How, where and when did you start your career, specifically in HR?
A. It was late 80s when I was an entrant in the professional arena. I got my first major break to work with one of largest European MNC in the field of hydrocarbons and oil and gas, Kinetics Technology India Limited (now Technip India Limited) . When I look back and relive those younger days, I tended to relate myself to following attributes, though inadvertently:
Stick to Basics: Had never any reservation to any work. I was assigned a task refused by my peers and fellow colleagues and executed these to the best of my abilities believing that no task or assignment is big or small and good or bad, It’s our outlook and experience of having performed that matters at the end of day.
Fail early, fail cheaply: That time I was too young to realize this. I took few risks and challenges which I, otherwise, at my level could have avoided safely and tasted my share of failure. It made me wiser and helped me a lot in the longer run to take correct decision when it mattered the most. Even now whenever I take some session in-house, invariably I emphasize on “Knowing the right thing and its benefits is just half the knowledge. Being well aware of the wrong part and its consequences will only make you complete professional in your field of operation.”
Commitment & Passion: Essential ingredients of any recipe to success. At the cost of making you victim of boredom, let me dare to share an anecdote. I was responsible for Payroll Management also besides other HR and Personnel functions. Last working day of the month used to be our salary day when all employees’ salary would be deposited in their bank account. IT systems were not as strong those days and announcement of appraisal results visà- vis salary increments delayed quite substantially and we could receive the final figures only in the evening of 29th April of 1992, if I guess exactly, after the announcement. The very next day, 30th April salary must be credited to employees’ account. No choice, no deviation. Being 5 months veteran married man, stayed overnight in office, completed the assignment, got signed in the morning and submitted to bank at 10.30 am. What a relief and feeling of satisfaction!
HR is all about soft jobs, hard decisions. Sometime it is really difficult when the overall economy or any specific industry is facing a hard time. Nevertheless, HR is consistently gaining importance and becoming the integral part of mainstream business processes.
Q. Why did you choose HR as your professional field?
A. Being very candid, not many thoughts were invested when started the career in HR field. But gradually, I found it quite satisfying and fulfilling while growing along the time. The foremost reason: the function itself is “giving” by nature. If we analyze carefully the end to end HR function is just about giving :
- Employment (Recruitment)
- Increment and Promotion (Performance Appraisal)
- Benefits and Perks (Policies, Rules, Practices) Incentives
- Career progression (Job enrichment / enlargement)
- And the list is endless…..
Though it holds true most of the time, we may have to encounter the other side also. As many senior colleagues have highlighted HR as “soft jobs, hard decisions”, sometime it is really difficult when overall economy or any specific industry is facing a hard time. Nevertheless, HR is consistently gaining importance and becoming the integral part of mainstream business processes. In essence, whatever you do, you do for others. It makes you a person of substance who thinks twice or thrice before taking a call as your action may change the course of somebody’s life.
Q. Describe the initial years of your career in a few sentences – what were the challenges you faced, what were the areas you enjoyed the most, the lessons learnt during the initial years.
A. Rejection deserves better treatment. Inspite of having all good and desirable natural traits, it is not that we succeed always in a certain manner. Maturity, adaptability, perseverance (MAP) sometime come with age and mixed experience, barring exception for sure, I mean the young generation now is quite smart and ready. It was early 1993, already identified High Potential, I was asked to appear for the formal selection to head Personnel function for the manufacturing workshop division. After an hour long marathon meeting, I was brutally rejected saying “need to be more seasoned and aged for the position”. I felt dejected, of course. More than rejection, I felt bad for the fact that I was rejected by the same set of people who had identified me to be suitable for the job and were responsible to raise my hopes.
Now, whether we call it destiny or MAP, within six months, I was asked to contribute in setting up new avatar of Human Resources function at corporate office of same company. That was the transition time in India from traditional personnel function to progressive HR. I would say a far better proposition in terms of professional career and growth prospects. Here, my journey on the road of modern HR profession took off. To a great extent, I owe my career to the opportunities and generous guidance received at Technip where I served seventeen good years. BIG thanks!!
Q What would you describe as the highest point of your HR career?
A. Robin Sharma’s famous quote “Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.” One should endeavor to find new challenges and get out of comfort zone as and when required. Always better if it is available in-house. After 17 long years at Technip, the job became kind of monotonous, predictable and almost reached at saturation level with the desired level of respect from all and ones. That was the time when Samsung Engineering decided to venture out of Korea and set up their first full fledged engineering company “Global Engineering Center” in India. I got the privilege to be the first employee of the organization to set up from the scratch. Even the company did not exist legally when I got associated.
It was a sort of green field project. Challenges were enormous, road was bumpy and the satisfaction could be immense if successful. This fascinated me and motivated to write another chapter in professional life. Scope was huge and was personally involved in all the nitty-gritty of organization as a core founder member to make it successful soon. Attracting the best resources always the key factor for any new venture besides defining and implementing the P3: policies (most dynamic), processes (simplified and effective) and practices (innovative). Fortunately, we tasted our share of success and our efforts were well appreciated by our counterparts and peer industry in general.
A sense of belonging usually becomes a challenge in the new set up and to facilitate the same, we introduced a 30 minute role play “You Are CEO” once a month. Not only it became popular among all the employees across genre; new ideas and suggestions started coming voluntarily for creation of effective systems and processes, innovative employee-friendly practices, action plan for realization of company vision and future. And suddenly, an aura of ownership was created. It was published in The Times of India as one of the unique HR Practices way back in 2008.
While the organization was maturing with a decade experience in kitty, we have been fortunate and able to launch some other peoplefriendly practices including online Helpdesk portal eServe (Smart Employee Response & Value Enrichment) and EMS (Exit Management System), PCI based TNI (Personal Capability Index, Training Needs Identification) to name a few.
Q. How did these achievements transform you personally and professionally?
A. Two things are for sure when somebody is coming to you; first, he/she has some problem and second he/she thinks and hopes that you have some solution. Many times, we do not. Then at least “Understand the people’s problems with Humility and Empathy”. So over the time, we become Enabler & Facilitator to People Growth. In the essence, I would say “people are not difficult, they are different”.
Q. What advice would you like to give HR practitioners of the next generation?
A. On a personal note, I hate advice. All are wise and intelligent enough in their own perspective. Personally, I subscribe to the old theory of management gurus:
Continue: to be a student. Learn new & improvised version before the existing becomes redundant. BIG Data and HR Analytics hold the key. Probably, the time has already arrived when all the major strategies and business dec isions are influenced by People Analysis in a significant manner.
Stop: complacency. The very reason of our existence is the people around us. Start: acquire knowledge of business domain and influence bottom line. Already we can find HR leaders becoming CEOs or registering their presence in the Boardroom.
It may not be an overstatement that HR has witnessed an era and transformed as facilitator, influencer, enabler and business leader.
