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JIGYASA 2015

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About MBA (Human Resource Development) The MBA program in Human Resource Development was started in the year 1995 by the Department of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics with the objective of providing quality education to highly motivated young men and women so that they can provide professional expertise to business and industry in the twin areas of Human Resource and Organizational Development. Identified by NHRD and NTPC as premiere course in the field of Human Resource, MBA (HRD) (Previously known as MHROD) is a two year full time pro-fessional program spread over four semesters, which combine grueling academic schedules with proactive efforts to develop new perspectives and a higher level of knowledge and understanding. Going beyond books, theories and case studies to open new windows, MHROD helps young HR and OD experts to enter the increasingly competitive and constantly changing global economy equipped with the ability to face every challenge head on and emerge victorious.

About JIGYASA JIGYASA is an annual journal of M.H.R.O.D. The name signifies the nature and intent, Which is to arouse or pacify curiosity i.e. Jigyasa. Being a non-profit, in-house, student initiative, first launched in 1997, the journal has ensured wide circulation and garnered appreciation from both the corporate and the academia. It is the compilation of articles, interviews, case studies and book reviews by stalwarts in their respective fields. It provides valuable insights and viewpoints of specialists in the field of Human Resource, Organizational De-velopment and Management, and thus secured a place for itself in famous libraries nationally as well as in-ternationally. The objective behind the initiation and evolution of the journal is to provide the readers with an idea of the complexities of working in the industry and to help broaden their knowledge base in the field of Human Resources.

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MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD

Greetings to all the readers! Heartiest compliments to all the editorial board members for successfully bringing out the 2015 issue of Jigyasa. Knowledge is power. Jigyasa is one such valuable source of power that combines innovative ideas of students with the wisdom of corporate leaders. The current issue presents thought provoking articles in the area of Human Resources and Organization Development that will ignite your minds with ways to solve problems and create new strategies for growth. It is expected that the present issue would provide a per-fect platform for deliberations on how businesses can be handled and sustained, primarily focusing and channelizing the most important asset of any organization, i.e. the Human Resource. I am sure all the students of MBA (HRD) will soon create a greater vision not only for the organizations they join, but for India too, making both a true superpower in all respects, be it humanity, knowledge, technology or economics. Remain students all your life, each day, each experience has something new to teach us. Those who stop learning, stop growing. I look forward to seeing each one of you reach the pinna-cle of success and make your alma mater proud. Wishing you all the best for your future endeavours. Prof. J P Sharma Head, Department of Commerce University of Delhi

MESSAGE

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MESSAGE FROM THE COURSE COORDINATOR

Dear Readers, Greetings from Department of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi! It gives me immense pleasure to announce that Jigyasa (meaning curiosity) is an annual journal of MBA (HRD) (previously known as MHROD). The aim of this journal is always to foster the quality research work from differ-ent fields of Human Resource Development. It encourages researchers, practitioners, academicians and pro-fessionals to disseminate their valuable research work and knowledge to bridge the gap between the educa-tion system and the corporate world and to explore the new dynamics in the business arena. Current Issue of Jigyasa includes articles on; Recruiter’s perspective, Rethinking on paradigm shift in perfor-mance assessment, Talent Planning and forecasting, Managing culture, etc. from the authors associated with renowned companies like DSM India, HCL Technologies Ltd, Cisco etc. Our budding managers encourage all categories of learners and learned to collectinnovation of ideas and a cross cultural exploration in different facets of human resource management. The journal is an essential read-ing for everyone involved in personnel, training and other aspects of human resource management. I would like to congratulate the editorial team for their thrilling hard work and dedication to releasing Jigyasa on the occasion of the legendary convention of MBA (HRD). I also wish them all success in their future endeav-ors. Dr. Urvashi Sharma Course Coordinator – MBA (HRD) Department of Commerce

MESSAGE

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EDITORIAL

WISH YOU HAPPY READING !!

Prof. J P Sharma, Head, Department of Commerce, University of Delhi Dr. Urvashi Sharma Course Coordinator– MBA (HRD) Department of Commerce

Piyush Ranjan Pranjal Yadav Rohan Nijjar Shreeja Kumar Vanam Teja Harshini

PATRONS :

EDITORIAL BOARD :

Abhishek Chakrobrotty Harshita Rai Roli Jaiswal Sehba Iqbal Tanay Tondon

TEAM JIGYASA :

To our readers,

The field of Human Resources is a dynamic one. With the ever changing organisation, there arises the need to rede-fine the role of the manager to that of a leader and change propagator. This dynamic nature of the organisa-tion has transformed Human Resources to a strategic business function. To expound upon the changing face of Human Resources, we bring forth this year, the new edi-tion of JIGYASA. The current issue of JIGYASA has a whole new spectrum of new world ideas, theories, experiences and range of views relating to Human Resources. We credit this edition of JIGYASA to the distinguished au-thors who have contributed with their knowledge, thoughts, opinions and most importantly, time. We hope this journal brings as much pleasure to you all, as it has brought to us while working on it. We value the incompa-rable inputs of the contributors for this journal and thank them for imbibing their knowledge and experience into each article of JIGYASA. We look forward to your valuable feedback and we are optimistic this edition of JIGYASA would be a thought pro-voking.

Jay Acharya (Editor-in Chief)

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CONTENTS 1. Be a Proactive Employee Vinod Bidwaik, Director- HR, DSM India Pvt. Ltd. 2. For the Believers of M.A.G.I.C… !! Shaily Mishra, AGM- HR, HCL Technologies Ltd. 3. A Recruiter's Perspective on What is Wrong with the Life Insurance Industry? Omar Farooq, CEO, AceProHR 4. Rethinking on Paradigm Shift in Performance Assessment Vineet Kumar, HR Specialist, Elnefeidi Holding Company 5. Little Management Lessons – See What Success does to People ! Madhvi Aggarwal, VP-Recruitment Operations, Archelons Consulting Firm 6. An Employee’s Take on Human Resources: What We Expect of You Rapti Gupta, Content Ranger, Affimity Inc 7. Why Shared Services will Make You Question Everything? Nitin Kumar, Manager - HR Delivery, Oriflame Cosmetics 8. Talent Planning and Forecasting – An Integral Part Of Talent Management Tarun Girdhar, Program Manager - HR, Cisco Systems (India) Pvt Ltd 9. Managing Culture on the Other Side of the Globe Vartika Jaiswal, Student, IIM- Lucknow 10. Exploring New Growth Realms with Social HR Uttara Karthikeyan, Student, SIBM- Pune 11. Psychological Helplessness Arjun Mitra, Research Scholar, University of Illinois- Chicago 11. Transforming HR through Technology Harshita Rai, Student, Department of Commerce, University of Delhi 12. Book Review– Why I failed? Vijay Kumar Shrotriya, Professor, Department of Commerce, University of Delhi

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Be a Proactive Employee

Vinod Bidwaik, Director- HR, DSM India Pvt. Ltd.

Proactive employee are self-directed. They believe at all times that they have a

choice.

Why few employees get very good or ex-cellent rating during performance apprais-als? Why few employees get promoted? Why few employees don’t get opportuni-ties in spite of their so called hard work? And why only few employees lead teams? If you ask me, I will say that those who get good career opportunities have potential and are more pro-active than others. Few employees just follow what managers tell. They neither try to change the system nor give any suggestions & ideas to improve. Most leaders and managers want employ-ees who can manage themselves, make decisions without careful direction, and take responsibility. Whether it is front-line customer service employees taking it upon themselves to ensure that the customer gets the best experience possible, or a team leader engaging in creative problem-solving of their own, rather than bringing every issue to the boss. Proactive employ-ees constantly find new and better ways of doing their work. What exactly does it mean to be a proac-tive employee? We can identify this in two ways, first, we examine who and what a proactive em-ployee is. Then we look at what a proac-tive employee is not. You will find that proactive employee is “self-directed” and non-proactive is “other-directed.” The self-directed employee

takes responsibility for his own decisions and actions. The other-directed employee adopts an “I have to” mentality, and re-sponds only to direction. Difference between proactive & non-proactive employees: Other-directed people believe they have no control over their own lives and instead are controlled by people in authority. For an other-directed person, the locus of con-trol is external to himself. On the other hand, the self-directed per-son sees the locus of control as internal: I have control of my life. The basic underly-ing belief of the other-directed person is “I have to…” meaning there is no element of choice in following what the authority has requested. For the self-directed person, the belief is “I choose to.” Let see the personality details of both em-ployees trough following visual:

Personality of other –directed employee (non-proactive employee) When employees comply and do some-thing they do not want to do, their natural feeling is to resent the authority for forc-ing them to do it. Even though the other-directed employee will eventually com-plete the task, he will do it grudgingly, and only well enough to avoid trouble. Underlying belief of the other-directed person is “I have to…” meaning there is no element of choice in following what the authority has requested. For the

About the Author : Vinod Bidwaik is the Country HR Head (India) with DSM India Pvt. Ltd. He has more than 16 years of pan India and global experience in various industries, viz: man-ufacturing, media, automo-bile and life science & mate-rial science companies. A recipient of prestigious Asia Pacific HRM Leadership Award 2014 given at Asia Pacific HRM Congress held at Bangalore.

