Hunting For The Right Talent, Logistics Solutions Provider Shipsy Is On A Hiring Spree

Shipsy, a logistical SaaS platform, has roped in Ruchi Awasthi, Director – People Success, to build a workforce of A-players and give them just the right environment to excel. With a track record in talent acquisition and retention, Awasthi brings to the table her over two decades of expertise as she goes about aligning hiring policies and processes to the corporate goals.

Her immediate task at Shipsy is already cut out – to maximize individual and organisational potential and also to position the company as the employer of choice. She has had previously worked with KFC as its HR Head, with Ola as HR Business Partner and Xceedance as Chief of its HR department.

Awasthi and her team will be working towards creating a highly productive and supporting environment for the right talent the company intends to attract.

According to Awasthi, employees thrive and grow if they feel assisted and are supported in their ‘Personal and Professional lives.’

In an exclusive conversation with ETHRWorld, Awasthi outlined how she would leverage her 21 years of experience to bring in the right talent to Shipsy.

Future hiring processes

Bringing the A-players into the organisation is important and goes with the strategic thinking of the company and as its HR head, it will be Awasthi’s principal task to scout for and attract the right talent.

Awasthi believes that a well-strategized hiring process that is aligned with the corporate goals is central to attracting a huge pool of appropriate talent. “So, we start by identifying our organisational goals, which makes the rest of the process easy. All we have to do then is narrow down the portfolios that can take us towards our target. Sticking purely with the domain-specific skills and potential capability as the only qualifying factors is the rightful way to go about it,” she said.

She said she will be taking many steps to develop a high-performing and diverse workforce and foster a healthy, safe and productive work environment for the employees, their families, and departments.

Taking good care of the employees is very common now in the hybrid working culture adopted by firms since the last year. A safe, healthy work environment will bring the right talent and that will help the company fulfil its business goals. “What humans can bring to the company cannot be done by technology,” the HR expert in Awasthi asserted, making it clear the importance she attaches to the human element in the hiring processes.

Sure, work for the HR department gets doubled as it has now to take care of the wellbeing of the employees, their family members, their mental peace, feelings, emotions, overall work environment and always keep the company goals in mind, she said.

“We engage with multiple hiring sources such as online platforms, and lateral hires to ensure a potent mix. We have recently gone live with campus placements and will shortly announce our ‘Back to Work’ initiative to ensure a dynamic and diverse workforce,” she said outlining the processes followed for hiring.

For training and development, Awasthi thinks that there was a need to constantly identify employee potential and enable them to develop further skills through regular documented assessments. Here is a checklist that she says kept her in good stead:

● Target the specific areas of strength and employee interest

● Move the employees to areas in which they are best suited

● Build strong teams with diverse skill sets so they can thrive over time

● Plan talent development programmes to ensure productivity and growth

Explaining the core initiatives of the company for increasing productivity of the firm, she said, “Assurance with career progression, continuous learning, and providing an excellent work-life balance drive employee retention in any company. Certainly, a sink-or-swim mentality won’t work when the aim is to cultivate high-performing teams and a positive work environment.”

And now, the company is working towards providing a robust onboarding plan. It includes careful planning of the first few weeks of an employee and getting them through the initiation phase with effective engagement tools like job shadowing, sitting in meetings and reading through important company files and process documents.

“Regular checks follow this stage via surveys, one-on-ones, and informal connections to ensure their wellbeing. Besides, we developed an internal taskforce during the pandemic to help Shipsians and their families in every way possible,” Awasthi said.

On a hiring spree

Over the past year, the hiring process and capacity at the company have undergone a change due to work from home mode, companies have to switch over to. “At Shipsy, hiring is going on in full throttle. We have expanded our workforce by nearly 75 per cent this year and still have 80 open positions for this quarter. The trend will continue next year, with numbers going way up from here,” Awasthi added.

Shipsy currently has 175 employees. The company has witnessed a growth of 75 per cent in its staff strength since January 2021, when it had 95 employees.