Human resource management Archives - Page 4 of 4

Recruitment Diary – How to Sift Through Rumours While Hiring

by sincera | Nov 24, 2015 | Job Offers, Management, Office Etiquette, Recruitment, World of Work

Rumours have always been as much a part of the professional spaces, as they are of the idle personal spaces. Be it random, unnecessary rumours resulting from personal vendetta against a colleague that end up in reference checks, or unsubstantiated rumours about a new employee you are just about to recruit, rumours while hiring do pop up inconveniently. Even though you would really like to have the person on your team, based on your meetings and interviews with the potential candidate, the authenticity of the rumour would have the last word. While most of us, as experienced professionals would say that we would go ahead and recruit the candidate irrespective of what rumour we hear, because, well, it is just a rumour, actual studies have been conducted which prove quite the contrary. The odds of not employing a potential candidate based on a rumour against him/her are higher.

As professionals, we are all well aware of the importance of background checks before recruiting a candidate. With this one thing gone wrong, it could make all the difference, and for the worse. In the World of Work, it is a thumb rule to steer away from rumours and giving it flesh, at any cost. However, humans we are, and mistakes we shall make. Here are three basic principles, that will hopefully help you sift through the rumours while hiring when you are about to make a job offer to a potential candidate.

Focus on the positive

Don’t be penny wise pound foolish. If by believing the unsubstantiated rumour, which doesn’t even mean anything grave, you let go of a true asset to your organization, you should think twice. Weigh the potential of the candidate against the authenticity of the rumour and then take a call.

Remember the source

Always, always remember the source. The reason for the rumour could be purely out of petty personal vendetta and in such a case you do not want it affecting your professionalism. Verify the source and do the required research to determine whether or not the rumour could be true. Half your work is done if you know how reliable or unreliable the source you heard the rumour from, is.

Be thorough in doing your own background check

Do not be dependent purely on your team for doing all the background check. When you encounter roadblocks like these, spend some time on doing your own background check, especially if you are looking forward to hiring the potential candidate. Don’t just depend on internet searches for the background checks, they are seldom reliable, and are often noisy information platforms. Tap into your own sources and seek out dependable data.

Also remember that it could have been you in the other person’s place, and losing a job for no valid reason doesn’t make any one feel good. Besides, it is as much your organization’s loss, as it is the candidate’s. Probably a greater loss for you if the candidate was truly worth hiring, because he/she will anyway get a job elsewhere. Factor in all the consequences and a take a decision accordingly, never on a whim. In the World of Work, it is always professionalism over rumours.

Five Outdated Human Resource Policies That Need To Go, Now!

by sincera | Nov 3, 2015 | Job Offers, Management, Performance, Productivity, World of Work

We spend between 8 to 12 hours of our waking time at a place we call “work”. Some of us have chosen our career options, some of us didn’t really have any choice. Whichever category you may fall into, the one thing common between employees from both categories is that both are “governed” by the Human Resource policies your company subscribes to. The HR policies your company believes in and enforces speaks volumes about how they treat or intend to treat their employees. As an employee, you would ideally want to work in an environment which is respectful and put quite curtly, treats you like a responsible adult. Unfortunately, many of the HR policies which are in practice are extremely unnecessary and outdated. The World of Work has made progress by leaps and bounds, however, it is policies like these that hinder the pace of this progress. If only every organization, every company followed two things J.W. Marriott said, like their bible, and shaped all their HR Policies around them, the World of Work would be such a happier place. We continue our post on outdated HR Policies that need to be scrapped, in the spirit of these words, by one of the greatest entrepreneurs ever:

“Take care of your people and they will take care of your customers”

“Treat your employees the way you would like to be treated – provide them every avenue to success. Get their confidence and respect. Have them like and be interested in their job.”

These Five Outdated Human Resource Policies need to go and need to go now:

1. The Tedious No Reference Policy: For those of you who have been at the receiving end of this extremely frustrating policy, and have no idea why most companies across the globe follow this as a rule, the story goes like this: “Not very long ago, in the United States, an anesthesiologist was dismissed after he was caught using narcotics at work. After firing him, the company gave him a positive reference, but later, at his next job, he came to work doped, which almost cost a patient’s life. The patient’s family, who sued the new employer, was awarded $8-million USD. That company then turned around and sued the anesthesiologist’s former company, which provided the reference, and won”.

