Learning @ Communities: Citeman Interviews Abhijit Bhaduri, Chief learning Officer Wipro

“Create a difference with your own ability that’s inside you”, shared Abhijit Bhaduri, Chief Learning Officer, Wipro on TEDx, Delhi early last year. In one of his recent interview to Knowledge@Wharton, he emphasised “Learning is the ability to ask the right questions”. He reflects this from the several initiatives which he had taken over the years to promote learning through different arenas. He had balanced large canvas learning within the organization and sailed beyond the systematic structures. He had been teaching in management colleges extending his efforts to disseminate knowledge through HR associations and other knowledge platforms. He wrote two best sellers and has been an avid blogger, igniting minds, bridging unconventional wisdom to practise. He have been a pioneer in social networking creating new frontiers with taking a poll on twitter and encouraging to ‘friend him’ on Facebook. His contributions towards the industry coupled with credibility to remain social and share knowledge makes him a role model. Here we present his recent interview to Citeman on learning through communities and predicting its the future behaviour.

What is your view to the community based learning in the corporate world? Learning begins with systematic education but moves beyond the system from Degrees to experience. In an organization, it is managed through the training programs and the knowledge sharing initiatives. But in absence of such an infrastructural support how would an individual continue learning? There are several scenarios which can create roadblocks to learning. Recession brought in lower investment in training and long term unemployment. There can be further limitations. In case of an entrepreneur, who would be responsible for his own learning, but may not be able to take a sabbatical from his venture. Under such circumstances, how do you see continuity in the process?Learning begins with a personal choice. It entirely depends on the individual. Organizations can create training institute, arrange programs and employees would attend them. But all these efforts will not convert into the change knowledge level until and unless one is willing to learn.  It can empower an individual but the willingness to put that newly gained power to work will still depend on them. Anyone can be taught to strum guitar. But that will not make them a guitarist.  To make it useful one needs to put an effort and practise. Such as 10,000 hrs of practise and consistency that will make learning ready to be used. The discipline to inculcate learning will remain a personal prerogative. Learning, implementing it and sharing the experience would add value to the individual. The interest to work through this process is ultimately an individual’s choice.

To continue reading: CiteMan

Learning @ University of Life

Ndubuisi Ekekewe blogged on HBR does an entrepreneur need a college degree ? Here's my discussion with him, as published on Citeman Article section with his permission:
Learning fuels growth. The continuity in growth brings in the competitive edge . It remains the source of sustenance to survive. This learning begins with education which essentially shares knowledge in a systematic pattern. But later as an individual moves beyond a education system ie a college level degree, it moulds into experiential learning as absorbed from the environment. The discipline with which the learning is inculcated and implemented through action while making decisions ensures growth and success.
Ndubuisi Ekekwe wrote in HBR Blog ” Does an entrepreneur need a college degree?” He discussed the importance of learning and education. This discussion was triggered by the recent announcement by Peter Thiel , founder Pay Pal to support the entrepreneurship in teenagers. Here we share the discussion that we had with him.
Citeman: Nice Article. Mr. Thiel deserves a credit for providing the support, but orientation is quintessential. If it doesn’t come from the natural environment, it would be detrimental to the youngsters. It’s best to trust the education system with that orientation and then avail the support offered by him.
Even in situation, with career transition or economic cycles there can be disruptions in learning. Education may not remain available or affordable, yet ensuring personal learning remains the only way out!
Ndubuisi Ekekwe: Yes. You can never fault a billionaire. I would have preferred driving the vision through schools so that we can scale the revamped program across the nation. He has a great vision and we must commend him, but I would have wished it went through the natural environment as you said.
Citeman: We are in India. Your article is presented at the right time. Entrepreneurship is taking off in India. But thankfully due to comparatively lower cost of education and the learning oriented value system, we are still deeply rooted in completing education before we start our career.
Here’s an example from job holders, during recession many professionals lost their jobs. Mr. X is one of them, who holds a BTech Degree and MBA, both being premier institutes in India. When he was retrenched by a major IT Firm, he joined an e-learning company, as a product head . Whereas the others, who were less equipped than him, went through long term unemployment. Incidentally, they were qualified, but not from an A-list college. Situations like this make it difficult to survive with jobs, for the ones who didn’t even receive the college level education.
The point is, education provides a fall back plan and continuity, when everything fails. It stands true irrespective of age and level. Consequently, true to your word, it’s a risk worth taking!
About Citeman, we are a knowledge management community with more than 1.3 million members worldwide. Our knowledgebase is free to use for our members. The members are generally the MBA students, professionals, educationists and entrepreneurs. We are thankful to the authors and management leaders for contributing and mentoring our members. Mr. Kasturi Narashimham, who co-authored a book with Hubert Rampersad is one of our moderators.
Your article came in an alignment to what we work for. We are creating and managing a business-oriented knowledgebase, so that education and mentoring is free and available for every learner. Thank you for inspiring us, in our endeavours.
more at http://www.citeman.com/12883-learning-university-of-life/#ixzz18iHJd5nG

Interviewee’s questions – The dealbreaker

“Seek and you will get, knock and it shall be opened to you”. This stands the core to success in interviews. An interview is a platform for the interviewer and the interviewee to match their offering and requirements. This situation becomes stressful when the pressure to hire the right fit weighs on the interviewer and the quest to land the job becomes quintessential. The focus to create a result comes out of the meaningful discussion. It is not guaranteed that every interview will result with a job offer. Yet every interview needs to be utilised as to gain understanding about the role and move a step ahead out of the status quo. There was a discussion on the same in CiteHR with realtime experience sharing Discussion thread . In addition to this, few more questions that will help the interviewee to understand the role, are suggested below:

1. Information Flow: How does the information flow works for this role? This gives a better idea of the reporting structure beyond what is formally shared. It shares the prime points in the flow, the decision makers and the ones who need to be tagged.
2. Daily Schedule: How would a day in this role be? Make suggestions with tasks and actions. This would help to understand the role more than the formal job description. There would be several tasks which may not directly be mentioned in the KRA, yet would reflect during the daily schedule discussion.
3. Escalation Matrix: Discuss an escalation to be managed in the new role. This is a quintessential question. It shares the intricate problems to be dealt in the role and brings in an opportunity to the interviewee to suggest a solution. This suggestion will reflect the interviewee’s knowledge and maturity hence make them a lead candidate.

more at http://www.citeman.com/12086-interviewees-questions-the-dealbreaker/#ixzz15mx70IuV

