An experienced Human Resources professional with a demonstrated history of working in Consulting, Financial Services, and the Travel industry, Kavita has worked extensively in the areas of HR Process Innovation, Automation, and Strategic integration through the Shared Services model. Fortunate to be a part of numerous HR transformation projects and transitions throughout her illustrative career of more than two decades, Kavita has worked across diverse work environments covering business functions and Human Resource Management at a global level for more than 80 countries now. Equipped with key expertise across the distinguished HR verticals such as International HR management, HR policies, employee relations, mobility, developing HR Business models, and so on, Kavita has designed, developed, and managed the Global Business Service Center, which is dedicated to providing HR services to employers across 81 countries and multiple businesses. Throughout her illustrious career, Kavita has been part of many prominent conglomerates such as ATR Consulting, IQS Telerate, Kuoni Group, SOTC and VFS Global, and has been leveraging her vast industry expertise to craft comprehensive and industry-specific HR Solutions for enterprises.

Kavita engages in an exclusive interaction with Women Entrepreneur Magazine.

Take us through the formative years of your life. What were some early influences that shaped your life’s growth trajectory?

The schools and business management programs that I went through helped me set-up a strong foundation in terms of my learning aptitude and aiming for better results. But the first seven years of my professional experience exposed me to the world of people dynamics, which honed my interpersonal skills and enabled me to learn more about adopting strategic thinking in various scenarios and furbish my learning abilities even further. I kept absorbing everything that came my way and started consuming every piece of feedback and experience as a step forward in my career. So, I would also call them formative years, which made it easy for me to adapt to the new situations at the later stages of my career. By engaging into long interactive sessions with large groups, handling international projects that involve working with many people from different countries, getting exposed to various cultures, managing diverse stakeholders, driving initiatives, and taking people along as I moved ahead have helped me through those formative years.

In your opinion what are some of the most pressing business challenges that today’s hr leaders face? How do you mitigate these challenges?

At present, one of the topmost challenges for HR leaders and business leaders is to keep up with talent management. Challenges in this area mainly arise from aspects like employee experiences that we can give to employees, In terms of retaining, developing, and attracting talent, and also contributing to our business objectives, we should look into the factors that the employees expect from us. So, along with stability, employees at present are looking for a great experience in the job which means they should have an enriching experience and the content of the job should be interesting for them. At the same time, they also expect us to provide a good work environment which is like a combination of various policies, such as leaves, flexibility, work timing, and more, which helps them have a great experience while delivering the job. Though every employee expects to be adequately paid for performance and the best performer to be rewarded fairly, they also want that, the company should invest in their professional development and not just monetarily. So, the existing policies formed in any organization few years ago need a fresh perspective and innovate talent management strategies. Developing a digital environment to use information effectively and promote various initiatives will give a push to all such strategies.

“Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up”

How do you foresee the global HR industry evolving going forward?

The HR industry has been evolving consistently for quite some time now. Currently, the HR business model which is being followed across all the industries is having these multiple verticals like Centers of Excellence, service centers, organizational development teams, and Business Partnering. But now we are also heading towards a new dimension, where each of these specialized functions are developing into niche sectors and some of them are growing very rapidly.

For example, HR Service outsourcing, HR Systems payroll management are some exclusive businesses and they are seldom a part of one of the verticals of a company. So, these are also further shaping the way HR would operate within any organization because the companies will now start looking for a good mix of insourcing and outsourcing of customized HR services to find the most optimum one that suits their business.

What would your advice be to young women & girls who also aspire to become business leaders and entrepreneurs in the future?

I would advise them to pursue the interests and work consistently towards achieving their goals. Whether it's an idea, concept, recommendation on a policy, strategy, or even the studies for that matter, follow it, if it works for you. And at the same time, be persistent in everything you do. If you are passionate about an idea and can convince the world the same, then automatically things can work successfully for you. I believe that developing our strength with people can help us to execute and implement our ideas or dreams. So, my key advice for young women would be to focus on passion, persistence, and people.

Kavita Malhotra, Global HR Leader (People Operations, HR Transformation, HR Automation)

Kavita has completed both her bachelor's degree in science stream specializing in mathematics and master's in management studies in HR specialization from the University of Mumbai. She has also completed a management program at IIM Ahmedabad . In recognition of her services as a new age leader, Kavita has been awarded by the Shared Services Forum in India for excellence in shared service implementation of an international center in 2016. Last year, Kavita was awarded as 'The Difference Maker of The Year' by the Indian Business Woman Conference Forum.