Armed with over 25 years of expertise, Preeti Kannan, President & Chief Human Resources Officer at IIFL Finance, is a results-driven HR leader, renowned for offering insightful, high-impact guidance to senior leaders across Indian and multinational organizations. Preeti has formerly headed the HR divisions at Kotak Mahindra Bank, and has been responsible for leadership roles Bajaj Finance, Fujitsu Consulting, Oracle Financial Services, Mindtree, and Symbiosis College. As a certified coach and psychotherapist, she focuses on strategic workforce alignment leveraging technology to enhance individual and organizational growth, fostering business excellence.
While engaging in a conversation with Women Entrepreneur Review, Preeti asserted a powerful stance on how HR is not just a support function, but has evolved into a strategic partner in business decision-making. The conversation sheds light on the profession gaining credibility through technology-driven insights, proving that HR has become indispensable to organizational success, for both, people and businesses to thrive. It highlights the importance of balancing technology with human interactions for meaningful connections and engagement to navigate workforce challenges.
Here are choice excerpts from WER’s conversation with Preeti.
In the current dynamic economic landscape, how do you use predictive analytics to address talent gaps and anticipate shifts in employee expectations and redesign roles or structures pre-emptively?
At IIFL, predictive analytics drives talent strategy and enables smarter workforce decisions. I recently introduced Amber, an AI driven listening tool that provides real-time sentiment analysis, allowing us to anticipate shifts, refine roles, optimize structures and benchmark against industry standards. This technology supports tailored upskilling, market-driven skill interpretation, policy evolution, and career development enhancements. My role involved leveraging these insights to redesign our branch manager structure. We addressed growth limitations by introducing an Assistant Branch Manager role, enabling a smoother transition to BM positions. We are also building talent marketplace frameworks to support workforce mobility fostering structured career progression.
How do you redefine productivity metrics in a finance-focused workplace to ensure they capture holistic value?
Redefining productivity metrics requires moving beyond purely quantitative outputs to a more holistic approach that values creativity collaboration, and problem-solving. In our finance-driven environment, traditional KPIs like revenue growth and task completion are now integrated with qualitative factors such as innovation, client experience, and strategic decision-making. Supplementing conventional productivity measures with AI-driven analytics, feedback, and sentiment tracking enables us to have a broader evaluation spectrum. Evaluating factors like employee contributions in process refinement, team development and customer engagement and satisfaction ensures a well-rounded performance assessment. Measuring engagement in cross-functional projects like innovation efforts highlights intangible contributions. Aligning business strategies with global market trends fosters a results-oriented culture that values both creativity and tangible performance.
With real-time data and dashboards becoming commonplace, how do you prioritize which data streams deserve executive attention versus those that should inform mid-level HR operations?
Data is a powerful asset, readily accessible at our fingertips. Prioritization is essential to ensure decision-makers focus on what matters most. Executive leadership does not require operational metrics like survey response rates or daily sentiment shifts, but instead need actionable insights that influence strategic direction. High-impact data trends, spanning productivity, engagement, retention risks, and workforce planning are essential to leadership. Transforming this data into predictive dashboards enables risk identification and empowers proactive, strategic decisions.
Mid-level HR operations benefit from detailed, day-to-day insights on recruitment pipelines, policy adherence, and performance metrics. Establishing a structured reporting hierarchy helps manage data volume while reducing information overload. Integrating AI-driven notifications and tailored dashboards refines data flow by eliminating noise and surfacing insights. This ensures that leadership remains engaged in strategy while HR teams efficiently handle operational execution.
When designing HR policies, how do you use data to uncover the unseen barriers to employee engagement such as cognitive overload, burnout, or hidden biases? Can HR ever truly "data-ize" emotional intelligence?
I believe that data alone cannot dictate HR strategies, over-reliance risks diminishing the human touch. Instead, it should act a facilitator, complimenting trust-driven relationships. Ultimately, HR must strike a balance between efficiency and empathy by blending qualitative perspectives alongside quantitative analytics. For instance, AI-powered recruitment tools optimize hiring, but key decisions must consider mentorship potential, cultural fir, and emotional intelligence, factors that algorithms might miss. Similarly, sentiment analysis and engagement metrics should guide but not replace direct employee interactions. Coaching and check-in translate insights into action. Technology should support, not replace human connection, ensuring efficiency without losing personal touch. Beyond depending on digital sessions, my team and I actively visit branches creating a more deep and authentic impact.
How do you prevent data-driven HR initiatives from becoming overly mechanistic, particularly in finance? How do you ensure that the human element is not lost in the pursuit of efficiency?
While numerous digital tools exist, true employee engagement comes from direct, meaningful and impactful connections, be it by visits, discussions or town halls. Customizing these interactions to align with business dynamics and leadership objectives strengthens engagement. No digital tool can substitute the authenticity of human interaction. Maintaining a personal touch is crucial for effective engagement. Predictive analysis, including attrition modelling and pulse surveys, can detect workload strains and disengagement early, through emotional intelligence defies full measurement. While emotional intelligence cannot be fully quantified, HR can use these insights to implement targeted support strategies.
As financial markets evolve, how do you anticipate data-driven HR practices will shift in response to global economic disruptions, regulatory changes, or industry-specific transformations?
The evolving financial landscape requires HR to adopt agile, predictive, and risk-aware data practices. Real-time workforce planning must integrate scenario modeling, dynamic agility matric, and robust compliance which tracks to navigate economic and regulatory shifts effectively. Leveraging predictive analytics, HR can proactively address skill shortages, control workforce expenses, and maintain regulatory compliance. The emphasis is moving beyond past performances to evaluating employees’ capacity to reskill, embrace change, and thrive amid uncertainty. As workplace dynamics shift due to automation and hybrid work models, with AI-driven HR decisions and digital well-being initiatives will be critical in enhancing engagement, efficiency, and long-term workforce planning.
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