TPT Demo 2

MHRM IIT KHARAGPUR HR MAGAZINE

Expert Speak |

Kaleidoscope |

Ms. Linda Johansson Global Social Sustainability Coordinator H&M

Coffee with corporate

|

Autumn Edition| 2012

Work Life balance Work-Life Balance - What HR professionals can do?

Mr. S. Padmanabhan Dr Reddy’s Lab

|

Mr. Aloke Tagore Deloitte

Autumn 2012

Contents

Features

28 | Expert Speak “We work in supply chain as far as Indian scenario is concerned. And we bring sustainability awareness in our suppliers, which are part of our day to day work, by various activities like trainings, audits, meetings and send out information to them. “ -Linda Johansson Global Social Sustainability Coordinator, H&M

8 | HR practices to engage new generation employees Kriti Jain XLRI Jamshedpur 12 | Managing star Performers Mansi jain & kanika bansal LBSIM New Delhi 16 | The Changing Dynamics of Campus Recruitment Surabhi Singhal & Manisha Rana SIBM Pune 20 | The HR challenges in SMEs SubburamNN Amrita School of Business Bangalore 24 | Transforming HR practices through technology Sumar Loomba NITIE Mumbai

32 | Kaleidoscope Work Life Balance Divya Chaddha MHRM IIT Kharagpur

36 | Coffee with corporate Aloke Tagore, East regional HR Head Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Indian Pvt Ltd | Mr. Padmanabhan.

S, Director HR, Dr. Reddy's Labs

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TALENT MANGEMENT

HR PRACTICES TO ENGAGE NEW GENERATION EMPLOYEES

By Kriti Jain XLRI Jamshedpur

“If communication is not your top priority, all of your other priorities are at risk.”

Bob Aronson Communications Consultant

Engaging Gen Y: Does it matter?

There is a continuous inflow and outflow of employees through the doors of any organization. The multiple generations of employees bring with them, a diverse set of needs and wants.

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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

These individual needs correlate directly to the employee engagement practices undertaken by organizations; which in turn are linked to good talent retention and better financial performance.

According to the Aon Hewitt Best Employers in Asia Pacific Study, the “Best” employers have extremely high engagement scores compared to the “Rest”. This underlines the importance of identifying the differences between Gen Y and the older generations, and tailoring the organizational policies and practices according to the changing trends of the workforce.

being raised in culturally more diverse environments. They are very entrepreneurial in nature and have a short attention span. They often fail to see the need to work from an office or for a particular employer and hence may opt for transient kind of jobs. Retention is a key challenge for this generation. They seek challenging work, but work life balance is also important to them. They present a bundle of contradictions. They need constant support and guidance, but hate to be told what to do. They are assertive and buoyant, and present an urgency to succeed quickly. Hence, it is pertinent here that the needs of this generation are identified and engagement policies be designed to match their aspirations.

Figure 1: Results of Aon Hewitt Best Employers in Asia Pacific Study Source: Aon Hewitt Best Employers in Asia Pacific Study

The Millennials There are the Generation Y employees, born between 1980 and 2000. They are just beginning to enter the workforce and would form a large proportion of the workplace in times to come. Like the Gen X (1960s – 1980s), this generation has a high level of comfort with technology. But they also bring to the workplace a very tolerant outlook,

Figure 2: What Millennials Want Source – Harvard Business Review

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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Engagement practices: What HR should do?

this could be that offering a flexi timing, or a flexible benefits program might be valuable to them

Recognition: One of the most essential elements

study shows that 66% Gen Y employees quote job advancement opportunities as a loyalty driver. The challenge this poses for HR is to design career progression plans in line with the achievement orientation of this generation. The employees should not be forced to move out of the organization in search of better career avenues.

of engaging the new generation is recognition. This generation is very much interested in feedback on its performance. The periodic annual/semi annual reviews are too infrequent for them. They need to be told that they have done a good job, and that should be done now. They strive for appreciation and praise. But it is important to remember that these employees not only want recognition but also the freedom to choose the way it is delivered. The three most effective means of recognition are: peerto-peer, result based and social recognition.

