Article: Creating a flexible work-culture is the need of the hour: Rahul Veerwal, Founder and CEO of GetWork

Employee Relations

Creating a flexible work-culture is the need of the hour: Rahul Veerwal, Founder and CEO of GetWork

Now, more than ever creating a strong pipeline is necessary to stand out in this highly competitive market. The percentage of Offer to Joining has come down to a mere 20% as compared to 65% same month last year
Creating a flexible work-culture is the need of the hour: Rahul Veerwal, Founder and CEO of GetWork

Rahul Veerwal is the Founder and CEO of GetWork. Based on his own experience during college placements, he decided to create a platform that trained students on a large scale and ease the employment process to connect employable students with leading companies in the country. GetWork is a SaaS-based HRtech and EdTech platform that connects leading corporates to thousands of placement cells across colleges and private institutes in India. With a special focus on Tier 2 and 3 cities, the company is disrupting the norm in the campus placement industry.

In this interview with People Matters, Rahul stresses on how companies investing in HR Tech have managed to diversify their team and bridge the talent gap. Here are some excerpts from the interview.

The company was launched just prior to the COVID outbreak in one of the most affected sectors. What are some of your key learnings in trying to maintain stability during this turbulent time for the hiring economy?

We saw a clear opportunity during the COVID outbreak when all the colleges were shut down due to the lockdown and new Ed-Tech Platforms were emerging everywhere. All of them reached out independently to employers through various channels, overwhelming their recruiting teams and making the job difficult for employers and employees to find each other. We have come up with a solution to that problem by providing a single platform solution for placement cells and employers to communicate with each other, post their requirements and opportunities making it easier for employers of any size to find a team member that matches their needs. Therefore, it was more of a blessing in disguise and we managed to put ourselves at the centre of the new normal, facilitating the industry that was previously not tech savvy in the pre-Covid period.

Some of the major key learnings include ensuring that we have a flawless product, identifying that providing impeccable service is key to retaining customers and, recognising that in this era of change, people are lost about the next step forward so it is upon those with expertise to guide them. Finally, we must understand that people are not used to tech jargon and it’s our duty to make them realize how technology can be of service to them. 

What are some of the significant talent acquisition challenges that leaders must combat when meeting their hiring needs?

Creating a flexible work-culture is the need of the hour. With Gen-Z entering the workforce for the first time, the focus is on perks and benefits offered by the companies, rules around working from home including 8-hour work policy and overtime policy, appraisals and growth in role and flexibility.

Now, more than ever creating a strong pipeline is necessary to stand out in this highly competitive market.The percentage of Offer to Joining has come down to a mere 20% as compared to 65% same month last year. It is important for leaders to understand that employees have more options than ever today. They are going for the best that they can get irrespective of what one’s company stands for. The focus has shifted to what a company can do for them.

How has focusing on Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities contributed in combating the talent crisis in the country and shaping the company’s growth?

Earlier HRs usually have connections with 10-20 nearby colleges where they conduct their drives within a specific location and diversity of a handful of education institutions. This meant that the companies had a limited talent pool to target. With our platform, companies can connect with over 60+ colleges with the help of HR-Tech solutions without increasing their teams while also avoiding spending time on redundant tasks.

Focusing on Tier 2 and 3 cities gives companies access to a diverse group that they were missing out because of travelling inability, resources scarcity and time-taken from Opening Job to Rolling out offers. This has also allowed companies to choose from the largest pool of candidates defying all kinds of location, diversity and educational institutions barriers. We’ve seen a lot of focus shifting towards skill-set rather than educational background, thanks to HR Tech due to which HRs were able to realize the true potential beyond their 10-20 college circle.

What are some of the HR tech innovations in the domain of talent management that you're excited about? How will this play out in the year 2022?

2021 has been an epic year that saw the best and the worst in HR, during the first half it was a very slow market with almost next-to-zero opportunities but the second half saw a huge surge in demand for Tech Talent. Some of the HR Trends to watch out for in 2022 include an increase in robust pipelines supported by HR TEch and an increasing number of backouts, personalization in AI-Based HR Platform with more upgrades expected in the coming year, a surge in hybrid models of working, and campus recruitment platforms.

As a leader in HR tech providing a platform for talent acquisitions to companies, what are some top priorities for you moving forward?

Moving forward, our focus is on skill-based learning where we design courses specifically to a candidate’s need and their preference of career, using deep tech for talent mapping to learn the behaviour of the candidate during their college days and constant tracking to understand their preferences and to match them with relevant opportunities and, educating both employers and candidates about hiring  so they can easily embrace the new normal.

 

Read full story

Topics: Employee Relations, Culture, Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, #HRTech

Did you find this story helpful?

Author

QUICK POLL

How do you envision AI transforming your work?