What has been your journey like as an HR professional?
A. I would say – The journey continues. Till now, it has been extremely satisfying and enriching. It has brought about immense learning as well as a realization that there is so much more to imbibe. My model has been – pick up learning from wherever you can. From fellow colleagues, not necessarily just senior colleagues, fellow professionals, young interns, even kids in a village school. These collected experiences have shaped me and my career. My journey has been mostly dotted with immense challenges and superb opportunities for business and cultural transformation. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best Indian and Global organizations and I have been lucky to have excellent team-mates and peers who always believed in me and supported me in various transformational initiatives which brought about a culture of common vision, respect, trust and excellence.
I have been a part of a journey which started from Legal to Personnel & Administration to Industrial Relations to Employee Relations to HRD to now HR – in its current avatar. As a part of my work profile, I got opportunities to travel both within India and outside India – this exposed me to multi country/multi-cultural aspects, which helped me acquire respect for different and divergent points of views resulting in an enhanced awareness and mindfulness.
Working with unions, right from the inception of my career, taught me the importance of building Trust & Respect in a relationship. I have worked extensively with people at the ground level, as well as with my union colleagues, to take our organizations to efficient and productive heights. The sense of connect and pride, which is a resultant of collaborative achievements of work accomplished together, is something which sticks and stays on for posterity. As a Government of India Nominee with V. V Giri National Labour Institute., I cherish the opportunity I get to work closely and collaboratively with national heads of trade
Unions and the Government to suggest new and progressive approaches towards Labour and employment laws in our country.
Q. What were the biggest challenges you faced?
A. Like most of HR professional, some of the, on the job, challenges I faced were alignment of individual contributions to the organizational objectives and leading employees, though an attractive and meaningful value proposition, towards a values led organization. While I was in the manufacturing sector, the challenges were related more towards world-class quality
and productivity and with the help of my colleagues and team members, we did succeed in almost all such endeavors. I have been part of journeys where organizations went from a stage of insignificance to becoming benchmarks in work practices related to best in class quality andhighest in segment productivity amongst their global counterparts. In my tenure with healthcare and manpower services, one of the key challenges was shortage of right talent, which to some extent we could overcome by adopting a two-pronged approach. First, be flexible to hire talent from different domains and second, nurture in-house leaders. This helped assuage the situation to some extent. The second challenge was communicating the ’Why’ of the organization’s business objectives. Once again with the help of ‘Social Dialogue’ I could effectively manage the employee connect with the overall organizational objectives.
As a true HR person, I maintained a balance between the organizational growth objectives and employee partnership and expectations. I have extensively used ‘Social Dialogue’ as an effective tool for organizational transformation and employee alignment, as well as employee contribution in envisioning exercises for the organizations; delivering a shared vision and thus promoting employee ownership.
Q. What are the challenges HR faces in the new era of the ‘digital age’?
A. HR has always been a very visible and ‘Be there’ function. It is a people related function. The dawn of digital age has brought with it very different nuances of HR – which in my view, HR is still grappling with. With the vast growth of businesses across global geographies, there is no other way than the digital way – even for HR.
HR is now innovating and discovering newer ways to harness the digital age and is evolving relevant employee propositions, where the digital encounters and interactions still impart a humane feel. The new generation of employees are quite comfortable with the digital way of HR and we, HR professionals, are accelerating our pace to deliver relevant HR experiences, as required by the current millennial / digital generation of employees.
A different aspect, which gets impacted by the digitalization, is the impact it has on the ground level employability. I have had the fortune of looking after the CSR work domain, through which I have worked extensively on enhancing employability at grass roots level. It has been an extremely humbling, satisfying and enriching experience. However, a lot is being done and a whole lot more is required to be accomplished in order to alleviate the unemployability issue in our country – and HR can play a stellar role in this very important aspect.
Q. Any advice you would like to give on how to manage people/teams as the workforce becomes more diverse, and the ways of working change
A. My experience says that leaders should always ‘Think Straight, Talk Straight & Act Straight’.
Leading from the front and walk the talk are key to lead employees, irrespective of their diverse backgrounds. These are universal formulas for leading and managing teams. HR leaders should have an ear on the ground – finger on the pulse and eye on the values of their organization. HR, by keeping pace with the rapidly changing business world, can stay relevant and meaningful for the employees and organization. Mindfulness – plays a very important role in leading a diverse workforce, therefore being mindful of diversity; be it gender, ethnic, religious, cultural, geographical diversity- and being sensitive towards the same is the key to success in leading diverse talent teams.
Q. How effective and how important are rewards and recognitions in strengthening employee engagement and retention?
A. We all crave for recognition and reward –and why not. This is the driving force, the fuel, the mojo, which brings out heightened performance from within our employees. I cannot emphasize the importance of RnR enough – this is one aspect which differentiates a run of the mill organization and the best in class organization. Needless to mention the RnR process should be meritocratic, objective, fair and transparent. HR in the newer workplaces has come up with very innovative RnR processes, which appeal to the current generation of employees; and this innovative journey continues….
Q. How can a company attract the best people?
A. An organization, high on values, ethics, having attractive employee value proposition, delivering professional development to the employee, providing challenging and rewarding work culture will be able to attract the best talent. HR can help in designing effective and practical EVPs, which transcend from being just posters & PPTs to actual on the ground realities. Merit based rewards and recognition, having a consistent, fair and balanced approach towards employees help create a strong employee brand of an organization, helping in not only attracting the best talent, but also retaining its key talent. In my experience, organizations, which bring in talent from diverse work backgrounds, nurture a culture of active listening and have robust processes to harness the creativity and innovation of their employees; are the ones who never have any challenges in attracting and retaining the best talent.
Q. What is the secret to hiring the right candidate?
A. The most important aspect is that the recruiting person must know what he/she is recruiting for and what are the key competencies and attributes essentially required to succeed in that role. Use of smart technology by means of relevant career websites, links to the social networks immensely help in reaching out to and attracting the right talent. Having an internal talent pool is a great enabler for getting the right talent for the right position. This also helps in career movement and retention of onboarded employees. One cannot downplay the key role played by the assessment tools; organizations must invest in the right tools and train the concerned employees to decipher and action the outcomes professionally. Training of key employees who are involved in the screening and interviewing process, on business objectives and effective interviewing skills, goes a long way in onboarding the right talent. I would also like to add here that using one recruitment consultant for one level of employees also helps. This brings consistency and better organizational fitin candidate profiles and fosters better teamwork and stickiness.
Q. What advice would you give young candidates if they want to stand out and get noticed during an interview?
A. Just be yourself. Let the true you come to the fore in an interview. Believe me – Artificiality gets instantly recognized. Be truthful and mention ‘actual achievements’. Truth always has strong convictions supporting it. Do not be shy of admitting failed initiatives – as long as you highlight your learnings from them, which you as an individual have worked to improve upon.
