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Current Affairs - Corporate Employment Trends Entrepreneurship Human Resource Industry Evolution Leadership Uncategorized

Democracy – Strength or Weakness??

India is suffering from a disease called ‘Democracy’. 

Everyone can’t be a speaker. Some have to be listeners. Because listeners are the Doers. And doers are the change-makers.

So democracy or dictatorship? 

India has a better chance to grab the business opportunities from other Countries as an alternative to China. Since China has created a paranoia with minimal justification, the forecast is, many countries depending on China for their’ manufacturing support will move to India. The other option the world has is Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

India might seem a lucrative option compared to any other country to the Investors. We might win the competition over any other country due to the statistics our country shows – 130 cr population, 68 million graduates,  43% of the total population in the age group of 18 to 44 yrs ( the highly productive phase of the age) and nearly 10 % more in the age group of 44 to 54 yrs (still the employable group) keeping the average age of an Indian to 29 years according to 2011 census , (rightly called – Young India) , which has grown proportionately now, 7th largest country in the world, ranking 4th in the world in natural resources. What else?  But, how will we sustain?

How will we accommodate these countries and the business opportunity? How will we prepare to accommodate them?

What is the transformation we need to undergo? 

A country with a mindset of the population – ‘Degree is the criteria for getting a job’. 

Companies are always on the hunt for good resources. Industry is suffering due to unavailability of the right resources. Higher rates of attrition are causing project delays. Here we have headlines stating unemployment as a burning issue. Resource availability, Skill issue or will issue? What is the underlying truth? 

Designations are more attractive than the quest for knowledge and zeal to deliver. 

Resource approach: Everybody wants to be a Manager, dictate terms, enjoy the luxury of the authority and higher pay package, not understanding their contribution to the system from their current role. 

The way we revolt….

We have a voice, so we will voice out everything coming to our mind through revolution, strike or with the support of media. Everyone’s pain needs attention by blowing it out of proportion. Resolution isn’t the only aim. Noise is also the aim. ‘You need to stand for yourself, no matter what’. But the way we do it is so ridiculous. We revolt in a way which yields to our own long term damages. These revolts cause irreversible damages. Any fair chance of recovery takes years and decades. 

No one wants to follow the right leader. Everyone wants to be one. We follow a leader with destructive ideologies rather than constructive ones. There are very few leaders – wise and selfless. Else most of them are keen on making a statement, irrespective of the chaos the statements may create. Leaders need to be orators only or strategic thinkers? 

Most of them think adversely or momentarily than aligning to the benefit of the Country and Community. Too much wisdom about unnecessary and nonproductive things exhausting the bandwidth further delaying the growth of the country. Personal and individual gains are priority as compared to community gains. 

Only one set of people is in alignment with law making and law abiding process. Rest of the majority are only commentators. These people can debate for days and months, to prove the law or the rule as wrong. Such approach lead to delay in Implementations. This delay results into non availability of data to measure the outcome of amendments made. It dilutes the purpose of amendment by the time data is available.

The definition of hard work means number of man-hours, quality and quantity of work. Management of resources is on extreme sides at both ends. Either the management is too ruthless or the workers are too dominating, lazy and take advantage. Laws do not give an upper hand of control to the victim in any case either, in a defined time period. 

Industry suffers from attrition, underperformance, lack of  accountability and  ownership in the deliverables. No yardstick to measure and record workers’ performance or integrity.

No common forum by Govt or a central body to define the benchmark and SOP of any technical, non-technical  activity. 

Industry is slowly reducing the efforts in the development of the employee. Either by means of training or any other investment on employee’s development. The reason is eventually the investment on resources is a loss, when the employee leave without adding value to the organization.

Government’s  changing decisions and processes with every new party who replaces the earlier. Every Govt coming to power within 1,2 3 or 5 yrs at state level have different agendas. These leaders push behind the running projects to the backstage creating fear for the MNC’s by keeping their projects on status quo for longer duration delaying their ROI schedules. Time overrun takes the project cost higher. There is no audit mechanism of projects to secure the investment and complete projects on time irrespective of which Govt is in power. 

