Reflection on the first Rozgar (Employment) Summit in #Lucknow organized by @NHRDN and UP Government

A few weeks ago, I had recieved an invitation from the Director General of the National HRD Network, Dhananjay Singh that NHRDN had partnered with the Department of Labour and Employment of the Government of Uttar Pradesh and they would hold an event on 29th of August.

So yesterday, my colleague from VBeyond, Bala and I made my way towards the Scientific Convention Center at the heart of the city. It was teeming with police and security staff , as the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Deputy CM, Minister of Labour and Employment and senior beaureucrats were expected to arrive.

From the NHRDN, Dhananjay Singh, Cheif Mentor of Maruti Suzuki, SY Siddiqui and Former Director of IIM Lucknow Dr. Pritam Singh. Dhananjay in his speech pointed out that UP's job portal Sewayojan is being seen by other states as a best practice. The CM also launched the mobile app of the job search portal on the occasion. It was shared that 600,000 job seekers have registered on the portal

The CM in his speech made a promise that 7 million out of the total unemployed estimated to be 10 million in the state will be ensured employment in the next 5 years. He said that for companies to be attracted to open their enterprises in the state, law and order and simplified labour laws would be a priority, He shared that they have already reformed labour laws and they have been sent to the centre for approval. He stressed that unionisation that is detrimental to the industry will not be tolerated and shared the example of industries in Kanpur and said that UP will not go the way of state like West Bengal. He also stated that he's ordered the engineering colleges who were keen to shut down, to instead use their facilities for skill development and delivering short term dilploma and certificate courses. The government is also looking at each of the 72 districts to have a speciality product for which it has historically been famous and to build the skills in people for that, like shoe-making in Agra, Brassware in Moradabad, Chikan stiching in Lucknow and so on.

Post lunch there were two panel discussions - one was on "Building a seamless Public Private partnership Model for Promoting Employment in State" which was moderated by Muninder Anand (MD - India and South Asia of Center for Creative Leadership). The private industry was represented by R Anand , Sr. VP - HR of HCL. HCL has been on a growth spree in their Lucknow centre and Anand shared with me before the discussion that they are looking to scale up the centre to 5000 people in next three- four years, by primarily hiring local talent. The government was represented by Rajesh Kumar, Mission Director, UP Skill Development Mission. It was an interesting discussion that focused on how employment is different from qualifications, and comprises of ecosystem factors as well as intristic factors like skills of the individual as well as soft skills. Anand was of the opinion that industry is consulted by the government when a policy is made but where the policy often falls short is at the "last mile" where if idustry is involved it can have a better chance of success.

The second panel was on "Small Towns- The next Destination for Mining Talent". It was moderated by K Lalit ,GM - HR, IR & Admin of Tata Motors - which has a manufacting factory for their commercial vehicles division. Others in the panel were Prof. SP Singh, VC of Lucknow University who bemoaned the lack of communication skills in students and wondered about where they could be employable. Alok Sinha, Principal Secretary, Industries, Sanjay Jha, VP-HR and Business Excellence, Mahindra First Choice Wheels and Dharam Rakshit Sr. GM (HR) Hero MotoCorp were the other panelists, The panel was divided over the issue if there was any difference in talent between small town and the metros. One panelist actually shared how on his flight to Lucknow how many people in the flight were Lucknow people who were working in the US and Europe. A point was made that since costs of corporate rentals and land is much lower in small towns what is stopping corporates from opening centres there. Which brought us back to the point of communication skills and how small town talent that does not move out to the metros, often is found lacking in English which is the language of business

As Bala and I were speaking later, the benefit and challenges of being located in a smaller city is something we know very well in VBeyond. We pay a fraction of real estate rentals compared to Mumbai and Gurugram (where we originally started) and since most of our talent is from Lucknow and nearby areas - the cost of living and therefore the compensation is also much lower than what we would pay for the same skills in a metro city.

All in all it was an educational experience for me to attend the Summit - my first such event in a non-metro and I look forward to connecting with the larger HR community to make Lucknow a magnet for talent :)

Coverage of the Summit in the media in News18

How to get promoted

Image via WikipediaCongratulations, so you’ve landed your first job after graduating. That’s some great news. You’ve got great communication skills and you’ve heard about the great talent shortage in India and therefore you’re fairly certain that the next few years will see you get a promotion every year to make it to the top management of an organization in about a decade, right?

Sorry, but that’s dead wrong.

Getting promoted to higher levels of responsibility is not that easy. Success in your current role does not ensure that you will get promoted to the next level.

“Then how do people get promoted every year?” you might ask.

