To our readers

Patrons Prof. K.V .Bhanu Murthy Dean, Faculty of Commerce & Business Dr. Ajay Kumar Singh Programme Coordinator, MHROD
Behind the shady headlines of Wall Street turmoil, Commonwealth games, corruption, scams etc., 2010 has been a tough and eventful year for human resource managers as the global slowdown has urged a need to revisit issues related to Human Resources like leadership styles, employee engagement, talent acquisition and management. Jigyasa 2011 endeavours to promote and disseminate knowledge in the complex, multidisciplinary field of Human Resource Management and Organizational Development. The articles pertain to a large number of fields and range from HR transformation to leadership styles to employee engagement and talent acquisition. As you leaf through the pages, the blend of theory, experience, expressions and creativity will serve as a constant reminder to the intricacies of the field of Human Resources. Jigyasa seeks to gather the valuable insights of renowned academicians and practitioners on some burning issues of human resource and aims at emerging as a knowledge warehouse for existing and emerging HR practitioners. Jigyasa is an M.H.R.O.D. initiative and the credit for its overwhelming success in the corporate and academic circle entirely rests with the distinguished authors participating in the journal. Jigyasa is an in-house initiative that does not generate any subscription fee or revenue from any source. We value your invaluable inputs and suggestions and hope that your journey through Jigyasa would be a pleasure.

MHROD
Editorial Board: Abhishek Kumar AbhinandanChatterjee Ashish Dhameja Mridul Guatam Nandita Joshi Kangkan

We value the incomparable inputs of the contributors for this journal and thank them for infusing their knowledge and experience into each article of Jigyasa.

Abhishek Kumar

Ashish Dhameja Team Jigyasa: Aditi Kashyap,Divya Gupta,Lily Bilung, Neeraj Tripathy, Radhika Singh, Shelly Sarang Tanu Priya and Vivek Tomar. 1

Jigyasa 2011
ARTICLES
HR Transformation Dave Ulrich Professor- Ross School of Business,University of Michigan Wayne Brockbank Professor- Ross School of Business,University of Michigan Justin Allen Principle, The RBL group Public Sector-Myth v/s Reality V C Agarwal Former Director, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. Leadership: Stepping into the right shoes at the right time Neha Gupta Researcher- CLIC, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad Talent Acquisition - Challenge or Fun? Ashish Kumar Chief Human Resource Officer PVR Ltd Management Education for Sustainability V C Agarwal President HR, RPG Enterprises Understanding Dynamics of Human Resource Management and How it can be developed: A Brief Overview Prof. Gopa Bhardwaj Professor, University of Delhi Employee Engagement @reccession.com: Role of HR Anita Santiago XLRI,Jamshedpur Charting a Role for Human Resources in Mergers & Acquisitions Dr. Subash Masters Senior Adviser with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. 5

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The Business Partner Model: Past and Future perspectives Dave Ulrich Professor- Ross School of Business,University of Michigan Wayne Brockbank Professor- Ross School of Business,University of Michigan Role of Customer Satisfaction in Improving Dealers Profitability Mr. Uday Mishra- Head (Training) with NDPL

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INTERVIEW
HR In Focus Avadesh Dixit Global Head-HR, CMC Ltd 57

HR Transformation
Dave Ulrich, Justin Allen Wayne Brockbank

An instructional article by Dave Ulrich, Justin Allen, and Wayne Brockbank, it explores the why, what, how, and who of an HR transformation process. It describes why the HR strategy of an organization needs to keep pace with today's mercurial business environment, why the co-operation of the stakeholders line managers, employees, customers, advisors- is essential for the transformation to yield results, and finally how to actualize the transformation. As the pace of change increases in global markets, economic uncertainty, and technological advances, leaders must both adapt their organizations and help their employees respond to change. To build both organization capabilities and individual competencies, HR departments, practices, and professionals must be transformed to respond to the challenge of change. In this article, and in more detail in our book HR Transformation (Ulrich et.al, 2009), we synthesize and summarize the lessons we have learnt about HR transformation. We have learnt these lessons by working with thoughtful and innovative HR executives and from over twenty years of research on and writing about the HR profession. We begin by defining HR Transformation and then propose a four-phase model to ensure that HR drives business success and avoids the common pitfalls of such efforts. This model (see Figure 1.1) addresses four simple questions about HR transformation: Phase 1: Build the business case. (Why do transformation?) HR leaders must know business context and build a case for change. Phase 2: Define the outcomes. (What are the outcomes of transformation?) HR leaders with business leaders define the outcomes of HR transformation as the capabilities of a firm. Phase 3: Redesign HR. (How do we do HR transformation?) HR leaders redesign their HR department, reengineer their HR practices, and upgrade their HR professionals. Phase 4: Engage line managers and others. (Who should be part of the HR transformation?) HR leaders work with line managers, employees, and advisors to frame and deliver transformation.
Figure 1.1.Model for HR Transformation.

This work draws heavily from the book HR Transformation by Dave Ulrich, Justin Allen, Wayne Brockbank, Jon Younger, and Mark Nyman, published by McGraw Hill.

JIGYASA 2011 This model captures both the theory (ideas, rationale, and approaches) and the practices (tools, processes, and actions) for creating a successful HR transformation. Transformation theory draws from change literatures found in sociology, psychology, anthropology, organization development, systems theory, high-performing teams, and economics. Transformation theory in practice comes as we have applied these ideas in dozens of organizations. Theory without practice is conjecture and is usually irrelevant. Practice without theory is idiosyncratic and isolated. We aim to combine theory and practice so that those charged with and affected by HR transformation can make sustainable progress. HR Transformation Defined A true HR transformation is an integrated, aligned, innovative, and business-focused approach to redefine how HR work is done within an organization so that it helps the organization deliver promises made to employees, customers, investors, and other stakeholders. This work begins by being very clear about the rationale for doing HR transformation. The rationale for HR transformation is too often from inside the company (say, when a senior business leader complains about HR practices, structure, or people), whereas the rationale should come from outside the company. Therefore, as the first step to any transformation, HR leaders must clarify the business context. Next, they must be clear about the intended outcomes (or organization capabilities) of the transformation. With outcomes in mind, leaders must align HR to deliver the outcomes by redesigning the HR organization, revamping HR processes, and re fo c u s i n g H R p e o p l e . F i n a l l y, t r u e H R transformations ensure that long-term initiatives are led by line managers and enabled by HR. Ultimately, a successful HR transformation increases the value HR adds to the business. This is a simple statement and one that is easy to gloss over, but it reflects an approach to transformation that is not always practiced. Simply stated, we propose that the biggest challenge for HR professionals today is to help their respective organizations succeed, and an effective HR transformation will ensure just that. Phase 1: Business Context When people understand the 'why' of change they are more likely to accept the 'what'. A broad range of change specialists teach this simple principle, from the most academic of cognitive psychologists and change theorists to the most popular of self-help gurus. It is true not only in personal change (exercise, weight loss, anger management) but also in HR transformation. For personal change, when we fully grasp why we should change a personal behavior, we are more likely to change what we do. The context of a business setting captures the why of HR transformation. When HR transformation connects to the context of the business, it is more likely to be sustained because it responds to real needs. This means linking HR efforts not only to the business strategy but also to the environmental factors that frame the strategy. Therefore, HR should begin from the outside in. We should be at least as worried about the outcomes of our activities as about the activities themselves. So, we ask people to add two simple words to the biggest challenge at work: so that . . . The so that query shifts focus on what we do to what we deliver, from the activities we perform to the value that these activities create.

Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank & Justin Allen Hence, an HR transformation should begin with a clear understanding of the business context because the setting in which you do business offers the rationale for the HR transformation you will do. Basic supply-demand logic asserts that if supply is high for any given product or service but demand is zero, then its value is zero. If what we do on the inside does not create value on the outside, in the ability of the company to attract, serve, and retain customers and investors, its value is zero. While we are staunch advocates of aligning HR with business strategy, we recommend that HR leaders not only look at the business strategy but also look through the strategy to see and understand the business conditions or external realities that shape it. Traditional strategy is like a mirror where HR can reflect its investment. We recommend looking through the mirror (strategy) to external customers and investors to fully understand the antecedents of the strategy. Understanding and linking HR with these contextual constituents helps HR not just implement the strategy but play a key role in defining it. By focusing on the business context, HR can avoid the common mistake of seeking to implement internally focused ideas and concepts that come across as solutions looking for problems. When HR professionals start by thinking about the outcomes of their work as defined by the business context, they change their conversations with line managers and are able to better justify why an HR transformation should occur. Consequently, for change to lead to sustained transformation, we believe that when the presenting problem for HR transformation comes from the context of the business and from the expectations of key stakeholders, then the case for transformation is stronger than if the presenting problem originates primarily from inside the business. Ultimately, HR transformation is not about doing HR; it is about building business success. Phase 2: Outcomes HR transformation is not a single eventit's a new pattern of thought and behaviour. As discussed above, the rationale for the transformation comes from general business conditions and the ability to increase value to specific stakeholders. Once business leaders acknowledge that HR transformation will help them respond to business challenges, they will inevitably want to know how to measure the impact of the transformation. We suggest that HR transformation has two types of outcomes. First, the stakeholder expectations should be realized. HR transformation should play a significant part in determining stakeholder results. Second, HR transformation can be tracked by the capabilities an organization creates. Stakeholder Outcomes:To address the first outcome type, we recommend you pick the stakeholders you are most worried about and then discuss and define the outcomes that will be most important for them. These outcomes should be operationally defined, measured, and tracked over time to quantify the progress of your HR transformation. With stakeholders' outcomes identified, divide 100 points among the possible stakeholders. Your team should come to a shared perspective on weighting which stakeholders (employees, line managers, customers, regulators, investors, or communities) matter most and will be most affected by the transformation. For the stakeholders who matter most, agree upon measures that are reliable, accurate, transparent,
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JIGYASA 2011 and easy to collect for each key stakeholder. As outlined in Table 1.1, your team should select the two or three key indicators that will track progress of the transformation. Stakeholders Employees Possible measures Greater competence for present and future jobs Increased retention of talented employees Leaders & leadership Measure of backup talent (number of qualified people for key jobs) Able to export top talent to the rest of the company Customers More customer share of targeted customers (share of wallet) Willingness to recommend firm to others Regulators Give the firm voice in defining regulations Perceive the firm as one that abides by laws and regulations Analysts/Investors Higher Price to Earnings (market to book) value Trust quality of leadership to make the right decisions about strategy, people, customers, and operations Community Manage environment responsibly (reduces carbon footprint) Gives back to the community (philanthropy) in terms of money and time As you follow these steps, you can begin to see the impact of your HR transformation in terms of outcomes as seen by the stakeholders you serve. Capabilities as Outcomes: While stakeholder measures track the outcomes of HR transformation as seen by the recipients of the transformation, we believe that the HR transformation should also change the fundamental identity, culture, or image of the company. We refer to this outcome of HR transformation as defining and building capabilities. Capabilities shape the way people think about
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Finally, identify how will you collect the data so that you can benchmark where you are now and track where you are going in the future. Table 1

organizations. These capabilities also become the identity of the firm, the deliverables of HR practices, and the keys to implement business strategy, and senior leaders must be clear about the two or three most critical capabilities the firm must have in order to execute the strategy. Then, they can and should be monitored by measuring and tracking them. There is no magic list of desired or ideal capabilities; however, the following capabilities and their measures seem to be inherent in well-managed firms:

Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank & Justin Allen Capability Leadership Strategic Unity Description We are good at building leaders that generate confidence in the future. We are good at creating a shared agenda around our strategy

Customer Connectivity We are good at fostering enduring relationships of trust with target customers Corporate Social Responsibility Shared Mindset We are good at establishing a strong reputation for sustainability, philanthropy, and employability in our industry and community We are good at ensuring customers and employees have a consistent and positive experience of our firm identity We are good at working together across boundaries to ensure leverage and efficiency We are good at generating, generalizing, and implementing ideas with impact We are good at doing something new in both content and process We are good at attracting, motivating, developing, and retaining talented and committed people We are good at making important changes rapidly We are good at reducing the costs of our business practices We are good at creating and enforcing standards that lead to high performance and execution both stakeholder and organization capability outcomes, the result of the HR transformation can be defined and tracked. Phase 3: HR Redesign The first two phases of HR transformation answer the questions Why (business context) and what (outcomes of HR transformation). The third phase addresses How to do the transformation. This phase has three components, each of which is a way of defining what we mean by HR:
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Collaboration

Learning

Innovation Talent

Speed Efficiency Accountability

The two to three most critical capabilities represent the outcomes of the HR transformation. They are the deliverables of HR and they lead to the outcomes for each stakeholder. In focusing on capabilities as outcomes, the HR transformation team should do a capability audit where they identify which capabilities are most critical to their organization's future success given business conditions and business strategy. With those prioritized capabilities, scorecards can be created to track baseline and progress in the critical capabilities. By focusing on

JIGYASA 2011 a) The HR function or department may need to be redesigned. b) HR practices may be transformed to be more effectively or more fully aligned, integrated, and innovative. c) HR professionals may be upgraded to possess the competencies required to do their work. (a) Redesign the HR Department: Transforming an HR department requires building an HR organization that reflects both the business organization and the HR strategy. We have found three overriding organization design principles: first, make the HR organization follow the logic and structure of the business organization. Second, make the HR organization follow the flow of any professional service organization. Third, differentiate between transactional and transformational HR work. that consists of a single business (top left). In this case, the corporation and the business unit are the same. Thus corporate HR and business unit HR are likewise the same. The relatively more complicated portfolio configurations are alternative levels of diversification that range from unrelated to highly related (top right of Figure 1.2). Care must be taken to ensure that HR strategies and practices are customized to fit the logic of business requirements. The second organization design principle for HR is that of any professional service firm: making knowledge productive. Knowledge represents the collective information and insights of the profession. Productivity occurs when these insights become standards for how to work with clients and when these insights help clients reach their goals. HR rests on a body of knowledge about how people and organizations operate. These insights become productive when clients of the HR department use that knowledge to improve their effectiveness and efficiency. The stakeholders described in above should be able to reach their goals more smoothly because of the way the HR department is organized, its work processes, and how it operates on a day-today basis. Strategic HR work done well makes achieving business results easier for business leaders. A third design principle for successful HR transformation is differentiating and managing both centralized (to drive efficiency and control) and decentralized (to drive effectiveness and flexibility). A company whose portfolio strategy is based on a holding company configuration consists of multiple business units who are independent of each other (bottom right of Figure 1.2). In such cases, HR logic and processes are likewise to be found in the business units. At the other extreme is a corporation
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strategic and transactional work effectively. Defining what work is strategic and what is transactional is not a simple task, but it is paramount in transformation. A common mistake of HR transformation is to make administrative HR changes without addressing more strategic issues. Clarifying the business context (phase 1) and identifying key capabilities (phase 2) creates the context for knowing what HR work in your

Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank & Justin Allen business is or should be strategic. Once this is done, the process involves evaluating each and every HR output and determining how the output contributes to the business. Unless strategic work and transactional work are separated, neither gets done well. Building on these three design principles, the evolving HR organization can have five distinct and at times overlapping sets of responsibilities. These five responsibilities represent channels or ways of doing HR work, as outlined in Figure 1.3. The critical issue is to identify the flow of work for each of the five channels in the HR organization, and upgrade each channel to deliver the outcomes from Phase 2. Additionally, awareness of all five channels is helpful in identifying both current and future HR outputs to ensure all outputs are included in your analysis. At times, some try to transform the HR department by focusing on one channel. For example, putting in a new HR information system (Channel 1 in the figure) can increase the efficiency of doing HR administrative work, but this is not a complete HR transformation unless the other roles are also redesigned (as specified in the third design principle). (b) Revamp HR Practices: People talk about the work of HR as activities, systems, processes, decisions, or initiatives. We have chosen to talk about the work of HR as a set of HR practices because a practice is something that

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JIGYASA 2011 is continually being learned (we practice a musical instrument or sports). A practice is also an activity within a profession (the practice of law), and the concept of best practice defines an activity that delivers an outcome better than some other activity. Transforming HR could mean changing as many as 120 separate HR practices. In The HR Value Proposition (Ulrich & Brockbank, 2005), we synthesized this vast array of HR work into four domains that represent the flows or processes central to organization success. Flow of people: What happens to the organization's key assetits peopleincluding how people move in, through, up, and out of the organization. Proper attention to people flow ensures the availability and development of the talent the organization needs to accomplish its strategy. Flow of performance management: What links people to workthe standards and measures, financial and nonfinancial rewards, and feedback that reflect stakeholder interests. Proper attention to this flow promotes accountability for performance by defining, noting, and rewarding itand penalizing its absence. Flow of information: What information do people need to do their work and how do they get the requisite information. Information can flow up, down, or laterally. It can flow from the outside in or from the inside out. Proper attention to information flow ensures that people know what is happening and why, and can apply themselves to what needs doing to create value. Flow of work: Who does work, how work is done, where work is done, and how work is supported through business and operating processes to combine individual efforts into organizational
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outputs. Proper attention to work flow provides the governance, accountability, and physical setting that ensure high-quality results. Transformation of HR practices requires recognizing emerging trends in each category and the revision of HR practices to be consistent with those trends. It is tempting in the field of HR today to separate and isolate these four streams. For example, a company might invest in talent management (hiring, promoting, retaining people), without expending the time, effort, and resources necessary to ensure that people have both the internal and external information required for high levels of commitment and performance. HR transformation is incomplete unless alignment, integration, and innovation occur for all four categories of HR processes. In our workshops with HR leaders and professionals, we find that only the best companies identify the synergies they might capture by working more closely together. For example, in a recent conference at British Airways, functional experts from across the four domains found a number of ways that staffing (people), compensation and benefits (performance), and organizational development (work) could very fruitfully collaborate. Narrow definitions of HR work result in narrow scopes of HR transformation. c) Refocus HR People: Ultimately, HR transformation depends on the quality of HR professionals. Given the challenges of understanding the full business context (phase 1), defining important business related outcomes (phase 2), and redesigning the HR department and state-of-the-art HR practices (phase 3), the bar has been raised for HR professionals. What it took to succeed in HR in the past has changed with the emerging challenges that we address in this article. By following the four steps outlined below, leaders can learn to build the competencies of HR

Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank & Justin Allen professionals. For more information, see HR Competencies (Ulrich et. al., 2008)

Step 1: Articulate a theory and set a standard. In the last 20 years we have

regularly assessed the competencies that make HR successful through the Human Resource conducted in 2007; we have identified the competencies required of HR professionals based on data from just over 10,000 people around the world. Our findings are summarized in Figure 1.4. Ultimately, successful HR professionals must demonstrate all competencies outlined in the model, and in particular, they must be credible activists and strategic architects. Step 2: Assess individuals and organizations. Establish a methodology for determining how well individual HR professionals do or do not meet the required standards. It is important to receive

feedback from a variety of different sources, and consequently, 360-degree feedback processes tend to provide helpful data at a minimal cost. Other assessment methods include self-assessments, psychometric testing, intense behavioural based assessments, and job performance assessments. Step 3: Invest in talent improvement. After a gap has been identifiedboth for each individual and for the department as a wholethe next step is investment. Investing in HR professionals means allocating time and resources to upgrading their skills. We have found three approaches to developing HR professionals: job experience, training experience,
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JIGYASA 2011 and life experience. Whether creating a implementation are apt to resist the changes required of them; they will be less likely to support the more controversial or difficult elements of the plan, and they certainly will be less supportive or helpful as problems or challenges arise in the course of implementation. Four groups of stakeholders should be involved with the HR transformation: HR, Line Managers, Customers and Investors, and External Consultants. HR leaders and professionals: HR's role is to design the process and enable the implementation of the transformation. HR transformation depends on the quality of HR professionals and their relationships with line managers. If they cannot respond to the increased expectations raised by transformation, they will quickly lose credibility and be relegated to second-tier status. Four roles are important to this process: the chief HR officer (CHRO), the HR leadership team, and the head of HR, and HR professionals. Line managers: Line Managers must make sure the transformation aligns to business goals and work with HR to implement the transformation. Line managers are ultimately accountable for ensuring that the organization has the right talent and right organization in place to deliver expectations to customers, shareholders, and communities. They have the responsibility to provide a clear business focus for the transformation, to ensure that the transformation team has access to both external and internal information, to ensure that the right people are involved in the transformation process, and to require clear and measurable results from the transformation. Numerous efforts like the war for talent, balanced scorecards, and top company lists have prescribed how line managers can better manage their people and organizations. The stated

comprehensive HR development program or simply helping one HR professional improve, it is critical to ensure that investment includes activities in all three categories. Step 4: Follow up and track competence. The final step in any talent improvement model is measuring and following up. Measurement means tracking the quality of the HR professionals and of the investments to develop the HR professionals. We have worked with a number of companies that have consistently done HR 360-degree reviews to track the quality of their HR professionals. Having a baseline of HR performance and then regularly benchmarking against that baseline allows HR leaders to present progress to their business leaders. Additionally, it is important to test the extent to which HR investments yield results outlined in Phase 2. Actively measuring the impact of investments in HR people against the stated outcomes of the transformation will ensure alignment and create continued emphasis on the right results. Phase 4: Accountability A successful process of HR transformation involves the right people at the right time in the right way. We call this phase 4, but it is a critical feature of all phases. The importance of involvement in successful change management is well established. We know from decades of social-psychological research that people are more likely to be committed to activities or decisions in which they are involved. This has particularly importantand not entirely obviousimplications for HR leaders and professionals engaged in transformation. If HR professionals plan the transformation in a vacuum, others whose perspectives are needed during planning or whose commitment is needed during
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Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank & Justin Allen outcomes of the HR transformation will articulate what line managers can expect from investments in HR. A true HR transformation will reinforce the line managers' ownership and responsibility for delivering the right organization and talent to meet stakeholder needs. External customers and investors: HR Leaders and Line Manager must seek the guidance of external customers and investors throughout the HR transformation to ensure relevance. Often HR transformation comes from and is driven by an internal logic. Frequently logic, language, and practices of HR focus on employees' needs. As an alternative, as stated above, HR must be built from the outside in and should focus on its impact on external stakeholders who matter to the company. We build on the basic economic principle that ultimately anything we do on the inside of a company must create value for those on the outside, or what we do is irrelevant. Organizations exist not to fulfill their own purposes but to fulfill the purposes for which society allows them to exist. The clear understanding of business realities so essential for real HR transformation is generally rooted in the expectations and experiences of customers and investors. Consultants and advisers: We recommend the judicious and targeted use of outside consultants as partners in advancing the HR transformation. As consultants and educators, we have seen clients who employ the services of consultants effectively and also those who do not. Those who have successfully
DAVE ULRICH Dave Ulrich is a Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and a partner at the RBL Group a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value. He studies how organizations build capabilities of leadership, speed, learning, accountability, and talent through leveraging human resources. He has helped generate award winning data bases that assess alignment between strategies, organization capabilities, HR practices, HR competencies, and customer and investor results. He has published over 175 articles and book chapters and 23 books. He edited Human Resource Management 1990-1999, served on editorial board

engaged external consultants,hire them with the specific request to offer frameworks and insights developed and proven over time, and point out potholes those others have stumbled into. If focused, our experience suggests that consultants can add value in a number of specific ways and at a number of specific points in the process. With clear role definition and rigorous accountability, an HR Transformation can and will be successful as each player plays the specific role they are called to fill. Conclusion As depicted above, a true HR transformation is an integrated, aligned, innovative, and businessfocused approach to redefine how HR work is done within an organization so that it helps the organization deliver promises made to customers, investors, and other stakeholders. Ultimately, a successful HR transformation increases the value HR adds to the business. As leaders complete the four phases of HR Transformation, HR professionals become full partners in helping a business move forward. HR can help organizations get the maximum value from their people and their organization while ensuring that they treat them as individuals with unique needs, aspirations, and dreams. What a privilege to be able to be HR professionals who can achieve goals that improve both the world of business and the world of people.

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JIGYASA 2011
of 4 Journals, on the Board of Directors for Herman Miller, and Board of Trustees at Southern Virginia University, and is a Fellow in the National Academy of Human Resources. Honours include: Ranked #1 most influential international thought leader in Human Resource by HR Magazine. Listed in Thinkers 50 as a management thought leader Named by Fast Company as one of the 10 most innovative and creative thinkers of 2005 Listed in Forbes as one of the world's top five business coaches Society for Human Resource Management award for Professional Excellence for lifetime contributions He has consulted and done research with over half of the Fortune 200. WAYNE BROCKBANK Dr. Wayne Brockbank is a Clinical Professor of Business at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. His teaching focuses on strategic human resource management, strategy and implementation, and international business. At the University of Michigan's Executive Education Centre, Professor Brockbank is Director of the Centre for Strategic Human Resource Leadership. He is the Faculty Director of the Strategic Human Resource Planning Program and the Advanced Human Resource Executive Program. He is the Co-Director of the Human Resource Executive Program. Professor Brockbank completed his Ph.D. at UCLA where he specialized in business policy and strategy, organization theory, and international business. He received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Organizational Behaviour from Brigham Young University. He is the Director of the Michigan Human Resource Executive Programs in Hong Kong, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and India as well as the Michigan Global Program in Management Development in India. JUSTIN ALLEN Justin is a Principle with The RBL Group and the Head of Operations for RBL's Leadership Practice. He is dedicated to advancing the fields of Leadership and Strategic HR by connecting leaders with practical tools, leading edge theory, and opportunities to learn from each other. Justin began his career as an international researcher in labour statistics and holds a master's degree in business management and organizational behaviour. Justin came to RBL from GE where he was consistently rated 'top talent'. In his tenure at GE, Justin worked as an HR Manager in a diverse business unit where he oversaw performance management, leadership development, staffing, communications, and union relations. Justin works with HR leaders in the top companies in the world, including P&G, Goldman Sachs, Intel, Unilever, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Wal-Mart, J&J, Pfizer, and Nokia.

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PUBLIC SECTOR: MYTH V/S REALITY

VC Agarwal, Former DirectorIndian Oil Corporation Ltd.
The Indian economy has witnessed a significant growth during the past decades. Most of this growth has been attributed to the private corporate sector; while the public sector fought hard to maintain its standing in the eyes of the newer generation. Little knowledge about the public sector has led to misconceptions which in turn have led to several irrational comparisons between the two sectors in terms of efficiency and the work culture and the newer generation of managers choosing private sector over public sector. This little knowledge has thus become dangerous. For a developing country like India, it is imperative that the public sector flourish so that the country's socio-economic goals are met. The need of the hour is to make the younger generation realize the importance of the public sector so that the most microscopic of the progress made and effort put in this sector contributes towards the greater good of the nation.

Public Sector: The Inception During the pre-independence era there was almost no public sector, with only the Railways, the Post and Telegraphs, the Port Trust and the Ordinance factories and a few Government managed undertakings like the Government salt factories, quinine factories etc making up the Public Sector. It was only after India's liberation that it saw the dominance of the public sector, the rationale being to realize economic self-reliance for the good of the country. The passage of Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 and adoption of socialist pattern of society led to a deliberate enlargement of our public sector. The Need for Public Sector in India In the wake of independence, India met with many socio-economic challenges. Such challenges demanded well thought out and systematic planning. India was by and large an agrarian economy with a weak industrial base, low level of savings, inadequate investment and lack of infrastructural

facilities. Inequalities in terms of income and levels of employment, regional imbalances in economic development and lack of trained manpower prevailed. The private sector at that time did not have the necessary resources, the managerial and scientific skill. Consequently, the State's intervention in all the sectors of the economy became inevitable, prevention of concentration of power in a few hands being one of the important reasons. Considering the type and range of problems faced, it became a pragmatic compulsion to use the public sector as an instrument for self-reliant economic growth, with the objectives of: 1. Ensuring the rapid economic development and industrialization of the country and creating necessary infrastructure for economic development. 2. Promoting redistribution of income and wealth.

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JIGYASA 2011 3. Creating employment opportunities 4. Promoting import substitutions: - saving and earning foreign exchange for the economy. From the time India became independent, there was a huge requirement of capital, trained manpower and technology. Therefore, it became imperative for the nation to build a strong and effective public sector to produce trained manpower and develop technologies. The Growth of Public Sector Public sector enterprises in India have grown from only five enterprises post independence and with an investment of ` 0.3 bn in the year 1951 to 249 enterprises as on Mar 31, 2010. Aggregate investment in Central PSUs has been increasing over the years. Total investment, including equity plus long-term loans of Central PSUs went up from ` 5,135.32 bn in FY09 to ` 5799.20 bn in FY10, growing 12.93%.The Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSUs) makes invaluable contribution to the country's planned development and to Government revenues, besides earning profits, increasing internal resource generation and creating wealth for the shareholders. During FY10, net profit of profit making Central PSUs stood at ` 1084.35 bn compared with ` 984.88 bn in the previous year. The increased profits are being channelled into planned investment as PSEs have proposed to contribute from internal resources for planned investments. Overall profit of all Central PSUs stood at ` 925.93 bn during FY10 and dividend declared by such Central PSUs stood at ` 332.23 bn. The CPSEs earned foreign exchange equal ` 777.45 bn during the year compared with ` 742.06 bn in FY09. Besides increased profitability, CPSE stocks have led the growth of the Sensex by registering year-on-year growth. In one single year, the listed PSEs, to talling 48, including banks, created an additional wealth in terms of increasing market capitalization. The market capitalization of the listed PSEs has also increased, reflecting the increased confidence of investors. Is Private Sector Better than Public Sector? - Myth Busted There are certain prevalent misconceptions pertaining to the public sector. 1. Many people are found to hold the general opinion that the private sectors are more efficient from the operational point of view. The comparisons are not always objective and are frequently confined to some successful private undertakings, ignoring the numerous failures and bankruptcies. While making such comparisons one should take into account the social implications of the two types of ventures. The parameter to judge should be the performance of the company; whether in the public sector or in the private. There are good companies and bad companies both in the private and the public domain. For instance the TATA's are in the private sector and very well respected. Their systems and procedures are very professional. There functioning is not much different in comparison to any of the successful public sector companies. Similarly, in the public sector, there are examples of good companies like IOC, ONGC, NTPC, BHEL and many more. The point to be taken into account is whether the working of the organization is professional or not. Ownership, per se, does not decide whether an enterprise will be good or bad.

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VC Agarwal, Former Director-Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. 2. It is claimed that the profit motive acts effectively in the private sector while in the public sector, where the profit accrues to government; this motive fails to inspire either the managers or the workers. This may have been true of the private sector when there was a link between ownership and management. With the rise of large private sector concerns, however, and the inevitable dichotomy between ownership and management, this is no longer valid. If at all, the motivational factor works in favor of the public sector since a successful public undertaking benefits the nation rather than enriching a few individuals for whom they work. The Public Sector: An Agent of Development The public sector is vital from the logic of development. If development is pictured as a noholds barred race in which the strong has an advantage, the private sector development which operates through market forces can have a case. If, on the other hand, equity is regarded as an inalienable feature of development, and if social good, and not the motive for profit maximization, is to prevail, it is the public sector that has the upper hand.
V.C. Agarwal He was previously Director (HR) Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. Mr. V.C. Agarwal is presently President HR RPG Enterprise. He has completed his B.Tech (Electrical) from IIT-Roorkee

For a developing country like India the social imperative of the public sector is even stronger. The problems faced by developing economies can be tackled only by deliberate planning for social good, where profit plays only a secondary role. It is important to understand that the Indian economy faces a shortage of vital resources, capital, foreign exchange and even skilled and trained manpower. Under such conditions, if the economy was run with a view to make profits, the developmental activity would accommodate solely to those with high purchasing power, leaving little or nothing for the masses. The poverty amelioration that we see today in the country is in large measure due to the wealth created by the public sector. The Corporate too is chipping in through various Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives to improve the quality of living for the less fortunate. The Public Sector has contributed significantly to the cause of the nation and the present generation should realize that for the sake of generations which are yet to come, it is imperative for the public sector to succeed. It is also essential for the young Indian managers to realize that they should contribute and participate in the development of India, whether it is in public sector or the private.

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Leadership: stepping into the right shoes at the right time

Neha Gupta Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad
An absorbing article introducing the constituents of the right amalgam of leadership styles which a manager needs to excel in the art of leadership. The part played by emotional intelligence in achieving this goal is highlighted using a detailed case study of the exceptional comeback of SBI as a major market player under the leadership of Mr. O.P. Bhatt. Management is doing the things right Leadership is doing the right things. -Peter Ducker Peter Drucker, Father of modern management distinguished between a manager and a leader with his renowned quote. With the distinction becoming more relevant in times of accelerated change and increased complexity, 'leadership' is an imperative for any progressive organization. The print, web and visual media are replete with stories of leaders who catapulted their organizations from gallows of death to spectacular heights. This article aims to further reflect on an individual's leadership style and importance of managing emotions of self and others. INTRODUCTION If one were to list down the decade's five most popularly used (or rather abused) management jargons, undoubtedly 'Leadership' would figure amongst the chartbusters with perhaps 'Innovation', ' E nt re p re n e u rs h i p ' , ' C h a n ge ' a n d ' S o c i a l Responsibility.' Notwithstanding the overuse of these terms in management conclaves, leadership is the sounding board for any organization to stay competitive in the global arena. Moreover, every initiative to unleash innovation, entrepreneurship, change or social responsibility is spearheaded by a leader. But a leader can work wonders if he employs
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the appropriate leadership style to steer the emotions of organizational members. Daniel Goleman in his celebrated article Leadership That Gets Result (2000) identified six leadership styles namely Commanding, Visionary, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting, and Coaching. Every style is associated with various elements of four domains of emotional intelligence i.e. Self awareness, Selfmanagement, Social awareness, Relationship management in different combinations. Emotional intelligence refers to the capacity for recognizing one's own feelings and those of others, for motivating oneself, and for managing emotions in ourselves and in our relationships. The art of leadership requires an ability to tune into the emotional and cognitive needs of people by using the leadership style apt for a particular situation/ audience. Given the vast gamut of dynamic and volatile emotions, a leader has to be adept at switching gears from one style to another or employing a combination of styles to achieve the desired results. Understanding the powerful role of emotions in the workplace sets the best leaders apart from the rest - not just in tangibles such as better profit margins and lower attrition, but also in

Neha Gupta, Indian School of Business important intangibles, such as higher morale, motivation, and employee engagement. Thus, driving the collective emotions in a positive direction and clearing the smog, created by toxic emotions remains the primordial emotional task of the leader (Goleman, 2011). The recent research in the field of leadership (Ramnarayan and Gupta, forthcoming) suggests that the most effective leaders use an assemblage of distinct leadership styles in varying degrees and at appropriate times. Interestingly, the studies contend that these styles can be learnt and imbibed into our personality over a period of time with a conscious effort at honing our leadership skills. Well, the revelation about the ability to learn leadership styles is heartening for all the organizations spending big bucks on LDPs (Leadership Development Programs) or SILPs (Stepping into Leadership Programs). LEADERSHIP STYLES: A PRIMER According to Primal Leadership (2002), every leadership style is blessed with a set of positive attributes and distinct areas of emphasis (Refer Figure 1). A close look at the characteristic behaviors and focus areas of six leadership styles does not only facilitate self-assessment of individual style, but also deepens the understanding of styles displayed by people around us. It helps us in managing our peers and subordinates better in addition to establishing effective working relationship with our superiors.

Step 1: Articulate a theory and set a standard. In the last 20 years we have

Commanding increases: Control, Execution Coaching increases: Competence, Innovation 6 LEADERSHIP STYLES Visionary increases: Direction, Hope Pace setting increases: Result, Ambition Democratic increases: Involvement, Committment

Affiliative increases: Trust, Closeness

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JIGYASA 2011 Commanding (Immediate tasks, Chain of command, Obedience, Execution and Problem solving) - Gives clear directives, specifies expectations and areas of responsibility. - Forceful and strong in taking initiatives and generating impact. - Expects guidelines to be followed exactly, topdown decision making. - Loyal to superior's decisions and expects compliance from subordinates. - Good at controlling emotions when difficult decisions need to be executed. Affiliative (Well-being of people, Relationships, Openness, Team spirit and harmony) - Creates harmony in team and forges strong emotional bonds. - Nurtures personal relationship and strives to keep people happy. - Shares her/his emotions openly and encourages the same. - Senses the feelings, needs and perspectives of others. - Skilled at resolving conflicts between people. Democratic (Group processes, Participation, Involvement, Dialogue, Psychological ownership of task) - Facilitates participatory decision making. - Encourages subordinates to take part in defining goals and fosters team spirit. - Gives priority to communication and collaboration over meeting targets.
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- Delegates responsibility; asks and listens to employees. Prefers rewarding the team rather than recognizing individual contributors. Visionary (The future, Inspiration, shared vision, larger picture, Passion to achieve shared objective) - Articulates where we are going as a team. - In the process, inspires others to visualize a common goal and the larger purpose of work/life. - Encourages people to take calculated risks to achieve larger goals without any fear of failure. - Shares with people their roles in the growth of the organization. - Initiates changes and drives new campaigns when necessary to achieve impact. Pace Setting (The goal, High work pace, Efficiency and quality, Best professional solution, excellence) - Sets high standards of performance for both herself/himself and team. - Very ambitious and goal-oriented. Displays and expects excellence in performance. - Places quality of results ahead of employee satisfaction. - Often possesses maximum knowledge about the tasks. Does not tolerate poor work. - Leads the way in handling new tasks. Coaching (Building of competencies, Creativity, Independence and flexibility, Future challenges) - Develops people and acts as a coach/counselor rather than a superior.

Neha Gupta, Indian School of Business - Helps people in building and achieving long term development plan. - Intimately understands every person's strengths and areas of improvement. - Provides regular feedback and guidance to help people achieve their goals. - Good at spotting development potential in other people. Five Steps towards Learning Leadership Skills Primal Leadership (2004) shares a five step process for learning and improving our leadership skills. In each of these steps, listening skills and empathy plays an instrumental role. We should be open to not only listening to ourselves but also recognize the spoken and unspoken feedback/signalsfrom multiple stakeholders. As a leader, empathy is the route to active listening and establishing a heightened emotional connection with employees. As Harvay Mackay once said, "You learn when you listen. You earn when you listen - not just money, but respect." The five steps towards leadership are: Step 1: Identify one's ideal self Draw a picture of the person one aspires to be by discovering and listening to one's core values and beliefs. Reflect on questions like: What's important to me? What am I passionate about? What does my "gut" say to me? What are my aspirations? Step 2: Identify the real self Draw an image of the real person by discovering how one appears to others, regardless of one's selfimage. Listening to one's self (self awareness) and others as well as coaching and 360-degree feedback from peers, subordinates, supervisors, customers etc. are useful tools. Step 3: Create a plan to develop strengths and reduce gaps Compare one's ideal self to one's real self to identify strengths (where one is as capable in areas as aspired) and gaps (where one isn't as effective as desired). Step 4: Experiment with oneselfbehaviorally, emotionally and cognitively Experiment with one self to inculcate new skills and achieve desirable changes. These behavioral, emotional and cognitive experiments should be according to the plan in step 3. Step 5: Develop a support system Develop trust and relationships that provide support during the learning process. It should take place concurrently with steps 1 through 4. DIFFERENT SHADES OF LEADERSHIP India, an emerging economy which is gaining prominence in the global marketplace, has witnessed a wide array of leaders like Narayan Murthy, Nitish Kumar, Ratan Tata, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Mamta Banerjee etc., each displaying a different shade of leadership. From the preindependence era, when a democratic Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi called for Swadeshi movement to the recent victory of Indian Cricket team led by pace-setter Mahendra Singh Dhoni in 2011 World Cup, the adeptness of leaders in the primal task of driving emotions in the right direction sets them apart. Even the accounts of JRD Tata, the socialist visionary who championed the cause of his employees, Mamta Banerjee who swept through West Bengal assembly elections, and Pullela Gopichand who coached Saina Nehwal to world ranking 3 in badminton narrate a similar story.
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JIGYASA 2011 Hence, it's not just the assemblage of different leadership styles but the ability to use them effectively to steer the emotions of various stakeholders that determines the success of a leader. The spectacular turnaround of State Bank of India establishes the importance of different leadership styles. Leadership @ SBI: Drawing People to Drive and Deliver Results The transformation of the State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest public sector bank under the stewardship of Mr. O.P. Bhatt (2009), has been nothing short of a dream ride. Post-liberalization, with the advent of private and multinational banks in the nation, the country's oldest bank with over 200,000 employees and 16,000 branches started losing its customers and its numerouno position due to lack of customer orientation, outdated technology and inefficient business processes. These problems were compounded with the leadership pool - top management at SBI had become an ageing group. In the early 2000s, the tech-savvy private banks provided higher quality of customer service which surpassed the public sector banks. The front line staff was de-motivated as the dwindling number of customers grew unabated. The bank's growth rate was slower as compared to the competitors. The leadership at SBI could feel a sense of urgency to 'perform or perish' but the employees at this iconic organization failed to perceive the impending crisis. In 2006, Mr. O.P. Bhatt, a lifetime SBI-insider was appointed as the new Chairman. A conclave was organized by the Chairman inviting the top management of all the branches across the country. The agenda of the conclave was how to communicate the need for change. The top management team led by Bhatt began to brainstorm, explore and generate
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ideas for initiating the transformation process. The first and foremost initiative was to communicate the need for change in the organization spanning all levels of employees across every branch. In this regard, 'Parivartan' (meaning 'Change') program was launched within the organization. Key employees at every level were identified and educated about the urgency to adapt to the changing banking landscape through a training program. The bank provided training to enable the selected employees to don the role of the messengers of change in their respective branches. They set a challenging target of 100 days to reach out to all the employees and to their own surprise, met it too. Interestingly, after a long time, the organizational members were joined by a shared vision and were enthused to change the destiny of the bank. After establishing a 'sense of urgency' among employees and 'building a powerful guiding coalition' to facilitate change, the Chairman embarked on the job of articulating the new vision of SBI. O.P Bhatt set upon the transformation journey by redefining the vision of SBI. In continuation of the first initiative and as a part of the transformation exercise, the change team worked actively to energize, empower and sustain the momentum of change among employees. The Chairman, along with the organizational members began a co-creation exercise to evolve the new vision statement for the bank by using participative approach. The vision, the fundamental elements of an organization's identity are often vague in the minds of the employees. SBI was not an exception. It was difficult to find a soul on SBI's payroll who knew the vision, word by word. No wonder, employees were not ashamed of their ignorance because the vision statement was very long and confusing. It was a complex, verbose statement, indistinct from several other

