Samanvay ( HR Conclave) 2020
Samanvay, when loosely translated into English means integration. On 25th January 2020, MDI Murshidabad witnessed “samanvay” or a confluence of “corporate stalwarts” and “business prodigies”, for the dissemination of knowledge aimed at the creation of great leaders in the age of disruption. The first edition of Samanvay – The HR Conclave, organized by HrUdbhav (The HR Club of MDI Murshidabad) had HR leaders from all corners of India, discussing the topic ‘HR in the age of disruption’.
The conclave was inaugurated by the honorable Director of MDI-M Professor(Dr.) Atmanand. Citing a famous shloka from Bhagwat Gita
“कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥”, Dr. Atmanand emphasized on the importance of being dedicated to one’s karma/duty without worry about the reward.
The Chief-Guest and the Keynote speaker for the session Mr. Vinay Ranjan, Director Personnel, Eastern Coalfields Ltd., touched upon the aspect of changing business models. He stated how predicting the future in business has become a tough task, and how Design Thinking, Data Science, and Big Data Analytics can help managers discern the randomness in the industry. He stated that the introduction of technology won’t lead to the loss of vocation, but the failure to keep oneself adept at the latest innovations would do so.
Mr. Ranjan emphasized on the need for hyperskilling.
The conclave also witnessed three panel-discussions attended by HR leaders.
Panel 1 comprising Mr. Samar Mahapatra (Head HR, Rajasthan Drugs and Pharma), Ms. Ananya Dutta Chowdhury (Deputy Labor Commissioner, Govt. Of West Bengal), Mr. Deepu Bhattacharya (HR Leader – Financial Services, Reliance Jio Infocomm) and moderator Ms. Debjani Roy (Chief HR Officer, Mind Your Fleet) came together to discuss on the topic “Structural disruption and gig economy”. The crux of the conversation showcased as to how HR chips in with “Human Touch”, “Empathy”, and ” Interpersonal Skills” which the AI will be unable to cater in the near future.
The panel highlighted the three main importance of the Gig Economy, which are Agility, Ability, and Independence.
The second panel-discussion in Samanvay was on the topic “Technical Disruption and Industry 4.0”. The panel comprised Ms. Sharmila Thakur (HR Leader & Head-Human Capital, Bureau Veritas), Mr. Kalol Dutt (Joint Labour Commissioner, Govt. Of West Bengal), Ms. Rosalin Mohanty (Head HR, ESSPL) and the moderator Mr. Navneet Sulakhe (Head – Talent Management, Landmark Group). The panel stated that until and unless an organization learns to cater to its internal customers (i.e the employees), it will fail to cater to its external customers. Although the AI is supposed to possess the hard-skills and is supposed to do away with the hard tasks, it’s the interpersonal skills of an HR that will come into play. The panel concluded with the notion that Industry 4.0 is only going to make the path easier for the leaders rather than taking away their bread and butter.
Panel three comprising Mr. Ratna Sekhar Adika (Director HR & CA, Balmer Lawrie ), Ms. Debjani Roy (Chief HR Officer, Mind Your Fleet), Ms. Debalina Roy (Corporate HR, Star Cement) and Mr. Abhay Kapoor (Sr. HR Leader, Amazon) and the moderator Mr. Aloke Tagore (Geo Talent Lead-East, Deloitte) sat together to discuss the topic “Managing Millennials and the multigenerational workforce” and thus try and solve the everlasting conundrum of which generation is the best and why it is better than the rest. The panel concluded that we should strive to forge a common platform so that multigenerational differences can be mitigated to reduce the considerable adverse impact on organizational performance. We should thrive on the strength of each generation rather than focusing on the weaknesses.