Flexibility: Work life balance is very important to them. Research suggests that flexibility makes them more loyal to their job. The implications from this

Recognition

Flexibility

Advancement opportunities: A MetLife

Managing

performance: This correlates

directly to their need for feedback. The HR implication emerging out of this need of the Gen Y is a timely, frequent and efficient performance appraisal system, which delivers expectations as well as the feedback on performance in a clear and transparent manner.

Advancement Opportunities

Managing performance

Figure 3: Engagement practices

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Managing engagement One of the key aspects which HR needs to keep in mind is that different generation employees need different engagement initiatives. The onus on HR is to identify the different employee segments and design multiple engagement strategies catering to their needs. A helpful initiative in this direction could be the appointment of an engagement manager or champion, who would liaise with all stakeholders and collect relevant information for engagement programs. Also, managers need to be given the discretion to oversee employees, so that they are able to reward and recognize them as and when needed. In order to have successful engagement programs, it is crucial that the drivers of engagement are identified regularly and the policies adapted to those.

Another essential element of engaging this generation is to establish a culture of connections in the organization. The Gen Y prefers working in a team based setting and a well connected network of social relationships would go a long way in ensuring a better performance of this workforce.

Conclusion Managing generational diversity is one of the key challenges faced by HR in the workplace today.

Different generations of employees bring with them a varied perspective and their own unique contribution in the organizational success. Hence, their peaceful coexistence becomes important, as does the necessity to keep them constantly motivated. This stresses the relevance of multiple engagement programs catering to the needs of all the employees.

Who wants to be the leader?

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Managing Star Performers By Mansi Jain Kanika Bansal LBSIM New Delhi

Top performing employees are often the key to a business’ success. Top performers not only have the capabilities and talent to fulfill a particular business need or role, but also provide a proven performance record of success in achieving business goals.

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Dissatisfaction with pay

58%

Dissatisfaction with management

48%

Inadequate

promotional 48%

These “super keepers” are the top

opportunity

echelon of a company’s workforce.

Difficult to find and expensive to replace, their retention and continued success is critical for sustaining and growing the bottom line.

Inadequate opportunity for career- 44% related skill development Dissatisfaction with benefits

37%

Uncomfortable work environment

24%

Conflict with manager/co-workers

23%

The Distressing Statistics Poor succession planning wipes an estimated $8.4 billion from the stock market value of the top Fortune 1000 companies every year Despite the challenging economy, US and UK employees are among the most likely to consider leaving their job during the next 12 months, with 53% of employees specifically stating in exit interviews that they are leaving to fulfill their career development needs elsewhere

Certainly, no company would like to see them leave.HR managers should realize that they are not the only ones who know the value of their star performers, but instead many other competitors and head hunters are always prying upon the opportunity to pounce on them and lure them towards their own company.

According to a study by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, various reasons for which star performers leave the organization are as mentioned in the diagram(Source: Strategic Rewards: Maximizing the Return on Your Reward Investment, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, 2003.)

Besides knowing the reasons as to why people leave a company, HR managers should also focus on what makes employees stay with an organization. According to Sharon Jordan-Evans, co-author of Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em: Getting Good People to Stay, there are five primary reasons why employees stay where they are: 1. Challenging and interesting work 2. A chance to learn and grow 3. Good rapport with co-workers 4. Fair pay 5. A great boss

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TALENT MANGEMENT After knowing what top performers are looking

Once the broader talent calibration process is

for, managers need to learn how to give it to them. established and implemented, the company should Optimal mix of rewards geared towards top consider what types of rewards might be performers can play an important role in managing established for high-potential resources. This could star performers as reward programs are the most be a prime opportunity to leverage noncash universally accepted standard form of recognition. rewards or long-term incentives like equity.

Talented, top performing people expect to be Examples of noncash rewards could be advanced recognized and rewarded for their efforts with a education opportunities or other types of compensation package that reflects their development activities. Equity and other longercontribution to the success of the organization. term incentives are an attractive option due to the Performance-driven rewards are a key lever for typical vesting timeframes. Employees remain engaging and retaining top performers. Pay for engaged and are motivated to perform at a high performance is one approach to retain highlevel to reap these longer-term potential employees. However, companies rewards. These types of rewards—in need a strategy to recognize the future conjunction with the opportunities contributions that these employees will for advancement—are significant Unemployment Rate bring to the organization. Pay for potential differentiators between the stars and In Italy ties to an overall talent management the employees assessed as average.

