use this, know this, and this was one of the most basic theories which we learned when we started on the areas of management. Any area of management has this whole aspect of the Maslow's hierarchy. And so here is all about needs and self-determination theory. all of you all know the maslow's hierarchy from basic needs to factualization needs uh and and this this comes in playing anything and everything that we do uh on uh on how the the theory is built on uh going into the next one is on the information processing uh which was done by atkinson and schifrin uh and here we're talking about it's more information processing theory and it looks as at a human's mind as a computer how they acquire store process and retrieve information and we ahead the thing what we have between the years is basically also a supercomputer and that's what he says you guys okay we lost the slides can you share this right yeah can you see it now yes sir can you uh uh slide show you sir yeah yeah yeah so now it's visible yes sir so here we talk about uh talk about uh i think the aspect of the brain or the human mind acting like a computer.
And it's about acquiring, storing, processing, retrieving information, and it's a supercomputer. And the references are given below on the human memory. And this is also a theory where if your mind is working like a computer, how do you put the right data in and how do you get the right information out?
And again, it's simply like a computer garbage in garbage out. So what is the right information that you give humans on the different aspects is something that you really need to figure out and process. And that's that's that whole thing about this.
Let's expect some some some examples on this. IBM is one of the oldest companies who use psychology principles in training. They look at cognitive, they look at behavioral psychology concepts when they design and deliver.
I think we spoke about the different techniques of training delivery and they take it to a different level of... execution, understanding who are the people who are coming into programs on delivery aspects. They do a lot of work on focusing on skill development, problem solving and innovation.
And the final theory that I spoke about, human mind works like a computer. They work a lot on problem solving because they understand if the right information is not given to employees, to process, you will not find the right solution for the problems in there. And that is something and innovation also, they do a lot of ideating.
They have innovation centers and IBM was one of the first organizations to start these aspect of innovation centers and so on and so forth to to get it done. So that is something that is very important. But you can see also McKinsey also does a lot of work on these areas, on the areas of leadership, teamwork, motivation and so on and so forth. It's all about designing and implementing training programs and they do a lot of work there of all these theories and that's how that is done. The US military uses a lot on again leadership psychology, stress management.
and those things are integrated into training programs. Google obviously, they have so much of data in hand, so they can do a lot of work on employee development. And that is something on intrinsic motivation, employee well-being, psychological safety.
Psychological safety is a buzzword which is used mainly after COVID. mainly after COVID about people feeling psychologically safe, that means they feel comfortable working in an organization. The word motivation has now moved toward being psychologically safe. Am I less stressed in my work areas? Am I what you call it, engage sufficiently with organization and so on and so forth.
So there's a lot of going behind psychological safety where motivation has been taken to a different level to ensure that employees feel psychologically safe. That means stress-free, well-being, engagement, development, career progression, intrinsic and extrinsic. We spoke about intrinsic and extrinsic aspects.
so he the employee feels safe in this area amazon is another uh so if you look at the company the the organizations which use this um a lot of organizations which which are data driven they have a lot of data amazon google mckenzie ibm us military they have so much of information u.s military uh on the element of ptsd they do a lot of work on that how they use uh these theories on on stress management and so on uh so these are companies which live uh live on on based on data and on principles of extension um so how do you know whether it's working or not uh so i suppose the most important aspect in this is that um as you hear me right Yeah. Once in a while, just put a shout out so I know that you guys are there and I'm not speaking to much. Just give me a second.
See, there he's not telling you. He forgot the word. I prefer that to...
Yeah, I told you the word. Because maybe he shifted the last last. I think that's the only thing that I can say. so um so on the satisfaction and feedback it's all about satisfaction in a uh psychological uh psychological safety aspect is also on on on all about and whether on satisfaction levels feedbacks uh nps course uh and and that is something that most organizations are now doing uh people do a lot of engagement surveys to see how the engagement is and so on and so forth.
And so they check, they would dissect information to see what divisions are more demotivated and the rest, are they engaged, not engaged and so on. So there's a lot of work which goes around that part of it. And companies use things like...
Hogan assessments at the beginning of when you're recruiting people to see whether they fit in well with the organization and so on and so forth. And also on knowledge and skill acquisitions, pre and post learning. I think we did the assessment aspect of it.
Behavioral change also comes with that aspect and so on. And element of self-care. self-confidence, self-efficacy, and so on and so forth.
behavioral change on KPI's and so on. That works well. Emotional well-being KPI's on climate survey, there's a separate component on emotional well-being and so on.
So we have gone beyond engagement now. We have gone into areas of emotional well-being, emotional connect. psychological safety and so on.
So we have gone to levels of that nature of ensuring with the simple principle that motivated and connected employees are productive. So that is the main backdrop all these things are built on. Burnout reduction, I think now organizations also are partnering partnering institutes which gives psychological support where counselors are there even psychiatrists are there mostly psychologists who work with employees on on on on managing their stress and if people I mean there has been from what I know last year or year before last, just after COVID, there was one employee, I can't remember, in one of the IT companies who committed suicide in office.
And the biggest reason was that the letter which had been written was that he had problems with his manager and so on. Yesterday, I went to one of our branches and it's prevalent all over. Multiple ladies complaining of sexual harassment.
That impacts psychological symptoms. i call it psychological safety and so on so how do you manage those things and and that gives much more productive uh output people which can give you some hello sir did i lose i think there's a connection connection your connections hold on i just got the generate on yes yes you are so can you hear me yeah yeah i can hear you all sir i have a question go ahead can you tell us tell us a little bit about this climate survey how to do that also how you actually uh calculate this can you can you speak up a bit i can't hear you well uh uh can you uh tell a bit elaborate about about the climate survey how it's done so what is the clients yeah so One of the climate survey is very simply employee satisfaction survey. I think all of you all know that part of it.
It's just to understand what your climate is all about. There are multiple companies which support us. There are online surveys which are done quite often.
Then you have... organizations like MnC2, Deluxe, there are multiple providers of climate survey. What is a climate survey? Climate survey is all about understanding the environment in the company and you can slice it and dice it any way you want it depending on the demographics, age wise, tenure wise.
function-wise, geographic location-wise, and so on and so forth. And what you do is simply is to understand whether the environment or the culture or the working in another arena is conducive for productive work in the sense of just the best comment of employees in this area what are the areas which are monitored number one about the relationship with your manager in relationship with your manager that is the relationship productive Does the manager give you the right resources to work? Does the manager give you the right motivation? Does the manager give you the right direction? The next one, they also have an aspect of the HR function.
