ET BureauThe biggest challenge before companies today is how to rally employees from different generations and with varied aspirations under the same vision and mission, says Jean-Louis Van Doorne, senior vice-president at New Yorkbased performance enhancement and training firm Dale Carnegie & Associates. The company’s training arm in India, Dale Carnegie India, is now expanding from corporate, student and faculty training to CSR projects focussed on skill development, according toPallavi Jha, chairperson and managing director at Dale Carnegie Training India. Van Doorne and Jha spoke to ET’s Rica Bhattacharyya on the training needs for Indian companies, focus areas for employee engagement and why India is important for them. Edited excerpts:
What leadership challenges are companies in India and abroad facing today?
Pallavi Jha: Most leaders in India agree that what keeps them awake at night is not so much the market, competition or even funding of their plans, it’s the challenge of attracting and retaining talent with matching skills and to build a highly engaged and productive team. It seems it’s easier to get funding for your ideas than the right people to power them.
Jean-Louis Van Doorne: A key challenge is how to keep improving company performance by increasing employee engagement. More specifically, how to increase the engagement levels across various generations who are motivated differently, communicate differently and who have varied aspirations. Rallying all these people under the same vision and mission is the No.1 challenge faced by companies today.
What are the training needs for Indian firms at the leadership level?
Jha: Top management has traditionally been given inputs on business strategy, big-picture thinking, crisis management, etc. In recent times though, Dale Carnegie has been approached increasingly for developing the emotional quotient, developing social and networking skills, and knowing how to inspire teams to get the best out of them. With teams becoming more diverse, globally dispensed and having an increasing proportion of the millennial generation, the people skills required by top management are continuously being pushed to the next level.
For Indian companies, what are the key focus areas for employee engagement? How does this compare with companies abroad?
Jha: The Dale Carnegie Employee Engagement Research revealed three key drivers of success: Pride in the organisation, belief in the senior leadership and relationship with direct managers. In India, of these three drivers, employees seem to have relatively higher levels of pride in their organisation. However, belief in the senior management was lowest while amajority of the respondents were either indifferent or unhappy with their immediate supervisor.
Van Doorne: Overall, our worldwide research indicates that today people want to be valued as a person first rather than just for skills. What will increase employee’s engagement is the quality of their relationship with their immediate supervisor, the trust in the senior management of the company and the pride in the organisation they work for.
What are your plans in India? Why is India an important destination for you?
Jha: In India, we work with corporates but also with students and faculty, so that we are able to give them the head start they need in their careers. While we will continue to strengthen our focus in these areas, we are now increasingly involving ourselves with various CSR projects on skill development. As such, we have a first print that works with school drop outs, plant workers, first time leaders, all the way to CEO’s. The key focus areas are centred around leadership, personal development, various soft skills and employee engagement.
Van Doorne: India constitutes one of our key markets in the region. It has a unique position as a bridge between the western world and Southeast Asia. We truly believe that we have the potential to contribute significantly to the skilling of 700 million ‘millennials’ in India.
What leadership challenges are companies in India and abroad facing today?
Pallavi Jha: Most leaders in India agree that what keeps them awake at night is not so much the market, competition or even funding of their plans, it’s the challenge of attracting and retaining talent with matching skills and to build a highly engaged and productive team. It seems it’s easier to get funding for your ideas than the right people to power them.
Jean-Louis Van Doorne: A key challenge is how to keep improving company performance by increasing employee engagement. More specifically, how to increase the engagement levels across various generations who are motivated differently, communicate differently and who have varied aspirations. Rallying all these people under the same vision and mission is the No.1 challenge faced by companies today.
What are the training needs for Indian firms at the leadership level?
Jha: Top management has traditionally been given inputs on business strategy, big-picture thinking, crisis management, etc. In recent times though, Dale Carnegie has been approached increasingly for developing the emotional quotient, developing social and networking skills, and knowing how to inspire teams to get the best out of them. With teams becoming more diverse, globally dispensed and having an increasing proportion of the millennial generation, the people skills required by top management are continuously being pushed to the next level.
For Indian companies, what are the key focus areas for employee engagement? How does this compare with companies abroad?
Jha: The Dale Carnegie Employee Engagement Research revealed three key drivers of success: Pride in the organisation, belief in the senior leadership and relationship with direct managers. In India, of these three drivers, employees seem to have relatively higher levels of pride in their organisation. However, belief in the senior management was lowest while amajority of the respondents were either indifferent or unhappy with their immediate supervisor.
Van Doorne: Overall, our worldwide research indicates that today people want to be valued as a person first rather than just for skills. What will increase employee’s engagement is the quality of their relationship with their immediate supervisor, the trust in the senior management of the company and the pride in the organisation they work for.
What are your plans in India? Why is India an important destination for you?
Jha: In India, we work with corporates but also with students and faculty, so that we are able to give them the head start they need in their careers. While we will continue to strengthen our focus in these areas, we are now increasingly involving ourselves with various CSR projects on skill development. As such, we have a first print that works with school drop outs, plant workers, first time leaders, all the way to CEO’s. The key focus areas are centred around leadership, personal development, various soft skills and employee engagement.
Van Doorne: India constitutes one of our key markets in the region. It has a unique position as a bridge between the western world and Southeast Asia. We truly believe that we have the potential to contribute significantly to the skilling of 700 million ‘millennials’ in India.
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