Neha Gupta, Indian School of Business organizations. Interestingly, it made no reference to 'customers.' The leadership wanted to rearticulate the vision of SBI to enable employees to internalize it. The leadership team gradually built awareness about the need to redefine the vision statement. Unlike the common practice of developing the vision in consultation with only top management, Bhatt decided to engage 2,00,000 employees at SBI. Even though, it was a herculean task to involve the entire workforce, they didn't shy away from it. An external consultant in addition to internal change agents was appointed to facilitate the co-creation exercise to reformulate the vision. The aim was to provide an opportunity to every organizational member to think about the challenges encountering SBI and see their role in shaping the bank's future. As a first step, the change facilitators were sent for training programs to initiate the process of envisioning. They were trained to encourage discussions among employees about the bank and its vision at tea time, lunch hour, etc. A series of five posters were created. They were sent to 16, 000 offices one after another, every week. The leadership team led by the Chairman ensured that each branch displayed a set of posters in places accessible only to employees. The posters consisted of statements like: Today we are India's largest bank. How do we become India's best?; State Bank of India has got 140 million customers. How do you make each customer feel that s/he is the most important? The posters generated intrigue and triggered informal discussions amongst employees. With persistent efforts of change agents, the employees started talking about it, thinking about it, and debating about it. In the process, they unconsciously began thinking about the bank. The unintended benefit of the exercise was that employees were being brought together by a common thought. In the sixth week, every SBI employee received a letter from the Chairman with a questionnaire. The questionnaire had 10 multiple choice questions, each with three choices to select from. They were given 10 days to fill the questionnaire and send it back. The questions included: What is SBI's biggest challenge?,What can give SBI the winning edge?, What should SBI be famous for?, and so on. The whole process garnered phenomenal response from 141,000 employees, which became the input for developing the final vision. The results were tabulated by the consultants and further a sample of 200 was selected to discuss and include their opinion in a meaningful manner. Bhatt shared with beaming pride, As a result, the new vision: My SBI, My customer first, My SBI: First in customer satisfaction was articulated where 90 percent of the employees were able to see their contribution.And the rest is history with SBI's unshakeable supremacy in the Indian banking industry and a seemingly permanent seat in the Fortune 500 list. CONCLUDING NOTE The journey of SBI highlights the importance of establishing an emotional connection with the employees while shifting gears from one style to another. O.P. Bhatt, a lifetime SBI-insider had risen through the ranks during his long association with SBI. He was indeed adept at donning an appropriate leadership style that was coherent with the occasion and the emotions of the people. He not only successfully led the humongous workforce over 200,000 in the same direction but managed to engage everyone's energy towards a unified larger purpose. He was a visionary in unraveling the
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JIGYASA 2011 manifest potential of the century old bank and its loyal employees. He could envisage the declining bank as the top Indian bank at a time when technologically sophisticated and customer oriented private banks were making inroads into the banking sector. But, the visionary Bhatt was not only aware of his real & ideal self, but could also discern the bank's aspiration-reality gap. With the realization of 'employee engagement' as his key strength, Bhatt was willing to try out the novel approach of co-creating the vision of SBI. He was an achiever who displayed the shades of a pacesetterby setting a formidable deadline of 100 days to reach out to the entire employee base. He wanted to harness the collective resources of organizational members in achieving the larger goal instead of confining it to the mahogany boardrooms. Bhatt comfortably donned the democratic role when he sought inputs from over 2,00,000 employees across the nation in rearticulating the vision. Selection and training of change agents to facilitate discussions about bank's future and vision among employees during lunch, teas breaks etc. was akin to a behavioral experiment. The learning and development initiatives undertaken to equip the change agents with conceptual frameworks and emotional intelligence created a reliable support system for Bhatt and employees at large. After establishing the psychological safety net of a capable change management team, he became a co-learner in the process. During the transformation journey, he commanded, coached and empathized with the change team in particular and employees in general to sustain the momentum of change at SBI. With sheer 'Grit, Guts & Gumption' as noted by Rajesh Chakrabarti (2010), O.P. Bhatt averted the decline of the bank. The transformation of SBI is a living story of a leader stepping into the right shoes at the right time to tune into the emotional and cognitive needs of all the employees. Thomas Jefferson's quotation on leadership beautifully sums up the idea conveyed in this article. In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stands like a rock. - Thomas Jefferson

References Bhatt, O.P. (2009): Inaugural Key Note Address on Transformation & Growth of State Bank of India during Global OD Summit, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, August, 19-22, 2009. Chakrabarti, R. (2010): Grits, Guts and Gumption- Driving Change in a State Owned Giant, Penguin Publishers, India. Goleman, D. (2000): Leadership that Gets Results, 'Harvard Business Review', pp 1-13. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., Mckee, A. (2002): Primal Leadership: Realizing The Power Of Emotional Intelligence, Harvard Business School Press, USA. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., Mckee, A. (2004): Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence, Harvard Business School Press, USA. Ramnarayan, S. and Gupta, N. (forthcoming), Leadership Style Inventory in Organization Development: Accelerating Learning and Transformation by S. Ramnarayan and TV Rao (Eds.), Sage Publication, New Delhi.

Neha Gupta Neha Gupta, Researcher at Centre for Leadership, Innovation, and Change (CLIC) at Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad holds a MBA in HR and B.E. in E&C.She has co-authored chapters in the forthcoming book 'Organization Development: Accelerating Transformation and Learning' edited by S. Ramnarayan and T.V. Rao, which includes contributions from eminent OD practitioners like Udai Pareek, and Marvin Weisbord. She has published articles, book reviews in leading HR magazines like Human Capital, NHRD Newsletter. (neha_gupta@isb.edu)

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Talent Acquisition - Challenge or Fun?

Ashish Kumar PVR Ltd
Talent acquisition is a major problem that companies are facing these days. They have to concentrate first on recruiting the right talent and in the right amount for performing a specific job. Secondly, the job specifications that the company gives should not be more than what is actually needed by the company, because if that happens, the employer and the employee, both will be disappointed in each other. Ashish Kumar explains companies also need to understand the labour market, so as to ensure that they are covering a large part of the market and getting the best talent available. Once, the hiring is done, the retention of good talent must be ensured by the HR managers. Talent Acquisition nowadays is one of the toughest elements of the HR deliverables for any HR Manager & his team involved in recruitments. There are tremendous pressures of hiring the right and the best talent available in the market. Things look more difficult when you are in a fast growing environment; as most of the companies are on expansion &diversification of their respective businesses. My own personal experiences with recruiting have been great fun and a valuable learning experience and I have always been able to motivate my recruiters to hire the best talent. Chasing high number targets & time lines can be fun but it is a challenge as well. It's a fact that good talent is very difficult to hunt and sometimes even a nightmare. I would like to quote a classical example of hiring an executive secretary for my Country Manager in one my assignments, where the position and profile looked very simple but eventually it turned out to be a very difficult position to fill . The most commonly faced challenge is meeting the time lines or the TATs (Turn Around Time) for closing a particular position. To minimize the stress of the HR recruiters, we need to have the following in place: Having a Plan: A good recruitment plan helps organizations to assess future manpower needs, plan the channels of sourcing, develop promotion and career development policies, anticipate and avoid redundancies, develop a workforce to meet changing requirements, control manpower costs whilst ensuring salaries remain competitive and assess future requirements for capital equipment, technology etc. Proper Profiling of the position: Drawing up the person-specification allows the organisation to profile the ideal person to fill the job. It is very important that the skills, aptitudes and knowledge included in the specifications are related precisely to the needs of the job; if they are inflated beyond those necessary for effective job performance, the risk is that someone will be employed on the basis of false hopes and aspirations, and both the employer and the employee will end up disappointed in each other. The very process of writing a job and person specification should help the employer to develop and implement a policy of equal opportunity in the recruitment & selection of employees.
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JIGYASA 2011 Judicious Use of the Hiring channels: Based on the various vacancies, the HR recruiter has to use all the possible channels of sourcing the resumes. Some of the channels could be: Internal Promotions, Transfers & Re-hires Press Advertisements / Job Portals Employee referrals Direct walk-ins Educational Institutions & Coaching Institutes Placement Consultants/ Employment Exchanges Outsourcing the complete recruitment function Understanding of Labour Market: Recruiters need to keep abreast of changes in the labour market to ensure that their recruitment efforts are not wasted or directed at too small a pool of labour. Skill shortages may occur unexpectedly and recruitment and training processes need to be kept flexible. It is a good idea for any organization to plan its labour force requirements, matching available supply against forecast demand. Robust Selection Process: Recruiting people who are a misfit for the organization can lead to increased labour turnover, increased costs for the organisation and lowering of morale in the existing workforce. Hence, it becomes extremely important for the HR managers to develop and follow a stringent selection process which may include employee profiling to be conducted by professional organizations like Gallup or Thomas; based on preferences & the requirements of the organization. Recruitment at times can get very monotonous; hence the recruiters may tend to lose their focus and may slow down in their service delivery. To keep them motivated, there needs to be a score card Employer Branding: The organization has to create its impact on the potential population from where the hiring has to be done as the applicants today have numerous choices and their awareness level is quite high. An effective website can prove helpful apart from impressive advertisements. The employers also need to encourage a good 'work-life balance' within the organisation by giving consideration to more flexible ways of working through job-sharing, part-time working, flexi-time, working from home etc. Remember, the word of mouth; which are your own existing employees can have a deep impact in attracting the best talent. In times of changing labour markets, organisations need to adapt their recruitment and retention policies to allow them to compete more effectively for staff, particularly those with skills that are in short supply. Recruiters' certification: All HR team members engaged in recruitments should be given formal training through a structured Interview skill workshop and on the job exposure before he/she is certified to conduct the interviews and get completely involved in the hiring process. The recruiter has to be proficient in handling the office peers and HODs on the one hand and the hiring consultants on the other; who may simply try to throw their weight and influence the selection process. The recruiter has to be completely unbiased & professional while in action for the selection process. Recruiters' Score card & Incentives:

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Ashish Kumar, PVR Ltd which finally culminates in getting variable incentives for the better recruiters. This would create positive competition within the team & quality of work will definitely show an upward trend. I am very confident that if the above suggestions are implemented by any Head of HR or HR managers for acquisition of good quality talent from the scarce pool in the market, there would be minimal challenges to encounter. The employers also have the legal responsibility to ensure that no unlawful discrimination occurs in the recruitment and selection process on the grounds of sex, race,

Mr. Ashish Kumar He is designated as Chief HR Officer at PVR Limited, Gurgaon (India). He brings with him a vast total work experience of 21 years, where he got the blended experience of both IR & HR domains. He has successfully handled gamut of HR functions like Talent Acquisition, Employee Engagement, Implementation of Best HR Policies & Practices, Training & Development, Change Management, Developing focused HR teams, HR automation, & has handled registered Employee Unions.He has an expertise on Start-up & setting up companies; the most prominent example here is Convergys India where his contributions have been recognized. He also had a brief stint with HR Consultancy company; Hewitt Associates. He has been associated with various project based assignments like Recruitment and setting up HR systems in Thailand, Singapore etc. He has undergone numerous Management Development programs across the globe (which includes Harvard Business School &Gallup GMP programs). He has also closely worked on ISO, Six Sigma & Green Belt quality certifications. He is also a certified coach of Gallup on their developmental tools 'Clifton Strengths Finder'. He is a visiting faculty in some premier business schools of our country, which includes MHROD-Delhi School of Economics. He also visits FMS-Delhi and few more business schools of India for Guest Lectures, Orientation and various sessions for guiding the students.

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MANAGEMENT EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY

VC Agarwal, RPG Enterprise
India's economy is a booming one. Article highlights about our high resources and also on the talent to utilise those resources in the right direction to produce the desired outputs. It points out that we as HR managers, have to stay relevant, to sustain our growth. Writer helps us to understand the managers generated by the universities have less of practical knowledge, due to which they face many problems when they first enter the industry. It highlights the difference between what the industries need and what the academia produces. THE BOOMING INDIAN ECONOMY 'Young @ 60' the new India is really making its presence felt in the Global conscience. With India's GDP touching 1 trillion US $, it is now the 10th largest economy in the world in terms of GDP. India is one of only three countries that makes supercomputers (after US and Japan), one of six countries that launches satellites. The Bombay stock exchange lists more than 6,000 companies, only the NYSE has more. By volume of pharmaceuticals produced, the Indian pharmaceutical industry is the world's second largest after China. India has the second largest community of software developers and has the second largest network of paved highways, after the U.S. India is the world's largest producer of milk, and among the top five producers of sugar, cotton, tea, coffee, spices, rubber, silk, and fish. One hundred of the Fortune 500 companies have R&D facilities in India. The Indian population living abroad is also making waves. About two million people of Indian origin live in the USA and Indian-born Americans are among the most affluent and best educated of the recent immigrant groups in the U.S. 30% of the R&D researchers in American pharmaceutical companies are Indian Americans. Nearly 49% of the high-tech start- ups in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. are
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owned by Indians or Indian-Americans. There are over 700 companies in Silicon Valley owned by Indian-Americans. India sends more students to U.S. colleges than any country in the world. STILL A LONG WAY TO GO In the face of such tremendous growth, India seems to struggle in many fronts. Agricultural production for instance has remained almost stagnant for last couple of years. Quality of infrastructure still remains poor, with many areas being devoid of good transport links and developed communication channels, and sufficient power supplies. Increasing pollution has made the 'Environmental Cost of Growth' high. We are also in a paradox of skill shortage and increasing unemployment at the same time. More than 35% population is still below the poverty line. Although India is home to 20% of world population, India's share in the world output is still less than 5% (against 14% of China) and that in world export is less than 1%. The success of IT sector has showed the not so good performance in manufacturing sector. THE SLEW OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR MANAGEMENT GRADUATES So in this high octane environment, what is there for

