Gauri Kshirsagar (Connell)

“Which of the 8 Cultural Practices are you already practicing (please tell us how)?”

As someone who is less than 2 years old in the company, I would like to share on how I have witnessed the Cultural practices around me.
1. Empowering People – Supportive Leadership
From day 1, I have been lucky to have a super supportive Leadership be it my immediate Supervisor or the larger HR team and of course, Azita. I have been given the autonomy to make my own decisions and follow through while still being guided and given the help I have asked for. I think none of the people I have worked with have a term called ‘micro-management’ in their dictionary! It keeps me accountable yet independent. I also feel empowered when I am allowed to my best work from where I want to. I hadn’t been home for over 2 years due to the pandemic and Alex was totally supportive and empathetic and gave me the flexibility to work from home for a considerable amount of time.
2. Operating with excellence – Knowledge Sharing
Connell is the 5th organization I am working for in my career so far. But it is also the first where I have witnessed open, collaborative and genuine knowledge sharing. Nobody holds their cards close to their chest! Be it the HR Managers, the IT team or the COP team, every single person I have reached out in the way of my work has been prompt, responsive and believes in collaboration. They are all ready to share what they know, dig deeper into questions they don’t have answers to yet and then come back and share what they have found out proactively. Integration between HR systems and IT systems, streamlining or HR processes with other organization processes has been smooth because everyone involved brings their best ideas to the table and all of us walk away having learned something new each time.

“Looking to the future, which of the 8 Practices do you think are most important – and why?”

I truly believe that all practices go hand in hand and we cannot have one regarded more important than other. But if I have to choose, I will say Continuous improvement. Be it as a person, as a team or an organization, the only way to keep moving forward is to be better than yesterday. We need to constantly upgrade ourselves in terms of our learning, our sharing, our mindset and keep doing every little thing that will make us a better version of ourselves and make our organization better than it was yesterday.