Alone and Together - distributed work model

May be to plugHR it came naturally, I realized only through other's observations that our corporate team wasn't really sitting close. I brave Mumbai, our India operations Head stays firm in the seat of power at New Delhi, advocacy manager hangs down south in Hyderabad and Head of Brand shuttles through Mumbai, Kolkata and New York.

It works really well for us and having worked like this for over three years now, I am tempted to share it as a well tested model. Rather than giving it a fancy jargon that could then do the rounds in HR circles like omnipresent beblades, I've called it "Alone & Together" model. Let me jump straight to the merits.

The A&T (thats just the short form, not a jargon...come on...) model is based on the premise that being alone allows for higher concentration, flexibility & creativity to be deployed at work, apart from getting less disturbed by the presence of others. Moreover, one is less likely to get drawn into unplanned operational mundanity (overlook the vocab invention). Members structure routine and work styles the way it works best for them and each achieves more.

Does that make the team any less together, naaah. With all kind of things popping up the lappi, you can't be more closer. Skype, Twitter, Facebook, BB messenger make sure that I can sense team members facial expressions, count their coffees and sometime even wake them up from afternoon siesta. We don't even miss meetings (the favorite corporate passtime), thanks to sabsebolo.com and the likes.

Its amazing to realize how some of these tools have made us all pretty much at work almost always and being at a particular place (erstwhile known as office) to be able to begin work has become distant memory. Did I say begin work? Well can't say even that exists anymore, the ends have blurred, work and life both simulcast around but for the time we sleep.

But that was before Inception became so believable ..... ahh, let me catch sleep while lines blur further... you got the model right?

Why HR Managers must understand social media well.

Why HR managers must understand social media well?

The other day, my close acquaintance dropped the hot job offer from a respectable company like a hot potato.  Reason was definitely new, she didn't get good vibes while browsing the brand up on social media. Before the hardworking HR manager and the already money sensing consultant could figure out what happened, my learned friend renegotiated terms with her current employer. I couldn't wait a day to put this down for the benefit of my hardworking HR friends.

With facebook reaching over 200 million users in record under a year, youtube being the largest search engine, over 200 million registered blogs and over 70 million users from 200 countries on LinkedIn, social media is the largest reachable collection of employable humans, of course far too suddenly, every other medium gave us good learning time.

HR managers now have a much larger role to play on social media, something that just can't be pushed to hyperactive marketing folks plainly. Look at the following aspects of human resource management that fall squarely in the middle of social media world.

1. HR for ages has been singing praises about referral hiring being the best form of hiring. Employee get employee schemes, other benefits have traditionally being doled out for generating referrals for hiring. Now if you overlook Linkedin that carries profiles that are pre-referenced, and with some effort you can make sense out of them, it would be criminal enough, isn't it? You must note that the smarty you spotted there, is going to do exactly the same on you, so make sure your organization group is there and it talks.

2. Employee engagement remains a challenge for organizations mostly because of lack of understanding of employees "likes", ha, what better place than facebook to see where are your people shooting their likes. Even FB events can give a lot of information about what employees want. Any MBA would then be able to cut and paste the events, formats, engagement programs. Similar or more focussed results can also be achieved if HR has implemented MyplugHR.com in their organizations.

3. Exit wounds exposed on social media can give you perennial lows, so HR must make sure that parting methods are simpler and more ladylike. Never lose sight of what ex-employees are doing out there, just in case there is one hurt ex-marine doing rounds, address it enough to closure.

4. If you ever were serious about your talk to CEO regarding building employee brand, you won't lose a day nor would you lose a thing from mention on as many networks as you can officially open at workplace. While you didn't sit in the class that started and ended at Kotler during your MBA, take a simple note; to make a brand, you got to talk first, talk enough and talk right. Keep your CEO informed initially, you may slip a few times, let the CEO pre-pardon some mistakes.

Now I can also run you through social media strategy but I am sure you'll put that together from the above material, in MBA we trust. Get social.

CEO - not entirely an insider

My recent experience made me think through the role of a CEO in context of representative of inside of organization and outside. While CEO is an entirely internal role paid for by the organization to promote its private objectives, to that extent, its perfectly fine if this role always remain sided with internal interests; I have a feeling that a CEOs role has also to do with some commitments towards the outsiders. Lets dwell deeper in this.

