‘How can organisations innovate talent development to provide more career pathing as they work to build, attract and retain a transient workforce in the hybrid workplace model?’

It is a million-dollar question on the mind of every HR professional active in this new world of work. 

At Perspectives 2021, Janardhan Santhanam, Global Head of Talent Development, Tata Consultancy Services, shared actionable insights on how to cater to the question above and deduce the parameters that can enable organisations to  develop and execute appropriate employee strategies so as to build them, attract them, and most importantly, retain them.

Here are some key takeaways from the session -

Transforming organisations’ heterogeneity 

Senior leadership recognises that the continued growth and development of any organisation would come from new collaborators, new industries as well as a new ecosystem. Bringing heterogeneity amidst business models would enable the whole company to transform their own people strategies and policies. 

Many industries are joining hands with one another to develop a customer-centric purpose for their organisations for example like travel experience where many companies are pooling their resources to streamline processes, interfaces, and system upgrades to provide the kind of experience employees and customers both can cherish. 

Janardhan emphasised that ‘ the value is captured through the complexities of the problem’ in the case study when it comes to tackling the overarching transformative journey of learning and development. He observed that “classroom to people instead of bringing people to the classroom” has been the mantra and with a streamlined heterogeneity, it is here to stay for ages to come. 

Earning customer loyalty through a clear purpose

Hybrid work has been a double-edged sword since its conception and application. It hasn’t been fit for all yet it has its advantages with many. The companies are pooling so many resources into their employee-centric strategies because the right kind knows that the right employees will earn more customer satisfaction.

As observed in recent times, customer loyalty is only sustainable in companies where they have invested in employee loyalty by enabling them to augment their skills to perform higher enterprises. Hence organisations need to embed customer and employee-centric values in the organisations. Instead of arbitrary learning modules, ‘training professionals to stay’ is the mantra organisations should follow for the same.   

Janardhan highlighted while utilising the models of bigwigs like Netflix, Amazon, etc. of enabling hybrid work for employees, companies should be embedding an ethos of ‘just in time, just enough, and just for me’ and ‘remove friction, add persuasion’.

A purpose-driven incentiveising program

TCS’s Elevate program aims to immerse the learners in the role they are preparing for and enables them to deliver solutions to multi-model interventions comprising innovative startups full of behaviour analytics, AI, and more. In this new world of work, it has been observed that academic approaches like skill-based incentives, role-based incentives, higher compensation, retention incentives won't work. What companies now need essentially is a compensation program that would be a purpose-driven, democratic, and transparent linkage between learning, career progression, and rewards. 

Janardhan Santhanam concluded his session by acknowledging that the constant reimagination of learning and development is here to stay in terms of tools, technology, and processes. It will remain in continuance as more companies practice this. As more companies  and boldly appreciate the nuances of the whole world of work, then the lesser catch-up game the industries have to play, to find the right talent to work with the right tools.