Rendezvous With, Saurabh Govil, President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Wipro Ltd.
Saurabh Govil is the President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Wipro Ltd. He is also a member of the Group Executive Council, a forum for the core group of Wipro leaders to deliberate and strategize the long-term vision of the corporation.
He is also a trustee of the Wipro Foundation, a not-for-profit trust that contributes to education, community service projects, and social development.
As the CHRO, Saurabh is responsible for the entire spectrum of the global Human Resources function, including talent planning, enhancing operational efficiencies, and driving people transformation initiatives across the organization. He is leading several pioneering programs to redesign the HR function for the digital age.
Saurabh is a seasoned Human Resources professional, with wide-ranging experience of over three decades. Prior to joining Wipro in 2009, Saurabh held leadership positions in organizations like ITC and GE.
He is an alumnus of XLRI, Jamshedpur where he completed his Masters in Human Resources. He is on the Advisory Board of the India Chapter of Society for Human Resources Management, the world’s largest HR professional society.
Q- What are the current HR challenges in IT Industry?
The last few years have been extremely interesting for the industry which saw rapid expansion and then a sudden change of pace. Global headwinds predict that the next few quarters will be tough for the industry. IT companies’ results are an indication of this.
The past few quarters have been trying for the industry where the industry balanced growth and cost considerations. This does take a toll on people. I sense there is a change fatigue in the industry and one of the biggest HR challenges today is to balance that with the transformative changes that are must-haves.
Alongside globally, we see the rising cost of living giving rise to an economic challenge: promote well-being and help people navigate COLA adjustments in this industry atmosphere. These two to my mind are the most significant challenges that the industry faces today.
Apart from that, we know that hybrid is here to stay while IT organizations realize the importance of getting people back to office. Playing the balancing act of flexibility and return to work is a challenge that the industry is yet to completely address.
I do anticipate that while hiring may go down there will be a shortage of specialized talent. The challenge of providing compelling careers to a multigenerational, multicultural workforce remains.
Q- How do you see FY24 in terms of growth and job opportunities?
FY 24 is likely to be a tough year. The industry has already witnessed ramp-downs, layoffs, and a cut in the hiring plans of companies worldwide, so it is clear that IT sector may not see the unprecedented hiring it saw a few quarters back. Hence there is going to be a cautious hiring trend in the IT industry.
However, we will definitely see growth in some specific skills such as Cybersecurity, AI, Data, and Digital Capabilities to name a few. IT professionals will need to adapt themselves as per these trends.
Q- Do you see any impact of the global recession on India’s IT sector?
We are integrated more than before with the global economy hence what happens at that level will impact our positions. The Indian IT-BPM sector is a major contributor to the world IT market, with a 56%share in the global outsourcing market.
A majority of the revenue of Indian IT companies comes from US and UK markets, especially from the consumer and banking sectors. As an outcome of the aftershock of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia- Ukraine conflict, and the banking crisis in the US, the global economy is currently faced with economic challenges which has had an impact on the Indian IT sector.
The slowdown is marked by 3 key behaviors: Reduction in investment activity, cost-cutting measures, and a decreased need for human capital in several pockets. The way I see it, this impact is expected to be short-lived. Firms in the West are turning more towards Indian IT sector for talent at scale at reduced cost as part of their outsourcing strategies.
Gartner has said that Indian IT spending is forecasted to grow by 2.6% in 2023 hence it is likely that the industry will soon take a positive turn. At Wipro we continue to remain positive through these times. We have reported record total bookings for FY23 – Total Bookings were up by 29% and large deal bookings were up by 155% YoY.
Q- How are you making remote work rewarding at Wipro?
Post the pandemic, hybrid work has become the new normal that companies have embraced, and are trying their best to keep their remote workers happy and engaged.
At Wipro, we quickly recognized that flexibility to work from home also comes with its set of challenges that need to be addressed while keeping employee wellbeing at the center. Quite often, working remotely can blur the lines between work and personal life. Added to this the lack of the right infrastructure set up can end up affecting overall employee wellbeing.
