Reference no: EM132712594

Question: Late one evening the President-HR requested for an urgent meeting to discuss the reasons for 'HR data anomalies', it was observed that the HR data reports obtained by various HR managers were never in sync. For example, the wage bill had some differences, the employee strength varied, the function and department numbers were never in sync. The senior members of the HR fraternity used to debate this for hours and finally after a series of brainstorming sessions a decision was taken to evaluate various HR softwares. The team then decided to work on the scope of the project and a phase-wise implementation for the same. Vendors were evaluated keeping in mind the scalability, scope of the work involved and finally after weeks of much debate and discussion the SAP HR was opted for.

Company Brief

BAT Telecom was a start up venture of around one and a half year, when the HR system was in its incubation stage. The employee strength at that juncture was around 1,500. Expansion plans envisaged for the next three years required the employee strength of 15,000. They had seven offices at the major metros, with a futuristic plan of rolling out a PAN India network. Initially, around 500 employees were recruited every quarter. The number of divisions were close to ten-wireline, data centre, wireless, broadband, national long distance, business support systems, decision support systems (development and operations) and support functions with the manpower strength per division of around 40-50 employees each and support functions being much larger.

BAT India: A Dream Comes True

It was a dream of a visionary for a common man to have access to affordable means of information and communication, which can be made available to people at an affordable cost. Listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), it is one of India's leading integrated telecommunication companies. One of the largest broadband providers, it serves mobile, Internet and landline businesses too. It encompasses a complete range of telecom services covering mobile and fixed line telephony. It includes broadband, national and international long-distance services and data services along with an exhaustive range of value-added services and applications. It was basically a one-stop shop for a host of bundled offerings. It has a reliable, high-capacity, integrated (both wireless and wireline) and convergent (voice, data and video) network. It is capable of delivering a range of services spanning the entire infocomm (information and communication) value chain, including infrastructure and services-for enterprises as well as individuals, applications and consulting. It has revolutionized the way India communicates and networks, truly bringing about a new way of life.

Recruiters' Nightmare

The company was recognized globally for its dynamic and quick project planning skills. But it knew something had to be done about its recruitment process when it began to lose track of its CVs and called on the same candidates who came for an interview the previous week. Sometimes one business group hired the candidate and another would still call them for an interview or worse still the candidate joined one business group and another business group happened to call on the candidate for an interview. The recruitment team was huge and the bigger the teams the larger the chaos and confusion. Hence, the company needed a new recruitment system to cope with the large numbers of CVs floating in and across various businesses in the company. The recruitment database was maintained in MSExcel files by different businesses and there was no coordination between them. They used to receive an average of 5,000 CVs per month via e-mail, hard copies sent by candidates and also by recruitment firms, for an average of 1,000-1,200 positions at any given time. These volumes used to place considerable pressure on the recruitment teams to reduce the administration and lead-time in the recruiting process. As time went by, the number of CVs flowing in the company was humungous and the recruiters were finding it increasingly hard to cope with the mails and hard copies losing track of where CVs were in each businesses. There were some real huge mistakes that kept on repeatedly happening. Interviewed candidates, CVs once filed were a recruiter's nightmare, as they simply could not be traced. At times, there used to be a couple of recruiters hunting high and low at least for a couple of hours, for a requested CV. Recruitment consultants would have their fair share of battles with the recruiters too.

Streamlining Chaos in Recruitment with E-recruitment

The company had to standardize its recruitment process in an attempt to reduce its duplication effort, hence, it was decided to use an 'e-recruitment' system to tide over its current problems. The cost per hire definitely had to be decreased and the quality of the talent that were to be hired into the business had to be enhanced. A combination of these elements, coupled with improved effectiveness, would help to promote a positive company image in the industry. The e-recruitment system helped in quicker response times to applicants, together with consistency in handling the administration associated with each appointment, would lead to improved recruitment efficiency. Another problem that could arise would be the attrition of the HR employees, i.e., recruitment staff. Since most of this happened during the first year of the recruiter joining, most would aspire to stay for at least 18-24 months, if this chaos existed for a long time, the attrition of recruiters could have risen too.

Source: Adapted from Pande (2011).

1. What issues did the recruiters face prior to the implementation and how did they tide over the old system?

2. What are the key messages for recruiters?