High Expansion IT Industry Business Essay

According to one estimate India produces 500,000 engineers every year when the market needs 250,000. So there should be plenty, however, because only one in five of them are employable, India actually has a shortfall of 150,000 engineers. Hiring a right talent from the pool of manpower both at entrance level and lateral level is a challenge. The companies have developed ways and means to attract the right talent.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:

The research will highlight the significance of “Recruitment & Selection” in high expansion IT Industry

The research aims to signify the importance to resourcing the right applicant which will act as profit making unit for an organizational growth.

SCOPE OF THE WORK:

A demographically young India will be the largest contributor to the global labour force in the coming decades, and will add about 110 million workers by 2020, a study by Goldman Sachs said.

The study said that India’s labour force is expanding at a time when many other countries are facing “ageing-related issues” (older populations) and shrinking workforce.

India’s workforce growth, it added, will be driven by people in their 30s and 40s, urbanisation, and rise in number of working women.

“India will likely provide the largest increase to the global labour force over the next few decades. Our projections suggest that its labour force may rise by 110 million this decade,” said the study, India’s Rising Labour Force.

“Our projections take into account increases to the labour force participation rate due to a favourable age structure. Thus, our labour force projections are higher than those of the ILO (80 million),” it added.

The study said that nearly half of the increase in the labour force in the next 20 years will come from the “thorites” (people in their 30s and 40s) age group, which tends to be the peak years for earnings, savings and productivity.

Besides, increasing urbanisation and a large number of women potentially entering the workforce will stoke the trend, it added.” We estimate that an additional 290 million Indians may urbanize by 2030, and a staggering 640 million by 2050,” the study said.

However, it added that to be able to absorb such a large labour force, especially one that will move from agriculture into industry and services, the Indian industry would need to create 40 million jobs over the next decade.

It also cautioned that to be able to reap dividends from favourable demographics, India will have to overhaul its labour laws that restrict hire-and-fire policies and invest heavily in education and skills training.

It said that with the right policies in place, demographics alone may contribute to about 4 percentage points of the annual GDP growth for the next two decades.

“If India gets its policies towards demographics wrong, it could potentially lose annually about 1.5 percentage points from our base case of 8 per cent plus GDP growth till 2020,” the study warned.

“On the other hand, `good’ policies could push potential annual GDP growth to well above 9 per cent over the next decade,” it added.

Spurred by such favourable demographics and economic growth, the study predicts that there would be a rise in demand for risky assets. It said the share of equities in household savings could double from 5 per cent today to 10 per cent in 2020, with annual inflows into them rising six times by then, compared to a 2.5-fold increase in bank deposits.

As for consumption patterns, the study said that spending on health and education may increase five-fold in 10 years, compared to 2.5 times on food and beverages. Similarly, demand for autos and transportation as well as housing and appliances may also increase due to the overall rise in spending.

On the downside, the study stated that such a large workforce will increase demand for commodities at a time when resources are stretched and environment issues have become dominant.

METHODOLOGY:

Mode of data collection or generation- My thesis consist of combination of Primary ,secondary and qualitative data .

Primary Data

The primary data consisted of questionnaires:

The questionnaires will have both open ended and close ended questions.Through telephonic interviews. Face- to-Face interviews – which will really help me to have a clear understanding of my research work.

Secondary data

Related websites of various companies, study material provided to me by my guide ,books etc

JUSTIFICATION FOR CHOOSING THE PROPOSAL:

India is a preferred destination for companies looking to offshore their IT and back-office functions. It also retains its low-cost advantage and is a financially attractive location when viewed in combination with the business environment it offers and the availability of skilled people.

With the first quarter of the new fiscal 2011-12 offering positive business outlook, hiring sentiments for sectors like IT, ITeS and telecom have risen by over 20 per cent, says a study by TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd. As per the Employment Outlook Report for the period April-June 2011, released by TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd., hiring intent from IT and ITeS was the highest in cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.

India’s top technology firms like TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL are readying plans to gain a bigger share of their largest market, US, by aggressively chasing contracts being served by multinational rivals. Analysts expect the top IT firms to grow between 23-27 per cent in the FY2012 on the back of more number of discretionary projects, improved pricing, and robust business volumes.

