Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Staffing firms make head-hunting easier
| Business Standard - 30th May, 2007 OUTSOURCING: For corporates that are finding it difficult to find the right talent, HR sourcing firms may be just the answer. |
| For start-ups, getting all resources in place in the right quantity and of the right type can be a seemingly insurmountable challenge, as can finding the right manpower. |
| This is also true of firms that may have secured projects for which they may not have the personnel with the required domain knowledge. How would they go about finding people in the shortest while and at minimal cost, at the same time ensuring that they are not left with personnel who may not be required once the project is through? |
| Earlier, when firms bid for projects, they ensured that they had the people with expertise in the domain the project covered. But a firm cannot afford to have specialists from all domains on its rolls. Once a project is through, the firm may not have got another project requiring specialists with the same domain knowledge. |
| This is where IT HR search and staffing firms, with personnel having knowledge in practically all domains, play useful roles. |
| Says Madhusudan N, a team leader in Perot Systems: "When we want people with four or five skill-sets we secure them through IT staffing firms. It is one of the methods of sourcing. Though sourcing firms may not find us just the right people, we manage to get people who meet most of our needs and in many of the domains." |
| Perot Systems has engaged the services of Focus Infotech, an IT consultancy services and career management organisation, for about nine months to secure people with the required skill-sets. |
| Focus Infotech's placement offering is only meant for middle and senior-level IT professionals in select functional and technical domains like ERP, CRM, EAI, Web Technologies, Open Systems and Mainframes. |
| Finding resources through a HR sourcing firm is cost-effective. Focus HR, for instance, is a HR IT outsourcing firm, which provides manpower. |
| It supplies people with the right kind of domain expertise required to meet a firm's needs, or for the firm to meet its commitments. Focus calls itself a 'career manager' in addition to being a manpower provider. Until now, 8,000 people have passed through Focus. |
| Another such firm is Hyderabad-based TMI Network, which once recruited a multinational BPO's first 1,200 employees in great secrecy. |
| TMI has worked with BPOs, SMEs that are professionalizing and organizations that want to diversify into new businesses, according to the managing director, T. Sreedhar. |
| Mahesh Guru, a manager at iGate, finds such sourcing firms a good way through which to find people for short periods and save time and resources expended by the firm on recruitment and training. The firm does its hiring on the basis of projections, says Guru. It defines specifics to the sourcing firm, without diluting resource requirements, he adds. |
Stress control now a KRA for companies
| Business Standard - 30th May, 2007 EXECUTIVE HEALTH: Firms are now thinking out of the box to manage employee stress, lest it begins to hurt performance. |
| At Bausch & Lomb, managing employee stress is all about setting achievable sales targets and following a comprehensive annual KRA or goal setting exercise and twice-a-year performance appraisals. This ensures that there are no residual feelings leading to stress. |
| Says Uttam Ghosh, HR head at Bausch & Lomb: "Positive stress is an inevitable part of a challenging work scenario and it helps individuals to beat their limits of excellence. But we also take cognizance of the fact that there could be situations leading to negative stress." |
| Companies have started recognising stress at the workplace as a significant business concern and have been bringing proactive measures to provide a healthy environment. Kanoria Chemicals and Industries (KCI), for instance, believes in improving the time management skills of its staff to help them achieve work-life balance. |
| Elaborates Ghosh: "Critical activities, such as goal setting, target deployment communications, incentive clarity and performance feedback, if not done properly would lead to high stress levels. This could further be potential reason for quitting the organisation." |
| Mitigating negative stress is what companies focus on in their stress management programmes. Some follow Art of Living courses, others are enrolling employees in Yoga and health workshops. Some like Aricent Technologies have put de-stressing tips on their intranets. |
| Gauri Arora, a spokesperson for Aricent, explains, "Corporate communications along with the HR team organises monthly health and wellbeing lectures for employees." |
| The company even has a full-time physiotherapist on its rolls to take regular workshops in Aricent’s three centres - Gurgaon, Bangalore and Chennai. |
| At Emami stress management is rooted in the HR mission and objective. Elaborates Ratna Sinha, HR head at the group: "The principle of spiritual discourse is part of the work life with us." |
| The group has spiritual discourses by well known spiritual leaders and through reputed organisations like Brahma Kumaris and Art of Living, yoga sessions at offsites and regular exercises at the office gym. "We even encourage employees to avail themselves of their annual leave." |
| At many companies, Art of Living is the preferred medium for stress busting. Aricent has been conducting these courses since 2001, and says that though it has made the course voluntary in the last two years, there has been no drop in participation. KCI follows the stress management programme not only ensure employee satisfaction but also reduce the probability of attrition. |
| At Infogain, stress management training comprises yoga classes, dance classes, aerobics and fun zones, which are short breaks from hectic schedules. |
| The thrice-a-week classes are held by experts and a panel of physicians is available for consultation in the office. Companies maintain that stress indicator awareness and knowledge of appropriate stress management techniques make a huge difference in the productivity of the employees. |
| Says Shantanu Banerjee, head of HR at Xansa Technologies: "We realized that if the employees' stress level is too high, their work may become impaired, and the hostility they posses would get reflected in the quality of their service. In such a scenario, employees who suffer the burden of having to perform can simply 'crack'. They may actually develop ailments like heart problems, high blood pressure and peptic ulcers. Therefore, we felt the need to incorporate certain tools as part of our HR programme to control and manage employee stress." |
| Xansa has an all-encompassing stress management programme that includes motivational talk sessions, pranic healing sessions, yoga classes, recreational activities like table tennis, carrom and chess, social get-togethers such as choreography, fashion shows, collage competitions and painting competitions and no 'graveyard' shifts. Day care centres and games on the intranet also help in beating stress. |
| Adds Banerjee: "To gauge the effectiveness of such de-stressing sessions, we use employee satisfaction surveys ." He says Xansa has seen a growth in employee satisfaction levels. |
| "Such de-stressing programmes have helped the organisation to find out the kinds of problems or issues being faced by employees at the workplace." |
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