Emerging Trends and Challenges in HRM
-
Upload
pooja-sharma -
Category
Documents
-
view
39 -
download
4
Transcript of Emerging Trends and Challenges in HRM
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.
All major activities in the working life of a worker- from the time of his or her entry into n
organization until he or she leaves- come under the purview of HRM. With the passage of
time HR mangers have started speaking the language of business. HR job is highly converted
one and so are the Hr practices that are becoming highly visible in the organization. Its
significance does lie not only in the observable practice of its functions, but contributing to ad
drawing from the highest level of managerial policy.
So, the challenges in the HRM practices are being visualized and are better explained
considering two different sectors of the Indian industries. For better evaluation we had further
taken IT industry and cigratee industry. We had had telephonic conversation with different
companies. Its just for a evaluation purpose and so no further comments on the policies and
challenges had given till now.
1
2. INTRODUCTION
It is Department in order to successfully steer organizations towards The management has to
recognize the important role of Human Resource profitability necessary for the management
to invest considerable time and amount, to learn the changing scenario of the HR department
in the 21st century. In order to survive the competition and be in the race, HR department
should consciously update itself with the transformation in HR and be aware of the HR issues
cropping up. With high attrition rates, poaching strategies of competitors, there is a huge
shortage of skilled employees and hence, a company's HR activities play a vital role in
combating this crisis. Suitable HR policies that would lead to the achievement of the
Organization as well as the individual's goals should be formulated. HR managers have to
manage all the challenges that they would face from recruiting employees, to training them,
and then developing strategies for retaining them and building up an effective career
management system for them. Just taking care of employees would not be enough; new HR
initiatives should also focus on the quality needs, customer-orientation, productivity and
stress, team work and leadership building. This report is divided into two sections that throw
light on the emerging HR trends and discusses HR challenges in various companies like
TCS,godfrey phillip,ITC,birlasoft This report should be valuable for practicing HR managers
of every organization and also for those who have a significant interest in the area of Human
Resource Management, to realize the growing importance of human resources and understand
the need to build up effective HR strategies to combat HR issues arising in the 21st century.
Human Resource Management has evolved considerably over the past century, and
experienced a major transformation in form and function primarily within the past two
decades. Driven by a number of significant internal and external environmental forces, HRM
has progressed from a largely maintenance function, with little if any bottom line impact, to
what many scholars and practitioners today regard as the source of sustained competitive
advantage for organizations operating in a global economy.
CHANGES IN HRM : Some of the significant changes that are likely to take
place in the human resource management are as follows:
2
1.Increase in education levels: Due to technological progress and the spread of
educational institutions workers will increasingly become aware of their higher level needs,
managers will have to evolve appropriate policies and techniques to motivate the
knowledge of workers. Better educated and organized workforce will demand greater
discretion and autonomy at the work place.
2.Technological developments: This will require retraining and mid-career training of
both workers and managers. Rise of the international corporation is proving new challenges
for personnel function.
3.Changing composition of work force: In future, women and minority groups, SCs
and STs would become an important source of man power in future on account of easy
access to better educational and employment opportunities. Therefore manpower planning
of every organization will have to take into consideration the potential availability of talent
in these groups. Changing mix of the workforce will lead to new values in organizations.
4.Increasing government role: In India, personnel management has become very
legalized. In future private organizations will have to co-ordinate their labour welfare
programmes with those of the government private sector will be required increasingly to
support government efforts for improving public health, education training and
development and infrastructure.
5.occupational health and safety: Due to legislative presence and trade union
movement, personnel management will have to be more healthy and safety conscious in
future.
6.Organizational development: in future, change will have to be initiated and managed
to improve organizational effectiveness. Top management will become more actively
involved in the development of human resources.
7.New work ethic: greater forces will be on project and team forms of organization. As
changing work ethic requires increasing emphasis on individual. Jobs will have to
redesigned to provide challenge.
3
8.Development planning: personnel management will be involved increasingly in
organizational planning, structure, composition etc. Greater cost-consciousness and profit-
orientations will be required on the part of the personnel department.
9.Better appraisal and reward systems: organizations will be required to share gains
of higher periodicity with workers more objective and result oriented systems of
performance, appraisal and performance linked compensation will have to be developed.