Poised to become a US$ 225 billion industry by 2020, the Indian information technology (IT) industry has played a key role in putting India on the global map. The IT-BPO sector has become one of the most significant growth catalysts for the Indian economy. In addition to fuelling India’s economy, this industry is also positively influencing the lives of its people through an active direct and indirect contribution to various socio-economic parameters such as employment, standard of living and diversity. The industry has played a significant role in transforming India’s image from a slow moving bureaucratic economy to a land of innovative entrepreneurs and a global player in providing world class technology solutions and business services, according to National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM).

The sector is estimated to have grown by 19 per cent in the FY2011, clocking revenue of almost US$ 76 billion. India’s outsourcing industry has witnessed a rebound and registered better than expected growth according to NASSCOM.

ABSTRACT

HCL Technologies Ltd. (BSE: 532281, NSE: HCLTECH) is a global IT Services company headquartered in Noida, India. The company is led by its Vice Chairman and CEO Vineet Nayar. It is the IT services arm of HCL Enterprise, a US$6.0 billion global Technology and IT Enterprise. HCL Technologies is fourth largest IT company in India and is ranked 48 in the global list of IT services providers.[1] HCL Technologies, along with its subsidiaries, had consolidated revenues of US$3.5 billion, as on 30 June 2011, and employs more than 85,000 people of diverse nationalities. HCL Technologies has global network of offices in 26 countries. The company is listed on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange of India.

HCL provides services across SIX Business Lines –

Engineering and R&D Services (ERS) – offering services in Hardware, Embedded, Mechanical and Software Product Engineering.

Enterprise Transformation Services (ETS) – offering services in the areas of Process Transformation, Data Management, Integration Services, Architecture Services, Disruptive Technology Services, IT Strategy, and Change Management.

Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) – division of HCL Technologies Limited has delivery offices across India, UK and USA.[3]

Custom Application Services, – includes customized IT Applications development, support & maintenance.

IT Infrastructure Management – focuses on End User Computing Services, Data Center Services, Cross Functional Services, Enterprise Network Services, Security Services, Integrated Operation Management, and Mainframe & AS400 Services.

Enterprise Application Services (EAS) – focuses on areas like in ERP, SCM, CRM, HCM, EPM, BI and Middleware. This group is now part of HCL AXON, subsidiary of HCL Technologies, formed after HCL Tech acquired Axon Group plc for £440m cash offer in 2008

Industries

HCL serves a broad range of industries including Financial Services, Education, Hi-tech & Manufacturing, Aerospace & Defense, Telecom, Retail & CPG, Life Sciences, Healthcare, Media & Entertainment, Travel, Transportation & Logistics, Automotive, Government, Energy & Utilities.

Management Philosophy

In 2005, HCL Technologies commenced on an internal management transformation program. Vineet Nayar, President in 2005, introduced a new working model & philosophy ‘Employees First’, making employees at the center of the change in the organization. The philosophy recognizes employees as strategic elements of an organization. It democratizes the company’s functions and its way of working. Today, this unique management philosophy has been recognized and praised worldwide for empowering employees to become the drivers of growth.

The philosophy has been the subject of a Harvard Business School case study and have prompted Fortune magazine to characterize the company under his leadership as having “the world’s most modern management.” HCL has been cited by BusinessWeek as one of five “most influential emerging companies,” and it was named Best Employer in India by the global human resources services company Hewitt Associates.

Recently, HCL ws announced as one of the most Democratic Workplaces by WorldBlu.

Acquisitions and joint ventures

The company acquired Capitalstream, a US BFSI product company for US$40 million in February 2008. Capitalstream’s FinanceCenter product is an addition to HCL’s current product addressing the BFSI market – Penstock, the product that HCL launched in 2007.

