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Navigating HR in Startups: Lessons Learned from the Ground Up
Listen to Akshara Seth as she discusses the evolution of HR, post-pandemic employee engagement, positive work environments, agility in startups, and the role of OKRs in enhancing clarity & commitment.
In this insightful clip from the Worxmate podcast series, Madhusudan Nayak and Akshara Seth, a passionate HR leader and happiness coach, discuss the evolving landscape of work in the post-pandemic world.
Key Takeaways
Post-Pandemic Work Dynamics: Exploring the shift from remote work back to the office, and the challenges organizations face in balancing flexibility with in-office expectations.
Employee Burnout: Akshara emphasizes the persistent issue of burnout, driven by blurred boundaries between work and personal life in remote and hybrid setups.
Engagement and Connectivity: Highlighting the importance of maintaining authentic connections in virtual settings, ensuring team members feel valued as individuals, not just as employees.
Creating a Supportive Culture: Simple actions, like asking about personal moments or interests, can significantly boost morale and foster a sense of belonging within teams.
Mental Health Awareness: Discussing the alarming statistics of stress and anxiety in the corporate sector, underscoring the need for proactive measures to support employee well-being.
Human-Centric Leadership: Encouraging leaders to see employees as “human beings, not human doers,” focusing on holistic engagement rather than just productivity metrics. Tune in to hear more about navigating the modern workplace and making your team feel like a thriving tribe!
Akshara Seth
Talent Management Consultant at Your Next Move
With over a decade of experience in the human resources industry, Akshara Seth is dedicated to empowering individuals and organizations to reach their fullest potential. As the Head of Talent Management at Expand My Business, she leads a skilled team of HR professionals, providing both strategic and operational support to clients across diverse sectors and regions.
Akshara’s expertise spans HR business partnering, workshop facilitation, business consulting, coaching, and assessments. She is a certified psychometric assessor, a happiness coach, and a POSH-certified trainer. Leveraging these credentials, she designs and implements customized solutions aimed at enhancing employee engagement, performance, and overall well-being.
At the core of Akshara’s work is her commitment to creating a positive and lasting impact on individuals and teams. Through innovative and holistic HR practices, she strives to foster environments where people can thrive and organizations can flourish. With Akshara’s guidance, clients are well-equipped to make their next move the best one yet.
Madhusudan Nayak, Co-Founder & CEO of Worxmate
Madhusudan Nayak is a seasoned expert in driving organizational growth and execution through OKRs and self-governance models. With years of experience mentoring multi-billion-dollar organizations, product companies, and government agencies across APAC, the Middle East, and Europe, Madhusudan has successfully implemented strategies that have transformed industries such as IT, SaaS, finance, retail, and manufacturing. His deep insights and practical approach empower leaders to translate strategies into measurable success, making him a leading voice in guiding businesses toward sustainable growth and innovation.
Introduction
So welcome Akshara to Workshop podcast.
And you know like.
Nice to have you here today. This is our first podcast that we’re doing and we are excited to begin with you specifically. You know, you bring in more than a decade’s experience, right? In terms of handling a lot of, you know, challenges that automation’s faces in different part of, you know.
Different part of the functions right and HR is like a common factor, right? Which is kind of integrated across the company. So just to begin on that now note Akshara right, you know, I’ll be like to quickly gain a you know kind of insights about your experience about you know how you have been helping and coaching leaders in this particular area, right? So you know we like to kind of learn more from you.
Akshara Seth 4:30
Sure, sure. Thank you, Madhu. Thanks for having me on this podcast and sharing about my journey. My interest started in the space of HR began with my project report that I was to prepare while I was graduating and doing BBA at that time. And the project was about personality traits. So having an inclination since then while I was, you know, deep diving into that subject.
I actually felt that there is, you know, so much in this particular space that can be done and.
As luck would have had it, I, you know, got an opportunity to be a part of startup and the startup was like really, really small. My first job was with a really small startup, early stage, and the company was more small practically that we shared the desks with the office clients. So. But you know what? That’s where the real magic happened. And I realised that HR is not just about policies and paperwork. It is more to do with people. It’s more to do with.
