0:00

On Costa Company, we're always

0:03

trying to answer questions about modern

0:05

Indian workplaces. Oftentimes,

0:08

even before they become popular questions

0:10

to ask. And today, that

0:13

quest has taken me to a random stretch

0:15

of road in HSR layout in Bangalore.

0:18

I'm strolling around with my producer, Anushka

0:21

Mukherjee, and HSR is a techie

0:23

hotspot, I'm told. And it

0:25

kinda looks like it. The place is full

0:27

of startups and co-working spaces

0:30

and tech companies.

0:31

And why have we come all

0:33

the way to the other side of the city, you might wonder.

0:36

And that is to speak to some tech

0:39

employees and ask them about

0:41

their dream companies to work at.

0:45

It's a Friday evening and everyone

0:47

seems more relaxed than usual. We

0:51

caught hold of people waiting for cabs or just

0:53

drinking chai by the roadside. It was

0:56

also drizzling, so some people we spoke

0:58

to were just waiting for the rain to stop. Excuse

1:03

me, excuse me, excuse me. One

1:06

minute. We're doing like a survey. Just two

1:08

minutes. Are you working in tech?

1:10

Like if you

1:12

are an engineer or a tech person in Bangalore,

1:14

what would be like your dream companies to work

1:16

at? So

1:19

let's say like 5-10 years. Off

1:22

the top of your head. That's

1:24

a long time. Maybe in 5-10 years I would like to have

1:26

something of my own. I mean,

1:29

I'm basically bred that way.

1:31

I started my career working in startups.

1:34

So I understand the ecosystem. I have

1:36

a good network. And with

1:39

startups, there's a bit of risk,

1:41

there's a bit of uncertainty, a lot

1:43

of hustle kind of used to that. So

1:47

it's like I'm also working in startups for the last 6 years.

1:50

So basically maybe

1:51

5-10 years down the line I can think

1:53

of joining a Google or Microsoft

1:55

or an Amazon or an Adobe. Adobe

1:57

is also a product company.

1:59

now because as you said that you know startups

2:02

there's a lot of hustle culture you know you get to learn

2:04

a lot out of in startups and then maybe

2:06

with that experience then you can go to a senior

2:08

management role in a big tech company

2:11

somewhere around Google or

2:14

Apple maybe Google

2:16

or Apple why Google or Apple because

2:19

they have a proper structure and I'll get

2:21

to learn so much from them like

2:24

not any startups or anything

2:26

first

2:29

my target is to be at the big

2:31

companies then to move

2:34

on to the startup

2:34

as a head of product design something

2:37

like that okay

2:40

from a startup point of view I believe

2:42

in profitability right

2:45

so couple of them which you

2:47

see are pretty big zero though has

2:49

one so is another what

2:52

is the second

2:52

one? Zero the. Zero the

2:54

and? So the

2:58

SaaS platform and

3:00

anyone who has numbers on profitability

3:03

I pretty believe in that

3:07

after we got back from interviewing hordes

3:09

of people Anushka and I had reflected

3:12

on this experience yeah

3:14

I was I was using all my stereotypes

3:16

and biases to spot techies in the crowd

3:19

I was like does this person look like they work in tech

3:21

or in a startup are they wearing an ID

3:23

card that was that was funny

3:26

yeah we were trying to understand the

3:29

dream companies they want to work at right like

3:31

their aspirational companies but

3:33

quite unsurprisingly everyone said

3:35

zero the and cred and razor

3:37

pay and Google and Microsoft nothing

3:40

no creative new answers

3:42

yeah what do you expect it

3:44

is Bangalore and the number of

3:46

people who mentioned hustle and

3:49

the grind of working at startups

3:53

yeah but don't you think they were

3:55

all like super aware of the state of the economy

3:58

like they were mentioning

4:00

funding winter and layoffs without

4:02

us having to probe. But they still want to work

4:05

at startups. Totally, totally. It's

4:07

like they said the word layoffs and then

4:09

in the same bread they were like, huh Google

4:11

and Microsoft are my dream companies to work at.

4:14

I mean it really is a bubble.

4:16

Honestly, it's common knowledge

4:19

that startups and product companies are

4:21

some of the most sought after places

4:23

to work.

