The Official Blog of Benifys HR Solutions

It is said that adversity brings out the best in some – well, far from the truth for the only viable alternative that the people of India had to the ruling coalition. Just the beginning of the second term out of power and the house of BJP is in shambles like never before. It seems every bad wolf in the neighbourhood can huff and puff and bring it all down. Not only this, they are squabbling over petty issues that the country does not even care about. Reminds me of Ponting and his men, but that’s another story. So, back to the BJP and the disaster – the links with the right wing RSS are now clearly out in the open – something that everyone knew all the while, but something that they have been try to keep a tight lid on by ignoring, refuting and what have you. It is not a nice scene – they have some great leaders. Maybe life will come a full circle for them one day – seems pretty far away as of now.


The other house that is a little shaky right now is that of the TATAs – humungous losses in the steel business, the price to pay for taking over Corus, and they’ve got to keep the Jaguars and the Land Rovers floating too. They’ll pull a trick out of their bag still, but cautious times ahead for them, I’m sure. The bigger you are, the bigger your problems – thank God Benifys is lean and hungry and manageable. We’re looking at some good things to happen to us in this month. And we’re raring to go.


Something else to cheer about – lots. India’s in a Grand Slam main draw after 7 long years. While this statement has a depressing side to it, we prefer to look at the brighter side – we’re there, right? So what if it does not happen every year. What about Force India and the F1 stupendous achievement – shows that victory does not always come to the big and the strong and deep pockets – it is guts and determination and the zeal to win that gets you there. Missed the top spot by a whisker, but this is just the beginning. We stock all of this in plenty at Benifys. Our team is well equipped to provide a solution to any HR issue that you might be facing right now. All it takes is a click or a call – try it.


No rains still, and time’s running out – some people happy not to have to experience the tragic consequences that rain brings in any city of consequence in the country. But that does not mean that people are celebrating – we know at what price we’re reaching home in time. This is like the many dilemmas that we face all the time – build or buy, retained services or outsourced, trust someone else with my data or not, have HR run by an external agency or drain my bandwidth all the while and hang on to something that I don’t have to do – ah, what we’d give to find an answer to these. Well, all that you have to give is an hour to us – we’ll be happy to show you what’ll work best for your set-up.


Till that time, keep smiling – it’s not all that bad

Ajay has converted his zeal for people development into his career. An alumnus of Modern School and Hindu College, and equipped with a University Masters in Sociology from JNU, and an MBA from FMS, University of Delhi – from the very outset, he decided that people were his passion.

He has held leadership positions in HR in blue chip organizations cutting across industry verticals and domains within the HR function.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

~Lord Kelvin

Myths, stereotypes and preconceived notions, some shatter and some remain; Lord Kelvin would have been much more careful about saying what he said here if he had any idea how things would pan out in the future, anyhow – coming back to our article, quite a peculiar name, wouldn’t you think? This idea came out of brainstorming session our team was having (we do a lot of that) – so the question was if you could relate people at work with airplanes, who would be which type of plane! It occurred to us that airplanes like people have a personality of their own; some are lean, mean and ready to go; while others can look like they really deserve a break.

The Unpowered (Employee)

These people primarily come to office for recreational purposes, their own or someone else’s. All show and no go as far as work is concerned – the most common reason why they are kept in the team is because they are either funny or they have the ‘right’ gossip. They take their lives and careers as a joke and others are only too happy to play along.

Defining features – Generally slower, less massive, and less expensive than other types. Mostly used to glide off a cliff, catch wind on the beach or setting useless world records!

The Propeller (Employee)

These are people who applied the ‘take life as it comes’ adage to their professional lives with not so pleasant results. They are not updated with the new technologies or best practices and are satisfied with just working as they have been working. The two most common things you will hear them say is “I’m going with the flow”, or “just riding the wave”. By the way propellers are the planes used for crop dusting too – now we’re not suggesting anything!