The Grants, licenses and documentation are time consuming. Its complicated because of people’s non cooperative approach, is another roadblock. Superficially every process seem like ‘one window support’ as written and published. But ground realities vary drastically. 

There has to be a platform which will give control to the Govt rather than the Employees. The Corporate Governance need better rules. On the other hand develop an attrition control method. Devising compulsory fixed tenure for employees in each organization. Introduce automated evaluation mechanism to measure employee performance giving the Employer better confidence to develop the Resource. Save time and money of the Industry, lost in all this transition of resources leading completion of assignment or projects without hassles. 

Our Country’s financial strength is visible in times of pandemic, recession or any other natural disasters. Our turnaround-time to come back to normalcy will portray  the strength of our Economy. We ought to redefine the meaning of ‘democracy’ in India to reduce the impact of such a scenario benefiting every single person in this country.

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Current Affairs - Corporate Employment Trends Human Resource Industry Evolution

Industry trends during COVID and Post-COVID

According to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy 27 million youth in the age group of 20-30 years lost their jobs in April 2020 following a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Further, 33 million men and women in their 30s lost jobs in April, out of which 86% of the job losses were among men, it said.

In addition to the job losses, pay-cuts, and furloughs, the other trends Industries are adapting are:

  • Deferring any incentives, appraisals to employees.
  • Laying off roles where there are repetitive jobs.
  • Performance-based layoffs due to skill or will issues.
  • Layoffs due to the non-adaptability of employees to post- COVID scenario.
  • Layoffs considering resources on the bench even for 15 days as a burden for the organization and shedding overheads.
  • Decrease of numbers in Support functions.
  • Laying Off Senior People in Senior positions in the age group of 50+ yrs addressing cost and as perceived by the Industry – limitation in the utilization of such resources due to mobility, multitasking, adaptability, rigidity, etc.,
  • Promoting Junior resources to Senior roles due to resource availability at a lesser cost, maximum utilization, flexibility, more accommodative, etc..,
  • Hiring resources across geographies due to Work from home model.
  • Doubling the expectations in terms of deliverable’s and accountability.
  • Transferring Permanent resources to contractual employment – this will reduce the overhead cost for the Companies and retrenchment cost based on future Industry uncertainties that can be well accommodated at lesser cost and no brand defamation.
  • Out-placement of retrenched employees.
  • Engaging skilled white – collared resources on assignment/ day/ month basis is the new trend.
  • Hiring experienced resources at the cost of an entry-level resource.
  • Deferring all Campus hiring offers to infinity.
  • Expanding the job description of new and existing employees.
  • Measuring performance only on results delivered and not on the engagement time.
  • Work from home, not limiting working hours to 9, 10, 11, or 12 hours.
  • Major Companies adopting to Work from home trend due to the cost saved on infrastructure.
  • Expecting Industry ready resources minimizing training time and training cost.
  • Human Resource engaging more in virtual employee engagement platforms.
  • Adopting Project-based engagement through contractual hiring.
  • Building effective virtual platforms of communication to make the Work from home model better.
  • Reducing trial time and adaptability time of any new resource joining the organization.
  • Transfer of employees to the most challenging locations or work area.
  • Bidding with extremely Competitive rates to gain business and sustain.
  • Keeping only the primary and lean benefits to the employees active.
  • Emphasizing on survival than growth.

Every aspect of the industry has undergone substantial modifications. Should it be called New -Normal or New World? But change always is initiated, implemented, adapted, and better successful in chaos.

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Employment Trends Entrepreneurship Industry Evolution Sectors

Impact of COVID on Industries and Job Market. Equip yourself to survive, sustain, and progress.

Job Market and Employment trends have undergone multiple transformations with time due to Recession, Globalization, Automation, and Digitalization. Currently, Industry is going through a tough phase due to pandemic, which has appeared nearly after 100 years.
The whole of the Industry is making assumptions and anticipations based on ever data possible. But unfortunately, most of them are not in alignment with the facts to date.

The changing scenario of the COVID census in different states, mortality rate, key people in politics, Govt or Essential services – tested positive, their duration of recovery, disturbance in the functionality of essential services … all have added to more confusion.

