Podcast

Q1. Let’s start off with a lighthearted question. If you could distill your experience as a CHRO into one invaluable piece of advice for aspiring HR leaders, what would it be? Why do you think it holds such significance?

A. It’s really hard to give that one piece of advice because HR people usually deal with people and there is no one piece of advice when it comes to the human resource operations. However, my answer for aspiring HR leaders-

It’s all about the employee experience. That is the primary focus. Like any HR person or a people person must have.

There are a lot of other criteria that an employee looks at when they accept our offer and agree to share their professional journey with us. But still like what I believe and from my experience is that if his or her experience with the company like with the team, with the manager, with the colleagues, the internal environment and to a large extent the external consultants are the vendors that are involved or associated in their job role- No matter what you provide for them, if the experience that we provide for them is not good then it will be very hard for us to retain them.

From my experience and what I would tell all the aspiring HR leaders is that focus mainly on giving that red carpet experience that you have got in your career as being an employee or maybe like what you would like to get in your career as being an employee or maybe an HR person.

If you focus mainly on providing that kind of experience, then the rest of all the HR related activities or the operations in the company will be smooth and to a large extent it’ll make your life also easier in the company. So that would be my valuable advice to the HRs aspiring leaders.

Q 2. Let’s switch gears and understand about your evolution as an HR leader. And, across the journey, what are some of the stories which are worth telling?

As we explore the mindset of CHRO, we understand that growth often comes through overcoming challenges- that’s how the real-world works. Could you share a specific challenge you failed in your career as a CHRO that forced you to step out of your comfort zone? How did you navigate through it and what valuable lessons did you learn in the process?

A. My evolution to become a people’s person like my academics, I’m a finance person, but my evolution to become a people’s person from a finance person is mainly the passion.

If you ask me, the all the experience that I have gained in HR is mostly practical experience. It’s not that I don’t have academic experience, I have done my learnings and taken my certifications to know more about how I should be implementing and running the HR department in the company where I worked with earlier.

But my experiences are more practical experiences.

Taking up challenges was a daily task for me if you ask me then, but there is one particular challenge that has actually made me feel proud about myself and I would like to share that story and I’ll be more than happy if that inspires the people who are reading.

When I took up the challenge of becoming an HR person in the last company that I worked in the Middle East, I was working there as an HR leading the HR department of it’s an MNC Germany based company.

And there were a lot of employees, we had 203 office staff and also the same number of blue-collar workers. To take care of their queries and their questions and listen to them and then give them the solutions or what are the processes and the policies that are set up in the company, it was a huge task for me and all the team members.

So what happened is that is what I understood that like , it’s very important that every company should have an employee handbook or a knowledge database where the employee know that what are the benefits that they have and how they should, what is their card of content that we are looking for from them and how the company altogether works and who is taking care of what and how they can have that association with us.

Taking up that challenge was very difficult considering that I was still setting up the HR department there and since it was Middle East like most of our employees were expatriates like it was in Dubai and most of our employees were Indians. We had from people from Pakistan, we had Nepalese and all those different nationalities. We had people from Africa as well.

So, taking care of all the nationalities, people’s culture and their requirements into that simple employee handbook was a huge challenge. And taking out the time from the busy schedule, yes, of course that never happens. And that is when I realized that I have a lot of time driving to the office.

It takes me one hour to drive to the office and reach there and also an hour back to reach home and that is 2 hours, that is 120 minutes that I had which I felt that I can use. If I use that time, it’s not affecting my daily schedules and I moved to the company transportation along with the other members. I stopped driving and I used to take a writing pad along with me.

And then just to write down- what I want to tell the people what the company is and what are the policies and all the information that they would require, keeping in mind all the nationalities that we were having in the company. And this particular task actually took me two to three months’ time and it was not an easy one.

Like you sit inside the bus, and you write it down, you come back home. When you come back home, you have to type it down into your personal laptop and then send it for proofreading and take it up with your friends. But it was quite a challenge, and I was very happy and proud when I finally got all that employee handbook printed out.

