We caught up with Richa Dubey, HR Director of Schneider India for a quick chat about the challenges of the digital economy and how to overcome it.
- How do you keep your company talent updated in this ever-changing digital economy?
The digital economy is changing the way we connect with each other, with the world (IoT) and with information itself. The question and the challenge is that how do these technologies impact the types of jobs and skills needed for the future and how are we going to work in the coming days? Undoubtedly big data, real-time information, automation, will impact the way we work.
In the last few years the focus is on developing a mindset and related behavior at the leadership level to handle rapid digital challenges along with focus on innovation, digital business models and managing disruption. The company has been hosting innovation summits and seminars on Internet of Things to build such a mindset . Within the company we have designed specific practices and solutions for businesses such as “EcoStruxure” Digital Platform. And to learn from the outside world we do “learning expeditions” to understand both technology and culture building in such organisations.
We also offer a set of regular online trainings (in capsules) to our employees which allows them to learn and experience all tools digital. While we constantly inspire our employees to get increasingly digital by building digital learnings in their professional KPIs as well.
- What role do you think technology plays in talent management? How can technology bring about a change in the talent management lifecycle?
Like any other industry, we are facing a host of new talent management challenges but we are keeping the focus on by being proactive such as building our own development and training content to provide more digital solutions for self-service. Short learning modules, mobile training and on-demand modules are designed and implemented to shorten the learning curve. We have competency-driven employee development programmes to provide our people access to experience, education, and exposure while also targeting specific workforce segments for more intensive support focusing on development.
The biggest change that technology brings in is the pace with which we prepare ourselves for upcoming business challenges. We are looking at hiring digital disruptors, classifying our work force based on their digital competency to assess our future readiness and at the same time filling the skill gaps, if any. Technology is interfacing at each stage of this organization building journey. We are pulling on all the digital levers to transform HR and the organization at the same time keeping the check on the value add any of these changes are bringing in rather than digitizing for the sake of it. We are digitizing our talent processes along with the simplification of the talent management process.
- How much do you think it’ll change over the next five years? What are the milestones in this space you would look forward to achieving over the next 5 years?
We will continue to drive our ‘High performance philosophy’ in the next few years with an ambition to create a company where we enjoy growing our business together and beating the competition all the while keeping the well-being of our employees at the core. The goals are
- Driving high ambition and performance together
- Providing ongoing feedback, recognition and coaching
- Empowering our managers & driving from the front
- Enabling speed and agility
- Evaluating and differentiating fairly
With these as the core and the goals being very clear we aim at achieving the following:
- A digitally savvy and capable work force which is productive and efficient
- Nodal hubs of excellence globally
- Increased efficiency and response time for our customers.
- A culture driving innovation from the front
- A strong talent pipeline at different layers of capability serving and impacting organizational need.
- What are the steps you take as an organization to have a more diverse and inclusive workforce?
At Schneider Diversity and Inclusion is a journey, it is our differentiating factor with the aim of having diversity in thoughts and ideas. Some of the steps we have taken in this direction include:
– The leaders are educated and trained on reducing hidden biases and they take the ownership of building a diverse and inclusive team
– Our continued focus on diversity of people, and creating an environment of inclusion is to create greater engagement, performance, and innovation. We have embedded the culture of inclusion through our policies and practices. Our Global Family Leave policy launched in 2017 allows everyone to manage their unique life and work by providing time off for occasions that matter to each of them. We have salary equity process to establish workplace gender equality.
– At the talent acquisition stage we focus on building teams of people from different backgrounds, gender and nationality. We aim to offer equal opportunities to all our employees irrespective of where they belong to in the world or what kind of work they do. All should feel uniquely valued, and safe to contribute their best.
– We have extensive policies in place to make the place of work suitable to the requirements of young mothers and returning mothers ( from maternity)
- What are the strategies you employ to upskill your workforce?
On the job training. People get opportunities to upskill in various departments. Our internal talent mobility and cross functional projects have delivered some great results in this direction
Online courses. We use online courses as a means of training, retraining and refresher courses. Employees are able to work on these courses at their own speed and in between their work. We also offer many different courses this way, for employees to take as they please.
Special seminars and events. Special seminars and events are hosted at the place of business or external nominations are made for employees to get involved and learn. These opportunities also provide opportunities for team building which in turn is great for morale.
Ongoing feedback, recognition and coaching Managers are trained and reminded of the basics of management, which is to guide and coach . Managers are expected to provide real time and fact based feedback. High performance is recognized and rewarded.
Profile
Richa is an astute leader with varied national and international experiences in the field of Human Resources. She has driven Human Resources as a strategic imperative of the organization, managed change in both an execution driven and a focused growth environment. An XLRI graduate she has dabbled with all aspects of Human Resources in various industries. She is a passionate about learning, organizational interventions and women in organization. Apart from being a passionate coach and a mentor to her colleagues and team members she is also a poetess, a writer and a speaker. With 20 plus years in Human Resources she has seen Human Resources evolve over time and believes in keeping herself relevant and up to date. The above interview is a reflection of the same.
