While an economic downturn is something that we never hope for, it does provide an excellent opportunity for organizations that are committed to hiring the best talent available. The following are four tips for hiring during an economic downturn.

1. Be choosy, numbers are on your side – Don’t spring for the first qualified candidate that walks through the door. You are likely to come across a number of qualified applicants who are interested in working for your organization, so broaden your selection horizons to include criteria other than just experience and education. Look at things such as passion for your organization’s industry, cultural fit within in your organization, and the presence of soft skills such as interpersonal communication, empathy, and likeability.

2. Beware of the “low-bid” – After several months of being out of work, many candidates will become desperate to find any job they can just to pay the bills. To make themselves more attractive as candidates, some of these job seekers will be willing to work for less money than their experience, education, and skills would normally demand during better economic times. While it may be tempting to hire such an individual for the perceived payroll saving they promise to offer, doing so usually costs more in the long run than the short term savings are worth. Bottom line – pay your team members what their positions are worth.

3. Wait for the best talent possible – While economic downturns are generally short lived, time is on your side. It is essential that your organization adhere to a policy of hiring the best talent it can afford, and a recession or economic downturn is no exception. While it can be tempting to hire the first person with the requisite qualifications to fill a
position that has been open for some time, hiring anything less than the best talent you can afford will ultimately rob your organization of possibility and profits. Any short term lapses in productivity will be worth it in the long term when you hire the best talent for the job.

4. Match candidates to the right jobs – It’s a sad truth, but there are thousands, if not millions of individuals who are in positions they are just not a good fit for and not passionate about. These individuals rob their employers of possibility by reducing employee morale, running up turnover costs, and killing engagement and productivity. For these reasons it is absolutely critical that you insist on hiring team members who are a good fit for the position and your organization’s culture by carefully identifying the critical accountabilities of the job as well as the mission, vision, and values of your organization and hiring candidates who are a good fit based on these criteria.

The hiring decisions that your organization makes are some of the most strategically important decisions it can make. An economic downturn, while never pleasant, offers an excellent opportunity for your organization to secure top talent and reap the benefits for years to come if done correctly. Following the tips above will greatly improve your chances of hiring success during this current economic cool down.
Source: http://www.indiaprwire.com Press release report, dated Tue, 09 Jun 2009

Welcome them upon arrival. Don’t leave your new employees in the waiting room on their first day. A supervisor or co-worker should be available to greet the new hire as soon as he or she arrives. First impressions can often determine the tone of relationships, so make sure that you’re attentive and friendly.

Introduce them to others at the company. Though all of the new names might be a little overwhelming, try to introduce new employees to members of their team and other important people in the company. Also, send an email that announces new workers’ arrivals and describes some of their past experience so that veteran employees are aware of their skills and background.

Have their workstation ready. Arriving at the office to a fully functional computer, phone system and work area is definitely meaningful to new employees. Have an IT representative walk them through passwords and other technology setup procedures. If your company employs an ergonomic specialist, have that person stop by to make sure that the desk, chair and keyboard are properly configured. Be sure that news employees are comfortable, and address any concerns that they might have about the new space.

Assign work buddies. Work buddies can help recruits comfortably transition to their new professional environment. The buddy should work in the same field and be able to answer questions, explain policies and offer encouragement for the first month of a new hire’s employment.

Take them to lunch. A welcome lunch with team members and supervisors is a fun way to greet new employees. Be sure to ask new hires about diet preferences and food allergies — for instance if they are vegetarians or allergic to seafood — before making restaurant reservations.

Give them a tour of the building. New employees should be comfortable navigating the workplace. Make sure that they are familiar with important locations in the building, including bathrooms, the kitchen, and additional entrances and exits.

Explain your expectations. Review new employees’ job description and explain any additional responsibilities so that they understand your expectations. Describe the professional hierarchy within the new employee’s team — for example, who they report to and who reports to them. Finally, go over day-to-day work operations in order to help new hires prepare for the first few weeks.

Give them something to do. It’s hard to jump right in when you’re new, but it’s even worse feeling as though you aren’t needed. Make sure that new employees have a training manual to read and small, simple tasks to complete during their first few days. They will feel valued and useful but not overwhelmed.

