Growing Social Media

The following article appeared in Economic times on 09/05/2011


"KOLKATA: Indians are increasingly depending on social media for job change . The latest findings of Ma Foi Randstad Workmonitor 2011 - Wave 1 reveal that 82% of Indian employees are confident in using social media in order to find a relevant job.

Statistically, 90% of Indians have individual accounts on facebook , twitter, etc of which 81% use it for professional purposes. Employees with higher income brackets are the largest users of social media websites.

"Social media has become a potent tool for both employers and employees and as a low cost - high return option, recruiting through Social Media will soon become a key differentiator in the current global recruitment market." says E Balaji, MD & CEO of Ma Foi Randstad.

Cities like Mumbai and Delhi has an alarming rate of 85% and 83% employees respectively, who are confident in using social networking sites in order to find a job.

The survey also says that employees of Bangalore and Mumbai are given maximum access to websites by employers at 97% and 96% respectively.

Though globally the social media activity is pretty low, the Indian workforce is much more active using social media, with 79% of the workforce who have updated their social medial profiles in the last month itself."


A quite a revealing survey which has proved out how technology has become essential in helping people to find out new openings and the fulcrum will be to find out how many companies have successfully leveraged it.

The case of employees is mentioned here i believe might be in the mid to junior level who have an avid interest in electronic media unlike the senior folks have not displayed a penchant for updating their linkedin and facebook profiles.

But it reinforces a fact to all the companies about the "f" word which is "Facebook" on how much they are losing if they are not on facebook

Cheers !!
Arvind

Talent Swallowing

With Shortage of talent and a booming It/ITES sector there is a major problem of Talent Swallowing leaving the R&D companies grasping at Thin Air for precious talents.

I believe in India we are facing a dynamic issue of anyone for any role and not the right person for the right role. This is happening because of

(i) Lack of time
(ii) Unclear view about roles
(iii) The desperation for a job

All these factors make a major problem and the accusations from most of the Brick & Mortar companies are that they do not have people for R&D work. We want to enjoy the best vehicles with the best technology but we do not have the adequate labour force to create that possibility which shows us a daunting challenge of increasing our systems o equip more people to graduate focusing on niche domains and places like R&D need to be given special impetus.

Till then its a war for talent and unfortunately like the jungle the big hunter leaves very little for the smaller ones.

Cheers !!

Arvind

LPG of Today's generation

For the Generation X and to a large extent for our academic purpose LPG stood for Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization in Economic terms, Which has put India on the Global Map as a force to be Reckoned with.

For the New Generation i.e. Gen Y the LPG Concept is an internal and an integral component for their Career but here the LPG is Modifies and it stands for

L- Learning

P-Pay

G-Growth (Professionally)

This has become the Mantra for today's graduating generation who look at a job and see if it fulfill these three criteria's to the desirable extent and this has became the continuum in which any job is measured by assessing the

i) Learning opportunities in terms of working in variable locations and variable departments/operations,creation of a bigger role offering wider challenges and newer perspectives, Ability to work with varied teams and also the authority to lead a team could be the major factors of interests.

ii)Pay- While this may not be the most important factor it's vitality can never be underestimated and this is displayed in terms of the situations where people have stepped down a position to go for a bigger better paying organization and also the structure of pay in terms of the variable pay is it linked on Individual's performance or on Company's performance about which i had previously written about and finally the

iii) Growth - This is the most crucial aspect and i had once heard a veteran HR expert Mr. Ravishankar of Mahindra Group put forward a point of great notice. He said that "The majority number of people who switch organizations regularly are mostly from the tier 2 B-Schools who often feel that they don't get treated on par with the Tier-! colleagues and thus take the effort to get the recognition"

What he has said is absolutely true and i guess organizations may need to re look at the way they rate institutions and the profile they offer to students

Growth is the most important aspect everyone looks for and infact one of the often repeatedly asked question during Inductions is "How long will it take me to reach the Board"

long hierarchy do not help the cause and similarly organization with a Big workforce also thus these aspects need to be kept in Mind while the career planning process of young associates who join organizations

It is essential you have a proper career management plan which could be depicted to them if not it dents your organization's image

Cheers

Arvind !!

