Organisations today know that a superior employee experience translates into a best-in-class customer experience because both of these are two sides of the same coin. HR Leaders who spearhead people practices, therefore, must have a strong business mindset. The role of this function today is no longer limited to being a service provider. They are also increasingly employee experience designers, talent developers, and change agents who play a critical role in linking employee aspirations to organisational goals. Added to this is the evolving landscape of digital transformation, which calls for enterprises to step up their culture and infrastructure by strategically investing in people-centric solutions.

Quinnox is one enterprise that not only empowers other organisations by unlocking their hidden potential across the digital value chain but is a strong believer in leading that digitally driven, employee-centric culture within their own organisation. To dive deeper into this, we get into an exciting conversation with Rekha Raj, President and Country Head at Quinnox, who shares her success story and how she created a massive impact across the HR function by giving equal emphasis to people practices and business strategy.

Can you share with us your journey as an HR Leader? What experiences have shaped your career, and how have they influenced your leadership style at Quinnox?

Early in my career as a recruiting manager, I discovered my passion for human resources and its impact on organisational success. Initially, my focus was on recruitment, where I honed my abilities to identify top talent, foster strong relationships, and align candidates with organisational goals. The key lessons were the importance of being detail-oriented, empathetic, and possessing excellent communication skills. But as I broadened my knowledge beyond recruitment delving into areas from employee engagement to performance management, I realised the significance of adaptability, a thirst for continuous learning, and the ability to navigate diverse challenges while considering the big picture.

As I gradually stepped into leadership roles, I aligned HR initiatives with the organisation’s strategic objectives, developing strategic thinking, business acumen, and the ability to influence key stakeholders across various departments. Then came the challenges of leading change initiatives which taught me to be a change agent, foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement, and cultivate a sense of purpose among employees. Ascending to the role of a Country Head soon after presented an entirely new set of challenges and lessons around global perspective, cultural sensitivity, and adaptability. And becoming a Strategic Business Partner required a deep understanding of the organisation's industry, market trends, and competitive landscape. 

My journey from recruitment to becoming a country head in HR has been transformational, filled with rich experiences and profound lessons.

A relentless commitment to personal growth and a passion for making a positive impact has equally propelled me forward in my HR leadership journey. Looking back, I am grateful for the opportunities, challenges, and invaluable lessons that have shaped me into the leader I am today.

It has increasingly become important for HR to have a business mindset, and you’re one of those leaders who emphasises both employee and customer-centricity. How do you balance the needs of the organisation with the needs of the employees, and how do you ensure that both are aligned towards a common goal?

Customer centricity begins with an engaged and energised workforce. Balancing employee experience and customer experience is critical for business growth. And it begins when we see the customer–employee experience in its entirety and not as individual touchpoints. At Quinnox, we see employee experience as an integral part of the customer journey, ensuring there are no siloes of information and access. There is no disconnect between support and delivery functions.

Building open communication channels between leadership and employees helps break silos and creates a culture of ownership and accountability. It builds trust among teams and gets the employees engaged with leadership. At Quinnox, I have been personally invested in building this culture of open communication. Culture directly impacts business growth, and our organisation has grown when the leadership has shared its ownership of growth with everyone across the organisation. Also, our seamless employee experience is our value proposition to attract and retain top talent. The customer-first approach has helped us inspire employees to have a heightened sense of ownership which has helped us transform external customer-facing teams.

Quinnox is known for having a work culture that inspires employees to outperform themselves, be curious and take risks. How have you strengthened this culture of career growth and internal mobility? 

Quinnox has built a culture where our employees get a chance to learn new things and find purpose in their work continuously. Before going out and recruiting new talent essential to remain competitive, we always look inside and see if we can find a fit. So far, we have done 3 things:

First, we have built a database of employee skills; which is collected through self-reporting and validation from peers and managers. This skill tracking helps both talent managers and hiring managers get a good outlook on the resources and skill availability.

Secondly, we put almost 2% of revenue back into our L&D program, which focuses on both cross-skilling and upskilling. Our partnerships across the board with product companies also keep our technology reskilling future-proof. The L&D program design team has representatives from across the organisation, including sales, marketing, and support functions. This ensures the programs remain relevant to current and future skill set needs.

Finally, Quinnox uses a gamification platform for internal job postings; which helps employees pick tasks or programs based on their interests, and they voluntarily work on them. This helps them build additional skills and understand the projects before requesting an internal movement.

Leaders today must also become mentors to unlock the hidden potential of their people. How do you approach mentoring and empowering your people, and what impact has this had on employee growth and development at Quinnox?

Mentorship and sponsorship are both essential for Quinnox’s overall employee experience. I agree that traditional mentoring has become difficult in hybrid working because building rapport over a cup of coffee is definitely easier. In the last few years, we have changed our outlook towards mentoring. Given the pace at which technology is changing, and with the new AI models, adaptability and acquiring new skill sets will be critical.

