HRM Talent

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Human Resource Management

A study on Challenges and Trends in Talent

Management of IT industry

Submitted to – Prof. Seema Rawat

Submitted By – Group 8

Arpit Bajaj HR007

Priya Gupta HR017

Nirupam Kritika HR029

Isha Monga HR035

Somnath Roy HR044

Gowtham Venkatesh HR056

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Contents

Abstract 3

Introduction to Information Technology 4

Talent Development: Challenges and Trends 4

Issues faced in managing talent 4

Talent Management Framework 6

Talent Management at Speridian 6

Talent Management at Xpanxion 9

Conclusion 11

References 11

Annexures 12

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Abstract

This report looks into the talent management processes of Information Technology (IT)

companies. In India, a key role has been played IT industry in putting India on the global

map. IT industry in India is the most significant growth contributor for the Indian economy

after the country was liberalized. The IT sector has played a significant role in transforming

India’s image from a crawling bureaucratic economy to a home of innovative entrepreneurs

and a global player in providing world class technology solutions and business services to the

different parts of the World. The industry has helped India transform from a rural and

agriculture-based economy to a knowledge based economy.

Two IT companies, Speridian and Xpanxion have been researched to gain an understanding

of the dynamics of talent management in IT industry. The report analyses the following

factors in detail:

Attracting Employees

Retaining Employees-Attrition Control

Motivation at workplace

Development Activities

Challenges faced

Competency based Talent Management

It has been found in the study that employee engagement initiatives are crucial to the

productivity of employees in the IT sector as their work might get monotonous. Also, focus on

work-life balance is important. To manage the talent, initiatives right from the entry of the

employee in the company need to be taken. On-boarding, Induction, Buddy programmes are

some initiatives that almost all the IT companies over the World implement today to ensure

engagement of employee right from their joining into the company.

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Introduction to Information Technology

India is the world's most popular destination for the information technology (IT) industry,

which accounts for approx. 52% of the US$ 124-130 billion market. The IT sector employs

about 10 million Indians and has been contributing significantly to the social and economic

transformation in the country.

The Indian IT and ITeS industry can be divided into four major segments –

IT services

Business process management (BPM)

Software products and engineering service

Hardware

Talent Management: Challenges and Trends

Talent management has been defined as a conscious and deliberate attempt to attract, develop

and retain people with the propensity and capability to meet present and future organizational

need. Talent management has also be defined as the process by which talent can be sought,

developed and directed for achieving business goals (CIPD, 2006).

The four explicit objectives of a talent management system are:

Talent attraction

Talent engagement

Talent development

Talent retention

The talent management philosophy should lay emphasis on engaging & developing talent that

has a strong potential, rather than those that have a good appraisal reviews

The employee personal growth is facilitated by Nurturing, encouraging and molding

the growth of talent —which has to be a two-way process

A conducive environment of continuous learning and regular reviews can be measured

across global benchmarks

Practicing work-life balance rather than preaching it

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Internal job postings, career and succession planning, mentoring & coaching, job

shadowing; all of these act as aids to the employee in honing their skills

The contract between organization and employee now lasts only for a couple of years.

So, organizations have to be prepared for the regular bunch of employees. Job security,

which once valued, is now replaced with developing employees, hierarchy with

challenge, and reward with lifestyle.

Challenges faced during Talent Development is shown in the results of the survey:

18% of companies claim to be winning the war for talent

72% portrayed it as an endless struggle in which they were neither gaining nor losing

ground

10% declared that the war for talent was winding down in defeat for their enterprise

Issues that are jarring talent specialist:

We aren’t sure what exactly are we looking for

o Companies while setting ambitious goals can’t spell out a precise roadmap to

achieve them, they usually hope that an extra splash of managerial wisdom or

technical know-how will make everything work out. In such situations, talent

becomes clearly defined only after the fact

o Executives on the way up are being graded by long-established yardsticks that

don’t have much to do with where the business actually needs to be going

Talent development is just a slogan, not a way of life o More than twenty per cent of talent-management specialists agreed that their

tools for succession planning, executive coaching and identifying high-potential

employees are widely regarded within their own companies as not being simple

or easy to use

We don’t know how to get better o Traditionally, the payoff from talent development efforts takes years to play out

as well as in hard to measure

o As a result, there have not been sufficient systematic efforts to keep track of

what assessment techniques are highly valuable within a company; which

managers have the best eye for talent, or what constantly occurring mistakes

ought to be fixed

Some of the key trends that are trying to shape up the talent strategy:

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Talent Management Framework

This Talent Management Framework, which is followed by various IT companies will organize

and focus companies’ talent actions and solutions to best meet its strategic needs. Keeping the

business strategy and goals firmly in sight, the people strategy and talent management

processes must be established and attuned to each other. The structure, processes and

procedures of the organisation, as well as its values, culture and climate, must support the

current business situation and form an enabling and empowering organisational context for the

business strategy to yield results.

