Aon Hewitt

Consulting

INDIA | 2017

Human Capital Scan 2017

Insights from Aon Best Employers India 2017

Table of Contents
About the Aon Best Employers Study 2
Aon Best Employers India 2017: Human Capital Scan 6
Bridge to the Future 9
Building Culture with Technology - Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. 11
Learning & Development 13
Learnability with Podcasts – Mahindra Finance 14
Work / Life Balance and Health & Wellbeing 16
Wellbeing at the Core – Schneider Electric 17
Long Standing HR Imperatives: Career Opportunities & Rewards 19
#ImagineeringTomorrow Series 20
- To the Ballet Class 22
- Creating Success with New Economy Partners 23
- The Talent Network 25
- Shift to the Digital World 27
- Critical Re-thinking about the Future of Work is Necessary 29
About the Aon Best Employers Study
Your journey on enabling
business performance through
people performance
Aon Hewitt is one of the pre-eminent authorities on
measuring and improving employee engagement to
drive business performance. Through our research, we
know that high engagement not only delivers greater
shareholder value, but also helps improve productivity
and customer satisfaction.
Aon Hewitt began the Best Employers research in Asia in
2001 to:
• Provide insights into how organizations can create real
competitive advantage through people
• Explore what makes a workplace of choice
• Identify a list of Best Employers in India & other
geographies
Experience is measured
through employee
experience
Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
India 2017 Participation
A total of 119 organizations representing 14 key industries
representing approximately 348,000 employee responses
in the Aon Best Employers India 2017 study.
Aon Hewitt believes that every organization has its own
unique journey to become a Best Employer. a robust
evaluation framework based on the principles of
‘Intent-Design-Experience’ was created to identify the
Best Employers. Aon Hewitt’s research indicates all three
are equally important and in alignment to create a real
competitive advantage through people.
A rigorous analysis is run on the inputs captured
to measure the alignment between Intent-Design-
Experience for all participating organizations. A
shortlisted set is taken through an intense on-site audit
to validate the details provided and look for innovative
practices that truly differentiate these organizations.
These details are normalized against Aon Hewitt Process
Maturity framework and presented to an external panel
of an unbiased jury. The jury comprising corporate and
academic community arrives at the final list of India Best
Employers, with Aon Hewitt playing a facilitator role
during this evaluation. Client names are masked during
this process, and revealed to the jury only post final
selection.
Intent is measured through
leaders and their business
perspective
Design is measured
through the people
processes &
practices design
2
 Pillars of Best Employers
Our construct for what constitutes a “Best Employer” is based on the following four pillars. In addition, Best Employers
differentiate themselves with clear organization alignment between the business strategy, HR programs/practices and
their implementation.
High Employee Engagement
Say
The employees consistently
speak positively about
the organization to
co-workers, potential
employees and customers.
Compelling Employer Brand
Reputation
The organization is well-
known and has a good
reputation in the market,
especially for those target
groups which are critical
for the organization’s
business success.
Effective Leadership
Future Vision
Leaders show clear and
compelling future vision
to the members of
the organization.
High Performance Culture
Accountability & Trust
Managers set clear
goals and expectations,
and employees know
how they can best
contribute to realize
their business strategy.
3 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
Stay
The employees have an
intense desire to be a
member of the organization.
Internal Brand
Employees are proud
to be part of the
organization, and can
explain what makes
working here different
from other organizations.
Valuing People
Employees experience that
leaders are appropriately
visible and accessible; treat
them as organization’s
most valued asset.
Reward
Rewards and recognition
for high performance are
clearly understood and
transparent to employees.
Our Jury for 2017
Strive
The employees exert
extra effort and engage
in work that contributes
to business success.
Credibility
Employees believe that
the organization delivers
on the promises it From Left to Right
makes to employees.
Mr. Raswinder Singh: Senior Consultant, Aon Hewitt Prof. Vansanthi Srinivasan: Professor, IIM-Bangalore
India Consulting Mr. Sanjiv Mehta: CEO and Managing Director,
Mr. Leo Puri: Managing Director, UTI Asset Hindustan Unilever Ltd
Management Company Mr Tarandeep Singh: Partner – Talent & Performance,
Dr. Omkar Goswami: Founder and Chairman, Aon Hewitt India Consulting
Business Excellence CERG Advisory Ms. Kanika Manchanda: Project Manager, Aon Best
Employees trust their Ms. Chanda Kochhar: Managing Director and CEO, ICICI Employers India
senior leaders to be open Bank Limited
and honest; and believe
they make good business
decisions to drive the
organization to success.
The companies that had participated in the Aon Best
Employers India 2017 study had put a lot of effort into it,
and the Aon Hewitt methodology clearly encourages a
lot of rigor as well.
- Mr. Leo Puri
Growth Close to 90% of change caused by disruption
requires adaptation. Through Aon Best
The organization
prepares for future Employers India 2017 study, we found it is
challenges by offering important for us to recognise the best practices
interesting careers for high
potential employees and The one thing that stood out very clearly in the Aon and the philosophies behind those practices.
learning opportunities Best Employers India 2017 study is an enhanced focus - Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan
for all employees.
amongst a lot of corporations in the country to get the
maximum out of their real assets, that is, their people.
- Mr. Sanjiv Mehta
Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 4
 Aon Best Employers India 2017:
Human Capital Scan
Change is not constant. It is towards bridging the gap to the future. Over the last
one year, we worked with business and HR leaders
exponential across industries to paint a picture of the future of their
Aon Best Employers business. We then co-created insights, trend lines and
India 2017 Winners Businesses are getting disrupted at an unprecedented
practices for the future workplace. Since the future is,
rate, globally organizations are trying to keep pace with
well, the future, not everything can be sharply defined.
the technological evolution, multiple generations are
But we can get a rich sense from the narratives of the
working together and employees globally are looking
leaders who are working at the cusp of change.
at a future where they may share their workspace with
machines and artificial intelligence. The Imagineering sessions were conducted across
AEGIS Bajaj Finance Bayer multiple cities – both online and offline. Representing
In 2016, we introduced the #ImagineeringTomorrow
348,000 employee responses across 119 companies,
theme; with the intent to assess the impact of
and a cross section of industries i.e., services, retail,
megatrends, and to visualize a journey that prepares the
information technology, manufacturing, mining and
organizations for the future. We concluded the edition
metal industries.
with key building blocks for Best Employers’ and the
Bharti Infratel DHL Express Godrej critical dimensions to Imagineer the future. These insights formed the lens for us in analyzing the
Bharti Airtel
Limited (India) Agrovet data and trends from the 2017 edition of the Best
Employers study. What we concluded was that the
Imagination, Future, Engineering future is uncertain for organizations - a mixed bag of
opportunities and threats. But the present is full of
With the 2017 edition of Best Employers, we are working potential in bridging to the future.
Godrej Mahindra &
InterGlobe
Consumer IndiGo Mahindra Financial
Enterprises*
Products Services