Hence, in order to avoid complications arising from references which can later be used against the company, and also to avoid defamation lawsuits (in case the company gives the employee a brutally honest reference the employee disagrees with), companies prefer giving no references at all. This HR policy is not only outdated in today’s world where networking is crucial, it also means that there is absolutely no trust in the employee-employer relationship. While it is only fair for an employee to get a reference from his/her former employer stating his/her potential, it is equally beneficial for the future employer to have knowledge of the same.

2. The Insensitive Bereavement Pay Policy: This particular policy is outright insensitive. Losing someone close to you is difficult enough, without having to fill in bereavement applications categorizing whether the deceased was an immediate family member or a non-family member, based upon which the companies issue paid leaves. It is these occasions that you as an employer, or the person responsible for the well-being of the employees at the organization, have to be extremely sensitive about. And it is precisely these occasions that characterize employee-employer relationships, which have a direct impact on productivity. However, when your employee loses someone dear, put yourself in his/her shoes and think how you would feel if the place you go to work at objectifies it, in a manner so insensitive. Being human will take you a much longer way than being a capitalist in these situations. Life, after all, is not a balance sheet. Take care of your employees and they will take care of your business.

3. The School-like Attendance Policy: We thought we left school eons ago, however, we were so wrong. Old school attendance policies haunt us to this day, even at work, where we thought we would be treated as responsible adults. Not allowing work from remote location as a rule and clocking arrival and departure time (which then goes on to affect the pay) stringently indicate a deep-rooted lack of trust and only result in demotivating the employees. How about moving from time-based management to goal-based management ?

4. The Draconian Bell Curve Performance Reviews Policy: One wonders if this is a particularly Indian phenomenon. As Indian kids, we were constantly compared to the metaphorical (and sometimes literal) “Sharmaji ka beta” (the neighbour’s son for our international readers). So we get a job and are finally ready to taste freedom, only to realize, “Sharmaji ka beta” has followed us to our workplace too! Bell curve performance reviews segregate employees according to their performances (high, average and low) by a comparison between the employees, and are completely based on the discretion of the manager. The ones ending up at the bottom of the curve end up being fired to accommodate fresh recruits to make up for the lost performance. This may not only result in unfair evaluation but also in high attrition rates thus having a direct negative impact on the goodwill of the company. Moreover, this format of a performance review makes for an extremely competitive and pressured environment, which any good manager knows, are huge road blocks for productivity. It is imperative to avoid such a divide and conquer strategy in the workplace. On the brighter side, Infosys having made a change, hopefully more Indian companies will follow in scrapping this draconian policy!

5. The Regressive Dress Code Policy: Once again, let’s just try not to keep reinforcing what we all went through at school. Yes, of course there should be some kind of dress code or at least some definition of clothing which may be considered offensive by others, hence to be avoided. However, micromanaging what your employees can and cannot wear is twisting and bending their identities out of shape in a lot of ways. For example, the still ongoing debate on Muslim women wearing head scarfs in France. Let your employees be, let them breathe easy. How one dresses is how one feels, how one feels is how one creates, and every individual has the right to decide that for oneself.

It is indeed sad that in a world as globalized as the one we currently inhabit, we still need to negotiate, on a daily basis, these outdated policies which regulate and control our every day at work. In the longer run, a business which is sustainable and scalable is one which provides an environment to nurture and respect its employees. Like we said earlier, all you need to do is, take care of your employees and they will take care of your business! It has been so long since we have been ‘profit’ oriented, let’s strive for a change to be more ‘people’ oriented. Trust us (and some of the world’s best business leaders) – the profits will soon follow.

From Managing to Leading – Five Attitudinal Shifts To Become An Inspiring Leader!

by sincera | Apr 22, 2014 | Business, Career, Leadership, Life, Management, Managing Yourself, Performance

Why is it so difficult to find great leaders in the world of work? What is the missing element that makes most super achievers fall short of being super leaders or mentors? What does it take for a skilled manager to become an inspiring leader as well and why do so many managers fail to make this leap? In this disruptive world, there is a burning need for leaders. Much has been written on this topic but there is always space for a new perspective. For today’s post, I invited Nilisha Mohapatra to share her insights on this topic. She has studied and worked in the Human Potential Development field and is a keen observer of people in work environments.

