How HR Department is Banking on the Digitalization Wave

By: Digvijay Singh Ponia, Product Manager, Hallwaze

One cannot run a successful business without a driven and highly motivated team, which makes it imperative for the organization to retain such power packed teams. It is not a fairyland out there, retaining the desired employees is a tricky job. It is a long road for the companies to ensure that the talented workforce stays put. One of the chief reasons professionals quit their jobs is that they do not get the benefits that are crucial to them. In the conventional sense, organizations focus on doling out monetary benefits, not realizing that the employees want more and it ultimately works in the favor of the former.

Thankfully, they are waking up.

Gone are the days of including attractive base salaries and incentives, organizations have come to a realization that it is not enough and they need to reward their employees with non-monetary benefits as well. So now the new methods to retain employees ranges from discount plans, health schemes and other corporate benefits. In addition to monetary benefits as well as non-monetary guides, tangible and non-tangible add-ons in the mix make the organizations the hot spot for employee search and they wouldn’t want to leave too soon.

Employees want to feel engaged and connected, add on benefits help. A recent survey by Glassdoor concluded that around 79% of the employees want more benefits other than salary hike.  This urge is more in younger counterparts and the female workforce.

There are numerous non-monetary benefits that organizations indulge in to retain employees – it could be discount plans, vouchers for children, cycle availability to work, carpooling facility, car parking amenity, providing mobile phones, valuable employee assistance, health plan education, saving on household expenditure with vouchers, online shopping voucher codes, high street discounts, reloadable gift cards, SMS vouchers and cash back offers, corporate gym memberships, health club discounts,  the list just goes on.

The availability of these benefits can be a good influencing factor; however, management of such provisions could be challenging for the organizations that have a greater strength of workforce. In order to remove the obstacle, companies tend to gravitate towards technological perks like mobile and web applications. For example, analytics are driven by the employee data that provide intelligent insights on the topic of employee motivation. These specific insights can be fruitful in coming up with effective strategies to deliver employee benefits that can prove to be the best for employee retention. The art of digitization of employee management systems in order to retain them lists out a number of benefits that can be achieved by the company for desired productive results.

Management of enrollment and administration techniques can be fast -paced and error-free by automating administrative function. It boosts productive, too as employees can get tangible and intangible benefits and their work life gets hassle-free and they feel less stressed to attain their goals in office.

In 2016, YES BANK, known for its exemplary financial dealings in the banking sector made alliance with a Fintech startup NiYO to encourage the employee benefits culture in India.  The startup has come up with a fantastic solution that includes a Multi-Pocket Card, a Mobile App and a digital account that comprises of multiple wallets. The partnership has given birth to YES BANK NiYO Benefits Card. This new age initiative capitalizes on the latest in technology sector of  mobile technologies and  works on the IndiaStack initiatives that would have eKYC by UIDAI and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) launched by NPCI.

Not only this in the digitization world, replacement of old technology and practices in the HR arena will happen soon.  It is safe to say that a large number of companies would want to move from traditional licensed HR software to modern, cloud-based systems. More than 150 million employees have included cloud-based HR systems and this number will only increase in the coming future.  The apps are on mobile devices now, so as expected, mobile platforms would be the next switch.

Investment capital has proven to be a boon here as easy-to-use cloud-based networks for payroll and core HRMS, performance and talent management, online learning, employee engagement, wellness and employee communications is readily available now. It is good news for external recruitment processed and job posting providers like LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, Careerbuilder as they can pace up their recruitment strategies dramatically. The cloud based systems are the most sought after trusted networks by enterprises since many years now.

The added bonus is the wave of amazing new technology and functionality they have brought to the market.