Everybody's partner Anjali Prayag
The changing role of HR in today's world sees it lending a hand to every other department of a company, the better to boost bottom lines.
There's one aspect where HR seems to have dropped the ball. "We have not managed the social aspects... very well, such as `how to manage stress and money at a very early stage in one's life'."
Less than a decade-and-a-half ago, it was highly unlikely that an HR manager would be considered a `strategic contributor' to run a business.
Now, 15 years later, when people skills are at a premium across countries and industries, the most challenging task for any company would be to hire right and hold talent tight.
Therefore, in this world of billable hours, it's not surprising that the HR function can impact bottom lines. In fact, many HR managers now report directly to CEOs and some even sit on boards of companies.
Take the case of Mohandas Pai, Director, HR, Infosys, who was definitely among the most high-profile CFOs the IT industry has seen. Why was he moved to head the HR function, a job which until now was not considered strategic to business success?
According to Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor, Infosys, HR is the most challenging task on hand for companies today and the profession needs strategic people such as Pai to help the over 55,000-people strong organisation tide over the challenge.
Agent of change
HR heads speaking at the Nasscom-HR summit 2006 in Chennai recently agreed that HR is no longer answering mundane questions such as `Should we build or buy talent'?
Deepak Dhawan, Vice-President, Human Resources and Training, EXL Service, speaking on the changing role of HR touched upon how it has become a change agent, innovator and a strategic partner.
"HR has so far stood away from the supply chain of the organisation, but now is definitely part of its business success."
In fact, HR has now been fixed with the responsibility of creating a strategic competitive advantage with the company's human resources, perhaps the most-scarce resource today.
Unique skills in demand
This change in HR's role has also come about because companies are looking for unique skills and in large numbers, making the task that much more difficult.
For instance, companies such as Accenture are hiring 200 people with unique skills every month, says Rahul Varma, Senior Director, HR, Accenture. Therefore
HR is also becoming performance-oriented.
Dhawan says that if HR does not function on a daily basis, it will fail. In fact,
recruitment now has been separated from other HR functions, because of the critical nature of the job.
HR experts agree that the recruitment department now has to run like a sales
and a procurement function.
Rajan Sabhlok, Lead, HR and Recruiting, BPO, Accenture India, says deliveries have now become short-term and HR, which traditionally shied away from accountability, has to work to make the organisation more competitive. "There can be revenue losses due to lack of recruitment," says Dhawan.
Then there are concepts such as cost per joiner, stringent delivery schedules, resource pool management and managing the available resource pool and performance management, enough factors to create a new HR ecosystem.
New requirements
People management now encompasses many new skills. Dhawan lists some of them: He says HR now has to learn to manage a schizophrenia of cultures.
Employees here are interacting with clients sitting in the US, the UK, Australia, etc. Employees have to be trained to fit into that culture. "Therefore HR has to be more customer-centric than ever before."
The second is managing growth, i.e, recruitment is now a core function of HR and has emerged from behind its shadows. "Many a time it gives the deciding vote for mergers and acquisitions.
HR gives answers to questions such as `where should we go for acquisitions, how to keep the company fabric intact,' and so on. Therefore, HR has a strategic role to play even in a company's inorganic growth path.
Focussed function
C. Mahalingam, Senior Vice-President, Human Resources, Symphony Services, explains how the recruitment function has become highly focussed. "Now we have resource management groups (RMGs) in companies that specialise in optimising people resources.
There's a sizeable bench in most companies and you need a well-coordinated RMG to decide on how to productively use the bench."
Employer branding
Employer branding is another exercise that most companies are taking seriously, with HR again playing the apex role. Here employees and prospective candidates are treated like clients and are wooed with the company's vision-mission statements and USPs.
Says Mahalingam, "Exit interviews are anyway done, but we are also now conducting stay interviews to understand why employees prefer to stay with us." Therefore, HR now has to be alert to disengagement symptoms in an employee's behaviour and respond to it immediately, lest the company may lose him/her soon.
HR has thus evolved to add new skills to its quiver: finance, marketing, sales, procurement, psychology and change management.
But there's one aspect where it seems to have dropped the ball, says Dhawan. "We have not managed the social aspects of employment very well, such as `how to manage stress and money at a very early stage in one's life'."
