work force gen y

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WORKFORCE PRODUCTIVITY - INDIA 2012

4

The critical parameters determining profitability

of any business organisation are workforce

productivity and effective workforce manage-

ment. For the vast majority of businesses, the single

largest cost of doing business is their workforce and

thus, workforce productivity and effective workforce

management can improve the return on the organisa-

tions largest single asset, its workforce. A staggering

98 percent of respondents who participated in the

People Matters Kronos survey agree that their great-

est challenge is to hire and retain talent. Accordingly,

it becomes all the more important for organisations

to look at measures to ensure that people are enabledto drive organisational performance. If workforce

planning is duly taken care of, it will increase produc-

tivity by having adequate talent with the right skills,

in the right place, and at the right time.

The People Matters Kronos Survey focuses

on the overall challenges that the HR fraternity

is currently facing on issues related to managing

workforce and productivity. The survey also aims at

understanding the impact of the present workforce

management practices and processes on the organ-

isational performance of Indian companies. The

online survey collated data from 215 respondents

across industries that represent HR Heads from BPO/ITeS, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, retail,

BFSI, IT and real estate industry and qualitative

inputs from 30 HR heads from specific industries.

As a critical organisational process, workforce

planning involves proactive planning of talent to

ensure that the organisation is adequately staffed for

optimal organisational productivity. In its business

partner role, it is important for HR professionals to

fully understand business cycles and how to align the

talent pipeline with the business needs. The dynamics

of the marketplace and the shortage of talent further

imply that attraction and retention of talent is all the

more important to increase organisational productiv-ity. If workforce planning is mastered, it will increase

productivity and having adequate talent with the right

skills, in the right place, at the right time; will become

a source in itself of competitive advantage.

Workforce Management System (WFMS) is an

essential tool when it comes to business planning. If

we look at business cycles in any industry, manpower

planning plays a very important role to complement

business planning for higher revenues, better profits

and efficient execution of growth plans. A workforce

management system can help in manpower plan-

ning on the basis of demand drivers, forecast human

resources plans, and then automatically support inallocating optimal workforce against such plans.

Once allocated, WFM systems then help track and

analyze workforce performance and practices to

Executive Summary

manage labor costs, minimize compliance risks and

enhance people effectiveness. Some of the important

factors affecting workforce productivity are manpower

planning and absenteeism.

Intriguingly in the Indian context, 70 percent of

the respondents state that they do not have a formal

procedure in place to track absenteeism. While the loss

in productivity is apparent, what goes unnoticed is the

hidden cost therein. According to 2007 Mercer/Marsh

survey on Health, Productivity and Absence Manage-

ment Programs, study based on US companies, the

direct costs of absence totaled 14.2 percent of payroll.

In fact the full cost of employee absence is significantand amounts to an equivalent of 35 percent of payroll.

With reference to absenteeism, 45 percent respondents

claim that it negatively affects their productivity.

Globally, CEOs had set bullish targets for 2011 and

demanded significant increase in workforce produc-

tivity to meet their targets. In fact, global firms were

targeting 5.4 percent growth for 2011; in specific the

US firms were targeted 4.9 percent growth for 2011. A

survey conducted by a global management consultancy

firm states that 66 percent of US business leaders admit

that their growth targets presented a challenge and

that they need to increase productivity by 6 percent

on an average. 68 percent planned to implement morerigorous individual performance management this year.

More than two-thirds (68 percent) of U.S. business

leaders agree that individual performance management

is an important driver of overall business performance.

In the Indian context, quite interestingly 100 percent of

them rely on individual goals and targets accomplished

to measure employee productivity. Amidst all these

reports, New York based think tank, The Conference

Board, states that India and China remained the largest

and most dynamic economies with 8.7 percent and 5.4

percent growth in labor productivity in 2010.

HR functional heads need to become more transfor-

mational in todays age of the Knowledge Economy.If markets like India are going to emerge as bulwarks

of the global economy and be in the forefront in the

years to come, the people function needs to become

more transformational to business by placing the right

people, at the right place, at the right time to get the

best value from their deployment. Over-scheduling or

under-scheduling of people will only harm organisa-

tions with either a cost issue or a quality issue. HR

leaders are increasingly working and taking ownership

of these aspects along with business and going beyond

the administrative second fiddle with routine chores of

recruitment, performance appraisals and payroll. HR

is transforming itself to play a constructive businessimpact role of a different magnitude. This will help

enhance employee productivity bear a positive impact

on organisational performance.


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5

Key Findings

Expectedlyhiringandretainingtalentisthemostimportant challenge for over 90 percent of therespondents

84percentoftherespondentsbelievethatimprov-ing productivity of workforce is a key challenge

Inaccuratemanpowerplanningisthemostsignii-cant factor that affects employee productivity for 76percent of respondents

70percentofrespondentsdonothaveasystemtotrackabsenteeism

Incaseofplannedabsenteeism,68percentoftherespondentsutilizea co-workerto illinfor theabsentcolleague

80percentofrespondentsclaimthattheeficiencyof replacement worker is as low as 75 percent thatof the original worker

Atotalof82percentrespondentsasserttheyhaveaformalprocesstomeasureproductivity,whileonly28percentagreethattheyhaveanautomatedsystem in place to measure it and track its improve-

ment

45percentofrespondentsratelackofintegrationof processes and systems to provide consolidatedinformation as a major challenge in measuringproductivity

Workforceplanningandschedulingis theleastdigitized area with 60 percent of respondents eitherusingdesktopoficesoftwareoramanualsystemtomanage it

Thesurveyrevealedthatunplannedleavesaffectproductivity to a greater extent as compared toplanned leaves


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7

An Industry ViewAn analysis of survey data based on industry segmentation reveals that hiring new talent

and retaining key talent are the most important challenges being faced by industries like BPO/

ITES and manufacturing. 100 percent of the respondents from the manufacturing industry

consider hiring and retaining talent as an important challenge, as compared to 98 percentfrom the BPO/ITeS industry. When it comes to the challenge of improving productivity of

existing workforce, more than 80 percent of respondents across industries place productivity

challenge on top of their business agenda.

Fig. 2 Challenge of improving productivity of existing workforce - Industry-wise segmentation

Note: Choice of response in percentage of respondents.

Improving

productivity is a

key challenge in

almost all sectors

Factors Affecting

Employee ProductivityThere are a range of factors that influence

productivity in an organisation. First being

the nature of the industry and the maturity

of the business. For example, there are differ-

ent factors to consider when it comes to

tracking productivity in cyclic/seasonal and

non-cyclical businesses. The second elementthat can affect productivity is how stable and

automated is the process. The third element is

the working conditions that affect the overall

quality of work and the output. And finally, the

level of employee engagement that drives how

much of discretionary effort people are willing

to put in their jobs. This discretionary effort

will be determined by the morality, motivation

and level of enthusiasm that people working

in the group have.

Beyond factors that are external to the

organisation and are unique to India, like

infrastructure, commuting challenges,

etc.; the survey also solicited respondents

to rate the factors that are internal and set

the rhythm of the organisation to perform.

Internal aspects like inaccurate manpower

planning, lack of relevant training and

skills from the workforce, lack of visibility

and control and employee absenteeism are

the key factors that affect productivity in

organisations today.A productive environment is also the

result of organisational basics like allocat-

ing the right people with the right skills,

ensuring that there is clarity in terms of

what is expected from them as well as

having the right tools and processes to

deliver the expected. As synthesized by

Gurmeet Singh, Area Director of Human

Resources, Marriott Hotels; work culture

is in the driving seat, training is fuel, work

practices and processes are the engine oil

and infrastructure enables speed.

