NHRD National Conference 2018 on “Next Wave of Excellence”: An interview with three Millennials

I have been blogging since September 2012. At that point of time, I was heading L&D of Hyundai Motor India Ltd at Chennai. Initially my blogs were based on my experiences and insights gained from a career in HR, spanning over three decades. Subsequently I wrote a book “Straight from the Heart- Thoughts and experiences of an HR professional, the material for which came from the blogs I had written. ( http://aliveshadow.blogspot.com/2015/09/book-review-straight-from-heart-by.html  )

After my retirement, I have been doing corporate training programs through my Bangalore based company, Niche Learning Services Pvt Ltd (OPC) and also serving as external faculty for the wellingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, Bangalore. These days I write mostly about the learning in the evening discussions organized by the professional bodies of HR, NHRD and NIPM.

 Recently, on August 17 and 18^th NHRD organized its 21^st national conference on the subject “Next wave of Excellence “at the Hyderabad international convention centre. I could not attend the conference. However, I was delighted to learn that Wellingkar in line with its mission of providing opportunities for excellence, sponsored three of my students (the entire travel and stay of students at Hyderabad was met by the college) for the conference billed as“Asia’s biggest HR conference”. I encouraged them to take notes during the conference so that we can share the knowledge and insights to a wider audience.

All the three youngsters enthusiastically agreed and returned with their experiences, memories and learning from the conference. It is with immense pleasure that I interview Vishal Kumar, Sanchika Rastogi and Sakshi Negi, the future practitioners/ leaders of our HR  profession. So here goes….

Question:  This is the first time the three of you have attended a national level conference of this magnitude. How was your experience?  

Vishal:  I was thrilled to see the overall arrangements for the conference which was huge, but excellently managed. The conference was my best learning experience so far. It was a great exposure to the prevailing industry practices and gave us an idea as to what to expect as HR professionals in the future.

Sanchika: Attending the conference was a big exposure for us. It had four main tracks/ themes namely People, Leadership, Technology and Future of Work. Further there were 20 more master/mega/meta/ sessions with more than 100 International and Indian Speakers, involving Panel Discussions, Research Presentations, Big Fight & Chat(s). It was particularly interesting to note that with the advent of technology everything is changing, including the HR processes.

Sakshi:  :  I liked the way the whole conference was structured covering a variety of topics. It was a surprise to learn that a Government department such as the Telangana police is working so effectively like a corporate,using management concepts and that they have achieved great heights in the area of digitization. However, what excited me the most was the understanding of practical application of concepts that I had only read in the textbooks.

Question: It is clear that wide-ranging subjects were discussed during the conference. Could you tell us about one topic that you particularly liked and felt was an important learning?

Vishal: I liked most of the sessions, but one session of particular interest was the change in the industrial relations scenario highlighted in the panel discussion on “Employee and employer response to new age IR’’. The participants in the discussion were Mr. N Mallikahrjun, Head HR, API & OSD Operations,Mylan and Dr. Suresh Kumar-Head HR, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd.. Fast evolving business climate in terms of performance, productivity and profits will dictate the norms of new age industrial relations.

Today, the IR managers need to create a progressive work environment integrating the workforce, unlike earlier times when the only concern of an IR manager was to maintain industrial peace. The millennials, who are entering the workforce in increasing numbers, are interested in resolving their grievances at a personal level rather than relying on unions or third party interventions.

The panelists underscored the point that in the new age, the employer and employee must come together to beat the competition. Their coming together should serve as the competitive advantage for the organization. 

Sanchika: I found the session on compensation and reward very interesting and enlightening. The session titled “New Models for rewards” had an eminent panel of Ms Sucharitha Palepu- M.D, I.C.F, Mr Viivek Verma- Chief strategy officer, Srinavasa Farms, and Mr Shubhayu Sengupta – HR, HG Solutions as the moderator, The initial discussion was on the Mercer and Hay study 2018 which covered 700 organizations across various industries and  geographies/states.

The study revealed that 70% of the employees working in an organization are outsourced contract workers. Thus, it is very important to connect with and address issues of  contract workers who perform bulk of the work.The quality of their work is directly connected to customer satisfaction. 

