1. KEYNOTE ADDRESS
In conversation with A.K. Mishra, Chief Operating Officer, Innodata Inc.
HR Leaders
Roundtable Series
Winning in the Future of Workplace
Perspective on how to create a high performance culture and what
role does an HR leader play in winning the war for talent.

2. www.CorporteShiksha.in | www.Workplace2020.in
2
A.K Mishra leads the Innodata operations globally. He joined the organization in
1997as General Manager and Head India operations, and since then held several key
portfolios including Vice President Project delivery, Sr. Vice President global delivery
and operations. His current responsibilities include Pre Sales, Delivery, Technology,
HR, and other support functions.
He has deep insights on people dynamics and has been the guiding force behind the
progressive people policies of Innodata. His vision, foresight along with focus on
diversifying and expanding the business, has helped Innodata expand its global foot-
prints over the years.
Prior to joining Innodata, AK ‘s glorious career span of 20 years were in ITI Ltd,
where he held various senior management positions in Production, Planning,
Process and Quality.
AK holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering from
Pantnagar University (1976) and a condensed MBA course from Indian Institute of
Management Bangalore (1995). He also did Component Manufacturing Technical
Training from Alcatel France (1985).
A.K. Mishra
Chief Operating Officer,
Innodata Inc.

3. www.CorporteShiksha.in | www.Workplace2020.in
3
Question: What are the challenges an
organization would face while building a
‘winning culture’ at the workplace?
So when you say about high performance
culture, I think there are a few areas which we
need to figure out first and that goes back to a
little bit earlier than what we are talking today.
Many times in an Indian environment what we
have been thinking and trying to do is that once
somebody enters the organization and is within
these four walls, we can do few things: training,
creating a certain program, a systematic
approach and building teams. Then people can
jump in to a very high performance model very
quickly or you can create teams which will be
competing very well and still will be coming out
with a win-win situation. I think there is a
preparedness that happens before. It could be
academics or it could even be before academics.
Unless things also change there, it becomes
very difficult for us to visualize that particular
person within these four walls will behave in a
particular fashion. I am not talking about a
couple of percentage of the population of the
organization. I am not saying the top 5% and I
am not taking the entire company. Entire
company is of 4000 people and high performers
could be of 2% or 5% and you can bracket them
differently. High performance teams could be
out there and they will constitute (as I have
seen) only about 15%-20% of the team.
Remaining people are only supporting them.
Now, unless you do something about the
remaining people and try to see how these all
people can go closer to the high performers and
I don’t think that we are really building an
organization which can compete globally.
You can do certain good things based on that
performance of certain individuals but not the
entire team and that’s where my challenge has
been all this time. So when you go and start
recruiting, you normally will try to get people
who fit in to that mold. Now, the fact remains
that we live in these conditions where outside
these four walls you are in a culture which is not
a high performance culture. You are many times
accommodating sub-optimal performance taken
from any field like transportation, household
related things, going to the shopping malls and
even going out to any other place you see. I
mean there is no high performance culture. So
by thinking that by doing only a few things we
can transform the whole organization into high-
performance, I think we need to support it from
there. If that support is not coming to you then
you need to create that support within the
organization. So there are these two factors I
have been struggling with all the time that you
get can good at some individuals and you can
form certain teams but that is the kind of cream
of the company. You are still leaving 80% behind
and until that 80% performs to your level, you
cannot compete. One of the challenges I have
seen in the BPO industry is that.
.

