Happy New Year wishes to all of you

As 2017 draws to a close, here's wishing all of you and your loved ones a very Happy New Year.

May 2018 bring you meaningful and purposeful work, continued love of your close ones, and lots of new learnings!

Chatbots, AI, HR Tech - quoted in this article by @toymango in Economic Times

My friend Tanmoy Goswami was working on an article on chatbots and AI and reached out to me about the earlier wave of HR technology (which we called ESN, Enterprise 2.0 etc)

Tech-enabled engagement platforms have a patchy history. Before bots, there was the office intranet - which flamed. Gautam Ghosh, consultant, talent advisory services, VBeyond Corporation, and former director of talent branding at Flipkart, says intranets didn't work because companies thought buying the tech would be enough. They didn't think through the design ("why employees would use it") and the human intervention needed to nudge people along.

Read the whole article here.

Interviewed by the students of IIITM Gwalior on HR, #socialmedia

The students at IIITM Gwalior interviewed me for their atudent magazine and they've published it online on their blog.

You can go read it here.

Some excerpts I wanted to highlight.

On my social media journey:

Well I was lucky I started blogging in 2002 and I was one of the few people blogging about HR and business those days. So, it was just a circumstance of being at the right place at the right time starting off as an early business blogger. I convinced a lot of people within HR that if you take to social media, take to blogging, take to Twitter you could connect with people across the world. So, I guess that momentum from blogging to twitter and to other social media helped.  So, if you start early people know you much more and when you move to another platform they follow you into that platform. I’ve now spent more than a decade on twitter and one and a half decades on blogging. It’s just a matter of being consistent and keeping at it, trying to share something of value.

On what students should read:

Don’t discriminate, read everything, form your own opinions. I think that’s critical.

On qualities we look for when hiring people to VBeyond:

We hire recruiters and we hire engineers into recruiting roles. So, if you are an engineer and you feel that you want to try something else, if core engineering is not your cup of tea but you have knowledge of engineering, you can talk and convince a person that you have self-confidence and are willing to work hard and earn a lot of money if you are successful then this is it.

Listed amongst 100+ Brilliant HR Blogs

A company called USA Mobile Drug Testing put out a list earlier this month in which they included this blog at number 19 in what they called 100+ Brilliant HR Blogs to Follow

It was an honor to be listed amongst some of by longtime blogging friends like Steve Boese, Suzanne Lucas, Laurie Ruettimann and Jon Ingham, and also thought leaders like Stanford professor and author of bestseller business books Bob Sutton.

Go out check out the list, if you want to follow some great global HR blogs!

My blog post on #diversity #hiring #recruitment at the @v_beyond blog

Diversity is no longer a “good to do” thing for corporate around the world. It’s become a “must do” imperative. Studies around the world from academic research to research by consulting firms like McKinsey and Deloitte point to the fact organizations that have a diverse workforce are more creative, perform their peers in most financial parameters. The major reason is that the customers are themselves diverse and companies need a diverse workforce to understand and empathise with the needs of today’s customers.

Yet, building a diverse workforce remains a challenge for most organizations. I take a look at some of the major reasons why that happens, and what organizations can do to overcome these challenges on the VBeyond Blog

Book Review: #HitRefresh by @satyanadella

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of the book by Harper Collins' publicists. They reached out to me and I did not solicit it.

The book is part memoir, part manifesto and part forecasting of the future of technology. As he explains he's written the book when the transformation, as he says "Hit Refresh" (based on the browser command) is still ongoing.

What stays with you after the end of the book, is Nadella's view of "empathy" and "growth mindset"

When he was hired in Microsoft his hiring manager asked him "what would you do if you see an abandonded child in the middle of the road?" Satya answered "I'll call 911" 

The manager after he was hired told him that his answer was wrong because the correct answer was "I'll pick up the child". Nadella reveals that he became acutely aware of empathy when his son Zain was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and how it shaped his worldview. His wife Anu also introduced him to "growth mindset" and that shaped his view of the future is that it will not belong to the "know-it-alls" but to the "learn-it-alls"

Another gem from the book is:

"The CEO is the curator of an organization's culture. The C in CEO stands for culture" - @satyanadella in #HitRefresh

— Gautam Ghosh (@GautamGhosh) September 28, 2017

The book is a both a memoir, where Nadella shares his personal stories and also his vision and manifesto for Microsoft as well as the future of how technology is impacting the future.

