Chief Human Resources Officer / India
What changed after the policy was agreed
- Employees at March 2026
- 3,100
- Service centres and client-site teams across India
- People-function colleagues
- 44
- Five heads; ₹8.6 crore annual function expense
- Years in personnel and HR
- 26
- Textiles, business support and workplace technology services
Decisions & consequences
01Opening a senior path that did not require a team
In early 2024, operating leaders proposed thirty-six colleagues for management promotion. Most had strong technical records, and several were already the person others called when a difficult service problem arose. Our existing process treated that reputation as substantial evidence of management readiness. I asked for a separate review of the responsibility to allocate work, give feedback and address concerns involving colleagues. It was possible to be excellent at resolving a technical incident without having demonstrated those other capabilities.
Two regional leaders objected that the review would delay appointments needed for new contracts. They also argued that candidates would interpret an alternative specialist role as a rejection. Both concerns were reasonable. I proposed a short, structured assessment using realistic management situations, followed by an individual conversation. At the same time, the executive team approved a specialist progression path with comparable pay opportunity and defined technical authority. Without that second decision, the assessment would have offered candidates a distinction that carried a financial penalty.
Twenty-two candidates were ready for the people-management roles under review. Eight preferred the specialist route after discussing its scope, and six needed further preparation before taking responsibility for a team. Those six remained in their existing jobs; this was neither a dismissal process nor a claim that their technical contribution had diminished. Operating leaders adjusted their appointment plans and assigned interim supervision where necessary. We accepted a later start for some management appointments instead of treating the vacancy date as evidence of readiness.
The immediate result was a more defensible allocation of responsibility, not proof of improved management everywhere. I asked for reviews after appointment and for specialists to have their scope recorded, so that their progression would not depend on acquiring informal reports later. In retrospect, I would have explained the options before nominations began. Introducing the distinction after a manager has described a promotion as settled makes a careful decision feel like a withdrawn promise.
Funding the people hidden behind the after-hours roster
Our service-desk schedules showed the staff assigned to each shift, but operating managers regularly called other colleagues after they had finished work. Those calls were described as occasional help. A review of a 240-person support population found 186 unscheduled off-duty call-ins in a six-month recording window. The number did not include every message or minor interruption. It was sufficient to show that the service model relied on an additional contribution that the staffing plan did not describe.
The service director wanted to begin with better escalation instructions. Finance asked whether a permanent staffing increase was justified by a problem that might be temporary. I supported clearer instructions but argued that a process could not supply missing cover. We agreed on a twelve-month pilot with eighteen additional posts, at ₹1.44 crore annual employment cost, and a defined record of when managers could request off-duty assistance. The employment arrangements and applicable requirements were reviewed separately; the pilot was not presented as a universal rule for working hours.
Operations allocated the extra cover and remained responsible for service performance. HR helped managers explain expectations and gave employees a route to query repeated demands. In the later six-month recording window, unscheduled call-ins were seventy-one. The population and recording definition remained comparable, although the pattern of incidents differed. We reported that limitation. The reduction could not establish that fatigue had disappeared or that additional staffing alone explained the change, and we continued to examine the calls that still occurred.
The company accepted an explicit employment cost instead of relying on a largely invisible contribution. That was the central decision. Some managers initially treated the new posts as general capacity and began assigning unrelated work to them; the pilot review brought the original purpose back into the discussion. I would now define that restriction more clearly at approval. A funded response can lose its effect if its capacity is quietly absorbed elsewhere while the old expectations return.
Carrying employee service records into an acquired business
A 2025 acquisition brought 420 employees into Praneri. The integration proposal assumed that everyone would enter a common HR system with standard starting records. It would have been administratively simple, but the proposal did not yet explain how earlier service dates and accumulated leave would appear. Employees had already begun asking their managers whether the transaction changed those records. We needed an answer before the system migration made an incomplete assumption look like a settled decision.
The integration lead argued that preserving different historical records would slow the move to one process. Finance needed a reliable estimate of the obligation being assumed, and some source records required reconciliation. I proposed keeping the agreed service history and leave balances while standardising future administration, with disputed entries reviewed individually. Employment advisers examined the relevant requirements and transaction documents. The arrangement was a specific negotiated commitment; I did not claim that every acquisition must use the same approach or that HR could settle the legal position alone.
The plan recognised ₹76 lakh in assessed accrued-leave obligations for the transferred population. That amount was a cost to be understood within the transaction, not a saving achieved by the people function. We checked records with the relevant teams, gave employees an individual statement and established a correction process. System configuration took three weeks longer than the initial schedule, so temporary administration continued during that period. The extra work was preferable to asking colleagues to rely on reassurance while their records said something different.
The 420 employees entered with the agreed service dates and leave balances preserved. That does not mean every employment question was resolved by the acquisition or that all future conditions stayed unchanged. The achievement was narrower: a material promise had an identifiable record and a route for correction. I would start the source-record review earlier in another transaction. Waiting until integration planning is advanced makes a legitimate employment question appear to be an obstacle created by HR, when it is part of what the business has chosen to acquire.
Replacing an inherited degree filter with evidence from the job
Managers recruiting for selected workplace-support roles said they could not find enough suitable applicants. The initial screen excluded candidates without a graduate degree, although the role description emphasised troubleshooting, device setup and explaining a problem to a customer. I asked which task required that particular qualification. Some managers regarded it as a convenient indication of maturity, but nobody could show that the requirement had been examined against the work. We decided to test a more direct assessment for this defined set of vacancies.
The hiring team was concerned about the time needed to review a wider pool. Service leaders also feared that removing the filter would be understood as lowering expectations. We kept the job requirements explicit and designed supervised practical tasks, with a consistent scoring guide for technical reasoning and customer explanation. Assessors reviewed sample responses together before evaluating candidates. Where a role required a particular credential or other clearance, that requirement remained; the exercise did not establish that qualifications are irrelevant across technology work.
Ninety-six candidates who would previously have been excluded entered the assessment. Fifty-four met its standard, thirty-eight received offers against available vacancies and thirty-one joined. Those are different stages, not interchangeable counts of successful employees. The company spent ₹18 lakh on assessment design, assessor time and supervised evaluation. We did not claim that the expenditure had already paid for itself through retention or service quality, since those outcomes required subsequent observation and comparison.
The pilot showed that the earlier screen had excluded some applicants who could demonstrate the specified capability. It did not show that every rejected candidate would have been effective or that a practical exercise predicts all aspects of employment. I asked managers to review the first assignments and feed specific weaknesses back into the assessment. I would also explain the process more clearly to candidates who pass but do not receive an offer. Demonstrating capability opens a fairer consideration; it should not be communicated as an employment promise when vacancies remain limited.