Performers are all rounder

Being good at one thing doesn't qualify us for HIPO, it’s a gradual process of being good at multiple things that matters for any organization.  The options of just being great at one’s area of work or getting expertise in that area and still be known as the performer are less.

Think about it, after years of experience in particular field we get knack of the things, but will it work if Integrity is missing…or we won’t respect our peers, subordinates…Yes that’s the point!! And how will we know how to find out the HIPOs , this is where HR can help.

Designing effective policies, creating efficient redressal systems, beginning with the steps for forming a culture, Setting values, Change agent..Give this any name or cal it any HRD, HRM or Human capital department, but facts remain its more to do with managing humans as rhythms. Every key making a different sound, yet have to perform similar function - Composition of great Music!

Evaluate a performer on the basis of what they are doing for organization over all, not just for one function/department…You would say how naive, we know all this..but where are we showing it in our Performance Management system? Are we? We conclude with appraisal letters being sent out…but what happened to the gaps that came out..Training calendar created? If someone lacks in discipline but shows results in say sales figures – did we make it a point to justify his/her ratings on these parameters where he/she lags behind…

Will leave you all thinking here…with an interesting example of what happened with Phaneesh Murthy during his Infosys days, a bright, apple of the eye, performer (in his own areas) got the company to shell out Huge amount for a scandal.. Is that a definition of HIPO? IGate gave another opportunity, but then again history repeated itself with him…and the end result, well you all know what happened there.

Living by values of organization/institution, Integrity, respect, implementation of policies and code of conduct may sound very Subjective – but are the true value generator! 

Practice it to believe it! Or keep calling your “Functional Heroes” as performers…

Kaizen Effect in Life- Grow with It

Change, improvement, achievement, goals, success all these words sound so good to the ears, but these are not mere words, behind each one of them stands the dream of millions of people, and some may even die before reaching their destination. Have you ever thought why it happens, why a dream remains a fiction and never becomes true? What is it that we lack to convert our dreams into reality?

James Freeman Clarke rightly said, that

“We are either progressing or retrograding all the while. There is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life”. 

We do not realize that in the due course of life we don’t remain stationary at all; there is either a process of advancement or regression. So how does it matter then? Most of the time we become so occupied in living life that we don’t even comprehend what our dreams are all about and just keep on hovering over the river of life. We go to the school which is selected by our parents (yes, there is a less chance of us making our own choice here), we opt a career of our parents’ choice, we work for a boss, where is our life then?

“When what you want doesn’t happen, learn to want what does.” (Arabic proverb) and here it goes, this is what we all do though we may think that there is nothing wrong in accepting the facts of life, but then one needs to ask- what about dreams?

So, what should we do for the continuous growth? Dream and then make sure that you fulfill all of them, without accepting defeat, be it professional dreams or personal, and ironically many of us do not even realize the difference between the two, for us becoming a doctor is a dream which is both personal and professional. Similarly, receiving a promotion is a dream and it becomes both personal and professional.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. Benjamin Franklin

So my dear friends let us Progress, let’s look at the sky with open arms and just grab all the opportunities which come our way.

Here are the recommendations on how we can progress in Organizations:

Discover: What do you want to be? This much we all know, but how to reach there gets difficult as we join a company. Discover yourself, your strength, your key interests, your talents, weaknesses, limitations and everything that you can get to know about yourself. Just like a company has its own vision statement, why don’t you also envision one for yourself? An intelligent foresight will help you realize your vision and mission in life.

Affiliation: Discovery of inner self is done, though it is an ongoing process to discover oneself, the next step is to take affiliation wherever possible, acquire a skill set which you think is missing or lacking, network with people who can help you accomplish your goals, join some club, become a part of a project team. Get involved with people, groups, and communities, just open your wings and fly to connect with others. Continuous improvement can be acquired with addition to something new be it hobbies, interests or just adapting to changes.

Communication: Now comes the difficult part, communicate with people in the network so that you get the opportunity to grow and prosper in to what you want to be. The goals can be achieved if they are properly communicated to the Leader of the organization or vice versa. In fact, how you present your self is also part of communication and plays an important role in the path of progress. It has many facets such as seeking and giving feedback, listing, empathy and plan.

