Indian automobile major, Bajaj Auto now has its own learning tool, called BOLT – Bajaj Auto Online Learning Tool. Fully operational since January, BOLT is an AI-powered, mobile-enabled platform, offering a unique learning experience to each employee. Any employee or group of employees can be assigned a learning journey tailor-made for their specific needs. In the last few months of it being functional, BOLT has become the epicentre of knowledge dissemination at Bajaj Auto. This tool which has been functional since January, is born out of necessity. Ravi Kyran, CHRO, Bajaj Auto, says, “BOLT is the result of the change…
Author: Sudeshna Mitra | HRKatha
The US State of California, recently passed a new law which makes it mandatory for all companies in the hospitality sector to rehire the employees who were laid off due to the COVID19 pandemic, before filling the vacant positions with new candidates post pandemic. The US-state government may have had its reason to pass this judgement, but does rehiring laid off employees make sense strategically. In India, we do not have any such law, but rehiring employees who have been laid off earlier can have its own pros and cons. First let’s look at the positives. “Rehired people develop a…
Indian Railways pointsman Mayur Shelke needs no introduction, today. The video of the brave heart, risking his own life to save the life of a child against a moving express train is all over. Post that incident, Shelke was honoured for his brave deed, and his employer Indian Railways rewarded him with 50,000 rupees in cash. That’s the usual practice. Whenever an employee goes beyond the call of duty, he/she is gratified with a financial reward. In fact, it’s the easiest and simplest way to show appreciation without putting too much thought. “These people bring to the table many lessons,…
For years, the social contract between employers and employees was that the latter would work for the company in exchange for wages. Then certain other benefits, such as health insurance and provident fund were added to it. Today’s version of the social contract between organisations and employees is one that has evolved over the last few years – partly due to the influx of new generations – Gen Y, Gen Z – at the workplace, and partly due to technology. The pandemic has brought another set of changes to this social contract, and several non-tangible elements have become part of…
When we think of a CEO or CFO or any senior leader of an organisation, do we picture them with a cape or wings that can make them fly? Not really. We picture leaders as busy people, almost always on the phone, dressed in formal wear, seated in swanky cabins and drawing huge salaries. More often than not, we tend to focus on their attractive pay cheques and luxurious houses, which come to them at the cost of a lot of mental peace. Everyone, irrespective of the level they belong to in the organisational hierarchy, requires work-life balance. After all,…
Employees are often heard complaining about their bosses being rude. More often than not, this rudeness is born of stress. To a great extent, this stress seeps down from the top levels of the organisational hierarchy. The chain of hierarchy in a corporate structure is such that every leader is accountable to a hierarchy above him, and this chain ends with the C-suite. Therefore, every leader holds a position that demands a balancing act — between his subordinates and the reporting senior. In other words, it will not be absolutely wrong to say that to some extent “bosses are caged”.…
It is a new world and the problems are unique. As organisations evolve with time, the business problems change even faster. If earlier, companies wanted people to follow well defined and designated processes, in the present age, they want people who can think beyond, think critically and laterally, and be real problem solvers. People who can look beyond their designated tasks and functions, and take up challenges to solve a critical business problems will be the stars of today. This age demands that employees be problem solvers, irrespective of any certification, designation or role. Sunil Ranjhan, director – HR, LG…
In the current context and time, everyone will agree that we all learn faster when we learn together, than when we try to learn alone. Just think of the child who was forced to study sitting alone at home, and not from his regular place of learning, the classroom, due to the pandemic. Most people would agree that the learning curve has been on a downward journey. It is quite similar even in professional life. When people work together in a team, they learn faster. The very exchange of ideas, and learning from other’s experiences and mistakes does the trick.…
When a conflict occurs between a customer and an employee, who should the company choose to stand by? Not a very new situation for sure, but one that is encountered frequently. A recent conflict between a Zomato employee and one of its customers took the social media by storm. The video, that went viral, showed a girl alleging that a delivery person of Zomato hit her on the nose when she refused to accept an order, which was delivered late. Opinions were divided on social media with some sympathising with the employee, some criticising the service and yet others demanding…
