Ritesh Daryani
Chief People Officer
Edifecs
Episode 375
The New HR Mandate: Empowering Employees, Designing Holistic Experiences
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleDecember 17, 2024 · 21:00
Thesis
“HR leadership should cultivate a holistic employee experience through comprehensive wellbeing plans and flexible work arrangements, while empowering managers and enacting a strategic planning process that balances enduring themes with adaptable annual execution.”
Show notes
When the return-to-office debate peaked, most companies followed the herd. Edifecs didn't. Their CPO, Ritesh Daryani, ran the internal data, found no evidence that remote work had hurt productivity or engagement, and made a deliberate decision to stay remote-first. That kind of evidence-based resistance to conventional wisdom is characteristic of how he builds everything.
Daryani, who spent his first 13 years in large enterprise HR at companies like IBM before deliberately moving to smaller, more agile organizations, has spent nearly a decade building out a holistic employee experience philosophy at Edifecs. He calls it a "wellbeing plan" rather than total rewards—a conscious distinction that signals something broader than compensation: financial, physical, mental, career, social, and community wellbeing, each addressed deliberately. The framework exists because he believes employees experience their company not through policies but through the daily actions of their managers, and his investment reflects that belief.
His approach to strategic planning is equally distinct: a five-year plan with broad, stable themes, and a flexible annual execution layer informed by a yearly market scan. Ninety percent of the work is execution—the strategy exists to focus it, not replace it. His parting counsel to HR leaders: do less, but do it well. The organizations that try to run too many initiatives in parallel dilute all of them.
- Why Edifecs stayed remote-first when others mandated return-to-office—and the data that supported the decision
- "Wellbeing plan" vs. "total rewards": a holistic philosophy covering financial, physical, mental, career, social, and community wellbeing
- Culture as the sum of managerial behavior—not mission statements—and how to develop managers accordingly
- The 5-year strategic HR plan: stable broad themes with flexible annual execution layers
- Systemic thinking before any rollout: how to anticipate second-order effects of new HR policies and programs
- Do less, but do well: the philosophy of focused execution over initiative proliferation
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What you'll take away
- 1Implement a holistic 'wellbeing plan' encompassing financial, physical, mental, career, social, and community aspects, rather than just traditional total rewards, to drive comprehensive employee engagement.
- 2Embrace a remote-first work model, empowering employees to choose their work location to enhance personal-professional life integration, which demonstrably increases engagement and productivity without sacrificing company performance.
- 3Cultivate organizational culture by focusing on manager development and leadership role-modeling, recognizing that culture is perceived by employees through their daily interactions, particularly with their team and manager.
- 4Develop a 5-year HR strategic plan with broad, unchanging themes, then break it into flexible, market-scan-informed yearly plans, dedicating 90% of effort to execution and 10% to strategy.
- 5Before rolling out any HR practice, policy, or program, apply systemic thinking to consider all angles and potential impacts across the organization, then commit to a 'do less, but do well' approach for effective implementation.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Edifecs actively chose not to follow the 'herd mentality' of mandating a return to office post-COVID, instead opting to remain remote-first based on internal data showing no negative impact on productivity or engagement.
In Ritesh's words
“I usually start by saying that, you know, I had about 20 years of experience. My first 13 years had been in a very large company... And that was all about scale, how to build organizations with lots of robust processes and all that. But later in my career... I thought, I'm going to go to a little bit smaller organizations.”
This quote highlights the guest's intentional career shift from large, process-driven environments to smaller, agile organizations, showcasing diverse experience.
“And we call this whole concept, which many companies people call it total rewards, we call it wellbeing plan. And wellbeing plan is a very holistic approach around how you think about employees.”
This defines Edifecs' unique and comprehensive approach to employee support, emphasizing holistic wellbeing over traditional compensation and benefits.
“So what is a driver to bring back the employees? When we start, when you start to look back and sit back, do you want to follow the herd mentality and follow everybody else? Or you want to stay, go back and stay back and think, hey, do you really need it to change? And our answer was absolutely not at all.”
This demonstrates a strong, data-driven rationale for resisting the common return-to-office trend, prioritizing employee flexibility and engagement.
“If the managers are giving the right kind of engagement, the team and listening and talking and not just talking about personal, like the professional stuff, but also knowing the employees personally. So we provide a lot of tools to managers to equip them and constant learning through that.”
This emphasizes the critical role of managers in shaping culture and engagement, advocating for their development to foster personal connections.
“What I've realized that I created a plan in 2020 for 5 years from 2020 to '25... What I realized that your broad themes don't change. Your broad themes quite remain pretty much similar, but your yearly plans will change.”
This offers a practical insight into long-term strategic planning, distinguishing between stable overarching goals and adaptable annual initiatives.
“So do less, but do well. So, you know, some of the things which are on these lines that work for me, and I'm pretty sure these are like fundamentals, and if people do these, follow these principles, I think, yeah, they'll do well.”
This conveys a core philosophy of focused execution and quality over quantity in HR initiatives, advising a thoughtful and committed approach.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Many companies struggle with outdated 'total rewards' frameworks that fail to address employees' full spectrum of wellbeing needs (financial, physical, mental, career, social, community).
- •Organizations often feel pressure to mandate return-to-office policies without sufficient internal drivers, potentially eroding employee flexibility, engagement, and productivity.
- •HR leaders find it challenging to elevate company culture and boost retention because culture is often misunderstood as declared policy rather than a cumulative perception shaped by managerial actions and leadership role-modeling.
- •Businesses frequently lack a robust, adaptive HR strategic planning process that effectively balances long-term directional themes with flexible, annually adjusted execution plans, leading to inefficient resource allocation.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
Most of your career has been in enterprise companies
Tim Sloan on His Career Journey
One of Edifex's areas of focus is around wellness strategy
Employee Well-being
Redefex transitioned during COVID to become a fully remote organization
Redefex
Ritesh shares his advice on how to elevate culture and drive employee retention
What is the culture of an organization?
Ritesh shares his process for developing a 5-year strategic plan
The Process of Building a 5-Year Strategic Plan
Ritesh Singh joins us on the Built by People podcast
Interview
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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