Adam Larson: 00:21

Welcome to another episode of Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and today I'm thrilled to be joined by Vrinda Sasidhar, vice president of HR consulting at HSBC. Vrinda brings over fifteen years of experience in HR across banking, tech, and process outsourcing sectors, and she's here to share her unique perspective on how HR and finance teams are working more closely together than ever before. In our conversation, we explore how Vrinda's background in psychology influences her approach to HR, how the partnership between HR and finance has evolved, and what skill sets are becoming essential for young finance professionals as technology continues to transform the industry. Whether you're interested in how organizations are adapting to rapid change or looking for practical strategies to stay ahead, you want to tune in for Renda's insights on continuous learning and our thoughts on building resilient collaborative teams for the future.

Adam Larson: 01:15

Well, Vrinda, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today. And today we're going to be talking about intersection of H. R. And finance. You know, and you have a lot of experience with HR.

Adam Larson: 01:24

And have you seen the intersection of HR and finance kind of evolve over the years, especially in the experience that you've had?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 01:30

So let me just give you a little bit of background of where what I have done to then tell you, you know, what I have probably experienced in these fifteen years actually of being in HR. So a large part of my experience within HR has been in learning in DEI, in employee engagement. And this experience has been across banking, across tech, across what we call process outsourcing sectors, right? And each sector has had, of course, unique problems and of course, unique, interesting things to solve for. So currently I work with a leading bank and I've been with the bank for eight years across four roles.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 02:10

And a large part has been in developing people and culture and for teams in finance where our conversation is really largely going to be around. My latest role of course has been in HR consulting which is a little broader than finance. So and the reason I speak about this journey that I've had is because it's been quite interesting for me to see how my role has evolved in HR as well. So I mean, one of the things I've seen that's happened through these years is that one is that HR has definitely become more strategic. I can see that business calls us more on the table.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 02:52

There's a lot of work together that we do, especially in pieces when it comes to one optimizing resources, right? So it could be not just people. I think people usually, you know, you think of HR and you think of people resources, but our work now becomes a little more productive. Are involved in people and money and data and tech because a lot of HR policies are really geared into some of these conversations as well. So I think that's where our strategic partnership really comes in.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 03:22

I think the second, I would say, piece that we have been really working on is while we talk about talent strategies, now there's an increased alignment to what we call people priorities that business sets out to have, right? So that is your workforce planning, your recruitment, your performance management, your succession planning, all of that. And like I said, did we do that before? Sure. But there's obviously increased alignment with the business as well.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 03:52

And finally, I'm sure we all know we keep talking about changes. We keep talking about future of finance. I say now it's no more future of finance than now of finance. Right. So adapting to those market changes, changes in industry.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 04:05

So I think HR really needs to focus on not only helping your organization, but now the whole conversation on protecting individuals and individual well-being as well has become a lot more important than probably the previous years when I, when I got started. So I think that's, that's a good way of saying these are three things I've seen over my journey in nature.

Adam Larson: 04:25

Well, and when you and I first spoke, you mentioned you had a little bit of a background in psychology. How do you think your understanding of like things like human behavior have kind of influenced your approach with HR, specifically in the context of working with different teams? Because you say that your role is evolving, especially in how you work with people. But we have to understand how people work, too.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 04:46

Right. You know, Adam, it's just not finance. I think psychology has just had an impact generally on my views and perspective. Right. And it's a good result in the work that I do.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 04:57

And I think you've said it right. It is about human behavior. It is about understanding what are we delivering and for who we are delivering. For me, I think HR, I mean, it's a gift to be in HR. One of the key roles that we have is to be that communication channel between employees and leadership.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 05:16

So, we able to convey, I would say, important decisions to the wider audience? I'll be able to share insights that we receive from the masses to leadership and it is another gift as HR. I know that so many people who come up to me, not just in formal set ups, even in those informal setups. So I think psychology helps in transitioning and translating these insights that we get we hear from both ends into something that's actionable and of course using human principles will help us to then convert it into something meaningful for our people and which of course makes sense for the organization. That's one.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 05:55

Of course a lot of focus, a lot of work that we do is around employee engagement and motivation. Understanding what drives employees. Every country is different, majority of an organisation is different, there are changes that are happening rapidly, and everything has an impact on this. So HR needs to be almost able to detect that pulse, I would say, and know what the employees need now, instead of always thinking, you know, this is what they require, because everything is different. So if the organisation is extremely volatile, then you need to start thinking about, say, psychological safety, because that's the need for now.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 06:32

Know, resourcing is an issue and the organization is getting their folks to have long hours in, then how do you acknowledge, how do you reward immediately so that people feel like contributing to that current environment, if I can say so. And I think psychology and I'm sure you agree as well provides those tools for managing change within an organisation. There are so many psychological, I would say, principles that also guide effective communication to mitigate resistance, to mitigate any kind of issues that come from change and to foster that culture and that climate within the organisation. We talk about data driven decision making and I'm sure we're going to be talking a lot about it in the context of finance. Now it's important to convert these decisions as well to something that we understand as an organization.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 07:23

So what do we do with that data? And I can go on and on and on. Like I said, it's not only my work, I think, in neuropsychology, it just impacted the way and perspective of how I look, look at everything.

