The construction industry is the second largest industry of the country after agriculture. It makes a significant contribution to the national economy and provides employment to large number of people. The use of various new technologies and deployment of project management strategies has made it possible to undertake projects of mega scale. However, the industry is still faced with some major challenges. The biggest one is the "The human Capital Acquisition, Retention and Development". With the sudden slowdown the churn has been suspended for the time being, however we expect a third homecoming very soon.
The industry will always remain an enigma for the outsiders. It is possibly one of the most capital intensive, human resources intensive and riddled with myth sector in the world. Last few years we have spent quality time in understanding the various nuggets that drives this industry. Our experiences have been varied. With quality information on highway projects, flyovers, hydro power, rapid mass transit systems, Metal and Minining SEZ, Mega housing projects, thermal power, public transport facilities, bridges, cross country pipelines, urban sanitation, sugar plant, chemical plant etc and an understanding of the inside ring view of how these projects are tendered, planned, how costing happens along with allocation of manpower and machineries and at the end the execution I think we are now qualified to offer our insight’s on what drives this industry.
I and my colleagues will agree that it's the human capital that makes all the difference. India post liberalization has neglected the infrastructure industry to the hilt and was more focused on the services sector (I am from the same industry. It employed even the cows, which trespassed the facilities once. Incidentally some of the cows I know have made big for themselves), however the shift gradually happened some time in the mid 2000, when people woke up to this opportunity. They could see a gold mine that has been neglected for long. This ushered in the frenzy where every one started building one project after another and started committing money that was unheard of. The EPC (contractors) were the one's who ripped the benefits of this frenzy. From mere few hundred Crores suddenly they are close to a billion dollars companies with 10,000+ manpower and order books which were close to Lakhs of Crores for some I know.
However as I have said that services industry rode the maximum of the bike call liberalization, it created a void. There were times when the civil engineers made beelines in front of the services company's to get a job, which created demand supply gap and the industry remained stranded with only few choices for years. With the peak one could see the crunch. The industry was not equipped to supply so much of talent and the one’s who were part of the industry made big for themselves by switching jobs or else participated in poaching and then switching and re-switching. The industry as it was in its infancy when the peak happened suddenly crumbled under the pressure.
I know company's who are in existence for 80 plus years but had no HR departments till some years ago; the administration was the one who were saddled with the responsibilities of maintaining the HR stuffs. So Provident Fund, ESI and other statutory obligations suddenly became the part of talent management. This was a big body blow for the industry, till people woke up to the challenges and started building the department. Most of which were Greenfield and with no focus and with the absence of right strategy these departments and professionals were asked to do only recruitment, which boiled down to searching, poaching and re-searching the limited sets again and again, which resulted in a bigger chaos.
When we started our talent management and talent assessment practice couple of years back, we were startled with the revelations we had about the industry. The HR practices were minimal and the only focus was to hire, hire and hire. With no standardization in terms of compensation, acquisition, retention and development, what we faced was an 800 pound of gorilla ignorance and myth about HR as a whole.
Our work with one of the nation's largest infrastructure company has cultivated some fruits today as we could identify the rot layers, standardized certain practices and enabled management of retention with learning and development.
Let me share some pointers about what we have learnt and what we have delivered:
- OLD GAURD: HR is all about finding the people when it is needed.
Change: It's much more than that. It is about identifying the right capital at the right time, retain and develop the people.
- OLD GAURD: Hire any one
Change: Hire the right one
- OLD GAURD: HR is a cost center
Change: HR is a profit center
- OLD GAURD: It drains people out because of constant fear of getting sacked or replaced
Change: It is about people and it ends there.
- OLD GAURD: HR cannot identify rot. Cannot do competency mapping. Have no clue about the workings and the technicalities
Change: It can identify the rot, can assess people of their capabilities and can save millions if pressed right
- OLD GAURD: Do it for ISO and other mandatory regulations
Change: If you don't practice, you perish
- OLD GAURD: Admin and HR is same
- Change: Thank you the systems are different
Talent management in the company’s we serve is no longer a step child of ignominy. The top management acknowledges the same and we have many points to prove on that count.
Last couple of years we have been able to save lot of direct and indirect costs. We are hopeful that another couple of years we will be able to provide more gains to the company’s we work with and the industry as a whole.
Companies we work with today are focussed on developing their talent's. They have put insustainable practices for:
- Sourcing, attracting and recruiting qualified candidates with competitive backgrounds
- Managing and defining competitive salaries
- Learning and development processes
- Performance management processes
- Initiated retention programs
- Structured their promotion and transitioning strategies
To know more you can mail the Infrastructure practice department of ILS or can speak to a lead consultants.
Website: http://www.ilsnetwork.org
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