Author: Kartikay Kashyap | HRKatha

What does everybody want in life? Most people would say money, fame and power. But are these things durable? These are all materialistic aspirations and desires that a human being lives with. Instead, we should always strive to become better, stronger and tougher by the day. That is the only way to taste success in life. Success comes with hard work, by taking up tasks that others are reluctant to perform, and by facing new and unknown challenges. People will remember you for a long time for the work that you did and the challenges that you overcame. No matter…

Diageo India, the alcoholic beverages company, has decided to elevate Rohini Seth to a global role, as the HR director, ISC. Prior to this role, Seth was the head-national HR operations, Diageo India. Seth and her family will be moving to Scotland in a few months. Seth comes with an experience of 24 years in HR and has worked across various sectors. She joined Diageo in 2015 and has transformed the organisation and its people agenda of demand and supply in India. She has worked in a range of areas, such as organisational structure, talent, capability building and succession planning.…

Nalin Garg has joined DLF, the commercial real-estate developer, as the executive director- HR, at Gurgaon. Garg was earlier serving as the SVP, people and performance, at the DAMAC Group, which is a realty firm in Dubai. At DAMAC, one of the key players in luxury real estate in the Middle East, Garg was part of the expansion plan, when the Company was trying to establish its business in China and London. Garg comes with an experience of over 20 years in HR, across sectors. An alumnus of TISS, Garg started his career with Sony Pictures, where he grew to…

Subir Sinha has joined Lin Scan, the company that serves the oil & gas industry across the world, as HR and development manager (regional head, HR). He will oversee HR functions for India, SEA and Africa, with effect from 17 February. Talking to HRKatha, Sinha shares, “The reason that motivated me to take up this role was a good offer and a great opportunity. I wanted to give up being an independent consultant and take up a full-time job.” Sinha will be responsible for the entire HR function in the region for the organisation. His first assignment is to hire…

Meeting and interacting with the same person at our neighbourhood mom and pop store for years, does not really surprise us. Once he retires, chances are that his son will take over the running of the store. That’s the kind of one-to-one relationship that these stores have always offered. And this is precisely what we miss in the modern day supermarkets! Though we tend to frequent the supermarkets more now, we hardly find any recognisable faces there. We are likely to come across new faces every few months. Though the organised retail sector in the country has been one of…

During one of our tea break conversations in the office, a very interesting query arose in our minds. Who hires the CEO of a company? Each one had something different to say on the matter. From a logical point of view, hiring falls under the jurisdiction of the HR function and requires the involvement of the HR heads of the company. But a look at the situation from this side brought to mind a very hard-hitting question. How can someone hire his own boss? After all, within any corporate hierarchy, don’t all the CHROs report to their respective CEOs? Suddenly,…

A very good friend of mine shared one of her experiences, where a team member was more favoured by her manager in terms of leaves and waivers in attendance. The realisation that her manager was more inclined towards that particular employee made her furious and frustrated. She learned that she was not the only one irked by this ‘favouritism’ and that other team members too disapproved of it. This article is not about favouritism at the workplace in particular, but biases that companies and managers harbour for high performers, which can lead to the creation of a toxic culture. In…

Most senior heads of HR across sectors, depending on when they started their careers, are likely to have some years of IR experience. After all, the economy was driven by manufacturing. However, we also have the younger lot of HR heads, comprising those who probably started their careers post liberalisation, and may or may not have IR experience. HRKatha tries to analyse, whether the two sets of HR bosses are any different. Do they have a different style of functioning? For those who made a transition from IR to HR, there was certainly a learning curve. If IR was all…

‘Zero drag hiring’ is a discriminatory way of hiring people without any responsibilities, that is, unmarried and childless people with no family obligations. Whenever required, such employees can be given extra assignments, can be contacted in case of emergencies, can be asked to report at short notice and can even be asked to relocate anytime, anywhere. ‘Zero drag’ is a physics term implying frictionless movement of a physical object. That is why it is apt to describe employees who have no familial obligations, and is surprisingly a very popular term amongst the Silicon Valley employers in California. Zero drag employees…

