ISSN - 0974 - 1739

NHRD Network Journal
January 2016

Volume 9

Issue 1

Dave Ulrich
Dr. Santrupt Misra
K Ramkumar
Rajesh Ranjan

Lean and
Smart HR:
Transforming
Work

Shelly Singh and
Prakash Rao
Rajeshwar Tripathi
Judhajit das
Sukhjit S Pasricha
Saurabh Govil
Ajay Kukreja
Elliot Clark
Ester Martinez
Nishchae Suri
Harish Devarajan
Dr. N S Rajan

and Asha Krishnan
Pankaj Bansal
(Guest Editor)

A Quarterly Publication by National HRD Network

www.nationalhrd.org


NHRD Network Journal

Lean and Smart HR: Transforming Work
Volume 9

Issue 1

January 2016

NHRD Network Board Members
National President:

Mr K Ramkumar, Executive Director, ICICI Bank Ltd and President
ICICI Foundation

Immediate Past President: Mr Rajeev Dubey, Group President (HR & Corporate Services) &
CEO (After-Market Sector) at Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.
Regional Presidents:
East:

Mr Suresh Tripathi, Vice President Human Resource

Management, Tata Steel

North:

Mr Pankaj Bansal, CO- Founder and CEO, PeopleStrong

South:

Ms Hema Ravichandar, Strategic HR Advisor

West:

Dr Ritu Anand, Dy Global Head HR, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd

National Secretary:

Mr SV Nathan, Sr Director and Chief Talent Officer,
Deloitte Haskins and Sells

National Treasurer:

Mr Nishchae Suri, Head People & Change & Partner Management Consulting, KPMG
Mr Kamal Singh
Mr Dhananjay Singh

Director General:
Executive Director:
Email:
Editorial Team:



Pankaj Bansal
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, PeopleStrong
(Guest Editor for this issue)
Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Managing Editor &
Leadership Architect & Career Coach, HR PLUS
Email:
Dr. Arvind N Agrawal, Managing Partner, Lead Associates

Publisher, Printer, Owner: Mr Kamal Singh, Director General, NHRDN
and Place of Publication
On behalf of National HRD Network
National HRD Network Secretariat, C 81 C, DLF Super Mart,
DLF City, Phase IV, Gurgaon 122 002. Tel +91 124 404 1560
Email:
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NHRD Network Journal is complimentary for NHRDN Life Members. Please contact, Mr Pranay Ranjan
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Contents may not be copied, emailed or reproduced
without copyright holders’ express permission in writing.



Dear Readers,

R

IP HR. That will be the tombstone on the HR profession if we donÊt
get our act together soon‰ ⁄⁄⁄⁄ aptly quoted by Diane Wiesenthal

while writing on need for lean HR. Our world is changing and so are our work
places and also the need to transform HR processes to make it fast, smart and
user friendly. With the advent of technology , need for outsourcing non-core HR
work processes and the ever rising pressure to optimise cost along with delivery
of quality output are forcing HR organisations across the globe to re-look at their
HR processes. What started as shared services in many world-wide corporations
a decade back are reality for many Indian Organisations today. This is the precise
reason that we decided to dedicate the first issue of 2016 on “Lean and Smart
HR: Transforming Work”.
We thought what can be more relevant than this topic when we are witnessing
the information and digital revolution impacting our life at every second? We as
HR professionals are encountering millennial employees who want information
fast and quick. The generation which are so glued with their handsets in collecting
and disseminating information at every moment are not ready to accept any data
which is not correct, user-friendly and not provided to them in time. Look at the
other aspect. It is no more work-life balance issues, it is all about work-slicing where
work hours are no more fixed and work-places are virtual. The challenges for HR
professionals in this kind of environment are enormous in managing every people
related transactions seamlessly for the satisfaction of their users round the clock.
Next comes the changing aspiration of today’s employees. The employees expect HR
professionals to be their champion by advocating their needs, concerns and opinions

about all people related policies to the top management. Yet at the same time top
management team want HR to implement people related policies and processes by
collaborating with business leaders to run the organisations effectively. They also
want HR being custodian of people related data in organisations to be extremely
vigilant to make sure the data privacy and confidentiality are not compromised.
Tomorrows HR professionals need to build a capability to pull off this delicate


balancing act by winning trust from both these sides. This difficult process can be
achieved, if and only if they can capture data for every people related transaction
to measure cost, efficacy and user-friendliness and use them meaningfully to steer
through this conflict by being fair and assertive.
HR professionals are the conscience of the organisation, as well as the keepers of
confidential information. As HR professionals need to serve the decision making
needs of top management team by providing adequate data support, they also need
to monitor their actions toward employees to be sure that policies and regulations
are properly followed. HR professionals need to be able to push back when they
aren’t in order to keep organisation not deviating from its core values. Not an easy
responsibility keeping in mind that they need to handle confidential information
appropriately, and never divulge it to any unauthorised person. The only way
they will be able to manage this by transforming their people related work process
through application of state of the art technology.
The next issue which will be very relevant for HR professionals in the future will be
multitasking. Just imagine on a typical day, how many requests an HR professional
will have to deal with? While you are counselling an employee about his/her career
issue, another employee will come up with a leave question. While you are struggling
with that the recruiting partner wants you to attend a recruiting strategy meeting
with all stakeholders for a hard-to-fill critical position lying vacant for some time.
And that’s to say nothing of employee branding, social media, employee engagement,
retention, and a whole host of other things that you have promised to your business

