Radiance of Discipline – No more Murkines

"No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined".

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Implementing a proper policy for discipline is an intricate task, most of you will agree, no matter how well we preach; implementing it in companies brings obscurity, but why? The explanation is that unless we won’t stop using discipline as a synonym for punishment, people will have their qualms and reservations.

Few Organizations may implement the discipline-without-punishment concept, and some others may still have difficulty in changing their disciplinary approach. Most likely it is caused by the attitude of many managers who believe that punishment is the only solution to deal with employees’ failures. They fail to notice that the concept of organizational discipline is not to punish misbehavior and enforce compliance, but to build individual responsibility and re-inspire commitment. Therefore, this misconception may lead to a catastrophe of generating employees who are committed to the goals of the organizations.

Misconduct and other offensive behavior often leads to decreased levels of productivity as they affect the individual performance of the employees. Apart from Intrinsic discipline or self discipline there are three approaches of Discipline used in Companies in order to curb the misconduct or any other wrongful practice.

Progressive Discipline: This form of discipline is generally known as Performance Improvement plans in many companies, Progressive discipline requires letting employees know what you expect, to be fair, consistent, and objective in imposing discipline, to include employees in the process of improvement, and to document your actions and decisions properly. Following are some of the benefits of progressive discipline:

• The moment the first sign of trouble is noticed, managers need to intervene and correct employee behavior
• Enhance communication between managers and employees
• Managers achieve higher performance and productivity from their employees
• Perk up employee morale and retention by demonstrating that there are rewards for good performance and consequences for poor performance, something of the sort of Mc Gregor’s theory.
• ensure consistency and fairness in dealing with employee problems,
• It lays the groundwork for fair termination for employees who cannot or will not improve.

Here the process would be:

Verbal Warning

Written Warning

Suspension

Dismissal

Preventive Discipline: The Company must ensure preventive discipline and related developing programs to prevent absenteeism or accidents, or communicating to employees the new rules that must be designed as per the past occurrences within the organization. It also should explain and support for the existence of a perfect match between what is sought and what is done.

HR department should take care of the regulation, adjusting course, to have the personal rights and should not create futile prohibitions that may cause general melancholy among workers. That is, rather than standards, recommendations of how to be better at an activity or work.

Positive Discipline: This approach works on providing solutions rather than handcuffing the employee at any given opportunity, the notion behind this is to give them a chance to become a responsible employee with a change in their behavior with proper counseling and coaching. The chance to improve upon is what makes the positive approach optimistic.

An opportunity to the subject is given to clarify their side of the story and so they get a chance to justify their deeds. One precaution in this approach to be taken is to only use trained staff for counseling; un-trained staff might aggravate the situation’s negativity.

Here the process works something like this:

Counseling

Written warning

Final Warning

Discharge

Came across this wonderful piece on some forum, each line specifically talking about how empirical discipline is in our lives, both personal and professional. It actually describes what is required to be said about discipline in life, no matter what approach or method, Mc Gregor’s point of view or some one else’s opinion on discipline, some one beautifully summarized all of it…

Through the steel of Discipline,

With courage and peace
You will forge a character.

Without them, you
Are like a mariner
Without a compass,
Who eventually sinks
With his ship. Similar
Is the man without discipline.

Discipline is built by
Consistently performing
Smaller acts of courage.
The more you nurture
The embryo of self discipline,
The more it will mature –
You’ll soar to new heights

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Sense and Sensibility: In case of termination

Non performance, disciplinary issues, company in loss, behavioral issues or just ‘want to get rid of someone’…terminating employees has become a trend in the companies, as the patience level goes down, the rate of termination goes high. And sometimes, no matter how afraid we get of  terminating an employee, even when it is an absolute requirement, we pass the buck by saying lets give them a chance…but understanding when and where to give a fair chance is a complicated method, although we all work on our instincts, still it is a matter of someone’s career or may be their bread and butter….Hence why not think before we take such a step, here is a write up to work on our sense and sensibilities to guide Our Gen next to empathize with their employees, where and how.

There was a case I came across few days back, that one of the senior level employees had been accused of sexual harassment by female employees, and still the company did not take any action and just let him go with a warning and counseling, no inquiries initiated, no written explanation…And what will be the position of those female employees now…no one considered that.

Generally with sexual harassment the standard is if you know or have known that the conduct was occurring, you need to take immediate and appropriate corrective action to make it stop. Even termination of the employee can be considered if the proper process is being followed, as mentioned in the law and company policy.

