An English literature major who ended up in recruitment and grew to be a seasoned HR leader

Kitty: Tell me a bit more about your career journey. How did you end up in People & Culture? And if you look back now, was it what you expected?

Pancanita: My experience in HR is very surprising for myself as well. I graduated from English literature, where I learned about poetry, drama, making story, and English history. When I graduated back in 2009, I wanted to become a newscaster, basically an editor working in media. But after six months on the job search I found that okay, I didn't get anything. 

One day when I came back from one of my interviews, I saw in JobStreet a job opening to be a recruiter for Bell Mobility. This is a national telecom in Canada and the requirement is very simple: handle recruitment interviews and whatnot. But the main requirement was fluency in English so I thought okay, that’s easy for me since I graduated from English literature, so I hit ‘quick apply’. 

The next day, I found myself in an interview with the HR manager onsite. I had a zoom interview with the CEO in Toronto (the interview was taken from Indonesia, where I was at the time). So I aced three rounds of interviews and got the job. I secured a job for myself as a recruiter and fast forward from there, I found myself enjoying getting to know people and spotting their strengths and what areas of improvement each person could have.

I moved into one of the best advertising companies called Leo Burnett. Then from there, I cruised all my career across advertising agencies to Publicis group, WPP Group. So if you know, those are the top three advertisers in the world. I grew myself as a HR, beyond recruitment and handled expatriation, payroll, compensation, benefits, people and culture and employee experience. 

I grew myself as a HR, beyond recruitment and handled expatriation, payroll, compensation, benefits, people and culture and employee experience. 

13 years later, I landed in Gojek, one of the biggest decacorn startups in Southeast Asia. I'm blessed to be ‘happily trapped’ in this field of HR, because it's about providing a landscape for people to grow. Not just focussing on their weaknesses, but using that as an area of development and a space to grow and area of development. So I'm really enjoying the role as a HR, surprisingly!

Two ingredients for successful change management: alignment between HR and leadership + overcommunication

Kitty: It's energising to hear your story. For the next question, I think your perspective is interesting because you haven't been in startups all your career, you've been in agency land. 

If you observe HR in what you were used to previously, versus now in a startup (I'd say Gojek is still a startup). What resources or support gaps do you see for HR professionals in a startup setting?

Pancanita: When you talk about resources, is it more to do with budget or can you be more specific on that?

Kitty: Maybe less so on budget because that's hard to influence, maybe prioritisation?

Pancanita: If I see myself 13 years back, I myself have evolved. The organisation has also evolved, the market has evolved, it's fast-changing. 

What HR needs support with during change would be alignment on the same principle or vision with the leaders. HR and leaders should be in the same boat agreeing to changes that should happen so communication that goes to employees would be the same. First of all, that alignment with the leaders, HR should be on the same page. Then the changes happen faster in a real manner, with the correct planning because leaders have a big influence on employees. If HR alone goes in saying, “Hey, we're going to change this”, it's not going to end well. Employees would see it as “This is mandatory, but what's in it for me?” We need a solid vision between HR and leaders.

Next would be communication. It’s very important for HR to put communication in place during management change. Together, HR and the leaders should communicate why the changes are happening and what benefit it has to employees. Those two things: communication and aligning on vision with the leadership. Leader support is really needed during this transition.

Kitty: So having leaders to help reinforce or connect the dots between what's in it for the employee personally and also the “why” behind why it's happening. Do you see any specific support needed for Southeast Asian startups compared to, say, an agency? Or do you feel it's pretty much the same principles?

Pancanita: I think it will be pretty much the same principle, of course.

Using restructuring as a critical moment to plan growth opportunities for employees

Kitty: When there's a restructuring or a reorg of some sort, how can HR use it as a moment to be even more strategic and even more aligned with development? Say if you have less people, more work or different work, how can you use that as a chance to have conversations you've been wanting to have for a while?

Pancanita: During organisational change, it’s a vital moment for HR to be more strategic in terms of talent development. I previously talked about communication, but I want to emphasise three things on how HR can be more strategic. 

I will emphasise communication because when we have the right communication, it won’t be a surprise to employees. Overcommunication is never wrong. If people are given a clear landscape of why, how and what benefit it is to them, half of the job of transitioning or organisational transformation is done.

