The second HR Summit and International Conference organised by IIM-Raipur which explored the Emerging challenges in the field of HR from a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA)perspective concluded here on Saturday.
The event saw participation of more than 24 HR professionals from varied sectors as they contemplated on how to face VUCA business challenges.
Panel discussions and paper presentations, conducted as part of the event, lent an academic flavour to the Summit as the speakers tried to examine how VUCA-capable leaders helped build successful businesses.
The Summit concluded on a high note with the valedictory session. G. Ojha, Visiting Professor and Summit Advisor, IIM Raipur ascertained that the key to an organisation’s success lies in its adaptability and agility with which it copes with the ever changing environment.
“An avid acumen matched with a robust zeal to develop new perspectives is what defines the leaders in a VUCA world”, remarked Mr. Ojha.
l.T. Sherpa, ED (P&A), Bhilai Steel Plant, SAIl and the keynote speaker for the valedictory session appreciated the importance of such summits saying, “The industry and academics confluence is essential, and it is in such summits that the students as well as the organisations as a whole are enlightened.”
Citing various examples of crisis like that of Greece, he analogically compared VUCA to an earthquake whose epicentre is elsewhere, but the impact is widespread. He concluded saying that HR’s roles have always been a subject of uncertainty and hence the organisations should continuously evolve with time.
In his address to the students of IIM Raipur and attending delegates, Prof. B.S. Sahay, Director IIM Raipur, expressed his gratitude towards all the speakers hailing across varied industries for sharing their valuable experiences that would enrich the skill set of students. He further advised the students to roll up their sleeves and implement the lessons learnt during the course of the two-day event in their life.
He also remarked that events like this provide an essential learning experience besides the classroom teaching as they offer an interface where students get to know how to solve real business problems.
Over the course of the day, two panel discussions explored real world problems faced by HR executives. The first discussion was on “HR Analytics and Metrics”. Recruitment, employee engagement, talent retention and performance management for an HR professional were some of the major themes that were explored during the discussion.
Murlidhar Shyam, VP – Group HR RJ Corp Healthcare, showcased the use of HR analytics in Recruitments. He explained how HR analytics could be leveraged to improve the quality of intake.
“We look at the points whose impact on our business is of immediate nature.” He cautioned the HRs against being fully satisfied with their own HR policies as there is always room for improvement.
Use of analytics for employee engagement within the organisation was discussed by Ajay Nair, CHRO, Housing.com. He stressed on how important it was to eliminate feelings and biases from data in analytics.
“Torture the data, not the person associated with it,” he asserted. Adding to the discussion Anil K Misra, CHRO, Fidelity National Financial, elaborated on the predictive ability of analytics for top talent retention. He described how risk profiling is done in order to identify talent at risk of attrition and consequently intervening to engage them for retention.
Micky Chopra, VP, Human Capital, Taction Software llC remarked that it is essential to understand the data and know the objective of the research before going ahead with the analysis. This helps the organisation for facing business challenges effectively. Sandeep Tyagi, Director HR Samsung, directed the discussion towards performance management. He said, “In today’s world, there is high pressure on organisation performance, which subsequently weighs down heavily on the shoulders of the employees.”
He highlighted that performance reviews are done on a daily basis. So an “HR has to perform for the business to perform.”
The next panel discussion dealt with issues relating to “Competency Management.” The panel tried to focus on paradigm shifts within the HR function in order to maintain compliance and for building organisational capability. They highlighted the importance of matching the organisational and individual competencies for gaining competitive advantage.