Quinnox’s “step-up to leadership” helps our employees do the same. It provides a toolset and framework for mentor and mentee to grow and learn.

Mentorship can’t be binary anymore when building a sustainable mentor-mentee relationship, it is essential that both parties grow.

In our mentorship program, we go beyond giving guidance on making career decisions and overcoming career challenges. We focus on helping both new joiners and seniors find purpose and inspiration. Our mentoring program is not necessarily between a senior with x number of years and a new joiner or between C- suite & middle management; it is also among peer groups. Quinnox’s mentorship program can be defined as a group of people with a common desire to learn and grow professionally and personally. It has helped drive employee loyalty and retention and data from the last fiscal year also pointed out its impact on our innovation program. 

We have had an increase in the number of own IPs and solutions that are offered to the customers, and a number of these were from the collaboration of participants of the mentorship program. This has inevitably helped us secure more investments. Also, an important feature of Quinnox’s mentorship and sponsorship program is that our employees also have access to outside resources. There is a regular collaboration with outside consultants and industry leaders to be mentors to our employees, and Quinnox’s board takes keen interest in mentoring and connecting with our employees.

Digitisation today is the driving force behind organisational growth, and this applies to HR functions as well. How has Quinnox led a Digitally-Driven HR for its employees? 

I believe that to build strong agile and digital organizations, all support functions, including HR, must follow agile practices and prioritise digital adoption. Currently, almost 60% of our hire-to-retire processes are digitised, which frees up the bandwidth of HR business partners, and they contribute more towards adding value to business growth. At Quinnox, we have taken steps to build HR both as a process and a data-driven function. 

Firstly, data from various programs help us prioritise and make decisions that are focused on employee experience.

Secondly, automation for talent development and in the appraisal process has helped us create bias-free systems that provide equal opportunity to our employees. We have ensured that the skill development and feedback program provides them with customised and personalised action items. This leads to a better employee experience.

Third, we are using the latest generative AI models for conversations with our employees for common queries and for candidate profiling and scoring to use it for the right job fitment. We are also working on the use cases to evaluate AI for virtual career coaches and workforce optimisation. Workforce optimisation can help us reduce operational costs while continuing to build a strong bench with relevant skills.

Looking forward,  what are your goals for the future of HR at Quinnox, and how do you plan to continue driving employee success and business growth within the organisation?

We will continue to focus on building HR teams that are driven by both customer experience and employee experience.  Our employees are our strength and partners in growth and we want them to grow with us.

One of the short-term goals is to focus on reskilling and upskilling our employees. The new LLM and generative AI have created much confusion & insecurity among them about their skills and job security. We wish to ensure our employees and also future Quinnox aspirants that we do not see AI taking over jobs. Instead, it will make us better and more efficient at our jobs. Quinnox focuses on upskilling its employees to use AI as an advantage. 

For long-term goals, I want HR to become a more data-driven function and continue to work on becoming business partners. HR builds the foundation of the organisation for both culture and business growth. 

How do you, as the President, & Country head of Quinnox, effectively train and develop the next generation of leaders within Quinnox?

We understand the importance of training the next line of leadership to ensure a smooth transition and sustainable growth. As Quinnox has grown over the years, we have taken various steps to ensure that the leadership deficit does not undermine our growth. The ability to lead, and inspire, runs deep in the organisation. And so, we have developed various mentoring and leadership programs to bridge the gap between performance and potential. 

By taking the pipeline approach to building the leadership at Quinnox, we identify potential leaders that have shown exceptional skills, motivation and desire to take up more responsibility.  They become part of the leadership development program, which includes both internal and external programs. As part of it,  they are delegated some critical projects or accounts to handle. They get a 1-1 mentorship from Quinnox’s leadership that helps them navigate the challenges of critical projects. They learn decision making, conflict- handling, and make an impact on customers while doing so. We also do a lot of cross-functional exposure which develops a holistic perspective, and fosters collaboration.

Through our analyst and advisory program we encourage potential leaders to participate in professional associations, industry events, and networking opportunities. These interactions help them expand their network, gain industry insights, and enhance their leadership capabilities.

Quinnox also runs leadership and strategic management programs along with premier institutes both here and in the US. We recently collaborated on a 3-month program with SP Jain Global Management on advanced project management and leadership for 20 of our leaders.

Our comprehensive succession plan identifies potential successors for key leadership positions based on performance evaluations, feedback, and changing business needs.

Quinnox is your agile, business-results-driven digital technology partner. With the power of human and applied intelligence, they simplify business processes, improve customer experiences and create exceptional business value for forward-thinking enterprises. With the combination of cognitive solutions, conversational platforms, SaaS solutions, human and applied intelligence, they capitalize on new technologies to accelerate growth, innovation, efficiency and resilience.