HR learning: 03 Oct, 2016

IDFC Bank's approach to Talent Transformation

Leveraging technology and driving engagement are crucial to any talent transformation journey. 

The business of managing people has come a long way – From Welfare Officers in 1890s, Labor Managers in 1910s, Personnel Managers in 1940s and HR Management in the 1980s. Since the late 1990s, the term “Strategic HR” has been used to describe the role that HR should play in accelerating and enabling business goals. At Converge 2016, Animesh Kumar, Head – HR, Brand and Foundation at IDFC Bank highlighted the evolution of HR practices in the recent years and spoke about the approach of the bank towards talent transformation.

In recent years, the job of an HR professional has been compounded by an increase in non-traditional career paths, increased appetite for risk and diverse skill-set. Added to this is the ever present scrutiny of companies through employer review sites and social media. From an organization standpoint, there is a complete shift in the day to day work enabled primarily by technology - recruiters are no longer aggregators of people, they have to re-orient themselves to build the employer brand. L&D professionals need to identify ways to give opportunities to the employee to make their own learning choices. And the focus on performance management has moved away from the bell curve model to regular feedback and engagement. 

Given that learning is a self-directed activity, the focus has been on enabling self-learning through interactive and augmented reality. Gamified learning modules with a combination of internally developed and externally aggregated learning content ensure that engagement is at the center of learning. There is already a high-quality content already available in the market today. It is, therefore, important to curate content based on the current needs of the organization today instead of spending time on creating content. Another important feature that was taken into account is to allow autonomy to the employee. This means employees can craft their own career path and learning journey using the skills to job mapping that the organization identifies.

The importance of constant learning for leaders

Making learning a habit and incorporating it in every tasks is always worth the effort. Without learning, your ideas stagnate, and your innovation capacity takes a plunge for the worse.

Change and growth are associated with learning more deeply than we give them credit for. Letting your weaknesses unchecked with excuses is the worst possible thing that you can do to your future. Some people blame the boss, some blame the job, some blame the work environment, yet others just refuse to accept that change and growth can come from learning new skills. It doesn’t matter what skill set you have, your future depends on the fact that you keep learning constantly. 

Leaders, most of all, need to maintain a constant learning streak, not only to remain relevant in the present and the future, but also to grow their leadership skills. Here are a few reasons why constant learning is far more important for leaders.

The first step to personal and professional growth is to understand and know yourself thoroughly. When you receive the feedback, you have to understand that it may not have reached you in the clearest of terms. Analyze and decode it, so that you may learn something about yourself that you need to work on. Once you have decoded the feedback, you need to grade it according to your short and long term priorities. Focusing too much on your strengths turns them into a weakness while leaving you vulnerable with your existing weaknesses. Learning constantly enables you to see it coming and ensures that you don’t overuse your strengths. Knowing and understanding your weaknesses is half the battle. Once you know what you lack, you can compensate for it by filling in the gaps or learning new skills. 

Consumerization in learning

How will you define consumerization of learning, and how can you embrace the same.

Workplace demographics are changing gears, and technology is forcing employees to constantly learn and refresh their skills. Given this reality, learning leaders will have to change the way learning is addressed today. The role of L&D leaders is also undergoing a massive transition where it has become essential for them to push the right mode of training to enable their workforce in order to be future-ready.

Making engaging content available to people when they need it could be defined as consumerization of learning. Gamification, apps, social tools are common tools helping in consumerization of learning. Today, employees need 24*7 engaging learning content and leaders are empathetic to deliver the same.