NHRD Journal July2011 Final

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NHRD Network JournalJuly 2011 Volume 4 Issue 3

www.nationalhrd.org

A Quarterly Publication by The National HRD Network

Dr D Prashanth Nair

V M Kaul

K Ramkumar

Vineet Kaul

Dr Y V Verma

C Mahalingam

Dr Arun Kumar Jain

Sourav Daspatnaik

Sonali Roychowdhury &

Romit Roychowdhury

S Varadarajan &

Alok Narain

Dr Sandeep Krishna

Dr S Ramnarayan &

Neha Gupta

Anil Sachdev

S K Chathurvedi

People

Power –

Draw, Drive

and Deliver

www.nationalhrd.org

National HRD Network

The National HRD Network, established in 1985, is an

association of professionals committed to promoting

the HRD movement in India and enhancing the

capability of human resource professionals, enabling

them to make an impactful contribution in enhancing

competitiveness and creating value for society.

Towards this end, the National HRD Network is

committed to the development of human resources

through education, training, research and experience

sharing. The network is managed by HR professionals

in an honorary capacity, stemming from their interest

in contributing to the HR profession.

The underlying philosophy of the NHRDN is that every

human being has the potential for remarkable

achievement. HRD is a process by which employees in

organizations are enabled to:

• acquire capabilities to perform various tasks

associated with their present and future roles;

• develop their inner potential for self and

organisational growth;

• develop an organisational culture where networking

relationships, teamwork and collaboration among

different units is strong, contributing to

organisational growth and individual well-being.

NHRD July11 wrapper.p65 8/12/2011, 4:48 PM1

NHRD Network Journal

People Power – Draw, Drive and Deliver

Volume 4 Issue 3 July 2011

NHRD Network Board Members

National President: Sy. Siddiqui, MEO (Admn - HR, Fin & IT), Maruti Suzuki India

Past National Presidents: Aquil Busrai, Chief Executive Officer - Aquil Busrai Consulting

Dwarakanath P, Director-Group Human Capital - Max India

Dr. Santrupt Misra, Director - Aditya Birla Group

NS Rajan, Partner, Human Capital and Global Leader – HR Advisory,Ernst & Young

Regional Presidents:

East: Sourav Daspatnaik, HR Director, Apeejay-Surrendra Group

South: S V Nathan, Director U.S. India Talent, Deloitte

West: Rajeev Dubey, President (Group HR & After-Market) & Member of theGroup Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra

North: S Varadarajan, Executive President - HR,Tata Teleservices

National Secretary: Prince Augustin, EVP-Human Capital, Mahindra & Mahindra

National Treasurer: L. Prabhakar, Head-Human Resources (Agri-Business Division), ITC Ltd

Editorial Board Sy. Siddiqui, MEO (Admn - HR, Fin & IT), Maruti Suzuki India

(Guest Editor for this issue)

Dr. PVR Murthy, Managing Editor,CEO, Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants,[email protected]

Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Director - Human Resources Citrix R&DIndia Pvt. [email protected]

Aquil Busrai, Chief Executive OfficerAquil Busrai Consulting, Human Resources, Gurgaon, [email protected]

Publisher, Printer, Owner Executive Director on behalf of National HRD Network,and Place of Publication National HRD Network Secretariat, C 81 C, DLF Super Mart, DLF City,

Phase IV, Gurgaon122 002. Tel +91 124 404 1560

Printed at Nagaraj & Co. Pvt. Ltd., 156, Developed Plots Industrial Estate,Perungudi, Chennai 600 096. Tel : 044 - 66149291

The views expressed by the authors are of theirown and not necessarily of the editors nor of thepublisher nor of authors’ organizations

Copyright of the NHRD Journal, all rights reserved.Contents may not be copied, emailed or reproducedwithout copyright holders’ express permission in writing.

NHRD firmly believes in and respects IPR and we appeal to thecontributors and readers to strictly honour the same.

For any further clarifications, please contact :

The Managing EditorDr. P V R Murthy, CEO, Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants,

#8, Janaki Avenue, Off 4th Street, Abhiramapuram, Chennai 600 [email protected]

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

The National HRD Network publishes a semi-academic quarterly journal where in each issue isdedicated to a theme.

The journal publishes primarily three categories of articles :

• Conceptual and research based

• Contributions from thought leaders including a limited number of reprints with due permission

• Organizational experiences in HR interventions/mechanisms

Publications so far include on the themes “IT in HR”, ”Performance Management”, “Attracting andRetaining Talent”, “Career Management”, “Organizational Change”, “Global HRM”, “Women in CorporateLeadership Roles”, “Organization Development”, “Learning and Development”, “Leadership”, “Work-Life Balance”, “Institution Building”, “Coaching For Performance and Development”, “Human ResourcesManagement in Rapid Growth Organizations”, “HR Competence”, “HR and Employee Relations” and“CEO and HR”.

The current issue is on the theme of “People Power – Draw, Drive and Deliver”.

The following persons have agreed to anchor as guest editors for the future issues :

1. October 2011 issue by Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, Vice President -HR (India/South Asia), IBM India, onthe theme “Getting HR Ready for Gen Y”

2. January 2012 issue by Mr. Rajeev Dubey, President (Group HR & After-Market) & Member of theGroup Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra on “CSR & HR”

3. April 2012 issue by Mr.Vivek Paranjpe, Group HR, Reliance Industries Limited, on “HR Challengesin the Knowledge Economy”

Editorial Board Members :

Dr. P.V.R. Murthy, Managing Editor is a product of I.I.T., Kharagpur and IIM, Calcutta with close to thirtyyears experience in H.R. field. He is founder and runs an executive search firm Exclusive SearchRecruitment Consultants. He is associated with a number of academic institutions. He is trained inTQM in Japan and in human processes from ISABS and NTL, U.S.A. He is the Past National Secretaryof National HRD Network.

Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay is Director - Human Resources Citrix R&D India PVT Ltd. A doctoral fellowfrom XLRI and AHRD, he is trained in OD and Human Processes from NTL, USA and he believes inapplying HR concepts to practice to make it more meaningful and effective. He is a mentor and coachto many young HR professionals.

Aquil Busrai is Chief Executive Officer at Aquil Busrai Consulting. He has over 36 years HR experience,both in strategic and operational HR with blue chip organisations like Unilever in Kenya and India,Motorola in Asia Pacific and Shell in Malaysia. He was Executive Director, Human Resources at IBMCorporation, National President at National HRD Network, HR Director Shell Malaysia and MD ShellPeople.


NHRD July 01 Preliminary pages.p65 8/12/2011, 3:56 PM1

Dear Readers,

The National HRD Network has been bringing out a semi-academic, theme based, quarterlyjournal for the past four years. It aims at compiling and publishing the professional viewsand experiences of reputed HR professionals, line professionals, CEOs, researchers,academicians in each theme area. We carry out extensive research, identify and invite personswho have eminent publications or have rich experience in the theme area to contribute articlesfor each issue. Through the journal, we aim to build a body of HR knowledge in all facets ofHR which is not otherwise easily available for the current and future HR Professionals. Sofar, close to 300 eminent authors have contributed articles for the 17 issues. Each issue isguest edited by a person of eminence in the concerned theme area.

This journal is circulated free to the members of NHRD Network to stimulate their thinkingand towards their professional development.

Publications so far have been based on themes such as :• “IT in HR”• “Performance Management”• “Attracting and Retaining Talent”• “Career Management”• “Organizational Change”• “Global HRM”• “Women in Corporate Leadership Roles”• “Organization Development”• “Learning and Development”• “Leadership”• “Work-Life Balance”• “Institution Building”• “Coaching For Performance and Development”• “Human Resources Management in Rapid Growth Organizations”• “HR Competence”• “HR and Employee Relations”• “CEO and HR”The copies of these issues of the journal can be accessed from www.nationalhrd.org.The current issue (July 2011) is on the theme of “People Power – Draw, Drive and Deliver”.The following three persons have consented to guest edit the ensuing three issues:1. October 2011 issue by Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, on the theme “Getting HR Ready for Gen Y”2. January 2012 issue by Mr. Rajeev Dubey, on the theme “CSR & HR”3. April 2012 issue by Mr.Vivek Paranjpe, on the theme “HR Challenges in the Knowledge

Economy”

This is your journal and will be as rich as you want it to be.

In order to further enrich it, we would like to receive your1. qualitative feedback on issues brought out so far, and2. suggestions for themes to be covered in our future issues.3. Any other suggestionsKindly send in your thoughts to [email protected]

Dr. PVR MurthyManaging Editor.


CONTENTSS.No. Title of Article Author Page No.

1. Driving People Power in Indian Context : Dr. D Prasanth Nair 1

Challenges and Actions

2. Building Ownership through people V M Kaul 8

engagement : Some pragmatic dimensions

3. Culture, Communication and Responsible K Ramkumar 16

Engagement

4. Delivering Excellence through Empowerment Vineet Kaul 21

5. Leveraging Business Objectives through Dr. Y V Verma 27

People Strategy

6. Engaged Employees : A Key Organization C Mahalingam 32

Capability

7. Engage, Enable, Expand, Experiment, Exploit : Dr. Arun Kumar Jain 38

Talent Management For 21st Century

Organizations

8. Leading the New Generation Workforce Sourav Daspatnaik 45

9. Managing the ‘Slash’ Generation Sonali Roychowdhury 49

and Romit Choudhury

10. Managing the Young Generation Professionals Alok Narain and S Varadarajan 54

11. Taking to the next level : HR in Small and Dr. Sandeep K Krishnan 60

Medium Businesses

12. Ownership : Overcoming Indifference S Ramnarayan and Neha Gupta 66

13. Mentoring, Coaching & Counseling : Anil Sachdev 73

Value Chain for HR

14. Capability Development towards Organization S K Chaturvedi 80

Competence (Case study : The Powergrid

Experience)


S.No. Title of Article Author Page No.

BOOK REVIEWS

15. The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Reviewed by 85

Abundant Organizations that Win R Shantaram

by Dave Ulrich / Wendy Ulrich

16. Employees First, Customers Second Reviewed by 85

by Vineet Nayar Vidya Muralidharan


EDITORIAL COMMENTS

Mr. SY Siddiqui(Guest Editor of

the Issue)

ManagingExecutive OfficerAdministration(HR, Finance, ITand CorporateLaw & Legal)Maruti SuzukiIndia Ltd.AndNationalPresidentNational HRDNetwork

I feel extremely honored and privileged to be able to present this

issue of the NHRDN Journal, exploring on the theme “People

Power – Draw, Drive & Deliver”, to all the members and associates

of the National HRD Network. I hope all the readers find the articles

in this issue interesting, thought provoking and full of enriched

learning’s.

In the current business environment the drivers of business growth

include – ability to forecast and prepare for the future, flexibility and

agility to change, response time to customer expectations, quality in

product & services and ability to innovate. But on top of it all, the

most differentiating and influencing factor would be the people

strategy, work culture of an organization and the role of top leadership

capability.

Today it is not rare to find a CEO recognizing the ‘People Factor’ as

the most critical driver of business growth. Successful CEO’s lay

emphasis on cascading the organizational vision, mission, values

and culture in the people while defining the business strategy and

goals creating total involvement and buy in of its people with high

ownership and commitment. HR is expected to share a common

territory with the CEO by defining the vision, mission, core values

and culture building while playing a direct role in people capability

building including the leadership talent pipeline, involvement and

empowerment, strong two way internal communications, open and

transparent assessment processes, rewards & recognition initiatives

and career development process with equal opportunity for the total

population in the company. HR is expected to take a lead role in

building leadership credibility of the top management and CEO while

leading employee engagement and people satisfaction.

Organizations who have been striving for business excellence have

realized that the core of any business excellence programme has always


been people. It’s the people who create sustainable competitive

advantage for any organization. The impact of any excellence model

is linked to how people adopt and practice it on a day today basis. It

is thus critical that we lay emphasis on energizing and engaging

people who will be real game changer in any endeavor towards

business excellence.

While framing the theme of this journal, we pondered and

brainstormed and felt that making optimum utilization of the People

Power in an organization is the biggest challenge ahead of the CEO

and the HR community at large and thus felt that this is the subject

our next issue should focus on. This issue of the NHRDN Journal

addresses the theme of “People Power” from multiple facets. Some of

the sub themes which we have tried to address include the Essence of

People Leadership, Drawing Excellence thru Empowerment, The

People Challenges in Creating a World Class Organization, Building

Ownership thru Engaging People.

We have also tried to cover some extremely contemporary challenges

such as Managing the Generation Y and Innovative Talent

Management Initiatives.

I have been extremely fortunate that I was able to gather the support

of some of the stalwarts in the HR field, who agreed to share their

time and thoughts with us by contributing articles to this journal.

I am extremely grateful to them for the support they extended, despite

the tough timelines we had given to them.

I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. PVR Murthy

and his team. It was only with their support, dedication and

passion that we could see this journal through. The amount of

time that Dr. PVR Murthy could manage to support us was

simply priceless.


Given below are the glimpses of the articles to give you a flavor of

the same –

Dr. Prasanth Nair talks about the challenges of driving people power

in the Indian context encompassing the range of complexity of

organizations, the varied rate of growth and the competitive scenario

they operate in. Dr. SK Chaturvedi writes about the need for

capability development towards organizational competence.

Mr. VM Kaul further elaborates on how to build ownership thru

engagement of people.

Mr. Ram Kumar shares his views on the subject of Culture,

Communication and Responsible Engagement and attempts to

connects them into one fabric. Mr. Vineet Kaul talks about how to

deliver excellence thru empowerment by sharing the three levels of

empowerment and a few learning’s from effective empowerment.

Dr. YV Verma shares his perspective on how to leverage business

objectives thru the people strategy.

Mr. C Mahalingam explains why the engaged employees are a

key organization capability, by talking about both the lighter

and darker sides of engagement. Dr. Arun Kumar Jain covers

the major paradigm shifts in corporate management and shares

an interesting leadership framework for innovative talent

management in his article titled Engage, Enable, Expand,

Experiment, and Exploit.

Mr. Sourav Daspatnaik elaborates on how to lead the new

generation workforce while Ms. Sonali Roychowdhury and

Mr. Romit Choudhury share their rich experience on managing

the ‘Slash’ generation. Mr. S Varadarajan and Mr. Alok Narain

also cover the challenge of how to manage the young generation

professionals.


Dr. Sandeep K. Krishnan shares his perspective on taking

HR to the next level in small and medium businesses.

Mr. S. Ramnarayan and Ms. Neha Gupta talk about what may

inhibit assumption of ownership and what leaders can do to

overcome the indifference. Dr. Anil Sachdev elaborates on

aligning people thru the power of positive psychology thru an

extremely interesting case study.

Hope you all enjoy reading the journal and draw out learning’s from

the enriched experiences shared by the accomplished authors.

Dr. PVR MurthyHonorary ManagingEditor on behalf ofthe Editorial Team

Aquil BusraiDr. PallabBandyopadhyay


July | 2011 NHRD Network Journal 1

About the Author

Dr. D. Prasanth Nair, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in MechanicalEngineering from Calicut University. Thereafter, he has pursuedthe Fellow Programme in Management (equivalent to aDoctorate) from the Indian Institute of Management,Ahmedabad, specializing in Human Resources Management. He was conferred the Degree for his Doctoral Research on “Theorganizational and human issues in mergers and acquisitions”.

Dr. Nair is President & Head – Human Resources & Financial Services at ThomasCook and is responsible for the Human Resources function in India, Sri Lanka,Nepal and Mauritius.

DRIVING PEOPLE POWER IN INDIAN CONTEXT :CHALLENGES AND ACTIONS

Dr. D PRASANTH NAIR

Driven by technological advancementsand facilitated by changes in social,

political and economic contexts, the worldand especially the business environmentare interconnected and flat. Owing to theincreased level of integration with theglobal economy in this period, Indianbusiness environment is characterized byuncertainties, challenges as well asopportunities. Even as the ‘developedworld’ experienced deep economicrecession owing to the financial crisis in thelast couple of years, the Indian economy(and the Chinese economy) grew, drivenby inherent socio-economic-demographicfeatures manifesting in strong consumerdemand. India is undeniably an importantfuture growth market of the world, it isyoung with 50% of population below theage of 25 and it is just beginning itsconsumption journey. Our success in theglobal market, stemming from the valueproposition, has created the ‘India brand’in the global arena. Much of this is reflectedin the positive image that the global medianow projects of the country and is in line

with the projection made by a report byGoldman Sachs titled ‘Dreaming withBRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China):The Path to 2050’, which predicts that overthe next 30-50 years, “India looks all set tofirmly entrench itself as the top threeeconomies of the world”.

Consequently, we have witnessed twobroad characteristics in the marketscenario: one, where global corporationsare entering the Indian market orstrengthening their Indian operations; two,Indian companies (which till some yearsago were satisfied in operating in Indianmarket) increasingly expanding theiroperations globally. This in turn, hasincreased the rate of birth, change (in formand nature) and decay of organizations.Through this process of change,corporations in India have been forced toexamine their economic model, evaluatetheir strategy, reorient their linkages withexternal environment and restructure theinternal working, to be in tune with theexternal needs, requirements and

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2 July | 2011 NHRD Network Journal

expectations. And in this context, there isan acceptance that the only sustainablecompetitive advantage for organizations ishuman resources and the key to the successof organizations is the way they managepeople.

Focus of paper:

Given the large canvass of study possibleon the subject of people management, it isimportant to set the broad parameters forthe paper to ensure adequate focus. Thispaper will focus on the challenges faced byorganizations and the factors influencingthe intensity of challenges, further to whicha people management Action Plan will bepresented. Even though many of issues andactions discussed will be relevant at aglobal level, the focus of the paper will bethe appropriateness of the same in theIndian socio-economic-political scenario.

Organizational challenges

Competing in a flat world, in anenvironment characterised by theDarwinian theory of ‘Struggle forexistence and Survival of the fittest’,organizations are required to constantlyenhance their performance and leadchange for which a dynamic alignment ofstrategy with external and internalenvironment is called for. This brings aboutchallenges (mentioned below) on theorganizational and people dimensions,accentuated also by the macro social andeconomic environment.

• Driving higher level of performance:In a context of the flat world, one keyexpectation from the design of theorganization is that the businesscontinues to perform in such a way thatit is able to not just survive butcontinuously ‘beat the market’, settrends and create new benchmarks,balancing the short term and long termdimensions. Needless to mention, this

would be an expectation for all thestakeholders, even though the measuresand definition of performance wouldchange.

• Skill Gap and Cost Appreciation: Asan economy, our growth depends onour ability to productively createemployment opportunities. But eventhough we have a huge population,there is demand – supply mismatch onthe talent front, resulting from the lackof availability of talent in terms ofnumbers and quality as required by theindustry. Dearth of required capabilitiesresult in increase in employment costs,putting a question mark on the businessmodel of companies and in some cases,sectors at large.

• Engaging Employees in the context ofchange and flux: To drive performanceand optimal customer experience, theemployees need to be engaged with theorganization. It is well proven thathigher engagement is linked toproductivity, a factor that directlyimpacts business. The challenge ofengaging employees increases multi-fold given the dynamic context - newgeneration of work force coming in, therise of aspiration level, the average timean employee is expected to spend in theorganization, and the constant changethe organization undergoes.

• Enabling continuity and change: Asorganizations grow, diversify or both,it is important that the fundamental andcore essence of the organization ispreserved and nurtured. The challengeis - How to retain the essence and valueswhen the environment is changing andin response to it, the organization alsoneeds to change.

• Governance mechanism: There isan increasing expectation fromstakeholders, especially after theconduct of organizations in



contributing to the economic recessionof 2008-09, that organizations have inplace a sound governance mechanismwhich ensures adherence to laws ofland and the principles of moralconduct.

• Sustainability: Organizations also facethe challenge of ensuring that theirbusiness model balances the short andlong-term perspective while continuingto deliver shareholder value.Additionally, organizations areincreasingly expected to exhibitresponsible behaviour in terms ofCorporate Social Responsibilities andfactor in the ecology / environment intheir business plans.

The challenges would depend on a varietyof factors, but the intensity would dependon factors related to the organization andthe arena of operation – industry(ies) andgeography(ies); which in turn would affectthe people management action plan. Anattempt has been made to furtherunderstand these factors, which willinfluence the intensity of challenges:

• Rate of Growth: This refers to the paceand type of growth of the organization.Type of growth refers to the mode inwhich organization grows both in termsof business model (organic, inorganicor diversification) and geographical(domestic / international). The rate ofgrowth determines the degree of changethat organization needs to go throughto align the internal and externaldimensions.

• Competitive Scenario: Even though thebroad competitive scenario is intense,there would be a degree of differencebased on the industry or sector that theorganization operates in; which in turnwould impact the intensity ofchallenges faced by the organization.The industry structure and conduct

would be a key determinant of thebusiness strategy pursued by the firmsin that industry.

• Complexity of Organization: Thisrefers to the level of complexity in theorganization indicated by the size anddiversity within. Typically, the growthof organization leads to increase indiversity and differences – in terms ofpersonalities, backgrounds, operatingenvironments and even businesses. Themore the complexity, lesser would bethe applicability of uniformity, thus, thedegree of complexity in organizationswould impact the intensity oforganizational challenges.

The interplay amongst these – eachvariable taken on an axis - can berepresented through 3 dimensional spacesas shown below.

