According to the various speakers it was imperative for Corporate India, spanning all spectrums, to engage its talented workforce and involve them in a long-term relationship within the company to fight the high attrition rates they are faced with.

Recognition & reward
Setting the tone for the day’s proceedings was highly acclaimed HR expert, celebrated author and Nelson Motivation Inc President Bob Nelson, in his elobrate exposition on Creating a Culture of Recognition he pointed out that salary was no longer the main constituent of a satisfied staff or will ensure their retention.

He observed that recognition and timely rewards and a conducive climate that provides motivational value for the employee to perform consistently in the singular pursuit of his career ambitions was the need of the day.

Lasting relationship
“Regardless of what you pay, money is not at the top of an employee’s motivational value unlike lasting relationship and a satisfying milieu that eggs him on and catalyses his loyalty factor,” Mr Nelson said, adding relationship is important as it is a function of the interactions. Organisations need to build on these interactions that makes people feel wanted and appreciated.

In this regard, Mr Nelson exhorted the organisations and HR practitioners not to define recognition but, on the other hand, create a culture of recognition that appreciates excellence and in turn drives performance in the organisation.

The only caveat he expotulated for organisation was that they should adjust relationship to what works with their people and secret to managing performances lay in setting forth clear goals for all concerned and getting servious about recognition.

Dell Head HR-IT Ajay Tripathi, in his talk on Winnin with Innovative HR Practises, expounded that since today’s employees want to have their say in terms of roles they play within the organisation, HR practitioners should evolve systems that help manage employees career as also support them in moving up the career value chain.
Stressing the need to define individual plans and giving them due weightage, Mr Tripathi underscored the need for initiating leadership development programmes both for the employees as also the HR personnel so that they could support and perform their roles better.

Connect with staff
In a scathing indictment of the indifferent ways corporates function today in pursuit of their toplines and bottomlines growth and address the “deadly disease of attrition”, Standard Chartered Bank Vice President — HR Jyothi Menon, in her impassioned presentation on Emotional Engagement at the Workplace maintained that HR is no longer human resource but human relations.

Pointing out that corporates, in their express efforts to tackle attrition have not been able to connect with their employees, Ms Menon said, it was high time corporates did a reality check and emotionally engaged and bonded with their staff. “Only through emotional engagement and human bonding can organisations energise employees and catalyse their productive energies towards human excellence.”

Addressing ambiquity
Sun Microsystems Director Systems Business Ashish Khushu speaking on Leadership in Digital Age explained how it was necessary to differentiate between manager and leader and observed that a leader was one with the innate ability to thrive on ambiquity and dabbled expertly in managing paradoxes. Leadership qualities, he averred could be acquired and one could also work on it.

The post-lunch session saw PerotSystems CSO & Shared Services Head Srinivas Rao Chebella speak on Empowering People—A Leaders Perspective, Genpact Vice President (IT Services) M V Sarma on Effective Business Results with an Engaged Workforce and IndusEdge & SureWaves Managing Director Rajendra Khare delve on the subject of Seeds of Success - Our Beliefs.