Category: Blog

A team management approach that inspires managers to make way for consistent learning opportunities for their team members is termed Continuous Learning. Unfortunately, amid the daily commotion, our attempts at learning take a back seat. But with the undeniable benefits of continuous learning staring at our faces today, it has become compulsory for managers to embrace continuous learning and upskill the workforces for a better, faster, and more efficient performance ahead. But the question is how?

Here’s how you can start establishing a continuous learning culture in your workplace –

Encourage the kind of learning that is directed towards self. Instead of designing learning content for your teams, encourage them to give self-directed learning a try. Please make sure you allocate specific time slots for your employees to attend workshops, take up online courses, or indulge in their research activities. Provide them with the required tools to use those tools to look for solutions whenever they face any complications. Also, you can consider providing mock scenarios for your teams to practice independently and upskill themselves.

Normalize celebrating achievements, big or small. It goes without saying that no one can succeed in a day. You need to keep pushing further and reflect on your standing at regular intervals. To build an organizational culture of continuous learning, you need to push your employees to figure out the skills they need for achieving the set goals and continue pursuing that. More than completing the stipulated number of training sessions, the impact those sessions have on your employees is crucial. Once you shift your focus towards that, you make your employees feel valued, and the organization evolves. Assessing the said evolution will help bridge the skills gaps and have an actual picture of the aforementioned impact.

Draw employee attention towards the organizational learning opportunities by incentivizing them. Reports say that the attrition rate spikes up when organizations fail to provide sufficient learning opportunities to the employees. Similarly, building the required awareness of the current learning opportunities is also essential. So, make the opportunities and their significances known and then decide how you can draw your employees’ attention towards them. Incentives pique interest for sure, but there are different motivation triggers for different individuals. The key here is open communication. Only when you communicate can you find out which incentive works for which person.

Hand out tailor-made learning programs or formats keeping the goal in mind. One program can never be a perfect fit for every employee if you offer them something meaningful and worthy. But, again, without proper interaction, you will not be aware of your employees’ requirements. So, communication will play a key role here too. Once you figure out the requirements, you can hand out tailor-made learning programs to your employees and make continuous learning adaptable between them.

So start encouraging your employees to focus on continuous learning — today!

Automation, hybridization, and digitization – the three tech trends of 2021 required agile, focused, and compassionate leaders; leaders who could influence their teams and make them reskill/upskill themselves to fit the new hybrid workspace perfectly. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic and everything else that came along has made it very clear that businesses will no longer be ‘usual’ after this. So, the big question is – how should the leaders prepare themselves for a challenging 2022 and also the road beyond?

Use technology as humanly as possible

Adapting to the latest technologies at work is necessary, but technology should be used as a supportive tool and not something that disturbs human psychology. With the extensive utilization of virtual and augmented reality, leaders need to keep an eye on the role of these new systems in augmenting the quality of work but the quality of human lives too. With the face-to-face social interactions missing these days, the demand for VR is soaring. As a result, organizations must recognize that need and leverage these technologies responsibly and as humanly as possible.

Rebuild the company culture with diversity

The past year has seen a lot of changes in company cultures. With the new normal spreading its wings, companies needed empathetic and approachable leadership, both on face and screen. With hybridization and innovation taking over workspaces, leaders needed to rule out the old ways and cultures and replace them with the new ones. Similarly, 2022 also needs an inclusive organizational culture to run better and excel. Another trend that seemed to bloom in 2021 was the growing diversity in the workforce. It has helped to enhance the work quality. In the coming years, organizations, as well as leaders, will have to promote diversity too.

Make teamwork a business imperative

The boat keeps afloat only when the rowers are in sync. Similarly, every team member should be pursuing one goal being in the same loop. In a hybrid work environment, teamwork can do wonders when it comes to business performance. For a smooth future in the new normal, leaders must ensure teams possess similar strengths, skills, and mindsets to row the boat together. A team needs a pool of stars that can lead and follow, as per the need of the game.

Teach leadership to the employees

n organization as a whole must understand the concept of leadership clearly. A leader does not need to boss around; instead, the job of a leader is to influence and inspire. A bossy boss will only cause burnouts in employees, whereas a leader will bring about the desired action. So, teaching leadership to the employees will encourage them to work towards organizational and personal success. When employees start understanding leading in the right way, they will automatically take proactive steps to cultivate the skill.

