Raymond plans to hire 3,000 this year, move to manufacturing 4.0 in 2-3 years: HR head

All the transactional jobs will disappear leaving only the strategic ones, K Narayan, President-HR at Raymond told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview. However, he said there is no point worrying about ChatGPT.

“I clearly remember the days of the Y2K or Year 2000 transition when everybody said all the bank jobs would become obsolete but life passed and new jobs emerged,” he said.

In the interview, Narayan said post Covid, attrition at the textile major has stabilised between 11-12 percent, reaching a nominal rate. In the manufacturing business, this is much lower – 6 percent. However, he said attrition is high in support functions such as sales and front-end jobs.

If the economy remains buoyant and there are no more global shocks, Raymond plans to hire over 3,000 people during the current year, out of which 50 percent would be women. Edited excerpts of the interview:

With ChatGPT making news, especially around eliminating some HR jobs, what’s your take?

All the transactional jobs will disappear leaving only the strategic ones. For instance, ChatGPT can collect data, write different kinds of content, etc. But most of the organisations in India are looking for transformation given the shape of the economy. CEOs are dealing with unpredictability in the environment which brings us to the question of what human capital strategies one needs to deploy to remain effective.

For people in general, there is no point worrying about ChatGPT and related technology. I clearly remember the days of the Y2K or Year 2000 transition when everybody said all the bank jobs would become obsolete but life passed and new jobs emerged. For every job that dies, there will always be new jobs which evolve. But it is important to keep updated and keep learning on the job every day.

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From 'The Great Resignation' to 'The Great Return', how has the expectation of talent changed in the textile industry?

The government is very keen to promote the textile industry because that is one industry like engineering which is offering huge job opportunities. But yet they're not coming out with schemes which are favourable. The Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme is one thing but in the core manufacturing of textiles, there are not many players in this business. The textile industry, particularly fabric making, has remained stagnant in the last few years. Due to this, the unorganised sector has found a big opportunity in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and especially Maharashtra's Bhiwandi – churning out fabrics in small units. And they are not so worried about talent and what happens to the capabilities that are required for the future.

Given that China is now under pressure, India has a huge opportunity for textile manufacturing. However, from a capability point of view, there is a shortage of the future technology that is coming to run large manufacturing operations in an automated manner. For instance, AI and robotics are still not very prevalent and some of the conventional manufacturing processes are still running as they were running.

How is Raymond reacting to the disruptions in the talent market?

Post-Covid, we have a stable situation. The attrition at the group level is around 11-12 percent, which is very nominal in the sense that always happens. In our manufacturing organisations, it is around 5-6 percent. Where the attrition has been happening is more in support, sales, and front-end functions.

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What is the hiring plan for 2023?

If the economy remains buoyant and there are no more global shocks, we plan to hire over 3,000 people during the current year, out of which 50 percent would be women. Our focus area would be hiring management graduates from B-schools to build a leadership talent pool. For the technical talent pool, we always believed in hiring graduate engineers from the best engineering schools. Concerning functions, we plan to hire talent in both design functions, and fashion areas, and also, particularly in the analytics and AI space.

What is the upskilling strategy? How are you embracing the evolving nature of the job roles?

In the past few years, we have been thinking about how we should upgrade technology and we have not had too much investment into upgrading technology. Our vision is to move to manufacturing 4.0 in the next 2-3 years. This means that automation should come into play in a big way.

Currently, we are setting up a kind of functional school which will train people in futuristic technologies and capabilities. These are particularly in areas like supply chain, the latest developments around design, and best-in-class methods and productivity in our manufacturing facilities. ITM Skills University will be playing a role in designing the curriculum and helping us train talent within the organisation.

What has been the progress on crucial gender diversity numbers?

The percentage would be 25-30 per cent at lower levels. However, the numbers are poor at senior levels, therefore the focus is on building diversity at the top levels. That's one priority. Apart from that, we are also launching several initiatives to promote diversity, training people on unconscious biases, and modifying policies such as having at least two diverse candidates during the hiring process.

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Concerning the shop floor, we need to look at the organisation in two parts. One is core fabric manufacturing where around 10 percent of the women workforce are in some of the allied services. Secondly, in the garment facility, there are 90 percent of women employees.

What is the current work model and what does the future look like?

Currently, all employees work from the office. Remote work is more on a need basis. While we have been debating the hybrid work model, we still have not cracked the whole thing because technology has to support everything. As of now, we are unclear as to which way we want to go.

For every job that dies, there will always be new jobs which evolve, Narayan said.