Author: Liji Narayan | HRKatha

An accidental HR professional Beena Dixit began her career as a structural designer, the only woman in an otherwise all-male engineering team. After completing an MBA, she moved into HR more by circumstance than design. “HR chose me, and I am grateful it did,” she says. The line captures something essential about her career. Little of it was carefully planned, yet each experience eventually led her somewhere meaningful. One pattern caught her attention early. There were plenty of women at entry level, but their numbers thinned sharply as she looked higher up the organisation. In business discussions, she was often…

ServiceNow has laid off hundreds of employees worldwide as part of a restructuring plan aimed at making the company more efficient. While the firm did not disclose the exact number, it is reported that the cuts represent a low single digit percentage of its workforce. With around 30,000 employees globally, this suggests several hundred roles have been affected. The layoffs mainly hit technology and product teams. Some employees reported receiving separation notices by email early in the morning without prior warning. In Dublin, staff reportedly joined a layoff related call where attendance lists and audio were restricted, leaving workers uncertain…

A senior Tencent project manager from the Weixin Group, identified as Ye, has been dismissed after details of his annual pay package surfaced online. The controversy began when a screenshot, believed to be from Tencent’s internal system, circulated widely on social media. It showed Ye’s total compensation at around 3.17 million yuan—roughly ?4.5 crore—including a cash bonus of over 820,000 yuan and stock rewards worth more than 2.35 million yuan. Reports suggest Ye may have shared the image himself, though Tencent, a Chinese technology and entertainment company, has not confirmed this. The company stated that the leak amounted to disclosure…

What does ‘downshifting’ mean? For decades, career success followed a familiar formula: work harder, earn more, get promoted, repeat. Downshifting questions that formula. The term describes the deliberate decision to step away from a faster, more demanding career path in favour of one that offers greater balance, flexibility, or personal fulfilment. It may involve working fewer hours, declining a promotion, changing careers, or accepting a lower salary in exchange for better quality of life. The objective is not to achieve less. It is to define success differently. For some, that means spending more time with family. For others, it means…

IQVIA has elevated Roy Rohan Richard to director-talent acquisition. He has been with the company that provides clinical research services, commercial insights and healthcare intelligence to the life sciences and healthcare industries for over 11 years now. This alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur began his professional journey as a territory manager with ThoughtBerry Technologies in 2009. He was associated with Accenture as an HR analyst from 2010 to 2015. Based out of Bangalore, he played HR business partner for Accenture with his primary responsibility being to understand the business needs and make strategies to enhance satisfaction and performance of employees, along…

A Gen Z employee recently shared their workplace experience online, sparking debate about corporate culture. The employee said they left the office just 10 minutes before the official end of the day and immediately received a message and phone call from the company’s CEO. This reaction felt excessive, especially since managers reportedly take hour long breaks and colleagues step away for 30 minutes without issue. The employee also highlighted financial concerns. They were asked to pay for work expenses out of pocket and had to wait 17 days for reimbursement despite repeated follow ups. On top of this, their supervisor…

After a long and successful 17-year long association with Bank of America, Inayat Sandhu Hara has moved to Bristlecone. She will be playing chief human resources officer (CHRO) at the information technology services and consulting company. Interestingly, Inayat Sandhu Hara completed a BA (Hons) in English Literature from Miranda House, Delhi University before obtaining an MBA in Marketing/HR in 1999. After a ten-month executive training with Radisson Hotel, Sandhu Hara joined GE Consumer Finance as manager-training, in June of 2000. In less than three and a half years, she was elevated to national hiring manager. By the time she moved…

Leadership beyond borders Working across geographies has been one of the most defining aspects of Priyanka Anand’s leadership journey. Exposure to varied cultures, markets and leadership teams has reinforced a simple lesson for her. While business contexts may vary, people fundamentally seek the same things: meaningful work, opportunities to grow and leaders they can trust. Over the years, she has watched HR itself transform, and she has changed with it. What she once saw as a primarily operational function, she now leads as a strategic partner shaping organisational capability, culture and long-term business success. That shift, in her view, has…

In a major relief for workers hit by sudden job cuts, CorroHealth has agreed to pay an additional five months’ gross salary to nearly 850 employees laid off from its Kerala offices. The decision came after a settlement meeting on July 20, led by Labour Minister Bindu Krishna at the Secretariat Annex. This amount will be paid over and above the two months’ salary the US-based healthcare company had already given at the time of closure. The layoffs, announced earlier this month, impacted about 600 employees in Kochi and 200 in Kozhikode. Employees were denied entry to offices without prior…

