Cipla as you said is driven by a very noble sense of purpose.

How do you imbibe that sense of purpose into the people you recruit into Cipla? At the very outset before the person is onboard we share our mission and vision with him. He is made aware of everything we do. He knows what Cipla stands for, what are our strengths. He is also clearly aware of what is expected of him and what we are looking for in him. The important part is to allow the person to internalize the entire culture of Cipla. It is very important for us that a new employee imbibes the culture that we have so rigorously created. For Example with managers at the senior level there is a palliative care center, which we run in Pune. That is for the people in pain from the treatment if cancer. The person is exposed to the atmosphere there of healing and care. He starts imbibing that experience which is a different experience altogether. They are also expose to the various facets like manufacturing, R&D, sales force and everything else that we do here the person then gets a 360 degree view of what is Cipla and some of this things we think at the senior level are good enough for the person to understand what Cipla stands for and what business we are in beyond making profits. What would you say about your employee retention policy? We do not want people to leave us but we dont believe in holding back people after they resign giving them higher pay. Our whole approach towards our employees is that all of us are inspired to contribute to Cipla. When in an organisation like Cipla we are working for a much higher purpose than only making profits so it is very important that the employees we have share the same vision and are inspired to work with us. If an employee is not inspired to work with us it works for neither him nor us. In your experience in HR in so many organizations how is its role in a pharmaceutical company different from a company like Thomas Cook? The very first thing that an HR manager must understand the business that his company is in. The prerequisite for being successful as an HR person is it any sector s that the person must make sense of the business. He must understand the core of what makes the business tick. Secondly he must understand the cultural ethos of the company. Even within the same sector the companies can have very different ethos and even across industries the culture can be different Thirdly and perhaps which is often vey important is he needs to connect to the people. A Human Relation Manager cannot function in isolation with the Human part of the company. It is very important that I share a connect with people who work with me as an Hr. manager. As long as the person in good enough to do that it really does not matter which industry he operates in because these factors remain the same So as I said in my lecture you can do societal good only if your business model is solid. A Philanthropic business on weak fundamentals is no good to anybody. So after all is said and done unless and until your business model works and you as an HR manager understand it its really of no use.