Changing Role of HR – Perspective of HR Analytics

HR analytics, is analysis used to make better decisions about all aspects of HR strategy with the goal of improving business performance.The future of HR analytics depends on integration within a company.The current state of HR analytics for predicting for its future suggests that the future of HR analytics depends heavily on data integration with emphases on integrating business disciplines and centralizing data.According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Human Capital Trends report, 86% of Australian businesses surveyed rate HR analytics as being a highly important factor in their workforce planning.

Companies can easily take advantage of a single platform that supports a full range of HR processes, including talent strategy and planning; sourcing and recruiting; performance management, learning and development; talent review and succession planning and compensation.

Analytics can also give HR professionals a better understanding of how effective their actions are. For example, analysts can look for patterns in HR data that can help companies improve hiring or reduce attrition, or pinpoint areas where labour-related savings can be achieved.

Analytics can also be used to support training, development and other activities that are more closely tailored to individual employee needs – thereby helping HR deliver more customized options for employees. As the Accenture research notes, HR can use analytics to segment employees in much the same way that marketers segment customers. For instance, companies can group employees by a wider range of criteria that include learning styles, values, personality, wellness profiles, mobility, behavioural patterns, and networking and communication styles.” Using that approach, HR can customize programs for smaller and smaller segments, helping to increase employee performance, engagement and retention.

Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) are the databases, software and computer systems that companies use to maintain their human resources: payroll, time off, employee records, benefits, and more.HR metrics is the data used to quantify the cost and the impact of talent management programs and HR processes and measure the success of HR initiatives.

R is the most used HR analytics tool. R is great for statistical analysis and visualization which is very suited to explore huge data sets. It enables you to analyse and clean data sets with millions of data.

R-Studio is an open source and enterprise-ready professional software package for R. It basically does everything that R does but has a friendlier user interface. The interface contains a code editor, the R console, an easily accessible workspace, and history and room for plots and files.

Microsoft’s Power BI It makes the aggregation, analysis, and visualization of data very simple. With Power BI, it’s a cinch to connect to multiple source systems, like SQL databases with people data, a live twitter feed and/or machine learning APIs. All these different data sources are then combined in Power BI. This simple aggregation process enables you to combine multiple data sources in one large database.

Some of the other HR analytic Software which are hugely popular are – Oracle HR Analytics, Talent Soft Analytics, People Insight, Sum HR to name a few.

In short term there are and will be start-ups in specialist areas, like in team or network analysis, engagement, performance, strategic workforce planning etc and the cloud-based HR management systems (delivering most of the data). These two areas will soon see the consolidation into larger systems and service offerings.
Finally, the costs of these technologies will reduce which will help spread the use and demands for analytics as smaller organizations will be able to afford to deploy this.

IILM Global Study Program – ISM Dortmund

We started with the global study program for three weeks from 5th August-25th August at ISM Dortmund with 34 students, (from Lodhi Road and Gurgaon)accompanied by two faculty members. Prior to the departure an orientation was held for the students and their parents briefing them on the process of the global study.The week started with the orientation at the ISM Campus and the students received a very warm welcome from the International Cell.

The first week was designed for studying the module titled Strategic Management. The examples used by Prof. QeisKamran covered all disciplines including economics, politics, marketing etc.The last week of the program covered the second module titled Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The module was delivered Using multiple tools such as videos, live cases and in case presentations involving creative and innovative thinking activities

The pattern of delivering the modules was very well received by the students.

1. Lecture-Activity-Lecture pattern of teaching: The modus operandi of the Professor at ISM Dortmund was to follow Lecture-Activity-Lecture pattern of teaching &learning.The students were equally involved in the teaching learning process.Every 20 minutes of lecture was followed by a half an hour activity.This not only engaged the students but also ensured that they are able to apply the concepts,theories & strategies in a real-life scenario.Activities taken up with the students involved Video snippets, live company examples, group presentations, brain storming sessions etc.

