QUARTERLY MAGAZINE February 2023 Vol 12
QUARTERLY MAGAZINE February 2023 Vol 12
Focus
The RPG group was one of the early adopters of AI-driven HR technology. In 2018, the Group embarked on a journey to transform the HR function with a vision — to take employee experience to the next level by adopting an AI-powered advanced HR digital solution.
The Group began to automate and streamline employee services while transforming the HR function holistically. The shift from manual to a legacy HR tech stack to AI-powered virtual assistant (chatbot) was quick across all seven companies — CEAT, KEC, Zensar, RPG Life Sciences, Raychem RPG, Harrisons Malayalam and RPG Enterprises.
This not only enhanced the HR service delivery but also unified and created a homogenous employee experience across different enterprises and geographies.
Our Virtual Assistants are like a personal assistant available 24x7 to answer all people-related queries; helping us save hours, reduce resolution times, improve productivity and receive employee feedback.”
S 'Venky' Venkatesh,
President - Group HR, RPG Group
RPG’s HR Digital journey started with the implementation of the Human Resources Management System (HRMS). While this made the process consistent and centralised, we needed an intelligent platform to meet our strategic HR digitalisation goals: robust HR analytics, exceptional employee experience, and actionable insights.
That’s when the Group explored advanced HR digital solutions that would align with its vision and help go beyond the initial scope of automation and employee experience.
The Group HR team began introducing unique chatbots across its seven companies. As adoption grew, chatbots became a one-stop solution for all employee touchpoints across various platforms.
Today, the Virtual Assistants have answered over eight lakh employee queries, saving the Group several hours of productivity.
As a result of the chatbots, HR departments across Group companies can now easily track all employee tickets, average resolution time and queries raised under different categories via a centralised dashboard. Since the process is now streamlined, the time to resolve tickets has been reduced to four hours from one day.
An employee from CEAT shares his experience on how the Virtual Assistant Sherlock saved the day for him. He says, “I was at my bank applying for a home loan. I had no idea how to arrange for so many documents in such a short time — my salary slips of six months and many more! With so much paperwork required in such a short time, it almost felt like it would be impossible to manage. Then came Sherlock, a true detective, and my philosopher, guide and saviour. I accessed the app, and within minutes all the required documents were ready and in front of me.
A field employee from KEC adds, “I love how Electra is always proactive in sending me all important HR information. It has also made the process of leave application as simple as chatting.”
RPG’s Virtual Assistants have been a game changer in improving our HR service delivery and boosting employee experience significantly. The AI-powered chatbots resolve queries automatically and faster, while reducing costs. With the chatbots, we have a solution that delivers seamless enterprise-grade employee experiences.”
Pankaj Raut,
Group Head - HR Digital and Talent Management, RPG Enterprises
Besides automating employee issue resolution, the HR team has also automated and integrated several internal workflows such as internal job postings, leave applications, medical insurance claims, payroll information and a lot of other information that employees need on a day-to-day basis.
Given the success of the chatbots so far and the impact delivered, the HR Digital team is now looking at new use cases, such as offboarding, employee engagement, relationship management, and eliminating human interference for repetitive and mundane tasks, besides increasing adoption rate across the Group. The vision is simple — the chatbots will act as a unified and integrated experience layer to enhance accessibility, enable higher value-added productivity, and a platform to capture feedback at each and every people touchpoint.
