[CTQ Smartcast] Understanding Employees For A Productive Workforce, With Jayashree Venkataraman
Jayashree Venkataraman is the Founder and CEO of Appreiz, an employee engagement platform that connects social recognition and performance management. A veteran in the Human Resources domain, she has worked in leadership roles in companies like GE and Microsoft.
In this Smartcast, hosted by CTQ co-founder BV Harish Kumar, we talked in-depth about the components of a healthy and happy workforce and how founders should think about the well-being of their teams and themselves.
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(Read the shownotes below)
SOME OF THE THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
Components of a healthy and happy workplace
Signs of an unhappy workforce
How must founders tackle Culture Debt?
Employee experience and employee wellbeing
Role of incentives and perks
The inspiration behind starting Appreiz
Actionables for leaders to address the well-being of employees
Jayashree’s top three insights on workplace
Future relevance of remote-first organizations, the gig economy and people managers
LINKS TO BOOKS AND PODCASTS MENTIONED IN THE SMARTCAST
BOOKS
What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
Principles by Ray Dalio
PODCASTS
If you enjoyed this Smartcast, you will also like Lessons In Managing And Accelerating An Organization's People Ecosystem, With Krish Shankar
TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
00:00:00
Harish: Jayashree Venkataraman is the Founder and CEO of Appreiz. Appreiz is an employee engagement platform that connects social recognition and performance management. Jayashree has worked in leadership roles in large companies like GE and Microsoft. So, we spoke about what are the components of a healthy and happy workforce and workplace, and how to identify one. We also spoke about how founders should think about the well-being of not just their teams, but themselves. What should managers do when they get indications of anxiety or stress in their teams. If you're a founder or a people leader who cares about building a happy workforce or are just curious about the role of recognition in building a happy workforce, you must listen to this episode.
00:01:05
Jayashree: Hi, good morning. Nice to be here.
00:01:08
Harish: Yeah. So, I'm going to start with a slightly tricky one, I guess right down your alley, Jayashree. So, what are really the components of a healthy and happy workplace and workforce and what are the signs that we should look for to sort of identify a happy workforce?
00:01:27
Jayashree: Right. See, when you talk about a workplace, which is a healthy and happy workplace, right, first, you will see the workforce, which is very, very committed to what they're doing. And they are in terms of, you will see the workforce is really taking ownership. They all know the shared purposes for what they're working on. And when they interact with each other, you see that they are actually forming good relationships at the workplace. It's not like we are trying to pull each other down or not. Right. They are really happy. Everybody knows that they are working towards a common shared purpose, and they like to maintain that working relationship with each other. And they're really genuinely happy to be there and do that positive work which they are trying to do. So, that is what you will see. The workforce is really very important. When we talk about the workplace, the workplace becomes healthy and happy when the workforce is really happy, and how will the workforce be happy? It has to come from the top, right? The leaders will have to create that culture. Culture is very, very important when you look at it. The leaders will have to create a culture where people are genuinely open and transparent, they know what everyone is working for, and they are really engaged in what they are doing. And culture is the basic, like culture and the leaders walking the talk and being there and genuinely being part of what they are doing and making the workforce follow their shared purpose. So, that's what makes the workplace very healthy and happy.
00:03:20
Harish: Yeah, I think this is a great, very concise way of actually defining these. I'm going to ask a slightly different question here. So, what happens in a company when the workforce is not happy and not engaged? What are the signs that people can see? I'm just trying to figure these things out so that people know that this is a good, happy workplace and this is not a good, happy workplace. This is the place that I want to avoid. And this is a place I want to be in, for both founders, as well as for somebody who's joining the company, not at a founder level but as a member of the workforce.
