{"id":252,"date":"2014-07-29T05:09:19","date_gmt":"2014-07-29T05:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tojoeapen.com\/blog\/?p=252"},"modified":"2016-12-24T07:05:08","modified_gmt":"2016-12-24T07:05:08","slug":"hr-in-india-notes-from-the-2014-nasscom-india-annual-hr-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/hr-in-india-notes-from-the-2014-nasscom-india-annual-hr-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"HR in India, Notes from the 2014 Nasscom India Annual HR Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I attended the Nasscom India HR Conference\u00a0in Chennai last week. \u00a0From conversations in recent years, I&#8217;ve noticed\u00a0a lot of interest and curiosity about the India HR world externally as well.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;re some of my key notes and\u00a0perspectives from the conference:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>One of the most encouraging discussions to hear was from senior business leaders, recognizing that HR leaders can\u00a0be actively considered as CEO succession candidates. There was recognition at the CEO level that HR leaders\u00a0can have a tremendous impact on the business,\u00a0due to immense amount of knowledge about the talent, organization, culture and the ability to engage with them successfully. \u00a0What would it take for an HR leader to be considered?\u00a0 There was a feeling that business, financial and strategic skills\u00a0can improve.<\/li>\n<li>It would be important to have HR experts on the boards of companies (this came from senior business leaders). \u00a0Currently, there seems to be little expert knowledge or in-depth discussions on company boards.<\/li>\n<li>Importance of having a strong personal value system and caring attitude towards employees (&#8216;H&#8217; in Human Resources) was highlighted. \u00a0This approach from leaders and HR was seen to have a high impact on employee engagement.<\/li>\n<li>It is\u00a0impactful for\u00a0business leader development to rotate\u00a0to HR roles but seems to not sufficiently happen the other way. \u00a0Most panelists felt that it would be very important\u00a0for an HR leader to have done\u00a0at least one job\u00a0outside HR. \u00a0HR professionals sometimes do not\u00a0feel confident or motivated to take\u00a0up external assignments. \u00a0Talent development support and nurturing within the function\u00a0would enable\u00a0more of this.<\/li>\n<li>The need for\u00a0HR to be\u00a0competent\u00a0business partners &#8211; moving beyond processes and policing was highlighted multiple times. \u00a0Seems\u00a0like there is a lot of work for the HR teams to progress towards becoming\u00a0credible business partners.<\/li>\n<li>HR is still seen as reluctant adopters of new technologies in organizations &#8211; in some cases, even disinterested.<\/li>\n<li>Performance Management was the most active session attended. \u00a0Most questions and interest were focused on the details of administering a &#8216;no bell curve&#8217; system. \u00a0This could be among the most active areas for HR and organizations in coming years. \u00a0Companies like Adobe who have moved away from the bell curve system received most of the questions and interest.<\/li>\n<li>It is important for middle managers or first time leaders to build\u00a0self awareness,\u00a0be\u00a0seen as team and organization builders, and build a strategic perspective, if they want to progress to senior leadership roles.<\/li>\n<li>Some of the basic areas and processes require attention. \u00a0A recent case\u00a0in the education industry involving\u00a0insufficient reporting, employment background checks and records showed\u00a0up in a Bangalore school, where a teacher with\u00a0a very worrying\u00a0negative work history was not identified. \u00a0Another area\u00a0seems to be the pervasiveness of fake certificates and resumes.<\/li>\n<li>Interest in topics such as gamification (especially in the start-up community) and hackathons seem to be growing.<\/li>\n<li>There is still a long way to go for HR in using data and analytics as a strong base for decisions. \u00a0Predictive modeling is used by very few companies.<\/li>\n<li>Attracting employees and leaders globally due to growth\u00a0and acquisition in\u00a0new geographies seems to be a topic of growing importance.<\/li>\n<li>Skill building and employability in schools and organizations were seen as important areas to ensure continuous availability of quality talent. \u00a0Working together in teams and leadership development were seen as active areas for improvement and development at all stages (recent post on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tojoeapen.com\/blog\/improving-employability-suggestions-for-administrators-educators-and-students-of-professional-colleges\/\" target=\"_blank\">employability<\/a>\u00a0).<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3f3f3f;\">Under the new\u00a0Companies Act<\/span><span style=\"color: #3f3f3f;\">, certain class of profitable entities are required to <a href=\"http:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/business\/india-business\/Govt-provides-clarity-on-CSR-activities-under-Companies-Act\/articleshow\/36833349.cms\" target=\"_blank\">spend at least two per cent of their three-year annual average net profit <\/a>towards\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"color: #3f3f3f;\">CSR activities. \u00a0This seems to hold promise for development activities.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com\/2014-07-24\/news\/51982289_1_fewer-women-tech-mahindra-chandrasekhar\" target=\"_blank\">Nasscom report\u00a0specifying\u00a0salary difference between men and women<\/a> being almost a third, was shared. \u00a0Looks like companies in India have to dig deeper into this topic and work\u00a0out related\u00a0actions.<\/li>\n<li>Among notable missing\u00a0topics from my\u00a0perspective\u00a0was neuroscience\/brain studies and impact on leadership and organizations. \u00a0It would also have been useful to hear about\u00a0how investors look at HR\/leadership practices, global perspectives and references to topics like mindfulness or status\/impact of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tojoeapen.com\/blog\/warning-signs-for-corporate-india\/\" target=\"_blank\">occupational health<\/a>\u00a0area.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is obvious that managing through fast paced changes happening outside and inside organizations requires a continuous learning and improvement mindset. \u00a0The strong link to global business and competitive environment leaves little room for complacence. \u00a0This holds many opportunities for HR and\u00a0also requires intensive, focused effort to upgrade\u00a0competencies and mindset.<\/p>\n<p>In my observation, HR in the IT\/ITeS sector seems to have\u00a0progressed faster due to heavy reliability on human capital development, fast growth, global acquisitions, diverse client base and connectedness. \u00a0That said, most\u00a0professionals and experts\u00a0seem to acknowledge\u00a0that a lot of work is still needed.<\/p>\n<p>Best wishes to you and your teams.<\/p>\n<p>If I have missed something or you have a different perspective, please comment.<\/p>\n<p>Please do\u00a0note that IT\/ITeS HR\u00a0represents only one part of India HR.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I attended the Nasscom India HR Conference\u00a0in Chennai last week. \u00a0From conversations in recent years, I&#8217;ve noticed\u00a0a lot of interest and curiosity about the India HR world externally as well. Here&#8217;re some of my key notes and\u00a0perspectives from the conference: One of the most encouraging discussions to hear was from senior business leaders, recognizing that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hr","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}