Karan Mahajan: HR evolution in the post-lockdown era

Printweek (PW): How have you been leading your organisation through this once-in-a-lifetime crisis? Describe a typical day? How much has been altered?
Karan Mahajan (KM): The initial few days and weeks went into ensuring a smooth start-up of the factory and safety of our team members and in turn, of their families. As you must have heard from most organisations, the main challenge being faced was that of logistics and planning. We had to quickly adapt to spending more time on con-calls and video calls as opposed to discussing strategies face-to-face.

PW: We’re in an extraordinary moment. As a leader what are you telling your team now?
KM: Four months into the lockdown and it’s still a roller-coaster ride. For most organisations the hurdles and challenges have now shifted focus from logistics and manpower management to keeping the workplace safe from any Covid positive cases. I am spending most of my time on calls with the respective heads of various departments and making sure that all their needs are being met. It is extremely important to keep a high level of enthusiasm and positivity during such challenging times.

PW: Is it different messaging for different teams? For example, department heads, factory supervisors, admin staff, shopfloor experts, logistics and support staff?
KM: When it comes to safety the message is fairly consistent across the board. But each department does have its own individual challenges that need to be attended, too.

PW: The post-Covid-19 world will need massive HR repair with your entire team.How are you planning to achieve this?
KM: I personally feel that the repair is already going on; at least in our organisation. Our HR team has been extremely busy and occupied to educate the entire team on dos and don’ts and this learning will need to be adapted for the future as well, as I don’t see life getting back to normal anytime soon. In fact, the HR team themselves are also partaking in online training sessions and webinars to better equip themselves to handle this situation as it is a unique for all HR teams across the world.

Hi-Tech Inks’s plant in Vapi

PW: Have you been re-negotiating deals with your customers? From a position of strength? Or is it the same old, same old?
KM: On the business front our focus during the entire lockdown has been to make sure that none of our customers suffer. We have worked longer hours and arranged raw materials at higher prices to ensure our customers can run their plants, which in turn will help essential goods reach the consumers on time. For the most part there has been no re-negotiation with customers, but in certain product lines the impact on cost was exorbitantly high wherein we did need support from the customers. Some customers have obliged, but there is still a long way to go.

PW: How have you been planning your next step with your banks and financiers when you don’t know what the future will hold? One step that you have taken...
KM: There has been minimum planning on the banking front thusfar. Our major focus had been to collect our money from customers on time and in turn keep paying our banks and suppliers on time. We may need some support from the banks to upgrade certain systems, but we shall consider that at a later stage.

PW: Is your factory ready for what’s next? How have you been empowering your team at the bottom of the pyramid?
KM: What next today might not be relevant to what next three months later. The right approach at the moment is to have a short to mid-term view on the situation and re-assess the situation further down the line to see what changes need to be made.

PW: Any specific steps (sanitisation, plastic partitions, physical distance, air vents, and WFH) to keep your office healthy and psychologically safe?
KM: Absolutely. We have a strict protocol that is being followed in terms of health checks, protective gear, social distancing and sanitisation. The entire factory (including the office spaces) is being sanitised twice a day before each shift change. We are sanitising each incoming and outgoing vehicle along with the goods in them for safety of our workers, transporters and our customer’s workers. Most of the sales team continues to WFH until the situation normalises. Each employee goes through temperature checks and pulse oximeter checks at entry and exit and lastly, as with most other companies, wearing of masks, face-shields and social distancing has now become a norm to be followed.

PW: A personal question: How has Covid-19 changed the nature of what you are working on, your own resilience and self-renewal and how you do it?
KM: For starters, it has taught me to be patient and positive. We have been through some tough situations at Hi-Tech Inks, especially with the fire at the plant, but this has been a completely different challenge to handle. It has also made me realise the amount of time that remains in hand when you cut the travelling equation out of the picture. You are able to devote more quality time towards work and family and still have time left to reflect upon your own self. With almost none to restricted visits to the factory it has also given the senior management to prove itself and test the leadership skills.

PW: In what way has your team prepared for Webex or Zoom or Skype usage? Any innovative ideas?
KM: Our entire team is now using Zoom for all our communication.

PW: Any final predictions about how, as a leader, you can harness digital technology for good?
KM: I believe digitalisation is the way for the future. It’s been there for a while and we have all been associated with it on the personal front. What this pandemic has taught a lot of leaders is how to implement digitalisation on the work front. With the nature of our business and the industry we are in, I am not too sure if even in the long term this norm will continue, but in the short to medium term it is going to be fairly common to conduct business internally and externally through means of digital technology.