Interview: How Behaviour Impacts The Organisation, The People, and Teams. Insights from Priyanka Chadha
Written by : Priyanka Chadha
Entering the last week of October, we are pleased to share our latest Team Spotlight & Power Hour!
Episode 7 features Priyanka Chadha, our Senior Vice President & Global Head — HR, who shares hows HR & technology can help the current workforce.
Hear from her on what is next for WadzPay, and how do we bring in the people who share the same set of values and visions as WadzPay.
Head to our Youtube Channel to listen to her insight.
TEAM SPOTLIGHT
In your opinion, what are the essential characteristics of an SVP of HR?
Let me give it a bit more of a latitude. When we look at the characteristics of an HR leader, I think they aren’t very different from those of any of the business leaders. For example, we want our business leaders to be very self-aware. They should know their behaviour’s impact on the organisation, the people, and the teams they’re working with. Successful business leaders are very passionate about what they’re doing, whatever goals you have for the organisation. Successful leaders need to feel people’s emotions and connect with their people, where empathy comes from. This is the set of people who want to work for people who inspire them who are doing things differently, who they connect with, you know. So I think being inspirational, being a role model, doing the right thing, walking the talk, and living the organisation’s values becomes very important now. Specifically, I think you know what sets any HR apart or an HR leader apart.
At the top of it for me would be learning agility. You know the business is so complex these days, and if HR has to bring value to the organisation, HR needs to understand business dynamics. It needs to understand the consumers, who are we? who are we working for? What is the organisation contributing to in the short term and the long term? The ability to upskill yourself continuously, not just for today but for tomorrow, becomes very important; then, of course, there is a sense of humour. One should be able to laugh out at some of the stuff that is happening. You know we come through many situations, so I think sets of humour are essential, which relieves the team of a lot of unnecessary.
The last thing for me, and personally, I’ve been a huge fan of it, is having a growth mindset. Just knowing I’m very critical to have a perspective that whatever problems you have can be turned into opportunities. One can learn new skills; one can adapt to a dynamic environment. One can adapt to. You know, changing markets or anything. For that matter, you know. So I think growth mindset. For me, these are the top characteristics of a successful leader.
As an SVP and Global Head — HR, what kind of problems do you help solve daily?
As a global head of HR, the opportunity is that we create the whole HR team, perhaps two-fold. How do we collaborate with the business, work very closely with them, understand you, know their strategic objectives? Or how do we contribute to helping them build the business, deliver on the brand promise to our customers? I think that’s very important for us. The second aspect is how do we build a team that resonates with the purpose of WadzPay? You’ll see that everybody here is very passionate about the work that they’re doing; I think that it’s essential to find people with purpose and help them align their professional and personal purpose with that of WadzPay.
Did you enact any changes at your last project you felt incredibly proud of?
Two things stand out for me; I think many people would resonate with what I’m saying. I’m very proud of the mentors and the coaches who have been generous enough to guide me over the last two decades.
In my whole career, and I say that because I come from a very non-corporate background. I have generations of people who were either entrepreneur or were in the army, and I realised very early on in my life that it’s a very complex corporate world. I can leverage as much of the knowledge out there in the people that I know. And I can learn from them. The thing that worked for me and has contributed or helped me contribute to the organisation is the brilliant set of teams that I’ve worked with. I’m not talking about the assignments because you know there will be many more assignments that can be done if you have the right team in the right ways of working and creating the right culture. And I’ve been very blessed, you know, to have these two factors very aptly placed in my life.
How would you create deep employee relations virtually during the pandemic?
I have a very simple perspective on this; technology can do all it can do. I’ve been in the product and technology industry, and I’ve been consulting technology for almost a decade, but technology cannot take away the human connection. It cannot take away two people feel when they talk and connect, even if you know small talk just before the important meeting or just before the catch-up, so for me, I think
during the pandemic, and it’s been there for almost 1.5 years now. With a quick question, you know in terms of how are you feeling? How’s your family? What is the hobby that you’re pursuing? How is that coming along? I think having those conversations helps reach out to people and let them know when they’re not. You know we are there for them and will do whatever it takes to take care of them. I think that’s a key priority for us.
What are your favourite unwinding activities?
I’m a gipsy at heart. I’m a traveller, I love travelling, and I think you know there are various reasons you can travel. It could be archaeology, history, culture; it could be food. It could be anything, for that matter, but I travelled because I feel that it’s a beautiful world for me, you know that there is so much to see and it is also beautiful, and that’s what keeps me sane.
Power Hour
WadzPay is growing and expanding massively; how do you gauge the success of HR and employee relations? What do you measure, and how do you determine priorities for your department?
