Dr Deepak Deshpande is currently with Netmagic Solutions as Chief Human Resource Officer – Netmagic Solutions. Netmagic is an NTT company. NTT is world’s second largest telecommunications company and ranked in the top 100 fortune companies.
Dr. Deepak has over 25+ years of corporate experience and was associated with Tata Consultancy Services, LT, BlueStar, Datamatics, Lionbridge, SYSTIME and Trigyn Technologies. He is actively associated with HR movement in IT/ITES companies in Western India. He is a past president and mentor of HR Infotech Association and currently on the Governing Council. Dr Deepak Deshpande is also on NASSCOM’s Steering Committee for western region working on Diversity and Inclusion.
He is Ph.D in Management, Post graduate in Business Administration Electronics-MSc, a Gold Medallist. Besides, he holds a Research Degree in Electronics – M.Phil successfully completed his Post Graduate studies in Diploma in Marketing Management and Distance Education and General Management. He loves writing and public speaking on personality development, personal effectiveness, motivation leadership. He has won several awards for his excellence in HR – HR Leadership Award from World of Congress, Best HR Leader Award from Star News, Indira Super Achievers Award, Indian Achievers Award and Rastriya Vikas Ratna Award for CSR.
In an exclusive interaction with SCIKEY, Dr. Deepak Deshpande speaks of how they have managed outplacements even when it wasn’t a coined term, that the HR was always the marketing arm of the company and the world is changing fast enough, bringing with it new terms of employment.
What focus areas strategies you recommend to recruitment teams to become an extended marketing arm for the company.
I believe that this has remained the same since the mid-90’s boom of the IT. Recruitment and talent acquisition teams were always the face of the company, especially in the job market. This is why I don’t believe that HR and recruitment is the new marketing arm of the company since they were always there. Some companies were proactive and innovative. They understood the concept of first connect; they understood the significance of branding, they knew and appreciated that they are the voice, and they are the bridge between the candidate and the company etc. Good companies and employers understood the importance of these things and put their act together by giving an excellent experience to the candidate. 10% of the companies, I believe, fit into this slab of progressive band of companies and thus are market leaders today.
What has changed in all these years is the technology and social media. Apart from their existence, we also see a lot of their penetration in society in our lives; the usage of the same by people to voice their views and concerns. Talent acquisition too, has changed drastically over the years. Earlier, there were only job portals to reach out to the talent, whereas, today, there are multiple options. We can also make use of it to enhance the employee/candidate experience. Earlier, companies had to rely on newspapers to give out ads which were very expensive whereas, now social media comes at a lower price. It also provides the tools to make your advertisement and graphics with voice to attract talent. HR, therefore, is now more conscious of how to use these tools to position themselves as an employer of choice for all categories of talent.
As far as gaps are concerned, recruiters must be now tech-savvy since they are, in a way, the brand ambassadors of the company. Apart from this, have engaging conversations with candidates is what is the need of the hour since that is what the candidate will take back from the interview. Recruiters need to go through a crash course of brand building, like how we speak of customer experience, similarly to know about candidate experience. It is essential to lap up all the tools that are available and make sure we capitalize and use the maximum of the technology.
Since 63% of the workforce remains passive, how can AI and behavioral analysis play a role to help companies attract passive candidates?
There are always active job seekers who are looking for a job for a variety of reasons of their own. Then, there are those who are diligent seekers but don’t pose as one since it can tick off their current employer or colleague. So, subtly, there are marketing themselves and looking out for a job. Lastly, there are passive candidates who are not looking out for jobs but are only participating for namesake. What I recommend in such a case is that AI can pick up candidates and the type of blogs they are writing, the kind of comments they are giving to posts, their specialization in the area of work, the kind of work they have done etc. This helps to narrow down the population and have a list of only those individuals who are passive candidates. You can then send them an automatic mail regarding a job opening for which they can apply. You can monitor the number of days the candidate takes to respond and then shoot them a mail saying that probably they aren’t looking for a job but can refer a friend who is looking out for a job. You can also let them know about the schemes you have in case they recommend a friend, and he/she is hired can bring incentives to the former candidate.
There are a few tools now that have come into the market that are based on deep learning and AI. Some of these have been integrated with the typical recruitments search, contacts and interviews etc. A candidate could be on any number of social media platforms, be it Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram. The primary thing to do here is to identify the potential candidate for you with the help of algorithms which will throw some names together. Once this is done, you can send into them your two-minute pitch to get them convinced to work for you.
How do you think will employer branding change in the coming years considering more than 50% of the workforce will be temporary more and more highly talented people will not likely be hired permanently, but keep taking new challenges and earn more than their companies could pay them, all this complementing the GIG economy.
It’s the age of instant gratification. I think that times are changing now, people want everything, and they want it now. As a company, I don’t have to have an employee 365 days since I want to be cost effective or I cannot afford them. Next, there are multiple skills required in different companies and different ways. We must recognize this and adapt ourselves to it. For example: Earlier, there was no concept of co-working spaces. Today, it has revolutionized the entire idea of an office. I am taking inference from the co-working spaces because earlier one’s cabin or cubicle was sacrosanct to them, which is not the case anymore.
It was difficult to imagine then that such a day can come. This also applies to employment where the concept was long term employment or employment for life, a loyalty which is now fast fading terminologies. Now, life cycles will be shorter, faster, crisper, and the dynamics will change quickly. The skills that will be in demand in the future are very different than what it is today. Likewise, the types of employment like a permanent employee, temporary employee, contract-based employee, hourly employee, freelancers etc. are all different definitions that will be in existence in future.
Companies cannot have full-time employees because you need to pay them everything once they are working for your company. But if I have 20 freelancers working for me, I will have them with 20 different skills instead of just one. Next, if I only need a particular skill for say a matter of hours, then you can also choose that and pay them on an hourly basis. Jobs now will be clearly defined with specifications, so what anyone will have to do is grab the individual to do the work, pay and be rest assured that they will be given good quality of work.
What would be an impact of outplacement as an offering in employer branding?
In 2000, I had to terminate 200 employees in a day because of the dot com burst. We were very transparent to them when we communicated our decision to part. We gave them 3 months notice/salary as against the terms earlier agreed for one month. They were on roll for three months – we allowed them to stay at home and focus on job search instead of coming to office. There were free to come to office though, when they wanted to come during this period. We also helped them with alternate employment options in other companies. We gave them good references. We also promised them if the business scenario change for better, we would be the first to reach out with the job offer. If that happened within 6-9 months, we would also extend them gratuity benefits. We also allowed them to take training program conducted internally during these three months, so that they could upgrade their skills. I believe outplacement needs to be appropriately positioned because, if not, then it will only give out the wrong signals. It needs to be implemented and communicated cautiously and without any prejudice so that it effectively works out and win-win for both.
About SCIKEY:
SCIKEY Talent Commerce Platform is a Managed Talent Marketplace that enables employers globally, to build manage productive teams. With its online platform powered by AI platform-enabled services, Intelligent Automation and patented “SCIKEY MindMatch” algorithm; it simplifies how businesses contract or employ the best quality talent anywhere, while focusing on leveraging the talent mindset (psyche) as their prime competitive advantage.
SCIKEY’s mission is to provide the best cost, plenty of choices unmatched convenience to the employers across the globe, in employing or contracting the best quality talent On Premise, Offshore as well as in a Remote engagement.
