Pratibimb 2019 : 4th Annual HR Meet

Theme :- Workplace 2030 Transforming HR

Speakers :- Mr. V. S. Shirodkar, Mr. Kasi Viswanath and Mr. Brillian S. K.

Panelists :- Mr. Samarjeet Singh (Chief Moderator), Mr. Shyam Iyer, Dr. Karanvir Singh,

Dr. Chander Thapar, Ms. Sowmya Santosh, Mr. Jagmohan Singh Rishi

Human Resources (HR) is that integral part of any organization, commercial or non-commercial, which focusses on developing such extraordinary people for the mutual benefit of both, the employees and the organization. As we are going through a dynamic business environment, the roles and functions of various departments in a company are changing, including the HR Department.

In order to get an insight into the evolving role of HR in today’s business organization, SGPC’s Guru Nanak Institute of Management Studies conducted a seminar for HR professionals, faculty members and students of Management Institutes interested in Human Resources field.

Audience listening intently to the speakers at the annual HR meet

Dr. D. Y. Patil, Director of GNIMS welcomed all the dignitaries from the corporate & business schools while inaugurating the annual HR meet Pratibimb 2019. In the busy life where reading is limited, he emphasized on the significance of such educational forums, which are more beneficial to the students than the fixed theoretical curriculum. He believes that all the industry stalwarts sharing their experiences and knowledge at such forums helps everyone – students and faculty alike, to stay updated with the happenings in the industry.

Later, he touched upon the theme of the event – Workplace 2030 giving an overall idea of evolution of Human Resource Management over the years.

Giving a recap of the milestones in Human Resources field, he brought the audience to the present, where in the use of terminologies such as Peoples’ Management, Peoples’ Happiness Officer, Chief Human Happiness Officer, etc. came to be used. He concluded his address by stating the current scenario of Human Resources going through the stage of outsourcing. Thus, he set the stage for the discussion of the evolution of Workplace and HR in 2030, stating his beliefs that it will be more of Man-machine relationship.

Dr. D. Y. Patil feliciating special guest Mr. Abhijit Deherkar

The student anchors introduced Work Place 2030 highlighting various achievements and work done in the niche areas of HR by Chief guest Mr. V.S. Shirodkar (Director, Basil HR Advisory Services) while inviting him to address the crowd.

A captivating keynote address was delivered by the Chief guest covering the following aspects of his presentation on what the future holds in store for us – Workplace 2030. His address was focused on the challenges that might be faced by HR professionals in the future. He acclaimed the HR people as the Coarchitects of the Business Future. Sharing about his 34 years of experience in corporate and 4 years in consultancy, he still felt energetic going in office because of the various new challenges emerging in the industry.

The presentation began on a note of “Disruption is the name of the Game”. He stated that business is in a state of disruption and things are volatile – Nobody does business as was done in the past. Things have radically changed which has led HR to evolve as an integral function of the business. He gave the examples of Airbnb, Uber, Big-basket and other ecommerce ventures who have raised the benchmark and are constantly in the process of the same.

‘Attracting the right talent and pushing them forward would be the Competitive advantage in 2030’ as was highlighted in his presentation. He said that the competitive advantages of past viz., efficiencies and cost management are no longer the concern but Talent Management, retaining should change the HR Service offering.

Emphasizing on the significance of collaboration and networking, he said that things are slowly moving towards group working and team work. Workforce is moving towards unstructured network than hierarchical network. It has become a key responsibility of HR to manage the young crowd who respects people based on the merit of what they propose to them and not as per someone’s title and experience.

Talking about his work experiences at Johnson & Johnson, he said that they upscaled their business by radically reducing the unnecessary on-feet sales force and elevating their sales personnel as managers of dealer networks, thus highlighting the strength of collaboration & networking. He pointed out to students the 7 skills required to be developed to work in 2030 as follows: –

1. Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

2. Collaborations across networks & leading by influence (leading without Titles)

3. Agility & Adaptability

4. Initiative & Entrepreneurism

5. Effective Oral & Written Communication (Emotional Intelligence)

6. Accessing and Analyzing Information (viz., Big Data, Real time, etc.)

7. Curiosity and Imagination

While praising the Institute for selecting such a riveting theme, he said that Workplace 2030 will be more focused on Place for Work rather than a defined Workplace. Employees will have flexible work environment such as mood based working viz., People can work in gardens as per their mood. Also, there will be Collaborative work environment such as circular seating places for more transparent work.

