As part of the CII initiative “India Inc. Going Global” it is envisioned to have various knowledge sharing platforms across the various clusters to facilitate the spread of experiential insights gained by organizations who have already achieved international growth. The process of globalization is insightful and comes with opportunities and challenges in entering new markets, being exposed to different cultures as well as different ways of doing business across borders. Specifically each of these differences has implications on how talent is managed in an international context.

During the process of globalization there would have been situations where something worked well for organizations and some things did not work out as planned. One of the objectives of the Leadership Development & Talent Management Cluster [LD&TM] is to provide member organizations with platforms to share the tacit experiential knowledge gained in the area of Leadership Development and Talent Management during their globalization experience. This would ensure that organizations can leverage the successful practices and experiences of others who have already tread the path to growth across India’s borders..

Services as a Means to Knowledge Sharing

The knowledge diffusion will happen via various knowledge sharing / interaction platforms for available for members of the LD&TM cluster. The platforms which we will call as “Services” would range from low involvement on one end of the spectrum to high-involvement at the other end. Services would also range from common services [all or most companies are part of the service instance] to focused services [between a small set of two or three companies]. Organizations that are part of the cluster can offer services or request for services offered by other organizations.

“Low involvement” service offerings would include those activities and platforms where the interaction would be limited in terms of time and physical proximity, requiring minimum personal contact. A knowledge portal or a webinar would fit in at this end of the spectrum. Although a lot of individuals would be involved in a webinar and would personally spend time attending, contributing and participating this would be for a very limited period of time and the activity would conclude once the webinar is over.

On the other hand a “High Involvement” service offerings would included those activities and platforms that call for high degree of personal interaction and over a longer period of time among the individuals from organizations involved. A Secondment Service where individual from one organization [requiring some deep insight and longer exposure] that is interested in learning about a LD&TM practice of another organization [that is willing to share the practice] could spend a fixed amount of time [few weeks or months] at the organization that is willing to share insight. The individual would be a part of the other company for this agreed period (between two companies) and can either take up some learning assignment or oversee how the practice is operationalized or even take up a temporary role in the other company and be actively involved in operationalizing the practice. The individual would then go back to his own organization and put to use the knowledge gained out of this Secondment to address the challenges involved in his / her organizations’ experience with the specific LD&TM practice.

Along the dimension of concurrency of entities involved we would have services where several or all companies are involved in and instance of the service at the same point of time. These would be the “Common Services”. A knowledge sharing portal or a theme seminar would fall under this category. Every organization would be part of the portal either updating information, reading information, and so on. At the other end of the spectrum we would have “Focused / Specific” service instances where only one or two organizations are involved in that instance. Mentoring / Advisory services would fall under this category.

Potential Services in the LD&TM Cluster

Based on the dimensions discussed above the following are possible services along the two dimensions.

Understanding The Services & Expectations:

This section provides a brief understanding of each of the service offerings to ensure common understanding.

a) Workshop (General) : This is a workshop designed by any one cluster member (or jointly by more than one cluster member, or even by an organization which is not part of the cluster but invited to design a workshop) on a topic of interest to the cluster members.

When you fill in the Services Offering Form kindly indicate specific areas in LD&TM where you would be willing to conduct workshops if there is a request raised for this. [Item A on the services offering form]. Organization’s would also be required to indicate specific time frame [month] over next 12 months when they would be able to offer such a workshop.

b) Workshops (Mutual): These are more specific to two companies, For example if Organization A wants to have a workshop facilitated by Organization B they would team up together, discuss between themselves and then at a mutually convenient time and date they can host the workshop for benefit of Organization A.

When filling in the services offering form kindly indicate if you are willing to conduct workshops (mutual agreement) with other companies in the cluster who need such a service and if so indicate tentative areas/topics [Item B on the services offering form]

c) Web Portal: Web portal is a common, shared knowledge repository that is accessible to all member companies in the cluster. All cluster members would have access to the portal which is accessible only to invited members.

Members of the cluster are required to share their distinctive practices in LD&TM space on the portal. Participating companies would have access to the portal and information in the portal would be a seeding point to generate further interest in a specific best practice leading to request for specific services.

