BANGALORE: As the first quarter results for FY09 start pouring in from IT companies, starting with Infosys Technologies on July 11, expectations on the human resources front would be very muted.
Despite being one of the largest employers of formal education sector, the mood in the Indian IT industry is frozen in terms of hiring, on account of weak economic signals from US, its largest market.
It is expected there will not be any 'big' hiring numbers for the first quarter from the large IT services companies. The curiosity in hiring numbers is because any organisation’s revenue growth is directly related to number of people employed.
Some of the HR belt-tightening steps that large IT firms are keenly following are lower increments, slimmer bench (as low as 5 per cent in many cases against an average 20 per cent in the heydays), greater operational efficiencies in hiring and, in some extreme cases, even outplacements.
HR industry watchers say companies are not rushing to hire and are keeping an external bench instead. For instance, if a project requires 1,000 people over a period, they would hire 300 and guage the progress.
In the meantime, they would engage recruitment agencies to keep a database for the remaining numbers for hiring at short notice.
The current situation has led to the growth of innovative models and greater focus on recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). Today, providers o
f outsourced IT services are seriously looking at outsourcing their HR requirements.
This has started with companies asking recruitment agencies to be more aligned with their requirements and keep a talent pool ready. Wipro Technologies, for example, has aligned its recruitment agencies, to a particular business vertical so that they could also share the risks and rewards of hiring.
Ambletek Solutions Group CEO, Kannan Ramaswamy, says companies under pressure to reduce hiring costs are actively looking at RPO solutions. He feels there is a skilled talent pool available at costs lower than current levels. Companies are borrowing from manufacturing best practice, just-in-time (JIT) inventory for staffing.
Satyam’s HR head, SV Krishnan says, “We are looking at a lot of new models and JIT is one of them. Besides, we are also keen to have a diverse employee profile and our global workforce is increasing.”
Today, some companies are employing the concept of outplacements. Under this, a company retains a recruitment firm to actually headhunt its own employees it no longer needs and this applies to corporations on a rightsizing drive but focussed on staff welfare.
Outplacements is still quite a new concept in the Indian labour market. While outplacements is not a trend in the IT sector so far, there are some stray cases that recruitment firms report. Says Kris Lakhshmikanth of the Headhunters, “We have been engaged with a few such cases in the last quarter.” And, it will pick up momentum if distress signals continue, they add.
Courtesy: Times of India 2 Jul, 2008
Despite being one of the largest employers of formal education sector, the mood in the Indian IT industry is frozen in terms of hiring, on account of weak economic signals from US, its largest market.
It is expected there will not be any 'big' hiring numbers for the first quarter from the large IT services companies. The curiosity in hiring numbers is because any organisation’s revenue growth is directly related to number of people employed.
Some of the HR belt-tightening steps that large IT firms are keenly following are lower increments, slimmer bench (as low as 5 per cent in many cases against an average 20 per cent in the heydays), greater operational efficiencies in hiring and, in some extreme cases, even outplacements.
HR industry watchers say companies are not rushing to hire and are keeping an external bench instead. For instance, if a project requires 1,000 people over a period, they would hire 300 and guage the progress.
In the meantime, they would engage recruitment agencies to keep a database for the remaining numbers for hiring at short notice.
The current situation has led to the growth of innovative models and greater focus on recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). Today, providers o
f outsourced IT services are seriously looking at outsourcing their HR requirements.
This has started with companies asking recruitment agencies to be more aligned with their requirements and keep a talent pool ready. Wipro Technologies, for example, has aligned its recruitment agencies, to a particular business vertical so that they could also share the risks and rewards of hiring.
Ambletek Solutions Group CEO, Kannan Ramaswamy, says companies under pressure to reduce hiring costs are actively looking at RPO solutions. He feels there is a skilled talent pool available at costs lower than current levels. Companies are borrowing from manufacturing best practice, just-in-time (JIT) inventory for staffing.
Satyam’s HR head, SV Krishnan says, “We are looking at a lot of new models and JIT is one of them. Besides, we are also keen to have a diverse employee profile and our global workforce is increasing.”
Today, some companies are employing the concept of outplacements. Under this, a company retains a recruitment firm to actually headhunt its own employees it no longer needs and this applies to corporations on a rightsizing drive but focussed on staff welfare.
Outplacements is still quite a new concept in the Indian labour market. While outplacements is not a trend in the IT sector so far, there are some stray cases that recruitment firms report. Says Kris Lakhshmikanth of the Headhunters, “We have been engaged with a few such cases in the last quarter.” And, it will pick up momentum if distress signals continue, they add.
Courtesy: Times of India 2 Jul, 2008
