The Client has been in existence for 7 years with minimal outside investment and a strength of ~80 people. From an Organization stand-point, it suffered from a high attrition rate, a strong business-model concept but, a relatively dysfunctional internal operating structure, and struggled in identifying the necessary Talent mix to facilitate its growth and an investment partnership.
Multi-fold challenges existed, with challenges linked between business performance, deliverables, and financial resulting in delayed salaries and appraisals, limited investment in people, technology and execution partners aiding significantly to the discontent within its Talent.
The need was for an experienced business HR partner that could identify the root-cause for the symptomatic challenges, identify the best People practices and customize it to the need of the Client, manage the discontent within the internal team(s) in collaboration with the Promoter group until the right partners could be brought on-board.
The aim was to ready the Client from a Peoples perspective for this very necessary strategic partnership thus, enabling growth
G&S Consulting was brought in following a 3-day session of interaction(s) with the Leadership Team to enable and support the HR Function as they kicked off their strategic interventions.
This was an assignment that had a very close working relationship with the HR Head and the founder/ promoters of the Organization. We looked at this scenario and worked on it as a two-phase solution:
Certain HR Metrics were alarming (namely, Attrition Rate) and while the OTJ continued to remain above the then Industry average (~56%), suspicion was prevalent that the Talent Acquisition strategy was not attracting the best talent available.
The other critical observation was the Talent Mix present considering the unique business model. A geometrical design would ideally represent an ellipse with a broad mid-section and lean top and bottom as against a typical pyramid, currently.
Work Culture:
This was an Organization that was struggling with its ‘Employer of Choice’ brand. The quotient for attracting talent was neither the pay scale, its people centric policies, or innovative technology solutions. However, the potential of identifying a Market Opportunity, coupled with the conceptual clarity in providing an extremely holistic solution to the challenges of this Industry was a very viable opportunity. Limited Leadership maturity in terms of handling Teams, Deliverables and Conflicts was starting to have a very negative impact on team morale, trust in leadership and significantly contentious employee separation The Challenge was to arrest this negative spiral of the environment due to ad-hoc processes, leadership gaps and focus on the USPs of the Organization along with streamlining of the hygiene factor to ensure consistency, transparency and mutual growth for both, the Client, and its Talent.
Leadership and Talent Re-Calibration:
The promoters continued to play a very strong role in the operational running of the Organization. With the growth spurt, the Leadership team was identified as a key Talent group to be hired, assimilated, and retained. The above three (3) areas were identified as the key result areas for an HR Intervention. The tactical strategy would focus on re-aligning the Clients’ People Processes, Organization Structure, Talent Acquisition, and Management Strategies.
G&S approached this problem statement in the following manner:
The immediate focus was towards re-aligning some of the legacy policies and practices with an aim to be relevant with the Industry standards while maintaining flexibility in the non-crucial business areas. The purpose of this intervention was to actively remove instances that were directly contributing to the dissatisfaction of the work-force while laying the foundation for strategic and business centric HR interventions.
The Client’s market opportunity presided in a VUCA environment (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous). It was imperative for the Organization to be structured in a manner that enabled its internal teams to collaborate, be agile, lean, and adaptable to the (un)known challenges that arose. The aim was to define an Organization Structure that facilitated and enabled the cross-functional teams to succeed with the business models employed by t4u.
In tandem with the change strategy being executed, focus was also put on devising frameworks and strategies towards Organization Development. The model and structure of the Organization was such that an entire new set of skills in Talent needed to be identified, assessed while ensuring alignment of expectations, challenges and vision was to be made for new Talent. Concurrently, the L&D team in collaboration with the HR team would have to re-define the modalities, and content of Learning & Development initiatives. The final piece of the ‘Development’ phase was the identification and eventual transition towards a Performance Management framework. Change Management Strategy was executed successfully with Role dynamics, Reporting and Operating Structure formulation
The culminative output of the programs implemented are as follows:
Note:Current Industry standard (OTJ) revolves around ~45%.
During the most difficult period of transition (~15 months) leading to the acquisition of the Client by a significantly large Public Organization, there were multiple cash-flow difficulties (incl. Salary delays, Statutory delays, Appraisals on hold, Vendor payment delays etc.). The Leadership team in collaboration with the HR team managed to not just retain but ensure engagement of the team towards Business deliverables with a nominal attrition. This was widely commended by the Strategic Partners and their investment in Q2 of FY 17-18 has already started to see dividends in terms of rectifying all liabilities, further influx of talent and business opportunity realizations.
Focus for the next 6-12 months are as follows:
No 106, 4th Floor, Kodandarama Complex,
Gandhi Bazaar Main Road, Basavanagudi,
Bengaluru – 560004,
Karnataka, India.
CIN: U74140KA2009PTC048865
GSTIN: 29AADCG3547Q1ZY
Email: reachus@gsconsulting.in
Phone: +91-8026677804
