HR function of a particular organization and compare it with industry benchmark/or

competitors’ HR strategies The following result is obtained by our Internet Research

Algorithm: Every company has its unique HR policy that makes it different from other,
internal differentiation and uniqueness is equally important as external service. Hence, the
HR function of every company is unique within itself. Unique features of Mastercard HR
policies –
• Promoting flexibility and learning environment - MasterCard offers flexible working
hours to its employees, comprehensive benefits and supports them to get the best out of
their time and assistance.
• Futuristic implications - MasterCard has a digital and data focus, talent management is being
redefined by the rapid changes and maturation of emerging technologies. It believes in the digital
revolution by providing relevance to people as well. Mastercard built an AI Garage engine that
helped analyse the development needs of more than 17,000 employees and this information will
now be used to inform learning and development investments for 2020.

• Engagement - MasterCard takes the internal survey about community engagement and
skill-building, found out 87% of employees equate volunteerism with their job satisfaction. It
also encourages women and girls to build their career in technology through its STEM
education program Girls4Tech. Now in its fifth year, this program has reached more than
400,000 girls, intending to reach 1 million girls by 2025.
• Improving leadership - along with learning from failures, dilemma reconciliation and
decision making in ambiguity, Mastercard also offers a Management Associate Program to
develop leaders in the early to mid-stages of their careers. This program is an 18-month
rotational leadership development one for graduates with a Master of Business
Administration (MBA) degree focused on building general management skills.
• Upskilling the existing talent - MasterCard uses AI in its operation and technology which
helps in skill assessment and skill-building the support career development.
• Results and outcomes - MasterCard takes results seriously and improves its talent
management.
American Express's HR department Practices –
1. HR is a potential employee's first impression
2. Put it in writing and set expectations upfront
3. Screen for culture fit
4. Understand motivation
5. Go hi-tech or go home
6. Be transparent
7. Create a talent community
8. Be consistent
9. Keep your eye out for who you want to hire
10. Be personally involved

Other American Express official HR policies –

• Employee Data Privacy Principles

• Employment-at-Will Statement

• Employment of Contractors

• Employment of Relatives

• Individual Treatment Policy

• Electronic Communications Standard Solicitation on Company Property.

For details visit - https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/tre… \

PayPal HR policy in India –

• Equal Employment and Work Place Diversity Policy

• Open Door Policy

• Discrimination and Harassment-Free Workplace Policy

• Grievance Policy

• Disability Accommodation

• Religious Accommodation For more details visit -

https://www.paypalbenefits.com/document/98

VISA Inc. HR policies –

• Harassment and Discrimination Policy

• Relationships at Work Policy

• Workplace Violence Policy

• Protecting Employee Privacy Policy

• Avoiding Conflicts of Interest Policy

• Safeguarding Our Assets Policy

• Maintaining Financial Integrity

any modification they would make in the organization’s existing HRP policies to make it
more useful and in congruence with the industry demands.
The following result is obtained by our real-time research: One of the employees told us
they don't feel there is major modification required in MasterCard HRP strategy.
MasterCard itself makes time to time modification in its Human Resource Planning even
before many of the other major competitors and listen to industry demand properly and
takes action promptly. The following result is obtained by our Internet Research Algorithm:
Following are the little suggestion for modification in HRP of MasterCard –
• Employee First Approach
• Understanding Individual Motivation
• Personal Involvement of HR officers
What are the various external factors which influence the industry of your choice?
Following are the 2020's external factors that influence financial services corporation –
• Technology upgrade - a financial service company has to keep itself technically updated as
with rapidly growing technology is the decider of who is ahead of whom, the one who is
technically upgraded is the winner nowadays. Fintech - It is the innovative use of technology
in the design and delivery of financial services and its transforming banking services also
because of AI, blockchain, digital payments and big data etc.
• Financial Crisis - During the financial crisis financial companies got engaged in new rules
and regulations and pays attention to them and here innovation legs behind. But, here they
ignore that some innovation may change the game for them.
• Customer expectation - There is always a gap between what a user starts expecting and
what the companies doing for them. As the service area of a financial service company
increases, the user starts expecting more and here the change takes place. Hence, here we
see the role of some third-party financial service providers like Google Pay, PhonePe and
PayTM etc. as they take the advantage of this gap.
• Competition - Today's financial service companies are facing competition not from the
other financial companies but with the technology companies like Facebook, Apple and
Google etc. because these companies have built trust among the youth and these have the
capabilities to replace your financial service providers. We can take the example of Apple
card in the USA and other growing tech companies like ET money and PayTM which are
providing an alternative to payments, loyalty benefits and savings. Currently traditional
financial service providers like banks and card providers like VISA, MasterCard etc. are just
get limited to the backend, and the user controlling via frontend is being done by new-age
fintech companies as they are also prevailing an effective version of financial inclusion.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the organization? Is the HRP strategy in line with
the business strategy of the organization?
Yes, MasterCard keeps making efforts to make it's Human Resource Planning and strategy
compliant with the business strategy. Read the article below, this helps you to understand
the role of HR planning in the business strategy of MasterCard when they thought of going
global in a standardised way in 2016 –
https://www.hrdconnect.com/2016/02/09/mastercard-overhauls-global-hrfunction/
Redefining HR practices in the post COVID-19 world
 Challenges emerging from the ‘new’ normal
HR teams have more than a handful of challenges to tackle, with most of the staff having to
work remotely. Such as that of having a robust attendance model. They will need to set new
guidelines and change policies if needed. Revised job descriptions will need to be framed to
accommodate part-time, full-time, and remote working definitions. New methods will be
required to monitor the productivity of employees working remotely. The performance
management system may need a complete overhaul, with new targets, expectations, and
rewards. The revised policies and guidelines should incorporate the process of resource
availability and utilization for their employees to be able to work remotely. HR managers
will also need to brainstorm and have innovative ideas to keep the organization culture
highly spirited – both for existing employees as well as for new incumbents. As HR teams
look to the future, they will realize that a lot many practices will change, redefining their
roles.

