Aristotle once said that accelerated transformation has a cost, that you remember the transformed part, not the part which enables it. 

In this exclusive interview with Niharika Mohan, CHRO at Luminous Power Technologies, we debunk the ideas of reinvention and emotions not going hand in hand. Niharika also shares her thoughts on re-innovating HR policies and personalized leadership.

How are you reinventing your HR policies for the new world of work?

It has been a ‘Pause and Reset’ button for us amidst this COVID-19 impacted world. The second wave of the pandemic has added to the already existing disruption but at the same time, allowed reinventing ourselves as an organization. Given the current situation, we at Luminous Power Technologies have refurbished our HR policies hinged on three important factors:

1. Employee Experience: Using Artificial Intelligence and IT infrastructure to improve the experience of our employees working from home.
2. Employee Well-being: Created a separate framework for our well-being activities, focusing on what the people are going through amid this pandemic. Our priority was to communicate more and ensure that the right information is circulated with regard to safety protocol and other guidelines of the government advisories. Other parts of our well-being framework are encompassing the physical, emotional, and psychological aspects, for which we hosted an array of employee engagement activities like yoga, webinars, talks, a 24/7 on call counselling service etc.
3. Employee Benefits: Utilizing this opportunity to transform our HR policies by providing special leaves and insurance for the employees including Paternity, Surrogacy and Adoption leave policies.

We have also started to focus on educating our managers on handling virtual workforce and set up interventions for senior leadership to understand how a ‘new age manager’ works.

Is transformation with purpose a utopian dream? How can you as a leader project the idea on your organization?

The element of purpose has become an important factor in this new world. Transformation is the crux that gives leaders the alignment and clarity that translates into the business strategies. Organizations have realised that the head and the heart have to be the instinctive motivators to inspire greater commitment from everyone in the company. 

At Luminous, this is the glue that bound us together during the pandemic. We transformed our business model and reinvented ourselves digitally and reached out to 900 distributors and 40,000 dealers, with the innate passion to serve them. We undertook a series of relief initiatives during and after the lockdown to protect our workers, their families, and locals from the deadly virus.

Young energetic millennials are being hired all around the world and we as leaders, need passion to become their guiding light to move forward.

What is of utmost importance in this disruptive age, both for leaders and for organizations?

I personally believe that the success in a disruptive age can come from ‘personalized leadership’. Nothing can substitute compassion, empathy, and a people centric approach. For organizations and leaders, it's important to have humility, agility to act quickly and be open to new ideas and innovation. A new age leader must have the ability to communicate well and have necessary skills of customer engagement. 

In the context of HR, how do you think technology integration, innovation and reinvention can facilitate HR in its functioning post lockdown?

In this disruptive age, organizations have got an opportunity to change their business models and establish a new culture; one of trust and meaningful purpose and where people are at the heart of everything. The integration of technology has enabled us to do the same.

With the rising interest in artificial intelligence and data analysis accelerated by the pandemic, HR has observed a new intricate period of reinvention in our process. We as a company, use data analysis in our exit management process and it has transformed our ability to recruit and assess more candidates effectively. By leveraging technology, HR can spend their time in more meaningful interaction with their employees.  

Earlier, embracing HR technology came with the fear of losing the personal touch. Nowadays, through technology only are we gaining connectivity? Is this balance going to be brief? What can you as a leader do about it?

Keeping the present scenario in mind, technology is the need of the hour and it is here to stay. The workplace paradigm is going through some gradual changes and most of them are technology-centric. The times we are living in have encouraged companies to automate everything from top to bottom but the important aspect here is to remember not to lose the human touch. Compassion and empathy are still the crux of handling a diverse workforce and it's fundamental to realise that it’s the humans behind the technology that makes the world go round.