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!

Are you Hungry??

Hunger is to want more…to achieve more...to perform more...to explore more

Look around yourself and you might find people hungry for knowledge, right opportunity  and other such intangible and worthy experiences .No wonder why Rashmi Bansal  titled her book ,”Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”!! Letting yourself want something will keep you hungry and realizing that you haven’t all that knowledge required will keep you foolish and this would end up in a success story…

When you find a profile updated on a portal, the first things which strikes you is a job seeker. But honestly it’s not always that though the idea of being successful is always at the back of one’s mind and we all in one way or the other are trying to settle our careers northwards. Looking for a job change is a career decision and many time job interviews however good, tricky or difficult they might be, is not right way to decide on this life changing event. I find many people changing jobs for reasons they themselves are not convinced and by the time they realize it’s too late even to run the ‘Rat Race’. For though we look forward for a bright career but wrong move makes us end up with a job. Now why do we attempt to jeopardize our future and just like me and you there are many others who would not like to re-invent the wheel

There is a section of our society who keeps itself updated with the general happenings in and around through different media and they are people who yet hungry but believe in ‘Better be safe than sorry ‘.And what they miss is the first hand experience on that risk. What would have happened if?? And this ‘if’ most of the times remains unanswered. Again the question is “What’s more important and is it worth it?”

So whether or not you a job hopper…

Whether or not you have an appetite for risk…

Whether or not your love your work…

You still are hungry!!

Interesting on an average we would agree that we not just crave for information but also self assessment and further the best option we find for the same is job interviews. Have come across people attending interviews in order to assess their knowledge though job change is not always the real reason. Frankly, what are the other options??But job interviews too cannot be an ideal way for such discussions. A typical interview will always revolve around the specific requirement and it hardly will let an attendee explore his/her grey areas. In such formal discussions we land up only to know what the other party requires and not what our capability is. So here the need was understand your strengths and analyse your past decisions but on the contrary you either land up with a job offer without still exploring those untouched areas or with an unsatisfied and confused feeling of what went wrong?.Ironically we never come to know the right answer.

You are always looking forward to conversation on similar frequencies as yours. There is always a need to let people know,”what you did last summer”. It’s always welcoming to know that there are people travelling in same boat and you are not a loner. Appreciation coming from your fraternity counts more that from unknown.

plugHR knows just how to do it. …

We brings ‘Career Café’ in different cities for the HR folks who believe they are hungry and what can satisfy it better than ‘good food of discussions’. Catching others for a casual coffee break will not just bring you out of your dilemmas and inhibitions but also a clearer picture of your inside, one you have been seeking and longing for.

So next time when you are hungry, let’s catch up for a coffee!!

My Tryst with Distance Running

It’s 5am on a Sunday morning, a God forsaken hour for most of Mumbai.. What am I doing? Donning my running gear to hit NCPA for a 15km run. Not a jog… a run.

Who am I? Entrepreneur, Head of User Experience at plugHR, mother of 2, artist.. What the hell am I doing, you wonder? I am training for the Mumbai Marathon, due in January 2013. And… I run with a 300+ strong group, all in their mid-40s (I am not necessarily talking about myself here!); all running enthusiasts, not sportspersons.

My initiation into distance running was a freak accident. However, I never, in my wildest dreams, thought of it as such a life changer.

Distance running, in as much as it's a physical sport, is also a mind game. It is a play of mind over body, a willing mind over an unwilling body if you will. The mind is setting a seemingly unrealistic goal for the body to deliver.

What does it take for the mind and body to deliver on this goal? To break it down simply, I will say:

BELIEVE – ACHIEVE – BELIEVE more

BELIEVE you are upto the task, believe in the training you are putting in.

Then ACHIEVE intermediate goals, win some mind battles,

Hence BELIEVE some more that you will achieve the bigger goal too.

So, when you smoothly run 5km without major heartburn, you convince yourself that another 3k is not such a big deal, so on and so forth.

Its not all smooth sailing mind you. There is the occasional calf pain, knee pain, twist in the ankle, there are bad running days, there is bad weather, there are shoe bites, there are late nights, and there are bad terrains.  At times, the body simply refuses to take direction. Be kind it says!

Therein lies another lesson… very early on, it is amply clear to any runner, that a good run is just that - ONE good run. You understand that “Past performance is no guarantee of future return”. If and when you begin to become smug in your achievements, nature very quickly deals a sobering effect. So, you learn to take each day as it comes. Each run is “the” run, each run has its own outcome. There is no time to celebrate one good run, and no time to gloat over a bad one. You just basically get on with it!

Of course, this also takes other kinds of preps:

1.    There are the groaning and back breaking stomach crunches, knee exercises,  pushups – yes, those too!
2.      .    Don’t forget, the carbohydrate loading, throwing all weight loss dietary habits to the winds
3.     And then, and this is the tough part, no partying late into the night, watching the booze intake, watching meal times (all the boring stuff)

The focus always being on conditioning the mind and body to endure the rigors of training and the mental and physical strain you are about to inflict on them.

Why endure all of this you ask? Well, the buzz and the adrenalin rush that you experience on crossing the finish line, with breaths to spare, are altogether something else!

So - and here is where I get philosophical - are there lessons here to use in a corporate setting? The lesson, to my mind, is in the area of performance management, goal setting, motivation.

·      How do we create an environment where people are able to experience and live out the cycle of BELIEVE – ACHIEVE – BELIEVE more?

·      How can rewards and recognition be fine-tuned to not only pat a good run on a bad day but also support a bad run of an otherwise smart runner?

·      How do we put enough stress on fortification while all the hype is on the run?

Would love to hear view on some of these.. 

Writer is Entrepreneur, running enthusiast, artist.

Employees on Social Media?? ....Are you losing sleep??

Social Media at the workplace HAS to be the biggest dilemma facing CEOs today. Are these to be viewed as a bane or should they be embraced as superb tools for collaboration.

There are too many questions and not many easy answers.

For one, what should the policy be on use of Facebook at the workplace? If permitted, should usage be monitored? If not, is this a policy that can be enforced? And do you risk alienating employees rather than boosting their productivity? 

What about Linked-in? How do you view employee profiles? Are these threats to the organisation or are they marketing tools that showcase your company and its talent?

The collaborative powers of social media in cultural and marketing contexts are well known and do not require reiterating here. That it can unleash the true potential of an organisation through seamless collaboration and sharing between employees is an idea that's biding its time. 

While companies are increasingly articulating their social media strategy for customers, not enough attention has yet been given to social media for employees. 

A Report by McKinsey Global Institute argues that companies could improve productivity of "interaction workers" by 20 - 25% through improved collaboration and communication using social technologies. To my mind, however, there are some basic building blocks in getting there:

1. Does the organisation have a truly open and trusting culture and does it have the bandwidth to engage with employees in a democratic setup?

2. Is social media an entrenched management and communication tool within the company or just another dashboard available on the company's intranet?

3.  Does the top management truly embrace social media or looks at it only as an internal "PR" tool?

So where are you on all of this? Do you have the stomach for it???

HR as a Scapegoat!

A scapegoat is defined as someone who is punished for the mistakes of others.

I thought of writing this, as one of the cases being discussed in the forum was about Operations people blaming HR department for some failures.

Amusing isn’t it? but still we have all faced it at some point of time in our organizations. We as HR professionals are punished or blamed for what some other department or may be the owner is doing.

Sometimes, people even forget that HR people are also employees and do not take all the decisions on their own, they also have a reporting structure and a decision making authority is above them, still the blame for anything goes to “yours truly” the HR department.

Be it delay in opening bank accounts, salary transfer delays, low ratings during appraisals, bad hire, policy implementation, less or more training, low hikes, less salary…and what not. You name it and our fraternity has taken the blame.

The case which is being discussed talks about whether the HR department can be made accountable for the failure of the operations team, what do you think?

If it is a case of Bad hire, then obviously single handedly one cannot blame the HR department as operations people must or should have taken part in the recruitment process.

