HR Conference

'Word-of-Mouth Publicity is Important for Prospective Recruitment'

A wide range of HR topics pertaining to service industry were discussed and debated at the event

Dr N Sethuraman

Dr G Baktavatchalam

Jayasekaran Pillai

Dr S Aravind

Dr T Raghunath

Arun Davay

A national conference for human resource professionals was hosted by National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM), Madurai and Federation of Hospital Administrators (FHA) on June 12th and 13th, 2010. Based on the theme 'Changing HR Scenario in Service sector', the conference was held at Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre, Madurai. This two-day conference cum workshop got an overwhelming response from HR professionals, hospital administrators, hotel administrators, management professionals and students, who came from all over India. A wide range of HR topics pertaining to service industry were discussed and debated at the event.

Day I

The event was officially inaugurated with lamp lightening ceremony. S Venkateswaran, Organising Chairman of the conference said, "As the world keeps shrinking, we need to keep up with the new laws, cultures and need new competencies, as it affects our managerial styles. As managers we need to focus on innovate for sustainable development." Dr N Sethuraman, Founder Chairman, Meenakshi Mission Hospital said, "When I started the hospital, I realised that HR is the most important department." He further said that in India, hospital management is still not well developed, and as an urologist I personally feel that, it requires more skill to manage people than managing urology."

S Kannan, Commissioner of Central Excise, Madurai said that it is not only salary for which a person works in an organisation, but looks for multiple other factors. Retaining key people in an organisation is not possible merely by showing a carrot of salary. "These knowledge workers are independent souls and need due recognition," he said. Dr G Baktavatchalam, Chairman, KG Hospital, Coimbatore in his inaugural address emphasised on the importance of training healthcare workers and voiced his anguish about the absence of trained manpower in the healthcare industry still.

Jayasekaran Pillai, YOU in YOU, Bangaluru spoke on 'HR strategies with Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)'. NLP is an approach to psychotherapy and organisational change based on a model of interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective experiences (especially patterns of thought) underlying them and a system of alternative therapy based on this which seeks to educate people in self-awareness and effective communication, and to change their patterns of mental and emotional behaviour. Said Pillai, "NLP is a study of human excellence which comprises study of language, behavour and thinking patterns. You are here because of the results produced by your thinking, behavioural and language patterns, and what kind of changes you can bring in these patterns to go to the next level in life."

Dr T Raghunath, Director- RELAX spoke on 'Anatomy of Conflict between Individuals'. Said Raghunath, "It is very difficult to change people and bring out the change. Accept the people, the way they are and do not expect oranges from a mango tree." Chandrasekar Pandian, Mine Spree Consultants spoke about the effective recruitment and competency management. "If the HR wants a person recruited for a certain position to work and behave in a certain way, but he/she isn't behaving what is expected out of him/her, them HR will become highly redundant. You will have to understand the employee, they won't understand you. Just don't relay on qualification, but also look for the right competencies and HR need to have processes and methodologies for doing the same," said Pandian. Therefore the HR needs to profile the job, try to distinctively differentiate the profile of the jobs, have right tools for screening and recruiting strategies.

Dr N Sethuraman, Founder Chairman, Meenakshi Mission Hospital spoke on 'Innovation in HR'. Said Dr Sethuraman, "HR innovation means building on the tactical aspects of the discipline to align with business strategy and transcend the conventional concept of HR." Dr Sethuraman gave various innovative methods of employee recruitment and engagement initiated at Meenakshi Mission Hospital. "Word-of-mouth publicity is important for prospective recruitment. We have our innovative way of recruitment, where we follow the method of mass interviewing," he added.

Dr Samir Parikh, Consultant Psychiatrist, Max Healthcare, spoke on the 'Reducing stress and Improving Performance'. "Organisations are no different from individuals in the way they react to stressors. The way managers perceive the situation influences how they interpret the stressor and describe it to others in the organisation," said Dr Parikh. While talking about the situation like overall burnout, he stressed that it is an organisations responsibility to see that its employee's well-being is enhanced. Counseling helps people to respond differently and quickly to stressful situations.

Arun Davay, Corporate Trainer, Chennai spoke on 'HR Accounting and Audit'. Said Davay, "An HR audit is like an annual health check. It plays a vital role in instilling a sense of confidence in the management and the HR functions of an organisation." The concept of HR audit has emerged from the practice of yearly finance and accounting audit, which is mandatory for every company, to be done by external statutory auditors. This audit serves as an examination on a sample basis of practices and systems for identifying problems and ensuring that sound accounting principles are followed. Similarly, an HR audit serves as a means through which an organisation can measure the health of its human resource function.

Chandrasekar Pandian

Murali Krishnan

VG Bhooma

Dr Samir Parikh

Dr S Aravind, Administrator, Aravind Eye Hospitals spoke on 'Preparing People for Quality Implementation'. "Demonstrate that it is possible to manage the contributions of thousands. Have a common approach to 'operations design and management. Tightly couple the process of doing work with the process of learning to do it better. Have managers who constantly develop and encourage their subordinates," said Dr Aravind.

Day II

The second day started with N Murali Krishnan's, GM (HR), Taj West End, Bangaluru session on 'Challenges in Modern HR'. Said Krishnan, "HR must understand the cultures around the world and think of itself and operate as a business globally. With the unemployment rate standing at 4.1 per cent, the type of worker being sought in the new millennium are more skilled or higher educated than in the past. The pool of such people is running dry. Putting together programmes that help employees find the right balance between home and work are required. Using best practices to create an environment that attracts people and makes them want to stay, effective handling of company downsizing and retrenched workers is essential."

VG Bhooma, Chief Personal Officer, South Eastern Railway spoke on 'Team Building as HR tool in Service Industry'. She pointed out that while evolving team values in the workforce, it is important to give room for discussion and airing of opinions, encourage accepted behaviour, re-interpret the un-encouraged behaviour, react to behaviour and not person, encourage non participants, reiterate the ultimate implication for the HR unit as a whole and work each other's special skills to common advantage. C Balagopal, Managing Director, Thermo Penpol Ltd, spoke on 'Developing Culture and Commitment for the Future.' According to Balagopal, it is the management's duty to identify people with the right skills, understand their needs and satisfy those, put in place processes to channelise the skills into useful effort and avoid waste and reward the effort. And it is the individual's job to follow the processes and put in the effort expected from him. "Skills have to be reinforced through training. The right skills when channelised through processes, lead to useful efforts and eliminate waste. Efforts should be rewarded with incentives to reinforce the motivation," said Balagopal.

UK Anandapadmanaban, President, KMCH Hospital, spoke on 'Challenges in Retaining Quality Maapower. Said Anandapadmanaban, "Today when we advertise for positions, we hardly get applications. The scale and size has become very important. Unless you grow in size and build a brand in the community, you won't get people."

Next speaker K Pandiarajan, Ma Foi Consultants Ltd, spoke on 'Changing Identity of the Indian HR profession.' Siraj, Director- IHRD, spoke on 'Recruiting, Promoting and Retaining Key Performers'. While talking about talent retaining strategies, Siraj said that it is essential to know the key talent, clearly defining which employees the organisation wants to keep, communicating to talented employees about their retention plan, providing recognition, providing opportunities for development and involvement, challenging the compensation plan, rationalising culture, providing entrepreneur opportunities, challenging jobs and providing resources.

The conference ended with Organising Secretary of the conference PT Sundar proposing the vote of thanks.

Express Healthcare was the media partner for the event.

EH News Bureau