VC Agarwal, RPG Enterprise young management graduates? One thing is sure they all are at the right place at the right time. The corporate India is at hiring spree and continuously looking for the right, trainable people. India produces about 4 lakh engineers every year and as per industry sources 50% of them are trainable. IT and Service sector has a target of recruiting about 1.75 lakhs of these students, virtually leaving nothing for the other sectors. While this is not a happy situation for the recruiters, it is welcomed as far as the students are concerned. There are more and more overseas posting opportunities during campus selections from the management and technical institutes. There would be more opportunities as Indian retail is coming of age and set to generate $430 billion from the current $328 billion with the entry of big players such as Bharti-Wal-Mart and Reliance and some other foreign players. According to the reports, more than U.S. $30 billion investment is in the pipelines in this sector. This exponential growth is expected to generate 18 million jobs, thereby becoming the second-largest employmentgenerating sector after agriculture. In the present scenario, there are six relevant issues, which need to be considered by the students as well management institutes: 1. STAYING RELEVANT FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH Salary and number of jobs that are offered cannot be the means to an end for pursuing management study. The challenge is to be relevant in the years to come. All management students have to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy. In a churning global marketplace, understanding the fundamental connections between business, the environment, and society has become essential. The roles and responsibilities of business as a global force are becoming more urgent and complex, and concepts related to societal responsibility and sustainability are gaining recognition as essential elements in business management. Sustainability means providing for today keeping an eye on the capability to provide for tomorrow. That is where management education is so very important and relevant. The globalisation is here not only to stay but to gain momentum. The most important sign of economic globalization is the emergence of global companies who build their strengths not on size, but on the effective allocation of capital, technology, production, management and other elements on a worldwide basis. In fact, management authors are already talking of borderless world, where in the next global stage, national boundaries do not matter. 2. THE MYTH V/S REALITY OF MANAGEMENT EDUCATION There are some myths about management education in India. The courses in two years duration are often considered to be the panacea of all real life management problems. Fresh graduates out of management institutes often try to analyse real life problems with the knowledge acquired within the four walls of the class rooms. That is why at the beginning of their career, they find the real world so unreal. The truth is that the real world is much more complex and a lot of factors influence the decision, which is incomprehensible in a classroom situation. That is why certain degree of flexibility in unlearning and re-conceptualisation is important. It has now been proved beyond doubt that at different stages in professional life, wholly different types of management education becomes essential. At the onset of careers, managers must be functionally competent.
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JIGYASA 2011 As they take on more responsibility, they must have a grasp of context and strategy. As they rise higher in the ranks, they must develop the leadership skills needed to understand and influence people. As they become CEOs and other top executives, they must develop the reflective skills to understand what they wish to accomplish. This brings us to the fundamental question of what is the purpose of management. 3. THE PURPOSE OF MANAGEMENT: CUSTOMER FIRST In our over enthusiasm to jargonize and implement the state-of-the-art technologies, sometimes the basic purpose of management takes a back seat. As a practicing manager, one must always believe that the Management Bottom Line is to serve customers. Yet if one looks through most management books, most of the time the word customer will not be mentioned. This is astonishing because serving customers in order to earn profit is the crux of every business organization. There are some simple but worthy rules in any business: Every business is an accumulation of the decisions it makes. Allow your paying customers (the ones who ultimately pay your salary) to be the reason for your existence by catering to their needs. One-size-fits-all does not work. Different situations require different managerial approaches. Admitting mistakes early is good. Facing errors, apologizing for them, and rectifying them, does not make one look foolish or small. Instead, it makes one look like a very good manager.
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Serve your customers well and your customers will serve you well. 4. QUALITIES OF GOOD MANAGERS Based on the above premise, some good qualities that managers need to possess in order to succeed in life are: Good managers keep their organizations on track by ensuring that everything that's being done is ethically geared towards providing what customers want. A good manager is responsible for reducing ambiguity, keeping costs down, and motivating others to do the same. Good managers regularly take educated risks and exercise good judgment. These risks include trying new things, successfully adjusting to constant change, developing subordinates and improving their own skill. Importantly good managers aren't afraid of letting other people shine, in fact they encourage it. To become competent in management, two sets of distinct, yet general skills are needed viz. the general management skills and the specific management skills: i) General Management Skills include: o Conceptual Skills - the ability to comprehend complex situations o Interpersonal Skills - the ability to work with, understand and motivate other people o Political Skills - the ability to network as well as gain allies and gather power o Technical Skills - the ability to understand and apply specialized knowledge or expertise

VC Agarwal, RPG Enterprise ii) Specific Management Skills involve: o Exercising Good Judgment - the ability to plan and prepare for the future, respond to change, be held accountable, and stay focused on objectives o Organizing and Coordinating - the ability to organize tasks and interdependent relationships o Handling Information - using and communicating information o Fostering Personal Growth and Development - for both the manager and his or her employees o Handling Conflict - understanding the need for, and potential destructive force of, conflict 5. MANAGERS AS ENTREPRENEURS To be successful, every manager needs to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs differ from capitalists in that they are not necessarily owners of capital. Some public companies with diverse stock ownership have emerged as multinationals or global companies through technological, management, and system innovation in fierce global competition. But are entrepreneurs trained or born? The answer is somewhat obvious: if they are born, then what's the use of management education? It's true that talents are critical to entrepreneurs, educationists and scientists, but talents will come to nothing if they are not managed effectively. Besides education, it is imperative that the entrepreneurs need to have certain basic qualities. The first quality is a high IQ (intelligence quotient). Without a high IQ, nobody can become an entrepreneur. The second quality is a high EQ (emotional quotient). A high EQ can help an entrepreneur not only become a charismatic leader and unite the individuals as a cohesive team, but to also establish a harmonious relationship with the external environment and win the market competition. The last quality is a high SQ (spiritual quotient). It explains the spirit behind starting a new venture or winning the fiercest of competitions requiring courage and daring; seizing rare business opportunities; managing the crisis. Lacking a high SQ and becoming an entrepreneur is all but impossible.

6. THE CHANGING ROLE OF HR MANAGERS The role of the Human Resource Manager is evolving with the change in competitive market environment and the broad realization that Human Resource Management must play a more strategic role in the success of an organization. Organizations that do not put their emphasis on attracting and retaining talent may find themselves in dire consequences, as their competitors may be outplaying them in the strategic employment of their human resources. As mentioned by Dave Ulrich, an original thought leader in the field of HR - with the increase in competition, locally or globally, organizations must become more adaptable, resilient, agile, and customer-focused to succeed. And within this change in environment, the HR professional has to evolve to become a strategic partner, an employee sponsor or advocate, and a change mentor within the organization. Today's HR must be a business driven function with a thorough understanding of the organization's big picture and be able to influence key decisions and policies. In general, the focus of today's HR Manager is on strategic personnel retention and talent development. A HR manager needs to be mindful and may employ a 'Think Global, Act Local' approach
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JIGYASA 2011 in most circumstances. In order to effectively manage workplace diversity, Cox (1993) suggests that a HR Manager needs to change from an
V.C. Agarwal He is presently President HR RPG Enterprise. He was previously Director (HR) Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. He has completed his B.Tech (Electrical) from IIT-Roorkee.

ethnocentric view ("our way is the best way") to a culturally relative perspective ("let's take the best of a variety of ways").

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Understanding Dynamics of Human Resource Management and how it can be developed: A Brief Overview
Prof. Gopa Bhardwaj, University of Delhi
Prof. Bhardwaj talks about the various dynamics of Human Resource Management and the various processes. She emphasises that Human Resource Management is not a singular process but has many different approaches. A must read to have real insights about the intricacies of the subject.

The key to gaining the competitive advantage in a saturated market is to use existing resources more efficiently and creatively. All businesses have three principle resources; capital, natural, and human resources. Organizations realize the fact that employees are the only resources that cannot be copied by competitors; they make the difference and distinguish successful organizations from less successful organizations. Therefore, they deserve to be treated as a true asset and nurtured to deliver exceptional results for the organizations. HRM is a fundamental activity which refers to the management of work and people towards desired end. There are myriad of variations in ideologies, styles and managerial resources engaged. The relative success regarding the performance of various models is contingent on their contexts and the performance is relative to other investments such as new products and new technologies, advertising campaigns, property acquisitions etc. HRM refuses to be any one thing there are three major sub domains of knowledge which are bursting at their banks. This covers the sub functions of HR policy and practice and can be further divided into two subgroups: The largest group of sub functions is managing individuals and small groups and includes such areas

as, recruitment, selection, induction, training and development, performance management, and remuneration and very well supported by research in behaviourial sciences including psychology. A smaller group of sub functions concerned with work organization and employee voice is more inclined towards industrial sociology and industrial relations. HRM cannot be taken as a singular process. It has many types with different approaches. Some of the significant types are: Strategic HRM (SHRM): It focuses on the overall HR strategies adopted by business units and their performance is measured. It is focused on systemic questions and issues of serious consequences mainly referring to the best fit equations. For example the General Managers and not only the HR specialist should be involved in identifying the competitive possibilities. Theory and research on Industrial Psychology, Industrial Relation and Organizational Behaviour are of special helping this regard. Such notions as social contracting form a foundational base for the same. International HRM (IHRM): It is less concerned with theories and more to do with organizations operating across national boundaries. It focuses on socio political contexts of different countries

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JIGYASA 2011 Analytical HRM: The basic purpose is not to identify the 'best practice' in 'excellent companies' but first of all to identify and explain what happens in the practice. Here are some of the issues and dynamics related to analytical HRM: # # # Privileges explanations over prescriptions Build theory and gather empirical data Account for manager's actual behaviour across different jobs, people, companies, industries, and societies Help educators and practitioners understand theory and develop analytical skill which can be adopted in specific situations and do not leave them flat footed when they move to a new environment Analyse weakness of a decontextualized propagation of 'best practices' model. Review the relationship between contextual variables and HR practice Something's work well under some circumstances and not under others Understanding the goals of HRM within wider context of goals and politics of firms Signifies the plurality of the meaning of organizational effectiveness. It supports the commercial purpose and organizational needs for social legitimacy. Organizational culture, psychological contracting and social exchange are integrated in the scope HRM. It is concerned with assessing outcome, examines mutuality, interaction, offers a narrative account about how people experience work and contribute towards the public policy debate .
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High involvement management (HIM): It is widely seen as a central element of 'soft' human resource management discourse and practice (Marchington2001) and as the foundation of 'best practice' people management (Boxall and Purcell2003). Typically, HIM 'best practice' is seen as entailing: job security; job enrichment; empowerment/autonomy; selfmanaged work teams; open two way communication; extensive skill development; reduced status differences; as well as reward practices that relate pay to employee skills or competencies and to group or organisational performance. All variants of HRM like Hard (Based on performance) and soft (Based on welfare) are ultimately concerned with the effective management of people so that organisations achieve their objectives and goals. The new workplace culture, which is built around the promotion of individualism (evidenced by the increasing emphasis and adoption of practices such as performance-based pay), must surely conflict with the implementation of practices such as teamworking and quality circles that are collective ways of working. No figures have been offered as to what constitutes an ideal balance between human concerns and material concerns the market seeks specialist knowledge and skills at the executive end and sheer muscle at the other. These are not only problems of recruitment but also retention, and any remediation should take into account that the problem of an unbalanced workforce needs rigorous redress by focusing on its multiple dimensions, not just those which are immediately obvious. Cultural contexts Dr Stephanie Jones (2008) researched the impact of cultural contexts and questioned the effectiveness of

Gopa Bhardwaj, University of Delhi training on business service skills, including negotiation skills, conflict resolution, collaboration and everyday communication with customers generally. Her findings were disturbing She found that configuration of bureaucracy dominated more than anything. The customer is always right if my boss says so. was the routine approach The role of education and values Why do education, training and specialist courses not seem to satisfactorily overcome the problems faced by HR professionals? Dr Simadi (2006) observed that when recruits first join a company, their value structures are already firmly in place, and little thought is given to spending time to balance those values for the first time in such a way that personal values and work values combine harmoniously. Trainers only identify with one set of values. However there are not set and fixed rules dominating behaviours. There are no easy answers to the question of why behaviours can be so diverse. However, it is clear that for some who are about to enter the labour market, education has thus far not served them well. The value system needs to be re-cast as an interconnected web in which values held by the employee and those held by the employer come together to generate conviction, commitment and collaboration. It is probable that the young cannot automatically make these connections and so value discussions should be an integral part of the training forums that take place. Training and education must be sensitive to needs, and appropriate to the conditions each must be relevant, correctly aimed at the level of its students, and encourage gradual acquisition of knowledge and skills practiced in a supportive environment, where mistakes are never fatal. The HR profession can play a productive role if it helps to build knowledge-based work systems which will allow all people to utilise their skills at work and not just the elite 'knowledge workers' to flourish. HR practitioners also need to broaden their own skills base by collaborating with educators and becoming involved in curriculum development. The need for employee voice There are a number of logical reasons why employee voice is needed. First, ifit is accepted that employees are important stakeholders, then exploring their views on HRM makes empirically testing of some of the assumptions and relationships in HRM more accurate. For example, while there is some support available to suggest soft HRM does indeed achieve its aim of improving employee well-being. However some also give a counter view in denying the role of the research findings as is often the case with much of the HRM literature, the data are almost entirely gathered through interviews with a small number of managers, rather than through more systematic measurement: they may therefore simply reflect managerial rhetoric or managerial beliefs about what has happened or what should happen. Ethics and human resource management (HRM) are not usually considered in tandem. For critics of HRM, the existence of an ethical HR manager is about as likely as a visit from Mary Poppins, and any discussion of ethics and human resource management is administered with more than a spoonful of cynicism Arguably, a more useful approach is to explore the ethical dimensions of specific aspects of the principles and practices of strategic human resource
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JIGYASA 2011 management. In this way we can explore the ethical implications of say, a long hours work culture, or of flexible labour, or the ethical issues associated with
Professor. Gopa Bhardwaj She is one of the senior faculty member at Deptt of Psychology, University of Delhi. She was previously Dean at Faculty of Arts, DU; Ex-Director- Centre for Professional Development in Education (UGC/ASC), Ex. HOD, Deptt. of Psychology, DU

dismissals, downsizing and redundancy, as well as with performance management and reward practices.

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Employee Engagement@reccession.com: Role of HR

Anita Santiago, XLRI Jamshedpur

Employee engagement is an emerging issue that is central to the human resource department of any organization. The author here revisits the idea in a candid manner to bring out the essence of effective employee engagement and comes up with a few tips to promote the same in an organization. The ideas of engaging employee within the organization lead to tackling of issue which in long run may affect the productivity of a company. This article is an edifying piece of work for emerging HR practitioners.