91%100% 65%

82% 86%

Manufacturing Hospitality BPO/ITeS

Retail Healthcare


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9

planning and deployment as a major chal-

lenge that they are facing today. On the other

hand, the challenge of employee absenteeism

is being faced by 28% of the manufacturing

industry respondents and 24 percent of the

BPO/ITES industry respondents.

Higher impact on inacu-rate Manpower Planning& absenteeism: Frontline

workforceThe survey results indicate that the chal-

lenge of inaccurate manpower planning and

deployment is almost 50 percent in organisa-

tions with 50 to 70 percent of their workforce

in frontline positions, while the challenge is

more than 60 percent in organisations who

have 70 to 90 percent of their workforce in

frontline positions.

Absenteeism & Its Affecton Productivity

When looking at the factors that affect

productivity, as seen in the previous section,

45 percent of respondents revealed that

employee absenteeism negatively affects

employee productivity (Fig. 3). Even though

28 percent claimed that they track absentee-

ism to measure productivity and productivity

improvement (Fig. 8), reality is that more than

70 percent of respondents claim that they donot have a system to track absenteeism.

Suresh Tripathi shares how SRF looks at

absenteeism, There are two types of absen-

teeism, authorized and unauthorized. Even

in unauthorized, there are different levels of

leave based on when the person has informed

about the leave (24h, 48h, etc.). In order

to manage unauthorized leave, we use a 3

box metric where we plug in the forecasted

unauthorized leave based on historical data

(leave is cyclical, as there are some period

that is most likely to have unauthorized leave

festive seasons, harvesting, etc.). We fix a

maximum leave target and we track that we

are not exceeding the same.

Impact of AbsenteeismIn the case of a planned absenteeism,

68 percent of the respondents utilize a

co-worker to fill in for the absent colleague.

Only 14 percent have the supervisor or an

outsourced temporary staff to replace the

absentee. In an unplanned absenteeism

the picture is different where 21 percent of

respondents use the supervisor to fill in for

the team member who has not come to work.

This has a great implication both in terms of

the work that gets affected at the supervisory

level and also in terms of the additional load

that the supervisor needs to fill in for people

in his/her team not turning up to work.

Interestingly, when absenteeism is

planned, 8% of respondents do not fill in

for the absent staff while for an unplanned

absenteeism, 17 percent of the respondents

do not fill in. The number of respondents

who do not fill in for a position that is vacant

is due to lack of systems and processes to

track that absenteeism in the first place with

Fig.4 Challenge of inaccurate manpower planning and deployment - Segregated as per Front-

line Workforce


70% of respon-

dents claim that

they do not have

a system to track

absenteeism

49%

62%

70 - 90%

Workforce in Frontline

50 - 70%

Workforce in Frontline


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10

Who Fills In?

the required speed to meaningfully replace

the person.

When it comes to revealing how produc-

tive employees are, who fill in for absent

colleagues, only 5% claim that the work gets

done at the same level of productivity, while

18% claim that the worker filling in is 75 to

90% as productive, for 46%, the productivity

goes down in between 50 to 75% and for the

remaining 31%, productivity lower than 50%.In terms of how does work get affected

if there is a leave, there is a huge difference

between how the work gets affected when

the leave is planned and when the leave is

unplanned. Productivity gets affected highly

for 8% of respondents when there is a planned

leave, while work does not get or gets mini-

mally affected for 56%. As opposed to an

unplanned leave, when impact on productivity

is very high for 30% of respondents and work

PlannedAbsenceUnplannedAbsence

68%

49%

14%

Co-worker/

Existing Staff

Employees

Supervisor

Temporary

Staff

We do not fill in

21%10%

13%8%

17%

Less than

50%

31%

50 -

75%

46%

75 -

90%

18%

90 -

100%

5%

(b)Inyouropinion,onanaverage,howproductiveareworkers

whoillinforanabsentemployeerelativetonormalproductivity

oftheemployeetheyillinfor?

Fig. 5 AbsenteeismanditsAffectonProdictivity

(a)WhoFillsinforAbsentStaff?

Note: Choice of response in percentage of respondents. Percentage might not add upto 100 due to rounding.


20%

Level of Work AffectedPlannedAbsenceUnplannedAbsence

No Affect Low Medium High

10%

36%

18%

36%42%

8%

30%

Fig. 6LevelofWorkAffectedincaseofEmployeeAbsenteeism

Planned Absence Unplanned Absence gets

affected minimally or low for 18%.

The impact of absenteeism seems to be

correlated to the understanding of a busi-

nesss nature and cyclicality, the systems and

process in place and the ability to interiorize

absenteeism in manpower planning. Suresh

Tripathi from SRF, shares his thought, to

cater to the unauthorized leave, we build

processes to ensure that we have enoughpeople to take care of this requirement,

especially in a chain that requires continu-

ous process and every single employee is

required for the process to continue. As we

have budget for this unauthorized leave, we

have a group of people that can be called at a

short notice, so we inform them in case they

are required to come to work. For those lines

that do not require a continuous processes,

we use this time for maintenance work.

Eficiency ofreplacement work-

ers is as low as 75%

that of the original

worker himself,

claimed 8 out of 10

respondents


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11

Metrics, Processes andSystems for MeasuringProductivityMetrics

In terms of how organisations track

and measure their productivity, the survey

results state that goal setting and achieve-

ment of individual targets and key results

indicators is followed across all industries

to track productivity at the individual

level. Anju Talwar, Senior Vice-President,

Genpact, shares, We have a fairly robust

performance measurement system and

all rewards are closely linked to perfor-

mance. This seems to be a common prac-

Note: Choice of response in percentage of respondents. Percentage might not add upto 100

due to rounding. Respondents could chose as many as apply.

Individualaccomplish-

ment oftargets and

goals

Adherenceto time

deadlinefor tasksassigned

Ratio ofemployee

cost torevenue/

proitgenerated

Ratio of taskscompletedper unit of

time

Unplannedabsenteeism

Fig. 7 Metrics to Measure Employee Productivity

100%

62% 60%

42%

24%

Processes & SystemsThe survey results show that a total of

82% of respondents have a formal pro-

cess to measure productivity, while only

28% of them have an automated system

in place to measure it and track its im-

provement. A whopping 72% of these re-

spondents either do not have a system to

manage the processes or have a manual

system in place to manage it.

An Industry View89% of the respondents from the manu-

facturing industry have formal processes in

place but either they do not have a system

to measure it or the systems are manually

managed. This number increases to 95% for

the healthcare segment and is pegged at 59%

for the retail industry.

tice across industries, company sizes and

maturity levels of organisations. 62 percent

of respondents use adherence to time and

deadlines for tasks assigned, as a metric to

track and improve employee productivity.Other metrics at the organisational level

used to track productivity are employee cost

to revenue or employee cost to profit gener-

ated (claimed by 60 percent of respondents).

Other production ratios depending on the

nature of the business account for 42 percent

of the metrics used to track productivity.

For instance, this can be units produced per

employee in manufacturing, or calls attended

per unit of time in BPO. Unplanned absentee-

ism as a measure to track workforce produc-

tivity is used by 24 percent of respondents.


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12

Dr. Ritu AnandVice-President & Deputy Head GlobalHuman Resources, TCS

Employee utilization is measured by

person hours deployed on billable

engagement/person hours available

or billable engagement. Productiv-

ity is measured through Revenue per

Person, Operating Margin per Person.

Entire Work Force Management is digi-

tized through systems.