One needs to understand that organizations (and I do mean all, from business organizations to organized religion to armies and even criminal gangs!) are organized in only one way-like a pyramid. The only thing that changes is how flat or extended that pyramid is!

The truth therefore is that there are always less people in the next level than the lower level. Hence, the number of people that get promoted is always a subset of the people in the current level. How do you get a step ahead of others to get promoted?

Here are three things that done right, could considerably increase your chances in becoming one of those people who are privileged (!) to get promoted.

1. Be a star where you are

To be considered for promotion, you have to be excellent in your current role.

There is no getting away from that fact. One needs to work hard, know what one’s critical goals are and then plan and achieve those goals.

How does one go about it? Here’s what I would suggest someone who’s working for the first time :

Spend some time with your Manager and understand what is expected out of you and how will you be evaluated.

One employee who I knew always used to nag (in a positive way, of course!) his manager if he was unclear of any aspect of the job. He was also proactive in figuring out who could answer his questions if his boss was busy. Over time since he knew so much about the job that he became the default expert in his area and new employees would invariably be sent to him by his boss to be mentored.


If your organization does not have a clear goal setting process or an ineffective evaluation process, then the tendency would be for subjectivity to rule.

2. Show initiative

Focusing and meeting your goals is what is expected out of you, but to be really considered for promotion you have to a lot more.

One of the things you can do is to look or opportunities to display managerial or leadership skills. How can one do so? Simple, take initiative when any opportunity presents itself to organize, direct, plan or bring together people to reach certain goals. Ok, it’s not so simple. How can you get such opportunities? Thankfully, life in organizations presents lots of opportunities. What you need is the ability to spot these opportunities.

These could range from organizing a simple office picnic or party, to putting together a presentation for visiting clients. Showing initiative and asking for roles that help you showcase your leadership skills is a valuable way you can get senior leadership to be aware of your case for promotion. Of course, you have to execute what you have taken on your plate, flawlessly as well.

3. Solve Problems Creatively

Not everybody can get the chance to lead official or informal events, so solving problems is an excellent way to get noticed by your managers. If you’ve spent some time in organizations you will know how people crib and complain about small things!

Resolve not be one of them.

Instead, solve the most pressing issues that might be bothering your boss. Then let him or her know that you have done so. There was this lady in an IT services organization who always knew the better and more economical way to get the job done. When the organization was going through a slowdown in the early 2000s her expertise was very valuable to reduce overheads and probably helped in saving someone’s job!

4. Get to know what the next level demands

If the organization has a written job description of what the next level entails, can you demonstrate that level of performance in your current role?

You can also volunteer to do your leader relatively simpler operational tasks that will help you in
a. learning what the role is
b. free up his/her time to concentrate on doing more productive things

If demonstrated well, these skills will show your Manager that you can do aspects of his/her role well and you will be better off in your chances of getting promoted than others who have only concentrated on doing their current job role.

Conclusion:

What organizations say they expect from employees is very different from what they want from employees they want to promote !

(This article was originally written for JAM )

Why resumes are not going to be redundant

Image via Wikipedia
Dan Schawbel writes about the reasons why he thinks that your online presence will replace the resume in 10 years. While I agree with some of his points, I don't believe that most people will be comfortable with that.

Here are my reasons:

1. Most people are not content-creators. Even when they are experts and practitioners, sharing their POV and experiences does not come naturally to them. They might curate and like content, but for an online presence to be truly representative of showcasing passion, content creation is key.

2. We decode behaviors in the online space as signs of intent. Change your linkedin particulars and people think you're looking for a job. We'll see a lot more people be aware of the signals they are sending and subvert ways to do it.

3. It depends on industry. Let's face it, some industries might move to online presence in some way, but a vast majority of employees working in most industries will not change the way they look for jobs.

4. People will choose privacy over sharing on social networks when they realise that employers are using such sites to assess their employability.

5. Having a common name with just a website/blog along with a Linkedin presence will not make you stand out, if 4 of your namesakes (googlegangers is the term!) Then you need to worry about SEO, ranking high in search engine queries et al. I don't see the John Does doing that.

Research on using internet for leisure and productivity

Image via Wikipedia

There are tonnes of research online. Some saying things to the contrary and some (like the one linked below) supporting the theory that if workers are allowed to use the internet for leisure they are more productive.



I personally am wary of such research that draws correlation between two behaviors. I am always reminded of my Social Research Methodology professor warning us in B School "correlation does not imply causation" - meaning, just the fact that two things are happening together does not mean that one is causing the other. There may be other variables that the researcher has failed to measure or take into account.



