This is just an administrative post :-)
I realised that the focus of this blog has moved from purely HR to aspects in the new way of working within Organizations - that impact organizational design, structure, systems, tools, processes and development.
Hence thought that a name change was in order :-)
Hence my moniker for this New Way of Working is Organizations 2.0 - focussing on how people, communities and companies are integrating this new approach to working :-)
Oct 30, 2009
Knowledge Work and Collaboration
A very insightful article in McKinsey's What matters column on the challenges of measuring productivity of collaboration in Knowledge workers, and also insightful comments.
Primarily the article argues that while technology is deployed - productivity of collaboration is different than the way productivity is measured in the traditional deployment of technology.
The article states:
The steps the article suggests are:
I would add that other support processes and structures followed by the organization must be analysed to understand how it is impacting collaboration too.
One of the main issues that become bottlenecks is the disincentive to collaborate and a tact approval or even explicit reward system that focuses on contra-behaviors.
For example if a new worker sees that the people being praised and held up as star performers are lone workers - that becomes a very strong reinforcing psychological mechanism to not collaborate.
Primarily the article argues that while technology is deployed - productivity of collaboration is different than the way productivity is measured in the traditional deployment of technology.
The article states:
Our research suggests that improvements depend upon getting a better fix on who actually is doing the collaborating within companies, as well as understanding the details of how that interactive work is done. Just as important is deciding how to support interactions with technology—in particular, Web 2.0 tools such as social networks, wikis, and video. There is potential for sizeable gains from even modest improvements. Our survey research shows that at least 20 percent and as much as 50 percent of collaborative activity results in wasted effort. And the sources of this waste—including poorly planned meetings, unproductive travel time, and the rising tide of redundant e-mail communications, just to name a few—are many and growing in knowledge-intense industries.
The steps the article suggests are:
- Defining knowledge workers and how they work
- Applying technologies
I would add that other support processes and structures followed by the organization must be analysed to understand how it is impacting collaboration too.
One of the main issues that become bottlenecks is the disincentive to collaborate and a tact approval or even explicit reward system that focuses on contra-behaviors.
For example if a new worker sees that the people being praised and held up as star performers are lone workers - that becomes a very strong reinforcing psychological mechanism to not collaborate.
Oct 27, 2009
Tweeting Better than Facebook within Organizations
Interesting post in the Blogspotting blog :)
For those who don't know - Yammer is a tool which is said to be Twitter for the organization!
Are you using it? Do you like Yamming (!) in your firm?
SocialText CEO Eugene Lee argues that Twitter might be a better model than Facebook for next-gen communications within companies, so-called Enterprise 2.0. Facebook's trouble? Reciprocal friending. The problem, he says, is that employees on corporate social networks start collecting friendships of execs. "Because the Rolodex is public, it becomes a matter of VP trading cards."
A preferable model for corporate relationships, he says, is Twitter, where people lend their attention, not necessarily their friendship. In SocialText's Twitter-like corporate offering, Signals, more people are likely to "follow" the CEO--assuming he or she has anything interesting to Tweet.
For those who don't know - Yammer is a tool which is said to be Twitter for the organization!
Are you using it? Do you like Yamming (!) in your firm?
Culture and Collaboration
Jack Vinson posts his reaction to this Web Worker Daily article, Corporate Culture, Not Technology, Drives Online Collaboration by Will Kelly about what kind of culture will facilitate collaboration.
My take on this is that the elements of culure/context are important, but also as important are structures and processes to enable collaboration.
One big example is: what behaviors are rewarded?
We can try until we cry, and deploy the best collaboration tools - however if people get assessed for individual work and contribution - collaboration will not be the first thing they think of.
And we come back to what we call "the ladder of engagement" in 2020 Social. People will adopt the tool naturally - and most of them will be consumers and curators - not collaborators and creators - which should be the goal of the team leading the change.
My take on this is that the elements of culure/context are important, but also as important are structures and processes to enable collaboration.
One big example is: what behaviors are rewarded?
We can try until we cry, and deploy the best collaboration tools - however if people get assessed for individual work and contribution - collaboration will not be the first thing they think of.
