Telecommunications infrastructure services company Edotco believes in the power of combining the capabilities of humans and machines to develop superior customer experiences and relationships, more productive operations, and dramatically increased rates of innovation.
In an exclusive interview with Chief of Staff Asia, Edotco Chief People Officer Ramon Chelvarajasingam talked about keeping “the human touch” within HR, amid the increasing digitisation of the workplace.
Chelvarajasingam says Edotco involves employees in the development of core values and principles because they develop “ownership” of the company’s mission and purpose when they are positioned to have meaningful input in the organisation.
He said employees are free to submit questions, discuss, and vote on key topics that matter to them. “Crowdsourcing feedback allows us to prioritise questions that reflect the collective interests of the organisation,” Chelvarajasingam says. “We encourage openness with one another.”
“Bionic” organisation
Chelvarajasingam says Edotco has a “bionic organisation” strategy that has three thematic areas: becoming fitter, faster, and far better, without compromising the human soul. This relies on leveraging digital technologies to make the work and people experience more intuitive and connected; and harnessing the power of diversity, equity, and inclusion to drive innovation and collective wisdom.
He also enumerated the five pillars of Edotco’s long-term people strategy:
Cultivating a “Coopetition” culture: Having the highest levels of emotional pride, collaboration, and purpose while instilling an intrapreneurial and ownership mindset to win.
Supercharging the future workforce: Having a balanced integration of Emotional Intelligence, Digital Intelligence, and traditional smarts as an enabler to higher autonomy and sense of purpose.
Humanising the digital experience: Driving the highest engagement and efficiency levels by engineering distinct experiences using the company’s “Returns on Experience” tool (a predictive system for each initiative across the employee lifecycle).
Creating a “5R” organisation: Having the right people, the right competencies, the right jobs, and the right cost levels all at the right time to improve agility and speed of decision-making.
Becoming the global people champion: Striving to become responsible corporate citizens and setting the future people and organisation benchmarks, beyond maximising profits and shareholder value.
Workplace connectivity
With the company’s vast regional operations, Chelvarajasingam emphasised the need to successfully balance different imperatives of emerging megatrends impacting connectivity in the workplace.
He said the widespread proliferation of digital tools changed how employees connect, collaborate, and communicate. This change has accelerated over the last decade due to:
An ageing workforce, with baby boomers heading into retirement and exacerbating the need to capture and institutionalise their knowledge
An increasing need for speed as employees have to work and collaborate more effectively to finish their jobs
Varying employee profiles, because intellectual levels have a direct impact on overall employee engagement and business outcomes
Detecting employee disengagement
According to Chelvarajasingam, Edotco developed an in-house digital tool called “Championship Barometer” as an enhancement of its digital 360 feedback tool “to gauge where we are today and track our progress”.
The company is also shifting away from the once-a-year employee engagement model to a system that is predictive and operates in real time.
“We are in the midst of engineering distinct employee experience across the employee lifecycle via our in-house [Returns on Experience] tool that contains predictive AI-powered features to assess our returns on investment across the various employee touchpoints,” Chelvarajasingam said. “This will enable us to detect employee disengagement on a real-time basis.”
Edotco shares its strategies to avoid the Great Resignation
The attrition rate at telecommunications infrastructure services company Edotco has been relatively stable over the past few years, hovering below 10%, even during the height of the Great Resignation in Southeast Asia.
The chief people officer at Edotco says the company leveraged various tools in response to the phenomenon, which has seen employees re-evaluating their relationships and the companies they work for.
“We lead with a compass and context, equipping employees with information to make the best decisions for the organisation,” he tells Chief of Staff Asia.
“A clear value system enables distributed decision-making with a high level of clarity, aligning resources to what matters most,” he says.
The organisation provided opportunities and platforms for employees to explore their diverse interests, and set up various employee resource groups that represent the diverse interests and goals of different demographics. Chelvarajasingam says this has given people the freedom to explore and create their own workplace experiences.
“Senior leaders conduct frequent cross-functional check-ins and engagement sessions to foster deeper and more authentic relationships with employees beyond work, to develop a sense of belonging among employees by expanding their network and breadth of interactions,” Chelvarajasingam says.
