1) Getting talent on the right track requires a long term talent strategy rather than quick fixes, which can perpetuate a cycle of catching one's own tail. 2) Building a robust talent bench through a 5+ year strategy that identifies critical capabilities and allows flexibility is key to absorbing short term issues. 3) Developing a talent culture through leadership commitment, measurement, and forums for discussing talent can help ensure the right people are identified and developed for key roles.

1. Getting talent on the right track<br />I was recently in a gathering of some key HR leaders and the discussion veered to the growing economy, the spurt in the demand for talent and the consequent challenges that most companies are facing. We can see a huge number of quick tactical calls being taken by HR leaders all across - a short term retention plan, quick incentive plans, compensation increases by the quarter or half yearly (from the traditional annual increases). As the environment is becoming more dynamic, with a great deal of change being experienced, the 'timeframe' for some of the decisions is paradoxically getting shorter. The big question here is about how should one react to these short term challenges, and what is the balance between driving a long term talent strategy versus taking what could be critical short term decisions on managing and retaining talent! Is there a danger in organizations becoming victims of such quick fixes, with us trying to perpetually catch our own tail?<br />This is where we need to pause and reflect. If we look at the reasons for organizations to think of these important, but quick-fix talent solutions, we normally come to two dead-ends: first, market or competitive moves that impact our talent, and second, lack of a robust talent bench. To some, this may sound as a classic chicken or egg conundrum, but to me this is quite clear- the key is for us to build a robust talent bench which should be able to absorb most of the 'short term' issues of market or competition. And therein lies the greatest challenge to all business leaders and HR professionals - how do we build this robust talent bench? This will take time, and to build something that absorbs a lot of these 'shocks' needs more rigor, strong strategic alignment and of course enough time to institutionalize it.<br />To start with, the industry dynamics and the business strategy have a big impact. Very often, we end up copying the best practices of a slew of great companies, which then results in a hotch - potch of misaligned initiatives and systems. What's time tested for an established, mature, FMCG company will not necessarily be the best for a technology start-up, which is a challenger in the market. We need to keep a reasonably long time horizon of over 5 years to understand the business challenges and the capabilities that will differentiate an organization, and then crystallize the talent strategy.<br />The bane of any system is sometimes its inability to adapt to various needs. As we build talent systems, I have seen that it is critical to build in enough flexibility there to take care of emerging issues.<br />Therefore, my learning is to start with a little bit of flexibility and not to define every single element to perfection, in its compartmentalized halo. <br />There are then a clutch of critical questions to answer as we craft our talent strategy.<br />Question 1: How much of reliance should we have on internal talent? In this ‘Build Vs Buy’ debate, we have a fair number of companies on both sides. While there are companies like P&G who swear by the build the internal talent pipeline model, equally there are others who subscribe to the ‘Buy’ model too. In Airtel we debated this long and hard. In the early phase of the company’s growth, there was naturally a reliance on external hires. Having stabilized the organization, we could have decided to solely build and grow our internal talent. We however felt that it was always good to get some external talent – that will help us build newer capabilities and at the same time provide with a good benchmark of our existing talent. We have set a broad guideline of 75% internal talent appointments to senior positions – and we track this continuously.<br />Question 2: What should be our source mix at the entry managerial level i.e. what are the different profiles of people we need at the entry level? This is a critical question and it determines the kind of talent you would grow in the company. This would also vary by industry – an engineering company and an FMCG company would be different. This source mix has to balance between getting a group of people who have done the job and have the experience Vs another group who have great long term leadership potential but need to be trained for the current job. The latter is literally the traditional ‘management trainees’ group - the best minds who have the potential to grow. But every company needs to invest in them – through structured career movements and development inputs. It is critical that we get this mix right for the company – too few and there is not enough critical mass, and too many and then we just can’t provide the focus and development inputs for them. We also need to balance between specialists and operating leaders- they may come from the same educational background, but differ significantly.<br />Question 3: How will you identify and develop your talent? This is the area where we have great number of wonderful practices. My learning here is that many of us try various innovative practices, but the key to sustaining this is through building the capability and ownership of talent development with the operating managers. Like how operating leaders deliver the sales and profit targets, with the CFO showing them their progress report, they need to be empowered and made accountable for building and developing talent, with HR doing a role similar to the CFO. Building this culture is critical before we put in place any new initiatives – and this starts with the leadership setting the example. One of the metrics that we use to track all operating leaders is the extent to which they develop and share talent.