wrk force productivity.docx

7/29/2019 wrk force productivity.docx

1/21

WORKFORCE PRODUCTIVITY

INDIA 20126

Key HR Challenges Faced Today

Hiring and retaining the right talent Building a leadership pipeline Employee engagement and Improving productivity

Importance of Talent Challenges

Leadership planning and development Improving talent development strategies Improving productivity of the existing workforce Planning the workforce efficiently Managing salary costs Managing diversity at workplace Adherence of employees to their staffing schedules Managing & tracking leaves of employees

Factors Affecting Employee Productivity

There are a range of factors that influenceproductivity in an organisation :

Nature of the industry and the maturityof the business Stable and automated is the process Working conditions that affect the overall quality of work and the output The level of employee engagement that drives how much of discretionary effort

people are willing to put in their jobs. As synthesized by Gurmeet Singh, Area

Director of Human Resources, Marriott Hotels; work culture is in the driving seat,

training is fuel, work practices and processes are the engine oil and

infrastructure enables speed.

Inaccurate manpower planning & deployment Lack of employee training Lack of visibility & control Employee absenteeism Lack of access to data to track productivity Labour unrest Othrs


2/21

Manpower Planning Key to Productivity

Manpower planning happens at the business level and it is aligned to the culture and

approach of the organisation, whether the company wants to invest in technology or in people

or a mix of both, it is a business decision after all. If the business plans to increase output orchange the product mix, then the manpower planning happens accordingly, says Prabir Jha,

Senior Vice President & Head- Human Resources, Tata Motors

The Absenteeism Factor

Sanjay Rawat from Aegis, shares employee absenteeism affects productivity

significantly as it increases the workload on others. It also has an effect on meeting client

commitment and produces anxiety for people working on the project. For example, if a

trainer reports sick at the 11th hour somebody who has to substitute him/her undergoes a

stressful experience. The quality of program to be delivered gets affected and hence, the

probability of repeat business gets drastically reduced.

Metrics, Processes and Systems for Measuring

Productivity

Metrics

Metrics to Measure Employee Productivity

Individual accomplishment of targets and goals Adherence to time deadline for tasks assigned Ratio of employee cost to revenue/ profit generated Ratio of tasks completed per unit of time Unplanned absenteeism

Processes & Systems

Formal process in place but systems are manually managed Formal process along with automated systems place Formal process but no systems to measure No formal process in place and no system

Some of the practises carried out12

Dr. Ritu Anand

Vice-President & Deputy HeadGlobal Human Resources, TCS

Employee utilization is measured by person hours deployed on billable engagement/person

hours available for billable engagement. Productivity is measured through Revenue per

Person, Operating Margin per Person. Entire Work Force Management is digitized throughsystems.


3/21

Anoop RawatHeadLearning & Development, Fortis Healthcare India

There are four essential metrics we track:

Customer patience, Developing People, Developing processesand Financial.

We adapt the balanced score card approach. All employees are measured on the four aspects.

Sangeeta Singh

Executive DirectorHR, KPMG India

The manpower planning is done on set metrics. A manpower planning pyramid is drawn and

followed for each department, based on their target revenues. We have a scientific projection

done and believe that it is crucial to have the ability to get the projections right and align with

the projections.

13

Challenges in Measuring Productivity

Lack of integration of processes & systems to provide consolidated information Lack of coordination between different departments, resulting in erroneous data Limited or no use of technology & systems Lack of processes in place Budgetary constraints in terms of investing in technology Others

The Way Forward: An Integrated System?

Benefits of having an Integrated Solution

Reduced error as human intervention is minimized Easy availability of data for top management Reduced opportunities for unfavourable practices Faster processing of employee dues Eliminate leakages while leave encashment & reconciliation

Suresh Dutt Tripathi from SRF shares,This year we are integrating all the plantsthrough an

HRIS at the group level. We already have an integrated HRIS for managementlevel but with

completion of the HRISfor non-management levels, we will have anelaborate system, which

will help us in ourstrategic decision making.


