1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.

All major activities in the working life of a worker- from the time of his or her entry into n

organization until he or she leaves- come under the purview of HRM. With the passage of

time HR mangers have started speaking the language of business. HR job is highly converted

one and so are the Hr practices that are becoming highly visible in the organization. Its

significance does lie not only in the observable practice of its functions, but contributing to ad

drawing from the highest level of managerial policy.

So, the challenges in the HRM practices are being visualized and are better explained

considering two different sectors of the Indian industries. For better evaluation we had further

taken IT industry and cigratee industry. We had had telephonic conversation with different

companies. Its just for a evaluation purpose and so no further comments on the policies and

challenges had given till now.

1

2. INTRODUCTION

It is Department in order to successfully steer organizations towards The management has to

recognize the important role of Human Resource profitability necessary for the management

to invest considerable time and amount, to learn the changing scenario of the HR department

in the 21st century. In order to survive the competition and be in the race, HR department

should consciously update itself with the transformation in HR and be aware of the HR issues

cropping up. With high attrition rates, poaching strategies of competitors, there is a huge

shortage of skilled employees and hence, a company's HR activities play a vital role in

combating this crisis. Suitable HR policies that would lead to the achievement of the

Organization as well as the individual's goals should be formulated. HR managers have to

manage all the challenges that they would face from recruiting employees, to training them,

and then developing strategies for retaining them and building up an effective career

management system for them. Just taking care of employees would not be enough; new HR

initiatives should also focus on the quality needs, customer-orientation, productivity and

stress, team work and leadership building. This report is divided into two sections that throw

light on the emerging HR trends and discusses HR challenges in various companies like

TCS,godfrey phillip,ITC,birlasoft This report should be valuable for practicing HR managers

of every organization and also for those who have a significant interest in the area of Human

Resource Management, to realize the growing importance of human resources and understand

the need to build up effective HR strategies to combat HR issues arising in the 21st century.

Human Resource Management has evolved considerably over the past century, and

experienced a major transformation in form and function primarily within the past two

decades. Driven by a number of significant internal and external environmental forces, HRM

has progressed from a largely maintenance function, with little if any bottom line impact, to

what many scholars and practitioners today regard as the source of sustained competitive

advantage for organizations operating in a global economy.

CHANGES IN HRM :   Some of the significant changes that are likely to take

place in the human resource management are as follows:

2

1.Increase in education levels: Due to technological progress and the spread of

educational institutions workers will increasingly become aware of their higher level needs,

managers will have to evolve appropriate policies and techniques to motivate the

knowledge of workers. Better educated and organized workforce will demand greater

discretion and autonomy at the work place.

2.Technological developments: This will require retraining and mid-career training of

both workers and managers. Rise of the international corporation is proving new challenges

for personnel function.

3.Changing composition of work force: In future, women and minority groups, SCs

and STs would become an important source of man power in future on account of easy

access to better educational and employment opportunities. Therefore manpower planning

of every organization will have to take into consideration the potential availability of talent

in these groups. Changing mix of the workforce will lead to new values in organizations.

4.Increasing government role: In India, personnel management has become very

legalized. In future private organizations will have to co-ordinate their labour welfare

programmes with those of the government private sector will be required increasingly to

support government efforts for improving public health, education training and

development and infrastructure.

5.occupational health and safety: Due to legislative presence and trade union

movement, personnel management will have to be more healthy and safety conscious in

future.

6.Organizational development: in future, change will have to be initiated and managed

to improve organizational effectiveness. Top management will become more actively

involved in the development of human resources.

7.New work ethic: greater forces will be on project and team forms of organization. As

changing work ethic requires increasing emphasis on individual. Jobs will have to

redesigned to provide challenge.

3

8.Development planning: personnel management will be involved increasingly in

organizational planning, structure, composition etc. Greater cost-consciousness and profit-

orientations will be required on the part of the personnel department.

9.Better appraisal and reward systems: organizations will be required to share gains

of higher periodicity with workers more objective and result oriented systems of

performance, appraisal and performance linked compensation will have to be developed.

10.New personnel policies: new and better polices will be required for the work force of

the future. Traditional family management will give way to professional management with

greater forces on human dignity.

