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5 YEARS WITH KPMG: CEO ARUN KUMAR AND HIS LEARNING REPORT CARD

As Arun M Kumar completes a successful five-year tenure as Chairman and CEO at
over 32,000 employees-strong KPMG, ETHRWorld brings out his major learnings and
achievements.

 * Abhishek Sahu
 * ETHRWorld
 * January 25, 2022, 08:39 IST

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Arun M Kumar, Chairman & CEO, KPMG in IndiaKPMG in India, under Arun M Kumar’s
leadership, has overcome several challenges over the last few years, while in
parallel, elevating its game across all its functions.

The multinational professional services network has executed its plans
consistently, meeting or exceeding goals as a firm, in four out of the five
years of Kumar’s tenure and is poised to continue building on its momentum along
a well-thought-through strategic trajectory.

As Kumar completes a successful five-year tenure as Chairman and CEO at over
32,000 employees-strong KPMG, ETHRWorld brings out his major learnings and
achievements. Edited excerpts:



What do you think are the biggest challenges the professional services industry
will face in the next five years in terms of attracting and retaining the “best”
leaders?

The demand for professional services is increasing at an unprecedented rate,
spurred by a variety of factors. A challenge the industry faces is the
availability of the right leadership talent. The business is one of the
knowledge workers who build relationships with clients and deliver value to
them. Increasingly, they work as large teams with multiple areas of expertise
that have to be woven together seamlessly to solve complex problems.

Leading such teams, and firms made up of such teams, calls for a new ethos.

Professional services leaders must understand the dynamics of teams and team
performance: how does one lead teams effectively? This is a team sport. Leaders
and team members must understand collaboration. They must substitute individual
competitiveness, wanting to be the smartest in the room, with a commitment to
making the team win.

For smart professionals who have risen through an academic system that has
valued individual ranking, this is not always an easy move. I believe, in the
hiring process, one must seek out a candidate’s experience in team sports,
understand if they have the instincts to help teammates, celebrate their
successes and pick them up when they falter.



The revered US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes Jr, said about
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “A second-class intellect, but a
first-class temperament.” FDR is acknowledged as one of the great US presidents.
Temperament often trumps intellect when it comes to leadership talent. Today, we
talk about emotional quotient and empathy, elements that go with a good
temperament.

Professional services firms are the ultimate people organisations. Leaders in
such firms have to be energy generators, creating and cascading energy and
passion.

The scale of professional services firms has grown enormously over the last
decade. Leaders in the business must therefore have the propensity to think big,
think scale. They need to have the instinct to seek needle-moving innovation
more than incremental approaches.

Finally, leaders need to understand the technology and its implications, both
promises and pitfalls. There is no business today that is not affected by
technology.

How does one find, develop, and retain such leaders?

We look for individuals who are self-motivated and can infect their teams with
their passion, and be multipliers.

We want learners, the “learn it alls” rather than the “know it alls”, who are
curious and are always looking forward and around corners.

To retain such leaders, it is imperative to nurture a culture that promotes the
qualities of learning, collaboration and the satisfaction of teamwork. Our
approach is to offer a healthy working environment, challenging opportunities,
an abundance of learning and development and priority for overall employee
wellbeing.

Along with this, we look for flexibility, for instance, the use of hybrid
working models.

The recent examples have shown that in the post-pandemic era, it's the
human-centred CEO that is the need of the hour. But how can the present CEO/CXOs
develop that approach while dealing with people and related issues?

It would seem strange that it has taken a pandemic of this magnitude to strike
home the fact that the human experience is imperative for long-term business
success. It is particularly relevant in the professional services industry,
which is primarily a people business.

No business idea or innovation can succeed without adequately providing for
human needs and ambitions – these could be a company’s own people, but equally
important clients and the broader stakeholder ecosystem.

Empathy and soft skills are key management capabilities that will only increase
in importance.

Leaders have to inspire with purpose, have the ability to envision business five
or ten years into the future, and be focused on wellbeing and inclusion, not
just because this sounds nice but is the right thing to do. Today, and in the
future, leadership in organisations will be an opportunity to be earned rather
than an entitlement that is given. Leaders will need to embrace impermanence and
learn to give up control to empower people rather than micromanage.

Each leader must find his or her own approach. In my view, being authentic and
leading by example can be powerful ways to lead.

Increasingly, in the business world, we see humility as an important aspect that
goes with strong leadership. Being humble goes with being a better listener, as
one does not assume to have all the answers. Mahatma Gandhi used the power of
humility and respect to win over others. As he said, “The first condition of
humaneness is a little humility and a little diffidence about the correctness of
one's conduct and a little receptiveness.”

Do you think CEOs have some advantages available in understanding people issues?

CEOs are well equipped to see the big picture, the layout of the battlefield as
it were. This happens because they are often out of the office, with clients and
stakeholders, and get to experience a wide canvas.

But they may not be in the best position to understand people issues at the
micro-level. A CEO may see the results of a people survey, but it is equally
important to get a first-hand feel of issues by talking to people at all levels.
This is an area that the CEO must intentionally address.

My own approach is to have an open door; anyone at any level can reach out to
me. I also use most opportunities I get to talk to people at all levels. I ask
them about their work, and I learn a lot from such random encounters. Many of
these have happened at airports when I see young people from our firm travelling
to a client site. I learn about the client problems they are working on, about
what excites them and what frustrates them. Such first-hand information has
helped shape a lot of my thinking and actions.

What, according to you, helped the firm grow in terms of people in your tenure?
What do you think made the difference? Can you please share an example?

In India, KPMG has the second largest workforce for KPMG anywhere across the
world. We have grown over 50 per cent in our headcount over my five-year tenure.

First, we have tapped into the growth of the Indian economy by adding new sets
of talent and by developing the people we had. Our growth mantra has been Focus,
Think Big, Collaborate, and Act Fast.