A lot of times we have seen Managers bury their actions as they are scared of legal complications, massive settlements, or claims of wrongful termination and yes, why not if you are not properly prepared and not thinking smartly, you have all the reasons to be scared.

What makes sense??

Company policy on Termination: A clear cut, well defined policy speaks louder than any claim that an employee makes, a Smart HR professional is always proactive in designing the policies and procedures in order to avoid getting in to such law suits or other complications. If there are any amendments, make sure to announce and update, a slight mistake can cause several millions to the company.

The procedure Implementation: No matter how small or big the mistake is, in case of any kind of misconduct, the entire procedure needs to be followed in a proper manner with documentation as and when required. I know of an instance, where one female member was asked to leave on disciplinary grounds as she was caught stealing something, the Manager let her go after a warning (verbal), and then after a few days she accused the same manager of harassing her. Ground realities stood different from what's hypothetically correct, hence procedures, SOPs should be created with utmost viability of implementation.

Maintain consistency: Same misconduct, similar issues and if earlier you bid good bye to one of the employees, then for the next one also you have to do the same. As a general rule, an employer’s response to a particular problem should be consistent with its policies and responses to prior, comparable situations. Bias, opinions and judgments always create an un-proportionate hatred in the organization and then the wrong message follows and it creates an unhealthy grapevine. Hence it becomes empirical to standardize the level of punishments and reprisals especially when the nature of problem is the same.

Do not postpone the decision: Once the enquiry is over, and the process is at the finishing stage, it is advisable to take the decision of termination at the earliest; prolonging it may unnecessary cause trouble and give birth to rumor mongers in the company. Such rumors can play havoc and the situation could go out of hand. The rumor mill then creates many such questions which can easily be avoided if handled at the right stage.

Alacrity in valediction: Do not rush; do not jump to conclusion, just flow with the stride and let the gust settle, once things are clearer and cleaner then decide what is appropriate. Sometimes no matter how much we avoid, and demand a resignation instead of termination, I feel teaching a lesson to some becomes pragmatic. Although there are no guarantees, that the lessons are learnt with such actions, still we can always create an example for the others to not follow the same path of destruction.

Pay Severance if promised: If the word severance is mentioned in any policy and document, pay it up; because taking chances with “the woebegone employees” often results in uncalled legal tensions, when they could be evaded with elegance. What should be done is paying those employees their one or two month salary rather than redundant trips to courts which waste time.

Sensibility makes sense when we create proper measures to handle our most important assets- human resource. They need to be sent off with dignity unless of course it is not at all important. The sensibilities once shown will always be remembered by people deep down and companies will be respected for that.

So, give them a chance if you can, or show them the golden gate from where they entered the mansion of their dreams – their workplace, if they can't respect it they cannot breathe inside it…

Ciao…….

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The path less traveled

The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… One step at a time said Joe Girard. Success comes when we opt for the path where not many people have traveled, as a substitute of taking short cuts. Life in the corporate teaches many such lessons when you chose a short cut road or stumpy, hard and overgrown corridor.

Superfluous reference: Social networking sites often give an opportunity to connect with people they have never interacted with before and undoubtedly it has a positive impact, but demanding reference from people who have no idea about you, your profile and your career goals, asking for orientation at some company or may be their own company is asking for too much. I have come across many such people on networking sites who would add you just to open the door of opportunities. Referring some one is not bad, but not knowing the background may land you in trouble and people who are ready to hire some one just by virtue of their face value may then keep a distance from you too. Success is all pervasive but such tactics may end up in closing all gates to heaven, one may obtain a job by such procedures but can only protract it with sheer hard work and meticulousness.

Jaspal Bhatti’s sumptuous Promotion feast: Lol..so nostalgic, still remember the comic King Jaspal Bhatti’s 90s saga, laughing our heart to his plain simple dark comedies based on all important areas of life, be it corruption, electricity theft, stealing of ration and what not, one such episode was based on treating the boss with a scrumptious meal to get a promotion and believe me the scenario hasn’t changed much, many of us still get involved in such activities with trips to famous Pataya beach, booze parties, and what not. Resilience is the most forgotten word in the corporate world and people look for many shorter routes to stay away from hurdles….But you don’t get roses without the thorn!

Face the bull by its horn: Storms will come but the wise people will cut the stream and clear the channel and not flow with the stride. Creating a conduit different from others may take a longer time but eventually will end up at a dream destination with your feet dug down in to the earth…Struggling to get what one wants is the real success,Michael Jordan said about his journey…. “I’ve missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot . . . and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

So no shortcuts, no frills and fancies, not going askance are the keys to achieve desired success.

