Reliance Retail reworks its HR management policy

Focus On Talent Acquisition & Transformation To Retain Mid-Management Pros

EVEN as Reliance Retail ramps up its nationwide rollout plans, the company is developing a comprehensive manpower management policy to streamline its recruitment and retention strategy. The new policy will focus on critical areas like talent acquisition, talent transformation, talent design and talent concept of the human resources (HR) function within the company. Confirming the development, a senior Reliance Retail official said: “The company’s HR team has been given the mandate to chart out the blueprint by December 2007.” The exercise is being spearheaded by Reliance Retail president and chief people officer Bijay Sahoo. The move assumes significance as Reliance Retail plans to have some 5 lakh employees on its rolls by 2010. Increasing competition and shortage of seasoned retail professionals has also taken a toll on the company with some of its top and middle management executives joining competitors like Bharti-Wal-Mart and Aditya Birla group’s retail venture. “The HR policy will not only formulate a detailed recruitment and manpower plan for the company, but will also work out a comprehensive retention strategy,” the company official told ET. Incidentally, the company runs 89 retail outlets and plans to ramp it up to 120 stores by April 2007. While the talent acquisition vertical has the mandate to recruit talent across functions, talent transformation will play a key role in providing necessary inputs for recruits from nonretail sector to gear up for hardcore retail operations. The talent concept vertical will identify the necessary skills required by the company, and the talent design team will draw specific profile for the employees. “We may have lost some seven to eight top guys in the war for talent, but the proposed HR policy will aim at stopping attrition in the senior and middle management level,” the company official said. Reliance Retail now has some 6,000 employees on its payroll. The company is also firming up plans to use the pool of some 30 senior executives recruited from Wal-Mart’s global operations to train its workforce. “These executives will provide training to fresh graduates and professionals recruited from non-retail sectors. We want to handle the entire employee training process internally,” the official said.

RELIABLE PLAN

• Increasing competition and shortage of seasoned retail professionals have led to some of its top and middle management executives joining competitors

• The proposed HR policy will aim at stopping attrition in the senior and middle management level

• The company is firming up plans to use the pool of some 30 senior executives recruited from Wal-Mart’s global operations to train its workforce

Courtesy: EconomicTimes

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