In conversation with Anjali Byce, Head Human Resources, SKF India Ltd., on her views on the worker of the future and the necessary skills required to be successful in this ever changing multicultural world.
Hailing from a defence( naval )background brought about the skills of adaptability and change at a very early age in Anjali, especially when she was required to change eight schools across the country and abroad. She looks at this phase as an essential learning of her life which taught her to be agile and adaptable and also respect difference of opinions. “ I often times tell people even in our company when they are asked to move or get a transfer, I say, “don’t worry, it is really going to help groom your kids because it just teaches you some skills that you cannot learn in school or college or in a class or in a training.”
She attributes relationship building as one of the most important and key skill today. “Today, everybody online has lots of friends, everybody is saying ‘like! Like !, lots of friends, but I wonder how many people really know how to make friends and go out there”. Linked closely to that aspect in today’s changing times is about being collaborative and everything being connected to it. Says she
“In today’s time, nobody is growing by themselves, everybody is growing only through being collaborative.eg Vodafone has tied up with Kindle, and the latest example is of Patanjali collaborating with the Future Group; nobody is growing by themselves. “
Anjali started her career in Sales. Having graduated in psychology she knew that her heart lay in people, and in using her specialization in Psychology and to this whole principle of making a choice. This philosophy remains and she sees herself at some point in time moving beyond organization as a boundary to a larger principle of driving change through people that cuts across organizational boundaries. She says “ Like in the United Nations, it doesn’t have a boundary, but you are still driving change, you are still using people, you are still influencing, you are still doing all of those things and driving excellence and meaningful change, that’s what is so precious “
She has an interesting aspect on the issue of ‘Talent Gap’. As per her, there is talent and there is potential and very few people are talking about the potential for the future. She feels that there is richness in the diversity of the talent that is coming in today’s workforce, but unfortunately, the lens that society and organizations tends to limit is only to absence of skills. The need would be to look at a new talent definition going beyond education skills and a potential to groom on the dimension of skills that will create a whole new talent force. She also reinforces that as a society we need to move beyond biases and stereotypes as organizations and as professionals. The whole focus should be on change and not just change but the ‘pace of change’. The conversations should be about the ‘way to do it and to make it happen’.
An important aspect according to her is about building the Culture ~ how one defines it, that drives behaviours. She cites the example of the Make in India campaign by the Government of India. “I think the ‘Make in India’ is driving a completely different dimension as societal culture for us. It’s talking about how you interact across the world and global economies, competitiveness in that dimension, which again drives very different cultures in an organization cheap revia through cultural intelligence.” But she also stresses the importance of innovation and which is sustainable and above all of sustained quality.
She believes that Diversity and Inclusion is the key to the future. “ Any organization that is wanting to grow exponentially or leapfrog, wants to give out innovative solutions and continue to be ahead of the market, then there is no running away from the fact that the more diverse your team, the more diverse is the thinking pattern, the more diverse is the problem solving approach and therefore the higher is the quality of the outcome that comes. “. Anjali also feels that Diversity and inclusion should not be seen as two separate topics but looked as going hand in hand which has a symbiotic relation .
“At SKF, diversity is mixing with care and inclusiveness is more caring for this mix”
Within generational diversity the key to building a talent force of the future is to focus on all the four generations at the work space. As she says “Almost every second year, we have a new kind of a generation coming inside organizations and a lot more generations with much lesser gap of years. The focus should not just be on millennials, but also on building sustainable methods of tapping into that experience which is not getting lost with the retiring population with both white collar and blue collar employees.”
In order to make all this work, flexibility is a key component of getting things done. As per her it needs to be looked in two ways ~ one is flexibility in the work force such that you are able to be modular in a way that you are able to cushion the impacts of ups and downs in business. The second is on striking a balance on multi skilling , so when you look at the shop floor, how do you build workers that are not just multi skilled but are able to apply their knowledge across applications, across machine types and across product lines and segments. From a white collar perspective a good leader isone who has the flexibility to operate in more than three or four functions.
Summarizing her Success Mantra
Imperative to be having strong influencing skills because there are a lot of things that are going to be outsourced yet one will be accountable for and also lots of specialists inside organization with divergent view points. The need to influence is pertinent
Leveraging people’s strength that is driven through agility as the rate and pace of change is here to stay. There is going to be a point where nobody is going to talk about it. It is just going to be here
Creating a vision – for who we are or what do we stand for as a team and how we collaborate together
Being nimble – breadth of experience driving leadership but retaining your core to be a specialist
Invest in Self to build sustainability and growth. “I personally take time out to put stuff in my own backpack every year. I commit to myself at the start of the year. This year, I am going to go into this program. “It drives your own specialization but also sustains you from the worker of the future dimension.”
In this ever changing diverse world the need to take risks, being innovative and at the same time feeling belonged is what will take the Talent to the next generation. She closes by saying ~
“We should stop trying to predict the future. We need to just create the future. “
