Tahseen: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the PeopleNet show. I'm your host Tahseen Kazi, and our guest for today is the incredible Tina Rastogi. With 20 years of HR expertise to her name, Tina is currently heading global HR for Cybage software.

Tahseen: Tina is also part of the Robin Hood Army and spends her time teaching children from the economically underprivileged sections of society. Welcome, Tina. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Tahseen: Thank you for having me.

Tahseen: so, Tina, I think I'm going to start off with, you know, a very simple question.

Tahseen: Something that we ask all HR leaders. Who is the human behind the human resources? Who is Tina outside of work? 

Tina R: You know, outside work, I'm a, you know, like, I am a very fun loving person. You know, human. I love you know, trekking and hiking, especially you know, during monsoon in and around Maharashtra to the less traveled areas. Other than that, I am also, you know, that is more on the fun part, but I do a lot of you know, like say welfare activities where I am a mentor, you know, to a lot of women students .

Tina R: I have collaborated with a lot of women institutes. I also volunteer at, you know, children's you know, literacy organization where I help them improve their reading skills. And above and all of that, I believe that, you know, learning and self development also is a continuous journey. So I keep myself also upgraded, you know, I keep doing some of the other certifications or course courses.

Tina R: In fact, I'm lately going through a coaching, course. So yeah, that's, that's me in a small package. 

Tahseen: That's great, Tina. That, that by no means is a small package.

Tahseen: Switching gears a little bit, Tina as a people leader what are some you know, questions or challenges, specifically, you know, to do with employee experience that you are facing as a people leader and you need answers to today?

Tina R: See, employee experience if you see, you know, has actually grown over the years, you know. Earlier when we spoke about employee experience, it was more in terms of the yeah, Employee engagement survey is what we did, you know, which was done like say once a year in the organization and basis that we would gauge the pulse you know, of our employees and then you know, there used to be these action plans and deciding on how we really want to take it our target should, you know, improve either from the participation perspective or score perspective, you know, like say if the scores were till 5.

Tina R: How, how do we take it from 4 to 4. 5, you know, so that was actually employee experience. But over the years, we have seen it in, you know, evolving after that it was more in terms of, you know, the entire life cycle, right from the time the candidate sees your job posting, the experience you give to the candidate, you know, from the time candidate becomes an employee, you know, right from seeing the job posting to applying.

Tina R: You know, then once they are within the organization, the experience you're giving to that employee that contributed to employee experience, but, you know, We are still in the evolving, stage and this whole WOCA world where the uncertainty had kicked in via COVID, you know, it brought in new dynamics to work, you know, like now if we talk about 

Tina R: Employee experience, it is more about dealing with the change management.

Tina R: You know, with you know, like, say, change management would be say, remote working, you know, hybrid working, giving, giving them that flexibility. Lately, we've seen in 2023, you know, inflation, which has hit in, there has been a recession time for the IT industry, you know, so we've seen a lot of layoffs, you know, some publicized layoffs, which has really, you know, somewhere created uncertainty amongst the employees, you know, so I guess now the focus is more in terms of giving them that assurance, okay, the job retention, taking care of the, you know, wellness of the employee, giving them, you know, the purpose of work that their work is relevant.

Tina R: And important. And obviously, yeah, one more add to it is the you know, the emergence of this whole AI, you know, what we've been talking about, you know, and the usage of it. So that's so assuring our employees that their job is important, you know, and what they're doing is creating purpose. I guess that has been you know, the evolution of entire employee experience for us.

Tahseen: I think, yeah, Tina, you're absolutely right. You know, there are certain key points that you shared here, especially about, you know, uncertainty and purpose. 

Tahseen: But apart from that, how are employee expectations changing over these, you know, last few years? 

Tina R: Yeah. 

Tina R: if you are talking about the millennials you know, or the gen the, the newer generation, right.

Tina R: They basically want to work for a purpose. Okay, they they're very simple. They're, they're ask a very simple, you know, they just want to work for a purpose. They want to understand their role. They want to understand how they are contributing to the, you know, larger picture. Probably the recognition from Time to time is what you know, if we talk about basis, the survey is what we are, we have been doing.

Tina R: That is what the employees are really looking out for. 

Tahseen: So in this changing environment, right, where the expectations are changing. What would you recommend are some things that, you know, people, leaders can do to ensure a climate of trust?

Tina R: So I think trust is more of a process. Okay. And it is more in terms of actually trust plays a very integral role as part of the company values.

Tina R: Okay. As I said, it is a process and it is mainly, it is from, flowing from the talk where the leaders have to you know, inculcate that walk the talk you know, when we talk about trust. The second aspect to trust would be transparency.

Tina R: . Especially with the company initiatives with the you know, with the communication with the goals, where are we heading? I guess that transparency contributes. to the trust 

Tahseen:  Tina, is there any you know real life example and you know, without naming names, if you can tell us an experience where you've seen this trust in action or, you know, the trust breaking because, you know, a certain thing was done or not done.

