU? A few weeks back, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, added fuel to an already divisive debate in 22

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On the other side of the world The UK, New Zealand, and several European nations are also grappling with the challenge of defining their work week, albeit, the problem is of a different kind. There is an increasing demand to stipulate a four-day work week and slowly, but surely, the seemingly impossible concept is gaining mainstream acceptance. This demand is also supported by a growing body of research that suggests that working more number of hours isn’t necessarily equal to working better and that working a lesser number of hours is beneficial for productivity, engagement and the bottom-line.

Most importantly, employers all over the world are listening carefully and taking notes.

Last year, for instance, Perpetual Guardian, a financial services firm in New Zealand, piloted the

As per a global survey by Kronos Incorporated conducted in 2018, India had one of the hardest working workforces wherein 69 percent of the Indian respondents stated that they would prefer

working five days per week, even if they had the option to work fewer days at the same pay. The survey also revealed that nearly 44 percent of the respondents clocked more than 40 hours each week – the second highest.

It is no secret that the Indian workforce works exceptionally hard and the country’s IT industry, which employs over 10 million people, is not known for offering its employees a work-life balance. However, as Indian employers realize the importance of helping their employees maintain a healthy work-life balance, they are at least beginning to embrace the five-day work week wholeheartedly. Megha Sharma, Senior HR Manager at FabHotels, says, “A six-day work week hardly leaves any time to rejuvenate as Sundays are often cramped with running personal errands or attending social events. That means when employees turn up to work on a Monday morning, they haven’t really had a chance to refresh themselves.” FabHotels has made Saturdays off for all non-essential personnel from this financial year onward.

So, to answer the question, are we ready for a four-day work week in India just yet? To put it bluntly, no, we are not.

As we step into the future of work and prepare ourselves for the modern workplace, it is crucial that we hold these conversations and involve as many diverse stakeholders as possible.

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Are we ready for a four-day work week in India?

About 69 percent of the Indian respondents in a survey stated that they would prefer working five days per week, even if they had the option to work fewer days at the same pay

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four-day work week. A subsequent study of nearly 250 employees across 16 offices found that when working 32 hours per week, the employees were 20 percent more productive, seven percent lesser stressed, had their work-life balance improve by 24 percent and the overall team engagement levels also went up by 20 percent. The company then adopted this model permanently, wherein employees have to come to work for four days and have the option to come in the fifth day if needed.

While these might sound like isolated cases, the fact of the matter is that the concept of the fourday work week has gained a strong foothold in the discourse of the future of work. A few months ago, the Japanese government piloted a program that allowed employees to take first Monday morning of the month off, in a bid to help them improve their abysmal work-life balance. This is in addition to the already-existing program wherein employees are encouraged to take Fridays off. However, the adoption of the program by companies has been rather dismal owing to Japan’s powerfully prevalent culture of overwork. Even experts at the 2019 World Economic Forum made a compelling case for a four-day work week. UK’s Trades Union Congress, a coalition of some of the largest employee unions in the country, has been at the forefront of this debate as it presented a report last year calling for a universal four-day work week and strongly condemned employers who expect their employees to be available 24X7. The report argued that employees must also benefit from the advancement in technology by working lesser, as has been the norm in previous industrial revolutions.

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CEOs want HR to be the change agents: Peck Kem

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In an exclusive interaction, Low Peck Kem, the Government CHRO and Senior Director (Workforce Development) for the Public Service Division (PSD), Prime Minister’s Office of Singapore shares insights on her contribution in uplifting the capability of HR in the country, making the nation the center of excellence for human capital management and developing leadership in Asia

By Ester Martinez

L

ow Peck Kem is Chief Human Resource Officer and Senior Director (Workforce Development) for the Public Service Division (PSD), Prime Minister’s Office of Singapore. She is responsible for professionalizing HR in the public sector of 16 Ministries and more than 60 Statutory Boards. Low is also the elected President of the Singapore Human Resources Institute SHRI. Prior to her current appointment at the PSD, she was the Senior Director for Human Resources (HR) and Organizational Development (OD) for a not-forprofit organization, The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) based in Geneva, where she was responsible for HR, OD, Legal, Internal Audit and Corporate Administration for 15 global offices.

Low has a unique combination of experience from a quality engineer to manufacturing manager to Vice President of HR in the private sector (Tandon, Western Digi-

tal, Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies & Avago Technologies), and as a Divisional Director of National HR Division in the Singapore Ministry of Manpower, prior to her current appointment. This combination has widened her perspective in private, public and NGO sectors, and the ability to view leadership from an Asian and European perspective.

In an exclusive interaction, Low shares her insights on her contribution in uplifting the capability of HR in Singapore, making Singapore the center of excellence for human capital management and developing leadership in Asia.

How did you land in HR and what brought you to Public Service Division?

What was the mandate when you joined and what was the exciting part of your career?

Though trained as an electrical and electronics engineer, I have always been fascinated with the science of human

behaviour. Being intrigued by the behavioural aspects of people, I eventually moved from the hard core science of engineering to the art of people management in Hewlett Packard.

I joined the Ministry of Manpower in 2007. The mandate I got was to uplift the capability of HR in Singapore, with the vision of making Singapore the hub of excellence for human capital management and leadership development in Asia. I joined the Public Service Division in 2014 after returning from Geneva. My mandate then was to provide professional HR leadership to the public sector HR and build a trusted HR community with public officers at the center.

Can you explain how are you uplifting the capability of human capital at the national level?

For the Ministry of Manpower, it was about human capital management at the national level. At PSD, it is human capital management for the whole of government. The Singapore Public Service is the largest employer in Singapore with over 145,000 employees. As the Chief HR Officer, I provide HR leadership to the 3000 HR professionals within public service.

As Senior Director for Workforce Development in PSD, I lead a team in developing the public sector workforce to be ready for the future.

With Singapore’s vision to be a smart nation, The Singapore Public Service

With Singapore’s vision to be a smart nation, The Singapore Public Service aims to be a smart government, serving as One Trusted Public Service with Citizens at the Center. In support of Singapore’s vision, Public Sector HR aims to take a lead in technology enabled, progressive people practices. In order to achieve that vision, we first had to uplift the capabilities of the HR community and provide them with platforms and skills to be tech-savvy to adopt progressive HR policies in their respective agencies 24

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Personnel Development (CIPD), Results Based Leadership (RBL) and IHRP. We require HR professionals to go through the IHRP certification and CIPD Group Experience Assessment to benchmark ourselves at a national and global level. In many of the public service milestone programs, we invite private sector business and HR leaders to share their expertise and experiences. We launched a Talent Attachment Program to second public sector talents to private sector companies to expose them to innovative business practices and better understand the business operating environment. It is about not operating in our own cocoon, but to open our eyes to the wider world beyond public service.

How complex was it to build an outside-in perspective?

When I was brought in from the private sector to join the public service as a midcareer hire, one of the key values I brought in was the outside-in perspective. The public service appreciates the need to

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aims to be a smart government, serving as One Trusted Public Service with Citizens at the Center. In support of Singapore’s vision, Public Sector HR aims to take a lead in technology-enabled, progressive people practices. In order to achieve that vision, we first had to uplift the capabilities of the HR community and provide them with platforms and skills to be techsavvy to adopt progressive HR policies in their respective agencies. We rolled out milestone HR programs in HR Foundation Program, HR Managers Program, and the apex HR Leadership Program, which are aligned to the national HR standards set

by IHRP. To be future ready, there are new skills and competencies needed to progress in one’s career and to remain relevant in the future. We developed competency roadmaps in partnership with our statutory board the Civil Service College, which runs most of the public sector milestone programs. We also work closely with organizations like Chartered Institute of

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If you look back at your career, how much has the role of HR really changed and where do you think the opportunity for HR professionals lies?

In terms of employee engagement, leaders’ expectations of HR are not only to engage with the employees, but to be able to engage with the customers or citizens whom we serve. HR also needs to equip leaders with the skills and abilities to be able to engage with employees and customers 26

leverage on the strength of a diverse workforce. HR’s role is to create an environment and culture which encourages and is open to different views and opinions.

When an organization has a culture of being open to diverse views, being willing to learn and seeing the value of diversity, then it is not difficult for a mid-careerist to bring in the outside in perspective.

The challenge is not to be too fixated on your past experience and think that your outside-in perspective is the only right way to go. We have to be mindful to make sure that we share the context of the perspective, whether it is applicable and implementable in the public sector. Though I have worked in different private sector companies, I continuously learn from other great organizations apart from HP, Agilent and GAIN. It is so important to always keep an open mind. Every time I meet someone or attend some conference, I would think about “What can I learn and how might we bring that back to the organization and adapt it to create value for my organization?” Once people can see how you are bringing value to your organization, they will be a lot more open to welcome new ideas and opinions.

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HR has definitely evolved over the years! The only resource in any organization that appreciates in value and contribution is our workforce. Hence, the competitive advantage for any organization is how they might best leverage on the full potential of their workforce.

In the past, HR’s role evolved around governance, administration of rewards, payroll, employee champion and legislative compliance. Traditional HR roles were payroll, recruitment, and employee relations. HR used to be assessed on the ability to hire in the talent required at the right time and right price. Being the employee champion, HR had to be seen as being able to fight for better benefits for employees and the ability to pay people on time.

Employee engagement levels and attrition used to be HR’s KPIs. Strategic HR was a small aspect of HR’s work as we were too busy with the day to day operations.

In today’s context, with technology enablers, progressive HR departments would automate, outsource, use shared services and shift work from administrative to strategic. Technology enablers like Robotic Process Automation (RPA), cloud-

Now is the Golden Era for HR in Singapore as we have identified HR as one of the 23 Industry Transformation Sectors in support of the Smart Nation agenda through SkillsFuture

Based on your approach to continuous learning, what are some of the best practices you have observed? Is there something that you have experimented on and which has worked for the public service?

In the public sector, we invest in the continuous development of our officers.

We have a broad guideline of about 100 training hours a year for every officer, of which a certain percentage is catered for digital learning. As such, it is not difficult to get people to attend courses and clock the hours, and hopefully learn. The challenge has always been about learning effectiveness, and its application back at work.

In today’s VUCA environment where jobs are evolving and new skills are needed, we have to develop a continuous learning mindset in our officers. As we tell officers to upskill and be ready for the future, the challenge is to predict what the future jobs will be and what are the future skills required.

The best predictor of future skills required would be through a strategic workforce plan. When HR directors work with the senior management team to come up with strategic plans for the next three to five years, you would have a view of not just the number of people you need but also the type of skills and competencies

needed in the future. And once you have a way of measuring where you are in terms of skill levels, you will know the skills that you need and you will have the ability to know where the gaps are. We have set up a platform to equip you so that you can really work towards the future.

As an example, we developed a HR Competency Framework which has 14 functional competencies with four levels of expertise for each competency. Apart from using this for developmental purposes in identifying skills gap and interventions to close the gap, we adopted a Competency based HR Management system. What it means is that we will use competencies as a common currency for appointments, recruitment, promotions, development and recognition. We have a recruitment website Careers@Gov where public sector vacancies are posted, indicating competencies required to perform the jobs apart from academic qualifications. We receive an average of a hundred applicants for every job and through the use of technology to aid application, screening and video interviewing; candidates are given same opportunity to be selected based on competencies. Interviewees can record their interview responses using their mobile devices and then send us their responses.

This helps our interviewers be impartial in the selection and appointment process. We also adopt a competency based concept in our succession planning and career development forum where we look at potential jobs, potential candidates using the competencies framework.

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upgrading the HR Profession to support businesses and the Singapore economy.

HR Professionals have the support and avenues to upskill and use technological advancements to provide added value to their businesses.

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based solutions, smart outsourcing and automation helps HR departments be more effective. What the CEOs want from HR is to become a change agent and a strategic partner. They want HR to be able to understand the business and the challenges they face well enough not only in the short-term but also in the long-term. They then need to translate those into people challenges and work towards preparing the workforce to be ready for the future. So the ability of HR is to do strategic planning, to know how to engage with the senior management team, the strategic planners, organization development and the finance team and to develop the business and workforce strategy.

In terms of employee engagement, leaders’ expectations of HR are not only to engage with the employees, but to be able to engage with the customers or citizens whom we serve. HR also needs to equip leaders with the skills and abilities to be able to engage with employees and customers. Employees today want to join companies that are value based and do meaningful work. Customers today want to deal with companies which have strong values and principles. The way to project those values to our customers is through our workforce and our engagement with our customers.

Now is the Golden Era for HR in Singapore as we have identified HR as one of the 23 Industry Transformation Sectors in support of the Smart Nation agenda through SkillsFuture , contributing to business competitiveness and economic transformation in Singapore. Along with SkillsFuture, a national movement to encourage skills upgrading and mastery, the government, union and employers have come together in a tripartite partnership to invest in

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Richard Smith, Ph.D.

Building trust for a positive employee experience How do we create the right environment of trust at workplace and avoid surprises?

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hen the boss says, “Can you stop by my office? I have some feedback for you,” our natural reaction is generally less than that of excitement. As employees, we may shutter when receiving feedback or performance ratings – and in some cases, we may even prepare for a tough negotiation. Yet when we are asked about this process, we logically expect and welcome ideas for doing better. So how do we create a system that allows for open feedback, sharing, and discussion related to performance? The answer seems to center around the concept of trust.

As I travel around the region, I often hear executives talking about improving organizational culture and building more trust in management.

With organizations growing in size and complexity, it is not surprising that the distance between employees and senior level management seems to be growing. Finding ways to make sure that messages are consistent and trust in leadership can be an ongoing challenge. In addition, many organizations want to foster trust to create more powerful relationships and engagement in the workforce. Research tells us that trust is linked to

team performance1 and that creating a culture of trust can create powerful outcomes.2 The Great Place to Work™ Institute has been measuring trust inside organizations for more than 20 years and produces rankings of companies in many countries. They measure areas related to credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie to provide insight into over 10,000 organizations around the world. I have had the opportunity to work with GPTW on a joint research project across eight countries in Asia and we find a strong linkage between psychological safety and teamwork in those companies that are highly ranked as best workplaces.3 As it turns out, the best workplaces rank higher on factors such as behavioral integrity, organizational support, and relationship networks – all critical factors related to managing performance and addressing performance feedback.

Acting with integrity, providing employee support, and creating strong relationships may seem rather fundamental to experienced managers, yet the data tells us that getting these factors right can be a challenge as we strive to create an environment of trust. In fact, when we don’t get these factors aligned, we are more likely to have surprises in some way with the performance management process. Creating a psychologically safe workplace built on trust can help us avoid surprises.

While the element of surprise may be fun at a party, surprise is never a good situation when it comes to performance discussions. Of course, most bosses don’t intend to create surprises when sharing performance feedback, it just seems to happen

The element of surprise may be fun at a party; however, surprise is never a good situation when it comes to performance discussions 28

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sometimes. In fact, most surprises are simply a matter of divergence of opinions and perceptions over a period of time that create an element of surprise when two people sit down to discuss performance. So how do we create the right environment of trust that helps us to avoid surprises?

Here are six steps that may help.

Cascading performance goals and measures When an overall goal is shared by a variety of people and is shared in some form at multiple levels, the progress toward that goal can be made much clearer in the organization. While this may not be possible with all goals, having shared and cascading goals can create strong alignment and provide an opportunity to share overall status on a frequent basis. Of course, it is important to always create goals that are SMART.

Performance as a mutual commitment and promise

Discussing consequences at the start

Taking a team approach

Allowing for self-evaluation

References

Setting regular intervals for expectation alignment

One of the often missing pieces in the performance process is the process for objective reflection and evaluation. When individuals are forced to reflect on their own performance and rate their own performance against targets (or even against their peers), many people will take a conservative view – and may even under-value their own contributions.

Creating a self-evaluation step in the performance process can serve as a healthy check and calibration.

C o l u m n

The old idea of setting annual goals and then meeting at the end of the year to evaluate the progress of those goals is a process that has mostly vanished from progressive organizations today.

Very few businesses operate with such predictability. Instead, we are often setting goals, measuring progress, and discussing feedback in short intervals. This not only prevents surprises but also helps to refresh and re-align to the needs of the business.

While performance management is considered to be focused on the individual employee with individual impact, the actual work processes typically involve a team effort. Making performance management more of a team orientation can help a positive and transparent process of considering results, supports, and improvement areas.

Regardless of the type of organization or location, the need for a fair performance process is important for employee engagement and motivation. Creating an environment of trust may not be easy, but we can rethink the performance management process in a way that perhaps allows us to avoid surprises. By avoiding surprises, we demonstrate integrity, build stronger relationships, and are in a better position to show organizational support for our employees. Perhaps next time the boss says, “Can you stop by my office?” We are able to respond with enthusiasm as we jointly calibrate our expectations on our mutual promise for success!

Agreeing on the consequences of either high or low performance during the goal-setting period can help avoid surprises at the end of the process. This requires strong discipline and may prove difficult in a dynamic context when priorities are shifting.

However, this is also something that can be done at frequent intervals as well to help remind and calibrate throughout the performance cycle.

E x p e r t

By casting the discussion between a manager and employee as a mutual commitment to success, we shift the discussion from “What you will accomplish” to “What we will accomplish together.” For each of the goals and areas of responsibility, it is important to have clarity on what will be accomplished, why this is critical for the boss, and what the boss will do to support the employee.

We can rethink the performance management process in a way that perhaps allows us to avoid surprises.

By avoiding surprises, we demonstrate integrity, build stronger relationships, and are in a better position to show organizational support for our employees

1. De Jong, B. A., Dirks, K. T., & Gillespie, N. (2016). Trust and team performance: A meta-analysis of main effects, moderators, and covariates. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(8), 1134.

2. Schoorman, F. D., Mayer, R. C., & Davis, J. H. (2007). An integrative model of organizational trust: Past, present, and future.

3. Smith, R.R. & Tan, V. (2018). The making of successful teams: A study on psychological safety and great workplaces in Asia Pacific. GPTW Research Report https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5931/.

About the author

Richard R. Smith, Ph.D. is a Professor at Singapore Management University where he also serves as Deputy Dean for the Lee Kong Chian School of Business.

