Human Resource Community

PwC India announced on Monday that, through the use of its new “People Experience Framework,” it is committed to investing more than Rs 600 crore over the following three years in the overall growth, development, and welfare of its workforce. The framework gives workers access to individualised opportunities that let them live their lives as they see fit, including taking care of their families’ needs and finding work that aligns with their values and purpose. This fosters an environment in which they can develop the skills they’ll need in the future. According to Sanjeev Krishan, Chairperson of PwC in India, “Our new People Experience Framework will bring in increased emphasis on growth and development, customised rewards, benefits and well-being that are stitched into our daily experiences, and where we have the flexibility to support our people as their lives and needs shift over time.” For regular full-time employees up to the Director level, PwC India has announced a non-residential executive MBA programme. The company would cover 75% of the employees’ course fees (up to Rs 10 lakh per person). Also, the sponsorship of self-initiated learning certifications has increased from the previous Rs 30,000 to up to Rs 1 lakh. The company has increased medical coverage for each employee, their spouse, and their two children to (Rs. 20 lakh) (up from an average of Rs 5 lakh). In addition, a “Recharge and Rejuvenate” policy has been implemented, giving each employee a minimum of 10 days of annual downtime. The company added that paternity leaves had been increased to 30 days. “Just as we are relentlessly client focused, we will continue to invest in our people. The most meaningful workplace experiences are those that are created with people’s interests top of mind,” said Padmaja Alaganandan, Chief People Officer, PwC India.

According to a Google announcement, the company will no longer require COVID-19 vaccinations for all of its employees worldwide. When the policy was first put into place in December 2021, it was met with opposition from employees who did not want to get vaccinated. Google has withdrawn the policy after US President Joe Biden signed legislation ending the national emergency response to the pandemic, noting that the majority of people currently have some kind of immunity against COVID-19. Nonetheless, the company still urges employees to stay at home if they have COVID-19-like symptoms and to maintain their COVID-19 vaccination records. They are also advised to get vaccinated against the flu every year. Google has also made the decision to reduce several staff perks, such as complimentary massages, laundry services, and meals, in order to cut costs. It is now only giving engineers MacBooks, and giving non-engineering employees Chromebooks. The company claims that using Chromebooks will provide employees a practical understanding of their own products. In light of the rising number of COVID-19 cases in India, Google has declined to comment on whether these changes will be made here.

By the end of April, Tata Group plans to complete the acquisition of Wistron’s iPhone manufacturing facility. India’s first domestic production line for Apple products will be provided via the deal. According to the Business Line, many employees would lose their jobs as a result of the acquisition as well. According to reports, the Tata Group has started making organisational changes at the factory, and it is anticipated that over 2,000 workers will be let go as part of the acquisition process. Also, there is a strong likelihood that 400 midlevel employees in the Bangalore plant will be let go. Furthermore, four to five senior-level executives are leaving right now or have been instructed to go. Notwithstanding the impending layoffs, Tata has taken a number of steps to expand its business with Apple, which will also lead to the hiring of more staff at its Tamil Nadu facility that manufactures iPhone components. Also, there are rumours that Pegatron’s iPhone production facilities may be acquired by Tata. Also, after the acquisition, the Indian conglomerate might start producing the iPhone 15. Eight production lines are now being used in Wistron’s Indian plant to produce the iPhone 12 and iPhone 14. Wistron will no longer have a presence in the Indian market if Tata acquires the Bengaluru plant since this was their only location making Apple products in India. Wistron, Pegatron, and Foxconn are the major Taiwanese companies that assemble Apple products in India. While Foxconn and Pegatron have increased the size of their manufacturing facilities in India, Wistron is departing the country.

Dunzo, an Indian startup that offers last-minute grocery and vital delivery services, reportedly fired 30% of its staff in a new round of downsizing. The company’s engineering positions are reportedly most affected by the layoffs. The announcement was made during a town hall with a Q&A session that followed an organization-wide call. The decision was later explained to the impacted workers during individual meetings with their managers. Dunzo has downsized before in an effort to improve efficiency and lower expenses. The company fired 3% of its employees in January of this year. According to regulatory filings, the company’s FY22 losses grew to Rs 464 crore from Rs 229 crore in FY21, which led to the most recent round of layoffs. The firm spent Rs 531.7 crore in total in FY22, compared to Rs 54.3 crore in operating revenue. The advertisement for the company was one of the major expenses. Not just Dunzo is attempting to reduce expenses. Competitors like Zepto and Swiggy have implemented similar policies. Google and Reliance are the company’s investors. Google and Reliance hold a 20 per cent and 25.8 per cent stake in the company respectively.