Maddy N 5:27
Right.
Thank.
Akshara Seth 5:36
You know the heartbeat of the organisation.
And that overall dynamic, fast-paced environment of startups really taught me some invaluable lessons about adaptability, innovation, Fast forward, you know, the way things happened like morning, the discussing on a particular aspect and by evening complete change of strategy and Fast forward a few years. I’ve had the privilege of working across clients with their unique culture and challenges. So overall, as as an individual, I’m a.
Maddy N 5:39
Right.
Akshara Seth 6:10
person who is very passionate about bringing in a positive impact in peoples lives and I realised that, you know, during my journey.
That happy employees are like the secret source of any successful organisation and is that magic portion that successful organisation, you know, be it big or small. The happy employees can really bring in a lot of impact and that’s where my journey evolved to becoming a happiness coach. And with that kind of a profound impact that I could create by creating positive work environments and what that environment could really bring in for the employee well-being and productivity overall.
Maddy N 6:25
Right.
Absolutely.
Akshara Seth 6:51
So I kind of dwelled deep into it having a better understanding and here I am, you know, a part time Detective.
Maddy N 6:52
Right.
Akshara Seth 7:00
Finding out what’s really making individuals happy and a full time champion and crafting workplaces where people thrive successfully.
Maddy N 7:08
Great, great, great, fantastic. Great to know about this. And I think I also like your perspective in terms of you calling yourself like a happiness quote, right? I think it also, you know, brings that sift, you know in in thinking in mind, you know, the mindset that we generally talk about right. Again, again, you know more or less talking more on those notes. Right. You know, one of the concerns that you know post COVID you would see, right. I mean nowadays organisations are like pushing people to, you know, come to office like.
Coming back to office wherein people are kind of habituated of now working from home while previously they were completely wanted to go back to office, right?
Akshara Seth 7:42
Yeah.
Maddy N 7:46
Now if not, they want to work from home. Maybe there is some flexibility that is driving people to, you know, kind of operate from home. But there’s a pressing concerns that we see, right? I mean you would, I’m sure you must have also heard and must have also, you know, learned from the, you know the the clients whom you help, right.
Akshara Seth 8:03
Yeah.
Maddy N 8:04
In terms of driving engagement, right, So what is your view on that? How how do you see things shaping up now?
Akshara Seth 8:10
Mm hmm. So the landscape of HR I feel is ever evolving and, you know, post pandemic, like you said that one of the urgent issues that we’ve come across is employee burnout, right, which?
Because of the bloody boundaries of work.
You know, personal life and remote and hybrid settings. So of course there was a lot of. I mean there still is. It is a persistent concern and employees are often expected to work, be available at odd times as well. So the consistent connectivity can lead to a lot of.
Adversity is like chronic stress and burnout, if not managed effectively, and in fact in India. Recent studies have also shown that 42.5% of employees in the corporate sector suffer from depression or anxiety. So you know, talking about engagements, talking about the burnout, it’s it. These are just not the buzzwords we’ve got to remember that the employees are not just human doers, but they’re human beings and.
The best way to tackle is that you know keeping an authentic connection, even if it’s in a virtual setting.
You know, picture this. You know, we are in a video call. Yeah. And instead of just deep diving straight into the KPIs or the project updates, I just asked my team member, OK, how Simba doing? You know? Yes, one of my team members has, you know, there’s a dog parent and they have a golden retriever. So it’s about losing. It’s about finding that, you know, little bursts of joy that we can actually help our team mates find during the day and make sure that our team members also realise that it, they’re just not a teammate or a team member.
But they’re the members of the tribe that we are thriving in.
Maddy N 10:05
Hmm, alright. Yeah, yeah.
Akshara Seth 10:06
In addition to that, I feel that you know, the rapid pace of technological advancements, the kind of upscaling that is required. There’s a constant pressure that employees are facing.
For that, you know, offering flexible options, settings, work settings, ensuring that lot of productivity and collaborative tools if we can use and entering the AII feel there is a plethora of such options.
The addressing such issues basically will require a lot of.
Holistic approach that integrates mental health support continuous learning.
