1.) What’s next for HR business partnering??

Nearly 20 years after Dave Ulrich introduced the 3 block HR operating model (shared services,
centers of excellence and HR business partners), while industry opinion indicates that capabilities
continue to improve, most organizations believe that HRBP’s role as a true strategic partner has yet
to be fully realized.

The evolution of technology, the emergence of a globally mobile workforce and shifting societal,
political and regulatory paradigms are further impacting businesses fundamentally and thus HR
partnering as its subset. HR’s success is getting defined by its ability to operate as an integral part of
the business, bringing to focus the concept of being a partner.

The word ‘partner’ comes from the word ‘part’. Hence, partners are part of something, in a
relationship sharing a common life or set of objectives. Being outside is just ruled out! Yet, as one
becomes part of something, does one have to lose one’s individual viewpoint and vision? Aren’t
great relationships based on the candidness of being a mirror to each other and acting as the
conscience?

Let’s briefly articulate the big changes in the business world around us to better appreciate
what’s next for HR Business Partnering.

The Big Changes

Macro & Micro-Economics

The growing global middle-class and the rise of Tier II & III towns combined with the multi-
generational consumers and workforce is changing who is consuming what and where. From baby
boomers to the ‘newly-minted’ Gen Z, understanding customer and employee expectations is
becoming a key business driver.

“Technology & Ideology. Digital ways of doing things in

personal and professional lives and ubiquitous connectivity are
empowering and enabling people across generations and
geographies, while attitude changes in the buyers and the
demand of customization are increasing the ‘Power of the One’,
changing how products and services are consumed.”
What is business asking for?

Business partnering is not a job title, but it defines the skills, knowledge and attitudes of the
individuals. From the customer to the organization to its employees, businesses are looking for
 professionals who understand and deliver for success in the continuum from customers to
employees.

Most business leaders are looking for professionals who can:

 Comprehend the business drivers and are able to set up mechanisms that drive business
performance through people;
 Appreciate the end consumer and build a culture that reflects customer expectations and turns them
into employee action;
 Act as a sounding board and have their ears to the ground enabling them to be the representative of
the Voice of the Employee (VoE);
 Link talent dynamics and resultant analytics to diagnose the strengths and weakness of the
organization;
 Predict the kind of talent needed and hence advice on mid to long-term talent imperatives.
To deliver to the above expectations, what are the big shifts required? What will set apart the HRBPs
of the future?
The 6 big shifts

Shaping vs. Transacting

Business partners need to be architects of the organization’s success by being commercially-driven
professionals who can define the organizational needs in the continuum from customer needs to
internal structures to organizational success. To do that, strategic thought-leadership above
practitioner level and the ability to influence the dialogue on the table is a must. To create space to
do this, HRBPs must ensure that transactional people management tasks are contracted out to a
shared-services unit that works directly to service the employees and people managers, including
the senior management.

Transferring capability vs. Solving the problem

To ensure that HRBPs avoid getting drawn into transactions and solving every people related
matter, it’s imperative to build people managers’ capability to handle routine people concerns,
manage difficult conversations and be culture champions. Ability to train, mentor and coach people
managers based on their need is a key skill that HRBPs will need to have.

Special skills & varied role playing vs. Specialists

 In a VUCA world, organizations are living through phases of regular and frequent changes that
range from small and immediate, to large and long term in scale and impact. Hence, change
management skills are a key ingredient in any HRBP’s repertoire. In fact, in a continuously shifting
business environment, business leaders are seeking professionals with special skills and not
specialists in Talent, Employee Relations or Engagement. Here are some special skills and set of
role playing, which will enable successful business partnering:
 Heightened awareness of cultural nuances, appreciating and leveraging diversity, navigating through
political dynamics and a global mind-set.
 Translating the business leaders’ vision to the employee constituents and telling a compelling story
about the company’s current business and future direction.
 External and internal media savviness to communicate the people narrative of the business.
 In-sighting from business and people data and analytics to draw-out solutions for business problems.
 Enable success for others by being a trainer of people mangers, mentor for budding talent and
coach to senior managers.

In short, build ‘networks of expertise’, not become ‘centers of expertise’.

Relationship of equals vs. Hierarchies

Partnerships in any context are successful if the relationship is of equals. The base of building a
relationship is about knowing each other well. And sometimes share mutual vulnerabilities! HRBPs
must have the emotional intelligence to know when the relationship is ready and then make a
“contract” of expectations and deliverables with the partner. It’s important to play back the partners
needs and ask how one can help.

“A genuine and strong partnership requires taking independent

viewpoints and a clear-eyed, objective perspective on broader
organizational objectives.”
Conscious-keeper vs. Collaborator
The best predictor of success in complex roles is judgment. HRBPs need to exercise judgment and
hold up the mirror to their partners and give advice on how things should look like for long-term
success of the business. Hence, one must rethink and move beyond HR business partnering as a
‘service’ or as ‘designer of programs’ and reimagine themselves as ‘orchestrator of solutions’ and
‘consultants’. It is about being a trusted advisor and influencer for building credibility and trust. And
for that, one must be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Talk talent vs. Managing resource supply

Finding the right talent for the business is often the number one reason why HRBPs are sought after,
which implies that HRBPs have their necks deep in the “battle for talent” and the strategic, trusted
advisor role in the “war for market share” takes a back seat. HRBPs should know their talent
constituency well-enough to talk in-depth and with details, and lead regular talent reviews. They
need to ensure people managers prepare evidence for performance, potential and have a
 succession plan ready. This helps have a supply chain view of talent and make buy or build plans
ahead of the curve.

Knowing one’s talent constituency well will help HRBPs leverage ideas of relevant people in the
business and funnel that to build a culture of innovation and improve productivity.

At the core, making these big shifts requires pushing up the capacity of cognition as well as
relationships.

Re-constructing self and the surround system

The two other critical relationships that HRBPs must leverage are the expertise that the Centers of
Expertise (CoEs) hold and the power of the CHRO’s position. Getting the most out of these blocks in
the operating model will help HRBPs ensure all flanks are well covered as they take on the mantle of
shaping their businesses for the future.

HRBPs continue to develop deeper commercial awareness and

have invested in professional HR knowledge. However, it’s not
about incremental changes or additional ways of doing things.
The need is to bring increased focus on making the six big
shifts.
CHROs will have to unlock barriers to enable these shifts by providing clarity of role, setting
expectations, providing transactional support through shared services or outsourcing models and
easing tensions among stakeholders that limit collaboration.

And yes, when one makes a shift, one moves out of something and moves into something new. That
move will define what’s next for HRBPs and their ability to the make the whole greater than the sum
of parts of their business.

3.)Where India wants to work: LinkedIn’s Top companies 2018

Flipkart has slipped to second position and has been replaced by new entrant
Directi, in Linkedin’s recently released, top companies list for India 2018
LinkedIn has unveiled the 2018 Top Companies list for India and internet
companies Directi, Flipkart and One97 Communications are leading the pack. This list represents
the companies where India would like to work and is based on the billions of actions taken by
LinkedIn members and looks at four main pillars:
 Interest in the company

 Engagement with the company’s employees

 Job demand

 Employee retention
The list also includes Amazon at the fourth position that has previously held the second spot for two
consecutive years. Ola, on the other hand, has dropped by 11 spots from the fifth position in 2017 to
16th this year, while McKinsey & Company has made a significant jump from 24th position to 6th
this year.
Interestingly, more than 50 percent of the companies are new entrants to the list including Directi,
Anheuser-Busch InBev, EY and Daimler AG. And they have given stiff competition to the usual top
runners like Adobe, Reliance Industries, and Ola.

Here is the full list of Top 25 companies in India:

1. Directi
2. Flipkart
3. One 97 Communications (Paytm)
4. Amazon
5. Anheuser-Busch InBev
6. McKinsey & Company
7. Alphabet (Google)
8. KPMG India
9. EY
10. OYO
11. Daimler AG
12. Adobe
13. Expedia
14. Morgan Stanley
15. DBS Bank
16. Ola
17. GE
18. MakeMyTrip
19. PwC
20. Goldman Sachs
21. Shell
22. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
23. Unilever
24. Reliance Industries
25. Deloitte India
While this year the India list diversified from tech and internet companies to new entrants from
industries such as Automotive, Oil & Gas, and Consumer Goods, the trend of homegrown
companies taking the top spots on the lists has still continued.

4. Future of work is the biggest HR challenge: Deloitte’s Erica Volini

In a candid conversation with People Matters, Erica Volini, US Human Capital
Leader, Deloitte LLP, talks about the rise of network of teams, the importance
of sustainability in HR, the future of work, and the biggest challenges facing
HR in the future

Erica Volini is the US Human Capital leader for Deloitte Consulting. In this role, she is responsible
for the 4,000+ practitioners focused on helping organizations solve their most complex and pressing
Human Capital issues. Throughout her 20 years of career, Erica has worked with leading
organizations across multiple sectors and geographies and is a frequent speaker on how market
trends are impacting the HR organization and profession as a whole. Within Deloitte, she serves as
a member of Deloitte Consulting’s Management Committee and Board of Directors.

You've had extensive experience in consulting, and now you are

involved in expanding Deloitte’s HR product portfolio. Tell us about
how your career journey has evolved over the years.

I actually wanted to be a lawyer which is a far cry from the world of HR, but the first consulting
project I worked on was for a publishing company. This was when I realized the power of workforce
in achieving the company’s value and strategy. At that time, HR outsourcing was a big thing, and I
spent my early years focused on helping organizations outsource their HR services. But it became
clear that HR couldn’t just ship off their responsibilities to another vendor, and if they did, they
weren’t going to be able to create the employee experience that they needed to attain the top talent.
From there, I started getting into a lot of strategy work, helping HR functions develop their strategy
and implement it. This is what has led me to where I am right now.

In terms of products, although Deloitte will always be a services company, over time our clients were
asking us to come up with pre-built solutions to accelerate what they are trying to do in the market.
And so, it opened up the door for us to say to look at our IP and say “What if we took that IP and
started to make it into solutions and products that we can offer to our clients to supplement our
services?” Once we provide these services, how do we support them on an ongoing basis? So we
just don’t develop a strategy but implement it. It’s about providing sustainable solutions to our clients
that will help them to continue to evolve.

You have actively worked on digital transformation agendas. What

according to you is at the core of digital transformation? What
should HR leaders need to know before embarking on this
journey?
The most important thing is to know that becoming digital is as much about the technology as it is
about the change in the mindset. In order to become digital, you fundamentally have to change your
culture. And being digital could mean different things to companies, but at its core, it means being
more adaptable and flexible, driving increased collaboration, learning how to fail fast so that you can
continue to innovate and a lot of the organizations don’t have it internalized in their DNA.

The role of HR is – One, understanding what your digital culture means on key attributes. Then
figure out what areas you need to build. For example, if you need to build more collaboration, how
are you going to promote collaboration? Should you change your organizational structure? Should
you put it new technologies like social and collaboration tools that allow people to communicate
across the matrix? That’s the role HR should play in driving that cultural change and helping to bring
that digital mindset for the organization.

Deloitte’s human capital trends report talks about the rise of the
“network of teams”. What is this concept and why does the future
of work depend on it?

The network of teams at its core is about getting people together across various parts of the
organization to work towards a single goal. It could be getting a product out the door, driving
innovation or expanding to a new market. But the idea is that you are leveraging talent from all
different parts of the hierarchy, and those individuals need to accomplish those goals.

Every company has different kinds of teams, and we are finding that more work is getting done in
teams. However, the challenge with a team-based culture is in finding the best leaders in those
teams. It is different from the traditional succession planning process because you are not
necessarily moving up the hierarchy. So it becomes imperative to find out the natural leaders in the
organization, who are at the center of most of the communication and who have an influence on
others. It is about using such people to then create and drive networks of teams that will help shift
the culture.

In one of your blog posts, you mention that “Achieving success is

one thing, but sustaining it–especially in our ever-evolving world –
that’s quite another.” What is sustainable HR all about?

Today’s world is being disrupted rapidly, and that’s not going change. If we have learned anything, it
is that the pace of change will continue to increase. When we talk about sustainability, it’s about how
you understand the trends that are happening. How are you continually evolving your processes and
technology? Because technology solutions are changing every year and there are a number of new
technologies and vendors each year.

So being sustainable could mean putting in place a Collaboration-oriented architecture (COA) that
continuously monitor the technology market to help you understand what new technologies are
coming and how to make that selection. Being sustainable in HR could mean having access to
research that is providing you with real-time research data and analytics to help you continue to
evolve your process and programs. It means keeping a pulse on what your employees are thinking
and feeling every day so you could understand whether preferences are changing or evolved. What
CHROs need to understand is that you can’t continually evolve if you are only looking at your four
walls. You need to have the ecosystem that will tell you what is going in your external environment.

A Deloitte study reveals that about 90 percent of business

leaders feel that the human resource function is struggling to
keep up with technological process change. Do you think HR has
fallen behind tech adoption?

I think it’s the opposite. I think HR was historically behind, but when you think about the adoption of
Cloud services, HR was the first function to migrate to the Cloud before finance or supply chain.
What we find is that the HR organizations may have implemented technology, but they haven’t quite
figured out how to change their processes and people, and make sure that they are also changing
alongside the technology. And that’s what’s really completes the transformation. It should be about
transforming the way you do the work, bringing design thinking so that your processes are focused
on the employee and figuring out what new services you can provide.

What according to you is the most complex and pressing problem

in terms of human capital management today?

The biggest issue is the future of work. It is the single biggest challenge from the human capital
standpoint. I think there are two major factors impacting work — one is Automation, whether that’s
products, cognitive tech or AI; and the other part is the new talent models emerging with contingent
labor. The future of work is really about figuring out how tasks can be done differently and then using
that opportunity to think about how you can enhance the processes in a different way. So if you’re
going to automate one task, and you create capacity for the workforce to do other things, should
they be focused on creating a better customer experience instead of doing a task where automation
can really improve the efficiency? And once you create those new tasks, what type of people you
need to execute those tasks? What skills and competencies do they need? How should they be
structured? How should they be rewarded? How should their performance be managed? How could
you leverage new talent models like contracts, the gig economy, and the Cloud? So, it really starts to
change and challenge all fundamentals of the way HR has set things up because now we are
looking at all those things through a new lens, the future of the way work is getting done, so it’s
incredibly exciting.
5. Tax-free gratuity limit increases to Rs. 20 lakh
The Parliament has cleared the Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2018
where the gratuity ceiling has been increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh.
The Parliament has cleared The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2018 which allows the
government to remove the existing Rs 10 lakh ceiling on gratuity to Rs. 20 lakh. Gratuity is paid to
employees if they have provided at least five years of continuous service to a company at the time of
resignation or termination. As reported in People Matters earlier, it is to be noted that the
government, after the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, had already raised the tax-free limit
on gratuity to Rs. 20 lakh from 2016.
The proposed law will also fix the maternity leave period to 26 weeks for computation of continuous
period. This is because the maximum maternity leave was based on the maternity leave provided
under the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961.

Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Labour Minister, India, was quoted

in media saying, "The amended Bill will benefit lakhs of
employees who work in the organized sector, especially
women."
It is also reported that the gratuity law will help people working in the private and unorganized sector.
Also, the passage of this amended bill will hugely benefit the middle and senior management
employees who are getting higher salaries.

Anshul Prakash, Partner, Khaitan & Co, shared in media, "Once the Gratuity Amendment Act comes
into the force after receiving presidential assent and notification in the Official Gazette, it would
provide greater benefit advantage for employees as it is likely that Income Tax limits are raised as it
has been the case in the past." He further said that the amendment also gives flexibility to the
government to extend the ceiling in the future by mere notification as opposed to the requirement of
an amendment.
6.) The rise of analytics in HR: from prescriptive to predictive role
Analytics has come a long way. Here's an outline of how new tools are
transforming the HR function.
John Hansen, Vice President, HCM Product Management, JAPAC at Oracle maps the rise of
analytics tools in HR - from historical reporting to predictive tools, what are the varied tools in terms
of the complexity and impact?

The tools really vary in terms of the complexity of the analytics and also have the impact on the
organization, at the lowest level of complexity and impact is historical reporting that we’re all familiar
with for a long time the Hr domain has been very good at talking about what happened and reporting
as we move up the organizational impact and complexity continue n though we’ve added
dashboards and metrics and KPIs, particularly the sort of metrics and KPIs that managers may be
set as we move further up that chain higher complexity higher impact we have contextual information
so that might be analytics say about our top talent employees and what movement we’re seeing with
those employees when it comes to talent programs and benefits and compensation and whether
there’s a context for our treatment of those employees based on those other business entities
moving further up the chain we can start correlating analytics so how is a workforce behaving in
conjunction with for instance talent programs that we are running at the very apex then of the
analytics continuum is predictive capabilities.

So really where we’re using the history of how workforces behaved in the past and reflecting on how
that behavior may impact our organization in the future when the same types of conditions and
attributes exist

Key takeaways:

- Analytics tools differ depending upon complexity and impact

- Historical reporting helps hr explain ‘what’ happened
- ‘context’ and ‘correlation’ are critical to transforming analytics
- Predictive analytics depends on understanding historical behavior and future impact

7.) Hero Moto Corp to create 12000 jobs in Andhra Pradesh

The new facility in Andhra Pradesh will generate 2000 jobs at the Plant and is
expected to generate an additional 10,000 employment opportunities, through
the creation of a manufacturing eco-system of vendors and suppliers in the
region
Two-wheeler manufacturer, Hero MotoCorp has commenced the construction of its new
manufacturing facility in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

This will be the eighth manufacturing facility of Hero MotoCorp, which already has five world-class
plants in India and one each in Colombia and Bangladesh. The company will invest Rs. 1600 crore
in setting up the manufacturing facility. The plant is expected to be operational before December
2019.
The new facility will generate 2000 jobs at the Plant and is expected to generate an additional
10,000 employment opportunities, through the creation of a manufacturing eco-system of vendors
and suppliers in the region. Given the strategic location of the plant, this can also act as a key hub
for the Company to export its range of products from this facility to some of its key overseas
markets.

Commenting on the development, Pawan Munjal Chairman, Managing Director and CEO, Hero
MotoCorp, said, “In addition to building a state-of-the-art facility, we are committed to creating a
world-class manufacturing eco-system in the region, with a base of globally benchmarked vendors
and suppliers, which will together generate over 12,000 new jobs, thereby accelerating the socio-
economic progress in the state."

8.) 6 ways to resolve a crisis with unhappy employees

Unhappy employees can not only create a negative working environment but
also cause unexpected trouble. Here’s how to deal with them.
One of the primary objectives of any leader or manager is to ensure that his or her subordinates do
not become disgruntled and negatively affect the company culture. However, no matter how skilled
you are at managing people, there will be instances where you will have to deal with an unhappy
employee. Whether this is employees’ frustration, dissatisfaction, or anger, a disgruntled employee
can spill over his negativity and affect the morale and productivity of the co-workers at the
workplace.

Here are a few ways you can work with unhappy employees to avert any unpleasant
repercussions:

Act on it, ASAP!

As soon as you get to know about the problem, address it instantly. Ensure that you do not allow the
issue to fester. Nipping the problem in the bud will not only help you, but it will also prevent the
unhappy employee from assuming that you don’t care. Timely and appropriate resolution of an issue
today will save you a lot of trouble later.

Don’t Assume, Assess

Assuming the problem beforehand instead of assessing the situation is a mistake even the
seasoned professionals commit. If an issue is reported by a disgruntled employee, don’t act
reactively, instead take your time and garner all the information you can to make the decision. Find
out what is the root cause of their unhappiness or ensure that you are sensitive to any lifestyle or
personal reasons affecting your employee’s behavior. Look at it as an opportunity to positively
influence the employee’s thinking about the company.

Don’t forget to Document!

In the present world, even trivial reasons can become the foundation for lawsuits. So, it is best to
follow-up every communication with an unhappy employee and document your interaction. Having
various standardized human resources documents such as the issuance of performance
improvement plan, disciplinary action form, warnings and discussions regarding termination of
employment etc. will be of immense help in the unfortunate scenario of the employee filing a lawsuit.

Keep it private
Confronting a disgruntled employee in the presence of other colleagues is not a wise option. It will
give the employee an opportunity to voice their complaints in public or cause them unnecessary
embarrassment. Using a private setting, such as meeting in a conference room will be the
professional way to handle the situation and keep the matters to only the concerned parties.
Besides, it will also save you from legal complications or affect the morale of other co-workers.

Think Clearly, Act Calmly!

It is important for leaders to maintain their temperament. They should be sensitive and remain
professional and gentle during any private confrontation. Losing your temper and getting angry will
only make the situation worse. So step out and clam yourself up before addressing the issue.

Have an objective approach

Having an objective approach in the entire situation will help you to take better decisions. If your
unhappy employee has created a brouhaha at the workplace and stalled the work with their issue,
then they are being empowered. You need to handle them tactfully and display an objective and
professional mindset.

People want to work for leaders who treat them with dignity, empathy, and respect and care for them
by giving opportunities they deserve. So, make sure you are one such leader and chances are that
you won’t have any unhappy employees.

9.) Trust in God but guard your employee data

The Facebook data breach is a wakeup call for organizations and HR to re-
look at how sensitive employee data is being collected and handled and take
steps to ensure it is not rendered vulnerable in any way.
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you,”
Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post, breaking his silence days after the Observer
reported that the personal data of about 50 million Americans had been harvested and shared with a
political consultancy.
With this data breach, the social networking giant is staring in the face of investigations on multiple
fronts. While Zuckerberg has stated that the company has already changed some of the rules that
enabled the breach, it raises many questions about the security of users’ personal data which they
place knowingly in the hands of today’s technology organizations.

This conversation becomes even more relevant for HR organizations where an employee is
trustingly sharing his personal data with the employer. Today, as HR becomes more data, analytics,
and tech driven, employers are increasingly relying on many HR tech applications for engagement,
wellness, talent management, and so on forth.
Right from hiring an employee by gleaning data through his social footprint to hiring him to keeping
him engaged in the organization to making numerous benefits available to him to motivating him to
conversing with him, the HR function is relying on technology more and more on the data shared by
the employee. And with this data comes the possibility of many data breeches and facing a similar
situation like Facebook.

Which brings us to the basic question of where does an employer’s ownership of the data begin and
end once the employee shares it with him? Where does the employer draw the line when it comes to
the security of that data?

Ajeet Khurana, angel investor and advisor to many product startups rightly elucidates the conundrum
at hand.

Ajeet says, “Tragically, we seem to be having moved to a post-

privacy period in human history. The recent Facebook story
would have seemed like an unrealistic Star Trek like futuristic
dream. Yet technology has made it possible. And it is fueled by
the twin apathy of users signing away their privacy and our
guardians (government) themselves violating our privacy.”
In such a scenario, organizations now need to walk the treacherous path of balancing the need for
credible data-based insights of employees, keeping that data safe whilst also respecting the
employee’s desire to safeguard his privacy at work.

First check: collect only data relevant for the business

Ravi Shankar, Senior Advisor, Human Capital Management at Ramco Systems believes that before
looking at the privacy issues, organizations should first look at the type of data they are collecting.
They should decide first and foremost that on their technology platform, what data collected could
violate the privacy norms rather than looking the other way round.

So as an organization if I can pinpoint the sensitive data that falls in the realm of privacy, then even if
the technology allows that data to be collected, a conscientious HR person should block that
technology from collecting that data.

Case in point-collecting caste as a data point. While theoretically a company may ask for it but
before doing that the company should look at its policies-does it want to collect that as a data point?
Is it relevant? The HR person has to decide what does he/she wants to bring to the company as a
data point.
Ravi points out that 90% of the data collected by HR are either
irrelevant or hardly ever used in the employee’s life span. Hence
the HR has to put a lot of design thinking into the data collection
part i.e. what data is being collected for what purpose. Is the
data being collected just for the heck of it? Can the organization
work with a minimal set of data as far as employees are
concerned?
Secondly, the data an organization collects from the employee has to be a part of the business
process in turn to improve the employee process. As long as an organization can focus on that, the
data collected will serve its purpose to make things better for both the employee and the
organization. This will also weed out the need of collecting unnecessary data which could stray into
the realms of sensitivity and privacy.

Ravi here explains how when an organization might be collecting data about the employees’ leave
habits to make the leave applying process seamless. However, if the data being collected is to
determine if an employee is a person with a high or low productivity, the purpose of the data gets
defeated.

Another instance which Ravi cited where organizations could stay away from straying into privacy is
when they collect information about emergency contacts. While it’s fine to ask the name and number
of the contact, the moment an organization asks for the employee’s relationship with the emergency
contact, it is venturing into the realm of privacy. Hence as a first check, organizations need to
change their thinking and purpose behind collecting the kind of data being collected.

Treat sensitive data with care

While the Indian government is still taking baby steps in realm of privacy in the wake of the Supreme
Court of India judgement that declared last year that the right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic
part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed
by Part III of the Constitution, HR tech firms on their end need to step up the game to ensure that
vulnerabilities in their products do not become an inviting ground for those looking to exploit.
Speaking to People Matters, Tanmaya Jain, founder and CEO, HR tech firm Infeedo, which offers
Amber, a smart A.I. chatbot which talks to employees and proactively finds those who are unhappy
or most likely to leave, revealed that research by Insight222 shows that 81% of all People Analytics
implementation are dropped over concerns of privacy, ethics and data security.

Usually data leaks or breaches happen due to a human error or

vulnerabilities in the product architecture.
Which is why Infeedo takes data security and privacy concerns very seriously. To this end, he
revealed that all conversations that take place with Amber are encrypted with the encryption key
unique to each organization. This ensures even in case of a data breach, the chats are not viewable
outside of the organization’s account.

In addition, Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing happen bi-annually. To reduce the risk
of human error, there are security protocols in place for handling data shared by clients if it's either
manually or through integration with their HRMS.

Thus he advocates that what HR tech firms need to do is put a conscious effort in treating sensitive
data and personally identifiable information with care. One way of ensuring this is that security audits
by third parties should happen regularly and the reports should be transparently shared with all
stakeholders.

There’s no doing away with the fact that in order to improve people analytics, organizations are
capturing more and more data of their employees. Yet in the face of the debacles like that of
Facebook, it is becoming clear that organizations now need to be more cautious that data once
collected at their end is not rendered vulnerable in any way.

Also, an organization’s growing need for data needs to be balanced at the same time with the need
to uphold employee privacy. Right from the point where data is collected, to what data is collected, to
where is it deployed, and to how safely it is deployed, organizations need to relook at all aspects to
their design thinking in order to avoid becoming a victim of a data debacle like Facebook’s.

10.) Passion or pragmatism: the 7D formula to help you choose a career

Should you stay with what you feel passionate about or should you go for a
pragmatic career to sustain yourself and your family? Is it possible to make
your favourite dream come true? Read on to find out.
Rajeev had been working as a Software Engineer for 5 years. He was happy doing his job until one
morning he woke up with a thought “Is this what I wanted to be?” After spending 4 years studying
Software Engineering and working in the IT field for 5 years, he felt something was missing in his
life. This is not where he wanted to be. He was passionate about singing and enjoyed it during his
college life. He wanted to be a playback singer. However, his parents saw no future in his singing
career and persuaded him to take up Engineering. Today after 9 years of struggle and hard work,
Rajeev is successful as an IT professional. However, he is not happy. He always felt a strong call for
his passion to be a singer. He finally decided that he would take up his passion once again and start
from where he had left.

One Question that most of the youngsters deal with day in and day out is which career they should
go for. A question that experienced people also struggle with at times, making them wonder, is this
what they actually wanted to be? Cambridge Dictionary defines career as “The job or series of jobs
that you do during your working life, especially if you continue to get better jobs and earn more
money:” A career is often composed of the jobs held, titles earned and work accomplished over a
long period, rather than just referring to one position.
 Most of us go through this phase in life, where we take up
various Jobs/responsibilities without thinking much. We are
passionate about something, but then we take up a Job that has
nothing to do with our passion. Those who bring passion to their
career usually outperform others.
When we are born, we start with a clean slate, full of possibilities without any tag attached saying, ‘I
must become a Doctor/Engineer/Lawyer…..etc..’ However, as we grow, we tend to pick up tags for
ourselves, so that we can survive in this world full of competition. We get into this race of being
someone.

Now, who decides what you become?

The opportunity to decide your career path, as a young adult, rests with you. However, there are
times when you are stuck in a dilemma as to which path to choose. In such situations, you can talk
to your parents for their guidance. You are the driver of your career; your parents are your guide and
support.

This leads us to our next Question.

How important is it to have a career, to be specific, a good

career?

What can we do to choose a right career? Is there a magic wand that we can sway and have our
say? Unfortunately, NO.

Based on experience, here is a 7-D formula that can help you chose your dream career:
a. Discover your passion: What is the field in which you would like to invest your energy, efforts and
time. Stay in discovery mode for a while to ensure that you do not pick up a subject impulsively. It’s
always better to take time.

b. Dabble with Opportunities: Once you discover your passion, explore all possible opportunities in
that field. Get there and practically see if you understand the field, understand the way it works, talk
to some expert to understand the real-time experience. Dabble in opportunities and make your way
to success.

c. Decide early in life: Time and Tide wait for no one, so decide early in life what you want to be, the
earlier the better. Most of the achievers started early in their life to be where they are today. Sachin
Tendulkar, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg and A.R. Rahman started their respective careers at a very young
 age. This gave them ample time to explore, learn and establish their presence.

d. Dodge the Obstacles: Obstacles are bound to come. You might come across different hurdles at
different points. However, remember to take these obstacles as an opportunity to learn rather than
letting them be the reason for your career to stop. Dodge the obstacles, change them as an option to
challenge your own self and emerge as a winner.

e. Deal with emotions: Emotions play a significant role in deciding your career. It is difficult to stick
with what you want to be when the whole world seems to be against you. This point applies
especially for women, there will be times in your life when you have to take up a firm decision on
shaping up your career or letting it go for various reasons (Marriage/childbirth…). Talk it out with
your family members and make them understand the reason for you to pursue your career rather
than just giving up even before trying. Take a wise decision here; do not let your decision be the
reason for regret at a later stage in life.

f. Determined approach: A strong determination can take you places. Remember, failures are the
stepping stones to success. Take failure as a part of life, get up, take a fresh start and get going.
Amitabh Bachchan personifies the word determination. He faced failure many times during his acting
career, but he never gave up and today he is a living legend.

g. Dance your way: The most important point to remember while building up your career is to do what
you enjoy doing. Rajeev wasted 5 years of his life doing something that he never wanted to. He was
unhappy with his work. Happiness is the key to a successful life, hence be happy in doing what you
want to. Dance is the best form of showing your happiness. Ensure that your work keeps you
dancing.

