It’s not just the change in brand name that Urban Company has been in the news for recently. The Company, which is counted among the country’s leading home services marketplace, has rolled out COVID-19 health insurance and income protection cover for all its 30,000 service professionals active on its platform in the country. While it is rare for companies to take such unique steps for employee well-being, this is actually a first-of-its-kind initiative in the services gig economy aimed at safeguarding professionals. The COVID-19 health insurance and income protection plan is offered in addition to the existing life, accidental and…
Author: HRK News Bureau
Low-cost airline, GoAir, is sending its employees on temporary rotational leave without pay, even as coronavirus cripples the travel and tourism business in India and the world. The Airline is also suspending its international operations between March 17 and April 15. Almost 35 per cent of its staff have been asked to go on leave with possible salary cuts. The percentage may vary for support staff and expats. In an official statement, GoAir said it has “initiated a short-term and temporary rotational leave without pay programme that will not only help the Company counter the short term reduction in capacity, but…
While the world is trying to adapt a four-day work week, Indian professionals seem to be moving backwards. As per a survey done by an IT company Citrix, 77 per cent of Indian professionals opine that they feel like getting closer to working a six-day week. Truly this seems to be like an overtime epidemic. OnePoll, on behalf of Citrix, interviewed around 500 working professionals across private and government sectors in the country, for this survey. Close to 60 per cent of the respondents of the survey accept that they work outside their regular office hours. The engagement is in…
With the number of COVID-19 cases increasing by the day, the Gurugram administration has issued an advisory to various private companies, multinationals and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies to ask their employees to work from home. The Government is trying to resort to social distancing measures to help check the spread of the virus in the country. Being an IT hub, Gurugram is a high-risk zone, which is why the advisory has been issued. According to the advisory, which is based on the Epidemic Disease Act 1897, employees working for offices in Gurugram, should be permitted to work from home…
American multinational company, DXC Technology, has appointed Lokendra Sethi as its vice president, human resources (HR). Sethi will be driving the HR strategy for the Company that provides B2B information technology (IT) services, in India. He will also be responsible to scale its operations for the growth projected. In addition, he will be leading the Company’s diversity and inclusion (D&I) agenda and handle the corporate responsibility charters. With more than 20 years of experience in the IT sector and working with consulting organisations, Sethi worked with AECOM, the global HR talent services company, before joining DXC. At AECOM, as global…
Workday has extended a slew of benefits for its employees amidst this COVID-19 or Coronavirus menace. The company has announced that it will pay two weeks bonus to a majority of its employees. The reason behind this payout is because the company believes that there will be unforeseen costs and needs as schools and support services are moving to virtual experiences or being temporarily suspended. This additional payout will provide financial support and flexibility to its employees. The company hopes it will help alleviate some of the pressures. Workday has also expanded theCare.com benefit from 10 to 15 days to…
Gender equality at the workplace is serious business today, which leads to building a strong organisation. Women today expect to be treated equally and in the present scenario, there is a dire need to increase the strength of women in the workforce. With this mission, Epsilon India has come up with its second edition of the returnship programme, ‘SheRises’, which plans to offer a unique six-month paid internship programme to women who are planning to rejoin the workforce. During this six-month paid internship, the women professionals, selected specifically for the programme, are offered training in technical and soft skills, mentoring,…
