Human resource management Archives - Page 3 of 4

Why is Feedback Important?

by sincera | Jul 13, 2017 | Business Operations, Communication, Management, Performance

The world that we inhabit today, is characterized most frequently by the relationship between consumers and service providers. The reason being, a majority of our actions are defined by either consumption or provision of services. We could be at the receiving end or at the end of delivery, whether directly or indirectly. Regardless, it is a present continuous action. Starting from the Ubers we ride in, to the food we eat at restaurants, to the ever so frequently used online shopping and delivery services, or even the work that we do at our respective workplaces every day – there is one common thread binding all of this, which is the action of providing and receiving services.If services are such a crucial part of our everyday lives, why then do we take the one mechanism in place which ensures its smooth and efficient delivery for granted? Namely, feedback.

Its importance cannot be stressed enough. One might dismiss the importance of feedback by saying, “what’s the use, I am not going to be taken seriously”. Or, “oh it doesn’t matter, (s)he doesn’t really know what they’re speaking about”, if we’re receiving feedback.

However that is no longer the case. Why? Because of the stiff competition between the service providers of the same services. The one thing that sets them apart is how valuable they consider feedback and incorporate the same into their services. Which is why feedback in the world of services today is very relevant and important. And when we say services, we don’t just mean the large-scale services, we mean just any kind of service – even the kind that you deliver every day at work.

What are some other ways in which feedback is crucial? Have a look –

You get a sense of direction and purpose

It is only with appropriate feedback or constructive criticism that you realize how much progress you’re making in what you’re doing. Proper, articulate feedback helps you understand how far you’ve come, and how much further you see yourself going. You realize what’s working and what’s not, and it spurs you to think of ways to take yourself closer to what you envision as your purpose.
It inhibits stagnation

Without constructive criticism and feedback, it is easy to develop a sense of complacency. You keep doing things in a fixed manner without knowing if you’re really moving closer to your objective and goals. While you may not necessarily get worse at what you’re doing, it won’t be possible to get any better either. Having a system of feedback and incorporating the same into your work gets rid of the otherwise inevitable stagnation.
It fosters growth and evolution

With feedback, you understand which direction you need to push harder in. It also makes you realize if you need to change your approach and adapt to new environments. That is exactly how you learn and evolve as individuals and not surprisingly, even as businesses/ services. It helps you realize if the work that you’re doing is adding value in any way, and if it isn’t how do you change your game plan to evolve.
A sense of fulfillment

Feedback doesn’t necessarily have to be just negative. It can also be positive. In fact, every time you appreciate a particular service, let them know why you liked it. Remember that you would feel valued as well, if someone told you that you were doing a good job. It goes without saying that getting positive feedback for your work is a very motivating and fulfilling feeling. It cements your sense of purpose and gives you confidence to forge ahead in the direction you have imagined.

The process of giving and receiving feedback is not easy, and is a matter of responsibility at both ends of the spectrum.

Very often, we are quick to deliver feedback in what one may call “absolute” terms, without really considering our thoughts carefully. Karen Naumann in her article on why feedback is important makes a very valid point when she speaks about how it is important to be “professional” and “kind” while delivering feedback –

“So, before we give someone feedback, we really need to check our own motives and current mood whether we feel stressed, annoyed, jealous, afraid, or simply have antipathy towards the other person. And then it is on us to really look at the performance of the other person professionally and kindly, with the goal of helping them unlock their greatest potential.

On the flip side however, that’s also exactly why giving and receiving feedback is not easy for any of us, whether it is positive or “negative” nature. It really does require a great amount of one of our most difficult lifelong tasks called self-reflection, as well as humbleness and openness to different opinions and thoughts on the giver’s and receiver’s end.”

What is your opinion on how important feedback is? How are the processes of giving and receiving feedback different? Want the world of work to be able to learn through your experience? Let us know about your thoughts right here!

The Importance of Gender Diversity in the World of Work

by sincera | Jun 2, 2017 | Career, Feminism, Job Offers, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity, World of Work

We write this post assuming that we have come past the phase where we even refuse to acknowledge that gender inequality at the workplace is a very real problem, which requires an immediate solution. Unfair recruitment, unequal pay, the phenomenon of glass ceiling [The Federal Glass Ceiling Commission describes the term ‘glass ceiling’ as “the unseen, yet unbreakable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements.”], are all very pertinent issues which hinder gender diversity in the world of work.