Saikat ChatterjeeManager HR, South East & South West

Asia, Intercontinental Hotels Group

Traditionally, the number o employ-

ees in a hotel was directly dependent

on the number o rooms in a hotel. But

with the wage costs seeing an upward

trend in the past 3-5 years (An impor-tant note here is that in the past, 12%

o the top line was the wage costs,

now it has gone up to 18% to 20%), it

is imperative that we link productivity.

The occupancy o a hotel is an impor-

tant actor, but what is equally impor-

tant is the rate at which we are able to

sell those rooms.

Anoop RawatHead Learning & Development, Fortis

Healthcare IndiaThere are our essential metrics we

track: customer patience, develop-

ing people, developing processes

and nancial. We adapt the balanced

score card approach. All employees

are measured on the our aspects. We

Trackers o Productivity

Across Industries

are trying to implement a standard-

ized system o reporting data across

the organisation. The way o report-

ing data across hospitals is dierent

currently. There is a lot o ocus on

training employees in this regard.

Other metrics are patient to bed ratio,doctor to patient ratio, etc.

Sangeeta SinghExecutive Director HR, KPMG India

The manpower planning is done on

set metrics. A manpower planning

pyramid is drawn and ollowed or

each department, based on their target

revenues. We have a scientic projec-

tion done and believe that it is crucial

to have the ability to get the projec-

tions right and align with the projec-

tions.

Anju TalwarSenior Vice-President, Genpact

At a process level we measure output

by employee, time on system, etc.,

variable incentives are linked to these.

At the time o transition the key is to

do an eective/realistic base lining

o employee productivity, ensure that

volume fuctuations are predictable

(especially the ones that are cyclical) so

that stang in the process is appropri-ate, else you could end up with bench,

which impacts protability. Once the

process stabilizes, we measure the

variation in productivity; apply six

sigma principles and tools to reduce

variation.


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13

Fig. 9 Industry-wise Segmentation Processes and Systems to Measure and Increase Productivity


Existing SystemsIt is interesting that though organisa-

tions have a process to track productivity, a

minority of them have an integrated system

underlying this process. The survey further

drilled into the different systems used in

different activities.

Automation can be one of the levers for

increasing workforce productivity in organ-

isations, while digitizing activities ranging

from workforce scheduling and planning,

performance appraisal to work assignment

and tracking can ease the execution and

improvement of these activities.

Today, automation presents itself as a

great opportunity for organisations and

seems untapped. Workforce planning and

scheduling and work assignment and track-

ing, happens manually or by desktop software

in 59% and 50% of the surveyed organisations

respectively. These are the two areas that

are less digitized as per survey responses.

Areas that are also less digitized among the

59%

95%

89%

Retail Manufacturing

Healthcare


Formal processesinplacebutsystems are

manually managed

Formalprocesses alongwith automatedsystems in place

Formal processesinplacebut

no systems tomeasure them

No formalprocesses and

systems in place

Fig. 8 Processes and Systems to Measure and Increase Productivity

36%

28%

18% 18%

A total of 82% of

respondents have

a formal process to

measure productiv-ity, while only 28%

of them have an

automated system

in place to measure

it and track its

improvement


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15

Lack of integration

of processes &

systems to provide

consolidated

information

Lack of coordination

betweendifferent

departments,

resulting in

erroneous data

Limited or

no use of

technology &

systems

Lack of

processes in

place

Budgetary

constraints in

terms of investing

in technology

Others

Fig. 11 Challenges in Measuring Employee Productivity

45%42%

35%

32%

17%

8%

Note: Choice of response in percentage of respondents. Respondents could chose as many as apply.

coordination between different depart-

ments, resulting in erroneous data (Fig.

12). Clearly, the most important benefit of

adapting and using an integrated solution is

that it reduces human intervention, thereby

reducing chances of error and malpractices,

and this subsequently creates transparency

by giving easy availability and access of data

to the top management. Easy availability of

data for the top management is another

important benefit for 72% of the respon-

dents, followed by reduced opportunities

for unfavorable practices as being the

other benefit for 63% of the respondents.

Even though the benefits of having an

integrated solution are known, nearly 60%

of the respondent organisations still do not

have an integrated solution.

Fig. 12BeneitsofhavinganIntegratedSolution

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Note: Choice of response in percentage of respondents. Respondents could chose as many as apply.

Reduced

error as humanintervention is

minimized

Easyavailability

of data for topmanagement

Reduced

opportunitiesforunfavorable

practices

Faster

processing ofemployee dues

Eliminate

leakages whileleave encashment

& reconciliation

86%

72%63%

53%47%

of organisations, the most impor-

tant beneit of having an inte-

grated solution is reduced error,

because of minimized human intervention


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16


Yes

41%

No

59%

Fig. 13 Integrated System

60%

57%

50%

33% 67%

73%27%

50%

43%

40%Retail

BPO/ITeS

Healthcare

Manufacturing

Hospitality

Yes No

Fig. 14 Industry-wise Segmentation - Integrated System


An Industry ViewSuresh Dutt Tripathi from SRF shares,

This year we are integrating all the plants

through an HRIS at the group level. We

already have an integrated HRIS for manage-ment level but with completion of the HRIS

for non-management levels, we will have an

elaborate system, which will help us in our

strategic decision making. The manufactur-

ing industry has been facing the challenge of

not being able to increase the productivity

of the existing workforce, owing to inac-

curate manpower planning and deployment

and absenteeism. 73% of them still do not

have an integrated system. In the healthcare

segment, this number reduces minimally to

67%. This clearly indicates that organisations

are aware of the challenges and their factorsresponsible. There are a few organisations

that have taken and adopted a complete

integrated solution.


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17

The online survey was primarily struc-

tured around closed, single and multi-

ple choice questions. Respondents also

had an opportunity to add their views and

comments where the option provided did not

give the relevant description of the reality. The

figures for multiple-choice questions reflect

the percentage of respondents who chose that

specific option. The figures for answers thathad limited choices reflect the percentage of

respondents who chose answers within their

limited choices. Additionally, responses were

collected through face-to-face and telephonic

interviews conducted by People Matters

research team. These interviews were more

open ended and allowed business heads and

HR heads to elaborate with qualitative infor-

mation on their workforce management prac-

tices and processes. The qualitative responses

have been incorporated in the results of the

survey. The online survey reflects contribu-

tions from 215 respondents across industries.

The respondents represent a diverse group of

business and HR Heads across the BPO/ITeS,

healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, retail,

BFSI, IT and the real estate industry. The report

additionally reflects qualitative inputs from 30

HR Heads across specific industries.

Survey Methodology


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18

Respondents InformationIndustry Spread

In terms of industry participation, BPO/

ITeS and manufacturing sectors account for

22% and 27% of respondents respectively.

The representation from other industry verti-

cals such as healthcare, retail and hospitality

is evenly spread with respective respondent

representation of 11%, 9% and 8%. The remain-

ing 23% of the respondents belong to the BFSI,

IT and the real estate industry among others.

With specific reference to the size of orgasina-

tions, 66% of respondents represent organisa-

tions with more than 5,000 employees. 23% of

them are part of organisations with employee

strength in the range of 5,000 to 10,000 and

another 23% in the range of 10,000 to 50,000.

As far as participation in terms of respondents

from organisations having large employee

base is concerned, there are 7% respondents

from organisations having a workforce of

50,000 100,000 while the remaining 3% of

the respondents are a part of organisations

with more than 100,000.