Source: The national strategy in a slightly different way.

Top talent rarely leaves a company for Institute of Statistics(Istat) Where pay for performance requires a tight compensation reasons alone. What linkage between performance assessment and people really want beyond being paid enough and compensation management, pay for potential also being paid fairly is meaningful work. To keep the adds succession planning and employee top performers engaged, they should be provided development. with the opportunity to work on a new project or assignment that builds their skills and gives them a Calibration is a key component of pay for chance to shine. This might be a team project that potential, but is used in a different way in pay for brings all the stars together from different departments or functions; or this might be a solo performance: project that demonstrates confidence in their • Performance calibration is used in the pay-forability. performance process to ensure that performance is assessed uniformly across a company.

Multiple studies cite that a lack of employee development activities is a key decision point for • Pay for potential requires a more broad top performers. Therefore, using development calibration process that weaves in competency activities—whether they are educational assessment as well as development activities opportunities, formal mentor relationships, or associated with high potential. stretch assignment as rewards for top performance is cost-effective and helps enhance retention.

9.8 %

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To prevent the best people from feeling ignored or unappreciated, they should be checked in with frequently. By keeping the lines of communication open, they will feel that they are being cared, and in turn HR managers will be able to learn better about their needs and concerns.

Praise for good work can also go a long way in demonstrating to the top performers how much they are valued in the company. Providing regular praise/recognition for people who perform well, including celebration gettogethers when organizational successes occur helps in strengthening the loyalty bond.

Hence, it can be concluded that nurturing high performers can lead to maximization of corporate potential. Research has found that the top performer differential is up to 2.5 to 10 times that of an average employee (Sullivan, 2008) and that “Superstars” produce upto12 times more than the average employee (Corporate Executive Board). The more the number of top performers, the greater the organization’s productivity. Hence, the single most important priority for HR and talent executives should be to engage and employ star performers at their organizations because when top performers are fully engaged in their work and aligned with organizational goals, they are not only instrumental in powering a business, but also in helping to define their company’s long term growth trajectory.

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The Changing Dynamics of Campus recruitment By: Surabhi Singhal Manisha Rana SIBM Pune

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The dynamic landscape that organizations work in requires for a change in the way they work. In the current times, when the economic situation seems gloomy, most of the organizations are being forced to cut on their recruitment numbers the challenges associated are multi-fold. There is a need to adopt a strategy which would help organizations to be the employer of choice and at the same time build a long term psychological contract with recruits by selecting the right candidates in the very beginning.

A closer look at the Indian Diaspora shows that with IMF cutting the Indian 2012 growth forecast to 4.9% and with World Bank cutting India’s GDP projection to 6% for FY13, India Inc. becomes flatter, leaner as growth slows. In this slowing environment, recruitment takes a hit as is visible when recruiters pull back on the intake from campuses. According to The Hindu Business Line, this year for engineering graduates, a 40-50% drop in campus recruitment is expected. So let us explore the different strategies that organizations use to enable the right influencers in the recruitment process.

Ideological Shift in Recruitment Strategy

In this time of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity), companies are shying away from committing anything in terms of the campus placements and are waiting for the picture to get clearer. Cultural fit has become the key factor in such times & so it becomes all the more imperative for companies to get the right people on board and right people in the right seat. We are also seeing companies embracing concept of “Lean Organization” and considering the concept of “Value Addition”. Also, the focus now is on two-way communication with the campuses to bridge the gap between organizations’ expectations and the students’ aspirations thereby attaining the sweet spot.

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Companies are increasing their involvement with campuses through different venues and it is a win-win situation for all parties involved. Case Studies, Guest Lecture, Competitions, Workshops, Live projects, Leader’s talk and Field Trips are some of the ways in which companies engage the prospective future employees. Such interactions create various touch points and help, both recruiters and recruits to gauge the matching of wavelength and decide accordingly. Decisions thus taken result in better expectation setting and retention. These new ways show that there has been an ideological shift in the way recruitment is now seen in organizations. It is preferred by companies to get the candidate who is the best fit for their organization rather than getting just the best candidate.

