AV Birla Group to promote pros with wider experience

Devina Sengupta and Baiju Kalesh
The Economic Times
15 February 2016

People with experience in, at least, 2 geographies, 2 functions and 2 biz to get plum posts

Mumbai: Being the master of a chosen field alone would not be good enough for one to land a plum job in Aditya Birla Group where senior posts are now given only to those who have worked in at least two geographies, across two functions and two businesses.

The ‘2x2x2’ policy is among multiple steps the Kumar Mangalam Birla-owned firm has taken to ensure the right talent pipeline gets built from within. Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said those who work in two and more unrelated business will have higher chance of bagging plum posts. “It will add to their global exposure and enrich their personalities,” he said.

The $40-billion metals-to-ecommerce conglomerate introduced the 2x2x2 policy last year and businesses have already started implementing this. “This was done to encourage one to expand their knowledge across functions, businesses and geographies and not just gather narrow sliver of expertise,” said Santrupt Misra, director HR and CEO of carbon black business at Aditya Birla Group.

“So promotions as the head of profit centre will happen only to those who have worked in two functions and two businesses across two geographies,” he said. This January onwards the AV Birla Group has also implemented a hiring freeze for senior managerial posts from outside. All firms under the business house were asked to roll out senior managerial positions only to employees of the company.

This is for employees in the grade of Band 7 and above, Misra said. They typically comprise 1,500 employees globally in senior managerial posts for the conglomerate. The freeze is not applicable to the junior and middle management posts, the group said.

According to the firm, this idea was first suggested to the chairman in 2013, but various businesses were alerted in 2015 and given a year to build their talent pipeline. About a year back, ET had reported that every year the group recruits around 220 people at the senior levels, starting with deputy general managers and about 1,000 such hires have been made in the last five years.