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COVER STORY

The power
of many
Staff, workforce, human resources, employee assets,
talent the terms are many but the heart of an
organisation remains its people. Managing, grooming,
nurturing and developing this is no easy task. Tata
Review talks to heads of the human resources
function in eight Tata companies Tata Steel, Tata
Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Chemicals, Titan
Industries, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Power and
Rallis India to understand how these leaders keep
the employee engine engaged and geared to perform.

6 Tata Review

April 2013

COVER STORY

People are our greatest asset


With the Tata Steel group rapidly
evolving and expanding its reach
strategically and geographically,
there is need to prepare its
leaders, both current and
future, to overcome adversities.
Consequently, leadership
development across all levels
is the focus of its employee
policies, along with people
development and growth.
Suresh Tripathy, the head of
HR at Tata Steel, in conversation
with Nithin Rao, notes that the
other key objective is upholding
the Tata groups values through
transparency and fairness in HR
practices and policies.
What are the focus points of the HR
practice and the policies that are
pursued at Tata Steel?
At Tata Steel the prime focus in terms of HR
practices is on people development and growth,
and employee relations, which is imbibed in the
culture of caring for our people. Tata Steel has

COVER STORY

always held the view that people are its greatest


asset. It has adopted the best standards for
employee well-being and quality of life, strongly
promoting workforce rights. The other focal point
is upholding the Tata values through transparency
and fairness in HR practices and policies.
One of the primary challenges that
HR professionals consistently voice
relates to retaining and rewarding
your best employees. How is this
managed at Tata Steel?
Our employee engagement practices, facilities
and benefits are aligned towards ensuring
retention of employees. Our engagement
survey results are constantly acted upon to
maintain competitive compensation, productive
work environment, employee involvement
in improvement initiatives, opportunities
for learning and growth, performance-based
rewards and recognition, high standards of
amenities and facilities (housing, medical,
education, recreation, social support), and twoway communication, to name a few.
Leadership development also
finds frequent mention as an HR
challenge, especially of late. What
has the experience of Tata Steel
been on this issue?

About Tata Steel


Established in 1907, Tata Steel is a Fortune
500 company and among the top ten global
steel enterprises, with a crude steel capacity
of more than 28 million tonnes per annum.
It is one of the worlds most geographically
diversified steel producers, with operations
in 26 countries and a commercial presence in
some 50 countries.
Consolidated revenues of `1,329 billion in the
financial year 2011-12.
Number of employees: 81,000 plus.

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April 2013

The change in the business scenario across the


world has been centrestage at the Tata Steel
group. While meeting the current business
challenge has been the focus, there is a clear
mandate to be continually resolved to not only
weather the current economic storm, but to
prepare and equip the group for a healthy future
as a leading global steel organisation.
Further, the business environment is
swiftly changing, bringing in its own set of
opportunities and challenges; at the same time,
the group is rapidly evolving and expanding
its reach strategically, geographically and
culturally. The new geographies and the shifting
environments of the businesses demand that
we prepare our leaders (current and future) to
face and overcome such adversities. Hence, for
a sustainable future, leadership development
at all levels is the focus across the Tata Steel
organisation.
Business growth has posed a challenge,
of a kind never experienced by the company
in the past, resulting in a 45-percent increase
in demand for leadership positions over FY10.
Further, 17 percent of our senior leaders
are retiring in the next three years. This has
compounded the challenge of meeting the
increased demand in an already constrained
supply situation. The executive committee,
headed by the managing director, owns the
development and succession plans for the top
positions and reviews availability of talent
across all functions during talent reviews and
succession planning meetings.
It has been said that the ethical
problems that employees confront
are among the most difficult to
resolve for HR managers. Do you
agree, and how does your
organisation deal with such issues?
Ethical business practices have been at the core
of the Tata Steel business since the time of its
inception, in line with the Founders philosophy.
In order to ensure that all our employees exhibit
behaviour that is consistent with the groups
ethical values, Tata Steel adopted the Tata Code
of Conduct (formally articulated in 1998) which

COVER STORY

is applicable to all employees, vendors and other


stakeholders. Our HR managers have been
facilitated by clear policies that provide them
with guidelines in resolving ethical problems. A
framework is also provided for taking action
against those found violating the code. Senior
leadership support provides further strength to
fair and firm redressal of problems, depending
on the gravity of the issue.
Tata Steel encourages whistleblowing
and the reporting of instances of unethical
behaviour to the management, while ensuring
full protection to the whistleblower in its
whistleblower protection and reward policy.
Companies talk about encouraging
teamwork and creating a culture of
collaboration. How important is the
role of HR in making this happen?
Culturally, at Tata Steel, there has been specific
emphasis on teamwork. Our work systems are
designed to deliver day-to-day output by people
working as teams or clusters; this has matured to
the state of being self-managed.
Our incentive schemes and rewards
encourage working and delivering as a team.
The total quality management way of working
encourages continuous improvement in systems
and processes through daily management, small
group activities and suggestion management.
Tata Steel has created a culture of
collaboration through its proactive approach
to stakeholder engagement, joint consultative
processes and mechanisms for conflict
resolution. This has been rewarded with over
eight decades of industrial harmony and the
licence to operate in the very communities in
which the company began operations more
than a century ago. Tata Steel takes pride that
there are several instances where it has been the
employer of choice for a family for three and
even four generations.
Tata Steel respects its employees right to
exercise freedom of association and collective
bargaining. It has ensured that every employee is
able to exercise this right without fear. Thats why
we have enjoyed 85 years of industrial harmony
to date, with no strikes since 1928.

Is the recruitment component of the


HR departments responsibility more
problematic now than before,
especially so in India? How do you
tap talent in the circumstances?
Recruitment now would not really fall under the
label of problematic, though it is much more
challenging than before. With the mushrooming
of the economy, each sector actually has to tap
the same sources of talent, be they freshers (from
campuses) or laterals (from other industries).
The number of quality campuses has more or
less remained the same, though some of them
have increased their number of seats. In case of
laterals, companies may try to influence potential
employees with higher compensation, which
may or may not be sustainable. Here, brand
image and employee value proposition, to name
two factors, give an edge to reputed companies.
How exactly does employee
engagement manifest itself in your
company? Also, in this context, how
important is employee feedback and
the companys response to feedback?
Employee engagement is a state of emotional
and intellectual commitment. An initiative
on employee engagement has been undertaken
for white-collared employees at Tata Steel in
partnership with Aon Hewitt to measure the
current levels of engagement of officers
in India.
The survey outcomes:
The overall employee engagement score
of Tata Steel is 67 percent.
Compared to industry benchmarks
the metals, mining and manufacturing
(India and global) sectors Tata Steel
exceeds the average scores and should
now strive to be in the top quartile of the
industry.
The employees of Tata Steel believe that
its core strengths are its value system and
ethics, its strong brand, its commitment
to promises made, and the respect among
co-workers, which helps create a positive
work environment.
April 2013

Tata Review

Employees are our capital


and our job is to grow that
As a part of its vision for
transformation, Tata Motors
has articulated a human capital
strategy that sets a five-year
road map for the companys
HR agenda. Speaking
with Sangeeta Menon, the
companys chief human
resources officer, Prabir Jha,
looks back at the companys
HR journey thus far and spells
out the challenges of the future.
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April 2013

How does the HR agenda unfold


at Tata Motors and what are its
priorities?
Tata Motors has aspirations for a future that will
be more global and more competitive, where
customer expectations will be quite different
from what we have seen all these years. It is a
future where our employee demographics will
be much altered from what it is now. Our HR
agenda is a product of all this.
In late 2010 we articulated a five-year
human capital strategy for our company. It is
not an HR function strategy but a human capital
strategy, and it has been co-created and coowned by the leadership.
There are near- and long-term agendas.
The past 12 months have not been a particularly

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easy period for the company. So, how we manage


costs, productivity and talent is going to be the
near-term HR challenge. The long-term agenda
will be different, given the context of the new
culture that we have envisioned.
We have reframed the vision and mission
for Tata Motors and defined the kind of culture
we need to create given the new challenges.
Building that culture is easier said than done
because it means that all HR sub-systems must
be reoriented to be in line with the new culture.
Culture reinvention along the Aces path
(accountability, customer, excellence and speed)
is going to be an HR priority and it will have a
huge change management component.
Another focus area is managing talent
and leadership. A companys success eventually
depends on talent across all levels, with the
right skills, the right engagement and the right
kind of diversity.

