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Just about anyone who has anything to do
with any media organisation today cannot
escape the official 'reason' of not being
available, due to a business trip out of the
city or out of the country. International conferences,
inter-office meetings at offsite
locations in addition to an entire range of
monetary incentives, are common norms in
many media organisations today. The space
is seeing brands as big as the Times of India
instituting initiatives like the
Intrapreneurship Awards as an employee
motivation and retention initiative and
other established brands like India Today
Group and Lintas Media Group, who have
various employee programmes of sorts for
years now, evolving constantly.
Consumer may be King but employees are
fast becoming Gods. Mature markets like
the United States and United Kingdom
have experienced the phenomenon for quite
a while now. The space has developed to the
extent that employee relationship management
has taken different forms like employee
engagement, leadership creation,
apprentice and young employee programmes,
employee development programmes
and so on. Interestingly, irrespective
of the terminology used, the concept
has found its own identity separate from
Human Resources (HR) and has become an
independent business model in itself on the
global scene. In India however, the picture
still sees employee relationships largely via
the company HR route. Nonetheless, what
has become noteworthy is the kinds of initiatives that
organisations have taken in this fast changing employee
recognition era - especially in media organisations.
When questioned on the thought process in the sector,
industry experts enumerated various reasons on why
employee development is a priority on many agendas.
Giving the broader picture, India Today Group's CEO
Ashish Bagga informed, "The emphasis is on developing
skills and imparting training and identifying future
leaders across all functions and at all levels. We are
increasing employee engagement through a number of
measures. These range from initiatives in highly effective
HR practice, to communication platforms, to fair
rewards, recognition systems and will be investing in
developing the potential of our Human resource."
Bennett, Coleman and Company, Human Resources
Director, Jyotirmoy Bose believes that the function of
incentives likes these is to identify the people who will
take the company forward and at the same time keep
them motivated to not just give in their best for the
organisation but stay with the organisation too. For
him, the need to look at the interest of the organisation
comes before looking at the interest of any one department.
"That is where growth will come in from," he said,
"When you are just looking at a department, the interests
of many can vary. So the aim should be to look at
the organisation's benefit and that is where every one
works towards the same goals."
Another serious player on this front, Lintas Media Group, has also
been innovating on the initiatives that it takes in this regard. Speaking
more on these, Lynn de Souza, Director, Media Services, LMG said, "As
a company, we believe that no amount of money can take the place of
inspiring and caring leadership or a healthy work culture and environment,
so we do tend to place more emphasis on the latter."
She informed that performance bonuses
are paid out once a year which are linked
to the achievement of top line, bottom
line and new business targets. "This year,
since the company as a whole had a good
year, we also disbursed a spot bonus last
month which came as a pleasant surprise
to all. There are also awards linked to collections
and innovation (LMG has a
Dhinchak award for innovation in
research, strategy or media use)," said de
Souza.
While these are the financial benefits
that the company has in place, there are
quite a few non-financial incentives too.
Speaking on the importance of the nonfinancial
element, she elaborated, "Lintas
has annual year end awards for the Unit
of the Year which is based on both financial
and non financial parameters. For
LMG in particular, I do give a lot of importance
to employee satisfaction in the nonfinancial
part. There are also the yearend
Unsung Heroes awards which are very
special because they recognise the contribution
of people who don't hog the limelight
but are invaluable for the performance
of the team as a whole."
Bringing a channel point-of-view here,
Zee Telefilms, EVP-Marketing, Joy
Chakraborthy added, "The kind of incentives
that we have in place comprise
bonus, international and domestic conferences
and various kinds of cash incentives." The Bhaskar Group
treats this area with much care as well however believes that a set
order cannot be followed and that a mix of incentives and other initiatives
should be taken. Sanjeev Kotnala, Brand Director of the Group
argued that since some initiatives are unidirectional and taken up
uniquely by the management for the betterment of the organisation,
there may not be a pattern in them but they work as a great motivator,
whereas incentives are pre-determined, mostly tangible measurable
rewards that the organisation provides to its employees. They are not
en-cashing efforts of the past year but also an advance on the coming
period - where the organisation is making a statement that we expect
at par or better then these results in coming period."