volume-v i issue 9 i september 2015 …content.timesjobs.com/docs/tjinsitesep2015.pdf7,000 middle...

FINDING A MIDDLE PATHMiddle managers continue to be crucial for business, say 80% organisations. But internal skill gap is forcing 64% to go for external hires, shows a TimesJobs survey

VOLUME-V I ISSUE 9 I SEPTEMBER 2015 www.content.timesjobs.com

For TimesJobs.com articles, expert advice and tips, visit www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, Jobs & Career section

INSIDEP 5 Hiring trends for August

P 6 Turning managers into leaders

Apeksha Kaushik, TimesJobs.com

AMID studies indicating that middle manager positions could be heading for extinction in the organisational structure, a

new TimesJobs.com survey of companies shows that this perception about the end of middle management era is misplaced, at least in India Inc. Nearly 80 per cent of the employers who took part in the study said middle managers continue to be critical drivers of business growth.

n YES, IT’S CRITICAL. BUT WHY?

For close to 80 per cent organisations, hiring middle managers is the most challenging task, shows the latest study by TimesJobs.com. But for the same set of employers, middle management is also a crucial position.

n CRUCIAL AND CHALLENGING

With hierarchical boundaries blurring and organisations turning horizontal, middle management positions have seemingly lost focus. Yet, for over three-fourth of Indian employers, middle management is still a crucial position.

Middle managers serve as link between top management and lower-level staff and 64 per cent employees who took part in the survey also value the

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VOLUME-V I ISSUE 9 I SEPTEMBER 2015www.content.timesjobs.com

Paying attention to critical but neglected middle managers

What makes middle level hiring challenging?

Getting right domain

skills

Getting right managerial/leadership

skills

Assessing in-house

vs external competency

Monetary expectations

26%

48%

21%

5%

A TimesJobs.com study on why majority of India Inc employers, despite considering middle management as critical, are not keen on filling the posts internally and how they can address the skill gaps

presence of such managers. They feel they are more comfortable sharing their concerns with their managers rather than discussing them with senior management, business head or HR.

n WHAT DOES INDIA INC VALUE?

Hiring middle managers is difficult since employers need a candidate with job-specific skills, domain expertise, experience, leadership quality and adaptability to get along with professionals at the two ends of the organisational hierarchy.

According to nearly 40 per cent of the surveyed organisations, there is a skill shortfall of 20-40 per cent at the middle level in their companies and in the industry as well.

As such, nearly 50 per cent of the surveyed organisations said the most challenging task is to get the right managerial/leadership skills while hiring middle managers, reveals the TimesJobs.com survey.

About 26 per cent said getting relevant domain skills was most challenging while for 21 per cent said evaluating whether to go for an internal or external hire was the biggest concern.

Whether it’s external or internal hiring, for most (56%) organisations, the search criterion is on getting relevant skills at the middle level, shows the study. Nearly 26 per cent employers go behind industry experience while only 1 per cent take into account educational qualifications.

n THE BIG MISMATCHThe skill part, which is the most

important criterion, poses the biggest challenge as well.

A break-up of these relevant skills reveals that this has more to do with softer aspects than domain competency.

Currently, about 84 per cent organisations say the overall quality of its middle management is below average. Of these, nearly 53 per cent say their middle managers’ leadership skills are poor. Nearly 30 per cent organisations say their mid managers have poor people management skills and 10 per cent point towards poor communication skills. Around 7 per cent rate domain skills of their middle managers as poor.

Because middle management is such a critical position, it creates pressure on middle managers. They often find themselves squeezed between juggling the expectations of their team members and top management.

Besides, lack of focus on training, grooming and development and the hiring practices/tools employed for filling positions at this level creates challenges.

TimesJobs.com studies the way India Inc. is hiring, engaging, retaining and empowering its middle management.

n IS INTERNAL HIRING THE SOLUTION?

The dilemma for employers about whether to go for an internal or external hire needs attention.

