Reference no: EM133044089

Tackling the Talent Crunch in Indian IT

The Indian IT industry is hugely important with over 50% of revenue coming from international markets, particularly Europe and the USA, accounting for 7.7% of the country's gross domestic product. The brutally competitive sector is fraught with challenges - pricing pressures, changing business models, a turbulent global political context and an extreme talent crunch (a skilled labour shortage). This is the story of an HR manager of an Indian IT business and her experience in trying to do her job responsibly and ethically. Meera, a HR professional with several years of industry experience, was excited about her new role at Futuristic Technologies, a financial services technology start-up headquartered in Bengaluru (known as India's 'Silicon Valley'), with a workforce of 200 employees. A determined professional, driven by passion for her work, Meera wanted to bring her corporate experience to the start-up. As a rapidly growing young business there was an urgent need to quickly formalise processes and systems for attracting and retaining talent, offering competitive pay and nurturing a high-performance work environment. The business had a pretty standard start in life, with energetic entrepreneurs focused on the products offered rather than the organisation itself. Nikhil and Deepak, the 30-something founders of Futuristic Technologies, had met abroad a few years ago. They quickly developed a professional partnership, applying their technical competencies and passions to create their first start-up. The first-generation entrepreneur-duo were ambitious, smart, and public relations savvy. While extremely competent with their technical skills and deep product knowledge, Nikhil and Deepak had little patience in building a people-centric organisation. Their start-up was facing the typical critical challenges in terms of locating, hiring and retaining the existing workforce. Therefore, when one of their mentors recommended getting Meera for the job of HR manager, and given her outstanding past experience, they swiftly acted to get her on board. Nikhil and Deepak repeatedly articulated to Meera the urgency of 'quickly locating the right kind of young talent and skills who will fit the fast-paced company'. Given the fight for talent, this was going to be tricky. Meera realised she needed to think outside the box. She started looking for inspiration in the Futuristic Technologies employee database. Her brow furrowed as she realised that 87% of the employee base were men between the ages of 27 and 35, belonging to a specific religion. Nearly 90% of recent new employees had ben hired from just two of the neighbouring Indian states, and in a multilingual country, nearly the whole company spoke a single Indian language. Meera was the only woman with a senior role in the firm. Diversity, in terms of gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and religion, simply was not part of the strategy. The vast majority of the employees looked, sounded and to all intents were the same as the founders. Though not surprised, as she pushed away from the desk and walked to look through the large glass window of her office, Meera wondered why the business seemed to use cloning as a hiring strategy. This did not seem to be either an ethical or productive way forward. Over the next few months, Meera increasingly became convinced that, going forward, the main challenge for Futuristic Technologies was to build a well-diversified workforce. Apart from a gut feeling that this was the right thing to do, she was also influenced by a meeting with an impressive non-governmental organisation (NGO), Inclusive India Foundation, which pursues social and economic independence for people with a disability through training and education. The organisation had placed several professionals with some of the large Indian IT companies, and had acted as facilitators for businesses, creating better understanding of people with a disability as employees through their programmes and workshops. 'This might be just what we need,' Meera reflected. Meanwhile, she also knew about regulatory changes in India and the passing of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill (2016). Time to act, she thought - I will present my ideas at the new weekly meeting of the leadership team. As Meera stood up to give her presentation, she was pleased that she had managed to get some attention from the corporate leadership for her agenda to bring people with disabilities into the firm, tackling the unethical approach to diversity and the talent crunch in one go. Applauding her for some great ideas at the end of her presentation, Deepak excitedly said, 'You have the full support of the Board, but this must go under our corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. At Futuristic Technologies we must do something to solve the problem of these unfortunate people'. Nikhil chipped in, 'This is great Meera, but I am not sure if the deaf and dumb people can do our complex jobs. But Futuristic Technologies must reserve financial support for the initiative; in any case the regulation is still very ambiguous and I am not sure if it is binding for private businesses of our size and specialisation. The language her bosses used shocked her, and was a symbol of what she was up against. With great difficultly, Meera managed a half smile as she realised the voluminous gap between her visions and that of her bosses. As she steeled herself for the next course of action, it occurred to her that diversifying the talent pool for Futuristic Technologies was going to be a long road. What had seemed like a terrific proven project to start the process in earnest was being seen as a quirky project of no ethical or strategic value expect as a PR stunt. It dawned on Meera that no single project was going to change things in the long term, though it might help shift perceptions in the short term. What was needed was a cultural change, and some serious conversations about the values and ethics enacted through the business. She literally rolled up her sleeves, and thought, 'Right. Where shall we begin?"

[Adapted from: Crane, A., Matten, D., lozer, S. and Spence, L.J. (2019) Business Ethics. 5th Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.]

Question 1 What sources of ethics are evident in the case study? Discuss.

Question 2 Can the RIMS Strategy be used to address the moral dissensus between Meera and Deepak/Nikhil? Discuss.

Question 3 Critically discuss the extent to which Meera, Nikhil and Deepak demonstrate commitment as leaders to ethics within the organisation.

Question 4 "What was needed was a cultural change, and some serious conversations about the values and ethics enacted through the business." What are the characteristics of an ethical organisational culture to which Futuristic Technologies should be aspiring? Discuss.

Question 5 Meera is very concerned about the state of ethics in Futuristic Technologies and so she contacts you, an expert and consultant in HR Ethics in Business. She asks you to send an email to Deepak and Nikhil regarding how ethics can be institutionalised within the organisation. Write the email that you are going to send to Nikhil and Deepak.