Caring, enablement, and human leadership: the way forward in 2023

The future of work is shaped by leaders who understand and support their employees’ needs, who achieve organisational success through employee experience.

Shruti Tandon, Managing Director of People Enablement at Nagarro, describes why these leaders’ approach will successfully overcome the challenges of the near future By

People Matters Editorial team

Going forward into 2023, leaders around the world need to strongly understand the areas of people management and people leadership that will most affect the future of work. Many challen- ges have emerged over the last few years that require HR leaders to rethink their approach and develop new solutions, or to refresh old solutions that can still be made fit for the new environment.

In a conversation with People Matters, Shruti Tandon, Managing Director of People Enablement at Nagarro, talks about the future of work and how to tackle some widely discussed challenges that will continue into this year.

The definition of the future of work varies from person to person, depending on how they see the future. How do you personally define the future of work?

Interest in digital workplace transformations and more flexible hybrid workplace models is not a new concept. However, the pandemic has accelerated these trends and forever changed the way we perceive the workplace of the future. It has now become imperative for HR leaders to evaluate the immediate and long-term impact of COVID19-induced trends and the degree to which existing solutions and talent strategies need to be tweaked to ensure safe and resilient change. It has also necessitated a move away from past standardisations, and now the need of the hour is a unique, hyper-personalised experience for each employee in the organisation.

To me, the future of work means responding to these fast-shifting priorities of talent, understanding and adjusting to the new power shift, and gearing up to redesign the company's culture in a way that the top talent wants to work for you. To achieve this and to be the employer of choice, you must be a feeling organisation – a workplace that cares for its employees and gives employees the flexibility they desire. I truly believe that Work From Home or Work From Anywhere (WFA) is the future of work and is the surest way to ensure the right growth trajectory for us, as well as our colleagues.

Most Nagarrians around the world work from anywhere, including our 13,000 colleagues in India. We believe that if you're willing to spend eight hours and have an internet connection, how does it matter where you are working from? Very often we see our colleagues being online from Goa, from Bir, or other exotic locations. We have always been focused on the idea of borderless work. Flexibility and employee experience are supercritical pieces and must be treated must start asking questions that relate to employees, such as: are the employees feeling overworked or are they dealing with work beyond their capacity? Are they feeling motivated enough to do the work they are doing? Do they know the purpose of their work? Trends in the industry may change but organisations can always choose to respond in a way that positively influences their relationship with the employees. This relationship can be termed the culture of the organisation and will not just address the quiet quit- to bE tHE EMPLoyER of CHoICE, you MuSt bE

A fEELING oRGANISAtIoN – A woRKPLACE tHAt CARES foR ItS EMPLoyEES AND GIvES EMPLoyEES tHE fLExIbILIty tHEy DESIRE as the number one priority by the HR fraternity. I feel companies are increasingly realising that it is employee experience that shapes organisational success, and this realisation is great for the future of work.

How is quiet quitting affecting the future of work and how can organisations better tackle it?

Employees need to be cared for in an organisation through intense personalised experiences. To understand quiet quitting behaviour, organisations ting challenge but will also help the organisation evolve.

An organisation is an ecosystem and employees should feel an important part of it. We have to realise and accept that employees are individuals – they are people who want to feel involved and engaged. They are not just resources or one pool of people. Each workplace has a unique culture and is not a concrete or unfeeling, mechanical structure. It is a collective of people who must all consider the growth of the org anisation

| as a common goal, as well as find their own good in the company’s good. It is a symbiotic bond. Moreover, each person wants to engage in a different way. Our role as HR is to understand each of these individual demands and ensure that we have programs that appeal to each individual. We must enable every single person, and each organisation that aspires to grow has to appreciate the fact that a one-sizefits-all approach is not going to work.

It is also important to develop a culture of constant feedback within the organisation which gives an avenue of interaction between people. At Nagarro, we recently launched a development tool called ‘Anytime Feedback’, which helps with continuous self-development for each Nagarrian, who can leverage this to send realtime feedback without waiting for bi-annual or annual cycles. It allows them to give feedback/suggestions/ praise anyone within the organisation – be it their peers, their seniors, or even the senior leadership. In this process, they really feel engaged and feel that their opinion matters. The power of real-time feedback is immense, and it can help drive a high-performance culture and environment of trust where people feel safe, valued, and cared for.

Lastly, organisations must also see to it that employees are firewalled against additional strains this current work environment places on them. In a disconnected work environment, it is easy to feel disengaged and not supported. As is the case with human relationships, you remember people for their legacies of kindness and goodness long after they have gone. Similarly, people remember organisations for how valued they made them feel. People need constant and continuous reinforcement, both internal and external. And that's where we must remember that relationships need to be actively built and nurtured within the organisation. That is the key to achieving a strong sense of belongingness. All of this is what I feel will help address quiet quitting.

According to a recent survey by Executive Networks conducted across CHROs, 83% of the respondents said that they were struggling with talent retention. Going forward, what should be the right success mantra for HR professionals to better retain talent?

In the current scenario, it’s not just salary or bonuses that set companies apart. It is imperative for organisations to refocus – they must create exceptional employee touch- points that make people feel valued and appreciated and encourage them in many ways to be with the organisation for a longer period of time. They must be more flexible in their approach. Most HR leaders stay divided on remote only or hybrid work models for success. At Nagarro, we have gone far beyond that realm. For us, WFA has been a game changer and we have managed to grow fastest by hiring talent where it wants to be. We are now in 35 cities across the country by opening offices which we call ‘Hives.’

Even though we follow a permanent WFA concept, Hives are spaces that allow our people the option of working from their hometown and being in the office whenever they want to socialise. The Hive creates a local network for socialising, brainstorming and even doing social work, while collaborating remotely on global projects with colleagues from across the world.

Lastly, organisations must consciously invest in automation that can drive intense personalisation. We have to invest in the right kind of tooling that would enable that support. We need to be able to better gauge employee sentiment to help determine where early intervention may be needed that will help them stay product- ive and engaged. The need to use technology to personalise messaging and to nudge employees for effective communication has never been greater. With a large number of people working remotely, keeping them connected in a digital world is a challenge and organisations must invest in this.

In the corporate world, assessment is a two-sided term. On what grounds do you think an employee is going to assess the performance of their leaders going forward?

Post-pandemic, the entire landscape has changed, including the expectations of colleagues. The topmost attribute an employee seeks in a leader is empathy. Leaders with compassion – those who can put themselves in the shoes of others and understand the needs of their teams will be the ones that will efficiently drive distributed teams in today’s environment.

The second attribute would be effective and consistent communication. Employees like engagement and constant communication from their leaders, and this goes a long way in providing clarity of expectations and also in establishing a relationship of trust. Thirdly, employees will also look up to leaders who have an openness towards feedback. A leader should be

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