HR Movements: 22 May, 2017

1.

Randstad gets Paul Dupuis from Japan to head India

Dupuis has replaced Moorthy K. Uppaluri, who has headed the company since 2013. 

Randstad has got a new CEO for its India operations. Paul Dupuis, who moved to India in April as the COO — as per his LinkedIn profile — has taken over the reins from Moorthy K. Uppaluri with immediate effect.

Moorthy was the MD & CEO of Randstad India since mid-2013, prior to which he was with Microsoft Corp. and GE.

Dupuis also has been with Randstad since 2013, as managing director of professionals (search & selection), engineers (temp & perm), RPO and GCS. He was inducted as a board member in 2014.  He comes with over 24 years of professional expertise and experience in Asia, across Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong & Korea.

A graduate from The University of Windsor, Dupuis completed a professional development programme from Simon Fraser University, British Columbia and has participated in executive training programmes at INSEAD in France & Singapore. 

2.

Vedanta appoints Priya Agarwal & Aman Mehta on company Board

The two appointments will expand the diversity and strength of Vedanta's Board as both of them will help in adding great expertise and knowledge, as stated by the company.

Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta has appointed Priya Agarwal and Aman Mehta on company's Board. Aman is now the Additional Director and Non-Executive Independent Director and Anil Agarwal’s daughter, Priya Agarwal is now the Additional Director and Non -Executive Director with effect from May 17, 2017.

“The board of directors approved the appointment of Aman Mehta as an additional director and non-executive independent director and Priya Agarwal as additional and non-executive director on 17 May 2017,” Vedanta said in a statement.

The company said, “Mehta and Agarwal’s induction expands the diversity and strength of Vedanta’s board. They will help in adding great expertise and knowledge.”

3.

Apollo’s CPO Jacob to join Columbia Asia as Global CHRO

Jacob will be moving from his current role by the end of May

Apollo Hospital’s Chief People Officer Jacob Jacob will be joining Columbia Asia Healthcare. He will be taking up a global role as the Group Chief Human Resource Officer and will be based out of Kuala Lumpur. 

At Columbia Asia, he would be responsible for the HR function across the group. Columbia Asia started operations in 1996 and currently has 28 medical facilities across Asia. It includes 11 in Malaysia, 11 in India, 3 in Vietnam and 3 in Indonesia. Prior to his seven year long stint at Apollo, he worked with organizations such as Feedback Ventures, Emirates Airline and Oberoi Realty.

Speaking exclusively to People Matters, he said “Columbia Asia is today at an inflection point in its journey of excellence. I am really humbled to be a part of this exciting journey at a global level. Look forward to the opportunity and being able to add value.”

HR learning: 15 May, 2017

1.
What’s in the Pepsi-HUL ‘Career JV’?

This one-of-its-kind JV promises to offer enhanced exposure and learning opportunities to employees of both the companies, but will it stand the test of time and offer more than the usual L&D programmes? Industry observers opine! 

FMCG companies Pepsico and Hindustan Unilever (HUL) have entered into a JV. No it’s not one of those usual business joint ventures. It’s one-of-its-kind Career JV as per which both companies will allow select high-potential employees to gain experience at the other firm for two to four months.

The companies involved will keep posting openings as and when they arise and employees can apply for the same to experience a different work culture, tackle new challenges and come back ready to take on more.

As of now, Pepsico’s Apeksha Jain is the only employee from the two companies to have completed the programme. Jain, a member of the HR team at Pepsico, got placed with HUL for a project on assessing the effectiveness of their current learning curriculum, and proposing a capability-building road map across functions.

HUL occasionally sends its employees to work on short- term assignments with other organisations to gain exposure to new skills and also transfer some of the learnings and insights. It’s yet to send an employee to Pepsico as part of this programme.

On the onset, this JV looks promising as a unique learning and talent development initiative to develop high-potential talent. It promises to offer enhanced exposure and learning opportunities to people. Additionally, it also lets them experience a new culture, and in turn, supports leadership development.

2.

Role of talent analytics in redefining learning culture

Talent analytics is the catalyst that’s gaining immense importance in making learning more agile and accurate.