He reveals that he is a huge cricket fan, and that he was playing with a cricket ball when he got the call to be Microsoft's third CEO. His cricketing hero was Hyderabad's legendary ML Jaisimha.

The book is a case study in an on-going culture change, but Satya's impact is felt. He shares how this image made many of his colleagues nod their heads in agreement when they saw it - and when he became CEO his role was to change it

He shares how Microsoft is now collaborating with competitors like Apple, Adobe (Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Satya are both alumni of Hyderabad Public School) and Google. Also shares how he was against the Nokia deal (Microsoft dumped it soon after he became CEO)

There is also a chapter on how tech companies are struggling to deal with user privacy and national security and the reason Microsoft supported Apple's decision not to give the US security agencies a "backdoor entry" to the iPhone's data - I wish this was a longer chapter

He also owns up his missteps - like the time he spoke about the salary difference in tech by gender - and was criticised for his remarks.

I'd highly recommend this book - its not a linear retelling - but a fascinating mix of a person's journey from being as aspiring cricketer to the CEO of one of the world's most impactful tech firms.

My keynote at 9th HR Summit at ABV-IIITM Gwalior

I addressed the 9th HR Summit at ABV-Gwalior last weekend and throughly enjoyed interacting with the students and finding out about their startup incubator. Also interacted with business leaders from across India (and virtually with one from the US)

It was a great learning experience

I talked about how students could leverage digital and social media to learn about organizational culture and how organizations could use the media to engage with candidates

Here are a few pics from the event

First time I got quoted in a Hindi newspaper - Dainik Bhaskar Gwalior edition

A copy of my presentation is below

featured in a list of Recruitment Thought Leaders

I really am not a recruiter, but feel incredibly honored to be featured in this list of Recruitment Thought Leaders along with these amazing list of people I have followed via the internet for a long time!

Addressing @BPCLimited HR team

In October I was honored to be welcomed by the HR team at BPCL at their HR competency building workshop as a guest speaker. I talked to them about the role of HR as a media and technology integrator.

Here are a pictures from the event

This is the presentation I made to the BPCL HR team. Thoughts welcome:

Facebook's Resume Feature - Should LinkedIn be worried? My take

Yesterday it was all over the tech websites, Facebook is reportedly testing a new resume feature called "work histories" that can help users share them privately.

Here are my thoughts about how this can play out:

1. Facebook is making an enterprise play. First with Workplace , the collaboration feature and then with  Facebook Jobs the job advertising feature. However, they haven't really done a great job marketing the jobs feature. If you see currently the number of jobs advertised in India is very low. As I write this is what is shown - 27 jobs in India (plus all of them seem to be with Facebook, not even sure it is used by other employers)
   
2. Facebook's big revenue features come from display advertising, sponsored posts for consumers. LinkedIn has that market cornered when it comes to employers - with their company pages and posts targeted to different kind of talent segments. So cracking this market is going to be tough for Facebook unless it invests in feet on the street to take on LinkedIn's Account Management, Sales and Customer Service. Facebook pages had talked about introducing a jobs/careers tab for adding to their business pages beginning with US and Canada, however I am not sure if this is in the priority for Facebook sales teams to pitch it to their customers
3. The big opportunity, Mobile recruitment. Where Facebook has a big edge over LinkedIn in the developing markets is the users who are solely on the platform as well as being actively engaged - the users for whom the internet is first mobile screen. These would be the blue collar workers which are not a strong point of LinkedIn. However to reach them Facebook would have to give the screen real estate to the product to make jobs a clear feature which might mean compromising on things like its news feed.
4. Microsoft and LinkedIn. Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn and its data getting integrated into Outlook and Office 365 is a moat that Facebook may find it difficult to cross.   
5. Facebook's perception problem. The biggest problem for Facebook is its perception of being a "social network" that is for friends and family. Whatever Facebook does in the jobs and careers space would run into that huge perception issue. At least in the white collar workforce, hence IMHO, the best bet for Facebook would be to concentrate on the blue collar workforce and focus on a "apply with Facebook" button with job sites to make the application process friction-less. The question is will they focus on it - at the cost of hurting their other revenue streams like digital advertising? And will they be able to convince the recruiting ecosystem like job sites and staffing agencies and make the products that they see value in? Time will tell, but very unlikely in my view. I hope I am proved wrong because LinkedIn can really do with some competition in this space.