Does the HR give you the right training development requirements? Do they focus on your well-being, on the areas of... physical well-being and in the areas of harassment, do they take proper action, do they educate people on those things, that can be another area.
The third area is on your work itself, are you enjoying what you are doing, do you use tools and techniques, tools and techniques is all about the process, the systems and so on and so forth. Are systems having you to be conducive to be a productive employee? Is there politics in the culture? Are there subcultures which have been created?
So is the leadership understanding where the company is going? Do they know exactly how to drive the organization? Do they understand what the macroeconomic issues are? Are they prepared? I just covered the main areas.
Is the succession properly planned? Is there career progression for you? Have you got opportunity to grow in the organization? Do you see that the organization has the potential to be achieving its defined strategy?
So things of that nature. On communication, is the strategy communicated to all of you? Do I understand where the connection is? It's a multitude of areas which can be sliced and diced.
So it is a survey. So normally in organizations, I work with the global survey and they monitor and post that the most important aspect is not the survey, but the action plans that are built after the survey. because if you don't build your action plans you set out uh set out course of course of uh correction which that the issues which are coming out are people lose confidence of the service that you that's the more important you need to this organization is not take action because there is component either the action plans those action plans get implemented uh is that the movement on the action plans go to the action plans and the areas that were uh the areas that were addressed in previous so action planning process is extremely important because if action plans are not done yeah you won't have a proactive uh course correction there are some organizations who do it every two years or three years uh and for some don't do it at all uh come do it for the sake of doing it then so if you really want positive reinforcement and positive post correction the action time process has to uh did I give you all a sufficient explanation yeah that was very clear thank you another question sir about the last part it says reduction in reported stress levels and burnout rates how that you could calculate these rates there are multiple ways of doing that one is that now for example i did mention uh one is from the survey the time itself because it looks at your well-being in the area of there there's a uh in in a in a survey called the progressive uh there are multiple surveys which i know uh and uh progressive service always look at critical areas and then and deep dive into those areas so in the areas of well-being you talk or burnout uh about uh because if you really analyze if you analyze uh there are triggers of burnout right triggers of burnout is that i don't ignore work number one and i'm getting fed up of work i'm doing another area is that i will not recommend that that's the school i will there are three questions you recommend the organization who want to uh so of that only you start to calculate the nps codes that the motor school how many people will promote the organization as a place to work for you can look at the net profile. So there are trigger points.
I don't enjoy work. I will not recommend this place for anybody because it's so stressful. On work stress, high work stress, that's a trigger for employee burnout.
Another thing that we are using now is that when we partner, for example, an organization which supports on, for example, things like... For me, still, Sumitra is one of the best organizations in Sri Lanka to partner because they have the protocols set in place. Even for people who are suicidal, they have protocols in place. You have institutes which support, but they don't have those protocols and systems in place to support. For example, if the employee talks about suicide, they have a protocol in place.
They have people. who will go they'll contact your support systems and so on and so forth keep the organization informed and so on so they give us okay we got this number of calls and those x number of calls talks about burnout i think that's the manager is re-burning them out they have work late in hours so those are some trigger points that we check on to monitor So that is important that those are some things to look at to manage that KPI. Sir, one question on this climate surveys.
What take on these companies like Great Place to Work that do these climate surveys? Because I mean, it's more sometimes you get a feeling that it's been really commercialized the whole. of this climate service so uh don't take the sanita that i told so but uh but it is a commercial exercise like uh for the gtaw to also grow they have enough sufficient customers uh and and obviously it's a commercial exercise so you need to also understand the component of it that is taken meaning there are there are various uh various uh modules you just take it as a as a what you call it uh uh a reference point for the organization say that we are great place to work and i know that some of the places we have been certified places to work are not the greatest places to work but they are also as i did mention there is an additional component added on to that where the actual planning happens they need they have focus groups and what so you can it also also depends on to manage this whole thing. I mean, if you have, if you're looking at it from a commercial perspective, yes, it will be a commercial tool.
But if the organization is looking at development of the culture, then you get value which comes into play. So I will not give any external vendor on how to use the model. It's all about how the organization looks at it and uses it for your own development. I mean, Gala is one of the most organized organizations in the world.
But the most important aspect you need to understand is if the organization is not focused, if the organization doesn't have a purpose behind the activity that they are doing, you might spend millions on doing it, but the purpose is not met. So it's finally the organization's that makes it so big. not going to put it on an external vendor to say this is commercial, this is not a commercial.
They also run a business. All about the important aspect is to ensure that you utilize it well. So that's how I would look at it. Thank you.
Okay, cool. So now let's go to the area. Any other questions?
uh from anybody else Yes. Hi. I just want to reflect something over here because, you know, like, I mean, when you consider the multinational companies, I think they have no choice than following this kind of, you know, like, you know, like a process.
But when it comes to local companies, you know, what I have seen, the people's trust behind giving such a feedback and, you know, like making. Can you hear me? Can you hear me properly?
You're not audible, man. oh lord let me change my network let me see can you repeat yeah sure uh can you hear me properly because you are a little bit slagging i think he's uh so i think your connection is not stable yes go ahead hello i think you have a slight leg like side lagging in your connection i believe right because you know we each other can hear here but uh when you just join you know like i mean uh there's a small lagging over there okay so basically i just want to reflect something over here because you know like when it comes to multinationals i i have experience you know the the follow all of most of these ones because it's a it's a part of their hr or legal or whatever it is but when it comes to the the local companies what i have experience you know like i mean the the employees who works there have huge doubt you know like how it's going to react back on them right so based upon that you know their their feedback may not be like 100 uh honors or 100 you know like i mean realistic right so this this sometimes it has two sides you know one side is you know like I mean when it comes to certain analyzations it it has a huge impact right on the other side is you know employees things you know it's it's always better to be in a neutral manner you know like rather than going to extremes either the the good or the bad you know so they just try to maintain themselves on a on a neutral basis so I think you know like I mean most of the the companies uh you know like in sri lanka or in that case we call you know let's say local companies you know uh maybe having this challenge of you know putting things in the in the right perspective of you know getting the real outcome of this particular exercises so i just wanted to reflect that on over here that's a very good point you're making um and um i think it's your name um I think that's the important part that you made about the credibility of the process. It's all about credibility. I mean, you will never get it in your first year that people start trusting the system. Okay, will I be victimized for giving my feedback?
