<div><strong>Keyuri Singh, VP, Blue Star Infotech</strong>, has over 25 years of multi-disciplinary experience in Consulting, finance & accounting and HR. Her management consulting experience has taken her across companies like Grow Talent, Hay Group, PDI, PricewaterhouseCoopers and A F Ferguson & Co in various capacities. But she has found her calling in HR. In the knowledge industry where people are key, HR has a significant impact in an organisation’s ability to achieve its strategies and Keyuri enjoys being a key contributor to the organisation’s growth through developing people’s capabilities.<br /><br />HR departments are often accused of becoming bureaucratic and behaving like policemen and Singh believes this needs to change with HR professionals being more flexible and approachable. HR professionals need to learn the ability to balance between organisational needs and employee needs and emotional intelligence should be the key competency for an HR professional, says Singh<br /><br /><em>Excerpts</em><br /><strong>What has been the biggest achievement in your career?</strong><br />In my HR role, my biggest achievement has been getting people across levels to realise the importance of metrics-based goals and timely, quality performance management. Effective performance management is the single biggest contributor towards the alignment of corporate and employee goals. Managing the transition from viewing Performance management as a tool for getting increments to a way of improving organisational productivity has been a major achievement.<br /><br /><strong>What have been the primary traits/qualities that have helped you attain your present position?</strong><br />My understanding of key business drivers, combined with my ability to manage change, has helped me attain my present position. Some qualities which have helped me along the way are empathy towards people, strong executional capabilities combined with persistence in getting things done, effective communication skills, relation building skills, willingness to learn from others no matter at what levels, and passion for achieving excellence in whatever I do.<br /><br /><strong>What are the challenges you are facing in the organisation?</strong><br />The biggest challenge has been growth in some of our target markets, especially during the recent years of economic turbulence. Managing change in a company which hadn’t seen too much change till a few years ago is a huge challenge. Lack of accountability for results is another challenge which is being addressed. Difficulty in hiring the right talent in time and making employees more customer focused and business savvy are other challenges that we face.<br /><br /><strong>What are the steps a company should take to develop and motivate future leaders?</strong><br />The most critical step is to spot the high potential talent and train, coach and mentor them to take on higher responsibilities. It is also important to help employees plan their career path based on their own competencies so that they can see how they can grow. As a part of this, it is critical to provide cross-functional roles to develop multi-skilled leaders. Keeping future leaders engaged through regular communication and challenging assignments keeps them motivated.<br /><strong><br />What is your rate of attrition? How do you prevent it?</strong><br />Our attrition hovers around 20 per cent, in line with industry standards. Constant interaction with employees to understand and address their pain points before he/she decides to leave and taking measures to keep them motivated by aligning personal and professional goals are the ways in which we try and prevent attrition. Employee friendly policies and a close relationship between subordinates and supervisors encouraging upward communication helps us to understand the pulse of the organisation and thus prevent attrition. <br /><br /><strong>How do you retain talent in your company?</strong><br />Our key focus is to provide our employees with an open and conducive work environment where they feel energised to come and excel at whatever they do. We provide employees opportunities to develop and grow by giving them a wide variety of assignments and the freedom to perform and express their opinions. Our managers mentor their employees by providing them guidance and support as well as opportunities to interact with customers. We also encourage our employees to travel onsite to spend time with customers and to work in different geographies so that they can broaden their horizons.<br /><br /><strong>What sets your company apart from other companies as far as work culture goes?</strong><br />We provide a truly open culture where employees are free to express their opinions and views, and work independently. There is close interaction between employees and senior management without any hierarchical boundaries. Employees are given the freedom to share their ideas directly with senior management. The work environment is friendly and employees are explained the objective of what they need to do and then allowed the freedom to work without being shackled by regimented narrow boundaries.<br /><br /><strong>What is the biggest challenge you face when selecting people?</strong><br />Selecting people with the right attitude who will fit into our work culture is our biggest challenge. There is often a mismatch between the skills and attitude available and the expectations that we have. Finding people who are passionate about their work and who are willing to be accountable for the results is often a challenge. People mostly have the knowledge and skills, but lack the required attitude which is very important. Especially in the IT industry it is easy to find people with technical competencies but hard to find people with the right behavioural competencies.<br /><br /><strong>How do you keep track of employees' satisfaction or dissatisfaction?</strong><br />The HR team regularly meets employees to find out what is going well/badly for them. The managers who interact with team members also feed in information when they sense a person is unhappy. We conduct periodic employee satisfaction surveys to gauge the level of satisfaction.<br /><br /><strong>How HR has been important to the bottom line of the company?</strong><br />Since people cost is the most significant contributor to the bottom line of an IT company, our ability to attract talent at the right price points as well as retain talent (without incurring the high cost of attrition and consequent re-skilling) has made HR very important for managing the bottom line of the company.<br /><br /><strong>How has the downturn affected HR?</strong><br />HR has had to be much more budget conscious especially when it comes to hiring as well as learning and development, since those are the first budget freezes that are imposed in any company. When hiring, they have to hire the right candidate at as low a price point as possible. HR also has to focus on preparing the employees to handle the challenges of a recession and become more business savvy. Constant communication on how the company is faring in the downturn is required to ensure that employee engagement and morale is well managed.<br /><br /><strong>How should HR be integrated with the core line of business?</strong><br />All HR initiatives should be aligned with organisation and business strategies. It is very critical for HR to have a deep understanding of the business strategies and drivers and to support the employees towards achieving their goals. Regular two- way communication is required between business heads and HR to make sure that all HR goals emanate from business goals. A dedicated HR partner who understands the business and for whom the interests of the business are of primary concern can be of great help.<br /><br /><strong>A recent survey has questioned HR's actual contribution in an organisation. Would you like to comment on it with particular reference to your organisation?</strong><br />I would not agree. HR plays a key role in enhancing organisational capability through various mechanisms including learning, development and mentoring. HR plays an important function in ensuring that there is a match between organisational goals and the capability of our people since people are the ones who are ultimately responsible for strategy execution. Another major task is to make sure that employee issues are addressed in time to prevent attrition. Though employee engagement is the prime responsibility of line managers, HR makes sure that the work culture and environment supports such engagement.<br /><br /><strong>If you could change three things about HR practices, what would they be?</strong><br />The first thing I would want is for all HR professionals to realise that HR is not an end in itself but a mean to achieve organisational goals. Most HR practices are still transactional and don’t look at the big organisational picture. Many HR policies/practices become so inflexible that they cannot adjust to the dynamics of organisational changes. HR professionals need to learn the ability to balance between organisational needs and employee needs. <br /><br />Secondly, I would like to change the focus of many HR departments on managing processes without seeing the impact of these on the employees. HR professionals focus on becoming experts at a process and forget that they need to be employee centric. HR departments are often accused of becoming bureaucratic and behaving like policemen – this needs to change with HR professionals being more flexible and approachable to employees. <br /><br />Third, many HR practices become so mechanical that human touch is lost. HR professionals need to learn that becoming empathetic is crucial to employee engagement. Emotional intelligence should be the key competency for an HR professional to be effective.<br /><br />(<em>As told to </em><strong>Poonam Kumar</strong>)</div>
