The Indian workforce has more than one reason to smile this year. Not only are organizations across sectors hiring but are also offering fatter salaries than the year before.

The latest Kelly Services’ India Employment and Salary Guide ‘10-11 indicates that the average increments up-to mid-level are in the range of 15-20% in sectors like BFSI, Auto, Retail and Telecom. Leading the pack once again is the IT & ITES sector with 25-30%. “For those in general roles, we expect marginal salary increases as organizations are increasingly looking at other variable factors such as training and performance bonuses,” explains Kamal Karanth, Managing Director Kelly Services India.

The increments for mid-senior level workforce have been in the range of 40-55%. This of course has resulted in greater retention for organization, otherwise a constant battle. “Most of the talent pool, especially those in mid to senior management roles, will remain in their current organizations,” confirms Karanth. “Companies successfully retaining their workforce are actively involved with finding out what their top talent wants,” adds Vishal Chibber, Director HR, Kelly Services India. “They have realized that it is cheaper to retain their current staff than hire new employees,” he reasons.

Other key findings of the Survey include specific sectoral trends listed below:

1. Banking & Finance – There is a constant demand for banking and finance professionals as there is a constant rise in private, public banks and foreign banks. The sector demands high quality customer-oriented services. 
Hot Job: Relationship Managers to provide advice and financial planning.

2. BPO/Call centers – There is an overall upward swing in hiring in this sector.  Innovation, quality and process improvement will be the need to retain client base.
Hot Job:  Process Managers will be in high demand as the focus is on process improvement and cost efficiency.

3. Engineering – The hiring of engineers with specific skills-set is on the rise, while contractual and temporary job offers continue with project cycles.
Hot Job: Project Manager to handle projects in different domains is in demand.

4. Human Resources – The demand for HR professionals continues to be high as the war for talent grows.
Hot Job: Recruitment Manager to cater to new business and backfills.

5. Information Technology – Talent skilled in IT architecture and solutions continue to remain in demand as enhancements to existing systems are implemented. Big projects that were on hold during the recession are driving employment.
Hot Job: IT professionals with over 10 years of experience for senior positions are high in demand.

6. KPO Analytics - KPO has emerged as one of the leading industries in the hiring game.
Hot Job: Analyst / Sr. Analyst as most companies are looking at bagging new projects and clients.

7. Procurement supply chain & logistics – Although these industries were not adversely affected by the recession but the need for specialists with excellent communication skills has increased.
Hot Job: Warehouse Managers are being sought after to plan for efficient storage and systematic retrieval.

8. Real Estate: The industry is coming back on the profitable track with the demand for offices increasing in metros such as Bangalore and Mumbai. Hiring in this industry is on an upward trend.
Hot Job:  Project Managers to handle projects from beginning to end since infrastructure is growing.

9. Sales and Marketing – Though the market has not become as aggressive as in 2007, opportunities in the market are driving sales teams to put forward their best pitches.
Hot job: Senior Sales / Marketing professionals are in demand to manage and implement strategies.

The study shows that the net employment outlook for this quarter has risen by 6 points to 64% from the last quarter’s 58%. “We are seeing positive hiring intentions over the past few months and are expecting this to continue,” confirms Lala. Employment Outlook index witnesses growth in most of the cities, with New Delhi topping the chart, Ahmedabad and Mumbai record the smartest recovery and growth, over the previous quarters, while Kolkata still lags behind in comparison.

Sector-wise, the increase in hiring is driven by Infrastructure, Manufacturing & Engineering and Telecom. Interestingly, Telecom in this quarter sees healthy growth after three stagnant quarters.

The other key trend that has come out in this report is that of hiring trend at the bottom of the organizational pyramid. Junior and entry levels of organizational hierarchy are set to make a strong comeback with 17% and 11% increases in hiring intent – the biggest rise after more than 24 months of stagnant or negative growth. Another positive move is the drop in the ‘Not Hiring’ category which is 12-month low and stands at 12%.  Moreover, there is an increase in the intention to hire across all functions. Sales, Marketing & Customer Care register the highest increase of 8% among functional areas.