Is this, even though it is done externally, will the management know who? the responder was right so there will be always questions of that but the most important thing organizations should do i mean number one is the when to get feedback on your first survey how did you respond to those aspects it actual change happened because of that feedback number one that helps build credibility number two is before you do uh the survey setting context right right you use the the right word on on on on the context aspect of it does that do the people understand the context the purpose of it how how we try to support people right and in something else also uh keep the external party to comment on the backend of the system and how it's managed. So people also know how the confidentiality of that information is.
You will not get 100% buy-in on that. At least then people start building confidence. Okay, there's an element of confidentiality in this, what we can say. And the next one is about openness and transparency.
It doesn't happen overnight. But you need... continuously build that culture in the organization where you can talk about people being open and not being harassed or we might do their openness there's multiple things that you need to do to get it right but the most aspect if you're doing a survey for the first time it's all about what you do with that information if they say there's harassment What did you do about that harassment? Have you set up a grievance procedure?
Your organization doesn't have a grievance procedure. So you set up a grievance procedure to ensure that if there's harassment, there's protocol in place to do that. People see positive change.
When people start seeing positive change, they start trusting the system. They start trusting the leadership. They start trusting the process.
So if you ask me, can this be done overnight? No, it cannot be. It's a journey.
But the most important thing is that the leadership defines the context in what we do in the service. If you don't set the context right, if you don't take action on some of the feedback which is relevant, next time you do it, don't expect anybody to respond and they will just go in the middle. Okay, okay. responding to this survey doesn't impact positively for the organization so so it's your ability to write on on question that and your perspective in this but the most important thing is that in the context and feedback is given proper action mistake to ensuring that their transparency is that they call it confidence and people don't get victimized, the division scores low, the people end up in that division, doesn't victimize and harass employees. So there have to be proper systems and policies in place, and so on.
And HR has to play a massive role in this, on ensuring all these things are done. Because HR plays a moderate role. a follower role a driver's role uh and a encouragers role and a motivator's role so do all those become those of hr division when it comes to assets of that hope i answered that question yeah yeah basically you know i'm also with you so i just wanted to reflect you know like this is what is already happening in the organizations So, you know, I mean, I just want to reflect.
Hey, Padma, just a suggestion. If you try to disable your videos, I mean, unless it's not a policy, you know, like sometimes, you know, we may be able to hear you much better when it comes to the network, you know, whatever the slowdowns. You need to read that again. I lost you somewhere. No, I was just giving you a suggestion.
If you disable your video. sometimes you know it may it may helps the network to be you know like for us to odd hear you properly because you know sometimes your your voice is getting lagging uh is it better little better let's let's go through and let's see yeah these are virtual programs um anyway so um right let's go into the area of recruitment see the slides uh no no sir but uh not this way no no not yet no not yet not yet Just give a shout out if you can see. Okay.
Can see now. Okay. So today just Starting off, as you guys already know, but let's go into details on some of the areas that we'll be focusing on. So on the recruitment, selection and assessment areas, and that is something that we are going to look at today.
I think for me, recruitment, selection and assessment, getting the right people with the right attitude. who will land to the organization is extremely important if you want to drive growth in an organization and get so much of focus uh which is done right now in this area because there is also a massive gap between demands like uh imam and supply of people people are not available people are out of the country uh and so on so there is there is a pool where a lot of organizations are fighting for and so it's a it's a employees market i call it like a seller's market or buyers market it's an employee's market uh so so suddenly it's uh one area which which basically is getting pushed up uh and organizations in this manner can hear you the but the quality is not that good it's breaking a bit i know um uh okay let me talk about it slower uh so and with this comes um a lot of uh automation digitalization also because the absence of have uh or quality talent uh automation people are looking at on their pictures really looking at how you can enrich uh how you can uh scope the roles again and so on and so forth uh hence uh the uh uh hence just give me a second let's see what's wrong How is it now? Much better. And basically with the demand and supply challenges of good talent, there's a lot of digitalization also happening uh and also there's a lot of uh automation which is taking place organizations are re-looking at their structures uh real big button slides you can't see the slides how is it now yeah now we can see cool so so digitalization is happening people are re-looking at their structures people are re-looking at their the cost to the return on investment of every employee who are recruited into organizations.
So honestly, organizations are looking at their structures, the scope, the span of control. They're looking at the number of layers in a structure, de-layering it, increasing the span of control. So multiple things are happening in organizations. because of this challenge of finding the right talent.
So from an organization perspective, it's actually quite productive because people are really looking at, for example, we are looking at how we can rationalize the number of branches we are having. Brick and mortar is going out. So you open a branch, multiple people have to be recruited.
Why do you need? You have now self-care apps. Would people walk into branches?
There is online e-commerce happening. You don't need to go into a shop because all your supermarket, groceries, everything is getting online. Do you need brick and mortar again? Do you need outlets?
Can't we buy? I mean, you have things like Celeste and all. You just order online and they deliver.
So there's multiple things which have been relooked at of the supply chain. of organizations from the point of recruitment. Now, anytime a recruitment requirement comes on the business, the first question we ask is, have you looked at all other options?
Can another role be re-scoped to manage both roles by one? So there's a lot of mindset shift which is happening right now to ensure... these things are happening so so there it is actually quite productive from an organizational perspective so we will look at some of the key aspects of of recruitment and so on uh i mean you just have to i mean you have it's obviously the key process are acquiring talent uh and and it involves a lot of aspect of attracting potential candidate for job vacancies uh i mean We do a lot of job posting.
These are simple things that you all know about. Creating of job descriptions, job posting. Now I've seen, I think, for example, there are videos done for attracting the right people. Gone are the days when you still have to have the ATL. Now you don't get TV ads, but the papers carry still ads.
But it's more social media. You have job posting on social media. Then you have, I've seen videos done for job postings and so on and so forth. So people are getting creative on those areas.
