“If you take care of people, they will give it their everything in return.“

Our next guest has one amazing career journey and she’s here to share all the tips, tricks, and best practices she picked up along her way. We welcome Ruby Jane Antony, Director of People Operations at Setu. 

Setu is focused on rebuilding and future-proofing India’s fintech architecture. Ruby leads the People Operations function. She describes her work experience at Setu as magical and fun.

She started her career in Tally Solutions as a Product Manager. This made her realize that she loved to be a part of a team that revolves around finding people and knowing the contributions of the overall functions to carve out people's success practices.

Episode highlights:

1. Practices implemented by Setu to ensure the well-being of employees 

At Setu, they reached out to employees for counselling them on mental well-being, self-care, stress management, mindfulness, etc. They introduced extended weekends and allowed employees to take leaves without questioning them. Reducing team meetings to lessen fatigue is one of their tiny steps to ensure employee well-being.  

2. Methods for improving feedback, especially in remote setup 

Feedback contributes to company culture. It should be kept separate from daily SCRUM conversations. Employees should be great at delivering and receiving feedback. Feedback between check-in conversations should be documented, according to Ruby. Data points, examples, and scenarios should be included in the feedback. Instead of dictating things, the conversations should be two way. 

3. Attracting talent from the market both internally and externally 

According to Ruby, if you take care of employees, they give their 100%. Giving employees ownership and focusing on their growth and learning help retention strategies. Ensuring you provide good packages to the employees is also important for retaining employees. 

Follow Ruby on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast Host: Shradha Mundhra 

About Springworks:
Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organization that is building tools and products to simplify recruitment, on-boarding, employee engagement, and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:
SpringVerify — B2B verification platform
EngageWith — employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun, and interactive games platforms for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking systemSpringworks prides itself on being an organization focused on employee well-being and workplace culture leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.

On this episode, our guest is Tej Arora, CTO of Guardinex. They protect businesses and their customers from identity frauds.

Tej grew up in Hyderabad, India, and did his Bachelors in Computer Science at IIT, Madras. Soon after he moved to the US to pursue his masters. Tej has over 25 years of experience and has worked with giants like Oracle, Netscape, and Yahoo.

His curious mind and passion to keep learning made him re-skill and look at cloud infrastructure through a customer’s lens. He then went on to learn and achieve certification in AWS. Tej also published his AWS knowledge through videos.

Episode highlights:

1. HR priorities for reinventing business strategies 

Due to the pandemic, the entire globe is a marketplace for searching talent. It opens up tremendous options that encourage job-hopping and taking up multiple gigs. To deal with this landscape, HR should not enforce tight employee guidelines but provide flexibility to take multiple gigs. Having a nice blend of home and office work helps, according to Tej. Slack, Zoom, cloud tools should be allowed to make remote setup employee-friendly. 

2. Upskilling challenges in the tech industry 

As per Tej's experience, employees don't utilise the budget companies allocate for upskilling programmes. Companies should incentivise employees to encourage upskilling. Periodic conversations with employees and L&D should be strengthened to minimise upskilling challenges. L&D should become part of management employee conversation to overcome upskilling challenges.

3. How to find the right solutions for L&D and upskilling?

The younger generation commonly uses cloud-based tools these days. Employees shouldn't face the hassles of using multiple tools for different assignments, and therefore, these tools must have SSO support. Slack-like tools should be integrated for VC tools and cloud storage along with social networks. It would encourage employees to share the courses they have taken up on their social media accounts. 

Follow Tej on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Rohan Mankad

About Springworks:
Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organisation that is building tools and products to simplify recruitment, on-boarding, employee engagement and retention.

The product stack from Springworks includes:
SpringVerify — B2B verification platform
EngageWith — employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun and interactive games platform for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking system

Springworks prides itself on being an organisation focused on employee well-being and workplace culture leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.

It's safe to call our guest on this episode, a tech-savant. We welcome Nitish Mehta, Co-Founder at INTEGRTR.