managers, every one critical to some internal client. In future HR will have to stand
up to changing business priorities of its internal clients and various stake-holders.
Every business manager needs you to move and act fast. The saddest reality is that
if business manager A who needs someone hired doesn’t much care if you’re already
helping business manager B who needs someone fired. As an HR professional you
need to be able to handle it all, all at once. Do you think HR professionals in the
future will be able to respond if they are not smart, lean and not aided by appropriate
technology and HR processes?
So what do we mean when we say Lean HR? To me, Lean HR is about the existing
culture of an HR organisation and a way of doing business by HR professionals


in that organisation. It’s an approach to improving HR processes within an
organisation by maximising value while reducing waste. It simply means building
capability of HR organisation to deliver more with their existing resources. Lean
HR also encourages HR professionals to challenge preconceptions about the way
they deliver their services to their clients. And it is in this sense we believe lean HR
should ultimately be able to transform work.
So if you as an HR professional who always thought Lean are for the factory floor,
and certainly not for delivering HR services, we want you to re-think? In this issue
our contributors have shared their thoughts, reflections, practical insights and more
importantly real life organisational experiences where they have transformed HR
processes, HR service delivery function and eliminated HR activities that do not
directly deliver value to its customers.
Possibly one of the least focused areas for HR skill development has been application
of technology. Who else other than the HR Guru Dave Ulrich could summarise
this when he said „domain in which HR tends to be the weakest is in
understanding and applying technology to build HR‰.
A time has come to prove that wrong and I am sure future HR professionals would
do so. We are happy to bring this issue to support this effort.

I would like to thank Pankaj Bansal, our guest editor and his dedicated team to
build this issue from scratch. This team worked tirelessly from building the concept,
to carefully choose practitioners who have been working in this domain for many
years, requesting them to share their experiences, and finally following up regularly
with them to get their contributions in time to make sure that we really produce a
collector’s issue in the domain of Lean HR. I on behalf of our editorial team convey
our deep appreciation to Pankaj, his team members and more importantly all our
contributors for their efforts to bring this issue for our esteemed readers across the
country.
Before I end this editorial, I would like to inform you about an important change
that we are bringing in the New Year. We have decided to publish this magazine
only in electronic form. All the future issues will be available in Ready to Print


form for our life members and will be mailed to them. This decision has been taken
by our board in line with the “Go Green” philosophy adopted by NHRDN.
Jill buck, founder of go green initiative at USA once said „ItÊs not enough to
prepare our children for the future⁄we must prepare the future for our
children.‰ I am sure our esteemed readers will appreciate this change and be
supportive to us. You will receive another mail from our national secretariat on
this aspect.
I am sure you will thoroughly enjoy reading this issue. Don’t forget to send your
feedback to after reading this issue. As communicated
earlier Sonali Roychowdhury will guest edit the next issue (April, 2016) on another
exciting theme “Building Diversity in Leadership”.
Wish you all a great 2016 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay
Managing Editor
(on behalf of the Editorial Team)



CONTENTS
S.No.

Title of Article

Author

Page No.

Segment 1 – Setting the Context
1.

Perspectives and the Context:
Lean and Smart HR

Dave Ulrich

1

2.

Lean and Smart HR – According to you,
Dr. Santrupt Misra
how has it helped in the transforming work?

3

3.


Making Sense of Lean

K Ramkumar

7

9

Segment 2 – Design and Migration
4.

Design and Transition Phase –
When Rubber Meets the Road

Rajesh Ranjan

5.

The Evolution of Transition Management
and Its Rising Complexity

Shelly Singh and
Prakash Rao

13

Segment 3 – Implementation Track
6.

Lean & Smart HR – Raising the bar of

HR Experience

Rajeshwar Tripathi

19

7.

Implementation: Lean and Smart HR –
HR Transformation Track

Judhajit Das

25

8.

6E People – Ontime, Hasslefree
HR experience!

Sukhjit S Pasricha

30

9.

The Recruitment Transformation story
of Wipro – A fresh start

Saurabh Govil


34

Ajay Kukreja

37

10. Transforming Recruitment through
Lean & Smart HR – The Honeywell Story


S.No.

Title of Article

Author

Page No.

Segment 4 – External Ecosystem
11. External Ecosystem: Lean & Smart HR

Elliot Clark

40

12. The HR Ecosystem

Ester Martinez


45

13. Powering the Approach to
HR Transformation

Nishchae Suri

49

14. HR Transformation – What’s next?

Harish Devarajan

54

15. Lean & Smart HR – Future of work
through Lean & Smart HR

Dr. N S Rajan and
Asha Krishnan

58

Segment 5 – What’s next?


EDITORIAL REFLECTIONS

T


he dynamics of work methodologies have been going through
a rampant phase of change and with each passing day, the

essence of the approach towards work is evolving. The transition
is quite significant in India,which is booming with opportunities
and is emerging as the “HR Capitol of the world: strongest
PANKAJ
BANSAL
Co-Founder
and Chief
Executive Officer,
PeopleStrong
(Guest Editor for
this issue)

hub for workforce and workforce related solutions”. For a
long time, we have been accustomed to the 9 to 5 systems at office
and desk oriented jobs but now the scenario has changed. A diverse
range of jobs has come up right from a retail outlet to real estate,
from pizza delivery to logistics. At the virtual front, we have the
e-com industry which is playing a pivotal role in redefining the
work environment. The point to note is that we have a young
workforce and their working method is changing. People are
adopting and accepting newest kinds of jobs in the market. This
is happening globally.
So, from a situation where people tried to adjust their skills to
whatever job is available, they now believe in their passion and
follow it. This does not mean the conventional work profiles are
fading, but people are opening up to follow their instincts and
convictions.