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self-directed person, the belief is “I choose to.” Whether other-directed people comply or rebel, their attitude is: I am not responsible. They either behave like victims, feeling sorry for themselves and complaining to friends and co-workers about the boss, or they plot revenge. Sometimes they will do both. In either instance, their intention is to undermine, a leader, want to accomplish. Personality of self-directed employee (proactive employee) The central difference between other-directed and self-directed team members is that self-directed people believe at all times that they have a choice. When you ask self-directed employees to do a new task, their thinking is to either agree or disagree with doing it. If they agree to do the task, then they will do it to the best of their ability, because it is their choice. If they disagree, they will explain to their manager the reasons why they disagree.

Either way, the feeling that self-directed people have is one of acceptance of whatever the out-comes are of their decisions. They accept the consequences of their actions be-cause they feel ownership of them. If self-directed team members agree to do a job and do not do it to expected standards, then they will accept the con-sequences for not having given their best. If they disagree with the task, and there are negative con-sequences for doing so, they will accept these con-sequences, too. That’s what self-directed people do. Prior to making decisions they consider the con-sequences of the decision, then act based on their understanding of those consequences. Since self-directed people are responsible, they are only likely to disagree when they believe that what they are being asked to do is unreasonable, or is the wrong thing to do. If you are an employee, check in which category you are and if you are a manager, make the strate-gy to deal with both type. As a manager, you don’t have much issues with Proactive employees, focus on Non-Proactive employees.

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For the Believers of M.A.G.I.C… !! Shaily Mishra, AGM- HR, HCL Technologies Ltd.

What really drives the new age work-force? What will work in the new para-digm of “Socially Anchored”, participa-tion driven lifestyles of the next gen? How should Human Capital Manage-ment interventions be designed and im-plemented so that they will create a sig-nificant positive impact? As we ask these questions to ourselves and look around for answers, we would find there are some clear trends emerg-ing. If HR interventions are designed to take impetus from these trends, ride on this rising wave, they will have a huge chance of becoming self-propelling en-gines of organizational effectiveness! It may indeed work like M.A.G.I.C !! Mobility A trend emerging from the shifts in work habits, that is changing the way business is being done in all segments and domains. What does it mean for HR ? With the work-force using mobile devices, cloud based services, accessing “Apps” on the go…Availability and access ease have come to obtain a pivotal Importance. HR systems that are designed keeping this aspect in mind are bound to see greater user traction, quicker turnarounds. They will lead to huge savings in terms of time, money and opportunities that would have otherwise been lost due to delayed action or worse still, no action at all !! Agile As the dictionary would define it, Agile means the “ability to move quickly and eas-ily”. Agile is a methodology that is gaining tremendous followership in the infor-mation technology world. Most the product development across the globe is moving to Agile methodology from the traditional waterfall model of

development. What does it offer as a learning to HR practitioners? The learning we can draw from this paradigm is to create frequent upgrades/ enhancements to our pro-grams, interventions or initiatives that are not seeing the desired results. The cornerstone here seems to be hav-ing a hypothesis, creating a prototype, quick validation of the prototype in form of targeted pilot projects , fol-lowed by actual roll out, if the hypothe-sis is proved. Gamification “The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity” is the way the dictionary would define “Gamification”. This paradigm hold tremendous potential not only in employee engagement arenas but HR domains like talent management, learning and development, deploying the right person in the right job…The list could be endless… Quite an unexplored area from employ-ee interventions point of view, this holds tremendous potential. Intelligence through data As the world moves into Digitization, “Data Scientist” is emerging as a turn key role in the new scheme of things. Close your eyes and imagine…If we in-deed study and analyze the humongous data that we capture as HR fraternity from the point where we offer a candi-date, the period between offer and join-ing, from joining to getting settled in the job, at the time of performance apprais-als, increment cycles, taking up a higher role etc.. like a “Data Scientist” …only sky is the limit for what it can do to our pro-grams and interventions.

About the Author : Shaily Rampal Misra, AGM-HR, HCL Technologies Ltd. is an HR practitioner with over 10 years of experience of having worked in multiple areas of HR. She currently leads the Global Career and Talent Cen-tre of Excellence at HCL Tech-nologies Ltd. Shaily holds a Masters Degree in HR and OD from the University of Delhi.

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We can use this to customize our interventions to talent segments, time them optimally, make them contextual for the target group, so that they become meaningful for their audience and effective for their organization… Crowdsourcing Researchers define “Crowdsourcing” as the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community. With the development of content being faced as one of the most critical road-blocks for HR practitioners in learning and ca-reer management space, crowdsourcing can come up as a great solution. Social career management framework At HCL, social platform and crowdsourcing prin-ciples have been used, together with HCL’s core philosophies of trust, transparency and employ-ee first to come up with what we call as “Career Connect” This Career Management platform was essential-ly called as “Career Connect” as it capitalized on the network of the 100,000 plus employee base of HCL that is spread across geographies, verti-cals, domains, service lines and technical exper-tise areas. Some interesting facts about the experiment are as follows - Employee being in the driver’s seat for their own career navigation This platform enables employees to aspire for

jobs in line with their interest and skills. In line with HCL’s core philosophy of “Transparency” ,our comprehensive Job Cata-logue called CDEX having all the Jobs and with Role Competencies has been put up for employ-ees to view and reference while making their choice for the next role . Seeking role and path referrals from the net-work

To leverage on the strength of their social net-work, employees can “Seek” path and role rec-ommendations. Path Recommendations can be given by the manager’s pool consisting of Re-porting Manager, Skip Level Manager and HR Partner. These recommendations are in the form

of path(s) that you can pursue in future. There could be one or more career path that emerges out of such a recommendation(s). Role referrals, on the other hand, can be given by peers, team members, and by MEME connections on a target role/opportunity that the employee considers appropriate in the future. Making the choice After getting these inputs the employee can trig-ger a career counseling discussion with a selected panel based on employee choice. The aim of this discussion is to clarify selected target roles, iden-tify one target role and define the developmental inputs required to achieve the selected target role. The counseling panel may comprise, of manager(s), HR representative(s), and an ex-pert\Coach. The Employee can either finalize by choosing from earlier selected aspired role or choose a new aspired role based on the discus-sion. Using “Career GPS” Using the principles of Crowdsourcing and data science, the huge volumes of data we captured in the form of referrals, recommendations from respective Subject Matter Experts ; the multitude of Career Development plans created by users, learning interventions recommended by experts and peers etc…, has been used to create what we call as “Career GPS” We have also made available “Trending Career Development Plans” formats which are derived based on user generated content and frequency of use. Traversing the journey Career Connect enables the employee to connect with their peers, colleagues and managers to get information, guidance and references for the growth and development of their career. It also enables them to highlight their career prefer-ences and collaborate with others on their career goals. By Co-creating an actionable Career Devel-opment Plan and working towards the decided and desired goals, they really become the mas-ters of their own career journey. The CDP is a document that lists the activities to be initiated across five essential building blocks which are: Knowledge, Skill, Behavioral Competency, Experi-ence and Exposure. Meeting the aspirations

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Post completion of the Career Development Plan, the employee gets a view of open positions (demand) against selected aspirations and skills and can apply to such internal job postings based on our Internal Career Opportunity Policy. Realiza-tion of Career Aspiration happens when the Work-force Planning Cell prioritizes deployment based on CDP completion which is a status flagged on the Organization Deployment Portal.

