Monica is an HR leader with over 31 years of experience across industries, including Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Technology, and Pharmaceuticals. She has driven HR strategy, talent management, and employee engagement at top organizations like HealthKart, Medanta, Max Life Insurance, and others, earning recognition for her contributions.
In an engaging conversation with Women Entrepreneurs Review Magazine, Monica shares her insights on the evolving role of HR in the nutrition and health supplements industry, highlighting strategies for fostering workforce resilience amidst external challenges. Drawing examples from policies and initiatives implemented at HealthKart, she also talks about advancing inclusive cultures that address systemic biases and diverse employee needs in a global business landscape.
In today’s rapidly evolving nutrition and health supplements industry, with the convergence of technology, consumer expectations, and workforce challenges, how do you foresee HR’s role evolving?
In today’s highly competitive business landscape, the key differentiator which is also one of the biggest contributors to organizational growth and stupendous business results is workplace culture. A great culture at the workplace is a catalyst for organizational growth.
A culture of innovation, open communication, transparency, respect, collaboration and inclusion, leaders powered with the value of empowerment, and customer and quality focus at all times can ensure resilience and future readiness for any organization. A culture of openness, transparency and empowerment teamed with a stable leadership team is the recipe for success.
Efforts must be made to foster an adaptable and flexible culture, and an adaptable and flexible organization structure. Adaptability, flexibility, agility and nimbleness are key levers for business success in a volatile economic scenario. HR plays a key role in catalyzing business growth by enabling leadership, ensuring people align with the organizational goals, and promoting flexibility and agility at all times.
As a critical recruitment strategy, HR must endeavor to attract, hire and retain the “right fit” set of talent for the organization, in line with the organizational values and culture, and train the people appropriately to prepare them to face current realities and future challenges. Regular and frequent communication with this set of “right talent” is extremely important to keep them fully aligned and engaged with the company, its growth strategy and the critical levers for success.
An important element of communication is feedback. HR must actively and regularly solicit feedback from employees on important areas of organizational and business relevance, from which areas of focus can be identified to drive continuous improvement.
A sense of empathy, care, concern and compassion is another value which HR teams must demonstrate, especially in times of adversity and market volatility. Retention of talent is a key goal for long-term success of organizations. Engaged employees lead to higher retention, higher tenacity, and achievement of compounded business growth.
What strategies must companies in the nutrition and health supplements sector embrace to foster workforce resilience, particularly in light of external challenges?
Continued regular communication with employees at large is crucial to keep them updated on not only company performance but also future growth plans, the market scenario, and expectations from them, which in turn helps them align with the organization’s growth strategy.
At the same time, talent should be taken care of and ample support provided to them for their growth on all fronts – both professionally and on the personal front – thereby helping build their physical, mental and psychological strength. If you care enough for your employees, you will automatically foster a sense of belonging and longer term commitment in them, leading to passion for driving organizational growth and success.
It is important to help employees remain updated about new trends and encourage them to participate in different workshops / events to enhance their knowledge and skills about the industry at large.
Systems and processes must be in place to encourage, recognize and reward ideation and innovation. Involving employees in the decision-making process builds trust and ownership, which is beneficial for the overall health of the organization.
Leaders must lead by example, openly demonstrating the values they want their team members to imbibe. They must coach and mentor their teams, provide them with regular feedback for improvement, and promote innovation and learning with collaboration.
At HealthKart, we motivate people to take on challenges. Even in case of failure, we use it as an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and improve on the same so that our next challenge would be a stupendous win. Difficult decisions impacting business are taken quickly and without procrastinating, to ensure timely damage control.
When employees feel that leaders and the organization are investing in their overall development and growth, their motivation, commitment and engagement levels will go up significantly. A motivated, committed and engaged talent set can work wonders for organizational success.
How can HR leaders in the nutrition and health supplements industry move beyond traditional diversity and inclusion efforts to build a truly inclusive culture in global organizations?
A culture of openness, trust and collaboration, which focuses on overall employee development is one of the most important factors for promoting inclusion at the workplace.
Organizations must take pride in being an equal employment opportunity employer in letter and in spirit, and provide a safe and secure work environment, free from discrimination or harassment to all employees irrespective of their caste, creed, gender, religion, ethnicity, background or any other difference.
Formal policies and processes must be in place, for promoting diversity and inclusion, which should be gender neutral. HR should organize frequent and regular awareness building sessions for employees at large. It is also important to implement robust anti-discrimination policies, with appropriate channels for rewarding the right behaviours and simultaneously discouraging and penalizing the wrong attitude and behaviours.