Thus, in future personnel management will face new challenges and perform new

responsibilities. Participative leadership will take the place of autocratic leadership. Creative

skills will have to be redeveloped and rewarded emphasis will shift from legal and rule bound

approach to more open and humanitarian approach.

NEW TRENDS IN HR

Human resource management is a process of bringing people and organizations

together so that the goals of each other are met. The role of HR manager is shifting from that

of a protector and screener to the role of a planner and change agent. Personnel directors are

the new corporate heroes. The name of the game today in business is personnel . Nowadays it

is not possible to show a good financial or operating report unless your personnel relations

are in order.

Over the years, highly skilled and knowledge based jobs are increasing while low skilled jobs

are decreasing. This calls for future skill mapping through proper HRM initiatives.

4

Indian organizations are also witnessing a change in systems, management cultures and

philosophy due to the global alignment of Indian organizations. There is a need for multi skill

development. Role of HRM is becoming all the more important.

Some of the recent trends that are being observed are as follows:

The recent quality management standards ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 of 2000 focus

more on people centric organizations. Organizations now need to prepare themselves

in order to address people centered issues with commitment from the top

management, with renewed thrust on HR issues, more particularly on training.

Charles Handy also advocated future organizational models like Shamrock, Federal

and Triple I. Such organizational models also refocus on people centric issues and

call for redefining the future role of HR professionals.To leapfrog ahead of

competition in this world of uncertainty, organizations have introduced six- sigma

practices. Six- sigma uses rigorous analytical tools with leadership from the top and

develops a method for sustainable improvement. These practices improve

organizational values and helps in creating defect free product or services at minimum

cost.

Human resource outsourcing is a new accession that makes a traditional HR

department redundant in an organization. Exult, the international pioneer in HR BPO

already roped in Bank of America, international players BP Amoco & over the years

plan to spread their business to most of the Fortune 500 companies.

With the increase of global job mobility, recruiting competent people is also increasingly

becoming difficult, especially in India. Therefore by creating an enabling culture,

organizations are also required to work out a retention strategy for the existing skilled

manpower.

1. The Changing Role of the HR Professional

humans, not commodities, and HR departments have to start seeing them differently. With

the current push towards strategies that engage employees, attract top talent, and contribute to

the bottom line, this change is imperative.

5

A Finance person who only understands Finance and a financial perspective, a Sales person

who only understands Sales and the Sales perspective – these individuals will have limited

career prospects and very little chance of succeeding in a leadership role.

The same holds true for HR people. That thisis the case is good news for HR. It means that

HR and HR people are too important to be set aside in the corner. It means that HR skills and

knowledge need to be brought to bear on the strategic management of the organization.

Organizations consist of people. People are real. You can see them, touch them, hear them.

And people have capabilities. If HR is to be perceived as an enabler of business strategies,

they need to be seen to be making measurable contributions to the bottom line through

expense reduction, or revenue generation, talent management and risk mitigation. HR people

need to be a lot more creative in the way they do things. The “one size fits all” approach

doesn’t work anymore. HR departments of today need to be the talent departments of

tomorrow.

2. The War for Talent

The key to attracting and retaining scarce skills is to be, and be seen to be, a first-tier

employer that can meet the needs of high potential/high performance employees. Traditional

workforce planning is being replaced by talent strategies and skills gap analysis. Once they

determine the gap, it becomes clear what talent they need to hire, to layoff, or to develop or

transfer internally.

Now is not the time to sit in the ivory towers thinking you know who your major contributors

are. You need to dig deep into the organization to identify the top talent, the high performers

in every aspect of your business. In all likelihood it’s not the people who are the most

politically astute or the most popular.

Traditional marketing practices are going to have to be applied to recruitment. Employer

branding and unique selling points with a strong differentiator are imperative. Look at

strategies such as changing your employer brand from the groan-inducing “we’re a big

successful company” to a company delivering on the promise of continuous learning, work-

life balance, personally-fulfilling roles and innovative reward and recognition programs.

6

3. The Healthy Workplace: Wellness, Work-Life Balance

There is no competitive advantage in sick and stressed-out workers.

There is growing recognition that there is a definite link between the work environment and

the health and well-being of its employees. Further, employers are now recognizing the

connection between employee health and the bottom line.

