Commit to Employee Wellbeing with a Strong People Ops Team

The term “human resources” has become an antiquated concept in the current world of work. What’s needed from employers today is a clear focus on people — not just to attract and retain them but to support their wellbeing, hire more diverse teams and emphasise the human side of hiring and talent management.

“The past few years have taught us that workers are more than just ‘resources’ or ‘headcount,’” says Priscilla Koranteng, Indeed’s chief people officer (CPO). When Koranteng joined Indeed in 2022, she was the first to take on the CPO title, a role formerly called senior vice president of human resources.

People operations go beyond traditional human resources policies and practices. It describes the business function that supports employee engagement and productivity and, importantly, humanises operations to improve the employee experience. Human resources executive Laszlo Bock first coined the term “people operations” in his book “Work Rules!,” saying it helps employees “be more productive, healthier and happier.”

This function encompasses all things people-related. Key tasks include:

• Analysing people operations to identify areas for positive change.
• Improving hiring practices and processes to recruit more effectively.
• Onboarding new employees to help them quickly acclimate to their new roles.
• Building a company's corporate reputation to attract and retain high-quality talent.
• Developing employee skills through identifying talent and providing developmental resources.

“A CPO’s job is to look and think more holistically, solving for what people need in order to thrive within the organisation,” Koranteng emphasises.

Retention and New Hiring Appeal

This year has seen an increase in the number of employees leaving their jobs in India. While the overall attrition rate was 12% last year, according to a recent report in The Economic Times, this figure will rise to 19% by 2022, therefore improving retention has never been more vital. Investing in a people operations department can improve your hiring appeal and worker retention by focusing on the humanity of your employees, meeting their wellbeing needs and providing developmental and advancement opportunities. 

Koranteng says, “As a leader, always ask yourself: Why would employees stay with us, what makes us unique and what do we have to offer them?”

She shares three ways a strong people operations department can help win the hearts and minds of your talent every day:

1. Understanding your workforce metrics in terms of hiring rates, promotions, turnover and available labour pools (based on your industry), as well as taking the pulse of the employees, is critical. Be sure to listen to your employees to better understand their needs and concerns. 
2. Empower managers to manage. Everyday management and engagement is key to creating the best environment possible for employees. 
3. Stay competitive. For instance, constantly review pay to ensure equitable processes — pay equity must be an ongoing, “always on” practice, not a once-a-year event. And beyond pay, think about the total employment value proposition.

Stronger Support Makes for Happier Workers

A top finding of Indeed & Glassdoor’s Hiring and Workplace Trends Report 2023 was that wellbeing and happiness in the workplace matter. However, in a recent poll by PeopleMatters, 'A happy workplace is a healthy workplace.' A healthy work environment is important to 43% of working professionals. Only 5% voted for great coworkers.80% of organisations said worker well-being is critical to their success in the next 12–18 months, but only 12% said they are prepared to address the issue as per a study by Deloitte.

According to Oracle's 2020 AI@Work Study, 84% of people have reported experiencing more stress and/or anxiety at work than in any previous year.

A comprehensive employee well-being plan for every employee in India seems like a far-off goal as far as awareness goes. Employers all over India must have faith in the fact that employee well-being spending is an input, not an "add-on."

Leaders need a way to know what support employees need that they can reasonably provide and to encourage workers to use those resources, especially younger generations.

According to an ADP press release, India leads the world in workplace resilience, with 32% of employees feeling highly resilient to their work environment, compared to 15% globally. At the same time, some shocking statistics on the state of global employee engagement were recently revealed in a report from the Dale Carnegie Institute in the US. The poll in India, where only 45% of the respondents thought senior management and the HR department had engaged them at work, was one of the report's high points.

Here are some ways you can shift the focus to the “people” in people operations by engaging with your workers and not just their work:

• Improve employee benefits: Establish an open line of communication in order to solicit feedback from employees and ensure that benefits are meeting their needs. 
• Increase recognition and rewards: Similarly, regular recognition is a critical psychological need that makes employees feel valued, improving satisfaction and retention. Your people operations department can utilise a rewards program or other strategies to show workers their value to the company and acknowledge their efforts. According to Indeed's 2023 Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DI&B) report, which looks at the need for psychological safety in Indian organisations, mental health issues (47 percent), unresolved/inadequately resolved grievances (43 percent), and fear of losing their anonymity while providing feedback (28 percent) are the main causes of employees feeling psychologically unsafe at work.
• Create a support system: People ops can provide resources, programs, training and other tools employees need to thrive so they can reduce their stress, improve wellbeing and boost productivity.

This more personalised approach to traditional HR can make employees feel heard and supported, boosting morale, increasing work happiness and improving performance.

Maintaining Initiatives That Matter

Due to its diversity of cultures, languages, faiths, and ethnicities, India brings an entirely new perspective to the idea. The government also supports the initiative by adopting regulations that will help D&I become a reality for the nation. According to the report Uncovering Blind Spots: Outlook on Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DI&B) in Indian Workplaces, 77% of the employers polled felt that the performance of their organisations could suffer if DI&B is not prioritised. The survey looked at how equipped Indian businesses are for DI&B initiatives, the effects of those programmes on businesses, and how businesses might further promote inclusion at work.

According to the People at Work 2022 report by ADP Research Institute “For Generation Z and millennials, inclusion, diversity and equity are crucial. According to a recent study, 82 percent of young workers in India between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that there is an unfair gender wage gap and that there are not enough regulations to promote diversity and inclusion.

Furthermore, 83 percent of young workers claim that they would think about seeking for another employment if they learned that there was an unjust gender pay gap or that there was no diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategy. According to research, when workers believe their company is not making the necessary efforts to create an inclusive system, it frequently results in a loss of interest in the position, which eventually costs the company money.

As per this report women have been more vocal about the issue than their counterparts. Furthermore, 62 percent of employees in India accept and value their organisation's gender pay equality policy. However, for D&I policies, this percentage is lower (58 percent).

While half of those polled globally (50%) believe their employer has improved in terms of gender pay equality and D&I since three years ago, more than one-tenth believe there has been a decline (11 percent for pay equality and 13 percent for diversity and inclusion).”

“Now, more than ever, employees and candidates want to know whether a company actually embodies the messages it puts on its website,” says Koranteng. “Perhaps most importantly, employers cannot simply state that they hire diverse talent — teams must actually represent this diversity in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran status and socio-economic background.”

To create more inclusive company cultures, she suggests that employers:

• Continuously measure all hiring, promotion and turnover data. 
• Ensure your candidate pools are diverse, and make the effort to go back and source more candidates if there are any gaps. 
• Be intentional about monitoring equity among employees. For instance, constantly measure who is promoted and how, and make sure that all employees have equal access to opportunities for professional development. 

A “Whole Person” Approach

“I believe we need to pivot to a ‘whole person’ approach,” Koranteng says in regard to the evolution of talent management. 

Having a people ops team is more than simply changing the terminology of your HR department. Show your employees that you genuinely care about their wellbeing and are doing the work to embody DEIB+ in the core values of your company. It shows that people matter for something more than their work: their humanity.