Exclusive interaction of Paul Dupuis, CEO, Ranstad with BW Businessworld where he talks about the work culture and how the young workforce is cause centric.

What are the key issues that an HR manager faces in today’s world? And the key issues at the work place?

This is a real turning point around the world but particularly in India as India matures and evolves as an economy and as a workforce the role of HR leader is traditionally transactional but that is changing quickly to much more strategic so the hr leader prick of the HR director now needs to be an advisor and a coach to the CEO.

How do you ensure that you attract, and retain, the best available talent?

I am the CEO and I am also the chief talent attraction officer it is my job to represent the company with pride, with transparency and to attract the best talent to come and join us not only join us  but to learn and grow with us and to stay with us. So I do believe CEO has bigger responsibility as well as the senior leaders in the organisation. You need to provide something to potential candidates which compelling a story that touches their hearts and mind a greater purpose as to why the company exists and how we make an impact on the world because we know the young workforce is very cause centric now.

How important is coaching for an employee and an organisation?

As a leader it is one of the key roles to coach and coach by the way does not mean to what and how or even why it is about enabling people to find answers themselves. So a leader as coach is absolutely crucial now to effect leadership in a world moving forward.

Can a CHRO / HR Manager hope to be the CEO? What are the areas one needs to work on to achieve this?

I absolutely will love to see HR leaders go on to be heads of business and I think if they grew up in an organisation where they were in fact an elderly as an adviser to the CEO where they are a strategic partner to the business not transactional if they group in an environment and they are able to really touch every part of the business I think the head of HR would be a fine candidate for the role of CEO.

An organisation is all about the dominant work culture. How do you ensure that your organisation’s work culture is one to die for? And that for your employee, the workplace is next only to home?

So first it comes with understanding the motivation of the employee or the work of the people who join us and once you understand their motivation we can provide a workplace an environment that pushes those butt and so we do know that the younger workforce we call them the millionaires but this strictly forks in their twenties and thirties really want to work for a company that has a cause, it is less about the brand and its more about the cause know that has a direction we call the north star so what the true north why do you exists as a company and make that crystal clear so that when people join you they are joining you on a journey and of course there should be some in there and you need to recognise their effort as well, you need to recognise high performance and the most you need to recognise behaviours people who are living or breathing the values of your company and put them in a spark and that’s why people join companies that’s really what they want.

(Contribution: Rishibha Grover)