Author: Liji Narayan | HRKatha

40 per cent recruitment leaders admit to finding it tough to attract top-tier talent. With the problem getting aggravated due to the climbing demand for specialised skills. So, what were the other challenges for organisations in 2023? As per the Mercer Mettl Global Talent Acquisition Insights 2024, the bygone year presented many other challenges for hirers, in addition to attracting top-tier talent. These insights from over 1,000 CXOs or those from even higher ranks can be valuable for HR leaders in the new year. At least 37 per cent of the 7500 HR leaders who were part of the study,…

That happiness is extremely important for individual wellbeing and the prosperity of the society is a fact that is accepted by all. However, the fact that work also plays a significant role in a person’s happiness is probably lesser known. A survey reveals that 58 per cent of employees assert that work plays a significant part in their overall happiness. About 11 per cent feel that work may affect their happiness as well. That means, Indian workers or professionals derive satisfaction from their work or jobs and this does affect their quality of life. What do the employers feel? Well,…

If you are wondering why every second youngster and even working professional is pursuing an MBA degree, here is your answer. Those who hold an MBA degree are amongst the demographic for highly employable resources in terms of domain across all states, in India. This is revealed by the fact that a whopping 71.16 per cent of candidates who scored over 60 per cent on the Wheebox National Employability Test (WNET) were MBA degree holders. Computer science graduates were the second most employable with 66 per cent from this domain found to be highly skilled. While 64.67 per cent of…

Employees who are satisfied with their current managers are likely to stay on with their organisations. A latest BCG survey of over 11,000 employees —from Australia, Japan, UK, Canada, India, France, Germany and the US—posed four questions the answers to which reveal that managers do play a significant role in employees’ intention to stay on with their organisation. As per the report, 28 per cent of global employees surveyed across these eight countries do not see themselves staying on with their current organisation in a year’s time. The employees surveyed were asked whether they were satisfied with their current managers;…

Employees in India are far superior and way more optimistic than their global counterparts in many ways. For instance, India employees perceive digital and green skills to be more important than their global counterparts in the near future. A good percentage (79 per cent) of India employees are extremely confident that their employer will provide the tools, resources and opportunities needed to build upon their analytical and data skills within the next five years, compared to just 59 per cent of their global counterparts. These interesting facts have been revealed in a recent survey undertaken by PwC. The ‘Workforce Hopes…

A survey has revealed that more women have joined the active workforce because of the availability of safe ride-hailing services. After all, a whopping 82 per cent of women riders (and a similar percentage of male riders) are using ride-hailing for work, because it allows them to travel at any time of the day, and provides the flexibility that no other transport options do. According to a report by Oxford Economics and Uber India, four out of 10 working women owe it to the availability of safe ride-hailing services for their joining the workforce. About 41 per cent of male…

That the job market is becoming highly competitive is very clear. No wonder, 40.23 per cent recruiters are struggling to manage competing job offers, and at least 33.33 per cent of recruiters are struggling to find cost-effective ways of recruitment. This indicates a need for efficient management of resources, as per the latest foundit survey. And one of the challenges being faced is lack of adequate professional and contact details! Challenges faced by recruiters Given the competitiveness of the job market, are recruiters able to find talent? It appears not, because 52.3 per cent of the recruiters surveyed are finding…

Are Indian professionals ready to embrace artificial intelligence (AI)? A PwC survey last year did reveal that professionals in India were expecting the impact of AI to be positive with 51 per cent believing that it would improve their productivity and 47 per cent believing that it would help them learn new and important skills. About 37 per cent believed that it would create new employment opportunities. A year later, in terms of awareness, Indian employees are found to be well aware of the skills that will be needed in the future, with a good 62 per cent admitting that…

In India, 81 per cent employers are finding it difficult to fill vacancies. Maximum challenge is being faced by employers in Japan, with 85 per cent of them finding it challenging to come by suitable talent. Germany, Greece and Israel follow with 82 per cent each. In Ireland and Portugal, 81 per cent employers are struggling to find talent, says the Manpower Group Employment Outlook Survey for Q1 of 2024. According to the employers who participated in the survey, the top five skills that are most difficult to find are: information technology (IT) and data, followed by engineering; sales and…

