Recruiting/Staffing industry in India - write up for a newspaper article.

What are the problems that the recruitment and staffing solutions companies face in today's scenario?
Everybody knows the fact that it is a fast changing and dynamic world we live today. A world full of excitement and challenges; growth and it comes with its own trappings. The recruitment/staffing solutions industry do face similar troubles. Some of them being security (confidentiality) issues, lack of domain expertise, localization issues, cost factors, vendor management & the quality of vendors. Recruitment industry is beset with a proper lack of code of conduct. Since the industry has grown to become close to USD 1 bn, it urgently requires regulation. The lack of proper regulation results in poor quality vendors, poor/outdated selection methods, losing control over data security/privacy, and most important questions arise on ethics and lack of proper forum to negotiate with the government on the various ways to improve the industry.

What is the outlook for the next two years in these areas?
Well the outlook is very promising. India is facing acute talent crunch (to find the right candidate for the right job) and it is expected to be around half a million in the coming few years. India generates huge talent pool and all of them are not employable. Hence India is poised to cater to both the domestic and international demands. Domestically, the recruitment industry has its task cut with very ambitious hiring targets of many emerging and big firms in India. We have a booming IT/ITES, Retail, Biotech & Pharmaceutical sectors to name a few. Globally India is being seen as a good bet for HR related outsourcing (includes recruiting). While internationally the trend is to outsource recruitment processes to focused firms with deep understanding of the recruitment domain. India is one of the emerging economies with almost near double digit growth for the past few years. All these recruitment outsourcing companies have been setting there offices in India tapping our vast knowledge workforce. One can expect the Indian recruitment industry to grow at around 30 5 annually for the next 5 years.

Because a lot of HR personnel are engaged in recruitment process, most of the times they fail to focus on HR activities like training, staffing needs etc. What is the way out for this?

The way out is to outsource the HR function either fully or in parts to an HRO (Human Resource Outsourcer). HRO is a process where the company uses the services of a third party to take care of its HR function depending on the need to help realize and achieve standardization of processes/economies of scale. These include – payroll services, benefits administration, education & training, recruiting & staffing, personnel administration and other related HR functions. Companies can either outsource part of HR function like recruitment/staffing and concentrate on other key employee issues like training, compensation etc. or can outsource almost entire HR processes to ensure better service deliverables to employee’s satisfaction and give attention to on more relevant strategic issues. According to some research estimates the HR outsourcing industry is to become a USD 70 billion industry by 2010.