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Subramanian Kalpathi

Data driven leadership New imperative for the digital era The data-driven transformation of major corporations ranging from FMCG to airlines is already underway. How much of your decision-making process today is influenced by real-time data?

E x p e r t

C o l u m n

With the advent of IoT, 5G, and other technological advancements, it is increasingly becoming important for leaders to not just become comfortable with data but also proactively seek out new sources of information

I

n the first week of September 2018, electric vehicle major Tesla was rocked by a series of unusual and bizarre events that culminated in a not-so-happy ending for the pioneering carmaker. First, a couple of C-suite executives announced their resignations. Second, a video surfaced online showing CEO Elon Musk smoking marijuana while recording a podcast. The result?

Tesla’s stock took a massive beating and plunged over 11 percent within the span of a single week.

However, less than two months later, an incident that was much less peculiar and significantly more positive for Tesla went largely unnoticed on popular media. The company had turned its first profit in two years, riding on the Model 3’s popularity. Tesla had made $311 million, more than any in other quarter in the company’s history. In reaction to this news, Tesla’s stock soared over nine percent on a single day. The genesis of this second event had been triggered by an announcement by Elon Musk back in April 2018. Musk had vowed to manufacture Model 3 cars round the clock to meet the company's production target.

When this proclamation was made in April last year, the engineers at alternative data company

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Thasos began to watch. According to Thasos, “They circled Tesla’s 370 acres in Fremont, California, on an online map, creating a digital corral to isolate smartphone location signals that emanated from within it. Thasos, which leases databases of trillions of geographic coordinates collected by smartphone apps, set its computers to find the pings created at Tesla’s factory, then shared the data with its hedge-fund clients, showing the overnight shift swelled 30 percent from June to October.”

In other words, data company Thasos utilized a completely new model (generating data from smartphone location tags) to demonstrate that Tesla was adding more firepower into its workforce with the intent to meet its promised production targets. After scrubbing the data to eliminate personal information, Thasos shared it with hedge funds, helping them in their decision-making process. The jury may be out on whether such alternative data is ultimately beneficial to traders in predicting stock swings, and concerns over privacy violations obviously remain. While regulations will likely catch up, the truth is that we live in a data-rich world, and such experiments will become commonplace sooner than later. The real question is, as a leader, how much of your

decision-making process today is influenced by real-time data?

Being comfortable with data

• Lever two: (Re)framing the problem Unilever has partnered with Microsoft to enable AI-assisted decision making for its various business functions. Jane Moran, the CIO of Unilever often checks with her team, “Why are we doing this?... At Unilever, our BI systems have primarily over the years focused very well on looking back in history. And how we have the enormous opportunity to predict the future.” In doing so, Moran is driving efficiency by asking the right questions and reframing the problem. The emergent solu-

C o l u m n

• Lever one: Developing an insights-driven mindset In her excellent book Powerful, ex-Netflix executive Patty McCord points out that while the decision to develop the blockbuster House of Cards series was in part informed by data about the show’s star being popular with Netflix’s viewers, it was also about David Fincher developing it. The head of content at Netflix stresses that “insights from data analysis complement his team’s decision making but certainly, don’t dictate it.” Put differently, an insights-driven mindset is all about developing a unique point of view by connecting the dots of data, personal experience, intuition, etc., and using each one of those to arrive at an informed decision.

E x p e r t

A few years ago, IBM released a report pointing out that over 90 percent of the data in existence has been created in the last two years alone. With the advent of IoT, 5G and other technological advancements, the growth in data will no doubt accelerate in the future. Given this reality, it is increasingly becoming important for leaders to not just become comfortable with data but also proactively seek out new sources of information, such as the one provided by Thasos.

At KNOLSKAPE, we have identified three crucial levers that can help leaders make sense of the data-driven age.

As the world around us undergoes a datadriven transformation, how will you, as a leader adapt and respond? tions for Unilever will no doubt be implemented in partnership with AI. • Lever three: Storytelling As leaders begin to get comfortable with data, it is essential for them to communicate complex situations in a simplified manner so that others within and outside their organization can comprehend, respond and contribute to the many ongoing changes. Storytelling as a tool allows leaders to do precisely this – analyze, synthesize and communicate data-driven decisions effectively to those around them.

Like Unilever, Malaysian airline Air Asia has partnered with Google to integrate Google Cloud’s machine learning and AI into every aspect of its business. In doing so, group Chief Executive Tan Sri Tony Fernandes has begun the transformation of Air Asia into a travel technology company.

The data-driven transformation of major corporations ranging from FMCG to airlines is already underway. As the world around us reshapes itself into this new reality, how will you, as a leader adapt and respond?

About the author

Subramanian Kalpathi is the Senior Director at KNOLSKAPE, a learning, and assessment platform. He is the author of The Millennials: Exploring the world of the largest living generation.

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The journey of becoming an agile workplace: SIAM Commercial Bank In t e r v i e w

In an exclusive interaction with People Matters, Worawat Suvagondha, Dean of SCB Academy, Siam Commercial Bank talks about the journey of the Bank into becoming an agile workplace, what it means to them and their workforce, the importance of being future ready and how the Academy is playing a pivotal role in leading the bank to its next level of transformation

By Yasmin Taj

S

iam Commercial Bank (SCB) was established by royal charter on January 30, 1907, as the first Thai bank. During its more than 110 years in business, the Bank has played a leading role in providing the financial services needed in Thailand, developing deep expertise.

Today, SCB is a leading universal bank, offering deposits, and lending and a wide range of other products and services, to meet the needs of all customers. Their retail services include home loans, personal credit, car hire purchase, credit cards, ATM cards, debit cards, currency exchange facilities and, overseas remittances as well as investment and insurance products.

The bank recently launched the SCB Learning Academy with a vision to create a more educated, engaged, adaptive and innovative workforce.

By taking a multi-disciplinary, human-centered approach to environmental design, they developed an integrated employee experience solution that considers user needs, expresses the brand and aligns with strategic business outcomes.

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In an exclusive interaction with People Matters, Worawat Suvagondha, Dean of SCB Academy, Siam Commercial Bank, talks about how the focus of the organization has been on moving towards an agile way of working, being future ready, becoming more innovative and having a customer-centric approach and how the SCB Learning Academy is playing a crucial part in that.

You have such extensive experience in the field of HR. Please take us through the shift from HR to learning and how the entire journey happened?

I was doing investment banking for twenty years before switching to human resources. I came to lead the human resources in SCB, and then when we started the digital transformation of the bank three years ago. There was also this crucial need to reskill or upskill our people. So, we decided to set up the SCB Learning Academy two and a half years ago. During the first few years, we spent a lot of time in reskilling our people so that they can be mobilized within the bank. Then, in

the second phase, we focused on the digital literacy of our people, because the bank believes that we need to be technology-oriented. Then moving to the third year, we moved our focus to the new way of working. In the first few years of transformation, we invested a lot of capital in technology, data, and infrastructure in creating a new model. But unless we really change our people’s mindset and behavior, it’s not going to be successful. So that’s why this year, we began talking about moving the organization toward an agile way of working and design our thinking to be more customer-centric. According to our CEO, among the things to achieve, the first one is innovation, second one is customer-centricity and the third one is the risk culture in SCB. And agile transformation is one of the approaches to lead us to achieve those goals by changing the mindset and the way we work together in the bank.

What do you mean by the agile way of working?

How big a challenge was change management for you?

It was very challenging indeed. At one point, when the CEO announced this, there were mix sentiments across the organization. On one side

According to our CEO, among the things to achieve, the first one is innovation, second one is customer-centricity and the third one is the risk culture in SCB

In t e r v i e w

Basically, the first wave of agile is going to be a cross-functional team with one objective but they come from different departments. For example, the credit cards. In the past when you wanted to issue new credit card, the credit card unit which is responsible for a product needed to work with departments like technology, data, marketing and to measure if they can issue credit cards to the customers. Now we are going to house all of them under the same team. So, we recruit people from various units, put them in what we call the ‘credit card tribe’, and make sure they can work with everything, deliver that objective without the silo mentality or obstacles that we used to have.

Also, we are going to create transparency about who is what. Within the tribes, there are twenty to fifty people, so everyone has to know who is doing what. That’s going to be a tribe data and within the squad there will be eight to ten members that are the product owners. That person is obviously not the boss but he or she is responsible for getting the requirements from the customers, whether it is internal customers or our real customers and oversee what we deliver for that squad. The added people who come from areas of expertise like data, marketing, digital banking make sure that they deliver the same objective for that squad. This first wave of new structure is going to be suitable for the product and innovation areas but not really for operations. So, we move in phases. In the second phase, it could be operations, and support functions like HR and finance. We are not going to use the same structure but a different structure which might not be cross-functional in certain areas but with the same vision to achieve speed, transparency, and feedback. So, it’s going to be different across the organization but the first wave will have an impact on the customers.

realized that unless we significantly change our way of working within the organization, we will not deliver the results that we expect. It could be an incremental improvement but in this current situation, we have to lead from the front. With that in mind, the top management team traveled overseas, trying to see what other organizations or banks have done in trying to change the way they worked.

They came across large banks organizations like ING who have really transformed into agile organizations. So, we then decided to seek the help of BCG since they were the ones who helped ING transform. In order to move the organization into agile, we needed to start from the strategy and then moving on to the organization structure including even the budget or finance. We used to do annual or half-year reviews, but now with the agile way, we need to do quarterly business reviews. And then we have to make changes in the HR system, leadership, talent management, performance management, compensation, culture, and even in the way we work. The academy also played a role in educating and empowering employees to learn the new ways of work. We also needed to have an agile coach and the technology had to change too.

Since you are talking about the agile system, where did the thought come from and what led to this?

I think we started our transformation almost two years ago. It was when the top management

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ity - to equip them with the right skills and knowledge, and then let them work and learn longer.

That’s why we have the agile coaches and trainings to help them. The first process was the reskilling, especially in operations and services. In the second phase, it was digital literacy which is technology and data and the new way of working.

In t e r v i e w

Could you please elaborate on the new way of working?

We started our transformation almost two years ago when the top management realized the need to change the way of working within the organization by going agile and delivering the results that we expected people were excited, wanted to learn more about agile and understand what the implications will be, while on the other side, people were concerned when asked to move into other teams and being taken out of their comfort zones. So, we needed to create a lot of excitement. People were feeling enthusiastic and at the same time, we had to address all the concerns that people had emotionally. That’s why we still have chapters (which means their original departments). So, while people belonging to a certain tribe have to work toward the objective of that particular tribe, at the same time, they have to report back to the chapter leaders who take care of their career and skill development. On the output, they are with the tribe, but on their development and performance, the chapter would be responsible.

What role will culture play when the whole organization undergoes changes?

This whole thing is the cultural transformation of the bank using different tools or the system and structure that help to make changes. The performance management and communication will also help because we believe that the change will happen only if you communicate and change the HR system, and then the people will feel impacted by the change. You have the responsibility to train or educate them. If they want to change, they would ask how they can change and what skills they should acquire. This is the basic responsibil-

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I think we need to start by asking ourselves because to make significant changes, we need to start changing ourselves first. We used to be the department where learning was forced on employees and it was like a burden on top of their job responsibilities. So, at first, we need to transform the mindset of our people; how can we make people become more motivated and engaged with learning in a way that they always want to come back to us for continued learning instead of we having to go to them. So, we have to change a lot of what we do. First, we need to change the learning approach.

In the first year when we did reskilling, the first program that we launched was pretty much an e-learning traditional one. I think we tried to be creative by using a lot of animation, but it was the same training! When we launched the second and third programs, we focused on entertainment, creating movies or sports series and embedding learning into that. But that was just the beginning. So, in the second phase, we talked about the need to integrate the platform be it on mobile or a digital learning platform. We wanted to attract them to the platform and make sure they come back very often for more learning. I think we are still far from where we want to be. We are making progress, trying to make it more exciting for our people by enabling them to decide and design their learning path.

How did the senior management come into the picture of learning and adopt the continuous learning mindset?

When we started the agile way of working, we wanted to make sure that the top 100 seniors be educated first about the concept. They needed to be the first group of people who should understand why the organization needs to move to agile and what implications it would have. So, we put them through a fundamental training. The agile coach of these top leaders was regularly updating them and the rest of the organization with the progress.

Then as part of the concept of agile within the tribe and the squad, people were meant to have certain qualifications. First, they needed to understand the agile way of working, the process or approach of how to work in an agile way and what kind of tools can be used to do so. At the same time, they also needed to be good coaches to listen to all the squad members, to empathize with them, be able to coach them and facilitate the change each time. So we needed to develop the internal agile coaching in the organizational context. We could also recruit people from outside to help with the expertise, but we still needed internal agile coaching to understand the organization well.

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Farzana Suri

How to fall in love with your job, once more?

You feel listless and disengaged, after years of being in a love relationship with your job or organization. So, how do you bring back the mojo and reset to the time when you were most excited with your job?

A

C l i c k e d

job is like any other relationship in your life. You invest a huge amount of time and emotions, even if you state, that it is just to pay the EMIs. Like all relationships, you go through the cycle of fun and excitement and then, the phase of stagnation and boredom wherein the buzz seems to peter out.

Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report 2017 shows that only 13 percent of Indians, whether employed in the organized sector or otherwise, are actively engaged at work; meaning they are enthusiastic about and committed to their job and workplace. Compare this with the percentage of "engaged" workers in the U.S. which is at 34 percent--which is far from heartening.

This paints a stark picture of tens of millions out there, who are either in the falling or fallen out of love phase, doesn’t it?

Some of you may think, you should move to explore bigger and better opportunities. Some,

inadvertently get into the BMW (Bitching, Moaning, Whining) zone and continue to surround themselves in a self-fulfilling prophecy of gloom.

You feel listless and disengaged, after years of being in a love relationship with your job or organization. So, how do you bring back the mojo and reset to the time when you were most excited with your job?

Here are six tips Make an appreciation list Make a list of all that you still love about your job and the organization, as on today and right now.

Be as exhaustive as you can and put it all down on paper. That’s a must. Circle the ‘absolutely must have’ and underline the ‘good to have’. Now, compare the two and evaluate the situation.

For a person who has an ailing family member, proximity may trump a promotion. Or a person who has children, the need for additional benefits may be a high priority. This will set the needle on whether you are really, unhappy with the job or the organization or comparisons between ‘others’ have taken a toll on you.

Over time, as employees, you become complacent and make the mistake of getting stuck in the day-to-day chores.

You forget what drives you to get out of bed, each morning. You forget your true purpose and join the rat race to stay ahead for the sake of being ahead 36

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Make a list of frustrations List down everything that makes you feel frustrated and unhappy about your job or organization.

Recognize, what is really upsetting you. Separate the ones that are in your control and can be changed from those that are beyond repair. This helps in the clarity of the actual issue that is irking you. Assess the situation, it may not be all that bad.

Ask yourself, "What else is possible, here?"

If you are reading more into the situation than it is, then you may need to recalibrate the way you perform. If the values differ, then perhaps, it’s time to reboot and move.

Focus on “why” you are here

Make small changes Whether you realize it or not, we all like to be challenged because we thrive on growth by design.

However, every job comes with its own degree of boring and uninspiring tasks. Ask yourself, what are you doing to learn new things and take on new challenges?

Finding new opportunities requires proactive efforts. Look for ways in which you can make it better for yourself. It begins with getting outside of your comfort zone. Perhaps, rearranging your desk or space, mixing with a different set of people, re-evaluating your interactions at work, upgrading your skill. Having an outlet outside of work can kindle the spark of positivity and self-motivation in the job. Make a commitment to your hobby, maybe. If you love painting or acting, then spend time pursuing it and do a side hustle. It’ll rekindle the spark absent in your job, right now.

Speak up and brainstorm with your manager Our genetic disposition to want to evolve and grow requires an environment that is challenging and not always too comfortable. When was the last time, you reached out to the management, to examine your career graph and the opportunities in the organization? Have you communicated your ability to do more or be more with them? Or discussed your colossal workload that killed the joy of loving your job. Just because you've settled down, doesn't mean you have to settle. Get out there and

Sometimes, it takes an interview to re-discover the worth of your role and job. Traverse the journey from day one to where you are now. Assess your job function and role and figure out what is it you want from a job in the next three or five years. Rework your resume and get out there

C l i c k e d

Over time, as employees, you become complacent and make the mistake of getting stuck in the dayto-day chores. You forget what drives you to get out of bed, each morning. You forget your true purpose and join the rat race to stay ahead for the sake of being ahead. Your boredom or restlessness requires something meaningful, that which made you choose to be here. Pause. Reflect on your ‘why’ and reconnect with your purpose. See if you can match your purpose to your work and contribute, to make a significant difference.

For instance, if you are in the entertainment business, reframe your idea of work. See it as adding hope and laughter in the lives of thousands of people who are fighting battles of their own. Your work will seem bigger than what it is. You’ll see it as impacting lives, each day.

be heard. Sometimes, all you need is someone to lend you an ear.

Reassess your job/market value Sometimes, it takes an interview to re-discover the worth of your role and job. Traverse the journey from day one to where you are now. Assess your job function and role and figure out what is it you want from a job in the next three or five years.

Rework your resume and get out there. An interview will help you in taking the decision - of being in gratitude for what you already have or decide that it’s time to forge a new path.

Yes, relationships over time can get weary and stale and all they need to reignite the spark is the fire that inspires. It does not need to be a separation or divorce. While looking for a new job is the logical solution however, it may not always, be the right answer.

Because there is no “perfect” job. Ideal culture, handsome pay, easy hours, work-life balance and stimulating work may not always add up for every organization. Learn to accept the things you cannot change. Re-evaluate and work on the things you can.

At the end of the day, all that matters is how you feel and what you perceive as your contribution and the impact you leave behind.

About the author

Farzana Suri is a victory coach, numerologist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, motivational speaker, trainer and a die-hard optimist with an unstoppable mission to inspire and empower people.