Step1: Why

“If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for your blood and sweat and tears” Simon Sinek How Great Leaders Inspire Action -

Feeling such as loyalty & it drives human behavior

Step2: How Step3: What

Rational & Analytical Thought

Fig 3: Golden Circle – Outside in Approach

The challenge, as Dr Simon explains in his work is to get the people on board who believe in the purpose of the company, its values and culture – The WHY & HOW part and not to get people who just believe in what products companies make – The WHAT part, as it is the WHY part which helps us in taking decisions and drives our behavior.

Company’s endeavor through campus interactions is to strike this right cord.

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New Ways for Changing Times Now we explore some of the key trends in Campus Recruitment.  Campus Branding beyond recruitment season – Unlike the dedicated campus recruitment season as was the norm earlier now campus recruitment is a yearlong continuous process where companies try to reach the candidate through various touch points. a. Campus Brand Ambassador: “Just marketing” is dead and it has been replaced by community-oriented marketing which includes word of mouth. People want to know from people of same community or background and not from marketers. Same is true for campus recruits. Campus Brand Ambassadors who are generally from the same college enjoy better credibility and the narration of their own story in the organization helps in creating the right image of the brand in the minds of the target audience. b. Campus Competitions: It’s a truly win-win situation for both the students and the companies. For companies, it is a branding exercise, an opportunity to gauge the talent and to some extent they get their customers involved in the solutions provided. For students, it’s a chance to get to know the company better, a learning opportunity and to bag PPIs/PPOs. Few Examples: Become Indira’s advisor, War Room, iCreate, Interrobang and many more. Companies segment the colleges as per their expected talent pool and put huge efforts and resources to make these events successful.

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% Annual Growth for different sectors 40 30 20 10 0

Annual Growth

Fig 3: Monster Employment Index, Mar’12 Through all these exercises a brand image is established which is in synch with the Customer Value Proposition of the Company (CVP), Employee Value Proposition (EVP) & expectation of the target talent pool.  Converts from summer interns: Most of the organizations seem to consider Summer Internships as a major channel for final recruitments as well. It gives them ample time evaluate the candidature of the person.  Increased interest in Social Service Sector: There has been a shift towards more meaningful work. As per Monster Employment Index NGO/Social Services sector has recorded highest annual growth (fig3) and other advancements such as IIM-B’s declaration to refund the full fees of those students who take up jobs in social sector will further bolster this trend.

up the recruitment and snagged big number from country’s top B-schools while big employer brands slashed their hiring by 19%.  Entrepreneurial ventures: IITs, IIMs, ISB and many other colleges have designated entrepreneurship cells which provide help to aspiring entrepreneurs in all possible dimensions – mentorship, initial financial health through alumni network and networking opportunities. All these factors put together make environment conducive for students to realize their desire for autonomy and adopt “unconventional path” and the success stories of many Start-ups by Indian entrepreneurs such as Flipkart, Makemytrip, Myntra and Redbus has fuelled it further.

However, the challenge remains to set the expectations right from the very start with the potential candidates. With so many campus branding activities in the cynosure, the essence of what organizations can offer and what candidates want from the organizations should not be lost.

 Start Ups – new buzz word: Till few years back, working with start-ups was looked as a step down but now the fresh graduates from esteemed colleges are considering this option with open mind. As per an Economic Times Report, this year hardly known start-ups such as online games developer Zynga, clean energy firm Flareum Tech and the likes scaled

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HR TRANSFORMATION

Transforming HR Practices Through Technology Sumar Loomba NITIE, Mumbai

The corporate personnel departments are overwhelmed with human resource management and the responsibility to foster professional synergy among discrete set of individuals.

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HR TRANSFORMATION As businesses are growing, we believe that they are in a proper position to harness the benefits of web and various technologies which could be aptly called as next generation practices. Indeed, reaching a new level of employee collaboration has become an important goal of many HR departments. Enterprises ranging from far-flung global corporations to small businesses are looking for better ways to manage, motivate and even recruit employees through the use of Internet-based technologies.

