Ranjani Kearsley is the Global Head-HR of Fidelity International and a renowned global young leader. She studied Economics and Management at the London School of Economics (LSE) and went ahead to choose a career in HR owing to her fascination with human behavior and decision making. Her first job was at an investment bank, where she developed a first-hand appreciation of why some teams are so successful and a major role that a good leader plays in motivating and developing them. She shares, “Some of my early role models were not only good people managers but leaders who had a good balance of empathy and a razor-sharp focus on the bottom line.”
She believes that the business ecosystem is changing constantly and no amount of prediction and scenario planning can truly prepare leaders for what is around the corner. She suggests that leaders should equip themselves with real-time subject matter expertise, look behind facts and figures to the insights and the stories, and create an environment of trust within their teams. She adds that HR plays an instrumental role in helping leaders to enable all of this - especially trust, which is the hardest to create.
Amidst all the uproar about ‘disruption’, she states, “I’m over the word ‘disruption’. It seems to suggest that something static is being bombarded by a one-off cataclysmic event, whereas what we are experiencing is not a finite event. I think it’s fairer to say that digital evolution (some call it Darwinism) is our current reality and organizations need to constantly adapt to what’s next, and if they are really smart, leapfrog it.” On being asked about the impact of digitization on HR and how Fidelity is handling those challenges, she shares, “At Fidelity, we now have design thinkers and UX specialists involved in our people practices and are incorporating wearable tech and virtual reality into our recruitment processes. We are issuing the robots in our processes with corporate IDs and including them on structure and governance charts. When we were building our capabilities on various HR systems across the company, having integrated platforms on the cloud wasn't just a nice thing to have, but absolutely non-negotiable.” She doesn't agree with many AI evangelists who say that the HR function itself will die out only to be replaced by machine learning and algorithms. She suggests HR professionals adapt and draw both inspiration and insight from different sources to make HR processes more intuitive and accessible by using technology effectively.
In order to manage the future workforce, Ranjani believes leaders can create the right environment to foster the learning culture and ensure alignment to a common vision so that even as the workforce is adapting, it is still headed in the right direction. “At Fidelity, we want our leaders to not only have domain mastery but also real 'breadth'. A versatile mix of technical and experiential learning translates to leaders who can succeed in vastly different situations and cope with the shifting leadership demands of today.” says Ranjani.
Talking about women at the leadership position, Ranjani feels women are still under-represented in senior positions. But she believes that today most businesses recognize that there is a proven link between diverse teams and the impact on business profitability, and the way to deal with inherent unconscious biases is to increase awareness and acknowledge them. “At Fidelity, we see inclusion as the activity and diversity as the outcome. We run a number of initiatives which try to increase access for people from under-represented parts of the workforce who can find it difficult to break in (be it women, people from different social classes, or those returning to work after career breaks). As far as the future of work is concerned, I sincerely hope that one day we all move away from labels and stereotypes and see each individual as unique in their own right, rather than belonging to a 'group'. “
She advises CEOs and CHROs to understand the shifts that are taking place in this evolving landscape and develop digital leaders in order to match up with the current needs of the market. She adds, “Digital leaders are fairly easy to spot - they are hungry for the new and the next, willing to experiment, not easily seduced by technology itself but look beyond it to what it can enable. The 'hero' narrative is struggling, and the power of many eclipses the power of the one - this is also true of leadership, and digital leaders are natural collaborators who recognize how to harness the voice and the wisdom of the crowd. Develop these talented individuals through experiential and stretch assignments, move away from linear career paths, curate inter-disciplinary influences, and keep an open mind about the world as they see it. “