And we come back to what we call "the ladder of engagement" in 2020 Social. People will adopt the tool naturally - and most of them will be consumers and curators - not collaborators and creators - which should be the goal of the team leading the change.
Oct 23, 2009
How to get a professional services firm started on Social Media
Here are a few ways in which a professional services firm can quickly establish a presence and connect with prospective clients and stakeholders
Integrate the Website and the Blog
The website and blog would probably be the "mothership" of any firm's web presence.
Content (text, pictures, videos) would be the reason:
a. Search engines would get keywords to index the site
b. People would find the site – and subscribe to get the updates.
c. This content could then be syndicated to other websites – by RSS feeds.
Linkedin
Linkedin is a business networking site – and firms and their employees can build visibility and brand equity by engaging with groups and in Q and A. They can also utilize the event feature to showcase organizational events.
Facebook
A firm's page on facebook page does two things - it builds a community of fans and can also syndicates the blog's RSS feeds (for example the 2020 Social FB page) – so that every time the blog is updated the fans would get the update on their facebook home page. The ability to upload pictures would also focus on giving a firm a human face.
Twitter
Twitter is a status updation service by which people choose to follow users. A firm can start a twitter account that also syndicates the RSS feed. This however would be most useful when people choose to follow the firm's status on Twitter (example 2020 Social) - and the firm can get its employees to tweet individually and have conversations with interested people.
Other services like Slideshare, Scribd
These are services which help in sharing documents and presentations which can then be embedded as widgets on the blog/website of the firm. This also helps firms to come out favorably on searches engines as these sites get ranked quite highly by search engines.
Discussion forum
Various services like discussion fora where influencers of the domain and various e-groups on Google Groups and Yahoogroups where professionals congregate- engaging in conversations there would also provide a firm with huge exposure to a firm.
Next steps for a firm after exploring what suits its needs...
1. Define metrics for objectives
2. Focus on a couple of tools
3. Training and skilling employees on engaging in social media/web presence
Integrate the Website and the Blog
The website and blog would probably be the "mothership" of any firm's web presence.
Content (text, pictures, videos) would be the reason:
a. Search engines would get keywords to index the site
b. People would find the site – and subscribe to get the updates.
c. This content could then be syndicated to other websites – by RSS feeds.
Linkedin is a business networking site – and firms and their employees can build visibility and brand equity by engaging with groups and in Q and A. They can also utilize the event feature to showcase organizational events.
A firm's page on facebook page does two things - it builds a community of fans and can also syndicates the blog's RSS feeds (for example the 2020 Social FB page) – so that every time the blog is updated the fans would get the update on their facebook home page. The ability to upload pictures would also focus on giving a firm a human face.
Twitter is a status updation service by which people choose to follow users. A firm can start a twitter account that also syndicates the RSS feed. This however would be most useful when people choose to follow the firm's status on Twitter (example 2020 Social) - and the firm can get its employees to tweet individually and have conversations with interested people.
Other services like Slideshare, Scribd
These are services which help in sharing documents and presentations which can then be embedded as widgets on the blog/website of the firm. This also helps firms to come out favorably on searches engines as these sites get ranked quite highly by search engines.
Discussion forum
Various services like discussion fora where influencers of the domain and various e-groups on Google Groups and Yahoogroups where professionals congregate- engaging in conversations there would also provide a firm with huge exposure to a firm.
Next steps for a firm after exploring what suits its needs...
1. Define metrics for objectives
2. Focus on a couple of tools
3. Training and skilling employees on engaging in social media/web presence
Oct 22, 2009
Now also blogging at...
The good thing about joining a Social Business Strategy firm is that you get to blog about work related stuff :-)
So join me as I explore how organizations can utilise social tools and emerging technologies to facilitate communities, communication and collaboration - on my 2020 Social blog :-)
So join me as I explore how organizations can utilise social tools and emerging technologies to facilitate communities, communication and collaboration - on my 2020 Social blog :-)
Oct 19, 2009
Making Organizations Social - am joining 20:20 Social
I guess, what you're asking is - what the heck is a social business strategy consulting firm?
