Office Politics

IT IS ROUTINE FOR EMPLOYEES of organisations to include gender pronouns in their email signatures. In addition to pronouns, an email I re­cently received from an executive at a staffing services company contained this singular statement of intent: “I support healthy work-life harmony. Please do not feel obliged to answer this email if you receive it beyond your working hours.” I had reached out to the HR executive to seek her views on some of the employee wellness policies that have become the norm at most companies. Some poli­cies, such as a hybrid work model, are an ineluctable aftermath of the pandemic. Others like diversity hiring and flexible health insurance cover are aimed at attract­ing and retaining a predominantly young workforce. For, despite the lull in hiring in 2023, especially for technology jobs, this was the year we started to hear of trends like quiet quitting, coffee badging—a term that means turning up at work for just long enough to grab a cup of coffee, to protest return-to-work mandates—and snail-girl culture, a social media trend where women are professing to slow down and focus on their wellbeing.

The backlash against Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy, who recently suggested in a pod­cast that young people should work 70 hours a week to help improve India’s productivity, indicates that this may be a good time for corporate India to re-imagine workplace productivity in terms of employee wellbe­ing, diversity and flexibility. Murthy’s former colleague TV Mohandas Pai, who hosted the podcast episode, says Murthy meant to encourage young people to invest in themselves and acquire the skills required to be produc­tive. “Just as sportspersons, musicians and artists put in extended hours to hone their skills, young employ­ees will have to work hard to train themselves if they want to achieve something great. Murthy never said everyone must do it. He said that young people who want to excel will have to put in the effort, just as we did when we were young. It is a conscious choice that a young worker can make, not a compulsion,” Pai says. “Most iconic software products were built by a handful of people working round the clock,” he adds.

For many knowledge workers, working hard is no longer a choice, says MA Rajeev, an enterprise architect with a software services company in Kochi. Rapid ad­vances in technology, especially in fields like artificial intelligence (AI), require employees to spend up to 30 per cent of their time training themselves, he says. “You put in the hours knowing that your pay package is directly or indirectly linked to your skill set. Even with a flexible work culture, you end up working more now.”

Young people in non-technical jobs, however, are challenging the notion that long hours are the only way to increase productivity. Recognising the need to be in­novative, Randstad India, a recruitment company, has introduced a hyper-personalised four-day work week policy for those who achieve their yearly targets well in advance. “Implementing flexible work arrangements, investing in skill development, promoting work-life bal­ance, and recognising and rewarding achievements are key strategies that can significantly enhance productiv­ity,” says Anjali Raghuvanshi, Chief People Officer, Rand­stad India. Programmes focused on employee wellness, she says, have helped the company retain and nurture talent. The company has introduced initiatives like ‘Be Kind To Your Mind’ and ‘Clear Your Calendar Friday’ to give people dedicated time for self-care and recovery from the fast-paced work environment. “The market is shift­ing from an employer-driven market to a talent-driven market,” Viswanath PS, managing director and CEO of Randstad India, told CNBC earlier this year in the context of moonlighting, a practice rampant in the country’s IT sector. “What it means is that talent is able to now com­mand the type of work they want to do, the companies they want to work for, and how they want to use their time in the best way possible,” he said.

“The incoming Gen Z workforce is attracted to companies offering flexible work schedules, meaningful work tied to a purpose and an open and inclusive culture, apart from competitive pay and a fair and safe work environment,” says Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO, Ciel HR Services. “There is a no­ticeable shift towards a more employee-centric approach within companies this year,” he says, adding, “Many initiatives have taken centrestage, including provisions for mental wellness ses­sions, access to virtual assistant platforms for health support, and a heightened sensitivity towards addressing employee needs.”