Get the paperwork in order. Notify HR of any new hires before they arrive. Be sure that your new employees understand all of the benefits, payroll and other forms and know to whom they should direct questions.

Check in at the end of the day. Stop by your new employees’ workspaces at the end of each of their first few days to find out how things are going. Make sure to answer any questions, and express your pleasure at having the new hires join the company.

With these tips, you can help new employees adjust to your company. Not only will new hires will be grateful for your attention and effort, but your business will benefit from more confident and productive workers.

Source: www.hrworld.com/features by Lea Hartog on April 10, 2008.

In his article in CXO today, C. Mahalingam, Executive Vice President & Chief People Officer with Symphony Services Corporation, gives examples of some of the new practices and innovations. We are presenting them briefly here.  Full text can be obtained from http://tinyurl.com/blueoceansinhr

Frou-Frou Practices versus Blue Oceans in HR :  Many new HR concepts/practices find favour from time to time because of their newness even though they may not have been validated or their credibility established. Seminars and conferences get organized on these “frou-frou” practices making it even more compelling. Given such a scenario there is need for genuine Blue Ocean thinking across all stages and areas of an employee life cycle.  Some examples are :

Offers designed as Contracts: One of India’s leading financial services product software companies that got acquired recently by a global software product market leader had this practice for many many years. This practice involved hiring software professionals across levels on contract for 2 years at a time, renewable when the contract expires if both the employee and the organization are willing. Since employment security today is only as good as the competence and employability of the employees themselves, there is no inherent concern with job security in this model. Barring miniscule exceptions, most companies anyway experience a heavy churn of employees after 2 or 3 years. Against this backdrop, the contract model at least provides the following benefits: (a) better and planned churn management; and (b) a lot less sleepless nights on attrition (good news for HR?). Designation Basket to choose from More recently, we have seen highly innovative and tailored designations at senior levels. Some examples include Chief Mentor, Chief Gardener, Chief Fun Officer (or Chief Buffoon?), Chief Evangelist, Chief Servant, Chief Innovation Officer and the like! Why then deprive the younger cadre of professionals of a choice from a basket of designations and titles? It should be feasible to come out with a menu of titles and designations for each role in the organization that fairly represent the roles and responsibilities. Jobs are becoming more and more boutique and so can be the titles. Assign this task to those carrying the fancy title of Chief Innovation Officer! Pulse-Check to Prevent Infant Mortality: Yet another challenge plaguing many companies is the early departure of 10 to 15% of employees within 6 to 12 months of joining. Just when they are about to become productive, they decide to leave citing adjustmental and compatibility (with technology, domain, team, manager) reasons. Often referred to as “infant mortality” in HR circles, this can be overcome by instituting periodic pulse checks on areas where “things can go wrong.” 

 Employee-owned Development Budget: A European Consumer Electronics major with its software center in Bangalore introduced this several years ago to combat the complaint that no one takes training seriously. This takes a different mindset with no operational hassles at all. Here the training budget is worked out per capita and the employees are given this as their personal development budget. Since employees own this budget, they can use it for determining their development (training, seminar, membership in professional bodies, etc). There are some basic conditions to be adhered to like getting the immediate manager’s sign-off on the relevance of the development initiative chosen by the employee. This led to a remarkable improvement in the morale of employees and focused development owned and executed by the employees themselves. So, beat the training blues by passing the responsibility and budget to employees!! New 10% rule in Performance Management: Most companies do follow a “bell curve” to segment people based on their performance. This is meant to help create a high performance culture as bell curve helps communicate clearly that 5 to 10% of the underperforming people should “shape up or ship out.” 

 Competence-based Base Salary: Not a totally new practice, but has not quite caught up much in India so far. In its true spirit, this calls for granting pay increase to employees based on demonstrated competency enhancement year after year. Delivering against performance goals or targets set for the year would only qualify for the variable pay, being on target (100%), less or more depending on met targets, fell short or exceeded them. Base salary is increased only under conditions that employees measure up against a validated and widely implemented competency framework and demonstrate a higher level of competences required for their current or next job. Implementation of this is fraught with difficulties and so care is needed to systematically move from a performance-based salary review to competency-based salary review.

