Automation and artificial intelligence have made their way into every field, including HR. However, Leena AI the startup devoted to developing HR chatbots has introduced AI into HR in a novel role. Its chatbots are capable of answering employees’ questions pertaining to insurance, status of leaves, and so on. The startup that came into existence last year, just completed a first round of seed funding, with many investors putting in their capital in the venture, including Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal and Elad Gil. The Company already has 16 subscribers, including Marico, RPG, Coca-Cola Vietnam and Pearson, and hopes…
Author: HRK News Bureau
Infosys is all set to launch its next technology and innovation hub in Arizona, US, creating jobs for 1,000 people of the state by 2023. This is part of Infosys’ three-phased strategy of first making the business stable in 2018–19, giving a push to the same next year and then accelerating growth the following year. In 2017, Infosys had declared that it would establish four hubs and hire approx. 10,000 locals in the US by 2019. The Indian IT multinational has already recruited 5,874 American workers till date. According to an official statement of the Company, the technology and innovation…
Flipkart Group CEO, Binny Bansal had announced a 100 per cent buyback of vested employee stock options (ESOPs) following the e-commerce company’s $16 billion deal with Walmart. This came as good news for its employees who still possessed stocks /ownership in the Company. Existing employees have been allowed to liquidate their ESOPs at $126-128 per unit. This is less than the per unit rate of $150 that had been earlier suggested. Walmart recently purchased more than 52 per cent of Flipkart’s shares, which means 6,242,271 shares from its total of 11,947,026 shares. Going by the per unit price of the…
Jack Ma, the Chinese business magnate, who had last year promised to create a million jobs in the US, has now admitted his inability to keep his word because of the weakening of trade ties between China and the US. Early last year, Ma had met with the US President Donald Trump and vowed to not only generate one million jobs but also facilitate the enrolment of one million small businesses on Alibaba’s online platform enabling them to sell their products to consumers in Asia. However, Ma openly backtracked claiming that his vow had been made based on the growing…
Tata Technologies, the global engineering services provider, recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the I K Gujral Punjab Technical University (IKGPTU) to promote technical education by establishing five centers for innovation, invention & incubation (CIIITs) in Punjab. The aim is to facilitate innovation and skill development amongst students as well as industry professionals, who can then go on to be skilled resources in the industry. The MoU was signed by Anand Bhade, president, APAC sales, global marketing & communications, Tata Technologies and Prof. (Dr) Ajay K. Sharma, vice chancellor, IKGPTU at Chandigarh in the presence of S. Charanjit…
Is it fair to encourage the trend of allowing certain recruitment ads on social media to be visible only to a specific gender or class? This is exactly the question to which an answer is being demanded of Facebook. It has been found that the social networking platform has allowed advertisers to target men in particular, by making certain job ads invisible to women. This is a serious offence considering that in 1973, the US Supreme Court had declared it illegal for employers to take out gender-specific job ads in newspapers. An investigation by ProPublica, a non-profit organisation devoted to…
Three former employees have accused IBM of firing them on the basis of their age. Apparently, this has triggered off investigations into the multinational technology giant’s bases for systematically laying off older members of its staff — 20,000 of them — over a period of six years. The complainants state in the lawsuit that IBM has methodically replaced their older employees with younger staff by reportedly fired over 20,000 people above the age of 40 in the last six years. This is approx. 60 per cent of its total job cuts in the US during that period. According to a…
Many instances of salary bills being raised for ‘ghost employees’ have become a matter of concern for the Railways, as it has cost the nation a huge monetary loss. To check this fraud, the Railways will now validate its workforce comprising 13 lakh people. In March 2018, it was found that the Delhi division of the northern zone had been generating bills towards allowances for overtime, night duty and travel to employees who did not work for them. It is reported that this disbursement of payments to non-existent staff drained the exchequer of Rs 1.5 crore during 2016-17. As a…
Government has launched ‘Pension Adalat’ to ensure that pension-related issues are addressed and sorted without delay and on-the-spot. This will benefit over 50 lakh pensioners or retired government employees. Every year, around 40,000 people retire from Central-Government civil establishments. If Defense, Railways, Posts and Telecom are added, the number will cross over 100,000. The Pension Adalats will act as a platform, where the aggrieved pensioners, the concerned departments, as well as the representatives of banks or CGHS are all brought together to settle issues across the table, in keeping with the rules. The move is aimed at making life convenient…
