hr trends - global hr practices

7/31/2019 HR Trends - Global HR Practices

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HR Trends - Global HR practices

A symbiotic relationship

An IT company spends a considerable amount of time and money on freshers so

that they can be integrated into a corporate work environment. In an attempt tobridge the gap between educational curriculum and actual job requirements,companies have collaborated with educational institutes. This is where the industryprovides training to the college faculty on current requisites in the industry, andimparts new skills to them which could be of demand in the future.

The Need of the Hour

Today, corporates face a huge challenge in recruiting the right talent. During atypical campus connect program, an organisation manages to hire an average of 10people out of every 500 interviewed. A mere two per cent! A deeper probe reveals

that at least half of the remaining 490 miss out on employment due to lack ofbehavioural skills or domain specialisation. The industry and academia need toembark on a fire-fighting mission together. The need of the hour is to identify andmap the right requirement at the right place and at the right time, says DeependraChumble, Chief People Person for Hexaware.

According to a recent consulting study conducted by Mercer, only 25 per centgraduates in India are employed. The figure indicates that there is a huge gapbetween the pace of change of university curriculum and the technology needs of thecurrent industry. As a result, students have good theoretical knowledge but they lackproblem solving skills due to lack of exposure to practical projects. Given thesituation, it is imperative that industry and academia collaborate to improve thequality of students who are entering into the industry for various roles and positions,asserts Sachin Tikekar, chief of people operations, KPIT Cummins Infosystems.According to Romit Dasgupta, director, Globsyn, One of the biggest indicators thatdetermine the need for a company to partner with an educational institute is theshortage of relevant skills. The other indicators include research driven initiativeswhere academic institutions can form the breeding grounds for development ofnewer technologies.

Joining Hands!

Keeping this in mind, many companies have tied up with some of the best institutesin order to bridge the gap between industry and academia. Hexaware Technologies,in an attempt to increase communication between academics and industry, hasstarted the Train the Trainers Programme. The programme conducted a workshopon Recent Trends in Information Technology, jointly organised by IIT Madras andHexaware Technologies. The workshop, meant for faculty members in the ComputerScience Department of various Engineering & Computer Applications in Arts &Science Colleges, is a part of the Industry-Academia interaction. The purpose is togive a better exposure to the faculty on the latest trends in the IT industry. Trainingteachers who in turn train students helps polish certain additional skills required by

the industry, and educating the students on the latest technologies, notes Chumble.


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Multi Commodities Exchange (MCX), in collaboration with some of the top notchinstitutes such as IIM Indore, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore, IIF-New Delhi,Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, Symbiosis Instituteof International Business, etc., provides general as well as customised trainingprogrammes at various levels.

Globsyn's entire business model is based on bridging the gap between Industry andAcademia. We run a post-graduate program with the University of Calcutta onApplied Economics and Information Management, We also run a post-graduateprogram with Jadavpur University on Software Engineering and BusinessManagement, states Dasgupta.

NIIT Imperia offers long and short term management programs to individuals andcorporates, using its innovative synchronous learning technology. The institute hascreated a special program for Genpact, to train its employees across multiplelocations.

There are various challenges of this system including sustaining such programmesin campuses and encouraging the academic fraternity to attend them at regularintervals. We need a dedicated workforce to deliver such special lectures, value-added sessions etc., says Chumble.

One of the biggest challenges is that of mindset adjustment. Pure Academics hasalways had an input driven mindset where as Industry initiatives are more outputdriven, affirms Dasgupta.

A Successful Endeavour!

There is no doubt that Industry-Academia collaboration is one of the successful waysto fight skill shortage. Candidates are now expected to demonstrate initiative andconfidence to take on business challenges, and to portray a positive brand imagethat is necessary while facing a customer. Whatever the route, the onus of helpingstudents keep pace with the dynamic business environment lies with the academia.Modification of academic curriculum and its implementation is traditionally a longprocess involving careful research, curriculum design, customisation and delivery.