When we look in the mirror, we see ourselves as entire human beings – not just people with

jobs and careers, but people with families, friends, beliefs, interests, passions, responsibilities,

worries and futures. We need to look at our people through the same mirror – not just as

employees or colleagues but as total human beings. If companies ignore the full humanity of

their people, or if people find it necessary to suppress their human-ness in the workplace, the

tensions created eat away at the vitality of the organization.

4.The Impact of Technology

Eventually technology is going to eliminate most HR jobs as they exist today. Which is

another reason for HR professionals to become more strategic. Technology, with all its self-

service and anytime-anywhere communications capabilities, coupled with outsourcing,

guarantees there will be fewer HR people in corporations.

Technology continues to impact us profoundly, both in our personal lives and in the

workplace, and it will continue to change. We’ve entered the century of the employee and

technology has to respond. CRM or customer relationship management is giving way to ERM

– employee relationship management. Employee self-service has become as important as

customer self-service. Customized and personalized content will be king. Employees can

self-manage activities previously handled by human resource professionals. This is a cost-

saving and time-saving benefit to organizations and it frees the HR practitioners to focus on

more strategic issues. But more importantly, it is a fundamental expectation of Gen Y’s and

Gen X’s. Technology that protects the privacy and security of HR data is more important than

ever…but more on that later. It’s important that we continue to embrace technology and keep

our eyes on new advances that may bring even better communication and collaboration tools.

Technology helps people connect within the work environment.

7

5. Talent Management: Leadership Development

Leadership skills are not built through courses. Management is a function of what you do;

leadership is a function of what you are. When planning leadership development initiatives,

the tendency is to first look for courses. One of the scarcest capabilities, now and for the

likely future, is leadership. As organizations, their customers, their employees and their

environment become more global, more complex, more competitive and more subject to

rapid and radical change, the competency requirements for successful leadership are

increasing exponentially. Most organizations would acknowledge that they currently have a

shortage of leadership talent or bench strength; how will they fare when the bar keeps on

being raised?

Leadership is less definable and therefore leadership capabilities are more difficult to build or

transmit. Indeed, one could debate whether leadership skills can be taught at all, or whether

they are innate.

6. Corporate Values and Culture

These days is that more and more firms are unwilling to tolerate unethical behaviour from

their executives. They are taking drasticaction as in the case of the Boeing CEO who was

ousted because of unethical activities. Ethical behaviour should be a core component of

company culture. Ethics related language in formal statements not only sets corporate

expectations for employee behaviour, it also serves as a shield for companies in an

increasingly complex and regulatory environment.

But what is culture? What drives it? How do values affect corporate

performance?

Culture is not a concierge serving up free fresh fruit in the cafeteria, nor is it a values chart

hanging on the wall purporting commitment to integrity, respect, honesty and customer

satisfaction. Enron had a brilliantly-crafted set of corporate values. Obviously it was just

there for decoration. . Organizational culture is the shared assumptions, beliefs and norms of

behaviour of a group. It has a powerful influence on the way in which people behave.

8

An effective corporate culture is not about being a nice place to work. It is about engaging

employees at a fundamental level and translating that engagement to performance that meets

the organization’s objectives. Increasingly, companies around the world have adopted formal

statements of corporate values, and senior executives now routinely identify ethical,

behaviour, honesty, integrity, and social concerns as top issues on their companies’ agendas.

Business leaders are now recognizing that an effective corporate culture is essential to long-

term success. They are taking steps to align corporate culture to business strategy. Many

organizations are now making their values explicit and that’s a significant change from

corporate practices 10 years ago.

Leaders and top management must be responsible for building strong, highperformance

cultures. They are the ones who construct the social reality, and shape the values of the

organization.

FUTURE ROLE OF PERSONNEL MANAGERS

   Some of the emerging trends in the role of personnel manager are as follows:-

   (i).   Personnel managers of future will have to stress upon overall development of human

resources in all respects.

  (ii).   The scope of human resource management will be extended to cover career planning

and development, organization development, social justice etc.

 (iii).   Enlightened trade unions will become an active participant in the organization and

management of industry.

(iv).   The personnel manager will be required to act as a change agent through greater

involvement in ‘environment and scanning and development planning. They will have to

devote more time to promote changes than to maintain the status quo.