Project Methodology for Speridian Technologies

In order to learn about how talent management is done in the IT Industry, we first drafted a

questionnaire. We interviewed executives at Speridian Technologies to get the details about

how talent is managed there.

Based on our interaction with Mr.Vishwanathan Easwaran (Sr. Manager HR, Speridian

Technologies), Mr.Magesh Manoharan (Sr.Manager HR, Sitel) and Ms.Shoba Radhakrishnan

(HR Consultant, Ivy Technologies), we were able to identify the intricacies involved in the

Talent Management activities carried out in an industry where the attrition rates are the highest.

The questionnaire touched important aspects of talent Management such as:




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Challenges faced


Speridian

Company Overview

Speridian Technologies is a global IT solutions provider with an excellent track record

for designing, developing and deploying enterprise-wide software solutions to clients,

who are leaders in their respective domains in both the public and private sectors.

An Oracle Platinum Partner, their expertise lies in implementing CRM solutions for

sales, service, marketing and business intelligence.

Talent management-

A) Retaining the workforce

1. Recruiting the right employees

Automated hiring tools like Hirecraft and Taleo are extensively at Speridian Technology.

Psychometric Test is one of the best means to check the suitability of the candidate.

Competency based hiring is also done at Speridian Technology.

Competency based Hiring: Apart from the technical skills the project team at Speridian

Technology drafts other competencies required for candidate to do well in the job and checks

whether the candidate will be a cultural fit for the company. The logic behind is that a right

hire will stick on to the company so time should be taken to carefully evaluate the candidate.

2. On Boarding or New Hire training

The first impression formed by the candidate goes a long way in retaining the candidate. The

VP –HR, Project head, Project manager and HR manager interact with the new hires to bring

a sense of belonging to the company. This has helped in significant reduction in the first year

attrition at Speridian Technologies.

3. Buddy Program

10% of the highly motivated and top performing employees at various levels are selected and

are trained to groom new joiners. Each employee is assigned a buddy and he is the point of

contact for all their queries / issues they face at work. The new joiners therefore thus have a

single point to address all their issues. This has significantly helped in lowering attrition

within the first year of joining for entry level employees.

4. Career Progression

Speridian Technologies resort to outside hiring for filling vacancies at the bottom of the

pyramid. All middle and senior level hiring is from within the organisation through training.

Thus employees are clear that career progression is well defined and if they do well they can

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grow within the organization. This has helped in controlling attrition in middle and senior level

positions

5. Employee Benefits

Employee benefits like medical benefits, promotion and tenurity allowance in compensation

as well as ESOPs help retain the workforce

B) A few Talent Management Activities at Speridian

1) Induction programmes

The Induction program at Speridian is systematically and specifically designed so that the

employee gets used to the surroundings and gets acquainted with his co-workers, so as to

enable him/her to hit the ground running.

2) PCMM

The People Capability Maturity Model is a maturity framework that focuses on continuously

improving the management and development of the human assets of an organization. The

People CMM helps organizations characterize the maturity of their workforce practices,

establish a program of continuous workforce development, set priorities for improvement

actions, integrate workforce development with process improvement, and establish a culture

of excellence.

3) COPC

The COPC Standard is used extensively for Talent Management at Speridian Technology.

4) Competency based Talent Management

Competency based talent management is used at Speridian Technologies. This is because they

feel that if used well, it would be a great value add for the quality of hire.

A few benefits of using a competency-based approach are:

a. The employees are clearly aware of which competencies they require to succeed

in their job.

b. They get a clear view of what competency and competency gaps they currently

have and they can embark on a training program to plug those gaps

c. They can find other roles which require the same competencies and apply for other

jobs within the organization

C) Challenges faced

Meeting the expectation of the employees is a big challenge and the HR Department has to be

on their toes to find ways to meet the expectations of the employees.

