In this episode, Gauri Das, Head of Human Resources at India Factoring and Finance Solutions Private Limited talks to our Head of Marketing, Abhash Kumar on the importance of communities and how it helps in bringing people together to advocate and support each other. She also touches upon the topic of employee mental well-being awareness and shares that 'the normal philosophy should be minimum business disruption in most human ways'.
Gauri Das is a strategic HR Leader with 15+ years of experience in crafting and aligning HR strategy with business goals. She supports business leaders and individuals in driving performance and improving capabilities.
She focusses on elevating employee experience by enriching careers, ensuring effective communication and thus creating an employer brand. She drives the right culture in alignment with organizational values.
Some of her achievements are
• HR 100 under 40
• Top HR Mind (India)
• TAPAI and Economic Times Young HR Leader – top 70
• WICA Luminary - Growth
• LinkedIn person the year 2020
• CEO recognition – EOQ
• Standing ovation from 300+ colleagues on day of exit in previous assignment
She is a passionate speaker and has spoken in multiple national and international forums. She loves sharing knowledge bytes and experiences on resilience, growth mindset, self-compassion and motivation. She is Lead Membership for Professional Speakers Associations of India, Mumbai chapter (PSAI).
She mentors students and professionals and supports them through her motivational talks and guides them on being future ready.
She is passionate about women empowerment and is leading a Leanin Circle called Leaders Lifting Leaders.
She loves networking and knowing people beyond their profiles brings her happiness and therefore she is a core committee member of Navi Mumbai LinkedIn Local.
Passion with Compassion is her mantra.
HRs should learn to market themselves
Gauri says that the problem used to lie in the fact that HRs were not marketing themselves. After understanding the power of marketing, they have started practicing it, and the employer brand has become kind of a prerequisite for the HR to have met the organization's goal. Business acumen is something which is critical when you would want to do HR. And that's why a proper balance of the two functions is very important.
Communities help bringing people together
Gauri leads a lean-in circle called Leaders Lifting Leaders, a women-centric place where these women come together in regular intervals and share their thoughts and ideas, without any fear of judgement. The whole idea of her community is to make people come up with all the challenges that they are facing.
Gauri shared that networking is one area where women need help, followed by negotiation . People in her community help each other with their own experiences. So, the objective that they are working on is self branding. This is an important role to play as women find it more of boasting, rather than branding.
Women-centric communities need men to be a part of them
Gauri believes that it's not only women who should be able to run a women-centric community. Men also need to be an equal part of it. Gauri shared that they also have men taking webinar sessions they conduct. For example, in their recent International Women's Day celebration, they organized a panel discussion between two women and one man.
She thinks that without men, it would not provide the desired results. So, teaching skills is one part that they are focusing on. However, their community is also about changing the mindset, both for men and women.
Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Abhash Kumar