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L.N. Revathy

HR management is all about helping employees to bond together without losing individuality. It's one colourful flow of talent.

IF the nuclear family set-up appears ideal on the home front, it cannot be so when it comes to managing an empire. Managing people is one of the biggest challenges emerging today. Though the issues differ widely — whether at home or in business — ultimately it revolves around managing people.

In business, the issue is managing a global workforce, for, firms have started looking at strengthening their position not only on the home turf but also at potential business opportunities elsewhere.

Managing a global workforce is indeed the single biggest challenge that virtually every HR department of multinational organisations faces today. As organisations grow across geographies, it is but inevitable that extended enterprises need to be managed.

But how does one manage diversity within the workforce (cultural sensitivities)? How does the issue of communication across borders get resolved? How do companies resolve issues that arise when employees are working at remote locations? These are some of the challenges that are thrown up while trying to manage global diversity.

With a large number of the workforce generally on the move, engaged in onsite assignments, the issues concerning them tend to play a significant role in determining the success or failure of most global operations.

Let's take a look at the strategies evolved by Wipro Technologies to manage the global enterprise.

Wipro Technologies had, in a period of three years, grown from an Indian software company to a global IT consulting powerhouse by acquiring the Indian R&D Labs of telecom major Ericsson, BPO service provider Spectramind, the Energy and Utilities practice of AMS and, most recently, the US IT consulting firm Nervewire.

The growth pace alone was not rapid. With its size, the number on its roll also swelled. From just 3,500 in 1999, the workforce number crossed 13,000 in 2002.

The frenzied increase in workforce was mirrored by geographical diversification of the company, from the US to different countries in Europe and the Far East.

From a predominantly Indian software professional population, the company embraced IT consultants from the US, the UK, France, Germany and Japan. Managing professionals working out of remote locations and communicating with employees who are constantly on the move posed unique challenges.

The company, to sustain and emerge big on the global arena, had to consistently improve its productivity and efficiency, ensure speedy service to requests, provide seamless sharing of enterprise-wide knowledge and overcome barriers posed by language, diversified culture to form a unified enterprise.

The human resource function was re-christened Talent Engagement and Development (TED), to highlight the philosophy that would guide the management of diverse talent. "TED has initiated several employee bonding processes," says Anupam Mukherjee of Wipro Technologies's strategic marketing group.

The most important initiative of TED probably was to create Channel (W), an integrated e-HR and employee communication architecture that serves as a common platform for over 10,000 employees across the globe, says Anupam.

The Web-based medium bonds all Wiproites through community, collaboration and care.

The portal comprises affinity clubs, message board, chat, intranet search, personalisation engine and even a space to buy and sell products, be it a book or a used xylophone. It, however, is not just for fun. One section of Channel (W) is devoted to internal corporate communication, white papers, articles and idea sharing.

"As an employee self-service portal, Channel (W) has improved the back-end staff productivity by seven times, resulting in a saving of $1.4 million in the first year of implementation," Anupam says.

Apart from developing talent management programmes, Wipro would also like to boast of the best training and talent transformation systems.

The company has an online computer based training system, which trains people on the latest technologies, foreign languages and cultural differences.

This blended learning initiative comprises a combined flavour of eLearning, instructor-led learning and other real-time learning aids, it says.

The company's strategy at managing people appears to have worked wonders, for it is still looking at growing inorganically.

lnr@thehindu.co.in

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