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VOLUME-IV | ISSUE 9SEPTEMBER 2014

www.content.timesjobs.com

Employee EngagementBeyond money & rewards

organisations feel CSR is an effective engagement tool for Gen Y’ers

72%

PAGE2organisations have high priority for employee engagement programs

46%

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Expert SpeakSandeep Guptasenior VP, IL&FS Technologies Ltd on why employers should work with Gen Y for better and effective engagement

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HIRING & BEYOND

Trends



HIRING & BEYOND

Cover Story

Why engaging Gen Ystill a challenge?According to theTimesJobs.com study, nearly 44per cent surveyed organisationsfeel that Gen Y’ers inclinationtowards making more and quickmoney and their love for perksmakes it challenging to engagethem. About 40 per cent feel thathigh aspirations of Gen Y,which further results inimpatience, are big threats inkeeping them engaged for long.Since, the new generationworkforce also attachimportance to recognition, thisalso threatens the age-oldengagement framework anddemands innovation in theengagement process, said 34 percent organisations in the survey.

Today’s new workforce is raisedon social media. They eat, drinkand breathe heaps ofinformation, irrespective oftheir workplace position andexperience. They have specialskills in mobilising theirnetworks to find solutions tomany crucial issues. Theswiftness in collecting,

comprehending and respondingin real time under grimsituations trumps the lack ofexperience. Consequently, allthese make it challenging fororganisations to keep this youngand dynamic workforce engagedand connected, in the long run.

Ways to overcomechallengesCreating strategies to engagemillennials requires a wholedifferent approach andstrategies. As the socialcharacteristics of thegenerations differ, it isabsolutely critical to figure outwhat satisfies one generationand what keeps the othermotivated.

CSR and training has beenindicated as a key tool inengaging Gen Y, in the

TimesJobs.com survey. Nearly72 per cent of the surveyedorganisations feel that CSR is avery effective engagement toolfor Gen Y’ers. In fact 50 per centof the organisations acrosssectors have already initiatedprograms where they allowemployees to devote some timeduring their official workinghours to CSR activities.

“Social responsibility is nolonger just a mandate from thegovernment as part of acompany’s policy but hasbecome something very real.Today’s youth is not just drivenby passion for work but are alsoconsiderate about giving back tothe society at large”, saidSameer Parwani, founder &CEO, CounponDunia.

Over 80 per cent organisationsalso asserted that encouraginggender and cultural diversity inthe organisation is a great wayto foster employee engagementat the workplace. Open andeffective communicationclubbed with clear and fairfeedback mechanism optimisesthe opportunity to promoteinclusion.

However, instilling a feeling ofjob satisfaction and happiness isnot a one-off task; organisationshave to initiate the process fromthe initial hiring stage. AravindSankaran, director of globalmarketing & sales (Far East),Marlabs Inc highlighted, “Fromthe time an employee joins tillthey leave; continuousengagement is the key to ensurethat they love their company, joband environment. An alumnuspromoting the brand betters itsstrength.”

Managing employeeengagementThese findings are crucial fororganisations and must be putinto practice. While they do so itis important that to sustainprolonged engagement,employers must understand andcarefully manage theengagement drivers and threatsfor various workforcegenerations.

The understanding starts fromthe very basic that integratingthe new generation into theones that are already in theworkforce is a challenge. Thesolution lies in changing theperspective and giving theexisting employee engagementpolicy a little twist. This isimperative as true change willonly happen when Gen Yemployees are engaged enoughwith an aim to make adifference.

