More HR leaders in India are planning to hire fresh talent in 2021 versus hiring from within or rehiring laid off staff, according to a survey from TimesJobs.

The TimesJobs survey asked the HR leaders if they will hire fresh talent or re-hire those laid off last year or promote/hire people within the company. Nearly half, or 39%, said they would go with hiring fresh talent, while the other two options received less votes.

Meanwhile, when comparing skills against experience and salary, TimesJobs found that most (55%) HR leaders said that they would hire for skill while 30% said they would prefer candidate experience and rest 15% said they would look at the salary category when recruiting this year.

Sanjay Goyal, Business Head, TimesJobs and TechGig said, “The writing on the wall is clear, update your skills to remain relevant at workplaces. About 55% HR leaders stated that they are looking for relevant skills rather than reams of data that is cited as ‘experience’. This is probably a tough lesson, but an important one, learnt during the pandemic year that only cutting edge and savvy skills help survive the toughest business scenarios.”  

When asked about the yearly increments, 74% of HR leaders said that they will roll out the annual increments this year. Out of these, about 63% respondents said that they would offer increments between 5-25%. About 22% HR leaders said that they expect the salary increments to be less than 5%. However, less than 10% respondents believe that increment will be around 25-75%. 

 The survey also showed there were mixed sentiments across several industries for hiring.

The Automobiles sector is rather cautious about hiring as only 37% of HR leaders belonging to the sector said that they would hire this year. Whereas, 54% of the IT HR leaders, 42% of Retail HR leaders, and 45% of BFSI HR leaders were keen on hiring.

TimesJobs also found that when asked about the primary HR mandate for 2021, increasing support for physical and mental wellbeing of employees topped the chart. More HR leaders said that they would focus on the mental and physical wellbeing of employees (voted by 39%) rather than anything else. Other factors such as encouraging employees for upskilling ranked lower (voted by 29%) and introducing new employee benefits (voted by 22%).