From the camp register to the committee paper

Mandate

Prepare the workforce for a station with a finite life and a renewable fleet growing on remote sites.

Outcomes

• Retrained 94 station technicians for renewable operations, of whom 71 transferred to the parks
• Moved summer module cleaning to early and late shifts; reported heat illness fell from 41 cases to 9
• Set a contract technician wage floor at the junior permanent basic, costing ₹7.4 crore a year
• Increased women in field roles from 11 to 64

Decisions in context

The CHRO role arrived just before the company's direction changed. Within a year the board had decided against further coal capacity, and the station's 760 employees needed an honest account of what that meant for them. I lead the people function through five heads: station HR, renewables HR, talent and training, reward, and employee relations and contract labour. I report to the managing director and present succession, senior remuneration and workforce-transition papers to the nomination and remuneration committee, where I attend by invitation. Safety leadership sits with operations, but I hold the people side of it: rest, rosters, heat plans and contractor conduct. My current work is staffing our first battery system at Koppal and deciding how much of that team can come from the station rather than the open market. The station's own succession plan, for a workforce whose average age is now 43, runs alongside it.

Reason for the move

Current appointment.

Mandate

Build an employment model for a new renewables business, starting from its first solar park.

Outcomes

• Recruited about 480 operations and project staff across nine parks
• Set accommodation, transport and rest standards for every remote site
• Introduced quarterly contractor payroll audits
• Opened the first field roles to women, with 11 in post by 2021

Decisions in context

Oruvanthi hired me because its station-trained managers did not know how to employ twelve technicians on an empty site in western Rajasthan. There was no township, no union and no settled routine to inherit. I wrote the employment model with the head of renewable operations: where people would live, how they would reach the nearest town, shift lengths in summer, leave rotation and who would inspect contractors' camps. As capacity grew to nine parks, I recruited operations and project staff and built a small HR team spread across three states. I also learnt how differently the station and the parks thought about people. The station measured stability; the parks measured speed of commissioning and fault restoration. Neither measure was wrong, and both left gaps. Bringing those views into one company became the central task of my later role as CHRO.

Reason for the move

Appointed CHRO when the director of human resources retired.

Mandate

Reduce field technician attrition and bring order to rotas, travel and certification.

Outcomes

• Reduced annual technician attrition from 31 per cent to 17 per cent
• Introduced rotas published six weeks ahead and a limit on consecutive days away
• Tracked climbing and rescue certification for every technician

Decisions in context

The service company sold turbine availability, which meant technicians were always being moved to the next fault. Exit conversations showed that people left because they never knew where they would be next week, not because the work was too hard. I worked with the service director on a rota published six weeks ahead and a limit on consecutive days away from home. Regional managers lost some flexibility and told me so. We also tracked climbing and rescue certification centrally, because a lapsed certificate grounded a technician and disrupted the rota anyway. My nine regional partners handled recruitment and grievances across five states, often by phone from a hotel near the wind farm. The role taught me that remote workforces fail on logistics before they fail on pay, a lesson I took directly into Oruvanthi's first solar park.

Reason for the move

Joined Oruvanthi to build an employer from its first solar park.

Mandate

Run industrial relations, welfare and contract labour compliance at a single station.

Outcomes

• Concluded a three-year wage settlement with the recognised union in 2008
• Introduced a certification and cross-skilling rota during part-load operation
• Brought contractor wage payments onto a monthly verified schedule

Decisions in context

I joined a station with a recognised union, an established township and a wage settlement due. Negotiating that settlement in 2008 taught me how much of industrial relations is preparation: knowing the cost of each demand and which commitments the management could actually keep. The harder period came during 2010, when the station's gas supply fell and it ran at part load. Operators had little to do, and management weighed cutting contract strength or deferring increments. I proposed a rota that used idle hours for certification and cross-skilling, and monthly briefings on the fuel position. The director accepted the rota but limited the briefings to quarterly notes from the commercial team. I saw how quickly capable people lose confidence when they are left to guess, and I have tried to avoid that silence ever since.

Reason for the move

Moved to wind services to work in a growing part of the sector.

Mandate

Run welfare, seasonal rehiring and grievance handling through each crushing season.

Outcomes

• Kept a rehiring list that brought back experienced seasonal workers each year
• Opened a crèche for women working in the cane yard
• Reconciled contractor headcounts against actual attendance

Decisions in context

A sugar mill runs on a season, and so does its workforce. Each autumn the mill hired seasonal workers and the cane contractors brought harvesting gangs from districts further north. I learnt how contract labour is actually recruited: through advances, family networks and promises that the mill rarely saw. My job was to keep welfare and grievances orderly during the crushing season. I built a rehiring list so that experienced seasonal workers were offered their places first, opened a crèche for women in the cane yard and checked contractors' headcounts against the people who actually reported. The cogeneration plant, which exported surplus electricity to the state network during the season, was my first contact with power generation. When I left, I wanted to work where electricity was the main business, not a by-product of crushing cane.

Reason for the move

Joined a power station to work in electricity generation full time.

Mandate

Administer attendance, wages and camp conditions on erection sites.

Outcomes

• Kept wage registers on three project sites reconciled with weekly cash payments
• Raised camp water and sanitation problems with project managers
• Recorded worker complaints and the action taken on each

Decisions in context

I joined straight from my master's degree and was sent to the camps within a month. The company built substations and transmission lines, and most of the workers on a site belonged to subcontractors who recruited them from their own villages. My work was clerical on paper and personal in practice: matching attendance to wages, checking that water and sanitation reached the camp, and writing down complaints. I had no authority over the erection work or its permits. I could only make problems visible to the project manager and record what happened next. Workers soon noticed which complaints led to action, and they reported more when something changed. A broken water tanker fixed within a day did more for reporting than any notice board. After three years I wanted a permanent workforce, a union and industrial relations I could learn properly.

Reason for the move

Moved to a sugar and cogeneration company to handle a permanent workforce and its industrial relations.