I had a lot of team members who supported me, and we were a part of a group of companies and I very, very proudly say that and our company was the first one to publish an employee handbook at that particular time.

And a lot of recognition from the higher management that actually boosted me up. As a person, as an employee, as a professional person. And also like it inspired me to take up most challenges.

Even now, that actually helped me understand like “Shamila, you can do this if you just put your mind into it.” It actually gave me that practical experience and my capabilities and how I can take up challenges, what are the plannings that I should have, how I can manage my time and all that. And I still share these stories with my team members to inspire them to take up new challenges and bring in new ideas into the team.

That’s one thing that I want to tell- there is nothing that we cannot do, nobody cannot do. It’s not only the HR people. It is all about that mindset to take up the challenge, put up a plan and then just to get it done. It is as simple as that.

And that’s such an amazing story and I think for each one of us, regardless of whether they are in HR or any function, I think there comes a time in professional life when one has to go through that grind, to be able to emerge out as a winner and ensure that they are ready for the next level,

Q3. Let’s turn our attention to other critical aspects of HR strategy, the two important topics that most of the CHROs pay a lot of attention to- One is employee well-being, and the 2nd is hybrid workplace. Let’s start up employee well-being. Define and prioritize employee well-being

A. Considering all the changes that have happened since 2020, it has been a very important topic- employee well-being because we don’t see people, we are not interacting with and how do we take care of our people.

It has been a very important topic of discussion for one or two years now. But from how I rolled it out and what how we are doing it in my in the current organization that I’m associated with it more of a I’ll just give you a small brief about that.

If you ask the employee, they are like- it’s as I said earlier, it is the experience. Like how you are taking care of and what is the kind of experience that you give to them. And this actually helps them to perform better and boost their employee, enhances the job satisfaction that they have, and sharing their professional journey with us. And it also prevents a lot of stress and unnecessary absenteeism that usually happens because most of the people work remotely now, and it also helps to bring down the turnover.

Taking care of employees’ well-being is an investment for any company. No doubt about it because it benefits both the employees and the employers as well. So how do we do it here in the world of day. We have a very holistic approach to the employee by being and when we say employee well-being it is not just physical fitness or just ensuring that all the guys are having a six pack, and they eat well and all that.

No, that is not how we take care of the employees’ well-being here it is; it is literally as simple as how our people’s lives are going on, how happy they are, how satisfied they are and how can we do to make it even better.

We encompass all the things that are important to each of them. Now people are different. Still the hybrid work system has brought into its more diversity. So, taking care of everyone, the different cultures that are coming into the system and knowing what are the things that are important to each of them, that is the challenge.

But that is where we HR people have to dig in, try to understand and then give them the experience for their journey with us. So here at Volopay, we actually have segregated this into five different elements, the complete employee.

The first one of course let’s say the career- How satisfied are they spending their time with us, and do they have clarity on where they are, what their capabilities are. That is where the PMS system comes like their KPAs and KPIs and do they have a clarity on what their role is?

Well, how important their role is and how they are contributing to the entire role of a journey and also ensuring that they are able to perform to the best of their capabilities. So that is 1 segment, a primary segment that we take care of the career.

The second one would be their personal- will be understanding if they are having a meaningful life there. It is not only about just spending five to six hours with us daily and then just taking it from them whatever they can contribute. It is also to give it back to them by having a proper learning and development sector there.

But we train them, make them better professional people, make them better people altogether. Not only the professional side but also their personal side by enhancing their skill set. Giving them information about how to follow their passions- this is what they want or giving them an option to open up a door to something that can make them happier, the personal side of them.

We have a lot of singers in the office. We have a lot of artists in the office. There is even an employee who is almost on the verge of becoming a star in the office. He’s an actor actually. So, understanding their personal side as well, making them have a meaningful life of being that identity, their personal identity is another thing, the second thing that we take care of.

The third thing is of course very important- the financial right being right. Everyone says, we all work for money. But if you take the statistics, money doesn’t come in the first five criteria of how you are associating with the company.

