Leading with empathy Inspired by the Buddhist practice of responding with awareness rather than reacting impulsively, Shamita Ghosh’s leadership style revolves around creating space for reflection, dialogue and growth. She has always believed in giving people the space and opportunity to step forward. Well aware that often all someone needs is the right environment to prove themselves, she refrains from writing people off too quickly. Empathy remains central to her leadership style, but over the years she has learnt that empathy works best when paired with clarity and decisiveness. Today, as head-HR at BookMyShow, Ghosh leads with a philosophy forged…
Author: Liji Narayan | HRKatha
Liji Narayan | HRKatha
HRKatha prides itself in being a good journalistic product and Liji deserves all the credit for it. Thanks to her, our readers get clean copies to read every morning while our writers are kept on their toes.
There is a paradox at the top of the corporate ladder that Gallup’s 2026 ‘State of the Global Workplace’ report captures with unusual clarity. Leaders evaluate their lives more positively than the employees they manage. Yet on a day-to-day basis, they feel markedly worse. Compared with individual contributors, leaders are 12 percentage points more likely to report anger, 11 points more likely to report sadness and 10 points more likely to report loneliness. They are also seven points more likely to report significant stress. The findings matter because they challenge one of corporate life’s most persistent assumptions: that seniority naturally…
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, an American biotechnology company, has announced plans to set up a Global Capability Centre (GCC) in Hyderabad. The new centre will scale global operations and is expected to generate hundreds of jobs in the coming years, covering areas such as data management, statistical programming, digital technology, artificial intelligence, clinical trial operations, analytics, and commercial functions. Founded and led by physician-scientists, Regeneron already employs more than 15,000 people worldwide and has 15 approved medicines with nearly 50 more in development. Its treatments reach patients in over 100 countries, supported by clinical trials across 60 nations. The Hyderabad GCC will…
McDonald’s India – North and East has provided employment to more than 1,500 young people across Delhi NCR through its initiative, ‘McDonald’s for Youth’. The programme, run in partnership with local NGOs and community groups, is helping young individuals from Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad take their first step into the formal workforce. The focus is on youth empowerment and inclusive growth, especially for those from less privileged backgrounds. Participants are not only given jobs but also trained to develop confidence, workplace readiness, and long-term career pathways. Using McDonald’s global training curriculum, the programme delivers structured learning in areas…
Maruti Suzuki India, the carmaker, has rolled out new workplace measures in response to the Indian government’s call for austerity and the wider impact of the West Asia conflict on energy prices and the economy. The company has asked employees to adopt work-from-home arrangements wherever possible, reducing commuting and fuel consumption. Foreign travel has been restricted to only critical business needs, while domestic travel is to be kept to a minimum. Staff are encouraged to use virtual meetings as the default mode of engagement. Alongside travel curbs, the company is promoting sustainable commuting practices such as carpooling and public transport.…
Guala Closures, the closure-solutions company, has appointed Vaibhav Korgaonkar as its regional human resources director-APAC & Africa. He moves from Teva Pharmaceuticals where he played director human resources-business operations and supply for two years. After completing a PGDM in Human Resources Management from Goa Institute of Management, Vaibhav Korgaonkar joined United Breweries as HR manager in June of 2009. After almost three years, he moved to Micro Labs as deputy general manager, human resources, working out of Verna, Goa. His next stop was Merck India, in June of 2013. There, he played HRBP-healthcare (operations and supply chain management) and performance…
India has taken a major step toward connecting classrooms with careers. NITI Aayog has set up a high-powered ‘Education to Employment and Enterprise’ Standing Committee to turn the country’s youthful energy into productive jobs and entrepreneurship. The initiative follows the Finance Minister’s 2026–27 Budget call to help India secure 10 per cent of the global services market by 2047. The Committee, led by Nidhi Chibber, CEO, NITI Ayog, brings together senior officials from key ministries, state governments, and industry bodies such as NASSCOM, FICCI, and CII. Its mission is to align education, skilling, and employment systems with the fast-changing economy…
What does ‘cultural intelligence’ mean? Cultural intelligence, often called CQ, refers to the ability to work effectively across different cultural contexts. It goes beyond simply being aware of cultural differences. Cultural intelligence is about understanding how culture shapes communication, behaviour, expectations, decision-making, and workplace relationships, and then adapting appropriately. Unlike technical skills, CQ is not about expertise in one subject. Unlike emotional intelligence, it is not only about understanding emotions. It is about recognising that people interpret the same situation differently depending on cultural background, and learning how to navigate those differences effectively. Researchers typically describe cultural intelligence through four…