Management consulting firm, Korn Ferry, has announced its move to a single unified brand, as part of its makeover plans. Korn Ferry will phase out its legacy brands in its attempt to establish a more integrated approach to the marketplace. Korn Ferry had acquired Hay Group in 2015. Earlier too, it has acquired over a dozen companies between 2000 and 2015—Westgate Group, JobDirect, Lominger, LeaderSource, Lore International, Whitehead Manna, SENSA Solutions, Avature Argentina Recruiting Business, Avature USA Recruiting Business, Global Novations, Personnel Decisions International, Ninth House and Pivot Leadership. The amalgamated brand will combine the collective power of Korn Ferry,…
Rajiv Bansal, former CFO, Infosys won an arbitration as a result of which the Company will now have to pay him Rs Rs 12.17 crore with interest. Infosys had committed to pay a sum of Rs 17.38 crore to Bansal, to cover his salary for two years when he left the Company in 2015. However, once Bansal was made a payment of rupees five crore, further payment was deferred. The reason for withholding the payment was that objections were raised by officials of the Company, including co-founder N R Narayana Murthy to the excessiveness of the severance package. That is…
With technological advancement and automation, workplace experiences are getting better and increasingly tech-savvy. Even while artificial intelligence (AI) is perceived by many as a threat to job security, a surprisingly large number of people are ready to adapt it; and many are open to a completely automated workplace. However, with so many people accessing and using company data in a technology-driven organisation, there is always a risk of hacking and misuse. A digital workplace has a bouquet of advantages. A study by Aruba, on behalf of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, reveals that employees in digital workplaces are not only known to…
The Union Government is all set to merge Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank in what is slated to be the second significant merger in the banking sector, after that of SBI associate banks with the SBI. The merger will create the third largest globally competitive bank in India. The move augurs well for the staff of the three banks. According to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, this is a step in the direction of consolidation of the remaining state-owned banks as part of banking reforms, which has been on their agenda for some time now. The employees…
Campus and entry level recruiting is a critical component of every corporate HR strategy but often involves many months of onboarding and mentoring to get these employees productive. Simplilearn’s New-Hire Training Initiative significantly shortens this time-to-productivity via a structured training curriculum for campus recruits that they can complete before their first day on the job, or within their first couple of weeks. Simplilearn focuses exclusively on digital-economy skills such as Big Data, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, and Digital Marketing. These mission-critical skills are also ones that enterprises are increasingly turning to fresh graduates to fill. Simplilearn’s new program…
Students from smaller towns often had to move to cities to prepare for entrance examination to enroll in higher education courses and for most students, the only options were the private coaching institutes, which charged a hefty fee – and many a times, these coaching institutes are beyond the reach students who comes from middle class families. The government seems to have taken notice of this. It has launched Test Practice Centres (TPCs), which can resolve the problem to a certain extent. There will be 3400 such TPCs all across the 622 districts and 33 Union Territories in the country.…
Students from smaller towns often had to move to cities to prepare for entrance examination to enroll in higher education courses and for most students, the only options were the private coaching institutes, which charged a hefty fee – and many a times, these coaching institutes are beyond the reach students who comes from middle class families. The government seems to have taken notice of this. It has launched Test Practice Centres (TPCs), which can resolve the problem to a certain extent. There will be 3400 such TPCs all across the 622 districts and 33 Union Territories in the country.…
It is celebration time for Asha and Anganwadi health workers for whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a hike in their monthly incentives. Once the increment comes into effect in October, all those who were paid an honorarium of Rs 3000, will now earn Rs 4500 ; and those who used to receive Rs 2200 will now receive Rs 3500/- The Anganwadi helpers will get Rs 2500 as compared to the earlier Rs 1500. The accredited social health activists (Asha) will be able to avail various social security schemes and also enjoy free insurance cover under the Pradhan Mantri…
