In an exclusive interview with People Matters, Dr. S. Mohan, Director (HR), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) shares his thoughts on people practices, the importance of learning and the role of HR in business at BPCL

 ‘Project Destiny’ was devised to double BPCL’s volumes and quadruple its profits by March 2011. How did the organization transform itself to achieve this business reality?

At BPCL, over a decade ago, we transformed our structure from a regional entity to a strategic business unit (SBU) to meet our new set of business aspirations. Each business unit in the organization was then assigned to a business leader, who was responsible for drafting business plans as an independent profit and loss venture.

Around 5 years ago, at the business unit level, we realized that we ought to have leaders not only at the top but at two or three levels down, who could drive this growth and transformation. From the business perspective, we set before us a goal and looked at competencies and internal talent that would help us reach there. This was undertaken under a project named ‘Caliber’, which was all about ensuring proper succession plans, nurturing and grooming people to the required potential, and ironing out the constraints.

Can you share more details on how you undertook the leadership identification and competency mapping exercise?

We profiled every employee above the levels of Deputy General Manager based on two parameters viz. competencies and the leadership styles. The initiative was executed in-house with professional guidance; the HR and the management team trained themselves to deploy this assessment and interpret the results. The entire organization was involved, employees were profiled and each and every profile was reviewed by someone two levels above him or her (for example, for a General Manager, the profile was reviewed and presented by a Director).

The profiling was based on a 360 degree assessment that included subordinates, colleagues and three supervisors from the last 5 years, to eliminate biases. This resulted in a depository of rich data on the strengths, weaknesses, potential and leadership style of every employee in the middle and senior level. The sole objective was to find people’s strength and accordingly give them the right roles, which would help them succeed and achieve their full potential.
The foundations of this process of identifying the right roles for an individual were laid in 2005; today this is part of the DNA of the organization. The success of the entire exercise can be gauged from the fact that successors for the position of Directors have all been from within the organization.

From your experience, what role does learning play in leadership development?

The intention of the exercise was to identify the strengths and competencies so that people could be utilized more effectively. The focus was on identifying strengths and complementing those strengths; hence, the importance of learning. For example, if an employee has the requisite competencies for project management, then the additional learning and development will complement that strength so the person realizes his/her full potential.

As part of our organizational culture, the approach to learning is focused on giving people exposure through job rotation and assignments. This approach has brought about a paradigm shift in BPCL and has proven to be extremely advantageous.

For our main line of business, we hire only freshers who then take up different roles based on their exposure within the organization. Job rotation plays a crucial part of the overall career planning. The initial years are the toughest, wherein employees both survive and get attracted to buy-in the larger picture or opt for job hopping. In fact, majority of our attrition happens within 3 to 5 years of entry into the organization.

What is the future of learning?

This is an area of extreme interest to me and I have been doing some research around it. What makes people learn? Is it training programs? Yes. Is it assignments or rotations? Yes, better. What I have found really is that training programs are good, assignments are much better but the one thing that really has helped most of us to learn is the endorsement from our peers. For example, if my peer says that you are doing a great job, it not only motivates but also reinforces the need for learning. The second input that makes a difference to people’s learning is the input from the customers; if the costumer says that I want this person as he/she has done well in taking care of my needs, it has a huge impact on one’s motivation and learning. Finally, the supervisor is equally important. Peers and customers are a much larger part of the learning experience.

For that reason, at BPCL, we believe that peer groups are a great way for sharing, learning and motivation. If an employee encounters a problem and finds a solution and the solution is, in turn, shared with the peer group and gets recognized and implemented in other business units, the impact of the same is huge. Good ideas are rewarded in an annual function which is attended by the Chairman and Directors.

What role does HR play in these initiatives?

HR needs to understand the business and help identify ‘where the shoe pinches’. At BPCL, HR has been a partner with the business in terms of drawing the strategy on where we should be going. It works with business units as an enabler depending on what is required for each business unit to achieve its objectives. HR personnel bring to the table their expertise in terms of diverse alternatives to support and bring about synergy in functioning of the businesses. Besides, the HR team helps in learning by sharing concerns, solutions and best practices across business units.

The strength of BPCL lies in the fact that our HR team is not only well-versed in the HR domain also but has expertise in understanding the business & functional domain too. Carrying the label of HR implies better understanding of technical issues pertaining to labor laws or benchmarked best practices; but when it comes to business issues, the HR team should be able to walk along the way with the rest of the team to deliver business results. HR is not like a lawyer waiting to be approached.