Conception: So you have a plan, now is the time to draft your actions accordingly. Take one step at a time, do no hurry and design your course of action. These actions are like foundation stones of a building, the strength of which carries the entire burden of a building and the people in it. :)

Execution: Not so difficult and not that easy too…if any problems comes in between the realization of dreams now, make sure you don’t change the desired goals, just change the action plan. It is always better to change a path than changing a destination altogether, which can not only be tiring but painful too. Especially in organizations the distress it causes affects the personal life too, and sometimes to such an extent that we may say “I QUIT.”

Measure: Yes, measuring the goals and actions are a necessary requirement, which keeps you under check all the time and ensures that you are on the right track and that there is no hindrance coming your way. Evaluation is also empirical for knowing what more needs to be done, as well as the areas we lack in and how to increase the efforts. We can also call this performance check but the only difference here is; that this is an internal performance evaluation.

So here is cheers to Kaizen, lets improve, lets progress and embrace changes with open arms and cultivate the same in our teams as well.

more at http://www.citeman.com/15219-kaizen-effect-in-life-grow-with-it.html#ixzz2c7vZ9bPA

Relationship Building with Teams

From sharing a common goal, common tasks to sharing a rapport of working together, a few jokes here and there, sometimes teasing a team member… all this and more goes on when teams are formed. Some members would like to keep the relationship very professional where as some others would like to meet after the office hours for a couple of drinks.

Managing the relationship sometimes gets tough for the managers, and they encounter various problems sometimes to such an extent that the coalition disrupts to the level of beyond revamp.

What can be done by Managers to create magical teams where the problems can be resolved before they erupt? How can it be handled in a way that the team does not plummet?

Emotional Intelligence-EQ: Yes, it has been a very popular topic of discussion in the recent years, but alas the patience level of our people in the organizations is taking a plunge and from destructive feedback, to hurling abuses, to less ratings we are doing all of it just to pull each other down. Where is the empathy factor? Bring it back, empathize with your team members and once the relationship starts to develop you will see the results.

Trust: Instill that confidence in them every time they are seeking any guidance on new projects, or experimenting with the ideas. As a manager your role is focused on the objectives of the team and how to accomplish them, for that building a sense of trust in each member is suggested. Give them constructive feedback, let them be involved in decision making and nurture them as family members at times. Investing time and effort to guide them will bring back desired results.

Recognition: Although recognition brings trust still we will discuss it as a separate point, make them feel good, praise them, review their performances, and say good things and the ball is in your court then. The team will reach the destination without many hurdles of relationship related issues. The confident team can bring better results than the stressed team; choice is yours! Which one would you want to choose?

Manager’s perception: Please understand this; your perception is not necessarily a reality, so do not bring in stereotypical thinking in between the relationship with your team. Do not perceive, as people may not like to be handled in a particular way. Individuals are unique and so are their problems and solutions.

Resolve their conflicts: Take them and their problems seriously, if some one comes with a conflict do not hesitate to ask questions, do not avoid thinking that it may get resolved on its own, sometimes smaller problems take time to get resolved as unique people carry different emotional baggages and their perceptions do not give them a chance to resolve those problems as they may have encountered a similar thing in the past and their beliefs are set. Identify the root of the issue without wasting any time and effort, just deal with the conflict with your maturity and experience.

Apart from these suggestions, managers can involve various team building and relationship building activities during work hours; it will not only help in creating a better team culture but also break the monotony of the work/project. The leader’s job is to bring creativity amongst the team members and make their relationship as healthy as possible to reach to the desired goals.

Some activities which can be used for relationship building are:

Trust walks: Make pairs in a team, and then one member can go blindfolded and the other partner can guide him/her without speaking, to the other end of the room with lots of hurdles(read objects like chair, dustbin etc). It makes it fun as well as creates a sense of trust amongst the team members.

Tell me a truth and a lie: Ask all the team members to write a truth and a lie about themselves on a piece of paper and ask others to guess which one is a lie and which one is a truth.

