‘We prefer to grow people from within’ Flipkart

Interview of the Day: ‘We prefer to grow people from within’

Aparna Ballakur, CPO, Flipkart

After a successful stint with Yahoo! what made you choose Flipkart.com as your employer? What has been the biggest advantage so far?

I chose to join Flipkart.com because of two reasons – it was an organisation that had the DNA and drive of a start-up and the scale of a mid-sized company. This meant that the company had the growth, complexity and scale that make it exciting and the systems and processes that needed to be built ground up. The closest analogy is that of fueling up/changing wheels of race car, while it is being driven at full speed!

The biggest advantage from an ‘Employer Brand’ perspective is that Flipkart.com has a fantastic consumer brand. Every person I’ve met knows Flipkart.com or is a customer of Flipkart.com. Almost everyone we hire has been a customer of Flipkart.com. This is a phenomenal differentiator because people have a positive experience with us even before they join.

What are the differentiating factors for Flipkart.com in terms of people strategy?

At Flipkart.com, focus on people is at the core of our people strategy. What this means is that when we are designing any HR process or policy, we look at how this impacts the employee. From a talent philosophy perspective, we prefer to grow people from within and choose to hire from outside only when we don’t have the person at the right level available internally.

What were your top priorities as a CPO when you joined Flipkart.com?

• Making Flipkart.com a great place to work for employees
• Attract, develop and retain outstanding talent
• Create a strong employer brand
• Build HR processes and systems that help the organisation scale

How has the management contributed to making Flipkart.com what it is now?

The founders and other leaders at Flipkart.com have always focused on hiring the best talent. This talent has helped build Flipkart.com to where we are today. Going forward, the biggest areas where HR will contribute will be in making Flipkart.com a great place to work, attracting, developing and retaining outstanding talent and creating a strong employer brand.

According to you, which one is more critical – skills or attitude?

For experienced candidates, we look at a balance of core competencies for the job and alignment with our values. For freshers, we hire for aptitude, ability to learn and alignment with our values.

What are the top 3 skills required to be a part of Flipkart.com?

We have a very dynamic environment. Every candidate needs to be extremely self-driven, have good problem solving skills and the ability to learn quickly.

What is your talent retention strategy?

People join Flipkart.com.com to build and create. There are very few organisations where people at all levels get this opportunity. This is super exciting for people. Also, as a fast growing organisation, people’s role and responsibilities expand exponentially. Since freedom and flexibility are high, an employee’s on the job learning is 2-3 times higher than what they would get in any other company. This helps us attract and retain exceptional talent.

Which roles are you currently offering to candidates?

For our technology team, we are currently hiring software engineers and technical architects.
In retail, we recruit people at all levels with category management experience. In addition, we are also hiring for senior leadership positions in planning & operations, operations excellence, supply chain, marketing and finance and HR.

Your agenda for 2013 will be…

It would be hiring outstanding talent, leadership development and of course, employee engagement.

- See more at: http://content.timesjobs.com/?p=8416&fromsite=toi&utm_source=toi&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=toi-tj-whitelabel#sthash.dvkdOZmI.dpuf



Hi guys If u like this post please leave a comment in comment box... comment box will top right of every post and bottom of every post. its useful for me give a better information.. if u want to give any suggestion in bottom of blog there is contact information option please leave a msgs with u r mail id sure i will get u.