Devise innovativeengagement techniques tokeep Gen Y hookedAccording to a TimesJobs.com study, over 65 per centorganisations feel engaging Gen Y is morechallenging than engaging any other previousworkforce generations. The new generation ofworkforce, ‘Millennials’ as we call them, have differentaspirations and thus, demand a different outlooktowards engagement

CSR, workplace diversity and training, ideal tools

Key challenges:

lMoney matters

lAmbition andimpatience

lDemand freedom andrecognition

lEntrepreneurialnature

Nearly 96 per centorganisations regularlyrecognise and reward

employees for their significantcontribution to the business, revealedthe TimesJobs.com study. Out ofthese, 56 per cent organisationsreward only a select few employeeswho have led to concrete businessbenefits. Remaining 40 per centorganisations regularly reward allemployees who are high performers.Recognition is gaining importance intoday’s work world, so much so thatorganisations are thinking of newand innovative ideas to reward high

performers. On the same lines, 36 percent organisations are frequentlyallowing interested employees, whohave displayed the required domainknowledge and capability, to make amove from one business function toanother. However, most (52%)organisations said they do it rarely.Over 40 per cent organisations in theIT/Telecom sector regularly allowemployees to move across businessfunctions, while in the BFSI it israrely done. IT/Telecom is also one ofthe key sectors to regularly reward allhigh performing employees, said over50 per cent representative companies.

Nearly 46 per centorganisations said theyhave high priority for

employee engagementstrategies. According to theTimesJobs.com study theseorganisations believe thatengagement is crucial to ensureemployee satisfaction andretention. In this effort, 70 percent surveyed organisationspromote a positive and openwork culture. They believe thisis essential to improve businessefficiency. About 43 per centorganisations are forced to giveemployee engagement lowpriority because of lack ofbandwidth to execute thesestrategies. Consequently, 30 per

cent organisations feel that anopen work culture leads tochaos. These organisationsbelieve in maintaining strictorganisational hierarchy. On anaverage, an employee spends 8-10hours per day in the office,which makes it important fororganisations to offer an openand comfortable workenvironment to up-scale andmaintain productivity levels inthe long run. Experts believethat while there has to be somebasic rules, an employee-friendly environment makes foran ideal workplace. It creates anemotional connect, where theemployee feels committed towork and not just get that pay

check at the end of the day. Theyfurther believe that an open andinclusive culture is the first step

in establishing a successful andeffective employee engagementstrategy.

According to theTimesJobs.com study,nearly 50 per cent

organisations allow theiremployees to engage in CSRactivities during their officialworking hours. They believe itstrengthens the employer-employee relationship andimproves engagement. Over 70per cent organisations believethat such CSR activities areespecially effective in engagingGen Y employees. While over 50per cent of the IT/Telecomorganisations employ CSR

activities quite frequently toengage Gen Y, only 30 per centorganisations in BFSI do so. Inthe Automobile sector, the viewsare divided, 50 per centorganisations use CSR often toengage Gen Y, the rest don’t findthem effective. Today,organisations are approachingthe concept of CSR from aholistic point of view. They aretaking a developmentalapproach, which activates socialresponsibility in the companyand also develop employees to beresponsible corporate citizens.

Many organisations, today seeCSR as a tool which helpsimprove the bottom line bygiving the high performing andengaged employees a reason tostay and work harder. CSR is notjust an act of philanthropy but a

crucial and effectiveengagement tool. This is one ofthe reasons why nearly 13 percent organisations are alsoplanning to launch CSRprograms as part of theiremployee engagement strategy.


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Trends



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Highlights

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Employee engagement imperative

Reinventing reward strategies

CSR & training aid engagement

An eminent leader saidrecently, “Today,employees don’t want a

career, they want anexperience”. The new breed ofemployees or the millennialswant more, different andchallenging work. They look forroles that are meaningful andgive them satisfaction, whilethey expect their employer tomake work more rewarding inmany ways. The expectations,needs and motivators of thepeople are evolving rapidly. Thisfast-paced change also meansthat companies need to rethinkthe way they engage with theiremployees today.

If we look at statistics, anindustry survey highlights thatonly 13 per cent employeesaround the world are trulyengaged in their work and morethan twice this number are sodisengaged that they tend tospread negativity around. So thechallenge for today’s leaders isto make the work and cultureengaging for the ‘neo-employee’.When your workforce isengaged, your employees workharder, stay longer, care moreabout their job and find moregratification in helping yourcompany succeed. This is

essential to keep them in a modewhere they have the satisfactionof really contributing, not justto the client or theirorganisation, but to the societyat large. To enable this, themanagement-employeeengagement model needs toevolve. There is a dire need tochange the approach from aonce-in-a-year survey tounderstand employee pulse andgeneral sentiment to a real-timeengagement to understand thembetter. Organisations need tokeep their ears to the ground ona daily basis to understand thepassion, soul, thought process,ideas and ongoing real issues.For this, we need to redefinewhat “engagement” means.

According to researchers, fiveelements that drive a highlyengaged workforce are - thework itself, managementenvironment, flexibility andinclusion of the workplace,people’s ability to learn andgrow and trust and meaningfrom leadership. The right mixof these elements at theworkplace can lead to highlyproductive, engaged andsmarter workforce.

Now, the big question is ‘what isa smarter workforce’? Today,

organisations realise thatworkforce is critical to businesssuccess, yet they struggle tofind, engage, develop and retaintalent. Smarter Workforce helpsmeet today’s workforcechallenges.

Using workforce science,analytics and collaborationtools, Smarter Workforce bringstogether three elements toensure a best-fit engagedworkforce, develop deeper clientrelationships and drivemeasurable business outcomes.These outcomes includeattracting the best talent,creating a social, collaborativeculture to connecting people toget work done. There are simpletools available today that helpcompanies to use data science tocreate a Smarter Workforce.

Effective engagement ofemployees now needs a neo-approach. Having said that,anything that is new, facesresistance. These initiatives aredriven by a mind-set andleadership has a major role toplay in this transformation.Besides the line managers,leaders today understand whatthey really have is theiremployee’s commitment andengagement.

The best way to inspireconfidence in employees is tocommunicate a motivatingvision of the organisation’sfuture. Employee engagement isnow increasingly seen as afundamental mechanismthrough which to attainsuperior organisationalperformance. Fundamentally,organisations can do more withengaged employees and improvetheir overall engagement andrelationships with customers asthese employees act as brandambassadors.

For companies to be successful,employees must be engaged toperform, innovate, challengeand drive outcomes. In fact, theyare active contributors to thebusiness outcome, not onlythrough great innovations anddelightful client service but alsofeeding inputs to improve realtime engagement andproductivity at work.

The key is to proactivelymanage employee engagementfor future productivity bydrawing attention away fromnegativity towards creative,meaningful engagement andvisionary leadership that leadsto a satisfying experience for the‘neo-employee’.

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HIRING & BEYOND

Leadership pLays a major roLe in effectiveempLoyee engagementAvneet Gupta, country manager - ICS, India & South Asia at IBM

Avneet has over 19 years of industry experienceand has worked with Microsof t, Intel andNucleus Sof tware before joining IBM. He hasbeen leading IBM Collaboration Solutions for ISAand has a good understanding of diverseindustries and market segments.

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HIRING & BEYOND

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HIRING & BEYOND

Events

DMA (Delhi ManagementAssociation) and IBA(Indus Business

Academy) organised the 6thMega HR Conclave on 21stAugust, 2014 at Hotel FortuneSelect Global, Gurgaon. Thetheme of this one day conclavewas “Harnessing HumanPotential in Growth OrientedEnvironment”.

The event began with thewelcome address by VeenaSwarup, director–HR, EngineersIndia Limited & programdirector-6th Mega HR Conclavefollowed by the programoverview.

The event was graced byesteemed speakers from the HRfraternity including HRveterans and heads fromcorporate houses such asNational Fertilizers Limited,Usha International Ltd, CentralWarehousing Corporation, DHLSupply Chain India Pvt Ltd,Lafarge India Pvt Ltd, SAIL, LGElectronics India Pvt Ltd, JKOrganisation (EZ), DevyaniInternational Limited, BirlaSunlife Insurance Pvt Ltd, AvivaLife Insurance India Limited,American Express, SistemaShyam Teleservices Ltd, WNSGlobal Services (P) Ltd &Deloitte Tax Services India Pvt

Ltd. The conclave was coveredover four sessions.

The key note address wasdelivered by Padam Bhushan DrMB Athreya. He gave a broadoverview with specific focus onIndia vision 2023, businesschallenges, HRM excellenceopportunities, the talent cycleand how we leverage Indianwisdom , “zero defect, zeroeffect”. He also referred tosustainability, competitiveadvantage, ethics and business.

