The International HR Day – May 20, 2023 – a weekend filled in loads of knowledge !!

 The International HR Day – May 20, 2023 – a weekend filled in loads of knowledge !!

Annual HR Conclave @ Neville Wadia Institute of Management Studies and Research 

Over the week-end you tend to lie on the beds – a lazy morning, waking up late, getting ready late and kill the time to your own vims and fancy.  Some weekends you need to get ready for office as that’s the first priority to finish some pending tasks or push the committed targets to meet deadlines. It was the same case but soon I touched my phone which is a routine these days – gone are the days of saying Karagre Vasate Lakshmi, Kar madhye saraswati.  These days we see the phones – changed times.  I realised that have registered for an event – with dual mind and slow pace started getting ready but then pushed me hard to get ready and reached the venue just in time. 

Kind welcome by the well-dressed in business attire management students right from parking to the registration and then to the venue.   To my surprise the hall was almost full ~ 200 guys.  So I was not alone to break the weekend and get in there.  

Usual lamp lighting, welcome felicitation etc. happened and an insightful, knowledge packed and experiential learning session kicked off.  

Mr. Eknath Khedkar – VC DY Patil University started his speech with real time data and analytics in HR development globally and I was zapped to know with even so much technological and skill advancement in the HR domain, India as a country is lacking behind in a global  HR – this was more specific to development in the domain per say.  But his main focus was on collaboration between Industry and Academia – this is where we are lacking.  We need to bring in more universities and institutions in Industry and  work together for a better tomorrow. He himself is a student of the Wadia Institute of Management and till today he delivers the guest lectures there out.  What a dedication, hats off.  

He concluded his saying in Hindi and won everyone hearts in the auditorium. 

Mr. Alok Sharman - CXO with global expertise in exponential P&L growth & strategic business transformation, in Industrial/B2B & Consumer/B2C. RD S Asia & MD India-BRENNTAG-global leaders- Chemical/Speciality distribution.   He stole the show by his joyous, though a very practical and easy appearance over the stage and started off with loads of applauds and brought smiles.  He believes in a principle that in HR – everything is just the people. Rather than technology, infrastructure etc. etc. first and foremost is the people.   Though hundreds of corporates show these as there strong pillars, include them in their mission statement and what but he being a MD of the company is leaving it by example.  Though the initiatives that he presented in the slides are being followed by almost all companies (celebrations, festivals, get together etc.) , but it has to be done in real sense to get the expected outcome and not just sake of doing to exhaust the yearly budgets.  More investment in people is directly proportional to the profits.  Final outcome is the profits as that is what we are all working for.  He being a core finance person believes more and has proved it practically.  He is a global leader for the company he is working and in the list of over 40 countries – he has achieved a greater happiness index and profits compared to other countries. A data slide was presented to the audience.  He is a passionate people leader with strong finance acumen.  

Sudhir Mateti - Head HR - Syntel Telecom & Enkay Converged. Life Coach •Motivational Speaker• Counselor – He really made the auditorium like an interesting IPL T-20 match stadium with big shots, scores in a short time.  I have not seen any HR leader with this kind of approach. I must mention here that he is providing a free training to all aspirational HR persons and doing it over years together now as a passion.  Hats off to him.  His more focus was on identifying the training needs.  A complete different approach in training design where the thought process to be changed.  He used a word put AATMA in the trainings – do it from the soul,  track it effectively.  Institutions should not be proud of the packages their students have received from companies but the change they made to organisation – a process that he designed to resolve complex problem statement... these all should be the motivational factors and NOT the figures of lacks of rupees they get as a package.  

After such a fantastic, wonderful kick off – there was the time of a panel discussion.  First one was on Upbringing and reskilling of the resources to get ready for the future.  Very interesting session moderated by an interesting personality Mr. Sangramsingh – a passionate HR professional and continuously talks of experiential learning out of his own experience where he headed multiple organisation and moved over 40 countries sharing his expertise in the domain.  Panelists were equally interesting and learned people including Mateti ji, Mr. Shailesh Deshumkh and others.  

