In this episode, Springworks' Sales Ninja - Junius Dsilva - talks to Priya Wadhwa, Head of People and Culture at Zipgrid. She explains how an organization’s culture depends on a diverse set of factors and why cultural fitment is as important as skills fitment in hiring.
From working with MNCs to landing at ZipGrid, Priya shares her perspective on cultural shifts across industries and organizations.
ZipGrid is a community ecosystem platform that provides technology-led services to societies and other forms of housing and commercial communities.
Priya's previous stints include working for Creativeland Asia, Madison, and Edelman. She oversees many facets of HR such as talent acquisition, training, performance management, compensation and benefits.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Culture changes with the industry
Working for MNCs such as Creativeland Asia, Madison, and Edelman, Priya decided to shift her journey working for a startup.
When Priya joined Zipgrid in 2016, there were only 35 people in the team and she knew it was difficult to attract talent at that point of time. However,her role of making a 35 person team to 100 plus felt like an exciting challenge to her.
“That’s exactly the challenge we put forward to any person that we want to hire”, she says.
Priya has been managing the entire gamut of HR. She wanted to explore a corporate housing industry like Zipgrid, and not repeat her journey in the media or advertising company.
A lot of her knowledge and understanding of industries came through her own research. Before she got interviewed at Zipgrid, she never interfered in her own society matters. Now she is a member of her society’s committee and has an internal committee. This change is something that she had to bring in herself because she wanted to get into this kind of industry professionally.
Every industry needs to approach HR differently because every sector or industry is different from each other. Somebody who's really good in the media industry may not always perform HR the same way for the other industry. It is necessary to understand the industry and business thoroughly.
Don’t forget your gig workers:.
Engaging gig workers demand a deep-dive into the behavioral psychology of these one-of-a-kind people, because one very significant thing is their availability.
The value system that gig workers live by differs significantly from the value system of regular employees. To develop and maintain a happy, productive gig employee-base, HR must understand the psychology that inspires gig-workers.
HR must invest in resources to integrate freelance workers into the team, whether it means scheduling periodic team connections (even virtual), or using collaboration apps to enhance professional communication.
Priya shares that they do a separate event for their gig workers where they engage them in fun activities and reward them with small cash benefits, but it's advertised well across the organisation to balance the engagement across the organization.
Priya’s LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-wadhwa-rego-9448a04/
Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Junius Dsilva