HR Now and Next: 2010

Sep 8, 2010

Excellence Vs Success

The best of the best make their life and work a quest for excellence and understand that there is a difference between success and excellence.

Success is often measured by comparison to others. Excellence, on the other hand, is all about being the best we can be and maximising our gifts, talents and abilities to perform at our highest potential.

We live in a world that loves to focus on success and loves to compare. We are all guilty of doing this. However, to be our best we must focus more on excellence and less on success. We must focus on being the best we can be and realise that our greatest competition is not someone else but ourselves.

For example, coaching legend John Wooden often wouldn’t tell his players who they were playing each game. He felt that knowing the competition was irrelevant. He believed that if his team played to the best of their ability they would be happy with the outcome. In fact, John Wooden never focused on winning. He had his team focus on teamwork, mastering the fundamentals, daily improvement and the process that excellence requires. As a result he and his teams won A LOT.

A focus on excellence was also the key for golfing legend Jack Nicklaus. His secret was to play the course not the competition. He simply focused on playing the best he could play against the course he was playing. While others were competing against Jack, he was competing against the course and himself.

The same can be said for Apple’s approach with the iPod, iPhone and iPad. When they created these products they didn’t focus on the competition. Instead they focused on creating the best product they could create. As a result, rather than measuring themselves against others they have become the measuring stick.

We have a choice as individuals, organisations and teams. We can focus on success and spend our life looking around to see how our competition is doing, or we can look straight ahead towards the vision of greatness we have for ourselves and our teams. We can look at competition as the standard or as an indicator of our progress towards our own standards. We can chase success or we can embark on a quest for excellence and focus 100% of our energy to become our best... and let success find us.

Ironically, when our goal is excellence the outcome and by product is often success.

Aug 14, 2010

Emerging challenges for HR professionals- 3.Consumption

3. Consumption: This is intrinsically linked to growth and we are having a services and consumption led growth. The focus is on spending from savings. Todays employees are deep into consumption with everyone using full credit and debts accumulating sometimes upto 60-70% of their monthly salary. The pressure to be "in-line" with trends wrt fashion, technology, cars and houses is tremendous. Todays employee is achieving these things by 30 years age which was achieved by their parents in their lifetime. So the question is whether this pace of consumption is sustainable and how can we as HR professionals create some balance. In India, we know IT/ITES industries have a fair share of contribution in making a generation of employees with large disposable incomes. The need for "take-home" salary to increase in double digits year aftre year is something this industry has practiced. But the question is how long can this happen in an industry which is largely based on "cost -arbitrage model" and when is the time when this model fizzles out. Already we know South East asia destinations like Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand besides China are posing a threat to us and having many other positives besides cost.

Q1. Are we in a position to stop this wage inflation/employee cost and create a model for which keeps our competitive edge

This shall require influencing our leaders who themselves under the pressure of attrition and retention forget the above.

Q2. What then is the new HR way to engage employee for long term if compensation needs to play a lesser role?

Q3. When can we draw a fine line between pampering employees with luxury cafes, health clubs etc and essential organisational environment for employees to succeed?

Emerging challenges for HR professionals- 2. Technology

2. Technology: We in India have been benefiting from the way we have "leapfrogged" technology, like we have are having all latest technologies in mobile like 3G, Wimax, MNP and at lowest rates than anywhere in world. We shall keep on riding on this wave and employees working with us shall be the first to experiment with new technologies. The power of Web 2.0 and social media and networking is something we still have to experience. There is major difference between how Organisations of past have dealt with information and how we need to in future. Information was power and it was limited to few people only but todays generation wants everything to be know immediately, the want things(polices, information etc) to be transparent and quick. There is a dissonance between the two ideologies which shall create friction unless the transition is made. Social technologies we have just started to experience , we shall see more of it and we need to leverage this to connect and engage with the employees.
Q1. Are we acknowledging the need to be more transparent with Gen Y?
Q2. Are we looking at social technology as an enabler for engagement and information or oblivious to it?

