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

Lots of people happen to be an HR by desire but for me it was by default.  I wasn’t sure as I dint have too much clarity about what an HR does. I was more into handling clients for marketing followed by moving to advertising, communication, creating value for brands and so on. As I was doing a lot of research about HR practise, I understood that people are competent and nice as an HR professional. I realised that one must be an independent individual as far as HR fraternity is concerned to  leave a mark in this fraternity. Marketing is all about external plans and HR is all about internal plans and HR is where I found my mojo.

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?

An HR has a huge potential in impacting not just employees’ wellbeing but also their aspirations, growth and enablement to figure out their entire potential. Knowing from where to start and stop is very essential for an HR. This whole concept of stress is an inability to handle something which causes the stress. The role of an HR is to make employees understand  what is causing them stress. Whether it is a system, policy or an individual idiosyncrasy of the leader. Therefore, HR has to play a role in multiple levels to ensure that people feel empowered and can be themselves. We have done numerous initiatives to help employees realise what means to come to work and find their purpose. Because it is no longer about transactions, tasks or goals. It is more about what drives employees between what they pursue and what they do for a living.

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

For me, employee engagement activities revolve around enhancing aspects such as mind, body, soul, spirit, physical health, mental wellbeing to help people  come out their biases , break stereotypes and make them look beyond the obvious. There is also a great element of a healthy competition in the application of gamification which lets people get into a comparative spirit, not just collaborating but also in winning aspects. 

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

One should be very straightforward in such cases, many people don’t understand basics of this but at the end everyone is intelligent and can see a difference. If you invest in people, show them the vision and they align with that vision then automatically every single penny spent will be a good investment. Of course, there will be some who won’t align with the same language and it is okay if they drop out of the game but the ones who are supposed to excel should be pushed and motivated or else the environment will be full of mediocrity. 

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?

Today, the line between work and life is blurred. Family members play a huge role in the success of people who spend more than half of their day in work. Therefore, involving families of the employees in their moments of success is a great way to recognize employees’ contribution and sacrifices s/he has made in the organisation. Especially in the moments of someone getting promoted or achieving a milestone or someone doing exceptional. Involving families is a great way to respect and pay gratitude. 
 

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

I feel this whole concept of work life balance is overkilled,  we need to focus on work life harmony. To ensure that people move away from multitasking to switch tasking and build the ability to make them do a task significantly which would make an impact on the amount of effort they put in. Otherwise everyone is doing everything and ultimately nothing is being achieved.

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

Music is a great healer and a mood lifter.  I have a vast collection of music and it really helps me focus and bring out the best in me. 

Any other thoughts you may want to share.

To everyone reading this, I just wish you all the very best. I think imd1 is a very great platform, we should look forward to it and I hope whatever I have shared helps someone somewhere.