There is an acute poverty of original research and literature on human resources management (HRM) in the country, and the function is not given due importance by companies and organisations, even though they pay lip service to it, according to Dr Anil K. Khandelwal, the former CMD of Bank of Baroda and Dena Bank and also a renowned HR expert .
He was speaking as the chief guest at the inaugural of the three-day annual conference of the National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM) which began here on Thursday afternoon. He said he was sick of the rhetoric glorifying the “importance of human resources management mouthed by those who really do not know what the function entails and who are not willing to give it its due.” He said there were organisations employing 50,000 persons who were not willing to employ professional HR experts to deal with the issues. According to one study, less than one per cent of the time is devoted to HR related issues in board meetings.
Mr Khandelwal remarked that “HRM is not all about people alone, but people plus. In that plus come customers, branding, organisational culture, processes, bureaucracy and several other issues. Most of these elements are intangible. The real function of HRM is to build these intangibles.” He then went on to narrate his experiences in the Bank of Baroda and how he put into practice the principles of HRM to transform it into “India's intenational bank”. It was during his tenure the bank opened its international branches.
He said there was scepticism initially and many said that the principles could not be implemented in the moribund public sector of India, but they were proved wrong. He expressed faith in the public sector and said sound HR policies would make a lot of difference to its performance. One of the basic principles of HRM, he said, was that “opportunities should be given to all employees, but the meritorious ones should get the rewards. There should be a clear-cut, rational performance evaluation system.”
Dr S. Chandrasekhar, the vice-president (HR) of IBM-India, said in his key-note address that HRM should be recognsied as a strategic function and it should be given its due importance. “The HR manager should not be one who merely reports to the CEO, but he should be on the board. The share-holders should not merely ask about the earnings per share (EPS) but the earnings per employee. They should ask whether the company has a clear-cut HR agenda in tune with its vision.”
He said IT could be a very useful tool in the hands of a HR manager. “We need virtual managers to deal with virtual employees in future. In future, most of the employees will work from home, using the electronic gadgets,” he remarked.
Mr Ajeya Kallam, the chairman of the Visakhapatnam port, Mr R. Mohan Das, the national president of the NIPM, and others spoke.