A Day in an HR-Generalist’s life

Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending.- Author Unknown

Life as an HR generalist is different every moment. Even though the pattern may seem repetitive the uniqueness lies in every situation. A day begins with the communication through emails and meetings on HR processes. Ideally it would take an account of few escalations which have been received as of date and needs to be resolved on a priority basis. The trouble shooting begins with detecting the bottleneck and strike a solution to it. The risk mitigation is done for the future processes and avoid every collateral damages that might have happened in the meantime. For e.g.: During the performance appraisal an employee was explained the future goals but did not understand it, hence asked no questions. After the letters are distributed the employee expects a greater hike and a promotion. The employee is willing to resign if these requests are not considered. Hence, the discussion in the meeting held earlier, needs to be referred to make sure that the employee was made aware of the role which would be offered in the letter. Hence the training program was discussed along with the goal and career path in the horizontal shift was shared. Tradeoff needs to be shaped to ensure the engagement level through the performance measures. The employee needs to agree to the conditions mentioned and find the benefits in them, accordingly. Such escalations once managed needs to be followed up with counselling to ensure no damages have happened to the engagement level of both the manager and the reportee. This communication would be recorded in the employee file.
The day would further unfurl into managing other escalation due any disciplinary breach or any non-adherence. Once the escalation has been managed for the day, certain HR initiatives and organizational developmental program would be focussed. Incase any program needs to be initiated, prepare towards it and implement as planned. For e.g.: If a new banding and grading structure is supposed to be implemented within next quarter, tasks including collecting data and preparing for the broad banding exercise. Discussions with the business leaders and coordinating focus group meetings with the employees would be scheduled. The expectation of the employees and requirement from the management team would be drafted accurately. This would further require several communications to be shared across every level in the continuum. The mapping of the new grades and the salary structure needs to be explained to every employee through town halls and mass mailer.
more at http://www.citeman.com/11999-a-day-in-an-hr-generalists-life/#ixzz15n16Cmf9

How companies make decision ?

Overview
Decision making is an event which carves the future, before it has happened. This involves information gathering, weighing options, forecasting and deliberating. Decide and Deliver: Five Steps to Breakthrough Performance in Your Organization by Marcia W. Blenko, Michael C. Mankins and Paul Rogers explores tools to successful decision making. According to this book incompetent decision making doesn’t remain a personal problem, but it rolls into a corporate liability. This book bundles all the areas quintessential to the decision making and creating a mark on the ultimate reality of business success. This book explores different cases at Ford, Telstra and many other companies which required bringing in huge changes creating multi-dimensional impact.

Implementation
There are five steps mentioned that begins with assessing the decision effectiveness and how the organization supports it. Identify the critical decisions. Set individual critical decisions up for success. Build an integrated organization system which enables great decision making and execution throughout. Embed the changes in everyday practices. Lets us explore the merits of these points through a business issue in real-time environment. A technological firm needs to change its payroll system from a human based process to an electronic one. This may occur due to the many folded expansion of the business. Due diligence of the existing system, to the new requirement, would help the organization choose a solution. The process can be outsourced with service level agreement in an alignment of the growing business need. There lie many challenges to this decision including errors in salary calculation, mishandling in the data management, mismanagement in disbursement and etc. The decision makers can implement the five steps mentioned in the book to realize the goal. Firstly, the due diligence would include assessing the decision effectiveness. Next, the leaders would identify the critical decisions in this change.

More at http://www.citeman.com/11628-how-companies-make-decision/#ixzz15Q4xvEiX

Team Bonding – Hocus Pocus

“Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.”-Stephen Covey

Team bonding glues many individuals strung by tasks to be delivered, in a project. It is a step beyond the team building exercise, where the roles have been defined, rules have been set and tasks have been designated. This phase is beyond forming and norming the team. We consider this phase as it imprints success resulting from collective efforts of the performers. We have repeatedly read, seen and experienced its success. Here we share two real-time business cases which teach us the invaluable lesson through their myriad ways. The names have been changed, to maintain the business confidentiality.
Case A- Shooting stars
Here we present a business unit ABC, composed of many stars, each responsible for a quantified end result. All the members had a considerable track record, to have earned a role, in the dream team. The individual performances ranks high and the initial report runs strong. The situation takes a turn when the performances spikes, without the collaborative effort. The team differs majorly with each other. The dissonance fuels better performance and a cut-throat competition. The project ends with great results and a bunch of highly disjointed individuals, who trajectiles into different directions. The learning gained from the absence of this team-bonding is, this process is not limited, to bond for the business result, but inculcating relationships, to gel the magic for a longer duration of time.
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11546-team-bonding-hocus-pocus/

Managing Employee Expectation

People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.- Mary Kay Ash

An overview: We embark on our quest to comprehend what is employee expectation management. Every employee seeks to do their best at work. To give their best there are few factors required to be bunched together. These factors are offered to the employee, as designed by the organization. Ideally they are a combination of the job description, role, compensation, fringes and branding. These factors are vital for an employee to be associated to identify the end result. This inherently impacts the employee lifecycle in the organization.
Source and flow to employee expectation: Let us identify, where it arises from. At the hiring phase, this may get initiated from either end. The employee starts looking for a job and the organization may headhunt the employee. This marks the beginning of communication and matching up of the employee expectation. The organization arranges a series of assessment to check the employability and the fitment to the role. Both the parties look at the same point from different sides. Hence give the same designation, two completely different meaning. The company considers the role with right KPI to make best use of the resource, whereas for the employee, it’s a pedestal to achieve their dreams, a platform where they can offer their expertise and reach next level with their offerings. Once the employee comes on board, it begins the journey of parallels to ‘what was perceived’ and ‘what is offered’. The new hire orientation aims at this through several educative programs addressing all the perception gaps. The performance management initiation cycle delves deeper into it. Here, the employee is supported to align the organization and team’s goal to their personal goals.
Process to Manage expectations:The organization policy of designing ‘What’s in it for me’ and ‘what it means to work here’ deals with managing employee expectation. These cultural building programs aim at understanding the common feeling and club them under the organization goals and vision to manage them. Achieving greatness in the job is what every employee aims at.
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11544-managing-employee-expectation/

Leadership – Best Practices

The art of leadership is not just leading a bunch of people through a task or a project, but helping them realise their own strengths and awaken them to live their dreams. The impact of the leader’s behaviour creates a bull whip effect on the follower’s performance. At times the act retains an indelible mark on the follower’s mind. In the words of Warren Buffett, “I was lucky to have the right heroes. Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be. The qualities of the one you admire are the traits that you, with a little practice, can make your own, and that, if practiced, will become habit-forming.”

There are different styles of leadership. Ideally every human being is unique, so are their leadership styles. There are different theories which have clubbed human behaviours to form different leadership styles. In practise, there may not be the exact prototype to what have been written, but several permutations to it. As explained by Daniel Goleman on Leadership that gets results, Coercive Style with compliance focused “Do what I tell you”, Authoritative Style in leaders who have a clear vision saying “Come with me”, Affilitative Style to build harmony and teamwork through “People come first” attitude, Democratic Style to build consensus i.e. “What do you think”, Pacesetting Style who leads by example “Do as I do, now”, Coaching Style develop people through coaching with “try this.” concept. Ideally the situation and environment contributes to behaviour, whereas the dominant part of the nature would remain. During the organizational change, when leaders take the eye of the storm, it stands imperative to identify their innate nature and predict whom would they vie for be it people, process or the client.
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11532-leadership-best-practices/

Job hopping – Boon or Bane, a critical analysis

Changing jobs frequently, within a fixed duration is termed as ‘Job Hoping’. The duration in each job is considered relevant to the sector and the role. At certain jobs, such as BPO, six to eighteen months is a short span. Whereas in manufacturing, even three years can be termed as the same. This may happen due to several reasons. The generalization may not justify the diverse grounds. It may be structural, systematic and individual initiated. The decision to change job is crucial and may blur boundaries. Let’s consider each area to understand what brings it up. The trigger to change jobs depends on the following areas:

Individual initiated: At certain time, due to a misfit between what an individual wants and what is required by the environment, an individual may change jobs. There are several factors which leads an individual to take a call.