Social business is the new term (or meme, if you will) that is emerging to describe organizations that are leveraging social software and tools to connect with customers and other stakeholders - that's right folks, bringing the social web into the organization.
As I have believed - such tools (call them web 2.0 or whatever) help in facilitating transparency and openness and help achieve the true goals of Organization Development
In my role in 2020 social (follow it on twitter) I would be looking at the enterprise practice - or essentially how organizations can deploy social tools to empower employees, build collaboration, develop knowledge and positively impact business. Yeah, some people call this Enterprise 2.0 too.
It takes me back to the starting point of my career - when I started out looking at organizational processes for Knowledge Management and then e-learning.
However as much as I love tools - I know that culture always trumps tactics, tools and even strategy. So I am looking at leveraging my HR and OD learnings to help client organizations deploy these social tools.
And I am super-excited to be working along with the amazing 20:20 social team that includes an old blogging acquaintance Gaurav Mishra who blogs at gauravonomics.com. What makes Gaurav a kindred spirit is his openness and transparency as CEO - he blogs about the organization as he manages it :-) Check out Gaurav's posts on how to build an Open and Collaborative Professional Services Firm, and Top 10 FAQs on Building a Social Business Strategy Firm in India.
Am also looking forward to working with a true blue Thought Leader Dave Evans (not the AC/DC guy ;-) author of a book on Social Media Marketing who blogs at http://readthis.com
You can download 20:20 Social's position paper on Social Business Strategy as a pdf, or read it on scribd.
Who are the other folks who are doing something similar?
Well there are two that I know of - the Altimeter Group and Dachis Group.
20:20 Social has just started its journey and I am very excited to be part of something so new and emergent.
Whee! Wish me luck!
Oct 13, 2009
Tribalization of Business study by Deloitte
While there are trends - Deloitte's study says that businesses are still some time away from leveraging the full power of social media and networking communities
As the study says:
Of course, these findings are US centric but we are seeing Indian firms also starting out leveraging the social web.
As the study says:
Some of the biggest obstacles to creating a successful community are getting people to:
Join (24 percent)
Stay engaged (30 percent)
Keep returning (21 percent)
These can be easily remedied through partnering and new management practices. However, the study indicates that very few companies are taking the steps necessary to overcome these challenges.
While 58 percent of respondents evaluated partnering with existing communities, complementary vendors or end users when developing their community, 55 percent of the companies that evaluated a partnership did not actually partner.
The study also revealed significant gaps between community goals (such as generating word of mouth, customer loyalty and brand awareness) and how success is being measured.
The top two analytics for measuring success are:
Number of active users (34 percent)
How often people post/comment (32 percent)
These results indicate that participation is still considered to be the biggest measure of success. Potentially more useful analytics, however, such as increase in search engine rank and citations/links on other sites, are less often utilized, highlighting a mismatch between the desired outcome and how that outcome is measured.
Additional Findings
Of the companies surveyed, a majority agreed that the following continue to be top business objectives of online communities:
Increase word-of-mouth (38 percent)
Increase customer loyalty (34 percent)
Increase brand awareness (30 percent)
Improve idea generation (29 percent)
Improve the quality of customer support (23 percent)
However, in the majority of companies surveyed, marketing continues to be the primary driver of online communities, resulting in a significant gap between community goals and the organizations’ capability to fully leverage these communities on an enterprise wide basis.
Of course, these findings are US centric but we are seeing Indian firms also starting out leveraging the social web.
Oct 9, 2009
New Social Business Careers: Technopologist?
The Fast Forward blog pointed me to this interesting article on someone in P&G who is the marketing brand manager for Digital Business Strategy.
I've always believed new careers emerge from a hybrid of earlier careers/skill areas and Dave Knox reiterates my belief. As he says:
Interesting to note how social businesses is giving rise to new careers.
I've always believed new careers emerge from a hybrid of earlier careers/skill areas and Dave Knox reiterates my belief. As he says:
In its most simplistic description, a Marketing Technopologist combines the skills of a Marketer, Technologist, and Social Anthropologist. As a Technologist, you might not be a “coder” but you know your way around the language and culture of tech. You understand things like API and Open Source or why Facebook Connect working with Open ID is a big deal. Through the lens of a Social Anthropologist, you can then look at that technology and understand the impact it will have on society and culture. You can recognize that the technology behind the Social Graph can actually have a huge impact on how we make decisions or shop. And finally, the marketer will build upon both of these elements, recognizing the business potential created.
