HR Headlines: Apr-08 (Part-3)

Watch Out Before Boosting Your Employees’ Self Esteem
Praising your employees and giving them a positive feedback in a bid to extract better performance from them could actually backfire, suggests a new study. Researchers at the American Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the London Business School have found that some types of positive feedback lead employees to develop a false sense of self-worth. Thus, they develop a tendency to justify and recommit to poor decisions, wasting additional time and resources and creating even worse outcomes. They become inept to handle criticism and try to validate a poor decision if their sense of worth revolves around it. The study is set to be published in the journal ‘Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes’ and provides a framework for how organisations might most effectively strengthen their employees' self-esteem.
Source: 02-04-08 Financial Express Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Compensation Trends For Temps This Year
Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi pay the best salaries in temping, according to the fourth annual Temp Salaries Primer Report compiled by the staffing solutions company, TeamLease Services. While Bangalore pays the most in IT and HR, Mumbai pays in engineering and Delhi in sales. The best wage hikes are offered by Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. However, Kochi, Chennai, Indore and Coimbatore fare poorly on both counts: existing temp salaries and wage hikes. The survey indicates that qualification, rather than experience has determined wage hikes for temps this year. Also, there has been a sharp rise in temp jobs in blue collar vertical and in the retail sector.
Source: 02-04-08 www.thehindubusinessline.com Compiled by Amresh Anjan

Now All Districts Covered Under The Rural Job Scheme
Union Rural Development Ministry has announced that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has been extended to all 604 districts of the country. The total budget outlay for the extended scheme for 2008-09 would be Rs. 16,000 crore. The scheme, started in 2005, was aimed at providing 100 days of guaranteed employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. However, last year, only 10 per cent households completed 100 days, with 23 per cent in Rajasthan, 13 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, 7 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, 6 per cent in Andhra Pradesh and 6 per cent in Chhattisgarh. The total works taken up during the year were 15.61 lakh. Of this, 4.96 lakh were completed and works were on in 10.64 lakh schemes.
Source: 02-04-08 www.hindu.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Average Salary Of Rs 19 Lakh For ISB 2008 Batch
The 2008 batch at Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business has been offered an average cost to company of Rs 19 lakh (Rs 1.9 million) in domestic companies. The broad average of all the international offers, including those from the US, Europe, Asia Pacific and West Asia stood at $1,44,812. This year, 41 new foreign firms visited the campus for the first time. The institute has not disclosed the highest salary package offered. The offers encompass a range of functions and industries such as consulting, manufacturing, real estate, IT and others. Interestingly, the batch of 2008 had 25 per cent women, which according to ISB is the largest number in an Indian B-School.
Source: 02-04-08 www.rediff.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Companies Digging Into Candidates’ Personal Background
With growing hacking, cyber crimes and even terrorism on the net, companies are becoming increasingly vigilant while employing staff. Companies are looking to recruit only efficient and reliable hands to avoid hiring employees who may either not be dependable or even have a criminal background. Thus, besides looking at experience, qualification, competence and communication skills of the employees, they are equally focusing on the personal background. HR firms are even seeking police verification wherever possible. The situation has become more complex in the wake of the terror network unearthed in Karnataka and elsewhere. Also, since fake qualification and experience documents have become the order of the day, companies go in for a thorough verification of backgrounds of the job seekers. Thus, the hiring process has become much more complex and complicated for the companies.
Source: 31-03-08 www.thehindu.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