Emerging challenges for HR professionals- 1. Growth

As we celebrate our 63rd Independence day, lets us think that how we can contribute as HR professionals so that the fruits of growth and economic boom can be sustained over longer periods of time. The context is next 10 years we(India) are going to have a consumer driven economy and employees are a part of the society are going to experience the same. This shall have the following implications at workplace

The 6 challenges to look forward is

1. Growth paradigm: We shall be going near double digit in the years ahead. This kind of growth leads to a feeling of a "high". Growth is going to dominate Indian psyche and mind. This shall be carried forward to the workplace and may lead to premature pride and arrogance which may be manifested by the same growth experience of his career. The present HR philosophy give s a false notion of growth by equating it to a ladder like climbing till you reach the peak and we know as we move up there is a limit on the number of people who can occupy top positions. The challenge is how to create a sustainable career model for employees and move away from the artificial understanding of careers. This journey should be in direction of capabilities not titles, skills , competencies, work life balance, access to technology, workforce flexibility etc. Being a SME is as important a career as a General Manager. But this requires HR polices to be relooked differently than the present way, where as one moves up , one gets more benefits and recognition.

Q1. Can we have role driven recognition and reward than hierarchy driven?

Q2. Can we provide holistic meaning of career encompassing all aspects mentioned above and create a compelling framework?

Aug 9, 2010

The Camel Hump Implication: Will Your Younger Generations Be Ready To Lead?

Let’s begin with some context: in this case, we are referring to the “camel humps” that are the relative sizes of the Baby Boomer and Millennial generations when compared to Generation X that falls between them. In other words, Generation X is roughly half the size of each of the Baby Boomer and Millennial generations. Now that we’re clear on that, what is this implication?

For several years now, there has been quite a bit written and discussed around the impending “brain drain” that will come with the mass exodus of Baby Boomers from the workforce. While the pace of the exodus has slowed due to a variety of reasons (e.g., Baby Boomers wanting to stay challenged and intellectually engaged through work, the tanking of the economy and subsequent tanking of retirement portfolios), the reality remains that the exodus is occurring and will continue to occur over the next several years. This issue is well documented and the idea that organizations will lose intellectual capital and tacit know-how is well understood and accepted by most organizations…even if they don’t know what to do about it quite yet.

We could continue to discuss this issue ad nauseam, as it is a rich one and a real problem for many organizations. Instead, I would like to spend some time discussing a different implication, one that in my humble opinion, does not receive enough attention in the current research and subsequent literature.

Let’s begin by doing the math. There are approximately half the number of Gen Xers in the workforce as there are Baby Boomers. So, as Baby Boomers retire, there are about half the number of people available to take their spots in the organizational hierarchy. While organizations are tending to become a bit more progressive in their thinking around who can lead and manage (i.e., not tying those assumptions only to tenure), it is still safe to say that with the Baby Boomers leaving, there will be a large need for people to slide into senior management and executive leadership roles. If, however, there are approximately half the number of Gen Xers available to take on these responsibilities, a fairly safe conclusion to make is that the Millennials will be forced to take on management and leadership responsibilities sooner in their careers than previous generations. The question that follows is: will they be ready?

The “camel hump implication” is that with the Baby Boomers leaving the workforce, organizations need to accelerate the younger generations’ ability to assume critical leadership roles. Does your organization have a strategy in place to address this reality? My contention, and admittedly this is a generalization with sure exceptions to the rule, is that the majority of organizations have not fully acknowledged the inevitable consequences of these looming retirements. As we work with our clients around their mentoring strategies, we regularly hear of the organizational need to “reinvest the knowledge of the Boomers back into the workforce.” We also hear of wanting to support general management and leadership development processes. However, we don’t often hear of intentional strategies to accelerate the development of future leaders in response to the anticipated needs left by the departure of the Boomers. I think organizations should realistically be concerned about the potential dearth of ready leaders over the next 5-10 years. Intentional development strategies need to begin reaching deeper into and more broadly across the organization.

