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The
transformation is complete; the buyers have become the merchandise.
Human resource (hr) professionals were the anonymous backroom
boys who shot off appointment letters, drew up job contracts,
worked out group insurance policies, maintained industrial relations
on an even keel and coaxed, cajoled, lured and enticed key personnel
from rival, and other, firms into the fold of their employers.
But in a delicious irony, it is they who are being coaxed, cajoled,
lured and enticed by almost every section of India Inc over the
last six to 12 months.
"It's a direct fallout of the jobs boom
in the economy," explains Achal Khanna, Country Manager,
Kelly Services, a staffing services firm. Companies normally employ
one hr person for every 200 employees, so the hundreds of thousands
of new jobs being created in the country are leading to a massive
demand for hr professionals. Concurs E. Balaji, COO, Ma Foi Management
Consultants, an executive search and staffing services firm: "hr
is a value-enabling function; so every sector that is hiring in
large numbers will need hr professionals." Not surprisingly,
then, the IT and IT enabled services sectors, which are hiring
big numbers in their core functions, are also recruiting large
numbers of hr professionals. "We currently employ over 62,000
people and plan to add another 30,000 this year," says S.
Padmanabhan, Executive Vice President and Head, Global HR, TCS,
the country's largest it company. This is expected to translate
into a demand for about 150 hr professionals. "Infosys, too,
has been recruiting big time," says Bikramjit Maitra, Vice-President,
hr, Infosys Technologies, adding: "in the last year alone,
we have recruited 150 hr pros." The retail and real estate
sectors, which are expected to create one million new jobs over
the next three years, are also doing the same.
Everyone BT spoke to for this report was
unanimous that the hr function today has become extremely specialised.
"The focus earlier was on campus selection," says Balaji
of Ma Foi, "but today, hr professionals have to concentrate
on talent acquisition and management." At the very minimum,
this means aligning hr to business objectives. Adds Udai Upendra,
VP, Global hr, Ranbaxy Laboratories: "To effectively manage
growing workforces, companies are looking for specialists in functions
like performance management, organisation development and learning
and leadership development."
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| Quality-conscious: LG's Verma require
his HR managers to be highly-qualified |
There is also growing emphasis on innovation
and the quality of hr processes and personnel. "LG and many
other quality-conscious companies today require their hr managers
to be Six Sigma-qualified. We require an hr candidate to be at
least a green belt, which is a grade in the Six Sigma process,"
says Yasho Vardhan Verma, Director, hr and ms (Management Support),
LG Electronics India (LGEIL).
According to Mandeep Maitra, Country Head,
HR, HDFC Bank, the bank's hr functions are focussed on activities
like performance improvement, organisational productivity, organisational
restructuring and culture building. "It is our endeavour
to help create an environment where employees can build on their
individual competencies and take up challenging roles in the organisation,"
says Maitra, who leads a team of 52 hr pros.
Kris Lakshmikanth, CEO of Bangalore-based
executive search firm The Headhunters India, says recruitment
has, over the years, become a plain-vanilla function. Though some
companies, like Infosys, still list recruitment as one of their
core hr functions, employers today are increasingly outsourcing
this to external headhunting agencies. "Most big companies
today are happy to have their hr people off recruitment,"
says Kelly Services' Khanna. Consequently, the explosive demand
across sectors and functions has forced search firms, too, to
ramp up. All the headhunters BT spoke to admitted that they are
expanding their workforce 60-200 per cent. The bulk of this growth
is driven by the services sector.
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| Building careers: HDFC Bank's Maitra
focusses on creating the right environment |
High attrition rates are the bane of most
industries. "Companies cannot take employees' loyalty for
granted anymore," points out Ronesh Puri, Managing Director,
Executive Access, an executive search firm. "To counter this,"
says Sudhakar Balakrishnan, coo and Executive Director, Adecco
Peopleone, another placement firm, "employee engagement and
retention training have become the primary focus of hr managers."
Many companies also depute junior and mid-level hr professionals
to work very closely with other departments, in effect, converting
hr management from a staff to a line function. "They are
expected to support business leaders by aligning hr processes
with business requirements and take change initiatives of the
business forward; so hr personnel must have a conceptual understanding
and experience of business functions," says Balaji.
Such a high degree of specialisation means
that even experienced hr professionals often find it difficult
to cope with the new demands of this still evolving field. HDFC
Bank's 52-strong HR department, for example, has specialists in
Learning and Development, Employee Relations, Remuneration and
Benefits, Resourcing, hr Operations, Performance Management and
Reward Planning, Career and Succession Planning, and Talent Management.
