HR is one vertical which has received much attention in the last decade. Industrialists and stalwarts in India and abroad have almost unanimously recognized that the role of HR, long relegated to the background despite its criticality, is now much more important than ever before. Generous compensations with multiple options, high attrition rates and burgeoning demand for MBAs to fill middle management levels are just concurring the same.
Historically, management students at IIMs have been less drawn to take up HR as majors but that trend seems to be revising now. Dr. Mahua Guha, Professor at IIM Rohtak, said that HR function plays an important role in connecting students with industry, and is therefore becoming a preferred choice of students.
Keeping up with the trend and familiarizing the students with the various flavours of HR, IIM Rohtak organized the 6th HR Summit. The summit was flagged off with a welcome address by Prof. P Rameshan, Director of IIMR, in which he remarked the importance of knowledge workers in organisations. He highlighted that prominence of HR has increased over the past 2 decades with emergence of services sector and changing aspirations of workforce.
The first panel focused on the role of social media in the recruitment process. With management students and potential job seekers continually being told to maintain their social profiles, this subject held a lot of relevance. Many students reported having received job offers from India and abroad through their online profiles. Mr. Hemant Sethia, Vice President at Credit Suisse, said that the key aspect of hiring through social media is finding the target audience. Mr. Manmohan Bhutani, Head HR and Business Operations, ACS Group highlighted that retaining talent is more challenging than attracting employees. He explained how social media acts as an important channel in building employer brand.
The second panel discussion was on “Role of virtual world in networking.” Dipti Vij, Associate Director – Talent Acquisition, Ernst and Young talked about Linkedin has revolutionalised networking. Mr. Ashish Anand , Director & Head of HR, Religare Finvest Ltd agreed and gave examples how online recruitment is done at his organization.
With the ecommerce sector beating the industry benchmark in pay packages given to management students, it was only befitting that Bhavnesh Bhat, Head – Talent Management & HR Business Partner, Jabong pointed out how the role of HR gets even more complex in an industry particularly attractive for millennials.
The succeeding sessions were on “Developing business sense for HR professionals in the context of profit and loss” and “Recruitment challenges for knowledge-based workforce” respectively. Mr. Subhankar Roy Chowdhury, Global Head HR Strategy, M&A and Analytics at Lenovo, Mr Suresh Kumar, SVP-HR, Mafatlal, Mr. Saurabh Sharma Head –Campus Recruitment & Employer Branding, ERICSSON and Mr. Anupam Hans, Head Talent Acquisition, Edelweiss Finance shared their views on what they look for in a candidate.
Students listened to the discussions with rapt attention and quenched their curiosity by posing incisive questions. With active discussions and insightful ideas, the sixth edition of HR summit organized by IIMR, turned out to be a resounding success. The HR summit was truly in line with the spirit of IIMR to become a global center for learning and knowledge creation.
