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| HRD News Letter | July 2009, Vol.25, Issue:4 2 Silver Jubilee Series

| HRD News Letter | July 2009, Vol.25, Issue:4 3Silver Jubilee Series


Vol - 25 July 2009 Issue - 4

EditorC. Balaji,

506, Sai Siri Sampada, 7-1-29/23 & 24,Leela Nagar, Ameerpet, Hyderabad - 500 016.

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On behalf of National HRD Network506, Sai Siri Sampada, 7-1-29/23 & 24,

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For Advertising in HRD News LetterPlease Contact:

K. SatyanarayanaExecutive Director, National HRD Network

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NHRDN Leadership TeamAQUIL BUSRAI, National President

DWARAKANATH P, Immediate Past PresidentMADHUKAR SHUKLA, Regional President (East)GOPALKRISHNA M., Regional President(South)SATISH PRADHAN, Regional President (West)

RAJAN N S, Regional President (North)MURTHY P V R DR., National SecretaryASHOK REDDY B, National Treasurer

SATYANARAYANA K, Executive Director

NHRDN Elected MembersINDRANIL BANERJEE, Elected Member

Dr. G. PANDU NAIK, Elected MemberJ. RAVIKANTH REDDY, Elected Member

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ISSN-0974-1720

© copyright of the articles published in

HRD Newsletter will be with National HRD Network

Articles

18 .................. Zeros to Heros - Series 13–– S. Deenadayalan and J. Sathiyaseelan

21 ........... HR - The New Driver on the Seat–– Snehal Singh

22 ......Human Resources Management - TheSix Sigma way

–– Dhruv Desai24 ... Recession and the Stress: Role of EQ in

the Difficult Times–– Madhusmita Kar

26 .... Attitude -the Deciding Factor Of Succes–– Dr A K Pandey & Shalini Pandey

27 .................... An Agony of a Job Loser–– R P Yadav

28 ...... From Adopting to Discovering our ownRhythm

–– Pankajakshan Vijayan30 ...... Excellence in Training - VI Leadership

Training–– Dr. P N Singh

31 ............ North East States - A LeadershipChallange

–– Lt.Col (Retd) Prashant Kumar Mathur,Mr. Antu Das

32 ........ Employability Enhancement throughAspirations Management

–– V. Ramanan35 ....... M.B.A - "Are we producing Masters"?

–– Balijepalli Ravikanth36 ... Reward Trends In India Inc. On Upsurge

–– Hari Nair38 ............. How To Raise Your Self Esteem

–– Deepti Pathak40 ..... Evaluating Employability Preparedness

(E.P) During HR Interview–– Ravikanth Balijapalli,S. Krishna Murthy Naidu

41 . SANSKRITI- The Sure Recipe for Success–– Dr.A.Jagan Mohan Reddy

43 ....... Summer Internship-An Opportunity inDisguise...

–– Akhilesh A. Singh44 .......................... Old Older Oldest…!

–– Ms. Nitasha Singh45 ......................... Bottom-up Series - 8

–– Girinarayanan G

Regular Features

6 ............................ President’s Message8 ......................................... Editorial13 ............................... Monster Article

10 ...................................... Webinar11 ...................... D M Selveira - Obituary43 ............................. Fascinating Facts52 .............. Book Review by Dr. Samta Jain

14-16 and 48-51 Chapter News 54-57 ................... Chapter Photographs50 ..................... Quiz and Cartoon Corner

Silver Jubilee Features

8 ........................... "Silver Jubilee Satire"10 .................... "Silver Jubilee Messages"11 ..................... "Silver Jubilee Memories"

Advertisements

2 ......................................... Sodexho3 .......................... Thomas Assessments5 ............................. Genius Consultants7 .................... Qualified Learning Systems9 ........................................ Alphastar12 .................................. Monster Jobs19 .......................................... Probe34 .... Pratik Management Productivity Systems58 ......................................... Mercer59 ................................... Global Hunt60 ....................................... Monster

Column17 ........ Employer Branding for Recruitment &

Retention–– Global Hunt

Humour Review Department (HRD)

53 ..................................... Fayol Trial–– Col. P. Deogirikar

Lead Feature

20 ... Management of A Generation in a SlowingEconomy

––Dhruv Desai Case Study

44 .................. HR And Budgetary Controls–– R. Dharma Rao


Are we tapping Women Powersufficiently ?An elephant has two sets of teeth - One toshow, gleaming and attractive tusk. Other,to chew, dirty and hidden. Are we applyingthe same analogy in dealing with womenpower in organisations? Do we say one thingbut do another when we refer to womantalent?

Not one organisation denies the importanceof promoting gender representation andrecognising women as crucial componentof talent pool. But data shows a differentpicture. Women executives around the worldstill face an uphill battle in workplaceequality. Consider the most highly paidexecutives of Fortune 500 companies-only6% are women. Most notably, only 2% ofthe CEOs are women, and only 15% of theseats on the boards of directors are held bywomen.

Studies have affirmed that people associatewomen and men with different traits. Mostoften, more men are perceived aspossessing traits that connote leadership ascompared to women. It is therefore notsurprising that promotions come more slowlyfor women than for men with equivalentqualifications. Women start careers inbusiness and other professions with thesame level of intelligence, education, andcommitment as men. Yet comparatively fewreach the top echelons. Thus when we lookat the dearth of women in top leadership, itis evident that the meritocracy value is notlived out fully.

Accenture survey One Step Ahead of 2011:A New Horizon for Working Women covering17 countries concluded that 68% ofbusinesswomen in India, 63% in SouthAfrica, 61% in China, and 52% in Brazil feelconfident about their ability to succeed in aglobal business world. If that is the level ofconfidence then why are we not seeing morewomen leaders in decision makingpositions? Advancing more women intoleadership positions is a sure-fire, long-termresolution perhaps even to address thecurrent financial crisis says Groundbreakers,a recently published report from Ernst &

Young. Goldman Sachs data states thatclosing the gap between male and femaleemployment rates could boost the GDPacross countries significantly. 2007 Catalystreport found that on an average, Fortune 500companies with more women on theirboards of directors turned in better financialperformances than those with fewer womenboard directors. Economic analyses by theWorld Bank, United Nations, GoldmanSachs and other organizations show asignificant statistical correlation betweengender equality and the level of developmentof countries. The evidence is compelling andundisputable that women can be powerfuldrivers of economic development

Despite all the data, can organisations affordto ignore the importance of higher womenrepresentation across all levels of theorganisation?

If an organisation depends solely on maletalent, they drastically reduce the pool fromwhere to draw top talent. Organisations thatoverlook this aspect are missing a hugeopportunity. Women bring in their ownperspectives and also a diverse set of viewsthat is invaluable and imperative to growthof business. In fact, because suchorganisations fundamentally misunderstandhow to manage and motivate one half of thehuman resource, they tap only a fraction ofthe resource capacity. Organisations that donot care to develop and retain talentedwomen will continue to feel the absence ofwomen at higher levels in the future, whentalents will be scarcer. They will fail to be abeacon for woman talent.

Admittedly, women are presented with manychallenges in their career path. Peakadvancement years in their mid-30s coincidewith equally high demands from child rearingand family. Women have to balance boththese priorities with dexterity. Addressingthis conundrum effectively requiresorganisations also to take a step forward.Women do not always require reduced workhours; all they need is flexibility in when andwhere they do their work. Work environmentthat fosters work-life balance, offer a varietyof work-life options including on-site childcare, paid maternity or paternity leave,telecommuting and phased re-entry for newparents goes a long way in retaining womenin the organization.

Research commissioned by PwC UKindicates that, in economically advancedcountries, men and women in theprofessional services sector are hired at anequal (1:1) rate at entry level. However, thispipeline starts leaking for voluntary as wellas organisational reasons. The leakage dueto organisational reasons is visible lack ofwomen in senior roles. Lack of considerationof females for major assignments, lack ofgender consideration in successionplanning, and a reticence amongst seniormen to mentor women at the leadership levelare some of the contributing factors. Thereare solutions. All that is needed is an

President's Messageorganisational will to address the issue. Forexample, there are four actions that anorganisation needs to take to ensure thatthe women managers function as effectivelyas their male counterparts. First, is toacknowledge the fundamental biological factof maternity. Second, is to provide flexibilityfor working parent, both women and men.Third, is to provide women who already havebasic leadership traits with additionalmanagement skills and tools that willcontribute to enhanced performance.Fourth, is to improve the corporateenvironment by removing barriers that existsfor women but not for men.

Young women professionals need to learnand imbibe from an early stage, theexcitement, challenges, opportunities,rewards of business, besides challenges ofleadership. Being able to adapt to new rolesand new circumstances shows one'sversatility as a leader. Research indicatesthat women who have stayed in one area ofexpertise too long or have had exposure toa narrow functional role are not viewed asreadily promotable when compared to moreadaptable counterparts. Aspiring womenleaders also need to project that what theyare striving for is based purely on merit.Consequently, they should avoid thetemptation of expecting a role or a positionsimply because they are women. Projectingan effective leadership image requiresconfidence and not undermining goodresults with a weak or an extra modest self-image. Some of these changes in theworking style of women employees canfurther accelerate the organizationalmovement to induct more women leaders.

Here organisations too have a role to playand a responsibility to discharge. They needto equip women for positions of leadership,guide them in their current roles, identifymore opportunities and possibilities, helpwomen hone their skills and capabilities, andincrease their confidence. The CEO of theorganisation has to take personalresponsibility for leadership developmentand succession plans by requiring thatwomen are identified in the "ready now" and"ready in three years" boxes. The focusshould be on creating a climate fosteringinclusive environments.

That there is a need to re-visit the issue ofopportunities for women leaders is ratherobvious. The moot point is whetherorganisations are ready to change? If thestatus quo continues unchallenged,organisations may miss a mine of untappedwomen talent.

In that case, we will remain where we arenow, where it is not working. We willperpetuate the conspiracy of silence.Everybody will know it, but nobody will betalking about it.

Aquil BusraiNational President

President's Message


As I was browsing through the old issues ofthe Newsletter, I came across thedocumentation of the National HRD Awards(1991-92). The documentation contained thecitations for the institutional and individualawardees. What was also documented wasthe whole set of criteria used by the AwardsCommittee for assessing. We will carrythese criteria in another issue; but I cite thecriteria for assessing the outstandingcontributions made by HRD Managers/LineManagers of organisations. These, I am surethe readers will recognize as beingnecessary to be worthy of high accoladesin HRD:

1. Does he have a HRD philosophy?

2. Has he established/given newdirections/change the HRD departmentor his department with a HRD thrust?

3. Do people grow under him?

4. Do other line managers get inspired by

Editorial

- C Balaji

Editorialhim and learn? Does he facilitatelearning/change in others?

5. Does he influence top management alsoin terms of HRD?

6. Does he share his knowledge/work/experience with others?

7. Does he participate in professionalbodies/academic institutions andcontribute to their growth?

8. Has he affected any HR policies in theorganization?

9. Is he open to feedback?

10. Has he introduced any new HR policiesin the organization?

11. Is he considered as an effectivemanager?

Note that these were for Human ResourcesDevelopment Managers, not general HRmanagers. Nowadays, of course, HR and

HRD are all synonymously used, with thefocus on development reduced. Do thosein organisations who perform HRD rolestoday meet the above criteria?

[Editor's note: HRD Newsletter is a seriousbusiness! And, satires accentuate theseriousness, in subtle but powerful ways!Here's one that appeared in the Apr-Jun1998 issue.]

The Surface Scratchers - A SatireVK Sharma

The easiest profession to cheat on qualityis HRD. Also the profession is in fashion.

And, it has started attracting many varietiesof surface scratching artists. Some of themcan be categorized as:

Confuse the public you deal with / or areaddressing, with jargon. There is no needto worry about any core content.

Present with polish little that you have doneor someone else has done in a high qualitypresentation, hinting at positive outcomesin the future.

Be in a sunrise industry. As the results arebound to be on the ascending curve, soshould be your fortunes.

Accept a lot of lecturing assignments. Bepolite. Be visible. You should not worry toomuch about contents. a mixed vegetablecurry is always possible and it has theadvantage of hinting at depths possible butnot touched upon due to paucity of time.

Devote time and develop skills as to how tograb series of positions in the professionalbody you belong to. This can lend you anaura of being a professional.

Extend your empire in as wide and diverseareas as possible. The rationale is thatpeople are involved in all activities. Thatshould bring dividends or additionalmanpower, floor space and above allvisibility and power as more and moreemployees become dependent on the favorsyou can bestow.

The typical bureaucrat focuses on paperachievements. Goes through all thenecessary professional steps, skippingone or two that may consume effort andtime, without being unduly concernedabout the effectiveness. Paper records inthe shape of circulars, good-lookingminutes, letters can always provide arecord of the range of contributions made.

Hence it can be stated with a reasonabledegree of confidence that with a widerange of wisdom at work the profession isbound to prosper, unless of course if theindustry, the economy collapses and forthat there many variables that can beattributed. The focus has to be on makinghay while the sun shines.

When the article was published, Mr V KSharma was General Manager (HRD), JKIndustries Limited, New Delhi

VisitNATIONAL HRD NETWORK'S KNOWLEDGE PORTAL

For any help/assistanceplease contact:

Mr. Ankur Sethi, Programme Manager

at

[email protected]


Dear

Shri Satyanarayana Ji

Glad to note that NHRDNetwork News Letter iscelebrating 25Years ofits inception. I recallwith fond memories itsinitial days. I remember

the second issue, was sponsored by TVS(Thanks to the support from Mr. Venu

Dear SatyanarayanaGaru,

I remember howchallenging it was toensure the quality andtimeliness of the HRDnewsletter, when Iused to edit it during

Dear Members

It gives me immensepleasure to be a part ofthe Network's journeyand celebrating its 25successful years.

Indeed what a longway the National HRD

Network has come, since it was set up 25years ago by a few HR professionals andacademicians who were guided by acommon passion for HRD, a compellingvision of promoting HRD across India andan inherent belief that every human beinghas the potential to do remarkable things!

Over the years, the Network has pioneeredHR thought leadership through itspublications, monthly newsletters and themore recent NHRDN Journals. TheChapters have been at the forefront inorganizing special and networking events.The Network organizes one of the mostprestigious HR Conferences annually. It hascollaborated with CII on an extensiveproject of developing the HR CompetencyModel (HR Compass) for young HRprofessionals in India.

With the launch of the new National portal,NHRDN has ushered in a new era thatcelebrates the member's right to engagemore actively with the network and support

its vision. It urges you to look at new waysof learning, sharing and networking withyour fellow members. It inspires you tocollaborate across organizations andindustries to create rich HR knowledge huband thought leadership

I would like to congratulate NationalNetwork HRD Network and its members onits silver jubilee and wish them the very bestin nurturing the HR Leaders of today andtomorrow.Warm Regards

P. Dwarakanath - [email protected] Past National PresidentDirector - Group Human Capital, Max India

DearMr. Satyanarayana,

Congratulations onSilver Jubilee year ofNHRDN News Letter!

During my associationwith NHRDN over lasttwo decades, I have

seen the News Letter go through manytransformations to meet the ever changing

needs of HR professionals spread acrossthe country.

I would personally like to compliment youfor your relentless drive and perseveranceto lead, sustain and evolve the News Letterover the years. In May 2009 issue I sawthe photograph of NHRDN 1989conference at Delhi. This was beginning ofmy association with NHRDN. Dr. ShashiKhanna, Purnendu Saragi and I were threepeople who had responsibility for the entire

"Silver Jubilee Messages"'program' of the 1989 conference. It was agreat experience - very energizing even tothis day when I think of it.

Over the years I have always experiencedNHRDN as very professional, empoweredand vibrant institution. This has made aninvaluable contribution in my developmentas HR professional. With best complimentsfor great future ahead,

Arvind N Agrawal - [email protected]

"Silver Jubilee Messages"

Srinivasan, our MD at that time and currentlyCII President) The News letter was printedand dispatched from Chennai I vividly recallNHRD N did not have a computer at thattime and addresses used to be hand written.Myself and the editor Fr.Abraham (CurrentlyDirector XLRI), sitting on the floor in a roomin Father's hostel in Lyola college werewriting addresses and fixing stamps. As thestamps were flying away, we had to switchoff the ceiling fan and

as it was too hot, we had to even removeour shirts on that mid summer afternoon atChennai. That was great fun and Joy. Gladthat with such modest beginnings the newsletter grew and wish many more decadesof its service to the members.

With best regards

P V R [email protected]

1996-1997 or so. I think Dr. Balaji andyourself deserves to be wholeheartedlycongratulated for taking the newsletter tomuch greater heights and depths, that too,without compromising on the timelinessand quality! This single publication kept mefully in touch with HR professionals and HRscenario in India when I was working

abroad for more than 10 years.

On the occasion of the silver jubilee edition,I congratulate the team for bringing out anexcellent issue of the newsletter.

Best wishes

Sethu, Larsen and Toubro, MumbaiE.Mail: [email protected]

Dear Satya,

Thank you for the very wellbrought out issue.Regards, Keith. E-mail:[email protected]

Feedback on June 2009 issueRakesh Kumar<[email protected]>

Thanks Satya,

I noted with sadnessabout DMS. He was oneof the most prolific writerson HRD. His book (onHRD) was probably one

of the most lucid ones I've read. We havelost one great admirers of the HRD

movement in the country. He was a greatasset during the formative years of theNHRD Network.

I know what it takes to bring out newsletters.And you have been doinga splendid job.The second Silver Jubilee issue is so veryinformative and has come out well. I amhappy to know about Anil, Chandru andKeith. I must thank you most profusely for"reconnecting me" to the NHRD Network.

Rakesh


July – September 1990,Volume - 6, Issue – 3Editor: Keith C. D’Souza

Editorial Board: E Abraham SJ, PramodKumar, D M Silvera and MadhukarShukla

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ISSUE:

The issue carried the proceedings of theVision-Mission Workshop hed at Madras on5th February 1990.

Important Articles:

Besides the Editorial, the issue carried,“Training and Learning: Culture’sConsequences” by Nirmala Srinivasan,Consultant Sociologist (HRD/OD),Bangalore; , “The Fundamentals of HRD:Pointers and Guidelines” by Mr. P L Misra,a Research Scholar based at MTI Ranchi;“A review of John J Sherwood’s “CreatingWork Cultures with a competitiveadvantage” published in OrganizationalDynamics Winter 1988 by Kiran Gulrajani,an alumnus of XLRI working with ITC,Kolkata; “The Eye of the Beholder: A Noteof Caution by HRD Professionals” by Dr. TV Rao, IIMA; “Organization DevelopmentThrough HRD” by Mr. W S Peters,Administrative Officer, AZ Electronics,Pune; “HRD for Workmen” by Mr. P K CBose, Manager (Administration) of HI-RELGroup, ahmedabad; and finally“Organizational Theory for HRDProfessionals” by Rajen Gupta, Professorof IIM Lucknow..

CHAPTER NEWS

AHMEDABAD CHAPTER:

On January 5, 1990 Mr. Parikh, DirectorGeneral, Gandhi Labour Institute delivereda talk on “Training of Civil Servants.” OnMarch 10, 1990 Dr. Anajali Mehta, B KSchool of Management talked on “Selfawareness for HRD Professional. OnMarch 29, 1990 Ms. Harismita Triveditalked on “Self awareness: Development asan HRD Professional.” On May 17, 1990Dr. G K Suri, Director General, NPC talkedon “HRD for better productivity.” On July 5,1990, Mr. I Balachandani, PersonnelManager, Blue Star shared hisexperiences. A one day workshop on“Performance Counseling was organizedby Dr. T V Rao on July 5, 1990. MeHarismita Trivedi of Ahmedabad ElectricityCompany has taken over as Secretary frommr. G K Ghosh who has moved to Bombayas Manager – HRD of the Raymond Group.

BANGALORE CHAPTER:

From January 1990, six talks have beenorganized on topics such as “Motivation in

a Large Corporation”, “HRD Practices andSystems in Digital equipment”, “NewPriorities for HRD”, “Coming to Grips withCorporate Value System” etc. Thespeakers included Mr. SridharSubramanyam, President of Madura Coats,Mr. V G Ratnam Group Vice President ofU B Group, Dr. Maya Reddy, Vice President– HR of Digital Equipment, Mr. Ashit K.Sarkar, Vice President – HR of BritanniaIndustries, Dr. S Subramaniam, Director ofthe manpower Development Centre andProf. Vijay Padaki, Consultant.

On June 29 and 30, 1990, the Chapterorganized two workshops on “Role of HRDManager: Key Issues” and “Strategies forCoping with Employee Turnover. Thespeakers included Mr. R R Nair, V P(Personnel) of Lipton India; Mr. K S Rao,Manager (P & A) of Madura Coats; Mr. D TDevare, HRD Manager of Grindwell Norton,Mr. B Jagadeesh, HRD Manager ofKarnataka Antibiotics; Mrs. ShobhaSethuram, Manager, A F Feruson and Mr.K B Dadiseth, Executive Director(Personnel) of Hindustan Lever.

A Half day Seminar on “Stress, Health andManagerial Effectiveness” was organizedon 20th August 2009. The resource personwas Dr. Ramnik Parekh, Chief MedicalOfficer of Hindustan Lever.

BOMBAY CHAPTER:

A seminar was organized on “IntegratingNew Entrants into the Organization” on 14th

July 1990.

Announcements:

International Conference on HumanResource Development for Management ofChange to be held at Hotel Krishna Oberoi,Hyderabad from 7th to 9th February 1991was announced in this issue. Dr. Dharni PSinha, Principal, ASCI, Hyderabad wasannounced as the Conference Chairmanand Dr. I G Kannan, Professor ASCI,Hyderabad was announced as theChairman of the Delegates Committee.Speakers from abroad likely to address theconference included Warren Bennis (USA),Jaime Fillella (Spain), Alimullah Miyan(Bangladesh), Joseph Patti (Singapore),Khawaja Saeed (Pakistan), WilliamBraddick (Brussels), and kasuka matukwa(Tanzania) in addition ton to amny Chiefexecutives and leaders in HRD from India.

October - December 1990,Volume - 6, Issue – 4Editor: Keith C. D’Souza

Editorial Board: E Abraham SJ, PramodKumar, D M Silvera and MadhukarShukla

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ISSUE:

The issue carried the articles “HRD in theNineties” by Raghu Krishnamoorthy,Manager – HRD, Modi Xerox, New Delhi;“Human resources Development: currencyVs Concept” by Mirza S. Saiyaddin of IIMAhmedabad; “HRD in ersonal Life” by R KSharma, Personnel Officer – HRD, Bankof Baroda Head Office, Baroda; and “HRDAwards” Some Thoughts and Issues by Dr.T V Rao, IIM Ahmedabad.

CHAPTER NEWS

Hosur Chapter: At its meeting held on 7th

December 1990, the Chapter elected Mr.S Ponambalanathan of Facit Asia asPresident, Mr. P V N Moorthy of MacwinExplosives as Voce President; Mr. KPraveen Kumar of The English ElectricCompany as Secretary; Mr Y R Wilson ofTitan Watches as Joint Secretary and Mr.Narona of carborandum Universal asTreasurer.

Ranchi Chapter: A talk on “How to LearnManagement from Your Wife” by the well-known management expert Mr. SharuRangnekar was organized on November16,1990at MTI, SAIL. Dr Ashok Kumar,Joint Secretary introduced the speaker andMr. S N Das, Chapter President summedup the proceedings.

Bangalore Chapter: Dr. Rupande Padakiis a resource person and Mr. M S SVaradan, Management Consultantsummed up the presentations of theworkshop held in June 1990 on the theme“Role of the HRD Manager.”

Indore Chapter: Mr. A Muralidharan,Deputy Divisional Manager (Personnel) ofHindustan Motors had taken over asPresident of the Indore Chapter from Mr.Ajit Mathur.

HRD Facilitators Program: June 10-22,1991 – Hotel Clrks Amer, Jaipur.

Feedback from Prince VijaiI am so happy to know that HRDProfessional Body exists all over Indiaand propelling the professional activitieseffectively over a long span of years.

It is really a splendid achievement andwe are all (HR Professionals) proud ofyou. I am sure that you brought greatlaurels to HRD Profession.

Once again I congratulate you and yourteam for your well-deserved success.Prince Vijai. J, Doctoral ResearchScholar, ICFAI Research Staff College,Hyderabad

E-Mail: [email protected]

"Silver Jubilee Memories"


May 29, 2009 was another momentousoccasion that encountered a unique wayof bringing HR professionals across thecountry together. It was the day NHRDNorganised its Seminar on Maximizing ROIin HR, in India Habitat Center, New Delhi

The one day Seminar included Senior HRLeaders and Eminent Speakers, and wasattended by over 80 HR practitioners fromacross the country.

The Opening Session of the Seminarstarted at 9:30AM with the recitation ofNHRDN Code of Conduct by the host Mr.Mohit Gandhi, Executive Director, NHRDNfollowed by the Welcome address by Mr.NS Rajan (Regional President, NorthNHRDN & Partner (Human Capital) E&Y.

Mr. Rajan also talked about HR's responsein Managing the Difficult Road Ahead andhow the current economic scenario

presented a unique set ofchallenges for HR, bothfor Business and HR.

Mr. NS Rajan

Mr. AquilBusra i ,NationalPresident,NHRDN

& Executive Director (HR), IBM gave theKeynote Address and talked about the"Linkage of Business to HR".

Left to Right: Mr. Aquil Busrai , Mr. AquilBusrai & Mr. NS Rajan

The opening session wasfollowed by discussionsbetween the participantsand the speakers.

