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Watson Wyatt, the leading global human capital consulting firm, recently organised a CEO Forum on ‘Building Peak Performance Teams to Conquer Global Markets’.

Led by Watson Wyatt President and CEO John Haley and Regional Director for Asia Pacific Dr Chuly Lee, the guest speakers at the Forum were Tata Consultancy Services MD and CEO S. Ramadorai, and Aditya Birla Management Corporation Ltd. Head for Corporate Human Resources Dr. Santrupt Misra.

Carlyle India Managing Director Rajeev Gupta moderated the discussions at the sessions.

Commenting that, “The Indian workforce is currently 500 million people,” Haley predicted that, “Over the next three decades the country will see a growth of over 335 million people, which is greater than that of the combined work force of the UK, US, Japan, Germany and France. The rapid growth of its economy, with all the major sectors poised for growth makes India a very critical and important marketplace for human resource management.” He went on to say, “As domestic companies reach out globally they will need skilled human capital to be competitive with established market leaders.”

Looking at the world from the employees’ point of view, Dr. Lee said, “Leadership, job satisfaction, communication, teamwork and work environment are the top five commitment drivers. While India has a strong advantage with a net labour cost saving of around 40%, future growth trajectories will depend on sustaining the people & cost advantage.”

In a hot labour market the human resource challenges corporate India faces are:

44% of the companies have significant difficulty attracting top performers

40% of the companies make mid year salary corrections

Average employee turnover is 16%

BPO’s have up to 25% salary growth with 40% - 50% turnover

India has the highest salary increases in the region.