*Checks the watch* Is it time to leave office?

It was a Friday night  and there I was,  at a leading IT conglomerate’s reception area  waiting for my sister to go shopping for the upcoming festivities . As I waited restlessly into the late hours of the night yawning, in desperate attempts to keep myself awake, I could see scores of employees bustling in and out of the campus. I could not but help thinking about a recent conversation with a friend of mine. He said “I am expected to stretch till late night for my deliverables. Given the traffic conditions , I hardly have anytime left for myself , for my family.  I feel am completely famished and drained out by the time I reach home and I do not have a life” .

Well, my friend stayed back late . It was because he was “expected” to do so.  The word expected is possibly attributed to his reporting superior who gives him unrealistic deadlines to complete his tasks. The management, in its part dismisses this allegation calling it callous procrastination that has led to this situation. This also leads to me to think about an interesting class of employees, who even without any deliverable due , willingly stay back at work.  Among other things, this could be due be to general stress, boredom, withdrawal symptoms, workaholic tendencies, disturbed personal life and so on.

In my opinion, class A – the disgruntled and class B – the obsessed are both creating rules for themselves to be sometimes followed and sometimes broken and hold a common view about staying at work – insecurity, about falling in the eyes of their superior. Since unfortunately more hours put in at the workplace means higher productivity .  This may not even be true in many cases but we still do not want to “risk it anyway”!.

The seeds are sown early, with our schools emphasizing on pages and pages of record work writing and parental and societal pressures leading us to attend numerous tuition lessons, At the end of it all a young school student is  being forced into believing that it is all about volume. As we grow, we tend to extend our early informal lessons on religious and moral codes of conduct of complete surrender to God and to the Guru,  to the workplace. Some of us believe that bowing to authority would stand us in good stead  and spread this epidemic across the organization so much so that they set a precedent to their juniors who squirm in their seats to leave seeing their higher ups burning the midnight oil right in front of their eyes.

What smart studying can achieve is not accomplished by memorizing pages and pages of several giant size text books.  Likewise , as future managers we should urge the teams under us and the organization that we are going to belong to emphasize on a quality oriented culture and discourage uncalled for staying late at work which in the long run hampers an employee’s wellbeing; both mental and physical.

My thoughts were interrupted as my sister woke me up from semi –slumber at 1:00AM and appeared rather too excited for that time of the day. She had received an award and was apparently ecstatic. “I worked till midnight almost for a month and I guess that’s what got me this “ said she,  as we walked out of the well-lit edifice awaiting a new dawn!

Author : Radhika K Iyer

HR Lessons from Singapore Airlines

For any organization operating in any sector, Human Resources is definitely a valuable asset  – right  from the traditional agricultural sector to the modern Information Technology sector. It is human input which brings together all factors of production to achieve the goals and objectives set for the company. Taking into consideration the recent news of ‘turbulence’ in the Indian Airline industry, it would be interesting to take inspiration and few HR lessons from one of the Most Admired Airline in the world – Singapore Airlines (SIA).

SIA’s success can be directly attributed to its customer centric services. To achieve this, holistic and overall growth of employees are encouraged. Employees are allowed to continuously innovate and new ideas are given support. The employees here are trained to delight customers in a cost effective manner. One of the service initiatives of SIA is the ‘Transforming Customer Service’ programme. The aim of this initiative is to ensure that the entire journey of a passenger right from the purchase of a SIA ticket till the passenger reaches the destination; everything is made comfortable and enjoyable for them so that they are happy and contented and in this way will prefer SIA over the competitors.

For these customer centric services to happen, staff members are divided into various groups and team spirit is built among these members through many activities. The objective is that everyone should work together towards the common purpose of satisfying the customer and at the same time each member of the team must know, appreciate and be at ease working with others in these functional team set up. SIA uses 40-30-30 rule in this regard.  This simply means that 40% of the resources are devoted to training, 30% of resources on the review of various processes and procedures across departments and the remaining 30% of resources are used for creating new product ideas and services.

SIA’s rewards system pays bonus based on the profitability of the airline. Thus employees make best use of resources available and also come up with schemes that have good profit margins. So continuous feedback is taken from passengers to be in tandem with their changing preferences – be it in designing loyalty programmes or in coming up with food and wine options or in providing services that will meet or exceed customer expectations.