In a case of research like this I see a gaping hole. There are at least two factors which will impact productivity: the nature of the work the employees do, and the nature of the organization itself. If you're a courier service, then giving your employees access to the internet has a different meaning than when you're a creative design house. The other factor is, how focused on "time vs output" is the organization. Most organizations cannot track output of most employees, hence get fixated on tracking their time. Such organizations are the ones who cannot give time to employees for "internet leisure"

Amplify’d from uninews.unimelb.edu.au

Dr Brent Coker, from the Department of Management and Marketing, says that workers who engage in ‘Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing’ (WILB) are more productive than those who don’t. “People who do surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t,” he says. “Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos on YouTube, using social networking sites like Facebook or shopping online under the pretense that it costs millions in lost productivity, however that’s not always the case.” According to the study of 300 workers, 70% of people who use the Internet at work engage in WILB. Among the most popular WILB activities are searching for information about products, reading online news sites. Playing online games was the fifth most popular, while watching YouTube movies was seventh. The attraction of WILB, according to Dr Coker, can be attributed to people’s imperfect concentration. “People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration. Think back to when you were in class listening to a lecture – after about 20 minutes your concentration probably went right down, yet after a break your concentration was restored. “It’s the same in the work place. Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days work, and as a result, increased productivity.” Read more at uninews.unimelb.edu.au

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/br3xd

Future of Employment is not Employment

There have been some different things that have been running through my head. First there was this post triggered by JP and Debu's blogs. In addition there was a conversation I had with my friend Jayanth, and then there was Dub's post on employee engagement and maybe it's just economics - and some other conversations with traditional HR folks and what they expect from employees.

So here's my conclusion: employment as we know it - is broken.

The employer-employee psychological contract is coming apart and we all pretend that it's not an issue.

People are loyal to various other factors that the "employment brand" connotes. The increasing consumerisation of society has meant people want to work for firms that are considered "cool" right now. It was Microsoft some eons back, Google then, Apple now, and who knows that then.

Some people are loyal to their profession. When I was a HR Manager in a professional service firm - which did SAP consulting projects - it was pretty evident that if you hired a SD MM specialist and didn't have a project for him for a couple of months he would up and leave - irrespective of the fact that you had a great "employment brand". He wouldn't think of changing his skills as long as there was a market for it.

Some people are loyal to their bosses/ mentors - and follow them to whichever firm they go.

There is research that now more and more people want their brands and their workplace to be part of something larger than just being a market leader.

And sometimes they just want to be connected more to people.

Sure there are various kinds of industries employing various kinds of people - and there will be many people just getting by. Working for a paycheck. Waiting for the clock to strike the shift time - and to get out.

Those people are not going to be the one who're going to give you great ideas and make your firm more competitive.

So if you want to hire the best for the roles you have maybe you have to tear up that organogram and job description and how you want them to work. You have to tear up your performance management system. Get rid of that industrial era mindset to "work"

Because in the Organization 2.0 employment will not be anything like the employment that we know.

Can HR really be the Rockstar of the Talent Age

I think I saw it first on a slide in Tom Peter's presentation. It stated something like "Human Resources? Or Rockstars of the Talent Age?"

That was a time I felt really proud of being a HR professional.

However, over the years I have seen organizations which rely on "Rockstar" talent - and I can say because of  the critical and central nature to the business, HR gets sidelined in such organizations by the business leadership.

So while HR thinks of standardisation - in a firm driven by rockstar talent (think a stock market trading firm, a law firm, or a football team or an IPL team) the focus is not standardisation, job descriptions are discarded, and there is stratospheric compensation for the rockstars.

The focus of talent and development in such firms is not "competency development" by looking at what gaps need to be filled. But rather to deepen and sharpen the skills the rockstar talent already has.

Recruitment is the personal goal - not of the HR people- but of business leaders and the CEO. And they recruit not by sending out job descriptions, or advertising on job sites - but by knowing the industry and knowing who are the rockstars and pursuing them as they would pursue a prospective client and taking responsibility for closing the deal (read this article on how Bill Gates used to spend 50% of his time on recruiting related roles)

What do you think?

Is HR needed in a Rockstar driven organization?

Also read this earlier post of mine: Great HR Happens when work is Boring

Related articles

• Is HR Too Important To Be Left to HR? (blogs.hbr.org)

Sexual Harassment in the Knowledge Workplace

Image via Wikipedia
I was stunned to read this report in the Hindustan Times one day.

