Author: Akshit Pushkarna | HRKatha

New-age financial services startup, Grip Invest — which offers opportunities to invest in physical assets leased to corporates — is rapidly expanding at the moment. Established in 2020, the Company is planning to triple its workforce in the coming two quarters, as a direct result of rapid growth in business. While expanding in terms of business as well as workforce, Nimisha Dua, VP-HR, Grip, shares with HRKatha that the Company plans to retain the culture it has developed over the years. She says that the company culture is based on the principles of courage, transparency, ownership, discipline and commitment —…

While focus on diverse hiring in India has picked up significantly in India as of late, there are still certain gaps that have been ascertained by companies. German multinational investment bank and financial services company, Deutsche Bank has identified that the women’s talent pool is underrepresented in the higher ranks in the tech domain. Suchishree Chatterjee, head of India technology centre & CIO, RFT global data ingestion, Deutsche Bank, tells HRKatha, “We see a reasonably healthy intake of women graduates at entry level, but as one goes up the hierarchy within technology jobs in India, the gender gap widens considerably.”…

It has been about two years since the pandemic disrupted the way we work to a great extent, some may even say to an irreversible state. Businesses have had to shift the operation of their workforces from offices to remote, work-from-home settings. The financial toll on companies that have had to abandon office buildings is significant, especially in cases where they have entered into multiple-year rental agreements. While there are significant drawbacks to remote operation, in terms of certain roles and in specific industries, for many, remote operation is working just fine. The great debate over whether to continue working…

India’s largest stainless steel producer, Jindal Stainless, is going through a very interesting phase in terms of business as well people practices. The two companies, Jindal Stainless Limited and Jindal Stainless (Hisar) Limited, are set to merge in the near future and expansion plans, in terms of the workforce, are on track. In a conversation with HRKatha, Suresh Bose, CHRO, Jindal Stainless, reveals that the Company is planning to expand its workforce by about 200 to 300 people, in addition to its regular annual workforce increment. Meanwhile, the personnel management department headed by Bose is undergoing a different kind of…

Of late, Bharat Pe has been caught on the wrong foot. It all started with the controversial and abusive video clip of co-founder and managing director, Ashneer Grover, doing the rounds on social media. Post that, many instances of Grover’s impolite behaviour with the Company’s employees started surfacing. The ongoing tussle between Grover and the board is only adding fuel to the fire. Such incidents put employees in jeopardy, given the amount of uncertainty in the market. This isn’t a one-off case. Even during the Housing.com-Rahul Yadav fiasco, or the Satyam episode, it is the employees who had to bear…

Given the deluge of resignations that the HR is having to deal with these days, the likelihood of some of these resignees returning to the company sooner or later is quite high. This is especially true in cases where talent leaves for higher compensation. While the lure of a fatter pay package is somewhat hard to resist, not many who get carried away are able to feel at home in their new workplaces. In the hope of getting back in their career fit, such employees may return to work for their previous employers. Such a phenomenon is not uncommon, and…

The current talent climate across the world, seems to be favouring those with technical skills. With large-scale digitisation of businesses following the pandemic, finding and hiring tech talent for an extended engagement has become one of the biggest headaches of talent acquisition teams, irrespective of the sector. With companies vying for quality techies from the same coveted talent pool, recruiters are continuously coming up with ways to stay on top of this war for talent. One of the leading General Insurance companies in India, Digit Insurance, came up with an interesting solution to address the tech talent deficit as well…

Parag Agarwal, the CEO of Twitter is only 37 years old. Sundar Pichai became the CEO of Google in 2015, when he was only 42. Even Satya Nadella was named the CEO of Microsoft at the age of 46. These are the three poster boys among Indian professional CEOs of global companies, and incidentally, they became CEOs in their late thirties and early forties. Some of the entrepreneur CEOs in India, are even younger – many in their 20s! It’s common for people to assume that the average age of CEOs is going down by the day; that they are…

Axis Bank has announced a special hiring drive for homemakers. The initiative called “HouseWorkIsWork” aims to rope in talent for their human resources function. In its pilot stage, the Bank is looking to hire 15 women through this drive. The minimum qualification to apply for a position is a graduate degree. Prior work experience is no bar. Rajkamal Vempati, president and head – human resources, Axis Bank, tells HRKatha that the thought behind designing “HouseWorkIsWork” was triggered when they received a unique resume from a homemaker “A candidate, Pallavi Sharma, sent us an innovative resume that included the work she…

The Great Resignation has brought in significant changes to the way the HR operates, particularly to the retention strategy of companies. Added bonuses and benefits to employees not turning in their resignation after an extended engagement, quicker promotions, among other strategies have become common practices for companies at the moment. The relevance of stay interviews is just one of these trends. Ranjith Menon, SVP-HR, Hinduja Global Solutions, tells HRKatha that HGS’ recent divestment from their healthcare business, due to which a big chunk of the company’s employees parted ways with the company, had created an uncertainty issue for the rest…

A career sabbatical is a break that professionals take from their jobs, for a brief period of time, in order to explore other ventures or follow one’s calling or even study. There is no particular age when a person can choose to go on a sabbatical nor is there a fixed time frame within which a person can resume professional life post a sabbatical. The decision is solely dependent on the professionals themselves. In the current talent climate, incentives doled out by employers to their employees help attract and retain talent. Incentives also take on greater significance today, because competing…

The industry seems to be receptive to the four new labour codes that the Government is planning to implement in the near future, according to the findings of a new survey released by the Karnataka Employers’ Association in conjunction with BCP Associates. The four labour codes — Code on Wages, Industrial Relations Code, Social Security Code and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code — are set to replace the 29 labour laws that exist in India. The survey titled ‘How Indian Industry Perceives Implementation of the Proposed Labour Codes’ was conducted in the last quarter of 2021, to…

The talent market today is one of the most dynamic ever. There is shortage of quality talent across functions, which is posing challenges for recruiters. Dearth of skilled talent for critical functions has been forcing recruiters to offer lucrative incentives to onboard them. To some, these incentives are offered in the form of better work-life balance options or even joining bonus. However, the go-to, age-old way of attracting as well as retaining critical talent has been to offer compensation higher than the market average. For instance, Facebook, one of the biggest employers in tech, globally, offers tech talent, compensation which…

In the ‘World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2022’ report, the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) comprehensive research team predicts that the labour market, which saw a significant dip in the initial phase of the pandemic, that is 2020, will continue on a recovery path, albeit gradually. Speaking about India and the Asia-Pacific region in particular, the recovery of Labour Force Participation is expected to pick up slowly and remain below pre-pandemic levels in 2022 and 2023. Pre-COVID-19, India’s labour force participation rate (LFPR) stood at 49.3 per cent. It declined to 46.3 per cent in 2020. In fact, LFPRs are…

A close examination of the talent trends over the last couple of decades will reveal that a lot has changed. Earlier, professionals rarely switched jobs or organisations during their careers. The tendency to stick to one employer for prolonged engagements was more deep rooted. Now, however, it is very rare to see people staying on with an employer for long. With businesses on an expansion mode, the number of job opportunities have also increased significantly. People have more employment options, enabling them to pick those opportunities that propel them further in their careers. “Gone are the days when companies would…

If we were to trace the evolution of business in India over the years, the results would be more than fascinating. Television shows and even films from the past will show how differently people behaved in workspaces and how different processes and systems at the workplace were. The human resource function, particularly the personnel and administration management (P&A), has undergone major transformation. During days of the plant and industrial days (would it be better to say ‘factory era’ or industrial relations (IR) era?), the responsibility of people management in a company usually rested with the industrial relations (IR) department. The…

“If given a chance, would you switch to a bigger brand with a toxic culture?” was the question I posed to my friend. His response surprised me. He said, “You’d need a stable, high-paying job at some point in your career to ensure growth. For that, you may have to compromise on the other aspects associated with the workplace”! What is even more surprising is that my friend is not the only one who holds such an opinion. Many like him, in the initial stages of their career, prefer to work with big brands and names that may not necessarily…