'Employee Engagement' the buzzword that caught the Indian Corporate by storm in the past few years is a powerful employee retention tool. The explosive boom in the Indian economy during the millennium, pre recession, triggered high turnover rates in Organisations, forcing them to wake up and take note of the fact that it is only an engaged employee who is intellectually and emotionally bound with the organization, who feels passionate about its goals and is committed towards its values, thus she/he goes the extra mile beyond the basic job. But then came the recession and many employers backtracked to the traditional measures of cost cutting like retrenchment of staff, heavy increment cuts, recruitment freezes etc without realizing that though these measures do result in short term cost saving, they might actually boomerang in the long run in terms of a stained organization image as well as low employee morale. Employees may not leave the organization due to paucity of other employment options but there definitely will be a sharp decline in their level of engagement with the organization. The failed mass retrenchment of employees by Jet Airways which resulted in one of the worst corporate fiascos, is one such example.

So, the big question now before Employers is practicing employee engagement in tough times. Below are some few very practical tips on how this can be done, without ample investment in cost but resulting in long time gain: a) Employee Engagement as a top HR agenda: Economic downturns are a time when employees need to rally together to increase all round efficacy of the organisation. Employee with high engagement levels tend to trust and believe in leadership, as a consequence allowing them to embrace immense organisational changes, Hence this is the time to move employee engagement to the top of the HR agenda. b) Communicate, Communicate, Communicate: Communication usually dissipates when the going gets rough. It is essential not to fall into this trap and keep people informed of company direction and goals. Periodical addresses by Business leaders, Online communications, including discussion boards and monthly / weekly blogs by company personnel including senior management related to updates on business issue, monthly E-In-house magazines, Active soliciting of employee feedback by inviting

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JIGYASA 2011 employees to ask questions and responding, regular Online employee opinion and satisfaction surveys, are cost effective measures to ensure that people know what is going on, on a day to day basis. For e.g. the CEO of Sun Microsystems, interacts with Sun employees through WSUN, a forum on Sun's intranet, for keeping employees updated on business direction as well as encouraging them to give their feedback/opinions on various issues. Of course, HR should take the front seat and be one of the main drivers of active, positive, two way communications in organisations, especially during these tough times. c) Empower Employees: It is essential during an economic downturn for leadership to be open to listening to employee ideas or solutions. Empowering employees with more decision-making authority, makes it a lot easier for employees to determine, how to execute the directives passed down from upper management handle more work demands without becoming unduly stressed. In other words, the more control employees have over their jobs, the more engaged they would be, benefitting the organization in the long run. Again HR needs to be an active strategic business partner in this extremely sensitive area. d) Fun@work: It is no longer disputed, that fun at work is an essential ingredient for healthy work life. Interestingly there are many suggestions by bright HR personnel on how this can be done inexpensively. Encourage departmental get togethers, if meeting out is expensive, managers can encourage employees by inviting them to their homes. Talk about the employees pet peeves and avoid recession/layoff talks during this time. Have happy hours on Fridays with snacks and games. Appoint 'Fun Officers' turn by turn who can help in keeping the employees distressed on a day to day basis. Plan for contributory lunches and dinners. Take
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suggestions from employees themselves for low cost fun activities. e) Employee recognition programs: Tight budgets do not necessarily mean that Employee award programs need to take a backseat. A lot can be done even with little money and an open mind. Recognition Certificates and trophies do not cost much but acknowledge employees for a job well done. For eg: One company came up with an award called Extra Miler Award' for employees who good examples in going the extra mile and beyond job demands for no extra incentives. f) Training on a shoestring budget: Training is one

of the essential functions that get frozen during difficult times. However employees look for opportunities to learn new skills and leverage their talents. Here's where HR can look out for low cost training measures like in house training programmes using internal faculty. A good idea would also be to tap upcoming training consultants and freelance trainers who can provide low cost budget training options. g) Innovative Cost cutting schemes: Well thought out cost cutting schemes, not only help in cost saving but at the same time keep employees motivated. For e.g. Employers can offer employees unpaid leave for a certain period of time say from three months to a year or so, wherein employees can feel free to fulfil their educational aspirations like short term management courses etc, with the assurance that they will continue to be employees of the company and that their job will not be at stake. This would work well with employees who have always wanted to develop themselves further, but weren't able to do so due to various work pressures. Some companies like Wipro have already started such schemes.

Anita Santiago, XLRI Jamshedpur h) Employee Appraisals: One of the weakest links especially in Indian corporate, this would be the apt time to shape up. If at all, after all efforts, its absolutely essential to cut down on staff, it would be a lot less demoralizing if they are let go due to performance issues rather than recession issues. But since this is treading on sensitive ground, organization should be careful about the message that gets across to employees especially key talent. All in all Employers should remember that even recessions do come to an end. The manner in which employees are treated during bad times will reflect on their engagement levels when times get better. Needless to say HR Departments have got a lot on their plate as drivers of employee engagement during this economic downturn.

Anita Santiago She is 1989 batch PM&IR student from XLRI, Jamshedpur. She has over 16 years of work experience in Bharat Earth Movers and NDPL.

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Charting a Role for Human Resources in Mergers & Acquisitions

Dr. Subash Masters, Senior Adviser with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.
Mergers and Acquisitions of companies are not always fruitful and can lead to talent being driven away and brain-drain if not handled effectively, taking into account the cultural issues among the employees. Dr. Subhas Masters, Senior Adviser with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, talks about the significance of the role of HR professional and challenges faced by them during the integration of two companies. We have seen over the last few years in India that Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) have become one of the favoured routes for Organisational Expansion. So big ticket acquisitions by Tata's, Reliance, Bharti, Vedanta Group, Vodaphone, Hindalco all have gone ahead with this sort of mode in India as well as abroad. Mergers and Acquisitions are entered into for faster Organisational growth, but this is assumptive, it cannot be sure that the result will be as thought of while planning for it. Many researchers on this subject suggest that close to 60 to 65% of failed M&A are possibly on account of people issues that were not expected, or understood, or catered for or even contemplated. For every eight failures, it seems, there is a case where both Organisations emerge stronger (for example in the merger between Fiat and Chrysler after the latter emerged from filing for bankruptcy). In most cases, the success factor is where people in each organization show that they value the other, and actively work towards bringing out the best values in each. M&As are supposed to be meticulously thought of and planned, later executed by a selected team (internal and external support members) but this is all primarily based on a list of presumptions where cost savings or market synergies appear right at the top of all considerations; rarely are the people and
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cultural issues taken into account. To most Industry watchers there clearly appears to be a growing trend in M&As, most financial analysts predicts that this prospect may continue over the next decade or so, therefore it is necessary for HR Professionals to look at how they can assist in the success of an acquisition. In supporting and advising an M&A activity, the HR Team has a golden opportunity to make an assessment (before taking forward the M&A proceedings) of the possible people issues and thereby try to see that both organizations have an understanding of the issues, their implications and also work out a strategy for addressing the issues, in advance. Once there is a decision based on certain agreed principles, the Leadership of both organizations specially of the Firm considering the merger or takeover' should have a People Strategy worked out and this needs to include proper and transparent communication to employees, even the possibility in future (or present) layoffs which may take place. It will need to address the process and how the different cultures should be merged. Quite often a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is done, while many Organisations

Dr. Subash Masters, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu depend on external Consultants for a brief culture survey to be undertaken in both companies to discover what the cultural differences are, preparation of a plan for execution and finally executing the M&A. Because of the nature of these M&As, organisations may have the benefit of successes and failures and thus realise that some cultural differences are obvious (e.g. one culture values teams and bottomup innovation, the other favours command-andcontrol tactics) but others may be subtle (e.g. how and whether individuals and teams are rewarded for innovations). Will acquiring a company, or merging with it, destroy the properties or drive away the talent that made it worth having? If the real purpose of the merger is to acquire another company's assets, in terms of a particular product or brand, its units or patents, etc., that should be acknowledged with sincerity. If employees are befooled at first by pleasant words, they will react more strongly later, only making resistance more difficult to handle. One of the most troubling set of questions for HR Leadership is will the acquiring of a company, or merging with it, destroy the strengths or drive away the talent that made it worth having? Can a simple partnership, alliance, or even stock ownership without integration provide more benefits than combining the two companies? Therefore it would be worth the while for Leaders to address some of these worrying questions . Are there other possibilities to the merger Salary; Perquisites; Promotions; Incentives; Performance and maybe even retiral benefits. What and How will the taking over organisation address these issues within their own organisation? Would each aspect of HR be kept separate? If so, for how long and what is the mode of a common platform. Are the cultures for the two organizations compatible? Is there a plan for merging the cultures? Will one be dominant, and, if so, how will people operating under the other culture be brought on board? What are each organization's key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? What is the time frame for a phased manner of merger, going ahead? What about future Branding?

Many organisations use the assistance and expertise of an outside agency to support the M&A Team and list these difficult questions along with possible responses. Sticky issues are raised as early as possible. By knowing what makes mergers succeed, especially by keeping an eye on people (and the soft) issues as well as the financials, and using appropriate tools, companies can make mergers work. The job of the HR Leadership is to quickly develop a strategy for helping the company to achieve the synergies it needs, develop the HR game plan for leading the process, with focus on getting the people on the positive side. It helps to have achievable goals, with stretch targets, and concrete milestones (supported by good, valid measures) for implementation.

Is there a communication strategy planned to keep employees and customers of the organisation being taken over, being informed? How will HR Policies of each organisation be addressed? Important issues will hover around

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JIGYASA 2011 If M&A within Indian shores are difficult then cross border M&As are all the more painful and difficult to handle. Research into companies who have gone ahead with such cross border mergers point that the failure rates are as high as 70% with very few enhancing shareholder value. The two challenging areas are (a) organisation culture and (b) employee communication. It seems this is substantiated by a survey of Fortune 500 CFO's where it was revealed that close to 45% of failures were attributed to unexpected post deal people problems and these ranged from corporate governance to employee welfare measures to customer satisfaction. Some suggestions in ensuring successful integration: HR Leadership to be an integral part of Top Management considering the M&A Hr to evaluate cultural considerations at the earliest, preferably at pre-merger stage. HR to define possible cultural risks; possible m e a n s o f a d d r e s s i n g t h e m ; i n p u t s fo r Communication Plan HR to devise a cohesive Communication Plan addressing all issues with focus on the people issues and their impact to both organisations Prepare People Integration Plan involving o Change Management o Combined Leadership o Team Building and Team Working o Collaborative Teams on Products, Services, Customers o Handling Finance and Personnel Establishment matters o Shared Mission, Vision and Values Workshops to disseminate to all employees Improve Communication to inculcate Trust; Transparency of Policies across both the organisations

References: Leonard, Bill (HR Magazine) April 1999: Will this Marriage Work Pande, Amit and Krishnan, Sandeep (IIM A): Knotted Forever Finkelstein, Sydney - Professor at Tuck School of Business: Cross Border M&A

Dr. Subash Masters An Alumni of XLRI (1974) he has close to four decades of Industry and Consulting experience. His industry experience spans reputed Institutions Tata Steel, NTPC (under the Ministry of Power), the Ministry of Science & Technology, CMC Ltd. He possesses an Associate Degree in Counselling Psychology (USA) and a PhD in Management. His PhD Thesis was on Institutional Transformation based on his long personal experience on the Orissa Power Sector Reform Programme. His Consulting experience encompasses stints as Adviser with a number of Corporates; with DFID (Govt of UK); followed by Arthur Andersen; Ernst & Young, Hewitt Associates, he is currently Senior Adviser with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. He has been closely associated with large integrated assignments on Institutional Transformation and Sectoral Reforms, Institutional Capacity Building, Leadership Capability Development across India (in the Government and PSU space); the United Arab Emirates; the Sultanate of Oman; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Uganda and UAE. He has travelled on work related aspects to the UK, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

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THE BUSINESS PARTNER MODEL: PAST AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Dave Ulrich The RBL Group Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Wayne Brockbank The RBL Group Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
The informal business partner model has existed for well over 100 years when effective staff support functions, including HR, have contributed to business results. Formal business model has been in discussion for the past 15 years. Given the emerging importance of HR as a contributor to business success, the authors have reflected upon the learning of past and challenges of future for HR managers in the context of business partner model. The future for HR is filled with both challenges and opportunities. Learning from the past and exciting challenges of 21st century will help HR in growing and adding value to the business.

LOOKING BACK: LESSONS LEARNED Since we have been instrumental in defining the business partner model and since there have been some discussions about it in recent HR media, we would like to review nine learnings about HR in the business partner role. First, the business partner model is not unique to HR; all staff functions are trying to find ways to deliver more value to either top line growth or to bottom line profitability. Information systems, finance, legal, marketing, R&D, and HR are all under scrutiny and pressure to create greater value for their companies. This is especially true of transaction and administrative work that can be standardized, automated, or outsourced. Second, the intent of the business partner model is to help HR professionals to integrate more thoroughly

into business processes and to align their day-to-day work with business outcomes. We have talked about focusing more on deliverables (what the business requires to win) than doables' (what HR activities occur). Instead of measuring process (e.g. how many leaders received 40 hours of training), business partners are encouraged to measure results (e.g. the impact of the training on business performance). Third, being a business partner may be achieved in many HR job categories. HR professionals often work in one of the four positions in a company. 1. Corporate HR: As business partners, corporate HR professionals define corporate wide initiatives, represent the company to external stakeholders, meet the unique demands of senior (and visible) leaders, leverage cross unit synergy, and govern the HR function.
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JIGYASA 2011 2. Embedded HR: As business partners, embedded HR professionals work as HR generalists within organization units (business, function, or geographic). They collaborate with line leaders to help shape the business strategy, conduct organizational diagnoses to determine which capabilities are most critical, and design and deliver HR practices to accomplish strategy. 3. HR specialists: As business partners, HR specialists work in centers of expertise where they provide technical insights on HR issues such as staffing, leadership development, rewards, communication, organization development, benefits, and so forth. 4. Service centers: As business partners, HR professionals who work in service centers add value by building or managing technology based e-HR systems, processing benefit claims and payrolls and answering employee queries. These individuals may work inside or outside the company. Sometimes, one of these roles is uniquely defined as business partnering when, in fact, each of the above roles is a partner to the business as they work to create value for employees, customers, shareholders, communities, and management.. Fourth, business success is more dependent today than ever on softer organizational agendas such as: Talent: HR professionals are centrally involved in providing the right people with the right skills in the right job at the right time. The war for talent rages and will likely continue in an increasingly global knowledge economy. Organization capabilities: HR professionals partner with line managers to identify and create organization capabilities such as speed to market, innovation, leadership, collaboration, fast change,
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and culture management. Effective HR professionals not only work with business leaders to draft strategies but also focus and collaborate on how to make strategies happen through talent and organization issues. Fifth, as talent and organization issues increase in business relevance, HR professionals may help respond by being architects, designers, and facilitators. Just as senior line managers turn to senior staff specialists in marketing, finance and IT to frame the intellectual agenda and processes for these activities, so likewise do they turn to competent and business focused HR professionals to provide intellectual and process leadership for people and organizational issues. Effective HR business partners are those who respond to these general management challenges. And because of the changing nature of business, the requirements of business partner model are more pressing than ever before. Sixth, there is concern that some HR professionals cannot perform the work of a business partner and cannot link their day to day work to business results. Our research shows that the HR profession as a whole is quickly moving to add greater value through a more strategic focus. We have shown that high performing HR professionals have greater business knowledge than low performing HR professionals. Thus, the business partner model is empirically supported. As is true for all support functions, it is undoubtedly the case that some HR professionals may never become business partners. They are mired in the past administrative HR roles where conceptually or practically they cannot connect their work to business results. Other HR professionals are natural business partners, seeking first and foremost to

Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank deliver business value through the work that they do. Most are somewhere in between. A decade ago there was a clamor to get to the table and to become part of the business. Today, many effective HR professionals are already at the table and they need to know what to do when they are there. Being at the table poses a new set of challenges in language and logic of being an HR professional. Seventh, being a business partner requires HR professionals to have new knowledge and skills. Traditional HR skills have focused on administrative issues such as policy setting and administration, union negotiation, and managing employee transactions. Today, the business partner model requires HR professionals to also connect their work directly to the business. Our research indicates that as HR professionals acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to be business partners, they add significant value to financial and customer business results. Likewise our research shows that those that do not make the transition in knowledge and skills are less likely to have business impact. When HR professionals are business partners, business success follows. Eighth, the inevitable failures in the application of the business partner model may be due to several factors: 1. As indicated above, some HR professionals will probably never be able to adapt to the full business partner role. Asking HR professionals who have focused on policies and transactions to do talent and organization audits and massive change efforts may be too great a shift for some. 2. Some may not make the shift to business partners because of personal interests and aspirations that deter them from engaging in the business partner role. 3. Some HR professionals may desire to be business partners but simply do not how to proceed. Such individuals need to understand the frameworks, logic, knowledge, and skills that are necessary for them to grow into the business partner role. BAE Systems recently undertook a serious commitment to enhance the competencies of its' HR professionals. As a result of the developmental program, HR's perceived impact on business performance increased dramatically (the percent of line managers rating HR as 4 or 5 in business effectiveness increased 120 %.) 4. A particular firm's business conditions may not require talent and organization as keys to success. There may be some cases where an organization's success does not depend on individual abilities or organizational capabilities. For example, a company may have a monopoly, may be protected from competitive pressures and may find that business performance is dictated primarily by the maintenance of the monopolistic protection. In addition, our empirical work together with our colleagues, Alejandro Sioli and Arthur Yeung, shows that HR is most closely associated with business performance under conditions of high change and has substantially less influence under conditions of low change. 5. Some line managers have trouble either accepting the importance of talent and organization and/or accepting HR professionals as significant contributors to these agendas. However, research by a number of consulting firms shows that senior level executives are increasingly focusing on issues such as strategy execution, leadership, talent, and change all HR agendas. Ninth, there are really few other options. When someone said to us that the business partner model was not working, we asked, What would you
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JIGYASA 2011 suggest? Two responses were forthcoming. First, Some HR professionals do not know the business well enough to be able to function as business partners. Second, Some HR professionals are too enmeshed in transactional administrative work to be able to function as business partners. Both of these problems have direct and obvious solutions. The reality is that the HR professionals must evolve into being the best thinkers in the company about the human and organization side of the business. The nature of business is dramatically changing. Changes are occurring in virtually every element of the social, political, and economic environments that impact business. Under such conditions, the human side of the business emerges as a key source of competitive advantage. Therefore, HR specialists in the logic, research, and processes of human and organization optimization become central to business success. LOOKING FORWARD: CHALLENGES AHEAD As we look forward, we need clear thinking, effective practices, and insightful research. There are many excellent thinkers who continue to examine how HR professionals can deliver value to the business. Even within the last decade, the business partner model has evolved. Many of the critics of the model look at today's problems through yesterday's solutions and wonder why they don't work. This is like trying to run today's software on yesterday's computers. Of course, it won't work. The HR business partner model in the 1990's has changed in recent years to adapt to today's business challenges. Our firm, the RBL Group, in conjunction with the University of Michigan and a variety of HR professional associations from around the world, has studied the competencies and agendas of HR professionals as business partners for over twenty years. During this time we have gathered data from
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over 45,000 participants. We recently completed the fifth round of this on-going global study of HR professionals. In this iteration, over 10,000 participants provided a clear picture of what business leaders expect from their HR business partners. Our analysis of the data has focused on three questions: What are the competencies of HR professionals?

What HR competencies are most closely associated with individual performance? W h a t c o m p e t e n c i e s d i f fe re n t i a t e H R professionals in high performing firms from those in low performing firms? Based on this work and our in-depth experience with hundreds of companies, we are comfortable in projecting five trends that will continue to evolve the HR field and how it delivers value to business. First, over the last twenty years, we have both anecdotally and empirically seen steady progress in the HR field as it has moved toward greater strategic understanding and relevance. We anticipate that this progress with continue. They will continue to increase their knowledge of their companies' wealth creating activities, and of critical external realities such as customers' requirements, supplier relations, competitive market structures, domestic and international regulatory issues, globalization, and the requirements of capital markets. With this foundation in business knowledge, they will bring to strategy discussions their personal visions for the future of the business. Second, companies will continue to require fewer HR professionals to do transactional administrative work. Newly emerging information and communication technologies will continue to be applied to improve the efficiency of HR

Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank administrative work such as payroll, benefits administration, entry level staffing and employee record keeping. Some HR activities will be centralized to reduce redundancies, to optimize natural synergies, and to leverage economies of scale. As companies continually grapple with the challenges of focusing on the most important wealth creating activities of the firm, it will undoubtedly be the case that some nice-to-have but strategically unnecessary HR activities will be eliminated. Third, as business partners, HR professionals will increase the trend of being more focused on key external constituents. Our recent research shows that HR departments that focus on external as well as internal stake holders are more significantly associated with business performance. HR professionals will increasingly focus their work on creating value for external customers. HR professionals will likewise become more attuned to the requirements of capital markets. The recent burgeoning research in finance and economics on intangible assets is emphasizing the increasing importance of human capital assets and HR practices that create and sustain those assets. Empirical evidence has clearly shown the investment, community is accounting for practices such as succession planning, leadership development, corporate culture, and executive compensation as considerations in buy or sells decisions. Companies that are able to create a credible leadership brand are more likely to enjoy P/E ratios above than that of their competitors. As business partners, effective HR professionals play a central role in defining, creating, and sustaining the leadership brand that is valued by the capital markets. As HR professionals account for customer and owner requirements in the design and delivery of organizational capability and related HR practices, they will do so with greater awareness of competitors. They will recognize that forward looking and innovative HR practices have relatively little value unless they create greater value than their dominant competitors do. A final emerging trend in HR's external focus is the role of HR in representing companies to their communities and in accounting for community requirements in their companies' value proposition. For the first time in our twenty years of empirical research in HR practices, we have found a substantial increase in HR's role relative to social and political stakeholders from local communities. Concerns over global warming, air and water pollution, local employment regulations, ethical treatment of indigenous populations, endangered species, and land utilization have move up the list of corporate priorities. HR departments are increasingly given the mandate to work with local communities in addressing these complex, difficult, and important issues. Fourth, as HR professionals become more effective as business partners, they will become more balanced in their approaches to work. In the most recent round of our competency research, we found that effective HR professionals function in six roles. These are as follows: 1. Credible activists earn a reputation for business value through their consistent delivery and proactive stance on business and HR issues. 2. Strategy architects contribute to the development and execution of business strategies, and design and delivery of HR practices and structure. 3. Culture and change stewards identify and
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JIGYASA 2011 facilitate important culture and other changes that improve organizations' ability to compete and grow. 4. Talent managers and organizational designers understand, diagnose, audit, and improve both talent and organization. 5. Operational executors do the operational work of HR both effectively and cost-efficiently through information systems and through standardized HR policies. 6. Business allies demonstrate a firm grasp of business knowledge on how the organization functions internally and externally to make money. Our analyses show that credible activists has primary impact on personal and business results and that the next three above roles have roughly equal impact on business performance. Therefore, HR professionals must ensure that they have a balanced approach to their business contributions. Fifth, as business partners, HR professionals (as in other key functional areas) will be expected to the greatest extent possible to base their activities on solid empirical research. This expectation exists for finance, marketing, R&D, and manufacturing. It is also the case for HR. The challenge is that some research can be misinterpreted by the media and others as has been the case for a recent well publicized set of research findings by Roffey Park Institute. This research has been used to support the conjecture that the business partner model has failed when this is neither the finding nor the claim of the research as clarified by authors of this report in a recent letter to the publication in question. The research predominately public sector, consultancies. is based on a survey of 479 UK managers from private sector, not-for-profit organizations, and One hundred sixty one people answered a specific open ended question about the effectiveness of the business partner model. Of these 161 people, an encouraging 46% reported that HR business partnering was proving successful in their organizations and 27% either did not know or felt it was too early to tell. This leaves just 42 people (26% of the 161 people and 8% of the 479 people) who said the model was not working well mostly attributed to the implementation rather than the fault of the model per se. Consequently, headlines suggesting HR business partnering is failing based on these findings is inaccurate and does the HR field no great service. In the future, the HR profession will conduct research that focuses on HR issues that are associated with business results. Research will continue to be done in rigorous and relevant ways. Since best HR practices are emerging from all parts of the world, HR research will increasingly be done on a global scale. Information will be gathered from large numbers of participants from companies of various sizes and industries. Research will focus on the practices and competencies that result in individual and company performance. The reported conclusions will stick close to the empirical data on which they are based. The research will also report what we still have yet to learn as well as what we have learned. BY WAY OF SUMMARY Many HR professionals are doing exceptional HR work. From ING in Hong Kong, to ICICI and TATA in India, ADIA in the United Arab Emirates, to MTN in South Africa, to DHL and BAE Systems in the UK and to Textron, GE and United Technologies in the United States and in thousands of other companies around the world, HR professionals are making enormous progress towards delivering value as business partners. In the future, the ways in which HR serve as
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Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank business partners will continue to morph. The bar has been raised on HR and some HR professionals will and others will not make the grade. There are emerging business issues where HR can and will contribute value. The future for HR is filled with both challenges and opportunities. As we look to the future, HR professionals as business partners will continue to deliver value and help businesses manage the enormously difficult and exciting challenges of the 21st century.

DAVE ULRICH Dave Ulrich is a Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and a partner at the RBL Group a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value. He studies how organizations build capabilities of leadership, speed, learning, accountability, and talent through leveraging human resources. He has helped generate award winning data bases that assess alignment between strategies, organization capabilities, HR practices, HR competencies, and customer and investor results. He has published over 175 articles and book chapters and 23 books. He edited Human Resource Management 1990-1999, served on editorial board of 4 Journals, on the Board of Directors for Herman Miller, and Board of Trustees at Southern Virginia University, and is a Fellow in the National Academy of Human Resources. He has consulted and done research with over half of the Fortune 200. WAYNE BROCKBANK Dr. Wayne Brockbank is a Clinical Professor of Business at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. His teaching focuses on strategic human resource management, strategy and implementation, and international business. At the University of Michigan's Executive Education Centre, Professor Brockbank is Director of the Centre for Strategic Human Resource Leadership. He is the Faculty Director of the Strategic Human Resource Planning Program and the Advanced Human Resource Executive Program. He is the Co-Director of the Human Resource Executive Program. Professor Brockbank completed his Ph.D. at UCLA where he specialized in business policy and strategy, organization theory, and international business. He received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Organizational Behaviour from Brigham Young University. He is the Director of the Michigan Human Resource Executive Programs in Hong Kong, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and India as well as the Michigan Global Program in Management Development in India.

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Role of Customer Satisfaction in Improving Dealers Profitability

Mr. Uday Mishra, Head (Training) with NDPL
Customers play a significant role in generating revenues in any organization. The writer talks about the different types of customers helping us understand the various categories of customers, measurement of customer satisfaction, and how they determine the profitability of organisations.

