Mr.Sriram Iyer possesses over 20 years of experience in the ICT sector with a blend of exposure to both Business & Talent functions. Between 2005 and 2017, he managed talent functions across key Asia Pacific & Middle East markets for Nasdaq-listed Cognizant Technology Solutions & NCS (A Singtel Group Enterprise) in the areas of Workforce Planning & Strategy, Talent Attraction & Acquisition, Talent Supply Chain & Internal Mobility. A passionate HRTech advocate, he also has a strong exposure to the HR Technology advisory & implementation aspect of the business, having conceptualized & grown hrtech.sg (www.hrtech.sg) to become Singapore’s largest, curated HRTech marketplace with over 85 solution providers. Besides, he is a co-creator of the 2019 Singapore HRTech market map (www.hrtech.sg/promo) and a member of HRTech Taskforce of the Institute of Human Resource Professionals (IHRP). 

About hrtech.sg 

Hrtech.sg is a Singapore-headquartered HRTech Advisory firm, striving to create the greatest possible value for enterprise clients by matching the right HRTech solutions to address their business and talent challenges. After all, enterprises that focus on HRTech as part of their transformational agenda are creating sustainable economic value and better workplace experience for their employees. 

TRANSCRIPTION 

Welcome to Synergita’s TalentCast. Covid-19 is an unprecedented situation that has forced the whole world into deep sorrow and fear. In many countries, the lockdown restrictions are being lifted, yet some cities are still isolated from the rest of the world. Whatever the situation is, do not panic, be prepared. I repeat, do not panic, be prepared. Follow the local public health guidelines, and maintain social distancing so that you can prevent the spread of COVID-19.  

I am Ragapriya, the host of this episode. This is a special episode to discuss how to manage the remote workforce during this Coronavirus pandemic. 

And I’m here with Mr. Sriram Iyer, Founder & CEO of Singapore-based hrtech.sg, a Market Development and Advisory Firm. Sriram has over 22 years of experience as a Human Resources practitioner. 

Ragapriya : Hello, Sriram 

Mr. Sriram Iyer: Hi Ragapriya. Thanks for having me over at Synergita’s TalentCast. 

• It is our pleasure. So, coming to my question, first question. The pandemic has triggered the forced experiment on remote working in Singapore, and also across the world. You are in the HR advisory space. Did you encounter a spike in specific HR solutions and services that are in demand in this period, Sriram? 

Mr. Sriram Iyer: Ragapriya, these are definitely interesting times. Maybe we can call it, once in a life time situations. What CEOs, CTOs, and CHROs could not do for a long time, the pandemic actually seems to be able to do. What we are seeing now, is one of the greatest workplace transformations happening. SO, COVID is actually becoming an accelerator for the workplace transformations. You know, right from business models to people’s strategy, the way we work, things are dramatically changing and are going to be even more radically different post the crisis. So, if you were to ask, the last two months it’s been an unprecedented busy season. It’s been one of the busiest times for anyone who’s involved in the HR technology space. That’s because HR teams have been caught off guard completely and so they need to look at technology to leverage, I mean they need to leverage technology to do their business as usual activities and also survive through the crisis. So, you are absolutely bang on target when you said that this is definitely a busy time for everyone in the HR tech space. 

• So, it’s a silver lining for HR industry? 

Mr. Sriram Iyer:  Absolutely! 

• Okay. So, my next question is Sriram, what are the key trends that you see at the workplace from a HR technology aspect? And, how do you think we should integrate features to complement the growing trends of remote working? 

Mr. Sriram Iyer: Ragapriya, as everyone knows right, our remote work is going to be the norm. Offices won’t disappear definitely, but the size, the layout, the nature of people interactions are going to change substantially. As we’re speaking, companies of all sizes, globally in every corner of the world, they have the kind of crash course in remote work. Some of them are passing the test, some of them are failing, but definitely each one has a great learning from this experience. You know, but the biggest thing that I see, Ragapriya, is that leaders and managers who always thought that people can work only from offices and they cannot operate remotely, a lot of them have been proven wrong. So, I think that’s a big game changer. And what this also helping is, there are a lot of professionals who are always looking to come back to work after a pause in their career. Ragapriya, this is a great time for a lot of them. Because they can now work remotely and contribute seamlessly from wherever they are located. So remote work is definitely the norm and I think that’s the major trend we’re seeing. And because of that, there are a lot of things that are happening. Say, let me talk about two three of those important aspects. Number, 1. Well, I’m sure you’ve been talking to your friends and whenever I talk to my friends, the common feedback is, “Hey! I stopped tracking time. I really don’t know what day it is and what is the date,” and that’s true for professionals who are working from home. So, there’s a blurring gap between personal life and work life. And, this is an important trend that companies and HR teams should start to look at. This is going to change the way they manage and engage their employees. So, HR teams need to start looking at employee health and wellness initiatives in a big way. We need to come up with a framework for a remote employee work and remote employee engagement, otherwise, this is going to create a lot of mental wellness and employee wellness, that’s the first trend we are seeing. 