As can be seen in the above figure, theintensity of challenges will be representedby the 3 Dimensional space defined by rateof growth, complexity of organizations andcompetitive scenario. The more distant theloci of point would be from the axis, thegreater would be the challenges faced onthe organization and people front. This inturn would determine the kind oforganizational and people managementstrategy.

Competi

tive

Scen

ario

Complexity ofOrganizations

Rat

e of

Gro

wth

LowLow

High

High



People Management Strategy

Given the challenges and the need to drivepeople excellence to deliver sustainableorganizational performance, the peoplemanagement plan, which would bea critical strategic tool, would need tofocus on:

• Design of organization with respect tothe structure, roles, systems and culture.

• Defining the relationship betweenindividual and organization.

While there are studies on the peoplemanagement addressing the above points,most of the studies pertain to the American,European or Japanese context. Researchhas brought out the fact that the outlook,views and lifestyles of people would havean impact on the applicable economic,business and management models. In aworldwide study conducted by GeertHofstede, the differences of cultural traitsin different countries have been broughtout; which shows that there are differencesin the ‘way of life’ in India as compared toUS or Europe or Japan. The differences willtranslate into fundamental way ofmanaging people in defining the level ofemphasis on ‘structure and systems’ on onehand and on ‘social and emotional side’ onthe other. Unlike in the Western model,where the contractual relationship whichspecifies the pay and work place benefitsbetween the individual and theorganization is the main motivator, and theJapanese model where security andtogetherness is the paramount driver, in theIndian context, an individual is inspired bythe significance or importance accorded tothe him/her and the level of taskperformed. At the same time, key driversfor India’s growth like hope and aspirationalong with trends like consumerism andurbanization are changing the outlookand behaviour of people in the country,having important implications for theorganizational and people management

strategy. Thus, applicable peoplemanagement model in India for it to reallyaddress the challenges would need tofactor in the context of India along withchanges taking place, while of courseborrowing the learning’s from the workdone in other contexts.

Having studied the multiple drivers ofpeople management and the context ofIndia, a people management strategy IC3Model has been suggested where the focusareas are:

• I – Inspiration at an individual level

• C – Capability building at anorganizational level,

• C – Culture Management

• C – Competitiveness

A brief explanation is provided below foreach of them:

• Inspiration at an Individual Level: Ina competitive world, for organizationsto excel, the people need to excel, forwhich they need to be inspired. Thefactors that drive inspiration amongstpeople depends on the social contextand in India there are three factors thatcan drive inspiration:

¶ Connect with employees: Thisrefers to the emotional relationshipthat will determine connect of theemployees with the organizationand the level to which the individualwould be inspired for greaterperformance.

¶ Personal Ambition: As evidenced,organizations would need tofacilitate employees for achievingtheir personal ambitions. Hope andaspiration drives our country;individual desire to achieve greaterpower and wealth needs to beacknowledged and captured at anorganizational level. Enablingindividuals to achieve their



ambition would inspire them forgreater excellence.

¶ Higher purpose: It has been foundin research and practice that Indiansare inspired by task significance –how the efforts contribute to agreater cause. Hence it is requiredthat organizations, for inspiringemployees, connect the operationalexecution of their role to the largerstrategy.

While in many a context around the globe,one of the factors or a combination with apredominant focus on one of them wouldenable organizations to inspire employees;what is interesting from an organizationaldesign point of view is the combinationwith equal focus on connect withemployees, higher purpose and personalambition that is required to inspireemployees in an Indian context.

• Capability Management at anOrganizational Level: Given thechallenges faced by organizations, itneeds to make sure of the organizationalcapabilities to manage the present andfuture. The key tasks involved are:

¶ Talent Management – this involvesattracting, motivating, developingand retaining talent. Recruiting andretaining employees is quite achallenge in today’s environmentbecause of the opportunities in theenvironment, and hence theemployee needs to be engaged withthe organization. An integral part oftalent management is tocontinuously develop required skillsin employees and to put in place acompensation framework. As part ofan integrated talent managementplan, it is necessary to ensurepositive energy level in theorganization. Succession planning isanother key aspect that needs to bebuilt in to ensure minimization of

down time and continuity ofbusiness plans.

¶ Creating Talent: Given the talentshortage in the market, and the hugenumber of people with willingnessbut lack of requisite skills,organizations need to invest increating talent. This helps inincreasing supply of talent in themarket, thus favourably influencingthe demand supply gap.

¶ Knowledge Management: Toensure sustainability of skills andknowledge in organizations, it isrecommended that organizationsinvest in capturing knowledgethrough proper storage, retrievaland management. Given our socialcontext knowledge sharing needs tobe imbibed through a combinationof system control and mindsetcreation.

• Culture: An integral part of peoplemanagement is to manage the cultureof an organization with the objective offostering an organizational culture,which enables business and ensuressustainability. In a challengingenvironment with organizationsconstantly on the lookout for growthopportunities, organizations need tolook at old ways of working andre-calibrate it to what is required froma strategic point of view. We also needto factor in the fact that there could benew industries that the organization ispresent in, different geographies ofoperations and if the growth is throughin-organic route, different organizationcultures. It is in this context thatmanaging culture becomes anextremely important action. Managingculture does not mean that we need tostrive for uniformity in everything – butindicates that organization needs to putin place what is absolutely sacrosanct



from its existential point of view andwhat parameters can be flexible.Depending on what the organizationdesires, it needs to choose between aglobal, local and glocal culture. Someof the best practices are whenorganizations put in place some corevalues, which are global in nature, butfactors in the local context and tailorsthe same in its overall design, thusenabling a culture of high diversity withstrong core basics. Given that the issueof sustainability and corporatebehaviour is increasingly gettingprominence, the value of integrityneeds to be treated as the cornerstoneof an organizational framework.Another important trait that will beextremely important in a context ofchange would be innovation. The ‘right’culture for the organization – arrived atafter taking into account multiplefactors like history of firm, futureoperations, geographies of operations,and sectors of presence among others –would need to be defined andinculcated through the design ofsystems, processes and interventions.

• Competitiveness: In a dynamicbusiness environment, it is critical thatHuman Resource actions are alwaysfocused on the strategic objectives of thefirm – both in short and long term withthe aim of imparting a cutting edge toorganization creating benchmarks.People management can enablecompetitiveness through the followingkey actions:

¶ Business focused organizationdesign: The organization design -the optimal structure, thecapabilities required and theperformance measures need to bealigned with the business needs,taking care to ensure scale upcapability in operations. To ensure

that decision-making is robust, andto mitigate risks both at operational,financial and strategic levels,systems and processes need to beput in place and adhered to, withoutover-designing the systems. Thus,organization design processmanagement should ensure anoptimal balance between riskmitigation on one hand, andenabling fast execution on the other.

¶ Performance Orientation: Asmentioned earlier, creating aperformance oriented culturethrough the appropriate design ofsystems, demonstration of seniormanagement behaviour and focuson execution with the objective ofbalancing long term and short termobjectives can enable higher level ofdelivery from people. A key part ofperformance orientation is to put inplace dynamic benchmarks forperformance, which will enablecompetitiveness.

¶ Cost Competitiveness: In an Indiancontext, where demand outstripssupply of resources, costcompetitiveness would need to begiven priority. Organizationsthrough their design would needto focus on prudent costmanagement, focussing on higherlevels of process efficiency anddelivery effectiveness.

Even though all the four focus areas –Inspiration (at an individual level),Capability Management, Culture andCompetitiveness are important andrelevant, the specificity of action planwould be determined by the organizationaland people management challenges(as defined in the earlier section throughthe variables of Rate of Growth,Organizational Complexity andCompetitive Scenario).



Conclusion:

The objective behind this paper is toenhance understanding of the challengesfaced by organizations in the dynamic andunique socio-economic context of India.Based on a discussion on some of the keychallenges faced, a HR action plan has beensuggested, which enables organizations todraw the best from people, drive peopleexcellence and deliver sustainableorganizational performance. Even thoughmore research needs to be done toscientifically validate the model, the paperserves the objective of establishing anoverall framework to understand thechallenges and people managementstrategy in context of social-economic-political context.

Further, going forward in a globalinterconnected world with organizationsbeing responsible to multiple stakeholders,there is a need to factor in the socio-economic context in their business strategy– because what was defined as businessresponsibility in the past may not be truein future. Given the interconnectednessbetween business and socio-political-economic dimensions in India, businessesneed to develop models that will enablethem to be sustainable and competitivein a global economy, while demonstratingsocially responsible behaviour andactively creating synergistic relationshipbetween business, employees, people andsociety. How can we together achieveexcellence?

ReferencesAlvarez, Pilar and Rodríguez, Buylla: “How to Manage Rapid Growth”, tu-91.167; Seminar in Strategy and International Business;

Helsinki University of Technology: Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, Institute of Strategy and InternationalBusiness.

Cappelli, Peter and others (2010): The India Way: How India’s Top Business Leaders Are Revolutionizing Management; HarvardBusiness Press

Chakraborty, S.K. (2003). Foundations of Managerial work- Contributions from Indian thought. Himalaya Publishing House: Mumbai

Greiner, Larry: “Evolution and revolution as organizations growth”; Harvard Business Review. 1972 and Harvard Business Review,May 1998.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India

http://indiaexpert.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/managing-a-team-in-india/

http://kanagasabapathi.blogspot.com/2010/05/need-for-indian-management-models.html

http://www.boloji.com/bookreviews/098.htm

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http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Indias_high_stakes_urban_challenge_2571

http://www.wikipedia.org

Kaul,S and K Abhishek: “Consumerism and Mindless Consumption - Sustaining the New Age Urban Indian’s Identity” – http://dspace.iimk.ac.in/bitstream/2259/331/1/529-534.pdf

Parthasarathy, Swami. (2006). Human Values Management- 20 Key Principles for Modern Management. Ane Books India: New Delhi.

Slevin, D. P. & Covin, J. G. (1997): Time, growth, complexity and transitions: Entrepreneurial challenges for the future. Entrepreneurship:Theory and Practice, 22(2), 43-68

Ulrich, D., Brockbank, W., Yeung, A.K., & Lake, D.G. (1995): Human resource competencies: An empirical assessment. Human Resourcemanagement, 34, 473-495

Ulrich, Dave (1998): “A New Mandate for Human Resources,” Harvard Business Review (January/February 1998).

Ulrich, Dave (1997): “Human Resource Champions”; Harvard Business School Press, 1997.

Wilson Dominic, Purushothaman Roopa: “Dreaming With BRICs: The Path to 2050”; Global Economics, Paper No: 99; EconomicResearch from the GS Financial Workbench® at https://www.gs.com



BUILDING OWNERSHIP THROUGH PEOPLEENGAGEMENT : SOME PRAGMATIC DIMENSIONS

V M KAUL

About the Author

V.M. Kaul is a Director (HR) in POWERGRID Corporation of IndiaLimited, the central transmission utility of India. He has a degreein Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi and a MBA. He hasover 37 years of varied experience in the fields of HR, Projectmanagement and Contracts, and has earlier worked with NTPCand EIL. At present he is looking after all the HR functions as wellas, Corporate Communication, Law, Joint Ventures andConsultancy Services, both foreign and domestic. He has

introduced numerous innovative HR policies for the active engagement of employeesin POWERGRID during his tenure as Executive Director (HR) and Director (HR). Hisspecialized areas of interest are training, talent management, industrial relations andemployee welfare, besides planning and business development.

1. Introduction :

One of the important concerns of HRmanagers today is how to engage theirpeople in the organization so that theycontribute wholeheartedly to it duringtheir tenure. The term ‘employeeengagement’ or ‘people engagement’ hasbecome popular among human resourcemanagement practitioners anddevelopment consultants, internalcommunication practitioners and businessconference presenters. (Brad Shuck et al2010) An ‘engaged’ employee has a highlevel of commitment and involvement inthe day-to-day process of decision-makingand contributes actively towards achievingthe goals of the organization. People whoare fully engaged in the organization arereasonably aware of the business context,and work with colleagues to improveperformance within the job for the benefitof the organization. Though people areskeptical about the meaning of the concept,

it is by and large agreed that an engagedemployee is an asset to the organizationand is likely to remain loyal to it.

To achieve competitive advantage,organizations must find ways to create andsustain the level of energy and passion thatpeople bring to work. The best way is tobring in a sustaining culture whereengagement is not only the norm, butalso a strategy that attracts and retainspeople. Organizations of all size andtypes have invested substantially inpolicies and practices that fosterengagement and commitment in theirwork force (Robert, 2006).

Many studies have established that theperformance of an organization has astrong correlation with employeeengagement. The more enhanced theengagement levels of the employee, thebetter the organization’s performance willbe in terms of customer satisfaction,



revenues, profits, productivity andretention. Fully engaged employees deliverhigher levels of performance that may becritical for business survival. In the long-term they may help companies not only toweather tough times, but when businessconditions improve, to ensure that they arestronger and better placed to takeadvantage of future opportunities.

A successful employee engagementstrategy helps create a community at theworkplace and not just a workforce. Whenemployees are effectively and positivelyengaged with their organization, they forman emotional connection with thecompany. This affects their attitudetowards both their colleagues and thecompany’s clients and improves customersatisfaction and service levels.

In the context of emerging humanresources challenges and opportunity, thisarticle attempts to bring out an overallunderstanding and definition of the theme‘employee engagement’. It also makes anattempt to propose strategies for thesuccess of employee engagementinitiatives. With a view to augmenting theunderstanding of the concept, this paperalso highlights certain employeeengagement strategies that have beeninitiated in POWERGRID.

2. Employee engagement – A way ofbuilding ownership.

The relationship between employees andemployers is fast changing. Organizationsare no more in a position to offer the kindof job security and career paths that theyused to offer in earlier days. In today’scompetitive global business environment,the traditional loyalty relationship is fadingaway and is being replaced by greateremphasis on the manner in which theemployee is treated. Since can no longercount on their members’ loyalty, they have

to continuously compete for talent. Theyhave to focus on attracting and hiring themost talented people and retaining theircritical existing talent. In order to do this,they must utilize approaches tomanagement that are advantageous tothem and their employees, and which canlead to higher and higher levels ofperformance.

The quest to find the best way to retainemployees has taken HR experts throughconcepts such as employee reviews,employee satisfaction, and employeedelight, etc. The latest idea is employeeengagement, a concept that states that thedegree to which an employee isemotionally bonded to his organizationand passionate about his work is whatreally matters. The term “employeeengagement” represents an alignment ofmaximum job satisfaction with maximumjob contribution. A highly engagedemployee is proud of his/her organizationand develops a sense of belongingness andownership.

It is the need of the hour that organizationsshould increasingly convert fromtraditionalism to contemporary employeemanagement. With growing opportunitiesand greater flow of information, employeestoday want to be in the best workplaces,handling the responsibilities they are bestsuited for, and also want to enjoy greaterautonomy. Therefore, engaging theemployees to work as per their competencylevel must occupy centre stage not only forthe HR department, but also in other areas.

Engaged employees are the key to acompany’s ability to grow and prosper andhave a positive impact on the customerexperience. This is particularly so intoday’s economy, where attraction andretention of experienced, skilled, andcreative employees can make the difference



between success and failure. There is clearevidence to suggest that what employeeslook for in their work is a mixture of bothtangible and intangible elements that createa stimulating environment where theircontribution is recognized andappropriately rewarded. In fact, emotionalfactors play a much more important rolein shaping attitudes and behavior thanpreviously thought. They contributesignificantly to the perception that theemployees also have a stake in thecompany.

A number of recent studies from the GallupOrganization, Corporate LeadershipCouncil and Towers Perrin HRConsultancy have shown that, in a typicalorganization, 20% of employees at any oneperiod are actively disengaged from theorganization, while a further 60% are onlymoderately engaged – they turn up forwork, perform their duties and then gohome, without being prepared to go theextra mile for the company. As aconsequence, only 20% of the workforce isactively engaged with the organization andits objectives.

Studies also reveal that people higher upin the organization experience a higherlevel of engagement as they are closer tothe centers of decision making, havemore say in the direction in whichthe organization is progressing andpresumably were promoted, at least partly,on the basis of their ability to deliver intune with the organization’s goals.Significantly studies also point to the factthat engagement level in the governmentsector is relatively low in all countries.

Satisfaction of employees is evidently avery important factor for engaging themin organizations. In a survey conducted inPOWERGRID, on the factors responsiblefor employee satisfaction, it was found thatthere are eight major factors that contribute

to employee satisfaction. These factors, inorder of priority given by employees, are:

Training and Learning opportunities

Positive environment

Job security

Compensation and Incentives

Job content

Work life balance

Stress free life

Encouragement for higher education

3. Review of literature:

According to Rafferty and others (2005,2007) employee engagement has becomeone of the most popular HR concerns thesedays and a lot of research has beenundertaken on the topic by academiciansand practitioners. The concept is relativelynew for HRM and appeared in theliteratures only during the past twodecades. In engagement, people employand express themselves physically,cognitively and emotionally during roleperformance. William A. Kahn (1990)conceptualized engagement at work as the‘harnessing of organizational members’selves to their work roles.’ The termemployee engagement, in its present usage,was coined by the Gallup organization, asa result of 25 years of interviewing andsurveying employees and managers.Employee engagement indicates the extentto which an employee is willing to put inextra effort in terms of extra time, energyand brain power to get the job done.In fact engagement is one step ahead ofcommitment.

The second related construct toengagement in organizational behaviouris the notion of flow advancedby Csikszentmihalyi (1975, 1990).



Csikzentmihalyi (1975) defines flow as the‘holistic sensation’ that people feel whenthey act with total involvement. Flow is thestate in which there is little distinctionbetween the self and environment. Whenindividuals are in Flow State, littleconscious control is necessary for theiractions. Employee engagement therefore,is the extent to which workforcecommitment, both emotional andintellectual, exists relative toaccomplishing the work, mission, andvision of the organization. It can be seen asa heightened level of ownership whereemployees want to do whatever he or shecan for the benefit of their internal andexternal customers, and for the success ofthe organization as a whole.

Various authors and researchers have givendiverse definitions of employeeengagement:

Perrin’s Global workforce study (2003)defines it as the “employees’ willingnessand ability to help their company succeed,largely by providing discretionary effort ona sustainable basis.”

Robinson et al. (2004) define employeeengagement as “ a positive attitude heldby the employee towards the organizationand its value.” An engaged employee isaware of business context, and works withcolleagues to improve performance withinthe job for the benefit of the organization.The organization must work to developand nurture engagement, which requiresa two-way relationship between anemployer and an employee.

The Gallup organization definesemployee engagement as “the involvementwith and enthusiasm for work.” Gallup ascited by Dernovsek (2008) likens employeeengagement to an employee’s positiveemotional attachment and level ofcommitment.

However, Robinson et al., (2004) haverevealed that an engaged employee willgenerally demonstrate behaviour such as:belief in organization, desire to work tomake things better, understanding ofbusiness context and the bigger picture,respect and helpfulness towardscolleagues, willingness to go the extra mileand keeping up to date with developmentsin the field.

An ‘engaged employee’ is one who is fullyinvolved in and enthusiastic about his orher work and thus will act in a way thatfurthers their organization’s interests.Thus engagement is distinctively differentfrom satisfaction, motivation, culture,climate and opinion.

In an attempt to highlight the relationshipbetween employee engagement andemployee ownership, it was found that anengaged employee becomes emotionallyattached to the organization and startsputting all his energy, efforts, mindand soul into the work. According toGallup: “Organizations using emotionalengagement automatically record highgrowth and very low attrition.” Unlessorganizations realize that employees haveemotional baggage and they deserve thesame emotional logic and rationale thatmanagement adopts with its ownrelationships, companies will alwayscomplain about high attrition. AsFernandez (2007) points out, “Employeeengagement is required for retention ofemployees.”

4. Strategies to develop Employeeengagement:

4.1. Employee induction programme:Effective recruitment and orientationprograms are the first building blocks tobe laid on the very first day the newemployee joins. Unique inductionprograms contribute toward engagement



of employees. Most Public sectorenterprises like POWERGRID, NTPC,BHEL etc., organize excellent inductionprogrammes for their newly recruitedemployees to make them feel comfortableand proud of their company, therebybuilding ownership. Other organisationslike Marriot International have anexclusive induction program called“VOYAGE” for all new recruits, whileNIIT begins with SEED (School foremployee education and development) atNew Delhi.

4.2 Leadership commitment:

Many innovative organisations see youthas a source of innovative ideas and as suchencourage the young employees in thecompany to come out with creative ideasand also strengthen the leadership of thecompany.

N.R. Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys,remarked, “It is important that you givechallenging engagements to deservingpeople, whether they are young or new inthe organization. Youth and empowermentare the keys to scalability and longevity.”The POWERGRID leadership explicitlydemonstrates its work culture by beingaccessible at all times, by interactingfrequently with employees, especially withnew, young entrants to the organizationand by adopting a transparent policytowards employee welfare.

Unless the people at the top believe in it,own it, and pass it down to managers andemployees, “employee engagement willnever be more than just a “corporate fad”or “another HR concept”.

4.3. Equal and satisfactory opportunityfor learning and development.

Employees see learning and developmentwithin companies as a big opportunity not

only for developing themselves but also away of contribution to the growth of theorganization. POWERGRID providesinnumerable opportunities for training. Ithas a mandate of providing atleast 6person-days of training in a year. Despitea busy work schedule, employees are oftensent for training in their respective areas.Apart from this, they are readilyencouraged with incentive schemes toincrease their work related qualifications,either in India or abroad, as and whenrequired. This helps employees to updatetheir knowledge and skills throughappropriate training.