Slam the sham: Fake experience certificates, phony degrees, forged documents and what not, many queries are asked on the forum about such things, one such query is- “Can I show fake experience as I’m not getting any job? Friends are asking me to show fake experience to land a job.’” Hello!! If friends are suggesting such things then foes are much better. It takes me back to an incident which happened a few years back, a Vice chancellor of a famous University was snatched off his degrees at the age of 56, and his one folly was, that he had forged his PhD thesis, and many things were just copied and pasted. He enjoyed many years of success but in the end what remained was just sheer agony because of one mistake.

Braving the Malady: The truly successful measure of one’s success is not based on numbers but passion, determination, and the will to help people. Choosing a less traveled path may bring about roadblocks and pot holes but be assured it is just to keep you grounded with realities and not gliding with frivolous triumphs of life.  Loyalty also comes when we are striving for success while being grounded and not just attempting to direct without actually furnishing the tasks.

Revising the entire system will take time, but with each step that we take we  negate each point and move ahead. Let us all gather to create some more success stories without gratuitous short cuts. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain

So what is your success story, decant your thoughts here, the ramp is designed we are just waiting for your performance :)  Hop on the bus of creativity and get started…

more at http://www.citeman.com/15988-the-path-less-traveled.html#ixzz2VnvBrQnP

Will loyalty veritably pay off?

Excerpt from an article of Mr. Gopalkrishnan, Chairman TATA, as he talks about the pros and cons of staying in a company for long and being loyal to it. He says…

I find that most of these people are the ones who have stuck to the company, ground their heels and worked their way to the top.  And, as I look around I find that people who changed their jobs constantly, have stagnated at some level, in obscurity! In this absolutely ruthless, dynamic and competitive environment, there are still no short cuts to success or to making money. The only thing that continues to pay, as earlier, is Loyalty and Hard work.

But is this the scenario everywhere? or are there only a few companies that can boast of loyalty bonus or a steep growth path if one chose to stay in the company for long. There are a variety of insights on the same, and many of us will have a different outlook which actually goes in a different direction from what Mr. Gopal Krishnan has to say…

For most of us say, lack of loyalty can cost us in numerous ways, but in the corporate world, even being loyal to your company may cost you – Your JOB. Most companies feel that employing a young blood will help improve their productivity.

In recent times, certain organizations have fired 20-30% of its staff by tagging them as redundant and they have not notified them in advance about their termination. They would be called by the HR and asked to leave the company premises within an hour. They would not even be permitted to take their belongings from their desk and their access to Company’s Network and Email would be revoked as well.

Why are the workers who are loyal to the company for more than 10 to 15 years shown the egress? Are they not loyal to the Management? Then, why do the organizations not ponder before executing such strategies, albeit, they might be operating substantially well.

“Employees don’t leave their job, they leave their manager” is the mantra heard for many years in Human Resource circles. To feel respected, employees should be treated as a significant asset to the company; employees should feel that their manager has realistic anticipations about what they can attain, and, managers must be fair and even-handed while dealing with them. In my experience, nothing makes employees angrier than seeing a peer receive special treatment when they’ve broken the rules or have not been performing. Managers have the special role of enforcing company policy while at the same time removing obstacles for employees to perform well.

Let the blood flow profusely

The lifeblood of every Organization is its workforce. Given this critical fact, you may infer that every business has a detailed plan and concrete modus operandi in place to ensure that the employees are engaged. Unfortunately, this is generally not the case. Many companies extensively presume that if they build a good product or offer a good service, and if the customers continue to buy those products or services, then employees should be happy. Employers typically do just enough to ensure that the majority of the employees don’t leave; they train just ample, they offer just adequate benefits, and they give just sufficient positive reinforcement. Is this the right way to approach employee loyalty?

Consider these two startling facts: Each year the average company loses 20-30% of its employee base and substituting a lost employee costs more than that person’s annual salary.

Embrace their Loyalty – Engage them

As an employer, you need to apprehend why your employees are zealously connected to your business – and it’s generally much more than salaries, training, or benefits. Research shows that fervently connected employees are the best employees because they are engaged and productive, and they feel corroborated and appreciated. It’s not inconceivable today, with the right technology and best practices. I hope this entropy will give ideas and motivation to engross your employees more. Eventually, with suitably engaged employees, everyone wins.

