Future tense

It has been a decade of tumultuous changes in the landscape of Human Resource management. With today?s multi-cultural and diverse employment canvas, it is reported that almost 20 per cent of the employees in the burgeoning technology enabled services and knowledge outsourcing industry is an expatriate population.

It has been a decade of tumultuous changes in the landscape of Human Resource management. With today’s multi-cultural and diverse employment canvas, it is reported that almost 20 per cent of the employees in the burgeoning technology enabled services and knowledge outsourcing industry is an expatriate population.

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It has been seen that the Persons of Foreign Origin (PFO) status has been conferred to the highest number of expatriates this year in the Indian service and IT sectors. This is the result of a significant 30 per cent year on year growth of employment from the last five years. It is estimated that PFOs will constitute a stupendous 43 per cent of the middle and senior line management of the services and IT sectors in India by 2015.

Trans-national

In India, corporations have acquired the status of true trans-nationals as their cultural environments within the statutory policies and operational ethics have all undergone changes to provide for the ethnic and regional diversity that is consequent of such changes.

This has led to landmark modifications in the way behavioural attributes of prospective employees are measured. In the past, team work, leadership, responsibility etc. were the key factors measured for competency in a job role. Today, entirely different “adaptability, cultural tolerance” and such new attributes are checked to measure the employability of a candidate.

Wage issues

Concerns have been raised due to the incredible increase in the wage levels in these sectors in the last decade. Indian managers, in both middle and senior levels, operate with parity in income scale to that of the United States’, which still remains the strongest world economy today.

As a result of such fantastic pay packages, a survey reportedly commissioned by the European Union this year says that 27 per cent of Europe’s working population is actively considering job opportunities in India. It is also estimated that currently 43 per cent of the population surveyed in South Asia was actively considering job openings in India.

Global choice

Today, the employee attrition problems that affected the industry in the past decade are a thing of the past. The Indian workforce rapidly prepared for global challenges in the past five years. This resulted in a lack of local workforce for jobs within the country as Indian managers are a “preferred choice” for global opportunities.

(The author is Director-Sales, Kenexa Technologies)