Rajni Hasija

Director Tourism & Marketing IRCTC

Having played a pioneering role in the inception and development of perhaps one of the largest e-commerce sites in Asia, ‘www.irctc.co.in’ the internet ticketing site of Indian Railways, Rajni Hasija has contributed immensely to grow the IT business of IRCTC which is one of the major revenue segments of IRCTC and today books an average of 11 lakh tickets a day.

Rajni Hasija has worked tirelessly to develop IRCTC into a full-fledged OTA with its travel and tourism portal, offering a host of tourism products for the customer. In a latest, with her initiative, IRCTC also started online bus booking through its tourism portal, thus achieving the target of offering travel solutions through all means of transport. Hasija has taken over the additional charge of Chairman & Managing Director of IRCTC in February 2021.

A firm believer of participative leadership and an open organisational culture rather than being a leader in the traditional mould.

“It is important to create an atmosphere of mutual respect and open dialogues within the organisation. The business environment has been very dynamic even for Public Sector organisations like IRCTC. There is a Japanese Term, “Itai Doshin”, which means “Many in Body, One in Mind”. If an organisation works on the principle of Itai Doshin encouraging

the thoughts of the employees in an open environment, it is bound to succeed in its business.”

According to Hasija, the term “Empathy” can be easily understood as “walking in someone else’s shoes”. Although a nonfigurative concept, it is important for the team leaders at all levels to practice empathy to encourage their team to perform better. In this fast-changing world where we spend a majority of time in our workplace, it is not possible to separate our personal life from work life.

She feels that one’s private life always casts an effect on work life, and vice versa. It is extremely important to empathise with their teams, especially in the shadow of the ongoing pandemic. Sometimes, just a few words of encouragement or a patient hearing works wonders in resolving issues.

It is important to create an atmosphere of openness, mutual respect and trust within an organisation. The spirit of empathy would be imbibed automatically on all levels. The ongoing pandemic has proved that organisations which empathised with their employees during this testing phase have shot back to prominence faster.

Next Vacation: Ladakh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.