Andrew Levermore, the expat CEO of Bharti Retail puts in his papers

He's moved out of Bharti, and Bharat too. In a sudden move, Andrew Levermore, the expat CEO of Bharti Retail, has put in his papers and is headed back to home country, South Africa. Levermore had joined the fully-owned subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises as chief operating officer in July 2010. Says a Bharti spokesperson: "We can confirm that Andrew Levermore has moved on from Bharti Retail as he wanted to return to South Africa to start his own business venture. The company will appoint an appropriate replacement in due course." This is Levermore's second exit from India. The first was in mid-2008 when he quit K Raheja's HyperCity Retail after a four-year stint. Any bets on whether he will be back a third time?

Dearness allowance: Government approves 6% hike

In a bid to provide relief from high inflation, the government today increased dearness allowance (DA) by 6 per cent to 51 per cent, benefiting over 50 lakh central government employees and 38 lakh pensioners.

"The decision to hike DA was taken by the Union Cabinet at its meeting here," a Union minister said.

The combined impact of the hike will be Rs 5,715.90 crore per annum. However in the next financial year, the burden on the exchequer would be Rs 6,668.52 crore after the additional 6 per cent DA payout is factored in from January 1 to March 31 this year.

The increased DA, which will be effective from January 1, is provided to government staff and pensioners to compensate them for rising prices.

Presently, the DA is paid at 45 per cent of basic pay. The increase in DA by 6 per cent would be in accordance with the formula prescribed by the Sixth Pay Commission for central government employees.

The decision will provide direct relief to around 50 lakh employees and 38 lakh pensioners.

The DA is revised twice a year, on January 1 and July 1. The relief came amid high retail prices, as inflation has been ruling above 9 per cent.

The Consumer Price Index ( Industrial Workers )), which is the basis for revising dearness allowance, was 9.47 per cent in December and 9.30 per cent in January.

Headline inflation, based on movement in wholesale prices, was 8.31 per cent in February, much above the comfort level of 5-6 per cent. Food inflation, too, was hovering above 9 per cent.



From: The Economic Times

IT will employ more than a crore

If figures tell a story, the technology services’ tale has been spectacular: less than $4 billion in 2000 to $62 billion today; an average of 22% yearly growth; from less than 100,000 to over two million employees; an almost non-existent domestic market has grown to $10 billion-a-year opportunity.

Technology bellwether Infosys was 3,000 people in 2000. At the close of the decade, it has grown manpower 40 times to more than 1,25,000.

Next 10 years will strengthen India’s position as global technology services hub, with Nasscom projecting the industry size at $225 billion by 2020. “IT will employ one crore people,’’ says Nasscom president Som Mittal.

Global tech giants such as IBM , Cisco , Dell, Microsoft , Intel , Oracle, HP and Google have their largest employee base outside the US , in India — tweaking code, developing software products, filing patents and now eying the local market. Homegrown companies such as Infosys, Wipro , TCS and HCL, which never found a mention in global technology and business reports, are now on Rs top quadrant’ of Gartner, Forrester, Everest, BCG and others.

“We started with a narrow set of applications, development and maintenance services, and now do pretty much everything,’’ says Infosys Technologies’ co-founder & CEO, S Gopalakrishnan. And ‘everything’ includes aerospace design, re-doing global retail and pharma, maintaining and improving banking systems and systems integration for the manufacturing sector.

TCS signed a $250-million contract with ABN Amro in 2005 and followed it up with Pearl Assurance deal worth $847 million. In a $250-million deal, Infosys acquired captive centres of Philips in 2007. The same year saw 66 PE deals in the technology space. In 2008, HCL bought out UK-based SAP consultant Axon for $658 million.

Growth has been “unstoppable,’’ says Gopalakrishnan, despite the do tcom bust and economic slowdown. The business case was compelling and the sector weathered all anti-offshoring noises as well.

“Over the decade, there has been a greater acceptance of the global model of working at a distance,” says Mittal. However, the only bad patch was the Satyam episode. “That was an aberration,’ says Mittal.

Shelly Singh

With the industry set for a more than four-fold growth in the next decade, it will have to gear up with new business models. “80% of the opportunity will be in new areas — new markets, new technologies and from smaller companies as well,’’ says Mittal.