Future Building Blocks of Best Employers

Employee opinion scores comparing Best Employers and India Market Average 2017
Tata AIA Life
Marriott Schneider Sony Pictures Insurance Diversity & Inclusion Basics (Enabling Infra, Talent & Staffing) Inspiring Leadership
Hotels India Electric India Networks Company 80%
84% 70% 82%
72%
74%

Tata
The Oberoi Whirlpool of WNS Global
Communications Career Opportunities Empowerment & Autonomy Employer Brand
Group India Services
77% 76% 82% 89%
66% 80%

Special Recognition -
Commitment to Engagement Collaboration Work-life Balance (Integration) Rewards & Recognition
72% 77% 77% 73%
73%
60%

Tata Autocomp Essel E.I.D - Parry

Systems Propack India
*Conglomerate Winner Market Average Best Employers

5 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 6
 What the Future Demands: Fast employees’ alignment and organizational performance. Is HR Supporting Growth 1) Diversity & Inclusion (D&I)
A close view on employees’ perception of leadership
Change, Fast Growth presents a revealing insight.
through Product / Service 2) Enabling Infrastructure (tools & resources)

It is not technology alone that is impacting the business
world. Government regulations plus global economic
and geo-political influences are also continuously
changing. Demonetization and introduction of GST have
kept our Indian CEOs as much on their toes, as the rising
influence of China on the regional affairs and the election
of USA’s new President. Indian stock markets have done
well recently, banks are flush with funds and interest rates
have been falling.
Despite the mix of constant changes, 95% of CEOs
participating in the study saidthat their organizations
were on a fast / steady growth trajectory. No wonder,
almost 50% of the above CEOs listed Product/Service
Innovation as their primary focus area for meeting
business goals, and more than 40% say key challenges
impeding their organization’s ability to succeed are
Government regulations and Operational efficiency.
For an organization, trust in leadership defines
However, in the era of constant change, are the leaders
inspiring employees enough? Unfortunately, scores are
lowest on this dimension, and Leadership is in fact an
improvement driver for the Market on an average.
How do low scores on inspiration compare with
leadership development? Especially in the light of HR
stating that it spendssignificant amount of time and effort
on it (more than half of HR leaders called it as its Top 2
agenda item).
Interestingly, organizations across the board have
focused on the tangible and de-prioritized the
inspirational. None of the participant organizations are
investing discrete time and money into building “story-
telling” capabilities and talking ‘future opportunities’,
with its leaders. Isn’t it counter-intuitive to not focus on
such skills in time of managing such fast change and fast
growth?
Innovation?
Given 76% of CEOs say organization’s HR strategy
is framed in collaboration with business, an obvious
response would be an emphatic, YES! Why is that then
65% of CEOs say HR is unable to demonstrate its ROI
through metrics?
CHROs develop HR strategy CHROs don’t use metrics to
in partnership with business measure HR’s ROI
76% 65%
Our data indicates that only 24% of HR teams claim they
are focused on HR effectiveness and metrics. If the CEOs
faith in HR outcomes has to be strengthened, HR needs
to measure talent metrics through the lens of business
needs. Presuming HR has achieved reasonable maturity
on operational (cost heavy) processes, it now needs
to strengthen efforts around measuring and driving
innovation & change.
3) Talent & Staffing (capacity & capability)
4) Empowerment & Autonomy
5) Collaboration
Interestingly, all these are strengths for Best Employers
in 2017, with D&I being the top most. In addition, these
were also the drivers we had highlighted last year as ones
critical for an organization’s future success.
Notwithstanding the above, the most impactful culture
driver, Inspirational Leadership, continues to elude even
the Best as its strength, now second year in a row. (An
interesting fact – women on an average represent only 0.2%
of the senior leadership amongst the participants).
But, how should HR measure progress on building an
Innovative culture? While almost one third of the CEOs
say they have not aligned their organization structure /
resources to the required culture, the Best breed culture
through multiple channels.

Driving a Culture of Innovation

According to Aon research, Getting Real about Creating a
Leadership fills me with excitement Leadership provides clear direction High Performance Culture published in 2016, five critical
for the future for the future experience drivers (besides Senior Leadership) impact
creation of required culture:
Best Employers Average Market Average Best Employers Average Market Average

78% 69% 81% 70%

Strengths for Market Average and Best Employers

Market Average Best Employers

Sustenance Areas Scores Ranking Sustenance Areas Scores Ranking

Supervision 76% 1 Diversity & Inclusion 84% 1

Collaboration 72% 2 Performance Management 85% 1

Leadership makes good business Performance Management 79% 2 Enabling Infrastructure 82% 3
decisions Empowerment / Autonomy 76% 4 Learning & Development 82% 3
Best Employers Average Market Average Talent & Staffing Talent & Staffing
69% 5 77% 3

83% 74% Market Average Best Employers

7 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 8
 Bridge to the Future
Holistic
Learnability
Wellbeing
– Byte Sized
Technology Learning
Enabled
Collaboration
Power of
Purpose

Diversity
Initiatives

Gen Y
Management
Commitments

Employer
Brand

Diversity
Learning and
and Career Rewards and Development
Inclusion Empowerment Enabling Inspirational Opportunities Recognition
and Autonomy Employee Leadership
Environment Collaboration Wellbeing