About Tata Motors


Tata Motors is the worlds fourth-largest bus
and truck manufacturer and Indias largest
automobile company. It has manufacturing sites
in Europe, Africa and Asia.
The companys portfolio extends from heavy
commercial vehicles to sub-tonne carriers,
buses, SUVs and passenger cars.
Consolidated revenues of `1,656.55 billion in the
financial year 2011-12.
Number of employees: 55,000 plus.

How is the human capital approach


different from the traditional human
resources approach?
Employees are our capital and our job is to grow
that capital. The term human capital signifies
that it is not just the HR functions job to manage
this resource, but it is the leaderships job as
well. For very long people in many companies
have erroneously believed that human asset
management is part of the HR functions agenda.
But the truth is that while human capital strategy
is enabled and facilitated by the HR function, it
is actually owned by leadership and management
across levels.
HR is no doubt the functional expert, but
the deployment ultimately lies in the hands of
line managers. The so-called gap between line
managers and HR must end. One cannot be a
great line manager unless one is a great people
manager. Thats why the shift from an HR
function strategy to a human capital strategy.

people to see a clear link between what they are


doing and what the company aims to achieve.
Within that mission is an inclusive vision that
gives everyone meaning in their work, beyond
obvious reasons such as increments or job
security. A lot of our HR processes and systems
are being revisited towards this end. Building
positive recognition for our Aces culture rests on
our belief in positive psychology.
Our Pact (performance and coaching
tool) initiative is anchored in the philosophy
that managers must move away from thinking of
themselves as bosses to thinking of themselves
as coaches. We have workshops and simulations
to make sure that line managers start embracing
this approach.
The new individualised compensation policy
puts a lot of responsibility in the hands of line
managers. A significant part of our performance
measurement, talent management and assessment
criteria today are about using hardwired HR
processes to support what is really a soft cultural
transition. Finally, we have built high-level
branding around various HR interventions to
ensure excitement, passion and ownership.

How are you managing this change in


approach and attitude?
Tata Motors is going through a comprehensive
organisational transformation. It started with the
new vision and mission document, which allows

Halfway into the transformation


journey, how satisfied are you with
the way it has progressed?
I am very happy with the journey. Our new
HR policies are benchmarked with the best in
April 2013

Tata Review

11

COVER STORY

the world. We have brought in unprecedented


outside in thinking to HR in Tata Motors. We
have revamped our compensation philosophy
so people can see their rewards linked to
company performance. Historically, a variety of
practices were deployed at various Tata Motors
locations; we are now creating a single Tata
Motors way. We have harmonised and upscaled
HR in the company.
Through all this, we are trying to create a
more contemporary organisation that appeals to
employees from any country, culture or
industry; a world-class destination for best-inclass talent. When we look back to when we
started the change programme, we see what a
long way we have come. I would give us 8 out of
10 on the scorecard.
What role does learning and
development (L&D) play in talent
management at Tata Motors?
We have some path-breaking branded initiatives
in the L&D space. For example, ITeach is an
innovative practice of getting line managers
to take ownership when it comes to sharing
their knowledge and experience. This ensures
tacit knowledge transfer, breaks silos, develops
leadership, reduces cost of third-party training
and earns reward points for people sharing their
knowledge with colleagues.
The concept of learning advisory councils
[LACs] has been acknowledged as a worldclass practice. Through LACs the business or
the functions identify their learning priorities,
which they own, review and reinforce. Today
the business leads the learning, unlike in the
past, when HR would drive the process. We have
switched to e-enabled learning to appeal to young,
tech-savvy employees of tomorrow; almost 90
percent of our learning programmes are online.
The HR strategy has to respond to the
changing needs of not just employees but the
entire ecosystem. For instance, we have created
a small team from our in-house group of HR
professionals to work on the HR agenda of
our dealerships, to look at the entire HR life
cycle of the people who actually touch the
end customer. We adopted the build, operate,

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April 2013

transfer framework and have just handed over


the responsibility to line operations, satisfied that
we have put the HR systems in place.
On the manufacturing side we have a
programme called Autonova, where we have
worked on six of the most mission-critical
issues of the manufacturing operations of our
commercial vehicles business, to build a worldclass standard of competence across levels
in these identified areas. These are just a few
examples of how the HR functions partnership
with business is increasingly becoming strategic.
What do you see as the major HR
challenges for the automotive
industry today?
There are some obvious challenges such as the
availability of skills, be it a blue-collar operator
or an employee with niche skills. Therefore, the
war for the right talent will intensify. Also, we
will have to compete as an industry to attract
talent. The auto industry is not necessarily the
first choice of many potential employees; how
we position ourselves as a sector of choice is a
challenge. The old image of the auto sector as a
manufacturing business has to change; it must
promote itself as a consumer sector at par with
new-age industries.
How is Tata Motors preparing itself to
become an employer of choice?
We have been working on this for some time
now and the efforts are beginning to pay off:
we were recently named in one survey as the
best company to work for in the auto and
manufacturing segment. The challenge is how to
keep this alive.
Over the last few years we have been
visible on the campuses with Mindrover, a
successful case-study contest for students across
Indian B-schools. We took this idea forward by
introducing a similar engagement with students
from top engineering campuses this year,
where we invited them to provide solutions to
technical problems.
We also engage with many of these campuses
through clearly differentiated internship
programmes, where we pair students with

COVER STORY

mentors or guides. The feedback from our


summer interns has been positive and 80 percent
of all our hiring is now through pre-placement
offers to such summer interns. This summer,
for the first time in Tata Motors, we will start
internships for IIT engineers.
Diversity is another important agenda for
us. We want to see more women employees
at Tata Motors. In fact, our internal employee
referral programme, Friend ++, earns an
employee a bonus over their referral award if
they refer a woman. We have arguably the most
women-friendly policies in the sector, be it on
maternity, adoption or a sabbatical. All of these
initiatives add to the story of Tata Motors being a
great employer.
Is attrition a concern for Tata
Motors? How do you retain talent?
Quantitatively, we have single-digit attrition,
which is good. Most of the attrition happens in
the first five years, when employees are keen to
switch jobs and try out new things. Once they
have completed five years, they settle in more
comfortably and thats where we need to engage
and retain them with different learning options,
a career architecture that allows them to move
across jobs, and leadership mentoring.
Younger employees are uncomfortable
with hierarchies, so we need to create a flatter
organisation. Even our new offices are designed
to reflect this.
What is the Tata Motors experience
with leadership development?
Leadership development continues to be a
challenge because our aspirations are high. The
next crop of leaders at Tata Motors will have
to be qualitatively superior. So we concentrate
on offering different assignments, behavioural
training, taking people out of their comfort
zone and so on. The leadership development
project is going to be about identifying potential
leaders at every level, screening, some amount of
education support, and a great deal of coaching
and mentoring. We are actively evaluating
360-degree feedback as a mandatory input,
starting with senior leadership.