10.New personnel policies: new and better polices will be required for the work force of
the future. Traditional family management will give way to professional management with
greater forces on human dignity.
Thus, in future personnel management will face new challenges and perform new
responsibilities. Participative leadership will take the place of autocratic leadership. Creative
skills will have to be redeveloped and rewarded emphasis will shift from legal and rule bound
approach to more open and humanitarian approach.
NEW TRENDS IN HR
Human resource management is a process of bringing people and organizations
together so that the goals of each other are met. The role of HR manager is shifting from that
of a protector and screener to the role of a planner and change agent. Personnel directors are
the new corporate heroes. The name of the game today in business is personnel . Nowadays it
is not possible to show a good financial or operating report unless your personnel relations
are in order.
Over the years, highly skilled and knowledge based jobs are increasing while low skilled jobs
are decreasing. This calls for future skill mapping through proper HRM initiatives.
4
Indian organizations are also witnessing a change in systems, management cultures and
philosophy due to the global alignment of Indian organizations. There is a need for multi skill
development. Role of HRM is becoming all the more important.
Some of the recent trends that are being observed are as follows:
The recent quality management standards ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 of 2000 focus
more on people centric organizations. Organizations now need to prepare themselves
in order to address people centered issues with commitment from the top
management, with renewed thrust on HR issues, more particularly on training.
Charles Handy also advocated future organizational models like Shamrock, Federal
and Triple I. Such organizational models also refocus on people centric issues and
call for redefining the future role of HR professionals.To leapfrog ahead of
competition in this world of uncertainty, organizations have introduced six- sigma
practices. Six- sigma uses rigorous analytical tools with leadership from the top and
develops a method for sustainable improvement. These practices improve
organizational values and helps in creating defect free product or services at minimum
cost.
Human resource outsourcing is a new accession that makes a traditional HR
department redundant in an organization. Exult, the international pioneer in HR BPO
already roped in Bank of America, international players BP Amoco & over the years
plan to spread their business to most of the Fortune 500 companies.
With the increase of global job mobility, recruiting competent people is also increasingly
becoming difficult, especially in India. Therefore by creating an enabling culture,
organizations are also required to work out a retention strategy for the existing skilled
manpower.
1. The Changing Role of the HR Professional
humans, not commodities, and HR departments have to start seeing them differently. With
the current push towards strategies that engage employees, attract top talent, and contribute to
the bottom line, this change is imperative.
5
A Finance person who only understands Finance and a financial perspective, a Sales person
who only understands Sales and the Sales perspective – these individuals will have limited
career prospects and very little chance of succeeding in a leadership role.
The same holds true for HR people. That thisis the case is good news for HR. It means that
HR and HR people are too important to be set aside in the corner. It means that HR skills and
knowledge need to be brought to bear on the strategic management of the organization.
Organizations consist of people. People are real. You can see them, touch them, hear them.
And people have capabilities. If HR is to be perceived as an enabler of business strategies,
they need to be seen to be making measurable contributions to the bottom line through
expense reduction, or revenue generation, talent management and risk mitigation. HR people
need to be a lot more creative in the way they do things. The “one size fits all” approach
doesn’t work anymore. HR departments of today need to be the talent departments of
tomorrow.
2. The War for Talent
The key to attracting and retaining scarce skills is to be, and be seen to be, a first-tier
employer that can meet the needs of high potential/high performance employees. Traditional
workforce planning is being replaced by talent strategies and skills gap analysis. Once they
determine the gap, it becomes clear what talent they need to hire, to layoff, or to develop or
transfer internally.
Now is not the time to sit in the ivory towers thinking you know who your major contributors
are. You need to dig deep into the organization to identify the top talent, the high performers
in every aspect of your business. In all likelihood it’s not the people who are the most
politically astute or the most popular.
Traditional marketing practices are going to have to be applied to recruitment. Employer
branding and unique selling points with a strong differentiator are imperative. Look at
strategies such as changing your employer brand from the groan-inducing “we’re a big
successful company” to a company delivering on the promise of continuous learning, work-
life balance, personally-fulfilling roles and innovative reward and recognition programs.
6
3. The Healthy Workplace: Wellness, Work-Life Balance
There is no competitive advantage in sick and stressed-out workers.