00:03:59
Jayashree: So, what you need to look for is when people are not engaged and people are not happy, they're causing distractions in the workplace, right? So, they are not working first of all. Then they are also disturbing those who work and then statistics show that, when they are not engaged at the job, 70% of their time is spent thinking about the next job they are going to do. So, productivity is automatically gone when the employees are not engaged. So, what are the signs you need to look for is when they are not happy, they are not coming to the workplace at the proper time. They are not taking ownership. They're not committed to what they are. You can give them deadlines, whatever you want to, but still, at the end of the day, they may finish it, but is there a quality, there is no quality when somebody does their best when they are happy, then you really see that showing up in the work, right? If it was not there, then you know, there is something going on and actually managers, in my opinion, should also be trained to be coaches, right? We always promote the managers based on their technical skills. But we don't really train them on some of these soft skills where they can be coaches and they should be able to identify if the employees are unhappy. Say if somebody doesn't show up on time for a period of time, he was really a good employee till for the last month or so, and suddenly you see them not engaging so much. And there is a reason why that person is unhappy. It could be due to different reasons. It could be personal, or it could be workplace conflicts, the team dynamic, or something is causing the person to behave that way. And that is where I think the managers will have to look out for these signs, not say, okay, this person is not performing at the end of the year, you give them a C or a D and let them go. But that is not what it is. You have to watch out for the signs and that is why nowadays you talk about the Pulse surveys and all that where you really know whether the employees are working towards what they want. So, you need to watch out for these signs. Managers will have to be trained to watch out for the signs to see the employees are really unhappy. Another thing is attrition. Attrition is a very good sign if your employees are unhappy, right? So that is the number one thing, which you see immediately, employees are going outside the door, even with the great resignation, right? They found two reasons why employees are leaving. One is burnout. The second is lack of recognition. And if there is no recognition in the workplace and employees are automatically going to go look for another place. And when they are not recognized, automatically everybody needs that little motivation to keep going. And if you don't provide that, they become unhappy. They see what's the point in me doing this. Right? So, then they will walk out of the workplace. For the founders themselves, you need to create that workplace where you find people coming in and working, and there are a lot of start-ups and even I've been part of those start-ups where you have these different perks being available, right. Perks are one thing. You cannot hold a person in the company for a long time with just the perks. Perks would be like, right from organic fruits to pool tables to anything. You may have all that. But how is the work culture? How is the environment? Is it really making me feel that I am part of it? Am I being part of it? Is it making me happy? I should be like in the morning, I should be able to get up and come to the workplace. Right? So, for the managers, when you see that the employees are showing some signs of disengagement, then you know for sure that they are unhappy, and you need to figure out why. Instead of saying, okay, give the work to somebody else and let the person go. That doesn’t work that way. It could be where a small correction within the organisation also will make the employee work very hard, and be committed to you. Right. So, you need to watch out for these signs where employees are showing some signs of disengagement or unhappiness and they will start being alone, right? That is also another thing you see when employees are not happy at the workplace, they're not talking to people. They are in silos or there are very few people that they interact with. So those are some of the signs you need to look out for. That is where the organisational networks help to figure out, if there's somebody who is siloed, then you know that they are a sure case of attrition that is going to happen.
00:09:17
Harish: Right. Yeah. So I got a lot of things to unpack. The other thing that struck me and something that we've been talking a lot about these days is culture debt, right? So basically, founders or companies taking some decisions with a very short and immediate term focus, knowing fully when that this is not the right thing to do in the long run, right? But they are being driven by business reasons or some deliverables or some external deadline because of which they end up doing something. And then at that moment, it's a small deviation from the culture. But over a period of time, it festers, right. It keeps growing, it amplifies, and the problem also scales as you're scaling. So how do founders watch out for this kind of a culture debt that, yes, this is the point of no return? I should try to correct this before things go out of hand. What would your advice be?
00:10:20
Jayashree: I think it's in your value system. I think it fundamentally comes to the values which the founder believes in. If you are very strong on the values, then you will not deviate, irrespective of whether there is pressure from whoever has funded or the environment or whatever. If you believe in the value and you're strong in your principles and values, then you will not deviate. If you deviate then as you said, you can never come back, right? So, it keeps on going and at one time, then the next time it goes on and then there is no comeback. And I think that is where if the founders fundamentally believe in what their values are and they have the values correctly, I think that is what will be the right thing.