Fig. 15 Respondants Information

(a)IndustrySpread (b)EmployeeStrength


Mojority in

others:

1. BFSI

2. IT

3. Real

Estate

Others

23%

Retail

9%

Manufacturing

27%

BPO/ITeS

22%

Healthcare

11%

Hospitality

8%

10,000-50,000

23%

5,000-10,000

23%

Less than

5,000

44%

50,000-

1,00,0007%

Greater than

1,00,000

3%

(b)NumberofLocationsOutsideIndia

11 &

above

32%

2 - 4

23%

1

14%

5 - 10

31%

11 & above28%

2 - 411%We do not have

Internationalpresence

27%

5 - 1034%

Organisations Geographic Spread

Fig. 16 Organisations Geographic Spread

(a)NumberofLocationswithinIndia

Number of locationswithin India

Number of locationsoutside India


In terms of industry

participation, BPO/

ITeS and manu-

facturing sectorsaccount for 22% and

27% of respondents

respectively


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19

Respondents of the survey belong

to organisations who not only are large

in terms of employee strength, but also

have a large geographical presence both

within the country and outside the coun-try, providing a better gauge into issues

of workforce productivity in organisations

both in terms of size and location. 32%

of respondents are a part of organisa-

tions that have presence in 11 different

locations within India while 31% of them

belong to the workforce of companies

having presence in 5-10 locations within

the country. Further, employees from

organisations having 2-4 different opera-

tional bases form a significant portion of

the respondents with 23% of them from

such organisations.

As organisations spread their wings

to foreign shores, the issue of manag-

ing workforce productivity becomes all

the more challenging. The challenges in

varying degrees are well represented by

73% of the respondents who are a part

of an organisation with global presence.

The remaining 27% of the participating

organisations did not have any interna-

tional presence.

Percentage of FrontlineStaff

70% of respondents have more than

20% of their workforce in frontline roles.

For 42% of the total survey respondents,

the ratio of frontline associates is in

between 20-50%. There are 29% of them

for whom, out of their total workforce,

19%

20%

33%

44% 41% 7%

50% 17%

20% 20%

48% 19%BPO/ITeS

Retail

Healthcare

Manufacturing

Fig. 18 Industry-wise Segmentation Percentage of Frontline Staff


0 - 20% 20 - 50% 50 - 70% 70 - 90% 70 - 90%

10% 5%

40%

7%

0-20% constitutes the frontline associates.

For around a 17%, 50-70% of their total

workforce was that of frontline workforce.

As indicated by the survey results, 85%

of the organisations from the manufacturingindustry have a minimum of 50% of their

workforce in the frontline, followed by 83%

from the healthcare segment. This is quite

relevant with the kind of in-built setup these

industries have.

Fig. 17 Percentage of Frontline Staff


Percentage might not add upto 100 due to rounding.

0 - 20%

29%

70 - 90%10%

20 - 50%

42%

50 - 70%

17%

Greater than90%2%

Employees from organisations having 2-4

different operational bases form a signiicant

portion of the respondents with 23% of them

from such organisations


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20

Organisation Structure: Permanents vs. ContractorsFig. 19OrganisationStructure:Permanentsvs.Contractors

(a)Doyouhavecontractualemployees? (b)RatioofContractualtoPermanents


78% of the survey respondents repre-

sent organisations, which employ contrac-

tual employees. 37% of them have their

contractual to permanent employees ratio

at 10-25%. While 32% of them have this

ratio at less than 10%, 16% have this ratio

between 25-50%. The remaining 15% have

this ratio exceeding 50%. There are 22% of

the respondent organisations who do not

employ contractual staff. In those organisa-

tions where contractual employees form a

substantial part of the organisational work-

force, it is important to track their produc-

tivity too. 46% of the respondent organisa-

tions use similar tracking systems for both

contractual and permanent employees, while

23% of them outsource the complete produc-

tivity tracking and measuring of contractual

employees to a vendor. The remaining 23%

of the respondents use a differential tracking

system for the two categories of employees.

78%of the

survey respondentsrepresent organisa-

tions, which employ

contractual employ-

ees. 37% of them have

their contractual to

permanent employees

ratio at 10-25%

Yes

78%

NO

22%

10 - 25%

37%

25 - 50%

16%

Less than

10%

32%

More than

50%

15%

Have contractualemployees?

Ratio of contractual to perma-nent employees?


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21

Experts Views


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22

The key workforce challenge in IT/ITeS is keeping costs under control, with focus onlevers like controlling and managing attrition and balancing ratios of experienced to

trainees joining the organisation. The second key challenge is continuous compe-tency enhancement of talent, both through training and job rotation. And thirdly,the challenge is to create a sustainable talent pipeline, both in terms of maintainingoptimal bench strength and also to ensure a healthy leadership pipeline to fuel acompanys growth.

Dr. Ritu AnandVice President & Deputy Head - Global Human Resources, Tata Consultancy Services

Saikat ChatterjeeManager HR, South East & South West Asia, InterContinental Hotels Group

There is no challenge on the issue of unplanned absenteeism as we have a planned

leave tracker, which is in place April to March each year. This encourages people togo on vacations and also helps in planning work better. Unlike other organisationsin the industry, we have started to roaster our employees for 5 days a week. Thisin turn, leaves the employee more content, since earlier an employee had to work 6

days a week and this in turn further enhances the employee satisfaction level.

Judhajit DasChief Human Resources, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance

Nandita GurjarSVP and Global Head HR, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Pankaj N. GursahaniAssociate Director Sales Training, AstraZeneca Pharma India

In ICICI Prudential, we measure workforce productivity through metrics such asrevenue per employee/branch, new business profits per employee/branch, percentageof mis-selling complaints by employee/branch, customer service scores by branch,etc. In analyzing workforce productivity, we have found that it is important to analyze

factors such as demographics like marital status, gender, education, age and otherfactors like training certification scores, recruitment channel, attrition scores, etc. tounderstand correlation of these factors with workforce productivity.

It is an important objective for our talent management strategy to improve produc-tivity. The challenges lie in being first able to measure it effectively especially acrossthe multiple service lines, for example, a high-end consultants productivity may

need to be measured through a combination of billing rate and utilization, while adeveloper may need to be measured using the effort needed to code either a certainnumber of lines or a function point. The second aspect is to create a set of interven-tions to enhance productivity for each of these types of productivity.

At AstraZeneca we use Delta, which is an automated system to track all analyticsfor all front level employees. For managers, we have C-Cal, an automated system totrack their team members on all aspects. There is an automated system for manpower

planning. If the market is going down, then planning is automatically re-done basedon the prevailing market conditions, making our systems completely dynamic.

The challenges we face in tracking employee productivity are of three types. Thefirst challenge is to define employee productivity itself. The second issue is that data

is collected by a group of people, so the human intervention poses a challenge interms of identifying deviations and problems with the data. The third challenge isthat these measures most often than not, are lag indicators, so it does not really helpus in planning ahead but in explaining the problems.

Prabir JhaSenior Vice-President & Head - Human Resources, Tata Motors


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Anuraag MainiExecutive VP - HR and Training, DLF Pramerica Life Insurance

Employee utilization and productivity is measured through number of documentsprocessed, and each function has its own metrics. The head office to field office

ratio, the quality of business generated, new business generated, renewals done,number of people paying on time, etc., are important factors. We try to track thebusiness made, which is more important in this industry. Attendance manage-ment system is in place, but more important is the fact that how productive is theemployee in his business.

K. V. RaambabuManaging Director, Pulse Pharmaceuticals

Anoop RawatHead - Learning & Development, Fortis Healthcare India

H.C. Ruben SelvadorayGeneral Manager - HR, Bharti Airtel

Sanjay RawatAssociate Vice-President, Aegis Academy, Aegis Ltd.

For measuring employee utilization, there is no appropriate system in place andwe believe in the traditional method of asking HODs for a need and go on a case-to-case basis. Front level employees do take leaves in an unplanned fashion. There

are punishment clauses in place but employees at that level are casual in their

approach. There are no systems or policies in place. It is only in an extreme case,that an employee is asked to leave on these grounds.