There is growing recognition that there is a definite link between the work environment and
the health and well-being of its employees. Further, employers are now recognizing the
connection between employee health and the bottom line.
When we look in the mirror, we see ourselves as entire human beings – not just people with
jobs and careers, but people with families, friends, beliefs, interests, passions, responsibilities,
worries and futures. We need to look at our people through the same mirror – not just as
employees or colleagues but as total human beings. If companies ignore the full humanity of
their people, or if people find it necessary to suppress their human-ness in the workplace, the
tensions created eat away at the vitality of the organization.
4.The Impact of Technology
Eventually technology is going to eliminate most HR jobs as they exist today. Which is
another reason for HR professionals to become more strategic. Technology, with all its self-
service and anytime-anywhere communications capabilities, coupled with outsourcing,
guarantees there will be fewer HR people in corporations.
Technology continues to impact us profoundly, both in our personal lives and in the
workplace, and it will continue to change. We’ve entered the century of the employee and
technology has to respond. CRM or customer relationship management is giving way to ERM
– employee relationship management. Employee self-service has become as important as
customer self-service. Customized and personalized content will be king. Employees can
self-manage activities previously handled by human resource professionals. This is a cost-
saving and time-saving benefit to organizations and it frees the HR practitioners to focus on
more strategic issues. But more importantly, it is a fundamental expectation of Gen Y’s and
Gen X’s. Technology that protects the privacy and security of HR data is more important than
ever…but more on that later. It’s important that we continue to embrace technology and keep
our eyes on new advances that may bring even better communication and collaboration tools.
Technology helps people connect within the work environment.
7
5. Talent Management: Leadership Development
Leadership skills are not built through courses. Management is a function of what you do;
leadership is a function of what you are. When planning leadership development initiatives,
the tendency is to first look for courses. One of the scarcest capabilities, now and for the
likely future, is leadership. As organizations, their customers, their employees and their
environment become more global, more complex, more competitive and more subject to
rapid and radical change, the competency requirements for successful leadership are
increasing exponentially. Most organizations would acknowledge that they currently have a
shortage of leadership talent or bench strength; how will they fare when the bar keeps on
being raised?
Leadership is less definable and therefore leadership capabilities are more difficult to build or
transmit. Indeed, one could debate whether leadership skills can be taught at all, or whether
they are innate.
6. Corporate Values and Culture
These days is that more and more firms are unwilling to tolerate unethical behaviour from
their executives. They are taking drasticaction as in the case of the Boeing CEO who was
ousted because of unethical activities. Ethical behaviour should be a core component of
company culture. Ethics related language in formal statements not only sets corporate
expectations for employee behaviour, it also serves as a shield for companies in an
increasingly complex and regulatory environment.
But what is culture? What drives it? How do values affect corporate
performance?
Culture is not a concierge serving up free fresh fruit in the cafeteria, nor is it a values chart
hanging on the wall purporting commitment to integrity, respect, honesty and customer
satisfaction. Enron had a brilliantly-crafted set of corporate values. Obviously it was just
there for decoration. . Organizational culture is the shared assumptions, beliefs and norms of
behaviour of a group. It has a powerful influence on the way in which people behave.
8
An effective corporate culture is not about being a nice place to work. It is about engaging
employees at a fundamental level and translating that engagement to performance that meets
the organization’s objectives. Increasingly, companies around the world have adopted formal
statements of corporate values, and senior executives now routinely identify ethical,
behaviour, honesty, integrity, and social concerns as top issues on their companies’ agendas.
Business leaders are now recognizing that an effective corporate culture is essential to long-
term success. They are taking steps to align corporate culture to business strategy. Many
organizations are now making their values explicit and that’s a significant change from
corporate practices 10 years ago.
Leaders and top management must be responsible for building strong, highperformance
cultures. They are the ones who construct the social reality, and shape the values of the
organization.
FUTURE ROLE OF PERSONNEL MANAGERS
Some of the emerging trends in the role of personnel manager are as follows:-
(i). Personnel managers of future will have to stress upon overall development of human
resources in all respects.
(ii). The scope of human resource management will be extended to cover career planning
and development, organization development, social justice etc.
(iii). Enlightened trade unions will become an active participant in the organization and
management of industry.