For very long people in many companies


have erroneously believed that human asset
management is part of the HR functions
agenda. But the truth is that ... it is actually
owned by leadership and management...
As the Tata group becomes more
global, what sort of HR imperatives
are you having to cope with? How
difficult is it to deal with diversity
and cultural differences?
HR can influence business decisions on whether
the company should enter a new geography, by
advising if the right kind of talent is available in
that market or within the company. This is in
addition to enabling all compliances to a variety
of local labour legislations. HR can also help by
training employees to work effectively in a new
cultural and business environment.
Most overseas moves fail not because
of hard issues, but often the softer and often
taken-for-granted ones. Indeed, no good merger
or acquisition exercise today happens without
active HR ownership from the word go.
As part of a large group, there
must be plenty of opportunities to
compare HR practices with other
Tata companies. Which are the Tata
companies that impress most with
their HR approach?
The chief HR officers (CHROs) of leading Tata
companies meet every quarter to discuss HR
practices and issues. We can also pick up the
phone and talk to any Tata company CHRO
when we feel the need.
We all learn from one another. For
example, we can learn from Tata Consultancy
Services about how it utilises technology in
HR to manage scale, or discover why Titan has
virtually no attrition, or learn from Tata Steels
great industrial relations legacy. Not every
company will have every experience; smart
learning and sharing, I believe, is the way to go
about it.
April 2013

Tata Review

13

COVER STORY

Developing our people for


growth is the key at JLR
Simon Lenton is a recent
addition to the ever-expanding
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR)
organisation, but more than
30 years of experience in
management and human
resources has fine-tuned
this jazz guitar enthusiasts
understanding of the rhythm
of a big-company workforce.
Speaking about the people
outlook at JLR, Mr Lenton
tells Christabelle Noronha
that HR is more than just a
function, that it is one of the
pillars supporting the company
as it sets about achieving its
performance challenge. Its
people are vital in realising this
objective and, as one survey
has it, JLR is on a good wicket
in this regard.
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April 2013

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What are the focus points of the HR


practice at JLR and the policies that
are pursued in this regard?
Our overall business strategy is focused on our
ambition to become an even more successful
player in the global premium vehicle market. In
HR our strategies are concerned with priming
the organisation to achieve the performance
challenge through our people. We have five core
focus areas: engagement, capable people, great
leadership, protection, and enabling change.
All of these contribute to delivering a highperformance company.
What are the HR challenges specific
to JLR? Have these challenges
changed in their order of importance
over the years?
I am only in my ninth week here in the role, so
I dont have everything clear yet. Nevertheless,
I think that many of the key HR challenges in
JLR are similar to those faced by other global
organisations: managing global expansion
effectively, finding and retaining scarce and key
skills, and managing the influx of new people to
the company.
The challenges facing HR have changed
significantly as JLR has become more successful
and ambitious, and we feel the growing pains
of rising to the challenge of stretch objectives. I
think that some of the HR challenges specific to
JLR are related to our long history of differing
ownership, which has led to a complex structure
of terms, conditions and benefits.
Employee engagement has been for
JLR more than just about tokenism.
How exactly does this engagement
unfold in the company and what are
its salient features?
Our employees are proud to work for JLR and
are absolutely passionate about our products;
they have a real commitment to the company.
We have many long-serving employees
and a very low turnover rate. This level of
emotional attachment needs to be nurtured
and reinforced through regular, open and
honest communication. We involve employees

About Jaguar Land Rover


Jaguar Land Rover is a business built around
two iconic British car brands. Jaguar Cars,
founded in 1922, is one of the worlds premier
manufacturers of luxury saloons and sports cars.
Land Rover has been manufacturing 4x4s since
1948 and has defined the segment.
Consolidated revenues of 13,512 million in
the financial year 2011-12.
Number of employees: 16,000 plus.

in continuous improvement activities, set


them stretch objectives and demand high
performance. In return, we offer competitive
pay, industry-leading benefits and a unique
employee value proposition working for
iconic brands in one of the most successful
companies in the United Kingdom.
How do you get employees to buy
into the concepts the company
pursues? How important are the
unions in this initiative?
We communicate regularly with employees,
managers and employee representatives to
update them on business imperatives and gain
their buy-in. The feedback we receive from
salaried employees suggests we are getting this
right. We work closely with our trade unions and
employee consultative body; we talk through
proposed changes, understand areas of concern
and work together to come up with solutions.
The vast proportion of our production
workers are trade union members, so a close
and open relationship with our trade union is
essential. This is positive, especially since we
have been performing well and reaching full
capacity in our plants.
JLR has been recognised for its
commitment to supporting employees
with disabilities, people from ethnic
April 2013

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16 Tata Review

minorities and women. Is there a


structure to this programme, and how
does the company benefit from it?
Our dignity at work policy is one of the
cornerstones of our culture at JLR. Its about
treating everyone with respect and ensuring
that the workplace is a safe, positive and
welcoming environment for all. This means
we have zero tolerance for any form of
discrimination, and this philosophy also flows
through to our policies and the way in which
we approach workplace issues.
We have diversity councils across all areas
of our business. These comprise employees at
all levels alongside trade union colleagues. It
is they who make the policy and who ensure
that it comes to life in their areas. All our new
hires are briefed on dignity-at-work principles
as part of their induction, which aims to raise
understanding and awareness of what behaviour
is expected at JLR and how to effectively deal
with any issues.

them to meet other new colleagues from all over


the business.

You have hired some 8,000 new


employees over the past two years.
What kind of challenges does such
large-scale recruitment bring with it?
The first challenge is in finding the right
people to join JLR. We centralised our volume
recruitment activities, developed a strong
employer brand and used external partner
organisations to support us with recruitment
advertising and candidate identification and
management. The strength of our brand and
our reputation as an employer has meant that
for many of our volume recruitment campaigns
we have had large numbers of applicants, which
brings its own challenges, including keeping
these candidates engaged in the process and
updated on their progress.
Once new hires are on board, there are two
crucial challenges. The first is ensuring that our
new colleagues can get up to speed quickly; the
other is capitalising on the insights and fresh
approach they bring to the business. We have
established programmes that provide new hires
with an overview of the business, give them
some experience of our products and enable

Your graduate and apprenticeship


schemes appear to be crucial when
taking on fresh talent. How do these
schemes help in moulding engineers
and technologists?
These schemes provide us with a great pipeline of
young talent entering our business, people with
the potential to become our future leaders. Our
graduate and apprentice training programmes
are comprehensive and equip trainees with the
technical, professional and personal capabilities
to deliver high performance, as well as providing
them with personal development opportunities.

April 2013

In a recent interview with Tata


Review, chief executive Ralf Speth
spoke about the difficulties JLR
faces in getting specialists with
advanced skills across many
functions, especially in technological
areas. What is the nature of these
difficulties?
Due to the innovative nature of our business
we are often developing or working with new
technologies, for example, hybrids. In some cases
there are few people in the labour market with the
type of skill we need. Recruiting engineers with
the right skills to support some more established
technologies can also be difficult, especially in
areas where there are few manufacturers using or
developing this skill in the United Kingdom. For
such scarce skills we have had to be more creative
in identifying suitable candidates.

