Royal Enfield keen to hire young talent pool for its upcoming plant

‘Catch them young' is the new hiring mantra at Royal Enfield, the Chennai-based motorcycle manufacturer.

“We want to attract youngsters who are passionate about biking and understand what it is all about,” Dr Venki Padmanabhan, Chief Executive Officer, told Business Line .

As Royal Enfield gears up to commission its new plant in one of the city's growing auto hubs, its top priority is to get the right talent. “People are coming from all over the country to work in this part of Chennai.

The challenge is to get this talent pool to think beyond the big fish and come to us,” he said.

In fact, the location of the new plant is critical to the hiring process.

For decades, Royal Enfield has operated out of the northern part of Chennai which is not exactly the most attractive location for an auto company.

In comparison, the new site has the likes of Renault-Nissan and Daimler Commercial Vehicles as neighbours.

This is expected to make up for Royal Enfield's relatively smaller size.

“If we are small fish in a big pond, we have to position ourselves accurately in the job market because that is the only way we will get what we need,” Dr Padmanabhan said.

The company also believes that there are advantages in being small, especially when it comes to career planning and growth.

As Mr Siddhartha Lal, Managing Director & CEO of Eicher Motors (which owns Royal Enfield) added, “When a youngster comes into our organisation, he discovers that it is flat and gets areas of responsibilities assigned to him soon. We are not as straitjacketed as other multinationals where the road is narrow.”

Order backlog

The new plant is equally critical from the viewpoint of reducing the waiting list for the company's motorcycles which is as long as eight months.

Its actual commissioning is still sometime away which means the order backlog will continue for a while.

This is becoming a cause for concern, especially when the present facility is already bursting at its seams. “We want to be a paranoid company, at least internally, even though it is a cool image to the outside world.

“As much as it is great to have more customers today, we cannot take this for granted as nobody can wait forever,” Dr Padmanabhan said.

The best part about the new plant is that it will have a state-of-the-art paint shop quite unlike the present one which the company “is barely holding together” as it is obsolete technology with capacity issues.

There will also be a lot of focus on the engine, frame, tank and other sheet metal parts.

Issues relating to people, training and systems are as critical because, for all practical purposes, the new facility marks the beginning of a fresh innings at Royal Enfield.

>gmurali@thehindu.co.in

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