Retail’s search for talent zeroes in on FMCG firms

‘‘Some churning has already happened. More will follow, as these firms are desperately trying to retain people by increasing salaries and giving out-of-turn bonuses,’’ industry sources said.

Interestingly, the desi retail chains are poaching manpower from multinationals. Kevin Parker of Pepsi’s Agri Division is now the COO of Bharti Agritech. Sanjeev Asthana, business head (grain & oilseed) of Cargill has joined Reliance’s agri venture as the grain head. D. Saravanan of McDonald’s has moved to the Reliance supply chain.

Trade circles are abuzz with news that the CFO of a leading biscuit company would join Pantaloon’s financial arm Future Capital Holdings. Among others, Rajeev Karwal, CEO, Kelvinator has moved to Reliance. Damodar Mall, head, Food Bazar, a Pantaloon wing, came from Godrej.

The early entrants like Pantaloon, Shoppers’ Stop and RPG Spencer’s have already recruited the available talent in the retail segment. With Reliance’s mega retail foray, Bharti’s Rs 6,000-crore food retail venture, the demand for trained and experienced people in the organised retail sector is increasing.

‘‘Retail sector’s growth is much faster than FMCG. Basically, retail is all about selling. So we naturally draw people from the basic industry, that is FMCG. The compensation and growth is also very attractive here compared to other sectors,’’ says Sanjay Jog, HR head, Pantaloons.

Apart from the retail sector’s voracious appetite for manpower, what’s driving its talent hunt is internal HR issues. At entry levels, attrition rates are high. With loyalty issues haunting middle-level employees, this results in higher salary bandwidths simply to retain talent. At the top end, firms are waiting anywhere from six months to a year to fill up vacancies.

Upcoming retail chains are, for obvious reasons, poaching from the established players like Shopper’s Stop, Kishore Biyani’s Big Bazaar and RPG Group’s Spencer’s for back end operations like supply chain, logistics management etc. But for front-end operations like HR and merchandise management, the target is FMCG.

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