Impacting human resources positively!

Does your company have what it takes to impact employees positively?

While reading an interview of a CxO of an organization stating 'companies must impact employees positively', I had mixed reactions from my friends who tried to interpret the statement. Such statements mean different things to different people depending on their roles. Many want to primarily examine it by linking it with their monetary health. After all, it's all about money, isn't it? For all such individuals who want to look at it in that light only, there's nothing but disappointment.

Let's try and understand this from the perspective of a business leader: We live in a capitalist world, where the most important objective for any business and the business leaders is to create wealth for their shareholders (in an extended way, create value (may not be wealth) for stakeholders). With such objectives, anything that doesn't make a business sense can't, and will not find place in any corporate business organization. For example, let's get back to the statement 'impacting people positively'. What impact on employees would make business sense to a CxO? To paraphrase it, what impact by an organization on its employees would generate more wealth for the shareholders?

The following are 4 primary areas which I can think can impact employees and directly contribute towards creation of wealth:

• Talent Development: Up-skilling through Training & Development interventions: Talent management finds its place on the top 3 agendas in any mature organization today. In simple terms it means ensuring that the right person with the exact skill-set requirement is available at the right place and at the right time. With various pressures of attrition, skill availability, pricing of talent etc., training and development of internal resources through various methodologies makes more business sense to any CxO.
• Conducive Work Environment & Relations for performance: Ensuring required resources are available to employees is the first step to create conducive work environment in any organization. These resources may be hardware - physical resources, as well as software which includes policies, procedures, practices, communication channels among others. Another important aspect which has taken more significance is Employee relations – both horizontal (peers) and vertical (subordinate-supervisor) relations, and practices around the same.
• Compensation: Fair & Equitable Pay: When it comes to compensation – the definition of fairness and equity has no uniformity between two individuals, more so with employers and employee. This conflict has always been, is, and shall always be. Everybody wants a greater share, not a fair one. Notwithstanding the fact that ‘exceptions are always there’, I support the first classical / rational school of thought with one of its basic assumptions: “Every human being works for monetary benefits.” Money makes the world go round, isn’t it? For organizations it means giving a pay that’s benchmarked against the market. Not necessarily the best.
• Employee Satisfaction: Guess it won’t be a surprise to know this area is witnessing a loss of interest from employers. In fact, this focus on ‘employee satisfaction’ has evolved with the passing of time and various landmark studies of human behavior and other politico-economic movements. The focus has now shifted to what is called ‘employee engagement’.

So, we’re talking of impacting employees positively and what do business leaders mean when they say that? But, the questions thrown up by any employee to that is WIIFM (What’s in it for me)? Being a HR professional and interacting with employees – frustrated, separating, engaged, disengaged and all other types, this question is quite frequently thrown at me. But yes, if employees use their monetary health alone as a yardstick to measure organizational impact on them, it’s quite a myopic approach.

So, friend, considering all the facts above, is your company impacting its employees positively? At a macro level, you need to consider at least the above all areas. If they’re not being met, you’ve got serious issues.

Everyone wants recession cover..

Given the times of lull in world business and the impact on top-line and bottom-line of organizations, companies have become extra-careful, even the overtly conservative ones (including Lalas) have gone ahead taking measures from announcing job cuts, pay cuts, umpteen internal cost cutting measures, right-sizing etcetera..

But, as they say, in business the rear-view mirror is clearer than the windshield. Most companies looking at the past year performance have announced no salary hikes for the coming financial year. On top of it, there's no significant inflation in India which demands a correction in salaries. That quite justifies action on any company's part. It's about time in a day or two that Indian corporate would start announcing posting to the public their financial statements, and it would be no wonder if most of them had shown significant achievement, if not achieving their set targets for the financial year 2008-09.

Organizations are certain they want to grow, and the results would show that they have grown and the future, though not as certain, fairly indicates that growth is assured. I believe companies should make their employees (they're pampered as talent assets) a part of their growth by showing some sign of sharing through increments if not bonuses (even as some companies have). How else would a company more emphatically reinforce their belief in their workforce? How else does a company assure that they are interested in the employees growth and not only the financial growth of the organization? How else can a company make sure the partners are actively involved in mutual growth without giving them a taste of the growth? There's no promises made for future even if companies do not want to announce salary hikes currently. Would that not be a question of will and just running for cover of recession?

I would like to do a little bit of analysis on growth of organizations, at least 5-10 big ones and see the impact.. but, let's wait till the announcements..