Adam Larson: 07:37

So as we, you know, as we look at the ever evolving role of, you know, the changing landscape for finance, the changing landscape for pretty much any of the industry, any of the groups within an organization, you know, young graduates are looking into enter the field. You know, what are your insights for young young folks coming into you know, the finance team, you know, because it doesn't look the same it did ten years ago, fifteen years ago. They have a lot of different challenges. They can't just, they're not going to come in and do grunt work right away. A lot of the grunt work is taken care of by AI nowadays.

Adam Larson: 08:09

So there's different skills that they're going to have to have. What does that look like as you see it when new folks are coming into your organization?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 08:17

Absolutely right. Like I said, finance is quickly evolving. I've been with them for eight years and every two years there's a shift. I think some of the things and I'm talking from data, right? Some research, market research on finance.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 08:34

So currently finance leaders spend about 19% more of the total finance bandwidth on value added activities. So, say strategic planning, treasury, operational risk management, policy setting. That's not the case ten years ago, right? That it was absolutely generating those reports on and on and on, right? So that's a big change.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 09:01

And after that, I think I read it a few months ago about saying that a lack of skills in data literacy can cost a company as much as 1% of the revenue. Right. So data is such a valuable resource. Right. So now we can see 70% of finance organizations are using data lineage enabling technologies.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 09:24

So machine learning, I think, analytics, etc, and so on and so forth. The reason I'm telling you all of this is that in finance, we in India especially, where I'm coming from, you know, look at it from quite a linear view saying that you know you do your accountancy, you do your know your CA as we called in India and you're good you have your basics in banking but that has changed. Those rules are not going to exist. In fact, they say by 2028, '50 percent of organizations would have replaced time consuming bottom up forecasting approaches with like what you said AI, know, demand planning etc. So the call for the hour for the young grads, one is to be saying that, yes, I've gone through this formal education, but do I understand what exists in the market?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 10:16

Do I understand the digital first approach? What banks are doing what? What does automation look like from a practical view? Because you can read a lot of great articles out of those magazines, but what is actually happening on ground? What are some of the skills that you can update yourself on?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 10:37

Are you thinking about so when you think about data, the single set, single use of data are you thinking about even the ethical side of using that data? So do you understand banking regulations are, you know, up there, right? So what are the regulatory measures that our firms are pushing? So do you know enough about that, right? We're talking about sustainable finance.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 10:59

If that's something of interest to you, what does that mean? Have you read up on that? So I think one is understanding that you might be a young grad that's passed out today, but probably in six months' time. I'm not going to say it's going to be outdated. Think fundamentals always would remain the same.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 11:18

But are you understanding these changes that's happening in the industry? And that can only come from, of course, experience, but it also means that you need to continuously develop yourself. Someone told me that you need to look at a resume and every six months if you don't have something new to put in there, that means you're late. Right? You're late in learning something new, which is such an interesting way of looking at it.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 11:43

So that's something I blurted. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. Maybe I won't put it on my resume, but that's what am I going to, you know, if somebody asks me, what have I learned in this last six months? That's important.

Adam Larson: 11:55

That's a huge, that's a really good challenge to say, Hey, in every six months, have I, have I learned something new or have I done something new to put on my resume? I've never heard that before. It's really got me thinking and hopefully it's got our audience thinking too.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 12:09

Yeah, that's a little frightening also.

Adam Larson: 12:11

It is a little frightening. You know, so speaking of having our resume update every six months, you know, a good goal is every six months. Are there any other specific skills or qualities that are essential for us for success, especially, you know, in the finance team?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 12:27

Yeah. When I spoke, I think about them more from a technical knowledge perspective. Let's be honest, success in finance also hinges on soft skills. It also hinges on personal qualities. It also hinges on those fungible skills that you can bring in.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 12:44

Now this is a long list, but I'm going to try and keep it to say three, four of them quickly whatever comes on top of my head. I think one important one is of course, strategic thinking. Are you able to evaluate information? Are you able to make informed judgments? Are you able to solve complex problems?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 13:03

And these are all essential for your strategic planning and risk assessment, Right? In the same vein, when you're thinking about evaluating information, and this is something that I said we will be coming to when I started data driven problem solving. Are you able to identify issues? Are you able to analyze data? Are you able to device effective solutions?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 13:27

