Author: Kartikay Kashyap | HRKatha

Some engineering graduates have been receiving fake appointment letters in the name of Ashok Leyland, the heavy commercial vehicle manufacturer. Apparently, there are some fraudsters who are posing as Ashok Leyland’s job consultants and targeting young students, generally from non-metro cities, who are desperately in need of a job. Posing as Ashok Leyland’s executives, these fraudsters call students and offer them a job in the Company against a cash deposit as security. HRKatha was able to track down one such victim, from Madhya Pradesh. Mayank Tripathi, a mechanical engineer, got an offer letter asking him to deposit Rs 5000. In…

An established business leader in the fashion and retail industry was sharing his experience of addressing an audience at a virtual conference. While on the call, he spoke flawlessly and was able to answer each and every question comfortably. All seemed to have gone well and he thought he had done a great job when the interaction ended. However, after the event, when he watched the recorded stream, he realised that the interaction was not really that great. He noticed that while he was talking, there was no proper eye contact with the interviewer or the audience. To him, it…

Collaboration has become one of the most vital challenges in the hybrid work model, where people are not working from office regularly or frequently. During pre-COVID times, it was easy to collaborate and make people come together and work as a team. It was easy to get quick feedback and share ideas. However, now, this has become quite a challenge as everybody is operating from home. This is where the asynchronous collaboration approach offers relief. Let us see how it makes a difference. Just imagine a team working on an assignment or a project. During pre-COVID times, it was very…

It’s now given that ‘work from home’ is here to stay for ever or for long. In fact, many organisations in the technology space have already transitioned some roles to a 100 per cent remote model. Apart from the requisite skills for each job which somewhat remains unchanged in a remote environment, the generic soft skills required for any job has experienced some alterations. New age soft skills have become important for a successful remote working practice. This has also changed the way, organisations are evaluating the employees or potential candidates for hiring. According to a global survey, adaptable and…

With remote work becoming the norm ever since the pandemic struck, organisations have felt an urgent need to completely digitise many work processes. Most activities have shifted to the virtual mode, from L&D programmes to festival celebrations and collaborations. All HR professionals have had to digitise their processes — from hiring to employee engagement. Earlier, the need for digital transformation was not this intense, but now, most organisations have completely transformed their HR processes, making them 100 per cent digital. In this digital transformation journey, the partnership between the chief human resources officer (CHRO) and the chief information officer (CIO)…

Now that we are into the second year of the pandemic, we can only hope for things to go well in the coming year. With remote working becoming the norm since March 2020, many of the HR folk worried about how they would foster stronger bonds and encourage camaraderie within the workforce. With all the social distancing and COVID protocols in place, some thought people would end up feeling lonely and fostering new relationships would be a challenge. However, every crisis teaches us something, and sometimes these lessons are very surprising and unexpected! “The pandemic has been treating everyone equally,…

Recently, Café Coffee Day partnered with a delivery partner to offer delivery services to its customers. As it was a new service the Company was diving into, there was an immediate need to acquire new talent and of course equip them with skills that can be leveraged by the Company in the implementation of its new plans and impending changes. This is when Café Coffee Day used the programmatic learning approach, wherein a whole new team was set up and trained in certain skills to kick-start the new business. What is programmatic learning? In programmatic learning, the objective is to…

NeoGrowth, an NBFC, which specialises in lending loans to small businesses and SMEs, has a programme, New Hire Connect ‘4-3-2’, that emphasises on a smooth, standardised and seamless onboarding and initial journey for a new hire, not only at the head office but across all locations and roles pan India. Under this programme, the HR team connects with each new hire towards the 4th day, 3rd week and 2nd month from the date of joining, with a structured questionnaire as per the days spent in the organisation. For instance, towards the 5th day, feedback taken covers aspects, such as whether…