But still finance is a very important thing that will give anybody a piece of mind to concentrate on their work. So how do we help the employees in Volopay? We tell them how you can manage your money well by associating with banks by giving them sessions on how they can have their financial planning. What are the different tax saving plans, what are the different other saving investments that they can do so that their future is secure. So,we give them all that information and sessions and ensure that they know how to take care of their financial side.

Now the 4th one of course the physical well-being. And this is actually difficult if you ask me because most of the people are working remotely. We just can’t tell them to come and do some physical activities. We have some fun activities and engagement programs.

Let’s say that yoga day is coming, so we just as much as possible, we ask people to come online and do some yoga there or maybe fun activities where they have to move around and conduct medical checkups. And we have insurance policies for all the people, the benefits that we can give to them through the insurance providers, the maximum that we can do as a company. So, we take care of all that for the physical well-being of the employees.

And last but not least is taking care of their social well-being. We are all human beings. We are social beings, and it is very, very important that every person in the company has to be a social being. It is not only they can associate with the different people around there, not only in the company but also outside as well. So, we give them the freedom to work anywhere they want. That is the hybrid option. Like if you are comfortable with the environment where you are, it can be your home, it can be your office. Because we do have people who are more productive, and they come to the office. We have people who are productive, and they work from home. We also have people who just go to some cafe and do a great job there. We actually give them the freedom to live the life that they want by being a social being in the environment.

These are the five important components that we take care of, when we implement anything, when we look into the policies, the process or maybe whenever we are giving that kind of experience to the employees. These are the five most important components that we look into for employee well-being.

Q4. Talk to us about how do you foresee the role of HR revolving in a hybrid work landscape and what unique opportunities does it presents for creating a more inclusive and adaptable work culture?

A. If you ask me personally as well, I did not know that I could work from home. For me, working was only like driving to the office, sitting there at my desk and then working and coming back home.

That was the culture that we all had, right. But thanks to COVID. Fortunately or unfortunately, we are introduced into this new work culture. And yes of course like any domain there are pros and cons.

First of all, let’s discuss the challenges of having a hybrid working. The first challenge is the communication part of course and anybody would agree there because when you have the person in front of you like what you communicate is not only the words that you hear, it’s also the body language right.

We can easily sense if a person is expressed, if he’s in trouble or if he needs any help being a people’s person there, you should always be there for your team so that communication is something that is missing because of the hybrid work system.

You come online, you switch on your camera, but that doesn’t work. It’s always that wide that you get when you have a person sitting right in front of you. So that is a challenge to be very honest, which we will have to tackle it out through online portals or the different tools that we have.

And also talk, talk more and more to people and try to understand like what exactly is the root of any, anything that we are discussing at that particular time. So I think that is the for first and foremost challenge in any, so in any, any company.

And then it is also about the collaboration or the team engagement that happens. It is very difficult to get all the employees in one single portal even if it is a town hall. It requires different multiple reminders push from our end, we have to ping each of them maybe personally and ask them where are you boss, I can’t see you there. It’s difficult to get all the team members onto a single platform for a particular session altogether.

If we try to communicate to them like, inform them why exactly that session is and what benefits they could have out of it, then that I think that can be made easy. But still, it’s a difficult task.

Then talent retention is something that is going for a task because people are looking for. I think employees are having a lot of opportunities. There are no restrictions to moving around or getting another job. So earlier location was a problem. If you if you have someone in Bangalore, we are based in Bangalore now. So, if let’s say that I’m looking for another job before pre COVID time, I would look for a job in Bangalore because I have to commute. But now that that particular limitation is not there.

We have to give the best experience to the people so that people stick to us. If not, then you are going to lose that particular talent. That is quite a big challenge.

Maintaining the company culture, like diversity in the company is awesome, but it is also difficult to bring those diversities into a single umbrella of the company culture. There can be resistance to the change. There can be different opinions that come up. There can be different suggestions but still ensuring that everyone is happy and how we formulate the policies in a way that all the employees are like we can’t say 100 percentage.

