For those of us who think that a recruiter’s job is mere cakewalk, there’s more to it than meets the eye. A lot of sweet and toil goes into finding the ‘right candidate’ and matching the skills with the job in hand. It takes not only analytical skills but also tremendous emotional intelligence to really understand the candidate and fit him/her in the most suitable job. And you thought that recruiters only have to go through a sheet of paper that just mirrors some facts about the candidate?!
Anu Parthasarthy, founder and CEO, Global Executive Talent agrees, “A good recruiter needs to understand the client business well which implies a lot of reading to be updated on the new technology trends, consumer market trends, government regulations(local and international)etc.” She further adds, “It also involves tracking competition specifically with respect to current clients.”
A typical search assignment involves a lot of ground work in researching the potential candidate landscape and broadcasting the search across multiple media to get to the right candidates. This calls for a great team effort with the recruiter being supported by researchers.
The day for a recruiter begins with a great planning and more often than not ends up in chaos as many unplanned activities take place. “A typical day starts with a meeting/call with the team to analyze the research, pool knowledge about available candidates and plan for next steps,” shares Parthasarthy.
“Then the day will have a couple of scheduled meetings/calls with clients and candidates. There will also be calls with other people to get references, candidate leads etc which can help further in closing the assignments,” she adds. Besides this, some part of the day is also spent in preparing dossiers on candidates being presented, status reports for clients and in-house administrative work.
And then of course there is the joy of contributing to a person’s life by getting him the job s/he so relentlessly worked towards day in and day out. “It feels great when your candidates tell you that you impacted their professional life positively,” shares Parthasarthy. “I have had situations where candidates came back after 7-8 years and shared the progress they made within the company. It gives a tremendous feeling of fulfillment,” she concludes.
Mar 10, 2010
Enough women in boardrooms?
Courtesy: The Hindu Business Line
Author: D. MURALI
Do women in corporate boardrooms continue to be an exception rather than the norm? “Yes, very true,” agrees Anuradha Parthasarathy, Founder & CEO, Global Executive Talent (www.globalexecutivetalent.com). Even the ones that are there are typically from the owner family, she adds, during the course of a recent email interaction with Business Line.
A management graduate from BITS-Pilani, Anu was the Head of Marketing for Wipro's International Operations Division before founding Nexus Search Consultants, co-founding e4e, and then the current firm as a cross-border senior executive search enterprise based in the US.
Excerpts from the interview:
Your views on how women's presence on boards can be increased.
Women independent directors who have been recruited for their skills are rare. The problem starts at a different level — do we even have enough women at the CXO levels who can then be potential candidates for board positions? No.
So, when companies start looking to shortlist candidates for board positions 99 per cent of the candidates who surface will be men. Board positions today are tough, needing a fairly stringent evaluation process. Also it is a two-way street — the candidates too will evaluate the company to decide if they want to join the board.
Eventually, even the 1 per cent will fall off as it is next to impossible to have a high enough hit rate to select from within the miniscule pool. It is also a fact that most CEOs and investors are men and, therefore, will end up selecting a board which looks and feels more like them.
The only way we can ensure that there are enough women on the board will be through affirmative action; where they deliberately seek out the few women wherever they are and make them an attractive offer to join their board. Why would a corporate do that? Couple of reasons why they would take this extra trouble:
Legislative mandate as in Norway which insists that corporates reserve a certain number of board seats for women.
The CEO is convinced that women board members have a very powerful and positive impact on how well the company is run — that is, his short-term and long-term growth and profitability depends on having women on board. But we do see countries such as Japan with abysmal representation of women on boards still showcasing market-leading companies which are well run by all metrics. Hence it is not an open and shut case.
The only way, therefore, this situation can change at least in the next decade will be when enough women reach and stay at the top of the corporate pyramid and thereby increase the overall available pool of meritocratic candidates.
This will happen only if we get enough women in every layer of management. The only success story so far in this context is ICICI.
Why do women lose out in the mid-career phase?
Conventional wisdom will say that women are biased towards spending more time and effort in bringing up children when they are in their 30s. Hence they opt out of the corporate rat race. However the real reasons are different.
