XLers Unlimited

XLRI is all set to increase the PM&IR seats to 120 from the 2009 session:

The ever-increasing demand for its personnel management and industrial relations (PMIR) course has prompted the XLRI School of Business and Human Resource to double the number of seats.

At present, XLRI’s flagship course has room for 60 students, but from the next academic session, beginning June 2009, it will house as many as 120 business enthusiasts.

XLRI director Father E. Abraham said students and representatives of top-notch corporate houses were making a beeline for the PMIR course, which is the oldest and the most prestigious among the institute’s teaching programmes. Though business-oriented, it emphasises on understanding human values.

Abraham said the institute had sought a stamp of approval from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on seat increase last year, and it was cleared recently. “Admission was then in the last stage. So, we can only make room for more students from the next academic session,” he said.

Officials said the school was developing infrastructure to make room for 120 students. New faculty members would also be appointed soon.

Interestingly, the XLRI had increased the number of seats in the business management stream in 2005, but the demand for the course has gone up further. Even MNCs are making a beeline to rope in XLRI students. Last year’s recruitment record shows that each student in the PMIR stream had two offers to choose from.

“The demand has exceeded the supply. In fact, we have had to turn down offers from some of the elite recruiters because we had no students to give them,” Jeevan Kumar, secretary of XLRI’s placement committee, said, explaining the reason behind the decision to increase PMIR seats

Popular blogger Rashmi Bansal who is consulting editor of career news show Cracking Careers on UTVi interviews Abhijit Bhaduri, PMIR '84, HR Head of Microsoft India, blogger and author on 14th June 2008 at 3.30 pm and at 6 pm.

The show will be repeated again on 15th June at 12 noon and 5 pm

In his email he writes:

After almost 5 years of being with SAP Labs today is my last day.

In march I will be joining Aztecsoft in Bangalore as SVP – Global HR and Recruiting. I am looking forward to new challenges of leading the HR function globally.

From the XLRI blog:

With domestic stipends reaching astronomical heights of Rs. 5 Lakhs (Lehman Brothers), the process resulted in the batch of 2009 being placed in exclusive roles with the best companies in the industry, both from India and abroad. Lehman Brothers, J P Morgan Chase, Hay and Microsoft offered stipends of more than a lakh (for domestic offers), while Novartis, HUL, ABG, P&G, Transworld, Asian Paints and ICICI made foreign offers. HSBC, Ernst & Young, ABG, Edelweiss, Deloitte Consulting, IBM and Nokia were the largest recruiters this year with the highest number of accepted offers. Other premier recruiters include Carlyle, Accenture Business Consulting, KPMG, TAS, Yahoo etc.

• Highest Domestic Stipend of Rs 5 Lakhs by Lehman Investment Banking
• Highest International Stipend of Rs 1.75 Lakhs by Novartis
• Around 10 overseas offers were made from Novartis, HUL, ABG, P&G, Transworld, Asian Paints and ICICI
• 2/3^rd of the batch placed in Slot 1 in less than 36 hours
• First time recruiters in the Financial sector include Lehman Investment Banking, 8 Capital Hedge Fund, Indea Capital, Lotus Asset Management etc
• 20 companies took part in the process for the First time
• 60+ companies made internship offers to the batch

In Businessworld on why organizations follow a herd mentality:

A lot of opportunities spring up when a new sector is opened. Many try to exploit this. Since the sector is new, there are no benchmarks. Capability issues arise only later.

The retail sector, for example. More than 95 per cent of the sector is unorganised. The organised players think that even if they capture 5-10 per cent of the unorganised market, it would be great business. But there are too many unknowns. The strategy that worked in other developed markets may not apply in India.

Companies do look for trained HR professionals to handle HR roles. More often than not, if the role is assigned to a non-HR executive, the reason is not because of the quality of HR professionals, but the dearth of HR professionals.

Most companies do try to provide training to non-HR people through job-shadowing, nomination to HR courses and so on when they are given HR roles. In fact, this need has also sprouted some innovative partnerships between industry and academia. For instance, at XLRI we have two such partnerships, one with Accenture and the other with L&T, to conduct long-duration certification courses in HR. I think one of the challenges for the education sector will be to keep pace with the demand for HR professionals, both in terms of quality and quantity.

As a fast-growing economy, the HR exposure that India provides is unthinkable in more mature Western industrial economies. To deliver value in the contemporary scenario, HR managers have to think out-of-the-box and innovate new practices and systems. I think it is this requirement and capability, which differentiates the Indian HR professionals from their Western counterparts.

In more developed economies, HR requirements are comparatively more stable and, correspondingly, the role of HR professionals more process-driven. In comparison, Indian HR professionals have to be innovative and build HR processes around those innovations.

The changes in the demands on HR are not just in knowledge-based industries. HR requirements in the manufacturing sector also are no longer what they used to be. Earlier, the primary task of HR was maintenance of the system because manufacturing companies themselves were stable, showing slow growth or change. What we see now is a spurt of restructuring, mergers, international forays through expansion and acquisitions and upgrading of technology in the manufacturing sector. In addition, there is a migration of talent from manufacturing to the service/ knowledge sector, just when the sector requires them.

even at a very conservative estimate we are looking at least 5 million new jobs in the next five years. And a quick calculation would show that even if we need one HR professional for 1,000 employees (which by itself is a pathetic ratio), one needs at least 5,000 new HR professionals.

On the supply-side, the situation is far from comfortable. Among the few educational institutes that provide specialised HR courses — XLRI, TISS, SCMHRD, MDI — the total number of students do not add to more than 250-300 per annum, and many of them join HR consultancies rather than industry.

This is one big gap which the HR fraternity, in industry and academia, should be worried about. I don’t think it will be feasible for educational institutions to suddenly scale up their numbers to meet this demand.

Sapphire's 'Human Resource In Practice' kicked off with a bang on pre independence eve with Mr. Sunit Sinha, Principal Consultant , M&A, of Mercer HR delivered a talk on 'Careers in Consulting'. The session was attend by around 100 students comprising of GMP, BM and PMIR students.

Sunit talked about the typical lifestyle of consultant, myths about consultancy and what students need to look before choosing consultancy as a career. He stressed consultancy is more of a career and not a job which demands self belief, abiltiy to think on feet, presentation of thoughts and resilience.

He also enlightened the prospective managers who are wannabe consultants about what consultants look for in a prospective employee. He also brought forward the fact that more and more women are now joining consultancy and are climbing to success.