Author: Kartikay Kashyap | HRKatha

Gearing up for the future, organisations need to focus more on technology and be prepared for the impact that it may make on its people. Talking about the fast-transforming HR landscape and the job market in India, Anish Sarkar, CEO, Mercer shares his valuable thoughts on the changing trends in HR, the growth of Mercer since he joined the organisation, the people-assessment market in India and how it is evolving. It’s been close to four years at Mercer for you. How has the growth trajectory been so far? Besides the growth through acquisitions, what has been the organic growth? In…

While the employee is being crucified for eating from a meal pack meant for a customer, there are people who feel the staff alone cannot be blamed in such cases. In a recent incident, a delivery boy of Zomato was caught on video eating food meant to be delivered to a customer. The video went viral and created a buzz on social media, with people reacting strongly to the incident. Is it right to just look at one side of the story, and ridicule the Zomato associate for the act? What about the other side? Should the organisation be held…

With Gajendra Chandel, president & CHRO, Tata Motors announcing his decision to quit last week, Ravindra Kumar GP has taken his place with effect from 17 December, 2018. Guenter Butschek, MD & CEO, Tata Motors has himself announced Kumar’s appointment in a letter to the employees. Kumar comes with an experience of almost 20 years. Prior to this, he was working with GE as CHRO – South Asia region. Kumar started his career as an HR manager with Asian paints and has been working with GE for the last 18 years. He joined the Company as the organisation and staffing…

Nishchae Suri, partner and head-KPMG academy is set to join EdCast as president India, South East Asia and Middle East. Suri will be a part of its global management executive team . Talking to HRKatha, Suri has confirmed that he has not officially joined EdCast yet and he will start his new role from 3rd January, 2019. Suri will be responsible for a global shift to the cloud and enterprise transition to AI-powered solutions, through a better understanding of the needs of the clients. He will contribute to the development of an overarching strategy and customised solutions to address these needs.…

The case study A person who works at the middle management level of an organisation has been given a promotion. With his boss having left the country, he has now been moved up to the level of GM, with an increment of just 10 per cent in the salary. The new GM has to take care of the responsibilities of the current role as well as his previous role. Earlier he was being paid a lakh per month, but now, with the promotion he is drawing Rs 1.1 lakh, while his boss was drawing two lakh for the same role.…

Anwar Sheikh, a store assistant at Mahindra Holidays & Resorts, shares his story in a video which was made to celebrate the International Disability Day and was posted by Prashant Khullar, CHRO, Mahindra Holidays & Resorts. Sheikh who suffers from speech and hearing impairment, is a former Special Olympics champion, who played hockey and won a gold medal for India in Japan in 2005. After reading about him in the newspaper, Club Mahindra called him up and hired him. According to Khullar, in their organisation when they hire differently abled people, they make sure that the person can grow in…

This is an organisation where a candidate is welcomed by the chairman of the company and at the end of the interview,the chairman also escorts the candidate out as a positive gesture. Milind Apte, SVP HR, CEAT Tyres limited shares his own experience when he appeared for an interview at CEAT. He had been waiting in the lobby for quite a while, and was surprised to find the chairman himself coming out of the room apologising for the undesirable delay. CEAT treats its employees like family, from the time they enter the office for interviews. Following its motto of involving…

Randstad India, the HR consulting firm, launched a handbook called The five forces changing the world of HR, which touches upon how the workforce and the workplace are changing rapidly with the introduction of AI, machine learning and digitisation. The handbook majorly speaks about how the HR function has changed in the last 40 to 35 years. From the age of industrialisation, where responsibilities included employee attendance, labour dispute management and safety requirements, the HR world has now entered the age of information. While this new era presents many opportunities, there are various challenges that come with it. Now HR…

Infosys will double the pay packages of its employees who undergo courses under the bridge programme. Under the initiative, employees are trained in various high-level skills and moved to different roles, which demand high skill sets. The bridge programme is expected to reduce the attrition rate at junior level of the Company, which is currently over 20 per cent. The programme targets people who have worked at Infosys for three years, because this is the time when employees are observed to start thinking of switching to a rival company for better pay and position, or feel the urge to go…

Many a time there is a situation where the subordinate or the junior working under the boss is more competent and talented than the boss, which can create a line of conflict in the organisation. The leader may get insecure with the progress of the employee and may present obstacles in the growth of the individual. This is a situation no employee surely wants to be in. We posed this question to many of the HR heads and experts in the industry and most of them have responded rather positively. “In our organisation, when we are hiring for a leadership…

The India Skill Report 2019 released by PeopleStrong and CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), has given some positive numbers in the intent of hiring in India and employability in each domain. According to the hiring intent survey— where over 100 employers participated across nine industries— there is an increase of more than 10 per cent in the hiring numbers from 2017 to 2018. This trend may continue in the future also, as the experts predict that the hiring numbers may increase by 15 per cent in 2019 across all industries. The Survey also states that 64 per cent organisations in…

Nathan SV, partner and chief talent officer, Deloitte India, shared his experience when he enrolled for his organisation’s employee community service initiative known as ‘Impact day’, for the first time. He had no clue about what the impact day was all about nor any idea what to expect when he signed up for an old age home, which was in Hyderabad. There, he met an old lady and started a conversation with her. Although Hyderabad is a trilingual place where people speak Telugu, Hindi and English, in this part of the city, Telugu was more prominent. Nathan who hails from…

Munazza Kasmani grew up in Pakistan in a conservative family, where girls getting access to higher education and even simplest of things such as riding a bicycle was a big thing. She broke the stereotype with the support of her brother and husband, becoming the only woman in her family to have gone abroad for higher studies. Now, she heads L&D for developing markets at Reckitt Benckiser and makes the same family feel proud and follow in her footsteps. Male employees have also shared how they were hired by women leaders, such as Kasmani and worked under them and got…

Organisations are at the cusp of a radical change. They need to work towards the future to be able to survive. This change is very critical on the people’s front. Most HR heads are aware of what needs to be done, but fail to get their organisations to act on it. A study by PwC suggests that while organisations realise that capability is important to the future of their business, they yet to take any action. This, in fact, is putting the businesses into the risk zone. Companies need to use insights from big data and advanced analytics when it…

The founder CEOs of successful companies are like ‘heroes’ who have emerged winners after many struggles and countless defeats. The employees generally place them a notch above regular CEOs. They are taken to be leaders or mentors, while the regular CEOs are perceived to be only good managers. Now, when a situation arises, where employees feel their heroes are being victimised, or the leader is caught in a wrong act – there is bound to be a sense of discontent, displeasure and disagreement. They may or may not voice their displeasure on an official platform. However, they will certainly discuss…

All captains have their own ways of steering their ships. Similarly, leaders are different from each other in their attitudes, leadership styles and ways of working. This makes it difficult for them to settle down with their respective teams, especially in a new assignment. It is an even bigger challenge for them to fit in if their predecessors had very strong relationships with the team members. Most of the time, when new leaders are introduced, the team finds it difficult to understand them and work in sync with them. Often, team members resist and try to take on leadership themselves,…

In sports, teams are focussed on a common goal, which is to win the game. But the interesting part of the whole process is, the team comprises members who are all different from each other, in terms of language, religion, region or skill sets. Each member of the team is utilised to accomplish that one goal, that is, victory. Similarly, organisations need a diverse workforce to achieve their objectives. Diversity should not be restricted to gender, religion or colour alone. The organisation should have employees who have experience of working in different fields, industries and domains. This is what really…

They are hardly appreciated or recognised by their employers and organisations for their hard work. We are talking of employees who are at the lowest rung of the hierarchy. Take the case of delivery boys in an online retail company or a food delivery service. However, they are ones who not only ensure smooth service, but are the only customer-facing squad in an online company. Big Basket, the online grocery retailing company, has made efforts to engage with these employees toiling at the grassroot level. The Company began a new initiative this year called the ‘BB Rockstars’, which aims to…

If one of the best performers in a company is looking out for a better job opportunity in the industry and the management is aware of this, what should the company do? The obvious answer is that the company should try and retain that employee. However, top tech firms, such as Netflix and LinkedIn, disagree. At Netflix, the American media services provider and LinkedIn, the professional networking company and employment services provider, if an employee decides to leave the company it is considered good for the image of the organisation. These companies feel that such employees help to build employer…

The relationship between an organisation and an employee is critical to business success. While organisations invest generously in engaging their people focusing on individual motivators and interests, it is also extremely crucial to foster and maintain a strong work relationship with employees. Although each employee in an organisation acts as a building block, it is the collective effort that makes a difference to how successful a company is. When people come together in harmony, they are able to unleash the best of their potential as opposed to teams or cultures where they may feel oppressed or strained, which may in…

All organisations have strict laws and policies regulating the behaviour of employees within the workplace. These help control how employees conduct themselves and treat their co-workers and subordinates. Should companies only worry about how employees carry themselves within the confines of the office premises? Employees will want to project a positive image of themselves, while they are working in the office. But what happens when they are outside the office? Each employee working in an organisation is a representative of the organisation outside the workplace. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the employees to maintain their dignity and the reputation…

Social media profiles are important for people, especially when they are hunting for jobs. People try hard to appear knowledgeable, vocal and opinionated on social media in order to catch the attention of potential employers. In fact, most people pretend or try to be what they are actually not. For instance, some people are introverts in real life, but appear to be quite vocal on social media. Does this pretension work? Does HR buy it? Archana Singh, senior vice president, human resources, Reliance Broadcast Network Social media is a perception that a person creates about himself. Rarely is the information…

A few days back, we came across a social media post, wherein a CEO of a mid-size company had shared one of his hiring experiences— he had taken an uprightly emotional decision choosing not to go by the book. It so happened that the CEO and the head of HR of the concerned company had interviewed a woman candidate. During the interview, while the woman was able to answer a few questions she faltered on a few others. It was evident that she was not in the right frame of mind. When the CEO asked her whether there was a…

The hospitality industry has a very different set of employees — not the regular nine to five office goers. This business operates 24×7 and has people with unique skills and job profiles. However, the regular HR challenges — engagement and retention of employees — continue to plague this sector as well. Will the usual motivational and engagement tactics used for regular corporate employees work in this sector? How in the world would one motivate a chef? Hyatt, for instance, runs a culinary competition for its chefs — The Good Taste Series — a competitive platform for its chefs, where like-minded…

Flipkart’s Big Billion Days may be just about lucrative deals and a shopping bonanza for customers, but for the employees at India’s popular e-commerce marketplace, it means months of hard work before and even after the sale. People in the corporate offices put in extra effort to ensure everything at the back-end runs smoothly and the delivery force, which doubles its usual capacity during the festive period, makes sure the goodies reach buyers on time. These collaborative efforts are essential to make this event the success that it is. Human resources at Flipkart go the extra mile to make employees…

After its inception in the US a year ago, the #MeToo movement is now disrupting India with so many people being unmasked. Whether or not these allegations are true, is an endless debate. However, the best that the #MeToo movement has done is to make people break the shackles of fear and hesitation in discussing the subject. With people from across domains being named, it is no more an individual matter, and has now got organisations grappling to save their repute. This puts HR in the spotlight as the guardians of organisational culture and employee safety. This is the time…