In the first year of its launch, the Career Connect platform has seen active participation of over 20,000 employees coming from different industry verticals, domains and skills and participating in different role capacities like those pursuing their aspirations, the subject matter experts acting as coaches and mentors to others , the HR partners and learning and development practitioners. As they say, this is just the beginning and the journey continues for us…

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A Recruiters Perspective on What is Wrong with the

Life Insurance Industry

Omar Farooq, CEO, AceProHR

We hire across Industries and the hunt for a- rare skill, change specialist, Industry leader is what gets our adrenaline going, and makes Talent Acquisition such a re-warding profession. But sometimes it be-comes tough to convince great talent to stay or enter an Industry like Insurance. Here is our diagnosis and some things that can be done to improve the situation

Life insurance The problem is ethics or the lack of it The Mint report illustrated how investors lost more than Rs. 1.5 Trillion – but there is no hue and cry – because the perpetrators are not the usual villain (read politicians) but the elite middle class and yes, like the product they sell – it's tough to explain to the public what went wrong. Insurance Re-tention percentages are atrocious and are grossly inflated if we take into account the numerous customers who do not even know they have been duped. As Recruiters the symptoms are : At middle and senior levels- In the begin-ning (early 2000) we were able to convince folks from FMCG, Office Automation, Bank-ing and MLM companies move to the Insur-ance – because of growth offered and sala-ries- now when you approach anyone, un-less they are about to get fired- they will not talk to you. Everyone talks about the mad push for tar-gets, and I think more than the stress of the numbers is the realization that the only way it can be achieved is by making ethical compromises. A corollary of this means that the people who achieve “targets” and get promoted are often those who bend the system and used the lack of infor-mation to their advantage at the expense of the customers.

Executive burnout is common and a lot of “good” professionals are leaving even with-out getting an alternative job- but just be-cause they have had enough!

No Process on earth can bear the on-slaught of an ethical compromise and con-stant wilful exception in the process means that the exception becomes the rule. I have seen excellent process experts sacrificed at the altar of finding a process cure to a val-ue ailment

I am told that at junior levels- When you say a sales job in Insurance junior level – they slam the phone down!

Real Attrition rates of 30-45% at the Junior level of sales teams mean they are treated as cannon fodder. I ran an Insurance sales process once and I realized looking at the attrition data that if you have a person for 6 / 9 months – their chances of becoming successful increase dramatically – most HR teams are not able to give a cost of firing/ recruiting replacements, not to mention the cost of loss of morale and employer brand and end up firing people before they even start.

About the Author : Omar Farooq has done his masters in Human Resource and Organisation Develop-ment(MHROD) from Delhi School of Economics. With over 17 years of experience in HR, he is currently the Chief Executive Officer of AceProHR. He Specializes in Executive Search, Employer Branding and Talent Acquisition Strate-gy.

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What can be done Someone needs to bell the cat and tell the promot-ers that the hunt for valuation and waiting for the Godot of policy change may make them lose the ball further on running an ethical business. Insur-ance both the product and Industry is a long term investment – lets not show profits at the expense of the customer.

A Corollary maybe that Insurance companies stick to covering risk- through simple products like term plans and Endowment plans and leave the Invest-ment game to the Mutual Funds/ Equity brokers... etc..

Diversify your leadership team- stop hiring just bankers, find more women and maybe get some expatriates in, and I am not just talking about the folks implanted by your JV partners. Birla Sunlife got a CEO from manufacturing to stabilize them- and I think it's a brilliant move because no one un-derstands costing and the value of a process better than a person who has spent half his life in manu-facturing. Start investing in the Employer Brand again- I think Max Life Insurance killed two birds with the same stone with their new marketing campaign on TV, but it remains to be seen if it's just a gimmick or they follow it up with some substance.

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Rethinking on Paradigm Shift in Performance

Assessment Vineet Kumar, HR Specialist, Elnefeidi Holding Company

Performance review event brings with it hope-expectation, and anxiety- stress in equilibrium of manager and subordinate re-lationship. It is the day when subordinate recollects achievements in past whereas manager recounts mistakes committed by subordinate during the same period. Both of them come prepared to convince each other of their point of view. It happens most of the time - if not all, even in so called perfor-mance driven organization.

This is the primary reason of failure of es-sence of performance review outcome which is designed to build on existing capa-bility of subordinate and to enhance individ-ual’s performance in subsequent cycles. However, on the contrary, it ends up as a take away of bad experience by subordinate, decreasing in performance, and often look-ing out for new job. The question is - are we doing it the right way as we intended it to be? Perhaps, it answers why many organiza-tions including pioneer of performance cul-ture are now reluctant to continue this pro-cess in current format.

Performance assessment activity performed in dogmatic manner often leads to employee dissatisfaction, decrease in staff morale and plummeting organization's performance. Organization’s decision of evaluating perfor-mance culminates in dissatisfying large per-cent of staff. This activity is fraught with feeling of unhappiness among at least 60-70% of staff in organization.

It is high time that we change ourselves and redesign the process to meet its original pur-pose. Rather than making assessment ONLY a year end activity, it MUST be a continuous process. Regular conversations between the parties make them aware of real issue on ground. Senior should immediately address issue brought by subordinate in real time.

Giving subordinate spontaneous feedback immediately after incidence is more power-ful than reserving it for discussion during performance assessment. Underscoring past mistakes during monthly, quarterly or annu-

al review defeats the purpose and strain trusting environment. Last rite should be crisp, crunchy and fulfilling.

Now as current practice, burden of proof lies with subordinate that he performed in past by showing results against KRAs, whereas manager identifies grey area in which some-thing important had been missed out by subordinate. And that subordinate produc-ing explanation of reasons or constraints which hindered him from deriving desired results. Manager give feedback on existing strengths subordinate has and areas which can be improved to further his growth as well as organization’s by removing bottle-neck while detailing out development or performance improvement plan (PIP) for subordinate.

Let’s reverse the tasks here, manager should shoulder burden of proof that subor-dinate has performed during performance cycle with all authentic purpose and results, whereas subordinate ought to be re-counting mistakes committed by him and acknowledging the steps how it could have done better. Manager explaining what con-straints subordinate faced which were hur-dle in his performance expected out of his role. Subordinate introspecting areas of im-provement while manager detailing out his strengths and capability. Both parties identi-fying mutually right steps forward for devel-opment and performance improvement plan with genuine intention to keep check on bottlenecks. By shifting the burden, it will first reflect to subordinate that his manager has all records of performances and is seriously keen on his performance, thus reinforcing manager's authenticity while manager will be deeply moved by subordinate’s acknowledgement of mistakes and fallout from desired perfor-mance, thus reinforcing subordinate's au-thenticity. With this new approach, it max-imizes trust among all stake holders, creates amiable environment, appreciates ingenuity and openness , flexibility to adapt, courage to change while bringing the real purpose of performance assessment exercise as it was envisaged.

About the Author : Vineet Kumar is a graduate Physics(Hons) from Hindu College, Delhi University and an Alumnus of MHROD, Delhi School of Economics. He is currently HR specialist with Elnefeidi Holding Company. HE is a certified GPHR from HRCI with 6+ years of experi-ence.

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Little Management Lessons – See What Success does to People !

Madhvi Aggarwal, VP-Recruitment, Archelons Consulting Firm

Early morning hours in office and I am hav-ing a quick tete-a-tete with one of my col-leagues. I cant help but instinctively notice the exuberance that is radiating from him today. He seems to be animated and highly buoyant despite the fact that his kid hasn’t been well for the past few days and he has barely managed a full night sleep. Then I reflect back and realize that this is how he has been throughout this week. I ponder over the reasons as the person is definitely not your “Roberto Benigni” ! ( remember the movie – Life is beautiful ? ) And then it STRIKES me. ( No, not like the bolt of thunder ). This colleague has been doing well professionally for the past cou-ple of days. It is not that he has achieved the coveted hat of a “Rockstar Performer” or something. He is still far from that. But it is just that he has been faring fairly well in his KRAs . So because of this little success at work, I see a beaming, energetic person even though he is not having a great run at home. See, this is what success can do to people – ephemerally change their auras for good. From someone who lacked the lustre in life to someone who has got the spring back in his step, this is such a welcome transfor-mation. And hence, here is a Lesson for all Leaders / Managers – “Make your people successful” This is because the greatness of a leader is not marked by his own success. It is marked by how successful his team is. Also, a suc-cessful team member is so much more than an addition to the bottom-line or a job well done for you. A successful team member is all of the be-low – A smiling face around you – A team

member doing well would be happier and relaxed compared to someone who

is struggling to meet his KPTs. Which also means a beaming, high-spirited person at work.