4.4. Performance Management:Companies need to develop a performancemanagement system that holds employeesaccountable for the level of engagementthey have shown. Conducting a regularsurvey of employee engagement levelshelps to determine factors that keepemployees engaged. The results of such asurvey can be circulated amongst theemployees and also become the source ofinformation, which forms the basis ofmajor HR decisions. Opportunities forpersonal development through wellplanned growth of knowledge, skill andaptitude, and integrating the same withtheir career can keep employees engaged.

A pragmatic model depicting strategy forpeople engagement is given below:

4.5 Pay and benefits: The company shouldhave a proper compensation system so thatthe employees are motivated to work in theorganization. In order to boost his or herengagement levels, the employee shouldalso be provided with appropriate benefitsand perquisites. Research indicates thatengagement levels are low if the employeedoes not feel secure while working.Therefore, every organization needs toadopt appropriate methods and systems to



ensure the health and safety of theiremployees. Innovative schemes torecognize their talents and also devisingappropriate pay and perks would be agreat motivating factor.

6. Employee engagement initiatives –The POWERGRID experience:

I) Regular Communication withEmployees: POWERGRID believes inopenness and regular interaction. Thereare open house sessions where theChairman of the organization regularlyinteracts with senior executives and otheremployees through video conferencingand other modes of communication. Thisenables everyone to resolve anyapprehensions about new changes andpolicies. It helps inculcate a feeling oftogetherness in the organization. TheChairman and other members of the Board

of Directors are accessible to all sections ofemployees in the organization and sharetheir experiences with the employees andseek suggestions.

ii) Employee Suggestion Scheme: This isan integral part of the employeeinvolvement process. An employee whosuggests a policy or scheme or valuableinput is suitably rewarded. It enhancesthe individual concern for the well beingof the organization. It also promotes thefeeling of ownership in the organization.A well-placed employee suggestionscheme is always a key to organizationalsuccess and people empowerment. Oncehis/her suggestion is recognized orimplemented, the employee feels proud tobe a part of the organization.

iii) Online web forum: The departmentalweb portal is an innovative way of keeping

Fig. 1. Building ownership through employee engagement - pragmatic model.



the employees engaged in their functionalareas. This enables every one in thedepartment to deliberate and discuss thekey issues in the decision making process.In a way, it keeps everyone updated withthe latest changes in the organization.Function specific questions can be postedto various people in the department andthe solutions can be acquired fromall before a final decision is taken.POWERGRID has a well-established intranet system reaching out to all sections ofemployees.

iv) Bilateral forum: If the employee’sgrievances are listened to properly, halfof the grievances can be settled at theinitial stage itself. The best way is toencourage people to become active playersin bilateral forums such as thePOWERGRID National Bi-partitecommittee (PNBC). Similarly at theregional and local levels, a forum ofemployees helps them to deliberate andsettle their local issues in the organization.Forums like these infuse a sense ofbelongingness because all queries anddemands are met at the initial stages. Thisresults in building ownership in theorganization.

v) Innovative career plans: Fair evaluationof an employee’s performance is animportant criterion for determiningthe level of employee engagement.A that follows an appropriateperformance appraisal technique (whichis transparent and not biased) willencourage employees to stay on in theorganization and develop a bondwith the organization. When careeropportunities are high and equal, peoplefeel proud to be part of theorganizational team. Schemes likeaccelerated career growth opens upchannels from one grade to another in ashort span of time.

vi) Employee participation in culturebuilding: Employees role in culturebuilding is encouraged. There is activeparticipation of employees in culturaland social meets, Foundation Day,Independence Day, Safety Day andWomen’s Day, etc. Such celebrations are atestimony to the diversity and widegeographical footprint of the company.These celebrations in the organization alsodevelop a sense of belongingness amongthe employees. The company providessufficient contribution in financial terms sothat the celebration and participation ofemployees is encouraged. Employees arereadily encouraged to participate in sportsand games so that their talents arerecognized. During social occasions, thefamily members of the employees are alsobrought into the limelight. This encouragesteam spirit and provides a feeling ofoneness in the organization. In order toencourage feelings of happiness andcontentment, POWERGRID also arrangesregular spiritual talks by prominentspiritual leaders and speakers.

vi) Employees involvement in CSRactivities: Corporate Social responsibilityhas become one of the importantsubsystems of HR. In the recent past,companies have been allocating asubstantial portion of their budgettowards the social cause. POWERGRID,for instance, has allocated 1% of its net profitfor CSR activities across all the regions ofthe company. These activities cover an entiregamut of social issues like education, health,environment, employability and disastermanagement. POWERGRID encourages itsemployees at the field level, to take part inall the numerous CSR initiatives that thecompany sponsors in various areas of socialdevelopment.

Participation in such social developmentactivities enhances the employees’



interaction with the disadvantaged strataof society and also creates a sense ofsatisfaction and pride and ownershiptowards their organization. It encouragesthe perception that they belong to acompany that has concern not only forproducts, services and profits, but alsotowards people and society.

7. Conclusion:

How to engage an employee has become abig challenge? If an organization takesappropriate steps to keep its employeesengaged, they will feel good about theirwork, contribute whole-heartedly to

the organization and tend to remainloyal to it. Organizations are strugglinghard to retain their best employees.Only innovative employee engagementstrategies will help an organization to keepits team together. It has been establishedbeyond doubt that there is a direct linkagebetween employee engagement initiativesand improvement in productivity andreduction in attrition rate. The strategiesmentioned above are of course notexhaustive, but they bear testimony towhat has been happening in organizationsin this era of globalised economy whereattrition rate is quite high.

References:1. Brad Shuck and Karen Wollard (2010), Employee Engagement and HRD: a Seminal Review of the Foundations, Human Resource

Development Review, Sage Publications, Page. 89

2. Robert J Vance (2006), Employee engagement and commitment, - A guide to understanding, measuring and increasing engagementin your organization, A SHRM Foundation publication

3. Robinson D, Perryman S, Hayday (April 2004), Report 408, Institute for Employment Studies,

4. Sandeep K, Mark Gatenby, Chris Rees, Emma Soane, Katie Truss, Employee Engagement: A Literature Review



About the Author

Ramkumar, Executive Director on the Board of ICICI Bank isresponsible for Customer Service and Human Resourcefunctions.

Ramkumar is a PGDM from Madras School of Social Work anda BSc in Chemistry.

Prior to joining ICICI Bank Ramkumar had over 16 years ofexperience in companies such as Hindustan Aeronautics,

Brookebond Lipton India Limited (now Hindustan Unilever Limited) and ICI IndiaLtd.

At ICICI Bank Mr. Ramkumar has been responsible for Human Resource function,initially for the Bank and then for all the companies in the ICICI Group.

He has joined the Board of Directors with effect from February 1, 2009.

CULTURE, COMMUNICATION AND RESPONSIBLEENGAGEMENT

K RAMKUMAR

Most social organizations includingcommercial organizations, approach

the themes of culture, communication andengagement with its constituent members,in a compartmentalized manner. Wecognitively understand that these three areintricately linked and they impact eachother. However, when we operationalizethese, we seldom conceptualize, plan andimplement them in unison. This leads mostsocial institutions to resort to platitudesand pedantic positions.

I have chosen to examine this integratedtheme from a point of view not oftenchosen. Let us examine 3 core aspects ofthis integrated theme viz Transparency,Feedback and Freedom of expression. Allthree are cultural, communication andengagement levers.

At the outset, we should differentiate theusage of these terms in the context of

financials/regulations/policy articulationand cultural engagement. In this article weare largely dealing with socio-culturalnuances, more so when applied tocommercial organizations.

Transparency and openness:

Have we ever come across a socialinstitution which says that it will not betransparent or admits that it may not betransparent with respect to all aspects ofits functioning? There will hardly be anydifference in the utterances of nationalleaders, political leaders or CEOs whenyou engage them on the theme oftransparency. All would eulogize the virtueof transparency and claim that they andtheir organizations are the paragons of thisvirtue.

Let us examine this deeply. The unit of mosttrustworthy social institution is the family.



Can we dispute that the trust dynamics ofan average family of say 6 to 8 people,should be far less complex than say anysocial institution of 100 people? Can wedispute that the physical, emotional andmaterial interdependence of family as aunit ought to be far more entwined thanany social institution? If we agree to thisbasic premise, then we should ask thecontroversial question, “How transparentand open is the culture within a familyon economic & psychological issues,personal judgment each member have ofthe other, strength of relationship, mutualexpectations etc.?” How transparentare spouses to each other about theirassessment of each other’s characteristics?How transparent are parents and adultchildren to each other, on the impact of eachother’s expectations and behaviour? Howtransparent are adult siblings to each other,on their differences, economic or otherwise,and how willing are they in adoptingtransparent and open ways of sorting themout? An honest answer will be strong andnear ideal some times and with somemembers, but tense, imperfect and oftenclumsy at most times.

If this is even partially true, then why is itthat so many of us advocate and even claimto have, the virtue of transparency inculture, communication and engagement, inan almost near perfect standard or demandit be so? Speak to one of the apostles of sevensteps to heaven, they will immediatelyproject on the screen a two by two gridwhich would elucidate the seven steps tothe transparency heaven. They would evenshow you case studies of organizations,which have adopted these steps, of coursewith the ubiquitous change agent andcreated the “Promised Land ofTransparency”. Now if we choose to beirreverent and then proceed forward, wewill agree that the virtue of “Transparencyis contextual, relative and calibrated” asYudhisthra found out in Mahabaratha about

“His Dharma in engaging Dhrona orBhishma”. Now I can hear the readersscreaming at me and wanting to know “THEanswer” as we have been conditioned byour education. This is where the problemarises. We confuse general tenets withapplication guides and then like cook bookrecipes rush to try it out in ourorganizational kitchens. And there arealways the ever obliging purveyors of bestpractices ready to sell them to us. Rarely dowe want to use the tenets as a broad perceptand choose to explore the right touch andmix for our constitution.

The truth is some organizationalengagements and processes can be “openand transparent” and some will not be.Many of us including our senior leadersare afraid to say this and thereby violatethe principle, which they claim to beupholding. We confuse honesty withopenness and transparency. By saying thatwe cannot be transparent on all aspects ofrunning a social institution, we will behonest. On the other hand, by proclaimingtransparency as a non-negotiable cultureof engagement, the leader will be dishonestand be forced to be non-transparent.

Feedback:

Now let us examine the other holy cow ofculture, communication and stakeholderengagement – “Candid and Directfeedback”. This is the holy cow ofmanaging performance, inspiring teams,managing collaboration and sensitivity.You will also see the connect betweentransparency, openness and feedback. Youwill note that these are also the proclaimedculture anchors of most organizations. Asalways you can throw this paper into thedustbin and rush for the “How to Guides”and the “Seven steps to heaven” gospelsor pause and deliberate.

If giving and receiving – “Candid andDirect feedback” is so natural and



inevitable aspect of social life, why dohumans struggle to display it even whenthey are well past into their adulthood? Ifthis is all about calling or walking intosomeone’s presence and engaging in anopen and transparent manner about one’sintent, behaviour and its impact onsomeone or some institution, why is thereso much fuss about it? When was the lasttime one of us, engaged our spouse, parent,adult child or sibling with a “Candid andDirect feedback” on how their intent orbehaviour is impacting us or someone else?When was it that we walked up to one ofthis inner core trust group called familyand asked for a “Candid and Directfeedback” of our intent or behaviour andits impact on them or someone else? Howoften do we do this? Once a week, month,year (as we are told is a must) or a decade!Or, most of it is very often indirect, subtleand even obfuscating. Yet we very oftensense it and respond to it with a multitudeof responses such as hurt, correctiveactions, defiance, counter feedback,explanations, conditional acceptance,relief, etc. So what is this that makes usexpect not an “indirect and subtlefeedback”, but a “Candid and Directfeedback” in low intimacy and therebylower trust oriented secondary socialinstitutions? Years of propaganda by thepurveyors of the “Seven steps to Heaven”apostles!

Let us delve deeper into this “Candid andDirect feedback” manna. It is not sufficientto be candid and direct, we have been toldthat we have to be objective and evidencebased in these engagements. Let us takethe case of a strained relationship at homebetween say your spouse and your parents.Is this not the most common collaboration,sensitivity and relationship-destroyingissue at most homes? So here comes the“Dr. Benjamin Spook’s” bringing up a childgospel. Be candid, direct, objective andevidence based – lo and behold the issue is

sorted out and the family as a unit is nowstrife free. Now why is it that our criticalacclaim rejects this every day occurrenceat millions of households and believes thegospel of management fiction writers asthe truth? When was the last time anyspouse was candid, direct, objective andevidence based on the partner’s conjugalperformance? This question I know isembarrassing to our closet culture, but ifthis is so touchy, how can more touchyissues at secondary social institutions behandled in the manner we have been toldit should be and that many are doing itconsistently well? Let us take an even moremundane performance issue. How candid,direct, objective and evidence based are we,when we choose to give feedback to ouradult children on their performance, withtheir careers or other goals they have? Incase of serious power imbalance say witha child, we do not give feedback, but wepronounce judgments. In most powerimbalance engagements, we masqueradejudgments as feedback even in socialinstitutions and posture in public forums.

The truth is human relationships andengagements are complex and emotionallysensitive. Hence to load on it unrealexpectations of conduct or engagementrules, leaves people chasing a mirage andlarge parts of the constituents unhappy andfrustrated. In some relationships and atsometimes the exalted ideal of candid,direct, objective and evidence based feedback is possible. But most of the times andin most contexts it will be indirect,suggestive, subtle and feebly evidencebased. Largely the emotions of the giverand the receiver will interfere withobjective perception. Can you visualize,how rude and shorn of warmth andsensitivity will be a “Candid, Direct,Objective and evidence based feedback”?The story of Harishchandra is a testimonyfor it. It will sound like a high courtjudgment or a high priest’s preaching from



the pulpit. The receiver will be hit by thefull blast of un-deniability and a sense offinality. We should never forget thatfeedback, what ever its tone and tenor,will always be perceived by the receiveras a judgment on his / her intent orbehaviour. However measured, objectiveand evidence based it may be, it firsttickles the emotional part of the humanbrain and not the rational part. That iswhy more candid, direct, objective andevidence based the feedback, more shockand anger it instantly creates – How canyou see me like this? Not you! Now let metell you why your “perception” is wrong?Do you see how quickly the receiverhas debunked the feedback as “your”perception?

The argument here is not that feedback isnot possible or that it cannot be candid,direct, objective and evidence based. Theproposition is that, it is very complex,difficult and not a natural state of things.Nor is it something anyone can display inall engagements, in all contexts and withall people. It is an imperfect endeavour,which humanity will struggle with in theirsocial institutions for all its existence.

Freedom of Expression:

Openness and transparency provides theholding environment, feed back functionsas the socio-cultural thermostat andfreedom to express becomes the very heartof meaningful membership in any socialinstitution. These three shape and regulateand breathe life into the culture and therebythe quality of engagement in a community.

Thomas Jefferson the founding father of theUS Constitution once said,”I will defendwith my life the right of expression ofanyone and so will I the right of anotherto disagree with him.” This sums up thethird and most sought after culture,communication and engagement ideal.A social institution, which stifles its

member’s voice, will almost always end uphaving to deal with “a Tahrir square or aTiananmen square”. However most of usconfuse repression with the much neededrestraint of any civilized set up. No set ofpeople, however upright and well meaningthey may be and however just their causemay be, can choose in the name of freedomof expression, and hold systemic organs ofany social institution to ransom. The Frenchrevolution is a testimony to it. Unbridledand maniacal right abrogation by membersof an institution, led the very ownprotagonists of this movement to deatheither through murder (Marat) or on theguillotine (Robespierre).

Egged on by the hype of managementfiction and the apostles of culture, most ofus enter institutions with a mind set, thatwe will consider something to be truefreedom of expression, only if we arepermitted to throw stones at the authorityfigures or lambast policies and systems andrile the leaders. We confuse the right tocritique or advice or suggest, with the rightof determination or forcing the issue on ourterms. The leaders or the establishment areexpected to passively listen, not evenpresent a counter point or challenge theflaws in these propositions, lest they willbe engulfed by the lynch mob. The veryfact that one has a voice only in anon-repressive system is quickly forgotten,the stakes are raised so high that thedemand becomes one of accept myproposition or I will damn you asrepressive and authoritarian.

Pause for a moment and only focus on theprocesses of a non-repressive and non-abusive social set up. Ask the question,where does my right for free expressionstart and where does my duty to be aresponsible dissenter commence? Is it notfacile and mischievous to expect that aperson with no responsibility oraccountability in a system, be givenunrestrained power to overturn a non-



repressive social institution, merelybecause the current order is not beneficialto him/her? (Do not confuse thesearguments with the current movementagainst corruption or any other movementagainst state or systemic repression).Imagine a social system that provides suchrights to its members. Then every day anyset of individuals, who are aggrieved bysome norm, law, rule or policy, willdemand that this be changed. Now assumethat this rule, law, norm has been in the firstplace instituted through a propergovernance process. How does the systemengage with this set of aggrievedindividuals? Accession to their demandwill get a new set of people to demand achange and non-accession will lead to theleaders being charged as authoritarian.

Hence as Thomas Jefferson stated, all thata free social institution can guarantee is thefreedom to state one’s view in a civilized,non rebellious and non disruptive mannerand thereafter reserve the right to expressits disagreement in an equally civil and nonrepressive manner. Is this not the veryessence of a civilized dialogue or debate?This is the purpose for which socialinstitutions create appropriate forums,protected by proper governance structures,where the constituent members areprovided, structured and normedopportunities to enter into a dialogue ordebate. An institution that does notunderstand this ends up promisingfreedom of expression without a socialstructure and norm and then gets pushedinto reneging on it.

The nascent social net forums run the riskof becoming a wailing web wall or anelectronic graffiti wall, if the constituentmembers do not bring in order and somepersonal dignity protection norms. Theculture of presenting one’s view withpseudo names, misusing the freedom ofexpression to malign and defameindividuals and institutions and not for a

moment going beyond saying what iswrong to how it can be corrected or whatwill I do to correct it, will lead to serioussocial illness. My case is not against thefreedom to express, but it is about havingthe personal responsibility to do so, withone’s identity and not standing at streetcorners behind a mask and throwingstones. This may be inevitable, in anabusive or repressive regime, wheresomeone’s personal safety and the securityof loved ones is at stake. In free societies,we should not celebrate and eulogize thesebehaviours, as the new “in thing” and givelicense to juvenile instincts, which I amafraid is happening, in the name of freedomof expression.

So to put a skin around this debate, letme conclude that freedom to express ina free institution with governance structurescannot be without norms and structures. Italso cannot be let loose without demandingand holding its constituent members toresponsible expression and accountabilityfor the consequences.

To conclude, in this article I have tried toconnect culture, communication andengagement into one fabric. These threeentwined levers, impact aspects such ascollaboration, sensitivity, relationships,dignity and order. If we understandthis well, then we will design cultureattributes that are realistic, communicatethem clearly and manage constituentengagements in a responsible andproductive manner. The essence of cultureis civilized conduct. The imperative forcivilized conduct is not swinging toidealism or extremes. Civilization is aproduct of subtleties, constituent members’rights, responsibilities and accountabilities,benign use of authority under a prudentgovernance structure and above all tradeoffs for the preservation of order, so thatthe institution’s basic purpose is carried outin line with the intent of the originalcharter.



DELIVERING EXCELLENCE THROUGHEMPOWERMENT

VINEET KAUL

“An Empowered organization is one in whichindividuals have the knowledge, skill, desire,and opportunity to personally succeed in a waythat leads to collective organizational success.”

– Stephen Covey.

During my initial years, I worked for alarge manufacturing plant and one of

the assignments handled by me was in‘Welfare.’ As a part of the Welfare function,we had set up Co-operative Societies of thewives of the workers. The activities takenup by around 800 of these women were inTailoring, preparing food items, as alsoassembling and supplying variouselectronic items to the MaterialsDepartment of this large factory. All thesewomen were from humble backgroundsand most of them had not even completedtheir Higher school education. However,they got drawn into a “WelfareProgramme” and joined like-mindedwomen to run these Industrial Co-operatives. The women were their own

shareholders, they planned their activities,decided on the team / workgroups,managed the purchasing, productionscheduling, supplied in time to the plantand also managed inventories. Theproducts that were supplied to the plantwere subject to all terms and standards asapplicable to any vendors. They wrote theirAccounts – off course sought help fromoutside on few expertise areas. They alsoregularly conducted their Committeeelections, Audits, as well as distributedsalaries and dividends to members asrequired. They never let down theircustomer schedules despite all odds thatthey faced. This entire experience was agreat learning, especially because what wasset up as a Welfare programme beginningwith 15 volunteers crossed to thousand,soon. At best, we had planned that theseactivities would also serve its purpose of“Proactive IR / ER”, as the family wouldalso have a stake in the smooth running ofthe Plant. I had not heard of the term

About the Author

Vineet Kaul is the Chief People Officer, Hindalco—a $14 Bnglobal Metals major with 32,000 employees. Earlier, Kaul wasVice President (HR) - Indian Subcontinent and an ExecutiveDirector on the Board of Philips Electronics India Limited. Hiscareer as an HR Professional spreads over 34 years of enrichingexperience in the Manufacturing, FMCG, Consumer Durables,IT and Technology sectors. After obtaining a Masters Degree inSocial Work from MS University, Baroda. Kaul started his career

as a Management Trainee with Tata Motors, worked with Birla Yamaha and EicherMotors before joining Philips. Kaul has served on the CII National Committee forHR and IR and is a Past President of the Mumbai Chapter of the National HRDNetwork. Professional Awards he received include “Best HR Professional” Awardfrom Centre for Industrial Relations and Social Development, Baroda and fromMid-Day in Association with DAKS, London.



