HR, Managers have to think about the wellbeing, mental health of their employees: Yvette Cameron, VP, Oracle

HR, Managers have to think about the wellbeing, mental health of their employees: Yvette Cameron, VP, Oracle

“HR leaders and managers have to think more about the wellbeing and mental health of their workforce,” said Yvette Cameron, Senior Vice President, Global HCM Product Strategy, Oracle. “They have to embrace more flexible work patterns. “We’re finding a greater focus on how managers and employees connect outside of traditional performance review conversations. I’m finding a more empathetic workplace than we had before the pandemic,” she said in an interview to ET’s Rica Bhattacharyya. She also talks about the impact of Artificial Intelligence and technology transformation on jobs. Edited excerpts:

Q. How has the Covid 19 pandemic transformed the workplace and workforce? Even as an increasing number of companies are calling people back to office, many employees still ask for flexibility. How do the managers and leaders address this situation?

The workforce and the way we think about work and the workplace has been forever changed. We have had some ebbs and flows. We saw the great resignation; we saw quiet quitting. We saw people returning now to work, but returning to work with different expectations and tolerances.An earlier survey by Oracle titled AI at Work showed that 96% of Indians said that the meaning of success had changed. For them success meant being more aligned with mental health and flexibility and individuals are prioritising mental health over even just pay considerations.

As organisations are looking to return more and more workers to the office, they’re being challenged with individuals not showing up and having more readiness to leave.

We also found during the pandemic that people felt isolated. They used that time to reflect on the relationship they had with their manager and their employers and many felt a lack of support from their organisations.

We are now, in three years since the start of the pandemic, more people have returned to work, but HR leaders and managers have had a shift in mindset. They have to think more now about the wellbeing and mental health of their workforce. They have to embrace more flexible work patterns.

Transparency of communication is important. We’re finding a greater focus on how managers and employees connect outside of traditional performance review conversations. We have a more empathetic workplace than we had before the pandemic.

Q. Is there a need for a change in mindset among leaders and managers to be able to implement the new ways of remote or hybrid working?
Work and the workforce and workplace have shifted permanently. And while some organisations do struggle with the concept of really embracing a hybrid work model, the fact is that it’s here. It is in the minds of individual employees.

During the pandemic and then the early hybrid, performance didn’t suffer. In some cases, performance improved. Satisfaction improved because people found better work-life balance.

Today’s model does require new thinking for the leaders, especially, whether your company has embraced hybrid or not, you still need to have a hybrid mindset because as we hire new people into our organisations, that mindset needs to change.

Q. Talking about workplace changes, we have seen rapid transformation in terms of technology innovation and adoption by companies across industry segments. To what extent tech transformation will lead certain jobs being replaced by machine or artificial intelligence?
So there’s been so much talk over the years about machines placing people, replacing people, and in truth, we are seeing some work that’s being replaced, that’s being replaced by artificial intelligence. I’m only seeing it for the betterment.

In Oracle, late last year, we were introduced to a capability called Recruiting Booster. And one of the key benefits of that offering was automated interview scheduling using artificial intelligence to access the calendars of the candidate of the various hiring team members as well as the recruiter to look at the openings and balance out across understanding the needs of how many meetings and follow ups were going to be needed and automatically make that scheduling happen.

Traditionally, that would be the work of a recruiting administrator or a recruiting assistant taking multiple hours. And now that’s been replaced by an AI.

There’s work that has been taken away from an individual, but rather than losing that position and company saying, we don’t need the recruiting leader anymore, now that the recruiting leader or assistant is freed up the person can focus on other tasks.

AI replacing the work, that’s just one of many examples where absolutely it is, but it’s advancing the output of the recruiter to be much more efficient. It helps improve the outcomes, reduces the cost for everybody, making it a much more fluid and frictionless process.

#Managers #wellbeing #mental #health #employees #Yvette #Cameron #Oracle

What’s your Reaction?
+1
0
+1
0
+1
0
+1
0
TOP