With the advent of globalisation, organisations in India have started focusing more on employee engagement than they used to, say, a decade ago. Employees, clearly, are among the key assets which help a business differentiate from competition. Happy employees, after all, mean efficient workers.
A number of companies are retreating from the traditional hiring techniques and are using social media as a means to hire. Organisations are increasingly posting jobs to social media platforms and dedicated online communities to enable recruiters to match those people that fit the company’s culture with available positions. Other innovative ideas include gamification that test the principles and design in non-gaming situations, identifying potential employees by posing virtual challenges that require the skills necessary for a given job.
Once hired, the HR department is faced with the issue of retaining these employees by giving them the right incentives that make a tangible difference to their lives. As the external environment changes, the management needs to enhance their thinking from the employees’ perspective by taking into consideration what they think, why they think it, and what their aspirations and well-being needs are. With the current challenging business scenario, employers have to be innovative with their approach to keep employees motivated and productive—which can help lower the rate of attrition, propel the morale and create a stronger bottom line. On the other hand, the loss of good talent is equivalent to losing new business opportunities.
Understandably, many companies have introduced policies that are innovative, original and unique.
At Google, “human resources” is called “people operations”, as the management would like to build strong employee-employer relationship. They encourage the employees to spend 20% of their productive time on their own creative ideas and value-addition initiatives. E-retail giant Flipkart allows employees to take unpaid time off work to focus on commitments, responsibilities and interests. They are also given special leaves for birthdays, anniversaries and deaths in family/friends above the normal quota of sick, casual and privilege leaves. Companies like Vodafone and Accenture have announced enhanced maternity benefits, taking the quantum of leave beyond the statutory requirement.
Some companies take it a step further by introducing de-stressing features that are accessible during working hours.
For example, Aptech has introduced “Aptech Cafe” with state-of-the-art facilities. Besides a fully-functioning cafeteria, it also has massage chairs, a game centre and a Karaoke Bar that employees can use to unwind and de-stress. They also have a gymnasium that is replete with a dietician and nutritionist to ensure that employees enjoy a healthy lifestyle.
In the age of start-ups, HR policies have taken a turn for the contemporary. CredR, a venture in the field of buying and selling pre-owned vehicles, is a young company where employees enjoy privileges such as flexible working hours, gaming sessions, unique themed days, casual dressing and passion fulfilment. CredR, in fact, encourages newcomers to stay with the founders for a week in order to understand first-hand how the business works.
Achieving competitive and sustainable returns on workforce investment is becoming a key strategic lever for an organisation’s long-term success. HR policies have reached an evolutionary imperative in almost all organisations—they must evolve and modernise or else risk extinction.
By Rupaal Achrekar Bhakta
The author is vice-president, HR, MyCFO, an implementation services company which provides CFO & finance effectiveness services to clients across industry verticals and size