On 15 December 2008, HCLT acquired the UK based AXON Group for US$658 million, which was renamed HCL Axon

HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company, working with clients in the areas that impact and redefine the core of their businesses. Since its inception into the global landscape after its IPO in 1999, HCL focuses on ‘transformational outsourcing’, underlined by innovation and value creation, and offers integrated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D services and BPO. HCL leverages its extensive global offshore infrastructure and network of offices in 26 countries to provide holistic, multi-service delivery in key industry verticals including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Consumer Services, Public Services and Healthcare. HCL takes pride in its philosophy of ‘Employees First, Customers Second’ which empowers our 77,046 transformers to create a real value for the customers. HCL Technologies, along with its subsidiaries, had consolidated revenues of US$ 3.5 billion (Rs. 16,034 crores), as on 30 June 2011 (on LTM basis). For more information, please visit http://www.hcltech.com

Specialties

Manufacturing, Aerospace & Defense, Financial Services, Telecom, Retail & CPG, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Media & Entertainment, Travel, Transportation & Logistics, Automotive, Government, Energy & Utilities, Consumer Electronics, Healthcare

INTRODUCTION

The key differentiating factor in today competitive environment is its people. Thus it is important to hire right people who fit in their organization and leverage their strengths as well as develop them on areas where there are gaps not only to become future leaders but also to become successful in their jobs, in the current career stage. For greater productivity enhancements, the organizations need to pay attention to their human asset, instead of just enabling change to take place, this is the major challenges faced by organization today.

Coping with the Demand-Supply Gap

Shortage of IT professionals is global in nature and not peculiar to the Indian software industry alone. W. Strigel, founder of Software Productivity Centre Inc. (1999) has projected the shortage of software professionals to be one million by 2006. In fact, a survey reports that 75 per cent of US companies planned to reengineer their applications using newer technologies, but found that 72 per cent of their existing staff lacked the skills needed in these technologies, and 14 per cent were not even re-trainable.

For India, it is predicted that in the year 2004 itself, the IT sector will need 1,95,000 professionals. This trend will continue, and in the year 2010 almost 3,70,000 IT professionals will be required (Strategic Review Reports, NASSCOM 1996-2001). Consequently, recruitment managers are exploring new sources of IT manpower from non-IT professional sectors, as well fresh, trainable science graduates.

Being the best place to work with

As with any other professional, what really matters to software professionals is selecting ‘the best place to work with’ which is what every company is striving to be. The global nature of this industry and the ‘project-environment’ (as opposed to product environment) has added new cultural dimensions to these firms. In a value-driven culture, values are determined and shared throughout the organization. Typically, areas in which values are expressed are: performance, competence, competitiveness, innovation, teamwork, quality, customer service, and care and consideration for people. Flat structure, open and informal culture, authority based on expertise and ability rather than position, and flexi-timings are some of the norms software firms follow. The idea is to make the work place a ‘fun place’ with the hope of increasing loyalty and commitment.

Integrating HR strategy with Business Strategy

The strategic HR role focuses on aligning HR practices with business strategy. The HR professional is expected to be a strategic partner contributing to the success of business plans, which to a great extent depend on HR policies pertaining to recruitment, retention, motivation, and reward. The other major areas of concern for HR personnel in this context are, management of change, matching resources to future business requirements, organizational effectiveness, and employee development

LITERATURE REVIEW

HCL Technologies, India’s fourth largest information technologies services company, with the revenue crossing $6 billion. HCL has posted a growth of 51% in the profit. In the last one year it has posted a better volume growth then TCS and Infosys. This is all because HCL is working very aggressively. Its all geographies and verticals have shown positive growth in the last one year. Apart from US and Europe, Asia market is growing very fast. HCL adopts different strategy for different Markets as demand is not consistent in all geographies. HCL has a employee strength of 77000 across the world. HCL has stepped up efforts to expand service offering across emerging markets. This expansion plan includes investment in human resource on new markets such as Asia Pacific, Latin America and Africa.

Given the pace of industry growth and its dependency on headcount, attracting, retaining and motivating talent is the top challenge for the industry. The traditional approach viewed employees as commodities and placed emphasis deploying entry-level talent and a factory-like approach for project execution. There were no unique engagement strategies centered on the employee.

HCL realized that the key to customer satisfaction was with the employee. Today, in an industry like software, which is knowledge intensive and relies heavily on manpower, this has become a powerful strategy. ‘Employees First’ – a pioneering strategy envisaged by HCL places the needs of employees before the needs of customers and has provoked a sea-change at the company level, and, in turn, greater customer loyalty, better engagements and higher revenues.

‘Employees First’ is an employee focused program that gives people whatever they need to succeed – be it space to grow, time to think or tools to use. Its about maximizing personal potential rather than monitoring professional performance.