00:11:22
Harish: Yeah. And when you talk about employee experience, right, how should founders be thinking about things like employee experience and employee wellbeing as well? Mental health has become a big buzzword I would say in the last two years and when I say buzzword, very deliberately call it a buzzword because everyone talks about wellbeing. What you are doing is what should really matter, right? So, how should founders be thinking about employee experience and employee well-being and in some cases, their own well-being as well, right? Because they're also undergoing so much distress and tension.
00:12:07
Jayashree: Correct. That's a good point actually, about their own well-being. And this morning I was reading an article, which talked about HR. HR has been helping people transition through the pandemic and then they're implementing all these wellbeing programs, but then their health is really suffering. So, many times with the start-ups, what happens is we get so engrossed in the delivery of the product, that the customer experience becomes the number one, right? First the product has to be ready, then the customer experience. We focus on that so much that we tend to forget the employees, right? Only when the employees’ experience is good, it is going to translate into the customer experience. Recently, I read on LinkedIn, that I think somebody had posted where an employee was part of a start-up and did everything well but forgot to take care of his health. And then later on, after a few years, he started realising that, okay, that start-up no longer exists, the design or code he did, that doesn't exist anymore, but his health has gone for a toss. Right? So that is where I think founders will have to be; especially since the last two years have changed their lives in many ways. And as you said, mental health has become the buzzword, but it's not just about mental health because I have been talking to the CHROs and talking about what well-being means and the well-being itself is not just mental well-being. It is also the complete well-being, holistic well-being. When I say holistic well-being, it's about financial well-being, because the financials also cause a lot of stress and anxiety for the employees in the workplace. So, how to manage the finances. That is also a big part of well-being, financial well-being, physical well-being, mental well-being, and how you take care of it, right? So, when you talk about a company's four-week awareness programs, and you just bring in one or two experts, and then they talk about how you need to take care of yourself and all that. But self-care alone is not enough. There are studies which show that self-care alone is not enough. The companies need to create a culture where well-being is important. And that is what they say as the founders or the leader themselves now, especially because things have changed so much to have conversations with employees, not just always about the work, but also just check-in, right, how are you doing? Just have a casual conversation about their well-being. So that needs to come between the founders as well as the employees to have that conversation and so that they can identify, because many times when people are suffering, they don't really talk about it so you need to find out. Again, it goes to where you see that somebody's productivity is going down or do you see some signs of them disengaging, it could be due to their wellbeing also. Many times you don't know all physical ailments are not physically visible. Right? So, when they are suffering, there could be some suffering, which you don't know. So how do you have that conversation? So, the leaders will also need to know to have those conversations with the employees. So, in the talk about how founders can create that culture right from the beginning, have a culture where employee experiences are important, right from onboarding them, how do you make sure you have frequent touchpoints with the employees and how do you keep them engaged? You can have different activities or those are extra things, but fundamentally it's the culture and the leadership believing in saying that my employees' experience should be good. So that employee experience translates into the customer experience. And when they are dealing with the customer, they are actually representing them and the companies together well to the customer. So, you have to take care of your employees. Employees are your people. I don't even want to call them assets, but it is like employees are the fundamental backbone of the company, right? So, you need to take care of them well and wellbeing is very important, and people do realise that after these two years, right, because of the pandemic, it has become very important. I was talking to some HR person and one of the things which came up was, earlier when an employee was going through a divorce, the HR would tell the employee, okay, you take care of it, and you can come to the workplace. So, they just give them extra leave or whatever is required. But now because work and life have integrated so much between work from home and everything when an employee is going through that kind of personal turmoil, the company has to hold him also. The company has to give him the support. So that is how things have changed in the last two years. So, it is no longer a personal issue. It is also the responsibility of the company to give him that space, to go through that and support him in whatever way the employee is going through that personal issue, right. So that is how things have changed and that is why well being is becoming very important. In start-ups when you have small teams, sometimes you overlook it because you're so engrossed in getting that product out and having so many customers and all that, that wellbeing becomes a nice to have. Okay, this could be nice to have, but then it is not must-have, but now it is becoming important, especially because of the attrition, you see the great resignation happening and everybody is going for small companies, start-ups to the big organisations are suffering, and this is one of the things which can hold your employees together and you can grow together as an organisation.
