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Empathy is the starting point to build trust: Virendra Shelar, OMRON
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Virendra Shelar, Executive Officer, President, OMRON Management Centre of Asia Pacific, and General Manager, Global Human Resources Strategy Department, spoke to People Matters about how OMRON is enabling empathy, inclusion and digitization in a postCOVID workplace
• Renewing the initiatives that we must continue irrespective of what the world or business environment looks like, and • Refreshing the practices & policies via bringing in changes in the form of optimization and value-addition.
By Bhavna Sarin
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irendra Shelar is the Executive Officer, President, of OMRON Management Centre of Asia Pacific, and General Manager, Global Human Resources Strategy Department at OMRON. Shelar joined OMRON in 2014, as General Manager – HR with 20 years of experience in leadership development, talent management, competency assessment and business performance management. Earlier, he led learning & organisational development initiatives for companies like International Rectifiers, Schneider Electric
| september 2021
and Sony Electronics across Asia. Here are excerpts from the interaction.
Several focus areas including experience, empathy, wellbeing, inclusion and belonging came to the fore post the shift to remote work. How did OMRON adapt to this?
Driven by ORMON’s Value – “Respect for All”, we put in our best efforts to adapt to the shift by deploying a “3R” (REVIEW, RENEW & REFRESH) approach last year. • Reviewing our existing practices – whether they are in sync with the changing times
This helped us develop new agility for the organisation. Health & safety of our employees became the topmost priority. We did everything to ensure all our employees stay safe. For some aspects, like hybrid work arrangement, there were no defined policies and we made quick decisions driven by what is right for the employees and their families. Alongside, we continued to implement various virtual initiatives for development of Human Capital which included project assignments, job rotations, training, coaching, employee engagement surveys and most importantly two-way, more frequent communication & wellness orientations with all of them to take care of their mental wellbeing. As the pandemic
