How, where, when did you start your career, especially in HR? Also, why did you choose HR?
I started my career in 1985. The starting point was not a role in the HR function but my move to HR is a story I love to recall and recount. I started as a sales professional. By the beginning of 1986, I had moved to a larger organization which promoted cross functional training and exposure. I was placed in project to set up a new manufacturing unit in a technocommercial role. Eight to nine months down the year, a critical HR project had a team member drop out and I was ‘borrowed’ for 2 days. And my 2 days never ended!
I joined and in a few days I knew this is what I was destined to do and groomed myself accordingly.
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?
The beginning period was difficult. I was mostly dealing with the systems, processes, policies and recruitment aspects of human resources – the classical personnel function.
Times were different. The value of human resource, that employees are the assets of the company and the importance of employee engagement were concepts talked about, but little was done in most of the companies.
Most of the time, HR jobs were looked at from the perspective of monitoring and control. The need to engage with large number of people individually or together were mostly situational and it was few of those moments that left an impact on me. In my initial years i got a lot of learning inputs in the area of human behavior, leadership and human processes. That is when I started to appreciate the possibilities of the HR function – vast, exciting and challenging. It lead me to introspect and to empathize. I learned to understand business in depth – across all functions and in all possible layers. All this helped me in interacting with a lot of people, empathize with them and look at organizational decisions from the perspectives of the recipients, that is, the employees. On the personal front also, these learnings helped me recast my own personality, towards being a more balanced person.
What would you describe as the best moments of your HR career?
I cannot point out ‘best moments’. I don’t think any HR professional can. Because our work is mostly moments put together for an experience. When I started work with Godfrey Phillips, we were excited to put in the best practices, systems , processes and technology within the organization. We proudly congratulated ourselves on a good job done until we noticed that the work had just begun, of initiating change and taking our employees along with. Helping leadership and the rest accept, adopt and practice. Creating and nurturing an environment that caters to both employees and business.
So to answer your question, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of an employee is my best moment. To hear an employee say this is the best company they have worked with is my best moment. To see an employee standing up to give feedback directly to our President is my best moment.
I would say watching the transformation over time of what was to what we envisioned is my best moment. Both professionally and personally.
But if you ask me to name one challenging work I did and achieved success, it would be capability assessment of the top management. The initiative entailed identifying the key strength and weaknesses of the leaders, evaluating it against the roles, planning the development, implementing it and assessing it. The bigger challenge was to get them to take off dedicated time, stay away from emails and of course, live together, especially after feedbacks!
What advice would you like to give HR practitioners of the next generation? A. Even in today’s times the HR function is looked at by a large number of professionals, in HR fraternity and outside, as a power center. This myth needs to be broken and the ownership of this lies on the shoulders of us HR professionals.
Today HR is also fronting the battle in business – where companies are fighting over talent. Stakes are high and the competition is intense as employee mobility has increased, lateral movement is becoming popular, supply of talent and experience is getting thinly laid out and millennials are bringing in a whole new meaning to expectations and need. An intangible like employee engagement has become a measurement for the HR and that is the key to keep you ahead in the game. We are a strategic function now and it can be neither ignored nor denied any longer.
The real dilemma that faces us is creating the right balance between business needs and employee expectations. This is almost like walking a tightrope. My advice for the upcoming HR professionals would be to pay utmost respect and consideration to the need of business as well as the expectations of people. It is easy to get lost in the heat of moment and a whole lot of information being thrown at you. At times, when the two seem to be opposing each other, I feel the best way to deal with it is weigh all options from a five years perspective. How would my organization look after five years based on the decisions taken from purely business perspective or from a purely employee perspective? Look at both the profit and loss aspect – savings and revenue – keeping business and employee as a part of the quadrant. Then balance the needs while considering the scenario.
But the most important thing I want to keep reminding everyone, not just HR professionals, is that employees are people first. They are not just part of the ‘resource’ in a material way. They are people – with families, with some likeable and irritating traits, with aspirations and dreams. And they are choosing to spend their life with your company over others. Remember it and respect it.