In respect of rewards, it was found that  50% of the workers are concerned about health and wellness benefits. The organizations planning to revisit their total rewards strategy in the next 6 to 18 months is as high as 59%. Another 12% plan to do so for specific job families. 24% of the Indian workforce wants their rewards plan to be customized. In this connection, 53% of companies are watching the personalization trends closely with only 20% not interested in  personalization..

During the discussion, the relevance of fixed pay came up and it was opined that the time has come to focus on performance based or outcome based pay. As a part of the total reward strategy,  apart from outcome based pay, the other models of reward discussed are stock option program (should  be fair and transparent) and a change in the work culture facilitating work from home/ Login from anywhere in the world (which has become the new trend). However, the panelists said that not all companies are comfortable with “Work from Home” and in fact, IBM is reversing its policy in this regard.

Today, the focus is on aligning the interests of the company and the individual interests of employees. There is a shift from the slogan of “Customer is the king” to “Employee is the king”, with employees being seen as the first customers of the organization.

Sakshi: In line with the theme of the 21^st National conference 2018 viz “New Wave of excellence”, we had a session on leadership titled “New wave of Leadership excellence handled by Mr Yogi Sriram, SrVP & corp HR, and member of Exe.Committee, L&T Ltd. The speaker said the previous waves associated with leadership such as personality, behavioural, transactional, contingency and transformational would all be inadequate to deal with the DVUCA (Disrupt, Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world and to manage a multigenerational workforce. 

Therefore, there is a need for a new wave, which can be called the invisible wave wherein the leaders are invisible. Both, the leader and the follower work towards a common purpose and this common purpose inspires and motivates them to give their best. For applying the invisible wave of leadership, a leader has to avoid undesirable behaviour such as narcissism, complacency and greed. 

As an example of this type of leadership, Mr Yogi cited the recent Thailand cave rescue mission in which twelve boys and their football coach trapped in a cave were rescued. All the players in the mission drama, had a common objective viz of rescuing everyone safely from the cave. They were all invisible leaders in their own way playing their individual roles effectively. 

Party /players                                                                                  Contribution

Rescuers                                                                                    Vision, Agility and Adaptability

Trapped Boys                                                                           Followership and Resilience

Coach                                                                                          Inspirational Servant Leadership

Government,/ community & family                                Empathy and Compassion, Leveraged Networks   

The Qualities that define the new wave leaders include Trust, Empathy, Humility, Resilience, Rooted Cosmopolitanism and a Nurtured sense of Shared Leadership. The speaker said that additionally, an element of eccentricity is necessary for effective practice of invisible leadership. He gave the example of  Sergio Marchionne, Former CEO Fiat Chrysler who is known to exhibit characteristics of  straight talking, being driven by challenge and having an experimental approach to business.

To summarize, under the new wave of invisible leadership, leaders need to get rid of undesirable behaviour, work towards a common purpose/ goal and be eccentric like Mr.Marchionne. 

Question: Is there anything you would like to say as concluding remarks?

Sanchika: Being a part of this conference enabled me to enhance my knowledge. It provided answers to questions such as “How analytics can be used effectively in various areas of HR and not only in recruitment, what is liquid workforce (one that is able to rapidly adapt and change based on the environment that they are in) and how digitization is changing the way people perceive HR as a function. The workplace is changing. More and more tasks are becoming automated, performed by computers or machines, and this means humans need to adapt.

Sakshi: Although most sessions of the conference were very useful and insightful, I felt a few like the one on digitization lacked depth. For instance having heard of the Block chain technology, I was looking forward to learning more about how it is used effectively in recruitment and other areas in HR. However, “the How” of it was never explained.  Even in the Q &A session, it was disappointing to see couple of panelists dodging questions and talking in circles.

Vishal: It was clear to me from the deliberations in the conference, that there is a gap between the theory that we learn and the practical aspects in the industry. It is necessary to make changes in the syllabus and curriculum of students. It should include the current and future expectations of the industry from HR professionals.

However, I am fortunate and happy that my college, Welingkar Institute of Management, gives a lot of importance to this aspect and organizes sessions/ lectures by a number of prominent specialists from the industry. The college also arranges for industrial exposure through visits and internship program.

Rajeev Moothedath: Thank you Vishal, Sanchika and sakshi for sharing your experiences and learning from the conference. It was a pleasure interacting with you!

Vishal, Sanchika & Sakshi: Thanks a lot sir for the opportunity. It is the first ever interview in our life and we thoroughly enjoyed the interaction. We had a great time!