The debate about AI and employment has spent three years asking the wrong question. The question is not whether AI will replace workers. It is which workers, doing which tasks, are already being replaced, and what that tells organisations about how careers are changing. The Stanford University Human-Centred AI Institute’s Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2026, drawing on LinkedIn labour-market data, McKinsey surveys and dozens of peer-reviewed productivity studies, offers perhaps the clearest picture yet of AI’s impact on work. The picture is more nuanced than either the optimists or the pessimists predicted. AI is not eliminating jobs at scale. It…

KPMG Australia is dealing with a major corporate scandal that has shaken its workforce and leadership. The firm has been accused of leaking confidential client information to win new contracts, with investigations by regulators and an independent law firm confirming serious failures. This has already led to the exit of several senior leaders, including the CEO, chairman and COO. The scandal has created uncertainty for employees across the organisation. Reports suggest that around 1,000 jobs may be cut as part of restructuring, while partners could see their pay reduced by about 20 per cent. While these measures are aimed at…

Disney has announced another round of layoffs, cutting several hundred jobs across its US operations. This marks the company’s third wave of job reductions in 2026. The divisions most affected are Pixar Animation Studios and National Geographic, with additional cuts at ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television (DET) and other units. At Pixar, around 100 employees are being let go across production and operations. This follows a larger cut in 2024 when 175 staff, or 14 per cent of the workforce, were laid off as the studio scaled back direct to consumer projects. Pixar currently employs about 1,100 people, and the latest…

What are ghost jobs? Ghost jobs are vacancies that appear genuine but are not actively being filled. They remain on company websites, LinkedIn, and job portals even though hiring has been paused, the position has already been filled, or no approval exists to recruit in the first place. Some are left online to build talent pipelines. Others simply linger because nobody removes them. For candidates, ghost jobs waste time and create false hope. For HR, they raise a more uncomfortable question: when does employer branding become misleading? Where did the idea come from? The practice predates social media. In the…

House of Cheer has certified CereOne Media as a Happiest Places to Work®, recognising the company’s commitment to building a people-first workplace where employees feel valued, supported and empowered to grow. The assessment highlighted several strengths of the digital-first media and marketing solutions company’s workplace culture, including approachable leadership, collaborative teams, opportunities for continuous learning, and an environment where employees feel supported in their professional development. The certification adds to CereOne Media’s efforts to build a workplace where employee well-being and professional development remain central to its growth strategy. As the company continues to expand its capabilities across digital media,…

Saurabh K. Choudhary has been appointed as head of human resources & industrial relations for Wabtec Corporation’s Freight Equipment Business. Choudhary began his professional journey as a business development specialist with Benett Coleman and Co. in 2002. Less than three years later, he moved to Bharat Sanchar Nigam as business development manager, in May of 2009. Two years into this role, he obtained an MBA in Human Resources Management from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and interned with Maersk Line, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, Shell Oil Company, PlatOZ HR and Johnson & Johnson. He then joined KEC International as…

When she realised that waiting to be invited into the conversation was not a strategy she could rely on, one leader decided that preparation and presence would speak for her instead How to show up Shruthi Sudhanva has never experienced overt bias in the traditional sense. But there have been moments that stayed with her. In senior leadership discussions and decision-making forums, she has often been one of the very few women in the room. Sometimes her presence was noticed before her contribution. Sometimes conversations moved ahead before she had the opportunity to speak. None of that prevented Sudhanva from…

HRKatha’s Case-in-Point presents real-world HR dilemmas and invites leaders to weigh competing business and ethical choices. Company: DataFlow Analytics (fictitious), a mid-sized business intelligence firm with 1,000 employees, providing data solutions, dashboards and insight services to clients across retail, logistics and financial services. Background For eight months, DataFlow’s technology team has been quietly building a tool that could fundamentally change how the company operates. Developed internally and tested on live client data, it automates nearly 70 per cent of the work currently done by junior analysts: data cleaning, dashboard generation and basic insight reporting. In trials, it halved turnaround time…

