Ever since the
onslaught of pandemic, organizations across the world saw major shifts in their
accountabilities and responsiveness in navigating through unchartered courses,
bringing people & business operations back to normal. HR responded with
great agility and commitment to become a force to reckon with, leveraging
technology and diversified skillsets in unprecedented ways. We are rewriting
the “future of work, worker and workplace” every given day as we prepare
ourselves for an uncertain world. But this time we are more alert, aware and
prepared.
With the objective of
learning how workplaces are bringing their operations back to normal and people
back to work, SHRM and Oracle launched one of the largest APAC study inviting
55+ Organizations & their CHROs to draw insights from their experiences,
people & business priorities and future direction.
Here is a quick excerpt from the recently
launched SHRM - Oracle Workplace APAC 2021 insight report.
The 5 trends that are
detailed in the report are creating all the right noises with their accurate
depiction and collective reflection of on-ground realities.
- 1. The
first shift is about how we perceive employee experience through the lens of
Hyper-Personalization
The journey from EE to
EX is based upon lasting and contextual experiences which is turning out to be
a competitive advantage in the war for talent. Delivering a differentiated
employee experience is becoming a strategic lever for attracting and retaining
the right talent.
Today employees seek
‘Hyper Personalization” mapped to their individual needs, preferences and
choices. According to David Johnson, principal analyst in employee experience
at Forrester Research, “Moments that matter in the employee experience context
are points in time when an employee feels strong or meaningful emotions, either
positive or negative, that they will easily remember”. Hyper personalization
strategy is built upon an individualistic idiosyncratic experience interweaving empathy toward employees &
focus on their total wellbeing with technology
playing a critical role across the employee life cycle to deliver contextual
impact.
“VR (Virtual Reality)
and AR (Augmented Reality) would get into the hiring process and play an
important role in hiring. There would be reinvention in terms of how we
interact with each other and the way we work” says Rohit Thakur, ex-CHRO, Paytm.
A Hyper-Personalized
experience leverages AI and real time data to enhance employee experience in
way that establishes good will and increases loyalty.
- 2. The
second shift we are seeing is about Techno-ciency, primarily defined by a need
for digital savvy talent driving hiring decisions and process automation within
organizations, leading to enhanced productivity.
Talent configuration
will move towards those talents who are digitally savvy, come with a mindset of
getting things done digitally and can adapt to a remote work seamlessly.
Organizations are setting clear expectations from their internal and external talent
operating in a hybrid world on digital literacy, competence and dexterity being
the key pivots for future.
Digitally native
generations are evangelizing the technology adoption. The world is moving to a
paradigm where everything that can be digitized will be / must be digitized.
Therefore, digital skills will be foundational skills going forward. Also, the
focus remains on employee productivity and efficiency through adoption of
technology and investments in automation of employee life cycle. Role of data
analytics is maturing rapidly to deliver insightful predictions rather than
insightful analysis. Digitalization is paving the way for data analytics and
visualization which will drive future management decisions through richer
insights on the workforce and talent. Organizations are pouring investments in
digital upskilling of talent in order accentuate transformation of their
businesses digitally.
“I believe
Incorporating technology in our work processes has greatly helped us to move
faster, plan for future and ensure our people are performing as well as
prepared to perform well in the future which is the principle of our HR
department” says Kean Mun Loke, Head HR,
Top Glove Corporation Berhad.
- 3. The third shift is
about Total Wellbeing becoming a mainstream policy than a sub-header within
benefit plan.
Organizations are keen to provide for psychological net, which will form
the bedrock of employee-employer relationship. The concept of well-being is
expanding with the systematic inclusion of financial and other aspects and
seeing sustenance through policy formulation and creation of an ecosystem
driving systemic behavioral change.
The blurring lines between work and home has made more employees vulnerable
to mental stress, anxiety, loneliness and disengagement. While well-being and
mental health have continued to be on the radar, they are now getting integrated
with management practices.
Pharmaceutical giant, CIPLA, for eg, had a wellness app extended to all
their employees, providing them with a fitness regime, yoga and
meditation courses right at the confines of their home, while extending
counselling to employees to deal with stress, anxiety and any new issues they
were facing while working from home. In that sense, there is a continuous focus
on leveraging technology to make well-being monitoring and prediction more
sustainable and scalable.
