http://peoplematters.in/articles/exit-interview-is-what-employers-need

According to a latest survey, ‘Impactful Exits’ by TeamLease Services (India’s largest composite staffing company), as part of its survey series to understand ‘India’s new World of Work’ almost 92 per cent of employees and managements across industries take exit policies very seriously, with 99 per cent doing so in Bangalore and Chennai, and 85 per cent in Mumbai. The survey results establish Gen Y’s preferences for policies and processes at workplace along with a good pay packet.

Another startling revelation made by the study was the importance of relieving letter. Apart from a mere 8 per cent, majority of the companies expressed apprehension in formalizing recruitment without the relieving letter. According to the study, better prospects and salary hikes motivated employees to quit the incumbent organization. However, one third (33 per cent) of the employees surveyed said, they would rejoin their organization if given an opportunity.

Further, according to the study, except for a minor 8 per cent, majority of the companies still favored manual exit interviews over online ones, emphasizing the reliance on face-to-face interactions.

The study also highlighted the demand for longer notice period. Around 78 per cent of employees stressed on having longer notice
periods for the company, helping the employees to complete pending work as well as the companies to contract the right candidate.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-02-24/news/31095388_1_insecurity-study-collar-workers

MADRID: Fears of losing a job erodes commitment to work, besides casting a shadow over many areas of life, including family, health, finances and leisure, a study reveals.

 As the fear of unemployment  increases, "the level of work insecurity rises, people are less satisfied with  their personal, work and
family lives and they are less committed to their  work," said Amparo  Caballer, psychology researcher at the University  of Valencia, who co-authored the study.
 
This analysis also reveals that the consequences of job insecurity are different in each occupational group, the Spanish Journal of Psychology reported.

Three different groups have been identified: blue collar workers, white collar workers and 'professionals'. The first group included people with positions that do not need high qualifications, such as supermarket shelf-fillers or hospital attendants, according to a university statement.

The second group includes office and administration workers and supermarket assistants and check-out staff. The 'professionals' group includes doctors, engineers and nurses.

When there is uncertainty about employment, blue collar workers "are less satisfied with life and they work less productively than the other groups studied", Caballer explained.

White collar workers are the ones who display the most dissatisfaction at times of instability.

Upon examining the results of the study, not all employees react to insecurity in the same way. Some groups are more prone to react more negatively to perceiving insecurity at work.

Therefore, the study authors advise against approaching the problems in the same way as with different groups in the company.

The data was based on 321 worker's answers to a questionnaire, which includes 51.4 percent people who worked in hospitals, 25.7 percent had positions in supermarts and commercial distribution companies and 22.9 percent were temporary  work agency employees.

http://www.rediff.com/getahead/slide-show/slide-show-1-career-dont-miss-this-organisation-helps-tribals-find-jobs/20120216.htm 
Divya Nair 
Discover how a new programme is changing the lives of thousands of young people.

Even as you read this, a quiet and remarkable revolution, in the manner India's disadvantaged get meaningful job opportunities, is under way in obscure corners of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Haryana.

This initiative -– a public-private partnership programme between state governments and the large staffing company TeamLease -- in fact looks like a solution to bridge the yawning gap that exists between job opportunities for the urban and rural youth.

Within a year of its inception, this partnership spearheaded by TeamLease Vice-President Neeti Sharma has successfully trained 6,000 candidates and employed over 5,500 of them across sectors which include retail sales, BPOs, information technology and the like, based on a candidate's aptitude and interests, bringing about, in some districts, as high as a 2,500 per cent increases in youth employment!

Sceptical?

Let's flesh these figures out for you. They will read impressive when you realise that Karnataka, for instance, which has about 30 district employment exchanges responsible for helping the unemployed find suitable jobs, offered employment to about 40 to 60 youth a year.

You read it right: 40 to 60 jobs a year.

Within a year of the partnership, Teamlease pushed the number of employed youth in Karnataka's Bijapur district from 40 to 1,600! A jump of roughly 2,500 per cent in just about a year.

What is so different about this venture that has made it an instant success?

Plenty! And there are lessons from this unique project for you too.

