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Push v/s Pull HR

2007-04-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

Amidst all the HR generalist and specialist debate that continues – I’m wondering if we can shift our focus lens view things from a slightly different angle.

Clearly, based on the various functions that HR performs, there are push functions and pull functions.

“Pull” functions are those HR functions, which customers will flock to, like bees to a honeycomb. They can’t get enough of you, their day starts with a mail to you and ends with a mail to you – you are more or less at the center of their existence. Recruitment and Compensation are the two biggest examples of “Pull” functions. And ofcourse, HR Generalists. Managers in these functions will never complain that the business does not give them time, it will always be the reverse – can’t they get off my back? The business will keep asking them for complicated reports, detailed analysis, status updates, and what nots – you are made to feel very much “in demand” and “wanted”. You will never have to justify your existence to them.

“Push” functions are those functions which you have to “sell” to your customer. Performance Management, OD, Leadership Development – to name a few. You will have to create a business case which convinces your customers of the value add of your function. Skepticism, cynicism, dismissal – these are only a few of the “not so nice” reactions you will meet with. The customer will never seek you – it is you who must seek him / her. Ask for meetings, call frequently, follow up regularly. In short, you will have to justify the legitimacy of your existence.

Given this classification, I would say even the skill sets required of HR professionals would then differ, depending upon whether they are in “push” or “pull” functions., irrespective of whether they are generalist or specialist roles.

In a pull function, speed of response, ability to provide closures, negotiate with your customers (on deadlines, decisions, process, etc), manage / juggle multiple, sometimes conflicting demands, assume primary importance.

In a “push” function, packaging and selling skills, ability to engage leadership teams and key stakeholders, and an almost dogged pursuit of your goals are crucial to succeed.

Both functions require an equal mix of brain work and leg work, both need you to be completely clued on to your business, and both demand that you be credible.

So maybe the next time – instead of wondering whether you are more suited for a generalist or a specialist profile, ask yourself instead whether you like to be “pulled” or “pushed”. You might view your choices in a different light.

Tagged!

2007-03-09T20:47:00.000-08:00

Gautam wants to know if I “really” read his blog, just so that he knows I do – here’s my response to his tag:)

Books: Well..where do I start on this? Like all good parents – even mine introduced me to the Enid Blytons of the world – only to later on discover that reading became a disease with me! My Dad still says I got spectacles only because of reading through nights with dim lights on!

Here’s a listing of my favourite books:
>> Books I can never grow out of – Enchanted Woods, Enid Blyton (While other children built castles in the air, I built Toadstool houses thanks to her vivid descriptions and imagery around them!), Malory Towers Series
>> All Seasons Favourite – Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
>> Books that make me cry – Bridges of Madison County, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
>> Books which send shivers down my spine – “Perfume” - Patrick Suskind, Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts
>> Favourite book by an Indian Authors – Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri,
>> All time energizer – Zapped!......
>> Currently Reading – Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

Communication: A combination is what works for me. I cant overdo anything – be it email, phone, face-to-face. Texting (messaging) is NOT communication for me. I especially hate deciphering text messages which come to me like this – t c, c y sn, gd nt. Ugggggh! Whatever happened to the simple “bye?” (in case you still haven’t figured that out – it is “Take care, see you soon, good night.).

TV: I’m not much of a TV watcher. The times I do (which is largely over the weekends) – its with a finger endlessly pressing the channel change button. I have very limited attention spans when it comes to watching TV, though I must admit that I have watched all the episodes of the recently re-released Koffee with Karan - Season 2!

Films: I like all kinds of films – but most of all – films on relationships. In Hindi, “Lamhe” & Mr. & Mrs. Iyer are my all time favourites. My favourite English films are “Speed”, “Primal Fear”, "Stepford Wives", "Hitch" – I also loved the recently released “Babel”.

Magazines – Ocassionally read all the business ones - Business Today, Business Week, Business Standard.

Music –I like Instrumentals, especially violin and flute. I also like the music of Micheal Learns to Rock, Savage Garden, Carpenters & Boney M.

Radio – It is an integral part of my morning drive to work. 98.3, Go 92.5, Red FM – I listen to all – and thoroughly enjoy the mindless banter, the variety of music, and ofcourse, the traffic updates!

The Web – If this one is taken away from me, I lose my oxygen mask. I use the web to regularly check emails, visit news sites, read blogs and sometimes do some mindless surfing. For HR & management related updates, I visit Management Issues, Personnel Today, Workforce Management and HBS working Knowledge regularly. I hate “chatting” on the Net, so Google Chat, Yahoo & MSN Messengers are out for me.

Tagging: Shuchika, Cheri Baker, Prasad Kurien, here's hoping they pick up my tag!

On Exit Interviews

2007-02-14T07:32:00.000-08:00

The CFO magazine writes about how exit interviews can be used as a tool to improve retention.

"Turnover is an expensive proposition, and 32 percent of companies surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers expect that cost to increase this year. Domeyer says exit interviews can be an excellent way to stem turnover because people are more likely to be candid about problems once they know they're moving on, especially if they can discuss them with a more objective party in HR."

My experience with exit interviews has been a little different. In fact, for a long time now Ive been wondering about the value of exit interviews. I believe they give you data, which you, as an HR person, should already have been aware of, and that too data - which many times is:

Highly exaggerated and unidimensional - "I hate my manager. and mark my words, everyone from his team is going to attrite in the next 3 months!"

Plagued with recency effect - Promotion loss, dissatisfaction with compensation hike, conflicts with the current boss

Coated with diplomacy - "It's a great place, but my interest lieelsewhere". "I've grown a lot here, now I need something more, which Idon't see this organization being able to give me"

Plain lies - "I wish to take a break in my career", only to find out a month later that the person has joined your competitor.

No one to blame here - because a lot of this is also about the way the exit interviews happen, and when they happen. Often they happen in the last week, amidst a whole lot of paperwork and winding up activities that the employee is swamped in. Also, their end outcome is a paper with the relevant checkboxes ticked - meaningful conversations are rare. And on those few ocassions when the interview has provided a lot of data, HR professionals get caught in the confidentiality rut - how do they act upon this data if they are not allowed to share it in the first place?

On the other hand, doing exit interviews after the employee has left (say within 3 months of his leaving) may be more useful. Logistically a little difficult to manage, but potentially more impactful.

As this CLC report says - (membership required)

Research suggests that companies are increasingly waiting to conduct exit interviews until several months after the employee has left. According to Entrepreneur, employers wait three to nine months, while IOMA and Workforce Management suggest waiting two to seven weeks. Conducting interviews after an employee has left may have the following results:

Participation levels may decrease the longer a company waits.
Employee feedback may be of higher quality because employees have had time to reflect on their experience with the company and are less busy dealing with other factors associated with changing jobs.
Employees may be more level-headed and provide honest, actionable feedback.

And then ofcourse, it could be a great way to build your corporate alumni network!

Time to Confess

2007-02-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. Actually "many" confessions.

I try and practice what I blog (not to be read as "preach"), but sometimes I am unsuccessful.

I still don't have answers to the questions I keep posing.

I dont raise the red flag sometimes.

I try to compete, but end up comparing.

I do not always know the pain areas of my customers

In all the flurry of a hectic work day, I don't end up taking smoke breaks.

No........ I don't get sleepless nights over these contradictions and thats because I manage to retain my authenticity in my writings and in my interactions when I acknowledge that my blog does not always mirror my work life.

But yes, what the blog has done is increase my commitment to executing the written word. Its like this- once you hit the "publish post" button, you have made a "this is my world view" contract with yourself, and living the world view therefore becomes part of that contract. Atleastfor me.

Needless to say, the contradictions remain. They show up when we keep harping about effectiveness metrics and then end up measuring efficiency. They are the cracks on the wall that get formed when we forsake quality to meet numbers. They parade as process improvements when the problem is structural. Or worse still, they get showcased as automations. They become value cards that talk to you of behaviors that you never get to see in the organization.

So why do these refuse to go away? Why is there a gap between what we think and what we end up doing? I think its an interplay of factors. Sometimes its the situation - deadlines, budgets, pressure of meeting targets - and we end up compromising on the solution. Many times its the courage of conviction thats lacking. Its not easy to tell a Line Manager that he is a rotten leader and all the attrition in his team is because of him. On a lot of ocassions, its the credibility that you have built or not built with the business. There's no sense in talking about partnering with the business when you have a pile of mails you havent responded to. And here's the thing about credibility that I firmly believe in - easier to build than to lose. Easy to build because you can start with the small things - regular communication being one of them. Once you've built that, believe me - your customers will forgive you for small omissions you make later on.

