Articles 1 to 10 of 19
From Carpentry to Couriers: India's Rural Job Portals Are Taking Off
Job portals, which have largely replaced employment ads in newspapers and magazines, have become an urban phenomenon. They are now going to the grassroots. As new portals come online, how much will they help ease rural unemployment?
A Fresh Start: How a Public-private Program Is Helping Rural Job-Seekers Find a Brighter Future
Rural recruits account for 70% of the employees at McDonald's restaurants in southern India today. Other big rural recruiters range from international firms such as IBM, Adidas and Vodafone to home-grown ones like telecom giant Bharti Airtel, private-sector bank HDFC, and retailers Pantaloon and Aditya Birla Group. These companies are increasingly relying on rural India to staff their front and back offices in urban and semi-urban towns, but what's unusual about this rural regiment is that they are trained and placed in their jobs by a public-private partnership called the Employment Generation & Marketing Mission (EGMM). Is this a formula for success that others can follow?
Job Cuts vs. Pay Cuts: In a Slowing Economy, What's Better for India?
As the world financial crisis wreaks havoc on emerging economies, Indian firms -- like their counterparts around the world -- are looking at ways to scale back their operations. Some companies -- such as Jet Airways -- have announced layoffs, only to backtrack and offer other options, including salary cuts, to their employees. Experts interviewed by India Knowledge@Wharton believe that the management culture in India makes layoffs one of the last options rather than the first. Still, companies will have to find ways to bring their staffing and costs in line with reality, at least for the next two years.
India's Corporations Race to Train Workers and Avoid Being Left in the Dust
India's economy is growing at a torrid pace, with business process outsourcing leading the way. But a shortage of one crucial resource -- a well-educated workforce- - threatens to derail the country's growth and its drive to create 80 million jobs by 2016. Corporations are now stepping in to try to fill the training gap, but will it be enough? "If we don't take steps to improve the quality of our engineering graduates, we will soon lose out on our ability to compete globally," says N.R. Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief mentor at Infosys.
The 'India Option': Instead of Looking Abroad, Today's Indian Management Graduates See a Future at Home
In the past, India's best and brightest routinely looked to the U.S. and other Western countries for jobs following graduation. Today, however, the "brain drain" seems to be reversing: According to placement figures at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, 75% of this year's graduating class opted for jobs in India. In this opinion piece, Bangalore-based writer Shoba Narayan offers her understanding of this trend following interviews with graduating students and IIM faculty. Previously in India Knowledge@Wharton, Narayan chronicled her own family's decision to return to India after living in the U.S. for 20 years.
LG India's Y.V. Verma: A Global Strategy That Keeps Local People at the Top
Korea-based LG Electronics is recognized today as a market leader in India, but getting there has required a "will to succeed," according to Yasho V. Verma, who has been director of human resources and management support for the company's India division since 1997. In addition to the usual bumps that multinationals can expect when entering a new market, Verma describes the company's brushes with local "mafia" and other challenges in his book, Passion: The Untold Story of LG Electronics India. In a country known for its talent shortage, LG India's employee attrition rate has dropped from 19% to 6% in the past two years alone. At the recent Wharton India Economic Forum, Verma spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about how LG has used non-traditional methods for recruiting and retaining talent and empowering employees "at the lowest levels."
'Talent on Demand': Applying Supply Chain Management to People
Failing to manage your company's talent needs, says Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli, "is the equivalent of failing to manage your supply chain." And yet the majority of employers have abysmal track records when it comes to finding and retaining talent. Indian companies, however, tend to be an exception, Cappelli states. Innovative talent management practices are more common there because of the country's scarcity of labor. In a book coming out in April titled, Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty, Cappelli offers a fundamentally different paradigm for thinking about talent management, one that takes many of its lessons from just-in-time manufacturing.
Return of the Native: A Reader's Response to 'Return to India'
In November, India Knowledge@Wharton published writer Shoba Narayan's account of her family's decision to return to India after living in the U.S. for 20 years. Since that time, Narayan's essay -- "Return to India: One Family's Journey to America and Back" -- has generated a number of candid comments from our readers on the growing trend of non-resident Indians returning home. In this opinion piece, S. Srinivasan, a writer and executive based in India, offers an analysis of the predicament Narayan describes, attributing it to a "preoccupation with a consumerist style of living." "Without an enduring objective at a higher plane," he argues, "it is not surprising that there is an element of drift and dissatisfaction."
Return to India: One Family's Journey to America and Back
For decades, it was widely assumed that the brightest Indians would go overseas to study and eventually settle there. Today, signs have begun to appear that the tide may be turning. The fact that global companies are setting up operations in India makes it easier for non-resident Indians to return home, often while remaining with the same employer. Indian students are not leaving the country as eagerly as they once did, and if they do, they go back home much faster because of the attractive professional opportunities there. Others return because they feel they are losing a connection with their past. In this special section, India Knowledge@Wharton offers one family's experience as a microcosm of the larger trend -- Bangalore-based writer Shoba Narayan's account of her family's decision to return to India, after living in the U.S. for 20 years.
Manish Sabharwal: 'In Five Years, 25% of the World's Workers Will Be Indian'
Four years ago, Manish Sabharwal headed India Life, the country's largest business process outsourcing firm in the field of human resources. Having sold India Life to Hewitt Associates in 2002, Sabharwal has now carved out another niche in the HR business as the chairman of TeamLease, a temporary staffing firm headquartered in Bangalore. With more than 450 offices all over India and 67,000 employees, the company has a good shot at becoming the country's largest employer in the private sector by the end of 2007, Sabharwal says. In an interview with India Knowledge@Wharton, he discusses the opportunities and challenges of running "India's largest temping company."
