Dr Sanjeev Dixit is the Global President- Human Capital Management at Cadila Pharmaceuticals and is a global HR leader with over 2 decades of Strategic Corporate HR & CHRO experience across diversified industries and geographies.
He is also the author of the book ‘PLAN C’ which is a hands-on and experience-based framework on achieving business transformation through culture focused strategy
Dr Dixit speaks to us about the challenges faced by the HR sector during the pandemic, how HR leaders can help employees to strike a healthy work-life balance in the age of work-from-home, the role innovation will play in HR processes in the future and much more.
Edited excerpts:
What do you think are some of the biggest challenges HR leaders face in the post-pandemic world?
The most strategic opportunity for HR leaders in the form of business challenges in the new normal of the post-pandemic world are to firstly reinvent much more engaging and active business growth drivers role for self from current transactional, management mouthpiece and business partnering role in terms of engaging with business and organization stakeholders in terms of their key growth priorities and drivers and then dovetailing sharp, specific, measurable and sustainable HR strategic intent and roadmap with smooth execution with a high degree of speed and accuracy. This will ensure business continuity with rigorous focus and review of the business and people KPIs
Secondly, be the champion of values within the enterprise and move away from faking behaviours of duplicity. HR leaders need to not only model the right behaviours themselves but also sensitize their promoters, CEOs and CXOs to walk the talk to build an authentic culture of openness, transparency, trust, collaboration, innovation and excellence. Please note that as I quoted in my globally acclaimed culture building and transformation book PLAN C, “Culture eats strategy all three meals and all these meals are served by CEOs and CXOs”.
Thirdly, HR leaders have to assert their position in the enterprise by leading the de-risking of enterprise from all kinds of current and future business growth linked human capital risks regarding capacity enhancement, right capabilities building, cost management of talent development, a compass of values and right behaviours and culture of authenticity, agility, compassion and resilience through humanized leadership.
In a time when the lines are blurred between home and office life, how can HR leaders help employees create a healthy work-life balance?
In the current and future work environment norms of the hybrid model, more than work-life balance, HR leaders ought to lead by example of work-life rejuvenation and productivity by having a complementary relationship between both and not contradicting or competitive interface.
The core objective should be how each and every team member can give his or her best in this flexible workplace and look at ways to invest time in his or her rejuvenation by sharpening personal and professional strengths, rekindling and celebrating hobbies, devoting time to healing mind, body and soul through whatever suits oneself and live to a great extent a POSITIVE CREDIT life, wherein your time and life balance one has more positive feelings as credit rather than negative balance
Why is it becoming increasingly important now for c to recognise and work towards the mental health and wellbeing of employees?
The environment during and post-pandemic has been in the true sense, very volatile, complex, uncertain and ambiguous which resulted in the real issue of anxiety and vulnerability and therefore rather than being defensive and denying the mental and overall well-being issue, we need to face it head-on and therefore, concerted efforts have to be made to provide virtual and personalized counselling through experts and continuous efforts to give the sense of normalcy by doing to a great extent all the things which were done during normal time and pre-COVID era, in a similar manner, even if it means using virtual platforms productively and judiciously and not excessively leading to further fatigue
How should companies today modify their HR policies to adapt to the changing work models such as remote working?
Policies are only written documents to facilitate intent. The foremost thing is to have the right intent and a sharp objective. The modification is not as much needed in the HR policies as in the mind-set towards HR (Harnessing Resources). Policies should simply be laid down to have flexibility with certain discipline towards key non-negotiable values-oriented behaviours and business requirements for employees to manage their schedule on their own. The focus should be on the right inputs, and the right process, then the output will definitely be right.
What role does innovation play in the future of the HR/hiring process in the new normal?
Innovation is the lifeline of any sustainable and institutionalized solution across time zones and therefore to survive and thrive, innovation in the form of new and incremental improvements is the key.
Innovative technologies such as Artificial Intelligence with cognitive and behavioural analytics blended with virtual tools can be used to assess right-fit talent, work and human talent mapping role design tools, creating customized moments of truth and unique experiences for Human Capital across its life cycle.
More importantly, these are tools to diagnose the current impediments in the working of an enterprise and analytics and AI diagnostics based insights to build PLAN C for moving from a rudimentary level of transactional culture to a higher level of agile, resilient, innovative and futuristic culture led by HR as a culture champion, enterprise growth driver to sensitise senior management, CEOs, promoters and boards to build sustainable and institutionalized value-creating enterprises which have a consistently growing and healthy top and bottom-line through very strong and recharged middle line (core beliefs, core values and positive culture).
A healthy middle line is also key for consistently growing top and bottom-line and not vice-versa. This needs to be drilled into the minds of all the stakeholders of the enterprise by the CEO.