We Believe That Our Employees Are Our Key Strengths: CHRO, Tata Communications

How efficiently are you managing the same pace of productivity of the employees?

As governments around the world implement measures to contain this public health crisis, we have been prepared and will continue to monitor the situation, evaluate our preparedness and adapt our plans where needed.

Given the current situation, the safety of our employees and business continuity for our customers and partners is our top priority. We are well prepared and have a business continuity plan, covering all functions, with necessary backup and resiliency. Furthermore, our business and our operations are built for maximum flexibility to support a worldwide distributed workforce. Our customer service team members work in different locations and facilities for maximum global coverage. Most of our employees are fully equipped to work from home, leveraging mobile devices and cloud-based tools, and supported by specific security processes and policies for remote working.

As the use of technology is emerging, do you think it would harm people's engagement or relationship building?

Technological breakthroughs are taking place at a breakneck pace, with disruptive technologies such as AI, Machine Learning, IoT etc. changing the way businesses operate. AI can not only enhance daily operations, but also enable organizations to operate more intelligently. The key question that is being asked is - will AI impact people engagement and relationship building or actually improve it? The truth and the answer depends on how an organization uses AI.

At Tata Communications, we believe that AI can streamline collaboration between humans by automating tedious or repetitive tasks, therefore enabling humans to focus their energy on more value-adding activities that require attributes like empathy, and creativity which machines don’t have. Also, AI systems are not intuitive like us – but what they do bring to the table is superfast analysis, which will guide humans’ decision making like never before.

Introducing AI to a people or a workforce will take some getting used to. But it has the potential to free people from a lot of drudgery, allowing them to see new possibilities and make more informed decisions, and complement their skills in myriad ways.

In simple words, the employee focus will shift from being task-based to strategic, enabling workers to enhance their skills, and creative thinking. These are positive outcomes and if approached correctly, will help enhance employee engagement, productivity and overall satisfaction.

How do you look at the change happening in the HR industry during this disruption? Will robotics replace humans in the near future?

The role of HR has changed from a mere functional expert to a business partner and value creator over the years. What we should not forget is the importance of the, 'human touch' which makes a difference.

Today, we are at a point where there is a convergence between humans and machines, and we need to have a mix of both and adapt quickly. There needs to be better collaboration. An organization’s endeavor today should be to combine the potential of both in a manner that they work in synergy, resulting in effective and efficient overall productivity.

For example, in order to get the best, out of the technology, AI needs people to identify where it can best be applied, to change processes, gather data, to pose the right questions and train it with examples to improve outcomes. That requires people to be engaged and to embrace the transition, not fearful that AI will eliminate their job. It’s all about creating synergies.

A simple example of where we are seeing the immense benefits of AI is in our hiring process.

We have implemented an AI-based solution to restructure our hiring and eliminate bias. The algorithm scans resume according to the specific job and skill-set requirement which helps in creating a strong team based on merit and the candidate’s capabilities.

As an expert, with technological advancements what transition do you foresee for the HR Sector?

We have already seen the changes automation has brought to the corporate world. The workplace will look very different in the future with digitization being the core of everything. The growing influence of technology has enabled hyper-personalization and therefore there is more focus on employee experience.

While remote working was an emerging trend, given the current scenario, it is now a global reality. Advances in AI, cloud and other technologies will only increase connection and collaboration within teams and organizations – we’re seeing this within our own company and with our customers to whom we provide unified communication and collaboration services. As employees around the world get used to working from home and using new technologies to collaborate better and come together virtually, it will change the way organizations operate. If done correctly, with the right level of employee engagement to ensure there is a willingness to adapt to the new working scenario and enough engagement within the teams and the company, this could have a positive impact on productivity.

Our concept of learning has changed over the years with the popularity of digital courses and platforms. Particularly now, with citizens around the world staying indoors to help battle COVID-19, we will see a sharp increase in the adoption of digital learning platforms and people look to use their time to upskill or learn entirely new skills – whether for their jobs or out of sheer interest. This is great news for organizations and something that most companies will encourage during this time.

A winning digital transformation strategy requires employees to have the right skill set to be agile and adaptive to ride the technology wave and ensure organizations are future-ready. An agile and flexible organization with a continuous learning culture will be able to adopt emerging technologies faster. Organizations that are willing to enable this journey to learn will be empowered to anticipate future demands along with addressing current skill shortages.

At Tata Communications, we have already commenced work on building a talent base that is equipped to be relevant and ready for future needs. We encourage a culture of learning and curiosity. Employees have the opportunity to learn new skills, upskill or learn supplementary skills through a broad range of training courses offered through partnerships with Coursera and various training partners.

What is that one major quality of your HR Team that makes Tata Communications stand out from other organizations?

At Tata Communications, we believe that our employees are our key strengths. They play a critical role in the success of an organization's digital transformation as they are the ones who enable technological adoption on-ground. One major quality that makes us stand out is our ability to constantly engage with our employees and make sure that they have an opportunity to learn and upskill through a series of learning programs and workshops to be at par with the rest of the industry. We begin to understand the learning requirements at an individual and team level. Constant feedback on existing content and the need for new requirements facilitate a continuous dialogue on improving the entire learning process.

With a focus on creating an environment that empowers individuals to acquire relevant skills in an evolving technology landscape, we recently launched the Tata Communications Learning Academy. The academy was launched as an intuitive platform to equip our learners with the right tools, technology & environment, to foster a culture of continuous learning and provide an enhanced learner experience. It is a one-stop-shop for all learning and is the primary learning interface for all employees.

What are the best practices you follow at your organization to make people employees- employers’ relationship more efficient?

Tata Communications is fortunate in that as a global company with a highly distributed workforce, we’ve had progressive, best-in-class working policies in place for a while now - like work from home, flexible working hours, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and virtual collaboration environments – as well as a variety of unified collaboration technologies widely adopted within the company.

We have always been progressive in our approach to employees and these defined policies meant that when the COVID-19 crisis peaked in March, we were prepared to activate remote working and safeguard our employees. We acted quick and introduced travel restrictions and remote working. Our employees have taken this in stride since collaboration with remote colleagues was already the norm, and our teams are quite comfortable leveraging chat, voice, video and collaboration tools to get their jobs done.

We have always believed in building people-centric policies and organizational culture. For example, to help employees at Tata Communications deal with the stress of the current circumstances, we organized over 20 live mindfulness sessions starting from March 26th, 2020, facilitated by myself and by certified mindfulness experts. Over 8500 attendees from Tata Communications participated in these sessions from across 5 regions. The feedback and participation have been overwhelming and a testament to the need for emotional and mental support during this time. Mindfulness is a centuries-old idea that is now being reinvented to address the challenges of our times. It is about being present in the moment and leaving behind one’s tendency to judge. It allows one to pause amid the constant inflow of stimuli and consciously decide how to act, rather than react. Mindfulness, therefore, is perfectly suited to counterbalance the stress, information overload, and unsettling news brought on by the COVID-19. These sessions are now available to employees as guided meditations at the click of a button – for employees to experience at their own convenience.

Simple measures like these ensure employees are looked after and feel a close association with the company.