Although business leaders acknowledge that HR is a strategic partner and it is essential for HR and business to be perfectly aligned for success, 29% of HR leaders from the IT sector in India think that they own a place at the table and are accorded the status of ‘strategic partner’, according to a recent survey on HR transformation in the IT sector, conducted by Randstad Technologies. 

According to the survey results, 56% of the HR leaders from the IT sector in India mentioned that HR is fully aligned with their organization’s vision and strategy. But, only 29% thought that they own a place at the table and are accorded the status of ‘strategic partners’. Despite IT being a mature, people driven industry, the survey findings also indicate that 46% of the HR leaders from this sector described their current role as just ‘business enablers’. 

Top reasons for non-alignment with business 

About 36% of the HR leaders felt that excessive focus on transactional activities and limited bandwidth are the top reasons for HR not being aligned with business, followed by legacy issues where people and processes are unwilling to change (26% of the respondents mentioned this) and capability issues with existing teams, according to 20% of the survey respondents. 

Dr. Moorthy K. Uppaluri, MD & CEO, Randstad India said, “The IT sector, one of the largest employers of the country, is a significant contributor to the GDP. It continues to be a critical driver for the knowledge-driven Indian economy, where the dependence and cost of the ‘people‘ component has significantly increased”. 

"HR being the custodian of talent plays an all-encompassing and elevated strategic role in terms of building the employer brand and the employee value proposition, thereby attracting top talent and also ensuring productivity, engagement and a great career throughout the employee life cycle. In this business and organizational context, an HR leader’s role today includes donning IT as well as marketing hats to leverage technology and digital platforms for talent acquisition, employee engagement and learning & development. Getting the right talent is at the top of a CEO’s agenda and owing to the criticality of this, HR has clearly earned a place in the boardroom today. The role of HR is more important than ever," he added. 

Areas to focus on to achieve business – aligned HR: 

28% of the survey respondents mentioned that alignment of people plan with business requirement should be the main focus area, followed by short, medium and long term business planning (26%) in order to achieve alignment of HR and business. 18% believe that employee engagement is also a key factor to succeed in this.  

Key areas of investment for talent leaders in IT:

Employer value proposition will be a key investment area for talent leaders in the IT sector over the next 24 months, according to 22% of the survey respondents, followed by investments in technology tools to automate or improve existing processes and building a robust leadership pipeline (21% of the respondents indicated this)

Key attributes expected of an HR business partner:

For HR to play the role of an effective business partner in any organization, they need to have a thorough understanding of the core business areas, feels 22% of the HR leaders who participated in the survey. 19% believe that being a trusted advisor on people and other HR related issues is critical followed by higher levels of employee engagement activities (14%). 

Critical success factors to retaining & nurturing talent:

23% of the respondents believe that defined career and growth plans, followed by compensation and benefits (21%) and a culture that fosters innovation (19%) are the top 3 most critical, successful factors to retaining and nurturing talent. 

Future of work: 

A whopping majority of the survey respondents (95%) agreed that talent analytics will play a critical role in sourcing and retaining talent in the next 5-10 years, followed by flexible working options (91%) to attract increasingly mobile talent and increasing automation (82%) that will shift the talent needed in an organization to highly skilled roles.

Randstad India offers the broadest HR services portfolio ranging from Staffing, Search & Selection to Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO). Randstad India continues to focus on developing customized and innovative HR services, leveraging on its unique strengths of geographical presence and end-to-end capability across all HR service functions.