So sourcing, I mean, sourcing, you have various channels. Social media has become another main thing. You have employee referral. programs. You have recruitment agencies, headhunters who support you on that.
Over and above that, you will also look at career fairs, campus recruitments. We used to do a lot of campus recruitments globally in my previous organizations. So you start building and supporting from about for example it companies do it a lot because they need a lot of graduates from example moroto university and so on so they will sponsor that whole year so they they have line of sight of who are the good candidates in those universities who they can start so they are there the process starts honestly before they are ready for recruitment also so then you have made that initial step of of identifying the right employees to come into the system.
So things of that nature are done. And these are some of the a few of the multiple things that is done. So as I did mention, there are walk-in interviews. I mean, multiple things.
What makes sense for you is the process that and so on. multiple things on the recruitment piece. So I think all of you all have understood about the recruitment funnel. And there is more theoretical and things that we also look at. The stages of the funnel from the point of awareness.
Awareness is not a one-off thing. We talk about the brand identity of the organization. We talk about employer branding.
How do you communicate? Employer branding is all about communicating. to the the larger audience what type of organization it is what type of uh how how you develop a individual's career and so on and so forth the engagement the well-being aspect and so on and so forth and that's a continuous process that hr does with marketing on building the employer brand uh and and so on and so forth for that you have various things i mean you take testimonials from employees you will get testimonials from their parents um you will get so yeah sir in your opinion hello go ahead so in your opinion what are the companies in sri lanka you think is good in employer branding I think a few of the organizations which have been there in the system, for example, if you ask me who people would want to join, for example, it was at our time the organizations that we always like to join was things like Unilever, John Keyes, Atkins Spence, maybe companies like tobacco, I mean, those were some of the key organizers. From the banks, you had the larger banks like commercial bank, HND, DFCC, when it was a development, it was one of the oldest banks as you see. So, whether they, the performance, one of the key factors you need to understand, the performance of the organization also plays a key role.
Now, for example, I mean, I'm not sure whether it's still there, but initially Unilevers was a university for sales guys because they had everything there. Tobacco was a university for sales guys because they built good sales guys. And if you now look at some of the top sales guys, top CEOs have started from that. If you look at the finance aspect, those ENYs, KPMGs, those guys, I mean, it was known to be the university for finance guys.
So the question you should ask is, was it done by design or was it just because they had that process in place to build this employer brand? Now, from a global employer branding aspect, Google, Heineken. they have fantastic employee branding initiatives.
They work a lot on that and so on. So it's tough to say who's the best at it but different people will have different opinions. But the most important aspect is have they done it by design or by accident and that is something.
But there are a lot of people who are now investing on building brand and so on. but there are some people who automatically is through the referral system knows that these are organizations which are good to build your career and build a strong foundation on. So, there are multiple organizations who look at employee brand in various ways guys. I think for now, if you look at for me, an organization because you need to understand your employee brand and the brand, your product brand. go hand in glove.
If the organization is performing extremely well, if the product brand is very strong, it has a massive linkage to an employer brand. And right now in that sense, one of the key brands that has a big growth is things like Dialog. Dialog spends a lot of money on its brand and the employer brand piggybacks on their product brand is what I see.
answer i think recently we found out now i actually started my career at unilever and that time it was like a place that we fight in a university interview to get in but now i work with Unilever in terms of uh you know there are some of their programs and you know some employer branding and now Unilever is struggling to attract uh talents and yesterday uh we had an industry forum with all the apparel company heads uh from M.A.S. Branding side Germany and the biggest complaint now those days people would would push themselves they wanted to get into these apparel firms and not anymore now the focus has gone purely to it companies absolutely and also i personally think this company i think it's a it's a very good case as well a company called cisco lands yeah i think they are very spot on and it's very good the way that they do their employer branding unlike any other company that I've seen, especially on social media, how they celebrate the employees, even smaller things that they actually speak a lot and big about it. And I don't see that happening in any other... That's why I asked you that question whether you have come across any organization who is good in this employer branding. I don't think most of the organizations have not taken that into much consideration.
and they are putting their money only on their product branding. Therefore, they are trying to attract the right talent in my opinion. So, there are multiple things. Employee brand is only one aspect of it. For example, if you take things like Cisco, then Millennium IT, companies of that nature also have other aspects.
For example, you need to understand the current economic condition. People are looking for financial gain also. You take Cisco Labs, the dollar peg salary, right?
None of the local companies are dollar peg. So when it's dollar peg, your, what do you call it, some organization pay even the tax component, right? So it also resonates your ability to pull somebody from the market.
For example, I will absolutely say it forward with you for us too. Sometimes, for example, I will. discussing a bit of a senior role and we want to hire somebody from the industry, the IT industry.
And he's talking about a dollar per salary, right? When you look at a dollar per salary, there is also when you look at comp and benefit, you have internal parity, you have salary ranges that you are to match, right? So organizations also have to be ready to...
to see how you can match those things. And people are also moving for the slightest increase. So it also shows that financial stability is something that they look at.
And that is also supporting the IT industry because they are dollar-earning organizations right now. When they are dollar-earning organizations, paying in dollar-paid salary is not too tough. But the problem is, in Sri Lanka, is that the local, for example, you take Unilever, it's downsizing. right their supply chain in some of the products have been outsourced uh these guys are moving out of the country uh fontera that's a global phenomenon they are moving out of the retail business they are they are only going to focus on the b2b business right so so those were companies which had a very strong employer brand dialogue which used to spend a lot of money on employer branding and their brand has also reduced their market because because of the imp The economic condition, employee brand is not top of mind for organizations. Yes, they will look at how they can retain people and so on and so forth.
But it has been always tough for us to recruit people because there are organizations which are doing the IT aspect, the back office services, which are dollar picked and so on and so forth. So attracting them is a problem. So while...
I totally agree with you that organizations are not focusing too much on employer brand. People are not putting money too much on employer brand. Look at tobacco.
Tobacco has now downsized heavily. It is not that grand scale organization which was there. Unilevers you were talking about, Fonteras, Dialogues, the banks. The banks used to put a lot of money behind their products. There is not too much money put.
if you look at social media platforms who are the people because the it industry is heavily there Now, for example, we recruited a head of digital now, a chief digital officer, CDO, because we know that that is an area that is going to really focus on. So there are multiple things happening. So is there a, now, for example, MAs used to put a lot of money under sports branding because that was their reference point, right? and so on. Now, if you look at MAs, they don't do anything too much on employee branding.
