PAVING THE WAY FOR RESILIENT ORGANISATIONS

We continue with the stimulating session from where we left in the last issue, wherein, young thought leaders brainstormed on how one can build resilient organisations that hold the potential to battle the Covid-19 pandemic situation. The panellists included Rajat Agarwal, COO & Head, Corporate Finance, Barista Coffee; Abhishek, COO, Eli Lilly; Aarti Mansukhani, Head People Experience, Volvo Cars; Manvi Sushil, Director, HR, South Asia, Avery Denison, and Priyansha Sharma, HRBP, Lenovo (Sydney), moderated by Dev Jha, Head, HRBP India, Carrier Midea and Core Team, NHRDN Delhi and NCR Chapter

"Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the kind of approach that we have embarked on as a learning journey to drive our strategy and getting our people across functions to come together, deliver on the MVPs "

- Aarti Manuskhani

Dev Jha: How do you propose the leadership of a small company can imbibe a sense of ownership in their employees, given that the organisation and the hierarchies are also flat and flexible?

Aarti Mansukhani: I think I can take this because we are comparatively a very smaller organisation and a flat organisation and I think it’s actually easier to build in ownership with people if you are small because it’s easier to pilot any initiative, get people together. Of course, there is a challenge if you are small. I can understand where this question is coming from, because you are small, you already are lean and you already have so much on your plate and then how do you really expand and be a part of a strategic initiative?

But, I think we have done it beautifully we used Covid-19 as an opportunity and we quickly put together small cross-functional teams where we actually took away some of the routine stuff from people that freed up their space, to then contribute to these cross functional teams and lead strategic initiatives. I think that’s the best way to build ownership where you know people are the ones who are coming up with an idea, finding out how do you execute it, reach out to other stakeholders, executing it, getting customer feedback, making it sustainable, presenting it to the leadership, challenging the leadership sometimes and saying that, “No, but this is how we need to do it now, we may be doing it earlier in a different way”. So, I think it’s, in fact, easier in a smaller organisation to do something like this but, of course, what you need to do is to relook at your current roles and understand that maybe what you have been doing till now, are these activities really required? Can we do away with those and bring in more strategic roles with our people so that they start taking ownership.

Abhishek: Pre-Covid-19 or post-Covid-19, I think the question that was being asked, it is relevant for both the times. Whether it is a large organisation or a small organisation, if people are at the centre of everything, I think the connect would be clearly established. And I will take the example from our own company talking about being a small company, we started with sixty-five people in 2016 and today we have one thousand and fifty. But there has been a journey behind it. Now, over the last four and a half years, we have seen a single digit attrition every year and there have been a few things that we practiced from day one, which helped.

Making sure that there is an environment of trust and transparency. People are connected with the purpose of the organisation. If I don’t know what I am working for and at the end of the day how my work is impacting to the overall outcome of the organisation, I would just consider myself as an individual in the organisation, not as an individual contributing to the overall success of the organisation.

To add to that, how much as a leader I have made myself vulnerable? How many times I have said that ‘I don’t know’? To be very frank if you ask me, I have this habit of going ahead in the down hall and saying that. It’s like if I say I don’t know, how will I be perceived as a leader? That, how come we are not informed. I started saying, “I don’t know. I will come back to you once I have the answer and if there is anything better that you know I will be more than happy to take that up.” And this has helped people connect a lot with the organisation and I would also say that you know it will always help people to bring their authentic self and to be open and transparent in the communication. Be it a good communication, be it a bad communication, the more we communicate, everybody will get to the change just fine. So, flat structure or lean structure is something, once you explain the people at the time of hiring, I think everyone understands that. Not many organisations have the luxury to have a flat structure today. Everybody is being asked to cut costs.

"We have seen during the lockdown wherein people felt disconnected and this is where the role of management and leadership is very important"

- Priyansha Sharma

Q: I would like to know your (Priyansha) perspective on how to bring a personal touch with technology?

