Towards the end of October, CEAT launched a new office in Borivali, Mumbai. In a LinkedIn video, Anant Goenka, MD and CO, CEAT, shares the story of how they realised the need for a satellite office in the city during a particularly heavy monsoon downpour. The primary reason behind CEAT’s move was the monsoon rains in Mumbai along with the ongoing metro construction blocking major arterial roads. However, most companies would benefit tremendously by setting up satellite offices across the city and especially in major metro cities. To understand how exactly people can benefit from having multiple satellite offices within…
Author: Arindam Goswami | HRKatha
Arindam Goswami | HRKatha
Fresh into the HR beat, Arindam began his writing career by volunteering as a student writer during his college days. A fan of almost all kinds of sweets, he enjoys light music. He hails from Assam and holds chai as the best beverage.
Ravi Mishra, former regional HR head, South Asia and Middle East, Birla Carbon, Aditya Birla Group, has been elevated to the position of senior vice president, HR, global epoxy business. In his new role, Mishra will ensure that the best of HR support is available to meet business requirements. “As a strategic business partner in the success of organisations, it shall be my responsibility to evaluate not only HR processes and traditional advisory roles, but so much more”, says, Mishra. There is a huge shift at workplace in terms of technology, level of automation and requirement of skill sets. There…
Contrary to popular stereotypes, the human resources department in an organisation is burdened with responsibilities and work. Since the entire function revolves around people, which encompasses the organisation as a whole, HR professionals usually have their hands full dealing with employees and their grievances. Issues and complaints from employees vary depending on the kind of organisation and the nature of work. However, most of the time it is possible to classify these complaints into the following common categories: 1. Compensation Compensation is the most common complaint across all organisations and among employees worldwide. It is the one thread, which binds…
The move to appoint a chief fitness officer has come in the wake of the need to look at employee health from a holistic perspective and go beyond just having a health programme in place. The CFO will guide the employees on how to adopt a healthy lifestyle, address specific concerns they may have and provide employee-assistance in the form of counselling. Dr. Deepali Athawale has been bought on board to fill the new position. Milind Apte, Senior Vice President, HR, CEAT, explains the problems employees face and why they feel the need to have a more comprehensive programme in…
On the eve of World Menopause Day, which falls on the 18 October, a UK-based media house announced a workplace policy which accommodates its women employees going through menopause. Should India have a policy on menopause as well? While designing health and welfare policies for women, organisations concentrate on only particular aspect of their life cycle, namely pregnancy, and the associated maternity leave. Of late, menstruation leave has also been accommodates in many offices. However, in the process, one stage is often overlooked—the menopausal stage. Menopausal symptoms consist of a wide range of physical and psychological elements, which include night…
Nurturing talent and innovation is what every company desires to do. It is a goal that all organisations try to work towards. Ola, the ride hailing giant, has been driving forth passion among its employees to build an entrepreneurial mindset and collaborate to innovate new products with its unique initiative, Ola Product Day. This initiative by Ola was designed to encourage seamless idea sharing across the floor and provide employees with a platform to bring interesting projects to life. Conducted over the last few years, initiatives including Ola Product Day and Ola Hack Day have played a pivotal role in…
In the 2015 comedy movie, The Intern, Robert De Niro plays a widower who realises that he is not cut out for retirement. He then takes up a job as a senior intern in a fashion magazine under a boss who is young enough to be his granddaughter! While De Niro got lucky, in reality, most mid-career professionals struggle to get into accepting organisations that value their experience. Such professionals need to look out for positive factors while selecting an internship programme. Mid-career internships or minternships are quite common. Mid-career professionals find themselves stuck in a job after a while…
The gig economy has been praised for its ability to bring in cheap talent at the drop of a hat and increase the flexibility and agility of organisations. The concept has been realised well in the developed countries. Although the excitement for the gig economy is strong in India, the situation is somewhat different here. Today, the term, ‘gig worker’, implies specialists or subject experts who are brought on board for a short period of time, to act as catalysts for specific projects. The concept of contract labour or third-party hiring is not new globally, and India has been the…
With technology evolving faster than ever and job roles becoming more niche, career paths are just not linear anymore. Employees look forward to learning new skills, exploring new roles and keeping themselves relevant in a demanding job market. The new and upcoming generations are inclined to learn cross-functional skills on the job, and it is up to the organisation to provide the necessary avenues to learn. Leaders need to recognise their employees who are enthusiastic and make use of every opportunity to grow in their careers. They are the ones who do thorough research before venturing into a new challenge…