A few thoughts on management and leadership from John P. Kotter before we move on to the insights – he has said that “leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action” and that “leadership complements management – it doesn’t replace it….strong managers produce predictability, stability and order, but leaders create, communicate and implement visions of the future, which enables companies to change themselves in a changing competitive marketplace.”

Organizations are all about its people – which is why, a lot of research has gone into understanding what motivates people! This breadth of on-going research and innovation underlines one fact for me – that people management is the most crucial and most dynamic aspect of an organization. It is difficult too, because there are people involved. So many of them!

So how does one make the shift from managing people to leading people?

There are no cookie-cutter fixes for people management. The more I mull over this, I realize that for me it is all about attitude shifts that we need to bring about, rather than finding tricks for success. It all starts with the mind-set. As Gautam Buddha says, ‘The mind is everything. What You think, You become.’
Let this saying be our Pole Star for this blog post.

Here are my five cents to answer this big question:

1. People are capable and able of owning their careers and their lives. They do not need to be ‘managed’. I believe, all people need, is active mentoring and inspiring leadership. Each individual has a Pandora’s Box of talent within them. I mean it. All it takes is a nudge here, a push there, humaneness and occasional guidance, to unlock this. I have known a lady who continued in a data entry job for 10 years because her seniors believed her capability rested there. The moment she received mentoring to try out something new, she soared. Today she is a successful artist, creating social change using various arts media! This happened when she was at the receiving end of trust, acknowledgement of strengths, encouragement for risks, and effective role modelling. This approach is a belief system shift. It can create magic.

2. Respect people for the choice they make to work with You. The part about the choice here is to believe that many people take up their jobs because they want to do that work. They are drawn to it, have a passion or vision for it. They do not just take up a job for the sake of it. It is for us to really respect this very choice and nurture it. They choose to join You in the journey/trajectory of your organization and career, to work with you. Not for you. With You. If we can accept and value this, it will go a long way in the team members really having a sense of purpose in their careers, feel more valued and encouraged to contribute more. Engagement will sky-rocket.

3. Invest in people’s learning, and let them grow. At every point of our careers, we all need to learn. We grow because we learn. The higher up we go in our careers and seniority, the more privileged we are to work with increasing number of people. At that point it is then our responsibility as Mentors to facilitate the same kind, or even better opportunities than ours, for our team. Believe it or not, the learning is going to reach you eventually. The beauty of your experience comes into play when you mentor such growth. Investment can be in the form of allowing them to experiment, implement multiple ideas, unleash their creative thinking etc. When you can, create opportunities to invest in your team’s growth. You will foster high performance!

Be instrumental in polishing uncut diamonds.

4. Appreciation: Criticism = 4: 1. It is a scientifically proven fact by psychologist John Gottman that we need to have a 4:1 ratio of positive comments to negative (four acknowledgments for every one correction) in all relationships to have a healthy one. As mentors, we need to LIVE this. This practice really allows you to validate and acknowledge each of your team members for their work. They will feel seen and heard. What is wonderful about this practice is how it opens up the space for each person to receive constructive feedback and accept the room for improvement. If we want them to do more and be more, this would be a great place for us to start with. Genuine validation is all it takes. Start with 3:1 and then get to 4:1.

5. Be Authentic. Be real and allow the person that you are, to come through in your interactions. This is a great way to build a trustful and synergetic environment in your team. This for me is also purely about walking the talk, and leading from within. If you want to motivate someone to be more accountable, you yourself have to take on the next level of accountability. Want your team to take more risks? Demonstrate risk taking. Set the tone with this authenticity. That way everyone knows that You as a mentor will always have their back!

Over time as I have discussed these ideas with people I meet, I have been told that such mentors are a rare breed indeed. And I understand why it is so. Because this is a conscious and persistent choice we are talking about, which will undo years of conditioning, which might have its roots in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution! But I firmly believe that with these five attitudinal shifts, we can really transform the landscape of ‘people management’ into ‘people mentoring’. And that is the need of the hour.

