Shaping the future of your business by championing collaboration

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Aadesh Goyal, chief human resources officer, Tata Communications on driving entrepreneurial spirit and encouraging collaboration and diversity.

The way we do business and deliver services to clients is changing. In recent years technology advancement has sparked disruption across multiple industries.

Businesses must be quick to innovate if they want to keep up with the fast-paced new order, but no organisation can reach its full potential unless its leaders invest in a culture in which innovation can flourish.

We take career development very seriously. We know that investing in people creates engaged and dedicated employees who actively go the extra mile for their clients – a quality they have come to expect.

Diversity is key to creating a culture in which your employees can thrive. Thanks to the global nature of our business, our people have an incredible network of talent at their fingertips. Our people come from all walks of life, bringing with them different cultures, skills and perspectives.

What they have in common is a passion for innovation, and an entrepreneurial spirit that enables us to stay ahead of the game.

Driving the entrepreneurial spirit In recent years, the values and needs of the global workforce have shifted. Our future leaders are fuelled by a drive to influence the direction of their organisation – and to make a difference in the world.

As employers, it’s our responsibility to embrace and promote their passion. If we want the business to succeed we must give them the platforms and support they need. It was this belief that led to our flagship innovation programme, “shape the future”.

We’ve already seen the incubator create some fantastic opportunities, including NetFoundry, a business that reinvents networking for the hyper connected era. This was a great idea that was submitted to our “shape the future” programme by a team of our employees.

NetFoundry was selected by the programme and the team was given the tools and time they needed to see through the formation and launch of the business. The end result was a well-received debut at this year’s Mobile World Congress. This example embodies the transformational change that we endeavour to deliver for our business, and for our clients’ businesses.

Encouraging collaboration and diversity The success of our incubator, and the other projects across the business, depends on our employees being able to access our global network of talent.

As an organisation, we are dedicated to identifying, championing and nurturing diversity in our culture. Collaboration across regions, practices and skill sets is a recipe for enriching ideas and delivering better business.

In an effort to streamline collaboration across the business, we launched our internal “project marketplace” scheme. The internal platform enables anyone across the business to register their skills and to seek assistance on a project from staff around the world.

By internally crowdsourcing talent from our global pool of people, managers don’t lose momentum on their projects, and the team expands their professional network.

For the individuals registering their skills, the platform gives them an opportunity to work on projects that may span different regions and disciplines, providing them with the opportunity to grow their personal networks and progress their careers.

We know that our organisation is only as strong as our employees. The kind of transformational change that we need to undertake in business to stay ahead of the curve in an increasingly competitive fast-paced industry depends on our ability to facilitate transformational change for our employees.

The success of our “shape the future” and “project marketplace” schemes have shown us that investing in programmes that address the gaps in our organisation’s culture is the key to unlocking the full potential of our talent pool and accelerating the future reach of our organisation.

Photos: provided