The Startup culture is the best example of that. There are about
58 M establishments in India currently, hence a huge diaspora
of small companies (mostly unorganised sector though). As per
a recent report by NASSCOM, about 3100 startups (3rd largest
base in the world) exist (after the US and Israel). This number
is further expected to grow at the rate of 800+ startups every
year to reach to ~11500 startups by 2020. And as these ‘newbiecorporates’ venture into uncharted territories who knows what
work will look like?
Our workforce demographics are equally interesting! We as a
country would have ~800 M strong workforce by 2021. As a


large part of our 800 M working population would belong the
smartphone generation (though less than one sixth in organised
sector), which believes in “Service Now” wherever they are, work
would no longer remain the same. Digital Technology will be
the name of the game and it will change the entire paradigm
and become a true game changer.
-

Cloud 2.0 where users will even define the enterprise ERP!

-

APPification of everything and anything

-

Robotics and Machine learning are already invading the
work systems in a big way.


Observing these interesting trends of how technology has been
‘Transforming Work’, NHRDN asked me to be the Guest
Editor for this esteemed Journal and the editorial team and
myself thought of dedicating the first edition of 2016 towards
“Lean and Smart HR and how it is transforming work”. And
the result is this amazing collection of thoughts, articles and
case studies which reaffirmed our belief. We have tried to
capture the best of information, knowledge from experts and
thought leaders in HR from global as well as Indian context.
Lean and Smart HR is the way to go and we are also trying
to show how organisations who have just started adopting can
experience the benefits out of it. We have offered views from
leaders, consultants, thought process specialists, practitioners,
who have been part of this adventurous journey.
The journal is divided into 5 major segments.
Segment 1: Context Setting and Business case: This
segment focusses on setting the context of Lean and Smart
HR. It captures the views of thought leaders who share what
does lean and smart HR mean, how does it impact the world of
work and human resources. To cover this aspect we had three
renowned forward thinkers of HR industry who shared their
views on the topic.
Dave Ulrich, a globally renowned thought leader who needs
no introduction in the space of HR transformation, shared his


views on changing paradigms of HR transformation, in an
interview with my colleague Ankur Sehgal.
This section also has views of Dr. Santrupt Misra, CEO,

Carbon Black Business and Director, Group H.R. Aditya Birla
Group who has shared his own experiences of “Transforming
work – lean and Smart HR way, in a diverse, dynamic and
complex conglomerate which has been a leader in transforming
its workplace practices time and gain” in a conversation with
two of my colleagues Gauri Vatsyayan and Kamakshi. He also
advised on the flow of the journal.
Finally, our own National President of NHRDN
Mr. K Ramkumar, Executive Director, ICICI bank, explained
making sense out of LEAN in his unique writing style that
I am sure would be liked by all.
Segment 2: Design and Migration – With the context set
and a defined business case, the first step in the process of HR
Transformation is Design and Migration. For the success of any
transformation effort a robust design is a must and so is the
process of migrating to the new transformed processes. In this
segment of the journal, we have tried to capture two different
views on this process of design and migration.
We have covered practitioner’s views and experiences as shared
by Shelly Singh, Cofounder and Chief Business Officer,
PeopleStrong and Prakash Rao, Founding Member and Vice
President MPHRO who have shared the wealth of their experience
of implementing over 125+ Platform based HR transformations
across industry sectors in the past decade.
We also have Rajesh Ranjan, from Everest Group, the largest
research firm in terms of HR outsourcing and technology space,
sharing his views-which can be thought of as independent views
and observations as an analyst and consultant on global and
Indian context in this segment.
I am sure that after reading two different aspects of their views

on this subject of design and migration a lot of questions in


the mind of an HR practitioner venturing into this journey
would get cleared.
Segment 3. Implementation – Recruitment and HR Track:
Capturing the real action in the journey of Transformation this
segment is one of my personal favourites. I am hopeful that the
readers would be as amazed and excited as I was when they
read the exciting stories and experiences of Recruitment and
HR transformation, shared by Chief HR Officers of leading
organisations from diverse Industries in India.
On one hand, we have Rajeshwar Tripathi, Chief People
Officer, Mahindra & Mahindra throw light on how they created
an amazing lean and smart HR case study in the automotive
industry and on other hand, we have Judhajit Das, Chief People
officer, ICICI Prudential who has shared his experiences on Lean
and Smart HR implementation in the Insurance Industry in
distributed operations. This section also captures the unique HR
transformation story of IndiGo Airlines shared by Sukhjit
Pasricha, Vice President – HR and Admin, IndiGo where
he shares how this story shaped up in the diverse segment of
aviation.
We were also fortunate to include two very interesting,
diverse Recruitment transformation stories from India in the
collection - One from Saurabh Govil, Senior Vice President
and Global Head of Human Resources at Wipro Ltd, who
shares about how one of the largest Software and IT giants of
the country implemented this model. Thanks to my colleague
Anand V in supporting the edit of this section. The other

article came from Ajay Kukreja Country HR Director,
Honeywell India, who has shared how Lean and Smart HR
methods helped in solving the business needs in the engineering
domain.
We hope that these case studies and implementation journeys
make interesting reference points for practitioners, and help
them when they undergo their own journey.