The Chief Guest, BB Pattanaik,managing director, CentralWarehousing Corporationshared his views on thechanging paradigm and variousfacets of HR including variablepay structure and performancemanagement systems.

Best practicesThe second session was on“Challenges of TalentManagement-Best Practices”which was chaired by HS Pati,director–Personnel, SAIL andother eminent panelistsincluding JS Kaushal, director-Personnel, Central WarehousingCorporation, Aparna Sharma,country head-Human Resources,Lafarge India Pvt Ltd, ShashankJagirdar, director-HR, DHLSupply Chain India Pvt Ltd,

Dilep Misra, president & head-Corporate Human Resources, JKOrganisation (EZ) and UmeshDhal, VP-HR & MS, LGElectronics India Pvt Ltd.

JS Kaushal emphasised on HRMand its various aspects intoday’s scenario. AparnaSharma focused on talentmanagement, best practices andhow companies focus on “brightspots”, need for adaptability andbest practices followed byvarious companies for talentmanagement. Umesh Dhalfocused on the “EVP-Employeevalue proposition” andemphasised the need to attracttalent rather than recruit.

Shashank Jagirdar shared hisviews on the right fit of theright talent at the right time. Helaid emphasis on the need forregular updation on B-schoolsyllabus which is in-tune withtoday’s organisational needs. Heshared some good practices ofhis company which led to DHLbeing one of the “BestEmployers to work with” in thelatest survey. Dilep Misraexpressed the need for the rightfitment, walk the talk, need toinvest on employees, more so atthe down turn of the economy.He also emphasised that HR is aline function and organisations

today, have to have a tolerancefor failure.

Taking inspirationThe third session on “AncientWisdom: Modern Management-The Role and Relevance” waschaired by Hans Dholakia,founder-president, HolisticHealth & Luminous LearningInc. Other eminent speakerswere Dr VP Singh, executivedirector-HR & Chief Pupil,Devyani International Limited,Gurucharan Singh Gandhi, vicepresident & head-Learning &Development, Birla SunlifeInsurance Pvt Ltd and SumitChaudhary, founder, ThirdMillennium.

Sumit Chaudhary expressed hisviews on modern management,global competitiveness and“people factor-people focus”.While talking about ancientwisdom he discussed the trinityof Brahma, Vishnu & Maheshand wisdom from the BhagwadGita and the Chanakyaapproach.

Talking futureThe event concluded with thefinal session on “HR Analytics &Social HR: Impact and Usage inTalent Management”. AmitMalik, CHRO, Aviva LifeInsurance India Limited was thesession chairman. Othereminent panelists were BinduVinodhan, Sr VP-HR, WNSGlobal Services (P) Ltd, GautamPandey, vice president & talentleader, Deloitte Tax ServicesIndia Pvt Ltd and Tarun Katyal,CHRO, Sistema ShyamTeleservices Ltd.

Bindu Vinodhan shared herthoughts on capacity &capability, succession planning,data profiling, collectiveapproach and CRM throughsocial media. Gautam Pandeyhas focused on how to engagewith prospective employeesusing social media. He talkedabout “Yammer”- Yum JamSession”, Deloitte has beenusing for quite some time forengaging their talent to expresstheir views via this socialmedium.

Tarun Katyal shared his viewson “contextual intelligence”. Forengaging employees they areusing compliances in variousstates. They are also using othersocial media such as linkedIn,facebook and whatsApp foremployee engagement activities.All the sessions were wellappreciated by the audience.

6th MEGA HR CONCLAVE

Harnessing Human Potential inGrowth Oriented Environment

21st August, 2014

Organised by DMA (Delhi Management Association) and IBA(Indus Business Academy)



HIRING & BEYOND

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Events

Industry, Academia to partner for reducing on-the-job training

The talent scenario inIndia, especially fortechnology oriented roles,

is facing a double-edged sword.These two challenges areskilling new entrants in theworkforce and continuous up-skilling/re-skilling the existingworkforce. Practical solutionsare dependent on effectiveintegration and collaboration ofindustry and academia.