Increased risk-taking & confidence – A

successful person is bound to take higher risks and is infused with more confidence that comes with a sense of achieving something. Such a person will experiment with ideas as he is less likely to be afraid of failure.

Positivity amongst others – Successful

people have more good to talk about themselves, their teams and the organiza-tion . Such people will have lesser com-plaints and will over-look the odd flaws. However, those who are not successful tend to focus more on ‘what's missing’. The target of their pathos can be self if they suffer from low self-esteem or it can be the organization as it is only humane to attribute failure to external environ-ment

Higher productivity – A successful team member is more likely to have higher lev-els of motivation and self-drive which would automatically lead to higher productivity.

Lower attrition – But of course, all of the

above would translate in dwarfing the people turn-over ratio.

Satisfaction for self – This follows from

the first . Which manager would not re-joice to see a smiling and successful team member !

So just remember what Tony Dungy

once said – “ The secret to good leader-ship is just about making the lives of your team members better !”

About the Author : Madhvi Aggarwal is a graduate in Economic ( Hons ) from Del-hi University and an Alumnus of M.H.R.O.D , Delhi School of Economics. With over 11 years of experience in HR, she is cur-rently heading the HR Opera-tions and Technology, Recruit-ment practice at Archelons Consulting.

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An Employee’s Take on Human Resources: What We Expect of You

Rapti Gupta, Content Ranger, Affimity Inc

“I am the industry of PEOPLE. And that is whom I can assist you getting the most out

of.” – Park Allen.

A pile of papers neatly stacked in one cor-ner of the desk while some lay scattered in front of the computer. Probably resumes. The computer has an MS Excel sheet open on the current tab. Several other tabs and windows lie temporarily unattended. The office communicator is blinking - oh! That’s probably Mr. Mehta is inquiring about a deadline. Meanwhile, the phone is ringing and the boss wants you in his office right then. You politely attend the phone, promise to call back in some time, and attend to your boss. By the way, that was a call from a potential job candidate, whose number you would probably want to save, to schedule an ap-pointment with. The scenario I just described is only a frac-tion of what a human resource executive of a typical organization experience, every day. Adept at multitasking, the HR has no bad days. Nope, none. How many of you are asking yourselves if you are in the right field? Do you really want to pursue this as a profession or is it just another educational conquest? The answer lies within you. Does the idea of human resources appeal to you? Do you feel completely in element when you are given a task in that particular field? Does it excite you? Do you see a future in the pro-fession? If the answers to these questions, or at least two of them are “yes” then you’ve probably zeroed in on your passion. A profession in human relations A profession in human resource is often questioned. There has always been a sub-jective divide. For instance, when I was in college, my professors were constantly urg-ing me to specialize in finance because ap-parently, that’s respectable. Somehow, the

marketing and HR streams were not as high-ly regarded as the “number people” were.

But what we fail to realize is even the “number people” are going to need the hu-man touch of human relations, which is built on the foundation of good communica-tion. A few months earlier, I remember having an intense conversation with a friend over the phone. We were discussing the scope of a profession in human resources and how far up the corporate ladder you could go, if you took it up. Though we agreed to disagree on several points, our discussion never really reached a conclusion. On further reflection, I slowly came to real-ize the importance of an HR in an organiza-tion. You will probably learn several formal defi-nitions and probably memorize some to write in your paper, but honestly, you will never really know what it is like until you are out there. So, this is just a little some-thing that will help acquaint you with reali-ty.

An employee’s vantage point I write from an employee’s point of view because I am one. And because I work for a content media firm, I depend greatly on the internet first and then the HR. As many textbooks preach, an HR is indeed the bridge between an employee and the employer. In larger organizations, the hierarchy is usu-ally broken down and the work delegated. But for startups and smaller companies, the burden of communication depends entirely on the HR.

About the Author : Rapti Gupta is a correspond-ent with International Busi-ness Times, an up and com-ing content media firm that she has been working with since the past two years. Her current field of expertise is real estate and she now manages a website single-handedly. She also has expe-rience in editing and pub-lishing content.

Corporate Article

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So imagine you are an HR of a small-sized company that employs just about 100 to 200 people. Small crowd, one might think, but smaller the firm, larger the responsibilities because practically, the company is not going to invest in more than two or three human resources personnel. Not when it is employing just 100 to 200 people. The company expects you to do a stellar job of knowing and doing your job to the T. One of the most important roles of the human re-source personnel is hiring - finding the right talent that will suit the company’s requirements. There

are going to be many applicants and when you do factor in on the potential ones, they’re going to need your assistance because you are the only source of information. There will be several back and forth calls, mails and text messages. What an employee will expect of you is consistency and responsiveness. Once the whole interview process is done, the candidate will expect to be kept in the loop about the job. So if you were planning on sending that confirma-tion mail a day later, or even two hours later – that’s just going to reflect badly upon your compe-tence. Communication

The HR is a shrink, a caretaker, an organizer and an employee’s go-to person. People are going to come to you with their troubles or even just some ran-dom rant and you must be, by all means, ready to take them on. Even if it is as silly as an “Is that a bird or a tree?” question. So if you generally like listening to people, you are in the right place.

When there is a new employee in the office, it’s like a child’s first day at school and you are the class teacher or the class monitor. The responsibility of helping them feel comfortable, introducing them to the team and other crucial members of the organi-zation, the rules and regulations of the company and other mandatory stuff solely lies on you. That is what induction is all about. Sometimes, induction sessions can get boring, which is why you need to spruce thing up a little. This new employee is only going to give you his or her complete attention for some time and you need to make your most important points in the first few minutes of the induction. Don’t blame the employ-ee; people’s attention spans aren’t very long these days. A new employee would always want to find friend-ly, like-minded people on his or her first day. It would be nice if someone came up and said a sweet hello to you in a stranger place, wouldn’t it? That’s where delegation comes in. Maybe you should ask an old or relatively old employee whose workstation is near the new employee’s to go make some small talk.

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Small talk helps! It totally does. It relieves the stress of being in a new place and takes the burden off the newbie’s shoulder at communicating first. Also, be-cause you are the HR, you are going to have a thou-sand other responsibilities other than handling the newbies. So delegating small jobs to induce a dialog

between the employees could be a good start. An HR is also responsible for promoting diversity, culture and cheer in a company. A recent study by Stanford Medicine proved that happier employees are twelve percent more productive than their un-happy counterparts. Therefore maintaining the cheer is absolutely necessary. How you ask? Celebrate. Celebrate milestones, celebrate festivals, celebrate birthdays – celebrate people. Employee recognition is crucial to the health of the company. Even a bad worker can be transformed into a good worker giv-en he or she is motivated. Michelle Smith, vice president of business develop-ment for rewards and recognition services provider

O.C. Tanner Co. in California says, “It has a very de-monstrable return on investment. This investment is not just a good thing to do. It makes good busi-ness sense.” Everyone likes a pat on the back and a carrot at the end of the stick; only if they can obtain the carrot. Therefore, if there is a set task ascertained to a group of employees and a reward promised on completion, you must ensure that the rewards are satisfactory and are as promised. An HR also has to take up the task of performance evaluation and to do that you have to keep your-self informed about every employee – their pay scale, their performance, conduct and other as-pects. If you don’t, you are going to find yourself in an embarrassing situation. Let me explain how. Suppose, employee A has been promised a certain hike in pay for outstanding performance. The hike is going to be minor, maybe just two percent but on an annual basis, it’s going to still reflect in the pay scale. Let’s suppose you don’t keep record of this two percent hike and when time comes for the em-ployee’s annual appraisal – the difference in the pay and all those numbers are going to confuse you. The management and the employee will both ex-pect you to know of it and you will be in limbo, liter-ally and trust me that isn’t a very good place to be. An HR is also entrusted with all the dirty work of the organization – like conflict management and firing an employee. Most of us - as humans - are not real-ly confrontational, especially when it comes to settling a grievance or stripping people off their bread and butter. Settling a conflict between the management and the employee is much easier than resolving prob-lems within a team. The team interacts everyday and could be prone to the Hedgehog/porcupine’s dilemma. The Porcupine’s dilemma is an interesting analogy that explains intimacy issues like no other.

