On 31st October 2017, MBA (HRD), Department of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics had the honour to have Mr. Rakesh Seth on campus to enlighten the students of 2019 batch on the topic ‘Strategic HRM’. Mr. Rakesh Seth holds more than 30 years of industry experience and is currently the Director at International Consulting Professional’s Institute and Director & Chief HR Mentor with REEOCSYYS. He has also held the position of Sr. VP – HR at Lloyd Group. Mr. Seth has also authored two books titled – “Every Manager should know HR” and “The Ambitious Executive”.
The session started with Mr. Seth sharing his journey in HR and insightful lessons which he learned throughout his career. He heavily emphasised on career shaping of students advising them to stay for 4-5 years in a company and understand what kind of role would suit them. He also talked about the importance of continuous learning for every individual setting the tone for the lecture.
Talking about the importance of Strategic HRM, he talked about Uberization of Manpower in the modern days and how it is expected to create an impact in the way organisations would need to handle its employees. Further, he discussed the significance of Manpower costs in any organisation’s overall expenses and how HR can play an active role in ensuring that the company gets the full worth of this major expense. For that, HR must know the Manpower costs compared to the sales generated by them.
Continuing with the lecture, Mr. Seth highlighted various challenges which HR faces in the family-owned businesses from the strategic decision-making point of view. HR continuous to face barriers when it comes to making strategic level decisions and it is important for any HR manager to continuously prove their worth not just by mere words but in terms of business numbers.
Touching upon the theory, Mr. Seth talked about various levels of strategy namely – Corporate Level, Business Level and Operational / Functional Level. He explained them all through a real-life example highlighting how such strategic decision making involves HR at times when the company faces the major business challenge of ‘growth’.
Lastly, there was an interactive Q&A session which turned out to be a wonderful knowledge exchange platform. We sincerely thank Mr. Seth for such an enriching session and hope to have him on campus once again very soon.