Mr. Aquil Busrai with a participant

Tea Break

The topic of discussion for the secondsession was "Strategic HR Planning &Resource Maximisation" which featuredthree eminent panelists. It had Dr. CSVenkataratnam, Director IMI as the SessionChairman, and Mr. Surajit Banerjee,Director (HR), Max Healthcare, Mr. RajivKapoor, Executive VP, JCB & Mr. AnandPillai, Sr. VP (T2ID & Quality), HCLTechnologies as the Lead Speakers whogave their insights on the topic and howStrategic HR planning is the process by

NATIONAL HRD NETWORK'SSEMINAR ON "MAXIMISING ROI in HR" 29 May 2009, New Delhi

which an organization ensures that it hasthe right number of people with the rightcompetencies in the right jobs and at theright cost. The panelists also spoke on howRigorous HR planning links peoplemanagement to the organization's mission,vision, goals and objectives, as well as toits strategic plan and budgetary resources.

From Left to Right: Prof. Venkataratnam,Mr. Surajit Banerjee, Mr. Anand Pillai, Mr.Rajiv Kapoor

The presentation's were followed by a livelyand interactive Q & A session, during whichthe audience asked several questions tothe speakers followed by Lunch where onesaw participants networking, exchangingcards and interacting with speakers andtheir industry colleagues.

Left: Participants asking questions at theQ & A Session

Left: Networking over Lunch

The post lunch session was on "HRDelivery", where a large part of theafternoon was devoted to presentations bythe session speakers. First to start was Mr.PV Ramanamurthy, VP (HR), HindustanCoca Cola Beverages who spoke on the

three key elements in HRDelivery, Building aDiverse Workforce,Nurturing & DevelopingTop Talent & ImprovingBottom Talent.

Left: Mr. PV Ramanamurthy giving hispresentation

The next presentation was given by Mr.Navin Bhatia, COO, Bharti LearningSystems, who spoke about ExecutionExcellence @ HR. He stressed that toachieve true differentiation, companiesmust develop a more responsive andresilient workforce by finding better waysto source talent, allocate resources,measure performance and build vitalcapabilities. He also pointed out that HRdelivery is about developing soundprocesses and systems that ensure

focused, committed, andcompetent workforce in theorganization.

Mr. Navin Bhatia

The session ended with Dr. SrabanMukherjee (Principal Consultant &Executive Coach, Hero Mindmine)presentation on how organizations oftenclaimed that "people are our most importantasset" when they don't mean it. He alsoemphasized that what HR could deliver wasmore important than what it does. Thedeliverables were capabilities that the

organization needed, toaccomplish its businessgoals and build a strong andcommitted workforce.

Dr. Sraban Mukherjee

The last session of the day was a PanelDiscussion on Profit Plus (thru measuringeffectiveness) which witnessed thepresence of eminent personalities like Mr.KK Sinha (Director HR, Jindal Steel &Power, Naveen Jindal Group) followed byMr. Anuraag Maini, (Sr.VP HR, DLFParamecia) who presented their individualperspectives and experiences. TheSession was moderated by Mr.SY.Siddiqui, President (Delhi Chapter) NHRDN& MEO (ADM), Maruti Suzuki.

From Left to Right: Mr.SY. Siddiqui, Mr.KKSinha, Mr. Anuraag Maini

The final speaker of the day was Mr.Rajneesh Singh, (Group Head HR, Network18 Group) who gave a short insight on howtheir HR department incorporated theAmoeba Way of working and also how theHR department focused on CultureBuilding, Talent Management,

Talent Acquisition, TeamEngagement, Team Scorecard& Admin Excellence.

Mr. Rajneesh Singh

The Seminar ended with Mr. Siddiquithanking the audience for their participation,

as well as the speakers whotook out time from their busyschedules, and shared theirexperiences and invaluableinputs.

Mr.SY. Siddiqui

You can revisit the seminar by logging onto our website: www.nationalhrd.org


NHRDN, Jaipur Chapter in jointcollaboration with IILM Academy of HigherLearning, Planning Department, Govt. ofRajasthan & SID Rajasthan Chapter isholding a National level conference onWriter's Conclave on 'MillenniumDevelopment Goal with special focus onHealth and Education' at Neemrana FortPalace, Alwar on Aug. 8-10, 2009 with anactive support from the PlanningCommission, Govt. of India and PlanningDepartment, Govt. of Rajasthan.

The Writer's Conclave aims to present anddiscuss issues, which need to beaddressed urgently in order to attainMillennium Development Goals within theset timeframe. For the Conclave potentialwriters/researchers/practitioners from thefield of social development with provenbackground have been identified. Writer'sConclave is focussing i.e Health andEducation is well recognized.

In order to ensure active participation of theconcerning departments specially that ofEducation, Women & Child Development,Health, Rural Development and PanchayatiRaj, a high level brainstorming session wasorganized on 8th June 2009 in theConference Hall of the Secretariat underthe chairmanship of Ms. Alka Kala, Addl.Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan.

The backgrounder to this event is the reportprepared by the National Institute of PublicFinance & Policy (NIPFP), Delhi at theinstance of Planning Commission, Govt. ofIndia entitled "Rajasthan: SustainingEconomic Development through HumanDevelopment". This report brought outmany revealing issues specially in termsof why Rajasthan continues to be low inHDI?

Mr. Yaduvendra Mathur,Secretary Planning, Govt. ofRajasthan introduced thereport entitled 'Rajasthan:Sustaining EconomicDevelopment through HumanDevelopment' prepared by

National Institute of Public Finance & Policy(NIPFP), New Delhi. It was mentioned thatNIPFP is working on Policy Brief series foreight states covered under StrengtheningState Plans for Human Development(SSPHD) project. These policy briefs areaimed at stimulating policy discussion onspecific issues on the broad theme ofFinancing Human Development.

Prof. Tapas Sen from NIPFPrevealed that Rajasthan hasbeen placed fairly low interms of humandevelopment. In terms ofhuman development index, itstood 28th among 32 statesand union territories in 1981,with only Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradeshand Bihar among the larger states behind;the rank improved marginally in 1991 to 27

JAIPUR REPORTwith Orissa also falling behind. However,the National Human Development Report2001 placed Rajasthan at the 9th positionin terms of human development indexamong the 15 larger states, which impliedsubstantial improvement in the state. Morerecently, the 12th Finance Commissiondivided the states of India into five groupsranging from high to low according toselected indicators of human developmentand infrastructure index. Rajasthan was inthe group 'lower middle' for humandevelopment and in the group 'low' forinfrastructure. Thus, despite starting at arelatively low level of human development,the state has improved its position,particularly in the 'nineties. But there is along way to go yet, and the relatively lowlevel of per capita income of the stateimplies that its efforts have to be broadlydirected at a combination of economicdevelopment with human development, byno means an easy task.

After this theme presentationa lively discussion took placeamong resource personswho were present mainly:

Mr. Yaduvendra Mathur,S e c r e t a r yPlan, Govt. of

Rajasthan, Mr. Sunil ThomasJacob, State ProgrammeCoordinator, UNFPARajasthan, Mr. SamuelMawunganidze, Chief,Unicef Rajasthan, Ms. AlkaSingh, UNV, Mr. S.M. Raigar, Director,Economics & Statistics, Govt. of Rajasthan,Ms. Leela Bhatnagar & Mr. Sunil Dhariwal,Dy. Secretaries - Plan, Govt. of Rajasthanshared their views.

Dr. Ashok Bapna, Convenerof the National Conclave,President, NHRD, JaipurChapter & Director, IILMAcademy, Jaipur mentionedthat Rajasthan has apotential to grow if its HDI is

properly taken care of. He furthermentioned that NHRDN, Jaipur Chaptercan play an important role in terms of HRDtraining programmes for the developmentalfunctionaries of Health & EducationDepartments of the State Govt.

He narrated the sub-themes identified forthe National event as:

1. Overview of MDGs vis-à-vis RajasthanPlans

2. Localising MDGs on Health andEducation at District/Block/PanchayatLevels

3. Female Literacy and impact onMaternal Health

4. Efficacy of utilization of resources/ costbenefit analysis of investment in health-education programmes.

5. Public -private initiatives for attaininghealth and education MDGs

6. Innovative database and reports readyfor tracking health targets and hence assistplanning

7. Reduction in IMR- Experiences ofsome success stories from the grassroots

8. 3-Delays and management to controlMMR

9. Community Based Monitoring tools toenhance outputs in education

10. District Health/Education Plan andimplementation of Schemes: Gaps andChallenges

11. HIV/AIDS in Rajasthan: Capturingactual data on cases. State's preparednesstowards diseases…malaria/TB/otherdiseases.

12. Good Governance and Health/Education issues-proper policy, publicadministration, decentralization anddelivery of services-accountability/transparency/role of civil society

13. Integrating poverty and gender intohealth programmes towards acceleratedprogress for attaining MDGs

14. Improving service delivery on health-education programmes at local level

15. Best success stories compiled forpictorial presentation

Chairperson of the meetingMs. Alka Kala, AdditionalChief Secretary, Govt. ofRajasthan in her concludingremark observed that

1. A comparison ofexpenditure on human

development, and if possible on otherindicators of the report, may be comparedwith other States covered under this study.

2. NIPFP must ensure that better sourcesusing efficient methodology for calculatingchildren drop-out from schools has beenused.

3. Comparative figures of performancebetween desert and non-desert districts onindicators presented in the report could beincluded. Variation in developmentperformance of districts may be looked upmore closely with other possible reasons.

4. The report could also discuss onUrbanisation Indices.

At the end it was decided that Prof. TapasSen author of the report, "Rajasthan:Sustaining Economic Development throughHuman Development" brought out byNIPFP will revise in the light of thecomments offered in the brainstormingsession by the expert group & make finalreport available for the forthcoming NationalWriter's Conclave as a key background.


Agenda for the meeting :

6.30 pm : Talk by Mr.Debabrata Dash,Manager HR, ITC Kolkata.

Topic: HR Best Practices in ITC

7.15 : Prize distribution to the winnerof Dialogue-I

7:20 : Discussion on chapter events.

7.30 : Election of new president.

7.50 : Felicitation of our outgoingpresident, Mr.SankarsanAcharya.

8.00 : Dinner.

Minutes of the Meeting :

Members Present.

1. Anubhav Patnaik2. BK Mishra3. Debabrata Dash4. Dr.Isha Mishra5. Dr.Suprava Sahu6. Girish Ku. Pattanayak7. Golak Bihari Rath8. Kulamani Panda9. Kuruvilla CD10. Manash Ranjan Mandhata11. Ms.Bobby Patnaik12. Ms.Ellora Panda13. Ms.Padmalaya Mandhata14. Prafulla K Acharya15. Prof. BB Mohanty16. Prof. RKS Mangesh Dash17. Prof. Dindayal Swain18. Prof. Saveta Mohanty19. Rakesh Mohanty20. S.K.Mahapatra21. Sankarsan Acharya

Guests present.

22. Dr. Suvendu Das(GM-HR, ParadeepPhosphates Ltd.)

23. DP Panda (Associate Dean, IndustryInstitute Interface Krupajal Group ofInstitutions)

24. Amaresh Pattnaik (Consulting Head,Bbbsr, Propeople )

25. Ms.Sadhna Sudeshana (Independentconsultant)

26. Khirod Chandra Mahapatra (Manager-HR- Pantaloon Retail)

1. The meeting began with a presentationby Mr.Debabrata Dash, on “HR bestpractices at ITC, Kolkata”.

2. Mr. Acharya presented a memento andthe award for winning “Dialogues-1” toMr.Debabrata.

3. This was followed by an introduction ofall the members present.

National HRD Network - Bhubaneswar ChapterMonthly Meeting on 9th May, 2009 6.30pm , at XIMB, Cenderet Room No.114.

4. Mr.Sankarsan Acharya, in the absenceof a formal Annual Report, briefed themembers on the activities of the chapterand reminded that the registration of thechapter and the audit of accounts needs tocompleted at the earliest .Position of thetwo Savings Bank Account operated by thechapter was informed to the memberspresent. (SBI, Rs.2,41,691 and AllahabadBank, Rs.2,10,187)

5. He informed the members that XIMBwas now charging the chapter towards theusage of the facilities for the monthlymeetings and the same needs to bediscussed with the management of XIMB.

6. He presented the statement ofaccounts of the two day workshop“Retaining talent critical to business” heldin association with NIPM (Utkal chapter) onApril 25th & 26th. The net income overexpenditure was Rs.61,214 which was tobe shared equally between the chapter andNIPM.

7. He suggested that since the chapterwas not yet registered as a separate bodyand did not have bye-laws, the presidentand other members of the team could benominated with the consent of all memberspresent and stated that in the absence ofany Bye Law and Election Procedure, suchnominated candidates should be treated as‘Elected’.

8. He informed the members thatMr.Kuruvilla (treasurer) was also holdingthe responsibilities of secretary since Prof.RKS Mangesh stepped down and wantedto be relieved of the secretarial duties. Heinformed the members of the need to selecta new secretary.

9. Mr.Acharya proposed the name ofDr.Saroj Mahapatra, GM-HR, Posco IndiaP. Ltd for the post of President and this wasseconded by Mr.B.K.Mishra, Dr. B.BMohanty, Ms.Bobby Patnaik, Dr.IshaMishra and all others present .Dr.Mohapatra accepted it .

10. Dr.Saroj proposed the name of Dr.IshaMishra for secretary and this was secondedby Ms. Ellora Panda, S.Acharya Dr. B.BMohanty, Mr.Kuruvilla and all otherspresent. She accepted the responsibility.

11. Prof. BB Mohanty presented a scroll ofhonour to Mr.Acharya for the servicesrendered by him during his tenure aspresident of the chapter.

12. The meeting closed with thanks to thePresident and invitation for dinner to allpresent.

Minutes prepared by Mr.Kuruvilla CD,treasurer.

Images from the meeting

Above: Mr. Debabrata, presenting on "HR bestpractices at ITC, Kolkata.

Mr.Acharya presenting a memento and alsothe award for winning 'Dialogues - 1' to

Debabrata

Above: Prof. BB Mohanty presenting the 'scrollof honour' to Mr.Acharya

Time for change ! Dr. Isha Mishra (secretary)presenting a bouquet to Dr.Saroj Mahapatra

(president)

Time for the new team to get into action

Group photo as suggested by Prof.Dindayal.


Employer Brandingfor Recruitment &

Retention

Mail us at: [email protected], Visit us at:www.globalhunt.in

Contributed By:

Two decades ago, when there was notmuch of competition among companies,when jobs were available in abundance,when employees were satisfied workingwherever they were, at that time, employerbranding had not caught the eye ofemployers. Cut to now. Cut throatcompetition among companies,organisations coming up with regularstrategies for talent acquisition, employeesevaluating every offer they obtain fromemployers, now, employer branding hascertainly made every body sit up and takenotice.

So what is employer branding? And whatmakes an employer a brand? Employerbranding is all about creating an image inthe minds of current and prospectiveemployees about the values andconvictions an organisation stands for. Anemployer brand is based on humanrelationships and human emotions vs.anything else. Considering HR as "HumanRelationships" vs. "Human Resources" isone of the great ways to build and promotea successful employment brand.

Elements & Factors for EmployerBranding.

A strong business culture is built on a solid

business foundation. An employer brand iscreated through 'Employee ValueProposition'. EVP can come in variousforms like financial, psychological andfunctional and also what existing &prospective employees identify theiremployer brand with. An organisation canadd value to its brand by offering anddelivering key propositions like 'Direction& leadership, a culture of R&D andinnovation, a strong environmental focus,by being friendly and fun oriented, highfinancial rewards, high performance culture, genuinely caring for staff, family friendlyinitiatives, culture of learning anddevelopment, work life balance. The twobiggest factors which help in sustainingemployment branding are communicationand culture. People always want to feel likethey "fit in" and they always want to becommunicated to in an open and authenticmanner.

Three key elements of the employerbrand are:

Personality - Who you are as an employer,what you stand for, your values and vision.

Promise - Your unique, differentiatingemployment proposition to the targetaudience.

Message - The most compelling coremessages for each employee audience.

The choices are many but all values cannotbe proposed to all people. Thus, it isnecessary that 'Employer Brand' is createdon strong pillars (value propositions).

Advantages

Employer branding would providebenefits to the company like:-

Significant decreases in cost per hire

Reduced cost of recruitment - efficienciesmaximised throughout the recruitmentprocess

Reduction in recruitment marketing costsover time

Greater numbers of higher qualityapplicants

Higher performing employees

Increased retention rates

Stronger reputation in the marketplace

Increased ability to attract specialist talentin a difficult market

Employment branding is a must if youbelieve in recruiting top talent. And if youlook in-house, promoting a strongemployment brand is a must to retain yourbest people. Both recruitment and retentionare key issues that will truly differentiate thesuccessful companies from those that fail.

It has become imperative for everyorganisation to demonstrate itself as uniqueto current & prospective employees, hencethe significance of employer brandingcannot be denied. GlobalHunt suggestsdelivering what has been promised toemployees and build your 'Employer Brand'around the pillars you are already good at.

Mail us at: [email protected], Visit us at: www.globalhunt.in

ERRATAThe article on “Registering and Managing Voluntary Organizations” published in the June issue of the HRD Newsletter was suppliedto us by Dr. T. V. Rao for internal discussion of the Board of NHRDN. It was published for general purpose use as it contains a lotof useful guidelines and in51

formation. Dr. Rao has promptly informed us that it is not written by him but taken from the web from the following link:

http://www.capindia.org/helpguide_2. htm#manage.

Dr Rao also informs us that it was meant for internal discussions and not for publication. We regret the miscommunication in this regardand regret for not giving the full information and publishing it under Dr Rao’s name. The credit should go to the Center for Advancementof Philanthropy. We thank Dr Rao for promptly bringing this to our notice and take full responsibility for the mistake. Publisher.

Monthly Feature

by GlobalHunt


Success comes from convertingopportunities to milestones saysShriprakash R Pandey, Chairman &Managing Director, Commtel Networks Pvt.Ltd, a company providing advancedengineering and technology solutionsfocused on Oil & Gas, Power,Transportation and Defense Sectorsdelivering high performance convergedcommunication and surveillance systemsin India and abroad. He is our Hero nowmaking vibes from Bombay but impactingglobally. This ordinary to extraordinaryjourney is worth emulating by every aspiringengineer and any youngster.

Childhood and Education

Born to a textile mill clerk,Shriprakash enjoyed hischildhood with his 3brothers and 3 sisters.Having little memory of hischildhood and the familytoiled for the basics of Roti,Kapada and Makkan. His

family was living in a 150 Sq Feet houseand having little access to good things inlife - other than dreaming.

Being an average student in school, gettingadmission to diploma education after 10thwas the most memorable day and the feeto the course was a nightmare. But the elderbrother chose to sacrifice his marriage ringto pay for the first year fees. Understandingthe situation, Shriprakash made it up to afirst class with distinction and subsequentlycompleted his Engineering graduation also.

Bread Winner to Country Manager of aMulti National Company

On completing Engineering degree,Shriprakash started his career as a ServiceEngineer earning Rs.2200 a month in 1991.Shriprakash had to take charge of the familyresponsibilities at the age of 26 when hiselder brother passed away in a fatal roadaccident. Earning for daily bread was theneed of the hour. Family toil did not deterhim. Soon, he could capitalize anopportunity with Olex Cables, an Australianmultinational as "Systems Engineer".Exploiting the first time opportunity tocommission one of the large pipeline

projects in Mumbai, Shriprakash singlehandedly led the project burning midnight oil with hardly any support of theexpert team from Australia.

Engineer to Entrepreneur

Experience of working in Olex Cables gavea lot of learning opportunity to understandthe business world. Meeting differentpeople gave a different perspective andexposure. In 1998 when Olex's parentcompany Pacific Dunlop decided to shutdown its projects business in India,Shriprakash decided to continue the goodwork, which Olex was doing by settingCommtel? Yes, from a secure job withstatus, he chose to role his shirtsleeves andtake over the business - which the promotersaw as less viable.

When he started Commtel the primaryintention was to keep the job going.However, as he progressed in commercialacumen, he learnt new things and Commtelis inching towards 70 crores BusinessEmpire today and from now on quantumleaping is matter of time. Meeting him is apleasure and his enthu is infectious be itsunrise or sunset - ever agile and smiling.

Discomfort zones - the OpportunityLadder

Working with Public sector Organizationwhere one has to be not only technicallycompetent but be the lowest bidder andmaintain quality and credibility, Shriprakashwas non-compromising on any of these Hisdiscomfort zone made Commtel stronger.He was very passionate in doing whateverhe did and within a year he realized thatmaking Commtel successful is his biggestpassion. The journey of building Commtelwas not easy. He recalls the role played bymany of his friends and well wishers whostood by him during tough times.

Commtel had 14 employees duringinception. Shriprakash attributes Commtel'sgrowth to his team who inspired customersto give continuous business.Understanding customer centricity as DNAis the trigger for Commtel's growth. Today,employing more than 100 professionals,Shriprakash says (his humility which thereflection of his early childhood and hismother) that he has not done anything greatapart from setting the direction and takingcare of his people.

Can "Our Conscience" be our Boss?

Shriprakash's formula to success is "Justprove yourself to you by doing things thatyou felt you should be doing". He says thisadds a lot of confidence, as you cannot lieto yourself and take your ambition to the"Next Level" every time. Yes, if ourconscience can be our Boss, then we don'tneed bench marking or fear competition. Inbusiness, if people are properly taken careand provided with required resources,business is a success. To him HR standsfor HUMAN RELATIONS and shares hisexpectation from HR as long-termrelationship with all involved, learning,growth and fun. If you are your own boss,you will question status quo every day andcreate new milestones and that is whatShriprakash is doing.

As practicing youth - His Appeal toYoungsters

To him and to the authors of this article -his world and Words ring a different bell anddo we hear noise or voice is some thingleft to each one of us as - in the worlds ofShriprakash "Balancing between long termand short term goals is a challenge andcreating a track record, gaining hands-onexperience is important for the long termgame. If we ensure walking the talk as wegrow and value commitments as planned,we can create a much stronger India. "

Commtel Accolades

Commtel has been a preferred partner formost of its customers. The company hasbeen awarded with many recognitions andcitations from customers for the quality ofservice and innovation. Recently thecompany was awarded "2008 ChannelPartner Program - Sales Challenge Award"by Nokia Siemens Networks. Shriprakashis young and will be soon spoken as one ofthe most admired CEO - for he is doing allthe right things with lot of commonsenseand dreams, thinks, lives, eats, sleepsCommtel and his team with whom we spenttime are not lagging behind either. All hedoes with humility, smile and dedication.When ever I meet him, I come back like arecharged battery and that is the infectiousbacteria we need to spread like Swine fluto every youth in India. (Their office is inBombay 23, White Castle, 34-35, UnionPark, Chembur, Mumbai - 400071. India -Email. [email protected])

Zeros to Heros - Series 14– S. Deenadayalan and J. Sathiyaseelan

S. Deenadayalan is CEO and Architect - Organizational Capability and J. Sathiyaseelan is Team Leader- Organizational DevelopmentCentre for Excellence in Organization, Bangalore. They can be reached at: [email protected], [email protected]

�H

| HRD News Letter | July 2009, Vol.25, Issue:4 19Silver Jubilee Series | HRD News Letter | July 2009, Vol.25, Issue:4 19Silver Jubilee Series

– Dhruv Desai

The Indian Economy is today poised to growat a rate of 6% per annum and is the world'sfastest growing economy, second only toChina. With most organizations still sure ofgrowing in double digits in the new financialyear, India is the toast of the global markets.But what is the sentiment within - do ouryouth think India is really growing or onlythat the rest of the world has slowed down?

The last seven years have been goldenyears for the Indian economy with over 8%growth per annum, but they have also givenour youth the impatience that comes withfast growth, higher salaries and betterliving. Today our youth are used to gettingpromoted every year, getting 20-30%increments every appraisal and mandatea bigger and better car or house. They areconditioned to be achievers and achieveall of this by their early thirties and eventhink of an early retirement in their earlyforties. This is in sharp contrast from ageneration earlier when our parents workedfor one or rarely two organizations for over35-40 years till they retired and whosebiggest accomplishments included buyinga house, children's education and maybe,just maybe, a car. The speed of life for ourGenNext is breathtaking but the slowdownis even more intriguing.

The real opening of the Indian economybegan with the advent of the serviceindustry in the late 90s and early millenniumwith more and more graduates andengineers looking towards the IT and ITESindustry for a career. Many realized earlyon in their careers that nothing was freebut many more adapted to the newphenomenon of making hay while the sunshined on them, with job-hopping becominga fashion. Mobiles, cars and clubbingbecame fashionable and values such asloyalty, perseverance and frugality becamepassé. The youth of the country, especiallythe graduates, were blessed to have thebooming IT & BPO industry which requiredsomeone to have good conversationalability, good English, ability to work thegraveyard shift and get paid what theirparents would have dreamed to be paidwhen they would have retired. It was, ofcourse, rather hard work but really came a

Mr. Dhruv Desai is Vice President, Angel Broking, Mumbai E-Mail: [email protected]

Management of A Generation in aSlowing Economy

little too easy for most and if it didn't workout in one organization then there wereanother 20 willing to accept you on highersalaries than the last one. The philosophyhas been very clear "If I have to take thesame s#^) here then might as well worksomewhere else and get paid more for it".No doubt the GenNext boosted theeconomy further by using their disposableincome in the new Café shops, buying theconsumables and aspirational products thattheir parents could only dream of. The ideawas to gain material success and themorals of the wider society have changedto accommodate and accept individualsdefined by the successes/failures they haveaccumulated to place them in their overallsocial order.

