Farida QelzariChief Human Resources Officer · Essays & perspective
Specialist careers6 min read
Let expertise grow without inventing a hierarchy
When progression depends on direct reports, a grade system can encourage managers to redesign the chart for the wrong reason. A credible alternative needs evidence, cost and clear technical boundaries.
A promotion framework does more than describe the organisation. It encourages people to create the kind of organisation that the framework rewards. If progression above a certain level requires direct reports, managers who want to recognise a strong specialist will look for someone to put beneath that person. The new reporting line may then be explained as an operating improvement, even though the original problem was recognition. I learned to examine this effect after helping introduce a framework that made supervisory responsibility a prominent sign of seniority. Its consistency looked reassuring until colleagues began adapting their teams to satisfy it.
An employment system should recognise the contribution it asks people to make, and collect only the evidence needed to decide fairly about that contribution.
Employment verification becomes fairer and more useful when the required fact is distinguished from the familiar route for establishing it, without weakening qualifications or confusing verification with selection.
Small-team feedback can become identifiable through combined filters even when names are removed. Responsible reporting accepts less detail and explains the resulting limits honestly.
General-insurance employer
520 employees
Eighteen branches; ₹1,120 crore FY26 gross written premium
People function
28 HR colleagues
Four heads; ₹4.9 crore FY2026–27 function expense
Preparing for a first appointment
0 board seats
Executive presentations are not statutory directorships
Let expertise grow without inventing a hierarchy
I am Farida Qelzari, chief human resources officer at the fictional Lorqavi General Assurance in Vijayawada. I grew up in Bhopal and began my career maintaining personnel records for a business-services company. The work made me attentive to the difference between a complete file and a fair decision. A form can be filled correctly while the rule behind it excludes a capable person, creates a false management role or exposes a colleague whose confidence the organisation asked to receive.
Lorqavi employs 520 people across eighteen branches and central functions. Gross written premium was ₹1,120 crore for FY ending March 2026, while group employee cost was ₹82 crore. Those are separate measures from the ₹4.9 crore FY2026–27 expense of my people function. I lead 28 colleagues through four heads and report to Sanjay Zorqethi. The company is owned 62% by a domestic industrial group and 38% by a growth-capital investor. I hold no personal shares and have no statutory board seat. Irene Zolmavi leads underwriting; technical insurance authority stays with qualified, authorised colleagues.
My recent work concerns the choices hidden inside ordinary employment processes. We created specialist progression where our previous grade system had required direct reports. We reconsidered reference checks when a former employer could no longer be reached. We reduced the detail in small-team feedback because combining filters made people recognisable. We funded overlap and management capacity for employees returning after approved extended leave, with three assignments still under review. These cases are not claims that a policy solved every difficulty. They show the evidence, expense and unresolved work behind the decision.
Progression did not always require a team
Of 24 reviewed roles, fourteen became specialist appointments, six remained management routes and four needed further development. Annualised pay movement was ₹68 lakh, with ₹16 lakh of role-design work.
An unreachable reference was an unfinished check
Forty-two candidates needed another verification route: 28 were resolved, nine remained unresolved and five withdrew. Seven of the 28 were appointed after the remaining selection steps.
A smaller report protected a more candid conversation
Eighteen of 46 teams had fewer than five responses. Their team reports were suppressed; the other 28 still required checks for identification through combined filters.
Current focus
Building credible specialist careers and employment decisions whose evidence requirements remain proportionate to the question being answered.
Conversations I welcome
A first external board appointment where the people agenda includes expertise, fair employment processes and responsible use of employee feedback.
Beyond the page
The record behind the perspective.
Formation
Bachelor of Arts in PsychologyMorqavi Social Sciences College · 1997
Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resources, part-timeDurqavi Personnel Institute · 2011
Farida kept the four development cases in the progression paper alongside the fourteen specialist appointments. We could see that the new route required evidence, rather than simply solving every pay request with a different title.
Sanjay ZorqethiCEO, Lorqavi General Assurance; fictional colleagueThe full record ↗
Contact
A first external board appointment where the people agenda includes expertise, fair employment processes and responsible use of employee feedback.