Performance appraisal

The above cartoon kind of portrays the image which an employee shares about the performance appraisal process. At the recent SHRM India Chennai forum on 22/05/10. An enthusiastic bunch of professionals, consultants, Academicians and students tried to address the burning questions of Performance Management systems which often become the base for most Dilbert lampoons. We wanted to probe these questions

# What are the key expectations of a PMS system

# What are the major roadblocks in implementing an effective HR system

# How do we remove the roadblocks and what are the techniques which we can follow

# What will be the effects after removing the roadblocks and some effects which we can see

The members sat around tables trying to find out the various ways of answering this issue and finally we reached on this conclusion

*The system will be effective only when it is credible and for that we need to cut down on the subjectivity part of it

*Time we had a change and looked at a performance appraisal process as handing out report cards but more as a Talent Management with a view of finding the best employees and keeping them.

*To analyze if there are avenues of a co-creation of a PMS system

And finally we were deliberating on the issues of change in the system and how can we facilitate the change but that is where sometimes i felt out of sync we often look at changing the system but what we should rather realize that change is not something which can happen overnight it may take months or even years to convince the top management and then the employees about a new system which can come in place till that time we need to find some "Jugaad" to ensure the system runs effectively.

There was one nice point which was intriguing was the question of in how many sectors is pay liked with performance and in most of the manufacturing sectors which is like the backbone of our country it is not and the second one was if there are any punitive actions which are taken against any appraiser for not completing the process of appraisal. We give them warnings and memos but do we penalize them ? if we may what will be the effects but does this kind of policing approach bring out best results or does it cause hatred towards HR.

The happiest part was that i got a chance to document a case on the real time change in PMS and I believe once it is done i can share it with all


Cheers

Arvind !!

The most challenging profession ?

It is common amongst us people to normally boast on the level of toughness of our work/projects and everyone wants to be brag about proving their mettle.

In that i list i was trying to find out the most challenging profession in today's context and based out of personal experience i thought it would be a door to door salesman or an Industrial relation officer or the Chennai Bus driver (during peak summer months) and then i found an unexpected answer it was a "DENTIST"

Being under the knife of a dentist for three hours made me realize how difficult their work was. Mouth along with eyes can be considered the gateways to a person's mind in terms of to smile, to talk, to eat and so on and so forth and to imagine the prospective of an alien third man meddling with our mouth seems like Frankenstein playing Ludo with you and there is outrage but that's just what a dentist exactly does.

Something i was able to realize is that his job demands extra ordinary patience because most of the clients you have to deal with are kids who are scared of a dentist or old aged people who realize they dint achieve their dream and want to talk,talk, talk and even more talk based with these two types as customers to be a professional is tough and to be an extraordinary professional it is a great attitude and amazing talent.

Normally people visit a dentist only when they have an issue with their tooth or gums rarely do people go for a regular visit and in a lot of cases the state of these may not be pretty and let us not imagine the odour.

He has to work with the most uncontrollable organ "The Tongue" which cannot stop whirling skidding rushing amongst other things and then comes the tough part when they have to work on your teeth. It is not that hard to work with your lower teeth but imagine when they have to work with your upper sets of teeth there is no clear mage and then based on instincts and limited vision they have to repair that which is very tough.

His negotiation skills are way of the mark and so is his perseverance and commitment.
You can always hear its going to be over from him very frequently to comfort the patient

The crucial aspect where you as a dentist have to realize that is that if they botch up anything this man will be vehemently angry and they have destroyed the Appearance of a person

Cheers

Arvind !!

Quotes from alchemist

When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream

Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. You've got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense.

Don't think about what you've left behind.

Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.

To die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day. Every day was there to be lived or to mark one's departure from this world.

For the eternal dreamer in me there is nothing more satisfying than reading the alchemist by Paulo Coelho which every person should read not just as a book but rather step into the shoes of the protagonist Santiago and feel the vibe which you can get from the book. The first quote is something which truly sends a chill down my spine whenever i think about it the more i start believing in what i can do. this is very much like our Indian Epics but it does not have that larger than life reel feeling to it.

In many times we are like Santiago caught between choices afraid of failure afraid of the world and we look for the push to propel us forward and we look outside for it than realize it within us on how much it is in us.

As it was famously said by Aerosmith "Dream on Dream On Dream On Dream on till your dream comes true .


Cheers

Arvind

The professional: In brief

Everyone around us wants us to act professionally at every stage from where life takes a reckoning. In the western world it’s from school when you start working part time.
When it comes India m mostly it is in college but sadly we ignore the fact that being professional is something internal and has a deep effect on and not a coat which you can acquire.

A big thanks to Venkatnarayanan sir for suggesting me this book and I owe you a lot for this sir.

The book is the third in the series after "High performing Entrepreneur" and "Go kiss he world" by Subroto Bagchi the Gardner of Mindtree ltd.

