Question 1: What is one HR related challenge or trend that keeps you up at night and how are you proactively addressing it?
Answer: I believe one key aspect to focus on is managing the expectations of candidates when they join an organization. It’s crucial to reduce the mismatch between their expectations and the reality they encounter as employees. This mismatch is often a significant deal breaker. Therefore, it’s important for HR business partners and line leaders to accurately represent the company’s realities to candidates, so they understand what to expect when they sign the offer letter.
Additionally, we invite candidates to our offices to experience our ways of working and culture firsthand. This is vital, especially in a growing organization like ours, where effective onboarding is critical. During bulk hiring, proper assessments, process orientation, and culture fit can sometimes be overlooked. I ensure these elements are addressed while maintaining turnaround times and meeting business needs.
It’s also essential to stay relevant to our existing employees, as a growing organization can’t succeed with high turnover. We need to understand why employees start looking for other opportunities, which often go beyond just a better offer. Issues like role clarity or career stagnation can be underlying causes.
In collaboration with line leaders and HR business partners, we proactively identify disengaged employees and, at the point of resignation, seek to uncover the root causes that led them to consider leaving. This comprehensive approach helps us address both new hires’ expectations and the ongoing needs of our current employees.
Question 2: What is one HR related innovation or trend that you believe has the potential to reshape the future of work?
Answer: That’s a very interesting question. Careers are evolving significantly, and one major shift is in the length of career cycles. In earlier generations, individuals typically held one or two roles over more than 30 years. Today, career cycles are much shorter, usually around six to seven years. This means that in a 30-year career span, an employee might have four to five distinct careers.
Staying relevant through upskilling and reskilling is critical. There’s a shift from valuing past experience and tenure to focusing on skills. Many skills needed today weren’t even considered a decade ago. Organizations are responding by creating skills repositories and setting proficiency levels for various skills, educating employees about them, and measuring their proficiency.
At the employee level, there’s a heartening trend of individuals taking ownership of their careers. Employees are creating their own skills repositories, analyzing current trends, and predicting future ones. They assess what skills will remain relevant and identify new skills they need to acquire. Employees are becoming more independent and proactive, asking organizations to invest in their development while they also take personal responsibility for staying relevant.
This shift moves away from the paternalistic approach where organizations dictated development needs to a more collaborative approach where employees drive their own career growth.
Question 3: How can HR professionals encourage a mindset shift towards innovation amongst employees at all levels?
Answer: First and foremost, we need to understand the organization’s strategy. Some organizations, like Amazon, are built for efficiency, while others, like Apple, are built for innovation. The strategy should be clear and communicated to all employees. Most organizations fall somewhere in between these two extremes.
A sharp strategy means knowing what to do and, equally importantly, what not to do. Often, organizations fail by getting involved in areas outside their strategic focus, which blurs their proposition.
The second crucial element is clear communication of the organization’s strategy. What differentiates us as an organization should be communicated clearly. If this is done effectively, half the battle is won.
If an organization is focused on efficiency, innovation may not be the priority, and vice versa. Mixing the two can create confusion among employees, as it’s challenging to prioritize both simultaneously.
To build innovation, a learning culture is essential. Leaders need to listen to both external signals and internal feedback to identify problems and opportunities. Transparent communication with employees about these insights is critical. Encouraging bottom-up innovation allows employees to suggest solutions that align with the organization’s strategy, leading to more targeted innovation.
HR professionals should consider creating a safety net in terms of performance and rewards for innovators. Encouraging a culture that accepts mistakes, promotes failing fast, and iterates toward success is vital. This approach, including developing minimum viable products and iterating, marks an innovative organization and is something HR and line leaders should foster.
Question 4: What are the key skills and competencies that HR professionals need to drive innovation in the workplace?
Answer: That’s a very pertinent question. Innovation is often misunderstood; it’s not just about invention but also about creating something differentiated that adds business value. This gap is particularly evident among HR professionals, who are rarely taught how to build the skill of innovation. Corporates need to address this gap.
For HR professionals to foster innovation, they must understand the entire business and the value creation chain. They need to identify pain points, opportunity areas, and employee disconnects. A thorough business understanding is essential.
Secondly, HR professionals must actively listen to and connect with every employee. While processes, analytics, and technology are essential, there is no replacement for direct employee engagement. Speaking directly with employees provides a true picture of the organizational climate and issues, which is crucial for developing effective solutions.
Apart from business acumen, HR professionals need an analytical bent of mind to draw insights from data. Networking, empathy, and effective communication are also critical. They must synthesize this information and present it engagingly to top leadership to secure buy-in for innovative changes.
Overall, the key skills HR professionals need to foster innovation are:
- Business understanding.
- Employee engagement and direct communication.
- Analytical skills for data-driven insights.
- Networking, empathy, and effective presentation to leadership.
These skills are crucial for driving innovation within an organization.
Question 5: What role does employer branding play in your recruitment strategy and how do you ensure a strong brand in a competitive market?
Answer: Great question. Godrej Capital, where I work, was a late entrant in the financial services space, so we had to differentiate ourselves from the start. We leveraged our Godrej legacy and employer brand, creating a unique value proposition by building the organization from the ground up. Our strategy also involved being flexible and responsive to our customers, fostering a value-driven culture, and making quick decisions. These strengths have guided us, and we ensure that our employer brand promises align with the actual employee experience.
It’s crucial to deliver on what we advertise in our recruitment strategy to avoid discrepancies between candidates’ expectations and their experiences. We strive for honesty about what we can and cannot offer, ensuring aligned conversations with both candidates and employees.
