For Niren Shah, 2012 is like the year 2002. A decade down the line, nothing much has changed when it comes to recruiting qualified professionals for his firms. The only difference now is that he is helping his invested firms in hiring the right talent, whereas back then he was part of Baazee.com — one of India’s earliest successes in electronic commerce, or e-commerce.
Shah, now managing director of Norwest Venture Partners India, reminiscences that the bar was kept very high for candidates while he used to hire talent for Baazee.com as its chief financial officer. “As an industry, e-commerce was very nascent then. Hence, the required talent pool was missing,” he notes. To attract the right talent, every individual hired, irrespective of their positions, were given employee share ownership plans or ESOPs. But, most of the key employees that Baazee hired then are now successful. They occupy senior positions in the venture capital and e-commerce industry. “I see e-commerce firms facing the same teething issues when hiring the right candidate,” he adds.
Kashyap Deorah, President of FutureBazaar.com, agrees with Shah’s argument. His vice-president (engineering) spends 40 per cent of his time in recruiting people. In the case of FutureBazaar, the company interviews 150 software engineer candidates to make one successful hiring.
| LOST IN HIRING * Some top executives spend 40% work hours on recruitment * Firms like FutureBazaar interview 150 software engineer candidates to hire one * Finding talent with relevant internet experience a major challenge * Very few e-commerce courses at colleges/varsities |
Head-hunters say while the rate of attrition at mid- to senior manager level stands at 15 to 20 per cent, at the junior level it has reached a staggering rate of 60 to 65 per cent. The e-commerce industry is experiencing explosive growth, while the man-power crunch is fast becoming a hurdle in this growth. The two main factors contributing to this are lack of talent availability and high attrition.
Take the case of Tradus.in, an online shopping site for electronics, books, FMCG products and apparel. Despite the company having several openings, it ends up turning down most of the candidates. Reason: rigid job requirements. Finding talent with relevant internet experience is also a challenge for them, notes Krishna Motukuri, MD of Tradus.
Team Lease says a candidate, apart from being comfortable with the technology platform, also needs to adjust to the long working hours and distinct work culture. “Moreover, there are softer aspects like ESOPs, which are still in the test-and-trial mode,” notes Sangeeta Lala, the company’s vice-president. “These are adding to the attrition.”
Industry experts also feel a lack of specialised courses for the sector is adding to this problem. “E-commerce is the fastest-growing industry,” according to Ashish Arora, founder & MD, HR Anexi. “Yet, there still appear to be very few courses available at the college or university level to study e-commerce. This reduces the talent pool to choose from at the first stage itself.”
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Adding to this crunch is the competitive nature of the industry, which then makes poaching a common feature. Yebhi.com has been feeling the pinch of poaching, with higher attrition rates at the mid-managers and junior-level employees of the organisation. “This is especially challenging for the middle-level employees,” reveals Manmohan Agarwal, its spokesperson. “They have to undertake work pressures from their superiors, and manage the whole work responsibility while meeting the deadlines.”
So, are the companies doing enough to deal with the problem? Agarwal says the sector requires highly pro-active employees, who are not just adaptable to any possible situation, but equally willing to undertake any challenges. “As an e-commerce company, our strategy focuses on ‘hiring personalities than qualifications and past experiences’,” he says.
“We prioritise employees’ interest towards a particular vertical over his/her past experiences to the relative fields. Our hiring strategy has helped us in reducing attrition rate.” Tradus, on the other hand, is offering international workshops, apart from having an ESOP programme in order to attract talented candidates. The portal is hiring freshers from IITs and IIMs and training them in internet technologies and business.
HR Anexi’s Arora explains that organisations should plan talent retention even before talent acquisition. Mapping competencies, employee needs, conducting necessary workshops to upgrade skills, identifying latent talents through robust feedback mechanisms are necessary, he adds.
Stanton Chase International note that talent for ecommerce sector are being hand-picked from related industries where the technology plays a key enabler to transactions both within retail and business-to-business. “In general, today we see hiring in all sectors is largely replacement of key talent vis-a-vis growth related hires,” says Kalyani Shastry, associate director of the firm.