Change is inevitable

Omnipresent Data Analytics Disruptive Gig Economies Evolving Generational New-Age Leaders
Social Media Business Models Dynamics
 Building Culture with Technology -
Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.
About the Organization
Godrej Consumer Products is a leading emerging markets
company and is part of the 119-year Godrej Group.
The Godrej group enjoys the patronage of 1.1 billion
consumers globally, across different businesses.
The Intent
The lines between our social and professional networks
are increasingly blurring. 70% of Gen Y employees have
“friended” their managers and co-workers on Facebook.
It is natural that this format of social interaction also
changes the way organizations evolve.
Godrej has been one of the earliest adopters and was
amongst the first few companies in India to launch
Workplace by Facebook as their internal social and
communication platform. It is an excellent way of driving
their philosophy of the “whole self” - the belief that
passionate, rounded individuals with diverse interests
make for better employees.
Further, the workforce at Godrej is spread across multiple
continents. They represent varied cultures, languages
and backgrounds. Against this complex setting, Godrej
needed a platform to connect all their teams and
help convey the emotion of One Godrej. Today, using
Workplace, their teams from across the world connect,
collaborate, learn from and inspire each other.
Culture Fosters Adoption
Adoption of Workplace at Godrej has been driven across
all aspects of employee interaction. While most social
platforms remain limited to sharing business updates and
enable one-way communication, Godrej has ensured the
interaction is flowing multi-way.
Godrej employees across functions, locations and
countries are able to connect and actively discuss
matters business and beyond. This is a reflection of the
empowering culture at the organization. The Godrej
workforce bonds beyond work here, and all small and big
wins bring the company together.
Proof of the Pudding
The active usage statistics prove that the platform has
11 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
been adopted effectively at Godrej. 67% of the employee
population is active monthly. Leadership adoption,
cultural acceptance and willingness to experiment
combined with the ease of use and intuitiveness of the
platform has led to the success of this initiative.
Key Outcomes
1. Business updates- Workplace has transformed the
way business updates happen at Godrej. The senior
leadership team now uses a Workplace group to
share quarterly updates through live videos.
Workplace works as a great forum for Q&A sessions
during these updates. Some of our leaders also share
monthly updates with their teams through live
videos.
2. Millennial connect with senior leadership -The
India business head at Godrej connects with
young managers in the company to understand
their professional and personal aspirations. On an
exclusive group with young managers on Workplace,
he discusses innovative ideas for the current business
issues at Godrej and seeks feedback from them on
the on-ground work challenges.
3. A closer, well-knit workforce - Like with most
organizations today, a large part of the Godrej work
force is spread across different parts of the country
and the world. Workplace is a great platform for
these teams to connect and engage with each other. as an interactive learning platform to engage
Information about new products, launches, events with them even before their projects begin.
and teams is made available more often and more Introductions to the Godrej journeys of key team
easily. HR engagement activities that were earlier members and senior leaders, masterclasses on
done in smaller pockets are now integrated through different topics by business and functional heads,
Workplace and launched at a pan-India level. and a case study competition on a live business
case were some of the key pieces hosted on this
Workplace group. New joinee announcements
also happen on Workplace with the newcomers
introducing themselves through a short video
byte.
- Recognition: Workplace is making recognition
& celebration livelier at Godrej. It is used
extensively to build a culture of recognition and
to celebrate outstanding achievements at an
individual, team and organization level.
6. Collaboration - Godrej leverages Workplace
as a seamless platform for sharing and learning.
Employees across geographies share some of their
best practices, updates and initiatives in location or
function-specific groups.
A good example of this is an initiative called Learning
across Borders (LAB). Members of the HR team from
different geographies share some of their best practices
through a live video chat with the rest of the team.
4. Accessibility - Workplace has had a phenomenal
impact on the way Godrej’s workforce connects
with the top leadership. The informal nature of
the platform helps the employees break barriers
of teams, geography and hierarchy and connect
personally with their leaders. Senior leaders feature
in the list of top influencers and use Workplace
to share industry news, best practices and their
observations from market visits around the world,
real time. For the employees, it is an ideal platform to
showcase excellence in their work and take feedback
from senior leaders.
5. Shaping people processes - Godrej uses Workplace
to shape its people processes in tune with the
changing needs of its vibrant and diverse workforce.
Here are a few examples:
- Induction: To ensure Godrej interns start their
internship with a stronger understanding of the
organization, Godrej has been using Workplace
Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 12
 Learning & Development
In an era of change, learnability is more important than
structured learning programs. Not only does this allow
for innovation, it also encourages collaboration amongst
co-workers. Best have been effectively leveraging
technology to:
• Engage learners across generations
• Enable uniform and ongoing skill building initiative
• Overcome limitations of classroom-based training
format, and
• Increase the reach of learning
They are also employing extensive use of social media
and digital tools, in addition to using them as knowledge-
sharing platform for their employees.
As indicated below, the Best strategize and deploy
initiatives leveraging of such social and digital technology
better than the Market Average. However, this area is still
one long journey ahead of all organizations. Case in point
of one the winners investing strongly in Learnability is
enclosed as under.
Best Employers Market
Average Average
Learnability with Podcasts
– Mahindra Finance
About the Organization
Mahindra Finance is one of India’s leading Rural NBFC
headquartered in Mumbai, India. It is the largest tractor
financer in India and offers a wide range of financial
products. They have 1000+ offices pan India and have
served over 4.71 million customers in over 2,80,000
villages across India - employing more than eighteen
thousand employees, spread across the country.
The Business Imperative:
Capability Building Vision
Mahindra Finance organizes various key learning
initiatives & programs which are aligned to the
accessible, on-going and engaging for their Gen Y
employees. Interestingly, Learning & Careers was ranked
as the third most important employer offering as per a
majority of CEOs.
The Initiative
The organization addressed the problem statement
by introducing Byte sized podcasts to deliver learning
lessons in consumable learning nuggets. These byte-
sized podcasts are specifically designed programs
for their Field Executives to provide accessible, quick
learning through short podcasts. These podcasts can
be delivered through communication platforms,such as
Whatsapp, directly on their mobile phones.

50% 21% organization’s business strategy. The overall objective is

to build organizational capability and high performance
The Program Design
within the company. In the backdrop of rapidly evolving
technology and changes in workforce demographics, The program is designed as an engaging story which is
Mahindra Finance felt the need for a program that: woven in a series of two minute podcasts/ audio files. It
uses the concept of anthropomorphism to engage the
Use social media/ • Enabled uniform and ongoing skill building initiative
participants. The program allows participants to access
digital tools as part of aimed at enhanced business performance
the learning anywhere and anytime through their mobile
our L&D approach • Engaged their GEN Y learners phones. The program design ensures that participants
scattered in different geographies get consistent learning
• Leveraged technology to overcome the constraints of at their finger tips.
a classroom-based training
Adapting to the Gen Y Learning Style
Best Employers Market
• Increased the reach of learning within the
Average Average The design also adapts to the Gen Y learning style of ease
organization
50% 19% The Soap Opera style learning podcasts initiative
and instant accessibility, and hence becomes an effective
way of learning.
emerged as a result of this intent, i.e. to make learning

Learning & Development

Scores (2017) Proof of Concept

Use social media as a What You See What You Don’t See

knowledge-sharing
71% prefer Digital Programme Empowerment
platform for employees
82% Increase in retention by 11% Inclusivity
at all levels
70% 9x Scalability - 4000 Employees Motivation

Total Cost Savings - 1.6 Cr One Mahindra Experience

Market Average 2017 Best Employers 2017

13 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 14

Expected Outcomes
Expected outcomes of the Podcast Program:
• Improved Product and Scheme Knowledge
• Improved process knowledge & SoP
• Sharper articulation of Product and Scheme benefits
• Tips to be professional to impress customers &
dealers
• Techniques for handling customer questions and
objections
Business benefits realized:
• Minimized productivity loss-time away from business
• Quantum jump in capability building by breaking
barriers of location, numbers, trainer dependency
etc.
• Cost Reduction with multiplication of learners
• On-the-Go learning – Anytime Access
• On Demand Training Material availability
Work / Life Balance and Health &
Wellbeing
Amongst the other drivers predicted in 2016 by us to
be critical to an organization’s future, these two have
truly come of age. Both are now part of the Top five
improvement drivers for Best Employers.
The underlying philosophy that health and wellbeing
lead to enhanced performance is not merely intuitive, but
also data driven. Health & wellbeing has a very strong
correlation (0.76) with performance, validating the
above fact.
However, merely initiating a health & wellbeing
program isn’t sufficient –100% Best Employers evaluate
their program and 94% closely monitor and track
employee feedback. A few go beyond and make it their
organization’s purpose and raison d’etre (reflected
through brand).

