Oracle SHRM Report

WORKPLACE
APAC 2021
CHRO STUDY
Accelerating Recovery And Growth
FROM THE
EDITORS
WORKPLACE APAC 2021

Workplace APAC 2021 is one of the largest collaborative study by SHRM and Oracle
in the APAC region. The study focuses on uncovering emerging trends in technology
and preparedness of organizations coming back to work. Workplace APAC 2021 has
more than 55 marquee organizations from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and India and focuses on some of
the most pressing issues faced by organizations today and their readiness to go
back to a hybrid place of work. A few of the themes covered by the study are growth
acceleration priorities, new ways of working and related challenges, technology
investment avenues and outlook in the post-pandemic scenario.
The last 18 months have been tough for organizations and have posed unique
challenges on business continuity, remote working, safety, security and health &
wellbeing of employees forcing them to innovate and relook at the traditional and
tested methods of management and operations. During the Workplace APAC 2021
study, we have come across novel ways organizations have been dealing with the
pandemic, accelerating change through technology and navigating organizations
through newer horizons. Workplace APAC 2021 will equip you with the organizational
priorities, anticipated challenges, investment avenues and outlook.
The participating organizations have been carefully chosen to include those who are
at the forefront of their respective industry and provide a right mix between
traditional established industries along with emerging tech and SAAS organizations
on the growth path. For the ease of comprehension, the key shifts have been
categorized under Hyper personalized EX, Techno-ciency, Total Wellbeing,
Heliotropic Culture and Humanising Connectedness. For a quick overview of these
shifts, please flip over!
Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
What started as a business continuity measure during the peak of the pandemic, left an
indelible mark on work, workers, and the workplace. Across the globe, organizations
responded with great agility and displayed unprecedented resilience. The role of HR
evolved and became more complex. Technology emerged as the panacea for most of the
existing and emerging challenges. Unlike the western world, HR leaders across the Asia
Pacific had to deal with multiple dimensions of workplace and technology transformation
all at the same time and emerged as winners across industries and geographies.

As we deep dive into the Workplace APAC 2021 study, we see leaders have provided great
details about their present priorities and the future direction. Clearly these 5 shifts that are
detailed in the report are taking the spotlight from a focus perspective.

Focus on each individual, individually. While the world was already talking about
personalizing employee experience and exploring the use of technology to augment it,
personalization has assumed much greater wider connotation. Today employees seek
‘Hyper Personalization’ that will need fundamental changes in:
1. Way organizations and leaders perceive individual needs, preferences and choices.
Companies wanting to thrive now will need to embrace agility in almost all aspects
of their being, be it structures, job roles, hierarchies, benefits, compensation
models, work timings, devices, deliverables, success measures etc.

2. The above change will need a complete relook at the policy framework. Perhaps it
is apt to say that the only viable policy of the future will be the policy of no policy.
Meaning that there cannot be a policy framework (statutory compliances excluded)
that is rigid and cannot be adapted to suit the requirements of one or many
employees.
3. Hyper personalization strategy should come from a core of empathy towards

employees and focus on their total wellbeing. That will be a big shift from today,
when personalization is largely aimed at driving productivity and engagement.

EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Enhancing the productivity quotient
As the businesses are getting disrupted and macroeconomic conditions becoming

more challenging, operating at the highest levels of productivity has become an
imperative. All this with a renewed focus on wellbeing and empathy. Therefore:
1. Technology has toppled training as the enabler of driving higher productivity.

Augmenting human abilities and at times replacing human workers with machine is
the way forward. Many leading organizations across APAC are on this renewed path
of automation, specifically in their people processes.
2. Complex competency models are gradually making way for nimbler skill-based
performance requirements that are quicker to develop and simpler to find. A
majority of the organizations are relooking at their talent frameworks to make them
more granular and start focusing more on independent skills.
3. Irrespective of job and function, digital skills across the board will be of primary
importance. The world is moving to a paradigm where everything that can be
digitized will be/must be digitized. Therefore, digital skills will become foundational
skills going forward.
Care for the whole being
Employee wellbeing is no new entrant to the HR priorities. However now that the work
has invaded homes, employees are feeling more vulnerable to mental stress, anxiety,
loneliness and disengagement, and they are openly talking about it too. In another
study, we found that 76% of people believe their employer should be doing more to
protect their mental health. So, wellbeing has assumed new dimensions:
1. Mental wellbeing initiatives are now seen as important considerations in people’s

intention to continue with their current employers as well as in their choice of new
opportunities.
2. Providing psychological safety that includes their family is the next step in evolving
employee-employer relationships. Technology is playing a very important role to
enable organizations to scale up their well-being efforts.
3. Empathy and mindfulness are turning out to be the top leadership/managerial traits.
Ironically both these traits, often, do not come to corporate warriors naturally.
Companies are investing in upskilling people managers on empathy, inclusion, and
mindfulness.

EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Evolution of the culture paradigm
As we dig deeper into the insightful conversations, one thing that is coming out as the
underdog challenge is that of culture and its evolution.
1. While on one side organizations are struggling to transcend their cultures into the
virtual realm, on the other they are contemplating how to change their culture to
suit the macro environment that has distributed workforce as the key participant.
2. Having a digital-first workplace that supports virtual work is a basic requirement

now. There are elements of culture that will have to constantly evolve – perhaps
faster than any time before. Heliotropism, the scientific term for a plant's tendency
to turn toward the sun is a cultural quality that organizations must embody.
Organizations must and are starting to learn the art of transitioning the direction of
their culture while keeping the organization rooted in values and ethics.
3. Innovation in onboarding, learning and engagement has scaled new heights and is
raising the culture bar higher, almost daily.
Keeping the humane alive, virtually
Last and perhaps the most profound challenge and therefore focus area is about
bringing the ‘human aspects’ to the virtual hybrid workplace. Like anywhere, people
across APAC are missing the pleasures of in-person and real interactions with clients
and colleagues. While work continues to be driven virtually, the value of being in
physical proximity, sharing aura, and sensing emotions through in person observation
are being missed and continue to be irreplaceable. Organizations therefore:
1. Are finding ways to build social interactions in the virtual workplace. Virtual reality is
being leveraged, though in a limited manner, to create a more immersive employee
experience.
2. Massive investments are being made in collaboration platforms to build those

camaraderies across virtual teams that work in virtual environments virtually all the
time.
3. Every day humane is showing up more often from the side of the organizations in
form of goodies, care packages or simple random acts of humanity building a
sense of care in their workforce.

EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Clearly the APAC HR leaders are directing their energies to things that matter the most,
first for their employees and then the businesses. And this seems to be a trend that will
remain forever.
1. Work models will change for almost all industries with distributed workforce and
Felix working as a business norm across industries and sectors. Very few rules
and regulations will need to continue with traditional form of working.
2. While physical offices will remain, clearly the workplace will undergo massive
transformation. Significant part of office space is likely to evolve into hubs of
social activity and shared space will replace personal offices.
3. As the focus on social, emotional, physical and mental wellbeing increases, new
ways of connection and relations will evolve and organizations must
continue to adopt and experiment with new technologies. Organizations
parallelly must also find ways to enhance the empathy and mindfulness of their
leaders – a herculean task.
4. Digital is not a choice anymore; it is the fundamental block of workplace

effectiveness. Anything that can be digitized, must be digitized, using agile and
future proof technology cloud platforms. Not imbibing technology or investing in
wrong technology can be suicidal for organizations.
“As I thank all the HR leaders across Asia who participated

and provided these most invaluable insights, I invite you to
deep dive into the Workplace APAC 2021 and learn from
what the best and the biggest are doing.”
SHAAKUN KHANNA
Head, HCM Strategy & Transformation, APAC
Oracle

INDEX
01 THE BIG SHIFTS
A summary of the mega trends from Workplace APAC 2021
#1 HYPER PERSONALIZED EX
Explore how organizations are focusing on delivering superlative experience
to their employees.
#2 TECHNO-CIENCY
Leveraging technology to deliver efficiency through automation across
employee life cycle. Some interesting trends in store for you here!
#3 TOTAL WELLBEING
VUCA world accentuating the need for Psychological Safety and
Total Wellbeing. Read to know more about how organizations are tackling this!
#4 HELIOTROPIC CULTURE
What happens to the culture while working in a virtual world. What changes, what
needs to be preserved and how people experience culture?
#5 HUMANISING CONNECTEDNESS
Remote working can become lonely and monotonous. Learn how
organizations are humanising their connect with a distributed workforce here!
02 FUTURE LANDSCAPE
Where are the avenues for investment? What role does technology play? What
are the biggest future challenges, core actionable and more such questions
uncovered here!
03 ANNEXURE
Learn about our research methodology, sampling technique and participating
organizations.