2. Idea Generation/Brain storming sessions: The Entrepreneurship module was delivered using a lot of brain storming sessions wherein the students were made to work on entrepreneurial ideas/prospective business models. This was able to gain maximum participation from the students as they were required to present a business idea that could capture the untapped needs/segments, specific to the Indian Markets.The focus was also on considering CSR & environment protection as core to the ideas generated.

3. On the spot Case based class presentations: The students were provided with Stanford & HBR case studies on the spot as an element of surprise class presentations. The purpose of the discussion was to bring out the analytical and problem-solving skills of the student group. Each of the student was required to present.The rules of presentation was made clear to the students in the beginning.Each group presentation was followed by a series of Q&A by the Professor so as to judge the analysis involved in the points presented.

During the visit students were also taken for a city tour of Dortmund which they immensely enjoyed. The bus tour was very well conducted, and the students enjoyed the scenery and the places of interest which Dortmund offers.

Two company visits were organised one at Dasa and the other at Wilo.

– Dasa is an exhibition centre run by the bureau of occupational safety and health hazards and focussing on
– Safety measures for all kind of catastrophes be it earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.
– The safety gear and equipment’s required to counter such catastrophes.
– Detailed explanation of all countermeasures to combat calamity.

The students were also taken for the second company visit to a German based company named-Wilo.The students experienced the production of pumps and other parts using robotic technology.The students were briefed about the made to order production philosophy followed by the company.

The closing ceremony was held prior to the departure with the dean thanking the students for the visit at the ISM Campus followed by the departure of the students from Germany.

Young Entrepreneur Ideation Challenge

IILM – Lodhi Road Campus organized The Young Entrepreneur Ideation Challenge on 22nd Dec 2017, which has been designed as an experiential learning exercise that encouragessenior secondary school students to find innovative solutions to common everyday problems. The aim is to spark an entrepreneurial mindset amongst these students. 20 presentations were received from various schools, out of which 5 videos were shortlisted and presented.

The students had to identify a social issue, capture the issue along with an innovative solution in a video and present their idea in front of experts.

The opening session was introduced by Dr Gunjan A Rana for the various schools who had come for the participation on campus, along with the distinguished judges comprising of alumni, which was preceded by the Welcome Speech by Dr Daisy Mathur Jain Dean UBS.

The first presentation was from Indraprastha International School Dwarka, who presented a video on the social issue of bullying and impact of it on students.

The second video was presented by Laxman Public School, who spoke about the lack of empathy and lack of emotional awareness amongst the inmates of old age homes. The students spoke about how care and emotional sensitivity is needed to bond amongst the elders in our society.

The third video was on Swach Bharat Abhiyan from Indraprastha International School, Dwarka, they spoke about the life of tin cans and the awareness on using it as a recycled waste.

The fourth presentation was from Pathways Aravali School, they presented a video on “Effective Disposal of Sanitary Napkins” and the concept of hygiene amongst women, with an effective disposal system.

The fifth presentation was from Bal Bharati Public School, Dwarkawho spoke about stress and depression amongst students. They created an application to track the messages posted on social media to trace the mind of the student and mentor the student in case facing the problem of stress or depression.

The final presentation was from Modern School, Vasant Vihar where they gave a presentation on the theme of Swach Bharat Abhyan by picking on the theme “Nurture Nature”, which spoke about trees being cut and human encroachment. They used the video to emphasize on “Save me don’t nail me campaign”.

The presentations were very well received by the judges and audience who thoroughly appreciated the social innovative ideas put forward by the school students.

The First Prize went to Pathways Aravalli, the first runner up trophy was awarded to Modern Vasant Vihar and the second runner up trophy went to Laxman Public School.

The trophies were distributed along with the prize money to the winners and participation certificates were presented to all participants in IILM’s Young Entrepreneur Ideation Challenge 2017.

BBA Stage1 and 2 Students Visit Yakult Manufacturing Unit, Sonipat

Students of BBA batch visited Yakult Danone India Pvt Ltd on 5th December 2017 along with Prof Anindita Chatterjee. Yakult Danone India Pvt Ltd is a joint venture of Japan and France and company has a global presence in different countries such as China, Brazil, UK, America, Malaysia etc.