Training in SIA is considered the best in the airline industry and a SIA steward / stewardess has excellent reputation wherever he /she goes. The training period here is for four months, longer than training given in any other airline companies and the entire crew knows how to go about in a professional manner with a personal touch when dealing with passengers travelling to and from different parts of the world. Every employee, irrespective of the level of management he /she belongs to, has a specific and actionable training and development plan. Training is given in functional areas along with training in personal skills and emotional skills based on the nature of the employee’s job. Frequent travellers have mentioned that the interpersonal skills of the flight attendants and comfortable journey and good service are the factors that attract them to choose SIA over other brands.

Further, employees are encouraged to form groups having similar interests across different sections of the airline like ‘Gourmet Circle,’ ‘ Performing Arts’ group etc so that employees can engage in activities they like outside of their job and satisfied employees will have work-life balance which means their performance and efficiency will also be high. The recruitment and selection processes here are of high standard. When the need arises, employees usually flight attendants are selected at the international level from countries where SIA flies to, so that there are no language barriers or culture shocks when starting the job. Approximately, for every 20 seats, 1 SIA flight attendant is responsible and so from a human resources point of view, the value of a flight attendant as a SIA employee is undeniable. It is said that only people who naturally enjoy serving others are hired and that’s why even employees stay longer with SIA.

It is no wonder then that Singapore Airlines bagged the Top Worldwide Airline Award for the 6^th consecutive year by Wanderlust Travel Award 2013 (UK) in January this year. Thus the HR discipline, by itself or as a strategic business partner has gained importance in today’s workplace and will continue to grow even in years to come and it is employees who drive the growth of a company.

Author: Sharnitha Ramachandran

Reference:

With insights from Heracleous Loizos (2004). Cost effective service excellence : lessons from Singapore Airlines. Business Strategy Review. 15(1), 33-38.

Human Resource | The path for reforms in Public Sector Banks

With the onset of financial sector reforms and the growing competition from private and foreign payers public sector banks (PSBs) have been on a transformation journey. Many such reforms came in the form of implementation of prudential norms, retail banking, IT implementation and Basel II recommendations on banking standards.

In spite of many positives, one most critical area where PSBs today are seriously handicapped vis-à-vis their competitors in the marketplace is human capital. They have made little effort in undertaking any major human resource (HR) reforms. The HR function in most PSBs is still concerned with mere admin work; with focus on compliance and maintenance. Except some ad hoc measures in training and performance appraisal, the core of HR has lacked any long-term orientation.

PROBLEMS (The Khandelwal Committee, 2010)

• HR does not find a place in the strategic management matrix of banks.

• HR is highly transactional, ad hoc and inadequately professionalized, with high degree of standardization and militant trade unionism.

• Outsourcing of non-core activities is limited.

• Employee engagement strategies are patchy.

• The performance management system and its administration are generally routine. In many banks, clerical staff is not covered by the appraisal system.

• Lack of any worthwhile manpower planning linked with strategic and business plans.

• Progress in business process reengineering and change management is tardy in most PSBs.

• Underutilized talent pools.

• Diversity management and associated issues are given inadequate attention.

FUTURE ACTION PLAN

Introduction of bank-level wage negotiation: In a bank level arrangement, banks should consider variable pay as a major component of wages. In such an arrangement, banks can also have the discretion to go in for Cost-to Company (CTC) concept which is a prevalent trend world over. It would also align employees to bank level problems and engage them in the bank level transformation programme. Linkage of wages with productivity in individual banks will greatly enhance their capacity for long term sustenance and create sensitivity towards customer satisfaction.

Professionalization of HR: Professionalization would involve installation of scientific systems in HR backed by professional expertise and long term policy formulation. HR specialization must drive the core element of developmental HR functions, including manpower resourcing and manpower planning, talent management, performance management and measurement, compensation management, leadership development, employee surveys, HR audit and employer branding.

Succession planning and Leadership Development: Although most PSBs identify succession as a major problem, few initiatives have been undertaken to tackle it. There needs to be a comprehensive strategy to develop people to take up strategic positions in senior and top positions. The quick promotion system adopted currently to tide over the problems of finding successors to retiring top management levels without rigorous leadership grooming is far from adequate in meeting the new challenges. The tendency to fill the positions will not serve the purpose. Selecting them through a brief process of interview is inadequate. The best way would be to create an industry pool of PSB general managers for identifying the potential candidates through the assessment centre methodology.

