XLRI students learnt about the challenges in the country’s human resources landscape at the two-day annual HR conference on the campus that concluded on Sunday.

The annual event, organised by SAPPHIRE, is aimed at providing a platform for industry bigwigs, academicians and legal practitioners to discuss and debate on HR-related challenges in India.

The theme for this year’s conference was: HR personalisation: one size does not fit all.

Abhijit Bhaduri, a renowned industry expert, author and XLRI alumnus, delivered the keynote speech on Saturday. On the impact of digitalisation on organisations, he said: “Anything that has rules and is repetitive will eventually get automated.”

He said the concept of workplaces was changing, which in turn is changing the definition of work. “I guess the advent of new technologies has created more job opportunities,” he added.

Speakers in panel discussions included Tata Steel vice-president (HR) Suresh Dutt Tripathi, Tata Motors head of Jamshedpur plant Vishal Badshah, speaker, blogger and influencer Gautam Ghosh and VP-HR of Reliance Industries Arvind Subramaniam.

Two workshops on talent and performance management were conducted by Titan chief human resources officer Raj Narayan and UltraTech Cement VP (learning & development) T.R. Kashyap on Saturday and Sunday.

This apart, competitive events such as Battle HRoyale, Triathlon, Case-a-thon and Employee Auction were conducted for B-school students.