Article: Cipla's talent agenda: Ensuring the best stays together and with us

Talent Acquisition

Cipla's talent agenda: Ensuring the best stays together and with us

Prabir Jha, Global Chief People Officer, Cipla Ltd., on how the focus will be on reinforcing & reinventing the talent brand in the future
Cipla's talent agenda: Ensuring the best stays together and with us
 

Redesigning organization structures, getting more of a matrix reality to be a way of life, moving talent more consciously to where the demand is will be our conscious actions

 

The New Year will bring a still sharper focus on talent across functions, businesses, geographies and levels. It will attempt to sharpen enterprise risk mitigation at one end while getting the organization future-ready at the other. Recalibrating the threshold talent level is never easy but it is important to be done in a world where everything historical seems to be getting questioned. We will need to get honest about what the new ‘ask’ is and what our true readiness to take on the future is. 2016 must necessarily start with this difficult question.

Talent analytics will be a key priority. How do we capture, dissect and draw a range of insights in an area traditionally seen as soft and fuzzy? We will leverage more of technology and bring in more discipline to the world of data analytics. 2016 will be a year of greater measurement and effectiveness. The New Year will also keep people productivity on a tight leash. Redesigning organization structures, getting more of a matrix reality to be a way of life, moving talent more consciously to where the demand is rather than be hoarded by an individual manager will all be conscious actions. These are never easy and organizational politics can be challenging but 2016 will demand us to bite tougher bullets.

Smarter hiring, involving technology-enabled platforms and more psychometric anchored evaluations, will help us get more efficient and more predictable. The rub-off on our employer brand is an added benefit as the talent market gets more digital and social media savvy. The war for the talent brand will get sharper in various segments. Reinforcing or reinventing our talent brand will gain focus, especially in the digital reality.

Taking bigger risks with internal talent will be another priority. The top will continue to spin and there will be no cookie-cutter solutions. Only when we take our bets with our people, new leadership will get created. This will need plenty of sponsorship and evangelising, and 2016 will show a clear step forward. Similarly, weeding out the deadwood will be a difficult but key agenda as organizational agility and people costs will become business priorities. There are many people who have driven to levels and costs that are not in line with their value contribution. The war for the ‘right’ talent will have, in this group, unavoidable casualties. To do it fairly and honestly, yet deliberately, is going to help us win the Battle of the Bulge.

Finally, in all the turbulence of a VUCA 2016, a priority will be to keep the talented flock together and fully charged. With the economy hopefully turning the corner and a variety of opportunities tempting talent to take risks with their career, ensuring our best stays together and with us will be key. Communicating with them, offering a reward and recognition mix that will be relevant to the demographic splits in our workforce and reinforcing a culture of trust and respect is what will be asked from 2016.  It is in managing these various contradictions of the talent reality that the real challenges and true opportunities lie. One will need to have the cake and eat it too in 2016!.

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Topics: Talent Acquisition, Strategic HR, #TAWeek, #TalentAgenda2016

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