“Dream And Inspire Others To Dream With You”

October 27, 2016

Prem Singh, a graduate in mechanical engineering and a post graduate in management from IIT Delhi started his career with a job in engineering that had strong elements of HR. Feedback from friends and senior colleagues in addition to his own realization that HR came most naturally to him made Singh shift his professional field. Today Singh leads the HR function at Wockhardt, providing strategic direction towards organizational capability building and growth of the business. He talks to THF about his experiences, his learnings and advice to the young HR professionals.

THE INITIAL YEARS The initial years were spent in learning about the basics and strengthening my business–HR connect. My engineering qualification came very handy in that. While working very closely with business managers, quite often I was offered additional assignments beyond HR, as task force member or team leader – which I very willingly took. That was most helpful. Some key points I learnt:

Quite often, HR organizations tend to operate from a narrow window of “domain”, rather than contextualising and tailoring the HR agenda and strategy to the business requirements. HR has to be relevant, keep pace with the changes taking place around and respond accordingly.

We need to anticipate, think through, plan ahead and “respond” with well thought out solutions, rather than “react” with one-off activity. HR needs to leverage technology to drive speed and efficiency. Insights and analytics are very critical for understanding the ground realities so as to make sound decisions.

If you want to achieve something, start with an outcome in mind and work backwards with a plan that leads to the outcome. • If someone says “this is the best we can do” – question that. Perhaps it’s the beginning of getting it even better

Surround yourself with people who think differently, people who bring a different kind of skill set, rather than people who agree with you all the time.

If you have demanding customers, tough bosses and broken systems – don’t run away. That is the most fertile ground to use your talents and make a difference.

Work hard, celebrate wins (party harder) and have fun!

When it comes to people related decisions, there is just one mantra: “Objectivity and fairness”!

The best moment of your HR career

First one was last year at Wockhardt Group, when, during the annual meet, I was conferred with the Chairman’s Leadership Excellence award. We had done significant, quality work in several areas including bagging the best employer award in “Great Place to Work”. The team had worked very hard to build very HR systems and processes, working on several levers like strategic talent acquisition, leadership development, talent management, communication and engagement – and when Chairman’s Leadership award came; it was a vindication of the quality of work that had happened. The most satisfying was when the Chairman, in his address he said, “…In a short period of time, he has done a lot of work and taken a number of initiatives which has helped the organization tremendously”.

Second was when we initiated a unique program Gen ONE. This is about the generational differences in the organizations. Most people just talk about its existence, and leave it there. We actually attempted to leverage this diversity as an opportunity – by facilitating a dialogue based on mutual interdependence. Once we implemented a pilot, the feedback from all the people from various generations was very positive, and we decided to implement across the group. This has not only helped us strengthen team work, but also positively affected the overall work environment, energy and measurable reduction in attrition.

Third was at Owens Corning (India) Ltd as the Plant HR Leader, where I had led the implementation of High Performance practices through self-managed teams. In addition to the self managed teams concept, employee engagement, 6 Sigma, variable pay programs right through to the last level, thereby developing a “pay for performance” culture – these were some of the other tenets of the high performance framework. We got a Gold Plant status for three years continuously and I was awarded with the Global HR excellence award. What was even more satisfying was that several companies like – Pepsi, Hindustan Lever, Cadbury, Maruti etc visited us learn how the concept of SMT was being implemented at Owens Corning, treating us as a benchmark.

Fourth was when I headed HR, admin and corporate communication in Essar Steel Caribbean Ltd, in the Caribbean Islands (on an ex-pat assignment). Getting qualified talent for immediate and future business requirements was one of the key focus areas to de-risk the investment ($2.4 billion, that was planned at that time). Mechanical and metallurgical engineering was one of the key skills needed. We did a due diligence and found that University of Trinidad & Tobago (UTT) was the only university that could help us. However, UTT did not have metallurgical and mechanical engineering departments. I made a presentation to the UTT authorities proposing a long term relationship whereby we would help the university create these departments by helping them find good faculty members from various IITs. In turn the UTT would develop these disciplines and train young engineers who we would then hire. We advertised in India inviting applications from the professors from various IITs and NITs, who would be keen to work with UTT on deputation and over 40candidates applied. A three members team from UTT came and conducted interviews in Mumbai and Delhi and selected five professors, who started developing the disciplines. In fact, some of them are still there! At a UTT function, Prof Ken Julien of UTT mentioned the collaboration to the then T&T Prime Minister. The appreciation of the PM that evening convinced us that our effort had been worthwhile.

Fifth, while working at JCB, I was asked to lead a cross-functional team of five managers to measure customer satisfaction and recommend an action plan for its improvement. This gave me an opportunity to design the survey, validate it, pilot and roll it out; travel across the country, meet the customers and come out with a comprehensive report, including an action plan. Later, I also became part of implementation. Seeing the quality of work done in this area, one of the SBU heads offered me a role as marketing manager. It was very satisfying to see that the quality of the work done was being appreciated.

Lessons learnt

These outstanding moments have strengthened my belief that if you can dream; and inspire others to dream with you, you can make it.

Second, when you drive something with purpose and passion, half of the goal is met. Rest is all follow through! • Third, as a leader, play the role of a teacher, a coach and mentor. Add value to people – even if you have to do “mirroring” to do that. This helps the individuals get better, evolve as more complete professionals and emerge stronger.

Advice to HR pra ctitioners.

Don’t try to get everyone to do everything. Place people in the roles they are naturally good at. They will all shine, and therefore the team will shine.