In its continuous effort to be achange-agent in the skillingspace, TimesJobs.com inassociation with Academy ofTechnology hosted aTimesJobs.com Conversationfocused on ‘The Evolution ofEngineering Talent: Gearing Upfor the next level’ in New Delhi.

The eminent panelists includedRajiv Naithani, head-HR & L&D,GlobalLogic India; Dr PrabhuAggarwal, CLO, Jindal Steel &Power Ltd; Nitin Pande, Sr VP,HR Advisory & EmployeeServices Lead, HCLTechnologies; Rishi Bhatnagar,director-capacity, Sapient GlobalMarkets; Deepa V Mukherjee,head training & development,NIIT Technologies Ltd; DebyaniSinha, head-HR, NECTechnologies and JagannathBanerjee, founder & chairmantrustee, Academy of Technology.

Decoding challenges Skill requirements are changingat a lightning speed while thereis a shortfall of skills. Initiatingthe discussion, Debyani Sinha

highlighted that when a newtechnology is introduced,academia is the last to knowabout it. Corporates should be inconstant touch with theacademia to ensure they knowthe requirement and how theyshould deliver it, in terms ofskills and technology.

Adding to this, Rajiv Naithanimentioned, “Our customersexpect us to do value addition interms of services anddevelopment, instead offollowing a simple AGILEprocess to develop a product.” Tomeet the talent requirement,industry should collaborate withthe academia to develop LAPprograms, to induct students tothe curriculum and make themfuture-ready.

Understanding customer’srequirement is one of thebiggest gaps in the technologytalent, which does not getaddressed anywhere in theacademic curriculum.Elaborating on this, Deepa VMukherjee said that even afterpeople are trained, only five percent of them are employable.“To match the speed of changingskill requirements, we need toup-skill and re-skill constantly.”

Industry perspectiveSharing a core engineeringindustry perspective, Dr PrabhuAggarwal shared that academicinstitutions are doing a poor jobin preparing students for coreengineering sectors. The focus is

on quantity over quality. “Ourindustry needs strong vocationaltraining programs to delve deepas curriculum in colleges areoutdated and based on rotelearning, memorisation andhave lack of trained faculty. Todevelop critical thinking instudents, liberal arts should betaught in colleges.”

The changing scenarioTill five years back, large ITcompanies used to hireengineers from any branch andtrain them on the job for threemonths. Companies rolled outoffer letters in the fifth or sixthsemester to fill their talentrequirements. Salaries of freshengineers were revised everyyear. In simple terms, demandwas much more than supply.

Talking about the currentscenario, Nitin Pandemaintained that today, ITcompanies do targeted hiringand the numbers are less. “AtHCL, we are looking at de-skilling jobs. The focus is onhow to make individuals readyas soon as they join.

Considering that the world oftechnology and the Indian ITindustry has evolved, there areopportunities ahead. Accordingto Rishi Bhatnagar, the need ofthe hour is to put a process inplace to deal with this mammothtask. “The process is required toensure the dialogue continuesbetween the industry IT bodiesand academic institutions, as

nobody can predict whattechnology will come intoexistence after 10 years.”

Academia perspectiveAccording to JagannathBanerjee the foremost challengeis that the curriculum is notfocused. The wide gap betweenemployability skills andindustry requirements existmajorly in mediocre students,not in top level students. “Wecan create a scientificcurriculum but the problem iswho we will deliver this to.There is a dire need to boost themotivational level of students”

Together, the panel agreed thatthe solution to this is aneffective and continuousintegration of academia andindustry at regular intervals toreduce the on-boarding time offresh hires and make thembilling-ready from the first day.

Key Takeaways• Ensure contunuity ofdialogue between industryand academia

• Industry-academiapartnerships reduce on-the-job training time

• Academia should buildbusiness-ready workforce

• Technology talent needs tomatch the pace ofchanging technology

• Enable academia to be partof real projects

• Organisations need tocreate ecosystem for rapidup-skilling



HIRING & BEYOND

DISCOVERINGDISCOVERINGIndia Inc using training programs, CSR and workplace diversity as key tools for engaging employees, says TimesJobs.com survey

44%

50%

80%

Happy Employees

Engaging Gen Y big challenge for ...