• Tips for building long customer relationship • High Retention of knowledge through engagement

• Reinforcing and sharing best practices • Learning through peer collaboration

Deployment

• Soap Opera Style Learning Program – 40 episodes over 3 weeks through Whatsapp

• Byte sized learning – Short Learning Spaced out over time

• Short – Audio files under 3 minutes

• Info Graphics to reinforce Learning

• Dubbed in Regional Languages for Learner convenience and connect

Accessibility Best Employers Market Average
• On Demand Learning in a Fun & Engaging Style ‘Improvement’ Areas 2017 ‘Improvement’ Areas 2017

Evaluating Success Engagement

As on date, Mahindra Finance has launched two programs Learning

in this format: Recovery Excellence & Sales Effectiveness. Transfer
These programs have been measured on the following parameters:

Impact Realized
CLASSROOM DIGITAL
1. Business Impact: 8% through classroom training,
ROI
14% through Digital platform 12% 34%
Business
8% Impact 14%
2. Application: 56% through classroom training, 72 %
56% Application 72%
through digital platform
82 on 100 94 on 100 87% Health & Wellbeing 72% Senior Leadership
Learning
3. Learning: 82 on 100 through classroom training, 94 4.08 on 5 4.49 on 5 76% Trust in Action 74% Diversity & Inclusion
Reaction
on 100 through digital format 77% 70%
Career Opportunities Learning & Development
4. Reaction: 4.08 on 5 through classroom training, 4.49 77% Work/Life Balance 60% Rewards & Recognition
on 5 through digital format The digital learning programat Mahindra finance has been
73% Rewards & Recognition 66% Career Opportunities
extremely successful in making learning more diminutive,
5. Coverage: 11.26% employees impacted by this de-centralized and democratized – taking it to the last
initiative man in a digestible and accessible format across locations. Rank 1 Rank 3 Rank 4 Rank 5 Rank 1 Rank 2 Rank 3 Rank 4

15 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 16
 Wellbeing at the Core – Schneider Electric
About the Organization
Schneider Electric is a multinational corporation that
specializes in energy management and automation
solutions, spanning hardware, software, and services –
with presence in over 100 countries and covering 70%
of the world’s energy consumption. It is a Fortune Global
500 company and entered India over 50 years ago in
1963. They have presence in over 130 cities in India
handling products from plants to plugs.
The Purpose
“Sustainability is the core of our strategy. The endgame
of any company in any industry has to be sustainability.
It is a strong value to us, the employees of Schneider
Electric, our shareholders, and our customers.”
Emmanuel Lagarrigue
Executive Vice President, Strategy - Schneider Electric
The Promise
Schneider strongly believes that Wellbeing creates
Performance and Performance creates Wellbeing! The
underlying theme being that employee wellbeing
ensures engaged and positive employees, and these
work together to contribute towards the overall business
growth of an organization. Their well-being program
acknowledges this and firmly places their people at the
heart of their business.
A shared commitment
Individuals Organization
Leaders
Confidential Property of Schneider Electric | Page 2
To ensure that wellbeing philosophy was driven from the
top, Schneider conducted Energy Workshops for their
leadership under the ‘The Energy Project’. The program
is designed to help create a sustainable high performance
17 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
culture by teaching people to manage their energy more
skillfully and move away from focusing on time.
They manage Energy worldwide and are also providing
tools to their people to manage the energy within! –
Testimony that they are truly living and breathing their
purpose as an organization.
Four Pillars of Wellbeing
Grounded in this science of high performance, Schneider
Electric believes that human beings must tap four
separate sources of energy – physical, emotional, mental
and social – in order to operate at their best.
Mental
Physical
Wellbeing Welbeing
(P) (M)
Emotional Social
Wellbeing Wellbeing
(E) (S)
Energy Workshops aiming awareness and action
planning on the above 4 pillars of “Well-Being”
Targeted initiatives were launched for each aspect of
wellbeing, ensuring:
1. Overall Health & Wellness of employees through
regular health camps, onsite yoga, revised insurance
policies, ergonomics etc.
2. Flexibility at work to help employee balance their
work and personal lives
3. Leadership involvement to encourage employees
towards well-being
4. Developing a culture of well-being targeted
at driving sustainable performance & employee
engagement
5. An encouraging ambience – soothing music,
energizing atmosphere, regular polls to understand
employee requirements etc.
Health &
Wellness
Workplace
Flexibility@
(Cool sites
Work
2.0)
Leadership Organizational
Culture
Health & Wellness
1. Launched ‘Live Well’ – an online health offering to
promote a culture of preventive healthcare.
2. Ergonomics and Stretching exercises conducted as
part of Schneider’s ritual to take “Stretch Breaks”
3. Launched Employee Assistance program – ‘Saathi’
that offers free and confidential assessments,
counselling and referral services for employees
4. Schneider has partnered with GOQii- where along
with virtual race, employees have a dedicated coach,
have the opportunity to create teams & complete
5. Launched the ‘Breaktaker’ app for all employees that
reminds them to take breaks while working on their
computer.
Workplace – Coolsite 2.0
The Coolsite 2.0 program designed within Schneider
benchmarks all locations/offices and gets certified
annually on very stringent criterion. The aim being that
each workplace is attractive, inspiring and energizing
for employees. The offerings included musical mornings
across offices, healthy food options and organized health
camps and health talks.
Organizational Culture
The intent is to develop a culture where, employees feel
proud to work at Schneider Electric and see Schneider as
a company that cares about their well-being, about the
planet and the society.
Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
1. Wellbeing awareness training conducted on how to
renew your energy and manage it better.
2. Monthly Wellbeing webinars are organized facilitated
by “The Energy Project”
3. Recognizing Wellbeing behaviors through the online
social recognition platform
Leadership
1. Leaders trained, coached and equipped to face
challenges, deal with pressure and energize their
teams through well-being behaviors & practices
2. Measure and Recognize Leaders on Wellbeing
behaviors and role modelling
3. Wellbeing training for all the leaders through Energy
Workshops who will then lead experiments for their
groups and demonstrate the change.
Success Measures and Business
Impact
The various initiatives have been well received by the
workforce and a recent employee survey conducted to
gauge their acceptance level has shown highly positive
results. These include:
1. Satisfaction score on Wellbeing increased by 12% -
the highest jump across any driver
2. Significant drop in Claims Ratio by 13 percentage
points over a period of 4 years
3. 1400+ employees joined the GetFit Team with
GOQii.
4. Between 2016 and Q1, 2017,
• 4% increase in proportion of people who are
classified as ‘healthy’ as per Body Morphology
Analysis
• 5% increase in proportion of people who are
classified as ‘non-diabetic’
• 8% decline in proportion of people who
fall under risk category as per Cardiac Risk
Assessment
18
 Long Standing HR Imperatives:
Career Opportunities & Rewards
As in the past, Careers and Rewards remain improvement
areas for all organizations, including the Best. With
transformations in business models and changing
demographics at the workplace, employees are striving
to achieve excellence in varied functions/geographies
and want to wear different hats to build a holistic view of
the business.
The Best have adapted to these expectations and
re-aligned career frameworks to cater to changing
employee aspirations. For most organizations, career
development still means upward mobility, however 89%
Best Employers offer incremental roles, promotion across
functions and special project assignments.
Similarly, despite Rewards & Recognition being one of
most important drivers of engagement, businesses are
facing challenges in improving employee perception.
Last year’s case study on IndiGo’s flexible incentive
structure for pilots and inflight crew still remains relevant
and has supported better employee feedback. As
the business model shifts towards more contract and
freelance economy, such flexible rewards and recognition
programs could be the way forward for most.
So where does this leave the HR in the future?
Next-gen HR: Crusader of
Change
HR leaders faced with evolving organizational
expectations can help navigate this change if they fully
immerse themselves in the business and integrate their
Assignment to
89% special projects/
cross-department
61% assignments
Promotion across
83% functions
55%
19 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
role deeply into organizational outcomes. It is not a
question of business strategy driving HR, or vice versa.
It should be a well-balanced approach that weighs both
synergistically. HR leaders of tomorrow need to:
1. Proactively map organizational capability needs to
the future strategy of the firm
2. Imbibe data and analytics into predictive decision
making and strengthen its credibility
3. Architect and assess desired shift to the
organizational culture
An amalgamation of the above skills will enable and truly
elevate its new role to NextGen HR.
Next Generation CHROs Program
According to the “Learning to Fly” global study
conducted by Aon in 2015-16, 60% of the CHROs
#ImagineeringTomorrow
are hired externally, of whom 50% had a career HR
background. For CHROs who grew into the role
internally, that percentage drops to 39%.
Aon Hewitt has partnered with IIM Bangalore to expand A Co-creation Journey
the talent pool of CHROs in India Inc. The 6-month
learning journey is structured around 4 modules:
“Will we have robots on our payrolls?” None of us have all the answers. But all of us have many
Prepare for Future Readiness, Connect Business with
HR, Drive HR Transformation and Shape your Agenda.
“Will automation take away my job?” questions.
“Will an app replace my business?”
Along with a 10 days immersion at IIM Bangalore, At Aon Hewitt we conceptualized the Imagineering
the participants will work with senior Aon Hewitt The world is fast changing. Technology is not just theme to surf a new wave in to the future. This adventure
practitioners through their development journey and enabling, but also empowering a virtual workforce. promised uncertainty and demanded geared-up
create a transformative impact on their HR function. Artificial intelligence is not just powering operational organizations. We worked with leading industry players
efficiencies, but also delivering hyper-personalized to imagine the future of work and engineer for the
business insights. Disruptive market forces are further challenges and opportunities that are to come our
magnifying the rate at which businesses evolve, become collective way.
obsolete or redefine themselves.
With every passing co-creation workshop, we saw critical
Welcome to the future. Welcome to the new world of work. insights and patterns emerge. The thoughts and opinions
shared in the Imagineering workshops served as fertile
Increase in the An exciting, fast-changing era that has been defined by ground to cultivate and harvest ideas on such a nebulous
89% breadth of current job The Economist as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
role (at the same job subject.
65% level)
We are already witnessing parts of this trend with We are sharing our articles from the
UBERization of cabs, fintech making waves in financial
#ImagineeringTomorrow Insights series. Each piece aims to
services, ecommerce changing the playing field for retail.
Acquisition of capture our thoughts and observations on the evolving
And many more.
competencies and business landscape to help better understand the
skills (e.g. through potential talent risks that organizations are foreseeing.
83% Makes one pause and wonder. Will everything change?
development
programs) Will something be the same?
64% We thank all our Imagineersfor extending their support
The question is not whether my organization will change, and thought leadership on this journey.
Participant Average Best Employers Average the question is to what degree and in what ways?
Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 20

