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.

 

“Human resources (HR) needs to know the business, the consumer, and the last-mile employee. One will get the invitation to the boardroom when one demonstrates one’s ability to raise the bar in the organization, show moral courage, and the ability to be the conscious keeper,” said Sanchayan Paul, Chief Human Resources Officer at Modenik Lifestyle. For more than 25 years, Sanchayan has been an HR leader and holds corporate & entrepreneurial experience across Energy, Financial Services, Telecom, Tech Startups & Management Consulting. He brings significant experience in contributing to various aspects related to brand transitions, ownership changes, operating models, and M&As.

Sanchayan discusses the growth of his career through his HR journey, from his early days to the present, in an exclusive interview with HR.com. He also delves into his experiences with workplace cultures and the various challenges he faced in his personal development.

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?

Sanchayan: Early on in my career, I was fortunate to get exposed to scale & complexity at the world’s largest grassroots refinery at Reliance Petroleum’s Jamnagar project. It was the world’s largest start-up, and being there, working on critical projects as a Management Trainee, prepared the base for me to manage both scale & size and start-ups & transformative projects.

From there on, working for Reuters, exposed me to global best practices, technology businesses, and world-class talent. My management consulting stint with Eicher Consulting, helped me build conceptual capability and look at solutions for business problems through the lens of structure & frameworks.

Vodafone (earlier Hutch/Orange) gave me amazing opportunities to partner with business units across 5 states of India, then as Head HR for India’s largest captive customer services center, and then in national roles heading Talent Acquisition & Employer Branding, and lastly as Head of Total Rewards & Org Effectiveness.

I was indeed lucky to lead some super-talented teams in Vodafone across shared services (SS), business partnering (BP), and Centers of Expertise (CoE).

Speed, Simplicity, and Trust are some of the organizational values that I imbibed. I loved working in an organization that transformed to grow. The change was a way of life & growing up. M&As, brand transformations, and scaling at speed – never made me realize how 14+ years flew by at Vodafone India.

Building an employer brand, driving organizational effectiveness, and crafting a value-based, performance-driven culture at Vodafone India, made me extremely passionate about these subjects.

My failed entrepreneurial venture – on building a blue-collar job-tech platform – exposed me to the lives of India’s frontline/essential workforce and helped me better understand their needs. It made me humbler, upped my enterprise thinking and resilience, and I experienced the joy of experimenting.   

Modenik’s stint has been about building enterprise and functional leadership teams, setting the foundational blocks of our people, culture, and identity, and aligning our shared purpose, and values. We are now driving incredible transformation, digitization, and effectiveness.
 

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

Sanchayan: In the very early days of my career, access to information, the absence of digitized data, and employee self-service tools were a challenge. But now, youngsters do  so much more with the kind of data, digitization, and access to global information that we now have.

The challenges now are about offering the optimum solution to business problems, given that all the above are available in abundance and often draw one out in conflicting directions. Especially in the post-pandemic world, the challenge is to make decisions while holding and appreciating conflicting perspectives while interacting with a multi-generational and diverse workforce, different employment and workplace models, and the changing dynamics of talent demand & supply.  

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

Sanchayan: There is more balance of power in the employer-employee equation. Employees have more choices & more security than they had a couple of decades ago.

Leaders are now driving culture with more empathy and by understanding nuances to customize solutions for colleagues and consumers, as opposed to the monolith decision-making center. Work culture is now more collective work, and leaders emerge in different situations and sub-sets of the organization to take the organization onward and toward growth.  

It also means that organizations are more accepting of sub-cultures within the large organizational culture. Examples could be that your design teams may have a slightly different work culture when compared to the manufacturing department, both of which operate within the larger organizational purpose & value system.

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

Sanchayan:
1. Investing in the right people & processes, early on is the key to success. Tough calls must be taken to make the right changes at the right time.
2. Having an emotional connection with your teams and knowing what motivates them deep within is the key to building a high-performing and engaged team.
3. Building bridges is important, not boundaries. Taking a functional outlook creates boundaries. Supply chain, marketing, sales, finance, and HR are just a continuum of business processes to serve the end consumer.  

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?

Sanchayan: I draw inspiration from everyday experiences – from listening to podcasts to reading, to seeing some very young, inexperienced folks doing great work. And of course, there are a few leaders I see as role -models, and I try to pick what is the best in them.

Getting into the boardroom is only an outcome. Firstly, it is important to understand why one exists and one’s purpose in the organization.

HR needs to know the business, the consumer, and the last-mile employee. One will get the invitation when one demonstrates one’s ability to raise the bar in the organization, show moral courage, and the ability to be the conscious keeper. HR also needs to be exceedingly more & more data-oriented and numerically smart to claim a place on the table.    

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

Sanchayan: I firmly believe in work-life integration. I may sound old-world, but when I am doing what I want to do and am in the flow, I do not separate work and life as two separate compartments. I believe if you truly love what you are doing, you will not have a balancing problem.

What I do ensure is that my time for reading, cycling, food & entertainment, and time with family is planned and well attended to, especially during weekends.    

Q: What fundamental change(s) (in terms of culture) have you brought into your company?

Sanchayan: Three big shifts:
1. Shared purpose & value-based culture
2. Open, clear & transparent communication and
3. Introduced a performance-driven, total rewards culture

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

Sanchayan: I see HR getting even more strategic in partnering with businesses. HR will also be at the forefront of driving these shifts towards digitization and more effective organizations. At the same time, HR will need to evolve to address matters of kindness in leadership, empathy in people managers, and ensuring the use of technology for the greater good.

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