The Hindu Business Line : HAL employees to play brand ambassadors

Winds of change are blowing at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. It says it will, for the first time and very soon, hit the campaign trail, riding on the testimony of a few of its year-old design engineering recruits.

The two-phase campaign, called `Join us, propel your dreams,' has five print ad pieces in phase 1 and the Rs 5,375-crore HAL sees it also as a brand exercise for itself. Next to follow will be a national and international brand campaign for the company.

This year, the defence PSU plans to hire 500 management trainees, 450 of them from various engineering streams. That will be 200 more than last year. It will supplement a routine employment ad placed for the public sector entity recently.

In-house initiative

What is new is that the ads were conceived, scripted and shot in-house. They feature five young men and women design engineers training at the HAL Management Academy as brand ambassadors, talking proudly about how their childhood dreams of aircraft making have come true.

HAL's thinking is that IT majors Infosys, Wipro and many others flaunt their employees in job ads; so why not give its engineers, who are just as good, their due by projecting them as the company's faces.

Hoardings, TV campaigns

Also on the cards are hoardings and television campaigns over the coming months.

"The focus of the company is now more on customer support, new design, development programmes and on youngsters," said the HAL Chairman, Mr Ashok K. Baweja, who formerly headed the design wing, in a release. "We want to tell young India that if you are chasing a dream in aviation, then HAL is the right place to be."

Mr Sanjeev Sahi, Director (Personnel & Administration), told Business Line HAL had people-intensive work orders of Rs 30,000 crore over the next few years for big projects such as the ALH, Sukhoi fighters, the advanced Hawk and the indigenous intermediate jet trainers; the light combat aircraft and the various upgrading programmes.

Campus hunts

Mr Sahi said the company found much goodwill during its campus hunts at IITs and NITs, from where it would hire 100 of its requirement from these places. The newly burnished compensation for new recruits, including housing, transport and medicare, would add to its charms.

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