As JLR expands around the world


and adds employees from different
cultures and regions, what kind of
complications are you encountering,
and how are you coping with them?
Our horizons have broadened over the last few
years as our markets have expanded and our
employee base has increased. We have been a
fairly United Kingdom-centric, inwardly focused
organisation, so the challenge is to listen and
understand what is required in different markets

COVER STORY

and cultures, rather than just provide what we


think is required because we have assumed that
everyones needs are the same.
Increasingly, we are working closely with
colleagues, partners, customers and suppliers on a
much more global basis, particularly in emerging
markets. It is critical that we make decisions and
see things from a market perspective.
The company has been on a high for
a while now in terms of revenues
and profits. Are such moments the
best time to forge closer and deeper
relationships with employees?
We are always keen to build the relationship
between our employees and the company and
have managed to do so successfully through
both success and adversity. We have shared our
success through pay increases and bonuses, in
recognition of the contribution of our employees
to business performance.
Work-life balance is a big issue among
employees everywhere. JLR seems to
be doing plenty to enable its people to
strike the right balance. Could you tell
us about your efforts on this front?
We have a variety of policies which support
flexible working and enable employees to
manage their life holistically. Our intense
engagement levels mean that employees put in a
high degree of discretionary effort, and they feel
personally motivated to do so. We are currently
looking at what more we can do to enable
employees to work more flexibly, to give them
further choice and allow them to successfully
integrate their home and work lives in a way that
suits their personal circumstances. All this while
delivering business needs.
Leadership development finds
frequent mention as an HR challenge,
especially of late. What has the
experience of JLR been on this issue?
Over the last three years, we have significantly
increased our investment in leadership
development. We are working to deliver hugely
stretched business objectives and our leaders

need to be supported and developed through


the stretch. We have worked with worldleading executive education providers to put
in place programmes that focus on strategy
and execution. These programmes have been
designed to create a strong network of leaders
across all functions so that we reduce silos and
make the most of our collective talent across
the business.
There must be plenty of opportunities
across the Tata group to compare
HR practices in different companies
and borrow whats best. Does that
happen in a substantial manner?
Tata companies in the United Kingdom have
an HR forum where HR leaders come together
to share best practices and discuss issues of
common interest. In addition, we participate
in the Tata Business Excellence Model process,
which gives us a great framework to assess our
people strategy and HR delivery. Of course, we
also benchmark with other auto manufacturers
and leading companies.
What do you see as the HR
challenges of the future for JLR?
It is still early days for me, but I accepted
the role because I relished the challenges that
JLR had to offer. They are significant ones;
people challenges always are. I think, first
and foremost, the business has gone through
dramatic growth already and it is working to
adjust to this, but also to maintain the trajectory.
I want to introduce more planning around how
we organise, identify and grow the resources we
need, and build capability.
I also want to see us improving our
effectiveness across the business. As we increase
our scale we need to find opportunities and
we need to compete with the big automotive
businesses on performance and efficiency. I want
us to be exceptional at identifying and growing
talent and ensuring that it is well rewarded.
In particular, I want us to engage our people
with the potential of JLR and also with the
possibilities they can see for themselves in our
shared future together.
April 2013

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COVER STORY

The challenge is to attract


talent and retain it
People should not be
constrained or restricted
in their ability to contribute
to the organisation, says
Rackanchath Nanda as he
elaborates on what he believes
employee engagement is
really about. Thats pertinent,
coming as it does from the
head of human resources at
Tata Chemicals, a professional
who has spent 27 years
learning and understanding
18 Tata Review

April 2013

the nuances of HR and how


the function can improve
the health of a business.
Mr Nanda, who moved to
the organisation from Tata
Communications in May
2012, started his career with
the Murugappa group, where
he spent nearly 15 years in a
variety of roles. He joined
the Tata group in 2006 after
a brief stint as the HR head
of the Dubai-based Landmark

COVER STORY

group. Mr Nanda gets talking


in this interview with Philip
Chacko on a wide range of
HR issues, among them the
challenges Tata Chemicals
faces on this front and how
the function has changed
over the years.
What is the overarching philosophy
that guides the HR practice at Tata
Chemicals?
We are a company that is caring and known to
be so, that provides a good working environment
for its people, and one that promotes talent from
within. These three attributes define, from an HR
perspective, who we are as an organisation.
What kind of HR challenges does Tata
Chemicals face, and how have these
challenges changed over the years?
The principal challenge stems from the fact that
many of our manufacturing sites are in remote
areas, which makes it difficult to get the right
people to work at those sites. The challenge here
is of attracting talent and retaining it.
Has this challenge got more acute in
recent times?
To an extent, yes, because its a more connected
world now and people are more aware of
what they are missing. The challenge is about
meeting aspirations. When a person passes
out from a management school or a graduate
training school, the first choice is to be in a
city. Our plant locations are far away from key
metros, so one challenge is about making our
sites more attractive.
Retention is another challenge and it is a
greater challenge than it was, say, a decade back.
Many of the people we hire from campuses
get married after four-five years, and the
spouse most likely is a working person. In the
circumstances, employee engagement is crucial

for Tata Chemicals. We have to understand the


drivers of employee engagement in current times
so that we can manage and make them consistent
across the organisation.
Typically, the more important engagement
factor is the immediate manager; this person
becomes a key determinant. We try to ensure that
we train managers to be sensitive about their job
requirement and not just their task requirement.
Most such training in the past involved
individual soft skills, but now we are putting an
organisational play to it. A combination of the
individual and the organisational will help the
engagement quotient of the company; what we
do is strengthen the linkage.
Tata Chemicals is now a global entity
with operations in different parts of
the world. What sort of HR issues
does that reality throw up?
Only one part of the Tata Chemicals business
is global and that is soda ash. But even here, in
the different arms of the business, they are fairly
insulated operations, whether in Wyoming
in the United States, in Magadi in Kenya, our
European operations or Mithapur in India.
We have had only a handful of people moving
across locations.
That said, cross-cultural sensitisation
is a key element. You have to understand
what is workable in a culture and what is not.

About Tata Chemicals


Tata Chemicals is the second-largest producer
of soda ash in the world. It is Indias market
leader in the branded and iodised salt segment
as well as urea and phosphatic fertilisers. The
companys plants are located in India, the United
States, the United Kingdom and Kenya.
Consolidated revenues of `139.73 billion in the
financial year 2011-12.
Number of employees: 5,000 plus.

April 2013

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19

COVER STORY

Fortunately or unfortunately, we dont have


a large number of people moving across our
plant locations, so there isnt a big issue with
integration and the like.
What we have to deal with is something
that is peculiar to the chemical industry, where
production facilities are far flung from city life.
Thats not how it is with information technology
or engineering. Also, with chemicals, because
of the nature of the process and the distinct
regulatory environment at each of our locations,
HR norms are different at our sites. It makes
sense, then, to be bound by a common
framework rather than to enforce a common HR
policy. Thats because work levels are different,
salary structures are different, etc. We cannot
have a global standard, but what we try to do
is make sure that we have in place a common
framework that can be applied globally.
We are clear that with HR we will be region
specific. The stray cases of people moving
from one location to another, we treat these as
exceptions for a specific purpose. They have an
assignment to finish and they will come back to
the parent. Thats the way we have structured it.
You have been in HR for long years.
How has the function itself changed
during this time?
When I started my career in HR it was focused
on industrial relations. Opportunities were
limited; it was an employers market. You could
decide how and when to recruit and the options
open to anybody joining were limited. But
there has been a sea change over the last 15-20
years, with many new sectors and many new
opportunities.
There was a time when people who spent
a decade or more in manufacturing would stay
through their working life in manufacturing.
But now people leave and take up another
vocation. You may have a very good plant
manager saying that infotech is where his
or her future lies. Consequently, companies
have had to reconsider what they are doing.
The environment has changed, the economy
has opened up and the focus has shifted from
industrial relations to managing your workforce

20 Tata Review

April 2013

in a manner that makes it competitive in a


globalised world.
What is different now about shopfloor management?
For someone in production and doing dayto-day work, the aspirations are not all that
many. If he has an issue, he must know who to
approach and how to get it resolved. If it gets
resolved in a reasonable period of time in
best-case scenarios, as soon as it is raised he
will not have any ground-level issues. Problems
arise when the issue is not settled quickly.
Also of relevance is the increasing level of
automation and the influx of new technology.
This means that the shop-floor worker has
to be able to expand the range of his skills
continually. He may be very skilled in an old
method, but if you automate the line, the skilled
become unskilled.
What is the Tata Chemicals method
on leadership development?
Our journey here began some time back
and we have built on it over the years. Most
significantly, we have a programme where we
identify people of a particular age and job-level
bracket and expose them to multiple modules,
running for almost a year, where they get a
perspective of how to run a business and inputs
on personal behaviour.
When you invest in such people, you need
to ensure that some of the other processes in
the organisation facilitate upward mobility. You
cannot create aspiration without having the
requisite outlet to release that aspiration. Not
everything happens together but an employee
understands that over a given period there will
be certain opportunities available to him or her.
Recently Tata Chemicals was looking at
moving into a new category and some of us got
together to evaluate the people within our system
who could be moved to assignments there. This is
the kind of situation that comes up when you have
to fashion the new. The question that emerges is:
do you have people in the organisation who are
willing to take something that does not exist today
and build it to a considerable scale?