“Empowerment” at all – but when I lookback, was it not “Empowerment”? Thesesimple, less educated womenfolkparticipated in an enterprise much betterthan what most of us struggle to. On topof everything – they all enjoyed what theywere doing and also broke through various“social” and patterned norms of the 70’sin running the Co-operatives. As one ofthem once told me – My self-esteem hasgone up and I feel proud to supplementthe family income. Now, that is what tome was “Empowerment”.

“Employee Empowerment” is a strategyand philosophy that enables employees toown their work and take responsibility fortheir results. Empowerment is a panaceafor organizations ills, when implementedwith care. Employee involvement andparticipative management are often usedto mean Empowerment and are notinterchangeable. Employee Empowermentprovides a continuum for leadership andinvolvement that includes an increasingrole for employees and a somewhat‘decreasing’ role for Supervisors in thedecision process.

Empowerment is the process of enablingor authorizing an individual to think,behave, take action and control work anddecision-making in autonomous ways. Itis the state of feeling self-empowered totake control of one’s own destiny.

When thinking about empowerment inHuman Relations terms, try to avoidthinking of it as something that oneindividual does for another. This is one ofthe problems organizations haveexperienced with the concept ofEmpowerment. People think that someone,usually the Manager, has to bestowEmpowerment on the People who reportto him. Consequently, the team memberswait for the bestowing of empowerment,and the Manager asks why people won’tact in Empowered ways. This led to a

general unhappiness, with the concept ofEmpowerment in many organizations.Think of Empowerment, instead, as theprocess of an individual enabling himselfto take action and control work anddecision-making in autonomous ways.Empowerment comes from the individual.

The organization has the responsibility tocreate a work environment that helps fosterthe ability and desire of Employees toact in empowered ways. The workorganization has the responsibility toremove barriers that limit the ability ofemployees to act in empowered ways.Empowerment is a desirable managementand organizational style that enablesemployees to practice autonomy, controltheir own jobs, and use their skills andabilities to benefit both their organizationand themselves.

In the 80’s, the Japanese Automotiveindustry was the learning ground forQuality Management and I also got anopportunity to visit few manufacturingplants there. I recall the visit to a largevehicle assembly line wherein the speed ofwork, as well as the team work andflexibility of operations left me spell bound.Whilst being briefed, the Manager on theline also mentioned that Quality was thehallmark and any Operator (180 on thatline in a shift) who felt that a bad productwas getting through, could stop the line.The Operator did not need to takepermission of his Supervisor before takingthis step. I was thinking that in my Unitback home, to go to the washroom, theSupervisor has to be informed by theworker or else he gets upset. However, herefor such an important decision, it is left toan Operator! No wonder the Operators inJapan took ownership, thought and alsobehaved differently than many employeesacross the world. Off course, there havebeen major strides and learnings in ourorganizations in India thereafter. Thisexample shows us how the Japanese



managed superior products and serviceswith Employee “Empowerment”, whereasin those days, on many other matters it wasa ‘seniority based’ culture. The incidenceof a quality issue or an unsafe act was rare– perhaps only once in 6 months – however,the spirit behind this “Empowerment” wasgreat. Such and similar practices, helpedthe Japanese Auto Industry take theLeadership in their products & servicesfrom well-entrenched stalwarts.

So how does one work towardsEmpowerment? I personally feel nothinghappens on its own, and we need to strivefor it. The model below is a good one thatcan be adapted as per the need:

The three levels of Empowerment are:

1. Encouraging employees to play a moreactive role in their work and trust themto do the right thing.

2. Involving employees in taking

responsibility for improving the waythings are done. Employee involvementis neither the goal, nor a tool, but isa Management and Leadershipphilosophy about how people are mostenabled to contribute to continuousimprovement and the ongoing successof their work in the organization.

3. Enabling employees to make more andbigger decisions on their own initiative,without interference of someone moresenior. Empowerment is the process ofenabling or authorizing an individualto think, behave, take action and controlwork.

Why Empowerment does not happen?Employee Empowerment is a businessnecessity and not just a HR process.Improved motivation and morale is anexcellent outcome to deliver superiorperformance and results. Moreover,productivity gains add to the bottom line.



With so much awareness andunderstanding on the subject – why is that“Empowerment” does not happen the waywe would like it to be: -

1. Managers pay lip service to EmployeeEmpowerment, but do not reallybelieve in its power. As with allmanagement and business buzzwords, Employee Empowerment canseem like a “good” thing to do. Afterall, well-respected management booksrecommend that you EmpowerEmployees.

When you Empower Employees, theygrow their skills and your organizationbenefits from their Empowerment.Right. Employees know when youare serious about EmployeeEmpowerment and when youunderstand and walk your talk. Half-hearted or unbelievable EmployeeEmpowerment efforts will fail.Frequently communicating that we arecommitted to Empowerment willalways be tested with ground realities.

2. Managers don’t really understandwhat Employee Empowermentmeans. They have a vague notion thatEmployee Empowerment means youstart a few teams that addressworkplace employee morale or safetyissues. You ask people what they thinkabout something at a meeting. Youallow employees to help plan thecompany picnic. Wrong. EmployeeEmpowerment is a philosophy or strategyenables people to make decisions abouttheir job.

3. Managers fail to establish boundariesfor Employees Empowerment. Inyour absence, what decisions can bemade by the employee group? Whatdecisions can employees make day-by-day that they do not need to havepermission or oversight to make?

These boundaries must be defined orelse Employee Empowerment effortswill fail. Again, this also needs tobe communicated well so thatefforts made by employees arenot questioned. Cold-shoulderinginitiatives taken by employees can bea setback and hence derail the process.

4. Managers have defined the decision-making authority and boundarieswith the team, but still micromanagethe work of employees. This is usuallybecause managers don’t trust theirpeople to make good decisions. Oftenemployees know this and either craftilymake a decision on their own and hidetheir results or they come to themanager for everything because theydon’t know what they really cancontrol.

A good test is the number of signaturesfor applying / forwarding a particularrequest. These can become milestonesin the process. The paperwork isburied for days, but employees cannotproceed without the necessarysignatures. Do employees makemistakes? Certainly, but often ourprocedures and legacy of workprocesses – creates the doubt andmistrust.

5. Second-guess the decisions ofemployees you have given theauthority to make a decision.Employees can help to make gooddecisions by coaching, training, andproviding necessary information. Youcan even model good decision making,but, what you cannot do, unless aserious complication will result, isundermine or change the decision youhad empowered a colleague to make.Teach the employee to make a betterdecision the next time. But don’tundermine their faith in their personalcompetence and in your trust and



support. You discourage EmployeeEmpowerment for the future. Thecolleagues will play ‘safe’ and avoidtaking decisions or always ask youwhat is to be done.

6. Managers need to provide growth andchallenging opportunities and goalsthat employees can aim for andachieve. Failure to provide a strategicand structured framework imperilsthe opportunity for empoweredbehaviour. Employees need directionto know how to practiceEmpowerment. The employees arekeen to also relate to the larger picture– more often than not we feel that atbest they understand only their workarea. However, I have experienced thattheir connect with the larger canvas isrewarding and you will see real‘strategic’ thinking and output comingfrom them.

7. If managers fail to provide theinformation and access toinformation, training and learningopportunities needed to make gooddecision, don’t complain whenEmployee Empowerment efforts fallshort. The organization has theresponsibility to create a workenvironment that helps foster theability and desire of employees to actin Empowered ways. Information isthe key to successful EmployeeEmpowerment. I recall an example ofdevelopment – an expatriate CEOsharing an example of developing andgrowing mushrooms. “You keep themin the dark always, feed them filth andwhen they grow – cut them off”. Letsavoid this mushroom syndrome.

8. Managers abdicate all responsibilityand accountability for decision-making. When colleagues are blamedor punished for failures, mistakes, and

less than optimum results, youremployees will flee from EmployeeEmpowerment. Or, they ‘ll publiclyidentify reasons why failure was yourfault, or the other team’s fault. Failingto publicly support decisions and standbehind your employees will makethem feel deserted. You can makeEmployee Empowerment fail in sixtyseconds. Have we not often heard thestatement “who the hell authorizedyou to take this step / act on the subjectmatter? Now I will have to bail youout.”

9. Allow barriers to impede the abilityof employees to practice Empoweredbehaviour. The work organization hasthe responsibility to remove barriersthat limit the ability of employees toact in empowered ways. These barrierscan include time, tools, training, accessto meetings and teams, financialresources, support from other staffmembers, and effective coaching. TheQ12, which we are familiar with, at itsbase level, very clearly asks theemployee if he/she has the resourcesto do the job.

10. When employees feel under-compensated, under-titled for theresponsibilities they take on, under-noticed, under-praised, and under-appreciated; don’t expect results fromEmployee Empowerment. The basicneeds of employees must be met foremployees to give you theirdiscretionary energy, the extra effortthat people voluntarily invest in work.It has to be clearly linked with theRewards & Recognition program. Wewill reap what we sow. Employees areexhorted on how good Empowermentis, it is essential for the organization,etc – however, this is no where reflectedin the Rewards Program, which does



not motivate at all employees who runthe extra mile.

Few Learnings for EffectiveEmpowerment:1. Believe in the employees’ abilities to

deliver: The same employee whom wesee at workplace, manages a family,household expenses, gets his childreneducated, married and also dischargesvarious obligations in the society.If he/she can manage all theseresponsibilities very well – why not inthe workplace? Hence, my confidencethat the abilities are there to deliver.

2. Build Trust: Easier said than done. Myown experience is that 9 out of 10 caseslive upto the trust we repose in them.Yes, it also does take time to build trust,but finally ‘Trust begets Trust.’

3. Involvement is the key: Sharing ofinformation is essential and alwaysexpected by the employee group. Itinstitutes a sense of belonging andownership. Companies that have setup an institutionalized processes ofcommunication gain by effectiveteamwork and better levels ofproductivity. Higher the involvement,more the initiatives and creative inputsfrom employees. The attention that wegive to employee feedback andsuggestion makes them contributefurther.

4. Provide direction and support: In theinitial period, employees look fordirection and also often for support.Time spent by managers in nurturingand caring for the employees helpsdraw them into the main stream.

Proper resources as well as timelyintervention also help in removingroad blocks to Empowerment. Thisalso sends a positive signal to thevarious teams to go beyond their callof duty.

5. Focus on the Goal / Results: Thisworks as a powerful medium andcatalyst. We all have experiencedgroups of employees rising to thisoccasion. The Goal / Objectives bindsteams to the accomplishment of theMission. I have often sensed highenergy and initiative coupled withcommitment in delivering the results.

6. Reward & Recognition: It is a veryimportant element for building astrong foundation for Empowerment.Positive behaviour gets reinforcedwhen recognized and rewardedappropriately. The DNA of theorganization gets developed, ofteninfluenced by what is recognized andrewarded by the manager. When thereward mechanism is at cross- purposeto the culture that we want, it becomesan uphill task to motivate people forchange.

To conclude, the benefits of Empowermentare excellent and at the same time we canachieve wonders with the contribution ofemployees. It has been aptly put

“Never tell people how to do a thing. Tell themwhat to do and they will surprise you with theiringenuity”

– General George Smith Patton, Jr.



A headline in a newspaper says, “Niche job portals new campus for hiring

freshers.” The article goes on to say thatconsidering knowledge-based businessesalone make up 70% of hiring at thesefreshers’ job portals, campus placementsare no more confined to campus visits.

For a labour-intensive country like India,jobs mean numbers, and human resourcemanagement goes beyond the process ofbringing people and organizations togetherso that each other’s goals are met. With achange in the market place and thechanging world of work, the role of HRmanager is of one who affects change,through resources. She (HE??) haseffectively shifted from being a protectorand screener to a planner.

With outsourcing and internationalmobility, the work scenario is vastlydetermined by the Personnel director. He/She is the new corporate hero on whom

rests the responsibility to have personnelrelations in order, without which a goodfinancial and operative report in a businesswould be quite an uphill task.

What adds to the challenge are the newlabour laws, limitations on the talentavailable, shifting demographics, socio-economic imperatives where dominantbusinesses and social trends must meet,and above all, the game-changer calledglobalization.

The changing employment

As Thomas Freidman said in his book, TheWorld is Flat, the environment that we livein is primed for constant change.Customers are becoming tougher andvaried in their choices, and competitionsprings out of nowhere. You never knowwhere and when a new, innovative startupemerges to snuff out your very existencein the market. This new ‘kid on the block’

About the Author

Dr. Yasho V. Verma, COO LGEIL has been associated with LGIndia right from its inception in the country. He joined LGEIL asVP (HR & MS) and was elevated to Director HRMS and againelevated as COO, LG India.

He started his career with TATA Steel in Jamshedpur.

An Honorary Fellow of All India Management Association, hehas authored a Book “Passion - The untold Story of LG

Electronics” and is also the Honorary Editor for Journal of Projective Psychology& Mental Health by Anchorage USA.

He is also the President of Consumer Electronics and Appliances ManufacturersAssociation (CEAMA).

LEVERAGING BUSINESS OBJECTIVES THROUGHPEOPLE STRATEGY

Dr. Y V VERMA



has the potential to give you a run for yourmoney, pushing you to speed up andbecome more agile, quick- and light-footed.

It is a well-known fact that if we fail tocontinue to learn new things on a regularbasis we become stagnant, and professionalgrowth dies a slow but definite death. Notadapting to change not only limits ourpersonal growth, promotion, earningpotential, but also ebbs our ability toforesee and expect a brighter tomorrow.This has never been so true as inbusinesses.

Even in India, some ‘old’ skills are dyingand some skills are growing. Over theyears, highly skilled and knowledge basedjobs are increasing, while low skilled jobsare decreasing.

By this very fact, exhibitingentrepreneurship has become animperative for managers who think likethey own the business, even if they arefront-line employees. For them, it isimperative to constantly seek out ways togrow and learn more, and become moresuccessful at a steadier and brisk pace.

In fact the ‘entrepreneurial worker’ hasbeen a determining factor in where, howand for who people work, thustransforming company structures andcultures.

As this shows, again, a good andprogressive business environment is allabout the people involved. Companieshave realised that a successful businessdepends on how you design andimplement a people strategy that isproperly aligned with and supports thebusiness strategy – HR leaders are underpressure to demonstrate results from theirworkforce practices and policies.

HR is increasingly now being seen as astrategic linchpin – one that needs to workclosely with operations, finance and other

functions to help drive business strategyand success. This, in effect, has taken overthe Indian organizations at a very nimblepace indeed, given the never-endingchange in systems, management culturesand philosophy, particularly because of theglobal alignment of Indian organizations.

What’s needed?

So we need to strategize on the ground,need to streamline people’s relationshipwith the companies they serve, so as tocontinually stay in the forefront.

Therefore, if on the one hand, carefulevaluation must be done in selectingemployees, on the other, training anddevelopment must extend beyondinformation and orientation training, toinclude sensitivity training and fieldexperiences that will enable the managerto understand cultural differences better.

It also rests with companies to ensure thatmanagers are protected from careerdevelopment risks, re-entry problems andculture shocks, while performanceevaluations should take into account theinherent socio-economic conditions.Companies also must ensure that whilecompensation supports the overallstrategic intent of the organization, thepackages should be customized for localconditions.

Therefore:

1) Companies should ensure qualitymanpower and keep the bar raised bycreating a competitive people’sadvantage.

2) Companies must have a capability-development system in place. Busydoes not always mean highproductivity, and too much work inprocess destroys the ability to beactually productive. So, confidencemust be elicited in the personnel to do



what he / she does best, in the bestpossible way.

3) Companies must accelerate valuecreation, including in areas like processquality, in-time cycle, on-time delivery,customer service and innovation.

4) It is also crucial to instill people strategyin line management. There are thosewho strategize content with the factsthat they have, but are surprised thattheir labour has not borne fruit. Thereare also those who focus on firmoperations and its efficiency andsincerely believe that they areimplementing a strategy. Then there arecompanies who are caught unaware bythe poor implementation of thestrategies they have painstakinglydevised. There are also those preciousfew who work out a strategic plan,implementing and reviewing it as perthe conditions they encounter in theenvironment.

In all the above, the precious few arethe clear winners, considering that theytake into account the ground realities.And one of the realities on the groundis to make all the stakeholdersunderstand and aware of the strategiesthey have formulated. This is whatconstitutes ‘people strategy’, for it iswith them.

5) Leadership capability development:Change being constant in the currentworld, leadership too has shiftedsignificantly over the turn of theMillennium, and will continue tochange at an increasing pace. Thechallenge of leadership capabilitytoday, as it is said, is the War for Talent,Leadership Capability, EmotionalIntelligence and Talent Management.Organizations do their best to attract,develop and retain those people whodemonstrate talent and leadership. Yetthey find themselves quite lost when

faced with the question as to whetherthey have the right people, the abilityto acquire them, or to grow their own.

6) In this innovative world of today, thereis hardly a place for standard processesand systems. Constant change shufflesup things and customers are at theforefront of this revolution like neverbefore. Added to this is a technology-driven environment, where productsand services become out of date withinmonths. Every company wants to be thefirst one to catch the fancy of theconsumer, be it with new products,marketing initiatives, brands ordelivery channels.

Therefore, the capabilities of an effectiveleadership hinges on adapting bothinternal and external customers, andworking across disparate functions tomake things happen with extremespeed and efficiency.

The leader must ensure that people andresources constantly add value as thestakes become higher.

Creating competitive advantagethrough people

“Human, not financial, capital must bestarting point and ongoing foundation of asuccessful strategy”

– Sumantra Ghoshal (1948–2004)

What the late founding Dean of the IndianSchool of Business, Hyderabad, andco-author of Managing Across Borders:The Transnational Solution says makesmost sense in the growth-infused, labour-intensive country like India.

According to a Goldman Sachs projection,India’s labour force may rise by 110 millionthis decade. The report goes on to say thekey demographic trends driving the labourforce are urbanization, more women in theworkforce, and a large increase in the 30-49



age group, and that demographics alonemay contribute about 4 percentage pointsof annual GDP growth over the nextdecade.

The exhaustive projections also saydemographics will affect consumerspending patterns while spending onservices such as health care and educationmay increase five-fold by 2020. India’smanufacturing sector has the potential tocreate the necessary jobs, it adds.

To stay on this most encouraging scenario,it must be mentioned that the workingpopulation has to embrace the new globalrules of the game. Their skillsets andcapabilities must match the need for speedand flexibility. Further, the winners in this‘game’ would be the continuous selfrenewal demand ‘players’ who arepositive, passionate and stay connectedwith the organizational goals.

This, the HR managers must remember,requires an efficient talent acquisition,development and management process.For, only then, organizational capabilitywill be built through continuousupgrading of skills in line with current andfuture business needs.

Building organizational value throughpeople

Putting people first for organizationsuccess is, perhaps the only way, forcontinuous growth projection.

A people-oriented organization is one thatis of values. If you value and care aboutthe people in your organization, you willpay for their well being, apart from thecompensation packages, provide regularraises and bonuses for dedicated staff. Ifyou value equality and a sense of family,physical trappings of power, status, andinequality will automatically disappear.There’s onus on each one to perform to thebest of their ability.

Thus, engaging employees in pursuing theorganizational goals by identifying whatthey care about – uniquely andindividually — and then developing theoverlap between individual and corporatepriorities becomes one instrument ofexcellence and success.

Along with it, given the matrix of constantchange, developing and encouragingemployees who understand the emergingbusiness context and are capable ofconstantly delivering value throughinnovations, responsiveness and promptservice, also add to the value chain.

It is imperative to note here thatorganizational sustainability depends onthe continuous ability to create highervalue products and services drawing onnew skills and innovation.

Instill people strategy in line managers

As we have seen, nurturing andencouraging people is the only way toachieve organizational goals. By thisvery fact, the HR department has theonerous task in involving and partner withline managers to ensure a trickle-downeffect of best people practices, down to thelowest level.

Such streamlining and determineddomino-effect of best practices not onlyaccelerate decision making, but alsoenhance quality of decisions taken,facilitate effective resolution of workplaceproblems and also bring in pathbreakingmanagement ideas to the table.

By channelizing responsibility for HRissues by a process of responsibilitytransfer or delegation, line managers areprovided with an opportunity to engagein day-to-day people managementdecision-making. Simultaneously, HRspecialists are able to work on achievingcloser alignment of an organization’s



systems and processes with the corporateobjectives, while remaining sensitive toexternal environmental changes.

We must consider that the most significantelement in a worker’s relationship with hisorganization is the relationship he has withhis / her manager. He / she turns to themanager for information, guidance andfeedback. By devolving responsibility, HRstrengthens and fosters that bond. A HR -line manager partnership ensuresmanagers become the face of HR policyand procedures to their teams.

At the same time, to make line managerseffective in this role, HR needs to providethe systems and tools, and develop thepolicies that help line managers succeed asmanagers of people. Training and buildingthe support systems are imperatives formanagers to become people managers. Anorganization’s leadership too can help outto set the tone and climate within whichthis activity takes place.

Building leadership capability fororganizational sustenance and growth

Prospering in a dynamically competitiveenvironment is linked to the nature andcontext the leadership is able to relay to therest of the organization.

