Here’s how it was done!

Aon Hewitt first partnered with the Association of Human Resource Professionals during the HRM Awards 2007. Now, in the 3rd cycle of its partnership, Aon Hewitt continues to play the role of a Content, Knowledge and Audit partner. Given that the primary purpose of the study is to assess the maturity & effectiveness of HR systems and processes, the approach and methodology used by Aon Hewitt is based on its prior experience in conducting similar HR diagnostic studies across the globe, its research projects, as well as Aon Hewitt’s flagship Best Employers™ survey.

The 5th edition of the HRM awards in 2012 witnessed an overwhelming participation of 75+ organizations. Aon Hewitt had a tough task at hand to arrive at a shortlist of 33 companies. Shortlisting was guided by our previous experience with the process as well as a robust Capability Maturity Model specifically developed for assessing effectiveness and maturity of organizational HR practices and processes.

Aon Hewitt used three tools that included the CEO questionnaire, business feedback and the HR Practices Inventory to gather data. Data collected through these tools helped identify and recognize organizations for cutting edge HR processes that drive business results.

The HR Practices Inventory is a comprehensive data collection tool that collects information on business performance, organization structure, people / HR strategies as well as the HR practices and policies that exist in an organization.

Here’s a glimpse of the extent of information the tool is equipped to collect. Demographic Information included information on business performance, ownership structure and size, industry, locations, products and services HR Strategy included information on how HR is delivered to the organization as well as the alignment of HR strategy to business strategy Talent Supply uncovered details on processes that ranged from manpower planning to recruitment and induction Leadership & Talent Management provided an opportunity for organizations to share strategies on maintaining a high performance culture as well as developing key talent and providing career growth to employees Performance Management measured the objectivity and effectiveness of performance assessment practices as well as its linkage to other people practices Building Capability allowed Aon Hewitt the chance to assess the maturity of learning and development practices Rewards & Recognition helped understand the linkage of performance management systems to rewards as well as gathered details around recognition and benefit schemes Employment Relationship and People Administration shed light on people practices meant to gauge employee satisfaction and grievance resolution. It also collected information on CSR initiatives as well as information on how the organization leveraged technology to deliver HR solutions to stakeholders. Aon Hewitt visited all shortlisted organizations for conducting an on- site audit. This year, these on- site audits were conducted by Lead auditors who were solution/ business leads as well as members of the Aon Hewitt India Leadership team. All audits involved a detailed interaction with the CEO, business leaders/people managers and HR teams to understand the alignment of people practices to the organization needs as well as HR’s role in supporting critical business requirements.

Aon Hewitt then prepared post-audit reports that covered each of the subsections in great detail and were shared with the jury as blind data. i.e., codes were used in place of company names and all data was masked to remove reference to particular company programs.

The jury evaluated a wealth of data that provided a detailed picture on each organization. It considered multiple parameters like effectiveness of the people practices - but most importantly, whether HR exhibits a strong organization alignment and whether HR processes are best in class in terms of design, efficiency and scalability. This year, the jury decided to award 10 Gold, 12 Silver (including 2 for Government sector) and 6 special recognition awards to organizations with best in class HR practices.

While analyzing the data and insights gathered as part of the study this year, Aon Hewitt observed the following: The war for talent in Sri Lanka is heating up. With a number of local organizations on a growth trajectory and global organizations looking to set up or expand operations in the country, companies can no longer depend on their marketing brand alone to attract talent. More and more, we observe that companies are defining their unique employee value proposition and aligning their people programmes to deliver on their employment promise While attracting and retaining talent has always been a priority in Sri Lanka, we observed that several organizations were now taking a macro perspective and are attempting to create strategies to bring talent back into the country Organizations are also seeing an influx of young talent – the generation Y of Sri Lanka – into the workforce. Organizations are now starting to have specific attraction, hiring, and assimilation strategies for leveraging youth power Leveraging technology is no longer about the actual technology platform being used but more about it being seamlessly aligned to organizational and people requirements. There was also added focus on ensuring that technology was driving process changes to bring about greater efficiencies. A number of organizations are either building a business case or are already in the process of undertaking large scale HR systems integration projects to support them in the next phase of growth While there is still scope for enhancement, we noted a significant change in building managerial capability efforts and empowering them to have effective performance and career development conversations The audit panel also reported Top management’s strong belief in the importance of the HR function and their role as partners of the business. There was also sufficient evidence of organizations using periodic and relevant metrics to measure the effectiveness of HR programs.

About Aon

Aon PLC is the leading global provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human resource consulting and outsourcing. Through its more than 62,000 colleagues worldwide, Aon delivers distinctive client value via innovative and effective risk management and workforce productivity solutions. For more information on Aon, please visit www.aon.com

About Aon Hewitt

Aon Hewitt is the global leader in Human Resource Consulting and Outsourcing solutions. With more than 29,000 professionals in 90 countries, Aon Hewitt makes the world a better place to work for clients and their employees.

For more information on Aon Hewitt, please visit www.aonhewitt.com/apac

In Sri Lanka, Aon Hewitt has partnered with leading Banks, conglomerates and manufacturing companies to design and implement HR transformation solutions, leadership development and talent management strategies.

HR’s Executive Director where he has served for over 30 years. A much sought-after speaker on HR, he has spoken in many countries around the world. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland and New York Law School and has been awarded the designation of Certified Association Executive (CAE) by the American Society of Association Executives.

Professor of Management of PIM, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and Adjunct Professor of Management of University of Canberra, Australia. Director/ Chairman of the Board of Management PIM. Prof. Liyanage, is a Marketing Consultant to a number of leading local companies and international agencies and a developer of senior managers. He is on the boards of directors of a number of

MR. CHANDRA JAYARATNE

Mr. Chandra Jayaratne is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka and of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK. He is a former President of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and LMD’s Sri Lankan of the year 2001. He was the Managing Director of Eagle Insurance.

PROF. UDITHA LIYANAGE