9

(v).  The personnel function will become more cost-conscious and profit oriented. Instead of

merely administering personnel activities, the personnel department will have to search out

opportunities for profit improvement and growth.

(vi).   Greater authority and responsibilities will be delegated to personnel managers

particularly in the field of employee welfare services.

(vii).  Personnel managers will have to continuously retrain themselves to avoid obsolescence

of their knowledge and skills.

Thus, the job of personnel managers will become more difficult and challenging in future.

They will have to be experts in behavioral sciences. They will play a creative and

development role. They will thus have play a creative and development role. They will have

to acquire new skills, values, attitudes to discharge their new responsibilities successfully.

10

3.HR TREND IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY

Technology constantly generates unexpected consequence. The simple ability to send

information anywhere immediately, at minimal cost has so many ramifications. The

most obvious of the effects being in the reach and speed of dissemination of

information. The Human Resource trend in Information technology is discussed in this

study.

Three significant growth trends in Corporate India are now pushing Hr Manger to look

towards technology for solution. First – an explosion in CEO – Level searches and hires

by Indian companies. People like Director of Tata Sons’ Alan Rosting, Ranbaxy CEO

Brian Tempest, and Managing Directors of Indian Hotels Raymond Bickson are

familiar examples. Second, many companies are searching for middle and entry-level

talent. Tata Consultancy plans to hire 800 people in the US this year, mostly off

campuses. Third, Indian companies are inheriting a large number of employees

through global acquisitions.

In this scenario- Role of HRM in integrating employees into the organization with

speed ensuring high levels of performance becomes more critical than ever. And its is

technology in the form of HR systems that is aiding the HR department in doing this

today, keeping pace with the growing needs of Indian business.

11

4.Challenges in Human Resources Management faced by various

indian Industries are:

It is a battle where we realize that the balance comes from a lot of sharing of common chore,

of sharing responsibilities and of sharing understanding most of all. The time demand

implementing rigid flexibility.

Globalisation:- Many Indian firms are compelled to think globally, something

which is difficult for managers who were accustomed to operate in vast sheltered

markets with minimal or no competition either from domestic or foreign firms. Indian

firms need to move from one end of each continuum to the other end as shown below:

12

Rigid, hierarchical and tall structureRigid, hierarchical and tall structure

Flexible, flat and team based structuresFlexible, flat and team based structures

Family centric, closed minded & secretive environment

Family centric, closed minded & secretive environment

Rational thinking & vibrant styles of managementRational thinking & vibrant styles of management

Dispersed ownership, open minded & transparent Dispersed ownership, open minded & transparent

Caste ridden, superstitious, laid-track styles of manage.Caste ridden, superstitious, laid-track styles of manage.

Changed Employee Expectations: Employees demand empowerment and

expect equality with the mangement. Previous notions about managerial authority are

giving way to employee influence & involvement along with mechanisms for upward

communication and due process. If we look at the workers’ unions of Otis, Hindustan

Lever, ICI, TOMCO, Blue Star, Webel Electro, and Central Bank. They rewrite their

agenda to include quality and better customer service and are even accusing the

management of malpractices. So everytime there is need to redram the profile of the

worker and discover new methods of training, hiring, renumerating and motivating

employees.

Outsourcing HR Activities: The trends towards outsourcing has been caused by

several strategic and operational motives. HR departments are divesting themselves

from mundane activities to focus more on strategic role. Outsourcing has also been

used to help reduce bureaucracy and to encourage a more responsive culture by

introducing external market forces into the firm through the biding process. It is a big

challenge before the HR manager to prove that his/her department is as important as

any other functions in the organization. The relevance of HR is at stack.

Changing Workforce Dynamics: Frequently, physical relocation is required.

The increasing number of dual-career professionals limits individual flexibility in

accepting such assignments and may hinder number of dual-career professionals

limits individual flexibility in accepting such assignments and may hinder

organizational flexibility in acquiring and developing talent. Some demographic

changes in the workforce having their own implications to the HR managers are(i)

inceasing number of working mothers, (ii) a steady decline of blue-collar employees

who are giving way to white-collar employees, and (iii) increasing awareness &

education among workers.

