In this episode, Springworks' Head of Marketing, Abhash Kumar talks to Umesh Hota, President of HR at Ultratech Cement. An expert in restructuring business focussed organisations in multi-locational, and multi-cultural environments, Umesh has handled six mergers and acquisitions. He is passionate about measurement, development of performance and establishing competency-based human resources management practices.
He takes us through his journey from doing MSc in Chemistry to doing an MBA in HR and now being in the HR ecosystem for almost two decades. He also shared his experience and ideas on how newly minted managers can be trained with limited resources.
Human Resources: Corporate vs Manufacturing
Starting his career working in the manufacturing industry, Umesh shares that you get more hands-on experience working in a factory as you see all kinds of activities happening around. Things are more in control and you can impact the events more intensely and directly than in the corporate office.
To be successful in a corporate role, you need to have experience and ability that you demonstrate while in a factory.
He shares that it is because of his factory experience that he is able to handle issues such as people development and connecting with the community.
Assimilating Mergers and acquisitions
Umesh has handled six mergers and acquisitions in his career. His first hands-on experience comes from an organization he joined in the year 2000. He joined as part of the acquired unit which was padlocked for the last 18 months because of the Industry relations issues. He worked with the acquired unit to build a unified team in the mergers and acquisitions.
“When you look at the data at a macro level, you see that 50% of the mergers or acquisitions fail, and then only 50% of them succeed. I have been lucky to see success in all six of the acquisitions that I have been part of”.
Cultural changes in Merger & Acquisitions- Multinational corporations
A multinational company generally has offices and/or factories in different countries. An employee might get chances to go to different countries to work.
Umesh shares his first experience of going on a business trip to Thailand. While entering the meeting room, he saw a single man out of all the other twenty women. Thus he concluded that it was a women-led organization. This is one of the very significant aspects that define a company’s culture.
It is the HR’s responsibility to be sensitive and mindful of this culture and create the policies and strategies for the same.
Umesh justifies it with an example. He says, “For example, if I’m hosting a meeting for a women-led organization, I need to be mindful of things like hosting a lunch, instead of approaching a dinner meeting. Thus, the organization’s systems and policies must align with the organizational culture.”
How AI is going to benefit Human Resources?
Umesh shares an interesting perspective on the benefits of AI in the Human Resources function. He believes that AI might help organizations in responding to employees effectively.
If an employee lands in Visakhapatnam at 10 pm. To book a hotel, an employee needs to know the claim that he is entitled to. One way to know it is by having a call with the HR which can be time consuming. The other way is to do it through a Chatbot which can do the quick backend job in seconds. It can show your grade, entitlement, policies and might also refer the candidate to the hotels available in that city.
Follow Umesh Hota on LinkedIn.
Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Abhash Kumar