Lot of this perhaps can be linked to the steady growth in the Net Business Outlook which currently stands at 61%, an increase from previous quarter’s 56%. The Business Outlook index of all cities is at a 12 month high – sans Kolkata. The Business Outlook index of Ahmedabad (with 77 points), Bangalore (with 73 points) and Mumbai (with 52 points) has the best growth story to unfold over the previous 4 quarters. Hyderabad too exhibits recovery from its previous quarter slump. Industry experts believe that things will only get better in the months to come. We sure would hope so!

According to the recent Kelly Services study, the global workforce favors greater ownership stake in their jobs, with 60 percent respondents saying profit sharing would motivate them to perform better. The findings are part of Kelly Services’ annual study – Kelly Global Workforce Index, conducted over 1,34,000 people from 29 countries across Europe, Asia Pacific and North America including almost 13,000 in the United States.

Interestingly, more than half of all Americans surveyed believe they would be more productive if they have a greater interest in the companies they work for, through benefits like profit sharing. “Such arrangements create a powerful bond between employees and employers and can motivate people to be more productive or creative,” explains George Corona, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Kelly Services. It’s a little wonder then why the idea of giving an employee a “slice of the pie” is gaining appeal. “As the global talent shortage looms, employers need to stress on improving workforce productivity through employment packages that align individual performance to corporate goals,” adds Corona.

The study shows that Gen X (aged 30-47) employees are much more likely to be receiving performance-based pay than Gen Y (aged 18-29) or those in the Baby Boomer generation (aged 48-65). Male employees are also more frequently in performance pay plans than their female counterparts. 

Of those who do not have such an arrangement, more than a third would like to see this practice adopted by their employers, particularly Gen Y and male employees. “Most employees are keen on having a part of their compensation tied to their organization’s financial performance,” elaborates Mike Webster, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Kelly Services.

Aside from salary, the highest rated benefit for all generations is Training, but it is much more important to Gen Y and Gen X.

Additionally, the survey highlights that employers with a proactive role in improving the health of their workforce are preferred, with 84 percent respondents saying that employer-provided health initiatives should be part of their employment package. “These programs can yield benefits for both employers and employees by creating a more productive and energetic work environment,” confirms Webster.

Approximately half of all generations rate employer-provided health benefits as “very important” and believe that employers should provide an incentive for adopting healthier lifestyle changes e.g. quitting smoking, losing weight or taking up exercise.  Roughly 80 percent of all generations think that employers should take responsibility for employee health and well-being. The employer-provided health benefit that is most attractive to all generations is health insurance, while gym access or discounts are relatively popular with Gen Y.

“Across the workforce, there is an expectation that employers need to move beyond traditional areas of compensation in looking after the well-being of their key people. With many spending considerable time working, employee health and welfare has become vital,” Corona explains. “So it is not surprising that health and training have emerged as two key priorities for many individuals. These are also the benefits that help to strengthen commitment for the long term and are recognized as a good investment in human capital by employers,” he concludes.

Other results of the survey in the United States about employee benefits and perks shows: 

• 51 percent say that profit sharing would motivate them to perform at a higher level.
• Among major U.S. regions, the largest concentration of workers receiving performance pay is in northern New Jersey and Memphis, Tennessee (both 33 percent), followed by Portland, Oregon (32 percent), Tampa, Florida; New York City; and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina (all 31 percent). 
• Industries with the highest rate of performance-based compensation include financial services, travel & leisure, retail, and business services.
• Aside from salary, the reward that rates highest is health benefits, followed by flexible hours and retirement benefits. 
• More than two-thirds (67 percent) believe that employers should provide incentives to encourage a healthier lifestyle for changes like quitting smoking, losing weight, or taking up exercise.

