Only 50% Indian firms may hire knowledge workers in next 1 year: survey

Only half of all Indian companies are confident they will hire knowledge workers in the next 12 months, because prospective employees offer a clutter of information and hyped up personal resumes, a survey released on Thursday said.

Knowledge workers are professionals who use knowledge as capital, such as software engineers and doctors.

Amsterdam-based human resources consulting firm Randstad Holding NV interviewed 1,400 human resource leaders across the Asia Pacific region, including 500 from India, for its survey.

It said employers in other key Asia Pacific countries were even more reluctant than those in India to hire knowledge workers.

The figure is 68% for employers in Singapore, 63% for Hong Kong, 57% for New Zealand, 55% for Malaysia and 53% for China. It was lower in Australia at 44%.

“The main reasons for this lack of confidence are clutter of information, inflated resumes and inflated experience shown by the candidates,” said Moorthy K. Uppaluri, chief executive officer at Randstad India Ltd.

Robert Jan Van De Kraats, chief financial officer and vice-chairman at Randstad Holding, said India has the highest level of unsuccessful recruitment of knowledge workers, compared with other countries and employees are less loyal.

He did not give attrition level figures for India or any other country.

On Wednesday, K. Venkataramanan, chief executive officer and managing director of India’s largest engineering and construction company Larsen and Toubro Ltd, referred to attrition levels while announcing company earnings, saying: “Great companies are built by people who stay.”

The Randstad survey forecast that 26% of Indian employers will undertake recruitment on a temporary or contract basis in the next five years because of a scarcity of talent. Employers are finding it tough to get the right kind of people and are therefore offering short-term contracts.

This trend is the highest in Australia with 29% followed by New Zealand and India with 26%, Singapore and Malaysia with 24%, Hong Kong with 20% and China the lowest with 13%.

Nearly half, or “49% of corporate India says that developing leadership skills for the next phase of business growth is a key productivity challenge faced by their organization,” the survey said.

The biggest challenge that “talent leaders”—HR managers—face in Indian organizations is increasing workforce performance and productivity.

Productivity challenge (the percentage of workers who are not productive) is 19% in India, 25% in China, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand 22% in Singapore, and 17% in Malaysia.

Significantly, only 41% of business leaders in India are confident that the education system will deliver the required skills, the survey said.

Confidence about education is higher in New Zealand (48%) and Australia (46%), but lower in Singapore (40%), China (37%), Hong Kong (33%) and Malaysia (22%).

Fortythree percent of Indian organizations feel that women in leadership positions will be a critical success factor. China records the highest with 51%, followed by Singapore, Australia and Malaysia with 47%, New Zealand with 44% and Hong Kong with 41%, the survey added.