Ever since the pandemic and the surge in remote work, organisations have been working on altering the workplace design. Now, with hybrid work becoming more popular, the primary reason for organisations to transform workplaces is to cater to new technological advancements, with 59 per cent of the organisations, worldwide, doing so. The second driver is adapting to changing employee expectations, with 55 per cent firms attempting to cater to the expectations of employees and their reasons to come to office. About 53 per cent are going for redesigning to enable hybrid work. Not surprisingly, technology and collaboration spaces are the…

The Worker Population Ratio (WPR) for men in Delhi was 54.5 per cent in 2021-22, says the ‘Women & Men in Delhi – 2023’ report. Why is that figure worrisome? Well, that means very few women are pariticipating in the economy as compared to men. The WPR for women was only 8.8 per cent in 2021-22. The data was derived from the key gender statistics obtained from the administrative records of state and Central government departments, reports of various surveys/Census and so on. At the all India level, the WPR for men was 54.8 per cent and for women it…

Chandigarh saw 22 per cent drop in hiring year on year (YoY) and three per cent drop month on month (MoM), as per a foundit hiring trends report. While Delhi showed one per cent rise in hiring demand YoY, there was a one per cent fall MoM. Jaipur witnessed two per cent rise in hiring demand, YoY as well as MoM. Ahmedabad posted a two per cent rise in hiring demand YoY, but a one per cent dip MoM. Vadodara saw a five per cent rise YoY, while Kochi posted nine per cent rise YoY and four per cent rise…

It is true that the market for jobs is tough, especially for talent in the software, hardware and telecom domains, with hiring dipping by two per cent. However, the demand for hires has seen a six per cent growth in the areas of purchase, logistics and supply chain. Finance and accounts have also witnessed a growth of about five per cent in the demand for talent month-on-month (MoM). According to the November 2023 foundit Insights Tracker, the IT- hardware, software space registered a drop of six per cent in hiring activity, not just yearly, but also in the last one…

Does India lack schools? May be not, but it does lack quality teachers, which is probably why the gross enrolment ratio or GER is far from satisfactory. According to the CII–Deloitte Report on School Education, titled Yearly Status of School Education (YeSSE), even better infrastructure facilities have not helped reduce the high drop-out rate at different stages. This goes on to reflect in the low GER. In 2021-22, GER at the primary, upper primary, secondary, and higher secondary levels was 103 per cent, 95 per cent, 80 per cent and 58 per cent, respectively. The ratio is a cause for…

The role of a prompt engineer was unheard of a few years ago. Now, however, these engineers appear to be much sought after for their ability to polish the prompts that are fed into a generative-AI language model or LLM and help pull out information for the users or clients. In simple words, their prompts help to ensure the best output from the AI black boxes of today. If one looks up Wikipedia, the definition of prompt engineering is as follows: “Prompt engineering is the process of structuring text that can be interpreted and understood by a generative AI model.…

With flexible options being replaced post Covid, the participation of women in India’s workforce has dropped by about two per cent. However, their participation in the workforce remains at 25 per cent year-on-year. According to the Flexi Employment Social Impact Report 2023, by the Indian Staffing Federation, the fact remains that more than 75 per cent flexi jobs are held by men. In 2020, men held 79 per cent of flexible jobs, while women held 21 per cent. In 2021, there was an improvement in women’s participation, with women holding 27 per cent of flexible jobs and men holding 73…

Come December, and World Bank will start accepting applications for its internship programme. Those possessing an undergraduate degree and enrolled in a full-time graduate study programme (pursuing a master’s degree or PhD with the aim of returning to school full-time) may apply. Applicants need to be fluent in English. Knowledge of additional languages, such as Spanish, French, Chinese, Russian and Portuguese will be an advantage. The internship period is May to September. Along with their curriculum vitae, interested candidates need to upload their statement of interest and proof of enrolment in a graduate degree. Interns for the operations (field) can…

