Founder at It's People | HR Leader | Bestselling Author

"Any form of success cannot be achieved without raising your own level of competence and self leadership."

Building an Early Foundation:

The credit for my early foundation and evolution goes to my desire to constantly upgrade, keep working for professional and personal goals, lifelong learning and contributing to the society. I always knew that any form of success especially professional success, cannot be achieved without raising your own level of competence and self-leadership. And I often share this with my clients - your professional or business success can never outgrow you. So, invest in your development and make your business or career soar. Throughout the 3 decades of my career, I have moved from being a part of the family business to corporate world and finally the last decade into being a full fledged entrepreneur. In all these 3 stages of life, I focused on building myself and ensuring that I am able to build others. I knew I wanted to finally become an entrepreneur and living these experiences gave me the worldly vision and the skill set to help others in their journey as well.

The purpose of my life comes from this desire to help people live their dreams and make them realize their full potential so that they are able to create their own world which has endless possibilities. Therefore, I help create, empower, support and facilitate people in my network and add value addition to their professional journey. Hence, I customize my solutions to enable my clients easily achieve what they desire! I do this with love, compassion and emotional intelligence.

Beyond the Barricades:

Yes, when we go through life not everything works out the way you want it to. As an entrepreneur, I started working on offering creative HR solutions for MSME’s but it didn’t work out. I saw a lot of resistance and changing mindsets, how the SMEs work, and also the fact that working and bettering their HR functioning seemed very cost prohibitive to these business owners. It was truly a challenge but when I finally identified the challenge, I tried working on business solutions to solve their most crucial people problems, which even their customers pointed out. And that is how I started with my entrepreneur journey. I realized that MSMEs need business solutions not HR solutions even though HR was an integral part of the business.

Another learning experience is that as an entrepreneur you have a mindset that you know what the client needs. But the clients may not think the same way or even understand it. I learnt and understood that it is not about what I think the client needs but understanding the pain areas of the client and what I could do to support and alleviate them from their sufferings and help create a better environment or an innovative solution that would help address their needs. Innovating, Design Thinking and Building Solutions keeping the customer in mind are the three parameters that helped me create a presence and visibility for myself and my organization.

Transformation of the HR Industry:

Working as an HR Business partner for more than a decade and working with business leaders and supporting them achieve organizational goals, I have seen the HR industry evolve rapidly. Whether it is the industry or the leaders, I have seen the combined power of business and HR and the contribution that HR professionals have made using the opportunities that came with the evolution. Three decades ago when I started my career, HR per se did not exist. It was a personnel time function with mostly administrative roles but lately in the last decade, HR has grown and evolved to be the key element of every organization across industries. Today it is recognized as a critical function, which supports the business and the business leaders achieve collective goals.

Appropriate people and culture strategies and formulating people teams has been one of the major transformations in the domain over the last few years. HR understands the challenges and dynamics of the business, works closely with business leaders and contributes largely to the skill set, mindset and enhancement of the tool sets which every organization needs to embrace.

Defining D&I- a Holistic Approach:

Diversity inclusion research has shown many benefits of having a diverse and inclusive workplace. According to the research, when employees don’t feel that their presence, contributions and suggestions are truly valued, they eventually look for other places. Creating a work culture in which diversity and inclusion is respected is seen as a way to increase the ability to recruit a diverse talent pool with greater possibility of innovation because a diverse workforce brings in a lot of creativity which eventually leads to higher revenue growth.

I have seen organizations where people from a particular region were preferred over others which created a sense of non alignment and division leading to mass resignation. So it is important for HR to drive the D&I agenda, build a business case and showcase why it’s important. Today with the kind of awareness and visibility that D&I has managed to attract, more and more workplaces are truly recognizing the importance of having a diverse workforce. I believe that HR should look at creating a workplace where they recruit and develop a diverse workforce that enables the organization to benefit as a result of the wide experience and thinking capabilities that the workforce brings to the workplace every single day.

Formulating the Bestsellers:

Books are a great medium of sharing your thoughts with the world. In 2020, I authored my first two books. The first was a compilation of the best 50 ideas and the second an international bestseller on Amazon ‘The Growth Hacking Book 2.’ Through my books, I have attempted to share with the world, what they can do in order to live the life that they really wish to. Right mindset is important and all the books that I have read during my lifetime have helped me develop this mindset. I wanted to be an author so that I could share my thoughts and experiences with the world. So, when I got an opportunity to share and be part of a few book projects, I jumped with joy! I believe learning is continuous and I have miles to go.

Sources of Powerful Lessons:

I am blessed to have come across a lot of mentors throughout my life, inspiring me in every phase. My English Teacher Jyoti Bisht Ma’am in school was my foremost mentor. My father a successful entrepreneur inspired me to explore my path as an entrepreneur as I learnt from his style of working, thinking and innovation. In my corporate career, I was lucky to get mentored by both business and HR leaders like Manoj Chugh, Rahul Thapan, Chanda Hate, Vivek Kumar and Paul Sexton. Their feedback and support shaped and enhanced my leadership and presentation skills and I continue to be in touch with them even today.

There is power in association and I feel blessed that I got opportunities to learn from my network, fellow entrepreneurs, and even got reverse mentored. As a result of all the wonderful mentors that I had opportunities to learn from, I was able to move from where I was to where I wanted to be. The most valuable lesson I learnt from my mentors is that if you want to make your dreams come true you have to wake up and work on it. On this journey I moved from self reflection to heightened self awareness; from envisioning to goal setting and action planning; from over thinking to overcoming and achieving. “What’s next?” I regularly ask myself.

And when your mentor appreciates you and your growth, you realize you are on the right path! One of my mentors recently mentioned – “your achievement is a testament to ambition and perseverance. I just know you will be able to climb over any challenge that comes your way. Congratulations! I only know of a few people that can inspire others to achieve greatness. You are one of those people. Your drive and passion are infectious.” I feel beyond blessed!

Saloni Kaul

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