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 one of India's earliest e-commerce successes, Baazee.com.
Shah, Managing Director, Norwest Venture Partners India and the ex-CFO of erswhile Baazee.com reminiscences that while hiring talent for Bazee the bar was kept very high for candidates. "E-Commerce as an industry was very nascent, hence the required talent pool was not there at all. To attract the right talent, every individual hired, irrespective of their positions, were given ESOPs. But most of the key employees that Baazee hired then, are now successful and occupy senior position in the venture capital and ecommerce industry. I see ecommerce firms facing the same teething issues when hiring the right candidate," he added.
Kashyap Deorah, President of FutureBazaar.com agrees with Shah's argument. His Vice President Engineering spends 40% of his time in recruiting people. In case of FutureBazaar the company interviews 150 software engineer candidates to make one successful hiring.
Head-hunters say that while the rate of attrition at mid to senior manager level stands at around 15 to 20%, at the junior level it has reached a staggering rate of 60 to 65%. The ecommerce industry while is experiencing explosive growth, 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 fact that company has several openings they end up turning down most of the candidates due to the rigid job requirements. Finding talent with relevant internet experience is also a challenge for them, said Krishna Motukuri, MD Tradus.
"Apart from being comfortable with the technology platform, a candidate also needs to adjust to the long working hours and distinct work culture. Moreover, there are softer aspects like Employee Stock Options (ESOPs) which are still in the test and trial mode and adding to the attrition," says Sangeeta Lala, Vice President, Team Lease.
Industry experts also feel that adding to this problem is the lack of specialised courses for the sector. "E-Commerce is the fastest growing industry and yet there still appears to be very few courses available at college or university level to study e-commerce. This reduces the talent pool to choose from at the first stage itself," according to Ashish Arora, Founder & MD, HR Anexi.
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Adding to this talent crunch is the hyper-competitive nature of the industry, which then makes poaching a common feature. Manmohan Agarwal, Spokesperson, Yebhi.com has been feeling the pinch of poaching with higher attrition rates at the mid managers and junior level employees of the organization. This is especially challenging for the middle level employees, as 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 of Yebhi says that the sector requires highly proactive employees who are not just adaptable to any possible situation, but also equally willing to undertake any challenges. "As an e-commerce company our strategy focuses on 'hiring personalities than qualifications and past experiences'. We prioritize employees’ interest towards a particular vertical over his / her past experiences to the relative fields. Our hiring strategy has helped us in reducing the attrition rate."
Tradus, on the other hand, is offering international workshops, apart from having an ESOP program in order to attract talented candidates. The portal is hiring freshers from IITs and IIMs and training them in internet technologies and business.
Arora of HR Anexi explained that organisations should plan talent retention even before talent acquisition. He added that mapping competencies, employee needs, conducting necessary workshops to upgrade skills, identifying latent talents through robust feedback mechanisms are necessary.
'Talent for e-commerce 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," said Kalyani Shastry, Associate Director, Stanton Chase International.