The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Good prospects make one stick on to a job

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 12, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Good prospects make one stick on to a job

Special Correspondent

A good HR manager finds out who the best are and how their skills can be improved

Bangalore: What makes some employees say they love working for a particular company, while some others are just itching to find another job?

"When an Infosys, Wipro, GE or TCS is rated one of the best places to work in, it is not because they pay salaries higher than the industry average or offer other tangible benefits,'' says former HR Head and now consultant, M.K Rao.

"Back in the 1990s, many managements thought Employees' Stock Options would help them retain the best staff. The book value of such stocks of course kept going up and even after a lock-in period could be carefully offloaded but employees still went on changing jobs,'' he says.

What makes a young person stay on at least with the second or third employer for a relatively longer period is the feeling that there are good prospects for career advancement within the organisation. And also, the opportunity to be trained to enhance skills.

A good human resources manager always tries to find out through team leaders who the best new hands are, and what kinds of skills they possess and which of these can be further improved with training.

Technical skill pool

"Even within the technical skill pool, managers look for those with other qualities which may help in marketing, procurements, inventory control and so on. The technical skills then become an added qualification; the person knows everything about the product he has to market. Or the components that need to be procured from outside suppliers,'' Mr. Rao says.

Marketing personnel in the tech sector need to be technically up-to-date because the demands of the market keep changing and evolving.

They need to see the "big picture" and that means going through the Net, reading trade journals and business newspapers, and carefully noting down trends as forecast on TV channels.

"These are the kind of qualities which employers want their staff to be trained in for not all come from the best of IITs or B-schools alone. Of course, the employee too needs to exhibit some potential so that he or she can be trained and groomed. This means showing a certain amount of career ambition. Good human resources managers look for such qualities among new recruits,'' he says.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail