An HR Round Table on “Role of HR in Organizational Transformation” was organized by Amrita School of Business (ASB), Coimbatore at Sri Krishna Hall in the campus on 10^th October 2015. The session was conducted in association with the launch of new HR Club in the campus.

Mr. Ravindran, Director-HR, GAIL; Mr. E I Ravindranath, VP-HR (retd.), BHEL; Mr. Prabhu Chari, Director-HR, Cognizant Technologies, Coimbatore; Mr. Muthiah, Ex-Vice-President- HR, Carborundum Universal (Murugappa Group); Ms. Soundaria Lakshmi, Head– HR (India Operations) of Arcadis India Consulting were the speakers at the conference.

The round table started with a welcome address by Dr. R. Raghu Raman, Chairman, ASB Coimbatore. Dr. Raman set the tone of discussion by speaking about the Internet of Things (IoT) and how IoT has changed the role of HR Managers in the country. “IoT is a necessary and disruptive innovation. HR leaders are at the helm to keep skilling their resources to meet the demands of IoT, at the same time managing their mindsets,” said Dr. Raman. He also shared the Chancellor’s vision on co-existence between the science, spirituality and technology.

Dr. Sankaran, Registrar, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapetham delivered the inaugural address. He deftly took the audience through the growth of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapetham from an Institute of Technology to a QS BRIC world ranked institution over the two decades. Prof. P. Venugopal, Director of Human Resources of the institution shared the HR efforts of the institution.

According to the first speaker Mr. Ravindran, Director-HR, GAIL, the role of an HR is to transform the organization through culture and leadership. He shared how GAIL sustained through transformations of the company and their motto of keeping the workforce ‘lean and thin’. “Dealing with machines is easy. On the other hand, dealing with human beings is difficult. You will experience an HR aspect in every issue a company faces,” Mr.Ravindran said. “The recruitment of human resources is always focused on where the company targets to reach,” he added.

The speaker Mr.E I Ravindranath, Vice President-HR (Retd.), BHEL defined HR as a ‘facilitator of change and transformation’ in the constantly evolving business environment. “HR is a strategic business partner and stakeholder in corporate governance. HR is not an option, but strategic compulsion for transformation,” he said.

Mr. Muthiah, Ex-Vice -President- HR, Carborundum Universal (Murugappa Group), pointed out the challenges in handling the employers. Training the senior and younger management to receive and give the right feedback itself is a challenge,” said Mr. Muthiah. He also stated the HR function as ‘creating future ready workforce’, capable of managing the upturns and downturns with effectiveness.

Mr. Prabhu Chari, Director-HR, Cognizant Technologies, Coimbatore, who is also the visiting faculty of ASB Coimbatore, added his experiences as an HR at Cognizant, focusing on topics like training a fresher to solving trivial problems at work places. “There is a dichotomy of experiences HR Managers deal with. On one side, there is an inquisitive mindset of an employee to be on social platforms and on the other side, he has a work day report to fill with. The challenge is to keep them engaged at work,” he said. He presented various ideas on how Cognizant deals with the challenges and digitization aspects that make employment easier.

The last speaker, Ms. Soundaria Lakshmi, Head – HR(India Operations) of Arcadis India Consulting presented  “Role of HR in Multinational Organizations”, which she preferred to name as ‘Evolve’. She talked about the role of HR in handling the apprehensions of employees when the company undergoes acquisitions and mergers.

After the sessions, students posed many interesting queries making the discussion engaging. The point that was stressed during the discussion was the need for HR Managers to become proactive and staying ahead of the change curve. Dr. R. G. Priyadarshni, Associate Professor, ASB Coimbatore moderated the panel discussion.

After Q&A session, HR Club of ASB was officially launched by the dignitaries. The club will be headed by the HR students of Class of 2014.The sessions witnessed the participation of both first year and second year MBA students of the campus, along with the faculty members. It extended from 9am-2pm in the afternoon.

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HR Roundtable on ‘Role of HR in Organizational Transformation’