SL has good opportunity to develop leaders: Taj Group HR chief

Sri Lanka should look at human capital as a competitive advantage that includes talent, behaviourial aspects as well as leadership which would multiply the value of aptitude to differentiate the tourism industry from the rest of the world.

Taj Group Global Head HR Dr. P V Ramana Murthy said Sri Lanka has good potential to develop the best leadership skills which are coupled with emotional intelligence to take the tourism industry to the next heights. 

“After spending 30 years in the HR professional and being an academic in one level, concepts like emotional intelligence or mindfulness, Sri Lankans have an origin here.  Sri Lanka has got a big opportunity for developing leaders in the hospitality industry and I think it is important to focus on it,” he added.

Delivering the keynote address at the Tourism Pillar session on ‘Building a Talent Pipeline for the Tourism Sector - The Indian Experience’ he emphasised the importance of an enterprise’s human capital to execute business strategy and adapt to a changing marketplace. 

Noting that human capital development is always contextual to the organisation’s vision and mission, he urged companies to look at HR development as something which has a competitive advantage where every company needs to put its focus on a few keys imperatives such as talent, behaviour and leadership.

Sharing insights on the Indian experience he stressed that the employees of the company are known for its customer centricity, compassion and going beyond the call of duty. It has now also become a case study for many in the industry on how employees managed their customers during the terrorist attack in Mumbai. 

“All this was not just an accident, whatever the staff showed to the customers in terms of service orientation during that night, was a defined way right from the beginning in terms of employee training and development within Taj. Therefore, bringing the right kind of behaviour is key in the hospitality industry,” he added. 

He pointed out that the organisation believes in inverting the pyramid and placing  focus on the frontline. “The concept of evolving the pyramid tells us that the entire organisation exists to support the frontline which serves the customer. We adopt backward integration to meet our talent requirements focusing on skills and behaviour to drive customer centricity.”

Taj boasts of 30 Skill Training Centres across India building skills and creating employability of talent for the frontline jobs in the tourism industry in India. 

Explaining that the skill centres were set up in partnership with NGOs, he asserted the system was a very cost effective method in building the human capital required for the industry. While the NGOs operate the skill centre, the Taj provides the expertise in terms of training of the faculty members as well as the necessary infrastructure.  

Dr. Murthy said the company has realised on leveraging capability building to enable career and retention as the centre point of their employees. Taj has a Career and Succession Planning Process which enables decisions related to placement, development and succession of their colleagues, which is why Taj is known for retaining their employees for a long time.  

(CDS)