If it is the case of Non performance, then what were the senior officials doing? Sleeping when the performance was going below par? What were they up to? What about the internal checks, KRAs and performance reviews? Do you really think only HR department needs to control all these things. The answer is- no.

Then why are we being treated like that, because when you are dealing with 100 different cultures, 100 different backgrounds, 100 different personalities and yes with different attitude these things are bound to happen.

Yes, this is the only department that takes the responsibility when they are not able to solve the problem of any employee, or to be honest we get the blame as we do not communicate properly or in abundance.

• It is our failure actually to not communicate properly, if it is about delay in opening of bank accounts, tell the employees clearly that you are just a mediator between a bank and the employee, the delays can come from the side of the Bank if the documentation or paper work is not complete.

• If it is about not giving enough hike in the salary, please communicate informally that HR department also works with budgets, there is a specific budget within which we have to finalize the salary hikes. So, how can we be held responsible for something like this?

• Open communication channel always work where you are dealing with such diverse backgrounds, and yes, do not take unnecessary responsibility of dealing with everything on your own, involve people from other departments especially during recruitment.

• Have SOPs, policies and procedures for everything, no matter how small the thing looks like make sure it is documented and clearly communicated.

• Create a culture where there is no blame game, people take responsibility of their own actions and make sure they are accountable for certain things related to their work areas. Companies with such cultures of strong leadership do not come across such scapegoat kind of problems.

• Process orientation is very important, for completely avoiding the passing of the ball in the organization. Process integration is one such solution where you have well defined process, where operations process ends, where Accounts department process starts everything should be clearly declared and decided. This reminds me of an example in one of the Textile Companies I worked for, if anything went wrong the scapegoat was the Administration department, if logistics department failed to transfer some goods from one place to another; it was Admin Dept.’s fault as they did not provide the driver on time. Bingo!! Does it solve the problem? No my dear it does not.

So just stop being a scapegoat, grow up and let the company grow with you. When the ball is in your court make sure you utilize it completely for the sole purpose of your's and your company’s growth. 

Let me hear from you, your side of Scapegoat Story...:) 

Keep it simple honey!!

Keep it simple honey…

My days are generally busy and though I start quite early still squeezing out time for my favorite section of News Daily becomes next to impossible, courtesy my adorable son. Today was no different just that I managed to catch a glimpse of Times Ascent and came across this great article on performance management system based on an interview of Mr. Thomas J DeLong, professor at Harvard Business School.

As per the Professor an organization has three types of workers. A, those who exceed expectations, B who meet expectations and C are ones who are below expectations. Now I wish most of the organizations could keep it that crisp rather than further dividing it into some five to six categories, all because the managers are either not equipped or are not aware how to measure the expectation. This does nothing but in turn complicates the entire appraisal system and leads to confused employees with respect to their performance and even more stressed supervisors who spend months convincing them regarding the ratings they themselves never understood.

All this reminds me of BCG Matrix where Business units are categorized into Stars, Cash Cows, Dogs and Question Marks. Though it refers to a marketing lesson but same can be applied on Human assets where Stars are ‘A’ performer, ones who are future leaders and viewed as critical mass in an organization. Cash Cows are however the ‘B’ performers ones who are not just competent but most steady and reliable ones, infact just like cash cows they are ones who run the show and Dog are definitely the ‘C’ performers who are below expectation and should be either pushed toward being more productive or asked to exit from the system. Any organization should not hire question marks at all!!

We all know this but what lacks here is that mostly the focus is on A performers who are self driven and high on aspirations which if not satisfied internally would move out of system voluntarily, no matter what. After which, mostly we are concerned about C category and how can they be pumped to perform better. Now what we mostly ignore is the B category that works the best, balances work life with personal fronts and is extremely engaged to the organization. But ignoring this category raises unnecessary concerns which if not handled maturely and timely leads to exits from the block and ultimately affecting the profitability of the system.

Cutting the long story short, lesser categories will make life easier for all and not to mention will have more happy faces around.

 

 

 

 

Additional Responsibilities- Are you game?

There have been discussions about what to do in the free time at office/work. If at all we all have any free time, do you think taking some extra responsibilities without giving any hints to the seniors or bosses about the free time is possible? Why not? Give it a try.... Recently while taking an interview of a senior HR professional, the similar discussion cropped up- The guy was just not ready to sit relaxed and hence he took up the additional responsibility of handling operations.... what's your take?  How can we do that...read on

Being handed new work duties is part and parcel of restructuring drive within an organization. Saying yes to new challenges at work is always an opportunity to learn new skills, contribute more towards the growth of the company and career building bridges. However, the load of new responsibility will require some extra input on your part. Here’s how you can make the role transition a smooth process:

Rendezvous with your peers Before you assume charge of some new work responsibility, it is important to gain insight into the role from the person who held the responsibility before you. Go beyond discussing the mere protocol involved; rather have a discussion over the nature and scope of the task you are about to take over.

If it is a newly proposed work, then discuss with the colleague who initiated the idea and/or gave you the responsibility for the same to develop an action plan in order to get started.

Amalgamate new work with existing one. Next, you will need to integrate the new tasks with your present work schedule. An addition to already existing responsibilities can leave you overwhelmed and mismanaged for both time and thought.

You can begin by grouping work that is similar to some existing work in adjacent slots as it gets done faster, with your thought process already aligned in the particular direction. Thus take stock of your daily schedule and create concrete work pockets for different tasks ensuring that the increase in duties does not hamper your original work arrangement.

Take on only as much as you can handle. As your work responsibilities expand, so will the need arise to create a work plan to judge how well you can manage your previous and newly added duties. Be clear on how much you can add to your plate without hampering your productivity and efficiency. There are times when we think our plate is not full and we just keep on filling it and then one day we realize that we are stuck. We have no idea how all this came to us and we cannot do it. So, just take it easy and go on slowly while asking for new tasks.

Initial regular assessment is important. As you assume the new responsibilities, take out time to gauge the progress and impact of your efforts. It’s best that you define the methodology and the projected outcome of the tasks in the beginning before they become accepted processes. Take the feedback from your seniors at various intervals, so that you know you are on the right track and taking a suggestion and advice from experts will surely add value in the long term prospects.

Take challenging tasks: Be open to work with new challenging assignments if you have any free time. Don’t jump over to any opportunity that comes your way, evaluate, introspect and work as per your areas of strength and where you can have some new opportunities of learning.

Learn new things for job enrichment: The same work, less work can add monotony and going to the office may start feeling like a burden. Yes, that’s what happens we all have seen such phases in our career. So what do we do? Start learning new things, look around and whenever an opportunity strikes at your door, just grasp and learn. 

For example if you are in HR role and just handle recruitment, start learning about other HR functions in spare time. Observe, understand and then learn best practices while still working your own thing. This way you can get better opportunities in the future.

HR Interview @ tweethon

I always wondered what did one bird say to another while enjoying their sun bath on a window… and then years later twitter said it all…though this time it was the humans tweeting just like birds!!

At plugHR every Thursday might not be new day but it’s a day where we have a new tweet – marathon fondly called ‘Tweethon’ . plugHR, a team which believes in matching pace with the latest happenings and loves to create an inertia of movement, is worth following on twitter @plughr. The topics range from Human behavior to HR trends and sometimes simple yet interesting as Social Media.

But the last tweethon was worth mentioning for the topic though generic was too intriguing and looking at all the tweets together I couldn’t stop myself from compiling this version for any such future reference. With no intention to take the credit from Ms Jharna Guleria, our Talent Acquisition Head who somehow not just manages to hire amazing HR folks but also brings up great topics for tweeting J

And  this time she started with a question which is a part and parcel of any HR professional’s life irrespective of the sides?? Here she tweets…

jharna guleria‏@jharnaguleria

wht r the interviewing questions u ask ur candidates nd skills u assess thru thm.Tweet ur thots @plugHR tweetthon 2day at 4:00PM

and here you go with the tweeting tweets @plughr…

Rohini‏@plughrRohini

Key to the best recruitment - right employee fit in organizations - is asking the right interview questions. - interviewing questions start with generic questions followed by competency based questions, which produce right results.

Clara Pinto‏@clarapintoo

How long would you expect to work for us if hired?......helps to understand the stability factor

Trusha‏@trusha16

We can ask candidate What did he/she initially found interesting about job

What is the most difficult or tricky situation you have faced in your career and what you did to solve that

what frustrate or demotivates you

Rakshita Dwivedi‏@Raks_d

Ask the candidate to tell about himself from his last memory helps judging his personality

asking fav family member and why? kind of people he prefers to work with

Hemant Nitsure @HemantNitsure

Q for ppl who say hobby=readin/ movies. Why U lik particular book/ movie? If u wer 2 make changes in it wht wil u change?

Shipra Kundu‏@KunduShipra

bluff cud also b checkd by askin which is ur fav book and who is the author? most of them get trapped by tis

Aafreen‏@aafreenkhan

If you could take back one career decision, what wld it be?If genuinely like their choice of career or wish something else

Its imp 2 define competences desired for the role and a question to figure out d same. And probing questions 2 find more

manoj shah‏@manojbshah

Kishore Biyani founder of Pantaloons would ask candidate to first ask all the Questions they had. one can gauge the IQ of that person with the questions he/she asks and also tells what they are looking for ?

Top 3 failures and your learning from them ? We know which mistake he won't make again

Ask their best TV serial or movie or Sports& why they like it. You would assess how passionate they are about their liking

If you step out of room & there's a gene asks ur 3 wishes, what it wud be ? Assess candidates priorities in Life,funny bt works

Shobha Bade‏@Sho_bade

asking recent most learning, & the source of learning

PrashantBhaskar‏@prashantbhaskar

I interviewed someone who gave all good answers but then lost fuse for she was made to meet us 4 times, failed in practise

kushang™‏@itskushathon

what benefits would the organization have by hiring you

Ask the candidate to tell about himself from his last memory helps judging his personality

jharna guleria‏@jharnaguleria

how wud u rate ur experience wit ur current organizatn frm 1 to 10? Ths wil shw attributes of being reasonable & practical

This was indeed an interesting tweety way of HR interview questions and I am sure ,just like me next time you would also ask couple of them while assessing a candidate. And for all those who want to be part of such interesting and tweeting topics feel free to join us in a tweetthon any Thursday at 4pm @plughr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HR Lessons from Life!!

Why have you chosen HR as your field??

Mostly asked question during my jobs interviews. No matter how I answered the question but had never given the real reason. The reason was that I have learned it at various stages of my life though the realization only came when formally studied it during my MBA…

 

Born as a first child in the family was welcomed with open arms however my overwhelmed parents were not sure how to handle the crying bundle of joy. And then my grandmother with her age old experience pacified me by feeding and singing a soothing lullaby. My first lesson - analyzing the situation and problem solving and second lesson came hand in hand – nothing can beat the experienced .No wonder why I always loved her so much. Then gradually with time as I grew so did my lessons. Every time I was scolded or praised I understood the theory of negative and positive reinforcements. When my wishes were categorized as acceptable or not acceptable in a way my parents were teaching my Maslow’s need hierarchy.

Every time good merits were awarded both in school and back at home ,theory of motivation made place in my mind. Further boarding schools and college taught me team work &conflict management .Moreover  limited pocket money was probably a lesson on budgeting and resource management .Working and handling student associations and strict wardens not just helped me better my people management  and leadership skills but also handling difficult people ;)

Now comes the most interesting and exciting lesson which indeed has been very close to my heart. As time flew and my parents started to look for a prospective groom. Not to mention I am happily married person but husband hunting is unbeatable. Three years and after dozen of meetings I finally got the right fit .The whole things sounds so much like recruitment where the focus should always be to get the right candidate and not compromise on quality for that leads to smooth functioning of the system.

Life always has been an amazing teacher, whose age is as much as you but infinite experience. Every day is a new lesson and maybe I chose to imbibe the HR ones….how about you??

