MANTHAN – AN INTRODUCTION

Manthan – the mythological churning of the ocean was essentially a quest for ‘Amrit’ – the nectar of immortality. Amrit is said to be a mixture of 5 elements, namely, Avadoha, Deva, Madhu, Dadhegegena, Pipayata and Tamara. Manthan, by its very name, therefore, is symbolic of the effort expended in the quest for the ultimate elixir. The effort of the students of the Personnel Management and Industrial Relations batch of the Tata institute of Social Sciences was to realise this symbolism in the intellectual sphere through Manthan-2005, a business seminar. The purpose of this annual business seminar this year was thus, to clear some amount of ambiguity surrounding the new roles of HR, answers some questions and raise some others that will stimulate new thinking in the field, thereby enabling HR to in effect achieve what was termed ‘sustained value creation’.

To facilitate this process, the sessions at Manthan-2005 had been planned, in alignment with a central theme. The theme was “New Age HR – Enabling Sustained Value Creation in Organizations” while the sessions were “Role of HR – An internal Customer Perspective”, “Employer Branding – A Value Proposition”, “Leveraging new Technology – Application and Issues” and “Quantifying HR – What gets Measured gets Done”. These were those aspects in HR that the students perceived as being the greatest challenges, at least in the immediate future covering respectively, the domains of Positioning, People, Process Facilitation and Practise Evaluation. The reason behind the selection of such a theme and such sessions was the fact that today HR as a body of knowledge has become diverse, complex and fluid, that is, it is constantly evolving. The theory of HR, be it concepts such as HRM or HRD, has evolved extensively over the last decade. Literature on HR has become easily available and widely read. Certain works such as the ‘HR Champions’ by Dave Ulrich have virtually gained the status of a cult. HR has come to be regarded as the greatest resource in any organization and every organization would like to see itself, and be seen as, one that values HR. Therefore, at a time when organizations have begun valuing HR, can HR reciprocate by creating value for the organization? And if it succeeds in such value creation, can it ensure that the success is sustained over the long term with incremental value?

Manthan – 2005 was held at the Leela Kempinski, Mumbai, on the 29th and 30th of September 2005. The seminar served as a forum for interaction between members of the corporate world, academicians, and students, debating and discussing whether the current hype about HR and its integration with business is just a passing phase or a deserved recognition.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

The keynote address was delivered by Mr. Arun Maira, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group. He gave a fresh perspective on the oft-debated topic of whether the teeming millions of India would present a threat or leverage economic potential. More importantly, whether the country can adopt a development model where every single citizen of these teeming millions can find a rightful place in both the society and the economy. He drew an analogy between the engines of the industrial versus knowledge economies, where the fuel for the former was coal and petroleum while for the latter is people. Throwing light on the perceptions of brain drain, Mr. Maira also suggested how technology has actually helped India export its services, without exporting its people. Despite our strength in numbers however, what is important in case of population, as in the case of fuel, is quality and accessibility.

Mr. Maira emphasised ‘scenario thinking’ where people are involved in scanning the environment and understanding how the future will unfold given the present scenario. This would enable people to be in a situation to change the future for a better. He explained four different scenarios wherein development can take place. The ideal is where every Indian is a leader, where each individual is his own light and has command over himself and his environment in whatever little capacity possible. With local leadership, social entrepreneurship, and this model of development, we would be able to realise sustainable and equitable growth in the country.

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SESSION I: QUANTIFYING HR – WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS DONE This session was delivered by Mr. Awdhesh Krishna, VP-HR, GE Capital. He spoke about how metrics will play a pivotal role in defining the future of HR by showing the value of human capital. There is a need to measure and to apply measurement to strategic analysis and decision-making. By showing the value of assets as return on investment, HR metrics becomes the key to advancing the HR profession and creating value for business. The crux of this ‘metricization’ is to look at it from the customer’s span and do away with the multiplicity in the definitions of various HR processes. GE Capital is an excellent example that HR will get a face-lift if there is quantification, for it will provide clarity and focus of purpose, pride and improved morale as HR professionals also know what is expected from them and how well their service has been received. As a word of caution however, is the thought that quantification cannot and must not be used just for its own sake.

SESSION II: EMPLOYER BRANDING – A VALUE PROPOSITION

This session, delivered by Prasanjeet Bhattacharya from Grow Talent, traced the meaning of the term ‘Brand’, the different facet it acquired when used in the term ‘Employer Brand’ and the components and processes of the latter. The most important idea put forth was the fact that brand as such and employer brand in particular are both intangible assets. A brand is a perception built over time that reflects an expectation and a commitment. The brand may relate to just products or extend to several stakeholders including the employees, which brings us to the concept of an employer brand. Building the employer brand revolves around both recruitment and retention of employees in the organisation, is a targeted process and reflected in the actions of the employer. Various factors may affect an employer brand’s architecture and these influences (which vary from organization to organization) must be recognised for successful brand building.

SESSION III: ROLE OF HR – AN INTERNAL CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE

Some industry commentators call the HR function the last bastion of bureaucracy. They are not exactly to be blamed. Traditionally, the HR department focussed predominantly on basic administration, record keeping and transactional duties. Delivered by Ms. Madhuri Puri Bhuj, Head – Product and Technology, ICICI Bank, this session thus, underlined the need for HR to align itself to the business. If this is not done, line managers run HR the way they wan to, thus reducing the role of HR to an administrative function. With careful attention to forging an identity, the HR Department can learn to provide what the internal and external customers expect. Within such an environment, the HR professional is considered necessary by line managers, is a strategic partner, an employee sponsor and a change champion.

SESSION IV: LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY – APPLICATIONS AND ISSUES IN HR

This session was jointly delivered by Mr. Shovon Mukherjee and Ms. Neelam Malhotra from IBM PeopleSoft. The session dealt with how given the modern world, globalisation and market-focus, there are various pressures on the HR function in any organisation. With the growing mismatch between employers and employees, several stages in the HR journey have come into being. That is, HR in a company may be at the level of administration and compliance or at a higher level of HR Leadership. Thus, for the various roles HR has to play, one may envisage different functions and corresponding technologies. They illustrated this significance of technology usage through examples of organisations including IBM wherein different IT solutions including employee portals offer different value propositions. Thus any organisation must consider two parameters before selecting the type and extent of technology they intend to use, which are, the ease of implementation of that technology and its value which in turn to lead to the birth of what could be called e-HR.

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KHOJ: This was the corporate paper presentation, for which Manthan-2005 received a most enthusiastic response from those in the corporate world. The evaluation of the papers had been carried out by a panel of well-qualified judges prior to the actual event of Manthan. The winner of Khoj, Mr. Harsh Biyani, of Edelweiss Capital presented his prize-winning paper to the delegates present at Manthan. The theme was ‘Success across Time Frames – Moving towards a healthy organization’ and using experience from various organisations, Mr. Biyani proceeded to identifying the important factors for a healthy organisation as recruitment and retention, brand image programs and feedback systems.

KAUSTUBHAM:

This was the student paper presentation that received an overwhelming response of 90 entries from student teams across the country. The final four short-listed teams from TISS, SCMHRD, IIT-Mumbai, and NMIMS presented their papers at the Manthan forum of delegates and were judged by a panel of four judges. After the presentations on the topic “What is the Business of Business? Is it Business or is it not just Business?” and answering the questions of the judges and the delegates, the prizes for the papers were declared, the first of which went to the team from NMIMS. BUSINESS QUIZ:

Parnov Mukherjee, the quiz got the attention of not just the participating teams but also the audience for a full two hours throwing light on several new facts from the corporate world.