Unlike the government-run model which catered exclusively to public sector companies, TeamLease invited private players to host job fairs in lesser-known districts in these states.

Besides, the company converted government-run vocational training centres to offer assessment, counselling, training, certification and placement to candidates after they registered at the exchange.

The programme also roped in organisations like the Indian Institute of Job Training, IIJT, who agreed to offer free education and training to poor and deserving candidates, mostly tribals.

Divya Nair spoke with Neeti Sharma about this remarkable journey and her experience implementing this model throughout the country.

Image: An employee training centre in Gujarat managed by TeamLease 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-company/corporate-trends/infrastructure-companies-bridge-gender-divide/articleshow/11880588.cms 

Companies are asking recruitment firms to help them hire women to manage highway toll plazas in the interiors, as they look to fill posts with employees who are dependable, loyal and trustworthy. They're doing their best to provide safety and facilities . 

BANGALORE: As women in megacities and financial hubs rapidly move up the corporate ladder, their counterparts in rural areas are breaking new ground too, entering what were earlier exclusively male domains. 

Infrastructure companies are asking recruitment firms to help them fill posts to manage highway toll plazas in the interiors. The companies, on their part, are looking to increase diversity at the workplace and bring on board who they see as more dependable, trustworthy employees. 

Nearly three weeks ago, staffing firm TeamLease reportedly received a mandate from Mumbai-based infrastructure group Larsen and Toubro to make sure that 30% of toll booth operators and control managers in the interiors of Maharashtra and Gujarat, where highways are being constructed, are women. The company said it was looking for women as the "longevity" of such hires is more."We are experimenting with a pilot project and will try to hire women from a village nearby. There will be fewer arguments at the toll plaza, and women will be quicker in operation," says a senior L&T official who does not wish to be named. 

The Bangalore-based staffing agency has started looking for candidates within a 20-km radius of construction sites, and is visiting colleges in the area. Its agents are also travelling door to door for women who are qualified and willing to work. "It is not easy to recruit women for these jobs because working conditions are harsh. They have to work in shifts and in an open environment," says Sangeeta Lala, cofounder, TeamLease. 

Women staffers are not new at toll plazas, though. Ever since the government brought in private players last year due to increasing pilferage, there have been more women hires, says an NHAI official. Hyderabad-based Ramky Infrastructure hired 11 women for its highway projects in 2011. "They want to understand the execution at the site-level rather than wanting to sit in the comfort of the office, and are involved in design, planning and monitoring of highway projects," says C Sreenivasan, chief people officer. 

The company now wants to hire women at the toll booth too. "Our first toll plaza for six-laning of the Agra-Etawah will be operational in the next five to six months. We have the option of hiring civil engineers and secondary school candidates for the post," says Sreenivasan. Since toll booths use sophisticated software, engineers and candidates who have completed their schooling are inducted to run them, at a remuneration of between Rs 10,000 and 20,000 per month.  

http://www.itsmyascent.com/web/itsmyascent/career-advice/-/asset_publisher/W3x7/content/relieving-letter-as-important-as-other-certificates-a-study 
TeamLease releases 12th survey in ‘India's New World of Work' series on ‘Impactful Exits'

TeamLease Services, a composite staffing company, released the findings of its latest survey ‘Impactful Exits' as part of its survey series to understand ‘India's new World of Work'.

The survey conducted across major cities revealed that a majority (92 per cent) of employees and managements across all industries followed exit policies very seriously. This went up to around 99 per cent in Bangalore and Chennai, establishing Gen Y's preferences for policies and processes at workplace along with a good pay packet. Another startling revelation made by the study was the importance of relieving letter. Apart from a mere eight per cent, majority of the companies expressed apprehension in formalising recruitment without the relieving letter.

Aimed at mapping in-depth facts about the beliefs and practices of Gen Y, the current study tries to capture the importance of exit policy and its impact on exit process. According to the study, better prospects and salary hike motivated employees to quit the incumbent organisation. However, one third (33 per cent) of the employees surveyed said they would re-join their organisation if given an opportunity.

