With talent continuing to be a perennial problem, companies are doing all they can to attract the right people in the organisation. HR experts across organisations are working endlessly to come up with policies and measures to reduce attrition and make their firms attractive enough for the young and the restless.
One such measure is empowering employees, both seniors as well as juniors and in the process removing unnecessary hierarchies. "In today's time, these are necessary measures. In our organisation, all employee processes like leave request, approval, work-from-home request have been moved into an app," says Ravi Shankar B, chief people officer (HR) and executive vice president, Mindtree. The best part is all these apps are auto approved. Hence, an employee no longer has to wait endlessly for boss's approval. "We want our employees to know that we trust them. We believe that our employees are sensible and responsible enough not to misuse the power given to them," says Shankar.
Most firms are now of the belief that majority of employees are honest and hence there is no point in making simple procedures complicated by adding more processes and approvals. For instance at Intel, employees can use their health insurance benefit option without seeking any approval from the company. The employee can directly engage with the insurance vendor to use the benefit. "Intel India focuses on keeping the workplace processes fairly simple and easy for employees to follow. The company reviews its processes at regular cadence and makes modifications wherever required in order to make it more efficient. This is aimed at delivering a positive employee experience that enables them stay energized and engaged on their core job," says a spokesperson from Intel.
Though such measures have been popular in the West, in India these are just starting. "Unlike the previous generation, this generation does not look at salary as the only thing to continue with an organisation. However, they do look at little things like easy access to cabs when they need it or similar such things," says Shankar.
At SAP Labs India, employees lead and formulate company policies and processes. They also play a lead role in several internal events and manage the numerous interest groups within the organization. For instance, if an employee (any level) has an idea related to product or process, they can approach the management concerned directly to discuss its viability and possible implementation.
"We have empowered our employees to become committed stakeholders of the company, by building a sense of ownership and demonstrating that we trust them to take decisions on their requirements. By giving our employees enough freedom and empowerment, we are encouraging a culture of constant innovation in which employees are inspired to lead, encouraged to innovate, enabled to grow and committed to our future," says T Shivaram, Head of HR, SAP Labs India.
At Target, team members are empowered to volunteer, ideate and execute initiatives that focus on education and are in sync with the NGOs requirement. This helps team members exchange their learnings, sometimes even create a common activity that can address the requirements of all NGOs.
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