HCL’s enlightened approach to employee development also focuses on giving people whatever they need to succeed: be it a virtual assistant or talent transformation sabbaticals; expert guidance or fast track growth; inner peace or democratic empowerment. ‘Employees First’ is a five fold path to individual enlightenment. This ensures that people are given Support, Knowledge, Recognition, Empowerment, and Transformation.

‘Employees First’ is gaining world wide recognition – It is now a case study at the Harvard Business School.

ORGANISATION STRUCTURE IN HCL

Below is the structure that is adopted in HCL, starting from the entry level.

Band

Sub-band

Designation

E1.1

Associate Consultant

E1.2

Consultant

E2.1

Sr Consultant

E2.2

Lead Consultant

E3.1

Project Manager

E3.2

Sr Project Manager

E4.1

Group Project Manager

E4.2

AGM

E5.1

DGM

E5.2

E6.1

Associate Director

E6.2

Global Director

E7.1

AVP

E7.2

RECRUITMENT & SELECTION PROCESS IN HCL

HCL has divided its recruitment process in broadly 3 categories. There are in all three departments which are functional in attracting talent, on boarding and finally absorbing them in the project. The teams are:

TPG Team: This is talent planning group. This group is responsible for placing the candidate in project and making them billable.

TAG Team: This is talent acquisition group. The primary function of the group is to invite application, conduct interviews, negotiate salary and offer the candidates.

EHS Team: This team is the responsible for on boarding of the new employee. They are responsible for completing the joining formalities.

HCL is a process driven organization and to manage and acquire the workforce across the world, the requirement has to be consolidated on the single portal. The requirement is uploaded by Sales team/Account Managers/Project Mangers in a system/portal called GRA (Global Resource Activity). TPG team has the access of this portal through which the activity of the entire resource such as billable, bench, resigned and on leaves candidates in all the projects can be tracked. This portal also shows the shortfall of resource in the ongoing project also the new requirement. GRA also serves as the platform to track the activity of the resource, their billability and their release date.

Once the requirement is published on the GRA portal the TPG team evaluates the requirement and if there is internal resource available it proposes the same. If the resource gets selected the requirement gets closed in GRA. In case of non availability of resource the requirements gets transferred to TAG team.

Recruitment Process In HCL Technologies:

Requirement after validation from TPG (Talent planning group)gets transferred to Recruitment Manager.

Position gets distributed in the team.

Executive generates profile.

Short listing of CV/profiles

Initial HR discussion by recruitment executive to validate the experience, communication skill, availability, notice period and salary discussion.

Technical discussion.

HR discussion, this mainly involves negotiation on salary and designation.

Offer letter released.

On boarding and handholding of the candidate from TAG to the TPG team.

Responsibilities of TAG Team:

Campus Recruitments

Some of the brightest minds from the elite engineering and graduate colleges from around the world join HCL every year. It is their continuous effort to build an organization where innovative methods of doing business and redefining customer satisfaction are a way of life. They believe in tapping the best talent from across campuses and molding them into future leaders.

And that is evident from the large number of business unit heads and members of their senior management who were all campus hires. In fact, their CEO Vineet Nayar was also a campus hire.

HCL hold campus recruitments in various campuses across the country, and share a long association with some of the most prestigious institutes/colleges/ universities.

Campus hiring in India: Throughout the country, HCL is associated with the best colleges – hiring fresh graduates, engineers as well as the crème de la crème from business schools, and has been hiring the brightest minds in to the organization. HCL is constantly on the lookout for students that, they feel, have what it takes to stand out from the crowd and lead HCL into a bright future.

Global Campus hiring: With a presence in 31 countries and 80,000 people, HCL is a global giant in the true sense. They have been hiring from elite institutions across geographies, and are building a team that is driving them forward on to new heights.

Internship Programs: HCL have instituted an Internship Program in Singapore, through which they recruit skilled lateral and fresh talent from universities in Singapore to perform surveys/benchmarks/POCs across platforms and industry domains for their global and regional customers. True to their commitment to engage with the best and the brightest in every field, these are proposals for a mutually beneficial professional alliance.

Through this Internship Program, they offer select students the professional experience of a lifetime. From an enviable work environment to innumerable learning opportunities, and the chance to work directly with eminent global clients – this internship program will acclimatize students with the corporate world and offer a first-hand glimpse of life at HCL.