Second, a management change is an uncomfortable situation for everybody. It means the company moved towards a different charter, or a different stage of startup. There would be new targets for employees, for the company, for everyone. HR could be more strategic by providing growth. In relation to massive layoffs that we heard about in Asia and across the world, where talent shrunk in certain organisations, there are still several spots open. With restructuring, HR and leaders should be able to create space for people to grow. I want to emphasise promoting people inside instead of hiring external senior folks. I've seen in a lot of cases (not just in Gojek) in my previous company, the fatal decision leaders or HR can make is appointing a new leader to a very solid organisation or team, which creates a ceiling for employees. 

There is no perfect leader. Maybe 90% of the requirement to become a leader is already fulfilled and the 10% would be a gap, which is their development area to grow. Everybody has development areas, so I emphasise promoting people inside, showing that there is growth in the company by making space for people below those who are promoted, versus taking more senior people from outside. 

Thirdly, HR leaders should be focused on a development plan for each individual. Even in the organisation itself, when there is a management change, where does this organisation want to move to the next level? What is the growth? To enable this growth to happen, employees also should grow. Only when there’s employee growth will the company grow, that is a mathematical formula. Leaders should consciously spend time thinking about their team and talk to employees about their development plans and career aspirations.

Only when there’s employee growth will the company grow, that is a mathematical formula. Leaders should consciously spend time thinking about their team and talk to employees about their development plans and career aspirations.

Also, enable transfer movement between teams. One employee could be in one team for  four years, five years with closed eyes. They know the challenge in the product and the solution also, that means they’ve stopped learning. We have to enable transfer. They might transfer laterally (meaning they stay in the same grade, same level, but different product statement) so they are more holistic and know all about the product. Otherwise, they can move through a transfer promotion, where they go to another discipline which helps them expand their knowledge. So these are areas I think HR and leaders should focus on to provide growth and consistent development for their team. If it’s taken seriously, I think attrition would be low during change.

Building a learning culture by encouraging employees to be comfortable with “not knowing” and scrutinising successes (not just failures)

Kitty: That's some really helpful structure there that HR leaders can put in place to not just reduce attrition, but maximise engagement after a big change. 

So we talked about structure, the next question is maybe more about culture, particularly building a learning culture. We've noticed that startups are confident that they're good at learning at a general level because of the whole build-test-iterate experimental mindset. They understand how to fail and how to learn from it. But that might not always mean they're good at learning in a structured way. 

Where do you see the role of learning for startups when things are always changing?

Pancanita: Not just startups, but in any organisational setup, learning is the core of the company's growth. The company should learn what's working, what's not, and then it comes down to an individual or team or individual. Learning shouldn’t just be a program, it should be a culture. If it's built from top down, it’s a beautiful growth process for everyone. What you mentioned just now is correct, iteration and learning what's working, what's not. Companies should put in place what we at Gojek call “retrospective” meetings. Even for us as HR (forget about product team or engineering, that's a part of their working system), we wanted to see what we can improve in our program last year versus this year. We always do retrospective meetings, we will ask all the PDP saying, what do you think went well? How can we improve it? Where did we go wrong? How can we do better? 

We always learn from our failure, but we also could learn a lot from our success. What did we do differently? How did this become successful? As much as we learn from failure, we'll also learn from the success. Learning should not be just a one-time program that you give to a vendor and tick off.

Next, we have to scrutinise our success more than our failure. We always learn from our failure, but we also could learn a lot from our success. What did we do differently? How did this become successful? As much as we learn from failure, we'll also learn from the success. Learning should not be just a one-time program that you give to  a vendor and tick off. Learning should be continuous and should result in better quality of the work. It's not just, hey I sign up myself for leadership training but nothing gets implemented in my day-to-day decisions or I don't influence my stakeholders. More than anything else, learning is not just a program, but you learn on the job itself. So you know the principle of learning 70/ 20 /10? 70% you learn on the job, 20% you learn by exposure, 10%:  you learn through the classroom and theory. 

If you want to learn, throw yourself into a project that is challenging. I know because I implemented that for myself. I started in recruitment before joining Gojek, I was Head of HR, I oversaw the whole HR spectrum. But it wasn’t given to me, it was about being eager and saying, what can I do more? I’ve handled recruitment, I achieved my target, now give me more. With this attitude, expose yourself, make yourself trainable and be comfortable with going through those “unknowing” stages.

Suppose I had not learned about payroll, I’d have to be comfortable in the learner’s seat, not knowing anything at all. But that's the point, when you’re eager to be vulnerable and in the stage of “not knowing” in order to understand, that's the heart of a learner. If everybody had that type of mindset, I think anything can be achieved in this world.