Chief Guest Mr. V. S. Shirodhkar presenting his views

Second thing he highlighted about is smaller individual organization and project based working will gain importance in future. These organizations will work with a collaborative approach. People will specialize in providing their respective services. Next important thing he talked about was that there will be less hierarchy. People will not be respected for their Titles but will be appreciated for the work done. Leadership as a position of power will be replaced by leadership as a position of service.

The final thing that would bring a paradigm shift in HR related work was Chief of Work at Senior Management Level in organizations. When the whole routine HR work is outsourced then the prime role of HR will be shifted to take onus of the culture in an organization. The HR Department will have to focus on providing a great work-experience to the employees. Also, he advised the HR professionals to avoid shaping other peoples’ careers as per the structured jobs to meet business requirements. Instead, efforts need to be laid to tap the employee potential and build upon the skills & talent possessed by them.

The mesmerizing keynote address was followed by an interesting round of Q & A with the audience. The second speaker Guest of Honor Mr. Kashi Viswanath (Senior HR Position-Larsen & Toubro Ltd) was invited on the dais for his address. He began with a simple stand & sit exercise, initially commanding the audience to stand & sit, while later interchanging the commands by asking them to stand when he calls “sit” and sit when he says “stand”. This exercise was conducted by him to test their agility to adapt quickly to changes, while highlighting its significance as would be required from the workforce in 2030.

Future being uncertain and unpredictable yet to do justice towards such an excellent theme, he focused on structuring the event by borrowing few points from a study of PwC and James Martin Institute of Management London on similar futuristic theme. He also talked about the dynamic Technology changes by giving an example of “BOT-A-THON” conducted the previous day at their L & T organization where the employees were trained to work with Bots (Trained program modules) to smoothen their HR functioning by outsourcing the monotonous trivial jobs to bots.

Dr. D. Y. Patil Sir felicitating Mr. Kashi Viswanath

Referring to the study he mentioned earlier, he asked the assistance of 4 volunteer students to represent the 4 co-ordinates that could help in portraying the conditions in future.

1. Fragmentation (Huge organizations splitting into smaller specialized units)

2. Integration (Smaller organizations coming together to work in collaboration)

3. Individualism (Focused on “Me”)

4. Collectivism (Considering “All of Us”)

He said that due to the unpredictability of future the organizations may be classified into 3 possibilities based on the combination of the 4 co-ordinates mentioned earlier: –

• Yellow World (Fragmentation + Collectivism)

• Red World (Individualism + Fragmentation)

• Blue World (Individualism + Integration)

• Green World (Collectivism + Integration)

He further added that each of this world or a combination of them could be a reality in future, and thus explained the audience what kind of HR policies would be applicable in each scenario. He also pointed out the importance of project based working and the growing work flexibility in future. Lastly, he advised the audience to be prepared for managing a transient workforce working in a contractual environment.

Another special guest speaker to join in and share his views was Mr. Brillian S. K. (Head of HR, Times Professional Learning). He started his presentation by emphasizing the impact of technology on humans. Comparing the work-life of past he said that earlier all the workforce used to focus on one activity. However, the future will be all about multi-tasking and the expectations to perform anytime from anywhere will be on rise. Referring to Mr. Kashi Viswanath’s address about project based working in future he gave a very interesting example of PUBG mobile game to explain the role of HR in future. As in the game unknown players around the globe come together and create a battlefield to be the last one standing, HR will have to be the one handling workforce in a dynamic environment. He said PUBG for HR will be:

• P – Project Based Working

• U – User Driven Interventions

• B – Big Expectations from the organization

• G – Gig Economy (Less focus on life-long work and taking up gigs for work)

• Mr. Brillian S. K. delivering his presentation

He also emphasized on the importance of MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses) to be taken up by employees to keep themselves updated and in competition as we step into the future. He told the growing importance of social media as a tool for recruiting and building networks. He talked about how Artificial Intelligence is impacting the industry and its applications such as Chat bots, Hyper Personalization, etc. are going to take away the routine and mundane work of HR, while giving floor for taking up strategic roles. He also showed a fascinating video about Volvo’s Recruiting Car to give the audience a glimpse into the future. He summarized the impact of technological changes on HR to conclude his presentation: –

• Focus on Employer Branding to attract employees by showcasing them that they would have a future changing experience on a particular project.

