Archive

The great (or is it not so great?) part of HR is that academicians,
practitioners and consultants associated with the field of Human
Resources have been trying for years to answer questions like:

Any finished product is a function of both form and substance. These share a symbiotic relationship and neither is complete without the other- the best substance cannot exist as an amorphous mass and the most perfect form needs substance to fill it. Likewise, Assessment Testing needs both a framework and content. The design, operation and review/ updation of the Framework is no doubt, as all of us know, a critical determinant in the success of an assessment testing application. Equally important however, is the quality and relevance of the Content.

Very often I hear from all my clients using psychometric assessments - "How do I ensure that the candidate has not responded in a socially desirable behavior?” This is more often than not, followed by another question “How do I decide whether to hire or not, if a candidate has responded in a socially desirable manner?" What these questions really aim to do, is to understand whether the person has tried to ‘present oneself as Mr. or Ms. Right’, or tried to ‘distort the recruiter's perception about himself/herself’? However, is it so bad to present oneself in a favorable manner?

One of my HR colleagues recently read my blog post on “Getting Employee Engagement Practices Right!” and commented that although Employee Engagement is important to every HR practitioner, what is the HR capability and preparedness to take on such a noble cause? What is the role of HR in facilitating Employee Engagement and how can we build the capacity to deliver?

Retaining influence on employees [in spite of unions]!

I was invited to address the HR Meet of a very reputed company. The audience comprised senior managers. One of them asked me, "How can we not have a union at the workplace?" My answer began with a rather rude statement, I am not proud of it, but yet let me state it. "If we ask wrong questions we get wrong answers.” I then explained that the real issue was “How to retain influence over our employees in spite of unions."

Is Employee Engagement your Priority?

Reflecting on past events is essential. It enables us to understand trends and varying points of view. It also lays out issues clearly before us. And hopefully it helps us to learn and find a better way, moving ahead.

"Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action”, said Peter Drucker. So let us review ‘Employee Relations’ in 2014. This is the first part of a three part series of blog-posts. I have divided this note according to subject. The current blog post focuses on ‘Strikes and Lockouts in 2014’

Reflecting on past events is essential. It enables us to understand trends and varying points of view. It also lays out issues clearly before us. And hopefully it helps us to learn and find a better way, moving ahead.

“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action”, said Peter Drucker.

So let us review ‘Employee Relations’ in 2014. This is the first part of a three part series of blog-posts. I have divided this note according to subject. The current blog post focuses on ‘Strikes and Lockouts in 2014’

Yes, we are a generation of job hoppers. Yes, we don’t think of “stability” as a cool word. Yes, we believe in “moving on” to greener pastures. But is that what we really are at heart? A bunch of Bedouins forever gazing down the horizon raring to get back on the road?

Why do we need a deeper understanding of Engagement?

Under influence of the belief that "good is the opposite of bad", mankind has for centuries been fixated with fault-finding, weaknesses and failings. Doctors have investigated the causes of diseases in order to learn about health. Psychiatrists and psychologists have investigated sadness in order to learn about joy. Organizations have investigated their "areas of development" or "weaknesses" in order to develop and make themselves better places to work.

The mid monsoon forum meet in Pune was all about changing 'point of view'. Suman Nair, a seasoned Human Resources facilitator, demonstrated how practicing a simple technique can change focus: from seeking to overcome the weaknesses in an organization, to appreciating and leveraging the core strength of the organization.
Ms. Nair is Managing Director at Atiitya Training and HR Consultants Pvt. Ltd. In the last two decades, she has worked extensively in the Human Resources space in companies like The Ion Exchange, Pantaloons, Tracmail, GE Capital and Mastek.

Create a plan for yourself and consider how you will evaluate it along the way - don't be scared to film yourself giving that next presentation and then asking a graduate to provide you with some feedback -I dare you.
- Gavin Freeman

Employee engagement is not just a buzz-word today. While it’s great that most organizations have come to value the importance of an engaged workforce, the obsession with the annual employee engagement surveys and award lists seems to be a case of misplaced importance. Granted that surveys are a great way to pool in copious amounts of data, that they help in establishing a base-line and the results can be insightful enough to guide you on the path ahead. But a survey is not the answer to everything (and that’s not just because surveys only have questions!).

In this competitive world, there are high chances of employees and managers moving between different roles. As a result, many of us experience working with various managers exhibiting different leadership styles. While some of us learn to forge relationships with our respective managers through few interactions, many of us take time to build a rapport with the new boss. During this transition phase, most of us find ourselves pondering upon questions like: Has the information about our performance been handed – over smoothly from the previous manager to the new one?

The pressure to perform consistently results into stress.

Talking about stress/pressure at work with the people at work is a topic non grata. Bosses don't want to know. Mostly, because they have no immediate solution at hand. Employees don't want to talk about it fearing they will be considered weak, non promotion material. People suffer and work suffers. A lose-lose situation for everyone.

Exit Interviews are usually not perceived as pleasant interactions – some people view it as a venting exercise, some adopt an “advisory” approach of providing solutions to the issues they faced and a lot of people are usually indifferent!

The Start up movement has a lot of potential to create a positive change in the Indian economy, if, as an industry, we can lend support and guidance to those that are experimenting, innovating and are trying to create something new.

SHRMi16PITCH has been conceptualized with the aim to support all those who have dared to become a part of this creation process despite the risks it presents.

Potential needs opportunity to flower. It’s a live energy, if untapped at the right time it dissipates. With most things in life, what is not defined well is often, not measured well, misunderstood for most parts and abused in some parts. In most organizations identifying potential is a BIG deal. Some do it more scientifically than others, some more rigorously than others. What is certain that there is no standard way of identifying this Holy Grail.