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Grievance Handling is another major challenge. Finding new ways for grievance handling is

a must and the team at Speridian Technologies have a dedicated Grievance Redressal

committee.

Retaining the employees is another major challenge. Even though many means of attrition

control are currently being employed, it still is a big challenge to retain the human capital at

Speridian Technologies.

D) Providing work life balance-

In order to provide work life balance to employee:

They have fixed office timings from 9am to 5pm. working overtime is not an

appreciated practise at Speridian.

They provide transport facility to all the employees.

They also provide them with various relaxation facilities like gym, sports, hobbies

centres etc.

Project Methodology for Xpanxion

Based on our interaction with Ms. Manashi Sinha (HR Manager at Xpanxion), we were able to

identify the intricacies involved in the Talent Management activities carried out in an Industry

where the attrition rates are the highest.

The questionnaire touched important aspects of talent Management such as:





Challenges faced


Xpanxion

Company Overview

Paul Eurek originally started a venture in 1990 called Compris Technologies. This innovative

company was the first mover in touchscreen point-of-sale systems and specialized in

distributing its systems to an impressive array of clients that included McDonalds, Disney,

YUM! Brands, and Wendy’s. Growth was immense, and over a short amount of time, Compris

had quickly become a global company, operating in over 30 countries and all 50 states before

it was eventually purchased by National Cash Register (NCR) in 1997.Due to Compris’

leadership having the innate ability to develop high quality software efficiently, Eurek agreed

to continue to service the software side of the touchscreen systems for NCR under the name of

a new company – a company that specializes in custom software development services. Thus,

Xpanxion was born in 1997

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Talent management-

A) Retaining the workforce-

1. Recruiting the right employees

Automated hiring Tools such as Google forms and Hello Sign are used in Xpanxion.

Psychometric Test is one of the best means to check the suitability of the candidate.

Technical skills are of prime importance as it is a product based company.

2. On Boarding or New Hire training

On boarding is done by the Line HR. Also, a mentor is been assigned to help through any

formalities and help the recruit to adjust into the company culture quickly.

3. Buddy Program

Bring your Buddy program is there. In BYB, Rs. 20000 cash is given to a candidate if he can

bring a new candidate suitable for a particular project.

4. Career Progression

Executive level hiring is done internally. Technically challenging posts are been filled laterally.

Also for entry level job freshers are recruited from engineering colleges.

5. Employee Benefits

Employee benefits like medical benefits, higher hospitalization coverage and cashless

hospitalization. They also provide yearly retention bonus plus flexi holidays.

B) Few Talent Management Activities at Xpanxion

Induction

On boarding

Allocation of Mentor

Training and Development

C) Challenges faced

Giving proper projects and learning opportunities, timely feedback, controlling the attrition

and finding the right skills which are needed for the client requirement are some of the

challenges.

D) Providing work life balance

In order to provide work life balance to employee:

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They have fixed office timings from 9.30am to 6.30pm. Sometimes employees may be

requested to overstay for project requirements. For that cab service and dining service

is provided.

They provide transport facility to all the employees at a reasonable price of Rs. 1500.

Gym and sleeping rooms are there to relax.

Conclusion

In IT sector which is a highly employee driven sector, it is necessary to maintain a healthy

relationship with the workforce and keep them engaged. Usually in any IT company, the

employees might feel that their work is monotonous and become unmotivated. Thus in order

to ensure smooth functioning of the services, it is absolutely necessary that management

provides employees with some engagement programmes at every level of their career, right

from joining the company. In addition to this it is also observed that better work life balance

enhances performance of the employee at work. Thus it is necessary that company policy are

made keeping in mind welfare of an employee.

In our study on the theme of Employee relations, we focussed on the following issues that are

very essential in maintaining good relationship with the workforce.

Hiring and retention of workforce

Talent management activities

Competency based talent management

Managing the frequent challenges at workplace

Providing work life balance

Based on our study of talent management in Speridian and Xpanxion, we observed found that

both these companies focuses on above mentioned aspect to maintain a healthy relationship

with the employees and keep them motivated. Although both companies have slightly different

policy but the focus is on employee. For example, in Speridian uses competency based talent

management, while Xpanxion uses an integrated approach of all the verticals to develop

programmes to keep employees motivated.

