"We add Around 20% Of Our Existing Workforce Every Year Of The Total New Hires."
JLL is continuously transforming its hiring and people practices attracting, retain and help grow a workforce that can comfortably 'belong' at JLL. Our Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is 'Achieve your Ambitions.' Whether big goals or small steps, JLL is committed to ensuring our people achieve their ambitions – both personally and professionally. Our hiring is a structured process that is end to end digital, considering the current scheme of times. On average, we add around 20% of our existing workforce every year of the total new hires. However, the percentage of boomerangs was close to a whopping 28% in the last year! Our quantum of hiring and the number of boomerangs speak volumes of the culture and organizational commitment that we proudly stand for.
2. What are the key initiatives taken by the company recently to strengthen its employer branding?
JLL has taken a slew of initiatives such as establishing thought leadership by promoting women leadership across levels on social media who take the prominent seat at various industry forums as eminent speakers, panellists, moderators, and much more. Amplifying and glorifying organisational wins (Awards and Accolades): The firm-level awards, business wins, leadership awards, business awards internally and externally with an intent to make the exiting employees and clients feel good about JLL, and also it serves as an opportunity to attract new talent and clients is another initiate taken to boost employees’ morale. JLL encourages promotion of employees’ success stories on social as well as on the Firm's website. As a forward-looking institution, we have always been vocal to the external world how we Benefit@JLL (Employee benefits and policies), DoGood@JLL (Community service), are Fair&Ethical@JLL, and still BeWell@JLL(Wellness initiatives). Additionally, our company has been recognized amongst India's top 100 "Best Companies to Work for" (Ranked 62) for the fourth time this year. Also, AmbitionBox recognized us as Best Places to Work in India 2021 in the Large Companies category (Ranked 23). This acknowledgement reaffirms the Firm’s position as a workplace of choice, and it also reflects its strength as the best service provider to its clients.
3. How has the HR function evolved, and what role has technology played in this evolution?
Technology has been a critical driver in the HR function, and this need got further accentuated due to pandemic as our people started adapting the new normal "Work from home," so we had to re-look at most of our initiatives and processes. Our evolved HR operating model empowered us with streamlined and standardised processes across the HR function. Right from talent acquisition, onboarding, engagement, learning, and development to exit management, evening, this is tech-based. JLL has changed its talent acquisition process to suit to current business environment. We have switched to tech platforms like WebEx and WhatsApp to facilitate remote onboarding and have designed a HR Direct, an internal intranet, which is a one-stop-shop for all the processes and policies. This has reduced dependency on HR personnel for day-to-day queries and policies. Tech tools like WebEx, WhatsApp, Microsoft teams help us onboard new hires while they work from home without face-to-face interaction. The company has also launched a Human Resource Information System – ‘Workday’ that enables managing employee lifecycle across geographies with employee self-service and manager self-service capabilities.
4. How is JLL maintaining the talent pipeline amid the pandemic? Any significant development in attrition rate?
JLL lives its brand promise "Achieve Ambitions" with its people. Employees are the Firm's biggest strength, and their ambitions, both professional and personal, are encouraged and nurtured until accomplishment. At JLL, we have devised robust people-centric practices focused on work flexibility, learning and development opportunities; frequent employee connects (one-on-ones and site-level connects) and Manager Connect Sessions (One on One discussion), recognising them for their contributions and efforts through a platform called Ovations and focusing on their safety and wellbeing (mental, physical, and financial) while charting the firm-wide strategies and initiatives. JLL has collaborated with "Santulan," a body of expert counsellors who are available 24x7 to provide professional counselling to our employees.
As an employee centric organization, JLL offers plethora of other notable benefits stated below.
Through all the above, we have ensured that our employees are glued to us, thereby witnessing a decrease in the voluntary attrition rate by 8% in 2020.
5. What are exclusive initiatives undertaken to ensure workplace inclusivity?
Diversity and Inclusion are strategic imperatives for the way we operate. At JLL, we succeed through Inclusion and celebrate the characteristics that make us unique that includes ability, education, generation, industry experience, and thinking style, along with gender, ethnicity, race, religion, and sexual orientation. We are driving a programmatic approach to diversity and Inclusion in our business by casting a wider net to source diverse talent, proactively identifying diverse future leaders with our new talent framework, setting targets in short and long-term incentive plans around diversity, and holding leaders accountable for building an inclusive culture. We are committed to creating an environment where everyone feels welcomed, valued, and empowered to achieve their full potential. JLL taken a range of diversity initiatives such as formation of Diversity and Inclusion Council and recruiting diverse talents with the right values via Women Referral program to embed our philosophy of excellence, diversity, inclusivity and ownership for our employees. It is our conscious and consistent effort to counsel and motivate female candidates during campus recruitment and Conscious reaching out program for women employees who could not re-join post maternity leaves.
JLL organizes various programs and workshops focused on diversity and inclusion:
6. What are the new rules of employee performance evaluation and appraisal in the new normal when many people are working from home?
We, at JLL believe that an engaged worker who is productive, innovative, and invested in his own and the Firm's success drives its profitability. Thus, our Performance Management Process is primarily based on three fundamentals of Coaching, Feedback, and Recognition. Our guiding principles for Performance evaluation and appraisals have not changed due to the new normal. We believe in empowering our employees and ensuring they deliver irrespective of their work location.
7. How has JLL been promoting and strengthening the presence of women and people of colour in leadership positions at the workplace, in India as well as globally?
Our major goal is to have a higher representation of women employees in our Leadership, and we are moving in the right direction to achieve this goal. Having women as leaders in senior positions showcases our culture that thrives on diversity and inclusivity and encourages thought leadership irrespective of Gender, Geography and Generation
8. Are there any specific hiring initiatives in place to increase the number of women, LGBTQ hires?
Hiring initiatives for women have been listed in question 5, and for the LGBTQ community, we have hosted sensitizing sessions anddefined the guidelines for the hiring and onboarding process, keeping in mind the complexities involved in the whole process and the sentiments of the community. Our TA team is frequently sensitized to foster an inclusive dialogue with the candidates and develop an understanding of challenges faced by the LGBT+ community during the hiring process. We have also successfully hosted the sensitization for the teams where the candidates from the LGBT+ community have been hired. Recently, we conducted a Panel Discussion on the LGBTQ+ community and societal acceptance for all our people. One of the speakers (JLL employee) on the panel was a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, and it was our privilege to be a part of his story.
9. With work from home imbalance that is popularly been spoken about how is the organization ensuring there is continuous upskilling of the women employees?
At JLL, we have robust plans, programs and processes for developing our people. With a focus on technology, we continue to invest in new ways to help our people learn and grow. We have invested in state-of-the-art technology to help our people better plan their goals and develop their careers. JLL has launched a Career hub called REAL Leadership that supports the entire career journey, from skill-building to exploring new roles. It features training and resources that focus on our approach to help grow and advance leaders at every level. We also provide a virtual training program using global learning platforms, which consists of 15,000 online skill-building courses on a variety of subjects, made available to all employees.
Specific to our women employees, the below initiatives facilitate their professional development and career progression:
Country and Regional Level Mentoring Program: We assign mentors to our women employees, which helps keep abreast of our women employee needs and ensure their growth and development
10. What are the challenges faced by women in the real estate industry that are yet to be addressed? What, according to you, are the steps required to ensure equal participation of women? How is the women workforce at JLL bringing a change in the sector?
At JLL, we are trying our best not just to hire the right candidate while focusing on diversity but also to create an ecosystem that makes our employees feel included. As for women employees, there is still a prejudice regarding certain roles which male employees have traditionally held, we are trying our best to break those barriers through regular sensitization and setting the right examples.
Another challenge could be safety, specifically where our women employees are deployed at sites, but our clients and we ensure all measures are taken to maintain the highest safety regulations for our employees.
We firmly believe that employees are our greatest strength and therefore, substantial efforts are put into creating an environment and culture of openness, trust and honesty with freedom from hostility. However, we realize that grievances/ challenges can still arise from a wide range of concerns, including discrimination and harassment, the allocation of work, working environment or conditions, career development opportunities, or how an employee has been managed. Therefore, JLL believes in immediate grievance handling, which forms a part of their core belief in "Ethics." This ensures a conducive work environment so employees, especially women, can stay focused and work towards the organization's interests, feeling safe and cared for.
The key initiatives taken towards Grievance Redressal at JLL have seen a successful implementation.
(The views expressed in this interview are solely for BW people publication, attributed to Tanvi Choksi, Head – Head-Human Resources, India & JLL Business Services, Global.)