And with that, I link to the post that inspired me to write all of this- a post that is already causing some ripples in the HR / OD community - the HR Multiple Personality Disorder.

I think the use of the term MPD has caused a lot of us to sit up and respond!

Whats your soul profile?

2007-02-09T07:14:00.001-08:00

Deepak Chopra advocates doing a soul profile while interviewing - to get an insight into what really energizes the person.

He lists the following questions one can ask:

What's your purpose?
What kind of contribution do you make to the world?
What's your passion?
What are your peak experiences?
What are the top qualities you look for in a good friend?
Who are your heroes and heroines from mythology and legend, andfrom history and religion?
What are your unique talents and how do you like to expressthem?
What are the best qualities you express in your relationships? (Those are the qualities that allow soul to manifest in the world and inthe work place.)

This approach is also a lot about saying "we know you can deliver on thejob because you have demonstrated it through your past experience", but how can we continue to engage your "whole self" and in the process enhance your contribution to yourself, the workplace, and the larger environment?

Asking Dumb Questions

2007-02-08T07:46:00.000-08:00

Have you ever asked a “dumb” question?

I was three months old in my career – making a presentation to some fairly senior people on a Quality Initiative that I was spearheading. Three slides into the presentation, I was asked by one of them “Whats your “deliverable” at the end of this? All I knew about deliverable that time was how to spell it. So what…..do I go ahead and admit that to this team, who were my management sponsors for the initiative and can at once dismiss me as being naïve ? Well yes…I did just that. “What do you mean by a “deliverable”? is what I asked without batting an eyelid. I got my answer. Which helped me give him the answer he wanted. And I got the support I needed for the initiative.

“What is the biggest skill that an HR professional needs today?”, is what I asked a friend of mine. “Facilitation skills”, she responded with her characteristic depth and intensity, which her blog is so full of. I couldn’t agree more. And what is at the core of facilitation? Asking dumb questions.

“Is it so?”
“Why does that happen?”
“What do you think about this?”
“I don’t know the world you come from. Tell me more”.
“Is this what you are trying to say?”

We never have complete knowledge. And yet we need to get the big picture. We need to get to the bottom of things. And how do we do that? By asking dumb questions. And sometimes it could be as simple as a “Why”.

Asking dumb questions requires character. It needs a combination of courage, humility and perseverance. Many professionals get paid for it. On the flipside, many also get humiliated for it.

But if it is the only way of getting my answer, I would pay the price.

Of Smoke Breaks and Misanthropy in Corporates

2007-01-23T08:38:00.000-08:00

Penelope Trunk at Brazen Careerist says -

"The point is that people judge your work skills as incompetent if you are not likeable — no matter what your work skills are. It may not be fair, but it’s what people do. So if you want to keep your job, you need to do enough politicking at work to make people like you"

A few years back, I would have scoffed at this. Why would have..I think I did scoff. After all, when you are fresh from Bschool, armed with delusions about your work speaking for yourself and delivery being the only thing you would want to focus on, a statement like this would be so "uncool" to make.

It takes the tough terrains of the corporate territory to bring you to a level playing ground and make you ask the important question - "If we are all so good, how do I get better?"

Lets face it, in today's information age, every individual has the knowledge and skills he needs to perform his job. If he does not have it, he can get it at the click of a button. It is hardly a competitive advantage.

On the other hand, what gives him the advantage is the "how".

You have a great idea...How do you sell it?
You have a great team...How do you manage them?

At the heart of these questions is a very very fundamental ability - "The ability to enhance your delivery by leveraging people / relationships" (Point to note - Leverage is not a euphemism for manipulate. A seperate blog post on what will follow)

So what are the elements of this ability?

Timing: Many ideas flop, not because they are bad, but because they have bad timing. Had you spent time with your customer understanding his preoccupations, you could have timed it better and increased chances of its acceptance.

Style: Very subjective, but crucial nevertheless. To put it simply, behaviours that demonstrate openness and willingness to accept feedback definitely find more acceptance amongst people.

Addressing the "Whats In It for Me". A sharp "people's person" will have mapped this out at the outset. He will know exactly what each of his stakeholders value and build that into his proposition.

And how will you know all iof us? Only when you engage with people, no matter how much you hate them or how much they tire you. There is no alternative to this, you cant delegate this, you cant outsource it. You need people around you, and you have to make them listen to you if you are to succeed.

So go ahead and take those smoke breaks, especially if you are NOT a smoker. You will be surprised at how many key decisions get made there!

The 3-2-7 principle!

2007-01-11T09:26:00.000-08:00

My HR generalist friend recently introduced me to an interesting concept.

He said, with his inimicable sense of humour - "HR generalists always operate on the 3-2-7 principle". On seeing my quizzical look, he explained," On a scale of 1-10, an HR generalist typically enters at Point 3 (when its time for roll out / communication to employees), pushes himself to Point 2 (since he has incomplete information and needs the full picture), and then exits at Point 7 (because most review and decision making happens at a corporate level).

Thats the 3-2-7 principle for you!

I thought this was an extremey powerful way of describing what is a pertinent problem today across many organizations in India. A central HR function - with Business interface through HR generalists - who play multiple roles, wear multiple hats, do balancing acts, cajole, convince multiple stakeholders - and all of this - without having the complete picture ever! Can HR be really effective in this scenario?

As i try and answer this question, I have some ideas on how the generalist interface can move from 3-2-7 to 1-9:

Let corporate / specialist roles define the "what", let generalists define the "how". So, we may have a common framework for a particular initiative (eg, mobility), which outlines the objectives, the boundaries, definitions, terminologies, etc - the way it gets implemented may differ from business to business, depending on the profile of their people. Some business may encourage mobility through "Internal Job Postings", others may want to link it the advancement process, still others may want to look at global mobility only. The true worth of an HR generalist comes to play when he is able to advise the line managers on what is the best option given the motivational needs of his team members and the challenges in his business environment.

Specialists to start viewing generalists as internal customers. Think about it. Would you ever go to your customer AFTER you have finalised your deliverable? It would be sacrilegeous right? Ditto for our internal HR customers. They need to be actively involved in the input process - be it training need identification, specification gathering or new system implementation.

Just as a Business Head makes a contribution to the performance review of his / her HR generalists, a specialists' performance evaluation should have one component that comprises Business HR feedback. This should be made an integral part of a Specialist scorecard - and reviewed on a frequent basis.

I've started my goal setting for the year, and as a Specialist, these three points have been / are going to be the pillars of my goal sheet.

Long live the 3-2-7 principle!

Returning with a Tag

2006-12-29T03:48:00.000-08:00

Its been a long while since I blogged, in fact a long while since I caught up on a lot of blogs.

When I did so today, the first thing I saw was Astha's tag, and then Gautam's muse on my infrequent postings.

So this post is my response to both....the five things about me you wouldnt know otherwise:

I would have been a journalist...then I assumed I could always continue writing no matter what profession I am in - so I chose HR instead. How wrong I was!

I am a complete dinosaur when it comes to technology - and thats a very dangerous admission for a blogger to make! I believe a cell phone is for communicating with people, a camera clicks pictures, a DVD player is for watching movies, Outlook is for email, and a blog is for writing. You combine all these features into one gadget and give me - I'll quit life!

I hate slotting, branding, sterotyping of any kind. Are you an extrovert or an introvert - is one question i always have trouble answering.

My name, like most others, has a story behind it. My father wanted to name me Radha in memory of a dear niece he had lost to chicken pox. My mother decided to prefix it with Anu since she wanted her daughter’s name to start with A – her way of letting the world know that she wanted her daughter to be in the forefront in whatever she undertook. Also her way of making up for her own name beginning with an R – a letter that always appeared at the fag end, after 17 of its counterparts had come and gone…… after attention spans were long over. A phenomenon Freud would have called sublimation. So there they came up with Anuradha. My name. Their message for me - Stay ahead.

I hate coffee and anything that exudes its flavour. And coming from a South Indian home which wakes up to the smell of brewing filter coffee, thats like saying an Eskimo cant stand ice. Its probably for people like me that the Baristas and Cafe Coffee Days have "tea" & "hot choclate" on their menu. And thank God for that!

