STAMPED IMPRESSIONS
A resourceful woman
Reeta Sharma

Joji Grewal represents the women of Punjab in the US and I must say that she is keeping the flag flying for them. She is the Senior Director, Human Resource, Beritas, US.

Despite the scales tilting against women in Punjab by the feudal system, many a women have made a place for themselves. Joji is one of them. She was fortunate to have parents who ensured that she got the best education to compete in the world of men. She did her postgraduation in personnel management and industrial relations in 1988 from Panjab University. Soon she was hired as a management trainee in Ranbaxy, where she worked till 1991, before immigrating to the USA.

For the next 10 years, she worked as Senior Director in KLA — Tencor, a semi-conductor company in the US. Did she feel proud of herself? "I felt proud for a different reason. You see, KLA offered me this job when the economy of the country had taken a downward trend. This gave me a clear indication and rating of my self. It was this feeling which was very satisfying," Joji says with all humility.

In addition to her job, Joji also joined the famous Berkley University to study labour laws. "I realised that in the HRD section, I should be familiar with the labour laws. Each country has a different set of laws and since I had made the US my home, it was essential to understand its laws. Despite the fact that my work schedule with KLA was extremely demanding and busy, I studied these laws. They did not only add to my qualification but also enabled me to do justice to my work," Joji reflected.

She resigned from her job after having put in 10 years because she had to "travel endlessly and it was time to settle down in life."

Her present job requires her to recruit personnel all over the world, from the US to Europe, Asia, China, Singapore and India. She is consistently looking for software engineers, sales persons, marketing people, human resource experts and financial managers.

Besides recruiting people, Joji is also responsible for training employees. "We hold orientation courses for the new recruits because each company has different requirements and the hired employees have to be enabled to deliver. Beyond the nitty-gritty of technicalities, a human resource personnel has to build confidence in the employees so that they can share all their problems with him. A human resource expert is a sort of mediator between the employees and the employer. For instance, I have to negotiate compensations for the employees as and when required. Similarly, even the appraisal is done through the human resource person. It is a very interesting as well as a challenging job," elaborates Joji.

How does she feel working in the high-profile world of the corporate sector? "It is heartening that in this part of the world there is no discrimination between a male and a female worker. However, jobs here are extremely demanding and this leads to stress. Unlike India, there is no time here for one’s self. This is the reason why there is hardly any socialisation and almost every activity is pushed to Saturday and Sunday. Thus the weekends, too, become highly packed. It is almost impossible to take time out for leisure reading, listening to music, chatting with a friend or attending social functions. We often fulfil these desires only when we visit India during vacation. However, jobs here are not only professionally satisfying but also extremely well paid. In fact, I have no regrets. On the contrary, it is only the US that can give you such a vast opportunity to rate yourself. Sky is the only limit here," says the achiever.

This feature was published on December 4, 2004