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

Earlier, I did not have any direction on what I should be doing. Since everyone was doing graduation, I joined too. At that time there was not much counselling and I had no idea on what career I should be choosing. I was doing B. Com and since every commerce graduate wanted to be CA or ICWA, I also joined the course.

During this time, Madhu Chandola (whom I knew and had her own search company) came to my rescue and asked me to spend the time after college in her office. She was the guiding factor for me and provided me the direction and introduced me to the world of Talent Acquisition. I joined her with a lot of hesitation but soon started enjoying working with her. I started meeting customers, understanding the needs & servicing them. The satisfaction of doing something fruitful and helping individuals to find jobs gave me further motivation to pursue the work and I started looking at Talent Acquisition as a career option and never looked back after that. Another motivation was that it was increasing my network and I was engaging with lot of senior professionals and was also getting the opportunity to learn from them.
 

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?

Yes, HR is the main touch point for any employee and employee engagement plays a major part in this. HR is the main facilitator between Employees and Organization and understand the employees as well as Organization’s mission and bridge the gap accordingly using various HR initiatives, policies & processes to ensure stress free work environment.

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

There have been various initiatives that I have been involved with. To name a few:
1.    Annual day where employees do Dance & Music performances
2.    Celebrate the important festivals where again Music, Dance & art is displayed by employees
3.    Annual sport days (Cricket & Indoor games)

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

Completely agree. Employee engagement translates in a positive workforce with higher motivation & reduced stress levels.

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?

Agree. With family connects a sense of belonging develops in employees and it leads to reduce turnovers, increase motivation & higher productivity.

We had activities such as:
 - company picnic – employees are encouraged to bring their families for picnics organized
 - Kids day - Employees are encouraged to bring their kids to office and spend time where they see their parents working. Kids are then engaged in games & fun activity.
 

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

I believe work environment for employees should be flexible and organizations should implement latest technologies which can help Managers to provide flexible environment will improve employee work life balance considerably.