My Experience Of HR Conclave - IIM Ranchi

“When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”, said one of the esteemed guest speakers. 

The words struck a chord in the head and left me for deep retrospection of instances in life wherein my mind was blocked by a single perspective to fit my mental model and how I had overlooked the broader aspects of the situation. The case is not so different in the business world. This brings the need for System Approach. And the topic of the conclave was System approach to HR, to account for the holistic view of the organization.

 

 

Performance = f ( ability, motivation, opportunity )

The next few hours unfolded the explanation of this amazing synergy of subsystems vis-a-vis the three pillars of System approach,  namely ability enhancement system, motivation enhancement system, and opportunity enhancement system to the overall growth and development of the organization.

Regardless of how small the job is, understand the overall purpose, suggested Mr Nishith Upadhyaya - Advisory and Knowledge Head, SHRM India. The instances of his professional life where he faced the critical decision-making situations and the possible errors he could have avoided gave me a glimpse of the kind of challenges I will face in near future as a professional. I learned that the biggest lessons in professional life are not the ones when things go according to the plan but otherwise. And most often it is the absence of system-approach to a given business problem that exacerbates the problem. Wherefore, the system approach to HR  is of paramount significance.

Build the value proposition for employees and the success of the organization lies in the act of striking the right balance between hiring and developing, suggested Mr Hemang Jauhari, Senior Program Manager - Global Brands and Attraction, Amazon. The 70-20-10 model emphasized by him was thought-provoking. I was previously of the opinion that this model is too hyped, too ethereal and too hard until the speaker elucidated the significance of the model with the real-life situation in his career. And I couldn’t agree more to him. 

The coolest of the speakers was Rajdeep Bhattacharya, head of Corporate HR, Asian Paints. He got all of us hooked with an interesting story of the journey of a student into corporate life and subtly referencing the situations faced by the protagonist to the concepts of HR. I inferred quite a few things reading between the lines of his story. HR acts centrally to the employee in the form of what he/she works, with whom he/she works. HR also acts peripherally to the employee in the form of providing a basket of benefits. An effective HR professional will impact both the aspects of HR to the employee and finds the right balance. The bitter truth I learned is that people eventually leave. And the organization should do the best to retain its best. His session was mindblowing.

The striking differences in the motivated employees are that they always - say, stay, strive and put discretionary efforts, said Mr Ramaswamy V, Chief Manager - Compensation and Benefits,AJIO.com. And my mind was already correlating the concept to the classroom experience. He stressed on the distinct strengths, and likewise, weaknesses of different generations such as GenX, millennials and GenY,  making them better able to tackle some responsibilities but less effective in other respects. I learned that as the workplace demographics continue to shift, the workplace practices, motivators provided to the employees have to shift as well. I liked the analogy of comparison of business models of GE and UBER as an early signal to brace myself for the 3rd industrial revolution.

Narrating the “sweet success story” that transformed the lives of women and their families through opportunity enhancement system, Mr Krishna Chaitanya- HR Lead, Mondelez International, emphasized the gender diversity aspect. I was awe inspired by the story of the SuperWomen, who were just high school grads from rural areas across Andhra Pradesh with no industrial experience, and how they were made to operate the most advanced machines with complete ownership and confidence. I learned that a progressive working environment encourages inclusive and non-discriminatory practices and the opportunity enhancement system can create miracles.

The conclave had me on the edge of my seat right from the beginning. I can safely speak for all of us who attended the HR Conclave at IIM Ranchi that the HR conclave restored us the confidence to believe that HR as a profession is phenomenal. Business is not the one which makes products but its people who do. People are business and not otherwise. A system approach to the business is not just the transformation of business but the heart and soul of the organization. I thank IIM Ranchi for this wonderful experience and truly in a sense applying system approach to all the students by enhancing our ability, motivation, and opportunity through the HR conclave!