Wishing you all a great 2007! See you in the New Year!

Positive V/s Negative Metrics

2006-10-31T08:16:00.000-08:00

"Measuring positive metrics means you move in a positive direction. Measuring negative metrics is like looking back at past failed relationships. It doesnt really get you anywhere."

Read the full post here. What do you think?

These are the thoughts I emailed to Alissa - (I just realised that this is the third consecutive post on my blog linking to her!)

"I like the distinction you draw between negative and positive metrics. I never really looked at them that way. And I think you are bang on when you say that whatever you measure must / can be improved - else its futile to measure it. However, I am wondering if we would be accurate in completely ignoring the negative metrics?

For example, in Sourcing, some common measures are "Offer to Joining Dropouts", "Interview Droputs", etc, all of which tell you at what stage of the recruitment process are you losing people. And this to me has often provided an insight into "why" I lose people and has led me to tweak / tighten the process for better outcomes. For example, a high offer to joinee drop out rate tells me that the candidate is getting excellent counter offers - so I need to figure out how I can counter that.

Ditto for Attrition - the most popular HR metric. Would you call that positive or negative?

Taking your relationship analogy forward, I would hate to dwell on previously failed relationships, but would definitely not like to commit the same mistakes! I think to the extent that they dont lead to analysis paralysis, negative metrics give you valuable inputs that you can build on."

Her responses to my email can be found here.

Her emphasis on "what went right" vis-a-vis "what went wrong" reminds me of the Positive Deviance Approach to manage change - focus on success and not failures.

The Myth of Talent

2006-10-29T02:51:00.001-08:00

Alissa at HR Metrics Blog says

"Measuring talent is probably not the most effective use of your time

Talent is ability: I have the ability to clean my bedroom
Performance is actually getting the job done: My bedroom is a horrific mess

I have the talent for it, but when it comes to tidying, Im not much of a performer"

Great points!

And so what is it that makes you a great performer?

Hard Work and Practice!

Putting a Mirror to HR

2006-10-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

According to this research conducted by Personnel Today on the HR function - the construction, catering and hospitality industries felt the profession added value to the business, while the banking, professional services, information technology, communications and social care sectors gave a thumbs down to HR. (Link via HR Metrics Blog)

You dont need to read this to find out why. Clearly, expectations of HR in labour intensive industries vis-a-vis knowledge intensive industries are different. The former seems to be pleased with HR's ability to pay on time and organize training programs effectively, while the latter is crying out loud "Do you even understand my business"?

Read this special feature for some even more distressing results on the value of the HR function. In a nutshell, HR professionals think "absenteeism" is the biggest problem on their hand (Question: Is absenteeism a problem, or a symptom of a problem?), Line Managers think HR is best known for General Administration and offers very little value for money.

And here are some highlights I reproduce from the feature: (The italicized sentences are my top of the mind reactions)

Women rate and value HR more highly than men. Is it because whatever little people know about HR - its mostly about touchy feely stuff?

The private sector values HR more highly than the public sector. Less bureaucracy, more innovation, flexibility permissible?

The smaller the organisation, the more highly its employees value the HR function. More visibility, greater impact?

The more senior the manager, the more highly they value the HR function. HR is often accused and legitimately so, of hobnobbing with senior management only. This one had to come back to us.

The construction sector values HR much more highly than IT. A function of expectations?

What are your thoughts? I would love to hear!

Drawing Parallels

2006-10-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

You dont know driving - so you take lessons
You hate changing gears manually - so get yourself a car with automatic gear
You hate parking, especially, parallel parking - too bad....you gotta live with it!!!

Well not really!

According to this report from Fast Company Now, Toyota's Lexus LS comes with an optional Advanced Parking Guidance System that is designed to parallel park and reverse into a parking spot on its own.

I read this and go wow!!!! Parallel parking is any driver's BIGGEST PAIN AREA, and for me its one of the main reasons I dont take my car to places that dont make appropriate provisions for parking. And to think that this get done automatically (just some temperatmental issues to be taken care off, as the article says) is a big big delight!

And now Im wondering:
Do I know what the pain areas of my customers are? Or in Terry's words - Do I know what keeps my CEO up at night? And what have I done about it?

I, Me, Myself

2006-10-24T06:32:00.000-07:00

Keith Ferrazzi, author of the book Never Eat Alone - on the five steps to brand yourself:

Talk about your expertise, with everyone you meet.
Prepare a formal one-hour talk with a deck of slides.
Write an article.
Write more articles.
Write a book.

And if you need help in making a great beginnning for your book, Kathy Sierra on Creating Passionate Users has some useful tips!

Teams - to work or not to work?

2006-10-24T06:10:00.000-07:00

It goes back to school days when we would be separated from our best friend in class by the mandatory monthly shuffing of seats. Then came University, where project teams would be picked by our professors, lest we end up choosing our own friends. In every training I attend or take, some amount of time is always spent shuffling participant groups, lest people become comfortable with those sitting around their table.

“Don’t work in your silos” – is what they are all essentially trying to say.

On her blog Evolving Ideas, Astha asks a very pertinent question – If silos foster greater team bonding skills and connectivity, then why do organizations resist their formations? She quotes examples of seating arrangements that play a role in building or curbing the formation of silos, both functional and non-functional.

Here’s my take:

Infrastructure in general, and seating in particular is a physical symbol of an organization’s culture. However, and I’ve said this before, by itself it has no meaning.

What gives it meaning is employee experience.

For example, in the personal growth labs run by ISISD all participants & the facilitator sit on the floor to form a circle. There is a definite advantage in this kind of seating – all are one level playing field, there is an intimacy and closeness in the room that permits sharing, and this is in line with their principle of “learning through living” vis-à-vis “learning through theory”. Having said that, this seating only provides the context for change. For someone (like me) who has been unable to internalize the principles that the lab stood for, the seating had zero impact in triggering change.

I’m a firm believer in teams, cross functional or otherwise.

I’ve seen value in involving people who may seem like outsiders to your area, but end up giving you perspectives you may never ever have thought of. I also believe that two heads put together is anyday more powerful than just one head working.

So Yay to team work – but Nay to Exclusion.

Team work becomes counter productive when it fosters outgroup homogeneity, creates entry barriers, and promotes exclusion.

So how can we ensure this does not happen?

By being inclusive while being part of different teams.

This means respect for people, acceptance of different viewpoints, acknowledging the role of conflict in any process, and a willingness to learn from others. Quite a handful actually, but crucial nevertheless.

Another way of looking at this – organizations should encourage formation of networks – which are open, and allow for many interactions, and discourage formation of silos – which are watertight compartments.

Thanks Astha, for triggering off this post!

Whats your Golf Quotient?

2006-10-23T00:47:00.000-07:00

You might want to push this upwards if its like mine - zero.

India's Premier Business School IIM Ahmedabad has introduced a course on golf - which includes practice sessions as well as theory classes, which will educate students on the link between golf, corporate leadership, business negotiation and networking.

Why? Because many crucial deals are struck on the golf course.

This brings me to the much abused word in corporates today "networking". Be it in campuses for getting jobs or in corporates for getting clients, networking is here to stay.

I recently attended a training program where we were given what the facilitator called a "Networking Stack". Very simply put, we were given 10 questions creatively woven into a story, which we could use every time we met a stranger in a social gathering. Basically, it was a memory aid, which each question serving as the trigger for the next question that you would ask the stranger.

Now this is where I think we get it wrong. Networking, at the end of the day is about having a genuine conversation, a dialogue, and too many times we get caught with "what next".

While organizations focus on provide tools for networking - (like golf, for example) - conversational & listening skills are what will help you actually connect, and that cannot be ignored.

Including the Whole Self

2006-10-15T04:52:00.000-07:00

"Women came into the business as gatecrashers, but now its time for our own party. Lets not play the game, lets change it!"

Thats from Naked Truth - a book by Margaret Heffernan on business women and corporate reality.

I'm not as enticed by the whole "women" thing, as much as I am enticed by her approach towards "inclusiveness in a corporate culture"

Here in her article "Wise up", she makes an excellent point when she says that corporates only value skills like competitiveness, aggressiveness, dominance - all of which are traditionaly male dominated traits. So a woman, or even a man for that matter, who does not display these traits is quick to be passed up for that promotion or that plum assignment.

