An article in Economic Times talks about how online marketplaces are offering generous incentives to temporary workers hired to manage last-mile delivery during the busy festival season; along with inputs from Sudeep Sen.

Online marketplaces offer generous incentives like additional payouts to temporary workers

Online marketplaces are offering generous incentives to temporary workers hired to manage last-mile delivery during the busy festival season.

These staff, who typically work on two-three month contracts, are promised additional payouts for delivering shipments beyond a threshold and 100% attendance during major sale days.

“Going by current estimates, close to 30,000-35,000 staff have been hired across the categories of last-mile delivery staff, warehouse executives, pickers and packers. The incentive structure has gone up as opposed to the basic salary, including which the last-mile delivery personnel can make between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000 per month,” said Sudeep Sen, assistant vice-president at HR outsourcing company TeamLease Services.

The company provides contract staffing solutions to brands and marketplaces. Efficiency and attendance metrics are being used by the marketplaces to make it more attractive for the contract staff who are offered one-and-a-half times the salary of a delivery personnel on the rolls.

“Last-mile services are incentivised and in a 25-day sale period, delivery staff can earn Rs 1,000-1,500 as perks,” said TA Krishnan, chief executive at ecommerce logistics company Ecom Express.

Online marketplace Flipkart is offering an additional incentive of Rs 5 per package for business partners delivering more than 45 packages per day as well as Rs 200 for attendance on all key sale days.

“In our fulfilment centres (FC) and delivery stations, we have created special incentive programmes centred around attributes such as attendance and performance. We also have a quarterly reward & recognition programme around key leadership principles, including customer obsession and ownership to recognise the efforts of associates who go the extra mile to delight customers,” said an Amazon spokesperson.

Public policy requirements of the 21st century demand a bureaucracy less generalist

In 1921, a Harvard medical school professor, Lawrence Henderson, wrote that medicine had crossed a “great divide” because “for the first time in human history a random patient with a random disease consulting a doctor at random stands a better than 50/50 chance of benefiting from the encounter”. In other words, knowledge, complexity and evidence in medicine had advanced to a point where it was better to be treated by physicians than to run in fear of them. India stands at a similar “great divide”: Generalists are more dangerous than specialists and the rising standards of human capital in public policy areas — education, healthcare, public finance, urbanisation — means we must stop equating bureaucrats with technocrats.

The most complex decision for any entrepreneur — social or business — is choosing between generalists and specialists because, as the American politician Mario Cuomo said, “You campaign in poetry but govern in prose”. Any effective organisation needs both; too much poetry, you get nothing done. Too much prose and you do nothing great. India’s current policy problems are very different from the nation-building challenge the country faced after Independence — job creation is an execution problem — and therefore equating bureaucrats with technocrats is wrong. The reasons are as follows: Politics is closer to poetry than to prose. The bureaucrat’s job is closer to writing prose than composing poetry; mostly implementing policy. But one needs to know a subject well enough to give inputs and also make them as simple as possible. Additionally, our binding constraint has shifted from the sins of commission (what the government does wrong) to the sins of omission (what the government does not do). This means outcomes need building coalitions, creating specialised knowledge, less hierarchy, more collaboration, domain networks and flatter professional structures.

An article in pharmabiz.com talks about how there has been a growth in replacement hiring over growth hiring in the sales and marketing departments of pharma companies; along with inputs from Kunal Sen.

Indian pharmaceutical industry continues to show robust growth in hiring compared to other industries in the country. There has been a growth in replacement hiring over growth hiring in the sales and marketing departments of pharma companies, noted Kunal Sen, senior vice president, TeamLease Services Limited.

While the job growth registered in the pharma industry is 14 per cent ending August 2016, the need to fill up the vacancies is expected to go on with companies as they will need to hire to replace employees who have moved out to opt for better avenues, Sen told Pharmabiz.

The pharmaceutical industry has been able to sustain its growth. It is the only industry which is proving its mettle even as information technology and banking sectors are reporting a fall in hiring, he said.