Yellow Pages as a key tool for Knowledge Management: Managing knowledge – both retention and sharing – has become a huge challenge for organizations especially in the context of increasing attrition. When key people leave, they carry all the knowledge in their heads with them. Organizations are beginning to invest in creating systems and frameworks for generating and generalizing knowledge. In knowledge intensive industries, there will always be more knowledge that will remain implicit in the heads of people than companies can ever tap it into explicit knowledge through documentation. Rank Xerox found out that maximum knowledge was imbibed not from their ‘blue books’ but due to sharing between their service engineers at the coffee machines in the corridors! Hence, there is an even more pressing need to “connect people” by preparing an elaborate list of “who knows what” and make it available on the internet with appropriate coordinates for reaching out. For ease of remembrance, let us call this a Directory of Internal Yellow Pages. Stay Interviews for celebrating the positives: Exit interviews need no introduction as most companies do this as a routine. While data from exit interviews could be very useful to understand triggers for employee resignations, this is not a very proactive intervention. On the other hand, Stay Interviews involve business HR partners talking to employees working for over 18 to 24 months in the company and collecting reliable information on what makes them feel good about the company. The aim is to get at least 3 or 4 top of the mind ‘positives’ people perceive and value. With sufficient data, organization can go about ‘celebrating those positives’ and strengthening them. This will more likely help retain people proactively than exit interviews.

Come back Peter, Come back Paul Alumni Club: People leave for various reasons like salary, titles, and responsibility, location and technology or domain preferences. And in many cases, it is quite common that some of these employees realize they were much better off with the companies they left and may like to come back if there is a possibility and they had a hassle-free separation procedure. The advantages of welcoming the ex-employees are very overwhelming. Even if these employees do not return to the fold, they could be powerful brand ambassadors. Hence, it makes eminent sense to start Alumni Club on the extranet and provide useful information about the company and other appropriate matters. The potential benefits of the Alumni Club should be experienced more than explained.

The partition line between Blue Ocean and frou-frou practices lie in value created in terms of intangibles such as more satisfied employees, more competent managers and more productive HR teams besides a great culture of executing on plans. HR has a huge opportunity ahead and if they miss it, they no one else to blame!

Source : www.cxotoday.com,  April 18, 2009, C Mahalingam

Hewitt Associates, in its sixth ‘Best Employer in India Study 2009′ in partnership with magazine Outlook Business, has enlisted the country’s 25 companies, led by HCL Technologies, which provide the best working environment for employees. The other 24 companies include — Hindustan Zinc (second), Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces (third), Cisco Systems (fourth), ITC-Welcome group (fifth), Eureka Forbes (seventh), LG Electronics India (eighth), Domino’s Pizza India (ninth), and Marriott Hotels India (10th).

In India the study was conducted among 230 organisations. It is part of the larger Hewitt Best Employers in Asia study, which covered Australia, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore. To generate the result the company received opinions from more than 46,000 employees representing a workforce of over 8 lakh people. The Hewitt Best Employers study is now in its eighth year, having begun in 2001. The winners according to Hewitt Best Employers project lead Sonali Chatterjee, are those companies which despite the downturn have used their workforce more productively and yet met all the goals. The 25 winner companies have scored mostly on the score for “employee engagement”. It has gone up to 88% as compared with 82 % in 2007 and 76% in 2003. “Our study reveals Hewitt Best Employers have learned that creating and maintaining an environment that is focused on key human capital elements should be a business priority,” Hewitt Associates market manager (India, Middle East and SAARC) Vishal Pandit said. Their strategy to make minor adjustments without losing sight of the larger goal allows them to sustain their strong position and prosper–or be set to prosper when the economy improves, Pandit added.

