The time of grueling examinations is over and for most of the management prospects; whether they are fresh out of college or the ones who have already left their jobs dreaming of a fat pay cheque. But like thousands of students who enter the gates of a B School every year, the realms of reality often fell heavy on their heads in the form of books and presentations.
Read More: Professional in Human Resources (PHR)
Right from attending long lectures and running from one assignment to another, one thought often strikes them, which specialization will they take? Adding insult to the injury comes family and friends, who ask about their plans and then give lectures on the ‘scope’ of the field and its prospective ‘package’.
And then comes the best of the lot that is ‘peers’. B schools have an interesting variety of students, like those who are good at numbers, they quickly announce their love for finance or operations and then there are some presentable ones who feel they are born for marketing. No offence to anyone. The remaining lot of people who still feels confused about which way to go, keeps hopping from one stream to another and finally finds a glimpse of hope in HR. Also people who feel that they are not good at numbers and can deal or gel with people, HR will be best suited to them. Since it is not much of a taxing job, people; especially girls who want a comfortable life should pick it up.
Now my dear readers, it is time to get your facts right. Any specialization in it is not an Aladdin’s lamp which does all its work itself. In today’s competitive world, any company which wants to survive and scale up, needs to cut down on its costs and innovate continuously. It also needs its established systems and processes to work in an efficient manner without any breakdowns. This thing is applies to both men and machinery. But fortunately or unfortunately, men are not machinery and they do break down or leave their jobs when the work gets too monotonous or repetitive in nature. Studies show that losing an employee costs around 20 % of his annual salary to an organization for a mid level position and around 200 % for a senior level position. This is the area where HR comes into play by first recruiting the right talent and then retaining them by strategic planning, programs and implementation.
For people who believe HR fraternity is not good at numbers, I believe it is bit too early make this statement and underestimate the capabilities of HR people, especially when an emerging and rapidly growing market like HR Analytics is coming up. Let us see what really this field is all about and why there is so much noise about it. Any big organization has lots and lots of labor data which it has been diligently collecting over the years. What is the use of such data if it is not utilized properly? But if utilized in the prudent manner it can provide the information needed to make strategic decisions. Workforce analytics is the easy way to start organizational performance tracking. Data transformation, on demand dashboards and key performance indicators help measure and analyze workforce employees and organization as a whole.
Since companies going global, business leaders are expressing interest in global growth, both through organic expansion and acquisitions. They look forward to Human Resources to provide detailed workforce projections while filling the pipeline with qualified people ready to fill roles wherever they are needed. This is where role of Analytics which uses software like Oracle HCM Cloud services.HCM Cloud Suite with specialized tools help in faster deployment and provide solution to such problems. Thus saving the entire cycle and costs of recruitment.
In a nutshell it helps during expansion, succession planning, analyzing labor costs and productivity and take informed decisions in cost cutting and enhancing productivity. So, HR people do know numbers and business too!!
Analytics in HR is majorly utilized in developed markets and outsourced by Indian Companies is areas such as healthcare. With many private and public players pitching in, healthcare has evolved a lot during these years. It has become cashless and technologically advanced and dependent. Service sector like this has become heavily dependent on HR which needs to handle its human capital and data carefully. Since services need to be quick, in time and efficient in the need of hour, this is the area HR analytics is trying to establish its forte.
HR with IT infrastructure has set up a platform where hospitals and insurance companies get their data base of clients quickly and can be shared across various hospitals and transferred with history from one centre to another. Also companies get a non-stop healthcare portal where employees can research issues, find providers, make appointments and track insurance claims. The platform goes a one step further with predictive HR analysis. Since the data is quite confidential and insensitive, security measures are kept in place and only right resources at insurance companies can access it and disburse medical claims in a quicker manner.
Now, coming to a very important factor from where we started our discussion today and for which majority of the graduates join B school. Yes, it is ‘Money’. Now coming back to those of people who think marketing, operations or finance streams are Genies from Lamp which generates money. Friends let me take you to another area which I am sure you must be aware of but never gave a serious thought. It is ‘Consulting’.
Gone are the times when HR consultants would just support the organizations for their Hiring and Training and Development needs. Although outsourcing recruitment for bulk hiring, niche areas and leadership hiring still takes a good chunk of the market for small consultancies. Global HR Consultancies are spreading their wings in areas ranging from shared services where leaders are guided to streamline their ideas to innovations, creating new business models, applying new technologies, global business services (GBS), Social Media, mobility, analytics and Cloud (SMAC).
Now is the time when young entrepreneurs are leading the world. Unicorns are coming up, in this era many a times leaders also face leadership crises. HR specialists in specific areas and industry, support and guide leaders at such point of time by advising, organizing for ongoing change, strategic portfolio management, strategic risk management and organization restructuring.
Although now a days the Indian Economy is performing well, but any major global event has its effects on Indian markets as well. Also the closing down of many start ups affect the sentiment of the market and in such a scenario many good performing employees also not perform very efficiently. And absence of good reward system or established incentive structure adds to the problem. HR specialists in workforce reward management come to rescue in such scenarios. By designing effective reward strategy, variable pay or linking pay to performance and targeting the right population for employee engagement helps the organization to come up from gloomy sentiments and also cut costs effectively.
Hence it is not the field of study but the passion to innovate and grow which is inconspicuous. Those who desire to stand out and work for it are the ones who deliver the best results and succeed.