Since the talent pool is limited and the demand is high, it is always wiser to focus on grooming managers and leaders within the organisation. But, this

is not the case currently.The TimesJobs.com study shows that

for middle management hiring, not many companies are focusing on succession planning/internal recruitment.

Instead, 56 per cent are looking externally (but within the industry) to fill up middle-level vacancies.

Nearly 53 per cent organisations say they tend to look externally since they need new skills sets.

About 30 per cent organisations say frequent exits at the executive level (which could be promoted to middle

level) forces them to look outside.

For external hiring, 39 per cent are banking on employee referrals and 24 per cent trust online job portals.

Of the organisations that hire middle managers internally, nearly 44 per cent feel internal hires are skilled and trained, and make the transition without much effort.

For 25 per cent organisations, the internal hiring process is cost-effective.

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Why do you look externally?

Brings in new perspective

10%

53%

7%

30%

Need new skills sets

Need international

exposure

Frequent exits

How do you prefer hiring middle managers?

56%

36%

Externally (but within the

industry)

Externally (outside industry)

In-house (within the

organisation)

8%

56%

What is the most important criterion while recruiting for mid-level positions?Relevant skills

Years of experience

Industry experience

Educational qualification

International exposure

10%

26%

1%

7%

Where do middle managers lag behind?

Leadership skills

30%53%

7% 10%

People management

skills

Communication skills

Domain skills


4

About 59 per cent organisations assess the capability of middle managers by evaluating past records (rewards & achievements) while hiring internally. Nearly 30 per cent conduct behavioural tests white 11 per cent go by gut feeling.

n ENGAGEMENT – THE NEXT BIG STEP

Employee engagement cannot be more crucial at any other another level than middle level. Since hiring for this level poses a challenge, effective engagement to retain the trained and skilled middle-level staff is of utmost importance.

Nearly 29 per cent organisations feel a challenging work profile engages people at the middle level, shows TimesJobs.com study.

About 26 per cent feel money matters while 24 per cent say rewards & recognition is important. But for 21 per

cent employers, giving more authority to middle managers helps engage them better.

n EMPOWERING – THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION

You may hire them well and engage them better. But unless you empower your middle managers, you will not be able to hold them for long.

Because middle management is such a critical position, it creates pressure on the employees in question. By empowering middle managers, organisations can offer a holistic solution to strengthen this crucial level.

Here’s how you can do it:In-house training: Nearly 30 per cent India Inc employers are focusing on providing in-house training for growth & development of middle managers.

Job rotation: This is the focus for nearly 39 per cent India Inc employers. It helps create exiting opportunities for middle managers by offering them exposure to other departments and work profile. This helps break the monotony and offers them an opportunity to expand their knowledge and understanding to take up bigger roles.

More control: For 12 per cent organisations, giving middle managers more authority helps build a sense of ownership. However, organisations must take care of delegating tasks well and setting realistic goals and ensuring that the middle managers understand what is required of them.

Education: Nearly 19 per cent organisations are offering learning opportunities to its middle managers to help them acquire new skills – the primary reason for which organisations tend to look externally.

MIDDLE and senior-level professionals dominated the hiring trend across industries

from Jan-Jun 2015. Experienced professional with 4-15 years were in demand the most during the period, showed TimesJobs.com RecruiteX data.According to the data, IT/telecom, BFSI, manufacturing, retail and e-commerce are among the top sectors witnessing an upward trend in hiring middle managers.

In the IT segment, 55 per cent of the total jobs were at mid-management during Jan-Jun 2015. Recruitments were aimed at acquiring people for specialised and niche roles in areas closely connected to tech profiles such as software engineers, app programmers and quality assurance/testing specialists. Business intelligence and risk and control functions were the other desired competencies sought at this level.

MIDDLE-LEVEL POSITIONS IN DEMAND

What engages people at middle level?

26%

21%

More money

Rewards & Recognition

More Authority

24%

29%

Challenging work profile

Why do you look internally?