There are four essential areas that we track to measure productivity at theindividual level: customer patience, developing people, developing processesand financial impact. We adapt the balanced score card approach. All employeesare measured on the four aspects. We are trying to implement a standardized

system of reporting data across the organisation. The way of reporting data across

hospitals is different currently. Metrics that we track very closely are patient to bedratio, doctor to patient ratio, etc.

I would classify the factors that affect employee productivity into direct and indi-rect factors. Some of the direct factors are financial contribution, strategic initia-tives delivered, span of control, customer per employee and delivery of opera-tional KPIs. While the indirect factors are revenue/ employee, HR cost as percent-

age of gross revenue, HR cost as percentage of total opex, teeth to tail ratio andthe number of layers between CEO to front-line to name a few.

Employee absenteeism increases the workload on others and also meeting clientcommitment and anxiety on people present increases. For example, if a trainerreports sick at the 11th hour, somebody who has to substitute undergoes a stress-ful experience. This drastically impairs the quality of program and hence, the prob-

ability of repeat business is reduced.


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24

We measure our productivity based on how delighted our customers are and their

intent to come back to our hotel. For us to sustain our growth, customers must

come back. Our front-line or first touch starts from the airport, the pick-up experi-ence the check in, etc. The complete process is designed to create a delightfulexperience for our client.

Gurmeet SinghArea Director - HR, India, Maldives, Marriott International Inc.

Sangeeta SinghExecutive Director, KPMG India

We measure a managers capability to handle attrition in his team. Unplannedleaves or absenteeism is not a rampant problem in our industry unlike in themanufacturing industry. Further, manpower planning is done on set metrics. Amanpower planning pyramid is drawn and followed for each department, on the

basis of their target revenues. We undertake a scientific projection and believe thatit is crucial to get the projections right and aligned with them.

Anju TalwarSenior Vice-President, Genpact

Suresh Dutt TripathiPresident - HR, SRF Ltd.

Vivek TripathiChief Human Resource Oficer, Lava International Ltd.

At a process level, output is measured by employee, time on system, etc., andvariable incentives are linked to these. At the time of transition, the key is to do an

effective and realistic base lining of employee productivity, ensure that volumefluctuations are predictable (especially the ones that are cyclical) so that staffingin the process is appropriate, or else you could end up with bench, which impactsprofitability. Once the process stabilizes, we measure the variation in productivity

and apply six sigma principles and tools to reduce variation.

For our business, productivity is not measured in terms of revenue or sales (whichfluctuate significantly) but in terms of volume. We track volume per employee. Fordifferent functions we measure differently, for example, number of persons in afunction per person in manufacturing, etc. We also look at units manufactured vs.units sold so we can track quality and wastage. We track the effectiveness of our

management team by looking at the ratio of number of white collar employees forblue collar employees.

Today most of our employee related processes run in a manual mode. We do not

have an integrated system as yet. Business planning is linked to manpower plan-ning and it is an annual exercise. This becomes the base for hiring and trainingneeds. In terms of manpower tracking, leaves, payroll, etc., it is mostly done inexcel today. For staff that is office going, we have a digitized attendance tracking,and email based leave application and both of those get tallied manually for payroll.

For the field staff, we use the sales and stock reports to track attendance. Employ-ees from the field need to submit their reports as proof of their attendance for theday, and managers are very strict about this process.


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25

Walk-the-talk

with the Leaders


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26

Speed learning and avoid

reinventing the wheel

The factors that affect productivity are firstly,

work culture of the organisation and its learn-

ing environment and knowledge manage-

ment, secondly, competencies (both at individual and

organisation level) and performance ethics and thirdly

effective utilization of available talent.

The key workforce challenges are keeping costs

under control, with focus on levers like control-

ling and managing attrition and balancing ratios ofexperienced to trainees joining the organisation.

The second key challenge is continuous competency

enhancement of talent,. both through training and

job rotation. And thirdly, to create a sustainable talent

pipeline, both in terms of maintaining optimal bench

but also ensuring healthy leadership pipeline to fuel a

companys growth.

When you look at productivity, specifically as a key

challenge, we have to focus on improving productivity

through speeding up learning and avoiding reinvent-

ing the wheel. This is achieved with a combination

of training coupled with providing opportunities to

further develop the competencies obtained throughtraining, planned job rotation and providing the right

platform for sharing of best practices. At Tata Consul-

tancy Services, these are achieved through Integrated

Competency and Learning Management System

(iCALMS) and Knowledge Management System

(KnowMax). Competency development happens in the

areas of domain, technology, process, language and

culture and leadership development.

The key areas of workforce management that

affect organisational performance, especially in the IT/

ITeS industry are areas like level of attrition, recruit-

ment mix and bench. These areas have a direct impact

on cost and hence, organisational performance. Other

important areas like utilization impact both top line

and bottom line. Finally, continuous competency

enhancement including leadership pipeline affects

delivery excellence and hence, has a positive effect

on organisational performance. We look very closely

at all of them. At TCS, we measure employee utiliza-

tion by person hours deployed on billable engage-

ment/person hours available for billable engagement.

Productivity is measured through revenue per person

and operating margin per person. Our entire work

force management is digitized through systems.

Dr. Ritu AnandVice President & Deputy HeadGlobal Human ResourcesTata Consultancy Services


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Provide the right environment for

people to develop and grow

Employee productivity basically dependson employee ability and employee will-ingness (engagement). For example, a

restaurant server does not just need to knowhow to serve wine but should also have the

attitude and personality to provide a superiorcustomer experience.

The key workforce management chal-lenges for our business include aligning

people to the business strategy, manag-ing peoples aspirations, inspiring peoplemangers to use performance managementas a strategic tool rather than an adminis-trative task and employee retention giventhe demand for talent from the hospitality

industry.In order to align our people to the busi-

ness strategy, we have adapted the BalancedScorecard approach. We call it the SteeringWheel, which has clearly defined measur-

able matrices under four quadrants namely,Our People; Guest Experience; ResponsibleBusiness; and Financial Returns. At the plan-ning stage, every business identifies actions

that they will need to take to deliver on theabove 4 quadrants. The business priorities are

then linked to functional, departmental andindividual priorities, which helps employeesunderstand their role in helping the businessachieve its objectives.

Our people philosophy is about giving

people the right environment where they candeliver and grow. We are able to provide ourpeople career growth, as our business is on agrowth trajectory and thereby managing theiraspirations. We currently have eight opera-

tional hotel properties in India. We plan totake this number to forty five over the next fiveyears. We have more positions/vacancies than

the number of people available to fill them.Being a part of a global company, we are

also using our scale to move talent across

countries and regions. We have sent ourpeople outside of India for 1-3 year assign-ments, developed them and brought themback at senior positions. One of the mostimportant things as an organisation for us is

to embed our organisation culture. In orderto effectively achieve it, we focus on inter-nally hiring people for senior roles. This alsoprovides the senior leadership a chance todevelop and excel. Attrition of leaders impacts

the organisation to a large extent. We encour-age our senior leaders to take responsibility

of people development through structuredcoaching. We also make sure that whenevera senior leader is visiting from our regional

Saikat ChatterjeeManager HRM South East &South West Asia, InterContinen-tal Hotels Group

offices in Singapore or Dubai, they spend sometime with our local leaders talking about thecompany direction, opportunities and connectwith our people.

