Author: Liji Narayan | HRKatha

Cognizant Technology Solutions has revised its cost estimate for Project Leap, its restructuring programme that includes employee severance. The company now expects costs between $180–250 million, down from the earlier estimate of $230–320 million, with most expenses to be booked in 2026. Despite restructuring, Cognizant’s workforce continues to expand. As of 30 September, 2026, total headcount stood at 3,59,900, up 3,200 from the previous quarter and 10,100 compared to last year. Voluntary attrition in technology services also eased to 12.6 per cent, reflecting improved retention. Employee separation costs for the quarter were $46 million, but the company balanced this with…

Hubtown, a real-estate company, has appointed Vijayalakshmi Jayaraman Iyer as deputy chief human resources officer (DCHRO).  She moves from Securities where she served as CHRO for over three and a half years. Iyer began her HR journey with BIFM as a senior executive-human resources, in July of 2005. A year into this role, she was elevated to assistant manager-HRD, in July of 2006. She moved to Labnics Equipments as HR manager in November of 2007.  In less than two years, she helped set up the entire HR department of the organisation, handling end – to- end recruitments and assessing the…

The gearbox If HR were a machine part, what would it be? For Shefali Bairaria Suri, group chief human resources officer at Greaves Cotton, the answer is immediate: the gearbox. “Not the engine, not the lubricant,” she says. “The gearbox. It is HR that connects people, capabilities and business priorities and helps the organisation move in the right direction.” It is a metaphor that reflects how her understanding of HR has evolved over the years. Early in her career, Suri viewed the function largely through people processes, policies and employee engagement. Experience taught her that almost every significant business decision, whether…

What do ‘microaffirmations’ mean? A manager credits an employee whose idea was overlooked in a meeting. A colleague listens without interrupting. A senior leader remembers a contribution made weeks earlier and acknowledges it when the opportunity arises. None of these gestures is particularly dramatic. Yet each communicates something important: you have been noticed, your contribution matters, and you belong in the conversation. These are microaffirmations, small acts of recognition, respect and inclusion that influence how people experience the workplace. Unlike formal rewards or recognition programmes, microaffirmations are woven into ordinary interactions. They can take the form of acknowledging someone’s expertise,…

The careers page was designed to present an employer on its own terms. But candidates increasingly arrive there with an opinion already formed, assembled from sources the organisation neither owns nor controls. A study titled What Talent Wants 2026, based on a survey of 2,000 tech, product and data professionals across India, reveals how far this shift has progressed. Ninety-two per cent research employers on LinkedIn before applying, while 81 per cent visit company websites and careers pages. Nearly half consult Glassdoor or AmbitionBox, 41 per cent ask people they know, and 31 per cent now use AI tools. The…

Not waiting for an invitation For Charu Sheel Kunwar, managing director and chief human resources officer at Lighthouse Canton, building the organisation’s people function from scratch over the past seven years has been something of an entrepreneurial journey. It has also reinforced a conviction she developed earlier in her career: The HR function does not need to wait for an invitation to participate in business strategy. Kunwar had noticed that HR was often considered important, but not necessarily central to business growth, particularly in leadership teams dominated by men. Rather than wait for that perception to change, she began framing…

India’s contract staffing industry has grown fivefold since 2013. But the pace of that expansion is slowing, even as the industry claims a larger role in the country’s formal employment market. The formal contract staffing workforce reached 7.81 million in 2026, up from 1.56 million in 2013, according to the Indian Staffing Federation’s (ISF) latest quarterly report, covering April to June 2026. Annual workforce growth, however, has fallen from 15.3 per cent in 2024 to 8 per cent in 2026. Alongside those figures sits a much larger claim. Citing EPFO payroll data, the Federation says the category labelled ‘Expert Services…

Zoho has announced that employees will not receive the usual level of salary increases this year. Founder Sridhar Vembu explained that the company is facing sharp cost pressures due to artificial intelligence (AI). Server prices have gone up nearly four times, and AI usage is driving data centre expenses higher than ever. Vembu also pointed to geopolitical uncertainty and slower global growth as reasons for cutting back. Marketing budgets have already been reduced, and hiring has been frozen for the past 18 months. While he apologised to employees for not being able to deliver normal pay hikes, he stressed that…