Moreover, the talent sourcing in pharma is undergoing a tremendous transformation. The US inspection reports have made Indian pharma industry revise strategies and ramp up methods internally to improve compliances and manufacturing standards. Going forward, much of the volume hiring is expected in the departments of R&D, Quality Assurance, project management, contract manufacturing, regulatory and IP, pointed out Sen.

An article in Hindustan Times talks about how smaller cities edging out the metros in job creation and hiring, a trend attributed to companies looking for newer markets and dedicated workers with knowledge of local business; along with inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty.

If you are in a non-metro city, you have a better chance of landing a job with a private company.

Latest trends from top headhunting agencies show smaller cities edging out the metros in job creation and hiring, a trend attributed to companies looking for newer markets and dedicated workers with knowledge of local business.

This could be crucial for the Narendra Modi government’s push to revive industry and create jobs needed to absorb about 10 million people joining the workforce every year.

So far, the government has been unable to find a way around to kickstart a host of stalled projects needed to boost growth. A lack of enough skilled manpower is also expected to hurt industry unless the government succeeds with efforts such as the Skill India programme.

Among the cities emerging as the new employment hot spots are Chandigarh, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Baroda and Pune, reports by agencies such as Naukri.com, Teamlease Services and Monster.com show.

“In metros, we have reached a saturation point where most of the skilled people are either employed or expect high salaries. Companies have started looking for niche-skilled employees at reasonable costs in smaller towns,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder at staffing firm, Teamlease Services.

Statistics confirm the new trend.

For instance, job openings in Mumbai stood at 1,470 in August last year which grew to 1,499 in a year, registering a marginal growth of 2%. Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata show similar trends.

In contrast, Jaipur registered a healthy growth of 36% – job openings rising from 2,665 in August 2015 to 3,638.

Ecommerce companies are driving demand for temporary staff this festival season, accounting for as much as 60 per cent of the short-term jobs being created, as they go on an overdrive to win market share in the most lucrative few months of the year. Brick-and-mortar retailers as well as consumer durable and telecom players are also hiring staff on a temporary basis.

Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, LG, Samsung and Panasonic are among the companies that are set to ramp up temporary workers by up to 35 per cent to see them through the expected surge in demand. The trend is gaining steam in smaller towns as well, and most of the staff demand is in sales, logistics and customer support.

“Hiring in the ecommerce industry has become more skewed towards season. We see an increase in demand as well as compensation by 10-12 per cent compared to last year,” said Guruprasad Srinivasan, president, people and services at Quess Corp.

According to estimates, between 60,000 and 80,000 temporary jobs would be created in the organised sector alone this festival season while the unorganised sector would hire more. “Ecommerce companies account for over 60 per cent of the demand,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, senior vice-president at TeamLease Services.

Other staffing firms such as Kelly Services, Manpower and Randstad said while ecommerce continues to dominate, retail and telecom are going strong as well.

Moorthy K Uppaluri, managing director at Randstad India, said companies are expected to strengthen manpower by 20-30 per cent.

Flipkart, which kicks off its Big Billion Day event on October 2, is expected to hire more than 10,000 temporary staff to ramp up its delivery and logistics service to meet festival season demand.

Rival Snapdeal said the Diwali run-up would see the creation of nearly 10,000 temporary jobs from September 15 to November 15.

Amazon, which will be launching its Great Festival Sale in October, has launched six new fulfilment centres (FC) cater to the festive demand. “These new FCs will create direct employment with a mix of full time and temp staff,” said Raj Raghavan, director-HR at Amazon India.

Staffing sources said mandates from Samsung and LG have nearly doubled while Hitachi and Bata are also recruiting. Big brands are going into small cities and towns for better market coverage, they said. Hyperlocal firms such as Swiggy are also hiring temporary workers, they said.

An article in Economic Times is a joint byline from Manish Sabharwal, Chairman, TeamLease and Asheesh Sharma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development; talks about finding the right kind of skilled labour.
Most Indian employers don’t know the work of Nobel laureate Peter Diamond’s work on search costs in labour markets. But they live it every day. One of their biggest problems is hiring people at the bottom of the pyramid: hiring people with 0-2 years of experience.