The book is divided into Seven parts

i) Integrity

ii) Self Awareness: Where competence ends and professionalism takes over

iii)Professional qualities

iv)Managing volumes

v) Managing complexity

vi) The new world imperatives

vii) The professional's professional

Each part is carefully divided and is to be read in the sequenced order and with its blend of current incidents and everyday problems this book reaches straight to the heart hopefully to make sense for the head

The first part integrity speaks about the story of a young man in Bangalore who is forced to take up doing last rituals of unknown bodies as a source of lively hood and rather taking a hate in it he shows so much dignity and respect towards his job that people appreciate him and even reward him.

He also speaks about how integrity is a very personal thing which cannot be taught and there are certainly areas where i feel some striking similarities in the people from whom we have learnt Integrity. My father is very much like Mr. Bagchi's father who even though was a government servant took pride in their job and strictly separated professional and personal things which are the view young men and women should develop.

The second part speaks on understanding who you are and to stop false comparisons which are mostly done in monetary terms and could lead to breach of ethics. It’s time we looked beyond money and see that money does not define us it also speaks a lot on humility an area where the hospitality sector is where the GM of a hotel acts as the gatekeeper or shoe polish man which shows the humility they have and also on taking charge most of them I see people around me crying that things are not right and things are bad but they do nothing to change the situation sometimes you could be the best in talent but if you can't take charge you fail. He cites an example of a situation in which he takes the top brass of the company out for training and puts them in a real time cliché situation where two young men ahead of all the others take charge which earns them special respect.

The third parts speaks on qualities which define a true professional areas like time spent on required areas and saying no as well as the comparison of a job into marriage where you ensure when you leave it you don't cause a behind.

There is some inspiration from tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell when he talks about Mavens Connectors and evangelists

The fourth part touches on asking pertinent questions and realizing the fact that we are Humans and everybody should be treated Humanely and the great rewards of transparency

The fifth and sixth part talk about critical questioning and the pain of personal life with the example of Anu Aga. and also on new world lust like IPR and also on gender and cultural diversity

The final part is the yen for professionalism where he recalls about incidents in Japan where professionalism comes ahead of everything else he narrates the example of a bellboy in a hotel who took offense when he was offered a tip.

The book concludes with a quoting about an incident from death where an unclaimed body is sold off to signify what starts with death should end with death.

Personally a book I loved and should be made a must read for all budding professionals. The concept of part time jobs when young can induce a steep culture of professionalism at least Internships from where students learn how to be PROFESSIONAL

"Mumbai. After having observed increased level of happiness and satisfaction among the employees in the past few weeks, the HR team of Hindustan Companies Limited (HCL) met today to discuss innovative ways of reducing employee pleasure to bring it down to the acceptable levels. The three member top level team is expected to finish its brainstorming session by 5.30 PM sharp and submit its recommendations to the top management tomorrow.
“We had received specific information from our sources that employees were seen generally happy and jovial in the past few weeks. No important announcement or managerial decisions were taken in the concerned duration that could have logically added to the overall well-being of the employees. At best, the development could be termed an aberration.” Hari Sadu, HR head of HCL said.

After having personally witnessed the increased happiness among the employees yesterday, when he saw a group of employees laughing and cracking jokes during the lunch break, a puzzled and concerned Hari Sadu called for an emergency meeting today morning, which continued till reports last came in.
“I too have seen these guys spending too much time in cafeteria, near coffee-vending machines or in the smoking corners and being jolly for almost no apparent reason.” Nitya Udaas, senior HR manager, shared the concern, further adding, “Maybe the workload has reduced of late. We have to check with the sales department if we are getting enough business.”
“I have noticed that even the toilets are occupied for longer duration these days.” quipped Anand Anjaan, third member of the top-level team, wondering what was going on in the office.
After discussing various problems and irregularities in employee behavior, the HR team also discussed employing some innovative techniques to control employee pleasure.
“We could make the coffee-vending machine operative only after swiping it with the identity cards. We can get data on which employee is spending maximum time drinking coffee and accordingly deal with the problem.” proposed Hari Sadu, directing Anand to find out how much will such a swapping machine cost and to send a proposal to the Finance department.
“Also find out the cost of that toilet-timer that switches off the lights in toilets after ten minutes. This will make sure that no employee spends too much time over there, while we would project it as an electricity saving initiative towards making HCL green.” interjected Nitya, which was well appreciated by Hari and Anand.
HR team was still in the board room when this report was filed, with smiles returning to their faces as they discussed and analyzed the problem at hand in detail.


The above article is taken from the Fakingnews.com and for someone who is passionate about HR this article looked superb but what really caught my eye were the comments made by the people who said most of things like measuring time in coffee joints were being measured and it irked them.

This brings me a scenario which we are facing now

(i) DO we feel that if people spend too much time having coffee or in the rest room then rather than looking at it as decreased productivity, did we have an interaction with them on if some issue is affecting them and how probably we can assist them.

(ii) Do we need to spy on our colleagues to find out what they are doing and what they should do? Rather than that shouldn’t we be creating plans of making them involved in work if the work. Even after that if the nature of work is making them restless, we ought to find out if they are suited for it. If not change them to an area which they prefer

and finally guess the anger and hatred towards HR is probably the fact that steeped in tradition are the basic aspects of moral policing, compliances and regulation maintenance which are not for the taking of the new generation at work, Its time we should adapt our way of working rather talking what is written we should find out more and add value to the business not just maintain the values.

