The House of HR: Junk it or Sync It?
“I would have fared better had I been given a better training and knowledge about the practical aspects of working.” These words from Kiran Tripathi (Kiran) kept ringing in Dr. Sanjay Vohra’s (Vohra) ears as he sipped coffee in his office late in the afternoon. Vohra was the Dean of Bombay School of Management (BSM) and he had just returned to his office from an interaction with the 2nd year students who had come back to the campus after their summer internship programs.
One of the students he interacted with was Kiran who was an outstanding student in his batch. Having a keen interest in pursuing a career in HR, Kiran specialized in HR. While discussing with Vohra, Kiran shared that he was quite unprepared when he started his summer internship as there was a difference between what he had learnt theoretically in MBA and to work practically. The HR practices had changed a lot. He shared that he was unaware of many of the latest workplace practices and there were several embarrassing moments.
He even expressed anxiety of joining a company after completing MBA. Vohra then spoke to some more second year students and they shared similar views as of Kiran. Vohra, though shocked, assured them that BSM would ensure that they were well-prepared for their careers.
Vohra, however, was perplexed as BSM was widely known for its exemplary curriculum and education in Human Resource Management. BSM had consistently been able to secure quality placements for its students and India’s best companies were keen to absorb its students not just for quality education but also because of their industry-readiness. He contemplated on taking some actions to address the issue.
Vohra’s Plan
Vohra wanted to fix the dilemma that was preoccupying his mind. He called Dr. Devaki Kulkarni (Devaki), the Head of the Department (HOD) for Human Resource Management and Organizational Studies, and Amit Khanna, the B-school’s Placement Coordinator, to discuss his dilemmas. Vohra began the conversation by giving a brief about his dialogue with Kiran and other students during the recently held interactive session. He opined that BSM should take new steps to improve industry-preparedness of its students, beginning with the current batch.........
Meeting with Industry Practitioners
On October 27th 2014, the meeting began with Amit welcoming all the participants. Thereafter, the participants engaged in a discussion on the topic.
Vohra: (setting the agenda) As we all know, today we have gathered to discuss on the ways in which students can be made industry-ready. It is an honor to learn from you. What would it take for an HRM course to be absolutely in sync with industry expectations?
.......................
Brainstorming Session on Trends Shaping Human Resource Management
Karuna Gupta’s Insights on Trends in Recruitment
The discussion began with Karuna Gupta (Karuna), sharing insights on the trends in recruitment. She shared that on the basis of her experiences in the recruitment industry she believed that the job market had become employees’ market as it was the employees who were calling the shots in recruitment. While it was true in the case of employees in the middle and top management, it was a trend which could not be ignored and students had to be sensitized to this trend..........
Frauds in Recruitment (Sapna)
Sapna shared that companies now-a-days are likely to be doubly sure in hiring candidates from sources other than premier educational institutes as they were plagued with problems of fake resumes and fake job syndicates. She shared that in October 2014, Bengaluru City Police had tracked down a fake job certificate scheme being run by as many as seven companies, which were also probably fake...............
Workplace Trends (Manoj)
Manoj began the discussion by talking about office design. He gave examples of offices of IT companies which were generally open plan offices and those of startups which had unique and interesting designs. Citing an article from the Harvard Business Review, Manoj explained that companies were designing open floor plan offices and creating common areas in offices as casual interaction among employees built trust and resulted in cooperation and innovation..........
Work Delivery (Peterson)
Samuel Peterson (Peterson) was the senior-most and had the maximum number of years of experience among the people present in the room. Peterson chose to speak about the need for work-life balance. He explained that work-life balance was increasingly being sought by men and women professionals alike............
Action Plan to Prepare the Students
After hearing from all the four professionals, Amit summed up the main points of the discussion around which the students had to be prepared (Exhibit IX)..................
Assignment Questions
I. Debate on the effectiveness and efficiency of HR curriculum being followed at B-schools. Discuss with reference to Exhibit II and Exhibit X of the case study.
II. With reference to Exhibit I of the case study, analyze the profile of the industry practitioners. Most of the participants being less than 40 years old, can it be said that there is a trend of preferring competence over experience?
III. .................
Exhibits
Exhibit I: Schedule for Meeting with Industry Practitioners at BSM on October 27th 2014
Exhibit II: The House of HR
Exhibit III: Trends in Recruitment
Exhibit IV: Challenges of Fraud in Recruitment
Exhibit V: Dealing with a Bad Recruiter
Exhibit VI: New Age Workplaces
Exhibit VII: Efforts toward Creating Happy Work Places
Exhibit VIII: Supporting Family-friendly Workplace Policies
Exhibit IX: Latest Trends in Human Resource Management
Exhibit X: Trends in HR and the House of HR
