Letters of the month

Generative ai – the new wavemaker of the automation a G e

AI truly is the future of work. At a time when companies are cutting costs by layoffs, and worse still laying off lower-level jobs only to push that lower-value work to senior people, this is one more tool that we can use to relieve the burden. Writing job ads and job descriptions. Creating reports. Even helping us to prepare speeches for meetings presentations. It's no wonder some companies are offering huge sums for people expert in using AI, the cost savings in time and resources are more than worth it.

- CHARLOTTE BOQIN

Is a four-day workweek really worth it?

A four-day workweek is something that must take a very mature workplace to succeed. By which, meaning both managers and staff have very mature ways of thinking about work and performance. Sadly our working culture in Asia is often not evolved enough to really have such an innovation without people spoiling it in some ways. We would frequently see that both managers, and staff, would somehow misunderstand work-life balance or even deliberately implement it in a way that is not intended. There is a long way to go to make this a viable option.

- PRIYA SINgHAL

7 Ways Reading Can Boost Your Career Success

If only this article can be disseminated to young people who do not want to read or worse still, only read what they think is necessary for their school or work. It is an underrated skill that schools do not sufficiently encourage, nor do employers properly factor it in when looking at the potential of people to advance in their role.

- SAkSHI ADHIkARI

The art of building organisational culture

A great glimpse into what a huge company is doing. Appreciate especially the sharing of how behaviours are the focus, it is a great way of turning the vision statement into something observable and quantifiable. Also the training of the people managers clearly makes the difference in the success of creating culture. It will be great if we can hear more about that training system and how to bring so many people managers on board with the vision.

-

ANuSHkA kANT

February 2023 issue

HR fundamentals that help win the war for talent

Being proactive is indeed the best way to keep the workforce stable, going out to find pain points before they erupt into full-blown problems and addressing them in advance whether by coaching the individual or team or by improving processes. A step up from that would be to train managers to take the pulse of their own team regularly as well as taking data from organisation-wide pulse surveys, since these are the people closest to the ground and most able to understand the context of a pulse survey response.

- VISHmITA SuBHASH

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The world needs more engineers:

here's what Thales is doing

oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (oNGC)@oNGC has always been a low-key challenge for businesses, but for it to percolate into HR is an extra layer of complexity. The many advantages are balanced by the many considerations. It is a new tool to lessen the burden but also another thing to have to evaluate. It creates competitive advantage but should it be implemented it calls for training in its proper use and like any tool, assessment of whether it is creating the outcomes that justify its investment.

"I am proud to share that we have been successful in having both genders actively participate even in that (ONGC's) distinctive format (14 days in remote offshore & onshore oil & gas installations)."

- SWARNENDu BISWAS

Motivating talent in the FMCG industry in 2023

A very useful look into how employers can connect with younger employees today. For instance, many younger demographics especially Gen Z desire to have their output properly recognised, rather than the manager or other bosses being fixated on their presence in the office or even at all kinds of meetings and gatherings regardless of whether they are needed there. And completely true that especially for younger ones who are keen to advance, career path and growth must be taken into consideration. Everyone would like to see that their hard work yields some result in their personal advantage.

-

JANELLE

A very good description of HR's job as being to support managers. Traditionally the role of HR was once siloed away from other departments as a back room function, but obviously that does not work in a day and age when talent is so hard to find and so much extra effort is needed to keep them around and engaged. From looking at the companies that find the most success in their talent strategy it is clear that the right way to go is to first intentionally connect HR to the business strategy so that it is able to support business needs, and the next step is to connect HR to the business operations, hence supporting manager needs.

- VANIA SHARmA

Get ready for the top 5 HR challenges of 2023

For recruiters, AI is such a headache. Certain jobs call for the candidate to be assessed in their knowledge and communication skills before coming to the interview round, but ChatGPT and the like will apparently let people pass the online assessments without using their own skills, making the first layer of filtering quite useless! Moreover, recruiters must then implement some anti-AI technology like what educators are doing.

-

JANVI mAHESH

#ONGC Director (Human Resource) @ Pankaj3006k talks to @PeopleMatters2 for #IWD

Clevertap @Clevertap

Growth, both professional and personal - that's what talent today is looking for! The latest article in @PeopleMatters2 by Sidharth Malik, CEO, CleverTap, sheds light on how critical it is to design L&D programs that instill a sense of purpose. Read more: bit.ly/42bMmy7

Steelcase @Steelcase

Patrick Woo, Director of HR - APAC, shares how organizations can design workplaces for the way work is happening now at @PeopleMatters2.

Birlasoft @birlasoft

Read more insights from Arun Rao in the Well-Being Outlook 2023: A guidebook to reimagine employee well-being: birlasoft. com/news

Zoho @Zoho

Today, attracting and retaining talent has become more challenging than ever. This, coupled with the changing fundamentals of the workspace, makes it an exciting time to be part of the HR ecosystem. Some emerging trends this year http:// zurl.co/QLVi iMocha @imochaHQ

Tech & AI-enabled hiring processes are revolutionising how businesses evaluate & employ the best candidates. Here are some benefits to this AI-led approach, penned down by iMocha CEO & Founder, @amitdmishra for @PeopleMatters2. peoplematters.in/amp-recruitmen…

H r tEc H nology

InCred Capital invests in TeamNest.com

InCred Capital, an institutional, wealth management and asset management platform, has announced an investment in TeamNest, a payroll and HR SaaS platform based in India, as part of a Series A funding round in TeamNest.The amount of the investment was not disclosed. With the

FOUNT Global raises $8 million in Series A round

ly hiring for a Head of Product and for software engineers and developers, suggesting that it is presently focusing on expanding its team.

