Feature

HR: strategic business partner

From an administrative and recruitment function to a strategic business partner, HR in IT organizations has come a long way, finds out Vinita Gupta

Organizations, in the past, used to look only at the sales, marketing and R&D functions to foster the growth of the company. But today, they are also looking at HR for the same. Today’s business environment is highly competitive and challenging. Any function or a business process, which cannot add value to the business, will not be acceptable to the business leaders. Thus, HR needs to develop expertise, and assist in adding value to the organization’s long-term objectives. It is expected to develop programmes that help attract and retain talent, deliver compensation programmes that capture meritocracy and retain cost competitiveness.

The changing role

The HR function has undergone a tremendous change over time. Until mid 90’s, large organizations looked at the HR department, mostly to manage the paperwork around hiring and paying employees.

Over the recent years, organizations have started considering the HR function as a more strategic role in optimizing performance through adequate staffing, training and talent management. Hence, the new role of the HR is to add value to employees through various initiatives and retain them by creating interesting engagement programmes and growth related initiatives.

Many HR functions have begun to play a strategic role in guiding succession management, knowledge retention, and other enterprise-wide initiatives. It acts as a backbone providing manpower, infrastructure, training (internal/external), etc.

“Increased competition, changing workforce demographics, and a shift towards knowledge-based work require organizations to place an increasingly high focus on improving the workforce strategy and new business models,” added Pari Sadasivan, VP-HR, IBM India/SA. She revealed that organizations are looking at HR to go beyond the delivery of cost-effective transactional services, and provide value added services and expertise on how to anticipate, develop and leverage talent to create true marketplace differentiation.

Bikramjit Maitra, SVP and Head, HR, Infosys Technologies pointed out, “HR today is no longer only about hiring or retaining people. The complexity of the business is expanding and there is a huge growth that is witnessed in the entire sector.” The competition among the global majors is intensifying. Hence the HR department is beginning to play a more consultative role than ever before. To cater to all this demand, HR today is a part of the management board of a company.

HR is now more customer focused, team-based, and functionally integrated. “HR professionals work with the management to analyze and devise solutions for organizational problems. They are involved in strategic planning and aligning HR with the organization’s mission and strategic goals,” believed Vivek Punekar, VP-HR, HCL Infosystems.

Abhay Valsangkar, Senior Director, HR, Symantec stated, “HR plays a significant role in creating the right opportunity for the appropriate talent. It has taken centre stage as they are now the key drivers for talent management and creators of value for their company.” HR has thus become a top priority for all businesses today.

Creating organizational culture

Gone are the days of HR being a support function. Today, HR needs to be the trusted business partner, and an advisor to business leaders. It needs to be closely aligned with the business to enable business transformation and growth. This requires HR to anticipate and grow talent, develop leaders, and have a high touch engagement with employees to provide the required support.

Additionally, HR needs to create a culture that promotes the organization’s values, a sense of community, and instils a feeling of pride and passion in employees.

Punekar added, “HR is not only dealing with people but adding value in the planning stage through its understanding of people. It is the backbone to build a culture that is helpful to change, trying to implant some dynamism into the organization. It is also acting as a bridge to integrate initiatives, watching key processes—such as new hire orientation, training, and even compensation systems. These processes help support both the present and the desired culture.”

Today, along with competitive salaries, employees look for value addition at their work place in terms of learning opportunities, global exposure and a clear career path, felt Maitra.

“Every organization, be it small or large, has a vision and employees have the task of meeting the goals of the company in line with the vision. This makes HR an indispensable part of the decision-making process in the organization,” added Valsangkar.

Thus HR is expected to study employment trends, benchmark practices, analyze the impact of existing HR processes, policies and practices, and work with the business to enable growth and performance.

Challenges faced

The HR leadership are increasingly required to act as strategists and leaders who work in partnership with the CEO and the board of directors, directly on a range of critical business issues and also manage the HR function and operations team. This change in role has indeed resulted in increased responsibilities and challenges.

The major challenge in front of the HR is to take the whole organization as one entity. If a change needs to be incorporated it should be at one go all over. HR automation is also necessary to incubate fast processes.

Satish Venkatachaliah, VP-HR, SAP Labs India, asserted, “The chief HR officers play a key role in developing and communicating business strategy and overall performance by helping the CEO and other executives craft strategies that make sense in the light of global labour trends, the talent that is available and the next generation of leaders and workers.”

Given the talent shortage within the IT industry today as well as rising attrition levels, HR needs to develop radical and innovative approaches to attract and retain talent, and development and creation of a culture that supports the values of the organization.

Decentralization comes with a whole lot of cost involvement, so proper planning is essential. It is also required to empower employees and let them work with a free mind. HR needs to make sure that people are growing, because an organization is known by its workforce. Regular mapping of competencies and career path should also be defined.

“HR brings with it a whole gamut of responsibilities like human capital planning, human capital mentoring, creation of employee policies, salary guidelines, benefits package planning, labour law compliance, managing employee related emergencies or catastrophes, and many more,” added Valsangkar.

Rahul Varma, Senior VP-HR, Accenture India, added, “The close alignment with business goals requires the HR function to be more measurable, scalable and innovative. HR professionals today are converting the challenge at hand to opportunities and developing practices that are not only robust but also reflect significant thought leadership.

HR in IT companies

The role of a HR department in an IT company differs from other verticals due to regular innovations in IT, increased competition, boom in IT sector, talent creation, training and developing of current workforce according to the regular and fast paced changes.

Maitra revealed that bearing the sheer size and growth of the IT companies in mind, the HR department has to enable better communication and create structures where managers would be made more responsible in handling people and delegating authority and training. Creating enough trained manpower to sustain the growth of the IT industry, which is currently experiencing high level growth, is the most important role of the HR department with regard to policies. The industry needs policies that support seamless growth, for both the employee and the organization.

Sadasivan however asserted that the role of HR department in an IT firm is no different from other verticals as creating a culture and environment, which is conducive to enabling employee development and growth, is required across all verticals.

She added, “However, the approach to managing an environment needs to be influenced by the demographic profile of the employee workforce. Skill requirements can vary based on the business needs. Global companies will have additional areas to address in the overall management of its talent, which will also include culture training and education on global practices.”

The involvement of the HR function is much greater in the IT industry since it is highly talent centric, and retaining people is a huge challenge due to the numerous opportunities that are globally available, felt Valsangkar.

Thus today the HR plays a key role in collaborating with the business to develop the workforce strategy, which influences the company’s operating strategies to meet the corporate objectives.

vinita.gupta@expressindia.com