BWI: Survey Reveals that Driving Workforce Productivity Key to Controlling Hiring and Retention Challenges in India

Press release from Business Wire India
Source: Kronos
Monday, March 12, 2012 02:49 PM IST (09:19 AM GMT)
Editors: General: Consumer interest, Economy, People; Business: Advertising, PR & marketing, Business services, Information technology; Technology; Healthcare
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Survey Reveals that Driving Workforce Productivity Key to Controlling Hiring and Retention Challenges in India


Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Monday, March 12, 2012 -- (Business Wire India) -- An India-specific survey commissioned by Kronos Incorporated and conducted by People Matters with HR leaders across the IT/ITes, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail sectors reveals that while HR is saddled with hiring and attrition challenges that are tactical in nature, HR needs to focus on improving workforce productivity which is the real underlying challenge. However, organisations have little or no means of measuring workforce productivity. The survey explored the factors that affect employee productivity, highlighting the importance for organisations to look at measures to ensure that people are enabled to drive organisational performance.

News Facts

-- The survey reveals that improving productivity of the existing workforce is a very high priority for as high as 84 percent of HR respondents. While workforce productivity has traditionally not been an HR domain, the survey reveals that it is critical to HR professionals.

-- Issues regarding hiring and retaining talent are symptomatic in nature and HR needs to be more strategic and focus on "under the hood" reasons so as to bring hiring and retention challenges under control.

-- Do organizations have the tools to measure productivity? Despite productivity being key, a total of 82 percent of respondents do not have automated tools to measure and track productivity.

-- What are the key factors that affect productivity? The survey revealed that most organisations do not have automated means of managing two of the most important factors that impact workforce productivity: manpower planning and scheduling, and employee absenteeism.

-- How important is manpower planning? Inaccurate manpower planning is the most significant factor that affects employee productivity for 76 percent of respondents, as the execution of a business plan can be severely affected by not having the right people for the right roles at the right time. While workforce planning and scheduling comes on top as the factor that affects employee productivity it is the least digitized area with more that 60 percent of respondents managing it manually or through spreadsheets.

-- What's the impact of absenteeism? Employee absenteeism and training are the other two major factors that impact workforce productivity. Absenteeism has huge direct and indirect costs. For example, a replacement employee is about 70 percent as productive as the absent employee. However, 70 percent of respondents do not have a system to track absenteeism and still continue to track manually. Absenteeism is a direct indicator of employee engagement and engagement drives productivity and retention.

-- What's the solution? Organisations need to map themselves to a Workforce Management Maturity Curve from a process maturity and system maturity perspective. While a large percentage of organisations are high on the curve from a process maturity perspective, most of them are at a manual stage when it comes to system maturity.

-- How should organisations deploy a workforce management system? Organisations need to assess where they are on the workforce maturity curve and then adopt processes and systems to move up the maturity curve. Organisations need to move on the Manual  Automated Plan  Execute  Innovate curve and move workforce from an expense to a competitive differentiator.

Supporting Resources

-- About People Matters
-- The complete survey report can be found here.
 
Supporting Quotes

-- James Thomas, country manager, India operations, Kronos
"With the Indian economy increasingly going global, Indian employers face workforce rebalancing challenges, workforce costs increasing rapidly, and hiring skilled manpower becoming increasingly difficult, it is critical for organizations to enhance workforce productivity while maintaining a balance with employee engagement to remain competitive. The Workforce Productivity report comes at the right time, aiming to understand the factors hindering workforce productivity in Indian organisations. Organisations need to focus on three key issues: plan manpower more effectively - "flexing" to demand; execute the plans more strategically; and innovate with people so that people are their true competitive differentiators."

-- Ester Martinez, co-founder and editor, People Matters
"Over-scheduling or under-scheduling of people will only harm organisations with either a cost or quality issue. HR leaders are increasingly taking ownership of these aspects along with business and going beyond the administrative second fiddle with routine chores of recruitment, performance appraisals, and payroll."

Survey Methodology

The online survey was primarily structured around closed, single, and multiple-choice questions. Respondents also had an opportunity to add their views and comments. Additionally, responses were collected through face-to-face and telephonic interviews conducted by the People Matters research team. These interviews were more open ended and allowed business heads and HR heads to elaborate with qualitative information on their workforce management practices and processes. The qualitative responses have been incorporated in the results of the survey. The online survey reflects contributions from 215 respondents across industries. The respondents represent a diverse group of business and HR heads across the BPO/ITeS, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, BFSI, IT,and real estate industries. The report additionally reflects qualitative inputs from 30 HR heads across specific industries.

About Kronos Incorporated

Kronos is the global leader in workforce management solutions that enable organizations to control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve workforce productivity. Tens of thousands of organizations in 80 countries - including more than half of the Fortune 1000® - use Kronos time and attendance, scheduling, absence management, HR and payroll, hiring, and labor analytics applications. To learn how Kronos uniquely delivers complete automation and high-quality information in an easy-to-use solution, visit www.kronos.com.



CONTACT DETAILS
Sumeet Doshi,, Kronos, +91 98925 06857, Sumeet.doshi@kronos.com
Shraddha Ramesh, 20:20 MSL, +91 8861068515, shraddha.r@2020msl.com
Hepsibah Rozario, 20:20 MSL, +91 8884913468, hepsibah.rozario@2020msl.com

KEYWORDS
CONSUMER, ECONOMY, PEOPLE, MARKETING, BUSINESS SERVICES, IT, TECHNOLOGY, HEALTHCARE

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