The right leaders and talent are vital to tackle volatility and enable success: Joydeep Bose, President & Global Head HR, Olam International

The HR Evolution Perspectives 2023: Experts Take brings together top leaders across Asia-Pacific to share their insights and help contextualise the findings of the region's largest HR transformation report. Through these conversations we explore challenges and the solutions that top CHROs across Southeast are building towards.

‘Through these conversations,’ echoed Vikrant Khanna, Global Head - Value Management, Advisory & Solutions, Dawinbox, ‘we are furthering the research and living up to the name of the report. We are digging deeper and exploring the perspectives of HR leaders from leading organisations.’

In this exclusive interview with Joydeep Bose, we cover:

• The role of leaders serving as entrepreneurs
• Best practices for tackling volatility and supporting growth
• Creating talent pipelines and rewarding the right people with an entrepreneurial mindset
• Building a positive attitude towards dealing with failures
• Strategies to making M&A successful
• HR philosophy at Olam that enables business success

Need for a robust talent pipeline

“Olam International today is around a 42 billion USD company with operations spread across the globe," says Joydeep. ‘For us to be successful and profitable we need to address volatility.’ For Joydeep, companies that can figure out the perfect portion to success are the ones that can create value for their shareholders. In a world with a rapidly changing global climate, the agri and food products-based Olam International remains vulnerable to climate change.

According to Joydeep, having the right talent pipeline with the requisite experience and insights is critical to solving volatility. “For us to be successful on a sustainable basis, it is important that we have a deep pipeline of talent who have grown with us and been through these experiences with us to help us adapt," he adds.

Leaders as Entrepreneurs

With Olam’s extensive operations across different continents, what stands out for Joydeep as a central force of change is how leaders adopt an entrepreneurial mindset to grow. This, according to him, has been crucial to enabling a 40,000-strong company operating across 60 countries to be successful.

“For us to scale it was critical that our leaders acted as entrepreneurs. This meant understanding their business, acting as owners and making the right decisions instead of waiting for decisions to come from the top. We created a structure where leaders were empowered and allowed to take the decisions,’ he added.

Aligning HR philosophy to business goals

To meet Olam’s growth expectations across its different verticals and functions, Joydeep explains that right from the starting days of the HR function, the philosophy was clear. ‘The line managers are the HR managers. Their job is HR,’ he recounts, adding that, ‘professional HR team members who were part of the HR function helped enable them, create the right environment, and help them deliver.’

This philosophy echoed with what top leaders that companies hoped to operate. This also meant that the HR function at Olam remains lean and is targeted to deliver on its expectations. Additionally, reflecting the organization's need to drive value out of every process, the HR function has always looked at what is the return for all the efforts and time spent. For Joydeep this focus on value has helped Olam’s HR function get out from processes that are not value-adding and helps simplify processes and make them more efficient.

Our conversation with Joydeep Bose, President & Global Head HR, Olam International, Singapore helped highlight the importance of Experience and how HR leaders can today lead business success with a proactive approach. From building lean, efficient processes to trusting your employees and creating impactful leaders, the role of HR leaders is multi-faceted and highly relevant across Singapore and Southeast Asia.

Pair these insights with the findings of Asia’s largest HR study. The Darwinbox and People Matters’ landmark report is the largest study of its kind in the region, gathering responses from over 1,200 HR practitioners, 350 CXOs and around 1,500 employees. It brings together both employer and employee voices to showcase evolving priorities and enable strategic change.

Download the full version of the HR Evolution Perspectives: Empower and evolve edition here.