“There is a fine balance betwen TOUCH and TECHNOLOGY” – interview with Rajneesh Singh – Group HR Head – Network 18

About the best recognition that an HR Head can get is when the organisation gets selected as the ‘Best Place to Work’ in its industry in the Great Places to Work survey. When that happens 2 years running, as in the case of Network 18 in Media, it is time for all of us to applaud the chief architect of this success story.

Meet Rajneesh Singh, Group Head, HR, Network 18. He carries his over 20 years of work experience and his obvious success with the same genial smile, simple ways and air of humility that marks his approach to both strategy and execution in the job. Rajneesh spent years in structured industries and environments through the National Productivity Council to Gillette India, before moving into the crazy, chaotic, frenetic world of India’s fastest growing Media House.

Network 18 is a collection of many different kinds of businesses managed by over 3500 people. From the maturing world of Television (CNBC TV-18, CNN-IBN, IBN 7, IBN Lokmat, CNBC Awaaz) through the emerging world of the internet (Web 18), the mature world of print and publishing (Forbes India) and the completely ‘different’ animal of Home Shopping (Homeshop 18) and Sports Management (Sport 18), the task of managing talent, creating an ‘Employer brand’ and overcoming incumbency to be voted as the ‘Best Place to Work’ again, takes some doing.

In this interview, Rajneesh shares many of his insights, some of the strategies and some personal opinions on what has worked for him. This is an outstanding interview for all business leaders in the ‘creative’ businesses and for all others who want to understand how a successful HR vision is created and executed across a fairly complex group.

Please feel free to shoot your questions, state your opinions in the comments section.

1. From an FMCG MNC to Indian Media – what were the challenges in terms of culture, processes, acceptance of HR etc. that you had to face? Was it different from what you had expected? Did you ever regret it?

The last question first! I have no regrets at all of joining the Media industry and the last 4 years have been the most challenging and the most satisfying times of my career. I did expect it to be different since it was a young industry (more so Network18). Coming from a very structured work environment (Gillette India), it was important for me to unlearn and relearn. The first thing that one did was to understand the expectations from the leadership as far as HR deliverables were concerned. That initial dialogue set the ball rolling. It is critical for this buy-in to happen upfront.

The next step was to map the current practices, processes, systems, etc. Based on this understanding, a HR model was put in place and the working HR framework emerged out of this model. This laid the way forward for different HR processes either to be reworked or launch afresh. The empowering culture of Network18 facilitated in the execution of any intervention. The freedom to create or design new systems or processes helped matters. We ensured that each process was co owned by the leadership. The other learning was to keep things simple and hence any HR related process was articulated in not more than one page. And it was kept as jargon less as possible!

2. What are the key HR challenges of this enormous growth at Network 18? How are you dealing with them?

While we do believe that we have been able to create a strong employer brand and it is easy to attract talent, the challenge would always be to develop and engage them so that we retain them. While we are doing fairly well on the engagement factor, it is the development aspect wherein we are spending more time of late. We have an Organization Development team in place which focuses on 3 key areas viz Culture Building, Leadership Development & Learning. While we treat engagement practices as the every day practice, the development practices are for the long haul. Most of the development related interventions are being driven internally thereby keeping the whole approach as low cost & high impact as possible.

The other challenge is how to retain the culture fabric of the Network. New businesses got started, some businesses got acquired and some came in as joint ventures. Each one of them has its own set of challenges. We are using various communication forums to keep the businesses connected. Two years back, a Value Book was printed as part of our rebranding exercise, which succinctly states our mission plus values. This articulation helped immensely in the integration process.

3. Is Network 18 one organisation in terms of culture, over riding vision? How do you deal with differences in new media, home shopping and old media etc.?

We strongly believe that while each business needs to be connected at a certain level, at another level they need to run independently too. But as mentioned above, it’s the mission and the values which bind them.

