Feedback Reach, a leading HR solutions company and part of the Feedback Ventures Group, has set up India's first on-line HR magazine called Reach-Us (www.reach-us.net). The Webzine offers career guidance, quizzes and tests, information on executive movements, an almanac of HR events and programmes, space for corporate advertisements, resume submission service and a features board that facilitatesdiscussions and chat on HRM.

Rumjhum Chattejee, MD of the company says the site is the result of more than two years of research, planning and implementation of HR projects. Feedback Reach is essentially a projects management company.

``Interestingly, we found that the moment we were through with the setting up physical infrastructure, our clients would come to us with requests for locating the right kind of people for them. For roughly three years we met these requests on an informal basis. But, somewhere along 1996 we decided to actually look at HR consulting as a business proposition,'' says Chatterjee.

Finding the right people for new projects thus became an important activity for Feedback Reach. ``While some companies would come to us with requests for finding a CEO first before building a team, some others would ask for just the opposite,'' she says. ``Since we had a good understanding of their business needs, we could easily locate the right kind of people for them,'' she says. ``This wasprecisely why clients got back to us with such requests even though we were not in the head-hunting business,'' she adds.

Once the HR business took shape, Chatterjee and her team would actually sit with the corporate planning cells of client organisations, understand their needs and sell the challenge to desirable candidates. ``We don't take a brief. We participate in generating the brief through the workshop mode,'' she explains.

Chatterjee says that companies tend to overlook the ``softer issues'' while preparing briefs on their HR needs. ``However, we focus a great deal on what is unsaid on paper. This comes out in our close interaction with the client organisations,'' she says.

``There are instances when clients would come to us with requests for marketing professionals, but we would find that they actually need commercial professionals, those who handle logistics, etc.,'' says Chatterjee.

Not all organisations are open to such suggestions. Specially when they are told to reorient theirorganisational structure and culture. ``Sugar-coated pills are the right solutions in such cases,'' she says.

``To review culture, understanding the client organisation's business is only the starting point. We study the business strategy, markets and environment in which they are operating, as well as their management philosophy,'' explains Chatterjee.

``Culture varies with each company, even within a group. It depends on the market in which you are operating. And when it comes to a joint venture company, the challenge lies in striking a balance between the various cultural elements of the partners,'' she says.

``We provide candidates with a feel of the place they are likely to join. Once the shortlisting of candidates is done, we give a 45-minute presentation on our client organisation to each of the candidates. We actually open a dialogue on these issues with the short-listed candidates. Of course, we also employ psychometric tests and technical evaluation if need be, in our search process,'' saysChatterjee.

``Usually 80-90 per cent of the candidates we recommend are absorbed by our client organisations,'' she says.

Feedback Reach also provides non-search services, such as training, review of appraisal systems, etc. ``We evolved from a search wing to an HR consulting firm to a training organisation,'' says Chatterjee.

``We rarely advertise or handle responses. That's because the best are not looking for jobs. We have to ferret out the best for our clients,'' she says.

The idea of setting up the site was not to broaden the search process, but to ``enhance the image of HR industry,'' she concludes.