Inclusive practises like you know, making sure that nobody’s really left out, you know. In fact, one of my clients where I was meeting the employees for a session there, they mentioned what was what was that one thing that they missed the most during pandemic when they could not really meet in person. And now that they’re back in office, they were very happy where the Chai breaks. So it is, you know, not really the kind of office ambience or anything like that. It’s just that quick parchment while a break.
Maddy N 11:09
Right.
Akshara Seth 11:17
That you get too quickly went out and just have a quick, easy breather, you know? So by doing some small things we can actually create resilient engaged in a future ready workforce.
Maddy N 11:21
Right.
No, right. Absolutely right. I think you know, if you look at the right and I’m sure right, I mean I also like to, you know hear more from you based on your experience of you know coaching people or leaders in the company, right? Their concern here is that when you know as we talk about more agility for startups and product companies, right.
They’re worried that if you’re there in the office, you know it becomes easy, right. I’ll just, you know, go to your desk and I ask some questions. I’ll come back and, you know, we have to resolve the problem. But when you are remote, right, you know, I’ll have to, you know, kind of drop you an e-mail. I’ll have to ping you on different, you know, solutions that people use is like teams or, you know, slack or something else, right. I mean, the Google meet or something. They use. The point here is that, again, that there’s a delay. Right. So the the agility that you expect, right. That is one. And secondly, you know, when.
Akshara Seth 12:10
Yeah.
Maddy N 12:19
Your productivity’s getting Hampered, which I’m sure right organisation somewhere kind of started realising it that it is little bit hampering. So how do you see this right? Do you see often concerns from coming from the leaders in such cases and what kind of recommendations you have generally you generally like you know?
give them.
Akshara Seth 12:39
Two couple of things, I’ll share this recent example which happened at one of our clients. So when I was, you know in a discovery call with them.
They had only one concern that, you know, Aaap hamare employees ka productivity bata dijiye, I said they’re all sitting in office. They’re happily working. What else do you want? And he said no. But you know, the numbers are not matching. We really want to get. They can. They’re capable of so much more. And we want them really to do something bigger.
Then what they’re doing so you know, I mean, the whole strategy was worked out. And of course there were few things that I’d suggested, you know, in my opinion, it’s more to do with prioritising and creating a culture where the values and you know, support. I mean that’s that’s a constant mix of the two. And we implemented regular check insurance. It’s not, it’s not just about work progress. Like I said, you know, tiny bursts of joy that one can really find out.
Maddy N 13:25
Right.
Akshara Seth 13:42
In a day for, you know, the teammate. So you remember those old Nokia phones? Yeah.
Maddy N 13:45
Right, right.
Yeah, yeah.
Akshara Seth 13:51
They lasted a week on a single charge, unlike the phones that we’re using these days, the smart phones and, well, our brains also need to do that. So we encourage everyone to unplug no screens, no work talk, you know, for maybe couple of hours each weekend. And it’s it’s suppressing. It’s like, you know, pressing the mental reset button. And that actually gives you a lot of.
Maddy N 13:57
Right.
Akshara Seth 14:16
Space to really bounce back.
Maddy N 14:19
Right, right. So again, you know, while the question is pretty interlinked, right, you know, so startups as you know right, they launch their product, they want to take their product out in the market, severe competitions, right? Things are pretty dynamic in nature, right? As an example, if I have to, you know, kind of shift this conversation towards business a bit, right, you know, so you have spoken to a customer today, right?
Customer talked about something, you know of his need and you know, while the you know the customer have liked your product but you know referred more of competitors product and you know say you know while you have this but my need is getting fulfilled over there. If you would have had it I would have liked it right. And I would have gone ahead with you and associated with you and whatnot, right. And I again if you know that’s once or twice it happens you try and say oh, OK, let’s let us you know kind of upgrade our product but if it keeps happening then somewhere you feel that oh are we not moving with the pace are we you know kind of you know left behind or we are losing the market and what not so.