 

 

Running in Loops is Easier

In context of Mind-Body-Spirit, running is a contest between you and fatigue. Commonly fatigue is perceived as a physical problem you envision like rise in blood acidity or a lot of muscle tension, no doubt these are the causes of the tiredness but functioning of the brain plays a significant role in feeling drained out or energetic.

If your brain believes that your body is struggling it starts taking measures and defensive approaches that hampers your performance.  So actually, it is not that always your potassium levels are high but most of the times it is all in your head.

External factors affect running on a huge scale like running in a straight line or a loop. It is by far easier to run in loops as it provides the change factor that in turn motivates the runner. Looking at the same path, running the same course stagnates your performance and makes it highly monotonous. The monotony of running in the long straight line without being able to see the destination will eventually affect the person psychologically.

When a person begins to run in a loop, he is aware that he has to arrive at at the same point where he has started from. This creates a sense of known and awareness that are direct confidence boosters so he can judge accordingly the distance he has to cover and control the fluctuation in energy levels, while straight lines give a sense of unknown. You cannot see the finishing point that essentially drives and motivates you to reach at that point. 

Meeting our targets is the most motivating factor to get out and run. Loops create a mirage and make the distance look lesser to cover. Mind perceives the distance as an achievable short-term goal.

Ultimately, one needs to find out what works best for that little chamber of neurons to stay activated and send the signals to the body to run better. Whether it is focusing on a destination or enjoying Eminem on highest decibels.  

what's in the place??

When I told my friend that I work with Plughr, a work flex organization which gives me an option to work from home and I am on a lookout  for a baby sitter, she first couldn’t  relate to it and very candidly said , “why do you need to do that when you are anyways are at home?”

Now lets not blame her  for this ,mostly you would find people joking around as WFH to be work for home than work from home and worse is that most of the times  its true. A great work flex model, if not practiced properly  fails to keep upto the real intention. Work from home can be a dream job for people like me who want to cut down on travelling to save it for more quality time with family and better output,  for you can’t beat the work engagement and concentration without collegues .Infact  when I got one , could only thank my brightest star for the that.But its not an easy ride and to make it happen the way it should ,one has to consciously put efforts to streamline the work. Office working always has its own advantage over virtual , where most of the intangible things like taking a break, amount of efforts, actual working hours put, need no explanation for its mostly visible .But the moment you are out of the visibility arena your work has to speak for you and further you have to make your self more vocal. Though technology has helped a lot in this front still there are areas which are not as transparent and that’s where the challenge lies.

Moreover work from home is just a change of place and not the schedule.Will you entertain your neighbor if you were in office then why should you when working from home? If you need groceries do it after office hours and not in your lunch break. Making a personal call should be limited to only urgent ones. Strong reporting and regular meeting is a wonderful way to let you manager know about your progress. At Plughr we have morning rhythm (con call) where we discuss our daily routine and that also keeps us on our toes for as an individual we are answerable towards our self defined milestones.Also regular webinars and weekly official visits helps building rapport with team member and collegues. Interesting all throughout working for technology companies before plugHR , I never got an opportunity to be so tech savvy as I am now. Credit goes to Go-to-meeting and  sykpe for never letting me feel that working from home can be boring .I also have found people complaining about no time limits to work, but that’s true for office jobs  as well.Why blame 'work from home' for that? Mostly the culprit is the time management, again a very crucial aspect for working remotely.Setting up a schedule and most importantly following it that way can be a great help too.

Another very important aspect is the acceptability of the model with employers and clients. I remember initially my client wasn’t comfortable enough with the work from home model and it took us some time to make him believe that it works. To sum up its very easy to falter in this model and most of the times its because we don’t practice the basic rules properly but the beauty is to follow it the right way and enjoy the benefits attached to it.

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?

Proof of Performance Intention

Last month plugHR made a significant shift towards its performance preparedness. Taking leaf from Military, plugHR made some items as "issue items" in Project Manager inventory, a step that takes plugHR Managers on a different level on day one at work. It took managers a week to digest the move (possibly HR lived without them for too long) but the benefits are for all to see now.