COVER STORY

How does employee engagement pan


out at Tata Chemicals?
By and large, engagement is something you
can sense when you walk into an organisation;
it is the look and feel of the place and its not
something you can use a tape to measure. How
are people reacting when you walk around, how
are they involving themselves in their work,
what conversations are they having, what about
other interactions, and is that laughter you are
hearing? There are easily evident signals to be
found here.
Most people who come to work are not
concerned about issues outside of their work.
People should not be constrained or restricted
in their ability to contribute to the organisation.
Thats how I see employee engagement.
What kind of employee concerns
have you had to deal with?
At Tata Chemicals we take care of our people,
as I mentioned earlier. In the last couple of
years we have wound up our biofuels and fresh
produce businesses. In both instances, we did
not see the people we had in those enterprises
as less capable because the business itself was
shut down. Instead, we have provided a large
window for them to get redeployed.
There definitely are opportunities for
growth within the organisation no matter what
the circumstances, but people need to be willing
to relocate, to pick up a fresh set of skills, and so
on. Thats what needs to happen.
What is the equation on work-life
balance at Tata Chemicals?
My experience tells me that an organisation
cannot mandate your work-life balance; it is
an individual thing. You have to look at what
affects you most and then decide how it should
be balanced. The organisation can help if there is
an inherent process that is weak, in which case
you can strengthen that process. If you see that
people cannot complete their activity in a given
period of time because of factors outside their
control, then you need to intervene. And the best
method of rectification in such situations is to
have people do the job.

An important point on this issue is when


you work in roles where you have to deal with
an environment, typically external, where many
things are out of your control. You have no way
of predicting it or understanding the pattern in
which it happens. The solution on this is to have
people in that particular role who do not get
hassled by sharp spikes and demands on their
time. The organisation has to understand which
kind of person it needs to put in a certain kind
of place.
This balance is not just the work part of it;
its also about giving employees opportunities
to fulfil their own ambitions, to pursue their
hobbies, and so on. And that we do to a
considerable extent.
Is it more problematic these days
when it comes to recruiting?
It is more difficult now than it was, say, 20 years
back. There is a clear gap in quality because
most educational institutions are not preparing
students to be employable as soon as they are
out of the classroom. These students may be
good from a theoretical standpoint, but the
skills that a business enterprise requires are not
all there.
It is vital, in this context, for organisations
to partner educational institutions in crafting the
curriculum, and there are multiple ways this can
happen. We have to offer adequate internship
and exposure opportunities; we have to work
with institutions to make the curriculum more
job-oriented; and we have to get practising
managers to spend time visiting and interacting
with the talent pool that is being groomed for
employment.
Whats the deal for Tata Chemicals,
from the HR perspective of business,
from here on?
We hope and expect to get better in matching
aspiration to opportunity from a career point
of view. Because we are in multiple businesses,
we are able to offer plenty of opportunities to
our people, especially as we enter new areas. As
an organisation we have to stay engaged with
employees and get even more collaborative.
April 2013

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COVER STORY

At Titan, people are given the


space and opportunity to grow
The people at Titan Industries
are encouraged to innovate,
to dare to try, to make
mistakes and learn from them.
R Rajnarayan, senior vice
president and chief HR officer
at the company, talks to
Vibha Rao about Titans people
policies and why attracting
talent is not such a difficult
proposition for an organisation
that is non-hierarchical, focuses
on growing in-house talent
and believes in supporting its
employees in finding a balance
between the work that they do
and the lives that they lead.
What is the HR philosophy at Titan
and how does this translate into
policies for the people here?
The HR practice at Titan has five broad focus

22 Tata Review

April 2013

COVER STORY

areas. The first is to ensure that the values and


the philosophy of the organisation are upheld.
This means respect for the individual and giving
people space to work, innovate and grow. We try
to nurture talent from within; the majority of our
people in managerial and leadership positions
are those who have come through the ranks.
The second is to maintain healthy
employee relations. We ensure that there is a
good employee reward system and a healthy
relationship with our union. Third, we try
to ensure that, in keeping with our growth
ambitions, the right talent is on board. On
average we add about 1,000 to 1,200 people a
year, which is a reasonably large number (this is
primarily at the front line).
Fourth, we ensure that our compensation
and reward and recognition policies are equitable
and the differences between the levels are not too
high. We ensure that the reward systems are such
that there are certain timed rewards and there is
also space for spontaneous rewards. The fifth is
to create a good, sound culture that withstands
the test of time. Our stated ambition is to show
a revenue of `300 billion by 2018. That would
also mean a certain increase in manpower
because we want to grow organically.
What are the HR challenges specific
to your company?
One of the challenges specific to our company
is that we are a very diverse organisation, one
of the few that span design, manufacturing, and
sales and marketing, with a distributor network
and a large retail spread. We have a wide variety
of businesses that are evolving and growing. HR,
to remain relevant, has to stay connected to them
and add value to the company.
We have manufacturing plants and retail
stores in different parts of the country and
regional offices in Bengaluru, Kolkata, Delhi and
Mumbai. We have a large age demographic, with
employee ages ranging from the 20s to 50s. One
of the challenges of managing this diversity is to
make sure that there is a clear understanding and
internalisation of who we are as a company and
the values that underpin the way we work.
The second big challenge is making sure

About Titan Industries


Titan is the fifth-largest watch manufacturer
in the world and the largest jewellery retailer
in India, with a product portfolio that includes
watches and accessories, eye wear, jewellery
and precision engineering products.
It is home to a host of Indias leading lifestyle
brands, such as Titan, Tanishq, Fastrack, Raga,
Sonata, Xylys and Titan Eye Plus.
Consolidated revenues of `90.64 billion in the
financial year 2011-12.
Number of employees: 6,800 plus.

that there is a robust talent and leadership


pipeline. We have to identify people from
within who are capable of taking the Titan spirit
forward as we get into new businesses. Finding
leaders who can lead start-ups and then move
back to established businesses is something that
is reasonably unique to us.
What has the Titan experience been
with regard to leadership
development?
Titan has a good, practical, feet-on-the-ground
way to develop leaders from within. We believe
that training contributes only 10 percent to ones
evolution and development, 20 percent comes
through coaching and mentoring and 70 percent
is contributed by on-the-job experience. People
are given the space to grow, the opportunity to
take on different roles and helped in evolving
into new ones. There is an understanding that
the person might not deliver 100 percent in the
initial period, but it is worth the risk.
Helping employees with ethical
issues is one of the more difficult HR
tasks. How does Titan deal with this?
We have a good ethics management structure.
People who are seen as fair, logical individuals
April 2013