Building competitive sustainableadvantage requires a growth that isbalanced and inclusive. The onus lies oncompanies to recognize that they can drivebusiness continuity primarily byaddressing people development within.Thus, the need of the hour is to capitalizeon people competencies, with the HR and

the leadership team working togethertowards a performance and development-driven culture.

Therefore, the emerging crucial drivers ofbusiness growth include creation of aleadership pipeline and managing theHigh Potential Employees or the HiPos. Interms of HiPo management, organizationsmust have tools in place to improve andmeasure manager effectiveness andidentify high-potential employees throughperformance management processes.

For sustainable growth, buildingleadership at all levels of an organizationand identifying few vital leadershiprequirements that will drive the businessstrategy, even making it a part of the CEO’sagenda, are some other enhancementsrequired in businesses.

Although the central focus being thepeople themselves and drawing the leadersamong them for progressive growth, thechallenges to attract, develop and retain theleaders of tomorrow have not changed.Again, call it a boon or bane; the speed ofchange makes any gaps in capability moreevident, faster and starker than ever before.Creating, attracting and retainingtomorrow’s leaders requires a multi-faceted approach today to help deal withthe demands placed on these individuals.

Undoubtedly, the knowledge economy andthe services sector boom have made peoplethe center of business. Hence, for anybusiness turnaround to be effective,organizations must have the equal buy-inof all stakeholders in forwarding thepeople agenda.



ENGAGED EMPLOYEES : A KEY ORGANIZATIONCAPABILITYC MAHALINGAM

About the Author

C. Mahalingam (Mali) is the Executive Vice President & ChiefPeople Officer with Symphony Corporation. Prior to SymphonyServices, Mali headed HR for IBM India, Hewlett-Packard Indiaand for Royal Philips Software operations in India. He can bereached at [email protected].

1.0 Introduction: Over the last twodecades, no other people practice gotdiscussed and debated as much asemployee engagement. And this wasfor very good reasons. That is thegood news! And the not so good newsis that engagement of peoplecontinues to be elusive and enigmatic.You name any well-known consultingfirm and I bet they will have aframework and model for employeeengagement. Their research over afew decades informs uniformly thatacross geographies and corporations,employee engagement continues toremain elusive. There is a clearconvergence that the percentage offully employed workforce is no higherthan 20%. And an equal percentage ofpeople represent the other end of thecontinuum - fully disengaged. Thisleaves the significant chunk of wellover 50% of employee population as“cat on the wall”- neither engaged, nordisengaged. Not surprisingly, the costof disengaged workforce runs intohundreds of billions of dollars. Thereis, therefore, a clear case for leaders inorganizations including those in the

HR function to pay attention to thiselusive phenomenon.

2.0 Welcome to the Experience Economy:Many of us are still discussing anddescribing the current economy as“services economy” whereas thereality is that we have moved past thesame to enter into what is known as“experience economy.” In itsevolution, the economy acquiresdistinct characteristic based on theeconomic offerings. Commodities-dominated economy was known as‘agrarian’, goods-dominated one wasknown as ‘industrial’ and services-dominated one came to be knownas “service economy.” However,with services becoming highlycommoditized over the last decade,winning over and retaining thecustomers became a matter of offering“experiences” that the customers willpay for. We describe this as the“experience economy.” That peoplewill pay for high quality andmemorable experience is evident fromthe fact that Café Coffee Day makesover Rs.20,000 out of a kilo of coffee



power that costs no more than Rs.200!People pay for the experience andambience. This is true of why peoplego crazy and are both willing to waitin the queue and pay a high price forwatching the recent craze, T-20! Thelogic is simple. In the agrarianeconomy, the nature of the offeringwas fungible; in industrial economy,the offering was tangible; and in theservices economy, the offering becameintangible. And hold your breath; inthe present “experience economy,”theoffering has become “memorable.”Inthe experience economy, customersare delighted by the etherealexperience that employees create forthem. The argument therefore is thatonly highly engaged employees cantransform the customer experience byoffering them consistently etherealexperience. Employee engagementtherefore has become a businessimperative today much more thananytime before.

3.0 Understanding Engagement: Thereare as many definitions of engagementas there are consultants and consultingfirms. In simple terms, employeeengagement refers to a state ofheightened sense of ownership andcommitment to goals and plans of anorganization. Engaged employeesspend a lot of their discretionaryenergy in delivering performance.This discretionary energy is notsomething that organizations canmandate or demand. Not even themost inspiring leaders can get this, ifemployees choose not to offer. Therelies the challenge for organizationalleaders and human resourceprofessionals. Engagement becomes amake or break phenomenon aswithout discretionary energy at work,

employees cannot create the etherealexperience for the customers so verycritical for success in the experienceeconomy. Engagement literaturedistinguishes between two types ofengagement, viz. (a) rationalengagement; and (b) emotionalengagement. Rational engagementfocuses on sharing the big picture,increasing the role efficacy &effectiveness, and enhancing the goalcongruence and motivation. On theother hand, emotional engagementrevolves around inspiring leadershipat work, opportunities for self-actualization and high sense of beingwanted and valued by theorganization. Both the rational andemotional engagements are importantto draw the discretionary efforts frompeople. Organizational interventionsfocused on only one side of theengagement coin often fall short ofdelivering results.

4.0 Lighter side of engagement: As acurious student of human behaviorand HR, I have watched with interesthow different organizations haveapproached employee engagement.Broadly speaking, communication,compensation, career and care havebecome the four key pillars ofemployee engagement. Myriadinterventions deployed in differentshapes and colours will fall under oneor more of these four categories.However, I must also point out somehilarious practices that are prevalent:

• Supplementing free coffee and teawith NimbuPani (lime juice)&butter milk

• Introduction of dating allowance

• Opening of a marriage bureau atwork



• Stretching flexi time to a pointwhere people just do not show upfor work for days together

These are hilarious not because theyare useless, but because they aretouted as key engagement drivers.Ironically, the more successful a firmis financially, more of everything theydo become touted as best practices.Not surprisingly, conferences andseminars on employee engagementwhere ‘so-called best practices’ arepassionately presented often leave theunsuspecting and all the samecurious-to-learn participants moreconfused than convinced!

5.0 The darker side of engagement:Lighter side aside, let me spend a fewminutes to discuss the darker side ofemployee engagement. This has gotmore to do with myopic approachesto employee engagement than theintention behind the engagementefforts per se. It is not uncommon tocome across organizations whereengagement interventions aredesigned and implemented usingsome of the accepted approaches.They include benchmarking bestpractices from other successfulcompanies, lifting some practices fromthe published literature on the subjectand picking up recommendationsfrom thoughtfully-constituted internaltask forces. On the face of it, all theseare approaches that are in vogue andpracticed widely. After zealousimplementation for fairly long periodof time, HR leaders are confoundedwhen engagement has either not goneup or worse still has actuallynosedived. In some cases, well-intentioned and fervently-implemented engagement driversactually led to negative impact on the

organizational results andperformance. One does not have tolook too far for understanding this.The key point to remember is thatwhen engagement drivers aredesigned and implemented withoutvalidating them for their potentialimpact on organizationalperformance, surprises are bound tobe in store. Look at the three examplesbelow. These are real cases thatI have noticed / case-studied inorganizations:

• A 3000 people strong softwarecompany recognized ‘flexi time’ asa key engagement driver (untestedassumption). And this was takento an extreme where over the next9 months post aggressivepracticing of flexi time, theydiscovered that the productivityfell by over 60%. HR’s assessmentwas that reversing the flexitime would lead to even morenegative consequences (anotherunvalidated assumption). The netresult was loss of key customers inquick succession and once a dreamcompany today it is struggling forsurvival.

• Another company with 1800people and operations in 3different locations in India in theIT space hired a consulting firm fortheir engagement offering. One ofthe key recommendations wasto substantially increase the‘employee advocacy’ factor asthis is an important facet ofengagement. The intervention /driver implemented was giving“employee referrals” a dramaticfocus. When the initiative waslaunched, the employee referralconstituted 15% or so and it soon



peaked to 65% in 12 months, givenall the attention and awardsassociated with the referralprogram. As employee referralsstarted to reach for the sky, theinevitable let-up in hiring qualitystandards happened. Scorecardsand reviews only worsened thematter. Result: many clients quitcomplaining that the quality ofdelivery was not acceptable. Notintended, but that is whathappened. This companycurrently is in the ICU!

• One of the medium-sizedsubsidiaries of an MNCdetermined that aggressiveretention bonus program will helpincrease retention and possiblyemployee engagement. Theenthusiastic HR manager made acase of covering over 40% of theemployees and was lucky enoughto get away with budget for doingthis. Retention bonus has effectwhen it is selectively implementedand not widely distributed. Thisprogram had exactly the oppositeeffect with more and more peopleleaving and feeling disillusioned.

While one may be tempted toconclude from the 3 real life casestudies above that the HR leader madejudgmental errors, there is more to itthat meets the eye! The HR leaderperhaps had the best of intention. Theleadership team that endorsed theseinterventions and engagement driversperhaps had the best of interests inmind. The missing link wasexamining some of these interventionsas to whether at all and how muchrelevance these drivers had fororganizational effectiveness /performance. The moral of the story

is simple and straightforward: Not allengagement drivers are necessarilythe drivers of organizationalperformance. In fact, some of theengagement drivers can potentiallybecome counter-productive as it wasthe case with the examples above.

6.0 HR Analytics is Key to determiningEngagement drivers: HR analytics isstill a nascent discipline in India.Unlike scorecards and metrics that wecollect and analyze to make senseof what happened, analytics arefuture-focused. They give us insightson what will be the potential outcomeof interventions and drivers we planto implement. Measurement guru,Jac Fitz-Enzobserved: “Analytics isa mental framework, a logicalprogression first and a set ofstatistical tools second.” Dr. JeffreyPfeffer (of Stanford B-School)and Dr Robert Sutton (of StandfordEngineering School) both said:“If taken seriously, evidence-basedmanagement can change howevery manager thinks and acts.”Therefore, HR leaders will do well tolook at data and evidence, take amedium to long-term view andexamine every single engagementintervention proposed with care. Ifanalytics show clear trends ofmanager quality as reason fordisengagement and turnover, there isno point in rushing head-on withinterventions such as sabbaticals andbonuses.

7.0 Engaging the Millennial workforce:Let us keep in mind that the millennialgeneration is entering our workforcein big numbers. And drivers thatengaged successfully the earliergenerations like baby boomers and



Gen X will terribly fall short ifimplemented for Gen Y. We are clearlyat cross roads, for we are yet tounderstand what drives and engagesthe millennials. Work by Danial Pink(Drive), Marshall Goldsmith (Mojo)and Lynda Gratton (Hot Spots) besidesmany other leading consulting firmscould provide some pointers. DanialPink in his New York Times best sellerbook, “Drive”offers extensive insightsthat hover around three key elementsof motivation and engagement. Theyare: (a) Autonomy; (b) Mastery; and(c) Purpose. Let us examine these insome detail:

(A) Autonomy: Dr Pink cites the workby Cali Ressler and JodyThompson, both former HRexecutives with Best Buy inUSA known worldover asROWE (Result-Oriented WorkEnvironment). Fast catching up,this is a philosophy first and assuch will qualify as a managementinnovation in the dictionary ofDr. Gary Hamel. This recognizespeople as partners and not pawnsin the production system! Dr Pinkalso cites a study by CornellUniversity of 320 small businesses,half of which granted autonomyto workers and other halfpracticed top-down direction.Those that provided autonomygrew at 4 times the rate of control-oriented firms and had one-thirdturnover! So much for the powerof autonomy as a driver forengagement!

(B) Mastery: Dr Pink brings a greatperspective on the subject ofmastery whey he says that onlyfully engaged people can achievemastery. And the process of

achieving mastery has a furtheringeffect on the engagement itself.Pink calls for designing jobs thatprovide what he terms as“Goldilocks tasks”- challengesthat are not too hot and not toocold, neither overly difficult noroverly simple. Since mastery is amindset, what people believeshapes what people achieve.Interventions to promote mastery,be they learning & developmentintervention or coaching andmentoring interventions, can go along way in creating this sense ofmastery and consequently theengagement.

(C) Purpose: Organizations have longrecognized the power of “creatinga sense of purpose” as a driver ofengagement, but not much of deepand sustained efforts has gone intoit. Purpose has a balancing effecton the other two pillars ofengagement, viz. Autonomy &Mastery. Purpose scores wayhigher than money for “as anemotional catalyst, wealth-creation lacks the power to fullymobilize human energies”,according Dr. Pink. According tohim, “the secret to highperformance is not our biologicaldrive or our reward-punishmentdrive, but our third drive – ourdeep-seated desire to direct ourown lives, to expand our abilitiesand to live a life of purpose!”

8.0 Conclusion: We recognize from theforegoing arguments the followingkey messages:

• That we are moving away fromservice economy to experienceeconomy



• That in the experience economy,what matters is creating an etherealexperience for the customers thatonly fully engagement employeescan deliver

• That engagement therefore is a keyorganizational capability that willprovide a lasting competitiveadvantage

• That not paying attention todesigning engagementinterventions will lead to fritteringof precious resources and end up

References:1. Joseph Pine II.B & James H Gilmore (1999), The Experience Economy; Harvard Business School Press, Boston

2. Daniel H Pink,(2009), Drive; Riverhead Books (Penguin Group), New York

3. Jac Fitz-Enz, (2010). The New HR Analytics: Predicting the Economic Value of Your Company’s Human Capital Investments;American Management Association

4. Jeffrey Pfeffer& Robert Sutton (2006) Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-basedManagement; Harvard Business School Press, Boston

frustrating organizational leadersand their efforts

• That Autonomy, Mastery andPurpose seem to deliver far betterengagement effect than mostmundane and monetary drivers

HR leaders should do well to benefitfrom the recent researches and insightsand leverage the science of analyticsto design and deliver the engagementinterventions. There lies the key tocreating, sustaining and getting themost out of employee engagement.



About the Author

Dr Arun Kumar Jain, a strategy scholar has taught at leadingUniversities in USA, UK, Greece, France, Germany, andSingapore. He holds honorary chairs as Distinguished Professorof Corporate Governance and Strategy at SP Jain Center forManagement (Singapore), and Affiliated Professor of Strategy,International Business and Corporate Governance at EMStrasbourg School of Business, Strasbourg (France’s largest

University). He was previously Research Chair Professor at German GraduateSchool of Business and Law (Germany) and Chairman & President of Center forAccelerated Learning, Innovation, and Competitiveness (Germany).

Dr Jain’s publications are in international journals including Harvard Business Review(The Elephant Dances). He authored books like Competitive Excellence; CorporateExcellence; and Managing Global Competition. He has addressed Council of Europe(Strasbourg), Global Corporate Governance Forum at Washington, WorldBank/IFC, Bundesbank (Germany), Global Forum for International Investment(Paris), OECD at Paris and Copenhagen, UNCTAD, MITI (Japan), European Union(Brussels), Commonwealth Secretariat (UK), India-Germany Business Forum(Germany), Academy of Management, Academy of International Business, etc.

He can be reached at [email protected].

ENGAGE, ENABLE, EXPAND, EXPERIMENT,EXPLOIT : TALENT MANAGEMENT FOR 21ST

CENTURY ORGANIZATIONSDr. ARUN KUMAR JAIN

Voltaire had said long ago, ‘If you wishto converse with me, define the terms’.

Before we even attempt writing aframework for talent managementstrategies and people-led initiatives, it isimportant to understand the context forthis discussion.

CONTEXT

Some years ago, at one of the annualmanagement international conferences in

India, a well-known corporate managermentioned how the HR paradigm hadshifted in the country. According to him,earlier it used to be ‘a 321 model’; now ithas been successfully turned on its headand reshaped into ‘a 123 model’. What wasthis? He continued - ‘321 means we usedto hire 3 persons, pay them the salary of 2,and they would give the output of 1 person.Now we hire 1 person, pay him the salaryof 2, and take an output of at least three



persons’. There was much clapping in theaudience - perhaps they liked the play ofwords rather than understanding theimplications of such inflictions onemployees.

Probably the model is more efficientin terms of office space management,but is it sustainable for the individualand the hiring organization? Does itlead to voluntary contributions andincreased motivation? It is true thatindustry contexts, spatial and timedimensions for businesses and strategiesare different and therefore difficult togeneralize the critical success factors forany firm. Yet there are certain transitionsthat must be understood well if companiesare to survive and excel in the newparadigm.

The corporate world of 21st century isquite different from that of 20th century.The manner in which organizations andpeople from different geographies relate,collaborate and share their individual andcollective aspirations, and the level ofinformation available in real-time has aprofound impact on the governance andmanagement of companies. I sometimeswatch in amazement how the younggeneration in India today has global andall-conquering ambitions (often unbridledand unsupported by ground realties andwork ethics). Similarly, corporations nowrealize that they have no choice but tocompete with global companies whether‘here or there’.

We are now seeing a new socialorder where individuals actingindependently yet coordinated by astrange attractor can cause upheavalsin global orders using widely available

technology platforms. Two majorupheavals in recent times arestrong pointers to this emergingparadigm, which has sharp implicationson governance, management, andorganizational structures.

The first is what can be termed as the‘Assange phenomenon’. One singlemaverick can challenge the world’s biggesteconomic and military power and revealits darkest secrets to the world. The lattercan only watch helplessly as its best-keptstate secrets tumbled out in mass media.US administration could only attemptto block the funds-flow to Wikileaksto constrict it out of business.Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, etc. became partof the effort. But something profoundhappened instead – as a mark of protest,anonymous global individuals jammedthe entire services of these paymentgateways.

The second event is equally breathtaking.The spontaneous organization ofpeaceful crowds at small notice in Tunisia,Egypt, Bahrain, and many other partsof West Asia has thrown out old,entrenched dictatorships. Once again,the new combination of socialnetworks such as Twitter, Blackberry,Facebook, YouTube, Al Jazeera,Google, etc. have played a major rolein providing real-time informationto individuals located far and wide.Here too the governments seem unableto block the crowds from gathering,despite switching off access to Web, orblocking social networking sites in theircountries.

What do these events mean to companiesin commercial space? In order to connect



the dots and visualize any patterns, weneed to look at a few more pointers.

For instance, before the end of lastmillennium, we had witnessed the comingof ICT (Information and CommunicationTechnologies) age. Ten years downthe time line, fresh sets of convergencesare creating a change of a different orderand magnitude. Companies (andtechnologies) such as Cisco, Google,Facebook, Twitter, Smartphones, Tablet-iPads, Web-enabled high-definition TV,cloud computing, etc. are changing theway voice, graphics, and other forms ofinformation are processed, shared andconsumed.

The sudden surrender of once-marketleader Nokia in the mobile operatingsystem (OS) space is dramatic by allstandards. Stephen Elop, the embattledCEO of Nokia, could only tell hisemployees that that their platformwas burning and there was little the firmcould do to catch up with iPhone andAndroid OS. Its market share wasdwindling since less people were writingapplications for Symbian! Nokia haschosen Microsoft as a strategic partner tooffer Windows 7 mobile platform to itscustomers.

The convergence of Internet, video,and cloud (IVC) technologies hasrendered a whole meaning to globalcollaboration and delivery models.MNC’s have offices across the world withemployees working round the clock andstaying in touch seamlessly and in realtime. Much of the work follows a GlobalDelivery Model with parts of a projectbeing executed at different places andwhich then are collated and delivered.

Cisco has completely transformed itself inline with the trends. The erstwhilemanufacturer of routers, switches, andtelephony is now a market leader incollaborative technologies such aspervasive video conferencing andpersonal tele-presence, enabling travel-less meetings.

We are not far from the days when mostof the mobiles, computing, and consumerelectronics devices will be connectedto one another. The new sensors willchange the manner in which we seekprofessional help. Qualcomm is workingon technologies in collaboration withautomobile and construction industriesfor providing remote assistance andoperational controls. DoCoMo is workingon simultaneous translation of languagesthat would enable managers in a foreigncountry, even while meeting face-to-face,to talk on mobile devices to overcome thelanguage barrier.

Mobile telephony is just one area where theerstwhile new technologies become thebasic platforms for future innovations.There are many other simultaneousdivergences and convergences happeningaround that are reshaping the world. Wecan clearly see a new social order implyingmajor upheavals for corporations andHR practices.

IMPLICATIONS

Table 1 encapsulates the corporatetransitions on structural, operational,strategic, and mindset levels on some keydimensions in the last ten years. This shalllead us to an actionable and practicalframework for managers.



TABLE 1

MAJOR PARADIGM SHIFTS IN CORPORATE MANAGEMENT

Dimensions 20th Century Economy 21st Century Economy

• Risk-taking encouraged• More experimental in

nature• Easily bored with status

quo

Entrepreneurship • Mostly limited to genes orpeople with money or politicalcontacts.

Marketing approach • Mostly traditional marketingwith experiments in onlineand digital space

Competition • Cut-throat; Companiesfighting for market share,top-line growth and profits.

• Companies aware of majorcompetitive forces.

• Competition will comefrom small, lesser-knowncompanies such as,Facebook and Groupon,which are posing bigthreats now to giants suchas Google and Microsoft.

• Disruptive networks,technologies and dynamicbusiness models willoutshine the static andstable ones.

• Startups and companiesthat invest in ideasleading to network effectsand knowledgeentrepreneurs.

Perspective & • Mostly reactive with someMindset exceptions.

• Companies will be forcedto be proactive on allfronts in order to surviveand excel.