A pioneering survey by the NGO Centre for Transforming India has found evidence of rampant sexual harassment of women employees even in the classy, knowledge-driven environs of the Indian information technology and information technology-enabled services (IT/ITES) industries. It also reveals that

though most IT/ITES companies have some sort of mechanism for dealing with such offences, large numbers of women employees are unaware of them and the guidelines too are not strictly followed. 

See the numbers here It says that 88% of women have faced harassment by male colleagues and 50% have faced extreme harassment.  82% of incidents happened outside office premises and a majority said (72%) that the perpetrators were superiors. An overwhelming number (91%) did not report it due to fear of being victimised.



Such statistics are mind numbing and I am flabbergasted that organizations are still not recognizing that not making female employees safe and secure would hurt their competitiveness in the long term.

What do you think organizations should do to make women feel safer and ways to eradicate this menace?



Leave your comments and ideas below.

Related articles

• Cabinet clears Sexual Harassment Bill (ibnlive.in.com)

Thoughts on Enterprise 2.0 and the Social Intranet

Image by Ed Yourdon via FlickrWhat is the difference between Enterprise 2.0 and a "social" intranet? While E2.0 vendors might beg to differ on functionality here is the big difference according to me:

1.  In enterprise 2.0 the tools enable employee to employee communication, awareness and collaboration
2. In the "social intranet" while employees do form communities, the primary focus is on the organization to employee communication customised by the "social" data shared by the employee.

Two aspects of collaboration:

• Enable collaboration in the process of making decisions - which is what some social business tools enable
• Enable serendipitous discovery of people with shared interests and help people to connect and engage with each other

Obviously the "ROI" argument is easier for the first case - but somehow I suspect the payoff and impact of the second case can be higher and more disruptive

Unfortunately for organizations that seek to keep a control on the conversations, they will choose the "social intranet" over collaboration, as they are scared of the network and people to people connections.

On a different note, it's always surprising to me that the decision of an organization to embrace "social" is taken by a single person :)

Related articles

• The Inextricable Link Between Social Media and Enterprise 2.0 (thesocialorganization.com)
• Enterprise 2.0 Adoption: What Your People Don't Know Will Hurt You (allyis.com)
• Who should be in charge of Enterprise 2.0? (enterpriseirregulars.com)
• Weekly Poll: What "Enterprise 2.0" Technologies Are You Using Anyway? (readwriteweb.com)

Trust and Engagement

Have been musing recently on organizational trust and engagement.What builds trust between an employer? How does trust impact engagement? Does engagement lead to more trust or is it like a spiral?

Thoughts so far:

1. The relationship between an employer and employee is an unequal one. The employer is traditionally in a more powerful position - and therefore needs to build trust first.
2. Trust between two parties is built by meeting commitments. Being credible in deeds is key to starting building trust.
3. Going above and beyond the "letter of the contract" by both parties is integral to differentiate between a "professional/transactional" relationship and a relationship on trust.
4. Engaging others in your decision making process - effectively giving up control -helps in achieving the highest level of trust.

What do you think?

The Social Media Celebrity Employee and Employment Branding

This is a great article on a trend that we will see more and more. Currently, it's media organizations who face this situation - but as more and more organizations move to being content and community creators - leveraging social media we'll see this happening in more and more across industries.

As business move from social media marketing to becoming social-enabled business - more and more organizations will grapple with these issues. Also see earlier post on "when your employee brand ambassadors leave"

Dealing With Employees Who Are Social Media Celebrities

The irony in most cases is that the employee attained “celebrity” status in large part because of the company he or she worked for. The company name backing them gave immediate authority to the public.

The employee’s own abilities, however, took the company name and endowed authority to the level that made it truly beneficial to both the company and the employee. They need each other more than they think they do.

The pressure social media and employee celebrities bring to the workplace is mostly positive. It changes the dynamic from “human resources” to “talent management” and that’s really a good thing for everyone.

Businesses will get better people, employees will be better people, and customers reap the benefits from the whole arrangement. Employee celebrities will be viewed as a threat in some companies, but they’ll be rock stars in other companies. Social media gives every organization yet one more thing to consider for the future of their business.

Unilever India Chief says industry being held back by lack of Human Capital

In the Hindustan Times the HUL Chief Harish Manwani has forecast that industry is going to be held back unless it engages with the education sector to plug the employability deficit.

Human capital gap shows

According to a report by consultancy company McKinsey & Co, India would need to upgrade the skill sets of around 500 million people by 2020 to meet its growth requirements. At current capacities, however, the country can train barely 50 million. Yet another consulting firm Boston Consulting Group has said that, of the 89 million people expected to join the workforce from 2009-13, over 47 million would be school dropouts.