While organisations are investing huge efforts in designing the best-in-class learning solutions for talent development, talent analytics is the catalyst that’s gaining immense importance in making learning more agile and accurate. Whether need-based or not, if learning is the prescription to a condition (or a probable condition), analytics is the diagnostic mechanism that helps get to the root of the condition, ensuring that the best prescription is offered. It is now a well-established fact that efficient talent analytics is critical to learning design.

In fact, analytics enables HR professionals to analyse, interpret, and make the best possible decisions and recommendations based on workforce data. It is crucial for organisations to determine what workforce-related problems they need to solve and how addressing those workforce challenges will impact organisational effectiveness. It is analytics that helps identify the same. 

Hemalakshmi Raju, head, learning & development, Cipla, says, “The power of analytics in making learning more effective is something that we will see going ahead. Using the power of data to see what kind of learning is needed, who needs it and when, can be a big game changer with respect to learning effectiveness.”

3.
Building Skills for a Digital Future - What's needed?

Here's how companies need to think about skilling in a Digital First World.

Every major tech and non-tech company in India has announced a commitment to Digital. NASSCOM estimates that by 2025, Digital-led services would have grown four-fold as compared to a two-fold growth in traditional IT services. But is our workforce digitally enabled from a skills point of view?

A study by Deloitte estimates that the rapid pace of technology change in the workplace would lead to a skills shelf life of only 2.5 years, which means the current skill set may become redundant after some point of time. Digital is one of the headwinds that will not only bring about the obsolescence of skills that our workforce has today, but will also create demand for new/evolved skills. So what are some of the skills which will be required in the digital era? Are these unique? Can they be developed? 

Before answering that question, it is important to break the problem down into 3 steps

a.) How we define Digital?

b.) What Roles will Digital require?

c.) What Skills will those roles require?

How do we go about building those skills

For an Enterprise to be Digital-ready, they need to focus on a digital-skill building mission along multiple dimensions

·         Digital Foundation – here the company’s focus is on training new entrants into its workforce on the fundamentals of Digital technologies

·         Digital Depth – the company identifies segments of employees  who have strong technical depth that can be cross-skilled onto Digital technologies

Digital Skilling at Scale – here the company’s focus is on providing fundamental digital competencies across the workforce

HR News: 15 May, 2017

1.

Central Govt. employees to go on strike on May 23

The Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers, along with other employee federations from the Railways and Defence, have decided to hold a massive demonstration in New Delhi on May 23.

Taking a stand to demand a decision on the amendments to pay revision, the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers, along with other employee federations from Railways and Defence, have decided to hold a massive demonstration in front of the office of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, at New Delhi on May 23.

Demanding regularisation of contract, casual, part-time and contingent employees, the All India Postal Casual, Part time, Contingent and Contract Workers Federation, including New Delhi will throw in its lot with the demonstration.

The Central Government employees have been agitating, demanding amendments in minimum wages, fitment formula and other provisions of the Pay Revision Commission (PRC). The centre, responding to the protests, had constituted high-level committees to consider the demands with regard to the PRC, allowances and pensions, with the deadline of four months.

2.

Salary deducted for unserved notice period not taxable: ITAT.

Only salary received would be taxable, and not portions, which were deducted by a company for not serving a notice period.

It has now been recognised by the Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), which adjudicates Income-Tax (I-T) disputes that an amount deducted by an employer for not serving out a notice period cannot be brought to tax.

The decision was taken after two companies, while settling dues, had deducted salary for the notice period, which the person had not served. But this deduction was not taken into account during tax assessment. However, ITAT (Ahmedabad bench), in its order dated April 18, declared that only salary received would be taxable, and not portions, which were deducted by a company for not serving out a notice period.

The salary income, under the I-T Act, is taxable on a due basis, regardless of whether it has been actually paid to an employee or not. So, when an employee resigns but does not serve out the notice period (provided for in the employment agreement), the employer deducts salary attributed to this period. However, I-T authorities do not consider such deductions and seek to tax entire salary due (that is, salary before allowing for such deduction). This makes the latest order really significant.

3.

AI opens doors to over 80 pilots while Jet Airways keen on expats

While on one hand AI is recruiting and training more pilots to overcome its shortages, Jet Airways is concerned about the plight of its Indian pilots.