The various communication media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, Youtube, etc are enabling people with varied ideologies to share information as well as to get into a community membership which would provide them a mosaic on which they can share their ideas, make new connections, get acquainted with newer information faster and cheaper. Just to exemplify, Youtube has provided a platform to thousands of theatre artists to post their videos online which not only give them instant followings but could also get them life time opportunities as there are major companies who always remain in search of talent and what else could be a better and affordable medium than internet. As per the research done by MixOrg , a social media marketing and consulting firm, Facebook is currently the best tool for the screening of candidates in order to find the best fit professional for the job. With the help of the content being uploaded, the likes and dislikes being done, the communities being followed, the queries being posted, a candidate could very well be judged on various parameters required by the recruiter. There could be many other areas where the capacity of social media could be realized. Yet another problem being faced by HR managers lately is to estimate the probable number of employees who would resign in a year’s time

from an organization. Facebook and LinkedIn can be leveraged to assess the number of employees in such a situation. Not only the HR managers, but the employees also can utilize the power of these social platforms to their benefits ; they can leverage communities to identify goals, use colleague ratings and reviews when choosing professionaldevelopment course work, and share informal tips and techniques.

Current Trends

The

social media has been identified by a host of companies – both big and small – as a potential tool for recruitment. How this tool is being used, however, varies considerably. Broadly, the use of social media can be classified into 2 areas:  Attracting job seekers and building brand value  Screening potential candidates Let us look at the current trends in both these aspects.

Candidate Screening

A

survey conducted by Reppler (a social media monitoring service) among 300 hiring professionals revealed some interest facets of candidate screening:

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“At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past” -

Materlink

Highlights of the survey:  A whopping 91% of recruiters have used social media to screen candidates. It is another matter whether they have used this tool effectively or not.  Surprisingly, more recruiters (76%) have used Facebook for screening as opposed to LinkedIn (48%). The reasons for this could be two-fold:  Facebook has a much larger user base (over 400 million) than LinkedIn (around 65 million)







 LinkedIn is strictly professional. Facebook, on the other hand, can give insights into the personality of the candidate.

Most candidates screening has taken place immediately after receiving application for the job. In other words, an impression of the candidate has been formed prior to meeting him/her. Arguably, this might not be the most effective method of screening.

69% of recruiters say that they have rejected candidates on the basis of social media screening.

The top reasons cited for the same are ‘posting inappropriate photos’,’ posting inappropriate comments’ and ‘lying about qualifications’.

68% of recruiters say that they have hired candidates because of what they saw on the social networking sites. The top reasons for the same are ‘giving a positive impression of their personality and organization fit’, ‘profile supporting the qualifications’ and ‘profile showing creativity’.

Screening Phase Use of social media for screening by recruiters

4% 7% 15%

47%

Use social media for screening Don't use social media for screening 27%

9%

91%

After Receiving Application After initial conversation After detailed conversation Before making the offer No screening

Fig 1: Highlights Fig 2: Screening Phase

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HR TRANSFORMATION Social Recruiting  Availing services of companies like AdLogic to create custom job feeds and corresponding Social Recruiting refers to leveraging social media to specialized Twitter profiles. tap into potential recruits. Here are some of the avenues for the same: Let’s look at some of the statistics w.r.t. Facebook as  LinkedIn: reported by ‘The Undercover Recruiter’:  Posting jobs in return for a fee payment.  Using LinkedIn Talent Advantage – an •Internet users use Facebook exclusive suite of tools for recruiters.

74% daily  Joining relevant groups, engaging in discussions and monitoring active members.

Usage of different social networking sites for screening LinkedIn Twitter Facebook 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Fig 3 



Facebook:  Posting jobs for free in the Facebook Marketplace.  Posting a Facebook Ad to target a very specific group of people. There is a choice to pay per click or pay per impression.  Creating a Facebook page for the organization to share business and products. Jobs can be posted here as well.  Using new professional networks such as BranchOut and CareerAmp, which leverage Facebook platform to access connections.

BranchOut boasts a member base of more than 500,000.

