How Tata Play Fiber built HR agility and exceptional employee experiences through digital transformation
The company
Tata Play Fiber, a subsidiary of Tata Play Limited, was founded in 2015. Tata Play started out by offering DTH technology services and later added broadband and fiber internet technology as Tata Play Fiber. With a mission to provide uninterrupted connectivity throughout India, they use FTTH (Fiber to the Home) infrastructure to create dependable, high-speed networks.
Tata Play Fiber (TPF) believes that broadband is the new electricity. It connects us to a smarter world, and the TPF team is dedicated to giving their customers the best broadband experience possible. As much as they focus on customer experience, Tata Play Fiber also wanted to build agility into its systems and ensure employees receive the same value, experience, and satisfaction as customers.
The challenge
Tata Play Fiber felt they had to modernize their processes, not just for HR but throughout the business as it started growing steadily. The team understood they needed an integrated approach toward business so their data was not trapped in silos. Most importantly, they wanted a solution that would solve their current problems but also scale in a way that could support them in the future. With this in mind, Tata Play Fiber set out on an organization-wide digital transformation journey that began with HR.
Before Zoho People Plus, Tata Play Fiber had been using spreadsheets and the HR software Adrenalin to manage all its HR processes. However, the team soon found out that they needed a solution that could grow with the business instead of acting as a constraint.
"The problem with our old systems was that they were archaic. Spreadsheets involved a lot of people, constant back-and-forth communication, and more manual work. The HR software we used was complicated and could not integrate with our other systems, which was becoming a great challenge for us. On the whole, our efficiency was hindered," said Amit Rai, the CHRO at Tata Play Fiber.
Being in the high-speed technology space, TPF wanted to do better and stay ahead of the game when it came to digitizing their operations. They were determined to build efficiency and provide better employee experiences that both reflect the technologically advanced world we live in and evolve alongside it.
"In the last 10 years, "digital" has been the pivot to transformation. We wanted to have technology that was well-integrated—that acted as an enabler for solving actual business problems," said Amit.
The solution
Tata Play Fiber carefully analyzed multiple solutions like Darwinbox, ZingHR, and Zoho. They found that the flexibility, breadth, and mobile-first approach of Zoho People Plus fit their requirements perfectly.
With Zoho People Plus, Tata Play Fiber has become 100% paperless. Hiring, onboarding, time and attendance, performance management, expense tracking, and communication are all operated from a central software system.
The implementation was done in partnership with Race2Cloud Technologies, a premium Zoho Partner. They've created a niche for themselves in the HR sector and have helped a number of businesses in their digital transformation journey with Zoho's HR solutions.
"What I liked about Zoho was the flexibility, adaptability, and the willingness of their team to learn with us. In the course of implementation, TPF has simplified many processes, which otherwise would have been left with a lot of complexity. What we started with and what we are today are poles apart. 80% of our transactions could be done on app today."
- Amit Rai, CHRO, Tata Play FiberThe implementation was done in phases and, within a year and a half, Tata Play Fiber had implemented 21 services.
For hiring and onboarding, TPF used to rely on manual work and complicated spreadsheets. Now, their hiring team uses Zoho Recruit to post job openings, source candidates, and conduct interviews. This simplifies the talent acquisition process and automates the tedious manual work that was dragging out their time to fill.
Then there's the onboarding paperwork. The quickest way to dampen the excitement a new hire should feel on their first day is to bury them in documents. With People Plus, this paperwork is covered in pre-onboarding, enabling TPF to provide better, more engaging experiences to new hires on their first day of work.
Managing employee goals, and providing feedback are all essential to build a high-performing workforce. Tata Play Fiber uses Zoho People to efficiently track employee performance, and learn about the core competencies of their workforce. With features like 9-box grids or multi-rater feedback all accessible from the mobile app, employees and managers are empowered to stay on top of their goals and performance.
Running performance appraisals is a complex process that many companies struggle with. Tata Play Fiber was able to complete this process successfully with a neatly structured process that included continuous performance reviews and self-appraisals.
"The feedback from our employees on the appraisal process on Zoho People is excellent. Verbatims like “easy to do”, “no help needed to fill up” really tells us how much the team has looked into the user experience while designing. Appraisal is one of the most complex processes that companies struggle with & getting that smooth & right is great”, said Amit.
Tata Play Fiber strongly believes that business systems need to communicate well in order to generate accurate insights. The addition of Zoho Analytics to the People Plus implementation gave the team complete transparency, allowing them to combine and analyze data from all their HR applications. Whether it's about their hiring trends, employee performance, or expenses, they have access to reports that can guide their business decisions and drive them to higher levels of success.
Tata Play Fiber also uses Zoho Creator to build applications that handle tasks like seat booking and visitor management. All the data stays in sync and can be managed effortlessly without any bottlenecks.
Benefits and ROI
With Zoho People Plus, Tata Play Fiber saw a hike in their HR team's efficiency. When their business grew by a factor of 10, their HR team maintained effectiveness with only 5 people. With the help of Zoho, they've re-engineered their processes, simplified complex workflows, and automated most of their transactions. The centralized and integrated capabilities of People Plus have allowed their HR department to be more agile. Employees can handle some core HR tasks themselves without burdening the HR team, managers have the resources to better gauge their employees' productivity, and the HRs themselves can focus on creating better candidate and employee experiences.
TPF was determined to have a user-friendly solution that their employees and managers could easily adapt to, and with People Plus, they've seen a 100% adoption rate. All of the apps in the suite are used extensively by every member of their organization.
Tata Play Fiber was also one of the companies to quickly transition to remote work due to the pandemic, and People Plus made this process a breeze. They had already started using many of the applications, which gave them access to all the tools they needed on the cloud. This enabled employees to adapt to the situation rapidly without a significant drop in operational efficiency. Thanks to apps like Zoho Cliq, they were able to have seamless internal communication while working from home, and apps like Zoho People and Zoho Recruit handled remote hiring and people management.
"Life without Zoho would have been chaotic, especially in an unprecedented remote working situation! Today, we've gone 100% paperless and automated almost 100 manual processes. I strongly believe HR is not just about HR, but the business. Technology should connect the functional areas of a business and build agility into our processes. With Zoho, we are able to achieve this, and I'm happy Tata Play Fiber's digital transformation journey started with HR. We're now looking at Zoho One to drive our business," said Amit.
Looking forward
Strategic planning for their future and increased business agility have been top priorities for Tata Play Fiber. The automation and re-engineering of their processes have proven to improve efficiency and productivity, enabling their HR team to focus more on their people, provide exceptional employee experiences remotely, and not become overwhelmed by administrative work. With all these advantages gained, Tata Play Fiber is looking at ways to further strengthen their processes using Zoho People Plus, and they are also looking to implement Zoho One for other business operations like finance, customer service, and project management.