“We all need to be leaders, regardless of our formal title or role. This starts with inner self-leadership and moves outward to influence, guide, support, and lead others. The process of becoming a leader is the same as the process of becoming a highly effective human being. Leadership development is personal development. Leadership ultimately shows itself in what we do “out there.” But it starts “in here.” “~Jim Clemmer – Growing the Distance

Be your indulging mentor. Let it start with you, because You Matter! I believe that the choice to start a phenomenal trend, lies with You. So let it roll!

What have we missed ? What are your observations on making the shift to inspiring leadership ? Nilisha and I would love to hear back and learn from you.

Nilisha is trained as a Mentor Trainer, delivering complex training to Indian volunteers learning to become mentors to disadvantaged children. She has a Masters in Applied Psychology and has transformed herself into a creative and inspiring trainer who both taught acceptance and behaviour change as well as living the principles in her training. This is Nilisha (@NilishaM)’s fifth guest post for Happy In The Now and you can read all her blogs at fantasycluster.wordpress.com

Pic Courtesy :

http://www.theolivebranchblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/lead-by-example1.jpg

Five Human Resource Management Must-Dos to boost Productivity and Profits in Global Organizations – Business Management

by sincera | Sep 2, 2012 | Business, Business Operations, Career, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

Trawling through the web today, I chanced upon this gem of a story:

Buddha, one day, was in deep thought about the worldly activities and the ways of instilling goodness in human beings. One of his disciples approached him and said humbly – Oh my teacher! While you are so concerned about the world and others, why don’t you look into the welfare and needs of your own disciples too?

Buddha:   OK.. Tell me how can I help you?
Disciple:   Master! My attire is worn out. Can I get a new one, please?
Buddha found the robe indeed was in a bad condition and needed replacement. He asked the store keeper to give the disciple a new robe to wear on. The disciple thanked Buddha and retired to his room. A while later, Buddha went to his disciple’s place and asked him – Is your new attire comfortable? Do you need anything more?
Disciple:   Thank you my Master. The attire is indeed very comfortable. I need nothing more.
Buddha:   Having got the new one, what did you do with your old attire?
Disciple:   I am using it as my bed spread.
Buddha:   Then.. hope you have disposed off your old bed spread?
Disciple:   No.. no.. master. I am using my old bed spread as my window curtain?
Buddha:   What about your old curtain?
Disciple:   That is being used to hold hot utensils in the kitchen.
Buddha :   Oh.. I see.. Can you tell me what they did with the old cloth they were using in the kitchen?
Disciple:   It is being used to wash the floor.
Buddha:   Then, the old rag being used to wash the floor…?
Disciple:   Master, since the rag was all torn, we could not find any better use, but to use as a wick in the oil lamp, which is right now lighting your study room….
Buddha smiled in contentment and left for his room.

This story struck home – all the more because I am working on an assignment to improve the resource utilization of the unit in various centers across the globe. And isn’t that what resource utilization is all about – connecting the dots in terms of skills, availability, requirements and time frames ?

Given the pressures of the talent shortage prevalent in the market today, resource management has become a business critical function to explore every option and implement strategy to leverage the talent within our organizations to boost productivity and profits. So how do we utilize our best assets optimally in our organizations?

Here are five short-term and long-term approaches that I have seen work and believe are must-dos to build the talent advantage:

Must-Do #1 – Demand forecasting – There needs to be a robust budgeting and forecasting process established to accurately predict resource requirements in line with the business needs. The success of resource management lies in the ability to manage spikes and dips in resource requirements so that there is no impact to revenue or profits due to lack or excess of skilled staff. This can only be done if we have a process in place to arrive at fair estimate of our pipeline into the future (not just for the current quarter but also for the next three quarters) and tie the sales forecasts with the resource planning on a regular basis through smart use of business metrics.

Must-Do #2 – Supply planning – Once you have the demand forecast in place, the supply chain needs to vetted to ensure that we have the right hiring engines to meet short-term as well as long-term needs. For example, hiring of permanent employees and the hiring of contract employees will need different strategies and engines. The supply chain needs to be aware of the demand forecast and the current priorities on a regular basis to effectively plan the sourcing channels as well as capacity building in terms of recruiters, infrastructure and training needs. These two must-dos will go a long way in arriving at a solution to this challenging question: ‘What skills are needed to deliver on strategic objectives and how to ensure that the right people in the right places at the right time are available?’