Balancing Work-life: Balancing work & life assumes relevance when both

husband and wife are employed. Travails of a working housewife are more than a

working husband, thus balancing it is becoming a major challenge for HR manager.

So a programme aiming balancing work-life is required and are supposed to include:

Childcare at or near the workplace, Job Sharing, Care for sick children and

13

employees, On-site summer camp, Training supervisors to respond to work and

family needs of employees, Flexible work scheduling, Sick leave policies, Variety of

errands from dry cleaning, dropping children at schools, making dinner reservations

etc and many more like the same or other.

Making HR activities ethical: Hiring ethical strong employees is only the

beginning. The need to institute mechanisms to ensure ethical conduct of employees

is increased a lot with the passage of time. The Hr manager needs to carefully screen

applications for jobs, weed out those who are prone to indulge in misdemeanors and

hire those who can build a value driven organization.

Organizational Restructuring: Peter Drucker prophesis in his book(The New

Realities) is showing its colour and many big companies has reduced their number of

management grades, elimination of layers, & redrawing reporting lines within their

organization. ITC, HLL, Godrej & Boyce, RPG Enterprises, Raymond Woollen Mills,

Shaw Wallace, Ballarpur Industries, Compton & Greaves are some of the companies

that are doing so. Changes are required particularly during the time of Acquisitions

and Mergers also during the bad whether of the firm. This is of need to keep people

with and working effectively and efficiently. These are done according to the

changing character of competition, as major companies operate through complex web

of strategic alliances of varying degrees of permanence.

Managing Diversity: Its value is getting more important issue because of:

Increase in the number of young workers in the work-force, increase in the number of

women joining the work-force, increase in the proportion of ethnic minorities in the

total work-force, increase in mobility of work-force, international careers &

expatriates are becoming common, international experience as a pre-requisite for

career progression to many top-level managerial positions. Organisations that can

manage diversity better trend to be more flexible because they have broadened their

policies, are more open-minded, have less standardized operating methods and have

developed skills in dealing with resistance to change.

14

Attitude towards Unions: Unionization is preferable because to remain unio-free

costs the organization heavily. Pay raises, out of turn promotions, generous perks &

other benefits need to be doled out frequently to appease workers. General perception

of managers is to avoid unionization but it is very beneficial to the organization. It

provide a mean for workers to express before the management conditions prevailing

in the workplace. But at the same time because of voice mechanism or the

instrumentality role, unionized firm have lower turnover rate and encourage

organization to provide more rational and professional management. So the work of

HR mangers gets tough here to decide whether is should be there in the organization

or not and if yes then how to control it. Strings of the union are required to be checked

time to time for better performance in the firm.

The Indian IT industry poses a baffling challenge to HR professionals-from recruitment to

retirement, compensation to career planning and from technological obsolescence to labour

turnover. This problem can be tackled with the use of HR planning which in itself is a

challenging task in IT industry. Determining the strength required for the near future is a very

complex problem in an IT company. The deciding factor is the company’s perceived ability

to bag projects both locally and internationally. The problem here is that until the company

have sufficient right-mix of people, it cannot clinch a project. But unless there is a project, it

cannot attract and retain people. With the advent of MNC’s it may be noted that job prospects

are gearing up. The multinationals are offering fantastic pay packets and working

environments to their employees.

15

5. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES AND THEIR HRM

PROBLEM

a) Company Profile of TCS

Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, business solutions and outsourcing organization

that delivers real results to global businesses, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can

match. With a vision of being in top 10 companies by the year 2010.

TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT and IT-enabled services delivered

through its unique Global Network Delivery Mode, recognized as the benchmark of

excellence in software development.TCS has over 120,000 of the world's best trained IT

consultants in 42 countries, with an annual sales of $5.7 billion (fiscal year ending 31 March,

2008)

16

b) CHALLENGES IN TCS

1) The maintain workforce diversity

The future success of any organizations relies on the ability to manage a diverse

body of talent that can bring innovative ideas, perspectives and views to their work.

The challenge and problems faced of workplace diversity can be turned into a

strategic organizational asset if an organization is able to capitalize on this melting

pot of diverse talents. With the mixture of talents of diverse cultural backgrounds,

genders, ages and lifestyles, an organization can respond to business opportunities

more rapidly and creatively, especially in the global arena (Cox, 1993), which must

be one of the important organizational goals to be attained. More importantly, if the

organizational environment does not support diversity broadly, one risks losing

talent to competitors.Since TCS has offices in more than 40 countries, the challange for

hrm is to maintain the proper ratio between foreign and indian origin employee.

