Author: Liji Narayan | HRKatha

Hollywood’s writers, represented by the Writers Guild of America (WGA), have been on strike for about 115 days now. They received support from Hollywood’s actors with the , Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) joining them in the strike July onwards. Negotiations are still on with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents the studios and production companies of Hollywood, including Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Warner Bros and Apple. According to the writers’ union, the studios are still not offering adequate protection to writers from the threats that led to the…

As per the Future of Work Report, more LinkedIn members around the globe are acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) skills to enrich their resumes than ever before. The AI Skills Index data from 25 countries shows that the number of members who acquired artificial intelligence skills was nine times more than in January 2016. According to the data, Singapore, Finland, Ireland, India and Canada are exhibiting the fastest rate of AI skills diffusion. That is not all. Artificial intelligence is being embraced not only in the technology space, but also in education, financial services, retail and many other industries. The highest…

Are employees in Indian organisations thriving at work? Apparently no, if recent reports are to be believed. According to the survey report, most of the employees in Indian organizations are not just dissatisfied but also stressed at work, and therefore, not thriving. In fact, only 24 per cent of employees experience wellbeing at the workplace. That means, over three-fourth of all the employees working in organisations across the country are experiencing low levels of wellbeing. Of those who admitted to thriving at the workplace, a whopping 93 per cent revealed that their managers were empathetic leaders who practised what they…

If those in technology roles in small startups have received a pay hike of at least 15 per cent, it has come after a lot of strategic planning and resource optimisation, reveals a report. Techies in early-stage startups are witnessing wage hikes in the range of eight to 12 per cent, whereas, on the whole, salary increment patterns are showing signs of a dip in the tech space. Small startups with less than 40 techies in their team have given 15 to 20 per cent increments to their entry- and mid-level techies, basis the requirements of the organisation. They have…

By the end of this year, QwikSkills, the skill-development platform, is looking to expand its workforce by 300 trained people. The cloud certification and skilling platform, founded in 2020, aims to equip people with the latest and in-demand skills that will help them be more employable. Presently, the platform has over a 100 employees who are engaged in offering online cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and data courses for the professional development and career training of students. The new hires, it is hoped, will enhance the operations of the firm and help it deliver world-class training. In…

While 20 per cent of employees received promotions, they saw no appraisals. About 49 per cent were given incentives in the form of bonuses and employee stock option plans (ESOPs), but no appraisals. A significant 38 per cent were happy with the increment they got as it was up to their expectation. A good 52 per cent thought their appraisal was fair. A whopping 76 per cent plan to switch jobs on the basis of their current appraisal! What can keep employees from considering moving? Here are some insights from a recent appraisal trends survey. Most of the employees (30…

‘You’ve passed out from a tier-3 college? You will have to settle for the lesser-paying jobs”. This is what students from tier-3 colleges are told, because when it comes to placements and job opportunities, they end up with jobs that are left over after the students from tier-1 and 2 colleges have bagged the high-paying ones. So, are tier-3 students not good enough? Well, a recent survey suggests that 57 per cent of learners from tier-3 colleges are highly employable in non-technical roles. Also, their employability in critical thinking roles is very high. Let us take a look at the…

South Asia has the highest regional percentage of engaged employees reveals a survey report. Interestingly, the highest regional percentage of anger at work is also reported from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. According to a Gallup report, 33 per cent of employees in South Asia are thriving at work. That is, they are engaged at work. This brings us to the three types of employees in organisation: Thrivers: These employees, as the name suggests, are thriving at work. In other words, they like what they are doing, have found meaning in their job and are quite connected…

Did you know that the global economy pays a heavy price for disengaged or poorly engaged employees? In fact, low engagement costs $8.8 trillion, and is responsible for nine per cent of the global gross domestic product (GDP)! Employees remain engaged at work, or not engaged at work, or actively disengaged at work due to various reasons. In all three situations, they may experience stress. For instance, even workers who are engaged at work may be so tired by the end of the day that they may have little energy left to sit down and converse with their family or…