THE BIG SHIFTS
5 Big Shifts have emerged through Workplace
APAC 2021 study. These shifts encompass the
aspects of growth acceleration priorities, new
ways of working, technology investment avenues,
challenges in adopting new ways of working, and
outlook in the post-pandemic scenario.

THE BIG SHIFTS
HYPER TOTAL
PERSONALIZED EX TECHNO-CIENCY WELLBEING
Your Next Automation Shaping Your Key To

Competitive Edge! Talent Configuration! Sustainable Wellbeing!
Lasting & Contextual Focus on Digitally Blurred Work-life

Experiences. Savvy talent. Boundaries leading to
Wellbeing Vulnerability.
Data & Persona driven Clear expectations from
Individualized future Hybrid Talent. Psychological
Experiences. Safety – bedrock for
Employee Productivity future employee –
Emerging Tech – AI & VR. employer relationship.
& Efficiency backed by
Employee EX – a future technology is the focus.
avenue for Tech. Integration with
Mature Data Analytics management practices is
& Visualization for the key.
insightful predictions -
Need of the hour. Tech enabled Monitoring
& Prediction Tools on the
rise!
Focus on Empathetic
Leadership.

THE BIG SHIFTS
HELIOTROPIC HUMANISING
CULTURE CONNECTEDNESS
Centerpiece of Your Building a Cohesive

Digital Strategy! Workforce!
Integrated organizational Human side of
view on Digital Culture. organization – at the
forefront of Emotional &
Extrapolating cultural Virtual Connectedness.
practices to the new digital
workplace while Need to Preserve Social
Preserving the Core. Fabric by blending digital
Agile Work Culture & human touch.
accelerated through
Hybrid Work Models. Everyday Collaborations
through Technology
New Talent Assimilation complemented by Human
into Virtual Culture – A Touch: A sustainable work
challenge to address. model.
Humanised approaches
with focus on
Relational Capital.

THE BIG SHIFT #1
HYPER PERSONALIZED EX
COMPETITIVE EDGE
Organizations are accentuating their competitive advantage by leveraging

employee experience. Mapping employee life-cycle journey is enabling
identification of experiences that matter. Making EX sustainable and a key
differentiator through policy integration and creating an ecosystem of
experiences is driving the shift of making EX a key differentiator.
AI DELIVERING
SUPERIOR EX
AI is recreating “near-physical-experiences” for employees through AR/VR
technologies. Introduction of chatbots is driving EX through prediction of
engagement and sentiments. Contextualization coupled with technology
to create an impact on the employees.
HUMAN TOUCH &

INDIVIDUALIZATION
Empathy, care and concern towards employees is becoming a key for
human touch. Leaders and Managers are getting upskilled to bring
empathy and care in their conversations with employees. Data analytics is
driving the personalization of experiences and will support future decision
making.

THE BIG
SHIFT #1
Best Practices
“We shift to an “VR (Virtual Reality ) / AR “We have introduced an AI

employee-centric (Augmented Reality) driven talent platform that
approach to empower would get into the hiring looks at people's
employees with the process and play an strengths and matches
ability to help decide important role. There them to projects, mentors
what works best for would be reinvention in and internal job openings,
them when we design terms of how we to create a constant
our employee Return To interact with each other process of learning within
Work (RTW) plan after and the way we work.” the organization.”
the 1st wave. Using
Employees Personas to Paytm AirAsia Berhad
reimagine RTW journeys,
the Agile squad was able AirAsia Berhad
to identify employees.’ “We have augmented the*NSW
number of engagement
types and their touchpoints that we have with our employees. So, we
associated challenges have made sure that our managers are in more frequent
and needs.” contact with our employees. We build in a cadence of
minimally once every two weeks, but we encourage it to
happen once every three days to five days.”
MBSB Bank Berhad Intrepid Group Asia
“We are definitely looking at Employee Lifecycle Management. We have just implemented a
new electronic and talent management system. I feel we are thinking about the human
element of the technical system.”
NSW Justice Health & Forensic Mental Health Network
Intrepid Group Asia

THE BIG
SHIFT #1
Your Competitive Edge
Delivering Hyper personalized EX as a Strategic Edge to
become a Talent Magnet
Experiences create a lasting impression. EX has brought the attention back to the
employees needs. Organizations are redesigning their practices and policies by
taking an integrated view of employee life cycle to deliver a differentiated experience
resulting in deeper engagement, alleviating stress and anxiety, increasing retention,
and sustaining performance and productivity.
EX-becoming a strategic advantage
When processes become employee centered, organizations are able to unearth the
pain points and moments that matter to their employees.
Tokopedia, is delivering hyper personalized experience through its “my Nakama” app
that enables doctors appointments, well-being consultations, pre-emptive checkups,
etc. all of which empower the workforce. Through “my Nakama”, Tokopedia is
positioning itself as an employer of choice, creating opportunities for employer
advocacy and attracting a multi-generational workforce. Many organizations are
integrating experience into their policies to make them sustainable and repeatable.
Organizations like Ipswich City Council are articulating a management philosophy on
experience and driving a mindset shift within the workforce.
Singapore University of Technology & Design (SUTD), Singapore, plans to focus on

digitalization of the employee life cycle, which will allow for easier connect with
employees and alumni. Through digitalization, SUTD expects usage of interactive and
real time dashboards, and integration with different systems to make sense of the
data. A growing realization that by integrating EX throughout the employee life cycle,
organizations can create an ecosystem of experiences to create a competitive
advantage.
“I think a lot more focus will be in terms of how we look at data

analytics and how to drive this process in the future. Employee
experience will be crucial for us as well; We want to work on
making it a more personalized experience for each employee.
The three areas where we will invest are superior employee
experience, data and analytics and personalization.”
SAURABH GOVIL
President & Chief Human Resources Officer, Wipro Ltd.

THE BIG
SHIFT #1
Human Touch & Individualization
Interweaving Technology, Empathy and Care to optimize
your EX Strategy
Focus is shifting to hyper personalization of EX. While technology plays a crucial
role in delivering the experience, organizations are consciously bringing in a “human
touch” to this. Leaders and Managers are getting upskilled in managing remote
teams, bringing empathy in their communication and showing genuine concern and
care for the employees as well as their families’ wellbeing.
Individualization of experience
AirAsia Berhad, like many in the aviation industry has witnessed tough times and
had to furlough a large population of its workforce. While it had to take tough people
decisions, it attempted to deliver them with empathy. AirAsia Berhad provided
outplacement assistance through career fairs and by securing government
support as well as maintaining a constant connect with ex-employees they can bring
back in the recovery phase.
Organizations like Titan Company Ltd., are leveraging behavioral science to deliver
a seamless and positive experience as well as help prevent negative perceptions
that adversely impact the culture. Titan’s employees made empathy calls through
zoom or google hangouts to connect with and support customers. This is yet
another example of integrating human touch while extending this experience to the
customer base.
Similarly, upGrad, an online higher education platform in India, is evaluating future

investment in technology to allow them  to map the employee life cycle and
personalize EX, backed by data analytics. We found that hyper personalization of
experience, hinges upon its delivery with empathy and care through technology
backed by analytics.
“We had to make sure that our managers had started to think
not only about virtual intelligence but about virtual empathy as
well. We started programs such as ‘Thriving Remotely’ which
helped people and leaders of the organization thrive, manage
and support other team members as well as monitor how
employees are faring.”
CHAI PING CHUA
HR Director & Country Site Leader, Experian PLC

THE BIG
SHIFT-1
AI and Technology
EX agenda Augmented by Increasing AI and
Tech Investments
AI, Big data and Technology are converging for differentiating and personalizing EX.
While EX is becoming a strategic focus area, challenges arise in scaling up, making it
consistent and sustainable. This is also the intersection of experience and technology
where, through CHRO conversations, a close inter-linkage and augmentation of
experience through technology was observed.
Participating organizations are seeing continued investments in technology that can

integrate all aspects of the employee life cycle with easy to consume dashboards and
build intelligence in contextualizing EX.
Tech delivering near physical experience
Remote working usually creates perceptions of being distant and devoid of the softer
aspects of a vibrant workplace. It was observed that organizations are experimenting
with emerging technologies to bring a near physical experience to their workforce.
Organizations like Paytm, are leveraging chatbots in gauging employee sentiments,

carrying out rule-based transactions and addressing employee queries. AI is also
recreating experiences for candidates and making the recruitment process seamless in
a virtual environment through AR/ VR applications/platforms.
Organizations willing to invest in learning technologies are looking for contextualization

of learning and realizing the ROI by maximizing impact on the individual. When
contextualization happens, The Straits Trading Company Ltd., one such organization,
believes that individuals can bring the learning to the workplace and apply them. This is
further reinforcing the earlier observation on hyper personalization of experiences and
moving away from one-size-fits-all strategy.
“My priority currently is the recruitment of the right talent. As

competition for top talent has become more demanding, I am
looking for a competitive advantage by turning to emerging
technologies such as AI, Video Interview and RPA to source,
attract, select, and ultimately hire the best talent for our bank.”
MOHD FARID SHAH BIN MOHD BASIR