We focused on areas of growth – ranging in diversity from special situations to
do with stressed assets to cyber security. We targeted changing business models,
the clients’ needs for managed services, for instance. We saw that our skills
could serve markets in proximate areas from Africa to East Asia. We set
ourselves big goals. We stepped up the level and motivation for collaboration
within our firm and with alliances and KPMG network firms.

And we are working on promoting a propensity to make quick decisions and move
fast. Opportunities do not necessarily get better with time, in fact, one will
miss them if one is slow.

In thinking big, we have promoted an aspiration to be consequential to our
clients – and for our clients to be consequential to us. We need to be
impactful, make a difference to our clients. And when we do so, the business and
the relationship mean that much more to us.

In my view though, the most defining factor which drives success is culture. The
elements of collaboration, of ambition, are all part of that cultural journey.

Collaboration has been a key focus of that journey. For collaboration to be
successful, we recognized the importance of Trust, Teamwork and Transparency. We
have worked on each of these elements.

As a result, our collaboration quotient across service lines, sectors and teams
has improved tremendously. Our win sizes have grown and learning avenues for our
people have expanded.

Culture is founded on Values, and at KPMG in India, we aim to be guided by our
values of Integrity, Excellence, Courage, Together, For Better.

In fact, our Covid response, official and voluntary, was a great symbol of
#Together #For Better. We decided at the outset of the pandemic, in the face of
great uncertainty to not let go a single employee. We are proud of that
decision.

The resulting increased trust has helped us steer together in the pandemic,
enabling us to emerge as an even stronger firm.

Today, our talent base is substantially enhanced, is future-focused in talent,
organisation, and attitude.

What were the steps taken to attract talent and build capabilities during the
initial years as CEO and during the pandemic years? What were the major
achievements?

In a rapidly growing and disruptive market, it is critical for firms like ours
to be shaping new markets and ideas, creating long-term value for clients
through transformation and opportunities for our people to learn and grow.

In this regard, we took several consequential steps.

First, we made some forward-looking bets very early on in my tenure, investing
in areas where the market was nascent but showed potential. We are seeing the
results of those investments now. For instance, we set up a Special Situations
Group to focus on stressed assets. Today, we have a strong work portfolio --
with Government/PSUs and Development agencies -- on financing and monetization
programmes, and several billion dollars of debt restructuring.

Another example is our bet in Managed Services. Increasingly, companies want to
change their cost structures and focus their investments on their core
activities. And this is another area that is bearing tremendous success and
showing promise.

Yet another example is our enhanced play in the area of cyber security where we
created a JV with our Singapore firm to capture the market in the region.

Our India Global initiative to deploy our market-facing skills in proximate
markets resulted in big wins in places ranging from South Africa to Vietnam.

Many such bets paid off nicely in the last two years – as the pandemic struck,
we were fortunate to have made these investments in advance.

All through the pandemic, we executed on our Purpose of ‘Inspiring Confidence,
Empowering Change’ – reinforcing Trust with existing clients by supporting
critical initiatives on several fronts and creating growth for our firm and its
people.

How is KPMG building a leadership pipeline in India? Are there any changes in
the way you build the company leadership pipeline? What have been your
achievements so far?

Professional and leadership development is key to our success. We have a host of
learning programmes conducted by world-class faculty to ensure that our people
have stimulating developmental opportunities. In addition, we learn from our
work with clients – who are often innovating and addressing very special
opportunities.

Professional services as a career model are all about what I call the
“practitioner coach model” – you learn from the teams you work with through a
360 view of others’ skills and ideas and in turn you give back by investing your
mind space in developing others. At critical career stages and transition
points, we are also looking to accelerate this process at scale by
institutionalising mentoring and coaching programmes for our people.

We constantly induct talent from the market; this helps us continuously enhance
our capabilities with new knowledge. About a fourth of our partners come in at
that level, the other three-fourths are promoted from within. We foster learning
and growth: young people join us at the entry-level, get rich experiences
working with a variety of clients, and grow up rapidly to positions of expertise
and responsibility.

As Chairman and CEO, can you please share your views on why it’s important to
build an organisation's culture in order to build strong teams?

Peter Drucker has been quoted so often but it still bears repeating: “Culture
eats strategy for breakfast.” I believe if you get the culture right, you will
get strategy and success right. Conversely, any plan can be derailed if you do
not have the right culture.

I became a big believer in the power of culture as I was fortunate to learn from
the legendary Professor Edgar Schein at the MIT Sloan School. He was one of the
first scholars to see the power of culture in organisations.

Culture is the unique fabric that represents an organisation’s collective
personality, which steers the way an organisation functions, impacting employee
engagement as well as financial performance.

But, most of all, culture directly influences emotional and motivational
wellbeing – and therefore productivity. It holds people together. Strong
cultures hold people together through good times and bad – and is a strong
contributor to employee motivation and retention.

Since the start of my tenure, we have been on a culture journey, some of which I
have alluded to in one of my responses earlier.

On our 25th Anniversary in 2018, we introduced the JOSH agenda – to depict the
energy, excellence and enthusiasm of KPMG India and its people. We have seen a
heartwarming response to it – both from our people as well as our clients. It
has been a unifier to generate pride. Josh is one of three pillars of our
strategy, along with Growth and Trust.

Along with culture, I believe we have to aim to be consequential - to our
clients and stakeholders which includes communities and the country. This
ambition and ethos make for a greater sense of partnership, an explicit
commitment to stakeholders that we want to matter to them, and we want them to
matter to us.

As a firm, we are at a great place in terms of momentum and the transformation
journey we are on, and it is in large part because of our strong culture and our
commitment to become consequential.


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HIGH-TECH TO HUMAN TECH: BECOME A TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADER

Technology has gained an omnipresent persona and has shifted from ‘infotech’ to
a ‘biotech’ mode. Therefore, an organization and its leaders must shift their
views of business processes and determine outcomes through innovation,
creativity, stability, and talent agility in a more digitized environment.