"Some of us may be taking care of more than one of these
functional areas," says HDFC Bank's Maitra. LG Electronics,
too, encourages specialisation. Its 34-strong hr team has experts
in Training, Culture Building, Recruitment, Organisation Development
Intervention, Talent Management, and Labour Relations. Not surprisingly,
"there is an acute shortage of hr talent at most dynamic
organisations," says Balaji. This puts a premium on people
who do possess the relevant skills.
So what do recruiters look for while hiring
hr personnel? "The first thing recruiters look at is education,"
says Khanna. Puri agrees. "An overwhelming majority of companies
still prefer the MBA tag," he says. But educational qualifications
can only be the starting point of an elimination process. "In
people-oriented sectors like retail, the most important qualification
for an hr candidate is attitude," says Sanjay Jog, Head,
hr, Pantaloon Retail. After the first job, though, what matters
most is experience. In fact, organisations today prefer, and even
encourage, people from other domains to spend some time in their
hr departments. "At TCS, we encourage technical workers to
work in the hr side for a couple of years and vice versa,"
says Padmanabhan.
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| Attitude counts: Pantaloon's Jog says
academic qualifications are only the starting point |
Interestingly, quite a few headhunters and
employers say they prefer non-IIM (Indian Institute of Management)
graduates for hr functions "as IIM grads have very high expectations
and get disillusioned very fast if they don't achieve their goals."
And, at the entry level, graduates from Tier-I institutes like
Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur, and Tata
Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, are paid considerably
higher salaries than those from Tier-II colleges (see Salary Structures).
Beyond this, it is, as it is in the case of most functions, an
issue of natural selection with experience and company mattering
more than educational background.
The general consensus is that the demand
for hr professionals will remain robust. The economy is expected
to canter along at 8 per cent plus in the foreseeable future;
millions of new jobs will be created over the next 3-5 years;
and the industry thumb rule says at least 5,000 hr professionals
will be required for every million jobs. "Companies require
hr people to help their employees build careers," says Khanna.
Puri, though, advises caution. "I see a correction happening
around 2008," he says. If his prediction comes to pass, it
will, at worst, retard job creation in the hr function by a few
hundreds only. We're still talking of a massive, incremental job
creating machine. Most hr pros, and wannabes, will take that.
COUNSELLING
Help, Tarun!
Q: I am a 26-year-old with an MBA (dual specialisation in HR and
marketing). I am keen to work either in the corporate sector or
in academics. Please advise whether I need to pursue a PhD or
get any other degree to be qualified for my areas of interest.
You have an interesting combination of specialisations. However,
you have to decide if you want to work in the corporate sector
or academia and accordingly decide whether to pursue any further
qualifications. If your calling is academia then you will certainly
require a PhD which you can then embark upon. But, immediately
pursuing a long-term programme or degree will only slow down your
career.
Q: I am an 18-year-old and have recently
cleared my Class XII exams (PCM stream). I am quite good at drawing/painting/sketching
and want to pursue a career in the field of architecture. Are
there any institutes/colleges that offer a bachelors degree in
architecture?
Because you are good at painting/drawing
does not mean that you are made to be an architect. However, there
are several colleges that offer degrees in architecture like Rachana
Sansad, NID, etc. You should try to pursue these as well as courses
in interior designing or even commercial art.
Answers to your career concerns are contributed
by Tarun Sheth (Senior Consultant) and Shilpa Sheth (Managing
Partner, US practice) of HR firm, Shilputsi Consultants. Write
to Help,Tarun! c/o Business Today, Videocon Tower, Fifth Floor,
E-1, Jhandewalan Extn., New Delhi-110055..
Call
Of The Wild
If you love nature and don't mind odd hours,
there could be a job waiting for you.
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| Boom time: Wilderness' Nanjappa (r)
is preparing for the unexpected |
With over two
million eco-tourists expected to visit India this year, hospitality
companies across the spectrum are queuing up to hire naturalists.
You don't need an armful of degrees; all you need is intricate
knowledge of the wild and an affable personality. "You must
be able to identify animals in the wild and should be prepared
for unexpected questions from guests," says Vikram Nanjappa,
Senior Naturalist with Wilderness Resorts (an eco-tourism venture).
Salaries aren't too bad either; freshers can expect Rs 10,000-Rs
15,000 per month, and given the boom in the market, the upside
is practically unlimited. Be warned: early hours are a must (remember
the dawn safari?) and guests can be demanding, "There aren't
courses that teach this subject in India, so we have to look for
on-the-ground knowledge in candidates," says Tiger Ramesh,
CEO of Wilderness Resorts.
-Rahul Sachitanand
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