Author: Kartikay Kashyap | HRKatha

For many years now, people have been talking about the similarities between marketing and HR. Both the functions complement each other in several ways. Few years back, Mabbly, a digital marketing agency, had explained that a partnership between the two functions, HR and marketing, can work wonders for the organisation. Through its logical infographics, it asserted that the brand and culture of an organisation serve as mirror images. This means, if the culture of an organisation is positive and happy, the marketing personnel will be able to promote and sell the brand better. On the other hand, the prospective employees…

Jone Lang LaSalle (JLL), the global real-estate services company, which started its operations in India around two decades back, now has a strength of over 11,000 employees in the country. With its workforce in the country expected to grow to more than 13000 by 2020, JLL India has introduced some new reforms in the last two years. From the learning and development of its employees to ensuring employee safety and wellness, the Company is trying to build a rich culture. Discussing some of the unique HR interventions brought in by the Company, Tanvi Choksi, head-HR, JLL India talks to HRKatha…

Zee entertainment has appointed Dheeraj Jaggi as the senior vice president-HR. Jaggi comes with an experience of around 16 years. In his new role, Jaggi will be part of the domestic broadcast business (DBB) leadership team. He will take charge as the regional head of HR operations in the western region and HR business partner of the DBB business. Jaggi will also lead some of the strategic HR projects for the Company in domestic and international geographies. Prior to this role, Jaggi was the senior vice president and group head of organisation & leadership development and change management, Network 18…

Being the youngest of three boys and 11 years younger to my eldest brother, clearly my parents planned to have a third child very late in their career. Most kids my age had parents who belonged to GenX. In other words, their parents were born between 1967-1979. My brothers being millennials (people born between 1980 and 1995), and my parents being baby boomers (people born between 1944 and 1964), I had very little opportunity to interact with GenX. If we browse through articles and books published about 30 years back, we will find that authors, baby boomers and critics in…

Bullying and mental torture at the workplace are not unheard of. Sometimes people restrict the definition of bullying to verbal and physical abuse. However, many a time, employees are bullied and mentally harassed to such an extent that they are even compelled to commit suicide. Things get more difficult when the person who is bullying is your own boss. If the very individual who is supposed to lead you and look after the team, turns out to be a bully, the situation can get rather challenging for the employee(s). Before the HR steps in, it is important for the employee…

There is no dearth of discussions and debates on the future of jobs, and whether automation will take away jobs or create more opportunities, and also the skills that will be in demand, and so on. But to be very honest, nobody really knows what is in store. We can only guess what the jobs of the future are going to look like. The important question is, how do we stay relevant? Technology is already disrupting the work environment in a big way. Recently, it was reported that Amazon is planning to train one lakh workers—including those working at its…

Tech companies are more likely to hire people coming from a non-tech background. Hard to believe, isn’t it? How can people from the arts/ humanities background do justice to tech roles? Though difficult to digest, this trend is slowly catching on. Many of the tech and IT companies require different sets of skills to grow their businesses. Therefore, instead of hard and core skills, they prefer to hire people with more soft skills— such as articulation, critical thinking, communication skills and problem solving— even to take up tech roles! And these skills are more likely to be found in people…

There are many examples of strategic alliances in India, where two organisations have come together to achieve a certain goal. One such example is that of Vodafone India (now merged with Idea), which entered into a strategic partnership with ICICI Bank to create a mobile payments app called m-pesa. This alliance saw Vodafone providing its significant distribution reach and ICICI providing secure financial services to the customers. Another example is that of the alliance between Uber and Spotify. The two entities came together to enhance customer experience by personalising music for Uber riders. What is the most common factor in…

Many industries are facing digital and technological disruptions, especially the telecom sector in India. To remain relevant, companies need to keep on updating and developing their workforce to stay in the race. Just like any other company, Ericsson India is also bringing in some interventions in its learning and development department, to make its employees future ready. The Company has stressed upon all the skills to stay relevant in an ever changing and evolving environment. There are a couple of new interventions that Ericsson India has introduced recently. Executive development programme This programme at Ericsson aims to build functional or…