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during winters, hedgehogs or porcupines usually want to huddle to share heat from one another. However, these creatures need to maintain a cer-tain distance in order to not hurt the others with their sharp spines. Similarly, team members of a group can harm each other professionally and sometimes even emotion-ally if they come too close. It is best to take precau-tions and prevent a bad environment as much as possible. Even if two members of a team are in-volved in a –let’s say- ego battle, it is bound to effect the other employees and the overall morale of the team is definitely going to go spiraling down-wards.

In such cases, counseling should help resolve the issue. I believe talking things out can straighten any problem, even political conflict for that matter. Some companies have “office romance disclosure policies” where if two employees are dating, are in a relationship or are a couple – they need to dis-close it. The HR, being the wise old man, will never assign a couple in the same team – for obvious rea-sons. It takes greater professionalism to tackle a termina-tion. To be on top of your game, you need to keep read-ing up about the latest trends in human resources and workplace management. Especially in the era of technology, where everything works with a touch or swipe and is available at your fingertips literally, it is just a Google search away. In just a matter of months you are going to step into the corporate world. Some of you may have prior experience already, but for those of you who have-n’t, you are eventually going to find a job and get hired. And then “work” will happen to you. You might think in two years, this job is going to get monoto-nous, but the way I see it – since human resources is a people’s profession - there will be no dearth of challenges and interesting scenarios. Enough to keep your engine oiled. After all, how boring can meeting and interacting with people of different personalities everyday be? I suggest a few list of books that all of us should read, regardless of our profession. We are all hu-man after all and we are complex little beings.

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Why Shared Services will Make You Question Everything?

Nitin Kumar, Manager - HR Delivery, Oriflame Cosmetics

For the past few years many organizations have implemented shared services with a vision and mission to meet their projected targets. For few of them it was successful as it helped them to meet the deliverables in cost effective manner as an internal service provider. Many of them are still striving to improve their SS (shared services).

It might seem easy to have a vision of SS with a hope to set it up in one part of the organization and having the funding/resourcing shared by different departments but in reality the outcome may differ for different sectors.

I would like to mention few of the challeng-es here what I have viewed or experienced:

Challenges:

Organizations need to be clear what their objectives are – Cost cutting, creating val-ued services, restructuring or finally being an internal service provider charging inter-nal customers?

Below are some of the very common chal-lenges or the basic scenarios where compa-nies still lack.

The start-up and implementation costs are high in first two years depending on the scale/level. It should create value hence-forth delivering quality with reducing costs less than the localized or previously imple-mented services. The transition phase is tough – some roles have to go away and it might be difficult for employees to adjust. This will also show the

company’s approach towards employees how they handle such situations. Strong Leadership required as they have to ensure that each and every department which would be a part of the transition is in line with them Most Important One – Ownership & Ac-countability should be clear throughout the transition

Contracts – Contracts should be flexible enough to meet various service levels com-plexity. They should be handy to strive for clear governance so that services can be evaluated based on costs or can be added/removed later. Collaboration, Compromise and Adaptability – All the stakeholders must collaborate to achieve the vision and agree on the fact that should allow a certain degree of com-promise and adaptability to meet the deliv-erables. To bring everyone in line especially all the stakeholders/departments/employees where there are geographical/cultural differences – maybe a very difficult task for the company but can be achieved with proper plan and change management.

About the Author : Nitin Kumar has done his MBA(HR) from Symbiosis Interna-tional University. With over 8 years of work experience in HR, he is currently HR manager at Oriflame Cosmetics. He spe-cializes in HRIS (Oracle, Peo-pleSoft, IFS HR) and other HR related systems, supporting its implementations within the organization.

Corporate Article

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Talent Management Talent Management is a broad spectrum that encompasses a lot of initiatives that organizations take to ensure retention, development, training and promotion of key talent. Though seen primarily as an HR intervention, it is not only the onus of HR department, but practised at all levels of the organization, with line managers sharing responsibility to develop skills of immediate subordinates, divisions and de-partments openly sharing information about with other divisions and depart-ments in order for employees to gain knowledge and information about the in-ter linkages, collaboration and an overall organizational objective. But what exactly is talent? Some organization refer ‘Talent’ to those involved in leadership or executive posi-tions. For others, ‘Talent’ includes those who have been identified as having the ability and aspiration to assume those leadership roles in the future. But, from organizational viewpoint, it should be be-lieved that all employees, regardless of their position or aspirations, possess talent that should be identified, utilized, man-aged and developed. Talent Management seeks to focus on an employee’s potential, meaning an employee’s future perfor-mance, if given proper avenues for skill development and increased responsibility. But, the first touch-point for any organiza-tion’s talent management capability is the ability of the organization to efficiently plan and forecast the talent requirements. A strategically devised Talent Plan reduces the chances and risks associated with Tal-ent Surplus and Talent Deficit trade off and keeps organizations ready to deal with ex-

ternal and internal stimuli. Talent planning And forecasting: being prepared is better than being surprised

Talent planning and forecasting are organi-zational processes that involve proactively planning ahead the organizational talent needs to avoid talent surpluses or shortag-es. It is based on a true premise that a compa-ny can be staffed more efficiently if it fore-casts its talent needs as well as the supply of talent, which is presently available or will be available in future. While most workforce planning efforts are reactive and focus only on reacting to cur-rent and anticipated positional vacancies, talent planning and forecasting is aligned with the overall business strategy and helps to solve the full scope of talent man-agement challenges and create a high-performing and sustainable organization. If a company is more efficient in talent plan-ning and forecasting, it can avoid the need for layoffs or panic and unplanned hiring. Integration with the organizational objec-tives The intent behind talent planning is to translate the organization’s business strat-egy into the capabilities and skills required for the organization to succeed. One important aspect of talent planning is to identify critical skills and competencies required to transform business strategy into ground reality and action. Critical skills vary from industry to industry and have a strong bearing on overarching organiza-tion business strategy and future goals and organizational aspirations. The Coca-Cola Company, Microsoft, Deloitte and Wal-Mart have different business strategies and different definitions of “critical

Talent Planning And Forecasting – An Integral Part Of

Talent Management

Tarun Girdhar, Program Manager - HR, Cisco Systems (India) Pvt Ltd

About the Author : Tarun Girdhar is a Program Manager HR at Cisco System Pvt. Ltd. He has done MBA from SIBM Pune. He gradu-ated with a specialization in Computer Science and Engi-neering from Panjab Univer-sity, in the year 2009 and worked with Infosys Limited for a period of 45 Months, as a Senior Systems Engineer.

Corporate Article

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skills.” E.g. the skills required to develop a new bev-erage or promote it to the consumer market are not the same as the skills needed to develop a solution for transportation and distribution systems. Thus, one can unarguably keep the below aspects in mind while devising a strategy for talent planning and forecasting: Identification of organization objectives Identification of the resources and competencies

required to achieve them Analysis of current workloads, workforce re-

sources and available competencies Identification of future workloads, available re-

sources and needed competencies Comparison of current and future states(Where

You Are?? à Where you want to be??) Implementation of an evaluation methodology

to monitor and measure the plan’s success Keeping the above things in mind, HR can play an important role in providing managers with the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right place, and at the right time. However, Talent Plan-ning should never happen in silos but as an integrat-ed function in consultation with the line managers. No one fit size all strategy There is no standard format or formula for talent planning. Some workforce plans contain many components, while others contain just a succession plan for senior managers. While there are some basic components that all plans should include, there are some supplementary components that can and will work better for some companies than others. The following is a list of the most common compo-nents of talent planning – Forecasting and assessment- Estimating the inter-nal/external supply and demand; labor costs; com-pany growth rates; company revenue.

