Hiring it Right

The pace of transformation for Indian telcos is unprecedented or unparallel to any near historical example from western world where a similar transformation spanned for many more years.

To adapt to the challenges of the sector, Aircel has found a strategy that has a dual focus; hiring right talent and investing in growing talent from within; that has proved to be the most beneficial.

Today, it is imperative for an HR leader to align strategies to organization's priorities that contribute significantly to an organization's health, productivity, and capacity to innovate; it is systematically linked to the strategic needs of the organization and aims to improve the effective and productive contribution of individuals that consequently maximize business results.

At Aircel, the year gone by was full of challenges and required a strategic transformation. Consequently, we became the change agent and the strategic partner to the business towards the implementation of the transformational needs. We had been instrumental during the recent organization restructuring where the key skills and competencies were realigned to meet the business objectives.

The key objectives of the restructuring were to empower the strategic business units, create an effective span of control to ensure more ownership and accountability on key activities and more importantly maximize tooth to tail ratio in marketplace to be more market/ customer driven organization.

We introduced the concept of Tskilling where the role profiles were created with dual responsibility in order to improve span of control and remove layers with minimum value add.

The Stumbling Blocks

The biggest challenge was to invert the pyramid to have focus on the front line. Similarly, it was inevitable to have the feel of business imbedded among employees group as we realized our challenges, complexities, and need to align to basics were unique for our business.

In this situation, Aircel Academy has proved its credence by growing champions within the organization. We ought to build leadership capabilities from within at a pace complementing the business needs, which otherwise could prove to be an ordeal for us, considering market dynamic and our growth plans. We commend the programs conducted by the Academy in partnership with Universities like Harvard and Duke, which have given many seconds-in-command for the organization and are ready to take on higher responsibilities.

The retention of key talent is a stiff challenge; albeit, we have been instrumental in retaining talent by innovative critical retention plans which are backed by a transparent performance measurement systems and an embedded culture that transpires desire to excel and experiment within each Aircel employee.

Our HR business partners are the strategic advisors to the operations teams thus act as a catalyst for continued business performance and excellence. Their prime focus is to understand the business and deliver according to the needs by ensuring that HR strategies and plans are translated into concrete actions and tangible results. Programs like job rotation, cross functional teams, Ideation groups and various other learning and individual professional development opportunities serve as a supper for intellectual engagement of employees and help them connect with the organization.

The employee benefits, work life balance, Open Door Policy, etc are some more motivators for employees at Aircel. The culture of the organization adds to the overall optimistic attitude with in employees.

During the overall appraisal and increment process for the year 2012, we ensured a complete transparent performance appraisal process and substantially recognized and rewarded the performances within the given budget.

This year, we have also rewarded the employees for their loyalty (long service increment) to Aircel along with considering the factors; Grade Wise Increment Matrix for unbiased and uniform distribution of increment and median correction for high performers.

The year 2013 Company Wide One Goal is linked with an innovative performance linked scheme that gives an opportunity to the employees to earn multi-fold, thereby achieve the organizational goal.