The next charge in the economy was takenby the broader growth of retail in the Indianindustry with the customer actually beingspoilt for choice and the wider industryjumping on the bandwagon of growth.Employment for the educated was galoreand the pecking order was simple butsignificant earlier with the Doctors, MBAs,Engineers and lawyers were being spoiltfor choice - and now even the plain vanillaGraduates would be able to achieve theirdreams from opportunities ranging fromAdvertising, Branding, PR to working inniche areas such Adventure sports.Organizations on their part became moreand more eccentric in order to attract andretain the GenNext considered as the talentfor the new economy - by having a collegeenvironment in the workplace, some evengoing so far as to have Chief Fun officersin the organization to make the GenNexthave more fun resembling the time they hadin their college days. The results were thesame as expected - more bunking(Absenteeism, low productivity), condonedand promoted to the next class. A new termwas coined for the GenNext absconding -dropouts without intimation. Some evenachieved fast growth to their next level ofincompetence by becoming managerswhere they were not only responsible formanaging themselves but managing largeprojects and large teams. Some coped withthe new challenge and gained competencein their new roles, most collapsed under the

stress and pressure for which they were notgroomed.

While the economy and industry weregrowing by leaps and bounds, so were thecareer graphs of these young achievers.In a country were the majority of thepopulation is young, this is, of course, greatnews. However, there are usually two sidesto a coin. The flipside to the consumeristnature of our youth was lack of planningfor the future. Living for the moment, withno thought for any probable slowdown inthe economy.

The fast pace of our world suddenly cameto a standstil l for the GenNext onSeptember 2008 and the whole paradigmshifted suddenly. Unheard-of terms such aslayoffs and retrenchments, it began tohappen to people they knew in their ownor other organizations - terms that wereused in the old economy and not in the high-flying new age world that they were workingin. Suddenly there was a possibility of thisnightmare in the present, much closer to.Reactions may vary but most go throughthe following scenario:

● Denial:

Hah!! It can't happen to me ……… itmay happen to others!

● Emotional:

Why me? It's only human to react towhat's perceived as unfair with anger,dejection ….

● Acceptance:

This is the stage where one accepts thefate

● Rationalization:

The battle lost!

● Change:

What next?

What are affecting the GenNext are notreally the prospects of layoffs orretrenchments but the scarier prospect ofno or low Increments, no or low bonuses.Holding a job has become the new need.The GenNext is now seeking trusted brandsand government job opportunities over thefast growth promises of the past. The

Lead Feature


organizations of today are lapping up theopportunity to acquire talent and that tooat an unheard of premium in the last 5years. Work-life balance and on-the-jobtraining are taking a back seat for theupwardly mobile professionally educatedmanagerial GenNext as they strive toincrease productivity to manage the slowdown.

Competition has grown fiercer, with eachstriving to hold on to his job - with over-achievement being the route taken by most.The times have changed and todayGenNext is has learned the language of yesand yes to all requests by the employer.

They are prepared to take pay cuts, skipappraisals for a year and even transfers tosmaller cities. In fact the change is sodrastic that employees are staying with theircurrent jobs even when presented withhigher salaries in the next thinking of theirJob security with their current employerwhere they have established theircredentials.

Organizations and HR Managers aremaking the best of the current situation withbetter talent available at lower cost, lessfocus on attrition and hygiene issue asemployees are more focused on jobsecurity and are getting less picky.

Employers expect more accountability andstretched performance, sops and otherretention benefits are on the decline andthe GenNext is learning to adapt to it.

The question is - will the GenNext keep thelessons of the last 12 months as the nextchange in the season comes calling andthe Indian economy begins to show morepromise?? Will the lessons of this coldwinter be forgotten or will the nextgenerations grow stronger with the lessonsof frugality and manage the next growthphase with more maturity and respect?That we wait and watch! �H

HR-The New Driver on the Seat- Snehal Singh

You can never plan the future by thepast - Edmund Burke

In today's dynamic world, every little thingis undergoing 'CHANGE'. This change isalso evident in the discipline of HumanResources. HR today is more than themundane administrative function as it isperceived by people who have little or noknowledge of Human Resources.

If we compare the organization with the'Human Body' and the various functionaldepartments as the organs - the HRdepartment would play the role of spinalcord which supports the entire bodyallowing efficient mobility while performingvarious tasks; just as HR supportsorganization in every venture by planningand managing its manpower resources. So,even is finance, marketing, operations,systems are crucial to an organization, theimportance of HR function cannot beneglected because ultimately it's the peopleof organizational that will get the job done.As HR manages these inimitable resourcesand motivate them, they become thedirectors of the show.

However, in most of organization HRmanagers are forced played a passive roleby relying on the instincts of the topmanagement who feel HR function isrestricted to fulfilling the monetary needsand handling grievances of people withinthe organization. Due to this attitude, a lotof HR people in lot of companies ended up

Snehal Singh is a Student of MHRM at Atharva Institute of Management Mumbai E-Mail: [email protected]

driving resources towards business goalswith the instructions of the top managementfrom the backseat. Perhaps, such practicesprevalent in the business environment havedemeaned HR's image of adding value tobusiness ensuring its growth to an imageof merely attracting, training and retainingpeople for the organization as and whenrequired.

The field of Human Resources hasundergone various changes ever since itsinception, in terms of the responsibility theyhave carried at various point of time in thebusiness environment. Theseresponsibilit ies in a fairly dynamicenvironment gave a different identity to theHR professionals depending on which theyplayed different roles in the organization.These different set of roles played by HRreflected the strategy adopted by theorganization in order to fulfill its goals.

HR's evolution in India can be divided into3 phases:

Phase 1: Post Independence - Hard orTechnical Role: In this phase HRdepartment was known as 'Personnel' andcarried out administrative functions ofpayroll, bonus, attendance, leaves etc. Italso involved the function of dealing withthe unions and other activities of industrialrelations.

Phase 2: Post Liberalization - Soft orFacilitator Role: With increasingcompetition, organizations realized that themarket muscle was strong enough to favorand lift the job hoppers in the corporateladder. Also the cost of acquiring andtraining new people was getting muchhigher than retaining the old ones. Hence,

companies wanted to ensure that their topperformers must be motivated for thebetterment of themselves along with thebusiness. HR played a key role of acounselor - helping, motivating and trainingemployees as per their needs, whilesimultaneously dropping the former imageof a 'police' within the organization.

Phase 3: Present Situation - BusinessDriver Role: The present businessenvironment requires HR to have theperspective of a business partner. Theymust develop skills to carry out businessdriver role, along with the technical & softrole that play very efficiently and havealready mastered. As every business plangets executed by the people at the bottomof the organization that also forms the majorchunk of workforce in any organization, itsHR people must translate the businesslanguage into the desired outcomes sincethey assess these resources so closely.The change in the field of HumanResources has already set in; as mentionedby the intellectual thinkers like Dave Ulrichin his famous book HR Champions.Therefore, has become increasinglyimportant for the HR professionals &students, who will be the budding managersof tomorrow, to understand the criticality ofthis field & relate it to business instead ofnarrowing it down to plain administrativefunction.

The scope of HR is broader today than everbefore; so even if they are referred to asbeing 'sandwiched' between the topmanagement and the employees, one mustremember that sandwiches with morefillings are always better! The sooner HRpeople understand this, the better. �H


Human Resources Management- The Six Sigma way

Six sigma is a Transformational Qualitymethodology and works towards processimprovements and continuousenhancement of the process. Six Sigmaalso encourages team work like othertransformational Quality methodology

The Evolution of Quality and where SixSigma fits in the system

Types of Process Improvement projects -

There are three types of processimprovements - Kaizen, Lean (or ProcessImprovement), and Six Sigma. All threefocus on performance and processimprovement. They each bring a differentperspective to the world of improvement.

Kaizen tend to address the physicalprocesses that lend themselves to the useof visual analytical tools. If the project teamcan observe what is being done to findimprovement opportunities then this is agood case for kaizen implementation.

Lean tends to focus on cross-functionalprojects, with requirements that are notclearly understood or agreed upon betweenthe different functional players(departments), or by the people working theprocess. They take a horizontal focusacross the process to understand

– Dhruv Desai

requirements and eliminate waste. Wasteis anything done that does not contributeto meeting requirements.

Six Sigma take a vertical approach toprocess analysis and go deep inside theprocess where the root cause of theproblem is not easily understood. They aremore analytical than Lean projects. SixSigma projects use sophisticated tools todiscover the "root cause" of problems,eliminate variation, stabilize processes, andsometimes even design a new processthrough Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).

Six Sigma applications in HumanResources begin with the paradigm that allemployees and line managers are internalcustomers of the HR department and thatit is important to know and achieve thecustomer Critical to Quality (CTQ) throughVoice of the customer (VOC)

Example

Let us take an example to bring abreakthrough improvement. Consider aRecruitment process which recruits Feet onStreet (FOS) sales executives and has aservice level agreement of 15 days fromresource requisition to joining. In the eventof recruitment Turnaround Time (TAT)miss, the internal customer potentially losesbusiness that the FOS was to achieve forthe organization and thus impacts theService level of the recruitment team. TheHR management took a target (read mean)of delivering every FOS Recruit within 15days of requisition and aligned itsprocesses to meet this goal.

If we collect data of FOS recruitment overa year and make a frequency distributiongraph, we discover that it resembles a "bellshaped curve". A frequency distributiongraph is constructed from the frequencytable - a frequency table lists different timeintervals like 0 to 2 days, 2 to 4 days, to 14to 16 days to 28 to 30 days and the countof the recruits made in each interval. Themean is found to be 16 days and standarddeviation (measure of deviation ordispersion in data i.e. s) is found to be 2.5days. A graph drawn from the data of over5000 recruits over a year is given below.

(Note: this not a real graph and is used onlyfor illustration purposes.)

This bell-shaped curve is called "normaldistribution" in statistical terms.

In real life, a lot of frequency distributionsfollow normal distribution, as is the case inthe performance appraisals data foremployees in a department or organization.Natural variations cause such a distributionor deviation. One of the characteristics ofthis distribution is that 68% of area (i.e. thedata points) falls within the area of -1s and+1s on either side of the mean. Similarly,2s on either side will cover approximately95.5% area. 3s on either side from meancovers almost 99.7% area. A more peakedcurve (e.g. more and more deliveries weremade on target) indicates lower variationor a more mature and capable process,whereas a flatter bell curve indicates highervariation or a less mature or capableprocess.

If the recruitment team hires 68% of FOSon time, we call it a "One Sigma process".Similarly, if the Recruitment team hires95.5% deliveries on time, we call it a "TwoSigma process". In our example, datasuggests that it is almost a "Three Sigmaprocess". We should now be able toappreciate why management took arecruitment target of 15 days and not 30days. Imagine what would have happenedwith a 30 day recruitment target!

The "Recruitment time" is a critical-to-quality parameter from the customerperspective and has a significant impact onservice levels. In addition, it is a revenuefacto for the organization as sales staffachieves sales and brings Business for the

Mr. Dhruv Desai is Vice President, Angel Broking, Mumbai E-Mail: [email protected]

PhysicallyObservable

Kaizen

Simple/Visual

Horizontalflow acrossthe processAlignmenttowardsrequirements

Lean

>>>>>>>

DeepAnalysisStabilize &EliminateVariations

Six Sigma

Complex/Hard to See

Performance and Process ImprovementContinuum


organization. Such a parameter is called aCTQ and its definition in context of ourrecruitment team is given below:

CTQ Name: Timely recruitment of FOS

CTQ Measure: Time in days

CTQ Specification: Joining the organizationwithin 15 days from the requisitionacceptance time.

Now we can easily define a defect:

Defect: FOS recruitment that takes longerthan 15 days

Unit: requisition

Opportunity: 1 per FOS requisition i.e. only"1" defect can occur in "1" requisition

The five significant process improvementssteps in a six sigma implementation are ofDMAIC:

● Define process goals in terms of keycritical parameters (i.e. critical to qualityor critical to production) on the basis ofcustomer requirements or Voice OfCustomer (VOC)

● Measure the current processperformance in context of goals

● Analyze the current scenario in termsof causes of variations and defects

● Improve the process by systematicallyreducing variation and eliminatingdefects

● Control future performance of theprocess

Human resources are no different than anyother aspect of a business in being able todeliver Six Sigma projects with significantfinancial benefits to the company. Projectsare directed toward the internal customerby conducting human resources functionsfaster and more efficiently.

An effective Six Sigma program mustidentify high potential employees, hire themas Black Belts and move them back intothe organization as part of their rotation andleadership training.

Human resources professionals mustgather and analyze their own data ratherthan obtain a list of projects from anotherpart of the organization and apply them tothe HR business focus. As a first step, aVOC (voice of the customer) analysisshould be conducted to help identifypotential areas of resistance to the project.The emphasis on objective data analysisseen in Six Sigma projects can run contraryto the data confidentiality culture of humanresources. When resistance is found, it isusually political or power-based resistanceto any project with a "Six Sigma" label. Aneffort must be made to include thestakeholders as part of the project. If theydo not wish to participate, leadership should

Recruitment and SelectionExit interviewsRecruitmentRelocationRetentionSelectionOutsourcingSecurity and background checks

Organizational Development

Career and succession planningChange managementCommunication programsCompetenciesDiversityEmployee satisfactionJob designLeadershipOrganizational culturePerformance improvementWorkplace planning

Human Resources Management

New acquisition integration

HR information services (payrollinformation, employee dependents,etc.)Absenteeism

Conflict dispute resolution

Compensation and BenefitsPayroll administrationJob evaluationTime and attendance managementMedical benefitsLeave time eligibility

Training and DevelopmentDesign and developmentDeliveryTraining evaluationsNew employee orientationManagement development programs

Examples of ProjectsInternal Job Posting hit rateIncrease retention through earlywarning systemsIncrease retention using exit interviewinformationDecrease number of days to respond toapplicant

Examples of Projects

Companywide employee satisfactionsurvey via internal website, publicationof results and posting of ongoingimprovement plans and results

Electronic performance review forconsolidation of reviews from remotesites

Examples of ProjectsProcess mappingConsolidation of employee informationdatabasesJob design and negotiation foroutplacementWebsite development for executivecommunication with employees

Examples of ProjectsAutomatic payrollObjective promotion and incrementsystemsBenchmarking with competitorsProductivity enhancement

Examples of Projects

Improved learning module design withself-evaluation sections

Catalog of available modules for selfand E-learning

present the rigor used to select andevaluate potential projects. In most SixSigma human resources projects, the datarequired is confidential and personal. Themembers of the Six Sigma team mustensure that:

● The team will not use the data liberally.

● The data is kept absolutely confidential.

Where to look for projects in the humanresources organization? It becomes clearthat a number of business processes havean impact on the effectiveness of employeeefforts in delivering services or products tocustomers. An effective HR organizationcan balance the financial needs of theorganization while attracting and retainingthe most appropriate personnel to becomea part of the organization.

The HR role must support leadership anddepartmental activities, provide feedback,and intellectually engage employees inachieving their personal and corporate

objectives. Internal customers too expectbetter, faster and cost-effective solutions.Unless every department performs better,faster and cheaper, the company will beunable to meet customer expectations. HRis no exception to this expectation. It mustbe set to perform better, faster and morecost-effectively by creating value rather thanjust rote support of management or training.Creating value could be accomplishedthrough innovative solutions and employeeinnovation. This is a low-hanging fruit for HR.

HR can gain substantially from Six Sigma.But it will benefit if HR professionals havethe right skills and knowledge and are ableto show business the value they can add byusing these transformational tools in areaswhich are considered wooly mushy. HRprofessionals should gain these skills nowand make sure senior leadership knows howHR can help support the success of theorganization. Only then will they realize theyjust can't do it without you! �H


Recession and the Stress:Role of EQ in the

Difficult Times– Madhusmita Kar

Ms. Madhusmita Kar is Senior Lecturer, Department of Humanities Purushottam Institute of Engineering &Technology, RourkelaE-Mail: [email protected]

This article on * 'Recession and the Stress:Role of EQ in the Difficult Times' focuseson how the emotional competencies canhelp both the employees and theorganizations to cope with the stress duringthese difficult situations. While it is alreadybelieved that emotional competencies canhelp in managing and improvingperformance, the same competencies canhelp in managing stress and actingintelligently under pressure. It also throwslight on how organizations can beemotionally intelligent in keeping a goodbalance between the financial and peopleaspects during the downturn.

Introduction

It is a time when the organizations as wellas the employees are going through a veryhard time to cope with. The level of stressis higher than ever before for both of them.The focus is on performance, but itbecomes extremely difficult for theemployees to perform under the hugepressure, which has now become a part oftheir jobs. In the face of potential layoffsand a sense of insecurity, it is very likelyfor the employees to be the victims of stressand depression. On the other hand, theorganizations are also going through aphase of economic depression.

Already five lakh people have lost their jobs.The recent tax policy declared by the USpresident has again posed a threat to thefuture of certain sectors. The world's largestmobile phone maker Nokia will be slashingits global workforce again by another 490jobs, with as many as 170 positions to goin logistics, production management andproduction support areas. Global travel andpayment services firm American Expresswill be trimming another 4,000 jobsrepresenting nearly 6 per cent of its globalworkforce, as the firm continues its effortsto cut down costs (www.rediff.com). Thequestion arises here that how organizationscan keep the employees motivated andhow the employees can keep themselvesinvolved in their work with a high spirit? Thisis a situation when the organizations arefunctioning under a lot of pressure anduncertainties and the employees are also

working with lowered morale and loweredmotivation. The times are tough both for theemployees and the organizations. Whilerecession has compelled the companies tothink in terms of cost cutting, downsizingand retrenchment, surviving in the job isnow a challenge for the employees.

I. How can EQ help the employees?

The economic situations are not under thecontrol of the employees. They cannotdecide who will be in the job and who willnot and cannot have any influence onPresident Obama when he takes a decisionthat can adversely affect the Indianeconomy. In such a situation the employeeshave to think practically and have to acceptthe hard fact. The way out is not to be eitherstressed or distressed. A realistic, logicaland future oriented approach alone canhelp people under such circumstances.They also need to take an objective standand have to decide the action plan.

The role of Emotional Quotient becomesimportant here. Just as IntelligenceQuotient helps in performing well, EQ canhelp in managing the stress, beingresponsive to the needs of the situation andtaking smart decisions. Because oneimportant aspect of EQ is understandingthe changing situations and actingaccordingly, being flexible and adaptable.The five competencies related to EQ canbe of great value if these are put intopractice.

The current slowdown has been nothingshort of an eye opener, not just for theorganizations but for employees as well.While organizations are setting upinitiatives for employees, experts suggestthat employees can use this time to reinventnot just their skills but also their career(www.timesascent.in). Employees shouldmake their careers recession- proof. It isabout gaining a variety of experiences,which will enable them to be relevant inturbulent times. Understanding the keypriority areas of the business and focusingon gaining experiences in those areas isthe key. An employee can be calledrecession proof when the value of his or

her current contribution does not dwindleand he or she is also seen as potentialcontributor under such circumstances(Viren Naidu, 2009).

Managing performance in the turbulenttimes

Employees can focus on the followingareas.

i. Focus on performance: Whileperformance was always important, ithas assumed new dimensions in thecontext of the downturn.

ii. Make your achievements visible:Employees must make their significantachievements visible so that they arerecognized.

iii. Acquire new qualifications: Thiswould be one of the best decisions forthose who see a potential threat to theirjob.

iv. Learn new skills: New skills that canmake the employees marketableshould be the area of focus.

v. Equip yourself with transferableskills: Those skills that will make themove between private and publicsectors easier. (www.timesascent.in)

vi. Be flexible: Help your organization incost cutting even if involves half salary,be agreed to overtime work and leavewithout pay.

vii. Develop effective networks: This cancertainly help in finding out new andrelevant information.

viii.Be proactive: Considering the ways totake up extra responsibilities anddelving into other areas of business.(www.timesascent.in)

ix. Finally hope for the best but bementally prepared to face the worstsituation if at all it comes with otheralternatives at hand.

II. Emotional Quotient for Organizations

Daniel Goleman in his famous work'Working with Emotional Intelligence'speaks about the emotionally intelligent


organization. He is of the view thatemotional competencies are essential notonly for the individuals but also for theorganizations where people work. Perhapsthe reasons are that organizations have anidentity (the corporate identity), they havea culture that shows the character and thevalues of the organization and becausethey are responsible for managing people.Just as managing performance and tryingto be at the top is important for the individualemployees, it is also equally important forthe organizations. EQ for organizationsimplies taking balanced decisions that donot affect either the business or the people.

This is a time when people are uncertainabout their career, frightened aboutfinances and are haunted by self- doubt(Goleman, 1998). In such a situation theorganization can play a paternalistic roleby developing programmes that providepsychological support and minimize thelevel of stress.

The Michigan JOBS program can be takenas an example. A group at the Universityof Michigan set it up after wave of job cutsat the state's auto industry. People whowent through the program got jobs about20%more quickly than those who were notinvolved in the program. Goleman says thatthe underlying principle is simple. Many ofthe same emotional competencies thatmake people excel at work also make themadept at finding a new job. This also helpsin coping with the stress constantlyassociated with the process. Depression;drinking problems and marital strifeescalate among those who remain out ofthe work. Anticipating such difficult timesand having a workable internal responsecan lessen the emotional toll (Goleman,1998).

Organizations can certainly play a role inharnessing such capabilities as:

● Perspective taking: To help the jobseeker to think like the employers.

● Developing self-confidence andboosting morale.

● Building networks since most jobs arefound through personal contacts.

● Decision making for careermanagement.

● Emotional self-control: So that thedistressing feelings do not overwhelmand start dominating the person.(Goleman, 1998)

Similar trainings can be designed for theemployees who are working under aconstant fear of losing their jobs.Companies have to think of their businessand have to take rational decisions, but atthe same time, it also becomes theresponsibility of the organizations to trainand prepare the employees for facing thechallenges. Organizations with high EQ areable to read the emotional undercurrentsand are always responsive to the peopleside though not at the cost of the business.Rather they take steps to maintain a finebalance between both aspects.

How can organizations act in the smartway?

Researchers have identified the followingbasic practices for effectively managinghuman assets in the organizations(Goleman, 1998) and these can certainlyplay an important role during the downturn.

● Maintaining a balance between thehuman and financial aspects.

● Taking specially designed initiatives toenhance the performance ofemployees.

● There must be a strong commitment toa basic strategy.

● Facilitating open communication withthe employees.

● Building trust with the employees andall other stakeholders.

● Building meaningful relationships withthe employees.

● Providing collaboration and support tothe employees in these difficult times.

● Encouraging innovation, risktaking andcollective learning.

● Developing a strong passion forcontinual improvement.

Ethics is an important part of management.Retrenchment certainly puts an ethicalquestion. Emotionally Intelligentorganizations must make carefulcalculations before taking any decisionsregarding layoffs.

Conclusion

EQ is not only a theoretical construct; it cango along way in helping people to developthose qualities that make them adaptableto every kind of situation. The slowdownhas resulted in an altogether differentscenario. The realization of this fact anddeveloping a strategy, alone can help themovercome the psychological crisis. Whileemployees can benefit by leading a stressfree professional life and can easily copewith the pressures of the recession,organizations can benefit by managingpeople in ways that contributes towardsimproved performance, so that they canovercome the crisis period smoothly withthe efforts of a motivated workforce.

*This article is a sequel to the article"Developing Emotional Competencies:Does It Make a Difference?' by the sameauthor published in HRD Newsletter in April2009.

References1. Goleman, D. (1998) Working withEmotional Intelligence. New York: BantamBooks.

2. Naidu, Viren: 'Recession-Proof YourCareer Now!' The Times of India Ascent,Volume II /No 43, May 13, 2009.3. www.timesascent.in4. www.rediff.com (May 19, 2009) �H

Sl. No Date Time Venue Topic Speaker

1. 02 -07-09 6 PM HRD Hall "Social Engineering & HR Implicatio" Prof. G.Sreeni vas Reddy of Aurora PG College.

2. 09-07-09 6 PM HRD Hall "Soft skills during recession" Ms. Vasundhra, Magnus School of Management.

3. 16 -07-09 6 PM HRD Hall "Emerging Dimensions in HR" Dr. Viswanath of Deloitte Consulting

4. 23 -07-09 6 PM HRD Hall "Professional Excellence" Mr. Anil Kumar, Corporate Trainer.

5. 30-07-09 6 PM HRD Hall "Performance Measures in K M Mr. Srinivasu, DGM-HR, Matrix Laboratories

6. 06-08-09 6 PM HRD Hall HR Challenges in infrastructure Mr. V.S. Sanjeeva Rao, Joint GM – HR, NCC Ltd,Management “

7. 13-08-09 6 PM HRD Hall Nurturing the Human - Behind Mr. K.Hari Priya, Partner, Life Essentials

8. 20-08-09 6 PM HRD Hall Creating the brand “YOU” Mr. Manish Modani, Principal the Strategist

9. 27-08-09 6 PM HRD Hall Managing Change in tough Times Mr.Prabhu Dayal, Sr. Mgr Learning, Oracle India Ltd.

Hyderabad Chapter Programs Calendar - July & August 2009


Attitude -the DecidingFactor Of Succes

– Dr A K Pandey & Shalini Pandey

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish.But the water close to Japan has not heldmany fish for decades. So to feed theJapanese population, fishing boats gotbigger and went further than ever. Thefurther the fishermen went, the longer ittook to bring the fish. If the return trip tookmore time, the fish were not fresh. To solvethis problem, fish companies installedfreezers on their boats. They would catchthe fish and freeze them at sea. Freezersallowed the boats to go further and staylonger. However, the Japanese could tastethe difference between fresh and frozenfish. And they did not like the taste of frozenfish. The frozen fish brought a lower price.So, fishing companies installed fish tanks.They would catch the fish and stuff them inthe tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashingaround, they were tired, dull, and lost theirfresh-fish taste. The fishing industry facedan impending crisis! But today, they getfresh-tasting fish to Japan.

How did they manage? To keep the fishtasting fresh, the Japanese fishingcompanies still put the fish in the tanks butwith a small shark. The fish are challengedand hence are constantly on the move. Thechallenge they face keeps them alive andfresh!