Looks like the COVID-19 virus and its n number of mutations will ruin our transition into the New Year yet again. The Omicron variant of the virus, even though clinically ascertained to be not as lethal, has the the potential to cause another wave of the pandemic, and a subsequent lockdown, expected around February of 2022. What is worse is, this variant has struck just when companies across industries had managed to get back some semblance of normalcy or were gearing to reopen their office spaces for their employees. “We are already back to fully working from the office. However,…

Thanks to the pandemic, the business setting today is constantly evolving and dynamic. As a result, companies are continuously required to take stock of their assets and business strategies in order to ensure unfettered growth. In order to meet this change, companies have had to hire people for roles that simply didn’t exist in the past. In an earlier discussion with HRKatha, Bhavya Mishra, director & head of HR, Lenovo India, one of the leaders in electronic goods manufacturing, had said that the Company was hiring professionals for a new services and solutions business, an area the Company hadn’t set…

Clarity regarding the scope of human resources management may be absent in people fresh out of schools or even colleges. Not surprising, since this line of work is not something that we are pre-exposed to during our academic years. When youngsters ponder over the line of work they should opt for in the future, a career in HR is rarely the first thing that comes to mind. To a great extent, this can be attributed to the fact that there is a clear outline regarding the specific academic achievements required to venture into various careers or fields other than HR.…

IBM, being one of the global leaders in the tech space, continues to rule the employer market even after the separation of Kyndryl. Post the spin-off, Thirukkumaran (Thiru) Nagarajan, vice president & head – HR, IBM India/South Asia, tells HRKatha that the Company is now operating a more sleek workforce in India and is working on nurturing a work culture conducive to employee growth. “For more than 100 years, IBM has repeatedly changed every aspect of its business to become what it is today, that is, focussed on leading the industry in hybrid cloud and AI, as well as driving…

Speaking from a historical standpoint, India is one of the worst countries for fresh, college graduates. The unemployment rates have always been on the higher side in the country and people with higher education levels hold a significant share in that. In 2019, the share of graduates in the total unemployment rate stood at 16.3 per cent, the largest share for any demographic in terms of education level, followed by post grads, whose share stood at 14.2 per cent. Enter the pandemic and the already significant gap only widened further. According to a survey by job-search platform, Firstnaukri, almost two-third…

Saying that the pandemic and related restrictions over the past two years has changed our lives would be an understatement. There has been a definite shift in our understanding of almost all aspects of life. Society, as a whole, has evolved to a greater extent. The very way in which we congregate, interact and move around, in general, has changed among other things. Looking at it through an industrial lens, the disruption of the workplace and prevalence of the concept of remote operation has gathered steam during this time and will probably stay for long. “There’s a crusade of technology…

The Amara Raja Group has a strong presence in the automotive battery business, as well as other sectors including packaged foods and beverages, electronics products manufacturing, infrastructure, power system production and fabrication of sheet metal products and fasteners, in India and abroad. Being one of the largest business conglomerates in the country, the Group continues to rely on stable business partners and outlets for growth in the Subcontinent. In its continuous expansion journey, the conglomerate considers India one of its growth nodes while they currently export their various products to more than 45 countries. It continues to expand its business…

For any company or business establishment, managing the human resources is one of the most important functions. From handling payroll to ensuring the appropriate deployment of learning and development within a company, HR functions are far ranging and generally not clearly understood by the workforce. From these far-reaching functions and services provided by the HR team, HRKatha tries to ascertain which are the services that employees deem the most important and valuable. Career development Indrani Chatterjee, CHRO, AllCargo, feels that there are two critical functions that employees expect their HR to perform diligently. First is the proper fitment of their…

IKEA, the world’s leading Swedish home furnishings retailer, has opened its first City Store at Worli, Mumbai, today. This is the retailer’s second store in the city, the other one being a larger format store in Navi Mumbai. Internationally renowned for promoting equal participation of both genders, the IKEA Worli store is no different. A good 51 per cent of the store’s 170-strong workforce comprises women. “For us at IKEA, gender balance is part of our DNA. It was one of the bigger challenges in the Indian retail space — a challenge we decided to take head on. Currently, women’s…