Each member company to indicate their key distinctive practices which they would like to put up on the portal. Necessary effort to be made to put this up in the first 30 days of their membership. [Item C on the services offering form]

d) Case Studies (Generic): Specific real life examples of best practice in action can be shared by means of a case write up by companies. These can be published as part of the knowledge portal. Information provided in the case studies would serve as points of generating further interest / request for services around the best practice.

While filling up the services offering form do indicate if your organization is willing to write up and share case-studies in the LD&TM space that would be of interest to other organizations. If so please give indicative areas in which you would be able to develop / present case studies [Item D on the services offering form].

e) Case Studies (Specific): These are defined as cases where as part of a consulting / advisory service, an organization is willing to write up a case study [from it’s own experience] for the benefit of the other participating organization which is seeking the service. This is more specific to the organizations involved and need not be shared with the other members of the cluster.

While filling the services offering form do indicate specific areas where you might be willing to write up case studies for other organizations in areas of your expertise in LD&TM space. [Item E on the services offering form]

f) Mentoring Services: An organization that is known for best practices in a given area of LD&TM can opt for providing mentoring services [it is a one to one] to one or more organizations needing help in this area. Mentoring would involve the two organizations getting familiar with each other, building the trust on the area which mentoring is sought, mentor challenging the protégés ideas and vice versa with the idea to apply the learning / experience of the mentor in the area of interest.

While filling the services offering form indicate which areas your organization would be ready to provide mentoring services. Also indicate specific time periods over next 1 years when your organization would be able to offer the mentoring services. [ Item F on the services offering form ]

g) Theme Seminars: Under this service it is planned to have seminars where invited speakers would speck on a topic of interest to cluster members. This would tend to be common across cluster member interests. All members can participate in the seminars. Potential speakers from outside the cluster can also be invited to be part of the theme seminars.

While indicating your contribution for this services kindly fill in topics / themes of interest to international talent management that you would be able to contribute as part of a seminar. [Item G on the services offering form]

h) Consultancy Services: This is a focused one to one service engagement where one organization can provide in-depth consulting services to a request from another member organization. The scope and specifics of the engagement would be mutually decided between the two organizations involved. Such engagements have specific and limited objective, would have a finite start and end date and a well defined objective with close handshaking during the engagement.

Organizations can indicate areas in which they can provide consulting services in the area of LD&TM.

i) Theme Webinars: This is similar to the theme seminars (point g above) except that it would be delivered in web-based format.

j) Panel Discussions: Panel discussion are facilitated around a given topic / theme that would be of interest to participating organizations. Participation on the panel would be by volunteering (by any cluster member representative) or by invitation for non-member participants from other organizations or from academia.

k) Advisory /Assessment Services: This is a one to one service engagement where an organization with significant expertise on a specific domain within the LD&M landscape can provide advisory / assessment service including but not limited to consulting, compliance, assessment audit administration to an organization that is moving into a new area. This can be in areas such as recruitment of talent, taxation, benefits, policies (indicative areas). In such an engagement one organization is advisory to another and advice could be sought in various situations and normally works in a Pull rather than Push manner.

Indicate areas where your organization can provide advisory services. [Item K on the services offering form]

l) Secondment: This is a focused service where an organization can and is willing to allow an employee from another organization to work at their organization for a fixed period [few weeks to few months depending on the nature and willingness]. The objective is to provide an opportunity to get first hand deep and longer experience of the process / practice by a member of another organization which is looking for some help in the specific process / practice. It is a kind of deputation across organizations who are driven by the altruistic nature of the initiative.

On the services offering form indicate if you have interest in involving and providing opportunity to other organization’s employees to be part of your organization for the purpose of learning by experiencing your process / practice.

Filling in the Services Offering Form:

Once you have read through this note you can fill in the details of your organization’s support and contribution to various services in the Services offering Form [LDTMServices_OnOffer.doc].

Once we collate the service offerings from various cluster members we will publish a calendar of offerings and you can sign up for any offering that would be of interest to your organization. The Services Sign up Form [LDTMServices_SignUp.doc] will be circulated to members in soft copy

For any queries and clarifications please feel free to contact

Rajiv Noronha
Organizational Effectiveness Manager
Infosys Technologies Ltd.

&

Cluster Program Manager
LD&TM Cluster,
India Inc. Going Global, A CII initiative

Rajiv_Noronha@infosys.com

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