The Hindu Business Line : HR trend: Higher reward for high performers

Advertisement

New Delhi Jan. 26 Companies are going all out to woo the top 20 per cent of their employees and increasing variable pays to as high as 22 per cent of their cost to company. Apart from this, there are long-term incentive plans for those who can earn them either through dogged hard work or plain genius.

"High performance is the highest priority today, given the economic pace and the urgency to find the right talent", says Mr Dhruv Prakash, Head, Hewitt Asia Pacific Leadership Practice. Companies, including PSUs, are looking to establish systems that can retain high performers and motivate others to move up to the high performing leadership bracket, he says.

The trend is in great part reflective of a shortage estimated at 15 to 20 per cent of `right' talent capable of handling increasingly complex responsibilities, says Mr Prakash, who recently addressed an audience on the subject at a seminar organised by All India Management Association. The shortage is across the board, but for companies such as Cairn India in the business of oil and gas, geophysicist and other highly specialised experts don't come easy and that's reason enough for Cairn to offer key performers fully sponsored higher education programmes.

Such long-term incentive plans of several companies include share options for the performers, which are directly related not to the individual, but the organisation's performance. The strategy for the `Solid 70' per cent of the workforce is different from the `Star 20' identified as prized leaders. There are different incentives reserved for them, says Ms Shalini Sarin, General Manager, HR, Cairn India. Over a year ago IndianOil Corporation too adopted a three-fold (corporate, team and individual) performance reward package that can count for as much as 40 per cent of base pay. However, "It's not the financial compensation but the content, or the challenges that the job offers that retains employees," says Mr V. C. Agarwal, Director (Human Resource) of IndianOil Corporation, citing a recent survey conducted at the PSU.