They don't do too much on sports branding and they don't do sponsorships outside because the organizations are really facing the brunt of the financial, city-based macrofinancial impact. So, yes, I do agree, but these are also some of the other things which impact attracting the right people, Majan. So those are some of the things that you need to be mindful of. Because if you only look at from an employer brand perspective and not look at the other aspects of it, you might get the wrong impression that we are not, you know, because of a weak employer brand. No, I still feel that Unilever is a strong employer brand as an organization.
But the amount of money they put on or resonate in that this thing is quite low. I hope I... added to your yes sir uh sorry paduma allow me to add something over here i think um now based on the whatever the situation around the globe you know which is impacting for local businesses as well i think uh it is a question of you know like um whether the employees are needed or not needed you know so so you know that's i think that's where the whole thing uh you know boys up yeah because you know like i mean everyone is trying to see how things can be done virtually remotely you know without people so you know so that's where i think the people's branding or the other organizations also has been walk away from you know this kind of you know like the situation as you very correctly said you know those days we had dream dream jobs right so nowadays you know like i mean that like the gen z i i'm sure they have entrepreneurs you know so they want to become you know something else so with this i believe you know like i mean it will be leading to um to to to make everyone to be thinking twice whether that's the way or whether something else is the way so you know i believe you know that's where i know it has been making uh the people's branding or the organization to be invested on certain things would be you know considered so this is this is my this is my feedback i mean this is how i felt it of course I mean, you're spot on. That's why I said this has also pushed people to relook at their systems, on their processors, on the digitalization.
And that's why we have recruited a head of digital to not the chief information officer is separate, chief digital is separate. We have a lean and business transformation functions, which are now being critical functions. A few years back, you didn't have functions of that nature.
so business transformation head is is looking at re-looking at all the uh processors how and with with the digital head and the information guy they are re-looking at how we can digitalize a lot of things so so we are trying to reduce the uh the this thing on people uh and and and going of the people has been reduced and also like you you i we have to add the ai part also into this right of course ai has made a lot of you know changes and people uh the the i mean now the companies are investing more on those side so that's why the it industry is being more more more you know more needed considering any of the other other other ones so this so i'll give you an example enough example now i have two uh salary ranges set up for the not the band plus separate for it which is much higher because if i need to get the right people because that is where value is driven right now and getting those guys are at a higher cost but the return on investment is also higher uh so it is that i mean the focus is changing and you're spot on to say that people will not uh look at employer grant to that extent uh and so on so the still the if you look at the the small and medium enterprises is where growth is happening and hence more and and the gen z's are becoming entrepreneurs i mean you have guys who are on tick tock People are creating YouTube channels and so on and so forth. So they are looking at flexibility of life. Now, we are all stuck in the way we are doing things.
We go to work at five o'clock, we come home at six or nine, ten, sometimes, depending on your workload. But the new generations are looking at flexible work. They're looking at ways you can, you will have more control of your life. I want to go out somewhere and I don't care what time.
So flexibility is coming in very strongly. So when flexibility comes in, that means your customers are looking at flexibility. Banks had cut off times those days. Now people are moving away from those cutoff times because people want flexibility. Employees want flexibility.
They should be able to go out and pick up your son because you don't have the support because of the financial issues, you might not have domestic support, you might not have drivers and so on. So you need to have an organization which is flexible. So we as organizations also haven't evolved in the sense of during COVID, people thought flexibility was going to work and then we get back into areas. But that means your systems, processors, have to support for people to be flexible they need to have no more computers still i see organizations having desktops laptops are going out of the window you need to have palm tops where you'll have where you you there's flexibility for you to work so these are some of the things that is very important when you look at recruitment whether your organization is ready to attract the talent who's out there And IT-wise attracting this talent is because of the flexibility.
You can work from anywhere in the world. You can be on holiday and you still can do your work. So flexibility plays a big role.
Banking industry, apparel industry, the FMCGs, all those things don't have that flexibility because you need stale jobs, systems and processes are not geared for flexibility. So that is something that which is happening. So very true.
I think that is an area that organizations need to look at when they're looking at recruitment. Fantastic discussion. So still we have, I mean, you need to understand our education system is also a bit archaic.
We shouldn't be talking about recruitment funnels. We should be looking at how we create our own funnels for the organization. And when you are right, you're... Last year, there was one guy who challenged all these things and wrote a fantastic article on how recruitment should be looked at and so on and so forth. So don't get bogged down with all this.
Yes, these are required, but re-look at it. I mean, if you look at all the theories which are there, if you look at the dates of those years of those theories, we are still going on the 50s. 50s, 60s, 70s, sometimes even in the Stone Ages. So things have changed. People's mindsets have changed and so on.
People are looking for flexible life and the newer generation. I don't agree with everything of the new generation. Their discipline, their commitment towards doing things, all those things are, for me, quite questionable. But obviously, flexibility is something that...
is important. But I suppose overall on a large scale, these things will continue. How do you create awareness about this aspect of flexibility?
How do you attract them? How do you look at different ways of attracting them into the organization? How do you create interest in them? For example, we carry out programs for juniors. age 15-16, we do different programs with them.
We have mental gyms done for them. So, because that is the thing that we are trying to attract them at the onset. Like what Caterpillar did.
Caterpillar did that very well. How did they build their brand? Caterpillar did toys. I mean, we all played with these Caterpillar toys.
When we grew up, when we saw a massive machine. We used to call it caterpillar because it was ingrained in our head. How do you create that?
So those are some of the things that organizations are looking at. For example, Celan Bank and HNB does it very well at schools. They have mini banks set up in schools, so they only talk about Celan Bank.
And Celan Bank was one of the initiators of that process. So how do you gain that interest in people at the onset itself? How do you push people to apply? Please understand, don't have documents and documents for people to apply for jobs.
They absolutely hate it. What do you need for people to apply for jobs? We had, you remember, initially we used to write pages and pages on our resumes.
Now it's just one page. And it's just to create that interest. What do you need to know of an individual to join? I still see archaic processes like a person who has an MBA we still ask for O level certificates. Why?
Why do you do that? There are organizations still asking for O level certificates when they have an MBA or whatever. We don't hire people because they don't have an O level.
