in today’s world, talent attraction is all about getting the best fits for the Company and Roles and not necessarily only the most qualified people. It’s not only about qualification or experience—it is about attitude, cultural fitment, emotional fitment, and fitment of preferences
He is one of those very few HR professionals, who started his career as a mechanical engineer and played many management roles before settling for a career in Human Resource Management. In his twenty years of career journey, Arun Singh, Head-HR and Administration, Foseco India Limited, always believed in the philosophy of zealously working, accepting new challenges and continuously learning. In an exclusive interview with Corporate Citizen, Arun Singh talks about the astute lessons he learnt from his two decade long career journey and why there is no shortcut to success
My school days happened in a small but beautifully green township called Sindri in Jharkand. I was fanatically in love with studies. During my ten years which I spent in the school, my focus had always been to be a topper in the school. For ten academic years consecutively, I stood first in the school-I would sleep only for 5-6 hours and devote rest of my time to studies and some sports activities to keep fit. Then I did my mechanical engineering from Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra and joined Tata Steel through campus placement.
It was my first job and I had a very good potential career in Tata Steel. I joined Tata Steel as a graduate trainee, in plant operation and maintenance. I am one of those few HR professionals, who started his career from some other field than HR I did my engineering, then I worked in supply chain, operations, maintenance, in the office of General Manager, corporate support office and so on. I worked in almost all functions except Finance and Legal. While working in Tata Steel, I did my one-year fulltime MBA, from XLRI-Jamshedpur. I took complete break from Tata Steel did my MBA program after signing a bond of three years with Tata Steel.
I left Tata Steel with one objective of searching for more challenges and ability to take bigger decisions. That time Tata Steel was joining hands with a company called BlueScope Steel. They set up a joint venture, starting their operations in 2004, with its head-office in Pune. I came to Tata BlueScope Steel and here is a company which gives me opportunity to work in functions like office of MD, sales, marketing, business development, before I came to the HR function. I took the role of General Manager- HR, in 2010. Worked for over six years as General Manager-HR, in Tata BlueScope Steel, it was a very good experience of testing, executing and demonstrating my leadership skills. It was a good platform to brush my skills of how to motivate people. I had a good team in HR, IR and Administration spread across multiple locations in SAARC.
In 2016, after spending some 18 years of my career in one group, nine years in Tata Steel and nine years in Tata BlueScope Steel, I realized that life is too short and the world is too big to be at one place. I thought, let me test my abilities and explore the external world and different cultural environment to hone my skills and that was one reason I left Tata Group despite having some of the most cherish able memories there. Though I could have stayed and grown to a better position, I left Tata Group and joined a UK based MNC, Foseco India Limited. I had heard a lot about their strong work culture, processes, delivery and they were very hard core in performance orientation. I wanted to see how I would perform in a MNC work environment. I joined Foseco in 2016 and since two years and 10 months I am working there. While working at Foseco, I also got myself involved in a virtual interactive learning program on talent management, again with XLRI. It was a four month program it was a good feeling to stand in top five among more than 100 students, despite the fact that I had been working full time and learning simultaneously. Getting back to studentship also rekindled the spirit of my early school days.
While you are busy making other life-plans, life has got something else for you. I had never thought of getting into HR I thought of getting into marketing and that was the primary reason I left Tata Steel. Tata BlueScope Steel gave me the opportunity to work in marketing and sales, and business development. For example, working in sales, which I did for over seven months taught me lessons of life whether you win an order or lose an order, it’s an equally exciting or touchy feeling, because the exhilaration of winning and the pain of losing, is something you experience in sales and sports very intensely. There is no grey area either you win or lose.
About coming into HR—one fine day I get a call from the head of HR at Tata BlueScope Steel, asking if I would like to get into HR. I accepted the offer, but I was surprised with the offer. Later I came to know that I was getting promoted as General Manager-HR because the previous head was leaving the job. They wanted me to manage a team, wherein few had completed over 2-3 decades of working in HR field. They were veterans in HR, who were to report to me, who had no formal training in HR. Despite working in a non-HR field for six to seven years, why was I chosen for the role? Probably because, even while working in other functions, people management used to be my main domain primarily. I remember, while working in Sales and Marketing functions, I used to conduct lots of pan India 'learning from failure' sessions. Sales people from one region used to learn from the experiences of colleagues from other regions. I used to spend time conducting improvement programs for sales and marketing people. Prior to that, I remember conducting 40 workshops in almost equal days for a group of 1500 shop floor employees to cascade the meaning of the then Vision of the Company to shop floor employees. Though officially, I was working in Supply Chain function in those days of Tata Steel. There are many such examples where I worked in people functions while still being in line functions. Life connects the dots in a very surprising manner and here was I working in HR by 2010. In the initial days as I joined, it was tough with sweaty palms in the morning, but then later I started getting excited to be in the field which was my heart’s calling. After a month, I was so happy in HR that I decided not to go in any other field but build a career in HR. And now it is more than eight years since I am in Human Resources Management function.
