The workplace is evolving rapidly, and HR must adapt to meet changing business expectations. Sujay Puthran, SVP, Group Head, HR Business Operations at Eviden, an Atos Business, provides insights into how HR can stay ahead of the curve to drive organisational success.
The HR landscape has been significantly altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, compelling businesses to adjust their strategies to meet the evolving expectations of the workforce and navigate an uncertain market. In response, companies have experimented with innovative techniques to source, assess, and select candidates. Sujay Puthran, SVP, Group Head – HR Business Operations at Eviden, a spin-off business of IT services giant, Atos, says his organisation has ramped up talent acquisition capabilities and processes using collaboration tools, online assessments, and hackathons.
“COVID-19 was in many ways a great reset that was truly unprecedented. It created a generational shift in the way work is imagined and delivered,” says Puthran. “While the technology for enabling newer ways of working always existed, the sudden challenges posed by the pandemic led many industries including our company over the technology tipping point and set us on a transformational path.”
Eviden brings together the Digital, Big Data, and Security divisions of Atos, as well as the consulting business, formerly known as Atos Consulting. The organisation supports its customers’ digital transformation strategies as they navigate disruption in their respective industries. “The global crisis hit us in the midst of these disruptions and required us to scale our operations remotely with infrastructure readiness almost overnight. While we managed to wade through the logistics of infrastructure and IT readiness, it was imperative to ensure a secure work environment for our employees,” Puthran recalls.
“Remote working en masse for the first time in our industry and managing critical and live projects led us to rethink how we engage our employees, including our new recruits. Cultural integration of our remotely spread teams was another challenging proposition for us. It required our front-line managers and enabling teams to shift gears in engaging teams virtually, finding new ways to engage, communicate, and motivate their team members,” he shares. Another huge challenge during this period was the unprecedented demand for digital skills. While this led to record attrition, Eviden focused on retaining talent and ensuring business continuity.
Reorienting towards greater efficiency
“Like many in our industry, our teams improvised on the various solutions in an agile manner rather than reinventing the wheel,” says Puthran. It required recalibrating needs and leveraging and realigning existing technology to adapt to the changing workforce expectations. “For example, we already had collaboration tools, but these were under-utilised earlier. Now, these have gained prominence in all our meetings and engagement activities, effectively bringing our people together virtually. Another example was our attendance tracking system, which was quickly repurposed to remove the dependency on physical attendance tracking and focus on productivity tracking.”
The organisation also built an enabling portal for employees, one that provided a one-stop solution to all COVID-related information and services, including employee assistance programmes (EAP), tie-ups with service providers and vendors, as well as offerings on COVID Care Plans. “With boundaries blurring between our team members’ work and personal spaces, facilitating a work-life balance remained a continuous challenge,” Puthran points out. “Our priorities also shifted to efficiency initiatives and stronger interdepartmental collaboration. As a result, we have built an internal tool on the talent marketplace that brings people together for boosting productivity, deploying training programs, faster billability and an internal talent first approach.”
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Adapt to the changing demands of the workplace
With unprecedented demands for digital skills and Great Resignation, talent acquisition capabilities and processes had to be ramped up. Eviden achieved this by using collaboration tools, online assessments, and hackathons. “At the same time, virtual hiring and onboarding required us to tighten our processes and mitigate risks associated with fake candidature, dual employment, and background verifications, among others,” Puthran shares.
The organisation experimented with innovative techniques to source, assess and select candidates. The firm’s Jumpstart program gave candidates access to its internal training portal, allowing them to undertake curated courses before joining. Assessments were used as a checkpoint on joining to fast-track project allocations based on their proficiency levels. “Interestingly, we ushered in hyper-personalisation through leadership connections during the hiring stage in addition to our already existing processes,” Puthran adds.
The tools and processes enabling learning and collaboration, sharpened during the pandemic, play important roles in managing retention and capability development throughout Eviden’s business cycles. “Our competency model provides visibility to employees on the current and future skillsets based on the business demands as well as provide curated content-rich courses to upskill and cross-skill themselves,” says Puthran.
Also read: What Are The Must-Haves For An Employee-first Approach to Upskilling
Eviden, an Atos Business, experimented with innovative techniques to source, assess and select candidates. The firm’s Jumpstart program gave candidates access to its internal training portal, allowing them to undertake curated courses before joining. Assessments were used as a checkpoint on joining to fast-track project allocations based on their proficiency levels
Culture of continuous learning
Indeed, the pandemic has given a fillip to learn-as-you-go courses and bite-sized learning modules to enable anywhere-anytime learning. “We have seen an increasing trend in online learning modules, month after month. Besides these, we continue to invest in talent through our fresh campus hires and young talent, which not only helps in retention but sustains business during slowdowns and managing our operating margins,” he says.
Upskilling and cross-skilling “is an absolute must in our industry,” he adds, pointing out that the dynamic nature of the business requires Eviden to always be future-ready. “Hence, our talent strategies revolve around upgrading our capabilities and skillsets that are relevant to provide innovative solutions and services to our customers. The demand trends are often cyclic and, hence, it is important to stay focused and on top of our game.” It is this unwavering focus on building future-ready capabilities with young talent as well as running an efficient internal-first program that helps Eviden manage the highs and lows of cyclic demands; it also ensures retention, provides fast-track growth and reduces the firm’s dependencies on external hires.
About the author: Sujay Puthran is a highly accomplished HR professional with over 25+ years of experience in the IT/ITES industry. Currently serving as the SVP, Group Head – HR Business Operations at Eviden, an Atos Business, he is also a certified Leadership Coach and Executive Coach.
