India’s workplace can be redefined by keeping culture and tech front and centre, explains top Infosys executive 

There is a great quote by Charles Darwin about evolution that is apt for the evolving landscape of work today: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”  

For many of us, the workplace changed visibly after the pandemic. First, we shifted from office to home, and then we returned to office to work in a hybrid manner. The platforms and mediums we used for work-related interactions changed during this time, laying the foundation for new ways of working.  

Today, with much of the global workforce transitioning to a hybrid work model, organisations are working towards establishing an equilibrium in offices, homes, and co-working spaces. As the hybrid model gets fine-tuned and honed, we are witnessing a gradual transformation of Work, Workforce, and Workplace to cater to all employee segments – those working fully onsite, fully remotely, or in hybrid mode. The idea of work culture, too, is changing, necessitating leaders to adapt it to the ongoing digital transformation.  

Here are some suggestions on how we can redefine the digital workplace, keeping culture and technology front and centre.  

Culture: Culture is central to any organisation. It is shaped by values, excellence, collaboration, and most importantly, by people. For many tech companies, a significant part of their employee base joined after the Covid-19 pandemic, and it was crucial for those companies to reimagine the work culture, with the employee voice at the center. At Infosys, for instance, we arrived at key culture markers by conducting a poll asking employees about what "culture” meant to them. We now drive culture through three Es – Education, Enablement, and Experience. 

Employee Experience: Experience is an amalgamation of three key facets – Physical, Emotional, and Digital.  

Physical Experience: Organisations need to have good infrastructure facilities, agile workspaces, and collaboration spaces to provide great employee experiences. Different collaboration modes exist in a hybrid environment, and work can be either asynchronous or synchronous. Against this backdrop, organisations should try and get closer to their employees through distributed workspaces.  

Digital Experience: Modern workplaces should offer a hybrid digital experience, keeping three things in mind. It should be easy. It should be intuitive. And it should have a soul – in other words, it should reflect the organisational culture.  

Equality of experience: Technology must always be inclusive and equal. Scalable technology solutions can help organisations achieve equality of experience with the help of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.  

Personalization: Data-based personalization of experiences will be one of the key differentiators for organisations, going ahead. A one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to work. With different modes of work and new work processes emerging in a hybrid setup, it will be essential to personalize all digital offerings. 

Interconnectedness: Needless to say, systems and applications should be interconnected and able to speak to each other. 

Emotional Experience: Organisations must envision and work towards building a resilient and agile organisation, with empathy at the heart of all they do. 

Managers and Teams: An organisation’s culture is upheld and shaped by its teams. In a hybrid workplace, the role of teams and team managers will change significantly. How managers take care of their teams will be an important focus area. 

Wellbeing: We need to move from a silo-based approach for wellness programs and instead focus on creating wellness touchpoints in the everyday life of employees – not just at work, but beyond. A three-tiered model can help in this respect: Self Help to enable employees to take charge of their wellness; a Micro Environment for the wellbeing of managers and teams; and a Macro Environment to nurture an ecosystem where wellbeing takes precedence over all at an organisational level.  

Learning and Careers: Skilling, or training, is a crucial element of employee experience. With new technologies being integrated into existing work processes, it is imperative that organisations equip their employees with the necessary skills – like we do at Infosys through GEC Mysore, our corporate university. We have also been able to enable learning-on-the-go for our employees through Lex, a one-stop integrated learning platform that allows them to access trainings anytime, anywhere, and on any device.  

Ultimately, an organisation’s success depends on three interlinked aspects – productivity, culture, and flexibility. Productivity comes from defining and redefining objectives and outcomes. The true measure of productivity is outcome-based, not effort-based. Productivity will determine and strengthen flexibility, while culture will be at the center of it all, shaping and spearheading the evolution of a hybrid work culture. 

Views are personal. The author is SVP and Group Head – Employee Relations, Infosys