Choose your Boss

Often i have wondered about the term "Organizational Democracy" and people trying to change the structure of an organization so that it appeals to the newer generation.

I recently had a thought about the whole hierarchy based system followed in most organizations in which the Bosses can select their subordinates but why not vice-versa? It is most often said that "People join Organizations but leave because Bosses" and we are always discussing ways to curb attrition in a economically booming scenario. This is when the idea of Boss selection came into mind. This can work very well in a particular type of situation i.e.

When the team which is going to work under the person is set and works like a well oiled Machine knowing their roles and duties at that point if there is a need for a new boss for the team why not also bring them into the foray and allow them to be a part of the process giving critical inputs as ultimately they will be the people working under them regularly. And this will be a component which will enhance employee ownership as he has selected a person to work under this, Making him more accountable.

This is Inspired from democracy where we vote for our leader but the subtle difference being once we vote we forget them till next elections but that is not the case in an office. Though this may have grave repercussions and may not fit in all organizations i believe this will fit very well in conservative organizations because

(i) Concentration of senior employees at junior and Mid level Positions
(ii) They need to accept a young turk in their midsts
(iii) They cannot be forced into corners
(iv) They hold a huge reputation inside the organizations and they may be like Father figure to many new people.

Thus considering all this factors it could work well in a conservative traditional organization and the new entrant will also know the methods he needs to use to get the work efficiently done and not clash with them which happens in many cases as there is an Age difference


Cheers

Arvind !!

The Josh factor

On the outset my New year wishes to everyone hope this new year brings you success and happiness.

The first post of 2011 is on my favorite area of Employee morale and engagement and in particular to the ideas contributed by Ganapathi Subramanian of Britannia, One of my foremost Mentors and Gurus in HR, Interactions with him have widened my horizon and knowledge base and am deeply grateful to him for that

Over the past week we were discussing about employee engagement and i was a staunch supporter that the best way to raise the morale of an employee is through having proper office environment and good boss subordinate relationship and other concepts like family day-out and group trips din't make a great difference. But his thoughts cleared up the air and showed me how these extra acts do help in creating a morale which is in a primary stage called the "JOSH" which needs to be tapped on and it will ultimately increase the performance

The Josh and performance are like the science concepts of potential and Kinetic energy which are both inter-dependent and can transform into each other. The science connection can be seen with the help of a swing which has a highest potential energy when it is kept on a height and gains kinetic energy when it is dropped towards the ground as all the potential energy gets transferred into kinetic energy.

In the regard with an employee a simple act of wishing him on a birthday by the top boss or celebrating his achievement will increase his morale and thus his Josh which can be built up by similar activities. The key concept comes in on how this Josh can be converted into high performance and eventually into number crunching results when its possible.

Riding on the back of the Josh and keeping on emphasizing about good work will surely help in the conversion over a period of time. It is also essential that this Josh needs to be built up as the lack of it will be a Hara Kiri act.

Cheers

Arvind !!

The tier II challenges

The world's attention is On India thanks to our demographic advantage and the young population. It also brings its fair share of challenges which needs to be addressed by the HR community.

A major change is going to be the number of first generation population graduating from colleges who may need peer support and guidances on handling various office relationships and moving to new urban areas.The y may need people to hand hold and lead them through some tough personal and official relationships.

Another curious but important challenge would be curious parents, a problem that has often propped was the case of parents visiting to their children in office regularly and another strange case was narrated by Shahikanth Jayaraman who was addressing us.

This was the case of a curious parent in the Interior part of Karnataka where his company was conducting an induction program for new joinees in the sales positions and there was a parent who was insisting that he would sit through the induction at any cost while the company's policy dint allow that and thus the parent had to be forcibly removed which would have disturbed the individual and his impression about the company.

Another challenge is that many of the are simple and honest who could be easily tricked by others and thus may not be get the due attention they want thus laying key emphasis on the Line Managers to notice about individual performances and the effort and not just the ratio of work which gets completed.

A key piece of advice which was shared was that it is essential regardless of whatever transpires in the office if there has been an bad moment for thge individual would be calling and encouraging the individual "Before he hits the sack" as a person who takes grudge to sleep never has a good opinion about the person.