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Pavan Soni

Fixing corporate learning programs We look at the anatomy of corporate learning while highlighting the reason why most training programs fall short of their promise and how to bridge the gap

I corporate learning

am sure you must have been through a training program, on the job or in anticipation of one. Regardless of your experience ‘during’ the program or the workshop, the question remains as to how much of the learning did you apply? Most numbers hover around 10 to 30 percent. And yet, year in and year out, organizations keep peddling on their learning programs, on an ever greater canvas and costlier settings. If the information doesn’t get translated into knowledge and then eventually into ‘ways of doing things’ aren’t we wasting people’s time and organizational resources? Perhaps, most trainers and managers alike know no better way.

Here, we look at the anatomy of corporate learning while highlighting the reason why most training programs fall short of their promise and how to bridge the gap.

The anatomy of a corporate learning program Think of learning as a confluence of three components – skillsets, toolsets, and mindset.

Figure 1: The anatomy of corporate learning

Skillsets

Toolsets

Mindset

Learning, especially for an adult and in a work context, happens only when the toolsets, skillsets and the mindset come together. Toolsets are the essential frameworks, models, methods, and scientific takeaways from the session that help solve a problem or achieve the desired results; the skills form the deftness of using those tools in the appropriate context; and finally, the mindset is the very overarching and guiding temperament which is less of a science than art.

To sight an instance, if we talk about Design Thinking, the tools would include empathy maps, customer journey maps, pain-gain analysis, et al., the skills would be about deep listening, mind mapping, insight gathering, interviewing, etc.; and mindset would involve holistic thinking,

A large number of corporate programs, across levels and topics, are designed very narrowly around tools and skills and relatively less on influencing the mindset 38

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Adults learn through reflection and continuous coaching.

That’s why successful leaders spend a lot of time coaching their direct reports and getting coached themselves by external experts

The seed of failure is in design A large number of corporate programs, across levels and topics, are designed very narrowly around tools and skills and relatively less on influencing the mindset. The closest attempt to really nudge the ways of thinking is through case studies, stories, anecdotes, and a few management games. The challenge with such interventions is that these are exciting but not lasting. Participants often find it difficult to translate the information or even insights shared in such exercises to the work at hand. As a result, cynicism gets more pervasive and so does the learning hysteria. In every successive session, the trainer or the coach has to put greater energy to convince the audience of the relevance and utility of the program. It’s a spiral ending with the host organization looking for another coach, without questioning the very design of the program.

Think of designing a corporate intervention across three stages – 1) pre-engagement; 2) engagement; and 3) post-engagement.

Figure 2: Holistic learning program design

Pre-engagement

Engagement

Engagement

As you might have experienced, as a trainer or a trainee, a disproportionate attention goes into the actual engagement, where the trainer/ coach is engaging with the participants. However, level excellent work is done during the program, unless the pre-work and post-work support the intervention, the overall impact remains dismal. Since, most trainers are oblivious of, or are kept in dark of, the pre and post engagement, their ability to influence the uptake remains limited. The learning and development (L&D) team, or the business in question, ought to own the entire engagement, and not just resort to a checklist manifesto.

The design of the program not being holistic (pre, during and post engagement), and not collaborative, often leads to a failed outcome. Remember, regardless of the delivery, if the design is flawed, the outcome would always be suboptimal.

Now, let’s look at some of the ways of addressing the issue.

corporate learning

integrative thinking, and deferring judgment, amongst others. Needless to say, between the three elements of learning, the mindset is the most elusive and difficult to master. Unless the tools and skills are weaved together on the fabric of the appropriate mindset the learning doesn’t stay and, consequently, little gets into practice.

Most corporate executives, especially the more senior ones, are on the critical and even cynical side, unfortunately. With experience comes rigidity, and overconfidence on what has worked in past and limited understanding of the disruptions lying ahead. The seasoned one gets in the corporate ‘jungle’, the less becomes neuroplasticity and the corresponding the ability to let go of biases and set ways of doing things. Tools and skills are of little use unless the deep-rooted mindset gets questioned and (hopefully) changed.

Such mindset related orthodoxies only become more dangerous with individuals exposed to a non-linear rate of change, coupled with a wider canvas of change – social, economic, political, environmental, legal, and technological.

A holistic approach to corporate learning So far we have discussed about the anatomy of corporate learning, comprising of toolsets, skillsets, and the mindset; and the design stages of a learning programs – pre-engagement, engagement, and post engagement, let us now delve into practices of how to make the overall learning experience more effective (read adopted). Each of the three design stages is discussed in terms of some of the best practices that have proven to deliver enduring impact in terms of adoption and change. Most of these pointers are relevant to the program designers and the L&D professionals and the program sponsors from the business, as much as the trainers.

In pre-engagement, focus on the why and the who Between working for the company and learning for oneself, what do most employees instinctively JUNE 2019 |

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corporate learning

choose? My experience says – working for the company! Why do employees willingly, and quite happily so, forego learning opportunities knowing very well the learning imperative? Well, the answer is psychological. Working for the company is relatively routinized and hence, less effortful and offers instant gratification, in terms of work getting done, and in the mid-term, salary and other accolades. Whereas learning for oneself, is out of routine, is effortful, increases the cognitive load, and the payout isn’t very clear or imminent.

Naturally, the mind would gravitate towards the less effortful, routine activity, even if that’s adding little value, even in the short run.

The first and foremost role of the L&D manager must be to talk about the learning imperative and show the intended audience the end state, the expected outcome. People, left to themselves, can’t visualize the end state so easily, for they are in thick of the present. L&D managers can do that more dispassionately and creatively. Secondly, they must promote the program and the resourceperson more strategically. Often, it’s reduced to a routine task, where the end purpose gets lost

When does the real learning happen - during the workshop, or after the workshop? I maintain that learning happens after the workshop is over – through reflection and practice through a series of emails. It’s needed to elevate the conversation and position the resource-person (provided she is well identified) as a panacea to the current plight and a learning partner.

Hence, by focusing on the ‘why’ (the learning purpose) and ‘who’ (the coach) of the learning program, the L&D team would be able to generate more psychological traction and weed out the ones who are genuinely not keen on learning. Trust me, not everyone is keen to learn or does learn, do better bet on the select few and cut the losses right away. The how (pedagogy) and where (venue) also play an important role in enriching the overall experience. But nothing is more urgent and important that the purpose and the right resource person.

During engagement, focus on mindset, apart from tools and skills

About the author

Dr. Pavan Soni is an Innovation Evangelist and Founder of Inflexion Point Consulting 40

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Thanks to the proliferation of online learning programs and zillions of course materials on all conceivable topics, what do you think can’t be learned online – tools, skills, or mindset? I reckon it’s the mindset that’s difficult to develop online.

In fact, most videos talk about skills, right from the most rudimentary to the sophisticated ones, and tools at disposal, but the mindset of how to use what and when doesn’t come that easily or cheap.

And yet, most learning programs miss out on the need and means of developing an appropriate mindset.

Once the L&D team has set the context and brought the right audience in the room, the task is for the coach to ensure that the conversation is elevated from raw facts and mechanics to the purpose and thinking patterns. From the ‘matter of fact’, the conversation must shift to ‘matter of thoughts’ and how thinking and subsequently acting, could get influenced. The tools and techniques, if remembered afterward, only happen in the milieu of the appropriate mindset, and if the coach misses out on those, no one would ever bother.

The content can always be picked up online or through notes, or other means, but the ‘why’, or the appropriate mindset is difficult to come by and takes a while to be established.

Post-engagement, mentor specific teams When does the real learning happen - during the workshop, or after the workshop? I maintain that learning happens after the workshop is over – through reflection and practice. In the midst of the training program, it’s very easy to get into a different plane, and most seasoned trainers are capable of transcending their audience; but learning happens on the Monday morning when the participants are back at their work. That’s when the gravity of workplace reality sucks them in.

How much of what they know or have been told remains? Not much, ironically.

Adults learn through reflection and continuous coaching. That’s the reason why successful leaders spend a lot of time coaching their direct reports and getting coached themselves by external experts. Coaching or mentoring is where the learning from the session gets contextualized and grounded in reality, and hopefully adopted as a way of doing things. The key is to not mentor all and sundry, but the most promising ones, and that too, in a group setting. By betting on a select few, you contain the investment from all the parties involved, create a sense of exclusivity, and hopefully let these trained few carry the baton forward.

Unfortunately, most learning programs don’t even factor in mentoring. They stop right at the workshop and then comes the next batch. The ones who have been through the program at the first place are lost in the jungle and no one knows of the translation of concepts to reality – the least of all the resource person. Most corporate are like black boxes to the external trainers – they come, deliver and leave! Between the trainer and the organized, frankly, it the organization’s loss.

Remember, not everyone is to be trained, or is amicable for learning, and hence, bet on specific individuals and let them lead the way. Make the coach or trainer a part of the design of a holistic learning process, and more importantly, focus sufficiently on the mindset, for skills and tools are relatively easy to pick up. Hope this note helps. Do share your views.

The talent experience space is in its infancy right now In an exclusive interaction with People Matters, Deena Fox, Founder of Brightfox sheds light on her journey from commerce to HR Tech and how technology will shape the talent experience space in the years to come

By Shweta Modgil In t e r v i e w

T

he world of Work Tech and HR Tech is brimming with technologies but this very huge number of technologies has also become a pain point. Fragmented enterprise technologies have become the bane for today’s organizations and instead of adding to productivity, are killing business productivity. It is this very challenge that Brightfox, an end-to-end talent experience platform that enables companies and their employees to accelerate their growth and evolve culture through engagement, feedback, and performance aims to address.

The platform founded by Deena Fox, a former Hugo Boss, Amazon, Jet, and Oscar HR executive, unifies vital point solutions and delivers an intuitive talent experience for startups to mass enterprises, across industries. The company which recently landed a seed-funding round of $1.1 Mn aims to use technology to support the employment journey, with seamless transitions from one stage of the talent life-cycle to the next and in the process reduce the data isolation, administrative burden, and high financial cost associated with current point solutions on the market. End resultone cohesive platform generating cohesive sets of data and analytics for companies for all stages of talent life cycle-be it employee engagement, continuous performance feedback, or learning.

You are a former Hugo Boss, Amazon, Jet, and Oscar HR executive, what made you take the plunge in building a talent experience platform.

What was that tipping point?

Over nearly two decades, I’ve led the HR function for some incredible companies in various stages of growth, including Amazon, Jet, Hugo

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Boss, and Oscar. What I experienced very consistently is that agnostic of the size and industry, companies are essentially facing the same set of challenges related to company culture and employee engagement. Like many other HR professionals, I turned to the HR technology market for solutions. I found that the market lacks a unified platform that directly addresses the needs of both the company and the employees. HR departments find themselves implementing a number of different “point solutions” that were designed to solve a single or small set of problems—which is not only costly for companies but a fragmented and confusing experience for employees.

I wanted to create the first talent experience platform, enabling companies to gather the valuable data and insights to evolve culture, while delivering a better user experience for employees, at a lower cost and administrative burden.

How exactly does Brightfox help companies attract, develop and retain talent with seamless technology?

How has the traction been for Brightfox since its founding? How many customers does Brightfox have? How do you monetize the platform?

We launched with a range of clients across industries including Oscar, whom we beta tested with prior to launch. We are an enterprise Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) with a subscription model based on the number of users. We market and sell our product directly to HR professionals or other key executives within companies.

What differentiates Brightfox from competitors that offer similar end to end solutions?

Brightfox is the first software company that built technology to support the overall employee experience rather than trying to solve one or two problems. We designed Brightfox to support all critical milestones in the employment journey from onboarding through exit, with a curated set of features that allow people to play an active role in accelerating their own growth and development. Companies now have the opportunity for the first time in this market to select and implement a single platform that provides data and insights necessary to evolve the culture and drive better business performance at a fraction of the cost.

What are going to be your future plans as far as product and expansion are concerned?

Currently, our plans are to focus on offering Brightfox to companies of all sizes, across all industries, within the US market.

I wanted to create the first talent experience platform, enabling companies to gather the valuable data and insights to evolve culture, while delivering a better user experience for employees, at a lower cost and administrative burden

In t e r v i e w

Brightfox enables people to take an active role in their own performance, development and learning while creating a sense of community and belonging. The platform is built on a foundation that drives social interaction, so employees engage with each other, celebrate milestones together, build internal networks based on common interests, and have a direct link into the company to contribute to innovation, feedback, and culture overall.

How do you see technology changing the talent experience space in the coming years?

What will be some of the trends? What do you see are some of the challenges in this space?

I see the talent experience space growing exponentially. At this point, it’s really in its infancy— current technologies in the space tend to focus on a single or small set of problems at a time. For example, a company may have one tool for messaging, another one to measure employee engagement, and yet another for continuous performance and feedback.

The future of this space, starting with Brightfox as the first to arrive in this new category, “talent experience platforms,” is going to be focused on more complete technology to support the employee experience—from job candidates to alums—optimizing all of the steps in their talent journey on a single platform.

Brightfox delivers a rich feature set and superior experience, at a fraction of the cost and administrative burden of using multiple point solutions.

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STORY C OVER 44

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Tomorrow begins

STORY

With the world of work changing drastically, HR leaders of tomorrow need to think bigger, be tech-savvy to deal with the 21st century workforce and contribute to the vision of the business

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THE FUTURE OF HR

By Mastufa Ahmed

I

n a world where Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and automation are set to become the new normal, the workforce has to transform. In the next three years, 120 million jobs in the world’s 10 largest economies will need retraining or reskilling. To adapt to this new environment and help shape it, employees need to embrace continuous learning. Amid these changes, HR needs to not think, act, or be like traditional HR; they need to understand that their job is now “human transformation”.

The amount of work done by automation in Asia Pacific is expected to swell to 23 percent in next three years from the current 13 percent. However, experts worry not about the fact that technology will replace humans but about the fact that we won’t be able to upskill and retain workers fast enough. This makes it compelling for HR to look more at change, transforma-

tion, and future of work. They must play a proactive role in enabling employees’ true potential and helping them play an impactful role in delivering results as an organization. The importance of keeping employees engaged has never been higher. HR, which is at the intersection of all other teams, must also manage an environment where employees, bots, and gig workers work in partnerships.

Top-notch organizations have embarked on a journey of redefining the HR function and its value to business leveraging technology and skills. In fact, some of the organizations have set up their HR function as a “consulting” team. However, we still have a long way to wade through for HR to truly be a people-first advocate. Read on to find out what HR leaders and organizations need to consider today to prepare for tomorrow.

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Curiosity, continuous learning, and AI Anshul Sheopuri, Vice-President and CTO, AI & offering strategy, HR, IBM, sheds light on next-gen technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, and jobs and future of work in an exclusive interaction with People Matters STORY

By Mastufa Ahmed

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A

nshul Sheopuri is the VP & CTO, Data, AI & Offering Strategy, HR and IBM Distinguished Engineer. Anshul is responsible for re-inventing people data and offerings via AI. He is a digital transformation leader with proven ability to drive measurable business outcomes by driving changes to process, platforms, products and people.

His work resulted in $100M benefit to IBM in 2018 alone.

Previously, Anshul was Senior Manager, Digital Research, at the IBM T J Watson Research Center, where he led a team of researchers working on innovative big data digital technologies in areas like real-time bidding algorithms for paid media optimization, spatio-temporal analytics for mobile personalization, and omni-channel content personalization using NLP and machine learning techniques.

Here are the excerpts of the interview with Anshul.

You lead a team of data scientists, people analytics practitioners, and engineers who use data to transform the employee experience. How do you bring value to the business?

The people analytics journey has mirrored the evolution of our HR function, moving from process to experience. A decade ago, the analytics team focused on reporting operational metrics like the cost to hire. Now, we're focused on delivering insights that solve valuable business problems and compelling user pain points. We've incorporated 46

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a number of AI tools to help with better decision support, better employee experiences and productivity. Our journey from operational reporting to AI has transformed the way our users experience our offerings - for example, our employees experience learning via a contemporary digital platform that has a Netflix-like experience and delivers AI-based personalized recommendations.

How do you see the evolution of HR and talent from a technology perspective?

As HR functions evolve from ones focused on process to experience and outcomes, this has required us to transform: • Contemporary digital platforms with open architectures enabling rapid development • Products that are co-created with users, and solve compelling business problems using AI-infused insights • New skills on teams that are emerging, from offering management to architects • New ways of working - agile iterations with a focus on low-fidelity prototypes and agile iterations, so we can learn from the users and incorporate their feedback in sprints

How are next-gen technologies such as AI going to change jobs? How can employees adapt to the new and ever-changing environment?

There’s no doubt that AI will change 100 percent of jobs across all industries. In fact, in the next three years, more than 120 million jobs

in the world’s 10 largest economies will need retraining or reskilling. Continuous learning is necessary for employees to not only adapt to this new and ever-changing environment but shape it as well. It’s about employees having the propensity to learn and companies to help ready their employees for skills of the future. At IBM, we invest between $400 and $500 million annually on training, including AI skills investment to make sure our employees understand how to create and apply AI technologies. Last year, we launched the AI Skills Academy for our employees to help them understand how to interact with AI technologies and how it impacts their career and the company.

Our employees also participate in our digital badge program, where we’ve issued closet to 1.5 million badges since 2016.

What’s your take on top skills that will define the future of work?

In the digital era, skills have become the most critical issue of our time. Given the half-life of skills is shrinking, curiosity and continuous learning are more important than ever.

What’s your advice to HR leaders who want to leverage people analytics and AI?

The real potential is in AI’s ability to work in partnership with people. Embracing automation and process efficiency like virtual assistants have allowed employees to work more effectively and move to higher value work. As we think about automation, it's not just about lifting and shifting.

It's about redesigning the process. As we transitioned to a cloud-hosted compensation planning solution with automation in payroll processes, we have infused AI in the decision support. This has created a host of new HR jobs, as well as upskilled the team made up of designers and HR practitioners who can train chatbots, digitally savvy comp subject matter experts and AI HR operations.

What excites you about the HR tech industry right now, and what's the way forward?

We’re experiencing an explosion of opportunity in the HR technology industry, especially with new roles and profiles emerging. As I meet with students, I see a lot of passion and energy in diverse skills and backgrounds, whether it’s people in traditional HR tracks or even electrical

STORY

With half the activities which people are paid to do globally could theoretically be automated, what impact will automation have on work according to you?