And let me tell you, mostly under pressure and it needs to be quick turnaround, right? So, So are your skills heightened where you can make these quick decisions? Another one, I don't know if it's just for finance to be honest, but I think this is across industries and whatever role that you do, storytelling, right? And specifically to finance, I would add maybe data storytelling. So are you able to convey complex financial data and concepts to financial experts, maybe like yourself Adam, and non experts like me from HR, right?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 14:01

Are you able to break it down for both of us? And I think the last two important ones again probably just not for finance but I think for everybody would be relationship management. Will have to develop and maintain strong working relationships with clients, with colleagues. Finance is interlinked. You have internal stakeholders, external stakeholders, and how are you able to kind of bring it all together.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 14:26

But I think to be successful, the underlying of everything is curiosity, continuous improvement, right? Like what we discussed. When an industry is changing as frequently and as quickly, it is important to keep that light almost ignited within yourselves. Are you curious if somebody talks about, you know, what this is the coding that I did, or this is a report of automated. Do you ask what, how can you show me?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 14:52

Or do you like, oh, interesting and move on. Right. I think that's the differentiator.

Adam Larson: 14:57

Yeah. Now, do you have any insights in how to stay curious? Because with the ever changing elements within an organization or within our within our roles, it's hard to always stay curious.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 15:08

Yeah, absolutely. I think one is these are now very personal pieces, right? Because I'm in HR and because I worked in finance, I have the quickness of understanding some of the concepts as a finance professional? No, But I still need to know what my business does, right? So I think few tips would be one for me.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 15:30

It's important to have that almost that circle of influence. So do you have a mentor that you look up to, right? Do you have your, I would say, informal coffee sessions where you're talking about the work that you're doing? Right. And I feel that spark sometimes mostly comes from informal conversations.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 15:49

Someone talks about a report that's automated or someone talks about this conversation with leadership, Someone talks about a meeting that happened and that spark saying, oh, that's interesting. Is that something I can, you know, take up as well? Tell me more about it, right? So, one is building that, like I said, that circle of influence. So, it could be a mentor, it could be a coach, it could and what I love is also the reverse mentoring, right?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 16:16

Could be someone who's fresh off the boat in your organization. So it doesn't always have to be someone senior. You see someone who's fantastic with technology and sit with them and ask them, you know, can you give me the basics of say coding Python? Or if they worked on any kind of technology, right? Maybe they know a lot more about AI or ML or they've read about it.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 16:39

Just sitting and saying, okay, show me what can you do with it. And another important piece of curiosity is that I feel you don't need to have the solutions. You need to just be clear with your problems and don't worry about having the solution. I think it's so quick to fit problems into the solution that we know. Right.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 17:00

So sometimes it's just asking this is be very clear, saying this is my problem and then really tapping into the network. Right. So I think curiosity is not only about getting skills, but also about saying who are the people who can enable me to move ahead. Right. So the second, I mean, I think quite related to that networking.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 17:20

How often do you network? If you're in finance, if you're in HR and you're a podcast like yourself, right? Do you have people that you will have conversations on really helping your game? Because the more you talk to people, you can realize what can you say, maybe you feel like, oh, that's not for me. And of course there's the formal ways of building continuous improvement.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 17:42

Every organization will have your learning programs, will have platforms that are enabled for you. Do you know all those platforms? And mostly they are paid for by the organization. If not, I mean, is nothing more powerful than Google. If you ask Google or chat J.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 17:58

D. P. T. What are the best, places I need to go and find out about the topic, usually the answers are right. So of course, those are your formal methodology.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 18:07

But I think what sometimes works is building, I would say, a strong network of people who's going to keep asking you questions and challenging you and for you to also challenge. I think that's something you need to do. And if you are not networking within your business or your topic of interest, that's something maybe you should think about how often do you want to do it, etc.

Adam Larson: 18:33

No, I really appreciate that insight. You know, sometimes when when things get really busy, you know, a lot of organizations are tightening their belts, it becomes really difficult to take the time to have those informal conversations. It becomes difficult to have those water cooler conversations, which if you look at the studies, it's important to have those. We need to have those informal things to get ourselves outside of the box that we put ourselves in because it can be very difficult as if you're going from task to task to task, you never have time to actually innovate and think outside of what you're what you're working on. So, you know, as somebody who was in finance and has gone to HR, are there any challenges or misconceptions that you can, you know, you can kind of share that you've encountered as you kind of been able to bridge that gap?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 19:18

So just to correct, you have always been in HR. I think the difference is that, you know, I worked with finance and now I was broader. The things the relationship between HR and other business units are often like that chicken and egg dilemma, right? Is interdependence, there's complexity, and not always a friendship, as you say, right? But we need each other, of course.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 19:40

