In an exclusive interview with BW People, Ms. Rituparna Chakraborty talks about the importance of an inspiring workplace, the expectations from a futuristic CHRO. She also underlines how to keep your employees motivated in a crisis situation Edited Excerpts from her interview.

Photo Credit : teamlease,

Q- What is the value of Wellness of your workforce? What steps are you taking for it in your organisation? 

Wellness of workforce is at the core of our business. Employees spend a lot of time at workplace and it is important to look after both mental and physical wellness. It is a proven fact that the right balance at work not only improves productivity but also keeps the overall office atmosphere positive and competitive. At TeamLease we believe a healthy body leads to a healthy mind and how you spend your day pretty much sums up how you would spend your life. And we feel the best way to spread this message across the organisation would be for our leadership team to lead by example on same. Wellness cannot be restricted to sweating it out for an hour in a gym, we need to imbibe a culture of wellness in our daily life hence how we sit at work, how less we use emails and how much we walk over to have conversations with those who it in the same premise, whether we binge on cookies in our extended brainstorming sessions or reviews or we pick on our chanas, whether we go overboard with our chais and coffees or we have handsome doses of green teas and nimbu pani, whether we take the stairs or we take lifts. Finally, a key ingredient to wellness is hunger to learn – our experience shows those hungry to learn and improve usually are a happier and more productive lot.

Q- What is the importance of an inspiring workplace? 

Doing well by doing good is a value we live everyday. Being in a position to change lives of the youth of today motivates us in TeamLease and inspires us to try the impossible each day. 

Q- Can we leave an important decision as hiring on a Robot? 

Technology has come a long way and can do the matching of the candidates to jobs based on skills and make the hiring process  more agile, transparent and address challenges of unwanted biases however still premature  to do away with the human touch required. Every candidate will be different with a different mix of values, motivations and skill set which can be judged best by having people on the recruitment side. 

Q- What are the challenges of working with instant gratification seeking millennials? 

46% of the workforce in India comprises of millennials, therefore it’s important to know how to engage and retain them in the workplace. Millennials are ambitious, but they don’t always run towards income. They are driven by a strong sense of purpose above everything else – no amount of money can compensate for lack of purpose. Patience is another aspect in which millennials lack, as they expect a continually growing career progression. Therefore mentors must ensure they are providing them with incremental training and experience at the workplace which will later attribute to larger career advancement opportunities. 

Q- How should a CEO and CHRO bridge the skill gap?

Adoption of Apprenticeship is the only way for CEOs and CHROs to stay ahead of skill debate which is bogging down most organisations. It’s the only self healing mechanism for organisation’s in today’s time to cope with changing needs of skill needs at workplace. Also its important there needs a top down commitment towards preparing skills rather than buying skills as and when required. The short term approach towards skilling is hurting organisational bottom line significantly and run risk of making them uncompetitive.

Q- What do you think are the expectations from a futuristic CHRO?        

The future relevance of CHROs lie in making a group of ordinary individuals a team of invincible superheros whose powers keep getting enhanced regularly. That’s possible when HR becomes contributor to organisational P&Ls by simply making existing workforce more productive and their ability to leverage technology in attracting, engaging, enhancing, collaborating existing talent shall be a key determinant of that.

Q- What are the best practices that CHRO’s are leveraging from Social Media for the right kind of hiring and recruitment? 

Social Media is a huge platform for both sourcing and corporate branding. It is very important for the organization to have a strong social media presence which communicates both the workplace culture and unique proposition of being an employee of said company. It is also important that the brand’s value is perceived and matches word-of-mouth communication by employees 

Q- A job interview is a conversation between two liars, how to get the best out of that is the skill of a CHRO. Can you give us some hacks for the same? 

Have a problem with assessment that a job interviews is necessarily between two liars. However to surface uncomfortable truths about individuals as well as being honest about the representing organisation its important for CHROs to create a culture where a candidate is allowed to feel at ease and not be intimidated. And that starts with encouraging interviewers to listen more and ask more open ended questions. When the candidate gets talking making accurate assessments about them becomes easier.

Q-Explain the fine line between Talent Acquisition and hiring?

There is no difference. 

Q- How to keep your employees motivated in a crisis situation?  

The main key to keep employees motivated is Transparent Communication. Regular updates and keeping your employees informed during a crisis situation goes a long way in not only maintaining motivation but leveraging their support when required.