A very interesting thought to ponder on

Cheers

Arvind !!

Employee Branding = HR's work ?

It;s always nice to meet and discuss opinions on varied subjects and one of the persons i ran into at the ISTD/SHRM Conference was Vinod from Carpediem who looked as much to learn from others and share as much as spread information about his organization and it was wonderful learning many things from him. One of the key things on which we started chatting up was the story of Zappos.com and how Jeff Bezos ratified his buy by saying "He had bought a culture and not a company" but later we went on to a crucial topic of Employer branding about which everyone seems to talk about so much. the craze of a Google or HCL and what creates it.

There is a subtle way in which the organization promotes itself about being a good employer and that is not by excessive promotion but more through word of mouth and through the right meetings like Summits. The most essential fact i realized is that the concept of HR people trying to create a brand is pure falsehood and the fact is it can only facilitate the process but for the process to take off it needs immense support from the Top Management and from all the departments involved

Take the example of HCL

*They have a system of an internal Social media which needs support from IT
*The manager can decide the increase to be given to each employee instead of rating and Blaming HR which needs support from Finance
*People performing skills they are good in like Music and Dance which needs support from the various teams

With all these people involved in as Stakeholders can we pinpoint HR for creating a brand ? HR needs to be involved as a partner and driver of implementation but not as the only one.

There are examples of organization who take great pride in creating Seminars sponsoring and promoting about it which acts as a salesman and its a simple Mantra "Organization wants to show its the best the, commitment must come from the rest"

Cheers

Arvind !!

Gen Y are we scared of Thy ?

The hottest topic around the HR and HR scene is about Gen Y and how in the next 3-5 years they are going to enter into the workforce and change the organization, How to work with Gen Y is the Million dollar question and the ISTD student convention is aptly titled “Leading in Gen Y”

As One of the speakers Usha Devaguptatu rightly said Gen Y are like the the David Ogilvy quote “The consumer is not a moron,she is your wife” The employee is also not a moron but neither is he a threat.

The Convention has been very good in the fact that it has thrown light into the areas what are required to “collaborate” with Gen Y. This is essential as the recent Harvard Business Review talks about these crunch issues

• One out of every three high performers is not engaged
• One in every four high performers feels their aspirations are not met
• One out of every five high performers is doing a job which does not interest them
• Four out every ten high performers are not in sync with the vision and value of the company they are a part of


These sort of issues need a top down solving approach and it cannot be solved overnight and other key area where Indian Organizations miss out is a strong Induction system so that the people can relate themselves to the organization

And as a member of Gen Y I can strongly relate to the facts like “Work to live not live to work”. I look at the value I can add to the organization and what the organization can do for me, If they cannot reward me instantly I would try to find out someone who will reward me. I want learn things by doing it and not reading about it, But that does not mean am standalone I need a team I need a coach I need support I need a peer section together with me I need to be looked after I need my personal life.

We all have wants and immediate gratification and Gen Y looks at ways to fulfill and not have the “chalega” attitude. We want the horse to drink water and gulp it down.

I wanted to blog about this fantastic event event and am doing it right now :)

Jai ho Gen Y

Flexicurity

The recent NHRD session was held at Hotel Savera on 30th and the speaker for the day was Saundarya Rajesh who spoke on the Broad areas of

(i) Diversity

(ii) Flexible working culture in Indian organizations

In terms of Cohorts classification India is almost same on the west but with few differences which are

Generation X in India grew up with a socialist Mindset but has adopted capitalism and Delayed Capitalism is not hindering them. They often rue about chances

E-Gen: This is the generation born between 1970 to 1980 which is very specific to India only. A very unique set which has had the best of both sides of culture. Contributes the highest number to attrition data. Very homogeneous in the desire to be heterogeneous i.e. in terms of career planning and orientation

Gen y: Who are aggressive consumers and are self motivated to be rewarded

An interesting fact which was shared was that annual attrition rate of Indian organizations is 17%

Diversity can be used to combat this type of attrition as has been used by companies like IBM and Accenture who have a seperate Diversity and Inclusion criteria.

