HR Movements: 03 July, 2017

1.

SN Subrahmanyan appointed as L&T CEO and MD

S.N. Subrahmanyan, current Deputy Managing Director and President, will take over as the new CEO and MD of L&T from tomorrow. 

S.N. Subrahmmanyan will take over as the new CEO & MD of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) beginning tomorrow, says a news report . This development also marks the end of tenure for A.M. Naik, who has been at the helm for 17 years. 

Currently serving as the Deputy Managing Director and President of the company, Subrahmanyan had joined L&T in 1984 as a project planning engineer. He was inducted in the L&T board in 2011. His appointment as the new leader was approved by the company board on in April this year. However, the news of the impending change was made public last year, and then Subrahmanyan was expected to take charge from October 1, 2017. 

Naik will continue to provide guidance and mentorship beyond his current term and will take up the role of non-executive chairman for a period of three years from October 1, right after his retirement as executive chairman on September 30.

2.

Rajesh Laddha appointed as MD and CEO of Shriram Capital Ltd

Shriram Capital Ltd. has appointed Rajesh Laddha as its new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.

Piramal Enterprises Ltd. who has 20% equity stake in Shriram Capital Ltd. announced that its Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Rajesh Laddha has been appointed as MD and CEO of Shriram Capital Ltd. Laddha will take over his new position from 1st July 2017.

On Laddha’s appointment, R. Thyagarajan, founder of Shriram group was quoted in media saying “This appointment marks a new era in our growth as well as deepens our partnership with our long-term investors, including the Piramal Group.” 

Ajay Piramal, Chairman of Piramal group also stated in media that Laddha handled some of their most significant strategic forays, acquisitions, and negotiations in businesses.

Rajesh joined the Piramal Group in 2001 and has played a critical role in executing smooth acquisitions, mergers, sale & transitions in the Company. 

3.

Centum Learning appoints Sanjay Bahl as Managing Director & CEO

Before joining Centum, Sanjay was the President and Director of NIITs Skills Initiative JV and the National Channel Head of their Skills and Career group.

Centum Learning has appointed Sanjay Bahl as the company Managing Director & CEO. In this role, Sanjay will be responsible for driving Centum Learning’s strategy to ensure that their goal of being the most admired Learning and Skill Development Partner is attained, thus enabling sustainable transformation.

Sanjay said, “I strongly believe that the success of a nation depends on the success of its youth and Centum Learning will continue to play a pivotal role through extensive collaboration with all the key stakeholders, including industry organizations, corporates, NSDC, government departments, technology partners and the community at large.”

Working towards the goal of retaining Centum’s leadership position in this field, Sanjay will be driving a scalable business strategy leveraging the strengths of the company, on one hand, and the evolving skilling ecosystem on the other.

Sanjay has over 30 years of rich experience in different sectors, with extensive involvement in education and 
skilling space.

HR learning: 27 June, 2017

1.

Coaching: Discover your AAHA moment!

Do you remember the 'Eureka' story of the great scientist Archimedes? 

About 2200 years ago, Archimedes stepped into his bath and exclaimed “Eureka!” It means “I found it.”

At that moment Archimedes discovered a solution to a problem he had been pondering upon for a long time.

It was a moment of sudden discovery. The Eureka effect, it was a moment of deep insight. It’s an epiphany; the ‘AAHA!’ moment, that is Aim, Audit, Hash out and Act.

Consider Archimedes’ bathtub as your mind; the water as all the thoughts, beliefs, values, fears, emotions and everything else that is filled inside your mind.

A coach helps you take the dip; helps you take a look inside yourself and takes you through the process of self-discovery of all the solutions which we believe is available with us already.

This process of ‘holy-dip’ and the discovering your AAHA! Moments is called ‘Coaching Conversations’

The popular 'GROW' model of coaching is one of the best ways to structure our coaching conversations.

2.

Fixing the training evaluation model

A webinar session on identifying and correcting the common mistakes committed on executing the Kirkpatrick Model for training evaluation.

The People Matters L&D Virtual Conference concluded with a highly informative session by Dr. Jim Kirkpatrick (creator of the New World Kirkpatrick Model) on the pitfalls that organizations should avoid, while executing the Kirkpatrick Model for their training evaluations. The session, titled ‘Fatal Kirkpatrick Model Execution Errors: Practical Tips for Identifying and Correcting Them’, threw up a number of key insights on the most common execution errors, and how to avoid them in the first place.

The Kirkpatrick Model evaluates the training program on four levels: reaction, learning, behavior and results; all applying to the participants of the program. The most common mistake organizations commit, is to evaluate these levels individually, and sequentially. This leads to the wasting of time and money, as most of it is spent on the first two levels itself. Thus, the business value of the program is not accurately reflected.

Another major error is the attempt to isolate the impact of training, thereby isolating yourself from all your partners, and the business itself. Upon committing this error, an individual can risk losing his/her credibility, program budget and career too! 

3.

How can a leader build the right attitude for learning?

Understand your business context, technology trends and inspire employees

 

On the second day, People Matters Virtual Conference on Learning & Development featured a number of interesting sessions, one of which focused on the role of a leader in building the right attitude for learning. This session was led by Vasudevan Narasimha, Executive Director – HR, KEC International (part of the RPG Group). Setting the context for the discussion, Vasudevan focused on the need for a leader to understand the current business context. Since CEOs are focused on the short, medium and long-term impact, learning should be contextualized towards the nature of the business and not be too focused on the kind of technology or the pedagogy involved, while both of them are important.

