Shan Mohammed - To Be Successful You Must Be Ambitious, Driven, Disciplined, and Passionate (Senior General Manager HR - Reliance Industries Limited)

I believe we need education to be successful, but not in the conventional sense of the word ‘Formal education. We need to redefine what true success is and educate ourselves in a manner that will enable us to achieve it.

Tell us about your background, journey, and upbringing.

Since I come from a Middle-Class family from Delhi, I born & brought up in Delhi. My Father is a businessman and my mother is a housemaker. But luckily my better half is also from an HR background which is really good and helpful at times when we both discuss our profession in the same manner.

I am an HR Transformation Catalyst  HR Practitioner with versatile experience of 19 years in leading & managing Talent acquisition, Digital HR Transformation, Employee Experience, Talent Strategy, Performance, Rewards, and HR Operations initiatives with a focus on productivity, efficiency, profitability and achieving organization's Human Capital Strategy. 

I’m an IT Graduate and Postgraduate in HR and IT. I’m currently working with Reliance Industries Limited as Sr. General Manager – Human Resource & Head - Hiring and Employee Experience Platform. Prior to this, I have worked with Bharti Infratel, Dalmiya Group, and few other major players in the IT/ITes industries.

How did you narrow down on this profession?

“What career to choose when there are so many things that interest me?” this is the common question in front of the youngster. I am a people person from childhood itself. When I completed my Graduation, I have a passion for people and technology.

Fortunately, I got my first job in HR. from that day onwards, I never look back. In one of the discussions with the Company’s CEO, we discussed that “A psychologist is the best recruiter”. The rationale behind the logic is we need to identify the driver that triggers the candidate to opt for this job if Trigger and Job have similarities then We can get a candidate who will serve the company in a better-engaged way. 

That becomes the turning point of my career though I’ve completed my master’s in computer application I wanted to pursue my career in HR. We as HR can help build the future capability of employees/organizations and play a crucial role in employee development, which always encourages me to be an HR Professional.

Studies today show that an organization can lose INR 10 lakh (~ $17,000) on average on a wrong hire or for hiring someone with a false degree. The only tried and tested way to prevent frauds is via a thorough background verification process. Download SpringVerify's e-book for a comprehensive guide to Employee Background Verification in India.

It seems onboarding, even in 2021, is a long-drawn-out process behind the scenes. How do you envision this changing in the future?

COVID-19 is a global pandemic and brings challenging times for many. The pandemic was a wake-up call that the unexpected and the unlikely are more tangible and plausible than anyone previously anticipated. For many, it has been a bitter reality: painful, costly, still unresolved. 

For a few lucky others, it has offered an unforeseen windfall; one that organizations have struggled to capitalize on. Either way, executives must accept that pandemic-induced changes in strategy, management, operations, and budgetary priorities are here to stay. Accelerated investment is coming in digital transformation and other tech solutions.

There is a major shift in the recruitment and onboarding process i.e. physical to digital. Organizations are adopting technical and functional assessment hosted on cloud SaaS platforms for initial screening before the face-to-face or video interview. 

Even virtual onboarding become reality to integrate new employees into remote teams. HR professionals and business leaders would be wise to reinvent or refurbish new processes with an open mindset to encourage and involve the new
candidate/employee in the recruitment and onboarding process.

As we emerge from an unprecedented year of change and challenges, it’s clear that work as we know it has been forever transformed. Remote work has proven to be overwhelmingly successful; however, there are numerous benefits provided by offices and other locations that simply can’t be replicated in the home environment.

There’s no question that a hybrid approach will be the way forward for the vast majority of companies—it offers the flexibility and freedom that workers want, and benefits businesses too. Now it’s up to companies to pave the way, by offering the right spaces, tools, and resources to help employees be successful. 

However, it is totally dependent on the organization operating model that they will opt for Remote Working, Office Working or Hybrid Working, for example, manufacturing units will always go for work from office /Manufacturing units as they have to man the machine Hybrid work model is likely to persist in the near future even post-pandemic. 

Mobile work tools and virtual reality conferencing will become the preferred form of communication even over face-to-face meetings.

What’s one thing you would like to change in how Background Verification is done in India?

There are varying ways in which background verifications (BGV) are perceived by people, but they are a very integral part of the hiring process globally. Employee BGV contains a combination of multiple checks while there are variations from one employer to another. The most common combination of checks is:

• Identity (Aadhaar, PAN card, Voter ID, etc.) verification
• Address verification
• Police verification
• Court record verification
• Prior employment verification
• Highest education verification
• Media verification
• Professional reference checks (by managers from previous employers). This check is increasingly being adopted to know about a candidate's motivators, leadership qualities, team skills, tenacity, and other values that drive his/her day-to-day attitude.

BGV processes have been simplified and made digital by few companies, wherein
they like to make the process as paperless as possible, and also reduce the HR
team's effort of collection of data, documents, consent, and then requesting of checks. The emerging trends are:

a) "BGV platform" approach as opposed to a "BGV as a service" approach. Employers are increasingly adopting Trust / BGV platforms and inviting their
employees to sign-up on these platforms in the process of conducting BGV.