Takeda, the Tokyo-based pharmaceutical manufacturing company has elevated Garima Srivastava to vice president-human resource, global head of talent acquisition for commercial. Her association with Takeda is already over five years long. An alumna of Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad from where she obtained an MBA in Human Resources & Marketing, Garima Srivastava went on to completed a PhD in Organisation Behaviour from XLRI Jamshedpur. She served as lead-business partner HR at Infosys Technologies for over four years from 2011 to 2015. During this tenure, she led the HR function for one of the practices within a vertical of Infosys. Among…
OpenAI is offering up to $445,000 (around ?3.7 crore) for a specialised research role on its Preparedness safety team. The position has drawn attention because it deals with one of the most debated questions in artificial intelligence: what happens if AI systems begin making themselves smarter without human involvement. The role, as reported by Business Insider, centres on the idea of recursive self improvement, where an AI could design and train more advanced versions of itself with little human oversight. Researchers in this position will study speculative risks that may not exist today but could emerge quickly as AI capabilities…
After almost four years of handling recruitment delivery and transformation at KPMG India, Debasmita Sarkar has been elevated to associate director – talent acquisition. An alumna of St Xavier’s College,Kolkata, Debasmita Sarkar went on to complete a PGPBM in Human Resources/Industrial Relations from International School of Business & Media. She interned with ITC before joining Zedpoint Management Services as talent acquisition consultant in June of 2011. Over a year later, she moved to Wipro Infotech as talent acquisition specialist, in June of 2012. For the next more than three and a half years, she was dabbling in partner identification, team…
The proposed two day nationwide strike by State Bank of India (SBI) staff, scheduled for 25 26 May, has been deferred following constructive discussions between the bank’s management and employee unions in Mumbai. The strike had been called earlier this month by the All India SBI Staff Federation to press a 16 point charter of demands. These included recruitment of messengers and armed guards, adequate staffing levels, stopping outsourcing of permanent jobs, reviewing career progression schemes, improving medical reimbursements, and resolving HRMS related concerns. Union representatives also raised issues around declining clerical recruitment, rising workloads, delays in inter circle transfers,…
Prabhakar Pandey has moved from Novartis after an eight-year long association to join Syngenta Group, as global lead-HR data architecture & governance. An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, Prabhakar Pandey began his professional journey with Hewitt Associates, as team developer, in 2005. Over three years later, he moved to Baxter Healthcare as global HR operations senior specialist (global HR reporting/BI). The next three years saw him collaborating with global HR partners and handling HR reporting requirements and HR application data structure. From 2011 to 2013, Pandey was associated with Serco as assistant manager (HR operations, HR reporting,…
Training as an entry point Narmina Nabiyeva may not have chosen HR with a grand plan at the start, but she certainly stayed on very deliberately. Why? Because it allowed her to combine her interest in learning with the bigger challenge of helping organisations work better. She always wanted to work with adults on learning and development. She was interested in how people grow, how they build confidence, and how they become more effective. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that she stepped into HR through a training role. Back then, most of the training was primarily done in-house, and was a…
Southwest Airlines has launched its first ever Global Innovation Centre outside the US, choosing Hyderabad as the location. This centre is expected to grow to more than 1,000 skilled engineers and technology professionals. Teams will work on artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, analytics, digital engineering, cybersecurity, and next generation product development. The new facility will act as a strategic hub for technology, engineering and enterprise operations (cybersecurity, AI/ML, data science analytics, and digital operations), supporting secure and scalable aviation systems for the airline’s worldwide network. During the inauguration, Telangana IT Minister Duddilla?Sridhar?Babu and IT Advisor Sai?Krishna met with Southwest…
For thousands of Indian techies in the US, a layoff is more than just losing a pay cheque—it can mean losing the right to stay in the country. Under H1B visa rules, foreign workers who lose their jobs have only 60 days to find another employer willing to sponsor them. If they fail, they must leave the US. Recent job cuts at Meta, Amazon, and other tech giants have triggered panic among Indian professionals, many of whom have built lives in America over years of waiting for green cards. Homes, children’s schooling, and long term plans are suddenly at risk.…
Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Credit Karma, is laying off about 3,000 employees—roughly 17 per cent of its global workforce. Sasan Goodarzi, CEO, told staff in a memo that the move is meant to simplify the company’s structure and redirect resources toward artificial intelligence (AI). This is not the first cut. In July of 2024, Intuit had announced its intentions to let go of 1,800 workers, about 10 per cent of its staff, as part of a restructuring exercise. At the time, Goodarzi had explained in a letter to the staff that Intuit wants to build AI native…
