SHRM South Asia Blog

Learning to Learn

by Vivek S PatwardhanOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

SHRM has been organizing programs of interest to HR professionals and I congratulate them for this excellent effort. The purpose as I understand is to get professionals to share their experience and conclusions; today I venture to share mine. I am acutely aware that some of my conclusions may not be validated by research, yet if I succeed in generating a debate on various issues related to learning, I believe that the purpose of this Forum Meet will be served.

The subject I am going to deal with is "Learning to Learn." Forget the play of

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Innovative Practices in Employee Relations - Part 2

by Vivek S PatwardhanOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

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."

There are many ways to do it, but every organisation must...

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Innovative Practices in Employee Relations - Part 1

by Vivek S PatwardhanOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

Friends,

A few thoughts are placed for your consideration. And then, at the end, I will place a summary for your deliberation.

Is our idea of relationship moored in avoidance of dispute?

Let us go back and reflect on our motives with respect to Industrial Relations. We often hear HR Managers say that ‘we have a very good relationship with our union – we have not had a strike since so many years.’ Some even say ‘we solve our issues across the table – we do not have a single case in the labour court.’ So our idea of industrial...

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HR Processes for Employee Engagement

by Aneeta MadhokOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

Is Employee Engagement your Priority?

Do you want to ramp up Employee Engagement (EE) as a priority HR thrust area? First ask yourself, “Is my organization (and me) ready for it?” and then, “What are the HR processes that support EE programs?” Prompted by one very senior and respected HR professional in the corporate sector, who asked me a couple of weeks ago, if there is a level of readiness that is required to put Employee Engagement initiatives in place. I decided to write my thoughts down in this fifth blog post in the series on Employee Engagement. You...

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Getting Employee Engagement Practices Right!

by Aneeta MadhokOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

Many readers of the first two posts in this series have asked for ideas on what to do to enhance Employee Engagement. This blog post is based on a series of conversations with HR Professionals and explains how to get Employee Engagement practices right.

First: Define what you want to manage

In one organization the term Employee Engagement was linked to a "marriage" of the employee and the organization, and the expectation from employees was to be ‘wedded to the company’ (Anil Gole of Greaves Cotton). In Essar Oil, Harsh Bhosale indicated that they believed engagement was the extent to...

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Reflections: Employee Relations (Part 3): Unrest and Closures in 2014

by Vivek S PatwardhanOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

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’

I have not...

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Reflections: Employee Relations (Part 2): Industrial Unrest In 2014

by Vivek S PatwardhanOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

This is the second part of a three series of blog-posts. I have divided this note according to subject. The earlier blog post spoke of strikes and lockouts in 2014 and this one features stories of industrial unrest.

We begin with the story of ING Vysya.

ING Vysya - Kotak Mahindra Bank Merger Deal

On January 7, while the deal was to be presented for shareholder approval, the unions, which represent 35% of the employees, were intending to go on strike. Why? The fear was obvious. They wanted an agreement to be signed between the two corporates and...

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Reflections: Employee Relations (Part 1): Strikes and Lockouts in 2014

by Vivek S PatwardhanOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

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’

I have not...

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Employee Engagement: The Role of Leadership

by Aneeta MadhokOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

Employee Engagement: The Role of Leadership

In my last SHRM blog as a Subject Matter Expert, “HR Processes for Employee Engagement” I ended with a caveat that the quality and tonality of Employee Engagement cascades directly from the leadership of the company. HR interventions can enhance the positive effects or reduce the negative effects of leadership and often does both. So, it is important for the HR Professional to be acutely tuned to the leadership culture and flow with it, at the same time, working to improve the leadership itself.

What leadership does?
As an example, I would like...

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Emotional Intelligence and Attrition

by Deepa AnantOn March 17, 2017 0 comments

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?

As seen in most movies, each of us reach decisions, on one hand, derived after putting our brains into it; while on the other side, by being led by our hearts. Research in “Employee Hiring and Attrition” suggests that whilst most employees take up a job role based...

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