Karan Dixit
Head HR & Vice President (Corporate)
ISMT Limited
Karan Dixit is a member of:
- Expert
HR Strategies in Place in your Company
ISMT Ltd. is a leading manufacturer of carbon/alloy and bearing steels,
seamless tubes and tube based products. The companys corporate office is
located at Pune, India. It has a steel producing unit at Jejuri and two
tube making units at Ahmednagar and Baramati; all three units are
within a radius of 200 KMS around Pune. In addition, the company also
has a tube finishing (cold finishing) factory at Storfors, Sweden and
sales offices across Europe and the USA.
ISMT Ltd. is a global leader
in the production of Engineering Steels and Precision Seamless Tubes.
ISMT Ltd. serves a worldwide customer base.
ISMT Ltd. is an
integrated manufacturer with a captive power plant that empowers it with
full supply chain control. With over three decades of manufacturing
expertise,
ISMT Ltds competitive advantage lies in its highly
qualified and potent Human Capital and its unrelenting focus on
improving quality, being engineering driven and application oriented.
With
475,000 MT of seamless tube and 350,000 MT of steel making capacity,
ISMT Ltd. manufactures a very diverse range of products that find
applications across industries like Power, Oil & Gas, Automotives,
Hydraulic Cylinders and Line Pipes, Drilling & Mining, Construction
and General Engineering etc.
You may never see ISMT Ltds products, but they touch your life everyday...
HR strategies of ISMT Ltd.
The
objective of the HR policy at ISMT Ltd is to create and maintain a
young, self- rejuvenating, motivated, lean, cost-efficient and
performance oriented organization.
The HR strategy to achieve the objective is -
1)Identify, nurture and retain key talent
2)Reward Merit
3)Reward/ Encourage learning, team work, creativity, innovation and Entrepreneurship.
4)Create an equitable and fair salary structure.
5)Transparency in work culture.
Today trends seen in HR
Following trends are being seen in HR-
1.HR as Change Agent
2.Skill / competency mapping through proper HR initiativesas highly skilled and knowledge based jobs are increasing.
3.Role of HR in multi skill development.
4.HR to address people centered issues.
5.New practices like six sigma.
6.Human Resources Outsourcing
7.Creating and Enabling culture.
8.HR has started working on retention strategies.
Difficulties in Planning Human Resource in an ever changing business
1.Resistance by Employers and Employees
2.Uncertainties due to
absenteeism, seasonal employment, labor turnover, changing
technologies, market conditions making HRP less reliable.
3.Inadequacies
of Information systems- Information system regarding human resources
has not yet fully been developed due to industries giving low status to
personnel department and less importance given to HRP. Further the
reliable data and information about the economy, other industries, labor market, trends in human resources are not available.
Relationship of HR with the CEOs
As HR professionals increasingly strive to become strategic partners
with top management, their relationship with CEOs takes on new
significance.
Focusing on the basic rules of Business is what would drive HR from backroom to boardroom-
- Productivity: HRs focus on productivity with getting the basics right will be key to drive the organizational success
- Bottom-line orientation: Tie everything to Business objectives.
- Turn performance management into productivity enhancement;
- Turn training to capability building
- Compensation management to talent pool cost
- Hiring to quality of hiring
- HR operations to Shared Services
- Understanding the Business deeply: HR might be making everything
measurable and building fantastic Cost benefit Analysis (CBA). But if
the organisational operational objectives are not aligned with what HR
are presenting, its bound to get knocked off in the first instance. What
gives HR credibility is astute understanding of Business facts.
- Employee advocacy: Business view is a must for HR however how HR
relays the employee perspective to management is equally important. Can
HR provide this fair and firm view without losing sight of business is
the question which wins trust and confidence of the management?
Finally
you have to be best at your core function. All the above is achievable
if you have build your credibility by delivering and over-achieving your
objectives.
