The Economic Times High Flier talks of plugHR

The Economic Times on 25th December featured plugHR in its "High Flier" section while talking about "Out of the Box Successes". Article also highlighted the entrepreneurial spirit and courage displayed by plugHR CEO in letting go the high paying job opportunities in order to chase his ambition of creating something on his own out of scratch.

Here is the article copied and pasted below verbatim:

PLUGGED GLORY

Working in the telecom sector, post a degree from Symbiosis, specialising in marketing, basically means that your life is set for the next decade or so. And when other leading MNCs come to you and offer you a better job on a platter, would you jump to take it or ponder over it and refuse the job offer so that you can start something on your own? Prashant Bhaskar decided he rather take a chance then sit in a cubicle and work under someone. “It was during my early tenures, many CEOs and HR professionals expressed the need of grappling with the task of hiring and holding people. I realised that while hiring had got enough attention, there wasn’t much help available around holding people. It seemed like an untapped business opportunity and I got down to creating products around this,” recalls Prashant Bhaskar, Founder & CEO, plugHR. Starting something completely out of one’s skin seems like a difficult job. Though Bhaskar could have opted for any job he wanted, he decided against it. He says working under someone else doesn’t really allow one to innovate, take risk and attempt exceptional rewards. Does Bhaskar miss applying his educational knowledge at work? He disagrees, “Education is never a waste. I do not regret not taking those high paying jobs as I felt that I served my ambition.”

plugHR launches plugPal

Finally over 1000 members of plugHR are relieved to find plugPal as a neutral financial planning and advisory tool available to them right through the year. PlugPal promises to provide top of the line wealth management platform to members allowing them to take control of their investments, tax planning, insurance and real estate needs. From advisory support to desktop processing of transactions, everything would be available in a secure environment of their own workplace.
PlugPal is powered by plugHR and Park Financial Advisors thus providing both financial expertise and care of HR.

Hemant and Neha spent good amount of time learning core Engineering stuff on the shop floor at plugHR's client where they had been deputed.

Hemant is part of HR operations group at plugHR. We insist on hands on induction of staff on core business areas of the organization. It is only then that they understand the value of their own work and realize how it connects with the final consumer. Business induction also aligns them with common goal while giving them content to value the work done by others. For human resources team, a good business induction can mean great cultural immersion, peer level rapport building, exposure to real strengths of organization and development of that gut feeling which is so required while hiring talent for organization.

Doesn't matter what education they come from, business inducton can be done for all for any business. If Hemant can talk about Stone & Cement Mixers of all sizes and inclination after a day's induction, you might not need that Engineering degree.

Neha is back to her business school ofcourse.....

plugHR launches "sharedPages" - The Book Club

In most of my meetings with senior management at corporates, training needs are discussed without exception. In almost 80% cases the need is severly felt in behavioural & attitudinal enlightenment space rather than core skills.

This makes the job difficult because unlike skill training that revolves around transfer of skill and then fine tuning through practise, behavioural changes are more evolutionery in speed. Behaviour, beliefs and attitudes developed over some 25-30 years of cconditioning do not get addressed in 3 day seminars. At best these efforts can act as triggers through which one can identify and establish the need to change.

Actual process of change is more long term, self driven and isolated attempt in most cases. In absence of a robust mentoring machinery around this goal in organization, learning material like books, movies, cases etc can provide enthusiasts with the required armery.

Having entrusted with the task of talent development at our client organizations, plugHR initiated an attempt in that direction by launching sharedPages - A book Club that allows members to benefit from recommended selection of such learning content without investing time & money.

Currently launched as a private club for plugHR employees and those of its clients, sharedPages works through close relationship with organizations.

Check out www.sharedPages.wordpress.com for more details.

sharedPages is on now!!! Happy reading.....

Chasing the count

This is straight from the mouth of a seasoned Managing Director (not from the internet boom produce)of an Engineering company. While the thoughts were guided to his team of functional heads, I think they can help a larger audience & they are simple.

One of the important and perennial task that managers do is setting objectives/ goals/ targets (this differentiation is a debate for another day). We are not new to seeing slides like Q2 target - better customer service, higher revenue, improved team morale and this day was no different. These goals have no accountability, no direction (some direction), little measurability and do no good to anyone.

Mind is very capable of following defined goals, as defined as it can get. The trigger for the good chase is putting the count in. So better customer service can be two ring pick up on service line, bringing first expert connect time down to 2 hours from current 4. Improved team morale can be drop in absenteeism, no resignation in the quarter,60% team members overachieve targets.

Once counts are in place, it becomes easier for the mind to organize time, energy, coordination to put the right chase. It also allows mind to measure, re-strategise and stretch.