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COVER STORY

are on our ethics council, which is headed by


the chief ethics counsellor. The ethics function is
run in a transparent manner and our approach
to ethics handling and robust practices has been
lauded by many.
Companies talk about encouraging
teamwork and creating a culture of
collaboration. How important is the
role of HR in making this happen?
We have HR business partners who work with
both divisions and geographies. The HR role is
to empower line managers; we equip them with
different methods, tools and techniques by which
they can get more out of their teams. We also run
training programmes to help people understand
the composition of their team, the different
personalities in a team, how they can work better
and so on.
How does HR deal with employee
frustration in recessionary times?
These are recessionary times, but it doesnt mean
that everything is gloom and doom. We have
had a good year in all our businesses. Recently,
in December-January, looking at our expected
results in the fourth quarter, we realised we
had to focus on the top line and bottom line to
ensure that we achieved a topline of `100 billion
and a bottom line of `10 billion.
We instituted a programme called Army
of one, wherein people were encouraged to
contribute towards topline revenue, and generation
and implementation of ideas on reducing costs
and wastes. There has been a lot of productive and
enthusiastic activity, leading to a sharp increase
in revenue and control of cost and waste. We are
confident that we will exceed the set targets.
How do you recruit new talent?
As a brand Titan is an attractive proposition and
attracting talent is not a major issue. We are not
top-end paymasters, but we offer the excitement
of working with a company in diverse businesses,
with brands that are well known and in a culture
that allows you to operate independently, learn
from mistakes, and take on large responsibilities.
As mentioned earlier, we want to grow to

24 Tata Review

April 2013

be three times the size we are today in terms of


revenue within the next five years, which means
that we have an interesting journey ahead. The
combination of who we are today and where we
want to be makes us an attractive destination for
young talent.
Work-life balance is a term much in
vogue these days, but this is a
particularly difficult balance to
achieve. How does your company
manage it?
The younger generation places more of a
premium on work-life balance and they want to
do something other than work. We encourage
people to have a healthy work-life balance. We
offer flexible working hours to help in maintaining
work-life balance in our corporate office, factories
and most of our regional offices. We have libraries,
a good gym and other facilities to support the
after- and before-work activities of employees. We
do have people working long hours, so now we are
debating if we should turn off the lights at 6.30pm.
How exactly does employee
engagement manifest itself in your
company? How important is employee
feedback and the companys
response to such feedback?
We participate in external surveys and have
scored reasonably well. We also have an internal
employee engagement survey. Reports and
scores are shared with managers and all teams.
The focus is on improving engagement and
on the action that needs to be taken at the
organisational and team levels.
We have an annual survey run by the
managing directors office called Tell me, which
has been running for the last 10 years. The
feedback is presented to the Titan management
council and then to all our employees. The
feedback is analysed and specific action is taken.
The managing director has a fixed time slot every
week during which any employee can talk to him
about any issue. Members of our management
council also reach out to employees regularly.
We are non-hierarchical, approachable and
extremely open to feedback.

COVER STORY

Individually excellent,
collectively brilliant
Tata Global Beverages (TGB)
has been on a transformation
journey in recent years,
evolving from a plantations
heritage to a global beverage
business with a portfolio of
strong brands. HR is playing
a significant role in facilitating
this transformation, says
KS Srinivasan, head of
human resource management
at the company, in an
interview with Sujata Agrawal.
What are the focus areas for HR in
TGBs transformation journey?
TGBs vision is to become a global leader in
branded good-for-you beverages. Given this,
the focus areas for HR is to build a culture that
will enable and fuel our global growth plans. We
intend to conduct road shows across various
regions to bring organisational alignment,
especially in terms of organisational culture.
The second focus area is to make the
April 2013

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COVER STORY

company future ready by identifying and building


capabilities that are critical for the success in the
years ahead. We will concentrate on not only
building best-in-class functional teams but also
global leaders who can work effectively in a matrix
structure and in a project-led enterprise.
Could you detail some of the specific
challenges and opportunities that
TGB faced as it evolved globally?
One of the key challenges lay in changing the
mindset within the company, to bring about a
consumer focus. Since the company had to face
the risk of market fluctuations in tea prices, we
had to ensure that we built strong brands and the
organisational capability to perform well in highly
competitive markets.
We also had to integrate our operations
in India (North India plantation division and
South India plantation division) into a single
branded operation, focusing on both national
and regional brands. This involved consolidating
marketing and sales structures and managing
peoples expectations through the transition.
TGB has integrated the global
operations of Tata Tea, Tetley and the
other subsidiary companies. What
were the challenges here?
Being a global organisation with different ideas
and cultures makes TGB a vibrant and exciting

About Tata Global Beverages


Tata Global Beverages is a global beverages
company headquartered in Mumbai. It owns
popular brands such as Tata Tea, Tetley, Good
Earth, Tata Coffee and Himalayan mineral water.
Has alliances with PepsiCo and Starbucks.
Consolidated revenues of `66.31 billion in the
financial year 2011-12.
Number of employees: 3,000 plus.

26 Tata Review

April 2013

place to work, but this diversity also brings


with it some challenges. For instance, when
launching new global processes and systems, we
have to be sensitive to the possibility of cultural
misinterpretation. We minimise this by working
in global teams with cross-cultural representation.
To create a common culture that everyone
at TGB can identify with, we have five directional
themes that reflect the aspirations of our company
and describe the tactics that we will need to
pursue at an individual and organisational level
to achieve those aspirations. We have built a
consumer-focused structure to enable global
working. The three sales and marketing territories
are managed regionally to enable local market
responsiveness. Functional teams such as HR,
communications, finance and global information
systems are centrally and globally organised. This
structure breaks down silos; team members from
all regions work together under one functional
head on the development of global initiatives.
The structure also gives talented employees
the opportunity to take on bigger or more
challenging roles with international reach. The
cross-pollination of talent across regions and
the sharing of best practices help develop global
leaders. We have also put in more relevant
mechanisms to measure and reward performance,
such as a global reward strategy and the global
talent management process. These initiatives have
been in place for the last three years and are now
institutionalised as a part of our DNA.
You have talked about developing
leaders with a global mindset. How
are you managing this at TGB?
We are working on developing a future-ready
pipeline of global leaders who can take forward
our ambition to be the global leader in goodfor-you beverages. Our large global presence has
given some of our key talent global exposure;
since 2008 about 30 employees have been given
international placements.
Our organisation resource review process
(a global talent and succession planning tool) has
helped us identify 120 critical roles across the
company that are needed to deliver our business
plans over the next two years. We have built an

COVER STORY

internal talent pipeline for 65 percent of these


roles. In addition, we have been leveraging the
leadership programmes of the Tata Management
Training Centre.

HR open houses and involve senior leadership


in policy decisions involving changes. Such
interactions have led to changes in medical
benefits and policies relating to travel.

Could you share with us what is being


done to encourage teamwork and
create a culture of collaboration?
At TGB we believe that teamwork is the
responsibility of every manager. In fact, one of
TGBs directional themes is individually excellent,
collectively brilliant. An example of this is the
Culture champion initiative. Each region has
about 10 culture champions who drive various
initiatives to engage their colleagues and provide
catalysts for change. Centrally coordinated but
regionally accountable, they can ensure that the
initiatives are culturally appropriate and global
in context. Each year theres a new set of culture
champions. The idea behind this initiative is to
have more participatory communication rather
than a top-down approach. The role of HR is
to support the champions and ensure that the
process works effectively.