HR News: 27 June, 2017

1.

Union Health Ministry tightens time adherence rules: Awards punctuality

The ‘employee of the month’ award is conferred upon people who consistently reach office before 9:00 a.m. and leave after 5:30 p.m.

Punctuality is crucial to the success of any endeavour, and the Union Health Ministry appreciates this fact.  In line with the same, it has also started acknowledging and recognising its employees who are punctual. The Ministry has begun awarding employees, who adhere to the office timings, working eight hours a day and completing 40 hours of duty in a five-day week. The ‘employee of the month’ award is conferred upon people who consistently reach office before 9:00 in the morning and leave after 5:30 in the evening.

The ‘employee of the month’ gets a letter of appreciation from the Union health secretary. The acknowledgement drive has worked wonders, as the practice has reportedly resulted in improved punctuality at the workplace with people consistently reaching on time.

2.

New maternity benefits even for those already on leave: Labour Ministry

Enhanced benefits will be applicable to the women who were already on maternity leave when the bill came into effect.

Clearing a lot of the doubts around the new Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 and its implementation, the Ministry of Labour & Employment issued a clarification stating that the enhanced benefits will be applicable to even those women who were already on maternity leave when the bill came into effect.

As per the official statement, “The enhanced maternity benefit, as modified by the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016 can be extended to women who are already under maternity leave at the time of enforcement of this Amendment Act.” 

3.

Uber & Ola drivers: Employees, contractual or outsourced?

The drivers of these cab aggregators have complained against the arbitrary payment deductions on unsubstantiated grounds. Neither is there any indemnity scheme for the driver, in case of fraud booking, nor is there any freedom to cancel bookings.

In response to a writ petition filed by the Delhi Commercial Driver Union, the Delhi High Court has sought a response from the cab aggregators—Uber and Ola—on whether their drivers would fall under the category of employees or workmen. This will help the court decide on the employee benefits for these drivers. The Court also issued notices to the Centre and the Delhi Government.

The Delhi Commercial Driver Union, which claims to represent over one lakh drivers operating in the National Capital Territory, has sought the court’s direction on the following aspects:

• Constituting a committee to look into the complaints of the drivers regarding work and pay condition.

• Constituting a Committee to monitor and implement various labour laws.

• Ensuring payment of compensation to the drivers, who are victims of road accidents during the course of their employment.

The drivers of these two cab aggregators have grievances that there are arbitrary deductions in payments on vague and unsubstantiated grounds. Besides, there is no indemnity scheme for the driver in case of fraud bookings, nor is there any freedom to cancel bookings. In addition, the aggregators change fares on a daily basis without prior notice. The lack of a grievance redressal mechanism is yet another issue.

HR Movements: 27 June, 2017

1.

Sula Vineyards appoints Nick Pringle as COO

Prior to this, Nick worked at AB InBev for 12 years. He later joined Constellation to assume a variety of roles and eventually joined Accolade Wines to strengthen Hardys globally in 2011. 

Sula Vineyards has appointed Nick Pringle as the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), effective immediately. In his capacity as the COO Nick will work closely with Rajeev Samant, Founder and CEO, Sula Vineyards, while overlooking the company’s strategy and operations.

Nick has over 20 years of experience in the wine and spirits industry. He has worked extensively in international markets to create a significant category across emerging markets for wine and spirits consumption and he strongly believes that numerous opportunities lie in the Indian alcoholic & beverage industry. 

2.

Arunabh Kumar quits as TVF CEO after sexual harassment charge

Arunabh Kumar steps down as TVF CEO after sexual harassment claim against him. Dhawal Gusain takes on as the new CEO of the company.

As per media reports, Arunabh Kumar has quit as the CEO of the TVF (The Viral Fever) on account of alleged sexual harassment charges against him. In his Twitter account , he says that the last few months were very challenging for him – that has mentally and emotionally drained him. He talks about his entrepreneurial journey and passion. Also, shares his dream to make an Indian content company match the standard of Disney & HBO.  He also discusses TVF culture. He says the core of TVF is culture rooted in democratic and equal opportunities for everyone irrespective of gender, caste and background. 

3.

Manu Gulati hired by Google as a lead SOC

Manu Gulati, an Indian-origin chip architect is appointed as lead SOC (system on a chip) architect.

Google, an American multinational technology company who is planning to expand its team of chip experts so that it can develop chips for their Pixel phones has hired Ex-Apple micro-architect, Manu Gulati as a lead SOC for its upcoming Pixel phone.

Gulati, an Indian-origin chip architect was working with Apple for almost eight years as a micro-architect and owns 15 Apple patents related to chip design. He was responsible for building custom chips for the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.

According to a media report, Apple filed a total of 15 chip-related patents that credit Gulati as one of the inventors. Some of these filings describe fundamental chip architecture, while others are more specific to certain applications.For example, one of his patents described hardware-based security for Apple Pay that securely stores a user’s fingerprint on the iPhone.

He carries with him a rich experience of over 27 years in chip development and has worked with companies like Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Broadcom Corp and Apple. Gulati completed his Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi and went to pursue his MS from the University of California.