From: The Economic Times

Organisations introducing new forms of leave for employees

Once upon a time, there was casual leave, sick leave, privilege leave and earned leave: pretty much the annual quota of in every organisation. But as evolved, newer varieties set in. Like bereavement leave, stint-oriented leave, parental leave, sharing of leaves amon employees, leave for reward and recognition, study leave and, of course, paternal leave. In fact, the anticipated trouble following the Ayodhya verdict may have thrown up a new kind of emergency leave, with most IT offices allowing employees to go home early, or declaring a half-day at work.

Some of the country’s leading business houses and companies are now innovating on their paid leave component as a way to improve work-life balance in the belief that it will boost productivity. Employees are not complaining either, for even as they work hard, there are now many more opportunities to take a day off with the reason that suits best!

“Leave has taken on a different connotation, a way to provide a level of comfort to employees,” says veteran HR professional and director (human capital) P Dwarkanath. The Max Group, for instance, has conceptualised self-development leave of up to one month for employees to attend short-term courses and reward recognition leave whereby they are sent on a fully-reimbursed holiday along with family. It is also reviewing possibilities to allow accumulation of sick leaves to make its leave policy more employee-friendly.

Accenture has recently launched ‘Hours That Help’, that provides employees an opportunity to receive additional or extra leave from fellow employees during a medical crisis or emergency. As part of this, employees can voluntarily donate their leave to fellow employees who require availing such leave beyond their stipulated ones.

Accenture has created an internal system whereby all employees will receive a notification when an employee in crisis requires additional leave.

“The programme is expected to promote a spirit of caring, sharing, community help and supports our core values. It responds to a vital need of employees who are confronted with crisis situations, ranging from medical emergencies to health-related concerns,” says Accenture India lead (human resources) Prithvi Shergill.
Analysts say the tendency to come up with newer and innovative leaves is more in the services and knowledge-intensive sectors like IT.

“In the services industry, the manpower component is more critical in relative terms. For instance, in the capital-intensive automotive sector, human resource accounts for only 7-10% of the total cost, whereas in services it is almost 50%,” says NS Rajan, partner, national head and EMEIA leader, people and organisation, . Rajan says leaves are one of the main levers that help to enhance employee engagement. Other levers include the employer brand, possibility of learning and development, relationship with seniors, quality of team, overall culture of the organisation and growth prospects.

president HR Adil Malia feels such newer types of leave are possible due to the coming of age of advanced technology like the BlackBerry and Skype, which allows employees to operate beyond the physical workstation of their office. The need for physical presence in office is now not an absolute necessity, he says.
“Productive employees are those who are satisfied with their family life and meet their social obligations. Hence, these type of leaves allow the employee to fulfil his/her duties as a professional, social being and family person. It also builds an emotional connect with the company,” says Malia.

India Inc upbeat on recruitment

The majority of employers in the country anticipate the creation of new jobs in the coming months of this year, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Painting a robust hiring scenario in the country, a survey by global staffing firm Manpower showed that employers are planning to hire at a robust pace this year.

Manpower's employment outlook survey stated that globally, India is the most optimistic in terms of recruitment intentions for the fourth quarter, after China and Taiwan.

"The job market remains robust in India as a result of strong domestic growth and recovery in key global markets. But employers in other countries are reporting strong hiring forecasts as well," Manpower India managing director Sanjay Pandit said.



India's net employment outlook — an indicator of employers' hiring intentions — stood at 38% on a seasonally-adjusted basis for the next three months. For the third quarter, the outlook stood a little higher at 41%, the Manpower survey stated. "Employers began recruiting at a steady pace in the first half of 2010 and confidence levels were high. The findings indicate sustainable new job opportunities in remainder of the year and job seekers can look forward to a favourable hiring environment," Info Edge senior vice-president, corporate communications Sumeet Singh said



From: The Economic Times

Indian firms' hiring plans stay strong

Indian companies' hiring intention for the next three months has weakened compared with the current quarter but remains strong over the year-ago period, says a survey by consulting firm Manpower.

India’s net employment outlook (NEO), which indicates hiring intentions, stood at 38% for the October-December 2010 period, a marginal decline from 41% recorded by the previous quarterly survey for the third quarter of 2010.

The latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, that covered almost 5,400 employers in the country, also revealed that hiring intention has improved 8% compared with the fourth quarter last year, when the economy was still recovering.

