Second lease of Life

As the war to attract and retain talent rages, companies are using a variety of new, innovative hooks to catch the right talent. Some of them have cast their nets in Second Life.

Jayantika Dave, director "" human resources at the India operations of Agilent Technologies, recently sought out a professional networking site in her never-ending search for knowledge workers. The search opened up a new avenue for the company to hunt for talent.

"It is a new approach. Our recruitment team does a great deal of research on social networking sites such as Orkut and Facebook to source people," says Dave.

She could be surfing these sites at the same time as Pradeep Bahirwani. "The online medium has increased our reach to a larger talent pool. While most sites like Facebook and Orkut are being used at a very personal or individual levels, LinkedIn (professional networking site) allows us to commercially utilise the services," says the vice president-strategic resourcing at Wipro Technologies.

Finding the right talent is as difficult as retaining it. Organisations try everything, including poaching candidates from competitors, to get the right talent in.

In times of economic uncertainties, it becomes all the more important to retain talent to keep the show going. While some organisations are using pay-cuts and sabbaticals to prevent layoffs, others are using innovative ways to cut hiring costs and, at the same time, attract and retain the right talent.

Advancements in technology and increasing Internet usage have come to the aid of recruiters. Online recruitment, also known as e-recruitment, has become popular.

The chase is on
IBM has introduced new media initiatives. It uses two widely used technologies, Bluetooth and general packet radio service, as marketing platforms to share its recruitment information with a wider audience and constantly send information on vacancies that can be downloaded.

The company also has set up satellite test centres and recruitment kiosks and is focused on community network sites (such as, SAP Community site) that have a large number of practitioners.

Infosys has an employee referral programme that has provided to be rewarding. It has been helping the company meet 30-35 per cent of its lateral hiring target.

Financial houses like HSBC and ICICI Bank are introducing flexible work practices to pave the way for women who want to return to their careers after sabbaticals.

"The traditional channels are still effective. However, they need to be augmented with some innovation," says Tanuj Kapilashrami, the India head of HR at HSBC. Social networking sites provide access to profiles that often consultants fail to get hold of.

"We are exploring these channels proactively," she says. The company faces a talent shortage in wealth management, credit & risk, corporate banking relationship and legal & compliance.

At Wipro, traditional methods like newspaper advertisements, search firms and word-of-mouth continue. However, at the same time, Internet-based recruiting becoming more frequent. "The Web remains a strong source of profiles for us. The way we use the Web has changed with an increased focus on blogs and career sites," says Bahirwani.

Cisco has set its hiring targets high. The company recently announced a series of India-specific initiatives aimed at expanding its capacity to train, employ and retain qualified networking and systems engineers.

It has established partnerships with educational institutions and is opening up testing facilities to expand the networking workforce. The company largely depends on its employee referral programme to meet the increasing demand for a competent workforce.

However, for many of these companies, the story does not end here "" or in this life. It has moved on to another.

The second life of recruiters
For Cisco, being a part of Second Life "" a three-dimensional virtual world where registered users socialise and connect with one another "" is an extension of its brand promise of the human network.

"It is a tool to explain and show who we are, what we are about, and how we are powering the human network. That means more than just showcasing products. It means working with the community, becoming part of the community," says Shiney Samuel, manager, learning & development, Cisco India.

The company has two islands on Second Life - the first is for the Second Life community and the second is for the company's community "" customers and employees "" to interact with one another.

The company uses this platform to offer training and education as well as executive briefings. "It is our goal to bridge the real life with second life and offer support and services in both," adds Samuel.

Cisco has several employees in Second Life. They have several Sims (a Second Life software that enables you to guide your avatar through a 3-D landscape and chat with other avatars) that they use for user-group meetings.

The company also provides customer education and training in Second Life, uses the medium to get feedback from customers on products, and make presentations. The company is also a part of the Second Life Business Council, a group of enterprises that uses Second Life for business purposes.

The other company active in this world is Wipro. Its island (commonly known as isle in secondlife.com) has a career section too.

"It helps the employer's brand image, especially for companies like ours that focus on innovation and aim at being at the forefront of technology. The presence only reinforces the messaging and lets those interested walk our talk, in virtual reality," says Bahirami.

A lot of IBMers have avatars in the virtual world. The company has been extending virtual worlds for business in virtual commerce, collaboration and education, and pushing the limits with a broader community. It has been using Second Life to conduct training and learning programmes and also internships for university students.

Getting real
Infosys does not have a presence on Second Life. "We have, so far, not faced any difficulty in attracting people to work at Infosys. For the niche skill sets, we rely on training modules," says Nandita Gurjar, its vice-president and group head, HR.

Wipro's Bahirwani concedes that Internet-based recruitment is more to supplement the traditional methods. "That is not a channel that one can focus on. Don't forget most of these networking sites have been in the news for the wrong reasons."

Anita Ramachander, the chief executive officer of Cerebrus Consulting, a Mumbai-based human resources consulting firm, is more direct.

"How can a brand image be built in a virtual world if it does not exist for you to see in the real one?"

She is also skeptical of the quality of talent. "When there is an acute talent crunch, companies are left with no option but to keep innovating on their approach. At the same time, the hiring that happens through these sites or on a channel like this is not top-notch. Here we are only talking about the middle- and entry-level employees."

S Ramkumar, vice-president, HR at ICICI Bank, disagrees. "There is nothing called talent shortage. The terminology is being misused due to untenable expectation of the industry. There is no catastrophe, given the country's young population. The debate must be on whether these millions that we are talking about are employable."

The word employability is already giving sleepless nights to many in the human resource wings of companies. Many Indian companies and multinationals present in the country are going to every nook and corner of the country to tap the talent through different means.

Social networking sites are still evolving and their usage based on common interests has been largely informal.

Peer-to-peer marketing can provide references for opportunities through the networking community. How much real benefit can be derived from them will depend on factors such as the volume to be hired, the required skill sets and geographic considerations.

INDIAN MANAGEMENT

This is an abridged version of an article in the April 2008 issue of Indian Management, the journal of the All India Management Association published by Business Standard.