What does the ‘GRPI model’ mean? When a team stops performing, the explanation often comes quickly. People are not communicating. Personalities are clashing. Trust has broken down. The GRPI model suggests looking somewhere else first. GRPI stands for Goals, Roles, Processes and Interpersonal Relationships. It is a framework for diagnosing team effectiveness by examining four interconnected elements, usually in that order. Goals establish what the team is trying to achieve. Roles clarify who is responsible for what. Processes determine how decisions are made, work is coordinated and disagreements are resolved. Interpersonal relationships concern the trust, communication and behaviour that allow…

Trusting the journey For Sakshee Sud, people director and head of HR, Starbucks India, one of the biggest lessons from her career has been to stop trying to predict where it will lead. Early on, she spent considerable time worrying about the next five steps. Which role should she take? Was she progressing fast enough? Was she even on the right path? Having worked across diverse industries, Sud can now look back at roles that stretched her and choices she made without complete clarity about where they would lead. Each helped shape the leader she became. “Work hard, stay curious…

More than half of urban Indian workers who travel at least a kilometre to work get there primarily on a two-wheeler. The figure is 52.3 per cent, according to the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) 2025–26, the first all-India survey of its kind. Conducted by the National Statistics Office, it covers 492,023 households and more than 2 million people across 14,274 villages and 10,377 urban blocks. The survey counts trips of 1 km or more and identifies the mode used for the longest distance as the primary mode of travel. The dominance of the two-wheeler becomes more striking when set…

What does ‘affinity bias’ mean? Affinity bias is the tendency to feel more positively towards people who seem familiar to us. The similarity might be obvious: the same university, hometown, language or professional background. Or it may be subtler: a shared communication style, sense of humour, way of thinking or approach to work. In ordinary conversation, this feels like chemistry but in an interview, it can become evidence. A hiring manager meets a candidate and immediately feels that they will “fit”. A senior leader sees something of their younger self in a promising employee. A manager finds one team member…

David Robinson, a former safety specialist at OpenAI, has resigned after three and a half years, publicly criticising the company’s approach to managing risk. In his Atlantic essay ‘I Quit OpenAI Because Its Culture Is Broken’, Robinson argued that the organisation’s fast paced, launch driven culture prioritises speed over care, leaving safety expertise sidelined. He warned that the “time for trial and error is over,” comparing advanced AI safeguards to those required in nuclear power or aviation. Robinson said OpenAI’s reliance on “iterative deployment” — releasing systems first and fixing problems later — exposes employees and society to avoidable risks.…

Canada has introduced new restrictions under the Temporary Foreign Worker Programme that directly affect how foreign employees can be hired. The government has clarified that only the entity controlling and managing the employment relationship can apply for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA). This means staffing agencies and Employers of Record (EORs) can no longer sponsor workers through LMIA applications if those employees will ultimately work for another business. The change effectively ends the use of the EOR model for LMIA based work permits, though EORs may continue in other employment arrangements under provincial laws. The government has also ruled…

Kerala-based private-sector bank, South Indian Bank has appointed Mahesh Muralidhar Pai as the managing director and chief executive officer of the Bank, starting today, that is, 1 October 2026. Pai is backed by almost 30 years of experience across universal banking, covering strategy, governance, digital banking, treasury, foreign exchange, retail banking, agriculture and MSME credit. He served a three-decade long tenure at Canara Bank, starting as supervisor in 1996 and climbing up to the position of chief general manager by 2026. During his time at Canara Bank, he has been based out of Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra. In between, he…

John Ternus, Apple’s new chief executive, is reportedly preparing for layoffs as part of a broader effort to streamline the company. Media reports say the cuts will be small scale but targeted within large teams, alongside the cancellation of certain projects. The goal is to make Apple leaner and more focused at a time when financial pressures are mounting. The company is facing rising costs due to a global memory chip shortage. Prices for high bandwidth memory and advanced DRAM, heavily used in AI servers, have surged, squeezing margins. At the same time, Apple’s services revenue fell quarter over quarter…

JPMorgan Chase has appointed Mark O’Donovan as its next head of human resources, effective January 2027. He will succeed Robin Leopold, who is set to retire in the first quarter after leading HR since 2018 and spending more than 16 years at the bank. Leopold is credited with steering the organisation through the pandemic, geopolitical changes, and the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). Her tenure highlighted the importance of workforce resilience and adaptability in a fast changing global environment. O’Donovan, currently CEO of international consumer banking, will relocate from London to New York and join the bank’s operating committee.…

