Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur successfully hosted the second edition of its annual HR Conclave – Spandan 2014 today at Hotel Radisson Blu, Udaipur.

Carrying forward the legacy from the last year’s inception of Spandan, this year’s conclave was conceptualized around the central umbrella theme, “Rethink: Changing HR practices with Changing Times”.

The event began with an opening address by Prof. Janat Shah – Director, IIM Udaipur. He spoke on the importance of collaboration of academia and industry on a common platform like Spandan for discussions critical for the reinvention of the HR Industry.

Prof. Shah also laid stress on the IIMU’s strong focus on Research, Analytics, Immersion in the three forms of Rural, Corporate & Global Immersion and Entrepreneurship & Intrapreneurship in his speech.

He also threw light on the student driven initiatives through different clubs and committees at IIMU citing the example of Spandan been organized entirely by dHRuva – The HR Club of IIM Udaipur.

Prof. Sunil Maheshwari – Adjunct Faculty, IIM Ahmedabad and Ex-Advisor to the HRD Ministry, Govt. of India, served as the Keynote Speaker in the conclave. Prof. Maheshwari brought in his research statistics in his speech which showcased the changing trends in HR and the challenges posed to it in the current scenario.

His mathematical study was based on a survey on leadership traits collected from a sample of MDP candidates who occupy top leadership positions in India and the persistent need-gap analysis in their skills. He concluded his speech with mentioning the importance of investment in faculty development and pedagogy modification with time in management schools.

The event then proceeded with panel discussions on the three sub-themes for the summit:

• Rethinking Convention: Implications & consequences of social, mobile and digital media on HR practices
• Rethink Approach: Are the present leadership programmes creating ‘leaders’ or ‘followers’?
• Rethinking Structures: Pyramid organizational structures to job sharing and part-time/flexi-roles: Implications & Consequences

The participating corporate leaders in the discussions were Mr. Aashish Singh – VP Head HR, Sutherland Global, Ms. Padma Rajeswari Tata – Senior Dr. & Head, Dr. Reddy’s, Mr. Sugato Palit – Exec. Dir HR & Admin, Experion, Mr. Vinod Rai – Head Corp. HR, Maruti Suzuki, Mr. Ashwani Prashara – Head HR & IR, RIL, Mr. Prabhu Aggarwal – Chief Learning Officer, Jindal Steel, Mr. G. Ravishankar – President HR & Strategy, CRISIL, Mr. Debaprata Mahapatra – Head HR Elec. & Auto IC, L&T, Ms. Sangeeta Malkhede – Assoc. VP HR, CSS Corp, Mrs. Sangeeta Singh – Partner, Sanguine Consultants and Mr. Vinod Behari – Exec. Dir. HR, RECL.

The key things highlighted in the discussions were usage of social media in employee engagement & networking, technology, communication, feedback and references.

Traits of a leader, differentiation between a leader and a follower, main hindrances in current leadership development and initiatives and strategies in different industries taken for leadership development, were also focused in the discussions.

Organizations strive towards adopting best HR practices and to align HR strategies with the organizational strategies to succeed in the long run. Hence, the emerging practices like pyramid organizational structures and change management were also brought in the discussions by the panelists.

The interactions were enhanced by the questions put up by the students and faculties in the audience during the panel discussions.

The event was very well received by the IIMU community. Kathan 2014, the second edition of the annual HR magazine of dHRuva – The HR Club of IIM Udaipur was also released marking the success of the event. The event concluded with the felicitation of the eminent speakers of the event and a vote of thanks.

IIM Udaipur aims to set new benchmarks in the field of management education and research and events like this come under the channel of initiatives aiming to create a platform for discussing subjects and issues that are most relevant to the current times and future trends.

The underlying purpose of the event is to bridge the gap between the industry and academics providing students with an opportunity to understand the dynamics of HR domain and to enrich the knowledge and perception of HR practices from the interactions with the experienced corporate leaders.