Head HR, SE2 India On Creating A Culture Of Curiosity

Q1. As digitalisation disrupts many industries, they’re reshaping existing job roles, giving rise to completely new roles – and witnessing a deep skills gap in the process. What’s your take on how organisations can offer the global workforce a seamless skilling path?

The greater adoption of digital technologies in the past decade has widened the skill gap in almost every industry. Organizations should create a digital skill development system that supports and encourages learning, upskilling, and reskilling employees at all levels.

The most effective way to address the widening skill gap is to leverage digital tools to build a community of learners who can learn new skills to keep up with the changing environment. HR can further offer the flexibility of learning and developing skills beyond job responsibilities to motivate employees.

A one-day workshop or a week-long virtual webinar won't suffice. Organizations will have to create a holistic culture that involves rigorous training, experiential learning, and performance management. Employers can take simple steps like letting curious employees move from one department to another or encouraging them to take diverse assignments. It's time we keep learning at the centre of the culture of an organization.

Q2. What are the newly-evolved demands of balancing the role of the GenZ and Millennial workforce? Also, how the nuances of managing talent have been transformed?

There’s a massive transformation in the work landscape, led by Millennials and GenZ. They joined the workforce when the world was undergoing a digital transformation and social media platforms rose. These online platforms caused a paradigm shift and influenced people to question the flexibility offered in organizations.

The need of current workforce today is for learning content to be available when required (so one can learn when there is a job requirement or growing need), and to be available over different tools and in multiple formats (so one can consume based on their learning style and time availability).

Q3. How has the learning landscape changed in SE2 in 2021? How are you bridging the skills gap? What metrics do you follow to track progress?

SE2 is always committed to providing a holistic environment for learning and development. Hence, investing in developing talent using industry-leading content and advanced technologies occupies the center stage for every training strategy.

In 2021, when every industry was adapting to the new normal, SE2 quickly adapted an agile, nimble, and dynamic remote-working model offering periodic virtual training and workshops to our employees. We realized the need to upskill and reskill our employees to safeguard them from the uncertain economic forces. We enhanced our existing platform (Cornerstone), as well as created new digital ways to consume training (in a University and School format). I am excited to say that we’ve received tremendous responses for all our learning and development programs. Between April and December 2020, we recorded 4900 hours of online training.

Hence, we initiate weekly, bi-monthly, monthly and long-term programs frequently. These programs can assist our employees in acquiring the necessary skills. For instance, SE2 India also successfully launched the first edition of the Ignition program to train frontline supervisors on people management, with a focus on managing in a remote and hybrid environment.

Moreover, we also hired trainees, interns, and fresh college graduates under our apprenticeship program during the past few months. These apprentices have to go through a comprehensive multi-week induction program, starting even before they join. These programs have been highly successful for SE2 and will play a crucial part in developing future hiring and growth strategies.

Q4. What have been your best attract & retain people policies? What Employee engagement programs for employee retention are deployed by SE2?

At SE2, we have made conscious efforts to facilitate a positive work environment through employee life cycling using honest and open communication. We encourage the 1SE2 culture of growth and development opportunities. We also firmly believe that focusing on offering an inclusive work culture that promotes mental well-being plays a crucial role in reinforcing our culture of transparency and collaboration.

We are a ‘digital-first’ organization with a large focus on cutting-edge technology. We are constantly evolving our systems and process to remain the best in class. We have comprehensive policies around training and certification to support the learning of our employees.

We believe in creating a workplace that allows employees to unlock their full potential and build a culture of curiosity. The employees as well as the industry with SE2 winning the Outstanding Employee Engagement award from the prestigious HR Association of India have acknowledged our employee experience programs.

We further consider rewards and recognition are a significant part of the organization and have multiple ways for rewarding our employees through the year for continuous learning and exceptional performance.

Q5. Driving an innovation bred mindset that leads to learning and growth? What are the significant shifts that took place in the learning landscape?

Developing skills that would last forever was the topmost priority of most employees before the pandemic. However, today’s new normal includes continuous learning, upskilling, reskilling, and experiential training. According to an Udemy 2021 Report, “What the World is Learning at Work,” there’s been a significant rise in demand for courses in several industries signaling that employees are on the lookout to develop new skills to thrive in today’s dynamic environment. As we shift into a hybrid model of working in the post-pandemic era, employers will have to offer a collaborative & flexible learning environment to keep up with the dynamic market forces.

At SE2, we have an Innovation Hub where employees can provide their ideas and suggestions that go through a comprehensive process to review and form next steps towards solutions. Additionally, we do regular events like Hackathons, as well as reward innovation as part of our regular recognition programs.

Q6. According to you, what does the future of work look like?

Covid-19 has changed the future of work forever. It accelerated remote working and taught us the value of digitalization. The short-term changes at the workplace due to the pandemic have resulted in a long-term transformation. In the upcoming years, the future of work involves a flexible learning environment where employees can engage in transparent communication and contribute towards innovation.

Employees would leverage digital tools to work anytime and from anywhere. Such flexibility would drive a high level of curiosity and innovation. Moreover, organizations would heavily rely on AI, big data, machine learning to automate all the processes & business operations thereby creating more technical jobs.