Have you realized that some of us are alsoliving in a pond but most of the time tiredand dull? Basically in our lives, sharks arenew challenges to keep us active. If youare steadily conquering challenges, you arehappy. Your challenges keep youenergized. Don't create success and revelin it in a state of inertia. You have theresources, skills and abilities to make adifference. Put a shark in your tank and seehow far you can really go!

It is the weakness of the attitude which isdirectly responsible for bringing weaknessin character and in turn your personalitygets shaped accordingly. The shark put inthe tank are not big enough to eat even asmall fish but the weakness in the characterwhich has been imbibed by the fish seeing

a shark makes all the difference. It is theattitude which finally gets shapedpermanently by a perceived fear which inreality is not there. Most of us are the victimof this phenomenon during our life time.Some of us analyse it and get out of it butmost of us are fearful of even making ananalysis of the same due to anotherperceived fear that the intensity may increase.

During this period of heavy recession whenthere are a number of job cut and even mostof the cartoons in the newspaper volleyaround this job cut due to recession hascreated an everlasting fear amongst theservice sector employees. It has adverselyaffected the production. There is no doubtthat it is there but combined efforts of printand non print media has made it havoc andit is still spreading like an epidemic. Theattitude has become that the organizationhas to cut short of human resources in orderto control their operative costs. This scenewas always there but previously for ashorter spawn of time by getting a bank loanit used to be minimized but now when thebank themselves being in very bad shapeare not funding any more suchorganizations who are not profit making.

It was the attitude of the organizations tospend more than what they earned is theroot cause of this debacle. The personsworking in these organizations were so surethat nothing will go wrong and they did notdevelop any contingency plan to face suchsituations. They formed an attitude of easygoing and comfortable zone situations.When you work for yourself or for someorganization you should only love your workand not the organization. Once you will loveyour work you will try to give the maximumto the organization by updating yourself andin turn it will make you comfortable to dosomething else in an adverse situation. Butit does not happen as human being by itsvery nature always search for a comfortablezone and as soon as he achieves thiscomfortable zone he really becomescomfortable.

People who have made the history werethose who were always eager to get out oftheir comfort zone. As soon as they reachtheir comfortable zone they immediately getout of it and move forward to search anotherand this process goes on for ever and ever.In order to be successful one must misssomething in life. A person who has got hispermanent comfort zone can never be asuccessful individual as he is satisfied withwhat he has.

Movement keeps us energetic and vibrant.Our movement is directly related to ourattitude. A slow attitude results slowmovement and an energetic attitude havingan achievement motive results in fast,steady and calculated movement.Movement keeps us mentally as well asphysically fit. You must have noticedindividuals who work hard are physically fitas they feel that a physical recession willcost him enormous. We are born free, flyfree and so are our thinking.

Glance through the successful individualsnear you and you will be amazed to notethat all were having a positive attitude aboutthemselves and whatever they were doingthey were getting the best output of theirperformance satisfying Newton's law ofmotion which states that for every actionthere is equal and opposite reaction. If youhave a positive thinking to be successfulno one will be able to propel you any otherdirection as you are committed to forwardmovement. Individual who inscribe theirname in this world are those who werecommitted to their thinking and leastbothered for their criticiser.

Doing something because you like the workand doing something with a positive attitudemakes a lot of difference. The former isdirectly proportional to your interest and assoon as you loose the interest so will youloose the concentration in work but in lattercase the attitude forces you not to desertthe result till you achieve your target. �H

Dr A. K. Pandey is a visiting faculty at ISBM, Suresh Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur & Shalini Pandey works as Training & Placement Officerof Suresh Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur. The authors can be reached at [email protected]


An Agony of a Job Loser

- R P Yadav

Economy is directly related to man. Whenthe economy is at its best it can be thereason for the happiness of the man butthe same economy with a downfall can bethe reason for the agony of the man.

In times like now the economy has becomethe reason of agony for many. Many haveto face the agony of losing their jobsbecause of the economy downfall.

With the present market situationorganizations are trying to reduce theircosting by reducing the man power tosustain in the market. Differentorganizations use different parameters tocut down the present manpower in aneffective way.

In some organization time is used as aparameter, so the one who has joinednewly is the one to lose his job. In case ofa new joinee majority of the times itbecomes more of a mental agony thanfinancial. Somebody who has joined newhas many hopes and planning for the future.It seems unfair to them, they may feel thatthey were not even given a chance to showtheir capability and asked to leave.

Some organizations may take performanceas the parameter. In the case whereperformance is taken as the parametereven a very old employee may have to facethe agony of losing the job. The agony oflosing a job to an old employee can be more

Mr. R P Yadav is Managing Director, Genius Consultants, Kolkata E-Mail: [email protected]

than the new employee. An old employeehas spent a lot of time with the organizationand becomes a part of it; at least theemployee feels so. An old employeebecomes used to the way of working in theorganization and the people around him.He may find it difficult to adjust himself ifhe finds a new job. And if a person is athigher post with the organization for a longtime he may feel loss of power and authorityif he gets into a new organization. Thisbecomes a mental agony for that particularperson.

Organizations are trying to keep thoseemployees who can give extra hours ofwork in the time of economy downfall.When this is taken as the parameter thewomen employees are the first to lose theirjob. The organization may not ask theemployee directly to leave the organizationmay ask the employee to take a transfer tosome other place which the managementknows will be a difficult choice for a womenemployee. If she refuses to take the transferthen she loses the job and Suffers fromfinancial agony. And if she takes the transferthen she may suffer from mental agony asshe may have to leave her family behind.

The organization may also reduce the manpower from a particular division which hasexcess manpower. In such a situation theorganization can use either time orperformance as the parameter to job cut.

Yesterday only I met one of my oldcolleagues, Dhriti she was working as anassistant manager in a private companyshe lost her job recently. While talking tome she told what problems she is facingdue to the loss of her job. Though she hassome savings but as she has no incomeright now it has become difficult for her tomeet with the monetary demands. She hasthe EMIS to pay every month for the carand flat she had bought. All this has addedto her mental stress and as she is freethroughout the day she keeps on thinkingabout it all the time.

I advised her not to get dishearten and startlooking for another job. In the currentsituation one may not get the package hedeserves, so one should keep the negotiationat the lowest and accept the job immediately.This time off can also be utilized by spendingsome quality time with the family memberswhich has become very rare in today's time.And if the gap is for a longer period one canalso enroll for some short term course andupgrade himself. She can also try andapproach the bank to defer her EMI.

Whosoever loses the job has to face bothmental as well as financial agony. Thoughit's a difficult phase of once life but thereare ways to such hard times as well. Thereare few things which one should keep inmind in times like these when anyone canlose their job any time. �H

Quotable Quotes"Strategies which are responsible for your successes in the past will insure your failure inthe future"

- Charles Handy

Attitude determines choice and choice determines results. It is not what happens to youthat determines the future. It is how you respond and what you do about it.

Life is like the changing seasons. You can't change the seasons but you change yourself.

If you put fences around people, you get sheep.


From Adopting to Discoveringour own Rhythm

– Pankajakshan Vijayan

Vijayan Pankajakshan, Director- HR, CHEP India Pvt Ltd( a Brambles company), Mumbai. E-Mail: [email protected]

The extent and the impact of changes beingexperienced by the world have led toconsiderable amount of self introspection.These have been on multiple axes- the wayeconomies are run, the models of businessorganizations, governance, regulators,state of the environment, religiousextremism etc. The world seems to bemoving towards a new order- in terms ofpolitics, economics and geopolitics. Thepast is never to return. However a newtomorrow is being crafted - its contours arebeing shaped at the edges.

We can now firmly say, with thedevelopments of the recent past 12 months,that the above argument is flawed. It islimiting, as the journey of a society or a setof societies is an evolutionary process. Itabsorbs some influences, drops others,modifying some etc. At times, theevolutionary pace could be marked byacceleration, powered by revolutionarychange. Hence, to classify societies/economies with simplistic tags is missingthe bigger picture. It does not sufficientlyexplain the causes for the recent economicslow down across the world, growing useof terror, political changes in the US etc.

To quote Prof Amartya Sen, 'the moreinteresting question "is how a sense of unityprevailed in a land (India) that even todaycontinues to be thought of as manycountries in one. According to Mr Deep KDatta Ray, (a London based historian) 'itwould appear that Indian tradition is arepository for some very modern ideas suchas plasticity, flexibility and adaptability.Indian experience short circuits importednotions of modernity and tradition asinvented in Europe."

In this article, I am specifically focusing onthe some of the attitudes/assumptions thathave been held dear by ,largely, westerneconomies. There is a struggle going outthere- for real- as to whether the worldshould encourage production andconsumption at any cost or we need to haveadditive dimensions of reducingconsumption too- hence adjusting to lowerlevels of production. I would then attemptto link the same with some of the HRDprocesses and choices :

Some of the assumptions that havedriven western economies or capitalistdominated societies are:

a. Output led growth and developmentassumes that means of production areunlimited.

b. The resultant theory is that 'development','growth', 'progress' means moreproduction, bigger, faster etc.

c. The market is assumed to be the finalarbiter and only the fittest should andwill survive.

d. The actions of an individual/organization/ country are independentof intended or unintendedconsequences on self and others - theactions necessarily need not factor inany responsibility and accountabilitytowards those impacted.

The above beliefs have led to thefollowing way of living:

a. When there is a sense of "unlimited-ness", there is limited empathy forthose who are deprived or concern forpreservation.

b. The "bigger" and "faster" paradigmleads to a sense of unhealthycompetition and the need to "be thereat any cost". The result is short cuts andartificial pace of growth.

c. The "survival of the fittest" leads to"unhealthy competitiveness" or "lack ofcollaboration and joint growth" therebyleading to an alienation of manystakeholders.

d. The assumption of "an individual'sactions being independent of others"only breeds a negative selfishness thatagain leads to further alienation andlopsided growth. It also creates a senseof identity not anchored in the largerspace.

This way of living ,over a period of time,has now resulted in growing resentment-that eventually shows up as "challenges" to these paradigms & wayof living. Some of the 'loud' challengesare :

a) Assertion of the "silent stakeholders"- The relatively 'silent' stakeholders are now

no longer silent. They are beginning to exertthemselves. For e.g. the planet/environment/ climate/ vulnerable/marginalized sections of society are nolonger willing to be pushovers. They areincreasingly becoming the central challengeto any lasting progress or development - beit an individual, company or nation.

b) Advocacy of "fairness to all" - Thepredominant and underlying approach,sofar, rides on 'transactional' successes.Everything is reduced to a deal betweenactors. Life is a set of deals. The 'deals'are struck largely for the sole benefit of one/those who choose to be included in thedeal. However these 'deals' areincreasingly being seen as notrepresentative of the aspirations of a largerset of stakeholders and hence comesacross as selfish/unsustainable etc.

c) Inclusive & sustainable growth - A few,so fare, have tried to determine theoutcomes, that affect many others. It stemsfrom the premise, 'we know what is goodfor you'. For example, lobbies, certain setof shareholders, groups of employees tendto exercise disproportionate influence andpower over the vast majority. What has alsobecome stark is the 'easy' exit of ashareholder (if he/she does not find thereturns of the organization good enough)at any time from the sinking ship- manytimes post maximizing the returns of theirinvestments- while most employees/manycustomers, communities are left 'high anddry' when the firm collapses. This obviouslycannot be a sustainable model fordeveloping healthy organizations, to delivershort term and longer term success andvalue.

d) Reward to risk - There is no real debateon whether an organization /company/nation should have surplus/ profits from itsinvestments/operations. What really is thechallenging quest is the application/distribution of surpluses, quality ofsurpluses and the quality of investmentdecisions. Quality of investment decisions,as an example, includes building futurecapability( trained and affordable humanresources), sustainable supply of keylimited resources .Distribution of profitshave to stand the test the principle of equityand reward to risk parameters.


As the world learns to deal with thesechallenges and bring about a balance inthe lopsidedness , it could do well tolearn some lessons from nature andliving phenomena/ systems. Some ofthese, if followed, can help preventfurther deterioration of the currentunsatisfactory state:

a) Acknowledging and respecting theinbuilt pace of evolution:

Many natural processes take a minimumperiod of time and, acceleration of the samedoes not lead to quality outcomes. e.g ahealthy human baby is born in the world afterapproximate nine months of incubation. Veryfew healthy babies are born significantlyearlier or later. Another e.g. is the flower thatblooms only once in 12 years (Neel Kurunjiin the Nilgiri Hills of T Nadu). The purity andwholesomeness of the flower is inextricablylinked to passage of time. Many fruits thatare, increasingly, ripened artificially do notprovide the taste of a fruit that has ripenednaturally.

b) Providing periods of consciousdeprivation to create rejuvenation - It isalways strongly advocated that regularfasting is essential for the human body'scontinued good working. The human bodyneeds rest and recuperation. Besides,fasting teaches each one of us the value offood and the challenge in the'postponement of instant gratification.'' Weare more empathetic to deprivation whenwe experience- even if once in a way-thesame. Any system needs a break. A breakprovides that much needed opportunity forreflection, rejuvenation and development ofcharacter.

c) Seeing oneself as a part of a largerwhole/ system - When we are at a seashore, we see the enormous power ofindividual waves of water coming towardsthe land and receding. Some are big andsome others are small. Some travel a longdistance to the shore. And yet, each waveafter making its way to the shore, is ready-willingly- to lose its 'individual identity' andmerge/coalesce with the larger ocean. Itteaches us that over projection of one's ownidentity is not always good. It also highlightsthat for larger and wholesome results, weare many times called to 'postpone' ourindividual identity's quirks/needs and goalong with the 'flow'.

d) Sacrificing short term maximizationof output for long term sustainableoutput - Most fishermen do not go out tosea during certain periods of the year. Whydo they not follow the efficiency mode offishing 365 days? It is because theeffective& wise choice is that the fishermenknow that the fishing system needs timefor rejuvenation and building capability tosupply for the next cycle of consumption.Hence no fishing when their source oflivelihood is engaged in reproduction.

e) Acknowledging the role of "challenges"in shaping "success" - Metamorphoses aremost often painful, even when the outcomeis pleasant. The journey of a larva into apupa into a chrysalis and then into abutterfly is a torturous process. Many times,the beauty of the butterfly is not reflectedin the intermediate stages prior to that. Thishas a message for us- development ofwholesome systems and outcomes, manya time involves 'ugly-tortuous' actions andtasks. After all as it has been well stated,'a diamond is the product of extremely highpressure on a relatively commoditizedmaterial like carbon'.

Placing the above context to our profession,I would like to put forward the followingchallenges before all of us.

a) Rediscovering the sound principles :

We need to look for 'our own' HRphilosophy and wisdom led framework toensure that our nation makes best use ofits human capital. The blind chasing oftechnologies/frames from either west oreast, without evaluation of its relevance andits usefulness should stop. It is now clearerthat considerable thought leadershipactually emanated from India- manycenturies and years back- and has returnedto India in a 'superior packaged andimpressive presentation.' That shouldremove, if at all, any doubt in our mindsthat India and Indian HR professionals havethe will and skill to shape the HR processesin the organizations and contexts we areengaged in. For example, the leadershipphilosophy used to be that the leader (king)was nothing but the trustee of the kingdom'sprosperity at large. This helped him see hisactions in light of the larger community andthus see his identity as part of the largerwhole.The TATA group has made this thepart of their ethos and DNA

b) Rediscovering the basis forsustainable relationship with &productivity of talent - Over the last threeto five years, we have seen in India, theissue around Talent availability swing from'too many jobs chasing too few people' toa current 'psychosis' of 'too few jobschasing too many people! I would like tostate that neither of these represent thereality. If one looks at the underlyingreasons for these extremities, it is notsimplistic as is made out to be. In fact whenthe 'party was in high spirits', it was a falsesense of buoyancy that led to seriousquestions on job hopping and attrition.What was actually seen, when one takes adetached view, is that those organizationsthat did not have a core value/reason/meaningful differentiator to their brandended up doling out more and more money-hoping that money will buy performanceand loyalty. Quite the opposite happenedand resulted in the labor arbitragenarrowing and many new organizations

unable to compete with the higher costblock.

c) Rediscovering the true long termstakeholders - Our obsession with tryingto understand why people leaveorganizations tends to border on thecomical. We rarely differentiate betweenregrettable talent loss and non-regrettabletalent attrition. We sometimes even areunable to come to a shared understandingon the definition of what is attritionpercentage. If even a fraction oforganization focus and the HR function'sattention is paid to understand deeply andbetter as to why 'many employees chooseto stay', it would be of greater value to allstakeholders. In this context, the depth andsophistication with which organizations' areable to better understand their customersand consumers, is rarely reflected whiletrying to understand their workforce. Henceunderstanding employees deeply andvisibly is a relatively low cost insurancepremia to pay for to avoid being slappedwith 'huge' claims arising out of attrition.

d) Rediscovering the challenges ofindividualized wholesome developmentand the power of challenges inwholesome individual development -While we all swear by HRD, we do notnecessarily give equal weightage to all thethree letters. Development is the mostimportant but, according to me, the leastunderstood. Our mindsets are comfortablewith helping organizations acquire talentbut the passion to integrate the talent, tracktheir real development aspirations etcrecedes with passage of time. Then powerof one (as enunciated by Prof CK Prahlad)is most urgently needed in developing ourhuman resources.

e) Promoting inclusive growth throughmultidimensional reward mechanisms -We need to develop new leverage pointsto reward and recognize employees fortheir contribution. For example, if anemployee achieves an output withsignificantly less input (assume it is avaluable and /or non renewable resource),he/she should be rewarded and recognizedvery differently from another who has notbrought this 'higher order behaviour/result'.That means, while results are important inassessing performance, the 'means' needsharper focus. Similarly we need to rewardand encourage employees who use publictransport, pool their cars, use hybrid cars,plant trees and other similar actions.

I am sure this article should stimulate manyof us to dig deep and develop meaningfulcalls for thought leadership and action.

(I would like to sincerely thank, my friend ,Pankaj Bhargava of People Builders.comfor his painstaking editing and value addingto this article and to Dr Ketna Mehta of WESchool, Mumbai who inspired me to writethis piece �H


Dr. P N Singh is the Chairman of Grid Consultants, Mumbai E-Mail: [email protected]

A quick survey made by me on theleadership style of selected political leaderswho had occupied positions of power in thegovernment was an eye - opener. Itconvinced me that India needed more andbetter leaders. My experience in thecorporate sector only strengthened thisconclusion. It was 1998. I decided that next10 year of my life would be devoted mostlyto Leadership Development.

My plan for the corporate sector was mucheasier. Leadership Grid brought to India byme had been well accepted by thecorporate sector. Over 5000 top and seniormanagers were put through Grid Seminars.Most of them went up the hierarchical levelsin their respective organizationsdemonstrating their leadership qualities.However much more satisfying was ourexperience with school children fromeconomically backward segments of thesociety under our Leaders of tomorrowProject.

Leaders of Tomorrow Project: Dr. P. N.Singh Foundation launched a unique"Leaders of Tomorrow" Project. Under thisproject a one year leadership course isconducted for slum children studying inschools in Mumbai. Today the project isrunning at 50 schools in Mumbai, NaviMumbai, Thane and Jalgaon The projectexposes selected IX standard students fromthe underprivileged sections of our societyto this specially designed programme sothat they occupy leadership positions indifferent professions. These children havea low self-esteem because of the socio-economic background they come from. Theidea is to enhance their self-esteem andbuild confidence in them by providing themtraining in the following areas.

● Self Esteem● Concentration● Speed Reading● Creativity● Habit● Memory Development● Communication● Goal - Setting● Attitude● Stress Management● Mind Control● Time Management● Values & Beliefs● Self - Development● Social Behaviors

● Skill Development

These subject they would not learn in acrowded classroom or from text-books. Thistraining equips them with necessaryattitudes and skills which could help themcope with challenges and move towardssuccess in their lives occupying leadershippositions in their chosen professions. Asan extension of the project we launchedIndia Scholar Awards under which theeducation of the poorest of the poor wasfunded by the foundation.

We started with one school. The project isrunning now in around 50 schools. A mid-term review had indicated that 60% of theparticipants increased their marks in SSCexamination. Priyanka Todkar fromRameshwar Vidya Mandir improved hermarks from 60% in IX standard to 93% inSSC. She is an ITM India Scholar Awardee,whose entire education is supported by theITM trust. She lives in the Vakola slums.She is currently in an engineering collegedoing her degree in engineering. Anotherstudent from the same school, AnkitaSawant, also an India Scholar Awardee hasjoined her diploma in engineering. Thereare several such success stories, whichmake all those associated with the projecthappy. However we have faced numerousproblems in running and expanding thisproject.

Based on our experience, the success ofany project associated with children be thatLeaders of Tomorrow Project or TeachIndia initiated by the Times of India Groupdepends heavily on the support of thefollowing 5 partners: Teacher/ Trainers,Principal of the school, Guardian/Parents,Students themselves and Donors. We havefound extremely difficult to get committedtrainers. Raising funds has been relativelyeasier.

Both these exercise are based onclassroom training. Is classroom trainingthe only way to train leaders? Certainly not.The best way of grooming leaders is puttingpeople with potential under giants and notpygmies. History has shown that greatleaders produce leaders. This is what PeterDrucker has written in his book Adventuresof a Bystander about great men in publicaffairs:

"The long talks with Kraemer those manyyears ago first made me conscious of theparadox of the great man in public affairs.Without him there is no vision, noleadership, no standard of excellence andachievement. And in public affairs

mediocrity kills. But in public affairs, unlikethe arts of sciences, individual achievementcannot stand alone. It requires continuity.The great man in public affairs requiressuccessors of greatness. Yet almost alwayshe leaves behind a vacuum; almost alwayshe is being succeeded by Disraeli 'slieutenant of marines, "who knows the drilland little else.

I don't believe I realized this during the longrambling talks with an equally youngKraemer. But I acquired then a life longinterest in resolving the paradox of the greatman in public affairs, and especially inorganizations - whether governments,universities, or businesses. For it can beresolved. Cecil in Elizabethan Englandsolved it, managing to surround himself withfirst - rate colleagues and to groom his sonto become a first - rate successor. GeorgeWashington resolved it and left behind awhole galaxy of outstanding successors.General George Marshall resolved it ashead of the United States Armed Forcesduring World War II. And many leaders-strong, powerful, articulate individuals- inother organizations such as businessesand universities have resolved it. Earlybusiness examples are those much -maligned "tycoons" JohnD. Rockefeller. Sr.and Andrew Carnegie or, much earlier eventhe founders of the Mitsui and Mitsubishibusiness in Japan."

In additional to the names quoted above inthe American history people like AlfredSloan, the legendary Chairman of GeneralMotors "created" leaders after leaders. InIndia, JRD Tata created dozens of greatleaders. In complete contrast many otherheads of family managed groups feltextremely comfortable with mediocres, yes-men, pimps and spineless buffoonsresulting in their groups disappearing fromthe business scene, or at best just limping.

In conclusion, whatever model or moduledo trainers use they should do as much asthey can for developing leaders. Actuallymore we engage in leadership trainingmore we feel that more should have beendone in this area. While Leaders ofTomorrow Project can be replicated all overIndia to train school children, there is a gapin leadership training for college studentsand those doing professional courses. Thisgap must be bridged by innovative trainers.Let us also pray and hope that we haveleaders like Sloan in India who convertedordinary people into great leaders.

Excellence in Training - VILeadership Training

– Dr. P N Singh

�H


North East States - ALeadership Challange

– Lt.Col (Retd) Prashant Kumar Mathur, Mr. Antu Das

Lt.Col (Retd.) Prashant K. Mathur is an alumnus IIT, Kharagpur and can be reached at: [email protected]. Antu Das is an alumnus IIT, Kharagpur and can be reached at: [email protected]

state. The functional team should havemembers from that state so that thebalance and stability in the team is

achieved as all the states do not prefer acompletely alien team superimposed onthem. This is more so from the local ethnicand social organization, which demandemployment generation from any company,which is working in their state.

(c) Corporate Social initiatives involvinglocals at large should always beprovisioned at the planning stage as it paysphenomenal returns during long termpresence.

(d) The people in these states are veryemotional and believe everything on theface value of facts. Thus no wrong or overassurances should ever be made either tothe community or individuals as at the laterstage if these commitments are not metthen the complete project implementationcan land up into jeopardy.

The Leadership Innovation Challenge

To be successful the leaders in these stateshave only one way to look and one thing todo and it's to do the routine things differently.The local human resources at their disposalis not the most responsive one but the mostsincere one so these leaders have only totweak a bit of training to ensure that theirsincere working teams are aligned towardsthe organizational goals and then every thingelse falls in place.

The innovation, which the leaders in theNES have to create, is to have reasons tomotivate their team from whateveropportunities arise in the course of theirperformances. The unique way ofmotivation is to keep leading from the frontand on the job so that the team membersfeel belonged and acknowledged. Theleader also has to innovate the reasons totake away the monotony out from theworkspace so that there are no dullmoments in the course of the day. Some ofthe unique workplace innovations, whichhave taken shape recently, are-

I. In an Indian MNC the achievements ofField level Teams are being acknowledgedwithin the Team instantaneously and by theCorporate at the end of the month. Theacknowledgement is in kind in terms ofCertification and naming the process in thename of the employee as well as a cashincentive depending on the innovations.

II. A local Technical ConsultancyCompany has recently empowered all itsTechnical Team members in deciding the

employment of its Solar Power Energy Kitssuitable for 15 families in their areas ofoperation and allowing a local individual toman & maintain. This has suddenly ironedout the teething problems of initialestablishment of company operating basesin that area as the word has spread thatthe company will come with free energy andone job. The technical Team membershave suddenly become local heroes in theirregions.