By discovering your passion, dabbling with opportunities, deciding early in life, dodging the
obstacles, dealing with emotions and determination, never to give up, you will definitely dance your
way through your dream career with the 7D formula.

As Seth Godin aptly said, “Instead of wondering where your next vacation is, maybe you should set
up a life you don’t need to escape from”-

12.) Narendra Modi govt’s creative destruction

The Narendra Modi government’s aim is a radical right-wing
revolution—in the economy, in society, in culture. The current
disruptions are a symptom of that revolution
Support for the Narendra Modi government is not what it used to be. The
Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) survey of consumer confidence found that in
December 2017, 50.7% of those surveyed expected their incomes to increase a
year ahead; in September 2014, 63.9% had said they expected their incomes to
go up a year later. There are other straws in the wind—farmers and Dalits are
restive, while the middle-class mood is reflected in the profusion of jokes
about the Prime Minister on WhatsApp messages, a marked change from
earlier.
Public memory of the corruption, weakness and the dithering on policy of
UPA-II, so reminiscent of the Weimar Republic, seems to be dimming.

RBI’s consumer confidence survey found that

in December 2017, 50.7% of those surveyed
expected their incomes to increase a year
ahead. In September, 2014, that percentage
stood at 63.9%
And yet, the Modi government has set the stage for ushering in a mature
capitalism in the country. The initiatives taken in the last four years will
change the face of the Indian economy. Modi’s demonetisation gambit,
together with the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST), has dealt a
huge blow to petty commodity production and paved the way for an expansion
of the formal sector, as gleeful brokerage reports never tire of pointing out.
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code will lead to a rapid turnaround of
stranded assets. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, or RERA,
besides cleaning the Augean stables in the sector, will eliminate the smaller
and shadier operators. Extending contract labour to all sectors of the economy
will increase “labour flexibility”. Environment restrictions and regulations
have been whittled down and there has been a massive programme of building
infrastructure.

Consider the changes on the macro front, such as the decision to bring in an
inflation targeting regime at RBI, bringing down inflation, keeping the fiscal
deficit in check, laying down the red carpet for foreign direct investment
(FDI).

In politics, Modi has taken steps to transform India into a hard state,
emulating the East Asian model. Not all his policies are working, of course, but
it isn’t for want of trying. No wonder foreign investors are all praise for him.

Modi has taken steps to transform India into a

hard state, emulating the East Asian model.
Not all his policies are working, but it isn’t for
want of trying
All this is underpinned by the ruling party’s ideology, which aims to restore
the lost glories of Hindu India, but is, at the same time, a modernizing rather
than a conservative movement. Their use of religion and chauvinism has been
a potent weapon of mass mobilization. It’s a way of papering over the cracks in
a society riven by the fissures of caste, class, language and culture. It’s a great
way to sell capitalism to the masses.

Why then the recent doubts? One, the party has had to make several populist
concessions, such as loan waivers. The uneasiness is underlined by utterances
such as those of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who last year made the mystifying
statement that only India could rescue the world from the clutches of
capitalism. But this is rhetoric—governments today have little choice but to
put in place the policies that will make them attractive to global capital. A
strong economy is, after all, essential for Bhagwat’s vision of a strong Hindu
Rashtra.

The recent sops have been doled out solely on electoral considerations. Recall
that Modi used to have nothing but ridicule for the national employment
guarantee programme. Experts say his promise of higher minimum support
prices for farms may not translate into major gains for farmers. And note that
his ambitious Modicare scheme has private sector participation.

A strong Indian economy is, after all, essential

for RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s vision of a
strong Hindu Rashtra
The main problem is the reforms being undertaken have a short-term cost.
GST, for instance, has caused a lot of disruption. Cleaning up the banks is
proving to be a Herculean task and it could lead to more caution on lending,
affecting smaller businesses. The spate of scams in banks hasn’t helped. The
bankruptcy code, like GST, is a messy work-in-progress. The informal
economy has been badly hit.

True, finding decent jobs for people moving away from unviable farming is a
huge challenge, but it’s one common to Third World countries and has led to
what Mike Davis calls a “Planet of Slums”. The global landscape is fraught
with risk, with rumblings of trade wars and lower liquidity in the markets.

On the other hand, the economy has turned the corner, investment demand is
picking up and company bottom lines are growing fatter, which should
encourage job growth.
But these are transient issues. It is far more important to realize that the Modi
government is a fundamental break with the past. Its aim is a radical right-
wing revolution—in the economy, in society, in culture. The current
disruptions are a symptom of that revolution.

13.) Here’s why coaching is becoming result driven

Coaching in the corporate world is becoming specialized, systematic and
focused on personal effectiveness.
People, processes, and technology – these are widely accepted as the troika that drives
organizations. It would appear that advancement in the inanimate ones among these is more
measurable, predictive and rapid, compared to that in the animated ones. Further, the rate at which
processes and technology change is nearly impossible to achieve with people. Do people usually lag
on what they themselves create? Some would say no since the creator won’t lag on the creation.
Others would contend that they do because it is easy to adopt new processes and technology, while
changing people isn’t easy.

Why coaching?

The commoditization and easy replication of processes and technology make them readily available
to anyone willing to search for them. Competitive edge would then appear to lie in improving the
people aspect, i.e., human capital. Let us look at what we may be dealing with – a sense of
overwhelm. When we talk to clients – and these are some very large companies across sectors,
from consulting to manufacturing to IT – the most common refrains are (i) our people are under
pressure and aren’t able to cope with it (ii) relationships, both personal and professional, are frayed
and negatively impact performance and collaboration (iii) managers have little empathy for their
teams and attrition is high as a result.
At the leadership level, a lot of it appears to be about people losing poise under pressure, just not
getting out of their comfort zones and being unwilling to take risks among other things. Very few
people would contend that their managers or leaders lack the skills required to get the job done. It is
almost as if there is an imbalance between their emotional make-up and their inadequate response
to the overwhelming pressure. This does not bode well, especially considering the shortage of
leadership talent in the country. Booz and Company shared that soon, 15-18% of leadership
positions in the top 500 companies in the country will be unfilled, or will be filled by people
underprepared for the jobs.

Now, we may look at this situation from the corporate lens, but all of these “managers” and “leaders”
are people. It is not just a “corporate bloke” issue. Our teams often find that the same issues present
themselves when engaging with women, students, businessmen, teachers – virtually anybody who
find themselves having to deal with the pressure created by the breakdown of the general order of
things in in the pre-nuclear family, or the pre-information age days. The same old story plays out
repeatedly – things around people change faster than they can change themselves in response. The
 manifestation may vary – a feeling of lack of empowerment, low self-worth, lacking a purpose, or
other challenges.

This is well understood. However, the resources we throw at the problem seem not to pay back
adequately. This is because while one size may fit all the machines, it won’t fit all your people.
Different strokes for different folks!

The answer to your problem may lie in coaching, especially for your best people.

“The resources we throw at the problem seem not to pay back

adequately. This is because while one size may fit all the
machines, it won’t fit all your people. Different strokes for
different folks!”
Why would coaching help? For the simple reason that it is designed to be a one-on-one engagement
to help people live life by their own design, rather than by defaults created by their environment –
this will include other people. It begins with working out what that individual design is. Then, it
encourages behavior to lead people out of their comfort zone into bringing about required changes
through cultivated practices.

The intention is to help create awareness in the coached, about the connection and congruence
among thought, feeling & action. This leads to an understanding of patterns and identifying the
specific emotion that drives the coached to act in the moment and in the manner that s/he chooses
to. Optimal learning, therefore, integrates the head, heart & hands. Self-awareness has led to a deep
understanding of their larger purpose and insights like never before. In fact, at a level that is akin to
spiritual revelations.

“The coach becomes an accountability partner so that there’s a

buddy looking over your back to make sure you do what you
say. The idea is to make good people better and better people
their best.”

So where do we see coaching go in 2018?

Coaching will witness the following broad trends:

1. Results orientation Organizations and individuals will expect coaches to deliver specific results from
coaching engagements.

2. Systematic approach to talent development Organizations will increasingly try to develop a culture of
coaching amongst their managers. In 2018, they are less likely to view coaching as a point solution.
3. Development tool vs perquisite As HR managers understand the power of coaching, the practice of
using it as a leadership development tool will gain ground, rather than as a prerequisite for the
leadership bench.

4. Specialization HR will increasingly look for coaches who specialize in specific streams, e.g.
Emotional Intelligence, Executive Presence etc.

5. Engaging deeper into the organization Coaching techniques will become more mainstream;
coaching interventions will move deeper into organizations, to the middle management level.

Within corporates, the key areas of focus will be on –

1. Executive presence- In a globalizing and more demanding business environment, there is a need for
quality leadership – leaders with poise, courage, and with congruence in their thinking,
communications and actions.

2. Building trust- This is the elephant in the room and is increasingly being identified as one. For
businesses to succeed, there can be no greater fuel than an environment of trust – with team
members, customers and partners. Trust is an outcome of behavior, and behavior can be learned.

3. Diversity- The focus for 2018 will be gender diversity. Sensitivity to workplace related issues is low
and leaders will be required to mainstream the issue and begin to address it at the core in their
organizations.

4. Coaching as a management technique-. The impact of federated learning through the internet and
social platforms makes it difficult to manage using control structures of the past. Younger employees
prefer to be a part of decision-making and planning for achieving results. Middle managers are likely
to be introduced to coaching techniques to enable this participative approach, rather than the top-
down approach.

Among individuals, the big coaching trends in 2018 will focus on

the following –
1. Personal effectiveness- Especially in managing time and handling priorities, dealing with conflicting
demands.

2. Empowerment and finding purpose-. There are multiple environmental factors driving this in 2018.
The spurt in layoffs, the inability of the market to absorb talent especially at high compensation
levels, the desire for alternate careers and increasing agency in taking control of one’s destiny are all
higher than in the last few years.
3.
The coaching industry, in turn, will have to respond with improvements in the standards of coach
certification and creating opportunities for specialization. We believe 2018 will mark a year where the
demands of the market will put the requisite pressure on the industry and the industry will be
challenged to offer adequate coaches of a high quality. The mismatch though, is likely to continue in
the foreseeable future.
14.) How to tackle workplace bullying

Do you know if youre being bullied at the workplace? What should you do if
youre being bullied? Read on to find out.
Last summer, I bought a fish tank with eight goldfish. It was a pleasant experience to bring the
lovely, active, colorful and vibrant fish at home. My family and I spent hours watching them play
around in the tank. After a week passed by, I observed the smallest fish spending hours sitting near
a bush of plants that we had fixed in the tank to beautify it. It used to swim and then park itself
behind the bush. As weeks passed by, it’s time behind the bush increased. It was a strange
experience for us to see a fish spending time, not swimming.

We gradually noticed another strange development of one big fish constantly swimming around the
bush where this tiny fish used to get stationed. I observed that it started coming out of the bush only
when I dropped the food in. It used to quickly eat and go back to the bush. The moment it used to
come out for food, the larger fish used to chase it back to the bush.

As days advanced, it stopped coming out for food and the bigger fish continued to hover around the
bush. Only the bits of food that floated in the bush became its only portion of food. Finally, by mid of
the fourth week, the tiny fish gave up and we found it dead behind the bush. It was a sad story of
these silent /voiceless creatures but reminded of a harsh fact of “Bully” culture. The little fish stopped
swimming, which was its natural way of living, because of the fear of the large fish which bullied it,
knocked it and made it compromise its natural way of living and with its ‘original self’.

Yes! The little fish lost the will to combat life just because of the ‘fear’ of another fish whose ‘bullying’
led it to the dead end.

Workplace Bully
Today, in the Digital Era, if Self Driving cars and Automated Drone delivery become a reality, what
will happen to the ‘human connect?. Will the discomfort of ‘workplace bully’ ever get attention? Yes,
the time for self-action has come to turn around the discomfort into more productive and satisfying
work experience. It just needs two aspects: awareness of the problem and readiness to face it.
Knowledge of ways to defend self in such challenging circumstances is the key to move ahead.s

What is workplace bullying?

“Bullying means directly or indirectly inflicting physical hurt or psychological distress on one or more
employees.” It is further defined as intimidating and repeated written, verbal, or physical behavior,
including any threatening, insulting gesture, by an adult, which is severe or invasive enough to
create an uncomfortable or humiliating environment. It may involve mockery, social elimination,
threat, invalid criticism, false allegations, physical or racial harassment, public humiliation etc.
Bottom line is bullying and harassment at workplace lead to a terrible effect on the health, well-
being, and performance of the employees.
PremillaD’Cruz and Ernesto Norohna, Organizational Behavior professors at IIM Ahmadabad, had
conducted a study on workplace bullying among the ITeS employees in India, in 2010. The findings
revealed without a doubt that bullies at the office are not rare.

“A range of bullying behaviors was described including

isolation, personal attacks, verbal threats and task-related
difficulties.”
Workplace bullying has been identified as one of the major existing challenges for occupational
health and safety and is linked to other emerging risks such as work-related stress and violence.
These vulnerabilities are often termed psychosocial risks and are now being termed as global
issues, affecting all countries, professions, and workers. Few countries have introduced new
legislation or have added new provisions into existing legislation to protect workers from bullying.
Other countries have opted for non-regulatory instruments, such as codes of practice and provisions
of similar agreements.

Workplace being a type of social setting, a certain amount of banter does occur naturally. However,
when it becomes persistent and repetitive, causing severe stress to the targeted individual; it
crosses over to the line of bullying.

Few signs that you're being bullied at the office

Do you feel challenged proving yourself?

When you get directives with certain objectives and a deadline and you give your best to work hard
and with focus, only to find out that suddenly there's a change in direction, your progress and
contribution are is not even acknowledged and not taken into account; or managers give credit of
your efforts to others. Here comes the major act of bullying when you see your manager, purposely
throwing roadblocks in front of you, to prevent you from successfully completing a task.

Does every decision of yours get questioned?

If you get constantly micro-managed, you begin to feel like your decisions are not being trusted and
you can't explain why. Constant accusation over small matters, being perceived wrongly, get you to
start self-doubting your own decision-making capacity. As a result, the ability of decision making and
management gets hit.

Do you feel estranged?

Over a period of time, you get excluded from important meetings and discussions that you were part
of once. Colleagues’ interaction with you gets reduced to a minimum. You get excluded from post-
work get-togethers. You become subject to verbal abuse with insulting and offensive language.
Feedback is always provided in the form of criticism and delivered in a way to make you feel awful
about yourself. You are unable to see any effort of guidance.

Do you feel being subjected to biased treatment?

Your teammates get preferential conduct. They get opportunities for top projects; meanwhile, you
find that most of your requests along the same lines are denied without reasonable explanation.

Do you see your health apart?

Bullying can lead to anxiety, panic attacks, and mood swings and even to serious issues like
depression. There are physical symptoms such as increased blood pressure, loss of appetite or
excessive eating and nervous breakdown. Mental symptoms like the feeling of loss of energy, loss of
focus, loss of interest to socialize, loss of interest and confidence to attend to even the simplest
official chores. Fear of facing the bully forces you to find ways to skip your office and tasks.

How to deal with workplace bullies?

Acknowledging and accepting that you are a victim of bullying at work will give you the road ahead.
Here are possible actions that you could take.

“Remember, Workplace bullying is not country specific. It is

universal and is also gender agnostic and can be carried out by
both male and even a female manager or colleague.
Compromising with the harassment is ending up your passion to
work and live.”
Do not ignore– Silence is not the best defence mechanism in such cases. Ignoring it with the hope
that it will go away will actually escalate the issue. If you don’t want to take the step of registering
your complaint, then you need to articulate explicitly what you feel in a clear but non – threatening
manner.
Work on Self –The first impact of workplace bully is to your physical and mental health. Hence,
spend enough time to self-introspect, find ways to deal with the challenges. You will feel that the
professional journey covered so far was futile. Remember, nothing is ever futile. Your choices
brought you to this stage. Look at these choices as a gateway to recognize your hidden strengths.
Truth is that every experience of yours enriches your wisdom about your own self and on areas your
incompetence needs attention.
Raise your concern – Voicing out the concern to a trusted authority in the organization is critical.
Contacting human resources is a good idea. They should be able to help you understand if you're
actually being bullied. If bullying is confirmed, they can also provide guidance on how to deal with it.
Alternatively, you may contact a higher authority, like a designated ombudsman or a senior
colleague.
Know your rights- You may experience that you're not being heard within your company. Instead of
correcting the problem, you became the bearer of bad news, who dared to expose truths about
incompetence or illegality. This can happen as your concerns may not be incident specific because
bullying is persistent which affects the emotional, psychological and mental health of the victim.
In such cases, you must seek grievances under different provisions provided under the constitution
of India. An experienced employment attorney can assess the facts of your case and determine
whether you have viable legal claims against your harasser.
 While raising concern internally or externally, please remember
the following:
 Maintain records – Start collecting records of everything whether it is CCTV footage, date, time,
duration and nature of phone calls, SMS, emails etc.

 Do not take back your complaint – There are high chances that the moment you file your complaint,
an immediate investigation will be initiated that may blemish company’s image. The investigator,
who is not sensitive, may find loopholes in your quality of work and can interrogate about you as well
as your personal lifestyle. You taking back your complaint would not only weaken your image as an
escapist but will also boost up the ego of the harasser.
Look for another job- Sometimes it's not worth the fight - emotionally and financially. Respect
yourself. Look for new opportunities with a company possessing a strong culture of integrity. Some
companies have zero tolerance policies. Have a backup plan in place.
Muhammad Ali quoted it so well, “Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated, can reach
down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the
match is even.”

15.) State of technology in recruitment

Hire Better Hire Faster

This People Matters and Param.ai research report brings you an overview of
the technologies being adopted by organizations in each stage of recruitment.
Two decades ago, McKinsey researchers observed a brewing war for talent in the business world.
And even after two decades, this war for talent is far from over. Hit by massive shifts in business
models and the advent of the digital era, organizations are finding themselves competing for talent.
Adopting technology can be seen as the panacea for their challenges. Technology implementation
across the HR value chain is helping firms with selecting the right candidate, enabling pre and post
employee engagement and personalization of the recruitment process.

People Matters and Param.ai brings to you “The Role of HR Technology in Recruitment,” a study
designed and conducted with the objective to understand how leading companies in India use
technology at every stage of recruitment- sourcing, screening and interview and selection. The
survey saw the participation of 124 companies across industries and sectors.

The study focused on top recruitment priorities and challenges; and how organizations are
leveraging technologies to manage those challenges.

Here are the top findings from the report:

Speed & Quality:

67% respondents said that balancing speed and quality of hires is the biggest priority. Sunil
Parambath, Head of Talent Acquisition at Arcesium shares, “We need more such recruiting
technology which can automate transactional aspect of recruitment as much as possible, so we can
spend more time on reaching out, networking and engaging with the talent.”

The skilled talent pool is a challenge

Unavailability of skills among candidates poses a hurdle for Talent Acquisition executives, say 62%
of the respondents.

Unmesh Rai, Group Head, Employer Branding & Talent Acquisition, Piramal Enterprises Limited,
shares, “There is a huge gap between the desired skill sets and the skills possessed by the
candidates. The challenge for businesses today is to get industry-ready candidates who can be
directly plugged into the jobs.”

A technology to enhance the human-decision making

48% respondents expect the recruitment technology to improve their decision making.

Recruitment budgets are going up: A positive outlook

50% of the organizations agreed that their recruitment budgets are going up! Another interesting
trend that we observed is that only 19% respondents see reducing the recruitment cost as a priority
for 2018.

Current technology fails to offer powerful insights

While the organizations are positive about their recruitment teams’ abilities to leverage the
technology, 66% of them noted that the current technology they are using fails to process data
effectively and offer them powerful insights.

“The problem with most ATS is that they are hard to use and difficult to calibrate. Also, filling up
lengthy forms and complicated login parameters are annoying. Candidates tend to shy away from
websites which have these drawbacks. Currently, there is a need for technology that enhances the
candidate engagement throughout the recruitment process.” says Dennis Wilfred, Head of Talent
Acquisition, Intuit.

Adoption of AI and Machine Learning in recruitment:

The study finds that organizations have started to adopt niche technologies like Artificial Intelligence
(14%) and Machine Learning (16%) in an attempt to transform their screening and sourcing
processes.
Savita Hortikar, Head of Talent Acquisition, ThoughtWorks says, “AI and automation are must-have
technologies in new-age recruitment. AI has the power to make better decisions, and businesses live
and die by their decisions. Automation ensures consistency and efficiency as long as it’s tempered
by human expertise.

As business continues to get disrupted and the demands of the top talent continue to evolve, it is
critical for organizations to leverage technology that enhances the speed of the overall recruitment
process and improves the quality of hires. From the study, it was also evident that the HR service
providers should focus more on user experience. The current technology in the market lacks user
experience and is still not capable of providing insights that matter to recruiters in deciding the right
hire. There is a need for technology that can be easy-to-understand, convenient and well-
engineered.
16.) The 5 domain experts u need to build IoT device
Learn the basic team composition and skill sets you need to build an
industrial IoT device from prototype to production.
According to a Cisco survey (2017), over 60% of respondents admitted
that they substantially underestimated the complexities of managing
their own IoT initiatives. Even more alarming, the same survey also
found that 75% of self-initiated IoT projects were considered a failure.

However, Cisco also found that most companies that consult IoT domain
experts throughout the project’s lifecycle finish on time. Companies that
go it alone often exceed their initial timelines and find that they lack the
internal expertise to keep the project up and running. Unfortunately, by
the time companies realize that they need additional expertise, they are
usually deep into the development process, making pivoting
exponentially more costly.
The purpose of this guide is to help you assess the domain experts you
need to build an IoT device and prevent you from getting stuck in the
product development process. This guide also explains and defines many
aspects of the IoT product development cycle to help you overcome the
many complexities of building an IoT device at scale.

The Bottom Line

Well, this is a lot of work. The purpose of this article isn’t to make you
feel discouraged though. Realistically, taking the time to scope and
comprehend these requirements will save you time and lots of money
down the road.
First, you should assess these requirements with own your organization’s
skill sets, experts, and resources. By doing so, you’ll be able to increase
your own knowledge on the gaps in your organization and be able to
properly educate stakeholders on how to build a production IoT device.
It’s also worth mentioning that there are many engineering services that
can provide you the domain experts and skill sets you need to build your
IoT device from prototype to production.
In the end, it is important to remember that building a successful IoT
device (or any type of product) is very hard. But you know this going into
the project, so don’t make it harder than it needs to be. By hiring or
consulting these domain experts, you can substantially increase your
chances of finishing your project on time and successfully launching an
IoT product to market.

17.) Here’s how AI is disrupting talent acquisition

Artificial Intelligence has emerged as a game-changing technology that

enables companies to cut business costs, boost productivity and deliver a
great customer experience. Read on to know how AI can transform your
recruitment process.
As workforce productivity takes center-stage, companies are increasing their investment in HR
technology. In the last two years alone, venture capital and private equity companies have invested
$1.87 billion in HR and workforce-related products. The investment in HR technology is only set to
increase as companies leverage the power of emerging technologies to achieve higher productivity.

In the last decade, digitization of people management process and SMAC (social media, mobile,
analytics, and cloud) technologies changed the very tenets of talent management. Companies are
now turning to newer technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Blockchain to
enhance organizational effectiveness while delivering a superlative employee experience.

The rise of AI-based applications in hiring

One of the hottest technologies in HR is Artificial Intelligence (AI) or machine learning. Its ability to
deliver “intelligent automation” stems from its intuitive base concepts of pattern recognition, natural
language processing, speech recognition etc. These touch upon every stage of the employee life
cycle, right from hire to retire.
 AI is helping HR professionals by not only automating the transactional activities but also
empowering them with analytics by identifying patterns and trends in data. This data-driven
approach is especially useful for talent acquisition, where the search for the “finding the perfect fit”
has been a subjective process for long.

Whether it is managing high hiring volumes, deploying the right employer branding message, or
optimizing the candidate selection process, there is a pressing need to improve recruitment
efficiencies. Data can serve as the logical base for making intelligent hiring decisions.

Benefits of AI in hiring:

Introducing AI into an existing process involves an investment of time and money. Here are some of
the key benefits of adopting AI.
 Intelligent Sourcing:
Sourcing the right candidate from a vast pool is the first step to hiring success. Machine learning
algorithms can match the best prospects to jobs by observing patterns and profiles of successful
hires. This approach can help you create job postings to attract the right candidates. In addition to
this, AI-powered assistants or chatbots can help reduce the time-to-hire by getting candidates to
quickly apply to positions by handling queries by prospective applicants in real-time.
 Accurate screening, scheduling, and selection:
Sifting through thousands of applications to identify the best ones within a specified time is a time-
consuming process. Today, information about a candidate’s profile lies in multiple data sources –
resumes, professional networks, social media etc. AI-based tools can not only refer to these sources
but also consolidate this data and screen these applications for the requirements of the job.
Chatbots can also help carry out the first-level of selections through basic conversations.

AI-based automated selection tools can align personality-based assessments and gamified tests
which can further ease the life of a recruiter by providing useful insights on candidate-job match.
Similarly, AI-based tools are increasingly used in video interviews to identify non-verbal cues from
interviewing candidates.

AI cannot replace the human element in hiring, so HR and TA

leaders should design their strategy by ensuring they are making
the best use of their resources – recruiters empowered by
technology. A good starting point can be automating routine
and repetitive hiring tasks such as screening and then progress
towards higher intelligence-based hiring tasks such as candidate
engagement.”
 Better candidate engagement:
Candidates often complain about not receiving timely updates about their application status. This
hampers the candidate experience, thereby directly impacting the employer brand. AI tools enable
better hiring-notifications and candidate engagement. For example, a chatbot can be used to resolve
typical queries of candidates who apply for a given position. This can greatly enhance the candidate
experience.
 Reducing bias:
Bias is one of the most critical hindrances to quality recruiting. The fact that AI stems from data
intelligence, allows it to identify and eliminate biases (both conscious and unconscious). For
example, a screening tool can be programmed to ignore demographic factors such as age, gender,
ethnic origin etc.
 Hiring for the future through predictive models:
In recruitment, it is important to fill a role with a candidate who has the maximum chances of success
in that role. AI can help predict an applicant’s likelihood to succeed in the role he or she is applying
for, based on factors related to the job, organizational culture etc. This gives both, the job applicant
as well as the recruiter a clear view of whether the candidate is a good match for the company and
vice-versa. This is of great significance in an age where employees’ longevity within a company is a
challenge in itself.

AI thus has the potential to transform both recruitment efficiency and effectiveness for the better. AI
cannot replace the human element in hiring, so HR and TA leaders should design their strategy by
ensuring they are making the best use of their resources – recruiters empowered with technology. A
good starting point can be automating high-volume, repetitive and transactional tasks like resume
screening, freeing up recruiters’ time to work on building effective relationships with candidates and
keeping them engaged throughout the hiring process. Irrespective of the stage of technology
adoption an organization is in, it is crucial that they make an ongoing commitment to invest in
artificial intelligence and technology to be able to reap the benefits it promises to bring.

18.) Google launches job search for India

Google has collaborated with leading job service providers such as Aasaan
jobs, Freshers world, Head honchos, IBM Talent Management Solutions,
LinkedIn, Quezx, Quikr Jobs, Shine.com, T-Jobs, Times Job, and Wisdom
jobs. How does it help in job search? Read on.
Banking on the online job market in India, the technology giant Google today launches job search in
India. According to Google, India’s online job market is showing healthy growth and by 2020, 63
percent of people are slated to access online job postings. This is also reflected in Google Search
trends: in Q4 of 2017, the company says that it has seen a jump of more than 45 percent in jobs
search queries compared to the previous year.
More than 50 percent of job-related queries are originating from mobile which is not surprising for
India, where the majority of Internet users are getting online from their smartphones. And these
mobile-based queries are up nearly 90 percent year on year.

With this development, the company is planning to connect numerous job seekers around the
country on one platform. The company has collaborated with leading job service providers such as
Aasaan jobs, Freshers world, Head honchos, IBM Talent Management Solutions, LinkedIn, Quezx,
Quikr Jobs, Shine.com, T-Jobs, Times Jobs, and Wisdom jobs.

“Now, if the candidates search for “jobs near me,” “jobs for
freshers,” or similar job-seeking queries, it’ll see in-depth results
that allow the users to explore relevant job opportunities from
across the web.”
The job search on Google currently has over a million listings across job types and industries from
over ninety thousand employers in the country. This new job search experience will be available in
English on the Search app on Android and iOS, in Google search on the desktop and mobile.

*KPMG-Google study, 2016

19.) Innovation core agenda for organizations :Study

Mercers study identified five workforce trends for 2018. Read more to find out.
According to Mercer’s 2018 Global Talent Trends Study – Unlocking Growth in the Human Age, 98%
of companies in India have innovation on their core agenda this year and all are planning
organization design changes.

At the same time, employees are seeking control of their personal and professional lives, with more
than half asking for more flexible work options. As the ability to change becomes a key differentiator
for success in a competitive global climate, the challenge for organizations is to bring their people
along on the journey, especially as among the top asks from employees is for leaders who set a
clear direction.

“This year we saw palpable excitement from executives about shifting to the new world of work.
They are pursuing an agenda of continuous evolution – rather than episodic transformation – to
remain competitive,” said Ilya Bonic, President of Mercer’s Career business. He added that the
combination of human skills plus advanced digital technology that will drive their business forward.

