In 2015, most MNCs in India significantly increased investments in learning and development and performance management compared to the previous years. The investments in all HR functions will continue to increase in 2016 suggesting a positive and upbeat outlook for the industry.
The focus of future HR investments (next 3 to 5 years) will be around workforce competency management, predictive HR analytics and multiplatform employee experience.
To clearly delineate the transactional and strategic responsibilities of HR, increase process efficiencies and talent based business performance; MNCs are re-structuring their HR organisation into a pillared operating model consisting of centres of expertise, shared services and business partners.
Despite this, there is still a gap in how business units view the resulting impact, and the need to clearly articulate this value is accentuated by the dearth of HR Business Partners (HRBPs) in the industry. Given this gap, enterprises are expected not only to hire more HRBPs, but also to increase the capability of their existing teams in planning and executing people policies.
According to findings released by Zinnov, a leading management consulting firm in its report, ‘HR Maturity Assessment’, it provides an in-depth analysis on the current state of the HR industry in India, assess HR capabilities and understand their work portfolio.
The analysis was conducted on over 300+ HR professionals in 20 MNCs across the country, most operating in the Enterprise Software domain and with over 35% HR heads catering to a global role.
The study highlights that, there is a huge disconnect in the perceived state of HR strategy and operations versus the actual state. 55% of the HRs believed that their work was strategic to the organisation while reality is that only 32% of the HRs perform strategic work.
The rest is purely tactical or operational in nature. This disparity in perception also translates to individual HR functions such as talent acquisition, talent development, and talent management where the difference in perceived versus actual work portfolio is significant.
See: HR Managers in India Take a Stance on Hiring Decisions: Only Good Talent or Not Hire at All
Also talent acquisition has matured the most, among the functions commonly seen in the Indian HR industry. Leaders in this function are accountable for hiring for multiple geographies, and have invested in technology such as automation and analytics to reach a stage where they can execute the process end-to-end.
The headway in talent management and talent development, while not at the same level as talent acquisition is significantly boosted by the increased influence and investment to these functions by their global counterparts.
Speaking on the subject, Anand Subramaniam, Delivery Head – G.A.P (Growth Accelerator Platform), Zinnov, said, “With talent wars on the rise, changing workforce demographics and skill development being the need of the hour, the HR function and leaders are at the crossroads of change. India HR has come a long way from its role as a depository for administrative and legal requirements and a functional cost center.
HR organisations in India are diverging into new and more specialized functions. The core of high-impact India HR today is creating more specialists and driving higher value by being closer to business units, i.e. focusing on performance, asset creation and operational efficiency.
In that respect, HR business partners are extremely critical and will become the future workforce planning architects and custodians of key roles within the organisation. The good news is that, the presence of a well-connected network of highly-experienced HR professionals, both within and outside the organisation is enabling best practice sharing on a colossal scale in India.
The future of the HR organisation will be themed around lean, outsourced or crowd sourced. MNCs will metamorph their current organisation structure to a governance council model, which provides opportunity for more cross-functional collaboration, increases ownership and implementation depth for respective HR functions.
The onset of newer HR operating models and reporting structures will lead to the creation of HR roles such as collaboration champions, development consultants, and talent evangelists in the near future.
Also read: What Do Various Workforce Generations in India Seek From an Ideal Compensation Package?
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