From following a candidate question to examining company authority

Mandate

Keep ownership participation, employment review and supervisory responsibilities understandable and distinct

Outcomes

• Funded practical access to ownership briefings for a defined shift-worker group
• Reassigned seven reviewers who had participated in the original performance assessments
• Clarified a proposed profit pool without announcing an approved payment
• Combined peer feedback with observed supervisory tasks

Decisions in context

I became CHRO in January 2023, reporting to Anita Qorvashi and leading twenty-four colleagues through four leads. My annual function expense is ₹5.6 crore. The company employs 710 people and recorded ₹182 crore revenue and ₹15.2 crore operating profit in FY 2026; those are company figures, not a personal revenue remit. Majority employee-trust ownership makes participation consequential, but it does not make every employee conversation an ownership decision. I have concentrated on the routes by which colleagues attend, understand, challenge and progress. Plant manager Devraj Nertheli and qualified operating colleagues retain technical responsibilities. I am neither a trustee nor a statutory director. The title gives me responsibility for the people function, not authority to substitute HR judgement for the trust, an employment process or a technical assessment. Preparation for a board seat therefore begins with the limits of my present experience.

Reason for the move

Current executive role; preparing for a first non-executive opportunity

Mandate

Develop usable people processes within a business where employees also had an ownership interest

Outcomes

• Examined the capacity in which colleagues participated in different decisions
• Connected process availability with the realities of factory schedules
• Prepared people-function leads to explain decision routes and their limits

Decisions in context

Velqani introduced me to a setting in which colleagues could discuss the business as employees and as people with an interest through the ownership trust. The company employed 590 people with ₹143 crore revenue in FY 2019. I led eighteen colleagues through three leads and managed ₹3.8 crore annual function expense. My title was an executive management title, without a statutory directorship or trustee appointment. I needed to learn how the governance arrangements worked before recommending changes to people processes. An apparently inclusive discussion could become confusing if nobody knew whether it concerned an ownership question or an individual employment decision. I worked with the responsible colleagues to make those distinctions easier to explain. The later CHRO appointment expanded my responsibility for the whole people function while preserving the authority of the trust and operating leaders in their own domains.

Reason for the move

Promoted to CHRO

Mandate

Develop managerial people capability and credible routes for reviewing disputed assessments

Outcomes

• Examined who had participated in decisions later presented for review
• Connected manager preparation with the explanation employees received
• Developed two functional leads before taking a broader people-operations role

Decisions in context

The head-of-function appointment changed my relationship with managers. I was responsible for helping them make and explain people decisions, not simply arranging the administration after those decisions. Tervashi had 370 employees and ₹96 crore revenue in FY 2014. I led eleven colleagues through two leads with ₹2.1 crore annual expense, reporting to the managing director. Disputed assessments taught me to examine the people behind a review route. A different form or meeting could still return the employee to somebody involved in the original judgement. I learned to ask about that involvement before describing the route as separate. Velqani later offered a broader people-operations remit in a majority employee-trust-owned company. I wanted to understand how shared ownership affected the way colleagues questioned decisions, without assuming that ownership itself solved the employment issues I had already encountered.

Reason for the move

Joined Velqani to work in a different ownership setting

Mandate

Make factory HR processes usable within the working patterns of the people affected

Outcomes

• Learned how shift schedules affected access to ordinary HR conversations
• Helped managers distinguish a policy announcement from an understood explanation
• Completed a part-time HR diploma while remaining employed

Decisions in context

I joined Tervashi in October 2008 to move from recruitment coordination into factory HR. The company employed 240 people and recorded ₹58 crore revenue in FY 2008. I led six colleagues with ₹92 lakh annual function expense under the plant head. I soon found that a process designed around the HR office timetable could be difficult to use from a different shift. Employees needed a route that fitted the actual working day, and managers needed to understand what their explanations had left unanswered. I completed a part-time postgraduate diploma at Zervani People Institute in November 2012 while remaining in the role. The study helped me examine the decisions I was seeing at work rather than replace practical knowledge with a policy vocabulary. Promotion brought responsibility for the wider function and for the managerial capability behind individual transactions.

Reason for the move

Promoted to head of human resources

Mandate

Coordinate candidate communications and follow unresolved questions to the responsible decision-maker

Outcomes

• Learned to distinguish transmitting a message from answering a candidate's question
• Followed changes in vacancy information through the responsible account teams
• Developed the coordination experience used in a later factory HR role

Decisions in context

I started work in July 2003 after completing commerce that May. Norzali employed thirty-eight people and recorded ₹5.2 crore revenue in FY 2003. I joined a five-person coordination group without direct reports, hiring delegation or expense authority. Much of my work concerned the distance between a vacancy description and the questions a candidate needed answered. A message could be passed on accurately while leaving its recipient unsure about the next step. I learned to identify who owned the decision and to follow a question until that person had addressed it. I could not promise an appointment or change a client's requirements. The experience made me interested in the employment relationship after recruitment, which led me to Tervashi. Factory HR offered the chance to see how the organisation's explanations held up over time, after a person had actually joined.

Reason for the move

Joined Tervashi for a first people-management remit