2) the management of workplace diversity

In order to effectively manage workplace diversity, Cox (1993) suggests that a HR

Manager needs to change from an ethnocentric view ("our way is the best way") to a

culturally relative perspective ("let's take the best of a variety of ways"). This shift in

philosophy has to be ingrained in the managerial framework of the HR Manager in

his/her planning, organizing, leading and controlling of organizational resources.TCS

deals with this challenge by conducting mentoring programs.

3) Large workforce

There is a big challenge of maintaining large work force consisting of 1.3 lac

employees for TCS

4) Managing EIS

As information is the basis of decision-making in an organization, there lies a great need

for effective managerial control. A good control system would ensure the communication

of the right information at the right time and relayed to the right people to take prompt

actions.

17

When managing an Executive Information System, a HR manager must first find out

exactly what information decision-makers would like to have available in the field of

human resource management, and then to include it in the EIS. This is because having

people simply use an EIS that lacks critical information is of no value-add to the

organization. In addition, the manager must ensure that the use of information technology

has to be brought into alignment with strategic business goals.

5) Control and measure result

A HR Manager must conduct regular organizational assessments on issues like pay,

benefits, work environment, management and promotional opportunities to assess the

progress over the long term. There is also a need to develop appropriate measuring tools to

measure the impact of diversity initiatives at the organization through organization wide

feedback surveys and other methods. Without proper control and evaluation, some of these

diversity initiatives may just fizzle.

6) Leading the task

A HR Manager needs to advocate a diverse workforce by making diversity evident at all

organizational levels. Otherwise, some employees will quickly conclude that there is no

future for them in the company. As the HR Manager, it is pertinent to show respect for

diversity issues and promote clear and positive responses to them. He/She must also show

a high level of commitment and be able to resolve issues of workplace diversity in an

ethical and responsible manner.

7) How to keep the level of recuitment even in recession

The biggest challenge for HR is to maintain the company reputation, which it gained

over the period by recruiting a large number of new employees every year.

8) How to absorb all recruitment

Though there are recruitments in large scale, they do not have enough projects to absorb

all the new recruited employees. In order to tackle this situation, they are calling the new

recruited employees in small batches rather than 2-3 large groups.

18

9) Employees eligible for promotion

TCS has just suspended the promotion cycle till further notice. As told by Mr.

Susheel(name changed) , he is eligible for promotion since Nov -2007.

10) How to make more profit with same revenue

As per Economic times, TCS is planning to decrease the variable pay of executives by 10-

15% and keeping the gross same for middle management and developers.

11) How to motivate employee

The development of an appropriate organizational reward system is probably one of the

strongest motivational factors. This can influence both job satisfaction and employee

motivation. The reward system affects job satisfaction by making the employee more

comfortable and contented Motivational factors in an organizational context include

working environment, job as a result of the rewards received. The reward system

influences motivation primarily through the perceived value of the rewards and their

contingency on performance (Hickins, 1998).

The challenge which HR is facing is that how to motivate employee without any

significant salary hike or promotion.

19

6. BIRLA SOFT AND THEIR HRM PROBLEMS

a) company profile

Birlasoft is a leading provider of information technology services in both onshore and

offshore models to Fortune 1000 as well as mid-sized organizatiaons in banking, financial

services, insurance, retail, healthcare, manufacturing and independent software vendors

sectors. Birlasoft services include application development, support & maintenance,

enterprise application implementation, integration, infrastructure management and quality

assurance & testing.Birlasoft’s robust delivery processes embrace digitized project

management methodologies, embedded within proven practices of Six Sigma, SEI CMMi

Level 5 on Continuous Representation and secure services framework with BS7799. The

Noida centers of the company have been recently assessed at PCMM Level 3 for its HR

practices. Headquartered at Noida, India, Birlasoft has 4,000+ employees across US, UK,

Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and India.Birlasoft is

part of the global $1.4 billion CK Birla Group which traces its roots back to over 150 years

and has diversified interests ranging from automobiles, cement, paper, software etc. to

hospitals, schools and colleges as part of its philanthropic work.The company is a joint

venture of CK Birla Group of India and Computer Horizons Corporation (CHC) of USA. It is

leading Information Technology company with offices world-wide. It offers high class

solutions and offshore services to its clients that includes companies.