Priyansha Sharma: Everyone is talking about technology. To be honest, for the last four to five or six months, what we have all seen or the only thing I would say we have learnt, is about the importance of resilience, digital transformation and of course, the flexibility. I wonder that had the organisations not invested in technology infrastructure, I am sure many of the businesses would have either shut down or we would have made roles redundant. So, of course, technology has played out to be a very important factor and even as per the McKinsey report, they mentioned that the demand for the future work skills is going to change with automation. And the roles which are very basic, which involves manual labour, they will phase out. And you will have to work towards creating a logical driven or require more emotional intelligence or have higher cognitive skills, and these roles are going to be in demand by 2030.

So technology is the future, but having said that I would say that we can’t discount the importance of personal touch and I think the organisations have now understood that technology is important and during the lockdown, we have also felt that if we are so much dependent on technology you will leave people either in isolation or there will be some kind of mental issues, which people will start having. So, many organisations have realised this thing and they are adopting a hybrid model. When we say hybrid model it means that now it’s the time that organisations think about restructuring or redesigning the jobs which can be automated like in the sense we can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) like chatbox, IVRs or robots in the roles which can be automated, which can speed up your work and can reduce the cost of the organisation, and use human services for the roles which require higher cognitive abilities. So, that’s where the role of HR is now, and taking an example of recruitment, you can use AI tools to screen your CV, may be you can carry out some kind of selection process also through AI, like psychometric tests or some kind of online quiz for the selection process. But you cannot take away the importance of personal interviews or group discussions, it’ll always be there you can’t take away that human to human connect.

"Everything is just evolving day by day. So, what we are realising is that future forward, it’s very important to understand what the needs of the talent group are"

- Manvi Sushil

Q: Enough has been talked about the pandemic recurrence situation and the challenges. So, one thing in particular that you (Manvi) are working on to cope with the change in the environment.

Manvi Sushil: There are several things. But if I just talk about one thing, it is making sure that our offers are targeted. Before launching a new product it’s important to understand who the audience is you are selling to. What is the segment that is important to you? What are the preferences of that segment? We are really trying to understand our challenges better in changing needs. So, I think the one thing that we are really trying to do to adapt to the future is how our talent preferences are changing? What you realise through this scenario planning is that it is actually changing a lot, right from the way you are going to approach opportunities, the way development conversations are happening, the way the internal job market is working, the way they expect the transparency etc. and the impact that is coming in.

Everything is just evolving day by day. So, what we are realising is that future forward, it’s very important to understand what the needs of this talent group are. And here again, I am distinguishing talent from employees because we have so many people across levels that we hire and want to retain. But there is a special subset of people that we really want to aspire them to really take the reins of the company in a short while. So, this is where we are really working and are putting a lot of our energy into. So, that’ll be a critical differentiating factor for us to provide in these times because these will be the people who would make all the difference for us.

Q: It is also important to look at the upskilling part. Aarti, tell us your thought on this, how are you driving employees’ upskilling in your organisation to meet the needs of the future?

Aarti: Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the kind of approach that we have embarked on as a learning journey to drive our strategy and getting our people across functions to come together, deliver on the MVPs. The impact that it has created is, for example, we had our finance manager who recently when she was debriefed about, she was leading one of the MVP’s, which was totally unrelated to finance. It’s more to do with on-boarding our dealers on the new way of working or how you are working on our contactless programme and her being from finance when she was debriefing on this MVP to the leadership, she actually said that she can change her role from a being finance person now to becoming a network person. So, for a cross-functional person to actually say this I am not doing just finance anymore and I also have learnt and successfully launched a contactless programme with the support of other people in the company, is a big success for us from a learning perspective. That’s the kind of model that we are following for upskilling our people and again, you know getting them to stay connected with the purpose of the company and contributing to the strategy.

"Our people are behind the value we bring to the patients and society and that is why we actively cultivate a culture of teamwork and individual"

- Abhishek

Q: In the changing environment when people are less likely to stay in a job for many years, how can business maximise as return on investment with regards to employees?