Interesting to note how social businesses is giving rise to new careers.
Oct 8, 2009
Tomorrow's HR professional
This piece below is a work of fiction - by an hyperactive imagination. Taking career decisions on its basis might not be advisable :-)
Year - 2025 AD
Month - January
8:30 am - Anita grabs her coffee and boots up her communication device - it's been a long weekend and she doesn't know what to expect from her day at work.
Tonnes of h-mails. One is from her best friend with a collection of pictures and videos and an audio from their last vacation. Anita smiled
The next h-mail was from the HR Director of MegaCorp. He said he had an assignment for her. Could she go through the employee database and identify trends and suggestion areas? He needed an approach from her tomorrow if she wanted to accept it.
It was followed by a h-mail was from the People Strategy officer of GlobalBank - her voice came through the comm "Anita, we came across your thoughts on the learning professionals network on one of the HR networks, and wanted to explore if you can oversee our strategy to mentor the high potential employees of our finance function?"
Anita smiled. She was bored and tired of the employee database analysis kind of work. MegaCorp could go take a walk. However, before she agreed to GlobalBank's assignment - she had to do her own research.
Anita took a big gulp of coffee, fired up her personal search assistant and spoke into it: "People Strategy history of GlobalBank" - in instants all the videos, documents and inferences by the search assistant (who knew her areas of interest) was there for her to go through.
After an hour Anita grinned. She liked the challenge that GlobalBank was throwing her way.
In the next 30 minutes she put together a high level approach note about how she would like to go ahead with it, attached her HR skill certification which meant a specific fee structure that she would charge for the project.
She then attached her videos and texts on the specific intervention and sent it off by h-mail.
Phew that was a good morning's work. She needed a coffee.
11 am - Anita had finished her morning sandwich and salad and looked at her to-do list. She still had to recruit 4 people to work on a project for a real estate firm. Over the next 2 hours Anita dipped into her contact lists - furiously working her virtual rolodex and got some great leads. Five people asked her to h-mail the videos of the project and one actually h-mailed back his Real Estate sales proficiency level to signify interest in the project.
At 1 pm Anita needed to eat something more substantial. She got into her electric car and drove to the nearest organic eating joint.
Back on her desk at 2:30 pm Anita decided to connect with some folks and merely chat up. She pulled out a h-mail video and saw which ones of her contacts was reachable.
Neil, a specialist in helping organizations mould their culture in these changing times was online and smiled when she pinged him. However he was on text only mode.
Anita spoke "hey Neil, what interesting stuff are you doing?" knowing that it'll show up instantaneously on his screen as text.
Neil typed :" Am on a boring conference call with the top team of the Distributed Collective and they're wondering how their new vision needs to be supplanted with a new organizational structure" he grinned into the video.
Anita spoke "That sounds exciting, Neil. Ok, I just wanted to share that there's a talk of a mentoring project for a big bank's high potentials and it seems that it'll be a long project. Possibly like 3-4 years. It's exciting for me to venture into this field - and it's thanks to your suggestion that I share my thoughts on the HR learning channel."
Neil smiled and typed "That's great news. Congrats!"
Anita typed: "Still too soon to congratulate me, but I want you to mentor me during this project. I'll need your help!"
Neil grinned "of course, and you know what my skill level and therefore rates are."
Anita made a face "Yeah I know and you'll surely get your fees"
Neil typed: "Great, I gotta go now. They want me to say something now" he grinned
Anita said "Ok, take care. Live long and prosper"
"Live long and prosper" Neil typed back.
Anita stretched out and turned off the h-mail. She needed to get out and exercise now. She grabbed her stuff and headed for the gym. Tomorrow seemed to be an interesting day ahead.