Employer branding has become an important part of HR. Building a brand that people would feel proud to work with and for is becoming necessary to attract the best talent and to retain current employees. The brand image and what it stands for is a major consideration when accepting a job offer.

We connected with Alpana Parida, Managing Director - DY Works + IDIOM, to understand what makes a brand, THE BRAND?

What defines a bold HR - is the question on our (all) our minds. It’s also the theme of our Annual Conference and Exposition, so to find out what it’s all about, we went straight to the source.

Ritu Anand, Dy. Head, Gobal HR & Talent Management - TCS, shares her thoughts on the bold new HR.

In the past few articles we have shared various elements of Diversity , as well as the importance of Diversity audits. While our country does not make diversity a legal compliance area, in order to be perceived as a global organization that believes in equal opportunities, organizations must proactively have metrics in place related to the composition of their workforce. This kind of periodic monitoring assists organizations in ensuring that close any glaring gaps which are leading to some kind of diversity imbalance at a particular location or business unit or management level.

The talent war that HR has been facing in the recent years is never like before. It's not only selecting the right fit to avoid the bad hire cost to the company that is a concern for HR. It is also equally imperative for HR to ensure that the employees are continuously preparing themselves for the emerging talent requirement to perform to their optimum potential and contribute effectively to the organization's goals. It is for these two reasons that there has been an increasing use of talent assessment tools in the organizations.

Nearly 70 per cent of HR professionals use social media for recruitment. According to a study released in September 2015 by The Society for Human Resource Management, in collaboration with Ascendo Resources, 65 per cent of companies surveyed said they discovered new hires through social media channels within the past year.
Source

There's a lot of buzz around HR. There's a new image in the making - its bold and brave. HR is now emerging to be one of the crucial functions in an organization. And it should be, after all the HR does manage an organization's most important asset - its people. So, what exactly is this new change in HR?

HR is synonymous with the terms - performance appraisal and bell curve. They use these to promote, place, and assess employee training needs. Till now, it was the HR facilitating the performance appraisal of all the other employees in the organization - but recently there's a lot of buzz around HR - some are asking if we really need HR? some are saying they're the most important - but underutilized - resource in the company.

In today's competitive and dynamic business environment, organizations need to pay attention to every aspect of business. They must realize that achieving lasting success in the industry requires more than just high sales or profits. People want and expect more than just salaries, commercial payments, dividends from those that they work for and engage with as shareholders, investors, business partners, vendors, consumers, and as a part of the society in general.

Big news to share! Last week, I was invited to present the opening keynote at SHRM India’s HR Technology conference in Mumbai. Not only is this an incredible opportunity to learn more about the state of HR technology in one of the world’s fastest growing markets, it also challenges me to put some stakes in the ground on what I think are the most important trends driving innovation in this corner of the enterprise.

'Did you capture the right metrics which show the HR value - add?' - is one of the most common questions heard in the HR corridors for long now. Dashboards, data decks and reports generated from information systems are being incorporated in the HR departments’ reports since last decade or so. HR facts like headcount, attrition, productivity, hiring and demographics are some of the popular areas of HR reports.

In December of 2014, my list of 2015 predictions was topped by the following statement: "Training management finally has its day." It's now March, and time to clarify something very important about that statement. The software vendors themselves need to move the first chess piece. That realization came to me at a celebration of Holi, the spring festival of colors and love.

HR Audits are becoming the need of the hour. An audit is typically conducted to identify the baseline or evaluate the current situation within the organization with respect to a certain area or sub-process. Hence in case of Diversity, such an audit is important to understand where the organization stands and the distance it needs to cover with respect to its goals in this area.

If one is conducting a comparative survey, then this helps to assess one’s situation against the market practice.

For decades, we've spoken about them behind their backs, made pot shots at their behaviour, their dressing style, cracked jokes about them and ridiculed their way of life. Today our mind cannot but think of this person we deal with [or rather have to deal with] every day. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about your Boss!

Here are our top five reasons, on why we think, being a boss or a leader is tough work:

The term "Employer Branding", was first publicly introduced to a management audience in 1990 and was defined by Simon Barrow, Chairman of People in Business; and, Tim Ambler, Senior Fellow of London Business School. It was meant to denote an organisation’s reputation as an employer. Since then, it has gained considerable acceptance in the global management community.

We know that these two areas are linked. But what we are yet to understand is which one determines or impacts the other. So in essence, we are trying to answer this core question through the article – Does a flexible workplace lead to a more diverse workforce being there within an organization OR if the organization has a diverse workforce it tends to create a more flexible workplace?

LET’S PLAY TOGETHER

Okay, we are different it's true.

And I don't like to do all the things that you do.

But here's one thing to think through,

you are a lot like me and I'm a lot like you!

In October this year, I attended the HR Tech World Congress as a Speaker and Moderator in their Learning Track. The organizers had requested me to speak on Big Data and how it can be leveraged in the Learning and Development space.

While interacting with the delegates at the conference, my earlier notion of Big Data being a black box to L&D practitioners just got further reinforced. While most of them were aware that Big Data is going to change the way people learn, many didn’t know how to deal with this new phenomenon. This discovery prompted me into writing this blog.

There’s a lot of discussion around artificial intelligence. Industry is exploring and experimenting on how it can be used by various functions across the organization, its pros and cons - especially how it will affect the workplace or more specifically our jobs. Given all this buzz about artificial intelligence, we want to know how HR can use it to its benefits - especially in the field of talent management.

While the trend of technology in HR is yet to mature and reach its full potential in India, it is definitely catching up with its global counterparts. The buyers and suppliers of HR technology in India have taken several steps in the right direction leading the industry pundits to predict that the maturity story of the HR technology domain in India may shape up quicker and better.