The changing role of HR in today's world sees it lending a hand to every other department of a company, the better to boost bottom lines.
There's one aspect where HR seems to have dropped the ball. "We have not managed the social aspects... very well, such as `how to manage stress and money at a very early stage in one's life'."
Less than a decade-and-a-half ago, it was highly unlikely that an HR manager would be considered a `strategic contributor' to run a business.
Now, 15 years later, when people skills are at a premium across countries and industries, the most challenging task for any company would be to hire right and hold talent tight.
Therefore, in this world of billable hours, it's not surprising that the HR function can impact bottom lines. In fact, many HR managers now report directly to CEOs and some even sit on boards of companies.
Take the case of Mohandas Pai, Director, HR, Infosys, who was definitely among the most high-profile CFOs the IT industry has seen. Why was he moved to head the HR function, a job which until now was not considered strategic to business success?
According to Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor, Infosys, HR is the most challenging task on hand for companies today and the profession needs strategic people such as Pai to help the over 55,000-people strong organisation tide over the challenge.
Agent of change
HR heads speaking at the Nasscom-HR summit 2006 in Chennai recently agreed that HR is no longer answering mundane questions such as `Should we build or buy talent'?
Deepak Dhawan, Vice-President, Human Resources and Training, EXL Service, speaking on the changing role of HR touched upon how it has become a change agent, innovator and a strategic partner.
"HR has so far stood away from the supply chain of the organisation, but now is definitely part of its business success."
In fact, HR has now been fixed with the responsibility of creating a strategic competitive advantage with the company's human resources, perhaps the most-scarce resource today.
Unique skills in demand
This change in HR's role has also come about because companies are looking for unique skills and in large numbers, making the task that much more difficult.
For instance, companies such as Accenture are hiring 200 people with unique skills every month, says Rahul Varma, Senior Director, HR, Accenture. Therefore
HR is also becoming performance-oriented.
Dhawan says that if HR does not function on a daily basis, it will fail. In fact,
recruitment now has been separated from other HR functions, because of the critical nature of the job.
HR experts agree that the recruitment department now has to run like a sales
and a procurement function.
Rajan Sabhlok, Lead, HR and Recruiting, BPO, Accenture India, says deliveries have now become short-term and HR, which traditionally shied away from accountability, has to work to make the organisation more competitive. "There can be revenue losses due to lack of recruitment," says Dhawan.
Then there are concepts such as cost per joiner, stringent delivery schedules, resource pool management and managing the available resource pool and performance management, enough factors to create a new HR ecosystem.
New requirements
People management now encompasses many new skills. Dhawan lists some of them: He says HR now has to learn to manage a schizophrenia of cultures.
Employees here are interacting with clients sitting in the US, the UK, Australia, etc. Employees have to be trained to fit into that culture. "Therefore HR has to be more customer-centric than ever before."
The second is managing growth, i.e, recruitment is now a core function of HR and has emerged from behind its shadows. "Many a time it gives the deciding vote for mergers and acquisitions.
HR gives answers to questions such as `where should we go for acquisitions, how to keep the company fabric intact,' and so on. Therefore, HR has a strategic role to play even in a company's inorganic growth path.
Focussed function
C. Mahalingam, Senior Vice-President, Human Resources, Symphony Services, explains how the recruitment function has become highly focussed. "Now we have resource management groups (RMGs) in companies that specialise in optimising people resources.
There's a sizeable bench in most companies and you need a well-coordinated RMG to decide on how to productively use the bench."
Employer branding
Employer branding is another exercise that most companies are taking seriously, with HR again playing the apex role. Here employees and prospective candidates are treated like clients and are wooed with the company's vision-mission statements and USPs.
Says Mahalingam, "Exit interviews are anyway done, but we are also now conducting stay interviews to understand why employees prefer to stay with us." Therefore, HR now has to be alert to disengagement symptoms in an employee's behaviour and respond to it immediately, lest the company may lose him/her soon.
HR has thus evolved to add new skills to its quiver: finance, marketing, sales, procurement, psychology and change management.
But there's one aspect where it seems to have dropped the ball, says Dhawan. "We have not managed the social aspects of employment very well, such as `how to manage stress and money at a very early stage in one's life'."