To sum it up, it is essential to understand that business is human. Even though the pandemic has made organizations take up the technology massive, certain crucial aspects of the business will always remain human. Technology and automation can never replace morality, judgment, or empathy, which are the cornerstones of success in any business standing today. Not machines but humans run companies, even today. Automation can enhance work but it cannot make us better employees. So, the road to a successful 2022 and beyond can only be covered seamlessly if leaders can balance the human and tech resources efficiently.

In the post-pandemic marketplace, for an organization to survive and function efficiently, the assets like diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) need to be on point.

A diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization is more productive and innovative, plus the employee engagement quotient is comparatively higher amid the DEI culture. Such an organization exhibits better productivity and retention, which renders it a good reputation amid clients too. Employees suffer from low morale when they cannot speak up or face discrimination of any sort. Such events jeopardize their performance as well as mental safety.

When it comes to achieving goals, every organization should ensure making arrangements for a top-notch employee experience because employees make achieving goals happen. And over the years, it has been proved that organizations perform better if their workforces are diverse. An efficient workspace is supposed to have diverse minds working in it. With the changing landscape of business, empowering diversity at work is a priority today.

Equity, which is not synonymous with equality, is all about making the game even for all. It provides every employee with their required distinctive resources so that they can have access to their opportunities. It bridges the gap between employees by addressing every differing need. Implement workplace equity by prioritizing remuneration equity, ensuring diverse cross-level representation, and implementing education programs.

An organization does not become inclusive by just hiring diverse employees. Inclusivity shows when the diverse workforce feels involved, acknowledged, trusted, and empowered. Diversity cannot succeed without inclusion. Therefore, to create an inclusive workplace, educate the workforce, especially the leaders, communicate transparently, and embrace every employee with distinct traits and skills.

Now that you know why the DEI workplace culture is so significant currently, here’s how you can achieve them –

Chalk out a plan with hands-on participation of the employees

Before everything, you need to define some organizational terms and conditions for achieving the desired DEI culture. Once done, it’s important to chalk out a plan to track its efficiency. With the active participation of the employees, your organization can lead by example in terms of accumulating more employee buy-in and demonstrating employee acknowledgment. This way, you can nurture a DEI workplace culture.

Leverage technology to monitor the DEI procedure

Even though technology does not solve our complex problems, it at least automates them. With the fittest data backing the technologies in use, the outcome looks way better. So, much more than embracing the DEI culture, the regular monitoring is essential, and leveraging technology for the same will always be proven right.

Administer pay equity audits and gain better insights

The contribution of pay equity audits towards eliminating workplace discrimination is massive. Any discrimination against employees, whether intentional or not, disturbs the organizational culture. It is known to put the employer at legal risk too. With the help of equity audits, you can ensure pay equality and several other equal employment practices in your organization too. Insights gained from the audits can help you identify the areas you need to put your efforts on.

Share accountability and practice collaboration

Without effective collaboration, an organization cannot nurture its culture. It strengthens the core of an organization and helps in maintaining shared accountability too. In an equitable organization, responsibilities are shared and not carried on lone shoulders.  Similarly, for an organization to achieve DEI culture, the entire workforce needs to collaborate. It is not a one-man show.

Hold on to your humanity 

In embracing the DEI culture, you must not overlook humanity. Only a ‘human’ workforce culture can be diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Instead of relying solely on data and technology for several organizational functions and thereby snatching every opportunity from the underrepresented human pool, find means to make technology, data, and humans work in unison.

So, take your baby steps towards achieving an empowered DEI organizational culture, make way for a fair and exemplary workplace, and root for a high-performing workforce.

Getting our employees to work safely from their homes, building a new remote work culture for them, and providing them with all the necessary resources were the first few things to do when the pandemic hit. And doing so has successfully helped industry leaders in keeping their businesses from drowning.

But now, it’s time to move ahead of the pandemic era and plan for a long-term and sustainable post-pandemic future. And the HR leaders are all charged up to make the post-pandemic workforce happen.