( Source: Kelly Global Workforce Study)

What started as an initiative by IBM to bring its ‘Global Entrepreneurship Initiative’ to colleges and fortify industry-academia alliance in 2009 has gained further momentum. This year too, IBM is planning to set up 75 new Centers of Excellence (CoE) like the previous year, thereby, taking the total number of CoEs in India to 150. Last year, the CoEs were launched at several engineering colleges in the states of Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, among others.

The CoE is an outgrowth of IBM’s Global Academic Initiative covering more than 2,000 colleges and universities around the world. Under the initiative, IBM partners with the local government and academia to create an enabling environment by allowing access to IBM software, course material, training and curriculum development. Thus, it helps the country become an innovators’ nation by investing in skills development and technology enablement, thereby, empowering future workers to be able to compete in the larger global workforce.

“We are trying to bring the industry and academia closer by creating a program where industry can use the CoE set up and the certified resources in the college to create innovative software projects,” explains Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager – Academic Initiative, Developer Works & Globalization, IBM – South Asia. 

Moreover, this initiative helps start-ups capture new business opportunities by providing access to technology resources from IBM. Through its Global Entrepreneurship Initiative program, IBM will select a few projects based on their feasibility and provide guidance to take them to market and build sustainable business for the entrepreneurs. “Apart from providing training, certification and software, free of cost to these colleges, IBM plans to take the CoEs to next level and convert them into Incubation Centers,” confirms Goyal.

IBM’s Academic Initiative, under which these CoEs are being launched, has been ensuring certified and industry-ready software professionals, hitherto producing nearly 10,000 certified candidates from the various CoEs. The number is expected to increase by 6000 certified candidates in 2010.

In 1998, Donald A Clifton and Tom Rath, along with a team of scientists at Gallup, introduced the online StrengthsFinder Assessment. In 2001 a book, authored by Clifton with Marcus Buckingham, based on their research project, was released. The book — Now, Discover Your Strengths — went on to become a bestseller. In 2007, the team released a second edition of the program titled StrengthsFinder 2.0.

The objective of the program is to identify the most prominent human strengths and apply them in ways that will help people (as well as organizations) realize their truest potential. In the book, the authors criticized traditional organizational training and human resource systems, saying that they were flawed in making the generalized assumption that all people could be trained to be competent in anything, and that their greatest scope for growth and self-actualization lay in their greatest weakness.

The 30-year research project undertaken by the Gallup team headed by Clifton involved about 2 million interviews and sought to debunk those assumptions and replace them with a new framework. According to the team’s findings, each person is endowed with unique and enduring talents and his or her strengths offered the greatest potential for growth and self-actualization.

The authors define strength as “consistent near perfect performance in an activity.” StrengthsFinder, a web-based assessment program, allows registered users to map their individual strengths along 34 dominant “themes” (which include Adaptability, Connectedness, Discipline, Individualization, Responsibility, etc.). Each theme has multiple combinations. Registered users will be presented with 180 items, each with a pair of potential self-descriptors. Participants have 20 seconds to select their responses. At the end of the exercise, they will receive an evaluation consisting of five significant strengths. They will also receive a strength-planning guide to apply their strengths in their work.

By extension, Gallup recommends Strengthsfinder as a useful tool to build organizational strength. The researchers argue that professionals who are not operating on their strengths exhibit negative reactions to work, including dread of the workplace, negative interactions with coworkers, bad attitudes to customers, poor opinion of their organization, reduced achievement levels and creative frustration.

The authors stress that strengths development interventions can significantly and favorably improve employee engagement. In order to build a strengths-based organization, human resources departments must recruit sensibly using the required talent as a base criterion and studying the talent exhibited by the best performers in the field. Performance must be measured not by competencies but by impact on business, customers and employees. Training time should be invested in educating employees on identifying and building strengths. Career paths and ladders should be carved with strengths as the foundation and benchmarked against superlative performance.

The only way you can take the StrengthsFinder online assessment is to buy the book. Purchasers will be provided with a unique 14-digit ID that enables access to the online assessment program.