Once women put themselves through professional education such as engineering, management, etc., they are keen on building a good career. In fact, many qualified, educated women feel depressed and frustrated in the latter part of their life because they feel that they did not live up to their potential.
However, even today the corporate world is built by men, for men, of men. Often lip service is paid to the concept of supporting women and encouraging them to work — it is easy to reel out policies for the benefit of PR. But results speak louder than words and it is there to see.
Even in the IT industry, which unlike other industries depend on women for talent, there are not enough women at the top.
The easiest approach is to blame the women, but we all know that at heart all of us share the same aspirations to rise to the best of our potential — unfortunately women get pushed out, thanks to the non-conducive work environment.
We have a culture where there is a lot of emphasis placed on the physical time spent at the workplace. Networking after office hours over drinks is the key to getting to know about new opportunities. Again women hardly participate and get left out of consideration.
Going up also requires women to move out of back-office positions and take on line roles such as sales which can lead to P&L positions. However, travel within India, especially to remote places, is still very tough on women and will warrant taking undue risks in terms of safety.
Finally, the infrastructural facilities conspire to undo even the best intentions — hours to commute to work, no reliable childcare facility, absence of neighbourhood schools, and a school system which expects parents to supervise and tutor kids.
Do Indian companies pursue diversity, in general, and gender diversity, in particular? Where are the hurdles?
Indian companies have started talking about gender diversity especially the ones which want to be seen as progressive and which are catering to a global customer base. American companies want to do business with vendors who proactively pursue diversity, especially gender diversity.
However, as I said earlier, there is more lip service than real intention. And the reasons aren't far to see. Corporations are driven by the short-term, quarter-to-quarter performance goals. They will only bother about gender diversity if they feel their performance is getting affected by not having enough women at different levels.
This realisation can change attitudes overnight. Else we will need the Government to mandate “quotas” for women — in India they have enough on their plate to bother about this and it will have zero popular support.
So we will cross this hurdle when we hit the talent crunch. A talent crunch will force companies to compete for women by providing a better then “home” environment so that they would choose the corporate world over the “home” world.
Companies should feel that they need to attract enough women, retain and grow them if they are going to build a high performance, stable team. They should believe that having women in their midst will change their perspective positively. They should want women in their ranks to understand the customer and market needs better.
As of now, unfortunately (women will not like hearing this), these are not “felt” needs.
Author: D. MURALI
Do women in corporate boardrooms continue to be an exception rather than the norm? “Yes, very true,” agrees Anuradha Parthasarathy, Founder & CEO, Global Executive Talent (www.globalexecutivetalent.com). Even the ones that are there are typically from the owner family, she adds, during the course of a recent email interaction with Business Line.
A management graduate from BITS-Pilani, Anu was the Head of Marketing for Wipro's International Operations Division before founding Nexus Search Consultants, co-founding e4e, and then the current firm as a cross-border senior executive search enterprise based in the US.
Excerpts from the interview:
Your views on how women's presence on boards can be increased.
Women independent directors who have been recruited for their skills are rare. The problem starts at a different level — do we even have enough women at the CXO levels who can then be potential candidates for board positions? No.
So, when companies start looking to shortlist candidates for board positions 99 per cent of the candidates who surface will be men. Board positions today are tough, needing a fairly stringent evaluation process. Also it is a two-way street — the candidates too will evaluate the company to decide if they want to join the board.
Eventually, even the 1 per cent will fall off as it is next to impossible to have a high enough hit rate to select from within the miniscule pool. It is also a fact that most CEOs and investors are men and, therefore, will end up selecting a board which looks and feels more like them.
The only way we can ensure that there are enough women on the board will be through affirmative action; where they deliberately seek out the few women wherever they are and make them an attractive offer to join their board. Why would a corporate do that? Couple of reasons why they would take this extra trouble:
Legislative mandate as in Norway which insists that corporates reserve a certain number of board seats for women.
