Ex Servicemen Hothouse of Talent

Highlights of Seminar on Defence Industry Partnership in Human Resource Management held in Chennai on 11 Jul 2007.

Mr Sajjan Jindal of the OP Jindal group, said, he had recently offered to take the entire 60,000 retiring people into employment.

Brig (Retd) T.M. Sridharan, CEO & Board Member, Hinduja group, noted that ex-servicemen were “excellent, trained, human resource”. He said that the Government spent close to Rs 15 lakh in training a recruit “before he fires his first bullet”.

Brig Sridharan said (and other speakers agreed) that the ex-servicemen, not being too young, tend to stick to a job and hence help check attrition. Wing Commander (Retd) T.R. Shankaran, Consultant, Training, Reliance Retail, stressed that there were a number of jobs that ex-servicemen could fit into, with a little re-orientation. For example, people trained in logistics could fit in supply chain management functions. Those who have worked in army intelligence and military police would fit in fraud detection. Above all, ex-servicemen, having dealt with people “24x365”, made excellent HR professionals, he said.

Two other speakers, Mr K. Ganesan, Global Head, Learning & Development and M&A, TCS, and Mr S. Ganguly, General Manager (Pers & HR) L&T, agreed that ex-servicemen were “excellent HR people”.

All speakers stressed on the need for re-orientation. Mr Ganguly said that ex-servicemen needed to be more cost-conscious in the industry. Mr Ganesan noted that they could face a culture-shock in flat organisations, where rank was no material. He offered that TCS could take ex-servicemen on paid internship for about six months without any obligation on the internees to continue.