When the managers put a strong candidate, who possesses remarkable skills, in a low-performance group, then the entire group feels motivated to perform better. This is called the catfish effect— a term used commonly in human resource management. Origin of the concept The origin of this concept can be traced to a fable, perhaps apocryphal. It is said that long ago, sailors carried sardines in a water tank to the port of Norway. Some of these fish would die in the tank before reaching the shore. One sailor devised a unique strategy— he kept a catfish in the same tank.…

Hindustan Unilever has produced more successful CEOs in the country than many of the premium IIMs. It’s like an institution in itself. Other FMCG companies such as P&G, ITC aren’t far behind. Being one of the oldest industrial sectors, the century-old FMCG sector was a hunting ground for talent across industries. However, professionals with FMCG experience are still the preferred lot across industries including the sunrise sectors. So what makes them so special and sought after? It’s their attitude and unparalleled understanding of end consumers. Sandip Ghose, EVP, sales and marketing, MP Birla Cement – who has also worked with…

The learning space will witness a massive turnaround with the introduction of the virtual reality (VR) technology. Head-mounted displays with head phones are used to create a computer-generated environment that allows an individual to be immersed in a virtual world. Hand controllers are also used to enhance this most immersive of all experiences for the user. Organisations, such as Walmart and JetBlue, have already introduced VR technology in their learning sector to put their shop floor employees and engineers in a real-time situation and train them to react appropriately to these. Walmart is preparing its employees in the US to…

It is a homecoming for Lalit Kar, who has rejoined Reliance Digital as the senior vice president and HR head. Earlier, Kar had worked with Reliance Digital for five years as the VP & head HR before moving to Mumbai International Airport as VP & head-HR for more than three and a half years. Kar will now be responsible for the entire HR function at Reliance Digital, which includes Reliance Digital stores, My Jio stores and ResQ which is the service partner of Reliance Digital. The GVK Group is looking for a candidate to replace Kar as the VP and…

The word ‘coaster’ literally means a small mat which is used to keep a bottle or a glass of water on a table. But here, the term is used as a metaphor for the employees who stagnate at work; workers who are gummed to organisations just like plants that do not bear any fruit. While the actual coasters or mats at least help to protect the surfaces of our tables, the under-performers and coasters in an organisation share a common characteristic— that of just lying in one place without serving any purpose whatsoever. These unproductive employees can impact the organisations…

What a great year this will be. As Gen Z turn 22, they will also be the first bunch to join the workforce. In fact, 2019 will be the year where all four generations will work together collaboratively. This new generation of workforce will be significant for India than any other geography as India is home to the largest Gen Z population than any other country – surpassing China. As we set the stage to welcome this new breed of employees to join in doves, organisations will have to step up to accommodate them at the workplace. It’s given that…

A wave of change is sweeping over the HR function in India, bringing a lot of challenges for all HR personnel. The primary issue of the future will be the shortage of talent /people with niche capabilities for the new roles. Organisations are introducing various initiatives and programmes to upskill their workforces, and as a step in this very direction, the Welspun Group has come up with the second edition of its group leadership programme (GLP), which focuses on producing the next level of leaders. What is GLP 2.0? It is a group leadership programme that nurtures top leadership from…

Automation and the volatile behaviour of workers have brought in a lot of challenges for HR in the changing automobile industry, which is now burdened with the responsibility of creating a calm and and healthy working environment. Ravi Kyran, president-HR, Bajaj Auto describes the challenges he faced when he joined the Company and how he prepared himself for the same. He talks to HRKatha about the culture at Bajaj Auto and how the organisation manages to engage its people at all levels. What inspired you to become an HR professional? For me, coming into the HR field was more of…

