• 15 Feb, 2025
• Dr. Viji Vibhu Prakash

Strategic HR, Talent Management, Real-Time Performance Management & Adapting to AI: Insights from Viji Vibhu Prakash

Magazica: Dear viewers and our beloved audience, we are here for another exciting session of Magazica. We are here with an education leader and one of the most prolific voices in the HR field, working in George Brown College’s Human Resource postgraduate program. She’s the coordinator and also teaches people analytics. Her name is Dr. Viji Vibhu Prakash.

We are delighted to have her with us. We will talk about education, human-centric education, work-life balance, and many things related to it. She has graciously permitted me to address her as Viji. So Viji, welcome to the conversation.

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Thank you, Suman. . I appreciate the opportunity and look forward to sharing some of my experiences and views here.

Magazica: We’ll be delighted about that and we’re looking forward to a very insightful conversation. So first, would you please tell us about your professional journey? What motivated you to join the education sector after working in other sectors? What was the basic motivation to join academia?

Viji Vibhu Prakash: My enrolment into the Master of HR was by chance, but I loved it. Training and development was an area of keen interest but realized that I had to work in the industry and learn nuances to approach training within the industry. My first stint was in recruitment, and then I moved on to human resource functions through consulting projects across industry verticals: supply chain, pharmaceutical, retail etc.

The transition into training was through the diploma in training and development from the Indian Society of Training and development (ISTD), which is affiliated with IFTDO. Along with exposure to cross organisational training, my interest in psychometric dimensions, led me to get certified in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Step 1 and 2 Certification. The profiling knowledge helped me better understand the audience within training and organisations.

Training experience is what cascaded down and prompted me to explore academic profiles. My first job in Canada was within training, where I used Myers and Briggs extensively. Equipped with the operational background in human resources, I identified different courses to teach and getting my doctorate was supportive. It opened the doors to engage in critical research. Currently the whole dimension of education is changing, we see a lot of diversity and I have always wanted to bring what I learned in my doctoral journey, and experience back into academia, within classrooms.

Magazica: Okay. And where did you get your doctorate from?

Viji Vibhu Prakash: My doctorate was from the University of Liverpool, which specializes in the action research model. My thesis explored an organizational problem and studied it through cycles of research. Had the opportunity to implement components of my study to manage strategic change. This was done within a manufacturing unit in Thika (Kenya) in the area of performance management within the human resource domain.

Magazica: So, with the years in human resources, you have probably covered the majority of the spectrum, if not all. What significant changes have you observed in the HR practices, and how have they influenced employee well-being or related to employee well-being over the years? What are the changes in the HR practices you have observed?

Viji Vibhu Prakash: From when I entered the recruitment domain, in the 1990s. We still had the whole image of HR being that of a firefighting department. Now there is a need in the industry to do it effectively. i.e. efficiency coupled with cost-effectiveness. HR Industry has changed tremendously, given the strategic involvement of HR within operations I think one of the most important things that HR is doing right now, especially since COVID, is that we have embraced disruption.

The human resource departments, were able raise at that critical moment and create an environment that managed employees who were overwhelmed, HR created a safe zone for employees to work in. HR has migrated to embracing disruption and come out as a function that is strategic and more tactical in nature, through the use of people analytics.

We have seen the trend and shift in HR, at George Brown, within our programs. So we are focussing on exposure and skill training in the area of people analytics and this has been supported by the program advisory committee (PAC) as a critical / futuristic skill among HR professionals.

There is tremendous change, both positive and challenging around performance, with real time performance management strategies. The industry needs students to have the ability to be analytical, foresee relationships, and predict associations based on analysis of existing data, both from within organizations and the market, and be able to benchmark outcomes. Wellness is being stressed within human resources now. We’re handling engagement through wellness within organisations.

If I were to use a couple of words to describe the current role of human resources, it would be strategic and tactical human resources. That’s the front-end role Organizations, are looking at human resources to play. Human resource individuals are expected to lead companies towards change and change management initiatives.