Actually tonight was an all night virtual conference where she was presenting the new compensation philosophy for GoodElectric - a client of hers, and the other HR project leads as well as project teams from Ops and Sales and Marketing worldwide would be there to poke holes into her proposal - she was sure of it. They had already left suggestions in the h-wiki of the GoodElectric HR collaborative space, but she was sure tonight they would not pull their punches.
She grinned.
Let them try, she thought.
Year - 2025 AD
Month - January
8:30 am - Anita grabs her coffee and boots up her communication device - it's been a long weekend and she doesn't know what to expect from her day at work.
Tonnes of h-mails. One is from her best friend with a collection of pictures and videos and an audio from their last vacation. Anita smiled
The next h-mail was from the HR Director of MegaCorp. He said he had an assignment for her. Could she go through the employee database and identify trends and suggestion areas? He needed an approach from her tomorrow if she wanted to accept it.
It was followed by a h-mail was from the People Strategy officer of GlobalBank - her voice came through the comm "Anita, we came across your thoughts on the learning professionals network on one of the HR networks, and wanted to explore if you can oversee our strategy to mentor the high potential employees of our finance function?"
Anita smiled. She was bored and tired of the employee database analysis kind of work. MegaCorp could go take a walk. However, before she agreed to GlobalBank's assignment - she had to do her own research.
Anita took a big gulp of coffee, fired up her personal search assistant and spoke into it: "People Strategy history of GlobalBank" - in instants all the videos, documents and inferences by the search assistant (who knew her areas of interest) was there for her to go through.
After an hour Anita grinned. She liked the challenge that GlobalBank was throwing her way.
In the next 30 minutes she put together a high level approach note about how she would like to go ahead with it, attached her HR skill certification which meant a specific fee structure that she would charge for the project.
She then attached her videos and texts on the specific intervention and sent it off by h-mail.
Phew that was a good morning's work. She needed a coffee.
11 am - Anita had finished her morning sandwich and salad and looked at her to-do list. She still had to recruit 4 people to work on a project for a real estate firm. Over the next 2 hours Anita dipped into her contact lists - furiously working her virtual rolodex and got some great leads. Five people asked her to h-mail the videos of the project and one actually h-mailed back his Real Estate sales proficiency level to signify interest in the project.
At 1 pm Anita needed to eat something more substantial. She got into her electric car and drove to the nearest organic eating joint.
Back on her desk at 2:30 pm Anita decided to connect with some folks and merely chat up. She pulled out a h-mail video and saw which ones of her contacts was reachable.
Neil, a specialist in helping organizations mould their culture in these changing times was online and smiled when she pinged him. However he was on text only mode.
Anita spoke "hey Neil, what interesting stuff are you doing?" knowing that it'll show up instantaneously on his screen as text.
Neil typed :" Am on a boring conference call with the top team of the Distributed Collective and they're wondering how their new vision needs to be supplanted with a new organizational structure" he grinned into the video.
Anita spoke "That sounds exciting, Neil. Ok, I just wanted to share that there's a talk of a mentoring project for a big bank's high potentials and it seems that it'll be a long project. Possibly like 3-4 years. It's exciting for me to venture into this field - and it's thanks to your suggestion that I share my thoughts on the HR learning channel."
Neil smiled and typed "That's great news. Congrats!"
Anita typed: "Still too soon to congratulate me, but I want you to mentor me during this project. I'll need your help!"
Neil grinned "of course, and you know what my skill level and therefore rates are."
Anita made a face "Yeah I know and you'll surely get your fees"
Neil typed: "Great, I gotta go now. They want me to say something now" he grinned
Anita said "Ok, take care. Live long and prosper"
"Live long and prosper" Neil typed back.
Anita stretched out and turned off the h-mail. She needed to get out and exercise now. She grabbed her stuff and headed for the gym. Tomorrow seemed to be an interesting day ahead.
Actually tonight was an all night virtual conference where she was presenting the new compensation philosophy for GoodElectric - a client of hers, and the other HR project leads as well as project teams from Ops and Sales and Marketing worldwide would be there to poke holes into her proposal - she was sure of it. They had already left suggestions in the h-wiki of the GoodElectric HR collaborative space, but she was sure tonight they would not pull their punches.
She grinned.
Let them try, she thought.
Oct 5, 2009
No vulgarity in salaries please!