The CEO is convinced that women board members have a very powerful and positive impact on how well the company is run — that is, his short-term and long-term growth and profitability depends on having women on board. But we do see countries such as Japan with abysmal representation of women on boards still showcasing market-leading companies which are well run by all metrics. Hence it is not an open and shut case.
The only way, therefore, this situation can change at least in the next decade will be when enough women reach and stay at the top of the corporate pyramid and thereby increase the overall available pool of meritocratic candidates.
This will happen only if we get enough women in every layer of management. The only success story so far in this context is ICICI.
Why do women lose out in the mid-career phase?
Conventional wisdom will say that women are biased towards spending more time and effort in bringing up children when they are in their 30s. Hence they opt out of the corporate rat race. However the real reasons are different.
Once women put themselves through professional education such as engineering, management, etc., they are keen on building a good career. In fact, many qualified, educated women feel depressed and frustrated in the latter part of their life because they feel that they did not live up to their potential.
However, even today the corporate world is built by men, for men, of men. Often lip service is paid to the concept of supporting women and encouraging them to work — it is easy to reel out policies for the benefit of PR. But results speak louder than words and it is there to see.
Even in the IT industry, which unlike other industries depend on women for talent, there are not enough women at the top.
The easiest approach is to blame the women, but we all know that at heart all of us share the same aspirations to rise to the best of our potential — unfortunately women get pushed out, thanks to the non-conducive work environment.
We have a culture where there is a lot of emphasis placed on the physical time spent at the workplace. Networking after office hours over drinks is the key to getting to know about new opportunities. Again women hardly participate and get left out of consideration.
Going up also requires women to move out of back-office positions and take on line roles such as sales which can lead to P&L positions. However, travel within India, especially to remote places, is still very tough on women and will warrant taking undue risks in terms of safety.
Finally, the infrastructural facilities conspire to undo even the best intentions — hours to commute to work, no reliable childcare facility, absence of neighbourhood schools, and a school system which expects parents to supervise and tutor kids.
Do Indian companies pursue diversity, in general, and gender diversity, in particular? Where are the hurdles?
Indian companies have started talking about gender diversity especially the ones which want to be seen as progressive and which are catering to a global customer base. American companies want to do business with vendors who proactively pursue diversity, especially gender diversity.
However, as I said earlier, there is more lip service than real intention. And the reasons aren't far to see. Corporations are driven by the short-term, quarter-to-quarter performance goals. They will only bother about gender diversity if they feel their performance is getting affected by not having enough women at different levels.
This realisation can change attitudes overnight. Else we will need the Government to mandate “quotas” for women — in India they have enough on their plate to bother about this and it will have zero popular support.
So we will cross this hurdle when we hit the talent crunch. A talent crunch will force companies to compete for women by providing a better then “home” environment so that they would choose the corporate world over the “home” world.
Companies should feel that they need to attract enough women, retain and grow them if they are going to build a high performance, stable team. They should believe that having women in their midst will change their perspective positively. They should want women in their ranks to understand the customer and market needs better.
As of now, unfortunately (women will not like hearing this), these are not “felt” needs.
Transformational Leadership and its relevance to the VC/ PE community - excerpts of my speech in APEX 2010
2009 was in many ways a watershed year for Indian entrepreneurs and investors. Pre 2009, growth was overwhelming – the challenge was to swim with the rising tide – making sure you were ready with the capital and people to grab the opportunity. Talent was scarce but we knew how to compete against the MNC’s and grab our share with the right mix of cash, stock and lure of an adventure trip. But the first big blip was a true eye opener.
Suddenly the blue chip recruits did not feel motivated to stay on and take the tough decisions of firing and cutting costs – now that the paper upside looked very remote. Not only was the appetite for tough times missing but also there was very little learning that could be leveraged for down times – most had seen only ups with very few having tasted and survived such an unpredictable global downturn. Soon enough the runway which the professional thought that they had negotiated for themselves, disappeared. Owner promoters and founders were anxious to conserve value and were quickly reneging on their committed support. The time looked right for sabbatical as more executives decided to take off rather than plunge themselves into messy waters. The NRI’s and the expats did not like the look and feel of the new biz model which could not pay for international schools and gated communities.