That kind of, you know, drives people at different levels, right? And they really want to capture this very quickly. Right. And that is where the question goes back to the same subject, right? Yeah. I see. You are absolutely right. You know that you want that people to kind of, you know, have that resent button somewhere, right. And they go back kind of have that human touch and, you know, kind of feel that, you know, confidence back right? Sometimes when you’re in office, you may see, you know, even if you’re not doing something, the leader will gain the confidence. You know, what? I can see the person. So that means, you know, he’s delivering it or he’s delivering it.
Maybe you know that one aspect, but apart from that, you know in the fast-paced environment, right, when you really have to depend on as an example, instead of you know let’s take an example between you and I. If you’re in office, you know or I’m in office, you may feel like, oh, you know what, I’ll go to Madhu and speak, or maybe I’ll feel like, you know, I’ll let me go to Akashra’s desk and speak to her and figure out very quickly. Right. So I have that freedom and flexibility to drive things.
But that may not be there because I’ll have dependency on technology enough, so I’ll ping you if you see my message, then you’ll revert back and there’s a delay, right? That you’ve experience it and that sometimes you know what you really want to achieve. You know, it takes like a couple of days, right?
How do you see this right? Is it like a common concern that you’re experiencing it? And in this case, how do you kind of plan handle this conversation between you and the, you know, the the leaders at the, you know, at at level or specifically into startup and product companies? Akshara Seth 16:48
So you
know this particular concern? Yes, the gap if we talk about. But like I said, you know the constant connectivity if the person is not available on snack, you get a message on WhatsApp. If the person is not responding on WhatsApp, you have a mail coming in. So everywhere there is a touchpoint and you know to keep that employee more engaged. I think what leaders miss out on is that sense of ownership. You know it becomes more like a task for the employee that Oh my God, this is another thing coming on my platter.
All my weekend is gone. Another presentation I have to do so instead if we really give that sense of ownership and accountability to the employees. And of course, there is going to be a different reflection altogether the way and a different perspective to how we are approaching work as well. So that is one thing which I feel and keeping employees more engaged is something which is exceptionally important making them feel valued I think.
That is again one aspect. You know we do a regular annual review or a, you know, town hall that.
But that’s again just I feel a very formal way of saying, OK, you know, you’re there, we see you more than that. It’s good to have that authentic connection with the employee. You know, even if as a team manager, if I don’t know the pulse of my teammates, what’s going on in the person’s mind, it’s very difficult to get work out of them. It’s very difficult. And for that lot of open communication, I think a lot of you know that in depth understanding of the person beyond a project.
Maddy N 17:58
That’s right.
OK.
Akshara Seth 18:29
Is essential.
And that’s where more time, especially in case of startups, because there is a lot to do. There is a lot to happen in very short time and both sides. So even the founders are in a race every single moment that OK, who’s going where? What’s happening next in the industry and so is the case with employees. I mean that’s why we see so much of attrition also happening.
Maddy N 18:39
Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely right. Excellent. I mean, I’m gonna pick some of the words that you’ve used. Right. And I’ll try and seek your view on that. Right. So you referred about check, insurance ownership accountability. Maybe I’ll drive this conversation a little bit towards, OKR, so why we also deal into, OKR day in, day out, right, So do you somewhere do you think that, you know, this could be one like a gateway between, you know, leaders and team members, right, to fix it, right? While this comes and continue to grow, people have started coming, but now there is a strong resistance in, you know, being in office for, you know, like five days a week.
People are not looking out for. In fact, we have seen, you know.
People straight away rejecting saying that if you have like 5 this week, I’m not interested in working right? So there’s a lot of resistance that you see, right? So do you believe that? OKR can be like a gateway or bridge between this, you know, to solve this, you know, in specifically in startup and product companies.
Hmm yeah.
Akshara Seth 20:04
It’s power across levels if you see so you know that way if you look at, OKRS I feel that it’s an incredibly powerful and you know the way it’s used, it brings a huge impact on the teams and the whole success depends on the clarity, commitment and continuous review. So it’s essential for any organisation to not just have a KRA and KPI for the sake of it but to get it deeper ingrained in each team member.
Maddy N 20:07
Right.
Right.
Right.
Akshara Seth 20:34
For ensuring that kind of commitment really comes back.
