At a high-level forum conducted by the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID) in Colombo recently in partnership with Towers Watson, Shatrunjay Krishna, Director Talent Management and Organisational Alignment Practice in India for Towers Watson, some of the global challenges in dealing with HR risk and how they could be averted or mitigated in order [...]

The Sunday Times Sri Lanka

SLID and Towers Watson address HR risk for sustainable growth

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At a high-level forum conducted by the Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID) in Colombo recently in partnership with Towers Watson, Shatrunjay Krishna, Director Talent Management and Organisational Alignment Practice in India for Towers Watson, some of the global challenges in dealing with HR risk and how they could be averted or mitigated in order to ensure sustainable growth were discussed.

Outlining a risk assessment framework, he suggested that areas needing to be addressed were Strategy, Process, Compliance, Investment and Programme.

“Issuing a timely reminder of the need to actively assess not only general business risk but also those specifically applicable to HR, Mr. Krishna pointed out that analysis takes a company from a general perception of ‘I have some risk’ to an acute perception of what the risks are so as to be able to create a plan to deal with them,” SLID said in a media release.

If controls are in place, he noted, “you just need to ensure that they are working”. However, most organizations don’t know if their career management programmes are working. A very low 27 per cent say their organizations monitor the effectiveness of their career management programmes, it was stated.

It was noted that globally, HR risks appear to be based around the proper allocation of finance to critical areas. “Interestingly, according to Towers Watson, employer and employee perception of what’s important in retaining and attracting high performers are surprisingly misaligned in some instances. For example, job security ranks second on the employees’ list of priorities, while only 26 per cent of employers believe that that is a key reason to join an organisation. Paid vacation time also made an appearance on the employees’ lists, but not on that of employers, showing that work-life balance is still very much on prospective employees’ minds,” were some of the issues that emerged, the release said.
The changing business environment, it was noted, creates risk in HR too as there are 20 to 25 roles at the cutting edge of change.
These roles are often the pillars of an enterprise as drivers of competitive advantage, exacerbating the risk of organisations not recognising the forthcoming changes in time. The lack of effective training that is related to critical talent areas is also a potential source of risk, it was stated.

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