The term work-life balance is in vogue


these days, but is particularly difficult
to achieve. What is your view on this
and how do you manage it at TGB?
We try our best to help our employees find
an ideal work-life balance. We have launched
many initiatives in the last two years, including
flexible work arrangements that allow employees
flexibility on the time that they come to work (as
long as they complete the mandated hours and are
present at the office from 10am to 4pm); paternity
and adoption leave; working for two-and-a-half
days in a week from home for a period of two
months after returning from maternity leave;
offering professional counselling to employees
and their families; and so on.

How does employee engagement


manifest itself at TGB?
A good example of employee engagement is the
Think big initiative; a contest that is run across
geographies, it invites innovative ideas for
positive change at TGB. The initiative generated
more than 1,300 new ideas, it captured the
imagination of our employees and reinforced
a culture where creativity is encouraged and
rewarded. It also provided opportunities for
people to learn new skills and collaborate across
functions. The top five teams were invited to
New York to present their business plans to a
panel of judges.
We also have a structured mechanism for
gathering employee feedback that helps target
initiatives and communications better. We
conducted a pulse-check employee engagement
dipstick survey after completing the integration
process; our overall engagement score was 68
percent (with 88 percent participation across
regions), which is better than the average score
among global companies. We also conduct

What do you see as the HR challenges


of the future for TGB?
Given that TGB is continuously transforming,
it is a challenge to keep employees energised
and engaged. It is also a challenge to manage
changing employee demographics. Gen Y and
Z are very different and we have to ensure that
our leaders are well equipped to manage these
people. Talent management and succession
planning will become more critical and at the
same time more complex. We also need to be
able to help employees update and develop their
skill sets quickly.
To what extent do Tata companies
share HR best practices?
There are many platforms within the Tata group
that enable sharing of best practices. There is a
forum where chief HR officers meet regularly with
a predefined agenda; the Tata Rem Club is very
active and shares knowledge internally or through
thought leaders. The revamped group HR site
gives an opportunity to HR leaders to connect
with their peers within the group. Im sure that we
will see more synergies and sharing between the
different companies in the future.
April 2013

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COVER STORY

Keeping the opportunity


pipeline flowing
That warm, fuzzy, caring
space that denotes a good
HR function is being enabled
through the use of emerging
technologies and mathematical
tools that help optimise
the organisation-employee
relationship. Tata Powers
chief HR officer, Chetan Tolia,
explains to Gayatri Kamath how
the HR function is changing to
map the future employee with
the future organisation and
how the company is working
to become a meritocracy with
highly engaged people.
What are the focus points of the HR
practice in your company?
The HR emphasis at Tata Power is on growing our
people and filling our opportunity pipeline with

28 Tata Review

April 2013

COVER STORY

talent from within. This is one of the reasons our


employee engagement levels have consistently
been high, in fact among the best in the industry.
Traditionally, the HR function has focused
on managing the talent flow. At Tata Power we
view every role as an opportunity for individual
growth and, thereby, the organisations growth.
If the pipeline gets clogged (with permanent
residents), the movement of people through the
organisation gets impaired. This can stress the
talent pool and possibly result in people feeling
disengaged. Thats why we look at the issue from
the perspective of growth opportunities.
What we are beginning to do is a rigorous
and regular review of the entire organisational
design vis--vis the needs of the business. You
cannot have an unchanging structure; it must
continuously adapt to business needs. This helps
open up spaces where talent can flow, and thus
enhances overall talent productivity.
Another big change is that HR is redefining
its boundaries of operation. A new target group
is the contract workforce, employees who are not
on Tata Powers permanent payroll but are very
much a part of the business. Core activities and
processes are retained in-house, while certain
specialised services are outsourced, such as
handling fly-ash or coal, special services during
an outage and specialised turbine maintenance.
The changing business environment has
resulted in the number of contract employees
growing and typically there are three contract
employees to every permanent employee. These
figures imply that HR has to play a more active
role in contract workforce management. We
need to weigh in on entry standards, minimum
educational qualifications, training needs,
desirable behaviour and so on. The people culture
of the external agencies bringing in the contract
employees needs to be synergised with ours. We
are now re-establishing these service contracts
as productivity-linked, performance-based
ones. This will create an incentive for service
providers to invest in improving their efficiencies,
benefiting all concerned.
Another impact is that, internally, we need
to reconsider what skill sets the company needs,
especially with its permanent employees. The

About Tata Power


Tata Power is an integrated, independent power
producer, with a presence in power generation,
trading, mining, transmission and distribution.
It is a 100-year-old company headquartered in
Mumbai, with plants and facilities across India
and a presence in Indonesia, South Africa,
Bhutan and Singapore.
Consolidated revenues of `260 billion
in the financial year 2011-12.
Number of employees: 4,300 plus.

HR evolution at Tata Power is being led by the


business evolution, and we need to focus on
those issues that have a great business impact.
What are the HR challenges specific
to your company?
Among our big challenges is the matching of
the talent pool and people expectations with the
volatility of the business environment, even as we
build capability for the future. The mix of legacy
and new business models and the demographics
of our people combine to make this a uniquely
challenging time from an HR perspective.
Another big challenge is to balance
our gender ratio. We want to attract and
retain female talent. We need to provide an
environment where women are supported in
the workplace; they should feel confident that
their careers will grow at Tata Power. We are in
the process of reviewing policies for maternity
support, childcare, etc, and are considering
different ways to bring women back into the
company after a parenting break. There is a lot of
careful planning thats going into this.
How does your company approach
the issue of leadership development?
We have several leadership development
schemes but we are also looking at new
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technologies that enable live or real-time


executive coaching, with 360-degree
feedback tools to help manage problems
almost as soon as they occur. Leadership
effectiveness discussions are conducted with
top management (and facilitated by HR) to
understand peoples career aspirations, the
support they need from management, and the
options available for developing their careers.
These systems are not for performance appraisal
but for performance enhancement. Its an
exciting space to be in.
How do you tap and recruit new talent?
A few years ago we went through a growth spurt
where we had to recruit laterally in sizeable
numbers for our middle levels. Now we are
looking at a steady annual intake of 40-120
fresh graduates every year. We do not want to
have a gap in this flow. The benefit is that young
talent can be moulded and groomed, rotated in
different areas and developed over a period of
time to fit in with our culture and needs.
We are also looking at recruiting a mix
of specialists: management graduates, lawyers,
engineers, environment and safety specialists, etc.
This implies looking at new recruitment venues
and mapping nontraditional skill sets. A new
development in HR is the use of analytics, and one
area where we are deploying this is in recruitment.
We are tracking and correlating a number of
inputs the colleges where we recruit, the
number of people who apply, the success ratio, the
number of appointment letters issued, the number
who join and the progress of those who continue
at Tata Power. This data is correlated with other
factors such as college rankings, the Tata Power
people who visited the campuses, etc. By analysing
this data for a 10-year period, we establish what
combination of factors has worked best for us. We
then finalise our campus visit plans.
How does employee engagement pan
out in Tata Power?
An engaged employee is one who is fully
involved in and enthusiastic about the work,
and who will act in ways that furthers the
organisations interests. Tata Powers employee

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April 2013

engagement process strives to measure the


degree of an employees positive or negative
emotional attachment to the job, his colleagues
and the organisation by collecting employee
responses through an annual survey that is
administered by an external agency. The analysis
is presented to the management team and all
employees every year. The solution and action
planning is done with the active involvement of
employees. This process is branded as Voices.
Based on the outcomes of the survey, we
have continuously deployed initiatives and
taken corrective actions to increase the level of
engagement among employees. The employees
belief in the process, the management and the HR
function is clearly visible in the commitment to
together make Tata Power a great place to work.
Participation in this process has been maintained at
levels of 95 percent and above.
At Tata Power we also feel that we need to
think beyond this. We need to review what we
should measure and what we hope to accomplish
through this exercise. The answer could well lie in a
new system of taking more frequent measurements
of employee engagement. Then the exercise
may turn out to be even more meaningful to the
employee and the organisation.
What do you see as the HR challenges
of the future for your company?
The Tata Power entity comprises several
companies, of which there are 8-10 operating
companies, each of which has its own HR
function. We need to create a unified HR
framework across all our companies. This
common platform will have several benefits.
It will enable smooth talent mobility, increase
the opportunities available for growth, and
help enhance among our people the sense of
belonging to a large organisation.
What is unique about Tata Power is that
we have a stable and engaged workforce. Our
engagement levels are high and attrition rates are
low. In addition, we have the ability to assimilate
external talent. These are the positives that
we are building on. We want Tata Power to be
recognised in the marketplace as a meritocracy
with highly engaged people.

COVER STORY

HR functions as a team of
business partners at Rallis
In todays changing business
environment, the Rallis India
HR team works to ensure
that employees remain
energised and motivated. In
a wide-ranging interview, vice
president for HR and business
excellence, Madan Tripathy,
tells Gayatri Kamath that HR at
Rallis is all about co-ownership
of challenges and actively
partnering other business
functions in the company.
What does the HR practice at Rallis
concentrate on?
The focus in the Rallis HR practice has been to
strike a balance between business imperatives
and what our employees want, while extending
support for business growth through HR
systems and processes. The Rallis business model
is changing: we are transforming from a crop
protection company to an integrated agri-solutions
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provider, with a portfolio that includes seeds, plantgrowth nutrients and a range of agri services.
We currently have a pilot project called
Samrudh krishi (literally, prosperous farmer),
involving more than 1,200 farmers, through
which the Rallis field representative does much
more than sell our products. He provides
consultancy to the farmer on weather, seeds,
good farm implements, best crop practices, in
fact everything necessary to improve the business
of farming. Rallis also has a similar initiative,
called Grow more pulses, which involves about
150,000 farmers. This project focuses on the
cultivation of high-quality pulses.
In a step towards preparing employees
to meet business challenges, the HR function
in the company has been restructured so that
there are HR business partners for sales
and marketing, manufacturing and support
functions who act as the single window
for all HR services to the given function and
its employees. In short, the Rallis HR team
functions as a team of business partners.
What are the HR challenges at Rallis?
The HR challenges in the present context
are four-fold. First, to have an appropriate
organisational structure, with due importance
given to emerging businesses. Second, to develop
expertise at the senior management level for

About Rallis India


Rallis India is the countrys leading agri-input
company, with pan-India operations, four
factories and a research centre. Its portfolio has
pesticides, herbicides and insecticides, along
with seeds, plant-growth nutrients and organic
compost, as well as a range of agri services.
Consolidated revenues of `12.74 billion in the
financial year 2011-12.
Number of employees: 900 plus, and 1,000 plus
crop advisors who work on contract.

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April 2013

accelerated growth through succession planning,


creating a leadership pipeline and sourcing the
right talent, particularly for emerging businesses.
Third, to enhance the versatility of middle
management through capability building and job
enrichment. And fourth, to increase the depth of
the organisation at the grassroots level.
At the grassroots level, and particularly for
customer-facing employees, one of the biggest
challenges is to change the mindset from product
selling to concept selling and to equip our existing
sales force with appropriate knowledge, skills
and the attitude to enable responsive problemsolving and proactive growth consultancy. A new
competency framework has been developed,
resulting in a dramatic change in our frontline
sales team. Their self-image is changing along
with their job enrichment; they feel a greater
connect with the farming community.
Another unique aspect of this competency
development is that it is actively driven by more
than 30 regional competency champions and
internal trainers, who are volunteering to train
sales employees spread across 200 territories in
India. These participants, in turn, will train our
1,000-plus contract field workers, who connect
with the farmers more frequently. Interestingly,
it is our area sales managers who have willingly
taken on the extra responsibility to act as
competency champions and train the workforce
beyond their area sales teams.
Leadership development can be an
HR challenge. What has the Rallis
experience been?
Rallis conducts several customised leadership
development programmes in partnership with the
Tata Management Training Centre [TMTC]. To
catch young talent and build a leadership pipeline,
we are rolling out an employee growth scheme
called Regale (Rallis employees growth scheme
leading to excellence). We have also introduced
informal mentoring. Key people with high
potential are mentored by the senior leadership,
and the chosen people are kept unaware of the
focused mentoring provided to them. It is done in
a subtle manner, as a low-key informal activity for
greater flexibility and effectiveness.

COVER STORY

How does Rallis tackle and manage


its people requirements?
Rallis has a couple of distinctive initiatives to meet
its future people requirements, and they address
both the business and social empowerment
agendas. The Tata Rallis agri input training
scheme, or Traits, is an initiative under which
young unemployed undergraduates from rural
areas, with a farming background, are trained
through an earn-while-you-learn programme.
These youngsters undergo classroom training at
Krishi vigyan kendras (agricultural knowledge
centres, where the curriculum has been developed
by Rallis) and they get practical training from our
field force for one year. At the end of the period
they are given employment support for two more
years, after which they have the option of joining
our sales force or looking elsewhere for jobs.
Traits has about 25 trainees at each of its five
centres in India. This initiative not only makes
rural youth employable, but also produces a loyal
front-line sales force for Rallis. Additionally,
we offer fixed-term, two-year training for local
graduate students at our manufacturing sites,
which enhances their employability as they learn
relevant skills.
These schemes not only address our
future people requirements but also contribute
to our agenda for affirmative action and
community development, while adding value
to business sustainability. Apart from these,
Rallis approaches agri campuses for intake of
freshers. For lateral recruitments we have a
referral scheme where employees not only help
identify talent but also extend buddy support
throughout the recruits probation period.
In what manner does employee
engagement manifest itself in your
company?
Rallis is fortunate to be among the best
performers in employee engagement. In the
recent Aon Hewitt employee engagement survey,
the Rallis score was found to be 80 percent,
which is much above the average manufacturing
industry score of 65 percent and the best
employers India 2011 score of 77 percent.
While in good companies the ratio of engaged to

disengaged employees is about 5:1, at Rallis the


ratio is as high as 16:1.
What are the employee engagement
initiatives being run at Rallis?
I believe that the common thread that connects
all employees and drives employee engagement at
Rallis is passion in what we do. Apart from normal
employee engagement initiatives such as rewards
and recognition, two-way communication,
transparent HR policies, accessibility of the senior
leadership to employees, and similar measures
that are common to many companies, we have a
host of innovative programmes that also help in
motivation and engagement.
One popular programme is Kisme kitna hai
dum (KKHD, which translates into so whats your
strength), where our employees voluntarily set
robust challenges for themselves, boosting healthy
competition. KKHD is demonstrably popular; we
have more than 400 entries from an employee base
of about 900. Another unique initiative is Mushkil
aasan (problem solved), whereby anyone in the
company can write to our managing director on
any issue. We have also started employee-focused
programmes such as an in-house talent show
called Karishma dikhla jaa (literally, phenomenal
show), with senior leaders travelling to field
locations to be a part of the local celebrations.
What are the important learning and
development practices in the
company?
Starting with the training needs analysis,
we run in-house learning and development
[L&D] programmes for technical, functional
and behavioural training and also sponsor our
employees for external training. We have access
to TMTCs competencies for customising L&D
solutions for us. A new initiative called e-vidya,
which is a self-paced e-learning programme,
launched recently with the help of TMTC and
Harvard Business Publishing, is catching on in
the company. Two in-house training initiatives
deserving special mention are Project Arjun and
Project Dronacharya, which are sales-oriented
modules that help newcomers learn how to sell to
the trade and to farmers.
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