Very soon investors too realized that the real returns were only available when they could up the ante to the next level: create companies with new business models not “me toos” copying successful western ones both in the venture and PE world. Is the real return in “building Amazon” for India or changing the way books are written, published and distributed? Is the Indian PE investor going to gain by building yet another auto company or should he be betting on building a new way for transporting people from point to point? 2009 proved to be a wake-up call. It removed the easy options and pitted investors in the more unknown, risky but higher rewards path of building businesses which will redefine rather than recreate traditional western business models. I believe we are at the very early stage of this great journey which will reshape our view of the business world.
So what kind of leadership will this demand?? It calls for leaders who understand the big shifts that are happening in the world intrinsically not at a superficial level. Who are able to then distill these changes to paint a vision for what businesses need to do differently – redefine their landscape in some ways. Like the good guys who saw mobile payment as a means to redefine conventional banking not just a “mode of payment”. Who then have the passion for proving their vision and therefore are willing to commit themselves to executing through ups and downs. These are people who are driven by the impact that they can see themselves making and not by business cards and cars they drive. Such transformational leaders are required at the helm of businesses today whether it is a VC funded start-up growing wings or a PE funded company redefining its path. This is not more of the same and therefore executives who have perfected the art of “doing more of the same” better and better will be found misfits for such roles.
Most of these leaders are hidden till we search, probe and unearth them for unless we have the right message they are not interested in reaching out. Often enough these are executives who have experimented & failed not the traditional, always successful, born with a silver spoon stereotypes that we paint for our leadership talent. They are often not in visible jobs as they have been very busy making change happen wherever they are. They are not the “stars” hailed by media and feted by every new MNC which sets shop in India. They have been entrenched in execution perhaps in some unfashionable businesses in the dusty town and cities of India or Indonesia. The challenge lies not only in finding them but also in giving them the runway they need to succeed. More often than not, transformation is a slow process in the beginning and gathers speed only later – Rome was not built in a day!
As investors you need to prepare that runway by making sure that there is full backing and support from founders/ family owners etc. to make the change happen. Transformational leaders need empowerment and a free hand to recruit and build teams which will help them execute. In fact this is the magnet that attracts such folks.
The good news is that we have in our midst today people who can rise up to this challenge and in fact potential leaders who are waiting for the right opportunity to prove themselves. For today more than at any other time ambitious executives are hitting the glass ceiling faster and the frustration levels are high – right time for all the investors here to wear the recruiting hat!
My message for 2010 – let us build a cadre of transformational leaders who can redefine the business landscape from India. Whose values, ethos and outlook are quintessentially Indian even as they perceive the world as their arena.
Suddenly the blue chip recruits did not feel motivated to stay on and take the tough decisions of firing and cutting costs – now that the paper upside looked very remote. Not only was the appetite for tough times missing but also there was very little learning that could be leveraged for down times – most had seen only ups with very few having tasted and survived such an unpredictable global downturn. Soon enough the runway which the professional thought that they had negotiated for themselves, disappeared. Owner promoters and founders were anxious to conserve value and were quickly reneging on their committed support. The time looked right for sabbatical as more executives decided to take off rather than plunge themselves into messy waters. The NRI’s and the expats did not like the look and feel of the new biz model which could not pay for international schools and gated communities.
Very soon investors too realized that the real returns were only available when they could up the ante to the next level: create companies with new business models not “me toos” copying successful western ones both in the venture and PE world. Is the real return in “building Amazon” for India or changing the way books are written, published and distributed? Is the Indian PE investor going to gain by building yet another auto company or should he be betting on building a new way for transporting people from point to point? 2009 proved to be a wake-up call. It removed the easy options and pitted investors in the more unknown, risky but higher rewards path of building businesses which will redefine rather than recreate traditional western business models. I believe we are at the very early stage of this great journey which will reshape our view of the business world.