And in our struggle to be "that" person, what we are effectively doing is excluding our "whole self" from being taken to work. The doting father, the concerned mother, the emotional wife, are all left back at home because there is no space for them at work.

As Margeret says, the division of labour between work and home, also ended up dividing our intelligence, and we all ended up working with half our potential.

As Firms begin to embrace diversity, I think a key question will also be - how do we become more inclusive towards the "whole self" of the individual?

Structurally, there are many ways of doing this - flexi working arrangements, not scheduling meetings / calls after particular hours, work from home options, - basically allowing him to control his space. I guess this is what Best Buy was trying to do in their workforce experiment.

But i think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Real change is much more deep, and for that to happen, an organization has to truly embrace diversity in all kinds of abilities, skills and knowledge and know how to leverage the entire self and not just the partial self.

In the Business of Talent

2006-10-14T03:23:00.000-07:00

I think most companies are beginning to realise that beyond the labels of "Banking", "Telecom", "Financial Services", etc - they are all basically in the business of talent. And that talent is what is crucial to the success of their operations.

Which is why investment banks and private equity firms are now focused on assessing the workforce of an organization before investing in it - says this article in Workforce Management

How does one do due diligence of talent? Some indicators I can think of:

Quality of leadership
Depth of leadership talent (does the Firm have succession plans?)
Employee churn
Diversity of talent - Organizations that make conscious efforts to inrease this show significantly better performance
Quality of people processes - whether it is around advancement, global mobility, cultural integration, job rotations

Not all of these will have quantitative measures, and the article also talks about how qualitative measures may be equally powerful in assessing talent. What all of this essentially boils down to is culture - and if you really look at it, it is the common thread that holds all systems together. A firm that encourages its leaders to think about who their successors will be is also telling that they would soon be moving into bigger roles and they should not pass those opportunities due to lack of planning. A firm that encourages global mobility is also giving a message about its commitment to cultural diversity. Culture is no longer writing on the wall - it is real, palapable, and a big diffrentiator for success.

Story Spines as Diagnostic Tools

2006-09-02T07:02:00.000-07:00

I loved the post on Story Spines for Sensemaking on the Anecdote blog.

I think its a powerful tool for any kind of organizational intervention:

The story spine, as the blog says, follows a pattern like this:

Once upon a time...
Everyday...
But one day...
Because of that...
Until finally...
Ever since then...
And the moral of the story is...(optional)

In one go, this story is able to tell me so much about the situation at hand:

The history
The present
The significant events / game changers
The changes they brought about
The impact of the changes
The learnings

Imagine this - if you were to give this story spine to your managers, and ask them to use it to build a story about HR - what do you think their story would look like? And wouldnt it be as great a mirror of the performance of HR, as any other metric or dashboard?

My post on Collective Genius

2006-08-31T07:19:00.000-07:00

This is my first post outside this blog....and I hope to be a regular contributor to Collective Genius. I love the blog, and ofcourse Curt's other career blog Occupational Adventure never fails to energize me!

Spelling Woes

2006-08-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently got her first job with a company. After being given an oral communication regarding the offer, she was sent some kind of a pre-joining kit, which she had to fill and send back via local courier.

She filled the forms, got all the relevant certificates , put them in an envelope, and since she was in a hurry to leave for some place, asked her mother to write out the company name and address on the envelope and send.

Two days later, she was told that the offer was withdrawn. Why? Because the name of the company was misspelt on the envelope.

Shocked? I certainly am!

Spelling mistakes reflect carelessness, irresponsibility, lack of awareness, lack of thoroughness…and whatever else maybe, but to place it at the center of a hiring decision, which is a very significant decision for the company, is I think completely misplaced logic. And by that misplaced logic, you should not be interviewing or hiring candidates, who come in a few minutes late for the interview, forget to carry hard copies of their resume, change their joining dates more than once..and what else.

As for my friend, she is very happy about being rejected. If this is the way people management decisions get made – I don’t want my career to start with them – is her take.

Its her mom who lives with the regret that she spoilt her daughter’s first ever job offer.

Of makeovers..

2006-08-31T06:02:00.000-07:00

"Dont handle a buffalo by its tail, but always catch it by its horns"

"If you do not milk the cow fully, it falls sick"

These are management lessons from Lalu Prasad Yadav, India's Railway Minister, who has given a facelift to Indian Railways. With this, Brand Lalu has found its way into the only one field it had not touched - academics!

Finding the Right Talent

2006-08-15T05:49:00.000-07:00

With a 9% conversion rate, and 20% drop out rate, the Harvards' Admissions Committee sure has a lot of valuable insights to offer to recruiting professionals!

The most important lesson there - You may get people on the strength of your brand, but are they the people you "want"? And if they are not, then what have you done to find them?

Dont Judge a Book By Its Cover!

2006-08-15T04:21:00.000-07:00

John Sutherland, author of the book, and Chairman of last year's Man Booker Prize Committee, on his book "How to Read a Novel - A User Guide", says

"If there is a message in the book, it's choose for yourself - find out who you are and what fiction works for you."

Ditto for making career choices!

Some other interesting analogies from his interview:

Dont pick a book just because it is award winning. How many of us are attracted to organizations simply because they feature on a whole lot of Top 20 lists? Prizes, argues Sutherland are pointers and can provide sign posts. But do you really agree with the book in principle? Does this organization fit into the career trajectory you have charted out for yourself?

Serious novels tend to get priorities over comic ones. In other words, a heirarchy will always exist, even if it is only in the mind. Some jobs will always be less prized than others. But which is the one you believe you will enjoy doing?

All searches are typically driven by external factors. Industry, salary, brand, designation, location, and the likes. Which is perfectly acceptable if you are operating on a "this works fine for me right now" mentality. So you might pick up a book which would otherwise not appeal to you, just to get you through a long journey. I call these the "airport lounge books", and have plenty such gathering dust on my shelves. You might take up a job because it gives you a 100% jump in salary - and you could do with some extra income at this point of time.

But, if your search is for something more long term and involving, it would have to be driven by internal factors. Doing homework on yourself is an ongoing process, but worth it when you get the output you truly love. And hell, if you can do it for buying a book, why cant you do it for your career?

One man's pill....

2006-07-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

........is another man's poison, is what Vroom was trying to say when he talked about the concept of valence in his Expectancy Theory of Motivation. Essentially, valence refers to the emotional orientation that people may have with respect to a particular outcome. The same outcome may produce favourable consequences for some, and not-so-favourable consequences for others.

Like what happened at the Guardian office when they decided to allow employees to bring in their children to work. The employees and their kids sure had a great time, but the other adults (non-parents) had reactions ranging from mild discomfort, to refief that it was over, to comments like "It was worse than Bring Your Dog to Work Day". Talk about unintended consequences.

Learning: Maybe the next time, Guardian can club Work from Home (for the childless employees) along with Bring your Child to Work, so that one group does not get motivated at the cost of the other!

Whats my next stop?

2006-07-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

That India's serial job hoppers are having a field day is evident.

Thanks to the booming market, they always have a bigger job and a better pay packet to go to.

The average stint in an organization today seems to be one year, or maybe even less. And the reasons for moves range from overseas postings, to salary packages, to the overly simplified "I just need a change".

I wonder who is going to bear the brunt of this phenomenon first - the employers who are desperately looking for talent, the recruiters, equally desperate to fill the positions, or the candidates themselves?

On a related, but slightly tangential note, Adrian Savage writes on why too much loyalty is also bad.

I just found out....

2006-07-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

.......that my job has a fairly high boredom index and very little prestige.

I also checked the clock and decided it was time to retire (pun intended) for the night.

Flag it off!

2006-07-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Some mornings when I walk into my office reception, a bright yellow sign post greets me as I step out of the lift. It says, "Caution, wet floor ahead". I thank God for its presence, coz the gleamy surface would have never had me guess that there was water on it.

And I'm thinking, shouldnt we in HR be doing just that?
Raising red flags when we see something that the line managers may not be in a position to see?

Do we know what the early warning attrition signals for our markets are, and have we been able to educate our line managers about them?

Do we know the skills and competencies our people will need to possess in the context of the business imperatives in the coming months? For example, if global mobility is going to be a thrust area for the organization, then have you helped your people cultivate a global mindset and make cross cultural assimilations?