C OVER

It's important to resist the temptation to adopt shiny objects without having a clear roadmap and prioritized projects focused on business outcomes. Here’s what we learned from our own experience at IBM: Adopting a digital architecture foundation with cloud and robotic process automation first –or even in parallel - can provide cost savings to reinvest for future digital initiatives and ensures you can continue scaling the work.

There’s no doubt that AI will change 100 percent of jobs across all industries.

In fact, in the next three years, more than 120 million jobs in the world’s 10 largest economies will need retraining or reskilling engineers and designers. Just yesterday, I met with a major in psychology and a minor in computer science who was interested in a career in HR. Our opportunity is in shaping industry thinking in the development and use of AI. It comes down to trusted AI built by diverse teams: • Who builds the technology: having diverse and inclusive pools of talent is key to how we design and build it. The AI should be designed to be fair, robust and explainable. For example, our AI-powered compensation decision support solution is trained by compensation experts and exemplary managers apart from historical manager decisions.

• How it should be used: the ultimate decision maker is the user who is empowered to make decisions based on evidence provided by the AI, whether it’s selection, learning or pay.

• Continuously learning from user feedback, so the AI is always getting better.

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J

eanne is the Founding Partner of Future Workplace, an HR advisory and research firm providing insights on the future of learning and working. Jeanne is the receipt of the Distinguished Contribution in Workplace Learning Award by the Association for Talent Development (ATD).

Author of four books, Jeanne was previously Vice President of Market Development at Accenture.

Here are the excerpts of the interview with Jeanne.

How do you envision the future of HR?

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STORY

HR has evolved from a focus on standardization, efficiency and one-size-fit-all to one which is personalized to the needs of employees and is characterized by immediacy, human centered design and quality of the employee experience. This modern HR must deeply understand how employees work today—and how their work will evolve in a future organization where work and the worker is augmented by artificial intelligence. Gartner predicts that by 2022 one in five knowledge workers will work side by side with a digital assistant.

This new world of HR has implications for HR and business leaders. For HR, this means, your HR leader needs to hire HR professionals who understand an emerging technology landscape, are familiar with the new venturebacked players of AI for HR and finally are able to work closely with their colleagues in HRIS to identify a range of business problems AI and other emerging technologies such as virtual reality can solve for the organization.

Business leaders must understand creating a new vision for HR and

Augmenting ‘humans’ in the workplace Jeanne Meister, Founding Partner of HR advisory and research firm Future Workplace, delves deep into the new world of HR, its implication for business, and preparing for the man-machine future

By Mastufa Ahmed

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While the focus on new skills needed for the future workplace often identifies technical skills, I believe it is a combination of human and technical skills that will be in the highest demand in the next five years

setting about to leverage the power of HR technology to create a more compelling employee experience is not an HR issue but a business one. And this is one that is a team sport and brings together HR, IT, Marketing, Communications and Real Estate into a cross-functional team to address how to create and deliver a new vision for employee experience. As I stressed in my book, "the last best experience that anyone has anywhere will become the minimum expectation for all the experiences they want everywhere especially in the workplace."

How do you see the readiness of businesses in terms of preparing their workers for disruption ahead?

Today, 2018

Trending, 2022

• • • •

• Analytical thinking and innovation • Active learning and learning strategies • Creativity, originality and initiative • Technology design and programming • Critical thinking and analysis • Complex problem-solving • Leadership and social influence • Emotional intelligence • Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation • Systems analysis and evaluation

• • • • • •

Analytical thinking and innovation Complex problem-solving Critical thinking and analysis Active learning and learning strategies Creativity, originality and initiative Attention to detail, trustworthiness Emotional intelligence Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation Leadership and social influence Coordination and time management

Source: Future of Jobs Survey 2018, World Economic Forum

STORY

Companies such as Google, Facebook, Tesla, Uber, Snapchat, Oculus Rift are intense learning machines.

They are led by agile leaders and they think of technology as both a disrupter and enabler

C OVER

According to recent research by MIT, Nearly 90 percent of managers and executives surveyed by MIT Sloan Management Review anticipate that their industries will be disrupted by digital trends to a great or moderate extent, but only 44 percent say their organizations are adequately preparing for the disruptions to come.

In times of constant and accelerated change, organizations that do not adapt, that do not anticipate the future and take action, are in danger of irrelevancy—or worse, extinction.

Consider that 52 percent of Fortune 500 organizations have merged, been acquired, or gone bankrupt since 2000, according to Capgemini. Traditionally it has taken 20 years for the average company on the Fortune 500 list to reach a $1 billion market cap. But Google achieved that in eight years, Facebook in five years, Tesla in four years, Uber in two years, Snapchat in two years and Oculus Rift in 14 months! What’s different about six companies is how they operate: they are intense learning machines, they are led by agile leaders, they think of technology as both a disrupter and enabler, they are manically focused on satisfying customers and employees, and, importantly, they have employees who are workplace activists proposing the changes they see needed in the workplace. Business leaders can ensure they are preparing their workforce by applying a growth mindset and as Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft says, "adopting a Learn It All Mindset rather than a Know It All Mindset." This starts with a belief in the power of continuous learning and becoming a people positive organization.

listed technological skills as most important. Instead, they highlighted having a transformative vision (22 percent), demonstrating collaborative skills (20 percent) being a forward thinker (20 percent), and having a change-oriented mindset (18 percent).

This mix of technical and human skills needed in the future is shown below.

What's your take on the new skills needed for the future workplace and training programs to train workers to perform the jobs of the future?

While the focus on new skills needed for the future workplace often identifies technical skills, I believe it is a combination of human and technical skills that will be in the highest demand in the next five years. This point of view is reinforced by a survey conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review of a population of global managers and leaders. When they were asked the most important skill for leaders to succeed in a digital workplace, only 18 percent of respondents JUNE 2019 |

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Now when we think about how these skills are being developed, we are seeing a shift from customdesigned programs to curation of programs delivered in multiple modalities from online courses, to podcasts, blogs, videos and a range of performance support tools.

Do you think it's time for HR to leverage Analytics tools? Where do you see analytics for HR heading?

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STORY

It's happening today among forward-thinking HR leaders. They are leveraging machine learning and analytics to make data-driven decisions.

IBM for instance, developed a patent to predict retention risk for employees in key job roles.

The company put together a team of data scientists (who are part of IBM HR) to analyze several employee risk factors such as location of employee, compensation, employee engagement sentiment, and even manager engagement at the aggregate level for countries and job roles. Based on analyzing this data, certain employee groups in key job roles that may be at risk to leave the organization.

The output of this are recommendations to managers proposing manager intervention to prevent

Many HR and business leaders are not prepared for the future of work and specifically how to leverage artificial intelligence to augment humans in the workplace

departures. This program known as Proactive Retention has saved IBM over $130 million as measured by avoiding the costs of hiring and training replacements.

But while this is new and we see a growing number of both technology companies such as IBM, Cisco and Intel making extensive use of analytics to guide people decisions, we are also seeing this in industry sectors outside of technology such as hospitality, (Hilton Hotel and Marriott use artificial intelligence for sourcing and screening employees) and healthcare, (Partners Healthcare use artificial intelligence in nursing education.)

How can HR help employees prepare for an uncertain future?

Many HR and business leaders are not prepared for the future of work and specifically how to leverage artificial intelligence to augment humans in the workplace. HR leaders should ask themselves and their teams some questions which focus on short medium and long term: SHORT TERM 1) What is our current value proposition to the business?

2) How well are we competing for and retaining talent versus our competition?

3) How is the composition of our workforce changing in terms of age, gender and ethnicity?

MEDIUM TERM 1) How could we compete for more diverse talent?

2) Where could we compete for diverse talent?

3) What enhancements could we make to our current employer value proposition?

LONGER TERM 1) What are the big bets we can make for attracting a more diverse future workforce?

2) How can we adjust our recruiting to recruit more on skills and competencies and less on degrees and credentials?

3) What will be our strategy regarding employee upskilling, so it is more of a required employee benefit (like healthcare) and less of an investment?

How will Artificial Intelligence and robotics impact how work gets done?

AI will impact all aspects of the employee life cycle from sourcing and screening employees, to new hire onboarding, internal talent mobility, learning and development, and coaching. The impact of AI in the workplace will be significant such as: 1) The workforce will be blended including fulltime workers, gig workers and robots. In this new blended workforce of Humans + Gigs+ Robots, humans are able to work smarter by the scale and agility of Gig workers and real-time data insights provided by machines.

2) New job roles will emerge as AI is leveraged across the enterprise. Three of my favorites include: 50

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The pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again. This means all leaders: HR, Business, IT, Real Estate, Marketing and Communications must work in tandem to agree on the business problem that needs to be solved and the current and emerging KPI's to track success. I believe this means leaders must become workplace activists, meaning they must anticipate future changes to their company’s operating model and be prepared to put into place the changes needed to navigate the future workforce and workplace.

Everything we have taken granted about work, the workplace, where work happens and what's our job is being turned on its head. While there is growing interest and success in using artificial intelligence in the workplace to create a more

STORY

In the wake of all this change, how should CEOs, CHROs, and business leaders collaborate?

AI will impact all aspects of the employee life cycle from sourcing and screening employees, to new hire onboarding, internal talent mobility, learning and development, and coaching

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Voice UX Designer: This role will leverage voice as a platform to deliver an “optimal” dialect and sound that is pleasing to each of the seven billion humans on the planet. The Voice UX Designer will do this by creating a set of AI tools and algorithms to help individuals find their “perfect voice” assistant.

Chief Ethics Officer: This new role will focus on developing strategies to use technology in an ethical and humane way. More companies will establish new jobs focusing on ethical uses of AI to ensure AI's trustworthiness, while also helping to diffuse fears and misperceptions about it.

Head of Business Behavior: The head of business behavior will analyze employee behavioral data to create strategies to improve employee experience, collaboration, productivity, and employee well-being.

3) As we head into 2019 — with AI moving from consumers' lives into the workplace – upskilling non-AI workers to learn how to work with AI is becoming increasingly important.

personalized candidate and employee experience, there are also a host of new issues to grapple with.

These revolve around data privacy, security and transparency. Since companies are storing sensitive information on pay, job history, age, healthcare data, and other personal information companies must communicate how they are protecting this data and importantly how this data will be used now and as the organization increases its use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.

One of the recent new offerings of Future Workplace is “Using AI 4 HR To Enhance The Employee Experience”, which is an online course for HR leaders.

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Talent choices in the ‘War for Talent’ Dave Ulrich, the co-founder of The RBL Group,

throws light on the future of work, digital disruption, and the ‘new normal’ for HR

By Mastufa Ahmed

D

C OVER

STORY

ave Ulrich is a university professor, author, speaker, management coach, and management consultant. Ulrich is a professor of business at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and co-founder of The RBL Group, an HR consulting firm.

He has helped generate award winning data bases that assess alignment between strategies, organization capabilities, HR practices, HR competencies, and customer and investor results.

Here are the excerpts of the interview with Dave.

Do you think organizations are getting better at adapting to digital disruption? Or do we still have a long way to go?

Change is not a new topic and organizations have always had to “change or die.” The digital disruption of the last decade has been a new impetus for rapid change. I would say organizations’ ability to respond to this disruption would be in a normal distribution: 20 percent great, 60 percent average; 20 percent not so good.

Only tweak is that the 20 percent not so good likely end up failing, so this is a moving distribution.

How can HR bring new value to business in times of disruption?

We have argued that HR delivers unique value to a firm by delivering three elements: talent, organization, and leadership. Talent means: do we have the right people with the right skills in the right places with the right sense of commitment and contribution to win in the market? Organization means: do we have the right culture (or more broadly, capabilities) to win in the market? Leadership means: do we have the right individual leaders and leadership capabilities to

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win in the market. HR is not just talent, but also organization Talent, leadership, and organization would apply to any changing business conditions (disruptive technology, globalization) or business strategy (customer intimacy, product innovation).

How do you envisage the future of HR and talent?

Talent has been a primary agenda, if not obsession, for many general managers and human resource professionals for the last 20 years as captured in the maxim, “war for talent.”

This talent emphasis has led to innumerable innovations in how organizations bring people into the organization, move them through the organization, and appropriately move them out of the organization as summaries in Table 1.

25 to 35 percent of work can be done through some form of contract, contingent, or gig employee.

Hence companies have to create their culture across boundaries, not just with full-time employees

Table 1: Examples of Talent Choices in the War for Talent Talent Domain

Talent practice Set standards What are the skills we need for new employees?

Source candidates How do we source new candidates?

IN:

Screen candidates

Bringing the right people into the organization

How do we know if this is the right candidate?

Secure candidate How do we create an employee value proposition?

Orient candidate How do we help new hire succeed?

Workforce plan How well do we have a workforce plan for our employees?

How do we help existing employees improve?

High potentials

Career and promotion

THROUGH: Moving people through the organization

How can we help employees manage their career opportunities?

Manage performance How can we build positive accountability for employees?

Allocate rewards How do we use rewards to reinforce the right behaviors?

Engage employees (experience)b How do we capture the hearts and minds of our employees?

Retain key people How do we keep our best employees?

OUT: Removing appropriate people from organization

Remove appropriate people How do we take out people in a positive way?

• Create positive employee brand social media • Use contingent workers • Use behavioral event interviewing • Involve multiple interviewers

• Create customized job offer • Involve senior executives in making offers

• Have mentoring programs • Manage early assignments • Turn strategic goals into desired competencies • Focus on key positions

• Learn from work experience, training, and life experience • Make training a guest experience • Set criteria for high potentials (usually 5 to 15% of workforce) • Create individual development plan for high potentials • Offer employees tailored career path • Build succession based on business more than person

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How do we invest in high potentials?

• Focus on future customer and investor requirements • Hire for culture, train for technical skills

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Training and development

Example of talent innovation

• Focus less on performance process and more on conversations • Help managers coach and communicate more than command and control • Use financial rewards to send signals of what matters • Use non-financial rewards to motivate employees • Help employees find personal meaning from their work by creating a positive employee experience • Create tailored employee value propositions for key employees • Find ways for key employees to behave as if they are committed • Rehire former employees (boomerang hiring) • Do a “stay” interview to listen to key employees • Do strategic downsizing, not across the board cuts • Move quickly and fairly for those who leave JUNE 2019 |

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What impact will automation have on work?

Any activity based on information can be advanced through technology. Technology provides insights about personal choices, guides organizations to both broaden and tailor their services, and enables rapid societal change.

Simply put, technology is about accessing digital information to make decisions. An analog watch tells time; a digital watch is a smart machine I use to access exponential information for everyday tasks.

Automation will change work because it allows access to information that transforms decision making.

What does the rise of the gig economy mean for the future of work?

We have seen that 25 to 35 percent of work can be done through some form of contract, contingent, or gig employee. This means that companies have to create their culture across boundaries, not just with full-time employees.

Workforce planning has to include access to talent or employees, both full and part-time. And, beyond workforce planning, work can also be done through technology, so a focus will be worktask planning with technology doing some of the work.

Do you think all stakeholders should work together to manage reskilling and upskilling and mitigate job losses and talent shortages?

Or course upskilling is required. The responsibility for upskilling comes from government policies and support to move to a knowledge economy, from companies shifting to services, from labor groups committed to their members, but mostly from individuals have to take ownership of their own careers.

You said in your book “HR is not about HR. HR begins and ends with the business.” How can HR become business partners?

We have identified 13 pivots in the business partner model.

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STORY

13 pivots in the business partner model Dimensions and questions of the business partner logic 1 HR Value Added: What value does HR deliver to an organization?

2 HR Context: What are the contextual factors shaping HR’s business centrality?

3 HR Stakeholders: Whom does HR serve?

Who are the “customers” of HR?

4 HR Outcome—Talent: How can HR help increase employee productivity and experience (well-being)?

5 HR Outcome—Organization: How can HR help build a more competitive organization?

6 HR Outcome—Leadership: How can HR build better leadership throughout the organization?

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Pivots (disruptions or evolution) of our point-of-view on this dimension The type of value HR delivers has evolved from efficiency to functional excellence to strategic HR to outside-in.

HR is not about HR but the business. Business requires acknowledging and appreciating: • Context: the changes facing our world today (STEPED trends: social, technological, economic, political, environmental, and demographic).

• Pace of change (VUCA), which is increasing.

• Individuation and the needs of individuals to find belief and purpose, become better, and belong to a community.

HR stakeholders have evolved from internal (employees, line managers, organization) to external (customers, investors, community).

Improve talent (people, experience, workforce) through: • Competence (flow of people into, through, and out of the organization).

• Commitment (employee value proposition, sentiment).

• Contribution (meaning, purpose).

Organization has four times the impact on business results than that of the individual talent! Organization thinking has evolved through these stages: • Morphology (roles, reengineering, downsizing).

• Alignment/systems (STAR, 7s, Health).

• Capability (known for and good at doing).

• Ecosystem capability (building capabilities within the ecosystem not just organization).

Leadership matters, and understanding leadership evolves from: • Leader (individual) to leadership (collective).

• Inside to outside (Leadership Brand).

• Leadership Code 1.0 to 2.0 (emerging competencies such as navigating paradox, risk without recklessness, meaning maker, etc.).

7 HR Strategy: What is the strategy of the HR department?

8 HR Organization: How should the HR department be organized?

9 HR Practices: How should HR design and deliver HR practices?

11 HR Technology (Digitalization): How can HR use technology to leverage digital information?

12 HR Information or Analytics: How do we define HR analytics?

13 HR Work Style: How do HR professionals work with each other in HR and with others in their organization?

A host of HR practices exist around people, performance, information, and work. The criteria for HR practices are: • Integrated by offering HR solutions, not isolated HR practices.

• Aligned to the strategy inside the organization, and customers and investors outside the company.

• Innovative by looking for new ways to design and deliver.

• Simple by making HR solutions easy to access and use.

