Global Best Practices in HR
Content
Global best practices in HR
The corporate HR role is increasingly influenced by globalization and the shrinking
global talent village. The impending retirement of the Baby Boom generation worldwide
is reducing the working population, leading to a shortage of talent in most developed
countries. Off-shoring, near-shoring and telecommuting are expanding to fill the gap.
For multinational corporations, the demands arising from the need to integrate portfolios
globally, align processes and practices uniformly, and increase the sophistication of
deliverables means that sourcing talent is now a global search, especially as the talent
pool in developing countries like ours grows in size and quality.
This growing talent demand is leading HR organizations to adopt innovative sourcing
methods, such as branding, re-hiring, conversion of talent into new professions, campus
reach programmes, employee referrals, recruiting workshops and open houses that go
well beyond traditional advertising methods. Further, in addition to traditional interviews,
HR recruiters now must learn to use role plays, assessment centres, psychometric
profiling, job-specific tests, presentations and competency profiling. In addition, HR
plays an increasing role in employee retention, and can no longer function as an
innocent bystander. HR professionals must rally team members as positive advocates
of the organization, increase discretionary efforts, create buzz and provide constructive
criticism.
Growing female talent pool
One silver lining in global talent pool is the dramatic increase in the number of females
entering the workforce and pursuing professional careers, both in the developed world
and in developing countries. A related trend is the change in traditional family structures,
where single parents, both female, and male, are increasing. Moreover, the shrinking
global village, which is witnessing increased travel across continents, is further
increasing the global talent pool.
To an HR professional, these trends create the need to align people processes for
greater flexibility to accommodate the female work force. Crèches, flexible work hours
(combined with flexible compensation and benefits), work-from-home, part-time work
and work-based child care are emerging practices. To respect diversity, HR
professionals must ensure a fair, transparent, harassment-free, no-glass-ceiling work
environment. Increased technology support, including video conferencing and speedy
telecom services, are also part of the solution.
In addition, HR organizations are placing increased emphasis on innovative training
programmes. Customized training and development (T&D)—including self and elearning, are increasingly common. Educational sponsorships and focused business
skills development programmes to meet corporate needs will play pivotal roles in
creating business value through better-geared, highly-contributing team members. T&D
will also have to provide technical and soft skills development, and in the process,
enhance niche training with small groups or teams.
Growing productivity
Productivity is critical for businesses to stay ahead in the rapidly-changing global
business environment, where success requires talent retention, profitable growth, strong
brand perception, operational excellence, consolidating businesses across geographies,
and strategic business alliances. Consistently, the key component of the global
economy in recent years is rising labour productivity, as service industries benefit from a
combination of steady technology gains, increases in workforce educational levels, and
a maturing workforce itself.
HR professionals play a pivotal role in enhancing worker productivity within the
corporation. They assess the business environment, culture and underlying political
influences that have to be synergized, and typically lead the employee development
programs that yield worker productivity gains.
Top talent development - Talented individuals are naturally motivated to seek career
advancement, opportunity to contribute, learning and sharing opportunities, and
independent work assignments. HR professionals are therefore tasked with identifying
the top performers, creating fast track opportunities for them, enabling them to be
partners in change, and creating forums for knowledge sharing with fast-track peers.
In addition, an emerging trend among the top talent in Generation “Y” is their aspiration
to be more family-centric, where even males seek more personal time, such as paternity
leave. This means that HR, as practiced in brand management by marketers, must look
at the total job experience and customize careers to individual top players to maximize
their contributions and loyalty.
Compensation and Benefits Programmes –
Changes are also required in the Compensation and Benefits (C&B) structures to face
emerging market trends. Transactional aspects of pay and benefits in addition to the
rational aspect of learning, development and the working environment are required to
be evaluated as a total rewards package. Trends show that top talent today value their
immediate earnings more than security in the role since well qualified individuals are
highly marketable with global passports to choose a country to work in with relative
ease. Thus performance linked, tailor made packages coupled with a variable
component (VC) is becoming common. Management by objectives (MBO) driven pay
components are becoming wide based with employers having to increasingly invest in
their talent for the future.