A post-pandemic efficient workforce will require reliable leaders, clear-cut understandable expectations, and most importantly, able psychological support.

Reliable leaders make resilient workforces

A future-ready workspace will need efficient and compassionate leaders on whom employees can rely. Only a dependable leader will succeed in making the employees feel heard and valued in the post-pandemic workspace. Making the employees feel acknowledged will increase engagement and efficiency. On the other hand, an unreliable leader will only lead to disengaged and unproductive employees. And a post-pandemic workspace will have no space for an unproductive employee. Businesses from here will get critical and hence will need authentic leaders for assessing employee performance fairly.

Well-defined organizations demand clear-cut expectations

The post-pandemic workforce being a hybrid one, will need to have a clear understanding of the new ways of work. This way, not only will they be sure of their goals but feel physically and psychologically protected too. Unclear expectations will lead to chaos and will eventually pull the organizational balance down. Evaluating the past experiences and estimating the future course will result in a well-defined organizational structure and clear goals.

Able psychological support helps fight anxiety and burnout

The lockdown has got people to slip into various psychological issues. The effect was visible in their professional lives equally, burnout being the most common manifestation of all. A sane and efficient future workforce will need an able psychological support system in place. The emotionally exhausted employees will seek a safe work culture, and the inability to provide that will jeopardize the business.

Tips for building an effective post-pandemic workforce

Firstly, a psychologically secured workspace will have to encourage limitations. Employees need to be relieved from being available all the time. It is about time that organizations embrace work-life negotiation and promote a healthy working pattern. Secondly, both the leaders and their teams will have to make genuine connections for open discussions. Lastly, the post-pandemic hybrid workspaces will demand inclusivity for people to voice their points of view without being fearful of judgments or unlikely repercussions.

Employee experience, as we knew it a year and a half back, is not the same today. With a pandemic in our kitty now, the entire landscape of work has changed. This sudden transformation has changed employee expectations too. 2020 has been significantly crucial for the HRs because they were creating something unique for the very first time, a wholesome hybrid working experience.

Employee experience & its urgency

Employee experience is a journey that encompasses every aspect of your employees’ timespan in your company. It counts the various interactions made, the job roles and responsibilities played, the impact of the workspace on employee wellbeing, and every other organizational aspect that you can recall.

When the pandemic made it compulsory for the HRs to think about efficient innovations and better technologies for the companies, a new kind of leadership for the employees and, a completely different set of healthcare guidelines for employee safety and wellbeing, the urgency of achieving top-notch employee experience became all the more visible. In absence of apt technologies, the HRs could not provide the much-needed support to the hybrid workforces working overtime and facing burnouts. This dearth had certainly taken away from the employee experience of various organizations.

The significant benchmarks

Talking without any data or statistics makes no sense today. Analytics has become a practice today, and organizations all over are deep diving into analytics for digging data on benchmarks that matter. Before facing any problem head-on, you need to know its origin. If you have the answer to the ‘why’, you are almost there. As far as employee experience is concerned, one significant benchmark acknowledging the employee sentiment and analytics come in handy here.

Another significant benchmark is the business data. To gauge the overall organizational performance, you need to have a firm hold on the business data. Analysis of the same data will expose tons of issues in front of you, responsible for organizational inefficiency or low productivity. Those details will guide you in prioritizing problems and solving them in succession. The entire exercise will fetch your expertise and help in improving the employee experience. Unless you start at the root of the problem area, you will not reach the pinnacle of it.

The hybrid work innovations

COVID-19 pandemic has led to a quick paradigm shift in the working patterns and culture. Organizations all over the world were hell-bent on devising solutions to assist in building an excellent employee experience in today’s hybrid ecosphere too. The idea behind all of these efforts was to keep the workforce connected, irrespective of their locations.

Next is the employee experience toolset that has been a huge driving factor in this scenario. Professionals have designed all-inclusive portals besides chatbots via which employees accomplish every organizational operation in no time. Even with all the tools in possession, an organization cannot boast of radiating excellent employee experience if it lacks the right kind of leadership.

Future of employee experience

The main deal here is to achieve high employee productivity; without compromising on employee health and wellbeing, and the industry leaders are on it. They are making every possible effort to make the employee experience of their organizations impeccable. Employee experience in the age of hybrid working is not just a fancy; but a huge opportunity for the HRs to grow, be more functional, design-oriented, and analytical!