Do we know who our future leaders will be? On a lighter (some may say crass) note, if your entire management team gets wiped out in a deluge - do we know if the organization has people who will run it from the next day?

Can we anticipate the impact of various key organization changes - eg, introduction of a stock option plan, senior management moves, new product line launch, etc?

I think helping Line Managers work with these issues is "real HR" - it is proactive, it is bang on - in the sense that it impinges on areas which are crucial to the business, and most importantly, it impacts the bottomline. And ofcourse, here's the best part - it is a skill. So lets be happy to have it, or cultivate it if we dont. And get to work.

What I do for a living

2006-07-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

When I tell people that I am an OD Manager, I meet with responses ranging from - "Oh, so you do training" to "Come again...what exactly is that".

So what exactly is OD?

Here are some of the things OD (Organization Development) means to me:

Improving the quality of interactions between people
Getting people closer to the organization's strategy, and more importantly, help them understand the behavioural changes that need to be made in order to align to that strategy
Helping people make important shifts. (For example, facilitating the transition from academics to organizations for campus hires, moving from working in silos to working in teams, etc)
Facilitating communication in a manner that is transparent, consistent and logical.

Very soon, I hope to write a post on how some of these things get done!

Twenty Mistakes Organizations Make

2006-07-29T10:14:00.000-07:00

Add another level of hierarchy because people aren’t doing what you want them to do. (More watchers get results!)
Appraise and bonus the performance of individuals and complain that you cannot get your staff working as a team.
Add inspectors and multiple audits because you don’t trust people’s work to meet standards.
Fail to create standards and give people clear expectations so they know what they are supposed to do, and wonder why they fail.
Create hierarchical, permission steps and other roadblocks that teach people quickly their ideas are subject to veto and wonder why no one has any suggestions for improvement. (Make people beg for money!)

Click here to read the remaining - and count the number of times you go red in the face!

Not such a nice place after all....

2006-06-25T05:17:00.000-07:00

"Transportation was provided for them, but it came at least an hour early. When they asked their managers for dinner breaks, they were routinely told to "take a few more calls." One call can last for 10 minutes, or it can last for hours. They told me that most agents ended up with one 15-minute break in a 10-hour day. Once the work day ended, they were required to attend a two-hour meeting to discuss ways of improving productivity. Then, exhausted and hungry, but finally finished with work, they had to wait another hour before they could get a ride home."

- Jane Galvin writes on call center conditions in a Chennai call center that she recently visited. Read the full piece here.

Physical working conditions can be improved, but what can be done about the fact that their Indian identity is held against them?

Corporate Attention Deficit Disorder

2006-06-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

“The scarcest resource for today’s business leaders is no longer just land, capital or human labor, and it certainly isn’t information. Attention is what’s in short supply,” say authors Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck in their book The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business (Harvard Business School Press, 2001).

-- Link - Worthwhile Magazine

In their post titled Hey! Look Here - Worthwhile Magzazine talks about Corporate Attention Deficit Disorder - a term used to describe the difficulty in holding attention spans of corporate executives long enough to get something done.

In other words, it's not about managing time effectively, its about managing attention spans. I may have the time, but I dont have the attention span required to scan a 4 pager. So make it a 1 - pager. Or better still, make it two power point slides.

I'm all for bulleted pointers and crisp narratives. The problem arises when I need dialogue. I need more authentic responses than just a quick glance sealed with a stroke of the pen across the paper. The approval that is doled out is what the oranization needs, I need involvement.

While the article suggest a toolbox of actions that can hep reduce Corporate ADD - i think this one question there has both the problem and the solution -

If all of these “get in touch” devices are so integral to our sense of worth, why does it feel like nobody’s listening?

Its nothing but the world we have created for ourselves.

I'm best when I'm uncomfortable!

2006-06-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

I recently got told - "If you are not making people uncomfortable, you are not creating culture".

I barely got to recover from the intensity of that statement, when via Gautam I chanced upon this post by Seth Godin where he says - The time to switch jobs is before it feels comfortable

In almost immediate succession, I read "How have you stretched your comfort zone" at Occupational Adventure, which expands on a similar theme.

And as I try to "settle down and get more comfortable" with my new job (which also explains why I havent been able to blog for nearly a month), Ive been wondering whether comfort is such a good thing to aspire for after all.

In my current discomfited state, I have been

Asking a lot of questions
Finding answers
Making innumerable notes - mental and otherwise
Struggling
Absorbing
Keeping pace
Trying to stay ahead

And in hindsight, it appears to be a great phase to be in - after all arent these what characterise someone in a learning mode?

So i guess I wouldnt want to change anything about the way things are right now - except maybe find more time to blog!

Challenges: How do I keep maintaining this state especially since learning curves will flatten at some point? How can we build organizational structures and processes that can create and manage this discomfort?

Comparison v/s Competition

2006-05-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

When I compare - I focus on what the other person is doing
When I compete - I focus on the goal

When I compare - the other person decides my pace
When I compete - I set my own pace

When I compare - failure of the other person can make me as happy as my own success
When I compete - only success matters

Comparison is limiting. Competition is healthy.

The Value of Talent

2006-05-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

Ajit links to an article which essentially shows how "classifying employees by their role in the success of your business rather than by their function can improve the effectiveness of recruiting, staff development, and deployment."

The article categorizes employees into four broad groups, based on the their "value" and "cost impact:

Creators devise and implement an organization’s distinguishing value proposition or business model. They include senior executives and the chief designer in a fashion house. These are scarce resources with skills that take a long time to acquire and are costly to develop and maintain.

Ambassadors represent the organization’s public face and are responsible for customer experience. Among other positions, they are bank tellers, supermarket cashiers, nurses, and field installation technicians. In most cases, these workers are easily replaceable and their skills do not have to be particularly sophisticated, but if they don’t do their job well, the business can suffer significantly.

Craft Masters ensure the quality, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness of an organization — the essential ingredients for the faultless execution of a business strategy. These are the design engineers in a high-tech business, the “nose” of a perfume brand, the whiskey blender in a distillery, and the auditor in an accounting firm.

Drivers keep the business running. They are assembly-line operators, back-office agents, and administrative assistants. Although they are neither crucial to the success of a venture nor hard to hire, in most companies they represent the largest category of human capital, and bad management of this group can lead to operational disruption or quality problems.

I can see this classification being a good starting point for organizational diagnosis...and here are some things it could throw up -

How many people in your organization who were hired for the role of a "creator"are actually playing that of a "craft master"? A whole host of people who are expected to create value actually just end up managing a portion of the value chain

Look at your HR team...which category do most members belong to?

From your business continuity perspective, you would need to have strong pipelines for the "drivers" and "ambassadors"segment, and robust succession plans for the "creators" segment...do you have those?

Thoughts to ponder over the weekend...

2006-05-20T05:08:00.000-07:00

When does a group become a team?
When does an action become an intervention?
When do differences become diversity?
When do employees become talent pools?
When does co-operation become collaboration?
When does a boss become a leader?
When does an organization become a community?

Altruism also has a price tag attached...

2006-05-13T04:32:00.000-07:00

...but you can afford it if you are really poor!

HBS Working Knowledge has an interesting article on waiting line behaviour - where people in the waiting alone allowed others to cut into the queue if they offered money for the same. And the higher the payment, the more likely the individuals were to allow a stranger to cut ahead of them.No but wait..they didnt accept the money, as they thought it was inappropriate to exploit someone who was so hardpressed for time that he needed to pay money to buy it. So monay, allowed individuals to gain entry - but they didnt have to eventually part with it.

The article also makes me wonder - there is really a thin line between a bribe and a legitimate fee for a service - after all, both are driven by the cost of the stretch involved in meeting an urgent need right?

A Rap on your Knuckes!

2006-05-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

I have come across Halls of Shames - where names of employees who performed abysmally in a particluar month were flashed in some form of a communication to the rest of the members of the team. And I never ever could comprehend how it served any purpose other than having a thoroughly demotivated workforce.

But this Californian company takes the cake for worst employee practices - spanking, making employees wear diapers, public humilation...but wait....i think whats worse is the attitude towards such kind of behaviours and the reasons given for it.

COO Patrick Smith, while acknowledging that the behaviour of his employees was wrong, also has this to say: "You have to understand the sales mentality. Sales guys are just that way."
To ask "which way" might mean giving away too much of your ignorance i guess.

