OREANDA-NEWS. Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) the country’s leading steel-making company and a ‘Maharatna’ Public Sector Enterprise has won the prestigious SCOPE Award for Best Practices in Human Resource Management for the year 2011-12. Hon’ble President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee presented the award to Chairman, SAIL Mr C.S.Verma, in the presence of Union Minister of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises Shri Praful Patel. Dedicating the award to SAIL employees, Mr Verma said, “It is the unflinching spirit, commitment and dedication of every employee of SAIL which has enabled us to take pioneering initiatives in the field of HR”. He also acknowledged the significant role of employees’ associations and unions, in creating a peaceful and harmonious work environment.

The award was presented at the Public Sector Day function organized by SCOPE at Vigyan Bhawan today. The key resource of SAIL is its human capital consisting of a highly committed and competent team of 1,01,878 employees. The award is testimony to the high premium placed by SAIL on nurturing and developing its human resources.

The focus of SAIL’s management led by its Chairman, Mr C.S. Verma on strategic alignment of HR Management to the company’s business objectives has helped the large organization to deal with the emerging, multifarious challenges confronting the steel sector. Under Shri Verma’s stewardship, a number of HR initiatives have been launched which have contributed to building a conducive ambience in which the creativity and innovation of employees is gainfully unleashed. Annual savings of around Rs. 400 crore is achieved in SAIL through innovative projects.

The company is currently in the midst of a massive modernization and expansion programme which will enhance its steel-making capacity from the present 13.4 MT of crude steel per annum to 21.4 MT per annum and special priority is placed on ensuring that the workforce is motivated and trained for smooth commissioning of the upcoming facilities.

SAIL has over the years built world-class systems and practices in varied domains of HRM thereby creating HR excellence. The above HR practices have helped SAIL transform into a vibrant, engaged and knowledge-driven organization that is geared and oriented to face the challenges of the future. By striving to better its HR Practices, SAIL has been able to develop a culture of all-round excellence. A testimony of this lies in the fact that in Prime Minister’s Shram Award -2011, 11 out of total 16 awards in PSU category were won by SAIL employees (altogether 45 employees) while in Viswakarma Rastriya Puraskar – 2010, 13 out of total 28 awards were won by 64 SAIL employees. SAIL’s Bhilai Steel Plant has the unique distinction of being the first integrated steel plant in the country to win the Prime Minister’s Trophy’ for the Best Performing Steel Plant for the tenth time.

SAIL has achieved a consistent increase in Labour Productivity, a growth of over 21% in the last five years, with the best-ever productivity in 2012-13 – by means of judicious recruitment, effective mix of deployment, redeployment and exit strategies, competency building & multi-skilling and sustaining high motivation among employees.

To prepare managers for assuming greater role and responsibilities in future, thrust has been given on succession planning for which SAIL has adopted Assessment and Development Centre (ADC) model. ADC has been established at Management Training Institute (MTI), SAIL with the help of KPMG for carrying out assessment of managerial competence of executives and develop in-house resources.