20

b) Challenges in birlasoft

1. Communication

Focusing on establishing effective communication throughout the organization and to

ensure that Birlasoftians have the skills and avenues to share information and

coordinate activities effectively.

2. PerformanceManagement

Driving the organization’s and its members’ progress by establishing objectives

related to committed work against which performance can be measured, ascertain

capability development assistance required to continuously enhance performance.

3. CompetencyDevelopment

This starts with identification of requisite competencies at the organization level

which are ultimately dependent on competencies that are needed to be identified, built

or enhanced in the individual Birlasoftian. Enhancing constantly the capability of

Birlasoftians to perform assigned tasks and responsibility in turn uplinks to the

organization capability building.

4. Training and Development

To ensure that the identified competency requirements are built through a systematic

and focused approach.

5. Compensation

To provide all individuals with remuneration and benefits based on their contribution

and value to the organization in a fair and transparent manner. Competitiveness of the

compensation offered in comparison with the prevailing markets' reality is the driving

force.

6. Career Development

To ensure that individuals are provided opportunities to develop their competencies

21

that enable them to achieve professional and personal career objectives within the

organization’s goals.

7. Participatory Culture

A myopic outlook of utilizing talents of people only in the delivery of assigned duties

has two broad undesirable effects: It prevents people from developing as well rounded

professionals; and it denies the organization the readily available multi-talented

internal resource pool that could potentially contribute to most of the challenges and

opportunities facing the organization. Building a participatory culture enables

availability of avenues to harness/give exposure to employees’ full capability by

involvement in making decisions and solving problems that affect the performance of

business activities

22

7. INDIAN TOBACCO INDUSTRY:

Large companies can afford to keep surplus staff and keep them engaged in internal

projects or training programmes. However, employees deeply resent transfers from

one projects to another as it adversely affects their carrier planning and prospects.

Unexpected employees turnover and overseas deputation may aid further strain on HR

department. Notwithstanding with the complexity of the problem, it has to be tackled

to enable the HR department to plan its recruitment campaign, at least 3 months in

advance. The marketing department has to play a vital role here. It must forecast the

technologies in demand in the near future and indicate what slice of the cake the

company can reasonably expect to get so recruitment and training process can be

greater geared accordingly.

a) Company Profile

ITC is one of India's foremost private sector companies with a market capitalisation of over

US $ 13 billion and a turnover of US $ 3.5 billion. Rated among the World's Best Big

Companies by Forbes magazine and among India's Most Respected Companies by

BusinessWorld, ITC ranks third in pre-tax profit among India's private sector corporations.

ITC has a diversified presence in Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards & Specialty Papers,

Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Information Technology,

Branded Apparel, Greeting Cards, Safety Matches and other FMCG products.

23

B) CHALLENGES FACED ITC BY THE HR MANAGER

1. ATTRITION

Attrition is the gradual reduction of a workforce by employees'

leaving and not being replaced rather than by their being laid. Reducing attrition rate

has been a challenge for HR Managers since many years. Tobacco industry was not

much not affected by the problem of attrition, but due to stringency in govt. policies

this problem became a prominent challenge for HR Managers of this industry.

The same is the case with HR Manager of ITC, due to stringency in govt. policies the

sales went down and the profits declined. In order to maintain the profit levels

employees were pressurized and thereby adding to the attrition rate. Now, HR

Managers are working hard to reduce this increasing attrition rate.

2. RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING

As the employees are leaving the organization due to increased work

pressures, it has become mandatory for the HR Manager to recruit new employees.

And in this liquidity crunch they are spending on the recruitment and training of the

new recruits.

3. RETENTION

Retention is a process of continued possession. Retaining an employee

without giving any fringe benefits is although more difficult. In the current scenario

when each and every organization is suffering from liquidity crunch it is very difficult

for an organization to give tangible or intangible benefits.

HR Manager of ITC also is moving in the same boat. He is also facing difficulties in

retaining the old employees, as he is not able to motivate them and with the increased

pressure the attrition is increasing.

