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

Career Advice to a young HR professional

Someone asked on Quora:

>What advice would you give to a young professional who is just starting his career in Human Resource?

I have just graduated from college and wondering what can I do to stay ahead of the curve and ensure my long term growth? I try to keep up with the latest trends in HR, Management and Technology, read the books that senior fellows recommend and also religiously follow HBR. But I find that many of my friends are also doing that. Also, I am not great at networking and find it difficult to strike up a relationship with strangers quickly. Will it prove to be a handicap?

This is what I answered:
Read Quote of Gautam Ghosh's answer to Human Resources: What advice would you give to a young professional who is just starting his career in Human Resource? on Quora

Student's query about a career in HR

Image by B Tal via FlickrA reader asked me this query on mail. What would you suggest?

I am {name deleed}, pursuing 3rd sem MBA (HRM) from {institute name}. I am passionate towards HR but my family and relatives suggests me to take up MARKETING as a specialization as they feel that it has a wide scope and a high career growth.

I completed my Bachelors in Business Management (HR), PGDHRM and pursuing MBA other certificate courses in HR.

I request you to suggest me as to,
1. What should i do now ?
2. What do corporates look for in a MBA HR fresher ?
3. Which area in HR has a high career growth ?
4. Where can I get my Internship in HR ?

Here's what I wrote back to him:

If you are passionate about HR you will do well, if you're not passionate about Marketing - then you won't

HR operations has the highest growth - but if you are attracted to the specialist areas like Recruitment, L&D or C&B you should try for them too

Corporates like to take fresh people who have attention to detail and willingness to work hard and learn

HR Examiner Sponsor's the HR Professional's Network

Note: I had earlier posted that I was fearing that I'd have to shut down the HR Professionals' network (which now has more than 1400 members) that was hosted on Ning - since Ning was moving to a fully paid model.

Thankfully now I have some great news to share. John Sumser, the Founder, Author and Editor-in-Chief, of HR Examiner contacted me and readily agreed to help. So now the HR professionals' network is proud to be sponsored by HRExaminer.com

HRExaminer.com is a new magazine focused on the people, technology, ideas and careers of
senior leaders in Human Resources and Human Capital. The company is located in Bodega Bay, California.

You can read more about HRExaminer in the manifesto or subscribe to their email updates or RSS feed.

I would recommend you to read the latest weekly magazine, HRExaminer v1.33 September 17, 2010

The future of the HR Professionals' Community on Ning

As some of you may know I manage a HR professionals' community on Ning. Some weeks back Ning announced that it was planning to phase out free networks, which is why I had bought a domain to move the community to http://www.humanresourcespeople.com

On 4th May Ning made an announcement on the new models it would support.

According to the new models, we come under the Ning Mini plan, which unfortunately will only support 150 members

At a personal level I do not have the resources to maintain the community at the Ning Plus or Ning Pro plans.

So it seems likely that unless we get a sponsor for the community at $200/year or $500/year the HR Professionals' community will be discontinued.

I'll keep you updated on the future course of the community as and when it becomes clearer.

If you'd like to sponsor the community - do let me know at gautam@gautamblogs.com

India's National HRD Network Goes Social

Yeah, the US body of HR professionals, SHRM is quite active on Social Media, led by China Gorman Tweeting a lot.

The UK's CIPD is also quite active on Twitter, and also hosts online communities.

So here's a hurrah for our desi National HRD Network which after its blogging initiative is now Tweeting too, and thankfully is quite conversational !

So with HR professional bodies going social, what is the excuse that HR practitioners have to keep away from becoming savvy regarding social media?

Start with connecting with more than 1000 other HR professionals here :) Or follow these 53 HR professionals I follow on Twitter

If you're a HR professional and have leveraged social media for your business objectives I'd like to hear your story, and maybe feature it here.

HR Professionals' Network Crosses 1000 members

Sometime over the weekend the HR Professionals' community crossed the landmark of a 1000 members.

If you're a member please welcome the new members and make them feel welcome . Don't forget to check out the HR related events happening near you at Events and to read the thoughtful blog posts by the members of the community.

Remember, a community is fun when your friends are on it - so go ahead - click here and Invite your HR colleagues to help them network and learn.

The HR groups are jumping with activity and you can ask questions and reply to queries on the Discussion Forum.

In the Human Capital League

Bloggers are (most of the time) solo practitioners of an evolving form of expression.

However, being solo in a hyperlinked world has little meaning.

Ever since I started blogging - from 2003 - I have discovered bloggers in India and across the world to learn from. We've posted comments - graduated to emailing each other - to carrying on to connect on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

Some of us have started HR micro-communities on Ning, and there are twitter lists too.

And then there are group blogs that aggregate the blog postings of various bloggers in the same area, like Human Capital League.