Econo M y & Policy

India Inc faces sharp 60% dip in deals value in February

FOUNT Global, an employee experience management SaaS platform, has raised $8 million of funding in a Series A round led by Lavrock Ventures with participation from current investors Osage Venture Partners and Grotech Ventures. This almost quadruples the startup's existing funding, to $10.75 million. FOUNT is present-

Jo B s & l ayoffs

Global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions provider Heidrick & Struggles has entered into an agreement to acquire businessfourzero, a London-based consultancy specialising in developing and implementing purpose-driven change. The businessfourzero management team, led by Atif Sheikh, along with the brand name and its roster of employees and clients, will all remain in place for business and client service continuity.

Indeed cuts 2,200 jobs, CEO takes 25% pay cut

Indeed is laying off 2,200 of its employees, or 15% of the company's workforce. CEO Chris Hyams has elaborated that the move is due to a projected cooldown in the job market which will directly impact Indeed's business. According to Hyams, sponsored job volumes had already decreased by 33% compared to the previous year's quarter, and total job openings had decreased by 3.5%, and HR tech revenue is likely to decline again in the next financial year. Hyams himself is also taking a cut of 25% to his own base pay. Almost every team, function, level, and region within the company will be hit, and affected employees will get at least 16 weeks of base salary pay, compensation for accrued paid time off, a cash payout for restricted stock units that have not vested yet, and access to career placement and mental health services.

Mergers and acquisitions in India show a 54% slump in volumes and a significant 60% decline in values in 2023 compared to February 2022, according to Grant Thornton Bharat’s Dealtracker February 2023 report. Altogether, only 89 deals, valued at USD 1.8 billion, were inked. This also marked the second-lowest deal volumes and lowest values recorded since 2014. The highest value deals were cross-border deals, particularly outbound transactions, but the majority of deals overall were domestic consolidations accounting for 67% of transactions. The start-up sector led the volumes with 25% of the deals, driven by the fintech segment, which dominated in terms of both volumes as well as values. Private equity investment also witnessed a drop both in terms of deal values and volumes over February 2022, recording only 65 deals worth USD 1 billion.

Jo B s & l ayoffs 60-80% Asia Pacific companies struggle to fill IT roles in security, development, data

A report by IDC has found that 60-80 per cent of companies in the Asia Pacific ex Japan region are finding it difficult or extremely difficult to fill vacancies in many IT roles including security, developers, and data professionals. The report indicates that the layoffs among big tech companies are not representative of the overall skills shortage in the market, and difficulty filling job vacancies is

Amazon to cut 9,000 more jobs

still among the top issues faced by organisations across industries. Some major consequences of the skills shortage are increased workload on remaining employees, increased security risks, reduced customer satisfaction, and loss of critical knowledge.

Over 45,000 openings in AI jobs in India

A report by TeamLease has found that the boom in AI revolution is creating an urgent need for skilled professionals who can design, develop, and implement cutting-edge AI technologies. As of February 2023, there are 45,000 AI job openings in India alone, with data scientists and ML engineers among the most sought-after careers.

Amazon is set to lay off an additional 9,000 employees, following the largest round of firings in the company's history. The layoffs will hit jobs across units that include

Meta plans to eliminate 10,000 jobs in new round of layoffs

Meta has finalised plans to cut 10,000 jobs this year, with the majority of the cuts to be announced in April and May. It is the second major reduction in less than six months, following right after the company announced in November 2022 that it would slash 13 per cent of its workforce or 11,000 jobs. Meta plans to eliminate 5,000 its profitable cloud-computing and advertising businesses, a sign that the company’s cost-cutting is extending into all aspects of its operations as technology giants continue to slash spending. According to CEO Andy Jassy, the company's decision to streamline its costs and headcount comes in response to the uncertain economic landscape. Jassy has defended the company's previous decision to hire a significant number of employees in recent years, citing the need to address changes in Amazon's business at the time. planned job openings, discontinue lower-priority projects, and streamline middle management levels to create a more horizontal organisational structure.

According to the report, freshers to experienced candidates can hope to earn between Rs 10-45 lakh per annum. Data engineers and data scientists can get up to Rs 14 lakh and ML engineers can earn up to Rs 10 lakh, while devops engineers, data architects and BI analysts are expected to earn up to Rs 12 lakh annually.

co MPE nsation & B E n E fits Only 56% of Indian employers offer maternity benefits

A report by employee health insurance Plum has found that only 56% of Indian organisations offer maternity benefits to their female employees, and of these, just 14% of them have a maternity limit greater than Rs 50,000. Only 5 per cent of Indian organisations offer comprehensive insurance coverage (comprising health insurance, accident and disability insurance, term life insurance, and comprehensive telehealth consultations).