Padma Gupta : Revamping Impact Strategies By Elevating HR Practices & Enhancing Customer Experience
Padma Gupta
Director Human Resources, Customer Experience & Strategy
During a personal interview, she shared insights into the latest industry trends and provided information about herself. Let’s read on.
With more than 20 years of extensive experience in Human Resource Management, can you highlight some key milestones of your professional journey?
With 23 years of experience in human resources, my career has expanded to include customer experience, business excellence, and strategic initiatives. I started as a research associate at the Academy of HRD in Ahmedabad, working alongside experts like IIM professors, faculty and senior corporate leaders, who gave me a solid foundation in HR and a deep respect for it as a profession.
My career has taken me through three major industries: the data-heavy and high-pressure oil and gas sector, which sharpened my technical skills; the engineering industry, where I honed my planning, visualization, and infra-structure abilities; and now, the building materials industry. Transitioning into customer experience alongside my HR role has highlighted the transformative impact of people-centric management, comple-
mented by a process-oriented perspective that enhances business excellence. Being involved in strategy synthesis has allowed me to blend my past insights with current skills, making my career dynamic and multifaceted.
How do you ensure that the people's agenda aligns with the organization’s core vision and mission?
The maxim 'culture eats strategy for
break fast'resonates deeply with me,parti-cularly with my dual focus on culture in HR and strategy for business success. Ensuring the people's agenda aligns with the organization's vision and mission requires integrating people-centric considerations from the start of strategy formulation. Whether through SWOT analysis or market potential assessments, it is essential to factor in people's roles in policy design, process development, and outcome achievement. This approach ensures that the vision and mission align with the people's agenda, avoiding the false dichotomy between profit and people. Viewing the people agenda as integral to business success from the outset fosters this alignment. Therefore, involving HR professionals in strategy formulation is highly beneficial.
Moreover, a keen eye on governance and the cadence of multiple cross-functional collaborations ensures openness, transparency, and accountability, which are critical for goal achievement by individuals and teams within the organization. By defining clear roles, responsibilities, and sharply defined KRAs that drive business parameters, we set up review systems that make strategies real and achievable. This structured approach not only enhances organizational efficiency but also strengthens our commitment to delivering on our strategic objectives.
How do you design training and development opportunities for employees that enhance both the company's progress and their personal growth?
Training is a structured process where individuals enhance their skills and knowledge, beginning with a comprehensive needs analysis. We create an optimal learning environment through classroom instruction, group and cross-functional projects, strategic initiatives, and increasingly, hybrid or online formats. Development is experiential, complementing formal training with real-world application. For senior management, 360-degree feedback identifies areas for improvement, particularly in leadership, followed by targeted coaching and mentoring.
Middle management development involves cross-functional projects. Our 'Talent in Focus' program identifies high-potential individuals, offering a mix of external and internal training, online modules, and case studies. Aligning training and development with corporate strategy, our needs analysis ensures that individual growth supports organizational objectives, delivering tailored interventions that foster both personal and organizational advancement.
How have you innovatively contributed to improving the customer experience?
Governance & cross-functional collaboration ensure openness, trans-parency, & account-ability, enabling goal achievement for indi-viduals, teams, & the organization
Moreover, a keen eye on governance and the cadence of multiple cross-functional collaborations ensures openness, transparency, and accountability, which are critical for goal achievement by individuals and teams within the organization. By defining clear roles, responsibilities, and sharply defined KRAs that drive business parameters, we set up review systems that make strategies real and achievable. This structured approach not only enhances organizational efficiency but also strengthens our commitment to delivering on our strategic objectives.
How do you design training and development opportunities for employees that enhance both the company's progress and their personal growth?
Training is a structured process where individuals enhance their skills and knowledge, beginning with a comprehensive needs analysis. We create an optimal learning environment through classroom instruction, group and cross-functional projects, strategic initiatives, and increasingly, hybrid or online formats. Development is experiential, complementing formal training with real-world application. For senior management, 360-degree feedback identifies areas for improvement, particularly in leadership, followed by targeted coaching and mentoring.
Middle management development involves cross-functional projects. Our 'Talent in Focus' program identifies high-potential individuals, offering a mix of external and internal training, online modules, and case studies. Aligning training and development with corporate strategy, our needs analysis ensures that individual growth supports organizational objectives, delivering tailored interventions that foster both personal and organizational advancement.
