Employee experience: What’s high on agenda
Employee experience will be critical. It’s because there is an overall sense of uncertainty and pessimism due to economic slowdown and layoffs. This has led to employees feeling insecure and lonely in this journey. On top of it, the AI wave and the theory that it will eat up jobs is adding to the woes. Employee motivation and the will to excel, is taking a backseat.
All of these may lead to employees becoming passive. Many of them may ponder over whether to stay in an organisation or look for other better pastures or even try entrepreneurship. That fact that the job market is not as robust, as it was five years back, is leading to career stagnation which eventually may lead to lower productivity, blame-game, less innovation and overall mediocre performances.
In such a situation, organisations will have to build-up morale, show career growth and protect talent. Employee experience will be affected due to both external and internal factors. There are companies which are growing rapidly, but they are few in numbers. Hence its critical that organisations focus on enhancing every employee experience be it day-to-day interaction with managers and senior leaders or getting a comprehensive direction on a query instead of a standard ‘bot’ answer. Faster approval or rejection of a specific project, perceived transparency in internal job posting or a mediclaim reimbursement faster than a Swiggy delivery is what employers will have to provide. Everything that will sustain morale, positivism, hope and passion, will matter. That’s the key.
The biggest challenge for HR in your sector
It’s employee productivity and capability building. With cost of raw material swaying a lot in this sector, profitability will be under pressure. Engagement, getting the best innovation, controlling some of the costs and at the same time, delivering consistently will be a key challenge.
Talent and culture will also play a role in this journey of productivity and capability building. It’s not just mere length of experience that will affect productivity, but the ability to understand the industry, environmental constraints, other organisation specific challenges. Besides, building capabilities will have to keep pace with time and HR, technology and leaders will have to jointly address this.
The next CHRO – the learning Officer, the talent officer, the HRBP or the engagement officer
This is not easy to answer in the sense it will be a tie. The chief learning officer (CLO) has to understand business, individuals, departments and organisation’s objectives and future capability need. The chief talent officer (CTO) has to be very sharp on business, culture, individuals and organisation dynamics. The HRBP has to understand business, individuals, systems, processes, external environment and operations culture. The chief engagement officer (CEgO) has to understand culture, values, EVP, compensation, policies, leadership styles, business dynamics. While there are few common elements each has to understand – the key is not only how each one delivers in the respective areas but what is even more critical is strategy, managing large complex businesses, execution capability, people management, environment management, compliance and regulatory. Whoever shows that potential over and above the current role would be most suitable – and no one is entitled just because of the current designated role.
Robotic Process Automation – HR to play a more decisive role
I guess RPA will free time and also produce faster efficient output if deployed carefully. HR will have time to get involved in other stuffs and be more decisive. It is like instead of calculator, we now have a computer. One doesn’t have to remember tables or do the maths on paper but today one is free to think what else to do? Soon RPA will have to be seen as an aid to free HR for thinking, better analysis, better quality of worklife, career progression, better working environment and better leadership. All of these, will lead to better profitability and sustainable growth.