Segment 4: External Ecosystem – The most important aspect
in the journey of Lean and Smart HR is the players/partners/
providers who create an external ecosystem enabling and
supporting the organisations in their journeys. In this segment
we wanted to capture the glimpses of this interesting ecosystem,
from the eyes of Global thought leaders and Influencers who
have been observing the dynamics of this landscape for some
years now.
Our quest took us to Elliot Clark, CEO and Chairman,
SharedXpertise, the publishers of leading media and events in
the space of HR Outsourcing globally, Ester Martinez, CEO
and Editor-in-Chief of People Matters, India’s leading magazine
in the space of HR and Nishchae Suri, Partner and Country
Head ‘People and Change’, KPMG. With all of them greatly
contributing to this section, we have been able to provide an
unbiased, comprehensive view of the external ecosystem both
from India and Global context. Hope the readers will appreciate
the unique aspects of the HRO world that are shared by these
thought leaders.
Segment 5 : Future of Work – What’s next – Albert
Einstein once said ““I never think of the future - it comes soon

enough.” His words sound more relevant than ever in today’s
ever changing world. Every single day work is changing and
hence we asked few thought leaders to look into the future, gaze
into the crystal and visualise the way forward with smart and
lean HR and how work will transform in the coming years.
In this section, we have Harish Devarajan, Founder, People
Unlimited (former Unilever) and renowned thought leader in
HR transformation space to do a little crystal gazing into the
future of lean and smart HR.
Who else could have done justice with the culmination of the
journal other than Dr. N S Rajan and Chief Human Resources
and Member Executive board Tata Sons. He and his colleague
Asha Krishnan have shared their perspective on how they see
the entire shakeup of the future.


In this edition of Lean and Smart HR – Transforming work, we
have tried to capture unique stories which can provide a diverse
yet holistic view on lean and smart HR. There are many stories
that we could not cover in this edition due to the time crunch,
but we will surely cover them in the upcoming editions. With
the detailed experiences shared by the HR leaders, we hope that
this journal works as a Blackbook for people who are just starting
to implement and adopt this model. They will be getting some
a fair share of guidance on how things are to be done.
Before I put my pen down, I would like to thank all the authors
for spending time and sharing their valuable experience and
spearheading the lean and smart HR movement in the right
direction. I also thank my team members ‘Ayan Das and
Dakshdeep Singh’ for facilitating authors and supporting

the editorial team in capturing the right essence. I will fail my
duty if I don’t thank Kamakshi Pant who single handedly
managed the aggregation of what you see in front of you and
editorial team who worked tirelessly to get the articles, review
it and give it the final shape.
It is indeed an exciting time for all of us, both as Indians as
well as the members of the HR fraternity in India as India
takes its rightful place as the ‘HR Capitol of the World’. Let’s
gear up for the big leap as we start this year!
Happy New Year and Happy Reading!


PERSPECTIVES AND THE CONTEXT:
LEAN AND SMART HR
DAVE ULRICH
About the Author
Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Collegiate Professor of Business
Administration at the Ross School of Business, University of
Michigan and a partner at the RBL Group a consulting firm
focused on helping organisations and leaders deliver value. He
studies how organisations build capabilities of leadership, speed,
learning, accountability, and talent through leveraging human
resources. He has helped generate award winning data bases that
assess alignment between strategies, organisation capabilities, HR
practices, HR competencies, and customer and investor results.

Q.1. Lean and Smart HR – How has it
changed work in the past few years?

L


ike all other work processes, HR
work has had to deliver more value
or it would not be accepted. This
value comes not just by carrying out
the fixed HR activities which make
employees more productive, but by
doing more that make organisations gain
more confidence from their customers
and investors. Customer confidence
results in more revenue from targeted
customers; investor confidence results in
higher market value. In the latest book
The Leadership Capital Index: Realising the
Market Value of Leadership, I show that
leadership dramatically helps increase a
firm’s market value.
HR practices should be assessed by the
extent to which their deliver value to
employees and line managers inside a
company and to customers, investors, and
communities outside.
Q2. Three-legged stool model has been
the most referred model for HR Shared

Services. With nextgen workforce coming
into picture and technology on driving
seat, are there any new dimensions that
are getting added?
The HR organisation should match the

business organisation. If a business
organisation is centralised with a single
product or focus, the HR organisation
should be organised by the HR function
(staffing, training, compensation). If an
organisation is in multiple businesses,
the HR organisation should be the shared
services model. The key to the success
of the shared services model is NOT
the roles HR professionals play, but the
relationships that encourage people to
work well together.
Q.3. What is the biggest push for an
organisation to adopt Lean and Smart
HR? Is it business or demographic and
geographic factors?
HR has to create value for customers,
investors, and communities outside
the company. Lean HR means that HR
processes are not driven by bureaucratic
January | 2016 NHRD Network Journal

1


activities, but by the measure of how
quickly and easily they can create value
for external stakeholders. Smart HR is
not about HR, but about how HR delivers
value to others.

Q4. Any observations you might have
on the Indian market vis-à-vis the global
market in terms of Lean and Smart HR
Practices?
I am privileged to work with brilliant
colleagues, like Professor Wayne
Brockbank, who are experts in Indian
management and HR work. He continually
reminds me that Indian HR work has
lead the world in the ability to access and
manage information to compete in the
knowledge economy.
Q5. How will the adoption of Lean and
Smart HR in India transform work in
future?
Smart HR, focused on creating value for
external stakeholders, and lean HR moving
away from bureaucracy to action will help
any company do a better job in building
the right talent, leadership, and culture to
win in the marketplace. By talent, I mean
that employees will come to work with
the competencies to do their work today
and tomorrow and the full engagement to
do their best. By leadership, I mean that

2

January | 2016 NHRD Network Journal


leaders at all levels of the organisation
will set strategy, deliver results, manage
talent, and be personally proficient. By
culture I mean that the organisational
identity inside will represent the promises
made to customers outside. Smart and
Lean HR delivers talent, leadership, and
culture to win.
Q6. How will HR Shared Services
transform and redesign self in the digital
age to engage and lead- employees, HR
and business?
Shared Services is a governance process
that will become increasingly customised
through innovations in technology. Each
employee can form a personal relationship
and commitment to the organisation
and the technology backbone enables
that employee to get from the firm those
things that matter most to him or her.
Shared services also reside in centers of
expertise where HR professionals have
deep insights into talent, leadership,
and cultural challenges.These insights
anticipate what can be done in the future
to win in the marketplace. HR will be less
about HR and more about helping the
business win.
[As shared with Ankur Sehgal
(PeopleStrong)]



