The Official Blog of Benifys HR Solutions

We are living through a phase of economic slowdown in the global markets including in India. These are uncertain times and with the declining state of the global economy with credit crunch and layoffs happening all across, most companies have to deal with these complex situations in their organizations. The question on everyone’s mind today is how to survive and sail through a recession.


As a corporate professional, you may have seen or faced a similar situation and as a leader, wondered – what can I do to reduce the impact on my existing workforce? How do I motivate myself and my teams? How do I survive recession?


The key to surviving a recession is opportunity recognition. One has to believe that there will always be opportunity for those who seek and pursue it. Irrespective of the state of the economy, needs will always be there. From a ‘want’ economy we may move to a ‘need’ economy, but we still require products and services to meet those needs. The mantra is to identify and explore these opportunities and capture them. The mantra also is to keep your existing businesses sailing as customers become more demanding in these times while employees can become insecure and shaky.

So here are some mantras to remember in times of recession

Recognize opportunities that you have never thought of before, areas that you have not explored. Look beyond the obvious.


Keep the communication flowing between you and your teams. Many a times, lack of timely communication can lead to rumors and grapevine that can generate panic and lead to high attrition. In order to motivate & retain your workforce, keep the communication channels open.


Treat this phase as a learning opportunity. Be open to experiment. Focus on enhancing the skills of your teams and to hone their domain knowledge. Identify and groom your potential leaders.


Share your and your company’s vision and future plans with your team. Be transparent. People will stay with you if they see clear vision and leadership.


Most important, recognize and reward employees. Sometimes a pat on the back works wonders to motivate people! Timely recognition is a must, do not delay it.

Remember, recession in itself is a great opportunity to change. It changes the way we feel, look and react to things. It takes us out of our comfort zones and makes us more alert, controlled and cautious. Treat it as a stabilizing phase and reassure yourself and your teams that those who stand tall in these times by looking long term will shine brighter. While those who panic and want only short term growth can perish easily.

This is the time to prepare for the future…. are you ready?

Guest Post by Sangeeta Malhotra

The job loss scenario that triggered off in the wake of a very in-your-face recession and dwindling bottom-lines is no news to anyone. There are a lot of people out there (trust us on that) who wish to find a job for themselves, or maybe, are just looking for change but really have no clue where to start. Here are some simple tips to get you up to speed with your job hunt endevor, including links to required tools and resources.

Design a good resume

This is a no brainer actually – all the recruiters are online these days, so if you ever hope to be picked up, not only do you need to have an updated resume, but it should also stand out in the midst of all the sea of resumes (like “I can haz potential”) recruiters have to deal with everyday. Microsoft provides a very nice collection of professional resume templates, cover letters et al for users of Microsoft Office Suite.

If you simply can’t make a resume yourself, request a friend or hire a design professional to make one for you – you will not regret the money spent on it. Once this is done, post this resume to all possible job search engines, like Monster, Naukri, Times Jobs, Yahoo Job Search.

Company Websites

Visit companies that require the kind of skills that you carry; you would usually find a ‘join us’ section which has a searchable database of the current openings or just a list. Reply to these openings showing your interest and competency for the job. If you feel a little daring you can even ask the operator to connect to someone in the Human Resources, even if they don’t have a suitable opening at that point of time, you will gain visibility and the next time they need a person for a matching profile, there’s a higher chance that you might get a call.

Hint: Send a follow-up mail right after you have spoken to the recruiter, this shows professionalism and increases your recall value.

Search. Search, Search!

You need the job, right? Then you have got to be proactive about it, while the traditional way of posting your resume is one of the most effective ways to get hired, it is still a passive activity, wherein, you have to sit back and wait till the time you get a call. Besides doing the usual search on job search engines mentioned above, go a step further and join HR groups on the internet, engage in conversations, try to find region specific jobs boards like Craiglist and e-classifieds. Basically do whatever it takes, Google is always a good point to start your job hunt, use keywords like jobs, find a job, job search, employment, etc.

