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The End of Work - Innovative HR Practices

The document discusses how HR practices are evolving to better attract, retain, and develop talent. Some key changes include putting the head of HR on company boards, prioritizing culture and talent development, customizing policies around leave and flexibility to attract different generations, measuring the impact of training on productivity and retention, and encouraging breaks and learning to recharge. Companies like Marico and Godrej are leading the way by focusing on diversity, mental health, associates' development, and sponsoring further education to adapt to a changing workforce. The evolving practices reflect a more strategic view of human resources and a new era of work.

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Daksh Aneja
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78 views2 pages

The End of Work - Innovative HR Practices

The document discusses how HR practices are evolving to better attract, retain, and develop talent. Some key changes include putting the head of HR on company boards, prioritizing culture and talent development, customizing policies around leave and flexibility to attract different generations, measuring the impact of training on productivity and retention, and encouraging breaks and learning to recharge. Companies like Marico and Godrej are leading the way by focusing on diversity, mental health, associates' development, and sponsoring further education to adapt to a changing workforce. The evolving practices reflect a more strategic view of human resources and a new era of work.

Uploaded by

Daksh Aneja
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The end of ‘work’ as we know it?

AMRITA NAIR-GHASWALLA
Slowly but surely organisations are giving human resource the respect it deserves. Despite India
Inc’s oft-repeated complaints about talent shortage, and despite human resources figuring high
up on the list of key future challenges for corporates, few companies actually incorporate HR
into the key strategic leadership.

But that is changing, with a few even putting their human assets chiefs in their boardrooms, as
more and more corporates start seeing human talent as a key source of sustainable advantage.

At Marico, for instance, talent and culture feature prominently among the five sources of
transformation that have been identified by the fast moving consumer goods giant, whereas at
Godrej Industries, the emphasis continues to be on training and development.

Saugata Gupta, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Marico believes in the culture of
empowerment, that helps create ownership, and can provide a fillip to the entire business
ecosystem. This, despite the fact that Marico is an entrepreneur-run organisation.

“We want to create a value proposition that gets people excited and want to come to work
everyday. The biggest effort, over the last couple of years, has been to understand what the
new generation wants, and accordingly tailor our policies,” he says.

In fact, this ‘customisation’ of policies is an ongoing process at many corporates. Says Rajeev
Bhardwaj, Vice President-Human Resource, Sun Life Financial Asia, “Today, there are no rules
cast in stone.”

The winds of change are sweeping across even traditional, manufacturing-centric companies
like Godrej Industries. From longer maternity and even paternity leave, to providing a crèche, as
well as flexitime policies, Godrej is putting in place systems and processes tailored towards
what the next-gen workforce considers important.

Adi Godrej, Chairman of Godrej Group, is of the opinion that the country is short of skilled
people, and that most industries tend to suffer because people are not adequately trained.
Stating that Indian companies have gained immensely in scale, size and competitiveness, he
points out that though there has been innovation to develop products, “skilling the workforce
will increase both employment and growth, and will be a win-win solution for the economy.”

Old stereotypes

On their part, HR chiefs are also shedding old stereotypes and learning a new language that can
help measure things like training’s effects on productivity, and employee retention, and turning
these metrics into bottom line-drivers. Though most HR chiefs still have to coordinate
administrative tasks, and ensure benefits, and continuously negotiate with labour, HR
departments are providing extra value by bringing a human perspective to the organisation’s
business strategy: they are looking at its plans, direction, and challenges and bringing the
people implications to the table.

As Sun Life's Bhardwaj points out, “An interesting change is people taking breaks after few
years of working. A lot of people are taking 2-3 month sabbaticals without any negative effect
on their careers. Some companies are actively encouraging this. Technology companies like
Intel give three months paid sabbatical to employees, who have completed seven years of work
with the company. This enables the workforce to recharge and refocus at the workplace,
leading to higher performance.”

Marico's Gupta feels that an engaging HR is not about just having a gym at the workplace. “We
look at how we can get mothers back to work. We don't want women to chuck their jobs
because they have had a child. Gender diversity is prominent at our marketing and research
and development (R&D) divisions, where 45-50 per cent of the workforce comprise women,” he
says.

This is not by accident. Since most of the company's consumers are women, “having women at
work definitely brings far more insights and diversity,” avers Gupta.

Counselling helpline

Apart from a counselling helpline and a counsellor to help out on mental health issues, senior
managers at Marico also get coaching on how to maintain a work-life balance.

Marico is also intent on exposing its “associates” — outsourced staff, temps and others who are
not on the payroll — to their internal people development processes. “If you improve the
capability of your associates, you improve. Today's growth is about dependant growth,” Gupta
reasons.

Similarly, companies are also actively encouraging employees to educate themselves, and
augment their skill sets by sponsoring MBAs or training programmes. Returning after taking a
break for family or other reasons is fine too. “There are lot of companies open to hiring women
when they come back from a break. Not just women, I find a lot of companies open to hiring
people who have taken a break from their careers, and are now returning back,” says Bhardwaj.

These “new improved” HR practices are not exceptions. Instead, say HR professionals, they are
increasingly becoming the new normal. As the next gen workforce is increasingly called upon to
be more flexible and adaptive, they too are forcing organisations to change. These changes,
honchos say, reflect the coming of age of the work era, and the maturing of HR processes.

(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated June 10, 2015)

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