The Hindu Business Line : Finding the leader

It's interesting to see how Indian companies are increasingly aligning their business growth with individual employee growth. Management development is now high priority for companies on fast-track growth. "At Wipro, I would rather say management development programmes have been institutionalised," says Mr Ranjan Acharya, Vice-President, Corporate Human Resources Development and Convenor, Strategic Leadership Development Council, Wipro. That's because the company believes in growth from within, explains Mr Acharya.

"We have a philosophy now for many decades that if we have an internal person who is 60 per cent ready for the job, we are willing to bet on that person rather than look outside."

Apart from soft skills such as communication skills, presentations skills, etc, Wipro has put in place programmes for management development: The Future Managers' Program and the Global Managers' Program. To groom leadership within the organisation, Wipro has different programmes catering to different life-cycle stages of the manager: The New Leaders' Program is for the first-time leader, Wipro Leaders' Program (WLP) for the mid-level leader, the Business Leaders' Program for a General Manager moving into a business role, and a Strategic Leaders' Program for top management.

At Chennai-based Cognizant Technologies, MDPs are regularly used to groom talent from within. Says Mr Bhaskar Das, Vice-President, HR, Cognizant, "We use MDP as an appropriate managerial intervention for an executive's growth. We do not have a menu system for the executives to choose from; instead, we design an appropriate curriculum as per the needs of the executive." Cognizant has tied up with IIM Bangalore, which has customised programmes to suit its business needs. The two-week residential programme is for middle and senior managers. Senior executives at Cognizant undergo leadership programmes at Stanford and Harvard.

At ABB India, too, managers head for premier institutions such as IIMA and IIMB for a fast-track management programme and international programmes at Lusanne, Switzerland. Mr P.C. Rajiv, Head, Human Resources, ABB India, says that though not mandatory, the company ensures that its high potential employees and others in need attend the development programmes.

Every employee at Cognizant goes through a bi-annual performance management process that identifies strengths and areas of improvement. Based on performance scores and needs, middle and senior management professionals are evaluated under the Assessment Centre methodology. This in turn helps identify individual traits. "Based on inputs from these two processes (performance measurement process and Assessment Centres), we look at areas that need to be honed for the executive and the necessary intervention is provided and resources deployed," says Mr Das.

Wipro too has a similar process in place: For the skills programme, the employee expresses the desire to attend and this is endorsed by the manager based on the development plan in the appraisal process. Interestingly, sometimes the customer might initiate the move, says Mr Acharya. But for the leadership programme, the names selected are those that will form part of the Wipro leadership pool under an organisational plan. The training offered is, of course, based on the role, customer-identified needs or on the larger leadership development needs of the company apart from individual development. And so different people may get different amounts of training at different times.

"It is neither possible nor desirable to say that every employee will get a fixed amount of training," according to Mr Acharya. But companies do require a broad norm so that training gets prioritised, he adds. Wipro has fixed the norm at an average of five classroom days per year after the first year, which consists of substantial number of induction days.

At Cognizant too there is no stipulation for the man-hours training required by each executive for technical, managerial or behavioural training, says Mr Das. But employees generally undergo about 10 days of training each year, which includes formal in-classroom sessions and multi-modal training including workshops, seminars, orientation programs, weekly lectures, etc.

Companies are also introducing innovative concepts such as outbound programmes for leadership development. To develop camaraderie and team spirit, off-site programmes are becoming popular. According to Mr Acharya, outbound programmes are useful provided they are closely linked to the purpose. Wipro also has a very popular session on Personal Mastery in its leadership programmes that helps develop one's Spiritual Quotient (SQ) and, more importantly, a sense of perspective and balance.

Apart from outbound programmes, Cognizant organises wellness programmes, yoga workshops to combat stress at the workplace. "These are simple programmes yet with the ability to produce lasting positive results and help executives maintain balance in their lifestyle," says Mr Das.

More Stories on : Education | Human Resources

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page