The study stated that despite wide variance in industries and company profiles, the firms share some common winning traits such as — alignment of people practices to the overall business strategy of the firm and an environment which creates a positive employment experience even in challenging times. The companies also have a long-term approach towards handling the current economic crisis, the report stated. The companies were judged on the various criterion including — organisations score on a combination of the overall engagement and alignment scores, scores on leadership, diversity and development. Mr. Akhilesh Joshi, Chief Operating Officer, Hindustan Zinc, said, “The challenge in the mining industry is to attract the best talent for some of the remotest locations in the country. However, Hindustan Zinc has not had any difficulty in attracting such talent”.

Source : iStock Analyst, April 4,2009

Joshi has close to 20 years of experience in marketing, with significant achievements to his credit. He has worked in various positions with leading international companies, including Procter & Gamble Co, in India as well as abroad.

A graduate from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from IIM Bangalore, Joshi began his career with Procter & Gamble in 1989 as a management trainee and worked on several brands and categories.

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Marks & Spencer Reliance India Pvt Ltd (Marks & Spencer India) has appointed Nandini Sethuraman as Head of Marketing, India. Sethuraman, who will be based in Gurgaon, will report to CEO Mark Ashman, and will be responsible for all marketing, corporate communications and CSR initiatives. She joins Marks & Spencer India from Spencer’s Retail, where she successfully spearheaded repositioning and visual identity initiatives, and also built Spencer’s private label programme. Sethuraman is a seasoned marketer with over 15 years’ experience and has held a variety of leadership roles at international companies, including IKEA, Pepsico and Hershey’s in markets such as Canada, the Middle East and India.

Source: Exchange4media

This is the second edition of the survey which has been conducted in partnership with Right Management India.  The companies are:

1. HeroITES
2. Corbus (India) Pvt. Ltd
3. AgreeYa Solutions India Pvt. Ltd
4. Nagarro Software Pvt. Ltd
5. R Systems International Ltd
6. Synygy India Pvt Ltd.
7. Acclaris Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd
8. Infogain India (P) Ltd
9. Hytech Professionals India Pvt. Ltd
10. Nucleus Software Exports Ltd
11. Sopra India Pvt. Ltd
12. Cactus Communications Pvt. Ltd
13. Interglobe Technologies Pvt. Ltd
14. H5 Asia Pacific Pvt. Ltd
15. Saba Software India Pvt. Ltd

Emerging companies are sought after by career seekers for their close knit, non-hierarchical work environment, culture of innovation and commitment to employee empowerment. The focused approach of the these companies makes them the perfect platform for nurturing specialised talent and building cross functional skills.

The objective of this survey therefore, was to identify the best small and medium sized IT-BPO companies to work for. This survey aims to provide participating companies with insights on their employees’ perceptions on the work environment, work culture and degree of satisfaction and examine the robustness of their HR systems and processes. At an industry level this survey will help companies to learn best practices from their peers and enhance the overall employer branding of this segment.

Key analysis
* Employees across participant organizations believe that the following are the most critical considerations for them at their workplace:
o Open and Caring Relationship with their Supervisors: team members can express their ideas freely.
o Personal Recognition: Appreciate and recognize individuals contribution in all areas.
o The existence and communication of Career Growth Options: informed about all career growth options.
o Trainings for Current and Future roles: Trained and prepared for handling current responbsibilities and taking up new responsibilities as well.
o Open Relationship with Colleagues.

* Career Development: There is a significant difference between the career development scores of the Top 15 companies and rest of the companies with those sharing career development plans with the employees scoring higher on the excitement index as compared to companies which don’t.

* Fairness and Equity: Employees of small companies (having strength less than 100) have better perception of their workplace with regards to fairness & equity.

* Rewards and Recognitions: The difference between the scores of the Top 15 companies and the rest of the companies is the maximum in this dimension. The main reason being the fairness and transparency of the processes adopted by the Top 15 companies while deciding on the benefit schemes for its employees.

* Work Environment: The survey highlights organizations which are smaller in size have been able to meet their employees’ expectations on work environment better than mid-sized organizations.

* Work Satisfaction: Interestingly the survey revealed that companies’ investment in physical work environment condition does not seem to have any correlation with their Excitement Index. The key differentiators included in this dimension are enjoyment in working alongside a colleagues, culture of learning and fun while working.