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Polish skills to keep pace

The skills you picked up in the last specialised workshop, which your companycommissioned you to attend, are not of much use for long. They become redundantwithin a year, sometimes even sooner, only to get replaced with an entirely new set

of skills which need to be learned afresh.Knowledge has become so dynamic and in keeping with it, the skills required toacquire or access that knowledge keep changing. Its like using a computer toaccess information online. Besides the information itself changing, the ways toaccess it are also very dynamic in nature, says Nerul-based career counsellorSucharita Shetty.In conjunction with academics and work experience is the procurement of skills thatgo a long way in boosting productivity. Its in keeping with this norm that companiessend their key personnel on specialised programmes that are aimed to enhance

skills soft as well as technical in nature.

While most companies continue to dispatch teams of key personnel to attend specialworkshops held to boost niche skills, a few of them hold training sessions within theorganisation itself. A lot of companies are now beginning to realise that skillsimbibed through a workshop or briefing dont hold good for long as the needs in mostindustries continue to change, warranting completely new set of skills, adds Shetty.Look at APL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines, aglobal transportation and logistics company engaged in shipping and relatedbusinesses, which has registered an increase of about 30 per cent in the number ofin-house programmes in India aimed to boost skills during the last one year itself.The skills learned here at APL are either soft or specific system skills. The numberof programmes held to upgrade these skills has definitely registered an increase inthe last year, says HR Director Sanjay Sabnis.

Incidentally, soft skills include leadership management, communication, teamworkand other programmes that last anywhere between one to three days at APL. Skillsused vary in groups and situations, offers APLs Learning Manager Senthil Kumar.The skills used by the sales team will differ from those used by the customer serviceteam or for that matter, the operations team, which instead has to use reporting toolsthat derive information from the system, adds Kumar. The programmes held to aid

upgradation of system skills take place from half a day to as long as a three-day-session. There has been an overall increase of 25 per cent to 30 per cent in in-houseprogrammes in the last one year, endorses Kumar.Consider Stalwart Machinerys rapidly changing manpower requirement, forinstance. As personnel manager Govind Kumar puts it, The skills needed from amanager a decade back, for example, didnt include computer know-how ornetworking as much as is needed today. So much so, that there has been a markedshift in the role of the manager itself. So, today, there are two different kinds ofmanagers in the firm to do jobs that would on the face of things seem similar.However, the role of a personnel manager is starkly different from that of an HR

manager who will do a much specialised job, armed with special skills too. Moreimportantly, these skills will continue to change and grow drastically altering the


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role and nature of an employees profile - within months as opposed to years as wasthe case earlier.


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Office spaces

You neednt be familiar with the Dilbert comic to imagine why the strips creator,Scott Adams, paints life inside a modern corporate office cubicle as bleak. Althoughthings rarely improve in Dilberts world, the situation inside real-world office cubicles

is improving. The stereotypical office is an orderly place where workers areseemingly glued to their desks staring at computer screens or papers. That image,however, may soon be a thing of the past, as more and more businesses, have beentransforming their offices.

IS THERE A LINK??

Is there a direct link between office interiors and productivity and can that be outlinedin tangible terms? Elaborating on the current scenario Vinod P Vijay, creativedirector, Prime Focus explains, In the competitive landscape, interiors do tend tobecome another intangible plus that an organisation has to have, in terms of

developing equity with employees or its visitors who might be customers, suppliersand others. It provides an insight into the very culture of the workplace. Just as theysay, where clothes reflect a man's personality the interiors reflect an office'spersonality. Organisations are, therefore, becoming particularly careful in the waythey attire their offices. With well designed spaces and furniture the efficiency andmotivational levels of the people can be increased as it gives a good feeling.

There has been a sea-change in the way offices operate and this is reflected in theway offices look. The nine to five routine is almost non-existent with people spendingmore hours at work. The working populace is also a young lot nowadays where thebracket starts as early as 21 and who are in tune with the hip and happening. Theoffice spaces and facilities must match the nature of their work. Over the past fewyears, offices have changed into livelier, more upbeat environments, with the focusbeing employee comfort and functionality. Newer companies, especially in the ITsector, are looking to woo and retain a younger, livewire-kind of crowd that wouldn'tbe too impressed with just a cubicle that makes you feel isolated from the world.