Motivating Employees with Rewards
We have many options for motivating employees to perform well in our
organization. For example, job rotation and job enrichment bring in
additional challenges and experience. We also motivate our employees by
offering training courses that enhance their skills and knowledge. The
other ways of motivating employees are-
1)Raise in Salary
2)Performance Bonus
3)&Profit Sharing
4)Employee recognistion like Employee of the Month .
Different Qualities looking while hiring people
While hiring a person, three things are most important- Knowledge,
skills and attributes. There are certain other qualities which can
offset job experience and qualification requirments :
1.Positive Attitude
2.Confidence
3.Enthusiasm
4.Compatible Personality
5.Industry Awareness
6.Lateral Leadership
7.Education
8.Communication Skills
9.Lifestyle Stability
10.Appearance and Dress
11.Open Minded Flexibility
12.Quick Wit
13.Determination
14.Courteous Manners
15.Genuine Sincerity
Identifying Leaders promoting them to the next level
The identification of a potential candidate is done thorough an online
assessment system. Information on performance is taken from the
appraisal review process and the KRAs on the job while the information
on behavior is taken from multiple sources.
The company conducts an
annual review of all the persons who are capable for occupying
leadership positions is the organization. The review is conducted by a
committee consisting of top management.
The output of this review is
to promote a person who has the requisite experience, skills, knowledge
and qualification of taking us that assignment.
Any vacancy in the
organization in management cadre triggers a promotion review. The
guiding philosophy for conducting such review is the managements first
priority to promote a person internally.
The input information to this review is provided by the HR to the committee.
Biggest Pain Point
Talent and leadership are becoming even scarcer resources than ever before.
- Developing and Retaining the Best Employees.
- Improving leadership development.
- Managing work life balance.
- To become a learning organization and transforming HR into a strategic partner
Some of the leadership development programs being held & results obtained
Following leadership programs are held on a regular basis-
- 360 Degree feedback- Through this mechanism, our
company gathers data about an individuals performance and abilities. The
information is collected from co- workers including peers,
subordinates, managers and costumers. Personal development plan is
prepared on the basis of the feedback.
- Development Assignments- Indentified high potential
employees are trained at various functions of the company through job
rotations and cross functional assignments. This helps the employees in
acquiring new leadership skills outside their own areas of expertise and
experience.
- Culture Workshops- Through the workshops ISMT,
fortifies the culture of the organisation amongst the participants. This
helps to instill better communication skills through sustained
interaction amongst themselves and identify with the values and
processes involved in leadership development.
- Interaction for leadership development- This includes
one to one interaction in actual on-the job work climate for better
sharing of knowledge and comradeship amongst individuals. Mentoring
forms an integral part of the exercise.
- Leadership skills training- This helps in acclimatizing the next rung with the leadership roles and to groom them through experience.
- Formal and informal Feedback mechanism-
- Systematic Learning Process- This helps the
individuals to gain the overall view of the company and its diverse and
complex systems, businesses, operations and processes. It is a
continuous process and helps to improve the individual and also the
system.
Recruiting & retaining the diverse and ambitious Generation Y. Are they really ambitious
Recruitment of Generation Y
1. Clarity regarding Organisation vision and mission
2. Clarity regarding Job Role.
3.Salaries and benefits as per market standards.
4. Clarity regarding career progression
5. Providing convenient place of posting
6.Providing Equal opportunities for employment
Retaining Generation Y
1.Creating a warm, fun, friendly environment to work in
2.Socializing with employees
3.Rewarding them for performance
4.Providing flex time as long as the work gets done
5.Giving them a voice that is heard and valued
6.Opportunity for mentoring others.
7.Sharing in the company success
8.Work life balance
9.Regular Recognitions
10.Motivating by challenge and a collaborative environment
Attrition Management: Retaining vs. fresh hiring
Recruiting new hires can be costly for companies in terms of time and money.
