As organisations embrace innovative working formats led by a diversified workforce, employee expectations are expanding and changing. The labour market is highly competitive, and we’ve learned in the past few months that the pay scale is no longer enough to make your talent stay. Today’s workforce, especially the GenZs, seek purpose in their roles and a culture where they belong. They want choice, and their well-being and growth at the organisation are accounted for. 

But meeting these rising expectations is easier said than done, as we increasingly work with distributed teams. A key differentiator then becomes technology in sustaining connections and delivering a seamless and holistic employee experience. And so at TechHR India 2022, in partnership with Oracle, we led a series of conversations with pioneering HR leaders on the emerging talent and HR tech trends, the rising importance of EX, how HR tech can be leveraged skillfully to create a high-impact work culture and best practices that could be answers to our community as they embrace the new-age workforce.

Here are some excerpts. 

What are those emerging talent trends that will redefine how leaders design their employee experience strategy?

“There is no emergent talent strategy, what we need to do is stick to the basics and explain to the candidate what’s in it for them. That is the real game changer. Candidates always look forward to what they’re getting from their potential employer and that value proposition has to be very clearly explained to the manager as well as to the candidate. And obviously, we need to show growth paths backed by success stories. For instance, in our organisation, 95% of the senior leadership is internally appointed. We must also not forget the compensation aspect inclusive of total rewards. For total rewards, it has to be designed in such a way that there is a short-term as well as a long-term retention plan. Short term could be a joining bonus while long term could include ESOPs.”

-Puneet Khurana, Group Head- Human Resources at Policybazaar and Paisabazaar

What is a word of advice or best practices you would like to share with our community on innovating EX strategies for the new-age workforce?

“One of the biggest priorities that I have is how do I really simplify things, how do I bring everything onto the same platform, and make everything that my employees need available at the touch of a button. My people are not in the same vicinity anymore, so how do I take this multiplicity of choices to them? That is something I would like to understand. I’d also like to see how technology can be looked at more inclusively and not in intrusive terms. That’s important, and finally, we tend to tend about how every software gets updated, in that same line, I think we need to look into our systems as well. Changes are happening all around and we need to continue to update our software.”

-Supratik Bhattacharyya, Chief Talent Officer, RPG Group

What are those emerging talent trends that will redefine how leaders design their employee experience strategy?

“The priorities of talent are changing; what they look for in a job or in an organisation has changed completely. Hybrid is becoming important, so the priorities of life have changed. Earlier, money and big brands used to attract them but now, it’s more about the choices these organisations make. As employees reclaim their lives, what is important for them are questions around: what kind of organisation are they joining? Is it only for business? Or does the organisation have a purpose? They want companies with a purpose larger than business objectives, more to do with communities, with nation-building. So today, there is a big shift in how people look at their jobs. Secondly, they have also realised the importance of being with family, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. And so we see the importance of Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities with talent mobility and talent accessibility changed.”

-Harshvendra Soin, Global Chief People Officer and Head of Marketing, Tech Mahindra 

What guidance would you like to lay for CXOs while selecting HR technology for their respective organisation?

“With the priorities of talent changing, the objective of technology transformation also has to change, and we need to look at how can bring efficiencies and productivity enhancement in the digital platform. Now is the time for CHROs to also look at how they can invoke the right kind of feelings among their employees through technology. In a hybrid environment, in a remote working scenario, in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, it’s important to have an all encompassing technology attuned to your people’s feelings. Gone are those days where we could do the patchwork of stitching multiple products or applications together and give a kind of productive but ineffective experience to people. Secondly, with technology evolving so fast, nobody can afford to be on an older version of technology. The costs are prohibitive and there are timelines involved. So, it’s important that if any organization today is looking at the technology, it has to be a cloud-first strategy. It has to be something that will always remain contemporary, always remain up to date.”

-Shaakun Khanna, Vice President & Head, SaaS Alliances & Channels, Asia Pacific at Oracle India

What are those emerging talent trends that will redefine how leaders design their employee experience strategy?

“In 2012, the global economy was evaluated on how the jobs have transitioned with automated technologies. In just one country, France, over 500,000 jobs were eliminated because of the advent of automated technologies. But the surprising factor is that more than 700,000 were also created, which enabled automation. When we take those statistics and fast forward them to the future of work, one big emerging talent trend is the coexistence of technology and human interfaces when it comes to experience. Experience is no more a fundamental in person, physical engagement by the organisation. But it's an experience which reaches the homes of our talent who work with us. The second is the emergence of on-demand talent. When you talk about on-demand talent, what comes to mind is your ability to hire talent and use them for the skills they have for the time that you need. That same talent could be engaged with Oracle, Sony and five other organisations because they provide their skills and expertise and those on-demand paths; it enables the organisation to be effective and for the respective individual also to flourish in the zones of their learning and growth. But what it means for the experience because you have fungibility and talent who's moving so fast, but they're coming into your company which is fundamentally driven by the real-time experience of how we take them, the infrastructure one side, but also how the leadership to the last mile enables them to effectively connects to the purpose of the organisation to try and deliver the results fast.”

-Manu Wadhwa, CHRO, Sony Pictures Networks

In the new-age talent landscape, how can HR technology play an important role in enhancing EX?

“The workforce has always been diverse. But what has changed is the relationship of technology to every individual, given that every employee carries a unique experience with different needs. This is evident in the difference in employee expectations we witness when we compare someone working remotely with no mentors and peers to support them and an employee working on the frontlines in delivery and communications. Also, when we look at the larger economy, we see people getting hired, onboarded, learning and unlearning and then moving on to other organisations. This trend demands a different lens to understand. What then becomes imperative is to create an employee experience where we’r e able to get as much as information, insights, and trends, learning to know how we can design and execute the employee experience. Technology plays a critical role in this regard and enables the employee working remotely to deliver the right outcomes and empower the organisation to gain the desire productivity and innovation from the employer.”

-Shailesh Singla, Country Head & Business Leader - HCM at Oracle India