In these organization Diversity and Inclusiveness becomes one of the KPI for the top management and has to be followed. The main criteria of diversity are

i) Gender

ii) Age

iii) Religion

iv) Experience

this helps a lot in organizations as it was explained because to grow in an organization you need the so called "Tribal Knowledge" which can be realized only by direct interaction with individuals and also in creating innovation which was explained with products like "Kurkure" which were developed by a diverese work team
and it also helps in battling attrition which was demonstrated by an example of an ITES sector where the average age of employees was 23 and it resembled a college locker room which was not pleasing the guests and management.

They were asked for solution and they came up with a diversity pattern of employing older men and women who brought in some calmness to the organization and thus helping the culture issue

The major topic was flexibility of work and work from home which was mostly themed on the Indian Working women and how on implementation it could help organization following which they moved on to talk about their organization's I-WIN product.

A crucial thing which struck my notice was the fact that while hiring people who have taken a break it is not the cost of recruitment which will trouble but rather the cost of re-skilling them to take on tougher challenges and that will only help people to help climb up to the top


Cheers

Arvind !!

Business is in the family

The month of July and August has transformed Wall Street into overtime working office thanks to the number of mergers and buyouts which are happening. McAfee, Hewitt Associates, 3Par have all become fully owned subsidies of Intel, Aon and Dell and more deals are in the offering which could see the merging of big names. The recent acquisition of CAIRN India by Vedanta also made the global headlines.
I was struck by the amazing pattern of mergers and was curious to find mergers or acquisition news between Indian companies and found that the only approved major merger was between Bank Of Rajasthan and ICICI bank and nothing else which is clear indication of our conservatism


It struck to me the essence of a business to an individual or an organization is much more than an entity to an Indian context there have been very few investors who have sold their company when it was making profits and was doing well. Mostly company sell of the loss making arm or the non profit one. Rarely has there been a breed of entrepreneurs who have dreamed about being a serial entrepreneur like H Ross Perot who created Successful enterprises like EDS and Perot systems which were later sold off to HP and DELL. Somewhere we romanticize about our organizations as a part of us and our social system and dream of the generations to follow be associated with it and that is why we have family run businesses which may not always look at profit maximization but more for social existence and the pride associated with it.


The day India will progress is when it starts treating business like an entity and not as an extension of themselves and their Identity. We may grow more if we could find serious innovators who could become serial entrepreneurs

Deutsche Bank's Fix

The search for the successor to Ratan Tata has just got heated and the rise of Noel Tata just adds fuel to the fire and creates an immense speculation on who may succeed the modern day legend but that search seems to be a far more liberal one than the problems faced at Deutsche Bank.


“ With speculation reviving over who will succeed Josef Ackermann as chief executive officer (CEO) of Deutsche Bank AG, the company will have to decide how German the leader of Germany’s biggest bank must be.
The answer may reveal whether the 140-year-old Frankfurt-based institution embraces its role as a global investment bank that makes most of its money trading securities on international markets, or whether long-standing business and political ties to Germany remain paramount.


The rise of Anshu Jain, 47, to sole head of the investment bank last month put him in charge of more than 80% of Deutsche Bank’s profit and reinforced his position as a frontrunner to become the CEO. One catch: he was born in India and doesn’t speak German, a potential handicap for an executive who must negotiate the corridors of political power as well as global markets.

“Based on performance, Jain is the crown prince,” said Lutz Roehmeyer, who helps manage about $15 billion (`70,050 crore) at Landesbank Berlin Investment GmbH in the German capital. “But Deutsche Bank has a split personality—a global investment bank being run out of London and a German lender with a very political role. Any successor’s key challenge will be bridging these two worlds.”
Deutsche Bank ducked the issue last year by extending Ackermann’s tenure for three years after the board failed to agree on a replacement.

The Swiss-born Ackermann, 62, rekindled speculation about succession in May when he told shareholders that he’s been holding “intensive” talks on the topic with supervisory board chairman Clemens Boersig for months.”


The Tata’s search looks much simpler considering the fix Deutsche bank has gotten itself into and ducking the problem has increased its magnitude with Global coverage, Speculation, Rumours and even Betting.


The clash of Past Present and future and the organization caught in a whirlpool realizing it has a danger if it ducks any of these issues.