Chief People Officer MBSB Bank Berhad

THE BIG
SHIFT #1
LEADERS SPEAK
We work to create a workplace model where our people are kept at
the forefront of conversations in the organization and also, create an
environment that helps utilize the capability of our people to their
maximum potential and build a culture that can deliver on the
organization’s strategy.
COLLEEN HARRIS
Group Chief People Officer, Ramsay Healthcare Ltd.
Enhancing employee engagement by using bots to assess how

employees are feeling, reaching out to employees and connecting
with them is something our company has already invested in. We
are going to see how we work through some of these
engagement mechanisms.
ROHIT THAKUR
Ex-Cheif Human Resources Officer, Paytm
The other big area of focus is employee experience from a

fundamental cultural change perspective. For example, what do
employees and leaders expect of each other? What is the ‘MO’ of
AMP which will enable our strategy. A big question for us is on how to
build dexterity in our organization. Employees will need to understand
that change and transformation are constant.
REBECCA NASH
Group Director People & Chief People Officer, AMP
We are also working on how to get better analytics to

understand topics like attrition or engagement. We are working
with a company that has AI analytics to look at people within
their roles and what one should be expecting in terms of
insights and actionable to come up based on it.
SALLY ELSON
Head of People Advisory & Talent, MYOB

THE BIG
SHIFT #1
LEADERS SPEAK
Being able to continually engage employees and manage
workplace experience means good use of “6e Speaks”, our
twice-a-month employee pulse program. I see this as one of the
biggest wins of using HR technology in managing employee
engagement.
RAJ RAGHAVAN
Senior Vice President and Head of Human Resources, IndiGo
Employee experience becomes super important. We have the

opportunity to bring human back to the human resource. Our
leaders are talking about how can we take care of our people,
how can we make sure that we give them time to recuperate
because in the middle of everything, they are human beings.
NANANG CHALID
Vice President People, Tokopedia
Technology will play an important role in various tasks we are going

to perform and there will be an increased focus on creating a
human touch and values to work that would be undertaken in
coming times.
NOR SUHAIMI SULONG

Chief People Experience Officer, Telekom Malaysia Berhad

THE BIG
SHIFT #1
LEADERS SPEAK
Our approach varied depending upon the situation pertaining to
different countries and we ensured that we optimized for virtual
engagement, not so much for hybrid engagement. For instance, we
introduced initiatives like a welfare or wellbeing pack for people who
were forced to work from home because of the situation in their home
countries.
ALEX PNG
Chief People Officer, Intrepid Group Asia
I am trying to shift our policy towards employee experience and

looking at the holistic experience of having an employee-centred
design at the core of all our processes and developing customer
experience strategies.
TALIA LOVE-LINAY
Manager People & Culture, Ipswich City Council
We also launched a happiness campaign where we use a scientific

method of how happiness works and how we can accentuate it. For
instance, we used a method known as hedonistic treadmill which talks
about, if we are born with a certain level of happiness because of the
social and economic background. That line of happiness usually
remains constant across the life time of that person. Therefore, small
nudges and initiatives can help to have a quest or a drop in happiness
level.
ASHISH MITTAL
Head of People Function, Aviva India

BIG SHIFT #2
TECHNO-CIENCY
DIGITAL MINDSET
Digital literacy of workforce has sharply improved. Digitally savvy talent

entering organization will shape the future workforce configuration and
transform into a competitive edge for Talent. Decisions on hiring, mobility,
and growth will be determined by the digital competence of the talent.
AUTOMATION TO
AUGMENTATION
Technology is augmenting the work and driving a shift in workforce

configuration to manage the future requirements. Increasing demand
for data science and analytics will get integrated in the way
organizations take people decisions.

THE BIG
SHIFT #2
TECHNO-CIENCY
Best Practices
“We used video analytics tools to see if “We have defined critical
there is any breach happening on the SOP. competencies for the future to
Also, for contact tracing, we used a lot of strengthen our tech capabilities
video analytics and RFID based app. We vis-a-vis the competition. This is
also came up with a lot of real-time digital mainly driven by skills such as cloud
dashboards due to the change occurring in computing, personalized marketing
the workplace because of the pandemic.” as well as other telecom needs.”
Tata Steel DTAC
Central Pattana PLC DTAC Tata Steel

“We have created a booking system that is based on the principle of reverse
engineering. We have turned all our workstations into hot desks in our group office
and have allocated sections to teams.”
St.Vincent’s Health Australia
“We revamped our performance “We believe that it is critical to train

management process based on Objective managers and supervisors to get
& Key Results on our core HR Platform. on-board with managing humans and
This shifts people's focus from KPIs to machines; it is non-negotiable! We are
first understanding the business gearing up for the future by enabling our
objectives that drive us, then discussing professionals with cross-domain
about the KPIs which is how we measure knowledge and cross-functional skills to
the success of those objectives.” stay relevant and thrive in the competitive
skill landscape.”
New ZealandPost
Central Pattana PLC
St.Vincent’s Health* Cybage Software
HSBC Malaysia
(NZ Post)

THE BIG
SHIFT #2
TECHNO-CIENCY
Digital Mindset
Digital savviness differentiating Talent Upskilling, Growth
and Mobility
Digital literacy of the workforce, especially in the manufacturing, utilities,
entertainment, and infrastructure development sector has witnessed a sharp
improvement. After the initial struggle of onboarding the workforce on digital
collaboration platforms, organizations have integrated technology as a part of their
DNA. Digital literacy, competence and dexterity have become key skills and a pivotal
point for talent decisions on hiring, performance, growth, internal mobility and
development.
Changing talent configuration
Consumer facing organizations in BFSI and FMCG sectors are leading the race on
digital transformation and are extending the digital experience to their employees.
Organizations like Dabur India Ltd., have strategically created a Chief Digital Officer
(CDO) position and have invested in digital teams to increase their focus on
digitalization and business transformation.
Digitally native generations are evangelizing the technology adoption. Digital

literacy and competence are the new skills sought after by growing organizations.
Some organizations like upGrad, are even weighing digital literacy more than
functional competence, which is making digital literacy an essential rather than a
desirable skill.
It is further observed that organizations like MyRepublic Ltd., eClerx, Johor Corp,
HSBC Malaysia, IOI Properties Group Berhad and CLP India Pvt. Ltd., are going to
see continued investments in digital upskilling of workforce, which will in turn drive the
redeployment decisions for transforming businesses digitally. Others like Aviva India,
Thai Beverage PLC and Cybage Software, have clearly articulated their expectation
from employees to be more digitally savvy and embrace virtual ways of working.
“We increased our investment in learning programs by 25% at the beginning

of the year because we could clearly see an 8-fold return on our learning
investments, which will eventually help us in saving cost and generating
more revenue. We launched a program as part of our larger plan of a skills
university to reskill our employees. We focused on skills such as data
visualization and storytelling as there was huge demand for these skills from
our clients as well as internally.”
AMIR BHARWANI
Head of Human Resources, eClerx

THE BIG
SHIFT #2
TECHNO-CIENCY
Automation To Augmentation
Driving Talent Configuration through Data science
and Mechanization
The virtual workplace has brought to the forefront new skill sets required to make sense
of the business environment and to remain competitive. Integration of technology, while
augmenting the work, is also driving the configuration of workforce skillsets required for
the future. Predicting workforce sentiments, wellbeing, monitoring workforce pulse,
policy introduction and mobilizing talent while working remotely are increasing the
demand for skills like data science and people analytics.
Realizing productivity through automation

Priorities have shifted from maintaining connectivity and continuity of work to automation
of processes. Organizations where a few basic processes have already been automated,
are focusing on more complex ones like employee engagement, well-being, employee
sentiment analysis, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
Deeper automation is enabling the recording and processing of employee data as well as
activities in a structured manner eventually paving the way for analytical insights like
never seen before. Banking upon the power of analytics, BFSI leaders like HSBC
Malaysia who have been at the forefront of digital enablement, are investing heavily in
creation of new roles to adapt to consumer banking trends of current and future.
Systematic automation of repeatable as well as low value-creating jobs and replacing
them with jobs that require deeper thinking and decision making is observed.
Olam International, Top Glove Corporation Berhad, Laminex Australia, Siam City
Cement, MYOB and New Zealand Post (NZ Post) are few such organizations investing
in uplifting the quality of work at the bottom of the pyramid, through automation.
“We want to remove the human element from few of our projects and
we have started using Robotic Process Automation for the same. We
are in the process of defining which end to end process we want to
automate. So, we would like to invest in technology which can help us
to tell the location of our employees in a brief amount of time and
automate our different processes.”
ERIC TAN
Group Head of HR, Woh Hup (Private) Ltd.