Must-Do #3 – Competency development – Look into any HR trends or surveys in the past year and you will find the recurring theme of skills shortage as the top threat to growth and profitability. Lack of available talent means the delay or disbanding of strategic initiatives critical to pursuing new market opportunities or innovative offers. It is extremely difficult to find the “perfect” fits in terms of resources for your important requirements. A fool-proof plan is needed instead to hire or internally source “best” fits and then put them through a skill building plan based on your demand forecast and supply gaps. Any new offer or initiative should only be pursued after vetting the demand-supply gaps and having a competency building plan in place.

Must-Do #4 – Lateral career development – This one is about investing in “your own” workforce – companies need to refocus efforts and investments on first identifying their key talent and then providing them a platform to increase their ability in different areas and stay relevant in this rapidly changing (technology and business models) world. The complexities of a global business environment and the pressing need of trying to do more with less provides the business case of allowing and empowering employees to move laterally across different functions, locations and positions. Through this, companies can create a core team of multi-cultural, multi-functional generalists who could then become the pivot around which new teams can be built with greater agility. Deloitte terms this model as the “Corporate Lattice” which reframes workplace suppositions, providing a framework to organize and advance a company’s existing incremental efforts into a comprehensive, strategic response—and mindset shift—to the changing world of work.

Must-Do #5 – Skill Repository and collaboration tools – This one is about making resource related information available throughout the important functions of the organization – where access is based on the potential value that people bring in and not on the hierarchy prevalent in the organization. One of the things that I have found very useful in improving resource utilization is in building a company wide skill repository (a bank, so to say of the human assets) where anyone who has a resource requirement can tap into to see who is available where and when. This greatly improves resource deployment ability moving it from “pockets” to a more global arena. Add to that collaboration tools with some analytic tools thrown in, and soon you offer a space where managers and employees can “manage” themselves leading to tremendous productivity benefits (20% to 25% as per this piece of research from McKinsey)

Whatever the size of your organization, talent management is an area that needs huge attention, thought and planning. One size does not fit all as they say and it is important to create your strategy and build your implementation plan that best suits your nature of business. However, if you focus on aligning your sales plan to your resource plan, build in a process to forecast the future and plan for it, develop the right talent, make resource management a collaborative function instead of a silo and measure using the right metrics and analytics – you will be well on your way to creating the talent advantage for your organization.

Image courtesy : http://www.flickr.com/photos/elpatojo/312519196/

Five Human Resource Metrics that link People to Business Strategy – Business Operations Performance Metrics

by sincera | Jul 29, 2012 | Business, Business Operations, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

The abundance of information – from both internal and external sources – is the richest possible mine when it comes to understanding the employer brand, employee engagement and what employees want and need from the organization. The vital, and apparently missing, step is to transform the data collected into strategic advantage. The use of analytics, seems to be focused on external stakeholders and is yet to be used to its full effect when it comes to talent management. Only under half of CEOs (46%) use analytics to provide insight into how effectively skills are being deployed in their organizations.

This was a key finding in PwC’s 18th Annual Global CEO Survey, “People strategy for the digital age: A new take on talent”, which seeks to understand how businesses are preparing for the wholesale redesign of the world of work.

Clearly the standard HR metrics of Cost per resource, HR efficiency (no. of HR employees to total no. of employees), etc. which primarily help in driving down the costs are no longer sufficient in an environment where talent is the competitive edge for organizations. The need of the hour is HR metrics that are aligned to the current and the future business plans to ensure that not only is there no shortage of talent when we need it but also that we have processes and programs in place to create the right talent for our business.

