Future of HR: In Conversation With Mr. Debin Dennis

Our next HR Speaks story is about Mr.Debin Dennis, Senior Technical Recruiter, CSG, here’s a look into his journey as an HR Professional and his take on where the HR industry is headed.

We started by asking him how he started his journey as an HR professional to which he answered “I was pretty passionate about speaking with people and loved sharing ideas. My professional journey started off as an intern QA in a development startup. Being an intern, I got to interview people to hire the next intern and I loved the job. I expressed my interest to handle the HR functions at the start-up and they gave me an opportunity. I didn’t have a tech background or good grades but I was confident that I could do a good job here. I learned a lot, worked hard, and until now had a fun-filled job along with my share of challenges.”

We followed this question by asking him about his biggest challenge as an HR professional. He was keen on letting us know about his challenges. He said “You have a position, if it is filled within the stipulated time period then it’s great but if it’s not, you have to start from scratch. However, times are changing, companies are spending money on HR, global talent is open now which has been a blessing. Nowadays the challenge in TA, would be the power of marketing! You have to be powerful to convince the business leaders whether the candidates are fit/unfit for the organization and powerful enough to convince the candidates that the opportunity and organization is right for them. Hence being in talent acquisition is a smart job, but it’s not an easy one.”

Then we asked him about he found a balance between his work and personal life to which he replied “Communication and time management is the key here. You always just need to find the right balance between what is important and what is not. Prioritize tasks at home, hobbies, work accordingly, initially it is difficult but practice makes it perfect.”

When asked about his experience with diverse roles he mentioned “Yes, it’s something that I have always encouraged. At CSG we do a lot of diversity hiring, we engage in diversity for leadership roles which have been very successful. We run a lot of DEI programs for the same and we encourage people to come up. As a company, we are allowed to work from anywhere, and now we have people working all around the globe. Also observed that working with diverse people has also improved our scope of learning, and collaboration.”

Pandemic was hard on people, we asked him about how the pandemic affected him to which he said “When it comes to the good things, I get to spend a lot of time with my family, I get to play with my kid. Upbringing is easy, you don’t miss moments and you are always there. You can work on yourself and everything is at your convenience. Working with CSG has been fabulous, you’re yourself while working here. Pandemic also has some bad perks as well. Everything is virtual and F2F communication has become difficult. People have social anxiety disorders these days; people who were social before have become introverts. My IT friends complain that they’re burned out after work and need only rest on weekends. At CSG we tell our employees not to overwork, if they cross 40 working hours you get an email that they have worked extra hours. Also, we have off days for Me-Time as well which is another employee-friendly initiative. We make sure to give proper notifications to avoid employee burnout. I suggest every company should take measures to sort out employee burnout. A Happy employee will always give you more than expected.”

Lastly, we asked him about a personal story that would give people entering the HR industry some insight. He was very encouraging and said “Being in HR is never an easy job. Everyday learning is obvious. You have heartbreaks and rewards which are more heartwarming. Things change each day which in turn makes you more adaptable towards change. For upcoming HR folks, nowadays it’s all about data, you should be a data-driven analyst for this job and with the virtual world, you should have excellent judgment over things.”