Most companies have a full fledged employee well-being programme, and they also spent substantially on these programmes. Yet, the outcome of such programmes is not always satisfactory. The problem is that organisations often keep these well-being programmes independent of an employees work-life and not integrate with it. The success lies in small things. When companies try and make small differences that makes work-life easier for employees, the impact is many fold. This actually is a true integration of work life with wellbeing. For instance, if an organisation fails to look after the safety of its women employees who are working…
With the advent of technology, the focus — while hunting for the right talent for the company— has shifted from just academics to knowledge of the technical tools required for the company. According to these desired tools, the skills needed to fit into a function are determined, which in turn, affect the talent-hunting procedure. In fact, today, the use of technology is way beyond what one would have imagined a decade back. Right from the shortlisting of candidates to skill development and talent mapping, technology has left its mark across all the functions and roles. With a view to tracking…
Despite layoffs and salary cuts giving sleepless nights to employees and employers across industries in 2020, Tata Starbucks did not resort to any of these drastic measures to save costs. In fact, it undertook several employee-welfare programmes, and managed to successfully retain their employees and also maintain their employee satisfaction levels. Some of the several initiatives launched by Starbucks for the wellbeing of its employees across all levels are as follows: Brew of balance Talking about the ‘Brew of Balance’ initiative, Navin Gurnaney, CEO, Tata Starbucks, says, “Motherhood is a challenging phase for every woman. However, we are open to…
Shifts in the corporate work culture and implementation of latest AI tools across various functions, are just some of the factors that have brought about changes in the overall workforce and related processes of late. These changes have forced the corporate culture to go way beyond the preset boundaries. This is where the role of boundary spanners — who can spot the necessary changes in the market as well as internally within the organisation, to boost productivity — comes into play. Hiring them for their ability to identify the latest trends has become extremely important in order for organisations to…
While most companies have undergone changes and restructuring in the last year, more of learning and skilling has helped keep the employees technically sound and up to date as far as artificial intelligence (AI) tools are concerned. Organisations themselves have had to undergo a thorough learning process to bring the workforce back on track. Commenting on the importance of learning and development of the organisation, Shailesh Singh, director and chief people officer, Max Life Insurance, says, “One of our organisation’s core values is the growth mindset, which is essential for an enterprise to have. In order to fulfill that, it…
One of the most talked about issues in the corporate world, is work-life balance. However, with the ‘work-from-home’ concept entering the ecosystem, the boundaries between the professional and personal lives of employees have become faint. Work-life integration has almost done away with set working hours. Experts are of the view that with more flexibility, comes more need for individual responsibility. Adil Malia, CEO, The Firm Rohit Iyer, director – L&D, PWC, says, “There has been a drastic change in the work culture, in the last one year, due to the pandemic. At the office, one is time-bound, and therefore, one…
Good leadership demands a high level of agility, which is essential to maintain a balance between the needs of the workforce and the business. These tough times also demand high levels of kindness accompanied by the right business strategies on the part of the leaders across industries. It is not without reason that leaders are assumed to have super brains, capable of processing thoughts in depth. In the words of P Dwarakanath, HR leader and non-executive chairman, GSK, “A heterogeneous team has people from different backgrounds, but with the same purpose. So, it will have different needs. A right leader…
While the hybrid work culture has been throwing multiple challenges at HR across industries, IBM, “radically redefines” the role of the HR department to suit the demands of the times. In the words of Chaitanya N Sreenivas, vice president & HR head, IBM, India and South Asia, “If one really looks at HR holistically, one will realise that there have been shifts happening. Initially, it was about bringing in efficiency and skills, but now this is the third phase of disruption with increased application of technology in the field. The approach has become client-centric, with the clients becoming the managers…