Meta Platforms is facing a new lawsuit in California federal court, where 26 employees allege the company used artificial intelligence systems to decide who would be laid off. The workers say these systems unfairly targeted people with medical conditions, disabilities, or those who had taken medical leave, putting them at a disadvantage when thousands of jobs were cut earlier this year. The employees, notified in May that their jobs would end with effect from 11 July, are asking the court to block Meta from completing the layoffs while their claims are heard. They argue that Meta’s internal AI tools scored…

Saudi Arabia has given employers more time to fix foreign worker permit issues, extending the compliance deadline to 31 December 2026. The previous cutoff was June 2026. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development announced the change as part of its wider labour-market reforms. The extension applies to expatriate workers whose permits expired more than a year ago, as well as employees who have not been issued a permit within six months of joining. Employers can now renew expired permits or complete registrations without workers being immediately removed from company records on the Qiwa digital labour platform. Automatic removal…

What does it mean? For decades, careers resembled ladders. People climbed one rung at a time, usually within the same organisation or industry, accumulating experience, promotions, and tenure. Today, careers increasingly resemble investment portfolios. The career portfolio mindset encourages professionals to build a diverse mix of experiences rather than rely on a single employer, role, or career path. A full-time job may remain the anchor, but it increasingly sits alongside certifications, cross-functional projects, mentoring, freelancing, entrepreneurship, volunteering, or content creation. The objective is not to collect jobs. It is to accumulate capabilities. A traditional résumé tells employers where someone has…

The Orissa High Court has ruled that prolonged absence from duty without sanctioned leave does not automatically amount to misconduct serious enough to justify compulsory retirement or loss of retirement benefits. The case involved railway employee Jaya Chandra Mishra, who had applied for leave but went ahead with it even though it was not approved. Disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him, and the Railway authorities ordered compulsory retirement, stripping him of pension, gratuity and leave encashment! In 2021, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) upheld the Railway’s decision. Mishra challenged this before the High Court. A division bench of Justices Krishna…

Walk into most large organisations today and you’ll find a leadership competency framework on the wall. Resilience. Empathy. Agility. Collaboration. The words are familiar, often remarkably similar across industries and sectors. Critics argue that when everyone is using the same framework, the result is a common language rather than genuinely differentiated leadership. But is standardisation the real problem? Or does the challenge lie in how organisations bring these frameworks to life? Three HR leaders share their perspectives. Preeti Ahuja, Global CHRO, Husk Power Yes, they can become generic unless leaders bring them to life. The world is moving faster and…

Employers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) can no longer change employment contracts without the worker’s written approval. The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) has clarified that changes to salary, job title, or the nature of work must be formally agreed to by the employee and documented through official channels. The rules are part of Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021, which regulates labour relations and aims to protect both employees and employers. Any company seeking to amend contract terms must use the Ministry’s online ‘Modification of Work Permits / Employment Contracts’ service, available on its website…

Volkswagen is preparing for one of its biggest restructurings in decades, with plans to shrink its car lineup and reduce production capacity. The company aims to cut its range of models by up to half and lower annual output from 10 million to 9 million vehicles. Sources suggest this overhaul could cost around 100,000 jobs, nearly double earlier estimates. Oliver Blume, CEO, is reportedly considering closing four German plants — Hanover, Emden, Zwickau, and Audi’s Neckarsulm site. While Volkswagen has not confirmed these details, the speculation has already triggered strong protests across its sites. Workers in Wolfsburg marched with union…

Never a solo climb Somewhere along her corporate journey, Priyanka Mohanty discovered a second passion beyond HR: mountaineering. From Everest Base Camp to Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Elbrus, every climb reinforced lessons that leadership books rarely teach. The mountains showed her that sustainable success is never a solo climb. It demands resilience, adaptability, preparation and the ability to keep moving forward together, even in uncertain conditions. Today, as vice president-HR and global head-talent management at Startek, Mohanty sees leadership much like mountaineering. Every climb needs guides, support systems, encouragement and collective resilience. “When women support other women, we create stronger…

For the past three years, the debate around artificial intelligence (AI) and employment has revolved around one question: will entry-level jobs disappear? According to a new survey by Cognizant and Pearson, that is increasingly the wrong question. Artificial intelligence already performs around one-third of entry-level work globally. In India, the figure reaches 37 per cent, higher than both the global average and the US. Yet, 85 per cent of employers still consider graduate hiring essential. Almost all expect those roles to change dramatically. Ninety-six per cent believe entry-level employees will increasingly supervise AI systems rather than perform the routine tasks…