CEO Insights Magazine

In todays constantly evolving business world, a culture of learning is an important aspect of sustainable success in business as it positively impacts strategy, innovation, employee engagement, employee retention, and many other areas of an organization. Ravi Hemnani, Vice President - HR & Head of Talent, Learning, and Organizational Development at Nuvoco Vistas is one among those industry leaders who have been constantly innovating and disrupting the way employees Learn and Grow and thereby fostering a learning culture while laying the groundwork for the long term success of the organization.

Ravi is a result-oriented organizational development specialist, with over two decades of experience in coaching and managing the development of global and diverse workforces across various industries such as IT, Manufacturing, ITES, Customer Service, and Consulting. He has received exponential exposure to the entire gamut of HR management and has been spearheading large scale culture transformation projects within organizations and navigating extreme disruptions to bring order to chaotic business transitions.

At Nuvoco, he is exemplifying and promoting individual and organizational learning, where knowledge gathering and sharing are emphasized, respected, and rewarded and where fresh approaches to a changing world are successfully implemented. Furthermore he has won various local and global awards (e.g. Golden peacock, BML Munjal, Brandan Hall, TISS Leapvault, and many more). Apart from being an Executive Coach, Ravi also shares his experience by serving as a keynote speaker and guest lecturer at various prestigious B-Schools and national and international conferences. Let's hear it from him.

How would you define Nuvoco Vistas as an organization?
Nuvoco Vistas was established with the vision of 'Building a Safer,

Smarter and Sustainable World and is committed to becoming a Leading Building Material Company Delivering Superior Performance. With its roots in India's most promising startup of the 1970s, Nirma Group, Nuvoco today operates 11 Cement manufacturing facilities and more than 50 Ready Mix Concrete plants across the country. As an organization, Nuvoco places a high priority on bringing innovation to the building materials industry while contributing to the development of its employees. Nuvoco believes that when employees are engaged and can focus with a growth mindset, the organization will succeed in the long run.

Tell us about the learning & development framework built within the company.
A successful organization's greatest differentiator, in my opinion, is its people. Therefore, it is crucial to invest in both product and people development as a critical business enabler. At Nuvoco, we believe learning is a lifelong process and to ensure our employees are equipped with the right tools and platform, we launched `Nuvoco University' for internal use. Nuvoco university helps employees across levels to build capabilities that are required to execute the job successfully in the current as well as in the future role through various innovative and disruptive learning practices that are tech-enabled along with conventional learning. This perfect blend of methods helps employees choose programs based on their skill,job and learning preferences. It also includes a variety of courses/ solutions that use technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Simulations, Gamification, Machine learning & Virtual Reality(VR) that help them to deliver results swiftly. I believe as HR professionals our responsibility is to help the business in the effective execution of strategy while contributing towards developing its people with a growth mindset.

Tell us about your leadership approach.
There are three aspects to my leadership approach My Team, my Business & Me as a Leader. Firstly, I believe in being Humble and fostering Transparency to create winning teams. This enabling environment results in high trust and ownership within teams. From a

business perspective innovating and disrupting old practices has been my recipe for success over the years. I make sure my team is motivated to think out of the box to create unique solutions every time giving a world class experience to the end users. Finally, as a leader, I believe the success of my team members will lead to my success and therefore I strive to contribute to their Success & Growth. I hire people who have different skills & strengths than me in this way, they help me build a strong and diverse high performing team delivering exemplary results.

What is the future destination you are heading towards?
I relate a lot to the famous couplet by Dr. Bashir Badr ‘Ab kise chaahe kise dhoondha kare. Wo bhi aakhir mil gaya ab kya kare'. In my endeavour for constant evolution & future discovery as a passionate learner, Innovator, and digital enthusiast I invest in developing future skills & stay relevant to take on new challenges. For me achieving nirvana is bringing positive change in people, therefore Coaching, Sharing Knowledge, and passing my Experience to industry leaders & students across the globe is one of my ways of giving back to society. In fact, I will be happy to connect with the readers of this article and do my bit in their journey to success.

What would be your advice for budding industry leaders?
As leaders, we must constantly invest to develop Skills for the Future. We should look for opportunities & challenge the status quo, innovate & disrupt the conventional ways of doing things. As HR &L&OD leaders we must step up our game from being administrators, partners and consultants, to anticipators of change. Over the years, before initiating any HR/L&OD initiative, I start by keeping the end business impact in mind. This always gets me a seat on the table and helps the business grow. We as HR must be seen as a key business enabling function. Each one of us should speak the language our business leaders speak & ask insightful questions.

Ravi Hemnani, Vice President HR & Head Talent, Learning & OD Nuvoco Vistas
An orchestrator of the Talent ecosystem with 20 years of experience in building futureready organizations, Ravi, at Nuvoco Vistas, is Consulting, Strategizing, and enabling teams and individuals while solving organizational challenges and helping the business lead change & achieve success.