“What employees want is to be treated with respect and em­pathy. If you cannot empathise with a mother who needs to stay home on days that the nanny doesn’t turn up, you cannot call your­self a progressive workplace or expect to retain female talent,” says Sneha (last name withheld), a 32-year-old mother to a two-year-old, who gave up a marketing job at a real estate firm in Bengaluru after encountering casual sexism upon returning to work. She waited a whole year before joining an e-commerce company that has a hybrid work model and provides daycare allowance, mental health leave and therapy cover. “I think a lot of young people are coming to the realisation that they want more than money. In some new economy companies, the trust deficit that existed between management and employees is shrinking. They are showing the way for the rest of corporate India, she says.“The future of work is trust and more trust.”

Diversity in hiring practices is becoming more than a moral imperative—it is often a strategic move to leverage the depth of the talent pool to its fullest. “Some companies go to great lengths to hire women because they are now perceived to be more sincere, loyal and deserving. In fact, we recently lost out on a deal with an MNC because we sent three men to present our offer to a woman-led company,” says an HR executive. “While we may joke about a diversity hire today, progressive policies will have a big impact on the gender balance in the workforce a few years from now.”

An easy way to signal you care for your employees is to moni­tor the adoption of your wellness policies and to co-create flex­ible insurance cover plans with them, says Saurabh Arora, co­founder of Plum, a corporate health benefits and health insurance startup that works with over 4,000 companies in India. “India has a workforce of over 500 million and for many of them, medi­cal expenses are still among their largest out-of-pocket spends. Most companies already realise that they must step in with insurance policies that offer liberal coverage and flexibility to include parents or in-laws,” says Arora. “There is another piece to the healthcare benefits puzzle that is often neglected. It is only now that companies are coming forward to introduce primary care consultations—both over the internet and in person—and discounts at diagnostics and pharmacies, besides mental health cover and reimbursements for therapy.” Diagnostic screening, nutrition counselling and gym memberships are also catching on. “Traditionally, these benefits programmes were one-size-fits-all and designed centrally. New-age HR policies are changing this practice and allowing for flexibility,” says Arora. Plum has built a wallet structure where employees get to choose the type and extent of coverage from a full stack of offerings, including options for fitness, dental and mental wellness needs, while signing up for their corporate healthcare benefits programme. Several startups, including Zomato, Cred, Swiggy and Postman have implemented Plum’s full-stack plans, Arora says.

“Financial wellbeing is another important factor today, and many companies including ours offer access to financial consul­tants to help employees manage their money from a very early stage in their careers,” says Ashutosh Khanna, co-founder and director, WalkWater Talent Advisors.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) ‘Global Workplace Culture Report 2022’, 64 per cent of Indian workers said they would stay on in a company with good organisational culture—significantly higher than the global average of 37 per cent among employees. The study, based on 1,000 responses from India out of a global sample of 11,080 participants, cites a favourable work culture, job security and fair treatment among the top factors impacting employee retention. As per the study, work­place culture perceptions in India are notably positive, with as many as 80 per cent of Indian employees rating their organisational culture as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.

Diaphanous benefits alone do not constitute work culture, says P Rajendran, co-founder of NIIT, an edutech pioneer in India that demerged into two separate companies this year—NIIT Ltd and NLSL. “It is important for the top management to have their ears to the ground to see where the rubber meets the road.” In the early 2000s, long before it became fashionable to do so, NIIT organically ap­pointed a wellness officer to address employee complaints, argue for better benefits on their behalf and come up with ideas like a doctor on call at work. “With Covid, our sensitivity to health and wellness went up dramatically,” says Rajendran. “We pay a couple of lakhs of rupees a month to maintain a five-bed medi­cal facility in Gurugram and an ambulance. The idea is that no employee should have to endure the stress of not having access to an ambulance for a family member or even a friend.” NIIT was also a trailblazer in introducing gender-neutral leave policies, al­lowing new parents to take half-a-day off, half-a-week off, or even half-a-month off, at half pay whenever they needed to stay home with the baby. Most companies today are transitioning to better maternity, paternity and childcare benefits to help women stay on in the workforce. As Indian companies evolve to accommodate new expectations and realities, positive vibes remain the secret to a successful, nurturing workplace.

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