Facial recognition attendance system, gamification of values and culture, and ‘Dext’ are additions to its digital journey to enhance employee experience.
In its attempt to futurise the workplace, Tech Mahindra has launched a facial recognition attendance system to enhance employee experience at different touch points. Under its TechMNxt initiative, the Company has introduced a plethora of programmes to make its employees future ready.
The new facial-attendance system powered by artificial intelligence (AI), designed by its own ‘techmighties’, is a step in this direction. Eliminating the traditional method, the system offers a seamless experience to employees, providing them the freedom to mark attendance through facial recognition. The initiative is also linked to the ‘moodometer’, where AI captures facial expressions of employees to help determine the overall mood of the organisation. It captures eight types of emotions—surprise, happiness, anger, contempt, disgust, fear, neutrality and sadness.
“We believe in the power of the eye, which is the power of an employee. The idea is to create a differentiated product for employees to keep them motivated and engaged. The engagement score, consolidated on a daily basis across locations through the ‘moodometer’, can either raise an alarm or hint at some positive action for us. Instead of opting for a yearly survey, this tool will help us gauge employee engagement on a daily basis,” said Harshvendra Soin, chief people officer, Tech Mahindra.
As new technology takes time to find acceptance in the system, the Company had to create awareness across locations through e-mail campaigns, where early adopters of the system are being acknowledged.
It has taken explicit consent from employees through sign-ups for the facial- recognition system, including attendance and associate engagement survey. An employee can offer consent, either to attendance or associate-engagement analysis and both. Employees have the option to revoke the consent at any time. In the first week of its launch, almost 25 per cent of employees in Delhi have consented to use the system. The AI system greets the employees by calling out their names, once the button is pressed and the image captured is converted to text and deleted automatically.
The system matches the image captured with the complete database of the employee concerned to register the attendance. The Company is conscious about the protection of privacy and data of its employees. Therefore, the engagement data at aggregate level of location is kept anonymous and only handled by the HR team.
The other initiative taken is ‘Rise with Dice’—a gamification technique to educate employees about the Company’s cultural tenets and core values through the game of snakes and ladders.
It reinforces understanding of the three tenets of the Company—accepting one’s limits, alternative thinking and driving positive change. Employees are rewarded with certifications based on their level of understanding, towards the end of the game. The game has been designed to help employees comprehend and translate the culture code into life scenarios on a regular basis by showing examples in their day-to-day decisions.
The Company has further invested in ‘Dext’, an initiative to drive a digital learning culture for its employees. To reskill the workforce, the Company has partnered with Unity Technologies, Pluralsight, edX.org and others to offer online training and certifications.
Through this initiative, the tech firm has trained more than 70 per cent of its employees in modules pertaining to new-age technologies, and aims to train 10,000 employees on automation this year. More than 90 per cent of its technical employees have undergone training in digital familiarisation and primary digital skills. Over 60 per cent of these have also undergone advance training on digital competencies, in areas, such as IoT, cloud, BI & analytics, networks and security services.
This is just the beginning of Tech Mahindra’s digital transformation journey. A lot more is being planned to nurture a talent pool, which is equipped and ready to face the digital future.