Professional: Every professional expects a certain degree of growth in a role. If the current situation doesn’t offer what was expected, it leads to a job change. Though, promotion may not always be the reason greater learning through newer challenges may lead to the clarion call.

Emotional: This becomes reason when there is a dissonance in the values. The employee may look for a fostering environment. Yet, may find the responses from the surrounding, hostile. Office politics are the biggest example of this. Few people may survive as they can attenuate to it. Whereas, others may keep jumping from the boat till they find a favourable environment

The Art of Relocating

Relocations are a must part of a professional life. Growth comes through changing places and organizations as it brings in unparalleled learning of adapting to newer environment and undiscovered wisdom which may not happen in the state of inertia. Here we have a situation where an individual have shifted from one location to another in search of Holy Grail. The change takes the individual by surprise. As it goes with the initial rites of passage, a series of shocks and tremors are meant to awaken us to a situation where we ‘survive’ to become tougher and wiser. The situation is as shared below:

"I am from ABC, recently moved to xyz for a new job. It’s been about two months since I joined and the initial excitement has vanished altogether. This is the first time ever I am living on my own and I must admit it is boring. I am left alone, no friends and no office buddies. I am not used to this kind of environment with absence of fun loving nature in employees. But I have seen other companies adjoining ours with better crowd, guess the grass is always greener on the other side. Office is bland and boring. On the weekends you may develop suicidal tendencies, the kinds that arise knowing how the life has changed for the worse compared to what it was. Every day, I miss my family, city and friends. All of them are in ABC. To add to my woes, my manager is rude, arrogant and inconsiderate. At times he just shouts and then apologise stating work pressure as an excuse. Most of the time, even that apology, doesn’t come. My training is ruined because he sits in some other location and blames me for being slow. When the fact is he cannot find time to train me. Sometimes he abuses and then says don’t mind as he thought I was my more experienced than other team mates. Colleagues discuss the price of the vegetable in different local markets. To top it all, there is no transportation offered, as it was promised. I have to walk close to a kilometre every morning under the scorching sun to get to a point from where I can get an auto! My manager asked me to get a house nearby. Its difficult to find a decent place at a decent price close to office. In addition I am also having food, laundry and maid issues! How I miss my home!"
We seggragate each problem in the above situation to consider them exclusively and find a collectively exhaustive solution.
Expectation Management: Life would get better with a relocation: Most of the time, when we relocate, we expect things to change for better. Hence we stand jolted when the reality doesn’t match the expectations.
Problem: “I am from abc, recently moved to xyz for a new job. It’s been about two months since I joined and the initial excitement has vanished altogether. This is the first time ever I am living on my own and I must admit, it is rank boring. I am left alone, no friends and no office buddies.”
Solution: Accepting the change, to bring in a combination of experience prepare us better for it. As explained by Daniel Goleman, in Performance Review: It’s Not Only What You Say, But How You Say It, “The neuroscientist Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin has found that when we’re in an upbeat, optimistic, I-can-handle-anything frame of mind, energized and enthusiastic about our goals, our brains turn up the activity in an area on the left side, just behind the forehead. That’s the brain state where we are at our best”. Hence getting into that state of mind and staying objective to each situation is the first step.
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11499-the-art-of-relocating/

Making Employee Townhall work

Organizations communicate with the employee through different modes of communication, including intranet, newsletter, message dashboards, soft boards, common mailer and Town halls. All these modes have its own unique impact on the employee. Hence, they are chosen based on the result to be created. Executive communication has the maximum impact on the employees. This is done through CEO’s letter, Hotline, Podcast, etc. Greatest effect is created by the Town hall as it allows direct interaction between the CEO and the employees. This event is organized to address many employees at a single point of time. Ideally they are arranged based on durations and event based to communicate any particular message .
Types of Town hall
Durations based: Quarterly town halls are arranged to communicate with the employees. Leaders share the business results, current scenario within the company and make announcements. This is a mass meeting to ensure that the voices are heard both ways.
Event based: During an organizational change these efforts are made to address the common concern. Employee fears and concerns are noted by the line HR and managers. This is provided as a feedback to the head of the organization, who in turns address all these concern with the facts and its implication during the townhall.
Challenges: The challenges in arranging these sessions lie in planning and implementing them.
Planning: Often detailed plans for the program are launched yet last minute faux pas kills it all. Covering the gaps and identifying the probable last minute slump, needs to be mitigated right in the beginning of planning, for the session. Though an equipment-rehearsal at the venue is essential, yet keeping a buffer for every requirement is the key.
Speaker: The speaker selection is primary. Generally the speaker is organizational head, such a CEO or a Managing Director, who leads the business. But the twist comes in when the top leader is not completely comfortable addressing the session attended by such a large number of employees. Sometimes convincing them is a hard task. In such a situation connecting the leader with one of the best communicator to preside the session would be the solution.
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11486-making-employee-townhall-work/

Personal Learning University

Learning organizations have always contributed to its success. Due to the winds of change and increasing career transitions the focus from learning organization is shifting to personal learning university. The question evolves as, in a situation of inconsistent employment, sudden financial depressions and economic downturn how do an individual sustain learning? The winning edge lies in the excellence of professional experience. One’s knowledge in their field is the only edge over others. So how would an individual continue to work towards their knowledge during these changing times?

Let’s take a closer look to understand learning. It is defined as a marked change in behaviour due to acquired information. This acquiring of the information may happen through different sources. For some it may be through formal learning process whereas for others it would happen through task-conscious process. The learning for the executives, during the professional years happen through the job , hence it is task conscious learning. When a professional enrols for an Management Development course or a PhD it becomes the formal learning process. Here we discuss a situation independent of a formal or even a task, i.e., where the learning happens even when a formal process such as a management education is missing and job are not there for action learning.
In absence of a formal system, let’s understand how learning can be enunciated by an individual. It begins on a daily basis. Every individual is required to produce a certain range of values at work. Tacit learning is gained by an individual through the tasks delivered, which cannot be learnt, during the formal education. For instance, when an individual starts working as an HR they may have read about recruitment during their MBA course, but learning the key points in screening a candidate comes from a live job. The vendor management and software can be learnt during the course, but points such as how to manage multiple vendors for hiring the same skill sets or how the software can be used effectively to download more relevant resumes come through experience, which is, tacit learning. Business intelligence is gained by managing an expansion or a ramp down that requires an unique solution. The learning gained through being on the job will become as strong as the formal study, when it is organised and realised.
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11434-personal-learning-university/

10 things HR won’t say – A review

Ten things HR won’t say was published recently in the Wall Street Journal. We take a re-look to discuss and understand the points mentioned from HR perspectives and reflect why it happens so.