00:18:57
Harish: So, Jayashree, this is great, and we have spoken about wellbeing and how founders should be thinking about employee experience. We spoke about some of the perks and benefits earlier. I want to spend some more time on that. What is the role of incentives and perks? The joining bonuses and all the other benefits. Is it important? If it is, how important should it be?
00:19:44
Jayashree: The incentives are important, right? Incentives are important because when you get something done, when you finish a job or a milestone, there has to be a tangible acknowledgement. And only an incentive is a tangible acknowledgement. And the incentives, what I've seen, doesn't always have to translate into something big. I know now start-ups are going the other way. I mean, it's like they are giving grand bonuses when they sign in, or cars or whatever when they sign in, but that is to attract the employees, but what is going to keep them working for you? So, then you need to have some kind of incentive. Yes. The perks, when you have a pool table or whatever, it just creates some breakout time for them and then they will come and enjoy it. But at the end of the day, when they get something done, when they finish something or when they have achieved something, they expect a tangible acknowledgement, and that tangible acknowledgement, can be in terms of incentives, like, coupons either to restaurants or to buy things or whatever, or what I've also seen companies very successfully use is, it’s not necessary to have some monetary value. It can also be non-monetary, something like a comp-off or taking a day with your family or having dinner with the leadership team or in the US something like a prime parking spot also works, right? Like that non-monetary also works. But what is important is you have to have certain small incentives which happen when there is a tangible outcome or acknowledgement that needs to be given because you don't want them to wait for a year to find out what they did well, right. In traditional performance management, that's what is happening. But when you have these small incentives to acknowledge their work, which they have completed, it keeps them motivated and they try to do more. So, incentives are very important. But the perks, it again depends. Some of them say just because you have put in a new pool table or something, the employee engagement score doesn't go up. Not everybody's going to go and play at the pool table also. But then you can have certain hygiene factors. It depends on the demographics again. What I advise the companies when they're deciding the rewards program to consider the demographics of the employees, if they're really young, what will work, or if it is a multi-generational workforce, then what works? So, now we are coming into where it is also about personalised experiences and all that. So, you need to look at your organisation's demographics and think of what will make them feel motivated. Small incentives will work to keep them going and motivated. So, they know it in real-time. It is immediate which is happening rather than waiting for a long time to see what's going to happen.
00:23:00
Harish: Okay. Yeah. That brings us to the next question. I wanted you to talk a bit about Appreiz, your company and what inspired you to start Appreiz?
