Are You In The List 2017 Winner: Sneha Arora

Sneha Arora from SAP believes that building an agile workforce is the biggest talent priority.

Sneha Arora | Senior HRBP Consultant | SAP

My current role at SAP Labs involves Country HR leadership for SAP Ariba Technologies in India where I partner with SAP Ariba leadership team for driving people and culture strategy. In addition, I lead the Diversity & Inclusion charter for overall SAP in India and have launched initiatives like Back-to-work program for bringing women on career break Back-to-Work. I believe inclusion is imperative for leveraging the true power of diversity through creativity and innovation.

Prior to SAP, in my role at Flipkart I lead HR for all business teams with employee strength of 800+ across category management, sales & marketing functions. In this role, I acquired extensive experience of leading businesses through change and building high performance teams. I also enjoyed building and managing a team of HR professionals.

Prior to Flipkart, I was the youngest person at TI’s global L&D team leading the Talent development function for Texas Instruments in India with employee strength of 1000+ for 3+ years. I was additionally playing HRBP role supporting a diverse set of teams ranging from core R&D to sales.

I have a Masters degree in Human Resource Management and Labour Relations from TISS, Mumbai, 2010 and exchange program at University of Amsterdam. I was the first HRM student at TISS India to receive the prestigious Erasmus Mundus scholarship through which I had the opportunity to learn from some of the brightest minds in HR across the globe.

I am certified in Hogan Personality Inventory, Hogan Development Survey; and Motives, Values and Preferences.

What differentiates me from others

My core differentiator is agility. I have had the opportunity to experience different industries, geographies, roles, and challenges. I have been able to adapt, deliver and create value in dynamic, complex and diverse set ups.

What is my Biggest Talent Priority

Building an agile workforce - Today’s disruptive and fast-changing world requires agile workforce with high learnability. This is the biggest talent priority in my opinion. For the organization, it means a fundamental shift in culture and for individuals it means a fundamental change in mindset to stay relevant and be future ready.

For organization, the challenge is multifold as the change in mindset and culture requires leaders who are anticipators and can lead through dynamic, disruptive business environments of compressed product and lifecycles, and global competition which can come anywhere like startups in a different part of the world.

In summary, we need to build capability in leadership to create an agile workforce and culture to be future ready

The one thing I will:

Change in HR: Move towards a value mindset from an outside in perspective. This means that HR should start looking at the value we are creating for our customers, stakeholders, communities, and not only business & employees anymore. This requires a good understanding of the context we operate in as well as business. The focus needs to shift from practices and activities and evolve to true value creation, and the lens needs to change from internal only to an outside-in view.

Retain in HR: Over the past few decades, there has been a lot of focus on HR becoming strategic and having a seat at the table. I think we have made significant progress in this direction and this is something we must retain if HR needs to evolve to the next stage which is creating and delivering true value & impact and taking an outside in view to HR

This is how I will disrupt HR:

Big data, cloud based HR systems, Artificial intelligence, machine learning and IoT are the future. Unfortunately, consumer products and businesses are way ahead in the game, and HR has not kept pace. Technology is the future and we need to get future ready by keeping pace with the business and world around us. When I think about the potential of experiences which can be created through technology which is available and accessible today, possibilities are endless. Simple things like chat bots, high tech and personalized learning systems, personalized processes and benefits can significantly enhance the experience of the employee and help HR function evolve to the next stage.