Jigsaw Puzzle: Divide the team in to two groups and give them a jigsaw puzzle to solve. The way they communicate, and work towards solving the given task, will reflect in their real life project.

more at http://www.citeman.com/14906-relationship-building-with-teams-image-added-please-publish.html#ixzz2c857AnWb

Internship - Campus to Corporate

An internship or/and summer training results in full time employment when the student completes his/her course or in some cases well before that. Why do you think institutes like the IIMs, IITs and other top 50 institutes take equal interest in placing their candidates for summer internship? The reason being, that most of them are acquired by the companies for future jobs as well. Most employers feel that there is a huge gap which students have to cover from the campus to the corporate; they are not empowered with the practical skills that are required in companies.

Then why not take summer placements seriously, when your best bet is to treat your internship as seriously as you would a job, and treat your internship provider as you would an employer. While you are there to learn as much as you can about the field of study you’re interested in, you’re also there to be helpful to your internship provider and other staff who depend on interns, which in turn can open a plethora of openings for you.

Don’t agree?? Read more to understand how a seriously done internship can benefit your career in the long run, even if you are not placed in the same company for a job, the experience gained can actually help you in designing your future course of action and change you as a person.

What an internship can do for you?

With a tsunami of such institutions in every line, and availability of project reports on sale, the seriousness of summer placements is weakening, and every day we see many queries on “Help for my project” on the forum. A seriously done internship can do wonders for you, here is how:

Deciding your career interest: Internship is a great tool to help you define your career goals and it also helps the students in getting clarity of thought by helping them identify their field of interest. By picking projects that lie in their area of interest, students can evaluate if their current interest area excites them. Being in the real work environment will allow you to determine what role suits your skill set, and thus will help you to apply for jobs later.

For example, if you’re majoring in HR, but have an eye on IT as well, you might consider an internship with some IT/ITES company in their HR department. Or another example could be, if you’re planning to major in marketing but not sure whether you want to go into advertising or digital marketing, you should consider getting knowledge in both areas to help you decide which is best for you.

Gateway to full-time jobs: By working with a firm closely during the internship period, a PG student gets an opportunity to understand the working culture of the company. The company, in turn, gets an opportunity to evaluate the student for a potential full-time job offer. This way the student gets a fantastic opportunity to convince employers to hire them, by displaying their skills.

Develop practical skills: Reading course books and term assignments only helps to understand the basics, but what goes on in real life work situations in your field is different from that. As an intern in an organization, you stand to benefit immensely by observing how veterans from various fields tackle projects and also gives you a chance to apply the theory learnt in classroom into practice. Hands-on experience is very important!

Networking: Your first step in the corporate world, an internship programme will immensely help you create a professional network and bring you in contact with people from your field. This will be valuable in the coming years and also if you land in a job with the same company. As a trainee, colleagues around you will be open to sharing their experiences which will surely help you get your final placements. So network, learn and get placed.

Value addition to your resume: There are companies willing to take in freshers and train them; an internship adds value to your CV before you go for the final placement/ or after completing your graduation. An experience of a few months – where you have learnt some basic facts of bridging the gap from campus to corporate will surely take you a long way with newly acquired skills and knowledge added to your resume.

Learn!! don’t waste your energy on getting a project report for free/ or for money, this would not benefit you in any way, place your best efforts to grab an opportunity to work during that golden period of “8 weeks” in a company which adds value to your career path and helps you design your future  (not just a compromise)

Members please pour your thoughts here and add more points which can help students to understand the value of an internship and make them work towards their project reports instead of focusing on copy-paste and/or purchasing of reports. Look forward to a tremendous response…

Here’s – for the next Generation!! Gen Next..:)

more at http://www.citeman.com/15480-summer-training-campus-to-corporate.html#ixzz2c7sNT4xa

Dilemma- Notice Period

Let's start with a Case let-

Virat, appeared for an interview and after qualifying through all the rounds; during the negotiation stage he was asked:

Interviewer: When can you join the company?

Virat: I have to serve a two months’ notice period.

Interviewer: Mr. Virat, we cannot linger this position for two months.

Virat: After a hiatus, ok, Sir I will try to talk to the HR department for early relieving.

