Inspiring women leaders are transforming businesses with their creativity, dedication, adaptability, and their never-say-die attitude. They are resilient, courageous, hardworking, and never back down from challenging situations. These leaders learn from their mistakes and always lead their team towards excellence.
One such motivating personality who is influencing the business sector is Geeta Lachireddy, the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Ascent HR. The spirit of creating employment opportunities for a community was always a draw for Geeta. Since childhood, she was exposed to her father’s business initiatives.
However, instead of just being a successful professional, Geeta preferred to explore entrepreneurship, which had a larger purpose. The journey started with the greatest asset she possessed- her self-belief. While the options to start were many, she went about clearly shortlisting those that complemented her academic achievements along with a few years of professional practice.
The discovery of a niche to support organizations with their payroll and compliance operations took shape with a clear realization of the accountability associated with it. This set the ball rolling in terms of preparation, assembling the core team of experts, and evolving sustainable business models & funding options. As Geeta executed the business plan, she experimented with service delivery models, and the methods & means of improving the company’s efficiency. Customer satisfaction emerged over a period of time, and gradually, under Geeta’s perspicacious stewardship, AscentHR reached the heights of excellence, where it stands tall now.
Overcoming Challenges with Dedication
Geeta believes that challenges keep showing up in every business and it is imperative for the business to work relentlessly in ensuring deliveries/ outcomes. No enterprise can escape the challenges of attracting and retaining right talent. She states, “In addition, aligning the workforce to the organization’s goals, motivating them to perform and maintaining levels of productivity are a couple of challenges I can think of”.
Under Geeta’s perceptive leadership, AscentHR continuously focuses on improving work-life balance, up-skilling, flexible policies, among many other employee-friendly initiatives.
Vanquishing the Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic tore the world apart. However, crises often bring out the best in humankind. Managing payroll is a serious responsibility as earnings/salary is a lifeline for countless employees. Weeks are spent in anticipation of that precious credit into our bank accounts.
With Geeta on the driver’s seat, AscentHR, put its might behind the customers. The company enabled its clients to comply with a web of national, state, and local statutory requirements. “We worked around the clock to tailor our services to the specific needs of a variety of customers”, said Geeta.
Geeta directed AscentHR’s experts to race against the clock to decode new government directives and enable customers to comply without delays. Armed with special passes, the employees, were physically present at the workplace. The company delivered uninterrupted services and obligations to its customers through its innovative payroll platform with inbuilt checks and balances, to process confidential customer data.
Source of Motivation
Geeta is conscious about the opportunities for innovation and improvements that can be used to make lives better. The mere thought of exploring every bit of it wakes her up with renewed zeal every day.
She states, “Outsourcing sentiments evolved into acceptable business models. Opportunities opened, considering the human capital available in India. Exploiting the power of technology and its advancement combined with the human capital asset, along with a blend of innovation, makes the difference – not necessarily to my industry, but to the entire world of business”.
Geeta motivates team AscentHR to use technology to put the ‘human’ in ‘human resources’. She hopes to twine the flexibility and adaptability of human workers to the accuracy and efficiency of the technology. Every day, Geeta consciously tries to improve the outcomes for the customers by employing the dynamic possibilities of technology.
About Ascent HR
AscentHR is a leading global HR, payroll, and compliance solutions & services company delivering 1 million transactions per month, 550+ customers, with capability across 74 countries. Every day, the company aims to enable organizations to nurture their human capital through seamless workflows and processes. It delivers value across industries by engaging in the areas of business support, automation, consulting, staffing, and corporate compliance. The company’s prime goal is to enthuse adaptability, accountability, and accuracy.
A Caring Frontrunner
Geeta always focuses on delivering excellent employee experiences. Under her guidance, the company has crafted employee-friendly policies— specifically flexible working environment, option of work-from-home, and a clear onboarding and induction program to begin with. This equips the workforce to perform their roles with clarity. Employees are acknowledged in the company’s R&R schemes.
Geeta aims to keep the employees’ morale up and running consistently. “We introduced friendly conversations driven by robotic process automation-enabled chatbots and AI-enabled analysis of the responses to understand the pulse across multiple dimensions. The insights help us decide and execute appropriate interventions where employees need guidance or redress”, she remarks.
She steers AscentHR to follow the sustainable ‘hire-to-retire’ guideline to maintain a mutually beneficial environment between people and processes at the workplace. The company’s open-door policy in hearing and responding proactively to employees’ concerns makes all the difference in gaining trust.
Opinions about Innovation
Geeta believes that innovation is all about the successful exploitation of new ideas, methods, service models, and products to deliver a great customer experience. Bringing about new ideas, products, and time-tested principles, her company delivers a great experience to the customers and their employees.
She further states, “Innovation is not a one-time activity and is not restricted to a single industry. We continue to unleash the power of technology to meet the business needs and growth aspirations of our customers driven by adaptability, accountability, and accuracy.”
Recommendation for the Young Leaders
Geeta states that emerging entrepreneurs need to remind themselves every now and then – why they’re doing what they’re doing. “This is not so much a piece of advice as it is a compelling truth that I’ve discovered through my journey”, she says.
She believes that creativity is a potent energy that will help budding entrepreneurs. Being cognizant of experiences of the past and documenting findings and performances minutely will be a great reference as they embark on the journey.
Geeta further opines that originality is a class of its own. Going beyond expectations means that one must deliver on every point of the promise. “A job done well will always speak volumes in many forms and the younger generation should keep that as a reference”, she adds.
The Voyage Ahead
Moving ahead, Geeta will continue to power people practices, with a clear plan to enter new geographies. Her growth ambition in terms of delivering value to the customers will be fueled by:
- Continuous leveraging of technology (deep learning algorithms, dialog & conversation enablement)
- Investment and research into cognitive platforms
- Strengthening of knowledge repository
Furthermore, Geeta will also ensure that AscentHR remains to be the preferred employer. She will continue to put forth employee welfare and implement every little measure to ensure the same.