00:23:14
Jayashree: Okay. So, what inspired me to start Appreiz. I was in Microsoft before I started Appreiz. So, I think the first year, Satya Nadella became the CEO. Instead of the company meetings, he started doing worldwide hackathons and I was leading the pan-India hackathon. And at that time, it stuck with me, it's time for me to go to start something on my own, rather than, you know, I have been in GE then Microsoft in all leadership roles. I said it's time for me to go do something on my own. And during that process, I interacted with a lot of millennials in the organisation and then I also had done a lot of vertical roles across the organisation. And when you work across verticals you will see that your manager doesn't know what you do all that time. The recognition has to come from different stakeholders and all that. And having worked with millennials also, I found that they also need on the spot recognition. Because when you look at the millennials and Gen Zs, they grew up in what we call the star generation, like they get the star for participation in school, right. And when you come to the workplace, the expectation is also to get that validation as they are working, to have something which tells them that they are doing good. Because when I was growing up, it used to be, that you had to be in the top three to get those recognitions, but not anymore. Everybody gets a star when they work hard. You need to look at that and that is when it triggers something that there is a gap in this space. And with, especially the younger generation growing with the social media, like this recognition, when you post something, and you get alike, it is a recognition, right? So that type of a thing needs to be there in the workplace and that is why I started Appreiz Appreiz is started just as a social recognition platform, especially because when you get recognized at the workplace, when the normal was to get an email from your manager saying you have done the job, or at the best you will get a certificate. So that used to be the case. But now we are in a world where we want to share everything with our friends and professional network. So, sharing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and all becomes very important. And so that is why I built this whole thing called social recognition and Appraisal has evolved into a complete employee engagement platform now. But the underlying theme is social recognition. And one of the key things which we do, especially when employees face customers, partners, and suppliers and to get external recognition is not easy in the current situation. You'll send a survey that takes time. It doesn't come easily. If you're a bad employee, you will get immediate feedback, but if you are not, you don’t. So that is one of the key things which we did in Appreiz was also to get from external stakeholders also to make it easy to get recognized. It could be on social media, which is easy, and you can fill it in, or you can use a separate URL as well. So, the external recognition, the reason I'm talking about external recognition is also internal recognition, there is a way you do it, and then it gets published. We can share with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and you can also pull in. So, it becomes a 360 recognition. And once you have a 360 recognition, some companies used to spend time on doing a 360 survey right, now you have something which is real-time, immediate, whoever you're working with, you can get the recognition you need for the job you have done. And that kind of helps you keep going, get you motivated. And when you tie it up with rewards then it kind of like, you know, you'll see small incentives come in, you get motivated to do more. And also, to convert those recognitions you get, because what Appreiz does is it is not saying a good job because we just say a good job, it doesn't mean much to the person who receives it. But, if you say, hey, good job of demonstrating project management skills or risk management skills. Then they know what you are recognizing them for and also you can translate it into your strength. So, you did well, it also played on your strengths, right? So how do you play on your strength? So, that is how you get to know your strengths and then you can also add in the context and the outcome, and it gives a meaningful recognition to the person who receives it. And for the company itself, it creates a lot of analytics. So, you can know who's demonstrated what value or competency or a skill very well and for talent identification or talent promotability you can look at those dashboards and exactly see what you have and find the right person. So that is the fundamental theme on which Appreiz is built. So, Appreiz, as I said, it's like, my thing is everybody wants to do the best in the workplace and as a company, it is our thing to give them that positive environment to work in and then they will do their best. So Appreiz is built on what I call social recognition because for me, that is where it lays the foundation to an event your performance and we actually tied this recognition to the performance. Ours is the only platform I can say, which also does feed-forward rather than feedback. So, feed-forward is what you want the person to work on rather than looking back and saying this did not work well. So, then the 360 feeds forward and the 360 appraises; I call recognition as “appraise” only. So, they go together and make your performance management continuous. It is also more objective, and it is based on what others are saying and you get the collective, a 360 view of the person's strengths or values of competencies they have demonstrated well. So, it makes it objective.
00:30:21
Harish: Yes. This is really great and speaking from our own experience because when we go and work with companies on their culture and values, one thing that we talk to them about is building your internal mythology, how do I live in this country or in this culture is what has been passed on through all our mythological stories and every religion has their own holy book and set of stories. And that is what tells people how to live, what is the right way to behave and all of that. So, we keep asking, what is the mythology of your company? And there are stories inside, people will share them anecdotally. So, there are great stories, but then they say they will never capture them. We say you have already actually done this because you have given some spot award or things like that. Now we just want to concretize that story, make it more tangible and actually make that part of the consciousness for everyone. Some companies do a great job of that. So, I can see that, with a system like this, we can immediately say that, okay, if you are valuing these kinds of behaviours, go talk to these four people who have actually displayed this kind of behaviour, take that anecdote and then circulate it through your internal slack channels, use it as part of your hiring and all of that. So, yeah, I can see great value in what you're capturing as base information for people to sort of propagate is what they're talking about.