 * ETHRWorld

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Top Left to Right: Vikramjeet Singh, CHRO, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance;
Rajendra Mehta, President & Group CHRO, Welspun Group; Joy George, Sr Director
and Head-HR, CDK Global, India; Dulles Krishnan, MD-Enterprise, Coursera More
than technology adoption, the challenge for today's leader is to deploy new
technologies in ways that yield not only fresh efficiencies but also amplify
human creativity and ingenuity. Technology has gained an omnipresent persona and
has shifted from ‘infotech’ to a ‘biotech’ mode. Therefore, an organization and
its leaders must shift their views of business processes and determine outcomes
through innovation, creativity, stability, and talent agility in a more
digitized environment.

On this pertinent topic, a panel discussion was organized by ETHRWorld at
Nextech HR Summit 2022 with top industry leaders like Vikramjeet Singh, CHRO,
Bajaj Allianz General Insurance; Joy George, Sr Director, and Head-HR, CDK
Global, India; Dulles Krishnan, MD - Enterprise, Coursera; and Rajendra Mehta,
President & Group CHRO, Welspun Group, who moderated the discussion.

While moderating, Mehta set the context by sharing a brief overview of how
today’s global business environment needs transformational leaders to lead
organizations through a high level of uncertainty and ambiguity.



Change is the leadership due to changing times

Speaking at the roundtable discussion, Krishnan said, “The pace of change has
been accelerated; what we see today is probably the slowest we'll ever see. The
power of decision-making has to move upwards because people are no longer doing
operational work — they are working on decision-making. While technology will do
a lot of efficient work, there will be some areas where humans will continue to
do more. And decision-making is one of them. The ability to make effective
decisions by leveraging data and technology will be one of the most in-demand
skills. Decision-making is one core leadership skill required today and in the
future. But that skill needs to now move down the paradigm to a point where
almost every individual in an organization today needs to behave like a leader
and take decisions in the role that they play.”

“The areas of work in the context of leadership itself are evolving. This is
around the areas we typically call two core skills, ‘digital’ and ‘human’, which
are becoming integral to leadership ability. Digital is in the context of
understanding the importance of data leading to innovation. The second part, of
course, is the ability to combine human skills like problem-solving, analysis,
and creativity that we can not quantify in a system. Still, it needs human
ingenuity to come to work. These two things come together in generating the best
outcome,” added Krishnan.



Helping employees with what they need

Sharing his views on styles of leadership, Singh said, “Businesses have always
been about their most valuable asset, which is ‘people’, both in terms of who
works for them and equally for the consumers. While technology adds up to it, if
we were to look at it, there are two parts to the leadership style. One is
rule-based, and the other is judgment-based. And somewhere, while the rule-based
may go down, the judgment-based will take more prominence. The good part about
technology, which will bring in changes in the leadership style, is the speed at
which the information will be available for the judgment-based decision making.”

George cautioned, “Today, there is greater flexibility and choice that people
look for, and people are provided with it. We are seeing a true talent
revolution leading to a workplace revolution. Also, there is an increasing trust
deficit, which has always been a topic of conversation.”

“However, leaders still are expected to continue to own their responsibility to
keep the organization true to its purpose and navigate people in the right
directions, act as custodians of the culture, and play as a catalyst enabling
performance in the organization. This means leadership has become
multi-dimensional. And that is the biggest evolution that I see in the last 20
plus years.” George closed.


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WHY THIS CPO FEELS THAT HR LIFE IS NOT DIFFERENT FROM ENTREPRENEUR LIFE

Talking about her journey so far, the Chief People Officer says that being
someone who has done a variety of roles at multiple locations, she understands
how as an HR, she can create a great culture and a meaningful workplace.

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Ramya Sampath Sharma, Chief People Officer, GreyOrangeBy Tejaswini Singhal

What is the most important part of an HR professional's life? Understanding
human behaviour at the workplace, what excites employees, and what motivates
them, right?

Well, even Ramya Sampath Sharma thinks the same! Being a graduate in psychology,
she believes that understanding human behaviour is critical for any HR job
function.



The HR veteran comes with almost 20 years of experience and is presently working
as Chief People Officer at GreyOrange.

Talking about her journey so far, Sharma says that being someone who has done a
variety of roles at multiple locations, she understands how as an HR, she can
create a great culture and a meaningful workplace. Her study in psychology has
also helped in this journey to understand things like employee motivation,
different needs of different kinds of people at the workplace and creating an
environment that suits them the best.

Sharma believes that an HR Life is not different from an entrepreneur life. This
is because, in her initial career days, Sharma founded a startup! Sharing her
experience as a Founder, she says, “Everyone should be a Founder at some point.
That’s the place where you learn the importance of revenue margins.”

The major learning that she bought from her startup life into HR is: How a
business operates and the importance of customer feedback. “I still think that I
am an entrepreneur as I am here to make a business impact as an HR, deliver
results, build efficient teams and culture,” Sharma adds.

HR is now more about how they can tangibly create a business impact



It is quite normal to say that earlier it was not very easy for an HR Head to
dream of becoming a CEO or a CMD. But now, the industry has at least two such
prominent examples in the form of Leena Nair and Alka Mittal.

Sharma tells ETHRWorld that she sees this as a major development in the field of
HR. She says, “I can say this very candidly that the time has come for the HR
professionals! In the last six years, the profession of human resources has
evolved and it is now a lot to do with how they can tangibly create a business
impact.”

“It’s just fabulous to see where the HR profession has come and now there are a
lot of HR professionals in mind who are making a move into the business,” says
Sharma.

Remembering the HR Leaders she usually meets at conferences and meetups, she
says that HR Leaders now better understand the business and its metrics, can
successfully design people operation solutions that help businesses make a real
impact, and tie employee and business needs to create positive outcomes.

A piece of advice for every HR professional

Being someone who just wants to keep going ahead, Sharma suggested a podcast
that every HR professional must hear. She explains, “It is a kind of an audio
course, and it is called Masters of Scales. It’s run by Reid Hoffman and
honestly, the course has been very powerful for me because it has really got me
thinking about a lot of stuff.”