Finding such a workforce has become the corporate equivalent of kissing 100 frogs to find one princess. This wasted effort arises from the problems of matching (say, a youngster with skills in Kanpur connecting with an employer hiring in Bengaluru), mismatch (say, someone skilled on paper but with different skills than what the employer needs) and low signalling value (resume’ of skilled kids not strong enough to get shortlisted for interviews by employers).

Solutions may lie in the work of last year’s Nobel Prize winners Lloyd Shapley and Alvin Roth. They suggest that equity markets that clear on price are different from matching markets like college applications and recruitment that clear on information.

India’s new apprenticeship regime breaks with a painful past created by the rigid Apprentices Act in 1961. We only have four lakh formal apprentices. If we had the same proportion of our labour force in apprenticeships as Germany, we would have 15 million apprenticeships. And we have only 30,000 employers appoint apprentices. This number is 1,75,000 for Britain.

India’s new apprenticeship regime involves many changes: amendments to the Act to make it flexible, making apprenticeship stipends eligible for corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending, introduction of on-the-job training in industrial training institute curricula, and shifting ownership from the labour ministry to the skills ministry.

The new
(NAPS) will provide financial support to employers for engaging apprentices with abudget of .`10,000 crore. This aims for a 10-fold increase in apprentices by 2020. In process are a national portal and smartphone app for matching apprentices and employers, setting up apprenticeship corporations by state governments, and linking apprenticeships to online education.

An article in Mint talks about few ways to return to the professional world after a travel sabbatical; along with inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty.
Returning to the professional world after a travel sabbatical isn’t always easy. Here’s what you can do.

Having worked for seven years as a financial analyst with Bajaj Allianz, Dilip Baba was itching to travel and try out things, like month-long skiing and mountaineering courses. But it was challenging to find the time. After chewing over the idea for some time, he quit his job and decided to take a year-long sabbatical to travel the country with a friend. Baba, 35, is now back in the corporate fold, working as an insurance consultant with Infosys.

“Coming from an adventurous break and settling in the job takes time. But thanks to my year of travel, the fear of losing my job has decreased,” says Baba.

Sabbaticals are a little more common today than they used to be, but long-term travel, romantic though it may sound, is certainly no child’s play. It requires planning and savings, the ability to use networking skills, being able to acclimatize to almost all kinds of situations—and, of course, being prepared for the possibility of having to scout for a job on your return.

“For an average, working-class Indian, it may not be such a good idea professionally to quit his/her job to travel. However, it largely depends on the individual and his/her risk appetite and ability to sustain financially for longer durations,” says Rituparna Chakraborty, executive vice-president at Teamlease, a human resource (HR) services provider.

We spoke to some people who had been bitten by the travel bug. While a few had returned to full-time jobs, some went on to pursue their passion. They speak about how they prepared to return to the professional world after their travel break.

Having worked for seven years as a financial analyst with Bajaj Allianz, Dilip Baba was itching to travel and try out things, like month-long skiing and mountaineering courses. But it was challenging to find the time. After chewing over the idea for some time, he quit his job and decided to take a year-long sabbatical to travel the country with a friend. Baba, 35, is now back in the corporate fold, working as an insurance consultant with Infosys.

“Coming from an adventurous break and settling in the job takes time. But thanks to my year of travel, the fear of losing my job has decreased,” says Baba.

Sabbaticals are a little more common today than they used to be, but long-term travel, romantic though it may sound, is certainly no child’s play. It requires planning and savings, the ability to use networking skills, being able to acclimatize to almost all kinds of situations—and, of course, being prepared for the possibility of having to scout for a job on your return.

“For an average, working-class Indian, it may not be such a good idea professionally to quit his/her job to travel. However, it largely depends on the individual and his/her risk appetite and ability to sustain financially for longer durations,” says Rituparna Chakraborty, executive vice-president at Teamlease, a human resource (HR) services provider.