Here's a little more detail:

Human Capital League, a new online community for workplace management professionals and others interested in the best practices of training and development, employee benefits, recruiting, payroll and the many other people-related functions that keep the wheels of commerce turning smoothly.
If you blog about workplace issues we'd love to have you syndicate your stuff here and become one of our Featured Bloggers (like the nice folks whose posts you'll see below). It's an easy way to get extra readers and promote your expertise with no extra work. (The posting process is automatic once it's set up.) Send me a note if you want to know more or you can click on "Add your Blog" in the navigation bar and do it yourself.

Even if you're not a blogger, you should register and fill out the profile page. That'll allow you to leave comments without moderation, rate posts, promote your business and participate in all of the other community activities.

As some of you might know, I am part of the HRM Today blogging community too. Yeah, multiple memberships is cool!

HRM Today to get auctioned on eBay

Image via Wikipedia

OK this was a bit of a surprising news. The HR bloggers' network HRMToday is going on the block to get auctioned !

The community (disclaimer: I am a member too) is a great effort by Lance and Laurie with lots of support by other bloggers.

However I am wondering how my engagement would change depending on who finally gets the site after the auction.

Trust in a community of peers is very difficult to replicate - and any organization bidding for it might see engagement and maybe even membership dwindle. As the news says:

The eBay auction will last ten days and include http://hrmtoday.com, http://blogs.hrmtoday.com, and http://network.hrmtoday.com, along with archived user data.

 Further disclaimer: I maintain a HR professionals' network on Ning too - but with much less functionality.

HR associations start blogging

Well social media is primarily a grassroots movement and embraced by the people in the fringes and edges of the mainstream.

A lot of HR folks in India have heard of "blogging" but really have no idea what it is or the power of social media  at large itself.

So it's quite heart warming that two of the biggies of the professional HR bodies - the Society of HRM (SHRM) and the National HRD Network of India have started blogging.

The NHRD Network blog - HR Talks Blog,  is posts by senior HR professionals who are also office bearers of the NHRD Network on some interesting topics.

The SHRM Blog is about their 2009 annual convention where they are communicating the various speakers to prospective audience. SHRM has gone a step further and the COO China Gorman is on Twitter  along with the SHRM Public Affairs too, having twitter conversations with people attending the conference.

So what's the verdict? Well for starters, they are great initiatives. The SHRM one is focused on a specific event and the NHRDN provokes some great thoughts by the big leaders and practitioners of Indian HR.

For a lot of HR professionals I think these blogs would make them look at blogging in a new perspective.

Yes, the establishment has embraced the edges.

Will we see the establishment embracing HR based internet communities like HR Professionals too? Too early to think on those lines :-D

Human Resources Professionals' Online Hangout

I get a lot of questions asked by HR professionals on how they can interact with others - to get knowledge and share networking opportunities.

Here's some thing which I recommend:

1. Join one of the many HR groups on Yahoo and Google Groups. Of course, you are likely to be inundated  by email. I've reserved a gmail id solely for the purposes of receiving these messages. I manage one such HR based egroup too. If you'd like to become a member send me a message on HRgyan-owner@yahoogroups.com, since entry is on invites only. 
2. Join HR groups on Linkedin and Facebook. The good stuff is that you can get weekly rather than daily email updates. On Linkedin I have found this group quite useful. And on Facebook I started the HR professionals' Facebook network . If you are a vendor to HR folks, maybe you should join the HR vendors' group too.
3. Join the social networks based on Ning. There's the Human Resources Professionals community (started by me ;-) and already has more than 600 members - Ok, I must stop bragging !) , the Recruitingblogs  community, the HRMToday community that started off as the community of HR bloggers, the Employee Engagement Network and even the HR forum on MyLinkingPowerForum.com There are non-Ning based communities like CiteHR too. If you'd like an opportunity to showcase yourself I'd suggest a Ning based community.
4. Then there are the online communities on HR websites like HR.com , HCI  also.

Ultimately it's not about the places you can connect, but about the value you add to the communities you do connect.

What are the online communities where you like to connect with other HR professionals? 

Calling HR professionals in NCR

The National Capital Region in India is a name for the conurbation or metropolitan area which encompasses the entire National Capital Territory of Delhi as well as urban areas ringing it in neighbouring states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

So if you are a HR professional who works out of this region, you can join the NCR HR group on HR professionals or the NCR HR professionals group on Facebook . The FB group has about 30 people already as members.

Hopefully these would be forum (fora?) for HR professionals to meet offline and connect in person. The end objective is that all of us learn and develop professional from other fellow professionals.

Interesting blog posts from the HR professional's network

Weekend reading from the HR professionals' network blogs :

Santosh posts on Unavoidable layoffs and coping with them.

Madhudhar posts on Respecting the fine line between HR, IR and administration as well as Jet Airways - an HR guy's nightmare .

Pradeep Maheshwari on Anger in Management .