The maturity level of organisations can be gauged by the manner in which they perform on the following seven dimensions of talent health, says the Cornerstone Talent Health report: talent reporting, data and analytics; culture and technology;skills strategy; talent mobility; learning and development; performance management; and content strategy Starting with the first dimension, that is, talent reporting, data and analytics, mature organisations make use of centralised reports and allow their managers access to self-service reports. They depend on visual dashboards and generally have a dedicated HR analytics team in place. The likelihood of such organisations using data to inform people…

While organisations in India are trying to get their employees to return to office full time, their counterparts in the US are offering their employees full flexibility and performing way better than their peers following 100 per cent work from office too! In fact, according to a Flex Index report brought out with the help of Boston Consulting Group, a significant 62 per cent of companies across the US are offering work location flexibility to their staff. Only 38 per cent of US companies wish for their staff to work from office full time. This has also dropped by one per…

Twenty per cent of organisations in India are at the ‘foundational’ maturity level of talent health. What does this mean? It means that these organisations are focused on the building blocks of talent programmes and are managing to fulfil the basic talent needs of their business and employees. For those who are new to the term, ‘foundational’ talent programmes are impromptu in nature and compliance driven. The processes in place may be manual and far from formal. Foundational talent programmes are potentially interested in the role skills can play in talent management across the organisation, but they are yet to…

Gone are the days when employees used to join organisations with the intention of staying on for a long time. Some from the older generation have only worked for a single employer all their lives. Today, the scene is entirely different. Employees with less than six months of tenure have the lowest intent to stay (three years or more) at their organisation — just 38 per cent versus 65 per cent overall, reveals Qualtrics survey. This huge difference of 27 percentage points raises some questions. Why are new hires eager to leave quickly? The answer lies in the mismatch between…

Whether professionals are open to seeing artificial intelligence (AI) being used at the workplace is a question that cannot have a definitive answer, at least not yet. After all, AI is being branded a monster that steals jobs and a friendly tool that makes jobs easier in the same breath. The key, therefore, is to strike a balance between technology’s positives and negatives. Quite a challenge As per the Qualtrics 2024 employee trends survey, 37,000 employees across the world expect their organisations to embrace new technology. What is clear is that employees are also very keen to see their organisations…

Only 15 per cent of employees, globally, expressed confidence that their leaders can manage change well! That is not a very encouraging figure. Why are leaders required to be adept at change management anyway? Well, thanks to the pandemic, organisations that earlier struggled to make remote working possible, are now thinking of going hybrid, and embracing new technology to make that happen. Add to this the shortage of quality talent and organisations find themselves managing some change or the other all the time. Therefore, it is important for employees to see their leaders as capable of managing change and in…

Come 2024, and the technology, financial services, media and gaming, and retail sectors in India may see the highest increments. A report by Willis Towers Watson (WTW) reveals that financial services and retail companies, as well as captive organisations have anticipated slightly higher increments of 10 per cent for 2024 compared to the actual pay hikes in 2023 thanks to the ongoing demand for talent. The hottest jobs over the next 12 months are expected in information technology (IT), engineering and sales. India’s median salary hike is predicted to go up by 9.8 per cent in 2024, which is quite…

When CEOs in India were asked to state the areas in which ‘environmental, social, and governance’ (ESG) strategy will have the greatest impact over the next three years in India, 26 per cent of the CEOs said it was in building customer relationships. Chief executive officers (CEOs) in India as well as globally are increasingly agreeing that ESG programmes contribute towards improving customer loyalty in a significant manner. Customer loyalty plays an important role in any organisation’s success, and ‘environmental, social, and governance’ (ESG) factors play a significant role in building and maintaining this loyalty. Therefore, by incorporating ESG considerations…

Companies that have a significant presence of women across hierarchies are known to have better policies in place. In fact, according to MKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2023 report, top-performing companies with a higher representation of women and women of colour than their industry peers have better training programmes in place for their managers. For instance, 87 per cent of the top-performing companies organise manager trainings on how to cultivate a growth mindset and willingness to evolve as a leader, compared to 68 per cent of other companies. A whopping 78 per cent of the top-performing companies conduct manager trainings…