Frankly I’m also trying to figure that out (Laughs)

Jokes apart, around a year back, I was appointed as the Chief Happiness Officer. It was an unchartered territory then; however, the organization was very clear on the fact that Employee Happiness  should drive the productivity of the organization.

With this mandate, we identified six factors that would help us drive happiness at workplace. These six overlapping themes are denoted everywhere as six petals of a Sunflower.

The first theme or the first petal of our sunflower represents ‘Purpose at Work’. Purpose here could mean finding meaning to what I do at work as well as aligning my personal goals with that of the organization. This alignment of personal and professional goals leads to a higher connect with the organization, in turn leading to a higher social impact.

The second petal stands for ‘Connections’ where our emphasis is on  enhancing the connections amongst employees as well as of employees with the organization. Our focus lies on developing multi-level connections in terms of, say, partners with teams, team leads with their team members, and within team members. And this is important for us because, the pace at which we are growing now is very high and we need to keep pace with this growth.

The third and fourth petals highlight our focus on physical and mental health initiatives that play a critical role in the overall wellbeing of our people.

Additionally, we have developed what we call as ‘Happy Hubs’, as the fifth petal at various places in our offices for employees to unwind during office hours. These Happy hubs are visibly open spaces for people to relax in between meetings and work. Employees can also engage in some games like Carrom, TT etc.

The last pillar of our Happiness initiative is DEI. There are multitude of things that we do under this umbrella. But our primary focus is on gender, LGBTQ+ plus, people with disabilities and veterans. We’re now also looking at handling  intergenerational diversity.

So it is through these meaningful experiences that we try to create a culture of belonging and purpose at our workplace. Our philosophy is that Happiness is driven by creating a deeper and intrinsic connection of employees to the organization.  

1. ‘Connections’ form an integral part of your approach towards creating a happy workplace. How do you think employee connections create value for an organization?

I’ll give you an example of my own organization. Deloitte as you know is a multinational professional service network which provides services to its clients ranging from audit, consulting, tax, advisory, mergers, integration etc. But despite our widespread offerings we hardly operate in silos. More often than not clients approach us for solutions that require expertise ranging across these services. For us the client has presented us with a problem, and it must be solved. In such a scenario, we do not approach a client solely as a tax, audit or a consulting professional. This is where employee networks become absolutely important for us.

There are multiple things we do to ensure employee networking. Some of them are conscious, collaborative measures that we have in place and the other ones are happiness related events which have a strong impact on getting people to know each other and therefore give them a push to start to work with each other.

From a formal collaboration perspective, we have something called as a multi-disciplinary model driven through our performance management system. Whenever somebody does a sale or a client win during the year we categorize and track these achievements as individual wins, wins for multiple service lines within the same business and or as win for various businesses. Each of these categories have different weightages. We also track the growth in sales/revenues with the increase in contribution of multi-disciplinary/ collaborative teams.

The other perspective we look at is whether an individual brings other businesses to their client ? Again, that would mean that I need to know what the other business are doing and who is the right person to connect to. Some of our senior partners are designated as lead client service partners dedicated to building relationships with the client and understand the client’s ask. Once that is done, they navigate the internal territories and come back with the right set of people to perform the task at hand.

These are only a few examples highlighting the value that employee connections generate for the business. There are a lot of other avenues where employee networks can provide a platform for creating value for business.

1. You mentioned some happiness related events that you organize that have an impact on employee networking. Can you please elaborate? And do these networks provide the organization with any competitive advantage?

I believe Happiness is a serious business!  

In addition to the formal collaborative measures that I shared earlier; we focus on three  informal measures to enhance happiness and in turn collaborative behaviour within the Organization.

Firstly, we organize activities that pull people together beyond work. We have realized that one always wants to approach a client with somebody they know. It is human nature. So, we do a lot of events that brings people together and gives them an opportunity to connect. We have talent competitions done at local, regional and national level. People interact with each other at such events and get to know  each other eventually leading to a collaborative and supportive environment.

