The chief guest for the inaugural session was Dr. Kshama Bhatia, Founding Partner, Corpret Fox Leadership development & Impression Management Institute. She discussed the new perspective of HRM where employees are not treated as workers but as intellectual capital. Speaker for second session Mr. Satyavrat Srivastava, MD, Mott MacDonald India, spoke about “Employee Ownership” as an effective HR retention strategy. His presentation enforced the idea of adopting a profit sharing policy where the profits of the corporations are shared with the employees. The speaker for the third session was Mr. N Dharamrajan, VP-HR, Transmission Sector, RPG Group. Topic for his presentation was “Strategic HRM: Creating a Performance Culture for Competitive Edge.” He vouched for how “People Development and Culture Building Interventions, aligned with the Organization’s Strategies” acted as differentiator in the process and help them get the award for ‘The Best Company in RPG Group’.

The next session was taken over by Mr. M.K. Iyer, Senior Chief General Manager- HR, IT & Finance Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Ltd. He gave a talk on “People Issues in Corporate Restructuring Process”. He talked very enthusiastically about the Corporate Restructuring at his firm. The fifth session was by Ms. Jaspreet Narula, Head HR, Azure Styx Infosoft Pvt. Ltd. She led the discussion on the very contemporary and critical issue in the BPO sector, “Managing Attrition”. She had compared this issue as a virus plaguing business and also discussed the different aspects of why people leave organizations and the requisite tools to retain them. The final session of the first day of the HR conclave was by Senior Scientist, Gujarat Council of Science City, Mr Narottam Sahoo. He was encouraging the prospective managers to think out of the box and how they would be surprised by the variety of options that would appear by doing so.

After the wonderful first day of the HR Conclave’07, the expectations for the second day were soaring high. To start with, it was very much kept up by Mr. L. Balasundaram, Director, HR, Gujarat Gas Company Limited, who gave a talk on “Talent Acquisition and Retention”. Talking about retention, he emphasized on keeping few things in mind like maintaining the recruitment process until the employees join a firm and having good relations with the boss. The second session was taken over by Ms. Joyoti Banerjee, Asst. Vice President – HR, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. Ltd, who spoke about “Strategic HRM: Creating a Performance Culture for competitive edge.” Reflecting upon the accelerating pace of growth of Indian economy, she emphasized upon how rising number of opportunities is making it difficult to make the right choice of employees. “HR plays the role of an architect but the real work is done by line managers of bringing together the employees” she said. After that dynamic presentation it was Mr. Sanjeev Prasad, Principal Consultant & Practice Head, Ma Foi Global Search Services Ltd. who threw light on various aspects of ‘Talent Engagement’. He elaborated on the shifting paradigm where talents no more chase few jobs but it is now the jobs who are chasing few talents. The fourth session was by Dr. Mukund Vyas, GM-HR, Siemens Ltd. India division. He addressed the retention strategies big organizations like Siemens follow. He took the students on a journey of how Siemens matched changing customer value expectations over the last 3 decades and how they leveraged the changing employment frameworks across time.

The valedictory function was presided by Mr. Awdhesh Krishna, Senior VP and Head HR, Lehman Brothers India. He surprised the audience by the true experiences of his 17 years in the industry in HR. He unmasked the industry and how they had perceived the different facets of HR and how it has now changed. Mr. Krishna predicted the new emphasis on careers would be on its depth and not breadth in the years to come. The HR Conclave 2007 concluded by the event coordinators, both faculty and students been acknowledged for the successful and effective conduction of the HR Conclave.