As workforces become more distributed and diverse, the future of HR lies in its ability to adapt without fragmenting, and to standardize without erasing what makes people different. This isn’t just about compliance—it’s about trust. And trust, more than any policy, is what ultimately fuels performance, innovation, and long-term growth.
Tomorrow's leaders will no longer be strategists or managers. They will be culture curators, narrative weavers, and meaning-makers in the workplace. They will need to navigate the divide between data-driven insight and human empathy, guiding ambiguity and drawing on creativity and innovation. These leaders will be called upon to use their intuition, cultural awareness, and emotional intelligence to navigate organizations through the dynamic of the Orange Economy. To enable this new paradigm of leadership, performance metrics need to change.
The idea is to align everybody towards one common purpose. There is a complete strategic alignment of the people. “We cannot reach out to 5,000 people and converse about the common purpose. Instead, we garner the entire organisation towards the performance target, like sales target, construction target, etc,” says Nageshwar PB, CHRO, Casagrand.
Organizations need to realize that retention for the sake of retention is not always beneficial. Not everyone who stays adds value, and not everyone who leaves is a loss. Instead of chasing low turnover numbers, the focus should shift to purposeful retention—retaining employees who are engaged, ethical, growth-oriented, and who actively contribute to a positive work culture. Sometimes, allowing the wrong fit to leave, or even encouraging it, is healthier than forcing a relationship that no longer works.
In the Era of Contradiction, the old “clarity-will-come” assumption of uncertainty must give way to a new recognition: “contradictions-will-persist.” We no longer live in a system where unknowns will gradually become known. Today, contradictions are not transitional — they are structural. Record profit and record lay-offs happen simultaneously in the same company. Employees are promised flexibility — and simultaneously tracked by productivity software. These are not problems awaiting resolution. These are coexisting, opposing truths that define our reality.
Humour is a good medium to communicate one’s skill. According to Lokesh Ambigapathy, Human Resources Head, Updater Services, it’s easier to crack the external interviews than the internal interviews, where one has to deal with office politics and tighter competition from known candidates. He even got an internal promotion for an HR intervention he initiated with a touch of humour.
Suzlon will train 12,000 students from various institutions in Andhra Pradesh on at least five trades, which are electrical, mechanical, instrumentation, civil and blade technologies. “We should be able to build a minimum of 5,000 such careers each year, which we will hire for our firm. We have established labs and are setting up the infrastructure. The first batch will be induced in April,” says Rajendra Mehta, Group CHRO, Suzlon Group.
The company has an AI-driven engine that shares the happenings on a ground level. For instance, the tool predicts which particular team will lose people. The moment there’s a prediction, the HR as well as the leadership team (comprising 200 people) will zoom into the issue, and later roll up into the hierarchy for redressal.
Hostile Attribution Bias, a cognitive distortion, leads individuals to assume negative intentions in others, fostering workplace distrust and conflict. This bias manifests in misinterpreting feedback, perceiving silence as rejection, and reading negativity into emails. Past experiences, negativity bias, and lack of information contribute to this.
The article explores the phenomenon of 'Textroverts' in the workplace. These individuals communicate confidently in writing but struggle with verbal communication. It highlights challenges faced by HR professionals in managing Textroverts. The article suggests strategies for diagnosing, supporting, and effectively managing these employees. It also emphasizes the importance of valuing diverse communication styles in the workplace.
In an exclusive interview with ETHRWorld, Raj Kumar Dubey, Director - Human Resources at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), shares how a culture of care, leadership development, and AI-driven HR transformation helped the company bounce back post-privatisation shock. The results speak for themselves: BPCL’s attrition rate has now returned to the industry average.
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