[CTQ Smartcast] Leadership Development In The Hybrid And Remote-first Mode, With Seema Padman
Seema Padman is Senior Vice President Human Resources (India and APAC) at Epsilon. She has worked in a variety of HR roles over the course of her 20-year career, likely covering the entire spectrum.
In this Smartcast, hosted by CTQ co-founder BV Harish Kumar, we have talked in-depth about leadership development in the remote first world. Seema also spoke about different aspects of work-life, post-pandemic and has given great insights on L&D and leadership development.
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(Read the shownotes below or skip to the transcript)
SOME OF THE THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
Culture and engagement post-2020
L&D and personalization
A shift in individuals with respect to their learning journeys
What is the sense-making element?
How has innovation been impacted post-2020?
Why is diversity important in the learning process?
Reverse mentoring
How can newer grads help in bringing fresh perspectives into the workforce?
Seema’s take on the hybrid work model
Top facets of a good leadership training program
Why have most learning programs regressed to the norm of cramming everything into a 6-month long journey?
How can leaders ensure and build a culture of continuous learning?
Importance of micro-cultures
PLUS
Future relevance of gig workers, job sites in India and universal basic income
LINKS TO PODCASTS MENTIONED IN THE SMARTCAST
If you enjoyed this Smartcast, you will also like Designing A Culture For Tomorrow, With Smriti Handa
TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
00:00:00
Harish: Seema Padman is Senior Vice President, Human Resources (India and APAC) at Epsilon and has been with Epsilon since March 2015. In a career spanning over 20 years, she's worked in multiple areas of HR, probably covering the entire spectrum. So, we decided to pick Seema's brains about leadership development in the remote first world. We spoke about different aspects of work-life that changed after March 2020, the challenges they faced at Epsilon and how they overcame them. Seema has always had great insights into L&D and leadership development. We spoke about what are the hallmarks of a great leadership development program. She also talked about some interesting experiments they tried at Epsilon. So, if you've been thinking about re-imagining learning and development and leadership development in the post-pandemic world, you will find this conversation very useful.
00:01:11
Harish: Welcome Seema to the CTQ Smartcast.
00:01:14
Seema: Thank you, Harish. Great to be here!
00:01:16
Harish: Yeah. So, I think we first met in the early days of the lockdown, and I think in the middle of 2020. So, this is a good time to ask that million-dollar question: what has changed since March 2020 in terms of culture and engagement?
00:01:35
Seema: A lot has changed, and I hope it has changed for the good as well. So, in the early stages, I think when we had the conversation, we were trying to figure out how we kind of navigate that because we'd gone out of that first initial few months of trying to survive and get all of our HR practices and processes aligned with people being remote, getting people on board, how do you onboard them, just about figure that? And I think when we started stage two is when I would say when we reached out to you Harish to figure out, is there a better way of doing things, and I think we've learned through the process. There are some things that work, there are some things that don't work. And we've tried to incorporate that in terms of how to engage with our people, and how we continue to build our culture, especially when we have so many new people. I think one endorsement that's happened in that process is that we also participated in the Great Place To Work early this year and the surveys came back with great results and it feels like we've got certified as a Great Place to Work, this overarching statement around, all things considered, I think Epsilon is a great place to work. Definitely scored a 90, which is I think phenomenal for us. And I was very heartened to see some of the comments that came through in the feedback as well. It feels like a family-like environment is what has a lot in common said. So that feels like a great thing to have achieved during the time of being remote, to convey a sense of family. And I think all of the things that we do through our leaders, through our managers in terms of staying connected, really communicating with our people has seen success. What's changed therefore is a validation of some of the things that we do and also learnings along the way as to what we need to do differently. That's what stands out to me,
00:03:35
Harish: Right. Yeah. Congratulations on the Great Place To Work certification. Sure, it must have been the proof of the pudding, right? It's all the hard work that you put in, not just in these two years, but over the years, which has culminated in this. These things are not things that can be changed overnight. It's a lot of hard work that goes into it. So, in this context of the last two years, what were the initial challenges and if you can give us some concrete examples of how you overcame those initial challenges? Phase one to phase two that you talked about.
