This document discusses innovative HR practices that companies can adopt to remain competitive. It outlines strategies for attracting and assessing talented employees, developing potential, engaging staff, and facilitating transitions. It also discusses green initiatives like virtual teams, reducing paper use, and wellness programs. Implementing innovative HR practices can help companies utilize resources, leverage intellectual capital, and adapt to changing business needs.

1. Gopalan College of engineering and management.
Bangalore.
Title: Innovative HR Practices
Authors:
R. Kaarthik Shakthi
&
Supriya V.C
Designation: Students (MBA 1st Year)
Ph. No: 8088769711, 7829784106
Email id: aaronkarthik@hotmail.com,
supriya.chinchankar@gmail.com

2. Abstract
India is a very fast developing country. Because of globalization
everyone wants to do business with us. This has given lot of
opportunities for our country to grow further but it posed lot of
challenges in front of us like Indian companies have acquired foreign
giant companies and are trying to establish themselves more
competitive than the foreign companies. Moreover, competitive
pressures on the organizations have encouraged them to be proactive
in diagnosing HR problems and to adopt more innovative HR
practices since these were no longer a matter of trend, but rather of
survival. Hence the corporate have started formulating and adapting
innovative HR strategies in the areas such as attracting and assessing
the talented, developing and growing the potential, engaging and
aligning the best, green initiative HR, virtual teams etc. In this paper
an attempt has been made to discuss some of the key HR functions
where and how innovative strategies need to be developed for
ensuring the organizational excellence.
Key words: competitive pressures, green initiative, organizational
excellence.

3. Introduction
Today in this globalized world organizations must tackle with
revolutionary trends accelerating product and technological change,
globalizes competition, deregulation, demographic changes and trends
towards a service society and the information. These trends have
dramatically increased the degree of competition in virtually all
industries, while forcing firms to cope with first-time product
innovation and technological change. Companies in such an
environment either become competitive high performers or they die.
Hence, innovation is recognized vital for firms to remain at the
forefront in the situation, where rapidly integrating global economy,
technological change and shifting consumer preferences are together
increasing competitive pressures for the firms. The critical dimension
in today's world is the speed with which knowledge is transformed
into economic activity. Moreover, the global market for the
companies increases their potential return from the development of
new products and processes. As a result, the incentive for firms to
invest in innovation is much greater than when the focus was on
smaller, largely domestic markets. Firms now face greater

4. competitive pressures to make better use of knowledge, technology
and human resources to realize benefits from intangible investments
and to respond to new demands from suppliers and customers.
Consequently, firms are forced to rethink their business strategies,
production processes and management practices to improve their
functioning and adapt to a changing business environment in the new
economy. Knowledge-intensive industries face a dynamic and fiercely
competitive environment. Products in the high technology industry
are more complex, with shorter life cycles that need constant
innovation in order to meet changes in market conditions and
customer expectations. In high technology firms, technological
innovation becomes critical in responding to rapid changes;
innovation depends heavily on acquiring new knowledge. An
organization must therefore fully utilize its resources and capabilities
in order to remain competitive. Leveraging intellectual capital as a
sustainable competitive advantage depends upon a firm's ability to use
existing knowledge and to generate new knowledge. Human resources
can be instrumental in meeting the challenges in the formalization of,
and access to, experience, knowledge, and expertise that create new

5. capacities, superior performance, and innovation. Human resource
practices can play a critical role in supporting and contributing to the
creation, integration, and utilization of knowledge.
INNOVATIVE HR STRATEGIES
Some of the innovative HR strategies that can be followed by the
corporate in meeting the current global challenges are discussed as
follows:-
1. Attract and access the talented
In the current scenario there is a shortage of talented people, and
hence there is a need to find out new ways to attract them to the
organization. However, talented work force is not necessarily
attracted by something as simple as a salary, so the most sensible
strategy is to find more interesting ways to attract them. Some of the
ways through which talented people can be attracted include stock
options, more time off, learning and training programs, or the chance

6. to work in other countries or try different roles. The companies also
design good reward system and provide better career development
opportunities so that companies can retain good people.
2. Develop and grow the potential
Nowadays organizations need to recognize the aspirations of
employees and focus on their growth and development. Many
organizations provide job rotation opportunities to high – performing
employees from operations division. This gives them broader
understanding of the business. Also many corporate create
opportunity for the employees to develop themselves through training
and development programmes and assure them good career building.
3. Engage and align the Best
Employee engagement has retained the focus of organizational
leadership and many companies keep launching new practices to
engage their employees. They are using innovative practices like
"Loyalty Interview"- to find out what is it that makes its employees
stay on, the feedback from loyal employees often reflects on the

7. leadership style and is seen to work as a great motivation. Many
companies use engagement as a strategy to retain talent workforce
though which they can gain the competitive advantage in the global
business.
4. Transition
Movement of talent within the organization and outside of the
organization sends strong signals to the employees about the
organization's care and concern. Right from the induction, which is
often the first impression the employees carries, to the exit interview,
the sensitivity displayed by the organization has a lasting impact on
all employees.
All the above practices have been used by most companies around the
world.

8. 5. Green initiative (Go Green)
Some common green human resource initiatives include:-
· Using Web or teleconferencing to reduce travel (Virtual teams),
· Promoting the reduction of paper use, and
· Implementing wellness programs to foster employees’ proper
nutrition, fitness, and healthy living.
“Many employers now recognize that green programs in the
workplace can promote social responsibility among workers and help
retain top talent,” said Don Sanford, managing director of Buck
Consultants who conducted a survey in the US. “More than 60
percent of survey respondents have made environmental
responsibility part of their organization’s mission statement.”
“There is still much more that organizations can do,” said Sanford.
“We expect to see future growth in green training programs,
environmentally responsible investment options, and recruiting
employees with green skills.”

9. 5. Green recruitment
Companies should start recruiting employees with green skills
(use of technology instead of paper, transportation). Also
companies should start recruiting using virtual means to
recruit employees.
CONCLUSION
In such a competitive world, organizations should come up with
innovative ideas to run the organization successfully. Also every
organization should follow the green initiative practices and take up
their social responsibility seriously. Human Resource leaders should
follow creative & green innovative HR practices such that it should
help to develop the employer as well as employee and the
environment around us.