An employee passes away after a mishap survived by an only child and ageing parents. It is up to the old parents to take care of the child, as the mother is already separated from the family as a result of misunderstanding and compatibility issues. Taking this into account, the management of Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) collects a fund of around Rs 11 lakh from the employees, creates an account for the child, puts the money in a fixed deposit to be used for the child’s higher studies, after 12 years. This is just one instance when MIAL rose to…

Change is brought about not with words but through actions. In the race to become successful, many of us lag behind in terms of fitness and health. Stressful work and unusual working hours make it challenging for people to spare the time required to take care of their health. IT employees at Tech Mahindra, Hyderabad have broken this monotony by taking up the #oneminuteplankchallenge. This is a voluntary activity at the company, which was started in November, but has become more of a routine now. Employees do a one-minute plank exercise at 11.30 AM daily and then get back to…

Workplace culture defines the character of an organisation, and it is this character that makes it unique and different from others. Organisational culture constitutes the beliefs, traditions, values and behaviour of the company. A positive culture is an asset, which drives engagement, happiness and productivity in an organisation. Today, everyone is aware that the culture of an organisation is the most important thing, which becomes its USP and creates a niche for it in the market, giving it that much-required edge over other companies. These are very exciting times, where organisations have to be dynamic and constantly evolve to survive.…

Percipio is an open platform that enables organizations to access curated content including proprietary resources and assets from other sources. It has highly flexible deployment options and can operate on its own or be integrated with HRIS and Learning Management Systems (LMS). Rama Krishnan, senior director, engineering, Skillsoft talks about the Percipio Learning Experience Platform (LEP) and how it is playing the role of a game changer in the e-learning space for organisations across the globe. For eager learners today, there are thousands of books available on virtually every topic and ample online content to satisfy their hunger to learn…

The level of competition has grown so much today, that employees are observed to work tirelessly in offices, with some of them working late into the night in some industries. However, unlike in the past, today’s employees are not expected to report to work at the usual time the next morning after putting in additional hours the previous night. With the advancement in technology and digital media, it is very easy for employees now to work from remote locations at their convenient time. Companies are shedding their rigid line of thinking and discarding the old ways of making people work.…

The World Economic Forum has come out with a study ‘The Future of Jobs 2018’ which talks about technology becoming the most integral part of business. It discusses the new kinds of roles which may come up or will be in demand between 2018 and 2022, also revealing that people will need some specialised skills to fit into these roles. Some capabilities or skills will definitely be more sought after in the next few years. While technology has already become an integral part of businesses today, the biggest challenge for the people is to learn the functioning of these technologies…

With stress levels directly impacting productivity, companies these days try their best to make their employees feel comfortable and stress free at work. In the absence of stress employees enjoy good mental and physical health, which translates into high productivity. However, this is easier said than done. What with the highly competitive markets and the rising expectations of the employers, organisations knowingly and unknowingly end up making their employees work for longer hours. Stress can lead to many health-related problems and is a major cause for heart diseases, high blood pressure and headaches, which ultimately hampers the productivity of the…

Technology has been changing the HR world at an alarming pace over the years and it will continue to do so. With 2019 already at our doorstep, technology will certainly pervade many crucial aspects of the HR function, from recruitment to learning and sensitisation of employees. Not only will there be major shifts, companies will begin to seriously invest in various technologies to meet some of their HR goals and targets. Here are six HR technology trends we will witness in 2019: Training employees with VR (virtual reality) technology to check sexual harassment cases at work With the #Metoo campaign…

Rarely will you see transgenders sitting with their laptops or doing a desk job in an office in India. We Indians are more used to seeing ‘hijras’ singing at weddings, blessing new-borns, begging on the streets, trains and buses or even forced into the sex trade. Everybody knows that these are not the jobs they do willingly, but professions they are forced into because of discrimination and harassment. They hardly have any decent employment options to choose from. Forget about the society, even the families of transgenders find it difficult to accept them as normal. Many underage transgenders are forced…