On the occasion the corporate leader likes Mr. Manjit Singh Lakhmana, Head-HR, India, Bank of America and 
Mr. Abhijit Bhaduri, Head-HR, FritoLay India addressed the people issues of ‘Making M&As Work’ while four corporate leader Ronesh Puri, MD, Executive Access India Ltd.; Mr Sushil Baveja, Head-Corporate HR at DCM Shriram Consolidated Limited (DSCL); Rahul Gangal, Senior Manager TAS – Tata Administrative Service; and Mrs. Celine George, VP HR, Technopak spoke on the issue of ‘Managing Talent.’
Delivering his inaugural speech, IIFT Director Mr KT Chacko said, “Nature of Indian business is changing from low value addition businesses to high value addition businesses. Hence, the demand for human resources is continuously increasing -- but it is of different nature. To add value to the organizations there is need of much higher capacity, skills and caliber.”
While introducing the issue of making M&A work Dr Munish Bhargav, panel moderator and corporate relations advisor at IIFT, said, “In today’s business environment with privatization, liberalization and globalization, companies use M&A as a strategy for growth and consolidation. M&A increases the challenges for HR managers because of consolidation of two different organizations having different culture.”
Cultural diversity is the biggest challenge for organizations during M&A. Recounting his experience in various companies, Mr Manjit Singh, said, “There is lot of cultural gap during M&A because of diversity in culture and this diversity dominate the organizational culture.” Further, comparing M&A with marriage Mr Manjit singh said, “M&A is like marriage of two already married people who have children. In that case feeling of insecurity among children about their position at family is obvious. Likewise there can be anxiousness in employees about their job, future, compensation performance and many more issues.”
Mr Abhijit Bhaduri opined that M&A is not a problem if there is an understanding of culture of the two merging companies. Said Abhijit Bhaduri, “Acquisitions are easy provided we understand each others culture. Culture can be seen from everything that an organization does: the way people meet, discuss, and conduct business. M&A is both opportunity and challenge. The biggest challenge during M&A is to how to fit in, sustain and integrate.”
Here ‘Integration manager’ play a very important role. Commenting on the role of integration manager, Mr Manjit Singh said, “Integration manager works to ensure a smooth transition. He keeps in touch with the employees and quickly standardize processes and structure so that there are no difference and confusion in the organization.”
Noticing the fact of increasing attrition rate in India and the changing role of HR, the next issues which was discussed was ‘Managing Talent’. Attrition level has increase by 7-8% according to Mr Ronesh Puri. Further he said, “This is a employees market, which means market is in favour of the talent. But why there is shortage of talent? The reason is company hire and look for attitude, right frame of mind and how fast can one deliver the result. So the biggest change in front of student is to learn right attitude.”
Sharing her views on the issue of talent management, Mrs Celine said, “To retain the talent companies need to value the talent because talent goes to where the it is valued. There should be mutual respect between employer and employees.” Further emphasizing on the need to learn new skills she said, “There are some skills which are important to learn in today’s context. They include networking, working with distant teams and building collaborative and productive relationship.”
Mr Rahul Gangal, highlighted the massive demand for trained talent and how India has an advantage over aging China. He also said that corporates should to look at non-English speaking talent pool which is 3 times bigger than English speaking pool.
Mr Susheel Baveja which sharing his experiences said, “Attracting, retaining and engaging talent is the biggest challenge in front of organizations. For this organizations need to deal with innovative approaches. At my company DSCL we engage the entire family, not just the employee.”
The HR Conclave 2007 is one of the series of events to be organized by IIFT this year. MBAUniverse.com is the media partner of IIFT Conclaves for 2007. Stay tuned to read the highlights from the Conclaves on MBAUniverse.com, India’s most comprehensive management portal.
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