(iv). The personnel manager will be required to act as a change agent through greater
involvement in ‘environment and scanning and development planning. They will have to
devote more time to promote changes than to maintain the status quo.
9
(v). The personnel function will become more cost-conscious and profit oriented. Instead of
merely administering personnel activities, the personnel department will have to search out
opportunities for profit improvement and growth.
(vi). Greater authority and responsibilities will be delegated to personnel managers
particularly in the field of employee welfare services.
(vii). Personnel managers will have to continuously retrain themselves to avoid obsolescence
of their knowledge and skills.
Thus, the job of personnel managers will become more difficult and challenging in future.
They will have to be experts in behavioral sciences. They will play a creative and
development role. They will thus have play a creative and development role. They will have
to acquire new skills, values, attitudes to discharge their new responsibilities successfully.
10
3.HR TREND IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY
Technology constantly generates unexpected consequence. The simple ability to send
information anywhere immediately, at minimal cost has so many ramifications. The
most obvious of the effects being in the reach and speed of dissemination of
information. The Human Resource trend in Information technology is discussed in this
study.
Three significant growth trends in Corporate India are now pushing Hr Manger to look
towards technology for solution. First – an explosion in CEO – Level searches and hires
by Indian companies. People like Director of Tata Sons’ Alan Rosting, Ranbaxy CEO
Brian Tempest, and Managing Directors of Indian Hotels Raymond Bickson are
familiar examples. Second, many companies are searching for middle and entry-level
talent. Tata Consultancy plans to hire 800 people in the US this year, mostly off
campuses. Third, Indian companies are inheriting a large number of employees
through global acquisitions.
In this scenario- Role of HRM in integrating employees into the organization with
speed ensuring high levels of performance becomes more critical than ever. And its is
technology in the form of HR systems that is aiding the HR department in doing this
today, keeping pace with the growing needs of Indian business.
11
4.Challenges in Human Resources Management faced by various
indian Industries are:
It is a battle where we realize that the balance comes from a lot of sharing of common chore,
of sharing responsibilities and of sharing understanding most of all. The time demand
implementing rigid flexibility.
Globalisation:- Many Indian firms are compelled to think globally, something
which is difficult for managers who were accustomed to operate in vast sheltered
markets with minimal or no competition either from domestic or foreign firms. Indian
firms need to move from one end of each continuum to the other end as shown below:
12
Rigid, hierarchical and tall structureRigid, hierarchical and tall structure
Flexible, flat and team based structuresFlexible, flat and team based structures
Family centric, closed minded & secretive environment
Family centric, closed minded & secretive environment
Rational thinking & vibrant styles of managementRational thinking & vibrant styles of management
Dispersed ownership, open minded & transparent Dispersed ownership, open minded & transparent
Caste ridden, superstitious, laid-track styles of manage.Caste ridden, superstitious, laid-track styles of manage.
Changed Employee Expectations: Employees demand empowerment and
expect equality with the mangement. Previous notions about managerial authority are
giving way to employee influence & involvement along with mechanisms for upward
communication and due process. If we look at the workers’ unions of Otis, Hindustan
Lever, ICI, TOMCO, Blue Star, Webel Electro, and Central Bank. They rewrite their
agenda to include quality and better customer service and are even accusing the
management of malpractices. So everytime there is need to redram the profile of the
worker and discover new methods of training, hiring, renumerating and motivating
employees.
Outsourcing HR Activities: The trends towards outsourcing has been caused by
several strategic and operational motives. HR departments are divesting themselves
from mundane activities to focus more on strategic role. Outsourcing has also been
used to help reduce bureaucracy and to encourage a more responsive culture by
introducing external market forces into the firm through the biding process. It is a big
challenge before the HR manager to prove that his/her department is as important as
any other functions in the organization. The relevance of HR is at stack.
Changing Workforce Dynamics: Frequently, physical relocation is required.
The increasing number of dual-career professionals limits individual flexibility in
accepting such assignments and may hinder number of dual-career professionals
limits individual flexibility in accepting such assignments and may hinder
organizational flexibility in acquiring and developing talent. Some demographic
changes in the workforce having their own implications to the HR managers are(i)
inceasing number of working mothers, (ii) a steady decline of blue-collar employees
who are giving way to white-collar employees, and (iii) increasing awareness &
education among workers.