Students got useful information about the production process and beneficial bacteria. After presentation Yakult milk-drink was offered to students for taste. Once the presentation is finished, there was a question-answer session in which students asked various questions about testing, quality control, safety, micro bacteria etc. There after students went for factory visit and layout and production process was explained by operations executive in a detailed manner. The visit ended with a group photograph and vote of thanks.

The visit was very productive for the students as it brought new insight about the usage of bacteria, production process, automation and quality control. Students were mesmerized to see the state of the art infrastructure and maintenance of hygiene in the company. At last vote of thanks was given by the students for the nice hospitality shown by the management of the company.

The students were shown a presentation on the inception of Yakult, the benefits of Yakult Probiotic along with a round of the manufacturing unit.

The students enjoyed the visit immensely, and were presented with goodies from yakult.

ISM Dortmund Campus Tour, City Tour and Company Visit

There’s a big world beyond the IILM campus, and a student can experience it through the golden opportunity given by IILM Undergraduate Business School as Global Study Program. In order to be a responsible leader in today’s time students need to have first-hand experience of cultures, organizations, and business practices around the world. In order to cater to this requirement IILM’s global offerings encompass a mandatory 3 week global study program.

This program was organized for our stage 2 students of 2016 – 19 batches. Based on the preferences, students were taken to International School of Management, at Dortmund, Germany. The entire program was sponsored by IILM and the partner school except that the students had to bear extra expenditures like food, travelling etc.

On the 6th of August 2017, 35 students collectively from both Lodhi Road and Gurgaon campus boarded flight for Dortmund, Germany along with two faculty members. While the travel itself, the students were handed over the ISD sim cards so that they can make calls to their parents and inform them about their safe arrival at Dortmund. In addition with this the students were also explained about the rules and regulations to be followed at the hostel. Each and every student was provided on the same day with a train/bus card to travel nearby location for free of cost. The students were also provided with a unique identity card in order to seek entry into International School of Management, Hamburg, Germany.

This three weeks program was a blend of two modules, industry visits and cultural immersions. A highlight of this interesting curriculum is here.

1. Strategic Management: Prof. Qeis Kamran

The course covered the basics of strategic management, key elements, current trends in strategy, strategy thinking styles, the role of resources and knowledge, branding, decision making, organizational politics, international and collaborative strategies, strategy and innovation. Module also introduced Prof. Kamran’s six forces model which challenged Porter’s five forces. This module was delivered through lectures, case study and visit to Google. The students appreciated the delivery of the course.

Industrial and Cultural Visits in Germany
Dortmund City Tour :
Learning Outcome: The students were informed and explained about the Dortmund city’s heritage and culture.

Feedback : Liked and appreciated by the student

DASA Company Visit

Overall the students had a great 360 degree experience in terms of classroom learning, industry visits, cultural immersions, hostel lifestyle, traveling using public transport etc.

The Future of HR

HR has been evolving a lot as a function in the recent times. The talent pool has been increasing, and as a consequence organizations are looking at HR as a strategic role more importantly than before.

SEE ALSO: Women in HR profession

In a recent survey done by the Society for Human Resource Management, HR professionals say that the three biggest challenges facing HR executives over the next 10 years are :

  1. Retaining and rewarding the best employees as in Talent Retention.
  2. Developing the next generation of corporate leaders as in succession planning.
  3. Creating a corporate culture that attracts the best employees and creating a talent pool as in Talent Engagement.

So if we look at the upcoming 10 years of HR, here is what will be different and dynamic :

HR will be flexible

As per a recent survey of SHRM, providing flexible work arrangements will be a top priority for organizations. 9 to 5 work culture may move to more flexi timings, as young professionals are looking for places where they can have the chance to take time off to be creative, be able to take a break without being monitored, or even work from home with pre-assigned objectives.

Employees want greater flexibility and will excel in their performance if they are allowed to adjust both their work and personal lifestyle. HR is starting to understand that, we see many startups and MNC’s implementing such methods and the next 10 years will only bring more of this.

HR will be more social.

