Insights From an HR Conclave - "HR Response to the Technology Invasion"

Jain university organized an HR conclave titled " HR 3.0 The Technology invasion" on 24th February 2018  in collaboration with GWFM (Global workforce management forum) at its CMS business school premises  located at J P Nagar Bangalore. The conclave had a distinguished panel of speakers that included Dr Pramod Sadarjoshi, Sr Director,Oracle India,Mr Harjeet Khanduja,VP (HR) Reliance Jio, Rajeev Mendratta,Global head resource management,DXC technology, Umesh Pawar,CHRO Accenture,Satish Rajarathnam,Cognizant,Capt Partha Samai, Sr VP AGS Transaction technologies, among others. 

 As  I have covered aspects of  the impact  of artificial intelligence and  managing in a VUCA (Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world  in earlier blogs also, I am limiting this post to the key observations and insights.

• Future belongs to those who know where they belong- i.e. in the future!
• Your Email ID is your new residential address
• Either you are driver of VUCA or a derivative of VUCA  (Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) 
• Disruptions are on your face.This needs to be accepted as the order of the day and the organization should adapt suitably. Some disruptions include Uber becoming the largest taxi company without owning a fleet of vehicles, AIRNB becoming a successful hospitality service company, making available lodging facilities to customers without owning any estate, Skype & We chat providing video chat and voice call services without telecommunications infrastructure etc. 
• Talent acquisition is a challenge today-  to get the right guy, at the right time at the right cost.
• Today's world is a world of 'instant gratification'. 
• Employees desire to work for digital leaders 
• Job seekers are more interested in gaining employability rather than mere employment
• A Warren Buffet  quote during the discussion: - "Only when the tide goes down, you will know who is swimming naked."
• Among the largest companies by market, top five are in the intellectual capital field.
• 75% of work force by 2025 will be millennial. HR needs to prepare accordingly.
•  Proactive decisions will increasingly be made which would be based on analytics with top priority being given to driving productivity and engaging employees
• The onus of talent development will not be on HR alone but the line departments and on the individual employees as well. With the support of analytics it would be fast, good and cheap.
• Use of analytics in recruitment, performance reviews etc addresses effectively unconscious bias that causes a  havoc.
• Analytics makes traditional repetitive work easy, freeing HR to to focus on making sense of the data and gaining insights which only human beings can do.
• HR should focus on preparing their organization for the changes necessitated in the VUCA world; ask questions such as "How will data be available and used in the organization."It is important to get the core right.
• The focus should be on being obsolescence proof and achieving digital maturity. 
• Today, dialectical thinking is most essential in view of rapid changes, unpredictability and the need to modify one's role to the changed situation. Dialectical thinking refers to the ability to view issues from multiple perspectives and to arrive at the most economical and reasonable reconciliation of seemingly contradictory information and postures. Thus we see change in the nature and content of roles. As for example, tellers in banks today, apart from the traditional role  cross sell products of the bank.
• HR needs to ascertain the impact of all these changes and complexities on the energy of people and find suitable remedy.
• Loneliness among employees, not meeting real friends but interacting only with those on social media is a matter that HR needs to address. 
• CEO s these days speak of a 'Talent' problem. HR needs to ask itself "What is my strategy for elevating the skills of employees?" 
•   In the new scenario human skills (such as critical thinking and analysis) will be one of the 10 top skills expected of an employee.
• L&D will have an important role to play for building communities of practices with focus on  "How to learn from one another?". Technology would be an important tool for learning.
• A major challenge, as revealed by VP Oracle, is that 20 to 25% of new hires exit in the first six months. Here focus needs to be given to the on boarding process and ensuring the cultural fit.Technology can be used to assess the in boarding experience of new recruits and take corrective steps.
• The panel discussion on "HR analytics" pointed out that this has touched industries far and wide including health care, banks (wealth management advice) etc. and influences many decisions including  'purchasing decisions'. "We are not still there, but there are encouraging signs."
• Data points can help in taking right decisions,creating plan and building pipeline. It also contributes to cyber security.
• Analytics can be profitably used for recruitment, compensation, assessment and  work force management. Readers may like to read my short poem on this subject in a previous blog- https://corporatepoem.blogspot.in/2016/10/hr-analytics-and-four-abilities.html 

Having discussed key points that emerged during the conclave, I would like to conclude this post  sharing what transpired in the first session of the second half after lunch  that was handled by Mr Harjeet Khanduja,VP (HR) Reliance Jio, This session which was laced with a lot of humour, gave a holistic prescription of what HR needs to do in the challenging scenario of an invasion of  artificial intelligence. 

