Human Resource (HR) Articles

H2O Approach towards Human Resource

Harsh Thakkar — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:27:23 +0000

Professional H2O

What comes to our mind when we see this formula H20. H2O is water. Just as water is indispensable for our life, we over here are emphasizing that H20 is indispensable to succeed in professional life as well. What is H20. Why is it that we are emphasizing on it. Why is it so crucial? Well the answer goes as follows:

H- Honesty

H- Holistic approach

O- Optimism

Honesty

Many organizations keep blowing the trumpet about this word. Also, the interviewer ia keen to know about this aspect of yours. Why is it so? The answer is obvious. We may say that everyone is not honest. Agreed People may not do business with honest people but people certainly won’t do business with dishonest people. Honest people get satisfaction out of honesty. Half truth is a whole lie. This takes us to the next point

Holistic Approach

Holistic Approach is thinking about the whole of something, and not just dealing with particular aspects. This may sound contradictory to the theory that suggests break a big event into small pieces and success is yours. We are not against this. By holistic approach, we mean apply PEST to decision making. What is PEST

P-Political

E-Economic

S-Social

T-Technical

Apply this and you will automatically get the holistic idea. Of course, mastering this takes time. Applying in reverse order is advisable

Optimism

When we apply holistic approach, we tend to weigh pros and cons. Then where does this optimism comes from which looks only positive aspects. No, optimism does not look only positive aspects, it also looks at negative aspects in a positive way. When you live your life with an appreciation of coincidences and their meanings, you connect with the underlying field of infinite possibilities. This means that if one day in your professional life is not so good, say ‘Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost’

Drink this H20 daily and observe the difference in your professional life weekly, monthly and quarterly. The difference is guaranteed. So lets begin the process of engaging ourselves wholeheartedly towards our goals. Imagine you are running towards your goal. Whenever you get tired, drink water/Professional H20 and revive yourself with the lost enthusiasm. At last, I would say ‘Paani piyo Dil se Jiyo, Drink H20, here you Go’

Downsizing

Harsh Thakkar — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:05:54 +0000

Downsizing refers to a company’s decision to reduce its workforce for reasons other than

- Poor performance

- Criminal conduct

- Unethical behavior

How is Downsizing an Ethical Issue ?

It is understandable that companies want to minimize their liability when they downsize

There are economic matters to consider, which makes downsizing a management issue

At its core, downsizing is an ethical issue, and the good manager is concerned not just with protecting the company’s financial and legal interests but also with honoring the dignity and integrity of the human beings who work on the front lines and who are the lifeblood of the organization

Difference between Lay-Off and Downsizing

In traditional layoffs, employees are asked to leave temporarily and return when the market situation improves.

In downsizing, employees are asked to leave permanently.

Roots

In the 1980s, downsizing was mostly resorted to by weak companies facing high demand erosion for their products or facing severe competition from other companies.

By the 1990s, as even financially sound companies began downsizing, investors began considering the practice as a means to reduce costs, improve productivity and increase profitability.

Desired Positive Outcomes

During the early 1990s, organizations resorted to downsizing on account of various reasons:

- To eliminate duplication of work after mergers (if any)

- To optimize resources and cut costs

- To increase productivity and efficiency by eliminating unnecessary intermediary channels.

Following changes observed in organizational culture after downsizing:

- Power shift from middle management to top management

- Shift in Focus from Individual Welfare to Organizational Welfare

- Change in working relationships (from being familial to competitive)

- Depression, anxiety, frustration, anger and bitterness in the downsized employees

- Possible job loss, relations with new superiors, revised performance expectations and uncertainties regarding career advancement amongst surviving employees

Questions difficult to answer

Who must be laid off ?

How much notice they will be given?

The amount of severance pay

How far the company will go to help the laid-off employee find another job ?

Observations

Downsizing is a toxic solution

Ignoring all the signs pointing to a layoff until it’s too late to plan adequately; then action must be taken immediately to reduce the financial drain of excess staff is clear

LIFO – Its irrational

This approach may succeed from a legal perspective, but not necessarily from the larger and more important concern of organizational health.

