A Unique Culture For A Unique Strategy

U GRO Capital founder Shachindra Nath has adopted a unique cultural strategy to give his venture a long life. He shares philosophical and practical perspectives in an extended interaction with Manoj Agrawal:

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Manoj Agrawal: The internal and external risks that NBFCs face are becoming more frequent. As the chairman of U Gro Capital, what HR risks are you are mindful of?

Shachindra Nath: Many areas of financial services are very transactional in nature. You do the transaction and at the end you know the result, then and there. In lending, the effect of your work is seen many years down the line, perhaps even 10 years later. The biggest problem, particularly with people of our generation, is that they are impatient, and therefore human capital is misaligned when it comes to long-term business. In the financial services space, if you compare the more successful vs less successful organizations, in the former, the top management comprising say 50 people, would have stayed for at least 5-7 years. They would have thought and built that business with a long-term vision. Now people want to come in today, earn everything tomorrow and then go somewhere else. Nobody wants to wait to see the outcome. So, if I have to reward somebody, I want to reward at that outcome, not for today’s effort. Finding such people is the most difficult challenge, more so for NBFCs. As an analogy, people want the fruit right after planting the seed. They are not willing for the tree to grow and bear fruits.

What approach have you adopted to attract millennials and maximize their motivation?

Millennials would basically be youngsters with around 10 years of experience. We do not hire Generation Z. Financial services, especially lending, is a serious business. It’s a business of intellect, knowledge, process, rigor and experience. It is not a headcount business, unlike BPOs. There are defined processes, but there is an intellectual activity going on which results from years of experience. So, we need experienced people at all levels and that is why we don’t hire Gen Z.