While one third of workers in India are suffering from increased burnout, as revealed by the Microsoft Work Trend Index report, it is heartening to see that a good majority has also zeroed in on the solution. A whopping 92 per cent feel that meditation can reduce stress. In the past six months, professionals around the world have experienced more burnout, primarily because the line between official work and domestic responsibilities has blurred. It is definitely taking a toll, on some more than the others. Most Indian workers are afraid they will get infected with COVID-19 at work and resent…
Author: HRK News Bureau
Byju’s, the educational technology and online tutoring company, and Nippon Life India Asset Management are the latest additions to the list of companies that have expanded their ESOP pool recently. Nippon Life has allotted 94,420 equity under the ‘Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management – Employee Stock Option Plan 2017 (RNAM ESOP 2017)”. With effect from October 07, 2020, the issued, subscribed and paid-Up equity share capital of Nippon Life stands increased to 61,25,66,115 equity shares of face value Rs10 each. Byju’s on the other hand, is adding a few hundred million dollars to its ESOP pool as a reward for…
Four months after Karen Parkin quit Adidas following questions raised regarding the diversity and inclusion (D&I) agenda of the German footwear company, Amanda Rajkumar has been named the new head of human resources. Parkin had stepped down following complaints from employees regarding racism within the organisation. Rajkumar will take on her responsibilities, starting 2021. Rajkumar’s previous assignment was with the French bank, BNP Paribas, where she was heading HR for the Americas division. She had joined the Bank in 2009 as head of HR, UK and had spent over 11 years with the organisation. In her long and successful career,…
Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), has come up with a policy that allows its employees to work from home permanently if they so wish. For those who have grabbed the option, HCCB — the manufacturer of popular drinks, such as Thums Up, Sprite and Coca-Cola — has already started delivering comfortable ergonomic chairs to their houses. The employees in the sales team and those whose presence is indispensable across its 15 factories are not eligible for the policy. In addition, HCCB, which is the largest bottling partner for Coca-Cola India, is offering financial assistance to employees to install power back-up systems.…
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is offering an increment to its employees with effect from October 1, in appreciation of their “resilience” during the pandemic. The Company has also announced a share-buyback programme worth up to Rs 16,000 crore, despite quarterly profit dropping by about 7 per cent. The workforce strength at TCS is about 453,540 as of September 30, 2020. The Indian multinational company has been continuously investing in talent development, and focussing on upskilling and training. Its employees put in about 10.2 million learning hours in Q2. More than 3,52,000 employees have been trained on multiple new technologies, and…
The pandemic has led to an economic slump in countries across the globe. Governments worldwide are thinking of ways to tackle rising unemployment and debt. As part of its rescue plan, Spain is looking at creating more than 800,000 new jobs by 2023, with the help of the financial assistance it will receive from the European Union. The Spanish government will spend 140 billion euros, which is about $165 billion to strengthen its economy. The economy of Spain is primarily dependent on tourism, which took a major hit due to the pandemic. The GDP is now expected to fall by…
Welspun India, in partnership with the Pravasi Rojgar Yojana, is looking at providing a means of livelihood to 500-600 skilled and unskilled migrant workers who became jobless during the pandemic. These workers will be given suitable jobs at the home textile company’s manufacturing units in Anjar and Vapi, in Gujarat. This initiative will benefit workers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, whose travel expenses will be borne by Welspun. These workers will enjoy accommodation, medical as well as canteen facilities at the manufacturing plants. The unskilled workers will be provided relevant training to make them fit for their…
The year 2020 witnessed a growing demand for mid-level and senior-rank professionals with more than seven years of experience. A study by Great Learning, reveals that while young professionals were highly sought after last year, it is the mid- and senior-level professionals who are being searched for this year. The study also reveals that more than 93,500 data-science jobs were up for grabs in August 2020. About 9.8 per cent of the total global analytics jobs were offered by India in August, whereas the figure was 7.2 per cent seven months ago. Although the number of vacancies in data science…
Under its new mental health leave policy, Urban Company allows its employees to take unlimited sick leaves, if they are mentally or physically unwell, or have contracted COVID-19. It is now just Urban Company that is taking a step in the right direction to ensure employees’ mental wellness. Recently, media company, Thomson Reuters, had introduced an annual company holiday on October 9, calling it Mental Health Day. Urban Company, the home services company, which was formerly known as Urban Clap, has tied up with iWill, the mental wellness platform, allowing its employees access to expert psychologists, from whom they can…
The job profiles range from high-end managerial jobs to basic helper-level jobs The 6th Mega Job Fair at Mohali saw about 10,000 youth being successfully placed in various jobs — right from helper level to managerial level. For the second year in succession, the Fair has managed to provide the maximum number of placements in Punjab. While many youth were interviewed virtually by the employers on their official websites, some were personally interviewed at the District Bureau of Employment and Enterprises (DBEE). Interestingly, the Fair managed to ensure that 3,000 youth from underprivileged families managed to get jobs. The administration…
Amidst the ongoing pandemic, when most companies are laying off staff or imposing pay cuts, Axis Bank has gone ahead and announced salary hikes. It is reported that the increment of 4 to 12 per cent will be based on performance. Recently, the Bank had given bonuses to its 76,000-strong workforce. However, Axis is not the only bank to have paid bonuses this year. HDFC Bank hiked its employees’ salaries in April, based on performance, and also gave bonuses, to about 80 per cent of its staff. Increments were also given to a significant portion of the workforce at ICICI…
Tech Mahindra, is gearing to launch its ‘Gift A Career’ programme under which youth across India, will be offered power training in information technology (IT) and digital, conversational English and workplace readiness. All this will be achieved through its Individual Social Responsibility (ISR) mobile app. Once the training is complete, the students will also receive hiring/ placement assistance. The digital transformation, consulting and business reengineering services company will offer training in over 45 domains, via the SMART centres and academies of Tech Mahindra Foundation, across 11 locations in the country. People who have passed class 10 and fall in the…
With the number of COVID cases rising alarmingly by the day, the Karnataka government has issued a notification stating that healthcare workers or healthcare service providers across the state are prohibited from going on strike or carrying out disobedience movements of any sort. Any non-cooperation from public servants and healthcare workers will invite action under the Karnataka State Civil Services (Prevention of Strikes) Act, 1966. About two months ago, ASHA workers had staged an agitation asking for an honorarium of Rs 12,000 and demanding personal protection equipment (PPE) kits. Only after the government had promised to fulfil their demands that…
Rajasthan now has six solar parks in Bikaner and Jodhpur, spread across 2,500 acres. Successfully set up by Rays Experts, Indian solar EPC and park developing company, at a cost of about 3,000 crore, these solar parks are a source of employment and business opportunities. Almost 2,000 people now have a source of livelihood, and an additional 600 will be hired in the coming months to help maintain the parks and expand their capacity. With a combined power of 600 MW, these parks will provide over four lakh houses with renewable energy. In addition, there will be improved business productivity…
Amidst acute shortage of medical and support staff, the faculty in all government medical college hospitals across Kerala have been agitating against the suspension of a COVID nodal officer and two nurses, on charges of lack of inadequate care given to an elderly patient. The medical fraternity maintains that it is the lack of adequate staff and helping hands that has led to such a situation and that the nodal officers cannot be blamed or accused of negligence. The state government has been criticised for demotivating health-care staff who have been working relentlessly through these troubled times, risking exposure and…
The Government of Australia is planning to spend an additional A$7.5 billion (US$5.4 billion) on infrastructure projects, in an attempt to create more jobs and help the country recover from the ongoing economic slump. The country plans to spend a total of A$11.3 billion on building roads, railways and bridges, which is expected to create about 30,000 jobs, both direct and indirect. In August, the overall unemployment rate dropped to 6.8 per cent, and the rate of unemployment for the15 to 24 age bracket was about 20 per cent. The Australian government will be setting aside A$1.2 billion in wage…
Henceforth, as per the Industrial Relations Code, no employee or workers from an industrial establishment can go on strike without giving a 60-day notice of the strike to the employer. Nobody can go on strike within 14 days of giving such a notice or before the expiry of the date of strike specified in any such notice. A strike cannot be called if conciliation proceedings happen to be pending before a conciliation officer, nor can it be called within seven days of the conclusion of such proceedings, or if such proceedings are pending before a tribunal, or if aribitration proceedings…
Beijing-based Chinese internet technology company, ByteDance, has announced cash bonuses to all its eligible staff, which is good news for its 2,000 strong workforce in India. All its full-time employees in India, who have worked for at least 26 days in the July-August period will be receiving bonuses, equivalent to 50 per cent of their base salary in August. The cash bonus runs into lakhs for some mid-senior to senior staff members. Even though ByteDance’s apps, TikTok and Helo, were banned in India in June, ByteDance did not impose any paycuts or slash any jobs. In fact, the Company even…
With Gandhi Jayanti falling on a Friday this year, most employees were looking forward to a long weekend. However, some companies added an extra day off making it a four-day long relaxing weekend for their remote workers. Having spent over six months working from home, most employees have been yearning for time off. With remote working have blurred and almost erased the boundaries between personal and professional life, organisations have realised that their employees were stressed out, some even burned out. While employees at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have been allowed to take today, October 5, off, in addition to the three-day…
The Government of Uttar Pradesh is thinking of setting up an employment commission to guarantee a job to at least one member of each family in the urban and semi-urban areas. This commission will be a permanent statutory / regulatory body with the deputy chief minister as the chairman. An official of the rank of chief secretary will be the executive head or employment commissioner of this body. Following the lockdown, about 32.4 lakh migrant workers had returned to their native villages in Uttar Pradesh. At the time, the state government had established a temporary commission to map the skills…
We have been misled into believing that employees fear artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies. The truth is that they willing to welcome it and are quite eager to embrace it. A study by O.C. Tanner reveals that whatever fear employees experience is centred around how the organisation implements new tools or technology. That means, it will be ideal for organisations to weigh the effect technology will have on employee experience and work culture. A significant 65 per cent of employees are optimistic about introduction of new technology, whereas 32 per cent organisations are culturally fit and ready to embrace…
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Mahindra Group, its employees pledged to contribute 750,000 hours of voluntary community service. The campaign called ‘My Seva’ encourages employees to spend some time performing acts of kindness throughout the year, and share their experiences on social media. The campaign will run alongside the Employee Social Options (ESOPs) volunteering programme. The ESOPs programme encourages employees to volunteer for various CSR projects. Year on year, the Mahindra Group employees have contributed over 3.3 million person-hours cumulatively for programmes aimed at helping the disadvantaged communities. The Group is launching a new video film, as part…
FirstMeridian, the HR platform, has announced 100 per cent acquisition of technology company, CBSI India. The information technology (IT) staffing business and its employees will now operate as part of the FirstMeridian Group. Over the past 15 years, CBSI India has enabled clients across industries find the right talent, both contractual and permanent. Formerly called Synova, CBSI was founded by Raj Vattikuti in 2004, who was the founder of the Altimetrik Group (US) and Covansys Corp, which was later acquired by CSC in 2007. By acquiring CBSI, Sudhakar Balakrishnan, Group CEO, FirstMeridian feels that the Company’s staffing solutions can now…
Abhishek Sen, former VP, CHRO and head, consumer experience, PR and corporate services at Myntra, has joined Indian fintech company, Zeta, as its chief operating officer. In this new role, Sen will be COO for Zeta, Flock and Radix. He will also be part of the management team leading charters covering HR and business operations, including real estate-workplace, procurement and IT operations. An alumnus of XLRI, Jamshedpur, Sen was heading several portfolios at Myntra and Jabong, before moving to Zeta. He was leading human resources, consumer experience and contact centre, as well as public relations. Before joining Myntra, Sen had…
Approximately 28,000 employees or ‘cast members’ as they are called, working at Walt Disney’s theme parks in the US will be laid off. The part-time workers who make up about 67 per cent of the workforce, will be most impacted. These are workers who are paid by the hour. The layoffs are a result of the extreme restrictions placed by California amidst the ongoing pandemic, due to which it was difficult to reopen Disneyland. Thousands of employees at its Florida and California resorts will be rendered jobless. These parks had about 110,000 employees before the pandemic. Ever since March, thousands…
Royal Dutch Shell is set to slash about 7,000 to 9,000 jobs by 2022, that is more than 10 per cent of its workforce, amidst the huge dip in demand for oil and gas. Of these, about 1,500 have agreed to take voluntary redundancy this year. The Company is laying off as part of cost-cutting measures and its plan to shift to low-carbon energy. The move is expected to save the British-Dutch multinational oil and gas company, which has a workforce strength of about 83,000, at least $2 billion annually. Ever since the pandemic, the Company, which has a 6,000-strong…