One important thing that organizations do have going for them is that the Millennial generation is very open to mentoring, coaching, and feedback. In fact, they crave it and can sometimes be perceived as “needy” when they are not receiving it. The Millennial generation is accustomed to learning in contextualized person-to-person relationships. The emergence of social networking platforms and technologies such as instant messaging and texting over the last several years has enabled this generation to readily communicate with those who can help them. Whereas homework for me, as a Gen-Xer, was predominantly a heads-down, grind-it-out type of process with some occasional partnership or teamwork, homework for the Millennials is and has been largely about collaboration. It is not uncommon for a Millennial student to be carrying on multiple “conversations” via text, IM, and phone while completing an assignment (quite possibly all from the same mobile device). What probably would have been viewed as distraction a generation ago is now viewed as collaboration, expediency, and effectiveness. It is simply the way learning gets done for this generation. Therefore, in looking to implement strategies in this regard, organizations should not encounter significant resistance from the Millennial generation. The key is to ensure that opportunities are focused on processes that provide access to multiple knowledge resources in the organization. That is, take a networked view of learning vs. the antiquated one of encouraging people to find “that one sage guru” for all career development needs.

At the end of the day, what organizations need to do is get intentional around providing these opportunities before the immediate need is upon them and they find themselves promoting individuals into positions of significant responsibility and then scrambling to get them ready for the role. Old adages are adages for a reason and in this case an ounce of prevention is probably worth at least a few pounds of cure.

Source: HR.COM

http://www.hr.com/SITEFORUM?t=%2FDefault%2Fgateway&i=1116423256281&application=blog&elementID=1279730164062

Aug 8, 2010

Nasscom HR Summit, 29th July, 2010, collaboration with competitors

I had visited the Nasscom HR summit this time and noted some interesting developments.

There was a move to get a agreement on allowing employees to serve notice period and giving relieving letters as a standard HR practice. No concrete resolution, but a request. There was also a uniform understanding that non poaching in this industry shall not ever apply as demand exceeds the supply and hence its better to concrete on ethical practices as above and focus on building talent for future thru academic tieups, there were tieups with Delhi University announced by Nasscom.

Jul 9, 2010

Business Challenges for a Top IT Firm

Recently I was going thorough a Top IT product company who has been facing solid business challenges in maintaining their market share and have been failing in many innovations on which its business is primarily based. The competitors are into disruptive technologies and are winning markets fast . This company needs to adapt its business model with changing consumer preferences and how it delivers them. It also has a large customer base in millions for which its owns the responsibility of bringing them through this period of change.

In the enterprise space, it has capabilities to take in high end challenges and can pose serious competition to well entrenched players. Further opportunities exists in transitioning companies to cloud environment. In such a business challenge scenario, what should be HR be doing to be a " real" business partner.

My prescription is:

1. Consumer division: Look at the Org structure and find out if this is aiding or inhibiting innovation. How are the junior most employees involved in innovation. What happens to good ideas and how many of them have been able to turn into dollars. Are the leaders exhibiting right kind of behaviors to keep the team in right spirits so that external markets scenarios not affecting their work. How are the HR process helping in achieving the flexibility, innovation and time to market needs of the business?

2. Enterprise division: Is there someone doing a trend analysis of this market and its drivers. Have we identified the segment clearly and if yes, do we have new insights of our customers and competitor information. Do we have the right team in place to deliver? Are these teams sufficiently incentivised to be ahead of the competition. Does this team have a cloud computing SME crack team to leverage this opportunity

Overall if there are some leaders/managers to be coached/counselled to take on the new charter, have they been identified, if yes have they been told about the new rules of the game, if yes are they sufficiently been enabled wrt resources, capabilities and direction.

Hence these are some ways through which HR can pose some challenging questions, answers to these shall point to the direction to move.

Comments Pls

Jun 12, 2010

Why Google is the Best: Talent Acquisition Strategy

One factor that made possible the great development of Google as a hub for innovation is their recruitment methodology used when hiring employees. That methodology has been able to built Google’s most important asset: Human capital.