Sharma is someone who believes in serendipity. She advises everyone including
her family to take every opportunity they get!

“My advice to HR professionals would be: Be very curious about the business, ask
why I am doing this, what is the need to do this, in what way will it help me,
etc. I think curiosity can be the game-changer for everyone,” she adds.

Acing the work-life balance!

Sharma tells ETHRWorld that Yoga and having healthy food are her recharge.
Before going out for work she makes sure that she meditates, spends time with
family and reads articles.

The 2-3 hacks which she follows and have worked well for her are: First, talking
to her partner about where she is in her professional life and where she needs
his support.

The second hack is her super disciplined and organised calendar and the third
one is to be a little kinder to herself when it comes to workload.


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EMERGING BUSINESS REALITIES THAT CEOS MUST FACE

Employees are now working from home, which has certainly made the job of top
management much more challenging. With these changing circumstances, CEOs had to
introspect their leadership styles and make amends where they could in order to
adapt to the brand new digital work culture.

 * ETHRWorld

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Left to Right: Manoj Kohli, Country Head, Softbank; Patrice Wolfe, CEO, AGS
Healthcare.CEO, otherwise known as Chief Executives or Central Executive
officers, is the position with the authority to make top-level management
decisions and at the same time, are held accountable for the overall performance
of the business. CEOs and other C-suite executives have to face a multitude of
challenges every day, especially in today's dynamic business environment
tailored by the post-pandemic business diaspora.

Employees are now working from home, which has certainly made the job of top
management much more challenging. With these changing circumstances, CEOs had to
introspect their leadership styles and make amends where they could in order to
adapt to the brand new digital work culture. To understand the myriad of
challenges that CEOs today face, ETHRWorld organized a virtual session at the
ETHRWorld Nextech HR Summit 2022, wherein two senior industry veterans shared
their insightful outlook on the emerging realities facing CEOs.

Patrice Wolf, CEO, AGS Healthcare opened the session. While elaborating on the
various management puzzles that CEOs have to solve, Wolf said, “The workforce is
increasingly focused on values, social issues and ESG. They want to work in
companies that represent the kind of value system that they themselves have.
Employers have to continue to be creative and identify new ways to attract a
mobile and talented workforce. That is one of the most challenging managerial
issues that we are facing today.”



While sharing his thoughts about the other types of challenges faced by CEOs,
Manoj Kohli, Country Head, Softbank, said, “CEOs have faced three kinds of
challenges in the last two years. First – how their firms’ financial fitness
will sustain because the financial health has been troubled and companies have
not been able to sustain good performance. The second challenge was how to keep
the innovation engine running as fast as pre-pandemic times, as the future of
each brand is linked to how much innovation it does. The third challenge is the
challenge of empathy – are leaders, and especially CEOs, empathetic toward
employee problems during these times?”

Adding to the point, Wolf said, “We have not made that (empathy towards
employees) a critical success factor for senior leaders. With the amount of
tragedy that everyone has faced over the last two years, it has become a
critical skill in business.”

Sharing his insightful outlook on the overall impact of technology on businesses
and how CEOs need to get accustomed to the digital age, Kohli said, “The speed
of technological change and transformation is at the peak now. We find that in
the last few years, as we went through the pandemic, the speed of technology has
overtaken many businesses. It has overtaken how we work, engage, and serve
customers, employees, vendors and stakeholders. Similarly, the technology impact
in the coming decade will be the highest ever – maybe even more than the last
hundred years. Technology is overtaking us and if we don't keep pace and
acclimatize ourselves as CEOs and leaders, then it will not have that positive
an impact.”



The new age of digitization is here and CEOs all around the world must make
amends in their leadership styles and change with the changing times. Those who
are agile enough will persevere while others will be left behind.


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THE ONLY VARIABLE LEFT TO CODING IS PEOPLE: KARTIK RAO

HR opens up the corporate world across sectors and also gives an opportunity to
sit at the table and participate in the company’s big picture activities.

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Kartik Rao, Chief People Officer, Good Glamm GroupBy Avanthika P

Kartik Rao, Chief People Officer, Good Glamm Group, was a teacher, theatre
activist who strayed, well, actually got guided into the human resources career
that he calls a beautiful accident.

Now, a decade into the profession, Rao says his elder brother, who at that time
was heading HR for Max Insurance, guided him to take a close look at a
profession that primarily deals with people.



And today, as the Chief People Officer, Rao is convinced that the mix of chance
and choice in his case turned out to be the right one as the HR career allowed
him to explore his creative side too.

HR, he said, is a lot about storytelling, as he launched into his own life story
in an exclusive interaction with ETHRWorld.

To begin at the beginning, it was his chance encounter with Rajesh Rai, then HR
Director of Benetton India, when working as a consultant made him appreciate the
true scope and potential of the profession.

“I almost stumbled into HR after my graduation. I can now intellectualise it and
say that, in 23 years, I really knew what I wanted. I think very few people have
that clarity. I started off with an interest and later became very passionate
about this,” Rao said.

On the first day, as a 23-year-old, his interaction with an XLRI alumnus altered
his perception of HR as a job, career and a profession, Rao said.

Recalling his conversation of that day, Rao clearly remembers the takeaway: “HR
can do two things, one it can be an enabling function, and second it can be a
strategic function that gives you a seat at the table and enables you to
contribute to the larger picture.”



Witnessing the evolution of HR

When he started on the job in 2010, HR was pure, plain and conventional. “It was
more about helping the business through people. Over the next three to four
years, when the internet and new kinds of talent came into picture, the whole
expectation from HR turned to be more business-centric,” Rao said.

Digital transformation has changed the role of HR and automation has become a
part and parcel of organisations. “Earlier, it was about people; now, it is
about systems, processes and people. HR create, preempt, prepare and deliver a
lot of talent readiness for the company. And you can't do that unless you
understand the business and you are literally looking into a three-year future
with the CEO,” he said.