Balancing Work-life: Balancing work & life assumes relevance when both
husband and wife are employed. Travails of a working housewife are more than a
working husband, thus balancing it is becoming a major challenge for HR manager.
So a programme aiming balancing work-life is required and are supposed to include:
Childcare at or near the workplace, Job Sharing, Care for sick children and
13
employees, On-site summer camp, Training supervisors to respond to work and
family needs of employees, Flexible work scheduling, Sick leave policies, Variety of
errands from dry cleaning, dropping children at schools, making dinner reservations
etc and many more like the same or other.
Making HR activities ethical: Hiring ethical strong employees is only the
beginning. The need to institute mechanisms to ensure ethical conduct of employees
is increased a lot with the passage of time. The Hr manager needs to carefully screen
applications for jobs, weed out those who are prone to indulge in misdemeanors and
hire those who can build a value driven organization.
Organizational Restructuring: Peter Drucker prophesis in his book(The New
Realities) is showing its colour and many big companies has reduced their number of
management grades, elimination of layers, & redrawing reporting lines within their
organization. ITC, HLL, Godrej & Boyce, RPG Enterprises, Raymond Woollen Mills,
Shaw Wallace, Ballarpur Industries, Compton & Greaves are some of the companies
that are doing so. Changes are required particularly during the time of Acquisitions
and Mergers also during the bad whether of the firm. This is of need to keep people
with and working effectively and efficiently. These are done according to the
changing character of competition, as major companies operate through complex web
of strategic alliances of varying degrees of permanence.
Managing Diversity: Its value is getting more important issue because of:
Increase in the number of young workers in the work-force, increase in the number of
women joining the work-force, increase in the proportion of ethnic minorities in the
total work-force, increase in mobility of work-force, international careers &
expatriates are becoming common, international experience as a pre-requisite for
career progression to many top-level managerial positions. Organisations that can
manage diversity better trend to be more flexible because they have broadened their
policies, are more open-minded, have less standardized operating methods and have
developed skills in dealing with resistance to change.
14
Attitude towards Unions: Unionization is preferable because to remain unio-free
costs the organization heavily. Pay raises, out of turn promotions, generous perks &
other benefits need to be doled out frequently to appease workers. General perception
of managers is to avoid unionization but it is very beneficial to the organization. It
provide a mean for workers to express before the management conditions prevailing
in the workplace. But at the same time because of voice mechanism or the
instrumentality role, unionized firm have lower turnover rate and encourage
organization to provide more rational and professional management. So the work of
HR mangers gets tough here to decide whether is should be there in the organization
or not and if yes then how to control it. Strings of the union are required to be checked
time to time for better performance in the firm.
The Indian IT industry poses a baffling challenge to HR professionals-from recruitment to
retirement, compensation to career planning and from technological obsolescence to labour
turnover. This problem can be tackled with the use of HR planning which in itself is a
challenging task in IT industry. Determining the strength required for the near future is a very
complex problem in an IT company. The deciding factor is the company’s perceived ability
to bag projects both locally and internationally. The problem here is that until the company
have sufficient right-mix of people, it cannot clinch a project. But unless there is a project, it
cannot attract and retain people. With the advent of MNC’s it may be noted that job prospects
are gearing up. The multinationals are offering fantastic pay packets and working
environments to their employees.
15
5. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES AND THEIR HRM
PROBLEM
a) Company Profile of TCS
Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, business solutions and outsourcing organization
that delivers real results to global businesses, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can
match. With a vision of being in top 10 companies by the year 2010.
TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT and IT-enabled services delivered
through its unique Global Network Delivery Mode, recognized as the benchmark of
excellence in software development.TCS has over 120,000 of the world's best trained IT
consultants in 42 countries, with an annual sales of $5.7 billion (fiscal year ending 31 March,
2008)
16
b) CHALLENGES IN TCS
1) The maintain workforce diversity
The future success of any organizations relies on the ability to manage a diverse
body of talent that can bring innovative ideas, perspectives and views to their work.