00:31:57
Jayashree: See when I let them share the things on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, some companies will come back and say, “Oh, I don't want employees to share the recognition they get there.” But you're spending time on building your company's presence on social media. If you let the employee share that this value is being valued in this company, then you don't have to do that. You can attract your future employees through that. They know exactly what value is being recognized in the company. And they would come, and this is a great way. Also looking at how employees are demonstrating the values of the company because that is the fundamental thing, how are they demonstrating the values and the competencies throughout. Because sometimes when companies do the value celebration week or value week, right, when they would roll out the values, they do that after that. After that what happens? Is every employee living that, or even the leaders? This actually tells if I see my CEO demonstrating some value, I can go recognize that and it shows that leaders are walking the talk.
00:33:14
Harish: Yeah. So, when we were reading about Appreiz, there is something called Pulse where you figure out whether people are happy or sad. We spoke about recognition. But now that you have this information, what do you advise managers to do about this information? Like, I found out that one of my team members is stressed or anxious. What are some of the actionable things that a leader can do, at every level?
00:33:46
Jayashree: The Employee Pulse that you read is what we do at the manager level. I don't capture it at the individual level. Right? So, these pulse surveys are based on the six questions of Dr Marshall Goldsmith, who says employee engagement has to come from the employee. The company can do whatever it is, but at the end of the day, the employee has to get engaged. And so just basically, did I do my best today, right? Or do I have clear goals? Am I happy or did I build a positive relationship in the workplace? So, it tells whether I am happy or not. So, what we do with the pulse surveys, is we show that trend at the manager level, we show a smiley or a frowned face to tell how your team is doing. And you can actually grill each question and see whether you are red, yellow or green, and you can also see the trend on how you have done, areas where you see it go down and what is causing it. But what we want the managers to do at that time, when they see that the pulse is really bad, right, what is it that then they'd have to drill it and basically, it will give you the question. And now, especially what I see is if you see them anxious or sad, and it could be because of the rent reasons, especially now with the current situation where we are, especially people who have gone through grief and everything in their family and all that we will find due to different reasons. So, what we also advise is, since the well-being, as you said, we are also transitioning into the wellbeing space, what we advise is something called for the managers. We need to train them first, or it may not always be the managers. It could be ambassadors in your team or whatever you call them. And they should be able to at least pick on or identify certain signs. If there is an employee, who's really sad. And they could be the go-to person for the employee to talk to, right, or find out what is the cause. And of course, after that, you need to have a proper well-being coach talk to the person, but at least you should have certain ambassadors or champions, who the team feels like a go-to person to go talk to. If there is anything bothering them. So, they need to figure out what is the cause and then take corrective action. The pulse survey need not be done only at a particular time, right? These are ongoing services. So, you can actually ask two questions a day or three questions a day, or daily, weekly or monthly, you can configure the way you want. So, it gives you a snapshot at that time, or if you're doing it weekly, you know how the trend is also going every week and how employees are. So, then you can take immediate corrective action and see what can be done if something is bothering them. And that is why you see, we also have what we call coaching module also in-built, where especially during the pandemic, we introduced that because anxiety can be because of different reasons and when people want to talk to somebody, the human intervention, then you can have them talk to because many times what we have seen is companies will give you an EAP number, which is you can call a counsellor and talk to if you want, but not everything needs to be discussed with the counsellor. If it is the team dynamics, which is causing me anxiety then talking to a counsellor will not help, or it's a whole mental stigma, the taboo, social stigma, everything is there to talk to a counsellor. So, people don't use it. But if you have coaches within your organisation or you have a tie-up with external coaches or part of employee engagement solutions, which we give the coaching solution, both, human intervention, then it helps. And now we are talking a lot about mindfulness, right, and how can that help? How can that help this person to become from sad to a positive person? So, you need to look at it and this has to be continuous. That is why it is called Pulse, rather than, earlier we used to do this long employee engagement surveys and then you analyse it for three months and then you bring up action items. So, that's what this Pulse is for. So, you need to do those corrective actions immediately.
