Flex India is the proud employer of over 100 specially-abled employees. “Right now, we’re focusing on talent with orthopaedic, hearing, speech and partial visual challenges,” informs Yathi Venkatesh, HR director, Flex GBS India. The Company’s shared services unit is where this section of the workforce happens to find the most representation. “At the end of the day, we work with computers. Therefore, there’s technically no place they can’t be,” explains Venkatesh. While the finance department was the earliest adopter of specially-abled talent, other departments soon followed. “By now we have a representation across HR, IT, engineering, finance and procurement. I…
Author: Henna Achhpal | HRKatha
Those closely following global pharmas’ fight against the notorious coronavirus, will definitely have heard of BDR Pharmaceuticals. The Mumbai-based mid-sized pharma company grabbed headlines throughout 2020 for being a frontrunner in the race to manufacture drugs that fight the virus. At a time when there was an urgent need for a self-reliant supply of the virus-fighting drugs in the country, the home-grown company played a significant role in manufacturing Remdesivir vials for Cipla and making Favipiravir tablets available at competitive prices in the Indian market. Most of it would not have been possible without the all-sanitised-hands-on-deck attitude that the BDR…
Adapting to the new normal was a double whammy for IndiaFirst Life Insurance. The transition to remote and virtual work took place at a time when one of the Company’s former shareholders – Andhra Bank – was merging into the larger Union Bank of India on April 1, 2020. “The challenge was now two-fold,” recollects Praveen Menon, chief people officer, IndiaFirst Life Insurance. “Andhra Bank had about 3,500 branches but the moment it was merged with the Union Bank of India, our bancassurance network immediately expanded to more than 9,500 branches.” This not only meant that the life insurance company…
Open channels of communication, addressing grievances in real-time, easy access to leadership and taking the company’s extended network into consideration is how Signify enhanced employee experience in this year of working remotely and virtually. Human and real-time listening Pandemic or not, Anusha Suryanarayan, CHRO, Signify, believes the key to employee satisfaction lies in direct human contact, whether in-person or virtual. “For the times we live in, a survey — even if it’s real-time — may not always help. You need to have a real connection,” notes Suryanarayan. “Most of the time, half the problem is solved when a person feels…
ATG is all set for a restart in 2021. All the world is, but for the Mumbai-based tire manufacturer and marketer, the New Year begins in a brand new office! “We’re shifting from our main office in Lower Parel to Vikhroli by mid-January, if everything goes as per plan,” informs Rajeev Singh, CHRO, ATG Tires, Yokohoma. Originally, the move was scheduled for June of this year but of course, 2020 had its own plans. However, Singh notes that COVID-19 may have infected and derailed everyone’s schedules this year but “it didn’t kill our intention to move to a better office”.…
At a time when the country is aggressively courting foreign investment, positioning itself as an attractive manufacturing hub for multi-national companies looking to break up with China, and an economy poised to achieve the much-coveted figure of trillion dollars, headlines of worker violence at an iPhone factory are bound to grab global attention. It is no surprise then that even Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa made it a point to note that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “very worried” about the situation at Apple supplier Wistron’s Narasapura unit near Bengaluru. Globally shame-faced This particular instance of workmen turning into protestors…
The year has been a long and ongoing real-life reality contest of survival all over the world with every aspect of our lives becoming either essential or non-essential. Employee perks too reflect this transition with the material benefits of pre-COVID times, such as on-site gyms, business travel and corner offices making way for safety and wellness as top priority. Empathy “Flexibility, which used to be a privilege in the past, has now become a necessity. It’s a big shift that has happened with all of us.” Debashree Lad, chief people officer, CredAble “Wellbeing and safety became employee concerns and those…
It is no secret that gender equality at the workplace is one of IKEA’s top priorities. Perhaps it stems from its home country, Sweden’s commitment to gender equality, but as a global organisation, IKEA is certainly taking gender equality wherever it goes. The ripple effects reached Indian shores six years ago, turning into bulging waves of gender parity towards 2022. “In India, we’ve been working with our equality, diversity and inclusion agenda since 2014,” informs Parineeta Cecil Lakra, country people & culture manager, IKEA India. It may be called an agenda on paper, but the Company has made sure to…
Thanks to earlier experiences with crises, such as the recessions of the 2000s, Newgen Software found itself crisis-proof when the pandemic hit this year. “The whole credit goes to our crisis-responsive culture,” says SJ Raj, SVP – HR & operations, Newgen Software Technologies. “Though the intensity and suddenness were very different from the earlier recessions and slowdowns we’ve faced,” he adds. “It hit us with a lot of uncertainty and we were not sure of what will happen to the business and people. Challenges were coming every day but Newgen, as a company, is very good at handling evolving situations.”…