00:04:15
Seema: Yeah. I think the initial piece is just to try and replicate what you did in the physical world to the virtual world and that isn't an ideal way. You're just trying to replicate everything and over time you learn through the process of what works, and what doesn't work and then change and shift to fit in with this complete remote working. So, if I take an example of engagement activities and engagement initiatives, most companies tend to do larger ones and bring everybody together in large town halls or large initiatives. And we realised that the commitment towards larger organisation initiatives is actually less. People actually turn up for what we call the micro-events. So, a focus on micro-culture I think is really important. So, it's all down to the leaders and them taking that and I think that's what our leaders did. So that's a shift that has happened. And so, we've kind of tried to put things that could be led, or it could be driven by leaders and driven by teams. And so more teams have come up with their own way of engaging and allowing that to happen within their teams rather than force-fitting and getting everybody together. And I think that’s part two, where we realised that we can't just because when you started off in this remote work mode with the pandemic, you always thought it was temporary. You thought it was a few months down the line, we kind of say well we closed for a few weeks and you're back. But then at some point, it hits you that that is not, and you've got to embrace it and find newer ways of working. So, things around learning and development, things around leadership development and how we approach things should also look different in that time.
00:06:09
Harish: I think that's a great insight there, Seema, about thinking of micro-cultures. It's like the famous two pizza rule of Amazon. I think that's the number of people that you can probably try to realistically influence in terms of engagement and culture. So having these broad-brush strokes of let's have this company by engagement and all, it's fraught with danger in terms of what you expect and what to get out of it. People have other things to do, let’s just admit it and be honest about it.
00:06:46
Seema: We should have done those. I'm not saying that we haven't tried those, but over time we realised, okay, this is not working because you track and the commitment to your immediate team is much higher than the commitment to the organisation.
00:06:59
Harish: Correct. Yeah. So, I think that's a great insight that I think is an underlying principle that should be thought of in multiple facets of organisation, culture, design, leadership development because what you're essentially saying is don't try to take the one size fits all approach. Look at different teams, look at different levels where people are, maybe the duration of the company, their tenure, that makes a difference. So, given all these insights that you're talking about, I think we're getting more and more into the personalization zone, right? So how is L&D gearing up for this now with this personalization, you know, overarching theme? So, how is that panning out for you at Epsilon? What have you done in that space?
00:08:01
Seema: So, on learning and development, I think there's more to do. I wouldn't say that we have really made roads, but if you've touched on the right word, Harish, personalization. I think increasingly that's what I'm coming to. In terms of conclusion, a lot of people practise, right? There's a view that, or at least organisations and leadership learning and development teams held that, in terms of learning, only a certain type of people learn or learning ability was restricted to do a few. But everybody learns, right. It depends on why you need to learn, right? If you need to fix something on your laptop, you're able to go and look it up on YouTube and fix something. So, it's essentially, being able to identify what the person needs to learn, make it relevant for them, and then provide that. That's a bit more of a long journey because all of our programs are not there yet. We still have standard programs. We expect people to turn up, we expect people to participate. But what we've done is increased the number of self-learning options that people have, in terms of things that they could take like licences they could have, whether it's LinkedIn learning, Udemy, that I think has seen a higher take-up because then people say I'm in control of this, it is something that is relevant for me, it is at my pace and at my time, and I can do this well. So that's definitely helped in the space of personalization. But on the other aspects, we still haven't gotten there. For the core job skills that I think are working well and development, which is related to doing their day-to-day work, I feel has improved compared to in-person working.
00:09:54
Harish: And do you see people taking charge of their learning journey? Maybe your job is just to establish the why and after that, individuals take charge of their learning needs. Earlier, it used to be that the organisation was going to take care of my learning. It is their job to sort of upskilling me. Have you seen that shift in individuals?
00:10:17
Seema: Not everybody. Again, time can be a constraint and I think because learning has always suffered from that, it's never urgent. It's an important thing but it's never urgent. But I think leaders emphasising learning is important. What leaders showcase in terms of learning and how much they talk about learning; how much they invest in personal development plans really helps. Still, it gets deprioritized, but because it is at your own pace, I feel that and I shouldn't say, I feel like, we we've had a discussion when it came to hybrid working and then we did a little survey exercise with some of the leaders in the organisation, and most people said core learning for the job actually has improved. It could also be because your access to learning through osmosis has gone away. Otherwise, there's a great opportunity in the organisation to observe somebody in a meeting, to observe something happening in the organisation and then kind of choice, you know, that influences you to some bit in influencing your learning. Because that has gone away, people have to put in the effort. But I think teams where the leaders don't reflect that and don't show that they are learning themselves, it doesn't work. So, you've got to have that also in place.