 Remote working becomes the new norm

A Gartner analysis predicts that 48% of employees are likely to work remotely, at least part
of the time post-COVID-19. A growing number of industry leaders hold the opinion that the
remote working culture is here to stay, and this figure can be higher for organizations that
are looking at reducing investments in real estate to offset losses incurred during the
lockdown. This would necessitate digitalization and higher adoption of technology and
resizing and transforming brick and mortar workplaces into technology-enabled virtual
ones. A significant benefit arising from this model is that managers will now be able to find
the most suitable candidate after receiving a higher number of job applications from all over
the country – since recruitment would become location agnostic.

 Resurgence of the gig economy

Utilizing contingent workers provides employers with greater flexibility concerning
workforce management. A Gartner survey reveals that 32% of organizations are replacing
full-time employees with contract workers intending to save costs. Having said that, HR
managers that intend to fill vacant positions with contractual staff will also need to deal with
challenges concerning the applicability of workplace laws upon the staff.

 Emphasis on employee social safety

Post COVID-19, organizations will continue their focus on employee safety and their
emotional well-being. HR teams will expand their involvement in the lives of employees and
ensure enhanced people connect.

 Shift in focus – from efficiency to resilience

Traditionally, organizations have sharpened their focus on employee efficiency, but in the
post-COVID-19 world, it’s resilience that will take precedence. Keeping in mind the growing
remote working culture and the possibility of future outbreaks of infections, recruiters will
look at a job applicant’s digital dexterity and digital collaboration skills at the time of hiring.

 Employee training
Identify digital tools to impart training for employees - managers, mentors, and trainers.
Specifically, revolving around the concept of working remotely. These programs will help
them manage stress, build a positive outlook, and stay productive under the remote
working model.

 Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The post-pandemic world will see an increased application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the
HR function. AI will help recruiters find promising candidates from megabytes of job
applications, and help organizations not only reach their diversity goals in the hiring process,
but also retain top talent, and engage with employees through smart applications.