4:24

We didn't need to do a survey to know that.

4:28

But we were curious to see

4:30

if the current economic climate had

4:32

made a dent in the way people

4:35

looked at the talent market.

4:37

Big tech, which was largely insulated

4:39

from recession and layoffs, is

4:41

for the very first time in decades

4:44

in the line of fire.

4:46

Many startups are accepting a drastically

4:49

lower valuation.

4:51

Turns out, nothing has really changed

4:53

the way people look at the talent market.

4:56

People believe startups feed your hunger

4:59

to grow. Google and Adobe

5:01

are the apex of innovation. And

5:03

they are. I agree.

5:06

But what if I tell you there's another version

5:08

of the story though. It is one

5:10

less told and far less popular.

5:14

There is a jobs boom happening.

5:17

But it's in a different part of the economy. And

5:20

driving this jobs boom are large

5:22

and often overlooked sectors of the economy,

5:25

sectors that you wouldn't consider moving to

5:28

in normal times. Sectors that are probably

5:30

not even on your radar.

5:32

Sectors that are actually the

5:35

backbone of the Indian economy.

5:38

I'm here to tell you that maybe,

5:41

just maybe you're looking at the talent

5:43

market all

5:44

wrong. This

5:47

is Cost the Company, the Ken's Work

5:49

and Workplaces Podcast. I'm your host,

5:52

Akshay. In this episode,

5:54

we're going to talk about where the jobs are.

5:56

While looking at unconventional options

5:59

may be a good thing.

5:59

for your career and what you can

6:02

and cannot expect. Let's dive

6:04

in!

6:34

I was interested to know what led

6:36

to the hiring boom in these non-tech

6:38

sectors in the first place. When

6:41

big tech and startups are reeling

6:43

and it's such a rough time in the economy, how

6:45

are the banks and the healthcare companies

6:48

and manufacturing companies unscathed

6:51

by what's going on?

6:52

I turned to Ru Pang Chowdhry of

6:55

Aeon, an HR consultancy firm, for answers.

6:58

And Ru Pang is a keen

7:00

observer of the jobs market.

7:02

He is someone who always has a strong

7:04

point of view.

7:06

He came to this interview bearing

7:08

notes from research reports and data sheets.

7:12

What changed Ru Pang? How are they suddenly

7:14

doing so well right now? If

7:16

you look at the Indian economy, the

7:19

sectors which were affected by global recession

7:21

were globally facing sectors like

7:24

IT, like E-commerce. Like

7:29

startups. But the domestic

7:31

facing sector like FMCG or

7:34

real estate or retail

7:36

or consumer or pharma, they

7:41

struggled during COVID but now they're doing well. They

7:44

are paying higher salaries. And they are the ones

7:46

who are taking up a lot of the talent which

7:48

is being released by the tech sector. So

7:52

if somebody has gone down, somebody has

7:54

also gained.

7:55

The balance has shifted but there is still

7:58

a lot of people in the

7:59

country.

7:59

who can afford to buy this talent and

8:02

they are doing so.

8:03

Wait, Rubang, did you just

8:05

tell me that they are paying better salaries,

8:08

better than tech and startups

8:10

and everything?

8:12

Right now, when you have somebody

8:14

reaching out for you and paying you good money, not

8:17

maybe as crazy as what the startups

8:19

were paying last year, you

8:21

will take it because you don't want to be laid off, you want to

8:23

have a job. Also,

8:26

keep in mind, Akshay, that what

8:29

happens is that

8:30

it's a myth that the other sectors don't

8:33

pay as well. Look at the salary

8:35

increases and I'm going to give you a snapshot

8:37

for this year. Now, he

8:40

switched to a different tab and started quoting

8:42

from a report about sector-wise salary

8:44

comparisons.

8:46

E-commerce

8:49

paid higher last year is paying

8:51

lower this year. Same is for professional services.

8:54

Same is for BPO and KPO. But

8:59

if you look at FMCG, it's paying

9:01

higher than last year. If you see chemicals,

9:03

they're paying higher than last year. If you see engineering

9:05

manufacturing, they're paying higher than last year.

