Yuvaraj is the Group Chief Human Resources Officer at MakeMyTrip Group, overseeing HR strategies for top travel tech brands like MakeMyTrip, GoIbibo, and RedBus.
A former officer in the Indian Armed Forces, he brings leadership and resilience shaped by six years of active service, including operations in J&K. Yuvaraj holds a Bachelor’s in Industrial Psychology from the University of Allahabad and an MBA in HR from IMT Ghaziabad.
With over 25 years of corporate experience, he has held leadership roles at PepsiCo India, The Oberoi Group, and Asian Paints.
He also leads the MakeMyTrip Foundation, delivering impactful social projects across India. A thought leader and certified executive coach, Yuvaraj is a regular presence in media and HR forums. He has served as President of the NHRDN Delhi NCR chapter and contributed to key HR committees of FICCI and CII.
Recognized with awards like LinkedIn Power Profile 2016 and Margdarshak 2022, he was named among ETHR World’s Top 50 HR Thought Leaders in 2024. Passionate about Indian music and politics, Yuvaraj is known for his insightful conversations and dynamic leadership.
Q- How do you see Performance Management evolving over the years? How is MakeMyTrip preparing for them?
In my view, Performance Management is the single biggest process which contributes to the organizations success immensely. In our case, we keep aligning our PMS process to keep it relevant and contextual. Post-COVID, we have given disproportionate focus to this aspect of people process since business was almost wiped out and it was critical to resurrect the business deliveries.
Process starts in the last quarter of the previous year with business strategy meets to finalize financial and people metrics for the next year, all this ends with a ‘North Star Meet” before the commencement of the year. Top 150 leaders and Managers participate in these two days goal dissemination exercise.
Biggest change for us has been around ensuring tightly knit cross pollinated goals, simple metrics to measure deliveries, establishing continuous feedback mechanism and using single source of truth for all business and people metrics.
We have also realized that the single way of goal setting and evaluating the entire organization and the team members requires relook. Process shall be flexible and customized to accommodate and address all intersections of roles, levels and teams .
Over the years, performance feedback has evolved from traditional annual appraisals to a more continuous, feedback-driven process. We have moved to a model that encourages real-time feedback, personalized development plans, and a holistic approach to employee well-being.
Q- How do you ensure the performance management process remains positive and motivating rather than daunting for employees?
Actually, PMS sounds scary for many since organizations position it as a time bound exercise, connected with rewards leading to performance differentiation. Even Managers and leaders take it as an onerous process.
Hence the overall objective for the organization and HR shall be to make it easy, objective and non-threatening. And to achieve this, we have moved away from periodical feedback to ‘anytime feedback’ process, idea is here to only ensure that at least thrice in a year any person has been given feedback.
Similarly, we have changed the cycle of performance management and appraisal process for senior and junior level team members, for both cohorts it is done at different point of time in the year. This has helped reduce the load on everyone and quality time spent on developmental aspects like feedback and growth.
We focus on creating a culture of recognition, transparency, and continuous support. The performance management process at MakeMyTrip is designed to be a two-way conversation rather than a top-down evaluation. Managers are trained to deliver constructive feedback in a way that motivates employees and highlights areas for growth.
Q- How does MakeMyTrip ensure individual performance goals are aligned with the company’s strategic objectives, especially in a dynamic industry like travel and hospitality?
It is important to understand that not everyone across the hierarchy in the organisation can have either visibility to the strategic objectives of the organization or ability to relate their work very linearly to the organizations delivery.
Yes, efforts are made to disseminate and educate people on the top business priorities or “North Star” metrics. It is important to understand that different sets of people impact organization in different ways.
It is theoretical to explain a young developer or payroll processor in the organization about how his or her role connects with the strategic objectives, because this person works either in a maintenance or hygiene role, his/her role does not materially change even if the strategic objectives of the org change.
It is more relevant to explain such persons how his or her role done effectively ensures a steady ship and prevents surprises. We try to ensure that everyone is aware of his or her ROLE and delivery and how their delivery in the role will determine their contribution.
Our goal setting process adopts middle out methodology, wherein senior and mid level leaders collaboratively define objectives. These are subsequently aligned with the top leadership, cross pollinated across functions and communicated across the broader organization, enabling a balance of strategic direction and ground level execution.
Q- What initiatives have you implemented to build a performance-driven culture while also promoting innovation and creativity among employees.
To drive performance driven culture, it is critical to start in a non-conventional but effective manner to ensure credibility of the process and build everyone’s trust in the same.
Firstly, communicate that individual rewards are closely, though not entirely, linked to the individual’s delivery and teams’ delivery, there is no space for individual brilliance but average delivery on Teams goals.
Secondly, keep the performance metrics clean and easily understandable while having unambiguous and uncluttered goals.
Thirdly, ensure compelling dashboards are shared with all concerned and people are allowed to raise concerns of constraints, macro etc. and have fair audience.
For promoting Innovation and creativity, we don’t only depend on the performance management system but also lean on driving our BEING values of Care, Creative and Curious.
While performance management largely drives overall org performance, values of cutting-edge Innovation and creativity are driven by internal culture initiatives like hackathons, focus group discussions, internal projects and development programs.
Our credible rewards and recognition programs like Tripper of the Month/Quarter/Year, CEOs Ring of Honour, Impact innovator award play a huge role in sustaining the culture of Innovation and creativity.
Q- How has technology transformed performance management at MakeMyTrip, and can you share successful use cases?
We did some intense discussions and had an eureka moment while realizing that we shall focus on having a platform that can capture ongoing feedback during the year for any individual, rather than making it a calendar-driven process.
Technology plays an important role in handling this complex feedback and summarization of feedback. Our HRIS partners, like Darwin Box and Infeedo, are quite capable and do a good job in complementing and helping us achieve this.
The HR automation team works closely with product and tech folks in the organization to seek their help in finding out creative solutions for tech enablement
Q- Any concluding remarks?
At MakeMyTrip, performance management is not just about assessing past work—it’s about fostering a culture of growth, collaboration, and innovation. As we continue to evolve, we remain committed to creating a performance-driven environment that supports both individual and organizational success.
By empowering them through continuous feedback, personalized growth opportunities, and a focus on creativity, we ensure that MakeMyTrip remains a dynamic and forward-thinking organization in the ever-evolving travel industry.
I believe HR team of MakeMyTrip also considers that the process of Performance Management System is a shared accountability of functions and HR.
HR team, rather than thrusting unrealistic expectations on the business leaders around PMS, tries to solve for the pain points of the users rather than creating processes for HR excellence, business and organizational excellence precede functional excellence, and that’s the philosophy.
Thank You, Yuvaraj!
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