"Corporates must actively commit resources — time, money and people — to innovatively collaborate with educational institutions so that academic curriculum is tuned to changing needs of the industry." Manwani said.

In my view, students need to be counselled on their careers and what they have an aptitude for. Currently, everyone who does a basic graduation aspires aspires for a white collar job. Whereas the reality is - we need vocational training at the undergraduate level - skilled workforce to build the industry. In fact, Rashmi Bansal said it best in her blog post. Go read it.

Jobseekers don't want employers to check their social profiles, says study

Another interesting article on how the job hunting process is changing with the availability of social profiles on the web. The assumption is that recruiting firms and employers can access data that will be damaging to the job seeker. However, it can work the other way too. A friend who works with a bank in Asia Pacific region shared that a job seeker was shown as "unreliable" in the traditional background verification process, but based on checking the person's social profiles - they decided to hire the person!

So job seekers don't really have to be alarmed in the way this article proposes, keep privacy filters on and don't indulge in hate-mongering on the web are the two aspects I'd suggest.

Here's the article excerpt:
Job seekers wary of social media

Job seekers are aware that bosses are using social media as part of the recruitment process but don't think it's entirely appropriate, according to a new survey.

The Hays online survey of 885 people found that 38 percent of respondents believe employers use social networking profiles to help vet applications, but should not do so.

It says 35 percent not only believe employers use social networking profiles, but also believe that they should use such information to vet applications.

Just 27 per cent think employers do not use social networking profiles as part of the recruiting process.

"This survey reignites the debate about public versus private life, but this time it's not celebrities or politicians that are arguing their right to privacy, but every day job seekers," said Jason Walker, Managing Director of Hays in New Zealand.

"The majority of job seekers feel that their personal life is their personal life, and their social media profile should not be used as part of the decision making process.

Brand You is about Content and Community - Thoughts on Personal Branding and Social Media

Today I had a conversation with a journalist who's doing a story on how people can get career success by building their personal brand. I have earlier blogged on personal branding here and here

I believe that the essence of building your personal brand (whether internally in an organization or externally) is Content and Community.

1. Content - refers to the expertise you build - it is the sum of your intellectual and emotional quotient. It is not just what you know - but also how you do. To build a really distinct personal brand - answer this question "What do I want to be known for" In most cases you will find the answer in a T-shaped expertise - a broad expertise of an area - and a deep expertise of one specific niche. In your organization - are you the "go-to guy" for any aspect? If you are not - then build a niche that's purely your own. Remember deep expertise requires deliberate practice. There's no shortcut to it.
2. Community - refers to the relationship capital you build with people who know and trust your Content expertise. In an organization these would be seniors, supervisors, CXOs across functions. They will know and trust you if you demonstrate (a.) Visibility - being seen at group events, volunteering for cross functional projects, taking on "above and beyond" challenges that others are not - and (b.) Credibility - showcased in you keeping your commitments and delivering above and beyond. Remember, visibility or popularity alone will not be enough to develop your personal brand. Also, be sure that your community comprises of a diverse group of people (best explained in this article)

When you have a community and have built a trustworthy relationship with them - you will give insights that will feed your Content bucket - and the secret is to continually keep growing both of them - as and when your career evolves (an make no mistake - it will evolve) you will be poised to grab opportunities before others.

So what does this have to do with Social Media?

When you want to build your brand externally - social media is the tool you use to showcase your content and build your community. As Michael Brenner posts:

I am an advocate for social media marketing and personal branding which I believe can help to benefit both your company and your career. And so I am often asked why I tweet, why I blog and why I participate in both online and offline social communities and events.

Despite the huge press coverage around social media, I am still surprised at how many marketers and other market-facing professionals resist the call to participate in social media and to be brand ambassadors. To me, social media is all about personal branding. Grow your personal brand, with respect and proper attribution to your company as an ambassador, and the company benefits through the greater exposure of a positive voice out to the market it serves.

As a marketer, I feel compelled to participate as an individual voice in my company ecosystem. Companies are a collection of individuals with all the diversity that is inherent in its employees. A company brand is directly impacted by the voice of its employees, along with customers, partners and the larger community and ecosystem in which it participates. I actively and passionately participate in social media conversations with authenticity and I do it because I want to. But I also believe success in building my personal brand is direct evidence of my abilities to execute an overall marketing strategy for the company – in essence to build the company brand.

Job Search by using Twitter

by Pipe  via Flickr

The folks at MindWorks Global have come up with a great short crisp presentation which you can see at this site:
A Quick Guide to Twitter Job Searches

Personally I think organizations are not really using the potential of Twitter and Facebook for recruiting employees - and instead are focusing their energies on Linkedin.com (see this post on how Linkedin can fire up your career)

That makes sense - at least for now - but as Twitter and Facebook's popularity in India rises - and more and more people start conversing there organizations will be missing the trick if they don't tap their potential to reach the appropriate talent pool.