Nitish was first introduced to the culture of work-life balance in his first job at SAP. Five years later in his career journey, he co-founded CashPositive (a fintech start-up focused on simplifying B2B credit transactions) and INTEGRTR (an enterprise-tech start-up simplifying HR-Tech integrations). Nitish aims at simplifying problems with the use of technology and is currently contributing all his tech and founding expertise to INTEGRTR. 

Episode highlights:

• How to build a positive work culture
• His thoughts on micromanaging
• Tips on designing a leadership self-reflection practice
• Workplace lessons learned from the employees during the pandemic
• Tips for managers to motivate and inspire their team for better performance

Episode Highlights 

1. Building the right work culture 

Culture is defined by the value system of founders and early team members. A positive culture automatically sets in with the right people who value the right things. Therefore, Nitish feels that companies should hire the right people for setting the right culture. 

2. Thoughts and views on micromanaging 

According to Nitish, if there is a need for micromanagement in an organisation, there is something wrong with either the people or processes. However, the CEO must be involved in micromanagement at the hiring level, especially during the initial days of the company. 

3. Creating a practice that reflects through leadership 

Leaders should take some time off and get into a zone where they can analyse things over time. Nitish gives an example of their annual company catchup where they look at their yearly achievements. Focusing on both the good and not-good part helps leaders strike the right balance in the organisation. For self-reflection, one must get inputs from the team and co-founders. For that, empowering the team to speak actively in meetings is important. 

4. Major lessons learnt during the Covid pandemic 

Adaptability and resilience played an important role in the early stage of the pandemic. It is because it impacted hiring and onboarding people for remote work. In the second part, working in a remote setup with people who have never interacted and met in person was challenging, according to Nitish. It provided new learnings to the company. People helping each other in the team was pleasant, according to him. 

5. Which is better: remote work or working from the office?

Nitish feels that remote work can be balanced with offline meetings. INTEGRTR is spread across two continents, and therefore offline meetups play a huge role in working things out. Employees love remote work because they can balance work and personal life. However, outdoor work learning is missed due to remote work. Non-remote setup encourages engagement and bond-building. Therefore, fostering engagement while working remotely is also essential. As a leader, one must empower the employees to grow and help others grow. 

6. Virtual platforms for engaging employees 

Nitish thinks that the video engagement platform helps employees get cues by visual apart from voice. Having an environment that fosters friendships and workplace bonding is essential, according to him. Virtual platforms are excellent tools in this regard.

Follow Nitish on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast Host: Ankita Kirad 

Maya Chandrasekaran is the Co-Founder of Green Artha Innovations - a climate venture fund and innovation firm established to make a low-carbon economy possible. She also co-founded and continues to actively run the 200+ member network, Women in Investing.

Prior to being a founder, she held roles such as Senior Executive, Analyst,  Director of Strategic Partnerships, Chief of Talent, and Strategic Advisor. She was also a part of the founding leadership that scaled Babajobs.com into India’s largest tech-enabled livelihoods platform, securing meaningful work for over 10 million people in just 7 years. 

Maya is an expert at scaling companies that change lives, both as an investor and leading operations, talent, and growth. She has been a mentor with TechStars India for multiple cohorts now and works with a number of startups in an advisory capacity.

Episode Highlights:

Her role as HR executive at Babajobs

As HR executive for Babajobs, Maya wanted to make the job seekers' experience stronger, better, and more engaging. Babajobs was a small-scale company when she started working for it. She takes great pride in this journey of hers as it helped her gain expertise and knowledge about so many other functions in the office apart from the HR field in which she excelled.

Tips to CHROs for the growth of the company

Maya credits the balance between seniors and new joiners for keeping the company culture and values intact. She feels most startups that have grown into larger organizations do not want to become stratified and hierarchical. However, she stressed the importance of a flexible organizational structure to avoid chaos.

