Dr. Aditi Banerjee: Honing The Skills Of Tomorrow’s Leaders
Dr. Aditi Banerjee
Director- HR
After this, she also worked as a consultant with a couple of renowned organizations like AFS International, Central Board of Secondary Education, and Pratham Education Foundation to name a few. In the year 2020, she started her journey with Adpushup and since then has been heading the HR and the L&D department. Dr. Aditi is a perfect blend of a Psychologist and an HR leader who enjoys evaluating people’s attributes and providing them with in-depth & meaningful guidance to help them lead a successful professional life.
Here is a deep dive we did into Dr. Aditi’s experience.
How do you find your previous experiences helpful in your current role and operations so far?
I used to teach at the MLS University, Udaipur and that gave me immediate exposure to dealing with groups of people, I used to train and teach adults so andragogy comes with that whereas, working with CBSE and Pratham Education Foundation gave me exposure to educational research. Pratham Education Foundation also allowed me to work in the areas of Sustainable Development Goals, non-cognitive skills, and 21st-century skills. In my other stints, with AFS International, I dealt with international students which gave me exposure to empathetically sharing intercultural learning. These collective experiences have given me the chance to work on my current role & learn further.
With my experiences, I try to blend people management as well as psychology and education to develop further insights and I get to implement them in my current role. At Adpushup, I have explored and led several crucial projects and tasks such as company policy-making following the company’s culture and legal requirements, grievance redressals and overall communication with the employees. We have been able to grow our team from 30 employees(in 2019) to over 160 employees currently, in just 2 years.
As the Director-Learning & Development, what are the trends in L&D Vital that are cultivating the workforce to be ready to meet the needs of their employers?
In a company, there are three hierarchies of people skip level are the freshers, midlevel are the managers or senior associates and then there are the directors. Therefore, there are different kinds of requirements for different kinds of groups. Having said that, while inducting people at the skip level, we try to groom & train them on hard skills based on the rich playbooks made by each of the team trainers of the company.
We give them an understanding of the difference between a job and an educational institution by helping them to pick some workmanship skills, and softer behavioural skills, and improving emotional intelligence. People focus more on exhibiting their IQ during the interviews but EQ is an essential aspect. Emotional Intelligence is a factor that can be developed through skill training. We train our employees for these softer skills to not only help them in fostering a conducive work environment around them but also with their interpersonal relationships.
At the mid-level, the senior associates have to deal with both the skip level and the director level, hence, we try to do specific managerial coaching for them. We conduct culture coaching, managerial skills coaching, and team management coaching. This goes for both the managerial and the director levels.
21st-century soft skills including leadership coaching are very impor
You cannot mandate productivity; you must provide the tools to let people become their best.” — steve jobs.
As the Director-Learning & Development, what are the trends in L&D Vital that are cultivating the workforce to be ready to meet the needs of their employers?
In a company, there are three hierarchies of people skip level are the freshers, midlevel are the managers or senior associates and then there are the directors. Therefore, there are different kinds of requirements for different kinds of groups. Having said that, while inducting people at the skip level, we try to groom & train them on hard skills based on the rich playbooks made by each of the team trainers of the company.
We give them an understanding of the difference between a job and an educational institution by helping them to pick some workmanship skills, and softer behavioural skills, and improving emotional intelligence. People focus more on exhibiting their IQ during the interviews but EQ is an essential aspect. Emotional Intelligence is a factor that can be developed through skill training. We train our employees for these softer skills to not only help them in fostering a conducive work environment around them but also with their interpersonal relationships.
At the mid-level, the senior associates have to deal with both the skip level and the director level, hence, we try to do specific managerial coaching for them. We conduct culture coaching, managerial skills coaching, and team management coaching. This goes for both the managerial and the director levels.
21st-century soft skills including leadership coaching are very impor
tant for leading managers and we help them with their softer aspects to build their capacity and image as the leader of the team.
Describe your leadership style and the success mantra that has been helping you arrive at positive outcomes in your professional journey so far.
I follow a mix of Democratic, Laissez-faire, and transformational leadership styles. This mixed approach has proven to be helpful during my career span- facilitating people with freedom, and autonomy which instilled a sense of ownership and confidence in employees. It makes them feel engaged and also helps in sparking creativity in decision-making processes. I believe in the approach of delegating and enabling employees to accomplish a task at hand without any micromanagement- only guiding the team and employees in understanding the business goals and the importance behind the work they’ve been assigned. This ensures that the team is eager to transform and evolve – in order to achieve the business goals and scale up.
Having a background in psychology, I have always believed in and respected individual differences. I come with the mindset that all individuals deserve an equal amount of respectful treatment and this is something that I have always maintained and followed.
I feel glad to be able to hire potential talent and groom them to be successful in their roles.
What is the future destination you are heading towards?
I aspire to continue working with Adpushup for a foreseeable future because of its culture, management ethics, and vibrant team here. Apart from that, I look forward to moving up the ladder and growing as the company grows, and towards the fag-end of my career span, I might get into a part time consultant or an advisor’s role and indulge in writing as well as work for non-profit sectors to give back to the society.
Dr. Aditi Banerjee, Director- HR, AdPushup
An HR leader holding a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, Bachelor’s in Education, and a mini- MBA in Management, Aditi is actively focused on grooming & training people to get them settled into their jobs and also helping them build their technical skills.
•Hobbies: Meditative introspection
•Favorite Author: Daniel Goleman
•Favorite Cuisine: Bengali
Describe your leadership style and the success mantra that has been helping you arrive at positive outcomes in your professional journey so far.
I follow a mix of Democratic, Laissez-faire, and transformational leadership styles. This mixed approach has proven to be helpful during my career span- facilitating people with freedom, and autonomy which instilled a sense of ownership and confidence in employees. It makes them feel engaged and also helps in sparking creativity in decision-making processes. I believe in the approach of delegating and enabling employees to accomplish a task at hand without any micromanagement- only guiding the team and employees in understanding the business goals and the importance behind the work they’ve been assigned. This ensures that the team is eager to transform and evolve – in order to achieve the business goals and scale up.
Having a background in psychology, I have always believed in and respected individual differences. I come with the mindset that all individuals deserve an equal amount of respectful treatment and this is something that I have always maintained and followed.
I feel glad to be able to hire potential talent and groom them to be successful in their roles.
What is the future destination you are heading towards?
I aspire to continue working with Adpushup for a foreseeable future because of its culture, management ethics, and vibrant team here. Apart from that, I look forward to moving up the ladder and growing as the company grows, and towards the fag-end of my career span, I might get into a part time consultant or an advisor’s role and indulge in writing as well as work for non-profit sectors to give back to the society.
Dr. Aditi Banerjee, Director- HR, AdPushup
An HR leader holding a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, Bachelor’s in Education, and a mini- MBA in Management, Aditi is actively focused on grooming & training people to get them settled into their jobs and also helping them build their technical skills.
•Hobbies: Meditative introspection
•Favorite Author: Daniel Goleman
•Favorite Cuisine: Bengali