Cost-effective

Skilled & trained

Well versed with culture

Helps in retention and engagement

44%

20%

25%

11%

10

8

6

4

2

0

-2

-4

Jan 2015 Aug 2015

8%

-4%

0% 1%

8%

2%

-1%

How are you bridging the skill gap in middle managers?

In-house training

Job rotation

More authority

Education

30%

12%

39%

19%

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HIRING DIPS by 4% in August 2015; some sectors buck the trend

11% Jan 2015

8% Jul 2015

-1% Feb 2015

-4% Mar 2015

0% Apr 2015

-12% May 2015

-2% Jun 2015

LATEST RECRUITMENT TRENDS

-4% Aug 2015

INDUSTRY

LOCATION

PROFILES

2%1%

-18%

-9%

-7%

Engineers Business

management

Hospitality

Customer service/telecalling 3%Sales/BD IT/telecom

RecruiteX data for August 2015. Trends based on month-over-month analysis.

Vadodara

-23%

Indore

-12%

Jaipur

Chandigarh

22%

5% Hyderabad

5% Maharashtra (except Mumbai &

Pune)

-18%

-15% -12% -11%Projects/

infrastructureConstruction Petrochemicals/

oil & gas

3%

BFSI Logistics & warehousing

BPO / ITeS

1% 1%

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Jean-Michel Caye, Deborah Lovich and Vikram Bhalla

LOOK around at large, global corporations these days and you’ll find that many middle managers are thoroughly disengaged from their work.

The situation has continuously worsened over the past few decades.

Business is getting increasingly complex and objectives change fast—in part due to digital technology—and many large companies simply can’t redesign their organisations quickly enough to keep up.

As a result, many managers are stuck in organisations built around last year’s strategy. Confined to operational silos, these managers have little latitude to make decisions and often feel that their contributions simply do not matter.

Generational changes in the workforce are compounding the problem.

Millennial and Generation Y workers tend to seek more feedback from managers (particularly more praise) along with development opportunities, increased access to the “big picture,” and a reasonable work-life balance. These demands put a greater strain on middle managers.

Despite such challenges, middle managers can—and often must—play an essential role in an organisation’s success. (By middle managers, we mean people in the third or fourth level in a company. In a typical organisation of 50,000 employees, there are 50 to 200 senior executives and approximately 7,000 middle managers overseeing some 43,000 employees.)

Ideally, middle managers act as a bridge between top managers and front-line employees. They see the vision at the top of the organisation and the pain at the bottom. Once aspirations and strategy are set, middle managers translate the strategy into concrete business plans, communicate with employees, and manage the business — and most of the

people within the business. Furthermore, middle managers have the most direct contact with talented young employees, and can dramatically influence their experience — both positively and negatively.

For these reasons, even the best strategy will fail if the company does not actively engage its middle managers. Creating the right conditions for middle managers to excel is not easy. But there are several clear priorities companies should focus on: 1. Flatten the organisation

Senior leaders should delayer the organisation by removing some management levels to flatten the organisation. This may seem

counterintuitive but by eliminating layers, companies will create more meaningful positions for the remaining managers, and give them real power. Rather than fighting through bureaucracy and politics, managers will be freed up to focus on actually getting things done.2. Strive for self-driven or “agile” organisations

The principle of self-driven, agile organisations is to tap into the emotional energy of employees so that they are actively contributing rather than simply following orders. In essence, top managers develop the strategic vision and work with middle managers to translate that vision into concrete objectives. In turn, middle managers

collaborate with front-line employees to figure out how best to achieve those objectives. This model is increasingly common in fast-moving businesses such as those built around digital technology. It requires flat organisational structures, strong managers, new ways to collaborate, and strong processes to align teams that might be working at difference paces. 3. Empowering the middle

Companies that cannot shift entirely to a new organisational structure should, at the minimum, replicate some of these features by giving middle managers greater autonomy and latitude. Rather than merely implementing other people’s decisions, they should be able to make their own.