Apart from this we also found that there are many practices which are quite similar in these

companies. For example, on-boarding, mentor allocation, performance based bonus all act as

a source of motivation for an employee to give his best.

References

1) http://www.speridian.com/

2) http://www.xpanxion.com/

3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

4) http://www.ibef.org/industry/information-technology-india.aspx

5) Human Resource Management (Sharon Pande,Swapnalekha Basak)

6) http://www.hbr.org/

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Annexure

Speridian questionnaire and responses:

Q1) Everything done to retain, develop and reward people forms a part of Talent

Management.

Could you please tell us some of the Talent retention activities in IT industry where the

attrition rate is the highest?

Engaging and employee benefits like medical benefits, promotion and tenurity allowance in

compensation, stocks, esops, etc

Q2) Succession planning is a part of Talent Management. Do IT / ITES companies have any

structured program for grooming the next level?

Yes it has become a mandate in every cy to create this structure...

Q3) For a Talent Management System to be successful should it be worked into the business

strategy or is it solely a function of the Human Resources department. What’s the general

norm in this Industry?

Now Human resource is involved in the strategy and is named as strategic human resource

management.

Q4) With specific reference to the IT industry the attrition rates in the first 1 year more so the

first 6 months is the highest .Any specific retention activities you feel can to a certain extent

reduce the attrition levels?

Tenure allowance instead of variable component to be paid after completion of one year or

half yearly for just to stay in the cy.

Q5) Competency based Talent management is followed in many companies .Apart from

education , tenure etc( which are old competency models) what are the

other competencies which are required to be built in the job description so that we hire the

right people?

Psychometric is one of the best to check the suitability, Plan for the next 2 yrs and role of

them in achieving the vision and mission...of organisation

Q6) Could you list a few Talent management activities followed by the IT Industry?

Induction, copc, pcmm, erp etc.

Q7) What are your views on Competency based Talent Management? if best used it can be a

value add to the quality of hire

Q8) What are some of the challenges faced in Talent Management?

Meeting the expectation of the employees, finding new ways for grievance handling,

retaining etc.

Xpanxion questionnaire and responses:

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Q1) Everything done to retain, develop and reward people forms a part of Talent

Management. Could you please tell us some of the common practices of Talent retention in

IT industry, which your company practices?

We provide medical benefits, higher hospitalization coverage, cashless hospitalization. We

also provide yearly retention bonus plus flexi holidays.

We also engage them by fun activities and trekking around Pune. We have a committee

called XITE through which we celebrate every events, also we are a Flat organization where

anyone can reach anybody.

Q2) Succession planning is a part of Talent Management. Do your company have any

structured program for grooming the next level?

Not specifically but as we are growing rapidly, we are planning to come up with something in

near future

Q3) For a Talent Management System to be successful should it be worked into the business

strategy or is it solely a function of the Human Resources department. What’s the general

norm in this Industry?

It’s a misconception that Talent management is only for HR, it is a dual responsibility of HR

and Management. HR function along with business decides the practices in our organization

and I believe it is the norm in whole IT Industry.

Q4) With specific reference to the IT industry the attrition rates in the first 1 year more so

the first 6 months is the highest .Any specific retention activities you feel can to a certain

extent reduce the attrition levels?

Retention bonus, rewarding careers and onsite opportunities could help to bring down

attrition.

Q5) Competency based Talent management is followed in many companies .Apart from

education, tenure etc( which are old competency models) what are the other competencies

which are required to be built in the job description so that we hire the right people?

Career Plans and ambitions should be clearly mapped with the opportunities provided.

Aptitude test is taken and Group Working skills are evaluated in our organization by

reviewing Linked In and Other Social Networking profiles.

Q6) Could you list a few Talent management activities followed by the IT Industry?

Pre-Induction, On boarding, allocation of Mentor, Training and Development

Q7) What are your views on Competency based Talent Management?

It would be a win-win situation for both, the organization and the employee. Both can reap

mutual benefits

Q8) What are some of the challenges faced in Talent Management?

Giving proper projects and learning opportunities, timely feedback, controlling the attrition

and finding the right skills which are needed for the client requirement

HRM Talent

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Transcript of HRM Talent