When we create budgets for the year, we spend a significant amount of time planning where the revenue will come from and how the spend will be distributed across cost headers. In services organization, labour is the biggest component of both income and expenditure. Do we spend the same amount of time in planning how we would attract, retain and develop this big-ticket item so that the business objectives are met? Annual talent strategy planning is a must to develop and harness the potential of human capital – to proactively drive business outcomes instead of reactively responding to whatever the latest talent shortage crisis is. Based on my experiences in resource management and operations, here are the five human resource metrics that I think can help link your people strategy to your business strategy:

Human Resource Metrics #1: Competency Development Spend % – This one starts with identifying the key skills and talents that are necessary to execute on the company’s strategy for the year and create the competitive advantage while providing a platform for internal employees to learn and grow in their chosen career ladders. These could be technical (specialized software or hardware skills), functional (customer service, selling, tools and technology training) or managerial (leadership development, communication, succession planning, mentoring). Assess the current skill levels and the gap from where it needs to be and then draw up the competency development plan with budgets, timelines and desired outcomes for the year. Monitor the spend against the budget periodically (maybe monthly or quarterly) to ensure that there is focus on developing the right competencies that are needed for business success and that the plan is relevant to the current business scenarios.

Human Resource Metrics #2: Employee Engagement – This is the HR Mantra and enough research has been done to show that the EE figures of an organization are directly proportional to its business performance. Falling engagement levels are the precursor to higher attrition, lower productivity and increasing costs per hire. But an employee engagement survey just for the sake of measuring engagement is a waste of time and energy. The survey should be used as a tool to collect information that helps drive better results. Analysis should be done to isolate sincere actionable feedback from the “noise”. For example – what do your best performers think about your organization – does it allow them to perform to their optimum levels and get better every day? Invest and prioritize the engagement feedback that will really have an impact on key employee retention and overall employee performance and build this into your annual plan.

Human Resource Metrics #3: Quality of Hiring – This amounts to determining how a new hire’s abilities and performance varies from pre-hire requirements and expectations and is a metric that is generally calculated from 3-6 months after the hiring. Combined with the cost of hire (external recruitment spend+ internal labor costs) and the speed of hire (time taken to fulfill an open position), the quality of hire metric forms a great basis to measure the overall efficiency of your recruitment function and its processes (targeted sourcing, speedy reaction time, consistent screening process and continuous improvement). The impact of a wrong hire is huge on the business outcome and we definitely need to spend some time here to ensure we have the right data points and methodologies to ensure that we hire the right people for the right jobs. Some excellent data on this metric here : http://www.ere.net/2009/10/02/quality-of-hire-the-missing-link-in-calculating-roi-part-i-of-a-series/

Human Resource Metrics #4: Resource Utilization % – This is the most common metric used in human resource management and for a good reason. It is the ratio of the resource’s billable work to the total amount of work and hence has a visible and direct impact on a company’s revenue and margins. What I want to highlight here is the need to go beyond this number and look at the underlying reasons for variations in the numbers and focus on them for improvement. Numerous factors can change utilization rates, including inconsistency in calculations of what constitutes work and billable work, late and cancelled projects, increased training and ramp –up times and ancillary job demands, such as paperwork. Keep track of employee expertise areas and availability status in a central skill database, so that you can the quickly move people into a project and maximize utilization. Cross-train technical staff to respond quickly to changes in client demand. Developing a versatile and flexible workforce keeping in mind future customer requirements reduces idle time. Develop a bench strategy and a robust demand and supply forecasting process to stay on top of the target utilization numbers.

Human Resource Metrics #5: Revenue per Employee – This is a simple metric but the most important one to gauge and measure the success of all the plans and initiatives as outlined above – quarter on quarter and year on year. It also helps to compare the performance of your organization with similar organizations and set benchmarks internally for your HR and resource management functions, the data on total revenue and total headcount of companies being easily available. The revenue per employee should steadily increase leading to expanding margins and improved profitability. This is a number that must feature on all management reviews as it helps keep focus not only on the denominator (costs – and there is only so much cutting that you can do) but also on the numerator (revenue – where are we getting maximum value out of our labour and why – to drive strategy in the directions where it is working).

One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to metrics – and you may have your own views on what metrics are best suited to drive the talent advantage for your organization. One thing is common though – we need to collect consistent information on our resources, use metrics that enable decision-making and ensure that talent management strategy remains relevant with overall business strategy and contributes actively to business growth. We need to choose the metrics that help the management to make quick and sound business decisions that are based on facts rather than feeling. What has worked for you in this area – I would love to hear and learn from you.

Next Entries »