00:11:37
Harish: So, can you give me some concrete examples of how leaders have modelled this behaviour that you're talking about where they are talking about what they're learning. If you can give me some concrete examples.
00:11:49
Seema: Sure. One program that we'd started, and this was pre-pandemic, we'd actually put it in place. And it was called Inspiration Infinity for our leadership. One of the elements of that learning was a teach-back. So, whatever you learn, some elements of it, you go and do sessions. So, I've seen a few leaders do that very well and that's a great signal to say, I have done this program as part of that, and this is something I will do. We've incorporated that into our manager development program as well, where the team co-facilitates with leaders and their own reflections and learnings come into play. So that's them making time for other people's development, I think it's a great signal. That's one thing that we've done very well. The other, that's a more systemic piece that we've incorporated into some of our programs. Other pieces like coaching, and mentoring, I would say are ad hoc. I wouldn't say it's kind of done systematically where we put in the process, but this one I feel really good about in terms of how it's being approached.
00:13:01
Harish: Right. Yeah. And over the last two years, it's been only e-learning. Earlier e-learning was one of the options, I guess now in-person sessions are very rare. We have done one in-person workshop for a long-time last week, but it's been a complete shift in terms of e-learning. So how has that been accepted, what have been the reservations that people have shown and how have you helped people overcome those reservations, that e-learning is okay. It's not just individuals for themselves, but even for leaders to get them to convince their teams to take up e-learning. How has that been?
00:13:53
Seema: Yeah. So it's been hard before. I mean, in India, particularly we found that the take-up of e-learning and virtual learning opportunities before the pandemic was limited. Then it was no choice, right? You didn't have an option, but if you wanted to learn then that was the only way. We did set an expectation that people would invest at least 48 hours in their learning, in their own development and that is part of the goal-setting process. When you set your goals you have to say that you will do 48 hours of learning and identify what that will be and that will have to be self-reported and some of it is tracked as well. And it could be any form, reading a book could be classified as learning, you know, whatever form of learning that you've done is acceptable and people have to self-report out and that's an element of your goals plus a performance assessment. Then on a necessary basis, people have taken up and we've seen a good sign up for a lot of the programs that we have, regularly communicating that with our people and making sure we do smaller spurts of sessions rather than long learning sessions, smaller in time learning and more customised learning routines have also helped in enabling that.
00:15:10
Harish: I think that's great that you've talked about different kinds of learning because these days if I just take my personal example, I do courses, I read a lot, I listen to podcasts, I interview guests like you. So, that’s a great way for me to learn. So, I put all of this under my learning time, right? So, it's not fair if somebody says what is the number of hours that they put in on a learning course and that's the only way I'm learning. I wouldn't accept that. So that's, that's great that you allowed people to self-report using wherever they're learning.
00:15:43
Seema: Yeah. And I think one interesting piece, I was reading this somewhere the other time, right? I'm sorry. I'm diverging. You asked about learning and development just kind of a little bit into leadership development, right? Why leadership development has always been difficult. I always feel that it's not an easy one to crack. It's increasingly more difficult now because typically leadership development addresses three kinds of transitions, right? It's a vertical transition, a lateral transition or a geographical transition, a functional transition, those kinds of things. They are very clear transitions. But during the pandemic, if you look at all the managers and leaders, they've had to make a lot of internal transitions and invisible transitions as I would call and not a lot of development supports it. And that's where you got to allow various forms of development. And also, one important thing, that the article references is that we do a lot of sense-making at this time. In a situation like the pandemic, there is a lot of inward-looking that happens as well, and that also contributes to a lot of learning and you shouldn't miss that out in terms of, you know, it's a, it's an important constituent of learning. And we've tried to weave that in at least in some of our leadership development programs, that sense-making element.
00:16:56
Harish: Can you expand a bit on that? I mean, how was this whole thing about sense-making and how was the response?