To identify and select these workers, Google use a very tough and comprehensive recruitment process:

1. Detect talents in its infancy

Companies like Microsoft try to hunt talents on their last University year and recruit them in an early stage. On the contrary, Google identify those talents in an early stage but allow them to complete their studies, complemented with masters and doctorates.

Also, Google runs contests and mathematical problems placed in technology magazine or universities campus. These types of aptitude tests encourage engineers and hardcore geeks to submit their answers along with their resumes.

As Google vice president of engineering, Alan Eustace mentioned when it comes to hiring engineers, the strategy is to get engineers that “worth 300 times more than average”. The deputy director also added that he would rather lose an entire group of engineering graduates before an exceptional technologist. Actually, many Google services like Google News and Gmail were initiated by one person. Google plans to continue maintaining such criteria for finding, identifying and incorporating exceptionally bright talents.

2. Challenging interviews and selection process

Interviews and selections methods used by Google are unconventional. The recruitment process can last several weeks and could include up to 12 candidates meetings. Candidates need to sign confidentiality agreements and any negative opinion about the process could disqualify them. During this selection process technical questions are alternated with “brain teasers” as curious as how many golf balls fit in a school bus? Or how much you would charge for cleaning all windows in Seattle?

3. Speed up the on boarding process

The group that selects the candidates is usually formed by a high number of company workers who know deeply Google’s operation and could decide on the level of training for candidates during on boarding stage. New employees are placed in small working groups to speed up their interaction and absorb Google’s culture faster.

It also interesting to notice that Google distributes the time of its employees, allowing 20% to be spend on personal projects. This motivates employees, spread innovative ideas and improve their products driven by employees’ entrepreneurial spirit

Reverse Outsourcing Presents Unique HR Challenges

Patni Computer Systems is one of the first India-based global IT outsourcers. In 1972, its founder and chairman, Narendra Patni, graduated from MIT, launched the company in Cambridge, Mass., and then returned to Mumbai, India, spinning out IT software and consulting services from there. The company is a poster-child example of outsourcing, handling business that otherwise would have been done by Americans, for Americans.

But today Patni is doing an about-face: or, what many in the industry refer to as, “reverse outsourcing.” It has invested in its U.S. operations to recruit more customers that want to keep projects onshore. Patni wants to be closer to them for practical reasons.

The company has set a goal to increase the size and scope of its North American operations beyond its three principal service delivery centers. Recently, Patni announced a new North American hub for Business Process Outsourcing operations in El Paso, Texas. These moves will give Patni further manpower to take on more general business while giving the company increased expertise to build out new business areas, says Tony Viola, VP of Marketing of Patni Americas. Of its 14,000 employees, 2,800 are foreign nationals—and of those, 2,300 are in North America, Viola said.

Patni isn’t the only company getting into the reverse outsourcing game. More Indian firms are staking their flags in U.S. soil, citing the American work ethic and client satisfaction. But what are the ramifications for human resource issues? Challenges and opportunities abound for the savvy HR professional, all of which can be used to a company’s advantage, Viola said.

Following are his tips on making the most of the reverse outsourcing trend.

A Recruiter’s Dream

Consider this: In the spring of 2010, the U.S. unemployment rate was at its highest since World War II, at “a shade under” 10 percent, or the equivalent of 15 million Americans, Viola said. The statistics for the workforce 25 years old and under were even starker. He says they comprised roughly 25 percent of the unemployed. It behooves an HR professional to tap that workforce on behalf of your foreign corporation, Viola advised, as more unemployed means a greater talent pool from which to fish.

“This has opened up opportunities for companies like ours to look at acquiring and investing in talent locally. We have an affordable and ready workforce across all disciplines,” Viola said. “A lot of the customers are looking for us to do the things that are socially right and consistent with corporate initiatives and motives, and one of those is to put people locally to work. We’re balancing that motive with obligations to our shareholders to deliver profitability.”