4/21

Experts Views

1.Dr. Ritu AnandVice President & Deputy HeadGlobal Human Recourses, TCS

26

Speed learning and avoid reinventing the wheel

The factors that affect productivity are firstly,

Work culture, learning environment and knowledge management, Competencies and performance ethics Effective utilization of available talent.

The key workforce challenges are

Costs control with focus on levers like controlling and managing attrition andbalancing ratios of experienced to trainees joining the organisation.

Competency enhancement of talent through training and job rotation. Creating a sustainable talent pipeline in terms of maintaining optimal bench but also

ensuring healthy leadership pipeline to fuel a companys growth.

Challenges at Tata Consultancy Services, are achieved through Integrated Competency

and Learning Management System (iCALMS) and Knowledge Management System

(KnowMax). Competency development happens in the areas of domain, technology,

process, language and culture and leadership development.

2.Saikat ChatterjeeManager HRM South East & South West Asia, Inter Continental Hotels Group

Provide the right environment for people to develop and grow

In order to align people to the business strategy, we have adapted the Balanced

Scorecard approach. We call it the SteeringWheel, which has clearly defined measurable

matrices under four quadrants namely, Our People; Guest Experience; Responsible Business;

and Financial Returns. At the planning stage, every business identifies actions that they will

need to take to deliver on the above 4 quadrants. The business priorities are then linked to

functional, departmental and individual priorities, which helps employees understand their

role in helping the business achieve its objectives. Our people philosophy is about giving

people the right environment where they can deliver and grow.

3.Judhajit DasChiefHuman Resources, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance

Workforce management must run like a process

Comprehending & Measuring productivity

In ICICI Prudential, we measure workforce productivity through

Revenue per employee / branch, New business profits per employee/branch, Percentage of mis-selling complaints by employee/branch,


5/21

Customer service scores by branch, etc. In analyzingAt a conceptual level, workforce productivity needs to be understood in terms of attitude or

willingness and capability or ability. For attaining high productivity, both motivation and

capability needs to be high. However, we need to drill down deep to understand the factors

that cause low motivation or low capability. This root cause analysis is important asotherwise one will treat the symptom and not the cause.

The way out

We have partnered with education providers to create a supply chain of job ready profiles.

This reduces the time and cost spent on training post hiring and more importantly, the person

has the motivation to do the job as he has opted for the career and has been trained for it.

4.Pankaj N. GursahaniAssociate Director, Sales Training, AstraZeneca Pharma India

Connecting with Gen Y employees is a challenge

The employee productivity can be affected by two kinds of factorsinternal and

external. It is tough for supervisors or the immediate manager to develop and connect with

Gen Y employees. The industry also faces a challenge in keeping the employees engaged.

We are making conscious efforts in engaging our employees. The induction programs for our

new hires focus on employee engagement.

We have Delta, which is an automated system to track all analytics for all front level

employees. For managers, we have C-Cal, an automated system to track their team members

on all aspects. There is an automated system for manpower planning. If the market is going

down, then planning is automatically re-done on the basis of the prevailing market

conditions, making our systems completely dynamic.

5.Prabir JhaSenior Vice-President & Head -Human Resources, Tata Motors

Larger metrics can camouflage some of the more critical issues

Metrics: definition, processes and challenges

The most utilized metric in manufacturing is output per employee. Others are cost as

percentage of net profitability. My favourite is the value added by employee added cost thismetric really helps you making the skill mix and product mix more effective. These metrics

are very important as they are the conversation point for headcount planning. We have an in-

house team that collects and tracks productivity data and it is linked to other systems in the

organisation. For example, if there are union settlements, these are then connected with the

HRIS and payroll. Absenteeism can be regularized with grant of leave, though leave is never

a matter of right! Certain segments of the workforce may actually be incentivized on 100%

presence at work and if absent without grant all for the month typically

will get impacted. The challenges we face in tracking employee productivity are of three

types.