EngageRocket, a startup based in Singapore, that provides workplace analytics, just closed a phase of funding at S$450,000. Founded by former consultants Leong Chee Tung, ex-director Gallup Southeast Asia, and Dorothy Yiu ,ex-head, Gallup, Southeast Asia operations, the startup is the first in Southeast Asia to receive capital assistance for the use of advanced analytical techniques in HR. The Company offers a cloud-based software that analyses employee feedback in real-time. It automates the administration and analytics on which the employee surveys are based. On the basis of the results, suggestions can be identified for improving the leadership approach. At a…
When the success of a business depends on its level of agility, it is not surprising to find companies investing more on growing and maintaining their talent. Cognizant, the multinational IT services provider has adopted a differentiated approach. It has coined something called ‘skills premium pay’. A term rather uncommon in the IT industry, ‘skill premium’ refers to the ratio of remuneration of skilled vs unskilled employees. In the present scenario, it refers to the remuneration of digitally-savvy employees vs digitally-unsavvy employees. The Company rewarded 40,000 digitally-savvy employees in its workforce with the ‘skill premium allowance’ this year. Of late,…
The country’s premium business school, IIM Ahmedabad, is said to have witnessed a dip in terms of the highest international package offered this year, as compared to last year. According to a report by the Indian Placement Reporting Standard, the highest package offered by a domestic company in 2018 was way higher than what was offered in 2017. An annual package of Rs 72 lakh was the highest offer made to an IIM student in 2018, as compared to the offer of Rs 53 lakhs per annum in 2017. While there has clearly been an improvement in the number of…
The stress of having to relocate in a bid to realise their aspirations has often led employees to consider giving up their jobs altogether. HRKatha recently reported on the growing unwillingness of employees, at the global level, to relocate. PepsiCo saw over a dozen of its employees, including senior and mid-level staff, resigning in India, in the last six months, out of which five were from the HR department. Realising the need to retain its talent, the Company is planning to allow its employees the option to work from any location in India. If the plan works out, employees will…
A former Infosys staff member, who was working in Rhode Island, US on a CVS project, has dragged the Company to court, alleging non-payment for overtime. Anuj Kapoor claims that he put in over 1000 additional hours of work for which he wasn’t paid by Infosys. He also complained that he had on several occasions worked for 11 hours a day instead of eight, without being compensated for the same. In response to the complaint that was registered in June, the company stated in August that Kapoor was an ‘hourly’ worker on an H1-B visa, although it had listed him…
A data scientist at Facebook was forced to quit when she tried to balance work and motherhood to the best of her capabilities. She sought permission to either work part-time or from home or take extra unpaid leave. When all the options were denied to her, Eliza Khuner was forced to put in her papers. Not because she did not value her job, but because she valued the time with her baby more. In a post on an internal Facebook employees’ group, Khuner expressed the need for the Company to have better policies factoring in families and new mothers. She…
How is this article on recruitment any different from innumerable others? Recruitment as a topic for discussion has been done to death! With each new article that appears, one is bound to wonder if it will offer any new information. So here is an in-depth yet handy reckoner that: 1. Debunks myths around recruitment technology. 2. Explains all the components that a well-balanced, advanced and holistic recruitment solution entails. 3. Addresses all the challenges each of the involved stakeholders in the process, viz. candidate, employer, recruiter or vendor, faces. 4. Offers a powerful solution that encompasses a fine mix of…
With trade and immigration policies becoming stricter, the US is no longer the popular country that people flock to for work. Similar is the situation with UK, owing to the impact of Brexit. Mobility, at the global level, has been impacted by many factors—the refugee crisis in Europe, rapid progress of Asia, and the recovery of the East European economy. Not surprisingly, these have given rise to an unwillingness in job seekers to relocate. According to a labour survey by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in collaboration with The Network, 57 per cent of all respondents are willing to travel…
Candidates with LLB or LLM, upto 55 years old, may apply Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has announced various vacancies, at the middle as well as senior levels, with attractive salaries. The selected candidate for the post of general manager – legal, will be eligible for a payscale of Rs 51300 to Rs 73000! While a master’s degree is desirable for the post of GM (legal), the minimum eligibility criteria is Bachelor of Law or LLB with 55 per cent marks/equivalent CGPA from a government recognised university or institute. Only those upto the age of 55 may apply before September…