NUS Business School’s Associate Professor Jayanth Narayanan realised the importance of people at the workplace when he was a young engineer working at an electrical equipment factory in India in the 90s.
The 21-year old Jayanth, or Jay as he’s more commonly known, saw how workers had to abide by strict rules. There were segregated canteens for workers and executives and their movements were supervised by practices such as tapping a pass to go out for lunch.
Despite being much younger, he had older workers reporting to him. He saw how much these workers knew and how much he could learn from them. Al
l it required was humility and the ability to connect with these older workers with respect. He realised that a company’s success is not about technology and processes alone.
“It’s the 🎥 people who matter more,” he recounted. Although this seems obvious to him now, his engineering training had made him focus more on processes and less on people at that time.
As he developed as a manager, Jay found himself getting more interested in people issues. “I was an engineer, but I started to find people more interesting than machines,” said Jay, who now teaches in the Department of Management & Organisation.
His interest inspired him to leave his job to pursue a post-graduate diploma in personnel management and industrial relations from one of India’s leading management schools. He continued his journey in human resource (HR) by joining a consultancy and subsequently became HR Manager at a start-up.
A company’s success is not about technology and processes alone. It’s the people who matter more.
-Assoc Prof Jay Narayanan
Then the opportunity came to set up a HR company MeritTrac Services with his friends. It was the new millennium and the team found that there was a market opportunity to provide assessment services to companies. Namely, companies could send job applicants to MeritTrac to undergo competency tests and it would collate results for them.
“It was an exciting time. The beginning phase of creating a start-up is uncertain and dynamic, but that’s what makes it exciting too,” said Jay.
It has been many years since Jay entered academia. Now the academic director of NUS Business School’s new NUS Master of Science in Human Capital Management and Analytics (HCMA) programme, Jay believes that the new generation of HR personnel needs to be comfortable with data. The new programme, which targets candidates with less than two years of work experience, has a unique focus on using data to boost HR functions.
A new industry trend is using data to improve the employee experience. “Artificial intelligence is already used to screen resumes, select candidates and appraise performance. With accelerated technology adoption by organisations globally, there is so much promise in this field.
“Our programme does not train students to become programmers, but it enables them to leverage technology to have meaningful conversations with their HR and IT colleagues. Our graduates will become their connecting bridge in this digital evolution,” said Jay.
The focus of organisations has also shifted in recent years. Jay said, “In the past, companies cared mostly about the customer and designed operations to provide the best customer experience. Now, more companies are looking at the employee experience.
While there are concerns on employee data being used as a surveillance tool, Jay believes that companies need to build trust with their employees and communicate that accordingly. “If data is used to help me get better at what I do instead of penalising me, then I would be more accepting of sharing my data. All ethical problems are dilemmas and it’s about how you communicate your intention,” said Jay. “There will be more of such dilemmas in the digital age, and people who go through our MSc in HCMA programme would be thinking about these dilemmas and develop frameworks and tools to deal with them.”
Find out more about the new Master of Science in Human Capital Management and Analytics (HCMA) programme at mschcma.nus.edu.sg. The first intake will start in January 2022. Applications are now open, and the cut-off date for the first round of application ends on 15 April 2021.