<br />Prioritisation and focus works here, as it does everywhere! If you dispassionately look at any organization entity with the help of good old Pareto, you will find that 20% of the jobs contribute to 80% of value created- these are our critical positions, i.e. positions of competitive advantage. Get your best talent here, and voila, your results improve. At Airtel, we have identified these critical positions, and we have put in place a plan to accelerate development of talent to these positions. <br />To embed this focus on talent, we need to create a talent culture- and the key to do that is leadership commitment, measurement and visibility. We have also established forums where talent is discussed – this provides visibility of talent and ensures mobility of talent from one part of business to the other. We have a formal Talent Council which identifies people for senior roles – this helps us in looking beyond the obvious for right talent to take up key leadership positions. We have had a couple of customer services leaders who have moved to take on general management leadership roles – which would not have been possible otherwise. To ensure that development of talent is targeted we have outlined the success profile of leaders in the key benchmarked roles – and that serves as a guideline for providing development inputs. We also need to empower people to prepare for bigger roles – to do so we have outlined some principles of career growth and articulated possible career paths. Most development occurs on the job – but I think most of us do not realize it, and consequently don’t look at it as real development. The trick is to get people to understand this and align practices around it- and linking development to jobs and career experiences is a good way to do it. <br />Now, what do you think is the prime reason for the attrition of top performers or high potentials? In my experience, what unnerves them is a lack of clarity on their future growth options. The more clarity I have on what is my next role and what future roles I can aspire for, that sets me at ease and I consciously try and work towards achieving those goals. Therefore, if you can give visibility to your our top performers of their next move or two in the organization, that reduces the risk of their feeling uncertain and looking at options outside. To do so, we need to have regular communication and transparency in the process- but more importantly a totally aligned thinking in the leadership regarding each of key guys. <br />As most organizations struggle to get in a more objective assessment of performance and potential, assessment centers or development centers have become ubiquitous, especially where a large volume of people need to be assessed on a more rigorous basis. We have introduced development centres for a couple of levels and they help individuals be open to development inputs in a non threatening environment.<br />Accelerated development of high potentials is another key initiative – we do this at three levels in the organization – in each case, there is a focused set of development inputs through training programmes, coaching & mentoring, and specific on-the-job breakthrough projects. In a dynamic industry with huge competitive pulls, we are clear that as a market leader we will need to build talent faster than they would be naturally ready. <br />While we do all of this, we constantly need to see what the newer workforce (the so called millennials) want. Fine tuning these systems to the changing needs is critical – let me give you an example. In our experience, focused coaching, even if virtual, is a critical accelerator for the development of the younger generation. Finding the right coaches who can interact with this group and give them appropriate inputs is a critical element of success. Webinars and online ‘social learning’ interventions are the newer modes of delivering learning.<br />Question 4: Are all our Human Capital systems integrated and aligned and are we clear what culture and behavior we really want? This is a critical question and it needs to start with us articulating the kind of culture and behavior we want, and then ensuring that all systems especially our performance management and reward system are oriented towards that. At Bharti Airtel, we are clear we want an entrepreneurial and collaborative culture – thus there is a strong focus on performance/delivery as well as right leadership behaviours. The core role of a company’s top management is defining this and ensuring that the leadership sticks to it consistently. Articulating what the company stands for is what we call our ‘Employer Brand’- like the consumer brand, this helps align the proposition to employees and also guides the essence, the spirit and tone, of the people initiatives. <br />To get back to where we started, despite organizations doing all they can in building a long term robust talent pipeline, we would still have some gaps in a short term horizon. Talent will always be a leaky bucket, but if we don’t address it holistically we may end up with each of the short term measures creating different pulls and pressures. <br />As we see from the above, the role of HR as an architect and facilitator of the talent systems is becoming critical. Over the last 25 years that I have been working, across the sectors FMCG & Telecom sectors, I have seen a clear shift in the role HR plays in a business, with respect to managing talent. The buzz word now is ‘business partnering’ – in simple terms, this is about deeply understanding the business, coming up with insights on the capabilities, and working together with the operating leaders to implement appropriate solutions. To enable this focus, we need to structure the HR role appropriately and build the right skills in HR. In Airtel, we have organised HR in 3 broad pillars- our HR shared services which take care of all transactional activities, the Expertise teams that work deep in a few select domain areas like Compensation and Benefits, Talent Development etc, and lastly the HR Business Partners who work with each of the business units/circles to build overall talent capability in the business. So the archetype HR person now is not a jack-of-all-trades, high energy trouble shooter, but a thoughtful student of business and people, who adds value by her insights and influence. <br />In all my interactions and travel across many countries, I think the HR thinking and talent in India stands out among the top few in the world, and we can see this in the various organisations that are globally a name to reckon with! <br />