There are synergy teams formed between core functions of each business and they come together on a need basis to provide a Network “push’ so to say to any product launch. This structured approach has helped to tap the power of the Network tremendously.

4. What are the key things you have done to become the Best Workplace in Media for 2 years running?

As HR we have taken various initiatives to make Network18 the Best Workplace in Media. In the entire journey so far we have ensured there is a fine balance between “touch” and “technology”. Every HR intervention leverages these 2 important elements at Network18.

The “touch” element has driven our Campus and New Hire Onboarding processes which we believe is a very critical process to begin with. It has also driven our communication forums in different avatars eg. Know your colleague (a lunch session with the CEO), In conversation (Editorial leads interaction with Sales & Marketing team members), Expert talks (external renowned speakers talk sessions), Town Halls (Top management interaction with team members), etc. As par t of our Leadership Development initiative, we have adopted the “Focused group approach” where coaching takes place with potential leaders in small groups. We run an employee driven contributory fund which takes care of the education of our low income staff’s children. Quarterly recognition programs take place in the newsroom or in a studio, right in the thick of action. Various intra meets plus outbound sessions/training has further given an edge to the “touch” element.

As part of the “technology” element, we have worked around the new media in a big way. We exploit the email mode of communication by getting our leadership to send out regular communication to their team thereby keeping all of them informed. We have a very engaging HR portal, My18, which hosts plenty of HR related information and has 2 interesting corners. The first being the Leadership corner, where a leader is expected to write a note on an area of interest. The other corner carries the profiles of team members thereby giving a face to a name in a large organization like ours. This portal also captures all individual related information in a very easy-to-use format. Various contests and quizzes are run on this portal. The other medium that we have started using extensively is the mobile phone which we believe does wonders in the dissemination of information at real time.

Above all these 2 elements are the other 2 factors which give us competitive edge and have facilitated in making us a great place to work. These are stable & credible leadership and competitive & innovative compensation practices.

5. There is this argument that many leaders of the ‘creative’ businesses extend that HR and processes are not as effective with ‘creative’ businesses as with manufacturing or services? What is your view?

On the contrary I have found very similar acceptance of the HR processes as in manufacturing or services, as if it was the right thing to happen at the right time. There is enough appreciation of the work that HR does whether its in the space of Onboarding or Campus hiring or Learning or Recognition or Communication or Leadership development or Engagement or Reward. It is a people driven industry and that too where creativity flows unabated. It is critical for the HR team members to be equally “creative” if they have to keep pace in this industry. They have to design processes keeping in mind the stiff timelines that an editorial team works on for example. As the industry matures, I see more of HR processes coming into play. These processes need to facilitate the overall growth of the organization and the individuals rather than stifling them. The word of caution here is to not get too structured at the outset. The HR interventions will take time to settle and to that extent any HR team member in the media space needs to be patient and give good time for concepts to give results.

6. How important is creativity in your function? What have you done at Network 18?

As mentioned above, we in HR thrive on creativity. We have been doing things differently, working around what exists around us. The whole HR structure works on 2 “legs”. The Embedded HR team (E HR) and the Organization Development team (OD). While the E HRs are, as their name suggests, embedded in each business in the group, the OD team is a shared pool for all businesses. While the E HRs look after the “here & now” issues of HR, it’s the OD team which is doing the “long haul” work.

While being creative, the other premise that we have worked around is how to keep things simple and keep them low cost, high impact. This approach has helped HR take roots in the Network.

7. What according to you are the key qualities of a good leader? What do you look for in leadership?

From my very early days of corporate life, I have looked for a leader who has balanced the 2 key aspects they deal on a day to day basis. Those are the task and the people. And an effective leader has a slight tilt towards task as compared to people. It’s a fine act to follow and to take eyes off any of these two affects the work at hand. The other learning which I got from the media industry is that true leaders are passionate people. They must love what they do. The leadership at Network18 is classic example of this and I have immense respect for each one of them. They continue to do magic each day tirelessly because its fun for them!