The Five workforce trends for 2018 are:

Change@Speed: How companies prepare for the future of work depends on the degree of
disruption anticipated. Those expecting the most disruption are working agility into their model and
placing bets on flatter, more networked structures (42% are forming more holacratic work teams).
Placing power in the hands of individuals makes it critical to build capacity and readiness early,
something Indian HR leaders feel confident about. However, HR leaders feel slightly less prepared
to reskill existing employees (80% are confident that they can do this well) than to hire from the
outside (84%). As 30% of executives predict at least two in five roles in their organization will cease
to exist in the next five years, being prepared for job displacement and reskilling is critical for
organizational survival. Yet, only 46% of companies in India are increasing access to online learning
courses and even fewer (33%) are actively rotating talent within the business.
Working with Purpose: Three-quarters (75%) of thriving employees globally, those who feel fulfilled
personally and professionally, say their company has a strong sense of purpose. To find purpose,
employees crave movement, learning, and experimentation. If not received, they will look for it
elsewhere – over half (53%) of Indian employees satisfied in their current job still plan to leave due
to a perceived lack of career opportunity, compared to 39% globally.
Permanent Flexibility: Individuals are vocal in their expectations of work arrangements that put
them in control of their personal and professional lives. Employees want more flexible work options,
and organizations are listening – 92% of executives view flexible working as a core part of their
value proposition. Only 3% of executives consider themselves industry leaders when it comes to
enabling flexibility and 35% of employees fear that choosing flexible work arrangements will impact
their promotion prospects.
Platform for Talent: Given 96% of executives expect an increase in the competition for talent,
organizations realize they must expand their talent ecosystem and update their HR models for a
digital age. The time is now – over half (57%) of companies in India plan to “borrow” more talent in
2018 and 79% of employees would consider working on a freelance basis
Digital from the Inside Out: Indian companies are the most ahead on delivering a consumer-grade
experience for employees, with 32% considering themselves a digital organization today – the
highest of any market, compared to a global average of 15%. Some 73% of employees say that
state-of-the-art tools are important for success, and encouragingly 77% say they have the digital
tools necessary to do their job. Indian employees’ digital interactions with HR are the highest
reported in the study at 66%. Business leaders are confident in HR’s ability to be a strategic partner
in setting the course for the future, with 82% of executives reporting that HR aligns people strategy
with the strategic priorities of the business.
Mercer’s study shares insights from over 7,600 senior business executives, HR leaders, and
employees from 21 industries and 44 countries around the world. The report assesses the new
drivers of the future of work, identifies critical disconnects concerning change, and makes powerful
recommendations to capture growth in 2018.
21.) Randstad reveals country’s top employer brand

The study also revealed that salary and employee benefits continue to be the
top drivers among Indian workforce across all profiles while choosing an
employer.
Randstad has announced the findings of their annual employer branding survey, Randstad Employer
Brand Research 2018. According to the research, US-based technology giant, Microsoft India has
been declared as the country’s most attractive employer brand.

The top 10 most attractive employer brands of the year 2018 include Amazon, Hindustan Unilever,
IBM, ITC Group, Larsen & Toubro, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Samsung India, Sony and Tata
Consultancy Services.

Source: Randstad
The finding reveals that in 2018, salary and employee benefits continue to be the top drivers among
Indian workforce across all profiles while choosing an employer, followed by work-life balance and
job security. This year, the importance bestowed to salary and job security as factors of choice while
selecting an employer has increased, compared to 2017, across all work profiles. The top reasons
for employees to stay in the current job is job security. However, the most significant reason for an
employee to leave is the limited career path.
Source: Randstad
The study also revealed that Indian employers, in order to stay employable take actions like
providing flexibility, upskilling, adopting latest technology, etc.

Source: Randstad

Paul Dupuis, MD & CEO, Randstad India said, “Employer

branding has never been more important than it is now.
Candidates have choices, not only where they decide to work
but in what capacity. Organizations must have a story, a greater
purpose and a defined North Star, which defines why they
exist”.
The research also revealed that men favor organizations with influential leaders, while women prefer
employers who offer robust training programs.

The research covers 75 percent of the global economy with 30 participating countries and over 1.75
lakh respondents worldwide. The 30 participating countries include responses from are Europe, Asia
Pacific, and America. Around 3,500 potential and employed workforces between the age group of
18-65 participated in the survey. Unlike other surveys, HR officers, staff or experts were not invited
to take part in the study.

22.) Reliance Jio to hire 80,000 people in FY 2019

As per Jio's Chief Human Resources Officer Sanjay Jog, about 1,57,000
people are on the rolls currently.
Reliance Jio is planning to recruit about 75,000 to 80,000 people during this financial year,
as revealedby a senior official on the sidelines of an event organized by the Society of Human
Resources Management.

Jio's Chief Human Resources Officer Sanjay Jog while replying

to a question on how many new recruitments will be made by
the company during this financial year, stated, “About 1,57,000
people are on the rolls today. I will say another 75,000 to 80,000
people.”
Jog also revealed that the company was in a partnership with about 6,000 colleges, including
technical institutions, across the country. As per him, there are some embedded courses offered in
these institutions and students who clear these are deemed "Reliance ready".

He added that the hiring would also be done through referrals and with the help of social media
platforms. Revealing that colleges and employees referrals “are the two major contributors to our
hiring plans”, he added that recruitments through referrals now accounted for about 60 % to 70% of
the hiring.

On the attrition rate of the company, he stated that it was about 32% in the sales and technical areas
related to constructions sites while it stood at 2% at the headquarter level.
23.) Workplace Rejection: What must be done

Whatever the rejection - big or small - the one thing that is common is that it
always hurts. If this hurt is not addressed or attended to, it is very easy for one
to go into a downward spiral of self-doubt.
Hurt comes to us in many ways and possibly one of the worst kinds is that which springs from being
rejected. Take Mark, for instance, who was looking for a job that he thought would suit him best. He
finally found one and thought he had aced the interview. The very thought of working in an
organization that he had dreamt of and an opportunity to express himself was keeping Mark elated.
On the day that he was to receive his confirmation letter, he received a letter saying he wasn’t
selected for the role. This rejection was not taken lightly by Mark and he started feeling shaky,
abandoned, hopeless and upset. A sense of not being worthy started creeping into him. This is just
one example of the many situations where we feel dejected because of our sense of rejection, and
even though Mark is just a fictional character, we all know that we at some point or the other have
felt that feeling of dismay.

Rejection comes in many forms. For example, you were expecting a promotion and your colleague
got it, your application was rejected for reasons that you do not know, your coworker got the credit
for your contribution to the project. And then there are life-altering rejections like being fired from the
job, spouse leaving his/her partner, and so on.

Whatever the rejection - big or small - the one thing that is common is that it always hurts. If this hurt
is not addressed or attended to, it is very easy for one to go into a downward spiral of self-doubt.
The little voice in the head like, “I am not good enough”, “life is unfair”, “why me?”, “is there
something seriously wrong with me?” takes over. We feel ashamed and inadequate.

Now, does everyone feel that way? Not necessarily. For some, rejection ignites a spark inside. It
becomes a fuel for some to take on challenges with vigor, despite the feelings of hurt. The voices in
the head of such people reflect things like “I will prove you wrong”, “no matter what, I will succeed”.
With this focus and determination, some achieve extraordinary results and success.

Take the example of Jack Ma, founder, and CEO of Alibaba. His message- Never Give up, because
it is to the persistent tryers that the world truly belongs. In his interview with Bloomberg TV, he
mentions, he had applied for jobs 30 times and was rejected. In many cases, he was the only one
who got rejected. Rejected by KFC, Police forces, and ten times by Harvard. Despite so many
rejections what allows people like Jack Ma to bounce back?

Emmy E Werner, an American development psychologist in her research on Resilience in

development and subsequent researches on this topic has found a common thread – Individual
dispositions and sources of social support are factors that contribute to resilience.

Based on my experience, I believe dealing with rejection is a three-step process – Being Aware (or
Being), Dealing with Rejection Head On (or Doing) and Creating a support structure.
 Being Aware (Being) - Self-awareness is the starting point. Observe the little voice in your head.
What is it saying, when you are rejected? Focus on ‘being’ with the thought, without judging or
evaluating – ‘Just Be’. The sooner you realize your being, the better it is. Awareness comes from
practice and by being mindful. You will realize that rejection is a point of view of the other person and
it has nothing to do with you. The Rule No.6 in Benjamin Zander’s book, The Art of Possibility, is
“Don’t take yourself so damn seriously”, and a simple shift in the way we think can loosen the grip of
our image of self, and break the hold of a negative self-image.
Dealing with Rejection Head On (Doing) - The idea is to go out and look for rejection. After you
have had enough of that, you will be able to overcome the pain. In psychotherapy, this approach is
called ‘Exposure Therapy’. This is particularly interesting because it involves the exposure of oneself
to a feared situation/object/context without any danger to overcome the anxiety/fear. This concept
inspired Jia Jiang to author Rejection Proof to start a 100-day rejection seeking exercise.
In Jia Jiang’s own words, what he learned in the whole process is listed as three points below:
 Rejection is a muscle. If you do not constantly work outside your comfort zone, you will lose it and
become weak.

 Rejection is a number game. Fight through enough NO’s and you will eventually find a YES

 Avoiding rejection is worse than receiving it. When we shy away from rejection, we reject our ideas
and ourselves before the world ever has a chance to reject them. This is the worst form of rejection
and as a result, we are ignored by the world.

 Creating a Support structure – Creating a network of people who can be committed listeners to each
other. Having people who can act as a sounding board, sharing our thoughts and being a sounding
board for others, gives an opportunity for one to see the situation from a different perspective. It is all
about give and take, empowering others and in turn, being empowered.

Zig Ziglar, a famous speaker says,” If you help others achieve

what they want, you will get what you want”.
Simply put, working with others to ensure that we reinforce others capacity to bounce back.

Rejection is an opportunity for us to learn and evolve from our own experiences. It can be painful,
but viewing rejection as an opportunity will allow us to move in an upward spiral of life.

Is it possible?

Yes.

Is it easy?

I will leave it to you.

 25.) What is your power distance with the team?

Your power distance will determine the success of proactive personalities in

your team. Know more about it.
A humble leader in an expected low power distance environment inspired shared leadership,
exchange of ideas and creativity. In teams with high power distance, leader humility was associated
with lower levels of psychological safety.

There is a popular belief in the corporate circuit that humility is a virtue that keeps leaders ahead of
the races. There is ample evidence in published research work that proves that humility is a
characteristic that leaders need to be effective. But history has paved way for successful leaders
who would not be considered the most humble when judged objectively. Can there be a better
example than Steve Jobs? Behind all the creative and innovative, there was a leader who was a
well-known egoist, too crass, boastful and ruthless at times. Effective and successful? Definitely.
Humble? Maybe not.

It is not exactly a linear equation which says success increases as humility does. It comes down to
which leadership characteristics are effective in which cultural setup. There are certain cultures,
where hiring “narcissistic CEOs” is actually good for the business. This is because that is what will
work in today’s reality of rising narcissism levels, according to the author Tomas Chamorro-
Premuzic.
A group of academicians hypothesized the correlation between a leader’s humility and her capability
to instill the feeling of shared leadership in their teams. The research paper is titled “Initiating and
Utilizing Shared Leadership in Teams: The Role of Leader Humility, Team Proactive Personality and
Team Performance Capability” and is authored by Chia-Yen (Chad) Chiu, Bradley P. Owens, and
Paul E. Tesluk. The research paper also theorized the concept of power distance and its intriguing
relationship with humility. In this article, we look at the impact of power distance on shared
leadership, and how the power distance determines the success of your humility.
 The concept that is Power Distance
The higher in the hierarchy an individual, the more power he holds. In every organization, there is
an acceptable threshold of inequality of power. Employees lower in the hierarchical accept and
expect an unequal power distribution between them and their team leaders. They even find it
legitimate. This is what power distance is. “The degree to which people consider the unequal
distribution of power in a team acceptable and legitimate,” the researchers define power distance in
their Harvard Business Review article. Power distance varies across workplaces and even teams.
Two different teams within the same company may have contrasting thresholds of power distribution
inequality. Members of Team A may find it legitimate for their leader to have much more power than
them; while it might be unacceptable to people of Team B and they may expect more of equality in
the way things are run. These acceptable thresholds determine the acceptable characteristics within
a team and define what leadership traits will actually be effective. A participative leader can be
anticipated to do well in Team B, while an authoritative figurehead could be more effective in Team
A.
 For a leader, it is essential to be aware of what the team expects
from them, identify the benchmark, and balance between
humility and authority.
About the study
It was tested by the researchers on 354 individual members and 72 work teams from 11 companies in
China over a period of 6 months. Web-based surveys were used to ask members to rate their leaders’
“expressed humility”, and their own “power distance” value. A set of statements were used to
determine expressed humility and power distance. People’s creativity and psychological safety were
measured after a period of 3 months, to test the effectiveness of teams and the role of humility in the
same.

 The correlation between power distance and humility

The study found out that “leader humility was most strongly related to ‘shared leadership’ when
teams had members with high levels of proactive personality.” This essentially means that when
employees who show initiative and have a tendency to show ownership, humble leaders inspired
‘shared leadership’ more in their teams. These teams were found to be more effective. The study
also found that proactive members thrived more under a “humble and power-reducing leader.”

“The research interestingly found out, that humility was not only
unsuccessful in teams with high power distance, but it had a
negative impact. “In teams with high power distance, leader
humility was associated with lower levels of psychological
safety,” say the researchers.
People didn’t feel psychologically safe to say what they felt, express their views, and take any risks
in environments where leaders were humble but were expected to be dominant. However, humility
went a far way in teams with low power distance. A humble leader in an expected low power
distance environment inspired shared leadership, exchange of ideas and creativity.

The study also found that when the power distance between team members and the team head is
high, members expect the leader to take charge and give strong direction. But when power distance
is low, members expect more humility. Thus, the power distance determines the degree of humility
one should exert in order to be effective at leading and be successful in perpetuating shared
leadership. For leaders, it thus becomes important to balance the degree of humility against the
power distance between them and their team members.
 What does it mean to leaders?
This research challenges the popular notions that humility inspires effectiveness. This research
argues that the effectiveness of humility depends on how the team members perceive the power
distance between them and the leader. For a leader then, it becomes essential to be aware of what
 the team expects from them – what is the level of power distance does her team consider legitimate
and acceptable. The leader then has to operate within that threshold and exercise a balance of
humility and authority. Because if the research is to go by, the virtue of humility alone will not help
them in succeeding as leaders and inspiring shared leadership.

26.) Digitizing recognition: A possible future

How valuable is R&R in a company? How to digitize it in a meaningful

manner? Read on to find out.
Employees are the stepping stone to success in any organization. It is essential to have a workforce
that is motivated and enthusiastic towards work. However, many organizations struggle to preserve
top talent. There are various methods that an organization can use to retain employees. One
common factor in all retention techniques and the most effective one is Rewards and Recognition (R
& R).

One of the main factors to the success of R & R is that the

employees feel valued and appreciated for the hard work and
effort invested. Various R & R practices are being followed by
companies, but with growing digital advances, it has been
noticed that digital recognition has been appreciated the most by
employees.
Following are some of the important aspects of digitized rewards
and recognition (R&R):
 Spot Recognition

Gone are the days when employees would serve the same company for years and wait for the
retirement benefits. People now look for R & R that will benefit them at the moment and give
monetary benefits. Waiting for an annual evaluation to recognize your employees is not useful as it
loses the charm of success. Hence, try and reward the employee as and when it happens by
sending across a quick email, which will help reinforce the connection between positive behavior and
performances you want to see repeatedly in your organization.
 Personalized rewards

Everyone feels appreciated and acknowledged when a particular prize or gift has your name
embossed on it. Similarly, employees feel valued and recognized while receiving any award or gifts
which leads to a positive work environment. You can send emails from a company-based intranet
 with personalized messages, like the number of sales or any big projects that the person has
achieved with their name. Digital gift cards are one of the rewards that are appreciated by the
employee's as these can be used at different online portals for several reasons. Personalizing any
award creates a different aspect of employees’ view and makes them feel part of something big and
creates the sense of responsibility to achieve bigger and better goals.
 Social recognition

Create a Facebook page where all the R & R can be posted with their achievements. LinkedIn and
Yammer can also be used to display performances of an employee or a group of people who have
excelled or achieved beyond exception. These platforms are user-friendly and accessible to all
employees and managers for recognition and applaud their time and energy invested in attaining the
goals. Sharing posts with personal connections will not only garner praises for an employee, but it
will also promote your employer brand online easing recruitment process.
 Digital Programs

With widespread digitalization work environment and culture has changed immensely. It is essential
to incorporate the new techniques of R & R to acquire the desired results. Many online employee
benefits portals can transform a dull, formal scheme into an interesting concept. New initiates like
employee-nominated training and development and experiential and lifestyle-based rewards can be
claimed and monitored through a portal. These portals are cost and retention effective, which many
HR representatives are incorporating in their organizations.
 Educational programs

A lot of companies arrange for Rewards and Recognition and yet fail to retain people. Many of the
employees, no matter the age group have a what's in it for me attitude and do not perceive monetary
gains. Incorporating educational courses or sponsoring further education for employees and direct
family members can work wonders for educational enthusiasts. PepsiCo has recently awarded one
of their employee for completing 50 years of service and proudly follows the educational programs
and encourages people to work for social development programs by providing leaves for
volunteering. Shiona Watson, senior director, HR at PepsiCo said in an interview

"We do this through our Helping Hands employee donation and

volunteer program, where are people are provided with
volunteering leave, so they can work directly with charitable
organizations," said Shiona Watson, Senior Director, HR at
PepsiCo
Conclusion:

An organization cannot function to its actual potential until all the units work in harmony. Just like a
vehicle needs all its components to perform the engine mainly as it is the heart of an automotive
system, employees are the engine of every industry. You can’t function without your base being firm.
Employees are the main contributors to company’s success. Recognizing the hard work and efforts
not only maintains a positive environment, it also encourages one to push their limits and achieve
more. Concepts like referring a friend bonus and additional staff recognition rewards help in inspiring
 and engaging your workforce. Success is no accident. It is earned with the hard work and
perseverance by everyone contributing to building your company.

The concept of R & R is not to promote monetary gains but to inculcate the pride and attachment
towards the workplace. It is crucial to understand the primary focus which is to have long-term
relations with employees and even an email appreciating the hard work is sufficient to make work
enjoyable and not a compulsion.

27.) How companies are using Legos for problem-solving

LSP is a facilitated meeting, communication and problem-solving process in

which participants are led through a series of questions, probing deeper and
deeper into the subject. Learn more about it.
It was the annual Executive-Committee meet of a leading MNC. The setting appropriately was at a
large airy banquet room of a 5-star hotel. Ten minutes to the scheduled start, the room filled up with
the 8 participants – all CxO’s. Everything seemed perfect and in its place. Except for one thing.

On the large central table that filled a quarter of the room, in front of each chair was placed a packet
each of colorful LEGO bricks! And on one side of the room, on tables lining up the side were
stacked of an even bigger collection of LEGO tiles of all varieties – little human figurines with
different kinds of faces and headgear, skeletons, doors, windows, grass, ladders, wheels, LEGO
building blocks in different hues and shades, wheels, dolphins, cubs, lions, penguins, cows, spider
webs….. “Surely there has been some mistake?”, the quizzical looks on the faces of most of the
Senior Executives seemed to ask. What these executives were about to get into was an immersive
session using a path-breaking methodology that originated in Denmark, called LEGO SERIOUS
PLAY (LSP).

LSP is a facilitated meeting, communication and problem-solving process in which participants are
led through a series of questions, probing deeper and deeper into the subject. Each participant
builds his or her own 3D LEGO model in response to the facilitator´s questions using specially
selected LEGO elements. These 3D models serve as a basis for group discussion, knowledge
sharing, problem-solving and decision making. LSP draws on extensive research from the fields of
business, organizational development, psychology and learning, and is based on the concept of
“hand knowledge”. It is also a method that requires a trained LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitator.

The Method is based on the core beliefs that:

1. Leaders don’t have all the answers.

2. The wisdom to solve all the problems that a team faces, lies within the team.

3. We live in a VUCA world and hence allowing each member to contribute and speak out results in
more richer and well-rounded decisions.
 Getting back to the Executive team in our story, this was a team that had a relatively new leader.
The members of the team were of different vintages – some veterans, some who had joined in newly
from other companies and a few in between.

The priority for the leader was hence to integrate this team by
getting everybody on the same page on a few key questions:
1. What does the word, “Leadership” mean for each one of us?

2. As a “Leadership Team” (LT) what is the identity that we would want to stand for?

3. As an LT, there would be hundreds of things that would impinge on our time. What are the few
critical things that we as LT would want to eye-ball?

It is interesting what happens when you ask senior leaders who are used to number crunching to
suddenly play and engage with LEGO bricks. Smiles break out, some smirks too. Some dive in with
enthusiasm, while some approach it gingerly with caution and a bemused look that asks, “Where is
this leading up to?”. The first one hour of the session was hence critical, as we slowly but surely led
the group into the nuances of the methodology – and taught the group the language of LSP. With the
comfort came confidence – and the stories started becoming richer.

“How would you liked to be viewed as a Leader?”, we asked.

Here are two perspectives from two different Individuals:

 LSP lends itself to questions where there is no “one right answer”. As teams slowly get more
comfortable and proficient in the language of LSP, the questions can get tougher and more
challenging. However, if the Facilitator moves too fast on this journey without taking everyone along,
the method may seem frivolous. Move too slow – and it could turn boring.

In this particular journey for the team, we hence sequenced it

gradually:
 One hour of introduction to the method

 What does a “nightmare leader” look like? (A third party view)

 How would you like to be viewed as a leader? (Moving to self)

 What is your aspiration for this Leadership team? (Moving from an individual identity to a Collective
identity – a shared vision)

 What is the landscape that this LT works in? What could be the likely scenarios that play out for this
team? (Moving towards building a real-time strategy – through scenario building)
The above image is the actual landscape that the team constructed towards the end of the
workshop. The use of LEGO elements enabled the team to take a speedy shortcut to the core
questions that they sought to answer.

Many organizations in India have discovered the power of the LSP methodology. A few prominent
ones being: Hindustan Unilever, PepsiCo India, Kohler, Astra Zeneca, Tata Communications & John
Deere.

Is the process fun? Most definitely yes. But does it achieve serious results for such senior teams?
The answer again is a resounding yes. LSP reaffirms the belief that Walt Disney put so succinctly,
“Laughter is no enemy to learning!”.

9.) Who made it to the Aon’s Best Employers 2018 India list?

16 companies in India were crowned as Aon's Best Employers for 2018 in a

glittering award ceremony in Mumbai. Check out the full list below.'
The Aon Best Employers Study in Asia began in 2001 with an aim to provide insights into how
organizations can create real competitive advantage through people, explore what makes a
workplace of choice, and ultimately identify a list of Best Employers in India & other geographies.

Well into its 18th year, the study is one of the most tenured annual workplace studies. This year, the
study’s theme was “#NextGen Org: Consistently Agile” The theme focused on the tipping point of
man and machine, of the need to be high performing today and relevant tomorrow, of sustaining
through innovating, of creating the organization of tomorrow and building a bridge to the future with
sustainable talent practices.
In honor of this year’s winners, Aon organized a learning conference in the day which saw
participation from the who’s who of the corporate world. The high point of the evening was the when
the winners were finally revealed. About 125 companies from 10 industries representing almost
329,000 employees were scrutinized as part of the Aon’s Best Employers India 2018
study. The Jury for 2018 comprised eminent business leaders and academicians such as Mr. Ajay
Piramal, Chairman, Piramal Group; Ms. Kalpana Morparia, CEO, JP Morgan; Mr. Sanjiv Aggarwal,
Senior MD, Helion Ventures; Mr. Inderjit Walia, Independent Consultant (Former Group Director HR,
Bharti Group), and Prof. Premaranjan, XLRI.

So here are the winners of the Aon Best Employers 2018 (no
ranking)
 The three companies which received special recognition awards are InterGlobe Hotels, Tata
AutoComp Systems, and Vedanta Limited, Jharsuguda.
The winners were chosen after a rigorous process analysis is run on the inputs captured to measure
the alignment between Intent-Design- Experience for all participating organizations. A shortlisted set
is taken through an intense on-site audit to validate the details provided and look for innovative
practices that truly differentiate these organizations.

These details are then normalized against Aon Process Maturity framework and presented to an
external panel of unbiased jury. The jury comprising corporate and academic community then arrives
at the final list of India Best Employers, with Aon playing a facilitator role. The names of the
companies are kept undisclosed during this process and revealed to the Jury only post the final
selection.

People Matters is one of the partners for this event.

30.) Here’s a round-up of major HR tech news in April 2018

Rising shares of Ceridian, acquisition of PeopleFluent by LTG and continued

growth of HRTech are some of the highlights of the transition phase from Q1
to Q2.
The first quarter of 2018, ended with a host of good news for the HR Technology industry with an
estimated USD 1 billion invested in VC and other funding in the industry, the first quarter of 2018 has
certainly set the pace for the rest of the year.
 In April, as we look at major news, we see the trend of
investments slowing down a bit while the process of
consolidation in the industry continues unabated. We have seen
many partnerships and mergers in Q1 and we continue to see
that trend at the beginning of Q2 as well.
The biggest news however in April is the USD 420 million IPO of Ceridian (NYSE:CDAY) as it is a
high profile IPO after a long time in this space. The share was offered at USD 22 a piece valuing the
company at USD 3 billion. The stock has since risen by about 50% to close at USD34.10 thus
showing great investor confidence in this space.

So, while Ceridian an HCM solution provider, went public in April, we also saw companies
like Checkr, raise USD 100 million in Series C. This round puts the total capital raised by the
company to USD 150 million and indicates at the investor confidence in this niche of background
screening.
We believe that this confidence is based on the increase in gig workers over the past 5 years and
the prediction that such gig workers are only likely to increase in all industries and geographies
globally, thus making the background check process a critical must have a process in all recruitment
efforts.

The big consolidation move came when Learning Technologies Group

(LTG) announced acquiring PeopleFluent at a total consideration of USD 150 million. This is a
coming together of 2 great companies in this space and indicates to the potential in the learning
solutions offerings, especially for enterprise clients. With digital transformation likely to make
companies reprioritize their skill development as predicted by Gartner, this space is likely to see
increased action in coming years too.

Some other noteworthy developments are:

 The Asia Pacific region focused Payroll and HCM solution provider PayGroup is currently open for
its IPO offering and is expected to raise USD 5.5 to 8.5 million, this puts the company market
capitalization at USD 22 to 25 million. The offer is expected to close by the 10th of May and the
listing is likely to happen by the end of May. This is good news for the Asia Pacific market as we
believe this market is likely to see increased interest and activity in the HR technology space in the
near future.

 When two highly experienced and celebrated experts in the field of artificial intelligence and search
and ranking come together to create a solution for the problems of talent acquisition, you
get Eightfold.ai. The company currently in stealth mode already has more than 100 customers and
USD 24 million in funding with the latest Series B of USD 18 million. In the talent acquisition space,
this is one of the most important developments and we are very curious to see how this one unfolds.

 The HR Tech space continues to witness activity across various subcategories and this month is no
exception. We saw RocketTrip, a company focused on incentivizing employees for traveling under
budget, raise USD 15 million in Series C. GamEffective, a solution built using gamification and real-
time feedback to help improve engagement, productivity and learning in organizations, raised USD
 11 million in series B.

 We always believed that boundaries between HR Tech and FinTech are likely to blur as solutions in
both these spaces mature and look to provide a more comprehensive solution to their clients. We
are happy to see that PayTickr has announced integration with Intuit Quickbooks; allowing
employers manage employee time, payroll, invoicing and payments in a seamless manner. We
believe more such integrations between pure-play payroll solutions and financial accounting
solutions are on the cards globally.
As one can see from a sample of this news, we continue to see a wide variety of HR technology
solutions emerging, consolidating, merging and even going public. This is a sign of an industry which
is likely to continue to grow. We also expect the wellness niche within HR tech space to witness
some big announcements in near future based on certain events reported earlier. Overall we
continue to remain optimistic about the prospects for HR technology companies globally and hope to
see continued investments, collaborations and acquisitions across different sub-categories in this
space.

31.) Flipkart-Walmart deal to create 10 million jobs in India

The deal not only allows both companies to benefit from each other's
expertise, but will also boost the Indian economy in terms of job creation.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon has stated that the Flipkart-Walmart deal will create around 10 million
jobs in India over a period of few years. This includes both direct and indirect jobs. The US-based
retailer announced earlier this week that it will buy a 77 per cent stake in the Indian e-commerce
major for $16 billion.
The deal not only allows both companies to benefit from each other's expertise, but will also boost
the Indian economy in terms of job creation, increasing farmers' income and promoting national
initiatives including 'Make in India', as per a joint statement by Walmart and Flipkart.

"As Walmart scales in India, the company will continue to

partner to create sustained economic growth across agriculture,
food and retail. Future investments will support national
initiatives and will bring sustainable benefits to the country,"
Walmart stated.
Walmart India said that it will create jobs by developing supply chains and commercial opportunities,
along with its investment which will create new direct jobs.
Also, Walmart’s collaboration with Flipkart will support small businesses by procuring directly from
them. It said that it will support farmers by sourcing its inventory locally. The deal will also see
significant inputs into the supply chain, with focus on cold storages, to check wastage of perishable
agricultural produce.
The US retailer will also partner with Kirana owners in India to help them reform their retail practices
and adopt digital transaction technologies.

32.) BookMyShow ropes in new COO

The new COO will work with existing and new partners to give consumers
access to entertainment experiences and will be responsible for identifying
untapped growth opportunities in the market
Movies and events ticketing platform BookMyShow has appointed Albert Almeida as Chief Operating
Officer (COO) - Non-movies. The new role has been carved out at a time when BookMyShow is
taking the lead in building and nurturing an ecosystem for theatre, sports, music concerts and other
live experiences and events thereby giving their existing loyal movie going customer base and newer
audiences a lot more entertainment choices.

In his new role as COO- Non Movies, Albert will report to Ashish Hemrajani, Founder and CEO of
BookMyShow and will lead the next phase of growth and expansion for the company. Albert will
drive efficiency and agility within BookMyShow to ensure there’s a sharp focus on each of the non-
movie verticals.

He will work with existing and new partners to give consumers access to entertainment experiences
and will be responsible for identifying untapped growth opportunities in the market.

Ashish Hemrajani, CEO and Founder, BookMyShow has previously worked with Albert in the year
1997. Welcoming the new COO he said, “I am very fortunate to have a talented and experienced
colleague to work with alongside. We look forward to setting new standards in this space and
confident that Albert can lead this journey.”

Albert Almeida brings with him over 25 years of experience having worked with broadcast, digital
media and adverting giants before joining BookMyShow. In his last assignment as COO- Hungama
Digital Media Pvt. Ltd, he led Hungama Mobile’s domestic and international businesses. He also
worked as Executive Vice President with Sony Entertainment Television for over half a decade
during which he led the SET and MAX brands.

Before this, he spent over a decade with J. Walter Thompson in various roles, the last being as Vice
President and Regional Account Director on the Unilever Business.

Delighted on his new stint, Albert Almeida said, “We see a huge opportunity in the non-movie
entertainment space and are committed to driving the next phase of growth from here. I am excited
to be a part of this journey as we diversify into new avenues of entertainment.”

