Pushing Strategy Down The Line

TARUN NARAYAN

If earlier companies were using training and developme-nt programmes largely to enha-nce the strategic and business orientation of the managerial professionals, they are now also increasingly using such training initiatives to move down the line to enable the officer-level employees in internalising the strategic understanding of doing business.

And consultants consider this a welcome move. Says Dr. Priya Somaiya, executive director, Grow Talent Ltd:" There is a hunger for knowledge that is lying untapped at the non-managerial cadre. Also it is the employees at the non-managerial level who are closer to the market realities in the organisation since they are the ones who execute the strategy that is conceptualised at the level of top management".

According to Dr. Somaiya, such an initiative will therefore educate the non-management staff in taking a more macro and long term perspective of doing business even as they are carrying out their defined responsibilities in the organisation.

However, while doing this, HR practitioners also envisage a couple of challenges in depl-oying such training and develo-pment initiatives that are now being undertaken by the organisations

Primarily, a section of consultants still believe that even today corporate training is not geared to sharpen the skill-sets of the professionals from the management cadre. And the challenge only gets pronou-nced when it comes to penetrating it further downwards in the organisational hierarchy.

Further, corporates also confront the task of not being able to lend a more personalised attention since the number of individuals who would be participating in an endeavour at the non-managerial level would be substantially large in terms of the sheer size and number of workforce who would be involved in the initiative

Says Mr Anupam Prakash, practice leader, Hewitt Associates: "There could be hundreds of employees who would become the audience in such a training initiative. And therefore the need to deploy technology and other resources in all such training initiatives would become all the more inevitable for organisations thereby creating a strain on corporate resources".

Importantly, even if the employees internalise the strategic understanding through such training initiatives, corporate HR is yet to evolve career development plans that are targeted at the non-management cadre. And as a result of this companies may end-up equipping the staff with skillsets that may become just another round of training exercise for the workforce.

Adds Dr Somaiya: "There are managers who are waiting to be moulded even from such officers level grades and organisations need to take a serious and concerted endeavours in being able to see this objective in action".

The Godrej Experience

In line with this trend though, Godrej Industries Ltd (GIL) has now deployed a HR (Human Resource) programme that is aimed at fine-tuning the orientations like like interpersonal effectiveness and negotiation skills of its officer-level employees.

Says Mr. CK Vaidya, executive director, HR Godrej Industries Ltd.(GIL): "The initiatives are aimed at achieving business results by driving our officer-level workforce".

At GIL there are separate set of workshops that the employees have to attend. One of them is on enhancing the interpersonal effectiveness while the other being that of sharpening the commercial negotiation skills. Informs Mr Vaidya: "Once the employees have attended these workshops then each of them have to go back and implement the learnings that they may have derived".

This implies that every employee in collaboration with the immediate supervisor has to conceptualise a business concept. All these concepts that the employees have submitted are then sent for a consultation to the external experts for suggestions, rema-rks and the necessary feedback for refinements are distilled from these consultants.

This is initiated with a view of incorporating a more unbiased perspective while developing a business plan. It also aids the organisation in being able to enhance the learning quotient of the employees when it comes to developing such business concepts,and specially so since the objective in such initiative is to enhance the strategic acumen of the workforce.

Having conceptualised it, these employees are then asked to make a presentation to the top management. "For instance, every individual who has a business concept with them are now submitting their proposals to the head of the manufacturing unit of the organisation", adds Mr Ajay Raj Kumar, assistant manager HR, Godrej Industries Ltd.

The company does admit that there are no specific measures that have been developed to determine the extent to which the training has aided the employees in being able to develop a more robust business concept,or even for that matter enhanced the strategic dimensions in the non management cadre. Informs Mr Vaidya: "Gauging the effectiveness of training is definitely a constant challenge faced by any HR professional".

However, the company claims that the pattern in which the concepts may have been developed would definitely provide an indication on how successful have the employees been in being able to internalise interpersonal effectiveness. Further these professionals are also sent for a workshops on negotiation skills where they are exposed to a host of aligned tools in Human Resource Management.

According to the company, such negotiation skills are more from the context of the commercial negotiations that the professionals have to undertake so as to effectively drive business results. In such exercises each employee engages in a mutual discussion with their colleagues or peers as a part of the workshops. In all these exercises they would take up any case and conduct a simulation round whereby one employee will be conducting a negotiation and subsequent to that his or her colleague would lend a set of observations on how such negotiations can be streamlined better to notch a successful business deal.

The exercises thus become a part of the overall training and development endeavours undertaken by the organisation. Informs Mr Vaidya:"All these workshops are directed towards bridging some of the practical needs that our employees may be confronting rather than culminating them as a theoretical exercise".

Way Forward

According to Dr Somaiya,to drive the initiative successfully HR needs to comprehend how operations-related jobs would be contributing to strategy of the establishment. The training programmes need to be designed in synchronisation with this since the non-managerial professionals are more from the operations-related work profile. The need is also to focus at getting an effective buy-in so that it can ensure a more wholesome participation and enhance the success of such endeavours.

"Getting the buy-in will be a huge effort.Once that is attained the initiative will be a quantum leap in successfully internalising strategy at the bottom level in the enterprise".

Being at a stage of relative infancy, corporate HR now seem to be adopting the policy of implement and watch. "May be there is still a value that is waiting to be unleashed", sums up Mr Vaidya