Twitter:  Searching for potential candidates by searching for specific keywords.  Using hash tags to make tweets stand out. A unique tool called TweetMyJOBS has more than 10,000 channels, each of which is geared towards a specific geographic location and job category.

57%

•Internet users have more than 100 friends on Facebook

58%

•Facebook users have liked a brand on Facebook

57%

•Facebook users who have liked a brand have shared a link/video about the brand

Fig 4 As is evident, there is huge value locked in this area.

Once you look at the top 5 brands (with career pages) on Facebook, it drives home the point:  Starbucks - 27 million fans  Red Bull - 26 million fans  PlayStation - 19 million fans  McDonald's - 14 million fans  Levi's - 10 million fans A few other companies who have successfully used social media recruiting are General Mills, Deluxe Corporation and Sodexo. Dan Black, Ernst & Young’s Director of Recruiting, believes that Facebook is a great platform to connect with students and establish relationships – something that he does by having a direct conversation with them on E&Y’s wall.

What Lies Ahead

Social recruiting is a technique that most organisations are just getting acquainted to. Most companies do not have a dedicated strategy in place.

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HR TRANSFORMATION According to Jennifer Mclure, President of Unbridled Talent LLC, the most common pitfall when dealing with social recruiting is the absence of management accountability.

The future, however, is expected to be different. Just to give a taste of what the possibilities are, here are some of the tools/techniques that can harness the treasure trove of information on social media networks: This tool helps hiring managers keep real-time tabs on where their job listings are posted and who’s looking at them. When you upload a job description to the site, it automatically posts it to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. After that, The Resumator tracks candidate resumes, and applies its own algorithm to rank applicants on a five-star scale. It also takes care of sending automated email replies when resumes are received and when a candidate must be declined.

Jobvite: Jobvite is aSaaS platform that delivers a seamless and social recruiting process before, during and after the interview. It leverages the very best source for great hires — your own employees — by allowing them to see your company’s open jobs and send targeted invitations to their friends on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Once their friends or contacts get into the pipeline, the referring employee can track the interview process.

LinkedIn Talent Pro: A Talent Pro account provides access to virtually everyone on LinkedIn and includes helpful extras like premium talent filters and expanded profiles.

Subscribers can receive up to 15 notifications per day when Talent Pro finds a match among candidates that meet stated criteria for the role.

Fig 5: The Resumator

InternMatch: InternMatch is a recruiting service solely focused on part-time or unpaid internships. The service benefits from its tight focus, and also provides a lot of free advice and templates that can help any organization be more successful in recruiting and managing a college intern effectively.

TalentBin: TalentBin is a standalone application that can pull information from various social networks – tweets, updates, profile information – to identify qualified candidates for your open jobs.

Bullhorn Reach: Bullhorn Reach is a full function application designed specifically for automating social recruiting. It constantly scrapes relevant information from social networks and uses it to track and source potential candidates. For example, a list of qualified candidates in a recruiter’s network is automatically generated every time a new job is created.

“Words were given to man to enable him to conceal his true feelings “ - Voltaire

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What’s in it for us?

Here are some important statistics from the job seeker’s perspective. This survey has been conducted by Reppler among 2049 adults in the US:



54% of social media users have used Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter in their hunt of work in the last year  1 in 6 job seekers found their last job through an online social network  28% of super socials (people with more than 150 contacts on a social network) found their last job through a social network  The job hunting activities include  Updating profile with professional information  Making new professional contacts  Searching for jobs  Asking for help with a job search  Having a contact share a job opportunity Two obvious implications emerge out of this data:  It pays to be social. The success rate of super socials is significantly higher than passive ones. In addition to having more contacts, it leaves a good impression in the mind of the recruiter.  Maintaining the profile and keeping it up to date is of utmost importance. That time isn’t far when professional guidance will be given on how to make one’s profile more attractive to recruiters.

Some of the facts related to job seekers:  The 90% passive members of a social network (those who aren’t actively looking for a job) stand an equal chance to be noticed by a recruiter as compared to the 10% active job seekers. In fact, competitors are getting better at recruiting people from rivals.









Making oneself more visible on professional networks such as LinkedIn has become as important as updating one’s paper CV. However, job seekers need to be careful not to overdo it – using paid up services such as LinkedIn’s Job Seeker Premium might not make the right impression.