Second, what is happening is, companies as I mentioned have been caught off guard. But they need to keep hiring employees and they need to keep onboarding employees. So, clients have now started leveraging over the last two months a lot of new technologies for their hiring and onboarding needs. I know many of them have signed up for job boards, which focus on gig workers, freelancers. One of my clients who has mass screening to be done phone screening of candidates for BPO roles, they’ve started leveraging bots to do mass phone screening. Educational institutions and HR teams have started using video interviews and online proctoring in a big big way because that’s the only way they can continue to do a hiring and meet the company’s requirements. Gamified assessments, there are companies like talent games, which are focusing on gamification in a big way to engage with millennials better, so companies have started using gamified assessments. And finally, employee onboarding, people always thought you need to enter the presence of a company to onboard an employee. Today, that completely has been smashed and people are doing virtual onboarding. So, virtual hiring and onboarding is going to be the key norm and all companies need to be geared up for it.  

Third aspect, safe and secure employee communication, there are tools like a Zippy, which companies are using to securely communicate with their employees. You can now talk to the employees, face to face, so you need to now leverage technology. Let’s keep in mind that we need to have safe and secure systems, you can’t be just over WhatsApp sending important official information. So, we need to have secure channels where people cannot take screenshots or where you can assign tasks and monitor tasks, do a quick engagement survey poll on your phone to all your employees. All these can happen only when they leverage HR technologies.  

And finally, if you ask me the fourth key trend that will soon emerge is employee performance management and that getting completely automated. See, that’s the space which Synergita operates in, So, what happens is traditionally people have been doing face to face conversations and the people have been coming to offices, so that’s some measure companies have used to access employees. Now, when the remote working scenario, you need to evaluate, do 360 degree, you need to do all surveys, employee pulse surveys, all this in a virtual manner. And so, the performance management system has to get automated and that is going to be the next key game changer in the HR tech space. We will see a lot more companies adapt online employee performance management systems. To summarize, you know the four key things, which I think, is already happening is, 1, employee health and Wellness because of this blurring of personal life and work life. 2, virtual hiring and onboarding. 3, safe and secure employee communication. And finally, employee performance management. So, these are some common trends that we’re seeing where HR technology is quickly coming to rescue of each other.  

• True, Sriram. So, these modern problems have forced companies to lookout for modern solutions, right? 

Mr. Sriram Iyer: That’s right, absolutely. When you’re in trouble times, people ensure that they need to leverage all life support available to come out of the crisis. 

•  Yeah, so, next, how can HR technology and tools can solve collaboration, engagement, and these productivity challenges, Sriram? 

Mr. Sriram Iyer: Good question, Ragapriya. That’s a question, a lot of our clients are asking us, especially those which have traditionally stayed behind on HR tech adoption. See, Singapore, for example, is way ahead of its peers in digital transformation, but when it comes to HR technology adoption, Singapore has lagged behind its peers. And now this pandemic crisis is actually changing that. Now, how does HR tech solution that you probably can use for your hiring, employee engagement, employee health Wellness, performance management, how can it help improve collaboration, engagement, and productivity. Let’s look at this right. 

1. All of these HR tech solutions are plug and play cloud systems, software as a service system They really really need little configuration and setup. So, it’s easy deployment, easy adoption by HR teams, and since they are very very strong in terms of user experience, employees are able to adapt to that very easily with minimal training perhaps. So, the first important aspect where they’re helping companies is little configuration and quick setup time. 

1. Most of these are on a, most of these HR tech tools are on a subscription model, because of that a lot of companies don’t have to essentially put in a large capital expenditure, which is a challenge right now. Companies just don’t have money to invest in large projects but HR tech solutions because they are cloud-based subscription models, they are part of operating expenditures. Based on your number of employees, you probably have a bill coming to you at the end of every month and then just like your print and electricity expenses, you pay these. So, number two, it essentially reduced cost especially zero capital expenditure when deploying such HR tech systems. 