Defining features – They are quieter, fly at lower speeds, and have lower load capacity. However, they are significantly cheaper and much more economical than jets.

The Jet (Employee)

The ‘with it’ guys. Good at their work and conduct, they know how to soar to success – literally! They use a variety of techniques to differentiate themselves from the rest of the crowd, including but not limited to – being loud and intimidating, being so fast and efficient that no one can catch up, taking the ‘lesser’ aircraft types for a ride. Needless to say, Jets are expensive, oh yes!

Defining features – More powerful than a than ‘unpowered’ and ‘propeller’ types. As a consequence, they have greater weight capacity and fly faster than propeller driven aircraft. One drawback, however, is that they are noisy.

The Cargo (Employee)

This employee was made to work, and doesn’t that make everyone happy! Anything and everything that walks in the office will offload their work on them, although the opening is usually – “hey, you busy?” or “can you help me with this small little thing?” Of course later on it doesn’t remain a small little thing. While the off loader is busy relishing the break they just created for themselves, they take solace in the fact that their work will be taken care of by this Cargo Airplane of employees. No one clearly knows what drives these people – maybe they really like helping others, or maybe it’s because of their inability to say no.

Defining Features – Has greater weight capacity than any other type of aircraft, not necessarily faster. Better stress handling capability as compared to other aircraft types.

Which type are you?

The Union Budget came and went – had a hugely negative impact on the market, even though it’s picked up lately. Missed opportunity, I think – the first two years of the government is always the time that you can push strong reforms, even if they hurt. Third year onwards the elections suddenly start looming on the horizon, and that’s the end of reforms. With a strong government, wanted to see a little more aggression than what we witnessed. Maybe they’re waiting for next year – sure hope so.


On to my favourite topic – I find this Australian snowball gaining momentum as it rushes down the international cricket ratings really fascinating. A 75 year old Lords jinx broken, a tied first test where the Australians again howled and hollered about non-gentlemanly behaviour (look who’s talking, mate), top order floundering yet again, bowling without teeth – all the drama associated with an ungainly fall from glory. On the other side of the chart was the Bangladesh team – even though they beat a hugely watered down West Indian team – it was still history being made, and something to remember. Glad that the West Indian problems have been sorted out, would have hated to see teams from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and the likes take to the cricket field.


The point is, there is nothing permanent, and nothing that may not change tomorrow. Just like the mindset around HR outsourcing. Things are a-changing, and changing in favour of outsourcing non core competency areas. Why carry the burden on your shoulders when there are professionals who can manage stuff better? Have a look at one of our articles in this edition on this.


Amazing land, this India – a particular politician spending unimaginable amounts on her own statues across some state – 1,000 to 2,000 crores of rupees being spent on this. Imagine what this amount, spent wisely, could have done for the state. And the irony is, with all the hue and cry surrounding this absurd intent, there is no-one that can stop her. Strange are thy ways, democracy. I know of no-one alive who would be so keen to see themselves as statues all over the place. I know of no-one dead who would have this desire, either – but that’s another story.


The point is, in parts, India needs some sense beaten into it – partial emergency is what we need. On the spot corrective measures, whether it is politicians like these, or the rich and famous brothers who fight between themselves over a national asset, or the drivers on the roads who will drive on anything that even remotely resembles a road, flouting all traffic rules, it’s like a bunch of maniacs out there. What a lovely place it would be without these elements – what a lovely place it is despite these elements. So, coming back to the word partial – how about partial outsourcing. Let professionals bring in the expertise or the bandwidth to carry out special projects in the HR domain.


Many people are, call us to find out who we’re working with, and on what.


Before we leave you with the Newsletter, here’s a quick ‘welcome back’ to the King of the Track. This is what relationships are made of, putting everything on stake all over again – holds true for Ferrari and Schumacher alike. Go for it Schumi, set the track on fire once again…


And in the meantime, have a great month of August – keep smiling.