Another large-scale intervention that we carry out for establishing connections is organizing Family Day at office so that people feel connected to the organization. It sounds like a routine intervention, but the emotional connections built over such events are unprecedented. People who have hardly had an opportunity to speak to each other, get to talk and introduce each other to their families. We have had leaders coming in with their grandparents, parents and their children. So, all such interactions result in a lot of connections being established.

Thirdly the happy hubs that I had mentioned earlier allow employees to connect with each other over a sport during office time. People start networking with each other a lot more at these hubs than what they would have otherwise done.

I feel getting involved in activities also gives them internal satisfaction that eventually increases the happiness among employees. These behaviours certainly play a significant role in building great collaborative teams for any organization. Happy employees and Collaborative teams are every employer’s dream! Accomplishment of these two feats can put any organization much ahead of their competition.

Employee resource groups are basically groups of employees who come together in their workplace based on shared characteristics or life experiences. It facilitates a lot of conversations on topics that impact the people of that community or group.

For instance, we have an Employee Resource Group  called ‘India Stand Out’ from an LGBTQI perspective. As a part of this ERG, Employees who are part of the community and employees who are interested in the topic or are allies for the cause meet regularly at various locations. These meetings help in creating an open culture where people can talk about their gender differences, their sexual orientation  etc.  

We have a group for mental health where people discuss on topics concerning them, people share their lived experiences, bring in external facilitators to talk about the latest happenings on the topic etc. We also have a mental health champion network which consists of our employees. Their job is not to counsel people but to  be the eyes and ears to identify people who may be suffering. We are also creating an ERG for people with disabilities and another group for neurodiversity.

These groups help  by creating a safe space for people in different walks of their professional life to connect. These groups foster  a diverse, inclusive workplace aligned with organizations they serve. These also help build trust relationships that help companies flourish.

Networking is a skill that can provided unimaginable dividends, if done in a right manner. With large organization, there is always a challenge to ensure that our employees connect in a seamless manner. Numerous factors like distinct projects, workplaces, hybrid working etc. makes it more difficult for individuals to connect outside their office routines.

So, our pursuit is to organize a diverse range of activities that can offer employees an opportunity to get involved in activities spread across a wide spectrum. Initiatives like Flash mob, Sports Hub, Book reading clubs, Experience sharing sessions, etc. give our employees numerous mediums to connect with other employees on regular basis.

Additionally, a number of cause related initiatives such as blood donation camps, clothes donation campaign, mental health awareness etc. also unites a number of employees on their shared passion. Although we have flexi working and remote working policies, but such initiatives help us bring people together basis their talent or areas of interest. With such a wide range of offerings each employees gets an opportunity to be a part of something beyond their work profile, something that defines them or something that drives them.

Such initiatives play a vital role in not only developing employee networks but also help us as an organization to understand the pulse of our people.

I would say building your own personal eminence is of utmost importance. As you rise up to the leadership roles, it is important to have one’s own personal brand. You should be clear on the things that you stand for and how you would like to be seen as.  

To answer these questions, one should have a visibility. What I have done in my life is develop internal visibility within organization and network with colleagues. It can be something as simple as meeting more and more colleagues from different teams during lunch breaks.

The second tip is that if you are passionate about a topic, talk about it and talk about it to a larger audience. This helps you create your personal brand, because whenever people discuss that topic, they will start relating it to you.

You know me as Chief Happiness Officer, but I am also a Tax Partner responsible for taking care of social security initiatives for our employees. So, when the new labour codes were being discussed, everyone in the organization knew that they could reach out to me for any doubts. So, it is important to marry your technical skills with your visibility, take it as an opportunity and talk about it as various forums.

The other aspect is that one shouldn’t shy away from official gatherings such as evening dinners or team outings etc. And I think this is more applicable for women professionals, because women generally have a tendency to believe that once their work is done, they must  get back home. I understand that at times we have to prioritize things, but women shouldn’t always be prioritizing other things at the cost of networking.

So broadly my message to the readers is that they should consciously try to make themselves visible, use their technical skills to build their personal brand,  create eminence for themselves and to not shirk away from networking especially when they have an opportunity to travel for work. Travel broadens your horizon, and it also gives you an opportunity to meet new people.