State-owned air carrier, Air India, has strategically opened doors to Indian aviation talent. Co-incidentally, this move comes at a time when the pilots union at Jet Airways has asked Indian pilots not to fly with the expat pilots in the airline from next month.

The National Aviators' Guild (NAG), the union of Jet's pilots, issued a directive to its members earlier this month, preventing Indian pilots from flying with the expats from May 1, referring to some alleged cases of wrong behaviour by expat pilots. The union also said that expats are a huge drain on the company's and the nation's finances despite the fact that India has no dearth of aviation talent. In fact, there are many CPL (commercial pilot licence) holders sitting idle, waiting endlessly, for years on end at times, to get a decent job.

On the other hand, AI is hiring over 80 junior pilots for its wide-body Boeing B777 and B787 aircrafts to meet the shortage of cockpit crew. While the process to induct these first officers or co-pilots is in the final stage and they are expected to join Air India by next month, the airline is further scheduled to take delivery of four more Boeing 787 as well as three B777 between July this year and March next year.

HR Movements: 15 May, 2017

1.

Tata Sons’ former CHRO N S Rajan to join IDFC Bank as CHRO and CMO

Animesh Kumar, who has been heading the bank's human resources division since 2009, has decided to call it quits. Kumar is expected to work on psychoanalysis tests on hiring - a tool which he introduced in IDFC Bank. 

Tata Sons’ former group HR head, N S Rajan, is apparently joining IDFC Bank as its group chief human resources officer (CHRO) and group chief marketing officer (CMO). The development followed after Animesh Kumar, who has been heading the bank's human resources division since 2009, decided to call it quits.

Replacing Kumar as the CHRO and CMO, Rajan will also apparently take over as the CEO of IDFC Foundation. He was also a member of the group executive council (GEC) of Tata Sons during the reign of former chairman, Cyrus Mistry.

Rajan had a twelve-year long stint at EY before joining Tata Sons in 2013. At EY, Rajan was the partner and global leader – people & organisation. Rajan graduated in economics from Loyola College, Chennai and then completed his PGDBM from XLRI. He also holds a doctorate in leadership from IIT Delhi.

He is expected to join IDFC Bank early next month. 

2.
Escorts appoints Amanppreet Singh Bhatia as group HR head

Bhatia replaces Ishan Mehta to take forth the company’s business growth through efficient HR.

With a belief to support business growth through efficient human resources, the agricultural and engineering equipment manufacturer, Escorts, has appointed Amanppreet Singh Bhatia as the new group HR head.

Bhatia moves in from VE Commercial Vehicles Limited – A Volvo Group and Eicher Motors Joint Venture, where he was executive vice-president –HR. He joined VECV in 2009, and managed human capital management for all business areas of the company.

At VECV, he was responsible for managing key HR parameters, along with driving operational excellence, ensuring talent pipeline to support expansion, facilitating strategic talent management, supporting cultural transformation, facilitating performance-driven culture and managing people cost.

Escorts shared the development in an official release presented to NSE on May 1, which said, “We wish to inform you that the company has appointed Amanppreet Singh Bhatia as group HR head with immediate effect, in place of Ishan Mehta.”

“At Escorts, he will focus on the organisational transformation and human resource strategic roadmap to build a strong employer brand,” the official press release stated.

3.

Nitin Sansare of Reliance to join Tata Motors as comp & ben head

With over 20 years of experience, Sansare is an expert in manpower planning, compensation, rewards, and performance management, among other things.

Nitin Sansare, vice president, compensation & benefits at Reliance has quit after a stint of over three years. May 5 was his last working day at Reliance.

He is all set to join Tata Motors on May 10. This will be his second stint with Tata Motors.

The engineer-turned HR professional confirmed the same to HRKatha.

In his role at Reliance, he had been instrumental in various transformations. He had redesigned the compensation, reviewed policies to ensure relevance, designed expat and executive compensation and performance pay, and also established the Hay Job evaluation process.

Prior to joining Reliance, he had worked with Tata Motors as the head-rewards & organisation design, for close to six years. He began his career as a senior manager-industrial engineer, with Mahindra & Mahindra in 1995, where he stayed for over 11 years before moving to John Deere, as the senior lead engineer-manufacturing services.