The challenge and problems faced of workplace diversity can be turned into a
strategic organizational asset if an organization is able to capitalize on this melting
pot of diverse talents. With the mixture of talents of diverse cultural backgrounds,
genders, ages and lifestyles, an organization can respond to business opportunities
more rapidly and creatively, especially in the global arena (Cox, 1993), which must
be one of the important organizational goals to be attained. More importantly, if the
organizational environment does not support diversity broadly, one risks losing
talent to competitors.Since TCS has offices in more than 40 countries, the challange for
hrm is to maintain the proper ratio between foreign and indian origin employee.
2) the management of workplace diversity
In order to effectively manage workplace diversity, Cox (1993) suggests that a HR
Manager needs to change from an ethnocentric view ("our way is the best way") to a
culturally relative perspective ("let's take the best of a variety of ways"). This shift in
philosophy has to be ingrained in the managerial framework of the HR Manager in
his/her planning, organizing, leading and controlling of organizational resources.TCS
deals with this challenge by conducting mentoring programs.
3) Large workforce
There is a big challenge of maintaining large work force consisting of 1.3 lac
employees for TCS
4) Managing EIS
As information is the basis of decision-making in an organization, there lies a great need
for effective managerial control. A good control system would ensure the communication
of the right information at the right time and relayed to the right people to take prompt
actions.
17
When managing an Executive Information System, a HR manager must first find out
exactly what information decision-makers would like to have available in the field of
human resource management, and then to include it in the EIS. This is because having
people simply use an EIS that lacks critical information is of no value-add to the
organization. In addition, the manager must ensure that the use of information technology
has to be brought into alignment with strategic business goals.
5) Control and measure result
A HR Manager must conduct regular organizational assessments on issues like pay,
benefits, work environment, management and promotional opportunities to assess the
progress over the long term. There is also a need to develop appropriate measuring tools to
measure the impact of diversity initiatives at the organization through organization wide
feedback surveys and other methods. Without proper control and evaluation, some of these
diversity initiatives may just fizzle.
6) Leading the task
A HR Manager needs to advocate a diverse workforce by making diversity evident at all
organizational levels. Otherwise, some employees will quickly conclude that there is no
future for them in the company. As the HR Manager, it is pertinent to show respect for
diversity issues and promote clear and positive responses to them. He/She must also show
a high level of commitment and be able to resolve issues of workplace diversity in an
ethical and responsible manner.
7) How to keep the level of recuitment even in recession
The biggest challenge for HR is to maintain the company reputation, which it gained
over the period by recruiting a large number of new employees every year.
8) How to absorb all recruitment
Though there are recruitments in large scale, they do not have enough projects to absorb
all the new recruited employees. In order to tackle this situation, they are calling the new
recruited employees in small batches rather than 2-3 large groups.
18
9) Employees eligible for promotion
TCS has just suspended the promotion cycle till further notice. As told by Mr.
Susheel(name changed) , he is eligible for promotion since Nov -2007.
10) How to make more profit with same revenue
As per Economic times, TCS is planning to decrease the variable pay of executives by 10-
15% and keeping the gross same for middle management and developers.
11) How to motivate employee
The development of an appropriate organizational reward system is probably one of the
strongest motivational factors. This can influence both job satisfaction and employee
motivation. The reward system affects job satisfaction by making the employee more
comfortable and contented Motivational factors in an organizational context include
working environment, job as a result of the rewards received. The reward system
influences motivation primarily through the perceived value of the rewards and their
contingency on performance (Hickins, 1998).
The challenge which HR is facing is that how to motivate employee without any
significant salary hike or promotion.
19
6. BIRLA SOFT AND THEIR HRM PROBLEMS
a) company profile
Birlasoft is a leading provider of information technology services in both onshore and
offshore models to Fortune 1000 as well as mid-sized organizatiaons in banking, financial
services, insurance, retail, healthcare, manufacturing and independent software vendors
sectors. Birlasoft services include application development, support & maintenance,
enterprise application implementation, integration, infrastructure management and quality
assurance & testing.Birlasoft’s robust delivery processes embrace digitized project
management methodologies, embedded within proven practices of Six Sigma, SEI CMMi
Level 5 on Continuous Representation and secure services framework with BS7799. The
Noida centers of the company have been recently assessed at PCMM Level 3 for its HR
practices. Headquartered at Noida, India, Birlasoft has 4,000+ employees across US, UK,
Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and India.Birlasoft is
part of the global $1.4 billion CK Birla Group which traces its roots back to over 150 years
and has diversified interests ranging from automobiles, cement, paper, software etc. to
hospitals, schools and colleges as part of its philanthropic work.The company is a joint
venture of CK Birla Group of India and Computer Horizons Corporation (CHC) of USA. It is
leading Information Technology company with offices world-wide. It offers high class
solutions and offshore services to its clients that includes companies.
