Tahseen: Hello everyone. Welcome to the People Lead Show. I'm your host Tahseen Kazi and our guest for today is Krupa NS. She's the CHRO at Xoriant Solutions and a seasoned HR leader with more than two and a half decades of experience in the field. A large part of her experience has been at global tech giant HCL Technologies, where she led HR practices for more than 40, 000 employees across 30 plus countries.

Tahseen: Welcome Kripa. Thank you so much for having this conversation with us today. 

Krupa NS: Thankyou Tahseen for inviting me for this and I'm looking forward for an interesting conversation. Awesome. 

Tahseen: Kripa, I'm going to start with some, a very simple question, something that we ask all HR leaders when we have this conversation because we want to know the human behind the human resources.

Tahseen: So who's Kripa outside of work? 

Krupa NS: Kripa is, I would say, an adventurous person A rockstar mom for an 18-year-old daughter and a biker at leisure, and of course a single when time permits. So that's what I am a very normal person behind, but an absolute adventurous soul. 

Tahseen: Wow. Mom, biker. And a single that's, that's by no means is normal.

Tahseen: That's, that's a lot. A lot of things that you're doing. That's amazing. So Kripa, the next question is something that I want to ask as a CHRO. So what are the top two or three dilemmas or questions that you as a CHRO want answers to?

Krupa NS: See today, I mean I'm sure most of the people would have always spoken the pre COVID and the post COVID and that's how the pandemic started.

Krupa NS: We've created an era for ourselves. While we thought work from home [00:02:00] was something that was a luxury given to people became an absolute necessity. And the greatest dilemma that I'm looking at today is for people who've joined us, who've never known, and it's not a Xorian problem, but I think it's a challenge that everyone is going through.

Krupa NS: For me, it's more about stickiness to the organization, especially people stay long in the company because of the environment, the culture, their people, their managers and the connect that they have, because you spend almost, you know, 10 hours of your day in an office and then with your family. But today it's become vice versa where you're absolutely at home.

Krupa NS: So that's one of the biggest dilemma that I have. And as I told you, engaging these people fruitfully into, you know, talent development. And then we look at, you know, our critical employee retention, which is going to be the next bigger thing for me because it's so cyclical. So in the next two to three quarters, with the way I see the industry beginning to ramp up, we are again going to be crunched for people.

Krupa NS: And redeeming key  people, that's a big dilemma. 

Tahseen: Got it. You mentioned a whole lot of things there, and if I may, you know, summarize. I think the three main points that you mentioned is one is engaging people in a remote setup meaningfully, making them appreciate the organization and employee retention.

Tahseen: These three are going to be. Important challenges for you to solve. Um, I think all these problems or challenges are questions, right? And these are ongoing challenges. You're not going to have a perfect solution for it. These will be ongoing challenges. You'll keep finding new ways of dealing with it. But I think at the crux of it is the employee.

Tahseen: And the most important thing is to know how the employee is feeling, what the employee is thinking, what is the experience that they are going through. What is it that you are doing to listen to your employees? 

Krupa NS: There are two points to it. If I just take a new joiner for the time, when we look at our pre onboarding itself, while we have made offers to people and we decide that they're going to be part of, you know, the organization.

Krupa NS: Conversations with these people engaging them prior to their joining plays a big role in terms of they start seeing how much is the organization involved or, you know, showing that kind of importance for their joining this particular organization. So you listen, you talk and you're engaged with them to the point they're going to be onboarded as, as new joiners.

Krupa NS: When they come into an organization, first is providing information to the people so that they're well equipped to understand what is around and then you give them the experience over a brief period of time, right? Beyond this, when you look at it, see today as a survey, right? When we do too much of survey also, it's actually going to hit us back.

Krupa NS: There has to be time gap between surveys that we plan to do. Frequent surveys is a backfire in my knowledge. So when we see what are the touch points, then how do I really grab a feedback from this person without him getting irritated that you're always asking me, how are these things? And formally, we just keep chasing these people to, you know, can you fill this form?

Krupa NS: This is the quick five minute form. Can you do it? So after a certain program, why they walk out of? You know, this particular session in itself, when we ask them two or three questions live on the chat, you know, what they thought was great, what they thought as an area to improve, there will be a few people who will give you, you know, an instant feedback before they close the session, because then and then it's done, how do we start, you know, collecting this kind of information at these various touch points?