The prized possessions

To effectively accomplish the rendezvous of your employees is to start a walk down the road with great rewards, including happier and more productive employees who stay lengthier with your company and willingly promote your business to others. Happy customers will follow, which will then lead to heightened profits and other positive business outcomes. I endorse that we should start working right away on the aforementioned benefits.

If all of you can only initiate just few of them currently, that’s fine. What’s important is that a new beginning needs to be instigated; having highly betrothed employees is one of the most worthy goals any organization can anticipate and their loyalty needs to be rewarded constantly with innovative initiatives and a stable intensification corridor.

more at http://www.citeman.com/16305-will-loyalty-veritably-pay-off.html#ixzz2Vnq0xzuS

Move Up the Ladder – With Apt Career Planning

In the last few years, conception of individuals pursuing their careers and shaping, molding and developing them in order to get maximum advantage received widespread attention in most of the firms, in fact earlier staying in a company for long duration was considered as practical and secure, but with career management and planning the option of moving out faster has really gained momentum in recent years.

But still, we are so ignorant of it, specially freshers these days face a lot of problem, one such query is written here as a case let for showing how confused we can get, dilemmas we face...

I am working as a Trainee Engineer in a company in the Gulf. More than one year has passed, my designation is still that of a trainee engineer. And nothing has been changed in terms of my salary , my place or my designation. First of all,  I started to work here to get some experience and I am still doing the same things again and again. Learning nothing new. I am not at all interested to continue in this same thing now. Time once goes won’t come back again. So I don’t want to waste my time like this here. Something should change but nothing has changed yet. Office timing is for 9.5 hours a day and salary is less than 2100. Nowadays time doesn't move for me at all as I don’t find the job interesting. There is no use of speaking to higher people as when I do they say I should change the company. But its not a simple thing to change a company. Where to get a new job? I have been trying for a few months but not getting anywhere. Please suggest, what should I do? I tried all my ways. Showed much interest in work. But in the month of February, increment was given to all people but I was left out. From that day I lost my hope. I am of no use here.

The mere fact of having a career plan brings a series of benefits for the organization and for the individuals attached, While it would not be suitable to think that setting up career planning will ensure the long-term retention of human talent within an organization, it does at least ensure that while the talent remains within the company, their skills are fully browbeaten for the benefit of all.

For successful career planning, career resilience is congruent with the many definitions of professional practice that include autonomy, self-direction, and continuous learning. Specific characteristics of career-resilient individuals, and hence integral focus of a career planning and development program, include professional autonomy, competence, and self-efficacy. Potential outcomes of a career development program on an organizational level are employees who are committed to the organization in which they work, and have the skills and flexibility to link personal effectiveness and satisfaction with achievement of the organization’s strategic objectives.

Companies need to pay scrupulous consideration as to how well they manage career plans. Each individual’s development curve is different. Gen Y professionals, for example, need unremitting feedback as a consequence of the high expectations usually harbored at that age and so challenges and rewards for achievements also need to be incorporated.

#   Career planning and development initiatives fosters organisational effectiveness which depends on the organisation’s ability to transit employees from a conventional blueprint of belief to the new-fangled amplified responsibility, for their own career growth and development .

# An adequately crafted career development system facilitates organisations to tap their wealth of home grown assets for staffing and promotion by matching the skills, knowledge, and ambitions of individuals to the needs of the organisations. In addition, it allows them to make au fait decisions associated with compensation and succession planning to attract, retain and motivate the employees, ensuing a more engaged and productive workforce.

# Career development must be an interminable system linked with the organisation’s human resource structures and not just one time episode and after one telecast, when people start getting glued to it, its taken off the air…

We generally do not deal with certain specific details related to career planning and which creates hindrance later on, so what are these, lets read them for better understanding.

• Joining a job does not mean that you cannot plan in advance about the long term goals, in fact having a long term planning will help you decide which path to chose to reach the right destination.

• You got your dream job, but the compensation does not match up with what you thought it should be, grab the opportunity with both arms as short term limitations such as low pay offer or some lateral move, may actually end up in being vital for career development.

• Self Assessment with utmost honesty through introspection, career change, deciding between expertise or skills, keep learning new things, and get training.

• Keep yourself updated and upgraded with what’s going on in the market, latest changes, advancement, skills, knowledge and opportunities.

• Plan all your moves in a dignified manner,  from exiting your company when you have utilized all your skills and cannot see any growth to selecting the next best suitable job, sometimes many lucrative offers come and we greedily jump on them without thinking if they fit in our career development path or not.

