Sakshi Gupta | HR Director | Grail Insights Private Limited

“Ambitious, business-savvy, humane, diligent, cheerful and honest. I believe that connection with self is quintessential to truly appreciate life” - that’s how Sakshi describes herself.

She believes that the HR field chose her. She graduated with a specialization in Finance and joined a boutique Management Consultancy firm as a Researcher. When she was given cross-functional exposure, she got her first taste of HR and instantly knew that HR was her calling. 

“I believe that Karma supersedes destiny hence, if we keep the focus on improving ourselves rather than on changing the circumstance, we become wiser. I strive to lead a balanced life because I think that each life zone has its own set of teachings & their synergy can greatly affect our quality of life. My life goal is to become the best version of myself.”

Orchestrating change on a big scale 

The HR field offers a unique opportunity to influence both the people and the business - sides in an organization. As an impartial observer of both sides, HR professionals develop a big picture view, by learning about the organizational challenges and priorities, at an early stage of their career and she firmly believes that the HR profession teaches many important life skills. One of her favourites is to orchestrate a change at a big scale by breaking the strategy down in small steps and executing the plan of action to the tee.

Approaching HR as science, without compromising its essence

Owing to her quantitative bent of mind and methodical approach, she brings an element of science in HR. Sakshi loves to quantify HR elements without compromising on their essence. She also possesses the ability to infuse a high degree of energy in whatever she does, often igniting a passion in others, invoking their interest in HR subjects, which they might not find as interesting/ important earlier. Her result-orientation makes her measure her performance from a business lens. “You are a role model for people to take up a career in HR,” a consistent compliment she gets from business.  

Quantifying the functional value of each role

One talent priority she would want to solve is quantifying the functional value of each role to determine the role's contribution towards the top and bottom line of the organization. A mechanism to quantify functional value of the role, says Sakshi, can result in a great sense of relevance, role clarity, employee satisfaction, lower attrition and self-pruning of organization redundancy.

The one thing she will change in HR

The one change Sakshi wants to bring in HR is changing the mindset from striving to find the right answer to coming up with the right questions. Questions that provide insights into the root cause and expose pivotal points, which can bring about 80% results with 20% effort.

The one thing she will retain in HR

Sakshi hopes to retain the growing strategic importance of the HR function in organizations. HR is an important medium to advocate people issues at the leadership table, especially in this era, where people can make or break an organization. 

Vision for HR's future growth

The pandemic has forced companies to adapt to virtual platforms and embrace new workforce dynamics, with contingency workforce accounting to 40% of the talent market. These changes in the talent landscape will require HR to be agile in adopting technology. She believes that technology will play an instrumental role in how we maintain productivity and boost learning among remote and gig workers.