There is a centralized TAG team which specializes in campus recruitment. The request from across the LOB is collated and shared with the campus hiring team. This data is shared well before the time. The team is now responsible for deciding the type of college, location etc and visits to various campuses to acquire these talents.

The criteria for hiring at campus level are aptitude, subject knowledge, communication skills and no location constraint. HCL has offices across India and abroad, preference is given to candidates who are open to relocation anywhere.

Lateral Hiring: HCL follows the model of 80:20. Fresher becomes the part of 20% of the whole project the remaining 80 percent fulfillment is done with the help of lateral hiring.

Lateral hiring fulfillment is done in the following manner.

Profile Generation:

The first objective of TAG team is to invite application from the candidates. Below is the various ways to invite the application:

Advertisement (Paper/Job Portals)

Referral

Job portal

External Agencies

RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing)

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO)

HCL is in the process of outsourcing entire process of recruitment. A contract is signed between the RPO and HCL and work order is given for fulfillment of specific number of position in specified timeline. The outsourcing firm helps the organization by the initial screening of the candidates according to the needs of the organization and creating a suitable pool of talent for the final selection by the organization. This practice helps the organization in reducing time and costs in recruitment

RPO is gaining momentum in HCL across the world. It is the recruitment model in Malaysia and the pilot project was executed successfully in India. RPO was used in a project called P400 and it was successfully executed.

Profile Screening

Once the TAG team gets CV/application for the open roles the recruitment executive screens the profile. The initial level of contact is established with the shortlisted profile and further screening is done to evaluate the candidate on his experience, salary, willingness to travel, and communication skill. If the executive shortlists the candidate, the candidate is scheduled for first round of technical discussion.

Technical Interview

There are two rounds of technical interviews which are being conducted by the technical panel. Once the candidate clears both the round of interviews, he is moved to the HR discussion. The 2nd round of discussion focuses on fitment and the panel is responsible for recommending designation to the candidate. In HCL the designation is decided by the delivery.

Technical panel: A certified list of technical panel is being created. This list is formed with the consultation between LOB (Line of Business) Head, HR Manager and Recruitment Manager. Only the certified consultants are responsible for taking interviews. This list involves employees above E3 (Project Manager) Level.

HR Discussion.

This round mainly focuses on salary discussion, cultural fitment, attitude etc. This is being done by the recruitment executive. The salary to be offered is decided by the salary grid which is updated every year by conducting survey in the market. This survey is being outsourced to HEWITT ASSOCIATES. The salary grid has four ranges and depending on the recommendation and experience the recruitment executive offers the salary.

Once the salary is accepted the offer is released. HCL shares on on-line offer letter. No hard copy is shared with the offered candidate.

THE RESEARCH PROCESS

It includes following steps-

1. Defining the research problem & research objective:

The definition of the research problem includes the study of the topic “Recruitment and Selection in IT industry-A STUDY IN RELATION TO HCL Technologies Ltd.”

2. Developing the research plan:

Second stage for developing the research plan calls for gathering the Information.

It consists of –

ô€‚™ Data sources:

The researcher can gather primary data, secondary data or both. Primary data are data freshly gathered for specific purpose or for a specific research project.

Secondary are data that were collected for another purpose and already exist somewhere.

ô€€¹ Research Approaches:

Primary data can be collected in five ways:

1) Through observation:

Fresh data can be gathered by observing the relevant actors and settings.

2) Focus group research:

Focus group research is a gathering of six to ten people who are invited to spend a few hours with a skilled moderator to discuss a project.

3)Survey research:

Surveys are best suited for descriptive research. Surveys are used to learn about people knowledge, beliefs, preferences and satisfaction.

4) Behavioural data:

Customers leave traces of their purchase behaviour in store scanning data, catalog purchase and customer database. Much can be learned by analyzing these data.

5) Experimental research:

The purpose of experimental research is to capture cause & affect relationship by eliminating competing explanations of the observed findings.

ô€€¹ Research Instruments:

Three main instruments used in collecting primary data are

1. Questionnaires:

A questionnaire consist of a set of questions presented to respondents.

Questionnaire needs to be carefully developed, tested and debugged before they are administered on large scale.

2. Psychological tools:

Psychological tools consists of laddering techniques & depth interviews.

3. Mechanical devices:

Mechanical devices are occasionally used in marketing research.