THE BIG
SHIFT #2
LEADERS SPEAK
Virtual mode has helped in making employees more punctual and
further helped the meetings become a lot prompter and more
efficient, as compared to the physical meetings.
Dr. JACLYN LEE

Chief Human Resources Officer, Singapore University of
Technology and Design (SUTD)
Currently our managers are not adequately trained to be able to

manage the performance and work of employees while working
virtually. So, we must invest in learning and training modules to
help managers change their mindset and provide them with tools
and knowledge that can help them to measure the productivity of
employees while working virtually better.
KRISTEN HAY
Partner, Head of People and Culture, Knight Frank Australia
I believe incorporating technology in our work processes has

greatly helped us to move faster, plan for future and ensure our
people are performing today as well as in the future, which is the
principle of our HR department.
KEAN MUN LOKE

Head of Human Resources, Top Glove Corporation Berhad
We are investing $170 million in new automated machinery to sort

parcels and identify the jobs around the belt, improve our
organizational structure and the compensation we pay to our
employees.
MONICA AYERS
Chief People Officer, New Zealand Post (NZ Post)

THE BIG
SHIFT #2
LEADERS SPEAK
We already have a system built on HRIS and people have access to
their rosters on their phone. We would like to further invest in this
project and make things a lot smoother and streamlined for people
to interact with others on roster easily. This will enable people to
have access to everything on their phones without having to come
in and set up their monitor.
JILL JOHNSTON
Head of People and Development, Sydney Opera House
There were 10-20% employees working in the production line in

the factory who had no access to mobile phones. The organization
then set up Kiosk where the employees could login via their
credentials and put in a leave request or change something in the
medical benefits.
ANUTTARA PANPOTHONG
Ex CPO, Group, Siam City Cement
Priority is to develop a contextualized, consistent and reliable

taxonomy of the skills required for each company. One size doesn’t
fit all.
FOO CHEK WEE

Head of Human Capital & Office Administration,
The Straits Trading Company Ltd.
We focused on recruiting hires who were more digitally and

technologically savvy. There was an absolute shift in the hiring of
employees not in terms of functional competence, but in terms of
digital savviness of the workforce.
PREETI KAUL
People & Culture Head, upGrad

THE BIG
SHIFT #2
LEADERS SPEAK
One of the things I want to do is to create a gateway for employees
when they want HR support. We realize that the more we use HR
technology, the more productive we will be as both HR function as
well as an organization.
RAJ RAGHAVAN
Senior Vice President and Head of Human Resources, IndiGo
A key challenge is to enable or educate employees to make more use

of online tools to be more productive. It’s about behavior or change in
education, so that employees change from the way they currently
work and take advantage of the tools that we already have. Another
challenge is-”how to re-equip our office with systems that can
seamlessly integrate people who are in the office to those working
from home.
AKARIN PHUREESITR
Head of People Group, Central Pattana Thailand (CPN) PLC.
We spend 2.5% of our gross salaries only on training. We are

spending a lot on the essential skills which would be required in the
future like curiosity, resilience and agility. Likewise, we are also
spending a lot of technical skills where we have launched an
initiative called digital black belt through which we are developing
our own data scientists.
SUGUNAH VERUMANDY
Country Head of Human Resources, HSBC Malaysia

THE BIG SHIFT #3
TOTAL WELLBEING
TOTAL WELLBEING AS
A MAINSTREAM POLICY
Organizations are leveraging technology to scale up their wellbeing
practices into a mainstream Total Wellbeing policy. Inclusion of financial
aspects expanding the existing concept of wellbeing covering mental
and emotional is observed. Through these practices, organizations are
showing their genuine concern and seriousness towards their workforce.
SUSTAINING
TOTAL WELLBEING
Creating a psychologically safe work environment is becoming a focus
for sustaining and embedding total wellbeing into the culture. Building
trust between leaders and employees is creating high quality
relationships, which in turn is accelerating psychological safety at the
workplace.
TECHNOLOGY
SHIFTING THE NEEDLE
Total Wellbeing prediction is achieved through technology.

Organizations are shifting towards more continuous monitoring, tracking
early warning signs and predicting concerns on employee wellbeing.
This ecosystem is being augmented through subscription-based apps.

THE BIG
SHIFT #3
TOTAL WELLBEING
Best Practices
“We have weekly “Weekly webinars during “Created wellness rooms

sessions of yoga and COVID to brief leaders in hospitals for teams to
monthly sessions on about things they needed go rest, recharge, for any
awareness about various to know to be more issue briefings and
diseases. We have virtual effective.” informal conversations
collaboration through before leaving from work.”
zoom to facilitate
wellbeing of our
employees working from
remote locations. We
also tied up with National Australia
Bank (NAB) Ramsay Health Care Ltd.
hospitals, medical stores
and pharmacies to bring
this whole ecosystem “We have a wellness app extended to all our employees
together.” which helped in providing a fitness regime, yoga and
meditation courses. We also have employee assistance
programs to provide stress/anxiety counselling in WFH
scenarios.”
Aviva India Cipla Ltd.
“We installed a platform known as “As a result of pandemic, we trained our

symptoms checker to daily monitor our staff to become Mental Health First Aid
employees. The platform used to ask the officers and provide mental health
general questions and look for any awareness sessions for our managers.
potential threats for the virus and would We had 117 trained Mental Health First
inform the doctor to be in reach with the Aid officers. They report monthly to the
employee. So, the app helped us to take safety and wellbeing team who pull all
a proactive approach and determine the the relevant data together for executive
employees who had to be tested, kept in reporting.”
isolation or whether to be provided
medication.”
Reliance Industries Ltd. Ipswich City Council

THE BIG
SHIFT #3
TOTAL WELLBEING
Evolution of Total Wellbeing as a
Mainstream Policy
The Big Shift from Psychological to Total Wellbeing
Organizations impacted by pandemic were quick to realize the importance of total
wellbeing of their workforce. Numerous organizations created special purpose task
force with a leadership oversight to take immediate care of their employees and their
families’ wellbeing. Organizations like SP Setia Berhad, National Australia Bank
(NAB), Intrepid Group Asia, Tata Steel, eClerx, Knight Frank Australia and
Telstra, leveraged technology to monitor the wellbeing of their employees. The focus
eventually shifted, from crisis management to making wellbeing an integral part of
work practices.
Shifting towards total wellbeing

The concept of wellbeing has been expanding with the systematic inclusion of
financial aspects. Experian PLC and CLP India Pvt. Ltd., for example, have
articulated this in their wellbeing strategy and are addressing this through structured
programs. Wellness and wellbeing programs like EAP (Employee Assistance
Programs), which were observed widely last year, have become permanent fixtures
in the organization calendar.
Holistic and rounded total wellbeing practices are going to see sustenance through
policy formulation, complementary employee benefits programs, and by creating an
ecosystem to change the habits of the workforce. There is also a greater realization
that sustainable total wellbeing will lead to workforce productivity. Organizations like
Cipla Ltd., Hindalco Industries Ltd. and Tata Steel are harnessing this connection
and moving towards sustainable wellbeing practices delivered through technology.
“Health and wellness became a huge  imperative and big pillar for
our HR strategy going forward. The HR technology that we invest in,
should help us manage the employee health and wellness. We are
talking to multiple providers – expanding and experimenting with
many things such as modern hospital management software to
wellness solutions.”
SAMIK BASU
Chief Human Resources Officer - Hydrocarbons, Hindalco industries Ltd

