BUSINESS CASE

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Case Understanding

BCS Solution Summary

Solution

The first task as an HR Head would be to execute properly structured and defined roles for each team member so as to ensure proper cohesion and teamwork towards a common goal for such a startup.

With corporates staying bullish on their electric vehicle (EV) plans, they have upped the ante about top level hiring.

The last few months have seen companies such as Tesla, Ola Electric, Mahindra, TVS Motor make some strategic top-level recruitments in keeping with their business plans.

As Tesla firms up its plans to roll out its first all-electric car in India this year, the Elon Musk-run company has hired top executives in the country which include Chithra Thomas as Head HR, Manuj Khurana as Policy and Business Development head and Nishant Prasad to head Tesla's supercharging business.

Experts maintain that with the EV business at an inflection point and poised to grow exponentially, companies in this space are getting more focused on the talent eco-system, which is technical and specialized in nature. Ola Electric is stepping up its efforts to develop an electric car and last week appointed Wayne Burgess, a Jaguar veteran as Head of Vehicle Design, N Balachandar as the new CHRO and YS Kim as global head of sales and distribution. Ola Electric has already seen a 9X growth in hiring in the last 9 months, and it plans to quadruple the strength by the end of this year. It has accelerated hiring in areas such as Al, big data & analytics, app development & loT. Mahindra & Mahindra last month appointed Uli Stuhec as VP & head of GlobalBorn Electric Platform post consolidating its EV business into two verticals viz. Last Mile Mobility (LMM) and Electric Vehicle Tech Centre. Mahindra recently appointed Pratap Bose, ex design head at Tata Motors who is expected to play a major role in the EV space. EVs continue to witness an influx of innovation in technology and new business models will help in creating new jobs. Mahindra’s EV business is poised to increase its hiring by over 7-8% over the next 2-3 years across the two verticals. “Our focus is to design, develop and manufacture EVs in India and this will require scouting talent from multi-disciplinary fields. We are consistently working towards upskilling and hiring new talent which will help us develop world-class EV technology in India for the world”, said Rajeshwar Tripathi, CHRO at Mahindra. While the electric major , Mahindra has seen a churn in manpower, it has also done several mid-level placements in the recent past, say sources.

The push on EVs will lead to an increase in demand for sales and services support which in turn means a 12 -15% increase in employment generation across presales, sales and post-sales across the EV eco-system”, says a recent Team lease Services report.

TVS Motor too is continually onboarding the best talent in India and abroad as we look to the future particularly in the area of EV and digital," said a senior official of the company.

Homegrown ride-hailing company Ola is in the process of setting up a state of the art

electric vehicles manufacturing plant in Chennai, to manufacture electric scooters. Although Ola uses 5,000 robots in its electric vehicle manufacturing plant, it is going to create 10,000 direct and indirect jobs for the local community. Apart from the spike in direct employment at manufacturing facilities, the thrust is also creating an impact on the component space. The increase in the domestic production of batteries would mean 15-18% increase in employment for skill sets including Product Design & Development. This would result in jobs for specific functions including Product designing of Battery packs in Lithium-ion , Product designs and drawings of various software, target Products Ready Cells to End product design like battery packs.

It is reported that almost 70% of organizations indicate staff turnover has a negative impact on their bottom line. There’s the cost of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding, not to mention paying other staff overtime in some cases to make up for the work not being performed by that vacant position. It all adds up to real dollars lost.

Some models show that it can cost anywhere between 6 and 9 months of that employee’s salary, on average.

What’s even more concerning, according to the most recent annual Emerging Workforce Study by Spherion Staffing, is that 21% of employees plan to leave their jobs in the next 3 months. And 29% plan to do so in the next 12 months.

With record unemployment and over 70% of employers concerned about the talent shortage, retention is on the top of every leader’s mind. But before we get into the nuts and bolts of retention strategies, we must address the real driver behind employee retention.

Retention Strategy

1. Start with Strategy

Before one starts with implementing ideas to retain employees, it needs to have a good understanding of why employees come to work for our company in the first place. This begins with employer branding. And it relies on the alignment of our HR and Marketing departments to bring that employer brand to life and carry it out within our company and externally in the workforce marketplace. Employer Branding:

• 36% of job seekers said a company’s employer brand is the most important consideration in a potential new job

• 69% of Americans would not take a job with a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed

• 84% would consider leaving their current jobs if offered a role with another company that had an excellent reputation. Most people would require less than a 10% salary increase to consider such a move

An employer brand, simply put, is a company’s reputation as an employer and the value it offers to its employees. It’s how your own employees, candidates, and even the community around you perceive your company as a place to work. Your employer brand is an important part of creating a great experience for both employees and recruits. An effective employer brand lowers the cost to attract candidates, differentiates you from your competition, and engages and retains employees at a higher rate.