4. www.CorporteShiksha.in | www.Workplace2020.in
4
Question: What is the role of an HR Leader in
the culture building process?
Now, HR leaders have evolved so much over a
period and I think that is the one role that has
evolved maximum over the last 30 years. They
have evolved from a very traditional, personal
manager to (what we call now) HR Leaders but I
still think that a lot more needs to be done.
Recruiting of course becomes the first step
when they need to lookout for talent, look out
for the good resource fit and I believe that’s
where the search for high performers start.
Unfortunately, traditionally we do not have
good means of spotting that talent early. It still
remains in personal interviews, or certain tests
or certain referrals but still we do not get
sufficient data. HR leaders need to find that
data from somewhere. In today’s context when
we talk about social media and we talk about
other digital connectivity which is happening, I
think they have a role to play to really analyze
that data and then filter out a good cream
which is good for the industry rather than just
utilizing traditional approaches. I think even if
we say that you can go to online portals and get
your people in. Normally what we do is we go
out and look for 10 profiles. We find out from
the whole pool that which are the 10 (profiles)
most closer to mine and then get them over for
interview and figure out who is the fit. I think
we need to do much more than that. So, HR
leaders need to transform to more of analysts of
the lot of information that is available and then
try to filter it out in such a manner that they
really come back and present those candidates
that we know to X% of confidence that these
are going to be high performers.
So, rather than taking a chance and finding out
after sometime I’m visualizing that maybe in
next 3-4 years that stage is going to come. HR
leaders have a big role to play but then I see
their role more of connecting themselves into
all that social media, digital connectivity,
utilizing tools and utilizing approaches and
really filtering out good candidates. That
becomes one.
Then of course when we talk about how to build
that culture within that company? So, normally
we have not been habitual of win-win. I think it
again comes back to the society you are in, so
win-win approach is limited to a certain section.
In maximum cases, I think people still go for
win-lose or ‘I must win and I don’t care if you
win or not’. So, I think HR leader’s role becomes
more and more prominent. How do they
continuously work on that if anywhere ‘win-
lose’ is happening then how to covert that ‘win-
lose’ into a ‘win-win’. I think another side that I
am seeing is especially in HR leaders since the
workforce is becoming global and in my
experience of last 15-17 years when I have been
doing multi-geographies, multi-cultural, multi-
countries team’s management. That is one
where HR leaders need to grow, they need to
become that global manager.

5. www.CorporteShiksha.in | www.Workplace2020.in
5
There are excellent local, geographical or local
country managers but there is a very small pool
of HR managers who are global managers.
Understanding globally how they can harness
the talent and get that over. So, we can again
talk about manufacturing verses the IT, retail
and the service industry where things are
changing so much and I think the big factor is
going to be- how do you provide that high
performer globally from anywhere and for that
you need to be a global manager. You need to
figure out ways and means of how you can still
interview an Indonesian or a Chinese or an
Indian or an Israeli or an American and can still
fulfill your needs. So, that is one area where I
am seeing HR leaders will be evolving pretty
soon.
Question: How does leader’s communication
style make or break the desired high
performance culture?
Communication style definitely is the key
because as we all know that human beings
listen to a person who is non-confrontational
and who has got something to share which is
good. So, communication style has to not only
take care of these fundamentals but also has to
change based on the team that you are
addressing and based on the location you are in.
Certain human fundamentals remain the same,
everybody wants an open environment,
transparency, jolly kind of a non-pressured
environment and freedom but then you cannot
carry your message across in a similar structure
everywhere. I will give you one example; If a
customer is annoyed, let’s say something
happened in a service which you were giving,
and the customer is not happy. Now the first
thing for the people manager (who is also a
functional manager many times) need to
understand when that customer is giving you
the feedback. I’ve seen many times people have
not been able to really understand the level of
unhappiness that the customer has. So, that is
first-understanding.
Second becomes, how do you carry that
message to your team? Certain teams like take
the teams in India, you need to be very straight
and you need to be very forth-right in
communicating that this is what happened and
that the customer to this extent. Now, going
forward we analyze that these are the mistakes
we did and this is how we are going to ensure in
future that they will not be repeated and this is
the new process and the systematic approach.
You can communicate that and then you can
share your ideas and they will come back with
their feedback. I don’t think if you can do the
exactly same thing, I am taking an example of
Philippines and if I am sitting in Philippines and I
need to communicate exactly the same message
then my style changes.
.