Krupa NS: That's one that's going to be an actual listening because that's very instant fresh in their mind and the feedback, whatever it is, is something that is, you know, absolutely their opinion of things and people who don't give a feedback, according to me is a feedback. You know, feedback is a favorite when we try and do all of these connects, you know, timely quarterly, it's very important.

Krupa NS: While some people feel that, you know, a town hall is just a protocol, um, a town hall is actually a must. I would say once in a quarter where at least the organization takes the responsibility of having a transparent communication about, you know, at any level, it does not have to be that a CEO [00:06:00] has to come and participate every quarter, right?

Krupa NS: There are other leaders. They are more closer to the business. They are working much deeper with our customers. In fact, one practice that I have seen in Zorient is what we call as a Zor speak. So what is that? About 15 20 days before the All Hands meet, we open up this on our intranet page, where we ask people, where it's totally anonymous, and we ask people, what would you really like to hear in this meeting?

Krupa NS: Because more than, you know, prepared presentations, which come from the business anyways, we would like to modify the presentation to look at, does it cover these questions from our employees? Beyond which, I mean, you know, especially we look at one is why we have a crux of the employees who are the fulcrum are young engineers.

Krupa NS: Then we have the people who are these middle level leaders, this set of people, where do we really find their voice? And the, and for that, I mean, it is very open question or sessions that we have with none other than our COO, or, you know, we look at some of our CXOs coming into  these meetings where it's nothing to do with how did you deliver your project, but it's just about to ask what's happening in Xorient.

Krupa NS: The most important thing is the greatest change management Zorient went to. I'm sure you're aware, which is there. We've been acquired by an organization, which is a private equity first capital. And with that came in, you know, the new leadership team. And it became very important for us to be extremely open to tell people that, you know, this is who we are.

Krupa NS: And, you know, do you believe that, you know, we are communicating enough. 

Tahseen: Uh, Kripa, you mentioned a few very important things which I would like to touch upon. In fact, I think one important point you said was that silent users, even silent users are saying something to you. 

Krupa NS: That is very loud, actually.

Tahseen: That's the loudest feedback that you're getting. 

Krupa NS: That, that for me, the worry is that 25 or 30%, even after we tell them they don't give, that very clearly shows they are somewhere disengaged. And that's a set of people. And especially when it's anonymous, you really don't know who's the person sitting in.

Krupa NS: And, you know, that's where my HR business partners will have to [00:08:00] do a lot more work to penetrate into, talk to all employees, get a pulse, that's where we call something as, you know, the predictive quotient, which we will work on, right? Every organization should have it. We, some people call it early warning signal, but for me, what's important is capability, competency, and risk matrix, right?

Krupa NS: So while it's extremely important, everybody is there, but for me, who are some people I just can't afford to lose. I just can't afford to lose. So how do I zero in on those people? And that's where you have to come up with a framework to really look at their competency, their criticality, and the risk of losing them.

Krupa NS: And then when we zero in on the three by three of people who are absolute red for me, are the ones I'm going to take an extra effort to be staying connected, trying to do things that pep them up at work, giving them responsible roles. Differentiated compensation, looking at fast track promotions. Those are the things that will come up for me.

Krupa NS: And that's where, you know, we will have to look at. 

Tahseen: Absolutely. I think top talent, you know, retaining [00:09:00] top talent. And I think you mentioned that as a challenge as well in the initially that, you know, retaining attrition is going to be an ongoing challenge. Especially retaining top talent. So I think from that perspective, what are some things that you're doing to keep your attrition numbers in check, especially for your top talent?

Tahseen: Is there any specific strategies or measures that you're taking or initiatives? 

Krupa NS: So one point very critical is the reward and recognition programs that we have for people. And how do we really look at identification of this critical talent? I think gone are the days, especially with so much of technology, improvement and AI and all of it coming in into HR, it's important that it's just not a subjective call of why somebody becomes important.

Krupa NS: Can we really hammer it down through a framework, which by we answering certain questions, trying to look at a calculated way of saying, okay, this is what I believe the person is important. And then I add the subjective mix to it in terms of what are the other things, the qualitative I can do, but can I really get into the quantitative measurement of.