According to Kishore Panikker, an architect with Edifice Architects, a Mumbai-basedfirm specialising in corporate interiors, there have been significant changes in workculture and contemporary workplaces. He says It is a known fact that even thesmallest thing in the office affects the performance of the people working there, even

if it is an inanimate object like office furniture. The general impression among peopleis that the calibre and the skills of the people working in an office affect its growthand productivity. They do play the most important role, undoubtedly, but believe it ornot, office furniture too plays an extremely major role in boosting the productivity ofan organisation.

THE TRANSFORMERS

Office interiors are changing today keeping in mind the changing trends in the officespace. Companies want to portray the image of their office as being in sync with thenew age office, with a modern look and feel. Interiors have helped in redefining the

new age offices. More and more companies are increasingly accepting the conceptof modernising the office interiors. An emerging trend vis--vis office interiors that is


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fast catching up is the bend towards space management and strategic planningkeeping in mind the usage and workflow in conjunction with aesthetics. Apart fromtaking care of aspects ranging from comfort to aesthetics to functionality andergonomics, new age offices are also laying emphasis on the psychological aspectof team building within the organisation. 'Open office' and 'no partition' concepts are

finding their way into the modern offices. Principles of vaasthu and feng-shui are alsopopular in companies.

Increasingly, architects, interior designers, facilities managers, and furniturecompanies are assuming a new role: strategic consultants familiar not only withblueprints but also with human behaviour and organisation. Corporations are usingthem to boost productivity which is one of the many ways it works on to gain thecompetitive edge in this global market as more and more companies are talkingabout going global, adds Panicker. A good office definitely improves the generalpositive factors affecting the work environment. The underlying perception herebeing that any place done up tastefully will have good people reflecting the best of

their own selves.


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Engaging employees through surveys

Employee satisfaction is a critical element not only in providing high levels of

customer satisfaction, but also for providing higher productivity, turnover, and

reduced costs associated with recruiting. It is imperative to understand the attitudes,

behaviour, motivation and issues affecting the employees and their performance as

they play an important role in shaping and directing the organisation's productivity

and overall success.

The Need Of The Hour

Though communicating with each employee was considered the best way to

understand their level of satisfaction with the organisation, it may well be called a

primitive way in reading their minds. Long taken for granted, communication can now

be related to job satisfaction, productivity, team-building, and the general

coordination within the organisation and this is where employee surveys play a

pivotal role.

Employee insights into the workplace can help organisations identify issues,

thereby, ensuring high productivity and loyalty. Analysing the data from the surveys

makes it easier for us to identify and address issues that are important to specific

groups of staff. We can also gauge the attitudes of staff towards a particular issue,

such as pay, or the level of support theyre receiving from their managers. The

survey covers a wide range of issues from careers to facilities to transport, says

Sudheesh Venkatesh, head HR, Tesco HSC.

A well-designed employee survey provides specific information, enabling companies

to develop meaningful action plans to address these issues. The cost of conducting

a survey can be minimal compared to its benefits, both in terms of employee morale

and increased performance. Such surveys provide valuable data which can be

analysed giving a huge sample of the overall employee engagement with the

company. The higher the employee satisfaction graph, the higher would be business

performance levels because of the pride and kudos that come from working for a

successful company.

The Pitfalls

Apart from being just a tool to gauge the satisfaction levels, this acts as a channel

for people to give feedback on the organisation on specific areas. It could serve as a

very good information tool for future decisions of the company. However, it depends

on what you normally do with the survey results. If it is just doing the survey as an

activity every year, it will never give any feedback from employees. They will

definitely want to know what happened to the points raised in the previous survey.

Post survey, it is very important for you to tell the people what is really being done

with the survey results.


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Based on this past experience, people decide whether giving feedback is meaningful

or not, says D.Rajkumar, senior manager, HR, Microland. Another point which is

note worthy is the fact that the decision to allow employees to remain anonymous

may allow employees to be more candid, and thus, effective in identifying problem

areas, especially those hidden from senior management. If employee surveys arepoorly designed and implemented, they can do unintended damage. A failed survey

is more than a waste of organisational resources - it can negatively impact employee

engagement, which defeats the very motive of the survey. Hence, it would be

necessary for an organisation to plan the survey, considering various parameters like

whether they are considering the entire workforce or just few project teams, timing of

the survey, and ensuring that the responses are valued by the organisations

management.