So you have done all scheduling, and  have planned your career goals,  have acquired required skills, competencies and values to implement your career goals the next step is to carry out the plans through pertinent career management practices. Career management in itself is a vast subject and it is an ongoing process of preparing, developing, implementing and monitoring career plans and strategies undertaken by the individual alone or in concert with the organisation’s career system.

more at http://www.citeman.com/16377-move-up-the-ladder-%e2%80%93-with-apt-career-planning.html#ixzz2VnpMp75p

Mentor Mentor – Cure me!!

Tolerance towards mistakes and especially towards repeating the same mistakes is very less in the contemporary times. Companies can’t afford to have employees who don’t learn from the experiences of others. A steep learning curve calls for a good mentor-ship programme.

A mentor must ideally possess adequate experience in the domain(s) one is planning to move into or wishes to explore as a career option. The mentor must have the requisite domain expertise, industry exposure and industry contacts.

Mentoring is an intensive OD intervention. It focuses on the development of a high potential junior under the continuous auspices of a senior leader. Their relationship is voluntary and not from the same chain of command. It is a long programme – typically ranging from three months to a year.

The qualities of a good mentoring programme should be:

Discussion around the protégé’s goals – both professional and personal. Goal-setting leads to the mentor assessing the protégé’s developmental needs. Then the rigour of regular meetings, face-to-face discussions, home assignments. Action learning begins then and is mainly aimed at bridging the developmental gaps of the protégé. Documenting of the action plan is empirical to ensure tracking since the timeline is short and specified.

No personal Matters – The mentor should act like an advisor and not as a friend or boss and the communication between the mentor and the protégé should be informal but it should be kept in mind that personal matters should always be avoided unless they are harming the performance of the protégé.

Confidentiality  – Matters discussed in mentoring program-mes, weaknesses and development areas of the participants should be kept confidential. Mentoring can happen in companies where the culture is driven by trust and respect between team members, where ever that would be lacking no matter how Informal or formal culture would be development , succession planning, career pathing would just be Jargon without adding any values. 

Managers are not made in class rooms, instead,  practical, on-the-job exposure coupled with a blend of the churn and rigor enforced by a mentor enhances the growth potential and shortens the time frame of transition of an executive into a manager.

What should mentors possess?

We may not necessarily need a supervisor as  mentor. Instead,  looking for a person who has richer experiences and exemplifies the qualities that can be adapted . Find the smartest person who can help in particular needs. It is the individual’s responsibility to work hard to not only find the right mentor, but also maintain an ongoing mentor-mentee relationship. The best way to find a mentor is to be a part of as many forums and attend as many industry events as possible. In such events, you can make contacts and explore possibilities.

Suggestions and counseling: Mentors help in exploring various career options so as to find the best suited path, as per one’s skills and interests. With an in-depth domain knowledge, experience and industry exposure, a mentor can help the mentee in deciding the career path best suited for him/her. For instance, if a professional needs mentoring, the mentor can enable the person to list out all options clearly and evaluate the same. A good mentor can suggest the pros and cons of all options, based on the individual’s interests, experience, education, attitude and the market trends, both current and future.

Mutual Learning: The contemporary mentoring style is different from the traditional in the sense that now it is a two way process.

Conventional Mentoring → Protégé

Contemporary Mentoring ↔ protégé

Through mentorship, one gets an exposure into the decision-making and leadership styles of the seniors. Additionally, it provides an access to organisational knowledge and networking opportunities, expansion of knowledge of skills and practices, an increased sense of safety while learning and a more focused development.

Feedback management: Mentors are an effective sounding board for venting emotions, views and feelings. Since it is on a one-to-one basis, there is a scope for personalized learning owing to an honest and constructive feedback. Overall, it leads to increased self-confidence and heightened career aspirations.

Listening Skills: Whenever we talk about listening skills, these lines of Ginny Barnes comes to my mind

“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” Ginny Barnes.

One must ensure that they are reading the words but not missing out on the gestures, body language and reading between the lines is also important.

Art of problem solving: A mentor should explore what kind of problem a protégé is facing, is it more of ability –skill lacking related problem or motivational – where the mentee lacks willingness to do something. The solution then depends upon the kind of personality, behaviour and aptitude.

The concept of mentorship does not apply only to organisations as a whole, but to the micro units as well, the individual employees themselves. Hence, care must be taken to carefully select and approach the right person as your mentor, specific qualities must be looked into for a Mentor. All this will surely result into a successful mentoring program.

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