They have not got a D for O level, they have only got an S for O level. Who the bloody hell cares? As long as they have the ability to do what they have to do in the organization and they have the skill set, the life lessons to drive organizations to do it, that is where and development. So you have it like that. IT industry does that very well on that.
So applications, how do you make it simpler? What is the critical information that you require? So it's all about challenging the status quo, right?
People get fed up. in applying for example because i'm in the banking sector right now fed up of applying because the information they need promise police report uh i don't know the only thing they don't ask for is that the the the what you call it the the dna uh test off to check whether your parents are actually your parents that's the only document they don't ask for right You need to challenge all these things. The new generations on a palmtop or a phone or something would just try to apply for it and not get all these documents. Some might not even have those documents. So that is how it is.
So your assessment process has to be solid. So when somebody applies, yes, you have to know that that person is not a criminal and there are ways now to figure that out. and and and so on but you need to i have a solid assessment process to ensure that the right people are funneled into the organization uh and so on um i i went through for example uh i mean that's the difference between a local company and international company i used to work for because those those processes are much faster you you you you you because you need to understand a person who applies to what apply only to organizations The faster you are in this process, the faster the process.
HR makes a massive mistake on the delays they have. They forget to call, they forget to keep in touch, engage those employees, we don't have a process to engage them. Do we start our orientation when we come to the final stage of negotiation?
So you keep engaging them so they also engage with the organization so they keep building interest. That is very important. And I also question employee branding.
Do we do it to the overall community or do you do a focus engagement for the people you want to attract? That is something that organizations need to question. What do we apply for and so on and so forth.
So evaluation interview process, please don't have, I still question the fact of interviews. I mean, everybody has their opinion about it. Don't have massive interview panels for interviews.
I have seen interview panels about the biggest interview panel I have faced in a local company was about seven people. And when the first person asks a question, the other panelists don't listen. And they continue to ask the same question.
Once I walked out of the interview, I said, you guys are not focused and you don't seem to know exactly who you are. And so on. So those are some of the things that the process, the important to understand this in the funnel.
It's for you to also challenge each area. That is the most important thing. This process will continue but how you make it much more current is very important for your and finally the hiring process and the onboarding process. So this is the funnel. You look at any funnel, this will be the key areas that are important for people to this thing.
Any questions on this? Yeah, actually just to add to this, I mean we are seeing a lot of changes that we have to do, that we are doing in the recruitment whole process. For example, we are going to the schools and actually just after A-levels getting the kids to come to the bank and doing awareness programs for them, more like financial literacy programs, telling them how they what they can do with, you know.
digital money these days how they can do things like that and then also going to universities for select fields like management and finance and looking at how you can tell them that there are other opportunities in now in the bank rather than just you know not coming in as a entry level and working as a cashier but with as an undergraduate how they can get their internships done and then as a graduate how can they work as an intern and then later on progress as a management trainee giving them options like that creating that awareness about the other avenues that are there in the organization also to make it attractive to different segments good i mean i i think one of the key factors is i i really believe in internship programs because that's a good opportunity for you to assess people on their ability to uh culturalize them into the organization the the the work ethic all that kind is accessible. Our internship programs are not strong enough. We don't do the right things with those internship programs.
What type of development initiatives do we do? Do we monitor their process? Who are their people monitoring their aspects? So internships are very good assessment processes to evaluate people whether they are the right fit for the organization.
Those are some of the things that we do. Very good. So on the selection component, it's all about application reviews, interviews, assessment tests, reference checks and background checks. Assessment tests, I just touched upon the assessment test. I think now we do aptitude tests about verbal reasoning, verbal, numeric.
mnemonic reasoning. Those are the tests that we did a few years back. I can still remember when I did my first job at HSBC, the first process was an aptitude test.
I think it still prevailed in the organisation. For me personally, it's an absolute no-no. I mean, I think it was only the, there were 50 questions done in half an hour. It was a It was a time challenge and I can remember the first 10 questions I spent almost 20 minutes and I had 10 minutes to do the rest of the 40. So that means I just went on a hunch and tactic took for the rest.
But I passed. So that means at 40, the tactic took should have worked more than the actual time I spent on the top 10. So whether it's actually concrete, contextually good or is it the right assessment and so on. I'm not too sure.
So it's important, like for example, it all depends on where you recruit them also. I think it's important still organization, which now, for example, I can remember when we did an interview for the business associates. you see trainee banking associates i mean you get about thousand applications out of thousand you need to uh uh short i mean you need to reduce it to at least 100 so these are some of the processes that you will use but is it the right test to assess that then is thing in question but organization to organization would have their own views on it uh so so identifying the right assessment tools is very important uh yes you need to understand the numeric reasoning and so on and so forth but what do you want to actually achieve from it is one question that I always ask.
Reference checks, background checks, organizations don't need to do it right now because there are external parties who do it. We work with the organization which has CID guys, they have specialists on on social media so they would check everything to see what type of person he is well he's that idiot who he hangs around with so there's a multiple report which comes on on key people so so those those are things which can be outsourced right now so two things that which is important the interview process and assessment and for application reviews also now most are software driven uh you have so you give the the commands on what they should be looking at so you don't spend going through six thousand uh sorry thousand to thousand five hundred applications uh to see whether where whether whether they they meet the basic uh criteria and and so on so most of these aspects like the application reviews the references, backgrounds, etc. They are all looked at very strongly to ensure that and you don't have to spend too much of time because there is multiple agencies who do this.
So that is very important to understand. Any questions on this assessment? what are the assessments going into details you have psychometric assessments like pogon and on i don't for critical positions it's important to give it gives a it gives you an understanding of their cognitive ability their personality profiles their ability to lead teams their ability to manage people Fathuma, you're breaking up again.
The connection is not stable. It's frozen. Hello.
Sir, we can hear you. Sir, we can hear you. Okay. See the slides?
Slides are visible. Maybe turn off your camera for the moment. can you hear me better now yes cool yes sir you were i think we didn't hear you for some time last we were talking about psychometric tests just give me a second and i need to check is it better now Hello, guys can you hear me?
Yes, sir. Can you hear, sir? Can you hear me now? Yes, sir.