So if you're really keen on winning the chase, help yourself, help your mind... everything falls in place.

MD says it all.

Dangerous Indifference

Yesterday's editorial touched on how everyday indifference of friends & family concerning dangerous inclinations of young minds can be blamed for such minds eventually crossing line. This was in context of Haneef & Kafeel, whose slide to extremist mindset is said to have happened over a period and no one in known circles stepped in to rescue young boys.

Indifference is well known to us. Right from poor roads, to lost playgrounds, to flooding cities, to dengue infested localities we've got a lot from it.

Why it figures here on a board that normally talks organization matters is because indifference hit organization big time. Often things about someone unhappy with boss, someone leaving organization (or taking interviews), someone bullying newcomers get known to staff members much earlier. Members normally consider it part of worklife and rarely attempt to counsel the colleague around organizational advantage. This responsibility is easily left to HR or CEO or immediate supervisor, who normally are not networked enough to have knowledge ahead.

What all fail to realize is that in the end its the part of their own ecosystem and any adverse development for ecosystem will sonner or later catch up with them. So in case of a great sales performer leaving the company, colleagues get affected by loss of performance of company (may be strengthening of competitor), lower profits, lower bonuses for all, additional pressure on existing staff etc.

So is there a way to beat indifference in real world organizations? Yes, just like there are communities, societies, groups that have beaten it in other walks of life. But ofcourse it requires effort.

A few things organizations can do is to create community groups comprising of employees across functions around focus area like " workplace improvement", "destress group", "employee retention group", nasty boss management group", "troubleshooting group" and as many as need be. Involvement with such groups would enhance ownership sense within employees and would show them the way to handle issues at their level itself.

But then what will HR do? Thats for some other day..... :)

Angry MD

In less than one month I have come across three senior level professionals who confessed to be in a state of concern around their own temper. This included two MDs, one of them only marginally considers it an issue.

Bad temprament at the top can be very expensive for both the organization and shareholders. How much shareholders pay in terms of lost performance because of hot temperament of senior management would be indeed an interesting exercise - at least as interesting as Mckinsey's TCJ (total cost of jerks) if not more. But lemme anyways put down a few very logical damages that these top managers end up incurring on their companies:

• Hot tempramental leaders are less likely to create creative & high initiative teams.
• In fact they proactively end up killing initiative and promoting fear.
• Lot of company's time goes in discussing & managing trivia.
• Dressing up becomes important for everyone to avoid conflicts.
• Only a mad man would bring up bad news to these MDs.

In current organizational formations, when frontline staff and managers are often well educated and trained professionally, leadership teams would do well focussing more on providing guidance, future direction, knowledge sharing, employee welfare and promoting a culture of fearlessness, intrapreneurship, performance.

A few minutes of Yoga or meditations would be time well spent for top managers....well for shareholders - paying for Yoga would be cheaper.... :)

Recruitment Freakonomics

This came through just yesterday whie I was talking to Senior Vice President of large listed public company. Ofcourse I used Steven Levitt's freakonomical model to build the relationship clear.

The way almost all recruitment firms operate commercially is that they make money when an employee is successfully placed in an organization. For each such hiring, firm makes a cool 10 - 20% of the annual salary of the employee. That the employee is "the right guy" doesn't play any role in determining the payout. Ofcourse there are clauses & terms that do no good......here are a few freakonomical pointers to how things really are:

1. Larger the attrition in the account, larger the potential business for the firm.

2. If the firm places people who stay forever, it is killing its own market.

3. If successful placement is the key, dressing up candidate seems business need.

4. Best guy comes your way if your commercial term is relatively superior to other contracts.

5. Superstar will to the highest bidder, not to him but to the firm.

We can agree or we can find out........long live Levitt...

A great appraisal challenge !!!

Imagine getting into a new client relationship at apparaisal time and finding that some fifty professionals need to be appraised in absence of any suggested KRAs. Further more their roles also may not be defined clearly and both they and their managers cary different versions about their roles.

Now imagine you are in charge for pulling off this appraisal and there is a deadline. You are wishing you were better dead. So did we.

Thanks to survivor skills of our Group Manager that we really pulled it off after some intense discussions, definitions, form filling, processing and late night coffees.

While India seems to be on a one way journey of growth, state of affairs within organizations remains pretty dismal as far as organization building is concerned. Short cut seems to be the flavor at both companies and training schools thus making original work uninitiated & unrewarded.

plugHR's own research points out clearly that top reason for high attrition in companies is not salaries at all but absence of basic people management practices apart from faith in senior management.

Its time for coporate India to revisit basics we guess and put money where the mouth is. HR is the mouth :)