Compete Strategize With Human Capital By Dr Ekta Sharma

 Human resource across globe is observing sharp trends. Furlough, hiring freeze, great resignation, moonlighting and now once again layoff.  Elon Musk decided for mass layoff at Twitter few days back. Now, Zuckerberg announced layoff of 11,000 employees of Meta. Those who could survive this lay off  are also grappled with fear of their future at work. Its the great example and time to observe 'Survivors syndrome', defined as the fear amongst the employees who survive after the company's decision to lay off the other colleagues.  The issue is grave but I am startled with the other issue- Workforce planning, strategic human resource management. The reason to raise these issues is the news about the employee who joined meta two days ago and for joining his job he relocated to the other country (Canada) where he was assigned work. Just two days into the new job and new location, he was informed that he was laid off (Times of India, 11th Nov 2022. Pg.13, column 2). Doesn'...

Moonlighting: Old trend coming to light now   Wipro sacked 300 employees on the ground of a ‘breach of integrity and employment contract’. The employees were found to be working for Wipro’s competitor, even when they were on Wipro’s payroll. That’s what is termed ‘moonlighting’. Moonlighting is the practice of an employee working for another employer even when he is full-time employed with one employer. Many IT companies raised concerns against moonlighting and warned the employees of the harsh repercussions if found to be involved in it. The Pandemic and Working from home are considered the factors which led to the prevalence of moonlighting practices. This is not limited to specific geography but is observed across the globe. Industry veterans like IBM, Wipro, and Infosys termed it ‘unethical’ and cautioned employees to read the employment contract before accepting the assignment outside the organization. This thought implies that the employee has no discretion to utilize his...

 Interestingly, I was explaining an electrovalent bond and covalent bonds and due to my natural bias for behavioural science, I found an explanation of the differences in the molecular bond types in the human behaviour.  Electrovalent bonds are between two atoms which form ions by giving away or borrowing the electrons from other atom, in order to achieve stability. E. G. Sodium(Na) has atomic number 11 and has configuration 2,8,1. So it has 1 extra electron which it donate to the atom in need like chlorine(Cl) which has configuration of 2,8,7. Chlorine is short of electron to achieve stability. So Na donates to Cl and make NaCl. These bonds are not strong and can be broken.  Other side covalent bonds are formed by mutual sharing  of the electrons between atoms e.g. Carbon. Carbon has 4 electrons in its outer shell and it form bonds with another  carbon atom and complete it's own shell as well as the shell of the other carbon atom making the outer shell of both ...

                                                                                                                                  AIR INDIA , the brand that today encompasses both the erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines, is in serious trouble. The National Aviation Company of India (NACIL), formed by the merger of the two airlines, ran up losses of Rs 2,200 crore in 2007-08. Losses for 2008-09 estimated at over Rs 5,000 crore. In 2009-10, losses could exceed Rs 12,000 crore. How did the airline get into such a mess?       Parliament's Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) has come up with a report that seeks to identify th...

 After the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines, the government promised no-layoff policy to the trade/labor unions which went on to strike to secure continuity in employment for the staff. So the rationalization of the workforce was not done. Not only that, the employees were not trained in new technology and digitalization.  Now after the acquisition of Air India by Tata group, the management realized the need to rationalize the workforce to reduce redundancies and also to align the talent planning with the change in the strategy of the new management. The new management believes that to compete in the aviation market they would require the technology up-gradation of their fleet as well as the processes, and to achieve this talent planning is important.  At the time of acquisition, Air India had 13,000 employees, out of which 8,000 were permanent employees and rest contractual. Out of these, 4,000 employees would reach superannuation in the next two years. The new ma...

  “History repeats itself” I n 2017, the airline continued making losses, and its debt ballooned to Rs 50,000 crores while it continued to lose significant domestic and international market share. Yet again, the government set out to privatize Air India despite failing in 2000. In March of 2018, they issued an expression of interest to sell a 76 percent stake of the perennially loss-making airline and also a 50 percent stake of Air India SATS Airport Services Pvt Ltd, a ground handling joint venture with Singapore Airport Terminal Services. T his attempt at privatization asked the bidders to take on Rs 33,392 crores worth of debt and submit a bid by the month of May 2018. It isn’t surprising that no private firms showed any interest in buying the debt-laden airline. H istory had repeated itself. The government had classically failed to privatize Air India. Although the Airline was massively failing, it was undeniable that Air India had somehow become a symbol of ‘national pride’. T...

  I n 2012, International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported that nearly 3 billion people and 47 million tons of cargo were transported by air. The Civil Aviation Industry made an aggregate profit of USD 7.6 billion on revenues of 638 billion which is a 1.2% net profit margin. This was despite world GDP growing at 2.1% and oil averaged a record high of 111.8 dollars a barrel.  Strong economic growth in emerging markets resulted in an expansion of passenger connectivity.  IATA announced that for 2013 airlines were expected to return a global net profit of 12.9 billion. Indian Civil Aviation Scenario was seeing signs of revival. In early 2013, then Civil Aviation Minister Ajith Singh announced at a gathering that Air India was to see a 20% increase in the total revenue by the end of the financial year 2013-14. This meant an expected increase in revenue from Rs 16,130 crores to Rs 19,393 crores. The reality wasn’t as colorful. F ast forward to the monochromatic end av...