Retain only the 'best'!

I have heard Pratik's lectures while I was doing MBA at SIBM, Pune. 

I read about Pratik Kumar at Forbes website. You can check the same link as below-

http://www.forbes.com/profile/pratik-kumar/

The link says-
Pratik Kumar has served as our Executive Vice-President of Human Resources since April 2002, and has served with us in other positions since November 1991. Mr. Pratik Kumar holds a B.A. from Delhi University and an M.B.A. from Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur, India.

I was glad to see on the same page details of his 2011 compensation. It reads like this-

Wipro, Ltd.
Compensation for 2011
Salary
$190,955
Bonus
$139,129
All other compensation
$43,854
Total Compensation
$373,938

I wonder how many of XLRI graduates in 20 years of career (with Indian company) have reached to the level like this in terms of position, responsibilities and compensation. I believe, Pratik is based out of India and the compensation converted into rupee terms is Rs.2, 01, 17, 864. (2 Cr.) This is inspiring story and at the same time, it confirms the fact that HR people can become President and CEOs of businesses. It also confirms the fact that, if you stay with one organisation, longer, you get rewarded.

My next wonder is, if EVP-HR’s compensation can be made public, why companies treat compensation data such a top secret and sacrosanct to be kept under vaults.

I request all MNCs and large Indian companies to publish their compensation data of Senior Executives and they will hear great feedback from their people on many of them.

I was taking to my neighbor  who has his B.Tech from IIT Guwahati and for past 5 years, he is working with the same company, he joined from campus.
Today, some of his peers in his company, who come from unknown engineering colleges, get 30 to 50% more salary than him and all these guys have joined this company after shorter stints with 2 or 3 other companies.
I am really worried if my understanding of the above case of Pratik’s loyalty/stability with one company for past 20 years can give any assurance to such other loyal/stable guys at other companies.

I worked with some large US MNCs in India at their R&D centers and knew very closely some people on their skills and competencies, vision and dreams. In past 6 years, I see, many of those poor competency and skills and no vision and no dream guys have become Managers and Directors from IT support engineer role and Sr.Design Engineer roles. Trust me, reward is a very complex and and most misunderstood and misused/abused mechanism/function. 

Just not loyalty and stability can form the basis for rewards, there are other soft skills and soft and hard-wired values and dreams that produce great success stories, when they came out of sweat and blood. It seems, we have more "free coffee" in our blood than the oxygen that keeps life afloat.
Unfortunate fact is, people get rewarded and benefited out of STAGNATION, No-Competition, Managements’s Helplessness to promote the available average guy. Weak Managers play safe, and corporate is full of such B/C Managers; they recommend for promotion, harmless, easy to handle and spineless folks, who will never have a voice forget about challenging the manager.

‘A’ players hire ‘A’ players and ‘B’ players hire ‘B/C’ players. Is the same not true with promotions/career progression and succession planning?

How can a ‘B’ player promote an ‘A’ player? We all know, ‘B’ and ‘C’ players Frustrate ‘A’ players and they look for places with sensible and quality people, move out or kick that A**H**** company and people.


So, for retention and development, if CEOs and others have been able to retain ‘A’ players, they will certainly build more ‘A’ players.

SERIOUS CAUTION: PLEASE CHECK HOW MANY ‘B’ AND ‘C’ PLAYERS HAVE YOU PROMOTED AND RETAINED OVER PAST DECADES AND YOU WOULD BE SHOCKED TO SEE THAT YOU HAVE BUILT THE JUNGLE OF ‘DEAD WOODS’, WHO BESIDES BEING USELESS AND DANGEROUS FOR THE ORGANISATION DESTROY OTHER ‘A’ PLAYERS.