The speaker while on the topic of the pressures faced by employees today and the challenge of HR in getting them to come to back to work everyday, said  "If you create value, people will queue up at your gate." In this connection, he gave the example of "Apple" which has achieved this as a company. HR should give the employees a reason to work together and motivate them- "You can do it!"- HR can help employees to realize their potential. The speaker shared the example from the epic Ramayan, when Jambavan reminded Hanuman of his special powers and motivated him to fly across the ocean to Lanka. 

Another important role of HR in the present scenario is creating a culture with the same vision and values. Culture is like the orchestra. Every note has to be right. It is also important to manage the emotions of the old employees who should not feel left out and outdated. Managing policies is another key step.Some of the policies may be outdated with the advent of changes in the form of social media and technology. These need to be redefined and modified to current requirements.

Appetizing the processes making them interesting and current is another requirement. HR needs to focus on upgrading the HR apps and examine  how their apps are going to use BOTS. Another important role of HR in the present scenario is managing governance. As technology comes with all the risks, managing productivity and managing contracts is vital. Another important focus area is managing attrition. The challenges include not only that people are leaving but the dearth of skilled manpower and people moving all over the world today.

Another interesting  situation is that HR will have to continue to recruit in view of requirements, even when there is a lack of skilled manpower.  In this connection, there is a need for searching  far and wide   and polishing the talent from the taluks and villages. Managing inclusion is another challenge in view of increasing number of women in the workforce and higher mobility of manpower between states and countries. This is bound to be a regular and vital  job of HR in the days to come. 

As I left the venue of the conclave, I was glad that I had accepted the invitation of Jain university which turned out to be a rewarding experience. I said as much to Ms Preethi Bhandary, Manager Placement and corporate relations while thanking her for the excellent hospitality extended by her and her team..

Reinventing Talent Acquisition

The evening meeting of NHRD on 22/2/2018 had two speakers from two contrasting backgrounds and two contrasting styles of presentation; Mr Adil Bhandukwala Social talent evangelist representing Belong.Co and Mr Raghavendra Auradkar, IPS, Addl Director General of Police (Recruitment) of the Karnataka state.

The first speaker Aadil who is from a multinational background, underscored the fact that change is happening at a very fast pace  and this is to be kept in mind while approaching the subject of "talent acquisition". He displayed a list of preferred employers based on a study by a leading magazine. It showed that for every five year period from 2003 to 2009 and 2013, the 'pecking order' of preferred employers changed with different companies figuring in each list, meaning organizations can no longer take it for granted that they would continue to attract the best talent.The speaker then shared a  quote of Angela Ahrendts, Sr VP of retail at Apple: " I grew up in a physical world and I speak English. The next generation is growing up in a digital world, and they speak social", This means that you will have to speak the social language to the younger generation of today if you wish to attract,engage and retain them.

The entire talent map is being redrawn;power is shifting from employers to candidates. In the candidate driven market of today, the cost per hire is on the rise.There is an emphasis on speed and quality in hiring. Spotting and engaging talent is critical. Today there is a need to engage with prospective employees the way you would with customers.You cannot afford to wait for people to apply but need to go and find them like the sales people. In other words, the need of the hour is to shift from inbound recruiting to outbound recruiting. Talent maps and personas need to be generated which would involve among other things determining future talent needs, assessing viability of your current staff to meet the needs, sourcing high potential players in your field for future recruitment and developing a strategic plan to fill the identified skills and talent gaps.

The talent mapping exercise coupled with outbound recruitment, leveraging social media effectively will give you the direction and information as to where your talent pools are. They serve as a GPS directing you to the most efficient route and helping to foresee potential road blocks and enabling you to rework your plan if required. Aadil  gave an example of the position of "Devops Engineer" who are moderately hard to find in view of their limited supply as against a high demand. Opting for the traditional method of recruiting , by posting requirement on Naukri, would not be effective as they may not respond to the advertisement. On the other hand, utilizing the latest technology (Talent Map and persona generation framework) can get you all the relevant information for making the recruitment decision accurately and with speed. In the instant case, the following information among others becomes available