“We are squeezed too”: This address the fact that HR function are changing in terms of the structure and processes.
HR Review : Lets take a look at this point a little closely. The recent economic downturn has put maximum pressure on the business to cut ‘costs’, hence HR being a ‘Cost-centre’ underwent the scrutiny. The processes were compressed to be managed by minimum number of team members. Tasks which could be managed or regrouped were reallocated. Such as, single point of contacts for HR was made from the members in operation or production to create a closer knit with the employees. This allowed HR to listen to the employee complaints through their representatives. It reduced the number of line HR required. Similarly, online or software based processes were preferred to the bigger team composition. For e.g: Time Office adminstration and resume refining were primarily done through software to cut down on the team members in recruitment and administration. Now, almost every activity in HR gets measured to justify the cost. These trends have shifted the focus from running the operational activities within the function to creating values and truly moving towards the ‘profit centre’.
“We are not always your advocate” : This point discusses, how an employee may trust the HR to be its advocate, yet it doesn’t hold true.
HR Review: Let’s take a step back to relook at this point. The HR is expected to balance being an ‘employee champion’ and a ‘business partner’ at the same time. Here decision making becomes accurate when both the areas are weighed and given the due importance. The stand taken may not seem favourable by the side which remain shadowed. For e.g.: During recession, when retrenchment was at its highest. The HR in a company may have suggested pay cuts to save job. An organization with a progressive management may have agreed to it and tagged HR as ‘Employee Champion’. Whereas in an organization with authoritative management may have rejected the recommendation and cut down the jobs, the employees would have tagged HR as more of a ‘Business Partner’. Consequently, the balancing act leaves no one feel that the HR is advocating their side.
“….But we can help your career”: This point addresses the fact that the employees are unwilling to share their career aspects with HR. whereas it helps to keep HR in the loop. Sharing the initiative taken and interest areas with HR may help a next role change even a life saver during recession. HR are required to put a recommendation during the retrenchment.
HR Review: To understand this point lets take a step back and see where the ‘thought ‘ of keeping HR at a distant arise from. The employees are supposed to be mentored by their immediate reporting leaders. Incase they have any question or need to escalate any concern, they meet HR. This communication may not always be handled rightly. Leading to mistrust and undermining the HR offering. Managing employee expectation is a principal area. The non-verbal cues and un-discussed wish-list builds up a belief system. It manages to push the employee away. Several HR initiatives such as One-on-One with HR, Brown bags, Steering Committee and etc fails because the trust have not been completely built. The credibility of the HR depends on the initiatives taken and how it is delivered.
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11432-10-things-hr-wont-say-a-review/

Get better – Invest in yourself

Getting ahead is easy when you can afford a college degree, or you have been sponsored for a learning program. In a state, where you may not have the choice to invest any extra amount, how do you manage to get better? Consider, the following customs to invest on yourself without putting any extra money within the time frame you have.

Look within: In the words of Dolf de Roos, “The most expensive piece of real estate is the six inches between your right and left ear. It’s what you create in that area that determines your wealth. We are only really limited by our mind.”

1. Focus on what you want, whether it is the Corner office or the expert in your field. Find your alignment. Everyone wishes to be a CEO, but not everyone succeeds at it when they get there.
2. Decide what is important for you, what you are best at and you find a inner calling at it. At every appraisal form you write your career plan, including the areas that will let you grow. A promotion is always a priority, but thats what everyone would be planning for. Focus on the area of expertise, where you can become the unchallenged leader, plan your growth in that area. When you are best at what you are doing, the promotion will come to you.
3. For eg: If you have a sales position, focus on learning, how to sell slow moving goods with higher percentage returns. If you excel at that, your sales target achievement would be higher than the average team members. Hence you would automatically allowed to guide the team. If you are an HR, learn how to quantify your tasks. As you are supporting business you would be measured through the value you create.

Plan and work towards it: The secret to productive goal setting is in establishing clearly defined goals, writing them down and then focusing on them several times a day with words, pictures and emotions as if we’ve already achieved them.”-Denis Waitley

1. If your career doesn’t allow you to make drastic changes, take baby steps. You may have a full time job with no choice to go for the next level education, be it MBA or Ph.D. You may not even have that luxury even to plan for it in the next few years. So look for opportunities in the current role.
2. Get the mindset of an MBA or a Researcher. Create the map identifying the areas for knowledge. Start your on the job learning and maintain a note for it. Look for communities where the discussions related to your future studies are been done. Learn from the contribution made by others. Find a mentor for yourself. As noted by Tom Peter’s, Make your personal learning university with everyone a faculty to it. No sooner or later you will find yourself on the road to a greater learning. This would make your knowledge concrete when you start the course.
3. Excelling is what you aim for when you get there. In the words of Napoleon Hill “If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.”At times you may lose a track of all that you are learning. Do not fuss over it. Gather yourself at any point of time and include the new understandings you have gained in between.
4. For e.g.: If you are into recruitment and wish to be shifted to Generalist HR role, then take up a voluntary role in the department. You may not get paid for the initiative, but your take away is ‘on-the-job learning’ and paving your way to the role. Incase you don’t have that option, offer your service for free to a non-profit organization where similar initiatives are required. Intern in that role and share it in your next appraisal form.

To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11382-get-better-invest-in-yourself/

 

Managing a ‘Hostile’ Boss

Every team constitutes a structural design including a reporting manager and the team member. The reporting manager, often referred as a ‘Boss’, personifies leadership and inspirational guidance. A team member delivers a task as mentioned in the KRA. The leader guides the team member to ensure that the KPIs are met. The team members are groomed for different roles in their career path. The situation quash when the behaviour of the boss is at variance with insecurity, personal fears and individual agenda setting in. The boss may micro manage and fail to empower the team member with responsibilities and learning. It becomes hostile when the boss turns a virulent liar and blames the team members in case of any error and deprives them off their credits.
Let us take a closer look to understand how it works in such a situation. The tasks are delegated to the team members. The vantage point is lost, if the deliverables are not totally quantified in the score card. It creates a high scope for blame-game. In absence of yardstick and metrics, any initiative taken by the employee or any work allocated by the boss remains chancy. The more the employee works, the more they are blamed. In such a situation the two entity ends up looking at two different directions at the same point of time. The team member looks at the amount of tasks delivered. The boss looks at the mistakes and the blames. This culminates with the annual appraisal where the team member is marked low, whilst that employee had expected a hike, as a result from the extra initiatives taken. This brings in a cul-de-sac as the boss and the reportee lock-horn with each other.
Just as every problem have a solution so does this situation. There are few areas to be rewired. Here we discuss how the team member can troubleshoot such a situation.
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11209-managing-a-hostile-boss/