Talent mapping in a large organisation with thousands of employees is almost like hunting for a needle in a haystack. To map the right talent with a certain skill or to identify an adaptable person to fit the new role is probably one of the biggest challenges for the HR and talent executives of large organisations. Any mistake may cost a lot for the upcoming assignments or functions. Amit Das, CHRO, Bennett Coleman & Company Training The hiring managers require thorough training too. Alkem Laboratories runs a skill-development programme for its hiring managers to fulfil this requirement. Rajorshi Ganguly, president…
Learning and development (L&D) together make extremely essential criteria in the path of growing with and within an organisation. However, with time, the needs of the hour change and so do the required skills to meet the specific demands. This renders learnt skills outdated, and there emerges a need to unlearn past learnings to accommodate newer ones. Starting from technology to behaviour, for every aspect, change is the only constant. Therefore, we need to create space inside the brain to introduce new skills. Unlearning is the process of coming out of a shell of skills and knowledge, with the support…
When the lockdown was announced, people and organisations had no clue as to what hit them. The sudden crisis changed everything overnight. All signs of normalcy at the workplace had vanished without warning. Certain functions had to be moved to the AI platform for the remote workforce to perform their duties without a hassle. This was definitely a very new experience both for organisations and their people. The crisis gave rise to the need to learn new things, especially in terms of technology. To meet the urgent needs, people of every level across all the industries had to undergo cross-functional…
According to a survey by Willis Towers Watson, Indians are likely to get 6.4 per cent average salary increment in 2021. Even though this seems ironical after the widespread layoffs in 2020, there are certain companies that are restructuring and reinvesting on their employees to retain the workforce. Recently, there have been several news reports of companies providing salary hikes including organisations in the government sector. Companies namely Quickheal Technologies, TCS, Axis Bank and some others have announced a probable increment for their employees. The Tripura Tea Estate has signed an agreement with the workers to pay 17 per cent…
With time moving forward and newer technologies coming in, changes in skills become a necessity for the organisations. Given the rapid changes in the work culture and the altering trends in skills to meet the demand of the future workforce, it is high time that the organisations tighten their belts to initiate the process of reskilling, upskilling and outskilling. Shreyasi Singh, CEO, Harappa Education “Even though the issue is being talked about by everybody across industries, the question remains as to how much effort is being made to execute the process. Are the organisations initiating it at all?” asks Shreyasi…
India is a country with a population of over 130 crores. According to a latest survey report published by the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE:2018-19), India presently has 993 universities and 10,725 autonomous institutions. It is estimated that the total enrollment count for higher education in India is approximately 37.4 million, out of which 19.2 million are male and 18.2 million are female candidates. Naturally, all these people will start looking for jobs as soon as they pass out of their respective institutions. Unfortunately, the lane to the market of employment is too narrow for this huge crowd…
‘Kindness’ has no particular definition. What is generally perceived as kindness is the act of trying to ignite hope in people’s minds when the odds are going against them. While the world faced a tough battle, millions of people lost jobs overnight, wages were cut — completely for some and partially for others —and people lived in fear unable to come to terms with all that was happening around them. Time, however, does not stop for anyone, and life goes on. During such hard times, all we can do is make each other feel comfortable by showing some kindness. Emmanuel…
Do academic success and good grades help in career growth in the long run? Or is competency the last word when it comes to the professional world? The fact is that people with good academic grades may not be able to deal with the practicalities of a professional work environment, because the skills required to shine in academics are absolutely different from those required to grow in a career. To gather good grades against the same age / peer group with similar set of experiences is different from competing in an atmosphere full of people with different experiences and skills,…
After the pandemic, the changing work culture proved that resilience and adaptability are important driving forces for any business, during a crisis. Other than external crises, such as the pandemic, resilience is also important to withstand intra-organisational crises. Speaking about how intra-organisational resilience may be helpful, Nihar Ghosh, president – HR, Emami, says, “Resilience is fundamental for any company. If there is no resilience, there will be no sustenance for the company during any crisis. Without any resilience, a company cannot have a long-term stand. For instance, during the pandemic, many companies without proper resilience folded up, while the ones…