Succession planning – Designating the progression plan for key positions, finding key talents within/outside the organization for replacement / succes-sion of the key talent clusters / positions of the or-ganization. This is to avoid surprises / shocks due to sudden vacancy of a key organizational position as well as to plan in advance for possible retirements / exits from the company. Leadership development – Using developmental programs like coaching; mentoring; rotating people into different projects are some of the key requi-sites for effectively developing the potential talent in the organization. Recruiting - Estimating needs for head count, posi-tions, location and timing based on business re-quirements is very important to bring in the right quality and quantity of talent into the organization. Retention - Forecasting turnover rates; identifying who is at risk of leaving and how to retain them in the organization. Not only this, it is imperative for an organization to ensure that employees find am-ple opportunities to grow and develop, get reward-ed for their contribution and be involved in partici-pative decision making, to name a few. Redeployment – Identifying the talent ready for redeployment and take on newer responsibilities and opportunities. Potential retirements - Figuring out who is eligible, when they are eligible, who Increase product devel-opment speed because the company has the bright-est people with the right skills take up and lead new projects to execution.

Internal placement - Developing the job-posting systems for internal employees to get a leg up on new openings within the organization to take up new responsibilities that interest them. Nothing demotivates an employee more than the monotony

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of the job. Hence, there should also be opportuni-ties for employees to be involved in small assign-ments and tasks beyond their KRA’s, often known as stretch assignments to break the monotony and letting employees pursue their interests. Environmental forecasting - Forecasts of industry and environmental trends, as well as a competitor assessment is also paramount in ensuring a good talent planning. The impact of good talent planning : Eliminating surprises - Proactive talent planning limits the stressful “trauma” that comes from chang-es in the business cycle and gives ample time to pre-pare, so that production or services don’t miss a beat. Smoothing out business cycles - By developing pro-cesses and systems that can ramp up and down the talent inventory based on the changes in business cycles, the organization can: Ensure that the company can meet production

goals by employing the right number of people. Increase product development speed because

the company has the brightest people with the right skills.

Take up and lead new projects to execution Identifying problems early - If the organization can detect the changes in the internal and external fac-tors that can impact the talent within the organiza-tion, it will be much easier to minimize the potential damage

Preventing problems - Having to fix problems is ex-pensive and painful. Talent forecasting and planning provides preventative solutions that -

Lower turnover rates: Employees are continually groomed for new opportunities Lower labor cost: Rapidly reduce labor costs without the need for large-scale layoffs of permanent em-ployees Reduced layoffs: Actively managing head count en-sures that the company won’t have a “surplus” of talent Taking advantage of opportunities - Efficient work-force management enables the organizations to not only prepare for the negative scenarios beforehand but also makes then equipped to take advantage of positive opportunities.

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Managing Culture on the Other Side of the Globe

Vartika Jaiswal, Student, IIM- Lucknow

“Let my house not be walled on four sides, let all the windows be open, let all the cultures blow in, but let no culture blow me off my feet.” -Mahatma Gandhi

Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer en-tered Germany in 1997 by acquiring 21 hy-permarket stores from Wertkauf, a Ger-man retailer. It later in 1998 acquired 74 more stores from another German retailer, Interspar. But Wal-Mart failed to show sen-sitivity towards the local German culture. US has an anti-union and free-market cul-ture, where hiring and firing at the compa-ny’s will is acceptable. On the other hand, Germany is known around the world for its educated work-force and thus they are given power and respect. The country pioneered the con-cept of work councils, where workers par-ticipate in making company decisions. Wal-Mart’s ‘ten-foot rule’ of greeting and offer-ing help when within ten feet of a custom-er was more than service an infringement in the German’s privacy. Their imposition of English as the communication language was also not appreciated by the employ-ees. Ultimately in 2006 Wal-Mart closed its op-erations in Germany. The CEO of Metro, Germany’s biggest retailer said, “Wal-Mart can’t simply apply its home-market princi-ples to the German market.” Globalization has created a boundary-less world. Companies are expanding their op-erations to other countries and emerging as global brands. Except North Korea and Cuba, Coca-Cola today is available in all the

countries in the world. May it be working with a foreign client or catering to the glob-al mass consumers, the phenomenon is very common. Then why do some firms like Wal-Mart fail in doing so while others like Coca-Cola succeed. A very major role here is played by cross-culture management. Firstly, let us understand what culture is. Culture is a patterned way of thinking, feel-ing or reacting that exists within a particu-lar group, organisation, subgroup or na-tion. It involves both tangible aspects like food, dress, dance, and intangible aspects like values, beliefs, norms. In words of Hof-stede, culture is the ‘collective program-ming of the mind-the software of groups in society.’ Culture is learned and developed, and not innate. Organisations are influenced by national culture and the culture of the parent organisation. Companies and Managers while working with a firm on some other part of the globe ought to understand how to work with them. Communication styles, values, etiquettes, negotiation styles, food, everything varies from place to place. Cross-cultural management is about managing these differences when working with more than one culture. Culture stretches beyond verbal communi-cation. Albert Mehrabian, a US psycholo-gist, stated the rule of 3 Vs. He proposed that receivers base their impression on three cues: Verbal 7%, Vocal 38% while Visual 55%. While accepting business card with one hand and scribbling on it may be perfectly acceptable in US, it is considered a taboo in Japan. Chinese do not mind eating anything that walks, while Indians restrict to vegetarianism or only certain kinds of meats. Practices and preferences vary from country to country.

About the Author : Vartika Jaiswal is a MBA stu-dent in IIM Lucknow.She graduated from Amity Insti-tute of Biotechnology, Noida with a Bachelor's degree in Biotechnology.

Student Article

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In order to access the culture, one must study the practiced values of the other organisation, their physical settings, how they greet each other, how they spend their time, how the content is discussed or written, learn their stories and anecdotes, under-stand career progression and recruitment of the employees, hierarchy, and what the company says about its culture. Before making a move in another market it is essen-tial to discover others’ cultural profile and compar-ing it with our own to understand the differences and communicating it to the team.Is this it? NO! This is just the beginning. Acquiring and internaliz-ing are two very different chapters. While many companies successfully learn the differences and plan how to manage them, they fail to internalize them.

The challenge is to incor-porate it in your employ-ees or your products. Mattel’s Barbie doll with blonde hair and long legs

was a failure in Japan. Market research found that the girls there couldn’t identify with it. Mattel then adapted the dolls with dark hair and short legs to capture the Japanese market. It is indicated by research that it is extremely un-comfortable to act against your natural style. Hence, cross-cultural training prior to starting a global program is a must. Do not restrict your train-ing to manuals and WebPages. Managers must inte-grate them via role plays and case studies. The idea is not to just understand, but to adopt and adjust and be successful wherever you step on the globe.

Cultural communica-tions are deeper and more complex than spoken or written mes-

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EXPLORING NEW GROWTH REALMS WITH SOCIAL HR

Uttara Karthikeyan, Student, SIBM- Pune

Introduction In the hubbub of today’s life, in order to compete, it is not only important for a com-pany to bring in some prevalent elements like enhancing team work, bringing commit-ment in people, and encouraging the con-cept of participation, but also to innovate in these fields to catch the eye and carve out a niche before one’s competitors. Although it appears that allocation of a good amount of budget on R&D and advanced engineering is the factor common to all successful organi-zations, the real reason for their sustenance in this competitive world is the intense focus on people and human capital. As generation Y employees are joining organizations in profusion, it has become imperative to pro-actively reinvent and restructure the HR pro-grams for the changing profiles and cater to their needs. Apart from this, companies want to create a micro culture of the outside world to adapt to the changes and prevent losing the competitive edge and going into a stage of marketing myopia. Bearing these in mind, companies have al-ready passed into a phase of social HR, real-izing how social media has become a cyno-sure world over. Just as how the end con-sumers are becoming more and more de-manding with the presence of buyers’ mar-ket, the employees working in an organiza-tion are also demanding for a change in HR software systems to have a more consumer- like feel. Also, according to recent news on ET Now, with the ubiquitous use of Whatspp, more advancement in the technol-ogy will soon lead to the use of Whatsapp for business processes. The basic shifts from traditional HR soft-ware systems to social HR are as described below: Polite and police to partner role Adoption of employee engagement system: The goal management system seen in many companies today is more agile and ‘always in use’ helping employees manage their weekly, monthly, and quarterly objectives. An example is General Electric’s launch of