Some interesting recruiters you can follow on twitter are: @indiajobstweet @hrnext @priyachettyr @hrsouls @sarangbrahme @femmehire

Are you using Twitter to hire or search for jobs? What's your experience?

Leave your comments below.

Some Job Hoppers may not be so bad

Image via Wikipedia

Penelope Trunk is at it again, writing a counter-intuitive article that is sure to upset a lot of peopleWhy Job Hoppers Make the Best Employees Personally I think she's generalising, and a lot of job-hopping also results from incompetence or people not really knowing what they want to do, rather than the other way around.

It also does not hold true in jobs where the results of a role are long term and not really measurable in months.

And her views will not really be supported by the majority of Indian corporatedom.

Here are the reasons she gives for thinking so:

1. Job hoppers have more intellectually rewarding careers.
If you change jobs often, then you’re always challenged with a lot to learn — your learning curve stays high. This is true for office skills, and industry specific knowledge. It also applies to your emotional intelligence. The more you have to navigate corporate hierarchies and deal with office dramas, the more you learn about people and the better you will become at making people comfortable at work. And that’s a great skill to have.

2. Job hoppers have more stable careers.
The way you do that is through networking. Because you can be sure you’ll need to find many jobs in your lifetime, you want network as efficiently as you can. After all, the most efficient way to find a job is through a network. It’s how most people land jobs. People who work for lots of companies have a larger network than people who stay in one place for long periods of time. Which is why job-hopping creates stability.

3. Job hoppers are higher performers.
You can’t job hop if don’t add value each place you go. That’s why job hoppers are usually overachievers on projects they are involved in; they want something good to put on their resume. So from employers’ perspective, this is a good thing. Companies benefit more from having a strong performer for 18 months than a mediocre employee for 20 years. (And don’t tell me people can’t get up to speed fast enough to contribute. Fix that. It’s an outdated model and won’t attract good employees.)

4. Job hoppers are more loyal.
Loyalty is caring about the people you’re with, right? Job hoppers are generally great team players because that’s all they have. Job hoppers don’t identify with a company’s long-term performance, they identify with their work group’s short-term performance.

5. Job hoppers are more emotionally mature.
It takes a good deal of self-knowledge to know what you want to do next, and to choose to go get it rather than stay someplace that for the moment seems safe. It takes commitment to personal growth to give up career complacency and embrace a challenging learning curve throughout your career — over and over. And it’s a brave person who can tell someone, “I know I’ve only been working here for a month, but it’s not right for me, so I’m leaving.”

The Open Organization - Open Book Management

In a recent conversation with a CEO of firm - he mentioned that his organization practices Open book management - and that he often wonders how and why more and more organizations don't adopt the same practice. Having never heard of the specifics of open management I asked him where I could learn more about it. Is it something similar to the transparency that Ricardo Semler talks in Maverick, or what Tony Hseih talks in Delivering Happiness. The CEO then told me that Open-book management focuses on financial transparency. According to Wikipedia:

The basis of open-book management is that the information received by employees should not only help them do their jobs effectively, but help them understand how the company is doing as a whole (Kidwell & Scherer, 2001). According to Case, "a company performs best when its people see themselves as partners in the business rather than as hired hands" (Case,1998 as cited in Pascarella, 1998). The technique is to give employees all relevant financial information about the company so they can make better decisions as workers. This information includes, but is not limited to, revenue, profit, cost of goods, cash flow and expenses.

Stack and Case conceptualize open-book principles in similar ways.

Stack uses three basic principles in his management practice called, The Great Game of Business

His basic rules for open-book management are:

* Know and teach the rules: every employee should be given the measures of business success and taught to understand them
* Follow the Action & Keep Score: Every employee should be expected and enabled to use their knowledge to improve performance
* Provide a Stake in the Outcome: Every employee should have a direct stake in the company's success-and in the risk of failure.

(1992).

