Article: Delivering an outstanding EX through technology

HR Technology

Delivering an outstanding EX through technology

In an interesting session at People Matters EX Conference, Godrej’s Uma Shankar Das, AVP & Head of HR Information Technology and Prachi Kulkarni, Head – GILAC People Experience Centre, conversed with BluTech Talent Plus LLP's Vasudevan Narasimha on how Godrej supported and executed their own ideas to deliver an outstanding EX
Delivering an outstanding EX through technology

‘Your employees are the soil and nutrients in which your Customer Experience grows. If you have a workforce of engaged people who feel respected and appreciated, and if they trust their leaders enough to take risks and invest emotionally in the organization.’ - Tracy Maylett

Yes, it's fundamental for the organization to create and deliver outstanding employee experience, giving its employees a compelling reason to stay and create value. The quality of itsr digital and traditional tools can make or break the employee experience.  

Uma Shankar Das, AVP & Head of HR Information Technology, Godrej Industries and Associate Companies and Prachi Kulkarni, Head – GILAC People Experience Centre, Godrej Industries and Associate Companies conversed with Vasudevan Narasimha, Founder, Stanford Seed Consultant and Startup Mentor, BluTech Talent Plus LLP on how Godrej supported and executed their own ideas to deliver an outstanding employee experience by leveraging modern work tools, talent and resilience at People Matters EX India conference 2021.

Leveraging technology to achieve outstanding EX by creating a people experience centre 

Prachi Kulkarni, Head – GILAC People Experience Centre, Godrej shared her experience on conceptualizing and setting up the people experience centre by discussing the four areas on which it is based on: A place to create sustainable HR processes, an efficient HR business partner, Godrej’s service delivery process created on the backbone of technological automation and a consistent employee experience. 

She also added that the centre’s key drivers were the unique Godrej experience, digitization and leveraging automation balanced with unique human moments. 

Uma Shankar Das, AVP & Head of HR Information Technology, Godrej emphasized the focus areas which included core HRMS foundation, keeping ‘employee’ the centre of our design and setting up an experiential layer of every aspect of HR. He added that re-implementation of core HRMS was important so that it supported the task of personalizing every personnel and nudging them towards a pristine employee experience.

Big shift of transformation to achieve outstanding EX and supporting with HR practices

Prachi shared the mantra that kick-started the transformational journey was-‘start small, take 6 simple steps forward and build up influence to execute transformation and scale the pace’. She added that a task force was created to understand the nitty gritty of the experience sector of Godrej's operations. It was a joint collaboration effort that raked in the efforts of Human resources as well leveraging the technical tools.

Uma Shankar emphasized choosing the right platform for HR practices and employee experience was really important. Change management was to be handled carefully as it has the power to make or break the inclusive strategies that employee experience delves in. He added that the interlocking of the transformation starts at the beginning of the annual operating plans and long range plans where the ideation occurs.

Executing without a set playbook during the pandemic

Prachi revealed how it was a massive challenge for the team to transition during COVID-19’s impact,“ There was no set playbook, no plans over how to tackle everything amidst the pandemic. We had to take many steps back and rethink the entire plan and challenge our change management strategy. We kept on experimenting and learning along the way.”

She added that the support and collaboration with the HR & technology teams enabled them to take the right steps and decisions to keep on track with the plan. She also emphasized that going ‘micro’ with teams and delegating tasks while managing the shareholders and communicating them the situation seamlessly, helped them gain prudence over the plan and encouraged them to proceed with the speed they picked up.

Supporting Prachi’s responses, Uma Shankar emphasized that a lot of things had to be done differently, even from a technological standpoint. “Our seven different technological partners worked remotely to  implement the designs and discover new viable options. We had to deconstruct our plans and restore our design phase to establish a larger grid of resource planning timeline. It took a while but we reached our target, ” Uma added.

Both the speakers concluded their sessions by adding that the most important points to remember are to keep technology simple and intuitive, be available and easy to reach out and find influencers who can be the catalyst for change.

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Topics: HR Technology, #PMEXIN, #EmployeeExperience, #HRTech

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