INNOVATION IN HR TO MEET

BUSINESS CHALLENGES
Quest for Excellence (Q4E -2016)

BY

NTPC LTD.

Team Leader: Mr. Prasenjit Pal

AGM, NTPC Ltd.
Team Members: Mr. Sharad Singh
DGM, NTPC Ltd.
: Ms. Pallavi Shukla
Asst. Manager, NTPC Ltd.

Number of Words: 2000 words

Prasenjit Pal Sharad Singh Pallavi Shukla

Abstract:

NTPC is one of the largest Indian power company accounting for more than 25% of
Indias total power generation and has a remarkable track record in terms of
responding to the challenges posed by an ever dynamic and evolving energy
environment in India. The world is moving towards meeting the requirements of
Nationally Determined Contributions towards reducing the carbon footprint of energy
industry as committed at the Paris Convention. NTPC has taken the lead towards
diversifying into energy production through environment friendly technologies like wind
and solar, while shouldering the responsibility of accelerated expansion to meet the
present and future energy demand for Government of India's ambitious programs such
as 24X7 power for all' by 2019, Digital India, our country's infrastructure needs etc.
This leads to a paradigm shift in power generation technologies with an increased
focus of renewable.
While NTPC gears for this paradigm shift it will be essential in the short run to
continue with coal-based generation as the energy backbone of Indian economy for
the immediate future, therefore there is an emerging HR challenge to re-plan, reskill
and redeploy the existing workforce. At the same time HR NTPC is faced with the
responsibility of continuously hiring a talented workforce and retaining them. Further
HR also faces the challenge of driving motivation to enable its employees to meet such
high expectations and reach their peak performance levels, at the same time ensuring
welfare of its employees and a good work-life balance.
The paper looks into the challenges of addressing employee
aspiration through innovative HR interventions within the limitations of a large public
sector company with a diverse HR base a pan-India presence. The paper looks into
possibilities of HR intervention to address these challenges and positively contribute
towards the company's success.

Introduction:
NTPC today faces a number of business challenges. To list a few: There is a short
term lull in expansion of coal-fired power plants by NTPC for the next five years due
to challenges especially those posed by the state of power distribution infrastructure
in India. Thus the huge amount of work force employed by NTPC in its core-functional
area that is generation through coal-fired plants has to be engaged in some other
areas. This time can also be used for intensive capacity building as after this period of
low activity NTPC faces a huge challenge of highly accelerated expansion in power
generation capacity to cater to NITI Aayog plans as per the 2047 energy scenario
document.
Another challenge is posed on account of expansion into new areas of power
generation from cleaner fuels such as wind, hydro and solar power. These areas bring
with them a gamut of challenges in all aspects of the business that is man money and
machinery. HR has the task of providing solutions to the challenges related to
manpower. Other business challenges are on account of regulations and
environmental clearances required before setting up any unit, challenges posed on
account of competition in the Indian power industry, remaining cost competitive, from
Un-Requisitioned Surplus Power, exploring organic growth of business etc.

In such an environment one critical factor that contributes towards meeting these
challenges is a vibrant, talented and highly motivated work-force. Any business is
about people as they are the most critical input who actually work to make your
business successful. If one can identify the right people, nurture them and motivate
them through various incentives than they in-turn perform towards ensuring the
organisations success. Keeping this in mind this paper attempts to identify crucial
parameters that affect employee motivation and has suggested solutions accordingly.
Focus areas covered in this paper are in the domain of manpower planning, talent
mapping and capacity-building within the organisation and strengthening
communication structures in NTPC.

Methodology:
A detailed questionnaire was prepared and circulated among peers in NTPC for the
purpose of data gathering and effective stake -holder engagement. Certain key
aspects that were taken care of while preparing the questionnaire was to engage a
sufficient and well spread sample of the workforce in identifying the parameters or
questions answers to which will help in defining the major challenges faced by NTPC
with respect to its workforce. After short-listing the questions, effort was put towards
keeping the questionnaire as short and user- friendly as possible at the same time
ensuring that it covered all aspects. A lengthy and user- intensive questionnaire might
not have generated an enthusiastic response from the targeted population. As far as
possible within the limitations of time this questionnaire was rolled out to most
employees and a healthy sufficient response could be generated from employees at
all levels of management and from most NTPC- sites.
After analysing this data solutions have been proposed to solve the challenges facing
NTPC HR.
Input from senior management (current and ex-NTPC top management) were taken
to better understand the limitations that HR function of a Large Public Sector
Enterprise such as NTPC faces. This input was critical towards suggesting measures
which are realistic and implementable within NTPC and also to understand the
challenges that will arise while implementing some of the strategies suggested in this
paper.

Solutions:

Resource Optimization challenge

In every organisation there are jobs of different nature requiring employees of
corresponding capability. Thus within NTPC also HR faces the challenge of suitable
talent mapping of employees and then placing them at the right positions. Resource
optimization is the need of the hour. Based on the survey results we have found that
a highly skilled workforce does not finds job of routine and mundane nature as
challenging. Further for a self-motivated person with high expectations from his career
job satisfaction is a crucial parameter influencing his or her motivation levels. Thus we
propose a system in which routine, mundane jobs requiring limited skills be transferred
to contract workers and diploma holders. Since a substantial percentage of work in
NTPC involves such activities the proposed scheme will bring down employee costs
substantially meeting another challenge of reducing manpower cost per megawatt
energy generated.
Also for job of short term nature involving skill requirement in highly specialised fields
should be met through hiring suitable consultants. Again enabling the company to
utilise the best services available in this field at expense of optimum/reasonable
monetary resources.
Only for certain high-end specialised functions which are of long term and consistent
nature NTPC should go for Cadre Development with the flexibility of lateral induction
at most levels. For this long term cadre work-force an in depth training in Administrative
Management at Role/Cadre Change Intervals is suggested. Such a training not only
fulfils the purpose of skill enhancement but also provides opportunities for Exposure
& Peer Learning enabling them to continuously adopt best practices from Industry. It
also facilitates leadership development and serves the cause of expectation
management. It is a critical parameter contributing towards increasing motivation of
companys long term workforce.

Innovative solution: Lateral Expansion the HR perspective

As per the survey results we have found that meaningful and substantial career
progress is a key enabler of increasing employee motivation, but an organisation like
NTPC which has a pyramidal structure would always find it difficult to provide this kind
of career progression. As a solution this paper proposes lateral expansion of the
organisation by way of joint ventures and subsidiary companies in targeted business
avenues and placing NTPC core cadres at CXO levels and for other leadership roles
in these subsidiary companies. Such a role puts the middle management person in
leadership roles inculcating in them the habit of taking decisions which affect different
aspects of a business such as commercial, technical, operational, hr etc. The title and
importance such a role holds within this organisation enhances their motivation at
multiple levels effectively boosting mid-career intervention. It provides a large pool of
successful leaders then to choose from for elevating to higher management of Core
Company.

Challenge of providing positive workplace environment:

The essence of the workplace as an experience is where all the elements of work
the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, the virtual, and the aspirationalare
carefully orchestrated to inspire employees. This paper makes a case of introducing
practices such as regular yoga, recreational avenues inbuilt in office spaces,
democratic participative work environment etc.
The brand of the company you work with is major factor in an employee's decision to
be with that company. If HR is able to create a strong brand of NTPC in the industry
and market the HR aspects efficiently, it will automatically result in an incentive for
highly talented individuals to join NTPC.
HR Agenda- Communication
Policies of the organisation especially HR policies are to be percolated at all levels
with utmost clarity. Input for policy making also needs to be collected rigorously
(bottom up approach). Democratisation of decision making is enhanced via TWO-
WAY COMMUNICATION. It results in higher employee motivation and an enhanced
feeling of ownership in the official functions. This in-turn increases employee
productivity. The necessity of same was expressed and wished for by NTPC
employees at all levels as reflected by the survey results.

Benchmarking
NTPC HR should send its personnel on benchmarking activities as part of their regular
functions at frequent intervals to other industries. This enables continuous evolution
and adaptation of industry best practices enhancing excellence. Also it increases
exposure of employees allowing them to draw inspiration from other industry leaders
and learn from experiences of other organisations.

Rewards and recognition

The system of rewards and recognition need to be well linked with the employee
appraisal scheme and is an effective way of providing a link between individual goals
of growth and appreciation of companys goal of higher productivity through efficient
performance by its employees. As per our findings the system of rewards and
recognition is not well linked with the employee appraisal scheme in NTPC and thus
fails to fulfil the purpose of increasing employee motivation.

Employee Engagement
Another aspect lacking in NTPC is employee engagement. Most employees reported
that there are hardly any informal interactions among employees with their teams
within and outside the workspace. This paper proposes weekly HR meetings within
each team of at-least one hour say every Friday where teams are engaged in trust
building exercises, informal interactions resulting in building peer relationship etc. This
increase the feeling of team, results in higher and smooth coordination among
individuals.

Conclusion:
If the above practices are adopted in NTPC they will result in increased employee
motivation which will in-turn contribute to increased productivity and capability of the
workforce to meet the challenges faced by the organisation in the current business
environment.