Abhishek: I firmly believe that if we nurture an environment of trust and transparency, make the employees feel cared for, connect the individual with the purpose of the organisation and help them bring their authentic self to work, productivity will always be at its peak, regardless of the time we spend with the organisation. I also feel that it will have a positive impact on retention as well. Our people are behind the value we bring to the patients and society and that is why we actively cultivate a culture of teamwork and individual. Everyone can bring their own authentic self, diverse ideas, perspective and experiences and that is where what we have implemented so far these things. We see that the attrition is in the single digit.

Now, there are some examples of where and how this personal connect because each and every experience that you share with the employees or give to the employees goes a long way in building the brand of the organisation. For example, right now, during Covid-19 pandemic, I have a few numbers of employees who have been infected with Coronavirus. I could have easily asked one of my colleagues in the team to talk to them, however, I made sure that I am personally in touch with each individual until they have recovered. It takes me hardly five minutes or maybe half an hour in a week, but the amount of gratitude that they have for the organisation, because at the end of the day, for them, I represent the organisation and leadership.

Ultimately, it’s the employee experience that we as an organisation, can provide that strengthens the emotional connect between our company and our current and future employees. Everybody’s operative question is why do I care to work here? If that is being answered, I think the productivity, the retention, everything will be on the table for you.

"Consumers have become very health conscious, it’s again an opportunity for us because the ordering pattern and the buying pattern is more towards now, looking at the organised plane"

- Rajat Agarwal

Q: We are going to see a new face of food, retail and hospitality industry now and so I want to take your (Rajat) perspective as to how does the world look like to you now and what do you think are tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities?

Rajat Agarwal: The way I see is that today, most of the retail organisations are again on the level headed in terms if there was an organisation which has won the race, like 20-30 per cent more than a better review. Everybody has pretty much been brought to a single level. So, everybody has a similar opportunity today because everybody got through the same churn, everybody has faced similar realities of where everybody kind of tuned down. If I were to say today, what’s the difference between a startup versus a business, which is 20-year-old, the only difference is there is an idea, they have an idea and they have to prove it on the ground. We have an idea, we have a ground, which is already made for us. That’s the only difference.

So, we just need to look at how do we capitalise on what has been the regional opportunity. The face of regional opportunity has changed to a large extent. Consumers have become very health conscious, it’s again an opportunity for us because the ordering pattern and the buying pattern is more towards now, looking at the organised plane. For example, if you were to look at coffee ordering facility today, you may have Starbucks as your likes or your first preference, you may not like to order from any third party or an unknown brand because you are not sure about the safety and the hygiene practices. So that has become utmost, which is why we see a spur on the business side more than what some of the other unorganised players are seeing. So that’s a big opportunity, as I said, on the retail side, a lot of inventory is available, it’s a good time to expand into business looking at a lot of avenues. So, this was the time when we looked at a few things which we never thought of.

Every time the focus was to look at offline business increase but this was the first time we looked at online in a big way. So how can we look at online without looking at strategic alliances, which have nothing to do with what you do at the store. At one point in time, we were evaluating because there was a need that essentials shops can open amid the pandemic. We were looking at how can we make Barista an essential place? How can we reach in our portfolio to get them a license to operate, being in the essential zone? So those are the things that we thought of, which were never even put on the brainstorming table because every time we were talking about a certain set level of growth. So, this time post-Covid-19, it made us learn and look at certain strategic initiatives which were always there but were never taken up with a lot of energy because there were so much of things you needed sales to handle. So, those were the things where we as an organisation dwelled upon, brainstormed and a lot of strategic initiatives were planned, which I think if the business had not gone into the level, we wouldn’t have ever thought of. So, there were a lot of operational and organisational changes.

Strategic thinking was not only at the management level, pretty much everybody was made to think. So, for example, I, at a senior level, who was thinking in an organisation, a store guy was also thinking about what should we do differently in this store. The thinking was happening at each level, it was not that it was only happening at the maturity or the key managerial level. There are a lot of opportunities in the retail space to grow and also a lot of people have realised that people have, in their own way, have become self-resilient. That’s how do they come out of the bad times, it’s not only organisations who have learnt about resilience or being resilient. At an individual level also, this is a big event which has happened and not only organisations but at the individual level, people have also become resilient.