00:17:03
Seema: Sure. So, this is where I think we kind of got in touch with you around the hybrid piece and then how that evolved. So, we were thinking about the pandemic and how work evolved. What happened was that people needed to work together and in their own business units, they were connecting more easily. So, if you look at social capital in the organisation, there's a building social capital, which is deeply connecting with the people you work with on a day-to-day basis. And somehow that happened because you were on more frequent calls, you were connecting, and you were talking and all of that happened. But another important constituent is bridging social capital, which is across the organisation, the connections. And especially at the leadership level, that's important because, in leadership roles, it's somewhat lonely, right? You have a façade, I mean, I believe in authentic leadership, but people hold back, right? They can't be someone who shares their challenges very openly, they have fewer people to talk to about them. So bridging social capital becomes very important at the leadership level. And that's when we wondered, how do we kind of enable that? When you bump into somebody in the cafeteria, have a chat with them and talk to them. So, this is how we got 30 or 35 of our leaders at Director and above to think about how work is evolving, how the workplace is going to look in the future, how employees are going to behave and all of that. And we looked at three-four critical aspects that will be impacted by this remote work. One was around design. The second piece was around culture. The third was around innovation, which everybody said was impacted. The fourth was around the new hires and them coming in and really being inculcated into the organisation and feel that sense of connection and the last one was the democratisation of access. Like your access to leaders is democratised. And so, there were five teams that we created, and these were across, and they had to work over a period of six months. We didn't envisage it to be for six months, but it was kind of extended to pretty much a six-month initiative, where they worked in groups and came back with a recommendation to the leaders. And I think a lot of times you think about the outcomes of such programs, what did it result in? But essentially, we were trying to bridge social capital to get people who typically don't have to interact with each other to come and work together, developing a point of view outside of their day-to-day work. So, think a little forward. We also put a Gen-Y member in each of these teams, a different generation, so that you could bring in that perspective as well and get them to come back and present. And in that process, the team had to, you know, at the end we had to do an activity around sense-making. How did you arrive at decisions? How did you deal with conflicts? Did you tend to agree? What leadership style did you show? Is this your normal leadership style? So, there is an element of getting them to think we work with an external consultant who really shaped the program as well. And so that I think was a great experiment for us to see how it panned out and how that brought people together?
00:20:33
Harish: Yeah. And one specific thing that I wanted to pick was an innovation. That's generally one area that organisations and people across levels say that has suffered a lot in these last two years because it's difficult for people to come together and think about these complete white spaces, right? It's easier to do business, the transactional stuff is easy because it is clearly defined. But these are spaces that have not been an area of strength for a lot of organisations, because they have been used to doing it in a different way till 2020. So how has that been, post that exercise? How have things changed? How have things got better?
00:21:19
Seema: I think one of the things around all of these activities is that it is hard to break from how you've typically done it. It's hard to think really completely imaginatively and let go of the past. And I think that has been a constraint in some of the recommendations also that we see. So, typically the response around Google is 20% innovation. I remember we had to say, think differently about this. I don't see that as space has shifted. We are trying to do some events now with this at this time, but it's still revolving around bringing more people to the office and connecting with each other. I don't think a lot has changed. That is one, it is hard to crack because it is for people to think differently and innovation doesn't happen because you sit with the same type of people who think like you, right? It has to be with different types of people, different levels of people. And I think we've not been able to really make use of that. It was interesting that I was in the office today and had a conversation at lunch. Was that if somebody was mentioning quoting an article that they had read that actually the number of patent filing has come down compared to previous years. And it is something that organisations need to invest more time in. And one of the leaders who I work with really put it saying we are surviving, not thriving. And some of the effects of how we are working now probably will be felt in the next couple of years only, not immediately because we are not really ideating and looking at new ways of doing things and new ways of working together.
00:23:05
Harish: Yeah. So that organised serendipity as we call it is getting these people to collaborate across teams. We've seen that, that's something which has gone down, and we've been working a lot on that. One thing that struck me again, Seema is, what you mentioned right now about infusing that diversity of thought. We know you've made a conscious effort to increase the number of women in the workforce. Even when you talked about those groups, you said you deliberately inserted a Gen-Y member in each team. So that clearly seems to be a pet area for you where you acknowledge the importance of it and are making conscious efforts to introduce the diversity of thought. So, talk me through your views on it and how have people accepted/not accepted this line of thought?