Similarly, in 1995, Case made sense of open-book with three main points:

* The company should share finances as well as critical data with all employees
* Employers are challenged to move the numbers in a direction that improves the company
* Employees share in company prosperity

In a company fully employing Open-Book Management employees at all levels are very knowledgeable about how their job fits into the financial plan for the company. However taking a company from "normal" to open is not as easy as just sharing financial statements with employees. The true success of open-book management is when companies allow numbers come bottom-up (as opposed to traditional top-down management)(Johnson, 1992 as cited in Aggarwal & Simkins, 2001). While employees need to be trained to understand income statements and balance sheets; open-book's true triumphs are when employees understand the numbers to a level that they are able to report predictions to upper-management (Stack, 1992). In order to motivate employees to strive for change, Open-Book Management focuses on a "Critical Number". The number is different for every company but it is a number that represents a prime indicator of profitability or break-even point. Discovering this Critical Number is a key component of creating an open-book company.

So how ready is your organization to embrace Open Book Management?

Why not?

Personally, I think something like this will actually take the pressure off leadership to "meet the numbers" and give everyone a line of sight to how their job is linked to a larger purpose.

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Employee Satisfaction

John Baldoni writes about the malaise of low employee satisfaction in this article Managing Employee Satisfaction in the Workplace - BusinessWeek and comes up with some important steps organizations and managers can do to address it:

Solutions are not easy. Yes, recognition and incentive programs work, but too often such programs address symptoms rather than the root causes of worker dissatisfaction. They serve as proverbial Band-Aids for deep-seated malaise. If work has little meaning, incentivized solutions are ends unto themselves, not means to an end: a more fulfilling workplace. Making work meaningful is no simple matter and frankly is beyond the responsibility of most managers. After all, businesses hire managers to get the work done, not make work enjoyable.

Finding purpose in work is an individual pursuit, but in my experience I have found good examples of how managers do create higher levels of buy-in and thereby do make the work experience more tolerable. Here are some suggestions.

Address the situation. The worst thing managers who suspect worker dissatisfaction can do is to ignore it, although that is the time-honored tradition. Avoiding the topic does not make it go way. Find ways to raise the issue at staff meetings. The blunt approach—"So what's wrong?"—may not work. People will likely clam up. But if you are clever and talk about the issue and perhaps voice your own dissatisfaction with the situation, you may have better luck. Make it safe for employees to talk about workplace dissatisfiers. Often they are simple things: input into scheduling, flexibility in work hours, or even something employees can make happen themselves, such as cleaner break rooms.

Encourage alternatives. Find ways you can improve the situations. Take the lead in addressing employee complaints. Over the longer term, the best way is to let workers figure things out for themselves. Challenge employees to come up with ideas for making improvements, either in job design or in job process. Look for ways to remove the drudge factor in favor of the value add. Replace make-work projects with make-it-work projects.

Show outcomes. Relate what your team does to what the company does. Say you work in purchasing: Find ways to link your striving for best-value, best-cost suppliers with improved-quality products. Make the link between improved quality and customer satisfaction. Such things would not have happened if purchasing had not done its job. Some companies introduce employees to customers when possible. Then employees see their products or services in use. That's a great way to encourage meaning in the workplace.

Putting meaning into work is not a managerial responsibility; it falls to the employee to find work that matters to him or herself. And when employees sign on to do a job, they have a responsibility to perform it. Yes, in times of scarcity, as we are enduring now, compensation may be less competitive and opportunities for advancement less available, but workers must do the jobs employers pay them to do. Obvious, yes, but as studies show, many employees remain disgruntled.

Simply acknowledging trouble in the workplace is a good first step. It creates an atmosphere of honesty. There is always a risk that people will reveal too much dissatisfaction, but when the manager makes it safe to offer up concerns and provides avenues of redress, workers can feel they are part of a solution rather than part of a problem. And maybe that's all that can happen in the short term. If so, acknowledge it and make the best of it. There are far too many people out of work who would readily switch places with you or your employees.

Leaving 2020 Social and Available for Hire

Image by Gauravonomics via Flickr

30th June is my last day as an employee at 2020 Social. It's been a short tenure - of eight months - and I have enjoyed being here and learning and adding some value to the Talent and Employee Communities practice.

However, we realised over the course of the last 8 months that the market in India is really not ready to embrace the consulting services that we were offering - namely internal employee communities within the Enterprise and Talent Communities to help in Recruiting and Employer Branding.

Yes, we kept getting inquiries still about it - but not enough to justify having two people @ksarda and me working on it. However, if you need an employee/talent community built - @2020social can still do it - Kaushal Sarda had earlier built a startup in the Enterprise Collaboration space.