00:38:49
Harish: Yeah. So, this is great. I'm sure many people who are listening to this will resonate with this and will understand this is something that they have to start in their organisation. How do they get started? Is there a right time for a solution, what kind of team size, and what kind of challenges would they be facing when they opt for this?
00:39:25
Jayashree: If the team size is less than ten, you're probably going to know each other better. But I think in my early days of starting up, I actually had a two-member organisation using my Appreiz and they used it well, then they would talk about it and all that. But if it grows beyond ten and especially if you are growing faster and I think at any time, recognition is very important for employees to continuously work. And especially you have this in the start-ups, we all know it is a stressful world, at least, right? The first, because we need to get the MVP, but to get there, then the customers, how do we get the customers and all that? So, the employees are constantly working. And so, if you put some things in place for their wellbeing, Anything beyond 10, I would say 10-15 is like, you know, have something in place so that you are setting the culture also within the company, because many times as you grow, then you are just hiring technical talent and all that, but you forget how to build a culture, right. So, it is good to set the culture. So, have the recognition culture, and then also the wellbeing. Look after the employee's wellbeing and look at it holistically, because as they come, if you're hiring fresh hires right, then they also need to know about the financials and all that. And so, things like that really help them. And so, any size above 10-15, maybe you can manage, you can have that personal touch, but after that, you will lose sight of who's there in the organisation. So, I would say more than 15, have some kind of a programme to have that recognition and wellbeing. And also look at the experience because what happens is, especially in the start-up world, after two years, people will start looking for another job. If freshers come into the organisation, you groom them for two years, and they are looking for something else, so, then how do you retain them? So, then they should feel right from day one, that experience and engagement with the company need to be there, so they are committed with you with the shared purpose of where we are going as a start-up. So, we want to hold them, even though you may give big things as at that age, monetary things are very important, they will jump easily from one company to another. But the way you treat them, the way you are working with them through all the two years will also hold them back. It's not that they find another company giving them 20,000, 25,000 more to jump to the other company, but there could be some experiences where they feel really part of the family that can hold them back.
00:42:28
Harish: Yeah. So, coming to the last few questions, Jayashree. So, over the years, you've worked with very large companies and now you're running your own start-up and you're working with a lot of start-ups. So, across this whole gamut or spectrum, if I would say, what are the top three insights about the workplace that, you know, because of your vantage point in observing these kinds of organisations, what would they be? Basically, what are the three things about a workplace that you know, that others don't?
00:43:07
Jayashree: See if it is a people organisation right, and when I say it's a people, organisation, people are valued and people are given what they work for and then taken care of, then people will stay with the company, the attrition is low when compared with the other company. Leadership and culture are the backbones, I would say of any organisation. When I see companies which try to roll out these Appreiz or any other tool, if the leadership sets the tone and sets that culture, then it is really done well. When you can see people engaging with the tool and using it. So, in everything, I think, leadership is important and leadership is held having good values, right? That again is a key thing, right? Otherwise, there is that whole thing when, after a few years it falls apart, so leadership and then values and the value system of the company is really something which is important. And workplace insight is if you have the right recognition or the reward system in place, also look at people. And that's why I said people's organisation and the value of the people is important. Then you have people staying back with you, rather than leaving. So that is where I find that workplaces make a difference as the way they treat their employees and employees have to be treated much far better than their customers. If you treat your employees better than your customers, your employees will treat your customers better.
