Everise - HR Executive of the Year

Company: Everise
Company Description: Everise is a technology-enabled outsourcing firm with expertise in transforming healthcare and technology experiences globally. The Company’s unique approach combines customer and technical support services with AI, robotic process automation, analytics, and secure cloud-based technology. Everise has been the recipient of numerous awards for innovative services and products.
Nomination Category: Human Resources Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Human Resources Executive of the Year

Nomination Title: Sheena Ponnappan

Everise is a leader in customer experience outsourcing, offering high-growth start-ups and Fortune 500 companies the talent, tools and technology they need to rapidly scale their brands across markets.
Sheena Ponnappan is the Chief People Officer for Everise. She drives the company's continued growth by creating and managing effective people strategies with her primary purpose being to elevate experiences for both our partners and our fellow employees.

In the Beginning

Founded in 2016 with a vision to disrupt the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry Everise has since risen rapidly to include 11,000 champions across seven countries. From the beginning, Sheena ensured we have remained committed to our values: being people-first, celebrating diversity and incubating innovation. Our people-first culture attracts a diverse range of people that are the best at their skillsets, and we’ve learned that diverse thinking enables innovation, which accelerates growth.

Enter the Covid Crisis

While many companies constricted in the past year, Everise evolved. We pushed ourselves to the edge to remain agile and innovative, while keeping our people safe.

When COVID-19 struck, less than 10% of Everise’s population was working in a remote setting. The logistics, technical infrastructure, time, and people it took to make it happen were deemed almost impossible, but with the guidance and leadership that came from Sheena and the executive team along with the hard work and dedication that came from our Champions, we successfully accomplished the task of moving 95% of our staff safely to their homes to work within a matter of three weeks.

Once safely at home, we had 4 core objectives to evolve:
-Transition our award-winning culture into a remote setting.
-Digitize our immersive training and career development programs.
-Pivot our performance monitoring to ensure our people remained productive.
- Remain committed to our diversity and inclusion targets.

Support from Home

As productivity for most of the world slowed, our Champions never slowed. They were essential in helping customers navigate complicated insurance system during a healthcare crisis, as well as support those stuck at home keep entertained with their smart home devices.
To support our work-at-home staff, Sheena deployed leadership development training, focused on effectively managing a remote workforce, along with other employee experience programs:

Ana Chatbot: Our AI Assistant named Ana, improves the candidate onboarding experience and reduces attrition rates by intelligently guiding candidates from job search to their first day on the job; she provides 24/7 access to information about Everise, its culture and work environment.

Everise University: Everise has developed its very own digital learning platform designed to allow employees to benefit from a large pool of knowledge 24/7.

Everise Accelerator: High performing champions are selected to fast track their supervisor
and managerial careers with an immersive instructor-led training program with remote work management modules.

Virtual Coaching: Our Agent Intelligence tool gives team leads real time info on how their teams are doing. If there is an issue, they use Microsoft Teams to enable real time coaching.

Everise Kudos: Getting a little acknowledgment can go a long way so that is why the “Kudos” recognition program was created to celebrate achievement and collaborations at both a local and global level.

Rockstar Awards: The “You Rock!” award gives recognition from peers for micro-achievements, on the other end of the spectrum there is the “Standing Ovation” award which gives praise and a hefty reward from the executive leadership to employees who made the biggest impact quarterly.

Flex Ninja Program: We offer flexible work-at-home schedules and different shifts that provide the security and flexibility people are looking for.

Champion Recognition: Recognizes and celebrates employees who reach 10 years of service and beyond with a trophy and cash bonus.

While our objectives remained the same, Sheena’s strategy remains fluid by receiving input from our people throughout the year, which in turn created the following programs:

Everise Kudos
Rockstar Awards
Flex Ninja Program
Ana Chatbot
Everise University
Everise Accelerator
Virtual Coaching
Champion Recognition

Additionally, Sheena and her team spearheaded several key initiatives this year:
- A comprehensive ESG plan that includes a Diversity Council, Employee Resource Groups, D&I training, and monthly Etalk sessions.
- Monthly wellness and engagement events (e.g. Zumba, weight management/nutrition webinars, talent contests, costume parties, game nights, eschool awards, theme days, tenure awards, virtual happy hours, and rookie awards).

Under our CPO’s leadership, Everise has become one of the most awarded employers winning at the HR Excellence Awards, Chief HR Officer of the Year by the Stevie Awards for Great Employers in 2019, and HR Leader of the Year in 2020 by the HR Excellence Awards, has been listed in Top 100 Workplaces with The Best D&I Initiatives in 2021 by Mogul Inc. and is the Gold winner for Most Inspiring Workplace of the Year in North America 2021.

We are also proud of our strong Glassdoor and Indeed ratings, at 4.7 and 4.3 respectively, which are higher than our competitors.