2. Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do
not use them as means to your end.
-Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),
German Philosopher
3. Defining Human Resource Management
Human resource management is a strategic and coherent approach to the
management of an organization’s most valued assets—the people, that
work there, who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement
of its objectives.
4. Changing Environment in the Marketplace
• Shift towards services
• The new business cult
• Globalization
• Technology trends
• Demographic trends
5. Shift Towards Services
• Over the years, the services sector as a percentage of the GDP has grown from a
mere 30 per cent in the fifties to close to 60 per cent in 2010. The cornerstone of
any organization’s success in the services sector is primarily its workforce.
• Post liberalization, because of opportunities in the market, and also because of
talent crunch in the market, potential employees and employees have the
bargaining advantage.
6. The New Business Cult
• Innovation is the keel of successful business management.
• Innovations are powered by people, and hence people have become the strategic
advantage for businesses. Consequently, human resource management has
become a strategic function in the organization.
7. Globalization
• Nationalities can no longer be attached to organizations as companies go global
• Lenovo, a new kind of PC company, defies geographic and organizational
boundaries on a global scale:
We develop, produce, and deliver our products across six continents.
Our global company has no single corporate headquarters.
Our American CEO is based in Singapore.
Our Chinese Chairman works from North Carolina.
• Globalization (think global and act local) has become the order of the day. (e.g. TCS
)
• Organization structures and consequently reporting structures have become more
complex.
8. Technology Trends
• Many jobs have become redundant.
• New industries have come up because of technology.
• Redefined work ethics
• Telecommuting, flexi time.
• Digitally mediated conversation will replace face-to-face interaction.
9. Demographic Trends
• While we have professionally qualified and trained people in India, the quality of
training and competency of professionals leaves a lot to be desired.
• Young employable population base in India.
• Increasing women in the workforce.
• Sunrise industries pulling people away from brick and mortar industries.
10. Sneak Peak into the Future—HR
• PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP with the help of the James Martin Institute
for Science and Civilization at the Said Business School in Oxford used
Scenarios to think about what the future of people management could be.
• They called these identified three plausible futures “Blue”, “Green” and
“Orange” worlds.
11. Blue World
• Corporates would take the centre stage
• Technology shall become all pervasive, and for employees it
would become increasingly difficult to separate work life from
the rest of life.
• The huge people cost will drive robust metrics and analytics.
• Talent will be at a premium.
• As companies spread over geographies they would try to
reinforce corporate values, which may be at odds with the local
cultural values and lead to conflict situations.
Contd…
Source : Adapted from “Managing tomorrow’s people” The Future of work to 2020
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/pdf/mtp-
future-of-work.pdf accessed on July 22, 2011
12. Blue World
• Employees will start getting associated with corporates at an early
age (may be 16) and corporates may work with universities to
design learning programmes to suit their organizational
requirements.
• Summing up, for the HR function in this scenario the management
of people and performance shall become a hard business
discipline, at least equal in standing to finance in the corporate
hierarchy.
Source : Adapted from “Managing tomorrow’s people” The Future of work to 2020
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/pdf/mtp-future-of-work.pdf
accessed on July 22, 2011
13. Green World
• Consumers and employees will force change towards the world becoming a
more responsible place where companies develop a powerful social
conscience.
• Consumers would demand ethics and environmental credentials as a top
priority. Society and business would see their agenda align. Human resources
shall drive the CSR agenda of the organization and employees would be
selected based on their social credentials.
• Technology would look for greener ways to work, and therefore
telecommuting may become a way of life.
• Successful companies will engage with society across a broader footprint.
Communities, customers and contractors all will become equal stakeholders
along with employees and shareholders.
Source : Adapted from “Managing tomorrow’s people” The Future of work to 2020
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/pdf/mtp-future-of-work.pdf
accessed on July 22, 2011
14. Orange World
• Global businesses shall fragment, and localism shall prevail. Business models of
companies shall be replaced by technology empowered high-tech networks.
• The dream of a single global village would be replaced by a global network of
linked, but separate and much smaller communities. Business will constitute of
complex supply chains form of associations of specialist providers, varying
greatly from region to region and market to market.