Personally I think I learnt a lot - thinking and blogging about Building Open Organizations leveraging social technologies. Leadership, Organizational Culture and Structure, Employee Roles and on motivating them, Use Cases of Talent Communities and a more Social HR and a Social Media Workshop for CXOs were some of the areas I worked on, and I think I even coined a new term "Social Employee Relationship Management" :-)

However, in the end, it's not what I have learnt that will matter- but the great folks I worked with, Gaurav Mishra or as he's better known @gauravonomics and @evansdave - Two thought leaders and I have learnt a lot from both of them. @abha_arora worked with me on this practice and is a perso I hope to work with again sometime in my career. Fellow cartoonists @kgopal and @ksarda. Then there were @ankursuri1 @hardeepkrai @divyauttam and @mohitverma @upasanataku and @freddie_b who made the office a joy to be in.

So I'm looking for my next gig - it might be consulting, might be line HR, might be something in the Social space. Here's my Linkedin profile, let me know if you have a job for me :-)

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TLNT.com Launches

ERE Media has launched a new network focused on HR content called TLNT.com - and has got thought leader John Hollon (who was editor of Workforce mag) on board, and Lance Haun, the ERE Community Manager is also involved in it.

As Lance emailed some of us "It is aimed directly at Human Resource professionals with a newsy + opiniony feel to the whole thing" - and the byline is "The business of HR" That sounds good!

If you want to contribute HR articles/ opinions to the site, let John know at john@TLNT.com

There are some articles that I found to be topical and thought provoking - like this one which talks about China Gorman leaving SHRM and the challenges her successor will face with regards to SHRM's international programs and initiatives. Also this interesting one (for me at least) on how HR can capitalize on complexity.

So if you're a HR professional, TLNT.com is a new source of content you should add to your daily reading.

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Thoughts on growing trend of HR Outsourcing in India

Times Ascent recently had a write up on the growing trend of Human Resources Outsourcing (which is something more than just temping) which is catching on in India with firms like XecuteHR , HuSys and PeopleStrong getting bigger and bigger projects and not just from the Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises sector.

Here is the article.

HRO - growing popular each day
by Monarose Sheila Pereira


The concept of human resource outsourcing is growing popular with each passing day. However, there are disadvantages to this concept too along with the numerous advantages, say experts.

Human Resource is now the golden career option. Companies are realizing the importance of hiring, training and retaining their employees, therefore giving tremendous importance to the HR Portfolio. HR outsourcing has been picking up in a big way too. Teams of highly experienced professionals provide clients with customised HR solutions which range from short-term based solutions, to an on-going HR relationship with the client. However there are advantages and disadvantages to HR consultancy.

According to Consultant Gautam Ghosh, the advantages of HR Outsourcing are of different types - because different types of HR work can be outsourced. “Payroll Outsourcing helps freeing up HR and Finance people from doing operational work and to instead focus on high end work. C&B Survey outsourcing is the norm because competitors are comfortable sharing information with a third party and not with organisations directly. Third party recruiters and Executive Search Consultants have huge databases that internal recruiters rarely posses. Training outsourcing, specially for high end training means using the high cost resources only when needed and not spending a salary or management time for trainers on the time. Coaching outsourcing is critical because often employees need to share information that they would not be comfortable sharing with an internal employee,” he expresses.

Consultant Trevor Ferandes believes that in order to become more responsive to the needs of the business, HR must increase its strategic capability, or pursue alternative models that will free resources to support business strategy. “Delivering an integrated and compliant HR service is highly complex. HR commonly scores poorly with the business, since its focus has traditionally been on transactional and administrative processes. In most cases, building a world class HR function is not a core competency or strategic priority for most organisations. Outsourcing gives them access to world class skills and allows them to focus on what they do best – product and service innovation,” he says.

HR can deliver the right mix of core and non-core HR services efficiently and effectively. By allowing the organisation to keep in-house what it does well and outsource what it does not, the outsourcing option facilitates access to proven ideas and solutions and thereby increases performance through disciplined use of standard processes and solutions. This helps maintaining the HR focus on value-added activities in sync with the organisation's requirements.

However, besides the advantages, there are disadvantages to HR outsourcing too. Ghosh informs, ”The disadvantages of HR outsourcing is that it forces HR department to rethink its core role, and give up the earlier comfort of being ‘administrative expert’ and build new skills, which many are not able to do; and their business sees that they are no longer adding any value or stepping up to the ‘business partner’ role.”
Fernandes says “Cost is a critical consideration, but it is a mistake to evaluate HR outsourcing primarily on the basis of financial savings. Companies should consider broader enterprise requirements.”

Personnel and HR Director Tulsidas B Patel, believes that besides the cost of consultancy being very steep as compared to hiring your own staff; the most important factor going against companies opting for consultancy is that HR is a very confidential field and many companies would not like to compromise on this important aspect.

So with the field growing, the pros and the cons fighting for viability, companies now have a good low down on information to help them make their options.

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