For example, managers should be allowed to organise how their teams work along with setting objectives and improving performance. They should also have some incentives at their disposal to reward high-performing employees (including base salary and career advancement). This may seem like common sense, but most companies do not allow middle managers to apply these levers fully or exercise their managerial muscle.4. Turn middle managers into leaders and talent developers

Companies should develop leadership skills among their middle managers. Some leaders are born, but many more are made, through training and coaching (particularly in areas such as people management and strategic visioning skills). Generally, middle managers need to be able to understand the company’s vision and strategy, and communicate those concepts to their employees. They must know how to develop and motivate their staff, and they must be able to conduct difficult conversations with employees.

The authors are co-leaders of The Boston Consulting Group’s Global Leadership and

Talent Enablement Center

Middle managers hold the key to improving business performance

Guest column: Empowering managers


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TimesJobs.com Bureau

WHAT are the hiring challenges and changes employers in the tech space are facing and what are

the solutions they are experimenting with? As part of its Boardroom Dialogues series, TimesJobs.com recently invited HR leaders from different tech companies in Hyderabad for an in-depth discussion on new-age recruitment.

Starting off the discussion, Amtul Ali Lubna of Efficacy Systems said hiring the right talent on time was her biggest challenge as an employer. “The other challenge is engaging the new hires.”

Nitya Naveli of Progress Software said today, candidates looked for a good work environment where they can “contribute something meaningful to the organisation and to themselves”.

“They also want transparency and flexibility and an opportunity to grow. They also have an entrepreneurial mindset and are taking up jobs with startups,” she said.

“People are more inclined towards product companies since they can ideate and innovate. They want to contribute something. Compensation and benefits probably on second of third position

in terms of what candidates want. First would definitely be their career paths.”

For Vivek Thukral of ADP India, the challenge lay in “keeping consistency” in how one hired talent.

Chaitanya Vallabh of AMD said the challenges came from the emergence of new skills. And the solution came via companies tapping global talent pools, he said. “There may be people from India in Germany or the US who want to come back. So we tap those markets.”

For Pritesh Malode of NCR Corporation, the challenge was to keep the hiring managers expectations under control.

In terms of change, he said the focus was increasing within companies on providing candidate experience. “How to keep the candidate engaged -- right from the application process to on-boarding and beyond. Earlier it was just offer and forget,” he said.

Priya Nandipaka of Keste Software said that according to her observation, candidates in the IT environment always tend to go behind the branding. “They take offers and compare. They ask: What is this company’s market position?”

HR leaders agreed that talent today seeks flexibility and career growth and companies must offer these to keep attracting talent.

TimesJobs Boardroom Dialogue, Hyderabad

(L-R) Tarun Sinha, regional head, TimesJobs.com; Vivek Thukral, talent acquisition lead, ADP India; Kanchana Dwarakanath, moderator; Amtul Ali Lubna, VP-HR & operations, Efficacy Systems; Priya Nandipaka, head-HR, Keste Software; Nitya Naveli, director-HR, Progress Software; Pritesh Malode, talent acquisition leader, NCR Corporation and Chaitanya Vallabh, regional talent acquisition head, AMD, India-EMEA.

New age talent wants flexibility and growth, say HR leaders TimesJobs.com Bureau

Delhi Management Association and Indus Business Academy recently organised the 7th Mega HR Conclave on ‘Building Capability for Future HR Challenges’ .

In the session on Navigating the New HR Landscape, the speakers were Ashish Arora, founder & MD, HR Anexi; Jacob Jacob, chief people officer, Apollo Hospitals Enterprises; Kaushik Chakraborty, director-HR and business partner, Jones Lang LaSalle; Deepayan Sensharma, VP-HR, Accenture and Sandeep Tyagi, director-HR, Samsung Electronics India.

TimesJobs.com powered a special session on ‘Gamification & Talent Communities: Role & Significance’ in the conclave.