33.) Salesforce to create 1.1 million new jobs in India by 2022

The job creation is triggered by the growing adoption of its platform in the
country.
Sunil Jose, Country Head, Salesforce has recently shared that about 3.3 million new jobs on
Salesforce ecosystem will be created globally and out of these, jobs created in India will be nearly
one-third of the total.

The US-based customer relationship management (CRM)

service provider has clients like Tata Consultancy Services,
Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant utilizing their solution and claims
that the growing adoption of its platform in the country has the
potential to create as many as 1.1 million new jobs by the year
2022.
Although the numbers seem to be high, Salesforce is working on meeting the demand it foresees
and is enabling students and others to equip themselves for these new jobs. Recently, it partnered
with ICT Academy, a government of India initiative, to train and certify educators from more than 200
institutes across India. Through a free online learning platform, Trailhead, Salesforce will train over
1,00,000 students and equip them with the skills required by large and small businesses in today's
job market. Salesforce and the ICT Academy will also conduct workshops to train educators across
ICT Academy’s member institutions in India.

Salesforce’s announcement about creating more number of jobs reiterates the statement the Law
and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad made a few days back. He wrote on Twitter:
"President NASSCOM @debjani_ghosh_ met me. We discussed issues pertaining to IT industry of
India. She informed me that Indian IT industry is set to grow at 8% to $167 Billion in 2018 offering
direct jobs to 3.97 million people, which is an addition of 1,05,000 employees over 2017.”

The Indian IT industry is expected to grow at 8 percent to USD 167 billion this year. Further, the
industry will look forward to hiring over 1 lakh people in 2018.

34.) Millennials feel unprepared for Industry 4.0: Deloitte Study

While the Millennials feel unprepared, 38 percent of them think their

employers and business are responsible for preparing them for industry 4.0.
The 2018 Deloitte Millennial Survey reveals that Millennials lack confidence in business and feel
unprepared for Industry 4.0. In India, 78 percent of the Millennials feel that organizations focus on
their own agenda and about 73 percent are of the opinion that business’ have no ambition beyond
the will to make money.

The new generation, Gen Zs believe business’ priorities should be job creation, innovation,
enhancing employees’ lives and careers, and making a positive impact on society and the
environment. However, when asked what their organizations focus on, they cited generating profit,
driving efficiencies, and producing or selling goods and services—the three areas they felt should
have the least focus. They recognize businesses must make a profit to achieve the priorities
Millennials desire, but believe businesses should set out to achieve a broader balance of objectives
along with financial performance.

In 2018, there has been a dramatic reversal as opinions of business reached Millennials and Gen Zs
lowest level in four years. As per the recent study, less than half of Millennials believe businesses
behave ethically (48 percent vs 65 percent in 2017) and that business leaders are committed to
helping improve society (47 percent vs 62 percent in 2017).

Further, the loyalty levels of the generation have remained fairly low in the last three years.

Among Millennials in India, 47 percent plan to leave their jobs

within two years, and only 24 percent would look to stay beyond
five years. Loyalty is even lower among the emerging Gen Z
employees as 66 percent of them envision of not staying beyond
two years in their organizations.
Considering this organization have to leverage the various elements that would ensure their loyalty
and increase their retention. The report shows that both Millennials and Gen Z place a premium on
factors such as learning opportunities, tolerance and inclusivity, respect and different ways of
thinking. While pay and culture attract them to employers, larger meaning of life, diversity, inclusion
and flexibility are the keys to retaining them. 44 percent of respondents in India place importance on
financial rewards and benefits while choosing an employer as against 63 percent of respondents
globally. 52 percent of Millennials and 53 percent of Gen Z in India are looking for opportunities of
continuous learning from their employers.

SV Nathan, Partner and Chief Talent Officer, Deloitte Indi says, “Businesses need to listen to what
Millennials are telling us and reimagine how business approaches talent management in Industry
4.0. We have to take our people along with us and create a relevant culture, placing a renewed
focus on learning and development to help all people grow in their careers throughout their
lifetimes.”

The findings of the report highlight the need for organizations to rethink their talent management
strategy and focus on learning and growth of their employees. Employers have to take the baton of
preparing the Millennials and Gen Zs for Industry 4.0 and invest more in their career growth and
development. This will also help in building trust and eventually retaining the cohort of these
generations.
35.) AI will change the volume business in recruitment: Satya Sinha

How will technologies like AI, ML impact the recruitment space? How can a
recruiter be future ready? Satya Sinha of Mancer Consulting sheds light on
the same.
The recruitment world is abuzz with sweeping changes being brought about by technology. AI,
Machine Learning, robot recruiters, talent analytics, big data are becoming more and more
mainstream as companies the world over experiment more with these technologies.

Today, the recruiter finds himself at an interesting intersection point of man and machine. It’s an
inflection point for him as well as these technologies will fast forward and shape not only the
recruitment world but also his role going forward. What does he need to be future ready?

Satya D Sinha, CEO Mancer Consulting, one of the leading executive search firms in India, in an
exclusive conversation with People Matters demystifies some of these questions.

What are some of the unique challenges in the domain of executive search from an India
perspective?
Talking from India’s perspective, it’s entirely a networking business. The more networks you have,
the sooner you will be able to fill the position. India is a highly personalized market and only a few
people hold that personalized connect required for an executive search.

However, in context to India’s future, what is lacking in most of

the current leaders is that they are goal oriented and simply go
by the targets or goal sheets provided.
This is assuredly a dearth of leaders, which will certainly create a void in coming four to five years.

Also, while carrying effective executive search, present-day search firms are charging huge
amounts. Most of the companies are not willing to settle up with such big amounts. Earlier, majority
of companies used to offer retainer ship fees but that ended up resulting in time lags to fill the vacant
position as it was an exclusive partnership. So at present time, companies are approaching the top
three players and shunning down retainer ship way.

How does Mancer employ talent analytics to find the right fit in sync with your “best fit
methodology?”
Ideally, we step into market mapping. Unlike other searches, leadership search is typically
competency-based and not JD-based. So, if the organization is looking to hire a CFO professional, it
has more to do with certain competency requirement. On the basis of what competencies are
needed, you can map the market.
For instance, conceding that a leading investment firm is looking for a CFO, we will essentially look
for a CFO with the investment banking background. After mapping, you get to meet the candidates.
Conventionally, it transpires that majority of candidates are passive candidates. In this case, if you
approach ten CFOs, it is most likely that eight of them won’t be interested in a job change but won’t
mind talking to the firm.

Once they are convinced on switching the job, we link them up with the concerned organization.
Besides providing assistance in the process of discussion and interviewing, we also shed out inputs
from an HR perspective.
You also cater to startups through your product Start-up boot. Could you throw light on how
hiring for them is different from corporates?
Startups are far different from corporates, in terms of their quick decision making efficiency. For
startups which are funded, it is easier to make speedy decisions. However, in case of non-funded
startups, they are very particular about making decisions and are mostly unsure of what do they want.
So on one side it’s tangled, but on the other hand, it is also very quick.

How do you think technologies like AI and Machine Learning change recruitment in coming
times?
Undoubtedly, technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will bring a change in the
recruitment process.

I strongly believe that these technologies will transform the

volume business to a great extent.

To cite an example, if I am looking for 100 Java developers for an organization, which is a skill-
based hiring, technology will make it easier. In the present scenario, the process is facilitated by a
sourcing guy who sources profiles from multiple platforms like Naukri, Google, LinkedIn, among
various others.

AI can perform this role seamlessly as it has the power to search through contextual search and
source CVs with Java profiles faster. The technology can then apply intelligence in deep learning
format and shortlist ten best CVs. It is thus going to make a definite impact on the volume of hiring
business, primarily at mid and junior levels. However, in case of a senior level hiring, a sound
recruiter, a good networking guy will be required.

What are some of the recruiting technologies that are trending this year?
Talking about inbound hiring, Param.ai while in outbound hiring solution, Belong is catching the eyes
of the recruiters this year.

We also see a great inclination towards RPO and project hiring this year. In contrary to the past,
companies today are less likely to spend on their fixed costs and are willing to outsource to a
recruitment firm. One of the prime reasons being, a lower hiring number increases the overall cost.

How should recruiters use data to create talent recruitment strategies that work?
Looking from a data perspective, an insightful recruiter goes by the analytics of the data, not the data
exactly.

Data individually is of no use unless it doesn’t have analytics on

top of it.
If I am hiring for a company, I will make inquiries for them regarding the analytics of the staff
members that have been hired in the past. Requesting information of such kind, we tap the
companies and business schools from where the people have been hired in the past.

The central idea revolves around how you make use of data provided and put analytics on it that
works orderly.

With the advent of robots as recruiters, what do you think are necessary skills for a future
recruiter? What does he need to be future ready?
Future recruiters unquestionably will have to up-skill themselves on the technology front. They can’t
refuse to understand digital quotient and must be immensely digitally savvy. But on the other hand, it
is equally important for them to up-skill themselves on the behavioral side too.

A recruiter needs to be a great relationship guy. Communication

skills will become essentially useful as a sourcer could have
done recruitment without communication skills. But with
Artificial Intelligence creeping in, being a sourcer without any
communication skills would lead you into trouble.

37.) Meet some of the newest HR Tech startups in the TechHR Startup Program

Here's a sneak peek into some of the newest HR Tech participants of the
TechHR Startup program this year.
Every year, the People Matters TechHR Startup Program showcases many innovative early-stage
startups in the HR technology space. The startups are chosen on the basis of factors such as a
sharp vision for the product and a deep understanding of the talent problem it is solving.

What is also judged is clear articulation of the business challenges the technology is addressing,
early proof of concept of the products, and revenue model and scalability.

Over the years, the program has brought to fore many early-stage startups in the HR technology
space that have gone to raise funding and get the desired attention from investors and recruiters
alike. This year’s lineup as well has many innovative HR tech startups eager to disrupt the rapidly
changing space.

Here’s a sneak peek into some of the newest participants of the TechHR Startup program this year.
 Workruit
 Found in: 2016
 Founders: Manikanth Challa
 Based out of: Hyderabad
 USP: To connect the best companies and top talent more efficiently and faster than ever with an
easy, simple and hassle-free experience.
When booking a cab or ordering food has become a matter of a simple click, why should not
applying to a job be as simple? Workruit is a new-age, mobile application that makes recruitment
simpler, efficient and hassle-free – both for companies as well as applicants.

The mobile platform founded by Manikanth Challa makes aims to provide a simple, instant, more
effective and de-cluttered way of applying to jobs. The startup aims to eliminate the need to sort
through databases and uses technology to simplify the recruitment process so that only the most
relevant, useful information (profiles and jobs) are shared.

The in-app messenger platform makes recruitment as well as finding jobs, much easier and on the
go, ensuring that candidates can quickly apply to any job that they like by simply swiping right on the
mobile app.

Thus through banking on high relevance, the startup aims to eliminate the irrelevant information and
create a bridge between expectations and reality for the target audience.
 Compport
 Found in: 2016
 Founders: Sachin Bajaj
 Based out of: UAE
 USP: Designing a world-class rewards schemes in few minutes
How do you disrupt the rewards space and provide an end to end solution for all reward needs of an
organization? This is what Compport (Innovativeapp.com) is aiming at. The startup aims to provide a
single solution covering all aspects of the rewards program and can also work as a basic HRIS
system with the idea of enabling a transparent culture in the organization.

Compport offers transparency and simplicity by sharing the right amount of compensation
information and even allows employees to view and structure their total earnings. Through its instant
survey feature, it enables them to give feedback on compensation matters and even have an option
to recognize a peer member across the organization.

Meanwhile, managers can view their team’s compensation details, recommend salary increase,
promotion, bonus/incentives for their team members, and manage salary budgets within defined
flexibility. HR can run Compport as their HR Information system with analytical & reporting
capabilities and design and roll out salary review, bonus/incentive, R&R plans or FlexiPay structures.
 SalaryFits
 Found in: 2016
 Founders: Renato Araújo
 Based out of: México, UK, Portugal, Italy, and India
 USP: An opportunity to enhance employee’s financial well-being, access to fair products as well as
enhancing their productivity.
Moving just beyond the HR services, how can organizations enhance the financial well-being of their
employees? Nowadays 1 in 4 employees report that financial stress has affected their ability to do
their job, employers cannot afford to neglect the effects of financial stress on their employees in the
workplace. SalaryFits has the answer to that. The platform allows financial institutions to integrate
their systems with payroll information of entities, providing access to a new risk assessment tool. It
also provides the possibility of deducting installments directly from one’s salary.
 Based on the idea of making sustainable credit a reality, the platform incentivizes employees to build
in good financial habits, enhance their financial health, and helps them feel stable and supported. On
the other hand, it provides an easy and convenient commercial channel for the providers to reach a
large number of potential clients, without the need of an expensive sales effort. The platform is
cloud-based and currently integrated with more than 100 payroll systems.

This model is particularly interesting for individuals who have difficult access to credit lines, or those
who already have the relevant burden, and need to find an alternative credit to consolidate their
debts at a lower cost. For the employers, the technology is a unique opportunity to enhance
employee’s financial well-being, access to fair products as well as enhancing their productivity.
Employees can have access to cost-effective financial products with lower interest rates and less
bureaucracy, as well as a better management of their financial health.

Hyreo
 Found in: 2016
 Founders: Arun Satyan
 Based out of: Kerala
 USP: Aims to deliver Recruitment-as-a-service
What if a technology could automate the entire cycle from the beginning to the end such that
recruitment can be delivered as a service like SaaS? This is what Hyreo, a SaaS solution that helps
automate the entire recruitment process from creating job requirements and sourcing CVs to
screening candidates, managing vendors and closing the recruitment cycle aims to do.

The NLP and chatbot enabled recruitment platform helps hiring teams ‘Discover, Engage & Manage’
talent more effectively. The startup offers employs an intelligent chatbot agent, resume matching
algorithms and data aggregation techniques for discovering and engaging with candidates. It even
takes care of scheduling, rescheduling, and doing follow-ups, freeing up recruiter time for the most
critical interactions.
 Hyreo has also raised less than $250,000 in funding. It also won a government grant of $17.816 (Rs
12 Lakhs) from Kerala Startup Mission in December 2017.

PredInt, LLC
 Found in: 2017
 Founders: Sandeep Patil, Pankaj Prakash, Hassan Ahmed
 Based out of: Connecticut, US
 USP: Aims to make AI-based solutions accessible for HR
While there is a lot of talk of the all-pervasive AI, one startup is aiming to make these technologies
available extensively for HR. PredInt is a Data Science company that offers Artificial Intelligence-
 based products that include prediction algorithms, optimization algorithms, and data visualization
tools for Human resources.

Its mission is to make these AI-based solutions accessible. It helps companies in effectively
addressing the employee attrition problem by accurately predicting the attrition and its drivers at
talent acquisition and at employment stage. The startup has developed sophisticated machine
learning algorithms to make predictions related to every aspect of the Human Resource function,
from recruiting to employee engagement and retention.

It aims to help a business maximize its potential, bring AI to HR to deliver people analytics far and
wide within the organization, and take an action to prevent a high performing employee from
possibly leaving the company.

ZoomLearn
 Found in: 2013
 Founders: Kartik Swaminathan Lakshmi Vedanarayanan, Bastian Babu
 Based out of: Mumbai
 USP: ZoomLearn aggregates learners on one end using freemium LMS, aggregates content
providers in its marketplace due to the captive learners
ZoomLearn is a talent technology company that believes in the power of technology to transform
HR. It combines technology to talent management with a focus on creating a sustainable competitive
advantage.

The startup aims to leverage technology in sharpening Talent Development, enhancing Employee
Engagement and optimizing HR operations. It offers a comprehensive e-learning platform supporting
all modes of learning, and enables organizations to create a captive user base, with a marketplace
to monetize it. So on one end, it aggregates users through freemium and on the other hand, it
aggregates content providers through the marketplace.

With its products, it helps its clients in identifying and deploying the right technology in Talent
Management. It is also the e-learning partner to Indian Society for Training & Development (ISTD) to
deliver their internal online learning initiatives to their members across the country.

InterviewDesk
 Found in: August 2017
 Founders: Pichumani Durairaj
 Based out of: Chennai
 USP: India’s first on-demand interviewer platform, it works on the unique concept of an outsourced
interviewing model which helps the organization save 50% of time and cost spent on hiring.
InterviewDesk is built as a marketplace model, with a vision of building India’s largest interviewing
community. The on-demand interviewer platform offers a curated interview process and best in class
interviewers to assure companies that their talent pipeline is assured.

With lots of advancements happening across all the industries, there is a considerable increase and
demand for unique talents. InterviewDesk is bridging the gap of Interviewer Bandwidth by doing one
level of screening on behalf of the organization with its troop of experts who are not only passionate
about interviewing but also help organizations identify the perfect talent easily and rapidly.

With its curated interview process, the startup aims to be more than just a one-stop shop for offering
hiring solutions. Be it a jobseeker, employer or an interviewer, InterviewDesk promises to revamp
recruiting in ways that are tailor-made.

In addition as a marketplace, it aims at creating a user-friendly and flexible platform for interviewers
who are passionate about the work they do.

39.) Here's how blockchain is going to impact human resources

Blockchain, with its decentralized system, promises to change lives in many

different ways its potential applications being quite rich, varied, and extensive
across a host of functional domains, and one such domain being the HR.
From shopping for goods and tracking banking transactions, to renting cars and protecting critical
assets, Blockchain technology has veritably become the final word in ensuring secure, efficient and
smooth operations of an enterprise. Originally leveraged and popularized by the digital currency,
Bitcoin, this technology now seems poised to become the backbone of the new-age Internet, with
new and novel potential uses for the technology designed.

Most of us often perceive Blockchain as a secure Payment option, and use it interchangeably with
Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, for example), when, in fact, there’s much more to this technology than just
being a secure payment technology. For the uninitiated, Blockchain refers to a digital, decentralized
ledger of anything that can be digitally represented and verified. It is essentially used to track all
kinds of information and is largely immune to fraud, falsification, and modification.

Blockchain, with its decentralized system, promises to change our lives in many different ways, its
potential applications being quite rich, varied, and extensive across a host of functional domains.
One such domain is Human Resources (HR), the custodian of the most valuable asset an
organization possesses – its People. While Blockchain will continue to draw attention and application
in managing finances and supply chains, HR could be an amazing fit as well – the key difference in
HR being that organizations would be validating the authenticity of their employee information, rather
than general assets and transactions.
 Knowing and understanding employees is much more important for organizations today than ever
before. With rapid globalization of economies, organizations face unprecedented challenges in the
global marketplace. Employees, being the crucial bearers of knowledge, technology, and service,
represent the core component of enterprise management. While nothing can substitute the strategic
value and significance of human resources for the continuing development of enterprises, it is
needless to say that the authenticity of human resource information assumes paramount importance
in ensuring cost and efficiency of human resource management. With the expansive prevalence and
usage of Internet technologies and mobile devices, the resulting information asymmetry could trigger
human resource risks, and potential economic losses, to enterprises. Here is where Blockchain
could come to the rescue — it can combine the conventional encryption technology with distributed
Internet technology to establish an HR information management model that addresses the risk
concerning the authenticity of human resource information.

This Blockchain-based model could solve the issues concerning the authenticity of human resource
information and provide authentic and effective decision support information to the human resource
management of an organization. This operating model driven by Blockchain could be used to certify
the human resource documentation as well as to bind the information and the documentation.
What’s more, the HR information could be recorded in an HR Ledger (call it a specialized HR
Accounting book) based on Blockchain technology – any modification may then be difficult in the
entire network since that would require a validation from each certifier. In case of employees, the
certifiers could range from Universities and Employers to Certification bodies and Security agencies.

Potential applications of Blockchain-based HR Information Management model

Typically, Blockchain can be applied to processes that are time-consuming, unwieldy, involve much
human effort and costs owing to the need for significant data collection and third-party validation.
That would make the following tracks of the employee lifecycle potential candidates for such a
transformation:
 Recruitment and Selection
 Employee Onboarding

 Compensation Management

 Performance Management

 Employee Exit
In recruitment and selection, for example, Blockchain could identify who is visiting your recruitment
portal in real-time, effectively engage with them and present them the right set of jobs and
competencies to tag against. Personalizing the job profiles for prospective candidates will ensure
that you attract the people for the jobs published on your site.

Furthermore, the interview process for assessing the behavioral and technical competencies could
be put on the Blockchain. By doing so, the competency for the prospective employee can be stored
for future references in case the prospect reapplies for the job. This would result in the organization
only assessing the previous pitfalls pointed out in the assessment, leading to a better-structured
interview process for selection of a role. In case the prospective employee is selected, then the
competency results mapped in the interview process would become the base competency set for
career progression and learning development activities for the employee in the organization.

While an employee is being on-boarded, most organizations have a background check policy,
verifying the credentials of the new employee against what is mentioned in their CV. This
background check process primarily still follows checks by e-mails, references, and physical location
checks to judge the employee’s CV veracity. By having schools, colleges, and organizations on
larger Blockchains that speak to each other, an individual would have a series of immutable records
which would act as the background check against the CV. The organization that would want to have
a background check to be conducted for an employee, would contact the administrator organization
for the required information. Such a process would result in a reduction in TAT required for
completing a background verification for an employee and would also ensure lesser heartburn in
cases where the employee has joined the organization and is then found to have a dodgy result in
the background check, resulting in termination of employment or souring of relations at that point,
resulting in a poor onboarding experience.

Consider an example - John has worked in ABC org. for 5 years prior to applying to a new
organization. In the current setup, an email would be sent to ABC org. for a background check on
John to verify his credentials and experience details. The organization may or may not respond to
placing John’s candidature at risk. In many cases, ABC org. may cease to exist – this is especially
true with myriad start-ups, which either wind up operations or are acquired in a few years, losing
their identities. Now, think about how this could have been checked directly by raising a request to
the central Blockchain administrator. Similarly, validation of educational qualifications would normally
require a long validation exercise through outsourced firms for months on end. But with Blockchain,
this exercise could be accomplished through the central Blockchain administrator.
If there are large Blockchains for school boards, college boards, and organizations of a related
industry, these Blockchains can then be accessed via a central repository for background verification
of all new hires. In this kind of a setup, the data feed to the Blockchain could be via the HRMS
system used in the organization. The HRMS system would have to be integrated with the distributed
Blockchain, of course, from where the Blockchain would pick up the necessary parameters. This
kind of data validation assumes more relevance in an ecosystem where jobs are not going to be of a
permanent kind anymore – a vast majority of them would soon become ‘on demand.’ In such a
mutable scenario, where jobs are not necessarily fulltime, and companies appear and disappear at a
quicker rate than ever before, a central repository of authenticated, genuine data source would
ensure quicker and easier background checks.

Such a Blockchain-driven model has great relevance for internal job mobility as well, with hundreds
of thousands of internal jobs being posted and fulfilled on an organization’s Internal Job Portal (IJP)
on a regular basis. The traditional model runs through a long and arduous litany of checks and
validations before someone is eventually selected for an IJP position, leading to delays in
deployment. In most such cases, it’s often difficult to validate the contributions of the employee on
the past projects, especially when the Project Managers concerned have left the organization.

For large project and services organizations, internal job placement of employees on a new project
is a mini exercise in recruitment itself. The project manager or the internal recruiter has to vet a
multitude of CVs, interview them and cross verify them against the references from the previous
project managers. And even after doing all this, there is no guarantee of success of the employee.

With the Blockchain-driven scenario, however, the validation process becomes automated, with
most validations happening by way of the IJP integration with the industry Blockchains. For all
validations, such as the duration spent on a project for an external client, nature of work performed,
and client awards and citations, the necessary information could be sought from the distributed HR
ledgers from various organizations via the central Blockchain administrator. Consequently, the
internal recruiter can simply access the Blockchain and either look up the profile by searching for a
few keywords or going through the profile saved on the blocks. These blocks would hold various
pieces of information from previous projects, client citations, employee competencies, and project
citations. This lends veracity to the candidate’s CV.

Compensation management has been an irritant for HR, especially when it comes to managing the
benefits and payables for employees deployed globally – accounting for local taxation, benefits
computation, adjusting for exchange rates, and other works. It takes a significant amount of time
today to complete the validations via third-party banks, accounting firms, and other financial
intermediaries. With Blockchain, however, this situation could be simplified immensely by converting
money into “virtual corporate currencies (call it “CorpCoin,” if you will), with provision for convertibility
into multiple currencies, and also direct payment to employees without passing through the host of
intermediaries. Additionally, assuming an employee becomes eligible for a certain benefit coverage
at the end of a designated probationary period, the certification of the closure of the probationary
period by his/her People Manager will trigger the associated Blockchain for benefit workflow,
resulting in the release of the concerned benefits. This could easily apply to contingent (temporary)
workers as well and could be leveraged to manage their wage computations and validations.

As of now, managing expatriate compensation, their payout, and taxation of the compensation is a
complicated process, involving multiple parties, and a complex set of forms to be processed for the
 compensation to be paid out. This process and documentation hound expatriates long after they
have completed their tenures. At times, expatriate compensation involves as many as six agencies,
government agencies included. The data sharing amongst these agencies is often lost among the
paperwork and takes ages to settle and reconcile the differences. Having the entire compensation
management process on Blockchain, along with the associated taxation laws and codes, encoded
into a smart contract, the process can be simplified to no ends. Linking the employee tenure using
the appropriate HRMS and Travel Management systems, the period of stay for the expatriate can be
ascertained and the payout to everyone involved appropriately calculated and executed. This would
ensure that the employee faces few hassles, ultimately resulting in an elevated employee
experience. The added benefit of having such a process would be the tax compliance with
government agencies, reducing risk exposures for the employee, as well as the employer from future
tax litigations/penalties.

Managing employee competencies has been another aspect of performance management that
continues to bedevil HR, given that employees do not necessarily learn and enhance their skills and
competencies within the limited context of their organizations. Today, they frequently enroll,
complete courses as varied as MOOC (Coursera, edX, Udacity, etc.) and Social Learning (Udemy,
LearnCentral, etc.) and Game-based learning (Lynda, Kaggle, etc.) – and acquire badges and
certifications through third-party institutions. However, it takes ages for them to get their credentials
validated and updated in the organization that an existing employee has a change in their
competencies for career progression repository. With Blockchain, however, it can all change, given
that the credentials acquired over the world wide web could be stored as blocks and culled together
via an authenticated and orchestrated set of web services to update the employees’ credentials,
certifications, and skills enhancements in the organization’s skills repository in real-time and the
same can be captured on the employee record, maintaining a record of all the time the employee
has taken to progress from one level to another or from one set of competencies to another. Also, in
cases of mergers or takeovers, all this information about the employees can be collated and
published via competency dashboards to the incoming management as evidence of their
competency history.

As regards managing employee exits, feeding the separation inputs into the Blockchain could trigger
feedback into the employee onboarding process for another firm, creating a series of immutable,
verifiable records with respect to the employee.

Despite the positives, there can be challenges for Blockchain-based HR Information model. The
potential downsides of having such a large Blockchain-based HR operating model could be:
 Government Data Privacy Regulations

 Human Error in entry

 Possible malaise in the data treatment, if the data is non-transparent to the individual

 Leaving the possibility of reform out, since it may lead to bias against an individual basis prior
history. Would affect and affirm the belief that a human cannot change over a period, leading to
increased prejudices
 Additionally, there could be pitfalls, such as:
 Fear of exposing competency systems on the Blockchain to competitors

 Resistance to putting employee data out in the open in fear of 1984 big brother style of surveillance
by rogue entities

 Need to have a culture of system and process driven organization

To accurately validate Human Resources information, organizations need to adopt a calibrated

approach to adopting a Blockchain-based HR operating model that tracks and validates the
disparate streams of HR information, ensuring disintermediation, and separating authentic data from
background noise. We are still in the early stages of Blockchain deployment; therefore, the potential
for things to fail still exists in few areas. Adopting an agile approach for a Blockchain setup that
meets the essential requirements of HR operations, evolves progressively, and is more user-friendly
and verifiable, is, therefore, imperative before it becomes as entrenched as some of the other
technologies, such as Cloud and Social.

40.) The Impact of AI on Learning

Learning support to recommending career paths, heres how AI can impact

L&D
Technology is transforming the world of work in an unprecedented manner. The penetration of the
internet, the convenience of multiple digital platforms and devices are radically altering the
fundamentals of professional work. Ease of use, seamless access, and immersive experiences are
driving a shift in the experience that employees want and expect. This phenomena is applicable to
learning too.

“Learning should be as simple as online cab booking, and as

convenient as online shopping”, says Pradnya Arun, Head,
Learning Technology Solutions, Aditya Birla Group.
But this seamless continuous learning is not possible without leveraging the latest in technology.
Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality are touted as the next big technologies
that will transform organizational learning.

Decoding AI, ML, VR in L&D

Artificial Intelligence is at its core, related to designing and using machines/software to help make
decisions using data. Through machine learning, systems can be trained to find patterns, recognize
 speech and language, automate repetitive tasks, etc. VR typically requires the use of a device (like a
headset) to create a virtual simulation of the real world. It thus offers a fully immersive 3 D virtual
experience. Here’s how these technologies can revolutionize learning.

Impact of AI
As Ravi Hemnani, Head, Learning Campus, Siemens puts it, “AI would completely change the way
users learn”. It helps in identifying training needs intelligently through multiple data sources, both
formal and informal. For example, a chat conversation can be used to identify what an employee
wishes to learn to perform better.
 Automating admin tasks in L&D such as calendar scheduling and notifications. This will help L&D
professional to focus on more value-adding tasks of a strategic nature, thereby increasing learner
engagement.

 Augmenting the design of learning strategies: AI can use past program and future predictive
analytics data to create more effective learning interventions.

 Offering learning support: For example, Chatbots can act as quick-resolving assistants for
instantaneous and ‘on-the-go’ learning.

 Recommending learning paths: Learners want to create their own personalized learning journey,
they want control over their careers. AI can provide personalized learning recommendations for
learners by analyzing their goals, performance, learning history etc. We use machine learning in two
ways, initially providing recommendations for our curators in order to design better learning paths. In
addition, Percipio uses machine learning to enhance search and end-user recommendations.

Above all, machine learning has the power to create integrated HR initiatives across L&D and other
spaces. This data-driven learning approach will help rope in performance and recruitment data in the
learning strategy, to build more holistic models of talent management and talent development. AI will
thus enable a high-level integrated umbrella view of talent, not only for today but also factoring in
tomorrow’s business scenario. Predictive machine learning will make this possible and help
organizations prepare for a better tomorrow, based on hard facts.