List of Imagineers
Mumbai
• Amita Maheshwari (Executive VP & Head HR,
Star TV India Pvt. Ltd.)
• Animesh Kumar (Ex Head HR, Brand and the
Community Engagement agenda - IDFC Bank;
CEO - IDFC Foundation)
• Ashutosh Telang (CHRO at Marico Limited)
• Dr. Rajesh Save (Global Head HR of Syntel)
• Jayaram Pilkhana (Chief Human Resources
Officer at UPL Limited)
• Philip Mathew (Chief People Officer at HDFC
Bank)
• PV Ramanamurthy (Sr. VP and Global Head – HR
at the Indian Hotels Company Ltd)
• Santrupt Misra (CEO, Carbon Black Business and
Director, Group Human Resources of the Aditya
Birla Group)
• Sudhanshu Tripathi (President – Group HR, The
Hinduja Group)
• Sumit Mitra (Head – Group HR and Corporate
Services, Godrej Industries)
• S Venkatesh (Head, Group HR at RPG Enterprises)
• Vinod Kumar (CEO, Tata Communications Ltd.)
21 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
Bangalore
• Adil Katrak (Head of HR at Wells Fargo India)
• Deepak Shetty (Senior HR Director and Head HR at
the Philips Innovation Campus)
• Geetika Verma Mehta (Consultant at Capital Float)
• Muthukumar Thanu (Group CHRO at TAFE)
• Nishanth Rao (Ex Global COO at Freshdesk &
Chairman, IAMAI)
• PNSV Narasimham (Sr. VP and Global Head of HR at
Cyient Ltd.)
• Rishi Thussu (Co-Founder and CEO at EvenRank)
• Ritesh Rana (Head – HR at Britannia Industries
Limited)
• Rohit Pratap Singh (Head – India Talent Acquisition
& Asia-Pacific PMO at Lenovo)
• Rohit Thakur (Head HR at Accenture India)
• Satya Prakash Ranjan (VP & India Site Head, Asset
Management Technology at Fidelity Investments)
• Sheebu David (Head of HR at GE India Technology
Centre)
• Smita Saha (Vice President HR at AstraZeneca
Pharma India Limited (AZPIL)
• Vijay Anand (SVP Product Development at Intuit)
#ImagineeringTomorrow:
To the Ballet Class
Part of the #ImagineeringTomorrow series.
As published in BusinessInsider.in
A few weeks ago, we had invited a set of chief
executives and HR leaders of large Indian companies
and conglomerates to a discussion on the future of the
workplace. The group around the table represented
some of the brightest HR and business minds in the
country and, over cups of coffee, the conversation veered
towards the oft discussed area of how automation is
affecting the workplace. We have all been talking about
it – in some ways more in abstractions than in real figures
or examples. Here was the first time we had people
talk real life experiences of how their organizations are
actively working towards a future where jobs will be
automated and employees would be redundant.
The reader might still stifle a yawn – yes we are all
aware of it. It’s the future of the world. And I would
have probably felt the same way. But what shocked me
personally as I sat on that table with ten of India’s largest
companies representing different industries, is that it
suddenly was all too real. Software engineers were being
gradually made redundant through “bots” that could
their task more efficiently, agricultural scientists were
losing jobs because there were apps that could interpret
the nature of problem that was affecting crops, paralegals
were not required because AI tools could look for issues
in legal contracts and summarize key points for lawyers
to work on.
Let’s put things in context – as India adds close to a
million people to the working population every month,
it is critical for the economy to constantly add jobs. But
India over the last few decades has had a leap from an
agricultural economy to a service oriented economy –
and while in the recent past there has been significant
push towards driving the manufacturing sector, the
results are still to be felt. As a broad estimate while the
value added in the services sector has slowed like in
the agricultural or industrial, it still is growing at about
1.4 times the industrial sector. Interestingly the job
creation story works in the reverse – in two decades the
percentage of employment in the services sector has
Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
Anandorup Ghose
Partner, Compensation & Governance,
Aon Hewitt
gone up by only 3%. And on top of this, over the last 5
years most Indian companies have seen employee costs
grow faster than revenues.
So as companies face a more complex global
environment where countries are increasingly, to
quote the Economist, “closing the gates and raising the
drawbridges”, there is little doubt that the focus for the
future lies in optimizing cost of delivering products and
services to remain competitive. Therefore it’s no surprise
that Indian companies are rapidly figuring out ways
to drive higher productivity through automation. This
automation, as I mentioned earlier, is happening equally
in both the manufacturing as well as services sectors.
But as jobs disappear, there is a parallel increase in the
need for high end jobs – in technology, services and
even manufacturing, but these jobs are not in India. Our
education system produces very few people who are
truly capable of taking up these jobs that.
Are we therefore heading towards a future where we will
actually not be able to provide employment for people
joining this workforce? And are we also heading to a
future where companies will need to retrench significant
number of their workforce who will lose their jobs to
robots and Artificial Intelligence software? How equipped
are we to reformat the structure of our education system
to produce better quality talent that cannot get replaced
by machines and software? And, as one our participants
suggested that day, as companies start having to hire less
and fire more will the government bring in legislation
against retrenchment? And finally is there a humane
way to go about the process of telling that 50 year old
agricultural scientist whose job is being replaced by an
app that he needs to learn a new skill – and really, can
he?
As I left the room that day, I couldn’t help but think of
the future for my young daughter – I should actively
encourage her to not be an engineer or accountant but
perhaps focus on playing a game or learning ballet.
22
 #ImagineeringTomorrow:
Creating Success with
New Economy Partners
Part of the #ImagineeringTomorrow series.
As published in BusinessInsider.in
Investopedia defines Shared Economy as “an economic
model in which individuals are able to borrow or rent
assets owned by someone else”
Renting and borrowing has been prevalent for centuries,
however creation of an economic model with technology
leverage is a more recent phenomenon. Sites such as
Craigslist (founded in 1995) popularized web-based
distribution service to friends and community in social and
trusting ways. An economic model on it however was built
only in 2004, when Craig Newmark started charging $25
to post job openings (albeit the seminal act of e-commerce
was in 1971 to arrange the sale of cannabis!).
Technology and social behaviors have moved
transactions economy from classifieds and assisted sale
of products to borrowing assets owners aren’t frequently
using, such as a car, house or even household items.
Certain business models have also created services’
platform to offer critical skills and services at flexible rates
which have evolved to individuals participating willingly
and freely in a contractual model. Such temporary
positions for short-term engagements created a trend
towards Gig Economy.
Different studies have predicted 35%-40% of American
workforce befitting the definition of Gig workforce,
which is trend fast replicating across geographies and
industries given the convergence of Shared and Gig
economies. Cases in point are Uber and Lyft where
majority of drivers (car owners) don’t rely on car-hailing
platforms for their primary source of income.
Certain organizations are relying on this convergence to
redefine their customer value proposition. As an example,
one of the largest tractor manufacturing companies in
the world, TAFE, offers its farm equipment on rent, along
with an optional driver. Farmers don’t have to make
upfront investments and can use the equipment during
appropriate seasons without the hassle of maintenance