Having all the necessary tools in possession yet not having the courage to use them is like not having them at all. Likewise, if you are a leader with all the skills and qualities to lead the new-age hybrid workforce effectively, but you are not courageous enough to implement them, then you’re not being true to yourself.

Leading with Courage

Leading an organization is no easy job and doing the same with utmost courage does not happen overnight.

You need to allow and persuade yourself to take some necessary risks that will push you forward. It works best if you build yourself a courage ladder, shrug off the fear of taking risks and start facing the risks courageously, one at a time.

You can start by taking small risks and gradually proceed to the bigger ones, continuously reskilling and upskilling yourself along your way. This way, by the time you reach a point where you need to make big organizational decisions or strategies amid high stress, you are perfectly ready for it.

So, you see, it is significant that you have an adequate understanding of the risks that you are willing to take, arrange them in an ascending hierarchy, and then start making your moves.

Climbing up the courage ladder is supposed to be a great learning experience too. With the less risky incidents, you get the chance to weigh your ideas, approaches, and check which of them work and avoid the ones that don’t. Again, as you climb up carrying all your successes and failures, you learn to enhance your flexibility and manage your team better.

Being Proactive

Again, as a courageous leader, you must be proactive. You must work towards enhancing your own proficiency, sensitivity, knowledge, and equity, and most importantly, ensure that your workforce has faith in your direction.

You need to align your actions properly for your people to understand that your intent is sincere. “Practice what you preach” is an old saying, but still holds true. This way, you will not only be a courageous leader but an inspirational one too.

Trust the Timing

If you can pick your battles wisely and focus on the timing, you are already a step ahead of being a courageous leader. Remember, not every fight is your fight. A leader needs to understand personal as well as organizational objectives well enough and negotiate accordingly or set up a new strategy.

Competent leaders do not make impulsive moves in the name of displaying courage. They pay attention to the timing, think the situation through, and finally, act. You must wait for the right time to set off because that is what successful practitioners do. Being courageous is all about right timing, every other time you’re merely irrationally aggressive.

Therefore, in order to be true to your skills and thrive as a courageous leader you should weigh your options before fighting every battle so that you can be the enabler of your success and that of your team, not an unwanted organizational naysayer!

Happy working!

We have talked a lot about work-life balance and its significance, more since the COVID-19 pandemic had hit us. But how many times could we achieve that balance and not merely stress ourselves over how to reach there?

The concept was pertinent to a pre-pandemic world where we were supposed to work during the day and were free for personal engagements after that. But with Work From Anywhere becoming the new norm, the lines got blurred.

The new-normal digital workspace has become a little more favorable for the employers than the employees. They expect the employees to take care of work, at any given time now. It has led to exhaustion, which in turn has given birth to burnout. Recent reports suggest that burnout is on a scary upsurge since the middle of last year.

Even though organizations are trying to achieve that perfect and unreal work-life balance, it’s not working. It’s about time we think of a more practical and considerate approach that will make sense today and even tomorrow.

When it comes to balancing two priorities, stress and apprehension are evident because personal and professional lives have forever been at odds with each other. Work-life is either perfectly balanced or no; there is no grey zone. Hence, organizations need to disrupt this concept and replace it with ‘Work-Life Negotiation’.

The only way we can deal with two clashing priorities is by negotiating. Work-life negotiation eliminates the constant need to balance. One day work is a priority, and on some other day, the personal life beyond work is.

Nowadays work seems to demand our me-times, and even the balance seems to get disturbed. In critical times like this, negotiation ensures that you will have a personal life, either tomorrow or the day after, if you chose the work-life today.

Industry leaders need to disrupt the concept of work-life balance so that negotiation can step in. There will be obstacles in the way but overcoming them will lead us to a whole new professional world of immense possibilities.

Employers should further focus on the output instead of the hours the remote employees put in. If the employees fail in backing the organizational goals, leaders should step in, take charge, not only as mere professionals but also as human beings, and help the employees get back on track. And for the office goers, employers should consider leveraging technology at its best so that the employees are not unnecessarily burdened.