The required competencies of HR professionals have evolved over the last 30 years. In response, HR professionals have dramatically increased their competencies over this timeframe. It is not just about competence but matching HR competencies to the desired outcomes: • Personal effectiveness: be a credible activist • Stakeholder value: be a strategic positioner • Business results: be a paradox navigator

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What are the required skills for HR professionals?

The structure of the HR department is built on three principles: 1. Separate HR essential/transaction work (increasingly delivered with technology) from strategic work (delivered by HR professionals and line managers).

2. The HR organization should match business strategy and organization: • Single business—functional HR • Multiple businesses—decentralized HR. • Diversified/allied business strategy with matrix structure—HR as professional services (centers of expertise, shared services, embedded HR).

3. In most large firms, businesses have a matrix or diversified/allied strategy and structure, so HR operates as a professional services firm within the organization.

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10 HR Competencies:

An HR function or department requires a strategy that answers three questions: • Who we are (partners, allies, experts).

• What we deliver (talent, leadership, organization).

• Why we exist (create value by responding to context or serving stakeholders).

HR plays two roles in the digital space: 1. It helps create a digital business strategy.

2. It applies digital information from technology to better deliver HR. There are four stages of HR digital work: • Efficiency (do HR better) • Innovation (do better HR) • Information (access ideas) • Connection (connect people) HR analytics is accessing and using information to improve HR value creation. This work has evolved through four stages: • Scorecard (HR activities) • Insights (general data) • Interventions (specific actions) • Impact (business results) While HR structure matters in assigning roles and accountabilities, HR professionals need to build relationships with each other inside HR and with those outside HR. Relationships require: • Sharing a common purpose • Respecting differences • Governing, accepting, and connecting • Showing empathy/care for others • Sharing experiences • Growing together JUNE 2019 |

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Unlocking employees’ potential with Digital HR Organizations must manage an environment where employees, bots, and gig workers work in partnerships, says Sreeni Kutam, the CHRO of ADP

STORY

By Mastufa Ahmed

S

reeni Kutam is the Chief Human Resources Officer at ADP, a provider of human resources management software and services, and is a member of the company’s executive committee. Earlier in his career at ADP, Sreeni served as Division Vice President, Human Resources, and as Vice President, HR Strategy & Planning, leading the alignment and linkage between key HR initiatives, workforce planning, resource allocations and operating plans to ADP’s human capital management and business objectives.

Here are the excerpts of the interview with Sreeni.

How do you envisage the future role of HR and how much of it is going to be driven by technology?

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Individuals from the current generation have broader perspectives and exposure to several innovative ideas from around the globe on their fingertips. The importance of keeping employees always engaged has never been higher.

As a result, HR will have to cater to their needs in realtime, and they can do this by introducing technology into every aspect of the employee’s career lifecycle to provide the experience they demand. For instance, organizations could introduce technology solutions which provide weekly tips to leaders on managing talent on a strength-based approach.

Digital HR is the new norm for HR. This is vital to enable everyone unlock their true potential and play an impactful role in delivering efficient results as an organization.

Experts seem to be divided when it comes to automation and its impact on work and jobs. What’s your take?

Experts continue to be divided on this. While some opine that automation will render humans jobless, another section

Digital HR is the new norm for HR. This is vital to enable everyone unlock their true potential and play an impactful role in delivering efficient results as an organization 56

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believes that automation will bring in more efficiency. In my opinion, if the blend between technology and humans can be handled well, there will be no stronger team than this combination.

Contrary to the general belief, automation will take several more decades to replace humans because it’s difficult to mimic a human’s thought process. Hence, in the meantime, organizations must focus on identifying repetitive and taxing parts of the daily jobs and see if they can introduce technology to quicken them. This will help employees focus on higher value jobs and give them more time to think out of the box.

CIOs and CFOs are casting an eye on the ‘people' agenda. Do you think HR leaders need to act now or they will be reduced to transactional tasks?

Since HR is at the intersection of all other teams in organizations, it is important to build HR teams without any loose ends to ensure nothing disrupts the operations. To build such robust HR teams, organizations must proactively address the following: 1. Growing fear amongst humans that automation will cannibalize into their jobs.

2. Managing an environment where employees, bots, and gig workers work in partnerships.

The biggest challenge here will be to enhance their philosophies and practices, while complying with all applicable laws that could add more confusion than cohesion.

How do you see the emergence of the gig economy and its implication on the future of work and businesses?

Organizations are slowly realizing the millennial preference to be a gig worker. They are realizing benefits by employing a lot of temporary help

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What are we going to be talking about in five years as the key issues facing HR?

Automation will take several more decades to replace humans.

In the meantime, organizations must focus on identifying repetitive and taxing parts of jobs and see if they can introduce technology to quicken them

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‘Great companies are built by great people!’

Several forward-focused organizations have built strong and close-knitted fraternity upon this philosophy. While some chose to accomplish this through enhanced continuing focus on diversity and inclusion, a few other organizations went a step ahead and vested their people with the responsibility of impacting major decisions through regular surveys and feedbacks.

Companies don’t make people great; it is the people that make great companies. Putting people at the core and functioning around them is important for making them feel valued. Employees that feel engaged see the true value of things that HR does for their development, which results in the organization’s progress flowing through the employees. There is nothing more attractive for an individual than the prospect of working for an organization that has strong people-oriented values around aspects, such as engagement, social responsibility, and development.

agency workers, free agents, contract workers, on-call workers, independent contractors, and freelancers to do parts of work that were once done by full-time employees. By doing this, organizations save heavily on: a. b. c. d.

High-priced office space Staff welfare Training & development Electricity, water, etc. in some cases

At the same time, it is also important to cater to some of their needs. Hence, we will see several organizations enhance their philosophies and practices to meet the needs of gig workers with respect to feedback, compliance, benefits, flexible working hours, etc. This will boost partnerships between internal and external workforce. Such partnerships will benefit the individuals, in terms of enhancing career profile, and the organization, in terms of delivering efficient results.

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Development, R&D, Sales), value preservation roles (Finance, Risk), and value enabler roles (legal, HR, IT, corporate functions). I hypothesize the HR of the future will have a separate category - which, together with the CEO, and the Digital strategy team would play the role of Value Transformation.

In other words, redefining what ‘value’ stands for, and helping to deploy the company’s most important asset – its human capital, in effecting desired changes in the company’s purpose, processes, and operating models.

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STORY

Do you think businesses today are investing enough in human capital to bridge the much talked about skills gap?

Driving the next Value Transformation HR is a critical function and its role is increasingly evolving to be the custodian of corporate culture and driver of business performance, says Shai Ganu, Managing Director and Head of Rewards business, Asia Pacific, Willis Towers Watson

By Mastufa Ahmed

S

hai Ganu heads the Rewards business in Asia Pacific for Willis Towers Watson. He also oversees the Talent & Rewards business segment across ASEAN and South Asia, covering Board Advisory, Management Consulting, and Data Services portfolios. Shai leads a team of 450 consultants providing human capital advisory, data, and software solutions to organizations across the region. This includes advising companies on their executive compensation, board effectiveness, performance management, talent management, sales effectiveness, and Diversity and Inclusion strategies.

Here are the excerpts of the interview with Shai.

How can HR impact organizations’ business strategy?

HR is a critical function; and its role is increasingly evolving to be the custodian of corporate culture and driver of business performance. Today, most organizations tend to classify roles into one of three buckets - value creation roles (Business 58

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There are some progressive companies who are leading the charge, but across the Board - there certainly is more that can be done. The first step in the process is acknowledging the need to change; when it comes to technology disruption the question is not ‘if ’, rather ‘when’. Next, business leaders need to have a clear understanding of current skills inventory in the company - this is where HR can play a critical role. In fact, HR functions in many organizations in the region have started to take actions, such as identifying the emerging skills required for the business, deconstructing jobs and identifying which tasks can best be performed by automation and matching talent to new work requirements.

Following which, and this is the tricky part, is defining future skills needed by the company and the industry as a whole. This is where macro, industry-wide studies (such as the skills frameworks developed by SkillsFuture Singapore) are leading the way. Finally, it is important for business leaders to make the required investments in upskilling and re-skilling the workforce; knowing that this may not result in short-term results, but is akin to sowing seeds for the future.

Do you see emergence of new training programs that workers will need to perform the jobs of the future?

Indeed, we will see the emergence of new training programs related to data science, coding, applications development, and others. However, learning in the future will be more organic. Rather than attend training courses and classroom-learning, the workforce of the future will likely have continuous learning; be it using gaming technology, freelance work, self-learning, social learning.

Do you think it's time for HR leaders to leverage new tools such as analytics and explore value creation opportunities just like business leaders do?

It is already happening, and to an extent, among the more progressive companies - it has already happened. Through data analytics, process automation, and stronger governance models - it is not inconceivable to think of HR as value-centers rather than cost-centers (as they are currently seen today).

Some of the more progressive companies have set up their HR functions as a consulting team. Payroll and other administrative services are transitioned

to shared services, and the HR functions and business partnering roles form part of the internal consulting team. Business leaders become users of consulting services, and pay a fee to the HR team for services provided; transforming HR to a value-adding profit center.

Can you share some strategies that HR must be considering today to gear up for the uncertain future of work?

Technology developments will broadly impact work in three areas: Efficiency - Robotics and Machine Learning will help streamline work processes and add to operational efficiencies; Information access - IOT, 5G, AI will help companies get access to real-time information and insights; and Blockchain technology will ensure the information is irrefutable; Social Capital - one of the biggest upsides of AI, Machine Learning, and Blockchain is that it will help quantify hitherto intangibles, such as social capital, culture, reputation, values. This is an area where HR can play a very important role and will help unlock tremendous value for the companies.

What are the keys to a healthy CEO and CHRO partnership, and how can the duo execute business strategies together?

STORY

We will see the emergence of new training programs related to data science, coding, applications development, and others.

However, learning in the future will be more organic

Indeed, this is probably the most exciting part about the future of work. Willis Towers Watson Future of Work survey found that in Asia Pacific, while currently only 13 percent of work is done by automation, this is expected to increase to 23 percent in three years. More than one-third of the companies in the study indicated automation and digitalization are currently used to support, not replace humans, and two-thirds responded that the primary goal of automation is to augment human performance and productivity.

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The fundamental question for HR function to consider is that of value - defining it, creating it, and preserving it. Some futurists have claimed that organizations of the future will only have two roles - CEO and CIO; with the rest being outsourced or co-sourced.

However, I believe that we would also need a third role - that of the CHRO to help define the ways of working and to manage the hyper-distributed workflows and contingent workers.

HR should be on top of new technologies, be able to manage a gig-economy and freelance workforce, structure smart contracts, monitor performance, ensure regulatory conformance, and also have a strong appreciation of ethics and values. Many employers agree that leader and manager activities will change over the next three years to address the changes brought by technological disruption. These activities include communicating and leading change around the new combinations of humans and automated workers, measuring performance, productivity and outcomes on a more frequent basis, and educating workers on how automation changes work.

With AI and robotics likely to have a major impact on work and productivity how do you think they will affect how work is done?

If you ask any Board Chair or CEO about their top three priorities, then most would respond saying ‘People’ - either not enough people, or not the right people in right roles, or how to extract the best out of people. That’s where the CHRO plays an integral partnership with the CEO and even the Board.

Indeed; there are few companies where the CHRO reports directly to the Board Chair or Chair of the HR Committee.

My advice to CEOs would be to see the HR role differently. HR should be the CEO’s right-hand in defining and executing all business strategies. As one leading CEO puts it: “My head of sales is the value creator, my CFO is the value preserver, but my CHRO is my trusted advisor and implementor.

For their part, CHROs should also view their roles as definers or value and as Chief Transformation or Chief Culture officers. Progressive HR leaders should have multi-discipline knowledge and experience broader than HR; ideally in marketing, PR, and P&L experience leading businesses.

But equally important is for HR function to be responsible for keeping things ‘human’; promoting a collegiate, inclusive, respectful, compassionate, and ethical culture - where everybody works together harmoniously for the collective success of the firm and the collective good for society.

CHROs are probably one of the most important roles in any company - and with that power, comes the strong responsibility; of doing things right as well as doing the right things.

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The boundary-less talent pool As the online marketplace for skills is maturing, it is going to create marketplaces much like what LinkedIn has done for people who are full-time employees in a firm and who are looking for full-time work with another organization

STORY

By Abhijit Bhaduri

I

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was speaking at Asia’s largest conference of photographers. During the break, I was seated at the table with two of the speakers - Neelima Vallangi and Shivya Nath. They are both “digital nomads”. They are travel bloggers and photographers.

After seven years as a software engineer Neelima Vallangi (@Neelimav) quit her 7-year job as a Software Engineer to write and travel full time!

Her stories and images have been published in BBC, NatGeo Traveller, Travel+Leisure, Mint, Indian Express and more.

“My belongings all fit into a suitcase and my computer and camera fit into my backpack.

Since I don’t have a home or even a permanent address, I have to be a minimalist.”

How did she hit upon the idea of giving up a home?

“My very first story for a travel magazine would also be published with none other than National Geographic Traveller India (in 2013). And that's how the idea was implanted in my head, that I could perhaps be a professional travel writer and photographer. I quit my job in 2014 to do this full time and gave up my home in 2015 to be location-independent.”

Shivya Nath’s first book The Shooting Star was a bestseller. Her work has been published by BBC, Huffington Post, National Geographic and several newspapers. Shivya’s work is available to more than 73,000 followers on Instagram (@Shivya). She tells me, “4 years ago, I gave up my home, sold most of my possessions and embraced a nomadic life.

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Working with a boundary-less talent pool on tap will need different types of skills for HR This journey has taken me as far within as with my feet.”

A new kind of LinkedIn Neelima and Shivya are two samples of what lies ahead for HR. The talent pool is soon going to become location-independent. These are new kinds of careers that did not exist before. This work is being done by a new kind of worker and their office is their mobile. Their resume is on social media. They have no business card. The best way to contact them is to leave a message on their Instagram post. That is how they are discovered by fans and brands who use them as influencers. They need a new kind of LinkedIn. That is where the opportunity lies for HR.

HR for a 5 billion talent pool What a game changer that little device has been.

There are 5.5 billion adults and five billion mobile phones. Of these four billion are smartphones.

Apple has an installed base of 900 million iPhones -- as they declared in January 2019. Then they added that there were 1.4 billion active iOS devices

as of the end of 2018. Google says there are now 2.5bn active Android devices. 95% of these Android devices are phones. The 650 million Android phones in China are in addition to these 2.4 billion Android phones we accounted for.

Specialized talent pools As the online marketplace for skills is maturing, it is going to create marketplaces much like what LinkedIn has done for people who are full-time employees in a firm and who are looking for fulltime work with another organization. There is no marketplace for blue-collar work. Organizations struggle to find seasonal labor to harvest their crops. Noble House has already become the first mover to become a marketplace for gig workers.

Actors, content writers and even HR professionals are beginning to share this upcoming marketplace.

Already there are marketplaces for niche skills popping up all over the world. Pared.com provides caterers and restaurants with back-of-the-house

doctor’s credentials and licenses before they undertake surgery for someone (even if they are employed by a hospital) 3. The employers want to know if the person is easy to work with. This is where customer reviews help. The Uber and Ola driver ratings are available for all to see. The drivers in turn can see the reputation of the drivers they have been assigned.

4. The payment system for the gig workers must be made friction-free. Upwork and Uber have solved the payment problem by making payments instantaneous.

5. The professional must be able to stay employable by upgrading their skills and knowledge in real time. Sometimes that may mean upgrading skills by being an apprentice to an expert.

Skills for HR Technology is being used to solve all five problems.

Working with a boundary-less talent pool on tap

The five big problems Talent marketplaces must solve four problems.

1. They must make it easy for the employer to find the person with the right skills regardless of the duration for which they are being employed.

2. They need to find ways to verify the credentials for work that requires specific licenses and experience. Imagine being able to see the

STORY

operations like line cooks, prep cooks, and dishwashers, though it could theoretically extend to any part of the restaurant experience. They also provide bartenders, baristas and even Oyster Shuckers to restaurants who don’t know how to find these skills when they have an impatient customer waiting. Rover.com provides services for cats and dogs that range from dog-walking, day-care and more. StyleSheet can help you find hairstylists for the local salon. TrustedHealth is a portal that provides nurses to the health care industry. Their portal also provides storage for the nurse’s credentials. That makes applying for a job easy. The employer can pre-screen the candidates.

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New talent marketplaces must solve problems such as they must make it easy for the employer to find the person with the right skills regardless of the duration for which they are being employed will need different kind of skills for HR. Being able to use technology to reimagine the employee experience is a good starting point. Working with influencers to shape the employer brand is another area for HR to scale up. Working to provide talent in real time is a new challenge for HR to address. Building engagement and employability across the supply chain means that HR must stop viewing the talent pool as being limited to full-time employees. There are new talent pools like Generation Z that are emerging that have a very different mindset and expectations. Having a research wing would be useful. When the world of work, working and workers are all changing, HR must lead the way.

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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acob Morgan is one of the world’s leading authorities on the future of work and employee experience. Jacob Morgan is a 3x best-selling author, speaker, and futurist who advises business leaders and organizations around the world. His is also the founder of FutureofWorkUniversity.com.

Here are the excerpts of the interview with Jacob.

What are the top trends that are changing the workplace dynamics today?

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There are quite a few actually depending on how micro or macro you want to look. Changing demographics are a big one; we are living longer and retiring later not to mention we have given generations in the workforce and millennials as the dominant demographic currently. Next we have technologies like AI, IoT, big data, cloud computing, and many others which are changing how we work and how we think about and design jobs. A shift towards diversity and inclusion is another big trend and is changing the way organizations design their workforce practices, how they structure teams, and how they hire. Next we see changes in leadership styles, my next book is actually all about the future of leadership so I'll have more to share on this soon. A few others including: globalization, mobility, and a focus on purpose and impact.

