Surya prakash mohapatra (Global Head-Talent Transformation, Wipro BPS) believes that every employee has an unlimited potential, and urges hr fraternity too to believe so
How, where and when did you start your career, specifically in HR?
After spending a few years in operations, sales, marketing and channel partner management in the initial years of my career, I finally entered into HR. This breakthrough came when I got selected for the ‘Performance Development Manager’ role in FirstRing India Private Ltd., the Indian arm of a USA based ITES company.
Here I was responsible for enhancing and optimizing the performance of the workforce. This was a challenging assignment. However, once I took up the challenge, I never looked back.
Why did you choose HR as your professional field?
From my childhood, I had a strong desire to make a difference to others’ lives. The ‘sense of purpose’ was much larger in me than the sense of personal growth and prosperity.
After the initial years of my career in sales and marketing, I realized my calling was HR. I realized that this is one profession where I can ignite minds and touch lives.
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 initial years at FirstRing were challenging. I neither had any prior experience in HR nor any formal qualification in the domain.
On the other hand, many of my team members were experienced HR professionals. However, I had a distinct advantage too. I had the experience of running a business as profit center. My lack of HR domain knowledge was compensated by my business knowledge and understanding of organization strategy.
This enabled me to align people development strategies with organizational objectives. In my initial years in FirstRing, I also spent a good amount of time in building my HR domain knowledge.
What might be described as the best moment of your HR career?
I am going to talk about two best moments here. The first moment was when I successfully launched a ‘Knowledge Center of Excellence’ in one of the large multinational organizations I was working for.
The delivery issues were largely on account of lack of domain and business knowledge. I conceptualized, designed and launched the Knowledge CoE. This initiative drove great value to the organization and to its customers.
The second best moment was when I started a small initiative five years ago which today has become a revolution in itself. In September 2011, I launched an industry forum called L&D global to bring HR, Training and OD practitioners under one platform.
In fact, what started as a community of handful human resource and L&D practitioners, has become a global network of over 22000 members today. At present, L&D global is a world-wide network with members from across industries, counties and cultures.
The mission of L&D Global is popularly known as 3 Cs: They stand for collaborate, co-create and contribute. L&D Global is striving “To build a community of HR and learning & development practitioners where members can collaborate to co-create new body of knowledge and contribute meaningfully to the betterment of the fraternity, the industry and the society.”
How has the above described experience transformed you personally and professionally.
These two best moments have made a significant impact in my life. These moments have made me a better, stronger and wiser person.
It is these moments actually that have taught me that if one pursues one’s passion with a never-say-die spirit, outcomes would always exceed expectations. At the same time, I have also learnt that organizations, societies and communities can survive only if they make collaboration and co-creation part of their DNA.
In 2014, World HRD Congress recognized me as one of the 25 most talented training and development leaders in the world. The same year, HR Tech Europe invited me to speak in their European Conference in Amsterdam about how I successfully launched and developed L&D Global as a great community of practice in the industry.
What advice would you like to give HR practitioners of the next generation?
Here are my two cents for the budding HR practitioners. First of all, believe that every human being has been born with unlimited potential. As a Human Resource practitioner, unleash the human potential to drive exponential value for your organization. HR function is going through a major metamorphosis today. Keep in mind that there is a major shift happening in the HR role and you need to be prepared to wear multiple hats in future. The HR leader of tomorrow needs to be an expert in selling, branding, technology, strategy making at the same time. Don’t just see yourselves as enablers of business success, but also see yourselves as drivers of business success. We, in HR are heading for challenging yet exciting times.
