Being Member Of India CHRO Forum Powered By Sodexo India And Led By Paul Writer We Have Featured A Short Interview With Interview With Srinivas Vedula, Total Rewards Director, CA Technologies

Why does employee benefits matter 

While many say that employee benefits are taken for granted and are more of a hygiene factor, they do have a significant impact on employee engagement. The HR industry has come a long way in innovatively designing and delivering benefits that go beyond just the employee. The benefits that reach beyond an employee have profound impact on the employee emotional connect with the organization, which in turn helps in talent retention. Some of the benefits that take care of family’s health, financial and work-life needs have shown significant impact on employee retention.

Why does benefits communication matter?

Research suggests that companies can achieve four times the current employee engagement levels, when employees perceive the rewards and benefits as competitive. Companies must definitely invest time to articulate the message and orient the value proposition to their employees to shift the perceived value north. This perception can directly impact employee motivation and emotional connect with the organization. One important thing to note is that, communication should be a constant exercise and multiple communication channels should be used to cater to different mindsets.

What has been the most significant change in employee benefits during the last 5 years?

In the past 5 years, health and wellness and work-life balance programs have taken a front seat, and we witness a lot of innovation in these areas. Health and wellness has moved from conventional health checks to proactive wellness management like preserving stem cells and mapping the genome system. Parental care and assistance is slowly emerging because of transformation of family system in India.

We can also witness the emergence of income protection plans, super top-up plans under medical insurance coverage in India, that are already practiced widely in the developed economies.

What are the challenges in your department with digital organization, today?

Digital organization is a welcome change and it has been embraced by not just millennials but all the generations of workforce. But this change has come with its set of challenges. While the change is rapid and dynamic, equipping the eco system i.e. people and process, acceptance of the same seem to be challenging. Companies need to think through aspects of information security, privacy and confidentiality of the employee data before joining the digital revolution.  

Machine powered analytics are going to help the HR function understand employee trends, their challenges and need to make better decisions and talent strategies that go hand-in-hand with business changes. Emergence of Artificial intelligence tools such as Chatbots are going to challenge and make the mundane tasks obsolete in HR function.

I think digital transformation needs to be acknowledged and consider it as an opportunity to transform the function in a positive direction rather than viewing it as a challenge.

Looking to the future, what trend or development do you think will significantly impact the reward profession?

Compensation and benefits is still one of the top reasons for attracting and retaining talent. As the eco-system/work environment is getting transformed, the rewards profession must move with the speed of the business and employee rewards need to be constantly reimagined. Digitization of rewards and benefits will create a better experience for employees and their families. Embracing technology like Bots for employee query management, use of insights and analytics in strategic decision making of talent management will be on the rise. Offering rewards and benefits on popular market platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Uber may be sooner than imagined reality. HR professionals should have the mindset of an innovator in anticipating employee needs with changing times and design programs accordingly.

Unless the HR fraternity acknowledges change, adapts change and also invents change, these jobs might become history.                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Profile: Srinivas Vedula is Total Rewards Director leading the Compensation and Benefits function for CA Technologies where he strategizes and drives the C&B programs across multiple regions. Srini has nearly 20 years of experience as a human resource professional covering all HR domains with specialization in compensation and benefits. He is an alumni of XLRI Jamshedpur and a Certified Global Remuneration Professional from WorldatWork.

With his rich experience he has partnered with various business schools and popular industry forums covering the topics on total rewards, like Silicon Valley International Forum, WorldAtWork, SHRD, HYSEA, Marsh, ISTTM of Engineering Staff college of India and IMT, Hyderabad.

In his continuous efforts to make Total Rewards function a strategic partner in the organization, he developed and implemented programs that have won industry accolades for CA technologies from popular institutions like Dataquest, World HRD congress, SHRM and Great Places to Work. Srini is a recipient of Compensation & Benefits Leadership Award for 2017 from World HRD Congress.

Prior to joining CA Technologies, Srini was associated with reputed companies like ADP, Vijai Electricals (now Toshiba), B.E. Ltd. etc.