• Digital informationsharing will be thedominant design.

• ‘Word of mouth’ over theInternet will make orbreak the companies.

Organizational design • Many employees withincreased focus on leanmanagement and automation.

• Fewer employees – eachone multifaceted andhighly talented.

Usual Employee • Reactive and presumptivebehaviour

• Proactive and self-starters• Entrepreneurial instincts.

Risk taking • Risk averse, conservative

• Stable, lifetime job



Dimensions 20th Century Economy 21st Century Economy

Products • Standardized with growing • Mostly customized withfocus on customization flexible facilities to match

sudden changes incustomer behaviour

Customer tastes • Mostly standardized • Difficult to say; Canand behaviour change rapidly with

changing values

Corporate strategic • Profits + stakeholder value • Profits + stakeholder valuemotives & Values + Social Value +

Environmental Value

Relationship with • Transactional/Long term • Focus on long term andcustomers getting new customers

will be difficult.

• Seamless integration

Business • Structured • Unstructured andEnvironment unanticipated

Cultural and • Low and negligible in • Companies will be forcedEthical Issues most companies to adopt ethical and

socially aligned practices

Innovation Resources • Mostly in-house; • Open and distributed; CanClosed systems be sourced all over the

world

Engagement • Internal orientation • External orientation

Enablement • Tactical (local) • Strategic (entrepreneurial)

The above Table clearly indicates that theworking environment for the corporationin the 21st century is substantially differentfrom the one even ten years ago. For topmanagement and HR people above 40years age, it may be difficult to keepcommunication pace with the youngeremployees entering the workforce if theysaw corporate transformations purely fromthe lenses of lessons learnt in the bygonecentury.

Clearly organizational and competitiveexcellence will come only when employees

are self-driven, and are able to work in anenvironment that promotes sharing ofinformation. The critical success factors forretaining talent and creating teams thatpush innovation in a firm has to becustomized and dovetailed to the visionand strategy. A fresh approach is necessary.

DISCUSSION ON SUCCESSFULEMPLOYEE SELF-INITIATIVES:

The emerging leadership frameworkshows an alternative way of governance,people management and conduct of



business. It is a complex interplay ofautonomy, vision, communication, andsocial ethical responsibility in aninformation busting and knowledgeparadigm. Superior and sustainablecorporate performance comes from aholistic approach of engage, enable,expand, experiment, and exploit. In thatsense, we need to extend the People Power– Draw, Drive & Deliver approach (thetheme of this issue).

An easily digestible and practical form ofthe framework looks as in Figure 1:

FIGURE 1

LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK FORINNOVATIVE TALENT

MANAGEMENT

An example of path-breaking innovationsby self-driven, small, a diverse backgroundteam comes from the manufacturing sectoroperating in a relatively stable powerequipment industry. It is well known thatknowledge and skilled plant operators areresponsible for running and maintenanceof complex heavy-duty machines such asGas turbines in a power plant. Theirexperience in operating complex machines

builds upon ‘tacit knowledge’, whichmakes it difficult to document and transferto other new operators. A key to theirsuccess is their quick ability to analyzecurrent operating conditions while sittinginside the control room and accordinglyrespond. This is vital for 24 hours non-stopcontinuous operations power supplymanagement.

As a result, such employees become ascarce knowledge resource of a company.At one of the plants in Gujarat at Hazira, apower plant operator approached itsprincipal equipment supplier Alstom-Switzerland to suggest and come up withan innovative solution to overcome theshortage of knowledge-owning plantoperators.

The real problem of the customer was thatall the ‘senior ’ operators who hadexperience in operating complex machineshad either left the company or moved onto a higher position and thus no longer ableto continuously remain inside the powerplant. The fresh batch of operators was stillnot trained enough.

The Swiss visitor remembered theubiquitous presence of mobile phones inIndia when he saw the Plant Managertalking on his mobile phone. He came outwith a solution that important data couldbe transmitted from the control room onreal-time basis to the mobile phones ofsenior managers (who were previouslyoperators). This way, irrespective of theirlocation, the senior managers could scanthrough data and suggest possiblesolutions.

This idea was further refined subsequentlyin the R&D labs of the company inSwitzerland and a patented technologywas developed.



The example show that ideas andoperational solutions can come from mostunexpected sources and from differentindustries. It is important for the front-linemanagers to be always alert to newpossibilities and to never underestimateeven the smallest complaint/request fromthe customer, no matter how crazy itsounds. It demonstrates powerfully thatthe most significant source of innovationdoes not come from the headquarters orR&D laboratories, but from collaborativenetworks that can leverage resources andcapabilities across multiple organizationsor individuals. In this case, a technical

expert of one company, commercialmanagers and plant operation managers ofa second company, and a mobile companyteamed up together to come up with anout-of-box solution that has fundamentallyaltered the technology paradigm in powerplant management.

Socrates had said ‘I cannot teach anybodyanything, I can only make them think’.This is sole purpose of the article – I hopeit gives managers something to think in thenew directions. Long-lasting companieshave the ability to align to the emergingtrends.



In the recent months leading andmanaging Gen Y work force has been a

major topic for research. This topic isespecially critical for India, where morethan 35% of the workforce is below the ageof 27 years. There are three generationsworking in the Indian context — BabyBoomers (born 1945-1962), Generation X(born 1963-1981), and Gen Y (born1982-1997).

In the years to come, most of India’s highpotential employees and middle managerswill be from “Generation Y”. They alreadycomprise a large share of the workforcethan anywhere else. It is increasinglybecoming clear that the future of Indianorganizations rests on the ability oforganizations to engage the Gen Y. Theparadox is that the top leadership thatneeds to manage Gen Y is mostly bornbefore 1980 and has limited knowledge andskills to engage with them. As managersstruggle to design tailor practices to attract

and motivate them and make them trulyproductive in alignment with theorganization, researchers across the worldhave been bringing out some interestingfindings (courtesy ASIA HR EXECUTIVEBOARD).

Management practices are the function ofsocietal trends, beliefs and values and willcontinuously evolve further in the newbusiness landscape. Thus, there is a need formanagers and organizational leaders todeeply understand the changing mind setsand acquire sophisticated understanding ofhuman interaction, including the need toappreciate and take account of demographicpreferences and cultural differences, startingwith Basic Assumptionsà Values and Normsà Behaviours.

As per social scientists, Gen Y is more selfconfident, optimistic, structured andimpatient. The age group or generation ismore tolerant and socially liberal. This

LEADING THE NEW GENERATION WORKFORCESOURAV DASPATNAIK

About the Author

Sourav Daspatnaik is Director Human Resources and StrategyApeejay Group. He is an alumnus of the Birla Institute ofTechnology Mesra, Ranchi., an alumnus of MS at Stevens Instituteof Technology, NJ, USA. Prior to joining Apeejay, Sourav workedas Director, Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Tata Motors, TataSteel and Ispat Industries in cross-functional areas like TechnicalServices, Sales and Marketing etc. Sourav has been actively

involved in Industry Associations like CII, FICCI and served as the Chapter Presidentof Natioanl HRD Network and is currently Regional President, East. His portfolio ofwork encompasses HR, IR and Group Strategy and its implementation.

The author acknowledges the contribution of Ms. Rashmi Singh, Asst Manager (HRD), Apeejay SurrendraGroup and Karishma Dhawan, Deputy Manager (HRD), Apeejay Surrendra Group.



Myth #1: Very differentdesires - Gen Y wantsdifferent things as comparedto the other generations.

Myth #2: Retention is allabout Compensation –Gen Yis only about money and willmove to another organizationif the compensation is right.

Myth #3: Need for high levelsof appreciation and feedback,mostly delivered informally.

Myth #4: Prioritize life, notwork — Gen Y gives moreimportance to work lifebalance than Gen X.

Realty#1: 70 % of top 10 employee valueproposition attributes that attract employees to apotential employer are common across all 3generations (Baby boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y).

Realty #1: Gen Y in India evaluates potentialemployers based on innovation as well astechnology level.

Organisational Mandate: Leverage the common

Realty #2: While Gen Y employees move to otherorganizations because of compensation, they donot leave because of compensation.

Realty#2: Gen Y in India with higher probabilityof staying have comparatively lower satisfactionlevels with compensation as compared todevelopment opportunities

Realty #3: Employees with high intent to stay tendto have managers who provide constructiveformal feedback.

Realty #3: Formal feedback mechanism workswell and effectively than an informal one.

Realty #4: Preference for work life balance differswidely across countries and regions and is afunction of local and cultural aspects.

Realty 4: Younger employees in India have lowerpreference for work life balance early in theircareers.

generation has been privy to fast changingsocial milieu, socio political turmoil,chaotic events like Kashmir violence,terrorist attacks, 9/11 in America andnatural calamities like the Gujaratearthquake and the tsunami. Experience ofso many chaotic events is definitely goingto affect the change and uncertainty beforethem in the very fast changing work place.The advent of global communication andinternet with real time connectivity, sms,

and mms means they are impatient to stayconnected and get result oriented. For themquality of work is more important than thequantity of work. While they may beknown as an overindulged, over protectedand over stimulated generation, Gen Y isinquisitive, challenging and creative. Theydesire the flexibility to complete the tasksin their own way, they are learning orientedand want instant feedback so that they canprogress.



Leading Gen Y

It is important to know and appreciate thestyles of management, which will beeffective and bring alignment with Gen Y.Gen Y need to feel connected with theCompany they work for and its values. Forthe GenY workforce, the workplaceprovides a social network where they cancreate relationships within theorganization. Organizations need toprovide collaborative work environmentrather than “command and control” styleof work environment.

The increasingly flat organizations andreducing hierarchies makes it critical thatGen Y get mentored and coached by theirreporting leaders. As per research findings,the key characteristics that Gen Y workforce desire of their leaders are caring,inspiring and competent. Gen Y want theirleaders to guide them with a friendly andfirm hand, while acknowledging andaccepting the individuals’ unique traits andabilities. Thus it is important to haveregular and open communication betweenmanagers and their Gen Y staff.Realistically, in normal organizations wehave a mix of Gen Y, Gen X and BabyBoomers and hence managers will needto cater to Gen Y and other generations aswell.

Engaging with Gen Y

A quick dip stick survey reveals that GenY will prefer employers who not onlyprovide them a fulfillment of career andprofessional aspirations, but also theirpersonal and social needs. Thus, it will beimportant to manage younger employees,and some simple ways of doing that are:

• Dispel negative mindsets. Negativepreconceived notions serve aspsychological barricades, whichprevent employers from understandingtheir younger employees and uncover

their potential. Thus, it is important toproactively manage tensions and rootout negative mind sets.

• Open dialogue and communicationswith trust and transparency helps inbuilding a positive feel. Maintainingregular dialogue and providingfeedback helps manage expectations.

• Regularly recognizing Gen Y’s workand contribution is a big motivation forGen Y to stay engaged and remainwithin the Company.

• “Keeping it Real” is key to gaining therespect from Gen Y. They are smart togauge real motives and intentions andhence it helps managers to be genuinein their dealings. Remember that themanager is as vulnerable and hasshortcomings as any other humanbeing, thus showing vulnerabilitydemonstrates sincerity.

• To inspite their younger staff, managersneed to demonstrate passion andinspire their staff to higher results. Inturn, Gen Y would be motivated towork towards common business goals.

• Use coaching and practice informalmentoring. Experts advise managers toavoid using tones of power andauthority and encourage informalmentoring. Proactively answering their‘Why” questions before they even askthem with detailed briefings andinformation helps reduce uncertaintyand avoids guesses. Daily briefings,spending time talking about the history,context and under lying issues will helpwin loyalty by connecting with them ata personal level.

• Putting technology to good use withemail, meetings, sms, electronicalmanacs, Knowledge Managementsystems, To do list on mobiles, etc andkeeping them updated will make themmore involved.



• Giving Gen Y some authority ondeciding appropriate training anddevelopment options for themselveswill often help them develop on the joband improve their decision makingskills.

Talent acquisition strategies for Gen Y:

It is a war for talent, a fierce competition tofind, hire and retain the very best peopleat a time when supply is shrinking anddemand is increasing. And true to originalpredictions, this worldwide phenomenonshows no signs of abating, with theincreasing shortage of talent affecting allindustries and all career paths, both hourlyand professional.

A number of far-reaching trends aredriving the changes that have manifestedas the talent war. Among these trends arethree key factors:

• Changing workforce demographics;

• The expectations of the 21st-century(“Millennial” or “Generation Y”)worker; and

• Emerging global economies.

You think that a nice salary, good benefitspackage and opportunities foradvancement might be enough to drawgreat talent for a company?

Think again.

Today’s workforce is looking for globalwork experience and are seekingopportunities to work on internationalprojects. That’s true for workforce acrossgenerations, from those just out of collegeall the way up to those near retirement.

According to a recent global survey byKelly Services, 81 percent of Millennials

(Generation Y) believe it’s important totheir career potential that they be moreglobally oriented. Generation X workerswere close behind them at 78 percent.What’s more, 71 percent of Baby Boomerssaid they prefer jobs that offer theopportunity to work on internationallyoriented projects.

The Paradigm Shift:

Most of the organizations worldwide havestarted to move away from the dependenceon recruitment or third party agencies andare going towards Employee Referrals andcreating and developing Networks. TheseNetworks may be existing or needs to becreated to tap the talent. Global locationsshall be growing considerably in the nextdecade and it is important for recruitmentmanagers to reach out to them as Gen Y isno longer on email, they have to be tappedfrom social networks like Linkedin/Facebook, etc. The paper resume will nolonger exist by the next decade and newand creative ways that allow people tocreate their profile, support videointerviewing, etc. will be the new methodfor hiring.

A research suggests that the by 2015, theGen Y population in the workforce willdouble, and how we recruit and engagethem, and how we continue thatengagement throughout their careerbecomes imperative. Talent acquisition ismoving from ‘finding—pursuing—tracking” talent to cultivating talent bybuilding on & developing own existingnetworks.

Therefore, creating a strategy and buildinga culture to support that kind of networksharing requires a large social mediapresence and organizations need to takethis into consideration.



About the Authors

Sonali Roychowdhury heads Human Resources at Procter andGamble India. She is from XLRI batch of 1998, with experienceacross India, Singapore and Vietnam in P&G. Sonali has variedexperience in Talent Development, Organization Design,Leadership Development and Mergers/Acquisitions. Sonali alsohas an avid interest in travel. Leading an HR team of almost75% Generation X employees, Sonali has developed her insightson managing this group through personal trial and error….and

is still learning on a daily basis!

Romit Choudhury (Twitter handle: @microRom) is the HRBusiness Partner for the Southern and Western region of Procter& Gamble India’s Sales function. He passed out of TISS batch of2008, joining P&G from campus. His professional area of interestincludes Talent Development & Capability Building. Weekendsyou can track him via Twitter, Foursquare or Facebook attendingsocial-media conferences, whose top-trend employee relatedtopics have contributed richly to this article!

MANAGING THE ‘SLASH’ GENERATIONSONALI ROYCHOWDHURY and ROMIT CHOUDHURY

“The philosophy of the school room in onegeneration will be the philosophy of governmentin the next.” - Abraham Lincoln

Nowhere is the above sentiment moreapparent than in India today, which

is on the cusp of preserving the strengthsof the past, yet reinventing itself for thefuture. The 2011 census report reaffirmsIndia as a young nation, with over 50% ofthe population below 25 years and 75%below 40 years, a similarity shared withmost rising Asian economies. The impactof youth in the country is best felt in thelabour market which engages and willcontinue to engage this vast slice ofdemography over the next few decades,leading to critical economic growth andsystemic nation building.

In most organizations today, the significantpercentage of talent is Gen Y (people born

after 1980), with an average 2-3 years ofwork experience. Gen Y is often referredto also as the ‘Slash’ generation i.e. multi-tasking and working on several things atone go (‘X/Y/Z/etc.) and therefore,organizations need to evolve themselves totap into those inclinations vs. force-fit intowhat works today. While their agility andfresh-thinking is an asset to anyorganization, having almost everyalternate managerial role staffed by youngtalent implies significant organizationalinvestment in coaching and capabilitybuilding. How does one leverage thepower of this huge pool of talent as acompetitive differentiator vs. ‘manage’within the old construct of the past? It isno longer a ‘nice to have’ focus but a ‘musthave’ for organizations to not just survivebut thrive in the future. Internal researchand feedback reveal the following trends:



The Insights

In Procter & Gamble, we’ve tried tounderstand what really drives Gen Y byvarious organizational studies in the lasthalf decade and here are a couple ofinsights from our learnings. While the coreof employee engagement remains thesame, Gen Y employees place far greateremphasis on a few areas:

1. “Wow ME” - Young employees aredelighted by personal relevance andcustomized intervention that appeals totheir individuality vs. generic one-sizefit for all deployments. This is not asyndrome of ‘What’s in it for me’but search for a broader canvas/environment which allows them to findtheir personal equation in theworkplace.

2. “Fair to me” – Thanks largely to thedigital revolution the currentgeneration is highly aware andsensitive to transparency and fairness– indeed they demand it. They want tobe associated with an ethical companyand a workplace that treats them fairlyand with dignity right from hiring.

3. “Outcome vs. activities” – The youthexhibit a strong bias for action that leadsto visible impact rather than defocusingenergy in bureaucratic processes thatconsume effort but yield little.

4. “Two way street” – Linked to this senseof urgency and empowerment is astrong need for dialogue andinteractivity with managers. Workingacross multi-cultural teams andcollaborative behaviour is muchappreciated. The age of commandmentis truly over.

5. “Connected 24×7” – Technology hasimpacted our lives and organizations inunprecedented ways. The youth wantall time access to information andleverage technology to simplify workprocesses.

As an organization, once we realized theseinsights, a multifunctional task force wasappointed to design an Action Plan toproactively engage the Gen Y employees.The recommendations of this team were tobe hard-coded in the organizational DNAover the next few years. Today 60% of P&Gis Gen Y and these initiatives have playeda key role in engaging and retaining thistalent pool.

The Initiatives

Few areas were focused on sharply, on thefoundation of existing building blocks/people systems in place. The insightshelped us to hardcode the learnings in ourpeople-systems and drive role-modelingand communication. The learnings arerelevant for any sector or industry.

1. Ignite potential vs. one-track job

Young people today want earlyresponsibility. As a measure of faith thatthe Company has on its young talent, weempower every individual to draft theirown action plan for the year ahead so thatas a ‘owner of the company’ they canthemselves plan the best way to impacttheir business.

The manager’s job is defined around:

• Initially explaining the business vision,goals & strategies to ensure consistencybetween the overall direction and theindividual’s effort.

• Aligning and locking the work-plan toset the right expectations

• Act as a barrier-buster or coach as perneed and never micro-manage

This empowerment pushes the boundaryby ushering in more innovative thinking.It gives ‘meaning’ to the work people do,beyond simple monetary rewards,especially when they see a visible connectbetween their own contribution and how



P&G improves consumer lives. Overall,igniting the potential in our people leadsto better business results and engagementvs narrowing them down to check-boxdriven one-track jobs.

A good example of providing ‘meaning’ toa job beyond regular work can be foundfrom Salesforce.com’s 1/1/1 initiative[1]which gives 1% of its profit to a foundationwhich in turn pays for 1% of eachemployee’s time to do voluntary socialwork. Overall, the company’s workforcedoes more than 50,000 hours of communitywork and according to a Time magazinearticle [2] the program has increasedtheir retention dramatically, engaginghigh-quality employees to give back tothe society and feel enriched by theexperience.

2. Remove Barriers to communication

Any organization gets impacted ifhierarchy and work culture prevents freeflow of communication between teams andindividuals. At P&G, over the last onedecade we have actively worked to removesuch barriers by:

• Removing all visible hierarchicalbarriers like office cabins, corner seatsetc. In fact most of our offices havemoved to a hot-desking culture withoutallotted work-station which drives anagile and flow-to-work behaviour.Technology allows each individual to‘touch down’ at any part of the office asand when they want. The whole spaceis their office, not just one desk!

• Decision making is not hierarchical butlinked to relevant need of the project inhand – systems need to be designed sothat decisions can be made by thosewho are most impacted. There’s astrong decision-matrix model in theCompany that is implemented for roles& responsibility clarity in anywork-team. Typically there are few

‘approvers’ or deciders, while rest of theteam assumes contributor or executorstatus.

• Multi-functional team design – One ofthe critical enablers in P&G that drivesinter-functional relationship is theorganization structure that embedsfunctional resources directly with linemanagement as business partners toprovide functional expertise.

All of these sum up to create a free andtransparent organization that drivesengagement of the younger employees,who otherwise are at the receiving end ofhierarchical or preferential treatment.

3. Develop the young to be Tomorrow’sLeaders –

Every P&Ger is expected to lead in creatinga work-plan for himself/herself at thebeginning of the year which they align withthe manager and deliver for the rest of thefiscal. This process, while including thestandard KRA and performancemanagement element, goes way further interms of pro-active people developmentwith each individual having aDevelopment Plan in which the managercaptures the person’s three strengths andone opportunity as per a consistentcompetency framework. It culls out thespecific action plan for the individual togrow himself/herself via a host ofCompany offerings like CorporateTraining, On-the-job experiences, andforums to demonstrate certain behaviours,etc. This systematic effort to groomindividuals to leadership roles leveragingtheir unique strengths especially at theirearly career stage is much appreciated bythe younger generation.