Q: Talking about retention of employees, retrenchment, building trust and at the same time uncertainty of the organisation, how would you like to handle this scenario if faced with it?

Priyansha: I will give an example of Lenovo because Lenovo has been very proactive in decision-making and forming site leader concept. For the Asia-Pacific market if you see, we had site leader concept for each market where there is a general manager level person who was very quick in making decisions, with regard to Covid-19, the impact of Covid-19 and putting up guidelines in place and making people aware of health and safety and prioritising for business. So, where there is uncertainty, the role of management is very important. They have to be very transparent, they have to maintain engagement with people on a personal level. Personal experience and personal connect with employees are very important. Because we have seen during the lockdown wherein people felt disconnected and this is where the role of management and leadership is very important. So, I think communication is very important in this aspect for engaging people and keeping them hooked on to you, and of course, having transparent policies and processes in place. Until and unless you involve people, you can’t engage them. So, whether it is a smaller organisation or larger organisation, engagement with people is very important.

Q: In a world of the big economy or aggregated driven business model, what would be the theme, and the must have organisational practice, its skills, personal resilience leading into group resilience beyond organisation boundaries?

Manvi: We manage to connect as a human race through the isolation, through the various forms and formats, whether it is personal groups, Zoom calls and so on. I think the social connect has not changed. We have also adapted quickly across the boundaries of the organisation. An example that I can talk about is the renaissance happening in the packaging sector while participating in the Economic Time Packaging forum. It is a completely virtual forum, where all packaging industries will share their strategies, as to how they are evolving, their go-to-market strategy. That is something very exciting for us because this is the first time we are participating in the virtual conference and we are hoping to learn from it and organise one for our own. These are various ways in which, I think situations are evolving.

Q: With the resilience becoming a key differentiator for organisation and employees, how do you measure resilience to a data-backed approach at an individual level?

Rajat: Resilience was not only at an organisational level but also at an individual level and the measures of resilience are not only qualitative, there are a lot of quantitative aspects of measuring resiliency. The way someone who has to envisage in terms of how resilient we are in an organisation, we need to see in the last six months of Covid-19 pandemic, how and to what extent versus being in the group which you are operating in; how you have been versus some of the peers which have been operating in the similar zones.

One level of data configuration which can be looked at whether what kind of bounce back you have seen versus the resiliency which was shown over the last five-six months, in a lot of organisations if I take a small example of retail, there has been a lot of cuts in the allowance where people have been kind of retrenched. That is another level of seeing how the organisation has in the last four-five months been operating and how they have survived this entire pandemic situation.

From an employee’s perspective, employees which kept their faith in their organisations and still are continuing to be in the organisation, keeping the organisation’s objectives first because a social connect and an emotional quotient connect is something which came out to a large level in these last five-six months. And there has been a lot of bonding which has happened, which was seen because once you are interacting at a very discreet level. Interaction zone and interaction magnitude increases to a large extent and employees who are still being in the organisations and want to continue to be part of the organisation, supporting the growth and even been through these tough fights, have shown their resilience in a certain way itself. That’s what I would like to say.

Abhishek: If you look at the last eight-nine months, we all have been suffering from stress. We have our job that pays, we are happy we are doing that, we are supporting but can we say that we are not suffering from anxiety? Everyone is suffering from anxiety because we are not into our social space, we are not into our own office space. Now we know, each one of us knows how much we love our office space. At that moment if we also put a perspective of like everybody is resilience, you are doing resilience, I am doing resilience on top of that if the organisation comes literally, fails to measure the resilience of mind, I am not sure how immediately I will take it up. So, I hope my perspective here would be that have trust because if your organisational philosophy all of a sudden changes within six months, that also says that consistency is not maintained. So, my view would be that the trust that you have, reposed on the employees right from day one, that continues.

Priyansha: The true quantification of this resilience will be in the business results and that will speak for itself. So, I think we must stop measuring effort and we must start measuring outward. In our mind space, we always had that thought, but I think it’s really the time to bring that appropriation. If there is one good thing Covid-19 has done to us, I think it’s this.