NATIONAL HRM SUMMIT

All India Management Association (AIMA) organized 14th National HRM Summit on “Jobs in ERA of Automation” at Hotel Le Meridian, New Delhi on 01st December 2016. More than 300 delegates from various Multi-National Companies and Institutes attended the summit. The program was started with the opening remarks by Ms. Rekha Sethi, Director General, AIMA. Prof. (Dr.) Jitender Kumar (Academic Administrator) and Ms. Rashmi Grover (Training & Placement Officer) attended this program on behalf of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon. The program started at 10:00 A.M. after the registration process.

Ms. Rekha Sethi welcomed all the delegates and gave brief idea about the HRM Summit. She shared about the experiences of past HRM Summits and the importance of such summits. She welcomed Mr. T. V. Mohandas Pai (Summit Chairman and Sr. Vice President AIMA) on dies. Mr. Pai is a renowned name in the field of Human Resource and has headed the HR division of Infosys for many years. He started his talk by giving the example of Steam Engine and the impact of World War I & II on automation and how Automation helped in winning the World War II. He said the process of human replacing the machine started in Europe and then spread worldwide.

Mr. Pai said that in the coming years industries will be going for more and more automation. Robots doesn’t want any appraisal, have no leave issues, need no HR policy and are more efficient than their human counterparts. Because of this company like Adidas who had their manufacturing unit in China because of cheap labor has now shifted to Germany where it has setup a fully automated plant. Similarly Apple is also shifting from china.

After the break the next session started and was on “Managing Enterprise in the era of Automation”. Mr. T V Mohandas Pai was the moderator and Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani (Founder & Vice Chairman, Naukari.com) & Mr. Pramod Bhasin (Founder Genpact and Chairman, The Skills Academy) were the panelist. During the session, it was discussed that how automation will impact on companies access to talent and how can any business mitigate the risks created by automation. During the session it was discussed that one in the six person in the world is working in automation sector and the jobs of many will be affected because of it. Mr. Pai shared the example of Automated Delhi Metro and its effect on the jobs of drivers.

Next session was started with the inaugural address of Mr. Richard Rekhy (CEO, KPMG in India). He discussed HR Organization in the age of Automation and the new skills sets that the new age HR resources should have as the traditional approach will no longer be effective. His talk was followed by the keynote address by Mr. Vineet Nayar (Founder Chairman, Sampark Foundation). He emphasized on the more and more need of analytics involved in HR now. He informed the audience that HR now has the chance to demonstrate ROI on its analytics efforts, helping to make the case for further investment. Efforts are put in by HR organizations for using analytics in employee engagement, recruitment analytics, learning analytics, compensation analytics, and workforce planning. With these automations emerging in multiple business units, role of HR on organization is changing.

Post lunch session was on “Developing Human Capital in the New Workplace”. The session was chaired by Ms. Vishalli Dongrie (Partner & Head – People & Change Practice, KPMG), Mr. S. Chandrasekhar (President & Global Head of HR, Dr. Reddy’s laboratories Ltd.) and Mr. Prithvi Shergill (Chief Human Resource Officer, HCL Technologies) were the other speakers. Ms. Vishalli Dongrie said that of leadership teams, combining leaders of different generations and perspectives. Major automation trends will likely require new or enhanced skills among current and future workers. Mr. S. Chandrasekhar shared that the Institute for the Future (IFTF) has identified 10 skills that are essential for the future workforce. It includes sense-making and social intelligence skills, which it believes will be in high demand as smart machines take over rote, routine manufacturing and services jobs. IFTF also identified quantitative reasoning skills and design mindset as increasingly attractive. Mr. Prithvi Shergill said that rotational programs may be an effective way to identify and develop future talent. Workers that can harvest critical insights to inform decision-making and assess the emotions of those around them will be in demand.

Next Session was chaired by Mr. Rajan Saxena (Vice Chancellor, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai) and graced by Mr. Sanjay Jorapur (Chief Human Resources Officer, Hero Motocorp Ltd.), Mr. Bijay Sahoo (Group President HR, Reliance Industries) and Mr. Biplob Banerjee (Executive Vice President – HR, Jubilant). The session was on “Disrupting HR with Technology”. Mr. Rajan Saxena told the audience about that SMAC - Social, mobile, analytics, and cloud tools are only useful if employees adopt them. HR must begin with employee needs and the user experience. Incorporating design thinking throughout the process will help companies maximize the impact of new digital technologies. Mr. Sanjay Jorapur added that HR has the opportunity to use agile development which is rapid development by integrated teams delivering prototypes and solutions in successive releases and waves as a new way of operating in HR and supporting similar programs across the company. Mr. Bijay Sahoo said that HR management information should be an automated part of the HR digital platform. It should provide managers with real-time information and leaders with real-time analysis, decreasing the time spent on reports and increasing the time HR and business leaders spend on analyzing data and solving problems. Analytics and reports can be configured and integrated into a business intelligence layer of the HR platform, linking apps directly to leadership reports and analysis. Mr Biplob Banerjee said that only creative people will survive or those process where the cost of automation is quite higher than the labor force.

Last session of the day started with the welcome address by Mr. T V Mohandas Pai. He said that by 2020, 200 million people of the age group of 20 - 40 years will not have jobs as new job creation will be hampered because of Automation. He said presently in India, 52% jobs are in Agriculture and 48% are in service sector. This gap has reduced drastically in last few decades and automation will increase the problem of unemployment. He said we are already seeing the end of human intervention in documentation, accounting, most of financial calculation and prediction, manufacturing and helpdesk or customer care. Affected jobs include farmers, carriers, clerks, operators, cooks, street vendors, electricians and many more careers. Meanwhile, Jobs that will become critical could be in healthcare, education, alternative energy, Information Technology, content creation, financial analysis and international law. Automation is coming to knowledge work, in the form of artificial intelligence, challenging the high ground to which humanity has retreated as machines have taken over less cognitively challenging work. New jobs will emerge as people start renegotiating their relationship to machines and realigning their contributions. This could be done by :

a) Stepping up - heading for still higher intellectual knowledge and skills,

b) Stepping aside - using “multiple intelligences” such as “interpersonal” intelligences,

c) Stepping narrowly - finding a specialty within your profession that wouldn’t be economical to automate or

d) stepping forward - constructing the next generation of computing and AI tools.

Valedictory address was delivered by Mr. Manish Singhal (Founding Partner, pi Ventures). He thanked Mr. T. V. Mohandas Pai and all other speakers of various sessions for sharing their views with the audience. He thanked AIMA for hosting this HRM summit on such a burning topic. He also thanked HR manager and Academicians who have attended the program and made it interactive. The program concluded with HR Award where the best white paper award was awarded to TCS and Infosys was the first Runner Up.

Prof. Jitender Kumar interacted with the eminent HR personalities. When asked about what strategy institute should opt to make the students employable as the situation might get worse for the campus placements, Mr. Pai told that institute should start making their students more creative rather than mugging up theory. He said innovation is increasing through technology and students should be motivated to innovate. More and more electives which will be in demand needs to be introduced to students.