Vidia Mooneegan: “Business is not just about making money”

While many companies and multinationals are guided by a profit-driven attitude, Ceridian strives to continuously improve its workplace. Its CEO Vidia Mooneegan talks to us about his ‘brand promise’, the role of his Foundation and the future challenges awaiting him and his organisation.

What is behind your brand promise ‘Makes work life better’?

Our brand promise is ‘Ceridian Makes Work Life Better.’ We listen to customers and strive to help them become more healthy, involved and productive. Ceridian is an innovative cloud software provider in the human capital management space. What is unique about our product is that we have one application, with one employee record, one user experience and zero interface. Through our products and solutions, we make life better for our customers. We apply the same brand promise to our people. We strive to render the lives of our personnel better through a great workplace and friendly work practices. When people come to Ceridian, we offer them more than a career. We want them to have the best work life experience. Our Payback Foundation activities, Fun@Work program and Ceridian Women Network are designed so that our colleagues have fun together, and build strong communities at work.

Tell us about the Ceridian Payback Foundation and the education projects you have supported.

Business is not just about making money. We believe in the power of business to make a difference in the world. Businesses can help ensure opportunity and access for all, help make education relevant and engaging to children of all abilities and learning styles. It is in our best interest to bring the poorest and least privileged into the mainstream of economic activity, to create a country that is inclusive and caring for all. Responsible corporate behaviour is an absolute must for every company. Corporate Mauritius has the resources and the entrepreneurial skills to help lift the nation to new heights of prosperity. The Mauritian government has demonstrated its commitment by pushing the CSR agenda in making it mandatory for companies to provide a % of their profits towards CSR. While the Government will do its part to create an environment for sustainable and inclusive growth, the private sector must do its part to energize the nation to create a more united, harmonious, equitable and prosperous Mauritius. With the will and determination of our associates, Ceridian wants to contribute towards this goal. Launched in 2003, Ceridian Payback Foundation is entirely funded by voluntary donations from employees through internal fundraising activities. Ceridian Payback Foundation helps make a real difference to disadvantaged children helping them develop and improve their lives. In the past 13 years, we have assisted over 500 children through the provision of special equipment.

Ceridian is a leading supporter of the Ducere MBA programme. Why such an engagement to the programme?

Today, we are talking about Disruptive Technologies, the Big Shift and Industry 4.0. The forces of unprecedented change will shake companies, industries and economies. All industries will be impacted – healthcare, automotive, banking, publishing, education, and more. We have all heard about the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) from the world’s best universities. The universities of tomorrow will enable students to learn anywhere and anytime, and provide learning that is customized to students’ needs. Ducere Business School is one among these disruptors in the field of education. We are proud to be associated with Ducere. As an industry partner with Ducere, we provide projects to students. These are real business challenges for students to find solutions. We have also been able to enrol some of our employees on the Ducere MBA programme. Ceridian is very committed to education and skills development.

“ Owing to lack of skilled manpower, some investors went to other countries and some companies could not sign large business deals. Through Ceridian Learning Centre, we want to build a best in class training organisation that will focus on developing talent to meet the growing demand of the industry. "

Why did you decide to set up Ceridian Learning Centre in 2011?

Mauritius business leaders have been complaining about talent shortages and mismatch for years. This talent crunch has slowed down the growth of the knowledge industries in the last 5 years. Owing to lack of skilled manpower, some investors went to other countries and some companies could not sign large business deals. Through Ceridian Learning Centre, we want to build a best in class training organisation that will focus on developing talent to meet the growing demand of the industry. We hope to humbly contribute as follows: Build sustainable talent pipeline which is readily employable across IT-BPO sector; enhance skills and competencies of new entrants as well as those who have been working in the sector for years but need a skill upgrade; create greater awareness of global best and new practices and benchmarks; enable companies to be more competitive through industry certification and provide thought leadership to government, academia and industry on training and certification matters. Ceridian Learning Center has offered more than 120 courses including a degree in IT. We have trained on average 1,500 people annually in the past 2 years.

Is the mismatch between academia and industry requirements in the IT-BPO sector still on the agenda? How to bridge it?

We have been talking about skills mismatch for a long time, especially in science and technology. This mismatch has increased over the past years due to fast pace of change in the technology space – industry will always be ahead of academia. However, we need to reduce the gap. This problem has exacerbated due to the inability of universities and lecturers to upgrade fast enough. The newer universities are getting ahead of the game because they are more agile. Some universities conduct program reviews twice a year engaging with external university professors and industry partners. Universities need to make industry placement mandatory for some fields of study, e.g. computer science and engineering. This will reduce unemployment after graduation. The industry placement process needs to be reviewed for greater effectiveness. A large proportion of lectures need to be delivered by industry practitioners. Lecturers need to spend time in industry talking to business people to understand industry trends and talent needs. Having business leaders to come to an hour or two meetings at the university is not sufficient.

How is Ceridian gearing itself to face industry challenges.

Our three key corporate objectives are employee engagement, customer experience and product excellence. We value our people. They are truly our competitive advantage. Being an Employer of Choice is important for Ceridian in order to attract and retain the best talent. We compete against world class corporations and we need world class talent to succeed. We want to build a more global platform to serve a global market place. This includes providing international rotation opportunities to our colleagues to spend time in the US, Canada and UK as well as having foreign talent to supplement our local workforce. We have positioned ourselves as an innovative cloud software company focusing on developing the best products for the Human Capital Management market. We hope to grow our R&D capability. We will continue investing significantly in leadership and talent development through our learning center. We will partner with best-in-class providers to offer the best programs to the Mauritius talent pool. We want to strengthen our partnerships with government, academia and industry.