Companies hunt for laid-off talent to drive growth

India’s pink slip brigade — sitting out in the cold since last October as companies began axing jobs to cut through the financial slowdown — is now becoming the hunting ground for firms in the telecom, pharma and consumer goods sectors, as they look for inexpensive talent that suits their expansion plans.

Placement firms that ET spoke to said the companies in these growth intensive sectors had taken it easy on hirings for almost six months, and have now totalled around 25,000 vacancies. For them, the pool of laid-off people is a hunting ground for ‘industry neutral’ executives in functions such as human resource, finance, system administration, marketing and sales.

“Lower recruitment during the slowdown hasn’t helped the talent crisis in India, especially in fast growing sectors. Several such companies are evaluating the laid-off talent pool to hand-pick niche skills,” said Andrew Heard, Asia-Pac head of Watson Wyatt, a global human capital consulting firm.

Headhunters estimate the pool of laid-off talent in India from sectors such as IT, retail, banking and financial services, textiles and others could be as high as seven lakh.

“Of this, at least 15% would be in white-collar roles, and are the prime target for low-cost talent acquisition,” said E Balaji, CEO of HR firm Ma Foi Management Consultant.

This is a significant transformation for Indian companies that are perceived to have a mindset problem when it comes to hiring people who have been laid off.

“We do not differentiate among professionals who may have lost their job,” said Vsevolod Rozanov, president and chief executive officer of telecom firm Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL).

“In areas like customer service, we are indeed looking for people from other sectors, and even the laid-off pool. We can always train them for our needs,” said Mr Rozanov. SSTL currently has 1,600 people, and plans to ramp it up to 3,000 by December, as it plans to expand to 4-6 new circles.

FMCG major Marico CEO (consumer products) Saugata Gupta said several of its ex-employees, who went for more ‘exciting’ roles and are now victims of the global slowdown are coming back.

“We are getting several such people from sectors like retail. It’s a good time to re-calibrate talent,” he said.
Companies, such as Dabur, which had posted handsome quarterly results recently, are now building a talent bench across key functions to tide over the crunch.

“Since we have been clocking double digit growth rate every quarter, we don’t mind having some flab in critical functions,” said Dabur India head (HR) A Sudhakar.

Companies in the pharmaceutical sector, widely counted as recession-proof, say shortage of good talent is an issue, not just in research functions, but also in sales.

According to Prabir Jha, global head for human resources at Dr Reddy’s Labs, getting the right mix of skills is a problem. “In such a case, the laid-off pool can throw up interesting profiles,” he said.
Source: TheEconomicTimes