A Walk Back Memory Lane – New Beginnings
Selam, as they say in Amharic. Chetana, a name I refer to as mine, was born in Gondar, Amhara state in Ethiopia, grew up in Sokoto State in South Nigeria, pursued my schooling and graduation in India and am a proud Sanatani. Having traveled to 7 different countries across the world, I pride in saying India is my home. Though I graduated in Computer Science, I figured out my flair for People Skills during my graduation and just immediately after my convocation, Infosys became my first employer and became the springboard to my career.
Excited as I was, I worked as a Junior HR Assistant, though on a contractual basis, my happiness knew no bounds. Infosys also opened another chapter in my life and during my short stint in Infosys is when the wedding bells rang for me and life took a completely different turn as little as I expected. The Millenium year had way too many surprises for me. Life, in any case has always been adept at throwing surprises. I found my life partner friend, guide and philosopher in this amazing man called Dr. Sridhar Raamalingam. At that time, we both were in our twenties, he in his late twenties and me in my early twenties, were struggling to figure out our pathways to life. We had a lot to figure out and the journey had just begun.
So, post my contract in Infosys, I found a job in a small recruitment firm and I was trying to learn the tricks of the trade when life threw another googly at me; I was on the family way and the travel, coupled with the work stress rendered me helpless; I had to call it quits and take refuge within the four walls of my home.
On November 10th 2001, I held a beautiful baby boy, Murari Sridhar, an extension of myself, my heart outside of me, the most beautiful moment of my life. I would coax every woman to risk everything in life to experience that moment as words can’t express the bliss I felt when our eyes met for the first time. If love at first sight exists, I guess that is what it was, and trust me the love of any mother is unparallel to anything else in this world.
Motherhood – Sabbatical from Work
Murari gave me a totally different job role; I was expected to be a loving and caring person, had to sacrifice my needs, compromise on my sleep and most importantly smile thorough all this. Being a mother is the most underrated jobs ever. But I had no regrets; I enjoyed watching my little baby grown into a toddler, a small charming boy, a young lad, an understanding teenager and a fine man that he has turned out to be now. I tell parents, that parenting is a life time project and not an annual contract. It is about wearing many hats, a parent, friend, companion, guide, philosopher and a sounding board with suspended judgements.
The Corporate World Beckons Again
Coming back to my profession, after a break from my job for a year and 3 months, I went back to the workspace; Phoenix Global Solutions hired me for their contact center to cater to their American customers. I had to take up the job as between Sridhar and me, we had to take turns to bring up Murari, with little or rather no support from either of our families.
I aced the training and hit the floor much before the training concluded as the training team felt I was ready to take on the customers and kick some dust. I remember my first call with a customer called Micheal, trying to figure out what I should say and with the apprehension if I was saying it right; that was the beginning of me becoming one of the top performers on the floor, so much so that I was the unofficial supervisor on the floor, handling all kinds of escalated calls. I had drawn enough attention even from the top management and that got me two “Best Employee awards’ in my year and a half stint there.
All good things come to an end they say; the team faced a shift in dynamics when we had a change of managers and with interpersonal issues with my new manager to health issues, it got me to rethink my decision to work there. Phoenix was also going through a merger and acquisition from TCS and I couldn’t wait to get out as my health really took a toll; I was sleeping for 2 hours every day in the cab while being picked up from home to work, as I had to do the house chores and look after Murari, before I could drop him at the creche. This saga brought about another awareness in me; I wanted to find opportunities in the training industry as people would appreciate my accent, including my clients from the US who had once asked if I had lived in California. Post quitting TCS, I joined Dell as a Senior Technical Support Specialist but since it was a technical profile, my heart didn’t stick around for too long.
My Journey as a Learning and Development Professional Begins Here!
I quit again to take up a job at Athiya, a firm that rendered Corporate Training to big corporates like Dell, Siemens, HP, TCS and many more. I started at the junior rungs of the ladder, learning the T of training and Athiya, became my alma mater to training.
As introvertish as I was in my childhood days, I had chosen a profession which expected me to be an extrovert; I had to break my fears and overcome all apprehension I had of facing an audience. My first assignment was with Siemens for a bunch of techies and I somehow managed it well and after that, there was no looking back. My thirst to learn and zest for knowledge elevated me to become the Head of Training and Development, handling a team of 10 full time trainers and a bunch of consultants with varied skill sets and also gave me the opportunity to liaise with clients. I enjoyed my job role as empowering people to perform better at their jobs gave me a gratifying feel. In this role, I was instrumental in increasing the training man days from almost nil to 135 days over a period of 8 months, as the business had gone through a fiasco.
Between 2007 and 2013, I had taken up full time roles and also tasted success working as a consultant, catering to a variety of clients PAN India. One achievement while at Athiya, was I won the best trainer title across centers of HP, India with the highest facilitator feedback of 4.8 on 5, a feat I was glad to add to my crown, as I had toiled to get to this point.
UAE Summons my family and Me!
Later in 2014, UAE beckoned me to explore her market and the market I must say was hostile like hell. I took up a job with a consulting firm and was able to crack into the market and rope in business worth 380,000 AED in a span of 6months. I brought in business not just for my department but for all the other departments too, showing yet another time that when a woman puts her soul to do something she can take the bull by its horns.