Setting SMART (Specific-Measurable-Achievable-Relevant-Time-Bound) goals for Diversity and Inclusion, and reviewing these metrices on a regular frequency can help track progress and promote achievement in this area in a realistic and holistic manner.
Active efforts must be made to encourage leaders to empower themselves, foster participation of employees at every level, encourage and promote collaboration among different teams, remove any form of bias or prejudice in the organization, and provide a safe working environment for all employees.
One interesting and fun way to promote diversity is to celebrate all cultural events and diversity days with equal aplomb to foster inclusion. Employees can be encouraged to voice concerns about discrimination or inequity through open / confidential channels. Leadership must be held accountable for addressing such concerns swiftly and effectively.
Leaders must “walk the talk” and actively demonstrate inclusion at all times by seeking ideas and feedback from their team members, and involving them in the decision-making process. The work environment must naturally promote openness where people can openly express their views, discuss their ideas and opinions freely, and voice their concerns without any fear.
Talent management programs can be tailored to meet individual employee needs, preferences and suitability. This will ensure focused talent development specifically customized to the employees, leading to more engaged employees and higher retention, which ultimately leads to continued business success.
How do you envision AI, predictive analytics, and automation influencing HR decisions like employee engagement, performance management, and succession planning in these companies?
In today’s times when even children adopt technology at a very early age, it is difficult for organizations not to realize, accept, adopt and leverage the power of technology in business performance. Then, can HR be far behind?
The conscience keepers of the culture of the organization – the People Managers – must be themselves agile, flexible and tech-savvy with a keen interest in newer technologies which can change how we manage the talent landscape. Tools and technologies which aid talent development, enhance productivity, and help improvise operational excellence must be actively sought out and implemented. Embracing technology will help enhance productivity, improve efficiency and lead to operational excellence.
Automation is the need of the hour – it is necessary to automate as many HR processes and as many business processes as possible. This will eliminate redundancies and free up time for employees to focus on strategic assignments. Hybrid, work-from-home and remote working opportunities can be made available to employees by leveraging the power of technology.
AI and analytics promotes a data-driven approach, which in turn ensures focused, comprehensive, quick, unbiased and relevant decision-making with strengthened future planning.
At HealthKart, we have been using AI in the field of employee engagement for the past more than 5 years. AI helps connect with employees and seek out their feedback and opinions on various topics impacting their working. The “Moodometer” helps understand the employee pulse on a real-time basis. the feedback is gathered and analyzed at regular intervals which helps with decision making, develop talent strategies as per employee’s requirements and suitability.
Talent development and people succession strategies can be put together in a more structured manner, and their progress can be better measured and tracked with the right HRMS tool. You can achieve more in a shorter duration, with better and more effective results by eliminating manual interventions and replacing them with relevant technologies.
How can HR in the nutrition and health supplements sector drive sustainability efforts in shaping an organizational culture that supports long-term environmental and social goals?
The role of HR and the role of leadership is pivotal to the cause of sustainability. In order to support this cause, it is important to acquire and retain the right talent which shares the organizational sustainability values.
It is important to have an environment where leaders are encouraged to model sustainable behavior in line with the company’s vision and values so that they can foster participation of employees at every level, encouraging and promoting collaboration among different teams to support long-term environmental and social goals.
Engagement programs must be driven through purpose, focusing on social responsibility, reaching out to communities and giving back to society. It helps motivate employees and take on more challenges if they are allowed to make their own choices, and adopt the societal cause they feel most connected with.
At HealthKart, we do our bit for the society as well. Year on year, we have been celebrating “Joy Of Giving Week”…we collect old clothes, toys, books and stationery, and any other items that employees want to donate for not just a week but for more than a month. All the items collected are gifted to different NGOs. The annual Blood Donation Camps are of special significance, as employees get together to donate blood to save human lives.
Sustainability trainings can also help champion the cause of sustainability and environment protection. It demonstrates the commitment of an organization to environmental and societal well-being, helps develop a sense of global responsibility, and emphasizes the relationship between societies, economies and the environment at large.
Simple day-to-day concepts like waste management, energy and water conservation, “Reduce-Recycle-Reuse” can be emphasized in many ways and through various channels at the workplace itself, and there should be continuous reinforcement and communication campaigns of these concepts regularly till it becomes a habit.
One can use the power of technology to encourage exchange of ideas amongst employees, provide cross-learning opportunities to them and help them collaborate with each other to work on and deliver real-life sustainability projects.
Policies must be crafted and implemented such that they ensure the organization complies with all regulations – societal and environmental, risks are mitigated, and the corporate reputation is enhanced. Relevant measurement and reporting mechanisms can be utilized to monitor progress.HR Leaders must craft and shape a culture that aligns with the values of conservation, resilience and sustainability.