The other aspect pushing the new hiring and staffing models is driven by North American clients who are more easily accessible. Companies like Patni can use the “reversed outsourced” workforce to reduce the strain of interacting with a fully distributed workforce around the world, Viola said.

And how does this work logistically? Collaborative software technology makes it easy for HR to put a dream team together for your client. Your U.S. team can interact with clients in the country but be led by professionals in Mumbai, for example. “They can be led by anybody with the right talent for that particular project,” Viola said. “We might have one that requires project management skills, and the leader may be in Mexico, and his team might include North America, Mexico or India. It’s not dictated by country of origin as much as it is the skill sets of what we can use.”

Reverse outsourcers have a good grasp on where they will findparticular talent. They come to the United States because it’s known as a “hotbed” for sophisticated software architecture, for example. They tap into other countries—like those in Eastern Europe for mathematicians and scientists. By looking globally, they have discovered a diverse workforce that improves product offerings profoundly, Viola said.

“The whole notion of diversity, not just in respect to gender but building a culturally diverse organization, is to tap into people from these geographies and wind up enhancing the overall knowledge of the workforce while having a richer interaction and stimulating environment that spawns creativity and advancement,” he said.

Consummate Communicators

Another challenge arises for the HR professional: Locating talent that not only is well versed in their skill sets but also have a knack for communicating with clients and co-workers in the U.S. and abroad. Each candidate should be tested on collaboration skills; they shouldn’t just be a specialist in their field but should understand the entire industry and how it is affected globally, Viola said.

“Test their written linguistic skills, which are critical to the success of your business, from crafting sensitive correspondence to being able to get subtle messages across. It’s an art form. It’s difficult for people, whether English is their primary language or secondary. It’s a tough skill to find.”

Managing from Afar

HR should be careful to find project and program managers who understand how to manage the reverse-outsourced workforce. It doesn’t matter if your manager is in India, or is an Indian national on-site managing the U.S. team. That person must be able to understand the nuances of language, work habits and traits, not to mention dealing with time-zone differences.

“This is a skill set that is largely done on the job or cultivated on the job, but it’s becoming a massive requirement,” Viola said, adding that finding qualified leaders is a big HR challenge.

More Core Challenges

At a minimum, you need HR practices that support the fundamentals ofsalary, wage rates, vacation, health care, and investment as a core offering. But as a reverse-outsourced HR person, you have to tweak those things “to where you have the core critical mass talent,” Viola said. “A benefits plan in India is not applicable in the United States,” he added.

What to do? Make sure the core is customized to your people’s country. “Nothing irritates employees more than dealing with an HR practice for one geography and it has nothing to do with what they deal with,” Viola said. “The issues around retention and development for younger employees in particular are critical. For example, our HR professionals need mechanisms to identify talent,” Viola said. Patni supports a series of surveys that are initiated by HR to take the pulse of U.S. employees on job satisfaction.

Indian firms are concerned about H-1B visas, which allow their nationals to go to the United States and supervise the reverse-outsourced U.S. teams. “The thing we’ve seen recently is that there has been a slowdown of the approval process. There’s more evaluation going on and more requests for justification. The amount of paperwork we have to provide is more so than in the past, but it’s understandable, given that there are 15 million people out of work in this country. I believe the current evaluation period is driven more by issues regarding unemployment rather than anything else,” Viola said.

That said, there is no shortage of these visas, said Frida P. Glucoft, an immigration attorney in Los Angeles. Although 65,000 visas are available annually, as of April 2010, the Department of Homeland Security announced that only 15,000 applications were filed in the current cycle.

“There’s not a heavy reliance on them, and it has steadily declined [since 2008] for the reason of the economy,” Glucoft said, adding that Indian companies have “scaled back dramatically in filings and in use of them.”

If you’re concerned about getting these visas for your workforce, though, you can ease the situation, she said. “If you’re an Indian company with a U.S. affiliate, for example, then the American subsidiary or affiliate files the visa petition for the Indian national.

Source:SHRM

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