“The job market remains robust in India as a result of strong domestic growth and recovery in key global markets,” said Manpower India MD Sanjay Pandit.

Sectors where companies are likely to see strong recruitment include public administration & education followed by services besides finance, insurance and real estate. Employers in sectors such as transportation, utilities and wholesale & retail trade are less likely to create jobs in the coming months.

In terms of regions, employers in the South have strong hiring plans with NEO of 41% for the coming quarter, while those in North have an outlook of 37%, followed by East (36%) and West (32%). NEO is derived by taking the percentage of employers anticipating total employment to rise, minus the percentage expecting to see a decline in employment at their location in the next quarter. It also takes into consideration the seasonal adjustments in employment.

The global survey revealed that hiring intentions in the entire Asian region is stronger as compared to the past few quarters. India that has been top of charts in terms of employers’ hiring plans in the past two years, has slipped to the third position behind China and Taiwan.

But increase in hiring intent in other APAC countries is good news for Indian job seekers, said Mr Pandit. “We have seen a surge in cross-border opportunities for job seekers from key global markets. Once you combine strong domestic hiring along with improved international opportunities, we see one of the best scenarios that Indian job seekers could have imagined,” he said.

With NEO of 47%, China has the brightest hiring outlook, followed by Taiwan at 40%. Of the 36 countries surveyed, 28 nations showed positive hiring trend for the next three months. Employers in Greece, Italy, Czech Republic, Spain and Ireland reported the weakest hiring plans.


From: The Economic Times

India Inc vies for multi-generation workforce to get maximum output

Things were different in our times,” is a favourite line of any generation while disapproving any trait of the younger generation. Often dismissed as light-hearted banter, such talk can, however, reflect a real concern in the corporate world.

Four or more generations, with different approaches, value systems and thought processes are sometimes thrown in together, posing a challenge for companies to get them to work in unison and maximise output.

For instance, how does a 20-something sales manager engage the members of his team who can range from 23 to 58 years? Besides, a new generation, Gen Y, born post-1990, will soon start entering the corporate world, calling for managerial skills that require tuning in to their world.

Companies are working at strategies to handle multi-generation teams, from encouraging diversity to actively eliminating biases. Persistent Systems, a Pune-based outsourced product development company, frequently sensitises employees about the company’s goals, gives senior staffers the freedom to choose roles, uses social networking tools for communication and conducts informal sessions to foster bonding.

“For the first time, we are seeing a sizeable number of 45+ year-olds in the industry while the number of young people is growing simultaneously,” says chief operating officer Nitin Kulkarni.

This is a challenge for the IT industry in particular, which is still maturing in India, he adds. “Things are changing fast. We find there is something like a generation gap between every batch of freshers, from one year to the next.” Kulkarni says the key is to accept that each generation has unique strengths and create a framework to harness them.

“When you have a team between ages 20 and 50, the boss’ job is to ensure that juniors and seniors respect each other for strengths like enthusiasm and experience, and he respects both,” says Devendra Chawla, head of the private brands business at Future Group.

Traditionally, a span of 20 years was considered to be a generation gap. But with rapid developments in various fields and social changes, the span has reduced to 10 or even five years in some cases. Demographers have divided generations into Traditionalists (born after 1950), Baby Boomers (post-1960), Gen-Xers (post-1970) and Millennials (post-1980). Each of these generations is so different from its preceding one that it actually precipitates a culture shift.

Most managers believe encouraging bonding between employees can help reduce this divide. At Peerless Mutual Fund, forums are organised for employees to come together and discuss non-work ideas, says CEO and MD Akshay Gupta.

Companies need to eliminate characteristic biases and deal with each person on merit, he says. “That is a habit we try to inculcate in our employees, to remove any generation differences,” says Gupta.

At Bajaj Electricals, too, employee bonding is taken seriously. “Everyone’s contribution is important and the leader should acknowledge that. We need to make people feel they are wanted, energise and empower them with knowledge,” says executive director R Ramakrishnan.

He points to a youngster, on the sidelines of a product launch, saying that he was brought there despite not having any specific role assigned. “I brought him here so he understands how events are organised. These are small things, but help the leader in building his team,” he says.

Fujitsu Consulting India (FCIL), an IT consulting company, has devised two programmes to work around generational differences.

In the “role-based” programme, the right people are appointed to leadership positions, which they would otherwise have occupied in two-three years, says head, human capital management, Anagha Wankar. Here, employees are groomed to handle people older and more experienced than they are.