Employee
turnover can be a headache for companies of all sizes. Regardless of
economic conditions or the unemployment rate, the days of employees
working their entire lives for a single company are long gone. According
to All Business, employees will changes jobs every three to four years
on average and may change careers three times in their lives.
Cost of Hiring
There
are both hard and soft costs associated with employee turnover. Some
costs are fixed and others are variable, depending on the position and
required skill set. The cost to hire a low-skilled hourly worker is
approximately half of the annual salary. As skill levels and positions
increase, so does the cost of replacement. Replacing a C-level executive
can cost three to five times the positions annual salary
Other Consideration
In
addition to hard costs, such as advertising the position, interviewing,
recruitment and related fees, there are soft costs. These include costs
such as lost productivity and training. Typically, a new employee takes
weeks or even months to fully learn the role and all of its associated
duties. A task that takes a tenured employee 10 minutes may likely take
your new hire two hours.
Retention Challenges
With
the anticipated growing turnover rate, retaining good employees becomes
an ongoing challenge. Calculate the value of your employees to your
company. Every employee in successful companies generates more revenue
than their respective salaries. Net worth of sales representatives and
managers can be fives times greater than their annual salaries,
according to JDA Professional Services. Once you understand the value of
your employees to your company, you can make informed decisions on how
much to spend to retain them.
Workplace Culture
Creating
the right workplace culture is key to retaining good employees.
Compensation is not always the primary motivator to employees to remain
in their jobs. According to Entrepreneur.com, there are three factors
that contribute to employees perceptions that a company is a great place
to work--trust, pride and joy. Employees must trust management, be able
to take pride in their work and enjoy their co-workers.
Keeping the Best
One
of the easiest ways to avoid the high cost of turnover and keep your
best employees is to hire the right people from the start. Avoid the
urge to fill a vacant position quickly simply because its vacant. Take
time to do a thorough search and dedicate the necessary time to the
interview process. Involve other managers and department heads in the
interview. This is particularly important in small companies in which
employees tend to work more closely.
Attract good people, retain the better people and advance the best people
PROVIDE COMPETITIVE BENEFITS
In ordinary
economic times, benefits are not always the chief consideration for
job-seekers. During shaky economic situations, competitive benefits are
far more important to workers. Companies unwilling to match or at least
approximate the salaries offered elsewhere are quite likely going to
lose their best talent to their better-paying competitors. Besides
salary, potential or current employees also weigh holiday time, life
insurance, retirement plans, and more when looking for a job. It is wise
for internal HR departments to keep a close eye on the benefits that
competitors are paying and adjust what they offer accordingly.
OFFER REGULAR PROMOTION OPPORTUNITIES
At
our company we have proper career planning and promotion policy for all
the employees. At the time of appraisal the Plant Head and Chief
Operating Officer of the company tries to figure out the potential
leaders through skill gap analysis. This helps us to fill the vacancies
through internal resource. Job rotation is done for the employees at
lower level. Job Rotation helps the employees to get experience in the
all department and acquire new skills. This gives new
GIVE OPPORTUNITIES FOR CAREER ADVANCEMENT
Skilled
employees are looking for ways to better themselves through better
education and training, and businesses can attract and retain the best
talent if they help their employees improve their skills. Sending
employees to training courses on a regular basis and providing tuition
reimbursement will attract good workers and keep them around for years
to come.
VALUE EMPLOYEE INPUT
At ISMT Ltd we
give our employees several platforms to give their suggestions and
inputs. We have several suggestion schemes and open forums where the
employees are given opportunity to give suggestions and inputs. Also, we
have started an initiative for young managers called “Coffee with CEO”.
AIM FOR DIVERSITY
Younger workers are
especially looking for a diverse workplace because of their experience
growing up in a diverse world. Having people from a variety of different
backgrounds will attract young talented workers.
Training and Development
We
have our training center based at Jeuri. The training center identifies
the training needs through Performance Management System and imparts
the training for skill enhancement.