In an exclusive interview with BW People, Suman Reddy, MD & Country Head, Pegasystems India,talks about wellness and challenges of the workforce.He also talks about the importance of an inspiring workplace.

Q- What is the value of wellness of your workforce? What steps are you taking for it in your organisation?

Wellness is an important attribute of our organization’s culture. It is deeply established through our approach towards employee engagement and workforce development. In terms of physical wellness, we have an in-house gym with a dedicated trainer. Our ‘fitness hour’ is included in every employee’s work hours, signifying its importance. For mental wellness, employees can log in from a place of their choice, and connect anytime through technology that is seamless and convenient. Also, our award-winning office environment gives a vibrant, yet relaxing space for the employees to balance work to unwind. We’re continuously looking to amplify our wellness initiatives, like yoga sessions or Fitbit competitions that run internally across our global community.

Q- What is the importance of an inspiring workplace?

Our philosophy, echoed well by our teams, is to promote and live the mantra of ‘Mondays are the new Fridays’. While there are work targets and the race towards professional growth, why not offset the pressure and create a work environment that breeds vitality and fosters imagination? We set out on that mission a few years ago, and came up with an office that inspires our colleagues to create world-class software and continues our culture of innovation and collaboration. With our open meetings rooms which infuses nature into the architecture and alternative work arenas, the India office is a showcase to our global peers and industry partners. Most importantly, the innovations that come out of our India centres go into transforming the world’s largest organizations, and we believe that our office space motivates our workforce to think out of the box and continue building for change.

Q- Can we leave an important decision as hiring on a Robot?

We recently conducted a survey on the Future of Work, and the results have been surprising. For example, one of the key highlights conveys how the future workforce will comprise both humans and machines. That means robots employed or operated by us could help us in hiring, uncovering information or characteristics that is currently impossible to extract. While 65 percent of our respondents think it will become standard practice for AI to be deployed to conduct interviews in the next ten years, 30 percent believe AI will be used to make final decisions on selecting the final candidates. We think that a human-machine combination converges the power of human cognition, artificial intelligence and robotic automation. It is the optimum way to go and transform our existing practices that are prone to inefficiencies.

Q- What are the challenges of working with instant gratification seeking millennials?

Millennials are an interesting part of the workforce. They are passionate, yet not always loyal, learning and growing their domain knowledge, yet desiring to explore new careers. Most importantly, millennials are inclined to work on projects that interest them, and wish to accomplish it according to their timelines. These changing dynamics and characteristics define the vibrant gig economy that is growing today, and becoming an essential part of the workforce. In fact, our Future of Work survey predicts 46 percent of the working age population could be part of the gig economy by 2027. It reveals their psyche as well, where they do not want to be stipulated by work hours. Instead, they look at themselves as partners of organizations, picking up work projects as they come up. Organizations like us are trying to tap into the millennial mindset. Since corporate and brand loyalty might not be their strongest characteristics, organizations like Pega need to frequently instil their vision into this group. That would help synergise the vision of both parties to be change-agents in the market.

Q- What are your expectations from a futuristic CHRO?

Futuristic CHROs will have a lot on their plate. They will have to manage a flexi-workforce, work closer with business & IT, and balance the machine component of their teams. Businesses are attempting to create digital mindsets, but the CHRO will having to inculcate an agile mindset to stay relevant in the future market. A new battlefield is emerging between an evolving workplace with increasing automation, and human competition for higher cognitive roles. That will put the CHRO in tough positions regularly with increasing robotic automation. We will also see middle management roles reducing over a period of time. Therefore, as it pertains to talent evaluation and adopting best practices, CHROs will have a tougher job to balance machine and management feedback. Futuristic CHROs will have to tackle and look beyond short-term issues to position the company’s HR strategy. This will help the workforce to continue delivering targets and drive growth.

Q- A job interview is a conversation between two liars, how to get the best out of that is the skill of a CHRO. Can you give us some hacks for the same?

In the ‘Glassdoor’ age we live in, where candidates get to know a lot about companies, the market is adopting technology to compensate the limitations of recruiters or interviewers. From psychometric testing to highly detailed lists of attributes and qualifications, a lot of recruitment has already become a tick-box process that can be handed off to smart machines. CHROs will have to bring in an evolved thinking for teams to move beyond their mundane roles and start focusing on innovative ways to improve the interview process.

Q- How to keep your employees motivated in a crisis situation?

The culture plays an important role when the organization goes into the crisis, as it is very difficult to make radical changes that go against it. Keeping an open, two-way feedback is essential during this phase for employees to know the organization has their back, and their best interests in mind. The leadership need to be approachable, transparent and open to feedback to help collaboratively diffuse the crisis. Further, reinforcing the company’s values and bringing out details that led to the crisis are key aspects that help employees stay updated on internal movements aimed towards resolving the crisis.