There is no denying from the fact that the revenue of an organization comes from its customers, and there are only two ways to improve revenue figures: repeated customers and new customers. The Forum Company estimates that new customer acquisition is five times costlier than pleasing an existing customer. It further estimates that bringing a new customer to the same level of profitability might cost sixteen times as the existing customer. Over a period of time, a highly satisfied customer buys more, buys other new products / services of the organization, and costs less to serve. Xerox has found that repeat purchase intention was six times higher among totally satisfied customers in comparison to those who were just satisfied. In one study, Toyota found that 75% of their satisfied customers intended to buy Toyota again. Moreover, two other advantages through satisfied customers are almost priceless: getting product / service related improvement or breakthrough ideas; and, free advertising through referrals. Cost saving and additional revenues combine to produce a steady increasing stream of profits over the customers' relationship, e.g., it has been found that if a credit card user leaves after 1st year the company loses $21, but gains $100 if the customer exits after 5 years. Case studies of several global organizations, e.g., Chrysler, Saturn, Lexus,
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Honda, Nike, Electrolux, IBM, GE, MBNA, Wal-Mart, British Airways, Hertz, Marriott, etc. are testimony to the organizational success and growth based on core philosophy of customer satisfaction. In 1994, Saturn (of General Motors) invited all Saturn owners to a weekend party at its Tennessee headquarters to celebrate its fifth anniversary. It expected 1000 owners to show up. But satisfaction among Saturn owners was so high that 28,000 Saturn owners came to the plant from all over the country as a testimony to their satisfaction. Customer oriented approaches made Saturn one of the best performer in market and money earner for GM. Thus an organization would be wise to measure customer satisfaction so as to manage it effectively. Some organizations treat logging of customer complaint akin to measurement of customer satisfaction. TARP Study (conducted in USA) found that 95% of dissatisfied customers never complained. Moreover, complaint handling is a reactive approach. In today's intense competitive environment, organizations have to be proactive and faster than its competitors to understand its customers' needs & expectations and find ways and means to meet them to keep customer satisfied. Hence, measuring, tracking and managing customer satisfaction in a structured manner has become

Uday Mishra, NDPL paramount for survival and growth of the organizations. At this juncture, let us pause, and, ask one question who is customer? Traditionally, say till late 1980s in India, the buyer (and, at most, End User too) of any product / service was deemed to be customer. The enhanced awareness about marketing and TQM concepts since mid 1990s in India has stretched the definition of customer to include (i) Distribution Channel members (distributors, dealers, C&F agent, retailer, etc.), and (ii) Functions / Departments of organization contributing to the value-chain of the organization. The figure below depicts transition of the traditional terminologies to the latest management thinking of customer and partnership approach towards stakeholders of the

Suppliers / Vendors

Deptt. / Functions

Distribution Channel

Buyers

Partners

Internal Customer

Customers / Partners

Customers / Partners

Distribution is a critical component of business since it provides the vital link between the organization and the buyer / end user. Discrepancy in production (organization / marketer uses scale of economy) and usage (consumer has limited consumption capacity) has necessitated its existence in some form or other (the fizzling out of dot-com era also points towards this fact). Industrialization, mass marketing and market growth have fuelled the increase in size and power-equation of distribution channel, especially since the marketer can not match the mammoth capital requirement necessary for minimizing the distance between the production / service facility and the consumption place. McCarthy's 5P Concept of Marketing Mix placed further emphasis on distribution channel and in last few decades, management of distribution facilitators like distributor, dealer, retailer, etc. has become key success factor in almost all industries. In many industries, especially FMCG and Consumer-durable industries, there are increasing evidences that the

brand ladder (favorite brand at the top and remaining brands in descending order of preference) is disappearing, and is being replaced with a customer perception of brand parity (many brands are equivalent and customer selects one of them on any particular occasion due to transient / immediate reasons e.g. location, price, promotion, incentive, ambience, personal appeasement, etc.). In general, given an organization's financial constraint the pull (through branding activities and communication) in the market place cannot be created beyond a point and the organizations have to find best ways to create and sustain the push (strong advocacy by dealers / retailers of the product to customers). This assumes greater significance when we appreciate that a dissatisfied dealer / retailer can have a negative rub-off effect (image erosion, purchase delay, switching to competitor brand, bad word-ofmouth, etc.) on the end user / buyer and in his / her particular community as well. The state of satisfaction among channel members would have
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JIGYASA 2011 just opposite and salutary effect, thus leading to mutual benefits and profitability. Partnership-cumcustomer approach with distribution channel members is the solution where dealers / retailers are treated as (i) partners in growth, and as (ii) customers who facilitate them revenue generation. Core principle / philosophy being that their satisfaction is sacrosanct. Few illustrations of such evolved approach with dealers/retailers are: P&G assigning its managers to work along with Wal-Mart team to reduce joint cost and improve joint profitability; Kraft helping its retailers improve their profitability using comprehensive and insightful customer related data specific to particular geo area. Understanding the nuances of higher-end competition for its luxury cars, Toyota and Nissan while launching their luxury cars (Lexus and Infiniti) came out with programmes for their sales team and dealers to ensure that everybody involved with the product understand the need for extreme customer focus in luxury car market. They have empowered their dealers to take any action necessary to keep its customers pleased. Efforts have led to Lexus being top ranker in JD Power Customer Satisfaction Survey ever since 1992, and adding to profitability of both Lexus and its dealers. Even the organizations like IBM, Caterpillar, McDonald's, Hewlett-Packard, etc. which enjoy a high referral power (perceived to be highly respected organizations among consumers and in public; thus, dealers inclined to be associated with them) in their favour, believe in such partnership-cum-customer approach with their distribution channel members. In the business of manufacturing and marketing, the distribution channel has become increasingly critical to the success of organization. Philip McVey comments - The middleman is not a hired link in chain forged by a manufacturer, but rather an
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independent market, the focus of a large group of customers for whom he buys.Consequently, measuring and managing satisfaction of dealers and retailers needs to be given due priority by the management of manufacturer / supplier organization. In recent times most of the progressive minded organizations have started measuring satisfaction of its end users and buyers. Such satisfaction measurement takes into account various dimensions that affect customer's satisfaction, e.g., satisfaction with product quality, service aspects, commercial aspects, dealership / retailer interface, company representative interface, etc. But time has come when channel members, too, are treated as customers, and their satisfaction with the supplier organization need to be measured, monitored and effectively managed. So question arises, if such effort is required, which dimensions need to be addressed. The main elements in the trade-relations mix are: price policies, conditions of sale, territorial rights and specific services to be performed by each party. Structure and format of relationship with channel members is another important dimension which affect mutual satisfaction and profitability. Exclusive distribution tends to enhance the product image and allow higher mark ups but requires greater partnership between the seller and the reseller. For a deeper reach and in cases where location convenience is critical, the seller chooses multibrand distributors (could be selective or intensive distribution), although in such channel the seller loses some control over the display arrangements, the accompanying service levels, and the pricing. It is vital to formulate relationship structure in view of service output levels desired by the end users, e.g. Lot size, Waiting time, spatial convenience, Product variety, Service backup, etc. A very soft but potentially highly conflicting element in the

Uday Mishra, NDPL manufacturer-dealer relationship could be goal incompatibility. The dealer is an independent business entity seeking to maximize its profits. The multi-brand dealer may concentrate on the buyer that buys most, not necessarily the manufacturer's products. Furthermore, the dealer might not master the technical details of the company's products or handle its promotion materials effectively. Conflicts of any kind, be it vertical channel conflict, horizontal channel conflict or multi-channel conflict, hurts performance and profitability of the manufacturer and the dealer / retailer. Any issue leading to conflict or below-expected performance or debilitated value-chain need to be identified and addressed by the organization / supplier. Satisfaction measurement provides a robust and dynamic framework in achieving this objective. With customer & partnership approach better working framework can be reached leading to higher satisfaction and mutual profitability. The Table:1 below illustrates typical broad dimensions (factors) that determine dealer satisfaction. Column 2 and 3 shows some of the attributes related to Delivery and Personnel dimensions that have bearing upon dealer satisfaction. The table is illustrative only, and need to be adapted in context of the particular industry / product / organization.

Table: 1 Broad dimensions / factors Order processing Delivery Product quality Advertising & Branding Micro detailing of Dimensions Attributes: Delivery related Attributes: Personnel related

Promotional & Adequacy of advance G e n e r a l a t t i t u d e o f t h e merchandizing information about delayed representative towards you support deliveries Adequacy of knowledge about Information sharing Reasons given for delayed product / services Payment / credit terms deliveries Ability to train front staff of channel Incentive schemes Adequacy of the information about product features on likely delivery time / date Complaint resolution Adequacy of knowledge about Level of follow-up you have Personnel company's trade related policies to do for delayed deliveries Quality of interaction Handling of any logistical issues Promptness in delivery of bulk orders

T i m e t a k e n t o m a k e Adequacy of visits of sales personnel deliveries Range of issues discussed with Adequacy of advance representative information about likely Representative's attitude to resolve short shipment your issues / problems

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JIGYASA 2011 The Service-Profit Chain propounded by Dr. James Hesket advocates about necessity of achieving satisfaction on various points across the value-chain, e.g. employee, channel, servicing and consumers; and stresses that such approach only would lead to either profits or value to various constituents of the value-chain. In India, not many organizations have evolved to such approach. If the success stories of leading multinational organizations following the approach are any indication, it is high time that Indian organizations too start focusing on customercum-partnership approach for their channel members. It would be a win-win situation both for organization (supplier / manufacturer) and the channel member (C&F / dealer / retailer).

Mr. Uday Mishra He is currently Head (Training) with NDPL, a Tata Power & Delhi Government joint venture into power distribution for north & north-west Delhi areas. Earlier, he has been Corporate Quality Head and Head (Business Excellence) at NDPL where he is working since January 2006. An engineer and PGDM by qualifications, he carries a rich experience of 19+ years in the domains of marketing, PMS, quality, strategic HR and business consulting.

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Jigyasa in Conversation with Global Head-HR, CMC Ltd Interview

HR In FOCUS Avadesh Dixit, CMC Ltd
1. How has HR evolved through your career? find the kind of people that we are looking for. There is employability issue rather than demand for labour. 4. Do you thing the quality of engineering graduates recruited in the it industry are satisfactory? Ans: There is still a gap between what industry wants and what the academia produces. The good news is that both the partners acknowledge this and are willing to address the issue. There has been constant endeavour from industry as well as academia to bridge this gap. Both the industry and academia have a huge responsibility to create employability for lakhs of graduates that are leaving campuses and other institutions. We have an issue of qualified supply rather than demand as whole. 5. How has CMC evolved from being a government organization to being a private enterprise? What role has HR played in this transition? Ans: Even w h en C M C wa s a govern m ent organisation, it was known for its progressive HR policies. To that extent, HR transformation, though complex, has been easy for us. HR has also been primarily focusing on three dimensions: Creating Performance driven culture. Introducing robust HR systems. Creating world class HR policies and Processes.
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Ans: HR is continuously becoming more strategic and critical function in any type of organisation. There is significant shift in the way the whole function is viewed. The organizations have started to realise that the real competitive advantage can primarily be created through people. I see great and exciting career for all those who opted to be in HR. 2. How do you think HR is evolving as a strategic function? Ans: Increasingly, HR function is actively taking part in strategy formulation as well as execution. Over a period of years, I have seen many HR professionals moving into strategic positions including a prominent chair at the board level. As mentioned earlier, real source of competitive advantage can only be created through people practices. Technology and processes can still be replicated but it is tough to replicate people practices. There is no strategy that can be successfully executed if it does not keep people at the centre of everything that the organisation does. 3. Do you see any kind of impact on employment trends due to what is happening in America? Ans: I have been talking to a lot of my colleagues in the industry and remain convinced that the employment scenario in India remains upbeat at least for near to medium term. I don't see any immediate concern with respect to demand for skilled professionals. In fact the issue is inability to

JIGYASA 2011 There have been various initiatives that have been launched to address all the above areas. HR has been closely involved with the business in creating required eco system for the company to move into international geographies and to move towards desired business mix. 6. How much weight age is given to behavioral competencies in CMC, as compared to technical competencies? Ans: In CMC, we attach significant importance to behavioural attributes of the individual. Normally hard targets and soft aspects of behaviour will be given equal weight age. The importance of behavioural and leadership attributes increases as the person moves into higher roles. 7. Based on your experience are there any specific competencies that you feel HR professionals should acquire to become successful? Ans: I believe that there are certain competencies that every HR professional should strive for. These include ability to create impact and influence, developing sharp business acumen, and looking at creative ways to address problems at hand. HR professionals should also acquire sufficient knowledge and experience to manage issues around international HR and diversity of all types. 8. What is the role of social media (examples: LinkedIn, Facebook) in some of the HR practices like hiring etc.? Ans: In our industry, a lot of young and technology savvy graduates are being hired year after year. These professionals are very well networked and belong to a generation which is highly connected to social media platforms. Every company has started to understand the social needs of these Gen-Y employees and accordingly are making attempt to engage this workforce through social media platforms. Some organisations have started creating blogs inside the organisation which allow people to discuss issues and give suggestions and that too in real time. Social media also helps to reach out to a large number of potential employees who are hooked on to one platform or the other. This trend is here to stay and will possibly define the way we engage with employees. 9. What do you think lies ahead for HR in India?

Ans: I personally believe that HR function in India is transforming itself into a critical and hard to ignore function. It is going to remain very core to every organisation. Hence it's important that HR professionals elevate their competencies to match the expectations that their businesses will have from them. For us to be truly elevated to business function, we must understand business.

Avadesh Dixit He is presently the Global Head-HR of CMC ltd.(Tata Group) which employees more than 8000 engineers. He is a certified Global Professional in HR (SHRM, USA) with over 11 years of managerial experience. After acquiring a Master's degree in HR & OD from MHROD, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi in 1999, he worked with Calcom Vision Lt for one year, following which he worked with TCS, North India and TCS, UK for a period of eight years. In addition to being a 360 degree HR professional, he has successfully managed key change initiatives in the organisations that he has worked in. His global roll-out of the Associate Satisfaction Survey across 60 locations around the world has been recognised as a Best Practice in the Tata Group.

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Request for Article

Jigyasa welcomes original papers, cases and book reviews from both academicians and practitioners on
management, business, and organization issues relating to the field of Human Resource Management, Organizational Development and Industrial Relations. While sending contributions the following guidelines must be strictly followed: 1. Manuscript: The author should send a copy of the manuscript in written form or an electronic copy of the same via e-mail or CD. The manuscript should contain the following: A brief biographical sketch of the author (80-100 words) describing the current designation and affiliation and educational qualifications of the author. All references should be mentioned at the end of the articles. The word limit is preferably around 3000 words. 2. Features: Jigyasa has the following features: Management Case describing a real-life situation faced a decision or action taken by an individual manager or by an Organization at the strategic, functional or operational levels. Book Reviews covers reviews of books on management. Theoretical and practical articles from both industry and the academia. 3. Review Process: The selection of papers for publication will be based on their relevance, clarity, topicality and originality; the extent to which they advance knowledge, understanding and application; and their likely contribution towards inspiring further development and research. The Journal tries to maintain a balance between purely research-oriented papers and those derived mainly from the experiences of practitioners involved in different areas of management. 4. All tables, charts, and graphs should be given with titles. Wherever necessary, the source should be indicated at the bottom. The number and complexity of such exhibits should be as low as possible. All graphs should be black and not in color. End notes, italics, and quotation marks should be kept to the minimum. 5. Place the references at the end of the manuscript following the endnotes. The list should mention only those sources which have been actually cited in the text or notes. References should be complete in all respects and alphabetically arranged in APA style. Author/s' name should be the same as in the original source. 6. Correspondence Address: All material and editorial correspondence should be addressed to: The Editor, Jigyasa Master of Human Resource and Organizational Development Department of Commerce Delhi School of Economics University of Delhi New Delhi - 110007 Phones: +91-011-27662037, 27662608 Fax: +91-011-27666781 E-mail: jigyasa@mhrod.in, Website: www.mhrod.com