Of course people are different but stick to the maximum. How we can maintain that company culture in all this different diversities.

So the 4th one is rethinking leadership. Earlier leadership meant- you can just go to them ask them boss, do you need any question like any support from me, I’m always here. So that personal touch was there. Now though, the leader is in some part of the world and the employee, the team member is on the other side of the planet, so it becomes very difficult for them to connect.

How can these leaders actually lead the team now- that is also very, very difficult. They have to define what the productivity of these team members is. That definition has changed from what was earlier said. If there has to be a clarity of their job and responsibility, there has to be a clarity of what we are expecting from them like a clear-cut clarity on their KPIs and KRAs and communication from the managers or the leaders engaging with the team members as much as they can.

Now let’s say that why it is so difficult because the leaders are also having their part of the job route. They also have to take care of their work and also the team members. So that’s a difficult, tough situation for the leaders. You actually have to rethink the entire leadership definition there.

Make use as much as tools possible, how you are sharing the knowledge, how you are ensuring that your team is productive there, developing a plan to create virtual communication flow between your team members.

Those are the things that we have to think about more in this hybrid work culture that is happening. There is one more thing that I’ve understood is that this hybrid work transition has actually increased a blur between work and home.

It results in some people working a lot of hours in their job, they can’t manage their time like they just sit for work. They have nothing else to do at home. They’ll just sit on their laptop and then sit for work.

This study has come out and I believe that is where we HR people must ensure that the work from whom strategical plans or the policies that you put for your employees should support that well-being side, that work life balance side.

And also enable the employees or the team members to have that ability to disconnect from their work to maintain that balance and also to keep them recharged to be the productive person during the working hours.

So this is quite a challenge unless and until the HR person knows how to tackle that particular thing and give that communication, create that virtual communication platforms there and ensure that the flow is smooth between the leaders and the team members and of course by the from the exact people to the employees as well, then it would be quite difficult.

So I think these are the main challenges that we as being the HR people are experiencing because of the hybrid work landscape. But say having said all that, OK now what are the costs?

We have a lot of unique opportunities because of the hybrid and the best thing that I like is we can bring a lot of diversity to your organization. Different people from different places with the best talents, there is no restriction to it. We can get the right talent who is sitting on the other side of the world and that is the best part. You get to know more people, more culture. Diversity is like how, what they are and what is happening around them. And we have a lot of connections in our work family.

The family is increasing beyond the geographical locations and that is actually a very good thing to happen. And I also believe that most people’s productivity level has increased because some people don’t like to come to the office because they have that uncomfortable feeling that they are under the CCTV. It’s not the little CCTV that I’m talking about because some people don’t like that micromanager people just coming and poking into their seat. They need that distraction free place. They need to be there in their own space to become more productive. So, for those people this is a blessing.

Like they can just go and sit somewhere around say, and no distractions, no disturbances and they can put in their hundred percentage there. From an HR perspective, the best part of it is that you will have the right set of talent for people who are hustlers.

When I say hustlers, most of the companies need self-starters. If you want to bring in more talent or more efficiency or more contributions to your team or the company as a whole, you need self-starters.

You need people with integrity, trust in your employees and the hustling mindset of taking up challenges and getting things done and of course how you manage your time. So, work from home actually needs all the skill sets. If the employee does not have these personal skill sets, then it will be very difficult to bring productivity onto the table.

So having said that, sometimes if the people doesn’t have this hustling mindset especially for the startup ecosystem since I’m in that ecosystem now, if in the startup ecosystem we don’t have that type of people, it is very, very hard to take the journey forward.

In that system I feel that the work from home is right but the system that new workspace culture, the work from home culture has actually brought that that specific set of skills ensuring that the team that we have are the right set of hustlers, the people that have the integrities and the trust factor is always there’s, the self-starters.

Q 5. Let’s now switch gears and move into the HR tech side of the HR world.

