Talent Management

Talent Management at Maccaferri India

Submitted By: Siddharth Mathur (A17PT1-51)
Batch of EMP October 2017, Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon

About Maccaferri
130 years ago, we invented Gabions and dramatically changed civil engineering’s landscape. We are still
changing it today. We work every day, with 130 years of our history, to find better solutions for our clients at
every degree of latitude and longitude. We make innovation happen around the world, we share our knowledge
capital to multiply the return on investment of clients and partners, and we offer ongoing support to establish
relations built on solid trust. We do not simply sell products: we strive to be the leading technical reference for
designing and developing advanced projects. We are strongly committed to solving our clients’ problems by
providing better solutions through attentive listening, innovation and collaboration. Like in abroad, in India too,
the use of Maccaferri flexible structures with its eco friendliness, cost effectiveness and simplicity in construction
attracted the attention of governing officials, practicing engineers, academicians and subject experts who
supported the solutions and helped to build many landmark case studies since its inception.

Keywords: Global Engineers, Talent Management, Talent Retention

Present Scenario through this learning curve, this guiding

Maccaferri India as an organization
focuses on providing solutions to most
challenging problems in a unique, cost effective
way, which not only blends in with nature, it
also provides a solution that lasts not decades
but for centuries.
To provide such out of the box solutions,
a highly talented and out of the box thinking
people are required.
To achieve this, best Talent from top
engineering colleges are selected. Most
preferred college are IIT's and some NIT's.
For us the student’s grade, and scores
are of less interest, we look at their capability
to think differently and having a perspective
which is different and unique. These students
once selected undergo and extensive, well
planned and laid out sets of trainings over a
pre-defined period.
Once they feel confident they are made
part of ongoing projects to get hands on
experience and learning opportunities. Each
fresher is given a mentor who hand hold them
and molding plays a crucial role in the
challenges they will be made to face and find
solution to.
Talent Management plan
a) People Analytics: People analytics is
the use of data and data analysis
techniques to understand, improve, and
optimize the people side of business. The
promise of using analytics in HR is
linking people data with different types
of business data to create outcomes
aligned with company goals such as
increased revenues and lowered costs.
The rise in the use of analytics has been
caused by three main factors:
1. The explosion in data and data analytics
due to improvements in technology and
software. This adoption has been seen
recently in the transformation of sales
and marketing departments.
Talent Management
2. HR departments are increasingly being
asked to justify their decisions based on
measurable outcomes. This has led
to the push for business decisions to be
made based on analytics and data
rather than using gut instinct and
subjective judgment.
b) Workforce Planning: Workforce planning
refers to the process of ensuring an
organization has current and future
access to the human capital it needs to
perform effectively. Workplace planning
involves identifying current and future
personnel needs and exploring the most
appropriate and cost-effective methods
to recruit and retain these individuals.
There is also an element of continual
analysis of workforce effectiveness and
implementing the necessary measures,
such as learning and development
initiatives, to ensure the workforce
remains efficient.
Strategic workforce planning is
workforce planning that is aligned to the
organization’s overall business
objectives and the long-term vision. In
this regard strategic workforce planning
may place importance on succession
planning as a measure to ensure the
necessary skills and knowledge are
always present in senior members of
staff.
c) Hiring Process
Hiring people into your company
isn’t just about adding headcount.
Without having the right talent in the
right place’s organizations will struggle
to succeed. That is one reason why
having an organized approach to hiring
is so important. Here is the basic
process:
Requisition Approval — Get approval for the
position.
Create a Job Description —The hiring
manager and HR/Recruiting collaborate to
clearly define the job and include
requirements necessary for someone to be
successful.
Benchmark the Position — Get internal and
external compensation levels and ensure a
salary range is approved for the position. (This
may require partnering with Finance to ensure
appropriate budgets are in place.)
Find Candidates — Notify internal employees,
post the job, do LinkedIn searches, get
referrals, etc. (HR/Recruiting does the first
pass review of candidates and appropriate
phone screening.)
Review Candidates — For some position’s
candidates may be assigned an exercise or
project.
Obtain Feedback — Utilize a standard process,
such as Google Forms or your Applicant
Tracking System, to get feedback from all
involved in the interviewing/selection process.
Make a decision:
Gain Consensus — Discuss options and make a
hiring decision.
Executive Rule — Worst case scenario,
consensus is not obtained and the CEO
and/or hiring manager makes the final call.
Check References — At least 3 and 1 should be
a former supervisor; clarify the nature and
length of the working relationship and ask
probing questions (e.g. what a key
accomplishment was, what are the candidates’
strengths and areas of development, how do
they manage conflict, how do they react during
stressful situations).
Negotiate Offer — Work with the chosen
candidate to come to agreeable compensation
and start date.
Prepare and Present Offer Letter
Notify Candidates Not Selected — This step
speaks volumes about how much (or little) a
company cares about its workforce, even a
quick email is appreciated by candidates.
Talent Management
Onboarding: also known as organizational
socialization, refers to the mechanism through
which new employees acquire the necessary
knowledge, skills, and behaviors in order to
become effective organizational members and
insiders.
It is the process of integrating a new employee
into the organization and its culture. Tactics
used in this process include formal meetings,
lectures, videos, printed materials, or
computer-based orientations to introduce
newcomers to their new jobs and