The article also says:
"Katherine Hart, a Fresno attorney who represented the defendants, said during a phone interview on the day of the verdict that employee conduct at the security company was "reprehensible, but the intent was not to be malicious or sadistic."
Even Kayva Vishwanathan said that she did not "intend" to plagiarise.

Another one:
"It was young people acting juvenile and engaging in juvenile behavior," Hart noted. "They didn’t have much supervision and the company promoted salespeople without enough training. One woman (a plaintiff in an earlier case against Alarm One) was bruised (with a metal paddle). It was meant playfully--slaps on the butt. Then catcalls. It escalated."
The only training i can think of in this context is training in first aid. You would need it - when the blood starts oozing out.

Yet another:
Defense attorney Hart says the case is "an example of what happens when top management isn’t in touch at the grass-roots level. "The managers must have been out of touch. If they’d acted more like the CEO at Costco (Jim Sinegal), who personally visits every store, this never would have happened."
Your top management can visit the stores and still not know - if the culture does not promote communication and especially if you have policies like "specifying that employees could go to only a few upper-level managers with problems - which this firm had.

And the last one:
Despite headlines and the magnitude of the company’s mess, Smith says "everyone" at the company is happy and the work environment is very good. Alarm One--which had 400 employees at its peak in 2002--now has only 50 employees because of changes in the industry, Smith says. It is currently developing a new strategic plan for building the company.

I wish them all the best!

Workplace infrastructure - whats that got to do with motivation?

2006-04-26T03:25:00.000-07:00

Is workplace infrastructure changing from a hygiene factor to a motivator?

This is the question that first came to my find as I toured Googleplex - complete with its volley ball courts, massage parlours, electric scooters to commute between buildings...and other what-have-yous.

While the answer is definitely not of a "yes-no" type - I do have some thoughts on the changing nature of workplace infrastracture:

Workplace infrastructure is increasingly seen as an extension of the culture that your provide to your employees. And its not always the simplistic - "bright colours mean vibrant environments", or "cubicleless office = no heirarchy". These ofcourse maybe more straightforward derivations based on what you see, and they may also be turn out to be true. What i mean by workplace infrastructure is the complete package that you provide to your employees, which are aimed at ensuring that he gets taken care of - both as a professional and as a person. And it is often clubbed along with the various other benefits to attract prospective employees.
Having said that, mere provision of the infrastructure is not always indicative of commitment or care. Your organization has a gym - but your job never leaves you the time to work out, or your manager has an irritating habit of calling you when you are on your "volley-ball break" - so how much work-life balance is that? And thats why, the link between infrastructure and culture - while it is very much there - is not always direct, as culture runs more deep.
Maybe Im wierd - but too many in-house facilities make me feel the company is not going to give me much time off work. Talk about unintended consequences of actions. The first though that crossed my mind when I saw the Google "massage parlours" - "Yeah sure! Might as well..if they're going to stress me out as much!

So....in the final analysis - Would I leave an organization because the quality of the food in the cafeteria sucks? Obviously not! Would I be motivated to join an organization that "demonstrates" its commitment to me as a complete individual? Yes! And if at the end of the day, I still havent used the gym, I'll blame that on my poor time management skills! Read this lovely post on worklife balance and time management

My blog has been ransacked!

2006-04-19T06:05:00.000-07:00

I know I am possessive by nature. They say its a Scorpion trait. But this time its has nothing to do with Linda Goodman.

The culprit is here. This person whose profile display says "Recruitment Executive" has done a cold blooded cut and paste of my post "Why Retention is Always Tomorrow's task" in his blog here, exactly three days after I posted it. No links, no credits - either to my own posts, or to the articles I had linked to in mine. Everything, even the title has been copied - as if the blogger has said it all himself! Needless to say, I am shocked!

And how did I discover this? Through this tool - in which I initially typed in my URL just for a lark! Thanks Shilpa - for blogging about this.

So readers...you know what you have to do next right?

And to my dear Ctrl C Ctrl V friend - This world is a very small place, much smaller than you can imagine. And you say you are in the recruiting profession? You should know better than anyone else - what goes around, comes around!

Matchmaker Matchmaker...make me a match

2006-04-17T22:29:00.000-07:00

The headline - Indian headhunters use "speed dating" to meet job demand - got me excited. The content didnt - coz it turned out that we were using a new name to describe the old trend of recruitment fairs and on-the spot offers.

But yes, arguably so, there are some common trends that both the job market and the marriage market are seeing-

Inadequacy / failure of traditional modes, leading to a stress on continous innovation
Increased expectations from both parties
Need to provide specialised services to different target segments

Having said that though...I hope the twain never meet......coz I would take a lot more risk as far as a candidate is concerned!

The Waiter Principle

2006-04-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

Came across this link via BusinessPundit - on how you can tell a lot about a person's character by the way he treats the waiter - ("waiter" being a metaphor for "anyone who means nothing to you")

Some classic situations in organizations where “character” is displayed:

Employee behaviour during notice period: One of my favorites as far as getting a flavour of the "real" thing. It’s interesting to see the mild turn acerbic and the fence-sitters become highly opinionated over-night. Surely an act of handing in a piece of paper cannot drastically alter your personality? That the same organization which you were part of till yesterday suddenly becomes this ogre that you would not touch with a barge pole today?
I guess it requires “character” to say “I came here by choice”, and “I’m leaving by choice”

Treatment of candidates / prospective employees: Much has been said about that here. Indeed the “hiring experience” that we talk about is nothing but how we get treated when we are one of the many.

Vending machine discussions: How and what you say in an informal chat is as important as how you would raise the issue in a formal discussion. Yes, the tone and language may loosen a little bit, but your stand does not. People give far too much of their hypocrisy away in their flip-flop between coffee machine and boardroom.

How the manager handles the performance discussion with his team member: Defensiveness, blame, lack of ownership - are all the low hanging fruits which we reach out to when we are in difficult situations. And, a performance review is definitely one such situation for a manager. Explaining to your team member why his performance was not upto the mark despite the long hours he put in, why he got the rating / increment he did, why his colleague got promoted, are all very “sticky” issues right? Wrong. I think where we fail is that we get into these discussions without adequate data. And then give all the wrong reasons. These discussions require as much (maybe more) homework on the part of the manager, but then who really has the time for that? And then again, “homework” would be so “out-of-character" right?

Without doubt ‘character’ is what gives you brilliance and makes you a great human being. And yet, you will never find it when you go looking for it, because, as some one said - “real” character is doing the right thing when no one is looking. So much for impression management.

Dear HR Manager....

2006-04-11T01:37:00.000-07:00

....

I wish you would tell me more of "hows" than "whats"

I wish you knew my team well enough to help me with their development plan

I wish you were more transparent about the "salary - fixing" process

I wish you would provide feedback to all candidates within a reasonable time frame

I wish you wouldnt undertake another employee satisfaction survey without letting me know what the previous did.

I wish you wouldnt tell me "We have chosen to stay out of the salary race"

I wish you had less forms

I wish your screens had less mandatory fields

I wish you would stop scheduling trainings / meetings on month-ends

...and yes...I wish you and I would stop making wishlists and start talking!

Dear Line Manager......

2006-04-10T23:49:00.000-07:00

.....

I wish you would be willing to take more hiring risks

I wish you would pay as much attention to "presenteeism" as you paid to absenteeism

I wish you wouldnt tell me all your requirements are "immediate", only to completely forget about the resumes I sent you the next day

I wish you wouldnt attribute every resignation in your team to "better salary"

I wish you wouldnt tell your team member - "I didnt give you that increment, HR did"

I wish you wouldnt tell me - " I lost five people in two months...what are you doing about it?"

I wish you wouldnt blame all your problems on inadequate staffing

I wish the "guys" i hired on almost impossible deadlines would'nt come a month later and ask me "Ma,am what was the hurry to get me here?"

I wish your once "perfect candidate" didnt become an "over-rated employee" when he joined competition

...........and I wish it wasnt always about "you" and "me"!

A lighter look at culture and work ethic

2006-04-06T02:47:00.000-07:00

There are many extremely "writable" things about Oman, one of which is it's work ethic - which heavily draws from the culture surrounding it. From revealing to amusing to endearing - I present it the way I've experienced it - unedited, and replete with my blinding prejudices!