So what kind of leadership will this demand?? It calls for leaders who understand the big shifts that are happening in the world intrinsically not at a superficial level. Who are able to then distill these changes to paint a vision for what businesses need to do differently – redefine their landscape in some ways. Like the good guys who saw mobile payment as a means to redefine conventional banking not just a “mode of payment”. Who then have the passion for proving their vision and therefore are willing to commit themselves to executing through ups and downs. These are people who are driven by the impact that they can see themselves making and not by business cards and cars they drive. Such transformational leaders are required at the helm of businesses today whether it is a VC funded start-up growing wings or a PE funded company redefining its path. This is not more of the same and therefore executives who have perfected the art of “doing more of the same” better and better will be found misfits for such roles.
Most of these leaders are hidden till we search, probe and unearth them for unless we have the right message they are not interested in reaching out. Often enough these are executives who have experimented & failed not the traditional, always successful, born with a silver spoon stereotypes that we paint for our leadership talent. They are often not in visible jobs as they have been very busy making change happen wherever they are. They are not the “stars” hailed by media and feted by every new MNC which sets shop in India. They have been entrenched in execution perhaps in some unfashionable businesses in the dusty town and cities of India or Indonesia. The challenge lies not only in finding them but also in giving them the runway they need to succeed. More often than not, transformation is a slow process in the beginning and gathers speed only later – Rome was not built in a day!
As investors you need to prepare that runway by making sure that there is full backing and support from founders/ family owners etc. to make the change happen. Transformational leaders need empowerment and a free hand to recruit and build teams which will help them execute. In fact this is the magnet that attracts such folks.
The good news is that we have in our midst today people who can rise up to this challenge and in fact potential leaders who are waiting for the right opportunity to prove themselves. For today more than at any other time ambitious executives are hitting the glass ceiling faster and the frustration levels are high – right time for all the investors here to wear the recruiting hat!
My message for 2010 – let us build a cadre of transformational leaders who can redefine the business landscape from India. Whose values, ethos and outlook are quintessentially Indian even as they perceive the world as their arena.
Feb 19, 2010
Understanding Your Company
Why the role of an HR head is not just a “nice to have” differentiator but is often a “make or break” parameter for the Genx organisations
My husband was running an IT company in the 90s as a first time CEO. One of the interesting decisions he took was to move his HR manager to a field role as the Regional Manager heading sales and support operations in a region. I had seen line managers move to HR roles in companies like Wipro but this was the first time I had seen it happen the other way round. What a foolhardy move was my first reaction. How could an HR person manage a sales force, face customers and handle operations? It is not in their DNA! And why? Why risk pulling your revenues down and losing a good HR manager? My husband had a very convincing and interesting rational for his quirky move. He said he wanted an HR head who understood his business first hand. Someone who had been in the trenches and knew what the challenges were. Otherwise he felt that HR strategies would be driven by theory and would fail.
Over the next decade as I watch the Indian economy evolve into a
predominantly services economy I feel that there is an urgent need for
this approach to become more of a norm and less of an anomaly. A
services based economy rests on people especially knowledge workers. In
such an economy the role that HR plays is often very different from a
capital intensive production driven economy. Here the HR professional is
expected to be a business partner working closely with the line
managers. The organisation depends on them to plan, source, train and
retain a high end talent pool with a pipeline of leaders. This is not
just a “nice to have” differentiator but is often a “make or break”
parameter for the Genx organisations. Why does an Accenture still
command a premium pricing in the high end IT consulting business? It is
the distinct quality of its people and the expertise it has built by
leveraging such a workforce. And the pivot for building such an
organization rests on HR. How does HR equip itself to play such a
pivotal role effectively? Currently, we still follow the old model where
we ‘train’, educate HR executives in Labor institutes and Social Work
Schools and land them straight into HR roles from Day 1. They are
expected to rise through the ranks to reach the lofty position where
they will be drawing up the people strategy for the company. This
without ever spending a day in any role which would expose them to the
real guts of the business. No wonder then that most CEOs prefer to move
their best line managers to the strategic HR roles instead! So, we see a
lot of movement especially at the top from operations to HR but very
few instances of the reverse.
