Tata Communications: Nurturing Home Grown Leaders

Rather than getting into a race to attract new talent, Tata Communications works on retaining its workforce, tuned as it is to the company’s vision and preparing it to generate a lineup of leaders for the future. “Out HR strategy embeds very smoothly with the business strategy because we focus on ‘creating a pipeline for future leaders within,” says Aadesh Goyal, global head of Human Resources. The ‘within balanced with without” strategy not only keeps employees motivated knowing there are opportunities ahead in the company, but keeps them secure and involved.

Tata Communications has a number of strategies and programmes that boost its workforce empowerment. As part of a talent strategy, for example, there are two broad categories in which measures are taken — those that are driven by the organisation (push programmes) and those that are driven by the employees (pull programmes). Push strategy includes a ‘long-term multi-faceted leadership development programme’ with a future horizon of 3-5 years.

A pool of top talent is strategically selected that undergoes a cross-functional and cross-geographical development programme, with each stint lasting two years. Partnering with an external mentor, Everwise last year, a structured six-month mentorship focuses on every individual’s goals. In all, 239 employees were covered last year with a satisfaction rate as high as 90 per cent.

Pull programme includes internal job postings that enable all regular employees to apply for open positions based on their career aspirations, knowledge, skills and abilities. One-third of company’s lateral hiring is done through this programme. Under IJP, cross-functional movements rose 18 per cent in FY 2014 to 31 per cent in FY 2015.

mala@businessworld.in