Debashish Ghosh is an exemplary HR professional and a pioneering name in the global HR industry. He is known for his industry expertise and business acumen. With over two decades of experience in the corporate realm, Debashish has been able to bring unique value additions to every organization that he served over the years. Debashish is currently the Vice President and Country HR Head of Berkadia, which is a leader in the commercial real estate industry, offering a robust suite of services to their multifamily and commercial property clients.

The company has over 2000 employees across the world, out of which 900 employees work in India. Even with these many employees to manage, with Debashish heading the company's HR operations, Berkadia has been able to bag in the "Employer of the Choice Award ­ 2020" which further showcases Debashish's ability to manage their employees even during an unprecedented crisis like what we saw during the recent pandemic and resulting lockdown.

When asked about how he was able to successfully manage the HR operations of Berkadia even during the pandemic, Debashish says, "One of the key values at Berkadia is "People Matter". Our employees are at the centre of our universe. The biggest expectation employees had from HR at the beginning of the pandemic was safety. By safety, I mean the safety of their job and of their health, which led to their overall psychological safety.

Considering safety of the job's perspective, we made it clear to all the employees that there would be no lay-offs, and that was what every employee wanted to hear. To ensure safety of our employees' health and wellness during the pandemic, we took several steps, especially caring for their psychological and emotional health.

Work From Home was a challenge for us to execute be-cause we didn't have a pertaining work from home policy and the required infrastructure. However, everyone collaborated beautifully to make it happen seamlessly. For the long term, we formulated three-pronged strategy to deal with such situations, A) Respond- which deals with how we as an organization respond to the current situation in an effective manner, including having the right infrastructure and policies, B) Remodel- even if the pandemic is over, most of the work is going to be virtual and we have to understand how the future workplace will be like and remodel our processes and operations according to that. C) Return- how can we plan to return to the office in a planned and efficient manner at the end of the pandemic".

My expertise in managing crisis has helped me a lot throughout my career. I believe the key the managing crisis is often and open communication

Adding further about the factors that have helped him develop into a successful HR professional, Debashish points out, "My expertise in managing crisis has helped me a lot throughout my career. I believe the key the managing crisis is often and open communication. That includes being transparent to employees and to say "I don't know". I think that an HR leader has 4 roles to play in modern organizations:

Culture Builder -lead from the front in the organization's culture formation and transformation journey.
Change Enabler -be a catalyst to enable, and not just man-age, organization change
Employee Champion - to engage and motivate employees so that they can bring their best to work.
Business Partner -to be a strategic partner of the business leaders and help them meet the organizational goals and objectives

Apart from this, I have also prioritized on incorporating the latest technologies and innovations into our HR operations which is also crucial to operate in an efficient and effective manner. This has also helped me to remain motivated to learn new things on a consistent basis and that helps me to on top of my game always".