As part of the “employee manager” programme, senior team members, apart from performing their regular roles, act as guides to other members across teams and help identify potential leaders, she says.

FCIL also allows experienced professionals who don’t want expanded roles to continue doing what they are, while giving them senior designations so their image is not hampered.

For multinational companies, though, this doesn’t appear to be much of an issue. “Coming from the US, we were not accustomed to age-based hiring, so the issue of how to handle multi-generational teams was already taken care of in our hiring policies,” says Chetan Shah, chief operating officer, Synygy India.

“As companies go global, the multi-generation challenge will cease to be a challenge,” he says. But in this rapidly globalising world, even MNCs cannot deny the truth in what Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (GE), once said: “Any company trying to compete... must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee.” This is as true for India Inc as it was for GE.


From: The Economic Times

59% professionals may quit jobs due to lack of promotion: Survey

A majority of Indian professionals are likely to quit their jobs this year due to lack of promotional avenues despite good work results and a lack of communication and involvement by their top managements, according to a survey .

For 59 per cent of respondents, finding that the next rung in the career ladder is a no-show was the top "get me out of here" factor, a survey by Regus, revealed.

Lack of communication and involvement by top management was the other big reason for most professionals to quit their existing jobs, 50 per cent of respondents said.

Another 30 per cent said that they would leave a company which lacked 'vision'.

The job market in India is likely to get crowded after the summer vacation as Indian professionals may quit their existing jobs unless they are promoted, it said.

Over 15,000 business respondents from the Regus global contacts database were interviewed during the February-March 2010 period and the survey was managed and administered by Marketing UK, an independent organisation, Regus said in a press release issued here.

Regus ia a leading global provider of innovative workspace solutions.

Regus' Country Head, Madhusudan Thakur, said "as workers pack up their swim-suits and towels after the holidays, they are more likely to dwell on the pros and cons of the job that is waiting for them at home."

According to reports, one of the effects of the economic recovery taking shape presently is that many more employees have started quitting their jobs and looking around for new ones, Thakur said.

"Businesses that are not providing all the trimmings may be heading for a brain-drain of their best talent," he added.

As the economy perks up, employees will flock to businesses that promise them better conditions and not necessarily the biggest wage, he said.

The survey also asked workers what companies could do to avoid a brain-drain of their best talents.

Aside from a pay-rise, in India, 42 per cent of the respondents said that flexible work timings are increasingly becoming important for them. They declared that the ability to flex their work-hours was top of their wish-list.

Other factors that make professionals leave their jobs are bosses who take credit for their (professionals') work and shabby premises. A fifth of respondents would also leave if their commute was too long or administrative support was lacking (20 per cent), the Regus survey said.


From: The Economic Times

More and more corporates shifting to academics

It’s three years since Prithwis Mukerjee quit his cushy job in the corporate sector to take up academics full-time.

Today, the former partner at PwC and director at IBM is a professor, teaching management information systems at IIT Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSOM). After 18 years of what he calls “being a footnote in the Great Indian Software Story”, he couldn’t be happier.

“The greatest satisfaction is the freedom to choose what I want to do,” he says. “In the software industry, the greatest tragedy is that once you become a manager, or partner, or director, you are effectively a man manager. For a technically oriented person like me, this is claustrophobic. Then also, you have to follow the clients’ dictates. That is where academics scores hands down. You have the luxury to focus on and work with things you really like.”

For some like Mukerjee, it’s the lure of the freedom. For some others, it’s a calling, a way of giving back to society. Then there are those for whom it’s a recipe for a more balanced life. The reasons vary. Notwithstanding that, educational institutes, mostly B-schools, are seeing an increasing number of people who have spent years in the corporate world, quitting their jobs and joining academics full time.

Take IIM Ahmedabad, for instance. The institute has over 22 full-time faculty with 2-5 years of industry experience and 21 with more than five years’ experience. At IIM Calcutta, 55% faculty have prior industry experience with an average stint of 8.5 years.

They represent a spectrum of areas including economics, marketing, finance, human resource, general management, management information system, operations, law and strategy. MDI Gurgaon has 18-odd faculty members with over 10 years industry experience. Other leading institutes, from the IIMs to Narsee Monjee to XLRI Jamshedpur, all have a significant number of faculty members with corporate backgrounds.

