‘Fuelling up for the future’…

Welcome to the Corporate Headquarters of one of the Fortune 500 companies – one of the largest oil refining and marketing companies with an annual turnover exceeding Rs. 1,10,000 crores.

Highway’s the Heaven for private players setting foot in retailing of oil and petroleum products. Though it’s just the start – it’s also one of the most important things playing on the minds of senior management teams at Oil PSUs. With looming competition, the complexity of Price Mechanism, the burgeoning international crude oil prices on one hand to the growing emphasis on infrastructure (roads), zooming automobile market and a rapidly growing airline industry at the other – the petroleum sector in India was witnessing action as never before.

As the opportunities grow and competition intensifies – it would be the human capital that will take the organization leaps beyond the competition. It is this belief and confidence that shapes up the HR Policies and Decisions at this company.

To drive its ambitious plans, the petroleum major selected about 500 Management Trainees from the top business schools and institutes of technology in the country. However, one of the huge challenges facing the management was to allocate portfolios to ensure that they help management and graduate trainees realize their full potential. The postings were to be in Lubes, Retail and LPG Operations / Marketing, Refinery, Maintenance, Projects, HR, etc.

It was at this juncture that Thomas International was called upon to discuss the possibilities of scientifically allocating the portfolios in order to get the best out of the 500 trainees.

The next step was to relate the job description and behavioural requirements of each portfolio to a pattern in terms of DISC Traits. Likewise, the market dynamics and competitive pressures were also understood to give a clear-cut understanding of the required level of fluid intelligence / ability in a particular portfolio.

All the 500 MTs and GTs were put through Thomas International Tests for Selection & Training and Thomas Personal Profile Analysis. The exercise gave a clear understanding of the behavior styles of each of the trainees and also provided an insight into his / her ability and trainability. Once this was done, the end result was easy – to allocate the MTs and GTs based upon the best fit based on behavior as well as ability.

How would you select management trainees and ensure that you assign the right portfolio to the right person? Would you prefer doing it scientifically or would you take blind shots?