There were predictions made that, the second quarter of 2020-21 will see a considerable recovery. Whereas the job loss has increased, and pay cuts have prolonged till next quarter. Few of the Companies have announced pay cuts till March 2021. Appraisals, Bonus, and Variable Pay, have deferred until infinity.

Sectors most affected like Hospitality, Airlines, Automotive, Aerospace, Retail are struggling for survival. The Recovery Rate of Industries impacted due to COVID is very slow. The cascading effect is creating an enormous blow to the other Industries in the supply chain. Employees with higher Salaries, Senior people with monitoring roles, Support departments, Jobs that can be replaced by digitalization, Business Development roles are on the Target for retrenchments. Campus recruitments stopped for a year.

The positive side of the situation is, Junior level, capable and efficient people are elevated with higher responsibilities and opportunities to perform and acquire more senior roles once the market stabilizes. Most of the jobs are using virtual platforms to interact, reducing cost and time for both organizations and employees. The Industry will further explore and innovate newer means to perform and sustain.

Work from home will, in the future, give opportunities to more people in 2- tier, 3- tier cities, villages to work for MNC’s from their homes. Geographies won’t limit people to smaller or lesser opportunities. Educated Men and Women in small towns or villages will not have restrictions in career growth or opportunities. Lifestyle and exposure will improve in small cities.

Sectors like Pharma, Retail like Grocers, Vegetable vendors, Automation, Digitalization, few Mfgg units, Telecom, Networking, Computer Hardware, Infrastructure have seen the demand. Today’s job market belongs to only those people who can commit and deliver results in the least turn around time with utmost quality, integrity, and accountability. The changing demands and the situation of the Industry will force Companies to expect more from the employees. And Darwin’s theory of ‘Survival of fittest’ and ‘Natural Selection’ will force employees to thrive on competition. New Normal will come with many demands from the employers, better gauging criteria for performances and deliverables

Change is inevitable. One who adapts sooner will succeed, be it an Organization or an Individual. Equip yourself to survive, sustain, and progress.

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Current Affairs - Corporate Employment Trends Industry Evolution Outsourcing Model Sectors

How will Resource Outsourcing/Staffing help the Industry Post –COVID?

How will Resource Outsourcing/Staffing help the Industry Post –COVID?

India has generally seen a trend of engaging blue-collared, support staff resources on third-party/ off-roll/outsourcing/ staffing engagement. Post-2008 recession, the pattern of engaging white collared, skilled resources widespread by the IT Industry but still was limited to IT Industry alone. Post-COVID, the trend of engaging white collared, technical employees into Contractual engagement excluding few Senior Management and strategical roles is envisaged as a necessity and is in demand now irrespective of any sector.

IT Industry shifted to this trend after the 2008 recession based on the following observations.

  • Bench cost was consuming revenues of the Organization affecting the financial health of the Company,
  • Having resources on bench based on the projection of growth didn’t turn out to be a wise decision.
  • Expansion plans delayed due to many factors
  • Competition,
  • Pricing,
  • Clients’ Approvals,
  • Licensing,
  • Global Economic trends,
  • Currency conversion,
  • Downtime between projects,
  • Mapping of the maximum capacity of each resource
  • On the other hand, holding back employees with no complete engagement led to the attrition of resourceful employees, leaving behind only the average people in the stream.

Why is the Non-IT Industry ( Construction, Infra, Energy, etc..,) following this trend 13 years later?

Non-IT Industry, on the other hand, has been most apprehensive about this model. And there have been justifying reasons for the same.

The reasons for non-acceptance were many concerns.

  • Accountability and Integrity of skilled resources on contractual engagement.
  • Gauging of work in manual ways and not digital ways which make it challenging to monitor the process
  • Empathy towards fellowmen for the insecurities in contractual jobs
  • Comparatively smaller players in staffing with an unclear or obscurely defined scope
  • Payroll agencies with only documentation capabilities or partial responsibilities.

Development and transformation was slower owing to

  • Multi-level external challenges
  • Delay in deliverables where the line of activities got disrupted without a possibility of back up or control
  • Support from all departments on time
  • Inventory availability
  • Govt approvals
  • Fund shortage due to delayed receivables from the end client,
  • Change in instructions from management/client since this Industry has been extremely dynamic in nature.

