IIM ROHTAK HUMANE-R CLUB Presents
HR LLETIN
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VOLUME 101
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H U M A N E - R | V O L U M E 101
HR BULLETIN
Employee loyalty is a mindset alignment between the self and the organization - a journey from mere compliance to commitment Experts say that commitment and willingness to go the extra mile are critical factors when it comes to rewarding employee loyalty. In the era of ‘Great Resignation’, where companies are striving to retain their star performers and professionals are looking for the next big offer, one of the questions which has plagued us is - "What is the reward for loyalty?" This simple question set us off on a quest to decipher the elusive concept of loyalty - for organizations, leaders, and employees - and understand what it means to different people, if it should be rewarded, and if organizations are doing enough in this regard. Our first pit-stop in thand as employers. We traced the instances in which we have observed loyalty, and this led us to realize that as a notion, in the eyes of the beholder, loyalty is obvious when it exists, crystal clear when it doesn’t, but is also nearly impossible to pinpoint when it lands in the gray area. And unfortunately, most people land in the gray area. So, how do we then define loyalty? Is it just a figment of our imagination, is it an intangible feeling, or is it an empirically-rooted product of something?
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H U M A N E - R | V O L U M E 101
For us personally, loyalty is a function of three facets: the leader’s vision, the overall ecosystem around us, and organizational culture. Having said that, we know loyalty is not easy to define when workforces include a multitude of generations - baby boomers, Gen Z, and Gen Y all co-existing where each one has a different perspective and parameter for loyalty. Moreover, today, the workplace itself is different; it no longer refers to just a tangible office, where upward mobility is as obvious as the C-suite on the top floor. It lives in the Cloud, it’s networked, social, mobile, global; employees may be contingency workers, consultants, or even gig workers. A generic one-size-fits-all mentality towards loyalty will not succeed in this day and age. To better ascertain the constructs of loyalty, we reached out to nearly 40 CXOs, leading academics and other industry thought leaders, to help us develop a well-informed opinion on this subject. Featured below are summarized excerpts from this exchange. Defining employee loyalty through mindset alignment in today’s workplace Our respondents shared varying expositions on the subject. However, the resounding sentiment was that tenure does not equate to loyalty. Instead, strong commitment and resilience through the organization’s peaks and troughs, consistent value-creation, stewardship for the company, and ownership of work were the most recurring themes. One leader succinctly stated [response edited for clarity]: “Loyalty is defined by the employee’s very strong commitment to giving their best, and looking out for the interest of the organization. It does not matter whether they stay for a mere 2-3 years; rather, what matters is how intensely they feel about the organization, while they are with the organization.” These views led us to establish that employee loyalty is a mindset alignment between the self and the organization - a journey from mere compliance to commitment. Tenure, commitment, and going the extra mile- what takes precedence while rewarding employee loyalty? To help answer this question, our thought leaders were given the choice between four options, and were asked to rank them from 1 to 4, with 1 being the highest: (i) tenure, (ii) commitment, (iii) going the extra mile, (iv) proactive approach on improvements. The highest rated factors were: commitment (~62% ranked this as most important), and going the extra mile (~51% ranked this as most important). The lowest rated factors were: tenure (~30% ranked this as least important), and proactive approach on improvements (~35% ranked this as least important). Nevertheless, it was interesting to note that tenure was rated as the second most important factor by ~35% of the respondents. Hence, we can decipher that although commitment and going the extra mile are the primary deciding factors of loyalty, tenure also plays a role in this calculation. This is unsurprising as most organizations continue to hold recognition ceremonies for their ‘long service’ or ‘long tenure’ employees, implying that in practice, this is the top most factor in denoting an employee as loyal. Organizations spend significant amounts on employee engagement and experience creation, nonetheless somewhere along the way we have become far too generic with our approach. When we hire at an individual level, manage exits at an individual level, then why do we paint employee engagement with a mono-toned brush stroke? If commitment and going the extra mile signal loyalty toward a company, doesn’t this imply that the reverse should also take place? As an organization, we are also committing ourselves to an employee, but are we going the extra mile to keep the said employee happy? To understand what we can do, we must first understand the drivers of loyalty. In an age where productivity and output matters more than anything else, we asked our leaders if they believe that employee loyalty is still being celebrated by organizations today. A resounding 43% said that loyalty is still a priority, 27% said it isn’t, and 30% were unsure…
Read more at: https://www.peoplematters.in/article/employee-engagement/employee-loyaltyis-a-mindset-alignment-between-the-self-and-the-organization-a-journey-frommere-compliance-to-commitment-34260
H U M A N E - R | V O L U M E 101
3 ways payroll software can help ease compliance issues Here’s how SMEs & Startups can lead payroll transformation by using an automated Payroll Software which integrates compliance changes. SMEs are the backbone of the Indian economy and are known to employ 40% of the country’s workforce with an average growth rate of over 10%. This points out the rapid expansion of such enterprises, with their leaders investing their time and resources in redesigning their business strategies and building innovative products and services. But SMEs face a range of challenges when processing payroll. A study led by RazorpayX Payroll has shown that 53% of SMEs face issues with tracking, calculating and making compliance payments, and 45% spend too much time on input collection, often extending business hours. Given limited funds, SMEs may recourse to manual payroll calculation, but the incidence of risk is higher in such cases and, inevitably, higher potential for legal troubles. It’s also alarming that the annual average loss depending on legacy systems is INR 67 lakh per SME. This is why compliance through new-age technologies is an urgent conversation to carry forward, and in this article, we list three steps to help your small enterprise address compliance issues with ease and ensure that digitally-driven payroll management is a success. Staying updated with changes in compliance regulations Since the onset of the pandemic, the economy has become unsteady, with inflation and economic growth taking place alternatively or side by side. Governments will inevitably change compliance laws to manage this, and keeping all these changes in check can be a mammoth task for HR teams…