We have AI and automation coming up in recent times. With the rise of these technologies, there’s a lot of concern about the impact on jobs and the role of HR professionals. So how do you see technology reshaping the HR workforce and what skills do you believe will be essential for HR professionals to thrive in this tech driven era?

A. I had a few members in my team asked that Shamila now that ChatGPT has come, they are all in risk and I actually smiled at them, and I asked why you feel. It is actually a misconception that ChatGPT can take over the human, the human touch from the work.

I believe that no technology can take over that human touch that you can give to your work. Of course, technology helps a lot. I don’t think that we have to be so much concerned about the technical changes that are happening.

Get to know more of it and also use it to an extent where you can actually give a lot of your work to that technology. Let it take care of all the clerical works and whatever it can. Use that as your support system to learn more, to take up new challenges, to make yourself more efficient in what you are doing.

And if you have someone to support you, they take care of all that clerical work and then it’s a good thing to happen. So, in my experience, when I started my career, the Internet was coming in. When computers came there was a lot of chaos. Like computers have come, humans will not have work. And what happened to every single human or the people who were ready to adapt to the changes in the environment or what is happening around them.

For them it was not a problem. They saw it as an opportunity to learn something new, to use it in their role and also to make progress, their career progression there. So, this is my advice to anyone who is reading this.

Don’t get worried when technology is becoming much better. AI, artificial intelligence or automation, these are all things that are actually helping you to become a much better person. See it, adapt to it, know how to use it, learn and take up the challenge of using it and then bring in more efficiency. Bring in that human touch to it.

How did AI and automation help the HR tech space, mainly it is a recruitment side. Creating the job description, screening resumes, a job application, scheduling interviews, those are the main things for which we can use AI.

Maybe the other processes like employee onboarding and performance management, maybe those are the things that we can automate in the HR operations part. But of course, not to tell like all the employee documentation for the administrative tasks that are associated to HR can be given to ChatGPT.

So, give all that work to ChatGPT or the AI and you try to bring in that human touch into communication with your team members, into how you deal with them, how do you listen to them.

You have a lot of time to listen to your people, understand them much better, make their experience even much better because all the other administrative tasks get taken care of by the AI and the tech system. So that is where I feel that HRMS portals just like HROne are helping us right now.

We are giving all that automation onto the system wherein. Now all the administrative tasks, the schedule, links, the letters and their documents, everything is taken care of by the system so that you have enough time to be with your team members, talk to them, listen to them, understand them, give them a much better red-carpet experience in your company.

Of course, saying all that, data security is a concern because all the employee data is in one place. That is a concern that we have to take care of that. But still, I feel that if we have the appropriate data protection policies and processes in place then that is a challenge that we can take up.

But what’s important is how do you bring efficiency into your role as an HR person considering all this AI is happening around and be a more technical proficient person. Let’s not ignore the fact that without that technical knowledge it would be difficult to work.

Bringing that technical proficiency into your work, you should know there is no question, there is no option to say that ‘sorry, I don’t know how to do that.’ You have to take the time; you have to learn it.

Technology is a must in your profession now. So be the technical person, person using the technology. Know how you can analyze the human resource domain in your company. The HR analytics will help you. And also, the people analytics, how can you get to know what the different types of people are.

If you can use technology, then why not? It makes your life easier. And also considering that all this kind of administrative task is taken care of by technology, then your strategical thinking power has to be efficient.

And that human strategical thinking power is not something that any technology can take over. So be a most efficient person in that particular domain and you are through. There is nothing to worry about in this particular tech driven era that you are talking about.

Q6. We have to strike a balance between what we humans can deliver versus where we need machines to be able to do a little better job. But how do you balance the benefits of technology driven HR solutions with a need to safeguard, imply privacy and maintain a human centric approach?

A. Safeguarding the employee privacy data, their data onto the technological platform can be in a charmless platform or any other tools. If you have the proper strategies and the policies and tools implemented for data protection, then I think that is something that we can take care of in any company.