00:24:08
Seema: Yeah, it is not easy to do that really well, because what happens is in a group of leaders at a director level, you introduce a Gen-Y, unless the person is super confident that level of acceptance is hard for them, right? They have led down a certain path. So, one person alone actually might be lonely is my insight. I think you've got to have three or four people backing the individual. But it's a way to seed some thoughts and seed some thinking. And I think there are definitely people who benefit from that perspective. One thing that we started I think a lot of organisations do as well is reverse mentoring. We did that last year with our new grad population. So, we asked a set of leaders who would want to participate in the reverse mentoring program. We asked the new grads. I actually thought that there'd be newer grads signing up for it, but we actually had an equal number, and we were able to pair people. And that also is a way to get different perspectives into the organisation. So, this is one of the things that we think about, how can you do that? I don't think we've completely got it very well, but in some of our leadership programs, we try to make sure that the gender mix is equal. There is a Gen-Y introduction, the reverse mentoring piece. Another piece that we want to think about is Gen-Zs and how the newest members of the workforce, what will they need and what will they bring because their concept of work is very different. They start from a very different place and you don't know what that is. We haven't been able to kind of figure that one out, but through initiatives like this, I think more and more infusing and deliberately putting somebody there, or a group there that actually makes a difference. I've always maintained that the leaders who make divisions and organisations always urge generations or two generations apart for the people who have to bear the brunt of those decisions and it is very unfortunate. And so, I would say consciously kind of really engaging with people. And I was listening to a podcast that you mentioned, That One Way To Learn. I think there's a lot of excellent content out there for people to consume and one person who's done immense work around the D&I (diversity and inclusion) space was saying that there are simple things that you can do. Just look at your calendar and look at the people that you meet with on a day-to-day basis. If all of them are similar types of people, then there is an issue, right? If they are either of the same level, either of the same gender or similar backgrounds, clearly, there's an issue with, you know, what perspective building you can get as a leader, right? The second piece is that, uh, what do you watch? What does your feed tell you if your feed is telling you, reinforcing your thinking, again and again, there's never diversity happening, right? What are you watching? Where are you reading? All of those are aspects that are things to watch out for. So deliberately picking different people to interact with different people meet with actual health leaders to kind of see things from a different lens.
00:27:26
Harish: We have this notion of an information diet. We equate it to the traditional Indian thali. You need the daal, you need rasam, you need a pickle, you need the dessert, but you can't have all dessert, right, which is what we ended up tending to have in that information diet. Our feeds are full of things that we absolutely love. Sometimes you need something like salt.
00:27:52
Seema: Yeah. And when you mentioned salt, right? It's the equivalent of what do you say? The other example of that, this person who did the research said, think of the people who are closest to you, and they have figured out a way to work with you, even though they might be giving you feedback, but they might be validating what you're thinking as well. And so how do you get feedback from people who don't think like you and how can you open yourself up to that as a leader? All the things I'm thinking about are as an individual myself, what can I do differently around that? And consciously do those little things, because if you cannot do big changes, you've got to make these little shifts and all of them add up to something larger right here.
00:28:33
Harish: Yeah. And you mentioned reverse mentoring. So, were there any interesting examples of themes or topics on which these people were mentored?
00:28:43
Seema: Yeah, I heard from some conversations. I think one of the things was trying to understand what creates employee loyalty and what are the factors. And I think that was one aspect. It is about the immediate manager. I don't think it's anything new, but that immediate manager particularly in remote working, that's the only person they have more access to, plays a very significant role in shaping the individual's perspective and individual thinking, right? So, the immediate managers are a huge aspect. They did bring up perspectives from other organisations and what they do. And I think about how we onboard our new grads, right? And I think there was some learning around that because again, this is an example of classically, how you replicate what happens in the physical world to the virtual world because it's an 8-12-week program and poor kids come to the organisation expecting something different and it's exactly the same as in college that they are subjected to. So, this year, we're thinking about what we need to do differently around engagement, around breaking that up a little bit more because rather than making it monotonous. So, those are the kinds of feedback, right? Can you do some self-study rather than everything in the class or in the session with a facilitator and do some self-learning and probably get them to interact more as a team and learn from each other, is what the organisation facilitates. So even condensing the amount of time you express that that was one definite feedback that we got.
00:30:20
Harish: Right. Yeah. I think for me personally, as well, the sessions that we do, where we help companies onboard these fresh graduates are very satisfying because you can actually help them, probably shaping the beginnings of some great careers. So that's personally very satisfying and interesting for me, not talking to people of our age, but you're actually getting some new insights from these kids, as you say. But generally, what has your sense been in terms of the expectations of these people who are joining the workforce and the last one or two years?
