Podcast with Murkta Part 3
Summary
Discover the secrets to boosting productivity and makingdata-driven decisions in Part 3 of our captivating podcast with Murkta Anya.
Join Andrew Liew as he explores the profound impact of employee engagement on
productivity, a trend that has emerged during the COVID-19 era. Delve into
Murkta's insights on the maturation of managers as leaders, the power of clean
and integrated data, and the transformative projects at Société Générale.
Uncover the future of work as they discuss fully integrated systems, flexible
career paths, and the seamless integration of AI, VR, and AR technologies.
Don't miss this episode filled with actionable strategies and a glimpse into
the exciting possibilities that lie ahead in the world of HR. Tune in now and
unlock the keys to a productive and data-driven future.
In this enlightening Part 3 of the podcast with MurktaAnya, we dive into the power of employee engagement and data-driven
decision-making. Andrew Liew discusses the research showing that managers who
engage their teams regularly experience a boost in productivity, a trend that
has emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Murkta emphasizes the maturation of
managers as leaders during this challenging time, with increased connection and
trust among remote teams. They explore the importance of creating a data-driven
mindset within HR teams, highlighting the significance of clean and integrated
data in making informed decisions. Murkta shares her pride in two impactful
projects at Société Générale: the learning management system and people
analytics, which have transformed the HR landscape. They discuss the future of
work, envisioning fully integrated systems, flexible career paths, and the
seamless integration of technologies like AI, VR, and AR. Tune in to gain
insights into the evolving HR landscape and the exciting possibilities on the
horizon.
[00:00:00] Andrew Liew: when there's a will there's a wayand talking about When there's a will there's a way like one of the there's a
lot of recent surveys that shows that managers and leaders That engages its
employees and its people in conversation a regular employee engagement activity
as you boost their productivity in the midst of COVID 19.
[00:00:23] Andrew Liew: And this has been gathered moreemphasis lately, particularly because of. What's your view on that?
[00:00:30] Murkta Anya: Sorry can you repeat thatquestion? I didn't. Oh I said I noticed there's a lot of research and surveys
that says that managers and leaders. That increased their frequency of engaging
their people reported a boost in the productivity.
[00:00:50] Andrew Liew: And such a situation has neverhappened before pre COVID 19. Yeah. How... Do you think that actually has
happened [00:01:00] over time and will itcontinue into the future?
[00:01:02] Murkta Anya: I think it will continue in thefuture because managers have become frankly, the role of manager has also been
quite stretched during this period where again, they had to connect with
people, get things done and also manage their own emotions as an employee.
[00:01:19] Murkta Anya: For me, I do feel that managershave also matured as leaders. Much more as leaders because they were really
handling much more than before. They also connected by our various ways and
also the trust level increased because if you don't have trust, then nothing
works, so I do see that people who were skeptics and cynics before of.
[00:01:40] Murkta Anya: Having people right in front ofthem and not trusting them when they were working from home. I think people
have changed their mindsets because they themselves were working and then they
realized how it works or not. I do think that this will continue for majority
of them. Because now it is it's like the mind has changed.
[00:01:58] Murkta Anya: The mindset has changed. [00:02:00] And it's something which has stretched nowcannot go back. So rubber which has stretched now cannot go back to the
original shape. So it's like that. People have tasted blood I think that I
think the mindset shift has gone in the right direction. And I think it will
continue.
[00:02:17] Murkta Anya: I'm not sure whether it will godirectly back to what it was earlier.
[00:02:21] Andrew Liew: Yeah I think I'm aligned with youas well in the sense that Ever since people start working from home, there's a
need for flexibility and autonomy. And yet, as we work from home, sometimes we
still need to come back together to build the bond and having that frequent
employee engagement actually build trust and enable or minimize the
communication error in the course of delivering work.
[00:02:45] Andrew Liew: That was, coming back to theinteresting question is among all your digital transformation projects, can you
share with us what is one project that you're very proud of and what's the
impact like?
[00:02:59] Murkta Anya: The [00:03:00]one project that we worked on was on the learning management system which was
implemented in 2011 in APAC.
[00:03:09] Murkta Anya: Actually, it was global and thenAPAC it was implemented. And I think that we have really come a long way
because... It has been improved over the years. So it has earlier, it was just
a repository of people who attended training, but now it hosts a number of
things. Plus now with the use of AI, it also throws up the relevant programs
for employees based on their profile, but also what they have been attending
before.
[00:03:35] Murkta Anya: So for me, I think that is quitegood because we are able to track. number of things. It also is a workflow, but
also it gives us statistics so that when we are planning our training and
development calendar and other initiatives, we know we have clear, clean data
to really base our decisions on.
[00:03:56] Murkta Anya: So for me, I think this issomething which has happened pretty pretty [00:04:00]well actually over the years and it's working quite well. There were teething
troubles, there was data integrity issues. There are some mistakes which
happened. Still happens, but I think that has been pretty good. The second
which I would say is on our analytics, the people analytics part where we
basically have now with the use of Tableau we have a people analytics team.
[00:04:21] Murkta Anya: We have been able to have cleandata, but also. A lot of data analyzed into some important pieces which we can
use for our management committee and for decision makers. So on recruitment, on
attrition, on training, succession planning, all the various KPIs that we have.
We are still in the initial stages, but I would say that our, we are connecting
the dot and the aim is really to go into predictive analytics and then on to persuasive
analytics.
[00:04:51] Murkta Anya: But we have made a good start onthat. And I'm very proud of that. The team has really done very well in this
particular thing. And I can see the power [00:05:00]of data. It's so important for human resources when we have to make decisions.
If we have the right data, we can really make a difference in terms of our
policies and the initiatives that we have.
[00:05:11] Murkta Anya: But if you have the wrong data,you can just go the other way around yeah I must say that SoftGen is very
advanced in its human capital capability development when it comes to as you
mentioned, people are now like, I think across some of my work and even when I
was in house one of the biggest challenge was two things.
[00:05:31] Andrew Liew: One was the The state of the datagetting clean data it's often a very difficult issue. I think particularly we
all know that the human resource management systems it doesn't come as a suite.
Some companies, they will buy payroll from a different brand and then buy.
Performance measurement from another brand there's six, seven, we are the same,
we are the same, but we are working on a core system which is right [00:06:00] now we are working on that here.
[00:06:01] Andrew Liew: Then you have to put everythingtogether and making sure that it's continuously clean because you can clean it
once, but maybe in the next quarter. Oh, why has this number been so different
from what we expected? Oh, it's because of the data piping that wasn't having
continuous cleaning issues now, the other interesting question was the, like I
mentioned was the data driven mindset. How do you, or how does Societe Generale
HR enable its people to have a data driven mindset.
[00:06:33] Murkta Anya: The first thing is about creatingawareness about data, what data can do. So for me, these are awareness
sessions. These are training and development showcasing what we have already
done in people analytics to see how it can help.
[00:06:47] Murkta Anya: So for me it's a lot of awarenessand training at the beginning for the HR teams. We we showcase this, we
basically use it in some of our analysis in various [00:07:00]meetings like town halls, et cetera, for HR, for human resources, we would ask
I would ask, for example, the people analytics team to present on what they
have been doing, what are the new things they will be doing in the coming
months or not.
[00:07:12] Murkta Anya: So it's a lot of, frankly, it's alot of. awareness, marketing, training of this mindset changes only when people
start using data. So for me, for example when I have meetings with people, I
ask people about data about give me numbers show me how this is linked to that.
So I think in the beginning I'm sure everybody's uncomfortable when we are
trying to change the way people think.
[00:07:36] Murkta Anya: But I think people are gettingused to it because we have now data everywhere, and it is data which makes a
powerful statement. When somebody is telling me something, if I can reply with
solid data, which is a verified data then the impact is much more when I'm
making a case or an argument or whatever I'm trying to do.
[00:07:56] Murkta Anya: It is for me, it is trying toincorporate in day to day things, [00:08:00]questioning people on this making sure that in various things we are using it
for me, it's embedding in day to day HR processes. That's the important part,
because if you don't do it and data is kept in isolation, then nothing will
happen.
[00:08:13] Murkta Anya: The mindset will never change. Soit's a continuous effort. That's a very great answer. Like building awareness,
creating making it easy for people to understand data and giving it a try.
Yeah. These are very great tips for the folks out there. Now, having said that,
one of the interesting questions I also wanted to ask is that, even setting up
a case for analytics there are strategic issues that the management always
wanted to see for example, filling up the talent, the time to fill the talent.
