The Shape of Work

#108: Nimisha Kunnath Chatterjee on employee experience - culture, engagement, and beyond

Springworks Season 1 Episode 108

On this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, we speak with Nimisha Kunnath Chatterjee, a Human Resources professional, author and mentor.

Nimisha has always been passionate about relationships and the human connection, along with an interest in psychology and human behaviour. Working across various HR functions with organizations such as Pulse Secure, AAyuja Inc and PVR Limited, Nimisha has plenty of expertise to share in this conversation.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

  • The employee experience: Culture, engagement, and beyond
  • One-up your 1-on-1s with trust and compassion
  • Is remote work a roadblock in defining organizational culture?
  • Proximity bias in a hybrid workplace
  • Fun, engaging and seamless virtual on-boarding 

The Employee Experience

The term ‘employee engagement and experience’ has received its due recognition during the pandemic. Earlier, the management was only concerned about increasing the commitment and productivity of employees at work. Now, the perspective is transitioning towards how to keep the employees happy so they can perform better at their jobs. Nimisha defines that these practices create an organization where we willingly show up for work rather than think before showing up for work constitute ‘employee experience’.

One-up your 1-on-1s with trust and compassion

Technology is playing an important role in ensuring a smooth workflow at the workplace. However, it is also creating a gap between the team members in their capacities. There are a few strategies that Nimisha suggests to bridge this gap:

  1. Strengthen the atmosphere of trust because we need to embrace flexibility. The more the team is involved in any decision making, the more the employees will feel valued and respected as individuals.
  2. The managers can also try to bring compassion to possible situations. To not only ask an employee about their wellbeing, but to also understand the struggles they might be facing. 
  3. Encouraging the teammates to check in on each other and develop collaboration among themselves enforces values and culture and bridges the one-on-one interaction among employees. 
  4. Recognizing and acknowledging an individual’s work within the team creates an everlasting relationship between the team members and employees and the organization.

Is remote work a roadblock in defining organizational culture?

The Hybrid model of work is what is suits everyone’s needs at present time. For many people, collaboration and working with their families has helped in improving their performance during work from home, but it has also affected a large number of people due to the absence of working facilities and a supportive work environment. 

Proximity bias in a hybrid workplace

As human beings, we all suffer from proximity bias. It is a natural inclination towards those who are closer to us. We unconsciously tend to favour people whom we physically meet every day over those who don’t. To combat this, Nimisha talks about a few skills that the managers need:

  1. They should build awareness towards such biased actions and strive to create an inclusive environment to reduce this effect. For instance, scheduling meetings or sharing information in an inclusive manner such that everyone can participate.
  2. The organization should establish a culture of psychological safety. Managers should address such biases through performance evaluation or one-on-one interaction with employees. An individual’s trust in the organization is built and strengthened during such practice.

Follow Nimisha on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Rohan Mankad