The month is almost about to end, and we are just gearing up for the finalization and distribution of the Fourth Edition of our in-house Newsletter HR@Work for which we have been consistently getting great feedback; well, this issue is extra special then… why you ask? That’s because the newsletter now has a completely revamped look and let us tell you we just absolutely love it, and know that you will too! So here come the updates:


When we conceptualized HR@Work, we were not sure how it would be taken and whether we would be able to pull it off to any degree of success, now fourth month into it’s run, it now has a circulation of around 2000! The primary target audience and majority of the opt-ins that we get are from people working in the HR leadership domain in India with the occasional sign-up from professionals overseas who happened to stumble upon the Blog.


As I said earlier, the Newsletter has a complete new look and will have a guest column starting this month. We plan to use this space to not only get experts to talk on varied aspects of business like management, motivation, workforce management, people issues, organizational climate and the likes, but also as a space where our clients and partners can talk about the challenges they face in their day-to-day business affairs and what is it that keeps them going.


We love experimenting with Web 2.0 and believe there is a vast latent potential to it, once the targeted users reach a critical mass; taking action on that thought we are now on Facebook and Twitter (and are about to cross 4000 followers on the latter!). Eventually, we also plan to open a support group on LinkedIn where business professionals and budding entrepreneurs can discuss the problems they face while implementing their HR, or the lack of it.


This update is rather special, thanks to Shauna Moerke of the HR Maven Blog, we are now participating members of the “Carnival of HR” community and besides being featured in that space, we will be hosting it on our Blog on the 14th of April, 2010! Check out the latest carnival post hosted by Effortless HR Blog here.


A little late in the day to mention, but we signed a content partnership with HRguru (Part of the Monster.com Worldwide Company) for syndication of our articles on their website. HRGuru is an online community dedicated to advancement of current and future human resources professionals and of the improvement of HR as a whole. We plan to help each other in our online promotion efforts besides content sharing.


Lots of birthdays this month in our team, three to be precise and what fun it was! We wanted to share the photos but then someone suggested (smart thinking indeed) that posting our cake covered faces all over the internet might not be a very good idea and it for sure wouldn’t do any wonders for our branding effort! So I guess we wait until we can get some no ‘cake on the face’ photographs of us, fat chance of that I think! You can check more information about our team here, for once we have clean, bright faces .

When one starts thinking of outsourcing the HR function, whether partially or totally, there are a lot of questions that crop up in the mind. We’ve attempted to put together some of them and tried to present potential solutions so that these questions do not act as roadblocks in the journey towards greater efficiency and professionalism in the HR function.


Outsourcing is now a norm, people have realised that they should concentrate on their organisation’s core competencies and not share limited bandwidth in trying to run functions that can be run by someone else better, either because that someone else is better trained to carry out these functions, or because it does not make commercial sense to have an in-house function that would probably not have its hands full all the while.


Q. I have an Admin / HR team and they are doing okay. Why do I need to outsource?

A. True, the existing team might be working out fine, but there are no comparators to their performance, they operate on benchmarks that have been internally set, based on the limited knowledge of the HR function that most line managers possess. To enable dramatic growth for any organisation, and to have access to specialized expertise in each of the HR domains, a much larger team is required. This larger team could be a virtual team, working for your organisation on a need basis, rather than add to the salary bill that’s probably already a large part of your total expenses. Through outsourcing, you have access to quality HR services, thought leadership, and specialized support for different HR processes.


Q. How secure is my data? How will the Outsourcing partner ensure confidentiality at my site or their back-end operations?

A. Quality outsourcing organizations are committed to data security for all their client organisations. While most sign an NDA and related legal documents, they also ensure that your data resides on an IT platform that has restricted access. The data that needs to remain secure resides in exclusive servers with every possible care taken through technological barriers (firewalls, anti-hacking tools, etc.) to human interventions (strict control over number of people with rights to access your data). All physical data pertaining to your employees normally rests in your premises, they do not take it away to store it elsewhere. End of the day, you have to trust your data with someone, and in these times, the care that good outsourcing providers take of your data is probably better than what your internal team would be doing.