Further, according to the study except for a minor eight per cent, majority of the companies' still favoured manual exit interviews over online, emphasising the reliance on face-to-face interactions. Also another startling disclosure was unlike the popular notion Silicon Valley of India still lagged behind in terms of adopting online exit interviews. Only a mere four per cent of the companies conducted exit interviews online in Bangalore. The study also highlighted the demand for longer notice period. Around 78 per cent of employees stressed on having longer notice periods for the company, helping the employees to complete pending work as well as the companies to contract the right candidate.

Apart from the sentiments of employees, viewpoints of HR managers from a company perspective have also been captured in the study. Though salary deduction is the norm for non-compliance, companies did not hold back from taking legal action in cases of violation of integrity. With more than half of the HR managers in Mumbai (55 per cent) using the feedback as a resource, the study has further reinforced Exit interviews as an important data source for formulating HR policies.

Key findings

• Around 92 per cent of Indians across all industries and cities believe exit policies should be taken seriously and given lot of importance. Bangalore and Chennai with 99 per cent topped the list whereas employees in Mumbai did not care much
• A majority of around 76 per cent of the companies still conducted exit interviews manually only
• Better prospects and salary hike are the top two reasons for leaving the company.
• 23 per cent of companies surveyed said they do not proceed with employment due to unavailability of relieving letter
• Relieving letter is an important document while recruiting a new person for most of the companies across industries
• Overall, 78 per cent of employees surveyed feel that longer notice period (>30 days) is required for a company
• More than half (56 per cent) of HR managers opted for Salary deduction for not serving the required notice period
• Overall, 39 per cent of HR managers take legal action against errant employees who have violated any integrity or ethical boundaries
• Higher per cent of Mumbai employees has observed the change in behaviour from managers to resignee (17 per cent), from peers to resignee (9 per cent) as well as by resignee themselves (12 per cent)
• Resignee shows less responsibility and low interest towards work in their notice period 
• Fixed factors related to job profile, compensation, work environment, company policies are captured by higher per cent of companies during the exit interviews as compared to variable factors which are more dependent on people (e.g. support and guidance provided by the managers, training, timely feedback, clarity of communication, etc.).
• Exit policy mainly helps in future decision and policy making for HR managers

http://peoplematters.in/articles/cover-story/its-hypothesis-testing 

Feb 7th 2012

By Manish Sabharwal, Co-Founder & Chairman, TeamLease Services, Ashok Reddy, Co-founder & MD, TeamLease Services and Mohit Gupta, Co-founder & Director, TeamLease Services

Here is a unique story of the trio from elite academic backgrounds, who began their careers as investment bankers in Bombay, but found themselves in a core HR business, much as a result of their belief in the need to evolve the business idea per market demand. Manish Sabharwal, Mohit Gupta and Ashok Reddy are three friends from school, with very complementing personalities and work approaches, who decided to join hands in 1998, and haven’t looked back since.

Their first venture, India Life started with the idea to create an insurance company, specifically health insurance, but the government regulations then did not allow them to take it forward. But learning from starting an entrepreneurial venture was so attractive that they decided to evolve the business idea and substantially morphed the business over the years. And India Life first began as an investment advisory firm for pension fund benefits. But when they actually approached the market, companies explained to them the limitations of the scope of advisory in this space, being a regulated market, and that forced them to evolve their business further. As Ashok rightly said, “Starting a business is like hypothesis testing; you don’t know that is right until you do it.” The journey helped them understand that the real pain-points were in the administration of pension funds in the highly regulated market. Thus, through 1998-2001, India Life Pension Service was established to focus on pension administration, transaction processing and regulatory compliance.

As the business evolved, clients demanded that India Life also take care of their payroll processing, and once again they revised their business plan. And in 3 years, they built the largest payroll and pension administration company in India. India Life was fortunate to have initiated the right business at the right time, as there was a latent need for this service and India Life managed to get their first client, Siemens, within 3 months of starting business. Siemens was going through its VRS process at the time and wanted to cut down their employee count by about 4000, from its total 40,000 employees. India Life took on the task of settling the benefits for all 4000 employees. With no resources and experience, servicing Siemens was exciting and full of learning. They worked in partnership with Siemens as opposed to looking at it as a mere transaction. So together, they identified solutions, problems and resolved them. Churning out reports and calculations for each employee from decade old ledgers that came filled in cartons was a challenge that they delivered upon and that led to other clients like Levi’s, SAP, Wrigleys, etc., and then there was no looking back. India Life began its journey wanting to become a scale business, and the trust, conviction of the team and the idea itself brought them a venture capitalist, View Group which funded the business on day zero and they raised 2 million USD (then about 8-9 crores Indian rupees).