The first challenge is to define employee

productivity. While many routine operationscan be easily to be tracked this


6/21

way, but then what about managerial

productivity and if you put it all under

one larger metric, it can camouflage

some of the more critical issues. The

second issue is that they are collected

by a group of people so the humanintervention poses a challenge in terms

of identifying deviations and problems

with the data. The third challenge is that

these measures most often than not, are

lag indicators so it does not really help

us in planning ahead but in explaining

the problems.

WORKFORCE PRODUCTIVITY - INDIA 2012

32

There must be role clarity across

lower levelsEmployee productivity is greatly linked

to the employees association to

the bigger picture. If there is lack of

alignment with the organisational goals, it

leads to loss of energy and subsequently

leads to loss of productivity. He needs to be

aware of what he is doing in the organisation.

And how does his work contribute

towards the organisational goals. Additionally,

other factors could include if there are

adequate training tools / resources available

to do the job.

The role of the immediate manager in

workforce management is the most crucial.

The manager needs to be supportive,

available, and should be able to guide and

provide feedback and coach/mentor them

if required. The rewards and recognition

process needs to be streamlined especially

for the front-level employees. It should

happen at shorter intervals and their incentivesshould be delivered on time. For the

senior staff, the time intervals can be larger.

The employee needs to be aware of

what he wants to achieve from the job he is

doing. Despite availability of all tools and

technology, people do not know what they

need to know. The employee services should

be easily accessible and available to all. The

work life issues are gaining importance.

With different generations coming to

work, and the difference in experience andexpectation levels amongst all generations,


7/21

the work life balance is really not there. It is

equally important to have a safe, comfortable

and joyful work environment. There

should be role clarity across lower levels

and their growth path should be adequately

defined.This industry is going through regulatory

changes. Initially, people saw a faster

growth, but in the race, good management

practices have not fore-seeded. We might

have been good at the frontend, but we

did not get the time to put these practices

into picture. To manage the challenges,

we constantly look at the input and output

parameters. These measureable parameters

could include number of calls made per

agent, quality of agents, quality of businessAnuraag Maini

Executive VP - HR and Training

DLF Pramerica Life Insurance

generated, number of policies issues and

number of renewals done amongst others.

There is lot of focus to educate and

train people around this as it is important

to set the right input parameters so

that the right output is achieved for the

business. The different areas through

which workforce management affects

organisational performance include the

quantity versus the quality of goals/

targets met by the employees / teams. We

have a customer satisfaction survey and

a distributor satisfaction survey, which is

another crucial area. Other areas include

the engagement level of the employees

and the extent to which the organisational

goals are being met. It is all about managing

rightly engaged employees at theright time at the right job. An insideout

approach is adapted.

For example, it is a mandate to have

background verification done for all our

employees, which is very unlike other

organisations in this industry. Initially,

people did not believe us, but we had to

take tough calls of asking people to leave

on this ground. It is only then, that people

started believing that we actually consider

this factor so crucially. End of the day, ouremployees are going to handle financials


8/21

of our clients, so they need to have high

integrity.

Employee utilization and productivity

is measured through number of documents

processed, and each function has its

own metrics. The head office to field officeratio, the quality of business generated,

new business generated, renewals done,

number of people paying on time, etc., are

important factors.

We try to track the business made,

which is more important in this industry.

Leverage is also given because of the fact

that our employees meet clients at their

convenient timings, which include late

evenings, early morning, weekends, holidays,

etc. Attendance management systemis in place, but more important is the fact

that how productive is the employee in his

business.


33

Focus on intangible benefits to

retain people

The key challenge, which our industry

faces, is of acquiring and retaining

the right talent. This situation is likely

to remain for a longer period of time. The

easiest way to address it is by focusing on

the tangible factors like compensation and

perks. Further, intangible factors like training

and development (skill development &

job orientation) will help enhancing skill

levels in employees and help them to enjoy

their job while delivering desired level of

performance. However, in todays fast paced

work life with intense focus on immediate

and short term results, the key challengeis to get employees engaged and aligned

with the organisations business philosophy

and values. The lack of alignment and

buy in from the employees on the organisational

values and philosophy, creates a

significant challenge for the future. To drive

the organisation for an exciting future, in

addition to focusing on the current results,

a lot of employee energy should be directed

towards creation of the future. Thoughts

for the future are clear at the top in mostorganisations, however percolating it down


9/21

to employees at all levels is a challenge.

The challenge further is in developing an

employee mindset that looks beyond the

compensation and benefits package and

focuses on alignment with the organisation.

From the era of protectionism for thework force, today the industry is faced with

shortage of right talent. The relevance of

unions has been greatly reduced. Today,

increased opportunities and options

K. V. Raambabu

Managing Director

Pulse Pharmaceuticals

outside of the pharma industry have seen

employee expectations change. Further,

there is a change in employer expectations,

with increased focus on numbers andexpectation of higher returns per employee.

This has led to a situation wherein good

employees are difficult to retain. As opportunities

are abundant, employees tend to

hop jobs when they are unable to meet the

short term goals. This leads to a situation

of higher base level packages with limited

skill sets in the employee pool. Hence, the

challenge is in creating a work environment

that sustains and promotes organisation

building for the future without loss

of focus on short term results. Towards

this, the development of skills in the

middle management is critical. The middle

management interacts routinely with the

work force and they need to be trained to

create the right balance of result and future

focus in the work environment.

Currently, we use regular metrics to

measure employee productivity and there

by establish employee utilization. Movingforward, we will be initiating more detailed

employee utilization studies. The results will

help us in better resource allocation and

utilization.

Unplanned Absenteeism is not a serious

concern for us. Technology has evolved over

the past decade and has resulted in reduced

lag time in realizing absenteeism in sales

force. Systems are therefore in place to

quickly identify and resolve the few cases of

absenteeism that occur.WORKFORCE PRODUCTIVITY - INDIA 2012


10/21

34

Focus on having the right people in

the right roles

When we look at productivity, we

aim to constantly upgrade the

skills of our employees. We takeinto account how often they are undergoing

the process of upgrading their skills. The

aim is to provide the right set of training

opportunities to our employees. We also

put conscious efforts in removing any

activities, which can be done away with on

a regular basis, and thus saves the employees

time and effort. We strive to give our

employees a satisfaction level with respect

to their jobs. This includes taking care of

their rewards and recognition, giving themample opportunities to grow within the

organisation, amongst other initiatives.

It is very necessary to have the right

people at the right place to make sure

that employee productivity doesnot get

hampered. The intrinsic behavior of the

employee also plays a crucial role.

The major challenge across industry

is acquiring the right talent and retaining

it. This is primarily because the number

of opportunities available in the market

is immense. There is shortage of talent in

healthcare and we still have talent drain,

which is prevalent.

Training and development is an area

where we focus on. The issue faced here is

that there are a lot of soft skills trainings

available but one needs to concentrate on

the bigger picture, which is people career

growth. We focus on people to grow across

roles and training opportunities are avail-Anoop RawatHead - Learning & Development

Fortis Healthcare India

able for the same. In nursing, for example,

one can grow in to a nurse administration

role or a physician assistant, as also nurse

can get into nursing education.

We have revamped our performance

management system, which is now on the

basis of the goals that one derives out of

the organisational focus areas. We arealso trying to develop ourselves into a fun


11/21

place to work in our own manner and the

organisational commitment in this regard

is high.

There are four essential areas that we

track to measure productivity at the individual

level: customer patience, developingpeople, developing processes and financial

impact. We adapt the balanced score card

approach. All employees are measured on

the four aspects. We are trying to implement

a standardized system of reporting

data across the organisation. The way of

reporting data across hospitals is different

currently. Metrics that we track very

closely are patient to bed ratio, doctor to

patient ratio, etc.

In terms of how we manage employeeutilization, each unique role is clearly

defined in the system and the performance

management system appropriately

measures the performance across all

levels. This enables us to know potential

gaps and improvement areas for our

employees. It also helps us focus on the

fact, if the right employee is in the right

role at the right time.