When you’re eager to be vulnerable and in the stage of “not knowing” in order to understand, that's the heart of a learner. If everybody had that type of mindset, I think anything can be achieved in this world.

Kitty: That's so true, it reminds me of a Zen saying or proverb about having a beginner's mind, you cannot fill a cup that is full. 

Pancanita: Every expert was a beginner. They don’t suddenly come down from heaven to earth and become the expert in what they do. They go through challenges, they go through mistakes. But they have the bravery to say that hey I'm wrong, show me how to do it right.

That's the heart of reorganisation right? Management change is really a great chance for HR and leaders to  induce learning and make learning a culture, not just a program. That’s very essential for me as a HR.

Expanding the influence and impact of HR beyond the immediate organisation

Kitty: I love it. Since we're talking about learning, what about you? What's in store for you for the rest of the year?

Pancanita: I joined Gojek three years and three months ago and was handling all the engineering here in India. I'm based in Bangalore and it was a huge learning curve for me. I learned how to communicate with engineers. So as HR, we learn who our customers are in order to use the same language and influence them as leaders or employees. During those three years, I learned alot from Gojek.

What's next for me as a HR? It's not about the prestige of the title or the salary, but more about my impact on others. Has my assignment in this team given benefits in terms of the organisation achieving its goal? No matter where I am or what role I’m in, I want to be more impactful and make sure HR initiatives or programmes are actually of benefit to employees. The next thing for me is to improve or increase my impact within Gojek or outside and be a very strong partner to leaders and employees to help them to solve the kind of problems HR can help with.

Has my assignment in this team given benefits in terms of the organisation achieving its goal? No matter where I am or what role I’m in, I want to be more impactful and make sure HR initiatives or programmes are actually of benefit to employees.

Kitty: That's so important because if you're experienced having a seat at the table and understand what the business wants, it's so much easier to influence. 

We're just seeing a lot of, I guess less experienced, HR professionals who they kind of can't overcome that mindset that the business thinks that they're just a support function or they're just a service provider rather than a strategic partner. That's a pattern that we've seen in Southeast Asian startups.

Pancanita: Oh, that's interesting. That's the main shift that we need to make sure happens.

“Impact is impact”, no matter how senior or entry-level your role may seem

Kitty: That's what we're hoping that leaders like yourself can kind of it's like a person from the future for them.

Pancanita: Actually, that's an old HR mindset where you think of yourself just as Admin or just a Chief Providing Officer. That mindset is so yesterday. HR is more than that. Even though you’re new in the beginning of your career as a staff associate or maybe supervisor, not in the head of a HR role, impact is impact. I always instil that in my teammates. Whatever level you are now, make sure you deliver the highest quality job that could impact people in so many degrees. They will be thankful for you.

Impact is impact. I always instil that in my teammates. Whatever level you are now, make sure you deliver the highest quality job that could impact people in so many degrees. They will be thankful for you.

For example, you might be doing admin for health insurance, but you help an employee during a crisis in their life that will create their loyalty to the company for serving them well. This is the way I see my job from the beginning of my career. I never see that “I'm just this, I'm just that”. 

Whenever a company creates a role, it means that role is important. If it's not important, we will not hire that. But the scope of impact would be different, of course. Admin and Associate Manager, Head of HR, it's a very different impact, but everyone is impactful. So I hope that mindset will go to all the HR startups, whoever is starting a career in HR.

Kitty: Thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed hearing from you. I learned a lot. Speaking of always be learning…

Pancanita: Thanks so much for having me. I'm glad to share my knowledge, my experience. Hopefully that could be a reference for anybody who is going through the transformation and management change. That is a place I always say that even employees who just joined. Where Gojek is a place where so much changes in just one month, many things could happen.

Always have a mindset during the management change to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. And then if you want clarity, seek for clarity. You should not wait and see or wait for people to enlighten you. Proactiveness should come from all  departments, not just from HR. Suppose I'm an employee. I'm not sure what this change is about. I'll go to my leader, I'll go to my HR. With that proactiveness at the organisational level, imagine how many things could happen and what we can achieve together. Engaged employees will be proactive.

Proactiveness should come from all departments, not just from HR. Suppose I'm an employee. I'm not sure what this change is about. I'll go to my leader, I'll go to my HR. With that proactiveness at the organisational level, imagine how many things could happen and what we can achieve together.

Kitty: Yes. And they have a growth mindset.

Pancanita: Correct. Growth mindset. Thanks for that.