THE BIG
SHIFT #3
TOTAL WELLBEING
Sustaining Total Wellbeing
Psychologically Safe workplace as a strong predictor of
Employee Wellbeing.
Total wellbeing is the top of the mind actionable for organizations around the world.
We already know about the strong linkage between a psychologically safe
environment and lower employee stress and anxiety. While organizations are putting
together practices that address and mitigate employee wellbeing concerns, deeper
and sustainable interventions will be able to address the need for psychological
safety at workplace, reaping the benefits of sustained performance and productivity.
Psychological safety accelerated through trust
Trust is an integral part of any psychologically safe work environment and
organizations such as Hero FinCorp and Serum Institute of India (SII) are bringing
it to the forefront of their culture. They have integrated psychological safety as a part
of their employee wellbeing strategy. Organizations like Titan Company Ltd., Force
Motors Ltd., SP Setia Berhad, and AirAsia Berhad focus on communicating trust
and empowerment through their leadership messages. This further accelerates the
creation of a psychologically safe workplace.
Virtual Empathy
With the workforce anticipated to remain remote and distributed, trends are
emerging on delivering empathy. Organizations are, now more than ever, focusing on
building high quality relationships as a foundation for delivering “virtual empathy”.
Aviva India, Experian PLC, Tokopedia, Intrepid Group Asia, Titan Company Ltd.
and Wipro Ltd. are a few organizations upskilling their leaders on building a
non-judgmental environment for employees to talk freely about their struggles and
being empathetic while working virtually. A deeper focus and investments in creating
“virtual empathy” in employees and leadership is anticipated. Psychological safety
will lay the foundation for high quality relationships at the workplace and will make
wellbeing practices more sustainable.
“In challenging times like this, when you're not seeing employees face
to face, text messages can be interpreted wrongly, and certain words
can mean something else. I believe, we need to make sure leaders
develop more trust and emotional relationship with employees amid
the changing working conditions due to the pandemic.”
NADIAH TAN ABDULLAH

Chief Human Resources Officer, S P Setia Berhad

THE BIG
SHIFT #3
TOTAL WELLBEING
Technology Shifting the Needle
Predictive measurement of Total Wellbeing for Proactive
Organizational Actions
Wellbeing prediction is following the same maturity curve as employee engagement.
From periodic measurement and tracking of wellbeing, organizations are shifting
towards more continuous monitoring, tracking early warning signs and predicting
concerns on employee wellbeing. Technology has the potential to accelerate the
maturity curve of wellbeing practices by shifting the needle from tracking and
monitoring to predicting.
Predictive Wellbeing
The linkage between wellbeing and productivity has never been more evident. There
is a wider realization that productivity and efficiency of workforce can be sustained
through wellbeing. While technology is enabling the delivery of wellbeing programs,
ensuring workforce safety and rolling out employee assistance programs, it is also
playing a role in analyzing and predicting wellbeing trends that can be used by
organizations in policy formulations.
Introduction of wellbeing and wellness apps to monitor sleep, and health of

employees are being adopted in CLP India Pvt. Ltd., Tata Motors Ltd., SP Setia
Berhad, and Experian PLC for example. While organizations are making such apps
available to their workforce, they are also augmenting their ecosystem of wellbeing
programs addressing the diverse needs of their talent. Through the apps, employees
can subscribe to custom-made wellbeing and wellness journeys that systematically
shape their habits, making it part of their lifestyle.
“There will be increased focus in the coming times to improve or

monitor the health of employees which can significantly lead to
increase in employee productivity. I believe there will be greater
focus with the help of technology to use data not only as an
information system but also as an intelligent source which can guide
and channel us to become more smarter, efficient and productive.”
RAJU MISTRY
President and Global Chief People Officer, Cipla Ltd.

THE BIG
SHIFT #3
LEADERS SPEAK
War for talent is the obvious one to go to. I think we have more
tools in the toolkit to attract talent as well. I think organizations
that are getting serious on flexibility and wellbeing of their
workforce have a greater ability to attract talent.
LAURA STAPLES
Head of People & Performance, Laminex Australia
The insurance limits, becomes a limiting factor for a lot of

companies, so we created a fund to cover the expenses that
goes over and above the prescribed limit and whatever extra
money people spent, they were paid back the equivalent amount.
We gave INR 5000 to each family of the contractual labourers
who were working at our sites and were staying near our site
premises.
MAHENDRA INGE
Head HR, Serum Institute of India (SII)
I believe that there will be greater focus on employee welfare in

the coming times, which will also help build credibility, increase
fidelity and give a human touch in carrying out different work in
the organization.
RAMCHANDRA HONAP
Head HR, Force Motors Ltd.
We believed in the approach that we are not going to gain anything

by scrambling and scratching and trying to save the last rupee but
focusing on the mental wellbeing of our employees will be critical
for us, beneficial in the long run, and give us a better ROI.
RAJ NARAYAN
Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources
Titan Company Limited

THE BIG
SHIFT #3
LEADERS SPEAK
As a business, we made two clear choices. One, was putting the
health and wellbeing of our people first. The second reason was by
moving our office-based people, we could put majority of our
leadership management attention to our employees especially the
retail staff who were keeping our doors open to our customers.
ALEX BADENOCH
Group Executive Transformation, Communications and People,
Telstra
We launched an app called Nanduri where people could go and talk

about their health, diet, and stress, and employees could receive
expert counselling from an external source. We have a peer support
group within the organization consisting of around 200 employees
in 5 countries speaking a variety of local dialects who are trained in
crisis management and counselling.
P K MEDAPPA
Chief People Officer, AirAsia Berhad
We launched multiple pieces of support to help people work from

home effectively, whether that was wellbeing or leaders teaching
people how to use teams. We did drop-in clinics teaching digital tools
to everyone who needed to navigate. Our team also introduced
‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’, in which our team could get some support
on wellbeing.
SUSAN FERRIER
Group Executive, People & Culture, National Australia Bank (NAB)
Reliance’s holistic wellness initiative R-Swasthya has hosted several

physical, emotional, and financial wellness programmes to help
colleagues deal with uncertainty and anxiety. Our 24x7 REFERS
emergency services, Employee Assistance Programme for mental
wellbeing, financial literacy sessions, and daily guided yoga and
meditation initiatives are some initiatives that have helped our
colleagues through these difficult times.
ASHWANI PRASHARA
Chief Human Resources Officer Hydrocarbons, Reliance Industries Ltd.

THE BIG
SHIFT #3
LEADERS SPEAK
Business continuity, safety at the workplace and emotional wellbeing
of employees and their families have been a huge area of focus for
us. We have also focused on getting our employees vaccinated at
the earliest. We had launched several initiatives to care of the
emotional health of our employees which helped us a lot during the
pandemic.
RAVINDRA KUMAR G.P.
Chief Human Resources Officer, Tata Motors Ltd.
We are strengthening our investment and focus on holistic online

employee platforms. Counsellors are available round the clock for
our employees for mental and physical health. We've extended
some of our employee engagement activities to the families of our
employees as well.
TINA RASTOGI
VP – Human Capital Management, Cybage Software
We started planning a full-blown wellbeing campaign covering the

whole gamut of wellbeing – mental, physical and even financial as
a lot of people were going through different struggles.
CHAI PING CHUA


THE BIG SHIFT #4
HELIOTROPIC
CULTURE
HYBRID
WORKFORCE MODELS
Hybrid and remote workforce models will continue and will see
introduction of Gig and Freelancers to traditional workforce
models. Technology will enable managing hybrid models for
performance, engagement and rewards.
TALENT ASSIMILATION
INTO VIRTUAL CULTURE
New talent assimilation into virtual work environment is emerging as

a new challenge. Assimilating talent creates a shared belief and
ways of working resulting in seamless collaboration and teamwork.
FLEXIBLE
WORK CULTURE
Remote working is bringing with it a greater call for autonomy

and empowerment of workforce. Employees are encouraged to
balance their work with life priorities and managers are getting
upskilled in managing hybrid teams.

THE BIG
SHIFT #4
HELIOTROPIC CULTURE
Best Practices
“We are working on a “We are creating platforms which will be able to predict
RPA project to on-board skill requirement across sectors outside an employee’s
our employees through own sector. We identify the employees who have
few clicks of a button and diverse skillset, train and support them to get paid in
a seamlessly automated skills that are emerging. These skills could be in any
process. We are giving sector like teaching, nursing or hospitality.”
our employees an
e-contract and make sure Olam International
that they sign off digitally,
subsequently click off
and undertake few of the
digital on-boarding “We have created an app with backup of our
workstations and consolidated office space. The app
programs.” Olam Great Eastern Life
Mercedes-Benz helps us inInternational
mapping all the workspaces Assurance
in the
workstation. It also automatically analyzes whether it
would be convenient for an employee to travel to a
particular office or suggest them a better option.”
Woh Hup (Private) Ltd. Cipla Ltd.
“We started working on a program to bring more women into mechanical engineering.
This was done through talking to colleges to allow them to move into mechanical
engineering post their first year.”
Mercedes - Benz Research & Development India
“We underwent a cultural transformation in terms of building workplace with a strong

culture, specifically a strong risk culture, whereby we will conduct our businesses in a
manner that will ensure that our employees are aligned with expectations of specific
behaviors that we want to get treated within an organization.”
Great Eastern Life Assurance