and spare parts.
23 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
Tarandeep Singh
Partner, Talent & Performance,
Aon Consulting
Software, telecom and product development companies
have used the principles of gig economy to create agile
work practices. However, managing such workforce and
practices within the organization as against engaging
with a broader external partner ecosystem raises peculiar
challenges.
We asked a group of Imagineers (contributors’ names
at the end of the article) to share thoughts on how they
would structure and ready an organization to harness
the potential of Shared and Gig Economy. Three guiding
principles emerged from the discussion:
1) (Re)define Core and Context
One of the core values of Astra Zeneca, a global
pharmaceuticals company, is to “Follow the Science.
Put Patients First”. Following its purpose, Astra Zeneca
moved away from traditional geography or function-
based organization structure to one that is disease
and customer-centric. In line with the said purpose,
organization had to become borderless, which meant
talent should be available beyond internal and external
“boundaries”. AZ worked hard to create communities of
doctors, scientists and patients, and a platform where
ex-employees and freelance scientists could research on
newer and market-relevant drugs. They currently work
together to meet AZ’s goals.
Once the core of saving lives was clear, everything else
got synced up. That became central design principle for
the organization’s structure, and rest was contextual.
2) “One” Partner Network
In a true Shared and Gig economy, contractors
or freelancers may work with multiple companies
simultaneously and possibly, on multiple jobs too. It
helps to align them to your core value proposition, and
create strong processes to ensure service and operational
parameters are controlled despite a fluid semi-permeable
work structure.
Uber’s mission is to “Make transportation as reliable as Traditionally, large automobile OEMs have invested
running water, everywhere and for everyone”. Drivers in building suppliers’ capability through imparting
are critical to this mission, hence Uber evolved its knowledge and skills on quality and lean methodologies.
business model to “create job opportunities and higher In the new era, organizations operating in external
income for drivers” (surge pricing is an example) without network need to assess an individual’s profile, skill level
compromising on building smarter transportation as well as fit into the much-cherished work ethics and
solutions. Through its robust algorithm based app, Uber culture.
brings transparency, reliability and efficiency to the cab
hailing experience. The front end and the back-end of The above 3 principles - Know your Core, Manage the
customer’s experience operate seamlessly. Context and Keep Customer at the Center of digital
business transformation are key to an organization’s
Influential companies of the future wouldn’t be ones success. As Charles Dickens once remarked “a small key
with highest employee base, rather those that adapt best opens a heavy door”, so would hopefully these open new
to create and manage a truly integrated “One” partner ones for you!
ecosystem. Traditionally, organizations are structured to
create stronger control at the core. As partners become
contextually critical, their relationship needs to be built
over purpose and strengthened through processes.
3) Hawk Eye on Risks
An organization operating in either Shared or Gig
economy should be designed with a pro-active view
of reputational, operational, compliance and financial
risks. In this context, challenges with a delivery start-up,
Foodpanda, have been well documented. Orders were
booked for restaurants closed-down, payments were not
made to retail chains due to technical issues, and billing
frauds were rampant, which lost face for one of the world’s
largest online food ordering marketplaces. Such loosely
held providers (e.g. restaurants) can deliver significant
reputational and financial damage unless operational
controls are institutionalized through the customer value
chain.
Second, platform providers need to singularly own
the customer experience. In a “federal” structure,
accountability can be built only basis data and
continuous feedback. Uber measures outcome of
every trip, solicits “compulsory” feedback and acts on
the complaints with alacrity. A truly digital platform
builds its organizational processes around customer’s
journey, not around functions such as sales, marketing,
production or customer service. Customer interacts with
an organization’s brand, and can use social media to
quickly dissipate painfully-gained competitive advantage.
Foodpanda, in contrast, wasn’t keeping track of delivery
of its orders.
Third, network-led economy mandates that organizations
invest in partners’ capability as they would in own.
Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 24
 #ImagineeringTomorrow:
The Talent Network
Part of the #ImagineeringTomorrow series.
As published in BusinessInsider.in
“Those who have learned to collaborate and improvise
most effectively have prevailed” - Charles Darwin
This quote may have been lost in time and uttered mostly
in evolution theory circles, but its relevance in today’s
VUCA environment is higher than ever before.
A closed group of distinguished Business and HR Leaders
representingTechnology , Manufacturing , FMCG and
Pharmaceutical sectors came together in Bengaluru to
discuss the future of the workplace and took an educated
view to not just the workplace but how “work” itself
will take shape in the future. The discussions both as
a plenary and in small groups pointed towards three
conclusive themes…
1. Work of the future will cease to operate like a singular
continuity and function more like an aggregation
of projects or “gigs” capitalizing on experts across
different disciplines to come together and deliver a
business result
2. There needs to be a transformative change in
mindset right from how leaders prepare for the
business of the future to how employees remain agile
around skills to remain relevant in a fast changing yet
demanding environment
3. The first step to realizing these truths would be to
accept the fact that generalists would be a thinning
herd and specialists/experts and aggregators (human
or virtual) would be the future
…and the glue that would bind these 3 themes together
and help crystalize the workplace is Collaboration.
During the discussion around collaboration the think tank
that brainstormed around it tried answering are some
interesting questions -
What is Collaboration of the future? Collaboration in the
future workplace would be a kaleidoscope of dimensions
involving man and machine that would change the very
25 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
Abhishek Sen
Director, Performance, Rewards and
Talent, Aon Hewitt Consulting
fabric of modern enterprise. Right from planning an
outcome to staffing a project to finally executing and
disbanding would require collaboration at the center.
Intuitive tech, skilled professionals and access to a
gargantuan data universe is the key to a success in such
an environment.
How would people collaborate in gig economies? In a
gig economy, success and failure would depend solely
on how quickly and effectively skills and expertise can
be sourced and managed. Revolutionary platforms like
Slack would allow virtual workgroups and communities
to come together to solve unique problems and create
value. Data democracy would therefore be a critical
parameter for collaboration breaking down level & grade
barriers and Transparency would be the core principle
driving key business decisions in the future workplace.
How would structures change to accommodate a
collaborative environment? As HR professionals it is
important for us to understand how people constructs
would change in the future. The concept of collaboration
will evolve to the idea of pod-collaboration where
geographies and pyramids would become irrelevant but
the key to success would be availability of information