A Wakeup Call

Companies that do not invest in employee surveys will be shooting in the dark with

respect to measures/initiatives put in place to increase employee satisfaction/morale.

When employees see value in the survey, the response rates will be exceptionally

high. However, regular communication forums like staff meetings, blogs, open-door

policies along with the surveys can add to the employee feeling satisfied, adds

Sushil Tayal, director, HR, LogicaCMG.

Considering employees as key stakeholders in the success of the organisation,

valuing their opinions and working on them can brighten the future prospects of the

company. We need to understand that such surveys show us that there is a directcorrelation between employee satisfaction and the quarter results of the company.


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Mindset: a powerful booster of the performance of an organisation

Todays economic and social environment is changing very rapidly; markets are

increasingly global, deregulation is taking place everywhere, deflation (except for oil

and its derivatives) is common in many sectors. The war for talent once again is at

an all time high making it difficult to attract and even more difficult to retain talent.

The shelf life of any product has dramatically reduced, consumers are becoming

more discerning and their behaviour is increasingly unpredictable. Evidence of these

changes are ever present in our daily life.

In such an environment, organisations are forced to continuously change by

rethinking their business models, redesigning their product lines and reformulating

their approach to markets and customers. The result is that very few of the

organisations that were lauded as the champions of performance1[1] five or ten years

ago2[2] are still considered so today. The few champions that have remained at the

top are the likes of General Electric, Wall-Mart and IBM which have been able to

constantly outperform their respective peers in the industry. The questions that

clearly arise are: what do these organisations have that others do not have? What

are the underlying factors that allow these organisations to consistently lead the way

in their industry sectors?

In the last few years an increasing number of business leaders and management

scholars have recognised that the collective attitudes and the mindset of a

corporation (also referred to as corporate culture) can have a significant impact on

the overall performance of an organisation3[3]. Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of

General Electric has stated on numerous occasions that a company can boost

productivity by restructuring, removing bureaucracy and downsizing, but it can not

sustain high performance without a strong culture. In fact, General Electric under

Welchs leadership has been able to transfer and apply their culture into all the

acquired companies raising their performance significantly within a short time,

allowing GE to sustain continuous stocks with a value growth in double digits.Furthermore, scholars such as Kotter and Heskett4[4] have brought additional

(empirical) evidence that a link exists between performance and culture. They

conducted a macro-level analysis on companies from 22 different industries and

compared samples of strong culture companies with weak culture companies and

1

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3

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found out that companies with a strong culture have a much higher likelihood of

outperforming their peers in the industry.

The question is then, what are the characteristics of a strong corporate culture.

Although corporate cultures are by definition all very different from each other, some

common cultural traits can be identified. In fact, high performing organisations seem

to share the following traits:

Complete alignment around the vision and the core values of the organisation,

meaning that most members of the organisation can articulate clearly where the

company is heading and the path to get there, as well as fostering a shared

understanding of core values. In these organisations, it is common to find at all levels

members who can clearly answer the question what is the strategy of the company

and what is my contribution to it?

Focus on execution which means that each member is focused on what he/she is

supposed to do and is doing it to the best of his/her knowledge and capabilities. In

practice, most members of such organisations are more focused on finding and

implementing solutions rather than pointing out barriers to execution.

Strong accountability where both collectively and individually performance (through

objective systems) is evaluated to ensure that people are accountable and take

responsibility for business results. Typically, organisations with this cultural trait will

have a few selected key performance indicators (KPI), that everyone shares,

understands and are accountable for.

Capability of renewal where everyone has the skill and the courage to propose and

change direction if there are ways of creating more value by doing new things. Or

even new ways of doing the same things. In these organisations, simple processesare clearly defined to allow anyone to propose and evaluate ideas either about

continuous improvement or radical change.

