Exclusive Insights on Workplace Culture, Productivity & Wellbeing, Here’s How the Shift Will Happen in A Hybrid Workplace

The CHRO of today is a business leader and stakeholder; leading conversations in the Boardroom and driving business outcomes. It is more important than ever for Human Capital leaders to stay relevant and adapt to the latest technologies and become more data-centric and business-driven than ever before. The HR Tech MENA Summit provides an unparalleled platform for CHROs looking to explore new-age technologies and strategies that make a difference.

Meet our platinum sponsor Darwinbox that makes your enterprise change-ready for now and the next chapter with their end-to-end, agile HCM platform for the evolving world of work.

We got in touch with Chaitanya Peddi, Co-Founder and Product Head of Darwinbox during the event to tell us more about wellbeing in the hybrid world, top trends in the future of post-pandemic work and their participation in the HR Tech MENA Summit.

He moderated an engaging panel of- "BUILDING NEW LEGACIES: FOSTERING DIGITAL-FIRST HR DEPARTMENTS" where he discussed how HR Technology will be key to driving productivity, ensuring engagement, leveraging AQ and reinventing CHRO.

Read on as we interview Chaitanya Peddi on how he foresees the future of work!

1. What are the new trends in HR & Workforce Planning in the MENA region?

The world may have been devoid of physical connections due to the pandemic, but it has been an accelerator when it comes to evolving technologies and changing user expectations.

“HR leaders are prioritizing employee engagement, empowerment, and experience for their distributed workforce. The employees are looking at a higher value from their work and workplace. They are looking for a holistic ‘employee life experience’, not just employee experience as the boundaries between home and work continue to be blurred.”

Specifically, there are 4 new trends in HR and Workforce Planning in MENA:

Hybrid Workforce- With 80% of employees wanting to be remote or hybrid in the future, HR Technology will be key to driving productivity, ensuring engagement, and enabling efficiency no matter where your employees are.

“One of the key must-haves in a hybrid setup is the employee’s need for multiple tools and tech to perform day-to-day tasks – be it communication, collaboration, reporting, planning, marking attendance etc. Given the changing user expectations on ‘seamless experience’, the deep embeddedness of technology in the flow of work will become mainstream. From a technical standpoint, the interaction between HR core with smart service delivery layer (Workflows, Tasks, Forms and Surveys, Helpdesk, Notifications, etc.) will solve for day-to-day business use cases. Integrations with 3rd party/ existing software, like ERP, CRM, R&R, Payroll and Compliance etc., facilitate a seamless experience for the employees further. Marketplaces, wherein cloud providers can create and publish extensions to HRMS, for enterprises to have a plethora of extensions to handpick and choose basis on the business requirements, from will find wide adoption too.”

Mobile-first- Given the high percentage of mobile penetration in the region, organizations are adapting to Mobile-first HR tech solutions to make work accessible and flexible for their workforce in the region.

Chaitanya highlights- “They are looking at apps that are light, agile and provide an end-to-end suit for their employees. Integrated features like virtual ID cards, touchless attendance, face recognition, voice bots, chatbots, performance management, rewards and recognitions are some of the highly desirable in an HRMS mobile app.”

Employee Experience- Today’s employees are seeking much more than just a transactional relationship with their work and workplace. Experience is at the core of everything, and organizations need to embed the experience in the flow of work on a holistic level.

“From building an interactive candidate portal, org-based social network, OCR for frictionless inputs, real-time integration with collaboration tools like WhatsApp and Teams, voice bots, tech is the cornerstone of every employee experience strategy. Employee expectations are changing, movements like ‘The Great Resignation,’ are a testimony to this.”

Personalization- A trend, we believe that has been on the top in a lot of industries. It’s all about reflecting on relationships and giving more meaning through a bespoke approach.

“Organizations are also leaning heavily on AI and ML to create personalized experiences and get predictive insights and data at the click of a button. These insights help to tailor personalized experiences for different employees at every stage of the interface be it personalized onboarding, contextual and integrated content delivery, person-based data/ analytics dashboards or role-based access.”

2. How has/will the shift to hybrid work impact workplace culture, productivity and wellbeing?

The pandemic has shifted the way people view their life and work. There is a great emphasis on the value and meaning they derive from the work and workplace.

He advises- “Business leaders need to remember that organizational culture is not about physical proximity, it is more about developing an attitude of care, open communication, empathy and more in today’s pandemic world.

While we witness an increase in productivity, what companies need to focus on is the wellbeing of their employees, as it’s no longer a 9-5 relationship that organizations and employees share. The uncertainty and psychological pressure caused by the current changing workplace environment have increased workforce anxiety. So be it day-to-day communication, getting real-time insights into employee happiness and wellbeing, providing engagement and wellness in the flow of work, the shift to hybrid work has emphasized the need for a renewed tech-set, mindset and everything in between.”

3. What are some advanced HR techniques that are currently implemented at Darwinbox?

“From the very start, our focus has been on simplified and optimized technology for our customers. To give you an example, we identified early on that there was a gap between work apps and daily-use apps. Enterprise tools had a reputation of being unengaging and complex to use. As the only enterprise software that touches every employee in an organization, all the way from the boardroom to the shopfloor, we built Darwinbox (HRMS) to be mobile-first with a consumer-grade experience. Gartner recently recognized us on its Magic Quadrant for HCM suites for 1000+ Employee Enterprises with a special mention for our lightweight mobile application.

Our Self-service Delivery has become critical for businesses as they look at democratizing HR. This enables employee empowerment through ESS tools and is not restricted to only the managers.

We leverage AI and Machine Learning across modules to power faster and more streamlined HR processes and functions across the entire employee lifecycle. We have introduced something so intuitive and convenient as a voicebot, integrating with WhatsApp for higher adoption, and something so topical like Touch-free Attendance with geolocation and facial recognition technology during COVID-19.”

4. How are you helping organizations thrive in the digital economy?

Technology is at the core of this digital economy. HR technology, specifically, has now become the key driver to navigate challenges around managing this diverse, distributed and digital workforce.

“Our comprehensive hire-to-retire HRMS is currently being used by over 650 enterprises for managing talent acquisition through to engagement and retention of their 1.5 million employees.

While the use cases differ from organization to organization, based on the industry, objectives/ pain points, company size, geographical presence amongst other parameters, at a broad level - we are helping enterprises engage and empower their digital and distributed workforce, and for their HR teams specifically, bring in increased efficiency and productivity through automation, custom workflows, streamlined operations and more.”

5. What’s the key reason for your participation and according to you how important are platforms like HR Tech MENA?

“HR Tech MENA Summit is one of the biggest confluences of HR technology in the region and given our commitment to the region, it makes complete sense for us to be present at the conference and share ideas and knowledge, learn from peers and understand and celebrate all the technological advances in the region.”

To know more, click www.darwinbox.com