In this series of blogs on businesses in India, let us look at some issues which have impacted the overall business ecosystem and how these issues have become a major bottleneck to its survival and return to normalcy.

Over the last few months, with the Covid-19 crises taking over our world, there have been some dramatic changes in the way we are operating. Most of us have found a way to survive, albeit the fear of what the future holds for us, is still a bit hazy.

Many Business’s, we have interacted with have suffered immensely during this crises. Perhaps only thing that has made them continue to survive is their indomitable spirit to come out of this seemingly endless pit. During our various interactions with several business owners, we have realised one of the biggest bottleneck to a successful business reboot was neither the lack of nor the availability of funds, but, the lack of defined processes & quality of manpower.

Over the last few months, the attantion of almost all stakeholders, including government, has been exclusively focussed on the financial/funding side of the business, with the aim to get businesses back on its feet,  Almost all leading Forums, Foundations and Industry Bodies have organised multiple webinar on ideas and processes to get access to funds.

But we feel the function of HR has largely been ignored, although the response from business owners, has also been lacklustre.

We strongly feel that the time is ripe for business owners to understand the importance of HR as a crucial function of the company and reconnect.

So although funds are, of course, the base of survival of any company, where even the paltry government economic stimulus has had an insignificant impact on the ground conditions, we really now need a movement to look beyond funding for a sustained growth model.

Many Business owners rue the fact that their workforce (even in the financial and services sector) is not able to cope up with the culture of WFH (Work From Home). They wonder how the some MNC’s have announced WFH till March ’21 and few even till July ’21 for the majority of their employees.

In this series, we try to define some challenges businesses face in the domain of HR and how they can be channelled to achieve some remarkable results for the company.

Businesses play a pivotal role to country’s economic growth. India has more than 51 million Small & Mid-size businesses that provide employment to around 120 million people. In 2020, this sector is expected to create the bulk of employment and are estimated to add over 1.8 million jobs.

It has been estimated by Industry experts that “For the three quarters from April, 2020, such businesses are likely to have contributed between $600 billion and $900 billion to India’s GDP”. “They have the potential to add $300 billion more to the GDP by 2025”

To achieve the above, Businesses need to work on their internal structure, processes and practices to achieve expected growth. They need to enhance competitiveness by investing into Employee growth plans, which is largely ignored in almost all such companies.

Most businesses today, are highly volatile in nature and thus are at a higher risk value. As the work force tends to be leaner and weaker in these industries, the Human Resource (HR) department needs to be adept at handling the frequent issues which come up within the organization. However, the HR department might face certain issues as it would need to adhere to the policy norms in the businesses.

A good workforce is considered to be the most important asset for any organization. Thus with the interest of any company irrespective of its structure or size, it must positively focus on human resource (HR) development & management. However, it is rather on the wrong side that the HR activities get ignored by many Indian companies. According to the analysis report of the survey conducted, around eighty percent of these small and middle-scale enterprises and approximately fifty percent of the medium enterprises showed having lack of any formal HR department.

“So often, the problem is in the system, not in the people, and if you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results.”

~ Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey

“Treat your employees right, so they won’t use your internet to search for a new job.”

~ Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg

“You cannot mandate productivity; you must provide the tools to let people become their best.”

~ Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs