There is an urgent need for MNCs to relook at their people strategy
in India, says Anuradha Parthasarathy of Global Executive Talent
The case ends with the MD, Pradeep Saigal
proposing to set up a call with Mark, the AMEA (Africa, Middle East and
Asia) president of HR, for Uday to discuss his exit package. Here is a
person who supposedly leads the country operations as the managing
director and he concedes that neither he nor his HR lead is empowered to
negotiate with Uday to arrive at a reasonable and fair settlement. We
see this pattern throughout as the case unfolds. Saigal squirms when he
informs Uday that he needs to move out of his role as the sales
director. He would not have reacted this way if he were sure that the
decision was taken in the best interests of the company. Again, when he
tells Maya that Uday has to go, he lets it out that he has been working
with Mark to ease Uday out. This is yet another indication that Saigal
had been instructed to do this by the AMEA boss and he is nothing but a
tool to meet a “desire” to revamp the sales team of Delaware in India.
So, we realise that the Indian operations are run remotely by the AMEA
chief sitting somewhere in Singapore, Hong Kong or Australia. This is
true for many MNCs that operate in India. In the 80s and 90s when India
was but a tiny blip in their sales radar, it was justified as “not
worth senior management’s time”.
But today, as the markets here
have grown larger and most of the major economies have stagnated, it is
hard to believe that the same strategy is still being pursued! But then
I realised that the reasons have changed. Now India has become too
critical to be left to local homegrown leaders. So, what we now see is a
power game where again the local management is jerked every now and
then based on somebody’s whims and fancy. Often there is no historical
context to the decision making as constant reshuffle of management
brings in expats who have very little understanding of India.
This
approach, of course, has always been a bugbear for the local MNC
executive cadre. But again, the returns in terms of fancy perks and
significantly above average salaries seemed to weigh in quite handsomely
in the past. Now the times have now changed. The new generation in
India has many more lucrative options unlike the earlier times. In a
globalised world, they can choose to work in other countries. With VC’s
and angel investor’s money, they can even try their hand at
entrepreneurship. Moreover, there are a host of Indian MNCs, which pay
quite well to woo the best talent. As a result, Indian professionals
consider themselves no less than expat executives and therefore expect
to be treated at par with them.
An executive who has been on
the board like Uday will not accept that he should be given less in
severance than any expat executive in the company. Not only will it
cause resentment but will also lead to legal battles, which will further
tarnish the reputation and image of the company. Social networks make
it easy for the professionals to find out where they stand and what
their market value is, without having to depend on company appraisals.
In
future, professionals are likely to build their own brands independent
of the employer. This will surely tilt the balance in the favour of
employees especially the high performing ones. Technology today is also
forcing an accelerated pace of change like never seen before. Walmart,
the world’s biggest chain of retail stores, feels threatened by Amazon,
which is a rookie in comparison. Market dynamics, too, are changing
fast. Alibaba with its dominance in China eyes to acquire Yahoo!
So,
no brand or legacy is infallible in today’s time. Hiring and retaining
the best people in key geographies is the only way to ensure that the
organisation can adapt itself quickly to changing times. Doing anything
which goes against this will be suicidal, to say the least.
In
the changing business scenario, there is an urgent need for the
Delawares of the world to relook at their people strategy in big markets
like India. It is imperative that they let the local managers make
their own hiring and firing decisions based on what they believe would
be in best interests of the company. A situation like what we see in
Delaware is very damaging for the company in the long term. The Indian
employees are keenly aware of the highhanded “big brotherly” tactics
adopted by the Delaware management. We hear a rumbling of discontent as
Maya and Prahlad (the HR head) who are well respected within the
company, feel upset and anguished with the developments. The morale of
the team is likely to go down which would reflect in the future
performance of the company. Needless to say that every one of them
including Saigal will be on the look out for a better opportunity to
ensure that they do not fall prey to the same fate as Uday. And by
then, chances are that Mark Steiner would have moved to greener pastures
after having made his mark at Delaware!
