Lavanya Gandi combines a career in sales, account management and human resources—including working with giants like Amazon, Swiggy, Zomato, and IPAC—with a relentlessly curious brain for a perspective that captures both the big picture and the nitty-gritty details of what it takes to champion the client and employee relationships and career progression.
She currently brings that expertise to Dextara Digital as the Director of Human Resources, and in this conversation with us, she shares:
The work culture of Zomato:
Zomato has always made a point to hire the right talent. The organization ensures the perfect culture fit for all the employees. It prefers hiring people who believe in the values of Zomato before being a part of the team. The compassion and acceptance Zomato shows is cherished by Lavanya. The company even attempted to find jobs for people who had to be laid off due to the pandemic.
Remote work and its impact on the work-life balance:
Lavanya’s current organization is quite flexible and open. They do require employees to be in the office. Lavanya further talks about the work-life balance blurred due to remote work. There are employees desperate to work from the office as they are used to it. However, people are adjusting to this new way of work now. Employees often face the stress of managing multiple things at one go. With remote work, the boundary of not reaching out to people apart from working hours is removed. Here is where the mental health implications come into the picture. Lavanya advises leaders to avoid these conversations.
She further says that employees should “pick up habits that don’t confine to a screen or technology.”
People should not be taken for granted.
The problem also persisted during the beginning of the lockdown. Plenty of people didn’t find a reason to take leaves. They would continue focusing on work every day. But some organizations realized the need to solve this. People need to take time-offs to refresh themselves. Constant work can make them monotonous.
Advice to the founders/ people managers:
Leaders need to learn to be more flexible and adaptable to situations, considering how the pandemic changed everything. Policies had to be reframed due to the changes in the way of work. They need to be empathetic towards their employees and focus on upskilling them. They should organize engagement programs for the employees for something different from what they are working on. Employees of similar interests (books, music, etc.) can also create clubs and interact.
Follow Lavanya on LinkedIn
Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Junius Dsilva
Get the highlights of this episode from our blog.
BONUS: Here is The One-place Guide to HR Challenges and Solutions to gain in-depth knowledge about Human Resources and its challenges.