'HR' is a fascinating creature that is responsible for an organizations HR strategy. There are trends such as globalization, an aging workforce and decreasing loyalty of employees, that are creating a radically different HR Environment and pushing companies to alter their HR Strategy. One of the major challenges that HR managers are going to face in the coming years would be managing the next generation.
Siliconindia organized 'Strategic HR Summit' on April 26 in Mumbai, which gave a Great forum to Network and gain insights from a variety of HR leaders across different industries. The eminent speakers from various industries shared their knowledge in the form of panel discussions and sessions with the other HR community.
The summit was inaugurated by Dr. Lalit S. Kanodia, Chairman; Datamatics group who spoke on the topic 'My Experiences in HR'. He reminded us of Jim Collins quotes -"Good to Great: The 3 most important assets of an enterprise: People, People, People."
The session for the day was 'Making HR Strategic: Integrated Human Capital Management Holds the Key' by Roopesh Tiwari, Head HR Asia, SumTotal Systems.
The first panel discussion titled 'Engaging Gen Y - Leadership and Organisation Culture' for which we had Aparna Sharma, Director HR, Deutsche Bank Group, Salil Chinchore, Vice President HR from Cadbury India, Tojo Jose, Executive Vice President HR from Blue Star and Sujaya Banerjee, Chief Learning Officer, Essar Group.
Aparna said 'Organisations to build a "Generational Strategy" with Ageless thinking as the foundation where every employee is equal, regardless of age/generation .Personalize Leadership style as one understands the differences in generations one supervises. She also said 'Follow the Titanium rule "Do unto others, keeping their preferences in mind".'
For the panel 'Innovation in performance management' we had Sagorika Kantharia from Chief People Officer, Radio City, Dr.Ashrant Malhotra , Vice President HR from Go Air, Ajay Oberoi, Chief People Officer from IDBI FEDERAL Life Insurance and Bhanukumar Parmar, Vice President Corporate HR, Reliance Communication
Sagorika said 'If we want our strategy to be successful it has to be bottom up approach. We will have to clarify what we are doing and why we are doing to this generation. It is communication and challenges which can ignite the passion of Gen Y who are the actual implementers. This generation wants to contribute to the larger whole rather than just be told what to do. Success mantra is collaborative and participative approach'. She also said 'It is essential to cascade the strategy down the line to the last person in the hierarchy. If every person in the chain is able to describe the strategy there is no way we will not be able to achieve the organization goal'. Adding to this Bhanukumar VP HR from Reliance communication said "Every Human being is unique. Nobody is a misfit - Organization should place & leverage people competencies for achieving performance excellence. In performance assessment, it is not only assessing WHAT (target) but also HOW (innovative process) will make the difference". He also said "PMS is designed with the three basis goals - 1. Strategic 2. Developmental 3. Administrative (to decide to pay, promotion etc). The success depends upon whether we design not only with an administrative intent but capture the strategic and development intent as well to create performance culture".
"Talent management in challenging time" was the Third panel for the day which was a really informative and interactive session by expert stalwart like Mayur Satyavrat, Director HR from Viacom18, Reva Prakash, Independent Consultant-Verite, Ex HR Advisor (Asia) from Lafarge, Omprakash Singh, Vice President & Head HR from GTL and Dr. Kailas Chapatwala, President Corporate HR, JSW Ispat Steel
Mayur stated certain interesting points:
- Talent management is no longer a choice but a survival & growth imperative for most of the organization
- Start with end in mind... current vs future business needs
- Talent management is no1 for senior leaders
- You must know what you are looking for- the role of success profile
- Build a systematic and integrated approach to all work force development activities
- Talent management is much more than succession management
- Clear distinctions are made between potential, performance & readiness
- Look at the mosaic
- Turn your leaders into talent managers &
- Talent management is all about putting the right people in the right job at the right time
Our last panel for the day was "How to maximize the potential of your workforce" for which we had Anupam Chakraborty, Vice President HR, Bank of America, Dr. Asit Mohapatra, Director HR, from Raymond , Yugesh Goutham, Senior Vice President HR from KEC International, Smriti Krishna, Senior Vice President & Head HR from SET India and Saurabh Singh, National Head, from Pearson Talent Assessment
Anupam said:
- Leaders should ensure that right culture is created in the organization which is a key differentiator, while strategies may vary based on context
- Frontline managers are key to the success of an organization, focus to ensure they are involved in organizational plans and strategies (would have larger buy-in)
- Performance management is not a yearly intervention, it's a continuous process of assessment and conversations
- In order to ensure we retain High potential employees, there should be a differentiated and fast career track
- Most managers don't like to give bad news, "Sandwich" approach is often effective
- Focus on each employee, they are all different, and most often it's a right mix of varied individuals that give best results
- Empower employees, experiment and allow them to breadth to fail
- Leaders should learn from their juniors, "reverse mentoring" is a good way to do that
The Strategic HR Summit offered a great opportunity for the leading HR experts to express their views regarding the various Human Resource issues. We can also say it was a Power pack day with Various HR related information from diverse industries experts. The event was sponsored Sum Total, Sodexo, Eduriser, Staffoncontract.com and Manipal Education.