This may also be because of the
reluctance of HR professionals to move out of their comfort zone and get
into frontline roles. And why take such risks when you can go up
nevertheless? But the point which is missed is that as they move up the
ladder their lack of hands-on experience is a real handicap which leads
to most critical HR decisions being taken by the CEO himself. In a world
where new generation companies like Google and Apple succeed purely on
the strength of their innovation, HR folks are under tremendous pressure
to deliver a workforce that is miles ahead of competition. This when
they have to compete globally for talent! They have the difficult job of
then keeping them motivated by giving them an environment that will
enthuse their creativity.
An HR professional who has had the
chance to be one of them or has directly managed such a team instantly
gets it and can quickly figure out what will make them tick. Is there
any reason to hesitate then about the need for HR to not just wet their
toes but to deep dive into the pool, when the stakes are so high? By the
way the HR manager as the Regional Manager proved to be a great success
in my husband's company proving once again that a good professional can
do well in multiple roles. It is imperative that we give them that
opportunity and not put them in silos with no escape route. This is no
altruism but self-interest as great HR folks will not happen unless we
give them the right exposure to business. Guess what? Facebook, the
social networking site, has a VP(HR) whose last stint was with eBay as
head of marketing, advertising, brand management and consumer
promotions!
Feb 9, 2010
Reinventing HR - Is HR in India ready to march to the new beat?
The 21st century has brought more changes, more rapidly in the way businesses work in India — Growth rates are vaulting higher and higher; competition has moved from local to national to international; more companies are started by first time entrepreneurs than ever before; non-traditional and international investors like VCs and PEs have settled down to stay; cross Border M&As have become a big part of growth.
Unlike the 1990s when IT and ITeS set the trend, today these changes encompass all sectors. We are in the midst of a structural tsunami which is sweeping across all organisations — big and small, old and new, family owned and MNC. And more than any other function, HR is right in the eye of the storm.
At this juncture one wonders: Is the role of HR just to bring talent on-board and retain it? What about coaching, mentoring and moulding the talent base? Should the “best employer” tag continue to be linked to something innocuous like the efficiency of bus pick-ups? Shouldn’t the employee judge the organization on the learning and growth opportunities provided? Isn’t it time that Indian companies got a more mature workforce - A workforce, which understands and aligns itself to business goals and is not looking at the employer/HR to play the “surrogate parent” role?
More importantly, post Satyam, India looks to HR professionals to build a culture of transparency to promote the concept of whistle blowing. It is not about having policies in binders but about educating employees on how to find their voice when they observe something amiss. Is HR listening?
The expectation, the criticality of the role and the difference it can make to an organisation today has zoomed HR to the “C” suite with more and more companies going for a Chief People Officer who can help them build a next gen organisation — an organisation which is more global, more inclusive, more diverse, puts a premium on productivity at all levels, has a deep pool of leadership talent and which embraces CSR as a part of business. For, that is what Indian companies need to be today to survive and thrive.
However, as with all transitions this goal is a highly ambitious one. Companies and business leaders have realised the need and are ready to move. Are the HR professionals ready to skill up and execute on this new vision? Such a magnitude of change demands that senior HR professionals move their focus from operational issues to strategic issues and take on the challenge of “people creation” rather than “people relations”.
The change needs to happen across the entire HR spectrum. The HR executive of yesterday thrived on playing a proactive direct role in managing people. He was right there in the front, the “Goto” person for employees with problems. He had the responsibility to hire people, fire people and move them across as required.
Today’s HR person needs to move 180 degrees to a more facilitating role. He needs to support the line managers as they don the operational role of HR — providing them inputs, coaching them and helping them as a neutral observer to take the right people decisions. But finally he defers to the decisions of the line managers and makes sure that they understand that the buck stops with them.
Freed of the day–to–day operational transactions, the new-gen HR person’s work day will change dramatically — He works with the Board and CEO to build a leadership band for the organization; he works with the Board to put in assessment parameters for the CEO and his leadership team; he nudges, prods and moves the CEO to work on a succession plan; he builds and implements the process for leadership recruitment; he draws the framework for how the organization should look in the next three, five and ten years. How to build the right advisory board, how to increase diversity in the ranks, how to move towards being a more inclusive organisation representing all castes, creed and nationality? These are the issues which will occupy his mind and time.
