Despite the severe impact on revenue and cash, very surprisingly, the display of compassion and community outreach have produced a spontaneous level of commitment & loyalty from employees and job cuts and salary adjustments have not been as widespread an occurrence as originally apprehended.

This was revealed at the CII Study on “Reimagining the Organization for the New Normal: Role of HR” conducted in partnership with Talentonic which was released today at the 10th CII National HR Conclave focused on “Reimaging Lives – Life | Livelihoods | Enterprise” being held during 3-5 December, 2020.

The 10th CII National HR Conclave has brought together hundreds of CHROs and business leaders at a moment when the ongoing pandemic has created humanitarian crises, bringing about major disruptions for lives which is likely to change the way we work in the long term leading to major fundamental and unprecedented organizational changes.

Releasing the research report, Sanjay Behl Chairman CII National Committee on Leadership & HR said that CII partnered with Talentonic HR Solutions to conduct a study to understand these changes and the role of HR in this context. S Y Siddiqui, Chairman of the Core Group conducting the study observed that the insights and case studies captured here will provide a working direction to decision makers for in the short and medium terms.

Other than the above, the study has thrown up several interesting insights such as:

1. Reducing headcount has been given 7th priority out of 13 when it comes to what actions were taken to deal with the crises.

2. Reducing or postponing salary or other payouts has been given the 9th priority out of 13 when it comes to what actions were taken to deal with the crises.

3. Empowerment has mushroomed as organizations struggled to find the agility and flexibility to deal with the crises.

4. Work from home has solved many problems albeit creating some concerns about fragmentation of cultures.

5. Digitisation has been a huge tailwind but legacy issues remain.

Reimagining the organisation and making more permanent design changes requires newer skills and that is a definitive work in progress. Many of the organisations that were spoken to seemed to be well on the way to a more permanent reset.

There is definitely a new leadership taking birth.

The study has very distinctly identified a wide range of roles for the HR function in what is now called the Year of the CHRO. The Role of HR has clearly emerged in four major area viz.

(a) HR Consumerism. Building flexibility in policy and process to deal with variety of situations and employment categories.

(b) HR Architecture Design thinking in structuring organizations to produce outcome.

(c) Keeping the balance between compassion and outcome. And between big thinking and implementation rigor.

(d) Curating the new culture. The new workplace, the new leadership conversations & employee expectations

Deepak Dhawan Founder CEO of Talentonic said, “The way the HR community in India has dealt with the crises has been truly remarkable. They have been on ground zero of the great reset and the Role of HR and future challenges have clearly emerged."