Covid starts a new trend in India Inc

An increasing number of large companies and conglomerates are undertaking ‘job swapping’ or ‘rebadging’ of professionals, in order to retain experienced professionals as the pandemic has led organisations to start consolidating and reinventing businesses.HR consultants said 50-60% of the clients or organisations — including traditional conglomerates — they are working with are looking at realignment of internal people resources into newer roles and functions.The idea is to absorb people who know the organisation ethos well — which cannot be derived through hiring externally — and have a proven degree of competency and efficiency, in emerging roles and functions. This provides an opportunity to retain and reskill experienced hands instead of letting go of talent, said experts.“Several companies across sectors are reallocating and reassigning employees into different functions and job roles, a trend that has particularly skyrocketed post pandemic,” said Anshul Prakash, partner, Khaitan & Co and a specialist in employment and labour law. “The demonstrated efficiency and competency of an internal resource cannot be derived from outside, something that is prompting many of the large companies and organisations to retain employees by rebadging them to new emerging roles.”The pandemic has forced several large and medium-scale companies, including multinationals, to form core committees to look into individual departments and their people resources, focussing on core competency and years of experience and how these people can be rebadged, reassigned and reskilled, said Prakash. At a time when many organisations are looking at technology and digital deployment and reinventing the ways of doing business, they are also taking a long-term approach — ten years down the line than the immediate two-three years, said top executives. “As a result, companies want to retain talent who knows the pulse of the organisation, mostly at the middle and senior management levels, and will form the key to reinventing the wheels on how to conduct business,” said Prakash.“This is especially true when many companies have put a freeze on external hiring…at such a time rather than losing talent outside, companies are trying to retain them in various other functions that lack a talent pipeline or require more manpower,” said Ryan Lowe, partner, people advisory services, EY India. “People who they want to retain are being put into a different business, function or even an enlarged role,” said Lowe.Automaker Mahindra & Mahindra, which has been in the middle of a restructuring including shedding some jobs and shutting down certain departments and functions, has taken up an exercise to reallocate several senior management professionals to different businesses and functions. With a new leadership set to take charge from April 1 — Anish Shah taking over as the managing director and chief executive from Pawan Goenka — Mahindra is seeing a host of job rotations.Senior people who have been reassigned within the group include Vikram Garga, head of marketing at the company’s automotive division, who has been moved to the farm sector to oversee the strategy function. Garga has been replaced by Harish Lalchandani, who was vice-president, strategy, farm equipment. Earlier this month Amit Raje was designated as the chief operating officer for the digital finance business. He is currently the executive VP for partnerships and alliances at M&M. Among others, Suman Mishra has been given a new role in group strategy - capital allocation, while Mohammed Turra has been moved to group strategy, Mahindra Finance. “Growth opportunities across the group bring out the best in our associates and help us retain talent by giving them the exposure within our ecosystem,” said Ruzbeh Irani, president - group human resources and communications, Mahindra Group.“Internal movement is done based on need and fitment and it is level-agnostic. In fact, as a result of career planning, we have enabled transfers more actively over the last few months, the Covid pandemic notwithstanding, and this is set to continue in the near future,” said Irani.Asian Paints managing director Amit Syngle said: “We keep on evaluating the available resources including people and ensure that they are given the best exposure which could lead to their development and also aid business.”The company has entered the business of hand sanitizers, surface disinfectants as well as home décor in the last one year.“This is one way to retain and grow talent … Not only does an individual gain a variety of experience, but so does his/her mind remain agile through cross functional responsibilities,” said Arvind Agrawal, an independent HR consultant and a former HR head of the RPG Group.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/3sDZUjP