9:08

So is the case for energy. So

9:10

is the case for life sciences. So is the

9:12

case for transportation. So is the case for

9:14

hospitality. So they

9:16

may sound as not

9:19

fancy or hyping sectors, but they are paying well. But

9:21

the most important part that I'm coming to is even

9:24

in these sectors, which

9:27

are less volatile, the

9:30

money they pay for critical talent or

9:33

tech talent is much more.

9:35

Even these non-tech companies, the money

9:37

given to tech talent is much higher. They

9:40

are on a completely different pay

9:42

scale. They are on a completely different paradigm.

9:45

I had two major revelations

9:48

while speaking with Rupank. One,

9:50

I don't know if you noticed, but he said right

9:52

now, if someone's paying your decent money,

9:55

you will take it. The emphasis was

9:58

on now. By that he

10:00

means, in a very volatile

10:02

job market, banks and healthcare

10:04

companies and automobile companies have

10:07

the allure of stability.

10:09

In fact, that's something they've always

10:11

had going for them. But now,

10:14

they're also offering great salaries,

10:17

which to me sounded like they had all the right

10:19

ingredients to attract

10:21

fine talent. And a double

10:23

whammy for the startups and big 10 companies, by

10:25

the way.

10:28

Skepticism prevailed. I

10:30

have one more question for Rupank. How

10:33

do we know that this is not

10:35

a transient thing? How do we

10:37

know for sure that this is not

10:39

a simple case of if someone's

10:41

laying off, then someone's got to be hiring, right?

10:44

Is this really an inflection point

10:46

or just a trend that's about to fade?

10:49

Most companies want to keep their money safe

10:52

because there will be another surge once

10:54

this recession lifts and they will have to go out

10:56

and hire. So many of the bigger tech companies

10:59

are just conserving their duty

11:01

and cash to go out and hire

11:03

once things improve after a couple of

11:05

quarters. But the demand for

11:08

tech talent will be there for the next three

11:10

to four years, right? And

11:12

it is going to be more and more shifted

11:15

towards the

11:16

sectors which have struggled to always

11:18

hire in the past.

11:20

Rupank agrees himself that big

11:22

tech and startups will bounce back.

11:24

So then it made me wonder if it really

11:26

is a trend then. But

11:29

he reminded me that he's not done yet. There's

11:31

more.

11:32

Now look at financial services. They are becoming fintech

11:34

companies. If you look at large organizations

11:37

today in the media attainment space, they

11:39

call themselves as tech companies. Many

11:42

banks or many NBFCs call

11:45

themselves tech companies. Why? Because

11:47

they see themselves run like a tech company.

11:50

So they will want

11:51

tech talent, right? The novelty

11:53

or the dynamic is that it's

11:56

not that only for the right now,

11:58

the time being that this talent is moving to normal.

11:59

non-tech sectors. This is going to go on for

12:02

some time.

12:03

Even when the session lifts, even

12:05

when tech companies start hiring, there's going to be another

12:07

war for talent because the non-tech sectors

12:10

still want technology.

12:12

So the demand for this talent is only going to

12:14

go up

12:15

by the other sectors as well. So it's not

12:17

that it's six months simply

12:19

because tech sectors are laying off somebody

12:22

else's hiring and then they will keep going back.

12:24

Maybe, maybe not. For the

12:26

question of whether or not this is a tipping

12:28

point, the answer is maybe,

12:32

maybe not.

12:33

The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

12:36

But one thing is clear, things

12:38

are changing. The monopoly that

12:41

big tech and startups hold is

12:43

slowly crumbling. These non-tech

12:45

sectors are putting up a good fight

12:47

in the war for talent. And as

12:50

far as you are concerned, it's about

12:52

time to reject the aspirational pyramid.

12:55

Where product companies and startups are at the top,

12:58

IT service companies fall somewhere in the middle

13:00

and at the bottom is a bank or

13:02

a healthcare company. In fact, it's

13:05

where you end up, not choose. At

13:07

least that's the perception

13:08

all around.

13:10

That's what's going to change.

13:13

Coming up is an interesting story

13:15

about how a CTO from the startup world

13:18

joined an asset management company and

13:20

became a complete superstar

13:22

of the ad break.