Challenges for Training function & Trainer’s Role in Global Recession

A talk by Dr. M.B. Athreya

Training Needs in a Recession Scenario—

• Strategising for slowdown: Companies need to evolve a strategy to slowdown their growth in the same manner as they would have planned for robust growth. The market trends may put a real squeeze on the survival of the company and hence a strategy for slowdown is an absolute necessity.

• Rightsizing for survival: Most of us have heard the terms downsizing, but do not mistake rightsizing for downsizing. While downsizing may be an absolute cut-down of manpower, many a time without much a thought to the aftermath of it, but rightsizing is a much more thoughtful and strategized action with a retention plan for high performers which ensures that an organization has optimized its manpower to see it through the recession times.

• Cost reduction: The focus of organizations will be great on reducing costs, and training may be one of the functions where budgets may get impacted majorly. Gone will be days when few days of training meant a nice vacation in a hill station or a swanky hotel. The training function also needs to look at this aspect seriously and assist the organization to reduce costs significantly wherever possible by cutting down on the frills associated with training.

• Retention Marketing: Various market trends and the social disturbances like terrorism attacks have also influenced the consumer buying behaviour, and it’s clearly emerging that companies will have to focus on retention marketing. The focus here is going to be mostly on retaining a customer even if the margins earned are lesser.

• Flexibility for upturn: In all the various HR measures to the see the organization through the pressures of global recession, the organization with a strategy and action plan for slowdown can retain the flexibility and muscle to revive and take an upturn when market show a positive trend. Organizations must not become so lean and weak in terms of market image that they have lost the ability to take an upturn when trends seem to change.

Trainers’ Role—

• Proactive alert to top management: Trainer’s role takes precedence when there’s an action plan proactively presented to the management. Training managers must be able to foresee the impact on the organization in the coming times and identify areas where the function can significantly contribute to the sustainability of the organization.

• Mobilising all employees & Create awareness of the big crisis: With tough times in the economy, and organizations across making different moves, there’s certainly an unrest that creeps into the employees mindset. Therefore, it’s very necessary to create awareness among employees about the recession, it’s impact and the uncertainties anticipated in the near future.

• Low-cost Training & Instant use of the Learning: A lot of debates have happened on this significant area in the training function - Measuring the results and the transfer of learning onto the job, but in tough times like recession, it’s time to exhibit the results in a more visible manner, and focus on the instant use of learning acquired from various training initiatives.

Action Plan for Training Managers —

• Prepare a recession training plan: Just as the organization needs to strategize for slowdown, even the function needs to draft a recession training plan to ensure that the function is aligned with organizational objectives and strategy for a given period of time.

• Note/Presentation to Top Management: A presentation may be given to the top management with the recession training plan to keep the chief executives informed and also to get their perspective and optimize the recession training plan.

• Train mostly with internal resources: Well focus on cost reduction certainly points out to identifying talent within the organization that can be used as internal trainers or training resources by selecting individuals from various functions and engagements and utilizing them aptly.

• Select external expertise: External resources always bring in a thought from the world around, and share the best practices from various other organizations, so wherever required, external expertise needs to be employed for training.

• Real time measurement of results: “The market will discipline the industry”, an expert spoke. It’s time to buckle up tight for the ride where questions on the result of trainings and return of investment will be plenty. The measurement mechanisms of training function also better be in place to justify the same!

Profile of the Speaker:
Dr. Mrithyunjay Athreya (M.B. Athreya) is a Management Advisor of great international repute. He has a doctorate in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, USA besides being a Gold Medallist in Cost Accountancy. He taught at Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, London Business School, and Scottish Business School. He has been Director on many corporate boards. He has acted as Chairman and Member of many Government Policy Committees. Particular mention may be made of Athreya Committee on Telecom Sector, which paved the way for Telecom Revolution of last fifteen years.

Employee Engagement in action!

Listed are a few HR initiatives which could ensure maximum engagement of employee with any organization could be--

1. Periodical Communication / Discussion Platforms (Townhall / Org-wide update / Business Development Update) with employees - Everybody would like to know what's happening with their organization. Whether we accept it or not, there's always rumour mills running, and the best way to clear confusion to employees would be a monthly or quarterly Townhall meeting followed by a MoM / Letter of Update from Management. Townhalls would give a greater experience for the sheer joy of meeting up with a senior management member.
2. Fun at Work - Out of 5 or 6 working days, perhaps 1 hour in a week can be taken out for 'Fun at Work', which would be a great destressor for everyone, and also motivate employees. You can arrange for small games, the objective being 'fun at work', and 'not winning'. Most organizations have it already, in a more informal way. It just needs a little more branding and institutionalization. These little things somewhere add up to a more healthier workplace. The only thing at the end is that you need to look at the ROI of these things in terms of engagement of employees at work, retention and healthier workplace climate rather than monetary returns.
   
