By 2025 robots will be sitting on the boards of companies: Senior VP-HR, Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting
In an exclusive interview with BW People, Rajesh Sahay, Senior Vice President - Human Resource, Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting talks about the importance of an inspiring workplace, impacts of women on growth of the company. He also underlines the challenges of working with instant gratification seeking millennials.
Edited Excerpts from his interview.
1. What is the value of Wellness of your workforce? What steps are you taking for it in your organisation?
At Wipro Consumer Care, we believe that we should be a “Great Place to Belong” for our employees. Wellness is an essential aspect of this belief. We take a 360 view of employees’ wellness that considers all aspects - employee social security, wealth creation, lifestyle, children’s education and comprehensive health care plan for employees, their family and dependent parents. We have a healthcare assistant mobile app that helps employees manage their wellness on the go.
2. What is the importance of an inspiring workplace?
Today, proper compensation and career road are a given. For higher productivity and tenure, companies need to inspire employees through other measures and this is what enables better employer branding. At Wipro Consumer Care “Great Place To Belong” initiative focuses on Nurturing Change makers in leadership, inclusivity and integrity, apart form Wellness. These we believe are essential for motivating and inspiring our team.
The other crucial aspect is our absolute focus on growth. Wipro Consumer Care’s revenues have grown 21X in 15 years. This would not have been possible if it was not for our rigorous grooming of our team with a focus on growth and nurturing them to achieve it.
3. Can we leave an important decision as hiring a Robot?
Recently I was asked, “how would you react if Sofia was your boss?” I said I would love it as Sofia is designed to answer questions and not ask! Isn’t that a fantastic situation? Robots are similar. While it is predicted that by 2025, Robots will be sitting on the boards of companies, we still have a long way to go. Right now, robots can help in executing repetitive jobs effectively and more intelligence can be built to add more value-add services. Bottom line – Humans will still take the calls and be responsible for decision making.
4. What are the challenges of working with instant gratification seeking millennials?
We live in an instant gratification era and that is not limited to millennials. We live in an age where soon after one posts a message on Facebook, they start checking on likes and comments. Millenials get early responsibility and complete accountability of the role assigned to them leading them to own their actions, results, success and failures. This is too being a way of instant gratification.
5. How is it having 60 percent women workforce in your company?
Diversity of all forms is a strength for us be it gender, nationality, geography or business lines. We value it highly.
6. How do women impact the growth of the company if they are in top leadership roles?
We have seen it have a positive impact. Women in our leadership have the rigour, passion, commitment and experience necessary for a leadership role. Wipro Consumer Care believes in both meritocracy and diversity.
7. What are the best practices that CHRO’s are leveraging from social media for the right kind of hiring and recruitment?
Social media is an excellent platform for not communication but also for engagement. It has helped us engage with candidates and make them understand why Wipro Consumer Care is a “Great Place to Belong.” We use LinkedIn effectively for all our talent engagement external programmes.
8. A job interview is a conversation between two liars, how to get the best out of that is the skill of a CHRO. Can you give us some hacks for the same?
Hiring is a process similar to selling. Candidates will try all measures they know. They will market themselves strongly. It is the job of the evaluator to separate the wheat from the chaff. The needs to validate the claims made by the candidate. One way that has worked for me is taking the candidate away from the contents of the resume and probe them through different scenarios. The same applies to candidates too. They should be able to understand if the evaluator is overselling the role or the Company.
