New Delhi, 10^th December 2020.

SHRMI20 the India Annual & Tech Conference hosted by SHRM India, the world’s largest HR professional society kicked off to a glittering start yesterday. The virtual conclave generated massive interest and saw enthusiastic participation from HR leaders and practitioners as pertinent topics concerning the HR function were discussed in detail in the various keynote sessions, panel discussions and by renowned speakers from global organisations and government functionaries. 

The three day virtual conference from 9^th to 11th Dec is now in its second day of deliberations and a host of relevant topics are up for the day. Exposition & Networking breaks along with the resources center presents participants with the opportunity to network and gather additional knowledge to strengthen the practise in these trying times.

In the opening keynote for day 2, Ron Kaufman, Author of Uplifting Service Global Guru - #1 Customer Service shared, “The conference theme “Together Towards Tomorrow” could not be more relevant in the pandemic time. Now is the time we need to be Together, even if we can’t do so physically, but to reach out to each other. Towards is also important because we are always on a voyage and that is characteristic of life. We talk about Tomorrow because things may not be back to normal, maybe it will be unusual, provocative and creative, perhaps for the rest of our lives. The definition of service has evolved. Earlier service meant – satisfaction or meeting expectations – whether for customers or employees. Then delight – but this was ad hoc. Then experience – to continually meeting higher expectations. Which went a level higher to where you want them to tell other people on various platforms, social media, Glassdoor, etc. And now thanks to the pandemic, it means to care for customers and employees. So service now means taking action to create value. When you create value you also contribute to the wellbeing of people we care about. At the start of any meeting check in and see how everyone is doing and at the end do a check out. This encourages communication and allows people to reach out to each other. HR today needs this service mindset.”

In an exciting session Ahmed Mazhari, President Asia for Microsoft, shared his insights on winning with Teams, in the age of technology. In another inspiring session, ‘The people and tech confluence to combat a pandemic by  Dr. R. Ananthanarayanan, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Strides Pharma, discussed how can we improve the way in which human and technology are harnessed to resolve challenges such as the current pandemic. He further said, "Our approach is to utilise the learnings to implement digitization at remote work to play better with the problems at hand. The pandemic has forced all of us to break old shackles to re-innovate and move forward. One should remember that driving genuine and real conversation with people should be a key part of the mandate during pandemic."

The other exciting sessions on day two were Global roadmaps to women empowerment; Technology: The bridge between people, learning and performance; Industry and Academia role in shaping professionals for the new normal; Managing people the right way; What the Hack! Cyber Security in #RemoteWorkAge; Combatting COVID-19: A look ahead etc.