The right time to implement OKRs

According to Maya, OKR is an excellent template with different versions - but essentially, it is too vast a concept to explain in a few words. In a company, employees and leaders have a common goal: to work for the company's success. The daily execution of work is something that makes or breaks the company. There is no way a firm can fail if its people give it their all and devote themselves entirely to its development. Small victories daily are a crucial first step toward bigger ones in the long run.

The right time to hire an HR specialist

Maya feels that hiring an HR specialist as soon as possible when starting a new firm is vital since it gives critical assistance to the entrepreneur. It will relieve the CEO of some of his duties and provide a helping hand. Because every company is different, you should not consider these principles to be definitive. If you anticipate that your firm will grow considerably in a short span – say, by 100% or 50% in the coming 6-12 months – you should hire an in-house HR professional at the earliest.

Rewards and recognition to employees

Professional appreciation is more than just a checkbox on the managers' to-do list. On the contrary, timely awards and recognition should become intrinsic to the workplace culture. Employees are more loyal to a firm when valued for their contributions and labor. Not unexpectedly, the present dominant forces of millennials and generation Z are challenging to satisfy. They don't consider acknowledgement to be a memorable event. Today's young workforce feels obligated to be recognized for outstanding performance. Appreciating them in a way that appeals to them is essential for attracting, retaining, and satisfying the new wave of workers. Establishing a robust, organized framework for financing and rewards is vital for an organization's long-term performance.

Follow Maya on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast Host: Kartik Mandaville 

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”  - Warren Buffett

Our guest on this episode is here to give us all the insights we need to build the workplace of the future. We welcome Anoop Singh, Brand Manager and Head of Marketing for Indomie at Kellogg Tolaram Nigeria Limited.

Anoop is the jack of all trades. He has held various positions like Business analyst, Sales and Marketing Manager, and Micro Market CEO. Prior to joining Kellogg’s, he worked with large MNCs like OYO, Cognizant, and Reliance Industries Limited.

In this fun-filled conversation, you get insights about Anoop’s personal and professional insights like never before.  

Episode Highlights:

'Growth mindset' is important for all industries

Anoop Singh says growth mindset refers to the welfare and development of the workplace in its entirety, with workers playing the central role in the transformation of business practices. He elaborates upon the significance of personality traits and collective growth for instilling a growth mindset in the young people joining the industry.

The feedback-giving process is an excellent way to enrich the workforce

Anoop has previously worked at multiple corporate positions in multinational companies like OYO, Micro Market, etc. Recalling his experience, he emphasized the necessity of constant feedback-giving processes for employees so that they can contribute towards the overall growth of the company.

There are social aspects of a growth mindset too

Anoop Singh highlighted that we must adopt continuous learning as the criteria for determining the growth levels of the members of an organization. According to him, during the pandemic, he witnessed a higher level of social bonding and supportive nature in his employees, which helped the company fight such challenging times in the international markets.

Follow Anoop on LinkedIn, Twitter & his blog.

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Moshe Vhanunu

About Springworks:
Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organisation that is building tools and products to simplify recruitment, on-boarding, employee engagement and retention.

The product stack from Springworks includes:
SpringVerify — B2B verification platform
EngageWith — employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun and interactive games platform for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking system

Springworks prides itself on being an organisation focused on employee well-being and workplace culture leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.

Like many CEOs of growing companies, Himanshu Singh Raghuvanshi is on a mission. He is an ex-management consultant, having worked with manufacturers/ OEMs across India and US for over a decade.

Through his previous experiences of serving manufacturers & OEMs, he saw a gap with manufacturers running complex direct material sourcing processes in a manual, long-drawn way. Hence, Capgrid was born - a B2B commerce company specialising in sourcing and procurement of direct-material supplies.

CapGrid’s AI-powered platform and deep network of suppliers allow manufacturers to significantly reduce the complexities in the direct material sourcing and procurement process.

Having catered to clients in automotive, aerospace and Oil & Gas space, Himanshu knows these industries inside and out. 