00:31:07
Seema: I think they find it hard to imagine what workplaces are like and how their energy is because what they've heard from the experience of their parents around workplaces is very different to how workplaces are today, right? And the Epsilon office, in particular, has, it's been very vibrant. There's a certain lot of people who come to interview with us who say, there's a vibrancy about the space. It might be how the office has done up and how it looks, but there's a certain element of vibrancy. And we are trying to know at this time, try and engage more with bringing in newer folks, new grads and coming into the offices and seeing to it how we can show them what it was like. They don't get to see, and I feel the newer people in the workforce are the most impacted by a lack of learning opportunities that are provided to them because you sit in a project meeting and you get to learn from so many situations and scenarios and discuss it, really get perspectives from different people. All of that is lost. It's a very transactional way to kind of talk to your screen and then that's about it. Right. So, it's hard for the folks. So, that's what we are making sure that we do.
00:32:31
Harish: And has there been anything different that you did with the onboarding of new employees, especially now that you have the option of working in the hybrid model. Have you done anything differently? Because we've seen organisations taking this approach, in new employees that indoctrination period is very important. So, you want them to join the office because now we have that option. So, they're flying them to their base locations, letting them work in the office and then asking them to work from home or depending on how their teams have decided. Have you also taken an approach like that?
00:33:13
Seema: We have started the conversation around doing our first in-person onboarding, probably at the end of this month. We are still trying to put the elements together because our office is still optional and flexible. And I think just bringing them into the office without other people being present also doesn't work. So, the first step for us is to see how we get our folks, who are in Bangalore, to kind of start coming to the office in one or two days. And how can that be organic? And everybody who comes to the office immediately says, wow that's great, I enjoyed it. It's like meeting a bunch of friends when you meet your college friends and the time you meet them you say, fabulous, we meet every once a month and it fizzles out, right? So, somebody has to keep that energy going. And so, we're trying to see how there can be an anchor in each team and that person holding it together, and then take a few attempts to then start becoming organic and then start bringing the newer folks in as well. But so far, we haven't done the hybrid. I'm sure it's going to be full of learning and full of challenges that we will encounter.
00:34:27
Harish: Yeah, we've seen the teams, which have taken a very an honest view of this, we will really have to offer something of value to people to come to the office and know, just asking them to come for the sake of it is not going to keep them coming for too long. If they know that very clearly; I think companies have done wonders because then you're treating it with that kind of respect, right? And if it is scarce, when people are coming in and you're actually making sure you want to get the best out of it. If you're getting them to come every day, then they'll get jaded and then soon you’ll have the same oral complaints of commute and why I need to be here, this could have just been a call
00:35:17
Seema: Scarcity is a great way to influence.
00:35:20
Harish: So, let's just go back to the leadership program that we talked about. So, if you were to give the hallmarks of a good successful leadership development program/ journey, what would be the top three or five facets of a good leadership training program in the current context, you know, the post-pandemic?
00:35:45
Seema: Yeah. I think even prior to those leadership development programs, we need a little bit of an overhaul because, how we look at leadership development programs, how we measure them, all of that is somewhat of a convenience rather than really how it's effective, right? And typically, only what is quantifiable gets measured, right? The softer elements don't get measured as well. So, from a leadership development program, I think there are some issues that I personally have seen. And then not that I'm saying that we just kind of cracked them and put something in place, but some of the ideas and thoughts around it are first, at each level I feel that what people want to develop. As they make their transition to the next level or a different stage of their career, broadly fall into four or five categories. I don't think it's vastly off. It doesn't wear off in a very tangential direction. It's largely you can bucket into certain groups of skills or capabilities, right? And the problem with leadership development or management development programs is we try to cover all of these competencies over a period of six to nine months, rather than deep attention to one competency. And it's a combination of self-learning and social learning. So, you've to learn from your peers, learning from an expert, somebody who's a mentor, somebody who brings that expertise, learning from academia because there's a lot of research there. And if you combine all of these elements and weave that into a program and say, okay, strategic thinking is an area that you want to develop, then you bring a cohort of 10-15 people who want to develop. Put them into this program where they are invested. And I think the first part of development is a person investing that time and energy. And plus, when you talk about the personalization element, they've chosen that as a skill that they want to develop. They can’t say, okay, why does this element need to be in the program? I know this stuff and I don't need this kind of thing, right? So, if you construct it in that manner, I mean, we've got to learn through whether it is effective, but in my mind, theoretically, I feel that is a better way to approach it. It touches the element of personalization, it touches the element of social learning, it touches the element of learning from multiple sources and there's self-learning as well. And I feel that's a better way and I think then incorporate what I talked about in the final stage around teaching-back. You are committed to teaching others and that also helps your own thinking and perspective as well. Those I think are some of the elements that you could incorporate into a learning program.
