Three talent takeaways from Postman, Khatabook and Ather — and some haikus.

Hello there. 

For previous readers and subscribers, this is Ganapathi Ramanathan . You’re going to be stuck with me for a while – I’ll be writing the subsequent editions of The Plum Jam. It’s a tough job filling Aishwarya’s shoes, but I’ll do my best.

For new readers, welcome to The Plum Jam –  our monthly newsletter, where we talk about what we’ve been up to at Plum, and experiment with our general sense of humour. Our sales team would rather we use it to get leads, but where’s the fun in that?

On to what’s been happening this month. 

Three talent takeaways from the country's top people leaders

Everyone knows talent is a company’s biggest moat – and yet, there’s not enough about attracting, nurturing, and retaining our best people. While I’m pretty sure you can find a million (albeit generic) blog articles, earned secrets on building talent-first orgs are as hard to come by as that elusive tiger on your first Bandipur safari (I write from experience).

We spoke to the good folks at Postman , Khatabook , and Ather Energy to understand their approach to talent. Each conversation was at least 30 minutes long, so I’m sharing my favourite takeaway from each session.

Postman’s data-driven approach to eliminating bias 

Postman’s built by engineers, for engineers – so it’s only fitting that they’ve incorporated a data-driven approach to their people practices. Monika Gunalan , Head of People Ops (APAC), shares an example of how data helped their people team eliminate bias in performance management.

When a manager’s proximity bias affected their view of a remote employee, the underlying data showed no significant difference in their performance compared to the rest of the team. The result? Monika’s team helped the manager better align their team to their goals.

Learn more about their data-driven approach here. 

Khatabook raises the stakes with their unique ESOP policy  

Very few companies have cracked India’s MSME business like Khatabook has, and it’s largely due to how they’ve kept their best players engaged. 

Swapna Nair , their Head of People Success, told us that every employee is part of their ESOP pool, with periodic top-ups. More importantly, top performers have the opportunity of accelerated vesting if predefined objectives are met.  

Learn more about their approach to people and success here. 

Ather doesn’t believe in eNPS surveys. 

Ather Energy skips engagement surveys in favour of their Culture Conversations initiative. We asked Sunitha Lal , their CHRO, to tell us more. 

The Culture Conversations is a set of open conversations that occur every 18-20 months, engaging 20% of the organisation in sessions that last 90 minutes. Through a blend of one-on-one conversations and focus group discussions with small and large teams, this initiative ensures that a diverse set of voices, regardless of role or tenure, are heard. Insights from these sessions are used to build Ather’s culture codes and policy.

Learn more about their approach to hiring and engagement here. 

Tl,dr? Three takeaways, in haiku

How WeWork India built one of the country’s best DEI health benefits. 

In other news, we spoke to Priti Shetty and Gowri Sridhar to learn more about how WeWork India has employee benefits stack the reflects the inclusion goals.

Having the privilege of being WeWork India ’s employee health partners for the last two years, we can attest that their plan is easily one of our most inclusive policies.

Some highlights from their policy:

• Maternity cover up to INR 1,50,000
• LGBTQ+ coverage – incuding same-sex partner cover, gender affirmation surgeries and hormonal treatment
• Coverage for infertility treatments, surrogate mother expenses, new born coverage, and pre and post-natal expenses. 

To learn how they crafted their policy, go here. 

Oasis is back. 

One of the 90s biggest rock bands decided to get together after years of fighting between the frontmen brothers, Liam and Noel Gallagher.

So we had to make a joke. 

With Plum’s in-Dependent Login your loved ones can log in to their own Plum accounts and access benefits independently. If you’d like to see it in action (along with all our other features), speak to one of our consultants? 

That’s all for this month. See you in September.

With love, Gana.