In the November 2019 meeting of NHRD Bangalore, Mr Shreekant Arimanithaya, Global talent leader EY Global Delivery Systems spoke on the subject of "Talent Re-imagination in the Global Era". The speaker has over 26 years of experience in companies such as Britannia, Toyota, Phillips and GE. His present company, Ernst & Young collaborate across borders and provides innovative and strategic in-house services from one of the EY delivery centers in Argentina, China, India, the Philippines and Poland. It helps clients embrace change as an opportunity.
The speaker started out by saying that 'Re-imagination' is not an incremental change but an exponential one, turning the business model upside down. It would involve extensive use of digital technology. It would mean leveraging intangible assets such as culture, attitude, creativity. Re-imagination would mean obtaining learning lessons from outside one's own domain as also agility lessons from other domains,other companies and functions. It would require agile change management- being able to adapt, stand up on falling down.
The exercise would involve reshaping yesterday's workforce for tomorrow's talent requirements. The existing employees are to be made 'future ready' and then use them to recruit appropriate future employees. Harmonious working is to be achieved in a situation wherein five generations of employees are working together. 62% of companies are using flexible work force. There is a need for globally mobile employees. Curiosity, creativity, empathy and taking initiative is the need of the hour as robots are being increasingly used for routine jobs. To be able to work flexibly has become a workforce expectation.
While 'Re-imagining talent' there is a need to focus on employee well being. The new generation tend to change jobs every three years as they get bored easily. Therefore, preparedness is crucial by paying attention to new operating models, leadership capabilities, skill sets, workforce agility, culture and new working environment. Creating long term value is important. Here is where questions like "Why we should exist?" is important. Shreekant quoted Simon Sinek, Author & motivational speaker "Today, leaders and employees want a clarity on purpose". He also recommended that the audience watch the video of sinek available on you tube. I have included the video " Finding Purpose and Inspiration" here for the benefit of readers.
Building trust, being distinct from others through client
centricity, attracting exceptional talent and extensive use of data and
technology with values as the foundation is the need of the hour. The employee
is to be encouraged to build and personalize his/her career- You can be
yourself, your voice will be heard and you can make a difference. EY supports clients in the journey for making this happen. Curiosity is the key for building a better working world and keeping employees
effective, efficient and fit for the future. Collecting listening data , mood
tracking, culture survey etc. are to be done in an agile fashion to ensure
social listening and a healthy culture.
Insights into the
rate of engagement, reasons for separation, emerging trends, opportunities, and
potential problems can be gained by an automated HR dashboard. With the
support and insights gained from use of technology, you are in a position to
give the message to employees that "You can leave us but we can't leave
you and will continue to engage with you." Hybrid data management
platforms like Boomerang commerce enables organizations to
collect data of any type, source and structure to make data simple and accessible
across multiple vendors, deployments and workloads. The information thus
obtained is descriptive, predictive and prescriptive and enables decision
making like those made by a medical doctor.
There would be a
role for counselors to build life time relationships. In the circle of
attracting, joining, working and succeeding, a lot of personalization is
to be done within generalization. for which algorithms(Set
of steps to accomplish a task) have to be developed.The speaker discussed many
more data platforms that would be relevant and important in the digital era. As
for example interns are given tasks even as they are studying in college that skill
them appropriately for the needs of the company . Subsequently,their
credibility score is tracked and employment is offered if they meet the
requirements.
Shreekant, while
signing off, underscored the importance of culture in the organization which
comprises of the values and behaviour of the employees. It is not
about playing the game out of fear with an intention of 'not losing' but
playing on purpose and 'playing to win'. In the former case the focus would be
on controlling, being critical and pleasing. However, for achieving the
latter, purpose driven transformative leaders are necessary.
