To fundamentally improve our HR processes, we rely heavily on the cloud: Vivek Tripathi, Head-HR, AU Small Finance Bank

India’s banking sector has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past few years. As customer expectations and the overall functioning of the banking ecosystem evolve, banking organizations are also realigning their internal operations. AU Small Finance Bank is proactively investing in technology to ensure that all its HR processes are aligned to serve the needs of its employees. To fundamentally improve its HR processes, AU Small Finance Bank is relying heavily on the cloud and its embedded technologies such as AI, ML, and Data Analytics, says Vivek Tripathi, Head of HR, AU Small Finance Bank

Some edited excerpts from an interview:

How has the banking industry recently evolved considering the rise of digital banking? What are some of the core processes that have been significantly altered for Indian banks because of this evolution?

India is projected to become a $5 trillion economy by 2026-27, as suggested by the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook. This growth is highly attributed to the exponential growth expected in digital infrastructure for services, including ‘financial’. The sudden increase in digital adoption during the pandemic has made India a frontrunner in the financial technology revolution.

The wave of digital banking has urged Indian banks to leverage technology to bring entire banking to smartphones. After the pandemic, those who were hesitant or reluctant to use digital banking are now being forced to do so. It is a must have instead of a choice. Thus, there are high chances that this shift may not be momentary, and we can expect increased adoption of digital banking in near future because of its streamlined process and the convenience it offers.

Almost all core banking processes have significantly evolved due to a variety of digital banking services, ranging from financial management to HR processes to customer experience processes. In a nutshell, technology has essentially become a powerful catalyst for all banking operations.

While talking about the changes during this transition, we see technology and automation driving the banking sector these days. We have observed a trend for quick adoption of digital technologies amidst the pandemic, especially cloud technology, and many private and public banks have already embarked on a Cloud journey. We see banks of all sizes catering to rural and urban populations upscale their investments in cloud applications as they strive to provide the best mobile and digital banking experiences to their customers. Judging by the current trends, this is just the beginning of a complete overhaul of the Indian banking industry, and we will see even more prominent and substantial changes in the coming years.

Future of work and employee centricity has been much talked about topics in recent years. How do you think are employee processes changing within the Indian banking ecosystem?
Similar to the global workforce, banking sector employees in India have seen a shift in priorities, with an emphasis on work-life balance, flexibility, agility, and career development opportunities. They are also seeking resilient and holistic work environments that allow them to grow while also being mindful of their mental and emotional well-being. We strongly believe that the pandemic has brought an irreversible shift in the way we work, and banks need a long-term strategy to keep their employee’s happiness quotient intact. As digital banking and mobile banking take center stage and replace the traditional banking processes in the banking industry, the HR processes are also going digital and paperless. At the same time, employee priorities have shifted, necessitating more assistance from CHROs.

Overall, the role of HR leaders has evolved from managing HR functions such as payroll, attendance, and increments, among others, to a much more multifaceted supporter. CHROs are now expected to perform additional functions such as ensuring seamless communication through digital channels, providing learning and development opportunities, performance management functions, and providing emotional support to employees. Hence, CHROs are investing in the deployment of smart technologies including Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Analytics to assist them in carrying out their evolved role through strategic and data-driven decision making.

How does AU Small Finance Bank ensure that their HR processes are in sync with the needs of their employees, especially given their large employee base spread across multiple locations? Also, how do you ensure that your employee base is seamlessly integrated across multiple branches?
India’s banking sector has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past few years. As customer expectations and the overall functioning of the banking ecosystem evolve, banking organizations are also realigning their internal operations. We are proactively investing in technology to ensure that all our HR processes are aligned to serve the needs of our employees. To fundamentally improve our HR processes, we rely heavily on the Cloud and its embedded technologies such as AI, ML, and Data Analytics. As a banking player, we’re making significant strides in using Cloud computing to revolutionize our HR processes aligned to the needs of our huge employee base of nearly 30,000 employees.

We have implemented smart solutions and are leveraging technology to keep our employees connected across locations and to promote collaborative work practices.

How is technology specifically Cloud assisting AU Small Finance Bank in enhancing their HR processes? What are some of the solutions that the organization has implemented to automate HR processes and provide superior employee experiences?
The adoption of cloud technology has been transformational in streamlining and digitising our HR processes including the hiring and retirement series from recruitment, talent management, performance mapping, learning, and compensation all while consuming less time through automation. When started with our cloud journey, we were looking for a reliable cloud provider who could assist us throughout and empower our HR leaders. We opted for Oracle’s Cloud-native HCM application to functionally enhance our talent management processes and provide best-in-class experiences to our employees, thereby improving employee satisfaction.

The Oracle HCM solutions have helped us utilize the cloud capabilities to align and streamline our employee processes leading to a superior experience for candidates during the hiring process, new hires, and existing employees all through one integrated cloud platform. Furthermore, to meet employee priorities and career development needs, we are leveraging the solution’s embedded AI capabilities supported by HCM data integrity and completeness to help our workforce understand, map, and boost their goals and performance.

Apart from this, with the adoption of Oracle cloud solution, we have achieved benefits like reduction in hiring time, elimination of manual processes, candidate experience enhancement, goal performance process enhancement, and new hiring experience enhancement.

Can you highlight the compelling reasons to deploy Cloud and HR Tech? Also, could you go deeper into the specifics of the project, like how many employees this project covers, which geographies, the challenges that you faced pre-implementation, and how technology has paved the way to a seamless and streamlined employee centric HR function for you?
The changing industry standards were the compelling reasons for cloud adoption. Our priority was to address the needs of our workforce and provide them with the best experience. Therefore, after much deliberation, we chose a cloud-native application.

We started this approach with less than 8,000 employees. The biggest challenge was the lack of latest technology and the use of incongruent systems that made it difficult for us to keep all aspects in sync. This impacted the overall experience of employees and candidates.

As we started with the deployment of cloud and HR tech, initially, the team did struggle with the adoption and usage of modules. However, with Oracle Cloud HCM, eventually, we were able to unify all the HR processes on a single platform which helped in automation with the help of latest technology available in the market. Most of our manual processes have now been digitized through the adoption of cloud native HR Tech. Our complete employee life cycle is managed digitally including pre-onboarding, on-boarding, performance management, talent management, L&D etc. Besides, for supporting our ex-employees we have launched a portal on HCM that helps them with all necessary documentation while keeping them posted on the latest job openings.

Now, we have also become less dependent on IT as HR teams can manage the system on their own. Overall, it elevated the experience for our employees and candidates to the next level. Now, more than 30,000 employees are benefiting from our HR Tech.

What are some of your future digitization plans to further enhance your processes?

AU is a tech driven bank. Whether it is for the customers or for employees, our commitment to stay digitally forward will be a critical factor for influencing our future course of action. To ensure our employees and candidates get highly personalized experience, we are constantly working towards adopting latest technology and best practices along with adoption of analytics to drive decision making organization wide.

Going forward, I would like my team to focus more on strategic initiatives and move away from transactional activities. For this, we are increasing the use of AI / ML, Digital Assistants, Analytics etc.