Since taking over as CEO of Twitter in October of last year, Elon Musk has frequently made news for implementing new regulations and adjustments to the microblogging platform. The 51-year-old billionaire continued this by updating Twitter once more, replacing the iconic “blue bird” logo with the “doge” meme from the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. The Shiba Inu dog’s face can be seen on the “doge” meme. On the web version, the “blue bird” logo has prominently been used as the home button. The “doge” meme, which is a part of the Dogecoin blockchain and cryptocurrency logo and was created as a joke in 2013. Additionally, Musk posted a hilarious image on his account of the “doge” meme telling a police officer—who appears to be looking at his driver’s license—that his picture has been changed. pic.twitter.com/wmN5WxUhfQ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023 The Twitter mobile app, in particular, remained unchanged. It is important to note that the Shiba Inu-based doge image is well-known as the logo of the Dogecoin blockchain and cryptocurrency, which was developed in 2013 as a joke to mock other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, according to ANI quoting Variety. Moreover, the CEO of Twitter released a screenshot of a chat he had with the user who wanted to modify the bird logo to “doge.” Musk tweeted about this post and added, “As promised.” The discussion in question happened on March 26, 2022. As promised pic.twitter.com/Jc1TnAqxAV — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2023 Variety reports that Musk is a well-known superfan of the “Doge meme” and that he pushed Dogecoin on Twitter and while presenting “Saturday Night Live” last year. The value of Dogecoin surged by more than 20% following the modification to Twitter’s web logo. Earlier, on February 15, Musk tweeted a picture of the Dogecoin blockchain and cryptocurrency logo on his account while posing as the CEO and wrote, “The new CEO of Twitter is amazing,” showing his affinity for the “doge” cryptocurrency. It’s worth noting here that Musk took over Twitter’s control in October 2022. After months of uncertainty and a protracted legal dispute, the $44 billion deal was finally agreed upon. Musk spent months attempting to back out of the agreement after initially agreeing to acquire the company in April, initially expressing worries about the number of bots on the platform and then allegations made by a company whistle-blower. Musk reportedly sold Tesla shares worth about $8.5 billion to help pay for the purchase of Twitter.

 In order to solve the issue of organisations finding it difficult to properly respond to tier-1 questions from employees owing to a variety of factors, EY and Microsoft have teamed up to develop an intelligent payroll chatbot for the next-generation payroll platform. The EY intelligent payroll chatbot will modernise payroll employee care, automate payroll administrator controls, and offer strategic insights for workforce development using the azure openAI service and EY payroll experience. Using proof-of-concept data, the chatbot will increase KPIs for first-contact resolution and employee satisfaction by over 50%. The EY intelligent payroll chatbot will be included in the EY employee experience web and mobile applications, which provide employees with compliant payslips, tax documents, and insights in 49 different languages and 159 different countries. In order to formalise EY’s best practises for tax and payroll intelligence, Microsoft and EY will also work together more closely to develop new AI tax applications and LLMs. In order to formalise EY’s cutting-edge strategies for tax and payroll intelligence, EY and Microsoft will continue to create LLMs and new AI Tax applications. EY is dedicated to enhancing the client experience through the use of new age technology and generative AI. Microsoft is thrilled to be a part of this partnership, which makes use of the Azure Open AI Service to deliver cutting-edge regulatory compliance solutions that benefit from the most advanced AI models available. The EY intelligent payroll chatbot uses LLMs to comprehend the ontological structure of a payslip for an employee, and azure openAI services assists EY in ethically integrating the most recent generative AI into their products.

In a fourth round of layoffs, the EdTech unicorn Unacademy has cut 12% of its workforce. Softbank is the platform’s backer. It provides test preparation services. According to reports, Unacademy co-founder Gaurav Munjal informed the staff via an internal memo that the most recent round of layoffs was necessary in order to make the company profitable. A severance payment equivalent to the notice period and an additional month’s pay will be given to the laid-off employees. If they have worked for the company for a minimum of a year, they will additionally get an accelerated vesting of a year. Relevel, an ed-tech platform run by Unacademy, lay off 20% of its staff in January of this year. Those who persisted at the time were to be moved to other Unacademy Group departments. At the time, the company was concentrating more on testing new products as well as a new app called NextLevel. The Bengaluru-based Unacademy let go 350 employees in November of last year after realising that, despite significant cost cuts and managing redundancies, it had not been able to run as a lean organisation or help speed up to the desired level. About 600 employees were asked to leave in April 2022, and another 150 were urged to do the same in June 2022.

