MAM
Majority of hiring in Covid2019 period for niche roles with stringent processes
NEW DELHI: Majority of the organisations which are continuing hiring during the Covid2019 period are hiring for niche roles only, reveals ‘Indian workplaces response to COVID-19’ survey by Times Jobs. The survey highlights that 63 per cent of HR managers are still hiring amidst the pandemic and 65 per cent of them are hiring for only niche roles. The survey was taken by 1145 HR managers from a variety of different sectors.
Twenty per cent of the respondents remarked that they have suspended hiring activities for this year and 15 per cent shared that their companies are hiring employees only on a contractual basis.
Another interesting point highlighted by the survey is that 34 per cent of respondents are aggressively working to fix problems within the business and find new solutions and ensure future business survival.
However, the purpose for recruitment might have become more stringent during the pandemic period as 42 per cent of HR managers said their company has been using skills assessment tests for these niche roles.
Sixty one per cent of HR managers proclaimed that hiring a diverse team was their top priority, even more so than factors such as learning and development and almost a quarter said they’d posted neutral job description to encourage a more diverse array of workers to apply during the crisis.
TimesJobs business head Sanjay Goyal said the fact companies were mainly hiring for niche jobs points to these organisations being “virtual-ready,” the ones who have “restructured/are restructuring their products and processes for customers and employees via technology.” In this vein, 49 per cent of respondents said that their companies were investing in virtual work-ready modules as well as upskilling programs, reported People Matters.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