• There are only 2000 Devops engineers presently available in India with 2-5 years of experience, only 6% of them are female.
• The most common skill acquired by these engineers are in python.
• 793 of them are presently located in Bangalore, 96 in Chennai and 75 in Mumbai
• Presently Accenture employs the maximum number of Devops engineers      

The speaker said that niche social networks like Slack which are exclusive working/meeting place for  groups with specific skills like Devops can be effectively used to discover top, skilled talent. Leveraging Slack with discussion spaces like Hasgeek where like minded geeks discuss. learn new things and discover new opportunities, can be very effective for understanding preferences/ interests of future candidates and their suitability/fit for your organization. Quibb is a network that  lets you share what you're reading for work; post newsworthy articles, see what colleagues are reading, and discuss the day's industry news. The fifth elephant is the country's renowned science community and conference on data science, engineering and machine learning.

 In this connection one would do well to learn and use the art of scaling mobile phones.Tech conferences could be a good place to spot desired talent. Droidcon, for example is is a global conference focused on the engineering of applications built on top of Android. It provides a forum for developers to network with other developers, to share techniques, to announce apps and products, and to learn and teach. Mr Aadil Bandukwala signed off reiterating that the future of recruitment is in outbound.  

If the talk of the first speaker was on the new approaches that are necessary and have already begun to happen in the corporate sector in the area of talent acquisition, the second speaker for the evening shared his accomplishments and innovations in spite of the many challenges that one faces in the Government sector. Mr Raghavendra Avradkar ADGP said that when he took over in January 2015 as the chief of the recruitment wing, he was confronted with an acute problem of a huge backlog since no recruitment had been made for many years. The situation can be better appreciated when we look at the real time data which tells you that 40% of the police stations function without SHO (Station house officer) and the police personnel work for 14 to 16 hours in a day. The department worked on a war footing and as a result from January 2015 till date 37,000 people have been recruited. This is a landmark in terms of the speed and highest number of police personnel recruited in the country. 

The recruitment wing for the Karnataka police itself came into being only in the year 2002 and there are around 25 employees working for this wing. All activities of the department are required to strictly comply with the cadre and recruitment rules approved by the state cabinet. The speaker said that a major issue for him was to  build credibility for the whole system of appointment in view of a general public impression that recruitment to Government service is not based on merit alone but on  other considerations as well.It was decided to have zero tolerance for any deviation from the strict standard of the  recruitment process. In this regard, the assistance of technology was drafted and the entire process right from the stage of application to the appointment of successful candidates is now online.

The recruitment wing presently handles the recruitment of  police constables, sub inspectors,scientific staff and prison staff. On an average 25 lakh applications are received for a position of which 18 lakh are shortlisted  for the entrance test. The recruitment process includes an endurance test ( 1600 Kms run, long jump, high jump, shot put), physical standards test which prescribes minimum levels of height, weight,chest measurement,and viva voce. In order to ensure transparency, all the activities right from the written exam to the physical tests and viva are video graphed. The written tests are organized through independent educational institutions comprising of objective questions with an OMR ( optical mark reading) design.   

Mr Raghavendra said a number of innovations were introduced to make the recruitment process interactive and transparent for the candidates, This includes dedicated helpline, fax message intimations, display of eligible and ineligible list of candidates on line,  making available digital display boards  during the physical tests indicating the remaining time within which the candidate must complete the feat. Candidates know in advance that their process of evaluation would be in the alphabetical order. They can check the latest status of the process on "His page". The recruitment process of the police wing has obtained ISO 9000 certification and are in a mode of continuous improvement by bench marking with  other states and the corporates. 

Presently, the recruitment wing is focusing on the vacancy estimation for the next five years and also in developing a perspective plan for three years. The extent of the achievement of this Government department can be appreciated  only when we take in to account budgetary constraints, time spent on handling of  public litigation, delay in getting clearance for effecting changes/ improvements etc. Mr Raghavendra said that he took a decision not to obtain attested copies of mark sheets and other documents from candidates at the stage of application.The documents would be obtained from the selected candidates at the time of joining. This move of trusting the applicants, meant speedier processing and removal of a major hassle for the candidates who no longer have to go in search of gazetted officers . 

With that, the screen came down on a very interesting evening that discussed challenges and solutions of acquiring talent for two different sectors. Both have their challenges which may be a trifle different but they are working purposefully to meet them effectively in the long run...