Galvanometer measures the interest or emotions aroused by exposure to a specific ad or picture.

Questions are of two types:

1) Closed end questions

2) Open end questions

Closed end question include:

â€¢ Dichotomous

â€¢ Multiple choice

â€¢ Likert scale

â€¢ Semantic differential

â€¢ Important scale

Open end questions include:

â€¢ Completely unstructured

â€¢ Word association

â€¢ Sentence completion

â€¢ Pictures

4.3 SAMPLING PLAN

After deciding the research plan and research instrument, the marketing researcher must design a sampling plan . This calls for three decisions:

1. Sampling unit:

Who is to be surveyed? The market researcher must define the target population that will be sampled. Once the sampling unit is determined, a sampling frame must be developed so that everyone in the target population has an equal or known chance of being sampled.

Sampling size:

How many people to be surveyed?

Large samples give more reliable results than small samples.

3. Sampling procedure:

How should the respondents be chosen?

To obtain a representative sample, a probability sample of the population should be drawn.

Sampling May Be

Probability sample

It includes:

â€¢ Simple random sample

â€¢ Stratefied random sample

â€¢ Cluster sample

2. Non probability sample

It includes

â€¢ Convenience sampleâ€¢ Judgement sample

â€¢ Quota sample

3. Collect the information

The data collection phase is most expensive and most prone to error.

Four major problems arise in this phase:

a) Some respondents will not be at home.

b) Other respondent will not cooperate.

c) Other will give biased answers.

d) Some interviewers will be biased.

e) Analyze the information.

The next to last step in the marketing research process is to extract findings from the collected data. Different types of statistical techniques are used.

5. Present the findings

As the last, the researcher presents the findings. The researcher should present findings that are relevant to major marketing decisions.

6. Decision making

After completing all phases decision is formulated that is advantageous for the organization. Decisions made are checked and implemented by managers.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objective of the project “Recruitment and Selection in IT Industry – A Study in relation to HCL Technologies Ltd” are as followed-

Recruitment is one of the most important functions of any IT industry. As IT company is manpower driven.

Recruitment cell is a business unit, which contribute directly in the revenue and profit of the organization.

HCL technologies has always been very progressive and at par with the industry in terms of acquiring right talent from the market.

Tracking employee strength of 70000 employees, with offices in more than 26 countries and a set objective of each year in terms of adding manpower across the world in a manner that it works as profitable centre and not a huge burden on the organization is a huge task but is very well managed.

Recruitment cannot be an independent entity in the IT industry. It has to work in complete sync with the planning group and the delivery together for the most cost effective hiring.

With the change in the global economic condition especially in USA and Europe, the recruitment policy has been changed. IT industries are focusing on hiring local candidates; this was not the practice earlier. Companies like infosys have committed to increase hiring from local market by 50% in USA. The US government has become stringent on VISA issue.

The Indian IT industries are evolving global in true sense. It is focusing not only on hiring talents from the local markets but also focusing on opening offices in English speaking countries like Philippines and Mexico. The labor costs of the developing countries are low.

India is one of the favorite destinations of IT outsourcing for US and Europe. Salaries of IT professionals in the U.S. and their counterparts in India differ five times. Analyst predicts the differential will have dropped to three fold, or perhaps even as low as two fold in next four to five years. So India will not be as cost effective. The customers who came to India earlier for cost are now looking for value and quality. India IT industries are prepared for that by hiring quality resource and also investing heavily on training program. HCL has a separate division for training called T2ID

Diversity hiring is now gaining momentum in India. Companies are now focusing on increasing the percentage of female employees in the organization. There are schemes running in the organization to attract female candidates. Referral fee is also high if female referred candidate joins the company. Dedicated diversity drives are being organized by companies.

In the booming IT market, on-boarding of the offered candidate has always been a challenge. Offer to joinee percentage sometimes go as low as 70%. This causes loss in revenue in case of lateral hiring as such hiring is done against a billable position. TAG team offers joining bonus and also tries to buyout the notice period to convert the offer into joining.

Branding has become very important for IT companies for attracting talents. Even for campus hire the students are referring the annual performance and stability of the organization before accepting offers. A recent article in Economic times said that 83% of the candidates who had offers from cognizant and Infosys opted for cognizant. This was because cognizant has performed well in last few years. HCL Employee First is a unique management activity and it has helped in attracting talents from the market.