Yes, can now. Okay. So one of the key aspects is psychometric assessments, which is like, for example, who can use their MBTI. different different types of uh tools i think your voice is going down yeah and i'm sure uh can you hear me now let me check that i can get it on the phone Just give me a second.
I'm trying to connect on the phone. Can you hear me better now or still? Sir, I can hear.
Okay, cool. Sir, tell us a little bit about, can you repeat about the psychometric test and what are the tests available? Yeah. So, psychometric testing is basically looking at how you can assess a person's cognitive abilities, personality and so on. So, in that sense, psychometric assessments.
I won't advise you to do for everybody, but at critical positions, at a very senior level, we spend money on psychometrical. You have things like Hogan, you have things like DISC, you have things like MBTIs and so on and so forth. which basically helps people to get a somewhat of an understanding of what is the personality cognitive aspect.
But please do understand, it won't give you a 100% match of anything. They say it's about 75 to 80% match which gives. So we take that as a reference point. It gives you a psychometric assessment. I'm sure you know, it will give you an aspect of how he can.
how he manages relationships with people, what type of leadership style he would have, how would he communicate with people, is he an authoritative person or is he a collaborative person and so on, how does he manage feedback, what type of feedback. So there are multiple definitions depending on that. So it gives you it. You need to understand it's only a reference point. I will never use it at the key decision making tool, but it gives you a reference to your decision making process.
But there are organizations if the profile it's not that I think I made a mistake here. Also, it's you don't call it a psychometric test. It's not a test. because there is no right or wrong thing it's it's a more assessment to see whether it is aligned with your organization because that is the most important thing uh when you do the hogan assessments and so on you also have to input data of what type of person that you need for the for the role right what are we looking for so then it gives you a reference to to the organization's requirement uh to say okay this is the type of person we require right And then it refers to the answers which have been given and then looks at what the match is. So sometimes it says it's a 50 percent match, 60 percent match, 70 percent match.
And these are the areas which need to be considered. We have taken decisions sometime to take them in, even though the match has been low and they have performed extremely well. I can remember there was a case when I was studying. There was a. casing point of a situation where a person had been in England, where this went to the courts also and it came on BBC, where they had terminated an employee who was performing extremely well because they had done a psychometric assessment not at the beginning but after he had started.
and terminated because there was no match of the psychometric assessment. But this person has been performing extremely well. So there was a case which went into court saying that this was undue termination and there is no this thing. So I think that individual won that case.
And there are so much of changes which happened after that. So psychometric assessment is a reference point to what you require. Then you have skill testing. For example, in IT they'll have skillset testing.
If it's coding, okay can this person do coding? What is the coding that they do? So there will be tests.
Some people even when they do analysts, for example, even before all these tools came in, they would check the ability for the person to work with Excel and so on. So there will be job based skills. testing which will be done uh and and so on then you obviously all know assessment centers again when you're running a very strong management training program you might have assessment centers where multiple people are recruited assessment centers are done with with two or three different uh reasoning one is to to the to recruit or to shortlist people or or to assess training requirements or Assessment centers also work a lot when people are put through assessment centers to identify people, identify their training needs and so on. So there are different types of assessment centers.
I mean, you have development centers, assessment centers. You'll have things like inbox testing. You all know what inbox testing is. Inbox testing is you have, for example, work related exercises which are given. You will have, for example, inbox testing is very simply, you will be given documents to assess.
For example, as a manager, if you are given some documents, how would you prioritize those 100 documents? How would you reply to those mails? So those are something called very simple inbox testing, which is done.
Then you will have role playing. You will have leaderless assessments. You will have problem solving exercises, which will be done. and so on, how they manage a problem, how they communicate with people.
So the assessment centers will have different types of exercises which are done. Then obviously competency-based assessments. Competency-based assessments are even the recruitment, you have what we call competency-based interview.
Competency-based interviewing is where you won't ask just, okay, tell me something. You'll say, as a manager you have to give feedback to an employee that he's not performing and that he will be moved out of the organization. How do you manage a conversation like that? That would be the question to the individual. So that is to assess how he manages.
Then you will ask, you have to decide on two new investments and what would be the, how would you decide which investment to do right now so you're you're checking his competency by asking him competency driven questioning methods so you are asking him job-based questions how he would manage that uh over and above that they you might even ask okay uh you have to now decide uh on uh for example uh in in procurement you are asking about procurement uh what how would you how you have three suppliers and you have an urgent order to meet and you need the supply coming in, how would you take the decision on which supplier to go to? Will you go for the cheapest supplier or to assess what are the main criteria he will be looking at to finally ensure that the customer is getting the product on time? So those are things like competency-based assessments which are done to in the assessment so our our our questioning has to move into competency-based assessment uh questioning so people people know exactly how they would manage those things um and uh behavioral assessments uh past behaviors experiences uh and and so on and so forth so those are some of the things that uh which are done on assessments so i have a question sure Sir, what is the going rate for the psychometric test at the moment? Just curious.
The Hogan assessment. went at about in Sri Lankan rupees at about 100 to 120,000 rupees per assessment. Okay. So that's why I said they are also costly.
Good ones are very costly. So you have to decide on which one you need to do. So that's why I said focus on critical MBTIs and all.
You can do it online. I mean, I don't think it's very expensive. DISC is not expensive at all.
Must be about 10,000-15,000. Hogan is one of the better assessments that are going around right now. That is going at about, I was selected on Hogan, I had to do the Hogan when I joined Heineken and I had to do it for when I recruited a very senior person. That is going at about, I mean, with the dollar fluctuation it will go up or down so but average it's about 100 to 100,000 rupees.
Did I answer your question? Yes, sir. Thank you.
So that is something on this. So we go on to... just one second i'm covering the right sides You were there. Who was that?
The director. Yeah. Interesting. I forgot about that. The director is not...
for this or present six to ten days on okay uh so i think we covered this area open the wrong slide so um a few few best practices on on recruitment uh emphasis on culture can you guys hear me yes sir uh emphasis on culture is important whatever we are doing right now the emphasis should be on culture i mean it's basically uh so this is the best for trading evaluation no no no this is on on record there's the wrong slide that i will use so on on on basically on can you see this slide on best practices yeah yeah So here it's on recruitment. You need to understand there has to be a good emphasis on culture. We are to check whether the person we recruit has a good link to the culture and they understand that part of it is very important on that.