HR experts say this trend has started gaining momentum as academic salaries have been on the uptrend. It’s still a far cry from the UK or the US where a star professor can earn over a half-a-million dollars a year, but the differentials with the corporate sector have narrowed.

Leading HR firm, Ma Foi Randstad director and president E Balaji says, “Earlier an academic job would probably pay just about 20-30% of a corporate one, given the same qualifications. That was a huge entry barrier. Today, that has become 65-70%. So a lot of people are making the shift.”

The move is happening primarily at two levels. Those who have spent the bulk of their careers in the corporate world, and now want to give back to society and work with young people. Then there are also those who are in their 30s-40s, at the peak of their career, but still want to make a change. “For the latter, with relatively lesser savings, the transition is more difficult,” feels Balaji.

According to several such people who have bid the corporate world goodbye, an academic environment is intellectually more stimulating.

Also, there’s the fact that most leading institutes now offer plenty of scope for consultancy, more so to those with a strong corporate background. Like BB Chakraborty, professor of finance at IIM Calcutta, who spent 24 years in the manufacturing and financial services sectors, out of which five years were spent as president. After teaching in IIMC as visiting faculty for three years, he joined the institute as a permanent faculty, a job he’s continued for the past nine years.

“The freedom here to pursue one’s interests is enormous. What’s more, you’re in a community of great students and colleagues. As opposed to the corporate world where you are more delivery-oriented, here you have to be a thinker and also work for the community. My only regret is I didn’t join earlier.”

The transition for corporate professionals to academic life has also been helped by the fact that institutes are actively looking out for teachers with industry experience. “Management education is not just about lectures, but pedagogy that requires you to be in direct contact with the industry. Those with a corporate background are in demand,” says a professor with a leading Mumbai-based B-school.

Some have benefited in other ways. For Samiksha Ojha, finance faculty at MDI Gurgaon, the decision to make a shift to academics after spending 14 years in the corporate world across India, Dubai and Abu Dhabi and even running her own management consultancy, was prompted by a desire to give more time to family. “Corporate life was very demanding and I thought it would be the right option,” she says.

Overall, she says it’s been a wonderful experience. “You get to interact with like-minded people, be in constant touch with your subject and being with the students, you keep going back to your own student life.”

At 43, will she ever consider going back to corporate life? “No, but sometimes, when I see some of my classmates at the CEO level, I do feel that maybe I could have been there. I’m already moving more to the training side, and maybe in the future, I’ll become a visiting faculty. But I’ll never give up teaching. I love it.”



From: The Economic Times

Is your salary politically correct?

Are you satisfied with your current salary? The answer depends on who is asking it and when. If your current or prospective employer poses this question, the answer would be an unequivocal ‘NO’.

But if you were to respond to this query among friends and relatives, chances are that you will nod in the affirmative.

“Happiness is relative (in case of salary),” says Kris Lakshmikanth, founder CEO and chairman of Headhunters India. “It’s in the basic nature of the human being not to be satisfied with what they have in hand.”

Considering the brouhaha created by our Parliamentarians, who were given a 300% hike in their salaries and were yet unsatisfied with it—in spite of the ‘perks’ one gets as an MP—Lakshmikanth’s words appear insightful. However, grey areas remain.

According to PayScale, a global salary data syndicate, the appropriate employee compensation can be calculated by taking into account factors like the company, location, experience, industry and education of the candidate.

The US-based syndicate currently places the pay structure of financial and IT sectors at a premium. However, these are also the sectors where attrition rate is the highest. Clearly, Indian parliamentarians are not the unhappy lot.

According to Surabhi Mathur-Gandhi, vice president, Teamlease Services, an average employee’s discontentment with salary has jumped manifold. “Only a handful of people are happy with their compensation package,” she says.

“Misaligned expectations and peer pressure are the prime reasons for this growing unsatisfaction. The tendency to compare salary with classmates, family cousins has mismatched equations for people.” Mathur-Gandhi adds another interesting aspect with the discontentment factor.

“If one maps out the EQ of compensation structure, it would come in a bell curve shape. The most discontent are people with experience of five to eight years. The most satisfied are people with 8-15 years of experience, people who are middle-aged and have settled with family and children.”

The argument seems well placed. The primary factors seen as the trigger to salary dissatisfaction are peer pressure, heightened career expectations, excess job-hopping and a wrong choice of profession.