In fact, what excited Rao about the HR profession is its dynamism. Being a
timeless framework, HR is applicable to multiple industries and multiple
companies. This, he believed, really added to the complexity of the career. In
the last 10 years, Rao has worked across diverse industries, including retail,
digital real-estate, fast fashion internet companies and currently he is into
beauty, personal care.

“In the world of algorithms, technology and automation where everything can be
coded, the only variable left is people. And we are opening on that domain. And
that's what I love about it!” Rao exclaimed.

New initiatives

When asked about how he manages the incessant emails, cold calls and other
interactions in a remote working environment, Rao says that all of this existed
even before, and Covid has made this a hot topic. He prefers video calling and
makes it mandatory at least once a week.

“When we start a meeting, for the first five minutes, we won't talk about the
work. We don't want to miss the small talk that we do at the office. Besides
this, there are various interventions like town hall or it can be a fun
activity. We recently did stand-up comedy for one hour, and everybody on the
call was just laughing,” Rao said.

The company also does an activity, called ‘silent hours’ during which the
teammates are encouraged to take 3 hours break in a day in intervals say 9 to
10, 2 to 3, or 7 to 8. It has also been mandatory that they do not block
calendars during the ‘silent hours.’

It is completely devoted ‘to me’ time, he said.

At Good Glamm, they have done away with the attendance module, as the belief is
in the trust factor. And, no one is obliged to tell HR that they have logged in
or logged out. Unless one has applied for leave, they are considered present.

“Also, we do interact with family members and thank them whenever reward and
recognition are given. We make it personal like that. Anybody who is delivering
work that they are during the pandemic, they cannot do it without the support of
the family. I have been doing this in the previous firms, and trying to launch
it here as well,” Rao said.

How he unwinds

Rao is an ardent reader and watches OTT series in free time. He believes charity
begins at home. “I personally love reading. That's something that I started my
journey with. I spend as much time as I can, reading things and I love watching
Netflix and Amazon Prime,” he said.

“I am also a part of the society's cricket club. Whenever I get time, I interact
with people within the building and play together. We have lawn tennis and a
trainer comes to our society,” Rao added.

Rao’s favourite books are Trillion Dollar Coach, Hard Thing about Hard Things,
The Psychology of Money, and Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman. He says these four
books were life transforming for him. His favourite series are Dark and OJ
Simpson.


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HANDLING NEGATIVITY AT WORKPLACE

Once the negative colleagues have been identified, the first job is to talk to
them and give them enough space so they can be heard.

 * ETHRWorld Contributor

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GS Rattan, ex-CEO, Tata BearingsBy GS Rattan

One of the most difficult situations one encounters in his/her profession is to
work in a negative environment. Trying to remain positive in a negative
workplace or encouraging your team to let go of negativity can take a lot out of
you. However, this uphill task is not an un-winnable situation. My experience
has taught me that this takes a lot of effort and personal mental resilience.
But it can be done.

Here are a few golden rules that will work for you and brand you as the agent of
change.



# Once these negative colleagues have been identified, the first job is to talk
to them and give them enough space so they can be heard. Often a disgruntled
team member tends to isolate themselves and create a victim persona for
themselves who is ignored. This is their perception about themselves. This
initial talk is essential to put the brakes on the negative chatter. Let them
know you will make an effort to hear them, and they have to do the same. A
one-sided conversation will not solve the problem. Both have to listen to each
other and give each other a fair chance to sort it.

# Start giving them a chance by asking them to suggest solutions to a problem in
the office. Implement any good suggestion and give full credit on the successful
execution of the idea in a professional manner. Difficult proposition as you
will be battling waves of negativity mainly driven by this person and not a lot
of gratitude when you thank them because they ‘always knew’. But the beginning
must be made by the office in-charge. Make this a practice. Proper handling and
showing genuine interest in their opinion that throws a spotlight on them will
set the ball rolling towards positivity.

# Provide them with resources that they struggle to find and give them a chance
to perform. However, at this point you must point out that all has been done so
that you don’t give them a chance to find fault.



# This is also the point where your attitude and tonality will make a huge
difference. You cannot be seen as the weak party who is giving in and at the
same time cannot win the situation with a heavy hand as the other team members
will be watching how you handle this. Listen with genuineness and speak with
authority that is fair and professional.

# Set a process. It is also essential to create a system that takes in
viewpoints and addresses their professional requirements in a realistic
timeframe. This will demonstrate your genuine intention in solving a challenge.

# Have regular update meetings to check on progress of task given and be logical
and fair in your feedback. Don’t give in to emotions as this will open the door
to more complaining and a feeling of ‘I told you so’ by the person concerned.
While you check on this with a matter-of-fact attitude, always end such meetings
with a positive comment on the progress, personality and attitude of the person
to bolster his/her spirits.

# At times by bringing a change in the setup and groups at the working
environment also brings in a change in an attitude. Changing the seating layout,
shuffling team members, adding a cheerful colour scheme, bringing in the
outdoors helps change the mood.

# Surround the person with a few strong willed and positive team members who can
call their bluff within their peer group without sounding rude and could
possibly have a rub off effect on their attitude.

# As the team leader you yourself should be a role model and should not be seen
as a person who lets go of positive working norms when it is inconvenient. Your
own behaviour will set an example for others to follow. And this is a task you
must commit to every day.

Most importantly, while tackling a negative team member, keep the HR person in
the loop. They will also contribute along with you and other members with their
expertise and hasten the process.

Patience, mental resilience along with an open, honest and positive outlook will
help you put the house in order improving the working environment for everyone
in your team.

The writer, GS Rattan, is former CEO of Tata Bearings and the author of ‘10
Steps to the Boardroom’.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETHRWorld does not
necessarily subscribe to it. ETHRWorld will not be responsible for any damage
caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly.