35

Role clarity will ensure employee

productivity

The major factors that affect employee

productivity are role clarity, micro

management, lack of internal

customer centricity and employee absenteeism,

which affect employee productivity

when not addressed. The key workforce

management challenges for our business

include keeping employees engaged andimproving workforce productivity.

Improving productivity in our existing

workforce is surely a challenge and we try

to overcome this through both empowerment

and dipstick of performance at periodical

interval.

In the education and consultancy by

and large, people have to be self-driven as

too much monitoring is counter-productive.

Employee absenteeism increases the

workload on others also meeting clientcommitment and anxiety on people present


12/21

increases. For example, if a trainer reports

sick at the 11th hour somebody who has

to substitute undergo a stressful experience.

This drastically impairs the quality

of program and hence, the probability of

repeat business is reduced.Distribution of workload and growing

the person in the role are some of the

principles applied for measuring utilization

and productivity is measured in terms of

repeat business and customer satisfaction

achieved. Since the manpower requirement

is small, use of tools is neither necessary

nor effective in our business.

Sanjay Rawat

Associate Vice-President,

Aegis Academy, Aegis Ltd.WORKFORCE PRODUCTIVITY - INDIA 2012

36

Emotionally connected employees

will give 100% to the job

The factors that affect employee

productivity vary in nature and

degree of impact based on the career

stage as well as individual aspirations.

Some of the common factors include the

employees emotional commitment to the

role, connect between organisational vision

and employee aspiration, credible commitment

of leaders towards talent development

and thereby its impact on ones growth,

the overall organisational culture, and the

market competitive compensation patterns.

I would classify the factors into direct

and indirect factors. Some of the direct

factors are financial contribution, strategic

initiatives delivered, span of control,

customer per employee and delivery ofoperational KPIs. While the indirect factors

are revenue/ employee, HR cost as percentage

of gross revenue, HR cost as percentage

of total opex, teeth to tail ratio and the

number of layers between CEO to front-line

to name a few.

The key workforce management challenge

that we are facing currently is the

upgradation of people capabilities given

that technology, communication and

media (TCM) as industries are convergingand the shift from data to voice. Another


13/21

crucial challenge is talent retention, being

the market leader and the given preferred

poaching ground. We are also constantly

under the pressure to be able to build

global perspectives and experiences.

In order to overcome these challenges,we are continuously looking at job enrichment/

job rotation and multi-skilling,

enhancing the quality of roles through

process automation, organisational design

change resulting in empowerment, continu-

H.C. Ruben SelvadorayGeneral Manager - HR,

Bharti Airtel

ous training and certification, leadership

and competency development through

partnerships with some of the globallyrenowned leadership development organisations.

The top five areas that workforce

management impacts organisational

performance are continuous availability

of quality leaders in order to ensure a

heightened team performance and talent

bench strength for critical positions. The

effectiveness of talent acquisition and its

impact on speed of individual delivery,

new leader/recruit assimilation process

and its impact on continued execution of

business goals and internal talent movements

and its impact on customer centric

culture continuity. Given the unique nature

of telecom circle based licensing, we have

decentralized business units, wherein

each business unit inputs market specific

strategies, formulates and is accountable

for budgets and overall is measured on its

P&L. This unique construct of the telecom

industry has helped in building an entrepreneurialculture and empowered jobs/

roles, which demands from our workforce,

business acumen, entrepreneurial spirit,

and decision making capability, commitment

to quality talent acquisition and

talent engagement/retention.

Given the empowered culture and

entrepreneurial spirit resulting in passion

for the role/performance, we have the

problem of large number of leaves accumulated

by employees. We have beenlimiting carry forward of leaves beyond a


14/21

particular limit and encouraging employees

to plan for leave so as to ensure

healthy work life balance and rejuvenation.


37

Work Couture is in the driving seat,training is the fuel, work practices and

process are the engine oil and infrastructure

procures the speed

There are three key factors that affect productivity,

training, process and infrastructure coupled by

work culture. Work Couture is in the driving seat,

training is the fuel, work practices and process are the

engine oil and infrastructure procures the speed.