TVS Credit, an NBFC firm and part of the TVS Group, is using a voice BOT to spread awareness about COVID vaccination and most importantly, to collect data on the employees’ COVID-related needs or requirements, so that the Company can provide immediate help to them. The voice BOT was inducted by the firm in the month of October 2020. TVS credit was earlier collecting data manually, but later, the firm decided to digitise this process for faster turnover. It took almost 18 months to fully implement and execute the idea of a voice BOT. TVS Credit’s workforce is multilingual with…

We are quite used to a democracy, where politicians make innumerable promises. However, what is said is not really what is meant. More often than not, what is said is rarely implemented. Juicy carrots are dangled in front of employees in the corporate world too. Companies make big claims to gain publicity, attract talent or build some proposition in the minds of their customers. The actual benefit that accrues may not be as extraordinary. Every day, we at HRKatha receive numerous mails from companies big and small, and their communication partners making tall claims on employee benefits and welfare. It…

Reeling under the effects of the raging second wave of the pandemic, the healthcare system in India has almost collapsed. With shortage of beds at hospitals, and acute scarcity of quarantine centres, oxygen, medicines and even sample collectors, the citizens have been left to fend for themselves. However, amidst this crisis, India Inc. has put its best foot forward to lend support to employees, offering them special care and benefits in the form of health insurances, COVID treatment cover, and vaccination drives. Many organisations have gone much beyond these measures offering support to the survivors of staff who have lost…

In October 2020, Urban Company erstwhile Urban Clap, the home services company, allowed its employees to take unlimited sick leaves, if they are mentally or physically unwell, or have contracted COVID-19. Urban company was probably the first organisation in the country to officially announce leaves specifically for mental health. Last week, Godrej Properties announced a ‘Taking a pause to heal’ initiative, wherein from May 5 onwards, employees were given a break for five days, which included a weekend. They were not required to do any official work during the period, and the clients and customers were informed of the same…

Minosha Digital Solutions (formerly known as Ricoh India), an office equipment manufacturing company, initiated a very unique employee health activity at its factories for its shop floor employees and contract labourers. The Company has started a ‘safety competition’ for its factory workers. The firm has divided all its factory workers and supervisors into small teams and has assigned safety champion auditors who are chosen from within the employees. These auditors keep an eye on all the employees and if somebody is found following an unhygienic routine, such as not wearing the mask properly, or not wearing a helmet or not…

In these tough times, to build better collaboration and move towards building an open office culture, Jana Small Finance Bank has decided to restructure its head office and branches. All the senior managers of the Bank have given up their personal cabins, which will now be used as full-fledged meeting rooms. Henceforth, the senior management will sit along with all the other staff members without any barriers between them. This decision has been effective from April 1, across 611 branches of the Bank, including the head office in Bangalore. As per Ravi Duvvuru, chief compliance and human resources officer, after…

We always talk about the top-down approach in business. The organisation’s visions, ideas, values and missions are first ideated by the top management and practised by them before they flow down to other subordinates, automatically. Many HR leaders and experts suggest that the diversity agenda in a company is driven by its top management. When there is visible diversity in the leadership team and in the executive board, it indicates that the organisation follows the diversity agenda and truly embodies it in its culture. The likelihood of such an organisation to have a diverse workforce is also high. Is that…

Companies now have a new breed of workers who probably have been working from home ever since they started their work life, and many of them are a year old now. For any person or a professional, the transition from campus to the first job brings in a lot of excitement. There is a thrill of starting a new life, bonding with colleagues, commuting to office, experiencing the facilities. They have not had a chance to create any exciting memories of their workplace. Deprived of conversations, challenges, celebrations and team gatherings, this crop has missed out on a lot. Since…

The year 2020 was a nightmare for everyone. People want no memories of it. They were happy to bid farewell to it. All hopes were set on 2021 to bring new joy and optimism to help erase the negative outcomes and overcome the catastrophes of last year. Things were slowly falling into place and life was beginning to have a semblance of normalcy, with COVID cases falling. However, too much complacency did us in. As a result, today we have lost count of those infected and those who have lost their lives to the deadly disease across the country. However,…