Another good strategy for job seekers is to strike up conversations with potential employers by participating in professional communities and talent networks (such as Facebook pages).

It is useful to understand the pros and cons of different social networks. For example, Twitter might not be the favourite network when it comes to recruiting, but is extremely popular within certain industries such as media, technology, advertising and PR. A not so pleasant aspect of this game is the fact that companies can mine information of potential candidates – information that they are not even aware might be easily available.

For example, companies can actually track an individual’s comments on a blog or their eBay activity records. This is where privacy policies need to be addressed.

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HR TRANSFORMATION A Word of Caution Having discussed current trends and what lies in store, it is important to take a step back and assess what might be the pitfalls of engaging in social recruiting and the like. Some of the issues that need to addressed:

When it comes to social recruiting, it is

Recruiters should respect the privacy of

very easy to go overboard. Spamming is an evil that has come to be associated with the internet. A company that does not keep a check on its exchanges with potential candidates might not be able to leverage the advantages discussed earlier.

an individual and not penalize them for denying access to their personal social profile. A disturbing example of such abuse of privacy has been seen in cases wherein candidates have been instructed to log into their Facebook account during an interview so the hiring manager could see it.

There is a very fine line between prying and researching a potential employee on a social media network. What some recruiters fail to realize is that the social media presence of any individual should be investigated in accordance with the requirements of the job.

As mentioned earlier, screening a candidate in the early stages of recruitment and rejecting him/her on the basis of ‘inappropriate posted content’ might be premature.

Temper is what gets most of us in trouble.

Pride is what keeps us there.

-Anonymous

Concluding Remarks All in all, while the benefits of social media tools are becoming increasingly clear to HR departments, many still associate the technology with more personal, social purposes. Therefore, translating the use of these powerful communication tools into the corporate setting will require some substantial internal change. Despite so many innovations, the company’s overall have not plunged in to these new technologies. However, some businesses have started moving in this direction. For this transition to be successful, it is important for companies to realize that incorporating web based tools into their fabric is as important as creating the right culture.

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Industry Speak

COFFEE WITH CORPORATE

With Corporate

S. Padmanabhan Director HR DR Reddy’s Lab

By Avijit Mitra, Gaurav Kumar and Sriram Mohan

Q1.Could you please give us an insight into the environment at the pharmaceutical sector?

Pharmaceutical is a highly technology-oriented industry and any compromise with respect to the quality of the products can have an adverse effect on all the stakeholders. So, managing and developing the talent pool is very important. It is a very critical and a risky, but fast developing sector. So lots of talent is required. For most of the times, we work in niche areas and we need people who can understand and easily adapt to the systems and processes.

Mr. S.Padmanabhan is a dynamic and a vibrant professional, with a career spanning over 18 years in the field of HR and IR. Currently, he serves as Director HR at Dr.Reddy’s Laboratory, Hyderabad.

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Industry Speak

COFFEE WITH CORPORATE

Q. Could you please tell us something about the IR practices at Dr. Reddy’s?

Industrial Relation is very important for any manufacturing industry. We should not forget the basics of IR such as personal contact and proper communication. Contract laborers should not be taken for granted and should be treated with respect. Their demands have to be addressed appropriately.

There should be proper communication channels to ensure that information reaches even the workers at the bottom of the pyramid. To enable this, we at Dr. Reddy’s, have multiple communication forums such as open house meetings; skip level meetings and town halls.

As an IR manager, safety of employees is also of tremendous importance. The overall duty of an IR manager is to ensure that all sections of workers should feel that they are a part of the organization and work towards achieving the organizational goals.

Q. Have there been any significant changes in the role of HR in the recent past?

The role of HR has changed significantly in the last couple of years in almost all the industries. Now, HR’s role has changed from that of an administrative one to a strategic business partner role. The expectations from HRs have changed as well. Organizations now want to maximize the value for the money which they invest in HR and demand more accountability from their HR departments.

