You Need To Recognise High Performance And The Most You Need To Recognise Behaviours: Paul Dupuis

What are the key issues that the HR manager faces in today’s world and at the work place?

This is a real turning point around the world but particularly in India as India matures and evolves as an economy and as a workforce. The role of HR leader is traditionally transactional but that is changing quickly to much more strategic. So the HR leader, now, needs to be an advisor and a coach to the CEO.

How do you ensure that you attract and retain the best available talent?

I am the CEO and I am also the chief talent attraction officer and it is my job to represent the company with pride, with transparency and to attract the best talent to come and join us. Not only join us but to learn and grow with us and to stay with us. So, I do believe CEO has bigger responsibility as well as the senior leaders in the organisation. You need to provide something to the potential candidates with compelling story that touches their hearts and mind, a greater purpose as why the company exists and how we make an impact on the world. Because, we know the young workforce is very cause centric now.

How important is coaching for an employee and an organisation?

As a leader it is one of the key roles to coach and coach. By the way, it does not mean to what and how or even why it is about enabling people to find answers themselves. So a leader and as a coach is absolutely crucial now to effect leadership in a world that is moving forward.

Can a HR Manager hope to be the CEO? What are the areas one needs to work on to achieve this?

I, absolutely, will love to see HR leaders go on to be the heads of business. In fact, as an adviser to the CEO where they are a strategic partner to the business and not transactional. If they group in an environment and they are able to really touch every part of the business, I think the head of HR would be a fine candidate for the role of CEO.

An organisation is all about the dominant work culture. How do you ensure that your organisation’s work culture is one to die for? And that for your employee, the workplace is next only to home?

So, first, it comes with understanding the motivation of the employee or the work of the people who join us and once you understand their motivation we can provide a workplace and an environment that pushes the individual. We do know that the younger workforce as we call them the millennial but they are, strictly, folks in their twenties or thirties who really want to work for a company that has a cause. It is less about the brand and it is more about the cause because that has a direction. Why do you exist as a company, we should make that crystal clear so that when people join you as they are joining you on a journey. And, of course, you need to recognize their effort as well, you need to recognize high performance and the most you need to recognize is behavior of people who are living or breathing the values of your company and put them in a spark. And that’s why people join companies, that’s really what they want.

(Contribution: Rishibha Grover)