Cos prefer HR honchos to head the organization
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Cos prefer HR honchos to head the organization
Bangalore: The key CXO roles like CEO and COO, the all time reserved roles for chief technology officers or the number crunching chief financial officers in the country has given a new face to it. A growing trend of HR people being picked for such roles becoming popular now a days. During the mid-nineties , technology was perceived to be the main driver and technology personnel dominated the higher management . Techies like Steve Jobs of Apple, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google and closer home, S Ramadorai of TCS, were in the saddle, reports The economic Times. Recently, during the economic slowdown, companies were forced to cut back and this marked the emergence of chief financial officers (CFOs) as the commanders-in-chief.But with Indian companies people management and leadership skills are much in demand. So Pranesh Anthapur, who had earlier served as Vice President (Global HR) and more recently Vice-President (International HR and M&A) for Yahoo was made the COO of Yahoo India R&D in 2006. S.K. Chaturvedi, who served in senior HR functions in companies like SAIL, NTPC and PowerGrid among others, was made the Chairman and Managing Director of PowerGrid in 2008. Arun Balakrishnan, who was earlier the Director (HR) at Hindustan Petroleum, took over as the CMD in 2007. "Unlike earlier, HR is no longer just a human resources function but a business function that affects bottomlines," says Deepak Kaistha, Director and managing partner of Planman HR , an HR consulting firm. And it's not only just attrition that organizations are looking to reduce. Companies are paying greater attention to overall organizational culture and employee engagement which can have a big impact on productivity. Around 70 percent of a CEO's role relates to people management . So companies look for either someone with an HR background or a strong HR. In some other places, even though the official designation might not represent it, HR managers are increasingly playing a more dominant role in the running of the company.

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