3. Reward & Recognition Programme (A scoreboard defining the Hot-Shots / Hi-Performers of the Company on a display to all) - It's not necessary that all rewards & recognition provided to employee have a significant monetary bearing on the organization. A board of fame like this on display to everyone would surely create an enthusiasm and get the adrenaline pumping to get their names up there. Of course, a little difference here and there can surely add zing and spice up the competition to perform. Even a board for TLs (Team Leader)/ PMs (Project Manager) specially can get them running. Only, the criteria of judging best performers must be clear and transparent to all to avoid negative crop-up of issues.
4. Appraisal / Increment Clarity - It is natural and acceptable for employees to think that appraisal means or would result in salary increment. So, it is the Management / HR Communication through various initiatives which needs to make it clear that while increments would only be effective once a year, mid term appraisals have a bearing on the same, or whatever wise the policy of the company states.This small clarification does wonders.. do not underestimate it.
   
5. Goal Setting - Employees are lost and are in absolute 'lost' situation with only 'perceived' and 'assumed' goals about their work. At least for employees with a vintage of 6 months, you may encourage the team to team to do goal setting for the next 6 months. This will ensure focus and goal-orientedness for organizational delivery to be aligned with primary objectuves at all levels all the time. This ideally, needs to be a top-down exercise, where first SBU heads have their goals, which then are cascaded to Project Managers, TLs, and eventually to the bottomline drivers. Alignment certainly can't work any other way.
6. Career Pathing - This can be clubbed with Goal Setting, where the focus is on employee development for progression and promotion. This needs individual attention and a plan for employee to attain necessary skills to move up the ladder professionally through necessary trainings, and skills development programmes which can be critical for taking up advanced roles as the employee gains vintage in the organization. A great motivator / and keeps employee on track.
7. Early Warning Indicators (EWIs) - Most of the IT companies follow the practise of EWIs, which is a tool managed by TLs to keep abreast with attrition, and help them plan proactively. Typically, this is done twice a month, at the beginning and at the end of every month. This tool helps determine the attrites in advance, and help taking any proactive steps to retain or replace as the case may be with individual employees.
8. Culture Building - Policy Sessions - Each organization has its own culture and values specified, and it's necessary to ensure all employees align themselves to the same. If communication about organization policies / events / values does not happen regularly, the reinforcement is lost. Typically, this are only done during the New Joinee Induction only. But, human nature easily tends to forget it with time. For this, some refresher sessions, or some sessions on regular basis about different policies need to be conducted to ensure adherence to organizational policies and values thus establishing an organization's Culture.
9. Employee Satisfaction Index & HR Skips - Employees certainly have many issues and feedback which they may not share with their TLs or operations managers. If not given an opportunity for them to speak, they would start talking among themselves and creating a parallel communication channel which may be unhealthy for the organization. Therefore, it is necessary for HR to give them a channel / platform to voice their concerns through open-house sessions and SKIPs to make actionables as necessary and give back the feedback. This will also ensure that the employee satisfaction as far as work and work environment is concerned stays high.
10. Team-Building Initiatives (Budget Driven) - Lead by the PM / TL, the teams could have some time off-work or on-site activities which may lead to more bonding and cohesiveness of team members for better performance as a whole. A org-wide consensus needs to arrive at this for implementation as it may have a significant financial bearing..

These need to take place in organization with Operations & HR Collaboration to make them more productive and bring better ROI to the organization.

Making right decision ain't so easy...

Remember the decision making puzzle on group of children playing on two railway tracks? If you haven't heard that, it is given below (a popular email forward, though)...

I was facing a similar kind of situation a month back, when I had limited number of job openings and a whole lot of applicants.. and everyone was trying their best to influence by getting recommendations. Recommendations, such that they would surely get the job. There are other eligible and more qualified ones too... but, it was a matter of collective decision, cos the recommendation went at all levels of selection.. though we all know the others have not made a mistake to get them one opportunity less and allowing a fair competition, we do such things, many a time out of choice, sometime out of helplessness. Anyways, who said the life's easy and the world fair? Wonder if I'd say the same thing if were in the receiving end.

