Podcast

Interview Highlights

Question 1: Please walk us through one HR related project or initiative you are particularly proud of and also share the reason behind that.

Answer: Wonderful question. You know, it’s been almost two decades, or 20-plus years, of experience.

There are many such projects which were very challenging, but one that stands out was people’s mindset change.

So, we were doing a lot of work on organizational diagnostic and cultural change.

Definitely, that is one thing which was from there was a lot of transformation because you know embracing change isn’t as simple as addressing automation; the real challenge lies in shifting mindsets. But a lot of mindset-change was the challenging part, which I would talk about in my journey, which was long back and I’m talking about my organization where I was in assigned corps.

In that organization, there was a major balance which was supposed to be created between US and India mindset change. And there were a lot of people. So, how do you collaborate and how do you take people together and make them understand that it is a cross functional cross-border cross geographies exposure?

So, that was really challenging because I had to work within India where it was there was a lot of diverse workforces and in US there were already different kind of race and different kind of people working together.

So, this one was very challenging.

Question 2: What strategies do you employ to stay adaptable and agile in the face of evolving HR trends and challenges? And please also walk us through how it has contributed to your growth.

Answer: Whenever we discuss trends or challenges or the growth of markets or organizations in the natural course of things you, we always take into consideration the growth of our people. To do that, we always think about how to develop our people.

Continuous learning is something which we have to invite in our system and that’s what I have been doing, making sure that there is a continuous learning journey for my people, and they keep learning because being in the technology organization, technology changes every day.

So, how do you create a mindset that’s okay with it? One that understands that okay this technology is here today and tomorrow the other technology will not be there and hence there’s a new technology which is coming.

You have to make sure that your people are involved in continuous learning and that has helped me retain my people because they know the organization is caring for them, not in terms of just giving them, you know, lollipops or just giving them stories, but there is a real time where they can see a continuous growth.

Then, there are a lot of platforms that showcase what people are contributing. So, networking and collaboration, data-driven decision making because that really helps. It helps you know that your people are performing, that your people are the ones who are gaining knowledge from it.

What is their market value and how are they embracing your organization?

Growth and then flexibility and adapt.

Adaptability has really helped me with Agile project management.

I would say establishing a growth mindset among leaders has been transformative. Embracing new technology, new trends, new challenges has always helped our people, our stakeholders, and our board members to understand how our people are developing and how HR initiatives are making sure what people.

So, giving an example, five years ago, we started with Glint, which is now owned by LinkedIn, as an employee engagement initiative.

Glint’s feedback mechanism was totally confidential. It wasn’t giving us any kind of feedback which any day will put the employees into any kind of a tight spot. And that has created a lot of faith because those, where the instrument as an organization you decided to implement because you wanted to hear what is the real pulse of your organization.

It wasn’t just OK with the managers’ way or the employees in front of them and say everything is good but deep down they have they have problems.

So, we started creating that kind of App, where we have the feedback loops. And we were able to create a mechanism to gather inputs from employees, clients and stakeholders and on those regular feedback HR is working on those and then creating solutions—this has helped us create a lot of credibility in the organization.

Employees trust and employees also see that HR is not old time. They are making sure that they are updating them, said there is new technology, new initiatives and that has helped us build a good organization.

Besides that, embracing the strategy strategies and fostering adaptability and agility. Enabling HR professionals and organizations to navigate through evolving trends and all the HR professionals.

It’s not just me in my organization when we meet for the network, you know for with all our HR colleagues in the industry, everyone has started understanding that the trends really help us evolve into this challenging efficiently.

Now, you know these challenges we are able to fail through because we know what is, what are the new trends and how industry is adapting those new trends. So, these are the contributions which help HR also to develop because they understand what is the pulse of their organization, how they can help their employees, how they can help their stakeholders, how they can help their business. So this is a two way role HR is playing.

They become the instrument which is listening to their people going to the stakeholder and business explaining what the PR people require and how do we grow for it.

Question 3: How do you inspire and motivate employees to embrace a continuous learning and professional development culture?

