Insolvency Professional- Emerging Career Option

After India enacted tougher laws to deal with sticky loans and the central bank stepped in accelerate the pace of recoveries, finance executives have stumbled upon a career growth opportunity based, ironically, on insolvency. Independent insolvency professionals (IPs), are becoming critical for the success of a Rs 8-lakh crore recovery initiative. The Insolvency and Banking Board of India (IBBI), set up last autumn and taked with providing the framework for recovery proceedings, conducts exams that allow chartered accounts, company secretaries, cost accountants, and advocates to qualify as IPs. 

Chartered and cost accountants, company secretaries, and lawyers with a minimum of 10 years of post-qualification experience may be eligible to be appointed as IPs. The IBBI has registered 396 IPs who have cleared their qualifying exams. There are 1,000 unregistered IPs. Former company CEOs, MDs, CGM, are also in the queue to qualify as IPs, which is seen as a crucial link in ensuring that competing claims from stakeholders are settled and funds made available for productive sectors of the economy.

The role of IPs comes with its own set of challenges. "Insolvency is the most promising, but and equally challenging career". In many cases, borrowers do not cooperate while sharing the details, and creditors insist on fast-track processing. The IPs  have to manage everything, using all resources apart from their qualification experience help them to navigate the situation.

The primary objective of an IP is to find a resolution plan. The professionals can act in two ways: Interim Resolution Professional, who are appointed by the borrower for the first 30 days of proceedings at the National Company Law Board; and Resolution Professionals, who are usually appointed by the committee of creditors for the next 150-240 days of the stipulated period. 

Insolvency professionals should first have huge convincing powers to deal with creditors, they need to deal with warring financial creditors and tell them clearly that they are gathering to draw up a resolution plan. An IP should be a mix bag of management, financial and legal skills. The scope for IPs would only increase as more bad loans come up for resolution.

IRPs and RPs (Interim Resolution Professionals and Resolution Professionals), collectively called IPs, can earn Rs 2 to Rs 15 lakh, depending on the size of business and debts of cases, professionals said. For cases between operational creditors and companies, income opportunities are in the range of Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,50,000 a month as the nature of the cases are less complex

Open Office Space- One Team One Space Culture

The work culture in the future will be facing lot of changes in hierarchy, work environment and office layout. Office space and layout are emerging concern for many top most companies recently. Vanishing cabins accompanies by collaborative work spaces to foster a creative, entrepreneurial mindset, promoting a startup culture. companies like Microsoft, Ikea, Coca-Cola, Tesco and Vistara are trying out new techniques to engage their employees in common work spaces in India. while this has been an ongoing trend, more traditional companies are implementing it now.

Common work spaces help foster collaborative and innovative spaces among employees who, according to a study by furniture manufacturer Steelcase, spend nearly 37 per cent of their day at work. at Ikea's offices in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, the focus at the time of designing the offices was on the company's most important asset: employees. Its mantra to keep employees happy is providing them a work environment that nurtures creativity, fun energies, conversations, teamwork, and a place where co-corkers can share knowledge, think and reflect.

"Our workplaces create an environment for dynamic meetings and inspiring workplaces, and all our offices reflect this spirit and energy", said Anna-Carin Mansson, country HR manager for the Swedish brand. At Microsoft, which has redone its Gurgaon and Mumbai offices, commercial marketing director Himani Agrawal says the open office space removes barriers and makes everyone approachable. " I especially love the Mad Hatter's space whenever i need to ideate", she said. Here, the Chairman of the company sits on the same kind of desk as anyone else. You can walk up and talk to the top honchoes. Seats are not fixed - they can be changed regularly. the endeavour is to remove any traces of hierarchy. " This gives employees greater flexibility in picking the space that they want to operate out of, on any particular day", said Ira Gupta, the company's HR director.

At beverage major Coca-Cola's office, there are fewer than a dozen cabins occupying just about 7 percent of the total office space. Most of these cabins have transparent glass doors, indicating that the top management is always accessible to people. like Ikea, here too, work spaces balance both 'alone time' and 'group time'.

The open floor plan and shared work spaces encourage employees to engage in spontaneous conversations leading to extraordinary ideas. "We believe that providing options to choose the space depending on the type of work at hand boosts innovation, creativity and efficiency", said its vice president, HR and Services, Manu N Wadhwa. Vistara's CEO sits along with colleagues on the open plan and open culture office without cubicles and cabins.

 UK retail brand Tesco started refurbishing its office in India in October 2015, aiming to make the space to be more inclusive as well as become more agile. Since the leadership at Tesco in Bengaluru sits alongside their teams, it increases access and transparency within a modern work environment. the current framework enhances the 'one-team' culture and hot-desking provides flexibility to employees to work from any place, enabling them to better engage with each other, said Krity Sharma, head, people.

Organizations have to figure out how they can create different places or a palette of places where each worker can find privacy, rejuvenate, recharge and connect with colleagues around the world.

"Companies have policies to have freedom and choice in the physical environment where they will find an appropriate place to work", James P Keane, Chief Executive at Steelcase.

Five ways to motivate your laidoff employees

1. Tell  the truth to your staff

 Though reality is often tough to hear, it is better to be honest with your employees during a layoff. “Communicate with employees the rationale for layoffs and the positive outcomes that will come out of such unfortunate events

2. Engage with employees

 Engage with those whose jobs are saved to reinforce the organization's commitment to their growth and development.

3.  Reskill your workforce

Create ecosystem for skill development. " Empower your employees to re-skill themselves in accordance with the latest technologies. Motivate them to undertake courses on big data development, machine learning, front-end development, devops and android development.

4.  Teach them to work with less

Teach employees how to manage with less and navigate such a situation. Remove or postpone work that is low on priority or can be delayed. Sit down with them and see how work can be reallocated and spread more evenly across people. This will help reduce anxiety among employees and balance the workload.

5. Help employees laid off

Be fair with laid-off employees, show compassion and help them in out-placement as well as personal coaching and guidance.