For now, here's the Railway Track and Group of Children puzzle:
A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track.

The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?

Let's take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make................

...

Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess. Exactly, I thought the same way initially because to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally. But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?

Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was. This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are. The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.

The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that track was still in use, and that they should have run away if they heard the train's sirens. If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track! Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake! And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.

"Remember that what's right isn't always popular... and what's popular isn't always right."

Everybody makes mistakes; that's why they put erasers on pencils.

Corporate Mafia & Human Resource Management

HR (and Administration) Departments are being pursued by owners and top management to operate as a Mafia. Well, this mafia is to specialize in a very niche area--

• To spy around the office so as to keep a watch on undercurrents
• Threaten and/or Create problems to retain employees who quit
• Tamper / Tarnish the careers of quitters by bad-mouthing
• To network with companies to find which quitter is joining where

It is very typical in a business segment where attrition is soaring that people run pillar to post trying to retain employees. Gone are the days when contracts/agreements/bonds used to create that block in employees' minds before they separated from their employers. The employees is literate (not quite enough) of their rights and responsibilities to tackle the agreement issues.

I would not generalize these practices to all companies, but I certainly opine that this may be a common practice in small organizations, organizations with closely-knit cultures and companies operating in niche markets. It's a real sorry state is how companies are trying to retain people. Instead of resorting to best practices and retaining people by offering a 'package of interest' (including a good combo of hygiene and motivators) to them, they're trying to retain by fear.

The impact of the whole exercise nevertheless does not result in retention, but it results in--

• Tension in the organization
• A hostile organizational climate & culture
• Tragic Impressions left on existing employees
• A chain reaction over existing employees to follow a cautious and hostile exit
• Poor (read pathetic) branding of the organization

Yet, many follow these practices knowing the results. It's somewhere a drive of the top management to 'TEACH A LESSON' to the people who quit and implant FEAR even in the minds of existing employees so they may think twice before they think of quitting.

Well, though the HR is empathetic towards the employees and can argue a case, HR management has limitations set by the CEO/Director, which then, fall out of the domain. In fact, if HR doesn't cooperate, then people definitely have their ways to pursue their causes...

A few companies I believe do not relieve such employees, and wait to know the name of company the candidate is joining and then call them up to threaten that they may be sued for dual employment of candidate. Even more pathetic is when companies use their influence with local authorities (police) and file and FIR against the employee possessing company assets, and Bingo! who's gonna look for physical evidence of intellectual assets... Phew!!!

These practices are quite disheartening, and all the more stressful to employees as 'COMPANIES ARE FOLLOWING THEM'.

The topic is open for your criticism / additions / suggestions...

How about learning from movies?

Seems like employees can learn to work better by watching movies...

If you thought movies were just entertainment and a reason to feel good, corporate trainers want you to rethink! What’s common to Forrest Gump,Saving Private Ryan, and Cinderella Man, apart from being Academy award winners? Aren’t they all awe-inspiring and extremely motivating? Capitalising on these qualities of movies, trainers and management consultancies are increasingly finding use of movies as an effective tool for learning in corporate India. Other than the ones mentioned above, My Fair Lady, Bridge on the River Kwai, Executive Decision, and Scent of a Woman are others, which are used for various training modules.

Movies are no more pure indulgence as what sectarians might say... they are finding a place in the toolkit of various HR trainers to be used for imparting learning effectively. They are no more all about big biz and bigger bucks for directors and producers alone! A spokesperson for Genesis Events India, which conducts such workshops, says, “In the workshop, participants view snippets from popular Hollywood films, examine, discuss, and then evaluate the learning that they gather, and then assess the possible application of that learning to the everyday problems that they face at work.” Well, the methodology of these training sessions might be poles apart from conventional ones, but the point is the learning from these sessions is retained well. And so, the concept seems to be working well; after all, who does not want to have loads of learning entertainment?

Wait, what about desi movies? Lagaan has already found widespread use for training in businesses and B-schools as an exemplary leadership model. Then, there’s Munnabhai MBBS that is being ‘viewed’ for training on motivation. Similarly, Iqbal is being used for personal development, Ek Ruka Hua Faisla for negotiation skills... and the list goes on. Says an executive, “It’s like we’re back in school, learning lessons out of stories.”

So, next time you happen to watch some exciting movie, be sure that you get the moral of the story: It may be a corporate lesson!