The attrition level at the bottom level is

nearly 35 percent, which we can only controlbut not reduce. Our approach is to categorizetalent and focus on retaining the essential. Wehave also managed to keep the attrition of our

management team both in hotels and corpo-rate offices to a meager 15 percent.Attrition at lower levels significantly

impacts customer experiences. It is seen if theattrition is higher in a particular month, ourcustomer experience scores get affected in a

negative manner. So, we spend a lot of timein defining clear processes and making surethat our on boarding program is robust, whichreduces the time taken by an employee to beproductive.

Traditionally, the number of employees in

a hotel was directly dependent on the numberof rooms in a hotel. But with the wage costsseeing an upward trend in the past 3-5 years

(an important note here is that in the past,12% of the top line was the wage costs, now

it has gone up to 18% to 20%). It is imperativethat we link productivity. The occupancy of ahotel is an important factor, but what is equallyimportant is the rate at which we are able tosell those rooms. So, now we measure produc-

tivity through room revenue per employee. Theother productivity matrices include revenueper cover in restaurants number of occupiedrooms cleaned per attendant, etc. For example,Crowne Plaza Gurgaon is a corporate hotel,

which has guests of specific needs and seesyear round business, so the workforce deployedis higher during guest arrival time, peak meal

periods in restaurants, etc. But for CrownePlaza Rohini, which is primarily a social venue,the workforce deployed is higher for banquets.

We have TQM based tools, which help us inplanning our workforce and roasters are madeaccordingly. We are in the process of settingbenchmarks across our hotels in the country.

There is no challenge on the issue of

unplanned absenteeism as we have a plannedleave tracker, which is ruled out April to Marcheach year. This forces people to go on vaca-tions and also helps in planning work better.Unlike other organisations in the industry, we

have started to roaster our employees for 5 days a week. This in turn, leaves the employee

more content, since earlier an employee hadto work 6 days a week and this in turn furtherenhances the employee satisfaction level.


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Workforce management must

run like a process

In the insurance business, we offer longterm protection, savings and investmentplans to help people plan for mortality risk,

health & disability risk and longevity risk. Asinsurance is a long term business, it is a busi-

ness of trust and it is very important to notonly acquire clients but also, retain them andensure that they continue to pay their annualpremiums and or buy new plans to meet their

risk. Insurance companies follow a multichan-nel distribution model to acquire new custom-ers and hence, it is critical that we have theright people who can service our customers inthe right manner.

Comprehending & Measuring productivity

In ICICI Prudential, we measure workforceproductivity through metrics such as revenueper employee / branch, new business profitsper employee/branch, percentage of mis-sell-

ing complaints by employee/branch, customerservice scores by branch, etc. In analyzingworkforce productivity, we have found that it isimportant to analyze factors such as demo-

graphics like marital status, gender, education,age and others such as training certification

scores, recruitment channel, attrition scores,etc., to understand correlation of these factorswith workforce productivity. This gets fed backinto the recruitment team for fine-tuning thesourcing strategy and recruitment efficiency by

hiring the more successful profiles.At a conceptual level, workforce productiv-

ity needs to be understood in terms of attitudeor willingness and capability or ability. Doesthe person have the motivation to do the job

well and does he or she have the capability todo the job. If the motivation is high and thecapability is low, or if the motivation is low and

the capability is high, in both cases productiv-ity results are low. For attaining high produc-tivity, both motivation and capability needs

to be high. However, we need to drill downdeep to understand the factors that cause lowmotivation or low capability. This root causeanalysis is important as otherwise one willtreat the symptom and not th e cause. During

diagnosis, it is hence, important to establishcausality to determine the corrective courseof action or remedy, for example, till a fewyears back, many companies used to hire freshMBAs for frontline sales roles. We found that

whilst the MBAs would score very well duringtraining, very few of them met their targets and

attrited very fast as compared to other profileswho were mostly undergraduates with someyears of sales experience. We found that there

Judhajit DasChief Human ResourcesICICI Prudential Life Insurance

were 2 issues. The primary issue was thatmost of the people we hired did not want todo frontline sales roles and wanted manage-rial roles and there was a motivation fit issue.Also, sales roles are application oriented roles

and skill building happens over time.Our performance management system

was not allowing a fresh MBA to settle downand learn the sales role to be effective. The

issue of employability is therefore aroundmaking people job ready by equipping themwith skills that can make them becomeproductive from day 1. Corporates want jobready candidates and our omnibus educationsystem is a relic from the British Raj days,

which was built for the primary purpose ofproviding an army of clerks who could workfor the empire. Also, the lax marking systemmeans that many people who ideally shouldnot have been admitted for higher levelstudies are passing the program, leading to

a fundamental gap not only in the qualityof their education and particularly cognitiveskills but also, in their aspiration. This is a

problem at all levels of our education system.Students expect jobs one level higher than

their capability and employers donot feel theyhave the necessary skills or cognitive abilityto do jobs as per their education qualification.

The way out

We are trying to make the jobs simplerthrough technology wherever possible. Weare focusing on de-skilling the job, so that thetime taken to learn the job reduces. We arealso trying out different profiles as in hiring

one level lower as a motivation fit is criticalfor job success. We have also partnered witheducation providers to create a supply chain

of job ready profiles. This reduces the timeand cost spent on training post hiring andmore importantly, the person has the motiva-

tion to do the job as he has opted for thecareer and has been trained for it. We havefound that this has significantly helped usreduce early attrition as the motivation factoris already there.

Workforce management has to run like aprocess. We should make sure that we havethe right people, train the right people, havegood managers, have a good work environ-ment and expose them to a working envi-

ronment that makes people productive andmakes them want to do their best. The entire

value chain has to work seamlessly for aperson to be productive. The hire and firepolicy will not work anymore.


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Employeeabilityandtheecosystem

are critical to employee productivity

Employee productivity is impacted by both

individual ability and the ecosystem within

which the individual needs to operate. Indi-

vidual ability is a function of competence, exposure

and energy. The ecosystem is the result of many

things including organisation climate, structure and

work processes. The biggest workforce management

need is attracting and retaining the best talent in

terms of scale, capability (need for a wide spec-trum of skills ranging from technology specialists

to domain experts) and geographical spread (need

them globally in line with our articulated busi-

ness approach of 85:15). The challenge is that of

the demand-supply gap. There is similar demand

from multiple organisations across the industry and

the talent pool available does not suffice this is

also probably the reason why we have seen overall

industry attrition trends increase as compared to

say, 5 years ago.

It is an important objective for our talent

management strategy to improve productivity. The

challenges lie in being first able to measure it effec-tively especially across the multiple service lines, for

example, a high-end consultants productivity may

need to be measured through a combination of bill-

ing rate and utilization, while a developer may need

to be measured using the effort needed to code

either a certain number of lines or a function point.

The second aspect is to create a set of interventions

to enhance productivity for each of these types of

productivity. We have special groups set up that

work on tools and re-use. There are also a number

of developmental interventions to increase indi-

vidual skill levels.

Organisational performance is evaluated onmultiple dimensions workforce management

has a strong impact on a number of talent related

measures like attrition, employee engagement as

well as on productivity measures. Employee utiliza-

tion is measured through specially set up organ-

isational systems that capture employee allocation

at different points of time. The workforce planning

process factors in the average utilization percentage

into their short-term and long-term models.

Nandita GurjarSVP and Global Head HRInfosys Technologies Ltd.


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Connecting with Gen Y employees

is a challenge

The employee productivity can be affected by

two kinds of factors internal and external.

The former include the immediate boss or

supervisor of the employee, kind of dialogue within

the team and growth opportunities available to the

employee. The latter includes employee engagement

and the ability to control and influence the customers

or clients.

I am a strong believer of the fact that if anemployee has updated his resume, it means that the

employees productivity is going to decrease now. It

is tough for supervisors or the immediate manager

to develop and connect with Gen Y employees. The

times have changed and so the bosses have to adapt

to this change and behave maturely with the new

Gen Y employees. The competency of the supervisor

is an important aspect as well.