Of course, IT, that that is where the IT people and we have to associate with the IT people there, ensuring that there is no risk of data privacy. There can be breaches and potential misuse of the personal data that is moving around. So, the companies like in all of IT, we have a different IT department who’s taking care of all that.

Every company must ensure that they have the right and appropriate data protection policies and procedures that the employees will also have to take up in place to take up this risk.

The technology is only looking into the data that they get. So bias is also something that can happen, and we can’t completely take up a decision based only on the HR analytics that you see on the screen. That is also something that maybe we have to take care of and maintain that human centric approach.

There is no doubt, whether it is the hiring process or maybe having the engagement plan, it strengthens that whole learning experience. Like for us to know more about the people, the business and as I said earlier, it is mainly about the experience, how we balance the technology and the people’s experience by using that technology. It’s not the functionality of the tool.

Let’s say for example two different types of platforms I can just take it out as what’s the difference between Facebook and Instagram. Personally, if you ask me both are like social media platforms where to a large extent you are sharing your personal life or your thoughts and everything like your photos and your videos and wherever you go people do a lot of social media things.

It’s more or less the same thing but it is about the experience.

I think most of the people have changed from Facebook to Instagram mainly because of that experience of having an Instagram real day. Though Facebook brought it later but the Instagram real time experience is different from what you have on Facebook.

The content is totally different. So, it is not the functionality of the tool but the experience that the user has when they use the tool. And this user experience is what we have to take care of in the employment engagement process, whether it is performance or learning or training aspect. And how many tools do you use?

Never underestimate bringing that experience of human touch to it.

Whatever tools you use, you still have to bring in that human touch and never underestimate the power of it. So how I would say is that safeguard or employee privacy there with having the right policies and tools and process and the right people also especially for that particular domain so that everyone in the company has peace of mind communicated to your people- that there is no harm in sharing the details and the 100 % confidentiality is maintained. And also ensure that whatever technology you use, don’t underestimate bringing that people’s experience by putting that special human touch. I think with that particular balance, everything will be fine.

Q7. Is there any literature or any book that has shaped your HR leadership journey? If yes, please, please do go ahead and share the details.

A. One book that actually changed my perspective on how to become a leader. I believe that would actually not particularly an entire leader, but any leader.

And that book is like a Simon Sinex the start with Y.

It’s an awesome book. I strongly recommend it as one of the most useful and powerful books that I have read. It changed my perspective on how I should lead not only the team but also the people around me, including my kids.

The content of the entire book is how ‘why’ is becoming the most important message that you have to communicate to any individual or maybe an organization. Is ‘why’ the most powerful word that will actually inspire people to act or something?

Let’s say that usually when starting from my career journey, I have experience working with multiple managers. So, there were a few managers, not that saying that they are bad managers, but they just came and told us that Shamila, you have to do this. This is a task that you have to do, and this is how you have to do it. And I might do it, but I’ll be clueless as to why am I doing it and if I don’t know why am I doing it, how am I contributing with that particular assignment to the company as a whole?

It will not inspire me to do it in the best way.

Usually what managers do, that’s the difference between managers and leaders. What managers do is that these three questions of what, how and why, they first give what to do, how to do and then why to do. Maybe if the employees are curious enough to ask that question, they might give that answer.

But this book actually changed my perspective on how to lead people by telling me that why is more important than what and how because that is how you can drive those humans and also take up the decision makers. This actually helped me a lot.

Whenever I take a strategical decision now or try to implement something there or see a gap somewhere and I feel that OK this is something that we have to do new. The first question that I start with is why?

Why am I doing this? Why should I do this?

Is it important now so that if you have to clarity to the why question then I think what and how is very easy to answer like you will get the answers for that. So that is this is one book that has helped me a lot in becoming a much better leader than I am.

I hope my team stands by my word. I think I’m a good leader. I have not got any other responses from my teams yet, but I still I’m learning. I’m trying to become a much better leader day by day, minute by minute. But I think this book has actually helped me become a much better leader than yesterday. And all the decision making that I have done throughout my career soon.