Attracting talent with critical skills, retaining them and enhancing workforce productivity are the top three human resource challenges that organisations in India anticipate.
According to 54 per cent of the HR leaders surveyed in Randstad’s HR Game Changers 2016 study, HR 'needs' to be aligned with business to be a real game-changer.
Also, 40 per cent of the respondents feel HR has progressed from being a mere support function towards playing the more strategic role of ‘business partner’. For HR to earn a seat at the C-suite table and to add value to the organisation, the function needs to be receptive to the dynamic business environment and speak ‘business’.
Meeting aspirations
Managing the expectations and aspirations of a multi-generational workforce is the second most important factor, say 35 per cent of the respondents. The majority of respondents mentioned that today’s multi-generational workforce come with significantly diverse needs and demands pertaining to communication, use of technology, expectations from the employer, and so on. Thus, meeting their aspirations and expectations is directly linked to top talent retention.
Driving innovation
About 34 per cent of the respondents feel that fostering a culture that empowers employees to take risks and drive innovation is the third biggest factor.
Creating leaders
Nurturing and developing a leadership pipeline is another necessity, according to 34 per cent of the respondents. Internal succession planning and cultivation of a sustainable talent pipeline of future leaders at all levels is a key competitive advantage for organisations.
Some of the other trends they foresee are:
~~ Shift to skill based hiring as opposed to experience
~~ Enhancing HR efficiency through SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud)
~~ Increased investments in Employer branding
~~ Emphasize on creating a work culture that is flexible and employee friendly
~~ L&D budgets to be dominated by Re-Skilling & Up-Skilling activities
~~ Flex workers to form a significant portion of workforce
~~ Employee led CSR will be an important talent retention technique
~~ External regulations & factors(labor laws, social laws) will influence HR planning & processes
Some of the other HR challenges India Inc might face are:
~~ Developing a leadership pipeline
~~ Workforce engagement and satisfaction
~~ Managing internal change
~~ Timely fulfilment
~~ Re-skilling of workforce
~~ Managing compensation, benefits & expectations
~~ Regulatory compliance & social factors
Findings of Randstad’s survey are based on the feedback of almost 500 prominent HR leaders from India’s most admired companies across industry verticals.
Presenting the survey’s insights, Moorthy K Uppaluri, Managing Director and CEO, Randstad India said: “India being a knowledge economy and a human resource power-house, the spotlight is on HR as a people function. With the new war for talent intensifying, HR cannot assume a mere transactional role with a short-term focus on hiring for jobs, training for productivity and retaining for cost efficiency.”
Strategic role
“It’s about time HR, as a custodian of the talent ‘capital’, moved into a more strategic role, with a long-term focus on hiring to support a steady career, training for a bigger impact and retaining talent to create a differentiation in the market place. This reincarnation of HR is definitely a disruptive game changer that India Inc. is looking forward to and this is clearly reflected in our survey findings,” added Uppaluri.
The other key HR Game Changers of 2016, according to the survey, are: Shift to skill-based hiring as opposed to experience; Enhancing HR efficiency through SMAC (social media, mobile, analytics and cloud) and increased investments in employer branding.