3 Magical words in decision making are ‘Impact on Business’

Thus, downsizing is good for the company but bad for its employees

What is Cost to Company?

Harsh Thakkar — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 05:11:43 +0000

Profit is the final objective of the company. Who drives it ? Employee. Companies are often criticized for the fact that they earn tonnes of money and pay peanuts to the money makers i.e. employees. Consider your home, is living at home free ? No. How can making others work for your company be free? There is a cost attached to profit making. Over here, we are talking about Cost to the company (CTC).

The Cost to Company refers to the total expenditure a company would have to incur to employ you. It is often mistaken as salary. Salary ideally is fixed salary and may even include variable pay but for CTC many other factors come into picture. It is simply a sum of various components put together.Of course, every rational organization attempts to minimize this as much as possible.

‘The fact of the matter is that today, stuff-selling mega-corporations have a huge influence on our daily lives. And because of the competitive nature of our global economy, these corporations are generally only concerned with one thing.. the bottom line. That is, maximizing profit.

- David Suzuki

The essence of a successful business is really quite simple that people will pay for at a price sufficiently above your costs, ideally three or four or five times your cost, thereby giving you a profit that enables you to buy and to offer more products and services.

Components of CTC

- Fixed Salary

- Fringe Benefits

- Perquisites

- Bonus

- Retirement Benefits

Fixed Salary

Fixed Salary includes Basic, Dearness Allowance and House Rent Allowance. It is taxable in nature. It is generally determined by first 2 Ps of 3P compensation which are Person, Position & Performance.

DA differs from city to city as this is directly associated with the cost of living. E.g. DA in Mumbai is surely higher than that paid in Baroda. This basket is revised periodically by the government and given to the company which contains cost of living details considering the prices of essential commodities.

House Rent Allowance (or HRA): Paid to meet expenses of renting a house. The least of the following is exempt from tax.

Actual HRA received

50% of salary (basic + DA) if residing in a metropolitan city, or else 40%

The amount by which rent exceeds 1/10th of salary (basic + DA)

The normal business practice to give HRA ranges from 10%-40%

Fringe Benefits

These are the benefits which are not in direct relation with employee’s performance. Its shown as extra by the company but the fixed expenditure from company’s side is divided amongst all employees. E.g. Z company providing Pick-Drop Facility. Does it matter whether 50 employees are in the bus or 60. Company has borne that expense irrespective of employee performance or no. of employees

Bonus

Benefit paid on satisfactory work performance for employee motivation. Though this amount is not assured to the employee, most companies include the maximum amount that can be paid as bonus, to the CTC. Fixed Annual Bonus: Paid on the basis of employee performance, either monthly or in most cases annually, it is a fully taxable amount. Every company may not follow this rule.

Variable bonus depending upon performance is a better way. It actually drives people to work and % slabs can be formed which will also distinguish star performers from poor performers.

Retirement Benefits

PF, Gratuity, Super Annuation Fund

PF stands for Provident Fund. It is compulsory to be given by organizations who have more than 20 employees. 12% is the amount of Basic contributed in the ratio 1:1 by the company as well as the employees. This reflects is salary slip and is paid when the employee leaves the organization.

Gratuity is for expressing gratitude for long term services by an employee. Its for more than 5 years of service. The amount is depostited in actuaries. E.g. LIC is a recommended one and normally government bodies for this are more reliable than the private organizations. It is compulsory. It is not applicable for banks.

Super Annuation Fund is not compulsory. It is normally given by organizations to White collared employees on a managerial level. The entry level employees and the blue collared workers are not given this.

Perquisites

Non Government Employees – The value of perquisite is an amount equal to

(i) 15% of salary in cities having population exceeding 25 lakhs as per 2001 census;

(ii) 10% of salary in cities having population exceeding 10 lakhs but not exceeding 25 lakhs as per 2001 census

It includes motor car, residential accommodation, bills paid by company, gift vouchers, club membership, interest free loan etc.