The HR teams at GlobalLogic India have been on their feet throughout the year creating virtual experiences for the workforce that seamlessly replicate the physical work environment. “We recreated our whole cultural fabric in a digital way, which was not easy,” says Neeru Mehta, VP – people development, India head – HR, GlobalLogic. The teams were clear that template recreation solutions, such as games that commonly receive half-hearted participation would just not cut it. “I think it’s more about meaningful conversations on their growth, development, and concerns, and counselling them right,” notes Mehta. “When people see growth, engagement happens.” Setting…
Inspired by the ever-popular Indian Premier League (IPL), Federal Bank launched its own banking league called ‘Federal Premier League’ in a bid to keep employee morale high and promote the push towards digital banking. “With this initiative, we promoted a lot of digital activities,” states Ajith Kumar KK, EVP & CHRO, Federal Bank. “We divided our nine zones across the country into eight teams, like in the IPL, giving them respective team names,” he explains. It’s a six! While IPL players scored runs on the cricket field, Federal Bank employees scored six runs for materialising a certain number of digital…
Yes, 2020 has been all about change, but a handful of sectors have had to take a rebirth of sorts in the new normal. The airline industry is one of them. With a business that is all about face-to-face interaction with travelling customers, how does an organisation realign its entire workforce and processes to ever-changing guidelines in the face of persistent uncertainties, with a global pandemic raging? For AirAsia India, its peer-to-peer model saved the day. “It’s called the Certified AirAsia Trainer model or CAT,” informs Anjali Chatterjee, CHRO, AirAsia India, “which we started much before the lockdown and continue…
In response to a rapidly-changing business, L’Oreal India has been on a journey of digital transformation for the past three years. “We changed our entire mindset, positioning ourselves not just as a beauty company but a beauty tech company,” explains Roshni Wadhwa, director – HR, L’Oreal India. This involved a “big shift in strategy, the way our managers lead their teams, encouraging team collaboration, and nurturing a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation within the organisation,” adds Wadhwa. Always learning Learning and development play a critical role in taking the Company closer to its goal of becoming the world’s leading beauty…
Before the pandemic forced the world to think new, JLL India had begun encouraging innovative ways of thinking within the organisation. The Company was thinking small, not big. “Of course, we can and are thinking big innovations, but those ideas often need a lot of investment in terms of time and resources. They are massive changes that happen gradually,” says Tanvi Choksi, HR head – India & JLL business services global. So, the global real-estate services firm’s Indian counterpart shifted the focus to small innovations, which Choksi describes as, “Small process changes that can be introduced to help one do…
“Alstom believes that one’s differences should never be attributed as their inability to perform well or be a hindrance to their career,” says Vinod Varghese, HR Director, Alstom India & South Asia. “The first step to building an inclusive team starts with talking about our differences openly.” The organisation recently concluded its annual ‘We are All Differently Abled’ (WADA) week, held from November 16 to 22, that celebrates their differently-abled talent. “It takes place in November every year, coinciding with the ‘European Disability Week,” informs Varghese. Spreading happiness virtually For the WADA week, the organisation hosts an assortment of activities…
Collaboration and conflict are two sides of the same coin. A significant portion of a regular day in the life of HR is devoted to resolving workplace conflicts. Before COVID-19, they often found themselves in meeting rooms, mediating warring parties. In the new virtual work reality, HR inboxes are clogged with cc-ed mails of heated exchanges. Stress at an all-time high Work and personal lives spilling into each other, adapting to new realities all around us, coupled with a year full of uncertainties have led to many knee jerk outbursts that perhaps wouldn’t have happened otherwise. “Conflict has increased primarily…
The Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana (ABRY), announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on November 12, has evoked a fairly positive sentiment in industry corridors. That the Government is willing to incentivise hiring, given the current pandemic, economic and jobs reality, has inspired most of the cheer. The new ABRY scheme aims to incentivise creation of jobs in the country by offering subsidy to establishments for new hiring. The Government offers to cover the provident fund contributions of both employees as well as employers for two years. “To offer a programme that will create some kind of an impetus for employment…