We spoke to some people who had been bitten by the travel bug. While a few had returned to full-time jobs, some went on to pursue their passion. They speak about how they prepared to return to the professional world after their travel break.

Big firm or start-up? There’s much to be said for each; the area you want to work in will dictate your choice

Here is a simple question. Say you have a job offer with a great package from a well-known company. You also have an offer from a small company that not many have heard of. Which one should you pick?

You are right if you said ‘the former’; you would also have been right if you picked ‘the latter’. And righter still if you said ‘it depends’. Deciding which offer to go with for your first job is not easy and depends on a lot of factors.

First is best

A job is where you spend a good deal of your life and it is important to choose well. It turns out that it is particularly so for your first job, for several reasons. “Your first job ends up making your career. Only a few choose to change their line of work later,” says Pallavi Jha, Managing Director and Chairperson, Dale Carnegie Training India.

Also, the learning curve is steep in the first five years of one’s career. Subject knowledge, operating style and best practices are all typically picked up early in one’s career and may be hard to alter later, say experts. In campus placements, you may not have the choice of refusing an offer; so it is all the more essential to choose wisely.

In the past, typically, only larger organisations went for campus placements. However, there has been a trend with even start-ups increasingly attracting young talent. An Employment Outlook Report based on a study conducted by TeamLease recently found nine of 10 start-ups claiming to increase the number of hires in 2016. This makes it, in a way, a bit more challenging for the candidate to pick among the plethora of options.

Starting the search

To start with, you need to decide which function you want to work in. If you specialised in finance, you must decide if you want to continue in this line or be a generalist. “If you want to do marketing or finance, it may be better to take up a job in that function at a large organisation which is known for that functional strength”, says Biji Kurien, former MD of Berger Paints, who entered IIM-A 50 years ago.

Experts advise that it is important to understand the role you want, prepare accordingly and select a job. For instance, while in college, you must meet industry professionals to know the daily functions of those in various job titles. It also helps to do internships, be aware of realities and choose based on what would be suitable for your skills and interest.

Bigger is better?

Larger companies may typically pay a higher salary and perks. There may also be other advantages, such as a structured HR and training process that will ease the transition from college to corporate life, notes Jha.

There may also be the comfort of a better job security at a larger organisation. “There is recognition, prestige and branding. Your seniors may also be working at the same place. There is more predictability and the company may also invest in training”, says Dorai Thodla, a technology entrepreneur who works closely with student entrepreneurs and colleges. He also adds that, often, parents prefer that their son or daughter joins a recognised company, nudging the decision.

“Till last year, start-ups were romanticised like never before in India”, says Mohit Gundecha, Co-founder & CEO, Jombay, a HR advisory firm. A lot of people wanted to join the bandwagon and be a part of the buzz. But this year, it has been a bloodbath, with many of them shutting shop or laying off. “Quite naturally, there are concerns about joining a start-up, especially at the start of one’s career. People are not ready to take a leap of faith any more”, he says.

But would you be trading off learning for comfort and choosing to be small fish in a big pond? Experts differ in their views. Kurien, who joined Asian Paints when it was not yet a large firm and grew with it, says that the learning curve is steeper in a small company. “Bigger companies put you in one slot and you cannot see the business as a whole”, he says.

However, Pradeep Kumar, who works for a large organisation and advises many young start-ups, says that the belief that one can learn a lot, have freedom and create an impact in start-ups is a ‘myth’. “What you can do and cannot do would depend on the stage of the start-up, priorities and lot of external factors. It is possible that you may not be able to execute your ideas in a small company; it is very possible to do a lot and learn a lot at a large organisation”, he says.

Thodla says that big names such as Google offer a lot of avenues to learn and grow. “B-schools are geared to think on scale and this fits what larger companies want. The case studies are on MNCs, not often on smaller firms”, he says.

Also, the lack of structure in smaller firms may not be suitable for many. “Everything may be up in the air and only those who are driven and are self-learners may be able to learn”, says Jha.