Shelly Morales has taken over as VP-people, at Balbix, a cybersecurity platform. She took over in March, 2020 and is based out of the San Jose, California. As the VP, her role currently is to enable the global HR department through innovative leadership to drive the organisation to deliver. Leading organisational cultural initiatives, employee engagement and talent acquisition are some of her focus areas. Morales has over 20 years of experience working for large and small global technology companies. Her areas of expertise include employee and executive compensation, human capital, data analytics, process improvements, M&As, performance management and managing the…
Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) is preparing to invest significantly in the expansion plans of its cloud-based learning solution, TCS iON. The cloud-based collaborative learning platform, TCS iON helps students — in India as well as worldwide — access study material, make submissions and also receive feedback. It helps students interact with instructors, administrators and learning institutions. Using iON, instructors themselves can design courses and conduct assessments. On the other hand, administrators and other institutional officials can use the platform to organise learning events and develop learning communities. TCS iON is going to first focus on getting institutions and corporates on…
Software company, Siemens, has opted for Infosys’ Wingspan to help enhance its digital transformation process. Wingspan is an open-source stack-based learning platform that offers a personalised, seamless, interactive and innovative learning experience to employees. Siemens believes that it is essential for each of its employees to be able to access opportunities to upskill and reskill themselves. Wingspan is a cloud-first solution founded on open source technologies, which will allow employees to access content on the mobile too. This will, therefore, allow learners to learn anytime anywhere. The platform helps companies transform their talent faster by offering learners access to the…
Technology, data, employee experience: What’s high on agenda The focus for 2020 will be on the ‘human at work’ and on ‘making work more human’. To make this happen, we will have to focus on all the three — technology, data and employee experience. Put together, these make the triad that defines the future of work. To me, intelligent usage of data and technology makes for better employee experience. That makes for happy and engaged employees, who, in turn, make for happy and engaged customers and the circle continues this way. The biggest challenge for HR in your sector…
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), India’s largest central armed police force, on the occasion of its 81st anniversary, is providing comprehensive health cover to the family members of 2,200 of its personnel, who died in action. The full premium for the family members of its martyrs will be paid by the CRPF from its welfare fund. The theme for the celebration of the 81st anniversary of the country’s 3.25 lakh strong largest paramilitary force is, ‘proud of our martyrs, we celebrate their valour’. Till now, the family members had to pay the premium themselves to avail Government health care…
Yes Bank is currently under the control of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The latter has come up with a reconstruction plan so that the Bank can operate normally, and its services remain uninterrupted. The Government of India has announced a reconstruction strategy that will help the Bank overcome the ongoing crisis. Prashant Kumar, former chief financial officer of SBI has been named as the managing director and chief executive officer of Yes Bank. He was appointed as the administrator for Yes Bank last week by the RBI. Sunil Mehta, former non-executive chairman of Punjab National Bank, will take…
The employees of the Delhi Developmental Authority (DDA) have demanded that the biometric attendance system be discontinued in offices. While a large number of government and private organisations have discontinued the use of biometrics owing to the increased chances of catching the virus, the DDA authorities continue to use it. The DDA employees’ union is going to take up the matter with the authorities on Monday and demand that the biometric attendance system be discontinued. In its place, they want the manual registers to be used. Till now, there have been no orders to discontinue the use of biometrics at…
Here is another new episode of #Noticeboard – brought to you by HR Katha. In this episode the topics of discussion are ‘how companies can translate office culture onto the digital world in this time of increasing remote work, candidate perceptions during the hiring process and an interview with instagram influencer Riddhi Debh! #NoticeBoard is HRKatha’s weekly broadcast on the latest news and trends in the HR industry. | Our host Abhijit Bhaduri is one of the most followed influencers on Talent Management and the Future of Work.
As part of measures to check the spread of coronavirus, Nepal has stopped issuing visas on arrival to tourists, irrespective of the country they are coming from. All mountaineering expeditions have also been stopped for this season. This will lead to about 20,000 people losing their jobs, including guides. Till now only one person in Nepal has tested positive, and the infected individual has already received treatment for the same. This is the season when maximum mountaineers visit Nepal to try and scale the peaks of the Himalayas. The season lasts till June. But this year, the Government of Nepal…
Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) is inviting applications from interested candidates for 35 posts of assistant professor, professor and associate professor. There are 18 vacancies for assistant professor, 12 for professor and five for associate professor. The candidates may apply online through the official website, jmi.ac.in on or before April 1, 2020. Only those with a minimum of 55 per cent marks in post-graduation may apply. It is compulsory for candidates to have cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET) conducted by the University Grants Commission (UGC), CSIR or a similar test by UGC. Those candidates who have obtained a PhD need…
The Indian government has approved the hike in dearness allowance for central- government employees from existing 17 per cent to 21 per cent. The move is estimated to benefit around four lakh central-government employees and 65 lakh pensioners. The union cabinet headed by the prime minister cleared the proposal on Friday, which shall come into effect from January 1, 2020 onwards. Salaries were hiked when the incumbent government implemented the 7th Pay Commission in January 2016 and now with the hike in DA, employees will benefit further. Dearness allowance is granted to employees of the central government twice each year…
An employee in Google’s Bengaluru office has tested positive for Covid-19 virus after he developed symptoms and was asked to undergo the test. Google Immediately shut the office and all employees were asked to work from home. “We can confirm that an employee from our Bengaluru office has been diagnosed with COVID-19. He was in one of our Bangalore offices for a few hours before developing the symptoms,” the spokesperson of the company said in a statement. The Company has asked all employees who came in touch with the software engineer to quarantine themselves. “The employee has been on quarantine…
Technology, data, employee experience: What’s high on agenda In today’s competitive markets, human capital can be the biggest differentiator, and hence, attracting and retaining the ‘Best-in-Class’ talent is an important part of the people agenda. ‘Best-in-Class’ talent gets energised and connected through ‘Best-in-Class’ experience. This can be achieved through technology and niche experiences .We live in an era of continuous innovation and change, and this is no different for HR. Business today, is clearly all about people, meaning that processes and practices should be directed at enhancing the employee experience. HR analytics and new technologies should focus on the employees.…
Employees of the Indian Railways, who hold salary accounts in Yes Bank, have been told to open new salary accounts, as the Bank’s financial position is not stable. Through a written communication, the employees have been directed to shift their salary accounts to other banks if they wanted to avoid any issues in the future. With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) placing Yes Bank under moratorium, due to its weak financial condition, the Bank’s inability to raise capital and handle potential losses has been made public. Yes Bank has been experiencing serious governance issues and practices of late, which…
Walmart, has announced two weeks of paid leave, in addition to its existing leave policy, for employees who fall sick or are isolated due to coronavirus. Now, all American employers are trying to offer similar policies, for the safety of their workforces. It has been made mandatory for employers in some Colorado industries to offer the staff some paid sick leaves, if they have flu-like symptoms, while waiting for the results of COVID-19 testing. Although this is a temporary directive, it seems the need of the hour. The Colorado Governor Jared Polis has announced that employers in the leisure, hospitality,…
To prepare the students of today for the AI-future of tomorrow, CBSE has signed an MoU with Intel India to impart artificial intelligence (AI) learning in schools. This move is geared towards increasing the pace of AI integration in India’s education system, including setting up AI skill labs and creating an AI curriculum for students. AI skill labs will be implemented in 22,000 schools across the country. The initiative is based on the ‘Intel AI for Youth’ programme, which is an immersive hands-on learning programme, that uses experiential methodologies covering both social and technological skills. Artificial intelligence has become important…
Covid19 has been declared a pandemic by WHO and companies are not only asking employees to work from home but also extending support to the ones who are quarantined. Recently, Google announced its decision to create a fund that will take care of its contractual workers, who are on sick leave due to coronavirus or Covid19. The American multinational technology company employs a large number of people worldwide, and in addition, has suppliers and vendors all over the world. With the novel coronavirus or Covid19 spreading over continents, many of them are affected or quarantined. Google’s fund has been set up…
Technology, data, employee experience: What’s high on agenda Emphasis will be more on technology. Speed with accuracy is an important dimension, where HR needs to deliver. It cannot be accomplished by deploying the conventional model to process tasks, which normally work in a linear way. Once technology is used, the great elements of speed and accuracy along with consistency come in. Secondly, when these processes are handled manually, they tend to bring in an element of subjectivity to decision making. This results in the unnecessary need for stakeholders to scrutinise and check motives. Thirdly, technology can make better decisions using…
Tata Steel is considering slashing about 1200 jobs in Europe in a bid to increase profits. The steel manufacturing company, which has about 20,000 employees in Europe, is endeavouring to improve its financial situation and business performance. Last year, the Company had announced 3,000 job cuts across Europe in November, and had also clarified that it has no intention to replace the retired staff or those who left. At that time, it was revealed that about two-thirds of the cuts were to be white-collar roles. However, Tata Steel has been trying to come up with ways to reduce job losses…