PepsiCo India – Approach to Tap Female Talent

PepsiCo India has taken an unusual approach to recruiting. The company has teamed up with JobStreet.com, to exclusively target women who wish to return to the corporate world.

From the time this initiative was made effective, the Web site has received a huge response from female candidates.

The Job opportunities offered include part-time and full-time options.
These are basically into consulting and sales and marketing. Most importantly, they allow the applicants to work from home or have flexible schedules.

The percentage of female employees has increased dramatically in the company and currently comprises 33 percent of top management positions and 15 percent of the remainder of the workforce.

PepsiCo India along with JobStreet.com is working to expand the initiative to other multinational companies such as Microsoft India and IBM India.

Source: Diversity Executive Magazine

Leadership Shortage

The major problem hovering over the competitive business scenario is global talent shortage. In the near future, organizations will have to scramble and compete to find new talent, especially the managers and executives.

Various top notch consultants and management gurus claim that this is going to be one of the biggest issues businesses must deal with in the next decade.

So what’s the deal? And how do we handle the current situation?

There is a potential leadership shortage looming on the horizon. Organizations’ claim that they can’t find enough talent to re-supply their dwindling management ranks. But they would certainly do much better if they rethought their approach to selecting, developing and managing their talent.

Organizations should aim at turning raw talent into successful leaders. Traditionally, leadership potential was viewed as a one-dimensional resource. Over the past few years as organizations have grown in complexity and size, many of the roles have become highly diverse and complex.

Most organizations have neglected the change, as a result their managers and executives find themselves struggling and failing, and in the process inflicting damage on their organizations. It’s not that these individuals can’t be good leaders. But they aren’t prepared for the complexity and scope of the roles in which they find themselves.

Nowhere is this more obvious than at the very top, where CEOs are crashing and failing in appalling numbers. Most of these problems have been due to a lack of alignment between the role and the abilities of the individual filling that role.

Today, organizations need to worry less about the dearth of leadership talent and focus more on better understanding the specific demands of today’s highly varied leadership roles. With this understanding of their leadership needs, organizations would also be able to refine and modify their actual leadership structure, thereby reducing their outdated models.

No doubt as the workforce shrinks, there would be a “WAR FOR TALENT”. Organizations would be required to address the leadership talent in the context of their business strategy, their required operating model, their resulting organizational structure, and the changing and emerging roles these dynamics are shaping.