Featured in @HRMarketer's list of global list of #EmployerBranding Consultants

Discovered today that I was added to HRMarketer's list of global Employer Branding Consultants

HRMarketer is a platform and insights company that marketing departments of HR service providers and vendors use to get their message across. You can read more about them here. If you want to market your products and services to HR folks you can learn how to do that here.

Wait what? The A-Z gurus of HR..and whoa!

Never in my wildest dreams I had thought that I would be in a list that included Laszlo Bock (the guy who set up Google's HR practices and author of Work Rules) and Dave Ulrich (c'mon if you don't know him - what are you reading this blog for?)

However, A #HRTech company with the delightfully delicious name of CakeHR put together a list called HR's Gurus from A-Z. I guess they didn't find anyone else for the letter G so they mentioned me :) You can find the full list here

My reflections of #SHRMiAC the annual conference of @SHRMIndia

I was really looking forward to SHRM India's Annual Conference this year. It had an amazing line up of speakers and delegates and offered me an opportunity to catch up with friends and make new ones.

So after a sleepless night, because I had an early morning flight I arrived at the venue, the Taj Palace at Dhaula Kuan, bang in the middle of the diplomatic enclave surrounded by embassies of various nations.

First person I run into is my perennial SHRM conference roommate Anish Aravind (Twitter), a person I have known online for more than a decade now. Then over breakfast as we were waiting for check-in we met Ruchi Bhatia (Twitter), Harlina Sodhi (Twitter) and Yash Mahadik (Twitter). At the reception we also met Dr. Brad Shuck, with whom I had earlier interacted with on the pre-event Twitterchat

With Anish

From left: Yash, Harlina, me and Ruchi

From left: Anish, Ruchi, Dr. Brad Shuck and yours truly

The actual event kicked off by an address by Achal Khanna (Twitter) the CEO of SHRM India followed by a performance by a dance troupe of under-privileged children dancing to AR Rehman's "Maa Tujhe Salaam"

The keynote I found really interesting was Dr. Shuck's on Re-inventing Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Some of the points he made were that there were three components of EVP.

Dr. Brad Shuck, Associate Professor of Organizational Leadership and learning at the University of Louisville and Strategic & Academic Partner, BI WORLDWIDE

3 principles of EVP by @drbshuck #SHRMiAC
Cumulative Effect
Reciprocity, freely given not transactional
Engagement, when your voice matters

— Gautam Ghosh (@GautamGhosh) September 14, 2017

And that EVP could be above the line and below the line of courage

Is your EVP above or below the line? @drbshuck #SHRMiAC pic.twitter.com/1t8Jjof9ZP

— Gautam Ghosh (@GautamGhosh) September 14, 2017

The biggest takeaway for me was if we objectify the idea of EVP we remove the human element, and it puts the responsibility of the employer to maintain it.

The other keynote was by Rajesh Sud MD of Max Life Insurance stressed the importance of questioning as a skill and the ability to hold multiple points of view and believe all of them at the same time. He also said that HR can enable organizations to make them fit for purpose. Another great point he added was that he encouraged his organization to think of it as an inverted pyramid, with customers and front line staff at the top and the CEO at the bottom

Rajesh Sud MD Max Life

Organizations are structured vertically but need to work horizontally in dynamic, connected works says Rajesh Sud of Max Life #SHRMiAC pic.twitter.com/eoCY6DvNRo

— Gautam Ghosh (@GautamGhosh) September 14, 2017

The other session I liked was moderated by Abhijit Bhaduri (Twitter) on "Are we hiring the right talent- going beyond the perfect resume", where there was a lively discussion on how we define the right hire, can we go beyond the obvious and consider liberal arts folks. There were also discussions whether resumes were relevant, when one of the speakers made a point that resonated with me

"Resumes are a format for telling a story. Who ever tells a good story succeeds better" #SHRMiAC

— Gautam Ghosh (@GautamGhosh) September 14, 2017

The other session I loved was "Dramatic Conversations" between Abhijit and National Award winning actor Ashish Vidyarthi (Twitter) where Abhijit took on the role of a father and Ashish took on the dual role of a son, and a neighbour and, the way a parent's expectations can lead his child onto a career which he doesn't really love, and the lesson was that it's never too late to start over and discover your passion.