Join professional networks

Make a good LinkedIn profile, import your contacts and add your connections to build your own network. Recently a study revealed that a person with 30 or more connections on LinkedIN is 34 times more likely to be offered a job than a person who has 5 or less connections. A lot has been said and written about the use of twitter as a recruiting tool, but frankly, it has still to gain the critical mass here in India to be of any practical use. Some other professional networks that a lot of Indians use are Silicon India and Peer Power. These networks may be in their infancy in the Indian scenario based on the usage, but things are changing fast and you wouldn’t want to miss the train.

Further Reading and Tools:

How to use the internet in your job search

Using the internet to find a job

Step by step automated resume creation and uploading on Monster

EDT
April 29, 2009

With recession hitting the market, companies need to be more practical and strategic in their business process. Of late, companies have started realizing that HR recruitment, selection, retention etc., is quite a cumbersome process calling for high amount of time and resources and inflicting cost. Thus, they are warming up to the idea of outsourcing HR function to offshore firms. Multinational companies are saving millions of dollars by outsourcing HR. All cultural differences are addressed while streamlining the work.
Advantages associated with outsourcing the HR departments include:

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Great Reduction in Costs

HR outsourcing (HRO) converts fixed cost to variable cost and can produce quality performance in low cost. Companies have started realizing that offshoring HR department to low-cost areas will help in reducing cost while maintaining the quality of performance. Gradually, offshore outsourcing firm becomes an inbuilt function of the organization and the combined effect of their partnership further strengthens the process of the company.

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Simple Global Models

Outsourcing takes HR functions to a global scale. With entrance of global service providers in the market competition has become tough; however the service delivery model has become mature and highly satisfactory for global clients. Outsourcing helps in moving HR executives from local role to global. Few advantages of global engagements for HR are:

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• Expertise: HR Managers of varied expertise from all over the globe improves the recruitment process.
• Cost Effective: As stated earlier, hiring HR personnel from low-cost countries helps in providing same or better service at lower price.
• Workplace diversity: Globally functioning HR brings employees from across the globe and makes the work environment culturally more diverse.

In a tough competitive global market, the benefits of global HR model are too valuable for a company to miss.

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Best of Breed Solutions

With outsourcing talent hunt has become broad spectrum. Now finding the desired candidate satisfying all selection criteria is not the main area of focus, instead, best-of-bread approach is taken to find the leaders in the field.

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Risk Mitigation

Many a times companies faces crisis due to sudden loss of the key HR person. A tight labor market delays finding a suitable replacement. Hiring and training a new person for knowledge transfer becomes difficult and costly in recession. An outsourced HR engagement helps to almost terminate these problems. In HRO, hiring new replacements and training them are the responsibilities of the service provider, thus, ensuring a continued hassle-free service.

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Value Addition

Generally, in-house HR functions are primarily visualized as cost-centre; whereas, HRO models chiefly focus on strategies which would improve business and reduce cost. Unlike in-house HR personnel, outsourced HR team does not get caught up in internal issues and thus can concentrate on cost-reduction, talent acquisition, training and retention. This results in the following benefits:

• Increases process efficiency by concentrating on important issues.
• Increases flexibility of business and makes it more dynamic.
• Increases employee satisfaction and productivity.
• Increases the business network and help gain market access.
• Increases sales and business during recession.

In the current volatile market the need to focus on core business activities has become an absolute necessity. To cater to core activities, companies are opting to outsource non-core process like Human Resource management.
Like every process, outsourcing too has its own pros and cons. Few disadvantages of HR outsourcing are:

• It requires lots of coordination with the service provider.
• It reduces the scope of learning for an organization.
• It reduces the control over the support function thus affecting the integrity of the company.

To minimize these disadvantages organizations has to understand their ultimate motive of outsourcing. A clear vision of goal and transferring only the functions and not responsibilities will certainly prove to be fruitful in smooth outsourcing of HR functions. This is no cakewalk and requires a great deal of knowledge, planning, skill and commitment.