• Focus on Social Hiring

• Focus on Assessments

• On-boarding Experience

• The Second Wind (Continuous Learning)

Later, the program was proceeded by a sumptuous lunch for all and an insightful post-lunch Panel discussion on multi-cultural and multi-generational working environment. Chief Moderator Mr. Samarjeet Singh (Co-founder & CEO of Iksula Services Pvt. Ltd.) briefed about the topic in general and asked for the opening remark from the panelists. He said that as compared to earlier times where only 2 generations used to work together, these days there are almost 5 generations working together in organizations coping with technological interventions. About multi-cultural work environment, he said that India is a perfect example given its diversity and the need to foresee the culturally integrated global economy we are heading towards.

Dr. Karanvir Singh (National lead – Retail & Sales Training at Raymond Limited) said that due to technology bringing us closer, multi-generation and cross culture environment has already been initiated. Pointing out at the audience of young students and experienced corporate people, he said that Adaptability to an International setup and cross-culture environment would be the prime focus as we head towards the future.

Mr. Shyam Iyer (Founder & CEO, 60 Bits Consulting) shared an experience from his long professional career of handling HR at Tata Group to put forward some points to touch upon for the Panel discussion. He met a Chartered Accountant at Campus Placement who had offers from Tata and Facebook both in his bag, however he joined the House of Tata because work culture and multiple generations working together. Thus, he posed a question to the panel that will this trust of employees in huge culture-preserving organizations still be applicable in future.

Panelists discussing on Workplace 2030

Mr. Chandan Thapar (CHRO, Hiranandani Group of Companies) gave a different angle to the discussion by his viewpoint while entertaining the audience by his Urdu couplets and demeanor. He said that though we fear technology to replace humans, referring to the earlier speakers’ remarks on MOOCs disrupting Education business, Machine Learning, AI, etc., we need to focus on being loyal to ourselves and the organization and perform our duties & roles efficiently.

Mr. Jagmohan Singh Rishi (Global Head – L&D & Digital Marketing, Wockhardt Ltd.) emphasized on being relevant with the happenings in the market, irrespective of being in present or in 2030. He talked about the study of World Economic Forum which emphasized on top skills required to stay relevant in 2030 such as Complex Problem Solving, Emotional Intelligence, Critical Thinking, etc. He advised the students that all these skills required are nothing but just an upgrade to the skills already possessed by us and that we need to constantly keep learning.

Ms. Sowmya Santosh (VP-HR, Citius Healthcare Technology Pvt. Ltd.) shared some statistical information to give the audience an idea of what we need to be ready to face in the future. She quoted McKinsey’s Study Report stating that there will be a loss of 800mn irrelevant jobs in 2030, mostly focused on developed nations engaged in high automation. Whereas 9% of Jobs would disappear in India and other developing nations, thus advising the students to better equip themselves and be prepared for strategically significant jobs rather than going for mundane jobs.

Director & Faculties of GNIMS felicitating & posing with the Panelists

Thus, the panel discussion went on beautifully captivating the audience. The event concluded with an innovative industry and academia interface. Here the expert faculty from academia Dr. Jyotinder Kaur, Dr. Satvinder Singh Bedi, Prof. Unmesh B. Alwani, Prof. Imran Siddiqui, Prof. Chanpreet Kaur, Prof. Pravina Madam, Prof. Preeti Sharma, Prof. Prachi Amre and Director Dr. D. Y. Patil Sir joined the panel of Industry stalwarts to pose interesting questions. The Q & A round comprised of questions with respect to industry expectations from academia for the budding Management Professionals to ensure bridging of the gap between expectations & deliverance and how this can contribute to organizational excellence.