Corporate emotional well-being strategy needs continuous pulse-checks to address diverse needs: Joye’s Sanjeev Magotra

Sanjeev Magotra, the Founder and CEO of Joye, is a technologist with a passion for people. He has helped numerous enterprises with hands-on expertise in their digital transformation journey to conceptualise, sell, and deliver these complex projects. From empowering businesses to shift to multi-cloud operating models at Accenture, he has also held business leadership roles in the Asia Pacific region at IBM. In an exclusive interaction with People Matters, Magotra shares insights on the power shift being witnessed in the employee well-being landscape. Here are some excerpts. 

What are your thoughts on the power shift between employers and employees? 

Three major shifts are fueling this trend. Firstly, the skills profile changes every three to five years, making skills supply-demand a very dynamic scenario. Second is the demographic shift where Gen Z and Millennials are becoming the majority of the talent pool. And finally, the pandemic has rebooted the paradigm of employee expectations - well-being policies of the employer are now very critical criteria for the employee to choose the employer. Gen Z and Millennials want to work in companies with a culture of employee wellbeing.

How can technologies create a culture of happiness today? What are the pain points it seeks to address? 

The key pain point in making well-being services more effective is to be able to sense when the person needs help and to be able to provide the right support at that very moment. This is where technology can help more than just providing libraries of content. This is where the integration of innovation is necessary. 

Imagine – a smart technology platform which senses when something is making you mad and then prompts you to step back from the situation and take a few deep breaths. With this nudge, you could avoid a nasty conflict situation at work. This will surely help your well-being and also that of the others. When you multiply this for most people most of the time, it will build momentum for the culture of happiness.

What are some of the best well-being outcomes beyond ROI? 

When the employee is in a positive state of mind, most of the time, this equates to a happier employee. And we know that happier employees are more productive and are less likely to quit. So this is indeed a good ROI for the organisation.

Beyond these factors, happier employees also work better with their colleagues, which starts to form the culture of the company. Happier employees also serve the clients better and return home to spread the positive vibes with the family, making the family a more joyous, cohesive unit. All this, in turn, makes them work better the following day!

How can technology enable a framework that makes wellbeing accessible and inclusive?

A comprehensive mental well-being strategy should assume that everyone in the company needs mental well-being support almost every day. Then various well-being tools and programmes can be mapped in an intelligent flow from daily self-care leading to other support services as and when specialist help may be needed.

Finally, what are some words of advice that you would like to share on leading well-being in the era of digital transformation? 

The emotional well-being strategy is still evolving in most companies, and it needs continuous pulse checks to address the diverse needs of the workforce. An effective well-being strategy needs a holistic rethink through three foundational pillars. 

Firstly, companies need to adopt a metric for well-being - you cannot improve it if you cannot measure it. Something as fluid as emotions need to be measured daily and responded to regularly. 

Secondly, companies need to assign a senior leader as the ‘head of wellbeing’ who needs to own this metric and drive it as a strategic function – much as they did for digital transformation and skills development. 

And thirdly, leaders have to aspire to build a culture of well-being in the company. This demands digital and physical effort to take the stigma out and pull 100% of the workforce into the habit of preventative self-care. This is becoming even more critical as Gen Z and Millennials are fast becoming the majority of the workforce, and they are more prone to stress and anxiety.