4. Invest in People Managementcapabilities

In sync with the earlier points, it is obviousthat employee-manager relationship



assumes a whole new dimension when themanager’s role shifts from a hierarchicalboss to a business enabler. As a lot of ouryoung managers assume peoplemanagement responsibility quite early intheir career, we invest disproportionateorganizational energy in building people-management capabilities. This ranges fromCorporate Workshops on inspiring teams,the science and art of 1:1s, education onpeople systems like performancemanagement, salary etc. This investmenthas a multiplicative impact in drivingbetter work relationship and retentionacross the organization.

5. Offer jobs honestly vs. over-selling–

While recruiting, hiring managers oftenover-sell the job to the young candidates,only for their hopes to dash post join-up,leading to frustration, disengagedcontribution and often attrition. This isnowhere visible more than at businessschools, where demand exceeds supplyleading to tall claims from recruitingmanagers to ostensibly ‘stand-out from thecrowd’.

We ensure that role requirements arecommunicated honestly because it helpsus to recruit the ‘right-fit’ people vsbringing in someone whose passionclearly lay elsewhere. A sales role has somemarket work and travel ingrained in it, aclient management role with westerncustomers will involve some late nightconferencing and no amount ofeuphemisms can take away those truths.It is better for us to clarify the expectationsof the job before offering, rather than thecandidate turning up at office and realizingthis is not exactly what he/she had signedup for. Such gap in expectationsimmediately breaks the circle-of-trustbetween the individual and theorganization prompting a chain ofdownward spiral.

6. Power of Choice’ in Flexiblepropositions

As organizations become increasinglydiverse in terms of gender, skill-sets,life-experiences and thought, it isimportant to offer customized propositionsto employees to work for the companyrather than one size fit for all. We haveintroduced a host of flexibilities foremployees to choose according to theirown needs. These ranges right fromCompensation, where specific items can becashed out or contributed depending onthe employee’s choice, to flexible work-arrangements, work-from home andremote-working options, depending on thenature of the business and the roleinvolved.

7. Leverage Technology –

The youth of today are extremely well-versed at technology and organizationsneed to learn how to leverage technicalinnovations to drive engagement. Some ofthe key strategies to drive via technologyare:

• Customized Experience – Leveragetechnology to drive customization in allour major people processes andcommunication. In P&G, everyemployee has an independent intranetaccount called My Life and Career.Similarly, the whole performancemanagement piece, earlier referred tois maintained via a website.

• Offer Flexibility – Mobile office /Remote Teams / Work from Home andother flexibility options are enabled bytechnology. In fact as a consumerproducts multi-national spread across80 countries with multi-national /functional work-teams, cutting edgecommunication tools ensure thatremote teams work effectively due totechnology.



• Enable Simplification – The younggeneration has less patience witharchaic bureaucracy, and technologyhelps to drive better accessibility toinformation, easier processes andoverall simplification and time-savings.

8. Drive Work-Life effectiveness & Well-Being –

Finally it is important to ensure that there’sproper work-life effectiveness so that theycan continue performing at peak in asustainable fashion. Enable this by:

• Driving Simplification as a priority inall our work systems across allfunctions. Best processes are those,which achieve maximum impact atminimum touch-points. Simplificationcuts the clutter and saves time forpeople to focus on building the business

• Provide Work Life Coaching – Last yearwe’ve introduced an EmployeeAssistance Program for all P&G Indiaemployees and their families free ofcost. This program provides them with

trained counsel for all professional andpersonal challenges at completeanonymity.

• Well-being should be taken care of bymedical and engagement programs thatdeal with all life stages and roledemands Policies that support well-being of employees located at non-metro locations without peer group /social support must be catered to viaappropriate wellness/socializationprograms.

As a final word, it is important to discernbetween the real engagers vs. thesuperficial efforts. For example justfollowing an extremely informalworkplace clothing policy or a lot ofcelebratory events without cutting downthe hierarchical barriers will not drive realcommunication either horizontally orvertically. As a HR professional, we needto be aware of what are the true drivers ofengagement and delight our youngemployees to give their passionate best forthe organization.

References[1] http://www.sharethemodel.org

[2] The Time Magazine: What Gen Y Really Wants, July, ‘07



MANAGING THE YOUNG GENERATIONPROFESSIONALS

ALOK NARAIN and S VARADARAJAN

About the Authors

Alok Narain is a Graduate in Commerce and has a Diploma inHotel Management. He has over 25 years of experience acrossmultiple industries primarily with in the service sector. He ispresently VP-Employee Development at Quatrro Global Services(earlier known as Quatrro BPO Solutions). He is based in Gurgaonat their corporate office.

S.Varadarajan is a Post Graduate in Commercefrom the Madras University and a Post Graduate in HR from XLRI,Jamshedpur. He has over 28 years of experience across multipleindustries including HR consulting in India and abroad. He ispresently part of the promoting team of Quatrro Global Services(earlier known as Quatrro BPO Solutions) in Gurgaon and is theirExecutive VP & Chief HR Officer.

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be aliveBut to be young was very heaven!”

- William Wordsworth

We live in interesting times,irrespective of the hats we wear and

irrespective of the nature of business wetransact. The sheer diversity that weexperience every living moment and theever-continuing onslaught from the pushesand pulls keeps the adrenalin levels foreverhigh! Sure enough, we won’t be willing totrade places with anyone else and even ifwe were willing to, the nature of experiencewon’t be too different perhaps! Nowlooking at all of this from the uniquevantage points that are offered to us asprofessionals - nothing can be moreinteresting and challenging than that. Evenmore interesting is the fact that we aren’tmere observers, but active participants inthe process of establishing systems,

processes, norms and guidelines formanaging the organizations where theYoung Generation Professionals or Gen Yhappen to be right at the core as it couldn’tbe otherwise any longer!

The New Order Cometh…Let’s consider the situation in our ownbackyard in India. We will be growing ourGDP at a scorching pace of about 10 percentevery year till 2020. The shift fromagriculture to services and manufacturingwill now begin to be significant. The mostcritical information though - India isgetting younger –the average age in 2020will be 29 in India as against 37 in Chinaand USA, 45 in Europe and 47 in Japan. AsIndia gets younger, it also gets richer andcontinues on its journey to become asignificant player globally.

Needless to say that there would be radicalchanges around us. Also, it is well knownthat every new era brings with itself a



completely new set of challenges inmanaging the next generation on accountof the incremental evolutionary changes inearlier generations. It has been possible,however, to manage these incrementalchanges by making minimal or incrementaladjustments. The changes this time aroundcan be termed as truly disruptive, verysimilar to the changes happening in theworld of technology. It’s almost as if all thecumulative effects have reached a criticalmass thus causing disruption. The Gen Yclearly seems to be such a generation andhence changes in our own approach needto be radical as well.

Who are they?Let’s make an attempt at deconstructing theGen Y, knowing fully well that suchattempts are fraught with serious risks andfallacious as the Gen Y’ers don’t lendthemselves to stereotypical definitions, butlet’s make a start in any case…!Wikipedia defines Generation Y as thoseborn in the midst of a mature westernculture between the early 1980s and the late1990s. Unlike the generation that have gonebefore them, Gen Y has been pampered,nurtured and programmed with a slew ofactivities since they were toddlers,meaning they are both high performanceand high maintenance. They are by naturevery inquisitive and need clear answers forthe innumerable questions they raise. Theyalso believe in their own worth. Socio-graphically, they are at home withFacebook, Linked In, Twitter, YouTube,Skype, texting, IM and other instantcommunication technologies giving thema reputation for being peer oriented andseeking instant gratification. Theirpenchant for communicating by usingsocial media tools is giving new meaningsto virtually every aspect of our lives -social, political, economic and more…Whatis truly disruptive is the fact that the eventscaused take a size and shape beyondanyone’s imagination and predictions!

It would also be instructive to learn fromthe last two to three years as the Gen Y haveclearly demonstrated a high degree ofcommitment and responsibility towardsbuilding democratic societies andcommunities in various parts of the world- in countries and regions where the localenvironments weren’t at all expected to beconducive. Jasmine revolution and itsaftermath continue to engage the attentionof the world in many ways as there will befar reaching consequences of the eventsthat have taken place in the last one year.

Our own experience, at the risk of beingsomewhat anecdotal, Generation Y aregenerally more ambitious, independent,brand conscious and tend to be driven byquality of experiences and interactions. Thetenures in jobs are shorter and themotivation to move to newer jobs could beright from frivolous to profound - ‘becausemy friend is leaving’ to ‘I didn’t appreciatethe way I was spoken to’. On occasions thelead-time given to their currentorganizations could be no more than hoursand hence they may come across as havingvirtually no appreciation for organizationalprocesses and norms! At a different level,the Gen Y is acutely aware of their ownvalue in the job market.

In the present day organizations, we cansafely assume that the first generationentrepreneur/ leader is managing asecond-generation manager who in turnmanages a third generation (Gen Y)employee. Many organizations struggle asthe first generation leader is the one whomakes the policies that may not alwaysmatch with the expectations of the Gen Yemployee. Hence it is very critical that wehave our listening posts active to bake intheir requirements/needs in setting up theguidelines in our organizations.

The ImpactIt won’t be an overstatement to say thatGen Y will radically change the rules of the



game! In fact with more than half of theIndian workforce below 27 years of age, amore relevant discussion at this interestingtransition point would be about ‘GettingManaged by Gen Y’ rather than‘Managing Gen Y’! They will bringabout nothing less than radical changes inthe ways we view management andleadership - an era of true disruption anddiscontinuity!

Let us then understand the kind of impactwe are likely to see on account of thebehavioural characteristics and attributesthat the Gen Y have in abundance!

1. Independent thinking – Attributable tothe way the Gen Y has been brought up- there would be myriad of theoriesaround that. The bottom line is that theGen Y is highly independent and hasno reservations to let us know aboutthat! For the ‘Baby Boomers’ and GenX, this can come across as‘confrontational’ and bordering on‘arrogance’.

2. Confidence – This has shades ofoverlap with the first characteristic. GenY has no qualms in putting across theirthoughts, feelings and letting us knowwhere they are with respect to an issue.

3. Creativity – Gen Y is high on creativityas they are not impressed by ‘what hasbeen done in the past’! They are on thelookout for newer ways of doing thingsrather than sticking to the ‘oldsuccessful ways’!

4. Teamwork - Gen Y genuinely values‘teamwork’ and is committed to theteams. They are happy to share thecredit rather than try to hog thelimelight! This also brings up aninteresting complexity that the leaderneeds to address as they valueindependence highly as well!

5. Driven by real learning - Gen Yappreciates true learning and look for

it. Not for them just the classrooms andthe instructors. They need to beprovided by logic or better still if theyare able to find their own logic andrationale in the way learning happens!No wonder that the traditionalapproaches to teaching-learning ormentoring don’t deliver! Bring intechnology and connectedness to thereal world instead.

6. Scant regard/respect for formalstructures of authority - With all theabove, it should hardly come as asurprise! They could be mistaken as therebels or even the revolutionaries! Giveus a rule/policy and we will break it/deviate from it! A few organizationshave moved away from rules to creatingguidelines that act as boundaries forany actions to meet the needs of thisgeneration!

7. Maturity in approach has beenreplaced more often by instantdecision making - This can sometimecome across as bordering on“impulsive”. Loyalty and commitmentto organizations are now considereddated concepts and the old school ofthought!

8. Need to follow their dreams – The GenY is very clearly committed todoing what their heart desires andfortunately current times offer diverseopportunities to explore newunexplored avenues, out of the realmof the clichéd options.

9. Age is just a number and that doesn’tmatter - The Gen Y cares forcompetencies and capabilities. Age is nolonger the driver for competency tohandle big roles- numerous examplesof young and very young achieverswho are running organizations indiverse sectors, domains....



With the above, we would stress on certainkey aspects - the Gen Y possesses the kindof outlook and orientation coupled withconfidence that the corporate world needstoday. Even if it sounds overly self critical,the reality is that all the experience andwisdom of the Baby Boomers and the GenX couldn’t keep the troubles of the last 3years away, so our claim on how the GenY/Next needs to be, is nothing but hollow!

Also, in recent years the mindset changein the younger workforce has been nothingless than radical - there are scores ofexamples of youngsters who have chosento reject fat pay packets to opt for start upsin hitherto completely unexplored anduncharted territories. Their sole desire isto bring about meaningful changes in thelarger community.

Demands on Organizations and theResponseOrganizations would need nothing lessthan great footwork and zeal to be dealingwith what is coming their way! The talentsituation in India makes it imperative thatthere would be multiple generations atplay in the organizations. Building anecosystem with the customers, suppliersand all the external and internalstakeholders, along with the organizationalleadership would be a key deliverable forthe HR leadership and functions oftomorrow that is now already in any case!

1. Building platforms for communi-cation/collaboration - We need to playan active part in building peoplenetworks by leveraging technology.Web 2.0 and graduating to 3.0 has to bea reality. The good news is that morethan money, it’s now imagination andcreativity that is needed to build thesenetworks! It is very critical to have allinformation available and be sharedwith this Generation to quench theirinquisitive nature as also feed into theircreative juices. How about charging a

team of Gen Y with this responsibilityin case you haven’t done so already!

2. Redefining Work and How it getsDone - Work is no longer about whatgets done in a certain place and withincertain premises! Gen Y is about‘Getting work done’, and ‘how’and ‘where’ are no longer relevant.It is necessary to provide themopportunities and flexibility to managemultiple opportunities, as that is whatkeeps up their interest and challenge.It’s alright to make the demandsin terms of responsibility andaccountability, but the old definitionshave to give in. Working remotely willbecome standard, leveragingtechnology and virtual relationships.Gen Y is at the core of this trend becausefor them, meeting and interactingonline is just as comfortable and “real”as face-to-face meetings (unlike Gen Xand Boomers who see a clear differencebetween online and in-personexperiences). Sooner the better! It isnecessary to weave fun/sense ofhumour into our workplaces, as itbrings out the best in people toshowcase their potential and true self.Be serious about work without takingyourself too seriously!!

3. Reward - Interestingly, rewardingGen Y is about much more thanmoney! The desire to take on newchallenges, expand their capabilitiesand as a result, advance to new,more highly compensated roles.The focus for these individuals isless about the compensation and moreabout the advancement, the improvedcapabilities and the recognition ofachievement marked by a new positionas also to get their instant gratificationneed met. Offering Gen Y employees araise while keeping all other factors thesame will not have the same impact asgiving them new challenges. In fact, in



many cases a raise alone could backfireand cause the Gen Y employee to seekjob satisfaction elsewhere.

4. Learning / Training - There is a need tobring in the various generations undera common umbrella - This is anopportunity to reexamine the programsand processes- redesign the practicesand culture to accommodate thesechanges. A judicious mix of informaland formal initiatives for bringingtogether the team members, andcreating forums for ideas sharing go along way in creating engagement.Again, leveraging technology in simpleand relevant ways can help in bringingthe organization together! It isabsolutely necessary to help them indefining the skills that they need toadvance and meet these needs throughexperiential and engaged training

5. Advancement Expectations - The GenY expect to move ahead in their careersmuch faster than their earliergenerations. It’s a matter of setting theright expectations early on and thenmanaging aspirations on an ongoingbasis. What is of critical importance –the organizations need to keep theirword and in case the requirements interms of learning are met, the growthmust be provided. In any case,meaningful and empowered job roles,enhancement in job responsibilitiesmust happen - mere change indesignations and empty titles don’timpress anyone - more so the Gen Y!

6. Leadership – The aspect of leadershipassumes critical importance and focusto manage and lead the Gen Y. Gen Ydoes not like to be treated as ‘kids’ or ‘teenagers’, which many of themanagers tend to. They need to betreated as colleagues who bring in theirvalue to achieving the goals of theorganization. Gen Y also is constantly

looking at how good a team player theleader is, for they strongly believe thatthe best of team leaders have tonecessarily be good team players.Hence balancing the role of being theboss with that of being perceived as ateam player gains significant focus. Italso becomes absolutely necessary forleaders to tolerate well-intentionedfailures and treat them as stepping-stones for success to come. Gen Y arequick to learn from mistakes and whatthey expect is the leader to coach andcounsel them, rather than police themand pull them up for the mistakes thatthey make. They look forward to theleaders providing them constructivefeedback that they absorb like a sponge.Mentoring would be one more effectiveway of leading the Gen Y.

7. Social Conscience, supported by RealAction - It’s worth noting that CSR,Voluntarism, participation incommunity activities/initiatives can’tbe dismissed as just buzzwords wherethe Gen Y is concerned. In the absenceof a formal program, the employeegroups are known to take their owninitiatives by pooling in their ownresources and through their ownnetworks as well! This recognizesGen Y’s strengths and offers themtime to explore civic interests andvolunteerism. This creates the feeling ofcommunity so desired by Gen Y whilealso emphasizing a supported setting.It also reiterates the commitment tocommunity that is so inherent in 18-30year-olds.

In ConclusionThere is no doubt about the fact that theorganizations have a significant role to playin building and institutionalizing aframework, an ecosystem that has theability to bring together the multiplegenerations. All the generations need to



contribute and add value to the outcomes.The organizations need to build aframework to connect with theextraordinary talent pool in order to createan employable talent pool. The processesto transform that talent through theorganizational leadership has to beinitiated very early and especially so in ascenario at this juncture in India where weare virtually talent starved. The platformsthus built, create a connect with the Gen Yand also the subsequent generations! ‘Theway the Gen Y ‘thinks and feels’ would nolonger be a surprise and shock for thosewho are from earlier generations!

Also, there is a need to recognize theobstacles and in most cases they turn outto be the biases and prejudices that cause

the resistance. If the individuals make anhonest attempt to ‘suspend their judgment’– the resolutions happen and the outcomesare enhanced. The best examples of thesechanges are found in our own immediateenvironments - the way we embrace ourown young and accept changes!

Finally, we would dedicate this write upto the rebellious and revolutionary YoungProfessionals from whom all those wiseand experienced Business and HRLeaders grew. All wise and experiencedBusiness and HR Leaders were onceyoung and rebellious although manyof them choose to forget it!Dedicated to wise and experiencedBusiness and HR leaders when they wereyoung and rebellious!

Bibliography and References1. Bliss was it…..- William Wordsworth (The Prelude)

2. Dedication - Adapted from ‘The Little Prince’- Antoine de Saint Exupery

3. Wikipedia - Definition

4. Current Challenges in Human Resource Management - Jon Burgess

5. Challenges of managing Gen Y - Barbara Moses

6. Managing Gen Y is a different ball game - Sangeeth Varghese



“It’s passionately interesting for me that thethings that I learned in a small town, in avery modest home, are just the things that Ibelieve have won the election.”

– Margaret Thatcher

Small and Medium Businesses are likethe small veins and arteries of the

economy. They drive growth by enhancingreach of the economy in terms of spread,risk taking, innovation, and generatingemployment. While anything from aninvestment of less than 1 crore can bementioned as small and 10 crores asmedium business, a lot of complexity stillexists in the definition – primarily – sector,number of employees, turnover, years ofexistence. A lot has been written of how

enterprises of this size grow and grow to aformidable size or just sustain. Whileavailability of capital, innovation,reinvention, and markets is critical,the growth beyond a point is driven bypeople and mostly the leadership teamwith the entrepreneur or the foundinggroup anchoring it. While it is clichédto mention this, what matters is the depthof this aspect and how HR can play acritical part in influencing it. I drawupon three case studies where I wasinvolved as a HR consultant or in-housemanager. The contexts are very varied interms of sector of operations. One is asmall-scale pump assembler, second is aNBFC (Non Banking Finance Company),and third an organization in the IT sector.

TAKING TO THE NEXT LEVEL : HR IN SMALL ANDMEDIUM BUSINESSES

Dr. SANDEEP K KRISHNAN

About the Author

Dr. Sandeep K. Krishnan is the Vice President, HR andCorporate Development, Acropetal Technologies, India wherehe heads the function. He is a Mechanical Engineer and a Fellowof the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad, where hecompleted his doctorate. His areas of expertise include designinghuman resource processes, leadership development,organisation structuring, and employer branding. He has beeninstrumental in organisation development and bringing change

by instilling effective HR processes and systems as an in-house professional andas a consultant. His work has been recognised by Asia Pacific HRM Congress withAcropetal winning the “Organisation with Innovative HR practices” Award. Hehas worked with organisations such as IBM, RPG, and Ernst and Young in the areaof Human Resource Consulting, Talent Management, and as a HR Generalistworking closely with Business at senior levels. He teaches as a visiting faculty ininstitutes like IIMs, and IMT Nagpur. He has published papers in highly regardedacademic journals and publications of general interest. He can be reached [email protected]



All three fall under SMB and are in highgrowth phases.