when needed. Digital and Agile would no longer
be special teams but core capabilities across the
organization. An inordinate amount of focus however
will go towards building communities of practice instead
of traditional hierarchies. These communities would
be the custodians of skills and capabilities and provide
the necessary fuel for collaboration across the future
workplace.
How will the nature of work change in this collaborative
environment? Unlike today’s linear, continuous work
environment, work in the future will be fluid with
people carrying different levels of expertise coming in
at different stages of iterations through an environment
of collaboration. This means it will be essential to build
a Directories of expertise or communities of practice/
interest to staff this kind of work on a real-time basis. The to exist. In a world like this we need to adapt rapidly and
important question would be how we can bring squads prepare ourselves by being early adopters of some of the
together in Tour of Duty style staffing so expert teams principles that emerged through this initiative.
can perform an operation and then disband immediately
after.
How will knowledge get managed in the future
workplace? For the collaboration paradigm to take shape,
knowledge has to be collected, curated and stored in a
way that is easily accessible to all. Free flow and access
to information is the key to the success of project/”gig”
style of work. Sentient machine learning databases would
replace traditional knowledge management systems to
make this a reality.
How can we action this change? What will it take? This
question sought answers at different levels.
1. For an employee this would require roles to be
reimagined and rewards to have a stronger alignment
to project outcomes. Performance metrics would
track project outcomes rather than individual goals
and in turn reward collaborative behavior. Project
based compensation would essentially replace
monthly salaries.
2. Processes need to be reimagined not only to create
virtual teams but also to include intuitive tech for real
time information sharing and collaboration.
3. Organization Development engines would need to
produce communities of practice and expertise so as
to constantly fuel the gig economies.
4. Leaders would need to build the tenets of
collaboration and front run the culture change in the
future workplace.
The future holds a huge spectrum of opportunities that
we possibly can’t fathom in its entirety. Yet it is important
to ponder on some of these questions which inexorably
point to possibilities which could shock the way work and
employment would exist in this world.
Structures, policies, practices and beliefs will be shaken
out of their foundation and replaced with new, more
nimble constructs which would serve the connected
world. Purists will be compelled to rethink the meaning
of “jobs”, “work”, “enterprise”, “performance”,
“capability”, “resources” and “rewards”. The true essence
of business may remain the same but the current shape
and form of modern organization will most likely cease
Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 26
 #ImagineeringTomorrow:
Shift to the Digital World
Part of the #ImagineeringTomorrow series.
As published in BusinessInsider.in
To start with,
1. At $68bn valuation, Uber is more valuable than
major car companies GM, Ford, and Honda. (Source:
Forbes; Business Insider)
2. Amazon at $355.5bn market cap is worth more than
Walmart, Target & Costco combined. (Source: Yahoo
Finance)
3. Netflix’s market cap at over $56bn is at par with
media giants such asTime Warner-- owner of top
premium cable network HBO, other popular cable
channels like TBS, TNT, and CNN, and one of the
major Hollywood studios (Warner Brothers) (Source:
The Motley Fool)
3. With $45.6bn market capitalization, Paypal has
become the fourth largest payment company after
Visa, MasterCard and American Express (Source:
DigitalTransactions)
Increasing number of CEOs are facing the heat of
business disruption across multiple channels of their
value chain. Customer relationships are rapidly evolving
on the back of integrating digital and analog worlds. In
the context of these changes, CEOs highlight following
top 5 talent risks to their business:
1. Rising Salaries
2. Critical Skills Shortage
3. Inability to Retain Talent
4. Inadequate Leadership Pipeline
5. Low Employee Productivity
Their new competitors from Digital World are worsening
the impact of these challenges by having singular
focus on talent with digital skills, attracting them with
an aggressive rewards philosophy, and creating a
27 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
For years, organisations have defined their purpose
through Vision & Mission statements, which were mostly
Tarandeep Singh a quick job between CEOs, few senior leaders and the
Partner, Talent & Performance,
Aon Consulting marketing / communication team. New-age leaders aren’t
writing fancy lines on company walls – they are living
them in their day-to-day behaviors.
Elon Musk articulates his life mission as “making
humankind inter-galactic” and he backs it up by
culture that thrives on higher productivity expectations investing, failing and re-investing into the same purpose.
(madness at start-ups). He attracts talent of the future by inspiring them with
a grand vision and showing his personal commitment,
Traditional business’ CEOs have to thus wage a battle drive and passion towards it.
both at an external and internal front.
Beyond purpose and passion, leaders need to encourage
And it has never been fiercer than today! “Why” across all parts of business. Curiosity, agility and
willingness to learn are the most critical skills required
As they invest in newer Digital capabilities with eyes on
to disrupt one’s value chain before competition does
the vast future potential, multiple decision points face
(none of these are traditional “left brain” problem solving
them, namely:
approaches at work).
1. Assimilation of “Digital” leaders into an older
And last but not the least….
environment
Empathy drives business performance. It is fundamental
2. Perceptible culture gap between “Optimization” and
to design-thinking approach for solving customer
“Expansive” mindsets
problems and co-creating solutions. Steve Jobs may not
have had high empathy for his employees; however his
3. Misaligned organisation structures and decision-
deep understanding of customers’ unstated “desires”
channels against the future business strategy
created products that became bedrock of today’s Digital
4. Lack of pay and performance measurement parity brigade.
between old and new worlds
Beyond people, an organisation represents itself as
5. Fear of driving employees too hard during this culmination of systems, policies and processes. These
period of change are equally important to provide employees structure,
predictability and a sense of comfort. Understanding this
And time is not on anyone’s side. Bit by bit, all parts of duality of existence and managing the inherent creative
value chain are being opened and reassembled, much tension will be the prime differentiator in evolving the
like Lego blocks. Block chain is yet another example of Digital Culture.
a change that will disrupt multiple industries (financial,
logistics, supply chain and many more).
So what can CEOs do to be better prepared?
During one of my recent meetings with the CEO of
a Technology Services organisation based in US, he
commented “we are engineers; we are used to fixing
problems. In the past, inordinate focus has been on
tangibles with visible outcomes; we haven’t focused
on the inspirational”. That to me is the fundamental
difference in managing today’s environment.
Leaders need to answer the question - Why?
Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017 28
 #ImagineeringTomorrow:
Critical Re-thinking about the
Future of Work is Necessary Authors
Sandeep Chaudhary
Part of the #ImagineeringTomorrow series. Chief Executive Officer, Aon
As published in BusinessInsider.in Hewitt India Consulting

