Insights from India's
Business - HR
Alignment Practices
Pete Sanborn talks about how Indian leaders are poised to change the way they do business with the change in leadership of the country
Pete Sanborn
Co-President, Global Compensation
and Talent, Aon Hewitt
India had progressed faster in the area of Human Resources (HR) compared with most other emerging economies, says
Pete Sanborn, Co-President of global HR consultancy firm, Aon Hewitt's Performance, Reward and Talent Practice, who has over 20 years of experience in HR consulting, client relationship management and outsourcing. He spoke in an interview on
how Indian leaders are poised to change the way they do business with the change in leadership of the country, and on how businesses that are transitioning between leaders are better off promoting internal candidates for the top job. Edited excerpts:
Q. How critical were the 2014 elections in India from an HR perspective? Can a change in political leadership change the way companies work?
A.
I have seen that changes in leadership across the world have implications on companies in terms of growth expectations around taxation, which impacts business strategy and influences the actions and behavior of the leaders of companies. In the US,
when Barack Obama came in, a lot of focus was on what the major legislative changes would be, and the healthcare reform has been a significant issue for companies and leaders in terms of their business and HR strategy. For India, the perception of how political leaders will act will determine whether companies become more conservative or aggressive from a growth standpoint and how it will impact employment depends on the political environment.
Is India staring at a problem of underemployment for its large number of graduates?
A. It can be a big challenge. In southern Europe, you have very high unemployment rates in countries like Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, where you have people with college degrees working as waiters and waitresses, making little money as there is not enough demand within the country, and on top of that they have skills that are not particularly in demand. China has a much more planned economy, where there is centralized planning between universities and companies, which decide on the number of graduates introduced to the workforce every year. In developing economies, skills by themselves are not enough, but also the idea of preparing them to be good employees, in addition to having the right skills, is important.
Q. How aligned are Indian businesses with HR?
A. India, where the primary asset is human capital, is a good example of how businesses are aligned to HR. I have seen India progress faster in the HR function than all other developing countries, including China. That is because India is driven by human capital. With large services, solutions and technology sector, it is critical to have a strategy to manage talent and develop critical capabilities of the workforce. It also helps that India has better professional education in HR than any of the other countries and may be just behind the US for having some of the best programs for HR professionals.
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