[00:08:46] Andrew Liew: Should we train our people orshould we hire the people for the future capability of a specific SOC? What is
the right mixed talent mix, or right hiring mix? These, are these the questions
[00:09:00] that SOC Gen are thinking about thefuture?
[00:09:02] Murkta Anya: Yeah we are already when Idiscuss in management committee about various things where, for example I'm
asked, okay, why is it taking so much time for recruitment?
[00:09:13] Murkta Anya: We have so many positions open.So what I do is use based. Based on the data analytics, which we have, I send
an update to our management committee every month on everything like related to
open positions, turnaround time to fill it, including analysis comparisons with
last few years, including analysis of which month we have more vacancies which
are filled versus which months are lower, etc.
[00:09:40] Murkta Anya: So that we can see why there arethese trends and then go deeper into the reasons behind it. Same for attrition,
if there is certain areas where it's a simple kind of thing. But I think it's
quite important in succession planning where for example, do we have a lot of
successors in house or not, or do we have to go for certain positions [00:10:00] outside?
[00:10:00] Murkta Anya: So it is something which we arelooking at much more now. So we started it and more with KPI and static data.
Now it is more integrated, connecting the dot and making a story out of it. I'm
really very hopeful that we'll be able to do something in predictive analysis,
because I think this is where the value is, where we can say that, okay, these
are the kind of profiles which are successful in our organization.
[00:10:24] Murkta Anya: And then the chances of theirsuccess is higher, or these are the people who are at risk of attrition because
of, because of the past data analysis that we have done. So this is what I'm
hopeful that we are going to be doing soon. And I can tell you that when I'm
having discussion with the management team on diversity and inclusion
initiatives and other things, this data is very important because it tells a
story.
[00:10:49] Murkta Anya: Numbers tell a story and how wecan weave it into and then really get into the root cause and try to work on
it. This is where the, my role as HR head. [00:11:00]Lies, and I'm not saying we are very advanced in it We are still we still I
think it's few years, but I'm very hopeful that we will be able to make
meaningful Sense out of the data.
[00:11:11] Murkta Anya: So it's a sense making out of thedata Which is there and then can help the business in their day to day needs
[00:11:16] Andrew Liew: Imagine the next five to tenyears you can have all the money and technology that you want What is that one
or two interesting crystal ball question that you want to address for your
company or for the world?
[00:11:33] Murkta Anya: For in human resources? Yes.Okay. I think one is that all our systems are integrated human resources.
[00:11:41] Murkta Anya: So if I need something. The clickof a button, I'm able to get it and then have a report and also that we can
make analysis. So I think that is one thing that I want to do. The second is
where we are able to have multiple careers as employees at this, at the same
time [00:12:00] so working for.
[00:12:01] Murkta Anya: Two days in one company, two daysin another and two days for our other pursuits, like I don't know, hobbies
which are there. I really feel that kind of flexibility can really help get us
the best talent in the world because right now maybe we are limited because
some people have different interests and they don't want to pursue what we want
them to do.
[00:12:23] Murkta Anya: But if there's a flexibility ofdoing things, multiple things, then maybe there will be more talent available,
which we never thought of I would think that we will be really working hand in
hand with with robotics the AI machine learning and really all those will help
us do something which is much more strategic because they will be doing all the
other process work, which is there.
[00:12:47] Murkta Anya: AI will help us much more in ourday to day processes in recruitment and all they're already doing it, but also.
Understanding human beings, maybe it will be there I don't know if they can do
the work as HR [00:13:00] business partners, butwhy not when it is required at some point of time, using of using VR and AR is
already happening.
[00:13:08] Murkta Anya: And I feel that it should becomeway of life. The way we do our meetings, the way we are doing induction, the
way we are doing training programs, the way we are interacting with people,
holograms already here, but I think in corporate world, if they can come, it
could be it could be fantastic. Fantastic actually to merge all this technology
into the way we do work, Yeah, I have quite big hopes from the future of work I
think it's right frankly Yeah,
[00:13:34] Andrew Liew: like you said a fully integratedsystem like click of a button people having multiple careers in the course of
their lifetime working in robotics.
[00:13:44] Andrew Liew: Yeah I also see the same brightfuture as you..