In Conversation with S.Y. Siddiqui, Executive Advisor & Board Member & Former COO, Maruti Suzuki India
Formative years and key milestones
My thanks & gratitude to BW for their kind gesture. Feel privileged.
My career started at Escorts Ltd. in July 1979, a highly reputed & professional company. I think it was a great start to my HR career.
Initially, as I remember, my focus was on building my own professional identity. With my sports - cricket background, I was naturally a team player with a positive attitude, high adaptability & confidence to take up challenges.
At Escorts I got the opportunity to work with very senior & talented HR professionals. I started with Welfare & IR role & was job rotated to Training & development. It was great learning in my initial career.
I made my first career change to DCM Group (Dr. Bharat Ram) & joined in a Corporate HR Role in March 1983. Shortly got the key position & role of HR responsible for a new Project – DCM Toyota Ltd – a greenfield Auto Company Project at Gr. Noida. It was a challenging role to set up the HR function, formulate new HR Policies in co-ordination with DCM group & Toyota Japan and drive a big recruitment effort to set up the business in a record time.
Working with the top management of DCM Group & Japanese colleagues from Toyota gave me huge learning in HR, Shopfloor Work Practices, General Management and Leadership rather early in my career. I got a fast-track career growth & was given the Head HR Position in 1989 at a relatively young age.
Subsequently, I experienced the restructuring of the company with Daewoo Motors of South Korea becoming a majority partner & company renamed as DCM Daewoo Motors & with the addition of Passenger Cars in the product range.HR had to drive the big transition in Org structure, manpower plan & HR Policies part of the restructuring. Working with Korean professionals & the top management was quite different & challenging to adapt.
Could you please highlight some key milestones and accomplishments during your career?
My career span of more than 4 decades in HR & Business roles in highly reputed MNCs reflects a unique achievement of working with multi nationalities & multicultural environments with great success. One aspect which I can emphasize is that I made my own decisions based on details & homework. Also, I was guided by my ethical values. So independent decision-making was the key from the early part of my career.
I was equally at ease working with top Indian companies such as Escorts & DCM Group and hugely successful also with renowned MNCs like Toyota Motor Corp Japan, FIAT Group namely New Holland Tractors and Maruti Suzuki part of Suzuki Japan.
After 14 years at DCM, I joined New Holland Tractors (FIAT Group) in May 1997 as Director, HR after a series of Interviews including the final Interview at New Holland Head Office in London. The 7 years at New Holland Tractors were professionally a great opportunity to get into a global HR perspective & rubbing shoulders with Italian, British, American, European & Australian colleagues.
Joined Maruti Suzuki in Sept.2003 as Head of HR My role was expanded in Sept 2005 - Corporate HR Lead role for all Suzuki Group Companies (Suzuki Motorcycle/ Suzuki Powertrain etc) in India by Chairman, Suzuki Japan. That was a huge career recognition.
After the retirement of the Indian MD & CEO in Dec 2007, I was given an enlarged position & role of COO (HR/ Finance/ IT/ Legal) and handled the role well for 5 years with my colleagues in Finance/IT/Legal and ensured good business success & people engagement.
My leadership journey is a pool of experiences from HR to Board level: Some very positive experiences, some not-so-positive experiences. During this journey handling adversity too was a test of my leadership character However, I think in all such situations it led to invaluable learning experiences.
Some Career Milestones:
External Bodies: Key Positions Held
Roles and responsibilities
What does your current role as ‘Executive Advisor & Board Member’ at Maruti Suzuki entail?
In our company after superannuation at 60 years the senior management people are generally offered an extension to continue contributing & are designated as Executive Advisors. In my case, I started the Executive Advisor term in August 2018 but continued in my executive role as Head of the Realty Business Vertical of Maruti Suzuki. I also continued as Invitee to the Board.
You have been a strong advocate of getting CHROs for Board and C-Suite leadership positions. How do you see the role of a CHRO aligning with the responsibilities of a board member? What unique perspectives can a CHRO bring as a ‘board’ member?
With the external environment showing signs of turbulence, digital disruption & unpredictability People's challenges are increasingly getting complex. People Leadership, therefore, will be a critical competency part of the new DNA of Leadership i.e. Business Heads, COOs & CEOs. As we all experienced post-COVID, compassionate Leadership has become a big trait for getting the best people outcomes. Thus, CHROs with the best capabilities in managing people challenges and with a pro-active understanding of key business parameters will certainly make for good business leaders and board-level roles. The ability to effectively handle people issues and drive transformation will help CHROs at devising Board level strategies.