From the employees and that only come when they know where they’re headed and what they’re wanting to do. And why are they here in office? So in fact, one of our clients, you know, doing very well, well funded and everything. But the major problem there was that you know, there’s no clarity today morning. We’re doing something evenings, there’s a change of plan and next day the sales team is like, you know, in a span of a week’s time, they have five different things to focus on. And of course, the employees also get very distinguished because of all of this process.
Maddy N 20:44
Absolutely right, right.
Akshara Seth 21:09
So you know, be it HR strategy, be it fostering a culture of transparency and alignment, be it the organisational objectives, I think it’s it’s all over and every single step will ensure that with complete clarity even when we look at employees, they’ll be able to do so much better.
Maddy N 21:11
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, absolutely right. That’s a great perspective that you brought here specifically. You know people are getting disengaged because of, you know, maybe lack of due to lack of clarity or maybe doing multiple activities and not figuring out where do I need to really pay attention to, right.
Akshara Seth 21:48
Yeah.
Maddy N 21:49
So how do you? I mean, let’s say if if you know overall conversation, how do you like to conclude it? Right. So what maybe one good suggestion that you want to give and you know before we end up our you know conversation what is it you would like to share with the you know the leaders? Akshara Seth 22:06
The cou
ple of things, not just one.
So of course the, you know, like I said, clarity is power and I’d like to actually. Madhu, thanks for the thank you for the wonderful opportunity and for the HR folks, HR fraternity of ours. I’d just like to say that, you know, be the compass and not the map, even individuals for that matter.
Maddy N 22:14
Yeah.
Akshara Seth 22:33
There will be problems. There will be challenges that are going to come your way. We will be faced with tricky situations. It could be a policy change. It could be something to do with the taxation. It would be anything. So we’ve got to really navigate to the solutions and be a problem solver that’s going to help us last long in the system. That’s one for sure.
Maddy N 22:45
Yeah.
Akshara Seth 22:53
And.
Another thing that you know as we can learn that from children as well that we should not underestimate the power of why so channelizing that inner child we have.
We are designing programmes, be it, you know, the OKRs, why do we need this? Why will it benefit the employees? Why will a customer look at it from a certain aspect till the time we are crystal clear about it? We’ve got to rethink this may take time, but trust you, me, this is the only way forward that’s really going to last long for.
Any organisation, be it big or small and last but not the least, you know the balance between me and we. So yes, every individual matters.
And so does the team. So while discussing about the goals, the bigger picture, the organisation.
You know it’s it’s important for leaders to realise that it’s it’s goes hand in hand. So be it. The salt and pepper, the individual goals and the team goals.
Maddy N 23:56
Hmm.
Akshara Seth 24:01
A good recipe will really come out only when we have everything in right portions.
So the future of work is dynamic and flexible, so you know, I hope that it’s going to help you navigate and see the opportunity that really arises every single day.
Maddy N 24:06
Absolutely right.
No, I think I completely agree with you, Akshara here, right. You know specifically one very good solution that you have, you know, you know kind of brought up here which is more about you know bringing that clarity and if the clarity exists amongst people, right. So you know maybe between two stakeholders, they both know that you know what is expected from me. What do I need to, you know, kind of focus on and thereby you know it tries a lot of engagements, right, definite technology, can you know technology sometimes we see the technology like a barrier because you know you have to then depend on technology or some and sometimes technology plays an important and very you know crucial role in helping you getting things done right.
Akshara Seth 24:43
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Maddy N 24:56
Uh, right. So that’s Akshara. Thank you so much for your time and sharing your view. So you know, we’ll definitely have another podcast planned out with you on a very broader subject called engagement. It’s like, you know, generally when we speak to lot of other people, you know, across the globe, right, we see a different view and perspective, right. So it’s again a very exciting topic to, you know, discuss and then we’ll catch up again soon. So thank you so much Akshara for it.
Akshara Seth 25:21
Perfect. Thank you. Thank you for having me and I hope these insights will help our listeners. Thank you. Thank.
Maddy N 25:27
Absolutely yes. Thank you. Bye, bye.
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