GE Collab, a custom social media platform that is fundamentally changing the way GE employees communicate and collaborate. “App-ification” According to Kleiner Perkins research there are now 5.2 billion mobile devices and 1.6 billion smart phones, while only 789 million laptops and 743 million desktop PCs. This means that employees, most of whom are more than likely to have a Smartphone, are 2-5 times more likely to access HR applica-tions on their phone than they are on their PC. The ones who most benefit are those working in industries such as manufacturing, construction, transportation, etc since they don’t have access to PC all the time. A com-pany called Peoplefluent has an iPad app called Workforce Explorer which features a comprehensive functionality for managing talent in an accurate and highly visual man-ner. The unique feature about it is that the HR managers who handle this app are made to learn to use it by playing games instead of just reading a deplorably uninteresting man-ual! Interruption marketing Recruiters are finding even before the candi-date looks for a job. This trend is already seen wherein candidates aren’t writing re-sume anymore, but uploading on LinkedIn. Resumes are dying a slow death. HR execu-tives will soon be trained on how to use so-cial tools to their advantage. Startups like Entelo and TalentBin help companies in spotlighting eligible candidates by scanning through various social networking sites. The transition is soon going from ‘knowledge economy’ to ‘social economy’. Company alumni Hype Cycle report in 2011 by Gartner found that a large number of organizations are looking to build online communities through social networking to tap into alumni since a stronger organizational focus on talent shortages in key roles now exists. Interacting with a senior HR manager at TASS, as a part of primary research, opines that he and his team collated the contacts of about hundred

About the Author : Uttara Karthikeyan is an MBA student from SIBM Pune. She worked with Cognizant Tech-nology Solutions as a Pro-grammer Analyst Trainee for over a year. She has a Bache-lor’s Degree in Engineer-ing from Amrita University.

Student Article

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women who had left their jobs in their early life due to personal reasons. While giving them a project to work on for three months and providing a very flexi-ble time so that they don’t infringe on the women’s personal lives, he realized that the potential that these women had was much more than even the men who were handling senior roles! Conclusion Thus Social HR has truly started to soar, and with recent M&A activity like IBM’s purchase of Kenexa which greatly depends on a social agenda, it is be-coming quite clear that the emergence of social HR as more than just a point solution is upon the organ-izations. However social media presents the enter-prise with internal and external risks, making it a big challenge to integrate social HR in their policies and capitalizing all of its benefits.

Table I: Various tasks of HR where social media is

used

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Psychological Helplessness

Arjun Mitra, Research Scholar, University of Illinois- Chicago

Every individual wants to achieve success, though one differs in the level of persever-ance one exhibits in the journey towards achieving one’s goals. Some accept defeat or helplessness on encountering difficult circumstances, whereas some see these failures as learning opportunities and bounce back from these adversities and continue their journey towards success with renewed enthusiasm. The subject of helplessness and its reme-dies has caught the attention of psycholo-gists and researchers over the past few decades. Martin Seligman, a pioneer in the field of positive psychology has done significant research on ‘Learned Helplessness’. While experimenting on rats in a platform, he ac-cidentally stumbled upon an interesting finding. The platform had two compart-ments one of which was mildly electrically charged. Now when the rats were placed in the electrically charged compartment, the rats immediately jumped into the other normal compartment. Seligman was inquisitive to see how the rats would react when both the compart-ments were electrically charged. He found out that when the rats were exposed to such a scenario, they initially jumped two and fro between both the compartments but soon became helpless and stayed in a particular compartment. The most inter-esting part was that even when the electri-cal charging was removed from one of the compartments, the rats did not make any further attempt to move to the safe com-partment. Similar experiments were tried on humans where they were given complex difficult puzzles to solve. After trying for some time, they became helpless and gave up and did-n’t make any further attempts even when changes were introduced in the puzzles and made simpler. This shows that help-lessness is a behaviour which is demon-strated by humans as well. The inability to control the environment can be considered as the root cause of this helplessness syn-drome.

Psychological helplessness is predicted to have four major consequences in the areas of learning, motivation, feeling and self-confidence. The learning incapacity can be demonstrated in organizational settings where when an employee doesn’t find any relation between his efforts and outcome, he/she tends to give up learning new skills. Similarly the employee doesn’t find any motivation to pursue his goals on perceiv-ing a dead end in terms of results. Also em-ployees tend to display social withdrawal and indicate high chances of falling into a state of despair. When the employee sees he is unable to control the environment, he tends to lose his self-confidence and faith in his ability of achieving set targets.

However different individuals tend to show different levels of helplessness when ex-posed to uncontrollable adverse situations. This can be explained in terms of pessimis-tic and optimist explanatory styles (Seligman). In case of bad events, when individuals are asked the question that who is responsible for it. Some people tend to use internal explanations blaming them-selves for the bad event while some tend to blame the external environment for the cause. The former tend to show more help-lessness than the latter. One must note here that internality-externality is a continuum and people place themselves on different points of this con-tinuum. The next question focuses on the duration of bad events. While pessimists tend to see these bad events as perma-nent, optimists believe that the bad events are unstable and will be short-lived. Lastly, the discussion shifts to the pervasiveness of the bad events. This can be explained with the help of an example.

About the Author : Arjun Mitra is a PhD student in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources in the Department of Managerial Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He recent-ly graduated from Xavier In-stitute of Management with an MBA in HR. Prior to his MBA, Arjun worked as a Con-sultant at PwC, Kolkata for 22 months.

Student Article

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If suppose a student has scored bad in a subject ex-am, the pessimist here will try to give a global expla-nation that he/she will score bad in other exams too and will become panicky. On the other hand, the optimist will attribute a spe-cific explanation to the situation and will try to give more dedicated effort in the preparation for other subjects so as to score well in them. The above questions were analyzed in the light of bad events. Similar explanations can be extended to good events as well. A pessimist will argue that oth-ers are responsible for the good event while an opti-mist will credit himself/herself for the good event.

A pessimist unlike an optimist will believe that the good event is short-lived and will become gloomy instead of enjoying the present. A pessimist will limit the happiness arising out of the good event while an optimist will use the positivity derived from the satisfaction in other areas of life. Conclusion

overcoming the sense of uncontrollability of events is very critical to counter helplessness. One should also have an external, unstable, specific approach while dealing with bad events and an internal, stable and global perspective when encountered with good events.

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Transforming HR through Technology

Harshita Rai, Student, Department of Commerce, University of Delhi

Ever since the technology in terms of com-puters, software and internet penetrated the corporate walls and became the inte-grated part of each and every process in the organization, soon the debate started whether technology should be incorporated in Human Resources as well. There are various dimensions to view this new trend in HR. let’s first consider the chal-lenges and learnings in implementing Tech-nology: The benefits include first reduction of cycle time of processes and streamlined decisions making because software used are highly precise, analytical and logically de-signed with very high processing speed as compared to humans, second increased transparency as all the HR transactions, da-ta maintenance, and all the information can be accessed by all the employees which give them the job satisfaction by justifying every

step and action that HR dept. takes, third use more data to get answers where the third generation HR systems can analyse and respond to advanced questions related to performance, retention, and profitability. So in short we might say that HR technology can improve cost reduction, boost service levels and aid strategic focus and potentially improve employee engagement. Let’s move to another direction where we seen the challenges of adopting technology which are first is the introduction of new roles and new skills of HR professionals where not only they should have increase technical skills and vendor relationship skills but also should know which decisions should be made on the basis HR information system like routine task but not complex HR policy decisions, second isolation between HR staff and employees as all the crucial HR content is available online, the need for per-

sonal contact decreases which might ham-per effective communication and relation-ship, third employees of other department in case of Human Resource Information Sys-tem need to acquaint themselves with this new technology and the interface and fail-ure of which may lead to conflict and dis-satisfaction in the workplace environment, and other challenges include privacy con-cerns since too much transparency cannot be there, demand of more and more data by the employees, inacceptable by some conservative people etc. Another parameter that may give a differ-ent dimension is ROI on HR Technology which is quite unquantifiable and difficult to justify that it has good returns but no doubts it is crucial. There are three factors: time, employee satisfaction, and Hiring Suc-cess and turnover rate can be considered to determine ROI. Time because it will illus-trate how the automation of the HR pro-cesses helped in reducing time through eas-ily approval processes and less paperwork. Employee satisfaction again because of lighter paperwork and make their job easier which is a selling point for recruiting. Hiring Success by investing in recruiting tools and analytics will help in less hiring time and easy on boarding. Moreover, Social Media also has gained im-portance in Recruiting, Talent Acquisition, reinforcing the supply chain through collab-oration with the employees, customers, suppliers, and candidates which ultimately leading to increased organisation’s effec-tiveness and efficiency and great employee branding. Even considering the ROI factor, Social Media seems a much profitable strat-egy to harness the creation of internal knowledge sharing and social capital is the biggest picture. So even after analysing all the pros and cons of HR technology, there is still a question mark on each and every organisation about the implications of introducing and using technology in HR since every company has a different structure, hierarchy, environment, culture, philosophy, ethics, people and mis-sions. It is the decision of strategic planner of the company to decide when, where and what technology should be used.

