“We are the People Connect”

With over two decades of work experience behind him, Ajay Desai, Head Human Resources at SD Corp – A Shapoorji-Pallonji Group Venture, says that he took the HR path because his aspiration towards people connect and development was his driving passion. In an exclusive interview with Corporate Citizen, Desai talks about what helped him to grow in his career and how he got to experience and implement some of the best in class HR practices and nuances. He also shares his thoughts on the pulse of what’s happening in the human resource management field, and most importantly why they are the people connect

"HR is certainly there to stay but in an evolved form. It will be more to do with people development, managing talent for future and differentiators for HR based technology, while becoming less focused on traditional and transactional Human Resource processes"

Tell us about your education.

I studied in Dubai right from my kindergarten till 12th class, since my father had his business in Dubai and our family was based there. I came to India to pursue my graduation and completed my bachelor’s degree in Hotel Administration from Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Management in Manipal. Post my Hotel Management I worked for four years with Jet Airways, as a Customer Service Executive at Bengaluru Airport. It was during this time that I realized my inclination towards people connect and developing teams was fast becoming my passion. To pursue human resource management seemed like a logical next move. This pushed me to go on and do my MBA in HR from Manipal Institute of Management (now the School of Management) in Manipal.

How did your HR journey start?

It was like a Alt+Control+Delete—a total reset. I re-started my career after my MBA with Pidilite Industries as an Officer Trainee—needing to unlearn and re-learn HR. I handled a lot of recruitment which included right from sifting through tons of CVs and handling the interview process across locations. This laid a very sound foundation for my career in HR.

Coming back to my first HR journey, I was over-excited to change everything, to make my mark, to make the best first impression. I would often think to myself, ‘I have an experience of four years and I have done fairly well during my MBA. Whatever I do will be perfect and right’ .

Luckily for me, I realized these things early on that they are very different from what I had imagined. This has eventually made me realize and believe that the campus to corporate shift is a very important transition. If done correctly, then you are well-set on your path towards achieving your dreams.

Getting the basics right : I got my hands absolutely entrenched on ground level basics at Pidilite. I deep dived into recruitment, induction and exit management here. However, it was in Agility Logistics (where I started as an Assistant Manager and grew to the role of Manager), I experienced a very useful transition into handling multiple HR processes. Right Recruitment, which is my base foundation in Pidilite, I got exposed to payroll management, and HR practices, Performance management, Compensation, Competency frameworks, HRIS, Employee Engagement and Statutory Compliances. I also had my first tryst with General Administration (an additional responsibility on account of resignation) which I handled for a little over six months.

Since Agility was a mid-sized organization, being flexible and fluid was a virtue one needed to have. You were given multiple roles to handle – sometimes all at once. That helped me to really touch upon every stage of the department and also allowed a free hand to set some processes right. I believe it was one of my best experiences that allowed me to get an all-round exposure to HR completely, while allowing me to think of what-next and where to improve the process.

My career with Ultratech as a Zonal Head – HR, took me on a path of a transformation which I believe has helped me to learn and partner with some of the best-in-class practices in Human Resources. Aditya Birla Group is known for good HR practices and Ultratech is no exception, be it talent management, organization development or employee engagement. As a front-line sales team HR leader for the region, I was very excited to reach out to the people and connect across the levels to gauge people perspectives-the pulse of what’s happening in, at ground-zero. It also allowed me to interact with people on a real-time basis, which I think was an important shift for me, from handling a Corporate HR to a Business Partnering role. It allowed me to know and sense the pulse of what and how the HR processes really affect every person.

"HR is in its nascent steps where we are just about to understand what this data can mean to the future for the company’s people and processes"

Moving from one company to other, one faces organizational culture change, change in role, demographic change. How does an HR adjust to all these changes?

Human Resources is an important people connect function. I feel that many HR professionals and organizations are often very far away from people experiences. I earnestly believe that connecting with people should be more at a relationship level and not merely at a policy or process level. This allows for seeping and entrenching into the culture wholly.

When one moves across companies, culture changes very significantly. So does the pace of the organizational changes. This requires the adaptability of a leader or the HR professional. For me, as I changed organizations, I realized that the pace of work, structure in working environments and people dynamics changed-sometimes very drastically. This allowed for reviewing and correcting actions or building stronger interactions to help in facilitating solutions to seemingly difficult situations.

HR has a role to play while aligning new joiners who often come from other organizations, to help them connect to the company’s culture and work with their respective functions to detail out expectations clearly to them. This ensures quicker alignment to the Culture of the organization.

While working for an Indian company or an MNC company, are the demands from the top management different for an HR?

Before my current role as Head HR with SD Corp – a Shapoorji-Pallonji Group Ventrue, I was head of Talent Management and organization Development at Group Legrand – India.

A European MNC and Indian company have their own signature approaches which are distinctly different. Some approvals could happen more quickly in Indian companies because key decision-makers are geographically accessible while in international MNCs with Group level approvals required from their headquarter location, the process allows for more extensive considerations being presented for the required clearances.

Yes, demands from leadership vary as well between Indian Companies and MNCs. Initiatives in HR, their acceptance or depth of involvement also vary from one organization to another. Understanding the pulse and culture of the organization is the first thing which I invested my time into. I usually don’t try and stream-roll my ideas, because I believe that each setup has a unique story to tell. Each company has grown the way it has, because of its own signature culture; it has evolved in a certain way because it of its own unique background and experience-hence expectations from HR are also different. Imposing oneself without understanding this background, might mean that you are putting a spanner in a clockwork and will ruin everything apart. So I believe that you must wait for your time and understand the culture. Once you have a grip of the culture, you can define HR systems and processes your way.