Impact of AR and VR
As Renu Vadhwani, AGM, Online Learning, Reliance puts it, “Today the learner wants to touch, feel
and be able to get on to the job right away through a more hands-on experience”.
And often, the best learning is through experience, not necessarily in a classroom or book.
Immersive technologies like AR and VR will be the best way to provide real-life
experience”, says Apratim Purakayastha, CTO, SkillSoft.
“The technologies will enable three-dimensional learning along with physical demos which will
increase the effectiveness of the training,” says Rajesh Lele- Head, e-HR projects, Tata Motors.

Of course, these emerging technologies are still finding their way into the HR and L&D world.

For an average workplace these technologies are about 3-5 years away, says Vasudevan
Narasimhan, Executive Director HR, KEC international. But more advanced companies will probably
start deploying it right away. The key to leveraging these next-gen technologies for the best benefits
lies in being prepared.
“We must make sure there is a concept of digital adoption and mindset that sinks in. The first step is
to contextualize everything and make sure people understand digital. Then we must move on to
adopting these technologies going ahead”, says Harlina Sodhi, SEVP- Head, Culture, and
Capability, IDFC Bank.

43.) How giftech startup Storecheq is enhancing corporate gifting experience

Last year's participant of TechHR Startup Program, Storecheq has grown its
business from serving 10 to 20 companies to about 80 companies today.
Read here to know about their journey and how they are helping companies
solve engagement challenge through personalized e-gifting.
In August 2016, around the festival of Rakhi, a gifting platform, Storecheq was launched. Its founder
Vivek Gupta along with his team incepted the product between August 2015 and December 2015,
with intent to enhance the corporate gifting experience for individuals. The aim was to give more
choice and freedom to the ultimate user of the gift. Vivek and his team realized that organizations
and employees usually struggle in choosing rewards for their various employees and often the
employees don’t even like the gift.

Vivek says, “Most of the times in business gifting, the

appreciation of the gifts is very low. An unwanted gift becomes
a liability. Therefore the aim was to create a platform where the
businesses can come and create their own engagement programs
using their own gift cards.”

Personalized gifting experience: How does it work?

Through a platform, Storecheq.com, companies can create their own branded gift cards. The
platform allows them to configure these cards for denomination and validity and then these cards
can be customized to carry the customers brand and communication. Interestingly, these gift cards
and communication can be created by the users themselves on the platform. Later, these gifts can
be sent across to the receiver electronically or physically. Further, Strorecheq also tries to ease the
process of sending gifts by allowing its customers to send gift cards to 100s of receivers in one go, in
less than five minutes.

On the other side , the person who receives this gift card creates an account on Storecheq and adds
the value of the gift card in his or her account. The receiver can then use this amount across more
than 100 brands including Amazon, Flipkart, Big Bazaar, Shopper Stop, Lifestyle, M&S, Dominos,
KFC, Bookmyshow, among others.
Vivek q says, “Based on the choice and convenience of the receiver, the amount can be used at any
of the brands available on platforms like Amazon, Flipkart and Big Bazaar. The receiver has the
freedom to choose how he/she wishes to spend the entire amount across multiple brands at different
times based on the need.”

Therefore, Storecheq is a unified platform to buy, sell, create and redeem gift cards.

From 20 to 80 clients

Storecheq’s first milestone in the journey of becoming one of the largest corporate gifting firms in
India was finding a suitable partner who could understand its requirement and develop the product
accordingly. Vivek shares, “Most of the companies we approached were typical in their approach
and did not show any inclination towards understanding the requirement. This is how most of the
outsourcing companies work. However we zeroed down on a partner, who showed some
enthusiasm and understanding, but after spending over six months with them, we could not get the
product we wanted.”

After struggling to find a suitable vendor, Vivek and team decided to build the product in-house. And
that’s when they hired their first technical person, Tarun, who Vivek describes as a gem of a guy.

He says, “Tarun came with the right mindset and energy. It took us one month of hard labor to get
our first sneak of the product but ever since then we never looked back. We built a team and faced
the challenges together. Here's where our experience of 20 years in corporate also came to the
rescue."

Storecheq took its first leap in October 2016 when it got its first customer on board. Later it went on
to add many feathers to its cap, starting from being recognized by DIPP, the government of India, in
Start-up India program to being shortlisted for People Matters TechHR Startup Program. From then
on the team of Storecheq has expanded and so has its customer base. From a customer base of 20
companies in 2017, it has now moved ahead to serving about 80 companies, who are using
Storecheq’s platform for various purposes like employee rewards and recognition, customer
engagement, promotion, referral bonuses and festive gifting, etc.

The future ahead

As Storecheq looks forward to scaling its enterprise segment in India further, it also wishes to take
the platform global.

Vivek adds, “We have completed our proof of concept with a

test market and are now looking to grow further and consolidate
our brand with our customers. We are now looking to grow in
the enterprise segment pan India. The next step would be to take
the platform global.”
The gifting industry in the country is expected to touch $84 Bn by 2024 from $65 Mn, at present, as
per a report provided by Qwikcilver. And corporate gifting accounts for more than 80 percent of this
market share. The proliferation of smartphones has led the millennials in the country to embrace
digital gifting on a large scale and almost 66 percent prefer sending or receiving e-gift cards as
compared to physical cards.
In India, digital gifting contribution will scale 3-fold to be 8 percent share of the gifting market, with a
market size of about $6 Bn. Leveraging the vast potential of this industry, a lot of startups are
emerging in this sector and providing a variety of innovative gifting solutions and services. Thus
there is a big opportunity for Storecheq to grow further and expand. However, it competes with
several other gifting tech startups like xoxoday, Giveter and Giftology. How Storecheq will hold its
fort amidst the growing competition and make most of the rapidly growing gifting industry is
something to watch out for.

44.) Citigroup could shed half of its operations staff in next 5 years on account of

automation

In an interview to FT, Jamie Forese, President of Citi suggested that

operational positions were most fertile for machine processing.
Citigroup’s investment bank has suggested that it will shed up to half of its 20,000 technology and
operations staff in the next five years, thanks to increasing automation.

The forecast was made by Jamie Forese, President of Citi and chief executive of the bank’s
institutional clients group in an interview to Financial Times, to mark the 10th anniversary of the
financial crisis.
Forese stated that the operational positions, which make up almost two-fifths of investment bank
employees at Citi, were “most fertile for machine processing”.

“We’ve got 20,000 operational roles. Over the next five years could you make it 10,000?” he added.

As per FT research, if replicated across the industry, the potential job losses would represent a
steeper rate of cuts than in 2007-2017, when about 60,000 jobs were cut from eight of the world’s
top 10 investment banks.

Forese however added that the bank would hire in other areas such as sales and research.

“What people are doing, the type of work being done by the human rather than the machine will
change,” he added.
Last month, Germany's largest lender Deutsche Bank had stated that it will axe over 7,000 jobs
globally and significantly scale back its investment banking activities as it seeks to stem years of
losses.
Automation is going to change the Indian work scenario significantly as well. A recent report by Willis
Towers Watson also highlights that Indian companies in India can expect the application of
automation in the workplace to rise from the current 14 percent to 27 percent in three years.

46.)Here’s a round-up of major HR tech news in May 2018

The month of May witnessed a particular concentration of investor action in
Talent Acquisition, Wellness and Talent Management solutions.
Five months into 2018 and a few billion dollars later, the action in HR Tech space globally is firmly
moving in the direction of growth, consolidation, and partnerships. In the month of May, we continue
to see these trends and we see a particular concentration of investor action in Talent Acquisition,
Wellness and Talent Management solutions. We reckon the wellness category is likely to see a wide
variety of solution set and is likely to morph into a very important category in its own right. However,
currently it’s very early days in this space and we reckon increasingly HR Tech companies may
compete with FinTech companies for a share of this pie.

Before we jump into the money pool and see who is investing where and how much, this month we
wish to start with a few product feature announcements which we believe are indicative of the
direction new age technology applications are taking.

First up is HR Analytics company Visier which announced the launch of Career Journeys. This new
people analytics capability analyzes historical data to provide answers to questions that managers
are likely to face while holding career path discussions. It’s an interesting use of AI and internal
organizational data to aid career conversations based on data and we are excited at possibilities that
would emerge from here.
The second one comes from Ivy League university labs and Fortune 500 companies, Expercoin. It’s
a blockchain cryptocurrency based platform that aims to create distributed marketplaces, called
Republics. These marketplaces can then advertise and sell services, courses, and even jobs. The
platform claims to be powered by AI to enable these transactions and ensure trust in the digital
marketplaces is built like it’s built in the real world. An interesting use case coming out of the labs of
Harvard and MIT, we would let you know in later months how well this platform is performing.
Taking the power of robotic process automation and machine learning, we see a very futuristic
application coming from Nice named as Nice Employee Virtual Attendant (NEVA). The impressive
demo indicates that the RPA and AI enabled personal assistant can help employees complete tasks
and also be super productive. This is definitely how future work environments for most back office
processing centers are likely to look like. This can also be effectively used for helping employees
navigate multiple enterprise applications.
With these three exciting announcements of applications, let’s now look at some of the big-ticket
investments and deals in HR Tech space announced in May 2018:
 Japanese HR giant recruit holdings buying of Glassdoor for $1.2 Bn is the biggest news this
month. The company primarily makes it money in staffing and only a 10% of its revenue coming from
HR Technology, the company is clearly looking to strengthen its offerings via this acquisition.
With Indeed and Glassdoor together the company can create interesting mix of products and
services for its existing customers. This news is also particularly important to see an Asian giant
expanding its footprints in the HR tech space as we believe Asian players and markets will
increasingly play a critical role in HR Tech space in near future. In the same month, Indeed a
portfolio company of Recruit announced that it has acquired resume.com, a resume creation
website. Recruit holdings is building its technology stack via acquisition and the current stack makes
an interesting proposition. It would be exciting to see how they integrate these with their existing
services to create a unique value proposition in the market.

 Concentra, a London based company, focused on data analytics-driven solutions for HR and
business leaders, announced it has received GBP 41 Mn ($60.2 Mn) in growth equity investment. Its
flagship product OrgVue enables companies to look at organizations in a different light using
organizational network analysis aspects.

 Klaxxon a French start-up focused on making meetings more productive raised $50 Mn, taking the
total funding to about $56 Mn.

 The most anticipated HR Tech start-up, Humu, founded by the ex-Google head of people
operations, Lazlo Block, announced that it has raised $40 Mn in venture funding. It’s definitely going
to use people analytics but there are a lot of speculations on how exactly it is going to do what it
says it will. We will let you know as soon it’s out in the open.

 Wellness as a category received further boost when Lyra Health, a digital health company
announced it has raised $45 Mn in series B. The company focuses on mental health challenges at
the workplace and uses data-driven approaches for the same.

 The talent acquisition space continues to get its share of the pie with Phenom People announcing
$22 Mn in Series B funding.

The month of May, further consolidated the trends we talked about earlier this year and we are very
optimistic about the HR tech space and its growth over this year. We are very excited with the
launch of specific applications using blockchain, AI and data analytics and we expect to see these
solutions mature over a period and more innovative solutions to come to the market. The HR Tech
industry is truly experiencing an exciting period this year.

48.) Google to invest in a Chinese e-commerce giant

In an attempt to expand its presence in China, Google is investing $500

million in JD.com
The US-based technology giant, Google is investing $500 million in China's second-largest e-
commerce player, JD.com. In response to this, Google will receive over 27 million newly issued
JD.com Class A ordinary shares at an issue price of $20.29 per share.
According to the reports, the partnership aims at uniting
JD.com’s experience and technology in supply chain and
logistics and Google’s customer reach, data, and marketing to
produce new kinds of online retail.
Philipp Schindler, Google chief business officer, shared a statement with media which said, "We are
excited to partner with JD.com and explore new solutions for retail ecosystems around the world to
enable helpful, personalized and frictionless shopping experiences that give consumers the power to
shop wherever and however they want."

The two technology companies strive to personalize the shopping experience and reduce friction in a
number of markets, including Southeast Asia.

JD.com shared that it plans to make a selection of items available for sale in places like the U.S. and
Europe through Google Shopping, a service that let customers explore products on e-commerce
websites and compare prices between different sellers.

JD.com currently has a valuation of around $60 billion, and the company has partnerships with the
likes of Walmart. It has invested massively in automated warehouse technology, drones and other
retail and logistics technology.

49.) Plastic ban in Maharashtra will cause a loss of nearly 3 lakh jobs

The loss of job will further impact Maharashtras GDP and also increase banks'
bad loans from the plastic sector.
The plastic manufacturing industry has shared that the statewide plastic ban led in Maharashtra will
lead to a loss of up to Rs. 150 Bn and about 3,00,000 jobs will be lost.
Nearly 2,500 members of the Plastic Bags Manufacturers Association of India have already left as
they had no other option but to shut shop.

Neemit Punamiya, the General Secretary of the association

exclaimed that the ban on plastic is "discriminatory". He said,
"The ban imposed by Maharashtra from Saturday has hit the
industry very hard and the plastic industry is staring at a loss of
Rs. 150 Bn, leaving nearly 3 lakh people jobless overnight.”
It was on 23rd March that the state announced the ban on manufacture, use, sale, distribution and
storage of plastic materials such as one-time-use bags, spoons, plates, PET and PETE bottles and
thermocol (polystyrene) items. The Maharashtra government had given three months’ time to
dispose of the existing stocks, which ended on June 23.

As per industry experts, the job losses caused by the ban will not only impact the state's GDP but
also increase the banks' bad loans from the plastic sector.
A fine has been imposed by the civic authorities for those who do not abide by the rules and stop the
use of plastic ban. There is a fine of Rs 5,000 for the first-time offenders and Rs 10,000 for the
second-time offenders. For those who violate the ban for the third time would have to pay a sum of
Rs 25,000 and would face a three-month imprisonment.

While the initiative to ban plastic is good for the environment and is for the benefit of the country, it’s
negative impact on jobs and GDP makes it a double-edged sword. The government probably would
have to look into alternatives for people who are suffering job losses and create other opportunities
for them.

50.) How PepsiCo designed its employee wellness strategy

This article outlines the business case, wellness philosophy and key initiatives
that the company has initiated to help support employee wellness.
PepsiCo traditionally has been a Cola-Soda Beverage Manufacturer. The brand ‘PepsiCo’ may not
immediately conjure up images of health so much as sugar based soda. But over the past few years,
PepsiCo’s portfolio has evolved to include Quaker Oatmeal, Aquafina, Gatorade, and Baked! Lays –
the company has moved towards a balanced portfolio with a focus on nutrition.
As the company increased its focus on nutrition, it became a business imperative for the company to
offer employees the same experience that they were offering their customers.

The goal for HR was to create a positive image and engage in activism to support a healthier
lifestyle for its employees, who, in turn, will be able to extend this “healthy intention” to the
customers.

The business case for wellness

The wellness programs in India were aimed at addressing clear business metrics:

In 2015, PepsiCo had gone through a large-scale transformation by selling a large part of its
operations in India to its bottling partner – this transition resulted in an uncertainty among employees
as to the future direction of the Business and its Operations in India

Employee engagement was at an all-time low, with attrition at over 35%. This had a direct impact on
Employee Productivity – as employees were disengaged, and organization stability was getting
impacted drastically.
 Secondly, low engagement and a stressful work environment were leading to high absenteeism
which too had a ripple effect and it further lowered team morale and organization performance.

At such high levels of attrition, business continuity itself was becoming a risk and tacit knowledge
from the system was getting lost. The problem was more drastic in Operations and Sales – where
experience is critical to success.

While one alternate was to invest more resources in Compensation – essentially give higher rewards
to curb attrition and drive higher engagement. This, however, was not an approach that the
organization wanted to adopt on account of increasing pressures on the P&L. Secondly, PepsiCo
strongly believes in driving a performance culture.

In a time with muted business performance, incrementally rewarding people monetarily was not the
correct messaging the company wanted to send.

All this further reinforced our belief that a well-structured comprehensive wellness program will
enable us to drive back engagement of employees and hence organization performance, among of
course multiple other people initiatives that had been launched. The wellness philosophy

Healthy Living, PepsiCo’s well-being program is designed to help employees and families improve
their physical, financial and emotional health. The program has 3 pillars to drive holistic wellbeing:
i. Be well —these programs focus on helping employees get healthy, get moving, and be safe.

ii. Find Balance—these programs help employees manage stress, build resilience, and improve their
financial well-being and work/life quality.

iii. Get Involved—these programs help foster community involvement and family and social
connections, a critical component to well-being.

These pillars are integrated with the culture across multiple programs and help reinforce these
intentions – flexible working arrangements, community outreach including foster homes, old age
home visits, multiple fitness programs. etc.

Need-based wellness programs

Based on employee needs, perceived value and feedback, here are the top priority wellness
programs
i. Maternity Care - Fully paid Maternity leave is available to all female Employees for a period of 6
months. Apart from the standard 6-month leave, employees can club any existing annual leave
balance or utilize flexi-time policy during this period. Additionally, MatCare4U was a special
automated program that was designed to assist expecting mothers by providing them with
customized weekly mailers on their medical, physical and psychological needs depending on their
stage of pregnancy

ii. Community Service – In each location, there are multiple Community Outreach programs. Even the
employees joining from the campus program go for a 1-day outreach program where they volunteer
with local NGO's. There is even a 3-month app-based fitness program – Stepathon which links back
to community service. For every 10000 steps walked by an Employee, PepsiCo Foundation donates
 7 meals to the World Food Programme

iii. Sports Clubs – There are employee clubs for Cricket, Marathons etc. Additionally, sports events
and competitions are organized across locations - table tennis, volleyball engaging over 1000+
employees

iv. Employee Assistance Program – PepsiCo has a fully paid Employee Assistance Program. The
program has wellbeing resources hosted online as well as a ‘Toll-Free Helpline’ number. Largely, the
focus is on personal well-being, family & relationships and financial well-being.

Preventive wellness:

There are multiple programs that tackle preventive wellness

i. Health Risk Assessment Program – All employees (approx. 2000 including 600 frontlines sales
employees) are eligible for a Free Health Check-up administered at an empaneled hospital (4500+
hospitals across 100+ locations) and employees can choose the most convenient hospitals based on
their location.

ii. Each year, health camps are held across locations (13 plants and 6 units covering 4000+
employees) to check BMI, Weight etc. and these results in a paper-based format are shared with
employees

iii. Screening Programs - Mandatory annual medical tests are administered by empaneled hospitals in
each of the 13 plants covering approx. 2000 frontline workmen. Compulsory tests include Blood –
HB. TC,DC, ESR; Blood Glucose Fasting & PP; Urine Routine; E.C.G; P.F.T. – Spirometry;
Audiometry

iv. Disease Prevention - Communication to employees for basic seasonal communicable diseases
prevalent in India - Dengue, Malaria etc. is planned for September - October period when the spread
of these diseases is at its highest. Sessions on Communicable diseases are locally held across 13
plants as well or are held over digital channels (Live Webcast/Skype). These cover all employees
(4000+ including Full-Time Employees and workmen). Additionally, we ensure posters are put up to
spread awareness around disease prevention.

Key challenges

The top-most challenges are centered around improving communication and perception of the entire
wellness program – while there are a lot of activations each year (almost 2 activations per unit/plant
per month), employee re-call and hence perception needs to improve further

Another area of focus is to further push participation across the battery of programs administered
across locations.

Automation of Health Check-ups and Predictive analysis using Health Check reports is also one
area that the organization wants to deep dive into, in order to have a personalized offering of
wellness programs basis individual employee health risk profiles.
Future trends in wellness

From an employee’s perspective, adding a fun quotient to the initiatives by incorporating team
formations, competitions, rewards, etc. will ensure greater participation.

From an organization’s perspective, each program is very thoroughly being assessed for its return
on investment, given the pressures on cost. Does it align with our employee strategy? How will it add
back to our culture? Will it impact my employee’s engagement and productivity positively? These are
questions being asked by employers far more than they were earlier.

51.) SBI to shut nine foreign offices

As a part of rationalization, State Bank of India (SBI) is planning to close

offices in few foreign locations.
The public sector banking and financial services company, State Bank of India (SBI) has announced
to shut its nine offices in foreign locations. Praveen Gupta, Managing Director, Retail, and Banking
stated that the decision is taken as a part of the rationalization of overseas operations.

SBI which is country's largest lender has operations in about 36 countries with nearly 190 branches.
The bank has earlier closed about six branches already in the last two years as the company did not
find it commercially viable. Gupta was quoted in media saying that "Branch rationalization is an
ongoing process. I think every branch has to justify its existence. So unless it is commercially viable,
it doesn't make sense for us to be operating particularly in foreign locations. "

The move to re-look foreign operations was approved as part of

the banking sector’s agenda in November last year. Public
lenders were asked to examine all their 216 overseas operations
and shut down the ones that were not viable.
By March 2018, state-owned banks had closed down 35 overseas branches and representative
offices as part of the clean-and-responsible banking initiative. Bank of India, Andhra Bank, IDBI
Bank and Indian Overseas Bank closed down Dubai operations, Punjab National Bank, Canara
Bank and Union Bank of India shut their Shanghai offices. Bank of India also closed down
operations in Yangon and Botswana, while Bank of Baroda and Indian Overseas Bank shut their
Hong Kong branch.
52.) 4 Employee attitudes that bosses can’t tolerate

If you are joining the workforce for the first time, you may want to read this
Employees are the greatest strength and asset for any organization. But at times employees display
behaviors that are not amenable to the culture of the company. Such employees not only undermine
the values of the organization but also bring down the morale of co-workers.

The common signs of a destructive employee are an antagonistic attitude, general unproductivity,
poor morale, unwillingness to go the extra mile or indulging in backbiting, infighting or being
uncollaborative. An old adage goes,“People are hired for their talents and fired for their behavior”,
here are a few destructive attitudes people exhibit:

“That’s not my job”

This kind of employee are procrastinators who would do anything to shirk work, so when asked to
perform any work that’s not formally under the purview of their job description, they would simply
refuse. Such employees would not even hesitate to overlook a potentially disastrous situation or
mistake in their work that could ruin the overall task, just because it’s not part of their job.

Imagine if all your employees indulged in such behavior and only performed tasks that were strictly
under their job roles, this would not bode well. That’s why you can’t afford any of your employees to
display such “not my job” attitude.

“Did you hear?”

This attitude is associated with gossip-mongering employees who always have some juicy news or
ungrounded rumours up their sleeve. Such people indulge in excessive gossiping and are
sometimes only preoccupied with office news and private affairs of co-workers than actual work. Not
only does this lead to a decrease in their productivity, but their constant interruption and discussions
lead to office politics and unnecessary drama.

This worsens when office politics is accompanied with a general negativity in the work environment
that affects overall employee engagement. To contain this, talk directly to employees who initiate
gossip and request them to not distract their co-workers.

"That’s my job, don’t touch it"

Often, we expect people to take ownership of their project and be accountable for the outcome of the
task but when an employee becomes so proprietary about his project that he rejects any ideas or
collaboration from other team members, they’re actually saying “That’s my job, don’t touch it".

Such an attitude hampers others from growing and developing, as employees with this syndrome
hoard information and do not pass on the learnings from a project. Also, you may be dependent on
this person for information on the projects as he wouldn’t have any backups or second in charge.
Their need for control and job security can be a hindrance to the team’s development so such
behavior must be checked.
Always grumpy attitude
Having an employee complain about some of the things some of the time is okay, but having him
complain about all the things all the time is the sign of a toxic behavior. Right from the office lighting
to the internet connection, such people are not satisfied with anything and eventually are the cause
of creating negativity in the team. Working on any reasonable complaints from employees is a good
thing but people who complain just for the sake of it isn’t good for employee morale and needs to be
combatted.

Most of the attitudes are caused by an emotional insecurity or need for control on the job and maybe
unconscious in nature. Such behavior should be corrected with proper coaching and discussion, as it
may decrease productivity for business and influence workplace environment.

55.) FlipMart deal: Are Jobs endangered?

Walmart feels this deal will create wonders and create 10 million jobs.
Disagreeing with this fact the various trade associations think it'll kill the Indian
economy and will lead to job losses.
On May 9th American retail giant Walmart acquired 77% stake in Indian e-retailer Flipkart in a
whopping $16 billion deal. The acquisition news was doing the round from last six months and
various other players were also in the race to get the maximum pie of Flipkart. The deal saw the exit
of one of the company’s co-founders Sachin Bansal after selling his share for one billion dollars.

Promising a robust growth for the Indian economy, Doug McMillon, CEO Walmart said, “Our
investment will benefit India by providing quality, affordable goods for customers, while creating new
skilled jobs and fresh opportunities for small suppliers, farmers and women entrepreneurs.”

Talking to People Matters, Rajneesh Kumar, SVP and Chief

Corporate Affairs Officer, Walmart India, said, “Walmart is
committed to the country for the long term. We have been
running Cash & Carry business in India for almost a decade now
and enabling growth, success and modernization of small
Kiranas.”
When asked about sourcing from India, he replied, “We are sourcing locally with more than 95%
merchandise coming from within the country. We have been creating skilled local jobs for the youths
in the country. Through our global sourcing office in India, we are sourcing several billion dollars of
products made in India which is not only making ‘Make in India’ successful but also creating
thousands of local jobs.”
The scenario seems pretty clear with the global company coming to India with a massive amount of
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and evolving the supply chain and commercial opportunities which
will give the job market the much-needed boost.

Unfair competition and job endangered

According to the American retailer, this deal will create wonders for the Indian economy and it will
maintain the equilibrium of local sourcing and create jobs. But various trader unions are opposing
the Walmart- Flipkart deal citing reasons such as Job loses and impact on their business. These
bodies feel that it’s unfair competition and the jobs and the small business are endangered.

The associations, including Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS),
released an open statement highlighting the deal's "multifaceted dangers" to the economy and called
for its nullification. The bodies are worried that this deal is likely to create an American duopoly and it
may lead to control of consumer data of Indian retail industry by these multinational companies.

Mohan Gurnani of Chamber of Associations of Maharashtra Industry and Trade (CAMIT) feels that
this deal will hurt the local manufacturers and suppliers which will lead in job losses. According to
him, the American retailer is famous for its global supply chain and cheap goods from China which
will hurt the manufacturers and suppliers.

Rajneesh Kumar countered the allegations of job losses and said that the company is continuously
creating skilled jobs in India. We are confident in the business environment the government of India
and other State Governments are working to create, and we are willing to make important
commitments to this market. We will work within the appropriate policy and regulatory frameworks of
India to comply with all the applicable laws/rules,” he said.

Walmart is betting big one building relationships with the small kirana shops which will boost the
economic condition of the country and create jobs in various sectors. Rajneesh Said, “We have been
working with the Kiranas in India for close to a decade now and have a strong base of one million
members. Our business with them continues to grow at a double-digit rate. The numbers of
transactions are growing and we continue to sign up new members. We believe that the sentiment
among the Kiranas in India is positive as well as encouraging for us and we look forward to working
with them more closely in the near future.”

The Confederation of All India Traders or CAIT is against the merger as it claims that the entry of US
retail giant in India will create unfair competition and hit small traders on the offline platform. CAIT
Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal recently claimed that at a time when there is no policy for e-
commerce, it would be a cake walk for Walmart to circumvent the country's FDI policy.

In the latest development, CAIT has challenged the deal in the Competition Commission of India - an
authority which is yet to approve the Walmart-Flipkart merger. Before approaching CCI, the traders'
body wrote two letters to Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu to express the business community's
concerns.
The Walmart CEO has termed this deal good for customers and
he sees an opportunity of creating ten million direct and indirect
jobs and help society. He didn’t put any specific timeline to
these jobs but said he has analysis to show that.
According to him, Walmart buys more than ninety percent of goods locally in every country they
operate because it makes the lead time shorter and also helps create more jobs.

Policy think tank of the Government of India, Niti Aayog backs this deal and suggests that it’ll give a
bounce to the Indian e-commerce business and not lead to job losses. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman
of Niti Aayog, feels this deal will promote the business module in India and small and medium
traders will get the fair prices of their goods.

Return of Job Seekers

Industry experts highlighted that the current deal is likely to persuade employees to join back the e-
commerce and start-up sector which had recently started rebounding

Apart from the positivity generated by the acquisition, the wealth created through employee stock
option plans (Esops) for Flipkart professionals will likely goad others who left e-commerce to
consider a return to the sector.

“We are seeing a lot of traction, including at leadership levels, to get back to this sector. This
includes professionals from FMCG and other traditional sectors, those who had gone back when
times were tough,” said Kris Lakshmikanth, Managing Director, The Head Hunters India to
a business daily over the Flipkart- Walmart deal.
Flipkart in Numbers
In the fiscal year ended March 31, Flipkart recorded Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) of $7.5
billion and net sales of $4.6 billion representing more than 50 percent year-over-year growth in both
cases. With the investment, Flipkart will leverage Walmart’s omnichannel retail expertise, grocery
and general merchandise supply-chain knowledge and financial strength, while Flipkart’s talent,
technology, customer insights and agile and innovative culture will benefit Walmart in India and
across the globe.

While Walmart and Flipkart will leverage the combined strengths of both companies, they will
maintain distinct brands and operating structures.

Currently, Walmart India operates 21 Best Price cash-and-carry stores and one fulfillment center in
19 cities across nine states in India, with more than 95 percent of sourcing coming from India, aiding
suppliers, creating skilled jobs and contributing to local economies across the country. Krish Iyer,
President and Chief Executive Officer of Walmart India, will continue to lead that part of the
business.

FDI, the game changer

Undoubtedly, Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI) is the primary monetary source for economic
development in India and recently the Indian government has cleared the proposal of 100 percent
FDI in single brand retail which played a significant role for this merger.
In a recent announcement, Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and
Promotion (DIPP) said that FDI in India has increased to $61.96 billion in the fiscal year 2017-18. In
the previous fiscal ended March 31st the FDI inflows stood at $60 billion.

The secretary also mentioned that in the last four years of Modi government the FDI inflows have
jumped to $222.75 billion from $152 billion in the previous four years period.