24

8. GODFREY PHILLIPS AND THEIR HRM PROBLEMS

a) Company Profile

Godfrey Phillips is today the second largest player in the Indian cigarette industry with an

annual turnover of over US$ 265 million. The company was incorporated in India in 1936,

the Company established its own manufacturing facilities in 1944. The Company today is the

proud owner of some of the most popular cigarette brands in the country like Red and White,

Four Square, Jaisalmer, Cavanders, Tipper and Prince.Its products are distributed through an

extensive India wide network comprising 484 exclusive distributors and over 800,000 retail

outlets

b) Challenges in GPI

1. Performance Management

Driving the organization’s and its members’ progress by establishing objectives related to

committed work against which performance can be measured, ascertain capability development

assistance required to continuously enhance performance.

2. Planning a Mentoring Program

One of the best ways to handle workplace diversity issues is through initiating a Diversity

25

Mentoring Program. This could entail involving different departmental managers in a

mentoring program to coach and provide feedback to employees who are different from

them. In order for the program to run successfully, it is wise to provide practical training for

these managers or seek help from consultants and experts in this field. Usually, such a

program will encourage organizations members to air their opinions and learn how to

resolve conflicts due to their diversity. More importantly, the purpose of a Diversity

Mentoring Program seeks to encourage members to move beyond their own cultural frame

of reference to recognize and take full advantage of the productivity potential inherent in a

diverse population. 

3. Training and Development

To ensure that the identified competency requirements are built through a systematic and

focused approach.

4. Organizing Talents Strategically- 

In the GPI a HR Manager must be able to organize the pool of diverse talents strategically

for the organization. He/She must consider how a diverse workforce can enable the

company to attain new markets and other organizational goals in order to harness the full

potential of workplace diversity.

An organization that sees the existence of a diverse workforce as an organizational asset

rather than a liability would indirectly help the organization to positively take in its stride

some of the less positive aspects of workforce.

5. Motivational Approaches

Workplace motivation can be defined as the influence that makes us do things to achieve

organizational goals: this is a result of our individual needs being satisfied (or met) so that

we are motivated to complete organizational tasks effectively. As these needs vary from

person to person, an organization must be able to utilize different motivational tools to

encourage their employees to put in the required effort and increase productivity for the

company.

26

CONCLUSION

Human resource Management will be the key area of focus in 21st century as in companies

and government organization put in place strategies to cope up with the economical crisis and

recovery. The so called “war for talent” is on the backburner as the focus shifts to hiring

freezes, benefits and compensation cost

management, and workforce reduction in the hardest- hit segment and as the the era of skill-

based workers has arrived but if India wants to truly move to the global ground, it has to

spruce up its workforce. Small may be beautiful, but not in the IT industry. In the knowledge

era and a skill-based economy, it has become imperative that human resources become one of

the most essential ingredients of success.

The growth of IT companies and other companies are worldwide depends on its people and

the intellectual capital it possesses. ‘Knowledge workers’ has become a buzzword in today’s

scenario. And if we look at the top software exporters, they have been growing phenomenally

in workforce strength.

To make it big in the global software market, India needs to increase its mass of knowledge

workers. The total human resource strength of the IT industry as a whole stands at 425,609. A

company-wise break-up of this figure reveals that nearly 525 companies constituting 35% of

the IT industry employ an average of 58 persons each, 750 companies constituting 50% of the

industry employ an average of 275 persons each, and 150 companies constituting 10% of the

industry employ an average of 726 persons each. At least 40 companies have more than 1,000

employees, while some very big companies like TCS and Infosys have staffs above 5,000

each.

As we already know that Human Resource Management of the organization deals with the

individuals putting their hard work to meet the organizations goals. Managing people is the

toughest element of any organization than land, machinery or finances. Every human being

has its own degree of preferences, likings and attitude.

27

REFERENCES:

www.godfreyphillips.com/

www.itcportal.com/

www.humanlinks.com/manres/articles.htm/

www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au/companies/ITC-Learning

www.hinduonnet.com/businessline/2001/01/19/stories/071952tb.htm

http://www.henley.reading.ac.uk/management/about/staff/c-j-brewster.asp

28