2. Plan for what success looks like. And measure it.

It’s an important method for gaining an understanding of where one stands as a company by conducting employee engagement surveys, and it’s critical in giving oneself a baseline against which to track the effectiveness of our efforts.

What gets scheduled gets done. What gets measured gets improved upon. And don’t you want to make sure the money you are investing in this initiative is well spent?

3. Be transparent during the hiring process. And hire for fit.

37% of hiring managers say that new hires would stay longer if they were better informed during the hiring process. Transparency during the hiring and onboarding process is key in finding and retaining the right kind of employees. Make sure you aren’t hiding or sugar-coating aspects of the company or the job just to get someone interested in the position.

One of the best ways to attract candidates who are likely to be a good fit is through employee referral programs. When done right, these programs can increase employee loyalty of the referrer and bring people into your company who are more likely to stay long term.

Additionally, you may want to consider using a behavior/personality/strengths assessment tool to understand a potential employee’s fit as it relates to team dynamics as well as the role for which they are applying.

4. Optimize your onboarding

The first 90 days are crucial for employee retention. Every new hire must be set up for success from the very start (which begins well before their first day on the job!). Make sure our onboarding and orientation process is set up, so the new employee learns not only about the job, but also your company’s culture.

Consider pairing new employees with a buddy or mentor in a similar role so they have a built-in support and resource outside of their direct supervisor. Make sure your onboarding experience is just as planned out as your customer experience.

5. Offer competitive salary and benefits in addition to work/life balance and other perks

When it comes to employee retention, it’s not always about the money. But offering wages and benefits that are competitive is important. Of course employees need to have financial security (this includes salaries, health benefits and retirement), but those are table stakes in the game of employee attraction and retention. If you aren’t even in the same ballpark as your competition, your company isn’t going to get a second look from top employees. But if someone is going to join your company for 5 cents more per hour, they will leave for 5 cents more per hour. So consider some of the other perks your company can offer.

• Is it a flexible schedule?
• Performance bonuses?
• Free coffee in the break room?
• More vacation or paid time off?
• Tuition reimbursement for continuing their education?
• Onsite childcare?

6. Provide opportunities for employees to grow and develop

Everyone in the company should have a personal development plan and goals. Some may be tied to company goals and some not. There should be a clearly laid-out path for how an employee might advance their career with your company. This helps them to feel like a critical part of the company’s success and gives them purpose. Ongoing education makes employees feel valued. It also has been proven effective in retaining top talent, maintaining quality levels, and achieving a competitive advantage.

7. Provide more frequent opportunities to give and receive feedback

Along with helping employees grow and develop, make sure you’re providing frequent feedback. But this feedback must be two ways. Employees want to know how they are doing. What they are doing well and what can be improved upon. And they want tools and resources to help them be successful in improving.

Consider revamping your review process. Check in more frequently, not just during an annual review. Think about what you are evaluating them on. Are you measuring how employees are living out your company values as well as their impact on business outcomes?

Employees are also looking for the opportunity to give you feedback. They are likely to disengage when they don’t feel their ideas, or their thoughts are cared about or heard. It’s imperative to create a culture in which staff feel safe and comfortable to share feedback.

Keeping lines of communication open is critical for employee retention. This type of two-way feedback fosters a culture of transparency and builds trust.

8. Give employees the tools they need to be successful

There is nothing more frustrating than trying to be successful in your job and not having the right tools and resources to be effective. But all too often employees are left to “figure it out.” I’m not suggesting we need to hand-hold people in order for them to be successful, but what if we asked our employees if they have the tools they need to succeed in their role? This allows them to think critically about how they can be more effective while empowering them to take ownership. You’ll see higher levels of engagement when employees are bought in to a potential solution and part of solving the challenge at hand.

9. Focus on the development of middle managers

Good supervisors are critical to employee retention. Very often managers are promoted because they exceed expectations at their own jobs. But just as often, they lack true leadership skills required to engage and lead a team. Make sure you take the time to train your management team and supervisors to utilize people skills, just as you would train them to use their technical skills. Managers need to learn new ways to encourage, motivate, and empower people with all kinds of different personality traits, and ways to work through conflict management, stress management, crisis management, and any other situations they might face.

Last but not the least, implement corporate social responsibility efforts that people can be proud of.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly more important for consumers when deciding where to spend their dollars. It has become even more important for the modern job seeker to work for a company that aligns with their values and supports causes they care about. In this age of socially conscious customers and employees, if companies want to attract and retain top talent, they will need to make sure they too have a socially conscious image.

Foster an environment of trust and respect

Celebrate wins. Acknowledge employees. Have fun!

Conclusion

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