Wipro has taken a number of measures towards ensuring our remote workers feel engaged and rewarded.
- Policies: Our policies have been repurposed to ensure they are bias-free and objective without differentiating between an employee working from office, home, or remotely from another location. We also continuously educate our leaders on how to lead a hybrid workforce. This ensures that employees irrespective of their place of work are involved in decision-making processes.
- Employee Wellbeing: There are a number of online Physical and Mental Wellbeing programs offered to our employees to enroll virtually – Yoga, HIIT, Counselling sessions, Women’s health seminars, etc. Employees also receive on-screen alerts that nudge them to pause for a few minutes and perform simple exercises to avoid stress or burnout. Leadership communications and listening sessions happen in a virtual mode to ensure equitable participation.
- Learning & Development: Many of our employee training & development opportunities are now in VILT (Virtual Instructor Led Training) formats to ensure employees working remotely are not deprived of instructor-led training opportunities. Needless to say, Wipro has invested in online learning platforms to ensure employees have access to learning on the go.
- Recognition: Wipro has always had a very robust and intuitive online platform for recognition. Managers, teams, and peers vastly leverage this to reward and recognize their colleagues from time to time.
Our focus has always been to make the work meaningful and rewarding for our employees. The place of work is incidental. Our culture prides itself on high performance hence our focus remains on how to enable our employees to deliver superior outcomes.
Q- Companies have started implementing Chat GPT, how do you see its impact on jobs?
We need to view this in a larger context. Employees have always turned to internet to find better and quicker solutions to their day-to-day work. Before the advent of internet employees resorted to libraries or books. Of late, Chat GPT has rapidly become one of the most talked-about platforms in the Generative AI space – the key fascination being that it resembles “human-like” behavior.
It brings a set of unique capabilities that are intuitive and user-specific. Using ChatGPT, one can perform a range of activities like writing policies, and codes or even planning a holiday itinerary. In its current form, we must understand how can it help an employee do the job better. For instance, if I am entering a new geography and I need a first draft of some HR policy, can ChatGPT help me? Isn’t that a great aid to do my work?
ChatGPT however comes with its own set of challenges. We cannot be sure if the information is accurate, there is a risk of plagiarism, potential data, and IP violations. Like any new technology, the potential impact of ChatGPT on jobs will depend on factors, like the nature of the job, the extent of automation that is possible, and the exact tasks themselves.
Presently it can enable companies to automate certain tasks. Many companies may leverage the power of ChatGPT to improve the output of their work or expedite certain processes as well. It can also serve as a good platform to augment one’s own creative inputs.
However, many jobs, especially in the knowledge industry, still rely heavily on human input for creativity, understanding of cultural nuances, or exercising good judgment, which cannot be made completely independent of people intervention.
At this stage, I don’t think ChatGPT or similar Generative AI outputs can replace human work. They definitely can augment however human oversight is required. The rise of such AI tools has the potential to increase the demand for talent in areas of machine learning, big data, cybersecurity, and digital marketing which can aid in creating more jobs in the industry.
Q- What are your hiring plans for FY24?
The IT services industry is going through a slowdown which has had some impact on the job market today as compared to last year.
With the emergence of new skills and automation, there is lesser demand for some of the traditional skills.
Hence it is important to understand the effect of these changes and take advantage of learning opportunities to remain relevant. For those aspiring to enter the industry, they need to ensure that they have the right mix of skills. Our focus remains on hiring the optimal talent but as per the business needs in the tough environment today.
We will continue to follow a differentiated reward philosophy based on the skills that we hire for. Focus will remain on hiring people across the globe in line with our commitment to localization and diversity.
Q- Any final words?
The IT industry has been going through some interesting times in terms of new solutions coming to the market at a rapid pace. We are yet to learn the full import of these technologies however all initial experiences point to multiple potential benefits.
For instance, Digital transformation enabled an entire spectrum of workforce to enter the labour market. We will continue to see transformative changes in the IT landscape. As a people-intensive business the industry’s greatest assets are people and so is the greatest cost. Industry veterans will have their hands full balancing this equation in the coming few months.
Thank You, Saurabh!