Track on candidates information is very important from the time. This is something which which organization failed to do is that we don't. keep engaging employees after the interview. It takes about two weeks for sometimes to get back.
And sometimes the candidate has to call and ask what's happening. So that's a no-no. And that's very important for people to understand that keeping information, following up with those candidates, keeping them informed on the process, and giving them timelines when they will be get got back to is very important. And even if you If candidates are not selected, the most important aspect is you just don't drop them like a hot potato.
You need to ensure that that communication is there and that engage. Because that has a direct impact on your employee brand. Those are referrals. They go around and say, they didn't even get back to me. to say what the hell is happening.
So those are bad references that you get and impacts your overall engagement of employees and impacts the employer brand. Security and privacy of the candidate. There are multiple examples where when somebody walks into an organization, organization he works in knows exactly that he had gone for interview. So because Sri Lanka is such a small place, so where and who you meet is very important and so on. And because confidentiality, privacy and security of candidates is very important for those things.
social media platforms and so on is something which is very important. TikTok, I have seen on TikTok now to attract the younger generations on TikTok, there are multiple things which are happening. Advertisements are even put on TikTok.
There are what we call... What we call... videos are done on walk-in interviews.
I think NDP had done a fantastic one recently and so on. And so those are some of the things that which works well. Agile hiring method is how do you speed up.
Agile hiring method is things like use you on the faster conversions of application shortlisting which is done by by systems now references uh then you look at some of the documentation which is required not required and so on and obviously understand the recruitment funnel and optimize it you need to have at least two three different levels of uh candidates uh because if the first one is not accepted you need to have a second third in line and and that is very important that uh you manage that funnel very well. Any questions? Now we are going into employee branding, touching a bit on employee branding.
Everybody knows what an employee value proposition is? Hello. guys can you hear me yeah can so i think the employee value proposition or the evp most organizations have it but it is it linked to few things is it linked to your in the product customer value process because your employee value proposition has a direct impact on your customer value proposition it represents your organization it represents yourself as an employer it represents your pay structures the benefits the the career development uh the offering as an organizer employee value proposition is in short uh it's all about If you join our organization, this is what we will offer you. In simple terms, that is your employee value proposition. And there you have some people have massive employee value propositions.
Some people have very simple value propositions on just two words or three words. So it might be just about one word. flexibility right you might have i have seen an organization in the name of the organization it just had the word flexibility so so what it means is you join us there's flexibility for you to build so until then that will be your your single flexibility but obviously behind this what flexibility is is important for you to define for example is it flexibility on your career flexibility on your pay structures flexibility on this thing now for example there are organizations now you can select which allowances you want so there is a menu card of allowances you are the flexibility because this is what i want this is what I want, this is what I want. Under this, you have X amount there, but what type of benefits do you want and how do you want that paid? So you have various organizations.
Large organizations to have that differences are tough because you need two or three people managing your payroll because then you'll have multiple different allowances going to different people. Smaller the organization, it's easier to have all these flexibilities coming in. a large organization just imagine organization with about four five thousand employees and having flexibility managing that whole thing will be tough and that's why people feel that small organization is much more uh much more uh agile and changes can be done much easily and that's what organizations are really looking at their structure they are really looking at brick and mortar looking at technology looking at all that kind of stuff so employee value proposition is simply what it says is that this is if you join our organization this is what we can offer uh in simple terms is and and that becomes your employee value proposition is the bedrock of employee branding that is that is what uh what actually uh uh resonates on your employee brand yeah any questions on that guys you can hear me yes can so how does the employee value proposition link to the employee brand and and simply attraction and recruitment um is uh as i did mention the evp becomes your your your bedrock on the empire brand uh what it stands for um it helps to attract the right people because they also then understand okay this is the organization i want to be a part of these are the uh it also has a resonation of your values culture benefits and so on and and also uh it is a proposition for your potential candidates uh and so so organization which just has a word flexibility so that is the thing that resonates with your potential employer employees and but obviously going down you need to define what those uh what those aspects of flexibility is all about so that is very so alignment with your company values is important uh so because it also defines for example if it's flexibility does your company mission or vision and your core values also has that whether that resonates um so differentiation is how do you stand out from your competition uh in the talent market how what what is what is what is that strength that we hold against your competition and please to understand your evp also can't be a standard evp for years and years and years because you you need to it has to be assessed from your product value proposition to your strategy to your current employees culture culture is also dynamic there are yes there are there are strong cons which hold the culture together but within that if there are changes which is happening it it has to really look at how how how that works uh and and and so on uh and and that is Also, you can't say that these are employability propositions and we are going to stick to it for the next 10 years.
Maybe two years ago, yes, it is. But right now, the things have changed so much that things of that nature changes on and off. Employee satisfaction and retention.
And it gives you employee experiences. and they become satisfied, the employer becomes the advocate of your employee value proposition on their employee brand. It becomes, it shares positive experiences into the wider communities and that's where employee testimonials come and support the satisfaction because that's the most important thing.
I mean, you can have value proposition and when people come in, you have, if you don't link on to that and if there is a gap. there will be also negative impact on your overall company. So that is very important. Employee advocacy, you create an employer brand ambassadors on those EVPs and so on. So it is very important where people feel that they have taken care of, they are valued and they speak positively towards the company, both online and offline.
and that is very important. Your brand ambassadors are the advocates of the employee value proposition, the organization, the culture and so on. It also helps on building a reputation about the company and make it an employer of choice, which obviously has a clear aspect on attracting the top talent or the right talent into the organization and consistency. Different people should experience your value proposition differently. Everybody needs to have at least the element of the value proposition where it is actually experienced by people.
and so on and so forth. So this is how the employee value proposition to a great extent happens in an organization. Any questions?
So I will not go into employee brands right now because at the end right now. uh any questions guys you all have okay so in the absence of anything i hope next week i'm not sure the next week is a physical program or not uh but uh there will be also a session where we will be doing a double session i hope that day will be uh Not a virtual program but a physical one. So in the absence of anything, hope you all have a good day.
And you are missing a few good matches going on today. Wimbledon, rugby and so on. So I hope you all have a good day learning. Thank you very much. thank you sir thank you thank you it has you want to go there they have coffee here they'll come and do the thing They have coffee.
Yeah, that is still coffee.