The major challenges we face in our business in

terms of workforce management is the geographical

location of our hotels for example. Other challengeis of course, the talent scarcity and the options that

candidates and employees have today, while the hospitality

industry is not at the same compensation level

as the other service industries. Finally, this is a very

people intensive industry and the people are the key

success for our business so, getting the right person

with the right attitude to provide a consistent customer

experience is always a challenge.

Improving productivity of our workforce is always

a challenge. As per our strategy and benchmarks, we

believe that the focus on associate engagement is the

key for productivity and customer satisfaction/delight.

Our associate activities and HR process revolve around

driving engagement and as part of Balance Score

Card, we measure worldwide each year via an external

agency. As part of our business plan we rely a lot on

benchmarking tools internationally based on business

drives.

We measure our productivity based on how

delighted our customer is and his/her intent to come

back to our hotel. For us to sustain our growth, he/shemust come back. Our front-line or first touch starts

from the airport, the pickup experience; check in, etc.

The complete process is designed to create a delightful

experience for our client.

We use productivity tools and measures to fuel

business projects like (budgeting and planning). We

also have many intangible measures that are important

for guiding and controlling.

Gurmeet Singh

Area Director - HR,

India, Maldives, MarriottInternational Inc.


15/21


38

Monitor and address changing

employee expectations

There are many cultural factors that affect

productivity at the workplace. For example,India is culturally very different from the

west as in the Indian workplace, relationships are

important. People at work want to spend time on

relationship building (cups of tea, dinners) and there

are positive effects of these, like team bonding and

engagement. Other external factors that are unique

about India include commuting and infrastructure,

which has a huge negative effect in productivity.

People need to commute to work for long hours,

which impacts employees productivity significantly.

Talent retention is the most important challengebeing faced currently. Market competition and

increasing employee expectations is pushing people

to change jobs every two years. Attaining the right

talent and then retaining it is a tough task now.

We are re-organizing and refurbishing our entire

tool kit. All employees need to be aware of and clearly

understand their KRAs and KPIs. They should be

aware of what they are going to be measured upon.

We are refurbishing the KPMG brand both internally

and externally. We have re-invented the existing

performance management system and also changed

the learning and development process for our

employees. We are constantly looking at our organisational

culture and policies.

Each department has clear and well defined roles,

from which capabilities and behavior expectations are

drawn. Time sheets are captured and each employee

necessarily needs to undergo 120 hours of training in

3 years subject to a minimum of 20 hours in a year.

We measure a managers capability to handle

attrition in his team. Unplanned leaves or absenteeismis not a rampant problem unlike in the manufacturing

industry. Further, manpower planning is

done on set metrics. A manpower planning pyramid is

drawn and followed for each department, basis their

target revenues. We undertake a scientific projection

and believe that it is crucial to get the projections

right and align with them.

Sangeeta Singh

Executive Director, KPMG India


39Employee engagement & satisfaction


16/21

level affects organizational performance

The primary factors that affect employee productivity

are motivation (level of engagement), ability (how

well they have been trained), working conditions

(work environment, for example, bigger screens, dual monitors,

online help tools, etc.), and expectations (how well arethey measured, whether targets are defined correctly, etc.).

In our business, the key workforce management challenges

are attracting talent and being able to get the right

talent with the relevant skills at the right time. Employee

retention is another important challenge especially in the

context of emerging markets where demand far outstrips

supply. Further, making the right decision on whether one

should make or build talent is a challenge that the organisation

needs to address as the industry matures.

With respect to the existing workforce, we have a fairly

robust performance measurement system and rewards(compensation, bonus, increments, etc.) are closely linked

to performance. We also use the 6 sigma methodology to

identify and reduce variation amongst teams that helps

improve productivity. All our managers and team leads are

encouraged to do green belt projects.

The overall employee engagement and satisfaction level

surely affects organisational performance. Having a robust

performance management cycle, starting from setting goals

to appraisals to session C to rewards, ensures that individual

performance is clearly aligned to overall organisational

performance. Also, as an industry we measure productivity

and quality (accuracy, CSAT, etc.) of front line associates

pretty granularly and a part of compensation (Variable

Incentive Compensation) is linked to it.

