The Unemployability factor -Sangeetha. T.U.

The mantras for success in a business are constantly changing. Earlier, hard skills played an important role, whereas now, it’s the soft skills that count. They are considered to be the key drivers of career growth and success. They have the strength to make or break one’s career. It is most often seen that people who are good at technical skills sometimes lack social communication and relationship building skills to manage work and lead other people. The Soft skills, also known as people skills, include communication skills-both listening and speaking, leadership skills, creativity, patience, logic and willingness to change. This lack of soft skills has lead to a talent shortage in the booming IT enabled services especially in the voice based technical process. Any voice based technical process requires its employees to be technically talented and at the same time have good soft skills. The soft skills here would include the listening skills and patience which the customer care executive is required as he would be dealing with U.S or U.K clients.

The present problem faced by the Service Industries in general is the talent shortage. The issue here is not one of unemployment but on of Un- employability. They are finding it difficult to get Technical Support Officers/Personnel for the voice based technical process who is both skilled and trained in an economy like India where 30 lakh graduates and 4 lakh engineers pass out each year. Though India has been able to gain the global attention with its strength in the IT sector, the beneficiaries of this boom is a small part of the India’s privileged and English educated. It is clear from the fact that out of the 100-150 candidates who walk in for the interview in a service industry, only 6-7 of them get selected. The main reason behind this is the communication skills that a majority of them lack which may be due to their poor educational background or because they haven’t received much support/ encouragement from their parents to improve their communication skills. Softskills particularly the communication/ listening skills need to be developed from the early stages of childhood and this plays an important role when it comes to career development of a child.

The critical pillar in the strategy to tackle the employability challenge is through improvement in the school education system and providing them the best quality of education that can enhance them an overall growth and development.

article by Sangeetha T U PGDM-16 (HR)

Retail Talent Management- Subin Soman

Retail Talent Management, often times referred to as Retail’s Human Capital Management, is the process of recruiting, managing, assessing, developing and maintaining an organization’s most important resource—it’s people! Retail Talent Management is a new concept evolved in the Retail industry. Not much study has been done on this particular area of interest till now. Very few companies like Accenture, Nike, etc. have conducted study on Retail Talent Management.

Challenges faced by the retailers in this process are:

· Measurement: Analysis of the correct metrics across a broad range of strategic talent management and training practices has a very significant impact on workforce performance.

· Foster innovation and manage change: New strategic initiatives can be more effectively implemented and the organization better positioned to manage through the inevitable "boom–and-bust" cycles if there is constant innovation of processes.

· Technology: New technology can be applied in innovative ways to convert the retail workforce into a driven, operationally excellent, informed and accountable unit.

· Create a participative culture: Fostering loyalty and a high level of engagement among employees at all levels of the company improves performance.

· Align skills/training with business goals: Only when this is done does the workforce contribute to overall company performance.

· Reduce costs without sacrificing performance: Innovative models—including shared services and outsourcing—help provide better talent management and training services at a lower cost.

It helps in efficient and effective management of the retail staffs by following ways:

· Attracting and recruiting qualified candidates with competitive backgrounds

· Managing and defining competitive salaries

· Training and development opportunities

· Performance management processes

· Retention programs

· Promotion and transitioning

Objective of the Retail Talent Management is to get better productivity on walk in & improve franchisee profitability through better management of retail manpower.

Purpose of Retail Talent Management

1) Identification of area which need immediate improvement and provide faster solutions for them

2) Gather information on current status of staff skills & training needs.

3) Set up process for sourcing of right profile and enhancing skill level among staff

4) Implement the processes & evaluate them timely for improvement.

Measures of Success

Financial indicators

Increase in net sales of targeted stores

Operational indicators

MSP rating of stores

Attrition rate

Individual performance tracker

Failures in Retail Talent Management may be more recognizable than the concept itself. Those failures mean mismatches between supply and demand: Too many employees, leading to layoffs and restructurings on the one hand, and not enough talent, leading to talent crunches on the other.

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HOW TO HIRE GOOD PEOPLE-Article By Prashob Jacob

With good talent on the shortage, the HR Managers must be wondering where to go to hire the best of Human Resource. They would be almost happy and willing to welcome help from any quarter to hire successfully and to accomplish their task effectively – in providing and managing the most crucial resource of any firm.

How to successfully hire a success-oriented person is something that rings in the minds of most of today’s HR Managers. I wish to mention here that I am not assuming to be Mr. Know All, certainly not. All that I am trying to do is share some of my thoughts through this article.