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HEAVY LIES THE HEAD THAT WEARS THE CROWN

In the world of VUCA, all leaders are playing at high stakes and working at
worrying levels of stress and burnout but that does not mean that civility,
kindness and respect are the casualties.

 * ETHRWorld Contributor

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Dr Tanvi Mankodi, Assistant Professor - People and Performance Area, Bhavan's
SPJIMRBy Dr Tanvi Mankodi

Leadership is one of the most researched areas in academia as well as one of the
most sought-after subjects with practitioners of people management. In the age
of the team leadership skills of the Avengers and the initiative shown by the
trio in the Harry Potter series as well as the myriad self-help books on being a
leader in life and business, we can safely assume that we have a fair idea of
what leadership means to us, what it entails, and why the buzz surrounding it is
justified. In our research on incivility in the Indian workplaces, we came
across a significant finding on the role of leadership.

Incivility or rudeness in the workplace is any kind of disrespectful behaviour
that deviates from the organizational norms and code of conduct, seems to have
an ambiguous intent to harm, and is low-key. It is nevertheless, quite an
all-pervasive phenomenon that threatens the wellbeing of employees and
workplaces, globally.



A majority of our respondents reported that while they remember their
orientation training on office etiquette and the general norms of the workplace,
they learnt more from observing their direct supervisors and the senior
leadership in the organization.

For example, an employee who had worked for about five years in a media
organization, shared that the HR department regularly sent out mailers about
being a diverse and inclusive workplace as well as appropriate email etiquette
in the workplace. She however, noted that the head of her department did not
adhere to any of these norms, and in fact, routinely made fun of them in
meetings and informal get-togethers. He had been with the organization for over
12 years and she assumed that if no one had brought him up on the matter, the
directives by HR were just them ‘dotting their I’s’ and she did not really need
to bother with them.

Another respondent, a fresh management post graduate, just six months into the
job at a hospitality organization, spoke with absolute conviction that his boss
and the CEO of their organization were in sync when it came to expected
behaviour at the workplace. They cared about the targets and the results, and as
long as he managed to achieve them, he was sure they did not care if he was
being a jerk to his co-workers or was the nicest person to be with. This
starry-eyed employee was shocked at first but later accepted the harsh truth and
realized this was how the organization functioned and he had to be a part of the
system.



There are several factors at the individual and organizational level that act as
triggers for incidence of incivility. Research is quite nascent in this area but
there are still factors such as downsizing, job demands, stressful work
environments, and perceptions of unfair practices that can lead to employees
engaging in rude behaviour, especially with their peers.

The role of leadership in developing organizational culture as well as setting
the tone of daily routine in workplaces has been examined in detail before but
it still stands to reason that organizations need to train their leaders to
ensure that they preach what they practise.

A misalignment between what the HR as representatives of the organization are
communicating through their policies and processes, and what the senior
management is actually practising creates a major dissonance in the minds of the
employees. This may have a cascading effect on how they perceive the
organization and their personal commitment level to that. It can potentially
have a negative effect on their productivity, engagement, and satisfaction with
the organization and consequently affect their intent to stay with the
organization for a long time.

According to Bandura’s social learning theory, we learn a lot from observing
others. Employees who may find themselves under the aegis of rude and uncivil
leaders may unconsciously imbibe that in their own behaviours. Employees may
take such behaviours as the requisite steps to ascend to the leadership position
in that organization. When talking about the need to censure uncivil behaviours,
we are not talking about lofty ideals for leaders. Rather, we advocate the
leaders following the basic organizational norms for respectful conduct and
being kind to everyone in the organization.

Rudeness takes on many forms in the Indian workplaces such as not greeting
someone in the elevator, not including someone in office camaraderie, or being
too nosy in the private affairs of peers, talking too loudly or in
unprofessional language with others, being condescending and spiteful, being
habitually late to meetings, leaving office premises untidy, or gossiping about
office colleagues.

When leaders behave in such manner that goes against norms of civility and
respect, they send out a message to everyone else about what the organization
values and thinks of mutual respect and civility.

The HR systems can handle the behavioural expectations through their work
systems with the sign-off from the senior management. There are a few examples
of organizations who include respect as a critical organization value, or who
have numerous interventions to drive home the point of behaviour being as
important, if not more, than job performance, or whose leaders exemplify
civility and respect.

Incivility may seem benign and creep unnoticed into the very fabric of the
organization. HR needs to hence assess the situation in their respective
organizations and ensure that their leaders are up to the challenge of the
quintessential ‘walk the talk.’ In the world of VUCA, all leaders are playing at
high stakes and working at worrying levels of stress and burnout but that does
not mean that civility, kindness and respect are the casualties.

The author, Dr Tanvi Mankodi, is Assistant Professor - People and Performance
Area at Bhavan's SPJIMR.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETHRWorld does not
necessarily subscribe to it. ETHRWorld will not be responsible for any damage
caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly.


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GLOBAL IMPRINTS OF INDIAN WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS

Female leaders are usually defined as women who initiate, organize or manage
business enterprises. The Government of India has rightly defined ‘women
entrepreneurs as an enterprise owned and controlled by a woman having a minimum
financial interest of 51% of the capital or at least giving 51% of generated
employment in the enterprise to women.’

 * TIMESOFINDIA.COM

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Empowering their impact on the international sphere, some of them are phenomenal
female business leaders of India striking a balance between their domestic
revenues as well as global branding in fashion, luxury and high-end database,
e-commerce and online education services.There is a rise of Indian tech gurus
making their mark and leading global portals like Twitter, Google, Adobe, Cisco
and so on. It’s time to have a look at our Indian women entrepreneurs making a
mark on global platforms. Female leaders are usually defined as women who
initiate, organize or manage business enterprises. The Government of India has
rightly defined ‘women entrepreneurs as an enterprise owned and controlled by a
woman having a minimum financial interest of 51% of the capital or at least
giving 51% of generated employment in the enterprise to women.’