Left: Ashish Vidyarthi , Right: Abhijit Bhaduri

The other highlight of the first day was the HR awards by SHRM to various organizations followed by the networking dinner. Some glimpses from the event:

With Achal Khanna, CEO and Shruti Sud, Lead Marketing of SHRM India 

Ashish Vidyarthi clicks a selfie

Showing off our #SHRMBloggers T-shirt

The expo area was also a great hit, with companies like Udacity, ZingHR, Belong.co, People Strong, AuthBridge making an effort to engage delegates with interactive activities. 

With 5 concurrent sessions in the afternoon it was a case of fear of missing out. Thank fully you can find the tweets by the various delegates by going through Twitter and searching for the hashtag #SHRMiAC

Srikanth Balachandran, Global CHRO, Airtel

 There were three standout sessions the second day. The first was a keynote by Srikkant, CHRO of Airtel who had been a finance professional all his life and had only become a HR head over the last two years. He shared how his perspective has changed because of the change of role and his view of the world as shades of gray rather than the black and white of numbers. He also shared how change is not dependent on just stating the facts (as he used to do as a finance person) but understood now the importance to the emotional side of change and collaboratively working towards it. 

"winning is always collective" - Srikkanth , CHRO, Airtel #SHRMiAC

— Gautam Ghosh (@GautamGhosh) September 15, 2017

Yash Mahadik 

The next keynote was delivered by Yash Mahadik who shared that if you set up your team to be successful they conspire to make you win. He shared an example of Astra Zeneca where he worked that the definition of "winning" was failure (that you learn from), success (coming out with a working molecule) and triumph (success in the marketplace). He said that teams need a "working vision" to win and not one of those big motherhood statements. With respect to that he shared the story of the England rowing team who's "working vision" for every decision they took was the question "Will it make the boat go faster?" You can learn more about that story on their website.

From left: Andrew Mitchell, Dr. PV Ramana Murthy, Yashwant Mahadik and Harlina Sodhi

The other session also had Yash this time in a panel along with Harlina and PV Ramana Murthy. The topic was who is at the centre of the company's Recognition program. The consensus was that recognition was more important than rewards and has to be aligned to the values of the organization. Dr. Murthy shared how the Taj Hotels had a employee cafeteria that served higher quality of food than their restaurants - showing the employees that they are more important than the customers. Yash shared the example of how certain managers have a predisposition to recognise their team members and he gave the example of my ex-colleague Mansoor Hussain (Twitter), and said that you can't write a process for this ever. Harlina shared an example of a senior leader who's belief was that you need to "catch people doing the right things"

The other standout discussion was between three CHROs and three providers of HR/Talent software and services, expertly moderated by Pankaj Bansal (Twitter), Co-Founder and CEO of PeopleStrong  - and the issues were raised by the vendor side that HR people are not in charge of the decision to buy their own software, that they prefer going straight to the CIO/CEO, the issue with delayed review and decision making and the delay in recieving payments. From the CHRO side Vivek Paranjpe (Twitter) and others told the HR vendors to understand their buyers and build a business case before approaching them. He pointed out that three are three buyers the user (in this case HR), the technology buyer (IT) and the commercial buyer (Finance) and they need to address the needs of all three


Other aspects the discussion touched on were the investment scenario, to which Sanjay Lakhotia (Twitter) of Talentonic HR Solutions replied he doesn't understand this world of funding and why people get funds and others don't. He advised entrepreneurs that they should not think about it if they view a job as a fall-back option.

Vivek Paranjape, Marcel Parker, Aquil Busrai and Udai Upendra

The one area I think SHRM could have done a better job was with their "Ask A Coach" initiative in the expo area. I thought that was an opportunity missed and a learning for next year. On the hotel side, the Taj Palace's food was exquisite and the hospitality tremendous. People were specially raving about their "kulladh chai" that they served along with normal tea and coffee during the breaks in the sessions :) I also missed a session on Whiskey mixing by Andy Young

After the sessions it was time for me to leave the venue to the airport to catch my flight. The learnings and the connections would stay for a long time!

So that were my highlights from SHRMiAC !

Update from the SHRM India team

#SHRMiAC was the buzz-word on social, with 8k+ tweets generating more than 9mn+ impressions. Our great content was very well supported by the #SHRMiAC Bloggers & Influencers, and helped us garner the number "Second" trending spot for India on Twitter on both days.

Others' blog posts:
By Shalini Sharma
By Mansoor Hussain
By Kunjal Kamdar

Mainstream Media coverage
techObserver
India Education Diary
Economic Times
Echo Of India