INDIAN BUSINESS - WINDS OF CHANGE (HR) - PREFACE

Jun-2003 WINDS OF CHANGE – HR –

Article by Ashutosh Labroo

PREFACE - BEGINNING THE UN-ENDING

I believe Indian business today is entering an age of ‘Un-Reason’ -- a time when the future in so many areas is to be shaped by us and for us; a time when the only prediction that will hold true is that no prediction will hold true; a time, therefore, for bold imagining in private life as well as public; for thinking the unlikely and doing the so called ‘Unreasonable.’ In Unreasonable times the traditional and old ways of thinking are no longer enough; take an example of any HR strategy.

When the future was ‘predictable’ – or at least, when we believed it to be predictable – companies could chart their people-strategies with confidence. Today, however, we cannot talk of change and future separately because it is the change which leads us to what we term as future.

The people dimension has come a long way from being considered as a mere pawn to a tool or component in the pre-industrialization era, to today being considered a resource, asset or capital.

However attractive the statement though, as an HR professional, I clearly disagree with people in an organization being called ‘Assets’ or as ‘Capital’. To me, people in any organization cannot be merely understood by a definition. Our biggest challenge in India today, is to get over this mindset of people as Assets or Capital, for these are meant to depreciate. People are neither of these and thus, should purely be considered a Resource.

Human Resource is a paradigm and a system in itself and probably the most important in today’s business; if companies utilize the talent of their people well, they can bring about a revolution in any dimension or perspective.

We have seen the Japanese do it; we are seeing the Chinese Dragon rising sharp and high today. How is that for a reason enough to believe that people themselves are capable of becoming more powerful and strong to rewrite/ change ‘predicted’ future! But can we talk about the ‘Winds of Change’ in HR and not look at its past as a function or as an integral part of business processes today? We need to understand HR in the context of its past, its present and ‘staring in our faces’ future: