HR Drives Acceleration at Ceat
By Sonal Desai
Mumbai, Aug 29, 2008 1307 hrs IST

On the road since 1958, Ceat Limited one of the best tyre manufacturers in the business with an annual turnover of Rs. 2,600 crore is now looking inwards.

The human resources team of the company has developed a road map to leverage technology that also includes 840 senior managers and directors spread across 33 geographies and six zones in India.

Among the first initiatives towards the goal is the Performance Management System (PMS). Based on the system of a balanced score card, the self appraisal system drives the appraisal process pan India. Completely automated, all appraisal processes of Ceat employees are now online. It has also reduced the cycle time to compile reports and make audits.

"We wanted to include the key people group and make the system more responsive to internal customers. Our internal IT team along with an external vendor, Elixir Netcomm Solutions developed the PMS and modules around it," said Rahul Ghatak, VP HR.

"The error rates have reduced drastically. Even the computation and audit period have come down. The cycle time that earlier took between two-and-a-half to three months to complete, now takes ten days to two weeks to complete."

Ghatak, who comes to Ceat after having worked with corporates such as PepsiCo, asked how the HR contributed to the change process. Taking his team into confidence he told them that the HRD would start implementing key people processes and contemporize those.

The first process that instantly clicked among the team was the PMS. Why? "Because it touch everybody, has a pan India impact, is less transparent. And so we thought, let's attack it first. We did have a payroll system in place, but we decided to integrate it with all the other functions on the SAP platform."

Was it difficult changing mindsets of senior employees? "No." Ghatak said his team had started sending teaser mails to all the employees. One-on-ones were also conducted wherever necessary. "Moreover, the seniors at Ceat are open-minded and adaptable."

Once the PMS was launched the entire HR team was involved with demos, screen shots and road shows. "Simple things such as how do you login and use the communicator, and responses to other questions and apprehensions were addressed. "We started the PMS process March end, the module was up and running June 21, and we distributed all increments July 10. The service is on an Internet, and is being hosted by an external server," said he.

The HR now has plans to install the employee self appraisal system on the PMS. Said Ghatak, "Earlier targets/goals could change mid way, and the HR would not know. We have now eliminated human biases. Everything that is computed is automatically archived."

Another feature named Empower was also introduced this quarter. The feature enables managers get a direct feedback from subordinates on his leadership style. The function has been outsourced to HR Craft Consultants. The group has been provided with a flow chart naming the director and his direct reportees. The activity is available only for those directors who have three or more direct reportees, essentially to maintain confidentiality.

The questions are based on the leadership style and the behavioral dimension of the director. The score cards contain the actual results. Each reportee has been given a unique id and password. HR Craft is doing the back end work and will send scorecards. The tests will be conducted three times in one year and the scores will be a part of the director's KPI at the time of his/her appraisal.

Infact, the Ceat CEO was the first director to openly participate in a discussion with his direct reportees following the flaws the reportees stated in the Empower questionnaire. The flaws were directly reflected in his balance score card. Similarly, all directors are given tool kits. All these tools are templatized and these templates are available on CDs. The performance is a part of KPIs.

"We were encouraged with the response we got for Empower. 91 per cent employees gave a verdict. And for the first time, we fine the success rate very high," said Ghatak.

The PMS has also given a breather to Ghatak's team. "Earlier we chased people with a pen and pencil. Now we just shoot emails informing employees that the appraisal system will be on for a particular period and will automatically switch off in a fortnight. Auto generated emails are sent as reminders."

The department is now adding functionalities like performance tracker. The feature allows individual employee to track his performance through out the year. He can enter the data on his performance on a monthly basis and just key it in at the end of the year.

In future, the HR team wants to host all the services on the company's internal server. At present, it is in the process of developing more people centric project and will soon launch the HR portal.

It is a kind of Web portal, that will have facilities like online leave management, e-booking of resources, dedicated e-library, fun zone, etc., said Srijan Srivastava, manager, HR. We have closed the initial design and the portal should be up and running in a couple of months, said Ghatak.

"We also have a career and a development page on the PMS," said Srivastava. The page contains information on the employee's long and short term career goals. Once the employee clicks on the page, it opens avenues on the development actions he needs to take and the leadership and functional competencies he needs to develop for the same. The page can be viewed by his immediate superior and also the top management. This functionality will be operational from October.


Related links:
Role of Technology in Better HR Management