The general hiring concept:

Himanshu said that the initial set of people you hire should be more like those you associate with. When starting out, you need people that have a lot of trust in the company and its goals. There might be a lot of changes that come in the company in the beginning - so you need people that you can discuss things with. The first set of people that Himanshu hired for his company were people that he already knew.

Importance of the first set of people you hire:

As a company grows, the founder and co-founders become more and more hands-off; you can no longer interact with every employee personally. So your employees need to pass on the culture. For this, the first set of employees becomes vital. 

Employee satisfaction:

Himanshu also points out that whether the employees are happy is very important for a company's growth - especially a smaller one. For example, an important question in employee happiness surveys is whether people have any friends in their office - because the best memories in the office are with people you like. Happier employees do more for the company, and it increases productivity.

Follow Himanshu on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Shradha Mundhra

About Springworks:
Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organisation that is building tools and products to simplify recruitment, on-boarding, employee engagement and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:
SpringVerify — B2B verification platform
EngageWith — employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun and interactive games platform for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking system

Springworks prides itself on being an organisation focused on employee well-being and workplace culture leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.

Mudita Chauhan started off her career as an engineer but realized her key strength was bringing out the best in people. She then changed paths leading her to the HR space and she is currently the Head of Human Resources at CoinDCX.

Mudita is on the roll as she heads the people function and works on building the largest fintech in the country. Her key strengths are in building startups, HR transformation, data and analytics, operationalizing HR Technology, managing senior stakeholders, and driving employee engagement and productivity.

Episode Highlights

Key points to enhance human resource management 

Mudita recounts that culture fit was an important step when she started working in CoinDCX. First, they gathered all the hiring agents and arrived at the right questions to ask during the hiring process. 

Next, she talks about the importance of the right hiring partners who can help hire the right people for the company. 

She says that delivering the right experience to the employee is essential and is the responsibility of recruiters and managers.

 She says that communication is a significant step that ensures transparency within the team. 

Sharing her views on internal job postings, she feels that it is a powerful tool for employee growth as it offers them a variety of roles.

Ways by which crypto industries can leverage employer branding 

Mudita says that employer branding is not easy. In her experience, people usually go for a stable organization with a clear vision of their future. She says that it is imperative to give new employees a  proper introduction about your company and your expectations from them. CoinDCX is different from other employers; as for them, branding is not just about a company but also about crypto.

Mudita concludes the interview by saying that the crypto industry is in its nascency and needs young talent and new ideas. Therefore, at CoinDCX, they usually look for people passionate about crypto. 

Follow Mudita on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Lokesh Gautam

Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organization that is building tools and products to simplify recruitment, on-boarding, employee engagement, and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:

SpringVerify — B2B verification platform
EngageWith — employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun, and interactive games platforms for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking systemSpringworks prides itself on being an organization focused on employee well-being and workplace culture leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.

Have you thought about your 'Learning health' - the collective ability of your organisation to outperform the competition?

On this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, Nishchae Suri, President- Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa at Edcast navigates us through the shifting sands of the Learning and Development ecosystem.
 
EdCast is an award-winning platform that offers a unified platform designed to operate end-to-end employee experience journeys spanning learning, skilling and career mobility.

In this episode, Nishchae goes deep on the theme of moving with greater agility to drive cultural change and creating a learner experience where individuals view work as an opportunity for self-discovery and growth.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

Why learning should be viewed as a cultural obligation rather than a legal requirement

A learning culture is a set of organisational norms, attitudes, practices, and procedures that promote learning. Employees and organisations are encouraged to increase their knowledge and skills through these conventions.

How an L & D-focused culture improves employee retention and profitability

Fostering L & D encourages employee engagement, which boosts your retention rate. Employees require the opportunity to expand their expertise and advance in their careers. Employees feel fulfilled and thrive when they have the opportunity to learn new things regularly, which is easily visible in Edcast. The company has managed in bringing its employees together, adding variety to their experience increasing their engagement and creative output.

