E-commerce player Flipkart has introduced a new inclusive benefits scheme — FlexBen 2019 — for its employees. It is transitioning from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to a flexible one wherein employees will be given a choice in designing their own benefits package. This has been rolled out after an engagement survey to understand employee preferences when it comes to benefits. The feedback it got was employees wanted flexibility in benefits. 10 per cent of those surveyed also asked for wellness centres and gym benefits and those have been addressed too. The survey revealed that around 50 per cent of Flipkart employees choose benefits and policies as an important attraction and retention driver. “FlexBen is universal and inclusive as it provides benefits coverage equally to all employees. For example, through this plan we offer coverage for LGBT couples, choice of additional childcare or parent care coverage and more options for single employees,” said Smriti Krishna Singh, Chief Human Resources Officer at Flipkart.

Indeed expands in Hyderabad

Job site Indeed, a subsidiary of Japan’s Recruit.co, is expanding its India operations, specifically its Technology Centre in Hyderabad. The move positions Indeed to be one of the largest HR tech employers in the city. The expansion includes a new office development totalling over 91,000 sq ft at Skyview Towers, where Indeed India plans to relocate its local engineering headquarters.

“Hyderabad is fast emerging as the leading centre for tech opportunities in India, which offers tremendous scope for growth and development. We are committed to serving Indian job seekers, and hope to continue to do so through our investment in technology towards improving the hiring process”, said Venkata Machavarapu, Head of Engineering, India and Site Director at Indeed India. Indeed has more than 8,500 employees globally, across 29 cities in 14 countries.

AI in HR

The use of Artificial Intelligence in HR is picking up. Gartner did a survey to find out how and where AI is being used most by HR. The survey was conducted among 848 respondents in the US, Canada, the UK, China and India The three most popular areas are:

Talent acquisition : Although use of AI in talent acquisition has got negative press, it was deployed most. Organisations with a very high volume of candidates, or those struggling to find specialists or other rare profiles, are likely to invest in AI technologies, says Gartner.

Voice of the employee: Voice of the employee (VoE) analytics is the second most popular domain area attracting interest from HR leaders as they seek to improve how they monitor employee engagement. As an example, by analysing comments shared in an employee engagement survey, one organisation was able to discover that a dip in engagement for a group of employees was actually due to issues with the work uniform — something that could be fixed directly and easily.

HR virtual assistants : For HR organisations today, AI-supported virtual assistants usually mean chatbots put in place for customer contact centres or help-desk-related process flows. Organisations that have been successful in deploying these kinds of chatbots — and gaining strong adoption from employees — typically tell us that they have experienced a significant decrease in calls to the help desk.