Of courage and self-awareness For Sonal Jain, global chief HR & transformation officer, EPL, one of the biggest barriers she encountered as a woman leader was not always outside her. Sometimes, it was within her own mind. “I was very conscious and would often wonder, ‘Am I saying the right thing?’” she recalls. Across multiple roles, Jain was almost always the only woman on the leadership team. There was just one exception, where there were two. That made her think twice before speaking. How would her statement be received? Should she say it at all? Over time, she learnt to…

Waree Group has elevated Vishal Upadhyay to vice president – human resources. Upadhyay has been associated with the Indian renewable energy company for over 12 years, steadily rising through the ranks. He began his career in 2012 as an HR trainee with Amul before moving to Filatex India as senior executive – HR. In 2014, he joined Waree Group as assistant manager – HR and quickly progressed to deputy manager within three years. By April 2018, he was promoted to manager – HR, and three years later, to senior manager – HR. From September 2023 to April 2025, he served…

Wakefit Innovations, the Bengaluru-based home and sleep solutions company, has appointed Suman Yadav as its chief human resources officer, effective 1 October, 2026. Yadav brings a diverse background to the role. She began her career in the Indian Army, serving over five years as Captain, where she managed logistics, resource planning, and personnel operations in high stakes border environments. After completing an executive programme in Business Management from IIM Bangalore, she transitioned into corporate HR. Her first corporate role was at Infosys BPM in 2009, where she worked as senior lead business partner HR for the BFSI vertical across multiple…

Delhi has announced strict measures to tackle its annual winter pollution crisis, directly affecting how employees work and commute. From 1 November, 2026, to 31 January, 2027, government and private offices must ensure that half their staff work from home. This mandate is part of a wider plan to reduce traffic emissions and ease pressure on the city’s air quality. Alongside WFH, offices will operate with staggered timings to spread out commuting patterns. Municipal Corporation offices will run from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., while Delhi government offices will function from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Parking charges at authorised…

Disney is laying off around 300 employees in its latest round of job cuts, the second since Josh D’Amaro became CEO earlier this year. The reductions will mainly affect the human resources and technology departments, according to reports. This follows earlier cuts in July that hit Pixar, National Geographic, ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television, and Disney Studios. Together, these layoffs reflect a broader restructuring effort under D’Amaro’s “One Disney” strategy, which aims to integrate the company’s divisions and link its intellectual property across films, streaming, theme parks, consumer products, gaming, and sports. The company had already signalled in its August earnings…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is supposed to make human skills more valuable. One number suggests the story may be more complicated. Among managers using algorithmic-management software in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, 20 per cent say the technology has reduced their need for empathy. Just 12 per cent say it has increased it, according to the OECD policy brief AI and Skills: What We Know So Far, published in June 2026. The OECD is careful about what follows from this. It calls the finding a signal rather than evidence of a broad decline in social skills and says it is too…

Scripbox, an Indian wealth-management company has partnered with a knowledge and community platform for personal finance professionals to certify its client-facing relationship managers and engagement managers under the Qualified Personal Finance Professional (QPFP) programme. The six-month training and examination programme builds practical capabilities across financial planning, goal and retirement planning, cash-flow management, investments and client engagement. The programme also trains professionals in the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology, combining technology with human judgment and empathy. Atul Shinghal, founder and CEO, Scripbox believes that “great client outcomes start with capable people”. According to him, with financial lives becoming…

Tata Chemicals Mithapur has launched Suraksha Gurukul, a dedicated safety training centre aimed at improving safety skills among employees, contractors, visitors and drivers at its site. Developed over two years, the centre combines classroom learning with digital tools, practical demonstrations, simulations and competency assessments. It is designed to help workers understand workplace risks and practise how to respond to them before they encounter such situations on the job. One of its key features is vehicle-driving simulators, where drivers can practise different road and workplace scenarios before entering operational areas. The training focuses on driving skills, hazard identification and defensive driving.…

The US administration has intensified its push against the H 1B visa programme. The US Labour Department is investigating fraud, worker exploitation and other abuses, using subpoenas and search warrants. Officials suggest the foreign labour system could look very different within a year. A new executive order now requires agencies to consider recent or planned layoffs when reviewing visa applications. The order also highlights alleged misuse by outsourcing firms that replace American workers with cheaper foreign staff. In addition, a $100,000 payment requirement has been extended for certain petitions involving workers outside the US. A separate proposal to impose a…