Quit being fussy!
To start with, I was always amazed at the straight face with which every person (be it the taxi driver, your car cleaner, or your co-worker) asked you your salary. When my initial shock gave way to acceptance of the fact that “it is like that only” – I would pretend as if I haven’t heard. But that became difficult to carry on because the words would then be more purposefully and deliberately thrust onto your face - “How much do you earn?” “Very little”, I then started saying, with a sad face. But I dropped even that line, when a taxi driver asked me in response whether that was because I hadn’t studied beyond high school! So now I say – you guess?? And then go along with whatever his guess is!

Boundarlylessness please...if you may?
All God’s creations are to be valued. All man’s creations are but a meek attempt to reaffirm your existence as a divine instrument. Or something as ambiguous as that, i think. So boundaries, hierarchies, processes exist only to create employment opportunities and provide fertility to the barrenness of the soul. An escalation process? You mean like the ones in those multi-storeyed malls which my children fear to climb onto? Ok..this was a “heightened” (pun intended) exaggeration. But the spirit of "seamlessness" does burst your seams when your planned day is intermittent with random stuff that were never meant for you in the first place. Or that would never need to come to you if the process was followed.

We are all God’s children
I’ve never felt so bonded / “related” even in family weddings – every other person adopts you as his / her “sister” or “daughter” – and there you go! That’s the beginning of many concessions that he would want you to make for him! And how much can you do in the name of "love for the family?"

If I really peel off the part that is amusing and light hearted, I think what touches me most about this culture is its unpretensiousness. Back home, there are too many trappings that we get caught in - and sometimes we need to go through extensive de-layering to recognize an individual for what he really is.
On the flip side of course, unpretentiousness also calls for a misplaced emphasis on simplicity, when the situation calls for a slightly more complex analysis (I know I’m being very kind in using these words). As individuals and corporates struggle to synthesize paradoxes, this simplicity would be rudimentary and obstructive to growth

I also struggle with fatalism brought into decision making situations (be they tactical or strategic), exemplified by stances such as “it will happen, God willing”. I mean….I also “prayed”…..every Wednesday morning…when TIMES ASCENT hit the stands – “Dear God – let this ad create the magic that I so desperately need this month!”…..BUT!
Initially, I would pass off these stances as nothing more than casual remarks – but I think it is much more deep-rooted than that, deriving from a total belief in a third entity – call it God, call it destiny / fate / luck. I too am i believer– but I rarely (actually never) use my belief as a cushion that will make my fall hurt less, and these ones particularly are a bit too soft for my comfort. Give me the hurt any day.

But then that’s the thing about culture right – if I start using my frames of reference, I will ALWAYS make judgements. For example, who decides that it is not appropriate to ask or answer questions relating to one’s salary? If you ask me, it’s grown out of our own refusal to engage with inequities which will most definitely remain in the system. And this slowly acquired connotations of “etiquette”, “personal space”, and the likes. So its ok to ask questions on marital status and family background because that’s not personal? Highly debatable – all these things. Here is a culture that is less fussier about acknowledging these inequities. Does that make them socially naïve? (As an aside – in any case, all employees have a standing joke about their colleagues' / boss' salaries, which is – “I won’t ask you, coz I already know!)

And so..as Gautam beautifully put it in a comment on one of my previous posts - "When faced with a divergence, its not about leaving a path, but about continuing a journey." Amen to that.

Why retention is always "tomorrow's task"

2006-04-03T05:05:00.000-07:00

My brain is forever looking for connections - and thats why when I read "Marketplace of Perceptions", which explains why we procrastinate, I couldnt help think that the arguement definitely holds some water here - whether the author talks about procrastinating retention strategies.

Quoting behavioural economist David Laibson from Marketplace of Perceptions -

“There’s a fundamental tension, in humans and other animals, between seizing available rewards in the present, and being patient for rewards in the future,” he says. “It’s radically important. People very robustly want instant gratification right now, and want to be patient in the future. If you ask people, ‘Which do you want right now, fruit or chocolate?’ they say, ‘Chocolate!’ But if you ask, ‘Which one a week from now?’ they will say, ‘Fruit.’

Can we say that in HR terminology, that would translate as – Recruitment? Now!...Retention – Tomorrow? So recruitment remains a “current hot topic,” while retention becomes a “future hot topic”.

Why so?

Laibson offers a mathematical explanation -

Consider a project like starting an exercise program, which entails, say, an immediate cost of six units of value, but will produce a delayed benefit of eight units. That’s a net gain of two units, “but it ignores the human tendency to devalue the future,” Laibson says. If future events have perhaps half the value of present ones, then the eight units become only four, and starting an exercise program today means a net loss of two units (six minus four). So we don’t want to start exercising today. On the other hand, starting tomorrow devalues both the cost and the benefit by half (to three and four units, respectively), resulting in a net gain of one unit from exercising. Hence, everyone is enthusiastic about going to the gym tomorrow."

So there is a gain in procrastination because what we start tomorrow will always have more value than what we start today, given our tendency to discount the future. And this especially seems to apply to acts which have an outcome in the "future" as opposed to "now"

Let me try and apply that back to our recruitment-retention issue.

What is the first thought that crosses our mind when our team member leaves? Who is going to replace him? (If you didn’t think that – you are probably a little ahead of this post!) And after that, we ask (if at all!)“How do I make sure the others don’t leave?”

Why so?

Maybe because – "getting a replacement" is an act in the “here and now” that gives us an immediate reward, while "making sure the others don’t leave" is of the “to-do list” variety, a more hazier proposition which we will crystallize tomorrow? Even though we know fully well that the cost of a new hire far exceeds the cost of retention efforts? Yes...and thats why behavioural economists say rational thought cannot always explain decision making.

So how do we solve this?

Two things that come to my mind -

Increasing the knowledge of "how"
Irrationalilty would mean refusal to see reason despite facts pointing to the same. Personally, I believe that in the case of retention, it is less to do with “refusal” and more to do with “ignorance of how”. Every manager “intends” to retain, but struggles with “how to”. Its like this – if a manager wants to get a replacement – he knows what to do – he will call up his recruitment manager, give the job specs, and the next day – he has five resumes in his inbox. He shortlists profiles, interviews them, the offer is made, and there!you have the person on board. It’s a concrete process, visible to one and all.
But if he wants to retain his people – does he see a similar concrete “how-to” process? Yes - he sends encouraging messages, takes his team out for lunches, and make sure they work don’t work weekends. But there is more to it right? Does he know what spaces his team members’ value? Does he know how to provide for them? Does he know how to work on a personal retention plan for each of his team members? Does he know if the organization can support him in that?
And when we don’t “know” we don’t act.........we procrastinate.

“Priming” to retain
I believe we are all “primed” to recruit, not retain. Think about it. How often do you send recruitment updates? Weekly? Daily? Hourly? How often do you send attrition reports? At best monthly? At worst….i dread to think? Do you know your source mix for this month’s recruitment? Yes ofcourse – “XYZ” consultant has given me the best results. Do you know your source mix for this month’s attrition figures? That I'll have to check. Hmm…. Whose scorecard really has a retention parameter that receives a “significant” weightage in the appraisal? Does your “off-shoring” (i can't remember where I first read this term!) process receive as much hype and attention as your “on-boarding” process? I have seen so many individuals whose conviction to leave gets strengthened only because of the treatment meted out to “employees serving notice”. What if we were to think of ways in which to “weaken” these convictions, even after an employee has resigned? So that even if he doesn’t stay, he might come back to join us at a later date?

In asking these questions, I am not talking about individual acts of good / bad (they may count for the situation) – I’m talking about the system as a whole, the way it works – IT IS JUST NOT PRIMED TO RETAIN.

And carrying out that shift will involve linking every single act of everyone of us to the goal of “making the employee stay”. Every decision that we make, every policy that we frame, every metric that we design should indicate how it contributes to this goal. And, most importantly, our processes should track it.

To conclude – if retention is everyone’s business – then lets provide the wherewithal to run it.

Of Pets and Peeves

2006-04-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

I thought only Ivan Pavlov used dogs to make a point about human behaviour!

This "and" that..

2006-04-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

Increasingly, the one competency that is emerging as most important seems to be the ability to manage contradictions.