00:38:41
Harish: A philosophical, probably a tough question, Seema. So why do you think, most of the learning programs have regressed to this norm where you want to cram everything into the same three or six-month-long journey. It is quite obvious that you cannot influence so many different aspects of a group without them being fully invested in it. But that's the expectation. We don't really come from a traditional training or L&D background. So, we get this and that's been our standard approach of saying, let's look at this one aspect, get opt-in for whoever is participating, we just hate, and we don't do these programs which are mandated for people. We just don't do those kinds of programs. But the demand is always like this. Can you add more? And then we have to push back saying no, this is not going to work. Why have we bought into this situation where this greed for cramming as much as possible into that six-month-long program?
00:39:48
Seema: Yeah, I think you'll see learning as a product rather than a process, simply put, right. That’s what it is. All the features are kind of put into it rather than it's a journey. And I think it's a combination of learning and development teams, trying to get the newest fad and put that in and then throw it over the wall and expect it to be done and dusted with them. There's a tick box saying I've done all of these elements. What is measured is definitely the quantifiable piece. What coverage did you have? How many attendees did you have? What is the overall feedback score? And I also feel that it stays in the realm of that. And it's a combination of both HR teams, really changing that and leaders also understanding that it's not going to shift. So, if you look at the real measures around leadership development, what percentage of your people have gone through the program, have moved into internal opportunities and have taken on leadership roles, right? And so, some of those things, and those are longer-term measures. So quick fixes are what everybody likes. So, I feel that's what it is. And so, it's a combination of all of those elements coming together.
00:41:06
Harish: So, when we talk about an organisation wanting to have a culture of continuous learning, what do you think leaders should encourage and what are the concrete steps they can take to build this culture of continuous learning it can't just be making these courses available.
00:41:32
Seema: Yeah. One is role modelling, and you have to definitely role model that they do it themselves because whatever role you're performing, you've got to learn, and you've got to kind of showcase that. The second is creating spaces for learning, and, I would say that the social learning element, bringing people together, that's another piece that leaders have to do. I also think that the most valuable learning is through experience because on the job is always valued, but leadership development, again, it's programmatic rather than experience-driven, right, which is one of the things we are actually working on at Epsilon. There's a team now, which includes business leaders who are coming together with the HR team to put together a program that is experienced and led. Three elements of it are one that is focused on experience. Then there's a bit of sense-making and, there's the mentoring piece as well, you know, there's, there's an external and internal mentor, so those are the elements as to how we're thinking about it. So, I feel those are the kinds of things that you have to learn. And there was this interesting concept of shadowing. Shadowing has been an important way for people to learn and I think organisations need to invest a lot more in how to enable that and especially in leadership development. There's a thing about you that shadows a person. Let's say I get the opportunity to shadow somebody who was in a role that I aspire for, and I see him or her, operate in a certain way or make decisions. But you actually have to decode that decision making, the thinking process to the individual. Seeing you in action is not enough, breaking down your thinking process is also equally important for that person to learn. So, I think all of those elements are working to facilitate, to enhance learning in organisations and the culture around continuous learning is typically around what leaders will model and think leaders influence the culture to a significant extent in organisations.
00:43:58
Harish: Right. Yeah. In fact, somebody was telling me that it's now become easier for them to do a little bit of this shadowing because they can invite people they are mentoring to these calls, which wouldn't have been that easy in an in-person setting. But they can just say my colleague is going to be part of this call and through that. But like you said, it is not enough. They are watching you is not enough because you also need to decode that and that's not something that comes naturally to everyone. It’s like asking Sachin Tendulkar to describe how he plays that cover drive.
00:44:40
Seema: And as a person also instinctively you're doing certain things. But what were you thinking at that point in time actually, is also relevant and helpful to the leader. I feel learning always benefits the person who's learning and the person speaking as well.
00:44:59
Harish: Yeah. One question that I missed asking you, Seema, is that you mentioned these smaller teams when you're thinking about these as microcultures. So, have there been examples like these which were forced upon you, but because you tried something in one context you figured this is working and you wanted to take it up, scale it out to other areas. Did you do more of these, let's do learning programs for smaller teams, just like how we are doing engagement for them. Did anything like that happen?