LEAN AND SMART HR – ACCORDING TO YOU, HOW
HAS IT HELPED IN THE TRANSFORMING WORK?
Dr. SANTRUPT MISRA
About the Author
Dr. Santrupt Misra is CEO, Carbon Black Business and Director,
Group Human Resources of the Aditya Birla Group. He is a
Director on the Aditya Birla Management Corporation Private
Limited Board, the apex decision making body of the US $41
billion Aditya Birla Group. He is also on the Boards of Aditya Birla
Science & Technology Company Limited; Alexandria Carbon Black
Company Limited; Thai Carbon Black Public Company Limited;
Indigold Carbon Mauritius Limited and SKI Carbon India.
He is on the Advisory Board of the Association of Executive Search Consultants
(AESC) U.S.A. and was appointed as Member of the SHRM Certification Commission
in 2014 for a period of three years and is on the Board of the Xavier’s Institute of
Management Bhubaneswar, India.
Dr. Misra has over 28 years of professional experience in global business, research and
organisational development. Under his leadership as the Director HR, the Group has
developed a strong employer brand and has acquired laurels as the ‘Best Employer
of India’ and a ‘Great Place for Leaders to Work’ in 2007.
In 2011 the Aditya Birla Group was ranked 4th globally and 1st in Asia Pacific in
the ‘Top Companies for Leaders 2011’, a study conducted by Aon Hewitt, Fortune
magazine and the RBL Group. When he took over as CEO of the Group's Carbon
Black business, it was the fourth largest in the world. In less than two years, he grew
the business to be the largest in the world through a strategic acquisition.
Among the many awards/fellowships bestowed on Dr. Misra over the past decade,
a few prominent ones are mentioned below:
•


Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources (NAHR), USA.

•

The HRD Excellence Award from the National HRD Network (NHRDN).

•

The All India Management Association (AIMA) admitted Dr. Misra as an AIMA
Fellow.

•

The National Institute of Personnel Management conferred on him the ‘NIPM
Ratna Award’.

•

‘Ravi J Mathai National Fellow Award’ by the Association of Indian Management
Schools.

•

‘Global Leader of the Year’ at the CEO India Awards 2014.
January | 2016 NHRD Network Journal

3



Dr. Misra holds a Masters in Politics from Utkal University, India and a Masters in
Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from the Tata Institute of Social
Sciences, India; a PhD in Public Administration from the Utkal University, India
and a PhD in Industrial Relations from the Aston Business School, UK. He is an
Eisenhower Fellow and Aston Business School Fellow, an AIMA Fellow and a
Commonwealth Scholar.

F

irst of all, Lean & Smart HR are relative
terms, there is nothing called absolutely
Lean or Smart because what is Lean and
Smart in one context could be very obese
and slow moving in the other context or
could be very anorexic and starving in
the third context. So therefore, Lean and
Smart is very contextual and that context
consists of various things.
One is the size of the business. Second is
the dynamics of the sector as to how fast
moving the sector is, or is it slow moving?
Is it kind of tepid, rather constant without
any churn or turbulence? Is it steady paced
or is it fast paced? Third is the life-stage
of the organisation – are you ramping
up, are you start-up, are you mature in
your life cycle? The fourth stage - is the
kind of customers you are supposed to
serve which consists of predominantly
your employees and their demographics.

If I am an older employee, been serving
long, perhaps my expectations are shaped
by my life experiences. Anything better
I get , makes me happier than having an
absolute expectation of a different kind,
whereas younger employees who are
used to smart and fast response system;
their expectation will be different. So, the
customers profile also determines whether
your system is lean, and whether your
structure or process is smart.
One of the things every CHRO or HR
leader needs to think about is the context
he operates in and ask if it will be Lean
and Smart in that context or not. Therefore,
it is a complex set of factors that should
influence your thinking around that
4

January | 2016 NHRD Network Journal

subject rather the one or two things. Just
huge investment in technology doesn’t
make it Lean and Smart, just outsourcing
in every situation doesn’t make it Lean
and Smart or just doing a shared services
in-house doesn’t make it Lean and Smart.
You need to develop a clarity of thinking
as to what should be Lean and Smart
in this context which could be all of the

above, combination of these or none of the
above. For example, if I have a very remote
location in the majority of my operation,
the Lean and Smart in that context will
probably be having my own people
internally doing things as well. So there
may not be an opportunity for outsourcing
there. There may not be an opportunity
for technology – ‘Last mile connectivity’
there. For example, underground mines.
We cannot have a fixed view of Lean and
Smart defined in terms of only modern
technology, outsourcing or shared services
and these are very significant roles to
play in one context but these may have
limited application in another context. So
it is a challenge for every HR leader to
understand what is Lean and Smart HR
today and what is it likely to be in the
next 3-5 years’ time depending on where
my organisation is going. The reason why
best practices often fail, is because we
blindly copy other people’s best practices
of Lean and Smart and try to supplant it
to another environment whose needs are
very different. The concept of ‘horses for
courses’ is most applicable in this situation.
Typically, If you look at a conglomerate
like Aditya Birla Group, what is Lean and



Smart in the telecom industry will not
be same for mining or textile industry.
What cost a financial services, telecom
and technology firm can absorb today,
the mining and textile firm cannot. Hence,
being lean and smart in the same way will
not be possible for everyone. For example,
I may use an international ERP for large
parts of the organisation at a certain level
and above, but I may use a local HR ERP
for the basic needs of people who are front
line store employees in a retail business.
I do not need to use an international high
cost system to meet their expectations. I
might want both these systems to talk to
each other and I may require a common
database to draw insights, for which I can
use a middleware or any other system, but
it is a different thought altogether. The
choices that one makes, thus have to be
driven by the ability of the organisation
in terms of cost and also management
bandwidth to be able to absorb what is
called Lean and Smart.
Everything Lean and Smart does not
necessarily mean it consumes fewer
resources, sometimes Lean and Smart
could consume more resources than what
does not appear to be Lean and Smart.