These platforms provide a rich feature-set, including onboarding, document collection, digital staff-file management for compliance and audits, dashboards, reports, user management, data analytics, etc.

b) BGV platform integrations with the employer's human resource management systems (HRMS). Modern age BGV platforms provide APIs that are integrated with HRMS systems for onboarding, requesting checks, call-backs on completion of checks, and fetching the results/reports into their HRMS.

c) Self-registration by candidates on a BGV partner or employer platform, as opposed to HR collecting documents, BGV form, consent, etc. The self-registration modules allow employees to get an invite URL and sign-up directly to provide information, upload their documents, and provide consent for BGV on the platform itself.

d) More employers now appreciate the importance of direct and wilful consent (authorization to conduct BGV with a well-defined purpose covering data storage, security, data sharing prohibitions, etc.) provided by the employee to their BGV partner (on the platform), and therefore remaining compliant to data privacy and security regulations.

e) Employers are looking for rich dashboards, real-time reports, and the ability to view a "single employee record" at one place with verified data, documents, reports, and references.

Though the above-mentioned improvements have already been taken place in some of the companies there is a huge scope of improvement in BGV process. Government/an organization to provide a blockchain-based environment to all education institutes, organizations, BGV firms and other parties related to BGV. 

All the data need to be updated on a real-time basis if any employees change the company needs to be updated in this system. This will provide an error-free and just click on a button. The Blockchain-based system not only provides the verified data quickly but also will be cost-effective too.

How do you handle someone who has lied on their resume?

For me, Integrity is the core value for any successful human being and lying on a resume sabotage that value. When we probe into the reasons for lying then we find mainly two reasons i.e. firstly they desperately want to get the job and secondly, they are hiding some fact and figure.

I have always encouraged my teams to use Behavioural Event Interviewing (BEI) technique in all their interview and asks the candidate to describe a situation or an experience they had in a previous job. 

Responses may not be as polished as the traditional type of question because they cannot be rehearsed ahead of time. The candidate’s responses are a true indication of how the candidate will behave and perform in future work-related situations.

If we find out that there is any major loophole on the resume and the candidate doesn’t have a reasonable explanation for that then we drop that candidate. We also use background verification which takes care of any crimination case, salary fudging, and any other previous employment issue.

                                

Several global companies have come out and thrown their support behind not needing a formal education. What is your opinion about this?

Yes, I believe we need the education to be successful, but not in the conventional sense of the word ‘Formal education. We need to redefine what true success is and educate ourselves in a manner that will enable us to achieve it.

More than anything, your attitude is the most important determinant for achieving
success. Attitude affects how you cope with failure as well as the enthusiasm with
which you approach your objectives as well as your challenges. 

Formal education cannot teach you attitude or enthusiasm and without these, the drive to go for your dreams and to positively impact the world around you will be little or non-existent.

To be successful you must be ambitious, driven, disciplined, and passionate. You must educate yourself in your field of interest beyond what you learn in the
classroom.

What advice do you have for aspiring HR professionals?

When it comes to choosing your career in the field of human resources (HR), There are endless options to make a difference from supporting a company's growth by hiring the right candidate, provide adequate learning & development options to employees, implementing processes to having a valuable impact on the people behind it and even provide a smooth exit experience.

Of the people, and for the people; that is what HR is all about. No matter what your domain expertise in HR but below are for suggestions to improve yourself as a better HR professional

• Understand your people: To begin with, understand your people, know that an HR’s role begins with empathy. Get familiar with your employees. This is an investment you need to make from day one as it will help you in the long run when it comes to creating the right culture, increasing employee engagement and productivity, and achieving the overall goal.

• Recognize your role: HR now is recognized as a strategic partner, the focus is more on employee engagement, talent management, fostering innovation, and developing a collaborative culture. Understanding the strategic definition of your role and then connecting these to the business plan will assist you in planning a strategy that is completely results driven.

• Comprehend the business: It is difficult to capitalize on human capital unless you have a complete understanding of the business. Understand their specific needs and requirement, develop a bridge between all of them, and based on it comprehend the year’s targets of the organization. If you have a clear understanding of the vision of the business, you will then also be able to develop a culture that will help achieve the defined targets easily and at a faster pace.

• Be technology savvy: Understanding the technological know-how has become a must, especially for an HR Professional. You need to incorporate end-to-end software in the organization through which you can operate your payroll, systemize the attendance, employee information, taxes, scheduling, and more. This will help track most of your important processes and save the investment of time that otherwise is given for organizing and processing.

• Widen your skill-set: Make every effort to increase your expertise. This could be through e-learning, industry-based seminars, training courses or simply taking up projects that are complementary to the HR profile. This will not only give you exposure to different verticals but ensure that you keep growing. Schedule skip-level meetings quarterly / Half-yearly with the top management, this will help you understand if you are on track when it comes to your management’s vision of the organization and your profile.

Know that when you are an HR Manager you need to have knowledge and be strategic to make an impact in an organization; this requires focus and a long-term commitment. A simple suggestion to achieve this. Have a mindset of a start-up owner. Be determined, passionate, goal setter, hard worker, and a hustler!

Which is your favorite book and why?

Measure What Matters by John E. Doerr, The book is about using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), a revolutionary approach to goal-setting, to make tough choices in business.

It is an excellent read on implementing OKRs by the master of them. The google/intel/bono case studies are all detailed and provide a lot of examples on how you can implement these in your own organizations. John Doerr built on the method he learned at Intel under the great Andy Grove and then helped more than 50 companies implement those OKRs with a lot of success. 

The system obviously works but the true challenge is influencing the leadership in
an organization to follow such a methodical approach. This book should help with that cause hopefully