Empowering their impact on the international sphere, some of them are phenomenal
female business leaders of India striking a balance between their domestic
revenues as well as global branding in fashion, luxury and high-end database,
e-commerce and online education services. Indian female entrepreneurs are
setting a new benchmark for women to follow and get inspired from.

Leena Nair

At the age of 52, Leena Nair, a British Indian executive, born and raised in
Kolhapur, Maharashtra, turned the entire nation’s eyes towards her remarkable
journey from being a chief Human Resources officer at the Anglo-Dutch
multinational company Unilever to now newly appointed CEO of the French luxury
brand Chanel, replacing Alain Wertheimer. Last year after the announcement of
new leadership on Chanel fashion house, Leena Nair received tremendous respect
from the fashion world, being an outsider to the glitz and glamour of luxury
fashion, studying and working in India for years and years, she grabbed an
opportunity of being the first Asian and youngest ever Chief Human Resources
officer of the conglomerate in 2016. She has also been featured in the list of
most powerful women widely acclaimed for creating people-oriented growth models.



Falguni Nayar

At the age of 58, Falguni Nayar- an Indian businesswoman, had a vision to match
up with her financial skills; born and raised in a Guajarati family with
postgraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. She
joined Kotak Mahindra Group in 2005 and exited from the post of being appointed
as a managing director in 2012. In April 2012 at the age of 50, she founded
Nykaa with $2million worth her personal funds. Today Nykaa is worth around $2.4
billion with Falguni Nayar being listed as top 20 richest people of India. She’s
one of the 2 self-made female Indian billionaire, with the other being Kiran
Mazumdar-Shaw.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

At the age of 68, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw - an Indian billionaire and executive
chairperson and founder of Biocon limited, biotechnology company based in
Banglore, India. She holds lines of achievement for her outstanding
contributions to the progress of science and chemistry. Born and raised in
Banglore, Karnataka, she studied biology and zoology graduating from Bangalore
university with a bachelor’s degree. She has worked as a trainee in Carlton and
United breweries, Melbourne and also as trainee maltster at Barrett brothers and
Burston, Australia. Working with various other companies in Calcutta, Bangalore
and Delhi and having been refused to get higher position as a brewer in India
since its a man’s
job, she grabbed job opportunities in Scotland. Meeting Leslie Auchincloss -the
founder of Biocon Biochemicals Limited, Ireland, she joined the company and
today she’s the leading lady who started Biocoin India. She started it in 1978,
in the garage of her rented house in Bangalore with a seed capital of 10,000
rupees. In 2004, Biocon was the first ever biotechnology organization in our
nation to issue an IPO, which was oversubscribed 33 times with first day trading
closed at a market value of $1.1 billion, making Biocon the topper of the
listing today.



Divya Gokulnath

At the age of 34, Divya Gokulnath is an Indian Educator and also a famous the
Co-founder and Director of Byjus, an EdTech company. She finished her post
graduate degree from Banglore and started her career in teaching around 2008. In
2011 she co-founded the online education platform Byjus with her husband. The
company offers various educational courses and services all over the globe,
which includes online tutorials and lessons. During lockdown due to the Covid
Pandemic in India, Byjus provided completely free access and added 13.5 million
users in March and April 2020 for a total of reach of 50 million and reached 70
million students by September 2020 along with 4.5 million subscribers. According
to Forbes, as of 2020 Byjus has combined net worth of $3.05B. She continues to
write online about future of education, parenting, and women’s participation in
STEM fields.

Women setting examples and inspiration for their tribe to achieve heights
personally and professionally should be proudly celebrated. With all the
narratives shaping and changing in favour of female empowerment, the numbers of
female entrepreneurs have increased. Leaders on global level admire them for
their hard work and contributions. Their significant work only delivers bigger
and better results. As a woman, when you have the abilities of being intuitive,
sincere, dedicated and holding sharp decision-making powers with other strong
women having your back in business, you will be nurturing many more on micro
grounds all along the way.


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LEADERSHIP MATTERS: EDELWEISS MF CEO CALLS FOR COMPASSION, MARICO BOSS ASKS
ENTREPRENEURS TO KEEP EGO AT BAY

The India Inc bosses shared mid-week motivation on social media.

 * ET Online

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Radhika Gupta MD and CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund & Harsh Mariwala, Chairman,
MaricoThe journey to be a great leader starts from within. At least the top
India Inc bosses feel that way.

To drive away our mid-week blues, the Corporate India heads took to Twitter to
share their insights on what leadership skills an entrepreneur should have.

Radhika Gupta, MD and CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund, revealed how a leader reacts
to a workplace crisis says a lot about him/her.



Any manager, whose team or organisation is going through a crisis, has two
choices to approach the situation.
1. Being cynical and spreading negativity around
2. Doing the best in his/her control, and lift other people up

She added, "The people who choose the second option usually benefit
disproportionately when the crisis ends."

Earlier, Gupta had shared the value of being a good listener in a corporate
set-up.

Citing an example of one of her first bosses, she said that he always carried a
pen and paper to every meeting. Even when there wasn't anything obvious to
write, he always keenly took notes.

When the 39-year-old AMC boss asked him the reason, he replied, “Always make
people feel they are being heard. It is magic. It is easy. And few do it.”

Marico Chairman Harsh Mariwala, who regularly posts work lesson on the
microblogging site with the tag #HarshRealities (wordplay on his name and the
name of his book), also shared a few dos and don'ts for an entrepreneur.

The FMCH boss considers 'ego' and 'insecurity' to be the major evil for any
great leader. When building an organisation, he said that it is imperative for
entrepreneurs to set these ill feelings aside.

Adding to the advantages, he said that his ability to hire resources who were
better than him at their jobs played a major role in his company's growth.



In another post, Mariwala wrote, "Entrepreneurs have the ability and foresight
to spot an opportunity in every crisis."

So to wrap it up, empathy, shunning ego and insecurity, and being compassionate
and a good listener makes a great leader.