The company also provided various upskilling avenues, such as mentoring, coaching, and career development guides, to help its over 300 people managers lead more effectively in hybrid and dynamic environments.
Skills and the workplace
On prospective employees, Chelvarajasingam says job applicants must have “informal leadership” that focuses on an individual’s respective strengths, be always open-minded and willing to “unlearn to learn,” be comfortable with ambiguity and take calculated risks, have conscientiousness or the ability to complete work, have a championship mindset or going the extra mile to reach the goal, have high energy, and willing to collaborate as a team.
He said that edotco follows the “work hard, play harder” mantra, believing in the importance of injecting fun into the workplace.
“The best thing about my job is the ability to enable our workforce to achieve their highest potential, make a profound impact on the organisation and society, and build future champions,” Chelvarajasingam said.
He also offers advice for future HR leaders to build engaging workplaces and organisational cultures.
“My advice is to focus on the intrinsic elements of human nature, namely providing a strong sense of purpose, a higher level of empowerment, opportunities for skills and capability building, and fostering meaningful connections in the workplace. Always be real, believe in authenticity, and create true value.”
Diversity, equity, and inclusion in Edotco’s veins
The chief people officer at Edotco shares that the company has a specific DEI Council to spearhead diversity initiatives across the group.
DEI is an integral part of the people experience at edotco, from recruitment to onboarding, also promotions, and lateral job switches.
In recruitment, for example, blind résumé screening is done through an AI-based digital recruitment crawler tool that filters each candidate’s profile based on required skills. Hiring managers are also provided CVs with redacted age, gender ethnicity, and even academic background where appropriate.
The company deliberately tailors its talent attraction initiatives in traditionally male-dominated areas, such as engineering, to selected groups: female engineers and high-potential female academics.
“Our onboarding programme goes beyond technical and administrative support but also social bonding. It is enhanced to be more user-friendly to new joiners from non-telco backgrounds,” Chelvarajasingam said.
On promotions, the process is based on merit and performance alone, as opposed to tenure and age. The company also provides different career pathways, including technical specialist and general management career tracks.
“We also actively develop and prepare our female leaders for future board-level positions,” Chelvarajasingam said. “We provide opportunities for the younger generation to mentor their seniors to gain diverse perspectives.”
Managing HR
Chelvarajasingam says edotco invests in talent development, adopts a growth mindset, and focuses on learning anytime, anywhere.
“We create redundancies in mission-critical positions by identifying internal successors and external talents, reviewed regularly at our Talent Council forum,” Chelvarajasingam said. “We augment our current workforce with a gig-like arrangement for seasonal peaks and temporary gaps.”
To cater to changing business priorities, the organisation established a flexible performance management system, using its Covid Composite Scorecard and Innovation key performance indicators.
Chelvarajasingam also said the company institutionalises real-time feedback loops, as opposed to once-a-year assessments, to capture employee sentiments as a forward-looking indicator.
In addition, the company grants stock plans to employees to foster ownership and an entrepreneurial mindset.
The company also continuously enhances its performance management and career development programmes to ensure equal opportunities across its workforce and frequently reviews its compensation plan for fair compensation and minimised gender pay gap.
Getting to Know: Ramon Chelvarajasingam
Job title: Chief People Officer
Company: edotco Group
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Years in the role: three years
Family status: Married, with two children
Academic background: Bachelor of Business Administration, Human Resources and Psychology from Pittsburg State University, US
Professional background:
- Executive Director, PwC Southeast Asia Consulting (People and Organization)
- Chief HR Officer, Hong Leong Financial Group
- Vice President Symphony Group Corporate Human Resources
- Vice President and Director of Organisation Development Citibank Asia Pacific
Hobbies: Racing, football
Leadership philosophy: True leaders practice the 3R’s — Respect for self, respect for others, and responsibility for their actions.
EDOTCO COMPANY PROFILE
Industry: Telecommunications services
Regional headquarters: Kuala Lumpur
Employees: Estimated 760
HR focus areas:
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Succession Planning
- Skills Development