Over the years FDI in India has created more than a billion jobs
directly and indirectly, with this deal the industry is expecting to
see more jobs knocking the door in the coming future. 'India is
in dire need of jobs, to maintain its employment rate India has to
create 8.1 million jobs a year', said a World Bank report.
In a recent column in one of the business daily, Nisha Biswal President of the US-India Business
Council and former Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia termed this deal as a
game changer. She wrote that this deal should set the stage for both the countries to look past
recent instances of economic friction and forge a collaborative trade framework—one that can move
bilateral trade to $500 billion, create jobs, and spur domestic growth.
Biswal mentioned that this development would herald a new era of US-India commercial ties,
defined by partnerships in supply chain development, a skill-based retail sector, and the interplay
between online and offline retail. More importantly, it sets a precedent for both governments and the
business community, suggesting that more can be done to take our partnership to greater heights.

57.) 93% of people ready to take orders from robots at work: Report

The study 'AI at Work' by Oracle and Future Workplace identified a large gap
between the way people are using artificial intelligence at home and at work.
According to a new study 'AI at Work' conducted by Oracle and Future Workplace, employees are
ready to take instructions from robots at work, but organizations are not doing enough to help their
staff embrace artificial intelligence (AI).
The study that covered 1,320 US HR leaders and employees, found that 93% of the respondents
would trust orders from a robot at work.

The study identified a large gap between the way people are using AI at home and at work. While
70% of people are using some form of AI in their personal life, only 6% of HR professionals are
actively deploying AI and only 24% of employees are currently using some form of AI at work.

To determine why there is such a gap in AI adoption when people are clearly ready to embrace AI at
work the study also examined HR leader and employee perceptions of the benefits of AI, the
obstacles preventing AI adoption and the business consequences of not embracing AI.
 Here are the key highlights from the study:
 Employees believe that AI will improve operational efficiencies (59%), enable faster decision making
(50%), significantly reduce cost (45%), enable better customer experiences (40%) and improve the
employee experience (37%)

 HR leaders believe AI will positively impact learning and development (27%), performance
management (26%), compensation/payroll (18%) and recruiting and employee benefits (13%)

 Almost 90% of HR leaders are concerned they will not be able to adjust to the rapid adoption of AI
as part of their job and to make matters worse, they are not currently empowered to address an
emerging AI skill gap in their organization

 About 51% of employees are concerned they will not be able to adjust to the rapid adoption of AI
and 71% believe AI skills and knowledge will be important in the next three years. 72% of HR
leaders noted that their organization does not provide any form of AI training program

 On top of the skill gap, HR leaders and employees identified cost (74%), failure of technology (69%)
and security risks (56%) as the other major barriers to AI adoption in the enterprise

Interestingly, despite all the talk about people being worried about AI entering the workplace, the
study found the opposite to be true with 79% of HR leaders and 60% of employees believing a
failure to adopt AI will have negative consequences on their own careers, colleagues, and overall
organization.

Respondents identified reduced productivity, skillset obsolescence and job loss as the top three
consequences of failing to embrace AI in the workforce. Meanwhile, from an organizational
standpoint, respondents believe embracing AI will have the most positive impact on directors and C-
Suite executives. By failing to empower leadership teams with AI, organizations could lose a
competitive advantage.

58.) Hiring sentiment to increase positively in Apr-Sept 2018 period: Report

As per the report, medium-sized businesses are most optimistic towards the
hiring sentiment, with KPOs, ecommerce and technology startups being
biggest gainers.
The latest Employment Outlook Report (HY1-2018-19) by TeamLease Services forecasts an
increase of 4% in the net employment outlook to 95%, for the period from April– September 2018 as
compared to 91% for the preceding half-year, October-March 2017-18.

Speaking about the report, Ms. Rituparna Chakraborty, Co-

Founder & Executive Vice President, TeamLease Services, said,
“Job market across the globe is going through its transition
phase with advanced technological interventions making their
way to our lives. Asia-Pacific region has the most positive net
employment outlook (62%) across global markets for the April-
September, FY 19 as compared to October- March, FY 18. In
fact, the positive hiring sentiment when benchmarked against
global markets shows India to be ahead of the APAC (global
leaders) by 33 percentages and ahead of Europe (global laggard)
by 54%. The overall positive sentiment is in alignment with the
growth in GDP. ”
The report surveyed 695 small, medium and large companies across 16 sectors in 8 cities to
understand the hiring sentiments. The outlook is based on the basis of an increase in GDP and
optimistic economic growth.

According to the report, eight out of sixteen sectors surveyed have indicated positive hiring
sentiments with overall positive sentiment. Majority cities, 5 out of 8, have shown positive outlook
towards hiring and the medium-size businesses were most optimistic (5% improvement over the
past half-year) towards the hiring sentiment.
 As per the report, the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) sector will be the biggest gainer with
4% increase in the hiring sentiments, over the past half-year, across the employers surveyed with
Ecommerce & Technology startups at 3%, Financial Services at 3%, Media & Entertainment at 3%,
Retail, BPO/ITeS and FMCG at 2%.

However Agriculture & Agro Chemical and Telecommunications are the top laggards in the first two
quarter of the year with a 4 percentage points drop, followed by Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals (-
2%), Education Services (-2%), Manufacturing, Engineering & Infrastructure (-2%) and Travel &
hospitality (-1%).

Here are the key findings of the survey:

 The recovery is attributed to the hiring sentiment for Junior and mid level roles (+4%), Blue Collar
roles (+5%) and Sales and Marketing profiles (+4% each).
 Medium-sized businesses (+5%) looking to hire in Metro and Tier-1 cities (+3%). The outlook
improves by a significant 4% for large businesses and by 3% for small businesses.
 The outlook improves significantly in Mumbai (+4%) followed by Delhi (+3%) Bengaluru, Hyderabad,
and Pune (+1% each). However, it has significantly gone below in Kolkata (-3%), Ahmedabad (-2%)
and Chennai (-1%).
 Five of the seven Functional Areas – Blue Collar (+5%), Sales (+4%), Marketing (+4%), Information
Technology (+2%) and Engineering (+1%) – are sought after by employers. Office Services (-1%)
and Human Resources (-2%) are associated with a drop in sentiment.
 Manufacturing makes a smart recovery, although hiring sentiment in the sector remains slightly low
(-2%, up from -5% during the previous HY).
Meanwhile, city wise, the top sectors for different cities stood as follows-
 Mumbai: Financial Services (+4%),
 Delhi: Media & Entertainment and BPO/ITES (+4% each);
 Bengaluru: Financial Services, Media & Entertainment, and Ecommerce & Tech start-ups (+4%
each)
 Kolkata: Financial Services and Ecommerce & Tech start-ups (+4% each)
 Chennai: Financial Services, Retail, Media & Entertainment and Ecommerce & Tech start-ups
(+3%)
 Pune: Media & Entertainment (+4% each)
 Hyderabad: Ecommerce & Tech start-ups and Media & Entertainment (+4%)
 Ahmedabad: Ecommerce & Tech start-ups (+5%)

59.) Shifts in the salary of HR professionals over the years

Here's how the average salary of HR professionals has changed in the last
two years
It’s the era of digital 4.0 and the salary of HR professionals is now catching up with the salary of
Finance heads and even the CEOs. Particularly in large MNCs and some of the leading companies
the compensation regarding packages and hikes has improved manifold. Recently, it was reported
that Saurabh Govil, President, and CHRO, Wipro received a three digit percentage increase in
salary. Post appraisal, his remuneration rose by 136 percent to Rs 6.6 crore. While Jatin Dalal, CFO,
Wipro got a hike of only 2.42 percent, increasing his salary to Rs 4.65 crore. Even the compensation
of the Chief Strategy Officer of Wipro, Rishad Premji, is Rs 5.9 crore, less than that of the CHRO of
Wipro. Interestingly, in the executive leadership team of Wipro, it is the remuneration of the HR Head
that is the second highest after the CEO.

However, at the initial levels of a career in HR and in some other subdomains of HR like recruitment,
the compensation still falls short. Even for a company like Wipro the hike for executives was in single
digits as compared to top officials who received a three-digit hike.

In this light, let’s take a look at how the salaries of HR professionals in the two major cities, Delhi and
Mumbai have changed across various domains (Based on Michael Page’s India Salary Benchmark
17-18 & 16-17):
Commerce and Industry: Average salary of Head HR increased
from Rs 120 lakh to Rs 150 lakh

As per the India salary survey by Michael Page India, the average salary of the Head HR in large
firms in Delhi increased by Rs 30 lakh and in Mumbai by Rs 25 lakh. As the role of the HRBP gains
importance, the average compensation for this function rose by R. 13 lakh from Rs 55 lakh to Rs 68
lakh, in Delhi. While in Mumbai it increased by Rs 15 lakh to be Rs 75 lakh in the year 17-18.

As the demand and significance of Talent Management Heads have increased to address issues like
diversity and inclusion, so has their salary range. In 2016-17, the average salary of Talent
Management Heads with 15+ experiences was Rs 60 lakh. Now it is Rs 75 lakh and Rs 80 lakh in
Delhi and Mumbai, respectively.

However, the salary of professionals with fewer years of experience in same roles like
Compensation and Benefits, Talent Management and Talent Acquisition has barely changed.

2017-18
 2016-17

Banking and Finance: Average salary of Head HR increased by Rs

55 lakh

The salary report 16-17 predicted that in-house HR professionals would be sought after in 2017.
Last year, the local organizations were looking to institutionalize their HR function and were investing
more in it by creating new roles. With this outlook of changing roles for HR in 2017, the average
salary stated for Head HR in the banking sector was about Rs. 110 lakhs in Delhi and about Rs. 130
lakh in Mumbai. But with the rapidly changing way of work the predictions for 2018 include a high
demand for HR professionals who are analytical and execution-focused, along with those
experienced in performance management, leadership and high-volume hiring.

As demand for experienced professionals increased, the average salary of HR professionals in

banking and finance sector also rose quite dramatically and went as high as Rs 165 lakh in Delhi
and Rs 185 lakh in Mumbai. However, just like the commerce industry this increase in salary was
observed only for professionals with 15+ years of experience. For professionals with 5 to 10 years of
experience, the average salary has not changed much.
However, we may witness development in the compensation of young professionals also, as the
latest report suggests that in 2018, organizations will become more open to hiring younger talent for
senior roles.

2017-18
 2016-17
Considering the pace of change in the overall business scenario, the speed of development in HR
space will also be rapid. However, how and in which direction will it change will become evident with
time alone. For now, all we know is that Compensation & Benefits, HR Business Partners in Sales,
Talent Acquisition with Social Branding/Analytics experience and Talent Management & Diversity
Inclusion will be some of the crucial areas in HR in 2018. And the salary of HR professionals may
increase by 16 to 20 percent, and that too if they change job.

60.) Artificial Intelligence in Indian banking: Challenges and opportunities

Artificial Intelligence in banking is more than about chat bots. Here’s
why banks, especially in India, should consider using the technology
A wide implementation of a high-end technology like AI in India is not going to be without
challenges. Photo: istock

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fast evolving as the go-to technology for

companies across the world to personalise experience for individuals. The
technology itself is getting better and smarter day by day, allowing more and
newer industries to adopt the AI for various applications. Banking sector is
becoming one of the first adopters of AI. And just like other segments, banks
are exploring and implementing the technology in various ways.

The rudimentary applications AI include bring smarter chat-bots for customer

service, personalising services for individuals, and even placing an AI robot for
self-service at banks. Beyond these basic applications, banks can implement
the technology for bringing in more efficiency to their back-office and even
reduce fraud and security risks.

Unsurprisingly, research firms are bullish on the potential of AI in banking.

According to Fintech India report by PwC in 2017, the global spending in AI
applications touched $5.1 billion, up from $4 billion in 2015. There is a keen
interest in the Indian banking sector as well.
Advent of AI banking in India
According to Accenture’s recent Accenture Banking Technology Vision
2018report, 83% of Indian bankers believe that AI will work alongside
humans in the next two years — a higher than the global average of 79%. “93%
bankers in India said they increasingly use data to drive critical and
automated decision-making. More partner-supplied customer data means a
higher degree of responsibility for banks. Yet, 77% Indian bankers agree that
most firms are not prepared to confront impending waves of corrupted
insights from falsified data,” said the report.
“AI is not new to India. Research institutions and universities have been
working with various AI technologies for decades, and especially in the area of
social transformation. With enabling technologies becoming a lot more
accessible and inexpensive, AI is now becoming mainstream, with large
enterprises and start-ups looking at different opportunities. Our research
shows that the adoption of AI has the potential to add nearly $1 trillion to the
Indian economy in 2035. AI adoption is still in its nascent stages, and a lot
more needs to be done to realise its full potential,” says Rishi Aurora,
managing director, financial services, Accenture.

“Application of AI and ML (machine learning) to different functions within the

banking industry has enabled them to offer a far more personalised and
efficient customer service. By achieving that, banks have also been able to gain
better insights into their customers’ preference and expectations from the
bank. Accordingly, automation of back-end workflows has shown better
outcomes. According to various industry reports, more than 36% of large
financial institutions are already investing in such technologies, and close to
70% are planning to in the near future,” according to Darshan Shah, MD,
South Asia, LenddoEFL, a Singapore-based fintech company.

Not just customer support

State Bank of India, the largest bank in India, last year conducted “Code for
Bank” hackathon to encourage developers to build solutions leveraging
futuristic technologies such as AI and Blockchain into the banking sector.
Private banks like HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank have already introduced chat-
bots for customers service. Some have even gone ahead with placing robots for
customers service. Last year, Canara Bank installed Mitra and Candi robots
at some of its offices.
“Payment companies are using AI to offer personalised payment experience to
consumers. By applying AI and analyzing past payment patterns, payment
systems can prompt the preferred payment instrument which best suits a
purchase at the time of checkout. Say a consumer avails EMI option frequently
for his big-ticket purchases, then the best EMI option is made available to the
consumer at the time of checkout. Such personalised consumer experiences
drive up consumer spending and creates stickiness to the product consumers
are using,” saidVarun Rathi, cofounder and COO, Happay, a Bangalore-based
start-up focused on digital payment solutions.

Pune-based Persistent Systems’ chief architect, corporate CTO, Abhay Pendse

lists out some common uses of AI in banks:

Fraud Detection: Anomaly detection can be used to increase the accuracy of

credit card fraud detection and anti-money laundering.
Customer Support and Helpdesk: Humanoid Chatbot interfaces can be
used to increase efficiency and reduce cost for customer interactions.
Risk Management: Tailored products can be offered to clients by looking at
historical data, doing risk analysis, and eliminating human errors from hand-
crafted models.
Security: Suspicious behaviour, logs analysis, and spurious emails can be
tracked down to prevent and possibly predict security breaches.
Digitization and automation in back-office processing: Capturing
documents data using OCR and then using machine learning/AI to generate
insights from the text data can greatly cut down back-office processing times.
Wealth management for masses: Personalized portfolios can be managed
by Bot Advisors for clients by taking into account lifestyle, appetite for risk,
expected returns on investment, etc.
ATMs: Image/face recognition using real-time camera images and advanced
AI techniques such as deep learning can be used at ATMs to detect and
prevent frauds/crimes.
Not without challenges
A wide implementation of a high-end technology like AI in India is not going
to be without challenges. From the lack of a credible and quality data to
India’s diverse language set, experts believe a number of challenges exist for
the Indian banking sector using AI.

According to Accenture’s Rishi Aurora, “A key challenge is the availability of

the right data. Data is the lifeblood of AI, and any vulnerability arising from
unverified information is a serious concern for businesses. Imagine for
example, the risks that could arise from KYC compliance AI systems if the data
sources are incorrect. Or consider the efficacy of a fraud detection AI system
without the right kind of data. Structured mechanisms for collecting,
validating, standardizing, correlating, archiving and distributing AI relevant
data is crucial.”

Abhay Pendse echoes the sentiment, stating, “India has 150+ languages with
sizable spoken population. Applications which use speech to text or text to
speech rely on natural language processing (NLP) libraries and techniques.
Banks can use the existing technologies to start with to support some major
Indian languages, but in order to effectively reach out to wider population in
India, much more progress is required on NLP front.”

“Data access and data privacy is a central aspect of any AI work banks do.
These aspects will be of paramount importance with introduction of
regulations in Europe such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
GDPR regulation is currently applicable to European citizens, but India and
other countries have their own data privacy regulations. Banks in India will
have to build AI systems with GDPR and similar privacy regulations in mind,”
he said.

Experts also have also stressed the need for more skilled engineers to drive the
segment.

“The biggest challenge is the scarcity of trained human resources; the existing
workforce is not familiar with latest tools and applications. Secondly, the AI
technology is a big threat to redundant employees in the banking sector. The
mass adoption of AI may cause a grave unemployment problem in the sector,”
said Rachit Chawla , CEO of Finway Capital, a Delhi-based non-banking
financial company.

“One of the important challenges that is faced by Industry and not just banks
in India is unavailability of people with right data science skills. With only
small number of good data scientists available to do AI work, the industry
needs to work with universities in India to develop skilled data scientists as
well as develop in-house training programs to train employees on data science
skills. Also identification of right use cases for AI implementation with the
help of domain experts and data scientists can help banks in successful
implementation of AI technologies for banking functions,” Abhay stressed.

61.) here’s how you can predict the job performance of a potential hire

Only judging a candidate based on an interview is like judging a book based

on its cover.
Hiring a candidate is crucial as you need to ensure that the employee adds value to the organization,
the employee understands the needs and values of the organization and abides by them and strives
for progress. Hiring a new candidate is a tedious process and can be disheartening if the employee
who was hired as potential ‘asset’ turned out to be performing below average. These experiences
become an obstacle furthermore causing hindrance in the hiring process.

There are numerous ways that HR or the management can use to avoid mistakes while hiring.

Here are a few evaluation methods which will help predict the
future performance of candidates.

Identify attributes critical to succeed

Identify competencies like knowledge, skills, abilities, and behavior that differentiate between high
performers and their less successful peers. Understanding the characteristics that contribute to the
team or organizational growth to develop a well-defined competency model. Once the competency
model is identified as per organizational needs, it is easier to determine the quality of the candidate
pool, exploring the attributes in an objective, fair, and structured manner. Ensure that you involve a
subject matter expert who will not only customize the model to increase its relevance to the
organization but also validate the accuracy of the model in helping to predict performance. Take note
of subjective opinions and personal biases as they can lead to frustrating, time-consuming, and
costly hiring mistakes.

Use high-quality assessment methods

 There many forms of screening and evaluation method of hiring and one of the most commonly used
technique is resume review. Practical and theoretical implications of research for 85 years
conducted by Dr. Frank Schmidt and Dr. John Hunter, showed that the data included in a resume
accounts for at most 4% of candidate’s future job performance; which means that 96% of the
candidate’s potential is still left unknown. Hence, it is essential to design tests that will judge the
cognitive abilities of an employee. Here are a few points to consider while planning additional
methods:
 Choose assessment methods that will evaluate critical competencies and are designed explicitly for
the purpose.

 Consider the job role and understand the level of skill with which a candidate should perform. In
case an organization is using psychometric instruments, ensure that they are of a suitable type and
difficulty level.

 Opt for assessment method that establishes quality standards and provides highly reliable and valid
performance metrics consistently.

 Use various methods to evaluate candidates. Along with a structured interview, use another method
like a cognitive ability test, General Mental Ability Test, and Integrity test to reduce the risk of making
a hiring mistake.

Improve your current approach

Resume reviews, reference checks, and unstructured interviews are comparatively weak predictors
of job performance, but organizations should adopt new methods of predicting performance. Few
techniques that will help you increase the structure of your current interview approach:
 Build questions about critical competencies to ensure hiring of the right candidate for the right job
role.

 Probe further when you identify any “red flags” and ensure candidates get equal opportunities to
respond to interview questions.

 Record candidates’ response in a structured manner, starting with a description, situation, actions
taken, and the result of their efforts making it easier to gather data for cross-reference.

 Evaluate candidates using an objective rating scale, which subject matter experts have agreed are
appropriate for judging capability.

Remember 'R'
The alphabet “r” is the conventional symbol to represent validity in the scientific literature. HR
professionals must validate the performance of any instrument and judge how good is the
technology in selecting a high potential employee. This technique is known as predictive validity, and
it measures the scores obtained in a test to predict future performance of a candidate. The score of
“r” ranges between 0 and 1. Methods that score higher than 0.5 are considered reliable.

Most of the organization follow a hiring process that goes like 1) resume reviews, 2) phone
interviews, 3) in-person interviews, 4) testing. An article by Harvard Business Reviews states that
testing as a first screening mechanism can effectively weed out the least-suitable applicants, leaving
a smaller, better-qualified pool to undergo costly personalized aspects of hiring.

It is impossible to judge the capabilities of an individual based on their experience and qualifications
or how they have answered questions in an interview. The interviewer must keep in mind external
factors like nervousness or too lengthy process of interview and form filling may lead to poor
performance in an interview. One of the best methods is to judge on skill testing or work sample
tests that resemble the tasks candidates would be assigned as per their job roles.

62.) Teachers for Gen Z

As new technologies take over all fields, teachers too need to re-
skill and upskill themselves.
A month ago, at a professional development workshop for teachers, as part of
an activity, I asked the participants to choose two words from a list of words.
Following my instructions, each participant chose a word that was most
significant to their career and another word that they did not like to associate
themselves with as teacher. Quite surprisingly, a significant number of
participants mentioned “outdated” as the word that they did not like to
associate themselves with. Yes, “outdated” is a scary word for any teacher.
No teacher wants to be labelled “outdated” or “obsolete”. The moment
teachers become outdated they cease to stay relevant and fail to connect with
their students. Teachers who are outdated start feeling that they are unwanted
and unfit to be teachers.
Update skills
Does teachers’ role change as days/months/years pass? Do teachers need to
change their teaching style in order to connect better with their students?
Though the role of the teacher does not change much, traditional teachers
may find the modern classroom environment strange and the attitudes,
learning styles and needs of Gen Z learners different. They will have to
change their ways of teaching based on the needs and abilities of their
students. “If you need knowledge, keep adding something new to your mind
every day, but if you need wisdom keep deleting a few negative things form
your mind every day.” I don’t know who authored this beautiful quote. It is
very apt for the teaching community. Teachers need to update their
knowledge and skills. If they fail to “upknowledge” and upskill, they may
become obsolete.
Does technology make teachers obsolete? According to a report by McKinsey
Global Institute, “more than 375 million workers may need to completely
change their skill sets by the year 2030” because of newer technologies such
as digitisation, artificial intelligence and automation. As a result, a number of
employees are required to possess new skill sets by re-skilling and upskilling
them. This applies to the teaching community too.
Outsmart the robot
Let us assume that a robot or any machine with artificial intelligence is able to
perform better than a human teacher in a classroom or outside the classroom.
It could be a scary situation that would give shivers to many teachers because
they could lose their jobs. What would a teacher do in such a situation? Smart
teachers might try to outsmart the robot and try to prove that they are
indispensable and much more useful than the machine with artificial
intelligence. There is a great possibility (some may call it “danger”) that
artificial intelligence and machine learning may make teachers obsolete as
some of the skills considered essential for decades have been made redundant
today. Faced with such threats, in the days to come, many teachers may feel
the need to learn new skills.
The terms up-skilling, re-skilling, downskilling are latest buzzwords at
workplaces including industries and companies and soon these terms may
become hot buzzwords in academia too. Everyday we hear the advent of
some new technologies which either positively or negatively impact our
professions. Some technologies make people with certain (outdated) skills
obsolete or downskill them and some technologies create an opportunity for
teacher to learn new skills or upskill them.
All new technologies demand new skills. For example, those who are
assigned to teach English or any foreign language in the language laboratory
using technology are required to learn many new skills such as designing
lessons using online resources, creating interactive exercises and online tests,
and so on.
Supplementary skills
What new skills do teachers need to learn in the digital age? There are two
types of skills: core skills and supplementary skills. For example, for a
teacher of English, proficiency in English is the core skill and proficiency in
 integrating technology into teaching is a supplementary skill. Every teacher is
required to have core and some supplementary skills based on the needs of
the students they deal with. Here are some ideas for teachers to enhance their
supplementary skills:
1. Enhance your computacy (computer literacy) and proficiency in using
technology for academic purposes. Learn to create Microsoft Forms to create
surveys, quizzes and polls. Microsoft Forms can be used to assess your
students, collect feedback from parents, and collaborate with other educators.
Here is the link to the site: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/microsoft-
forms-for-education-8580c114-fae7-4f3c-9c18-9db984f3d547
2. Learn to integrate technology into your teaching. Learn to use online
resources effectively by selecting appropriate material for teaching and
creating engaging lessons using podcasts, videos and Power Point
presentations.
3. Have your presence on social media. Twitter is a powerful tool to connect
with professionals in your area of specialisation. It helps you update your
knowledge, share your ideas and discuss the same with others. Tweeting
helps teachers shape their ideas and contributes to their continuous
professional development.
4. Become part of a professional group and be aware of the trends in your
field.
5. Let your mission statement include these two terms: upknowledging and
upskilling.

65.) Are Women in Tech still a minority?

Let us look at how big the gender gap truly is through some research data that
reflects on the status of women inmates in technology.
In this global world, where technology is disrupting the way we live, work and play, it really seems
quite ironic to see a huge gap in gender parity especially in the world of tech. The ratio of women
within engineering, computer science, and technology domain is dismally poor. And this has a ripple
 effect on the growth and development of industries across all sectors. As per the World Economic
Forum Global Gender Gap report of 2017, there’s an increasing gender gap in the field of education,
health, economic opportunity, and political empowerment that may take many more years to bridge.

Rachel Tipograph, Founder, and CEO of MikMak. TV says “When you enter tech, you realize that
there are more men than women. Whether you’re looking at startup founders, investors or people in
computing and technical roles, women often find themselves in rooms full of men. Even the research
data gives us a dismal picture on the status of women in tech space."
Some of the Statistics on Women in Tech are given below:
 Only about a quarter of computing jobs are held by women.

 Women are seen quitting their tech roles at a much higher rate than men.

 As per a research done by Belong, ‘for every 100 testing jobs, there were 34 women compared to 66
men. When it came to hardcore programming roles, the ratio changed to 25: 75.’

Let us try to find out some probable and real reasons behind such
state of affairs:
i. The science of human nature – Institutional biases at workplace

Many subtle forms of institutional biases play a major role in pushing women out of tech fields. The
ugly truth on gender stereotype is even evident in the best of companies. The most recent issue of
James Damore from Google who claimed in his memo “that the distribution of preferences and
abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may
explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.”

This diversity issue coming from a guy who studied at Harvard, Princeton, and MIT and worked at
the search engine’s Mountain View HQ in California hit headlines and caused outrage in the
industry. And he was sacked for suggesting that women are less suited to certain roles in tech and
leadership. But the essence still lies in the rising stereotypes that are ingrained to the core in many
organizations till today.

ii. Career trajectory Vs the biological clock

The results of a research conducted by Belong stated that if 29% women start working in a given
year, the percentage drops to a dismal 7% after 12 years. The biggest drop in numbers is after
completing five years and the obvious reason for this can be attributed to the juggle between the
career clock and the biological clock. Post 5 years’ time is the period in which women often take a
break to start a family in their lives, and many of them are unable to return back to work.
 There’s another challenge associated and rooted into this on up-skilling which is a prerequisite for a
successful career in tech sector. As women still tend to take a lion’s share of household
responsibilities, hence they often struggle to engage themselves in trainings outside office hours. In
technology, one cannot afford to miss this critical part which is must for survival.

iii. Education and Early development issues

The faulty early development mechanism of females in society is another reason of ‘pinkification’ of
girls. Clothes, toys and even which domains to choose are all propagated from the very beginning.
Virginija Langbakk - Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) states that “Deep-
rooted stereotypes are one of the main obstacles for women’s careers in the ICT (Information and
Communication technology) sector. At an early age, girls learn to consider boys better at learning
digital skills. Later in life, they look for career options elsewhere and overlook the benefits of having
a job in tech.

Dissecting this issue further, the data suggest that at high school, girls achieve better grades than
boys. However, at the university level in tech field, they find themselves being outnumbered by
males- 82% versus 18%. Such an imbalance accounts for the falling trend of females taking up
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) courses and keeps reinforcing the
assumption that STEM jobs attract less women.

The Belong Research looked at some sample set of women graduating from Tier 1 universities and
found that nearly 50% women engineers quit tech and then they move to fields like marketing and
consulting. Often women themselves don’t understand what options are available in tech fields,
and that stops them to move ahead.

Wrapping up - Words of Wisdom

There are proven studies which state that female representation in every level, especially at the top
management improves the financial performance of organizations. Fetching more female technology
experts reduces the menace of monoculture. Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are
15% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.

However, in spite of so many tumultuous years of under-representation of women in the technology

industry; there seems some respite in recent years. Role models like Parisa Tabriz, Arielle
Zuckerberg, and many other new generation women tech leaders are challenging the status quo and
are forcing the industry to think on the losses it may incur if gender disparity is not dealt wisely in
technology space. Though women starting tech companies are not high in number, and the
percentage compared to men might still be relatively low, however, it's happening more than it was
about 10 years ago; and that’s a significant change to begin with.

66.) How inFeedo is utilizing AI to interpret employees’ emotions

Last year's participant of TechHR Startup Program, inFeedo has grown its
business with 65 companies on board. With its AI chatbot Amber, it is
currently influencing the lives of 70,000+ employees. Read here to know more
about their journey.
Each day, a few employees at MakeMyTrip begin their work with a greeting from their AI colleague -
Amber. She knows which employee is happy, which employee is disengaged and which employee is
having a tough time with their manager. Through constant interactions, the chatbot Amber is helping
bring the voice of employees to notice, enhancing their experience and making the work of HR
easier.

Amber is the product of people analytics startup inFeedo which was founded in 2013 by Tanmaya
Jain. From 2013 to 2016, inFeedo was solving the HR challenges through other tools and solutions.
It was in 2016 that Amber was born.

From contemplating shutting down the company to building an AI

bot

The journey of Amber is rather interesting. It is the product of a month of rigorous work of Tanmaya
Jain, CEO and Founder, inFeedo and his Partner and Chief Product Officer, Varun Puri and their
team. Three years into his startup, Tanmaya realized that he had reached nowhere near his initial
dreams to create something fascinating for HR. In June 2016, after he hit rock bottom and thought of
shutting down his company, he decided to give one last shot.

A book, Sprint, invented at Google by Jake Knapp motivated him to take another chance before he
gave up entirely on his dream. Sprint was like a guide to building a validated prototype from an idea
in just 5 days. Inspired by the book, Tanmaya and his team spent the entire month of August 2016
working rigorously and running several such sprints. They worked night after night non-stop, with the
whole team sleeping in the office. The result of all this hard work and determination led to their AI
chatbot - Amber.