Leaders and Managers are getting upskilled to be empathetic, and
sensitive to employee needs and create a psychologically safe work environment.
Preemita Singh, CHRO Hero Fincorp says, “There was a lot of work
required in the training of managers to help them understand how to lead in an
empathetic manner using a digital medium, this was a big initiative we
undertook”.
- 4. The fourth shift is
about Heliotropic Culture, becoming a centerpiece of an organizations digital
strategy augmenting the aspects of both Hyper-Personalized experience and
Techno-ciency as covered above.
Shaping organization’s culture to support virtual work paradigm shift is
an aspiration requiring an integrated organizational view of culture across
several aspects like workforce mix, digital aspirations and even agility as a
component.
Preserving the core and introducing new digital elements in the culture
is gaining traction. Movement towards an agile work culture has been
accelerated through hybrid work models.
New talent assimilation into the virtual culture by way of connecting
with organizational purpose is emerging as a new challenge for organizations. Increasing
adoption of Gig and Freelancers is re-shaping the traditional workforce models.
Focus is shifting on assimilating this diverse workforce as part of the culture
by leveraging innovations in technology for their hiring, on-boarding, work
allocation, performance, engagement and rewards.
Vishal Dhingra, HR
Director, Goodyear India Limited says, “I believe flexibility is going to be a key
differentiating factor in terms of attracting and retaining talent. I believe
that the hybrid working model will be the norm in the future specifically for
those working in offices (Non-Manufacturing (location based) and Non sales)
where employees may have more flexibility and freedom to decide the number of
days they want to come to office to work or work remotely.”
In short, Heliotropism is something that organizations must imbibe to
raise the bar if they were to become a talent magnet for a diverse millennial
workforce.
- 5. The fifth shift is
about Humanizing Connectedness, is about “living the Human” in Human Resource
for building a cohesive workforce.
HR’s focus on Humanising Connection in a
hybrid/virtual world by helping Organizations build Emotional and Relational
capital has come to forefront of people strategy.
There is a realization to preserve the social fabric
of the organization by blending digital and human touch. At the end of the day
while work can be delivered virtually from anywhere, relationships need to be
complemented by a sense of touch and feel, which are clearly being missed.
Investments and innovations in everyday
collaborations platforms to build cohesiveness are paving the way for a
workplace model that breaks silos and allows for free, fast and seamless
exchange of information.
“Our team also dialled up our communication to a level we’ve never done
before. We ran daily live streams for all our employees, we communicated on
topics they needed to know about how we were supporting the people, what tools
and tech was there for them, what seminars, extra leave and care was there for
them. That ability just to connect with leaders on a daily basis became very
important” says, Alex Badenoch, Group Executive Transformation
Communications and People, Telstra.
So, what does this mean
for the world of work across APAC?
Here is a quick excerpt
from Mr. Shaakun Khanna, Head, HCM Applications Strategy & Transformation, Oracle
JAPAC
Work models will change for almost all industries with
distributed workforce and Felix working as a business norm across industries
and sectors. Very few roles and regulation will need to continue with traditional
form of working.
While physical offices will remain, clearly the workplace
will undergo massive transformation. Significant part of office space is likely
to evolve into hubs of social activity and shared space will replace personal
offices.
As the focus on social, emotional, physical and mental
wellbeing increases, new ways of connection and relating will evolve and
organizations must continue to adopt and experiment with new technologies.
Organizations, in parallel, must also find ways to enhance the empathy and
mindfulness of their leaders – a herculean task.
Digital is not a choice anymore; it is the fundamental
block of workplace effectiveness. Anything that can be digitized, must be
digitized, using agile and future proof technology cloud platforms. Not
imbibing technology or investing in wrong technology can be suicidal for
organizations.
These valuable insights from APAC region will
become guiding principles for organizations at various stages of their
evolution to transcend and evolve their workplace practices with changing times.
Click on the link below to deep dive into the Workplace APAC 2021 research
findings and learn from their experiences and best practices.
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