Snapshot: A multi-generational workforce is key to drive change both within organisations and across industries, says HP Inc Sowjanya Reddy
By | Lester Tan | www.humanresourcesonline.net
“We aim to have 10% of our workforce made up of fresh graduates, whose perspectives we give a lot of weight to as they bolster fresh voices within the workplace,” says Sowjanya Reddy, Head of HR, Greater Asia, HP Inc.
As with most HR leaders, Sowjanya Reddy, Head of HR, Greater Asia, HP Inc has always been interested – and passionate – about the subject; drawn to the strategic approach in managing people within an organisation so that employees can thrive, and lead fulfilling lives. And Reddy is serious about her craft too. So much so, she tells Human Resources Online that her first ever HR role – three months into moving to the US, and into her job there – she set an appointment with the CEO of the company, and put herself at the fore to replace the Director of HR – who had since left the company – for a remuneration of US$5 per hour.
“I remember saying: ‘You’re going to take three or six months to bring a new director in. How about if I do this role for you for five dollars an hour, and once you hire this person, you can replace me’. It was too good a deal for my then-boss to refuse, I was perhaps the least expensive HR director she could ever have hired. So that’s how my career in HR started. That first exposure to HR made me certain that this is the career path for me, and I haven’t looked back since!”
On the off chance that Reddy hadn’t taken that path, she would have “pursued the real estate industry” as she grew up in a family who were landowners for generations – so real estate was “a natural inherited inclination” for her.