Alongside, India Life was also in dialogue with a Bangalore-based CA who had about 20 customers. India Life acquired his business along with the nine employees who then became its first employees. This base allowed India Life to make Bangalore its headquarters, along with the fact that Bangalore was an easy city that more people were open to migrate to when they set out looking for talent.

In the first 2 years, India Life never made any profits but ample investments were being made in technology, processes, people and office. By the end of year 1, they grew to 24-25 employees, since they soon acquired more clients. Attracting the right people to work for India Life was critical. And the fact that they, had their customers on board, were committed to the long run, were making investments, and had the money from the VC, helped attract people. The business took off early and became cash positive within the first 3 years.

By 2001, there were 250 members and India Life had extended their product offering from administration of provident fund, gratuity and superannuation, to actuarial valuation, to consulting, to conversion of defined benefits plan to defined contribution plan, and even ventured into payroll process outsourcing. Since most of the inputs for pension actually came from payroll, so it was a backward integration and became a greater lock-in on the customer. By 2001, India Life also grew to become the largest player in the country in that space. It was at this time that Manish, Mohit and Ashok knew that the way forward for India Life was to go global. But they personally did not want to venture out yet as they believed there was enough opportunity in India itself. This led to the merger of India Life and Hewitt, the second largest player then, which wanted to go global and required their processes, technology and people and the trio thought this was a good opportunity for India Life to spread its wings. When India Life got into the strategic partnership with Hewitt, Manish stayed on for the year to enable the transition, while Mohit and Ashok withdrew from the business.

Though extremely different personalities, the three have been absolutely effective when working together and that to a great extent, also allowed them the bandwidth to scale much faster. So, even as they were exploring on the deal with Hewitt, they were also evaluating what they could do next towards the end of 2000. A constant point of reference that they got from their customers was that while companies needed people, they were unable to necessarily hire them or find them. On studying this opportunity, they realized that temporary staffing was a 120 billion dollar business globally then. And India had no single provider. But the challenge again was that the concept of temp staffing never existed in India then, and therefore it was a concept sell, especially on the candidate side, as ‘temp’ is not a lifestyle choice in India unlike rest of the globe. So, TeamLease began its journey and once again they hit the ground running, given the latent need for temp staffing with no existing service provider. While the plan was to start business in June 2002, TeamLease had to pre-date its business date to April as their first client, Intel needed to migrate its employees with immediate effect.

TeamLease began operations with the exit money from India Life and by the end of its first year, it had about 1200 employees who were temped out. The strength of the three friends once again afforded them the bandwidth to initiate operations out of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore in the first year itself. And with three initial employees, they began to grow their second venture, and today TeamLease is a 750 member organization, which includes many people from India Life days, who returned to join the trio. While TeamLease has grown to become a large business, it continues to be entrepreneurial in nature with its features of quick on decision making, absence of red tape, organizational hierarchy, and a risk taking approach.

A critical aspect that has worked for TeamLease in growing its business and team, is that the three founders always told their people that their ‘chair is on offer’. Each time someone has made Manish, Mohit or Ashok redundant in their respective roles, it was an opportunity to concentrate on other aspects of the business. As Ashok affirms, “The only way you can grow the business is if you view the people who are below you as those who can grow to take on the role that you are playing. If you view them as competition, you will never nurture that element of bandwidth within the organization.”

The reality of the sickened state of ‘employability’ dawned upon TeamLease when, while they hired a person every 5 minutes of their existence, less than 5% of those who came in, got a job. This became even more evident during the downturn when rejection rates began to soar, as while candidates had the necessary qualifications, they did not have the skills for the job. And this led TeamLease to explore the possibility of entering the training space. The downturn also took a hit on the temping business and from 80,000 employees, the number fell to 45,000 employees in 2008. TeamLease used this time to overhaul their IT system, processes and training, which helped them prepare for its growth phase when the market bounced back. Presently, TeamLease is back to having 65,000-70,000 employees and growing on a healthy margin.