Finally, the question is; how do high performing organisations develop the above-

mentioned cultural traits? In most cases these cultural traits are formed over a period

of time, mainly due to the presence of a strong leader (e.g. Jack Welch, Sam

Walton) who through his actions and those of his immediate executives has shaped

and inspired the whole organisation to drive better performance. This generally takesyears and the challenge for the company is then to survive these exceptional


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leaders. Surprisingly, such a challenge is addressed almost naturally, since these

cultural characteristics have been so long nurtured and deeply entrenched that they

have become part of the companys DNA. The Jack Welch way then simply

becomes the GE way.

Multitask or Perish!


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For years on end, I couldnt fathom why on earth one would take on more work

than was needed, claims 46-year-old insurance consultant Naina Ramalingam. It

just seemed like such a waste of time. Instead of putting in that extra bit at work, I felt

learning a hobby or pooling in more at ones home made more sense, she says.

That was only until I realised only of late that a lot of my colleagues earn three times

I do solely because their extra-curricular specialisations and skills are being sought

by the company for services which fetches them more money, adds Naina. Her

colleague Phalguni Mehta, for instance, doubles up as an online editor for an in-

house magazine thanks to her browsing and networking skills she picked up along

the job.

Another friend Mansi Naidu, on the other hand, assists the personnel manager

whenever theres a surge in interviews. Mansis penchant for dealing with others is

put to use in arranging group discussions and playing moderator to the hilt,maintains Naina. If only Naina wasnt hardnosed about multitasking, her colleagues

claim she would have earned a lot more than she does today.

Today, after twelve years of pursuing a single-line of work activity, its difficult

attempting to multitask, she says. But then, Naina not one to give up easily, has

enrolled for an advanced DTP course to learn production and designing that will

help her do additional jobs that are in demand at her workplace.

Multitasking holds the key to productivity both professional and personal. When an

employee multitasks, it isnt just the extra skill that the organisation avails of, itshis/her initiative which speaks volumes, maintains Pokhraj Enterprises director (HR)

Navin Jain. The initiative displayed by an employee goes a long way into the credit

ratings of a worker and subsequently, affect his/her work prospects, says Jain.

Concurrently, any inept handling of extraneous work or inability to multitask goes on

to affect an employees prospects adversely, maintains Jain.

Today, as opposed to yesteryears, when ones work profile was clearly demarcated

and employees did not quite need any kind of multitasking, things have changed.

Today, you cant really stick to a brief that has been assigned to you just because

its put down in black and white. You have to innovate and improvise given the

situation and not just because a senior tells you so, maintainsAlfa Communications

23-year-old copywriter Hanifa Qureshi.

Adopting a rigid nationalised bank employee attitude doesnt help, says Hanifa. Its

your innovation and initiative coupled with your ability to multitask that companies

are most interested in. You cant quite keep running for help each time you

encounter a situation that requires a different skill. You need to roll up your sleeves

and do it yourself, adds the copywriter.

Hanifa had joined the organisation as a graphic designer but got down to writing a lot

more during times she was forced to multitask in view of a staff crunch. It was


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thanks to multitasking that I realised how much I preferred writing to designing and

asked for the switch, she says.

Specialisations are for a handful while multitasking holds the key to career growth. In

a cut-throat work atmosphere today, getting compartmentalised about ones work is

counterproductive. Develop a range of skills, offer to tackle more tasks and watch it

work for you.


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Performance Management: The need of the hour today

Historically speaking, organisations viewed performance appraisals as a process to

weed out non-performers and to some extent use this tool to reward performers.

Viewed in that limited way, performance appraisal system had its role. However, with

so much pressure on attracting, acquiring and retaining talent in todays talent war,

to begin with, organizations should do away with the usage of the term performance

appraisal system.

What is Performance Management System?

What organisations should realize is that performance appraisal is only a small part

of an end to end performance management system which involves an integrated

approach such as planning performance, managing performance, developing

people, reviewing performance and rewarding performance towards building a high

performing organization. Performance management system is based on three

important principles:

To let people know what needs to be achieved To support those goals through performance coaching, mentoring and

developing Reward and recognize performers and manage poor performance

Planning performance involves translating the corporate objectives into specific,

quantifiable goals for every employee, which will form the corner stone of the

evaluation process; leading to feedback on how close or how far from those goalsthe employee is at the end of the appraisal period.