A young professional is more prone to be influenced with these while at middle age such issues are hardly a bother. For K Ramkumar, chief HR officer at ICICI Bank, the concept of satisfaction with wealth is a utopian one.

“It is possible that at certain points of time in life one may concede that what they receive is fair and equitable, but it will only last till the hunger for more surfaces again and any feeble evidence of relative imbalance is perceived by the mind,” he says.

With over two decades of experience in HR industry, Lakshmikanth agrees. “For an average employee, the grass is always greener on the other side. Even corporate biggies are not immune to this phenomenon,” he says, adding that even siblings fight for supremacy in the corporate world.

“For them, a happy business is when they outperform the other. Recently, one of our software clients was looking for the global sales head. The company even offered the incumbent double the compensation package. Yet, the person refused to join as his definition of happiness was not getting fulfilled.”

HR experts argue what is sufficient for one in a big organisation need not be acceptable in another. Any attempt to assess whether all employees are satisfied at a given point of time is misplaced. “What is need for one is greed for the other; what is sufficient for one may be inadequate for many,” says ICICI’s Ramkumar.




From: The Economic Times

Are IT jobs losing sparkle?

After trimming payroll and tightening perks to cope with the economic slowdown last year, software companies are finding that a rising number of engineering and management graduates are transferring their affections to vocations such as manufacturing and banking — a shift that could force tech firms to scramble harder than ever before for talented employees.

For years, college graduates and professionals working in India’s $50 billion ( 2.3 lakh crore) outsourcing sector moved from one tech firm to another, often getting 20-30 % higher salaries in the bargain. Now, recruitment experts and industry officials say the churn of experienced staff from IT to other sectors has increased by 15-20 % over the past year. The main reasons, they say, are the perceived job security in the core sector and rising salary levels in manufacturing and telecom companies.

Among those who made the switch is Amit Bhargava, 29, who quit his job as business analyst at one of India’s top tech firms last month to join a multinational bank’s technology centre in Pune. The technology sector has not really lost its sheen, he says, but he wants to build specialist banking skills.

“And it is not as prone to export risks,” he adds, referring to his new vocation. Another reason for the shift away from IT companies is that they are now visiting college campuses for recruitment only during the eighth semester of the course, giving an opportunity to firms from other sectors to attract the best talent before them. Software industry grouping Nasscom asked its members last year to recruit graduating students during their final, eighth semester and not disrupt academic sessions.

Until two years ago, top Indian software firms competed aggressively with each other to hire engineering graduates. With the halo around working for a tech company beginning to fade, the competition is getting fiercer. Infosys Technologies alone plans to hire 36,000 employees in the fiscal to March and its chief executive S Gopalakrishnan has listed the competition for talent as the industry’s top challenge.

From: The Economic Times

FMCG companies hire in small towns to fire up growth

Small towns are emerging as the new big hiring zones, as consumer goods companies drive deep into the country. Companies are hiring field staff in areas like Kalpa in Himachal Pradesh, Mangaliya in Madhya Pradesh, Kota in Rajasthan and Shirdi in Maharashtra to sell products as diverse as shampoos, edible oil and even pizzas.

The triggers are a combination of a good monsoon this year, farm-loan waivers, higher disposable incomes in rural India, media penetration, low-priced unit packs of 5 and 10 and government programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Consumer goods giant Hindustan Unilever is hiring 25,000 ‘shaktimaans,’ or sales and field staff, to sell its products in nearly 1.5 lakh villages, while Dabur India intends to hire 200 ‘feet on street’ and indirect employees through its stockists in villages and small towns.

“Our share of top line from semi-urban and rural markets is touching almost 50%. Naturally, we are looking at these consumers very closely,” says Dabur’s vice president-HR V Krishnan.

Marico has just finished hiring a support staff of 220 in towns like Kalod and Rangwasa in Madhya Pradesh. Fast-food company Domino’s plans to hire 1,000 employees in cities like Ranchi, Kota and Gangtok in the next 12 months. Others like ITC, Nestle, GlaxoSmithKline and Emami are talking of doubling their direct employee strength in small towns and villages.

Hindustan Unilever intends to triple its rural coverage to 15% in 2010. It is hoping the plan to hire ‘shaktimaans’ will help it sell products like Pepsodent toothpaste and Wheel detergent, which are losing share to rivals and smaller players in big towns and metros.

