ServiceNow and Deloitte Extend Strategic Alliance Agreement to Transform Employee Experiences for the Next Normal

ServiceNow and Deloitte announced that the two organizations have extended their strategic alliance to help customers accelerate their HR Service Delivery (HRSD) efforts and provide employees with exceptional digital experiences, anywhere. Together, ServiceNow and Deloitte will conduct joint go-to-market activities to support ServiceNow’s HRSD solution through global sales, enablement, and training activities. Leveraging its demonstrated track-record of success with ServiceNow and other Human Resource technology solutions, Deloitte will collaborate with ServiceNow to expand product features and functions which create business value at scale for joint customers.  

The need for business functions to work together has never been more important. ServiceNow’s HRSD solution complements Deloitte’s market-leading Human Capital and HR Transformation consultancy offering to unlock enterprise productivity and streamline a unified, omnichannel employee experience to manage their work needs, access important resources and raise inquiries. By eliminating silos across the workplace and allowing engagement with HR, IT, Legal and Workplace Services in one place, the Now Platform reduces friction for a truly unified employee service experience, so employees can focus on the meaningful work they were hired to perform.

“We looked to ServiceNow and Deloitte to help simplify our global HR processes while accounting for country-specific localization requirements that would enable Citibank to digitally transform our HR operations,” said Jeff Bienstock, Global Head of HR Technology, Citibank. “The joint expertise enabled us to offer easy access to information for employees and HR agents globally so we can continue to deliver world-class service with minimal disruption.”

As many organizations shift from a “work from home” to a “work from anywhere” model, ServiceNow’s HRSD solution enables them to better manage inquiries across a remote workforce and ensure critical events like virtual onboarding, offboarding and transitions are seamless. Deloitte will use ServiceNow HRSD to deliver a world-class digital employee experience solution to help clients transform their HR Service Delivery Functions and enterprise-wide Employee Experiences.

“The Now Platform has become the industry standard for digital transformation, and our customers are embracing technology to help them create simple, unified digital experiences for employees, from anywhere,” said Blake McConnell, SVP of Employee Workflow Products at ServiceNow. “Our strategic alliance with Deloitte will help accelerate the ‘next normal’ workplace so employees can stay connected and productive while working from home. As an Employee Experience leader, ServiceNow can cut across multiple G&A functions, providing employees with seamless, integrated solutions that help to empower their safe return to the workplace.”

“In recent months we’ve seen the needs of HR technology and workforce experiences rapidly evolve as organizations adjust to a virtual workforce. This shift has underscored the importance of operating in a digital-first environment to improve productivity and the flow of work while minimizing disruption across internal functions,” said Michael Stephan, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Leader of Deloitte’s US Human Capital practice. “Today as we expand our collaboration with ServiceNow, we do so with the work and workforce in mind, bringing more HRSD solutions to market to provide integrated digital experiences and reduced silos and help our clients transition to the future.”

In 2019, Deloitte and ServiceNow announced a strategic agreement to accelerate organizations’ enterprise digital transformations. The companies jointly developed new products, assets and solutions built on the Now Platform to help joint clients deliver seamless digital experiences across the enterprise, improve workflows and enhance productivity. In January, ServiceNow announced that Deloitte is the strategic go to market partner for its Financial Services Banking solution where ServiceNow and Deloitte will transform the way banks operate.

Monitoring and Addressing Human-Wildlife Conflict to the Benefit All

Conflict

● Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) incidents, arising from human-wildlife interactions are a global conservation challenge. HWC includes crop loss, livestock predation, property damage, and occasionally human injury and death.

● Wild Seve (‘Seve’ means ‘to serve’ in Kannada), established in July 2015, is a novel conservation intervention program that monitors and addresses HWC. Wild Seve assists people facing HWC-related losses to document and file for ex-gratia claims with the state government.

● In 48 months of operations, the program documented over 13,000 HWC incidents (as of July 2019), often involving large conflict-prone species such as elephants, leopards, and tigers, for families living around Bandipur and Nagarahole National Parks in Karnataka, India.

● Wild Seve isan effective low-cost conservation intervention that uses open-source technology and leverages existing policies to facilitate documentation for ex-gratia payment claims. This model of monitoring and addressing human-wildlife conflict is easily replicable, adaptable, and scalable in HWC-prone regions globally.

Scientists from the Centre for Wildlife Studies showed (in 2018) that although Karnataka leads the country in terms of reported human-wildlife conflict incidents and ex-gratia payments, thousands of incidents remained unreported and uncompensated for. Difficulty in accessing and delays in the application process for financial compensation, inconsistent policies, lack of transparency, high transaction costs, ineffective implementation, and variable payment amounts often anger communities, leading to increased retaliation against wildlife.

In a new peer reviewed article published in the journal, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Dr. Krithi K. Karanth and Anubhav Vanamamalai highlight the design, implementation, operation, and results of a novel conservation intervention in Karnataka, the Wild Seve program. Drawing on over a decade of research in the landscape, and designed to improve HWC reporting, response, and participation in ex-gratia payment schemes within the established policy framework, Wild Seve was launched in July 2015.

