Winning Secrets: Traveloka ensures people-related principles are being taken care of, while staying agile

Southeast Asia-centric travel and lifestyle booking application, Traveloka, has been downloaded more than 100mn times, and is widely used across Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

At the 10^th annual edition of HR Excellence Awards, Singapore in 2022, Traveloka won silver for Excellence in Talent Management. 

We catch up with Ellen Tuwaidan, Chief People Officer, Traveloka on the most relevant challenge in today's global situation, and how the team is tackling it successfully through its talent management programmes. 

Q Congratulations on the achievement! Could you take us through the highs-and-lows of your people strategy?

Keeping the right balance between ensuring that people-related principles are being taken care of, while remaining agile in the current business environment, has become the most relevant challenge in today’s global situation. We have overcome the pandemic with many ups and downs, and this requires us to continuously reiterate our people strategy, to ensure that we are able to provide the best support for our business.

Q How did the HR team identify and align the business & employee needs, and craft out this perfect solution?

At Traveloka, people are the core of the organisation.

We continuously work on maintaining the balance between business growth and people development, since the former can only be achieved through the latter.

Acknowledging that matters around people are dynamic, we have been focusing our efforts, not only on implementation of people policies, procedures, and standards but also on the ecosystem and culture that are constantly evolving. We are always looking for ways to improve our strategies and practices. We benchmark, we analyse, we build, innovate and iterate while keeping our people as our top priority.

With this approach, we can make continuous improvements while remaining agile in the face of change and challenges.

Q Could you share the results that your strategy has delivered – be it on the business, HR, or people side?

We are committed to creating meaningful and engaging experiences, where our people are enabled to achieve their full potential, in a supportive and healthy environment. To ensure this, we make genuine efforts to listen to our employees, to understand their perspectives, their engagement, and wellbeing levels, as well as whether our people-related initiatives are effective.

Q What is your message to all the stakeholders who have supported you in this journey?

We are always thankful for the collaboration and support from our senior leadership team, people managers, and Travelokans in general. We look forward to developing great things together, continuously maintaining the balance between business and employee needs, listening to our employees, while at the same time, supporting Traveloka, to build a sustainable business. 

Q What are you most excited about when you think about the future of HR?

The pandemic and global landscape have brought about a major change in the way we do things, including the way we work.

Firstly, we observed that despite the distance, our talents were able to continue collaborating and innovating. Second, while we recognise that remote collaboration is available, face-to-face direct interactions are still beneficial to maintain the engagement levels needed for belonging and productivity. We see similar trends around the globe, which shows the different approaches of companies, when addressing this challenge.

Like everything we do, we are determined not to immediately jump onto the bandwagon, but to find what works for us in catering to our business needs. We build, tinker, and put our people first.

As we mentioned earlier, when it comes to people, the only constant is its dynamics. From our learnings so far, in the area of the workforce and workplace, we are prepared to deal with changes. Moving into the future, Traveloka remains committed to embrace changes and challenges, while being mindful of the bigger picture, making data-led decisions, and constantly improving our own benchmarks.

Image / Shutterstock

Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets' section!

Follow us on Telegram and on Instagram @humanresourcesonline for all the latest HR and manpower news from around the region!