00:45:06
Harish: Right. Yeah. I think that those are very key insights and also quite actionable in my opinion because you can actually take those and start applying them in your organisation like a formula. So, what are some of the books, people, and podcasts that have shaped your thinking over the years and what would you recommend to a business?
00:45:29
Jayashree: I am a great fan of Dr Marshall Goldsmith. So, some of my positive thinking comes from him. ‘What Got You Here Won't Get You There’ is one of his books that I like. And the other thing, which I started reading when I started Appreiz, is ‘Principles’ by Ray Dalio. That's a great book. And it just tells you the principles with which you need to have your organisation. And so that's another book, which I read. In terms of podcasts, I listen mostly to a16z podcast. And in terms of the people, there have been some leaders who might look up to our managers who have trained my thought process over the years. And then, the whole positivity actually I would say comes from my high school Tamil teacher, who really motivated me to do very well in standard tenth. And that is where, when you motivate someone, they really do better and she always used to say, I don't know Tamil but it means whatever you think, think high, so you would achieve that. So, that's kind of what inspired me throughout, which keeps me going.
00:47:13
Harish: Yeah that's fantastic. So, we’ve come to the end of this conversation, but we won't let you go without asking for your hot takes on certain things. This is a section where we ask all our guests, basically where we ask them, what is their take on the future relevance of whatever we are going to ask. Right. So, the first one is, what do you think is the future relevance of remote-first organisations or that style of working?
00:47:46
Jayashree: If anything is going to be the future, I would say it's a remote-first, right? So anything you do, we will have to see how it is going to work remote and that is where the future is. And even though companies are saying, people are going to come back, still, you have to figure out that's the way companies are going to work remote-first, how we post mobile-first and a few years back, now it is remote-first.
00:48:16
Harish: Okay. What do you think is the future relevance of the gig economy? People working as consultants at all levels. We're not talking just about people like Uber drivers or things like that, but even at the project manager level.
00:48:32
Jayashree: The gig economy is the future because people are going to have multiple jobs and as you see the younger generation, the Gen Z where they come, they have multiple interests. And they don't want to be tied with, I mean, even in our generation people had multiple interests, but we all got tied up with one or two organisations. And now the gig economy, it gives them the option to do freelancing and work on multiple interests. And it is a future and every company has to look for how they can have the gig economy workers as a part of the system, as they're planning for hybrid, as well as remote. Now you have your full time and gig workers. So then how do you manage the organisation better with those people, composition is also something which people have to look for.
00:49:35
Harish: And the last one, what do you think is the future relevance of people managers?
00:49:41
Jayashree: People managers are required and I know even though I won't say more than managers, I think people leaders. They will be relevant. And that is where we need to make sure that people leaders are not becoming people leaders because they are technical experts. They will become leaders because you have people coming to them for certain things and they are good at certain soft skills. And where they are the coaches, the people leaders will have to become the coaches. And that is where I see the future is, people leaders becoming coaches. And even though I know there are companies which are experimenting with, right, there's no manager, there is no team, there's no performance management, nothing, but then the team is working together. But that is where I would say people leaders transitioning as people coaches, because there also, you will need somebody to put somebody or whatever, so then the coaching becomes a really important skill for them to have. So they will transition into becoming more and getting the flock together kind of leaders will be what they will be more than the title.
00:51:04
Harish: Okay. On that note, Jayashree I think we covered a whole range of topics today in this conversation. We spoke about what are the indicators of a happy, healthy workforce and workplace? What should managers be looking at? We also spoke about what inspired you to start Appreiz? We spoke about your insights gained over the years. I think this is going to be a great conversation that listeners like, not just founders of small startups, but even I think leaders of the larger GIC sites also can pick something from this conversation and apply them in their workplace. So, this is really a great conversation that we had with Jayashree.
00:51:54
Jayashree: Yeah I enjoyed the conversation, Harish. They were really great questions to talk about and I look forward to how things go in the future as well. I enjoyed my time with you.
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