‘Little wonder’ – Attracting talents for small firms

Here’s a discussion on CiteHR, to find ways that can attract talent for small firm with 30 members. The situation is parallel to many start-up and similar firms. They are required to hire the most competitive talent yet lack the situational advantages as compared to the bigger firms. In certain situations, they may not even have a huge budget to pay lucrative salary and an established brand name. Under such circumstances, strategising recruitment becomes a challenge. Here’s the link to the discussion http://www.citehr.com/287724-how-attract-job-seekers.html

The swot of a small firm would be as follow:
Strength

1. Visibility: Small firms offer high visibility to every talent. The opportunity to work in a complete cycle is available to any employee at every level. This gives them a tremendous exposure to handle escalation and complete business intelligence in much shorter span to what they would have learnt in bigger organization.
2. Roles: Fewer number of employees delivering more specialised role: The headcount would be very low, but not the jobs to be delivered. The tasks would be divided to the team members including operational and strategic. Whereas in a large organization the roles often get pigeon-holed into repetitive tasks. 

Weakness:

1. No brand name
2. Size of the firm
3. Low salaries and benefits
4. Apparently lower opportunities until openly discussed

Opportunity:

1. Higher degree of empowerment through an entrepreneurial environment with soaring accountability to the job
2. Freedom to implement as the environment is dynamic compared to the bigger firm with lot more rigidity.
3. An inclusive culture. In a small organization, it’s the culture that binds in. The freedom to express oneself and the opportunity to be understood and accepted gel the employees together. 

Threats:

1. Dissatisfaction and friction from talents constantly comparing the job with the small firm to that in a bigger firm.
2. Losing the talents to the bigger brands once they become employable
3. High impact of the decision maker: As the size of the firm is small, the attitude of the decision maker would make a very high impact on the employee morale.

To implement these advantages the firm needs to target the right talent base
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11278-little-wonder-attracting-talents-for-small-firms/

Revisiting HR Failures

A question was raised in CiteHR , to understand the reasons behind the failure of HR. Certain areas including the alingment of HR and the focus from operational activites to strategic were discussed http://www.citehr.com/289282-where-do-you-think-hr-fails-organizations.html
Human Resource is the custodian and enabler to organization. Managing talent is the mainstream to an organization’s success. Just as a cog in the wheel enables the rotation, so does HR. Certain implementation of programs or the lack of it, can create a dissonance in functioning of the organization. These letdowns become a yardstick for future. The reasons for the debacles will remain at variance with the sector and immediate environment. Yet they can be categorised in few principal areas.
Business focus: If the business goals are not aligned with the HR initiatives it may create disaster. The best practices will not yield to any result if it doesn’t correspond to the next business targets. For e.g.: Technological integration remains a focus during a merger. This is planned on the basis of scalability. If the focus of the merger is to gain technological leadership in the market, HR needs to align the data integration accordingly.
HR Focus: It’s essential to review the HR Processes and audit them regularly. The economic environment changes, so does the business prerequisites. The HR processes would require refurbishing the SLA defined on the processes. Dr. John Sullivan in, ‘The think piece: How HR caused Toyota to crash’, identified eight HR processes contributing to the failure. It begins with reward and recognition that fuelled rapid growth in production and sales, ignoring the reward for acknowledging the safety based inputs. The training focussed on the plan/do/check/act. The spotlight should have been to the last two accentuating on the negative external safety-based information. Hiring failed as the assessment couldn’t identify the talent who would not sweep the error under the carpet and stand up for truth to the management. The performance management system didn’t detect the group think. The corporate culture was biased towards the positive information, consequently diminished the red flags on security.
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11300-revisiting-hr-failures/

Managing headcount when the Iceberg is melting

“We believe strongly that the world needs much more action from a broader range of people—action that is informed, committed, and inspired—to help us all in an era of increasing change.” John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber had shared this in the book ‘Our iceberg is melting’. Change impacts responses in every individual. In an organization, it creates in a multi-level impact. Managing headcount is mainstay to HR Strategy. It is annually planned along with the business workflow. Yet there are unexpected situations where an organization may need to re-strategise workforce to meet the sudden change. These situations can come up due to alteration in business scenario. There are revamping and retrenchment planned to manage the variation in the volume of work.
The increasing work volume in an organization may require it to double its headcount. This percolates to increase in recruitment. But if due to an economic depression or sudden loss of business the new positions created, may no longer exist. This puts the organization in a tricky situation where, they may not be able to hire the talents, to whom the offer letter have been issued. If the offers are reverted, it would impact the future hiring programs of the organization. It would send very hostile sentiments to the talent base. Simultaneously, if they are inducted it would add on to the headcount which may damage the situation more. As the work volume gets reduced justifying the existing headcount may stand a challenge on the top managing additional employees would completely shove off the balance. The point to ponder is what needs to be done at this stage. Either consider withdrawing offer from the new employees or put poor performer in Performance Improvement Plan.
The challenges stand equidistant from both the options. If offers are withdrawn, it would affect future hires. If existing employees are put on PIP, it would create a fear factor in everyone, hence might drive the top performers away. It would affect the trust consequently create disgruntled and stressed employees within the organization. Even though this would be incremental individually, it would affect the productivity collectively.
The solutions discussed here would depend on the state of the organization. Incase it is flexible enough to commiserate, it might differ in implementation. Whereas if there is no scope for any consideration due to a business halt or other dire situation within the organization, it would require adopting a completely different approach:
To continue reading: http://www.citeman.com/11206-managing-headcount-when-the-iceberg-is-melting/

Business Process Reengineering – Start to Finish

This was a discussion in CiteHR to understand Business Process Reengineering . http://www.citehr.com/288656-business-process-re-enginering.html
Business Process Reengineering as defined by Yogesh Malhotra, in “Business Process Redesign: An Overview,” IEEE Engineering Management Review, is the analysis and design of workflows and processes within and between organizations (Davenport & Short 1990). Teng et al. (1994). BPR is defined as “the critical analysis and radical redesign of existing business processes to achieve breakthrough improvements in performance measures.” Ideally, It begins with detecting certain backlogs and defects in an existing business process. This leads to a complete review of the enterprise where duplication is eradicated and several process are integrated to create a better workflow. These entail redesigning the jobs and reorganising the deliverables. It may create a number of challenges such as losing positions consequently job loss.
Let us take a look at the steps to implement BPR. As mentioned in Business Process Reengineering: A consolidated Methodology by Subramanian Muthu, Larry Whitman, and S. Hossein Cheraghi, there are different methodologies which further include several steps. It begins with developing a vision and strategy including the customer requirements and goals for the process. This sets the direction motivating the BPR. Next is to create a desired culture by measuring and mapping the existing process. Subsequently, benchmark to justify the reengineering. This is followed by integrating and improving enterprise by analysing different processes. Technological problem solving is involved to develop the BPR in an alignment with the social design. Finally implement change and validation by targeting continuous improvement.