13:32

Hi, I'm Manushka and I

13:34

produced this episode that you're listening to. I

13:37

just wanted to take a moment and thank you

13:39

for listening to Costo Company.

13:41

What you hear and hopefully the

13:45

voices, the narratives, the analysis,

13:48

all of it comes from the Ken's Newsroom.

13:52

This podcast is just a small but

13:54

valuable sliver of our work.

13:56

There's a lot more. At the

13:58

Ken, we also

13:59

also produce insightful, analytical

14:03

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14:05

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14:23

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14:38

enjoy these stories as much as you enjoy

14:40

listening to Costo Company. Again,

14:42

link to sign up for free is in the show

14:44

notes of this episode.

14:47

Thank you for your time and now back to Akshay.

14:50

It's

14:54

a large BFSI asset management

14:57

company where the CHRO said that

14:59

we are looking for somebody

15:02

who is able to play

15:05

a very crucial role in our digital

15:07

transformation journey.

15:09

That's Aditya Narayan Mishra. He's

15:12

the MD and CEO of CLHR

15:15

services.

15:16

He's been in the recruitment industry for

15:18

over two decades.

15:20

And his HR firm, CL, works

15:22

with 400 odd companies

15:24

across sectors.

15:26

Here, he's remembering the time he

15:28

was tasked with finding someone to give

15:31

a BFSI company a complete

15:33

tech makeover.

15:34

Someone who can overhaul processes

15:37

and refresh systems. At a

15:39

large asset management company, by the way.

15:42

Aditya had his task cut out to

15:44

find someone. And here's what he did.

15:47

troubles

16:00

right now due to the funding winter.

16:03

It wasn't easy convincing a

16:05

CTU, even of a struggling startup,

16:08

to jump ships, to make

16:10

the journey to the other side.

16:12

So we had to do a lot of selling to the

16:14

candidates saying that, hey, you know,

16:17

you want to regret. The cash that you

16:19

bring home is possibly becoming

16:22

like 60% of

16:24

what you are getting every month. However,

16:26

you are trading in a lot of things, a

16:29

lot of good things and a lot of possibilities.

16:32

So we were able to convince and the person

16:35

joined there as a vice president and

16:37

has been able to settle down well.

16:39

And the person has been able to really

16:42

create a lot of data

16:45

analytics, applied data analytics

16:48

in that company so much that it is impacting

16:51

the marketing efforts

16:53

of that company in a significant way. And

16:57

the company is so happy that they could

16:59

get such a talent from

17:02

the startup ecosystem. And

17:04

of course, they have tried to reward the person

17:07

in whatever best possible way. The candidates

17:09

are very happy because the candidate

17:11

gets recognition not only

17:13

by the CEO and the chairman

17:16

of the board, but also the

17:18

candidate gets to speak

17:20

on the public platforms

17:23

about the transformation

17:25

journey. So this becomes a kind

17:28

of a story, almost like what he

17:30

would have been able to do in that startup

17:32

environment, provided

17:34

the startup would have succeeded. But we know the

17:37

low rate of success of

17:39

the startup.

17:40

Alathya had many such stories,

17:43

stories of people who moved reluctantly

17:45

to the old world sectors but found immense

17:47

success eventually. But he shared

17:50

just one in the interest of time. So

17:52

naturally, I wanted to know what

17:55

other specific roles were in demand. What

17:57

other roles was he tasked with finding

17:59

talent in?

18:00

for. Because you see,

18:02

tech is such an umbrella term. But

18:05

he says the nomenclature of these

18:07

roles keep changing. But

18:09

it broadly falls within six types of

18:12

skill sets.

18:13

The first skill set, according to Aditya,

18:16

is… Business

18:18

analysts. So, which are basically

18:20

technocrats who understand the IT part

18:22

of it, who also understand the requirement

18:25

of the particular industry. Now, skill number

18:27

two is the software,

18:29

the systems, are to be implemented. So, somebody

18:32

who will build it. So, they are basically

18:35

software developers. Typically, the skill

18:37

set, which is currently in demand,

18:39

is full stack developers.

18:41

The third area is basically when the

18:43

software is getting developed, somebody

18:45

has to test it. So, there are a lot

18:48

of testing, though there is a lot of automation,

18:51

which is happening in that area, yet

18:53

there are a lot of requirements

18:56

of testers, testing engineers,

19:00

for those

19:03

projects. So, that's the third area.

19:05

Okay. We are only halfway

19:08

through the list and Aditya elaborates on

19:10

the other three skill sets in great detail,

19:13

which I thought may be a little complicated for

19:15

some of us to understand. So, I'll just

19:18

walk you through this. That's

19:19

the fourth skill set. It is the

19:21

one of cloud engineering.

19:24

Companies are keen on building their own cloud

19:26

infrastructure to host these softwares.

19:29

Then, there's data engineers,

19:31

which is the fifth skill set, who are especially

19:34

in high demand in retail and consumer

19:36

businesses. And lastly,

19:39

cyber security experts, who

19:41

are also becoming increasingly important for

19:44

very obvious reasons, given

19:46

how much we hear about data leaks and

19:48

breaches every day in the news.

19:52

So, anybody who can help protect digital

19:54

assets and data is going to be extremely

19:57

critical. Okay. Now, the...

19:59

that we know what roles are in demand,

20:02

you'll start to see them everywhere.

20:05

You know, one of the things which you had asked us is about

20:07

what kind of people are we hiring here. So we

20:09

are looking at the entire plethora. We're

20:12

hiring full stack developers, data engineers,

20:14

software developers, solution architects, tech

20:16

leads. On the technical

20:18

side, we are looking at full stack developers, DevOps

20:21

engineers, again, a mix of

20:23

youth as well as experience with Java

20:25

and Angular developers. So pretty much we have looked

20:28

at the entire length of technology

20:30

and we've hired from all such people.

20:32

That's Ruhi Pandey. She's the CHRO

20:36

of not a tech or

20:38

a product startup.

20:39

Instead of an NBFC

20:41

company,

20:42

it is Godridge Capital. It

20:45

is the non-bank lending arm backed

20:47

by the legacy company more than a hundred

20:50

years old, Godridge. Ruhi

20:52

is hiring for every single role

20:55

that Aditya had identified for us.

20:58

And where from?

20:59

From campuses. A lot of your questions

21:02

were rounded around technology. We've hired

21:04

a lot of freshers from the IITs. We

21:06

bring them in, we put them through a structured learning

21:08

program and then they grow into roles

21:12

in the technology vertical and they thrive

21:14

with us.

21:16

So Ruhi, you're hiring for all these roles,

21:18

right? And despite salaries and

21:20

roles, young people like

21:22

me

21:23

really do care about doing meaningful

21:26

work. So do you get to do

21:28

that? Do you get to challenge yourself?

21:31

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the common things

21:33

which I saw as a thread is this very

21:35

strong need to do meaningful work. So whoever joined

21:37

us, our proposition was come

21:40

here,

21:40

challenges will be thrown your way.

21:43

There will be a lot of innovation. So they also

21:45

want to work with the snowflakes. They

21:47

want to work with architectures. They want to

21:49

work with new engines. So if you give

21:51

them the freedom to explore new

21:54

opportunities, but

21:56

with a very strong

21:58

grounding in the fact that. all

22:01

they are doing is towards solving life challenges.

22:03

They are very intense. And one of the

22:05

challenges which I'm forcing is as we scale

22:08

now, we are not going to start up from a startup,

22:10

we've come to an organization of scale. So as we grow

22:12

from 1000 to 2000 employees, how

22:14

do you ensure that these

22:16

building blocks of culture don't

22:18

die down? Wait, you're

22:21

used to or do you still consider

22:23

Godridge Capital as a startup? I

22:25

would say now no more because

22:27

the startup days are over. We are

22:29

a 6000 crore AUM already. This year

22:32

we'll be reaching a 12000 crore AUM. So

22:34

we've come a long way from a startup. But

22:37

the

22:37

ethos of the organization,

22:39

the culture of the organization still remains very

22:42

startup-ish. Now what would a startup be?