HR has a bad rap for ‘doing only one job in the year’ – that is, ‘organising Rangoli competitions’ during Diwali. This year, with the physical office environment out of the picture, not to mention the gloom and doom of 2020, HR teams have gone the extra mile to make sure the workforce feels a sense of belongingness, especially now that the company they work for is more or less intangible. “Earlier, they had access to libraries where they could read books in braille. Some of our employees volunteered to record audiobooks for them.” A family affair Instead of the…
The fear of losing one’s job all of a sudden is very real, and more than ever in these uncertain times. It is even more dreadful for senior executives considering one’s life responsibilities change with time. Talent with decades of experience in their arsenal is increasingly feeling the threat of corporate ageism. There is widespread insecurity amidst mid-senior to senior executives, of losing their roles to cheaper and younger resources. However, as it turns out, recruiters believe these anxieties cannot be farther from the truth. Here’s a checklist of five points to make sure your career continues to soar way…
It is not just celebrities, politicians and journalists that use social media as their mouthpiece of choice, corporate bigwigs too have rapidly carved a space for themselves on social media. Stiff suits, earlier usually found between boardrooms or panel discussions, have loosened their ties to unabashedly express their opinions and even share memes. From Ratan Tata to Anand Mahindra, Ronnie Screwvala and Gautam Singhania to Harsh Goenka and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, India Inc’s crème de la crème frequently feature on ‘must-follow social media influencer’ lists, while their tweets and comments often make it into news headlines. CEOs-turned-brand ambassadors Having an…
There was a time, when leaders were born to be macho. They had the ability to take the right decisions even in odd circumstances, and their word was final. People blindly followed what leaders said. No one had the right or the might to question. This doesn’t fascinate anymore! Macho leaders are now considered to have an inflated self-belief. They are convinced that their judgement is superior and tend to ignore other’s opinions, attracting a lot of criticism. The global chaos wrought by COVID-19 has changed the game. So, what is in now? Empathetic leadership! The first rule for which…
The massive pool of available talent, now more than ever before, can make the best job seekers doubt their potential. When uncertainties abound, it is only natural to seek the comfort of familiarity. When you begin your job hunt, it may help to consider your former employer. Both of you know each other and if you truly are the best at your job, your ex-company will gladly welcome you. While the internet may lead you to believe that organisations are not really in favour of boomerang hires, the truth remains that the role fit is all that the recruiting and…
Eliminating web pages stuffed with irrelevant keywords is not a struggle exclusive to search engines. Recruiters and hiring managers too have to navigate resumes whitewashed with trending keywords and skills that do not necessarily hold up at the time of the interview. It may have been a no brainer that automating screening would speed things up. However, as it turns out, the intervention of technology in shortlisting candidates may have introduced a potential for increased false positives — for the recruiter as well as the candidate. As a result, the recruitment process gets further lengthened. When HR Katha posed the…
The Walt Disney Company announced its plans to acquire 21st Century Fox in December 2017. As the Disney effect percolates three years on, its reverberations are being felt in the top-most echelons of Star India. The media giant has bid goodbye to many senior leaders over the past year. The most recent exit of its chief, Uday Shankar, has set industry speculations abuzz. Rumour has it that a cultural mismatch may have played spoilsport between the mouse and the fox. Surprised gasps may be echoing in industry corridors but veterans who have long been on the mergers & acquisitions playing…
Among the many new virtual realities forced on organisations this year, one of the most significant has been the shift in the recruitment process. COVID-19 may have disrupted business operations, but HR leaders are secretly breathing a sigh of relief. This year, they finally had the opportunity to put to test the advanced technology solutions they had been touting long before the pandemic hit. “Companies that had proactively invested in technology solutions are truly reaping the benefits,” notes Tanvi Choksi, head – HR, JLL. “We are able to use the solutions we invested in a lot more now than we…
Most organisations may have put their campus placement plans on pause this year but as the new calendar and financial year nears, many are already on track to resume hiring fresh talent from campus again, but, with a new approach. Biplob Banerjee, chief people officer, ABD, and Ghananeel Kelkar, general manager-HR, Mercedes Benz, give HR Katha a glimpse of campus hiring in a post-COVID world and what’s changed about how recruiters will now assess candidates. Upskill and upgrade If you’re aspiring to land a job at a leading multinational company, once campus placement resumes, you had better have upskilled already.…