Over the sixteen years of your career journey as an HR, what major changes have you seen in the HR practice?

In my early years as an HR professional, there were a lot of in-house HR processes handled, managed and executed by the in-house HR team. Then came a shifting trend to outsource repetitive and non-value adding HR tasks-Payroll or Statutory compliance, for example, recruitment. You don’t physically sit searching through CVs anymore. This has been ably supported by Information Technology support.

Now the HR is shifting from transactional activities to weaving in transformational initiatives; we are now talking of what’s in it for the people in terms of their own development and advancement. There is also more strategic business partner focus, where HR is now working closely with business-organizational enablers if you may call it that. HR is more business partnership, across levels. You must partner and understand with what is happening within the business, within the industry and how HR can structure organizational efficiencies, influence people development and provide insights into market trends. Focus on retaining the “Right talent” is of key relevance now. It is more expensive to hire and train talent -a gestation period to bring up to speed with the company’s requirement. And this has a direct impact on revenues for the organization. This is a visible shift in terms of the HR philosophy which is happening. Investing into the talent, to groom and develop them to create career paths aligned to their aspirations and providing right support within the system is the key HR responsibility that is soon becoming the mantra for a successful human resource programme in any organization.

The HR development focus also emphases on bringing young and new talent up to speed with the expectations of the business. Someone comes with say, a five-year experience and joins us; he is bringing a lot of inputs, in terms of knowledge, in terms of experience, in terms of way of working. Are we able to quickly undo the things that don’t work in your company and make him do things which can help the company evolve and effectively make him/her evolve too?

Another area where a lot of evolution has happened in the field of HR is in embracing the right Technology, Systems Management and Analytics. With digitization platforms, learning management platforms, new age workforce and more aggressive aspirational expectations, visible shift is towards bite-sized development and learning, on-the-go platforms, app-based HR process management, and alternate communication platforms-these have made HR evolve into a more system supported people and business enabler function.

Is new technology like AI and digitalisation, disrupting the way HR is being practised? Are HRs and organization getting used to this digital disruption, or is there a gap?

First came the phase of having a database management system. I have seen the transition from an absolutely ‘no database’ run HR department to some state-of-the-art custom-made software for managing Human Resource Information Systems for the organization. These systems provide key MIS which is very relevant even today. At the touch of a button we can really know key reports relevant for providing important MIS for decision making.

But, as we move to the next level, to the new age of digital HR, we enter a zone which makes many a seasoned professional jittery. With HR Analytics, are we able to get critical information such as global and geography-specific analysis of what we can expect. We have reached a point where predictive analytics prefigures what might happen in a short or middle term. Big Data which we know is likely to bombard us with much of information being evolved every day around. HRs need to know how they can make sense of it and pull it into our system and give logical information to business stakeholders or leaders so that they are able to plan well ahead with a proactive decision.

HR is in its nascent steps where we are just about to understand what this data can mean to the future for the company’s people and processes. As predictive analysis takes on a more evolved stage, I believe this could facilitate in bringing about collective business intelligence and comprehension of what is happening around in the industry-people’s expectations from us-how we as an organization is perceived by possible talent around and above all, where would we find talent from or lose our talent to, in the days ahead. We are surely moving towards this.

Likewise, AI is also becoming a familiar sight across functions and I would not be surprised if talent onboarding, HR help desk and HR support functions get an AI Buddy- a bot interacting with every employee in the future to resolve issues and queries.

"I certainly believe that in this world of scarce talent – HR with a People Connect having strong technology and analytics inclination will reign supreme"

What are the skills you look for in the HR freshers?

With HR evolving from being transactional support function to a transformational partner, emphasis will increase to onboard HR talent which continuously innovates to provide platforms for employees to experience development for talent to stay relevant and evolve along with the organization.

HR freshers would need to have an attitude and temperament, that of thinking beyond traditional HR roles and show a willingness to embrace functional expertise for evolving technology, analytics and AI processes, as this will become a mainstay moving forward.

My understanding is that there are a lot more jobs that are going to come within the HR, focused towards building AI-based platforms in HR processes and practices, where core HR understanding and knowledge, will form the basis for creating the AI interface. I feel there is tremendous scope for this, going forward in coming seven to eight years. It is very likely that we will see HR being run more by bots and lesser by people sitting behind their desks. The HR, in fact, will be on the employee’s desktop or mobile. Systems will become more cloud-based and online, where the user/employee interface will be more technology-driven. We possibly may have to make do without laptops and computers over a period; everything will happen at the touch of a button on your mobile.

But, then there is a fear that AI may replace HR?

The fear – while having a justified basis to it may result in Human Resource content in B-Schools undergoing a sea-change. A lot of emphasis will be on creating HR specialists who can develop the HRs. So, the role of HR will become less transactional while focusing more on strategic business enablement aligned to AI and analytics. Specialists in HR analytics and AI would certainly be more sought after and high paying job profiles. You might see more people who are inclined towards analytics. There will still be a need for talent development-Career Management to create future leaders and pool for key responsibilities, Leadership and Executive Coaching. What might certainly not be replaceable will be roles that require people connect-the USP of human touch will never fade away for Human Resources. Yes, the numbers might shift from the Generalist HR to the Specialist Roles. These roles may be from functional experts as crossovers from a technology background or technology inclined Functional HR experts.

HR is certainly there to stay but in an evolved form. It will be more to do with people development, managing talent for future and differentiators for HR based technology while becoming less focused on traditional and transactional Human Resource processes. I certainly believe that in this world of scarce talent-HR with a People Connect having strong Technology and analytics inclination will reign supreme in the days to come.