organizations. Research has demonstrated
that these socialization techniques lead to
positive outcomes for new employees such as
higher job satisfaction, better job
performance, greater organizational
commitment, and reduction in occupational
stress and intent to quit. These outcomes are
particularly important to an organization
looking to retain a competitive advantage in an
increasingly mobile and globalized workforce.
d) Learning & Development:
Learning and development, a subset of HR,
aims to improve group and individual
performance by increasing and honing
skills and knowledge. Learning and
development, often called training and
development, forms part of an
organization’s talent management strategy
and is designed to align group and
individual goals and performance with the
organization’s overall vision and goals.
On a practical level, individuals responsible for
learning and development must identify skills
gaps among groups and teams (often through
SMART objectives, one-to-one interviews
and performance appraisals) and then finding
suitable training to fill these gaps.
Procurement is an important part of the
training and development process because
training providers must be cost-effective and
appropriate for the organization’s needs. Good
training provides individuals with tools and
skills and shows them how to apply these new
tools and skills within their own organization
and role.
e) Performance Tracking: A performance
indicator or key performance indicator (KPI) is
a type of performance measurement. KPIs
evaluate the success of an organization or of a
particular activity (such as projects, programs,
products and other initiatives) in which it
engages.
Often success is simply the repeated, periodic
achievement of some levels of operational goal
(e.g. zero defects, 10/10 customer satisfaction,
etc.), and sometimes success is defined in
terms of making progress toward strategic
goals. Accordingly, choosing the right KPIs
relies upon a good understanding of what is
important to the organization. What is deemed
important often depends on the department
measuring the performance – e.g. the KPIs
useful to finance will differ from the KPIs
assigned to sales.
f) Performance Planning: Performance planning
is a systematic and structured approach to
successfully achieve the desired goals of an
individual or team throughout the assessment
year. A plan is chalked out for the team or an
individual(s) keeping in mind the broader
objectives of the organization. There are four
basic objectives of performance planning. The
first one is to communicate basic
responsibilities that the individual has to
perform on a daily basis. It could be reporting,
data management, etc.
The second objective is to remove any
vagueness in the goals and objectives that the
individual must achieve in the year or time
specified by the team leader.
The third is to identify and build on the
competencies of an individual for doing the
job. This helps in making employees more
productive.
The fourth is to create an adequate career
development plan for the individual which
would keep him/her motivated. If an employee
is aware of his/her career as well as growth
plan, he/she will be self-motivated.
Talent Management Process at Maccaferri
The Recruitment process is very neatly laid
down as below:
Talent Management
A) A Watson Glaser Critical thinking paper
specifically designed by the organization is
given to 1st filter out people who are
psychometrically fit for the role.
B) A technical round is then conducted which
is of interactive nature, gauging the ability of a
person to think out of the box with good
technical knowledge to back the ideas they
place.
C) The people with highest scores in both
rounds is then taken through a regular HR
interview to gauge their expectations from the
organization and the job profile being offered.
D) The best 3-4 from a college is selected.
Performance Management Present
scenario:
A) Plan Performance: Taking Organizational
Strategy as base Business unit objectives are
set.
Based the Business unit objective, team and
individual targets are set.
B) Coach/Manage: Quarterly reviews are done
to keep track of the target vs achievement,
helps keep track how much the work is in sync
with the main target. In case of deviations,
situation analysis is done to bring the task
back on track and cover the gaps.
C) Incentivize: Our organization has removed
Bell curve distribution. Each employee’s
individual KRA is linked a part of from the
hierarchy above them. With clear stated
targets. This is divided into Soft and Hard
KRA’s. Based the achievement of these KRA’s
ratings are pre-linked.
The points earned are then linked to a table
which define the percentage of increment to
be given and sets parameter linked to
growth and promotion. This ensures a
person is, both Technically and Mentally
Equipped to grow forward.
Talent Management Problem faced.
Retention rate of good employees is very
low, majority of good employees have an
average stay span in the organization for 2-
3years. To learn and acquire request skills
to add good value addition in this
organization itself is 1.5-2years. As soon as
a person becomes self-reliant they leave.
With them goes a lot of essential know-how
of the project they have been working on.
The gap left behind is very hard to fill as the
number of assigned individuals on any
project is very limited and hard to replace.
Solution Implemented
Following steps were taken to solve various
types of issues
A) Out of Box pressure: To get better out of
box ideas, a mix of every field sits and brain
storms once every week till an effective
solution or way forward is found.
B) High work pressure: Fun sessions like
playing 2-3 minutes of music every day at
random time during the day to move and
dance to reduce stress and provide some
physical activity.
C) Monotonous work: After 3 years a person
is offered an option to change field, mostly
technical people to move to Business
Development/Technical Marketing or Sales.
Also, option to take Sabbatical to go and
learn new skills like doing MBA is offered to
change work profile. Take courses to add to
existing skills.
D) Pay is as per industry standards and
growth is purely linked to performance, as
no Bell curve concept.
Person based Dependency reduction
Data kept on virtual networks, making data
available online, improving data
accessibility.
All project related data and info updated in
specially designed trackers to reduce
dependency.
F) Other solutions implemented: Other
flexibilities offered to improve employee
Satisfaction. Work from home. Bi-weekly
working hours to be 8.5hrs.
Result: 15% Retention has Increased, in
last 1year.