1. Some of these systems, if you take the HRMS systems, right from pre recruitment to retirement, you can manage all of it seamlessly in just one platform. Imagine, for a HR team to manage employees in a virtual plus on site environment, such a one stop solution is going to help them seamlessly. They don’t have to look at multiple solutions to manage people, it is just one stop platform for managing them.  

1. The most important thing, if you ask me, it is going to be helping improve candidate experience and employee experience. Josh Bersin has been talking about it and so has been all HR Gurus, we are definitely moving into the experience economy and HR tech solutions can provide individual, customized, and engaging solutions for each of the employees and that’s going to enhance talent experience.  

So, to quickly summarize, 1, little configuration, quick setup time. #2, reduce upfront cost and most of these are just operational expenditure costs. #3, one stop platform to manage end to end all your employer related aspects. #4, enhanced candidate, and employee experience. So, I think these four are truly the biggest benefits that HR tech solutions can provide.

• Yeah, Sriram. And in future, I think there will be a drastic increase in these tools because with the influx of millennial workforce, they are digital savvy workforce, right? 

Mr. Sriram Iyer: That’s right, Ragapriya. So, what we’re seeing, we recently launched 2020 Singapore HR tech market map. We have categorized the 160 service providers, who were servicing Singapore talent marketplace across eight categories. And 160 service providers are a huge number, so actually HR teams are spoiled for choices. Just a few years back, these were 20 or 30 people servicing the Singapore marketplace, now that has jump dramatically, so there is this HR tech adoption is leading to more players coming in and definitely it’s best times for HR teams because it’s reduced cost and more choices. 

• Yeah. So, Sriram, how important is the role of culture in the adoption and implementation of HR tech? 

Mr. Sriram Iyer: Very important, Ragapriya, and I think that’s where most HR tech implementations fail. What happens is HR teams start with the HR tech product in mind and try to force fit it into the organization. I know, we keep reminding our clients that they need to start with the problem they’re trying to solve, but not the solution. And when you start with the solution in mind and try to force fit, it’s going to be a disaster. So, as part of the digital HR journey, when we work with our clients, we tell them to rethink the entire HR value proposition that they’re bringing to their employees, to their stakeholders, and factoring the organization culture. What works for one company might not work for another company. The inherent cultural element of an organization plays a major part in the success of a HR tech implementation. They need to have a strong change management plan, which is sadly missing in most implementations, then they don’t have champions in each teams, who can push for adoption and when you don’t have when you don’t keep your company culture, a change management team sponsors in mind, any HR tech implementation is definitely going to be quite disastrous. So, the guiding principle of any digital transformation should be business driven or business centric, it should be scalable, it should be repeatable, it should be standardized. And for all of that, you need to have your employee culture and the employee expectation at the center of your complete transformation plan. 

•  So, culture’s role is definitely significant in the adoption and implementation of HR tech. So, Sriram, any parting comments for our HR friends listening to this podcast? 

 Mr. Sriram Iyer: I probably have three key aspects that I would like to share. First one, we will definitely have our HR budgets getting reduced, and the leadership team, ask us to do more with less. So, in such a scenario, adoption of technology by HR teams is inevitable. Hence, we should actually accelerate the adoption of a digital mindset, amongst all of our team members in the HR function as early as possible. That’s the first one. The second one, I think, we should start with the problem that you’re trying to solve when you are on a digital HR transformation journey. We should not start with the solution or the product in mind, we should start with the problem, we should look at our organization culture and the employee expectations at the center of whatever we do and then, we should begin our digital HR transformation journey. 3, We are in the experience economy. As already mentioned, Josh Bersin and HR Gurus have been emphasizing to all product providers to focus on enhancing their product in alignment with the experience economy. So, HR teams have a lot of choice to provide individualized engaging experiences for candidates and for employees. So, we need to leverage HR tech to provide that individualized experience for each of our candidates and employees. So, to summarize three aspects, one, we need to urgently adopted digital HR mindset. Second, we need to start with the problem that we’re trying to solve and not have a solution or the product in mind, to begin with. Third, we need to ensure that each of our candidate and employee gets the right experience because we are in the experience economy. Those are the parting comments from my end.

• You are right, Sriram. The second point, focus on the problem not on the solution is really eye opening. Thank you so much for all your insights, Sriram. It was such a pleasure chatting.  

Mr. Sriram Iyer: Thank you for having me over at the Synergita’s TalentCast. It was wonderful talking to you and HR friends. 

• Thank you. Thank you all for hearing us and stay safe out there.