Reduce HR Outage ‘Foot Print’

My study on HR Outage and how to reduce such foot prints published  at Citeman Network Management Article.
A travel booking website shared an option to reduce the carbon footprint created by the airplane. It offered a variety of choices to buy a sapling, which would be planted by an NGO. The exact measure of the carbon foot print was calculated to find the accurate number of saplings required to eliminate them. As shared in the advertisement, “if the trip will generate 282 Kgs of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). A single tree can absorb 20.3 Kgs of CO2 in a year. A traveller needs to contribute Rs. 182 for 14 Saplings to completely eliminate carbon footprint for the trip.
This advertisement shows a clear representation of how consumption can lead to perishing of a non-renewable source and suggests a way to regenerate it. This strategy can be implemented for processes where a cost is incurred for a return. Yet when certain expenses end up as outage, newer ways to moderate the impact can be located. Accounting Coach defines, a cost might be an expense or it might be an asset. The expense is a cost that has expired or was necessary in order to earn revenues. Here we consider ‘Outage’ as the expense that brings no returns. We glance at different process in HR where this concept can be implemented.
Employee engagement have cost attached to every employee. The cost however becomes an outage when the employee leaves the company. Let us suppose the cost per employee in an employee engagement program is Rs. 10000. The term duration calculated for the program is one year. The employee leaves on the eight month of the program. The outage here would be Rs. 2000. This outage can be directed to be a future benefit with HR initiative such as forming formal and informal alumni with the employee to make them a better future hire. Generally the employee joins either the industry leaders or in some other company in the value chain. This makes their knowledge and experience enriched with time. Consequently they become excellent re-hires. HR needs to strategise to garner them back to the organization .The challenge lies in managing the friction which takes place when an employee decides to resign. The negative impact in the work-flow management infuriates the reporting manager. To make the matter worse, the employee can’t always plan the right path to exit. The serving of notice period becomes a point of negotiation. Incase the retention strategies on the employee do not work, it’s important that the HR creates an exit which can builds on the relationship with the employee that survives beyond the employment with the organization. The loyalty of the employee will get restored by the way they are treated when they leave the organization.
Resource management stands a high dependency on the availability of the resource to the job to be delivered. Jeffry Gandz explained Zero-talent outage as the continuity of a position even when a talent resigns through a talent pool.
To conitune reading http://www.citeman.com/11192-reduce-hr-outage-foot-print/

Managing HR @ Transition

Here's my understanding on managing HR during different kinds of transition in an organization. Business models alter with the economic cycle and market swings. Additionally, the change in government policies towards the industry impacts in transformation within an organization. As the production adopts a new model different areas including spending, talent billing, and employee management vary with the flow. Due-diligence allows the transition teams to weigh the impact of the implementations. These transitions results from business scaling up, mergers and integration, de-mergers, revamp and restructure. Here we look at the challenges, their point of differentiation and the polarity of the issues. We introspect how these situations are different yet may have certain parallel issues.
Mergers and Acquisition: The due diligence brings in all the areas of concern on the radar. HR Programs including broad banding, mapping of HR Systems, Integrating technologies, abiding by the legal guidelines, compensation alignment tops the priority list . Numerous Integration management tools allow to manage the work on the books, yet managing the human quotient remains ephemeral. The expectation and fear needs to be addressed up-front including concern areas such as, ’What’s in it for me’ and ‘How will my values creation still remain visible’. Communication holds the key to the human challenges. As the programs are rolled out, repeated town halls, team hurdles and one-on-one communication helps in managing the employee buy-ins. As mentioned by jack Welch , ‘“Think of a merger as a huge talent grab – a people opportunity that would otherwise take years of searching … Make the tough calls and pick the very best – whatever side they’re on.”
Demergers: Just as the paradoxes are true so are the HR initiatives during the demergers. As the organizations splits into two different entities so does the process which requires new process owners, vendors and sometimes even new domains. Often during the demerger the new entities differ in size. Consequently it can leave a company with bigger strength with far more processes to be managed than its smaller counterpart. Newer registration for the legal entities, more specialised roles for the employees, building the new brand as valued as the earlier joint-entity remains the hub of the HR .
Expansion: The process that impacts the most is recruitment and training. The chief focus remains on getting talent on board and train to place them as billable. This does impact the compensation bench marking to bridge the salary gap between the new and the old talent during the annual performance appraisal. The concept which the HR accentuates in this situation is ‘What it means to work here’.
Restructuring: Every business cycle goes through a phase where the process of productivity is reviewed to scale up production and minimise cost. The revamping of production percolates to the restructuring of the work-force. The jobs are mapped to the talent with best-fit. Levels are brought down to few bands and grades. Tata Steel had revamped the work force from 13 to 5 levels redesigning 5100 officers to 4300 officers. The Human factors to be dealt in this situation are the stigma of termination and transparency to build on the trust, of the talent which remains behind. The outplacement offered by the organization, severance pay and elucidate that the employees did not lose the job as they were bad, but that position no longer existed.
The common challenges in all these situations are managing perception. Few HR processes may bear the effect from such transitions. This fundamentally includes compensation, performance management and HR operations. Recruitment and Training and development which may stand impacted selectively. Human fears of losing identity, expecting shrinkage in compensation, low visibility remains principal. These transitions may often seem paradoxical, yet the biggest learning lies in being able to manage them. In the words of Carl T. Rowan,” We emphasize that we believe in change because we were born of it, we have lived by it, we prospered and grew great by it. So the status quo has never been our god, and we ask no one else to bow down before it”.

How to become a CEO

We all dream and work to make it to the corner office. We make our plans and set our goals. Let’s look at what takes it to be a CEO. We understand a degree and relevant experience sets the bar. But apart from that there are capabilities and a vision which ensures the success of those few privileged ones, who attain that goal. As mentioned by Simon Baker the areas which define a CEO are vision, passion, leadership, decisiveness, managing politics, long-term view and ethical standards. The credibility to build a company or new things every day should remain the driving force.
The road to the corner office begins with identifying the principles of success and self-assessment. This includes setting the plan, architecture of key ingredients and getting started. Once the preparation starts its important to navigate the obstacles through dealing with the blind spots and reconciling the paradoxes of becoming the top boss. The journey to the summit would include taking risks, learning from failure, overcoming the dip, due-diligence and negotiating what counts. This is followed by the sustaining phase of finding wise advisors, sponsors and managing office politics with integrity. The fundamental areas that require focus are as mentioned below:
To continue reading http://www.citeman.com/11086-how-to-become-a-ceo/