Ofcourse these steps are simple, almost natural to a large professional population, taking it to HR was one move though. So if the idea to work at plugHR crosses your mind, here's a quick list of things you'd be expected to be ready with.

1. plugHR asks you whether you use a mobile phone with push mail facility (blackberry or their cheaper counterparts). If you don't or don't intend to, we gladly pay for your coffee and end the discussion there. In plugHR language, you are not even ready to perform even at intention level, hence we save ourselves from your long stories of imaginative bravado. Do we provide you with such phones? Of course not, just the way we don't buy you clothes, or shoes or laptops. If you don't own either of these, you were not thinking of working anyways.

2. We push lot of learning content to our team through webinars and other interactive medium that requires laptops, headphones, speakers, ability to put them together and login into interactive sessions. Here we do give you one training considering there are still business schools in India that don't give a damn to technology.

3. We use online project management tools off the cloud and you won't run a day if you can't walk in the clouds. Again we do run a demo, but running you do. Lot of it is simple, my 7 year old daughter runs some of them well, but you need to get over the freeze.

This is not an exhaustive list but this states the point that I am trying to make. For a professional, preparedness matters and we check for that. We treat your selection of tools as a Proof of Performance Intention. If you come with it, we'll ensure that you perform and grow and grow others and build organizations. Thats what HR is all about isn't it?

To check whether you fit at plugHR or not, write in prashant@plughr.com

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.

SMEs offer great experience - do they?

Last month, I attended two efforts around understanding human resource’s resistance towards working with small & medium industry. First as a panelist at SME mentoring session put together by Dare & Dell at Bangalore and more recently at SME roundtable held at WE School Mumbai. Incidentally while two forums were slightly different in their participation and agenda, I could see a common pattern emerging.

In both, amidst lot of democratic distribution of knowledge & sympathy, I could sense a somewhat frustrated cry from SMEs around the fact that professionals including fresh MBAs do not like to join SMEs. In Bangalore discussion, MNCs were blamed for bringing this curse on Indian SMEs while in Mumbai, way and means were being discussed to push young MBAs by force into SME workplaces.

There was talk abound, of the great work experience that awaits professionals once they join SMEs.

Somehow, I hold a slightly different view and I did raise it in both the forums but may be I couldn’t say it enough. So here it is once again.

Let’s for a moment look at a typical SME set up that one can see, on any bad day walking through some by-lane of Andheri East in Mumbai. The workplace would for sure look far from inviting and one can be almost certain to be greeted by a rude, smelly, cluttered reception. If you feel thirsty or get nature’s call, you can rest assured to catch an infection without much effort. Imagine how motivating this workplace would be for professionals to come in every day and gain that valuable experience.

Now, in most cases, during interview not much would be told about the role & career progressions, in fact the whole discussion might revolve around how part of money would be based on performance. If you expect that you’d be told about performance parameters, you’re being a typical MBA. Your interviewer may not have any idea about what kind of targets exit in business plan; in fact business plan itself might not exist.

If you join, don’t expect good appointment letters, Induction is a joke and training – you are supposed to have taken during MBA.

Now frankly, I haven’t met many young MBAs who would have slogged to get through a competitive exam and then read best of management work through two years, dreaming about a career opportunity at an SME of the kind I just helped visualize above. So my take is that rather than focusing on hiring MBAs, SMEs would do well to sponsor few of their existing employees to evening education and they’d do well by joining one such class themselves.

I am not saying that SMEs do not offer good experience, may be they do, but you can’t figure that out in absence of any communication around it. Also absence of basics and indulgence of top management in mundane stuff completely gets professionals wondering how long will the ship sail; it doesn’t sink you’d say but remember the experience of turbulence during flights; now imagine traveling like that all through.

SMEs must look inside and focus on turning themselves bit more attractive to be able to attract talent. Blaming MNCs or blaming MBAs for getting attracted to great workplaces won’t help. Good news is that its not all that impossible but that’s for another day….....

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?

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 :)