Author: Kartikay Kashyap | HRKatha

Does ‘remote work’ mean the same today as it did during or before the pandemic? Well, the pandemic sure did turn the world upside down. It changed the mind-sets, preferences and priorities of human beings. These changes had a significant impact on people’s relationships, not just at home but within businesses and organisations. Interestingly, it changed the very definition of a ‘remote worker’. For instance, in a manufacturing setup, there were always ‘remote’ workers, who are so called because they work in ‘remote’ locations. Maintenance engineers in a factory located in a remote region were referred to as ‘remote’ workers…

Growth of employees has become a priority for most organisations today, and growth does not only happen through promotions and pay raises alone. Upskilling of employees is a key area that needs attention in order to keep employees relevant and updated. Many companies offer certification programmes and e-learning modules to ensure that their employees keep learning continuously. However, Barco, a technology firm that specialises in digital projection and imaging technology has gone a step further. It has come up with an initiative called ‘Learning Tuesdays.’ Started by Barco during the pandemic in 2021, when most of the workforce was working…

The tech sector has been gripped by a flurry of layoffs. The mood is far from upbeat as bad times are being predicted. With most of the layoffs taking place in the tech space, and that too in the US market, is it right to call this a US trend? Well, in the last few months, more than 60,000 jobs hae been lost in the US, in the tech sector alone. However, an examination of the facts and figures shows that India isn’t far behind. Close to 12,000 people in the country have been rendered jobless in 2022 alone. These…

A lot has been said about how people should be empathetic towards the specially abled and how they should be treated as equals. However, how much can mere talk on the subject achieve? To ensure a truly inclusive culture in the organisation, each person in the organisation should be able to empathise with their specially-abled co-workers. It is impossible to truly understand the struggles and difficulties of the specially-abled co-workers unless employees spend a few hours actually dealing with the same struggles. Future Generali India Insurance Company (FGII) came up with a unique way to create this empathy and sensitise…

Nuvoco Vistas, which claims to be the fifth largest cement-manufacturing firm in India, has embarked on a journey aimed at making its 4000+ workforce across the country future ready. As part of its talent-development strategy, Nuvoco plans to train its employees, across levels and departments, in digital areas. To make this happen, the Company has launched the Nuvoco University, which will primarily focus on upskilling employees in digital skills. “We are preparing our workforce to be future ready, which also means learning things in a new and different way,” shares Manisha Kelkar, CHRO, Nuvoco Vistas. Talking to HRKatha, Kelkar reveals…

Of late, headlines have been all about layoffs, downsizing and retrenchment. All the big tech firms— including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook’s parent company Meta and Google — have reduced headcounts significantly in recent times. Why this need to trim the workforce? The reasons vary, from macroeconomics challenges and rising inflation, to precautionary measures in anticipation of a recession. While the causes for such drastic measures may differ from one organisation to the other, the truth is that such large-scale layoffs can never be justified. After all, a year down the line, these same companies that are asking employees to leave today,…

Shaila, a budding marketing professional, began her career with an FMCG firm. It has been three years since she started working in the marketing department of the company, post her MBA from a grade II management college in Mumbai. Shaila is not just an ‘ideas’ person, but a very hard working member of the team with expertise in creating PowerPoint presentations. Whenever an important project or a new strategy is conceived, her immediate boss or senior, Sheetal — who comes from a top notch MBA college and is only a year senior to her academically — offloads a major part…

Ranjan Banerjee, who has recently taken up the role of group HR head at Berger Paints, is an avid reader and is well regarded as an orator and a speaker. He loves spending his free time with his family and is in the habit of penning down his life experiences in a diary. Though Banerjee loves writing, his tight schedule makes it difficult for him to take out time for this passion. However, he is keen to resume this activity, which helps him formulate opinions and look back at his learnings. Banerjee admits that a career in HR is not…

There seem to be distressed and anxious employees all around us. What with big giants such as Amazon, Twitter, Netflix, Facebook’s parent company Meta, Microsoft and many others in the tech space deciding to fire employees in big numbers. As per industry experts, almost three lakh jobs have been impacted in the last two months. In fact, such layoffs have become so frequent of late that they have ceased to shock readers. Of course, it causes a lot of financial stress to the laid-off staff who are rendered jobless overnight, stuck with loans to pay off and no funds to…

What is people management all about? It is about dealing with humans, that is, the people who make businesses successful. Therefore, no matter how modern businesses become and how much HR moves beyond traditional boundaries, it is impossible to ignore the cultural aspect while devising the HR strategy of any company. There is no doubt that the cultural fabric of the people of the West is very different from those in India. Not only are our roots very different, but the way we work, think and execute also differs. So, can the HR practices that work in the West, work…

After a journey of four years, Sterlite Technologies (STL), a global integrator of digital networks has made some remarkable progress in diversifying its workforce, with an aim to achieve equal representation of men and women, even at the plants. It is common for assembly lines at manufacturing sites to be largely dominated by men. The situation wasn’t any different at Sterlite Technologies, which has manufacturing facilities across India involved in producing optical fibre cables and solutions. However, things are changing, and surely for the better now, with STL making conscious efforts to increase the representation of women in its plants.…

The onboarding of employees is doubtlessly the most crucial part of the recruitment process after sending out the appointment letters. Companies have started realising this and have begun to focus more on having a robust onboarding process in place. Many firms, especially in the IT and technology sector, begin their onboarding process much before the employee joins the company. The simple reason for this is that there has been a rise in premature attrition. As per a report, 17 per cent of employees leave the company within 90 days of joining. Today, if a normal employee’s onboarding is so crucial,…

Is it better to go for more freshers or lateral hires for a role? This is rather debatable. There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to choosing between freshers and lateral hires for filling positions. It depends primarily on the role. For roles at the bottom of the pyramid or entry-level positions, companies tend to hire either freshers who have just finished college or talent with under three years of experience. Lateral hires have their own advantages. They need no investment in terms of time and money when it comes to upskilling and training. They can start…

While inflation has been a much-debated topic around the world for some time now, political leaders in the UK have been struggling with the challenges it has brought with it. The cost of living is at a constant high in the UK and it is naturally impacting the employees severely. What is worse is that employees are taking advantage of the situation and how! A survey conducted in the UK suggests that 79 per cent of the working population is thinking of deploying or using the ‘reverse retention’ tactic. ‘Reverse Retention’ is when employees threaten their employers that they would…

After a two-year career break post her pregnancy, Payal was once again looking to kick-start her career as a content writer. However, even after three months of active job hunting and filling out of hundreds of job applications, she received not a single positive response. Why? Because all the while, she had been applying for ghost jobs of course. Quite common in the corporate world, ghost jobs are positions that employers keep alive on their careers page, and for which they continue to accept applications even after the position has already been filled. In other words, companies post jobs for…

Hero Housing Finance, the financial services firm which provides home loans, has kick-started its campus hiring and fresh talent-development programme called ‘Young Hero Programme.’ Under this new initiative, the Company has hired freshers from campuses for front-line sales roles and trained them to hit the ground. Speaking to HRKatha, Gaurav Paruthi, head-L&D, Hero Housing Finance, shares that it wasn’t the usual practice for the Company to hire freshers for front-line sales roles. In fact, Hero Housing Finance was majorly dependant on lateral hiring for front-line sales personnel. Now, however, the Company wishes to hire some fresh talent to bring some…

A full-time employee may find working as a freelancer or a gig worker fascinating in many ways. After all, freelancers appear to have all the autonomy and flexibility to manage their work. That is not all. They even get to choose whom to work for and what days to work on! And the icing on the cake is that they do not have a boss breathing down their neck all the time. Quite a rosy picture, huh? Alas! All that glitters is not gold! The reality for gig workers is way different from how it is perceived. These ‘independent workers’…

The dramatic acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk was finally concluded on 27 October 2022. The process had actually begun in April 2022 but was put on hold later when Musk accused the top leadership of Twitter of not revealing true facts about the users of Twitter. Musk alleged that the social-media company had more bots than users on the platform which created a bottleneck. However, on 27 October, the $44 billion deal was closed. With a major leadership churn at the top, there is a strong likelihood of Musk wanting to bring about drastic changes to the company, including…

The current talent market is marked by volatility, not just in India but across the globe. When a total lockdown was announced in 2020, speculations were rife in the market, about jobs getting impacted and major layoffs being the only solution. As expected, given the economic condition during the pandemic, many companies were forced to resort to drastic measures to control costs, such as imposing pay cuts and downsizing. However, on the other hand, jobs were also being created, especially in the start-up ecosystem. This boom in job creation was short lived though. The year 2022 has been gloomy for…

The differences between employees and their managers can be easily done away with if the managers are adequately trained in this area Employee retention has become one of the greatest challenges for organisations today. Quite understandable, because the job market has opened up and how! With so many options and opportunities, candidates are almost spoilt for choice. So much so that HR leaders feel that employees have the liberty to choose their boss! Well, differences between employees and bosses have existed for the longest time. In fact, such differences are the main reason for employees moving on from an organisation.…

Corporate gifting in India has reached another level with organisations trying to outdo each other in choosing the most creative and useful gifts for their employees. The tradition of giving Diwali gifts has evolved over time. Depending on the size and nature of the business and the budgets in various organisations, employees may get anything from gift coupons to even expensive watches, gadgets, cars and bikes! While organisations do try to ensure parity when giving gifts to their customers or clients, some special / important clients may be showered with more generosity compared to less important ones who may just…

It is quite common in the corporate world to come across people who only listen to what they want to hear. That means, when such people are being conveyed something that they do not wish to hear, they will not be fully in tune with what the person speaking to them is trying to communicate. This kind of selective listening is known as biased listening and needless to say may cause the selective listeners to miss crucial parts of a discussion. It is natural for such listening bias to often lead to distortion of communication. As Praveen Purohit, deputy CHRO,…

Recently, the founder of Ola Cabs and Ola Electric, Bhavish Aggarwal was in news because of his people management skills. As per media reports, apparently he was found to be abusive and rude with his employees and team members. It was reported that he often used foul language with them and punished them severely for mistakes. This behaviour led to attrition at the top with many leaders in the company quitting. The company’s culture soon came to be branded as ‘hostile.’ Promoter-led firms or promoter-driven companies are organisations, where all the power rests with the promoters or founders of the company. In many…

The mindset of employees has undergone immense change post the pandemic. With so many organisations forced to embrace work-from-home, people have come to realise that it is not difficult to achieve flexibility. In the hospitality sector, however, flexibility remains a challenge. After all, most of the roles across hotels are customer facing. Therefore, physical presence at the site is necessary to carry out the job. “The hospitality sector is known to be strict, especially with regard to timings and other things. Moreover, given the nature of the work and our industry, allowing flexibility remains a challenge,” says Sabu Raghavan, VP-HR,…

In the West and Europe, the year-end period is most special and full of celebration. Christmas, coupled with New Year celebrations makes the end of the year a much looked-forward to time. This is the time when most businesses are also shut and working professionals are able to spend quality time with their families and friends. In India, the IT giants and consultancy firms that have a major client base in the Europe and the US, are also in a celebratory mood since their clients are in the holiday mode. That means, interactions will be minimal during the last couple…

The importance of a robust Rewards and Recognition (R&R) system in an organisation cannot be denied. After all, it is one of the major elements that keeps the employees happy and engaged at work. However, there are different means of rewards and recognition adopted by organisations. From spot rewards, where an employee is rewarded instantly, to tenure-based rewards and ‘employee of the month’ recognitions. However, all rewards are generally not linked to the direct individual performance of an employee. There are certain reward mechanisms where all employees are rewarded, when a company reaches a milestone. For instance, if a group…