Driving Organizational Change through Effective Leadership, HR Strategies & Digitization

Mahesh Joshi, CHRO, Honeywell Automation India Ltd, in an exclusive interview with Industry Outlook, shares his views on the HR strategies to drive organizational change in hybrid environments, how HR leaders balance technology adoption with fostering a strong organizational culture, strategies to ensure tech-driven skill development and more. He has experience managing overall HR and C&B Functions, Strengths in HR policy design, New business startups, Mergers & Acquisitions and more.

In the current landscape of Indian industries, how are leaders leveraging digital tools and HR strategies to drive organizational change, particularly in the context of hybrid work environments?

Ideally, the hybrid work environment has been present for a long time. However, since COVID came to light, hybrids have started resurfacing, and all organizations that have never been a part of this have experienced the hybrid structure. The hybrid structure is very interesting as it is a dual-edged sword. The reason is that it has a lot of advantages, but it also has a lot of disadvantages, which are hidden. The organization and its employees can face certain challenges if these advantages and disadvantages are not assessed in time. The hybrid model is more flexible as the employees can work from anywhere; they are not required to sit in one place but must still deliver their numbers. As a result, organizations save a lot of money from the infrastructure cost standpoint and from a fixed cost standpoint, which is the good side of a hybrid structure. However, the most important challenge is coming together and building a culture of belongingness that is unique to the company. From the company's standpoint, how it operates in the environment, how people behave, and its culture are critical, but they are deteriorating over time.

The second aspect is innovation and collaboration. For instance, it will be challenging for people to come up with new ideas, processes, and systems, required to create a new product. Even process improvement will become increasingly difficult and time consuming if employees operate remotely. From an organization point of view, the nature of the organization should be understood and the long-term impact of adopting a hybrid structure must also be considered. Most of the organizations have started asking people to return as they not only want to have a fair amount of flexibility but also want to fulfill the more significant, long term organizational goals.

Employee upskilling is critical for organizational transformation. How are Indian businesses aligning leadership strategies to ensure tech-driven skill development, and what challenges do they face in this area?

The world is changing due to digitization and survival has become very difficult without digital applications. More importantly, digitization has changed the conscious and unconscious behavior of individuals. Individuals need to understand that their ecosystems and the companies that provide it are also changing. However, these changes are all in diverse directions. The organization focuses on teaching and equipping their employees for all future challenges. Most companies are working on three main agendas: digitization, sustainability, and transformation, aiming to adopt a sustainable mode. To obtain the first two agendas, it is crucial to undergo transformation, and that is how the changes are driven.

As we embrace new methods across all areas, why should skilling be any different? Skilling is critical for personal development and staying more relevant in the marketplace or the organization. Nowadays, every organization is partnering with easily accessible online platforms that offer many customized courses. Skill development through a digital platform helps in four ways: it is cost-effective, quick, economical, and easily reaches numerous people. Hence, these key factors contribute to success in this area.

As organizations focus on improving productivity and innovation, how do HR leaders balance technology adoption with fostering a strong organizational culture, especially when it comes to employee trust and transparency?

Technology adoption is changing from organization to organization, and innovation will be necessary for every organization in the future, regardless of the products, services, or operational excellence. To be productive, it is essential to have continuous self-innovation. In the present world, if organizations don't adapt to changes, they will always lag in the market. Even productivity and quality will go down in comparison to others. The organization should leverage technologies, which are effective learning platforms, and make them a part of the company’s culture.

Innovating organizations should invest in learning, varying from 15 days to one month. Some innovative companies invest only 30 days, around 240 hours a year, in teaching and understanding its employees. This helps the employees to acquire relevant knowledge and skills resulting in an outstanding output of innovative options when they are in the workspace. Hence, a strong organizational culture fostering innovation and technology adoption is crucial.

Transparency is an interesting aspect. If a lot of things are not documented, then it leaves a lot of space for vagueness to introduce itself into processes. For instance, if the policies are available on the intranet and all its details are defined, then there is no room for uncertainty and the policy can be regarded as ‘transparent’. However, suppose there is a process or practice that is verbal. In that case, there is not a lot of transparency and biases can easily keep seeping into the process. Hence, digital platforms should be used to make processes transparent and to relay consistent messages across all the groups. This not only reinforces employee trust but also helps maintain the integrity of the processes.

With the rise of data-driven HR strategies, how are Indian organizations using analytics to enhance employee performance and engagement, and what impact is this having on leadership accountability and decision-making?

Nowadays, multiple forms of data are readily available at our fingertips. We simply have to give a command and then make a proper selection to make the data available. This is where more and more data utilization started coming in. As the data is so quickly available the decision speed has already increased, and even the accuracy of the data is high. These aspects help to put the KPIs into perspective and monitor them. For instance, if I give my team the data, I often explain that what I’m seeing and what they are communicating might be in a different language. This prompts them to examine the data, identify the errors, and determine what needs to be addressed.

So, very laser-focused action is possible and very laser-focused KPI moderation, management, and measurement. That also helps increase accountability and decision speed.

For example in the case of any attrition like issue, then it will be owned by someone. However, if the RCA shows something else, that individual is responsible. So, it's either business or HR who is accountable for it and is also very clear with that piece. These data-driven strategies in the future will be something not only for Indian organizations but also for every organization that exists on the earth, which will have to be used over time, as it is now possible to fetch that information so quickly.