40%...organisations

organisations invest in

of employees across various business functions

organisations allow its employees to engage in

and devote some time during their official working hours

organisations encourage gender and cultural to promote employee engagement



HIRING & BEYOND

In this age of start-ups, howdo you provide an engagingwork environment to hold onto your best talent?

To provide an engaging workenvironment, we do followingthings:

lCommunication is the key toemployee engagement. Itshould be transparent from topto bottom and reach the lastperson. The message should beclear and uniform across alllevels. We also organizeCEO/COO connects and openhouses for effectivecommunication betweenemployees and management

lAs the saying goes, peopledon’t leave organisations, theyleave managers. We ensurethere is a strong second levelconnect for reportees acrossteams and every fortnight weorganise lunch/dinnersessions to understand theirconcerns

lTo get an edge overcompetition, we convinceemployees from a career pointof view and map them for longand short term planning. Wehave internal centres of

excellence for training andcertifications to helpemployees fulfill their trainingand development needs

What is the role of creating aculture of empowerment(BYOD, flexi work) inengagement?

It is the era of young generation:GEN Y. It is impossible to avoidconcepts such as BYOD (BringYour Own Device) and flexiwork arrangements ifemployers want to engage them.Employers have concerns overdata security and meetingdeadlines, so they need to investin building strong processes toovercome these challenges.Employers should focus onproductivity and outcome, noton working hours or ways andmeans by which the work isdone.

What is your strategy foremployee engagement to dealwith three different workgenerations, especially GenY?

To engage Gen Y, employershave to work with them. Theyhave to be engaged, the way theywant to get engaged. In ourorganisation, we have involvedGen Y'ers to create, conduct andpromote events or employee

engagement activities whichwill interest their fellowworkers. As HR, we only suggesta theme or share a thoughtprocess, the whole initiative isdriven and designed byemployees, for employees. Wealso organise events foremployees, which have socialvalue and connect employeesacross all generations andlevels.

What are the dos and don’tsto make this effective?

Do’slFocus on creating transparent

processes that people willvalue

lEnsure participation at alllevels

lEstablish a fair process forrewards and recognition

Don’tslDon’t create a team or gender

specific engagement programs

lDon’t create events whichcannot engage employees at alllevels

How are you usingtechnology for employeeengagement?

Technology plays a pivotal rolein employee engagement. At

our company, we have a centralportal, which has two pages:organisation page, wheremanagement can communicatewith employees and employeepage, where employees cancommunicate with themanagement. We often use thispage to create awareness anddrive our CSR activities.

Please share best practices.

lLet teams work asentrepreneurs and leadersenable and guide them andmake all resources available tocomplete the task

lStrengthening the top tobottom connect is key to happyemployees

lBuild inter-team connectionfor an engaging workenvironment

lEngaging with employees’families helps to furtherstrengthen the employer-employee connect

lRecognising talent is a keyfocus area

lTravel is a big constraint formost employees. To ensuregood working environment, wegive employee flexi hours andallow work from home in caseof emergency

Expert Speak

Employers should work with Gen Yfor effective engagementSandeep Gupta has a vast experience of 24 years in thefield of Information Technology and has successfullyexecuted large projects and programs end-to-end. In hiscurrent capacity he is heading the service delivery andbusiness operations for the company together with theHR function. Some of the programs he has executed arebanking solution implementation across India – J&KBank India, dealer management system "DMS" acrossSuzuki dealerships in India, technology and operationstransformation at Saudi Arabian Airlines and hostedcontact centre for Airtel (Bharti Group Company).

Sandeep Guptasenior VP IL&FS TECHNOLOGIES LTD

Disclaimer: Information provided in this newsletter shall not be reproduced, published, re-sold or otherwise distributed inany medium without the prior written permission of TimesJobs.com and a clear acknowledgement to TimesJobs.com.

Contact: TJinsite, TimesJobs.com, Plot No 6, Sector 16A, Film City, Noida. Write in to [email protected] ©2014 Times Business Solutions Limited. All rights reserved.

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