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How can HR help build a strong workforce of the future? How do you envision the future of HR? HR needs to not think, act, or be like traditional HR. They need to understand that their job is about human transformation, not human resources. The big shift is moving away from being a function that exists because of legal reasons to being a function

The next big battleground: EX If you think that AI and technology will cause a jobs apocalypse then you simply lack imagination, says Jacob Morgan - the founder of Future of Work University

By Mastufa Ahmed

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that exists because it's guiding and shaping what the future of work is going to look like. For an HR leader, the best piece of advice I can give is to spend less time on traditional HR stuff and more time looking at change, transformation, the future of work, employee experience, etc.

Do you think organizations are getting better at adapting to digital disruption? Or do we still have a long way to go?

Better of course, but clearly still a long way to go!

Do you think businesses today are doing enough to bridge the future skills gap? How can they prepare their workforce for the likely disruption ahead?

Definitely not. Interestingly enough, I interviewed over 130 CEOs on the future of leadership and most of them are very optimistic about the impact that AI and technology will have on jobs and work. My worry isn't that technology will replace humans; it's that we won't be able to upskill and retrain workers fast enough.

Organizations around the world need to invest

much more in leadership development, future skills programs, and in general upskilling and retraining.

Do think it's time for HR leaders to leverage new tools such as analytics and explore value creation opportunities just like business leaders do?

It's definitely happening already. In fact, if someone reading this is part of an HR team and not leveraging people analytics then they are already behind. Decisions with data are just guesses at best!

What should be key considerations for HR decision makers as they plan to prepare for future of work?

• What is the future of work you want to see happen?

• What are you doing to build that future of work?

• What does it mean to be an employee or a leader at your organization?

• What are you doing to focus on the human and technology partnership?

What’s your take on gig economy and what is the “right’ environment and culture that will be desirable for full-time employees, freelancers, or contingents?

I don't think too much will change in the gig economy world. The vast majority of us will have full-time jobs and some will be gig workers, but I don't believe some of the exaggerated numbers which state that the majority of the workforce (especially in the U.S.) will be comprised of gig workers. Sadly, there's a lot of confusion around how this group of workers is even defined so much of the research around the size/impact is hard to gauge. It's an important trend/group to pay attention to but it's not taking over, at least not in the near future. As far as how to treat them.

I'm a believer in treating everyone like they are an integral part of the team, regardless of if they are full time, part time, or contingent. One of

STORY

Like many of the CEOs I've interviewed, I'm optimistic. As several CEOs have told me, if you think that AI and technology will cause a jobs apocalypse then you simply lack imagination.

There's a difference between automating a task versus replacing a human. Sure, tasks are getting automated all the time but the humans aren't. Accenture, McDonald's, Evian, and many other companies around the world have invested heavily in technology and AI but not at the expense of sacrificing their workforce.

This doesn't mean that there won't be an impact.

I think some routine jobs will change but the responsibility here is just as much on the individuals who have those jobs as it is on the organizations who employ them. We all need to be perpetual learners!

My worry isn't that technology will replace humans; it's that we won't be able to upskill and retrain workers fast enough.

Organizations around the world need to invest much more in leadership development, and in general upskilling and retraining

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Will AI and technology cause a jobs apocalypse? What impact will automation have on work?

the things I personally hate to see if when I email people at organizations and directly in their email address I find they are labeled as "contractor," how lame is that!

You write a lot about employee experience.

Why do you think it’s important and how does it connect with business?

Employee experience is the next big battleground for organizations around the world.

As much as we like to talk about technology, it's ultimately the people who are going to make or break your company. Employee experience is about creating an organization where employees want to show up to work by focusing on the three experience environments which are culture, technology, and physical space. I looked at 252 organizations around the world and found that the very best organizations have 40 percent lower turnover, are 24 percent smaller, have 4x the profit per employee, 2.1x average revenue, and have superior stock price performance (when compared against the other organizations I studied).

Jacob Morgan’s new book on the future of leadership is coming out at the end of 2019.

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Moving beyond perceptions HR can be a leader in the development of organizational strategy, not merely subservient to it, however, the perceptions of HR over the years have not moved much

By Clinton Wingrove

STORY

• • • • • •

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e have come a long way since the article, “Why I Hate HR” by Keith B. Hammond in Fast Company in 2005. But, evidence suggests that we have not learned a lot on the way.

The perceptions of HR have not moved much.

That is a real shame. My own experience of over four decades working in and for HR has shown that HR is a profession verging on being a vocation - it has many immensely passionate and knowledgeable professionals.

So, why the continued question over HR’s value?

In 2018, I wrote an article here, “The Capability Question” and challenged HR professionals to remember the six contributions that they must make to their respective organizations in order to achieve or sustain credibility:

To address the issue of the caliber of management and leadership, HR professionals need to become executives! They need to do their homework; yes, consult; but, then take responsibility and make a professional decision…then, fight for it to be adopted 64

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Ensure a secure talent pipeline Maximize performance and productivity Accelerate, deepen, and broaden development Optimize HR investment HR Team development to keep up-to-date Ensure compliance

But, I see so many HR professionals continually distracted by populist ideas, demands for simplification (or trivialization), or a focus exclusively on transactional issues.

Some of the most intelligent and evidencebased comments about HR since that Fast Company article have come from Josh Bersin. As far back as 2014, he pointed out, explained, and justified the need for greater development of HR professionals. My own observations, experience, and research concur.

Back in 2017, I wrote here about, “The Technology Challenge for HR.” In that article, I listed the five non-HR skills that HR professionals need in order to succeed now and for the foreseeable future. In summary, these are:

1. Technology acumen Great HR leaders: (i) Look out for and spot new technologies, and approach them with an open but curious mind; (ii) Understand the analytical power and the behavior engineering power of new technologies; (iii) Hold themselves accountable for determining the right technology to use. They don’t abdicate that responsibility to IT or Procurement.

2. Analytical Skills Great HR leaders don’t merely look backward or extrapolate. They use analytics to predict and/ or to test unproven hypotheses about how human performance and development can be enhanced.

3. Commercial acumen Great HR leaders understand the very essence of their respective organizations, how they work,

and how they generate and utilize the funds and resources to survive and grow. They understand, and they are able to prove, the impact of changes they propose or reject.

4. Courage Great HR leaders believe that HR can be a leader in the development of organizational strategy, not merely subservient to it. They fight against demands to trivialize and to implement merely what is popular. And, they fight for what they know and can prove is best for the organization.

5. Personal effectiveness

Great HR leaders don’t merely look backward or extrapolate.

They use analytics to predict and/ or to test unproven hypotheses about how human performance and development can be enhanced

STORY

Those three processes are the very core of people-management. In 2018, I wrote another article here, “Is ‘An Employer of Choice’ Best for You?” and addressed the very topic of the employee experience. In that article, I stated, “If optimizing the Employee Experience is key to being an employer of choice, then ensuring excellence in people management must be a high priority.”

It is now quite clear that the caliber of management is the significant differentiator of sustainably successful organizations.

I have read many articles about how HR can achieve greater influence and credibility. Many argue that HR professionals need to become consultants. Would consulting skills help? Of course. Are consulting skills the answer? No. Let’s be quite clear. The actions that are needed, especially radical changes to how managers are appointed and developed, will almost never be asked for by those in senior non-HR management roles.

Most importantly, they need to: • Understand the critical importance and urgency of addressing the management challenge; • Stop using people-management as a reward for excellence at something else; • Find ways to reward technical excellence differently; • Have criteria for appointment to peoplemanagement positions that include (i) demonstrated people-management potential, (ii) genuine commitment to a career in peoplemanagement, (iii) commitment to the organization and continuous development, (iv) support from others who have worked with them; • Ensure that suitable training is provided before the appointment; that a buddy/mentor is assigned during ramp-up time; and that on-going development is mandatory;

C OVER

Great HR leaders create powerful business cases and obtain appropriate air-time to present them.

Through personal presence, strong relationships and credibility with their stakeholders, and excellent persuasion and negotiation skills, they achieve buy-in and commitment.

All of the above require HR professionals to engage in planned, practical, and continuous personal development. But, achieving suitable skill levels in those skills amplifies the impact and value of the technical HR skills they already have.

Today, one of the hottest topics is, “The importance of the employee experience.” The employee experience is the aggregate of the thousands of brief, transient interactions that each employee experiences every week between themselves, the processes they have to follow, the technology they use, and those with whom they interact (most notably their peers and their managers). If we are to optimize the employee experience, we, therefore, need to focus most attention on three processes: 1. How individual and team performance is optimized every minute, hour, day, week, … not merely annually!

2. How individual and team development is ensured and accelerated 3. How a robust talent pipeline is created and maintained to meet short, medium, and longterm needs.

To address the issue of the caliber of management and leadership, HR professionals need to become executives! They need to do their homework; yes, consult; but, then take responsibility and make a professional decision … then, fight for it to be adopted.

• Ensure that managers are held accountable for the employee experiences of their staff.

• The future of HR? • HR professionals must focus on the SIX critical contributions so that they can prove their worth; • HR professionals must develop the FIVE complementary skills to equip them to play a proactive and strategic role; • HR professionals must implement contemporary and effective models of the THREE critical processes to ensure maximum productivity and effectiveness; • HR professionals must address the ONE most significant factor of all, the caliber of management and leadership.

6531 - challenging, potentially exciting, but no-doubt rewarding!

About the author

Clinton Wingrove is Director at www.

WantToBeGreatManager.com, Director, Principal Consultant, and HR Anarchist at www.ClintonHR.com JUNE 2019 |

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Leela Bassi

Ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance The story of Joshua who was born with a musical gift and his sister Clara who became talented by working really hard to become an athlete

T

alent”. What is it?

Gifted? Skillful? Accomplished?

The Oxford dictionary describes it as “an ability that someone is born with” But where does that leaves the rest

R o a d t o r e s i l i e nc e

of us?

The good news is that talent is a skill that can be honed.

Today’s story is about Joshua, a 12 years old boy, who discovers that piano has become his passion.

As he woke each morning, he couldn’t help but let his fingers run along the baby grand piano that filled the room.

The black and white keys moved so fast it was hard to tell whether he was touching them or not.

No matter the time of the day, the thrill was heard, the dynamic was present; as the rest of the room listened, intently focused on the young master impressive precision chosen piece.

Joshua’s photographic memory enabled him to choose pieces of music and play them within a few minutes of looking at them. His dramatic flair was unique. His delicacy of touch was irresistible. He specializes in classical, R&B, soul, pop, rock, jazz and mastered his craft like a king.

As the years went by, Josh’s innate musical talent became more carefree and despite his natu-

ral ability he often had trouble reading sheet music and found it difficult to play unfamiliar tunes.

Little by little he became reluctant to spend extra time learning his exams pieces and would rather play the latest most popular albums. Soon Joshua’s dream of becoming a worldwide pianist became artificial.

In the meantime, his younger sister Clara: tall, with a slender figure, and long narrow feet had the perfect body to become a Gymnast. She loved gymnastics and worked for hours on end at every opportunity she had. Clara never stopped believing in herself and that always put her in first place everywhere she went and in everything she did.

Over the years, the grander the dream, the more competitions there was but Clara remained focused, pushing herself through to the end. As she entered her last month before her final level examinations, Clara experienced a bad fall leaving her with an injury. She suffered immensely and became pale each time she took a step, her biggest dream seemed to be over. However, Clara refused to give up. With enormous efforts, she got back up and continued to practise days and night even though she was told she would never pass. Clara was adamant she could succeed. She kept practising for long hours, rehearsing when she had a cold, continued training long after others had finished classes. Her swollen ankles, battered feet, and

Having worked in the International Corporate Sector for over 20 years in different industries, I have learned that being talented in specific disciplines certainly help. But how do you stay on top of your game?

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1. Motivate and inspire your employee Encourage your employees, call them by their first name and give them a pat on the back every now and then. Notice their efforts and show them you care. Create a trusted working relationship.

By doing so, your employee will feel like an asset and will want to bring out their hidden potential and in no time will reveal their talent.

2. Empower your employee Provide opportunities for your employees to grow and learn. Show them there is room for promotion. Always challenge them with different projects, that will engage them and enable them to tap into their passion and learn more about themselves and the company they work for.

In all walks of lives, whether they are personal or professional, I have learned that it is through perseverance, persistence, and determination that you can achieve your goal whether you believe you have talent or not 3. Give constructive feedbacks Provide frequent constructive feedback so your employee knows how he/she is performing and what’s expected of them. This supports their learning and development and helps them to push further each time.

I like to use what we call the “sandwich technique”, start by telling them how well they have handled a project, a presentation or a situation, the middle part is your sandwich filling, this is where you focus on what the issue is (not the individual), be very specific of what is missing and how it could be improved. In the last part, give a summary of what you went over in the first and second part. I can never insist enough, praise, and be as sincere as you possibly can.

In all walks of lives, whether they are personal or professional, I have learned that it is through perseverance, persistence and determination that you can achieve your goal whether you believe you have talent or not. If you keep pushing further for longer, if you keep digging deeper within yourself, this is when you will find the strength that will lift you to the next level.

Love this quote of Thomas Foxwell Burton summarises this article so well.

“With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable”

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bruised toes were no obstacles for her. Clara had become unstoppable.

After a full month of strive and endurance, Clara’s performance was exceptional. Not only did she complete and pass her final level; she surpassed her brother in many ways and is now representing GB at the Olympics.

Clara had become unbreakable.

So who is more talented? Joshua who was born with a musical gift or Clara who became talented by working so hard to become an athlete? Either way, both children were talented in their own way but it is through hard work, determination, and resilience that talent can also be achieved and not just by nature.

Having worked in the International Corporate Sector over the past 20 years in different industries, I have learned that being talented in specific disciplines certainly helps. However, how can you stay on top of your game?

After a while, if you are not careful you are being taken for granted and before you know it you find yourself at the other end of the scale.

It is crucial to remind all organizations and leadership team these three simple steps:

About the author

Leela is a UK based multilingual keynote speaker and Transformational Coach. Leela left her corporate career in order to fulfil her vision of inspiring and empowering others. She is the CEO/Founder of Above & Beyond RESILIENCE / The Unstoppable FEMALE Academy | ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET MENTOR JUNE 2019 |

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Employees to dictate the future of work Chris McCarthy, the CEO of Degreed, in an interaction with People Matters

shares insights on why he is upbeat about the India market

By Abid Hasan

Y In t e r v i e w

ou have completed one year as the CEO for Degreed. How has the journey been so far and what have been the key learnings for you?

Well, the most fascinating thing is that we are growing in terms of people and our company has doubled since the time I have taken over as the CEO. As an organization, we have to work to continue to communicate that everyone in the company understands what they do on a daily basis. I am working hard to make sure that everyone stays aligned. It’s okay to go off track sometimes, but one should always bounce back and respond to know what we are trying to do as an organization. I think David Blake (the former CEO and Co-Founder of the company) and I have always operated as a great team, where his approach was of the founder, mission, vision, conviction and I was into mapping to the needs of the market and operating.

It is just amazing that as fast as we grow, we have to continue to communicate over and over again to employees so that they understand what we are doing.

To me operationally it has been an excellent year. We’ve grown a good hundred percent since last year. For me, it is more on the softer side, how hard we have to work, and so on.

You mentioned about David and how you took charge as the CEO. How different is your leadership style as that of him and what changes have you brought in the organization?

We were on the board of directors of the company for the last five and a half years and Dave is just a special partner that I’ll ever have again in my career where we both had no egos. It did not matter what our titles were. At times we even talked about giving up our titles because it wasn’t necessary to us; we had never even talked about me being a CEO before he told me about his plans about going into politics.

I believe success is like two board engines where you have two people who combine the entire team and if any one of those engines outpace the other, the company would fail. If Dave had built the company himself, without getting me and others, it would have still been a consumer business, without maybe debatably a robust revenue model.

India is well ahead of others and just point blank when it comes to creativity and skills than most other countries 68

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If I had done it, it would have been a middling better version of a learning management system.

Together we got to a place that was disruptive and pragmatic. I would say mostly because of the leadership of Dave and Eric Sharp, the co-founder of the company, we are probably the most mission aligned company today.

You are upbeat about the future of work and upskilling. Where do you think the future of work is going?

I believe most learning and HR executives should address the importance of skills identification. I think that it is more about the consumerization of learning and skill building. The future of work will be dictated by what the employees want and what their needs are. The future of work will be dictated by consumerization. Learning is one of the last few categories to go consumerized.

How is Degreed doing in terms of revenue? Are you happy with the numbers?

Is it correct that Degreed has crossed more than $1.4 million in India and overall in Asia, it is more than $5 million in terms of revenue?

Yes. We don’t disclose revenue as it is a private company, but you are certainly in the range.

What potential do you see in the Indian market for Degreed?

It is significant. European and the Asia Pacific markets are the two fastest-growing regions, but I expect our growth in India and Asia to accelerate.

No doubt that the base in India is smaller, but it’s growing faster, and there is a reason why we are increasing our team members in India.

I’d say the Indian market and Asia, in general, is one to two years behind the adoption curve of the US. The difference is they are not one to two years behind in the education curve. When you flip it to skills, India is well ahead of everyone else in the world. India is point blank thinking more creatively around skills and skills credentials than most other countries.

What will be your three key focus areas for Degreed in India and Asia?

My primary focus is to have all of our clients happy and most of them are very happy. I can’t say that all of them are as successful as we would like them to be because we have very high standards for it. Second, we need to build up our team here in India with the best of the talent available. Third, we have to execute our work in such a manner that

I believe most learning and HR executives should address the importance of skills identification which is more about the consumerization of learning and skill building there should be a huge gap for our competitors to fill in.

In t e r v i e w

It has been an exceptional year and a half for the company and we are in the top tier. Our growth is accelerating and we grew more than 100 percent.

Most companies have a hard time maintaining the metrics. Right now we have a net promoter score of 69 which when compared with other enterprise learning applications is exceptionally high. It is because we have maintained that customer focus, and have been able to make the clients happy and successful.

Is the next round of investment knocking the door for Degreed and what are your expansion plans in India?

We raised more money in our series C funding than we needed to. The actual number was $62 million. We acquired Pathgather and did use some of our capital to do that. Right now the market is hitting the steep phase of its growth curve and is doing so globally. I also see several opportunities for additional acquisitions that Degreed could do in the near future. We have growth targets of more than 100 percent in Asia this year and India this year is a big piece of it. We need to build a brand and establish ourselves here as we have in the US.