Keeping the team intact after the team hasbeen trained and optimized is another areaof challenge. NES is the area, which hasan infinite capacity to absorb the localtrained manpower by throwing in someperks and hikes here and there. This iswhere the leaders innovative techniques tocaptivate the complete team comes in veryhandy as any loss of worthy team memberis too big a loss to be made up withouthaving a dent to the progress as gettingthe right replacement in this part of India isindeed expensive and hard to find. In oneof the Unique cases of declaring ownershipfor ultimate retention of the employee aTelecom Infrastructure company hasstarted a Pilot Project to ensure that a lowlytrained ITI/Diploma Technician entrustedwith 10 numbers of telecom sites is beinggiven a renewable ownership of all ten sitesfor a period of one year for itsmaintainability and profitability within thecompany policies. If at the end of the yearthe availability of sites improves and thesites generate a clear profit out of theiroperation the company has agreed to sharea sizeable profit with the Technicianresponsible for the sites. Suddenly theTechnician is about to become anentrepreneur. This unique way ofmotivation, retention and empowerment willbe replicated in selected areas based onthe success of this pilot project.

Thus the challenges are more or less thesame but their handling in NES demandsinnovative ways and different handling atany given time. This is so as the rightresources at the right time are difficult tofind in NES.

Conclusion

The NES puts the same challenges but whatdifferentiates is the deft different way bywhich they are to be handled. The differentway is solely due to the large distances,difficult terrain and non-availability of right-trained manpower. Thus it's only thedifferent innovative handling by the leader,which will decide the winners. �H

Introduction

Over the years North Eastern States (NES)namely Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland,Mizoram, Tripura and Arunachal Pradeshhave been an area which has remained inthe obscurity due to various reasons.However the primary ones being the largephysical distance from the major parts ofthe country and a typical mind set of the socalled Mainland policy makers that NES canbe governed by sitting at center.

In the past decade or so the true potentialof NES states has come to light in terms ofits abundant natural resources and a richdiversely abled manpower. The attentionhas suddenly shifted to NES due to its largepotential to meet the growth parametersand its depth to absorb the variousdevelopmental programs.

In order to drive the NES at the pace ofnational rate of development there is asudden need to have corporate leaders whounderstand the requirements from both theends i.e from the national perspective andalso from the local perceptions. This dualunderstanding being the primaryrequirement puts an additional demand onall the leaders in every domain of work. Thisis more so on all the professionals whomove in from the so called mainland to theNES due to the simple reason that they aresimply unaware of the various cultural,social and ethnic norms of the region. Thuswhenever these norms are put under strainthe reason is questioned.

The Realities

The successful application of leadership forbetter execution depends uponrestructuring capability on the ground offollowing parameters-

(a) Each NES is to be dealt individually aseach state has different sets of rules.Overall culture of the host-state reflects theexpectations of the local workforce. It is aliability and may be taken for grantedtherefore the cultural, social, ethnic andcross-cultural functioning needs to beunderstood clearly before initiating aprogramme.

(b) The workforce of each state has somevery clear capabilities and drawbacks alongwith a typical mindset which has to beunderstood before deploying teams in that


Employability Enhancementthrough Aspirations

Management– V. Ramanan

V. Ramanan - CEO of Ladder Consultancy Services Pvt Ltd, Bangalore. E-Mail: [email protected]

In this article, I have attempted to addressthe complications that are spun aroundEmployability and Recession as well assome fresh look at what needs to be doneto address inadequacies and bolster self-confidence into our youth (we boast Indiaas having the youngest workforce in theworld). Accordingly, this article has beenstructured into two parts viz., the first is theProblem Definition and the second is theSolution Scenario that could well becomea movement for our youth to addresseffectively and be well prepared to meettheir own aspirations and that of theCorporate world.

Problem definition:

The topic of employability has always beena hot topic discussed by all parties involvedviz., Employers, Employees and theAcademic Institutions. In the last decadeor so, when everyone were claiming thatIndia Is Shining, we had the employabilityissue wherein there were survey resultsindicating that less than 30% of ourfreshers' graduating were only employable.Currently, we are still discussing the sameemployability factor being low and alarmingwith the only difference that the entirereason for this being attributed torecessionary trends. Neither is therecession the major reason nor the gap inwhat academic teaches differing widelyfrom what is required for a successfulcareer is true. Then what else is the majorfactor leading to this low state ofemployability be it in boom time or the socalled global recession time?

To identify this key contributing factors, letus first look at some of the major revolutionsthat specifically our youth are goingthrough...it all started with INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGY Revolution followed byCOMMUNICATION REVOLUTION. This inturn enabled INFORMATIONREVOLUTION. This has now totally andvery subtly without any directly identifiablecost has made us go throughASPIRATIONS REVOLUTION now. We atLCS have been conducting surveys ofstudents of various streams conducting inthe last 4 years and have found that over90% of them do have aspirations. However,

less than 10% of them are only able torealize their aspirations. This is a clearindication that our youth has the energy andcourage to dream big but the only catch isthat it is running like a wild horse without abridle viz., reality check that would enablethe youth to express their dreams intorealistic and achievable aspirations is notbeing enabled. This ideally has to beaddressed by the academic institutions thatwould not only make their students moregrounded as professionals who could facethe realities of the ever demandingcorporate world...more so during a globalrecessionary trend.

The second most important factor is thetrend that we have been seeing in themindset of both the academic institutions(not all but majority) as well as the mindsetof the students approaching the academicinstitutions for further studies have changeddrastically, as given in the picture below:

In the pictorial representation given above,the first part of the block indicates themindset trend of the Educational Institutionsmanagement whilst the one below indicatesthe mindset of students. You will see thateverything is becoming totally transactionalin nature. This is further supported by thefact that academic institutions in theirendeavour to increase their placementrecord also undertake extending varioussoft skills training programs to their studentsof both graduation and post graduation.However, it has to be noticed here that ithas still not significantly improved either theconfidence level or the employability of thestudent. When educational institutions arebecoming more commercial and expensive,it is only a natural fall out that even theparents are more looking at education,especially professional courses and more

so PG courses like an MBA, as aninvestment done in expectation for a betterplacement at a higher salary, that almostevery college boasts off today in order toattract more students.

The third and also very significant fact weneed to address is that enough is beingtalked, written about and debated in variousseminars, workshops and round tableconferences about employability indexbeing low and how to address the gapbetween academic input and corporateexpectations. However, we are only tellingin general that employability index is verylow for the freshers category. But nostudent is being told as to what is his / heremployability index. A student who puts inmuch effort to fare well in all his / her examsright through till his UG / PG, will certainlyalso ensure his employability index isworked upon to expected levels of thecorporate. This lack of assessing atindividual student level the employabilityindex and giving the chance for focusedeffort to improve upon is a key gap thatcertainly needs to get addressed.

The fourth that is a lead from the third causecited above is that we should keep in mindthat employability index factors are differentfor different corporate. However, theminimum commonality could beestablished in terms of a given industry,within that a given function and within thata given job role. This part would have to beworked out by the Corporate in terms of itsexpected employability index and be madeclearly known to students. By the sametoken, unless each student gets to knowwhat are their key career options in termsof their choice of industry, function and jobrole, they will not be able to establish theemployability index that would be relevantfor them. This is even tougher but essentialfor each student to address.

The common thread that evolves from allthe four key causes indicated above clearlyindicates that enough is being done byacademic institutions along with largeCorporates putting in huge efforts andmoney in training the students for betteremployability. However, all these are aimedat mainly skill building. The key gap is that


we are not enabling the individual studentto first establish his / her identity beforeenabling them to build their blocks throughskill building. Everything transactional isbeing attempted before first ensuringtransformation of the individual student interms of establishing their own identity. Thebest proof of this is by seeing the confidencelevels of students whilst they attendinterviews in various corporates. Theymainly struggle in the first question itself viz.,"tell me about yourself and what do you wantto do?" Even worse is if they are asked: "whydo you want to work in this Organization?"

Recently an MBA fresher had come for aninterview with me. When I asked the abovefirst question, I was indicated that hispassion was to be in HR and become aManager in the shortest possible time of 3years. The candidate went on to say howpassionate he was in HR and howdesparate he is to getting a job involvingHR. I know that our youngsters are havingbetter IQ than their seniors and I knew thathe was preparing for a job with LCS as heknew it is into HR consulting space. Iwanted to test him on this and after listeningto him for some more time, I just said "Lookit is very nice to see so much passion inHR but unfortunately we currently arelooking for a person who could domarketing for us". I would have justcompleted this, and immediately he takesoff saying that "But sir, you see, I have donedual specialization in my MBA which is HRand Marketing. I'am as passionate inmarketing as in HR. Given an opportunity,I would certainly be able to prove myself inthis job". Throughout this interview it wasbecoming evident that he neither was ableto go deeper in terms of what aspects hewould be keen in taking up within HR as acore services in a HR consulting firm norhad done enough homework as to how hewould do marketing in a HR firm. He alsohad not even visited our website. It left mevery sad that here we have an MBA fresherwho is desparate in getting a job havingdecent communication skills, thanks tosoftskills training given in his B School, buthas not done enough to reflect that as anMBA student he is also good enough in theapplication part of all his learning. He alsohad not done enough to bring clarity tohimself on what he really wants to do andends up contradicting himself ending inutter confusion and lack of self confidence.I'am sure this is not a singular incident onlyfaced by me or that candidate in an one offinterview. It is a common phenomenatoday. Thanks to recession, the real issuegets swept under the carpet.

Solutions Scenario: Do-It-Yourself Recipe

I have put together a comprehensivesolution that would certainly enable

enhancement of employability of eachfresher. This solution primarily focuses onthe key point of building the self-confidenceof our youngsters. For this, the fundamentalneed is for the student to have clarity aboutthemselves that in turn gives them focusedeffort towards enhancing their individualemployability index.

On reviewing closely the above fourproblem definition factors given above, itwas becoming evident that we werethrowing different flowers to the UG / PGstudents through soft skills and other skillbuilding trainings but have convenientlyforgotten to give them the thread that theyneed to use the flowers and make abeautiful garland themselves. Whilst theflowers are the various skills that is currentlygiven to them, the thread can be nothingelse but their individual passion andaspiration. And nothing much is being donecurrently in the area of enabling our youthin bringing back their passion andaspiration to where it truly belongs. Thiswould also certainly enable underplay oftotal commercialization and temporarygratification approach allthrough...individual student, educationalinstitution as well as the corporate.

Accordingly, LCS has come out with a veryunique program on 'AspirationsManagement'. My definition on Aspirationsmanagement is:

Aspirations Management is a process ofenabling individuals to convert their dreamsto realistic and achievable aspirations:

� Aspirations that are not aligned toindividual's inherent capabilities willremain a dream;

� Aspirations that are not aligned toopportunities will remain as aspirations;

� Aspirations that are not futuristic will beshort lived.

The authentic process of coaching, guidingand aligning of individual's aspirations totheir capabilities, opportunities andfuturistic trends is AspirationsManagement. It is a holistic process ofmanagement that balances both personaland professional aspirations and aims atproviding a healthy work-life balance.

Why this program as a solution and whatis the uniqueness about this? The keyaspect is that since our primary aim is towork on building the self-confidence of ourfreshers, it all has to start with 'KNOWYOURSELF', then 'TRAIN YOURSELF'. Ifthese two are done in that order then thefresher will witness confidently 'PLACEYOURSELF' happening. If these three arethe basis of an employment for anindividual, then it ensures 'GROWYOURSELF' professionally.

Dr.C.Balaji, one of the Advisory Boardmember of LCS as well as the Chief Editorof the National HRD Network journal, hadthe following to say about Aspirations andhow an individual, especially the studentsshould approach it.

What is 'aspiration'? Aspiration is not ahope; it is not a dream; it is not yourambition; it is not what you want or desire;it is not even what you are interested in.These words which are normallyassociated with 'aspiration' (i.e., hope,dream, ambition, want, desire, interest etc.)do not fully denote what aspiration means;they have an air of superficiality.

When I aspire for something, this aspirationinfluences me so much that I live, eat andbreathe what I am aspiring for. What I amaspiring for exerts such a strong influenceon me that whatever I think and whatever Ifeel are in harmony with my aspiration.While taking actions to fulfill my aspiration,I don't sweat and curse, I don't force myself.In the field of medicine, aspiration means'to draw something out through suction'.Aspiration pulls actions from me; aspirationpulls the whole of me toward fulfilling it.Such actions are not just painless, but arein fact highly satisfying and enjoyable.

Can you now see that aspiration is notsuperficial? It is something deep inside thatshapes who we are and what we do. Adesire, for example, which exists at asuperficial level does not have the powerof pulling the whole of me to fulfill it. I amsometimes 'with' the desire and sometimesnot.

You will also notice that, when aspirationis as I explained earlier, aspiration existsin reality, in actuality, not in fantasy andimagination. It exists now, not in a distantunforeseeable future. Aspiration has thisquality of determining who I am in thepresent.

How can one get to one's aspiration? Hereis one possible way.

To begin with, acknowledge that the firstanswer you give to the question, "What isyour aspiration?" is not your aspiration. Youget to your aspiration by askingsuccessively these questions: (a) If youachieved that what becomes available?And (b) and does what gets available reallyinspire you?

Let me illustrate this. Let us say the firstanswer that you give to the question, "Whatis your aspiration?" is "I want to becomethe head of a company." Ask this question(a), "By becoming the head of a companywhat becomes available?" Maybe youanswer, "I earn lot of money, get a statusin the family and society, and live a goodlife." Ask the next question (b) "Does


earning lot of money, getting a status in thefamily and society, and living a good lifereally inspire you?" The first most likelyresponse is, "Yes." That is natural. Whatyou will most probably experience as soonas you say "Yes" is doubt, the doubt being,"Am I really inspired by these?" Stay withthis doubt and ask the question (a) again:"By earning lot of money, getting a statusin the family and society, and living a goodlife what is available?" You may experiencestruggle to answer, but this struggle comesfrom your unwillingness to get deeper, forsomewhere you do not feel comfortable toget to the 'real' answer for "What is it that Ireally want at the end of the day?" Thediscomfort also comes from the fact thatthis is probably the first time you areengaged in an inquiry of this sort. Whenyou answer this question, ask the nextquestion (b): "Does what is available nowreally inspire you?" And you go through thisprocess a couple of more times, to take youto a couple of more rungs deeper. You willget to a stage where your answer to thequestion (b) "Does what gets availablereally inspire you?" produces a glow andlightness in you - and that is likely to beyour aspiration! And it is that which will pull

you to action; and it is that which will causeyou who you are.

Aspiration management helps you throughthis process efficiently and effectively.Providing information, guiding, coaching,counseling etc that encompass aspirationmanagement are there to support you ingetting to your aspiration ("What is it that Ireally want?") and taking actions to fulfillwhat you come with as your aspiration.

In the early stages, the aspirationmanagement process may leave you at alevel that is still not really deep, but a fewlevels deeper than the superficial. However,even at this level, you will have anexperience similar to what you have whenyou get to the 'real' one. It takes practice toget deeper, and there is no end to how deepyou can get. Having said that, I request youto invest in an exploration to whateverdepths you would choose to go; do not stopat a superficial level. Get to that level whereyou start getting inspired. Take actionsappropriate to that level. And continue yourjourney…and that is my aspiration.

Aspiration management is quite unique atthis stage, it has huge potential to awaken

people and tap the vast untapped potentialin each one of us.

For any professional, be it fresher orexperienced, to be successful, two maincriteria are ability and attitude. The currentand the desired scenarios are depictedbelow:

Those who are able to successfullyestablish their identity, identify their passionarea, convert their dreams to realisticaspirations would certainly move from thecurrent scenario to the desired scenario fora professional to be successful in theCorporate world. Their employability isalways enhanced through their ownaspirations identification and managementat all points of their professional life rightfrom their starting point as a fresher.

NOTE: This article is a copyright of LCSand Aspirations management is a patentprogram of LCS. �H


M.B.A - "Are we producingMasters"?

– Balijepalli Ravikanth

Mr. Balijepalli Ravikanth is Sr. Asst., Professor, Sri Vasavi Engineering College, Tadepalligudem, E-Mail: [email protected]

TEACHING is a NOBLE profession. Theimportance of a teacher in the society isduly recognized by following September 5as "Teachers Day". As a teacher teachingMBA Students, I always experience guiltyfeeling. The guilty feeling is not because ofmy inability to teach but as a matter of factlooking at the "EmployabilityPreparedness" (E.P - I like to coin) of thestudents. The scope of my experientialarticle is restricted to MBA affiliatedcolleges in the remote villages. I assumein this article that city based affiliatedcollege students have more awareness andpossess moderate employability skills.

Often, we find that most of the students whopursue MBA do not plan for MBA, but,accidentally fall into MBA. This accident, Irelate as a - 'friend influence', or hypecreated by media about B-Schoolsplacements in multinational companies.There is a quote which reads as "Accidentis a good teacher, which gives test first andlessons afterwards". However, in the caseof MBA Students, the opposite is true.Firstly, they undergo 2 years of continuouslessons and experience the test of market.The obvious result is of course - "BetterLate.., than Never" is hard to digest. Letme come back. 'Friend Influence' isacceptable, however cannot qualify forinfluence. For example - a candidate fromvillage should not get influenced to pursueMBA because his friend who hascompleted his MBA in a city based collegeis earning 15K a month. Likewise, thecandidates from village are curious topursue MBA because of hype created bymedia (thanks to globalization) about B-School summer placements. In both theexamples, it is neither the fault of the friendnor the fault of the media. In reality, thecandidates from villages due to ignorancethey fall into the trap of "right person at thewrong place". Due to ignorance they onlysee the result and not the process. I mean,such candidates see the success of aperson, the currency his friend is drawingignoring the fact that such students aresuccessful because of the following facts:

a. Success because of Need to pursueManagement Education

b. Success because of Ability to plan goals

c. Success because of identifying theirweakness and converting them tostrengths

d. Success because of Perseverance toreach goals

e. Successes because of understandingthe industry-demands and thus takenecessary steps to qualify for it.

On the contrary, what do we observe? Wefind that most of the students (from remotevillages) join MBA to developCommunication Skills. They feel elated ifthey can speak few lines in English andwrite a decent letter during their two years.They feel important to complete MBAsuccessfully than to introspect theknowledge and skills they have gained.They feel comfortable for their presence inthe class rather than their active class roomparticipation. How many students can weidentify to possess the above listedabilities? The answer is with Mr. VilfredoPareto (the law maker of vital few). Let meshare with you my experience with DGM(HR) of a reputed company in WestGodavari District. I along with my colleaguevisited his esteemed premises to enquireabout an O.D Intervention and no soonerhe took deep breathe to curse the facultyfraternity about their injustice towardsproducing productive students to theindustry. He says that students are not atall aware of latest technologies but produceprojects with 1990 estimates. He alsopointed that the university syllabus (MBAHR Final Year Syllabus) does not coverindustry essentials such as Balanced ScoreCard, HR Score Card, TQM and QualityManagement Systems. It is not the time todiscuss whose mistake it is and begin thepolitical blame game. In fact, the faculty isalso arrested with University Syllabus,which they are supposed to complete withinuniversity regulated time frame. Thishinders for imparting value basededucation.

SO WHAT CAN BE THE SOLUTION?

Suggestion 1:

After students give their I-CET exams, the

universities advertise Counseling Sessionsfor admissions in different universityaffiliated colleges. In this phase, thestudents basing on their I-CET rank aregiven the opportunity to select colleges. Ifeel, the university can be more sociallyresponsible if they can nominate fewuniversity college experts from specializeddisciplines and nominate them to beCounseling Guides. These counselingguides will help students give a real pictureof what MBA Education expects from suchcandidates to become successful duringtwo years. This idea will be more fruitful ifmedia is used to advertise the importanceof such counseling sessions (available attheir affiliated campus).

Suggestion 2:

I feel that the title M.B.A which stands for"Master of Business Administration" whichis being awarded for students uponsuccessful completion of MBA needs to bereviewed. The title "Master" allotted to astudent raises expectations from theinterviewer/industry about his academicperformance. Unfortunately, the studentwho scores highest and the student whoscores least are awarded "Masters". In thissituation, the industry does not show biasin their expectations.

So what can be done? In this case, theuniversity can change the title as"Qualified Business Administrators"(Q.B.A) instead of M.B.A till necessarymodifications are done to improve coursecurriculum. This will balance theexpectations of the industry and be moregenuine. For example, we find RegisteredQMS Lead Auditors and Qualified QMSLead Auditors. The difference is quiteobvious. Registered QMS Lead Auditorshave sufficient audit experience whileQualified QMS Lead Auditors have onlymere qualification.

In the end, I feel a Qualification Certificateon Business Administration which ignoreslatest technologies need not necessarilymake a Master of Business Administration.

Is somebody listening? �H


Reward Trends In India Inc.On Upsurge

– Hari Nair

Mr. Hari Nair, is at the helm of affairs at Sona Koyo Steering Systems Limited, Gurgaon as its Vice President - Human Resources, and canbe reached by e-mail [email protected]

"Leaders and Organizations can achievetheir Vision and Goals not by their Positionbut Passion. Do you and does yourorganization has that Passion inside....thatBurning Desire to achieve and besuccessful when the going is tough."

Just like a child is given a Chocolate,Cupcake, or a big hug for cleaning his orher room, similarly rewards and recognitioncan prove to be powerful tools for employeemotivation and performance improvement,especially in the current scenario ofslowdown. Reward system usually meansthe financial reward an organization givesto its employees in return of their labour.There are many types of Reward &Recognition, some have direct costsassociated with them, such as cash bonusand stock awards, and a wide variety ofcompany paid perks, like Car Allowance,paid parking and gift certificates. Othertypes of Rewards & Recognition may beless tangible but are still very effective.These "Non-Monetary" rewards includeformal and informal acknowledgment,assignment of more enjoyable job duties,opportunities for Training, an increased rolein decision making, etc.

But, when the going gets tough one sizedoes not fit all, customization is the keymore aligned to the business needs. Bestfit than the best practice is what the needis.

There is a shift in paradigm, from monetaryto non-monetary, from fixed to variable,from short term to long term and fromannual to quarter-2-quarter needs.Companies are going all out to woo the top20% of their employees and increasingvariable pays to as high as 28% of theirCost to the company. The current trend isthat of the Integrated Reward Approach.The components of the Reward Systemconsist of Financial Rewards (Basic andPerformance Pay) and employee benefits,which together comprise totalremuneration. They also include Non-Financial Rewards (Recognition,Promotion, Praise, Achievement,Responsibility, and Personal Growth).

In words of Jack Zigon, Rewards are"Something that increases the frequencyof an employee action." And to achievedesired goals, Reward System should haveclose linkage with the OrganizationalStrategies and Business Needs like if acompany is focused on a Cost ReductionStrategy, it might focus on Rewards forideas to minimize or eliminate cost andemployee stock awards to foster an on-going cost reduction emphasis. Managingin today's complex work environment is notas easy as it sounds. Though it never wasbut many numbers of factors are making iteven more challenging. Same is the casewith recognizing and rewarding employees.

The concept of employee is changing. Nolonger can we think of getting a job donewith just our employees. We must now thinkof all those who are needed to complete amission both within and outside thetraditional organizational boundaries. Wewill have to understand the importance ofrecognition in its broadest term and thevalue of reward system in both monetaryand non monetary terms because thenature of work itself is changing and to dothe job well a manager needs to firstunderstand the nature of the conditionsboth within and beyond the immediatecontrol.

Recognize the signs of the Times

Approach of the job should be like thatwhich can acknowledge today's reality:

● It's a seller market. Worker mobility isin. Permanent employee is out.

● Building personal reputation is in.Workplace loyalty is out.

● Staffing flexibility is in. Traditionalorganization structures are out.

● Reward and recognition systems thatbuild individual and organizationalesteem are in. Incentives that devaluehuman intelligence are out.

● Flexible organization structures andcollaborative relationships are in.Workers and work structures as wehave known are out.

Majority of the companies are initiatinginnovative employee Rewards andRecognition schemes, announcing perksfor talented kin and going ahead withAnnual Increments hoping that happyemployees would not leave the companyonce the economy will improve andcompany performance will improve. The bigquestion in today's scenario wherecompanies are going for Layoff, SalaryCut…... "IS COMPENSATION ADIFFERENTIATOR?"

And the answer is "Never or almost never".A recent Watson Wyatt survey of 551 largeemployers' states that out of 551 surveyed,more than 500 hand-picked high-performing employees, workers today aremotivated by far more other factors thanjust money. In an overheated Job market,Demand & Supply equation can no longerbe the determinants of compensationstrategy. Compensation has to be alignedto tangible performance measures and it isthe greatest challenge in front of all HRManagers presently. A study conductedacross 150 leading corporate in India byHewitt Associates to understand the impactof economic slowdown on compensationand salary trends in India has found that,contrary to expectations, there hasn't beenany dramatic move to downbeat macro-economic factors on compensation.

In the present scenario, where Layoffs andSalary cuts may still be the easy way outfor companies to fight with the short termfears, but an increasing number ofemployers are still investing in the presentto hedge the future. In fact, Slowdown isthe best time when companies candifferentiate themselves as caringorganizations with enhanced efficiencies.Companies are revising its Reward &Recognition Policy to compensate with theloop holes in the systems. Companies haveplanned to revamp its Reward &Recognition scheme and planning to giveheavy performance bonuses this year.Quite a few companies have even agreedupon to increase their annual increaserange to motivate employees and increaseproductivity levels. A la carte way


compensation or rewards need to bevibrant and dynamic yet all focused atmotivation first then retention.

Many changes have been brought aboutby the new global landscape. Indianeconomy has moved from a labour-supplymarket to a labour-demand market. "Highperformers are the highest priority today,given the economic pace and the urgencyto find the right talent." Companies,including PSUs are looking to establish thesystems that can retain high performersand motivate others to move up to the highperforming leadership bracket.