Magazica: I love the phrases, “engagement through wellness,” “real-time performance management,” and “strategic tactical HR.” Strategic HR, we have heard the term, but “strategic tactical HR” made a whole lot of new sense. You defined it so perfectly that HR was, a long time back, a firefighting department. True, now it has had a huge shift. You’ve practically answered my next question as well. How do the HR challenges come into the picture? I will go one leg deep. As a professor of the School of Human Resources, a planner, and a program coordinator for HR post-grad programs at George Brown, how do you integrate real-world HR challenges? You have immense real-life experience. How do you integrate those real-world HR challenges into your curriculum to prepare students for an evolving workplace? How do you do this?

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Education within this domain is very experiential, and at George Brown College we focus on that. We are supported by a strong faculty that comes from the industry. As a program coordinator, we work along talent with industry experience, those who can share, their experiences and learnings from diverse backgrounds across industry verticals. We encourage faculty to bring their experiences in the areas of project / team and conflict management.

In terms of within the classroom, we use a lot of case studies. for example, I’m currently teaching within the people analytics program, talent management and data visualization. The class sessions are coupled with theory and example of challenges in recruitment, engagement strategies, attrition, performance strategies etc. Case studies are pulled from the industry. There’s a lot of research that goes in terms of collection of databases and validation of databases used within the classes. We analyze discuss the pros and cons, and question opinions. The point is to discuss different perspectives and ideologies that would define the case. Most of our courses use open-ended learning material and we encourage our students to research framework and critique it in comparison to industry standards.

Magazica: That is a big part of action research as well. You learn by doing.

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Yes and, that’s crucial. Students learn a lot within the classroom If you look at, AI, for example, I think we all have mixed perceptions or take on AI. There are faculty who are supportive, while some who are trending slowly, and others who are a bit wary and stepping back on it. Typically, what we are trying to do within classrooms is encourage its use because, at the end of the day, it is there to stay.

The drive is to encourage the use of AI, with ethical boundaries – to see how it can support. We have strategies in place where we ask them to support research with review peer-reviewed journals and articles and to cite references, even if they’ve got some initial ideas through AI. The students are encouraged to research beyond AI outcomes. They are challenged to critique AI outcomes. Case studies are extensively used within HR. We bring in guest speakers into the classroom, people who are in the industry talking about current trends, what works, what doesn’t, advantages, industry /employer expectation, interview strategies etc. There’s a lot of debate and discussion within classrooms to encouraged and helps participants.

Courses have a project component that requires students to do primary and secondary research. They pick industry specific wicked problems and research solutions gaining exposure and outreach into the industry.

Magazica: Yeah, user and end-user experience.

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Yes, and the idea is that, at the end of the day, all these students are studying and gaining knowledge to achieve their career aspirations. That network is critical, and we need to support and open the doors towards that network.

Magazica: So, from the professional side, let’s now bounce back a little bit to the personal side of your life that is very connected to your profession. How do you balance all the professional responsibilities and personal life? What do you think are the main challenges from your own experience and others, your colleagues, your students? As a post-grad coordinator, you have seen a lot of professional students as well. How are they balancing their experience with their life? What are the main challenges these days and how do you address them?

Viji Vibhu Prakash: I think it’s about setting priorities. We talk about work-life balance but the trend in HR is towards blending work-life. Organizations are encouraging employees to align their professional life with their personal life.

Magazica: We call it work-life integration now. Yes, with remote work and all that.

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Priorities, are very important. Do I personally always succeed in prioritizing? No, I have my moments where I would love to balance it, but sometimes I must force myself to create that blend to balance. Making time for myself, could be volunteering within my community or just spending time on my own to refresh and rejuvenate. Sometimes it is about juggling these priorities. Prioritising and setting boundaries have helped me personally. I don’t call myself a workaholic, but I think you should probably talk to my family and friends to find out if I’m a workaholic or not because it’s always the people around you who can tell.

For immigrants and students who are coming into the country, it can be very challenging, and we see that in the college, for example, a student must study and work. They have moved away from their family, and it’s a big change. There’s a lot of turmoil going on within every individual when they away from family and friends. They are faced with many challenges, in the areas of professional and cultural acclimatization.

Magazica: And there’s no mom’s kitchen.

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Yes, there’s no mom’s kitchen. George Brown has a lot of support for students in terms of mentorship, peer, and counseling support. Faculty members, support and help with accommodations. As program coordinators, we encourage them to ask questions and share issues / challenges. We guide them to the right person or sources to get the right information. Be it international work permits, counseling, accommodation or course help? We create and define strategies and pathways to help. Student wellness is critical, and there’s a lot of support within George Brown, especially for students who come to Canada.

