In this episode, Springworks' Head of Marketing, Abhash Kumar talks to Ruhie Pande, Chief Human Resource Officer at Godrej Housing Finance. Ruhie is a seasoned HR professional passionate about coaching, leading HR transformation strategy, and diversity.
She holds an MSc in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Birkbeck College, London. Ruhie brings with her two decades of exceptional experience in building and enabling engaged and capable people power across a diverse set of industries.
In her career in Human Resources, she has worked with some of the best companies in India across sectors like financial services, real estate, fashion retail, information technology, and FMCG.
In the episode, Ruhie tells us how HR functions should go about enabling younger managers to become leaders, given the resource constraints at growing companies. She also discusses the role of psychology in the HR function and how HR professionals can leverage it.
Building a startup culture:
In order to build all these strategies, organizations also have to work on their culture. Most organizations focus on building strategies for solving multiple problems. However, sometimes, they don’t give the same importance to their work culture. Thus a startup is the best time to lay the foundations of what the culture should look like. In a startup, the balance which HR has to create is done by understanding the company and its business strategies. They often focus on high engagement within itself and maintain an environment where everyone feels a part of the entire culture. These frameworks need to be created at the earliest to ensure the stable success of the startup.
When it comes to the role of the HR personnel in creating this culture, the first and very basic requirement is to understand where the organization is headed- in terms of technology and strategy. In addition, they should be aware of the competitive advantages, the core differentiators, and the requirements of the consumers.
HR personnel need to know the business language to convince the business folks. Consequently, this gives them the credibility for what they are trying to convey.
Significance of Psychology in HR:
Having specialized in Organizational and Industrial Psychology, she advises everyone in the HR function to have a good knowledge of psychology. They can either take courses or study through online platforms. However, one of the most effective methods is to implement your learning and analyze it. Psychology helps in enhancing research skills and makes it easier to understand if a launched project is beneficial or not.
Ensuring diversity in an organization:
Ruhie then takes us through the hiring process in her company. They prefer diversity of gender and experiences. 50% of her company’s top team consists of women. Diversity of backgrounds involves people coming from different industries. This helps the company adapt to more innovative solutions. Gender diversity and inclusion are subjects of passion to Ruhie.
Performance feedback is a significant requirement to bring a company’s and its employees’ values at par. Feedback shows an individual's personality and leadership skills. The main purpose of feedback is to change a person’s behavior. The way an employee accepts feedback also highlights his values and teamwork skills.
Follow Ruhie Pande on LinkedIn.
Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Abhash Kumar