At a process level, output is measured by employee, time

on system, etc., and variable incentives are linked to these.

At the time of transition, the key is to do an effective and

realistic base lining of employee productivity, ensure that

volume fluctuations are predictable (especially the ones

that are cyclical), so that staffing in the process is appropriate

- else you could end up with bench, which impactsprofitability. Once the process stabilizes, we measure the

variation in productivity; apply six sigma principles and

tools to reduce variation.

Anju Talwar

Senior Vice-President, Genpact


40

Centralized process and system

brings you flexibility

In SRF, three types of manpower planning

are required depending on the stage atwhich the plant currently is instable


17/21

plants, which is running efficiently and

stabilized plants that are in expansion mode,

to enhance capacity or add new technology

and green field projects, where new plants are

coming up. Each of these plants has a different

approach towards manpower planningand workforce management.

Established plants have an annual

manpower plan prepared at the beginning of

the year, based on forecast of the manpower

requirement for the projected production,

estimated attrition and mobility of people.

This gives us the manpower plan for the year

and also includes changes based on efficiencies

planned. Here, the focus is on skill mix

and not on the numbers. For plants that

are undergoing an expansion or backwardintegration, the manpower plan reflects

requirement of this project in addition to the

stable part of the plant. This plan will state

the requirement of the project, ramping up for

commissioning and skill as well as age- mix.

For new plants, the manpower planning is

slightly complex as we do not have a reference

point when the project starts especially

in our Fluoro - specialties plants where we

have R&D to commissioning handled internally.

Here, the projections are based on our

past experience.

The key factors that lead to productivity

are: clarity of role (what is expected from

the person), ensuring that the person has

the right skill set that is required to perform

that role (continuous investment on skilling

is essential), and the work environment both

in terms of satisfying the physical needs and

psychological needs of the employee (i.e. how

effectively are we able to support the person,both at work and in his personal life).

For our business, productivity is not

measured in terms of revenue or sales (which

fluctuates significantly) but in terms of

volume. We track volume per employee. For

different functions we measure differently

also for example, number of persons in a

function per person in manufacturing, etc. We

also look at units manufactured vs. units sold

so we can track quality and wastage. We track

the effectiveness of our management team bylooking at the ratio of number of white collar


18/21

employees for blue collar employees.

There are two types of absenteeism,

authorized and unauthorized. Authorized

absenteeism is when a person has taken

Suresh Dutt Tripathi

President - HR, SRF Ltd.leave with prior approval or intimation, while

unauthorized is when no prior intimation is

available and the employee does not turn up

for his job on any particular day.

Authorized absence is generally planned or

can be planned due to prior information from

the person availing leave of absence. Therefore,

we maintain it at a particular level based

on the permitted leave to employees and the

manning pattern of the plant.

It is the unauthorized absence, whichcauses disruption to work and leads to issues

of productivity. We look at past trends and

monthly patterns to manage this absence,

since it depends on location, culture, season,

age-mix and other local factors. Lot of

effort is put to reduce it to very low levels.

We educate employees continuously about

adverse impacts of unauthorized absence on

the organisation, on their own performance,

teams performance, productivity and their

earnings. Chronic absentees are counseled

and their families too are enrolled in solving

this problem as they are worst sufferers of the

reasons of chronic absence. We review our

absenteeism figures regularly to keep an eye

on issues, which may affect other employees

too. While we try to reduce the unauthorized

absence, we have processes to ensure that

the leaves are mostly planned and they are

properly manned all the time and there is least

disruption in work.We have elaborate processes to tackle the

issue of absenteeism as mentioned above. The

data regarding absenteeism is mainly maintained

at the plant level because it is most

useful there. All actions as well as decisions

are taken at the plant level but we keep an eye

on the pattern through our reviews. This data

is also used to check the trend across units

and provide them support through horizontal

deployment of good practices. We receive this

data through MIS, which is generated throughthe HRMS at the plant level. This year we are


19/21

integrating all the plants through an HRIS at

the group level. We already have an integrated

HRIS for management level but with completion

of the HRIS for non management levels,

we will have an elaborate system, which will

help us in our strategic decision making.We have built this system in-house as we

believe that our group is diverse and complex

and if we have to buy a system off-the-shelf,

it would require lot of customization not only

at the time of buying but also continuously, as

we are growing rapidly and we need a system

that evolves with the organisation.