Anshu Jain represents the best person to take over as the CEO but it has a risk attached of not being in line with the values and tradition of the company especially considering the political links in Germany.

But if the company wants to have its local image and does not want to change it then it could go for a local CEO it may well lose its best employee and the person who heads the cash cow division considering upto 80% of the revenues are coming from the Investment bank division to which they cannot turn a blind eye.

The suitors for Anshu Jain won’t be low. He would expect anything but the CEO and anything less than that may cause an issue as he would realize that this weakness over the language would encourage him to defect

The future is compromised because without the man who has increased the profits exponentially the company could stutter in the short run and may concede ground to its rivals and it will also project a bad image for any potential Non-German speaking employee realizing that they could never ascend till the top.”
The company is at cross roads and on the verge of sacrifice and damage reduction.

Authority Is what we crave for ?

"I want to be the most powerful man/woman on earth"

Except immortal Souls and Barrack Obama who doesn't share this dream ! this is what we aim for when we watch Super heroes and also at a later stage, Suddenly we grow older we become less sheepish and then realize that we should have been born in USA to be eligible, now the maximum we can hope for is be the most powerful person in India but 99.9% of us are not born into political families thus it is again ruled out and finally at least in the organization ? much more realistic needs lesser effort ! EUREKA we could finally be what we want and that is necessary that means i can wield power and control people and do whatever i want put all the travel bills in company names. Recently i was interacting with one of my friends (An aspiring journalist
) who explained a bizarre situation

"Boss on the other day on NDTV i saw Prannoy Roy reporting and not hosting a show"
to which i said he is a Journalist who can handle all facets of reporting to which he replied "But if he wanted to report he could have just remained a journalist why did he have to start NDTV and create so many things. If he has started these things then he should not be a reporter" i was amazed i believed people create something by choice and they love it but this statement took me off guard

if authority is what we crave for then i think we should all become entrepreneurs there would be no love to what we do

and there outlays the change which we need to initiate. Make people happy and proud about what they do. One of my favorite books on Human relations and employee motivation has to be the "Great Game of Business" by Jack Stack and he motivated all his employees by a single tactic. His organization was into re-manufacturing and auto components and he made them proud by creating open days where families came and realized the work done by them which created a pride in them.

But ultimately the winning and authoritative desire is needed if we need to have entrepreneurs

The Boom of HR

The evolution of HR has taken a steep curve,

Deeply entrenched in the manufacturing mayhem it was compliance driven and required people

#Who were authoritative and could force their way

#Who knew the legal system

#Finally who could handle the unions and make sure the compliances are done and if strikes occur then to solve it

This was mostly the scenario till 1990's till the IT revolution and service sector boom happened in India. Suddenly people were operating from a higher level they were not shopfloor workmen or they had union to resort to when they felt unhappy they just had one technique "Leave The Organization" and there was huge gap which we as HR could not fulfill.

We started drawing the Ire of people and we were concerned from being the most important people to now being support function a lot of ego's got trampled and got crushed under the weight of expectation which people have.

I think its time we realized that the Boom in services sector ask for a drastic measure of the Hr systems

HR should not totally be the sympathetic character but the one who rewards the best and drains out the worst. No organization wants leftovers thus it has moved from centralized to an extent outsourced.

More and more organizations have started developing a shared services center where the transactional work is done. thus the bottom line is clear unless we improve ourselves it doom time.

Cheers !!

Arvind !!

HR as a strategic business partner

The recent session in NHRD was about Hr the business strategic partner and it was a thoroughly insightful session as people have all been saying about being a strategic partner but how do you bring in the change. The case study of Standard Chartered was shown and which showed how it can be done. The speakers for the session were William Paul and David Nallathambi from Scope international (Standard chartered )

Some key points were

#HR as an SBP (Strategic Business Partner) should focus on creating and delivering strategic people agenda and ensure business goals are achieved

#We need to move out of transactional HR and into transitional HR though there is a doubt on what work will be done if transactional part is taken out

#Crucial to ensure that people can add value to the business and how they can be a business partner

#Any change should be Simple Scalable and Sustainable which will make light of the work

