'There is a local culture and there is corporate culture'

For Shyam Upadhyay, Vice President HR Asia at Intel, there are a number of key qualities that make a good HR leader. It begins with having good business acumen, a thorough knowledge of your customer and an ability to influence your people.

“HR is a bit like the weather,” Upadhyay told HRD Asia. “Everybody has an opinion, everybody thinks they can do the people part of the job – it isn't as simple as that.

“But at the same time, you can't be dismissive of someone's opinion. So if you want your opinion to matter and count, you've got to be able to influence people in that direction.”

Another key aspect is being able to measure your outcomes, Upadhyay added.

“At the end of the day, we're talking about people, sometimes it's difficult to measure outcomes,” he said. “But you still have to demonstrate results. So result orientation, getting good results and showing outcomes with measures is vitally important.”

Initiatives at Intel

Upadhyay joined Intel in 2002 at a time when the company was starting to expand in India. He described that the company offered him the best of both worlds – getting the chance to work in a startup environment while having the stability of a global business.

“I had the excitement of a startup, but in a very steady, stable company,” he said.

There have been a range of initiatives Upadhyay has been a part of since joining Intel. But something he was most proud of during the first decade at the company was his role in helping grow the business. That included hiring people and integrating them into Intel’s corporate culture, which Upadhyay said was different from other businesses in India.

“I think that was the part that I thoroughly enjoyed for the first decade of my career at Intel,” he said.

“When I joined Intel India back in 2000 there were 800 people. By the time I completed my earlier stint in India, it already had 10,000 people. So the scale of the growth was pretty significant and I had parts to play in helping with that growth.”

Over the next 10 years, Upadhyay took on a regional role and worked on a rewards strategy for Asia.

“As Intel was ramping up in China, Vietnam, Malaysia, a few other countries in APAC, I got the chance to actually architect the rewards strategy for these countries,” he said. “So I travelled to these locations. It’s always fun to travel because you get to experience new cultures, you get to meet people from different walks of life. So I enjoyed that experience.”

Upadhyay even spent a few years working for Intel in China before relocating back to India.

Company culture

Having worked across different countries in Asia, Upadhyay described what it’s like navigating the different cultures. He acknowledged that Intel has a strong company culture despite employing more than 120,000 employees around the world. 

“We have a very distinct and strong corporate culture,” he said. “But we also know that each country has specific elements and their culture needs to be respected. I think the first thing that one has to realise is there is a local culture and there is corporate culture, and you have to live with these dualities. Our intention as HR professionals is to make sure that they're not colliding with each other.”

For example, Upadhyay said Intel takes great pride in being able to create a culture where employees who disagree are able to confront and resolve the issue constructively.

“It’s easier said than done in the East – the part of the world that we live in – because the societies are more hierarchical. And so how do you build in the element of a culture, which is so unique to Intel, in terms of constructively confronting [an issue]. In the East, it becomes a big challenge.”

Nonetheless, there are some strategies Upadhyay mentioned on how to effectively manage different cultures within a business.

“The first thing is we need to accept the fact that there is diversity in culture,” he said. “You can't push one over the other; you can't say local practices is what matters or you can’t say corporate culture is what I care for. Accepting that means being aware that there are differences and ironing out areas if they're counterproductive and they clash with each other.”

Upadhyay added that employers should make sure that when the dualities of corporate culture and unique local cultures exist, they don’t impact outcomes.

“I think the lens is acknowledge differences, reconcile the differences if they come in the way of outcomes. But if they don't, learn to live with the differences because that, in a sense, is what diversity is. It's not about one monolithic culture that you want to find across the world.”

Key HR trends

Upadhyay highlighted some of the key HR technology trends he has been seeing recently. Among them is the growth of HR analytics and Upadhyay described how Intel uses predictive analytics.

“We have 50 - 60 factors based on which we determine the people who are likely to leave the company because they're disengaged,” he said. “We do that on a regular ongoing basis and we intervene for managers where we think that the risk of someone leaving is really high and that person is important for the business.”

Another key trend Upadhyay discussed was the use of AI.

“AI, I think, is materially going to impact HR on the transaction side – payroll, benefits, administration – because machines will do it better than humans do,” he said.

“I'm not suggesting AI is going to lead to job loss. It's a bit like when steam engines came, all those people who were driving horse-drawn carriages lost their jobs but it didn't mean that they remain unemployed forever, they learned new skills. The same thing is going to happen with HR and many other functions with AI coming in, we'll have to reskill ourselves in a different way to get better at where we want to go.”

Motivating the team

When asked how HR teams can best motivate teams to do their best work, Upadhyay highlighted the importance of being present, actively listening, being respectful of people’s time and focusing on results.

“Don't get too dictatorial,” he said. “Tell people what needs to get done, agree on what needs to get done and leave it at that. You're dealing with knowledge workers so let people have the ability to express themselves and do what they think is right for you to get to the outcomes that you want.

“I've always found being honest, direct and polite, are great ways of engaging with people and motivating them. You don't have to fake it. And finally having some fun in the workplace is important as well. It can't just be all about work.”