Manpower planning is another very important aspect of recruitment. This needs to be done very carefully as it helps to devise plan for future hiring in the organization. A close coordination is required from all the stakeholders.

Recruitment through referral is one of the most successful hiring methods. IT companies keep organizing referral drives and special schemes for their employees to refer candidates. Special scheme sometimes offers international holiday packages or even car. This has proved very successful in fulfilling open positions.

There should be a well-oiled support system for recruitment process and for facilitating easy transition of the candidates into the organization.

In the networked economy, where national boundaries have collapsed and outsourcing is the buzzword, hiring the right talent assume yet greater importance. IT companies are hiring healthy percentage of global workforce and have operations spanning geographies. Understanding the different culture and ensuring the fitment of the talent in the company culture is another challenge the recruitment team face. Sanitization to all these aspect be it culture, language and geography needs to be done to the recruitment team.

The main objective of this thesis was to show by a comprehensive study of HCL recruitment process that this is a very important function of any IT company. Post 2008 recession companies are running at a very competitive model. Profit margins are shrinking, client is becoming very demanding and among all this, attracting the right talent

FINDING AND ANALYSIS

IT companies are manpower driven, the process of recruitment starts from the manpower planning and it ends on day the candidate comes on-board and gets absorbed in the project. Manpower planning is also dependent on the project pipeline. Organization plans for the optimum resource so that they do not become the burden on the company. These days when the US and Europe market is not stable the hiring is done only on the project based position or if the probability is more then 80%. Bench strength is also kept marginal by the organization. HCL with the help of GRA portal keep tracks of all its employees across the world.

The recruitment process has been made online; this is to maintain transparency in the process. Recruitment is no longer a support function. It now acts as profit centre for the company. There are instances where the recruitment executives are billable resource.

HCL is no longer focusing on skill based hiring, they are preferring hiring of the candidates who are multiskilled and have worked on number of skills and are willing to continue in the same manner. The candidates are expected to be open to travel and relocate.

The changing market scenario is also making the IT companies very cautious in hiring the resource. In HCL the focus from mass hiring is shifting to competency based hiring. The attitude is reflected even in the change in the salary structure. In the last three years there has been numerous changes in the structure. The variable component which was not there earlier in HCL was introduced in April 2009. There are two types of variable which was introduced in the salary structure. 1) Deployment Allowance. 2) Performance Bonus. This comprises of 20% of the total salary.

Company is also focusing on reducing the cost of the recruitment. There are various ways which is adopted by the company. Below are few ways adopted by HCL:

Focus on hiring through direct sources.

Aggressive focus on recruitment by conducting special referral drives.

Have maintained healthy offer to joinee ratio.

Last one year data is of HCL EAS division is given below:

54% of the total hiring is direct.

37% of the hiring was through referral.

9% was through external agency.

On an average last year in HCL EAS division maintained 78% of deployment, this reached as high as 90% on some occasion.

RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION

Recommendations:

For the growing IT sector the demand for professional is increasing every year. Consequently, recruitment manager needs to explore new sources of recruiting IT manpower. The recruitment needs to align its policies with the business strategy. The division needs to be contributing more in the success of the organization. The last year annual report says a lot about the health of the organization. The policy of the company is moving in the right direction. The area of concern at this moment is hiring the resource which not only contribute in the existing requirement but also prove competent for the future business requirement.

Recruitment Vs Increasing Salary

India is a preferred choice for outsourcing of IT/ITES companies. But in the recent past, the increase in the standard of living, high inflation and other factors has led in increase of salary of the IT professionals. The high salary and even the high cost of infrastructure has led IT companies to come up with innovative strategy and new value added services. Along with this the companies are under tremendous pressure to keep the cost low. Due to this companies are focusing more on campus hiring. In the project also the strength of campus recruit is increasing. The percentage is anytime between 20% to 40%.