How do I remain creative while adopting the “best practice” approach? (read post titled Avoid Best Practices)
How can my employer claim to allow work life balance if he wants to remain connected with me at all times?
How do I share my learnings when I see indispensability being valued?

I think this involves reworking some fundamental connections that we have made. Understanding that the opposite of team is not the individual. That stability does not preclude change. That quantity is never at the cost of quality. We start to see the power of the “and” over the “either or”. And acknowledge that two seemingly opposite forces can co-exist. Otherwise, we will end up behaving like the rats in Skinners box, acting only for the rewards.

Thinking out of the (tiffin) box!

2006-03-30T01:47:00.000-08:00

Management lessons from Mumbai's much famed dhabbawallahs -

* They rely on low capital and use cycles, wooden carriages and local trains to achieve their target.
* There are several groups that work independently and network with each other to achieve one goal.
* They meet once a month where all the groups gather and thrash out issues.
* There is no retirement age. People work as long as they want to.
* Since their lifestyle is simple and involves a lot of physical exercise, they rarely suffer from illnesses.
* The dabbawallas have a credit society which gets them through money crunches.
* Being ‘annadattas’ they are automatically treated with respect.

Seems like a lot can be achieved by keeping processes simple & staying well connected!

The clash of the Tattoos

2006-03-28T23:50:00.000-08:00

...is happening here

If you ask me, at the end of the day, I’d be better off hiring a person who wears a tattoo below his sleeve rather than an attitude over it!

Minding your Ps & Qs

2006-03-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

Ok. So you throw tantrums at your dinner table every night. Make a fuss about whats cooked, talk endlessly over the phone while chomping loudly on your morsels, refuse to pass the bowls, and spill water over the table. How disgusting! Someone's going to have to teach you how to behave!

Hmm...so microinequities it is. I like the term. For one, its clinical feel cleverly conceals the hurt, the insult, the anger that inevitably follow it. And ofcourse, the less touchy-feely and more business-like the term, the more palatable it is in our conference rooms right?

And while we are at it- how about something on microinequities against prospective employees?

>> Keeping candidates waiting for hours to do that interview?
>> Attending to phone calls and mails while interviewing?
>> Not knowing the job specs of the position you are interviewing for?
>> Calling candidates for endless interview rounds because few people can’t sit around the table and arrive at a decision?
>> During the interview, asking downright offensive questions like“Why should I hire you?” (I’m sure there’s a better way of asking “how can you value add to the job / organization”)

What....did I just hear you say that you need a metric to evaluate the impact of these changed behaviours?

Impacting Employee Spaces

2006-03-26T20:47:00.000-08:00

This line of thought is triggered by this excellent post on Connectivism Blog.

While the post may be central to learning ecologies – the author makes a point that may well be a universal truth for organizations – “Learners want control of their space. They want to create the ecology in which they function and learn.”

A lot of our interventions in HR essentially impinge on “employee spaces” – be they temporal, physical, social, or cerebral. The key thing here is – do we allow them to “access / manage” this space or “control” it?

Take work-life balance for example, which is about physical & temporal spaces. Helping employees “manage” this space, would mean on-site gyms, concierge services, onsite day care centers for working mothers, etc., basically anything to help them manage their time more effectively. But giving employees “control” over this space mean taking a bigger leap- telecommuting, sabbaticals, flexi time opportunities, etc.

Ditto for retention, which is largely about temporal spaces. If we shifted the focus from manage to control, we would be asking, as Bruce Tulgan says here-

“How do I maintain good working relationships with the best people throughout their working lives” and not “How do I retain employees as long term, exclusive, full time, onsite employees with uninterrupted service”

Location, length / duration of service, type of employment – the all standard parameters for measuring retention would not count. What would matter, as the article says, is your ability to “access talent when you need it.” It’s no longer about ensuring that the employee remains employed with you on a full time basis – instead its about keeping the relationship with the employee alive through altermate channels. Continuity of employment gets replaced by flexibility of employment. The employee has greater control over his space.

Then there are interventions for cerebral spaces. Increase in job size, increase in span of control, profit center responsibility, autonomy of functioning, involvement in goal setting, participatory decision making – all give the employee varying degrees of control over his cerebral space. Some allow him to manage within set boundaries, some allow to create his own boundaries.

So, is greater control over space necessarily a better thing?

I think that’s a wrong question. What would instead help is an understanding of how our interventions interact in each of these spaces and produce consequences that may be desirable or undesirable. Profit center responsibility or increase in job size, may give greater control over cerebral space, but may impinge about the employee’s physical or temporal space. Similarly, telecommuting may give the employee control over his physical and temporal spaces, but what about his social space? Sharing of ideas, working with people, leading a team? And continuing this line of thought – not all employees want control over all these spaces at all points of time. Well, obviously not – you would say. So then – what spaces do our employees want to control at what points of time in their careers? And how we provide for that? These are the questions that we need to answer.

Blink! Blink!

2006-03-23T02:21:00.000-08:00

Seen in a filled candidate application form -

Current Employer Name: SG Industries Ltd
Position Held – Commercial Planning Supervisor
Duration of service – 9:00 a.m – 6:00 pm

!!!

Domestic Violence – Expensive for your Employer?

2006-03-23T01:58:00.000-08:00

So we finally we have a business case against domestic violence and government led initiatives to address the problem individually and collectively at a corporate level.

Reading this, I was reminded of the time when I was trying to put together a counseling service for employees, where employees could talk to mental health professionals on any problem that was negatively impacting their functioning at work – personal or professional. We ran some focus groups to assess responses to the idea – and the following demands emerged very strongly

>> Anonymity – No one, not even HR should know that we approached a counselor (Glad they didn’t say no one, ESPECIALLY NOT HR, should know”)

>> Confidentiality –“ My boss should not know, else it will affect my rating”

>> Location – “It should be offered outside office premises – I don’t want my friends seeing me come out of the counselor’s room”

Which is why, when Uzma Hamid, the corporate social responsibility team manager at KPMG, says –

"We are linking it with performance management, so managers can be aware if they are having problems with people's performance, it [domestic violence] manifests itself through productivity"

…….I have my doubts on how soon we can get there in India.

But then she also says this on domestic violence–

"I was very surprised that no-one came back and said 'this is not the kind of thing that happens here',"

And i think that’s a big indicator of how silent we have all been about this, like we were about this until now.

So let’s get people talking first.

I fix matches...between people and organizations!

2006-03-23T00:55:00.000-08:00

In the movie Lamhe, Vinod Khanna, who runs a travel agency, explains to Sridevi, a prospective candidate for employment, the nature of his business. “We are a travel agency,” he says. “Oh – so you make real the dreams that people have, is it?” asks Sridevi. Very filmy, I agree. But it got me thinking. About how people describe their jobs. And whether that has any telling on their engagement levels at work. I would think it does.

In one of my stints in training and development, I conducted an intervention on a group of people who belonged to a particular line of business. I did an exercise where each one was asked to describe their jobs in one line. All kinds of descriptions came up. “Logging queries, closing transactions, responding to follow ups….basically activities. Not once did the word “customer” figure. And this was the team that worked three shifts to provide online support to customers in a different time zone. It was not surprising that they had productivity issues.

This probably also explains why the passion that recruiting firms have about recruitment is not so readily shared by recruitment professionals in corporates. After all, the recruiter gets to “see” the difference that he may have made to the career of a candidate, and even to the client organization, for that matter. Recruitment professionals in corporates on the other hand are too bogged down by the transactions (fixing salaries, generating letters, completing the background checks, etc) to see any “real” impact.

I think asking for a one line job description from a role holder is a potentially powerful tool, and can be used as a quick starting point of organizational diagnosis. The exclusions, the inclusions, the choice of words, the terminology used – all give you an insight into how the person perceives his job and his own sense of connect with it. Most people who feel positive about their jobs are those who are able to see where it fits in the larger picture. They are able to see how it impacts another person / entity / process – and this gives them a sense of meaning and thereby satisfaction.

Does this mean that strengthening the connect / or helping people change their descriptions of their job will increase engagement levels? Well, only marginally so. The final win will only happen if our evaluation metrics support this change. Which means that if at the end of the day, I am appraised for the number of positions I closed within turnaround time and the number of error free letters that I generated, recruitment for me will continue to remain a transaction. But ask me how many of those I recruited had atleast a 75% fit with the job, how many were on the fast track, and how many attrited..….that might get me thinking.