Being Member Of India CHRO Forum Powered By Sodexo India And Led By Paul Writer We Have Featured A Short Interview With Interview With Vipul Singh, Vice President and Head of HR at ADP.
3 ways by which organization can focus on talent development?
Tell me and I’ll forget. Teach me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll learn. – Benjamin Franklin
For me, this summarizes the entire concept of development in a nut shell. The key is always meaningful engagement and the points mentioned below are the top three priorities when it comes to Talent Development.
- Learning is what sets us apart from the rest of the species today. It is the ability to learn, think and implement the learnings that makes the difference for us. So, when it comes to Talent Development, fostering a learning culture is critical. If you look back, all the organizations that invested heavily in learning, reaped huge benefits. The concept of learning has progressed extensively over the years and the on-demand & anytime technology has enabled this change. To have a workforce that is just ready for today and not tomorrow would certainly be a hindrance to the organization’s goals. Hence, enabling a culture that promotes autonomous learning is critical to the growth of the organization.
At ADP India, we promote a learning program called the “Learning Break”. The associates are encouraged to learn any topic in any format during this time. The idea is to promote a culture of taking a short break regularly to learn. The key is to make learning not a task but an activity that can be enjoyed by the employees.
- Mentoring may be aligned to learning but it brings about a world of difference in Talent Development. Having a structured mentoring program with a platform that enables easy interactions can help immensely in overall talent development. Mentoring, however need not be unidirectional. The concept of reverse mentoring is also very effective given the rampant technological advancements and the multi-generation workforce. However, the process often lacks a structured approach and metrics that are tracked to check on progress of the mentee.
- Transparency is vital, not many people like surprises and people feel more empowered and in control when they have ‘information’. Ensuring that people have the appropriate information which impacts their career and opportunities that they get, is essential for talent development. While many organizations put up the words transparency as their value statement, it is only helpful if it renders the value as desired.
Your advice to manage talent crunch?
Talent crunch is a function of the supply-demand dynamics and can be addressed by being well prepared for the situation. Planning and strategy is the key to effectively manage this situation.
- Find the right talent and retain – While this sounds obvious, it is very difficult to practice. To get to the right talent, you must identify the needs of the organization, align it with the future plans and spend optimum amount time to sieve for the right talent. The core talent acquisition philosophy must be understood by not just the candidate managers but also the hiring teams. Having standardized methodology helps in moving away from the most common pitfalls and focus on getting the best for the organization. Once on board, engage the talent meaningfully. Building a culture with the mission, vision and core values of the organization as the cornerstones will help immensely to align the talent. Having strong and clear leadership direction greatly determines the efforts to retain the talent.
- Managing the sources for hiring is imperative to manage a talent crunch situation. Having sourcing as a core element of the talent acquisition strategy and diversifying the sources is effective to ensure varied talent in the organization. With the rampant social presence of candidates, social media hiring needs to be an integral part of the hiring strategy. Managing internal talent and enabling employee referrals is another great way to maximize the sources.
- Building a strong talent pipeline is essential to identify potential candidates for the organization. An ongoing effort to nurture the relationship is required to ensure that a passive talent pipeline is available. The advantage of having such a strategy will be the availability of the talent while reducing the overall hire time by maximizing candidate experience.
- In the war for talent, what sets an organization apart is its core Brand value as an Employer. Today’s digital world has nurtured the culture of online feedback and many brands
leverage this to showcase their practices. To be relevant, showcasing the offerings and providing top notch candidate experience can go long way in managing a talent crunch situation.
Example or your advice to organizations to structure benefits to motivate their employees?
Organizations must ask and answer a few questions to structure the benefits program. Also, they must acknowledge that a “one size fits all” approach to benefits is no longer going to help them in the long run. It’s a personalized world today and so must be the benefits of the organizations. A simple trick would be to question the status quo if it’s an established organization. If they find it difficult, they have to bring in the right kind of talent that have a keen eye for such detail.
Understanding the basic concept of motivation, recognizing the sources for intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Many successful organizations are offering not only top notch benefits that help with extrinsic motivations (pay, health plan etc) but also creating opportunities for intrinsic motivation (meaningful work, learning etc).
Profile: Vipul Singh is Vice President & Head of HR – Global Business Solutions Organization, ADP
Vipul Singh has around 20 years of HR leadership experience in Information Technology, Services, Telecommunications and Consumer durables industries. Vipul has led multiple HR organizations and provided strategic HR and Marketing Communications support to various growing businesses. He is also the joint secretary of National HRD network for the Hyderabad community of HR professionals.
Vipul is currently the Vice President & Head of HR at ADP for offshoring locations (India, Romania, Philippines and Brazil) of Global Shoring Organization. At ADP Vipul is responsible for the HR & Communication including Branding for the Global Shoring Locations and manages an employee base of 11,000 people and leads a team of ~160 HR professionals. Vipul is also responsible for the integration of ADP Shoring businesses, growth and standardization of all HR programs and processes. Vipul is one of the youngest members on the Global Offshoring Leadership team.
Prior to ADP, Vipul held a variety of leadership roles at Accenture, Tata Teleservices and Idea Cellular (Escotel). Vipul was a key member of the HR leadership team for Accenture’s Technology business in India where he played a pivotal role in setting up the HR functions in the delivery centers across Hyderabad, Chennai and Gurgaon. In his last role at Accenture, Vipul was managing HR Delivery for 5 of the 8 large delivery groups in India. Apart from this, he also managed the Infrastructure Outsourcing vertical of Accenture’s IT business which grew from 70 people to 7000 under his leadership.
Vipul holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management from International Institute of Management (IMI) and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics Honors. He is a PCMM certified Auditor and an MBTI Certified practitioner. Vipul lives in Hyderabad, India along with his wife Indu & son Vihan. He loves to spend time with his family, read, watch F1 racing and Cricket. He is also an avid collector of watches.