Post pandemic, HR managers had to redesign strategies

IndiGlobal Bureau

There is not a single sector that has not been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and like all departments, the human resources department too has had to relook and redefine strategies. The theme- ‘The changing face of Human Resources’ for a panel discussion at the recently concluded 2nd IndiGlobal Education Festival (IGEF) threw up a lot of interesting questions and the panellists discussed at length.

Dr Sujiv Nair, CHRO & Chief Transformation Officer, Re Sustainability Limited who moderated the session said, “Connectedness and flexibility are the key to managing talent moving forward. Reporting officer and employee relationships are gaining attention and will be critical in shaping employee experience.” In the changed scenario wrought by the pandemic, the workplace, the way of doing business, talent and job building and HR Tech too has changed. Ms Anandita Mookherjee, Head, Corporate Communications, Hyderabad Metro Rail, said, “HR should be the interface between employees and management. HR is the department that can pull up the company to reach profitability. HR can let the business grow up into an organisation and further it can grow up to the institution.

More control to the employees

Ever since the pandemic broke out and employees started working from home, the debate of ‘work-from-home vs returning to office’ has been raging and the opinions are divided. Prof Ganesh MP, Head, Entrepreneurship and Management, IIT Hyderabad said, “Post pandemic has created a new kind of context, where the usage of virtual work spaces and the new media tool has become normal now. HR managers should give more control to the employees as a policy to decide by themselves how to work and facilitate work from home and also from office is what I think is the long-term solution.

Echoing a pro-employee friendly approach, Phani Karnati, Associate Vice President (Data Science & Technology), SP Soft Global, Hyderabad said, “HR is an evolving sector in any organisation and is directly related to the employees. Employee delight is the key, there is a lot of necessity that we can do to get the employees into the company and retain them by providing the best of the necessities within the organisation.”

On the issue if HR Tech is taking away jobs Ashish Mittal, Group CHRO, Sreenidhi Educational Group was of the opinion that technology platforms can actually help an HR Manager to perform his/her job effectively and efficiently. It really helps the HRs to perform their jobs better.  HR techs does not take away jobs of Human Resources professionals assists them so that they are able to take better care of the employees. Yadhu Kishore NandiKolla, Director, Human Resource MassMutua opined, “Human Resource managers themselves had to adopt and help the organisation to adopt the new change. Therefore, right through the pandemic and post pandemic HRs had to help the organisation to redesign the structures and create a culture where the managers are hosted and mentored to help team members in getting a sense of belonging. Vinay Agarwal, Global Head, Business HR, Tech Mahindra said, “Virtuality brought by the pandemic has made fundamental changes globally across all the industries and the cloud adoption, user experience and analytics are bringing a big change in the organization internally too.