Telenor India, a wholly owned company of Norway-based Telenor Group, is one of the leading employer brands in the telecommunications space and has a prime focus on innovation and technology to achieve its digital goals. In today’s digital world, it is important to drive HR practices based on analytics. Developing data modeling methods and business intelligence tools to create a talent pool and a pipeline is the way forward. A key driver of this culture is an empowered but lean organization. The four main interventions that the HR team is leading to enable and accelerate the digital transformation at Telenor are:

• I. Maintaining performance & innovation culture
• II. Attracting & retaining digital talent
• III. Implementing digital way of work
• IV. Building digital competencies

Telenor India has a performance-oriented and innovation-friendly culture that has fostered a passionate and highly motivated team. With technology transition, we are preparing this winning team to take on the challenges of the digital era.

Acquiring new talent to be digitally ready: Telenor India is tapping into the ‘best-in-class’ talent pool available in the Indian technology and IT ecosystem. We are engaging with top-tier universities via internship programs and project-based assignments, leveraging the Management Trainee Program to build a pipeline of experts and digital natives. 

Enabling a new Way of Work (WoW): Core HR applications such as Workday and i-expense have been implemented on mobile devices. By adopting Facebook At Work, we have integrated social media for employee engagement. The introduction of instant messengers such as Lync and Share Point collaboration tools, which are also mobile enabled, on our Internet portal WoW are being leveraged to facilitate innovative idea generation.

Digital up-skilling of existing talents: Functional Academies were rolled out with a comprehensive curriculum to develop teams for future needs such as Sales Academy, Retail Academy, and Network Academy.

Digital Knowledge Nuggets are being circulated to all employees on a regular basis to bring to them the latest digital technological interventions from across the world. 

Building leadership mindset for a digital organization: Telenor India is leading the design of ‘Asia Leadership Development Program’ for the Telenor Group. This will help us improve leadership band’s capabilities as they embark on the digital journey. Top leadership talent is being groomed through leading digital projects. 

Reward and recognition to motivate and retain talent: In the digital context, differentiated Rewards & Recognition plan for experts and project based incentive plan are being rolled out. Mapping organizational structure for digital readiness is being aligned with career and competency models.

The shift from being a traditional telecommunication service offering voice and data services to becoming the customers’ favorite partner in digital life requires a significant change in culture and capabilities. Digitization is no longer just a way to lower costs and boost productivity, but a means to provide delightful, compelling digital experiences across all channels, leading to real top-line growth.

Read the digital transformation agendas of other leading companies in our annual "State of HR technology" report here