The Hindu Business Line : The new-look HR guy

Once a people-centric profession, HR now has room for talent ranging from entertainers to adventurers, sportspersons, communicators and even good salespeople. And many HR functions are now being outsourced.

It's tough luck for those planning to enter HR because they like `working with people.' It's now archaic to declare you are opting for an HR career because you are comfortable with people. Like all other management practices, HR too demands extreme specialisation and is changing from a support function into a business function. A sweeping glance at the industry throws up several specialisations: recruitment, compensation and benefit, performance appraisal, benchmarking, training, resourcing, payroll and administration, and business HR. And in some companies, energising and providing fun to young employees, in addition to keeping them fit.

Typically, HR jobs fall into two broad categories: corporate and consulting. In a corporate set-up, there are recruiters, compensation and benefit specialists, payroll and administration specialists, trainers and a generalist supervising all these activities. Balaji E., Executive Director, Staffing Solutions, Ma Foi, says that after about five years HR pros become generalists. Though it's difficult to estimate the country's HR requirement, it is believed that corporates maintain one HR person for every 50-75 employees.

Consulting firms too boast of recruiters, trainers, account managers and delivery specialists. Then there are positions that seem unconventional but are becoming not only commonplace but also necessary: Take, for instance, resourcing specialists in the IT and BPO sectors, where attrition levels are 40-70 per cent. The resourcing specialist continuously monitors the movement of `wanted people' in the industry or constantly scouts for talent within the organisation.

Radha Unni, who started as a recruitment specialist in a Bangalore-based recruitment firm, now works with a software services firm. "My job is to keep track of people with `hot skills' like Java or VLSI or ERP and allocate resources to projects as and when the need arises," she says.

Several such new fraternities are emerging in the headhunting community. BPOs have chief fun officers rubbing shoulders with CEOs, CFOs and CIOs.

People skills at premium

Bangalore-based medical transcription company Healthscribe was the first to recognise the need for fun and de-stressing programmes in a BPO set-up and hired a Chief Fun Officer more than five years ago. Prasenjit Ganguly, Vice-President HR, says the CFO must ensure there is fun across the organisation, across shifts. Of course, he has a fun budget at his disposal.

As Ganguly sees it, there are four emerging areas in HR: fun and de-stress, creative activities like fitness training, internal communication, and psychometric testing during recruitment.

The Talent Engagement Officer's job is to motivate and retain employees. Companies have also realised that HR can play more than just a supportive role and become a partner in business. Several business heads are moving into this position and report to the profit centre head, says Gautam Sinha, CEO, TVA Infotech.

With the HR job market exploding like never before, recruitment specialists are obviously in demand. Generally greenhorns enter as recruitment specialists and later move to technical functions such as compensation and benefit, or payroll and administration.

The compensation and benefit specialist determines the market value of a particular job. For instance, when someone moves from a smaller to a bigger company, the specialist works out the employee's grade equivalence in the new company.

HR outsourcing — a popular option

In addition, companies want, though in smaller numbers, people in HR administration, payroll, visa processing and benchmarking. Branded as non-core functions, they are increasingly being outsourced.

Rahul Varma, HR Director, Accenture India, a leading HR outsourcing company, says the idea is to make cost-effective value additions to people-management processes and techniques. "Accenture customers consider productivity, not cost cutting, as the prime incentive for HR outsourcing."

HR programmes most often outsourced include payroll and administration, compensation and benefit, e-learning, knowledge management, and training. Asheesh K. Gupta, President, Hero Mindmine, estimates the training market in India is about Rs 25,000 crore but is largely underserved and unexplored.

Hero Mindmine, part of the US-based, $2-billion Hero Group, offers training delivery, training consulting, content development, and assessments and measurements. In India, the company has focussed on the training needs of BPOs. The company has 200 professionals who provide voice training, leadership training, cultural training, and telesales training.

Gupta says there is a great need for specialised training programmes to give clients a competitive edge. Therefore, the training team needs to be both diverse and specialist. The company has hired a former fighter pilot, for instance, to conduct leadership training and a speech-language expert for language and voice training. It's clear that trainers cannot make plain-vanilla offerings anymore.

Outbound training

Outbound training is the other new HR intervention that has caught the fancy of all people-centric corporates. "Generally adventure consultants play three roles during the experiential learning programmes: that of a consultant, a trainer and a facilitator," says Vinay Sirsi, Director, Operations and Strategy, Ozone, a Bangalore-based outbound training company. Ozone's 30 facilitators work with organisations at three levels: networking, enrichment, and interventions.

With so many options on offer, newcomers in the profession are quite confused about which stream to row their boat in. Nirupama V.S., Vice-President, TeamLease, endorses consulting as it gives a holistic idea of what the business is all about.

"There are clear cut processes in place and consulting firms are no longer paper-passing placement agencies," she says. Managers in recruitment firms understand the industry, segments, compensation, benefits, organisation culture etc., and become resource persons with a business perspective, she adds.

Coming into its own

Gautam of TVA feels that HR people must come out of the `support function' mindset. "Unfortunately, 70-80 per cent of the industry still works like this. But HR professionals will soon be forced to upgrade their skills or quit the business."

Agreeing that HR is becoming strategic for organisations, Varma of Accenture says the changing role and the fact that outsourcing is moving beyond cost advantage, clearly shows the industry is maturing.

"This maturity is a function of the good HR talent available in India. An active industry-institution engagement will further enrich this talent pool. The fact that companies recognise the linkage between human capital and financial performance is also driving the importance of HR in the organisation."

Picture by A. Roy Chowdhury

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