Typically, if as a customer, you feel upset about the service of organization, you want to write to the CEO of the organization. As a vendor, if your payments get delayed, you connect with the CEO or as an ex-employee, if your final dues aren't coming in time, you do the same. SO in all these cases, if our first assumption about a CEO being a total insider was true, all these outsider actually would not hold any hope for favorable response from CEO's office, isn't it. Fact is that, most of the time, outsiders do get attended to their concerns by writing to CEOs. This also suggests that not just the outsiders consider a CEO as someone who'll hear them as a neutral party but even CEOs see themselves responsible for even outside interests in outsiders dealings with their organizations. Call it corporate governance, or fair play, or organization culture, whatever; role of CEO does seem to have an accountability towards outsiders in safeguarding their interests along with driving business interests of their payee organizations.

Do outsiders also expect some assurance from the CEO of the organization that they interact with? Are there some assumptions here, let me try to lists down a few, my own guess;

1. Outsiders expect CEOs to be people with high integrity to society at large, sure about value of their own product/ service and sincere towards their organizations dealings with outsiders.
2. They also expect CEOs to be by and large fair. Along with that , they also feel that CEO is capable of taking the risk of siding with outsiders if fairness demands as long as its not entirely against organization's interest.
3. They also believe that a CEO is fully capable of going extra mile, put extra authority, spend extra time in helping outsiders, if she thinks its fair to do so.

Now some of this might not be true or consistent across the fraternity, but by and large, whether written or not, CEOs do seem to have the responsibility of guarding outside interests of people who deal with their organizations.

I once met a senior lawyer, who told me that if he is working for me, he'll write documents that are fully one sided in my favor; I am sure people see CEOs differently.

Its a complex subject and I have just shared my opinion. More comments are welcome.

How not to lose job over the weekend!!!

Last two months of my interaction with so many employees, both in job and out of job has revealed a sad insight. That there is a generation of professionals in the market today who have no idea about what it takes to hold the job. Call it the complacency of the good times, enough of them have no idea how their own businesses make money and most of them are too slow to figure out changes in market conditions.

So here’s a short list of things one can keep in mind in order to keep those weekends paid for long.

Your employer is doing less business and is making lesser profit than it used to, when you had happened to him first time.
Your employer’s first concern (and the right) is to seek profit, rather than keep your job. Your job is largely your problem.
There’s a high chance that you don’t have a job today, but if you do have, there are at least 500 worthy contenders for the same job who will, if given a freak chance, will do your job not just better but also probably at half the cost. So you better sleep on your desk.
Two day weekend wasn’t your birth right, it just came about less than a decade ago, my advise is don’t stick to self-destruct idiosyncrasies, manage with whatever is available, remember during wartime, soldiers go for months without weekends.
Annual leaves, 20 days holidays, international vacations; you better count yourself in jobless already.
Now the good news is that the employer is still around, and he does have jobs on him. You got to assure him that you can add to his profit, that the purpose of your job would be his profit and not your salary. That if you don’t make him money, you won’t make much either.
I get job applications on my site where I have explicitly asked for references. I get entries like “references upon request”, why the **** would I request more than asking for them on my website in full public glare. Others under the effect of some sedatives write “references during interview”, the guy has selected himself for the interview. You think I care, you think I was out of my mind to ask for references upfront…..so why don’t you just give it?
Are you getting the point? There are fewer jobs, but jobs there are unless you blow them off for yourself.
And for god’s sake, don’t ask for long leaves this year at least, you’ll do yourself a favor.

I sincerely wish you paid weekends forever…….. keep watching this space, I’ll write a few more that will help…….. stay relaxed but stay on your feet :)

Verdasco won, you didn't notice may be

First one to realize was Nadal himself. He jumped over the net to hug one of the best player I saw this season, Verdasco made Nadal sweat it out for every point for some 5 hours finally double serving the match into the net. If not a winner he's no loser either, this was probably the best Tennis of the tournament.

World loves the underdog and there's so much support for anyone who tries hard. Scenarios in organizations is no different. While there is so much hue and cry about organizations focus on training, its interesting to see that very few people actually try harder. While employees want the perks, lifestyle and recognition of a Nadal, they do not want to sweat it out for 5 hours. Fact remains that for those who try harder, there is no dearth of support and encouragement from organizations, even companies want new winners, more winners.

To turn into a winner is tough, even attempting to win is tougher, no one else can make you one, not even your organization no matter how much they spend in training. First you have to decide to run for the win.....and the sweat, the cramps, the breath, the focus......