While India Life and TeamLease were B to B businesses, where they serviced and earned revenue from the corporate side, training was a B to C model. But since training would address the employability aspect, it was a backward integration to the TeamLease business. Therefore, a Greenfield venture was initiated until the opportunity to acquire IIJT came. This was funded by a first round of fund raised from Gaja Capital. IIJT was a company that had grown fast but did not invest right in building its basic framework, but TeamLease saw it as a platform to speed up learning on the training side. The last 20 months have seen a huge focus on the training front, in terms of building the team and bandwidth.

The business idea saw a full circle, when along with employment and employability, they also saw a huge need to address the education part to meet the larger need to address the issue of skilling in India in a macro sense. While, ‘employment’ is catered to through TeamLease which focuses on matching the problem of bringing the element of supply and demand together, the element of ‘employability’ is addressed by IIJT through its focus on ‘repairing’ the people for the job requirement. The latest inclusion is the ‘education’ part, which aims at ‘preparing’ people to bridge the gap of inadequate vocational education in India. The TeamLease University, due to start in Gujarat, is the new venture which is vocation-oriented and will aim to prepare talent for the element of the job market and skills required by the industry.

Keeping in mind the additional funding required at the time, that is, more investment for IIJT and funding to set up the TeamLease University, the group raised the second round of fund with ICICI Venture and Gaja Capital in April 2011. For TeamLease, the growth and scale has been possible all through because of their ability to gauge the market need and make the right investments in infrastructure, technology and people. Their continuous focus on treating the business idea as a hypothesis testing, which allowed them to redefine the business focus with the changing customer demand, is perhaps what led to their success in every new venture. While the business idea continued to evolve to cater to customer needs that changed over time, certain elements like transparency, hard work and growth for its people did not change. Even today, the belief that the growth of the business is a result of the effort of its people, drives TeamLease and IIJT to reserve upto 20 percent of their share holding for ESOPs to its employees.

It is the mindset of a large organization despite being an entrepreneurial venture that has today led them to address the macro aspect of skilling in India. Their focus on transparency and believing that sunshine is the best disinfectant encourages an environment of open discussion, which enabled them to take quick decisions and create a resilient workplace. As an organization, they strongly believe in not waiting for all the lights to be green to initiate something. A learning they nurture is that action must come before approval, for it is impossible to convince the authorities until they can be shown what is possible. While in the early stages, people called TeamLease an illegal business, today that business has led to a new industry in staffing.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/economy/article2879849.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home 

BANGALORE, FEB 10: 

With most companies facing attrition upwards of 20 per cent, the ‘exit interview' has assumed greater importance in employer-employee relationship.

Staffing solutions company TeamLease Services's countrywide study found that almost 92 per cent of employees and managements across industries took exit policies very seriously, with 99 per cent doing so in Bangalore and Chennai, and 85 per cent in Mumbai.

‘RELIEVING LETTER'The ‘relieving letter' from the current employer was becoming an important requirement for formalising employment in a new organisation. Only about eight per cent disregarded it.

About 76 per cent of the employees preferred a personal exit interview rather than an online one, attributing ‘reliance' to face-to-face interviews.

The study found that Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, lagged in online exit interviews, with only four per cent of companies adopting them, compared to Mumbai (29 per cent) and Kolkota (26 per cent).

Titled ‘Impactful Exits', the survey found that better prospects and salary hikes motivated employees to change jobs.

Around 78 per cent of employers insisted on longer notice periods and helping the employees to complete pending work.

EXIT INTERVIEWThe growing importance of the exit interview also shows that employees are recognising that the labour market is a small place and ungraceful exits can have negative consequences later. “Adherence to a professional and clean exit is increasingly being seen amongst the workforce today. But we don't anticipate relieving certificates becoming a deal breaker for new employers until the skill crisis eases,” says Ms Surabhi Mathur Gandhi, Senior Vice-President, IT Sourcing, TeamLease Services.

The study covered 800 respondents in eight cities: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune. Respondents were aged 21-45 years, across industries and functions.