So the concept of Lean and Smart itself
is a definition. Is it to be defined in input
term? Is it to be defined in terms of output
term as we service the client? So, Lean and
Smart has to be an optimal combination of
both – one that consumes less resource,
and at the same time perhaps produces a
greater impact in terms of client servicing.
Quite often I find that we get confused
with Lean and Smart and assume that the
Smart part is in relation to the consumer,
and Lean is in relation to the inputs that we
use. So, the Lean and Smart here becomes
a clever word, where Lean refers to the
resources consumed and Smart refers to
the output produced in terms of client
experience. But unless lean and smart can
balance both the input consumption and

the output created, it will not be Lean and
Smart in true sense.
Prof. Ramcharan shared in his HBR
article that HR should be focusing more
on partnering with business for strategic
interventions rather than focusing on
transactions.Your views ?
It’s the truth but again, it has to be
contextualised. HR should be there to
partner the business and not focus on
routine transaction, but someone has to

focus on routine transactions. Also, what is
routine and what is strategic again depends
on the stage an organisation is at. If I am
a startup, the routine itself is strategic
because I will have to set up the basic
processes. Whereas if I am a fully evolved
organisation, the basic processes might be
routine as I have other areas to focus into.
There cannot be an absolute distinction
between what is routine and what is
strategic. Routine is part of strategic. So
what is routine and what is strategic is
an ever-changing issue depending on the
sector, the life stage of the organisation
and the business’ ambition. And how you
define that routine determines in the long
term, how you are able to deliver value
from your function to the organisation.
One of the challenges for HR, CHRO and
the team is to redefine what is routine
and what is strategic, rather than having
a fixed view that this is routine and this
is strategic.
Can HR be Smart without being Lean?
Of course HR can be Smart without being
Lean. Because if you consume more
resources and deliver the same impact you
are Smart but you are no longer Lean. You
can be Smart and not be Lean, and you can
be Lean and not Smart at the same time.

So all combinations are possible. But every
time you want to continue to correlate, the
input part with the output part, you have
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to ask yourself “Am I delivering the best
value by combining the two?” And this is
the key question that can help you figure
out what are you doing, how well are you
doing and will give you an insight into
what could be the next strategic frontier
around which you focus yourself.
Right now there is a wave of Cloudbased applications, Mobile Apps which
are increasingly getting adopted. Do you
think they will surpass the way ERPs have
been dominating the HR space?
Yes, it will. The Cloud’s biggest advantage
is its flexibility. You can always have pilots
without being saddled with long term
cost in a Cloud model. And once in the
pilot, you can fine-tune things and roll it
out on a large scale. In the pilot you don’t
have to make significant investment for
yourself like licenses and other things.
When your organisation scale down or
scales up, the Cloud-based solution can
scale down and scale up. If you make your

internal investment, it’s harder to do that.
But of course, if the Cloud as an option is
not available, many of us have to make
internal investment.
But now that Cloud is becoming more
accessible and has proven itself as
a concept, organisations like us that
have historically invested in ERPs
have a choice to make. In fact we
have migrated some of our systems to
the Cloud-based solutions. So I think
Cloud has this unique opportunity for
flexibility, prototyping and piloting which
makes Smart, accessible to any size of
organisation and at any stage of its life.
In the earlier model, you needed a critical
mass for implementation, otherwise it did
not justify the cost. Now, you do not need
the mass because you can get everything
from the third party partner who has the
licences and the structure; all you have to

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January | 2016 NHRD Network Journal

provide is last mile connectivity and data.
So I think Cloud has significant potential.
Of course, like anything there are issues.
Informational securities as an issue is

always talked about. Data privacy loss
could be an issue. But I believe we can
get into that level of maturity as we learn
to use more and more of Cloud solutions.
What does the future hold for Lean, Smart
and HR?
I believe that emerging technologies
like: Mobile, handheld devices and
voice recognition will all have to be part
of the new Lean and Smart. A lot of
personalisation of the output for the end
consumer would also happen. For e.g. as
a user I would want to look at the same
output differently and I would be able to
customise my screen the way I want.
The challenge however will be that
technology will move very fast and
users (employees) will be much ahead
of organisation’s decision makers in its
adoption. That will create a dissonance
because I as an individual, if I am a tech
enthusiast, will learn a lot more about
the technology and feel frustrated about
my organisation not moving at the same
pace. Whereas due to lack of interest in
technology, the decision makers may not
be that prudent to make the decision. This
digital divide in decision making will be
one frontier of challenge that we’ll have
to overcome. i.e. How do the decision

makers, who control the resources become
so technology savvy that the timelines
between emergence of new technology and
its adoption are shortened and do not lead
to frustration among the end users. That’s
the key question that goes in for the future.
(As Shared over call with
Gauri Vatsyayan.)


MAKING SENSE OF LEAN
K RAMKUMAR
About the Author
K Ramkumar is National President, NHRDN and Executive
Director, ICICI Bank and President, ICICI Foundation.
Mr. K. Ramkumar is an Executive Director on the Board of ICICI
Bank and the President of ICICI Foundation.

February 1, 2009.

