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HR in India – A reality check (View Comments)
Anuradha Parthasarathy
Posted On Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 03:01:36 PM
Change and fluctuations in Indian dynamics is the only thing constant in the present scenario. With a decade into the 21st century, all we can see is more changes, more rapidly in the way businesses work in India. For so long, HR in India has played a critical role, as Indian businesses and industry has leaped across the rate of growth post liberalisation and post the dawn of the internet era.
A predominant reason why this will continue is the nature of the Indian society as compared to the Western societies. In US and Europe, when children move to high school they are pushed to become independent. By the time they finish their undergraduate degree and get ready to enter the corporate world they are emotionally mature, take their own decisions and have often started living independently. Whereas in India, children live under the protection of parents and perhaps even grandparents well into their 30s. When they enter the workforce after graduation, it is almost the first time that they are stepping out of their homes, interacting with people at a professional level and are suddenly expected to take decisions which may have significant impact. It is not easy! And HR in India has performed a crucial role in bridging this gap and mentoring the rank and file employees to fulfill the role they were expected to perform. The last decade pretty much sucked all HR resources into this activity; preparing the young workforce, managing them, slowly transitioning them into the corporate world.
Today, HR has become the pulse point of any organisation, as human capital is that which can make or break a company. Especially in a country like India, where human capital is the most abundant, what then is or should be the place for an HR manager in the system of any concern.
What happens to the well being of the employee? What about coaching, mentoring and moulding the talent base? What about honing into a more mature workforce - A workforce, which understands and aligns itself to business goals and is not looking at the employer/HR to play the “surrogate parent” role? What does the HR do to make an employee grow, which is directly proportional to the growth of the company itself?
This decade demands more attention to issues which are only now entering the radar screen. First and foremost among them is actively building leadership talent. This requires a strong grasp of business goals, competency mapping at the top and then being able to identify the gaps which need to be filled either through internal training or through lateral hiring.
More than all this HR needs to intervene to ensure that the organisational mindset is prepared to accept, welcome and absorb senior executives when they are brought on-board. Indian companies and businesses have always preferred internal training to lateral hiring. There is a certain unwillingness to acknowledge that perhaps there are people outside who are significantly better equipped to perform certain roles as the company grows. This is even true when it comes to cross-border hiring as the organisation is unprepared and unknowing about managing the new interpersonal dynamics.
Perhaps the need of the hour is to foster more innovation and entrepreneurial spirit in our talented human capital so that we can break free from the need to build such large organisations to creating highly productive smaller entities. That is going to be a huge challenge for HR which has now got used to thinking big numbers and driving incremental productivity.
The author is CEO, Global Executive Talent. She can be contacted at anu@globalexecutivetalent.com
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