Read more at: https://www.peoplematters.in/article/technology/3-ways-payrollsoftware-can-help-ease-compliance-issues-34294 4
H U M A N E - R | V O L U M E 101
Embracing Automation as a worker's companion Automation technology has not only proven to help solve the challenges caused by the labor shortage, but it can also help businesses solve the workforce gaps that they are experiencing. In recent years, we see Indian enterprises beginning to embrace technologies such as Robotic Process Automation, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at scale to address the challenges of the labor shortage, particularly in the finance, healthcare, automobile, and telecommunications sectors. The medical and e-commerce industries took a leap as well, especially during peak periods of the pandemic. The Great Resignation has emerged as a defining phenomenon of the pandemic, and businesses across the world are feeling its impact. The pandemic has pushed employees into reconsidering their career priorities, placing greater importance on work-life balance, mental health and meaningful work. Employees in India are frustrated and exhausted by monotonous and repetitive tasks. Many are experiencing an increased workload, as they take up new tasks and responsibilities outside of their job description, while employers struggle to fill vacant positions. According to UiPath’s 2022 Global Office Workers Survey, 70% of office workers in India are experiencing increased pressure at work, brought about by the heightened level of resignations in the past year. This number, in fact, is the highest in all the regions polled. It only goes to show that companies must create an environment that has the right technologies to support their employees alongside mission-driven principles to motivate them. Limiting the impact of the great resignation…
Read more at: https://www.peoplematters.in/article/strategic-hr/embracing-automationas-a-workers-companion-34313
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H U M A N E - R | V O L U M E 101
Building wellness-conscious managers The role of managers in ensuring the team remains productive has risen in a world of remote and hybrid work. But when it comes to wellness, can we enable them to play a similar role? While wellness programs have been pivotal in improving employee well-being, their efficacy greatly depends on qualified and interested managers. The ones who can successfully drive wellness conversations and ensure that their team goals align with the need for their team members' well-being are poised to have more successful wellness programs. Employee adoption and engagement remain a problem central to the success of wellness programs. For example, the Aon Global Well-being report notes that over 42% of employers said employee engagement/ interest was a challenge when expanding or starting well-being initiatives. A similar trend was recounted in India, where the People Matters and MediBuddy Wellness 360 Research study found that over 56% of companies said engagement was a big challenge. Managers must be brought into the fold to design and implement wellness initiatives successfully. They need to be upskilled and equipped to hold the right conversations and be invested in their team's well-being. This was a key message shared in a recent webcast by People Matters and MediBuddy on "Creating wellness-conscious managers." Managers need to be equipped For the panellists in the webcast discussion, the agreement that managers are crucial stakeholders in the wellness journey of an employee was unanimous. For Dr Sunil Chandy, Chief Medical Officer, ITC India, the first step to making managers aware of the nuances of the wellness program. "For many managers, this is an entirely new focus being pushed, and many are yet to be completely aware of the ambit of changes around wellness that companies plan to bring in," he said.
Read more at: https://www.peoplematters.in/article/employee-engagement/building-wellnessconscious-managers-34278?media_type=article&subcat=strategichr&title=building-wellness-conscious-managers&id=34278 6
H U M A N E - R | V O L U M E 101
Productivity paradox & the four horsemen Innovation using technology is rising every day. Technology is now truly here to automate, make decisions, cure sickness, and take us to the stars. Productivity is the holy grail of human enterprise. Over the centuries, from the time man discovered the wheel, we are constantly pursuing how to improve our lot through improvement by doing more of what we do in less time and with less effort. In modern times, especially in the past few decades, the promise of technology, initially analog and lately digital, have improved productivity across the global board significantly. But data shows that productivity has been enhanced at a low 1%per year in the last 30 years! Innovation using technology is rising every day. Technology is now truly here to automate, make decisions, cure sickness, and take us to the stars. But for the productivity of an enterprise to improve, we have some distance to cover. It requires skilling or reskilling of the workforce and the redesign of work to adapt to best utilize the benefit offered by the technology. There are two elements to this - one, the speed of innovation driven by technology, and two, the speed of transformation of the human who must adopt new designs of work and skills. The rate of innovation has been amazingly high in recent years, but the speed of human transformation has not picked up. Therefore, the secret lever to enhancing productivity is to accelerate human change. This begs the question - When technology created by human drives innovation at such a breakneck pace, why is our own pace of change slow? We can find answers in neuroscience. While innovation is a problem solved by the mind, transformation (or lack of) is a problem of the mind. Change of any kind requires a difference in behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs. This is hard for most adult minds. Let me explain why.
Read more at: https://www.peoplematters.in/article/strategic-hr/productivityparadox-the-four-horsemen-34286
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