THE BIG
SHIFT #4
HELIOTROPIC CULTURE
Adapting to Remote and Hybrid Models
Change & Challenges driving new Hybrid Work Models
Hybrid work model is closely integrated with the organization’s strategy. Almost all
participating organizations have expressed their intent to continue working remotely
or adopt a hybrid work strategy.
Organizations were forced to review and shift their strategy to overcome the
pandemic crisis. When the strategy shifts, so does the culture to enable the success
of strategic objectives. Several organizations made an overnight shift from physical to
a virtual world. While organizations in the infrastructure, transportation and
manufacturing sectors, were dealing with existential crisis, those in the healthcare,
food delivery, IT and telecom went on an overdrive. Employees took time to adapt to
remote working. Work from home, which was a privilege and a differentiator for talent,
became a norm – something no one was accustomed to.
Newer models of workforce

With hybrid workplace and continuous automation, we are observing increased
demand for newer skillsets like cloud, cybersecurity, IoT, and data analytics. While
Telekom Malaysia Berhad is aggressively inducting such skills to support new
ventures and models, HSBC Malaysia is investing in building its own talent pool in
few of these time critical skills. Alternatives to accessing these emerging skillsets
through Gig model & Entrepreneurship were seen in the case of Dabur India Ltd.,
through their program Dabur Yodha.
Tata Steel is actively evaluating such models to suit their operations. There is,
however, an agreement, that using such models in a scalable manner will require
investments in technology that facilitates identifying, reviewing and rewarding the
Gig workforce.
We have redefined our leadership principles. We are focusing on

digital transformation, flexibility and new ways of hiring. We are
complementing this principle with certain game changers like agility,
empowerment, purpose, and learning. With an average age of 31,
we are making these principles relevant for our workforce.
MAHESH MEDHEKAR
Vice President Human Resources
Mercedes-Benz Research & Development India

THE BIG
SHIFT #4
HELIOTROPIC CULTURE
Flexible Work Culture
Empowerment is the centrepiece of delivering a Heliotropic
Work Culture
The concept of hybrid work culture has been much debated. For many organizations,
the concept of hybrid includes the methods of employee collaboration, which in turn
facilitate exchange of knowledge and information. Organizations are experimenting
with newer models of hybrid work culture and workforce configurations.
Building a flexible work culture

A widespread realization by organizations to be agile and responsive to external
triggers was largely observed. This involved building flexibility and responsiveness in
their work, worker, workplace strategies, workforce skillsets and decision-making
processes. While there is an element of mindset shift, organizations like Rizal
Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), expect to continue as a hybrid model,
and feel as long as the employees are productive, there’s no real problem.
Autonomy and empowerment

Getting work done in a virtual setting requires a totally different skill set. For managers,
it meant trusting the employees to manage their time, and task completion with
minimal supervision. Employees’ experienced autonomy and empowerment, which
they handled well by being more conscious of their time, and further stretched to
achieve business objectives as well. Several organizations reported an increase in the
workforce productivity while working remotely.
Organizations like Aviva India, AMP, Top Glove Corporation Berhad, Knight Frank

Australia, Sydney Opera House, Siam Commercial Bank and Hero FinCorp have
initiated this journey of providing autonomy to their workforce and trusting them with
day-to-day decisions, a stepping-stone towards making the work culture flexible.
“We want to make our company an agile organization, less

hierarchical and more end to end. We want to be a customer centric
organization and give customers the priority they deserve. We also
have the cultural transformational agenda to support this.”
NARDRERDEE ARJ-HARNWONGSE
Chief People Officer, DTAC

THE BIG
SHIFT-3#4
SHIFT
HELIOTROPIC CULTURE
New Talent Assimilation into Virtual Culture
Workforce convergence with the larger organization ethos
is an emerging challenge
IT, Banking and new age technology platform organizations have seen a growth in
headcount during the pandemic. With new talent joining, organizations quickly
solved the issue of virtual onboarding by way of process automation. The deeper
challenge, however, was to assimilate the talent into the culture. This entails a
shared understanding of work, ways of working, language and adoption of
organizational practices. Owing to remote working, new joinees did not interface
with the physical artefacts and practices which made it difficult for them to
experience the culture, a challenge that organizations like Wipro Ltd. have
realized, and are solving it through technology.
Changing business model also saw the induction of Gig workforce and freelancers.
While such arrangements provided efficiencies in cost, organizations are forced to
think about the induction of Gig workforce into their unified ways of working.
Several organizations like Tata Steel, upGrad, and Intrepid Group Asia have
expressed their intent to experiment with Gig workforce to support their strategy.
Accelerating talent assimilation

Advanced virtualization technologies like AR and VR are providing a near physical
onboarding experience to employees. To supplement virtual onboarding,
organizations like Intrepid Group Asia, are not just blending in-person meeting of
the local team(s) to accelerate talent assimilation but also foresee mushrooming
of entire cottage industry with offerings like reference check and job/culture fitment
in hybrid setup.
“We would like to hire gig workers and freelancers in the coming
times as they do not need to come to office regularly and they are
not part of the benefits given to the permanent employees. They
may work based on a certain project or certain assignment rather
than working full-time only with us.”
AMRAN ZAKARIA
Head of Group Human Resources, Johor Corporation

THE BIG
SHIFT #4
LEADERS SPEAK
“Despite being in the manufacturing sector, we are also looking at
different employment models and prospects of a gig workforce in
our organization. While the contract workforce has been there for
decades, we are working on trying to mobilize and start the
concept of a gig workforce in many of our branches and getting
engaged with employees working remotely.”
VIPIN SHARMA
Head HR – Strategy, Analytics & HR Innovation Labs, Tata Steel
We recognized that permanent remote working is not something

that we subscribe to, due to the issues around cultural
indoctrination and collaboration, but rather hybrid working model
is the way to go which offers a balanced approach for both
employees as well as the organization.
SIU MING HONG

Senior Vice President - Head People, Culture and
Group Rewards, Great Eastern Life Assurance
The workforce to have a culture that is fluid and dynamic would

be actually very important in the coming times.
I believe that there will be shift in the use of technology in
the workplace every 5 years.
AGAPOL NA SONGKLA
Chief People Officer, Thai Beverage PLC
We have engaged with management and implemented Work from

Home Policy or Hybrid Model for functions that are able to do so.
The WFH model is here to stay post pandemic therefore
a holistic approach is needed to formulate policy and develop
workable plans to adopt a hybrid work model in the long run.
BHUVANES KRISHNASAMY
Head of Group People & Culture IOI Properties Group Berhad

THE BIG
SHIFT #4
LEADERS SPEAK
We are currently working to change the mentality and trying to
inculcate the notion of how we are all under the same umbrella,
responsible for managing the culture, customer experience and
finances.
ALLANNA KELSALL
Executive General Manager, People & Culture (Care Services),
St. Vincent's Health Australia
Employee experience will also help in building that advocacy,

which then through a referral line attracts more candidates. With,
friends coming into the organization, it also creates resilience
within the batch.
NANANG CHALID
Vice President,People, Tokopedia
We have a very delivery - oriented meeting, where a lot of different

decisions are taken and implemented immediately. We don’t have to
wait for the approvals. The decisions taken are percolated to the
required personnel and the work starts to happen on it.
BIPLAB BAKSI
Executive Director and CHRO, Dabur India Ltd.
We train our people to get used to the tools as well as the new
culture. We try to maintain the level of productivity we have
implemented. We changed a lot of the processes from manual to
automated. We are providing SIM card access to all employees
along with a VPN to enable work from anywhere policy.
PATRAPORN SIRODOM
Chief People Officer, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB)

THE BIG
SHIFT #4
LEADERS SPEAK
Another area of focus for us is to manage culture change. The
pandemic has facilitated the need for this cultural change. We need
to train our workforce to be agile, be ready for changes, and to have
a mind-set that things are not going to be static.
Dr. JACLYN LEE

Chief Human Resources Officer,
Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)
Flexibility is going to be a key differentiating factor in attracting

and retaining talent. Hybrid working model will be the norm in the
future specifically for those working in offices (non manufacturing,
location based and non sales) where employees may have more
flexibility and freedom to decide the number of days they want to
come to office or work remotely.
VISHAL DHINGRA
Human Resources Director, Goodyear India Limited
The biggest challenge for my organization is that we are putting a

lot of systems and processes in place to have talent pathways, this
has been done by default and not design.
MICHELLE EASON
Director-Organisational Development,
NSW Justice Health & Forensic Mental Health Network
Remote working for all the possible jobs would be more acceptable
and new policies would come up that will increase the acceptability
and adaptability of employees and organizations. The workplace in
an office will continue to be relevant in our organization. The
percentage of business that gets done and transacted online might
go up, but brick and mortar retail will not disappear.
RAJ NARAYAN
Executive Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer
Titan Company Limited

THE BIG SHIFT #5
HUMANISING
CONNECTEDNESS
BUILDING EMOTIONAL
CONNECTEDNESS
Employer-Employee Relationships are becoming more human.

