February 24, 2022

#199: Suhail Vadgaokar on building an inclusive and high-performing digital work culture, and overcoming the barriers to organizational learning programs

24 minutes

The reality is that remote work can be difficult, especially when it comes to team collaboration and communication. Face-to-face communication is hard enough, but it's much harder while working from home. In this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, we sit down with Suhail Vadgaokar, Head of People at dezerv. - a technology-led platform that helps people grow their wealth.

Suhail joined ITC hotels as a management trainee to be a chef. But during his training, he found more interest in a customer-facing role. He went on to manage F&B operations, and then eventually Sales. Post his tenure at ITC, he joined the Urban Company, an early-stage company that is now a unicorn. He helped build the customer experience operation, brand, and people function.

We discuss with Suhail:

Evolution of employee wellness programs
Key learnings that will drive people strategies in the year 2022
Barriers to organizational learning programs and how to overcome them
Cornerstones of building an inclusive and high-performing digital work culture

Here are some of the sneak peeks of the eye-opening insights shared in the conversation:

Evolution in employee wellness programs

Since the pandemic, employee wellness has seen some evolution. Focus has moved to rural psychological safety. Organizations are giving people the opportunities and avenues to get the right psychological and medical care.

What are some of the challenges faced while delivering a great employee experience?

One of the challenges would be the occurrence of natural bias considering a hybrid environment. A manager would be able to bond better with a person they meet every day over a person they meet virtually. This will also affect the results of performance reviews. It's important for HR functions to align closely with the business in order to understand the business and people strategy.

What are some of the barriers to organizational learning programs? How to overcome them?

Learning has become the biggest driver to join a company, followed by culture and compensation. Leaders need to clearly communicate the importance of learning and pushing one's own limits to the team. Giving time and space to get some external learning can improve performance.

Follow Suhail on LinkedIn.

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast Host: Nikita Chowdhary

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