Where do you see Degreed in the coming three years in India and Asia?

I certainly expect it to be one of our three most significant regions in the world, including North America and Europe. I hope that we have dozens if not hundreds of amazing client partners that we can tell the stories about. I expect to have an office here at that point and have a full blown top to bottom customer support enablement. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up making a couple of acquisitions of companies that could help us accelerate things.

JUNE 2019 |

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Visty Banaji

Myopic HR education Preparing present and future-ready people practitioners

Here we suggest a curriculum that will equip most students of HR to contribute from day one in all essential and some specialized tasks while retaining the ability to meet future needs

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I

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t is more than forty years since Theodore Levitt published his classic article on Marketing Myopia.1 "The 'heart of the article,'... is Levitt’s argument that companies are too focused on producing goods or services and don’t spend enough time understanding what customers want or need."2 Of course, we couldn’t be doing something so stupidly short-sighted when it came to educating HR professionals. Or could we? Let’s take a closer look.

Imagine you are planning to buy a car.

Your rational reasons (if you’d like to go off on the tangent of irrational reasons for your choice, follow this3 interview of Daniel McFadden) would probably be on the following lines. Perhaps your most important requirement would be to have a car that, from the word 'go', transported you safely and reliably from one place to another i.e. it did the job all cars are meant to do. But you may also have particular requirements from your car e.g. you may want it to be extra economical or sporty or capable of cross-country excursions.

Finally, you would probably want your car to last for a few years and be obsolescence proof for its working life. Aren’t campus scouts for HR talent permitted to have similar expectations of immediate usability and non-obsolescence in the future? As a recruiter for HR professionals at management and other campuses at least from the time of Levitt’s article, I am forced to say that, a few exceptions apart (I do need to retain a few friends), these institutes do not make their students: • Ready for carrying out the most basic HR tasks as soon as they join • Comfortable and capable of contributing to specialized sub-functions or emerging industrial sectors • Able to reinvent themselves repeatedly over their careers Of course, there are individuals who do each of these very well on their own

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The fundamentals and latest developments in Psychology, Social Psychology and Sociology are essential for HR professionals to understand the wellsprings of human nature as well as behavior in groups and there are large corporates that only need good raw material and will fill in all the blanks left by the educational system.

My purpose here is to suggest a curriculum that will equip most students of HR to contribute from day one in all essential and some specialized tasks and industry environments while retaining the ability to meet totally different needs in the future.

What I have presented above as the logical order of requirements is not the chronological sequence of instruction, which is what I will now follow for suggesting how

present and future-ready HR professionals should be educated. The first three of the learning goals listed below are essential foundations for all HR beginners (best imparted in the first year of the program) while the next two contain optional choices (that could extend over the internship and second half of the course): 1. Conceptual grounding for understanding people as well as the fundamentals of business and technology.

2. Ability to deal with and influence people at all levels, through different

channels and in a variety of situations.

3. Skills to deliver basic HR results in all sub-domains of the function.

4. Cutting-edge, plug-and-play expertise in at least a few HR sub-domains.

5. Comfort in and understanding of at least one or two industrial sectors.

While I shall suggest what the education of an HR person entering the profession should include, I’ll not presume to prescribe how it should be imparted.

I can lay some claim to understanding what customers of HR programs want but academicians would be in a much better position to figure out the best pedagogy to deliver this requirement.

Understanding people & business Everyone with a formal education in HR should have a sound understanding of: • How and why people behave the way they actually do • How people should behave, particularly in the work context • Business and technology

Influencing people Considering the fact that the ability to influence people (individually and in groups, face-to-face as well as remotely) is so central to an HR generalist’s role, it is surprising that post-graduate programs in HR do so little to impart this unsubstitutable capability. There are, of course, some natively gifted influencers who elicit trust wherever they go and have a natural flair for getting people to do what they want (and be thrilled while doing it). That, unfortunately, is not a happy situation most of us are placed in. If people who are not naturally gifted do not acquire people influencing skills as part of their education, they can only learn them through error and fatal error on-the-job, frequently with permanent career-retarding consequences.

The people skills needed by HR neophytes, before they enter the workstream, are a bit different from those essential for other freshers and they fall under three heads: • Influencing individuals and small groups • Communicating to large groups faceto-face • Remote (primarily one-way) influence

Considering the fact that the ability to influence people is so central to an HR generalist’s role, it is surprising that postgraduate programs in HR do so little to impart this unsubstitutable capability

JUNE 2019 |

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The fundamentals and latest developments in Psychology, Social Psychology and Sociology are essential for HR professionals to understand the wellsprings of human nature as well as behavior in groups. Not only does the grasp of the core principles of these disciplines permit the design of innovative systems and interventions best-tailored to an individual organization’s needs, they are the best guard against obsolescence. Specific skills, people processes, and even cultures may need to change repeatedly but HR practitioners with a firm grasp of the underlying principles of individual and group behavior can easily re-design these applications to meet future demands. In addition to the research-based generalizations learned from the behavioral sciences, the insights provided by History (and Biography) are an invaluable supplement to understanding how people have actually behaved in a wide variety of situations and which behaviors, particularly of leaders4, have proved most efficacious.5 Institutes for educating HR professionals cannot simply stop with growing agile minds that can find creative solutions.

They must get those minds to internalize ethically acceptable channels within which those solutions must be confined.

At the very least they must be familiar with one or more codes of organizational fairness and the practical challenges and methods of implementing them in the Indian context. I am naturally biased in favor of a code I have played a hand in designing6 but more refined and relevant ones will certainly become available over

time. Several MBA programs now stipulate courses on Business Ethics. The issues facing HR practitioners are specific enough to justify the design of a course on HR Ethics. After a strong foundation in theories of ethics7 and justice8 (the references are illustrative – many alternative texts can be used), students should be equipped to apply these principles to topics such as engagement of contingent workers9, justifiable compensation differentials10 across levels/geographies and employee data privacy11. The course can be topped off with live interactions with CHROs who have walked the talk when faced with ethically conflicted decisions and an awareness of the pitfalls into which less scrupulous or vertebrated CHROs fall.12 I will be stepping into more conventional territory when I plead the case for business awareness for HR students.

At least Business Strategy, Finance, and Marketing should be taught to HR students at a level no inferior to that taught in the core curriculum of the best MBA programs. Technology courses, again, should be on par with those in good MBA schools. They should cover not just Enterprise Management Systems and HR Management Systems but Data Analytics and Social Media.

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Everyone at work needs to handle oneto-one and small group interactions. Where the HR entrant’s situation differs is that, in many cases, s/he is pitched into interactions with senior line customers almost from the start. Such visibility can be a great opportunity but immature missteps can stunt progress for years. Even interactions with people who are not at the management apex can have serious consequences. Dealings with union leaders fall into this category and, even if the novice is entrusted only with meetings at the shopfloor level, a stray or indiscreet comment can be the proverbial butterfly causing a hurricane of plant-wide industrial unrest.

Experienced IR interlocutors run their words past their own internal censor (like the broadcast delay on live TV shows) before they blurt them out. With practice,

Every HR person’s education must include a mandatory toolkit of skills in each of the key subdomains of the function which include strategic HRM, talent management, among others the lag imposed by this check becomes almost unnoticeable. Of course, HR freshers’ paths are not strewn only with threats.

They have an almost unique opportunity to make flowers bloom at the bottom of the organizational pyramid. Instead of capitalizing on this chance, some young entrants come across as arrogant, aloof and unfeeling. I am frequently reminded of what Eliza Doolittle says to the mother of her teacher in My Fair Lady: "...the difference between a lady and a flower girl isn't how she behaves but how she is treated. I'll always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins because he always treats me as a flower girl and always will. I'll always be a lady to Colonel Pickering because he always treats me like a lady and always will."13 Learning to treat people at different levels with respect is only the start of the interaction lesson for HR aspirants. It is genuinely expecting others to live up to a higher standard of performance and behavior that

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is at the heart of the Pygmalion effect and of people development anywhere.

A people influence target which arrives much earlier for HR beginners than for those starting in most other functions is a large audience. Occasions can be as benign as taking an induction session for new entrants to uncomfortably hostile ones such as calming a crowd of employees agitated by a fellow-worker’s accidental death. Institutes of education do give opportunities to acquire skills in addressing large groups of peers. They need to extend the reach to diverse groups in more or less ugly moods. A special aspect of this skill which will be increasingly demanded is addressing large groups that are not physically present e.g. managing web conferences with real-time interaction.

The other medium of interpersonal influence which a budding HR practi-

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tioner must master is the one where the the message is read (or seen) rather than heard. The company’s vision must be shared in inspiring words and unvarying thrust, strategies need to be informed to those responsible for executing them, policies must be explained simply and unambiguously, victories must be celebrated and lessons extracted from setbacks. Many of these communications appear under the signatures of line leaders but the text frequently originates from or is at least vetted by HR. Given the shaky command many senior HR leaders have over the written word (frequently guised as shortage of time), these relatively ineffaceable messages slip down for crafting to recently recruited individual contributors who cannot delegate it further. The buck for written communication stops even more immovably at the newcomer’s desk when delivery has to take place through social media. But simply being a user of Facebook and Instagram doesn’t make a youngster an expert on 'memes' and 'virals'.14

As with every other influence capability mentioned in this section, the skill needs to be imparted, practiced and honed as a foundational part of acquiring an HR qualification.

Basic DIY skills for HR generalists Some of the greatest disappointments recruiters face, after paying top dollar for HR MBAs from the best institutes, is their inability to carry out basic HR tasks as soon as they come on board. What is simply a disappointment for recruiters in large and mature HR departments can prove to be a fatal flaw if the fresher is positioned straightaway as the sole HR presence in a detached location or in a start-up where no one has the time to take a newcomer through KG HR. In the absence of these rudiments of the HR practitioner’s trade, the latest concepts acquired with assiduity over months of study find no application. As George Swinnock put it long ago: "Knowledge without practice is like a glass eye, all for the show, and nothing for use."

Every HR person’s education must, therefore, include a mandatory toolkit of skills in each of the key sub-domains of the function, which include: • Strategic HRM • Organization Design • Workforce Planning & Staffing • Talent Management • Learning & Development • Total Rewards • Performance Management • Employee Relations Each institute is, of course, free to vary this list. I have used the one which forms the basis of the framework of technical competencies for HR professionals that I was involved in designing for the National HRD Network. My choice is not only prompted by a desire to have curriculum design conform to the most comprehensive HR competency model in the country but because (bar the first bullet point) it corresponds to the Centres of Excellence (COEs) into which the specializations in most large HR departments are structurally divided.

While we will deal with higher-level expertise in these specializations in the next section, each of them demands three to four basic skills which each HR generalist should know well. For example, Staffing would include the skill of conducting an interview and Employee Relations would have the capability to conduct disciplinary action proceedings. Any experienced HR practitioner or academician can draw up a list of these 25-30 must-have skills that should be in the repertoire of every qualified HR professional.

With these three foundations, we have now converted all our aspiring HR practi-

tioners into ready-for-action HR generalists. But we are still only about halfway through the education process. What remains?

Specialization for Sub-functions and Sectors

While most institutes knowingly or unknowingly design their curricula to deal

Some of the greatest disappointments recruiters face, after paying top dollar for HR MBAs from the best institutes, is their inability to carry out basic HR tasks as soon as they come on board with the demands of the first two sectors listed above, for the remaining sectors classroom as well as project and practical exposure has yet to be crystallized to any significant extent. Here again, not all institutes need offer an in-depth understanding of the people, operations and process peculiarities for all the sectors. Those which become known for doing a particularly good job preparing HR professionals for some sectors will obviously, attract recruiters from those.

Taking the longer view on HR The type of education pattern this column has described should yield HR freshers ready-to-contribute from day one and yet able to reinvent themselves repeatedly in their careers. Should all the sourcing for HR come from people of this stream? By no means. While people with the kind of education suggested here should certainly form an essential core for staffing HR departments, they should be supplemented by a mix of people who have moved into HR from the line or other functions as well as promising talent that has been promoted

Notes

1. Theodore Levitt, Marketing Myopia, Harvard Business Review, September-October 1975.

2. Amy Gallo, A Refresher on Marketing Myopia, Harvard Business Review. August 2016.

3. Derek Thompson, The Irrational Consumer – Why Economics Is Dead Wrong About How We Make Choices, The Atlantic, January 2013.

4. Visty Banaji, Learning leadership lessons from leaders, People Matters, 18th July 2019, (https://www.peoplematters.in/article/training-development/learning-leadershiplessons-from-leaders-20565).

5. Isaiah Berlin The Proper Study Of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1998.

6. Visty Banaji, Fairness is Fundamental, NHRD Network Journal, Volume 7, Issue 4, October 2014.

7. Kenan Malik, The Quest for a Moral Compass, Atlantic, 2015.

8. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press; 2nd Revised edition, 1999.

9. Visty Banaji, Udta Udyog – Industry’s addiction to contract workers, People Matters, 15th September 2016, (https:// www.peoplematters.in/article/temporary-and-contractstaffing/udta-udyog-industrys-addiction-to-contract-workers-14090).

10. Visty Banaji, But who will guard the guardians?, People Matters, 14th March 2018, (https://www.peoplematters. in/article/appraisal-season/can-runaway-increases-inexecutive-compensation-be-slowed-down-17720).

11. Visty Banaji, Brave new corporate world: On employee data protection and privacy, People Matters, 17th August 2018, (https://www.peoplematters.in/article/jobs/bravenew-corporate-world-on-employee-data-protection-and-privacy-17999).

12. Visty Banaji, Is your HR Head a Jerk?- A Taxonomy of HR Asterisks, People Matters, 24th May 2018, (https://www. peoplematters.in/article/hr-industry/a-taxonomy-of-hrasterisks-18331).

13. Alan Jay Lerner, My Fair Lady, Penguin UK, 1975.

14. Limor Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture, MIT Press, 2013.

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A Swiss army knife is one of the most useful tools to have on hand at home or while traveling. Should the task you wish to undertake to go beyond the most basic, however, you will struggle to make do with just a vanilla Victorinox. The larger the recruiting organization and the more sophisticated its HR activity, the likelier it is to need people who are not just ready to carry out basic tasks in all HR sub-domains but who can equally readily make more advanced contributions in a couple of them. The second half of the HR education journey must begin with people choosing these and go on to making them competent in the specializations they have selected.

All institutions may not be able to offer specializations in the eight sub-disciplines listed in the previous section. Rather than imparting mediocrity, it would be far better for each institute to limit itself to the ones in which it can do an excellent job and aim to become nationally renowned in two or three of them. Choices of advanced classes, dissertations, research, fieldwork, and summer internships, which are currently somewhat haphazardly chosen in many institutions, should all dovetail into building expertise in two to three specializations. Students should also be encouraged to acquire original design innovation capability in one of these. This would not only make the task of recruiters easier but increase the likelihood of freshers starting in COEs where they can make the maximum initial contribution and impact.

Exactly the same combinations of classroom, research, and field/internship learning should be used for industrial sector familiarization, understanding, and immersion. Here too, while all students should have a glimpse of what working in a particular sector involves, they should be given deeper insights into the culture and demands of one or two of them. For our purposes, choices of sectoral specialization could be: • Manufacturing • Services • HR consultancy and HR services • Start-ups • Aggregators and GIGs • Non-profits and NGOs • Self- entrepreneurship, usually in HR services

from subordinate levels in HR itself. Over the years, I have found the diversity of viewpoint and training both these internal sourcing streams bring in to be invaluable.

In addition, there will need to be specialists (e.g. in the behavioral sciences or IT) who will be necessary for large HR set-ups to be effective. When people from these varied backgrounds move into HR, they too will need a part of the curriculum described here but it will have to be imparted to them in doses that can be consumed mid-career.

In the never-ending (and sometimes acrimonious) debate senior HR people have about how to revitalize our profession and remedy its failings, we quickly agree on a long list of the obstacles we run into because of our shortsightedness.

Agreeing on prioritizing which should be tackled first is another matter altogether.

Admittedly, myopia in HR education is not the only or even the most pernicious form of short-sightedness afflicting HR. It is, however, undoubtedly the one that has the longest gestation period before any curative measures can come to fruition. After all, it will be at least a decade or two before the people benefiting from a changed education pattern occupy truly heavyweight HR leadership roles and make a difference to the image and direction of the profession. It is for this reason that the process of curing myopia afflicting HR education cannot start a day too soon.

About the author

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

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Shanthi Sundar

Building a culture of responsible autonomy While organizations will continue to focus on their ‘core’ business and talent, employees will look for flexibility and personalization. It’s time HR’s priorities are aligned to these expectations so that we can create maximum value for business

O An a l y s i s

nly a few years ago, the idea of staying at a complete stranger’s apartment on a holiday or hopping into a random driver’s car for a ride home was outlandish. But user-friendly applications like Airbnb and Uber offered consumers the freedom and choice to choose how they lived or traveled. Today, people are willing to break the ‘norm’, thanks to organizations shaping how the world operates. A lot of these changes hinge on how HR has allowed employees to move into an ‘autonomous’ mode, putting a larger focus on ‘responsibility’ and ‘accountability’ as well.

Organizations will continue to focus on their ‘core’ business and talent, while employees will look for flexibility and personalization. HR’s priorities should be aligned to these expectations so that we can create maximum value for business.

Know your customer (KYC) It is important that HR knows its customer – internal and external stakeholders. You could begin by

understanding business strategy and aligning your best talent for business verticals. For example, if you work for an IT organization, you must align your best programmer or leader to “critical” business functions; also assign top recruiters on your team to hire for that function. Go the extra mile, by allowing top programmers with multi-functional skills to be cross-deployed into other teams requiring their expertise during lean periods. HR’s leading priorities would therefore be talent attraction and talent calibration.

Diversity of choice To attract, retain and grow the best, realize that the workplace of today is far more diverse than just a decade ago. With diversity come myriad expectations – what works for one does not work for the other. So, flexibility is one of the key roles HR should be playing to build initiatives and programs that drive behavior desired by employees.

