People and Management October 2018 | Page 27

www.peopleandmanagement.com emphasised on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as they can be used to gauge the overall performance of the company against other comparable companies within the industry. Mr. Pillai favoured the use of KPIs and added value to the deliberations by suggesting to move from lagging to leading indicators as they are in-process measures and are predictive in nature, since a leading indicator can infl uence change while a lagging indicator can only record what has happened. He focussed on the need of both AI and Block Chain technologies as these will have serious business implications and on how organisations can garner business value in the future with this combination. Dr. Maitra opined that mapping role and mapping competencies are crucial to assess employees’ performance so that their goals can be set accordingly. Dr. Ramadyani was of the opinion that automation has changed a lot in performance management system from business goals to personal goals, wherein the overall culture has shifted from individual to a team, underlining the ‘We’ culture. Ms. Puri was also of the opinion that week- per-week performance assessment is important to keep a check on what leads have been delivered. The fourth crucial point of discussion was the Compensation and Benefi ts, and how Compensation Management professionals are still reliant on excel spreadsheets and other highly manual processes. Both Dr. Nilanjan Mukherjee and Ms. Puri emphasised on several key benefi ts that organisations are realising by automating their compensation processes as it reduces time, cost, and manual errors. Mr. Pillai emphasised on ‘Total Rewards Optimisation’ for developing a new employee rewards strategy which moves form total rewards to right rewards. He underlined that employee preferences should be gathered through an employee conjoint survey, on which workers are used to evaluate rewards programmes on a relative basis and get a comparable value or ranking of program elements. The last crucial point of discussion was on Training and Development and how automation can elevate. Humans need more training than machines. To this, Mr. Pillai was of the opinion that trainers need to have hands-on experience in new technical skills to work alongside machines as well as advanced cognitive and critical thinking skills to make informed judgement calls. Dr. Ramadyani favoured the need for learning new skills and upgradation in learning styles for trainers as ‘Learn to Earn’ is the modern mantra. Also she was of the view that training effectiveness can be only seen when certain areas are given importance like the needs and requirements of trainees, and this all goes with the required personal touch. Dr. Nilanjan Mukherjee also put emphasis on digital learning platform for various phases of induction, quarterly training, and code of conduct. Dr. Maitra and Ms Puri opined that Bite-sized learning is a new way to train corporate leaders as the learning content is easily and readily accessible and learners can take it up wherever and whenever they are ready. All the panel members exhibited great vigour and showered valuable insights during the deliberations, leaving one and all mesmerised with their innovative strategies, knowledge and experience on the subject. The discussion veered around the real-time experiments undertaken by the panellists and turned out to be extremely informative. It concluded on the note that automation is invading the HR space, and very soon everything that can be automated, will be automated, allowing the HR operations team to focus more on value added activities. With this, there is also the fact that it’s not human vs. technology but humans and technology together that creates more effi cient and effective systems. The enriching session was followed by a quick round of Q&A. The chairperson and all the panellists answered the curiosities of the audience in depth with an amicable spirit. Dr. Monica Verma, Head of the MBA Department presented the vote of thanks to the panellists, delegates and audience at the end of the program. P & M Vol. 9 Issue 6 • Sep-Oct 2018, Noida / Pre-Event Edition | 27