Remembering the most critical days of his life Tanmaya exclaims, "In the middle of those
sprints, I found the excitement I had been searching for 3 years. It just came back out of
nowhere."
He shares, “The whole team and I worked together non-stop for several days. Sleeping in the office,
eating in the office and working in the office. And towards the end, our lives changed. As per the
book, on the final day, we had to pitch the prototype to the target audience, which in our case were
HR heads. When we presented Amber to the HR leaders, they were bowled over.”

“It was in these days that the seed of Amber got ready and without even having the final
product we had the buy-in of 5 HR Heads. That was the moment when we felt that okay we are
onto something,” adds Tanmaya.
In September 2016, Tanmaya and Varun took the validated prototype and landed in India’s version
of Shark Tank, The Vault show.
Recalling one of the most crucial days of his life which also happened to be his birthday, Tanmaya
proudly shares, “After the final presentation, the investors on the panel were fighting to invest in
Amber and it was at that moment when I knew that we have struck gold with Amber.”

Enhancing employee experience and making their voice felt, heard

and valued

With the realization that individuals spend a good amount of their time in work and organizations,
Tanmaya decided to create a solution that touches on enhancing the experience of an employee at
work. According to him, “Whenever we look at life, we look at memorable experiences and since
employees spend the majority of their time at work, we need to work on their experiences in the
workplace.” He adds, "And the first step in influencing their experience is by accurately measuring
it."

Beyond the annual surveys that assess the employee engagement from the organization’s point of
view, Tanmaya wanted to create a solution which is more human, accurate, employee-centric and
captures real-time data.

Tanmaya shares, “Between the vault and the sprint I decided to meet at least 100 HR Heads to
understand the depth behind the engagement challenge and met a 106 of them in one year.”

“The one interaction that fundamentally changed me was the

one that I had with the ex CEO of Great Place to Work China
Gorman. I met her at the TechHR conference in 2016. She told
me that in the last 10 years employee engagement has felt good
but hasn’t really made a tangible impact. Picking up from where
she concluded, I identified this opportunity to create a tool that
measures the impact of engagement more accurately.”

How does Amber actually work?

“In one line, Amber is an AI Bot that talks to employees regularly and basis the interaction it tells who
is unhappy and who is most likely to leave with the exact reason why,” claims Tanmaya.

He adds, “Amber is not meant to evaluate or reprimand employees, it is meant to help them. They
should not feel that they are being watched. The thought that we want to stimulate is that when they
receive Amber’s emails, they’re receiving it directly on behalf of the CEO who cares about them and
wants to listen from them.”
There are a set of questions that Amber shares with every employee right from their 1st day of
joining till their last day. And at each touch point, the questions keep changing according to
relevance. These questions are framed on the basis of recommendations from inFeedo’s in-house
psychometric psychologists and the inputs provided by the HR leaders they work with.

Based on the quality of answers, the responses are differentiated into two segments, positive or
negative. For negative responses, it further deep dives into the problem and asks additional
questions.

When an employee expresses repeated unhappiness, say for months, the HR must know that it’s a
ticking time bomb. So through Amber, pockets of various employee challenges and issues are
identified and addressed accordingly by the HR and the senior leaders.

“Through Amber, we are trying not just to solve the challenge of

attrition, but also trying to bring to notice the people who are
disengaged. And based on the output received the HR and the
senior leaders can better understand the challenges of their
employees and work on making their lives better,” shares
Tanmaya.

65+ companies and an annual recurring revenue of over Rs. 3.5

crores

From raising 75L seed funding in March 2017 to participating in the TechHR Startup Program in
2017, inFeedo has come a long way. When the engagement tech startup raised money from
Dheeraj Jain, Managing Partner, Redcliffe Capital, it already had 16 companies on board. Then at
the time of People Matters TechHR 2017, their clientele grew to 25 companies & now since the Vault
Show, inFeedo has grown 12x with 65+ companies out of which 5 are based out of the US and the
Middle East. Tanmaya upon recently completing 5 years with his 25 people strong team looked back
at how the HR tech startup founded in 2013, which almost shut down in 2016, today is touching the
lives of more than 70,000 employees.

The road ahead: Taking the AI in HR wave to the US & the Middle
East

After making a strong base in India, inFeedo will now be looking forward to further improving its
product Amber and expanding its scope of business in the US and the Middle East.
“The idea is to expand in the US and the Middle East in a way
that it crosses India’s revenue for us. This is our plan for the
next 6 months,” reveals Tanmaya.
The product team led by Varun is working on adding the element of Machine Learning, making
Amber more predictive and relevant. The idea is to capture the inputs of the employee leaving the
organization and based on the responses making the questions for current employees more
‘problem’ specific. As per the plan, the employees after 90 days of leaving organization will get a set
of questions to answer. The reasons for leaving will then be collated.
“Conducting the exit interview after the successful transit of an employee will ensure that they fill the
responses more honestly and fearlessly,” suggested Tanmaya.

With the HR Technology market expanding rapidly, a lot of startups in engagement have sprung up
in the recent years and are providing a variety of solutions in this space. For instance, startup-like
Hyphen offers a mobile-first listening & engagement solution. Another startup n!Gage, through a
continuous employee feedback platform, allows managers to get real-time data and insights about
what their employees are feeling.

Amidst such competition and variety of available employee engagement solutions available in the
market, how inFeedo ensures its uniqueness and scales towards further growth is something to
watch out for.
inFeedo was one of the participants of TechHR Startup Program 2017. Click here to be a part of the
TechHR Startup Program 2018 and get the opportunity to meet and network with global business
and HR leaders on 1st, 2nd and 3rd August.
67.) Broadcom acquires CA Technologies; loses $16 bn in market capitalization

Broadcom lost around $16 billion in market capitalization, a day after it

announced its plan to buy CA Technologies.
Chipmaker Broadcom lost nearly $16 billion in market capitalization a day after the company
announced that it would buy software maker CA Technologies for $18.9 billion. The company's
shares fell by 15 percent during intraday trading, taking its total market valuation to $89.4 billion.
However, shares of CA Technologies surged about 18 percent during intraday trading after the
announcement of the deal.

The acquisition of CA Technologies by Broadcom is considered to be as the leap into a completely

different area of electronics with no significant overlap with the semiconductor industry. The Wall
Street analysts are criticizing the Broadcom's plan to buy CA Technologies saying it will disturb the
chipmaker's strategic focus. Cody Acree, an analyst at Loop Capital Markets, was quoted in media
saying “What does Broadcom know about improving CA’s efficiencies? It is hard to bet against the
guy in the long term.”

Tom Krause, Chief Financial Officer at Broadcom, shared in

media,"Our model is to find value in the public markets where
the existing investors don’t see it. This is something that we had
been thinking about for a while."
He further said that because the two companies have no overlap, they won’t face the kind of
regulatory scrutiny that has delayed or scuttled chip-related deals.

The only similarity that the two company shares are their appetite for acquisitions. CA Technologies
has made nearly 17 purchases in the past ten years, and Broadcom has made almost 11
acquisitions in the last ten years.

68.) Here are the six barriers blocking innovation

Leadership commitment and an innovation mindset are critical to any

company on the journey to become innovative.
In the age of the fourth industrial revolution, innovation will be at the heart of companies navigating
digital transformation.

But what does innovation mean today?

 In short, it is the sum total of the value generated from changes in the processes, products, and
services that enhance quality. To create value means creating value not just for your customers, but
also the employees and other stakeholders.

So how exactly can organizations and individuals create value?

One way to do this is through continuous and committed learning. The key is to leverage
opportunities to learn, both informally and formally through a network of experts and employee
experience. If innovation is this simple in theory, why then do we fail to innovate? And why do some
companies continuously innovate while others don’t? The answer may lie in tackling the barriers to
innovation.

Barriers to Innovation

Innovation in companies closely tied to the priorities and attitudes of senior leadership. Here are
some top barriers.
 Lack of time or budget: There’s a misperception that innovation calls for a significant investment of
time and money. On the contrary, the learning mandate, which forms the base of innovation has
never been more easily accessible. Whether this is through bite-sized learning through digital
platforms or social learning. In addition to this, employees themselves are a source of innovative
ideas and learning content. Top leaders must support and recognize what’s relevant to the
business.

 Not having the right people: Another misperception is the belief that innovation requires a brand-new
team of “creative people”, or fresh talent from leading companies and business schools. Innovation
is best achieved with the people you already have because an innovation culture is not just about
one or two teams but shifting the mindset of the entire organization.

 Not a priority: Innovation seldom features in the “urgent” quadrant, although it definitely fits into
“important”. Naturally, leaders tend to push aside the innovation agenda in favor of ‘fire-fighting’
matters.

 The belief that “I am not innovative”: Some leaders may get stuck with a false-belief that then
establishes causality to a lack of innovative ideas. Leaders should ask themselves the question, at
an individual and business level- What is it that you do naturally, almost unconsciously, that you are
known for?

 The belief that “Everything is working fine”: As a leader, you may love the status quo, but that is a
mistake. You may not know what it is that differentiates your customers and competition if you’re not
keeping up with the changing preference. You must not be afraid to break what could be
reassembled in a more value-creating way.

 Lack of leadership support: Cultivating a culture of innovation is not easy, it requires strong
stakeholder-support. As a leader, you must be willing to influence naysayers, re-structure your
performance evaluations, create an innovation-agenda at all meetings, and encourage and advocate
new ideas.
 How to overcome barriers to innovation?
 Know your people: Clifton’s Strengths Finder 2.0, Myers-Briggs, DiSC and Kolb’s Learning Style etc.
are some tools designed to understand employees better- their needs, aspirations, motivations.
Leverage people data to genuinely understand y and our employees and support them.

 Staff adequately: While creating teams make sure to leverage the best of each person’s abilities. We
are the most creative and innovative when we do and be more of whom we already are when we are
at our best. Creating a reactive culture can the opposite effects.

 Empower people with the right resources: Whether it is access to learning tools, gamification on-the-
go, or idea-generation and discussion forums, enable people to experience the buzz of innovation
early-on.

 Cultivate an innovation culture: Offer impetus (performance rewards, recognition etc.) for learning
efforts and outcomes. Support failure, reward effort (and not just outcomes) and more importantly,
encourage learning from failures and not only successes because innovation and failure go hand-in-
hand.

 Prioritize Innovation: Think and act collaboratively to create brilliant paths to profitable opportunities.
Mobilize innovation consensus amongst leadership and beyond and make it measurable by tying
innovation to company and department measures.

At the core, innovation is about discovering the unique value that each of the current employees
brings to work every day. Innovation is a necessity today, and one that every leader must embrace
wholeheartedly. This starts with innovating to innovate. As said by Steve Jobs, “Innovation
distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

69.) Alibaba Cloud aims to train 1k sales and tech professionals in India

To strengthen its network and presence in India, Alibaba Cloud plans to train
1,000 sales and technology personnel in India in the next six months.
At its India Eco Summit held in Delhi, recently, Alibaba Cloud launched its new distribution channel
program.
The distribution channel program would encourage partners to bring in-depth technical knowledge to
customers and build an open ecosystem among sales, technology and service partners.

The cloud computing subsidiary of Alibaba Group wants to make most of the rapidly growing
economy. Alex Li, General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Asia Pacific believes that as digital
transformation is poised to add close to $154 Bn to India’s GDP (As per a research by Microsoft and
IDC), this is a great opportunity for them to do business in India.
As part of their channel strategy, the group would also be
building new specialized teams for various market segments and
sectors such as startup and online business.
Alibaba Cloud currently provides products and services to clients in India across the e-commerce,
gaming, media, retail and IoT sectors through an extensive network of distributors. Now with India
ranking third on the list of countries in APeJ with $2.12 Bn spent on public could services, according
to a recent update of the IDC Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide,
Alibaba Group looks to further strengthen the network.

And to strengthen this network they plan to train 1,000 sales and technology personnel in India in the
next six months.

Alex Li shared that Alibaba Cloud has always been dedicated to empowering enterprises of different
sizes to tap into opportunities in the digital age.

"We are excited about the launch of the distribution channel program as building a strong,
collaborative partner ecosystem is essential to our growth strategy in India. Through working with
different partners, we will be able to bring our high-quality products and services to customers in
India to help them embrace the opportunities of digital transformation,” said Alex Li, General
Manager of Alibaba Cloud Asia Pacific.

71.) TechHR 2018: Top sessions not to be missed on Day One!

Here's a sneak peek at some of the top sessions of day one of the People
Matters TechHR Conference, which will address the changing productivity
paradigm.
The first day of People Matters Tech HR Conference will focus on one of the most important metrics
for any organization- productivity. In today’s dynamic world, which is witnessing digital disruption
every second, organizations need to look at employee productivity in a new light. The focus is not
alone on how to measure productivity in this digitally disrupted world but also on enhancing it with
access to newer technologies such as AI, automation, data analytics.

It is no secret that engaged employees are the most productive. So organizations today are relying
upon everything from gamification to data and analytics to enhance employee productivity. They
need to create opportunities for employees to do what they do best. How can they anticipate
changes to the productivity paradigm? How can they best use technology to automate what’s
repetitive in order to free up employees for more productive tasks? How can they help unleash the
true hidden potential of their employees?
These are the questions which some of the top sessions of Tech HR day one will address. Here’s a
sneak peek at those sessions which will seek to unravel the new productivity paradigm.

Best time of our careers - Mindset, people, process & technology

In this keynote session, Jason Averbook, CEO & Co-founder, Leapgen, will speak about how we
can no longer disrespect the year we live in and work differently inside organizations. We must think
with a “digital first” mindset and develop skills, the tools, and the processes to take advantage of this
time. Our people are ready, our processes can be ready and the technology is ready; our question
is, are we ready?

The new productivity paradigm: CEOs' perspectives

How are CEOs of top organizations looking at key productivity dimensions for talent, technology, and
transformation for today and tomorrow? In this keynote session, Sunil Sood, MD & CEO, Vodafone
India, Deep Kalra, Chairman & Group CEO, MakeMyTrip.com, Naina Lal Kidwai, Chairman,
Max Financial Services, Anil Chaudhry, Country President & Managing Director, Schneider
Electric, and Ester Martinez, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, People Matters throw light on how CEOs of
top organizations looking at key productivity dimensions for today & tomorrow, talent paradigms,
technology opportunities & new ways of work?

From Data & Insights to Cost & Productivity

Manpower costs as a percentage of sales despite increased adoption of technology and automation
has gone up. In this session, talent leaders from APAC region which include Lokesh Payik, Chief of
Digital Enterprise, Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, Aileen Tan, Group
CHRO, Singtel, Krish Shankar, Group Head HR, Infosys, Ketan Kapoor, Co-Founder & CEO,
Mettl, and SV Nathan, Partner and Chief Talent Officer, Deloitte, brainstorm over ways of
extracting wisdom from a plethora of available labels, constructs and data to push organizational
output.
What are some of the newer examples of cause and effect relationships that are defining
organizational and talent productivity? Join talent leaders from APAC region on the pursuit of
leveraging the power of data to drive productivity.

Masterclass: A roadmap for leveraging AI & Automation for

superior performance
In this masterclass by Kashyap Kompella, CEO, rpa2ai Research, learn how to overview and use
cases of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and build a roadmap to
automate repetitive tasks in the workplace.

Unlocking the true human potential through Mind Mapping

In this cognitive era, organizations are striving to emerge as thinking entities and utilize their human
resource brain power to the maximum. In this closing keynote, Tony Buzan, Inventor of Mind
Mapping, Brain Expert will throw light on his invention of The Mind Map.

A Mind Map is a powerful graphic technique which provides a universal key to unlock the potential of
the brain. It harnesses the full range of cortical skills – word, image, number, logic, rhythm, colour
and spatial awareness – in a single, uniquely powerful manner. In so doing, it gives you the freedom
to roam the infinite expanses of your brain. A Mind Map can be applied to every aspect of life where
improved learning and clearer thinking will enhance human performance.

A Mind Map can be instrumental in managing the human brain productivity and navigating through
the high tech complexities and dangerous information overload.
72.) Revamping values for the next transformation

Culture is the way we solve problems and reconcile dilemmas and this starts
with certain behaviors that seem to work. But how?
“Hi sir, could you please help us to give life to our values again? We had such a great set that
worked initially but the values have lost their energy. We need to revamp them now because we are
getting into another transformation process and honestly, we don’t know what to do that inspires our
people another time”.

Do you recognize this set of questions?

About five years ago, the introduction and implementation of values into behaviors was at its peak.
Nowadays, it has lost a little of its popularity. That does not mean that the top of corporate houses
are not convinced that the creation of a high performing and thus, a value-based culture is essential
to the achievement of their goals. Neither is there a lack of awareness that values are just stale
expressions if they are not translated into actual behaviors. However, the problem is that people are
not aware that some of the values and behaviors need continuous reminders to be implemented.
Next to that, due to the drastic changes in organizational challenges, the organizational business
environment also demands strong changes in the behaviors. How can organizations deal with this
meta-dilemma of ‘Endurance’ and ‘Change’?

Culture change that sticks

Match Strategy with Culture

We need to see culture as supportive to reconciling business dilemmas; rather, we see cultural
change as a side dish. Culture has always been seen as functional to solving the problems and
dilemmas of mankind. The Dutch needed consensus because it helped them fight for water
effectively and the Americans seem to be so legalistic because they are highly mobile and don’t
have the circumstances to build a relationship where they can trust. And why do the Japanese love
Micro and Nanotechnology? Obviously, because there is little space.

Culture is the way we solve problems and reconcile dilemmas. It starts with certain behaviors that
seem to work. When they work we call it a value and when the value helps in surviving, it becomes a
norm. When the value becomes a norm, we develop beliefs. We, therefore, conclude that the value
of a value is the degree to which it helps groups of people to reconcile dilemmas.

This means that in our consulting work, we start by capturing the main business dilemmas through
triangulation, which is a combination of interviews, linguistic analysis, and questionnaires in all forms
and shapes.* For example, we have developed an App that captures the dilemmas between two
companies engaged in a Merger or Acquisition1; one that captures the dilemmas of Innovation2; a
high performing team app which measures the dilemmas that a team experiences in areas of
 leadership, communication, and decision-making3; and finally an app that measures the dilemmas
between current and desired corporate culture4. The outcomes are validated by interviews and desk
research (linguistic analysis) with a series of key strategic dilemmas as an outcome.
From there we engage the key players (often the top of the house) in a Dilemma Reconciliation
Workshop (DRP). A dilemma can be defined as two propositions that are in apparent tension. A
dilemma describes a situation where one has to choose between two good or desirable options. For
example, while on the one hand, we need to centralize (global); on the other hand, we also need to
decentralize (local).

Most organizational issues, business and leadership challenges

can be framed as a tension between two or more (desirable)
value propositions in apparent conflict.
We define these competing demands as dilemmas. Organizations in any culture need to deal with
the competing demands of different stakeholders (including clients/customers, shareholders,
employees, business processes, and the external environment more generally). The relative priority
given to these dilemmas, how they are initially manifested and the approaches to resolving them are
culturally determined.

Dilemma Reconciliation is a way of thinking that moves beyond

either-or thinking, and even and-and thinking.
By using through-through thinking, the aim is to synthesize seemingly opposing viewpoints, and give
value/respect/appreciation to different sides of a value proposition. This unique methodology
teaches people and organizations to address competing demands and by bringing together
competing for demands, objectives, and values, innovative solutions are discovered. The 7-step
dilemma reconciliation process ends with step 6: action and monitoring progress; and step 7: “What
are the values and behaviors we need to develop in order to support the dilemma to be reconciled?”
In this way, we make it very apparent that values are there to be matched with the strategic
dilemmas.

Focus on few critical shifts in behavior

“We have excellent values on all our posters and our staff seems to like them, but how can we make
them effective at work?” The implementation of values in actual behavior seems to be a big
challenge. Another challenge is what behaviors to prioritize. The success of an organization is
dependent on its ability to build a culture that supports the organization’s goals, and building such a
culture requires answering the following three questions:
 What binds and connects people and energizes them into inspiring and winning performance: What
do we stand and go for?

This area is about establishing the values, translating these values, and making them work in the
day-to-day business context (concrete behavior, business results, communication etc.). For this
 purpose, we have designed the V2B workshops to build on the inherent energy that comes from
values that are genuinely shared within the organization, however, these values need to be
interpreted or ‘translated’ for them to become relevant in people’s daily work. The V2B process
builds on the powerful, centuries-old adage “Don’t do upon others what you don’t want to be done
upon yourself”. Participants in a V2B workshop explore in depth the behaviors they mutually expect
from each other in intact teams. Leading from this, they then jointly create an Internal Charter-of-
Behavior capturing a limited number of observable desirable and undesirable behaviors for further
embedding and ‘living’.

 What separates people and keeps them divided? What are the issues and dilemmas that confront
people?

This relates to the identification and reconciliation of business dilemmas and the implementation of
win-win solutions. We use values and dilemmas as the basis for strategic decision-making. Values
should be defined according to their position within a dimension of seemingly opposing value
orientations such as e.g. consistency and flexibility. Honoring each of these opposites is equally
important for successful business performance and requires their integration into a reconciled
strategy.

 How should the leadership act to benefit and build on what binds, deal with what divides, and create
leadership throughout the organization?

In this area, we focus on developing the competencies of a leader to Recognize, Respect,

Reconcile, and Realize (4R’s). In particular, reconciling dilemmas is what distinguishes leaders as
they require the capability to deal with dilemmas more than others. Now, more than ever, a leader’s
capacity to both direct the organization and its people, while at the same time work in their service, is
being recognized as vital for creating a sustainable organization. We challenge leaders to reflect on
their own leadership styles and behaviors, to identify areas for growth and to practice new
behaviors/techniques to bring out the best in their employees and organizations. Leaders will
enhance their competence to define and frame the major business issues and learn how to address
and resolve the tensions between seemingly opposing values in a measurable and creative way.
The focus on one or two behaviors at a time works most effectively.

Honor the strengths of your existing culture

“We have tried to set our values and even implement them, but they often seem to lead to
pathologies hurting the organization”. This is another quote we often hear.
Let us start with a statement: Any value disconnected from its opposite leads to pathology.
We have seen that organizations develop preferences like individuals do as many psychological
indicators do elicit. Successful organizations, however, do combine opposites. So if we take our
seven meta-opposites, they encompass possibly seven dualities that are reconciled as the following:
“We standardize our best customization” (Universalism vs. Particularism); “We strive for teams that
consists of creative individuals” (INCO); “We are passionately controlling our emotions” (Neutral vs.
Affective); “We give people direct feedback with diplomacy” (Specific vs. Diffuse); “We act as servant
leaders” (Achievement vs. Ascription); “We speed up sequences by synchrony” (Sequential vs.
Synchronic); and “We push our technology through the pull of the Market” (Internal vs. External
Control). How can we embed these dual or yin and yang values in the desired behaviors and
behavioral competencies that need to be established within the organization for which the
responsibility lies with the leaders of the organization?

One of the biggest financial institutions in Canada just recently introduced three dualities of values.
This was a reaction on their overarching belief in Ambition, Innovation, and Collaboration and led to
a very harsh environment in the beginning of the financial crisis. They were so innovatively ambitious
that no collaboration could save them out of the swamps. The values have become pathologies
because they were not counterbalanced by their opposites. Now they are trying to help their leaders
to integrate the specific with the diffuse by Ambition and Prudence, Innovation and Rigor and finally
Accountability and Collaboration.

Leaders are now asking how prudence can help them to frame their ambitions. How can rigor help
with innovation? And how leaders can be held accountable for being collaborative?
This financial institution has chosen to adapt their Charter of Behavior and ask questions such as:
How can I see you become more innovative by using rigor, or how has prudence helped you to get
more ambitious?

This is very much in line with the dual values of PepsiCo International and Applied Materials: “We
strive for teams that consist of creative individuals and we give people direct feedback with
diplomacy.”
Jeff Bezos of Amazon has had to grasp the dilemma of selling to a special group with whom deep
relationships were developed in the areas of music and books or, to a broad array becoming the
largest retailer in the world. His newly developed Internet Selling Model has the advantage of being
simultaneously very broad and at the same time deep, personal and customized, creating
communities of people giving feedback on the products. Amazon’s values and behaviors reflect that.
Isn’t it interesting that Amazon is opening analogue stores and that Google is opening pickup stores
when they are so digital? Also, what good examples do we find in sports environments? A coach like
Louis van Gaal can sharply analyze the situation into the deepest and most specific details and
combine those into the larger whole by inviting partners of players to celebrate the last win. It is the
total personality that needs to be involved to make analyses worthwhile.

After an analysis of the current and desired organizational culture, we often find dilemmas in values
too. Generally speaking, collaboration should not reduce accountability. What was missing from the
existing equation is the potential power of teams. A team should not be confused with a committee.
Committees delegate. Teams make promises to fellow members that each person will take particular
actions and at the next team meeting,[ each must show those promises were kept. Everyone is
responsible to each other, to the team, to the joint project, to the customer and to the organization.
The advantage of teams is that they become jointly accountable for the success of their project. The
very existence of this duality suggests that teams are not being deployed strategically to good effect.
Collaboration in teams should strengthen not weaken accountability. Unlike committees, teams are
temporary, lasting only as long as the project lasts. This entails being accountable for the success of
collaboration. We illustrate what can go right or wrong in this. To have the team hold members
accountable can misfire if they gang up on him or her and say “It’s all your fault! We were just
helping you.” Similarly, collaborating can sometimes lead to “everyone” being at fault and hence, no
one in particular and so all excuse each other and agree to hide what actually happened. You can
get collaboration without accountability and accountability without collaboration.
However, at the top right of the diagram you achieve the integrity of both values. Here, each team
member is responsible to all the others for her/his contribution to the joint project; and where there is
a mess-up, it is not difficult to locate its source. One or more person(s) did not keep their promises
and are accountable to them, to the project, to the organization, to customers and to superiors.

Furthermore, their value of entrepreneurship seemed to hinder them to get the discipline to make
things last. The hard thing is to put the foundations under them. We interviewed the top and these
are some quotes: “If you innovate you are going to make mistakes. Do you have the discipline to
clean up?” “We are more innovative than we believe. I think there is a slight overkill with rigor.” “I
think we are actually more innovative when certain disciplines and principles endure.”

Collaborating can sometimes lead to “everyone” being at fault

and hence, no one in particular, so all excuse each other and
agree to hide what actually happened. You can get collaboration
without accountability and accountability without collaboration
It is clear that our respondents saw these dualities as reconcilable. If being innovative dissolves the
status quo, someone must re-institute the new order. As the demonstrations of non-violent Civil
Rights marchers attest, you need an iron discipline not to lose control. You can disobey a law only if
a new law can be made from the manner of your disobedience. Scientific innovation obeys laws of
science or discovers new laws and rigorously obeys these. The most eloquent speech or original
prose still obeys the rules of grammar and would not be understood if it failed to do so. The most
brilliantly inventive enterprise still needs to meet all its legal obligations, pay those who helped it, and
fulfill its contracts.

In order to be fair to both values current and ideal, we actually need two solutions, one that puts
innovation ahead of discipline and another that puts discipline ahead of innovation. The English
language insists on subject-verb-object and we must obey this. Hence, we could say:

“Innovative concepts being new require rigorous testing to prove their worth.” Or we could say, “Only
by the rigorous mastery of your discipline can you innovate through it.”

Note the epithets at top left and bottom right. When rigor is taken too far, you get the restraint of
innovation and an irrelevant discipline imposed. When innovation is taken too far, discipline is
subverted and innovation lauded regardless (neophilia). The two values must be reconciled at top
right in each case. We achieve innovation through discipline and find new rigor through innovation.
The example above shows the importance of respecting the current culture but in the transformation
process, it needs to enrich itself by connecting it to apparent opposite values: dualities are an
expression of those.

Integrate formal and informal interventions through leadership

In any culture change process, it is crucial that the top of the house leaders practice what they
preach and walk the talk. The essence of leadership is to distinguish a problem from a dilemma by
asking the question “Can we solve it by more money or time?” If the answer is a ‘yes’, it is a
problem, and if the answer is a ‘no’, you might have a dilemma in house. The essence of leadership
is to be a reconciler in chief. You listen well to get the opposites on the table and when they both
make sense, you ask the question: “How can orientation A help me to get more of orientation B?” So
Steve Jobs asked: “How can I make aesthetics functional and how can I make hi-tech beautiful?”
The rest is history.

Effective leaders make sure that hard and soft processes are
combined — the hard stuff is often embedded in processes but
the HR-stuff is the framework within which soft processes can
nurture and thrive
Effective leaders also make sure that hard and soft processes are combined. The hard stuff is often
embedded in processes but the HR-stuff is the framework within which soft processes can nurture
and thrive. The best combination to elicit this power is the What-How matrix introduced by Jack
Welch at GE. Staff is measured regularly on their effectiveness on reaching the agreed upon tasks
(what) and if they live the GE values (how). Welsh said the easy category were those who did or did
not do both ends of the spectrum: they got a bonus or were fired. Difficult are the combined ones.
The staff that lived the values but didn’t achieve the tasks got an offer of support. The staff that got
the task done but against the values got a warning. That’s how you combine hard and soft
processes!
Monitor Progress
Since we strongly believe in the value-based organization, in particular, those who stimulate the
integration of opposites, monitoring progress is essential. The way to do this is quite simple.

At the beginning of each process, we ask participants where they are on the dilemma grid and after
a while what progress they have observed. Furthermore, what are the evidence-based incidents (if
any) they can describe the progress with? Finally, questions are asked whether the dilemmas
chosen to work on are still valid and worth the investment. These data are accumulated and
processed by leadership and appropriate actions are taken.

In order to make cultural change stick, we argue that first of all, culture needs to be instrumental to
serve the achievement of strategic goals and reconciling the major strategic and cultural dilemmas.
The process of change is rather an enrichment process (by integrating opposite orientations) than a
replacement one and the role of the leader is crucial in the success of the implementation. For the
interventions, this means that you start with the diagnostics of the business and cultural dilemmas.
Then it is time for a dilemma reconciliation process ending with action points and recommended
values. As the next step, it is crucial that this is followed by an implementation process called
‘Values to Behavior’. Finally, a process that monitors progress should be put into place. However, in
all stages, the role of the leader is crucial.

Digitization in Performance Management

Organizations using digital performance management systems will be better

prepared to handle todays (and tomorrows) challenges in the most effective
manner.
With the changing dynamics of business models, macroeconomic trends, and digital disruption,
performance management has become a hot topic of discussion in the HR function. While some of
the organizations have re-modeled their overall approach to measure performance, some are
currently thinking of following the industry trend and there are few that might continue with their
current approach and may introduce small changes in the times to come.