Employee Retention Programmes
Employee retention has a direct, major impact on business productivity, and HR plays a
central role in these programmes. While compensation and benefits are key stakes in
employee retention, research indicates that “soft” factors play a larger role in keeping
employees loyal. These include hiring practices that ensure a better fit at the time of
hiring; strong orientation and on-boarding processes; close engagement with new hires;
coaching, mentoring and employee counseling; cross-functional training, re-skilling and
job rotations; strong social networks, staff delight events and CSR opportunities;
employee satisfaction surveys; “fire-side chat” forums; and overseas working
opportunities. In all of these, HR professionals play the roles of trusted advisor,
consultant and execution arm, working in alignment with the functional heads
Case of the IT industry
The IT industry is a particularly strong example of an industry heavily influenced by the
global trends described above. Its global footprint, coupled with its strong growth
fundamentals, gives the IT industry a leadership position in emerging HR best practices.
Talent in IT is easily employable and deployable globally. This means retention is a
critical issue and HR practices have to be the most current, people-friendly, career- and
performance-centric, and the overall work culture must be a delight if IT companies are
to grow and prosper.
As an example, Virtusa Corporation, where I am a member of a 4000+ global team and
a company that has achieved a 50% five-year compound growth, is at the forefront of
innovative HR practices in Sri Lanka. We recently won a gold award at the National HR
awards, recognizing our Campus Reach initiatives, open culture, and quick promotion
practices (40 percent of our staff received promotions in our recently-completed fiscal
year).
Summary
Overall, irrespective of the industry in which HR professionals practice, their role is
increasingly challenging, and those who demonstrate creativity and high energy will be
in high demand. Hence, the dominant mantra for HR professionals in the global era will
be to “serve those being led in an environment that creates a sanctuary for talent to
successfully drive corporate goals.”
The corporate HR role is increasingly influenced by globalization and the shrinking
global talent village. The impending retirement of the Baby Boom generation worldwide
is reducing the working population, leading to a shortage of talent in most developed
countries. Off-shoring, near-shoring and telecommuting are expanding to fill the gap.
For multinational corporations, the demands arising from the need to integrate portfolios
globally, align processes and practices uniformly, and increase the sophistication of
deliverables means that sourcing talent is now a global search, especially as the talent
pool in developing countries like ours grows in size and quality.
This growing talent demand is leading HR organizations to adopt innovative sourcing
methods, such as branding, re-hiring, conversion of talent into new professions, campus
reach programmes, employee referrals, recruiting workshops and open houses that go
well beyond traditional advertising methods. Further, in addition to traditional interviews,
HR recruiters now must learn to use role plays, assessment centres, psychometric
profiling, job-specific tests, presentations and competency profiling. In addition, HR
plays an increasing role in employee retention, and can no longer function as an
innocent bystander. HR professionals must rally team members as positive advocates
of the organization, increase discretionary efforts, create buzz and provide constructive
criticism.
Growing female talent pool
One silver lining in global talent pool is the dramatic increase in the number of females
entering the workforce and pursuing professional careers, both in the developed world
and in developing countries. A related trend is the change in traditional family structures,
where single parents, both female, and male, are increasing. Moreover, the shrinking
global village, which is witnessing increased travel across continents, is further
increasing the global talent pool.
To an HR professional, these trends create the need to align people processes for
greater flexibility to accommodate the female work force. Crèches, flexible work hours
(combined with flexible compensation and benefits), work-from-home, part-time work
and work-based child care are emerging practices. To respect diversity, HR
professionals must ensure a fair, transparent, harassment-free, no-glass-ceiling work
environment. Increased technology support, including video conferencing and speedy
telecom services, are also part of the solution.