The pandemic has given us a golden opportunity to create a new history. Let us not waste such a chance, bid adieu to the old-normal work-life balance, and empower ourselves to negotiate. Doing so will lead us to the most constructive professional (and personal, to some extent) experience ever.

Happy working!

The concept of work from anywhere or WFA has been fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously organizations used to be sceptical about allowing their employees to work from home but a year into pandemic and lockdown have turned the tables.

Today organizations are planning to roll out a permanent hybrid work structure shortly. The WFA concept has placed the word ‘workspace’ in our minds. Tomorrow, your workspace can be your office or your drawing room or a coffee shop or a park, or any other place. It will free employees from the routine of sticking to one place when it comes to working.

With organizations going completely global in their hiring attempts and leaving no stone unturned for providing their distributed workforces with every required resource, WFA is bound to be a prime way of working going forward. One vital facet associated with WFA, collaboration is the topic of discussion today.

It is no secret that WFA collaboration is way tougher than our regular in-office collaboration. But, it is meaningful and fruit-bearing. All you need to do is follow certain principles that have been proved to yield augmented productivity and employee satisfaction as well as reduced costs.

Employees need to be the prime focus of WFA collaboration

Technology is undoubtedly a matter of high significance here but WFA collaboration should first be about the people. If the employees do not know how to work in sync or how to collaborate, there is no point in overwhelming them with a plethora of tools and software.

The first step is to make the employees aware of all the rules and regulations of the WFA environment, and also highlight what all is expected from them. You need to have proper WFA policies in place and employees practicing them. And as leaders, you need to commit yourselves to the WFA environment and thereby set the standard for your organizations.

Participation of teams should be mandatory in WFA decision-making

WFA or hybrid teams succeed only when each member is invested in it. Whether it is a decision-making session regarding the implementation of a new tool or the rolling-out of a particular strategy, various teams should be involved in the cause. When you fill the decisions with multidisciplinary perspectives, you fare better in meeting the needs of every team and in turn, the project.

Movement fluidity needs to be encouraged and tracked

As the name suggests, the WFA model is essentially fluid in nature. The fact that people can move to various places while working needs to be handled well, and organizations must be ready to adjust accordingly. There will be days when only 20-30% of the employees turn up, and similarly, there will be days when 90% turn up.

Organizations will have to be up and functioning effectively for both scenarios. You will need an effective tracking system for better resource allocation in a WFA model. In such cases, countless possibilities might turn up; all you need to do is rework and revamp your WFA strategy constantly.

Define the workspace digitally

A WFA workspace is all about being digitally enabled. A digital workspace where every employee, irrespective of their physical location can come together, collaborate, and work. Hence, every facet of a WFA workspace needs to be digitally defined and tech-enabled. A WFA environment demands a digital-first mindset. Starting from tools and technologies,

even the attitudes and approaches need to adopt the digital wave. The digital workspace should be the new HQ for uninterrupted collaboration and smooth functioning.

Even though the WFA concept is new but its challenges should not intimidate us. The concept is here to boost employee satisfaction, increase productivity, and attract as well as retain talent.

With a constant spotlight on industry leaders, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the role of leadership in dealing with a crisis. How an ideal leader should look like in the new normal or the next normal had been a collective question. With the first and second waves of COVID-19 bringing about the biggest crisis starting in 2020 and continuing till today, it has become imperative to churn out some major leadership lessons from the age of pandemic.

Even though nobody could define what lies on the other side of this pandemic, one thing that has come out very distinctively is that not every business organization has performed equally in battling COVID-19. Some have fared better than others, and how did they do so should serve as a lesson(s) to direct leadership from now onwards.

I. Female leadership is comparatively more successful in responding to a crisis

The pandemic has particularly highlighted the need to shift from traditional leadership to female leadership. Researches have shown that feminine power functions better in showing empathy, connecting with people, building an environment of trust, and mainly responding more effectively to a crisis. Even though some traits of feminine power have been active in the business for some time now, the COVID-19 pandemic has only emphasized the need to change positions.

