Balancing Technology And Human Element In The New Normal

This ‘new normal’ brought in a lot of innovative solutions in every aspect of leaders’ roles. To ensure that the employees are safe, connected, productive and motivated, leaders had to take the right and quick decisions. Sourya Sidhhartha Dash explained his priorities in terms of keeping employees in the centre of every decision - be it to ensure that the teams stay connected through 'Virtual Café' or modifying employee and talent processes to the changed setup or moving quickly to digital ways of working for learning.

It is critical for any professional to invest in the growth of others – especially young talent by grooming and developing them. Dash discussing guiding young professionals stated, “For me, this mentorship is not just about helping them overcome a difficult task or learn a new skill, I focus on ‘building character’ and ‘thinking’, by investing time in stimulating conversations, questioning decisions and thought patterns and providing direction wherever required.”

Currently working as General Manager-HR, EVP & Culture at signify. Sourya has worked in multiple industries including retail, automobile, healthcare, Pharma, Power and FMCD. His key contribution is manpower planning & rationalization, talent acquisition and retention and performance management. He was also instrumental in rolling out a robust sales incentive plan and streamlining the performance management process.

Dash leads with action-oriented plans and solution inclined strategies. Furthermore, he shared that in his tenure till now he brought down attrition from 32 per cent to 19 per cent through continuous engagement and leadership development.  He launched We launched a program 'Get Set Glow' focusing on the theme of 'Newer Ways of doing things,' 'Radical Collaboration' and 'Giving back to society' which enabled in re-stimulating the energy in the organization which is now reflected in business picking up as well in an upswing in our Employee NPS score.

At Signify, he launched a program during the current COVID times to ensure the morale of the employees is high. To do that, he brought the focus on two critical elements i.e. ‘Resilience’ and ‘Recognition’, which was the need of the hour. This was brought alive in the form of role models within the organization, employee stories, external examples, leadership connect as well recognizing and calling out our champions in the organization who have shown resilience in tough times.

Sharing his outlook about HR as a function, Dash states, ‘HR leaders walking the talk and having more courage to do what is right and not just what is convenient. Dash believes, “HR Is important to have as the function as it is the conscience keeper of an organization and has to balance between employee advocacy and organizational priority.”