In addition, HR organizations are placing increased emphasis on innovative training
programmes. Customized training and development (T&D)—including self and elearning, are increasingly common. Educational sponsorships and focused business
skills development programmes to meet corporate needs will play pivotal roles in
creating business value through better-geared, highly-contributing team members. T&D
will also have to provide technical and soft skills development, and in the process,
enhance niche training with small groups or teams.
Growing productivity
Productivity is critical for businesses to stay ahead in the rapidly-changing global
business environment, where success requires talent retention, profitable growth, strong
brand perception, operational excellence, consolidating businesses across geographies,
and strategic business alliances. Consistently, the key component of the global
economy in recent years is rising labour productivity, as service industries benefit from a
combination of steady technology gains, increases in workforce educational levels, and
a maturing workforce itself.
HR professionals play a pivotal role in enhancing worker productivity within the
corporation. They assess the business environment, culture and underlying political
influences that have to be synergized, and typically lead the employee development
programs that yield worker productivity gains.
Top talent development - Talented individuals are naturally motivated to seek career
advancement, opportunity to contribute, learning and sharing opportunities, and
independent work assignments. HR professionals are therefore tasked with identifying
the top performers, creating fast track opportunities for them, enabling them to be
partners in change, and creating forums for knowledge sharing with fast-track peers.
In addition, an emerging trend among the top talent in Generation “Y” is their aspiration
to be more family-centric, where even males seek more personal time, such as paternity
leave. This means that HR, as practiced in brand management by marketers, must look
at the total job experience and customize careers to individual top players to maximize
their contributions and loyalty.
Compensation and Benefits Programmes –
Changes are also required in the Compensation and Benefits (C&B) structures to face
emerging market trends. Transactional aspects of pay and benefits in addition to the
rational aspect of learning, development and the working environment are required to
be evaluated as a total rewards package. Trends show that top talent today value their
immediate earnings more than security in the role since well qualified individuals are
highly marketable with global passports to choose a country to work in with relative
ease. Thus performance linked, tailor made packages coupled with a variable
component (VC) is becoming common. Management by objectives (MBO) driven pay
components are becoming wide based with employers having to increasingly invest in
their talent for the future.
Employee Retention Programmes
Employee retention has a direct, major impact on business productivity, and HR plays a
central role in these programmes. While compensation and benefits are key stakes in
employee retention, research indicates that “soft” factors play a larger role in keeping
employees loyal. These include hiring practices that ensure a better fit at the time of
hiring; strong orientation and on-boarding processes; close engagement with new hires;
coaching, mentoring and employee counseling; cross-functional training, re-skilling and
job rotations; strong social networks, staff delight events and CSR opportunities;
employee satisfaction surveys; “fire-side chat” forums; and overseas working
opportunities. In all of these, HR professionals play the roles of trusted advisor,
consultant and execution arm, working in alignment with the functional heads
Case of the IT industry
The IT industry is a particularly strong example of an industry heavily influenced by the
global trends described above. Its global footprint, coupled with its strong growth
fundamentals, gives the IT industry a leadership position in emerging HR best practices.
Talent in IT is easily employable and deployable globally. This means retention is a
critical issue and HR practices have to be the most current, people-friendly, career- and
performance-centric, and the overall work culture must be a delight if IT companies are
to grow and prosper.
As an example, Virtusa Corporation, where I am a member of a 4000+ global team and
a company that has achieved a 50% five-year compound growth, is at the forefront of
innovative HR practices in Sri Lanka. We recently won a gold award at the National HR
awards, recognizing our Campus Reach initiatives, open culture, and quick promotion
practices (40 percent of our staff received promotions in our recently-completed fiscal
year).
Summary
Overall, irrespective of the industry in which HR professionals practice, their role is
increasingly challenging, and those who demonstrate creativity and high energy will be
in high demand. Hence, the dominant mantra for HR professionals in the global era will
be to “serve those being led in an environment that creates a sanctuary for talent to
successfully drive corporate goals.”
