Mr. Krishna Bahadur Singh is a
human resources management professional with a passion for building efficient human capital. For the last 11 plus years, he has been learning and supporting businesses to find their perfect hires, establishing an HR department, setting departmental SOPs, manpower planning, career planning and still working as a strategic partner of an organization and career consultant for employees. Currently, He is working as a Senior Human Resources Manager for Laxmi Group Pvt. Ltd and partnering with business leaders to develop an efficient performance management system, manpower planning, employee engagement program, and
Training & Development strategies.
Excerpts:
1. We would like to start with the very fundamental question sir, what is the term Human Resource Management implies and why is it important in any organization? Well, even today human resources management is being considered as an improved version of administrative management and most of the organizations in Nepal are still practicing an administrative approach. For me, human resource management is the holistic people management approach and strategic integration of human competencies to gain sustainable competitive advantages.
The practice of contemporary
human resources management must be viewed through the prism of a holistic strategic approach for the organization instead of a standalone tint that takes a unit-based or administrative approach because as we all know that actions without coordinated effort don’t give the expected out-put, therefore, human resources management has equal importance as a strategic business partner for an organization.
2. What similarities and differences did you notice in delivering HRM functions throughout different industries after working in various sectors for over a decade? It is absolutely fine to see some similarities and dissimilarities as per the nature of industries and the business requirement but then it's very disheartening to see some people or organizations still treating this function as a cost centre or administrative unit. On the other hand, there are few organizations where the human resources department is considered a key strategic function and HR professionals are getting space at the board level. I think similarities I have come-across are;
(1) Almost same talent management approaches
(2) Administrative HR approach
(3) Poor understanding of contemporary HRM
(4) Under-utilization of HR competencies and I would like to mention a few dissimilarities as well as
(1) only a few organizations are taking care of employee’s work-life balance
(2) importance of HR
(3) PMS and Performance feedback systems are not systemized
(4) Training & Developments are not objectified.
3. What are the key skills you believe an HR practitioner should have? Actually, there are multiple skill sets that we require but to be specific as an HR professional I would say
(1) Functional competencies (2) Data-driven approach (3) Business Savvy (4) Ability to leverage technology (5) ability to stand as people’s advocate and
(6) adaptive are few
key skills that an HR professional should possess.
4. What Talent Need Assessment tools and methods have been proven effective in your career? As per my experience and organizational need, a customized version of
competency analysis and
Topgrading methods have been the proven and reliable tools of hiring and talent assessment.
5. What according to you should be the ideal recruitment and selection process in any organization? Actually, I don’t believe in the Ideal processes, I think it has to be customized and based on tested frameworks that are suitable for your business.
6. How do you design the compensation and benefits package for any position provided there is no comparable standard benchmark in Nepal? Yes, we don’t have a comparable standard benchmark in Nepal but we consider remuneration surveys like internal surveys and external surveys to identify the grade and position-wise salary ranges of the target industry and we use Compa-ratio analysis to benchmark our compensation standard, whereas benefits are guided by our internal policies.
7. Can you share some of the employee engagement and wellbeing initiatives you have implemented in your organization? What have been the primary purposes of these initiatives? Yes, we have initiated many employees’ engagement and well-being initiatives but I just would like to share a few of them,
Telehealth consultation program,
Mental health wellbeing program,
COVID – support leave and
Employee privilege scheme- these initiatives were started with an objective to help employees with their health-related issues and to provide economic support.
8. Why do you think “Learning and Development” are important in any organization? Learning and development is an integral part of an organization so there should not be any question like why is it important? This question is like, why do you need to eat? If we want our business to grow, we need to develop or update our people’s skillset & knowledge therefore from the organization side there should not be questions like why training & Development is important?
9. How do you ensure that the Laxmi Group's performance appraisal and management practices are fair? Yes, I believe we have a fair performance management system and we ensure that their performance rating and feedbacks are fair enough by adopting (1) a Participatory approach (2) evidence-based grading (3) Bias elimination rating provisions (4) documented feedback and (5) signed performance scorecard. So, these are a few steps that help us to ensure fair performance management.
10. Finally, what do you believe is currently trending in the field of human resources in Nepal, and how do you envision the future of HR? Currently, the new generation of human resources professionals are more informed and inclined toward contemporary human resources management and they are exploring many aspects of human resources like (1) HR Analytics (2) HRBP (3) Talent management (4) HR as a strategic business partner (5) Total compensation management and many more like this.
In future, human resources management is going to evolve more and the importance of strategic HRM will be more crucial than ever due to the digital transformation and virtual technologies so to manage this kind of shift we as HR professionals need to be updated with digital advancement.
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