The Wild Seve program created an efficient mobile technology-based platform and toll-free helpline for reporting incidents, collecting data and evidence, and filing ex-gratia claims on behalf of the affected. Wild Seve wasable to effectively contribute to the monitoring of wildlife occurring outside protected areas, thereby aiding in long-term landscape-level conservation efforts. The program assists the most vulnerable communities living around wildlife reserves and helps bridge the gap between people and the government.

Quote 1: “In megadiverse countries like India which host large populations of charismatic conflict-prone animals such as elephants, leopards and tigers, HWC poses a serious conservation challenge. If we are serious about resolving conflict and conserving endangered wildlife we need to build adaptability, resilience and support people who are directly impacted so that retaliation doesn’t take place. Wild Seve improves community tolerance towards wildlife, and reduces retaliation against them,” says Dr. Krithi K. Karanth, Chief Conservation Scientist at CWS, and the lead author of the study.

The novel research outlines the results of 48 months of Wild Seve’s operations in 600 village settlements around Bandipur and Nagarahole National Parks. Wild Seve filed and tracked over 13,000 ex-gratia payment claims for human-wildlife conflict incidents, which included 12,978 crop and property loss incidents, 782 livestock predation events, and 48 human injuries and fatalities. Wild Seve even facilitated the construction of over 48 predator-proof livestock sheds for those facing repeated livestock predation. Wild Seve’s field staff are proud members of the local communities they serve, and are dispatched to the location of HWC incidents to assess and document the damage and compile an ex-gratia payment claim with all requisite evidence and documentation.

Quote 2: “Managing expectations, especially in conflict events is of utmost importance to promote coexistence in regions where people and wildlife overlap. Wild Seve directly benefits people through its process, science through rigorous collection of data and analysis, and informs policy through its experience. Our use of simple technology and ef icient processes makes Wild Seve an easily scalable and replicable solution in addressing human-wildlife conflict incidents across the country,” says Anubhav Vanamamalai, Research Fellow at CWS and former Program Manager of Wild Seve.

The study, titled Wild Seve: A Novel Conservation Intervention to Monitor and Address Human-Wildlife Conflict, authored by Dr. Krithi K. Karanth and Anubhav Vanamamalaiappeared in the journal, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. The open-access study can also be directly retrieved from the journal.

Centre for Wildlife Studies

Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS), based in Bengaluru, is an internationally recognised centre-of-excellence in the arenas of wildlife research, in-situ conservation, policy, and education. In collaboration with Central and State Governments, as well as partnerships with several national and international institutions, CWS practices science-based conservation to promote the protection of wildlife and wildlands.

StanChart to hire 2,000 professionals in 2009, says Official

Global Banking giant, Standard Chartered on Sunday said it has no plans to freeze hiring in India despite the challenging market conditions and would recruit around 2,000 professionals this year.

StanChart had recruited 4,000 people in the last calendar year but has decided to scale down fresh recruitments in the face of financial downturn that has hit its operations globally, StanChart Human Resources Regional Head Madhavi Lall told the media here.

"We have not stopped hiring. Although, the number of new recruits may be lower in 2009 as compared to last year, the bank plans to recruit 1,500-2,000 people in the current calendar year," Lall said.

The lender already recruited 110 people in the last two months while it plans to hire 28 more people by July to strengthen its various business divisions, Lall said.

"These 28 people will be joining us from IIMs. The bank will go ahead with its hiring plans in the months ahead, which will include campus recruitments," Lall said.

Presently, StanChart has a staff strength of 19,000 in India as against its global headcount of 75,000, Lall said.

Out of 19,000 total employees, around 6,500 people operate in StanChart's retail banking division.

Agencies

Will Infosys freeze recruitment, mulls pay cuts?

Employees of Infosys Technologies may have to live with a salary cut and without any significant increment, even as the IT bellwether has virtually frozen fresh recruitments on account of the global meltdown, a top company official has said.

"A part of our salary is determined by variable sales component, which is the percentage of the company's revenue," said Infosys' director for human resources T V Mohandas Pai.

"Since the revenues are down, the salaries will naturally be trimmed."

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a press conference here, Pai said the leading software exporter and business process outsourcing firm may also opt out of salary hikes because of the slowdown.

"The increments may not happen this year. But, if they do, they will be subdued."

Pai also maintained that the company will honour the 20,000 campus offers made last year, but added that fresh hiring has been frozen.

Infosys, India's second largest IT firm, had reported a net profit of Rs.16.41 billion ($335.5 million) for the third quarter of this fiscal, to log a 33 percent year growth. The jump was above expectations but below what it had logged in the past decade.

Speaking about the fallout of the $1.43-billion Satyam Computer Services scam, Pai said Infosys had, indeed, received offers from some customers of the rival group, which were being analysed.

"Our chief executive officer (K. Gopalakrishnan) had earlier made an announcement that we have received offers from Satyam customers," he said, adding: "But we do not go and poach on customers."

Gopalakrishnan had also said last month that there was no pro-active move on the part of his company to approach Satyam customers. "But if they come on their own, we will look into their proposals case-by-case."

Agencies