Rapid digitisation continues to reshape the workforce and business models for the retail sector. Further with the increasing influence of millennial employees, traditional HR is no longer sufficient to keep pace for companies in this sector. Employees look for convenient and engaging ways to develop their skills, along with the assurance that the company will support them will capabilities and resources to perform their jobs well. How can fast-growing companies in retail space support their employees’ career growth? How can these companies implement digital HR?
In an interview Rishu Garg, Chief People Officer, Zivame talks about the trends changing the present and future of retails sector and charts out a new aspiration for startups, SMEs and unicorns. She also talks about how Zimave is promoting a learning culture focused on career growth and development.
What are the big disruptions shaping the present and future of the retail Industry?
Consumer behaviour and their expectations from in-store experience have changed after the pandemic, as customers come back to shop at retail stores creating an experience that is safe and personalised to the customer needs is on the top of the mind for every retailer.
With deep focus on using technology for creating customer delight, retail industry is investing in digitisation to understand each customer, develop faster feedback loops (learning from online ecommerce) to fulfil demand, run processes efficiently and mobilise people in the right areas.
Lack of career advancement remains a top reason triggering the great resignation. How are you addressing this need for talent?
Zivame has grown multi-fold in the last few years, which has opened up new opportunities for the growth of people here. Identifying people’s strengths and providing exciting career paths to them has been a top priority at Zivame.
Our career ladders and career lattice initiative, encourage cross-functional and cross-channel movements for our talent to help them learn new skills and grow within the organisation.
As a part of this initiative each employee is encouraged to take charge of their own career growth, explore competencies for different roles and discuss career movements with their managers.
Based on the next roles they want to opt for, each employee is supported with functional and leadership skills, through the Zivame academy, to build capability for achieving success in these roles.
What is the big change you are making in your HR teams to prepare them for unexpected challenges?
One of the biggest focus areas for us this year is to use technology in driving a consistent employee experience across our workforce.
We are scaling rapidly and adding new people to our workforce everyday, adopting tech solutions with the same pace has helped us to ensure that each employee, irrespective of their work location, feels connected with the purpose, values and objectives of the organisation.
Another key focus area for us has been developing a robust talent pipeline by reaching out to diverse sources and pools to fulfil growth requirements at top speed. In the process we are continuously learning which pools are working well for us and further co-creating skilled pools for future roles.
What is your ambition for HR in startups and SMEs? How can they transform as change leaders and business enablers?
Young emerging organisations provide a conducive environment to experiment with new ideas, learn quickly and grow each day.
As Shunryu Suzuki once said : In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.
The hypergrowth in startups coupled with less hierarchy, gives an opportunity to HR teams to try new practices, discovering new best practices in the process.
From designing flexible & personalised employment rules, to creating fungible talent pools, HR in startups is enabling growth by listening deeply to both people and business, and using insights from these conversations to pave new possibilities.
As people search for roles that help them discover and live their purpose, I feel HR in startups will continue to transform the rules of managing talent and will design the future of work.