Human Resource Knowledge

Work Force Management in Recession

Temping, also known as contractual staffing has been a significantly big trend in the west across sectors be it IT, pharma, education etc. In India the story however, is different.

It’s only in the past few years that tempting as a concept is being looked at and explored by India Inc. More so now since firms are realizing that not only is this tool a cost effective tool but also a strategic technique for getting the best talent from the market and removing the under performers from the lot. It’s like taking people on Test drive basis. Temping gives you the option of weeding bad performers and retaining the good ones.

Temping as a practice should be limited roles that require extensive manpower and sectors that are labor intensive. At Lupin, various roles in HR and IT have been handled by contractual staffers. These activities are recurring but not on-going and temping in these functions ensures an infusion of fresh ideas and a better ROI.

Apart from this, highly labor intensive activities like the sales force management have been an infusion of contractual staffers. These activities are primarily service / marketing oriented and often area specific. Employing contractual staffers as medical representatives in the chosen area helps us better reach out to our TA and address them specifically.

For Lupin, a pharmaceutical major, contractual staffing is not a recent phenomenon and has been practiced for over two decades now. It is one of the HR tools and practices that we leverage to improve operational efficiencies.

Through this, systems and procedures are more tuned in and help in improving overall productivity levels within the organization.

Of course, the financial advantage it gives to the organizations is another big boon of contractual staffing. An organization can easily achieve 10-30 percent cost saving through temp staffing, but more than that it’s the value that the firm gets since the infrastructure cost goes down significantly.

Given the recent recession, this is just the kind of booster any company need at this hour. Employers have done the rationalism of their headcount and weeded out the non-performers. Most have over the last 6-8 months frozen recruitment too.

Employers don’t want to create permanent manpower costs. Moreover, they are looking at temp staffers and thinking of converting them to permanent staffers once the market bounces back.

Elaborating on the sectors that could possibly increase their focus on temp staffing, Insurance manufacturing telecom and banking would look at this. It is not just a flash in the pan but a trend that’s here to stay. At a time when most organizations are concerned about various means to curb operational costs, work force management tool comes as a shot in the arm.

Work force management means managing an employee effectively by putting him/her at the right work in right place, at right time and getting the right output. An employee is the most important asset of an organization and managing the asset effectively reduces the operational costs of a firm automatically. Cost compliance, productivity is the key in workforce management and managing these things is crucial for the growth of any organization.

But many organizations in India have not adopted automation and still go by the manual systems which leads to lot of translation and intentional errors in pay rules attendance, leaves etc., which ends up in unwanted expenses for the firm.

Increasing productivity and saving costs:

Workforce management tools help firms to control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve workforce productivity. Tools used for recruitment process applicant tracking systems, assessments career tracking and surveys etc. help n organization to identify and develop best people for the jobs. This goes a long way in increasing productivity and saving costs.

Tools for time and attendance management leave and absence management etc helps an organization to identify things like unaccounted absence and half day leaves and to manage such leakages effectively. Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc improved the productivity of its workforce by using Workforce Central Suite a workforce management tool developed by Kronos. The solution had the ability to deliver real time labor data to its operating departments while pay transactions. By comparing actual labor information with real time data from the budgeting system, managers of MMNA were able to identify excess headcount in various areas through out the plant and made sure that they have the right number of associates. This improved the plant’s hours per vehicle output and MMNA did a $1.3 million savings.

Labels: HRM

posted by Paresh @ 8:54 PM