22:44

Very agile,

22:45

very proactive, very informal,

22:48

very empowered. People

22:51

who can operate in adversity,

22:53

there is no plentiful of everything. So I think

22:55

these would be some of the things which you would describe

22:58

as a startup. So I think we still continue to

23:00

want to operate like a startup and that urgency,

23:03

that agility, we don't want to even leave when

23:06

we reach scale.

23:07

So we are somewhere at the midpoint.

23:09

In popular imagination, legacy

23:12

firms are typically cast as collides

23:15

that will ultimately be taken down by

23:17

smaller, nimbler David's.

23:21

But companies like Godridge Capital

23:23

aren't waiting to be disrupted.

23:25

They are making competitive moves, exploiting

23:29

their strengths like how old they are, how

23:31

big they are and embracing innovation

23:34

like never seen before.

23:36

In a way, they're disrupting their own

23:39

business models before others do.

23:43

I relate everything I had learned

23:45

from all my conversations to a

23:47

head of HR at a well-known global

23:50

venture capital firm.

23:52

My hunch is talent moving away

23:54

from big tech and startups and towards

23:57

traditional firms with sound fundamentals,

24:00

Could be making his life a little

24:02

difficult.

24:04

So what did we think of it all?

24:07

Two things. One, he does not

24:09

want to be on the record. Two, I

24:11

am over indexing on one part of the story.

24:14

This was his hypothesis and I am

24:16

obviously paraphrasing and referring

24:18

to my hastily written notes to convey this

24:20

to you but here goes anyway. When

24:24

layers happen, the sense of dispensability

24:27

is really, really high. People

24:29

feel truly replaceable. In

24:31

times like these, most of us do one

24:34

of two things. Turn risk

24:36

averse, move away from jazzy tech

24:38

companies and startups and choose

24:40

a stable job. And

24:43

in India and other Southeast Asian

24:45

economies too, there is an added cultural

24:48

factor in incentivising people to do something

24:50

like that. You see, large

24:53

legacy companies command a

24:55

lot of brand equity and prestige.

24:59

It has an impact on your social standing when

25:01

you tell people you work at an XYZ

25:04

company. That may also be

25:06

something that's playing into it, he said. On

25:09

the other hand, and counter-intuitively

25:11

enough, some people choose

25:14

the road less travelled too. They

25:17

take bigger risks and join a riskier

25:19

startup in its growth stage.

25:22

Well,

25:22

why would someone do that, I asked

25:24

him.

25:26

To feel valuable again,

25:28

he said. To

25:29

build something from scratch and become

25:31

an indispensable part of a startup's growth

25:33

journey is to take

25:36

your career back in your own hands.

25:39

This is the flip side to what I've been arguing

25:42

for for so long. And

25:44

while both are plausible, there

25:46

is not enough evidence to definitely

25:48

conclude one is happening more than

25:50

the other, at least at this point

25:52

in time.

25:54

But to me,

25:55

this was interesting,

25:57

because it shows how important

25:59

context

25:59

is to the way we make decisions.

26:02

In fact,

26:04

if you look at the world through economics,

26:06

we're all just economic actors, making

26:09

the best decisions we can with the

26:11

information that we have. What

26:14

seems like an irrational decision to you, someone

26:16

joining a riskier startup after being laid off

26:19

or joining a pharma company in lieu of job

26:21

security, is actually a really

26:23

rational decision to them. We're

26:26

all responding to the macro environment

26:28

in a way we see fit, given

26:31

our constraints, given our background and

26:33

given our context. Well,

26:35

what do you think about traditional firms

26:38

gaining access to new talent and

26:40

turning agile?

26:42

Would you personally consider this option?

26:45

Write to me at podcasts

26:47

at the-ken.com.

26:49

I'll say that again,

26:51

it's podcasts at the-ken.com.

26:56

Thank you for listening to Caster Company.

26:58

This episode of Caster Company was written

27:00

and

27:02

hosted by

27:06

Akshaya Chandrasekaran, produced

27:09

by Anushka Mukherjee with audio

27:11

engineering by Rajiv Sien. I'm

27:14

your other host Sneha, and you'll

27:16

hear from me next week on Caster Company.

27:28

Thank you. Thank

27:58

you.