Way back in the 1980s, Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman, World Economic Forum, had said, “In the new world, it is not the big fish that eat the small fish, it’s the fast fish that eat the slow fish.” At that time, his audience probably did not even understand the relevance of his words. Today, any professional in the corporate world will immediately relate the quote to the start-up culture. Corporate leaders have begun to value the entrepreneurial mind-set of employees and are finding new ways to facilitate such an atmosphere in the workspace. They are giving their employees…
Aditi Mukherjee, former head-HR, Tata Steel, has joined the senior management team at National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) as EVP- HR and designated key managerial personnel. Her responsibilities in this new role will include heading the entire HR function across all centres of the Exchange, along with providing an advisory role to all the group companies of NCDEX as and when required. Mukherjee is an experienced and versatile HR leader with over 20 years of hands-on experience in human capital management across industries and in multiple regions. Known for her participative and proactive style of management, she encourages a…
By launching multiple initiatives for its employees, ranging from employee wellness to skilling, the Times of India Group is leveraging technology to give the best to its workforce. It is providing its employees with opportunities and benefits, in addition to world-class employee experience. As Amit Das, director-HR, CHRO, BCCL, Times of India Group, says, “While the fundamental and strategic pillars of our people agenda are similar to that of many other progressive organisations, the way we approach our agenda is what makes us unique. We have leveraged technology to the hilt, and used it to create a hyper-personalised experience for…
Chatbots are the latest fad and companies providing chatbot services are flooding the market. Organisations depend on chatbots for everything, from recruitment to taking care of their employees. These AI-driven bots are in the infancy stage and have a long way to go to be near perfect. With so many different options available in the market, HR has to make sure that it ticks all the boxes while selecting a chatbot partner. Productivity The first thing that HR leaders look for while selecting a chatbot partner is how it can improve productivity within the organisation. The aim is to maximise…
Companies invest in leadership training for their employees because they see the value in it. While a lot of money is spent on generalised packages, it is hard to measure how effective these are for the employees. Let us first clarify that we are talking about training programmes that focus on behavioural change, such as leadership-development programmes and not skill-development programmes, which have become relatively cheaper with e-learning and can be measured quite accurately. A significant chunk of corporate training money is spent on leadership- and professional-development programmes. In 2018, according to media reports, the US spent around $87 billion…
Giving the right rewards is key to employee engagement and retention, and plays a crucial part in delivering a unique employee experience. With millennials becoming the largest demographic in today’s workforce, companies find it necessary to update their rewarding practices. Digital rewarding is the right fit for this need. Digital rewarding is also the most preferred mode of receiving rewards. Digital rewarding platforms like that of Xoxoday’s, makes it easier for employers to roll out gifting, and also provide lucrative choices to the employees. Online gift vouchers which can be availed on demand, provides ‘instant gratification’ and ‘hyper-personalisation’. This flexibility…
Several research reports in the last two years have harped on the need for critical talent and at the same time, how this need will be further amplified in the coming years. To meet the increasing demand for critical talent, organisations prefer to look inside, and that’s advisable. It has its benefits – with internal talent, there is no fear of any culture misfit. Also, organisations can save cost and deliver quality. However, internal talent also comes with a price. The talent is not always ready to use, and it may require an investment to develop the talent. Having said…
Last month, when the finance minister announced the big bank merger it caused quite an upheaval in the banking sector, especially among the employees. Although the Government has issued statements reassuring the public and the employees that no jobs will be lost and this will make the banks stronger, the workers are not convinced. The decision to merge smaller banks into larger units was actually started during the UPA government’s tenure, but was implemented by the BJP government. The first instance was the merging of SBI’s five associate banks with the PSU giant. Similarly, last year, the merger of Vijaya…
