New Delhi: In today’s dynamic business landscape, organizations recognize the critical importance of a strategic approach to talent acquisition and management. The adage “workforce today needed for tomorrow” encapsulates the essence of preparing for future challenges by identifying, attracting, and retaining top talent.
The constant evolution of industries necessitates the periodic updation of teams, prompting businesses to adopt innovative hiring practices. To retain high-performing individuals in an increasingly competitive market, companies are exploring creative approaches that go beyond traditional remuneration, focusing on aspects like professional development, flexible work arrangements, and a positive organizational culture. In this regard Pronali Dhar, ObserveNow interacted with Abhishek Misra, Head Human Resources – India, Rockwell Automation.
Here are a few excerpts from the interview:
What’s your organization’s approach to talent strategy and hiring? Is there a perfect recipe to get it all right or is it always a balanced view?
Rockwell Automation’s talent strategy strives to inspire, enable, and equip the organization and talent at all levels to embark on and be a part of all aspects of our technology-driven, digital transformation journey.
To get the right talent, our recruiting process is a strong handshake between Talent Acquisition, HR, and the hiring manager. Our ‘Hiring Manager Enablement’ guide enables our people managers to build a growth mindset, which is about ‘always on’ hiring and building a talent pipeline.
As an HR leader, how do you ensure that the workforce you have today is the one you need tomorrow? What is your master plan for the skills update of the team?
Our leaders have identified ‘Priority skills’ for each of the business units/functions. These skills are defined as skills connected to the strategic execution and/or maintaining competitive strengths, now and in the future for the organization or they could be skills in scarcity.
Apart from this, our leadership has also identified four Enterprise skills that are required across multiple business units/ functions.
We have also identified eight core competencies, which are behaviors we expect from all Rockwell employees. The Core Competencies are Values Differences, collaboration, Customer Focus, driving results, Action-oriented, managing complexity, cultivating innovation, and Nimble Learning.
What innovative approaches are businesses adopting to retain top talent in an increasingly competitive market? How are they prioritizing employee well-being and career growth?
To provide continuous career opportunities to our employees internally, we have created a robust framework to encourage our internal employees to move from one position to another seamlessly. We have also introduced a more friendly internal transfer policy.
Additionally, our One Talent Agenda is an integrated talent approach to drive career opportunities for our employees and also has a focus on external talent. Key initiatives within One Talent Agenda include Stretch Assignments, Mentoring, Reverse Mentoring, Role Moves, Know your Business, and Global Voices (employee survey) action-taking.
At Rockwell Automation, we strive to provide our employees and their families with a world-class benefit/ well-being experience focused on supporting their physical, financial, and emotional well-being. This includes insurance plans for employees and families; Health & well-being apps like Visit+, Calm, and OnTrack; an Employee Assistance Program (EAP); Flexible leave policy; ‘Bravo’ recognition platform, etc
How do you approach diversity and inclusion in your hiring practices, particularly in the context of hiring veteran workforce or Women returning to work?
Our Diversity, Equity, and inclusion is driven with the purpose of enhancing our diversity ratio and providing the right inclusive culture. Through these years, we have worked on three themes and continue to build this further: Hiring a Diverse Workforce, Workforce Development, and Sensitization and branding.
Our ‘Re-establish’ program has been instrumental in attracting talent returning after a career break. We have seen some early success with this.
With these efforts in the last few years, we have enhanced our diversity ratio. And continue to elevate our focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) actions, leadership behaviors, and targets to increase the representation of diverse talent.
We have been building a culture of inclusion by driving “Unconscious Bias” sessions for people managers, particularly to reduce interview and hiring-related biases. Other initiatives like ‘Managing across differences and our ‘culture workshops’ continue to sustain an inclusive culture.
In what ways can your organization support and empower freshers to understand work life, chart a path for them, and find their sense of purpose in alignment with the company’s vision?
As Rockwell Automation evolves and grows in India, we are becoming generationally diverse. About 75% of our workforce in India belongs to Millennials and Generational Z.
Hence, we have been focusing on engaging them through the creation of employee resource groups like Advance Young Professionals (AYP) and Parents and Care Takers (PaCT). AYP is focused on helping meet the needs for development, support, and advancement of career goals of the young workforce at Rockwell Automation. PaCT focuses on evolving the culture at Rockwell Automation to be the best place where working parents and caretakers can and want to do their best work.
Is there any advice you would like to give to the new HR Professionals entering the industry?
I have a few pieces of advice for new HR Professionals: Understand the business deeply, be a problem solver/ innovator, be curious, be empathetic, value diverse perspectives and be a trusted advisor to your stakeholders.
