Exclusive Interview with Saket Kumar Dwivedy, Head-HR, Arzooo

 

In March 2022, Arzooo, a B2B platform for offline retail, appointed Saket Kumar Dwivedy as the Vice President of HR. Saket has worked in organizations like Airtel Digital, upgrad, MX Player, Times Internet and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals in a career spanning over 14 years.

 
He has worked in various facets of HR like setting up processes from scratch, scaling up teams, capability building, talent management, organization design, change management and HR transformation.

In an exclusive interview with HR.com, Saket shares his thoughts on what the future workplace would look like, what inspires him, and his learnings over the years.

Excerpts from the interview:
   

Q: What has your HR journey been like, and what influenced you the most to have a positive impact on your career?

Saket: I have always seen human resources (HR) as a support function. This has been a moral compass for me, as I feel HR is the backbone of every organization. No organization is complete without human resources. We are directly impacting the lives of employees. This allows me to review each day. I believe that I’m doing something meaningful and productive every day. 

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

Saket: During the early days, the challenges were more about execution excellence. Today, it is about planning excellence and ensuring that I am able to walk the business talk.

Q: How do you see workplace culture evolving over the years?

Saket: In future, there will be more gig than ever in the workplace. Employees will be equipped with in-depth and specialized skills. Technology will take up the transactional part completely, and relationships will be deeper. Employees will continue to demand for more flexibility. Teams will be geographically distributed and people will be from varied backgrounds, leading to much greater diversity. Hence, the focus on inclusion will be significantly higher.
 

As a result of diversity, effective communication will be a tough road. Employees will be looking for more than just monetary rewards in their job, they would also seek a greater sense of purpose. Employees would want to be a part of something meaningful. 

Q: Can you share the top three learnings from the challenges you faced?

Saket: 

• Never give up
• If you are struggling, you are growing
• Keep asking questions / Be curious - adversities are essentially problems that are meant / yet to be solved.

Q: Where do you draw inspiration from? What do you have to say to those who are still struggling to find a place in the boardroom?

Saket: I draw a lot of inspiration from my kids - their curiosity and keen-to-learn nature, simple approaches to solving problems, and being resilient when you don't get the right results.

We should continue to focus on adding value. The results will follow in due course of time, sometimes early, sometimes a little late.

Q: Where do you draw the line when it comes to work-life balance?

Saket: The boundaries between work and life are increasingly getting diminished. And with that, it is important that you feel good about what you do, both at work and in your personal life. As long as one is doing that, I think one should be fine.

Q: What are some major changes you see affecting HR within the next few years?

Saket: Here are a few trends that I see coming in the future:
 

• Focus on technology and analytics - use of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), chatbots, etc.
• Workforce will be more gig and diverse.
• Changing work arrangements - WFH (work from home), WFA (work from anywhere), remote, hybrid, etc.

 

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