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A NEW AVATAR OF CHRO

In the new normal, HR’s role would be one that does not have a shape but a
character, one that takes the shape needed to be taken, one that adapts to the
‘vessel of need’ it is in, one which is like water – shapeless, formless but
strong, resilient and determined to keep moving forward despite all the rocks
that come in its way.

 * ETHRWorld Contributor

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Deepa Chadha, Senior Vice President - HR & Corporate Affairs, VistaraBy Deepa
Chadha

“Adversity does not build character, it reveals it.” This quote of novelist
James Allen crossed my mind as I sat down to pen this article. And how true it
has proven in these extraordinary circumstances.

Last two years have been those of extreme adversity. Perhaps, the most adverse
we will (hopefully) ever see in our lifetimes. When it all started with lockdown
1.0, at Vistara, we earnestly set up an employee support initiative to assist
the employees and their families with the Covid-related needs – awareness,
testing, hospitalisation, medical claims, leaves, care and support, SDM at
office premises – the works. The initiative ticked all the boxes that any good
care initiative would do. Barring a few exceptional situations that stretched
it, the initiative held us in good stead till the second wave unleashed itself.



From early April 2021, however, everything changed almost overnight. Covid now
was like a tidal wave getting bigger and suddenly engulfing everything around it
before one would know. Numbers of sick grew exponentially; proportion of those
needing hospitalisation was much more; severity of sickness was higher; testing
services could not meet the demand surge; health amenities like hospital beds,
medicines, medical equipment etc all fell woefully short.

The employee assistance team started stretching but soon the realisation to do
something substantially different dawned. Within a day or two, more volunteer
employees were added to the Covid support team, employees from other significant
divisions were included to make the support team a self-sustaining cross
functional ecosystem, more Senior Leaders joined the group for swifter decision
making, rituals like daily support team meetings, daily tracker, resource
tracker etc were quickly initiated & soon institutionalised, a federal structure
comprising both central Covid support & local Covid taskforce at all stations
was created to reach the last person quickly.

The backbone support system was given a fillip – new testing partners were
onboarded to fill the gaps created by Phleobs falling sick, testing DIY
frameworks were designed, home ICU set up relationships were created, an
external consulting doctors’ panel was set up, medical equipment were procured &
distributed, quarantine centre relationships were curated, some cabs were
converted into medical vans and a central digital system to manage this entire
resource base was set up.



None of these were from a play book as none existed. These were an outcome of
agility, application, responsiveness, common sense solutioning and a
problem-solving approach. But that’s a standard recipe of any success, isn’t it?
So, what made the difference, what was the X-factor?

The ‘X- factor’ though was the soul & emotion invested in it right through, the
personal stakes that everyone voluntarily put in this war, that burning desire
to save a life, that humble unreasonableness of ‘whatever it takes,’ the
unrelenting attitude of doing it ‘despite’, that heart to take every employee
not as an employee code or as a co-worker but as own family.

How else would one describe an emotion which makes someone scared to retire for
the day lest a colleague might need help in the middle of night, which makes
colleagues of a Covid suspect take an ambulance to his home and take him for
testing as the police had cordoned off the area in which he lives, which makes
someone rush to a hospital and donate blood during peak of the wave, which makes
someone tell a Covid infected spouse to take his own care as she is busy caring
for colleagues and their families, which makes someone get livid having missed a
Covid hospital bed for colleague by minutes, which makes someone move around
with a colleague across the city for more than 10 hours looking for that elusive
hospital bed … the stories are endless and the numbers who created these are
few. Some among those numbers are also those who would unearth every single
contact of theirs to vehemently attempt organising for that lifesaving drug,
that hospital bed, that ambulance and anything under the sun if that could save
a life.

The same X-factor played a key role in vaccinations too. Despite the constraints
in May & June, the sentiment was ‘How may we get everyone – employees, their
families, partner employees fully vaccinated at the earliest. A four-pronged
approach was quickly developed – leverage vaccination drives at airports, create
relationships with vaccination centres, organise own drives or leverage those
organised by the Tata Group and encourage the employees to organise their own
vaccination if they can and reimburse them. The aim was not ‘how & where’ but
‘how early and how many’. Those worked at the backend to make this possible
acted as though they were sales folks driving sales targets almost like – ‘Ek
shot aur.’

Care was not limited to just health & wellness but extended to learning as well.
L&D budgets were voluntarily given up but learning was prioritised. A complete
in-house Digital HR L&D Calendar was rolled out from April 2020 itself
comprising courses created & facilitated by in-house SMEs. The initiative was
called – GOAL or ‘Gift of a Learning’ – for the gifts of different learnings
that the SMEs offered. Complementary content curation went in overdrive and the
aim was to look for every possible good quality complimentary content from
within the Tata Group and outside and to make it available to employees so that
they can learn and have a positive outlook for the future because ‘One who has a
why can survive any how’ is what Nietzsche says.

To quote Emerson – ‘What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny
matters compared to what lies within us.’ And indeed, what the team did to
support the employees during Covid made each of us aware of what lies within us.
Now that the discovery has happened, let the new normal be that of our
transformed selves. A normal that experience what was delivered in Covid times
as the New avatar of caution, a New avatar of care, a New avatar of benefits, a
New avatar of learning, a New avatar of work & working and above all - a New
Avatar of how we look at each other and what we do for each other.

And if this Avatar has to become the new normal, the new reality, HR’s role in
it to my mind would be an amorphous one – one that does not have a shape but a
character, one that takes the shape needed to be taken, one that adapts to the
‘vessel of need’ it is in, one which is like water – shapeless, formless but
strong, resilient and determined to keep moving forward despite all the rocks
that come in its way. And for me who has been a ‘glorified project manager’ of
this phenomenon, I would be happy playing a cheer leader, a facilitator, a
‘Sutradhar.’

The author, Deepa Chadha, is Senior Vice President of HR & Corporate Affairs at
Vistara.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETHRWorld does not
necessarily subscribe to it. ETHRWorld will not be responsible for any damage
caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly.

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