How have you innovatively contributed to improving the customer experience?
While I wouldn't claim our approach to enhancing customer experience is entirely novel, we've implemented several strategies. Firstly, we focus on offering an omni-channel experience, ensuring customers can reach us through various platforms like email, WhatsApp, chatbots, online call centres, and social media. This approach aims to maintain consistency in customer experience across channels, achieved through the use of technology, tools, and a competent team. We closely monitor response times, service quality, and customer satisfaction scores daily.
Depending on the product line, our customer service efforts may target end customers or influencers like architects, carpenters and con-tractors. We've also embraced technology for remote support and online product demonstrations to resolve issues efficiently. Despite these advancements, we prioritize the human touch by investing in a skilled team of customer service professionals who undergo regular technical and soft skills training at our numerous Training Centers nationwide. Looking ahead, we're exploring augmented reality and virtual reality to further enhance customer interactions.
What future opportunities do you anti-cipate leveraging to guide the company towards creating sig-nificant impacts?
Our brand promise of ‘Maximizing the Value of Space. Together,' encapsulates our vision for the future. We plan to strengthen partnerships with franchisees, dealers, distributors, architects, and academic institutions to expand our network and cater to a wider audience, including future professionals entering the industry. Internally, we aim to consolidate our manufacturing capabilities and move towards providing complete solutions for our customers, fostering growth opportunities for our employees across various functions and product lines. As for my future, I envision a role in developing and grooming younger team members to take on specialized roles within the organization, leveraging my expertise in areas like Business Excellence, customer service, and HR.
Additionally, I aim to dedicate more time to coaching and mentoring high-potential individuals, ensuring a continuous pipeline of talent ready to tackle new challenges as we progress. This aligns with my passion for guiding career journeys and contributing to the company's overall growth. In my people-centric strategy, I define roles, responsibi-lities, and KRAs that drive business parameters, and set up review systems to ensure these strategies are realistic and achievable.
Padma Gupta, Director - Human Resources, Customer Experience & Strategy, Hafele India
Padma Gupta, a seasoned thought leader, coach, and change management specialist boasts more than two decades of extensive experience in Human Resource Management. She has recently expanded her expertise to include managing Customer Experience, Strategy, Engineering and Technical Service, Business Excellence, and Digital Transformation.
Depending on the product line, our customer service efforts may target end customers or influencers like architects, carpenters and con-tractors. We've also embraced technology for remote support and online product demonstrations to resolve issues efficiently. Despite these advancements, we prioritize the human touch by investing in a skilled team of customer service professionals who undergo regular technical and soft skills training at our numerous Training Centers nationwide. Looking ahead, we're exploring augmented reality and virtual reality to further enhance customer interactions.
What future opportunities do you anti-cipate leveraging to guide the company towards creating sig-nificant impacts?
Our brand promise of ‘Maximizing the Value of Space. Together,' encapsulates our vision for the future. We plan to strengthen partnerships with franchisees, dealers, distributors, architects, and academic institutions to expand our network and cater to a wider audience, including future professionals entering the industry. Internally, we aim to consolidate our manufacturing capabilities and move towards providing complete solutions for our customers, fostering growth opportunities for our employees across various functions and product lines. As for my future, I envision a role in developing and grooming younger team members to take on specialized roles within the organization, leveraging my expertise in areas like Business Excellence, customer service, and HR.
Additionally, I aim to dedicate more time to coaching and mentoring high-potential individuals, ensuring a continuous pipeline of talent ready to tackle new challenges as we progress. This aligns with my passion for guiding career journeys and contributing to the company's overall growth. In my people-centric strategy, I define roles, responsibi-lities, and KRAs that drive business parameters, and set up review systems to ensure these strategies are realistic and achievable.
Padma Gupta, Director - Human Resources, Customer Experience & Strategy, Hafele India
Padma Gupta, a seasoned thought leader, coach, and change management specialist boasts more than two decades of extensive experience in Human Resource Management. She has recently expanded her expertise to include managing Customer Experience, Strategy, Engineering and Technical Service, Business Excellence, and Digital Transformation.