Contd…
Source : Adapted from “Managing tomorrow’s people” The Future of work to 2020
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/pdf/mtp-future-of-work.pdf
accessed on July 22, 2011
15. Orange World
• Individuals would belong to specialist associations and develop their own career
working on a short-term, contractual basis. They will join craft guilds which manage
career opportunities, provide training and development opportunities.
• Summing up in the orange world, the flexible workforce shall have to be
continuously sourced as per the requirement of the organization and all
transactional HR processes may just become an outsourced function.
Source : Adapted from “Managing tomorrow’s people” The Future of work to 2020
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/pdf/mtp-future-of-work.pdf
accessed on July 22, 2011
17. Role of the HR Function—Classical View
• Coordinative function
• They exercise functional authority (or control) over other departments to
ensure the adherence to all human resource policies and procedures in the
organization.
• Staff (assist and advise) function
• They assist and advise line managers to better understand and appreciate the
human resource aspects of the company’s strategic options. In carrying out
this function, an HR manager becomes an innovator, employee champion
depending on the situation.
18. Role of the HR Function—Modern View
• Employee advocate
• Responsible for making sure the employee–employer relationship is
one of reciprocal value.
• Human capital developer
• Responsible for building the future workforce.
• Functional expert
• Responsible for designing and delivering HR practices that ensure
individual ability and create organization capability.
• Strategic partner
• Responsible for helping line managers reach their goals.
• An HR leader
• Responsible for exhibiting genuine leadership meaning credibility
within the HR organization and to those outside.
19. Competencies of the HR Professional
…………….a Traditional View
For many years now, the human resource manager’s proficiencies are
categorized under four areas:
• HR proficiencies
• Knowledge in the areas of employee selection, training and compensation.
• Business proficiencies
• HR professionals’ strategic role in partnering business.
• Leadership proficiencies
• Lead management groups and drive the changes required.
• Learning proficiencies
• Staying abreast of, and applying new technologies and practices affecting the
profession.
21. HR objectives
Facilitate organisational goals setting.
Making competent and motivated employees available for the organisation
all the time.
Align HR policies and practices with the organisation’s strategies.
Play the role of a change agent in order to introduce change in the
organisation.
Build an ethical and culture-embedded organisaiton.
Make employees feel that their stay in the organisation is desirable,
rewarding and fulfilling.
Make the organisation a leader in its area of operation, best employer to
work for and a preferred choice for job aspirants.
Make the organisation contribute to sustainable development.
24. Discussion Questions
• Rallis India is India’s one of the leading agrochemicals companies. It has more than 150
years of experience in servicing rural markets and a comprehensive portfolio of
pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and plant nutrients for Indian farmers.
• The company has factories in five locations in India and a network of 1,500 distributors
that reach more than 40,000 retail counters. It has the largest agrochemicals capacity in
the country (10,000 tonnes per annum of technical grade pesticides and 30,000 tonne
litres per annum of formulations).
• At Rallis, HR functions as a team of business partners. The HR team works to ensure that
employees remain energized and motivated. In a step towards preparing employees to
meet business challenges, the HR function in the company has been restructured so that
there are HRBPs 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.
• Mr Madan Tripathy, Vice-President for HR & Business Excellence describes fourfold HR
challenges. First, to have an appropriate organizational structure with due importance
given to emerging businesses. Second, to develop expertise at the senior management
level for accelerated growth through succession planning, thereby 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 organization at the grassroots level.
25. • It is felt that 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 problem-
solving and proactive growth consultancy. At Rallis, a new competency
framework has been developed, resulting in a dramatic change in the frontline
sales team in improving their self-image and in making them 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. (Excerpts from an Interview of Mr Madan Tripathy by Gayatri Kamath.
http://www.tata.com/media/interviewsinsideApril 2013)
• Read the above report and then the following case. What changes do you
observe? What is your own perception of HR in today’s business?
Discussion Questions
26. Traditionally, human resource management function was organized around four basic
management tasks:
Entry and exit processes for employees
Growth and development process
Reward and recognition process
The overall organization climate
HR is often described as a “policy police a ‘regulatory watchman’.”
In an empowered environment, it could go one step forward to add recruitment,
training and development programs, or take steps to improve workplace diversity.