They say India Inc. has become quite LGBTQ friendly. It may not be completely true though according to a report based on a study of 105 LGBTQ+ employees. Of the 63 who had experienced discriminatory incidents at the workplace, a whopping 73 per cent chose not to report the same. They chose silence over reporting, while 27 per cent reported the same either to higher management or to the human resource team. About 50 per cent of them were satisfied with the way their organisations managed to handle the matters that were brought to their notice. Most of the respondents…

When asked whether they would choose a job with health benefits and a formal agreement over one without a contract, a whopping 93 per cent admitted they would choose the former. Clearly, the new-collar workers have come to realise that a fixed income, along with security and benefits can actually improve their lifestyle. The importance of security and benefits has been driven home by the pandemic. So, who are these new-collar workers? Well, this generation of workers has aspirations similar to those of formal workers. The new-collar workers are beginning to prioritise security and benefits over daily wages. This cohort…

As a relatively young industry in terms of talent, the digital marketing landscape undergoes constant transformations with the emergence of novel tools and technologies. Amidst this ever-changing environment, one element remains unwavering — the clients. They remain at the centre of everything. Therefore, Pavan Ramchand, CHRO, Social Beat, emphasises that every aspect of the human resources function at the firm revolves around enabling the success of not just its clients but its internal team members. Throughout Ramchand’s tenure as the chief human resource officer, his focus has been on harnessing the inherent potential of the existing talent pool, while also…

With the pandemic resulting in greater flexibility being offered by employers, work has become rather convenient for employees. More and more people are able to work from home all the time or are required to go to office only few days a week. Some are even allowed to work from anywhere. When such flexibility is coupled with a fixed and regular source of income that comes with a permanent job, the attraction of gig work naturally lessens. While gig workers did enjoy the freedom of working at their own pace and being able to take up a variety of assignments…

With employers the world over trying to cut costs and focus on profitability and sustainability, workers everywhere are uncertain about their future. With inflation showing no signs of dropping anytime soon, employers want to save money, while employees want more money to make ends meet. In India, however, 78 per cent of workers received an increment in the last one year. That is not all, a whopping 90 per cent expect an average increment of 8.4 per cent in the next one year! According to a study by ADP Research Institute, over six in 10 (62 per cent) workers, globally,…

New terms are being added to the global employment vocabulary with each passing day. Just when we were getting used to ‘gig’ work and ‘hybrid’ model, along comes the ‘pixelated workforce’. The term is used by Josh Bersin, global industry analyst, who was quoted in a recent report. Why did he use ‘pixelated’? Well, the term is self-explanatory. When an image or graphic design is broken down into pixels or components, it is called ‘pixelated’. In the same way, jobs within an organisation can also be divided into their fundamental components or smaller tasks. Each of these tasks can then…

Qualifications are becoming less important by the day. People are being able to do well, based merely on the skills they have acquired. So, is it right to say that only skills will lead professionals to success in the future? It appears so, since skills and capabilities will help bag jobs and not college degrees. A report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) said that half of the workers of the world will require to reskill by 2025, especially in the industrial sector where most processes and tasks are being automated. Many factories, worldwide, have already embraced artificial intelligence (AI),…

Do the C-suite need to understand their employees’ well-being needs better? Are they not really aware how much their employees are struggling with their well-being? Going by the Deloitte survey report, both C-suite and employees are finding it challenging to make well-being their priority, and only work is to blame. The survey that covered 2,100 employees and C-level executives across the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia, shows that almost 70 per cent of the C-suite are contemplating switching to a job where their well-being will be better supported! While 65 per cent of employees self-reported their physical well-being as…

With cyber threats becoming more frequent and complex with each passing day, it doesn’t come as a surprise that cybersecurity is amongst the most sought-after skills. Employees should look to upskill and specialise in data privacy, cloud security, AI security, network security and other related areas as suggested by a recent report. What exactly are the cybersecurity skills most in demand? Networking and system administration, blockchain security, threat intelligence skills, cloud security, intrusion detection, penetration-testing skills, ethical hacking, DevOps skills, risk identification and management, and computer forensics skills appear to be the skills in high demand. Of course, additional skills…