Gender diversity at the workplace, is a crucial pre-requisite in the globalized world of work we all inhabit today. And here are only some of the reasons about why it is so important.

Increased organizational performance

Any organization’s performance is a reflection of the core values and principles of the organization. In other words, the performance of the team is directly related to the organization’s attitude and investments towards the team. One of the most important aspects which have a direct influence on organizational performance is equality and inclusivity. The employees, irrespective of their gender, need to feel like they are equals. It is only then that the motivation and interest to give back to the organization can be sustained within them.
Ability to retain a diverse customer base

In order to help your business grow, it is important for you to be able to attract and sustain a diverse customer base. It is difficult to be able to meet that requirement unless your employee base in itself reflects gender diversity. It is a fact that men and women perceive things differently, with relation to certain key issues. Diversity in thought at the end of the organization is directly related to how successfully the organization is able to retain a diverse customer / client base. A gender diverse work environment is by default a more engaging and supportive work environment.
Decrease in attrition rates

One of the most important causes leading to high attrition rates for any organization is inequality, or just the overall work environment which may not be very inclusive. Lack of equality or unfairness breeds dissatisfaction within the workplace, thus contributing to reasons for higher employee turnover or attrition rates. This not only reflects badly on the goodwill of the organization, but is also a rather expensive error to rectify. Workspaces which are more inclusive and fair tend to have lower attrition rates.
A better talent pool

A more inclusive and diverse work space by default guarantees a richer talent pool. By being gender biased as an organization, you automatically forego a huge chunk of talent. You never know what attributes, and skills you’re missing out on by eliminating or limiting female representation or engagement at various levels in your organization.
Reflection of the organizational culture and values

As we move towards a more globalized world of work, the values and the principles that organizations play by have started gaining more and more importance. It is exactly these values and principles that set an organization apart from others. It is the culture and the values harbored by an organization which lend to it, its reputation. One of the primary reflections of the same is the factor of gender diversity within an organization. The values of fairness, inclusivity and equality while being the most basic expectations, also paradoxically end up being very rare to find. And surely enough, any organization which boasts of these values, is one worth aspiring to be a part of!

It is an understated fact that we need more women at work, in the world of work. We at OBOlinx are an all women’s team, and have a ton of inspiring ‘women at work’ stories which we would love to share with you. But before that, we would love to bring your stories to the world. Tell us what has worked for you, and what hasn’t worked for you, as a woman at work. You never know who you might end up inspiring and providing hope to, out there!

5 Quotes that Sum up the Essence of Team Work

by sincera | May 16, 2017 | Leadership, Management, Motivation, Performance, World of Work

Great teams are not built in a day. It takes perseverance, patience, unmatched leadership, hard work and the many other ingredients that make up the magic sauce of Team work. To create magic as a team, it takes individual and collaborative synchronization.

Today we send some inspiration your way in the form of some very effective insights / quotes that will inspire you to be a great team player, and illustrate what real team work looks like.

1. Alone we are a drop in the ocean, but together we are the ocean itself.

“Team work is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie

2. Like the age-old saying goes, united we stand.

“None of us is as smart as all of us.” –Ken Blanchard

3. To begin, to forge ahead, and to succeed.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” –Henry Ford

4. Because no great team is built without a great leader. It takes a good leader to take responsibility, to share success and to never forget the pat on the back!

“If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.” ― Paul W. Bryant

5. Mistakes happen. What is more important is sticking together unconditionally because after all you are a team. You must finish well, what you started together.

“We’re a team. It’s part of our job to help each other out, and to forgive each other quickly. Otherwise, we’d never get anything done.” ― Jeramey Kraatz

But what is most important is to realize the transience of bad things, and good things. To realize that winning is great, but losing gracefully defines who you are better than a win does. No one says it better than Lance Armstrong in these very powerful, and beautiful words.

“When you win, you don’t examine it very much, except to congratulate yourself. You easily, and wrongly, assume it has something to do with your rare qualities as a person. But winning only measures how hard you’ve worked and how physically talented you are; it doesn’t particularly define you beyond those characteristics.
Losing on the other hand, really does say something about who you are. Among other things it measures are: do you blame others, or do you own the loss? Do you analyze your failure, or just complain about bad luck?
If you’re willing to examine failure, and to look not just at your outward physical performance, but your internal workings, too, losing can be valuable. How you behave in those moments can perhaps be more self-defining than winning could ever be. Sometimes losing shows you for who you really are.” ― Lance Armstrong

Love working as a part of a team? Prefer working alone? What do you think is a better way to be most productive? Share your thoughts on team dynamics and we’ll be happy to share them further!

7 Tips for First Time Managers

by sincera | Mar 22, 2017 | Career, Communication, Management, Motivation

This is a shout out to all you first time managers out there! You are bound to be attacked by butterflies in your tummy, and the symptoms of having cold feet whenever you set out to do something you’ve never done before. While these voyages might appear terrifying, they are a sure sign of the fact that you are growing – in your experiences, and hence as an individual. Applying this general strand of thought to the topic at hand today, this post is dedicated to all you folks out there in the world of work, ready to take on the brand new role of being a manager – for the first time ever.
Before you begin reading this though, we’d like to emphasize that this in no way is a “tutorial”. A change in perspective before you begin to read this will help you understand your new role better. Know that you have risen up in the corporate ladder to be a manager solely because you have it in you to lead, manage and have teams deliver. That said, there are things one knows about, and there are always things one can do better. This post is simply an effort to bolster the latter. Happy reading!

1. Wrap your head around your role and responsibilities

The only way you’ll be able to lead and manage a team well is if you know your own role and responsibilities well enough. Work on yourself before you begin to work on / with your team. Do you own research to have a very thorough sense of the goals you are going to be working on. Ask yourself how you imagine yourself achieving them. Then ask yourself if that process can be applied to the rest of your team as well. While your approach will, of course, depend on the specific situation you might be dealing with at the given moment, having a general sense of direction is a great way to begin this new role.

2. Be Decisive

Making decisions, when you are aware that they no longer affect only yourself, can be tough in the stead of your new role. That however, shouldn’t stop you from making them altogether. Well, you definitely cannot “stop”, making decisions, but as a result of being indecisive you may end up delaying those decisions which will hamper the progress of your entire team. This will not only put the objectives and goals at stake, it will also be a reflection on you as a leader, and manager. The fact is, one can’t ever be sure enough about the consequences of any decision – which is what lies at the root of indecisiveness. All you can do is, weigh the pros and cons to the best of your knowledge and ability, and go ahead and implement the decision you make.

3. Delegate

One of the vices most managers contract is fear of delegation, stemming from the fear that things may not be done as “perfectly” as you imagine yourself doing them. Apart from being immensely time-consuming, this fear is going to unsettle the team dynamics. Understand that you are no longer an employee, working more or less in isolation responsible for delegating that tasks assigned to you. Your role has now expanded to that of a manager, which entails you assigning goals and tasks to the team as a whole, and helping them achieve these goals.
If you do feel like you can relate to being a manager who find it hard to delegate, odds are you also find it hard to not micromanage, once you do succeed in delegating. That too, can be detrimental to the progress (and spirit) of your team. Give your team the credit they deserve, and once you have delegated the task, give them the independence (and assistance) they need to be able to accomplish it.

4. Invest time “in” your team

Time management would probably figure as the prime skill for managers. And while you’re teaching yourself how to manage time, ensure that you figure out time slots for one to one interaction with your team members on a fortnightly/ monthly basis. Even if it is a fifteen / twenty-minute long interaction, it is enough for you to take stalk about progress and challenges with regard to individual team members. This helps not only you in solving problems more efficiently, it also makes your employees feel valued, and importantly, anchored. Being a manager and being a mentor should ideally go hand in hand.

Apart from individual meetings, hosting team lunches, dinners once every two or three months just to build team cohesiveness is not a bad idea either.

5. Work on your interpersonal and communication skills

How you communicate, and put your thoughts across as a manager is pivotal to how much work you are able to motivate your team to do. “Interpersonal skills and communication skills lie at the center of human-based managerial considerations. Good managers understand not only what they are trying to say but also the broader context and implications of saying it. Empathy, self-reflection, situational awareness, and charisma all play integral roles in communicating effectively and positively.”
[Source: Boundless. “Interpersonal Skills of Successful Managers.” ]

While you will most certainly have to make unpopular choices as well, you don’t necessarily have to end up being disliked by team for having implemented these tough choices. What is tougher than making those choices is communicating them ‘effectively’, and ‘positively’, as the excerpt above puts it.