Krupa NS: You know, certain things that works well for us. Once we do that, what do we look at for these people? We need to keep them busy, very involved into the organization. So first is the basic hygiene. Can we really look at that compensation matrix? Where do this tag? And this is a set of people I'm really looking at is they are supposed to be much greater than my median of the organization that I've been hiring for.

Krupa NS: They definitely have to be a scale above all of these people so that they understand that they're being paid. Well, recognized. Well, do I really look at these people who can pick up, you know, higher responsibilities? Can I have fast track programs for these people? And of course, you know, when we look at an insider, you know, the job rotation that we want to focus on, these are the people whom we have to quickly see, you know, from an elevation perspective, they're delivering.

Krupa NS: You know, as our staff and, you know, constant recognition of these people in the various touch points, whether it is, you know, in your quarterly or you're looking at engaging them in some very meaningful leadership development programs, put them on into some real good  trainings, you know, and it's just not about something that's in the organization, but to the likes of the Harvard or search for some of these really good forms of leadership.

Krupa NS: Had that kind of reputation to, you know, work on helping on some very curated leadership programs for people. And that's where, when the appreciation happens, the longevity, stickiness, and your bonding to the company is in a very positive manner. 

Tahseen: That's great. This kind of answers, you know, uh, one of the challenges that you mentioned in the beginning is how to, you know, bring about the stickiness to the organization.

Krupa NS: Absolutely. 

Tahseen: Now, I'm going to switch gears a little bit, Kripa, and so we've spoken about, you know, stickiness in the organization for top talent, but what about productivity of talent, right? Have you landed a solution that can truly tackle organizational performance and productivity? 

Krupa NS: So, if you look at it, I would like to comment very specifically from, you know, the industry that I'm coming in from.

Krupa NS: According to me, honestly, productivity has to be tracked as a discipline,  but if we really push it down the throat of an employee that, you know, you're tracked by every minute, then we're going to lose the game. We have to have that flexibility, but ownership in terms of what has been asked the deliverable on time, that's how they need to be measured on.

Krupa NS: Systems should be there to support an employee and it should not become a part of, you know, a kind of a stress, It should support but not add stress to the employee. That's something that I would say. And as I told you, the third part, most important is engaged teams are always highly productive. 

Tahseen: That is great.

Tahseen: Earlier in the conversation, you spoke about, uh, anonymous questions before a I think that, uh, is something to do with trust, you know, gaining employee trust and building it over time. So from that perspective, what is better, an anonymous survey or a confidential survey? So I'll 

Krupa NS: bring in from the situation where I'm coming in and then a general industry practice.

Krupa NS: See, today it's a new leadership or an organization has been taken over. Whenever you have a situation where we are an acquired organization, right? And then we have the organization that has acquired us are making all the efforts to come forward and communicate. And then when we, it is because of the, of the lack of knowledge about the intentions of the person who has acquired us, you always have a fear factor in your mind that, okay, I otherwise need to have another offer letter.

Krupa NS: Otherwise I just better lie low in terms of what I would like to give. If my name is to be attached to the feedback. But then if I am anonymous, I will open my heart and tell what's going, you know, first will be what's going bad. And then if there is something that's going good. So the first instance of asking people to be anonymous is to tell the people that we are more worried about your feedback.

Krupa NS: And it is not that we are targeting you in any other way. We have to cool their nerves. Otherwise, the moment we say we would like a feedback and we will take it from you with your names. You'll probably see the numbers dropping like really bad. So that's where first anonymity just is a, is a gesture to tell people that I need your feedback more than me trying to target you for having given the feedback.

Krupa NS: The second part is, as you rightly said, after the feedback is given very beautifully, they give us an analytics of saying, this is what you want. These are your improvement areas. This is where, you know, you are doing well and all of it. The point is, how many organizations pick that up, go back to their employees in a transparent manner and tell them, Hey, this is how the GPTW feedback has come for us.

Krupa NS: These three areas, we're pathetic. These three, we're doing well. So now I'm going to take these three actions for us. That's how you will go back and commit to the organization. And when you commit with a timeline, you have to walk the talk. Otherwise, every year one survey will come, people will answer, they'll go.