Intranet, internal social platforms, and many other ways of promoting online collaboration and communication across the company will be part of HR responsibilities in the future. HR can use social tools to predict behaviors in office performance by giving extra benefits to high performers of the month or give incentives to employees who are great performers and represent the organization. The work experience will be taken live and will bring a stronger social component to organizations and their culture.

HR will be mobile

We all know that mobile is the new hot trend in almost every industry; HR is no exception. HR can be app based out of your smartphone in the future (organization specific) .You will want to leave comments, assign tasks, and when arriving to the office have your team already working on such tasks. You will want to able to check, while having a coffee before entering an individual performance meeting, what comments were given during the last meeting. You will want to be able to check how you’re performing in terms of workforce happiness, to check the latest stats on your mobile and give a report to your CEO.

All in all, the lifestyle of an HR person will not be desktop-based. It will be wherever they are, whenever they want and in fact mobile / on the move.

HR will be about data

How many days does it take to hire a new person? What is the best quarter to hire specific profiles? When are people the happiest throughout the year? Who are the most performing people and why? What are the trending skills we need to acquire in the next hire? These and many more questions are all connected to the hot topic of big data. But data is meaningless without interpretation and context. HR will have a great deal of responsibility in analyzing the data, interpreting it and making the right decisions in order to ensure the right acquisition, training, development and retention of talent, all a part of people analytics.

HR will be integrated

HR will be composed by tech savvy people, data scientists, and recruitment experts. People that are able to do copywriting, for job descriptions that correspond to the company culture. People that are able to read and interpret data and forecast trends. People that are on top of the latest technology and can solve problems or bring additional benefits to the company. People that are connectors, socially active and can attract more talents to the company. HR will be about diversity of skills.

The next decade is crucial for HR to evolve and become a key role in any organization. HR might no longer be a single department in the future. HR might be part of something greater in the years to come.

Company Visit – An Integral part of the IILM UBS Curriculum

The Company Visit module is an integral part of the IILM Undergraduate curriculum incorporated and designed for the SBS students keeping in mind their need to see and learn things practically from an industry perspective. An Industry visit helps to link theoretical knowledge with practical know how. For Stages 1 & 2 the visits were primarily linked to their subjects Information Systems, Project Management, Marketing & Finance.

 

The first visit for this semester took place on 9th September, when the students of Stage- 1 went for a company visit to Country Inn and Suites (A Carlson Property). They were addressed by the HR Manager, Sales Manager, Front Office Manager of the Property. The visit was linked to Information Systems. Students learnt about the Information Systems and the processes followed at the hotel. They were also briefed about the various departments of the hotel, their competitors and the positioning of the brand.

 

Subsequent two company visits were arranged separately for Stage 2 students in the month of October at HDFC Bank & Sheraton Hotel Saket. Here the students learnt about the front end and back end operations at a bank and at a hotel from the respective operational heads.

 

In December, a company visit was organized at Parle Biscuits at Bahadurgarh which was open for both the stages, where the students were exposed to the process of making biscuits and confectionary. They were taken inside the premises and shown the operations. A presentation on the inception of the Parle group and the various products manufactured by them made the visit interesting.

 

The students also visited Pepsi Bottling Plant at Greater Noida on 7th December which the students attended across both the stages which was linked with their Marketing & Project Management. At the Pepsi plant, a plant tour was conducted for the students where it was explained how the bottling and canning processes are done along with their assembling procedure.

 

The final visit for this semester was held at Ambience Mall Gurgaon on 19th December which provided information on the retail sector. The students really liked this visit as they were briefed by the mall management starting with a brief on the history of the Ambience Mall, Leela Ambience Hotel and then went on to explain regarding the positioning of the brands on each floor.

 

Overall the company visits conducted through the course of Semester 1 across both the stages considered a wide gamut of sectors keeping in mind the various modules being taught in class and linked to their entrepreneurship course. These visits make the acquisition of knowledge more practical and interesting for the students of BBA, in addition to the wide exposure they provide to the different sectors widening the scope for budding entrepreneurs.

 

By Ms. Anindita Chatterjee, Assistant Prof. HRM