Article: The New Normal For HR: NASSCOM-People Matters Survey 2011

Strategic HR

The New Normal For HR: NASSCOM-People Matters Survey 2011

The 'new normal' focuses on HR's need to relook at its functioning in organizations today.This young talent pool,having grown up in an India with endless opportunity, has diverse needs, expectations and aspirations from their work which calls for HR to redraft its employee engagement policies.Nearly 70% HR professionals consider employee engagement as one of their biggest
The New Normal For HR: NASSCOM-People Matters Survey 2011
 

61% respondents' time is spent on managing day-today activities,even though only 13 per cent consider such work to be of strategic essence

 

69% respondents agree that maintaining employee engagement and motivation is their top HR challenge

 

NASSCOM - People Matters Survey 2011

The ‘new normal’ focuses on HR’s need to relook at its functioning in organizations today. This young talent pool, having grown up in an India with endless opportunity, has diverse needs, expectations and aspirations from their work which calls for HR to redraft its employee engagement policies. Nearly 70% HR professionals consider employee engagement as one of their biggest challenges

The HR function in the IT/ ITeS industry is poised to become more business critical in the ‘New Normal’. This requires HR to take an active relook at the function to address the changing business dynamics. A critical problem facing organizations is the gap which is prevalent between what is of strategic importance to HR, versus the time and effort spent on the same by HR today.
70% respondents chose succession planning as an area of highest strategic importance, while only 23% of them said that they spend most of their time and effort on it. There lies a clear gap between what HR in organizations term as strategically important and the areas that take away most of their time and effort. This is additionally reflected in the survey findings, 61% respondents’ time today is spent on managing day-to-day activities, even though only 13% consider it to be of strategic essence.
In this backdrop, the use of technology and innovation within the HR function will play a crucial role in the near future to ensure HR is able to give its due importance to what is strategic to business. 70% of the respondents affirmed that there will be an increasing use of technology in the HR function and 61% respondents are already encouraging and driving innovative practices within employees to attune itself to the ‘New Normal’. Newer and innovative methods of employee engagement and increasing employee motivation will be of essence in this era of global competition and diversity.
Further, as discussed above, majority of respondents (70%) have selected creating a pipeline of leaders and a succession plan to ensure that there are enough middle and senior managers to fuel their company’s growth. This is critical to business because the young workforce is accustomed to seeing a lot of opportunities, and therefore their sense of purpose has emerged much earlier in life. This is often the reason why employees today have shorter stints with one organization. The need for the hour is for HR to be able to apply different strokes to different folks in order to cater to the diverse and young workforce.

THE NEW NORMAL
70% respondents chose succession planning as the area of highest strategic importance, while only 23% of respondents said that they spend most of their time and effort on it. There is a clear gap between what HR in organizations term as strategically important and the areas that they spend most of their time and effort on. This is reflected in the survey findings; 61% respondents’ time today is spent on managing day-to-day activities, while only 13% consider it to be of strategic essence.
The increasing competition and the changing workforce dynamics has forced HR to relook at their approach. In a highly intensive industry, where CEOs and HR Heads unanimously declare “people” are their biggest source of competitive advantage and innovation, there is no surprise that employee engagement comes on top of the lists of challenges as well as strategic importance for the leadership team. Employee engagement is no longer a one-size-fit-all concept. The ‘new normal’ signifies the ‘new way’ of looking at the HR function. NASSCOM and People Matters captured the key challenges, priorities and trends from the HR community.

 

NASSCOM-PEOPLE MATTERS SURVEY 2011

This research was conducted to reveal the overall challenges and trends in the HR function across the IT/ITeS sector in India by collecting data through a dipstick survey during the NASSCOM HR Summit 2011 in Chennai. The survey reflects contributions from 167 respondents who represent a diverse group of business heads and HR heads across the IT/ITeS domain. The questionnaire was structured around closed, single and multiple choice questions. Respondents also had an opportunity to add their views and comments where the option provided did not give the relevant description of the reality.
The survey was divided into four segments - firstly, areas of strategic importance for this financial year; secondly, areas that HR spend most of their time and effort on (and the intersection of the two); thirdly, key challenges faced by the people function; and finally, changing trends in the HR function in the IT/ITeS industry.
 

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Topics: Strategic HR

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