QAD : Recognized for Best Employee Relations Practices

This past February, QAD received aGlobal HR Excellence Awardfor Organizations with Best Employee Relations Practices by the World HRD Congress in Mumbai, India. We were honored to receive this award and wanted to share some of our best practices and the value this brings to the greater QAD community of customers, employees and partners.

Rupali Mahadik, senior HR manager for QAD India, shared that the World HRD Congress was seeking organizations who could exhibit effectiveness in connecting and maintaining positive and productive relations with employees. QAD stood out because of our OneQAD framework, our values, talent development strategies, focus on reward and recognition and employee experience. All of these combined have been critical to helping our employees navigate the pandemic, enhance their performance and improve QAD's ability to deliver world class solutions and customer experiences.

OneQAD Framework: How We Operate

While our vision of helping manufactures rapidly adapt to change and innovate for competitive advantage guides our focus and key activities, our OneQAD framework guideshowwe operate and work with each other, our customers and partners to fulfill that vision.

Rupali further elaborated that the OneQAD framework has three key focus areas of Clarity, Unity and Agility.

'For Clarity, we ask ourselves what are the goals and strategy? Are we ensuring we have employee check-ins as well so there is clarity in where we are going and what the employee also wants to achieve? From the Unity perspective, we are operating as OneQAD, living our values,driving teamwork in the organization. Finally from the Agility perspective, it is more of the coaching model, understanding the different approaches, styles and things that may create situations to flex, pivot and adjust. We are ensuring that we flex our approaches and guiding employees on how to do this as well,' explains Rupali.

Development and Growth

Career development and growth are two of the most important items to candidates and employees throughout the industry. Rupali shared that QAD's approach is employee driven through check-ins and development plans. There are also structures in place to help guide this process. At the core we have a leadership learning roadmap that breaks down into the areas of leading self, leading others and leading the business. Leading self is about establishing credibility, purpose, interpersonal skills and flexibility. Leading others and the business further builds upon the skills necessary to coach others, lead teams, lead functions and prepare employees to further expand scope, responsibility and impact.

Employees are Driven by Making a Positive Impact

Recognition and rewardhave always been an important part of the QAD culture. Rupali shared that QAD India has monthly and annual awards that include peer to peer, manager to employee and global recognition. Each award explains how they have contributed and why they have received the award. She shared that the managers focus heavily on ensuring there is clarity in how each team member contributes to the greater company initiatives and how they each help our customers succeed. The employees are driven by making a positive impact on QAD and our customers. Thepandemic challenged usto be more innovative in our approaches. We have had to transition these to virtual settings, however, the significance has remained.

A Heightened Employee Experience Improves Performance and the Customer Experience

If you were to spend time working in QAD's Mumbai office prior to the pandemic, one of the things you would have witnessed first hand is the thriving social connections and collaborative environment. QAD India has football and cricket teams. They hold regular celebrations around key holidays, talent shows, community service events and a host of activities that help to buildteamworkand collaboration. Keeping this alive during the pandemic has been a challenge, but one that the team has navigated very well.

Rupali shared that during the pandemic, all the managers and employees continue to put in extra efforts. The HR team, the cultural committee and managers hosted virtual employee engagement sessions, a virtualQAD Kids Got Talent Show, virtual Diwali festivities and Secret Santa during the holidays. Maintaining team connections is critical to providing a heightened employee experience. It helps create a sense of community and an environment of collaboration that ultimately helps employees perform at their best when supporting our customers.

Globally Implemented

The employee relations practices recognized in QAD India represent a global approach deployed throughout the world. The OneQAD framework, values, talent development strategies, focus on reward and recognition and employee experience are essential to QAD's success in connecting and maintaining positive and productive relations with employees. They are also a key factor in our ability to deliver an exceptional experience for our customers. Congratulations to QAD India for their special recognition! We are honored to receive this recognition by the World HRD Congress as an employer with best employee relations practices.