Performance Management Cycle

Harsh Thakkar — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:01:44 +0000

Performance Management is the process of Performance Planning (goal setting), Performance Monitoring and Coaching, Measuring (evaluating) Individual Performance linked to organizational goals, giving him/ her feedback, rewarding the individual based on his/ her achievements against set performance goals & required competencies, and working out a plan for his/ her development.

The PMS Process Cycle can be explained as follows:

Performance Planning:

Organizational Goals are selected & deployed to the respective divisions, departments & individuals, & individual targets for the year are set.

Performance Monitoring & Coaching:

Organizational goals, divisional/ departmental as well as individual goals are reviewed against current performance, & course correction & coaching is done to enhance performance. Mid-term individual review & corrective action planning are also part of this step.

Performance Measurement & Feedback:

Individual level performance, competencies & development requirements are reviewed and assessed. Feedback on the assessment is given to the individual. Company level moderation & finalization of performance evaluation is also done

Performance Linked Reward & Development Plan:

Data generated from individual appraisal is used to decide on salary, career progression (promotions), competency development. This also includes feedback & development planning & up-gradation

What is Human Behavior

Harsh Thakkar — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 11:37:49 +0000

Vowels of Human Behavior

A- Affection : If both the physiological and the safety needs are fairly well gratified, then there will emerge love and affection and belongingness needs, and the whole cycle already described will repeat itself with this new centre. Now person will feel keenl”. These are the words of Abraham Maslow, it is so true & applicable even in today’s era

In fact, this is what distinguishes a human being from an non-living thing

E – Energy : Your mechanical body is a manifestation of external energy within and the external environment is an extension of the mechanical body. Energy serves the purpose.

e.g. Love is like energy. It cannot be created or destroyed but it will always be there

I-Information : Once you opt in, you don’t have a lot of control over where your information goes. To use it for creation or destruction is merely upto the individual. Imagine what can happen if a company does not provide timely information to shareholders ?

O- Organizing : In this world no one rules by love; if you are but amiable, you are no hero; to be powerful, you must be strong, and to have dominion you must have a genius for organizing. Everything is Planned. We cannot ignore this truth

U- Uniqueness: Every interviewer asks this question ‘Why should we hire you?’ It is an implication of ‘What is so unique about you?’ Be it material product or Human product, people require uniqueness. Of course, quality matters and there is a difference in being unique for the sake of being unique & being truly unique both personally & professionally

Personal Excellence

Harsh Thakkar — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:29:44 +0000

Get Ego out of Way

Ego hates most because ego wants to stay safe & comfortable. Patience lets the things unfold. Trying to be the best is good but ignoring the rest is worthless. ‘ I am good’ is good. But ‘I am the best’ is inviting destruction. Be specific & have well defined goals is good but ignoring the people who support you is making you loose your credibility in the long run. To excel requires, patience, commitment & sacrifice. Ego pours water over this.

Affluence

Affluence means that one is easily able to fulfil one’s desires, whatever they may be, whether they apply to material realm or to our emotional, psychological or spiritual needs or to the realm of relationship. When we transcend, we know non verbally without the use of words. Revolution in future generation is possible if you take care of your present.

Ability to bounce back

Great people have something in common. It is their ability to bounce back. Visualization is their process where they begin to see what they want & nature takes care of the rest for them. When you act as per your highest dream, the outcome is higher than expected. This acceptance will make you powerful renewing your energy.

Life Values

Life is more than mere living. Winning should not be the ultimate objective. The true value of life comes from improving it daily. There is no joy greater than giving back what you got by the way of service to your people. Find good in every person & you will forget the bad. Enjoy life. Kal ho na ho. Don’t cry over things that weren’t for what you can get

Sense of Responsibility

I am responsible for the fulfillment of desires Stop the blame game. I am responsible for my own emotions. Hence, have high emotional quotient. First take responsibility for your body. This sound simple but health is wealth. Ask yourself a question, ‘Are you as active as you were 5 years ago? So no matter whatever is your profession, be accountable for yourself

Leadership as per Behaviour Dynamics

Harsh Thakkar — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:28:20 +0000

Leadership is an act of influencing people to strive towards common goals.

“Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers.’’

-Dee Hock

Founder and CEO Emeritus, Visa

The world today is facing leadership crisis. There are debates on who makes a better CEO? ‘Male or Female’ and whether great leaders are born and or made. The owner of Starbucks once said I can arrange for money, technology but how do I get good leaders?

Leadership = Personal Competence + Social Competence

Personal Competence

- Ability to manage stress

- Analytical Skills

- Creativity

Social Conflict

- Ability to manage conflict

- Team Handling

- Rapport Building

Managers and Leaders

- Play an important role in facilitating feedback and disclosure among group members, and in directly giving feedback to individuals about their own blind areas.

- Also have a big responsibility to promote a culture and expectation for open, honest, positive, helpful, constructive, sensitive communications, and the sharing of knowledge throughout their organization

- Encouraging the positive development of the ‘open area’ or ‘open self’ for everyone is a fundamental aspect of effective leadership

Many factors influence leadership. No one leadership style fits all situations. To gain insights into one’s leadership behavior and to develop the skills to change one’s style, apply transactional analysis. A conception of leadership that is not based on positional power is more conducive to an Adult-Adult mode of relating to others. On this view, anyone can lead by advocating new directions, regardless of position in the hierarchy. An Adult-Adult relationship helps to keep emotional distortions at bay

Performance Management – Philosophy

Harsh Thakkar — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:07:57 +0000

The philosophy behind performance management can be captured in the following six core strategies:

Clarify job responsibilities and clearly state agreed-upon goals (or performance expectations/ performance standards/ performance criteria)
Communicate regularly by giving and receiving feedback throughout the year on performance, goals, directions, and changing expectations.
Counsel to improve performance problems and/ or develop employee performance
Compare performance to agreed-upon goals periodically and evaluate results.
Cultivate continuous learning, employee growth, and development.
Celebrate exemplary performance.

Hence, performance management would require a pro-active approach to management of HR, a congenial work culture, and value-based management.

The pre-requisites of Performance Management by which its success or failure depends on is as follows:

Organizational philosophies
Attitudes and skills of those responsible for its implementation
Acceptance, commitment, and ownership of managers and employees
Endorsement of the notions of ‘procedural fairness’ and ‘distributive justice’ (procedural fairness refers to the employees’ perception on overall process equity, and where ‘distributive justice’ is linked to perceptions of the fairness of associated rewards and recognition outcomes)
Top-management commitment and involvement
Adequacy of pay-level or compensation package
Availability or access to resources, tools, and skills to employees to do their jobs
Scope for managers to have the power to make decisions and plan on the basis of needs
Familiarity of mangers and employees with planning tools such as target setting and achievement monitoring
Effectiveness of communications between and within management and employees
A culture of accountability and openness prevails
Financial requirements of the organization
Decentralization
Customer’s pressure and quality assurance

5 Factor Model Affecting Personality & Job Performance

Harsh Thakkar — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 09:48:14 +0000

Acton, G.S. (2002) proposed a Five-Factor Model, as depicted in Fig. 1, to explain the linkage between personality and job performance in the organizational context.

The five factors are as under:

Emotional stability: It has been observed that employees with a high emotional quotient and self-efficacy tend to be consistent and persuasive in their behavior and action, and possess tough-mindedness. They encounter fewer anxieties in the face of a challenging task or situation, given their high self-control. Employees with high emotional stability are likely to be more committed towards their goals, respond enthusiastically to negative feedback, strive to overcome obstacles in performing tasks and activities, and in general have a high result orientation. On the other hand, employees with low self-efficacy and low emotional stability are likely to be prone to anxiety and stress. Such employees get shattered with negative feedbacks, leave goal-attainment half-way if encountered with obstacles, and depend more on the manager for emotional support and guidance on a day-to-day basis.