Tahseen: Anything that comes to your mind? 

Tina R: So we believe a lot in terms of you know, taking feedback from the employees time to time, and we have various, avenues where we take feedback, you know, right from, like, say, when they are about to join. The experience when we are talking about the new joinees, their 45-90 day feedback, then you have the employee satisfaction survey.

Tina R: But that also what we do at Cybage is very different, you know, it is not at an org level or something, it is more in terms of identifying a vertical or a project or an account, you know, 

Tina R: When we talk about surveys, so one of the you know projects, what we had seen, there was a lot of attrition and absenteeism, which we were, Facing and that is where we decided to do the employee survey. Okay. And our surveys are pretty elaborative. That is where you even more than the questionnaire survey.

Tina R: It is also about talking to the employees, you know, and while talking to them and doing the entire you know, analysis. We realize that the employees are very drained out, you know, because of the kind of work pressure they had, the timelines that they were working on. And that is where we sat with our leaders to understand what is it that we can do to maintain the client expectations, ensure that the productivity is also not, you know, reducing.

Tina R: And at the same time, our employees are happy with what they are doing. And we came up with a strategy and after three months, you know, of putting our strategy in place, we saw that it worked and the absenteeism was less. The productivity improved. In fact, we had so many escalations which were happening from that account that also reduced and plus it also helped in retention.

Tina R: . If I talk about a smaller case study. Which we did lately that we keep giving employees, you know, Diwali gifts. So earlier our gifts were very traditional, you know, but like now with this whole new generation, they did not really appreciate that kind of gift, which they were getting.

Tina R: . And in fact, this time, the gifts, what we gave during Diwali was much more appreciated. So we do act on those feedback you know, wherever possible, and we take them very seriously. 

Tahseen: That is great.

Tahseen: SO Tina , you mentioned that you you run surveys to understand how the employees are feeling, but I think one of the challenges that HR leaders often face is that, you know, getting employees to respond to the surveys is a challenge sometimes.

Tahseen: So have you faced any similar such challenge any, you know, recommendations on how, you know, those response rates, those participation rates can be elevated? 

Tina R: So yeah, see one is that if you make it, if you make your surveys more like a task, you know, and, like say for your teams, you make it as a, you like say KPI that, okay, now you've done this program, you have to ensure that you're getting 80 percent results or 90 percent so that following up and everything somewhere if you do a lot of that, it loses its charm, right?

Tina R: So I feel that if you are doing surveys with a purpose, yeah. Right. Those kind of surveys we've been able to get very good results, you know, and which is like you mentioned. If they are real time, like say, when you have a new joining, you know, the obvious is to get, you know feedback from them, you know, in terms of how are they feeling, about the organization.

Tina R: So the questions are very generic, you know, in terms of which is going to help them. So that also plays an important role that the kind of questions you're asking them how relevant is the survey to them?

Tina R: So that gives us some kind of pulse or when we talk about any of the events, what we've done, right? . And then we do a dip stick analysis also, right of the trend.  So I guess keep your surveys very simple. Don't like really keep following up. And third is that if you are able to Turn it across for the employees basis the feedback they're giving that would get you Your participation on its own. 

 Perfect. So Tina, have you seen I think you mentioned earlier that the surveys that you run right now are anonymous. But do you think there is any merit in, you know, running a survey anonymously versus confidentially?'

Tina R: Tina

Tina R: I think that also you will have to you know, you cannot define the broadly that the surveys have to, you know, be done anonymous, anonymously, or confident.

Tina R: You have to maintain that confidentiality. Depends again on the type of survey. There may be some surveys where you will have to maintain the confidentiality, like I spoke about the, you know, like say when we were doing the eSS survey for one of the clients. So there I had to talk to the employees.

Tina R: . So that is where you have to maintain that you know, anonymity. And when we are talking about confidentiality it is more in terms of when you are doing generic. Surveys or trying to get feedback that is where they should have that confidence that yet is going to be confidentially taken.

Tina R: And my name is not going to be called out for any action. So I guess it depends on the survey. And that also goes back to your earlier point, you know, that the employees. We need to have that trust in the organization that even if I'm giving a feedback, it is not going to be taken against me. I know that, you know, my leaders are going to act on that if, if it is a valid point.

Tahseen: Perfect. So you mentioned surveys as one listening channels, right? Where you, you get employee sentiment, what they're feeling, what they're thinking. Apart from that, what are some other channels, listening channels where, you know, you have seen to be consistently effective in terms of understanding employee sentiment?

Tina R: . So one thing at Cybage is that you know, we follow the open door policy very seriously. Okay. Which means that there are various channels to connect, and communicate with the leadership. . So we have something called rendezvous what we do, you know, where, where we maintain confidentiality, where employees can send in their questions and the top management kind of answers those questions.

Tina R: Then we have something called HRD interface where employees can block time with their HRBPs and you know, communicate what their challenges are. Then we have in house counselors where we focus on the mental wellbeing. That the counselor would talk to the employees and you won't believe it that counselor, you know, we have You know time slots twice a week for two hours and her slots are always full. 

