The evolution of HR technology has influenced the way businesses recruit, develop and manage talent. It has paved ways for human resource professionals to emphasize on business impact initiatives like leadership development and talent acquisition. The Coronavirus pandemic has made businesses realize the importance of HR technology and how it can let business function in a Work-from-Home model.
HR technology firms have dedicated themselves to develop technology products and solutions to support talents, business strategy and the unique needs of different business. HR technology becomes altogether more important during this time of pandemic.
Mr. Prasad Rajappan, Founder and CEO – ZingHR talks to MediaCatalyst about ZingHR, the current job loss crisis, work-from-home model and its challenges, and the end-to-end recruitment solutions. Mr. Rajappan also talk about the finding that there is a need for firms to put in place comprehensive guidelines for the work from home model to ensure work-life balance and overall wellness of employees.
Here are excerpts from the interaction with Mr. Prasad Rajappan.
ZingHR offers end-to-end solutions when it comes to recruitment. How do you stand out amongst others in the industry?
When it comes to innovation we always compete with ourselves. Our objective is to build products and solutions for enterprises which can help them to become more productive and focus on work specially in the WFH and remote working scenario.We all know that times have changed and the business models as well. At ZingHR, we have HR Tech products covering the entire spectrum from Hiring, Onboarding to the Exit management basically the complete employee lifecycle processes. We have introduced many innovative outcomation products like Recruitment with Machine Learning, Video Interviews, Digital I card, Employee Surveys which can be utilised by the Large Enterprises during these crises. With a great response from India with over 550+ clients, we are now planning to go to new geographies globally in 2020-21 keeping in mind the increased demand for innovation-led products for enterprises.
Recruitment has become a big ask since the lockdown with millions of jobs lost across sectors. What has been your learning in this scenario?
Yes, we all are aware that job losses have happened in certain sectors e.g. in Hospitality and tourism, startups, Media, Aviation etc. While there is a big dip in certain sectors other sectors like manufacturing, healthcare, technology, eCommerce, pharma etc have shown a monumental rise in demand and supply thus workforce requirements. Especially in the WFH and remote working environment touchless technology has also become a key driver to daily utility and productivity.
The market is slowly limping back to normalcy with many organizations re-hiring. As an industry leader, what are your views on the current situation?
Usage of employee onboarding app with Aadhar Vault and offering the seamless candidate experience on the mobile app are some of the key innovations that we envisage will take a broader level of usage in faster rehiring. Many of our clients are aligning their hiring processes and increase in new hire productivity by 70% the sooner an employee becomes productive, the more the overall ROI of the new hire will be.
Being a global firm, which are the trends you foresee entering the Indian market?
We are serving to more than 550 plus Enterprises and have been discussing the trends with a lot of CHRO’s from various industries. Many enterprises are planning to implement or have already implemented HR Tech products like Video Interviews for recruitment, they are focusing on reducing fixed costs, paperless onboarding experience, touchless QR code attendance, Digital I-card, mobile rostering, emphasizing on business intelligence tools for their digital HR transformation.
Recently you conducted a survey on challenges faced by working professionals during work from home. A great initiative we must say. What were the key outcomes of the study and your suggestions to mitigate these challenges?
Yes, The survey was conducted among 300 respondents. As per that study, the key outcomes – Over 74.8 per cent of respondents agreed that they work for extended hours while working from home during the lockdown. Approximately, 50% of respondents conceded that they are unable to take a strategic break during work from home and 34.5% said that it has taken a toll on their physical and mental health. About 42.8% of women said they are facing challenges in absence of domestic help due to lockdown while 54.6% of the working professionals mentioned that they are not able to manage time at all to pursue their hobbies while working from home. The findings indicate that there is a need for firms to put in place comprehensive guidelines for the work from home model to ensure work-life balance and overall wellness of employees.
Which are some of the skills and sectors that are doing better than others?
We can observe that there are a few sectors like Healthcare and Pharma, IT and ITeS, Agriculture who are doing comparatively better than others. As per the insights shared by McKinsey, enterprises should make investments and focus on developing four important skills digital, higher cognitive, social and emotional, adaptability and resilience.
What are your ideas to combat the job crisis India is facing?
I think as a country we should train our human capital to be employable globally specially now with the WFH and Remote working scenarios globally. The moment we build in multitasking teams we will not only get our human capital from the country employed in new realms of business but also eye a bigger pie of the international job market.