Mr. Ramkumar has completed his Post Graduate Diploma in
Personnel Management from Madras School of Social Work
in 1984. He has joined the Board of Directors with effect from

Prior to joining ICICI Bank in 2001, Mr. Ramkumar has served companies such as
Hindustan Aeronautics, Brookebond Lipton India Limited (now Hindustan Unilever
Limited) and ICI India Ltd. His work in these companies has mainly been in the areas
of Human Resources Management and Manufacturing.
Leadership Development, Succession Management, building a supply chain for
the Bank’s human resources requirements, leveraging technology to innovate, and

driving operational excellence for world class service quality, are his passion.
Institute for Finance, Banking & Insurance and ICICI Manipal Academy for Banking
& Insurance were conceived and nurtured by him. The partnership Initiatives
with SEBI – National Institute for securities management and with NIIT - the NIIT
University, were also nurtured by him. He led the CSR project of ICICI Foundation
on skilling youth and promoting livelihood. This is done under the ICICI Academy
for Skills, which has 9 centers offering 7 skills to 7500 youth per year.
He writes extensively on a range of topics on his blog www.theotherview.in. He
invites you all to be active contributing member of this blog.

D

uring the last 12 years I have been
involved with inculcating the lean
principles at ICICI. I am a fitness freak,
but not someone who obsesses with
my looks and calories burnt. To me
exercising is aimed at muscle tone, strength
and stamina. My fitness metaphor is a
functional metaphor and not an aesthetic
one. I guess where any institution drives
lean principles for functionality and not
the fad then adoption of lean is for the
correct reasons. Lean as with the human
body, should focus on removing fat and

shoring up muscles. Lean should not lead
to muscle waste.
In my decade long experience I have
understood lean as:

 Being clear about what needs to
be achieved and not being process
obsessed
 Understanding what information flow
and work structure is the most optimal
 A resource leverage game and not a
work flow trimming obsession
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 Empowerment and delegation of
authority closer to where the action is
 Constantly challenging the status
quo and backing improvisation and
innovation
Often the proponents of lean get lost in the
debate on process and metrics and lose the
wood for the trees. My argument is not
that process and metrics are unimportant.
It is more about not putting the cart before
the horse.
Let me illustrate this with 2 examples.
When the recruitment numbers at ICICI
was multiplying year after year in terms
of multiples, the more we tried optimising
the process we came a cropper. However,
when we sat down and challenged our
model and were prepared to take the

risk and disrupt it, we breezed through
the challenge effortlessly. The same thing
was true with our approach to learning
and development. It was the fundamental
recasting of the model which delivered
the results.
In both the cases we did not adopt the
lazy outsourcing model. Lazy outsourcing
is like sweeping the garbage from your
doorstep to the neighbours, without
addressing the key issues of garbage
generation, recycling and efficient disposal.
Core functions of an organisation cannot be
made lean by shifting the work elsewhere
or agonising over process and installing
a galore of dashboards and metrics. It

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January | 2016 NHRD Network Journal

requires the ability to reimagine work itself
and willingness to fundamentally disrupt
the 5 levers which I have listed above.
Once again, do not stretch my argument as
outsourcing work is wrong. Well thought
out outsourcing is more of backward
integration and not garbage disposal.
Lean should be evaluated by taking into
account the end to end workflow and

resource commitment and not only the
part which is carried out inside. It should
be the sum total of what happens inside
your organisation and that which happens
in the extended organisation outside.
Like fitness is more than exercising lean is
more than a process; like fitness is more
than calories burnt lean is more than
sterile metrics; like fitness is about healthy
muscles lean is about the effectiveness and
efficient resource commitment and finally
like fitness is not about neat looks lean is
not about the flowcharts and the many
colourful displays.
Let me close with a piece of information.
In the year 2002 ICICI managed its 4500
people strong business with 115 member
team; today we are 75,000 people strong
and we manage it with 205 in-company
resources and about 100 other resources
of our extended partners. Lean should
disrupt linearity and incrementalism. Lean
is more than shopping for cost arbitrage
it is all about value creation and creating
competitive advantage.


DESIGN AND TRANSITION PHASE – WHEN RUBBER
MEETS THE ROAD
RAJESH RANJAN


About the Author
Rajesh Ranjan, Partner, leads Everest Group’s Business Process
Services (BPS) syndicated and custom research-led advisory
practice for the global market. He advises senior stakeholders
on their global services initiatives providing deep insights into
sourcing trends, value capture opportunities, service provider
landscape, and best practices. He helps service providers and
investors in their growth agenda. Rajesh has authored industry
leading reports on various BPS markets including next generation
themes such as Business-Process-as-a-Service (BPaaS), Digital (Analytics, Mobility,
Cloud), and automation. He is frequently quoted in leading general media and
global services-specific publications as well as invited to speak at industry forums.
Prior to joining Everest Group, Rajesh was a consultant at Wipro Technologies,
performing process consulting and business analysis for Fortune 500 clients. He
started his career as a software engineer at Infosys Technologies. He holds an
MBA from the XLRI, Jamshedpur, India, and a Bachelor of Technology from ISM,
Dhanbad, India.

W

ell begun is half done!” said
Aristotle. The words of this great
philosopher and scientist seems to have
survived 23 centuries and still holds true;
especially for any transformation story.
This especially applies to transformative
HR shared services initiatives where a
well thought-out design and effective
implementation/transition is crucial to

achieve the intended outcome. Design
and transition is the crucial phase that
follows after business case finalisation and
precedes the steady state phase. During
this phase, assumptions of business case
faces the test of reality. It is when rubber
meets the road and the model used for
defining the business case gets tested.