Managing the Creative Class – HR Challenges

This is a discussion in CiteHR identifying two areas in managing ‘The Creative Class’. We take a closer look at this class to understand how to manage them and deal with other HR challenges http://www.citehr.com/287495-need-your-help-these-two-questions.html
Richard Florida in his book ‘Rise of the Creative Class’ defines creative class as, “the class including not only the world of traditional artists (writers, painters, actors, musicians, entertainers etc. which Florida calls the “bohemians”) but everybody for whom creativity or intellectual work is an essential element of his or her personal and professional life. It includes all types of knowledge workers, who produce or deal with ideas and intellectual capital, such as software developers, advertisers, designers, architects, engineers, scientists, inventors, consultants, educators, and many more.”
HR Challenges for creative firm lies in identifying the talent, training and grooming the talent to a level where they are productive. The pull and the push factors need to be identified to hold the talent back in the organization. In this vertical, the type of talent intake is defined right during hiring. The talent is further groomed to deliver in the role, through numerous training programs and on-the–job mentoring. The emphasis on the best fit during the training program is required as it sets the learning curve. The talent will require the natural capabilities to remain creative even during stress situation. Apart from talent retention and best fit identification, compensation structure and mobility will remain a concern. As the hiring increase it creates an increased pressure on the creative firms to scale up their compensation structure with monetary and non-monetary benefits. Incase, the salary offered is not increased certain non-benefits including up-skilling is offered. This is important as it increases the value offered by each talent .Consequently maintaining the talent mobility to ensure lowest risk and highest production becomes a paramount importance. For e.g.: A consultancy may build on the expat program to ensure maximum gain through global mobility. They may deploy the talent at the client’s site to ensure fastest delivery and least downtime to what have been mentioned in the service level agreement.
To continue reading :http://www.citeman.com/11057-managing-the-creative-class-hr-challenges/

HR Budget – A part of the whole

How to prepare HR Budget is a question in CiteHR http://www.citehr.com/287691-hr-budget.html
HR Budgeting is a powerful financial tool that can estimate the expenditures made by the HR vertical . This strengthens and allows the HR to control the cost rather than letting it control the HR initiative. The budget is drawn parallel to the goals of the organization. If the organization expands and requires to register a double digit growth in terms of its strength, it percolate to apportion funds in different areas including recruitment , retention, up-skilling, global mobility management and etc. The allocation of funds would be governed by the HR Strategies. The decision makers in an organization remain the main players to approve the budget. The recommendations and inputs are taken from different sources including operation, marketing, logistics and every other vertical within the organization. Macro areas including employee retention, recruitment and training and micro areas including programs designed for incremental benefits are all mapped into one complete budgeting program. It can be zero-based budget with no reference to last year’s expense.
To continue reading : http://www.citeman.com/11080-hr-budget-a-part-of-the-whole/

Nuerolinguistic Programming – A tool for Managerial Counselling

Arthur C. Clarke, “Any sufficient advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic “. NLP school of thought was started by a computer engineer Richard Bandler and a psychologist Dr. John Grindler with the concept that every perception can be programmed. As explained by Tom Butler-Bowdon in 50 Best Self Help classic, if “People work perfectly, program thoughts, action and feeling, they get a new life.” For e.g.: A TV have a picture tube inside it. The soap operas that we view on TV are not because of the picture tube. The tube shows every details as it is received from the broadcasting station and the satelite through the transmitting waves. It stands same with our brain, here our brain is the picture tube and it shows us every incident as it received or recorded. NLP facilitates the programming of the brain so that no matter whatever message it records and we chose our responses and remain poised.

It focuses on how mind works on the possibility to find a solution. It is referred as ‘Personal congruence ‘ which can align desires and values to capability. As mentioned by Dr. Fathi El Nadi, “The people who are most effective are the ones who have a map of the world that allows them to perceive the greatest number of available choices and perspectives. NLP is a way of enriching the choices that you have and perceive as available in the world around you. Excellence comes from having many choices. Wisdom comes from having multiple perspectives.”. He defined NLP in two parts. Firstly, the Map is not the territory. As human beings, we can never know reality. We can only know our perceptions of reality. Secondly, Life and ‘Mind’ are Systemic Processes. The processes that take place within a human being and between human beings and their environment are systemic.

To continue reading http://www.citeman.com/11045-nuerolinguistic-programming-a-tool-for-managerial-counselling/

Cracking an interview

Paul Maritz, President and C.E.O of the software firm, VMware, describes the criteria to be hired as,” First of all, you want to make sure that people have the necessary intellectual skills to do the job. Second, you want to see if people have a track record of actually getting stuff done. Then, third, you want to look for people who are thoughtful and that tie into learning and being self-aware”. It’s important to know the interviewer’s perspective as it is quintessential to land a job .The preparations made before the interview are focussed on what is required for the job. The real exploration begins with first round, where it is confirmed if the candidate is interested in the role or not. The trick to utilise this step is by probing. The information received may primarily be on the periphery. If any detailed information about the KRA is not shared. Suggestion including what the role would be , needs to be made. This leaves a room for correction by the interviewer, which would offer necessary information to the interviewee. Preparation taken before the interview is from an external perspective. Even though there are many sources to prepare for the probable question including internet, peer group, mentoring and etc. The answers would require to be altered to fit the role . Few areas to be covered during the interview are as discussed below:

Attention trap: Read the body language of the interviewer. If they are drawn to read the resume, its positive. If they are distracted with any other actions such as taking telephone calls during the interview or looking away. Remain humble and breathe. When they attend back to you, paraphrase what were the last few lines discussed before the distraction and then take it ahead. It will demonstrate that the interviewee is accommodating and not hostile.

Answers Trap: If the interviewer asks questions its imperative to answer it followed by a suggestion in that area. Often, they may not probe, but expect the interviewee to come up with more relevant data towards the role.

Acknowledgement: Paraphrasing the discussions shows attention. This needs to be coupled with data towards the strength of the candidate maintaining the focus on the role. For e.g.: A detailed discussion on the technical questions measuring the depth of the interviewee’s knowledge requires to be followed by the certain inputs, made by the interviewee including, few escalations handled in the area. This would establish the level of the knowledge for the interviewee.

To continue reading http://www.citeman.com/11019-cracking-an-interview/

Life @ Transition

Here we share a discussion from CiteHR introspecting for the reasons why a talent is hired. This discussion shares the situations faced by a job seeker. During transition, the experience gained from attending job interview is priceless. It pushes every professional to introspect values which might have not been pondered upon. Here’s a link to the discussion for the benefit of those who are yet to participate in it. http://www.citehr.com/286979-whats-more-important.html
Transitions are essential for evolution. The job changes can ensure greater learning when these transitions are managed. Sudden loss of employment strain confidence and robs identity. The stigma of unemployment weighs more with every rejection. It may have several reasons ranging from being a misfit, answering the questions with low knowledge, over-qualified, over-experienced and etc. The decision to hire is made on the basis of future promises from the talent, realised during the interview process. Here are few ways to manage transition and become the ‘Irresistible hire’ to the future employer:
Focus on skills and service offerings: The employer will hire the candidate with the fittest offering compared to the other applicants. The talent requires making the best offer, assuring revenue for the business. Prune the offerings relevant to the job. Focus completely on the requirement, incase there are more skills to be offered, mention them judiciously. Let the focus remain on the requirement. During the first few screening rounds ask as many questions as possible. It should cover macro and micro levels of the job. Such as, what would be the daily routine in the job and how much value would one get to create, what would be the parameters for measuring performance etc. Similarly, paraphrase the discussion with the recruiter. It reaffirms listening skills and understanding what the recruiters have explained. In case they don’t share about the job, make suggestion on how the daily routine can be, what kind of escalations would be required to handle. Use this knowledge to form your responses towards the final level. Build your replies on the answers received from the recruiters.