In our employer brand and recruitment strategy, we focus on offering unique and powerful benefits to differentiate ourselves from the industry. Our strategy varies based on our growth targets and business lines. For example, growing by 5% versus 50% requires different headcount strategies, and expanding within an existing business line versus creating a new one demands different approaches.
Brand salience is another key factor. While the Godrej brand is well-known, Godrej Capital is less so, especially in tier two and tier three cities. Building brand recognition in these areas is a challenge we embrace. We prioritize establishing trust with customers and partners before conducting business. This approach has been effective as we enter new markets, ensuring we set ourselves up for success before moving on to the next city.
So, our strategy at Godrej Capital involves leveraging our strengths, ensuring honest communication, differentiating our employer brand, and building brand salience, especially in new markets. This comprehensive approach has been crucial to our success.
Question 6: How do you align your recruitment strategy with the business goals and the overarching objectives of the organization?
Answer: Quite interesting. While the overall recruitment strategy provides a broad guideline on the organization’s ethos, it must adapt to the needs of the moment. Therefore, it’s crucial to secure buy-in from all relevant stakeholders before starting the hiring process to avoid any disconnect.
Firstly, sharing proactive learnings from past hiring experiences ensures that our recruitment strategy evolves based on these insights. Secondly, we must be extremely clear about the current strategy, even if it differs from past approaches. Aligning on these points minimizes confusion and, although it may take time to get buy-in, the effort is worthwhile.
Once alignment is achieved, execution becomes seamless, benefiting both the organization and new hires. This alignment reduces the overall time and effort required, which is especially valuable for a growth-oriented organization that needs to be agile and quick on its feet.
Question 7: How does the integration of performance management tools with other HR technologies contribute to a more holistic employee experience?
Answer: Certainly, a great question indeed. This topic is close to my heart because I believe in providing employees with a seamless experience similar to what they have with their personal apps. The goal is to ensure that using business enterprise apps is as smooth and intuitive as using personal apps like Netflix or WhatsApp.
Syncing everything to a central portal or architecture is crucial. When all apps communicate seamlessly, data flows effortlessly. For example, if an employee receives quarterly goals on their performance management portal, it should be clear how these goals align with the organization’s objectives. This clarity fosters employee buy-in and meaningful contribution.
Performance reviews, learning plans, and career aspirations should all be integrated into this central portal. Employees can easily identify their strengths, development areas, and career paths. When employees are engaged in shaping their own development plans, it leads to more effective outcomes.
Additionally, having a clear career architecture helps employees understand their current position and the skills needed for future roles. This enables organizations to invest in closing skill gaps and preparing employees for future responsibilities.
Overall, a seamless employee experience benefits both the organization and its employees. It allows leaders to have a comprehensive view of succession planning and ensures that critical roles are filled by capable individuals. This approach enhances both employer expectations and employee satisfaction.
Question 8: How do you address potential biases in AI driven recruitment tools to ensure a fair and diverse candidate selection process?
Answer: This is an interesting topic because, as individuals, not just HR professionals, our understanding of AI and ML varies. Improving this understanding is crucial for most people. My perspective is that AI and ML act as enhancers—they amplify existing qualities, whether biases or virtues. Therefore, the input into these algorithms is critical, touching on ethics and fairness.
Establishing an independent committee to regularly review the algorithm’s bias and relevance ensures it enhances desired qualities. This approach enhances recruitment processes by identifying genuine candidates and matching job requirements with employee skills accurately.
AI and ML also streamline tasks such as fact-checking and listening, freeing up time for HR leaders and line managers to engage in more meaningful, empathetic conversations. Interestingly, employees often feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings with AI-powered chatbots, perceiving them as unbiased and non-judgmental.
Exploring AI and ML partnerships can lead to more advanced interactions between humans and technology, enhancing both efficiency and employee satisfaction. Understanding and leveraging this partnership is key to navigating the evolving landscape of HR practices.
Question 9: Please recommend a piece of literature, book, documentary, anything that has shaped your leadership journey.
Answer: I’ve found a couple of books and a series particularly insightful. One book that stands out is “What You Do Is Who You Are” by Ben Horowitz. It delves into the importance of defining and maintaining organizational culture. Horowitz emphasizes the need to not only establish culture but also to identify and address any deviations from it promptly. This prevents deviations from becoming the norm and reinforces the organization’s values.
In smaller organizations, the leadership often reflects the organization’s culture. Thus, it’s crucial to ensure that leaders embody and promote the desired values. Coaching leaders on values awareness fosters alignment throughout the organization.
Another source of inspiration for me is the series “Boston Legal.” It combines entertainment with profound debates, emphasizing the importance of knowing one’s subject while remaining open to different perspectives. The series taught me that the best ideas should prevail, regardless of their origin.
These insights from both literature and entertainment have influenced my approach to leadership and decision-making, reminding me of the importance of maintaining organizational culture and fostering open dialogue.
Concluding Thoughts
Wrapping up our conversation with Debashish Majumdar, it’s evident HR pros juggle a lot!
From managing candidate hopes to sparking innovation and using AI tools, there’s a lot on the plate.
So, take a sec to think about what you’ve learned and how you can put it into action. Keep those conversations honest, make sure your hiring strategy lines up with what the business needs, and blend those performance tools for a smoother ride.
And don’t forget about those biases in AI recruitment – got to keep an eye on those.
Stay tuned for more helpful chats to keep you on your toes in the ever-changing HR world!