At what point in your life did you decide to take up HR as your career? What were the guiding / motivating factors?

I have always been interested in understanding human behaviour. I like to meet people and talk to them. Another factor that motivated me to choose HR as profession was my elder brother who knew my abilities and encouraged me to pursue my career in HR.

HR is one practice that touches human lives directly. Do you think employers and specially HR Professional can play role in reducing stress levels of employees through various employee engagement initiatives?

Absolutely yes. In fact, I feel that HR can play a crucial role in reducing stress among employees and increasing their engagement level with the organization. As a part of this strategy, in IEXL, we have initiated activity like ‘Fun Friday’ where we invite all employees to play some funny games together, and we get 100% participation of the employees.
We have also started other initiatives such as taking employees for outing and celebrating our every successful product launch.

What are some of the most important employee engagement initiatives related to Music, Art, Dance or Sports that you have taken in your career?

We have arranged cricket matches as a part of employee engagement initiative which received a great response from the employees. Besides, we motivated employee to participate in Marathon race, and also arranged a karaoke singing competition in our off- site meeting.

Do you think time and cost for employee engagements are an investment for the organisation and can help in multi-fold returns?

I think that though employee engagement activities are significant investments for an organization in terms of cost and time, they are necessary for increasing work productivity. 

Do you feel there is a need even to reach out to the family of employees so that they get better connected to the company? Have you undertaken any such initiative in your past or current organization?

Yes. It feels great when your family sees that where spouse/father/mother works. It also creates positive waves in family and not only employee, but even the family members feel that they are honoured. 

Yes. In every organization I worked for, we have undertaken such initiative where all family members are invited for some events so that they are connected to the company. 
 

What is the one change that you would like to bring in HR practice that has potential to boost employees work-life balance?

I would like to bring the below changes:
To reduce employee stress, I would like to keep exercise break, wherein every able-bodied adult will get minimum 30 minutes for exercise per day. Employees who eat healthy and exercise, are less at risk of getting sick and missing days from work, which could ultimately decrease your company’s productivity.

Second change I would like to bring is to boost employee morale and to help employees get to know each other in a non-stressful way by offering an occasional company outing. This type of outing can be a low-key or an extravagant event depending on your company’s culture and budget for such things.

Flexible working hours.

What are your personal interests in Music, Art, Dance or Sports and how do you continue to pursue it?

My personal interests is playing cricket and listing romantic music.