John Cherian is the founder of Credo Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd. Prior to setting up Credo in 1994, he was the General Manager - HRD, with Microland at Bangalore. He has served in different organisations like the Indian Army, CMC, Castrol and ICI for a period of 15 years.
Besides expertise on instructional delivery systems and performance enhancement consulting, Cherian has been trained on a number of Human Resources Systems processes by international consulting firms. He is a trained job analyst and evaluator by HAY-MSL on Competency Assessment and Modeling by Training House, USA.
Cherian takes active interest in the areas of training, talent management, competency assessment systems and human capability building in organisations. Besides consulting and training, he is a visiting faculty to leading management institutes like IIM-Bangalore, SP Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai.
In an interview with Prabodh Chandrashekhar of Pharmabiz.com, Cherian talks about the need to change Indian management practices, particularly in the field of Human Resources in the changing global economic scenario.
Are the current recruitment and management practices in domestic pharma industry in line with the changing times? How do you perceive the situation?
The current fashion of recruitment and promotion in the Indian pharma industry or for that matter any Indian industry is pretty outdated, which needs to be altered to suit today's needs.
Across any domestic pharma industry today, the career of a manager starts with his job as a medical representative and with good field performance is promoted higher up the ladder on basis of managerial hierarchy till he reaches the level of a CEO or a director. At no point of time would this person have a formidable knowledge or managerial experience. Performance alone would be the criteria of his promotion and a good sales performance can never be a testimony to higher managerial skills. His experience being restricted to pharma industry, he never can utilize his skills away from pharma industry.
Post-2005 WTO regime, globalisation in the domestic pharma industry will take shape at a much faster pace. It is high time that domestic companies hone their human resource policies. Gone are the days when the doctors and the clients had to be made aware of a company's products. With the click of a button doctors can gain whatever information he wants on a company or its products. Even the patients have become more knowledgeable kind asking questions over the efficacy and the cost of treatment of a product. Changes are permanent and the manager should be able to understand and act as required.
A good manager is the one who motivates as well as performs. Today a good performance certificate of a medical representative is no longer the needed qualification of an ideal manager.
Pharma being a high opportunity sector there is a tendency for good managers to switch companies and unlike MNCs, Indian corporates are less worried on this trend. The real challenge lies in talent retention as it takes to spend five times more to train and put on track a fresh recruit than to persist with an existing employee. Therefore emphasis should be on recruiting and retaining the right people. Attaining good sales should not alone be the criteria for selection.
Recruitment in a MNC begins with exhaustive screening of the individual to ensure that right candidate is selected for the job. After selection the individual is put on to rigorous training, before a portfolio is granted to him. If he is unable to achieve the set goals his problems are analysed to study whether they are inborn or outborn and accordingly efforts are made to rectify them. The candidate is motivated and put back on track. If he still fails, he is redeployed. Asking him to leave the firm will only be the last resort.
How would you compare the HR management practices of an MNC vis-à-vis Indian corporate?
For an MNC, any management related decision, be it planning, conceptualizing, implementing, buying or selling is highly process driven, structured and delegated. On the contrary, Indian companies are individual driven and highly regulated where the owner of the company decides over these parameters. Whereas in MNCs the earned profits are shared among employees, in Indian companies the promoters keep with them a huge chunk of share of profit. MNCs reward talent whereas Indian companies reward long service. Many Indian senior managers' suggestions are mere lip service with all the implementation decisions being made by the promoters and owners. Unable to bear the control a lot of middle level managers often quit their job in Indian companies.
Indian companies do not earmark money for people development in their budget. There have been examples of domestic companies hiring senior managers with MNC work experience expecting them to replicate the performance and failing on account of a different work system.
Hire and fire (H&F) is becoming a common trend with the Indian corporate. However it will not work here on account of a weak social security system. Even if H&F exists in West, it is well supported by the social security provided by the state, where many primary needs of the jobless including healthcare is supported by the state. The real problem therefore lies in recruitment. And, we have got the credentials to help companies in recruiting, deploying and retaining the right kind of managers for the right kind of job, regardless of the nature of the company.
How is Credo Consultancy Services placed to help Indian corporates in human resources management practices?
We offer complete talent management practice areas, which will help corporates assess the right candidates for a particular job. We also help in the retention and redeployment of talented employees through our assessment systems. Managerial competencies are either task oriented or people oriented and our systems will help to bridge the two.
"Total View" is one of the latest assessment systems developed by Credo for recruiting managers. GlaxoSmithKline is one of our clients using the product. As per this practice, highly successful people within the organisation are selected and their qualities benchmarked. New recruits are hired on basis of this benchmark. Before the selection, candidates are required to undergo tests on general intelligence, motivating interest and personality. The candidates are by and large recruited if they score 65 on the basis of the benchmark.
Total View completely unmasks a candidate and reveals how articulate and polished the individual is. How much stable is he under pressure, how much energy and initiative is he having, how consistent he is with targets and how versatile is he in dealing with complex relationships, are some of the qualities that could be unmasked with the system.
Managerial Assessment of Proficiency (MAP) is another assessment device where the managerial abilities of an individual are assessed and analysed. After assessing the qualities of the individual, a development plan is prescribed for him, followed by coaching. Care is taken to see that his inbound qualities are leveraged through training. His deficiencies are plugged in with solutions.
Over 800 senior executives have been studied by MAP leading us to the conclusion that managerial capabilities are measured on the basis of sales performance and not on the overall ability. The group had fewer MBAs, which again reflected the fact.
"Unlocking Talent" is an area where right people are selected for the right job. More often it happens that talented people are put on jobs not matching their abilities. The same people if put on jobs matching their abilities would perform brilliantly. This problem could be solved by this system. In this, an assessment centre and a development centre are created, where the former unlocks and identifies the right ability of an individual and the latter develops this talent. Over 10,000 managers have been value added through this practice area.
"Aligning Performers" is another tool where performance management workshops are conducted to formulate and cascade 'High Leverage Results', roles, responsibilities and competencies are assessed which help implementation of strategy. Balanced Score Card framework is used for implementing and communicating business strategy, performance improvement process for field sales organisations are designed and implemented. The system will manage large-scale change and integration in the context of mergers, acquisitions, down sizing or up sizing situations in order to achieve synergy in organizational performance.
What is your opinion about fresh management graduates from reputed institutions like the Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs)?
The young management graduates from IIMs are really talented with a lot of initiative and drive. Deploying and utilising their talent would be an idea in the right direction. Unfortunately the Indian corporate is still not confident to take on services of these candidates. I can assure that these youngsters no longer need any assessments or tests and can straightaway sit on the manager's chair without any training.