Do you have it in you?

Got the guy...Induct him Boss!!!

Having gone through number of functional induction presentations, I thought it might be a good idea to just write about what we want to achieve through this induction. So here's my view....

Objectives of functional induction

1. To reassure the new member about her decision of joining the team.
2. To introduce the member to other members in the team.
3. To connect the member to History and Decorations of the team
4. To pictorially depict departments delivery commitments to company.
5. To describe department work flow.
6. To describe work styles and things that matter.
7. To apprise of frequently faced challenges.
8. To suggest names of team members who can be approached for initial handholding.

Apart from this, member should be taken through demands of her role, work relationships, KRAs and intial training if need be.

Please note that induction can be interesting or boring, based on how the presentation is made and delivered. Do not hesitate in taking professional help from designer to put together a great ppt. This is also the first time the new member would be judging you, so be the Boss :)

Where's MOM?

You can make out the difference between companies that respect MOM and those that don't.

Yes, I am talking about "Minutes of the Meeting". Its a surprise to find that though such a simple tool, MOM gets sheer neglect in so many organizations. I find MOM simple and highly effective tool to drive weekly kind of routine. In fact I think MOM can replace every other planning tool that people juggle with in day to day work, just paste last week's MOM right in front and keep striking.

May be it starts at taking notes right during review or weekly meetings, but once recorded along with action items and timelines, it can act as a single tool binding all teams and all committments.

So while corporate India, gets down to learning Chinese, spending an hour on how to write MOMs can be highly rewarding.

Next weekly meeting, ask, Where's MOM :)

Indian Appraisal Time

Its appraisal time in India - an activity where whole corporate India would spend time and effort. Believe it or not, performance appraisal is one of the most wonderful activities in the entire gamut of human resource management for managers.

Here is a list of advantages that performance appraisal offers to all stakeholders.

It is an opportunity for individuals to take stock of the whole year’s effort which would have seen good days and bad, accolades and brickbats, upbeat moments and stressful nights. Annual appraisal is time to unwind a bit and look back at those moments with the luxury of having passed through them.
For managers, its time to spend some quality time with team members when the agenda is not around consuming alcohol. Almost 80% managers would find this as the only time they got discussing work-life one to one with team. Smart managers would also find huge value in feedbacks from their team members around their own performance, behavior and get direct insights into what works directly from their consumers.
For organization, its an opportunity where by virtue of quality time being spent in the belly of management, huge value can get generated. Appraisal also provides for normalization of relationships, smoothening of operational kinks etc.

Now I can write a book on possible gains but I guess you’ve got the point. This whole gain rests on one fact i.e. Quality time spent during appraisal. So here’s a way to spend that quality time.

1. Appraisal is a two way process and should be conducted that way. Its important to check convenience of people to set appraisal appointment. Both people involved must do some preparation in terms of putting together indicators of performance. Preparatory notes should be made for discussing conflicts, confusions or disagreements.
2. Its advised to chose business hours to conduct appraisals, avoid early morning or late evening when unnatural pressures like reaching in time or leaving for home apply. Remember appraisal discussion is not additional work, on appraisal day, this discussion is THE WORK.
3. The value of learning, exploring and discussing would get realized if listening and talking is balanced properly. Managers must give their team members opportunity to talk enough. Members should be encouraged to discuss facts and data behind their assumptions. Insights would come out only if both work together on highlighted areas.
4. If for some reason argument erupts, it’s a good idea to take a break and again start discussions. There is no hard and fast format of conducting appraisal, mutual comfort is paramount. Also note down things on paper after some amount of talking has happened, its not required that from first sentence everything should be written down.

Quick points to remember

1. Appraisal is a much team member’s activity as it is for manager.
2. Any conversation that begins on pleasant note has higher chances of creating value.
3. Lot of times perceptions speak where as fact have to be found out. Find facts together.
4. Outcome of appraisal is not the paper, neither is it a rating, true outcome is the quality time spent between member and manager discussing performance issues, organization issues and methodologies to do better over time.
5. Increments, bonuses and other rewards only have a connection with appraisal process but that’s not the purpose of doing appraisals.
6. Last but not the least everyone has a right to disagree.

Please feel free to write to prashant@plughr.com if you have a direct question around the subject. Be patient for the reply, its appraisal time :)

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.....