How, where and when did you start your career, specifically in HR?
A. I started my career in the year 2000 with a small ad agency in Pune. I was responsible for the HR operations and training for the company. It was then a Rs 52 crore company with four branches and about 45 employees.
Q. Why did you choose HR as your professional field?
A. The decision to take up HR as a specialization for my post graduation was influenced by a family friend, who was working with a consumer product company in the HR division. His description of the HR function and job responsibilities created an interest in me. In retrospect, I am happy that I did what I did and have enjoyed every moment of my 16 years of HR journey.
Q. During the initial years, what were the challenges you faced, the areas you enjoyed the most, the lessons you learnt ?
A. I got my first big break when I joined one of India’s leading bed and bath companies in the year 2002. I was made responsible for the training. The most challenging part of the job was to understand the business quickly and be able to add value to the business through training and development programs. The highlight of my career here was the national retail training roll out in partnership with a global training organistion. All my ex colleagues still remember and appreciate the program! The most important lesson that I had learnt was that the plans made sitting inside the cabins at the corporate office may not work in practical. One needs to be in touch with ground realities, if one wants the plans to work and show results.
Q. What might be described as the best moment of your HR career?
A. One of the most satisfying HR moments was the ‘sales re-organization’ which I undertook in 2014 during my current assignment. It was a huge task as we were trying to change a system that had been running for decades. The key challenges were:
1. Reorganising teams as per the sales channel;
2. Identifying the right resources for each channel;
3. Creating an organization structure that will enable collaboration and fuel good sales growth;
4. Ensuring that there is no job loss/ redundancy;
5. Setting the right performance metrics for each reorganized team and;
6. Defining the strategy for the next 3 years We concluded the reorganization in six months, right from the planning to the final roll out stage. Today, the sales team is working as per the new structure and five out of the six sales channels have already shown a higher growth rate (about 1.5 to 2 times the previous growth).
Q. Has the above influenced you?
A. This initiative gave me an opportunity to study our current business operations very closely. I also got an opportunity to analyse best practices in the market for similar sales channels. On the other hand, for the success of this program, we had to extensively socialize with varied stake-holders and get them aligned to this transformational shift within the organization. Overall, the experience was very satisfying, specially when you see the positive impact that it made on business.
Q. Some key guidance and advice…
A. I do not have any advice to give, I only have a suggestion that as HR professionals, we should try and add value to business through our interventions. HR processes and plans must be in line with the businesses needs. HR should be present along with line functions as an equal stakeholder in key business decisions. We should not have a situation that an HR process ‘succeeded’ but business ‘did not’.