#To transform the HR you need to add responsibility to the Line Managers and give them a part of the work

#To excel in services sector you need to be ahead of the curve and assess what business needs

#Look at areas of Engagement Retention and Talent Management

#When this process of transformation is complete HR will be more efficient and manage cost growth

#A shared service center expertise in other areas cannot be matched by Managers

# To deliver bottom line performance and increase bottomline by changing people in it

#Time to be a Coach, Consultant and an internal business advisor

#proactively manage attrition and last be ahead of the curve

#important factor only if you have people and right system initiate change orelse do not try for a drastic change

The final comments were given By Dr PVR Murthy who concluded Change is like movement of an Orbit to move to a higher level you need to drop mass

Softer competencies

Competency Mapping based recruitment was the summer project of one my Good buddies and this is the area where i have to thank Web2.0 for giving a chance to interact with fellow students who share similar interests. He was talking about developing a system in which based on the skill set of current employees and by taking the Job description requirements he was creating a Mapping system for talents which could be recruited soon.

The idea seemed and fantastic and really well and it was implemented for a manufacturing plant at the workmen level proving an immense success but suddenly when it was taken over by an FMCG company to replicate the similar model it failed causing him to wonder what went wrong and during the analysis we found the following things

1) The higher your pay and rank the work is more planning than execution and people are different when it comes down to planning.

2) Values are inbuilt within us and comes down to our basics thus the value system of one individual cannot be replicated and thus becomes irreplaceable.

3) With organizations looking at efficiency Multi skilled Multi lingual people are the need of the hour and they are not easily available and if they become available they are sure to burn a hole in your pocket

4) It ultimately also plans to work out on how is the relationship with the immediate superior and subordinate and that may not be replicated

With these thoughts in Mind i was wondering how could we create a model with which we can work and am still waiting for that answer

Cheers

Arvind !!

SIFE Story

Last week was the most fulfilling week in my journey as a student of Madras School Of Social work When i was a part of the team which reached the National Semifinals of SIFE.

A brief Introduction about SIFE : SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) is an international network of students, academics and business leaders.
Working in partnership with business and higher education, SIFE "mobilizes university students around the world to use the knowledge gained in the classroom to address real world business and economic issues in their communities. SIFE students form teams on their university campuses and perform community service projects that teach market economics, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, personal success skills, business ethics, and environmental sustainability."

The team was selected in Nov.2009 and it was an honor to be a part of the team considering the Mark set by our predecessors who were national finalists and along with the other core team of Hadeeja, Madhumitha Sowndararajan, Prashanthi, Adline Sophia, Sowmya Mathews, Harish, RakeshKumar Patil, Tanvir Ahmed we identified and tried to find out various communities with which we could work in creating our projects and after a month of searching we narrowed down to two communities

*Tsunami Affected women community near Thiruvanmiyur

*Tsunami affected Women community who were involved in Making of office stationery made out of recycled paper

Personally the icing on the cake was the fact that the second community was identified by me thanks to my association with the Theosophical Society which through its sister body the Theosophical order Of Service helped in setting up the recycling plant

In essence we worked with totally about 55 women affecting the lives of about 165 people. The experience was full of rich memories like Boating Trips and Travel and also the testing times of trying to find a community and working with them.

We were selected as Winners of the regional Competition and we finished just short of National Finals which was our aim leaving us disappointed. But in the end when we question ourselves on the fact whether this was worth burning our weekends and free days ? the answer would be an Emphatic "YES" the experience of setting up a business model for them has surely revived the entrepreneurial spirit in me and coupled with the chances in the wings the dream is not far away !! Thanks SIFE !!

Cheers

Arvind !!

