Two months ago, sudhir singh was a man whose talents were very much in demand. The 51-year-old vice-president of engineering and projects at Essar Oil was looking at five job offers to head the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) business at Essar’s competitors. “I was enjoying my job, which was more of a marketing role,” he concedes. “But there is a stretch point in every job. For career advancement, I might have looked out.” Before he could do that, Essar made him the CEO of Essar Projects’ pipeline business, with profit and loss responsibilities. His new role is much bigger in scale, as he is tasked with growth of the division. “This level of responsibility is something I have always wanted,” says Singh.

Sukant Ratnakar, 44, is another old Essar hand; he has been with the group for 14 years. His last assignment was retail business development in central India for Essar Steel. Now, he will head business development for Essar’s EPC projects in Oman. “I wanted a demanding role,” says Ratnakar. “Now I will be in a different country, building the business from ground up.”
Singh and Ratnakar have moved on to new jobs with Essar because of a human resources initiative to keep the best talent within the group. Befittingly, this variant of an internal job market is called Next Moves. In the five odd months since it came into being, Next Moves has filled 140 positions across group companies. At least 18 of those jobs were senior management positions. Last year, the group hired 1,500 people from outside. But this year, it has hired only about 100 so far.

Here, There, To Everywhere
Creating an internal job market is not a new concept in most global companies. Nor is the idea of grooming talent internally to head new business ventures or for succession planning for firms within conglomerates. The Tata Administrative Services (TAS) is the earliest example in India. Many of its alumni have gone on to head different businesses and companies among the 90-odd companies within the Tata group. What is different is the growing recognition amongst Indian business groups that human capital is as important as financial capital if you want to be a global player of scale; or even being a significant national player, for that matter.

“Our exit interviews indicated that several good guys were leaving us to take up opportunities that also existed within our own group,” says Adil Malia, group president of HR, Essar. “Through Next Moves, we are giving our employees the first shot before we search outside.” Essar’s attrition rate varies between 6 and 8 per cent. Through this new strategy, the group hopes to bring down the rate further.

Apart from retaining talent, Next Moves also gives employees a chance to realise their “true calling”. Take Poulomi Pal. This 31-year-old who works with the branding and marketing team for Essar Steel has always been interested in the social sector. So when they required a programme development officer in the group’s corporate social responsibility division, she jumped at it. She wasn’t exactly qualified for it. “I am a Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad graduate, best suited for branding and marketing,” she says. Still the Next Moves team thought she was the right person. Abhyajit Sinha, 30, who worked in business development in Essar Power, now does investor relations at Essar Energy in London, helped, no doubt, by his past experience with JP Morgan’s treasury.