Employee engagement: The challenge before the banks is how to get the employees go an extra mile for achieving the organization objectives. Banks should set up efficient system for grievance readressal and motivate employees to increase job satisfaction. Banks will need to work out innovative methodologies for employee engagement

Enunciation of HR policy: Banks have a written policy document approved by the board for most functions. Such documents include loan policy document, risk management policy, etc. But when it comes to HR, most banks don’t have a policy document. In the absence of this, there is wide variation in managing this crucial function by different managements and there is no monitoring by the board or by the regulators to adhere to pronounced policies. The policy document should clearly lay down the direction of initiatives in the various subsystems of HR such as recruitment, talent management, career planning, employee engagement, and succession planning and leadership development. This would facilitate engagement of the top management in implementing HR reforms and professionalize the function.

Author: Rahul Sharma

Reference: Report of the AK Khandelwal committee on HR issues of public sector banks

For Freshers @ Work

A first job can give anyone the jitters but if mentored correctly, they can be an asset to the organisation, elaborates Unnati Narang

Adjusting to a new person in the team can be bit of a task. However, with a little effort, companies can be sure that a fresher in a team is not only welcomed but becomes a crucial part of the team within no time. So what can the senior members of a team and management do to turn a fresher into an asset?

Old vs new 
Senior management often view freshers as inexperienced and hence, not sufficiently skilled. When they come in, they tend to challenge set patterns. This is the first hurdle to freshers becoming an asset to any team. “Given that experienced professionals are used to a certain way of working which has delivered results in the past, it is quite natural that the mind gets conditioned to follow the same. It is a problem of mindset which every experienced professional goes through when challenged or exposed to a new idea. At the same time, from a fresher’s perspective, he may be reluctant to bring forth or share a new idea with his seniors due to the fear of being rejected or ridiculed,” says Deepa Poncha, Head, Human Resources, Centrum Group.

To avoid such a stalemate, organisations must go back to their books and take a leaf out of Fredrick Taylor’s mental revolution concepts. “Negativity at a workplace is nothing but conflict of opinions based on prior experiences. For example, an experienced professional working on a project will have a different approach from that of a fresher. Often these situations might lead to negativity due to strong biases. To mitigate unconstructive emotions at the workplace, it is essential for the companies to design strong communication platforms to motivate and encourage team building exercises to fabricate strong interpersonal skills and positive attitude,” says Prashant Bhatnagar, Director Hiring, Sapient – India.

Mentoring newbies
It is important for experienced professionals to see the other side of having a fresher in the team. Saravanan, Head, Engineering at Nyootv, has been part of several mixed teams where freshers and seniors work together. What qualities does he see freshers bringing to the table? “Since they have no work experience, they tend to work harder. They can be put to work on any technology; this is not always possible with experienced professionals who have already trained and worked on specific technology for a while and are reluctant to change. In a typical work situation, some of the mundane tasks can be delegated to freshers.

Most companies have a training period. This acts as a window for the fresher to learn. In the initial months, the fresher becomes an asset to the company by way of what he learns, thereby adding value in subsequent periods. But for that learning to take place, a supportive team is critical,” says Gupta. While the fresher should come in with an open mind, a large part of the responsibility of turning the person into a crucial asset to the team lies with the company.

Size matters 
How does the size of any team affect the role of a fresher? “Generally, freshers feel more comfortable in smaller teams; where they are not afraid to speak out and voice their opinions. In larger teams, freshers have a tendency to blend with the crowd, as they take on a role of a quiet observer. For a fresher to be an asset to a team, the team manager should bring out the best in him,” says Prashant Bhatnagar, Director Hiring, Sapient – India.

Ultimately, for anyone to be an asset to the team, shared interest must prevail over personal interest of individual team members.

*This article originally appeared in the Economic Times on November 3, 2012*

DELI & Job Sculpting

One of the major challenges that organizations face today is the high rates of attrition. Employers are finding it difficult to retain the talent in organizations as young professionals leave their current jobs the moment they find better opportunities elsewhere. Timothy Butler and James Waldroop attribute a major part of attrition to the inability of organizations to understand the psychology of work satisfaction; they assume that people who excel at their work are necessarily happy in their jobs.

Employers need to understand that the key to retain employees is to offer them a job that matches their deeply embedded life interests (DEMI). These interests are not hobbies (Cooking, Swimming) nor are they topical enthusiasms, such as the stock market or oceanography. Instead, deeply embedded life interests are long-held, emotionally driven passions, intricately entwined with personality and thus born of an indeterminate mix of nature and nurture. Deeply embedded drive what kind of activities makes people happy. At work, that happiness often translates into commitment. It keeps people engaged, and it keeps them from quitting.Life interests start showing themselves in childhood and remain relatively stable throughout our lives, even though they may manifest themselves in different ways at different times. A person’s life interests essentially vary as a child, teenager and adult.

