The good news about technology is that it does not differentiate among people. It is quite fair. It isn't biased. When you power it with, or power onboarding with artificial intelligence engines, you will notice that onboarding would be easier, faster, highly scalable, and it would be, it'd be done globally.
Tell us about your background journey and upbringing.
My background, journey and upbringing essentially, goes back to me being born to two parents where the father had a job that would keep him moving around the circuit of Haryana, Punjab and UP. So that was a region where I was bread and, that's where my formative years, essentially happened.
My father's background is food, management, processing. And that is something that inspired me to get into taking biotechnology for academics. The intent was to go into the food industry, but during my academics that I discovered that I, like to speak, to represent and present a point of view or represent thoughts and that led me to essentially engage in a lot of debates, declamations, paper reading contests and whatnot, right from my school is to my college days.
I suppose that is where the groundwork for teaching was laid. One thing led to another and I started, running my own little shop where, or little school for adults where the intent was to help them improve in their ability to speak to the audiences or to speak to people in one-on-one transactions.
I suppose from where I am, the kind of family members I grew up within was a joint family and the liberties to express ourselves that we got and my father's support in letting me do what I wanted to do helped me take a very conscious decision of the kind of doing what I really wanted to do at a time where it wasn't known much of, and that was shaping people's personalities.
How did you narrow down on this profession?
It happened thanks to a lot of coaches, mentors who I met along the way and because I started off as a teacher and I was teaching for a very, very long time in various organizations, various departments and that was the time where I had an opportunity to meet some very senior industry folks who started their careers as teachers, but they specialized into talent development or the space of human resources.
They would nudge me to go beyond just teaching and learn more in the entire gamut of human resources, right from talent management to talent development and more. And that led me to take up courses, specializations and certifications. So it was a long journey and they were all along the way.
In fact, I was talking to my mentor to who I am engaged to do some work for our organization and we were saying, how 18 years ago I was this young guy who had approached him for a job and how he sort of handheld me and taught me things that I know today.
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It seems onboarding even in 2021 is a long drawn out process being held behind the scenes, how would you envision this changing in the future?
One thing is for sure, we have to understand the fact that in times, every industry is going to become a tech industry. So whether it is my father in food processing today, or me in education or somebody else in pharmaceuticals, every aspect of business will be impacted by technology.
So onboarding will not stay untouched. The good news about technology is that it does not differentiate among people. It is quite fair. It isn't biased. When you power it with, or power onboarding with artificial intelligence engines, you will notice that onboarding would be easier, faster, highly scalable, and it would be, it'd be done globally.
There'd be a lot of contingent labour force that would be brought in and the order of the day would be a blend of full-time employees and a concern contingent force or gig workers.
But technology will have a huge role in onboarding. So, just like earlier days when we used to have these massive drives where we would see hundreds of college graduates sitting in a big ballroom waiting for their turn for an interview. Now just start imagining all of those hundreds of people getting interviewed at the same time, without any burden on the talent acquisition teams. And that is about technology and that we are going to see in times to come.
What is one of the things you would like to change in how background verification is done in India?
One of the things done in any background check is they go through the whole work history of a person and they look for authenticity in what a person has basically said in their work profile and the interview. I would say social transactions do also ascertain how this person's personality is going to play out in the organization.
Just the way, today, it has become easy to take microloans from powered companies, which basically look at your CIBIL score. For example, CIBIL score for example, or they will look at your social transactions, scrape that data and accordingly see how much, and whether you should get that loan to check you would pay that or not.
So they are basically looking at integrity, authenticity, they're looking at the positive side, the dark side and that background checks will also have to be powered by technology just to do that.
This would help in increasing stickiness and deeper psychological contact with the organization for a person to stick around longer, reduce attrition, get the right people in, have less of any sort of transactions that the employee relation team would be forced to have because of somebody's misconduct. So all of this would be weeded out right up front.
How would you handle someone who has lied on their resume?
I've read about a case of a very senior person, lying on the resume and it was a piece of news. I think I read it in one of the major HR publishing house magazines. What I realized was that it doesn't take anybody anywhere in the long run. One could have gotten away with this in the past, but if somebody is thinking that they will get away with this now, they are highly mistaken and they should be aware of the fact that it's an interconnected workplace or work pool, which basically means that if there's an organization X that has figured out that you have lied, then that same information is with organization Y and said also.
That is first thing that should be made aware of to do anybody who's applying for a job. Let's say we are not smart enough, or our algorithms are not smart enough to figure that cost for a straight off action because it is completely against the code of the content, and the person signed the code of conduct knowing full well that they have lied. So that is any reason puny calls for impunity.
The act gives full right to the organization to terminate the contract of employment with the person, but I'm really hoping that that situation doesn't spam and that our currency is, is trust, integrity, and honesty.
Several global companies have come out and thrown the support behind not getting a formal education. What is your opinion about this?
I think it is not organizations as much as it is some people in those organizations. When an Elon Musk says it, it is the policy of Tesla. For example, we've heard of voices, we haven't heard of policies yet.
The day policies also start to resonate with this thought, that's when we would arrive at this. We haven't yet arrived there. We also have to be aware of the fact that, skilling is an order of the day, micro-credentials in learning are valued more. We are skilling people, reskilling people, organizations are doing that and we know about it.
Now, if you see that micro-skills, whatever is required, then, of course, it makes sense, but then does an organization want to take a risk of having a person who hasn't gone through a full-blown education, and by their skills only because those are relevant and not worry about the emotional intelligence of that person, the integrity of that person and so on which I personally feel when, when somebody goes through a full-blown education can get the opportunities during that education to learn those aspects.
I think we will have to let go of that. It's risky and it should be really thought about before it is institutionalized.
What advice do you have for aspiring HR professionals?
My only advice is that HR used to be called personnel. I still recall days, and I'd go to my father's factory and, right at the place where people punch in, to announce that they had arrived at work, there was a big black card, called, announcing that this was the personnel department.
HR has evolved. HR will continue to evolve and HR will become a tech industry of itself and that basically means that the people who would be in HR, in the seat of HR would need to learn how various, HCM practices are undertaken. They would need to know it ends to end.
At the same time, they would also need to be specialized in one skill. t is going to be a mix of generalization and specialization, which basically means that is the shelf life of technology today is three to five years shelf life of any, micro topic in nature would be as much.
So that would call for continuous learning. So be like doctors, a good paediatrician who is looking for what's changing and could help their little clients well and if a doctor has stopped, learning and that's not the doctor you would want to go to. Okay.
Which is your favourite book and why?
I read this book called The Celestine Prophecy and the book I suppose has had a huge role in shaping my thought process. It's fiction, it's set in South America, it's a journey and the book itself is called an adventure.
It is actually centred around the purpose of a human being and the fact that anything else that we will do will be to meet that purpose. Once that purpose is established then it doesn't matter whether I'm a cobbler or a teacher or a scientist, because my purpose is established and I'm driven by some values and they're all in service of a larger cause. I think this could shape one's life beautifully. And celestial prophecy for me was that call, so I would say that's my favourite book.
Interviewed by - Uzair
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