‘PHYGITAL’ Leadership In Radical Times
The value of an effective leader is felt when in swirling times the leader acts as a saviour and a reliable source for hundreds of dependant employees. It is then that the visionary leader who emerges as a true hero.
Harsh Mariwala, Chairman, Marico too emphasised upon the same aspect during Fireside chat with Anurag Batra, Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld at BW People organised CEO and CHRO conclave upon the aspects of Leadership and Human Resources on the 29th of May 2021.
“Comparing the adversities of both the waves, in comparison with the first one, leaders now have been tip-toed to the needs of employees as fatality rates shot up during the second wave and companies had to go over-board to the level of arranging oxygen and concentrators for employees and their families,” explained Mariwala.
Also, the second wave required a lot of hand-holding from the leaders at personal level and many companies also witnessed its positive outcomes with employees feeling a strong support-system standing by them as their back.
Mariwala stated that in such times, leadership across segments should invest a lot on company’s cultural aspects as it does help companies going off-grounds. With no hierarchical ladder to follow, If employees are given an open hand to reach whomsoever they wish to at any level for guidance or help, it does open greater avenues of trust towards employers.
Going forward, companies will have to protect their employees just like their assets. Quoting from his own initiative, Mariwala stated, “in order to secure our field staff too, we began taking orders on phone or digitally and even trained the field staff on how to cater to customer needs digitally in this ‘new world’ as Paul Dupius too rightly quoted.
Operating and living in the digitally curated world, Mariwala applauds all those companies who have readily embraced technology and played a very important role in this new shift in both the waves.
Mariwala also points out, “while digital business will be the new normal it will also be important to see as to in which sector the employee is catering to.” There is always a merit in interacting socially and if there is a high degree of dependency between people, you will have to combine it with work-from-home module as well.
“In our kind of business there still will be good number of interactions and dialogues as dialogues lead to diversity, different ways of thinking, innovation, etc. Hence giving rise to ‘PHYGITAL’ (mix of physical and digital) environment.”
The only possibility of diverting it completely to work from home is if the work is completely at individual level, like in IT.
Mariwala’s concluding statements were that, “virtual will only have to suffice certain physical meets in order to keep up the radar of digital transformation, hence relying on digital tools will be quite normal.”