Interviewer: We would like you to join in 20 days.

Virat: That would be complicated but I will try to cope as I have some leave balance.

Interviewer: Alright then, here is your offer letter.

Virat: Thank you (he signs the letter).

This is what happens with many of us….isn’t it? Now let’s see another scenario where Virat resigned from this company:

Same Interviewer (HR Person): You have to serve the notice period of three months.

Virat: But Sir, I cannot do that, I have some leave balance which can be adjusted or else I will pay the amount for 2 months and serve one month notice period.

HR Person: That is not possible Virat; the position is crucial and requires a proper handover to the new person who will be taking over.

Virat: Sir, Handing over will not take much time, it will be done in one month; but I have to join the new company in a month’s time.

HR Person: No, Virat, this will not be possible or else we will have to go the legal way.

So, dear friends what do these two scenarios depict? The same person who asked Virat to join in 20 days is not ready to relieve him in one month’s time. Question here is, why do we have such double standards? As an HR professional isn’t it our responsibility to create and design policies in a manner beneficial to both the company and the employee? When you want a person in your company, you show them fear of loss of the opportunity and ask them to negotiate with the notice period, and once you are faced with  a similar situation the entire world goes upside down and you threaten them with legal proceedings.

There are many cases which keeps coming in in the portfolio companies, handled at PlugHR about not serving the notice period, legal proceedings by companies and relieving letter, and the crux of all such posts happen to be the same. Here is an example:

I worked with an Indian IT major, my employment was on contract for first 9 months and later they made me permanent 3 months ago in Jan. I was not very happy with my profile and package and in between got an offer from some other company who wanted me to join in 15 days.

I put the resignation in the tool (online) stating that I have got an offer from some other company who are paying me better and also told them (verbally) that I have some financial issues in family hence need this job anyhow and will not be able to serve 2 months’ notice. I also told them in writing that I am willing to give ‘notice pay’. My manager paid no heed to it and said that he could not relieve me until I served the 2 months notice (nor could he increase my salary or change my role in the team) and I would have to give KT to the replacement. I kept requesting them for 2 weeks (post resignation) but they did not consider my request , hence I left the company (told my reporting manager over the phone) and submitted the laptop (took receipt from the IT dept) and joined the other company.

My new employer knows the entire scenario.

After one week of joining I got a call from HR (of previous co.) stating that they will send me a legal notice as I have not given proper KT and will run an absconding action against me which means that I will not get the relieving letter and experience letter and the full and final settlement will not be done either.

I want to know what can be the implications or consequences of this legal notice , can they send it to me even after I have stated that I am ready to pay the notice pay amount and have also submitted the laptop?

Sometimes I wonder, when will our HR Managers learn to be austerely professional while handling such matters and accept resignation without taking it as rejection. How do we edify the significance of the notice period to both the parties? We all have started taking it for granted. Why such a scurry to hire a person when in need and then when the same person (has become habitual) desires you to relieve him/her early, why bully them with trepidation of going legal etc. Manipulation is not HR’s job but still we all live it out in our day-to-day life.

Practice of notice period, in companies, was introduced to grant a respite to both the employee and the employer, in order to reconcile them in their respective roles, for the employer it is vital as they can hire opposite replacement and proper handling over can be completed. Employee gets the benefit of bidding good bye on a positive note which creates constructive reference for them in future.

Is there any record available somewhere which depicts how many employees leave a company without serving the notice period even after being threatened by the HR department about going the legal way? Also how many employers really go to the extent of filing a legal suit against such employees (apart from sending a legal notice)? I seriously won’t think there will be many unless something of severe nature absolutely demands such an action from the employer.

So, the practice is very normal, then why are we adamant on having a notice period for such a long duration when we cannot make our employees adhere to it, in fact we only entice them to do such things in the first place. The policies are drafted keeping in mind the suitability of both the employer and the employee, with such practices of not serving notice period, who is getting the advantage?

Settle on, consider and then transform policies for the benefit of all!

more at http://www.citeman.com/15693-dilemma-notice-period.html#ixzz2Vnz2t1Ay