6. www.CorporteShiksha.in | www.Workplace2020.in
6
It has to change to the local environment so
that they can still listen to me as this team has
listened to me. One of the fundamentals will be
that if I start my tone in that intensity when
customer was unhappy and I need to carry
some of those emotions into to the discussion,
Philippines team will shut down and will not
listen.
You have to make it very comfortable and share
and maybe joke around and even then go
through the same thing and they will do exactly
the same thing that probably the Indian team
would do So, the communication style that
fundamentally, everyone wants to be hearing
same things but then it has to change in the
global context to suit how the message will get
across exactly.. Definitely! That is what we are
seeing and not only that but probably within
our own environment (Indian environment also)
and I think when you are talking to your senior
team verses middle team verses junior team
verses entire company, I think your facts and
figures change and then your style also changes.
Question: What are the key drivers of Talent
Acquisition today and do you see any change in
what will drive recruitment in the foreseeable
future?
I think I have some challenges there. I have seen
the definition of talent itself changing. So
depending on the teams that you are in, if the
teams are not high-performing and if teams
have been not put in those conditions where
they are competing a lot then the meaning of
talent is different verses the meaning of talent
when they are competing a lot, when they are
globally answering things and globally
competing. So, their talent is different. Let’s say
that we all understand what talent is. One of
the factor is that most of the companies have
been looking in and around as compared to the
teams or the companies you look who are very
highly successful. I think when we say talent
density, it is of course when you define what the
talent is and then you can define what the
density is. In my 100 people team, how many of
those talented people are there. So, you can say
that it is talent density. I think the talent density
needs to increase multiple fold and the talent
density needs to increase before the growth
happens. Mostly, what we are seeing is that it
happens along with the growth or it is very
reactive as well because if you see that you are
lagging behind then you are looking for talent. I
think for the talent acquisition, this factor needs
to change. It has to be a very proactive
approach and you have to plan in advance and
you have to increase your talent density of the
existing teams and be ready a little bit before
the growth happens. If I go from a little side
perspective and little from the holistic approach
and the world-wide approach. So, whatever we
see as outsourcing happening in the country as
India is a good outsourcing center right from call
centers to IT to everything else.

7. www.CorporteShiksha.in | www.Workplace2020.in
7
In fact this is talent acquisition by those
organizations who are doing outsourcing. From
that perspective take IBM, take Accenture, take
Microsoft or take any of those companies. They
were not having sufficient talent and they
needed talent to be available to them at a
cheaper price and or at a comparable price or at
a price that they can expand. That is how
outsourcing happened. So, I am not looking
talent acquisition only as a means that you
employ the resource with you. It could be in any
form. You can get out and globally get that
talent from anywhere. What needs to workout
is your cost verses the talent which you are
acquiring. What ratio you can afford? How much
you can afford? And then you can go and get it
from anywhere. So, the way I am looking at
talent acquisition is that it’s changing the term
in which you can recruit a person in your
company and build the talent pool. You need to
be global and you need to get the talent
wherever that is available. The very factor that
let’s get some people in and then let’s train
them to become talented pool is good and that
is needed. But I think it is becoming much more
important that you look outside, look in the
global platform and wherever that is available
then see how that can be used in your
organization. It’s changing already and in fact
the biggest example is all the outsourcing which
has happened. I happened to do a big case
study and I did a research paper that was
exactly on this and a lot of data is out there
which shows that how the talent was not
available sufficiently in those countries and
hence all these things came up. Fortunately
Information Technology accelerated that
process.
Question: How critical is measuring candidate
experience for long-term brand building of an
organization?
You are making a very good point which I think
has been over looked by majority of the
companies and normally the data shows that
the selection process is limited to say 5% or
maximum 10% of the employees who are
applying. So you select probably 5%-10% and
not more than that and obviously you are
leaving out 90% who have been rejected by you.
They have only negative things to talk about. So,
it becomes very important for us to figure out
that how that customer touch or how that
experience needs to change from talking
negatives to talking positives or at least neutral
but positives is what we are looking at for the
brand building. This area has not been
addressed so far and there could be various
means.

