Manufacturing to enter era of intelligent recruitment

Rajesh Tripathi

After consecutive quarters of sluggishness in 2017, overall hiring volume in Indian manufacturing domain is anticipated to increase in 2018 but at a much slower pace as compared with the same period last year. 

With the help of Make in India drive, India is on the path of becoming the hub for hi-tech manufacturing as global giants such as GE, Siemens, HTC, Toshiba, and Boeing have either set up or are in process of setting up manufacturing plants in India, attracted by India’s market of more than a billion consumers and increasing purchasing power. According to Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the total FDI investments India received during April-June 2017 stood at $ 14.55 billion, indicating that government’s effort to improve ease of doing business and relaxation in FDI norms is yielding results showing a very positive impact on the hiring trend for 2018.

With all these positive affirmations organisations are experiencing the stride of change and the persistent pressure to adapt. It won’t come as a surprise to all that the executives will identify building the “organisation of the future” and it would be the most significant challenge for 2018. We would witness an initial transitional shift from designing the new organisation to actively building organisational ecosystems and networks. Organisations would purely focus on ‘Agility’ in its hiring process which is going to be pivotal in building the organisation of the future. 

Companies would initiate re-engineering process to replace structural hierarchies with networks of teams empowered to take action. The manufacturing set up would stop asking “For whom do you work?” and this question will get replaced by ‘With whom do you work?” — this is going to be revolutionary. 

The year 2018 would witness a paradigm shift where the millennial mind set would override the existing mind-set.

Room for solution providers

Organisations would look out for a heterogeneous work force and would dominate the recruitment scene in 2018 - Diversity of hires, Soft skills (Psychological) assessment; Innovative interviewing tools, Recruiters would look out for candidates who all are “solution providers”. 

Creating a diverse and inclusive work environment is going to be the buzz of the day and it’s not just going to stop there, but would go as far as looking out for candidates who have diversity in their thoughts and ideations to take organisation to the next level through innovations.

We might see an upwards trend in areas like Machine Learning, Information Technology, Engineering  & Innovation, Business Excellence, Business Development  and Operations. With emerging technologies like industrial robots, artificial intelligence, and machine learning at a rapid pace, this is certain that the hiring trend would experience a shallow drift with elimination of stereotype / manual works and rise of more tech freak work-force in 2018. 

Sources for quality hires would remain — employee referrals, third-party websites or online job portals, and social professional networks, but the tools to filter out candidate for the right fit in would become more methodical and scientific.

Overall, it would be a very interesting and impactful year ahead to watch out. Organisations will definitely open up for more intelligent hiring. Let’s embrace the paradigm shift in hiring trend and work towards building a much more productive ecosystem to thrive and drive the future.

Right fit for right job

Looking out for right people for the right job and fitting them in the future organisational structure would be the number one priority. Organisations are now aware that recruiting cannot reach its optimal impact, nor can it help drive a firm’s “millennial mind-set,” if it views itself in isolation, and hence, future of recruiting will view itself as part of the entire people/productivity process. It’s time to re-look and upgrade our skills, competencies and that right blend of progressive mind-set to get picked up for transforming organisations.

— The writer is VP & head-HR, GHCL