Relationship between the L & D and R & R functions
Yes, absolutely as stated by him, Employees who have successfully gained new skills and abilities should be acknowledged and recognised to keep them motivated and urge others to do the same. The combination of R&R and L&D is powerful because it produces a positive habit loop.

Follow Nishchae on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Junius Dsilva

Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organization that is building tools and products to simplify recruitment, on-boarding, employee engagement, and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:
SpringVerify — B2B verification platform
EngageWith — employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun, and interactive games platforms for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking systemSpringworks prides itself on being an organization focused on employee well-being and workplace culture leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.

“Security is not a point in time thing, it's a culture that you need to ingrain.”

They say curious people are happier and our guest on this episode proves it just right. Ujwal Ratra is the Chief Operations Officer at Astra Web Security.

Currently, Ujwal is involved in setting up and running multiple teams across Software Development, Marketing, and Product Management. 

Prior to working at Astra, Ujwal had worked at Amazon as a Software Developer but found the job a little isolating. At the same time, his curiosity to be involved in challenging on-ground business problems like how orders reached homes grew. This made him change gears and join the operations team.

Episode highlights:

Impact of COVID on cyber risks and how it can be prevented

The increase in the number of cyberattacks since the onset of the pandemic has been tremendous. We have seen a considerable uptick in cyberattacks. Before this, organizations had a single office, and it was easier to be secure. Now, everyone is working from home, and it is difficult for the organization to secure everyone’s laptops. Most organizations were not prepared from a cybersecurity perspective.  

Ways organizations can tackle cybercrime 

The most important thing is not to forget about cyber security. Most organizations get a security audit once and forget about it. Most organizations release features every few weeks, becoming vulnerable to attacks. Organizations should not get complacent about cybersecurity and need to get cybersecurity audits done regularly. Astra Web Security has automated vulnerable checks. However, they are still not as sophisticated and comprehensive. 

 Follow Ujwal on LinkedIn, Twitter.

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Shwetha Parshi

Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organization that is building tools and products to simplify recruitment, on-boarding, employee engagement, and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:
SpringVerify — B2B verification platform
EngageWith — employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun, and interactive games platforms for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking systemSpringworks prides itself on being an organization focused on employee well-being and workplace culture leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.

Dave West, CEO and Product Owner at Scrum.org, is on a mission to enable professionals to apply scrum through training courses, certifications, and ongoing learning all based on a common competency model. 

Prior to joining the team at Scrum.org, Dave was Chief Product Officer at Tasktop where he was responsible for product management, engineering, and architecture. As a member of the company’s executive management team, he was also instrumental in growing Tasktop from a services business into a VC-backed product business. 

Dave is one of the foremost industry experts on software development and deployment.

On this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, Dave defines a growth mindset as the ability to look at things and problems differently. He also shares his inspirational journey of how being dyslexic didn’t stop him from achieving his goals.

Episode Highlights:

Constructive ways in which leaders can handle criticism

The key tenet at Scrum is transparency. With a transparent culture, you have to be open with your team and stakeholders. Not only that, but you have to sit and listen to what they have to say. When you explain your reasoning behind things and what your mission is, people will understand your decisions.

Role of CEOs in envisioning and implementing well-being initiatives

One of the problems Dave has seen with these initiatives is that organizations think everyone is the same. The truth is that people benefit from different things. Scrum.org focuses on trying to empower people to make their own choices regarding their well-being. They encourage people to seek their answers and provide the funding and support to do that. 

How to deal with failed well-being initiatives?

Eventually, it’s the relationship between employees and their bosses. If the team members know that their boss cares about them, the initiatives will be successful. It’s the responsibility of line managers and bosses to ensure that their team members feel that they care. 

Follow Dave on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Abijith Kanthadai

Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organization that is building tools and products to simplify recruitment, on-boarding, employee engagement, and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:
SpringVerify — B2B verification platform
EngageWith — employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun, and interactive games platforms for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking systemSpringworks prides itself on being an organization focused on employee well-being and workplace culture leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.