In my view, the unique perspectives a CHRO may bring as a ‘board member’:
To sum up the desired Leadership model I think content, character & credibility will be critical for CHROs at the Board level. Ethical & governance perspective will be another potential contribution from CHROs.
Succession Planning
When top leaders call it quits, we have examples of organisations implementing successful succession strategies, however, we have also had instances where companies have struggled to fill the vacuum at the top. What approaches would you encourage senior HR leaders and decision-makers to take to ensure robust leadership pipelines for successful succession planning?
I believe a formal Policy & Process on Succession Planning should be formulated & approved at the Board level part of Nominations & Remuneration Committee of Directors. The Succession Planning should be reviewed twice a year or even annually by the top leadership and by the Board. Then it will work well without the need for firefighting.
The Succession Planning process must focus on identified Key positions e.g. CFO/ CMO/ CTO/CHRO etc. and focus on capability development for succession on two contenders for each position with 3~5 years potential. Individual development plan for each identified talent will strengthen the process of succession.
I think the Succession Planning Process need to focus on creating a Talent pool of high potential from Junior Management level ~ to middle & senior management level. The process should provide for specific development plans for HIPOs including Job Rotations/ Deputation/ Special Projects/ Exposure thru CFTs.
The Process should also facilitate 70~75% internal talent focus & 25~ 30% hiring of potential talent from the market to promote healthy competition.
Challenges & Future of HR Function
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges for a CHRO in today’s VUCA world?
The key challenge is to change one’s own mindset first – Selectively delete the past. The willingness & intent to acquire new knowledge & competence can only happen if one is prepared to de-learn and re-learn. Therefore, the first challenge for a CHRO in the VUCA or BANI world is the flexibility & willingness to understand the economic environment and global business trends & its impact on the business and people strategy for the future.
Another challenge will be the capability to relate to the business strategy and the need to closely align the people strategy accordingly. Strategic HR with focus on HR Analytics, HR Forecasting & HR measurement will be the way forward.
Post COVID & with the digital disruption, WFH/WFO/WFA, emerging new jobs & new skills and capability building aligned to the new world order will alter the landscape of people processes including HR Technology adoption. Adapt & adopt will be the new ability. Hence HR Transformation will be a major challenge & a basic pre-requisite for board room deliberations.
In my view flexibility, change, transformation and consequential challenges have been part of corporate life in the past too. Hence with the digital era, tech transition with a focus on automation, speed, transparency & reach will lead to Jobs of tomorrow & new emerging skills will be higher in demand. The emerging skills will have a shorter shelf & utility value hence reskilling & upskilling will be a continuous need. Hence in the future Learning Capacity will be more critical than talent alone.
The Employers & employees both will need to align to this change & need for continuous reskilling/ upskilling/ capability building. Those who are able to adjust & adapt will be able to stay strongly relevant and those who are not will face serious challenges and may not stay relevant. However, in my thinking, this transition can be managed well by proactive top leadership interventions and willingness to build people capabilities thru multiple new age L&D alternatives including E-Modules etc.
How do you see HR technology evolving in the next few years, and what impact will it will have on HR processes and employee experience?
The impact of the digital era will be varying in different industry sectors. Manufacturing, IT/ITES, FMCG, and Telecom will all be different. Therefore, in my thinking, we will have to perhaps keep that in mind when we look at redefining the impact of HR Technology for the future of HR, or the workplace.
In my view, the impact of HR technology on the work culture of any company will start with disruption, discomfort and maybe a basic tendency of resistance. There will also be a positive perspective of technology that organizations will be having a much faster reach, speed, responsiveness & measurement leading to high performance than before. People will be working from different kinds of geographies, and locations, maybe from home. That will definitely bring in a new thought process for redefining or reinventing HR. At the same time, it is also extremely important to maintain a balance between Hi-Tech & Hi-Touch.
Enhanced HR technology will significantly impact internal communications regarding key company events, Monthly/ Quarterly business performance and Economic environment including Town hall meetings of Top Management. HR Technology will become a great enabler for connecting with employees across work locations and resolving their day-to-day transactional needs faster. It will help to decentralise HR Processes & create greater people connection & engagement.
HR Technology will refine, refresh and redefine important HR Sub systems – Recruitment including Campus Hiring, Onboarding, PMS & Career Growth, Job Rotations, HR Analytics, Forecasting etc.
Digitalisation will also have huge potential to transform the Learning & Development offerings through e-learning modules & e-games leading to higher involvement, internalisation & flexibility in the capability development process. De-learning, re-learning or re-skilling all would become relatively more effective & relevant through Digitalisation.
But most critical in my view will be the right balance between the Hi-Tech & Hi-Touch which may define the ultimate success in terms of people outcomes – intrinsic motivation, engagement, retention & commitment.
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