On-boarding/Hand-holding of new hire

On-boarding of the new candidate is one of the most important features of the recruitment process. To attract the talent from the limited pool in the market and to bring them onboard is another challenge the IT industry faces. The recruitment team offers joining/welcome bonus, are willing to buyout the notice period to facilitate the joining of the candidate. The follow-up call is made weekly to the offered candidates. This is to check the probable drop-out. The offer to joinee ratio is one of the most important KRA of a recruitment team. For just-in-time hiring the successful on-boarding is very critical. Any drop-out leads to business loss in terms of loss of billability. A more pro-active attitude is required from the recruitment team to increase the percentage of offer to joinee ratio. It is also required to devise a more interactive induction program. In case of HCL, a new recruit finds himself lost on the initial days of his joining. It is the responsibility of the recruitment executive to introduce him to necessary department and help him to ease into the system.

Training & Development (T&D)

Training and development is attaining very important space in the IT industry. Companies are investing heavily up-to 3-4% of their total revenue in the training and development program. Employees are being re-trained for upgrading their skills. Rapid and unpredictable technological changes and the increased emphasis on quality of services are compelling software businesses to recruit adaptable and competent employees. Software professionals themselves expect their employers to provide them with all the training they may need in order to perform not only in their current projects, but also in related ones that they may subsequently hold within the organization. As observed by Watts Humphrey, Fellow of the Carnegie Mellon University, ” as software professionals gain competence, they do not necessarily gain motivation. This is because a creative engineer or scientist who has learned how to accomplish something has little interest in doing it again. Once they have satisfied their curiosity, they may abruptly lose interest and seek an immediate change”. And when the rate of technological change is high may be higher than the time required to acquire competence in one area, professionals could undergo psychological turbulence owing to the need to work in a new technology throughout their career. They want to gain new knowledge, which will be utilized by their organization. On the basis of the new learning they want to work in higher segments of software value chain. Therefore, constant up-gradation of employee skills poses yet another challenge for HR personnel.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)

Recruitment process outsourcing or RPO is a concept which is being looked as a new method for cutting cost. HCL has completed its pilot project successfully and is going to launch RPO model soon across India location soon. The most important aspect of recruitment that RPO model address is reduction of the time of recruitment. This is seen as the means to reduce the billing loss the companies incur because of the last minute drop-out of the offered candidate.

Quality and Customer Focus

Today’s corporate culture needs to actively support quality and customer oriented. With globalization and rapid technological change, quality is of utmost importance for the Indian companies, which earn most of their revenues through exports. Hence, the recruitment and other HR functions has to act as a strategic partner, needs to encourage a culture of superior quality to ensure customer satisfaction, the only real measure of quality of a product or service.

To be competitive today, an organization needs to be customer responsive. Responsiveness includes innovation, quick decision-making, leading an industry in price or value, and effectively linking with suppliers and vendors to build a value chain for customers. Employee attitudes correlate highly with customer attitude. The shift to a customer focus redirects attention from the firm to the value chain in which it is embedded. HR practices within a firm should consequently be extended to suppliers and customers outside the firm. HCL “Employee First” strategy very much reflects the same sentiments. The recruitment focuses on the quality. There are still areas for improvement. There needs to be written test conducted for various skill sets. This is missing in the selection process in HCL. The candidate should also be judged on their English written and communication skill.

Conclusion

The recruitment division of HCL is mature enough to counter the growing need of the organizations requirement. It is a process oriented, mechanized, and pro-active group. The changing market dynamics, recession threat in Europe and in all this the vision to take HCL towards one of the leading IT company of the world has also gave a huge responsibility on its recruitment division. There are situations where more and more companies are conceding that their valued employees are leaving them, a new concept of career and human resource management is bound to emerge. The focus of this new paradigm should not only be to attract, motivate and retain key ‘knowledge workers’, but also on how to reinvent careers when the loyalty of the employees is to their ‘brain ware’ rather than to the organization.

With lifetime employment in one company not on the agenda of most employees, jobs will become short term. Today’s high-tech employees desire a continuous up-gradation of skills, and want work to be exciting and entertaining a trend that requires designing work systems that fulfill such expectations. As employees gain greater expertise and control over their careers, they would reinvest their gain back into their work.

HR practitioners must also play a proactive role in software industry. As business partners, they need to be aware of business strategies, and the opportunities and threats facing the organization. As strategists, HR professionals require to achieve integration and fit to an organization’s business strategy. As interventionists, they need to adopt an all-embracing approach to understanding organizational issues, and their effect on people. Finally, as innovators, they should introduce new processes and procedures, which they believe will increase organizational effectiveness.

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