6. Find yourself a mentor

Irrespective of what stage you are in your career, you will always need a mentor. More so when you find yourself stepping into the shoes of a role that needs you to do a lot of mentoring. Odds are, you already do have a mentor, if you don’t, now is the perfect time to find yourself one. When we say “find yourself one”, we do not mean it in the casual language that it implies.

A mentor needn’t necessarily be very hard to find. Think of all the people whose advice and support has helped you grow in your career. It could be one of them, or a few of them you look towards as your mentors. It need not be a very formal process, but resuming communication with them (if you’ve fallen out of touch), and keeping at it, so that you may reach out to them when you need help with tricky situations. You know that in all probability they’ve been there before you, and would know intuitively the dynamics of most situations you might find yourself in.

7. Lead by example

Be a leader, not a boss. Being a boss and being a leader could mean two wholly different things. The plan is, to show your team that you are very much a part of the team and at the helm of affairs. The best way to manage your people and motivate them to be their best is by being more of a leader and less of a boss. No to imposing yourself, stating through overt and covert ways, “who the boss is”, yes to communication, negotiation, trust and motivation. If you’ve ever been bossed by your boss, you know exactly what not to do. But, even the best of us need to be reminded at times.
The best way to get the best out of your team is to lead by example. Inspire your team by being everything you expect from them!

Don’t be too hard on yourself and try not to self-impose any pressure. Like everything else, this too is a learning process and you will learn as you grow in your new role. Don’t forget to remind yourself you’ve been chosen for this role because you CAN do it!
Have tips for the first time managers who might be reading this? Let us know!

Being a boss your team wouldn’t want to let down – Leadership Matters

by sincera | Jan 5, 2017 | Career, Leadership, Management, Managing Yourself, Motivation

Now that’s a tough one, right? Not just how to be a “good” boss, but how to be a boss your team would never want to let down! Let’s state at the outset that very few bosses are able to find a place in that hall of fame. What makes it tough to be that kind of boss is maintaining very firmly, the delicate balance between being an amazing human being and a strict task master. The good news though is that it really isn’t all that tough to be that person. Thinking about it through these five key elements would probably set you off on a path to practice being that boss!

1. Lead

In one of our previous posts, we spoke about how to be a leader and not a boss. While all bosses can boss, only few bosses can lead. While a boss directs you, a leader empowers you and leads you by example. Your team sticks with you not just because they don’t have any other option, but because they like being in “your” team and they like learning with you. To be a leader to your team, is to exude a personality and a confidence which inspires and motivates your team to always go that extra mile.

2. Trust

Reposing trust in your team is a pre-requisite for your team to repose their trust in you. Trust is one of the most fundamental enablers. When you trust your team, there is an understanding that you have enough confidence in their ability to deliver. One of the most powerful methods of ensuring accountability, is in fact by investing trust in your team. This succeeds in acting as motivation for your team to take total ownership and meet your expectations.

3. Care

Why should being a boss, and in charge, pose as a conflict to your ability to be a good human being, who understands the larger dimensions of being in charge? When you are in charge of a team, you are not only in charge of ensuring the deliverables are met, but also in making sure that you help your team through the odds they may face in achieving those deliverables – which at times may even extend beyond the professional realm. At times, you may have to exercise discretion to figure how far you can really go. To care for your team is to make them feel valued, and secure – a quality that can change all that is wrong in the world of work.

4. Encourage

Not just for the sake of increasing productivity, or during appraisals – but make it a part of who you are as a person. Encouragement can be in many forms – it could be a few words, it could be a smile, it could be just an approving nod or a gesture. While it wouldn’t cost you anything, you never know how it may infuse someone with the energy he/she really needs.

5. Laugh

Be the boss who makes the work environment seem lighter. Wear a smile as often as you can, and laugh with your team as often as you can. Invest at least thirty minutes connecting with your team, sharing and laughing with them. The effect would be almost therapeutic – for you and for your team, resulting in a sense of cohesiveness which ultimately motivates your team to deliver the best.
To be a boss your team can’t let down, you’ve got to start by practicing all the qualities that you would like to see in a person you think you won’t ever be able to disappoint – and then, become that person! Let go of your need to invoke fear and hence get the work done (a tactic most commonly used by employers), and become someone who invokes the best in your team, simply by being all that you want to see in your team mates!

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