How, where and when did you start your career? Also, why did you choose HR as your professional field?
Being a post-graduate in electronics, I started my career teaching young minds at IIT Roorkee and NIT Kurukshetra. Gradually, I noticed a clear difference between skilled engineers and passionate engineers and how each turned out in the long-term. This founded my interest in understanding people and the value they deliver, especially in driving business results, which led me to my true calling – Human Resources. I began my professional career in HR in ITC in 2000, and my work in this field for the past 16 years has been aimed at turning organizations into passion hubs for people.
Could you briefly describe the initial years of your career – what were the challenges you faced, the areas you enjoyed the most, the lessons learnt?
Switching from an engineer and a teacher to the corporate world, to be honest, was a bit daunting. The rules were entirely different. After all, it means leaving something safe and familiar for a role in a field with no professional network or experience to back my decisions and actions. I clearly remember the days I wished I had just stayed put, but looking back, my passion for developing and coaching people for success kept me driving in the Human Resource field, and I’m glad I stuck it out, because what a transformational experience it has been!
There are two important lessons I learned during my initial years, that have been true pillars of my growth as an HR leader – first, to focus on my strengths; I learned to leverage my analytical and technical bend that I owed to my engineering background to resolve complex challenges that we faced in HR in a structured, solution-oriented manner. Secondly, I learned that an HR professional should possess at least one skill, which differentiates him or her from the line manager; it’s vital to play the role of a subject matter expert when it comes to enabling functions such as HR.
What would you describe as the highest point of your HR career?
I always classify moments into learning and contributing. My best moment on my personal learning curve was when I was selected among 12 leaders from Mahindra to attend the Harvard programme along with Anand Mahindra. Being just two years into the organization and getting selected for this special and elite programme was a great honour for me. Professionally, playing a key role in designing and recreating all people processes for a workforce of 12000 in order to align with the new brand at Mahindra & Mahindra is one of the most challenging as well as rewarding contributions I’ve made.
Working with other HR leaders at Mahindra & Mahindra to ensure that the new brand and what it stood for came to life naturally among the people such that it became the driving force behind everybody’s work needed patience, expertise in various people practices, and heaps of empathy – it was indeed a transformational experience.
What advice would you like to give HR practitioners of the next generation?
Organizations are moving away from generalists to specialists – HR practitioners of today must go deeper into this profession and be an expert in a particular area of HR, be it training, talent management or compensation & benefits.
Empirical evidence behind any recommendation is powerful than anecdotal evidence. Hence, use anecdotes to sense the symptoms but depend on empirical evidence to analyse the issue and come up with solution. Showcasing what you’ve done is as important as accepting what you haven’t done – perfection is not easily achieved. Quality of conversations is more important than compliance to process. Employee engagement is a factor of the quality and intellectual capacity in the work.