II. Bad communication & lack of responsibility jeopardizes leadership efforts in trying times

A crisis demands an honest and transparent flow of communication. Organizations that practiced an unambiguous communication network could function better when the nations went under lockdown for the first time. In absence of a clear communication channel, the management had to face rising employee mistrust. It had jeopardized the ability of many organizations to function. When dived deep, this failing leadership was linked with bad communication and lack of responsibility. Leaders, who have succeeded in creating a transparent and honest environment, have also succeeded in tackling the crisis better.

III. Dealing with risks becomes easy when efficient collaboration is in place

Not every nation is fighting the pandemic with the same capacity. Similarly, every organization is not equally capable or equipped to manage a remote or hybrid and decentralized workforce of the new normal too. The risk that was imposed on us by the pandemic could not be mitigated alone, and efficient collaboration had to step in here. Organizations need to work with an inclusive perspective so that the entire chain can be made stronger.

Taking the pandemic leadership as a benchmark for tackling the crisis and maintaining business continuity, one can easily chalk out the traits that need to be fostered among the leaders to come. It took the world one pandemic to teach that empathy, responsibility, communication, and collaboration are the keys to effective leadership!

With the second wave of COVID-19 affecting the nation to such an extent, opting for no-touch technologies at the work front is the only viable way of continuing work, irrespective of industry.

In this present scenario, every organization should have a no-touch visitor management system at the entrance to keep their lobbies safe from any kind of virus transmission.

Amongst all the others, one industry that witnesses numerous visitors almost daily is the hotel industry. For this industry, both no-touch technologies and no-contact interactions have emerged as urgent needs in these uncertain times. Hoteliers need to promise a safe and secure visit and stay to their visitors and also keep themselves safe. Doing so will most definitely ensure an enhanced visitor experience as well as improved staff performances.

Touchless Visitor Management System for the Hotel Industry

In a hotel, a touchless Visitor Management System (VMS) will help in several spheres. Starting from welcoming the guests to accommodating them and even serving them would be made easy with a no-touch VMS. This way, the hotels will also be better equipped to check in the guests, identify the frequent visitors among them, and most importantly, serve them with increased efficiency.

Vital features of Touchless VMS for the New Normal

Intercom

With an intercom, the hotel would verify a visitor remotely and authorize them to enter the property. A VMS and an intercom (two-way) can be interlinked to exhibit remote functions, quick turnaround time, enhanced guest experience, and cost optimization.

Pre-Registration

Any efficient VMS must have the pre-registration feature. It will help the hotels in ensuring easy booking and checking-in even during the rush seasons or hours. It not only cuts down the time consumption but also provides decision-making insights. Some health check features can also be integrated with the VMS to ensure both visitor and staff safety.

User-friendly

Any tool or technology is good only when it is user-friendly. Both the guests as well as the backend staff should be able to use the VMS easily. The tasks performed via VMS must run through an intuitive and user-friendly dashboard.

No-Touch

In the post-COVID new-normal world, touchless or no-touch tools and technologies have become all the more necessary. Only the said technology can restrict the zoonotic virus from transmitting. Again, the touchless VMS should be cloud-based so that people can access it from any location and any device. The no-touch VMS of the new normal should also be compatible with the mobile devices as the guests should be able to use their phones to open the door.

Improvement of the Hotel Industry

An efficient VMS will help in eliminating any sort of physical contact between the hotel staff and the guests. This way a hotel will be able to ensure total safety and security to both the visitors as well as the hotel data.

In an industry like this one, a warm and pleasant reception is vital. Failure to do so will have your guests abandon your hotel forever. Using a smart no-touch VMS is bound to enhance the user experience by many folds. A VMS wipes off the reception queues completely by its pre-register or pre-booking functions. Besides, it can also help the hoteliers in delivering personalized services.

Again, having a single dashboard for operating the entire hotel will do wonders for the hoteliers. A VMS will record every minute demographic detail of the visitors and the smart dashboard will provide complete visibility into the same. The user-friendliness of a VMS will make it all the more wanted in the hotel industry.

Takeaways

Dump your old conservative ways of guest reception. The second wave of COVID-19 has pushed the hotel industry immensely to integrate touchless technologies into their operations. Starting with the registrations to bookings to check-ins and outs to everything else, hoteliers can do everything via the no-touch solutions. A no-touch VMS is all set to bring about a revolution in the hotel industry!