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Do events like international cricket tournaments or the Lok Sabha elections reduce productivity? Most definitely, if studies in other countries are anything to go by, but sadly there is no such data available for India due to the lack of automation in workforce management.
In 2008, Kronos, a workforce management solutions provider, conducted an online survey across the US just before the `Super Bowl` - a major sporting event in the US. The survey estimated that around 1.5 million employees might call in sick the day after the game. The survey also predicted another 4.4 million workers would show up to work late that day.
Now think what the situation would be in a cricket-crazy country like India, especially when it is now possible to watch entire matches on the Internet!
Indian companies are living in a state of blissful ignorance when it comes to human capital management. Lacking detailed insights on worker behavior and productivity, they can only come out with a rough sketch of their employees` efficiency, leading to high opportunity costs and less flexible HR policies that further hamper productivity.
CXOtoday talked exclusively to James Thomas, country manager of Kronos India, to understand how companies can optimize worker efficiency using IT.
"India is still evolving when it comes to automating workforce and we are still a long way away from optimizing workforce performance through real time tracking and visibility. Our approach to managing people even now happens in silos," said Thomas.
Coming back to our earlier point, Thomas said it was hard to get a general picture about how events like the IPL could affect productivity since most companies do not have the rough data to measure this. However, he did point out that HR policies need to be more flexible and this flexibility can only come if there is some way of monitoring employee performance in real-time, which is where IT comes in.
"A highly flexible and configurable workforce management system which can take care of such complex constraints and employee preferences dynamically without manual intervention can help align, allocate, and deploy workforce better in real time," he said.
Though it varies from sector to sector, about 10% -70% of a company`s costs are people costs and if the company has no way of figuring out if its employees are working to their complete potential then they are just flying blind - a scenario no company wants.
Source:
http://www.cxotoday.com/India/News/HRs_Time_to_Get_Tech-savvy/551-101642-913.htm
In 2008, Kronos, a workforce management solutions provider, conducted an online survey across the US just before the `Super Bowl` - a major sporting event in the US. The survey estimated that around 1.5 million employees might call in sick the day after the game. The survey also predicted another 4.4 million workers would show up to work late that day.
Now think what the situation would be in a cricket-crazy country like India, especially when it is now possible to watch entire matches on the Internet!
Indian companies are living in a state of blissful ignorance when it comes to human capital management. Lacking detailed insights on worker behavior and productivity, they can only come out with a rough sketch of their employees` efficiency, leading to high opportunity costs and less flexible HR policies that further hamper productivity.
CXOtoday talked exclusively to James Thomas, country manager of Kronos India, to understand how companies can optimize worker efficiency using IT.
"India is still evolving when it comes to automating workforce and we are still a long way away from optimizing workforce performance through real time tracking and visibility. Our approach to managing people even now happens in silos," said Thomas.
Coming back to our earlier point, Thomas said it was hard to get a general picture about how events like the IPL could affect productivity since most companies do not have the rough data to measure this. However, he did point out that HR policies need to be more flexible and this flexibility can only come if there is some way of monitoring employee performance in real-time, which is where IT comes in.
"A highly flexible and configurable workforce management system which can take care of such complex constraints and employee preferences dynamically without manual intervention can help align, allocate, and deploy workforce better in real time," he said.
Though it varies from sector to sector, about 10% -70% of a company`s costs are people costs and if the company has no way of figuring out if its employees are working to their complete potential then they are just flying blind - a scenario no company wants.
Source:
http://www.cxotoday.com/India/News/HRs_Time_to_Get_Tech-savvy/551-101642-913.htm
