It’s become a fact of life. Just face it. Diversity in the workplace is here to stay. Diversity not only in terms of culture, ethnicity, race and gender, but also in terms of professional experience .

For a while, key drivers in global organisations seemed to be domain knowledge, and three key words... specialise, specialise, and specialise. For sure, everyone still wants expertise . Only a new word has been added - multi-disciplinary . “A global organisation can only said to be ‘truly global’ if it can accommodate different cultural, social and professional mindsets within the same work sphere without being biased or influenced by any one. This task is easier said than done though,” says Shiv Agrawal, CEO of ABC Consultants

A clear reflection of this trend is in the new hiring. Though scooping talent from other industry isn’t a recent phenom, with liberalisation the hiring patterns across industries have seen changes, with an increase in cross-domain recruitment. Initially, it was simply because some sunrise industries didn’t have expertise available in India. Says Kris Lakshmikantha , founder CEO and MD, Headhunters India. “About 10 years ago back when cellular companies started recruiting, there weren’t people from that domain. So they hired people from insurance, banking, finance, manufacturing etc. Many people refused to join and then later they came to me to help them get into telecom. Important point is to ride the wave.” What it helped do on the ground, was bring in different perspective, fresher ideas and unbiased approach into companies.

Welcome to the brave new world ‘specialist generalist’ . India Inc is changing and experimenting , and so are its employees. The new challenges with newer sectors and changing knowledge platforms is opening up new avenues. For employees mind-set changes are being charged by accelerated ambitions, and low boredom thresholds. Says Anil Koul, executive director, Omam Consultants:

”The new generation is ready to accept challenges of diverse fields. The key catalysts to this process of challenges are — ‘wealth creation’ , ‘social recognition’ and ‘quick learning’ . This experience is making India a true global employee warehouse.”

Diversity of experience is also breeding creativity , says Yasho Verma director, HR, LGElectronics . “Diversity brings with itself the element of lateral thinking. A person who has worked in different companies under different vertical is bound to have a thinking process different from others,” he says.

Another trigger for the wave of diversity adoption, is competition. Says Sonali Mohla, co-director , Savills India: “The business models of the companies are changing very quickly now. Our own company started as a recruitment firm and has diversified into HR solutions as well. So our people had to take on different roles.

Also when we hired people, we chose those who we knew would be able to work on the recruitments for a couple of years and then can get into HR Solutions.” She is quick to clarify though that this doesn’t mean specialisation is over.

“If you are a financial advisor , then you must have your numbers right. Diverse knowledge with in that domain is what one should be looking at” .

Diversity in skills is important, says Agrawal in agreement, but not at the cost of developing specialisation and expertise in the core area of business. “Ultimately, its the expertise that will ensure your growth within the organisation. Merely acquiring diverse skills won’t help.

One must first exhibit mastery and expertise in his/her assigned domain and only then seek to learn about other domains/areas. Once this is done, there will be no contradiction of any kind.

A proven track record breeds no ambiguity as to one’s professional skills.”

Companies are using various ways of stimulating diversity of experience. Nowadays, it is generally an accepted practice to move employees within an organisation across different domains or functions.

“The Indian companies are taking higher risk in such experiments and employees as-well are putting their career at stake to accomplish the ‘expectations’ . The Japanese work culture always promoted the concept of ‘job rotation’ at all levels and this concept is an accepted norm in Japan as well as globally. These competencies would be of immense help to employees in the present age of Globalisation,” says Koul.

The world has literally become a global village and employees are expected to be open to relocation . Says Randeep Hoda, head of HR at Amway:”Companies want employees to be open to travel, relocation and to take on new
challenges. Because one is too comfortable in a particular geography and location doesn’t mean that the company
should not try to relocate him.”

Managing this diversity, however , can be a very difficult task. Says Verma.“If it’s a culturally strong company , there will be limited scope for new ideas. In a culturally weak company, where there are people from diverse professional background, chanellising those ideas becomes difficult. Companies will have to strike a balance.

People say that about 5-6 % of attrition rate is healthy for a company as it allows influx of newer people and newer ideas.”

The organisation, though cannot force an employee to move to a different function simply on the grounds of ‘not being open to new challenges’ , it affects the growth prospects. Says Lakshmikantha: “If the organisation wants an employee to move and he doesn’t , it will find a way around.

The company might get someone else above you.” Agrees Mohla: ”If the reason for denial is not convincing enough, you cannot go high up in that company as it sees you as an inflexible person. Though they cannot fire you, but it will definitely effect your growth prospects in that company.”

As Sisodia, says, in today’s world only thing constant is change. Knowing the hard truth it is imperative for people to positively embrace change. If a new role provides an employee with new learnings and insights alongwith increasing the probability of growth, the employees should seize the opportunity.