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Job Wise - HI! 5
During downturn, hiring the best talent for key critical roles should also be a priority over cost-cutting measures (View Comments)
Unnati Narang
Posted On Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 01:03:04 PM
Dhiren Shantilal, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific, Kelly Services explains the effect of the global financial contagion on HR trends, policies and lesson drawn there from
1. How have hiring strategies changed in the post recession period, as compared to the pre recession times?
While HR and line managers have an excess of good talent options to choose from during recessionary times, they are limited to critical roles. Salary costs also need to match the quality of talent. This is a boon for smaller businesses as well as government-affiliated and manufacturing organisations as they are able to acquire good talent from other industries by offering growth and stability.
As organisations and recruitment firms prepare for the upswing ahead, they are increasingly focusing their efforts on establishing a strong online presence. These include developing interactive websites and posting advertisements in job forums and job boards to increase brand awareness online. There is also a rise in the use of numerous social networks in order to get promising leads on potential applicants. Social networking websites are no longer used for personal purposes but also for hiring, business marketing and promotions.
2. Kindly explain the key post-recession HR trends in India and abroad.
Some of the post-recession HR trends that we have observed include evaluation of key manpower requirements for key functions of the organisation and ensuring a gradual ramp-up in order to preempt any excess hiring and secondly, changing Performance Measures that mirror the new business and HR requirements.
3. How have the salary trends and incentive schemes changed post recession?
There has been a noticeable trend of salaries and salary increases mirroring the individual and not the role. One is performance-linked salary increase implying salary increments that are determined by performance at the workplace. The second is in case of incentive schemes where the focus has shifted towards more aggressive schemes. To boost productivity and profitability, employees are incentivised to exceed their performance targets. Their incentives are also impacted by the organisation’s financial performance.
4. What is the key learning for the HR, from this global recession?
Even during an economic downturn, HR should work closely with the organisation’s key management to ensure that a talent succession plan is in place for long-term business continuity. This means including training programmes and opportunities for employees to upgrade their skills must be available. During the downturn, hiring the best talent for key critical roles should also be a priority over cost-cutting measures as short-term cost savings may not position the organisation for business continuity and sustainability in the long run.
Effective employee communication also provides organisations an outlet to communicate, interact with and update its staff on its performance and new objectives. Organisations should also keep its communication channels open with its employees. How well such information is updated and communicated will be reflected on its overall business performance.
5. What would be your advice to the HR, for value addition in the current volatile times with so much uncertainty?
In volatile times, companies need to realise that both HR and finance functions are critical functions and are important to achieve the organisation’s business goals. In fact, both HR and finance must understand that they are both working to achieve a common vision – that is, to help their organisations stay ahead of the competition and accomplish the desired business objectives. HR and finance should therefore look at how we continue to achieve both the company and financial objectives while growing and motivating out talent.
Besides managing rising human capital costs, organisations and its HR functions should look into talent management and look beyond the typical compensation and benefits schemes. As organisations need to identify and develop leaders and specialised talent, while managing and increasingly multi-generational workforce and a mobile labour pool, organisations need to develop innovative and practical solutions to meet the changing business and economic trends, as well as build robust people communities where we groom and nurture talent to drive the continued growth of the organisations they work with.
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