8. www.CorporteShiksha.in | www.Workplace2020.in
8
I go back to 1998 experience. We had opened
Innodata and we had a team of I think by that
time of 300 or so and in 1998 I think GE opened.
GE capital opened their plant somewhere in
Gurgaon and the employees who went there,
came back happy only with one experience that
Coke and coffee was free. I am just
remembering 15-16 years ago. So that was at
that time a part of brand building. It might be
very small thing like just making cold drinks or
beverages free to a different kind of experience.
Even sitting down and suggesting what else you
need to do in order for you to succeed here next
time. Giving that positive feedback. Even
eluding them to a certain course or a module
that if you can come and do this and your
position will go up. That is an area which is very
important and I’ve not seen many companies
still walking out and doing extra steps in that
direction.
Question: Leveraging technology innovations
for transforming the effectiveness of recruiting
process.
I think it is a combination that needs to work. So
technology is necessary in order for you to
reach out to your targeted audience. You go to
social media and you go to different sites and
pick up information right from LinkedIn to any
other ways in order to reach out to your target
audience. As soon as you reach your target
audience, I think then comes your touch feel
experience. How much have you been able to
share? How much have you been able to give a
chance to that talent and to that resource to
share his or her perspective of what that person
wants to do in life and how you can create a
platform to marry the two?
It’s going to be a good combination of use
technology to as much as needed because you
will need that and because HR needs to do a lot
more in terms of harnessing that and we even
call that the big data approach which is working
everywhere. After that there is definitely a
touch which is needed. So you would like to find
a combination of something 70% of technology
touch and then 30% of the personal touch to
make this happen.
Question: Kindly share your thoughts on the
relevance of Workplace 2020 initiative.
It is a very good concept. As I said that I was a
little eager to know what the differentiator is
and you made me fully understand that it is the
real people out there who have experience and
people who have lived it. I think people will not
only be willing to listen to them but also but
also believe that the curriculum coming out
from these people is going to be much better
and suited. I keep multiple challenges that how
will you keep on changing your curriculum
quicker and faster because curriculum is not
only changing fast but since new domains keep
on coming. Therefore, designing curriculum for
those domains becomes a bigger issue but they
are good challenges and I think it is a very good
effort. My best wishes!

9. www.CorporteShiksha.in | www.Workplace2020.in
9
SUPPORTING ORGANISATIONS
Roundtable Partners
Supporting Organizations

10. Get latest insights on the future of workplace
Workplace2020.in
Access video presentation on YouTube
Youtube.com/user/CorporateShiksha
Follow us on Facebook
Fb.com/CorporateShiksha
Follow us on LinkedIn
Linkedin.com/company/corporate-shiksha
Follow us on Twitter
@CorporatShiksha
Connect with us on email
info@CorporateShiksha.in
Corporate Shiksha
Corporate Shiksha™ – the learning network for Young India is a next
generation platform to nurture and grow the capability of young and
aspiring professionals. It is focused on helping students and working
professionals to get ahead in their corporate career by facilitating
practical & experiential learning programs with a spirit of volunteerism
and social development. www.corporateshiksha.in
Workplace 2020 Initiative
Workplace 2020 in an initiative by Corporate Shiksha is an attempt to
create an learning platform on Future of Workplace focused on corporate
leaders in India and South Asia Region. Workplace 2020, HR Leaders
Roundtable series has created a strong consortium of industry leaders to
explore, identify and showcase effective and innovative people strategies
which enable them in becoming future ready organizations and improve
overall people management practices. Please visit www.workplace2020.in
for workplace insights in form of videos, articles, playbooks and interviews
with experts.