20,000-Seat TCS Centre Coming Up At Pune
Tata Consultancy Services has announced the construction of its 20,000-seat development centre located at Hinjewadi in Pune. The centre - TCS Sahyadri Park – will be the largest for TCS so far. The centre will be developed over 50 acres with the first phase with 7,000 seats expected to be completed by March 2009. Skilled professionals and students from in and around Pune will be hired for the centre. TCS started its first R&D centre in Pune over two decades ago.
Source: 03-04-08 www.indianexpress.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Nokia To Hire 5,500 More Workers In India This Year
Handset manufacturing giant Nokia will recruit 5,500 more employees in India by the end of the financial year, taking its total headcount to 15,000. A majority of the new recruitments will be towards enhancing its manufacturing capabilities at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu while a few will be in the research and development team. Currently, the company has 8,000 people at the handset manufacturing plant and another 900 at its R&D facility. The company claims that it has an attrition rate of about 10 per cent.
Source: 30-03-08 www.sify.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Maruti Trying To Lure Back NRI Engineering & Design Talent
In an attempt to ramp up its design and engineering team, Maruti Suzuki will add over 500 people to the current 480 by 2010. Traditionally, Maruti inducts engineers at the trainee level and moves them up gradually. However, this time, to add more senior people quickly, the company has started scouting Detroit for NRI designers to lure them back to India. It is also in touch with the American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin to rope in people who are keen on coming back to India. This year, it will recruit 100 engineers and an additional 150 next year.
Source: 31-03-08 www.sify.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Wipro Tech Expanding Operations In Chennai
Wipro Technologies, the gloabl IT services business of Wipro Ltd, is setting up new facilities in Chennai for 35,000 employees over the next five years. The facilities will come up on an 80-acre land at Sholinganallur-Elcot Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and in a 90-acre facility at the Mahindra City SEZ. The expansion will augment the business growth of the company in the next five years. Currently, Wipro has a business process outsourcing centre (BPO) here employing 2500 people and expects to increase it by 5,000 to 7,000 this year. Wipro has about 4000 employees in overseas centres in Europe, the US, Canada, Latin America, China and Japan.
Source: 31-03-08 www.financialexpress.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Over 100 BPO Employees In Delhi Taken Ill Due To Infected Food
Over 100 employees of Om Innovative Call Services in Janak Puri in Delhi were taken ill after consuming lunch in their office. The employees complained of uneasiness, nausea and threw up an hour after having lunch provided by the office caterer. All employees were taken to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital for preliminary care and were declared out of danger. Police has registered a case against the caterer for supplying adulterated food.
Source: 03-04-08 The Hindu Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Six Per Cent DA Hike For Haryana Govt Staff
About 2.74 lakh employees of the Haryana government will get a six per cent hike in the dearness allowance (DA). The government has raised the DA from 41 per cent to 47 per cent of the pay with effect from January 01 this year on the pattern of central government employees. The grant of DA would put an additional liability of Rs 210 crore on the state exchequer from January 2008 to February 2009 and Rs 180 crore in the following financial year.
Source: 02-04-08 The Hindu Business Line Compiled By Amresh Anjan

CII Still Clueless Over SCs/STs Proportion In The Pvt Sector
The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) is still to come out with the number of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) employees on rolls of its member companies. Last year, the industry body had claimed that the private sector was committed to positive discrimination in favour of SCs/STs during recruitment even though it was against any quotas in the private sector. CII had assured that it was collecting the data and member companies would be made to reveal numbers in their annual reports. However, so far, only 579 out of 7,000 member companies have adopted its code for positive discrimination in the recruitment. CII claims that its focus is on the companies with large workforce to create a substantial difference.
Source: 01-04-08 Business Standard Compiled By Amresh Anjan

IBM Successfully Carrying Out The Blue Opportunities Programme
In a bid to help employees take advantage of a range of experience-based learning opportunities, IBM has launched ‘The Blue Opportunities’ programme. The programme draws on the in-house talent to solve regular business and technology issues. Thus, employees get a chance to enhance their career and expertise in the long term by trying diverse prospects such as stretch assignments, cross-unit projects, job rotations, publications, patents, and more. Currently, IBM has deployed over 1,200 Indian employees to countries like Austria, Finland, Denmark, Costa Rica, under the Blue Opportunities programme. They are working across domains like petrochemicals. The programme has also helped check attrition to a certain extent. IBM will also launch a project across emerging markets to develop global leadership in the third quarter of FY09
Source: 02-04-08 Business Standard Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Chrysler To Trim 200 Tech Jobs
As part of its restructuring, Chrysler LLC will cut 200 salaried workers and a sizable number of contract workers in information technology management (ITM). The company is outsourcing computer maintenance and support to Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and Computer Sciences Corp. The cuts amount to about 20 per cent of its salaried ITM staff of about 1,000 employees. The cuts are expected to begin in early May and will be completed by the end of the third quarter. Chrysler, the No. 3 U.S. automaker, lost $1.6 billion last year after which, Cerberus Capital Management LP acquired an 80 per cent stake in it.
Source: 03-04-08 www.reuters.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Taurus AMC Hires Mr Sanjay Parikh As COO
Taurus Asset Management Company has hired Mr Sanjay Parikh as the Chief Operating Officer. He brings to the table 17 years of experience in the finance function. Before joining Taurus, he served with the Aditya Birla Group for 13 years including two years as CFO of Birla Sun Life AMC and six years with Birla Sun Life Insurance.
Source: 02-04-08 Business Standard Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Mr Sam Ghosh To Be The New CEO At Reliance Cap
Mr Sam Ghosh has taken over as the new CEO at Anil Ambani group’s financial services arm Reliance Capital. He has replaced Mr Amitabh Chaturvedi in his new role. He would report to Reliance Capital vice-chairman Mr Amitabh Jhunjhunwala. Prior to this, Mr Ghosh has led ramping up of German insurer Allianz’s Indian insurance ventures. Allianz has appointed Mr Abdul Rahman Tolefat as the new CEO for Allianz Takaful Bahrain and Mr Kamesh Goyal as new regional CEO for the Middle East and North Africa.
Source: 02-04-08 www.rediff.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

New Chairman At CBDT
Mr Prasanna Kumar Misra is the new Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). An officer of the 1972 batch of the Indian Revenue Service, he was Member (Investigation) in CBDT since January 2007. He has also served in the Income Tax Department in various capacities including Chief Commissioner, Delhi and Udaipur, Commissioner, Mumbai and Director (Investigation) Hyderabad, Deputy Commissioner/ Director (Bhubaneswar).
Source: 02-04-08 The Hindu Business Line Compiled By Amresh Anjan

New Chairman For Shell-MRPL Joint Venture
Mr R Rajamani, Managing Director of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) has been appointed the Chairman of the recently formed joint venture with Shell India (P) Ltd. The JV named Shell-MRPL Aviation Fuel Services Private Limited has been incorporated with an initial equity of Rs. 30 crore. Mr Vikram Mehta, Chairman, Shell group of companies in India, Mr L K Gupta, Director (finance), MRPL, and Mr Richard Jory, GM, Shell Aviation are the other directors on the board of the company.
Source: 03-04-08 www.domain-b.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Dr V Sumantran Joins Hinduja Auto
The recently-formed Hinduja Automotive UK has appointed Dr V. Sumantran, former Executive Director of Tata Motors, as its Executive Vice- Chairman. After quitting Tata Motors in August 2005, Dr Sumantran has primarily been a consultant. Prior to his stint in Tata Motors, he spent over 16 years at General Motors Corporation, mostly in Detroit and later in Europe, serving as Director (Advanced Engineering) of SAAB Automobile.
Source: 31-03-08 www.moneycontrol.com Compiled By Amresh Anjan

Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Gets New MD
Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Company Ltd has appointed Mr SS Gopalarathnam, President (Operations), as the new MD. He replaces Mr Anandan M who retired as the Managing Director of Chola MS on March 31. Before assuming this new role, Mr Gopalarathnam was the CFO and VP Finance ever since the inception of the company in 2001. His experience spans a wide variety of functions like business development, underwriting, reinsurance, finance and investments and operations and CRM within the company. He has also held senior positions in finance, exports, strategy and corporate planning, and "business heading" functions across various group companies like T.I Cycles, T.I Miller and Tube Products of India.
Source: 02-04-08 news.webindia123.com



Compiled By Amresh Anjan