Resources:

StrengthsFinder
Buy the book on Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, or NBCIndia.com

In print, what you see is not necessarily what you get. In pictures, what you see is perhaps more credible and interesting. That’s the principle driving more and more employers to look beyond text CVs.

Enter the visual résumé (some folks call it the “visume”). It comes in a variety of flavors – plain video, text and pictures, slideshows with audio and animated short films. The degree of creative freedom often varies with the creativity required in the job that the candidate is pitching for.

Recently, some job portals have started to offer visual résumés as a premium service. Most of these sites allow candidates to host videos in addition to text résumés. The videos act as promos or teasers and provide a link back to the detailed text résumé. Some candidates also make use of YouTube and Vimeo to host video CVs.

Other creative visualizations include Infographic Résumés, which are visual diagrams that use elements such as boxes, arrows, timelines, heatmaps, etc. to depict the professional’s career path, achievements, affiliations and interests. This type of résumé is growing popular with architects and visual thinkers.

Artists and graphic designers also customize the visual résumé to showcase their talents. However, for those who are not artistically proficient but would still like to create a visual résumé, there are other options.

Services such as SlideShare enable users to host presentations composed of embedded images and video. With a little creativity, candidates can create rich PowerPoint presentations and host them as visual CVs.

A number of online services enable job-seekers to compose profiles by integrating and mashing up content from various sources.

A visual résumé also offers the recruiter a reasonably accurate picture of a candidate’s confidence levels. To be effective, a visual CV must be brief and focused. Include work samples and enrich your story with charts and graphs in addition to audio, video and images.

For some employers, visual CVs are useful to streamline the recruitment procedure. By eliminating a step between scanning the CV and assessing the candidate in a personal interview, recruiters save time and devote their attention to focused candidate search.

Although visual CVs offer great potential to creative job-seekers as they enter the recruitment market, the text CV will by no means be replaced. Being easier to archive and retrieve, the text format is still preferred by the majority of employers. However, as hiring policies change, visual résumés will have a greater role to play in getting the right people in the right careers.

1. How is the Indian temporary staffing Industry faring currently? Are there any major changes that this business has or is witnessing post recession?

Things are looking up post recession. The number of mandates has increased dramatically and more companies are open to the idea of temporary staffing. This has opened many doors.

2. Which sectors and roles are you seeing increasingly resort to temping and contractual staffing?

Jobs are being created across all sectors post recession. This growth in the economy has led the way to increase in the number of jobs which has had a positive impact in the temporary staffing. We are seeing clear increase in the Banking, FMCG, Telecom and Pharma, Health Care and Life Sciences sectors.   

3. Do you see the Indian temporary staffing industry expanding geographically or is it largely a city-phenomenon?

30% of our temporary staff business comes from non-metros and this segment is growing fast. Temporary staffing is no longer a large city phenomenon.

4. Have the compensation trends in the temporary staffing industry witnessed any changes? Please elaborate.

The compensation trends in the temporary staffing industry are now in line with the permanent staffing. Right now, a growth of 7 -12% growth in the compensation is expected.

5. Globally, the temping industry is fairly big. But that doesn’t seem to be the case in the Indian job market. Your comments.

Temporary staffing as a concept is relatively new in India unlike in the western world where it is seven decades old. While the demand is growing, the lack of clear legal frame work and service tax burden are hampering the fast growth of the industry. Certain policy changes by the government will ensure the growth of temporary staffing, thus benefiting a huge unorganized work force in the country.

The much awaited cheer in the Indian job market is back indeed with organizations returning to the hiring mode. And it’s not just the permanent staffing business that’s seeing a rise but also the temporary and contractual staffing industry.

Temping gains ground
According to the latest Teamlease Temp Salary Primer ‘10, the Indian Temping industry is all set to grow by 18% in the next 1 year. “With the organized sector recognizing temping as a key people staffing strategy, temporary staffing practices have evolved considerably,” notes Rajesh A R, VP, Temporary Staffing, TeamLease Services.

