HR professionals from Siemens, Ericsson Global Services, Lowe's India, and other organisations shared their perspectives on navigating the evolving challenges of talent acquisition, retention, and upskilling in a fast-paced, technology-driven environment. The discussions revolved around three key pillars—talent, technology, and culture—and how these interdependent factors shape the work's future.

Attracting talent through employer branding

To attract the best talent from all fields to work for different verticals of a company, it needs to build a strong brand identity for itself so that candidates get attracted towards it on their own, said Srikanth Vachaspati, vice president and head of people and organisation at Siemens, at the recently held People Matters TechHR Pulse in Bengaluru.  

Talking about certain aspects of using innovations or strategies in terms of hiring, attracting, retaining, and upskilling talent, Vachaspati said many things go into hiring and retaining the right kind of employee. It depends on how one “builds an internal seamless system between various verticals within an organisation to provide a seamless approach and provide career growth, in terms of user experience, what the candidate wants, what the employer wants. I think this is one of the ways we try and do our retention,” he explained. 

As far as retention is concerned, it is important to “look at everything from a candidate, or user perspective, or user point of view”, to conclude, added Vachaspati. “We still have a lot of challenges, our tools don't talk to each other,” he said, adding they still rely a lot on Excel sheets at the end of the day because that's the only common thing, and one can pull everything into Excel and do a pivot. Data analytics play a major role in understanding the work graph of an employee, Vachaspati added. 

“I think providing that kind of a feeling that, as a culture, the company cares for you, looks at your growth, gives you the right kind of movement, is what we have done… we have removed performance ratings a couple of years back… at a corporate level,” to attract and retain talent for the company, he said.

Speaking on the topic ‘Unlocking the Potential through Technology, Talent and Culture’, Manav Chhabra, head of talent acquisition, Ericsson Global Services, said, “I think there's a lot of focus on talent marketing, or leveraging your brand, that's what the first thing we are doing. There's a lot of investment, there's a lot of work going on in terms of how we reach out to the right audience or Gen Zs. They are the ones who would want to know, what is their growth, and how fast they can grow in an organisation.”

“So, it becomes essential to leverage your brand and then attract the right talent through the right talent marketing strategy in terms of what fits in… That's how you reach out to various segments of the talent,” said Chhabra.

When it comes to retaining, Chhabrasaid, “I think that's where we talk a lot about careers because when there's a downturn, the other aspect or positive or negative of that downturn is that every iteration goes down, because there are hardly any opportunities available in the market.”

“How do you then ensure that you're able to engage them? That's where your internal career management comes into picture, and while we are talking a lot about AI nowadays, I think that's where the organisation is leveraging,” added Chhabra. 

Talking about upskilling, he said, “I think, when you are catering to a different set of people, Gen X doesn't want to spend too much of time on online training, but Gen Z doesn't want to get into a room… how do you ensure that you connect to both of them…that's where you have a hybrid model.”

Technology as an enabler and disruptor

Talking about innovations and strategies, Vidya Munirathnam, vice president, HR, Lowe's India, said, “One of the important factors was to hire great talent without anybody knowing who Lowe's is…we set up employer branding as a core strategy to first attract talent.”

“In terms of upskilling and, you know, not more than retaining, developing employees, I think the meaningful work and impactful work, is what keeps anybody in an organisation, and in a complex retail ecosystem,” she added.

On being asked about leveraging technology, which is providing an overall competitive advantage and operational efficiency, Munirathnam said, “Technology is at the core and centre, specifically for GCCs to be value creators for the parent organisation. Most of the organisations in HR GCCs are becoming the second headquarters in India. I think that's a great trend and very encouraging to see.”

There are multiple permutations and combinations happening these days and without technology unlock, catering to customers is not feasible, she added.

“With AI coming in, democratising AI is also helping gain a lot of operational efficiency. It's kind of unlocking the potential of using data tools and techniques across teams and functions, making it a lot more unlock in terms of cross-functional capabilities. So, if I were to give an example relevant to Lowe's, the entire search engine on Lowe's.com was completely built in-house,” Munirathnam informed.

“The conversions and AI and ML technology that's used, that's kind of almost 90% conversion is what we're kind of getting from when we started till now. It's a big revolution in a way the search engine is operating,” she added. 

Talking about building a strong cultural value within the GCC landscape, Chhabra said, “How do we still make sure that we have the right talent coming into the organisation… There's this entire concept of when we're looking at talent, is culture. We always go for a culture fit. What we're trying to see is what this person brings on that can add to my culture as an organisation…You need to be very intentional with whom you are picking. So, smart talent investments, leveraging technology are important.”

About talent, technology, and culture, which are all interdependent on each other, Vachaspati said, “If a leader says embrace technology, but then the leader wants his secretary to print out every email and then looks at it physically, and operates, then you're not really embracing technology. There's a gap between what you are trying to say and what you are doing.”

At the leadership level, “we need to be very aware about how our behaviour controls the culture of an organisation. And when the leader says something, I mean, how convinced they are about what they're saying. Because you can't say that just because that's what you're expected to say. You need to mean it,” he added.

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“For example, when we try to use a tool for evaluation of people…we want to know what your current competency level is on a particular skill so that we can upskill you, the general feeling is you're using this to find out low performers and you're going to ask them to leave… When people know that you're doing this with the right intention, more people are willing to use, leverage the technology,” he said.

“I think the main thing is about culture. If you have your organisation culture right, whatever you want to do in organisation works well and with right aim…

Once you build the right kind of culture in an organisation, whatever tools you do, whatever technology you do, whatever initiatives that you undertake, becomes much easier because you get people to believe you. I think when you do that, things become sincere and wonderfully articulated,” Vachaspati explained.