Dialogue with Darwin

Welcome Mr. Sudhakar. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us today on, uh, the series of Dialogue with Darwin. This is a series where we want to bring, uh, thought leaders from the industry to share insights on what are certain aspects in HR, where great evolution has happened in the decades of experience that you've had. And I'm trying to do a math on my own and say that's about 35 years. Yes, yes. Right? Yeah. Uh, what is one thing that has changed from the day you started your career to now?

See, uh, technology. When we started our work, there were no computers. Mm-hmm one fine morning. Around 1992, 93, a laptop was kept on my table. I didn't, I did not know how to start the machine. And today my life doesn't start or end without the intervention technology, whether it's a cell phone, whether it's iPad or a laptop. So that's a change which I myself can't believe. How did we adapt to this situation? And if you havenot adapted, I don't think, uh, we will be in any way servicing the needs of the employees.

True. True. Your point of view on how do you think organizations approach towards what they want out of technology or what they want out of digitalization has changed?

See, the primary thing is initially employers felt cost is a factor in technology, but as they started understanding business case for implementation of technology, interventions, HR, and what it brings to, uh, the happiness quotient of employees, things have radically changed. Mm-hmm we have invested lot money on technology because we have almost 6,000 employees across several locations in India and even overseas. Now the speed with which an employee gets his information needs addressed, that radically had changed. This way, the person can focus on work rather than gathering information.

Even as a global organization, somebody in Nigeria fills up a form, many times it is lost in the courier. Today, there is no such problem at all. Because, right from the immediately supervisor, reviewing officer and the final, everybody is doing it online. So, you know how much each one has taken time to fill up the papers. Analytics coming out of this whole process also has helped us quite a well.

So, you're saying it has moved from pure cost optimization to actually delivering experience and connecting people. Yes, correct? Yes. So what do you think has been a great change that happened in the way talent hiring or talent acquisition has been approached?

See in the last almost, uh, decade and a half technology has played a crucial role in HR. You mentioned about talent, uh, acquisition. Uh, I think that's one area where companies have been utilizing, uh, technology to a great extent. If we are hiring about 200 to 300 frontline. Now the amount of time we used to spend in hiring such a people was too cumbersome and many times our turnaround time for hiring people in the front line used to be too long, much to the discomfort of the sales teams. Now we started using digital transformation in, talent acquisition, it has substantially reduced our TAT with regard to the hiring.

What if you have to rename the function? HR? I think HR is a function in terms of strategy in terms of implementation very crucial for the company. And that's why I say this is a business enabler function.

What is one book that you would recommend your team to read? It's Good to Great.

What is one aspect about a team member that you've admired the most?

Somebody whom I don't need to remind, that is one thing which, you know, I tell my team members don't chase money, chase work.

Great. Great. Thank you very much. Uh Sudhakar for joining us today. Thank you. It was a pleasure hosting you. Thank you. Thank you.