Tina R: And plus then you have the surveys, which we spoke about, right? Right. From your onboarding to your exit. One more unique thing, what we do is that we only like say, you know, like say when the employee exits, right?

Tina R: There are two sets of. Feedback we take first is the first level, you know, feedback to understand what happened and then the second is the elaborative one is what we do. That also gives us a lot of, Feedback from the employees. One more thing. What is, what we do is that we do stay interviews, you know, it is very important to understand that why certain employees are there with the organization.

Tina R: You know, and one of our USPS is that we have a, you know, you can say 60% of the employees within the organization have grown with the organization, right? So that also plays a very important tool, know that what are the things which are, which are our usps, you know, so we, we done, we do those kind of surveys.

Tina R: So yeah, there are plethora of surveys and feedback and forums available for us. 

Tahseen: Got it. 

Tina R: So all surveys cannot just be a form. Okay. Yeah, but then surveys also need to have a face to it. Wow. 

Tahseen: THere are times when it's possible that HR You know, HRBP is lose track of what they should be focusing on in terms of, you know, what kind of metrics they should be focusing on, especially because most, you know employee engagement metrics are leading metrics.

Tahseen: They won't tell you anything about immediate business impact, but they will be. You know, it's sort of a predictive analytic, analytics. So what are some key you know, if, if you were to tell me, you know, three or four key metrics that they should look at, which, you know, would be, you know, leading indicator of what's going to happen in the future, what 

Tina R: would they be?

Tina R: Yeah, like see, as I mentioned that the entire employee experience has evolved, you know, like say companies earlier were measuring employee engagement for decades, right? And many have focused on how to improve that engagement. Score. Okay. But now as we are moving to this entire matured stage, the approach or the KPIs in terms of how we really need to measure changes, you know, which means that earlier, if the obvious choice for every step this would But he was retention, you know, like say, am I able to you know, retain my employees?

Tina R: Is it impacting my, you know, attrition percentage, but that has evolved, you know, in fact, attrition can to some extent be one of your KPI, you know, metrics, but it cannot be your only obvious choice. You know, for us, we have something like a value proposition. We have our own. You know, product called decision minds, which is we call it Excel show also, which helps us, you know, there are various algorithms which are built in, in that product.

Tina R: And it helps us to derive at a value proposition of every employee, you know, like say in for the kind of work that employee is doing. And that plays a very important role for the for us to place. that employee and also define on the career growth. Okay. So for us, the main indicator is the employee value proposition or you know, in some organization it is called you know, it is called predictive metrics.

Tina R: Also employee predictive metrics is what it is called. The other could also be you know, like say something like internal promotions, right? How many of them you have been able to mobilize internally? 

 You know, the other thing that important factor could be is that how many of them who, who have been with your organization?

Tina R: Once they leave, would be giving you references, so like say, you know, your alumni who would refer people to you or they would want to come back to the organization and also your employee reference, you know, your employee reference. plays an important role because they would be getting their friends only if they trust the organization, right?

Tina R: So these are some of the obvious metrics, at least what we've evolved 

Tahseen: wow, that is great. That is awesome.

Tahseen: I think my one last question for you today is if you had to give one advice to people leaders out there, what would that advice be?

Tina R: I think my one advice would be that the sooner the leaders understand that the employees are any organization's biggest asset, okay, we value them and start focusing on things around them, you know, there is no stopping back, you know, it's more about caring more about the people, then the process, okay.

Tina R: For leaders, it is more in terms of helping people reach places, you know, where, where probably they could not go or. help them go, right? And it is not necessary that, the you have to take care of that employee only if they are with the organization, right? Even if they leave the organization, they will always remember what you as a leader did for them.

Tina R: How you, how did the organization add up to their growth, right? Because when they were with the organization, they contributed towards the growth of the organization. 

Tina R: ANd I guess once we get that, then there is no stopping back, you know, back to a better employee experience. It also helps in your branding. And if the employees are valued, you will always have a happy organization. And I'm very proud to say that our organization is a very happy organization. 

Tahseen: That is amazing to hear that, you know, an organization is a happy organization.

Tahseen:  Tina, I know I said that this will be the last question, but I'm still just curious on one last point. 

Tahseen: , how do you encourage women, women leaders to go out there to evolve in their roles?

Tahseen: You know, any, any nuggets that you have there to share with us? 

Tina R: I think one of the biggest traits for women to become leaders is to be resilient.. 

Tina R: Be resilient to any change which comes into your life because that too shall pass, you know, like there may be times where you are at high, there may be times you are at low, there may be times when you don't feel hurt, right?

Tina R: Which is, which is okay. Okay, but if you are sure that you are giving in your 100 percent and you have the courage to stay out there and stand out there, nothing can stop you. 

Tahseen: Thank you very much. I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you did too.

Tina R: Same. Yeah, it was indeed my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.