Q. If I outsource HR it will affect the morale of my employees. What message will this send to rest of the functions?

A. Outsourcing of a function is a common practice nowadays. This is done not with a view to shed workforce, but to equip the function with a competitive edge and improve its efficiency and effectiveness. When people see the difference that outsourcing has made to the organisation, they will realize the benefits of outsourcing themselves. At the same time, outsourcing decisions always have a strategy for the existing HR team, based on the company’s needs they can groomed into a consulting or business partner role. This is what is known as “Retained HR”. Some HR outsourcing firms go to the extent of taking on the existing HR teams onto their rolls, where they work under the shared services model, while providing continuity to the existing HR function.


Q. If I outsource, will I have the same control as compared to an in-house HR team?

A. You do not lose control over the HR function. Instead, you free your bandwidth from carrying out, or overseeing, HR related tasks, and you equip your HR function with expert knowledge and professionalism. While legally they may reside on some other organisation’s rolls, they still function as an in-house team, providing you with as much face-time and interaction as required. Every activity that the existing team was carrying out will be replicated by the outsourcing organization, only with greater cost-effectiveness and better quality.


Q. Will there be cultural issues between the outsourced services provider’s team and the outsourcing organisation’s employees/other functions?

A. HR outsourcing has evolved to a level where HRO firms are now committed to a seamless transition. They function as an internal department. Your employees and your management team will not even notice the cultural differences. If at all, they will be happier with the greater professionalism and expertise that the HRO firm brings.


Q. What can an HRO firm do differently to cut down my recruitment cost?

A. Two things – first, they will be able to manage your existing vendors better, because they have specific expertise in the recruitment space. This will help them negotiate better rates, and put in place a vendor management practice that you might otherwise not have access to. They also have a pool of recruitment partners, and will be able to obtain better terms for your recruitment requirements. Second, even if they utilise their own recruitment engine to service your needs and fill a position for you using their own resources, their charges will be highly competitive because they are now your partners.


Q. If my employee base increases by X % how will HRO firms deal with it and will there be any change in costing?

A. Work with the outsourcing partner to arrive at a per employee costing model rather than a lump sum. This benefits both parties. For you, your costs are linked to your capability to pay (if you’re growing, the probability is that you’re now able to allocate a larger portion to support services like HR – if you’re shrinking, you’d like your support services costs to some down as well). For the outsourcing services provider, he becomes a partner in your growth, always on the look-out to add value to your business so that both the organisations grow together. In such models, there is no redundancy built into the pricing mechanism, and you don’t end up paying extra for people who are not on your rolls.


Q. I want the core HR activities to be handled by my team; I can probably outsource just my recruitment function.

A. Then what you probably need is an RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) instead of an HRO. The strength of HRO firms is in demonstrating the value that HR can bring to an organisation through an end-to-end offering, and not in piecemeal services like recruitment.


Q. My organisations training needs are very specific. How will you design training programs for me?

A. Besides other verticals, most HRO firms nowadays have a dedicated Learning and Development team. Although they don’t usually cater to functional or technical training because we such training programs are best handled by subject matter experts, and not training experts. The basic behavioural tenets in employees in any industry vertical are similar to a large extent, and differ in degrees between industries. Even so, the expert trainers and content developers in an HRO will understand the particular need for your organisation and design customized training programs to address the training requirements of your organisation.


Q. How much do I gain from outsourcing HR in terms of money? Is it worth the effort?

Depending on the vendor the pricing is very competitive and sometimes even lower than what your organisation should be incurring as the total cost of running the HR department as an in-house function. This figure is derived from industry benchmarks. While this gives you an immediate reason to outsource, the true value add that you will experience will be in terms of the drastic improvement in quality and accuracy of the HR services from the very beginning of the engagement.