All the above reasons led to resistance to change or non-prediction of uncertainties or inability to collectively assess the cost and business benefit.

In the current scenario, ambiguities are intensified to the extent of the uncertainty raising questions like “IS THERE A TOMORROW? IF YES, WHO ALL WILL JOIN US AND BE A PART OF TOMORROW?”

Limited visibility to the future by even big giants of the Industry, failure of long term plans, long term plans being replaced by short term plans have forced every Company to lie low and sustain. This, in turn, has led to Pay cuts, Lay-offs, Furloughs, increased pressure for people to perform. In such a scenario, the Human nature of sympathy, empathy towards fellowmen, bothering about developing people for long term returns, consideration towards others’ jobs, feeling stressed due to workload have taken backstage. What has been more critical is working towards sustaining the Organization (a foundation which houses employees) through the chaos irrespective of all reasons – genuine, significant, logical or fake, insignificant, illogical.

This situation has led Industry to adapt to staffing/ outsourcing as a stop-gap to cater to the active projects, or newly acquired projects for the next three years. Approximately three years expecting all the cascading effects, chain reactions, transitions, transformations, adaptations to be completed in three years, and implementation of new normal to start functioning successfully.

Hopefully, this opportunity should transform the staffing industry with a place in the Industry as an organized sector- breaking barriers, inventing, innovating, and leading to great opportunities and aspiration to the youngsters to step in this Industry by choice and not by chance. Because decisions are made out of interests, and interests lead to innovation.

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Current Affairs - Corporate

‘A problem needs a solution; a solution doesn’t need a solution.

‘A problem needs a solution; a solution doesn’t need a solution.

Corporates are only expected to find solutions for any problem occurring on the horizon. The issues may be repetitive or new every time. But, the solution changes with time, phase, people, and culture.

Unpredictable situations have always circled the Industry. A robust problem-solving approach is still the underlying strength of any organization. Every situation has made the Industry more dynamic, building better processes, updating to newer technologies, eliminating or improving people to adapt to the situation.

COVID 19 also is a scenario that will force the Industry to evolve at its best. This can be the best opportunity or the worst punishment for any Individual or Organization. Options are always available, and making a choice is unavoidable.

Clarity through any challenge is always a tough task. But when choices are offered, it is smart to grab and make an opportunity.

COVID 19 can be the best opportunity to introspect and retrospect self and the Organization. Most of the time, we have been extinguishing the fire. Here is the time to have 7- Dimensional view and build a road map to avoid a fire in the forthcoming times.

Problems have been an indispensable part of life, be it an organization or individual. Glorifying the problems worsen the situation and block our minds from thinking.

Fear of the future creates confusion in the minds. Any Organization or Individual was not born to face only good throughout. The expectations were to meet more negatives than the positives when the journey began. Ambiguity was most common as we were born with it. The difference has been that there was a variation in the volume of people in the same situation. The problems were distributed and were of different in nature with each group of people or Organizations.

Fortunately enough today, most of the Organizations or Individuals are facing the same challenges world-wide. So solutions also will be found sooner with so many minds working on it simultaneously.

Hold on to your Place, your Company, your Clients, and Business… this has come to pass by and make you better.

Categories
Employment Trends Human Resource Sectors Uncategorized

Evolution in Employment trends.

Evolution in Employment trends.

How to have a productive work from home model yielding to a win-win situation for both employees and employers?

The industry is figuring out every possible way to accommodate this model since we aren’t left with any option.
Employee’s safety, Client Service, Company’s Survival are all equally important.

But, for Work from home model to be successful, employees need to accept that this is going to be a permanent solution for many of their problems of past and present. Personal, professional problems like travel time to the workplace due to traffic, pollution, uncertain food schedule, family time compromise, work-life balance, COVID Infection, social distancing; and Organization’s problems of today which have enormously increased due to COVID – Economic crisis, Opex, Company’s sustenance, Competition, Cashflow, Governance problems, Communication problems, Adherence to Compliance and Rules of Govt.

How should this be structured?