Raheja QBE, the general insurance company, has appointed Shefali Suri as executive vice president and head-HR. In this new role, she will be heading the HR function for the organisation in the country. Prior to this appointment, Suri was the CHRO at LIC Nomura Mutual Funds. With over two decades of experience in HR, Suri has worked with organisations such as Kellogg’s, SBI and Tata Autocomp among many others. Suri has not only worked extensively in the financial services and insurance sectors, but also has experience in the manufacturing, automotive and FMCG industries. She is highly experienced in budgeting, deferred…

Moglix offers a variety of products from safety and electronics to office tools. The Company aims to make an impact worth $100 billion dollars on the Indian economy, by 2025. Moglix is also one of the fastest- growing B2B e-commerce platforms in India. An IIT alumnus, Garg reveals some of the great lessons he learnt as an employee before turning into an entrepreneur—lessons that also helped him become a successful businessman. What do you think you are better positioned as – a tech wizard, a great manager or an entrepreneur? From my past experiences as an employee, I have learned…

As part of its endeavour to nurture a culture of performance and accountability, Tata Motors has announced the introduction of a performance improvement programme (PIP). The PIP is meant for employees who have received a rating of ‘Not Met’ in the last performance cycle. Employees who have received a rating of ‘Partially Met’ consecutively for the last two performance cycles will also be covered under this programme. Some employees who have received a rating of ‘Partially Met’ in the last performance cycle will also be included in the plan based on their manager’s discretion. Traditionally, companies have a performance cycle…

Rahul Taneja has been appointed as the group chief people officer of Jindal Steel and Power, with the responsibility of leading the HR function for the Company. He has replaced Rajeev Bhadauria, who was the former group director-HR, Jindal Steel and Power. Prior to this, Taneja was leading the HR function at Jet Airways, which shut down its operations in April, 2019. Taneja has an experience of 28 years serving in multiple roles, including business head, marketing engineer, area manager and director-HR. Before joining Jet Airways in 2016, Taneja was senior VP and head-corporate HR, Essar, from February, 2008 to…

Mastek 4.0 was born when Sudhakar Ram, former group CEO and managing director, Mastek, was inspired by a book called Reinventing Organisations, by Frederic Laloux. After long discussions with the writer and formulating all the behaviours that align with the goals of the organisation, the programme, Mastek 4.0, was implemented. What is Mastek 4.0? Mastek is an IT company, which provides digital transformation solutions to its customers in the UK, the US and India. It introduced Mastek 4.0, which aimed to establish a culture of increased accountability and agility at the workplace, in order to empower the employees. The programme…

Ashish Chattoraj has been appointed as the CHRO, PayU, India. In his new role, Chattoraj will lead the HR function for the Company in India. Earlier, Chattoraj was the country HR director, NXP Semiconductors, a tech company which provides security solutions. There, he was primarily working with Freescale Semiconductor, which was acquired by NXP in 2015. The previous role was based out of Noida, Uttar Pradesh and Chattoraj was managing R&D across four locations. He handled an extremely matrixed organisation of 12 business lines with multiple global stakeholders. He joined Freescale Semiconductor as total rewards manager, India and Singapore. Chattoraj…

The emergence of e-learning, mobile learning, AR & VR and gamification in today’s times has created a lot of disruptions. There are a number of platforms providing personalised education for people. People can now learn new things anytime anywhere using multiple devices, such as laptops, tabs and smartphones. Technology is growing at a rapid pace, and modern learning platforms have made content very much accessible to learners these days. Many corporates have included digital learning as part of their learning and development practices. The need for curated content is quite high because of the increasing skill gap in the workforce…

There is fierce competition amongst organisations in every sector. Every company has its own unique proposition to capture the market. Organisations use various methods to stay ahead of the game and ensure an edge over competitors. One such technique is strategic hiring. Though companies try to create a working culture, which is very different from that of their competitors, sometimes a lot of employees keep switching between rival companies. It is rather common to have employees working in various departments moving between competition, but it is not necessary that companies deliberately poach talent. Sometimes, it is the employees themselves who…

Technology has been continuously disrupting businesses around the world. Now, Indian CEOs have also begun to understand and leverage the potential of technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud-based technology and other digital advancements. According to KPMG’s ‘India CEO Outlook 2019: Agile or Irrelevant’ report, 92 per cent of CEOs expect significant return on investment (ROI) from the overall digital transformation programme in their organisations in the next three years. Moreover, there has been a 20 per cent increase in CEOs who expect significant ROI from AI systems, from 38 per cent to 58 per cent in the next…

Layoffs are not really a strategy, but an option resorted to when a company is not doing well or in other words, when an organisation is not making profits. Layoffs work as first aid administered to an injured person — something that is applied when companies are bleeding. But do they really help the companies to recover or revive? Several researches and analyses have taken place to prove that layoffs do not help organisations in any way to boost their profits. Many myths are attached to layoffs. 1. Increase in productivity: People think layoffs help increase the productivity of the…

Sit-outs and protests amongst the labour class in the manufacturing units are not new to businesses. Through these protests the workers either raise their voices for pay hikes or demand pending salaries. In fact, there has been a rise in employee activism recently, especially in the IT and e-commerce sectors. In the latest case of employee activism, the employees of a popular American company, Wayfair, have been protesting against the sale of bedroom furniture to a detention centre for children in the US. Not long ago, Google employees’ walkout for the inappropriate handling of sexual harassment cases in the organisation…

In today’s busy working life, giving attention to personal fitness and health becomes difficult. Taking out time to go to the gym for an hour also appears to be a humongous task. With so many awareness campaigns running, working professionals understand that in addition to their work, health is something they need to give priority to. Everyone wishes to lead a healthy and stress-free life. However, finding the time to ensure fitness becomes a huge challenge. With employees investing so much time working for their firms, addressing their health-related and well-being issues becomes a social responsibility of their companies/employers. There is…

Lupin Pharmaceuticals has appointed Ajay Tiwari as its new VP-HR. In his new role, Tiwari will be managing the human resources for the manufacturing operations and the global quality function. Lupin’s manufacturing units are spread across 18 locations in India. All heads of human resources of the different manufacturing units will be reporting in to Tiwari. Prior to this role, Tiwari was the chief-HR, corporate functions and profit centres, Tata Steel, and was based out of Mumbai. Having spent more than two decades in HR, Tiwari comes with a wide experience of working in different industries, such as hospitality, FMCG,…

HDFC Bank has come up with an interesting way of hiring and nurturing young talent. The Bank has tied up with Manipal Global Academy of BFSI and launched the ‘Future Bankers Programme.’ Under this programme, the Bank will enrol graduates who will go through a year-long training. For the first six months, they will undergo campus learning, through classes held at the Manipal Global Academy and for the remaining six months they will undergo internship with the Bank. After the completion of the course, successful candidates will be hired by the Bank as personal bankers in different branches. They will…

The HR policies in organisations are undergoing change in keeping with the changing dynamics of the modern workplace. Recently, Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce company introduced a programme called ‘FlexBen’ 2019, where employees have the freedom to choose their benefits according to their needs and requirements. Philips India has also introduced a policy on the same lines. The ‘MyBenefits@Philips’ programme aims to provide flexible benefits (insurance and non-insurance) according to the employees’ needs. “Philips has existed for more than 80 years. The demographics of our employees are ever changing. Around 65 per cent of our workforce comprises millennials. With these changing…

If you search for ‘learning and development’ on Google, you will see hundreds of articles emphasising the importance of training and development in the growth of the company and its employees. Many organisations have a ‘training’ culture. In such companies, learning and development is just a tick in the box activity. And employees do not like to train themselves. However, organisations with a ‘learning’ culture are the ones where employees get to learn things willingly and happily. These are the organisations that can rightly claim that their employees grow with the company because of their learning programmes. There are many…

Swiggy has revamped its onboarding and sourcing office in Marathahalli, Bangalore. The Company’s main objective behind the initiative was to enhance employee experience and the on boarding experience. The previously outdated designs and dull corridors with plastic chairs have been replaced with energetic visuals, colours and comfortable and attractive furniture. The Company took into consideration certain factors before designing the place. For one, it kept the design intuitive. During the recruitment and onboarding process, candidates often have many doubts in their mind related to the job and the brand. Therefore, there are illustrations and visuals on the walls that reveal…