It’s the age of new skills and new ways of doing business and HR heads have to be really agile to help organisations transform. They have to embrace some of the start-up ways. But in the start-up space, failing is encouraged. How do seasoned HR managers view this trend? Ask Chaitanya Sreenivas, Vice-President - HR Head, IBM India, and he says it’s not about failure, but more about an iterative process of having a minimum viable product, testing it, and if it fails, retooling it and bringing it back in a very short time frame. He also feels it allows bold ideas, bold decisions and risk taking and therefore, from an HR perspective, “we need to facilitate this iterative process”. Excerpts from a wide-ranging interview with the seasoned HR professional:

How do you respond to the observation that best HR leaders don’t just react to change, they act as change agents?

HR cannot be reactive. If we are reactive, then it is too late. Therefore, we have to be ahead in anticipating the changes and being the change drivers and agents ourselves. HR has a very critical role to play in this transformation. It is about changing the mindset of the organisation and driving the transformation of skills across all layers. Apart from this, creating an environment of learning, facilitating and providing the space is important.

Is the siloed and vertical HR model responsive enough to change? How fast is it going digital?

We are transforming rapidly. With availability of enormous amounts of data, with tools to drive insight and the influx of a multi-generation workforce, there is growth in all aspects of HR, including hiring, retaining, performance management and employee assessment.

IBM has transitioned from a transactional-based approach to a more experience-based approach. AI, machine learning, is being leveraged extensively and this is helping managers make a more comprehensive, informed and quicker decision.

AI enables us to do a deep dive on decisions related to proactive retention, compensation and engagement. Various HR tools, including chatbots, have digitised the process to a great extent. People can now access records, view data, perform transactions on a mobile and this has brought about decision making that is decentralised, anywhere and anytime, a big impact on the speed of execution.

Lastly, our learning systems have been revolutionised with AI where this has helped us customise the content and delivery at an employee level.

This freedom to innovate has resulted in higher value contributions for the HR team members and they have gained new skills in the process. HR as a function has now moved away from transaction support to more of a strategic role.

This flexible model, highly mobile and deeply customisable, has allowed us to execute at a local level while still aligning with the global frameworks, thereby bringing in the best of both, an integrated as well as a local model.

IBM has a global enterprise wide portal for staff, former staff and associates. Has the concept of this global employee portal caught on with HR managers?

Organisations around the globe are investing significantly to stay ahead of rapidly evolving technologies.

Talent priorities have changed due to the ever-transforming industry that we are in. Skills required have changed and the pace of change is much faster than what it used to be.

Secondly, skills today are measured by a combination of domain and broad technology expertise.

While tools and platforms may be global, the new generation platforms have given us the freedom to customise it to an individual level and even make it country-specific, so it is more effective.

For example, the learning tool is global in terms of framework and content, however, this can be integrated and customised basis the needs of the individual employee at a country level.

In order to leverage the workforce effectively a multi-dimensional approach is adopted, wherein every employee is bringing their individual talent and skill set which ensures we build the right talent pool and capabilities.

IBM has created ‘Your Learning’platform, where we offer a personalised learning environment for each employee, providing a 24x7 interface that responds quickly, flexibly and creatively to the changing technical and business landscape. It provides search, browse, career roadmaps, plus customised learning channels. The cognitive ability of the platform is personalised based on current role and, most importantly, it also addresses the passion and aspirations for future roles.

These tools have also brought information/data from multiple sources, structured and unstructured, providing insights and assisting managers and HR teams to make better and faster decisions.

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