Extroversion: If the organizational environment is social, then extraverted employees are more likely to be at a low-level of arousal while at work, whereas at their home there is less stimulation. Extraverted individuals are more independent in nature and, therefore, more satisfied in the job, because work gives them an opportunity to experience an optimum level of arousal. They would set challenging performance goals, and would work harder to attain their goals. Such employees would require minimum supervision and tend to respond well to performance-linked rewards. Introverts, on the other hand, are more likely at their optimal level of arousal outside of the organization, where there is less stimulation, and therefore are more likely dissatisfied with the level of stimulation that they experience while at work. Introverted individuals are less satisfied in the job due to too much stimulation. They would be less likely to be driven by challenging performance criteria and need constant counseling from their managers to perform.

Openness: Openness to new experiences is unrelated to leadership abilities, but extraversion is positively correlated with leadership abilities. This implies that in teams there are leaders and there are followers; the leaders make decisions and the followers abide by them. Therefore, people with high intellect would be more open to performance improvement suggestions, engage in self-initiated learning, and prefer job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment. Moreover, such employees would have high career aspirations and would be a valuable member of high-performance teams.

Agreeableness: Although agreeableness is positively correlated with working in a team, it is negatively correlated with being a leader. Employees who are high on agreeableness would make good followers, whereas employees who do not always agree and are willing to voice their own opinions end up moving up the ranks. These employees often have creative and innovative ideas and perform at a much higher level. Such employees are valued from the point of view of succession planning.

Conscientiousness: Conscientious individuals have a tendency to perform better as employees and are often most sought after. Such employees tens to perform ethically and are frequently the whistle blowers of their organizations. Interestingly enough, introverted, conscientious employees are much less likely to be absent from work, as opposed to extraverted employees who are low on conscientiousness.

Hence, the five-factor theory postulates that job performance and personality are related

Balance Scorecard Framework

Harsh Thakkar — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 06:22:38 +0000

It has four perspectives:

1. The Learning & Growth Perspective

2. The Business Process Perspective

3. The Customer Perspective

4. The Financial Perspective

Perspectives

The balanced scorecard suggests that we view the organization from four perspectives, and to develop metrics, collect data and analyze it relative to each of these perspectives:

The Learning & Growth Perspective

This perspective includes employee training and corporate cultural attitudes related to both individual and corporate self-improvement. In a knowledge-worker organization, people — the only repository of knowledge — are the main resource. In the current climate of rapid technological change, it is becoming necessary for knowledge workers to be in a continuous learning mode. Metrics can be put into place to guide managers in focusing training funds where they can help the most. In any case, learning and growth constitute the essential foundation for success of any knowledge-worker organization.

Kaplan and Norton emphasize that ‘learning’ is more than ‘training’; it also includes things like mentors and tutors within the organization, as well as that ease of communication among workers that allows them to readily get help on a problem when it is needed. It also includes technological tools; what the Baldrige criteria call “high performance work systems.”

The Business Process Perspective

This perspective refers to internal business processes. Metrics based on this perspective allow the managers to know how well their business is running, and whether its products and services conform to customer requirements (the mission). These metrics have to be carefully designed by those who know these processes most intimately; with our unique missions these are not something that can be developed by outside consultants.

The Customer Perspective

Recent management philosophy has shown an increasing realization of the importance of customer focus and customer satisfaction in any business. These are leading indicators: if customers are not satisfied, they will eventually find other suppliers that will meet their needs. Poor performance from this perspective is thus a leading indicator of future decline, even though the current financial picture may look good.

In developing metrics for satisfaction, customers should be analyzed in terms of kinds of customers and the kinds of processes for which we are providing a product or service to those customer groups.

The Financial Perspective

Kaplan and Norton do not disregard the traditional need for financial data. Timely and accurate funding data will always be a priority, and managers will do whatever necessary to provide it. In fact, often there is more than enough handling and processing of financial data. With the implementation of a corporate database, it is hoped that more of the processing can be centralized and automated. But the point is that the current emphasis on financials leads to the “unbalanced” situation with regard to other perspectives. There is perhaps a need to include additional financial-related data, such as risk assessment and cost-benefit data, in this category.