Magazica: That’s fascinating. I like the term work-life blending. I’ve heard of work-life integration from work-life balance. We’ve shifted to work-life integration, but blending—I think it’s a more proactive word. Integration sometimes sounds mechanical, but blending feels more organic.

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Yes, during COVID, people collaboratively worked with their partner / spouses and kids that’s where the blend happened. Flexibility and wellness and successfully integrated and blended professional and personal lives of individuals.

Magazica: Performance management is a crucial issue for organizational success within the domain of HR. What are some key elements, and considering that our generation has already started working with Gen Zs and Millennials, how do you think that over these intergenerational changes, we are in the same workplace now and also with AI? HR is having a strategic and tactical shift nicely pointed out by you. What do you think the criteria metrics or KPIs of performance management are? How is the shift going there?

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Within performance management, I’ve extensively used 360 feedback. My doctoral research topic was real-time performance management and its implementation.

Magazica: Can you give us a layman’s understanding of it, so our professionals can get the vibe of it?

Viji Vibhu Prakash: A real-time performance management system would be where organizations use ERP and HRIS systems to assess, evaluate, and manage the performance of stakeholders within an organization, with continuous communication and feedback. Within real-time performance management, the idea is that organisations don’t have to wait for a quarterly or a half-yearly review to assess or mitigate performance issues and challenges.

Magazica: What does ERP stand for?

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Enterprise Resource Planning systems within organizations.

Magazica: Fantastic. So, we will go a bit tangent, like a small digression. Performance management closely focuses on talented people. There is a lot of noise in this definition of talent. How do you define talent? What is your take on it? Like focusing on the 80-20 principle that 20% of the people do 80% of the meaningful tasks, something like that, very rudimentarily.

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Today, talent management encompasses all functions of HR. Examples, in recruitment the percentage of diversity implemented within our recruitment cycles, is talent management. Within training, cost-benefit analysis and the impact of training, supports talent management. The extent to which organization has been able to create smart goals, and assess individuals on smart goals, identify gaps, and bridge the gap through training and development is talent management.

Magazica: We have seen major shifts in our work life during COVID. During COVID, there was a major shift. Another major shift is the advent of AI. We are living through another shift, and usually, such shifts would come every 10 or 20 years. Now it is happening successively. We just experienced COVID; we are still adjusting to remote work and the home office concept. Then AI came in. How can we build resilience for this fast-evolving workplace? What is your experience and take on it? What would you tell your students?

Viji Vibhu Prakash: You were asking me earlier about Gen Z. They are more adaptable to change and the fast-evolving workplace. There were times when employees were defined by the companies they worked for. But if you look at Millennials and Gen Zs, they have a brand of their own and bring specific skill sets. Entrepreneurial ventures that been successful, highlights their brand in terms of opportunities grasped, strategies, changes initiated, and efficiencies within the market. Gen Z are open to change and adaptable. Resilience is encouraged through independent and ethical thought process and the drive is to be socially accountable. Within academia we support by preparing them with the skill sets and areas to practice within the classroom.

Example, in the people analytics program, we introduce them to software like BI / RSuite / SAC / SAP /Tableau / Visier etc. we are opening doors to expose them to industry standards within the college. We give them access to tools so they can experience and work within them. They are given a safe environment to make mistakes and learn through them. Same applies to AI, and the ethical parts that comes into play.

Magazica: Viji, thank you. Thank you very much for the time you have spared with us and for contributing so many insights. We have talked about the shift of HR from traditional to strategic and tactical. We have talked about experiential learning and how students can benefit from networking, AI, work-life balance, setting priorities and boundaries, and work-life blending. We have discussed performance management in real-time. We have touched a whole lot of ground with Gen Zs and how we can adapt to the changing landscape. Hopefully, our readers, specifically working professionals and aspiring professionals, will greatly benefit from it.

Thank you very much on behalf of the whole team of Magazica for contributing these beautiful insights. Thank you. It was so thought-provoking.

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Thank you again for the opportunity, and I hope I was able to get across.I appreciate the opportunity. It was nice discussing and talking about this. It kind of made me also go on a thinking loop of “What next?”

Magazica: That was the idea. Thank you very much.

Viji Vibhu Prakash: Thank you.