“WE have embarked on an enormous coverage expansion project, facilitated by digital maps, to identify potential markets to be brought under direct coverage,” says an HUL spokesman.

Of the million outlets across India the company directly covers, 0.25 million are in rural areas. Shaktimaans , who are already at work in Orissa, will distribute products to villages adjoining an earmarked ‘Shakti’ village. Villages are tracked through a geographical information system, and the employees have been given bicycles. HUL’s Project Shakti had tapped 45,000 rural women (Shakti ammas) in 2000. Now, it is wooing the men in the families to turn into shaktimaan entrepreneurs.

Dabur has already hired 150-180 additional ‘foot soldiers’ over the past 12 to 15 months. It has also increased the number of stockists by 11-12 % in rural and semiurban markets, who in turn, are serviced by superstockists in big cities. The company will sharpen its focus on small towns and villages in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana, with a population of at least 3,000. “We will ramp up our field force depending on the increase in business volumes,” says Mr Krishnan.


From: The Economic Times

Comfort Jobs: Companies using incentive trips as a motivational ...

Comfort Jobs: Companies using incentive trips as a motivational ...: "As the liner edged out into the deep blue waters of the Atlantic, an excited Manoj B and his wife watched the receding shoreline from the to..."

Companies using incentive trips as a motivational tool

As the liner edged out into the deep blue waters of the Atlantic, an excited Manoj B and his wife watched the receding shoreline from the top deck along with hundreds of others. The North European cruise was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime experience and something, which Manoj knew, he would probably not have done on his own. Manoj’s overseas trip was courtesy the ICT company he worked for in India. “Money I can always earn, but I would still choose such an amazing trip over a cash payout any day,” he says.

Incentive travel is going places, specially overseas trips, as a reward for good work. That, to many, is sweeter than two wads of currency notes which vanish even before you open them. Increasingly, Indian companies are beginning to realise this.

On the one hand, it’s a motivational tool to encourage employees to go that extra mile for incremental business and service. On the other, it aims at improving the quality of work, foster employee loyalty and reduce attrition. White goods, banks, insurance, telecom, IT, liquor, garments — companies across sectors are becoming more aggressive on this front. “Incentive trips have become part of accepted sales management practice. It is a good way to motivate, very visible, aspirational for many, and with possibilities of learning and exposure and team building in some cases,” says Bimal Rath, founder of HR consulting company Think Talent Services.

With great deals up for grabs and discounts of 20%-plus on bulk corporate bookings, foreign travel is becoming that much more accessible. HR circles say that since bulk bookings in nearby locales like Colombo, Bangkok or Sri Lanka cost almost the same as domestic ones, companies are getting more excited. “Since costs are so competitive, management nowadays rarely frowns on such foreign trips,” says Prabir Jha, senior VP and head of HR at Tata Motors.

At the entry level, there are destinations like Thailand, Hong Kong and Malaysia, which are finding plenty of takers, while South Africa, Mauritius, Switzerland are the more premium picks. While popular destinations like Hong Kong see as many as 120 groups monthly, even relatively offbeat ones like Istanbul are seeing 30-40 groups per month, claim travel circles. If Mahindra Satyam sent its top performers to the Fifa world cup, a leading MNC bank recently sent its employees to Switzerland, Istanbul or Malaysia based on performances



From: The Economic Times

Comfort Jobs: Manufacturing companies look to invest in white co...

Comfort Jobs: Manufacturing companies look to invest in white co...: "Manufacturing companies are trying to oil their productivity machine, taking a leaf out of the software industry’s books. Like software firm..."

Manufacturing companies look to invest in white collar jobs

Manufacturing companies are trying to oil their productivity machine, taking a leaf out of the software industry’s books. Like software firms, they are planning to create a ‘bench’ of trained white collar employees as they battle huge capacity constraints in almost all sectors from product design to accounts. Companies are also redeploying staff to cut costs.

All these years, manufacturing companies played safe, expanding capacity only when there was a clear demand. Typically, people would be hired or shifts increased at the time of receiving new orders. Post-slowdown, however, orders have piled up and there is no capacity to fulfil them.

Senior managements thrashed out the issue at a conclave organised by the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers Association in Pune recently on increasing productivity while maintaining quality.