During my work there, I conducted trainings for large organizations like Emirates NBD, one of the most popular and largest banks in UAE. I got another feather in my cap and became the best facilitator across ENBD, Dubai with the highest facilitator feedback of 4.8 on 5. In about a year almost, I had conducted training programs for Emkay Group, ENBD, QBG and GPCA, all giants in the GCC. All my programs were well appreciated and received, despite the dislike the audience had to Indian coaches and facilitators.
Later in 2016, I joined a firm called Al Hamra Gorup of Companies, owned by the Sheikh of Ras al Khaimah, His Highness, Al Soud and got the opportunity to handle three business clusters under their hospitality section. At Al Hamra Group, as the HR Manager, I was responsible for the entire Hospitality division with over 200 employees of different nationalities. I had drafted over 200+ job descriptions and introduced an Employee Competency Model throughout the organization.
I was also successful in handling data migration from SAP to Success Factors, which was a huge revenue bearing and prestigious project for the company. I handled the entire talent acquisition for all 3 business clusters within the hospitality division. I was also successful in the talent acquisition from pre-opening stage for the operations team of the Sailing Club for the Marina Yacht Club. I had hired the Sailing Operations Manager, 2 Sailing Instructors and the F & B team to launch the Sailing Club Operations in a span of 3 months. I had to research, learn the business nuances before hiring as all these were new roles for the business that I worked on.
There is no short cut to success from my take. I was instrumental in turning around the entire Talent acquisition process to make it more efficient and effective, by decreasing the TAT of talent acquisition for the F & B team by ensuring seamless coordination, follow ups, prompt and quick approvals for paperwork. TAT was reduced from a 4-5-month period where the candidate would lose interest, to bringing the position on to closure within 3 months including the notice period, approval time and actual onboarding of the candidate.
2018 is when I had to resign from this challenging role as my father took seriously ill and needed my support and attention. They say parents experience their second childhood when they turn senior citizens and so did he. I came back to India along with my family to be with my father, as his health was critical. For any daughter, her father is her first hero and role model and my dad was my hero and I owe a lot of learnings to him. Sadly, I lost him in the September of 2019.
The Debacle!
The loss of my father was a hard hit on me. Just around the same time, Sridhar and I had plans of launching a business, a HR Consulting firm catering to eLearning as it was an upcoming trend then and we were looking for investors. In our quest for finding investors across the globe, we got duped by an imposter in Thailand, in the garb of a big business tycoon to a tune of almost a crore and a quarter and all my gold, worth half a crore or more. Having lost everything, my father and all our earnings, we literally were rendered homeless as we had no support from either sides; neither could we tell them about the disaster that had hit us nor were they interested to know. With my heart filled with hope and a streak of courage to brave this all, I fought days and nights to overcome the calamity that had struck my family.
But our dream to launch our business was still burning, like a fire that would never die down. Dr Sridhar, a thorough strategist and meticulous professional with over 30+ years of astute experience not just in HR, but also in Operations, Training and making robust processes, along with me, launched the venture with almost no financial assistance and won a Compensation and Benefits project from India Cements Limited, a subsidiary of India Cements India. We also ran a recruitment drive for an Oman based IT firm and just when things were getting better, hard luck struck us again and Covid took the world by storm. All our hopes were washed down the drain and all our projects stalled! This was when my true belief in God was put to test. We tried everything under the Sun. From online work to re-strategizing to working in a small firm for peanuts! Nothing worked. By divine grace, my immense trust in God and my positive thinking is what kept us alive and breathing. I have seen days of hunger and nights filled with fear for the future, as not just was I, a woman fighting for my family, but also a responsible mother of a teenager; one wrong move could have been devastating, a fear that sent chills down my spine every night. My world had collapsed right before we could build it as envisioned.
Four years of rigid struggle and living a hand to mouth, but for some help by some great well-wishers and the undoubted faith my family laid on me, this phase of my life made me tough and tenacious to take on everything that came to me. They say women are the weaker sex; I disagree. She is the personification of a Durga or a Kaali and my immense faith in these two forms is what gave me the nerve to get past the darkness that had set in our lives.
The Rise from the Ashes!
Just like all good things end, bad phases too pass by and the dawn of 2021 was a new beginning in our lives. Tejovathi Consulting, our dream business, won a HR project with Akbar travels and it has only been an upward trend post that. Having been through a wide range of experiences in life, I believe there is a lot more to do and some unfinished work. Today, I pride in saying that we are the only small consulting firm that provides the entire gamut of HR services under one roof and in the most professional manner as any big wig in the industry.
An altruist at heart, I would love to give back to society one day and I hope that life gives me that opportunity shortly. There is still a lot of ground to cover but yes, I think am inching closer to the finish line slowly and steadily. For those who say that women need to be empowered, I disagree again. One needs to empower oneself as the power lies within us! To those who dare to dream and want to walk that extra mile, I say more power to us all!
As a person, I enjoy traveling, listening to music, spending quality time with my family, an avid reader in my free time, and a spiritual enthusiast as well.
For any professional services, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetana-sridhar-2005367/ or Chetana@tejovathi.com. I welcome you to have ‘Chai with Chetana’ and would be keen to help shape your professional dreams!
