Article: 'I approach work with an idea of creating a symphony'

Leadership

'I approach work with an idea of creating a symphony'

Aanchal Bhugra Kothari is also a visiting faculty at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, she enjoys creative writing
'I approach work with an idea of creating a symphony'

In her own words, this is what the ‘Are You In The List’ 2015 winner has to say about herself

Aanchal Bhugra Kothari, Sr. HR Business Partner, Reliance Industries Ltd.

A Gold Medalist and Dean’s List Honour holder at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMiMS), I joined Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Mumbai, as a Management Trainee in 2011. With the opportunity to experiment with a variety of roles and associate myself with the HR Transformation initiative, I recently made it as the youngest selectee onto the Career Acceleration Programme (CAP) and the youngest First Level Leader at RIL.

I am also a visiting faculty at NMIMS, and I also enjoy creative writing.

Core differentiator: Psychological ownership of my responsibilities

I refrain from seeing work as a simple sum of parts delivered by different individuals on an assembly line. I approach it with the idea of creating a symphony where every instrument plays for a synergistic whole.

Biggest talent priority: Engaging and inspiring employees through a strong purpose

My biggest priority is to derive the best outcomes for the organization while providing talent an experience that is difficult to replicate. This could be through encouraging unconventional career paths that allow skill enrichment, empowerment, relaxing restrictions on the narrowness of job-descriptions and embracing cross-functional work team cultures.

The one thing I will:

- Change in HR: Aversion towards being viewed as unpopular 

HR often becomes defensive when it stands the risk of being viewed as unpopular. We need to be more comfortable with being the dissonant voice in the room. If we believe in what we drive, we must champion it with conviction to the line. 

- Retain in HR: Driving a fair &transparent work environment

We serve as custodians of the policies and processes that reinforce the organization’s culture and impact employee experience. As we segway into the automation era, we must do so without losing the high-touch in favor of the high-tech future.

My ideas to disrupt HR:

HR will cannibalize parts of itself to be a true business accelerator. HR’s organization, roles and priorities will change and the requisite competencies will also mature.

I would work towards determining the optimum mix of in-house vs. outsourced vs. time-bound consultative services. A leaner in-house HR team would be focused on driving culture, nurturing talent, gluing together the service mix for synergies and setting business aligned workforce strategies drawing upon rich analytics from technology enabled processes.

For occupying HR vacancies in the future, I will tap non-traditional channels for individuals having business experience and an orientation towards employee advocacy. This would provide a pool of individuals with better context of the operating environment and bring fresh perspectives. Career HR professionals would also need to go through significant business immersion.

 

Here’s the list of other winners:

JAY THAKKAR - Head - Compensation & Benefits and HR Operations, Aditya Birla Housing Finance Limited

NEHA SHARMA - Senior Employee Relations Manager, ICICI Bank

AMIT PAPNEJA - Manager-Field Readiness, Asian Paints Ltd.

AVIJIT SHASTRI - Divisional Manager - Channel HR, Commercial Vehicle TATA Motors

NIRANJANA HARIKUMAR - Lead- Learning and Organizational Development, Piramal Group

SOUMITRA ACHARYA - Head HR Analytics, Mahindra & Mahindra

KUMAR ABHIMANYU - Participant - Career Acceleration Program, Reliance Industries Ltd

ALI IMRAN SYED -Global Learning & Organization Development Manager, Avery Dennison 

RICHA SINGH - Senior HR Officer, HPCL

VARUN TANDON - Associate Consultant, Salto Dee Fe Consulting

BHRIGU JOSHI - Head - Talent Management & Development, MakeMyTrip.com

SHAILY RAMPAL MISRA - Associate General Manager, HCL Technologies Ltd.

ABHINAV IYER - Senior Manager - Leadership & People Sciences, Wipro

BENJAMIN RAJKUMAR - Manager - Leadership Development, Titan Company Ltd 

NEHA SAXENA - Senior HR Business Partner, Adobe.

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Topics: Leadership, #AreyouintheList?, #FutureHRLeadership

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