Do you Bake Cookies @ Work?

I am a “Workflex” mom and typically am running short on patience with kids getting extra enthusiastic about working around the house during my “working” hours.

Today was one such day. Early on in the day, my 10 year old decided that he needed to hone his baking skills, and TODAY was THE day he wanted to do it, and of course, now was the only time!

So we got into this argument about how it’s not such a great idea to do it at 9:30 in the morning on a working day and how it was wiser to wait until the maid got in and was around to assist, trouble shoot, clean up, etc.

Arnie (the aforementioned 10 year old), was of course having none of that and he resolved that he would brave on and do it all on his own…… So far so good! Promptly, out came the recipe book, pans, ingredients, weighing scale, spatulas, gloves, blender et al. I could feel my blood-pressure rise but decided, for the sake of my peace of mind, to allow this transgression!

And so it was that Arnie, who knew nothing about baking, had never baked alone ever in his 10 year life, had only rudimentary knowledge of kitchen implements, but who was never short on purpose, enthusiasm and chutzpah, baked the most delicious, gorgeous cookies I had ever eaten. And here I was, berating him for the mess he had made, the countless interruptions he had added to my work, the general chaos in the house with the dog getting frisky on all the food smells and a kitchen that was getting increasingly buttery and floury!

When I look back at this, what exactly did he learn?? Hopefully, he learnt that when you want to do something badly, just go ahead and do it, doesn’t matter if mom thinks of it as a good idea; And not – “Mom never appreciates that I am doing something Awesome!”

What did I learn? Well, there is short-term pain when there’s an enthusiastic hand around. But with some nurturing, how that hand can create AWESOMENESS!

Ok, now let’s extrapolate this to your organization… Do you have Arnies around? What do you do with them? Do you allow the overwhelming urge of playing it safe and keeping everything clean and perfect to dominate? OR Do you allow them to bake their cookies despite the mess they will surely make? In short, are you experiencing AWESOMENESS?

Would be keen to know!

Slowdown can get you more garbage

So three months into slowdown now, have you started getting brilliant people easily in your company. I am not surprised if your answer is no. If I ask, have you seen clear sign on better performance from new, improved employees who are joining now and your answer is no, I am not surprised again.
There's something so fundamental about attracting & engaging talent that market conditions seldom play significant role here. You have to answer one simple question, "why should someone join your company" and this question remains valid as long as the number of workplaces in the world do not shrink down to one.
So in absence of this answer, it would remain a challenge to attract & engage talent. Do not mistake attracting & engaging talent with hiring, so may still be able to hire. But its highly expensive to run the company with just hired employees and not the "attracted & engaged" ones. The behavior of engaged employees is very very different from the hired ones and most of the time when you are complaining about your employees its this difference that you are talking about.
So lemme add a few pointers about how you can try to build attraction:
1. Its a no brainer that if you can contruct a clear strong core purpose around your business existence, nothing attracts better. NGOs, Revolutionaries use this always.
2. You can be bigger than your competitor thus can offer people learning, training, handholding, bigger team, clear growth path....or you can be smallere than your competitor thus can offer them flexibility, multitasking opportunity, nearness to top management, less hierarchy etc.
3. You can be easy to reach office, fewer day's work office, no-office, fun office, open office, food at office, green-office, garage-office, but it must be attractive for one reason or other.
4. Again a no-brainer, talented people would expect you to know your numbers right and if your numbers seem too less for even their ambitions, they may not get attracted. When was the last time you got excited because someone was a chasing a business idea that could get as big as Rs.10 Lakh.
These are just thought triggers, point is, you must find answer to "why should someone work for you" to be able to attract talent. Is that enough? I am not sure, but its the essential. Till then keep hiring :)

HR in the Times of Slowdown

Slowdown may not be all that bad for organizations if they retain the balance to pull out all those quadrant two items that never saw daylight during long period of growth.

Here’s a list of things that HR departments may want to run through;

1. Take time from CEO and run through manpower plan just in case it was given to you before mid-September 2008.

2. If you’re still hiring, take a hard look at salary structures that you’d offer. You’ll be surprised how much de-risking you can do for your organization now.

3. Offer a salary correction rather than raise at interview. Remember if all assets were over valued, so was human asset and there is no reason that later shouldn’t get corrected. My guess is 20 – 25% correction is a fare call.

4. Functions where deliverables can be easily measured, keep performance linkages to payouts. You can provide for higher payouts on better performance considering value of high performance during slowdown can be much more than usual days.

5. It’s a great time to test senior management commitments, propose a salary cut. Up to 15% salary cut doesn’t hurt anyone’s lifestyle at senior level.

6. While you look at costs, please note that cutting a few cups of tea may not impact costs much but can cause discomfort to large part of the team, so avoid high visibility low impact calls.

7. This is a great time to bring everyone’s attention to performance. Leaders can inspire people to deliver unexpected performances in tough times. This has been seen during wars, natural calamities time and again.

8. Lastly do not stop smiling, playing, movies, rewards, recognitions. Interact with teams regularly and in high spirits. Listen to some Bob Dylan...times they are a changin... :)

HR can build a business

So I am at it again, professing the role of HR as one that builds business right from the core rather than playing people charmer in organizations. In most of our start-up accounts, we have started realizing that one of the severe limitations founders have here is their inability to put discipline in most of their initiatives. So you have a business desire with very little plan, you have hiring ambition with very little form filling, organization structure that resembles flow of neurons in their head and business ideas that move like Amoeba.

One significant contribution that plugHR team seems to be making at these places is forcing discipline across levels. Need to make a manpower plan is forcing founders to write their business plans. Policy structure document is making neurons work overtime and we have tried to save the organization from ever changing Amoeba. Can't say we've succedded all along, but attempting is pretty much half way through.

So when start-up goes on overdrive, you better have plugHR on the navigator seat :)

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.”