The government after its austerity drive - now seems to be picking on corporate India to catch the fever and start cutting salaries.
By calling CEO salaries vulgar the Corporate Affairs minister is caught up in the wrong battle.
What Mr Khurshid seems to forget is that in the corporate world even if promoter CEOs pay themselves "vulgar" salaries, wagging a disapproving finger at them is not the answer - introducing measures to safeguard the shareholders and encouraging good corporate governance is the way to go forward.
Something that politicians and bureaucrats seem not to remember when they run things like national carriers to the ground!
By calling CEO salaries vulgar the Corporate Affairs minister is caught up in the wrong battle.
Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Sunday (October 4) said the government will keep a tab on what kind of salaries the country's CEOs will be paid adding that nobody in politics or outside, has reached a level of liberalism where vulgarity is also a fundamental right.
The issue regarding remuneration of company CEOs is to be debated by the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which is scrutinising the provisions of the new Companies Bill tabled in the Lok Sabha in August.
Just to put it in perspective the annual remuneration of some CEOs work out to be 50 crore rupees, which is 12,500 times the per capita income in India.
What Mr Khurshid seems to forget is that in the corporate world even if promoter CEOs pay themselves "vulgar" salaries, wagging a disapproving finger at them is not the answer - introducing measures to safeguard the shareholders and encouraging good corporate governance is the way to go forward.
Something that politicians and bureaucrats seem not to remember when they run things like national carriers to the ground!
Oct 4, 2009
Jobs situation improving in India
I guess we all knew it, but now the numbers prove it. However I'd have to say that 2009-10 is looking much better!
The HT tells us the good news :-)
New job creation dropped by over 40 per cent in 2008-09, with 469 companies studied having recruited 1,35,987 employees during the year under review, compared to 2,28,968 in the 2007-08.
The banking sector, State Bank of India in particular, has come to the rescue, while software service companies are employing less numbers compared to the previous year. The latter sector was a major job creator in the past five years and is now facing a slowdown in business from BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sectors on account of the financial crisis abroad. Of 36 software services’ companies studied, hiring increased by 69,430 in 2008-09, compared to 103,118 in 2007-08.
The crash in stock prices after the liquidation of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 had hurt new employment in securities and commodities trading service firms, while the liquidity crunch saw construction companies pruning staff strength due to the slowing in demand for housing and commercial offices. Sectors such as automobiles, steel, textiles, hotels and media also pruned hiring due to the slowdown.
The HT tells us the good news :-)
Automobile firms, some of which clocked record sales in September mirroring strong consumer demand, appear to have recruited the most. A labour ministry survey showed the sector recruited 18,000 additional employees in April-June.
Information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO), sectors heavily dependent on overseas contracts, appear to be doing well. The survey showed that the “non-exporting” (companies that do not earn significant revenues from overseas clients) IT and BPO companies hired an additional 15,000 employees during the April-June quarter, the survey showed.
Recruitment agencies and headhunting firms confirmed that enquiries by prospective employers have started trickling in and many expect hiring to grow sharply after January.
“Leadership positions are opening up but jobs across the board will open up only by January to March as employers are cautious of over hiring,” Rajesh AR, vice president at Bangalore-based staffing firm TeamLease Services.
HR Outsourcing to get more jobs to India?
Interesting article in the ET - however offshore HR outsourcing which is being done is comparatively low end currently in India.
There's however potential for this work itself to be done cheaper in the level 2 and 3 cities in India - as metros become more and more expensive for doing it.
There's however potential for this work itself to be done cheaper in the level 2 and 3 cities in India - as metros become more and more expensive for doing it.
Most of human resource outsourcing (HRO) contracts coming up for renewal are likely to witness a significant restructuring .This is likely to see more such work being offshored to India.
Everest Group, in a study ‘Human Resources Outsourcing (HRO): End-of-Term Market in HRO’ said the areas of restructuring range from modifying the number and type of in-scope processes, to enhancing delivery models through global sourcing, to introducing alternative pricing models.
According to the research firm, about 75-85 % of engagements will likely be extended while 15-25 % will be repatriated or transferred to new suppliers.
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