Shaping leaders of the future

Bharti Airtel trains a new crop of young managers to take charge.

What do Amit Anchal, Anurag Joshi, Kamal Kaur and Amanpreet Singh have in common? Each graduated with an MBA diploma from a different institute in a different year between 2002 and 2005, but all four were selected by Bharti Airtel Limited for its Young Leaders Programme in successive years.

Today Anchal is senior manager (M&A and business development), Joshi is manager (international business), Kaur is area manager for Bangalore and Singh is assistant manager in the team that explores new business opportunities.

There's a good reason they are where they are. When Bharti Airtel started campus hiring in 2001, the response was mixed, forcing the company back to do a rethink.

However, the refurbished induction and training programme that it launched in 2003, titled Young Leaders Programme (YLP), is routinely given a day zero or day one placement slot at premier B-schools.

Says Harshvendra Soin, senior vice-president, HR, Bharti, who has been in charge of the YLP since inception: "And this after telecom is not considered a hot industry."

Bharti, which had been running a regular management training programme, felt the need for the change in 2003 because the telecom sector was evolving.

"The organisation's vision to make Bharti the most admired brand by 2010, which is targeted by top talent, requires it to recruit leaders at various levels including at entry level," explains Soin. YLP is thus much more than a nomenclature change: "What we are trying to do is create a leadership funnel within the organisation."

This year, 62 'young leaders' (the trainees are called and treated as such) from the country's top 15 business schools are in the programme, which is divided into three cycles- the first three months, the next three months and the final six months.

The first cycle starts in mid-June, with the corporate orientation. After induction the young leaders are assigned two cross-functional projects"" in customer service and delivery, and sales and marketing"" for three months each.

"These two fields are the cornerstone of the telecom business and we want every employee at Bharti to be aware of the processes involved," Soin says.

All YLs"" even those from finance and HR"" undertake these cross-functional projects, which are over by December and the company reviews them at the end of each three-month period.

The YLs move to their specialised projects by January for the final six months. The final review and confirmation takes place by mid-June next year.

After the first six months are over, an external training agency holds an off-site "intervention." This year, a Delhi-based firm, Training Alternatives (TA), conducted the workshop.

"The aim of the three-day workshop is to provide the participants with an opportunity for practical application of the leadership theory and skills they are learning in order to achieve goals and produce measurable results," says Santhosh Babu, managing director of Training Alternatives.

At the end of the YLP, the new recruits start as Assistant Managers. They are posted to different geographical markets in the country and can be part of any business"" mobile, enterprise or broadband and telephones.

The YLP, Soin claims, has helped build a more cohesive organisation. "Everyone, from the top management which mentors the recruits, to the junior levels who become buddies to Young Leaders, is involved in the process."

Though the programme is primarily aimed at developing talent, it has helped Bharti Airtel to contain attrition as well. "We have recruited 270 MBAs through campus placements since 2001, and the total attrition since 2003"" when the YLP was introduced"" has been less than 8 per cent," he says (only 13 of the 141 employees who have been part of the programme have left).

Talent generation is a priority at Bharti right now and the YLP has yielded results in this area. Soin points out: "With 70 per cent year-on-year growth, we need people who can take the initiative and come up with great ideas, keeping in mind the company ideology. And the YLP is a step in that direction."