Answer: In my overall experience, from the day we interview a candidate, I have always learned—you conduct assessments to identify their skills and proficiency levels. So, you know that okay in these areas they have these skills. For the candidate with advanced level, you evaluate.

But why do you need to put that data on only in the files?

Why not create from day one learning strategies of how this person will grow and you know that your business will evolve?

So, I have always taken care of these data.

We create and we mention this when the person joins us that OK, this is what you’re really good at and these are the areas where we will be working with you. We assign them a buddy for those skills which need to be in them, so they have to work on it.

This is not just for the employees; it’s also for me.

So, lead them by example and demonstrate a commitment to learning and development.

As a leader, I have to make sure that I am also working on my weaknesses. So, when employees see that their managers and leaders actively engage in continuous learning, they are more likely to follow suit.

You agree with that, don’t you?

Then set clear expectation which we definitely make sure that we are clearly communicate the importance of continuous learning and professional developments. There are benefits which organizations get.

So, it’s like saying OK if you do this certification or if you develop yourself on this, definitely the work will be more rewarding. And the organization will also make sure that some part of it will be paid back to the employee as in BV.

To support this, we offer various learning platforms such as Udemy, Coursera, and our own learning platform, tracking the skills our employees acquire.

Last year, we collaborated with SkillSoft on a program, where completing 100 training courses in six weeks resulted in sponsoring a meal for an underprivileged child. This initiative was a dual benefit – learning and contributing to society.

Innovative thinking is crucial for HR professionals to create diverse learning avenues. Establishing KRAs and integrating learning opportunities into the culture are pivotal.

For instance, with fresh hires, we assess their college training and design a two-year training program based on our projects, ensuring continuous learning from day one in the corporate environment.

Tracking progress is essential, rewarding those excelling and providing support to those struggling.

Collaborative efforts like reward and recognition, career development, opportunities, feedback, and mentorship contribute to fostering a culture of learning.

Additionally, our labs encourage employees to explore new ideas, technologies, and methodologies, promoting a curious environment where innovation is rewarded.

You know, every employee is unique. We understand the capability and we try to help those employees.

Question 4: How do you handle resistance to DEI from employees or leadership?

Answer: Handling resistance devastate equity, inclusion.

Initiative can always be challenging, but it’s essential to address concerns and foster a culture of acceptance and understanding.

Some of the strategies to handle which I use from both employee and leadership perspective is creating awareness, educating and creating awareness. So, conducting training programs and workshops to educate employees about how important the EI initiatives are.

Besides that, I’ll address that a lot of time we come across misconceptions and that there are a lot of mindsets, which is a deep-rooted issue, and it has not just started happening recently. It starts from the day you’re born, and it keeps building on your thinking capability, your mindset, and the way you treat people.

So, it’s where you need to start understanding what are those deep-rooted issues that the concerned person has.

And you have to work on that. And to do that you really need to start understanding the deep-rooted issues and then work on educating that person to make them someone who creates a lot of revenue; (build a place) where open dialogues can be expressed, employees have all the right to express.

Do not form any kind of biases. Instead, give them (employees) a safe space for dialogues allowing individuals to voice their opinion while promoting respectful communication. Now, a lot of things will come out here. Let me give you an example. And this we all do most of the time.

I had one of the men, one of the team leaders in his team. No female would like to work (in his team). Initially, I couldn’t understand what the problem was and then I started having a regular conversation with that person and started understanding what the problem was.

I found that he would compare every female with his wife. He would compare every female with you know with a lot of saying that OK one of the females said you know he says why are you even working if you if you want maternity leaves you know.

So, this is not one day perspective. This is something which is built in a long time.

When you try to run such programs, you really need to have leadership, support, and ensure that leaders openly support and participate in DEI initiative.

It’s not like you know in front of the whole gathering you talk positively and at the back you say the program is a waste of the time. I don’t know why are they even running this program? So, leaders’ support is required.

I created an employee resource group. That’s what I also established representing various communities within the organization.

These groups really help because this is the platform for employees to connect, share their experiences and educate others. It’s not always HR which has to you know take the flag and keep raising the flag and saying, oh we are doing this.

Let employees within the group create smaller groups and let the employees run the program as HR. You are there, you are supporting them and of course they should.

