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It's time HR moves away from solving just the issue of time management, to instead focus on energy management — of both leaders and the workforce, Rashmi Sharma, Sr. Director, T&D, Bottling Investments Group, The Coca-Cola Company, says.
“How many of you think the job/role you're doing now can be replaced by AI?” This was a question posed by Rashmi Sharma, Sr. Director, T&D, Bottling Investments Group, The Coca-Cola Company, in her opening keynote at HRO's inaugural Transform Talent Thailand, to which most of the audience members indicated otherwise.
Setting the tone for the day, Rashmi took us through a session on how HR can play a role in optimising leadership performance & employee productivity, and how wellbeing is the hidden superpower for high-performing executives.
Understanding the rate of change
Pointing out data that showcased the rate of change in large organisations reaching certain milestones, Rashmi explained how the way organisations think and their expectations, versus how they have adapted, are much different today than they used to be. In fact, she added, the rate of internal change and external change for organisations have "almost come together".
"The rate of change you are experiencing today is the fastest you have experienced in your career. But if you look forward, you realise that it is also the slowest it will ever be — so it is only going to increase hereon. That creates an urgency for us to change", Rashmi highlighted.
What then, are the implications of this for HR leaders? It means that to get our organisations ready, HR needs to increase the rate of internal organisational change.
For this, the first thing we need to do is look at the roles that might be replaced by AI. In the interactive session, it turned out that some roles which audience felt will be replaced are roles such as payroll, HR operations, administrators, analytics, screening, coaching and mentoring, learning, data entry, and more. On the other hand, what roles may not be replaced by AI? The responses here included employee engagement, employer branding, HRBP roles, compensation & benefits, compliance, and talent acquisition.
In short, what is really valued, Rashmi pointed out, are roles that require more judgement, understanding of context, the ability to connect disparate dots; what she calls as a “high-touch approach”. As such, she urged CHROs to work on developing their organisational leaders to be agile and responsive. Better judgment, decision making, and emotional intelligence skills are some of the priority skills that Rashmi advocates for.
Moving into what this means for HR, Rashmi talked about tackling three levels of transformation: the individual level, the team level, and at an organisational level.
Transforming individuals: Better wellbeing = better decision-making
Nearly 60% of leaders surveyed in DDI International’s Global Leadership Forecast 2021 say they feel used up at the end of the workday, with about 40% feeling stressed and exhausted; and finally, 70% saying burnout is affecting their decision-making. Citing these points, Rashmi elaborated: "We do recognise that anything which is stressful beyond a certain point affects our productivity and the ability to make decisions. But what most people don't understand is, what does stress really mean?
"Very simply putting it, it equals challenges minus capacity (of leaders),” Rashmi said. She highlighted how most leaders are working in a highly challenging environment beyond their capacity. "So, you need to either reduce the challenges, or increase the capacity."
Affirming the importance of HR coming in as an enabler to solve the challenge, she reflected:
"People think time management is why they can’t take a break – but it’s not about that. It’s about energy management. As HR, we need to start solving for energy management – do our leaders know how to recuperate and recharge?"
Transforming teams: Creating a feedback culture
The key to transforming teams is to create a psychologically-safe environment. Identifying the need for leaders to foster a culture of open feedback, Rashmi shared how HR plays a pivotal role here. Importantly, what organisations often miss is adding the cultural context in how they expect managers to provide feedback in their current country. She shared an example of Thailand, where the ‘power distance’ and ‘uncertainty avoidance’ is high and how that plays into her training sessions on providing feedback.
What can HR do to facilitate a feedback culture? Provide avenues for two-way feedback, which both employees and leaders can benefit from. Through such a mechanism, organisations will be able to become more agile — after all, to be agile, there needs to be a safe culture that accepts failures, encourages feedback, and drives learning, Rashmi stressed.
Transforming organisations: Leveraging AI
Coming to the final theme, Rashmi brought in the importance of leveraging AI to move the organisation forward.
After taking the audience through her initial forays working with AI, Rashmi shared that she is now confident using this technology to support her day-to-day work. With this, she made the point that HR leaders need to experience generative AI themselves to truly grasp its value and capabilities, and to futureproof themselves as progressive HR professionals.
She highlighted how, no matter what stage a business is in, AI tools are available for their leaders to start experimenting with. At Coca Cola, for example, in her role, Rashmi deployed a digital learning coach for management trainees which helped support their training & development planning.
Rashmi reaffirmed that, ultimately, we must not ‘wait’ until AI starts affecting our roles – we need to start experimenting as an organisation now, so that we can kick off the learning curve that is needed for leaders to truly embrace AI as organisations transform.
As she aptly concluded: “Everybody can respond once the disruption is here. However, our role as leaders is to look ahead and anticipate the curves on the journey, prepare better, upskill for better decisions & judgement – all of this is truly possible only when our leaders know how to leverage their own wellbeing.
“HR leaders must leverage wellbeing in the leadership team, this will make way for higher productivity, leadership resilience, and deeper capacity to manage.”
These are just some of the insights derived from HRO's first-ever Transform Talent Thailand, held on 22 August 2024.
Held at Shangri-La, Bangkok, the conference saw more than 100 HR leaders in the country come together with the aim of elevating strategies to attract, engage, develop, and retain top talent.
Human Resources Online would like to thank all speakers, moderators, panellists, facilitators, and attendees for being valuable contributors to this event.
We would also like to extend our gratitude to our sponsors & partners for making this conference possible:
Gold Sponsors
- Workday
- Workvivo by Zoom
Exhibitor
- goFLUENT
Event partner
- Pigeonhole
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