What one sees around in India is that HR professionals are yet to catch up. Progressive CEOs have stepped into the breach and are playing an active HR role. Obviously this cannot be sustained for long, as some exigency or the other would take their attention away.
So, the need of the hour is to create a band of future ready HR professionals. One quick fix solution, which has worked in the past both here and abroad, is to move line executives to HR roles. With their experience in the executive team they easily wear the strategy cap and thereby set the tone for the successors.
Another highly effective intervention is to put HR teams through Executive Management programmes giving them a good perspective on running a business in its entirety.
But, the more sustainable solution lies in bringing a fundamental shift right at the root — in the MBA curriculum to churn out HR folks who will come with the changed mind-set ready for the new world.
Unlike the 1990s when IT and ITeS set the trend, today these changes encompass all sectors. We are in the midst of a structural tsunami which is sweeping across all organisations — big and small, old and new, family owned and MNC. And more than any other function, HR is right in the eye of the storm.
At this juncture one wonders: Is the role of HR just to bring talent on-board and retain it? What about coaching, mentoring and moulding the talent base? Should the “best employer” tag continue to be linked to something innocuous like the efficiency of bus pick-ups? Shouldn’t the employee judge the organization on the learning and growth opportunities provided? Isn’t it time that Indian companies got a more mature workforce - A workforce, which understands and aligns itself to business goals and is not looking at the employer/HR to play the “surrogate parent” role?
More importantly, post Satyam, India looks to HR professionals to build a culture of transparency to promote the concept of whistle blowing. It is not about having policies in binders but about educating employees on how to find their voice when they observe something amiss. Is HR listening?
The expectation, the criticality of the role and the difference it can make to an organisation today has zoomed HR to the “C” suite with more and more companies going for a Chief People Officer who can help them build a next gen organisation — an organisation which is more global, more inclusive, more diverse, puts a premium on productivity at all levels, has a deep pool of leadership talent and which embraces CSR as a part of business. For, that is what Indian companies need to be today to survive and thrive.
However, as with all transitions this goal is a highly ambitious one. Companies and business leaders have realised the need and are ready to move. Are the HR professionals ready to skill up and execute on this new vision? Such a magnitude of change demands that senior HR professionals move their focus from operational issues to strategic issues and take on the challenge of “people creation” rather than “people relations”.
The change needs to happen across the entire HR spectrum. The HR executive of yesterday thrived on playing a proactive direct role in managing people. He was right there in the front, the “Goto” person for employees with problems. He had the responsibility to hire people, fire people and move them across as required.
Today’s HR person needs to move 180 degrees to a more facilitating role. He needs to support the line managers as they don the operational role of HR — providing them inputs, coaching them and helping them as a neutral observer to take the right people decisions. But finally he defers to the decisions of the line managers and makes sure that they understand that the buck stops with them.
Freed of the day–to–day operational transactions, the new-gen HR person’s work day will change dramatically — He works with the Board and CEO to build a leadership band for the organization; he works with the Board to put in assessment parameters for the CEO and his leadership team; he nudges, prods and moves the CEO to work on a succession plan; he builds and implements the process for leadership recruitment; he draws the framework for how the organization should look in the next three, five and ten years. How to build the right advisory board, how to increase diversity in the ranks, how to move towards being a more inclusive organisation representing all castes, creed and nationality? These are the issues which will occupy his mind and time.
What one sees around in India is that HR professionals are yet to catch up. Progressive CEOs have stepped into the breach and are playing an active HR role. Obviously this cannot be sustained for long, as some exigency or the other would take their attention away.
So, the need of the hour is to create a band of future ready HR professionals. One quick fix solution, which has worked in the past both here and abroad, is to move line executives to HR roles. With their experience in the executive team they easily wear the strategy cap and thereby set the tone for the successors.
Another highly effective intervention is to put HR teams through Executive Management programmes giving them a good perspective on running a business in its entirety.
But, the more sustainable solution lies in bringing a fundamental shift right at the root — in the MBA curriculum to churn out HR folks who will come with the changed mind-set ready for the new world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)