Aon Hewitt's 7th Annual Rewards Conference
Performance and Pay –
The Changing Curve
Tapping into Technology
Monisha Thambe
Vice President
Global People Operations, InMobi
Q. How do you think HR can leverage on the existing and upcoming technologies to improve their
partnership with business?
A. HR should build in efficiencies using technology. The world is becoming mobile first and I
don’t mean digital. If as HR, you are not being mobile first, then it doesn’t work. At inMobi, we are
attempting to move to apps as we don’t want the complex ERP tools and systems and processes. We are looking
to launch Facebook kind of interfaces, because today’s generation knows how to use it. They are comfortable
with it. Such initiatives help to connect and get the best out of people because interface with technology is
something the workforce takes for granted today. Then, there are things like you want the transactions to be
handled more seamlessly. You want to be as touch free with data as much as possible. There are legal implications
and all those issues exist. But if you are not evolving with technology, your ability to connect with the
business will be very weak.
Q. Leveraging the existing employee data, how do you think HR can increase its ROI for the
organization/business?
A. This is an area of huge interest. There are various stages and most organizations are at
the beginner stage which is also where we are. But the potential is huge, because the more we know about our
employees, the more we can customize our work environments for them, the more we can customize our solutions for
what motivates them and gets the best out of them.
Q. What would be the top two differentiators for your rewards strategy vis-à-vis the conventional
approach?
A. Our definition of differentiation is different. Our premise is based on trust. If you trust
that you have the right people who have the right intent and you trust that they will do what is the right thing
for your business and for them, then you are not being the cop. Then the whole cycle changes. What we are trying
to create is an environment where the right set of employees are going to succeed and the others who are not
going to be comfortable in that environment will opt out. There are a lot of different programs that we do under
thispremise.
Q. What has been the acceptance rate from an employee perspective?
A. They love it! The interesting thing is, ever since we started running these programs, we
have had people from business side come to us wanting to be a part of this team because they have ideas. Till
now, nobody had ever heard of that in any organization. In fact, in my team right now, I have two people who have
moved from product organization into HR because they have ideas and want to do things differently. My entire
rewards and recognition program is being created by someone who is not an HR person at all. HR is not the
responsibility of just my team anymore; it is slowly becoming a shared ownership.
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