HR Headlines, Jan.2008

Foreign IT Companies Account For 15% Of Indian IT Workforce
Today, Information Technology (IT) multinationals in India account for an estimated 14-15 per cent of the Indian IT work force. The major IT MNCs alone-IBM, Accenture, Capgemini, EDS, HP and ACS- employ over nine per cent of the Indian IT-BPO manpower. IBM has shown the fastest growth with its workforce in India growing by around 37.3 per cent to touch 73,000. In fact, IBM stands as the fourth largest employer among all IT firms in India. Over the next three years, IT MNC hiring is expected to more than double year-on-year. Hiring at this pace is bound to raise stiff competition for talent and make talent shortage more acute.
Source: 22-12-07 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan



India R&D Sector Witnessing Reverse Brain Drain
According to top officials in Indian National Science Academy, around 30,000 scientists and researchers have returned to India to be absorbed in various organizations in the last three years. The positive trend has been witnessed with the advent of research and development in the private sector. With more than 300 companies setting up their R&D centres here, India is fast becoming a global R&D platform. This has thrown up a plethora of opportunities for the young students who need not leave the country for better jobs, Even the government is taking steps to create a pool of scientific talent in national universities. The government intends to create three more centres like the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in -- Poona, Kolkata and Mohali.
Source: 22-12-07 www.livemint.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan


Companies Digging Into Untapped Pool Of Talent
Rising attrition and a dearth of quality human resources due to the fast developing economy has led companies to search for talent in unexplored areas. More and more companies are now hiring housewives, ex-army men, sophomores and physically challenged people to add to their manpower. As new age employees are changing jobs at a faster pace now, it has become increasingly difficult for companies to hunt for professionals and the bigger challenge is to retain them. Many companies are now trying to reform their faulty and monotonous human resources policy and induction system to contain attrition.
Source: 28-12-07 www.sify.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan


The India HR Summit 2008 “Targeting Excellence – The HR Way” In Delhi
Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), Greater Noida, is organizing ‘The India H R Summit 2008 – Targeting Excellence: The HR Way’ on January 12, 2008 at PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi. The eminent speakers at the event are Dr. Santrupt B Misra, Director, Aditya Birla Management Corporation Ltd, Dr. Pritam Singh, Professor of Eminence, MDI, Dr. Prakash V Bhide, President – Corporate HR, J K Group, Mr P. Dwarakanath, Director - Human Capital, Max India, Mr S. Y. Siddiqui, Executive Director HR, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, Mr G. P. Rao, Head HR & IR (Polyster Sector), Reliance Industries Ltd, Mr Narendra Nath Akhouri, Sr. VP-HR, Hero Honda Motors, Dr. Shalini Sarin, Head – HR, Cairn Energy India PTY Monica Mudgal, VP – HR, Max New York Life Insurance Co. Ltd, Mr Alok Sheopurkar, Head HR, HDFC Asset Management Company Limited, Mr Ashok Grover, Chief Human Resource Officer, JBM Group and Mr Biju Sebastian, Head – Corporate HR, Salora International.
Source: 28-12-07 Birla Institute of Management Technology Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Companies Helping Employees Prioritize Their Lives Better
These days, more and more companies are offering their employees flexible working hours and home working options in a bid to help them prioritize their lives better and create a balance between professional and personal lives. By dropping their rigid stance on work timings, companies are hoping to increase productivity of employees and chek attrition. IT companies like Infosys and TCS started the trend and now non-IT companies such as publishing firms, HR companies, media houses and advertising agencies too are following suit. Procter and Gamble has gone a step ahead by letting employees work up to two days a week from home and to facilitate this has also volunteered to set up their ’residential work stations’.
Source: 24-12-07 www.livemint.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan


OM Careers to Host World’s First Online Marketing Careers Conference in Delhi
OM Careers, a non-profit, online marketing careers community, is organizing OMCAR 2008, an online marketing careers conference on 12th January in New Delhi. This event is coupled with unique Job Clinic opportunity for organizations to hire right online marketing talent. This is a unique opportunity for those organizations who are struggling to hire online or search marketing talent. India’s leading online marketing companies such as Pinstorm, Communicate2 and Quasar Media have already confirmed their participation as Job Clinic partners.
If you also want to be a Job Clinic partner, please visit http://conference.omcareers.org/job_clinic.asp or contact Pradeep Chopra at 9810762902 or write to pradeep.chopra@omcareers.org
Source: 30-12-07 Company Bureau Compiled by Amresh Anjan


Govt To Reshuffle Top Management In PSU Banks
Come 2008 and the government will restructure the top management teams in the country's leading 11 public sector banks (PSBs), 10 of which are listed on the stock exchanges. Nine new chairmen and managing directors and 17 executive directors will be appointed following the retirement or transfer of the current incumbents in 2008. The current Union Bank chief Mr M V Nair will take charge of Bank of Baroda with Chairman and Managing Director Mr A K Khandelwal retiring in March. The incumbent Chairman and Managing Director of Bank of Maharashtra will move to Union Bank. In the first week of January, the Financial Services Department will conduct an interview of executive directors for selection of new CMDs in nine banks. The banks are Canara Bank, Andhra Bank, Corporation Bank, Vijay Bank, United Bank, Dena Bank, Syndicate Bank, Central Bank and Bank of Maharashtra.
Source: 24-12-07 www.rediff.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan



DMA Summit On ‘Compensation & Benefits – Going Global’ In Delhi
DMA is organizing a two day high profile Summit on ‘Compensation & Benefits – Going Global’ on 11-12 January, 2008 at Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi. The Summit will facilitate a diagnostic comparison between the existing and the emerging trends in C & B practices both locally and globally, for divergent industry segment. The eminent speakers invited for the summit are Mr Amit Chincholikar, Mr Pavan Bhatia, Mr Sanjay Singh, Mr A Sudhakar, Mr Chandan Chattaraj, Mr Gopi Nambiar, Dr Y V Verma, Mr Shantanu Banerjee, Mr V C Agrawal, Mr G K Agarwal, Mr G Ohja, Dr A K Balyan, Mr Aquil Busrai, Dr C S Ventakaratnam, Dr Pritam Singh, Mr Jagdeep Khandpur, Mr Mark Thompson and Mr P Dwarakanath, eminent consultants from Price Waterhouse Coopers, Hewitt Associates and Ma Foi.
For further registration/sponsorship, please contact Mr Rajan Pandhi, Assistant Director, DMA, Mobile 9810877615, 24629555, 26629552, Email: dmadelhi@sify.com or dmadelhi@ndb.vsnl.net.in .
DMA Website : www.dmadelhi.org
Source: 27-12-07 DMA Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Tax Paid By Employer Is Non-Monetary Benefit In Kind: Tribunal
The income tax that an employer pays on behalf of its employee is a non-monetary benefit in kind and, therefore, exempt from tax. A special bench of the Delhi Income Tax Appellate Tribunal gave this ruling following a petition of a company called RBF Rig, which paid salaries to some employees net of tax as the employer had borne the taxes. This ruling will benefit multinational companies operating through liaison and sales offices and unregistered Indian companies. Some of these companies are known to bear the tax costs for their employees. However, registered companies are not allowed to bear tax costs on behalf of their employees under law.
Source: 22-12-07 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Shell Awarded For Empowering The Disabled
The national award for ‘Empowering People With Disabilities’ has been awarded to Shell India Marketing. The award came in recognition for empowerment of persons with disabilities as an employer. The award was presented by the President, Smt Pratibha Patil, to the Chairman, Shell Companies in India, Mr Vikram Singh Mehta.
Source: 22-12-07 www.thehindu.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan



HeadlinesSEBI To Increase Its Officers Strength
Capital market regulator SEBI is expected to hire about 100 professionals in 2008 in a bid to increase its officers' strength. Recently, USAID had reported that SEBI lacks enough skilled manpower. Presently, the regulator employs 535 people including 403 officers. Sebi is looking to recruit more as part of its ongoing policy of inducting professionals from business and law schools. Recently, SEBI had embarked on a major training programme for all its employees where all categories of employees were imparted training in managerial effectiveness.
Source: 23-12-07 www.sify.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan


Chevron To Hire IIT Engineers
The energy giant, Chevron Corp of US has set its eyes on the engineering talent pool in India. The company plans to hire young engineers from Indian Institutes of Technology for its worldwide operations. The company plans to hire 6,000 engineers globally and will soon join campus interviews at IIT Kanpur and Chennai, according to Mr Jeet S Bindra, President, Chevron Global Refining. Presently, the company employs 58,000 people across 180 countries. This is for the first time that the US energy giant would be visiting the campus of any Indian engineering college.
Source: 28-12-07 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan



FBT On ESOPs To Be Paid By Subsidiary Of Foreign Companies
The finance ministry has issued a circular clarifying that the local subsidiary of a foreign company is liable to pay the fringe benefit tax (FBT) on shares allotted to Indian companies. The securities would come under FBT purview even if they are allotted by foreign holding company to Indian employees.
Source: 22-12-07 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Govt Struggling To Find Right Talent For WB Funded Project
The government has failed to attract the right talent for its prestigious World Bank-funded capacity building programme in the food and drugs sector in the country. The government has already established world-class infrastructure and institutional framework like drug and food testing laboratories and state-of-the-art facilities for drug regulatory officials but it does not have talented people to carry out the regulatory functions. The human resource crunch is hampering the timely implementation of the programme. Apart from the talent crunch, the much-hyped online networking of drug regulatory offices is yet to be operational.
Source: 21-12-07 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Govt Looking For New Air India Chief
Mr V Thulasidas', the incumbent Chairman and Managing Director of National Aviation Company of India Ltd, which runs the merged Air India is due to retire in March next year. But the government has already began search for a new head. It has posted an advertisement on Civil Aviation Ministry website, which invites applications from officers of the level of Additional Secretary or equivalent, Lieutenant General in the Army and equivalent levels of the Navy and Air Force subject to their cadre clearance. The responsibility of the CMD is to oversee all activities of the company, which has about 33,000 employees and operates 140 aircraft.
Source: 25-12-07 www.dnaindia.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan


PSU Banks Looking To Hire Specialists
With new generation private sector institutions, the public sector banks have realized the need to hire specialists to man different positions right from the lower order of clerical positions. Top officials at these banks feel that the traditional recruitment method of filling the clerical positions through a common test for all graduates is unable to cater to the operational needs of many a bank as these graduates generally have poor understanding of a balance sheet, inefficient front-office management and non-friendly approach to customer service. Thus, they feel that the need of the hour is to attract talent from specialist pool.
Source: 26-12-07 www.thehindubusinessline.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan


Goldman Sachs Awards Record $68 mn Bonus To CEO
Even as mortgage losses Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns chiefs to forgo year-end payouts, Goldman Sachs Group awarded its Chief Executive Officer Mr Lloyd Blankfein a record $67.9 million bonus in 2007. While Mr Blankfein, 53, will receive $26.8 million in cash, and $41.1 million in restricted stock and options, co-presidents Mr Gary Cohn, 47, and Mr Jon Winkelried, 48, will each receive restricted shares and options valued at about $40.5 million, up from $25.7 million last year. This is consecutively for fourth year that Goldman shattered Wall Street profit records even as banks and securities firms including Citigroup and Merrill Lynch & Co were forced to take huge writedowns.
Source: 24-12-07 www.sify.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan


Alcatel-Lucent Rejigs Organizational Structure
French telecom company Alcatel-Lucent has appointed Mr Vivek Mohan as President for India operations as part of a major organisational restructuring. Mr Mohan has been a part of Lucent Technologies since 2001 and after the company’s merger with Alcatel, he has been heading services business for Alcatel-Lucent in South Asia. Mr Ravi Sharma, who is currently heading the South Asia business including India, has been promoted as advisor to Mr Frederic Rose, President of Europe, Africa and Asia (EAA) business. In his new capacity, Mr Sharma would support the business in South and South East Asia, and India in developing and implementing a sound and profitable strategy to accompany Asian operators in these markets.
Source: 27-12-07 www.sify.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Mr Narasimhan To Be New Chairman For Lanka IOC
Mr S. V. Narasimhan has taken over as Chairman of Lanka IOC from Mr Sarthak Behuria who resigned recently. Mr Narasimhan joined Indian Oil Corporation in 1975. A chartered accountant and a management expert by profession, Mr. Narasimhan has over three decades of experience of working in the oil sector. He held the position of Director in Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd before joining IOC as Director (Finance) in 2005.
Source: 25-12-07 www.ptinews.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Siemens India Appoints New MD
Siemens India has appointed Mr Armin Bruck as its Managing Director, w.e.f January, 1, 2008. Presently, Mr Bruck is a whole time director on the board of Siemens Ltd and looks after the energy business. Mr Bruck will succeed Mr Juergen Schubert.
Source: 26-12-07 Financial Express Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Coca Cola appoints Mr Krishnakumar As COO
Mr T Krishnakumar has been appointed the new Chief Operating officer (COO) of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Ltd. Mr Krishnakumar joined the company in 2004 and worked out of Mumbai as the Senior Vice President, Central Region. However, in his new role, he will be based out of Gurgaon and oversee the national manufacturing, corporate sales and all regional operations.
Source: 24-12-07 Hindu Business Line Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Mr Emani Quits Wipro Ltd
Mr Ramesh Emani has resigned from the post of President of Telecom and Product Engineering Solutions division of Wipro Ltd. Mr Emani will now pursue interests outside Wipro. His place at Wipro will be filled by Mr Sudip Nandy, who has over 24 years experience in Wipro. He has excellent understanding of the product engineering business and has also served as the Chief Strategy Officer of Wipro Technologies in the past.
Source: 25-12-07 Hindu Business Line Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Mr Gaincarlo’s Exit Puts Cisco’s Succession Plans In Trouble
For long, Cisco Systems had seen Mr Charlie Giancarlo, development officer, as the successor to Mr John Chambers, Cisco’s Chief Executive. However, these succession plans have been put in turmoil following Mr Giancarlo’s resignation. He is leaving to become a managing partner at Silver Lake, the private equity group. His departure has left Cisco without a clear successor. However, Mr Chambers has indicated that the position is most likely to be filled by somebody from within at the same time not ruling out an external candidate.
Source: 22-12-07 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Mr Banka To Be CEO Of AV Birla PE Fund
A part of the old guard and head of AV Birla Group’s corporate finance, Mr Bharat Banka, will now head the company’s private equity (PE) fund. Mr Banka has playeda key role in the company’s acquisitions of Ultratech Cement and Idea Cellular. Private Equity foray is the first venture where AV Birla Group has not joined hands with any foreign partner. The PE fund would primarily be a growth fund and invest in companies that offer growth opportunities in the long term.
Source: 22-12-07 Hindustan Times Business Compiled by Amresh Anjan



BT Appoints Mr Sudhir Narang As MD For India Operations
Mr Sudhir Narang has been appointed as the Managing Director of British Telecom’s India operations. In his new capacity, he will lead BT’s global services strategy, improving presence and spearheading services in India. Becoming a core member of the Asia Pacific regional executive team, he will be reporting to Mr Allen Ma, President, BT Asia pacific.
Source: 22-12-07 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan



Mr SK Mitra Appointed Additional Director To Hexaware Board
Hexaware Technologies, provider of IT and BPO services, has appointed Mr S K Mitra as an independent director and a new member to the board of Hexaware. Mr Mitra has rich professional experience, having worked for companies such as Bank of India and Standard Chartered Bank. He also enjoys association with several reputed companies as an independent director and advisor.
Source: 22-12-07 Business Standard Compiled by Amresh Anjan