Telecommunication and Energy together stepped up hiring by about 16% which beats the average quarterly market growth by a wide 4%. The IT sector too has begun hiring contractual and temporary workforce in good numbers. “The Indian temporary staffing market is fast maturing and employers are giving valuable skills due recognition and rewarding them well,”  adds Rajesh.

Rewarding skills
Covering temporary staffers working across 264 different job profiles, 13 Industries and 8 Functional Domains in 14 major locations, the study indicates that the temporary staffing market is not yet very generous in incrementing salaries across the board. In general, organizations have kept salary growth at very modest single digits, the average being 5.25%. The good news though is that a significant number of employers have rewarded select profiles with a fairly large dosage of increment.

Thus, rewarding valuable skills will be the silver lining for the coming year and special skills sets are likely to be highly valued. “Now that salary increments are back, a 7.5% to 15% raise for temporary staff, based on capabilities, is seen to be well in order to retain well-skilled people,” shares Rajesh.

Industry is handpicking highly skilled profiles and paying them much higher increments than the rest. For instance, Agriculture / Agrochemicals businesses in Bangalore have rewarded many of their sales profiles with increments in excess of 10%. Likewise, many an engineering and a blue collar profile received similar hikes across multiple cities from Automobile companies.

Sector Trends
According to the study, Infrastructure and essential services, as well as the IT/ITeS sectors that largely employ skilled labor and knowledge workers will raise salaries. The raise here is expected to be between 7.5% and 15%. While Manufacturing industries and traditional services sector business (except for Retail), that mostly employ relatively less skilled/semi-skilled workforce, are not likely to increment payouts.

Telecommunication and Energy have increased salaries by over 7.5%. Telecommunication companies in Bangalore, Chandigarh, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune as well as Energy businesses in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore upped the ante and doled out a 10% plus increment for several profiles.

Few sectors like Agriculture / Agrochemicals, BFSI, FMCG, Hospitality, Manufacturing and Retail are still conservative and maintain sub-5% increments at an aggregate level.

1. According to the latest Kelly Services Hiring Survey study, India Inc is likely to witness 10-15% increase in hiring in 2010-11. Your comments.

It could still be higher than that, considering the ground print we’ve seen in the last month or so. It could actually hit 20% especially with the telecom sector picking up and creating 1,00,000 new jobs. Tata, Idea and others are back in the hiring mode and it’s is believed that they’ll move to the tier 2 and tier cities to keep up with their hiring targets.
 
Interestingly, the Indian IT Industry is back on track with some of the IT majors having won number of global deals. This again is resulting in IT firms hiring in good numbers at junior level which in-turn will lead to lot of mid-level hiring, thus, creating traction in the market. In all, the IT industry has added about 90,000 jobs taking the number of total workforce to 2.3million.

Similarly, in the last 6-8 months even the banking sector has taken off and is seeing a rise in the hiring activity. Together, Telecom, IT and Banking are fuelling the hiring scenario in India.

2. India has been reporting the strongest hiring plans globally since the third quarter of 2008 despite the global recession. What would you attribute this to?

The Indian market never really had a recession but only went on a slowdown mode wherein employers sat quietly gearing for the revival. Thus, our economic scenario including the hiring activity has been better than the rest of the world.

Having said that, I’d like to stress on the fact that we’re still not on the same growth trajectory as we were in ‘06.

3. The study cites that Indian workforce is expected to receive the highest salary hike of 9.2 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region. Which sectors are likely to see the highest salary increase in the Indian market?

The FMCG sector will see the highest salary rise since this sector has been consistently hiring and our consumption has been rising as a country. It will see relatively higher increments than most others since it’s focused on direct consumption.

Others like IT, BFSI though are back on track but they were the first ones to get hit in the downturn period and thus are taking a measured approach.

4. According to the study, less than 30% of the Indian companies are stressing on performance based merit awards as against across the board hikes. How do you explain that? 

