Greetings!
I took over as the President of Gujarat Employers Organisation (GEO) in April, 2022 to drive GEO so as to ensure maximum value creation for the core of our existence, you, the members, in a post pandemic world. Before all else, A word of appreciation to my predecessor, Mr. Viral Kothari, who steered GEO in his very own calm, silent, methodical manner through two years of the strained period of the Global Pandemic.
It has been quite the journey thus far. The good news was intermingled with the bad, the positive affirmations struggled with the negative attestations, the ups & downs of a rollercoaster churned out for us all as a society, as families and as businesses. We learnt many lessons but all centered around the ONE stark reality….. "CHANGE" and it being the only constant. We changed to adapt to lockdowns, wave after wave, challenges and opportunities in businesses. We adapted to working from home, ensuring business continuity, safeguarding health & safety both personal and occupational, tackling financial well-being & mental health issues amongst people and businesses. We learnt compassion for fellow human beings and we worked to support the hardest of hit service sectors.
We, at GEO, also realised that if we do what we have been doing, we will only achieve what we have been achieving. While we do achieve many things, we do feel that this isn’t enough and we had to set higher goals for ourselves to create value using sustainable practices for our members. Also, there is a need to increase our outreach within our members and the areas we operate in. We need to adapt to the new Workplace Environment in the changing face of technology driven organisations. We have to change from just compliance based initiatives to sustainability driven initiatives covering diversity, inclusion, corporate governance, environment, social responsibility, health and financial well-being, policy advocacy to the Government on behalf of our members.
We, at GEO, therefore, have evolved a vision to go break the shackles of repetition and bring in this desired change. We are increasing our sphere of influence beyond the traditional HR & IR and looking at areas of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI), Environment, Social & Governance (ESG), Family Managed Businesses (FMB), MSME Support & Development, establishing Industry Academia Linkages, Industry Connect with Government for Policy Advocacy, Financial & Economic Affairs. We are also excited to optimize the use of the mobile tech & the internet with transition to cloud computing, softwares for managing member relations and creating member delight. We are also excited to start rollout of our inaugural GEO Awards to recognize the champions amongst industries in Gujarat for sustainable best practices in HR & IR and related areas.
We have embarked on an ambitious journey but we are sure that we will create long term sustainable value for members. We urge you to keep on following us on various social media and the website and even our mailers for all the new changes we are working on. We also beseech you to continuously and consistently give us feedback to enable us to course correct and ensure our core focus never changes from "Creating Value For Members In a Sustainable Manner"
Best Regards Always,
Bhavik Khera