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Shilputsi
in the News
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The Challenge And Promise of JIT
Recruitment - Financial Express: August 2, 2003
Tarun
Narayan
This is a gap that Wipro
Infotech Ltd, like several other IT corporates would have confronted at
some point of time: the teams would have been recruited in anticipation
of a major order that the company expects to come its’ way. All those
who have been inducted would have also received specific profiles and
certain tasks that needs to be accomplished on the job. And suddenly the
“prospective customer” calls back to say that they may not be able
to provide the company with the business. Until the organization is able
to bag another project, the entire team is rendered idle and under
utilized or in other words “benched”.
But
with the deployment of “Just In Time (JIT)” recruiting, an HR
initiative this is the experience that the organization currently
undergoes — the interviews for inducting teams for specific projects
are already completed. The company has also spotted the right candidates
for the job. Now the sales team through an initiative termed
“funnelling” hunts for projects in the market. And once the
agreements for executing a major order has been signed, the selected
candidates are asked to join the organization. “The benefit that we
derive through the initiative is that the time lag between candidates
joining the organization and being put on to a certain project has
considerably shrunk”, says Mr. Joseph John, Head of Resourcing, Wipro
Infotech Ltd.
This
implies that instead of getting recruited for tentative businesses, the
organization is able to induct teams for concrete ventures. “And in a
service industry where talent is a critical raw material, such an
initiative helps us in utilizing them to its fullest”, Mr. John
informs.
Strategic
Resourcing
Along
with addressing the problem of benching, the company has also integrated
the initiative with the strategic resourcing in the organization. This
implies that the company tries to shrink the cycle time between the
interview and the actual offer letters coming to the candidate.
This
becomes an important area for implementation because along with ensuring
that people do not remain idle, it is equally crucial for the
organization to ensure that the company has a certain set of talent pool
ready to work on an impending project.
And
this is attained through a couple of initiatives. Firstly the company
uses e-HR for screening the entire profiles of the candidate. Once the
interviews have been completed, the profiles that were available in the
technology system before the start of the interview becomes an easy
reference point for the organization to send the offer letters.
There
are also a panel of certified trained interviewers who are given the
mandate to get the quality talent within the minimum possible time span.
When the company is looking for talent from across the nation for a
critical project, the organization also ensures that there is no wastage
of time due to travel and other procedural rigmaroles. “Towards this
end we have video conferencing interviews that are conducted. And for
professionals who may not have an access to video conferencing can hop
into the nearest branch of the organization anywhere in India and fix up
a common time for interaction”, explains Mr. Joseph.
To
help candidates to speedily gear up with all the information they may
need about the jobs in the new environment, even post induction the
company provides access to the intranet where they can navigate the
internal career opportunities that are available with the establishment.
“They do not have to necessarily wait till the next appraisal to solve
their puzzle on ‘what is in it for them?”. says Mr. John.
Challenges
And Alternatives
Importantly,
the challenge of benching cannot be completely done away with. For,
there could be instances where the company signs up on an agreement with
the client and recruit people for the project. But subsequently the
organization may be suddenly faced with a scenario where the client has
postponed the execution of the order for a future date. “Benching in
such an instance can get replicated on a different canvass
altogether”, says Prof. Bilol Bose, SP Jains’ Institute of
Management Studies and Research. “As of date we have not faced such a
scenario since the clients with whom we are dealing are those who have a
certain stature and reputation in the industry”, says Mr John.
However,
consultants do not rule out the possibility altogether. But there are no
clear cut solutions either. Says Ms. Purvi Sheth, director, Shilputsi
Consultants: “All such initiatives are meant to reduce the sunk cost
of the organizations, whether it is prevalent in the form of people or
products”.
But
Ms. Sheth is of the view that such initiatives at least helps in
reducing the cost if not completely do away with that. But there are
certain refinements that consultants recommend towards this initiative.
“Firstly
companies need to look at professionals with multiple capabilities so
that they can be put to some other projects when there are such
eventualities”, says Ms. Sheth.
The
need will also be to ensure that all the contingencies are taken into
account before structuring JIT as a recruitment practice. According to
Ms. Sheth, HR should also take the role of a strategic forecaster. This
is important because once the project is completed, due to lack of
relevant capabilities to tackle future projects, the entire workforce
gets redundant. “Many a times an entire team has the orientations to
perform on a tele-marketing project. But the next time they are
confronted with an assignment of a different nature, they just throw up
their hands”, says Ms. Sheth.
Consultants
also recommend the need for software companies to move into what is
being called as a shamrock organizations. Says Prof. Bose: “Exactly as
the shamrock tree has three different types of leaves, even
organizations need to have three different types of people”.
This
could incorporate the core team that is a permanent staff in the
organization, the temporary staff and the consulting varieties who can
provide qualitative roadmap for the organization.
In
such a scenario, when the organization faces the problem of benching the
internal consultants can suggest redeployment of the temporary staff.
Finally
JIT indicates another reality in the management landscape: only those
professionals with strategic acumen and cross functional capabilities
will be able to survive in the modern day service organizations.
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