It’s expected that Air India would announce an increase in employee compensation. The anticipated raises are most likely to range between 8% and 10% and will affect a variety of workers, including pilots and cabin crew. This action is being taken as industry competitiveness is rising. Also, the initial set of pay raises might start to take effect in the coming months, starting with pilots. Also, there will be salary adjustments for other officers and cabin crew. Additionally, it is anticipated that this action will create parity between Indian and foreign pilots. According to reports, there is a boom in demand for aviation services, which has caused airlines to anticipate growth and raised the need for pilots and cabin crew. Airlines have raised pay as a result of the industry’s pilot scarcity in an effort to keep talent on board and prevent them from defecting to rival organisations. In addition, the airlines are worried about the competition and are working to keep their qualified personnel. Further complicating matters for Indian airlines are the alluring recruitment prospects provided by Middle Eastern airlines. In the upcoming 24 months, Indian airlines are expected to purchase between 1500 and 1700 aircraft, according to a report by aviation consultancy firm CAPA. According to the report, Indian airlines now fly more than 700 commercial aircraft and have ambitions to buy over 1000 more.

One of the biggest media and entertainment companies worldwide, Disney, is about to start a challenging road of cost-cutting and restructuring. The COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent economic repercussions have had an influence on the company, along with many others in the sector. Because of this, Disney CEO Robert Iger announced in February that the company would be cutting 7,000 jobs in order to save billions of dollars. Three rounds of job cuts are anticipated, with the first round of notifications taking place this week. The areas most impacted by the layoffs will be the media and distribution segment, ESPN, and the parks and resorts division, according to CNBC. Although it was difficult to make the choice to let go of so many people, the company believes that doing so will enable it to develop a more streamlined and productive business strategy. As Disney continues to develop the structures and operations that will help it succeed in the future, Iger’s email emphasised that there would be challenges ahead for those who stay with the firm. In this challenging time, he did, however, also ask for patience and cooperation. A larger trend in the media sector is reflected in the cost-cutting initiatives being taken by Disney. In order to cut costs and stay viable, legacy media giants like Warner Bros. Discovery have also had to reduce their employees. It is hoped that by taking these steps, companies like Disney would be able to deal with the economic downturn and come out stronger on the other side.

A total of 19,000 jobs, or around 2.5% of its workforce, will be cut at the multinational Technology company Accenture, according to the company’s statement. The move is part of cost-cutting measures, which will also include “streamlining how we operate, consolidating office space, and moving forward with our next compressed transformation – transforming our corporate functions,” according to Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, who has explained to the staff that the company aims to be the most tech, data, and AI driven, efficient, and agile enterprise in the world. The Company has realized that it can “operate with fewer Accenture Leaders (managing directors) in some parts of the company and still drive our growth,” and these departures will take place by the end of 2023, according to Sweet’s mail. Employees in non-billable corporate functions will be most affected by layoffs. For the severance of the impacted employees, the business has set aside $1.2 billion. The IT major has also lowered its expectations for annual profits and revenue. As opposed to the earlier projection of 8% to 11%, Accenture now anticipates its annual revenue growth to be in the range of 8% to 10% in local currency. Accenture’s projected earnings per share has been reduced from its previous estimate of $11.20 to $11.52 to between $10.84 and $11.06. Yet, the company has declared a $1.12 per share quarterly cash dividend. Accenture announced new orders of $22.1 billion in the most recent quarter, of which consultancy orders accounted for $10.7 billion and managed services orders for $11.4 billion. According to Sweet, the company will keep making investments in its operations and staff to take advantage of growth prospects while also finding ways to reduce expenses through the fiscal year 2024 and beyond. Additionally, she reassured that Accenture announced record Q2 sales and anticipates rapid expansion. It is significant to note that Accenture’s third-quarter prediction fell short of what Wall Street had anticipated. The US Federal Reserve decided to raise interest rates by 25 basis points, which was followed by this announcement. Source: Reuters