“

Typically the objective of a HR shared
services transformation exercise is “To

create a future model that is efficient, agile,
effective, and business aligned – in short
a Lean and Smart Future”. To meet this
objective, enterprises can take either an
in-house approach or adopt a third-party
outsourcing model. Notwithstanding some
difference in the roles, responsibilities, and
governance in these two models, the design
and transition phase plays a crucial role to
realise the shared services objectives. Let’s
look at some of the key elements of the
design process and subsequent transition
phase.
There are five key design areas one needs
to focus on – process, technology, location,
people, and business continuity. While

designing these, one needs to keep in mind
that they are inter-related and dependent
on each other as well.
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 Process Design: One of the important
decision points during the process
design is to identify the nature of support
required by employees, managers
(typically called “line managers”), and
the retained HR organisation – three
key user groups of HR shared services.
It would mean clearly identifying what
activities should be included for each
HR function under the HR shared
services scope. These could be:
a. Self-service enabled: Through HR
portals (performed by employees/
managers/retained HR with no
involvement from HR shared
services)
b. Assisted service: Through HR help
desk (originated by employees/
managers and addressed by HR
shared services)
c. Back-office performed: Through
technology and/or manual (entirely

managed by HR shared services)
2. Technology Design: Technology plays
a very important role in achieving HR
shared services objectives. It underpins
the HR processes and several of its
design principles. In recent times, digital
advancements (cloud, mobility, social,
and analytics) are creating significant
opportunities. Everest Group’s research
shows that cloud adoption is growing
at 70-80% within HR technology space.
A cloud/Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
based model allows access to latest
features and functionalities on a payas-you-go model. This is quite attractive
to many enterprises that lack capital to
make significant upfront investment
in the traditional on-premise model.
Mobility is offering opportunities
to further drive self-service. This is
especially true for enterprises that
have a significant number of workforce
that are on the move. Social tools are
creating significant opportunities in HR
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January | 2016 NHRD Network Journal

areas such as recruitment, especially
as it relates to passive candidate
engagement and hiring. Harnessing

analytics and big data is probably
the biggest opportunity that HR
organisation has to get the proverbial
“seat on the table”. In addition to all
these, there are advancements in areas
such as Service Delivery Automation
(SDA) that further drives efficiency,
productivity, and accuracy in backoffice administrative processes. The
quality of service delivery today is
directly proportional to the extent of
technology being used by the HR team
to manage the employees and their life
events.
3. Location Design: This aspect of design
identifies the appropriate location(s)
for shared services. It is again an
important component and needs to
be decided depending on various
factors such as – cost of operations,
access to talent, nature of process to
be supported, organisational comfort,
geo-political risk etc. Leading global
enterprises have effectively utilised
global sourcing model (offshore and
nearshore locations) to maximise the
labor arbitrage opportunities. In Indian
context, while labor arbitrage may not
be that big a factor, there is still an
opportunity to consider the trade-offs
of setting up shared services in tier-1 vs.

tier-2 vs. tier-3 cities.
4. P e o p l e D e s i g n : T h i s i n c l u d e s
aspects such as defining the roles
& responsibilities of retained HR
organisation post HR transformation.
Some of the key considerations while
thinking through this aspect includes:


The retained organisation must
perform roles that support the
business goals and objectives;
outputs must be tied to business
performance




Identify the skills required to
perform such a role and re-skill
people through adequate training

 

Ensure that shadow organisations
(people performing similar work
as done in shared services) are
not created in the future state as it
effectively derails the business case


5. Business Continuity Design: This
essentially requires to put in place
business continuity and disaster
recovery plans to avoid business
disruptions in case of any geo-political
upheavals. The recent Chennai flood is
a good example of how important this
aspect is.
As mentioned earlier, irrespective of the
sourcing model (in-house vs. outsourced),
all the above aspects need to be carefully
thought through. Having said that, there
are some additional considerations while
working in an outsourced model. The
outsourced model offers opportunity to
tap into expertise and capabilities of a
third-party that would have implemented
several similar setups. However, to
leverage that, enterprises need to provide
adequate degree of freedom to the
outsourcing partner while defining the
boundary conditions of the design. This
way client organisations can benefit
from the latest innovative methods
that the outsourcing partner provider
is privy to. Having said that, it does
not mean that the control moves out of
the grasp of client organisation. Some
level of ring fencing should be created
in terms of unique constraints that the

solution must adhere to while focusing
on the intended outcomes. For example,
when it comes to location design, if the
outsourcing partner has developed a
mature delivery location that helps meet
business objectives (e.g. cost efficiency)
while adhering to constraints (e.g., data
security/compliance), enterprises should

look to utilise that instead of dictating a
specific location.
The maturity of the market also plays
a role in enterprise approach when it
comes to providing adequate leeway to
their outsourced partner. Enterprises in
more mature markets such as US and UK
increasingly rely on outsourced partner
expertise to tap on the best practices.
Emerging markets, such as India, exhibit
a dichotomy. There are few organisations
that present an approach that is consistent
with mature markets (sometimes ahead
of that as well). However, a majority of
them don’t. Having said that, this is also
changing as we see growing adoption
of the outsourced model. Our research
shows that the HRO market in emerging
economies of APAC (primarily India,
China and Indonesia) is growing at a
CAGR of 23-25% over the past three years

with a penetration of around 5%.
Post the completion of the design process,
the transitions or migration phase starts
up. In this phase, the processes and
systems designs are implemented. There
is multilevel testing that is done and if any
alignment in process design is needed,
it is also done at this stage. For some of
the phases, a parallel run is also done to
ensure proper functioning and results.
As you move from design to transitions
process, seamless move is very important
so that any information loss does not
happen. To make it possible, it is very
important that few of the team members
of the design team become part of the
migration team. This is important in
both cases whether you have opted for
outsourced models or an in-house model.
In case of in-house model, the complete
ownership stays with the organisation,
however, in the case of outsourced
model, it is a joint responsibility. Though
in outsourced models the ownership of
delivering results and achieving outcomes
stays with the solution provider, it is very
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