The Government of Singapore has announced that all civil servants in Singapore will receive a mid-year bonus, or annual variable component (AVC) of 0.3 months. Junior-grade officers within the civil service will be eligible for a one-time payment of up to S$400. Additionally, civil servants in grades MX13(I) and MX14 will be paid S$200 over and above this. Civil servants in grades MX15 and MX16 or equivalent as well as employees in the Operations Support Scheme (OSS) Grades III and IV will be paid S$400. Last year, the mid-year bonus was of 0.35 months, a bit higher than this year’s.…

There were about 2.8 lakh software developers available in Ukraine before the war began say certain reports. Ace quality Ukrainian IT professionals have been serving firms in Canada, the US as well as countries of western Europe, including the UK, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. Most firms with a significant budget have been able to put together a team of developers sourced from Ukraine in a jiffy. With the pandemic-imposed move towards digitisation, talent from Ukraine was always in high demand. Having worked with various global companies in the areas of fintech, telecom, healthcare and automotive, Ukrainian youth have managed…

It is true that 5G will soon lead to an increase in digitisation across operations across sectors, including manufacturing, education and financial services. However, with this rapid digitisation, the need for expertise in the fields of data science, cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence and machine learning and so on will also surge. The most in-demand talent, according to a report, is that of cloud infrastructure engineers. About 71 per cent respondents of the survey admit that the demand for cloud infrastructure engineers will be the highest when it comes to 5G applications, followed by 69 per cent saying that demand for…

The hiring demand in India is the highest in the information technology sector, followed by finance and real estate, healthcare and life sciences, and the transport, logistics and automotive sectors, in that order. While the employment outlook is 47 per cent in the IT space, it is 41 per cent in the finance and real-estate space, and 33 per cent in the energy and utilities space. According to a study, in the industrials and materials segment, the employment outlook is 39 per cent, while the figure is 40 per cent each for the transport and logistics and the healthcare and…

Singapore may be the only nation with less than a 40 per cent chance of its employed people being seriously impacted by the increase in artificial intelligence (AI) work automation. In the Asia Pacific region, the three countries that are likely to be most affected by AI automation are Bhutan, Pakistan and India in that order. In Europe, it is Armenia that will see maximum impact of AI automation, followed by North Macedonia and Estonia. In the Africa region, Zambia, Angola and Uganda will see maximum jobs being affected by AI automation. In the Middle East region, Iran, Jordan and…

That human attention span has decreased over the past few decades is quite clear. While we all know that there are way too many distractions today than there were a couple of decades ago, there is scientific data to corroborate that too. As per research, in the 2000 to 2015 period, human attention span reduced by an alarming 25 per cent. That means, 15 years is all it took to shrink our attention span, which was about 12 seconds in year 2000 and came down to 8.25 seconds in 2015. Many would say the remote working culture imposed by the…

With the agriculture and agrochemicals industry having gone through major digital transformation, many interesting and lucrative jobs have emerged in the sector, which offer great salaries. According to a jobs and salary primer, the hottest profile in the sector is that of product manager, with a salary of about Rs 1.03 lakhs. The second hottest profile is that of exim manager, drawing a salary of about Rs 65,000. The third popular profile is that of senior UI/UX designer, with a salary of Rs 62,000. Application developers may earn a handsome salary too, of about Rs 54,500 per month. Agriculture drone…

The employees of Credit Suisse are planning to sue the Swiss financial regulator for cancelling their bonuses worth more than $400 million. Many senior managers from Credit Suisse group have reportedly approached law firms to initiate legal action on their behalf. Early this month, Credit Suisse Group had notified its staff that the delayed bonuses meant to replicate the value of bonds that were eliminated in the company’s urgent sale to UBS Group AG will also be reduced to zero. Over the past few years, many managing directors and directors at Credit Suisse have been given some portion of their…