Here again more thrust was given on training, aligning the goals to organisation goals.  The trainings have to be beyond soft and hard skill development which will lead to transformation of an individual and more focus on sustainability of an individual, skills and organisational market place and growth.  Data analytics is the key to success these days and only data and analytics will keep you in the market. Bringing in more ownership and building a sense of entrepreneurship.  But every one from the kick off till end was talking of collaboration, collaborative approach and team building.  The reason larger collaborative infrastructures have been built – the whole motto is to make people really collaborative.  But just building it will not solve the problem – we need to practice it a big way.  Mr. Sangramsingh listed the top 5 Cognitive skills viz.  Self efficacy, analytics, innovative thinking, resilience, sustainability and agility.  In the process you also need to focus of people motivation and bring in more self awareness – we need to know self first. Your identity is your knowledge  and a beautiful term he used “seniors, juniors and millionaires are working together”  - so more focus on aspirational skills.  

Mr. Shailesh Deshmukh, Vice President Human Resources (Group HR Head)Vice President Human Resources (Group HR Head), Aquapharm Chemicals Pvt Ltd.  He gave one surprising analytics in India.  58% of the mass needs new skills 83% companies are finding difficult to get right talent, 25% are not getting right jobs as per their skills, 61% are not happy with the existing technologies / platforms / infra … a strong need to do a GAP analysis here is discussed in detail. Organisations should believe in real transformation and quoted Volvo example wherein they have decided today that by 2030 they will manufacture all electrical vehicles. We also should have focussed incubation centres like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and are investing and pulling a better talent to the platform.  Self upskilling is the need of an hour and we need to mentor employees to do so and realise imbibe this within them. 

Again Mr. Sudhir Mateti sir gave a beautiful insight – we should go away with the PIP, PMS and POP – rather than performance improvement – it should be People improvement plan,  performance management system should be people management system.  To make people innovative you need to pull them out from their routines and provide them atleast a 2 hours free time to get into innovative mode.  The will to think innovative is missing, unless we learn its difficult.  Identify who is lacking where, try a job rotational approach give a right person  right job and see the change – that will bring in interest.  Lets practically be human and evolve – think people centric. 

Other Panel discussion was on HR Role in nurturning a culture of innovation and creativity. Dynamics of cross cultures were discussed. We need to adapt quickly to new technologies.  ChatGP and AI will bring in a revolution – but there are masses who are scared of this.  However, everyone made it very clear that technologies will stay and they will be enablers, we should be prompt enough to aquire them and use them in our day to day functions to perform better. A fact also discussed and brought to the table that training is not only HR baby and leaders  and stakeholders across the domain should be part of this process.  More flexibility and getting into a mentee – mentor zone is important.  People collective behaviour and the way they perform their duties is the culture of the organisation.   ChatGPT and AI are enables and game changers.   Term Human Resources to be changed to People and most organisations have now started following it.  Collaborations lead with less of hierarchy is the key.  Ideas to be valued and mindset to be diverted to coaching.  Sharing practices to be followed with innovation. 

Sudhir Pathak sir  brought in a new approach – birds eye view to a worms eye view.  He focussed on working in a direction with purpose.  Rather accounting for the expenses – account for people. 

Mustafa Raj - An HR Practitioner, Trainer and Facilitator of international repute with 27+ years of experience; Mustafa has held corporate HR leadership roles with organizations like Foseco, Hindustan Unilever/SC Johnson, Mercedes-Benz, Oriental Rubber and Whirlpool. He brought in a new topic of lateral thinking and measurable ideas and their effective implementation will definitely give tangible output. 

And a lazy day when started turned into a more effective, knowledge packed, positivity and what not at the end… Thanks to entire team of Neville Wadia Institute – all students, faculties and more specific to Dr. Anandrao Dadas, Director, Neville Wadia Institute of Management Studies & Research, Pune. Sincere thanks to OHR team, Vibrant HR and all fraternity members for making it a real HR day. 

To summarize Learning, Innovation, Collaboration and standing tall with new age technologies are the keys to the better future. 

Keep shining HR students a bright future awaits you…. Bye till we meet next. 

Sharad Puranik

9890431171

Pune