How does an organisation do the transformation from a mere performance

system to a Performance Management System?

In order to achieve this, it is imperative for an organisation to set its employee up for

success. Therefore, managing employees plays a key role. This should include,

ongoing dialogue between manager and employee to ensure that the individual

goals are aligned to his personal and organisational goals, he is equipped with thenecessary skill sets to perform his role and is provided regular feedback as to where

he is heading rather than throwing year end surprises in the form of annual

performance appraisal. Also, if used rightly, this process can significantly help in

employee involvement in organisational building. When we invite employees to

participate in goal setting as well as seek their feedback on their managers

performance through 360-degree processes, it gives a very high sense of ownership

and is a good source of voice of the employee.

What are the challenges that organisations face while executing such a

detailed system? How does one overcome these challenges?


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One challenge organisations may pose is that how does one review performanceeffectively and how can productivity be measured? A well-defined objective settingwill help in this process. Starting from the macro business level objectives and thenbreaking it down to departmental objectives and finally integrating it with individualobjectives. Organisations can set targets to review performance. Based on these

objectives, organisations can define the parameters to measure performance.

These parameters should also enable employees to set and meet theirdevelopmental goals.Review must precede rewards. Therefore organisations should ensure thatemployees are rewarded either through monetary or non-monetary forms.

What according to you is the best way to practice Performance ManagementSystem?

It is imperative that process owners of Performance Management System (typically it

is the HR function) need to very clearly identify what are the needs and expectationsof all the stake holders such as employees, managers, organisation, HR function, etcand then address each of those needs with specific actions/processes andcapabilities. Also, at the end of the day, the process has to be fair and perceived tobe fair. This is a tall order, but using dialoguing processes will help to establishfairness and trust.Organisations cannot do away with Performance Management and appraisal asperformance in the organisation is like any other resource management, whichneeds to be managed well to create high performance organisations. For that, a well-defined end-to-end system is to be defined. Also, it is based oncontingency/reinforcement theory, where positive behaviour when rewarded andreinforced, gets repeated.

Some of the best practices for appraising employees are:

Very clear definition of the end to end process with time lines and processownership

Understanding the expectations of all stake holders and have responses toeach

Empowering managers to take ownership and driving the process

Well aligned learning and development strategies to make people successful Develop dialoguing skills Good management of poor performers and exit process Balanced score card for balanced goal setting

Caring for staff fetches dividends


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The fitness levels of a company or firm is directly proportional to the health of its

manpower. Besides offering direct remedial solutions to niggling health issues, a

companys attempts to offer aid to its staffs medical issues are often perceived as

attempts to lend a humane look to the otherwise hard-core profit-driven organisation

and add value to the employment.

A lot of companies have been tending to the health of their employees through

workshops and events aimed at alleviating problems. Godfrey Phillips Ltd, for

instance, recently organised a one-day programme on Health and Fitness from

Lifestyle Management wherein Dr Nipun Chaudharie (MD), Apollo Hospital, Delhi

along with HROD (Human Resources Organisational Development) specialist Rahul

Agarwal trained 26 senior management level personnel including VPs and managers

on stress, diet and lifestyle-linked diseases and ailments for top personnel.

Atul Bhole, HR head, Godfrey Phillips Ltd said that another very relevant workshop

on Tibetan Yoga and Meditation was held by Razia Patel for 36 personnel that

included seniors as well as worker-level staff of Godfrey Phillips. Such workshops

and events are of pivotal importance to the staff today. Stress and lifestyle linked

diseases are very much on the rise and need to be tackled with a sense of urgency,

he says.

Considering that employees today spend a huge amount of their time working either

at their office; while traveling to and fro or even at home, a lot of work-linked ailments

have been on the rise. Take for instance, the number of nerve-compression

disorders such a carpal tunnel syndrome and cervical spondylysis that is causedprimarily by the odd bending of the wrist or neck that gets twisted during use at

awkward positions like while cocking ones head to the side and speaking on the

phone, typing for hours on a wrongly-positioned keyboard or holding a steering

wheel in an odd position while driving, says Dr Sunil Moreker , a senior

ophthalmologist associated with Hinduja Hospital.