A seemingly healthy, well-performing company can be
vulnerable than you might think because of a build-up
of corporate cholesterol; natural human dynamics that
limit communication, creativity and collaboration. Like
how your physician will tell you, rather than waiting for
the heart attack to strike, executives should consider
changing firms structure, rewards and processes while
performance is still good.
New business models, machines replacing humans,
millennials shaping the new models of engagement,
will tell you how urgent is the need for change and
what kind of changes to contemplate. Formalization
and commodification of work is seen to be increasingly
taking place with an open world economy. It is almost
like change for the sake of change. It is not restricted
to technology as the disruptor alone, but employees
and their approach to work. The organization structure
needs to emphasize on healthy disrespect for hierarchy
and make jobs more dynamic. The essence of the
shift is a simple but a big idea: the idea of a “job,”
with all its protected artifacts like job title, level, and
job description, is starting to go away. What is its
replacement - people being hired “for a purpose”. You
see employees change jobs every two years; they are
not looking to increase their pay, they are looking for a
stronger connect with the purpose, they are not leaving
for better managers that they don’t know as yet, but for
the disenchantment with the current one. Cross-selling
is a failed concept after repeated effort and incentive
programs have rarely got people to collaborate, but in
most extraordinary and difficult situations, we have seen
unified purpose bring people together; how the bank
employees worked unremittingly to fight the unintended
consequences of demonetization is a recent example
of it.
“how” of it. Accelerated innovation requires accelerated
adoption, and this needs most focus for the more Tarandeep Singh Raswinder Singh Kanika Manchanda
experienced generation, who has the task of leading Partner, Talent & Senior Consultant, Consultant,
the way and setting the direction. Today we need Performance Consulting Culture & Engagement Practice Culture & Engagement Practice
idea entrepreneurs, a new type of cultural player and Aon Hewitt (India) Aon Hewitt (India) Aon Hewitt (India)
create an environment that encourages their abstract tarandeep.singh@aonhewitt.com raswinder.singh@aonhewitt.com kanika.manchanda@aonhewitt.com
thinking. Organizations need to shift their focus from
managing people to managing culture and that needs
clarity in direction. Your likelihood of failing will be low
if you start by keeping customer in the center of it. The
mindset needs to make it simpler, convenient, efficient
and differentiated for customers. Organizations need to We invite you all to be a part of the
replicate the same experience for their own employees. Aon Best Employers 2018 journey.
It needs to be defined in the context of your business and
Feel free to reach out to
delivered consistently. bestemployersindia@aonhewitt.com
to be a part of the journey.
We have seen companies fail and lose their relevance,
but the same people in those companies have adopted,
unlearned and continue to stay the course. Our current
performance management does not focus on the unique
strengths of people and that is the first place where we
miss appreciating diversity and hence have agreed to the
fact that only few will succeed. Mindset change is about
success for everyone and not for a handful.
Some critical re-thinking about the future of work is India Consulting Offices
necessary. Future is anything but in our hands but it is
clear that it will not follow a universal linear trajectory Bangalore Gurgaon Mumbai
and the objective of our Imagineering workshop and this
Arkesh Mishra Saurabh Gahrotra Raswinder Singh
paper is to help stimulate discussion about how to open
arkesh.mishra@aonhewitt.com saurabh.gahrotra@aonhewitt.com; raswinder.singh@aonhewitt.com;
up the future more for the unknown and unexplored.
Sobha Pearl, 4th floor, B Wing, Aon Consulting Private Limited, Raheja Tower, Unit# 302;3rd
Commissariat Candor Techspace SEZ, 11th Floor, Floor Plot No. C-30,
Road, Bangalore Building # 2, Sector 48 (Tikri), Block G, Opposite SIDBI,
Gurgaon 122 001 Bandra Kurla Complex
Bandra East, Mumbai

It calls for reinvention for employees and employers. Aon Consulting Private Limited
Unlearning agility is the newest competency individuals Aon Center | Candor Techspace SEZ |
and businesses are trying to build. Most organizations 11th Floor | Building # 2
and their leadership are in a state of conflict. The first Sector 48 (Tikri) | Gurgaon 122 001 | India
stage of approaching the midshift is articulating it and Ph: 0124-4471500
simplifying it for people to appreciate the “why” and aonhewitt.co.in

29 Human Capital Scan 2017: Insights Aon Best Employers India 2017
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