SHRM South Asia Blog

It is reasonable to say that the COVID-19 pandemic that created a health crisis of epic proportions. It is for the first time in recent history that businesses have witnessed such economic after-effects of widespread illness. The pandemic has thrown life out of gear for billions of people globally. So far, more than 30 million coronavirus cases have been reported worldwide. Many countries including India have gone through lockdowns and curfews to slow down the spread of the virus. The current scenario looks bleak, to say the least. Many...

AP: Kindly tell us a bit about your organization and particularly about your role, especially your job title.

RJ: From a small reciprocating air compressor manufacturer in the 1960s, today, ELGi is a global player in the compressed air market. At ELGi, our aspiration is christened "Conquer K-2 (CK2)" – detailing our aspiration to be no. 2 in the Global Air Compressor Market by 2027. We believe in continually building on the products, process, people and technology to achieve our aspiration.

Today, we have direct presence in over 20 countries and a global footprint...

Can we learn about innovation from other businesses?

I was once talking to the founder of a startup who wanted to build the culture of Google in his firm. He wanted to benchmark the ‘best practices’ of Google’s culture of innovation and that is how he implemented this policy in his 50-person startup. Every employee in that tiny startup had to work on a personal project. Two months later a few employees came to the founder and asked for permission to work from home so that they could work together undisturbed on a secret project they had come...

Ever since the outbreak of coronavirus in March 2020 in India, work from home has emerged as the new normal. It has undoubtedly given a new lesson to HR in business agility and would now become integral to workplace policy.

However, work from home is not a feasible option for manufacturing and allied industries, financial services, pharmaceutical, R&D, real estate and many other sectors. It is not a long-term option for IT and ITeS companies either. Organizations are facing several challenges – a slowdown of production, slump in productivity, ineffective team collaboration and communication and technology...