A stronger focus on total rewards wouldstrengthen the attraction and retentionpower of companies in India. The mostwidely used Rewards/ PerformanceManagement System is a target basedevaluation which is executed throughannual reviews and most of them perceivethat there is a linkage between performancerating and salary increase. Manycompanies in India is also looking atvariable pay as a tool to attract talent as itis being perceived that Variable Payincreases the company's level ofcompetitiveness.

If people matter, then they matter

But, not to forget, total control onpercentage of employee cost to sales andvalue addition per employee is what thecorporate is eyeing at and that is one ofthe key learning's churned out of theslowdown.

Here are several ways to demonstrate thatyou recognize and value your employees,remember if employees' matters, theymatter. And it's your job to show it. And thiscan be one of the most effective forms ofrecognition forms of recognition.

● Treat people with respect● Be on time● Be present in conversation; listen

actively and carefully● Keep employees informed● Develop people fully● Promote continuous learning● Be fair● Elicit ideas, suggestions, concerns and

act on them● Lavish appreciation● Be generous with opportunities and

rewards● Affirm the values of others contributions● Be available● Respond to employee request promptlyBut in current tough times, Promotion nowpay rise later, need based promotions,immense learning opportunities, employee

involvement activities at all levels,enhancing employee engagement,developing and empowering second line ofleadership, fixed percentage hike just tobeat inflation, five day week working fornon-core areas, flexi timings suitingbusiness needs, variables directly linked topercentage of sales, rewards linked toquarterly performance, profit sharing linkedto line wise efficiencies, quality, overallplant performance on a quarter-2-quarterbasis are some key initiatives which is mustto fight slowdown and control flight postrecovery.

Further, there are certain measures whichcan help to increase the productivity levelas well as it will help in retaining the Talentpool of the Organization. The measures areas mentioned below;

1. Identify some percentage of the TalentPool say 25% and invest on their Overalldevelopment.

2. Reward employees for the work welldone. Identify the categories of rewards likeBest Team Member, Employee of theMonth, Well Dressed employee of theweek, Best Team Awards etc and theirnames can be displayed on the NoticeBoard and even can be given a certificateby Top Management.

3. There should be a get together wherefamilies of the employee should beinvolved.

4. Celebrating Life - Creative, fun-lovingmanagers recognize employees in uniqueways. Some of the examples are as below:

● Celebrate the achievement of teamgoals with employees andmanagement

● Communicate individual and groupaccomplishments

● Tell others, tell customers, tell theworld. It is a good business and peoplelove this kind of recognition.

● Celebrate certain length of services like5, 10, 15, 20 years of completion of theservices with the company. But don'tdo it with standard dinner andpresentation. Tell what employeeshave contributed and why they havebeen a valued employee of theorganization. It serves a dual purposefor employees being recognized andthose aspiring to gain recognition.

● Celebrate success of every kind andeven the constructive failure.

● Rejoice over personal events likeBirthdays, Marriages, and Birth etc.

● Enjoy the company of your employeesby walking around, watching for the"wins".

● Communication and personal touch isa must, employees are our internalcustomers.

5. Empowerment: Managers should giveauthority or control to another as well.Enlighten managers understand thatempowering works in at least 2 ways: it canprovide responsibility and accountability forsomething and it encourages others to feelpowerfully enabled to achieve challengingobjectives. Managing in the presentscenario demands empowerment, not onlybecause new entrants are resistant toautocratic styles of control but also becauseempowerment works and the results areeminently more beneficial.

6. Informal Recognition: Random,unexpected acts of appreciation, ways thata manager acknowledges employeesefforts or accomplishments as he/shebecomes aware of them. It includes: Cardn letters for all occasions, Certificates forall types of outstanding services, bettersolutions, highest productivity etc. Flower,candy, small gifts, anything that says, "Youare special".

7. Rewarding for the right reasons: Itis interesting to look at the performancereview forms for the organization and ratingfactors used by the managers. It includes:Attendance, Appearance, Punctuality,Safety Awareness, Positive Attitude, WorkQuality, Work Quantity etc.

Conclusion:

"We Indians are very emotional and suchspecial treatment in tough times like thesewill certainly increase loyalty. Ultimately,their productivity level will go up." Drivenby all such measures some companieshave seen 24% growth in sales. Companieshave clearly realized that Talent is the onlysustainable form of competitive advantage.Now-a-days organizations want to retain,engage and develop high impactemployees and work towards talentacquisition that can help them sustain theirbusinesses in the time of downturn andmake them a long term player in the market.Schemes like flexible benefit plans are areflection of such trends. In the presentscenario, people have a perception in mindof not staying too long with the employer,thus benefit plans does not have relevanceto the employees. It means perks; benefitsmake increasingly less sense for theemployees. Besides, employees todaywant to be held accountable for theirperformance and are welcoming the trendtowards higher proportion of their pay beingat risk. One Can't discover new oceansunless he has courage to lose sight of theshore and the same is in the case oforganizations too. �H


How To RaiseYour Self Esteem

– Deepti Pathak

You can't touch it, but it affects how youfeel

You can't see it, but its there when you lookat yourself in the mirror

You can't hear it, but its there every timewhen you talk about yourself

What is this important but mysterious thing?

It's your SELF ESTEEM.

There are 6.7 billion people on this earth,but none can replace another completely.We are unique. We owe the world a gift ofour uniqueness which it cannot get fromanywhere else. This article focuses onempowering the readers with the power ofself knowledge.

Napoleon observed," They are ablebecause they think they are able."

In the Indian context, Swami Vivekanandahas repeatedly emphasized the importanceof self esteem. He has said "throughout thehistory of mankind, if any motive power hasbeen more potent then another in the livesof all great men and women, it is that offaith in themselves. Born of theconsciousness that they are live great, theybecome great. The impatience ofVivekananda for the low self esteem ofcommon man can be gauged from hissaying," men the infinite dreams, dreamingfinite dream". A complete loop is therewhich exist between achievement and selfesteem. Achievement produces selfesteem which further stimulusachievement.

In the fast pace of globalization, anincreasing number of Indian companies arestriving hard to become truly world classcompanies. An increasing number of Indiancompanies in the Global arena will enhance"self esteem" of Indian workers which willtake the Indian corporate to new heights.

WHAT IS SELF-ESTEEM

What Is Self-Esteem? It is one's esteem(regard) of oneself.

To understand self-esteem, break the terminto two words. Let's take a look at the wordesteem (say: ess-teem) first. Esteem is afancy word for thinking that someone orsomething is important or valuing thatperson or thing. And self means, well,yourself! So when we put the two words

together it's easier to see what self-esteemis. It's how much you value yourself andhow important you think you are. It's howyou see yourself and how you feel aboutyour achievements.

Self-esteem isn't conceited about how greatyou are. It's more like quietly knowing thatyou're worth a lot. It's not about thinkingyou're perfect because nobody is perfectin this world rather knowing that you'reworthy of being loved and accepted.

WHY SELF-ESTEEM IS IMPORTANT

"I began to understand that self-esteem isnot everything its just that there is nothingwithout it."

Gloria Steinem

Self-esteem isn't like a cool pair of sneakersthat you'd love to have but don't have tohave. Good self-esteem is importantbecause it helps you to hold your head highand feel proud of yourself and what you cando. It gives you the courage to try newthings and the power to believe in yourself.It lets you respect yourself, even when youmake mistakes. And when you respectyourself, everyone usually respect you, too.Having good self-esteem creates positivevibes in your mind and body. If you thinkyou're important, you'll be less likely tofollow the crowd if your friends are doingsomething dumb or dangerous. If you havegood self-esteem, you know that you'resmart enough to make your own decisions.You value your safety, your feelings, yourhealth - your whole self! Good self-esteemhelps you know that every part of you isworth caring for and protecting.

LOWER SELF-ESTEEM: A WAY TOFAILURES

To have low self esteem is to not value, orhave high regard for yourself. People withlow self esteem never feel in charge of theirown lives. They often feel like victims. Theyfeel like outsiders, left out, unimportant, etc.

Low self esteem has two faces: One is thepersonality that seems to always be theunderdog, the under achiever, the one whosays I can't, I couldn't, I shouldn't, I haveto. The other face is the person who seemsvery confident, very in control, verydogmatic and positional. All of this audacityis also a precursor of low self esteem. This

type of person, may exhibit any or all ofthese traits: when things go wrong, wantsto eat other people alive, or is aperfectionist, demanding, and selfcentered, can't take criticism, instruction,or direction, is very independent and selfsufficient. This type of low self esteem willoften deny that anything is wrong, becausethinking they are in charge, yet if you arestrictly in charge of your life, it eliminatesfury, exasperation, the desire to controlothers.

A person with poor self-esteem is not ableto live a fuller and wealthier life and isgenerally unable to experience bliss andcontentment in working, playing and allother aspects of life. He will experiencedifficulty in socializing, as the world willappear hostile and perilous to him. Such aperson spends his time figuring out whatother people think about him which makeshim fretful and dejected. For a person withadequate self-esteem the reverse is true.

Raising your self esteem:

One Leader has QUOTED -

"To have self Respect is everything. Wthoutit we are nothing but unwilling slave's, ateverybody's mercy ,especially those wefear or hold in contempt-without self-respect, we give ourselves away and makethe ultimate sacrifice: sell ourselves out !"

Recognizing strengths and compensatingfor weakness represent the first step inachieving positive self regard. The world isa manifestation of ourselves when we hateourselves, we hate everybody else whenwe love being who we are, the rest of theworld would be wonderful. So directly orindirectly our self image aids in creating selfesteem. Self image is the blueprint whichdetermines exactly how we will behave,who we will mix with, what we will try andwhat we will avoid. Our every thought andevery action stem from the way we seeourselves.

Whenever you start thinking make this onethe very first thought to strike your mind-YOU DESERVE LOVE AND RESPECTJUST BECAUSE YOU ARE YOU. Forraising our self esteem we first need tofocus on our real inner beauty and our innerstrengths.

Reward yourself when you succeed.

- By Denis Waitley

Deepti Pathak is Lecture- HRM, Galgotias Business School, Greater Noida, e-mail: [email protected]


Accept your past, present; accept yourweakness and strengths. Think about whatyou really want. Accept yourself you areunique and you have your own set ofstrength and weakness.Dont try to be likesomeone else, love yourself you are herefor a purpose. Remember your successesnot matter how small they may be. Thinkabout what you really want. Thinking is thehardest work, but it is worth it .Do not liveyour life for others. Use positive affirmationsand tools. Finally set yourself for successplan, set achievable goals take small step,proceeding in right direction.

BE OPTIMISTIC

It's not what you are that holds you back, itswhat you think you are not.

All the Traps and pitfalls in life, self esteemsthe deadliest and hardest to overcome. Forit is a pit designed and dug by our ownhands, summed up in the phrase.

IT IS NO USE, I CANNOT DO IT- Maxwell Maltz

Don't make your problems the center pieceof your conversation take positively aboutyour life and the progress you are trying tomake. No one can make you feel inferiorwithout your consent. Don't believe in peoplewho did not believe in you. All successfulpeople in our society now realize their egosare an asset. Top performers in athletics,business, or any other career are alwaysconvinced they can be heroes. And it showsthere's nothing wrong with being proud ofwhat we've done, of what we think we cando, or of who we are and where we comefrom.Passivity over a long period of time canlead to a loss of fervor, flabby energy levelsand lack of buoyancy in one's ability.

WILL-POWER

"Take up one thing, do it, see the end ofthat thing and before you have seen the enddo not give it up."

Swami Vivekananda

The will-power is a man's chief driving forcewhich propels him to decide and act. It hasbeen said that three things paves way formaking a strong will: verve, steadiness anddirection. Verve indicates energy,steadiness points to persistence; directionmeans movement along a predeterminedwell thought out track. Increased will-powerwill lead to optimistic approach and self-dependency which in turn leads to self-improvement which unswervingly lead tohigher self-esteem. For high self-esteem weneed to belief in ourselves and in whateverwe do, which requires to spur will-powerwhich in turn will lead to pre-eminentperformance in a particular field.

SELF-DISCIPLINE

Indiscipline is like a contagious maladywhich adversely affects the personality of aperson. Unless one masters the skill of self-discipline, he cannot master other tasks.

Thomas Elva Edison has said that "geniusis 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". Wemust be sure that 99% perspiration cannotcome unless one has good deal of self-discipline. If we are highly self-disciplinedwe will accept the reality and try to find outthe reasons of our success or failures whichin turn will direct us towards internal locusof control. And it will increase our self esteemas we will be able to recognize the loopholesand ultimately our complacency willincrease.

To be self-disciplined we need to increaseour risk taking ability by facing the hasslesrather than going for confrontation. It willdecrease our dependency on others andmake us realize our accountability for thetasks assigned.

THE ART OF KAIZEN FOR ENHANCINGSELF-ESTEEM

What in the heck is kaizen? If one practice itconsistently it virtually guarantees theirprosperity and makes your successinevitable. So what is it?

Kaizen is a Japanese word which, in English,signifies "Continuous Improvement." Theconcept of continuous improvement hasbeen around for thousands of years in theJapanese culture. It was synthesized intothe philosophy of Total Quality Managementby Dr. W. Edwards Deming when he wasgiven the task of revitalizing Japan'seconomy immediately following World WarII.If you look at Japan's economy today youcan see the effectiveness of this philosophy- they're a powerhouse.

But the question here is how does thephilosophy of kaizen apply to us? So hereis the reply: take the words "ContinuousImprovement" and glue a "Self" in themiddle. "Continuous Self Improvement" isthe single most important concept to applyto your life if you hope to be successful.

Northrop Frye, a Canadian literary critic, hassaid that: "The mind best fitted for survivalin any world is the mind that has discoveredhow knowledge can be joyful, leading to afriendship with wisdom that is pure delight.That mind is ready to tackle any kind ofknowledge with intentness of will."

Mr. Frye is distinguishing between a trainedmind and a mind dedicated to learning. Thetrained mind has acquired techniques thatwill probably be out of date in ten or fifteenyears or might be within five years. Trainingis less important thing as compared to thereadiness to take on the training.

The secret of maintaining kaizen...

The most important aspect of stayingenthusiastic during your pursuit ofcontinuous improvement is not your memorybut its your attitude. Be acquainted with thefact that when you sharpen your skills in onearea it has a positive impact in other areas -they're all interrelated.

Your physical health affects your mentalhealth; your spiritual strength affects yoursocial and emotional strength; youremotional strength affects yourrelationships...it goes on and on.

And remember, no matter how good youbecome, there will always be room forimprovement.

CONCLUSION

A lack of confidence in one's abilities, beliefsand convictions engender a negativeattitude. With a negative attitude one makeas little an effort as possible and when onedoes not make the effort, it is half heartedand feeble. And it is not because the personis not capable, but because the person isnot confident. So for raising your self esteemrespect yourself and your decisions as well.To pursue something that you believe inrequires preparation, planning,determination and perspiration, but thebackbone of it all is often a sense of highself-respect. Do not allow others to pull youdown and if you get an opportunity pullothers up too. Face your fears and forgetthem. Facing your fears will enhance yourconfidence and will engender learning. Don'tbe fascinated in the past, learn from it andinculcate it in your thinking. Be assertive thatyou deserve your dreams to come true.Always remember that being a human beingyou always have scope for improvement asthe strength of human being is visible fromthe lines quoted magnificently by Tagore:

"The fish in the water is silent, the animalson the earth are noisy, the bird in the air issinging. But man has in him the silence ofthe sea, the noise of the earth and the musicof the air."

References:

Bharadia Raksha (2006),"Me: A handbook forlife", Rupa & Co., New Delhi

Earnie Larsen, Carol L. Negarty, "Believing inmyself: Self-esteem daily meditations

Jeffrey Gitomen's (2007), "Yes! Attitude",Financial Times press

Stephen R. Covey (2004), "The 7 habits ofhighly effective people", Pocket books, London

Sharma, R.C.(2006), "Roads to Excellence,"Excel Books, New Delhi. �H


Employability skills refer to a person'scapability of choosing a career (C),Acquiring initial employment (A), Retainemployment (R), Growing in theemployment and obtaining newemployment if required (G). The definitioncan be expressed in simple formulae as;

E.S = Skills of (C + A + R + G)

Employability skills as shown above is atwo-sided equation and many individualsneed various forms of support to overcomethe physical and mental barriers to learningand personal development. The followinglines give us a picture on briefing abouteach skill:

● Abilities in choosing a career (C): Theabilities to gain career advice and anunderstanding about the world of workare embedded in acquiring this skill.

● Acquiring initial employment (A): Thethorough understanding of individual'sStrengths & Limitations and trying todevelop abilit ies to gain initialemployment.

● Retain employment (R): The abilities tomaintain employment and make'transitions' between jobs and roleswithin the same organization to meetnew job requirements.

● Growing in the employment (G): Theability to obtain new employment ifrequired, i.e. to be independent in thejob market by being willing and able tomanage their own employmenttransitions between and withinorganizations.

Upon understanding of what employabilityskills are let me take through the growingneed for employability skills in the jobmarket. What is new about EmployabilitySkills is the emphasis that is being taggedin the volatile job market. A person recruitedin the organization is not the same personduring his career progression in theorganization. He / She is exposed tovarious technologies, different workcultures, market fluctuations and pressinginternal demands and so the need for

having people who can challenge, surviveand grow in the organizations. Thechallenge of HR Managers in employingHuman Resources possessingEmployability Skills is worth for furtherresearch. Most of the companies duringrecruitment focus their efforts ininvestigating;

a. How a candidate plans his career?

b. What does he know about his work?

c. What skills the candidates possess forthe current job operations?

d. What this candidate can contribute tothe organization?

The above questions are quite frequently

Evaluating EmployabilityPreparedness (E.P)

During HR Interview– Ravikanth Balijapalli, S. Krishna Murthy Naidu

Mr. Ravikanth Balijapalli is Sr. Asst., Professor,Department of Management Studies, Sri Vasavi Engineering College, Tadepalligudememail: [email protected]. S. Krishna Murthy Naidu is Asst., Professor, Department of Management Studies,Sri Vasavi Engineering College, Tadepalligudememail: [email protected]

asked. However, the questions need to beanalyzed. The first 3 questions can bevisible to the Recruiter. However, the lastquestion is invisible and is only a promisefrom the candidate to the organization. Therecruiter needs to probe this question asthis question decides the fate of theIndividual and the Organization. A fresherjourney from a College to Organization isvery short; however the shift in paradigmfrom Student Orientation towardsOrganizational Citizenship depends onwhat is called as EmployabilityPreparedness (E.P).

Employability Preparedness (E.P) is theauthor's brainchild and can be understoodby the following hierarchy.

The above top down triangle gives us a clear understanding of Employability Preparedness.When a candidate moves from Stage 1 to Stage 4 the degree of E.P increases. Theabove E.P.H can be used by the HR Managers to understand the candidate's preparednessat each stage of his career. Once, the recruiter tests the candidates' E.P at all stages therecruitment process may be more effective.

Employing E.P in the HR Interview process

After brief understanding about the importance of Employability Skills, let us now define aframework within which the recruiter can test the E.P in a Candidate.

(Contd. on page 43)


Stage

C.P

A.P

R.P

G.P

Parameter to test in E.P

Vocational GoalVocational Decision Making &Planning SkillsVocational ReadinessAptitudesInterestsVocationally relevant personality factorsWork TemperamentsStrengths & LimitationsVocational Values and Needs

Skills Related to Job FindingJob Related KnowledgeInterview SkillsJob Performance skills

Basic Work HabitsWork BehaviourWork Values & AttitudesAbility to cope with personal & environmentalstressorsDemands of interpersonal relationships

Management Development Skills / ExecutiveDevelopment SkillsAbility to foresee threatsExploring opportunitiesAbility to manage under down-turnNetworking skillsEmployee Intrapreneural Skills

Basic Employability Skills

CommunicationSkills

Team Work

Problem Solving

Initiative &

Enterprise

Planning &Organizing

SelfManagement

Learning

Technology

�H

SANSKRITI - The Sure Recipefor Success

– Dr.A.Jagan Mohan Reddy

Dr.A.Jagan Mohan Reddy is Associate Professor (HR) & Placement Coordinator , Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad.The author can be reached at [email protected]

"The Land whose sons are known for nameand fame across the continents

The Land whose heroes fought invaders andconquerors to achieve freedom,

That famed land whose sons of wisdom andscholarship are the praise of the globe,

That land of saints, poets, singers and divineyoungsters

Oh sons of Bharat, go forth and uphold yourheritage and be worthy of your glorious past"

A TA TA TA TA Telugu Poemelugu Poemelugu Poemelugu Poemelugu Poem

Introduction:

India's economy which has been hit harderthan expected by the global recession,going by the recent data, may be on thepath to recovery. Further, Asia's thirdlargest economy is expected to have grown

less than 7% in 2008-09, sharply lower thanexpansion of 9% or in each of the previousthree fiscal years, and is poised to expandat the same pace in the fiscal year endingMarch 2010.

Analysts say looking at the robust growthin Steel and Cement sales as well asmanufacturing in recent months the worstmay be over for the Indian economy. Thisis not the first time we had such turbulenttimes. In the previous downturn in the late90's, many Indian companies laid thefoundation for their world competitivenessthrough right-sizing, consolidation, supplychain management and so on. What is thatmatters in crisis situations like this?

Human factors holds the key:

Most of us have high regard for theJapanese style of management andespecially their TQM approach. In its

original Japanese context total qualityrefers not only to the quality of managementwhich ultimately produces quality goodsand services but to the quality of humanbehaviour, skills, commitment and thewinning instinct necessary to accomplishour business objectives.

There is a noble sloka which says that Nothingis impossible

Amantram aksharam nasti, nasti moolamanaushadam

Ayogyao purusho nasti, yojakah tatradurlabah

Every letter can be made as a mantra andevery root has a medicinal value. There isno person who can be called as useless.But then to achieve these three goals weneed leaders, managers etc. Unfortunately,these are very rare. In other words we need

E.P FrameworkThe above E.P framework shows us anoverview of Employability Preparednessskills. The above parameters can be testedin the candidate during the process of theinterview. Organizations can add furtherdesirable attributes as and when necessaryin any stage to get the right fit to the joband organization. The above E.Pframework will be functional in tandem withthe basic employability skills. The basicemployability skills are relevant at all stagesof Employability Preparedness and vary intheir degree at different stages.

To conclude, the present article onEvaluating EMPLOYABILITY PREPAREDNESS (E.P) during HR Interview can beconcluded from Individual & Organizationpoint of view. From individual point of view,understanding of EmployabilityPreparedness helps the individual to planhis personality to prevent Career Instability& Career plateauing. From the point of viewof organization, E.P is helpful to check theexisting preparedness among members ofthe organization during appropriate timesand thus prevent turnover.



leaders, managers who can leveragehuman potential and make things happenin the best possible manner.

As we all know the human quality sideincludes the following three componentsnamely:

● Creativity - the joy of thinking

● Physical activity - the joy of working withsweat on the forehead

● Sociality - the joy of working together

Further, in all these three domains, it is theManager who plays a crucial role andhence it is all the more important that notonly we have managers who are good butthey succeed as well in terms ofaccomplishing organizational goals bysuccessfully overcoming the emergingchallenges.

So, now let us look at the successsutras[SANSKRITI] for Today's managers:

1. Select the Best People: As we allknow, when everyone was worried aboutcrossing the ocean it was the Hanuman(Picked up by Jambavanta) whoaccomplishes his assigned job. So havingthe right man for the right job is very veryimportant. And there is no point, havingmissed the opportunity, in complaining likeVijay Mallya, Franchise owner of BangaloreRoyal Challenges during the last IPL thathis biggest mistake was to abstain from theselection of the team. In fact, when the finallist was made his friends reportedly told himthat it looked like a Test team.So all themanagers must remember that they can'tcast Sanjeev Kumar in Dharmendra's rolein Sholay because he has delivered aterrific performance in Sita aur Gita.

2. Always be accessible andapproachable: Gilchrist / Kumble's longsessions on (in the recently held IndianPremier League Matches) the drawingboard and one to one talks with each teammember is the secret of how both the teamshad worked and executed the plans foropponents, there by reaching the finals. So,managers must be accessible andapproachable for their employees.

3. N - be non - negotiable on your corevalues: We all know that managers whoremain calm, do not negotiate on their corevalues, reassure their subordinates provideconfidence to tackle adversity. As a result,followers offer total dedication to taskachievement and follow the leader to attainsuccess. Hence, managers must be non-negotiable when it comes to the corevalues.

4. Show direction to followers: In theIPL II Macullum, Captain of Kolkatta knightRiders has not been able to elicit supportfrom his teammates to the extent whatothers could. As a result his team has lostmost of the games. On the other hand, AnilKumble, Skipper of Royal Challengers ofBangalore has shown that an intelligentcaptain can convert a decent outfit into awinning a team. It is a different thing thatthey have lost the final with DeccanChargers. But the fact that a team whichwas at the bottom during last IPL reachedfinals bears testimony to Kumble's skills indirecting his wards successfully.

5. K - be knowledgeable - As we allknow, the world is becoming increasinglysmaller in this age of multifarious forms ofrapid communication. Hence, themanagers must enrich themselves withrelevant knowledge on a continuous basisso as to prepare for effectively coping withthe future challenges. Currently, effectivemen, machines, materials and technology,tend to gradually lose their effectiveness astime passes, rendering their updatingthrough training, research and developmentabsolutely essential. This updating alsoinvolves injecting of fresh blood andtalented youngsters into the organization.

6. Responsible: - Every manager has tounderstand that he alone is accountable /responsible for all actions, good or bad,initiated by him. Wrong means may fetchhim rewards in the short run but will sufferin the long run. The subordinates will enjoythe benefits of results achieved but disclaimany responsibility in the event of beingcaught on the wrong foot. So managersmust be fully aware of the risks they aretaking while using unethical means.Because they are responsible for all theacts undertaken on their behalf.