The Waterfall

For the first time in my life i was happy with politicians of my state because they announced holidays for 3 days which coupled with the weekend suddenly reminded us of 2009 which was full of extended weekends which allowed us to attend the wedding of our classmate and then we went to this tourist place called Suruli waterfalls and it was in this waterfalls where the first scenes of Raavan were shot ! My god it was breathtaking place. The climb up to the top of the hill scared me as it was a pure forest and it was steeping at about 80 degrees straight up. But we settled for a falls lower which was not at all crowded and was covered with boulders and the river water flowing. nothing but picturesque and we moved around till the source to enjoy it. The best part was travelling up and it was exhilarating because were we thought we would spend an hour being there we spent close to four hours and many of them on empty stomach. When we were crossing a lot of people influenced my thoughts and ideas which i could relate to HR and Visualize it, Some of them are


(i) When in trouble wait for help - When mostly we are in trouble we refuse to ask for help believing they may not help or they would rather ask more questions and compound the problems but the issue will be that when we itself have no ideas there is nothing wrong in waiting for help to arrive. This was an incident where i was caught confused between taking two paths and ultimately decided for others to come who already gone through it once and then i went via that path which could actually help me get out of that sticky situation.

(ii) Rush but don't hurry: We often realize that when the time is short we rush up things randomly but we ultimately do it in a bad way which would require further sweeping up from us. Most of the times we do not realize that there is more time than we think, if we sequentially follow an order of doing we would very well end up doing the work.

(iii) Do not attract distractions : in a forest its crucial to be silent and be focused on your goals unnecessary attention will create trouble which happened when Monkeys invaded our area and we were scrambling for place with them fearing them.

(iv) Showboating is necessary : It may not be wrong to showboat and take pictures when you have enjoyed something fully and the picture is worth cherishing for but a picture at every instant and every place might make you happy but could put off others similarly its best to celebrate an achievement and not any incident but do celebrate.


A lot more great things but mostly on which i have already written

Cheers

Arvind Srikantan

Extending HR

"Recently i had a strange encounter in the offices of one of India's leading ITES organization which baffled me. In the waiting lounge while reading the paper i noticed a north Indian woman barely about 25 or 26 with a toddler and she looked poised and focussed waiting for someone. When the HR executives of the organization came to meet her there was an obvious sense of fear when they were walking towards her and later listening to their dialogue i was able to configure out that her husband was working for the organization and was absconding she was not willing to move and was creating a scene which was making a huge blemish they were explaining that he was in another city and even made her converse with him through mobile but she was not buying any of it and stood firm demanding him to come to office or asking for his new address"


Well when these kind of awkward situations arise in an office its tough to ignore them and stop rumors. And here is where am wondering are fresh graduates trained to handle this kind of a crisis situation ? A hysterically possessed woman threatening and there is pile of work lying inside to be completed like recruitments to be done, shortlisting candidates is left, calls to business partners to be made, forms pending, mails stacking up.

And you have someone who is not ready to listen to you what do we do and am intrigued by the fact i could be in the position of HR folks in a year, The time has come with work from home and other ideas where the line between office and home is vanishing in Thin air which could leave people gasping for breath if they are not trained to handle these kind of scenarios.

Stressed out employees are a huge factor which could affect the organization many people believe if an employee is ready to work overtime or holidays it might be that he is committed to their work which could be very true but also there is a high chance that he is using office as a solace to escape from home where the situations are not good and thus it is essential to identify the stressed ones out and it is good if people are not workaholics then they are done with all the jobs and at the end they might be ready to move on.

Pyramid of Success !

The words of a great Sports leader














Cheers !!

Arvind !!

Quotes from John Wooden

John Wooden is an all time legend in Basketball and a great coach. He passed away on June 4th. He was popular off the field thanks to his widely used quotes some of them are


"Be prepared and be honest".

"Ability is a poor man's wealth".

"A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment."

"Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then."

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. "

"Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights. "

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability. "

"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."

"I'd rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent. "

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? "

"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes. "

"It isn't what you do, but how you do it"

"It's not so important who starts the game but who finishes it."

"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen."

"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

"Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters."

"Never mistake activity for achievement."

"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

"Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts. "

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming. "

"Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."

"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out."

"Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character. "

"You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one."

"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. "



The final quote is a truly awe-inspiring and something which every individual should ponder upon. The secret to these wisdoms lie in a closely followed creed which are


1) Be true to yourself.
2) Make each day your masterpiece.
3) Help others.
4) Drink deeply from good books.
5) Make friendship a fine art.
6) Build a shelter against a rainy day.
7) Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.


Rest in Peace John Wooden and hope the world learns from his teachings


Cheers !!

Arvind !!