Job sculpting is the art of matching people to jobs that allow their deeply embedded life interests to be expressed. It is the art of developing a customized career path for the employees that increases their chances of staying in the organization.

• Job sculpting demands the managers to identify each employee’s deeply embedded life interests. Managers using psychology and behavioral science principles can implement sculpting. Managers should make this effort to know their employees and retain the best of talent.
•  Each change in assignment provides an opportunity to do some sculpting. For instance, a human resource manager with an interest in quantitative analysis might be given new duties working with the marketing analysis wing of compensation & benefits unit while remaining in the human resource department.

The eight life interests identified by Timothy Butler and James Waldroop are:

Application of Technology measures interests that are often associated with engineering, production, operations, and the general use of technology to accomplish business objectives
Quantitative Analysis measures interests that are realized through problem-solving that relies on mathematical analysis
Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking measures interests involving broadly conceptual approaches to business problems
Creative Production measures interests that are realized through highly creative activities such as the development of new products or marketing concepts, the gernation of new business ideas, etc.
Counseling and Mentoring measures interests that involve developing relationships as a crucial part of business work, such as coaching, training and mentoring
Managing People and Relationships measures interests that involve developing relationships as a crucial part of business work, such as coaching, training and mentoring
Enterprise Control measures interests that are realized through having ultimate decision-making authority for complete operations
Influence Through Language and Ideas measures interest in exercising influence through the skillful use of written and spoken language

 

In order to carve a career path for employees; employers should lay emphasis on performance reviews. They should actively listen and ask probing questions to employees during the reviews and at the same time allow them to put forth their concerns. Once it is done; managers can customize the jobs according too the interests of the employees by either adding (or removing) responsibilities or changing the job altogether.

As the concept of learning organizations grows in this knowledge-driven economy; it is important for organizations and managers to understand the essence of career development of employees which can contribute a lot in retaining employees in the long run. Managers should not underestimate the criticality of understanding their employee’s expectations. It’s time they make an effort to know the hearts of their employees along with their minds!

Author: Rahul Sharma

Reference: Job Sculpting: The art of retaining your best people (Harvard Business School)

The Happiness Manager

The Happiness Manager is an individual who works towards creating a healthy and work friendly environment by focusing on Employee’s Happiness. The Happiness Manager (THM) understands that a happy employee in return would deliver his/her best for the organization. As humans aren’t we all drawn to everything that makes us happy?

If your answer is YES, you’ve answered the question about why the organization needs The Happiness Manager!

 

Why an organization needs The Happiness Manager?

10 simple reasons.

1: Happy people work better with others

2: Happy people are more creative

3: Happy people fix problems instead of complaining about them

4: Happy people have more energy.

5: Happy people are more optimistic.

6: Happy people are way more motivated

7: Happy people get sick less often

8: Happy people learn faster.

9: Happy people worry less about making mistakes – and consequently make fewer      mistakes.

10: Happy people make better decisions.

How will The Happiness Manager Function?

• Where Employee Relation is a sole HR role, THM will be a person the employee can share their grievances with by maintaining confidentiality.

• THM will focus on building trust amongst employees where the employees hesitate sharing with the Employee Relations HR, as it can have a negative effect on their performance evaluation.

• THM will not wait for the employee to approach but in turn approach the employee personally.

• THM will have a personality to match the designation that will help in positive approach to resolve problems.

• THM will create a balance between the employer and the employee, by sharing the organisation’s point of view about tackling every problematic situation.

Qualities of The Happiness Manager

• Cheerful: Smile, It is the best way to break the ice and connect.
• Remember Names: It strengthens the bond and strengthens personal bonding.
• Rapport Building.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to relate to people at all levels.
• Social and an extrovert.
• Good observation skill: be aware of the people around.
• Empathetic and Understanding: should be able to understand.
• Stress coping skill: Tactics to share and apply incase of stress and work pressure.
• Positive and optimistic approach: Ability to look at the brighter side of things.
• Problem solving abilities: Ability to focus on the solution and effectively tackle problems.

Role and Responsibilities of The Happiness Manager:

• THM will create a happy, positive and work friendly environment for the Employees, abiding the rules and regulations of the Organisation.

• THM will also ensure that the employees are being heard, understood and listened to.

• THM will help in Employee engagement and work on retention and happiness of the employees.

• THM will also hold happiness sessions.

• THM will deal with Employee’s problems when they occur, and manage employee relationships to achieve a happy and productive growth across the organization.

• THM will work with the HR team to review employee’s feedback and implement any required change.