To continue reading http://www.citeman.com/10993-life-transition/

Prevent Employee-Poaching

A discussion in CiteHR http://www.citehr.com/286621-poaching-unethical-especially-when.html

Stephen Grocer in Employee Poaching Returns to Wall Street,mentions “Wall Street is back. First came profits. Then bonuses. Now, the time-honoured tradition of poaching”. As the markets have opened, the demand for talent is on the rise. Companies are hiring aggressively. The drastic measures taken during recession including pink slips, no salary hikes, increased working hours and salary reduction have created an infallible impact on the employee’s mind. This results with attrition as the hiring rise. There is no stop gap arrangement to hold the best talent back. Hiring from the enemy camp is one of the top most strategies in talent acquisition. In a situation like this how do we ensure that our most important asset returns to work every day?

Let’s understand where we lose these talents. Generally, it’s the competitors who hire rampantly. The restrictive practices such as Non-disclosure and Non-compete agreement may save necessary information and losing the talent to the client. However, different other channels including the vendor, distribution, entrepreneurial ventures and transitioning to other vertical still exists. In a recent development Google, Apple, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, and Pixar agreed not to hire each other’s employees.

Apart from the HR programs including the employee engagement, retention strategies , compensation and better growth plans , certain arrangements can be designed which may work for a time period.

To continue reading http://www.citeman.com/10957-prevent-employee-poaching/

Making careers work @ Jobs 2.0

The Maslow’s hierarchy of needs states that motivation to work vary with levels. It all starts with arranging for the basics of life which graduates to the self actualisation. Though it was associated with the gradual development of the career, but different economic cycles changed the dynamics. Overnight there was loss of jobs across the continuum. Even the top paid executives went jobless. Hence hybrids of needs were realised. Though livelihood topped irrespective of their place in the continuum .The absence of employment resulted in choosing a passion. For e.g. an Investment Banker turned into a writer till the market revive .Few of them turned entrepreneurs whereas rest continued with job search and contingent employments. The concept of permanent job became fleeting barring few Government based and the public sectors jobs.

Career transitions have often been parallel to the economic cycles. Hence, managing transitions have become the order of the day. The road to success is through shifting verticals, changing roles and re-skilling to remain employable. Boris, founder of V3 Redirect Services, shares that these transition make us multi-talented. He emphasise that the culture of asking ‘what do you do’ would finally give way to ‘what are you doing ‘. John Zogby , the author of The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream sites data from the speech of economist , Elan Binder that “20-somethings can be expected to change jobs four times before they’re 30 and 10 times before they’re 40″. He divides this workforce into two parts, First Global born since 1979 and Nikes born from 1965 to 1978. He observed the rules for First Global includes climbing up the job ladder as a lifelong process. According to him, they would adapt to diversity and live with those who share their lifestyle. Whereas the ‘Nikes’ have the ‘just do it attitude’. They are the latchkey kid who set their rules away from their elders. While drawing parallels, the First Globals were born in the technological era, whereas the Nikes have evolved with it.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter in, Job 2.0: Nice work if you can get it , explains Job 2.0 being different from the traditional concept. It includes professionals who are involved in multiple projects often with more than one client. The nature of work is shifting, hence remain assignment oriented. Even employers do not meet the traditional definition. They are more of a finance manager to these assignments, hence perceived as client. She further emphasised on the matrix structure for reporting relationships. Hence continuous education and learning second the process for evolution.

To continue reading http://www.citeman.com/10925-making-careers-work-jobs-2-0/

‘CEO’-Gazing

We are inspired by them and sometimes disappointed with them. That’s the role we all wish to be in at some point of our career. We try to understand their minds and mould us likewise. Their charisma, business acumen and the fact that they know how to remain invincible convince us to imbibe their ways. Yes, ‘CEO’ is the ultimately destination we signpost in our career.

As per the Bunsen Martstellar report, Who wants to be a CEO , the top five reasons includes , opportunity for complex problem solving , ability to create a personal impact on the business and satisfaction of implementing an idea . These were followed by reasons such as , making a difference to the world by building a company to last, taking it from good to great and create an impact on employee well-being.

Marlene Prost points that charisma, credentials and vision are the prime characteristics of a CEO . As described by her, these factors weigh over the past performance as it may not always guarantee success in future. Furthermore a cultural fit becomes handy in the long run. Though, Roger Edward Jones, in his book’s title, What Can Chief Executives Learn From Stand-Up Comedians, shares charisma can be inculcated through preparation, confidence and creativity for creating that edge in effectiveness. Sangeeth Vargeesh , founder of Leadcap , stated in The Leader’s Lifelong Learner’s Permit, that leaders never shut their brains. They do every task attentively making sure they learn from every moment. Certain responses are conditioned by the cultures of the country. Peter Capali compared the Indian CEOs to their western counter parts and reflected that the difference lied in ‘social purpose’. The Indian leaders want cell phone, health care and other benefits for everyone.

To continue reading http://www.citeman.com/10898-ceo-gazing/

Dealing with demons at work

Here ‘s a discussion in CiteHR http://www.citehr.com/83935-tackling-physco-manager.html

Cases on harassments get recorded and actions are taken on them. But there are situations where voicing the truth might not lead to justice. An attempt to report a case would end up in power plays and further emotional harassment for the employee. We are aware of the legal guidance and support offered by the Government in such a situation. Here we intend to understand is, how such a situation can be dealt emotionally and intellectually prior to reporting such a case with the legal authorities . We share few coping skills to such tricky situations irrespective of the gender :

Speak objectively: When expressing and setting boundaries, please make specific comments free of emotional remark. If you are not comfortable being called ‘dear ‘ specifies it and mention the name you wish to be addressed with.

Set an alarm from the grapevine: Most of the issues can be dealt early if noticed. The rumour need not be believed, but certainly kept in mind to substantiate with data. We do agree that rumours can get fuelled from a personal rift or enmity. Yet if there are many employees talking consistently about a leader, it needs to consider without keeping any biases.

Early warning signs: It’s important that the changes in the behaviour is noticed , such as if the colleague or the senior shows indifference in public yet is exceptionally nice in private. Certain initiative such as dropping one home can be completely unintended. But repeated incident of arranging meeting towards the end of the office hours and dragging it to ensure the employee stays late, becomes a matter of concern.

To continue reading http://www.citeman.com/10872-dealing-with-demons-at-work/