Chief Human Resources Officer / India
The record changed when we examined its assumptions
Decisions & consequences
01Replacing twenty-four apparent succession answers with an honest account of sixteen
In 2022 our succession review listed a deputy for each of twenty-four lead roles. I endorsed the chart as evidence that cover had been considered throughout the operating structure. A closer review showed twelve people appearing twice. Each pairing might have been plausible in isolation, but the total implied a depth of independent capacity that did not exist. Exhibition movements can create overlapping requirements, and a person cannot fulfil two incompatible assignments merely because the succession record places their name beside both.
The operating sponsor wanted to retain the chart with a note explaining that managers would resolve overlaps when necessary. He argued that the deputies knew the business and that an unfamiliar alternative could create more difficulty than a shared experienced person. I accepted the value of their experience. I did not accept that a general note gave the board a sufficient account of a dependency repeated across the plan. We needed to identify where the same person's availability had been promised twice and what could realistically be developed or covered another way.
Rohit approved₹42 lakh for the development and review programme. Operating owners examined the responsibilities and the evidence for each proposed deputy;HR arranged the development work and kept its status visible. The revised account mapped sixteen distinct deputies to sixteen roles and showed eight roles without the intended cover. It did not claim that all sixteen could take over simultaneously or that inclusion in a plan was an appointment. Actual assignment still required checks on readiness, availability and the work already allocated to the person.
The immediate result looked less complete than the original chart. Directors received eight gaps alongside the funded work to address them. Managers could no longer assume that the same experienced colleague would absorb every exception. I acknowledged that my earlier presentation had counted entries instead of examining the resource they described. The useful change was a more credible basis for development and contingency decisions, not a claim that₹42 lakh had bought universal resilience. I would now ask who appears in more than one critical position before reporting a percentage of roles covered.
Keeping twelve unassessed colleagues out of the task-clearance count
In 2023 forty-eight colleagues attended a defined specialist-handling learning programme. The course record made it tempting to tell planners that forty-eight additional people were ready. Sara and the qualified operating owners required practical assessment before clearance for the specified tasks. Thirty-six colleagues had completed that assessment:twenty-nine met the criteria and seven needed more practice. Twelve had not yet been assessed. The attendance total described participation accurately but could not support the proposed readiness statement.
A depot manager wanted to use supervised deployment to finish the learning while meeting a busy assignment schedule. That could be appropriate where an operating owner approved the exact arrangement, but it could not be treated as blanket clearance. The distinction also mattered to employees. A person who had not yet received an assessment opportunity should not be described as having failed, and someone needing further practice should understand the specific next step rather than receive an indefinite label of not ready.
We funded₹28 lakh for paid practice, assessment time and administration of the revised record. Sara's team defined and judged the technical requirements. HR ensured that the four stages—attendance, practice, assessment and task clearance—remained distinguishable in the employment account. The twenty-nine clearances concerned defined tasks under their stated conditions. They were not a general certification for every object, movement or responsibility the company might encounter. We made no claim that the programme established zero risk or prevented a measured number of incidents.
The operating plan had to retain the twelve pending assessments and seven further-practice cases when allocating work. That reduced the apparent immediate capacity compared with the simple course-completion count. It also required paid time from experienced assessors who had other responsibilities. I regarded that cost as part of making learning real rather than treating it as a clerical milestone. The result was an accurate account of the evidence available at that point. I would bring the assessment capacity into the programme proposal earlier next time, so that the company funds the path from attendance to a justified assignment before announcing a new trained cohort.
Offering a private room without asking employees to justify a private life
Our 2024 travel-policy review began with a rule that made shared hotel rooms standard for nonexecutive colleagues while senior employees ordinarily received their own. Requests for an exception asked the traveller to explain why sharing was unsuitable. The process looked economical and consistent from the booking desk. It also meant that someone might have to disclose personal circumstances to obtain an arrangement available to a more senior colleague without explanation. I wanted to examine whether that distinction served the actual assignment.
In a defined preference review of seventy travelling colleagues, fifty-four preferred their own room and sixteen were willing to share. We did not ask respondents to classify a health, religious or family reason for that preference. The travel manager argued that separate rooms could make some exhibition schedules harder to book and raise costs substantially. Those were legitimate concerns. They belonged in a discussion of itinerary, availability and the service budget rather than in an HR judgement about whether an employee's private explanation was sufficiently persuasive.
The company introduced an own-room option for ordinary business-travel bookings without a seniority condition or a demand for a personal justification. Rohit approved an additional₹18 lakh annual lodging envelope. That was an authorised provision, not a report of exact expenditure. Employees who chose to share could still do so where the arrangement was appropriate and genuinely voluntary. Operating and travel specialists retained responsibility for the practical and security conditions of each booking, and qualified advisers examined any applicable employment requirements separately.
The revised policy could require a different hotel, revised dates or a more expensive service plan. We did not claim that every accommodation request had therefore been resolved or that retention improved because of the change. The decision removed one unnecessary test of private circumstances and accepted its financial consequences. I would now ask whether a supposedly exceptional arrangement is already treated as ordinary for senior people before requesting a personal explanation from everyone else. A policy can recognise a real cost without making privacy something a colleague must purchase through promotion or justify through disclosure.
Testing packing judgement before rejecting a candidate's conversational English
In 2025 we reviewed a packing-team hiring process that used fluent spoken English as an early screen. Some customer-facing responsibilities did require particular communication skills, but the screen had spread across roles whose practical instructions and supervision could be provided in Hindi or English. Interviewers found the conversation convenient for comparing candidates. I asked whether that convenience gave us the evidence needed for the specific work or merely rewarded familiarity with the interviewer's preferred language.
Operating specialists designed a defined work-sample review for sixty candidates, with an explanation route in Hindi or English where appropriate to the task. They set the criteria and assessed the practical reasoning. Thirty-six candidates met those criteria and twenty-four did not. Nineteen participants had previously been screened out for spoken-English fluency;within that group, twelve met the technical criteria and seven did not. The second number mattered as much as the first. Removing an irrelevant screen did not mean assuming every previously rejected candidate was suitable.
The redesign, assessor preparation and administration cost₹32 lakh. A commercial manager worried that a broader language choice would make later customer deployment difficult. We retained explicit language requirements where the actual role and customer interaction supported them. We did not abolish English requirements across the enterprise or ask HR to overrule a technical communication need. Instead, the role specification had to explain the requirement before the screen was used, and assessors needed a supported way to obtain comparable evidence through the permitted routes.
The thirty-six results were assessment outcomes, not thirty-six hires or a prediction of future performance. Appointment checks and decisions remained separate. We also made no legal finding about the earlier screen and no claim that the revised process certified safe handling in every setting. The work required more effort from our assessors and made interviews less uniform in appearance. It made the decision more closely connected to the job. I would now ask which work a language requirement enables before allowing a familiar conversational style to become the first test of whether a person belongs in the candidate pool.