7. Improve your communication: Telugupoet Gurajada Apparao once said,

Manpagaligithe kathi kotalumanpavasame mata kotalu

kathi champun mata vatalu manavenadun

While one may be able to heal the woundsof the sword it is difficult to mitigate theimpact of harsh words. Hence, one shouldalways, think twice before uttering a word.Effective communication demands thatwhat we communicate must be based ontheir prerequisites like honesty, clarity andrespect. If you wish to do a self test on yourcommunications, ask yourself thesequestions:

a. Was I honest with the other person?

b. Does he or she understand the message?

c. Did I say it in a way that demonstratedrespect for the other person?

8. Treat your employees with respect:Be open and listen to employees ideas onhow to improve the business. In fact youshould encourage them to think of ways toimprove the business, while you are theirmanager, conduct yourself in a way thatcommunicates you are also a team player.Take the time to learn a bit about their livesoutside the office. Take your team out tolunch and inform them the purpose of thismeal is to talk about things not related towork. Always remember that

People may forget what you sayPeople may forget what you give

People will never forget how you make themfeel

9. Integrity: It may be worth recalling whatJack Welch, one of the greatest managersof the twentieth century, said aboutintegrity.

"Excellence and competitiveness are totallycompatible with honesty and integrity. Astudent, the four - minute miler, the highjump record holder - all strong winners canachieve those results without resorting tocheating- people who cheat are simplyweak"

There should not be a gap between whatwe preach and practice. Integrity leads tocredibility and hence the most importantrequirement for a leader / manager to beeffective is absolute integrity.

Conclusion: We all know that nothingstops for any one and we all have to live byfaith that clouds can not keep the sunshineaway for a long time. Then why to fear. Theabove mentioned few steps / ways, iffollowed meticulously will help our youngermanagers to achieve success in all theirendeavors.

Let me conclude, by making a passionateappeal to all my young friends that:

When you believe in yourself, ever strive toexcel yearn to learn and seek to have

Fire in the belly, bounce in the step

Twinkle in the eyes, hope in the heart,

Steel in the nerves, spirit in the limbs

Aim in the mind, tact in the tongue

Smile on the lips grace in the face

Humor in the speech logic in the thought

Passion in a mission and a purpose in life.

The worlds is all yours, go ahead and ruleit (based on Jack Welch's message toglobal mangers) �H



Summer Internship-AnOpportunity in Disguise...

– Akhilesh A. Singh

Summer placement opportunity is one of themost important routes for selection. For astudent, it is the first opportunity to relatetheory to practical, in other words it is -realresponsibility,real issues minus the realpressure of a job. For an organization, it is asafe trial period with no strings.

By providing solid summer programmers wecan reap the benefits by establishing talentpipeline ,enhanced recruitment and retentionoutcomes but unfortunately not all summerinternships are as meticulously planned andexecuted as it should be …The results are…zero value addition for students and zeroreturn on investments for the organizations.Most of the companies do not realize justhow critical the summer internshipprogramme is, unfortunately due to lack ofpre planning and a casual attitude,companies end up using interns as a quickfix for critical short handedness.

It has been well suggested by management

scientists that before assigning projects, thecompany needs to assess the specific lineof interest of the intern, secondly aligningthe intern to the "right" mentor is equallyimportant as the quality of outcome dependson this. A well defined interaction betweenthe mentor and the intern helps inmaintaining a track of the project and its keydeliverables.

For most of the companies summerinternship is clearly an important route forselection hence the performance on theproject is critical for final selection.

''Interns typically look for challengingprojects which gives them a sense ofachievement. He/she takes it as anopportunity to build a net work with peoplein the corporate world.

Considering the need of both the intern andthe organization, the summer internshipprogram should be a well planned and well

Mr. Akhilesh Singh is manager - HR with Reliance Retail at Ghaziabad. E-Mail: [email protected]�H

executed process. It should start with a oneday induction programme, which gives theinterns an insight into the purpose of theinternship. Then they should be formallyintroduced to their mentors who in turn assignthem with challenging projects. They shouldbe treated as "potential employees" andshould be given equal opportunity in companyevents and celebrations, meaning fullprojects and well planed structure will proveto be an excellent return on investment.

Organization should make sure that internsshould be involved in a project that givesthem deep insight on the methodology andsystem that operate in the arena of theirspecialization.

Only if the organization feels passionateabout the summer internship program, willit be able to pass on the same to the interns.It should be treated as an opportunity tocreate a win-win situation for both the internsand the organization.

Fascinating Facts– K. Satyanarayana

Mr. K. Satyanarayana, Hon. Executive Director, National HRD Network. He can be reached at: [email protected]

265. CorporateExecutives' PayIs Linked ToPerformance: Abig Lie

Of all big liesthere, the one that corporate executives' payis linked to performance of their companiestakes the prize. No matter how much ofshareholders' wealth goes down the drain,the person in the executive suite keeppocketing preposterous pay and insisting thatit is based on results. They have a reason forkeeping the myth alive. If an executive's payexceeds $1 million, companies receive a taxdeduction only if the pay is performance-based. So how do executives take home bigpackages even if their stock lags and they don'tachieve the performance goals necessary fortheir pay to be considered results-oriented bythe I.R.S.?

One is to lower the bar on performance -

revised targets of income, production andprofit based on market realities. Another wayis that the compensation committeeconcludes that it is "in the best interests ofthe company" to pay higher salaries andbonuses to its executives based onleadership skills, planning initiatives andemployee development. While the marketvalue of 450 largest companies fell by 20.1percent in the third quarter of 2002, theirbosses made 4.9 percent more in pay andbenefits. More amazing, executives at theworst performers received the biggest optiongrants - a median $4.52 million worth.

(Source: The New York Times, May 25, 2003)

266. This Is How America Keeps ItsWaterways Clean.

U.S. has a permit system known as theNational Pollution Discharge EliminationSystem, created to make the nation's

waterways clean enough for fishing,swimming and other essential purposes.The Environmental Protection Agency'scomputer system allows federal and stategovernments to check any facility's monthlydischarge against its allotted quota. Morethan 64,000 facilities are given permitsnationwide. Even livestock operations arebrought under the Clean Water Act.

(Source: The New York Times,May 27, 2003)

267. Photographs of Planet Earth from Mars

The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, noworbiting the planet Mars took thephotographs of earth from about 86 millionmiles away. Jupiter is in view too. Theimages can be seen at www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/05/22/

(Source: The New York Times,May 27, 2003)


Old Older Oldest…!

– Ms. Nitasha Singh

Ms. Nitasha Singh Group Business Director ,CSMM, a specialized unit of IMRB International, New Delhi. E-Mail: [email protected]

The Chicken and Egg Story

It is a well published factthat Loyal or EngagedEmployees (or howevermay you define these set ofemployees), tend to staylonger, but are employeeswho stay longer, especiallythose who stay with an organisation formore than a decade more Loyal?

I am asking this question, because oftenresearch has also pointed out that "Longertenured employees" have lower levels ofloyalty / engagement levels.

The Walker Employee Loyalty Report -2007

According to the 2007"Walker Loyalty Reportof loyalty (U.S), datashowed that Employeeloyalty during the first10 years on the job

generally increases as employee tenurerises, but a large number are high risk. Aftera decade on the job, however, loyaltydiminishes.

Interestingly, the most-tenured categories(10-19 years and 20 years or more) register

the highest percentages ofrapped employees with 33percent and 36 percent,respectively

But is it the right way to interpret thedata?

Are we right in saying that"Employees become lesscommitted, as their tenureincreases"? No, the truth isthat it 's the needs andexpectations of this segment(long tenured) employeesthat change and if the organisation doesnot manage these employees differently,their loyalty suffers.

Does our data in India show similartrends?

Data from multiple studies conducted byCSMM in India shows that EmployeeCommitment/ Loyalty is higher in the first

10 years and lower post the 10yr tenureband. The trend of Trapped* %appearing to be high in themost tenured category issimilar to what we found in theWalker Loyalty report.Employees who have spent adecade in an organisation will show a trendof higher% of trapped employees. Theaccessible** % of employees shows adecreasing trend, with increasing tenure.

Further investigation of the CSMM Data(across multiple studies)

Show someinteresting factsabout loyalty andtenure.

1) Overall Satisfaction:Overall, the Longer tenuredEmployees (minimum 10yrs withthe organisation) are less happyon most aspects than those whoare in the less than 2yr tenureband i.e the newer employees.

2) Pay and benefits: Most employeesurveys show this aspect asone of the lowest ratedelements, though mostoften than not - it is not akey driver of loyalty at a totalorganisation level.Nevertheless, the unhappy % of employeesis more amongst the longer tenuredemployees. Interestingly, for this set, it didemerge as one of the drivers of Loyalty .

3) Drivers of Employee Loyalty: Aninteresting fact is that asEmployee Tenureincreases, the impact of"Sense of Achievement"reduces. "Sense ofAchievement" is infact themost important factor driving loyalty(especially for Gen Y, who comprisemajority of the new employee category i.eless than 5yr). In addition to sense ofachievement, importance of "Supervisoryquality" is another differentiating factor b/w short and long tenured employees i.e itis a key driver of loyalty for the neweremployees, but not as important for longertenured category.

Therefore. While the above data doesshow briefly how needs & expectations ofemployees change. One needs tounderstand each point better and in detail.For e.g on the "Pay /Benefits" aspect: Is itreally that the newer ones get the best dealsand HR does not go out and proactivelycorrect the salary packages of olderemployees or is it a perception issue? Oris it to do with the older (Tenurewise)employees' expectations, where they maywant to be recognized for their loyalty -monetarily? A deeper analysis of all thisdata will yield more insightfulinformation, which organisations canuse and implement to their benefit.

Term Explanation

Employees in the organization can now besegmented into 4 types based on their levelof "engagement"/ "commitment" and basedon their intention to continue working in theorganization. (see figure alongside).

● Truly Loyal employees are high on bothemotional as well as behavioral loyalty.

● **Accessible employees are high oncommitment but may not continueworking.

● *Trapped on the other hand are low onemotional loyalty but will continueworking in the organization.

● Finally, the High risk employees arethose who are low on emotional as wellas behavioral loyalty. Suchsegmentation allows an organization tofocus its efforts on the relevantsegments and create programs specificto each of the segments �H


Bottom-up Series - 8– Girinarayanan G

Girinarayanan G, E-Mail: [email protected]

"Dream something different to make adifference":

Dev Raj Sharma - "Vice President (TradeUnion) to Vice President (HR)

In this article, I ampresenting you Dev RajSharma, Vice President -Operations HR in PepsiCoIndia Holding Pvt. Ltd.(Fritolay Division)Gurgaon. Dev is aninteresting personality fromthe HR Profession and is a

stronger believer of the view that you needto do something different to make adifference.

From Darkness to Light

Dev literally spent his childhood in remotevillage in Haryana with no direct road link,no tap water supply and no electricity inthose days. He still remembers that tillcompletion of his schooling they did nothave an electricity connection in theirhouse. Being in an isolated place, the Govt.school never had full strength of teachersto teach all the subjects.

Childhood blues: Want water? Fetch ityourself

Dev belongs to a family with farmingbackground with three brothers and threesisters. The only source of his father'sincome was a small piece of farming land,which was purely at the mercy of rain.Unfortunately, even drinking water used tobe fetched from a 'bawadi' which was 2-3km away thru crisscross hilly passages.Dev's daily duty before going to school wasto fetch water from there and after comingback from school help his parents in farmwork.

Struggling Start to his careerPost his schooling, Dev did a two year "ITI"course in Machinist trade and aftercompletion, he joined Eicher TractorsParwanoo (Himachal Pradesh) as a WorkerTrainee with a stipend of Rs. 225 per month.He still remembers that he had to share aroom with 3 other guys staying in a singleroom to save on house rent. The job was inshifts and during the day shifts, Dev usedto get up at 4.am, cook breakfast and lunch,before leaving to work.

An investment in knowledge pays thebest interest - Benjamin Franklin

Dev is a very strong and determined man.His conviction was that continuingeducation and acquiring knowledge was theonly valuable asset, if you wish to succeedin your career. In spite of all struggles, posttaking a job, he started his studies from 11thstandard and studied up to post graduationin Public Administration and Diploma inPersonnel Management. Dev used to workin Parwanoo (HP) and used to travel toChandigarh to attend classes in theevening. On an average, he used to spend3-4 hours in travel which left very little timefor him to study .

"The man who goes farthest is the onewho dares" - Dale Cargnagie

Dev says,a "facing challenges each day isa way of life. But to face a challenge youneed to take risk". According to him riskmeans that there are no shortcuts. To quoteAlchemist "when you want something thewhole universe conspires to get you that".Certainly Dev has experienced this andprobably that has been the 'Mantra ofsuccess". He had so many well wisherswho wanted to see him succeed in hisendeavours.

Dev: the real HR Star:

Sometimes, we may attribute career graphof an individual to luck or boss's blessings.But for a person who started his career asa Technician, it is only the hard work thatpays. Indeed Dev has received:

1. PepsiCo Region HR Star award fordriving Employees' engagement andperformance with purpose agenda.

2. Received recognition from DMAErehwon on "Innovation in HR" forpresenting best practice in HR.

"Will is character in Action":

Strong willpower and perseverance hasbeen the key contributing factor in Dev'ssuccess. His basic nature is to make him

determined to take assignments andcomplete them while setting the newbenchmarks. Dev strongly believes inexperiential learning, has learnt from peers,direct reports, superiors and people aroundhim.

Role of HR: Make People BrandAmbassador

Dev advocates that HR must be proactivein understanding of people issues andsolving them before they turn intogrievances. His personal connect withindividuals helped him to build bridges. Devsays that "there is no substitute to directlyconnecting with people and winning theirhearts & minds".

Family: Motivation behind his success:

Dev says that his father has been alwayshis inspiration. He diverted all his incometowards his studies and inculcated strongValue system in him that guided Dev tobalance short and long term goals. Thismade him to reach where he is today. Hiswife's unconditional support gives him innerstrength while enabling him to be morecompassionate & tolerant. His two youngsons bring a lot of energy, vibrancy and asense of constant discovery in his life.

Boss Speaks (Pavan Bhatia: VP HR IndiaRegion):Mr. Bhatia says that "Personally, I aminspired by Dev - his life story,accomplishments and the obstacles that hehas overcome is really a lesson indetermination and focus. I have seen himgrowing from strength to strength in the last10 years. He has an outstanding attitudeand learning agility - two qualities that sethim apart. Mr. Bhatia also acknowledgesthat Dev always delivers on hiscommitments and has the ability to connectstrategic idea to ground realities. "It's apleasure working with a person like him"he adds.

Bottom up

"Leaders aren't born they are made. Andthey are made just like anything else,through hard work. And that's the price we'llhave to pay to achieve that goal, or anygoal." Says Vince Lombardi.

Most successful people don't even have acollege degree at the time of start. But theymake it up with hard work, tenacity, gutsand taking risks. Dev's case is anotherclassic example. I am sure his story will bea great source of inspiration to all HRprofessionals. �H


HR And BudgetaryControls

– Prof. R. Dharma Rao

On that day, the HR Manager, Govind, wassummoned by the Director of Budgets of thatcompany, for some queries. Govindsubmitted his revenue budget proposalspertaining to his HR department for the nextfinancial year. The company, having a workforce of over 12,000 employees, had asystem of approving the revenue budget fornext financial year sometime by end-Januaryor early February. Prior to that by middle ofDecember each year, the budget proposalsfrom all departments were received. Beforefinalisation and approval, the departmentalheads were being invited by DOB fordiscussions on different dates. Govindattended the meeting along with hisassistant manager HR, Alok Kumar, whowas in charge of the canteen services inaddition to recruitment. That day, the budgetproposals for canteen came up fordiscussion.

The HR manager, who did MBA with HRspecialisation from one of the reputedmanagement institutions in India and hadeight years of experience in this line beforejoining this organisation, sat along with hisassistant manager, Alok, on the previousday to acquaint himself with all the detailsmentioned in the budget proposals, and hada detailed discussion. Alok, who was placedby the management in the canteen servicestwo years ago, prepared himself the budgetproposals and gave all clarifications to thesatisfaction of his superior.

Govind took special interest during his MBAon the subject of management controlsystems. He was sentient and had credencethat one of the activities of HR waspreparation of budgets for recruitment,campus selections, training anddevelopment, sponsor executives forvarious external training programmes,canteen services, travel, provision for CSRinitiatives, etc. He in fact wanted to includein the budget some assignments such asextending the expertise for consultation jobsto outside organisations and to ultimatelydevelop their HR department as a profitcentre. Further, he had some proposals tolink up HR with dimension of prosperity toreduce and control some existingunbeneficial programmes. Further, he hadalso some plans to outsource a few of theirHR activities to lessen the burden of theirorganisation. His ultimate aim was to

institute the profit centre concept to convertHR department from revenue and expensecentre to profit centre. These, however,needed management's formal approval andhe wanted to wait.

During the discussions on the previous day,Alok narrated two incidents to Govind whichwere remarkable and noteworthy. At onetime, during that year, there was a steepescalation in the cost of the price of rahardal, which was used daily for preparation ofsambar. The daily consumption of rahar dalwas 120 kgs. He wanted to reduce thisquantity and discussed with his cook to usesome other dal in sambar of cheaper variety.The cook did not agree as the taste of thesambar would change. Alok then gave aserious thought on this subject and wantedto use red pumpkin (lal kumra) daily as asubstitute to 20 kgs. of rahar dal. He initiallymade an experiment in the kitchen with asmall quantity which thickened the sambar.He then silently used red pumkin piecesmade into pulp by reducing the rahar dal andserved the sambar as usual. No one noticedthough some workers commented that therewas a change in the taste which was good.The experiment was successful. Aftercontinuing the same proportion for a week,he revealed to the Chairman of the canteencommittee and got his approval. He saidthus he controlled the cost and did not wantadditional funds from DOB. The otherincident was that there was an arrangementto send their canteen van with snacks dailyto three manufacturing departments. Someof the workers who wanted to disturb thepeaceful atmosphere would always demanda particular snack which was exhausted.They were compelling the canteen staff toprocure the same and were wasting theirtime till the item was brought to them. Oncein the coordination meeting, the heads ofthese three departments advised Alok tosend the snacks in large quantities and takeback the unsold material and declare it as'waste'. The cost would be nominal incomparison with the loss of productivehours. To this, Alok objected and said thatmanagement would not sanction any moneyto waste any material. Rather, he suggestedthat the departments could in advanceinform the canteen the number of snackitems that were required by the workers.

Prof. R. Dharma Rao, Head, HR, ICBM. He can be reached at: [email protected]

Next day, the DOB in the presence of Govindand Alok, thoroughly scrutinised all itemsalong with the quantities of rice, chana dal,urad dal, kabuli chana, rajma, rahar dal,moong dal, masoor dal, maida, suji rava,aata (wheat flour), etc. He wanted to reducesome quantities of certain costly ediblepulses to bring a reduction in total. The HRManager had powers for administrativeapproval to purchase items under revenuecategory when once the executive sanctionwas given by DOB. However, as theprovisions for canteen required hugeamount, it was a practice in that companyto simultaneously prepare purchaserequisition for various food items and submitalong with the budget proposals. The DOBwas approving the purchase requisitionsimultaneously. While doing so, he hadnoticed in the purchase requisition that therewas a mention for all items such as rice,maida, dals, etc. that the materials shouldbe supplied very clean, free from dust, husk,stones, insects, etc. He had also found inthe budget proposals that the canteenrequired services of four rejas (lady workers)every day for five hours to clean all items ofprovisions for which a particular amount wasprovided. The DOB, after carefulcomparison, did not agree to sanction forthe services of four rejas. His argument wasthat when all these materials werepurchased very clean and were free fromdust, etc., there was no necessity forservices of rejas again to clean and askedthe HR Manager to resubmit the proposalsafter removing this 'rejas' clause. As theDOB gave appointment to some otherexecutives, he wanted them to come to himnext day evening with the revised proposals.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

1. What is budget and budgetary control?

2. What are the essentialities for preparinga budget and how is it connected with HR?

3. What was the relevance for Alok tomention those two incidents as noteworthyand remarkable?

4. What are the ideal duties andresponsibilities for a Director of Budgets?

5. If you are Govind, what will be yourreasons to convince the DOB to get hisapproval for cleaning the provisions? �H

CASE STUDY - 31


Swapna Vadlamani, HR Consultant, NokiaSiemens Networks

Y V R S SUNDARA RAO, Head – HR,Matrix Labs and a Life Member ofHyderabad Chapter has been conferred“Silver Medal” by Indian Red Cross Society,Andhra Pradesh Chapter for the socialservice / motivating largest number of blooddonors last year. The Medal was presentedby His Excellency, The Governor of AndhraPradesh at a function held at Raj Bhavanon 14-6-09 at 5.30 pm.

National HRD Network, HyderabadChapter congratulates Shri Sundara rao onhis achievement for the noblest cause ofsaving human lives.

HOSURNHRD HOSUR CHAPTER MAY MONTHMEETING

The NHRD Hosur Chapter, Monthlyevening meeting for May was held on 12thMay'09 at Hotel Grand Renaissance, Hosurwith the welcome address by Mr.Sivakumar.

Mr. S R Ramadoss, VP-HR, TitanIndustries Limited shared his experienceson the topic "How to manage during LeanTimes"

Initially Mr. Raghunath, Head-Manufacturing, Titan Industries gave a briefintroduction about the present economiccrisis and its impact on industries in a veryhumorous and interesting manner quotinga lot of HR Jokes which had immediatebearing on HR Stress Relief. After this thekey speaker of the day Mr. S R Ramadosswas introduced to the audience byMr.Inbaraj .

AGRAWelcome to new life members:

1. Mr. A.S. Kapur, Registrar, BMASEngineering College, Agra

2. Mr. Raju Ganesh Sunder, Professor &Head, Training and Placement, BMASEngineering College, Agra

3. Mr. Neelesh Kumar, Sr. Lecturer,Department of Business Studies, BMASEngineering College, Agra

4. Mrs. Gunjan Bhatnagar, Sr. Lecturer,Department of Business Studies, BMASEngineering College, Agra

BANGALORESee page No. 51

BHUBANESWARSee page No. 16

COCHINNational HRD Network, Cochin Chapter(NHRDN) organized an evening Talk on 29thApril 2009 at Yuvarani Hotel, M.G. Road,Kochi by Mr. Rajiv Vasudevan, Founder &CEO, AyurVAID Hospitals on the topic"Economic Slowdown and Role of HR."

Mr. Rajiv Vasudevan is a B.Tech, had hisPGDBM from IIMC, formerly Country HeadMotorola India and formerly CEO,Technoparks, Kerala.

During his speech Mr. Rajiv Vasudevanmade a power point presentation andnarrated the recent economic scenario andthe role of HR in today's dynamic businessworld. The factors that make somecompanies more successful than othersand makes them to outperform theircompetitors and retain their lead positionand the role of HR in the present contextwere also detailed by him. In this scenarioof rapid change, the role of HR is extremelyimportant to creat positive mindset andattitude among the employees, which ishaving a profound impact on theperformance of any organisation and tooutperform others. According to him thecompanies having strong culture cansurvive the onslaught of change and forgeahead successfully.

The session was enjoyed by the gatheringand it was really a break free of negative

Chapter Newsthought patterns due to recession &slowdown and create a new and positivemindset for the HR professionals to a greatextent.

Mr. Rajiv also answered various questionsraised by the audience during theinteractive session.

Before the session, Mr. M.S. Sreekumar,NHRD, Cochin welcomed the speaker andintroduced him to the audience. Mr. BaburajV Nair also spoke on the occasion. Amemento was handed over by Dr. K.K.Arinrudhan and the vote of thanks wasproposed by Mr. K. Suresh

DELHISee page Nos. 14, 51

HYDERABADWelcome to New Members

Life Membership

Sandhya Sripada, Dy.Manager – HR, theTimes of India Group

Ajit Rajkumar, Consultant/Partner,Independent HR Consultant

Satya Kameswari Kommuri, SR MGR HRAND ADMIN, USP-INDIA

Rajender Kumar Lella, Consultant, ICFAI

Annual Membership

Bhavani Sankar Ch, HR Executive, BAJAJAllianz Life

Sunil Kumar Reddy B, Asst.Manager – HR,India Software Development Centre

Daina Priyanka T, Student – MBA, PGCollege

Prasanna Nadella, HR Manager, TowerAutomotive

Mr. Y V R S Sundara Rao, Life Member,Hyderabad Chapter. receiving Award from H E

Governor of AP

Hyderabad Life Member Mr D PChandrasekhar of Jain Group Receiving

Award for Best Video Production

Weekly Progremms on page 25


A brief gist of Mr. Ramadoss's presentation"Managing in Lean Times" in the backdropof Titan Industries Limted:

1. Reasons for current situation (USEconomy slowdown-Impact on India-Automobile/Retail/IT Sectors etc.,)

2. IMA Report Findings-Survey of 350Companies & its top executive acrossglobe-HR Perspective

(In the order of priority)

Top PrioritiesProductivity, Leadership Building, Hiringright People, Fostering effective teams,Expectations Management, Retention,managing wage costs, hiring adequatemanpower

Parameters defining Compensation &Increment

Criticality of position to organization,Individual's alignment withcompany, Individual

Performance & Potential

HR's response to current situationMotivating Employees, RaisingProductvitiy, Increased and effectivecommunication to change

Employee expectations, Increasefrequency of appraisals, Reduce Costs,Seek External Assistance, ReduceManpower

3."How Titan Industries Limitedmanaged during the lean period"

5. Major areas of Focus:

1. Role of Leadership

Be a role model, lead from the front,Identifying new business models,Continuous and direct communication,Communicating the reality, persuadingworkforce to think differently, paint anoptimistic picture, Matrix organization, opendoor and transparent policy, Union to bepartner in business, development of talentfor new businesses, promote a culture ofInnovation

Major initiative involving employees"MY 2009 Concept"

Each employee expected to bring inRs.2000 worth of sales for any of Titan/Tanishq/Eyecare products and alsoachieve a saving of Rs.9. Employees alsoresponded with great commitment and thisresulted in a great achievement in terms ofsales and savings amounting to about 8crores within just three months.