Every employee has to work to overcome the problems of their Company. All these years, risks belonged to the Company alone. The volume of people facing the uncertainty and directly affected by the risks in an Organizations was majorly the Senior fraternity. They had to risk a significant share of their salaries as a performance incentive – a performance incentive based on the Company’s performance and not just individual performance. The performance, which was at risk with every right or wrong decision since the right decisions and erroneous implementations, also impacted the Organization negatively. The remuneration or incentives of these Senior leaders were dependant on the whole crowd of people working in the Organization. Additionally, their credibilities also were at stake.

One of the possible initiatives could be passing nominal risk downwards. The industry has anyways announced a pay cut as a precautionary measure as a preparation for the uncertain scenario Companies might face in the next two years. The revoking of this decision isn’t having a definite timeline either, as on date. Why not convert the same to incentivize the resource against their performance monthly. This eventually would shift some risks of the Organization to the employee and also focus on the theory’ Survival of the fittest.’ There are ‘n’ number of people who have lost jobs due to this pandemic. Why not allow them to be paid proportionately to their performance.
Making an opportunity of every disaster has been a boon to the thought process of humankind. Why not the employees and employers make an opportunity to survive and thrive towards success following this theory?

We have had consulting engagements for specific roles in most of the organizations. How about increasing the ratio of people in these roles, passing down more accountability for most of the functions?

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Employment Trends Human Resource Outsourcing Model Sectors Uncategorized

Redefining Outsourcing

Redefining Outsourcing,

Bringing in a new trend in Employment and Resource Management, which the industry is in dire need today.

We all are cent-percent convinced with the understanding today that our well being is dependent on the Company we are working for. And every individual in the Organization is required to contribute 1000% to help the Company overcome this chaos. Employees are in the phase of giving more, and meeting the expectation of the Organization today.
The definition of working is redefined to what are the deliverables met? Yardstick and parameters to measure performance have entirely changed. It is no more the number of hours spent or efforts put in. Instead, it is only and only the output in the desired or lesser than the desired timeline by the Client that matters today.

It is and has always been of significance for Organizations to earn and save for tomorrow, not for today alone. So every Management decision is based upon securing the future of the Organization. The more sustainable the Organization, the lower are the risks of perishing, higher is the growth.

Outsourcing has been one of the options organizations have adopted for more than a decade to overcome future threats and current ambiguities. The outsourcing industry in terms of Job outsourcing, Subcontracting, or work contract has evolved in a significant way, since the phase of inception of the idea to today. But the outsourcing model concerning Resources has only extended to different sectors but not created depth. It has remained the same or altered very little in the last decade. Outsourcing resources are looked at as an alternative to recruiting or running a payroll of the employees. The resource engagement is considered as outsourcing HR process. Ideally, that shouldn’t be the case. But, the expectations and pricing aren’t clearly defined to plug-in with the organizational/ project requirements in most of the sectors. Resource outsourcing is compared with the resource cost and not the impact cost. This limitation has crippled the thought process of the sector, impacting the transformation of the Resource Industry faster. Or the Organization expects to replace the Work order assignments of PMC/ Contracting Companies. Of course, there are chances to achieve the same, because the deliverables are by the resources whether they are engaged with a PMC, Contracting Company, or a Resource Engagement Company.
Now is the time to expect solutions and not documentations from the Resource Outsourcing Sector.

Additionally, Organizations aren’t counting on them as a partner for their growth. They are just a borrowed identity for the employees engaged by the organizations to save the documentation and statutory disarray. There aren’t defined approaches, evaluated thought processes to draw a graph for the growth of this sector in a rational manner.
Resource outsourcing can be a powerful tool to revolutionize recruitment trends, employment trends, and performance trends. But with the right approach, expectation, and pricing by brainstorming sessions of the major players of the Outsourcing sector in synchronization with the other sectors.

COVID, revolutionizing employment trends, can expect the most efficient process and policy implementations through Resource engagement partners. Its right time now to lay right rules, timelines, and expectations with proper responsibilities, appropriate pricing – allowing the Resource outsourcing industry to mature and give 3-dimensional solutions to the organizations.

-Sucheta Gour