In Conversation With Manish Sinha, CHRO, Mahindra Finance

With more than two and a half decades of experience across diverse industries, could you share a career highlight or a challenging HR initiative you have led from the front?

I’m reminded of one of my earlier experiences. There was a food plant in Punjab which had a multi-union crisis. There were multiple unions, and all the unions had given their charter of demand. The Plant HR Manager had left suddenly, due to which my HR Director requested me to handle the crisis.

I felt that this could be a great learning opportunity and therefore I took up the role, handled the situation in a way whereby we were able to demonstrate and establish our values driven culture and ways of working. We had to make multiple rounds of representations in front of District and State authorities. We continued to play fair, communicated directly with the community, and kept the head office informed through the process.

There was a strike, and we declared a lock out in the plant. We eventually were able to establish the law of the land, followed the disciplinary process and set an example of the right work environment.

It not only resonated with the Indian leadership but even at a global level, this was cited as one of the best examples of how a crisis was solved on the grounds of purpose and values of the organisation.

What are the strategies you've employed to foster collaboration within diverse teams?

I've had the honour of working both in India and abroad, especially with two large multinational organisations. I've worked in India, handled global projects, and worked internationally with one of those organisations. The first and foremost learning is to respect local intelligence, follow the law of the land, and be open to diverse and contrasting views. One must learn to romance the challenger, respect his/her wisdom, always keep transparent and open channels of communication, never shut the door on anyone, and make sure that agility is balanced with thoughtfulness.

So, how do you influence your global/ local peers who don’t report into you? How do you influence shaping of business views and not stay fixed in a functional silo?

Let me take the example of my U.S. stint when we were driving restructuring actions globally. I learnt to respect local nuances, follow the law of the land, empower the local teams to drive execution.

In one of the companies that I worked; we had three acquisitions in four years. Now, all of them were independent, large organisations and were successful. It was important to do a due diligence on the mindset, on culture and to ensure that people wholeheartedly join the workforce without feeling sidelined. We successfully drove change management and cultural integration process to ensure that the new employees felt welcomed and part of the larger organisation.

Closer home, in my Mahindra & Mahindra Auto stint, you're aware of where we were in 2019 and the products that we launched from 2020 to 2023 (from a Thar to XUV700 to Bolero Neo to Scorpio). While we may see this as a product-based success, if you ask any leader, honestly, it's largely due to massive culture change. We drove culture change via the new performance management, introduction of new leadership behaviours, talent management process, continuous communication from the top, reinforcing that the what and how of actions are equally important.

At Mahindra Finance, how have you driven CSR, Infrastructure and Services, D&I and the ESG agenda within the organisation?

I think CSR has been a fundamental pillar for the organisation. We have been working on the Nanhi Kali Project, Women Empowerment initiatives like Mahindra Pride Classroom and skill centres.  At our Mahindra Hariyali Project, we are planting coffee, fruit, legume, and forest species in the Araku region of Andhra Pradesh with the help of local communities.

The financial and digital literacy programme that we have started in the last couple of years has had a solid start. We are working with farmers, drivers, MSMEs as part of this initiative. We have driven Project Swabhimaan where we are giving scholarships for drivers’ children, road safety training for drivers, e-rickshaw driver training for women drivers.

The water conservation projects, the skill training for people with disabilities - there are multiple vocational training programs that we are running across the country.

Infrastructure and services have been partnering the business in growing our branches. Currently, we are in the process of expanding our branch footprint across the country. The I&S vertical has been working in tandem with the business teams on making sure that the look and feel of the branches matches our reputation. We have refurbished multiple branches. We have made our branches more accessible geographically.

On the D&I front, we have led whole host of initiatives have been launched - inclusive policies for women, maternity related policies which got widely recognized in the industry, focus on maternity support, safe and comfortable travel and accommodation, IVF support, our menstrual wellness policy has been acknowledged as one of the best practices in the industry. We have the Mahindra Finance Prarambh Program which is essentially a strategic partnership between us and Manipal Academy of BFSI, exclusively for women candidates where they go through a rigorous 30-day certification course prior to joining us in frontline roles.

All employees at mid and senior management levels have been covered through an innovative theatre-based workshop to help them realise the impact of the unknown but profound biases that they may have and how it inhibits inclusion at the workplace.

We've done multiple perspective building sessions with our leaders where senior leaders talk about their own biases that they overcame. I'm sure you're aware of our She’s on the Rise program. We are in the process of starting Mahindra World of Women, which is Women led Employee Research Group (ERGs) across seven circles and one for the corporate. We were identified as the happiest workplace for women by a media house.

What are your thoughts on key HR elements like organisation design, talent strategy, and culture transformation?

When one is building a business, expanding its footprint, or ramping it down, in almost all scenarios, I've had the privilege of working with multiple CEOs across organisations. We have designed the talent strategy, keeping these aspects in mind. We have consciously worked on developing talent from within the organisation. In almost all organisations, including Mahindra, we have worked on building multiple levels of leadership intervention and incubation. It is right from the time that someone joins us straight out of college, moving into middle management and senior management roles, while rotating your best-in-class talent to give them differentiated experiences.

Let us take M&M as an example. The entire concept of the Future Shapers and Mahindra Accelerated Leadership Track program, which essentially was driven by the corporate, has really helped us accelerate the learning/ careers of people and provide them a holistic opportunity to grow as a functional/ business leader. It has accelerated moves outside of their home business / sector/ functional domains and motivated them to take up roles with significantly higher levels of complexity/ growth potential across the Mahindra Group. It’s a beautiful example of how org design and talent strategy go hand in hand. A large part of our senior level roles now gets filled up internally.

In almost all organisations, culture transformation is tough. It takes a long time, but I have seen it happen. There are multiple organisations which have been able to transform and get into a new avatar. And just to dial back on the M&M piece itself, the entire leadership behaviours, the new ways of differentiating and rewarding talent, the new talent management philosophy of M&M clearly has been a cornerstone of success of M&M over the last 3-4 years.

What leadership principles do you believe are universal in nature?

Leadership principles that continue to be universally effective include creating an environment where people are psychologically safe, respecting them for who they are, being authentic, empowering them and leading by example.  They should feel safe to challenge and offer a contrarian point of view, creating transparent and open channels of communication, making a mistake is encouraged and making sure that our actions speak louder than words.

How have I implemented it? I think I can share multiple examples. I am reminded of my stint as a rewards leader in an organisation where we had to redesign the compensation structure, introduce the concept of broad banding, flexi pay, KRA based variable pay system. Given that it was done 20 years back, it was quite an innovative concept at that time. We had to work with senior leaders to allay their apprehensions, create change champions/ allies, make them the change leaders to drive it across the length and breadth of the country.