Make the people promise real at work

In 2019 our induction programme recorded 112 completions from 120 adult participants. As head of people operations, I endorsed an account that described the 112 as ready. The programme had covered the required material, but we had not established that every participant could apply it in the specific work that followed. A practical refund-escalation exercise involving forty selected adults found twenty-four meeting its defined criteria and sixteen needing further coaching. The exercise used synthetic customer examples and did not expose live customer records.

Managers wanted new colleagues available quickly, and the completion report appeared to give them a clear answer. I had helped create that expectation. I withdrew the broad readiness description and worked with operations to distinguish completed learning from observed task performance. The forty-person exercise did not describe all 112 completers, and it was not a basis for dismissing or publicly ranking the sixteen colleagues who needed support.

We allocated ₹24 lakh to an eight-week programme of paid practice, coaching and supervision. Operations retained authority over delegated work. At a repeat assessment of the same forty people, thirty-four met the stated criteria and six continued with support rather than being described as independently ready. The report retained those six and the scope of the exercise. It did not claim that the programme had causally produced a ten-person improvement in a controlled comparison or that every other induction participant had been assessed.

The cost included time that a simple completion account had left out of the operating plan. The useful change was in the employer's responsibility:if our learning programme had not established practical readiness, we needed to provide a supported route forward. I wanted managers to receive a more accurate decision account and colleagues to understand what further help was available. My own approval of the earlier label remained visible, because the correction should not become a story about junior employees failing a promise that management had made for them.

A 2023 review of eight shops involved sixty-four adult colleagues and twenty defined service tasks. Some managers treated standing as part of the visible standard of attention to customers. Colleagues described parts of the work that did not require that posture throughout the task. I asked operations to examine the work with them and qualified workplace advisers, rather than resolve the question through a general instruction to stand or sit.

The review found fourteen tasks where a suitably designed seated option could be offered. Six needed different layout or work review before a suitable arrangement could be established. These were task categories, not fourteen people or a claim that every shift could become seated work. The analysis considered the surrounding workstation and the activity, with individual needs and normal breaks remaining part of the employment and operating account.

The CEO approved ₹38 lakh for a twelve-week pilot covering workstation changes, appropriate equipment, manager preparation and follow-up. COO Nitin Qelnvashi retained operating implementation. I was responsible for the people consultation and for ensuring that the remaining six tasks did not disappear from the report merely because equipment had been purchased. Qualified assessment remained necessary; the people team did not prescribe a single physical arrangement for everyone.

The pilot changed the available work options for the defined tasks. It did not demonstrate a medical outcome, prove a productivity increase or establish that the same design suited every location. We continued reviewing the unresolved tasks and the practical experience of colleagues using the revised arrangements. The leadership choice was to treat an inherited service convention as something that could be examined, with resources and professional support, while avoiding the opposite simplification that a chair by itself completes responsible work design.

In 2025 acquired shops brought fifty-two colleagues into Nerqvani. Their work was represented by thirty-two distinct role profiles. Some titles resembled ours closely, which made an immediate translation into our grades appear straightforward. Operating leaders wanted a common organisation chart quickly. I argued that a matching title could hide differences in authority, scope and required knowledge, and that a tidy chart would not settle the employment consequences of the integration.

We approved ₹42 lakh for a six-month people-integration programme with role analysis, appropriate employment and reward advice, manager preparation and consultation. The work evaluated profiles rather than ranking individual people. At the reporting point, twenty-two of the thirty-two profiles had been evaluated against the agreed framework and ten remained under review. That count did not establish how many of the fifty-two colleagues had every individual matter resolved.

The programme preserved existing terms while the relevant process and advice were followed. A proposed grade match did not automatically authorise a pay reduction or another contractual change. We made the basis of the role account discussable and retained a review route when managers or colleagues believed it did not describe the work. Operations supplied evidence about responsibilities; the people function coordinated the process and brought unresolved issues to the appropriate authority.

The fifty-two colleagues are included in the company's March 2026 headcount of 352, not additional to it. The programme cost is separate from enterprise employee cost. I did not announce complete integration when ten role profiles remained outstanding, or equate a framework with a completed employment decision. The consequence was a slower and more explicit account of the organisational change. It gave executives a basis for the next decision while protecting the distinction between understanding a job and assuming that its title had already settled the person’s position.