Construction Industry: Talent Management Primer

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:

1. Sourcing, attracting and recruiting qualified candidates with competitive backgrounds
2. Managing and defining competitive salaries
3. Learning and development processes
4. Performance management processes
5. Initiated retention programs
6. 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

Find out yourself or perish

Why one needs to assess his or her strengths? Why one needs to identify the core elements that make them tick? Why one needs to identify the negative shades in their lives? Why one needs to identify who they are?

In today's world, which is the true reflection of the phrase "dog-eat-dog", it is important for one to identify and reconnect with oneself. It is critical for one to identify what it is that will make them stand by the winds of change.

With changing times, employers are becoming more and more demanding. They are looking for quality traits in individuals that will stand by the tide of times. They are scanning the intrinsic and extrinsic behavioral patterns and aligning it with their organizational goals. Human capital is so much more important for them.

Uncertain times have challenged the very existence of the strategies, which were sacrosanct for talent acquisition till date. What was OK yesterday is no more Ok with the top management today. They are looking at ways to reduce the incapability and inconsistency burdens in their organization layers. They are looking for true sets. By true sets they are clear about what they need. They are clear about what values the true sets will bring in. They are clear about the receivables and deliverables, and to add they are clear about the time period in which these true sets needs to perform.

My experience shows that well-qualified candidates are always in demand. Today the issue for employers is two-fold (1) having enough qualified candidates and (2) selecting the candidate who best fits both the culture and the specific business situation.

Apart from changing times the cost of selecting the wrong person for the job is potentially devastating for an organization. For example, conservative estimates put the cost of replacing a manager at three to four times that person's annual salary. Multiply those across several instances and you have a huge expense that is mind boggling.

Today’s organizations are facing a market with not enough qualified employees to fill necessary job roles. In order to stay afloat and gain competitive advantage, these companies are becoming and getting prepared for future performance with a “ready now” workforce. Companies no longer view human capital as a commodity but as an asset, and they recognize the criticality of investing in a talent acquisition strategy, as a way to identify, attract and engage high performers.

Organizations are not leaving any stone unturned to negate the wrong identification process. Across the industry, across each and every sector employers are looking for talents that can fit in to their situations and can be able to multitask and perform when times are demanding.

That's why it has become so much more important for one to identify their uniqueness, their strengths, their latent energies and negative shades. It is important for one to identify their strengths and motivations toward work. They need to outline their learning style, communication style, management style and leadership preferences. These are the traits the employers are searching for today.

Whether one is a mid career professional, an executive or else starting their career, it is important for the one to establish, re-establish and hone the skills that will make one tick.

It is important for one to assess oneself and identify the areas that they need to improve upon and areas that can be harnessed for better tomorrow.

However to do this one need to have solution partners who will engage in a one to one model with the individual and will formulate a basic and advance level plan that will help the individual to excel.

Internet offers many tools and solutions online where one can actually fill some forms and can get a basic report about who they are and what they are capable off. But this is highly debatable. These interfaces do not offer the assessors to understand the people in totality. First these assessors are algorithm and number based systems, which are tuned to generate only limited sets of results and it does not verify the other important element like people in actual. The people in actual is lot different from the one online.

For today's demanding talent marketplace one needs to find organization which can offer a blended solution i.e. tests and one to one interactive engagement model to individuals for their assessment needs.

In Kolkata a boutique strategic human resource management company call ILS is doing this to the perfection. They are able to offer individuals with blended results based assessment solutions. They are focused and their consultants have spent quality number of hours doing and perfecting this system.

If you are looking for some thing of this sort, you can possibly get in touch with Kaustav the consulting partner for more details.

The company’s website is http://www.ilsnetwork.org