Rendezvous with Shantanu Jha, Group CHRO, Jubilant Bhartia Group on CEO & CHRO alignment
Shantanu Jha is the Group CHRO with Jubilant Bhartia Group. He joined Jubilant in June 2023 and currently leads Human Resources, Corporate Affairs, IT & Digital, and Corporate Communications for all entities of the Group. The Jubilant Bhartia Group has approximately 43,000 employees worldwide.
Shantanu serves on the Board of Jubilant Infrastructure Limited, a 100% wholly-owned subsidiary of Jubilant Ingrevia Limited. Previously, he has been associated with Conginazant, IBM, Wipro, Eicher Trucks and Buses in India in HR leadership roles.
He holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Manipal Institute of Technology and began his career as a Production Engineer in the Manufacturing division of Eicher Tractors.
Q– How can CEOs and CHROs align more effectively to ensure that talent strategy directly supports the organization’s long-term business goals?
A CEO and CHRO must align for continuous and sustained business and organisational success. An effective talent strategy can help achieve the overall business strategy of a company through successful execution of its blueprint.
The overall strategy of companies are largely made on similar framework, however what truly makes a difference is how well they execute their strategy. Talent plays a critical role here.
How efficiently a company is able to operationalise its strategy depends on the talent it has on-hand. A well-aligned talent strategy ensures that the organization has the right people with the right skills to achieve its goals.
The CEO-CHRO partnership must work in tandem in order to optimize the talent strategy that can help the business deliver on its strategy.
Q- In your experience, what are the most critical conversations you consistently have with your group CEOs to drive organizational growth?
Partnership and trust need to be the binding force between a CHRO and a CEO. CHROs must constantly listen not just to the CEO and the leadership team including the Board but also to the employees, clients, customers and other stakeholders so that it informs the overall business strategy.
As a leader one must constantly modulate their strategy as well, so that the business objectives are timely and effectively met. The conversations between a CHRO and a CEO must be dynamic, in line with the needs of the organisation.
Together they must strive to keep their organization agile and move from a role-based to a skill-based structure. It is imperative that the approach towards filling critical talent gaps should be agile and aligned with the business priorities. Together the CEO and the CHRO must embed a culture of innovation and future-back thinking.
Q- What advice would you give to fellow CHROs on building a strategic and trusted partnership with their CEOs?
I would encourage CHROs to be a trusted partner and sounding board to the senior leadership. They must earn a ‘seat at the table’ by bringing value to the organisation and helps shape business strategy. CHROs should be action-oriented and ready to roll up their sleeves to ensure that the business goals are met. Their everyday tasks should be deeply intertwined with the business.
The CHRO and C-Suite should work as co-creators of workplace culture, employee experience and business resilience. CEOs depend on CHROs to navigate complex labour market conditions, regulatory shifts, and evolving employee expectations.
CHROs must be aware of the realities of their industry, so as to be able to take informed decisions and change their strategies to meet the constantly evolving needs of the business. A CHRO should be ready to have uncomfortable conversations with the leadership as well. They should challenge the status quo when required.
Q- How is your organization using technology—such as AI, data analytics, or digital platforms—to transform learning and development?
In today’s day and age technology is a way of life. It is a constant that we need to use based on our needs. We are experiencing this first hand, as technology has been helping us improve ourefficiency and enhance employee experience.
It is enabling ease of doing work. At Jubilant we encourage people how to think and embed AI in their day-to-day work. We are steadily progressing towards becoming more digital savvy, transcending generations – from physical to cloud to now AI in learning. As an organisation we would like to enable our employees on their journey to becoming tech natives from being tech migrants.
Personalized learning paths are essential in catering to individual needs of employees. AI makes it possible for real-time, adaptive learning journeys that respond dynamically to each employee’s specific needs. We strongly believe that technology including AI should be accessible and equally available to all.
Q- As the pace of technological change accelerates, how are you evolving L&D to prepare your workforce for the future?
Learning is truly meaningful when it is personalised and at the convenience of the employee. At Jubilant we want to shape our employees’ learning experiences as something that is truly personalised for them, based on their needs, preferences, challenges and something that they can have at their convenience, enabled by technology.
Towards this, we are focussed on making the learning tools, material and platforms available to them 24×7 and on the go. We are also using AI to push learning to our employees through cloud sourcing of material so that they acquire future skill sets. Our continuous improvement culture ensures that we continuously improve on all aspects of learning too.
We are constantly exploring new partnerships to provide global access to a vast library of courses for our people and more digital avenues to make sure our workforce is future-ready.
Q- Any Final comments?
Technology has to be embedded across all facets of HR; be it hiring, skill building, succession planning, learning and development. For this the organization should have a strong tech foundation which is pervasive and builds in flexibility.
The future will be about balancing tech innovation with human growth and creating a learning ecosystem. This will empower employees to grow in ways that drive both personal growth and organizational success.
Thank you, Shantanu!
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