<div><strong>Dr Pallab Bandyopadhyay </strong>joined <strong>Citrix</strong> as<strong> Director, HR</strong>, in 2010. Citrix is a NASDAQ listed $2.6 billion-revenue company, which is a leading provider of virtualisation, networking and software as a service (SaaS) technologies for more than 230,000 organisations worldwide. A doctorate in Human Resource Development from XLRI, Jamshedpur, Bandopadhyay worked in Dell Perot, Cambridge Solutions, Sasken communication and Ashok Leyland Information Technilogy among other companies. It is tough time now for HR practitioners thinks Bandyopadhyay as any function that does not add real value to the organisation are excised these days through downsizing, de-layering and even complete outsourcing. And to succeed now, HR has to deliver values not only to its internal customers but also to the organisation’s customers, investors and the community at large.<br /><br /><strong>What made you to choose HR as a profession?</strong><br />I am in HR for reasons of internal commitment. To make work places more democratic and fair, and to help enable every individual to discover their potential, learn and grow both personally and professionally.<br /><br /><strong>What has been the biggest achievement in your career?</strong><br />To be remembered by professional colleagues in every organisation that I have worked for. To be able to work collaboratively with global business leaders in software domain to build shared leadership and consensus on complex people management issues, providing strategic HR leadership to achieve business and people growth in multi-cultural and multi-locational fast growth environment in India.<br /><strong><br />What have been the primary traits/qualities that have helped you attain your present position?</strong></div><ul><li>Ability to learn, unlearn and re-learn continuously</li><li>Solid Conceptual Knowledge in Human Resource / Organisational behaviour and development areas</li><li>Relate with people and empathise with them, especially in difficult situations</li></ul><div><strong><br />What are the challenges you are facing in organisation?</strong><br />Some of the challenges involve making every individual feel significant and sustaining a culture where creativity and innovation is harnessed to bring out the best in every individual. Also needed are how to future-proof the organisation by building agility and nimbleness in attracting and retaining the best in class talent.<br /><br /><strong>What are the steps a company should take to develop and motivate future leaders?</strong></div><ul><li>Having a shared purpose to mobilise like-minded people together and work together for achieving it</li><li>Institutionalising innovative systems and processes to enable continuous learning</li><li>Empowering individuals in their work roles – helping them to move from a sense of powerlessness to discover their own sense of efficacy and power</li><li>Encouraging individuals to live beyond Organisation Identity</li></ul><div><br /><strong>What is your rate of attrition? How do you prevent it?</strong><br />Our attrition rate is in the range of 8 to 10 per cent. There will always be push and pull factors for attrition. We focus on eliminating push factors and check attrition.<br /><br /><strong>How do you retain talent in your company?</strong><br />We provide an opportunity to work on cutting-edge technology since we are a leader in cloud and virtualisation. Also, we allow work-life balance since and are among the top companies in the world to do so. We allow career growth through management and technical career path<br /><br />Further, we provide an opportunity to file for patents since our engineers have contributed to filing of close to 120 patents so far from Bangalore.<br /><br />All this, together with providing best in class benefits like BYOD (bring in your own device), medical insurance for self and dependant family members, cab service for to and fro journey from home to office, lunch and snacks at cafeteria, book and broadband reimbursement, employee stock purchase plan, RSU, spot bonuses etc help us retain talent.<br /><strong><br />What sets your company apart from other companies as far as work culture goes?</strong><br />Ours is a culture of innovation, respect for individuals and a concern for work-life balance <br /><br /><br /><strong>What is the biggest challenge you face when selecting people?</strong><br />Our challenge is to find extremely competent individuals in specific domain/technology coupled with culture-fit. Out of every 100 resume that we look at, we end up selecting 5 per cent and rejecting the rest.<br /><br /><strong>How do you keep track of employees' satisfaction or dissatisfaction?</strong><br />We do a Global Employee Survey (GES) every year, track feedback at the organisational, SBU and team levels. We work closely with the leadership team along with employees to develop plan for action at all these levels. Before we go for new GES, we share the action plan that we implemented based on last year's feedback. <br /><br /><strong>How has HR been important to the bottom line of the company?</strong><br />The major challenges that today’s organisations are facing are attracting, developing and retaining quality human resources in face of global competition. This obviously would mean that the HR function in any organisation is a significant player in the management team. In the last few years, knowledge economy has transformed the human resource function into a significant management function by living up to the expectations of all stakeholders, be it employees, shareholders, board or the society at large. Today’s successful leaders talk about a meaningful contribution that their human resources (HR) counterparts are enabling their organisations to perform. The stakes are really high for HR now, since in most contemporary organisations, any function that does not add real value to the organisation can be excised through downsizing, de-layering and if required by completely outsourcing. As a matter of fact, the efficacy of HR function is now being judged based on research studies that have conclusively proven that the HR function enhances an organisation’s competitive advantage by adding tangible and measurable economic value. HR function is finally delivering values not to its internal customer but also to the organisation’s customers, investors and the community at large.<br /><br /><strong>How has the downturn affected HR?</strong><br />Realistically speaking, downturn leads to churn and churn in organisation needs to be managed efficiently. This requires effective change management coupled with positive and productive transition. HR is a function that can help organisation leaders to achieve this. <br /><br />Just like an accountant needs professional education and training to set right books of accounts in an organisation; a doctor requires knowledge about human anatomy and many years of practiced skills before he/she goes for a surgery; a marketing manager needs to apply the knowledge that he/she has learned through consumer behaviour and marketing techniques; HR professionals possess the skills and knowledge to manage people especially during the downturn. <br /><br /><strong>How should HR be integrated with the core line of business?</strong><br />During the last few years, most organisations have witnessed spectacular growth. In the process of attaining this explosive growth, organisations have realised that the most valuable asset for them are their human resources. In today’s scenario, the only true long-term differentiator between two similar organisations is their ability to attract, develop and retain their high performing workforce. Other factors like technology edge, financial strength and the systems and processes are no more the true differentiators, since market forces will ensure parity on such parameters in the short term itself. Is HR function alone in an organisation capable of making this differentiation? My answer is absolutely no. In fact, to a great extent this responsibility lies with every line manager. But HR professionals need to partner with line managers and drive this whole process. In order to do so, they need to acquire a different set of competencies which can completely re-conceive and re-configure the HR function - by changing its focus from activities to outcome. HR therefore needs to be fully integrated to business through strategic business plan.<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 />There are many studies which have conclusively proven that organisations that are performing well are positively co-related with strategic application of HR function. At Citrix, HR always works with business to bring in competitive advantage.<br /><br /><strong>If you could change three things about HR practices, what would they be?</strong><br />HR should directly contribute to organisation’s capability building through<br />a) Facilitating work groups for higher productivity: Planning and facilitating meetings and work group sessions that achieve the group’s objective, efficiently utilising the group’s talents and experiences and constructively managing the group’s dynamics<br />b)Applying technology at work-place: Using emerging and appropriate office automation technologies (ranging from simple and user friendly products to complex and comprehensive project management tools) to carry out all HR related process work to accomplish cost and time optimisation. <br />c) Making meaning out of social environment that impacts business: Understanding current and future political environment, relevant social issues, demographic and ethnic trends and governmental regulations that can have impact on business now and in foreseeable future, interpreting, articulating and coaching the leadership team on these issues continuously<br /> </div>