HOW TO HIRE TOP GRADE PEOPLE

THINK OUT OF THE BOX: The single-most crucial element is that we start thinking out of the box. Clarity is the key to hire successful people successfully. If we are going to adopt the beaten track of recruiting people matching them with a preset qualification and skill sets, we will only end up attracting and selecting mediocre people – something that everyone does, and so does your competition!. Hiring should not be a Hit-or-Miss process but should be a systematic & rigorous process.

THE SOURCING CHANNELS: In today’s competitive world a good HR Manager needs to keep all his sourcing channels open. The best sources of candidates are from: Employee Referrals, Advertisements, through Consultants/Recruiting companies, Job Fairs, through clients, vendors & suppliers, Job sites like Monster, Naukri, Ladders.com etc. The mantra is: Have the Resumes flowing. Keep your eyes open and keep looking for good candidates all the time. You can even create an opening for a good candidate, if it does not exist. This proactive action is the need of the hour. If we wait too long to look there will be none available.

REVIEW THE JOB PROFILE: This is important. If you review the profile you will know what queries to ask. Also scan the Resume for breaks in employment record.

RAISE THE STANDARD: Typically job descriptions are used to define specific positions. They usually include criterion such as Educational Qualification, skill sets, number of years of experience etc. This approach defines only the minimum performance with the result it ends up attracting average/mediocre performers

”To bring better candidates to the table, you have to raise the standard of what you define as top-level work,” says Deutsch.

FIND THE BEST GRADE Of PERFORMERS: Most of the top performers may already have the jobs still they may be open for better opportunities and may consider to move on to your company, if they are impressed with the challenges and growth opportunities the position offers than the routine tasks and activities of the job. So, this aspect needs to be focused and highlighted while sourcing. The strategies to attract and capture these top performers range from developing compelling statement of work to leveraging the natural networks of similar and like-minded people. Once you have the top guys calling on you, ascertain if they would achieve the results you expect out of them.

IDENTIFY THE GOAL: Identify the substantial goal you are trying to achieve in the position. What do you need this person to deliver that you are not getting now.

The possible answers may include the need for more products, the need to speed up Lead Time or the need to have in place a formal product development process. Know exactly what you are trying to resolve. Also try and identify the problems and obstacles standing in the way of accomplishment. The possible answers may include Inadequate staff or the lack of resources etc. Identify the quantifiable and measurable action items that the person needs to take to accomplish the substantial goal. This probably means you may need to hire more staff and develop a new process. Finally identify the metrics you will use to measure success in the position.

Identify all the success factors required to deliver the results you need from the position. Simply put, what are the results you expect? Once you have defined success in clear and compelling terms then it is easier now to identify the best candidate who matches up with your success profile.

EVALUATE OBJECTIVELY:

The excellent guys are proactive, have high initiative and are self motivated. Such people will give you many examples. They do not believe in giving lame excuses. They get the job done by getting their staffs to execute almost flawlessly. They exhibit leadership qualities. Top performers achieve results through others by helping them to succeed. They are capable of leading a cross functional You need an objective and valid system for evaluating candidates. Good hirers generally do this. You can devise a score card system for the interviews. This can also double-up as a check-list so that you do not leave or miss out any data to arrive at the right decision. There are many pitfalls such as personal biases, emotions etc that cause people to lose their objectivity and make poor or wrong hiring decisions. Stay rational and objective and do not stray. This requires deep and intrusive reference checking, personality and skill testing, panel interviews etc. Management by Objective in performance management teaches you that, when you define what people need to achieve at the individual level, it has a terrific impact on productivity and organizational performance team. We can find this out by how they would have influenced and persuaded people outside their own teams to get things done.

Defining success and interviewing candidates in this fashion offers several benefits notable among them being that it takes the guess work out of the hiring process so that you need suffer round holes in square pegs anymore and above all you get the almost-perfect candidate.

Bibliography

Pattanayak, Human Resources Management- Text and cases, Himalaya Publishing House, 2005

V. Kubendran, Legal aspects of Business, Olive Publishing House, pp112, 115, 118, 237

Kramnik & Amstrong, Hiring or Firing- the art of selecting the best, Wiley Eastern Limited, 1999

Mamoria and Mamoria, Personnel Management, Himalaya Publishing House, 2003

Article by PRASHOB JECOB (PGDM 16th batch)