India is at the cusp of start-up growth, where innovation in fields such as Big Data, Artificial
Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Gaming and the Internet of Things has given us a lot to choose from.
Even though it is quite a challenge to integrate business processes across corporate borders, it is
also a huge advantage for the digital corporate performance management.

Let us come to the one central question of our times. With so much of digital progress that has
hastened our ability to serve better, how do we use that same technology to monitor our own
performance on an on-going basis?
The performance document will be replaced by an App that will
be accessible by a large number of people. The deliverables will
keep changing as the variables that impact performance will be
updated on a continuous basis
I see a future as follows. The performance document will be replaced by an App that will be
accessible by a large number of people. The deliverables will keep changing as the variables that
impact performance will be updated on a continuous basis. With uploads of new data, the lanes
through which individuals and groups would interact will crisscross under some rule-based
guidelines. The actions and the consequences of these actions will be played back to chart out the
next course of action.

The App could act as a performance guide to make change happen. The plotting of individual
performance against actions will show where the good is happening or likely to happen. The focus
will shift to those areas of actions where future data could be hazy.

Future will be more uncertain, so the final destination would have to be piloted with such tools that
rely on algorithms which work on optimization techniques. Expectation of business outcome will be
packed into the performance management process by using Artificial Intelligence. Objective
functions will clash, no one function can be maximized alone. How interdependencies need to be
factored will be the key. What actions will get us to an optimal solution will be part of this algorithm.

It is not very difficult to imagine this. In fact, the current scenario is no different. But the challenge is
that all actions that are taken by one group are not visible to the others and neither are the
implications. The digital technology will help us solution this with ease in the future.

Advancement in performance management systems will ensure better success in employee and
organization goals. The best practices once implemented successfully will help manage the entire
process much more efficiently.

Predictive performance management involves applying suite of statistical applications that sift
through vast amount of data to discover meaningful correlations, patterns and trends. Such analytic
techniques for modeling, forecasting and simulating potential outcomes can help answer critical
questions such as:

Which measures drive the business progressively?

Where do I need to improve and by how much?
Are employees aligned with the strategy?
How should I adjust my strategy and modify initiatives?

Performance management systems erase some of the doubts form the past; it ensures precise
performance appraisal data that is extremely critical during performance appraisals. Access to their
goals and evaluations for the coming year, help systems gather more feedback from co-workers and
help with a positive outlook towards performance reviews.
Other than accurate data, digitization helps management processes and strategic development.
Tools that are driven by technology ease a manager’s evaluation process and help employees
become active participants in their review sessions.

Moreover, with automation of HR functions and increased transparency, these tools help align
employees with the organization’s objectives and give managers the data they need for compliance
and regulations.

There are several benefits to move to a dynamic, technology-based platform from a paper-focused
approach, some of them like easy cascading of goals that help link individual goals to the
organization’s mission, increased standardization, more precise annual performance ratings,
facilitating communication between employees and managers and progress reports across the
company.

With a proficient HR system, companies can lessen the administration burdens of traditional
performance management systems. The time saved can be invested into bettering the employee
development and succession planning.

Organizations using Digital PMS will be better prepared to handle today’s (and tomorrow’s)
challenges in the most effective manner. It is fine not to be ideal here, but the winners are those who
will dare to move fast to the next level of digitization and move along with the business rapidly.

What is a CEO’s perspective on productivity dimensions for today & tomorrow?

In this keynote session of day one of TechHR 2018, CEOs of top

organizations will share their perspective on the key productivity dimensions
for today & tomorrow.
The first day of People Matters Tech HR Conference will focus on one of the most important metrics
for any organization- productivity. In today’s dynamic world, which is witnessing digital disruption
every second, organizations need to relook at employee productivity in a new light.

It is no more a secret today that engaged employees are the most productive. So organizations
today are relying on everything from gamification to data and analytics to enhance employee
productivity. They are looking to create opportunities for employees to do what they do best. So the
focus is not alone on how to measure productivity in this digitally disrupted world but also on
enhancing it with access to newer technologies such as AI, automation, data analytics.

Thus the CEOs of tomorrow face these pressing questions -how can they anticipate changes to the
productivity paradigm? How can they best use technology to automate what’s repetitive in order to
free up employees for more productive tasks? How can they help unleash the true hidden potential
of their employees?

‘The new productivity paradigm: CEOs' perspectives’ is one such keynote session of day one
which will bring together views from a gamut of CEOs.
In this keynote session, Sunil Sood, MD & CEO, Vodafone India, Deep Kalra, Chairman & Group
CEO, MakeMyTrip.com, Naina Lal Kidwai, Chairman, Max Financial Services, Anil Chaudhry,
Country President & Managing Director, Schneider Electric, and Ester Martinez, CEO &
Editor-in-Chief, People Matters throw light on how CEOs of top organizations looking at key
productivity dimensions for today & tomorrow, talent paradigms, technology opportunities & new
ways of work?

Throwing light on what the session will aim to achieve, Ester

Martinez, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, People Matters revealed, “In
the journey of digitization, organizations are transforming their
DNA. Structures, capabilities, jobs- everything is changing.
Hence new measures of performance and productivity need to
accelerate that change as well. This panel will focus on how
different industries are tackling this transformation journey to
hyper-productivity.”
The HR Agility Scale

HR Leaders see HR Agility as their ticket to the big table for stamping their
justifiable presence as strategic partners, however, this also opens the door
for committing significant errors especially when overestimating the inherent
strengths of the HR Function.
There has been an increased focus lately on the need for ‘HR Agility’ within progressive
organizations that are seeking a profound competitive edge in the Digital world. However, there is a
lurking concern that ‘HR Agility’ is in danger of becoming the ‘trending buzzword’ in corporate
conversations, rather than, actually delivering on its promise. Let’s gain an understanding of what
‘HR Agility’ actually is through the discerning lens of a clear and simple definition before proceeding
any further. ‘HR Agility’ is the capability of the HR function to respond more quickly and effectively to
changing employee expectations, workplace disruptions, and business requirements. Therefore, the
expectations for the HR Function are being elevated to a level where it can keep pace with the
evolving demands of the Digital world.

We have the unique advantage of being able to bridge the gap

between what the candidate is looking for and what the recruiter
A significant number of HR Leaders see ‘HR Agility’ as their ‘ticket’ to the ‘big table’ for stamping
their justifiable presence as strategic partners in determining/cementing the future direction of the
organization. This has prompted quite a few ‘visible’ initiatives that have been hastily undertaken to
provide ample evidence in the respective context. However, this also opens the door for committing
significant errors, especially, in terms of overestimating the inherent strengths of the HR Function
and the daunting challenges of maintaining a brisk pace while delivering desired results on multiple
fronts.

Consequently, it is prudent to gain a clear understanding of the status quo in order to ensure that a
baseline is firmly established before any measures are taken within the realm of ‘HR Agility’. This
also systemizes the approach to ingraining agility within the HR Function and lays the foundation for
consistently providing a high probability of success in terms of fulfilling desired expectations. The
following HR Agility Scale (HAS) can be used for an honest self-reflection:
The result obtained from utilizing the aforementioned HR Agility Scale (HAS) can then be used to
develop astute strategies/action plans that are designed in congruence with associated
goals/objectives.

Another effective way to benefit from the HR Agility Scale (HAS) is to use it periodically, e.g.,
annually, for developing a temporal record of the status-quo in order to gauge the improvement level
in the agility of the HR Function and the lessons learnt in terms of overcoming any
impediments/challenges. This can also be tied to corroborating performance metrics, e.g., average
time to hire, average cost per hire, average complaint resolution time, performance rating average of
HR employees, bench strength for succession planning, problem employee rate, HR Function
satisfaction rate, annual training and development (T&D) cost per employee, annual training and
development (T&D) hours per employee, diversity and inclusion (D&I) rate, etc., and surveys from
‘client’ functions within the organization that can provide factual evidence of HR Function’s enhanced
ability to meet/exceed expectations.
HR Agility requires ‘sincere’ teamwork with ‘client’ functions and it thrives on constructive feedback
that is crucial for refining the approach taken to provide seamless services. The aforementioned
scale inevitably creates a robust bond between the role played by the HR Function and the
organizational imperatives. Furthermore, it provides the impetus for innovation that is increasingly
becoming a life-saving skill for organizations in an era where the proverbial sun routinely sets on the
titans of yesterdays still caught up in the hangover of past accomplishments and perilously ignoring
or being complacent at the rise of ambitious start-ups eager to disrupt the corporate landscape.
Engaging people during transformation: Thriving in the future of work

Successfully transforming organizations is about making them more digitally

enabled and more human at the same time.
While the whole concept of “disruption” has become somewhat cliché, there is no doubt that
digitization and robotic automation are actually transforming businesses. In fact, in the latest Mercer
Talent Trends1 report, more than 90 percent of C-level leaders stated that they are planning to
redesign their organizations in order to boost productivity. In line, many researchers2 are predicting
that workforces will need huge skills shifts to maintain their relevance and contribution as
transactional work is eliminated and more relationship and expertise-driven roles emerge.
Technological progress isn’t a new phenomenon though. The World Economic Forum suggests that
we are now in our fourth industrial revolution, each one defined by significant shifts in technology &
productivity. Yet, it is the pace at which current changes seem to be influencing work and jobs which
has organizations and people on edge. People crave consistency and predictability &ndash...

Leadership lessons to be learned from Atal Bihari Vajpayee

There are many leaders the world has produced but very few have earned
respect even from their critics. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was one of them.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, undoubtedly one of the most prominent leaders of our country took his last
breath on August 16th, 2018. The former Prime Minister wore many hats such as politician, poet,
writer, social worker and many more.

There are many leaders the world has produced but very few received respect from their critics, and
Atal Bihari Vajpayee was one of them.

What makes him a great leader is that he never crossed his line despite being the Prime Minister or
leader of the opposition. He called the former Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru as the ‘son’ of India
and termed Ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as the goddess ‘Durga.’ He praised his opponents Rajiv
Gandhi and Manmohan Singh for his work, which highlights the quality of a true leader.

Sharing about his leadership qualities, Sumitra Mahajan, Lok Sabha Speaker, said, “Atal ji was like a
star in the sky of politics, which shone brighter than everyone else. He had the unique ability to bring
everyone together. Even if you ask the opposition, they hold a sense of respect for him.”

Calm & Composed

Audience and opposition were always keen to hear his speeches and when he was one of the best
orators of his time. But, what makes his a great orator, notably he was a great listener too. He had
his ears to the ground. He listened to all voices and opinions. He always put the country above
himself and his party.
Being calm was another quality that he possessed, and his calmness lead to many successful
decisions. It’s widely remembered that during the Pokhran test it was Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee who kept his nerve and successfully led the test without knowing anyone else.

Journalist Liz Mathew, in her latest column about the former Prime Minister, wrote, “Vajpayee was
one of those rarest of rare politicians who would exude warmth. You get angry at him, his policies,
the position of his party – but the moment you stand before him, it melts away. He was so charming
that you never feel anything bad about him. The numerous tales, journalists who used to cover BJP,
share tell you about the amazing capacity he had to charm anyone. Be it Opposition leaders or be it
hostile journalists.”
Writing further she adds another incident, I have also seen how calmly he handled an angry Sonia
Gandhi, who was the Opposition leader then. It was one of those days, where the Bofors and the
allegations against the Gandhi family had resurfaced, and the treasury benches created
pandemonium over the issue in the Lok Sabha. The house was adjourned. But Sonia Gandhi
remained seated there, red-faced. As the members started walking out, she started fuming and
shouting “how long you would keep raising this against me and family? Why are you not able to find
anything? You keep raising it to humiliate my late husband.” A shocked Mahajan ran to Sonia
Gandhi to calm her down. Vajpayee kept watching for a few minutes and went to her and said
something. Gandhi, still angry, but picked her bag and walked out. Vajpayee was seen discussing
something intensely with Mahajan then.

Leader of Leaders
Vajpayee was unique as a leader. Perhaps, BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya was right
today when he said: “There is no one like Vajpayee and there will be no one like him.”

Not only political leaders but India’s ace entrepreneurs also took leadership lessons from the former
Prime Minister, on his demise, Ratan Tata said, “He was a great leader with a great sense of
compassion and humour. He will be remembered fondly by a vast number of us".

Talking about Vajpayee’s leadership, Executive Chairman of Mahindra Group, Anand Mahindra said,
“The leadership lesson that I learned from my interactions with him was that no matter how
significant your achievements while in office, you ultimately earn the affection of people through your
humanity and your humility.”

Due to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s leadership, India and Pakistan had good relations despite the Kargil
War. The famous line from the ex-Prime Minister is widely remembered when he said, “You can
change friends but not neighbors.”

Augmenting HR productivity: the way forward

It is time for HR to embrace technology to unlock its full potential and shed the
image of a functional support system.
Fear of the unknown has always gripped the society and when technology was introduced it created
havoc. However, so far technology has not only improved functionality, but the output has been
optimized as never before. We are now at a stage where organizations need to adopt technology in
order to stay in the competition and in order to succeed one needs to develop adaptability and data-
driven workforce. In Tech HR 2018, Arjun Pratap, Founder, and CEO, EdGE Networks speaks about
augmenting HR productivity and how to pave the path towards success.

The need of the hour

Organisations need to concede that technology is here to stay and will keep on evolving to change
and rechange the course of actions. To stay ahead of disruption organizations must start well and
keep up the path of learnability and adoption of new technology, adaptability with rapid innovations,
develop a virtual workforce, create and operate a data-driven organizational culture and balancing
the AI and human workforce to create a harmonious yet impactful environment. Arjun states "Using
technology means an abundance of data which provides great value to an organization.” A simple
yet meaningful statement which defines all the requirements.

AI impacting productivity

Arjun states “Technology has changed dynasties, and with

constant evolution, it will not only change methods but the
functionality of each department and individual.”
There are two types of innovation: Intelligent and disruptive. When an organization can analyze
innovations its capacity for impact, how well will their workforce adapt to the new technology and
what will be the output, it can harness augmented intelligence With the help of new technology and
innovations, many organizations can now predict performance and the end goals. "In a changing
world, there are many organizational changes like work from home or an agile working environment.
However, today what matters is the productivity and quality of work," states Arjun.

One of the prominent challenges faced by companies especially in a market where talent war is on
the rise is attrition. With the help of data analysis, we can now predict when an employee is planning
to quit an organization and ensure retaining them by providing required and suitable options. One
can now predict attrition, performance, change output, plans and other critical factors that once
hampered the growth of an organization with the help of technology and creative innovations. This in
return creates a reliable work environment leading to maximum productivity.

The insights provided have created a clear vision of the future and just as Arjun said at the beginning
of the session "More than solving the problem identifying it has to be the primary focus." When we
can identify the loopholes in our organizational structure only then can we truly succeed. There can
be no better ending that the words of the speaker himself which are inspiring and at the same time
presents hope that we will emerge regardless of the obstacles. "Humans can accept change easily,
and we evolve as per requirement. We have accepted technology due to the paradigm shift, and it
also provides us value and the moment it does not we can stop." After all, technology is made by us,
for us to succeed.

The making of a great manager: Insights from People Management

Survey 2018
The Predictive Index's People Management Survey 2018 distinguishes a great
manager from the good and bad ones, and attempts to understand the impact
of a manager on the workforce.
How would you define your manager: great, good, or bad? Do all great managers have a few
common traits? Similarly, do all bad bosses share some qualities? The People Management Survey
2018 by The Predictive Index set out to answer these questions. The survey had 4,273 respondents
from 22 industries. According to the rating assigned by the respondent, their managers were
categorized as ‘great’, ‘good’, or ‘bad’, and subsequently, their qualities were studied.

Defining a Great Manager

Let’s start with the most critical question that the survey answered: who is a great manager? An
analysis of the responses from 1,533 individuals who described their managers as ‘great’ managers
shows that they “tend to work hard, know how to laugh, have a positive disposition, and understand
how to do their jobs.” Furthermore, the report says that not only are they passionate about their
work, but also compassionate to their team members. Here’s a look at the top traits of a great
manager:
The top words used by the respondents to describe great managers were: honest, supportive,
leader, fair, trustworthy, communicative, respectful, transparent, and knowledgeable.

A total of 633 respondents rated their managers as ‘bad’. Bad managers usually focus on
themselves and lack self-awareness. Here are the top characteristics of a bad manager as per the
responses collected in the survey:
A few words that were used the most to describe bad managers are: selfish, lazy, rude, arrogant,
untrustworthy, dishonest, mean, negative, reactive, and aloof.

The DNA of Managers

99.9% of the respondents believe that self-awareness is critical for managers. Men and women
received a near-similar rating in managerial roles, and even the traits of male and female managers
were fairly similar. Furthermore, the average ratings for managers were also similar across different
generations; a startling revelation, considering the widely-perceived notion that millennials aren’t cut
out to be managers.

While bosses of all generations ranked close to each other and displayed near-identical traits,
millennial employees tend to associate being casual with rules to being a great boss more than any
other generation. On the other hand, the managers among the respondents stated that ‘delegation,
hiring, communication, and training’ are the top things on their mind currently. Other important
priorities are: coaching, onboarding, accountability, feedback, development, and listening.

The Impact of Managers and their Feedback

The survey also established a direct connection between the quality of a manager and the level of
engagement an employee exhibits. 94% of the respondents with great bosses stated that they have
passion and energy for their work, whereas only 59% of those with bad managers agreed to the
same. This correlation is significant, and estimates that “how someone rates their manager accounts
for roughly 14% of how engaged they are in their current job.” This was further reiterated by the
finding which said that 77% of the respondents with bad bosses intended to leave their current job
within the next 12 months; as compared to 18% of those with great managers. The results also show
that nearly 44% of the managers do not seem to be providing the right amount of feedback to their
team members. The findings also show that giving too much feedback is better than providing too
little feedback.

According to the survey, there are more good managers than there are bad ones. And considering
the astronomical impact a manager can have on an employee’s career, this is good news. Any team
is as good as the manager, and the study right says that a manager, if liked and respected, is likely
to be a great, or at least a good boss. The report can help leaders identify their style. It can serve as
a useful guide to the future managers by helping them navigate leadership and management.

About 6 Mn people quit jobs in the last ten months: EPFO Data
Out of the 6 Mn employees who left their jobs from September 2017 to June
2018, 4.6 Mn of them were under 35 years of age.
First time since payroll data was first released in April, the government has revealed the number of
people leaving the formal workforce, based on data from the retirement fund manager Employees
Provident Fund Organization (EPFO).

While the government did not mention the reason behind so many people leaving EPFO, the data
showed that at least 6.04 Mn employees stopped subscribing to it between September 2017 and
June 2018.

On the other hand, about 10.7 Mn employees joined EPFO in

the same time period.
Out of the 6 Mn employees who left their jobs, 4.6 Mn of them were under 35 years of age.

In recent times the government has used EPFO data as a key parameter to count formal job creation
or loss. However, the results and the interpretations always seem to be quite ambiguous.

Interestingly, the government also revised the payroll data once again for all the nine months
released earlier. Previously, in July it had said that 4.47 Mn people joined the formal workforce in the
nine months ending May 2018, but now on Friday it again revised the number to 9.69 Mn, more than
double the previous estimate.

A quintessential capability-led transformation

In an exclusive interaction with People Matters, Lee Yan Hong, CHRO of DBS
Bank shares the fundamentals of DBSs journey of digital transformation,
differentiating in a dynamic industry, putting customers at the center of
everything, and keeping employees at the heart of banking.
Its not about saving jobs; its about saving people

Lee Yan Hong is the Managing Director and Head of Group Human Resources at DBS Bank.
She holds more than 25 years of Human Capital management experience across a spectrum of
industries, specializations, coverage and geographies. At DBS, Yan Hong drives the overall
strategic people agenda of the Group and has been recognized for taking a proactive approach in
building best practices in HR, setting the direction and spearheading various functions and initiatives
in the organizational growth of the Bank.
Under her leadership, DBS has won several accolades – winner of Gallup’s Great Workplace Award;
listed as one of the Top Companies for Leaders globally by Aon Hewitt; being conferred the SG50
Special Award category in Best Companies for Mums Awards from NTUC in Singapore, named
Bloomberg Businessweek’s Financial Institution Awards – Training Academy of the Year in Hong
Kong and Universum’s Top 100 Most Attractive Employers by business undergraduates in China, all
in recognition for good HR practices. Yan Hong represented DBS as a member for one of the
ASPIRE Review committees. She was a committee member of the Human Resource (HR) Skills
Council for WDA and committee member of the HCLI CHRO Advisory Panel.

During her time in General Motors, Hewlett Packard and Citigroup, she had a track record that
included a broad coverage in areas of compensation and benefits, talent and performance
management, learning and development, employee relations, and organizational design. “Live
more, Bank less” is DBS’ new ethos, reflecting a conviction that the time has come for a new kind
of banking. Reimagining banking is a priority in recent years – thinking of customer journeys and
how banking should be simple, seamless and invisible so that people can spend time on things they
care about and truly live more. To drive this agenda, digital transformation is happening across the
organization; from creating new experiences and interactions with customers, to employees
embracing a data-driven mindset and a start-up culture. By instituting an A-to-E framework, an
integrated approach to doing business and driving purpose driven results for our customers,
employees, regulators and the society at large, DBS is the epitome of digital transformation and
redefining the category as we know it.

How did DBS transform itself to a Digital Bank?

Digital disruption impacts all aspects of our lives, banking is not spared and it was the biggest
impetus for our transformation. The reality is that IF YOU DON’T CHANGE, YOU DIE. So, we set a
big hairy audacious goal — to become the Best Digital Bank in the world. This became a
galvanizing force for all of us to re-imagine Banking and transform ourselves from a traditional bank
to a digital bank.

DBS A to E Journey:
A - Big Hairy Audacious Goal
This 'Big Hairy Audacious Goal' was the rallying call that galvanized us into action. Every one of
us had it in our scorecards to drive digital in one form or another in our departments. A great
framework that we employed was ATE – Acquire, Transact and Engage our customers digitally.
B - Buy and Build talent
To jumpstart our digital journey, we realized that we needed skills and mindsets that we did not
possess at the time. This meant "buying" talent who were very different from us – people with a
start-up mentality- operate in an agile way, willing to experiment, focused on design thinking and not
devoted to the status quo. We wanted that to rub off on our culture and people.

To build a digital mindset among our staff, we introduced an experimental form of training. We
teamed seven or eight DBS employees with a couple of people from start-ups, put them through a
five-day hackathon: one day devoted to understanding technology and skill building in human-
centred design, three days of working together with start-ups to help code and create an app. We
gave them mattresses, ping-pong tables and free-flowing food and beer, but at the end of 72 hours,
they had to have an app to be presented to the judging team.
In many cases, the team came up with pretty good apps but the real power came from recognizing
that they could actually create an app regardless of their background and experience. We started the
‘experiment’ with young people in their 20s and 30s. By the third hackathon, we had 40- and 50-
year-olds and other employees not naturally comfortable with technology. The new discovery and
realization that they could do things differently and make a real impact boosted their confidence and
self-belief tremendously.

Additionally, we created an entire Digital Institute to train staff in areas such as digital awareness,
coding, design thinking, data analytics, UX and digital marketing.

C - Culture
We needed to operate with a different level of energy, drive and speed. Changing the mindset of the
people and culture of the Bank to be more similar to that of a tech start-up: nimble, bold enough to
take risks and experiment, not devoted to status quo, less hierarchical and rules-based. It was not
easy, but we started with the most mundane stuff such as addressing everyone by their first name,
simplifying policies, rewriting DOAs, encouraging staff to speak up and recommend ideas and
experiment. We also celebrated and recognized staff for the digital ideas and efforts.

D- Data
Using data analytics tools, we garnered insights to better serve our internal and external customers
by improving their journeys. In my department, we have leveraged human capital analytics to
predict attrition, optimize rewards, enhance sales productivity and improve hiring. We are able to
predict staff attrition with a 76% accuracy rate, for a POSB RM and our Audit team is able to predict
rogue traders and which branch will pass the next internal audit!

E- Focus on “Employees”
You can have your tools and data, but it all comes down to people. As such, we worked hard to win
the heads and the hearts of our staff. It was important that they felt valued and experienced growth
and fun in this journey too. To better engage them, various initiatives – DBS Cares, Banking
Privileges, iHealth, iFlex, 2+2, 5@5, Xplore, STAR – were launched. Once we are able to win their
hearts and heads, the mission became an unstoppable movement!

You can have your tools and your data but it all comes down to
people

Making such changes require a lot of commitment as well as time.

How was this managed?

Yes, it is constant and pervasive across the organization. Our slogan “Making Banking Joyful”
makes it easy to relate as it resonates with staff to simplify and make the customer journey joyful
e.g. in HR, the way we recruit, the way we train, the way we pay, and the way we appraise our staff
were all reimagined to make the experience joyful for employees. We also make it fun by creating
competitions and recognizing staff.

Give us a few solutions that you were able to find through this
process.

One of the few things that we did was to digitize the entire employee lifecycle from recruitment,
onboarding to off-boarding. We have a Chatbot – HIRI that answers benefits related questions. JIM
– our AI for recruitment reduces the resume screening from 45mins to 5mins. “ITQ” is another app
that staff can use to thank or recognize any of your colleagues across the DBS Group in 18
countries. DPU – DBS Power App is an employee app that allows you to Get Information, Complete
Tasks and Connect with colleagues on the Go.

How crucial is the element of ‘people’ in digital transformation?

You can have your tools and data but it all comes down to employees. Once the employees’
Purpose is aligned with the Bank’s Purpose and staff feel that DBS is a Great Place to work, you can
propel this forward. At DBS, we create a supportive environment where each of our 26,000
employees can Live fulfilled – Be the Best, Be the Change and Be the Difference.

Employees are empowered to learn, take on new opportunities across the Bank and future-proof
themselves for the digital economy. Through different platforms and tailored benefits, employees
have the flexibility to choose what works best for them. We bring employees together through
appreciation and recognition programmes so they feel valued, connected to our purpose and can Be
the Best.

Our leaders inspire employees to innovate and reimagine banking. We are encouraged to challenge
the status quo and drive changes around the way we work. Collaborative workspaces encourage
fresh perspectives, experimentation and to have fun along the way. There are many opportunities to
Be the Change and create impact as we build a sustainable future and to Be the Difference not only
at an individual level but also to the communities.

When you look ahead, what are the big rocks you are looking at?

Digital, AI will continue to disrupt all aspects of work and life. It’s not about saving jobs; it's about
saving people.

Building skills to fight tomorrow’s war is critical. Redesigning jobs, redeploying staff, reskilling, train
and retrain staff are all essential. In this respect, we have set aside 20mm to help our employees
enhance their capabilities.
Email, as cold as the Cold War
Allowing for greater touch in computer-mediated communication can extend to
people management instruments to attract better talent into business and to
dissolve the current high-tech vs. high-touch paradox.
Jessica, 23, shop attendant, got a $99 DNA kit for her birthday. She spat into the test tube and sent
it for analysis to find out who her mother was. There is a lot of technology and a little touch there, but
it shows the desire for “touch” as in the remembrances of touch by Seamus Heaney in Clearances V
on folding blankets with his mother:

“So we'd stretch and fold and end up hand to hand

For a split second as if nothing had happened”
Yet, in advanced economies, touching seems to be turning something of the past. People are
becoming isolated, so much so that in the first lines of the 2004 film Crash, Graham says:

“In L.A., nobody touches you... I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other,
just so we can feel something.”
Graham’s lines may seem like an exaggeration, but if so, why would the American acting giant Uta
Hagen argue that America has become desensitized, illustrating her point with the mushrooming of
encounters where Americans get together to learn to touch themselves again?

Some societies ‘touch’ more than others. Indians touch the feet of their elders out of respect but
avoid touching others in public. On the other hand, in Brazil, allegations of sexual harassment at
work are hard to follow through on account of so much kissing and hugging at work, which has set
the pace of modern management.

To overcome distances, multinational organizations are hard-pressed to deploy high-tech

instruments to communicate and they are predominantly low-touch ones. Such communication
instruments mostly piggybacked on the Internet which also piggybacked on military protocols
developed during the Cold War, when effectiveness and efficiency were paramount, but touch less
so. This is why we got the cold-blooded email.

Yet, despite drums, horns, and flags, military communications were not always low touch. Think of
Shakespeare’s late 16th-century rendition of Henry V and King Henry’s speech on St. Crispin’s Day:

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,”
To secure high engagement, early military communications like that of Henry V’s were face-to-face,
and touching, at least in the emotional sense. Similar emotional overtones were obvious on radio
broadcast communications during the World War II, as in Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches”.
But overall, distance, coupled with low-bandwidth, scrapped the two-way communication of rich
overtones, and that is how we landed with the lean email, which set a style.
The lean style of email communication even percolated through instruments to identify high-
potentials for future leadership, as in the 9-Box Grid instrument guidelines: “The individual is likely to
be demonstrating all or the vast majority of indicators”
Naturally, this lean style of communication failed to allow for the richness necessary to deal with grey
areas. This is why emoticons like smileys crept into email communications. Tonalities required more
text, and emoticons provided the shorthand for information about how an email text should be
interpreted, for instance, as softeners, as in “Please clean-up after using,:) Thanks!”

That the military midwifed low-touch email does not mean that it is satisfying even to the military as
the lean communication style seeped through where it makes less sense — in providing feedback; a
US Air Force document states:

…people are best understood by, mentored by and led by

people…not ones and zeros. A high-tech organization deserves
high-touch leadership to maximize the effectiveness of its
people.
This is why to better communicate with the shop-attendant who spat into the test tube mentioned
above, it would help to know more about her besides her age and gender that was implied in her
name, though across cultures names do not always correctly spell-out gender. After all, who has not
wondered about the gender for addressing an email: Mr. or Mrs., or Miss, or whatever?

Fortunately, the increased availability of broader bandwidth is making richer communication

possible. But communication networks should do more — perhaps create internal homepages with
the pictures of collaborators at least. Without going as far as emulating matching sites for romance, it
would help to add touch that might give place to faster and more effective communication, i.e. does
the addressee have children or pets? What about musical preferences, hobbies, sports, gastronomy,
and more?

The increased availability of broader bandwidth is making richer

communication possible, but communication networks should
do more
Allowing for greater touch in computer-mediated communication can extend to people management
instruments to attract better talent into the business. It might also help groom leaders to dissolve the
current high tech vs. high touch paradox faster.