So I would say some of the challenges would be one is siloed planning. The thing is we need to be on that table of decision making. Sometimes what happens is because there are disconnected planning processes where each function operates independently, means it leads to incomplete data. That means assumptions from our end, right? There'll be conflicting analysis on how do we kind of proceed with our people.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 20:07

So siloed planning leads to different priorities. And the problem is businesses often excuse me, businesses often incentivized with financial performance, right? Like, are you making money? But for HR, we focus on talent management, on well-being, etc. So potentially sometimes these priorities do not really go together.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 20:28

So that's one. The other one is because of the widening skill gap in the industry, particularly in areas like data science and AI, it becomes very difficult to then find talent well versed in both finance and HR. So then the work we need to do is we'll have to update our practices. We need to meet the expectations of today's job seekers. Another thing is businesses are like, now there are a hundred roles open, but we might need to find that talent in the market.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 20:58

So how do we kind of adapt that? And that's sometimes the gap. So I think the point I was trying to make was that the skills gap is the big piece that we need to work on. And I think the third one I would like to add is that now this is a challenge or a misconception? I don't know.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 21:15

But I think that the commercial acumen of understanding business, I think a lot of us in HR need to be a lot more prude in. And like I mentioned, right, we don't need to be experts, but we definitely need to understand the fundamentals of the business that we are taking care of. And sometimes it becomes almost a challenge and business picks up on that. Right. And I feel that's an important piece between trust and mistrust when you're working with business.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 21:43

So the minute they understand that, you know, you've done your research, you know, their business, you know, what their people are working for and able to, you know, share that. I think there is that's already a trust that is built. So, I guess I don't know if it's a misconception, but it's definitely a challenge that we need to work towards.

Adam Larson: 22:02

So, no, I appreciate that. So when you're looking at as an HR professional, you know, you already talked about some of the challenges, misconceptions. Are there ways that you can effectively collaborate with, you know, especially the finance team to achieve the shared goals and objectives that you know, we've been referring to?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 22:18

So I think it's literally the opposite of what I just said, right? I think one thing is early collaboration, engage early, be proactive, foster cohesion, create viable processes. If there are weekly meetings, monthly meetings that business is a part of, make sure that you're invited and you have a piece for HR and people that they are interested to partake in. Right. And you also listen to what are their challenges as well.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 22:47

So I think early collaboration is one. Communication and data sharing. Open communication channels. Single data sets. Right?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 22:55

I think this is very important because sometimes even data sets, HR uses and one business uses sometimes don't match. So how do you kind of make sure that there's that singular data? And like I mentioned, just like your early collaboration, the joint planning, Say that, okay, these are your financial plans for the year, okay, how do we align it to talent strategies? So this also helps for business to believe that it goes with the business objectives, right? So it's important that we come together.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 23:24

And of course, another big one is shared digital tools. So, know, certain business might buy certain tools, and we should also look at how do we kind of update ourselves. So make sure that we have what I mentioned earlier similar data sets, single unit. Are you creating reports of one another? Are you working on business resilience together?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 23:47

I think all of this together will slowly almost tighten that relationship. And at the end of the day, for someone sitting and working, right, we are a joint up unit, right? Leadership, business, HR, we are a joint up unit. They don't look at us as separate. So what is the best experience that we can give that person coming into the organization?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 24:07

That's what that should be the goal when we come together.

Adam Larson: 24:11

A lot of times when I have these conversations, I always like to ask, like to end the conversation with, you know, what are your hopes and expectations as you look into the future, especially, you know, the intersection of HR and finance and how, you know, there's so many things changing. There's rapidly changing economy, volatile things in the workplace. You know, it's hard to kind of keep track of things. What are your hopes and expectations as we move forward into this unknown?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 24:32

Well, I can speak for like the work that I do. For me, I think as a representative in HR, for me, it's stronger strategic partnership, making sure that we have data driven insights, enhanced collaboration. What I'd mentioned earlier today on focus on employee well-being when there's volatility, when there are changes, right? It's also impacting the person in your team. So what are some of the policies around that?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 25:01

Are the people managers equipped to deal with this new environment, this new ecosystem that they probably were not used to as people managers. So, we equipping our leadership with those tools? With technology integration also comes a bit of fear, right, about your role. I keep saying it is not your role that's going away, right? It's the boring stuff that goes away.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 25:25

It means there's something interesting. Your job is evolving and you need to be a part of that, right, to make work a lot more interesting for yourself. And I think, of course, I mean, the last part is on your market, your regulatory adaptability, right? When those changes happen, are we resilient? Are we quick?

Vrinda Sadidhar: 25:43

And that's something I mean, these are some of the skills that we all need to be having in our little kitty.

Adam Larson: 25:49

Well, Veranda, I thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join me on this podcast, and I really appreciate having you on.

Vrinda Sadidhar: 25:57

Likewise, thank you very much and good luck.

Announcer: 26:02

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.