Stability in Volatility
Vinay Razdan
Chief Human Resource Officer, Idea
Cellular (An Aditya Birla Group Company)
Vinay Razdan, is the Chief Human Resource Officer at Idea Cellular (An Aditya Birla Group Company). Vinay is a part of the Executive Committee (EC) and Management Committee (MC) at Idea Cellular. He is a commerce graduate from Delhi University and has a postgraduate degree in PM & IR from XLRI, Jamshedpur. He joined Idea in January 2006, and has a total work experience of over 25 years. Prior to joining Idea, Vinay worked with HCL Technologies as Associate Vice President - HR for over five years and with ITC Limited as HR Manager for over 12 years.
Q. Idea has shown consistently stable company performance over the last five years. Has your HR strategy played a role in enabling business to achieve such results in this dynamic sector?
A. Our HR strategy is to attract and retain the best talent, encourage innovation, create an engaging and motivating workplace environment and be an employer of choice. The HR strategy has been integral to achieving business results. We have the lowest attrition in the sector, have been ranked as the Best Employer in the sector in the Great Place to Work survey in 2011 and 2013, and have consistently had very high employee engagement scores. A significant number of our recruitment happens via referrals from our existing employees – 32%. We have consistently been the fastest growing large operator in the country. This focus on people and successful execution of our HR strategy has been a key factor, amongst others, in enabling our consistent business results.
Q. What have been the three key HR imperatives that have helped you align with the business strategy?
A. Focus at three different levels of operation for the HR function has helped us align with the business strategy – Brilliant Basics, Effective Business Partnering and developing Centers of Excellence. Brilliant basics is a mantra we follow being a part of the Aditya Birla Group, and it means ensuring near zero error in execution of our processes and a delightful experience for all employees in all people-related services. We set up our centralized shared services for HR, People Service Center five years ago in 2010. This helped us consolidate and standardize the processes of varying business operations. Idea has seen many mergers and acquisitions in its history so such consolidation was necessary and it led to improvements in speed and efficiency. The streamlining of operations has been in line with consolidation and centralization of other business operations like service, finance, analytics, etc. The HR function has been effectively partnering the business with a special focus on launching and propagating new business streams like m-Commerce, Wi-Fi, enterprise solutions, and business transformation initiatives like revamp of rural sales organization and managing changes due to regulation. Creating appropriate staffing guidelines, effective talent development and deployment and tracking manpower productivity in these areas ensures alignment with business strategy. Centers of Excellence ensure creation of value for the business in a manner that is in sync with the overall strategy. Talent management – with the spirit of leaders at all levels, we ensure a steady pipeline of right talent in the right role at the right time. We follow the overarching Aditya Birla Group Talent Management Framework. Capability development ensuring employees have the skills necessary to do their jobs well in the face of dynamically changing business requirements. Employee engagement thorough analysis of engagement scores at enterprise and team levels and targeted and direct action planning to work on improvement areas which is tracked and measured to lead to definite change.
Q. Sectors like telecom, oil and gas, power, etc. are closely driven by the constantly changing regulations. Does this have any implications on rewards for your organization? If yes, how have you designed your rewards strategy to combat/buffer your organization from these changes?
A. We have kept a certain amount of flexibility in the rewards strategy in anticipation of regulations that may affect the business. We may revisit the business performance criteria/goals like target EBIT, gross service revenue, etc., if necessitated by change in regulation. These calls would be taken to ensure that employee's rewards are not unduly impacted and good performance is rewarded.
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