The panelists were Tarun Sinha, regional head-BD, Rajiv Jayaraman, founder & CEO, KNOLSKAPE, Ashu Malhotra, CHRO and director,

Jabong.com, and Sandeep Chatterjee, global lead-talent, Accenture. The session focused on how technology has become an enabler in recruitments and employee engagement.

The last session was on “Human Capital 2015 and the speakers were Gaurav Markanda, associate director & partner, Panarc Consulting Group, Avadhesh Dixit, VP & head-HR, GE-SBI JV, Hemant Taneja, head-HR, Agilent Technologies, Vikramjit Singh, VP-HR, IPE Global & Mayuk Dasgupta, director –BD, Tech Mahindra.

7th Mega HR Conclave: Role of gamification

Q: Why empowering middle managers is crucial for business?A: I think it was Steve Jobs who said something like: “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do”. In today’s world of business, empowering people (middle managers or otherwise) is neither a choice nor a style statement. It is a necessity. Only empowering ecosystems nurture innovation and speed. Both are crucial ingredients for success. The days where a few smart people designed idiot-proof processes for average people to execute are over. Today, you need smart people at every level. And try retaining a smart person without empowering her!

Q: How are companies today empowering their middle managers?A: To start with, let’s understand why middle managers are not empowered in the first place. This will help us figure out how to empower them. They are not empowered because senior managers find it easier to do what their middle managers are supposed to be doing instead of what they themselves should be doing. It is always easy to operate a level or two below what is expected of you. The easiest (and most effective) way to fix this is to increase the span of control of senior managers and hold them accountable for higher level objectives (that are not just an aggregation of what their team is expected to accomplish). They will then have no time to micro-manage their team and will automatically begin empowering them.

Q: In a TimesJobs survey, 56% employers said when it comes to hiring middle managers, they prefer to hire externally. What’s your take?

A: Mature companies should be sourcing most of their middle management internally. However, young and high growth start-ups do end up sourcing a significant number of middle managers laterally since they wouldn’t have had sufficient time to incubate middle managers internally.

Q: What is the most effective way for senior leaders to enable middle managers excel?A: Senior leaders should figure out situations where the stakes are not too high and allow middle managers to take decisions and make mistakes. Penalise middle managers for not taking decisions. Don’t penalise them for taking the wrong decisions.

Q: Too often, middle managers have responsibility but no authority. Do you think this can create dissatisfaction?A: Yes, responsibility without authority can be frustrating. Having said this there are people who will always complain of insufficient authority and there are people who seize authority and make things happen. Whining about a lack of authority is often an excuse for not being able to take decisions or make things happen. Having said this, there are some insecure senior managers who will deliberately hold back authority and will want to review every decision. Obviously neither is desirable – the whining middle managers nor the insecure senior.

Q: Please share your best practices.A: At BigBasket, we have built in a few things into our culture and DNA. These are a) Maniacal focus on customers -- both external and internal b) Freedom but personal responsibility c) Speed and a sense of urgency in everything you do d) Accountability and ownership – even if everything is not in your control. These four elements of our DNA ensure that empowerment is not a choice. We set KRAs for managers that they personally drive (and are not just an aggregation of KRAs of team members). Also, our growth has been so high that no one has time to micro-manage.

(As told to Neha Singh Verma)

Disclaimer: Information provided in this newsletter shall not be reproduced, published, re-sold or otherwise distributed inany medium without the prior written permission of TimesJobs.com and a clear acknowledgement to TimesJobs.com.Contact: TJinsite, TimesJobs.com, Plot No 6, Sector 16A, Film City, Noida, 201301. Write in to [email protected]

Copyright ©2015 Times Business Solutions (A division of Times Internet Ltd). All rights reserved.

‘Allow middle managers to take decisions and make mistakes’

Interview: Hari TN, head-HR, BigBasket.com

Tools and techniques for empowering

middle managersDesign structures with high spans – don’t give a manager the time to micro-manage

Select high calibre people for every role – you will have the confidence to empower them

Set KRAs for managers that are not just an aggregation of what their team is supposed to accomplish. Give them personal goals that they need to drive as individuals

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