Arun Mirchandani begins a new position as head of HR, markets and securities services business, APAC, ex-Japan, Citibank. Mirchandani is an experienced HR professional with a history of working in the financial services industry. He is skilled in human resources management, talent and leadership development, compensation planning and recruitment. He is also a seasoned HR advisor in different geographies, and is an expert in managing diverse talent. Having been associated with Citibank for over nine years, Mirchandani joined the Company as a campus relationship manager in July 2010. He was responsible for recruitment across the business, facilitating onboarding for crucial…
While agility and performance are hot topics for organisations these days, companies dealing in life insurance have mostly stuck to the traditional way of doing things. One company, however, has decided to shake things up a bit. Mumbai-based Aegon Life Insurance has implemented a new model of project management and delivery from May, 2019, and it has already begun showing positive results! It has formed cross-functional squads that handle different projects, and are evaluated according to an agile performance-management system. The traditional model of project management ran on a project to project basis, with each department working within its…
Modern organisations have begun to look beyond employee engagement to employee enablement. While engagement keeps employees loyal to the organisation, it cannot guarantee higher performance. Enablement ensures that employees are more self-driven to function at a higher level. Employee engagement ensures that the team is dedicated to the organisation’s goals and interests. With enablement, employees move beyond the stage of just being engaged with the company goals and interests. Instead, companies provide them the necessary tools and guidance to continue to learn, develop and produce quality results. Without the right training, resources or even the necessary skills, workers cannot be…
In today’s era, career growth is no longer linear. Even while upskilling oneself, a vertical approach within a single job function will not ensure continuous growth. Rather, only by skilling oneself by understanding functions beyond one’s own domain can one ensure professional growth. At the outset, it is important to differentiate between cross-functional learning and cross-functional skilling. The former relates to an active and in-depth learning of a function beyond one’s own, along with a proper understanding of all nuances. This is not practically possible, as areas of learning are becoming more specialised and niched. However, cross-functional skills entail developing…
Whenever we talk of employee engagement, it is assumed we are talking about the frontline or mid-level employees. The senior management of an organisation is usually not given any thought when it comes to employee-engagement policies, even though every member of the company is technically an employee. So who takes care of the senior management? Senior management experience also needs to be at par with that of their team members, but this is often overlooked. Even though HR takes care of the junior and middle management, the executive and top management are usually not focussed on as much. We spoke…
In May, 2019, cloud-based HR tech company, Vantage Circle, bagged a deal worth around 20 million dollars, with a big client in the US. It is the biggest deal secured yet by an Indian vendor dealing in employee benefits and engagement. They finalised the deal on the 2 May, 2019 and the programme was launched on 20 June, 2019. For more details of the deal, we spoke to Partha Neog, CEO, and Anjan Pathak, COO of Vantage Circle, in their office at Vasant Arcade, New Delhi. The name of the client is omitted on request. Neog and Pathak had been…
Paneesh Rao has joined Mindtree, as chief people officer, after spending more than four years at Larsen and Toubro (L&T) Technology Services as CHRO. His new tenure starts from the 5 September, 2019. On 26 June, L&T completed 60 per cent acquisition of Mindtree, acquiring an additional 31 percent from their previous buy in the Company. After the takeover, Rao was called upon by top management to step up as the CPO for Mindtree. With over three decades of experience, Rao has managed human resources across various fields ranging from manufacturing and consulting, to information technology (IT) and BPO. He…
Developed by Richard Thaler, a 2017 Nobel laureate, ‘nudge’ is a concept in behavioural economics, which uses positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions to influence human behaviour and decision making. And, it can be quite useful in increasing employee productivity. By slightly tweaking the manner in which options are presented to individuals, the Nudge theory can help steer people away from irrational decision making and towards decisions that will benefit them and the organisation. The concept of nudge is essentially a means of guiding behaviour without having to rely on our rational or logical selves. It taps into the automatic system…
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) conducted a survey on diversity and inclusion to find out how D&I programmes are faring and what employees want from them. They surveyed around 16,000 employees across 14 countries to understand the obstacles they face, the type of diversity interventions they have at the workplace and which ones they find most effective for women, ethnic and racial minorities and the LGBTQI community. The results showed that corporate diversity, especially at the top tiers, is dominated by men. The members of the majority group continue to underestimate the obstacles and day-to-day challenges faced by diverse groups.…