00:45:37
Seema: So, learning programs for small teams, I think there's been more of an ask that's coming. We see smaller teams coming in, asking for specific customised programs and that ask is there more. I've seen three or four examples of that happening, not a lot to cite. But yeah, there's been an ask that I've seen occasionally come through the learning and development team.
00:46:05
Harish: Yeah. So, in one of the last few questions, you mentioned multiple sources of learning. So, what are the books, podcasts, and people you have on your feed, who have shaped your thinking and what would you recommend for our listeners?
00:46:24
Seema: Well, I am not great at remembering at the top of my mind. But I listened to one on Apple Podcasts. For me, because of the space that I am in, there's this organisation called Disruptive HR, it's a UK based organisation and the founder of that organisation is very aligned to how I think about how HR should operate. I want to push for an adult-to-adult relationship in HR which is very hard because somehow there's this notion of an adult to child relationship that forms in organisations with HR. And that's why I love the podcast. So Disruptive HR is one that I listen to, comes through around HR tech and diversity and inclusion, all of those have been great learnings. I do listen to some of the HBR ones that are there. Disruptive HR has been one of the things that I've gone to a lot. I try to look at various sources. My perspective on diversity is to try and learn from different types of people in different sources. So, whatever comes to mind, like founders of organisations, founders of start-ups. Typically, they're not constrained by doing things a certain way, and I feel that they are more experimental with things. And if you, if you think about the companies that are doing some breakthrough stuff because they're not constrained by old ways of working. So, I think, always listening to a start-up is a great way and I've gotten some ideas around that. There are quite a few who turn up on these podcasts.
00:48:13
Harish: Yeah. Last section Seema and this is a section that we have as part of all our Smartcasts where we ask our guests what the future relevance of things that we're going to ask you about. Basically, your hot take on what is the future relevance of this thing. So, the first one is what do you think is the future relevance of gig workers in India?
00:48:40
Seema: We will evolve to have more big workers and more specialised people. And I think it'll be both from a demand and supply side. People will want to choose that. And if you look at the west, they really are mature in terms of the gig economy. And I think India will go that way as well. Because the talent crunch will force organisations to seek more gig workers and people wanting differences in their life and a different approach and not wanting to do different things in their life, they’ll adopt a lifestyle that fits into that as well. So, I see it as the direction that we will get into.
00:49:22
Harish: What do you think is the future relevance of universal basic income? Some Scandinavian countries have incorporated that.
00:49:28
Seema: Yeah. Again, I find that social benefits will increase and that's a way for countries to develop it and Scandinavian countries are a great example of that. I'm not an expert on the topic to add more, but I think I've always looked at Scandinavian countries to set the direction for a lot of other countries. What they have tried, in terms of practices, I feel countries like the UK are now starting to adopt and I think many more countries will move in that direction.
00:50:08
Harish: Okay. And the final one is what do you think is the future relevance of these job sites, where people upload resumes and hope for a call?
00:50:19
Seema: I'm not a fan of them at all. I shouldn't be saying this sitting in HR, but I tell people that if they want to get a job and find a role, networking works best, not jobs sites. And especially companies are using AI to sift through CVs, right? And we did a very small experiment to test out a tool thinking that it should be purchased. And we looked at all of the CVs that had gotten selected and people had gotten through and put their CV to the tool and they all got rejected. So, it was interesting for us that you can manipulate your CV to read it correctly for the job description so that your CV gets picked. But it still didn't work for us. At least it's a very small number of CVs that we tested it with, which was insightful and maybe the bias that you all had played into it also. But I feel networking is a way, referrals are a way to go.
00:51:33
Harish: Yeah. On that note, I think we covered the entire spectrum of HR and L&D and covered a lot of what you've done at Epsilon. So, most of what you spoke I think, was coming from having a high first-hand experience of running and designing these kinds of programs. So that was great. One note of disappointment for me is going to be that I still haven't seen your dog and I was hoping that we’ll see your dog on screen, but I think maybe we'll let that pass. It was a great conversation.
00:52:07
Seema: I will send a picture sometimes. She's adorable. I’m not at all biased. People who see her, just fall in love with her. She’s a lab and she did come and peek once or twice. If you saw me distracted, she was around at that time.
00:52:25
Harish: Yeah, next time when we do this, we definitely have both of you on screen.
00:52:32
Seema: Harish, great speaking to you. Thank you for your time.
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