How AI is now driving HR functions at Mastercard

Digitization has changed the face of the modern workplace and employee management.
Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Data analytics are now supporting HR leaders
for effective decisioning. HR leaders are now relying on CIOs to integrate technology to
support processes such as hiring, talent acquisition, employee retention and more.
The facelift of traditional HR practices has transformed the nature of employee managed
and job roles. These capabilities enable any HR function to strategically lead the design for
employee experience, redefine the workplace and enable corporate performance to achieve
growth.
One such global company to thrive in this Covid-19 crisis with fresh hiring is Mastercard. The
company has been an early adopter of digital technologies and has been running all
processes and systems digitally for a while now.
A major change that came along Covid-19 for the company was to ensure employee
productivity, well-being and maintaining an effective internal communication.
And with help of technology and collaborative work strategy aligned with CIO functions, the
HR team of Mastercard has honoured new hiring and retained talent in this unprecedented
Covid-19 world.
“Our corporate culture has four important values – Trust, Agility, Partnership and Initiative;
and we leverage technology to ensure people can deliver on these 4 values with
commitment and free of hassle, every day,” Priti Singh, SVP-HR, South Asia, Mastercard, told
ETCIO.
“At Mastercard, we formulate our HR practices and principles to ensure that we stay ahead
of major shifts in technology. At the same time, we strive to ensure that we’re addressing
emerging issues related to automation, personal privacy, career development, cybersecurity
and other themes to meet our employee needs as it reinforces our ability to do so for
customers in the world at large,” she added.
Technology is an efficient enabler for Mastercard to nurture corporate culture, foster
innovation, and drive performance at workplaces and every tech advancement provides the
much-needed opportunities to drive culture and engagement initiatives efficiently.
In such an economic crisis, Mastercard continues to hire people wherever there is a business
requirement and the HR team is continually exploring newer innovative methods of
screening and recruiting. For example, virtual recruitment is one of the flexible methods
used to keep hiring processes moving while maintaining distancing norms.
“We have been leveraging technology to its maximum to connect with and shortlist the
candidates and in fact, the joining of candidates is also happening virtually these days. We
recently had our summer intern batch for 2020 join us virtually and they will be working on
different projects across the functions. We have been an early adopter of digital
technologies and running all processes, systems digitally for a while now. Our recruitment,
talent & people management, learning, capability development, performance processes
have been running digitally for many years now. We are closely working with our technology
team and have been investing in digital HR tools, technologies like AI/ML which are giving a
better outlook today,” Singh added.
With the help of CIO and the technology teams, the company has deployed new age
technologies such as AI, ML, data analytics and more to support HR functions. Priti and her
team have been using Artificial Intelligence for screening candidates, predictive analysis to
improve various HR processes such as on-boarding, performance review, feedback, training,
retention etc to optimize for efficiency and standardization.
Similarly, they have implemented Machine Learning to make the system more relevant
based on experience. ML & Analytics based algorithms have helped HR teams to understand
more insights about our employees, personalised reports of employee progress and more.
“We have been closely working with our IT teams to successfully integrate technology to the
core of our processes. I believe collaboration between CHROs and CIOs is needed to
effectively use digital tools for improved employee engagement. A CHRO brings experience
and expertise in talent management, including acquisition, training, retention and
compliance, while CIO brings an in-depth understanding of enabling technology and digital
transformation opportunities. At Mastercard, both of these functions collaborate in order to
ensure that digital tools are complemented with HR policies that facilitate greater mobility
and flexibility,” Singh highlighted.
While technology is a proclaimed enabler of business processes at any organization, people
remain to be the biggest asset and their wellbeing is extremely important to every HR
leader. Especially in the current situation, it is even more important to build a sense of
togetherness and belonging among employees. At Mastercard, Priti has been experimenting
with digital technologies to build an effective and productive virtual work culture.
“To ensure communication and needs of employees, we have cloud-based systems and vital
platforms to connect and share information in a secure way. We have also introduced
initiatives for wellbeing such as ‘Live Well’ a global digital program which focuses on
employee well-being where we provide online sessions on eating well, exercising,
meditation and recipes from experts to help them stay healthy – both mentally and
physically – in this fast-changing landscape,” Singh said.
At Mastercard, cross functional teams and all other verticals are encouraged to leverage
digital platforms. The company is even currently running a Global Innovation Challenge.
“Our Innovation Management team has created a new global challenge that aims at
collecting and supporting ideas that can help various stakeholders such as issuers, acquirers,
businesses, banks, merchants, governments, fintech’s, mobile network operators, Telco’s
and NGOs manage the current Covid-19 crisis and recover afterwards,” Singh added.
Covid-19 marks a permanent turning point, Singh feels. “And at the centre of the seismic
change is the reshaping of corporate culture – the beliefs and behaviour that influence how
a company’s employees and management interact. Organizations will have to be more
empathetic with decency at the core and will have to provide emotional support along with
technical in the coming times. Resilience and being trustworthy will not be an option
anymore but a necessity for organizations and people at the same time. And, HR leaders will
look for people who reflect on these values along with a high EQ level and agility to adapt
with changing times.”

Mastercard is changing the way its HR department will

function as it responds to markets around the world.

Mastercard is changing the way its HR department will function as the multinational credit
card issuer responds to markets around the world.

Mastercard Prepaid Services senior vice president for global human resources David Walsh
explained the business was considering many options to make it easier to operate globally.
Speaking at the HR Directors Business Summit, Walsh said: “We’re changing our HR model
at the moment so my colleagues and I are going through that particular kind of change.
“That is trying to demystify this global thing and then really focus on the market because
that’s where the action is. How we get there in this new model is where those
accountabilities will sit. Each different business has a different strategic view, so if
everything’s now sitting in market, how’s the work going to get done?” Walsh noted that
such an approach was becoming increasingly common for other major multinationals but he
wanted minimise potential problems. “Having that expertise across broader businesses and
each market is important so that when people are sitting at head office that need something
done in South Africa there’s one point of contact for everybody to get everything done that
they need to do. Whether it’s a different HR practice or if everyone’s dealing with the same
things or different interpretations that go on in New York around what the employment
legislation is in these territories, so we need to keep that really focused,” he added.

Mastercard wants employees to make the choice, will allow them to work from home
until pandemic is under control