special interview 26
of competitive advantage. Changing work expectations, the great resignation era, changing work attitudes, talent skills gap, hybrid working are changes that have happened in the past 12-18 months. Today the biggest expectation that business leaders have from HR is to help them manage these variables and deliver superlative employee experience. From this primary expectation emerge expectations such as enabling new work models, cultural integration, integrating technology to generate insights: HR analytics, reskilling and upskilling talent-at-scale, building nextgen performance management systems and more. Delivering on the aforementioned expectations in an industry that experiences a huge churn every quarter and that too in a remote environment requires new ways of thinking and work| november 2021
ing from HR leaders. That is also an implicit expectation usually not overtly stated by business leaders. Business leaders are no longer looking for the standard suite of HR services. They want HR to partner in their transformation journey so that they (business leaders) can partner in the clients’ transformation journey.
While COVID-19 wrought havoc across the globe, it offered us an opportunity to reimagine work, workforce and workplace and build an inclusive world of work. Are we moving in the right direction? The pandemic provided organisations with an opportunity to understand their practices with regard to diversity and inclusion. In certain cases, the pandemic impacted the livelihood of people who were in remote unfriendly jobs. Whereas in many cases employees
sensed an improvement in their conditions due to lesser commute times, spending more time with family. Persons with disabilities or people with health conditions could participate in the workforce due to remote working. In our industry, thanks to it being poised for remote working, the focus on diversity and inclusion got sharper. We are moving in the right direction. However, this is a complex issue and hybrid working will further add to the complexity. As companies now experiment with hybrid arrangements, they need to carefully redraft and repurpose people practices. When all are working remote, policies and decisions can be applied uniformly however when different work arrangements are implemented, we need to ensure that equityenhancing measures are put in place.
What’s your take on the traits that will distinguish highly successful companies in the transition to the postpandemic workplace? During the pandemic, companies that have come out strongly are the ones that have displayed empathetic and resilient leadership. As we hypothesise a postpandemic scenario one wouldn’t be too off to say that hybrid and flexibility will emerge as cornerstones
