Where do HR leaders draw inspiration from? What are their worst nightmares? How did they stand the test of the changing times? In this segment, we will trace your journey to the top. This is your story - a story that is made of extraordinary accomplishments, methods that helped you overcome adversity, innovative programs that you led, and fundamental changes that you brought in. It's your chance to inspire the next generation of leaders.

 

Veena Satish is the VP of People and Culture at MoEngage. Before joining MoEngage, Veena was the Director of Human Resources at Walmart for over six years. During this time, she has contributed to Walmart’s growth from a team of 500 to a 7000-member workforce.

In an exclusive interview with HR.com, Veena talks about her HR journey and shares valuable insights on new job roles in the industry, the future of HR, and so on.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q. What has your HR journey been like, and what influenced you the most to positively impact your career?

Veena: I have had an accidental career in human resources (HR), but a fruitful one with no regrets. The career that I landed brought me a great blend of challenges and developmental opportunities to adapt to unknowns, ambiguities, and uncertainties.

Spending a few years in talent acquisition and learning & development functions provided me with a first-hand insight into what it was like to work as an HR professional. I have been able to work for both large, multinational corporations and growing startups, which opened up a lot of internal avenues for me to learn and evolve. Additionally, I have fostered a positive and supportive network along the way that provided me with useful career advice and ongoing learning experiences.

Looking back at my journey, I feel very fortunate to have worked with many leaders, who guided me with first-hand insight into what makes an amazing workplace and culture. I suppose this early exposure had a lot of influence on my own personal values, approach to HR, and views toward leadership qualities.
 

There have been many influencers throughout my career journey who have impacted me positively. To begin with, my mother always taught me that no matter how helpful your friends or partner might be, you must always be independent enough to survive on your own and create your own identity. Additionally, some of the great leaders I have worked with positively influenced me long after I transitioned. My former colleagues have taught me resilience and patience, which ultimately strengthened my self-belief.

Q: What were your challenges during the early days of your career compared to those of today?

Veena: Looking back far enough, if I were to draw a parallel between the challenges of the early days of my career to this day, I would broadly split them into two categories: the first is professional/inspirational guidance, and the second is social conditioning ideologies.
 
Reflecting on these challenges, the biggest challenges that I went through early on were not having strong career guidance and a lack of self-awareness. These are so essential at every stage of your life and career.  

It was difficult for me to pinpoint my own strengths and aspirations with the available career choices and opportunities I had back then. Lack of self-introspection, coupled with the absence of professional guidance in an evolving workplace, can be difficult until you gain experience and become focused on success.
 
The second biggest challenge that I endured was the social conditioning pressure that most women go through. From an early age, my inner circle played an influential role in the formation of my identity, beliefs and outlook. However, it was important for me to trust myself and develop into the person I wanted to be.
 
Fast forward to today, although maybe not as explicit, I still believe there are challenges related to unconscious bias. It is certainly not easy to address all of them as they emerge from different conditions and factors. While there is no definitive solution, I have learned to confront it or use other ways to navigate through it. Another issue I see today is the lack of sponsors for women leaders. While there have been considerable advances for women leaders from a mentoring standpoint, there still seems to be a fine line between sponsoring and mentoring.

Both sponsoring and mentoring are related and are equally powerful and important tools for a women’s personal success. A mentor can be at any hierarchical level, restricted to emotional support and providing career guidance. A sponsor, in contrast, is much more invested in their proteges. A sponsor will help connect, build, and advocate for career opportunities and advancement. Women need both.
 

Q: What is one of the most overlooked issues facing HR today?

Veena: Developing an engaging culture is a critical piece of an HR function that is often overlooked. Even though it takes an entire team to create a culture, an HR team can help foster it. For example, at MoEngage, we are committed to fostering a people-centric, value-driven culture that is built on ownership and trust. We encourage our team to embrace our company’s core values, which consist of thinking of the customer first, driving ownership, being innovative and experimenting, and being open and transparent while demonstrating humility.

In 2020, during the outbreak of Covid-19, we faced many challenges and had to make many changes like other companies did. At the peak time of the pandemic, we became fully remote. During this period, communication became critical to preserving our company culture. As you can imagine, having to shift from an in-person onboarding experience to a virtual and remote one for onboarding our new hires had its challenges. We created remote workforces to keep people informed, and even set up a program for our employees to have virtual, one-on-one office hours with our founders to share feedback and have a direct conversation about our founders’ experiences and plans. The idea was to build on our core values of openness, transparency and trust, while also providing a medium for employees to reach out to our leaders with suggestions, feedback, ideas, and experiences. Don’t we all love approachable leaders?

And more recently, we launched a new tool called Amber to help keep our teams globally informed and answer questions they may have on the spot, so that employees can get answers to their pressing questions straightaway.

Q: What can HR do about “Quiet Quitting?”

Veena: It is very important to understand the varied reasons behind the trend of quiet quitting, as it can drastically vary for different people. For instance, some employees may feel undervalued by their organizations, while others may be feeling burnout due to the lack of work-life balance. Some team members may feel the need to reconsider their priorities. However, most often, employees who are quiet quitters are burned out and stressed because of workload. It is very important to keep a constant pulse check on the workload of the employees and ensure that there is no overload and that any increases are kept to a minimum.

Some employees, who are on the verge of quiet quitting, may also be very dissatisfied with their compensation, rewards, and recognition for any extra mile that they take. Whenever employees are going above and beyond, it is important to acknowledge and reward them proactively, ensuring that they are competitively paid for their work while continuing to motivate them. It is essential for organizations to proactively evaluate their existing benefits and other employee well-being offerings to emphasize their commitment to employees’ physical, mental, and emotional health. Organizations should also ensure driving managerial effectiveness since employees spend a significant amount of time with them. Coaching, educating managers and sensitizing them to proactively address the needs and concerns of their employees go a long way.

Last but not least, organizations should create a transparent, open, and approachable communication platform so that employees feel heard and understood at any given point. It is crucial for employees to feel safe expressing their pain points.

Q: Do you see any new job roles being created by the transformation?

Veena: Yes, I do see more roles being focused on employee retention. These could be part of a talent management or HR team, or they could be dedicated career development leaders who are focused on the individual team and function development across the organization. People will stay at organizations they thrive in, and when you continue to help them develop and strengthen their skill sets and learn new skill sets, they are more likely to stay engaged and also be top contributors to the broader organization.

Q: Major HR trends you expect in the next 5 years.

Veena: The hybrid environment is here to stay. Managing remote working engagement, motivation, and culture building in a hybrid model will be a high focus looking at the future of work. Further, fostering the employee experience during remote work will be an additional focal point. In a fast-paced environment with a limited shelf life on existing skills, reskilling and skilling of employees will bear heavy emphasis. This will also show potential alternate career paths to employees.  

Many companies today are aggressively driving their diversity and inclusion efforts to promote an inclusive culture. More empathy at the workplace will continue to remain a trend, as yet another priority that will result in creating a better workplace with enhanced productivity.

Q: What is your leadership mantra?

Veena: My leadership mantra is: Be confident, stay positive, and be resilient at all times.

Life is full of surprises and adversity, it is important for one to learn how to cope with the unexpected and work through any challenges. Changing how you react to adversities will directly reflect how you feel about yourself. Remaining confident and optimistic while being able to bounce back quickly will help you feel empowered and liberated.

In a nutshell, I firmly believe there is no point in being worried about something that has already happened and cannot be changed; in contrast, one should put their energy and focus toward what can be done next to make things better. Of course, without missing the lessons learned during the process.

 
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