QUARTERLY MAGAZINE July 2023 Vol 13
QUARTERLY MAGAZINE July 2023 Vol 13
IN CONVERSATION
At RPG, happiness is intrinsic to how we operate. It goes beyond people, policies and practices and has become a way of life for all. In 2020, in a bid to make happiness a business priority as well, the Group introduced Happiness Councils across its seven companies, and these have been chaired by senior leaders from the respective companies.
The Happiness Councils are involved in implementing organisation-wide initiatives through various touchpoints that enable employees to thrive in a happy and engaging work environment. Members of the Council, who are also the Happiness Ambassadors of these companies, truly embody the spirit of happiness that RPG stands and strives for.
Vivek Ranjan, who also represents Zensar in the RPG Happiness Council, takes us through the key highlights of Zensar's success with the Happiness Council.
One of the main priorities of the Council is to increase the Happiness Quotient, which we have successfully increased from 75% to 84% in the past three years. We also wanted to understand and work on the annual Happiness survey feedback to ensure that Zensarians across the globe feel heard and through our actions, decisions, and initiatives become happier at the workplace.
Zensar’s ‘Think Velocity’ mindset enabled us to put happiness on a trajectory that is in the right direction with a speed that propels us to achieve our set goals. While our Council focused on and implemented significant initiatives under each of the six RPG Happiness tenets, we identified areas where we needed to give differentiated attention. As a result, we have seen a remarkable improvement in our Happiness scores, and our associates are feeling more connected to the workplace.
Through focused efforts to make employees feel valued at work, we enhanced our culture of appreciation and recognition through various initiatives such as quarterly promotions, celebrating appreciation weeks, and running various R&R programmes through our in-house Star portal. In fact, we even gamified the R&R programme with Star points that could be redeemed to purchase items from the marketplace or donated to social work or charities that give Zensarians a sense of feeling valued and purposeful.
For ‘I lead a purposeful and balanced life’ - the Council realised that happiness and wellness are concepts that need to be defined and owned by an individual. As an organisation, to build an environment that actively supports them, we introduced multiple initiatives like the adoption of self-reflection and wellness in KRAs, shorter virtual meetings, wellness library, driving social change through multiple CSR drives for tree plantation, orphanage visits, donations, etc.
An initiative that stood out to amalgamate purpose with cause and even found a spot in the top ten innovations at this year’s RPG Inspiring Innovation festival was ‘Charity As we Run Miles’ (CHARM). As Zensar celebrated its 100 years in business, a fitness challenge was introduced as the organisation came together to solve the challenge of collectively clocking 100,000 km.
For the tenet, ‘I love my work’, the objective was to create opportunities for growth and capability development, so employees could outperform and thrive with a sense of fulfillment in their work. We continued to provide a collaborative and inclusive work environment, that fosters diverse skillsets and minds to come together, work on cutting-edge technologies and transform impactful ideas into industry-leading solutions for our clients and communities.
Initiatives under the ‘I am growing’ tenet ensure that learning and personal growth never stop at Zensar. Some of the initiatives included launching Percipio on MS Teams, building Guilds and Communities, launching Zensar Learning Academy, boot camps for People Managers, etc.
Our people-first approach is the bedrock of ‘I cherish our culture’ tenet that reflects in our open, transparent and inclusive culture. We created a sense of pride, inspiration, and engagement through various events like celebrating Zensar’s 100-year legacy, regional festivities, and DE&I events including sign language and gender sensitisation programmes, among others.
Other forms of improvement initiatives like creating a hybrid workplace for employees, and wellness initiatives around employees’ physical, emotional and mental well-being, have helped create a happier work environment for all.
Given Zensar’s global reach, our initiatives are geographically and culturally diverse, catering to employees all over the world. The Happiness Council, consisting of global members, brings in local nuances to create informal and formal ways of connecting and delivering the right experiences that work across regions.
Under the ‘I feel connected’ tenet, various initiatives provide opportunities for global employees to connect, engage, and expand their circle of happiness. This includes physical and virtual leadership connects and townhalls through Zensar’s Premier Meets, strengthening work relationships through meaningful conversations, creating opportunities to be heard through pop polls and quizzes, etc. Our phygital R&R awards ceremonies have awards sent to the winners’ houses to enhance their personal experience and celebrate with our extended Zensar families.
Our internal platforms like Engage and Zenlounge+ are abuzz and act like the social media of Zensar –providing company updates, collaboration, and mutual appreciation opportunities, a platform to explore personal interests, crowdsource and spark ideas in ways that best suit an individual.
One of the reasons the Happiness Council at Zensar has been able to make a positive impact is the top-down buy-in and having senior leaders who are committed to the cause. However, the true measure of success comes from the 50-member strong Council, all of whom share a sense of ownership and pride with the organisation and the Council. This helps create opportunities and develop an eco-system where others strive to be part of the Council, as well.
Another reason for success is the drive to create happy clients through various initiatives driven by the Council. These include capability development, engagement, and retention – all of which have led to very positive levels of client satisfaction and feedback.
The Council shares regular updates with employees on the various initiatives being rolled out, and their impact. This ensures that the employees feel heard and that their time and input are being valued and recognised.