   

  Author : Samantha Singhi ( @SamanthaSinghi )

PRESENTEEISM @ Work Place

All of us have heard about absenteeism, but what about Presenteeism? Though this word is not new, it has gained prominence over the past few years in the HR dictionary. It refers to an employee who comes to work but is withdrawn from working at the optimum level of productivity primarily due to health reasons. There may be other reasons as well like stress, depression or domestic issues that make one be physically present in the office but the level of engagement with work will be lower than usual. However, presenteeism is often related to being sick yet coming to work so that the employee is not absent. This had led to presenteeism being dubbed as ‘sickness presence.’

Presenteeism can be a great concern at the work place since it does more harm than good. The chances of that illness spreading to other employees increases drastically which means that not just one person’s productivity comes down but that of all others who get directly or indirectly affected by it. The common complaint by employees is that companies implicitly seem to send signals that presenteeism is fine and that absenteeism is not acceptable. Hence it becomes difficult to draw a line between the two and so employees reluctantly come to work even if they do not feel comfortable doing so.

Presenteeism occurs at workplace due to work pressures, since replacements cannot happen easily, targets and quotas need to be met and so holidays cannot be availed, and to avoid disciplinary measures. Some reports suggest that presenteeism happens more in the private sector than public sector as the policies in public sector companies allow for sickness entitlement and reimbursements. Many researches have been done in the area of presenteeism and it is interesting to note that presenteeism can happen in case of non-communicable diseases as well, like in the cases of employees suffering from chronic illnesses like arthritis, anxiety, asthma, heart diseases and diabetes since they attend work but this would only aggravate symptoms and reduce well-being.

 

Keeping all these points in mind, as HR professionals we must educate employees and make them understand under what conditions they can work and under what conditions they definitely need to stay at home. The sick employee cannot work to the best of his / her abilities and in the process risks infecting others as well who may end up becoming sick and they may take leave. This is like a snowball effect and so the aim must be to create and provide a clean and congenial environment wherein healthy and productive employees work together and no one has to suffer at the cost of others.

Both attendance policies and absence policies must be framed in such a way that this aspect has a vital role to play. Overall, presenteeism costs can be burdening to the company and in many cases they are higher than absenteeism costs itself. So proper measures need to be in place to help employees with such problems and this will turn out to be advantageous to the organization also in the long run. Employee assistance programs like Counselling, involving Occupational Health practitioners to offer advice and the like can be initiated for the employee’s benefit. In doing so, the employee will also feel relieved and may not fear if he / she will lose the job due to that sickness, will not hide the true nature of the sickness and so on. Ultimately, all these will lead to positive emotions like commitment to work once recovered, increased employee loyalty and reduced attrition.

 

Author : Sharnitha Ramachandran

How to Engage ‘Gen Y’ Employees

Benefits are a powerful draw for attracting Gen Y to a company – 56% of Gen Y report that benefits were an important reason why they chose their current employer. They may not collect a gold watch from you, but you can motivate them to stay as long as possible by providing benefits that clearly help them solve immediate problems and needs. Tips to Engage Gen Y Employees :

 

 

1. Flexibility Matters

Gen Y values generous time off policies and freedom to work when and where they like. Work-life balance is more
important to Gen Y than any other generation – 50% say it makes them feel loyal to their employer. This is a powerful retention carrot. If you offer it, they will take it – but will not take advantage. Don’t send mixed signals about use of this benefit.

2. Gen Y prefers choice and customization when it comes to benefits
With inelastic benefits budgets the solution for this preference is voluntary benefits. This generation is used to reaching into their wallet for their benefits, so give them the choices they crave with employee-paid insurance products – from car insurance to pet insurance.

3. Gen Y is serious about their finances and concerned about risk
Provide liberal life and disability coverages from day one. Offer supplemental buy-ups to ensure adequate coverage. Financial education in the workplace is highly valued at all levels — from basic financial literacy to sophisticated investment advice. Turn to carriers to deliver low-cost/no cost programs.

4. Health coverage is a big concern

68% of Gen Y survey respondents are concerned about paying health care premiums and out of pocket costs. Help them meet these costs with affordable supplementary health products such as dental and vision coverage. These are popular benefits that you don’t have to be sick to use.

5. Advancement opportunities drive loyalty

 More than their employers realize. The MetLife Study shows that 66% of Gen Y cite this as an important loyalty driver, yet only 42% of employers are on board. Don’t make employees have to move out in order to move ahead.

6. Text and Tweet to build engagement

Communicate in preferred ways to build a benefits bridge to Gen Y.

 

Author : Samantha Singhi (@SamanthaSinghi)