2. Employee Engagement, CapabilityBuilding, Productivity/Performance,Cost/Waste Reduction

People First, Organisational Mission-Individual Aspirations alignment,

overcoming recession was very informativeand educative.

This was followed by the Presentation byM/s Prudent Insurance Brokers Pvt Ltd., thesponsors of the days' program.

Mr. V Nagarajan summed up thepresentation and also proposed Vote ofThanks.

The program ended with National Anthem.

JUNE MONTH MEETING

The NHRD Hosur Chapter, Monthlyevening meeting for June Month washeld on 9TH June '09 at AVTEC LIMITED,PPD DIVISION, THALLY ROAD, HOSUR.

Mr. C S Shekhar & Mr. Soundarapandianof M/s AVTEC LIMITED, Hosur shared theirexperiences regarding the recentlyconcluded wage settlement in theirorganization with the HR fraternity

The programme started off with the prayersong. Chapter President MR Alphonsedelivered the welcome address.Subsequently, Chapter Vice President MrV Nagarajan introduced the speakers to theaudience and Mr Ravindran and MrAnbarasu received the speakers on thedias.

Then Mr C S Shekhar, Mr.Soundarapandian and their team made alively presentation on the TOPIC -Strategyand execution of Change initiatives-A CaseStudy in the backdrop of recent Labourunrest and subsequent Wage Settlementat AVTEC Limited.

It was basically sharing of their experienceswith respect to the events that took placein their organization for the past severalmonths which included: Non co-operationby workmen for progressive changeinitiatives, non participation in trainingprograms, low productivity, refusal toaccept multi machine/skill norms andsubsequent strike by workforce which wenton for few months and how the topmanagement and HR Team handled thesituation and eventually achieved what theywanted.

Management perspective to press forchange initiatives:

Prevailing work culture and workmenattitude which is reflected in low productivityand non co-operation to progressivechange initiatives

Almost stagnant business situation andintense competition

Average Salary increase over past severalyears highest in the region and cannot besustained

Diversification of business results in lowmargins and also calls for major changes

Challenging job, role clarity, Care &Recognitions (Rewards, Recognitions,Heart to Heart appreciation, CrossFunctional Teams, SGAs, Suggestions,Higher level of employee involvement,managers to encourage development, teambuiding, continuous progress discussion,workforce deployment to marketingactivities, redeployment of manpoweracross the organization, employeeempowerment

3. Capability Building

Understanding key capabilities, Multiskilling, job enhancement, focus on jobrelated training, environment of innovation,capability building for a new role,developing internal trainers, low cost-highimpact training, Union leadershipdevelopment, building capability for futureduring lean period, creating a learningenvironment

4. Productivity/Performance Focus

Continuous improvement, focus on jobrelated training, employee empowerment,creating an environment of openness andtransparency through clear communicationof facts and inviting suggestions fromemployees

5. Cost-Waste Reduction

Questioning all revenue and capitalexpenses, managing Work in Progress &Finished Goods Inventory, overheads costreduction (Travel, Telecom, Recruitment,Training, Power & Fuel, Printing &Stationery), Renegotiating all majorcontracts

Mr. Ramadoss ended his presentationwith the following SUGGESTIONS FORHR FRATERNITY IN THE CONTEXT OFRECESSION

HR Function itself is under scanner as tothe costs involved on them. Expectation arevery high on HR and every department islooking to HR for solutions in this difficultperiod. Apart from traditional skills likefiring, reducing costs, handling unions,wage negotiations, statutory complianceetc., which is taken for granted, HR has todevelop new skills and capabilities to domore complex tasks like: EmployeeMotivation, Employee Engagement,Capability Development, MaintainingProducvitiy, Right Hiring and Retention,Communicating the realities and changeexpectations of employees withoutdemotivating them etc., otherwise theireffectiveness and existence will bequestioned.

The experiences shared by Mr.IsraelInbaraj of Cateripillar, Mr Senthilkumar ofSpicer India Limited, Mr V Nagarajan ofTTK Prestige Limited and others on


Impact of customs duty and other taxes onimports cause for concern

Workmen perspective to oppose changeinitiatives:

Most of the workmen given job in return totheir land being acquired by the company

All wage settlements so far resulting in goodincreases

So far they could pressurize managementto achieve what they want

Assumption that management cannotsustain long periods of strike owing tocustomer pressure for timely deliveries

Fear that openness to change can lead tohigher work and upper hand formanagement

Factors that helped management tomaintain their stand:

Complete support of top management withstrong determination

Second line management acted as a team

Continuous communication with allconcerned, at all levels as required

Ensured productivity during strike usingmanagement staff and apprentices

Long hours of presence at the factory,frequent visits during nights and othermeasures by Management and HR Teamto thwart any attacks on staff andapprentices

Usage of all channels of support including:Government, Police, and NGOs etc

Strong measures on those indulged inviolence during strike

Continued negotiations even during strike

Measures taken post wage settlement tomaintain the positive status

Non exhibition of upman ship attitude bymanagement

Rewarding the deserving and loyal

Learning for HR Folks:

Overall it was a lively and interactivesession which resulted in the HR Folksbecoming aware of the situations whichthey may have to face during such labourunrests, skills required to cope up with suchsituations, enormous networking andcontacts which will help in overcoming suchtough situations etc.,

Mr N Sekar and Mr Murugesa Pandianhonoured the speakers with mementos.

Mr. Israel Inbaraj proposed vote of thanksfollowed by National Anthem.

This was followed by a delicious networkingdinner offered by AVTEC HR Team.

JAIPURSee page No. 15

KOLKATAHR PANEL DISCUSSION

A panel discussion was organized on 22ndMay 2009 at Kolkata under the aegis of theKolkata Chapter, attended by over 60professionals. Highlight of the participationwas the diversity of the participants.

The panel discussion facilitated by ProfMadhukar Shukla, Regional President,Kolkata Chapter had senior HRprofessionals sharing their views andexperiences. This included M/s AquilBusrai, Marcel Parker, NS Rajan andSourav Daspatnaik.

It was an enlightening discussion, whereinthe panelists dwelt on the role of HRfunction in enhancing competitive edge ofan organsiation. How HR has evolved overthe years in India, and the need for HRfunction to be at the cutting edge of not justthe function, but also of the business, washighlighted. The discussions covered theentire gamut of attraction, engagement,contribution and retention. An interestingthought that emerged was the need for HRto get more engaged with the externalenvironment, and that too proactively. Itwas felt that in the years to come, thecompetencies that HR brings to the tablewithin the boundaries of an organisation,would also become relevant and critical inbetter integrating an organization with thesociety and the local environment.

The panelists also shared their experienceson how they had to continuously invest intheir development not only throughorganizational inputs, but also through theirown initiatives. A fascinating thought thatcame out was development of your teamleads to your own development.

It was an evening of active engagement,at times heated, at times humorous. Asaptly put by one of the panelists, HR as afunction needs to be sensitive, but at thesame time HR professionals should alsolearn to enjoy their roles and profession.

On this occasion, the gathering alsofelicitated Mr. Mohammad Asif Iqbal, avisually challenged HR professional,working with PricewaterhouseCoopers,Kolkata, for demonstrating a high degreeof tenacity and self-belief in making asuccessful career in HR, and being a rolemodel for others.

PATNA5th June Meeting

The meeting/seminar of National HRDNetwork was held on 5th June inPensioners Bhawan. The seminar wasorganized in collaboration with Paritosh(anNGO).The Secretary of Paritosh Mr. P.K.Yadava was the formal host of the function.There were two technical sessions-

1.Relevance of HR for Entrepreneurs inwhich the speakers were Mr. M. K. Sinhaand Mr. Ratnakar Mishra. It was chairedby Mr. A.M. Prasad. Mr. Sinha spoke aboutthe importance of Human ResourceManagement for technocrats . Hehighlighted that most of the potential of anindividual remained untapped in theorganizational context. Mr. Mishra himselfbeing a technocrat and now a practicingHRD man, very well blended the role of HRand the job functions of a technocrat. Mr.Prasad summed it up by pointing out thatHR can be rechristened as HumanRelationship Management.

2.The need of Students for SocialEntrepreneurship was the second topic inwhich Mr. Atul Priyadarshi, Director AvaranSchool of Business presented theemotional angle to Social Entrepreneurshipand highlighted to the technocrats theimportance of working at the grassroots toget a feel of the real India. Mr. Tapan Hazra,Director, Paritosh stressed the importanceof social entrepreneurship and itssuperiority in comparison to the stablecorporate job. Mr. Sunil, an intellectualpolitician highlighted the importance ofsocial work for the students.

The technical sessions ended with theintegration of both the topics by Mr. S.K.Sinha, Chief Town Planner. The importantmembers of National HRD Network presentwere Mrs. Julie Banerjie (ChiefCoordinator) and Mr.Ravindrajee (Director,Kutumb). Miss Namita Singh(President,Lions Femina) and Miss Gargi (ConsultantUNICEF) were other important guests. Theaudience was a mix of students fromIcfai,Hyderabad.

12th June Meeting

The meeting of National HRD Network washeld on 12.6.09 at the following venue-

Power Grid Corporation,5th Floor, AlankarPlace, Boring Road Patna. The meetingstarted at 5.30 and ended at 8.00pm.Thetheme of the day was WOMENEMPOWERMENT THROUGH HRDINITIATIVES AT THE GRASSROOTS. Thespeakers were introduced by Mr. M.K.Sinha (Secretary, Patna Chapter).The firstspeaker was Miss Gargi, an accomplished


Quiz CornerQuestions- July 2009:

1) What is 'Sin Tax'?

2) What is T type learning?

3) What is the meaning of 'externship ' as opposed to Internship?

4) In Meeting Management, what does PAL stand for?

5) Who has stated this-"The B Schools suffer from anoveremphasis on the rigour and an under emphasis onrelevance?'

6) What is the name given to the human dead body, that aredonated for training doctors?

7) What is the meaning of the term 'underwater stocks?'

8) Which institution in India has this Mission-"Promote GoodGovernance, by providing quality training for building aprofessional and responsive… ………service, in a caring ,ethical and transparent framework?

9) What is the name of the new institution co created by Mr Anil Sachdev(Ex Eicher &Grow Talent)?

10) Which is India's largest BPO Company in terms of current employee strength?

Quiz Master:Mr. P Vijayan, Director-HR, CHEP India, Mumbai

E-Mail: [email protected]

Answers to June 2009 questions:1) Victorinox (125 years old Swiss company), 2) A Podiatrist (from chiropody) is a Doctorwho studies, diagnoses and treats disorders of the foot, ankle and lower leg., 3) CIA(Central Intelligence Agency of USA), 4) Mysore Paint and Varnish Ltd, 5) Atul Kochaar,6) The three factors are a) Treat People fairly b)Provide useful work for which people arerecognized c) Foster good relationships at work, 7)Inclusion, Control, Affection, 8)Employees who come to work , inspite having health challenges(known and known).Thisresults in their not being able to function at full potential. This then leads to -amongstothers- missing deadlines , being paralysed with indecision,etc. (This is accompaniedwith , difficulty in getting along with coworkers, and resultant withdrawal from the socialenvironment at work), 9) All are MNC organisations of Swedish origin,10) This was thepaper, presented by Sir Bernard Lee, that detailed out the concept of what now is knownas world wide web i.e www.

Col. P Deogirikar, Indore [email protected]

CARTOON CORNER

Why does boy send the Geeta-Saar at theannual

increment time? Is it to tell us that we shouldkeep

working without worrying about the result.Does

he mean ‘increment’ when says ‘results’?

consultant of UNICEF, who had won somany Young Leaders award in differentcountries of the world.She spoke of herjourney from small town girl of Bihar to DelhiTO U.S. She highlighted the support shereceived from her parents and her lonelyjourney in the big bad world.After studyingin U.S. she landed in the villages of Indialike Saharsa and Supaul to work on theprojects of women trafficking and childabuse.

The second speaker was Shweta fromAvaran School of Business, Patna, whospoke on WOMEN EMPOWERMENTTHROUGH SOCIALENTREPRENEURSHIP. The concept ofWomen Empowerment generated a lot ofenthusiasm among the audience .Whenshe started speaking on socialentrepreneurship the atmosphere wascharged with emotion and passion. Thediscussion which ensued brought forth theviews of actual social entrepreneurs sittingin the audience. Mrs. Nisha Jha initiatedthe debate with focus on how the womencould be empowered. Mrs. Suman Lalspoke at length on taking a balanced viewof women empowerment .The PresidentMr. A.M. Prasad and Chief Town Planner,Mr. S.K. Sinha put forward the male aspectof empowerment and the importance ofmicrofinance and Self Help Groups in socialentrepreneurship. The Vice President, Mr.Ratnakar Mishra highlighted that we neednot ape the West in empowerment as ourcivilization was older than them. The voteof thanks was proposed by Mr. SudiptoDutta who had been generous enough toprovide the well equipped boardroom ofPower Grid for the meeting.

19th June Meeting

The meeting of National HRD Network,Patna Chapter was held on 19th June inthe boardroom of Hotel Maurya inCollaboration with TIE(The IndusEntrepreneurs).Mr. M.K. Sinha who was themember of both organizations started themeeting. Ratika Sinha (MD, Hotel, Maurya)introduced TIE to the members of NHRDN.Thereafter a seminar followed with thetheme Leadership Challenges in 21stcentury. The first speaker was Mr. K.P.Jhunjhunwal, President, Bihar IndustriesAssociation, who traced the historicalaspect of leadership and dealtcomprehensively with the subject. Thesecond speaker was Mrs. Rashmi Sinha,Director, Saiija Finance. She threw light onthe newer dimensions of leadership and herthoughts led to paradigm shift in theaudience. Mr. Sanjay of TIE linkedleadership with entrepreneurship citing theexamples of initiatives taken by the

institution. Mr. Ratnakar Mishra conductedthe interactive session in which Mr. BhanuPrakash,Gargi and Rishi spoke on thevarious facets of leadership. The sessionwas summed up by Mr. Atul Priyadarshiwho thanked TIE for hosting the meetingin their premises.

VISAKHAPATNAMIn Visakhapatnam Chapter of NHRDNetwork one annual individual member andtwo individual life members were joined inthe month of May 2009.

1. Mr. S. Prasad is a self employed invisakhapatnam. He joined as annualindividual member.

2. Dr. A. Prasad is a professor of SocialSciences in the college of Engineering,Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. Hejoined as a life member

3. Sri K V Rao is Assistant GeneralManager -HRD in RINL, VisakhapatnamSteel Plant. He joined as a life member


NATIONAL HRD NETWORK'S ONE DAY PROGRAM ON "HIGH PERFORMANCETHROUGH COACHING" WITH JOSEPH O'CONNOR 3 JUNE'09, NEW DELHI

On 3rd June'09 National HRD Networkorganised its one day program on HighPerformance through Coaching with JosephO'Connor, one of the best known executivecoaches and coach trainers in the world atIMI Campus, New Delhi.

The program saw a good turnout of morethan 70 HR practitioners who were very keento know more about Coaching - acomparatively new concept in India.

The day started with the recitation ofNHRDN Code of Conduct. Mr. Joseph

O'Connor was welcomed by Dr. CSVenkataratnam, Director IMI.

Mr. SK Wali- Whole Time Director, JKLakshmi Cement ,Mr. Anil Batra- Director,Turners India & Ms Pushpa Chowdhary, VPTurners India gave a brief introduction onCoaching.

The session started off with Mr. O'Connorgiving the audience a brief on what Coachingactually is and how coaching is different fromother approaches (Consultancy,Management, Training, Mentoring and

Therapy). He also stressed on how coachingpromotes high performance in individuals,teams and organisations.

Points covered by him during hispresentation were:� Factors that stop high performance and

how to overcome them.� The essential factors of coaching - how

coaching works.� How managers can coach to increase

their effectiveness.� How to measure the effects of coaching.

The evening session of the program wasgreatly appreciated by the participants. Mr.S.Y. Siddiqui, MEO-(HR, IT, Finance &Admin), Maruti Suzuki, anchored thesession and gave the Indian perspective oncoaching and its possible benefits tocorporate India.

The day ended with a lively Q & A Session,which saw a healthy participation from theparticipants who had a lot of questions forMr. O'Connor & Mr. Siddiqui.

Glimpses from the Event- June 03' 2009Mr. Joseph O'Connor & Mr.SY Siddiqui

Participants

Role Play

The Panelists Head HR Meeting

BANGALORE CHAPTER - EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS : 2009 - 11Hon. Vice President -Mr.Ranjan Acharya(Sr. Vice President -Corporate HRD,WIPRO Ltd.)

Secretary - Ms.Anuradha Mahesh(Core Faculty,Wellingkar Institute ofManagementDevelopment &Research)

Treasurer -Mr. SV Raghunandan(HR Manager, First IndianCorporation)[email protected]

Joint Secretary -Mr. Asit Kumar Nanda(Deputy Gen.Mgr. HR,BEML)[email protected]

Exec. Committee Member -Ms. Gayatri Krishnamuthy(Organisation Consultant,Transitions) [email protected]

Exec. Committee Member -Mr. S. Naga Siddharth(Manager - AssociateDevelopment, Perot Systems)[email protected]

Hon. President -Mr.D. Harish(LeadershipConsultant, PeopleUnlimited; formerly VP- HR @ HindustanUnilever)

E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]


Leadership in the Era ofEconomic Uncertainty

– Dr. Samta Jain

Dr. Samta Jain, Professor and Program Coordinator, IBS Mumbai, [email protected] and [email protected]

Today's age is of unprecedentedchallenges, with dwindling cash & credits,dismal sales, uncertainty and competitionaround. It is an age of tumultuous changewith change come both danger andopportunity. The Leaders in good time maynot be a good leader in bad times.

The financial contagion has spread. Theeconomy is in doldrums, the grim signs fromdwindling cash & credits are all common inan age of tumultuous change. The wallstreets "Crisis of Confidence" has turnedinto a global crisis. It is a sure time to riseto action against the gathering financialstorm. The "Corporate crisis" is demandingmore than ever before from the leaders andalso the employees. To cope with theconditions of turmoil, they must steelyresolve not to get paralyzed by uncertainty& financial meltdown and theses are fewof the many messages that are given in thisbook " Leadership in the era of economicuncertainty" authored by Ramcharan, tosuggest an action plan for leaders to takethe challenge in a toxic environment.

Leaders vs Toxicity

Ever since the eruption of liquidity crisis inSeptember 2008, the wound of the globaleconomy is expanding and deepening. Theeconomies around the world areexperiencing recession and slowdownbecause of financial tsunami. Thebattlefield has changed and also the kindof leadership in these conditions is notclose to "Normal time leadership". Thegame changers will be the profit makersand the leaders who are ready to reshapetheir business, making strategic, structural,financial changes and changes in themindset, will be the winners over thecatastrophe of the great depression. Theleader should have all plans & process inplace for "Misplaced Optimism" and nowcash is the critical metric, which has shiftedthe focus of the leaders from incomestatement to balance sheets. The authorof this book emphasizes on the following:

1. "Management Intensity," which is astudy of operational details, disruptive shiftsand environmental scanning.

2. The leader must be high on GroundLevel Intelligence, which is gradual,detailed and unfiltered information about

everything and anything.

3. The leaders must be well onSynchronization. The leaders must berelying on focus, speed, urgency andflexibility in making and executingdecisions. The frequency of control willprovide with agility to change.

Keeping a watch on the horizon andperiphery both, exhibiting aggression anddecisive action, keeping a pragmaticapproach, practicing ground intelligence,will help the leader to overcome the strongheadwinds and build in realistic optimism.Leaders in this time of crisis must rely ontrimming, hoaxing and focusing of issuesand practices. The author considershonesty, inspiration, reality, optimism,intensity & boldness as crusaders for theleaders.

Hands On, Heads In

The tsunami has engulfed everything fromWall Street to Main Street pressurizes uponthe leaders to reorganize, anticipate andtackle the problems before they develop.They should however, let forego the "Knowit all Attitude". These dauntingresponsibilities can be met by the following:

1. Recognize Reality: It needs no lookingin the rear view mirror, no more wishfulthinking; rather the CEO must confront therealities and wrenching uncertainty that arebecome the basic ingredients of businessin today's scenario.

2. Change in Company's Psychology: Theunvarnished truth that accompanies thecrisis needs to be present as compellingand credible argument with explanationsand reassurance to the people. Otherwisethe strongly built Brand image can dilute atone blow.

3. Be Bold: Making offensive rather thandefensive moves, with an ingredient oftransparency calls for Bold & Confidentbehavioral version as the biggest challengein turbulent times is sorting through thechallenges.

4. Reallocate your time: It is time to bemore operational; understanding the nuts& bolts operations of the company, gettingthe ground level information & interactionwith subordinators must be more frequent.

5. Protect theCore: The coreof business iss o m e t h i n gwhich isinvaluable and aleader cannotafford to loose it.Therefore hemust make allefforts to retain,chisel, sharpen& strengthen thecore.

6. R e a s s e s syour top team: In crisis no organization canafford to have the crucial seniormanagement as loners, indecisive & frozenin "analysis paralysis." Leaders mustwelcome those changes which block thedisintegration and degeneration byevaluating the top team's performance witha changed lens.

7. Be Transparent: Transparency is theneed of the hour and proper channels andmechanism are essential to make businessprocesses and decisions transparent. Allrelevant crucial information must begathered and disseminated in time, to theright person.

8. Be Viable: To align people to thecompany's goal, visibility is of utmostimportance. This helps in building,understanding and having the ground-levelintelligence.

9. Know the Daily No's: Criticalinformation like cash flow, inventorymargins, and receivables must be trackedmore frequently. Budgets need to be doneand redone and resources are required tobe adjusted.

10. Manage for Cash: In times of crisis it ismore important to manage for cash thanmanaging for accounting profits &revenues. Also determine the lowestbreakeven point.

11. Downsizing Plan: It has to beengineered intelligently and meticulouslyaiming to combine functions and eliminatelayers. In this time, speed, approach,quantum and many more dimensions willmatter and the CEO is required to keep hisfinger on the pulse of external environment.

The new rules for getting the right things done in difficult times

Book Review


– Col. P Deogirikar

1. Division of work

Fayol recommended specialization. InIPL it may not have worked actually.No feared bowler got a single hat-trickwhile part-timers Yuvraj got two andRohit one. Uthappa was initially pre-ferred over Boucher. Somewicketkeepers (Dhoni and McCullum)were fielding in outfield after handingover their WK gloves.

2. Authority

This tenet was on, authority was indeedrespected. Many captains of individualcountries (Vitori, Smith, Jayawardhane,Gayle) were commanded comfortablyby the ‘rookie’ captains (Veeru, Warne,Yuvi, McCullum).

3. Discipline

We had both, Bhajji and Srisanth, par-ticipating here but did we hear thesound of a slap? No Sir, discipline wasalways observed.

4. Unity of command

They all seemed to have only one boss- L M Modi and hence, this principle ofmanagement was adhered to. He evenhad the privilege of giving a ‘jadu kijhappi’ to none other than the presidentof South Africa at the closing ceremony!

5. Unity of direction

They all were very much focussed,wanted to win desperately. Did you notsee the ‘rab ne bana di jodi’, Dada andMcCullum, striding out together to openthe KKR innings? It is your problem ifyou feel they were doing it for money.

6. Subordination of individual interest

Illustrated very well here. Ask Dravid,Dada and Very Very Secluded Laxman.Did they not keep their individual inter-ests subordinate to the organization bycooperating with their captains?

7. Remuneration

Do we even need to talk about ad-equate remuneration in this mega-buckevent? As an example, MurtujaMashrafe (KKR) was paid $600,000and played just one game in which hemade 2 runs and gave away 58 runs infour overs, including 26 in the last!

8. Centralization

Unless this principle of managementwas followed, it would not have beenpossible to shift this huge tournamentfrom India to South Africa at such ashort notice and with such qualified suc-cess!

9. Scalar chain

When lateral communication ignoring

the hierarchy took place (bowlers ad-

justing the field setting themselves), it

was in full view of the authority (Cap-tain). And, of course, millions of theviewers.

10. Order

Order was maintained through out inthis sport where even a test match hasbeen forfeited.

Fayol Trial

It is said that the management of IPL-2, held in South Africa, has been aqualified success. Was it because the basic principles of managementwere followed? Why don’t we consult the maestro? Here is the take offon the 14 basic management principles advocated by Henri Fayol.

Col. P Deogirikar is General Manager with Ruchi Group, Indore. E-Mail: [email protected]

�H

SRK, there are so many ‘Captains’ inmy team that I

find it difficult to have my authority.Why don’t you

promote me to a ‘Major’?

11. Equity

Will the ‘booty’ (prize money) not beshared amongst the players?

12. Stability of tenure of personnel

A top bowler like McGrath (Delhi DareDevils) being there without even play-ing one out of the 15 games is a goodexample that this principle was fol-lowed.

13. Initiative

There were many instances when ini-tiative was taken. Yusuf Pathan up anddown the batting and bowling order,Kumble opening against Gilli, etc.

14. Espirit de Corps

Take the case of Laxman who was toldmid way that he was not needed. Stillhe continued to be around and helpedthe team win the final.

Concluding, barring the first, all prin-ciples of management were observedwhich may be the secret of this stupen-dous success. Fayol wins the trial!

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