“Know your industry” Director (HR)’s Interview
New Delhi   18-Jan-2012


Mr. Sudhir Bhalla

Q. How would you describe your career journey at IndianOil?

A. I started my career in the refineries field location and moved on to Pipelines Division and other refinery locations, Refineries Headquarters in the last 32 years. My role transformed from be­ing an active key resource person to a lead member of the negotiating team for maintaining cordial industrial rela­tions in refineries division over three decades through initially facilitating and later holding exhaustive, iterative and tactful negotiations with the col­lectives. On the manpower front, for the first time, mid-level project engineers were recruited for manning the mega projects and upgradations undertaken in a big way in the Refineries Division under the 11th Five Year Plan. HR policies were made contextual

and processes and workflows were streamlined through IT portals reducing pro­cess time and achieving objectives in handling of cases. Besides knowledge portals, e-learning was in­troduced for skill sharing and upgradations without displacing from the work places. This helped skill upgradations required to handle new technologies and projects.

Q. How has the role of HR evolved over the years?

A. In the 1980s, our HR management was more about Personnel Adminis­trative Management. HR has evolved over the years, just like technology has evolved. HR is no longer about just managing staff files and records or sitting in the offices and being reac­tive to people issues, but about forming a partner­ship with the businesses. It is about proactively traversing across the or­ganisation in a boundary less manner making the line manager an equal partner to execute HR initiatives and interventions for ensuring complete buy in. This can only happen when HR pos­sesses basic business knowledge and remains abreast of the developments in business plan. We have worked consciously towards this objective. We know that dealing with humans is complex because people react differ­ently to circumstances. The challenge, therefore, is to find what will work within our organisation and hence make it happen and, most importantly, to build relationships with each loca­tion and functional Head, to know how to maximise their strengths and sup­port them in their development areas.

Q. How has IndianOil fared with ePMS?

A. We implemented ePMS - an online performance management system - in 2005-06. Ever since, we have been open to people feedback and concerns about the system, which were obtained through structured as well as informal commu­nication channels. To quote a challenge, we initially faced soft handling of ap­praisals by many appraisers as the scores were shared with the appraisee and most wanted to be goody goody with the reporting group. Through intense communication and also through sys­tem interventions, in consultation with functional heads, anchors were set in the system workflows to help guide the appraisers for effecting differentiation in their reporting group.

Q. As a seasoned HR professional, what would be your advice to the budding HR professionals?

A. We have to go out there and under­stand the industry we work in order to be able to make a difference through HR. They need to develop and enable line managers to take ahead HR initiatives. Understand that every business decision and strategy, for the way forward, is 100 per cent dependent on people. The beauty of life is that we always have an opportunity to make a value adding dif­ference, however small. So, they need to go ahead and initiate the difference in their work place, today.