In India, people still have higher comfort level with an assured amount and in a revival market employers can’t pull it through since once again employees are seeing more job options. So even it’s good for employers but in a reviving market, they can’t pull it through as it’ll lead to higher attrition. During recession, higher variable pay works as it becomes an employer’s market.

Performance based pay might become more acceptable after 2-3 years time period when Indian employers have enough data points to highlight the benefits and value in variable pay structure. Today, they don’t have enough data points to even convince an aspirant employee to take a higher variable pay.

5. Healthcare industry seems to be leading in the hiring game with 2,50,000 jobs in the sector this year. Do you anticipate this sector to become the biggest employer of the Indian private sector?

Education is the largest sector because of the fact that it’s government driven followed by Healthcare which too is divided between public and private sector. It could become one of the biggest employer but we don’t have enough data to conclude the same.

Also the growth that we’re seeing in BFSI, IT due to the liberalization and the high consumption trend gives these service sectors an edge.

The explosion of big retail in India has spurred a demand for fashion apparel. To satisfy this demand, more and more schools offering fashion design courses have opened up all over the country. However, fashion is not all glamour. It takes hard work and luck to make it to the big league.

Not just about the glamour
Fashion design and merchandising are in-demand jobs in the apparel, footwear and accessories business. All clothes are designed by fashion designers. Most people confuse fashion designer with designer collections – the former is an integral part of any brand/ apparel company and responsible for even the most common items of everyday clothing and accessories. Designer collections, on the other hand, are seasonal and highly priced clothing and accessories that are often displayed by glamorous models.

Identify your passion
First, you have to love clothes and accessories yourself and have a good appreciation of the human physique. If you want to travel far and high in this line of work, make a strong start with an honest assessment of your creative skills and interest levels.

Prepare for the grind
Fashion design is an intensely competitive field. It takes passion and discipline to survive in it. Unless you want to take up fashion design as a hobby or a pastime, bear in mind that you should be prepared for a rough grind.

How to assess an institute
A sound and complete education is important to give your career a good foundation. Nearly all fashion design courses teach the basics of fashion drawing, sewing, knitting and tailoring. While there are many schools in the market to choose from, identify one that is well connected with the industry and is in constant touch with established fashion design professionals. Strongly consider a school or institute that offers internships or apprenticeships with leading fashion brands. Do background research on the faculty members and their credentials. Interact with alumni and ascertain how their education has helped them gain a strong foothold in the market.

The best design institutes
Although you can begin studying fashion design at smaller institutes soon after you complete school, it is recommended that you select a reputed institute to get a headstart in the right direction. Comprehensive courses are available at the graduate and postgraduate levels. The National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad offers a postgraduate course in Apparel Design and Merchandising. The National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) has campuses in Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai and Gandhinagar. The Northern India Institute of Fashion Design (NIIFT) in Mohali is a sought-after school. The Army Institute of Fashion & Design, Bangalore offers a postgraduate diploma in Fashion Technology.

What you will learn
A good fundamental course offered at any of the above institutes will expose you to the basic theory and craft of apparel design. Students study design, production, management and textile technology, as well as visual merchandising and garment manufacturing technology.

What to teach yourself
Apart from learning what is taught at the institute, be sure to be alert and responsive to the global industry. Learn to recognize and anticipate fashion trends, sharpen your skills at developing themes and acquire a solid understanding of the processes and mechanics of the industry. If you plan to embark on an entrepreneurial path, make sure you take an additional course that equips you to market your work.

Where the jobs are
Students graduating from fashion design institutes typically pursue employment opportunities in four established lines of business – ready-to-wear, high fashion, costume design and functional wear. Depending on your talent and drive, you may specialize as a Fashion Designer, Garment Engineer, Textile Designer or an Apparel Marketing Professional. You may even choose to start your own fashion line and become an entrepreneur.

Online resources:
Army Institute of Fashion and Design
National Institute of Fashion Technology
National Institute of Design
Northern India Institute of Fashion Design