41

Defining efficient Workways for key

roles to improve productivityLava is a two-year old organisation.

Our organisation has a total of 500

employees between the R&D center

in China (around 75 people), the software

team in India (around 20 people in Bangalore)

and the rest at the National Headquarters

and the sales and distribution team

spread across India. In our two years of

existence, we have consolidated our operations

and reached revenue of 750 cr. in this

last financial year.

If you ask me what affects employee

productivity in our industry, it starts with

hiring the right people with the right skills

and the right attitude. Secondly, organisations

should be able to give clarity on

the role and objectives that the person is

supposed to achieve and then, we should

give clarity on the process and support the

person to achieve his/her objectives. Finally,

creating a mechanism to give feedback,coach and give regular reviews is also

crucial for people to learn and improve, and

that has tremendous impact on productivity.

In order to improve employee productivity

we focus on the following activities;

setting role based, productivity benchmarks

for all our field roles, defining efficient

Workways for key roles, ensuring process

efficiency, implementing a phased plan of

automating operational processes, and

fully leveraging our SAP system, focusingon capability building in key areas- people


20/21

management, product knowledge; and

finally, fostering a culture of regular feedback

and review of performance.

The key challenges we face in our

organisation, are aligned to the challenges

in our industry and our life cycle as acompany. First is about attracting talent. As

a young organisation, attracting top talent

is a challenge as our brand is still young

and this is a very competitive market for

talent. As a result of the first also, we need

to focus a lot on communication, once the

person comes on board to ensure that he/

she is engaged with the brand, we spend a

lot of time and effort in communicating the

vision, business results and business objec-

Vivek TripathiChief Human Resource Officer

Lava International Ltd.

tives. Thirdly, we also face the challenge of

getting good people managers. As we grow

and expand, we need people at the middle

layer to manage teams. We are investing

significantly in developing talent internally

to manage people. Finally, retention of

key talent is of course a challenge, again

aligned to the talent competition. We operate

in a crowded market so attrition is a key

area of concern.

Manpower planning happens groupwise,

based on geography and population.

For our largest group, that is, the sales and

distribution team, manpower planning is

done based on population and geographical

spread. There are some rules/guidelines

for us to define how many people are

required for every region. Our distribution

team is divided by regions and eachregion is an independent business unit. We

follow a similar model as FMCG companies,

wherein our branches (45 of them as

of today), manage the distributors (800 of

them today), that in turn offer lava products

in 30,000 retail outlets across India. For the

R&D center, the manpower requirement is

decided based on the models that we are

planning to bring out in the market and the

pipeline of models.

Today, most of our employee relatedprocesses run in a manual mode as we


21/21

do not have an integrated system as yet.

Business planning is linked to manpower

planning and it is an annual exercise. This

becomes the base for hiring and training

needs. In terms of manpower tracking,

leaves, payroll, etc., it is mostly done inexcel today. For staff that is office going,

we have a digitized attendance tracking,

and email based leave application and both

of those get tallied manually for payroll. For

the field staff, we use the sales and stock

reports to track attendance. Employees

from the field need to submit their reports

as proof of their attendance for the day, and

managers are very strict about this process.

We know that as we grow, we will

need to bring in technology but today, thisprocess works well for our level of maturity.


42

People Matters

306, 3rd Floor, DLF Galleria

DLF Phase IV, Gurgaon 122 009

Tel: 91 124 414 8100/02

Kronos Systems India Pvt Ltd

Tridib Level 2, Unit 1,

Bagmane Tech Park, CV Raman Nagar

Bangalore 560 093, India

Documents

wrk force productivity.docx