Guest Lecture by Mr. Ramesh Mitragotri

A wonderful insight into the HR domain was provided by Mr. Ramesh Mitragotri, an alumnus of the batch of 1986 and currently serving as the Chief People Officer at Aditya Birla Retail Limited. He has an experience of more than 18 years in the HR domain in various industries like Philips India, Hindustan Construction Company Limited, India, Owens Corning India Ltd and Aditya Birla Group Cement Marketing Division.

One of the points highlighted by Sir was that ’Resources make business possible but People make business happen’. Resources degrade with time but people perform, learn and grow with time. People i.e. Human Power needs to be managed efficiently to aid in the success of the organization. When the goals of the company and the aspirations of the individual coincide both will reach great heights. Common purpose, availability of tools, growth opportunities, appreciation and rewards, collaboration and team-work is essential to engage the employee. But it is always the employee who has to manage himself-No one else can.

An HR manager needs to work as a Strategic Business Partner, Change manager, HR service provider and an Employee Champion. The pre-requisites for an HR domain include:

a) To know the business of the company  

b) HR domain knowledge

c) Change management i.e. Problem solving ability, clarity and innovative influence to make things happen

d) Personal Credibility i.e. consistence and reliability, integrity, interpersonal relations. Assertiveness, empathy, maintaining confidentiality, sense of responsibility, faith in people and their strengths, openness, learning ability and stress tolerance.

Overall it was a very informative session and helped clarify many queries related to HR field. We are very thankful to the induction team to have arranged this lecture for us and hope to have Sir again on campus for more such sessions.

- Sonal Sherekar (Batch 2011-2013)