You have to learn continuously, if you don’t you will be surpassed by others. The only set of people who make me insecure are the ones who are learning very fast
First of all, we need to appreciate that millennials are going to be part of our work culture and there is nothing wrong with them. There is a talk that millennials are narcissists, they are impatient, they constantly check their mobile phone, by the time they are 21 years old they would have spent over 20,000 hours of screen-time, and so on. We have to reflect and see whether we are able to work with them and whether we are able to understand them. Every company is going to have a large number of millennials and it is for the leaders to understand and to see that he himself is learning things faster to remain aligned with millennials. If I do not change with the environment around me, I am not going to remain a relevant leader.
At the same time, to millennials, I strongly suggest that you have some patience and give some good time to the Companies. First, you need to learn the Company’s work culture at least for one-two years and deliver what the company expects from you. While recruiting people, we look at their transition very closely. If one is job-hopping too frequently, we get suspicious if they are changing it only for the sake of money and they are not who we are looking for.
We are happy to recruit people who are driven by a purpose to make a change and driven by a desire to learn and give it back to the company. We are not interested in people who are changing their jobs every one-two years we actually reject most of these people. So, one has to have patience, understand the Company and learn about it. Before expecting the Company to change its culture, you also have to learn the culture of the company. Give some time for it to become a win-win situation.
Talent attraction is going to remain a crucial area for us. At the same time we look for people who want to join the Company for the right reasons. First of all we see the cultural fit. If you are getting people who have hopped ten jobs in ten years, it is an alarming sign. In today’s world, talent attraction is all about getting the best fits for the Company and Roles and not necessarily only the most qualified people. I would be looking for people who are fitting into my requirements. It’s not only about qualification or experience it is about attitude, cultural fitment, emotional fitment, and fitment of preferences. I am looking for students who are happy working in a chemical factory within the ambit of Values, who are happy to deliver in a challenging work environment, who are happy to work in a company for a certain duration, so that they can give the returns to the company. As author, Abhijit Bhaduri, says in one of his books, 'Don’t hire the best, hire the fittest’.
For example, in a city like Pune, we have thousands of industries and each Company has a different and unique cultural background. There are family owned businesses, there are MNCs, then there are big Indian companies and each of them have their own culture. Now, it is not possible for academia to train people on how to work in a particular cultural setup keeping in mind the diverse backgrounds of company work cultures. They are giving generic set of skill sets and knowledge, based on which students have to build their own customized experience. But, one change academia can certainly make is to give lot of practical insights. Having said that, ultimately, it is that flame inside a student, which they have to run with, and they have to use the learnt knowledge and skills, in the context of the organization and fulfilling their own desire and dreams. They must have a purpose most of the students might not be clear what they have to achieve, besides getting a good job in a good company. They also have to understand and appreciate the fact that life is having some other plans and surprises for them, while they are making their own career plans. The fact is, most of the students who will be graduating from institutes in coming years will end up working in Companies which do not yet exist and that’s going to happen in just a few years. Hence, the institutions need to get students ready for changes, tenacity, agility and must inculcate a sense of perseverance in a challenging and ever changing work environment.
You have to learn continuously, if you don’t you will be surpassed by others. The only set of people who make me insecure are the ones who are learning very fast. Always remember the message given by Socrates, “I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing”. What he is saying is that he is always open to learn he is like a glass which is not full and keeps on emptying it, so he can fill it with something new. That is easier said than done. Many people think that they know everything. The ones who are learning continuously are the ones who are moving up very fast. Secondly, one should be ready to work with other people and understand the cultural setup of the company you are working with. Third lesson is that one needs to set up a purpose what is that you are trying to achieve. Last is, be ready for surprises and develop a positive attitude while you are busy in your task, there is always something that is changing in this world.
I have long working hours I leave for office at 7 am and travel a long distance, before I reach my office. So, to de-stress, I start my day with 10-15 minutes of meditation. Health is the first thing which comes to my mind in the morning and I see that my thought process is clear before I leave for work. I use my travel time for reading books on kindle (or hard copy as well) or listening to podcasts if I am not working on the way. When I come back home by 7:30 pm, I go to the gym or do some exercise, come what the circumstances are. Then I spend some time with family, which is very important. On weekends, I prefer morning walks in nature or treks to nearby hills to de-stress myself. It is not about health, but it is about feeling happy and being amidst nature which has that feel-good factor. It’s a beautiful life at the end of the day
By Rajesh Rao