There should be a program where employees and individuals can collaborate. You know, individual 111 can collaborate and start sharing their viewpoint. And then always as an HRI, always say that you should always measure and communicate progress.

Tracking and communicating the progress made through DNI initiatives and sharing success stories and measurable outcomes always helps. Because then people start seeing that yeah, there is something, there is a change happening and it’s not just, you know, hearsay.

I’m not the only odd one out. There are a lot of things people are sharing and people are here now it’s not just like that, Pulkit.

Even when people are depressed, a lot of time, people feel very you know spectacle they don’t know whether they can share it or not share about their mental health. It’s a taboo to speak about it but it’s bit more to connect and talk.

So, this is what I would say addressing you know resilience from leadership because it has to be aligned with the organizational goal data-driven opportunity. Leadership training and leader should be accountable and seek executive exclusive.

I would say even the in from the leader you should have champions who would be promoting this because when you see the leaders are living and leading by the example, employees will start following that.

You see that yeah organization is long term committed in working towards this and always bring an expert from outside it’s not only internal champions external champions will also help and addressing resilience to DS.

It requires a lot of patience lot of persistence and it’s a strategic approach it cannot be done in one day by fostering understanding, promoting open communication and demonstrating positive impact these initiatives gradually create a culture which everyone likes to be part of it and thrive.

Question 5: Can you share some examples of how generative AI is currently being used to enhance HR processes?

Answer: I think a lot has been spoken about this, but I can say that you know it really helps in decision making processes.

There’s a lot of diverse perspectives on this but generative AI really creates help when you are making strategic organization decisions giving an example you know but then everything has its pros and cons this also has it is.

So, I’ll give you an example we started doing this for our recruitment.

So, there were a lot of things the JD had to be written in an Immaculate way but our here I would put across is the candidates who are approve, who are applying, are they ready to create resume is as per the AI you know logarithm and the way it has been written.

So, there has to be as an A, as an HR you need to start understanding.

Yes, the AI is filtering out certain resume is but the one that has been rejected you still need time to go through it because there can be really put a potential candidate but because the keywords were not as per the AI language it can be filtered out.

So, there are a lot of things which you really need to think on those terms, and you have to create. I would say you have to create that kind of a mindset and again everywhere you have to be a child, you need to understand how generative AI is working and you have to, you have to learn that.

As an HR, I believe it’s good that we want to learn and we want to work towards it and that will help us, help us utilize it. So, I would say again everywhere it is continuous learning.

It is how are we going to you know embrace that change and what data are we using it and how can we, how can we work through that those data.

So, just putting it because I gave you an example of automated resume screening where it has been used lot of chat bots for HR support and I have AI have a funny story here.

We launched a chatbot. Initially, every employee was happy and then we did some research on why it is so.

Everyone was happy whenever they had to take a leave the chatbot would approve because the manager had given it the power to approve it.

However, later on, when they were unhappy because the manager’s life was becoming very difficult because it was like two people of the same team taking leave on the same day. So, it was the power was taken back from the chat bot and later on the employees started you know becoming grumpier because said the chatbot if you ask the question, it is you know they have limited knowledge and with the HR representative at least we can cross question them.

We can’t do a cross questioning to the chatbot. So, as I said, it has its pros and cons and views.

We faced a lot of challenges with that and initially when we worked on it on the database. And we started working making sure that till what extent the chatbot can support provide HR support and from what to the L if you want to have a more in-depth analysis and more in depth apart from what chat but could give you the answer then go to the HR department.

So just giving on those was one of the challenges we faced, and we faced another challenge when we established the AI, you know AI face recognition, attendance during the pandemic.

No one was going to the office and how do you manage those.

So, we had to rework on those things. Then the other part on generative AI, if I talk about you know, personalized learning and development, you have employee survey and feedback analysis which we are doing, which we are using then job description of automation because that is optimization which we are working on and job previews which is there.

So again, AI is rapidly involving new applications and advancements are likely to have emerged. Since it has been introduced, we really need to keep checking what is new.

