Article: Genpact's values are attractive for prospective hires

Talent Acquisition

Genpact's values are attractive for prospective hires

Yogendra Jain, VP, Global Talent Acquisition Leader, Genpact gives his insights during the India Hiring Outlook Week, 2015
Genpact's values are attractive for prospective hires
 

Beyond monetary terms, rewards is also about the kind of challenges that you throw at an employee on a day-to-day basis

 

What do you think about the hiring outlook for 2015?

Economies that outsource work to India, like the US, had two good years, growing by 2.4 per cent. From a hiring standpoint, 2015 is going to be better than the last couple of years for sure. As the demand is getting pretty segmented, we will see more demand for specific skills (finance, IT, analytics and so on), especially in markets like India. From an overall perspective, my take is that BPM industry will grow about 15-17 per cent, and if you put IT and BPM together, it will be within the similar range.

At Genpact, it’s not only about hiring someone: It’s a matter of giving him a career. How to help him get into the organization with the right skills and then grow with us over a period of time. From that perspective, Genpact is known as a brand for giving careers to people and we have a very strong learning and development function which works with our employees to train them to work at far higher and complex jobs. In our industry, the work has moved significantly from how we used to hire a decade back to now. The level of complexity has increased. Keeping that trend in mind, I believe candidates today have better judgement to make that choice. Salary is not the only factor — it’s the long-term career that an organization offers that becomes critical for candidates. So, we might not offer a high salary package, but we ensure that the messaging from a long-term career perspective is right. For certain specific skills, which are in extremely short supply, obviously salary will play a role.

How has your hiring strategy evolved with the changing workforce mix (Gen X, Gen Y)?

In a world of tweets and retweets, it’s extremely important for you to have a presence in social media. Today, if you look at the overall hiring scene, about 30-40 per cent happens through these social media networks. At the same time, we also invest very strongly in our campus reach programs which, from the segmentation point of view, attracts Gen Y talent and creates a strong brand pool. The proliferation of smartphones cuts across age, demographic, region and language. Therefore, it’s one of the most effective means to reach out to our target. We have seen a lot more recruitment taking place from back channels and social platforms in India than in many of the other mature markets.

The targeted talent pool for our industry consists more of Gen Y folks. We build our employee value proposition of learn, grow and succeed. We also did an extensive research on markets across generations, women who work from home and some other diverse profiles who we wanted to attract. In this, technology plays an important role in leveraging the social media presence that we have consciously built over the last couple of years.

What do Gen X and Gen Y look for when it comes to rewards?

Rewards and recognition have a very strong correlation to employees’ success at work and candidates’ potential to stay with the organization over a period of time. When you talk about rewards, it’s applicable not just in monetary terms but is also about the kind of challenges that you throw at him on a day-to-day basis. That is something that organizations like ours have a lot to offer: They can work with multiple clients, industries and geographies. We are able to move people to complex roles with much more ease than many others. We engage our employees on many educational programmes and move them up the value chain or get them to work in a different geography altogether. We ensure they interact with very senior folks in the client organization and that’s a value which people look at as a reward too.

What’s your take on Big Data analytics and its intervention in hiring?

With the availability of data on candidates and macroeconomics which impact hiring, combining the two, the entire hiring strategy has become a lot more sophisticated. It will continue to help us to hire the right people, at the right cost and in the shortest possible time. So the entire exercise is becoming far more focused and effective than it used to be when availability of data was not as exhaustive and scientific as it is today.

What are the salary expectations for 2015?

The overall positioning for potential employees, when they get into organizations, has to be not just about salaries but the long-term career path that we can offer. More companies are now getting focused and specific about it and many of the candidates in the job market are also becoming aware of long-term stability and career path as they are becoming more mature about how the professional life works. So, even the companies will start managing it at a holistic level, but there will always be a niche role that somebody needs to go out and hire. For us, our proposition of learn, grow and succeed is a very strong value proposition that gives potential employee a very compelling reason to join us.

Read full story

Topics: Talent Acquisition, #IHOWeek

Did you find this story helpful?

Author

QUICK POLL

How do you envision AI transforming your work?