Krupa NS: And my view is, don't take 20 things to make it look beautiful. But can you take for each one of your improvement areas, one or two things that you can pick up, that you can sustain? Don't overcommit. And only then, over a period of time, people will be very okay. And then I think asking them with their names, if they want to give it to us, I'm sure is going to turn around the table.

Tahseen: I think one important part of the journey is exit. Do you do any kind of survey or questions or understand, you know, because I think that at that point, people are bound to be very honest. 

Krupa NS: Yeah. In fact, there are two types, you know, a small practice that I have played in the previous and as well as one here now is one is you do your exit interview, which is very formal with your HR and your leader before you approve your resignation and all of that goes through.

Krupa NS: I have given one task to my final exit team who does the F and F in my payroll part of the HR, where they kind of hand over your leaving letter and service certificate and all that. On their very last day, when they're connecting to get in their papers, we just asked them, look, anyway, you're leaving today and I'm anyway, pushing across all of your letters and all of this to you, I just wanted to be open enough to tell me what really triggered you to move when compensation was an amazing, you know, pull factor from the market, but what really triggered you here?

Krupa NS: We had some honest answers. People said, yes, the churn and, you know, with this whole acquisition, you know, we're not sure what is the path we are moving into. Or we had people telling us, I'm not sure what is my growth path here. It's just not about telling better technology or better work outside, but they told the entire inside story.

Krupa NS: You know, I'm not getting, I can't see my career path for five years down the line. So we've had some honest answers. 

Tahseen: That is great. I am nearing an end. I have my last two questions. What are some core metrics that you personally track and report on? 

Krupa NS: So extremely important. Today's HR has to be very, very business oriented.

Krupa NS: You should know your numbers as much as your business unit head knows. HR is not a revenue generator, but it's a good cost controller. But at the moment, it's also a person who is, you know, a margin booster in the organization because of certain effective steps. If we have better retention, right, we are able to get people, you know, elevated in the organization to play higher roles with a better bill rate for people.

Krupa NS: That's another way of doing things. So there are so many buckets. And one, is it just good enough to present what has been done for the particular month or for the previous month which you closed? Everybody knows the truth and that's the moment that is gone. What is extremely important is predictive analytics that is extremely important and from an HR perspective, that is something we have to focus on.

Krupa NS: Can you predict what is going to be your attrition in the next three to six months? Can you predict where is your average resource cost going to go in the next three to six months? That's what a leader would like to know from you. Right. The past is good, but he wants to understand where do I stand and, and it's, it's, it's predictability.

Krupa NS: Right. 

Tahseen: Bang on. I think that, I think one important thing that I took away from everything that you said, you know, HR being involved and aligned with business and I think the one of the most important thing is being able to predict what will happen in the future, because a lot of metrics and indicators that you might be tracking as an HR leader are leading indicators to say what will happen in the future.

Tahseen: But right now you have to keep tracking them, things like retention or attrition rate, or how employee engagement score or performance, all these are leading indicators to what's going to happen in the future. I think my last question to you is this. What is your one advice you could give to people leaders across India?

Tahseen: If there was one advice, what would it be? 

Krupa NS: Good question. I mean, for me, it has always been know your subject. Well, that is what I would say because end of the day, your credibility comes from what you bring to the table, the knowledge that you bring to the table. And always. You know, my perspective is here out what's happening first, get into, and there is nothing immediately you come in and you become prescriptive about things.

Krupa NS: So listening to people here, when you come in, knowing the situation, then coming up with what needs to be taken up and then your plan. So all of this comes with very balanced approach towards things. Don't take up too many things while you take. Lesser things on your plate, but it's very important to sustain it and do it well.

Krupa NS: And last but not the least is walk the talk. When you say something, you do it. And that's when you will be respected as a leader. 

Tahseen: That is great. I think that's some really great advice for our listeners, because I feel that not walking the talk, not being honest and transparent, that is one of the biggest areas where it's employee experience breaks, I think that's all for me.

Tahseen: Kripa today. Thank you very much. We covered a lot of ground today. We spoke about challenges. We spoke about listening to employees, strategies to listen to employees. We spoke about attrition strategies, productivity. Thank you very much, Kripa. 

Krupa NS: Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. And I was, I mean, I think it's important sometimes when we talk to people, many of these things get articulated much better, which starts giving you also a lot of clarity into your own mind as we speak.

Krupa NS: Thank you so much.