Managing HR in a foreign land is not an easy task, especially for people who have majorly spent their time working in homeland. So, what does it take to become a successful as an expat HR leader? Well, unless one actually steps into the shoes of one, it is difficult to tell what exactly are the qualities that help one succeed in a this new role. Jacob Jacob, global CHRO, Malabar Group, who has worked in a global environment, in countries, such as Dubai and Malaysia, describes his experience as one that ‘opens up one’s mind to see the many…

Café Coffee Day employees are all over the place. They are there across the street, in the neighbourhood, inside the nearby shopping complex, at the airport, or at the central shopping market. Café Coffee Day frontline employees work in small groups and clusters at the outlets which are spread across the country. Irrespective of the covid-19 situation, the company always had logistical challenges in getting all of them or even some of them under one roof for a training session. Now it has found a solution to overcome this challenge. It has launched an inhouse digital web app, called ‘On…

All major companies with a robust HR function, have a core L&D team that takes care of the capability-development needs of the organisation. Sometimes, however, the internal resources are just not enough. With emerging disruptions and unprecedented changes, businesses are regularly going through changes, which give birth to new problems, and this is where external partners play a role in upskilling and upgrading the capabilities and talent levels. “Competencies available internally are limited and not apt for an organisation to fulfil certain L&D goals. One requires the help of a subject-matter expert in such cases, to fulfil objectives. For senior…

What do we really want at the end of every employee activity? Well, it depends on what the programme is all about and what we actually desire to achieve through it. Today, the nature of HR has become rather strategic. Every HR activity has a business outcome. We link it to the desired return on investment or ROI. To make an employee initiative successful, the involvement of the people is necessary. They have to be associated and be contributors, because after all, whatever HR does is for the betterment of the employees and the organisation as a whole. It is…

Tata Coffee has given a new explication to the acronym WFH – Work from Heart. It is a programme for Tata Coffee employees to volunteer for a noble cause, and avail the opportunity to give it back to the society. Till date, more than 5000 of the 6000 plus employees of Tata Coffee have volunteered for this programme, and interestingly, they have been joined by their families as well in this noble cause. As per this programme – Work from Heart – Tata Coffee employees get the opportunity to work in the areas of education, employability, health and environment. What…

In December 2020, Tata Power launched a leadership development programme, ‘Talent 100’ under which it pledged to give 100 leaders to the Company every year. The company has shortlisted its 100 future leaders on the basis of analytical and critical thinking, developing and managing networks, managing change, as well as skills of managerial communication and emotional intelligence. These 100 shortlisted employees are undergoing a 9 to 12-month long training and development process. Out of these 100, only 50 will get promoted to higher roles this year. The programme is conceived by the training and development team of the organisation, is…

In every organisation, there will always be some pro-active people, who meet the targets, finish projects on time and are willing to go the extra mile for the company. On the other hand, there are also people who are simply working, without giving their best. Their results are far from promising, and more often than not they end up exceeding deadlines. What is the difference between these two kinds of people? How are some people so passionate about work and the others not so? The answer lies in motivation, which drives some to do more than what is required or…

It’s common for mid-level managers to feel stuck and stagnated, when they can’t foresee any further growth path. In some cases, existing jobs are also at risk, and in other cases, even higher compensation can’t keep them motivated at work, any longer. The problem is everything becomes so predictable. Despite, the efficiency in completing new projects, they may find their work very similar, routine, and mundane. The problem is not unique to mid-level manager. Even CXOs may suffer from the same problem. They feel stagnant too. One may argue, what more is left for a CMO or a CFO or…

Most organisations keep talking about diversity and inclusion, but very few actually take concrete actions to make it possible. PhonePe, India’s prominent digital payments platform, has taken the right step in the right direction to make it possible. Last month, the Company announced its intention to increase the representation of women in its senior most ranks, that is, vice-president and directors. The firm has pledged to increase the percentage of women in senior positions from 16 to 25 per cent, by December 2021. While talking to HRKatha, Manmeet Sandhu, CHRO, PhonePe, shared that they are already in the process of…