A 4 a.m. email has confirmed worries for thousands of Meta employees as the tech giant trims 8,000 roles and reshapes its workforce for an AI driven future. Meta has started a new round of job cuts that will affect around 8,000 employees—about 10 per cent of its global workforce. The process began early today, that is, 20 May—which ironically is World HR Day—with staff in Singapore receiving emails at 4 a.m. local time. Reports say the company will notify employees in different regions in waves, depending on time zones. Workers in the US, the UK, and other countries were…
Without HR, workplaces would lose their balance, their culture, and probably their sanity too. Today is their day to be seen, heard, and appreciated. Every workplace has its visible stars. Sales teams bring in revenue. Marketing builds perception. Finance keeps the numbers in line. Leadership gets applauded when the company succeeds. Meanwhile, the Human Resources department quietly keeps the organisation from falling apart. World HR Day is a reminder that behind every smooth onboarding, timely salary credit, resolved workplace conflict, promotion letter, wellness initiative, or policy update, there is usually an HR team making sure things function far more smoothly…
What does ‘at-will employment’ mean? At-will employment is an American employment practice under which either the employer or employee can end the employment relationship at any time, for almost any reason, and without prior notice. In practical terms, it means a company can terminate an employee without having to establish misconduct, redundancy, or long-term performance failure. Equally, employees may leave without serving notice periods unless contractual obligations state otherwise. There are exceptions. US law still prohibits termination based on discrimination, retaliation, or certain protected rights. But outside those protections, employment remains largely flexible and termination-centric. This framework does not exist…
Seclore, a global data-security company, has wrapped up the 2026 edition of its long-running employee wellbeing and social-impact programme called Catch’em. The initiative links everyday fitness activities with community outcomes, and has been part of Seclore’s culture for over ten years. This year, employees across different countries took part in 1,001 fitness activities—running, walking, cycling, and more—covering a total of 6,244 kilometres. Around 30 to 40 per cent of the global workforce joined in, showing strong participation across teams and locations. The effort was tied to a bigger purpose. Each activity contributed to supporting education and nutrition for underprivileged children…
To “set the right example” at a time when India’s Prime Minister has called for responsible resource allocation, Harsh Goenka, chairman, RPG Enterprises, has encourages those employees who can work from home to do so, in line with the Group’s remote working policy. In his communication to the employees, he has called for “foreign travel to be curtailed to the absolute minimum” and directed that “domestic travel should be significantly reduced”. He has also asked intercity conferences and meetings to be minimised or avoided if possible. His note also says, “All future company-owned or site-leased cars should be encouraged to…
With Anjali Byce resigning from the CHRO role at Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, Sitaram Kandi has been picked to play this role starting 1 July, 2026. Kandi has been with Tata Motors for almost seven years now, having started off as vice president-HR in 2019. He had been heading HR for the passenger and electric vehicle business and leading employee relations and skill development for Tata Motors for well over four years before becoming CHRO in 2024. Before joining Tata Motors, he was with GE as director-HR, global supply chain, South Asia. For almost eight years he successfully handled end…
D P Nambiar to take charge as chief human resources officer (CHRO) at Tata Motors later this month. He will move from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) where he is presently vice president and head of HR- geographies and corporate functions. Nambiar has spent three decades with TCS having joined its HR division way back in1995. Over four and a half years into this role, he was elevated to head, staffing-North America Operations, working out of Denver in the US. By October 2004, he had been made the global head of talent acquisition, TCS, based out of Mumbai. From 2009 to…
Not black and white Looking back at her first HR role, Divya Mohan remembers being surprised by how little of it was black and white. She had expected clear policies and defined answers. Instead, she found herself operating in the grey, where every decision involved balancing the needs of an individual with the realities of the organisation. “You’re constantly balancing compassion with fairness, individual context with collective impact,” she says. There are moments when you deeply understand someone’s situation, and yet you still have to take a decision that serves the larger system. That tension, she realised, is never really…
A young employee in Mumbai has sparked widespread debate after quitting her job on the spot following a public confrontation with her boss. The incident, shared online by Dhrupadi, quickly went viral and resonated with many professionals who feel overworked and undervalued. She explained that after nearly three years of service, she asked to be compensated for extra hours worked beyond her schedule. Instead of a discussion, she was shouted at in front of colleagues. When her request for accountability and an apology was ignored, she chose to resign immediately. Her post struck a chord because it reflected a growing…