An article in Career 360 talks about various courses that will help candidates to build a banking career; along with inputs from Neeti Sharma.

Jeremiah Quinlan, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University pointed out to Careers360 sometimes back what global companies look for in students. “In today’s modern world, you know it’s not really about all the skills that you know, it’s how quickly you can learn what you need to learn when you start a new job,” he said. Quinlan is bang on target when it comes to Banking and Financial Services as these services require not just functional experts, but those who are quick learners as well.

Manpower requirement

The projected manpower requirement of the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector work force by 2022 is 8.5 million – which is an increase of about 4 – 4.5 million from where we stand today. A number of institutions are offering programmes in collaboration with industry bodies and organisations to fill the gap in demand for qualified professionals in the domain. Neeti Sharma, Senior Vice President TeamLease Services says, “Banking and financial services is one of the burgeoning sectors in the region. By 2017, the region alone is expected to create around 33% of the total employment generated by the BFSI industry. We are confident that such collaborations will not only enable students to take advantage of the opportunity and get gainful employment, it will also create a pool of skilled talent for the industry to recruit from.”

FAME degrees

Broadly concerned with the management of money, finance is one of the subjects very popular at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Finance, Accounting, Management and Economics are commonly referred to as the FAME group of subjects. An undergraduate or postgraduate degree in FAME prepares you for a career in a range of sectors, including banking, financial markets and insurance.

Do you have it in you?

If you have a good academic background with a nose for numbers, you can surely get admission for finance degrees which cover technical and theoretical knowledge. In general, a course in any of the streams of finance will cover topics like how to measure wealth, how finance shape the decisions of companies, government policies etc. Accounting, mathematical methods, macro and microeconomics and IT are all covered under finance degrees. At later stages of specialization, you will get in depth knowledge in taxation, audit, business strategy, business and employment law, management accounting, advanced accounting theory and risk management. Your job roles could be in commercial or consumer banking, investment banking, managing wealth, insurance, capital markets or even real estate.

Select courses in B&F

Though a number of BBA and MBA courses have specialization in Banking and Finance, they majorly cover management aspects rather than specific roles. One the other hand some programmes run in collaboration with banks or the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) or the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) are sort of customized programmes focused on industry needs and make you job-ready from Day-1. Both the stock exchanges run short-term and long-term programmes on their own or in collaborations with other universities. Federal Manipal School of Banking (FMSB) which is an exclusive partnership forged between Federal Bank and Manipal Global Education services offers Post Graduate Diploma in Banking and Financial Services. Axis Bank Young Bankers is a one year, full-time residential programme conducted at two campuses; Manipal Global Education in Bangalore and Amity Global Business School in Noida.

Popular Courses in Banking and Finance

Course

Institute (Partner)

Postgraduate Diploma in
Banking and Finance

Federal Manipal School of Banking
(Federal Bank)

Post Graduate Program in Banking & Finance (PGPBF)

BSE Institute Ltd

Axis Bank Young Banker’s Program

Manipal Global Education Services & Amity Global Business School (Axis Bank)

MBA – Finance & Banking

NIIT University (ICICI Bank)

BBA (Financial Management) with Specialization in Capital Markets

Ganpat University (NSE)

BBA (Hons.) in Financial Markets

ITM University, Gwalior (NSE)

Note: Some of the programmes may not have AICTE approval though they are valued in the job market

Vocation focused courses

There are also vocationally inclined programmes like those launched by Tata Institute of Social Sciences -School of Vocational Education (TISS-SVE). “Most professions have a well-defined and structured academic path. However, when it comes to becoming a Banker or a Loan Officer or Equity Trader etc., the academic path suddenly becomes hazy. There aren’t many universities that offer formal qualifications to help students build successful careers in the Banking, Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI) domain,” says Thyagarajan Balasubramanian, Vertical Anchor, Stratadigm Education & Training Pvt. Ltd (TISS SVE). “It is in this background that we have launched BFSI-focused, industry-relevant, short-term and long-term courses at the UG, PG and Certifications level. The industry-academia relationship has been taken to a new level by us,” he added.