The industry also faces a challenge in keeping the

employees engaged. There is a self-induced pressure

amongst the employees, which is because of immense

competition. The market now has ample opportuni-

ties and the expectation levels of the employees havealso increased.

We are making conscious efforts in engaging our

employees. The induction programs for our new hires

focus on employee engagement. The attrition, if it has

to happen, happens at the initial stages itself. We also

have developmental courses for all our employees.

All trainings are compulsorily designed on functional

competencies.

We have Delta, which is an automated system to

track all analytics for all front level employees. For

managers, we have C-Cal, an automated system to

track their team members on all aspects. There is

an automated system for manpower planning. If the

market is going down, then planning is automatically

re-done on the basis of the prevailing market condi-

tions, making our systems completely dynamic.

Pankaj N. GursahaniAssociate Director, Sales TrainingAstraZeneca Pharma India


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Largermetricscancamoulagesome

of the more critical issues

The factors that influence produc-

tivity depend, to a major extent,

on the nature of the business. For

example, cyclical or seasonal businesses

have different factors to consider when it

comes to tracking productivity compared

to non cyclical businesses. The second

element that also affects productivity

is how stable are the process, and howautomated the manufacturing process is.

The third element is the working condi-

tions that affect the overall quality of

work and the output. Finally, the level of

employee engagement will also drive how

much of discretionary effort that people

are willing to put in their jobs, this discre-

tionary effort will be determined by the

moral, motivation and level of enthusiasm

that people working in the group have.

Manpower planning is an important

factor to drive and improve productiv-

ity. Planning happens at the businesslevel and is aligned to the culture and

approach of the organisation. Whether

the company wants to invest in technol-

ogy or in people or a mix of both is a

business decision after all. If the business

plans to increase output or change the

product mix, then the manpower plan-

ning happens accordingly.

Metrics: defnition, processes and

challenges

The most utilized metric in manufac-

turing is output per employee. Others are

cost as percentage of net profitability. My

favorite is the value added by employee

added cost this metric really helps you

making the skill mix and product mix

more effective. The more I invest in

Prabir JhaSenior Vice-President & Head -Human Resources, Tata Motors

people how much more is my productiv-

ity increasing either in terms of volume

produced or value per unit produced.

These are the fundamental measure we

track for business decisions either for

investment in equipment, in people or in

training. These metrics are very impor-

tant as they are the conversation point

for headcount planning.We have an in-house team that

collects and tracks productivity data

and it is linked to other systems in

the organisation. For example, if there

are union settlements, these are then

connected with the HRIS and payroll.

Absenteeism can be regularized with

grant of leave, though leave is never a

matter of right! Certain segments of the

workforce may actually be incentivized

on 100% presence at work and if absent

without grant all for the month typically

will get impacted.The challenges we face in tracking

employee productivity are of three types.

The first challenge is to define employee

productivity. While many routine opera-

tions can be easily to be tracked this

way, but then what about managerial

productivity and if you put it all under

one larger metric, it can camouflage

some of the more critical issues. The

second issue is that they are collected

by a group of people so the human

intervention poses a challenge in terms

of identifying deviations and problems

with the data. The third challenge is that

these measures most often than not, are

lag indicators so it does not really help

us in planning ahead but in explaining

the problems.


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Theremustberoleclarityacross

lower levels

Employee productivity is greatly linked

to the employees association to

the bigger picture. If there is lack of

alignment with the organisational goals, it

leads to loss of energy and subsequently

leads to loss of productivity. He needs to be

aware of what he is doing in the organisa-

tion. And how does his work contribute

towards the organisational goals. Addition-ally, other factors could include if there are

adequate training tools / resources avail-

able to do the job.

The role of the immediate manager in

workforce management is the most crucial.

The manager needs to be supportive,

available, and should be able to guide and

provide feedback and coach/mentor them

if required. The rewards and recognition

process needs to be streamlined especially

for the front-level employees. It should

happen at shorter intervals and their incen-

tives should be delivered on time. For thesenior staff, the time intervals can be larger.

The employee needs to be aware of

what he wants to achieve from the job he is

doing. Despite availability of all tools and

technology, people do not know what they

need to know. The employee services should

be easily accessible and available to all. The

work life issues are gaining importance.

With different generations coming to

work, and the difference in experience and

expectation levels amongst all generations,

the work life balance is really not there. It is

equally important to have a safe, comfort-

able and joyful work environment. There

should be role clarity across lower levels

and their growth path should be adequately

defined.

This industry is going through regula-

tory changes. Initially, people saw a faster

growth, but in the race, good management

practices have not fore-seeded. We might

have been good at the frontend, but we

did not get the time to put these practices

into picture. To manage the challenges,

we constantly look at the input and output

parameters. These measureable parameters

could include number of calls made per

agent, quality of agents, quality of business

Anuraag MainiExecutive VP - HR and TrainingDLF Pramerica Life Insurance

generated, number of policies issues and

number of renewals done amongst others.

There is lot of focus to educate and

train people around this as it is impor-

tant to set the right input parameters so

that the right output is achieved for the

business. The different areas through

which workforce management affects

organisational performance include thequantity versus the quality of goals/

targets met by the employees / teams. We

have a customer satisfaction survey and

a distributor satisfaction survey, which is

another crucial area. Other areas include

the engagement level of the employees

and the extent to which the organisational

goals are being met. It is all about manag-

ing rightly engaged employees at the

right time at the right job. An inside out

approach is adapted.

For example, it is a mandate to have

background verification done for all our

employees, which is very unlike other

organisations in this industry. Initially,

people did not believe us, but we had to

take tough calls of asking people to leave

on this ground. It is only then, that people

started believing that we actually consider

this factor so crucially. End of the day, our

employees are going to handle financials

of our clients, so they need to have high

integrity.

Employee utilization and productiv-

ity is measured through number of docu-

ments processed, and each function has its

own metrics. The head office to field office

ratio, the quality of business generated,

new business generated, renewals done,

number of people paying on time, etc., are

important factors.

We try to track the business made,

which is more important in this industry.

Leverage is also given because of the fact

that our employees meet clients at their

convenient timings, which include late

evenings, early morning, weekends, holi-

days, etc. Attendance management system

is in place, but more important is the fact

that how productive is the employee in his

business.


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Focusonintangiblebeneitsto

retain people

The key challenge, which our industry

faces, is of acquiring and retaining

the right talent. This situation is likely

to remain for a longer period of time. The

easiest way to address it is by focusing on

the tangible factors like compensation and

perks. Further, intangible factors like train-

ing and development (skill development &

job orientation) will help enhancing skilllevels in employees and help them to enjoy

their job while delivering desired level of

performance. However, in todays fast paced

work life with intense focus on immediate

and short term results, the key challenge

is to get employees engaged and aligned

with the organisations business philoso-

phy and values. The lack of alignment and

buy in from the employees on the organ-

isational values and philosophy, creates a

significant challenge for the future. To drive

the organisation for an exciting future, in

addition to focusing on the current results,a lot of employee energy should be directed

towards creation of the future. Thoughts

for the future are clear at the top in most

organisations, however percolating it down

to employees at all levels is a challenge.

The challenge further is in developing an

employee mindset that looks beyond the

compensation and benefits package and

focuses on alignment with the organisation.

From the era of protectionism for the

work force, today the industry is faced with

shortage of right talent. The relevance of

unions has been greatly reduced. Today,

increased opportunities and options

K. V. RaambabuManaging DirectorPulse Pharmaceuticals

outside of the pharma industry have seen

employee expectations change. Further,

there is a change in employer expecta-

tions, with increased focus on numbers and

expectation of higher returns per employee.

