IIFT symposium

Updated on: Thursday, August 12, 2010

Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) recently conducted a “National HR Symposium on Re-engaging the Lost Talent” in Kolkata.

The symposium is an effort by the institute to set a platform for exchange of knowledge and ideas among renowned leaders from the HR community and subject matter experts on the industry to deliberate on the topic.

As a part of this national HR Symposium, the institute organized two engrossing panel discussion sessions on the topic ‘Bridging the Trust Deficit’ followed by ‘Retention of Human Capital - Matching Expectations with Incentives.’ The key panelists included some eminent personalities from the HR industry namely Pravin Rajpal, Global Innovation Thought Leader, FICCI; Nishant Kolgaonkar, VP - HR, Allcargo Global Logistics Ltd. and other dignitaries.

Delivering the keynote address, Dr Shailesh Thaker, International Management Consultant & HR guru began by defining talent as when "the person is never satiated with achievements and forever asks what is next?".

Thaker pointed out the reason that most employees quit is due to the emotional destabilization caused by ‘fiery’ leadership. He also stressed the importance of hiring employees with right attitude as a key strategy to re-engage talent.”

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Rangarajan, Head, IIFT, Kolkata said, “With globalisation and rapidly changing market dynamics, it's never been more important for human resources professionals to not only contribute to the bottom line, but also translate 'strategy into action” in terms of concrete business deliverables.”

The symposium provided the students with a forward-looking educational and networking forum for addressing a range of timely opportunities and challenges specific not only to human resource community but also relevant to all global professionals.

Sharing Dr Thaker’s views, Biplab Maity, executive-in-charge of Tata NYK Shipping opined that with globalisation the best practices to improve the employability of employees is fast proliferating and advised to focus on youth managers to grow and nurture future talent.

Bhavesh Upadhyay, head HR, Kalpataru Power, expressed his concern about the trust deficit between employers and employees owing to the lack of transparency and communication between them. He considers the HR department as a bridge between the organisation and employees to establish deep loyalty between them.

An interesting perspective was presented by Nishant Kolgaonkar who assured the gathering that the best way to re-engage lost talent is to forget about them and focus on preventing further loss of talent.

Adding on to the views of his co-speakers, he opined that organizations should hire for attitude and train for skills. HR is not a supportive but a strategic function affirmed Kolgaonkar.

The second session on “Retention of human capital” was chaired by Dr R P Sharma, professor and program director, IIFT Kolkata.

Asit Mohapatra, director, HR, Raymonds Ltd was the introductory speaker for the session. He believed that human resource is the only resource that appreciates with time. More than monetary rewards, intrinsic recognition and appreciation drive employee satisfaction. Addressing the issue of attrition, Mohapatra said that an organization can either accept it as a fact of life or try to understand every regrettable departure. He also suggested that before delighting the customer, a firm must concentrate on delighting its employees.

IIFT symposium

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