Thyagarajan BalasubramanianThyagarajan Balasubramanian,
Vertical Anchor,
Stratadigm Education & Training Pvt. Ltd, TISS SVE

There aren’t many universities that offer formal qualifications to help students build successful careers in the Banking, Financial Services & Insurance domain. The few that do offer BFSI courses do not seem to have an industry-aligned curriculum or seem to focus more on theoretical aspects. It is in this background, that TISS-SVE has launched BFSI-focused, industry-relevant courses of various duration.

Employment sectors

Banking sector roles include roles in core banking, retail, private, corporate, investment, cards, etc. Financial Services may include stockbroking, payment gateways, and mutual funds. A lot of data processing, application testing and software development activities are outsourced to companies that specialize in this domain.

While Digital banking is progressively becoming the preferred way of conducting banking transactions, it brings with it the threats of data security, hacking, password thefts etc. Owing to the sensitivity of customer-information and increasing information security threats, information security expertise is another key area for banks. This is yet another area where professionals with requisite experience can pursue a banking career.

An article in Mint talks about how government is partnering with private entities to collect jobs data and build a platform to aggregate employment openings in real time; along with inputs from Manish Sabharwal.
The centre has formed partnerships with 20 entities including job boards and staffing firms to provide access to its vast pool of over 37 million registered job seekers.

The Union government is partnering with private entities to collect jobs data and build a platform to aggregate employment openings in real time.

It has formed partnerships with 20 entities including job boards and staffing companies to provide access to its vast pool of over 37 million registered job seekers to job openings and provide it with real time data on jobs availability in India.

“Bringing jobs to seekers is more important than who is bringing it,” said Pravin Srivastava, deputy director general, employment at the labour ministry. “What we are building is a sector agnostic and promoter agnostic collaborative platform which will be beneficial to job seekers.”

As many as 12 million people are entering India’s labour market every year. The proportion of people in the labour force declined from 43% in 2004-05 to 39.5% in 2011-12 with a sharp drop in the female participation rate from 29% to 21.9% in the same period, according to the labour ministry.

“First, we created the national career service portal, and then, we are tying up with private players of all hues and looks to build a real-time database on jobs,” Srivastava said. “If large players like Shine.com give us a bigger visibility, another player FreshersWorld will connect first-time job seekers with jobs. We have tied up with players who are in formal as well as in informal space.”

An article in Hindustan Times talks about how the median salary offered by companies at IIT-B has increased by 6.5% during last academic year; along with inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty.
The median salary offered by companies at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) increased by 6.5% during last academic year, reveals the institute’s placement report.

The report put the annual median salary at Rs9.8 lakh in 2015-16, up from Rs9.2 lakh in 2014-15. In other words, half the IITians received salary packages upward of approximately Rs10 lakh per annum in the previous academic year.

While the highest salaries often touched Rs1 crore, the majority of students got much smaller pay-scales. The institute doesn’t provide the average salary figures — which indicate overall variation in packages.

Nonetheless, the data reveals that students received better packages this year, with more companies offering higher salaries.

For example, in the last placement season, 96 companies offered more than Rs11 lakh per annum, the highest bracket (see the box), to 435 (38%) out of 1,143 candidates. In 2014-15, 365 (33%) out of 1,118 students received packages in the highest bracket from 74 companies.

While the number of candidates who were offered jobs didn’t change significantly during last academic year, the count of companies which offered jobs rose from 274 in 2014-15 to 308 in 2015-16.

In the recent years, the premier institute has been witnessing a steady, if not a sizeable, swelling of packages. In the three years between 2010-11 and 2013-14, the median salary offered by companies visiting IIT-B rose from Rs7.6 lakh to Rs9.1 lakh.

Rituparna Chakraborty, executive vice-president at TeamLease Serices, a human resources consulting agency, said that if while the current rise in median salary is “acceptable” — even if one is to factor in inflation — it’s not “dramatic”.