How Many HR Tools Do You Need, Before You Know You Have It All?

Could not attend #TheHRFolks session? Worry not. You can still watch the entire event on our Youtube Channel (video embedded above).

Here is a summary of the hour-long event that will help you gain insights into the discussion.

The session began with a round of introduction of the esteemed panel.

Mr. Ketan Krishna, the head of Human Resources of RentoMojo, was with us. He has over 15 years of experience working for several well-known brands and organizations, including IDFC Bank. Mr. Ketan, a coach, and author, has aided many start-ups in their growth.

Ms. Divkiran Kathuria, Director at Talent Mobility and Talent Tech, has extensive professional experience in HR Transformations and HR Product Management. Divkiran focuses on utilizing the emerging HR technology for the exponential progress of organizations.

Mr. Punret Beotra, Head of People Operations at FalconX, has helped build companies from the ground level up both in talent management and HR operations.

After the brief introductions, the session moved on to discussing the topic at hand with the first question being asked by the host, Meena (HR Lead at Airmeet).

What are the must-have tools for start-ups or big companies to improve engagement, productivity, etc?

Ketan - To start with, what's relatively more important is to figure out when do start-ups or organizations need a particular tool. To simply put it together, look at any process. If there is an individual between the information you have and output, there is a need to implement the correct tool there.

From my experience, tools like Culture Monkey help a lot. They help you listen to your employees better and create more growth opportunities—for the company and your employees. It undoubtedly facilitated us to improve employee engagement at RentoMojo. And even in such difficult times when the team is working in remote locations, it helps to capture the pulse of the organization and most importantly, take action!

Now, Performance Management has been the most challenging because we try to build transparency. Tools like Dockabl help here. It enables organizations to manage work & performance, enabling teams to stay productive and inspired. It is agile and affordable.

Meena agreed that tools like Culture Monkey, Culture, and Inferno are absolutely useful.

The next question asked by Meena was:

What are the HR and recruitment tools that early-stage start-ups use?

Punret - In this ongoing pandemic, it has become more important than ever to make recruitment and other processes simpler. Freshteam is a nice tool I would suggest. It is a smart HR software that helps you handle recruiting, onboarding, time off, and employee information in one place. It is affordable for early-stage start-ups who don’t initially want to invest heavily.

Moving on swiftly, the next interesting question by Meena was:

When is the correct time to introduce LND Tools?

Divkiran - No one tool is enough to deliver the end-to-end vision whether it be a start-up or an established old organization, but LND is tools are really important because it is not just learning, but also development tied to it. It is all about how much value it is adding.

Would you like to enlighten us more on the productivity tools?

Divkiran - Microsoft is the prime tool that our organization uses. It has a lot to offer from keeping a track of how much time we are spending in meetings to how much time we are keeping for ourselves and much more. While we are all working from home and the teams are distributed, it is vital to know how much productivity tools can help us manage productivity.

Punret - From last year we have tried a lot of efficiency and productivity tools like Monday.com. We've used another tool called  Coda to do everything from run weekly meetings, to launch products, etc. Google Analytics is something we swear by. But the most decent tool out of all the options that we have tried is Donut. It is kind of an extension of Slack. Donut helps connect teams serendipitously for virtual coffee, peer learning, DEI discussions, and more.

I also feel that work from home becoming the new norm, there are a lot of potential tools that will emerge in the coming months.

Ketan - The most important dimension of technology is that it should support the philosophy of the organization. As we talk about productivity, performance enablement is a far more cohesive word but as far as the tools are concerned, Slack and Click-up are good to use. Dockabl is another great tool present in the market.  We also have used very simple tools like Metabase for the same purpose and to create individual dashboards. They are all used to enhance the output systematically.

This was followed by a discussion on:

What are the challenges that come along with accepting and implementing these tools?

Punret - In life and otherwise how people perceive anything new is a challenge. For example, the older folks might be used to a particular set of things. The most important challenges that we face are first, making team members and people understand how to use a particular tool. And it becomes all the more difficult when we all are working from different locations. It devoids us of the liberty to go straight up to a person and solve any issue. Creating small snippets helped us to somewhat overcome this challenge.

Ketan - The two challenges I see in any technology are, one, a lot of times we just want to take a technology and force it down. It fails. Creating values for your user is necessary. This can only be resolved when we understand the technology and the pinpoints of the business. Thinking as product managers can help. At the end of the day integration of the technology and selecting what works for you is the key.

Divkiran - Cloud brought forward various benefits to us but the drawback was it is not a customizable tool, which is why it depends on the organisation to decide which tool works best for them. Additionally, cloud systems are very new which also involve several niche integrations which can be challenging to understand. Cloud systems also update every three months which can be an issue. Another challenge is to look at the processes of the tool before implementing it and also simplifying the usage of the system for all necessary members.

Do you think there are AI driven tools that have replaced people in organizations? If yes, what are they?

Ketan - So talking about the tools, I really like Skillate. They are trying to solve the entire recruitment problem. It will take time, but I like what they have essentially done. Another company that I am impressed with, that is doing a lot of work in the performance management space using AI is Mesh. Their thinking is way ahead.

Divkiran - According to my experience, EdCast  is a great tool. ThoughtSpot is another wonderful tool. It is a business intelligence and big data analytics platform that helps you explore, analyze and share real-time business analytics data easily.

With this, the session was drawn to an end.

We hope you found this summary to be helpful. We look forward to seeing you in the next session.