“We will have to have create capacity ahead of demand. This means not just physical infrastructure at our own and at vendor locations, but also in white collar jobs,” says Pradeep Bhargava, MD, Cummins Generator Technologies, a genset-maker from the Cummins group.

There is a compelling reason for companies to look at increasing white-collar productivity: Costs. “White collar productivity has the biggest bearing on cost, even more than blue collar,” says AK Taneja, MD and CEO, Usha Pistons and Rings, which manufactures piston rings. He cites an example in the area of product development. This is done either in a linear manner, that is, one job after another, in succession, or in a linear-cum-parallel manner.

The last process involves building milestones and checkposts so that errors are caught early, saving time and costs, and not waiting till the end to find the product is unusable. This is productivity enhancement at the design stage, a white collar area. “This reduces time to development, and there is no need to re-work. That is white collar productivity improvement,” he says.

In the 1990s, software companies created ‘benches’ — a US sports term — to meet project demands as they arose. Software companies often bid for work on the basis of this bench. A decade later, the manufacturing industry is deploying this strategy.

CP Rangachar, MD of Bangalore-based machine tool maker Yuken India, says companies are increasingly re-deploying people, not sacking them. “If you start sacking people for productivity improvement, you are headed for losses. White collar productivity improvement is achieved through redeployment,” he says.



From: The Economic Times

Comfort Jobs: Only 1 in every 20 engg grads suitable for IT prod...

Comfort Jobs: Only 1 in every 20 engg grads suitable for IT prod...: "Three out of every five students that graduate from the country’s engineering institutes need to go through further training to be eligible ..."

Only 1 in every 20 engg grads suitable for IT product job

Three out of every five students that graduate from the country’s engineering institutes need to go through further training to be eligible for any job in the IT/ITeS sector, says a study by a local talent assessment firm.

It said just one in every 20 engineering graduates are fit for a job in an IT product company, while only one in five was fit to work with an IT services provider. The study by Gurgaon-based firm Aspiring Minds highlighted the need for improving training of students to make them employable.

The report tried to use actual candidate quality measurements and industry recruitment benchmarks to create a measure for employability, said Aspiring Minds co-founder Himanshu Aggarwal.

The employability study that covered over 40,000 engineering graduates and post graduates in Computer Applications, was based on the results of a standardised computer-based test called AMCAT taken by the engineering students across the country.

AMCAT covered various objective parameters for adjudging employability in the IT/ITeS sector including English communication besides quantitative, problem-solving and programming skills. While employability of students for BPOs and technical support jobs (TSJ) are relatively better at 38.23% and 25.88% respectively, companies in the knowledge based segment or Knowledge Processing Outsourcing (KPOs) find only one in every ten technical graduates employable.

The report also highlighted that MCA students are relatively better placed among the engineering graduates for finding a job in the IT sector as they possess superior computer programming skills but there is a need to improve their English language and quantitative ability skills, the report added.




From: The Economic Times.

Job recruitment market likely to double in 5 years

As the economy expands, India's job recruitment market is also expected to grow in line and double at Rs 2,000 crore in the next five years, a top industry official said.

"The growth in India's economy has helped bring about a tremendous growth in the manufacturing, banking and services sectors in the country. The job recruitment market here is set to grow at 20 per cent annum and touch the Rs 2,000 crore mark in five years from the present Rs 1,000 crore," Esource India's Managing Director, Nitin Deveshwar said.

Esource India is a subsidiary of ESMS (I) Pvt Ltd which is a leading security company with nation-wide operations and is a full-service recruitment agency powered by an online database combining social networking and traditional recruiting.

The country's manufacturing sector is growing at eight to ten per cent and is expected to generate 0.5 million employment opportunities alone, Deveshwar said.

The shift of industrial activities to smaller towns has also created major job opportunities in these areas.

Gujarat's small towns like Vapi, Anjar and Bharuch, Chattisgarh's Raipur, Bilaspur and Korba and Uttarakhand's Haridwar and Rudrapur have provided higher job opportunities, following industrialisation in these areas, Deveshwar said.

Public sector banks as well as private ones are expected to hire in a big way in the coming years as they expand their footprint into smaller towns, he added.



From: the economic times.com

Comfort Jobs: About one million green jobs will open up in India...

Comfort Jobs: About one million green jobs will open up in India...: "By 2025, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Report from 2008 estimates that India will see the creation of nine lakh green jobs i..."