This has led to a situation wherein good

employees are difficult to retain. As oppor-

tunities are abundant, employees tend to

hop jobs when they are unable to meet theshort term goals. This leads to a situation

of higher base level packages with limited

skill sets in the employee pool. Hence, the

challenge is in creating a work environ-

ment that sustains and promotes organisa-

tion building for the future without loss

of focus on short term results. Towards

this, the development of skills in the

middle management is critical. The middle

management interacts routinely with the

work force and they need to be trained to

create the right balance of result and future

focus in the work environment.Currently, we use regular metrics to

measure employee productivity and there

by establish employee utilization. Moving

forward, we will be initiating more detailed

employee utilization studies. The results will

help us in better resource allocation and

utilization.

Unplanned Absenteeism is not a serious

concern for us. Technology has evolved over

the past decade and has resulted in reduced

lag time in realizing absenteeism in sales

force. Systems are therefore in place to

quickly identify and resolve the few cases of

absenteeism that occur.


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Focus on having the right people in

the right roles

When we look at productivity, we

aim to constantly upgrade the

skills of our employees. We take

into account how often they are undergoing

the process of upgrading their skills. The

aim is to provide the right set of training

opportunities to our employees. We also

put conscious efforts in removing any

activities, which can be done away with ona regular basis, and thus saves the employ-

ees time and effort. We strive to give our

employees a satisfaction level with respect

to their jobs. This includes taking care of

their rewards and recognition, giving them

ample opportunities to grow within the

organisation, amongst other initiatives.

It is very necessary to have the right

people at the right place to make sure

that employee productivity doesnot get

hampered. The intrinsic behavior of the

employee also plays a crucial role.

The major challenge across industryis acquiring the right talent and retaining

it. This is primarily because the number

of opportunities available in the market

is immense. There is shortage of talent in

healthcare and we still have talent drain,

which is prevalent.

Training and development is an area

where we focus on. The issue faced here is

that there are a lot of soft skills trainings

available but one needs to concentrate on

the bigger picture, which is people career

growth. We focus on people to grow across

roles and training opportunities are avail-

Anoop RawatHead - Learning & DevelopmentFortis Healthcare India

able for the same. In nursing, for example,

one can grow in to a nurse administration

role or a physician assistant, as also nurse

can get into nursing education.

We have revamped our performance

management system, which is now on the

basis of the goals that one derives out of

the organisational focus areas. We are

also trying to develop ourselves into a funplace to work in our own manner and the

organisational commitment in this regard

is high.

There are four essential areas that we

track to measure productivity at the indi-

vidual level: customer patience, developing

people, developing processes and financial

impact. We adapt the balanced score card

approach. All employees are measured on

the four aspects. We are trying to imple-

ment a standardized system of reporting

data across the organisation. The way of

reporting data across hospitals is differ-

ent currently. Metrics that we track very

closely are patient to bed ratio, doctor to

patient ratio, etc.

In terms of how we manage employee

utilization, each unique role is clearly

defined in the system and the perfor-

mance management system appropriately

measures the performance across all

levels. This enables us to know poten-

tial gaps and improvement areas for our

employees. It also helps us focus on the

fact, if the right employee is in the right

role at the right time.


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Role clarity will ensure employee

productivity

The major factors that affect employee

productivity are role clarity, micro

management, lack of internal

customer centricity and employee absen-

teeism, which affect employee productivity

when not addressed. The key workforce

management challenges for our business

include keeping employees engaged and

improving workforce productivity.Improving productivity in our existing

workforce is surely a challenge and we try

to overcome this through both empower-

ment and dipstick of performance at peri-

odical interval.

In the education and consultancy by

and large, people have to be self-driven as

too much monitoring is counter-produc-

tive. Employee absenteeism increases the

workload on others also meeting client

commitment and anxiety on people present

increases. For example, if a trainer reports

sick at the 11th hour somebody who hasto substitute undergo a stressful experi-

ence. This drastically impairs the quality

of program and hence, the probability of

repeat business is reduced.

Distribution of workload and grow-

ing the person in the role are some of the

principles applied for measuring utilization

and productivity is measured in terms of

repeat business and customer satisfaction

achieved. Since the manpower requirement

is small, use of tools is neither necessary

nor effective in our business.

Sanjay RawatAs so ci at e Vi ce-P resi de nt ,

Aegis Academy, Aegis Ltd.


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Emotionally connected employees

willgive100%tothejob

The factors that affect employee

productivity vary in nature and

degree of impact based on the career

stage as well as individual aspirations.

Some of the common factors include the

employees emotional commitment to the

role, connect between organisational vision

and employee aspiration, credible commit-

ment of leaders towards talent developmentand thereby its impact on ones growth,

the overall organisational culture, and the

market competitive compensation patterns.

I would classify the factors into direct

and indirect factors. Some of the direct

factors are financial contribution, strate-

gic initiatives delivered, span of control,

customer per employee and delivery of

operational KPIs. While the indirect factors

are revenue/ employee, HR cost as percent-

age of gross revenue, HR cost as percent-

age of total opex, teeth to tail ratio and the

number of layers between CEO to front-lineto name a few.

The key workforce management chal-

lenge that we are facing currently is the

upgradation of people capabilities given

that technology, communication and

media (TCM) as industries are converging

and the shift from data to voice. Another

crucial challenge is talent retention, being

the market leader and the given preferred

poaching ground. We are also constantly

under the pressure to be able to build

global perspectives and experiences.

In order to overcome these challenges,

we are continuously looking at job enrich-

ment/job rotation and multi-skilling,

enhancing the quality of roles through

process automation, organisational design

change resulting in empowerment, continu-

H.C. Ruben SelvadorayGeneral Manager - HR,

Bharti Airtel

ous training and certification, leadership

and competency development through

partnerships with some of the globally

renowned leadership development organ-

isations.

The top five areas that workforce

management impacts organisational

performance are continuous availability

of quality leaders in order to ensure aheightened team performance and talent

bench strength for critical positions. The

effectiveness of talent acquisition and its

impact on speed of individual delivery,

new leader/recruit assimilation process

and its impact on continued execution of

business goals and internal talent move-

ments and its impact on customer centric

culture continuity. Given the unique nature

of telecom circle based licensing, we have

decentralized business units, wherein

each business unit inputs market specific

strategies, formulates and is accountable

for budgets and overall is measured on its

P&L. This unique construct of the telecom

industry has helped in building an entre-

preneurial culture and empowered jobs/

roles, which demands from our workforce,

business acumen, entrepreneurial spirit,

and decision making capability, commit-

ment to quality talent acquisition and

talent engagement/retention.

Given the empowered culture and

entrepreneurial spirit resulting in passion

for the role/performance, we have the

problem of large number of leaves accu-

mulated by employees. We have been

limiting carry forward of leaves beyond a

particular limit and encouraging employ-

ees to plan for leave so as to ensure

healthy work life balance and rejuvenation.


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WorkCoutureisinthedrivingseat,

trainingisthefuel,workpracticesandprocess are the engine oil and infra-structure procures the speed

T

here are three key factors that affect productivity,

training, process and infrastructure coupled by

work culture. Work Couture is in the driving seat,

training is the fuel, work practices and process are theengine oil and infrastructure procures the speed.

The major challenges we face in our business in

terms of workforce management is the geographical

location of our hotels for example. Other challenge

is of course, the talent scarcity and the options that

candidates and employees have today, while the hospi-

tality industry is not at the same compensation level

as the other service industries. Finally, this is a very

work force gen y

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