20
b) Challenges in birlasoft
1. Communication
Focusing on establishing effective communication throughout the organization and to
ensure that Birlasoftians have the skills and avenues to share information and
coordinate activities effectively.
2. PerformanceManagement
Driving the organization’s and its members’ progress by establishing objectives
related to committed work against which performance can be measured, ascertain
capability development assistance required to continuously enhance performance.
3. CompetencyDevelopment
This starts with identification of requisite competencies at the organization level
which are ultimately dependent on competencies that are needed to be identified, built
or enhanced in the individual Birlasoftian. Enhancing constantly the capability of
Birlasoftians to perform assigned tasks and responsibility in turn uplinks to the
organization capability building.
4. Training and Development
To ensure that the identified competency requirements are built through a systematic
and focused approach.
5. Compensation
To provide all individuals with remuneration and benefits based on their contribution
and value to the organization in a fair and transparent manner. Competitiveness of the
compensation offered in comparison with the prevailing markets' reality is the driving
force.
6. Career Development
To ensure that individuals are provided opportunities to develop their competencies
21
that enable them to achieve professional and personal career objectives within the
organization’s goals.
7. Participatory Culture
A myopic outlook of utilizing talents of people only in the delivery of assigned duties
has two broad undesirable effects: It prevents people from developing as well rounded
professionals; and it denies the organization the readily available multi-talented
internal resource pool that could potentially contribute to most of the challenges and
opportunities facing the organization. Building a participatory culture enables
availability of avenues to harness/give exposure to employees’ full capability by
involvement in making decisions and solving problems that affect the performance of
business activities
22
7. INDIAN TOBACCO INDUSTRY:
Large companies can afford to keep surplus staff and keep them engaged in internal
projects or training programmes. However, employees deeply resent transfers from
one projects to another as it adversely affects their carrier planning and prospects.
Unexpected employees turnover and overseas deputation may aid further strain on HR
department. Notwithstanding with the complexity of the problem, it has to be tackled
to enable the HR department to plan its recruitment campaign, at least 3 months in
advance. The marketing department has to play a vital role here. It must forecast the
technologies in demand in the near future and indicate what slice of the cake the
company can reasonably expect to get so recruitment and training process can be
greater geared accordingly.
a) Company Profile
ITC is one of India's foremost private sector companies with a market capitalisation of over
US $ 13 billion and a turnover of US $ 3.5 billion. Rated among the World's Best Big
Companies by Forbes magazine and among India's Most Respected Companies by
BusinessWorld, ITC ranks third in pre-tax profit among India's private sector corporations.
ITC has a diversified presence in Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards & Specialty Papers,
Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Information Technology,
Branded Apparel, Greeting Cards, Safety Matches and other FMCG products.
23
B) CHALLENGES FACED ITC BY THE HR MANAGER
1. ATTRITION
Attrition is the gradual reduction of a workforce by employees'
leaving and not being replaced rather than by their being laid. Reducing attrition rate
has been a challenge for HR Managers since many years. Tobacco industry was not
much not affected by the problem of attrition, but due to stringency in govt. policies
this problem became a prominent challenge for HR Managers of this industry.
The same is the case with HR Manager of ITC, due to stringency in govt. policies the
sales went down and the profits declined. In order to maintain the profit levels
employees were pressurized and thereby adding to the attrition rate. Now, HR
Managers are working hard to reduce this increasing attrition rate.
2. RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING
As the employees are leaving the organization due to increased work
pressures, it has become mandatory for the HR Manager to recruit new employees.
And in this liquidity crunch they are spending on the recruitment and training of the
new recruits.
3. RETENTION
Retention is a process of continued possession. Retaining an employee
without giving any fringe benefits is although more difficult. In the current scenario
when each and every organization is suffering from liquidity crunch it is very difficult
for an organization to give tangible or intangible benefits.
