Tatas To Revamp Management Pool
As a first step, the Tata group has launched a fresh campaign to recruit young managers. Departing from the last 15 years' practice of recruiting managers through campus interviews, the group has brought out a recruitment advertisement inviting applications from young managers to join the TAS.
The group plans to recruit a 25-30 strong team of trainee managers this year, and follow up by recruiting another batch of 25-30 next year.
"We need to gear up our infrastructure to handle the training of the recruits before stepping up our recruitment drive. However, what is more important than the number of recruits is the quality of recruits; there will be no compromise on the quality of recruits," Farrokh K R Mehta advisor HRD, Tata Industries said.
The step to strengthen and train a common managerial pool assumes significance in light of the Tata group's plan to consolidate the group presence in all its companies. Analysts feel that the move was aimed at ensuring greater networking and co-ordination among all the Tata group companies through a common pool of managers.
Though TAS was constituted by JRD Tata 40 years back, the TAS recruitments over the last decade have been through campus interviews. The number of recruits were also generally limited to a maximum of 10 per year. "This year we decided to advertise for the services as this would open the doors to a wider section of people to join the Tatas, and to change the general perception about the services," Mehta said. "We also felt that maybe it was better to take people who have lost their virginity and have acquired a year or two of work experience," Mehta added.
The new impetus to TAS will also take the form of renewed attention on the development practice and processes, "We plan to be more pro-active," Mehta said. TAS is not a central recruitment agency but a very special group resource. A TAS recruit's career plan is chalked out over a span of ten years from the date of joining.
Initially the incumbents report to Tata Industries and spend a year in the induction programme. During the latter part of the induction programme a TAS officer works on 4-5 different projects for as many different companies. The induction programme includes a week with the Tata Management Training Centre, Pune, interaction sessions with senior executives of the Tata group companies, and familiarisation visits to major Tata companies in Jamshedpur, Calcutta, Mithapur, Bangalore, Munnar, Pune and Mumbai.
TAS officers take up on-line assignments in different Tata companies of their choice. The Tata group companies are also trying out newer methods for HRD development. "In Telco, we conducted a strong exercise in Kaizan, or incremental change. We are trying to assess areas of well being for executives, bringing back enjoyment to work is of vital importance," Mehta said.