Abhishek Mukherjee. CEO, Aruti Investments and Advisory, Ex MD Compaq India.
The United States accounts for approx 25% of world economy, so a recession there will certainly have global repercussions. The impact is likely to be more on those countries whose economies depend very largely on US exports. US exports account for 3% of India’s GDP as a whole but some sectors such as IT and ITES derive 70-75% of their revenue from the US customers. But many of Indian IT companies manage critical business processes for US corporations at a cheaper cost from offshore. This may actually gain momentum if US Corporations want to drive cost down further during the recession. Projects of non-critical nature or with long-term funds commitment may get shelved or postponed for some time.
Weak consumer demand is likely to impact goods of non-essential nature and India’s export of such goods to USA is insignificant. We depend to a large extend to our huge domestic market, which is showing tremendous resilience. The downslide in sentiment may for some time be artificially linked to the share market index, which does not reflect the true state of our economy, and which is growing @ 8%. Economists forecast that this growth is likely to be sustained for some time.It is difficult to assess what will be the real impact of US recession but organizations may decide to make this situation an opportunity to refocus on a whole lot of initiatives, which typically get lower priority at the time of a boom. Productivity, creating depth of vertical and horizontal expertise, innovativeness and efficiency of people is one such area. Now is the time to build stronger teams, invest in skill development, redeploy people to new areas of opportunity and reallocate the HR budget and streamline compensation structure based on value and productivity and not on imbalance between demand and supply.  Downsizing the organization will certainly prove to be myopic because the current situation is only a temporary phase in the economic cycle.Euphemistically speaking, if we want 10 gold medals in the next Olympics 4 years from now we should start training the potential winners now. Identify and recruit the right talent carefully after rigorous trials, train them hard and train them to win. Win gold.

Gautam Nath, Executive Vice President, TNS India.
Recession’ - a dreaded word among Corporates? Recession’ – a dreaded word among Employees? Recession’ – a dreaded word among HR practitioners? Humbug, I say. Recession is nothing more than the lungs of economy breathing. We all accept daylight and then the night. We all accept a flu or a cold to come our way once in a while. So what is the big deal we are placing on this word called ‘Recession’. And treating it as holier than thou. Wake up! It is merely the body of your economy breathing. We can’t always have cash cows, purple cows and sunshine economies around us without experiencing and riding through the odd recession as it comes along in the life cycle of economic development. Once you have accepted this theory, watch how your organisation’s mindset changes, and watch how you address yourselves through this period. Everyday can not be a date with Bipasha Basu, there have to be some Ugly Betty’s in between. Now having said that, you won’t take out your finest bone china when Betty is visiting would you? And that is really the name of the game. During the recession period, both management and employees should be clearly aware of the speed breaker in their way and move into a lower gear. No extravaganzas, no unnecessary expenditures and no big money commitments are themes for the day. Laying off workers or going back on commitments made is like putting your children into the street when they are ill. Would you ever do that? Organisations are like Elephants, they have long memories and you will be remembered more by the good things you have done during recession times rather than during boom periods. Everybody can share some of the fat, but the ones who share the lean are those that make it to the end. I have seen employees offer to take no increases in salaries or even offer to take a cut during recession periods embodying commitment to the organisation. Senior Management saving its fat paychecks by letting go of larger number of lower paid employees speaks poorly of their leadership qualities. Self preservation theory has no room for successful leaders. Selfless preservation theory is what builds Mandela’s of tomorrow. If you note the number of waking hours an employee spends in the office compared to any other activity, you will soon realize that it out numbers any other. Therefore, work is not about earning the paycheck only, it is their life. Sharing downturn situations with them helps them understand what lies ahead and be prepared for it. Being part of this picture is what motivates them to grit the teeth and hang in there doing what is best during this time. Communication and transparency are two essential ingredients for perseverance and successfully weathering the storm. So at the end, if you do take away just one learning, recession is a way of life, it will come in any economy at some time or the other and so rather than treating it as an enigma, treat is as a part of corporate life, make a strategy, involve all the team members and united we stand divided we fall.

Amlan Roy, Director, Head-Global Demographics and Pensions Research,
Credit-Suisse -London.
It is downturns and tough times, that the human capital of organizations and the resilience of organization are put to the test. Great leaders succeed in getting more out of their employees by creating a culture where employees share in success and failure alike. The organization culture determines whether employees rise to putting in their best even though the immediate short term horizon might look bleak. By sharing a common mission that the organization and their leader communicates to them, employees become stakeholders that cherish the fact that they belong and pool towards a common objective of seeing the organization doing better than its peers in a downturn. Good firms do better by losing less than their peers and picking up market share and reputation.

Manish Bharati, Director-Li and Fung-India.
Right talent is hard to procure / acquire! I think all the Company CEO and HR heads across the industries will agree. The amount of time that is being collectively spent on this aspect is sometimes left immeasurable but nevertheless is a time consuming effort.
 For last couple of year, Companies have been able to keep employees by and large happy as most of them have been witnessing a double digit growth. With the growth rates now really slowing down , the key issues that remains to be tackled is how do you keep the productivity and motivation going across levels - as one would need the employee engagement now more than ever.Some of the things that Apparel / Retail sectors are doing or beginning to do.
 1. Job rotation- Employees have something new to learn about in job rotation, the excitement of doing something new remains and keep people fairly occupied and happy.
 2. Overseas Posting / Regional Posting - New country / new region always brings in some kind of freshness to the job as there are always new cultures / new things which an employee can look upto.
 3. Sabbatical - Companies can also encourage employees to take study break, pursue some higher skills which can come handy at the time when the growth rates begin to pick up.
 4. Stakeholder Culture - Does company let employees believe that they are the true stake holders in the business? Needless to add in an entrepreneurial type of culture, employees are fairly committed to there business budgets and need for cost controls.
 Normally companies which have a family culture are able to overcome the crisis of loosing their key people as they make them stakeholders, tie them to future vision and ensure that the commitment and values are amply rewarded in the longer run.
 We strongly believe that what differentiates better companies are the action taking abilities( some of the above) which separate better from " best " . Needless to add Right talent requires right companies and vice versa.