HR Manager of ITC also is moving in the same boat. He is also facing difficulties in
retaining the old employees, as he is not able to motivate them and with the increased
pressure the attrition is increasing.
24
8. GODFREY PHILLIPS AND THEIR HRM PROBLEMS
a) Company Profile
Godfrey Phillips is today the second largest player in the Indian cigarette industry with an
annual turnover of over US$ 265 million. The company was incorporated in India in 1936,
the Company established its own manufacturing facilities in 1944. The Company today is the
proud owner of some of the most popular cigarette brands in the country like Red and White,
Four Square, Jaisalmer, Cavanders, Tipper and Prince.Its products are distributed through an
extensive India wide network comprising 484 exclusive distributors and over 800,000 retail
outlets
b) Challenges in GPI
1. Performance Management
Driving the organization’s and its members’ progress by establishing objectives related to
committed work against which performance can be measured, ascertain capability development
assistance required to continuously enhance performance.
2. Planning a Mentoring Program
One of the best ways to handle workplace diversity issues is through initiating a Diversity
25
Mentoring Program. This could entail involving different departmental managers in a
mentoring program to coach and provide feedback to employees who are different from
them. In order for the program to run successfully, it is wise to provide practical training for
these managers or seek help from consultants and experts in this field. Usually, such a
program will encourage organizations members to air their opinions and learn how to
resolve conflicts due to their diversity. More importantly, the purpose of a Diversity
Mentoring Program seeks to encourage members to move beyond their own cultural frame
of reference to recognize and take full advantage of the productivity potential inherent in a
diverse population.
3. Training and Development
To ensure that the identified competency requirements are built through a systematic and
focused approach.
4. Organizing Talents Strategically-
In the GPI a HR Manager must be able to organize the pool of diverse talents strategically
for the organization. He/She must consider how a diverse workforce can enable the
company to attain new markets and other organizational goals in order to harness the full
potential of workplace diversity.
An organization that sees the existence of a diverse workforce as an organizational asset
rather than a liability would indirectly help the organization to positively take in its stride
some of the less positive aspects of workforce.
5. Motivational Approaches
Workplace motivation can be defined as the influence that makes us do things to achieve
organizational goals: this is a result of our individual needs being satisfied (or met) so that
we are motivated to complete organizational tasks effectively. As these needs vary from
person to person, an organization must be able to utilize different motivational tools to
encourage their employees to put in the required effort and increase productivity for the
company.
26
CONCLUSION
Human resource Management will be the key area of focus in 21st century as in companies
and government organization put in place strategies to cope up with the economical crisis and
recovery. The so called “war for talent” is on the backburner as the focus shifts to hiring
freezes, benefits and compensation cost
management, and workforce reduction in the hardest- hit segment and as the the era of skill-
based workers has arrived but if India wants to truly move to the global ground, it has to
spruce up its workforce. Small may be beautiful, but not in the IT industry. In the knowledge
era and a skill-based economy, it has become imperative that human resources become one of
the most essential ingredients of success.
The growth of IT companies and other companies are worldwide depends on its people and
the intellectual capital it possesses. ‘Knowledge workers’ has become a buzzword in today’s
scenario. And if we look at the top software exporters, they have been growing phenomenally
in workforce strength.
To make it big in the global software market, India needs to increase its mass of knowledge
workers. The total human resource strength of the IT industry as a whole stands at 425,609. A
company-wise break-up of this figure reveals that nearly 525 companies constituting 35% of
the IT industry employ an average of 58 persons each, 750 companies constituting 50% of the
industry employ an average of 275 persons each, and 150 companies constituting 10% of the
industry employ an average of 726 persons each. At least 40 companies have more than 1,000
employees, while some very big companies like TCS and Infosys have staffs above 5,000
each.
As we already know that Human Resource Management of the organization deals with the
individuals putting their hard work to meet the organizations goals. Managing people is the
toughest element of any organization than land, machinery or finances. Every human being
has its own degree of preferences, likings and attitude.
27
REFERENCES:
www.godfreyphillips.com/
www.itcportal.com/
www.humanlinks.com/manres/articles.htm/
www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au/companies/ITC-Learning
www.hinduonnet.com/businessline/2001/01/19/stories/071952tb.htm
http://www.henley.reading.ac.uk/management/about/staff/c-j-brewster.asp
28