These will ultimately make the HR more respected it’s a fact that in the best organizations people working prefer to call themselves as the employees first and then as their department staff or people that is all down to how the organization values their people which will ultimately make the difference we always like to point out on great plans of futuristic looking proactive organizations but that far outweigh the conservative personnel organization and changing that would mean a show of success for the HR fraternity


Cheers

Arvind !!

When traditions collide with

More often than not we look at business from a financial perspective and on jargons like EBDIT's and cost sheets we somewhere miss that it is people who start a business its people who are employed in a business and finally people who buy the products of a business directly or indirectly.

A sector in which India has seen rapid growth other than politics is the outsouricing industry especially Voice based Call centers who take care of customer support and feedback and answering Questions to people who they cannot even imagine what runs their world.

most of us have always painted the picture of foreigner in our mind as the firanga rich white guy who comes to look at the Taj mahal and the spicy indian food. Movies dint help they showed the same description and even James Bond movies wanted to show India as a land of snakes and tigers. Perceptions changed and suddenly India became an outsourcing focal point and also in the area of web 2.0.

Recently i had an interaction with my erstwhile junior from college a very successful entrepreneur Ashwin Ramesh and he recounted a fact that one of his clients in USA asked him if there were a lot of snakes India to which he said i have been living here for 20 years and i have never seen a snake.

Why was i making that point to put in the bigger picture with outsourcing how long do organizations think they can exist with it. I had a friend who worked in a call center doing work for major London Tabloids and his work involved calling people and asking the routine questions of if they got the papers and all but he had to wear an identity and cover himself up with an accent

1) Will this help him in working ? No he is creating a personality and
2) Will it help the customer ? Maybe but in many cases they start to yell realizing its a youth from India (and nowadays south east Asia)

so what is the satisfactory outcome for the organization other than profit. Guess what will happen when a guy from Scotland with a heavy Scottish accent calls up a Sholapur kid who wont be able to breakdown what is he even trying to say or it will take a lot of time and will they have the patience it depends. People sometimes face even more racial barrage on revealing their religious beliefs which is not helping them

To wrap up am questioning the concept of outsourcing where people who have no idea with softwares explain on how to use them makes no sense it complicates life for everyone because its a major culture shock in an environment which is not matured to take it

CSR ! not by chance but rather by choice

It’s been time since I wrote a post and i think this deserves the space

I had a chance to attend a great seminar thanks to my friend Priyanka KS on CSR 2.0 by
Dr. Wayne Visser and was fascinated by his vision and expertise into the subject (He holds a PhD in CSR) and how CSR is just considered an additional activity. A lot of people want to help the society but wander off in this thought frame " Ah... first let me earn money then let me help the society by giving it to some organization"

He spoke on a concept called CSR 2.0 which is very much based like web 2.0

Web 1.0 was for a few and select and included things like shell objects and coding and thus people did not take it up but as Thomas Friedman said "the arrival of Netscape had a whole new effect suddenly web changed"

Web 2.0 where we are sharing and reading all this is pull driven there is freedom, connectivity with projects like one laptop per child web 2.0 is gaining power it has empowered people. Social media has shown its true strength weighing in to campaign and helping people.

CSR 2.0 should also empower people and not should be based on the shiny annual social report if small things which can help the society and can help the business be integrated that helps the business and community at large.

One of the common examples was mobile phones the average life span of a mobile phone in UK is 9 months and thus there was no idea what to do with these old phones which had heavy metals like Nickel and Cadmium. An organization called "Fonebak" gave free shipping and got these phones and recycled them. Same was the case with a US carpet organization which made artificial carpets and once it got old they gave them a free replacement and used the old materials to make a new one. This made absolute business sense because

1) You are giving a customer a free upgrade and no one feels sorry for freebies

2) Your loyal customer base will spread good word about you and finally

3) You have raw material which with a little bit of work can work into a new carpet.

Unfortunately organizations do not realize that another example was with Wal-Mart which started selling Cotton and Fish based on some regulations and only when these were cleared they were kept on the Shelves for viewing which made sense as customers did not look at the norms they were happy with what is available.

There were ten essentials for CSR 2.0

1. Inclusiveness – involving stakeholders directly from beginning to end

2. Market driven – no longer expert driven

3. Innovation – smart companies turn market pressure into stakeholder led innovation

4. Sincerity – you can no longer uphold an image that is not real

5. Co-ownership – a truly embedded value-based culture requires involvement

6. Dynamics – standards and annual audits replaced by 24/7 engagement

7. Quality – CSR as immersive business strategy

8. Personal – It’s about you, not your sector! What are your own ethics?

9. Pluralism – number and nature of CSR projects will expand dramatically

10. Proximity – local impact is global

Hope that organizations realize that its not about growth its about how you grow

Cheers

Arvind !!