The One Thing #1: Need to focus on ER

Businesses worldwide, including India, need to adapt to the uncertainties in the market and the changes that are happening at a pace that is faster than ever before. Businesses need to drive productivity through value-add, innovation, and of course, revenue. This calls for a redefinition of the rules of the game, and in turn, the HR strategy. The good news is HR leaders today have the opportunity to redefine some of these rules.

The one big focus to drive these emerging business requirements is for HR to be in sync with what businesses need in their quest to do more with less and to build creative talent interventions to ensure the organization’s capability remains agile in a hyper competitive market. In India, in particular, we need to change the course on how we look at a business and reflect upon our actions. This has a huge implication on talent requirements for a business.

Today, HR needs to redefine and relook at Employee Relations to match these changing business needs. Given that we are dealing with people in a zero tolerance environment, legislative framework is evolving fast, the approach to employee relations has to broaden from what has been adopted in the past. Focus needs to be on proactive ER strategy rather than only problem-solving reactive strategy.

Young HR graduates do need to focus on and engage in opportunities that build skill sets in Employee Relations – a critical component in HR competency building. This is critical in managing employee engagement with sound advice, keeping sight of local law and company policies. It builds a strong foundation to ensure seamless delivery for the business. To be an HR leader in a changing and complex market, one needs to understand how one’s staff works in the realms of their day-to-day issues, management challenges and local environmental needs vs how the company policies manage and treat them. It is important these needs be addressed timely and effectively. Usually, unions are a manifestation of unresolved issues where people have felt powerless, vulnerable and unheard. Problems can instead be dealt constructively through proactive Employee Relations and management through early warning and alerts.

How do you teach an HR professional to deal with issues in a constructive way? To develop the confidence to deal with any issue at the workplace, one needs to understand the local environment in workplace and outside workplace that may contribute or hinder employee productivity. knowledge of the regulatory/legal framework and policies would be helpful. HR professionals also need to have the experience of connecting with employees, building credibility amongst them and other stakeholders, as well as the courage and conviction to surface issues and influence right solutions.

How we build the Employee Relations capability in our HR teams is going to be a huge focus area for 2014. The roadmap for making future HR leaders should be based on building education, experience and exposure, and creating a strong foundation for the next generation.

ANURANJITA KUMAR is the Country Human Resources Officer at Citi

(As told to People Matters)