I believe even you must have faced it you know chat yeah suddenly there was chatbot and then you want to keep looking into it and keep thinking what’s going on and what is the new technology and people suddenly even if you go to the colleges and people will start of the AIE and the machine learning everyone is going to take away our job.

You have to make people understand when industrialization happened, you know it was OK, all the jobs will be lost. But ultimately, humans have upgraded themselves and the jobs have evolved ultimately.

Question 6: Please do walk us through what are the potential biases or pitfalls that HR professionals should be aware of when using AI and or automation in HR decision making.

Answer: There are a lot of pitfalls and potential biases that’s there. We are all human; we have biases, and we really need to be more conscious when we are making decisions.

So, there is one, there’s you know you have this data biases. So, if historically HR data used to train you know and if the data is not right, you will have a result which is not man.

So. you really need someone to look through the data and work on it and make sure that you have the right data when you’re putting it.

If someone was promoted three years back but you have not put that into the data and the promotion in your organization is there for next to the to the next level is not due for next two years but you want to promote that person at least the data should be there, you know to make sure that you are making the right decision.

Then there are selection features which is there and now someone by mistake has put that as a female on the resume, but the person is male.

I cannot check that, and you might reject that application because it was by mistake, it was there, and a model can also lead to discriminatory outcomes. Then you have a lack of transparency.

There is a black box problem. Many AI algorithms operate as black boxes, meaning their decision-making processes are not transparent.

You don’t understand on what logic and on what way they have they have made the selection. So, HR professionals as I said might not be able to explain why the particular decision was made.

I just gave an example on the yeah you know certain if your JD is not well written, you might move out, you might lose out on good candidate and then there are privacy concerns.

You know AI systems often require access to large amounts of data, ensuring the privacy and security of this data is official. So that needs to be taken care and job displacement and workforce concerns which really need to look you really as a HR you need to look into it because automation can lead to job displacement. You know they have to carefully understand what kind of training has been provided. As I said, there has to be a data sanity check. And skill gap and ethical consideration, I would say fairness and equity.

So overall, if I say even if AI is there, even if you know which is there to support and help us, as an as a leader, as an HR you really need to use your mind, use your brain and make sure that everything is flawless when you are trying to make a decision.

So, a human touch is required because understanding of emotion and complex interpersonal situation is invaluable, and the AI cannot do that.

Over reliance on technology might lead to a lack of empathy and understanding and that’s what we really need to look into it. And there can be legal issues where you have to look into, make sure that you can go to the law and say that it was our machine which made this decision, not us because we are not compliant. So, you have to look into it.

So constant monitoring and improvement. Overall, if I sum this up, addressing the biases and the challenges only comes when you are using your thoughtful decision, ongoing monitoring and ethical consideration and a commitment to transparency.

So, you too have this and you have people who are continuously looking into it and making sure that everything, whatever AI has done and what the human aspect both are collaborating together and creating right value for the when you’re using the AI.

Question 7: Is there a piece of literature, a book, or a documentary that has shaped your HR leadership journey?

Answer: Yeah, there have been many, but some of them, let me put it across. One was one is by brand a Barrick where I keep going back to the HR scorecard linking people’s strategy and performance. That has really helped me. And of course, David Rich books are always there, which I believe is in HR. We all go through it.

There is another one, Sunrise Surprising truth by Daniel H Pike. It’s about what motivates us. And the 5th discipline is what I keep learning, you know, it has always helped me. And, Deep Work by Cal Newport is the other book, which has helped me understand how I manage my deep work every day. At that time, I wouldn’t be disturbed by my phone or anything else.

If I am on my in my deep work mode, I just switch off everything and I start working. And this has always helped. Apart from this, if I come back home, it’s Gita that has always helped me be more focused. Anytime I’m in a in a mental state where I feel that yes, things are not going right, I read Gita, and it gives me the courage to again work on myself.

Closing Note:

By investing that much time into reading it, you showed how serious you are about taking your HR career to the next level.

So, make the most of this knowledge, bookmark this resource for future reference. Whether you encounter challenges in recruitment, employee motivation, or AI implementation, Ms. Sharmila’s experiences provide a wealth of guidance.

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