HR News: 30 Jan, 2017

1.

Five ways AI impacts the workforce

One in seven HR leaders agree that automation/artificial intelligence is already impacting their workforce plans.

According to the sixth annual Harvey Nash Human Resources Survey, representing the views of 1,008 HR leaders from over forty countries, 15 per cent of HR leaders said their plans were being affected right now, and a further 40 per cent believe this will happen within the next two to five years. Here are five ways in which AI is changing the way HR thinks and functions:

1.      Enhanced insights

2.      Reformed recruitment

3.      Personalised learning

4.      Smart assistance

5.      Power of prediction

2.

IIMs get cabinet nod to now grant degrees instead of diplomas

The Union Cabinet headed by PM Narendra Modi has approved the IIM Bill 2017, to now grant degrees to passing out students.

India’s premier business institutes, the IIMs, will now grant degrees to students passing out from there instead of the diplomas as was the practice earlier. The Union Cabinet headed by PM Narendra Modi on Tuesday, granted approval to the Indian Institute of Management Bill (IIM) 2017. The Bill also provided for autonomy to the institutes with ‘adequate accountability’. The Bill will now be presented before the Parliament in the upcoming budget session.
An official statement released by the cabinet said, “Being societies, IIMs are not authorised to award degrees, and hence, they have been awarding Post Graduate Diploma and Fellow Programme in Management. While these awards are treated as equivalent to MBAs and Ph.D, respectively, the equivalence is not universally acceptable, especially for the Fellow Programme.”

3.

HDFC Bank loses 4,500 employees in Q3

As the banking industry increasingly looks towards bringing in automation to boost productivity, hiring could slow down further.
With its earnings growth slipping down to an 18-year low and costs becoming a huge concern, HDFC Bank had to let go of nearly 4,500 employees in the October–December quarter. As the banking industry increasingly looks towards bringing in automation to boost productivity, hiring could slow down further.
For now, analysts believe this employee reduction is probably the largest by the bank in a single quarter and is likely to continue if the economic recovery does not quicken. The bank believes that the current drop in headcount is primarily due to a combination of natural attrition and hiring at a clip lower than normal.
As per the bank’s data, total employees of the bank fell to 90,421 in December 2016, down five per cent from 95,002 in September 2016. Some of the drop could also be attributed to natural attrition.
HDFC Bank revealed this week that its net profit grew 15 per cent to Rs 3,865 crore from Rs 3,357 crore a year earlier— the slowest profit growth since June, 1998. Pre-tax profit in trading of bonds and currencies fell to Rs 253 crore, from Rs 513 crore a year earlier, while fee income grew just 9.4 per cent year-on-year as some streams of the bank’s fee line were hit due to demonetisation.