Dr Reddy’s Lab was the first non-Japanese pharmaceutical company from the Asia-Pacific region to obtain a New York Stock Exchange listing, ground-breaking achievements for the Indian pharmaceutical industry

Q. What is the significance of CSR for organizations?

For sustainable development of any organization, CSR is a very important aspect. At Dr. Reddy’s, we believe in 3 P’s; people, planet and profit. People are important because business is run by people only, businesses are here because planet is here so basically no planet means no business and without profit no business can run. Dr. Reddy’s has started Dr. Reddy’s foundation to achieve CSR. Gradually, all firms with a long term vision are coming forward and indulging themselves in CSR activities.

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Q. How do you think proper communication can help an organization?

Effective communication is very important for organizational development and avoiding conflicts within the organization. Only when the employees know about the company’s target for the year, would they be able to work towards achieving the set target. Any mistake or wrong doing at any stage should also be communicated to lower levels to avoid wastage of time and resources. At Dr. Reddy’s we also follow the idea of “Glad-Sad-Mad” to facilitate bottom-up communication. This is the way we are able to get employees’ feedback about their work and the organization.

If any employee is “Glad”, it means he is happy with his work and organization. If someone is “Sad”, it means he is not happy with something and wants to communicate it with his manager. In this case, the manager tries to solves the issue and make him “Glad”. The third situation is “Mad”, in which an employee wants to leave the organization. In this case, the manager sits down with the employee and tries to analyze the cause for dissatisfaction and chalk out a plan that will help the employee to stay in the organization.

Q. Your words of wisdom to budding HR professionals.

My advice to young HR professionals is to try and understand the pros and cons of everything whatever you do. First try to have complete view of any problem and then provide a solution. Being an HR manager, you need to have an understanding of all aspects of HR, but you must also become an expert in one or two domains.

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With Corporate

Mr. Aloke Tagore Regional HR Head - East Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt Ltd

By Ashish Kumar, Gaurav Kumar and Sriram Mohan

Q: What is the role of HRs in consulting firms? How different is it from that of the HRs in other industries?

In consulting field, HRs should have a basic knowledge of everything that helps them to understand and solve the client’s problems effectively. HR Consultants need to regularly brush up their HR knowledge and stay abreast with all the recent advancements. One of the primary requirements for an HR in any consulting firm is to be extremely professional. Also HRs should thoroughly understand the company‘s brand, its way of doing business, internal functions and the end product or services.

Mr. Aloke Tagore has been a part of the HR fraternity for over 13 years. He has a wide experience in a number of areas such as Manpower Planning , Recruitment, Performance Management, Compensation and Benefits, Organizational Development and Policy matters, Employee Engagement , Training and Development, International Resource Deployment, Change Management and Transformation, ISO and CMMi Audits, ERP implementation, Process Engineering and Automation.

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Q: What are the factors to be considered while implementing ERP in any organization?

Two important factors that we need to consider while implementing ERP are time and cost. The total time taken in implementing the ERP system and training the employees on using the new system in such a way that there is a smooth migration from the current system to the new system and the total costs, both direct and indirect cost incurred by the company are very crucial.

The prerequisites for the implementation of an ERP system are  An understanding of the current internal functions and their interdependencies  An understanding of the practical challenges from the end- users’ perspective.  A proper change management system and proper training facilities to train the end user One of the primary challenges associated with ERP implementation is resistance from employees who feel comfortable with the older system. Appropriate HR interventions and proper Change Management initiatives are imperative for the successful transition of the organization after implementing ERP.

Q. Currently there is a trend of expat recruitment in companies. Why is expat recruitment in so much demand?

Generally these trends are easily seen in global companies having diverse and multicultural teams at their floor especially in developing economies. Some of the reasons In case of niche domain, there might be a scarcity of the required resource in the domestic market.  It helps to tap clients around the globe and to get more business for the company  It facilitates a better understanding of cross market complexities.  In a time span of two to three years, a team of global consultants can be developed.

Q. What is your advice to MBA-HR students? How they can identify their area of expertise and work on it?

Study all the HR tools and practices in the organization very carefully and try understanding the logic underlying the different HR processes. Try to identify some HR domains where you are good at and where your interests lie and based on your suitability prioritize them. Gather information as much as you can on these areas. Be consistent and stay updated.

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