• Speed onboarding – What if you inform the employee upfront that she has the option to “opt-out” from the company with severance within the first 120 days of employment if she thinks your company is not the right place for them? Or what if the managers can do the same if they thought the employee is not good

With diversity come myriad expectations – what works for one does not work for the other.

So, flexibility is one of the key roles HR should be playing to build initiatives and programs that drive behavior desired by employees 74

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• Continuous dialogue – Well, you might have done a good job of keeping an engaged employee beyond 120 days. But with ever-changing goals and shorter sprint cycles, does it make sense today to have annual goals? No. Instead, the focus should be a continuous dialogue between managers and their team members. A manager’s role is one of an enabler and someone who can help the employee find a solution.

Allow them to decide the path they want to tread toward an outcome which both have agreed on.

• Jungle Gym – I routinely see employees wanting different experiences. Two years is an average timeframe they are willing to give a role. The experiences they desire need not necessarily add ‘depth’ to what they want to do but which gives them broader learning avenues. So, the conventional norm of a career progression no longer works. Promotion is not everything.

Think of an employee’s career as a “jungle gym” where they get to work-out differently every day.

HR should focus on building their muscle in this area and shed the fat of stereotypical thinking.

• Benefits potpourri – If you are 25 years old, you may value your CrossFit membership more than a medical insurance coverage for five lakhs. If I am a parent with a little child, I would rather utilize child care benefit given a choice. Welcome to the world of personalization. Can we do this for our staff ? Yes, of course. Focus on getting the maximum buck for the investment your organization makes in its benefits suite.

Whether it is about creating best-inclass recruitment practices that would attract the smartest talent or it is about having innovative talent solutions to grow and retain talent, HR has the ultimate responsibility of helping build a culture and framework of what I call “Responsible Autonomy”

An a l y s i s

enough? The transparency apparatus at HR is tested when it comes to aspects like these.

Pushing the needle on this would go a long way in fostering a culture of flexibility and highperformance.

Data analytics What gets measured gets done – simple. There is so much information available that is of relevance except that it isn’t always organized and contextualized. Building an analytics team in your HR organization is a worthy investment.

Leverage AI to draw meaningful insights to be able to have talent conversations with leadership.

For instance, employee sentiment analysis based on their Twitter activity or Glassdoor insights would be valuable in designing people strategies based on what matters most.

Whether it is about creating best-in-class recruitment practices that would attract the smartest talent or it is about having innovative talent solutions to grow and retain talent, HR has the ultimate responsibility of helping build a culture and framework of what I call “Responsible Autonomy” – one in which employees have the autonomy to drive their career while feeling responsible to effect meaningful business outcomes.

About the author

With over 20 years of experience spanning all areas of HR, Shanti Sundar is currently heading HR for Pegasystems in India and is a member of the India Executive Leadership team of the company. She is responsible for providing strategic HR leadership and support the company’s growth plans in India.

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Mindtree’s case for Pay Transparency With pay transparency, Mindtree has been able to keep its top talent attrition below 15 percent

By Anushree Sharma

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Brought to you by

A

mong the many topics one shouldn't broach at the workplace, discussing salaries with coworkers has long been considered one of the biggest offenses. It's natural to feel squeamish talking about money, particularly when it's tied to the value of your skills and hard work.

However, there is a lot of pay-injustice issues associated with the world of work today. Some of the most common questions and concerns raised by employees are:

I am getting paid unfairly Why is a poor performer getting paid more than me?

I want to quit because I am being paid low

The case for Pay Transparency - The Mindtree way For Mindtree, compensation transparency is allowing its employees a view and communicating to them how their pay is determined. It involves jotting down the different parameters that are taken into account while arriving at different components of the compensation and providing this knowledge to employees for their perusal.

Sanoj shares, “A transparent pay process conveys the message to our employees that the company’s pay practices are externally competitive, internally equitable and promotes meritocracy.”

Following are the key steps the company took to make the process transparent:

1. Communication Communication was the key to making this change. Compensation strategies are different for every business group and

For e.g. Variable Pay The payout norms for each financial year are available on the intranet for all Mindtree Minds (our employees) to view.

The math behind role, grade, performance, utilization and other individual param-

eters impacting the payout percentage is arrived at and the same is communicated to Mindtree Minds during onboarding sessions and is published on the Intranet.

The same logic is applied for company dependent variables like Annual revenue and Gross Margin/EBITDA. There is a dedicated call center and a chatbot established to help Mindtree Minds address any queries they have on their pay slip or pay structure as well.

All Mindtree Minds who join us from campuses across India are placed at the same salary numbers. Based on how they learn & perform, roles get mapped. The compensation journey of this group is published with a view of their growth in numbers for the next 5 years.

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At Mindtree, the need to make the compensation process transparent came from various situations pointing to one common aspect--that the old school norm of “do not discuss your salary with others” did not work anymore

functions. It’s important that leaders and managers from all groups are aware of the logical thought process to arrive at compensation numbers.

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When employees don't know how their pay compares to their peers', they're more likely to feel underpaid and maybe even discriminated against. In fact, ask yourself this question -- Do you want to work at a place that tolerates the idea that you feel underpaid or discriminated against?

A similar sentiment was shared by Mindtree when they felt a spike in attrition amongst employees and also a dip in their performance due to lack of clear pay and incentive guidelines. This led to a need to lay down guidelines and publish the process so that there would be no compensation related retaliations or grievances from the employees or their managers.

Sanoj Kumar, Program Director, People Function at Mindtree shared that “The analysis derived from data recorded in our internal discussion tool and attrition reports indicated a trend in compensation related dissatisfaction among the campus batches, employees who are part of technical panels to interview external candidates, employees who work out of the client offices and our top performers.”

He further shares, the above mentioned categories of employees were more prone to compare their salaries with the external market and amongst themselves. This exposure to knowledge of others’ salaries led to unrest and demotivation as they did not know why there was a differentiation.

This led to a spike in attrition amongst these groups of employees and also a dip in their performance. They felt they were being treated unfairly and so the greater effort wasn’t worth it.

At Mindtree, the need to make the compensation process transparent came from various people situations seemingly pointing to one common aspect- that the

old school norm of “do not discuss your salary with others” did not work anymore.

Employees are reward oriented and when they see someone else being rewarded differently – they expect clear guidelines laid down which would explain the differentiation. Lack of transparency would lead to employees deciphering that the system is unreasonable and unjust.

2. Building manager’s capability At the onset, before the change in process was finalized, various managers across the organization were consulted. This sample included managers whose team demographics were diverse in terms of size, gender, competency mix and skills of the team members. The exercise was to ensure we get an unbiased opinion on resulting changes. Suggestions were made and the process was modified to include these JUNE 2019 |

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suggestions in the most logical manner. It helped us understand the nuances better and gain the confidence of the managers that this process change would be welcome by them and their team members.

Once this change was published to the entire organization- extensive training sessions on communicating this change and handling crucial conversations were conducted across groups. These were done by a combination of the business HRs and the managers who were part of the earlier simulation sessions. These training sessions included role-plays, which covered a number of scenarios and questions which could arise in the process of implementing a large scale process change such as this.

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3. Knowledge management: Yorbit The company in-house online learning portal “Yorbit” hosted content created on how people cost affects the project financials which made managers conscious of the compensation related conversations that they were having.

With the process change, the managers were given absolute freedom to decide salaries for their team members. This helped managers spend their annual incre-

ment budgets judiciously and also helped control compensation over-commitments during crucial conversations with their team members. The higher management came together and decided not to make any exceptions to the newly defined compensation framework, further instilling confidence in the managers and their decisions.

Challenges in the journey The biggest challenge while making such a shift was to take line managers in confidence. Lack of understanding and fear of bias often leads to ineffective implementation. While compensation transparency is the ultimate goal, talking about techniques used could lead to unhealthy comparisons among themselves and other projects.

Educating individuals about the logic behind making decisions is the key, and that is exactly how we were able to overcome this challenge. The company communicated about the strategy and rationale behind how a particular technique is arrived at and backed it up with data to assert that employees are being paid fairly.

It also helps to give managers a view of the bigger picture and how this shift will contribute to it.

The biggest challenge while making pay transparency was to take line managers in confidence, says Sanoj Kumar, Program Director, People Function at Mindtree

Sanoj further shares, “While we are being transparent, it is important that we are careful about information security norms across the globe. Australia as a geography is a classic example here. In Australia, it is impertinent that organizations abide by the information security norms defined by the government. During this shift, we were careful about what information is available to all and what needs to be confidential.”

Business impact of Pay Transparency The key impact that Mindtree observed by making the compensation more open and transparent: • Retention of High Performers: With an increase in attrition across the IT industry, Mindtree has been able to keep its top talent attrition below 15 percent. This has helped Mindtree save costs on expensive hires, with ROI taking much longer.

• Trust on the Organization: Mindtree Minds have shown greater trust on the fairness with which the organization treats them in internal anonymous surveys. The number has progressively increased by close to 1 bps from 2016.

• CSAT Scores: Our CSAT scores indicate increase in productivity and growing commitment of the Mindtree Minds towards the organization. We are above the industry average and have maintained an increasing trend for the last three years. This is directly in line with the increase in trust scores from the employees.

• Retention of Campus Joiners: As part of its focus on increasing the campus Mindtree Minds intake, Mindtree had revised its compensation structure for the Campus Mindtree Minds in 2016. We have been successful in keeping attrition in this segment to less than 12 percent YOY. Apart from the above, we have also witnessed the following qualitative changes: 1. Increase in manager confidence to deal with compensation discussions on their own. This was possible due to their involvement and ownership while making these decisions thereby arming them with relevant data.

2. Increase in People Function (HR) confidence to deal with compensation discussions as well. With clarity on the compensation philosophy, they can clearly set the context with any individual on a differential payout on the basis of performance, niche skills or campus/lateral hiring mode.

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Past Month's events

Knowledge + Networking

How Swiggy is engaging employees for improving company's productivity

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People Matters and Darwinbox 22nd May 2019 Online With the recent round of funding not only has Swiggy joined the unicorn club but also emerged as the 5th most valuable startup in India. With grand expansion plans, new service offerings, and markets to capture, it is no surprise that Swiggy has been onboarding the best of talent to drive this journey.

And, in a high performing talent zone like this, it is safe to assume that engaging and retaining the best is an item on top of the HR priority list.

How is Swiggy attracting, managing and engaging the top talent? The answer to the question was revealed in the webcast hosted by People Matters and Darwinbox. Swiggy’s CHRO, Girish Menon shared how they bring the best on board and elaborated on the employee engagement initiatives undertaken in the firm.

He also spoke about the performance practices followed and discussed the role of technology in delivering all of these strategies. In the interactive session, some lessons were shared for companies growing at such scale.

JUNE 2019 | june

Nine ways to make your employee engagement survey a success People Matters and Adrenalin 15th May 2019 Online Some of the most usual questions being asked in an employee engagement survey include ‘Do you receive enough recognition?’, ‘Does your manager care about you as a person?’, and ‘Do you have a best friend at work?’. However, such questions aren’t especially effective, at surfacing whether employees feel motivated to put energy and effort into their work beyond the minimum level required — and to what degree, therefore, they will be productive.

Your employee engagement survey should serve a greater purpose which is— organizations should focus their employee engagement surveys on specific drivers of performance.

The HR specialist anchoring an EES can approach these surveys differently to ensure that they get great participation, clear findings, sharp insights, focused action plans and a real jump in engagement levels.

People Matters in collaboration with Adrenalin hosted this webcast to share how HR leaders can conduct Employee Engagement Surveys that mean business. Sharing notes from his experience and some of the best practices in his company, Shyam C Raman, Executive Vice PresidentGroup HR, Murugappa Group shared some techniques to facilitate high participation. He also emphasized on the need of being focused on the high impact items and shared how talent leaders can ensure that. Some ways to sustain the implementation of action plans were also discussed.

Future-proofing your distributed workforce: The enabling role of technology in skilling People Matters and enParadigm 25th April 2019 Sofitel, BKC, Mumbai How to get a relationship manager in a bank branch in some cities in the interiors, have a better understanding of investment products? How to train a retail executive in a showroom in some other city to speak the language of the brand? These are some questions HR leaders who handle distributed workforces often grapple with. To discuss the challenges in skilling the distributed workforce and to find out the role technology is playing in enabling the process for some organizations, People Matters and enParadigm hosted a half-day session in Mumbai. In this invite-only roundtable discussion, HR leaders from different companies in the BFSI sector came together and talked about the challenges of skilling a distributed workforce and shared some of their best practices in the space. Hanuman Kamma, CEO, enParadigm highlighted some challenges companies often face in skilling their distributed workforce and Jai Balan, Head HR, Bharti Axa Life Insurance shared his company’s journey in developing a learning culture for the distributed workforce. Shyamali Basu, Senior Vice President & Head - Products and Marketing at HDFC Mutual Fund also presented a case study on ‘enabling teams to drive business beyond Top 20: Opportunities and challenges’.

Upcoming events Human is not a resource: Moving from organization to organism Isha Leadership

CEOs & CHROs on the same platform will re-think and re-imagine HR. Thought leaders from various leading organizations will dwell upon various talent challenges from attracting to retaining talent. Through different sessions, many new ways to manage talent will be discussed. The three-day long conclave includes sessions like ‘The Burning Platform for Change’, ‘Engaging, Influencing and Inspiring by the Power of Story-telling’, and ‘A New Framework for Human is Not a Resource’, where the Five Levers of Change – Purpose, Structure, Process, Inspiration, and Culture, will be talked about. Dhaval Buch, Chief Procurement Officer, Unilever, Ester Martinez, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, People Matters, Gajendra Chandel, Former President and CHRO, Tata Motors,and Lalit Agarwal, CMD, V Mart Retail, among others are some of the speakers at the conference.

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

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 propelling 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 invoke creativity, inspire and guide leaders to design the best of tomorrow, today. Ray Wang, Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman, Constellation Research Inc; Leena Nair, Chief HR Officer, Unilever; James Taylor, Author & Keynote Speaker, Business Creativity, Innovation and Artificial Intelligence, and Ricardo Viana Vargas, Executive Director, Brightline Initiative, among others, are some of the speakers to look forward to at the conference.

Knowledge + Networking

Academy 7th June to 9th June 2019 Isha Yoga Center, Coimbatore The conclave envisioned by Sadhguru around the key insight, “Human is NOT a Resource” will bring together thought leaders, business and HR heads to discuss practical steps to enable a paradigm shift from human beings as resources to human beings as possibilities. This shift seems to be necessary for businesses to attract, retain and empower talent in an increasingly competitive and borderless world.

People Matters Are You in the List 2019

https://india.techhrconference.com/

https://www.ishaeducation.org/ human-is-not-a-resource/

JUNE 2019 | june

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Blogosphere

>> Anushree Sharma & Vallari Gupte

We take a look at some of the world’s favorite superheroes and how you can spot them at work

Avengers in your workplace

b l o g o s p h e r e

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very superhero started out as a human. A resource of power.

Today’s superheroes have human sensitivities and real-world parallels. Some movies even aim for the Oscars.

So of course, it comes as no surprise that the biggest superhero franchise is full of real-life parallels to everyday superheroes we work with. With the release of Avengers: End Game in April 2019, let’s take a look at some of the world’s favorite superheroes!

Here are a few of them along with a helpful list of characteristics to help you identify them should you run into them at any point in your daily office life.

Captain America The product of a World War II super soldier serum, Steve Rogers has woken up in the modern world from a coma and is challenged with adapting not only to a new time but to new rules as well. However, Captain America has immediately and effortlessly established himself as the leader of every group in which he is involved.

The first Avenger, Captain America is a superlative role model for bosses everywhere. At work, he can be identified as someone who: • Is a moral center of the group • Shuns limelight • Committed to the team

Thor Thor is the god of thunder in Asgard and the son of the All-Father, Odin. He was banished to Earth for his arrogance and brazenness. Yet, he was restored to his rightful place as a demigod after learning humility and defeating his brother Loki after Loki’s attempts to kill both Thor and Odin. Look around in your team and you would spot a Thor sitting beside your cabin.

He can be identified as an employee who: • Moves towards and not away from his/ her problems • Addresses his/her mistakes • Values people as the best resource

Iron-Man A billionaire tycoon turned into a sensitive 82

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soul thanks to a heart of palladium, Tony Stark created a powerful armor to escape captivity and later rededicated his life towards protecting the world. As a member of the SHIELD, Iron-Man is someone who: • Has a desire and determination to improve on the status quo (he never stops), • Is incredibly intelligent ("A genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist"), • High on self-confidence • Witty and smart

And when you need the passion that Hulk brings to the table, you’ll know how to identify her or him.

Dr. Banner/Hulk can be identified as the one who: • Breaks down complex ideas • Provides solutions • Is the brainy one • Values people around him/her • Passionate about his/her work • Promotes fair workplace practices.

• Unafraid of bringing emotions to work

Dr. Robert Bruce Banner/ Hulk

Black Widow

Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, MD, Ph.D., is the subject matter expert. A famous physicist who went through gamma radiation on himself, that gave him the ability to change into Hulk. An epitome of how each one of us carries two personalities within ourselves –the calm Dr. Bruce and the agitated, frustrated and angry Hulk.

Over the years, Banner has become more aware of the Hulk aspect of his personality and has grown to become more accepting. The same is true the other way as well, Hulk has begun to realize the existence of Banner and has started to control his destructive rage.

In your workplace, you are bound to find both Dr. Banner and Hulk. When it comes to solving a complex problem, you can always go to your resident Dr. Banner to strategize and come up with the answer.

Natasha Romanoff, who goes by her Avenger name, Black Widow, is the talented spy who is efficient, ruthless and exceptional at her work. With a sense of innate heroism, Black Widow returned from evil to working for the good.

Even though she is a super spy whose training included staying away from emotions and attachments, Black Widow, has made friends and allies and has developed a dedication towards the SHIELD team.

Want to spot the real Black Widow among your peers in the workplace? Look out for these characteristics: • Silent worker • Efficient and fast at her work • Dedicated to teammates • Ready to help the team when the going gets tough