A lot of these problems can be avoided or tackled, if detected early or rectified

through simple exercises or the plain avoidance of certain wrong postures.

Realising that there are a lot of work-linked diseases on the rise, a lot of employers

and firms have begun taking keen interest on preventive therapy such as lifestyle-management workshops, says Moreker.

As opposed to the past when work would be a lot better streamlined and computer-

linked ailments were unheard off, today there are a lot of issues that arise out of the

change in infrastructure and use of technology in work, says BPO employee Tamini

Gupta. Employers have also learned the hard way that unless you treat your team

well and tackle any potential medical problem in time, you could easily land with a

staff crisis owing to health issues that could otherwise be easily avoided, she says.

That apart, a companys policy to include workshops and events aimed at benefitingan employees health needs gives a huge fillip to its employing prospects as workers


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often see it as an inbuilt health insurance where the premium comes doesnt have to

be paid, maintains a BPO HR executive Harish Jadhav. For an employee, the lure

is almost considered to be on par with the entertainment/holiday packages offered by

the company. It surely helps sway a potential employees decision in favour of joining

and/or staying with the group, he maintains.

Communicate Well to Exercise Control


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Most issues tend to get complex only in situations where communication is absent.

For the smooth functioning of departments and work productivity, its important for

there to be proper communication between seniors and the greenhorns; within team

members themselves and between the management and the managed.

Communication cant always be vertical. It should be horizontal also, maintains Uni

Deritend Limiteds Personnel, Admin & HR manager Abhilashchandra Dube. While

most of the time, downward communication gets stressed upon a lot more, leaving

upward communication completely neglected, maintains Dube. And then, more

often than not, what reaches upwards doesnt travel in the proper format too. The

top management needs to be properly briefed about facts which are usually

convoluted by the middle management which makes it convenient for itself, adds

Dube. In any organisation, communication isnt always as truthful as one may like to

believe.

Its far from an ideal situation where the truth gets transmitted always by default. In

most workplaces, the matter communicated is usually tempered down to suit the

transmitter, sometimes even warped in content so as to serve a hidden agenda,

maintains senior graphic designer Milind Jadhav.

The fact that most communications are either written and/or acknowledged as a rule

speaks volumes about the levels of trust that one places in communication. Very

often, it tends to change form it either gets diluted or simply convoluted - as it

travels either horizontally or vertically, maintains Jadhav. Personally a victim of

communication gone awry, the designer realised that an immediate senior had beenshamelessly bagging all the credit for his work.

During our meetings with the editors, I would keep a low profile and let my senior do

all the talking. When it got to a point of exasperation on finding that he was taking all

the credit for my work, I had a showdown with him, maintains Jadhav. While things

got quite ugly before the designer got his due, matters could have well been avoided

if there had been proper communication, he adds.

Sometimes the communication also tends to get diluted. Horizontal communication

plays a very important role in organisations where the group dynamics can get

altered drastically, adds Dube. Once the management understands a groups

dynamics, it can exercise perfect coordination and control thereby helping in direct

growth of organisation; industrial relations and boosting satisfaction level of

employees, maintains the manager. This would, inadvertently, affect retention and

employee turnover too.

In the absence of proper communication channels that need to be laid down by the

relevant Human Resources (HR) personnel, attempts to dissolve work-related snags

may meet with hitches.


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More often than not, a lot of middle-level management tends to befuddle

communication channels for fear of having to shoulder blame. Its a completely

wrong notion and counter-productive too, says Ghatkopar-based Kawatra

Enterprises personnel manager Shaheen Qureshi. If theres proper communication

in the first place, a lot of hitches wouldnt occur at all, she says.

Problems occur in situations where communication is either absent or warped. In

places, where theres proper horizontal and vertical communications, theres little

reason to make errors, adds Qureshi. When theres no fear of being found out or

blamed, nine times out of ten, youd ask for help and save yourself and the company

the trouble of having to deal with an error, right? she concludes.

hr trends - global hr practices

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