* HR Systems and Processes in the Top 15 Companies are significantly better than the Rest of the Companies and that is the main distinguishing factor in the Excitement Index of the Exciting Emerging Companies 2008.

Source : www.ciol.com, Jan 27, 2009

Similarly, a survey by HR consultancy Manpower projects hiring to rise steadily by around 18 percent from this quarter in many sectors, signifying that jobs in India may not be entirely affected by the financial turmoil in rich nations.

“India poses a far more positive outlook as compared to what has been happening across the world,” said Cherian Kuruvila, director operations, Manpower India, adding that seven percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the country showed that the economy remained healthy.

“Employers in the mining and construction industries as also services sector are especially looking to scale up,” Kuruvila told IANS, but added that new jobs won’t be distributed evenly through all regions and industries.

India has a work force of 484 million people, of which 273 million work in rural areas, 61 million in manufacturing and about 150 million in services, says the Boston Consulting Group that recently conducted a study on the country’s services sector.

“Going forward, the Indian economy is likely to be overwhelmingly dependent on the growth of services. More than 70 percent of India’s incremental GDP and 60 percent of new jobs over the next five years are expected to be generated by services.”

A survey across the Asia-Pacific region by TNS, a market research and business analysis firm, with Gallup International, a global human resource consulting firm, also threw up interesting findings.

Sixty-two percent of the Indians polled felt they would be able to hold on to their jobs in 2009 and the 57 percent who expected unemployment to rise did not not consider they would be the ones affected.

“It seems, despite the slowdowns and reports of downsizing, there is an overall confidence among the employed in India that ‘My job is secure! Difficulties, if any, are for others, not me’,” said TNS India executive director Chhavi Bhargava.

Experts concede that the present financial meltdown has raised doubts over the performance of some industries and its impact on salaries and perks, but hope Indian businesses will come out of the slump earlier than their counterparts overseas.

“The impact on salary was felt in 2008 and it may continue till some time. The payouts were significantly lower than the 15-200 percent bonus payouts in 2007,” said Absolute HR Services chief executive Kunal Banerji.

“Gone are the days of experimentation with jobs. I would advise employees not to be adventurous checking different jobs. Stability is the mantra,” said Confiar Consultants managing director Vivek Ahuja.

Apart from advising employees to keep their jobs this year, HR consultants also feel these are also the times when people will turn to age old values and ethics and play by the book.

“The old adages like no substitute for hard work and no short-cuts to success are back in vogue,” Banerji told IANS. “Stay hungry for work or stay hungry is the mantra for corporate India.”

Source : www.thaindian.com , Jan 18, 2009

The key aspects being looked at in the new system include sharper focus on technology, condensing the number of roles while increasing span of control. The new system will seek to define roles more clearly and try to more carefully match roles to employee aspirations.

“All programmers may not want to become managers. As we grow and move up the value chain there will be more opportunities for engineers to either go deeper into technology areas or take up senior managerial roles. The overhaul will provide us with room to create more options and multiple career streams for employees,” Mr Pai added, while declining to share specific details on the overhaul.

The current span of control is 1:2:5.5. That is, on an average for every one project manager there are two managers and 5.5 developers. Now, with the increasing number of employees this could increase. On the other hand programmers who don’t want to be managers can opt for hi-tech areas like technology architecture, system designers and so on.

Incidentally, TCS, which has over 130,000 staff had also overhauled its structure in April last year. “We had put in place a new structure about nine months back to manage the large employee numbers. Under this we became more vertically focused and now have 18 industry solution units,” said Ajoy Mukherjee, global head of HR for TCS.

The overhauled system while catering to a larger employee base will also try and create more opportunities to move up the ladder. “The larger companies (like TCS, Infosys) are looking at the structure keeping in view the growing employee base and challenges they might face a decade or two from now. At present the employee force is young and most of them are programmers. They may not like to be programmers as the workforce ages. The overhaul will help meet those challenges,” said executive search firm EMA Partners managing partner (India) K Sudarshan.

Source : Economic Times, January 17, 2009

A few voices from the HR Industry