Organizations are driving emotional connectedness by building
trust with employees and clarifying performance expectations.
BUILDING VIRTUAL
SOCIAL FABRIC
Interpersonal connections and social interactions lay the foundation

of culture in any organization. This moving virtual, everyday
connectedness is facilitated by technology. Organizations that blend
human touch with technology are experiencing more effective
connectedness and recreating their social fabric virtually.

THE BIG
SHIFT #5
HUMANISING
CONNECTEDNESS
Best Practices
“Reaching out to employees staying alone or separated from their families due to the
pandemic or the ones who tested positive and offering the required support, most of
it done digitally.”
Hero FinCorp
“We developed a “We connect twice as a “At the beginning of the

program known as work leadership team in a week pandemic, we started
field happy campaign amongst ourselves. calling all our 9000
program which guided Monthly Townhalls at employees over a 1-0-1
employees on how to locations for all call of 20-30 minutes to
better manage their employees and Quarterly understand their needs and
personal finance and Global and Regional challenges.”
take care of their townhalls.”
physical and mental
wellbeing.” Goodyear India Ltd. eClerx
“We will drive significant efficiencies in terms of human

collaboration but there’s an element of being human – the
empathy to deal with issues, I think that will be critical to
manage especially in HR.”
Aviva India Wipro Ltd.
“We used technology especially for “The biggest agenda we are having at
communication, not only for our white this moment, when it comes to HR
collared people or executives, our factory technology is developing tools around
managers and leaders connected with our collaboration and engagement of
workmen, and even their families using employees. We have started using chat
Facebook Live and other such tools so box in managing many of our employee
that we could keep our employees queries.”
connected and engaged.”
Tata Motors Ltd. HSBC Malaysia

THE BIG
SHIFT #5
HUMANISING
CONNECTEDNESS
Building Emotional Connectedness
Relational Capital is shaping the Future of Employer-
Employee relationship
The human side of organizations came to the forefront during the pandemic. With the
workplace getting distributed, there is a fundamental human need to connect with their peers.
This connection once established, leads to trust between the employees as well as with the
organization. It will also pave the way for seamless collaboration, learning and knowledge
sharing. The trend of bringing empathy in conversations is observed all across. The
importance of physcial proximity can not be undermined.
Building relational capital
We have observed some very interesting practices of building social connections amongst
the employees. SP Setia Berhad, one such organization allows bringing children and pets in
virtual meetings every Friday. This de-stresses the environment and triggers social exchanges
between employees resulting in relational capital. Similar initiatives were also observed in
organizations like Tata Motors Ltd. (Counselling & telemedicine services), Tata Steel (having
an already strong relational capital is exploring ways to build them through technology) and
AirAsia Berhad (Crisis management and counselling).
Connectedness with the organization also has another dimension. St Vincent’s Healthcare
Australia, for example, is driving connectedness by way of clearly defined KPIs for all
employees. This enables autonomous working and role clarity which is imperative when the
workforce is operating in a virtual environment.
Building and sustaining connectedness with the Gig workforce remains to be a challenge.
While organizations prepare to induct Gig workforce, they must also prepare to integrate
them into their ways of working, beliefs and shared language to derive the most of newer
work models.
“There was a lot of work required in the training of managers to help

them understand how to lead in an empathetic manner using a
digital medium, this was a big initiative we undertook.”
PREEMITA SINGH
Chief HR Officer & Head CSR, Hero FinCorp

THE BIG
SHIFT #5
HUMANISING
CONNECTEDNESS
Building Virtual Social Fabric
Technology driving everyday Collaboration through
Human Touch
In a physical workplace, organizations are concerned about creating an environment
that facilitates collaboration, breaks silos and allows free and seamless exchange of
information for faster decision making. While the same principles apply in virtual
workplace as well, the methods and techniques of collaboration have changed. We
have seen an increased adoption of collaboration platforms across industries and
geographies. Organizations are leveraging them to break silo working and facilitate
seamless execution of business objectives.
Blending technology with human touch
After heavily investing resources in upskilling workforce to adopt collaboration
technology platforms, many organizations are realizing a need to complement it with
human touch. Communication, delivered only “digitally” has risks of misinterpretation
which can easily be mitigated through human touch. Physical workspaces provide
ample opportunities for social and interpersonal interactions. Over time, these develop
into trusted relationship amongst employees, creating a social fabric that enables
getting the work done. Virtual social fabric we believe will be accelerated by blending
technology with human touch.
Sustained remote working is also making it difficult for managers and team members
to pick up signals of stress, anxiety, and need for help from the co-workers. This is
triggering systematic practices of leadership connecting regularly with employees
one-on-one. Aviva India, one such organizataion is systematically addressing this
through its Happiness Campaign.
While technology is the foundation for everyday collaboration; organizations, going

forward are exploring ways to maintain a personal connect with employees.
“Each country initiated a COVID task force and they had to take

decisions as per the situation in their country. We were providing
them with best practices that we were seeing implemented across
our organization. We used technologies where we could get the
reports immediately, as soon as we launch the survey to get a sense
of the pulse of our employees.”
JOYDEEP BOSE
Managing Director & Group CHRO, Olam International

THE BIG
SHIFT #5
LEADERS SPEAK
We do not want to become a manually operated labour intensive
organization but rather a one which focuses on constantly improving
its processes, bring out automation to carry out different tasks and
inculcate innovation in different activities. We are also using
technology to connect with our customers.
SAXON FRANCIS
Director, Time Recruitment, MyRepublic Limited
Due to the pandemic, internal communication became not just a

technical issue, but more a strategic issue as people were
working remotely or had different slots to arrive in office. So, we
needed to work to ensure that connectivity, collaboration and
messaging gets aligned and indoctrinated in a very concise
manner across the organization.
SIU MING HONG
Senior Vice President - Head People,
Culture and Group Rewards, Great Eastern Life Assurance
Our company has been up to date when it comes to digital initiatives

but whether our employees are ready to embrace the grasp and share
that with our clients is what we are figuring out.
ROWENA SUBIDO
First Senior Vice President and Group Head, Human Resources
Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC )

THE BIG
SHIFT #5
LEADERS SPEAK
Technology can be an enabler but cannot replace the human touch.
So, we will have to make sure that we use technology to make
routine work easier and help provide us insights which would
otherwise not be available. There has to be an optimum balance
between personal touch and technology, which would be a key
strategic differentiator for an organization.
GOPINATH GOVINDAN
Director Human Resources, CLP India Pvt. Ltd.
Our team also dialled up our communication to a level we’ve never

done before. We ran daily live streams for all our employees, we
communicated on topics they needed to know about how we were
supporting the people, what tools and tech was there for them, what
seminars, extra leave and care was there for them. That ability just to
connect with leaders on a daily basis became very important.
ALEX BADENOCH
Group Executive Transformation Communications and People, Telstra
We started planning a full-blown wellbeing campaign covering the

whole gamut of wellbeing – mental, physical and financial. We
sent care packs to 900 employees which included standee
laptops, UV sanitizers and chairs, if needed; Provision of
psychologists for employees; Activities like pixelated art and
planting to get our people out of the workspace since the line
between work and home is blurred.
CHAI PING CHUA

FUTURE
LANDSCAPE

FUTURE
LANDSCAPE
WORK MODELS
Need for Agility driving Experimentation
Building organizational agility is becoming a necessity rather than a

strategic choice. Agile ways of capability building will drive the need to
revisit established workforce models.
Existing workforce composition is leaning towards digitally savvy

talent. Experimentation and adoption of newer model of deployment
like Gig– both internal and external – will see more traction.
Digitally savvy talent will be more productive in working remotely and

will thus fit well into future workforce strategies.
94% of the respondents believe that Hybrid working is the

most optimal workforce model for future.
PRACTICAL ACTIONS
Organizations need to reassess the skill pool required for sustaining their
competitive advantage. Accessing and utilizing the skill pool will be
through experimentations in newer workforce models. Choice of a
suitable model will depend upon the evolving business challenges and
changing workforce priorities.