About the Author : Harshita Rai is a first year student of MBA (HRD) at De-partment of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics where she is also a member of Stu-dent Development Com-mittee and Media and Public Relation Cell.

Student Article

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Why I Failed (Lessons from Leaders)-Shweta Punj

Vijay Kumar Shrotriya, Professor, Department of Commerce,

University of Delhi

We have grown with the story of Thomas Alva Edison on the learning from fail-ures. Few months back I came across a statement by former Indian President Ab-dul Kalam that it is more important to read failure stories than success stories as they teach you better insights into the reasons of failure and help avoid them in order to achieve greater heights. Kalam says FAIL means First Attempt In Learning. Though I had read about many failure stories of great people through their autobiographies or other articles published in periodicals and other publications, however when I came across the title of this book WHY I FAILED, I just ordered the title and got it shelved in my collection. Around a week back I picked it up from the shelf and started reading through. I have no hesitation in saying that the book kept me on till I turned its last page. The book narrates the journey and experi-ences of sixteen successful personalities from varied fields and focuses on their re-spective failures. There are hardcore entre-preneurs in the real sense of the term whether they belong to fashion world or

sports, movie making or pure business, they followed their passion, they have gone be-yond rules and made their own rules, they are all first movers and have taken risk be-yond and capitalized on the opportunity available in the market. How Thermax was revived against odds by Anu Aga and how she recognized her weak-nesses and overcame them is a well briefed story of her entire experience. The journey charted out and the road followed by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (of Biocon), Dr Pratap C Reddy (of Apollo Hospitals) and Narayana Murthy (of Infosys) and the resistance and red-tape they faced during their effortful and challenging trail is an excellent account on the background of taking up initiative and holding on to that till it gets through. In the Indian corporate circles sacking of a CEO is something quite unheard of. The plight of Sunil Alagh after being shown the gate by Wadias of Brittania is quite known by the followers of Indian business sto-ries. The contribution that Sunil made in developing Brittania as a prominent brand is not unknown to many and it is believed that it was during his tenure that Brittania gained the competitive advantage that it still capitalizes on. Sunil’s dealing with this setback and coming out of it successfully is discussed in the book nicely. The man behind the Lavasa township pro-ject Ajit Gulabchand’s (of Hindustan Con-struction Corporation) constant belief in the project and how his perseverance paid him in dealing with the bureaucratic and politi-cal pressures successfully has been narrat-ed by Shweta very lucidly in the book. He learnt that at times speed, overconfidence and preposterous actions may bring down even one of the most strong leaders and his decision so one has to be over cautious at

About the Author : Vijay Kumar Shrotriya is pro-fessor at Department of Com-merce, University of Delhi. He is an M Com, LL B, PHD. Prof. Shrotriya is a recipient of Young Researcher Award. His area of interest is Organisa-tional Happiness, Leadership, CSR and Training & Develop-ment.

Book Review

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over cautious at times while taking strategic deci-sions. The lady behind the success of Jindal’s SAW plant, Sminu Jindal has been able to control the affairs and followed some of her original practices over-coming her personal physical weakness. She has shown immense courage and perspiration in managing her plant and office successfully. The popularity of the brand called Fabindia is the result of hard work, personal belief and commitment of William Bissell who have dealt with many challeng-es and developed an unique company based on community entrepreneurship. The growth of the company in last ten years is the fruit of involve-ment of the communities at different locations in feeding Fabindia stores through their collective craft culture. I am sure this needs replication by other entrepreneurs in different other segments of the market and it shall certainly help build self-sustaining India and connect the market with the back-end suppliers and craftsmen. Fabindia stores are an excellent modern day version of khadi ash-rams, which are spread across India. I am sure these stores shall be able to provide the texture of khadi with experience of Indian culture and craft and expand its reach to the modern day urban youth. Goenkas of Kolkata have a rich history of entrepre-neurship and enterprise when we look at the busi-ness history of India in last two hundred years. They have been operating in different busi-nesses and have provided job opportunities for sizeable population. The story of Sanjiv Goenka in taking up Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (CESC) is well told in the book as in case of Sabyasachi Mukherjee in going against the deci-sion of their respective patriarchs. A strong re-sistance from the employees and workers initially did not deter Sanjiv from his belief that he can re-construct CESC and make it a viable and profitable venture. His approach showed the strong spirit

of ekla chalo, though later people involved in the process understood the conviction reposed by Sanjiv and his honest intention of rebuilding CESC and cooperated with him. The fate of Shankar Sharma and his wife is well explained in the book and their admission of a mistake about their in-vestment in media firm tehelka makes their story conciliate and convincing. Gold medalist Olympian, Abhinav Bindra’s reason-ing of the loss in the subsequent olympics provides an excellent insight and psychological defense for the loss. I have reasons to believe that there must be theories around this phenomenon defending that the efforts and rigor are determined by the force to prove. Passion driven Sabyasachi Mukher-jee who defied his father’s decision and went ahead with pursuing his career in fashion designing is an inspiring tale between traditional and mod-ern choices of career and the believe in oneself to pursue one’s dream. The journey of Madhur Bhandarkar and Subhash Ghai (both from movie world) traversing through disturbed past in prob-lems of poverty in one case and of poor upbringing in another case reassures a belief that suppression both material as well as emotional drives one to prove a point and put forth all of the energies into that direction. The story of these duo reminds of the past of many great people in different fields.

Many times in our lives we tend to take decisions based on our gut or based on hearsay or fall victim to herd behavior. Many times we get carried away with our previous achievements. Many times we do not plan things in right earnest and it all results in failures, though with some few exceptions. At

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the time of the event, decision or action we do not realize the shortcomings and mistakes but at a long-er span of time we tend to relate things and actions, we then compare and realize the mistakes that we have committed. The realization of accepting the reason for failure is the first step to correct the fu-ture course of action. This book tends to help the reader to reason out the failures through these sto-ries that if one is determined one can learn from mistakes and act cautiously towards achieving high-er goals.

“Ups and downs of life are very important to keep us going, because a straight line even in an ECG means we are not alive” - Ratan Tata

The chapters are well planned and leave the reader with the nuggets on why they failed and an advice to avoid failure. Shweta Punj has written this book and her approach has been very candid.

The basis of selection of these personalities is not mentioned anywhere however the common thread that I could find is that all of them have been first in marching out of the way and established themselves in their respective domain. I missed the presence of Kishore Biyani, Subhash Chandra, and Vikram Akola in this volume. But I can understand the limitations of the author and it is extremely difficult to have many or to come up to the expectations of every reader. She has really toiled hard to document these stories and for that she deserves appreciation. May be we can expect some similar stories in the times to come profiling other achievers.

The future of failure is success and the future of suc-cess is achievement. I recommend this book to eve-ry individual who believes in failure and success as two different islands. I am sure their belief shall get transformed as they read this book.

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Team JIGYASA

MBA (Human Resource Development) Department of Commerce,

University of Delhi, Delhi– 110007 Phone : +91 11 2766 2037, 2766 2608

Email : jigyasa@mhrod.in www.mibmhrod.com

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