Enabling Employee Well-being and Organisational Health. The global human resources management market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 12.8% from 2022 to 2030. The digitization of HR operations to cope up with increasing business complexities and the ease of HR functioning has boosted the market growth. In developing economies like India, enterprises are focusing on attracting the right talent pool and retention of the potential employees. This has also fuelled the demand for efficient HR management services that nurture and streamline human capital. As the individual growth of employees and the enhancement of their productive force is foundational to organizational growth, Opteamix, a Bengaluru based digital technology consulting firm has redefined their human resource management system in a way that it looks after the entire spectrum of well-being of their employees in order to augment business scalability. Shalu Priya, HR Head of Opteamix reflects on this objective and explains how she synchronizes the potential of the workforce with the creation of positive work culture through her leadership and ever-evolving HR management solutions. Women Entrepreneur India engaged in a conversation with Shalu Priya to know more about her role in the organization and the leadership journey.
Give us a brief account on your educational journey or prior industry experience.
I pursued Master’s degree in Informational Technology. During the time of my Master’s, I realized that coding and programming were not the arenas I was passionate about. As managing people and building communication among them in a system always interested me, I took the route to the HR field. Back in 2004, I started my HR career by helping companies to hire people in UK, Europe, the Middle East and US. Working in all geographies I got to learn about different work cultures and it gradually led me to talent acquisition, management and development. That is how the nine years of my professional journey revolved round.
We would like to know about your roles and responsibilities at Opteamix.
Opteamix is a young organization being in the 11th year of its operation and this is the 10th year of my association with the company. As I joined Opteamix at an early stage, I started working to build the HR practice from scratch. I take care of all the aspects of people management including talent acquisition, management and development. The top priority that my team thrives on is employee well-being. Having operation across the country, it is very important to build robust connectivity among the workforce. Our take on employee well-being encompasses its social, financial, mental and physical aspects. Another key area of my focus is performance management along with career and succession planning. We focus on real-time feedback mechanism known as OKR and CFR based management system that we have designed. We designed a program on performance management, learning and development in collaboration with BMS. They work closely with my team to provide a transparent career path to candidates and insights on how they can achieve it.
As you just mentioned, that you have been a part of Opteamix for a long time now. So, we would now like to know about the challenges that you have faced in your career and how have you overcome the challenges?
In the initial days of our organization, there was little acceptance towards business start-ups. People used to be a part of CMMI level companies. Therefore, attractin talents was a difficult task where the mindset was not open to newborn ventures. Apart from the package, we had to engage in a discussion with people on what they could achieve in our organization. With the years, we became a 500-plus company with people trusting us and finding growth prospects. Thus overcoming the initial challenges, we transcended to new ones in the competitive face of IT services market when we need to tap on the right talent pool. We are building a talent pool where we give plethora of opportunities young college graduates and provide them with proper training and supports from our experts. As the most of the IT companies, a large percentage of the talent pool is stuck in the maintenance kind of projects.
We try to expose them to new opportunities with guidance to behavioural skill. We try to provide them the right platform where they upgrade themselves and foresee the long-term vision beyond just immediate outcomes. This is how we respond to the challenges and improvise our services accordingly.
“We became a 500-plus company with people trusting us and finding growth prospects. Thus overcoming the initial challenges, we transcended to new ones in the competitive face of it services market when we need to tap on the right talent pool”
If someone asks you about your leadership mantra as an HR leader what will you say?
More than as HR leader, I see myself as leader who brings fine balance between people and profit. I am a firm believer of the fact that happy employees leads to happy customers. We structure a people centric work environment which has been founded on strong value system and inclusivity. The system helps us to sail through rough waters and evolve with time,
We would like to know about the future plans that you have for yourself? Where do you see yourself in the next five years or if you have short-term goals for the next one or two years?
HR functions have transformed from the traditional process oriented mechanism to versatile and adaptive operations. So being a business leader while staying open to challenges, I see myself as a key enabler who can proactively partner with business and help in longterm planning and growth.
Being an HR professional for such a long time and having such vast experience what will be your message to the budding women entrepreneurs and women leaders of the country?
The message that I want to convey to the budding women entrepreneurs is to focus on gaining knowledge in order to make impact in business. The one thing that I miss in my organization is the lack of women leaderships even if the 42% of our total workforce is women. They need to get more into strategic thinking and learning in order to stay strong in adverse times.
