Make the people promise real at work

A training report once made our stores look more prepared than the evidence supported. In 2019 I endorsed the description ready for 112 colleagues who had completed induction out of 120 participants. A practical refund-escalation exercise with forty selected adults then showed that only twenty-four met its defined criteria without further coaching. Completing the material had not established readiness for that task. I changed the programme I had sponsored, with paid practice and continuing supervision rather than treating the gap as a personal failure by the colleagues we had trained. Operations retained its authority over delegated work. The correction made me ask a more demanding question of every people programme:what has actually changed for the person doing the job?

I now lead the people function at Nerqvani Outdoor Stores in Aizawl. Our seventeen-shop business employed 352 people in March 2026 and recorded ₹108 crore revenue in FY 2025–26. Eighteen people colleagues work through three leads within ₹3.6 crore annual function expense; the enterprise's ₹19 crore employee cost is a separate measure. My remit connects capability, work design and organisational change with the operating decisions colleagues experience. I work alongside COO Nitin Qelnvashi and report to CEO Asha Velqrani. I do not decide whether a product is technically safe or replace the qualified advisers needed for employment and workplace matters. I am accountable for ensuring that a people recommendation carries its practical assumptions and unresolved responsibilities into the executive discussion.

The examples here concern learning, standing work and roles brought into the business through an acquisition. They show why an attendance count cannot settle competence, why a chair alone does not redesign a task and why matching a title cannot determine a role's place in an organisation. Each decision required resources and left work still to do. After coaching, thirty-four of the same forty participants met the exercise criteria and six still needed support; that was not a controlled proof of programme effectiveness. Twenty-two of thirty-two acquired role profiles were evaluated, while ten remained under review. My next mandate should allow the people function to make those limits visible. I would also consider a first outside board contribution after further preparation and suitability assessment, with no claim that executive presentations already amount to director service.

Current focus

People decisions that remain credible when colleagues have to use them in a shop.

Conversations I welcome

A retail people-leadership mandate and a carefully prepared first non-executive contribution.