Salary Increases will be much less this year in India - After the dotcom rubble and the USA slow down, this year seems not very promising for both recruiters and job seekers. The dream salary freshers had thought of, is going to remain a pipe dream. The market trends do not seem to be very promising at least in terms of salary. The average annual salary increment awarded this year across industry segments is 15 per cent, down 3 per cent from the average 18 per cent doled out in 2000.

Hurting US job cuts - The Indian IT seems to be hit badly, despite the decline in the pace of layoff announcements. The impact was particularly evident in the layoffs by various companies which basically reflected the weakness in the U.S. labor market.

Tele-Commuting finds increased takers - The field of HR is undergoing a sea of change these days, what with the traditional employee having grown into a knowledge worker. There is a definite shift in emphasis from skill to knowledge. As a result professionals are moving from the role of a traditional worker to that of a facilitator in the business processes of the organization.

Java brew simply unattractive - Till last year there was a glut of JAVA programmers, today people hardly talk about them and the skill has taken a backseat. One of the primary reasons for this is the continuing dotcom bust since a majority of internet related projects extensively used JAVA.

Onsite prices on a downward spiral - The continuing closure of several dotcoms and layoffs has made quality technical manpower available for contract work to many US companies. This has had a huge impact on the Indian Software companies, which derived more than 50% of their revenues from onsite projects.

Competition is now from within - Indian companies are also facing lot of problems owing to their business model with more than 50% revenues coming from onsite work. Besides US slowdown the other factor that is affecting the Indian Software companies is the competition from within. Lot of foreign companies are establishing their own outsourcing bases in India in order to benefit from the low cost of manpower in India. Past year has seen companies like GE, Nortel and Microsoft among others setting up their bases in India and often expanding it.

Two Insights in a nutshell

Does your business plan have a people strategy? - Companies typically develop business plans but often fail to develop a staffing plan and strategies to support it. If you wish to incorporate one, here are a few questions you should ask yourself or answer to develop a robust one.

1. Which positions are most critical and in what order?

2. Where are the pools of candidates and what are the strategies to reach them?

3. What qualifications are musts, and which are wants?

4. Is our strategy for recruiting static or has it evolved with the market?

The Corporate Culture

What is the secret to retaining good employees? The answer is matching employees and corporate culture. Corporate culture refers to the work atmosphere, which tends to reflect the company’s core values. People work for a variety of reasons. One is to pay the bills and collect benefits. Although a primary reason, it’s not why someone chooses one job over another. That often depends upon the corporate culture.

Your task is to present and sell your company to prospective employees. The best matches are those who fit your corporate culture. With the employment wars pushing the salaries up, you can often compete with smaller, more meaningful items.

Training is an extremely valued perk for technology professionals, since technology changes so rapidly and there is a fear of obsolescence. Just make sure that the perks reflect your corporate culture, or they won’t work. Recruit the best and brightest, they will grow your company. Follow leaders like Infosys, Wipro, TCS who have done this and you yourselves can see the results in their image, their market cap, their reputation to attract and retain talent. Are you going to be the next Infosys or Wipro or TCS ???

Issue BG4 July01

Related Items:

---

Be first to comment this article

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.