Two things are very important for us as we grow and go at a very high pace. The first important thing is how do we bring in the people who share the same set of values and visions that WadzPay for customers and the environment that we’re operating in when we look at talent; it’s not just about the talent is ready for what we’re doing today, but it’s the talent ready for what we want to do tomorrow. The other aspect, which is front and centre for us, is creating the right culture that helps people come together or collaborate and find their purpose in their work. Be passionate about the contribution that they’re making. This could be creating the right culture at WadzPay is very important for us, and I don’t think the responsibility with the HR is bearing right now. I think this is something which all of the leadership team is. Taking on their shoulders and this is something we feel very proud of, from the very scratch, or from the very formative times, we’ve made the right culture at WadzPay, or of course, you know everything that HR does can now be measured, you can have the right set of KPI, right set of metrics, but I think more than just seeing it on Excel sheets and numbers. What is important is.
Second is what is the how, how is our employee experience? What are they feeling? Are they excited to be working here? Are they excited to contribute? are we able to attract the right set of people, right talent? We are currently in four countries, expanding into new markets. India has begun hiring. Even in India, we’ve been able to bring the right talent on board, so I feel very confident about our priorities and what we’re doing and how effectively we can do that.
What can you do to create and maintain the culture of an organisation?
There are two aspects to it. One is very early on, and this can’t be done at the latest stage; as we build the team, we need to be very conscious of the people we bring in. For example, when you know when you’re 10,000 people and hire, you have a wrong hire. So it doesn’t matter; it just goes unnoticed. But if you are 50 people, 75 people, and you have one wrong hire, it does impact a lot. I need to fax the team that you’re that you are, they’re working with. I think that calls out the importance of culture and ensuring that when you’re hiring people, you’re aligning them with shared values; we look for people who have a similar passion that Wadzpay has.
Vision is about the contribution that we want to make to the communities and the economies we are operating in. You know our leadership team is solid and experienced; it simpler for us to create the right culture because we’ve got the right team in place. While we say that we are a startup, I think our outlook on setting up the business has been forward-looking from the very beginning. We focused on hiring our leadership team globally, across functions, so it aligns with the strategic vision and objective.
We expect this leadership team to build their teams, cascade the vision we have for WadzPay, and translate that into the right culture. When I talk about culture, I think what again stands us apart is that we are as much internally focused as we are externally focused. So there is a brand that we stand for.
And we want to ensure that you know the brand that we represent externally to the market, and the promise that we represent externally to the market is the same that our people experience internally.
How do you ensure that the HR goals are aligned with the company strategy?
We’ve been working very closely with the business to understand what are short term and long term strategic objectives and then, of course, deriving the overall HR strategy from that and what stands out for us is getting the right talent in place ensuring that the talent is fit for purpose, not just for what we’re doing today. Still, we have a mechanism to evolve the talent for tomorrow as well.
There would be a requirement of ensuring that we have the right learning engine and place. We have the right to develop an engine in place, and it’s not just about the tech skills; we are also talking about the leadership skills, personal, professional goals; I think there’s a lot of work that would be happening on that site on the employee talent development side. The other piece, which is very important for us, is the overall employee experience and the value proposition for us to have the right talent it is.
It will be essential that you know we have the right proposition and a unique proposition for you to know the targeted audience. We’re working on the right frameworks in place regarding total rewards, employee benefits, and managing their experience with the right technology intervention or HR systems. So these are some of the priorities that we feel will help us help scale WadzPay and support the strategy collectors.
HR and technology, what is your perception about this and how this is helping the current workforce?
Technology is helping us do many things effectively, make the right decisions, and give us the right insights so you know we are leveraging a couple of solutions that will help us integrate the complete life cycle of employees even before they have joined us.
With the proper sense of purpose in the right set of skillsets, you are bringing them into the ecosystem for WadzPay and creating a seamless journey for them. And of course, you maintain that contact and connect, and you know seamless transition through their life cycle or critical milestones in their professional career. And even after they’ve left the organisation just being a part of our network, so there are solutions that we are exploring right now. These tech solutions are out there in the market they give you much leverage in terms of getting real-time assessment of how your teams are feeling, help you engage, show a better with remote teams and give you great insights in terms of great data-driven insights we are exploring that.
We do have certain things in our ecosystem already. For example, you know we have slack which we use both for formal and informal communication. Slack has just made it very simple for us to cascade.
And I think even as we bring in some of the best-in-class technology in HR, and you know best in class HR systems for me, I think the touch and feel of having those conversations will remain at the helm of the human connection, and I think that’s where perhaps a lot of HR leaders are trying to balance out between the head and the heart and the technology. I think, for the team at Wadzpay, the human connection will always be at the core.
that we’re operating in when we look at talent; it’s not just about the talent is ready for what we’re doing today, but it’s the talent ready for what we want to do tomorrow. The other aspect, which is front and centre for us, is creating the right culture that helps people come together or collaborate and find their purpose in their work. Be passionate about the contribution that they’re making. This could be creating the right culture at WadzPay is very important for us, and I don’t think the responsibility with the HR is bearing right now. I think this is something which all of the leadership team is. Taking on their shoulders and this is something we feel very proud of, from the very scratch, or from the very formative times, we’ve made the right culture at WadzPay, or of course, you know everything that HR does can now be measured, you can have the right set of KPI, right set of metrics, but I think more than just seeing it on Excel sheets and numbers. What is important is.
Second is what is the how, how is our employee experience? What are they feeling? Are they excited to be working here? Are they excited to contribute? are we able to attract the right set of people, right talent? We are currently in four countries, expanding into new markets. India has begun hiring. Even in India, we’ve been able to bring the right talent on board, so I feel very confident about our priorities and what we’re doing and how effectively we can do that.
How would you lead a diverse team? Any challenges you commonly encountered? And how do you tackle it?
Diversity is good, right? And when we talk about diversity, there’s it is not just you know gender or age, or you know differently, abled or a different sexual preference. I think diversity is also about cognitive diversity. Having a different perspective and it’s good for business. So many researchers have been done what drives the organisation to diversity, and at WadzPay, I’m very glad that this is not something that I had to come in and work through, if you look at a leadership team, they are people who worked with the Fortune 500 companies, vesting clause multinationals. They bring immense experience with them and when the teams get set up. I think this was one thing I have taken into consideration, and like I said, you we’ve present in four countries right now we have teams which our country agnostic. We have functions which our country agnostic, and everybody is working very closely with each other. I don’t see diversity as a challenge, and I see diversity as something that helps us contribute to business better. And it helps us so add immense value to our customers.
What can you do to create and maintain the culture of an organisation?
There are two aspects to it. One is very early on, and this can’t be done at the latest stage; as we build the team, we need to be very conscious of the people we bring in. For example, when you know when you’re 10,000 people and hire, you have a wrong hire. So it doesn’t matter; it just goes unnoticed. But if you are 50 people, 75 people, and you have one wrong hire, it does impact a lot. I need to fax the team that you’re that you are, they’re working with. I think that calls out the importance of culture and ensuring that when you’re hiring people, you’re aligning them with shared values; we look for people who have a similar passion that Wadzpay has.
Vision is about the contribution that we want to make to the communities and the economies we are operating in. You know our leadership team is solid and experienced; it simpler for us to create the right culture because we’ve got the right team in place. While we say that we are a startup, I think our outlook on setting up the business has been forward-looking from the very beginning. We focused on hiring our leadership team globally, across functions, so it aligns with the strategic vision and objective.
We expect this leadership team to build their teams, cascade the vision we have for WadzPay, and translate that into the right culture. When I talk about culture, I think what again stands us apart is that we are as much internally focused as we are externally focused. So there is a brand that we stand for.
And we want to ensure that you know the brand that we represent externally to the market, and the promise that we represent externally to the market is the same that our people experience internally.
How do you ensure that the HR goals are aligned with the company strategy?
We’ve been working very closely with the business to understand what are short term and long term strategic objectives and then, of course, deriving the overall HR strategy from that and what stands out for us is getting the right talent in place ensuring that the talent is fit for purpose, not just for what we’re doing today. Still, we have a mechanism to evolve the talent for tomorrow as well.
There would be a requirement of ensuring that we have the right learning engine and place. We have the right to develop an engine in place, and it’s not just about the tech skills; we are also talking about the leadership skills, personal, professional goals; I think there’s a lot of work that would be happening on that site on the employee talent development side. The other piece, which is very important for us, is the overall employee experience and the value proposition for us to have the right talent it is.
It will be essential that you know we have the right proposition and a unique proposition for you to know the targeted audience. We’re working on the right frameworks in place regarding total rewards, employee benefits, and managing their experience with the right technology intervention or HR systems. So these are some of the priorities that we feel will help us help scale WadzPay and support the strategy collectors.
HR and technology, what is your perception about this and how this is helping the current workforce?
Technology is helping us do many things effectively, make the right decisions, and give us the right insights so you know we are leveraging a couple of solutions that will help us integrate the complete life cycle of employees even before they have joined us.
With the proper sense of purpose in the right set of skillsets, you are bringing them into the ecosystem for WadzPay and creating a seamless journey for them. And of course, you maintain that contact and connect, and you know seamless transition through their life cycle or critical milestones in their professional career. And even after they’ve left the organisation just being a part of our network, so there are solutions that we are exploring right now. These tech solutions are out there in the market they give you much leverage in terms of getting real-time assessment of how your teams are feeling, help you engage, show a better with remote teams and give you great insights in terms of great data-driven insights we are exploring that.
We do have certain things in our ecosystem already. For example, you know we have slack which we use both for formal and informal communication. Slack has just made it very simple for us to cascade.
And I think even as we bring in some of the best-in-class technology in HR, and you know best in class HR systems for me, I think the touch and feel of having those conversations will remain at the helm of the human connection, and I think that’s where perhaps a lot of HR leaders are trying to balance out between the head and the heart and the technology. I think, for the team at Wadzpay, the human connection will always be at the core.
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