The Ideas Exchange is managing the HR Leadership Congress India 2010 from September 1-2 at the JW Marriot in Mumbai. The conference had four sessions on the first day and several case studies were discussed.

 

The session on 'How organizations can cope creatively with talent pools and groom high performers' had Shalini Kamat, MD - HR and Corporate Communications, Ambit Holdings as its moderator. Panelists included Zak Parker, HR-Director, G4S; Reva Prakash, Senior VP-HR, Lafarge India and Lancelot Cutinha, Senior VP-HR, Big FM. EVENTFAQS further engaged panelists of the session to further elaborate the importance of Reward and Recognition programmes within an organization as well.

 

Kamat introduced the panel while highlighting the basic drivers of performance in an organization. She stated, "I have been working in a B2B company and I have observed that if you order and command employees to work they revolt, whereas, if you explain and ask suggestions and inputs they feel like a part of the decision and perform better. Thus a business plan is developed starting bottoms up of an organization. From department heads it moves on to senior managers and then the CEOs, who in turn set goals. The system is more culture centric than business centric. Our establishment also has monthly open forums, that help in fillings gaps and meeting targets."

 

She added, "Recognition and rewards go hand in hand. Based on performance of each employee, cross section and management level we provide them rewards. The recognition is given to them in terms of pleasure trips along with family whereas making them attend grooming programs or conferences or travel overseas for an event falls under recognition."

 

According to Cutinha every company needs to have a Performance Management System (PMS), but PMS cannot guarantee success. Any company that is successful has a compelling mission. He stated examples of Mercedes and Big FM. "The leaders of the organizations at all times, talk about the mission and translate the mission into action and in turn inspire and galvanise the other employess. In most good companies employees come first, then customers."

 

On other ways to keep employees engaged and motivated, Prakash added, "If you cannot retain talent in your company, all actions are futile. In our company we have created six units which work independently but intersect at some point and work in coordination. Then to monitor this, we have an audit committee. We regularly engage employees through presentations, surveys and feedbacks. Our average unit became a top unit in the span of a year. Our employees show 88 percent satisfaction."

 

"We do not give our employees pleasure trips abroad as rewards. We allow them to work at any department in cross section. We send them to our counter parts in other countries for few years or months to manage tasks or do a role takeover. The rewards also vary across different levels of management," she explained.

 

Zak Parker explained that as an engagement program, their company has a '120 Club' program for senior level executives. He said, "The key idea is to have a long-term vision and to simplify the complex. As development of our employees, we are also planning to create a corporate MBA program. We also give bonuses and incentives and make employees a part of profit shares to incentivise them to perform better."

 

The session culminated on a note where the importance of both recognition and reward and that different approaches need to be taken to motivate employees of different organizations.