May 9, 2007

HR News - the SAPPHIRE Newscast

News from the HR World
Compiled by the Students Association for Promotion of Personnel management, Human resource and Industrial Relations (SAPPHIRE)

XLRI, Jamshedpur


Talent crunch makes RPO hot

With the country set to face a talent crunch of half million people in the next few years, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is posing a lot of opportunities. With emerging sectors like retailing and IT, the need for focused players in recruiting as RPO service providers will increase, according to human capital management company Kenexa Technologies.

It is estimated that within the Indian market, the total annual spend on recruitment is Rs 700-800 crore. This can theoretically be considered the potential size of the RPO business, a subset of human resource outsourcing (HRO), that can be generated from locally-based companies.
“Hiring pressure is forcing companies outsource the entire recruitment cycle from needs assessment to sourcing, screening, and interviewing candidates, and hiring.”

To find out more click on the title

Mid-life crisis hits booming job market

Getting that sinking, 40-something feeling? You’re not the only one. Even as the turbo-charged Indian economy is sucking in lakhs of workers, the latest available unemployment data shows that only one age group is being left out of the job bull run — the faltering 40s.
The phenomenon is not limited to emerging on-the-job issues such as promotions, handling new projects or increments where younger employees are getting a preference. It is actually reflected in the numbers of those registered as unemployed.



According to the India database of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), based on the information compiled by employment exchanges, 9.3 lakhs jobseekers were absorbed into the workforce in 2004. This brought down the total number of registered unemployed to 4.04 crore. The sting comes in the age-group classification tale: a major part of the drop in the number of unemployed was in younger age groups and even the older ones, but the number of unemployed in-betweens — the 40-to-50 range — increased by about 80,000 in one year.

To find out more click on the title

Docs with MBA degree are hot property

As corporate hospitals go on a massive expansion drive, experienced doctors with management degrees are now hot property. According to head hunters, doctors with management degrees can earn a hefty premium with the differential being as high as 20-40% compared to a doctor without any management skills.


Artemis Health Institute COO Somnath Chakravorty says, “With the entry of corporates in the healthcare sector, the investments in hospitals are very high. Hospitals need to be run efficiently both operationally and financially. Since the core of the business is medicine, professionals who fulfill both requirements are a golden combination”. In a bid to make up for the talent crunch hospitals are looking for several options. Says Vipul Prakash, partner and MD of Elixir, “The talent pool of doctors with MBAs is small and hospitals are sponsoring doctors to get an MBA degree.”

To find out more click on the title

Work Force Management

Work-life balance to be the greatest challenge for HR

Raghuram Reddum, director, HR, Motorola India, talks about the cell phone major’s journey in India and HR challenges that the country faces today.


Work-life balance would be the greatest challenge. It will not be limited to the traditional definition of ‘work’ as we know, but it will be a challenge to get a balance for working professionals, school kids, college-goers as well as house wives who spend a major portion of their waking hours working for the family. Stress levels will be higher.

To find out more click on the title

International

Promotion of staff well-being can deliver return on investment

Organisations need to be more proactive when thinking about wellbeing if they are to demonstrate a return on investment (ROI).Stephen Bevan, director of research at the Work Foundation think-tank, said that while long-term illness did have an impact on work, the workplace was not the cause of most chronic health problems.

He stressed that a cultural shift was needed to put the responsibility for personal health back with the employee. "Individuals need to be empowered to take more responsibility for their lifestyles," Bevan said. "Organisational culture has to change to promote better well-being rather than continuing to adopt a reactive approach to sickness."

However, while the public sector had higher sickness absence rates than the private sector, Bevan said that was a reflection of there being more female workers with caring and childcare responsibilities. "There are more women, but there is also better sickness absence reporting," he said.

To find out more click on the title

Recruitment

HR firms eager to recruit aged workers!

A recent survey by human resource consultancy firm Manpower Inc shows that a skill shortage is now forcing organisations to recruit older workforce, reports CNBC-TV18.

A talent crunch is causing employers to consider recruiting people over 50 years of age, reveals a survey by Manpower India. It surveyed over 4,700 employers, across seven industry sectors, of which, 14% have specific recruitment strategies for older people. Only 16% of the firms that were interviewed have retention strategies in place, which explains the talent crunch problem.

Out of the seven sectors surveyed, topping the list is public administration and education sector at 20%, with the transportation and utilities sector at a close 17%. Experts feel that employers need to take a second look at their older workforce, as their knowledge and experience can lead to greater profits.

To find out more click on the title

Attrition

Attrition rates high among HR professionals

Human resource (HR) professionals in companies, who are expected to play a crucial role in healthy management practices that will help lower attrition rates, are themselves witnessing one of the highest attrition rates of nearly 70-80%, according to industry experts.

The primary reason for this is the severe dearth of HR professionals. The number of HR professionals graduating from various institutions every year is just about 1 to 2% compared with other professionals like chartered accountants, management graduates and engineers. This has led to new businesses poaching heavily from established companies that possess experienced HR teams.

To find out more click on the title

Study: M&As Can Lead to Talent Loss

Mergers and acquisitions can have a negative impact on employee opinions about their company, according to new research by the Kenexa Research Institute.

In a report based on the analysis of data taken from a representative sample of 10,000 U.S. workers, research shows that M&As undermine an employee's feeling about the company and can prompt many to seek new jobs. Not surprisingly, deals that resulted in layoffs had an overwhelmingly negative affect on employee confidence.

No comments:

Post a Comment