FUTURE
LANDSCAPE
RE-ENGINEERING WORKPLACES
Rethinking Office Space
Parts of workforce will continue to work remotely, and most

organizations will adopt hybrid work models.
Rationalization of office space will continue. Only roles requiring

mandatory presence at workplace will use office space.
Office space will transition to become a social hub –facilitating

exchange of knowledge, socializing and ice breaking.
Redesigning office space requires flipping the concept of physical

workspace into one that promotes ideas, innovation, connection and
interaction.
2 out of 3 organizations are dedicating in excess of 10% of
their overall budgets.
PRACTICAL ACTIONS
Organizations need to re-evaluate the role of physical office spaces in
facilitating employee interactions. The mindset of a dedicated and static
workspace will shift to a more dynamic one. Organizations must formulate
their strategies to enable seamless exchange of ideas and promote
innovation. Physical workspaces are only a subset of the larger plan.
FUTURE
LANDSCAPE
BUILDING RELATIONAL CAPITAL

Common thread for a Distributed
Workforce
Deeper connectedness with organization will be emotional – one that

forms on the foundations of care, empathy and concern.
Workforce getting distributed, regular physical interactions will
continue to be scarce. Emotional connection with organizations’
purpose and beliefs will unify the talent.
Leaders and Managers will have a critical role to play in delivering the
experience of empathy and care.
Virtual collaboration will be seamless when peer-to-peer
relationships are established; organizational culture must facilitate
creation and strengthening of such relationships.
1 out of 5 organizations have already articulated a wellbeing strategy

encompassing empathy and care to augment their relational capital.
PRACTICAL ACTIONS
Organizations need to reset their relationship with the workforce. The new
age relationship will hinge upon how well they communicate and
showcase their concern, care and empathy towards their workforce while
working remotely. Practices need to be further strengthened in creating
“virtual cohesion” amongst the workforce.

FUTURE
LANDSCAPE
TECH DRIVING FUTURE OF SKILLS

Hybrid strategy built on Future Skills
Repetitive and rule-based tasks across employee life cycle will be

automated. HR will be expected to deliver the right EX.
Changes in workforce composition will require different management
skills. Wider and deeper use of AI across will drive talent decisions.
Breaking down work into micro-skills will lead to time bound staffing
choices. Creating a framework for Gig workers and leveraging their
skills will be a key ask from HR in the future.
A psychological safe environment will encourage tech adoption,

experimentation, change and learning from failure. Leaders and
Managers who do this will stand out.
1 in 4 organizations are channelizing investments in building

efficiencies and future skills in their workforce.
PRACTICAL ACTIONS
Technology has become a backbone of organizations in conducting their
business and enabling collaboration. Organizations need to rethink the
quality of work at the bottom of pyramid and reorganize work by blending
functional skillsets with digital mindset.

RESEARCH
TEAM

RESEARCH
TEAM
SHAAKUN KHANNA ROWAN TONKIN JOHANNES ECKOLD HARDEEP SINGH

Head - HCM Strategy & Senior Director, Director, HCM Strategy Head of HCM
Transformation, HR Transformation, & Business Development, Transformation,
APAC, Oracle Oracle ASEAN Oracle Oracle India
PREETI MAHARA SRINIVASAN KJ SAURABH SINGH DEDEEPYA AJITH JOHN

Director Marketing, SME, Senior Knowledge Director - South
Oracle India SHRM India Advisor, & Advisory Services,
SHRM India SHRM APAC & India
ARCHANA JERATH ASHU YADAV SHRUTI SUD VARUN MEHRA

Director Operations, Senior Manager, Lead Marketing, Manager
SHRM APAC & Conference & Events, APAC & MENA, Graphics Design,
MENA SHRM India SHRM India SHRM India
MEGHNA NARAYAN KUMAR

BAJAJ AGARWAL
Intern, Intern,
SHRM India SHRM India

ANNEXURE

METHODOLOGY
1. Identification of participating organizations: Marquee organizations at the forefront
of the industry in every country. 55 organizations were carefully shortlisted across
India, ANZ and ASEAN countries and invited to participate in the study.
2. Qualitative data collection: One-on-one interviews with the Leaders in HR and

People function were conducted. Structured interview methodology was leveraged to
gather responses and views on priorities for accelerating growth, challenges faced,
role of technology in the new ways of working, avenues for technology investment and
general future outlook.
3. Quantitative data collection: The interviews were further supplemented by a short

multiple choice survey capturing specific responses on technology investment
priorities, and general business outlook.
4. Analysis: Results of qualitative data collected were coded under the relevant
questions. Subsequently, affinity exercise was conducted to arrive at the emerging
themes in the study. The quantitative survey data was analyzed in parallel to reveal
some insightful trends in business priorities.
5. Insights: Emerging themes were synthesized from qualitative and quantitative data, to
put together a comprehensive and insightful report depicting APAC trends and focus
areas.
Workplace APAC 2021 is a joint study by SHRM and Oracle on the emerging trends in
people and technology in accelerating growth.
CHROs / HR Heads participated from organizations across Singapore, Malaysia,

Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and India.
These organizations belonged to diverse industries ranging from traditional

manufacturing and large organizations to new age SAAS firms. Diversity in participating
organizations provided a holistic perspective of the emerging shifts.
DEMOGRAPHICS

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS
India
• Aviva India
• Cipla Ltd.
• CLP India Pvt. Ltd.
• Cybage Software
• Dabur India Ltd.
• eClerx
• Force Motors Ltd.
• Goodyear India Ltd.
• HeroFinCorp
• Hindalco Industries, Aditya Birla Group
• IndiGo
• Mercedes-Benz
Research & Development India
• Paytm
• Reliance Industries Ltd.
• Serum Institute of India Ltd.
• Tata Motors
• TATA Steel
• Titan Company Ltd.
• upGrad
• Wipro Ltd.
Australia & New Zealand

• AMP
• Ipswich City Council
• Knight Frank Australia
• Laminex Australia
• MYOB
• National Australia Bank (NAB)
• New Zealand Post (NZ Post)
• NSW Justice Health & Forensic
Mental Health Network
• Ramsay Health Care Ltd.
• St. Vincent's Health Australia
• Sydney Opera House
• Telstra

ASEAN
• AirAsia Berhad
• Central Pattana (CPN) PLC
• DTAC
• Experian PLC
• Great Eastern Life Assurance
• HSBC Malaysia
• Intrepid Group Asia
• IOI Properties Group Berhad
• Johor Corp
• MBSB Bank Berhad
• MyRepublic Ltd.
• Olam International
• Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation
(RCBC)
• Siam City Cement
• Siam Commercial Bank (SCB)
• Singapore University of
Technology and Design (SUTD)
• S P Setia Berhad
• Telekom Malaysia Berhad
• Thai Beverage PLC
• The Straits Trading Co Ltd.
• Tokopedia
• Top Glove Corporation Berhad
• Woh Hup (Private) Ltd.

Phone: To Learn More Click here
1800-103-2198 (Toll Free)
Email: Contact Us here
[email protected]
http://www.shrm.org/

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WORKPLACE

WORKPLACE APAC 2021

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

3. Hyper personalization strategy should come from a core of empathy towards

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Enhancing the productivity quotient

As the businesses are getting disrupted and macroeconomic conditions becoming

1. Technology has toppled training as the enabler of driving higher productivity.

Care for the whole being

1. Mental wellbeing initiatives are now seen as important considerations in people’s

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Evolution of the culture paradigm

2. Having a digital-first workplace that supports virtual work is a basic requirement

Keeping the humane alive, virtually

2. Massive investments are being made in collaboration platforms to build those

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

4. Digital is not a choice anymore; it is the fundamental block of workplace

“As I thank all the HR leaders across Asia who participated

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Your Next Automation Shaping Your Key To

Lasting & Contextual Focus on Digitally Blurred Work-life

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Centerpiece of Your Building a Cohesive

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Organizations are accentuating their competitive advantage by leveraging

HUMAN TOUCH &

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“We shift to an “VR (Virtual Reality ) / AR “We have introduced an AI

NSW Justice Health & Forensic Mental Health Network

Intrepid Group Asia

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Singapore University of Technology & Design (SUTD), Singapore, plans to focus on

“I think a lot more focus will be in terms of how we look at data

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Similarly, upGrad, an online higher education platform in India, is evaluating future

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Participating organizations are seeing continued investments in technology that can

Organizations like Paytm, are leveraging chatbots in gauging employee sentiments,

Organizations willing to invest in learning technologies are looking for contextualization

“My priority currently is the recruitment of the right talent. As

MOHD FARID SHAH BIN MOHD BASIR

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Enhancing employee engagement by using bots to assess how

The other big area of focus is employee experience from a

We are also working on how to get better analytics to

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Employee experience becomes super important. We have the

Technology will play an important role in various tasks we are going

NOR SUHAIMI SULONG

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I am trying to shift our policy towards employee experience and

We also launched a happiness campaign where we use a scientific

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Digital literacy of workforce has sharply improved. Digitally savvy talent

Technology is augmenting the work and driving a shift in workforce

Copyright © 2021, SHRM & Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Tata Steel DTAC

Central Pattana PLC DTAC Tata Steel