Case 1: Ramesh Pumps

Ramesh Pumps was a small-scale businessthat started in 1998 based out of Ahmedabadby an entrepreneur - Ramesh Patel. Thefocus was on assembling pumps to beexported to European markets. Thecompany had grown to revenue of around3.5 crores by 2002 and had a healthy15-20 % as average net profits. Rameshalso had funding for the company andwas quite excited about the opportunity,as market also existed in Europe forhis pumps. The company had close to40 employees and mostly they were fromITI with background in mechanicalor electrical fields. The salary rangeswere quite less and just met the minimumwages. Ramesh was really worriedabout his growing attrition levels andhe did many things to manage thisincluding raising salaries many times. Healso saw some of his trusted employeesleaving the company. This also bothered himas they were with him from the beginning.It was at this stage that Ramesh got in touchwith us at the management institute andI had a chance of working on the projectfor Ramesh. We worked starting withunderstanding the current issues in theorganization and diagnosing the causes. Afew of the issues were – attrition rate closeto 80 % annually, high level of absenteeism,defects in work and associated costs, andfighting between employees, that Rameshcould not control. We also delved into thecauses and some of the aspects that cameout were very interesting.

a) There were no policies in terms ofrewards and punishments. WhateverRamesh thought as punishment orreward was based on his liking for theperson, and general feeling was being

given. For example, if a person camelate and he is a person generally likedby Ramesh, he might be forgiven andthe other person who might not be thatliked, might have to forego his half-daysalary.

b) The industries outside were payingbetter than Ramesh Pumps and even fora small increase people were ready toquit

c) The new workers were not emotionallyattached to Ramesh as they valued theassociation only to the extent of rewards

d) Ramesh did not have anybody as asecond line he could trust and most ofthe work of second line was done bytrusted old employees who were atsame level of new comers

e) Ramesh worked as if he controlledeverything and believed that he issuccessful with what he started and waslooking at new challenges.

The challenges that Ramesh faced are verysimilar to what many entrepreneurs whohave found success with their startupsmight have. The first aspect is thatentrepreneurs themselves do not evolvewith the organizations they have started.Secondly, they are unable to accept the factthat organizations should have basicprocesses and practices to manage beyondtheir personal ability and skills. Thirdly,they are unable to invest in a good secondline to manage and give stability to theorganization.

Case 2: High Growth NBFC

This case of a company that has alreadycrossed pangs of a startup and hasstabilized as a medium scale company fora while. The company was planningfor its next level of growth and hadinvestments coming in from private equity



majors. The company was already listedand the investors were looking at a majorramp up in operations of its loan businessso that the growth is reflected as stockprice. The company had a 50 years legacyand it was in the recent times that thegrowth path was engaged. From 100branch operations, the growth plan was toreach around 1000 branches. I was part ofa team that worked as part of a majorconsulting engagement with the company.The plan was to have processes in place inHR that will help in its growth. Thediagnosis in the organization and HR auditshowed that the organization had thefollowing gaps.

a) HR processes existed. However, theywere highly skewed in favor ofemployer and many of them wereharsh.

b) Performance was managed throughhard control and incentives.

c) The head of the organization is stillinvolved at minute operational leveldetails and is unable to come out of it.

d) The second line had a couple ofempowered leaders. However, theywere not willing to take a stance that isneutral or against the interest of thepromoter.

e) Frequent transfers, promotions,demotions, and punishments wereleading to an attrition rate of around70%.

f) The company needed a clear vision anddirection to motivate its team.

This was a classic case where the founderwas still an active member and stuck inoperations. For growth there was a needto build a stronger top management andmiddle management. Rather thanprocesses that are to control, best practiceshad to be incorporated. Vision and

structure had to be inbuilt to take companyto the next level.

Case 3: Growing IT company

The third case where I had an interestingexperience was with an IT company that isfast growing, both organic and inorganic.With the growth, the company also wentpublic. It had four small acquisitions in ashort period of two years and is in theprocess of consolidation. The company hasinvested in core sectors of IT and alsofuture sectors like healthcare, energy andenvironment. The company’s high growthin a short period has led to following. Thecompany is around 200 crores and thechallenges are

a) How to ensure that the organization isgoing in right direction in terms of itsstrategy and growth?

b) How to have operational and strategiccontrol and integrate acquiredcompanies?

c) The promoter being from a non-ITbackground, how can he ensure thatright investments are made?

d) How to build a second level core teamthat can take the company to next level?

The case is clear of the promoter gettingadjusted to high growth and having thechallenge of uncertainty of managing highgrowth.

HR Solutions for the growth challenges:

The solutions at different levels that can befacilitated and led by HR can be aligned atfour major levels.

1) The promoter or founding team

2) Second line

3) Organizational structure

4) HR Practices and processes



Theme Startup Early growth Medium size Sustenance / further growth

The promoter or founding teamAnd business agenda

Highly driven by the promoters.

Focus on taking on most activities by promoters

Cost consciousness

Driven by primary business agenda and early capital

Promoters with fi rst line of employees brought through contacts

Early success driving new markets/ off erings

Growth leading to more specialization within teams and also need to bring in new membersDriven by growth models and bringing larger capital

Team size grown. Decision making by promoters to give up operational control to professionals

Diversifi cation to mitigate risks

Professionals in place / infl ow started

Strategic level operations by promoters

Strong professional team

Decisions on investments driven by strategic thoughts and processes.

Second line Very less. Mostly a few known people

New people brought in as a judicious thought

Second line of professionals in place. Not clear of their roles and identity in the organization

Professional management in place and clarity in terms of roles and responsibilities

Organization structure

Flat Flat with a second line

Structure driven by addition of resources

Structure drives future growth

HR practices and processes

Nil. A few drawnfor business

A few in place for recruitment, compensation, but confusion on performance management, and lack of best practices. Need for clearly drawn practices felt

Drive for clarity in practices by professionals and external consultants.



The key is to understand that the confusionin the organization is part of the growthchallenges and the solution lies in tacklingit at the right time. Too many processeswithout growth can lead to a bureaucraticorganization and lack of it with growth canlead to confusion. The role of HR is inensuring that right practices and processesare done at the right time, and at times bestpractices are enabled.

Recommendation for start-ups

• Clarity in terms of compensation andincentives for everybody including thefounding team

• Set-up recruitment processes

• Ensure one of the founding member isin charge of people decisions

• Basic policies that will enable earlygrowth – timing, attendance, leave,reporting / reviews, and travel

• Vision and business goals leading tobusiness plans

Recommendations for early growth

• Hire managers that best fit the role

• Compensation plan including stock andvariable pay

• Clear second line structure

• Plan for a structure that will help driveand manager future growth

• HR resource to work with the promoteron people related issues andmanagement

• Clarity in roles and responsibilities withproper designations, and also in theperformance expectations andparameters for second line

• Reviews on performance for the secondline

• Hire a professional CFO and operationshead if required

• Founding team to delegateresponsibilities

Recommendations for medium scale

• Definitely have professionals as secondline

• Full fledged HR department with aprofessional leading it

• Coaching and mentoring for promoterand founding team to manage change

• A professional CEO if required tomanage the growing scale andcomplexity of operations

• Establish clear HR processes and worktowards best practices

• Robust goal setting and performancemanagement system

• Build a strong board or an executivecouncil, and appropriate governanceand review mechanisms

• Establish an enabling structure forfuture growth strategy

• Seek external / professional help /support for implementing any of theabove actions.

Recommendations for future growth andsustenance

• Compensation and retention policiesfor key team members

• Appropriate processes for M & A andother growth strategies

• Focus on best practices implementationthat will help in future proofing

• Succession plans for key managementteam

• Ensure and strengthen culture andvalues

• Establish corporate identity and brand



Conclusion

As a strategic business partner, HR has abig role to play in growth of enterprises.The reality is that the function exists inmany such organizations without a coreHR professional, and instead anchored bythe promoter or founding members. Thepromoter or founding member himself orherself drives the basic premise of HR forgrowth in the early stages. After a while itbecomes a journey towards professionalmanagement and many a times practicesare “invented” according to the need ofbusiness. The earlier practices becomeobsolete or hinder business growth. Thepromoter who once supported thosepractices will have to change it for bestpractices or the ones that suit the growth.I would point to them as points of“inflection” that is more of a compulsionto change rather than planned. Resistanceto the same can be catastrophic or pull theorganization back in its growth plans. Themain actors – promoter / promoter groupdecides how well the story of growth of anorganization goes. It is also their decisionto change and bring professionals at theright time with right strategy, and a rightinfrastructure in terms of processes andpractices that will lead to growth. Thechallenge will be a chicken and egg story –

As there are no professionals there mightnot be best practices in the system and thiswill not attract the best ones. Secondly,as the strategy is driven primarilyby promoters, professionals might notbe attracted to a haphazard organizationand change might not happen. Thirdly andmost fatally, promoters might notunderstand the need for change andend up as prisoners of their own creationor limited success. A professional HRjoining in a medium scale organizationin a growth phase will have to primarilywork on getting a buy-in from foundingmembers for change, implement practicesthough it might hurt interests of a few,bring in new talent through innovativecompensation and recruitment methods,and align processes to create anemployer brand. The key is to makeinvestments in the strategic direction ofthe organization and HR processes areto be aligned to it. For example, asmall-scale unit might require basicprocesses that govern rewards andpunishments, while a medium scale unitmight require compensation mechanismsaligned to retention and long term gainshare. The need to reinvent and rejuvenateis ongoing for sustained growth and HRplays a critical role in this process.



With market opening up for imported coalin the new liberalized regime, SingareniCollieries could, no longer pass on itsinefficiencies to the customers in terms ofincreased prices. It was faced withmounting losses. Even as the company wasreferred to the Board of Industrial andFinancial Restructuring (BIFR) andconfronted the grave threat of imminentclosure, the mine workers made no effortto avert the decline. In fact, catcall strikesat the mines were on the rise.

A large engineering organizationhad constituted a Business PlanningGroup (BPG) to focus on the developmentof new and value-added products. Toensure attention at the highest level,the Deputy General Manager (DGM)who headed the BPG was given directreporting relationship to the ManagingDirector (MD). Specialists from keyfunctions were transferred to the newlyformed department. Yet, an internalreview conducted at the end of six

About the Authors

S. Ramnarayan is from the School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad.He earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the CaseWestern Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. He has taught atIIM, Ahmedabad, Case Western Reserve University, andUniversity of Bamberg, Germany.

He has carried out research funded by the U.S. Office ofPersonnel Management, Ford Foundation, World Bank,

Commonwealth Secretariat, Department for International Development andGerman Science Foundation. He has co-authored books titled “Changing Tracks:Reinventing the Spirit of Indian Railways”, “Change Management: AlteringMindsets in a Global Context” and “Managing Organizational Change”, andco-edited “Life After 360 Degree Feedback”, “Strategic Management of PublicEnterprises in Developing Countries”, “Managerial Dilemmas: Cases inOrganizational Behavior” and “Organization Development: Interventions andStrategies”.

Neha Gupta, Researcher at Centre for Leadership, Innovation,and Change (CLIC) at Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabadholds a MBA in HR and B.E. in E&C. She had a stint at IBM as anApplication Developer. She has co-authored chapters in theforthcoming book ‘Organization Development: AcceleratingTransformation and Learning’ edited by S. Ramnarayan andT.V. Rao, which includes contributions from eminent ODpractitioners like Udai Pareek and Marvin Weisbord. She haspublished articles & book reviews in leading HR magazines like Human Capital,NHRD Newsletter.

OWNERSHIP : OVERCOMING INDIFFERENCES RAMNARAYAN and NEHA GUPTA



months showed that the new team hadbeen a major disappointment – theyhad very little to show in terms ofperformance.

To remain competitive, the leadershipteam at the Union Bank of India realizedthe need for a radical change in employeemindsets. Bankers at operating levels wererequired to assume responsibility forlaunching sales campaigns, makingcustomer calls and focusing on customerrelations. A massive training effort wastaken up at senior levels. Despite theseefforts, there was little attention paidto altering employee’s mindsets at thecutting edge.

By 1999, Nissan was struggling forsurvival. It had not made profits for 8 years.There was a staggering $11 billion debtin its account. Carlos Ghosn CEO ofNissan, asked Otani, the PurchasingGroup Manager to reduce purchasing costby 20% to stay competitive in themarketplace and constituted a cross-functional team (CFT) for this purpose.But the CFT came up with sub-optimalrecommendations. For Ghosn, CFT’s workwas akin to jumping half the well. He knewthat with those sub-optimal efforts, Nissanwould still fall in the deep, dark well ofbankruptcy.

In the four case illustrations above, itwould seem that the workers in a

colliery, business planners in anengineering company, senior bankexecutives and members of a cross-functional team are indifferent to theorganizational requirements. Why is thereso little ownership? After all, byendangering the health, survival andcompetitiveness of their organizations,employees hurt themselves indirectly.

It is because there is so little ownership that,when asked by a journalist “How many

people work in your company?” a CEOreplied laconically: “Less than halfof them”. The studies on employeeengagement corroborate the CEO’sresponse. Ownership and engagement inorganizations present a dismal picture.Recent research[1] concludes that only 29percent of employees are actively engaged;54 percent are not engaged; and 17 percentare actively disengaged. The activelydisengaged workers tend to undermineengaged co-workers’ accomplishments byincessantly voicing their unhappiness andgrievances.

To return to our earlier question: Why doa large majority of employees merelyassume a ‘spectator ’ stance inorganizations rather than involvethemselves as ‘actors’? Employees facechallenging situations at work. Thesechallenges cover a wide gamut – enhancingquality, minimizing costs, buildingcustomer orientation, or optimizing talentpool. As actors, when they assumeownership, these situations turn intoopportunities for enhancing performanceand competitiveness. In the absence ofownership, the same situations degenerateinto problems to be avoided. It isimperative for leaders to examine whyorganizational members assume or don’tassume ownership of challenges, and whatthey can do to overcome indifference andfoster ownership.

Recognition of problem and problemsolving

Landry[2] suggests four interrelatedconditions that indicate the presence of aproblem to an employee (Refer Box 1). According to Landry, the judgments andchoices made by organizational memberson these four factors determine their abilityto recognize a problem and initiateappropriate remedial action by assumingownership.



The employees exhibiting first-orderproblem solving assume ownership of onlythe lower order problem. They do notexpend extra energy on a problem afterobtaining the inputs required to completethe task. Studies show that as high as 90 to95 per cent of the responses to problems fallin the category of first-order problemsolving[3]. Facilitating second-order problemsolving requires understanding theprocesses underlying people’s recognitionof problem and assumption of ownership.

Four factors to engender employeeownership

The recognition of issue doesn’t guaranteeaction on the part of the employees. Theleaders need to create an environmentwhere the employees are engaged enoughto assume ownership of challenges andinitiatives. Four factors that engenderemployee ownership are SCIP– Stake,Controllability, Interest, and PurposefulEnergy (Refer Box 2).

Box 1:Four interrelated conditions

indicating the presence of a problem

Depending upon the degree ofownership, two levels of problemsolving takes place[3].

1. First-order problem solving -Ownership is limited to overcomingthe immediate obstacles.

2. Second-order problem solving -Ownership is also assumed for thehigher order problem of diagnosingand altering the underlying causesto prevent recurrence.

Box 2SCIP - Stake, Controllability,

Interest, and Purposeful Energy toengender employee ownership

#1) “Stake” – Feeling a sense ofinvolvement in the situation

Turnaround at Singareni CollieriesCompany Limited

Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL)was referred as a sick company to BIFR (Boardof Industrial and Financial Restructuring) in1996. With mounting losses, the survival of thecompany was at risk. Sarma who joined SCCLas Chairman in January 1997 spoke to a widecross-section of people and discoveredthat the workers had no clue about thepoor financial health of the organization.Instead of resorting to a bailout package by thegovernment, Sarma decided to reach out to theworkers and their families to enlist theirsupport. He started communicating to workersand their families to inform them about thecompany’s current status and how a worker canmake a difference. He initiated discussions withworkers and their families at mines, offices andtheir colonies to gather their views, suggestionsand ideas to improve SCCL’s performance. Heimplemented some of these ideas, which resultedin higher productivity. At the same time, heinitiated steps to create a caring environmentthat fostered a sense of trust. Sarma, aided byhis management team, communicatedrelentlessly with workers to mobilize theirsupport. SCCL sent letters, broadcasted talkshows on local TV channel, visited workers andtheir families in their colonies, publishednewsletters, organized industrial visits, andconducted plays to bridge the information gap.As awareness grew, SCCL workers started toperceive a stake in the situation. Ownership ledto performance improvements, and theorganization turned the corner[4].

What inhibits assumption of ownership?

• Lack of information and feedback fromsuperiors, peers and other stakeholders.

• Operation of departments like a closedsystem which pose barriers tocommunication.



• Resorting to first-order problem solvingto fix the problem without investigatingthe root cause.

What can leaders do?

• Ensure that employees receive relevantinformation and regular feedback. Forinstance, Mawana Sugars was declareda “sick” company by BIFR in 2003. Theorganization conducted a series ofdialogue sessions with different level ofemployees at all locations. In thesedialogue sessions, shop floor operatorsand trade union leaders were especiallyinvited and encouraged to participate.Once they became aware of thesituation and the remedial plan ofaction, they became partners in thechange process.

• Inculcate a culture that motivates andencourages people to report and resolveproblems without being labeled ascynics or whiners.

• Use progress reviews to identify andanalyze the root cause of problems andtheir solutions.

#2)“Controllability” - perceivingdiscretion to initiate action

Failed change at Large Engineeringorganization (LEO)

The Business Planning Group (BPG) at LEOwas formed to help the organization gear upfor emerging competitive scenario bydeveloping new and value-added products.However, the large and powerful ProductionPlanning Department (PPD) perceived theupstarts as internal competitors; they refusedto share information or provide support to BPG.The group did not receive support frommarketing function either. For instance, whenBPG sought some market data from marketingfunction, they were informed that data wasconfidential and hence couldn’t be shared. Theproblem was compounded by the huge statusgap between DGM (heading BPG) and MD.

As LEO was a highly hierarchical, the DGMhad to wait endlessly in the Secretary’s officeto meet MD. Even when the group needed thesupport of MD, they couldn’t muster thecourage to make the request to him. As thegroup started to flounder, members gotthemselves transferred back to their earlier roles/functions. This crippled the group further. Yetthe anxious and de-motivated BPG feltconstrained in freely and openly voicing theirconcerns and getting the problems addressed.With every stalled initiative, members of theBPG started to view things as uncontrollableat their level.


• A sense of helplessness owing to theperception of low status/influencewithin the system for dealing with theissue. This is a particularly seriousproblem in large hierarchicalorganizations.

• No/low access to necessaryinformation for an in-depth analysis ofissues or suggested solution.

• Absence of convenient communicationchannels to express one’s views andideas.

• Lack of support and encouragementfrom leaders/other departments toinitiate action.


• Make organizational arrangementsto facilitate communication andcollaboration. For example, VineetNayar launched U & I Intranetcommunication web portal at HCL as aforum for employees to post theirquestions/ comments to the CEO. WithCEO and leadership team answeringaround 50 questions a month, the portalsuccessfully captured people’s attentionby engaging them in openconversations. Instead of pointing out‘what was wrong’, people gradually



started deliberating on ‘what could bedone to fix the problem’[5].

• Provide necessary resources,information, and support to employeesto initiate action.

• Generate optimism that improvementscan result from initiatives taken byemployees.

#3)“Interest” - inclination to assumeresponsibility

A new MINDSET at Union Bank of India(UBI)

New generation Indian private sector banks andsome multinational banks had taken advantageof India’s liberalized environment and utilizedtheir branches and their investments intechnology to target a growing lucrative set ofyoung customers. UBI leadership recognized theneed for transforming itself into a customercentric bank. This meant instilling salesorientation amongst the organizationalmembers. New skills and mindset were requiredat operating levels. A massive training effort wastaken up at senior levels on the organizationalagenda. But these senior executives were alreadyburdened with a wide array of challenges andresponsibilities. Even if they saw the urgency ofthe change agenda and perceived discretion toact, they had little time, energy or resources toinculcate the new mindset. To address thisproblem, UBI appointed a number of middle andsenior executives exclusively as coaches for somemonths. They were provided requisite skills andasked to coach employees at cutting edge levelsthrough hands-on training. The internal coachesworked with operating managers closely,accompanied them to meetings, and helped themgain confidence. The intervention proved to be ahuge success in meeting the transformationalgoals that the bank had setfor itself.


• Preoccupation with routine tasks mayinhibit commitment of resources fornew initiatives.

• Ignorance about implicit opportunitiesor implications of unaddressed issuesmakes people hesitant to commitresources.

• Narrowly defined role expectationscreate a feeling that people may ‘crosswires’ by initiating steps to diagnose theroot causes or implement a newprogram.

• According low priority to problemsolving and making improvements.


• Communicate energetically and clearlyabout the importance and impact ofevery initiative. For instance, in thetransformation journey of TataChemicals Limited between 2001 and2006, the Managing Director and seniorleaders set an example by volunteeringto subject themselves first to the changeprocess. When multi-rater assessmentprocess was proposed, they opted to gothrough the process first and receivefeedback. This helped a great deal ininstitutionalizing processes/ practicesat other levels of the organization.

• Engage in expectation setting to conveythat employees can make a difference.

• Make conscious efforts to shift theculture and norms towards employeedriven initiatives and acceptance ofgenuine mistakes as a normal part oflearning.

• Review work methods and systems ofreward & recognition to encourageemployees to devote time and energy.

#4) “Purposeful energy” - Commitment toexperiment with new and differentapproaches

Revival of NissanIn Nissan’s revival between 1999 and 2002headed by Carlos Ghosn, cross-functional teams



(CFTs) played a critical role in overcomingthe highly compartmentalized functions.Ghosn chose Otani, Purchasing GroupManager to head the CFT on purchasingand assigned him the challenging task ofreducing the purchasing cost by 20%. His CFTmade recommendations to the ExecutiveCommittee that would have resulted in 10%savings over three years. But theserecommendations were rejected outright byGhosn. After long deliberations, Otani realizedthat the goal of 20% savings could onlybe achieved by changing the existing ways ofthe large, cohesive and all-powerfulEngineering Department. It was unthinkableat Nissan for a supporting function likePurchase to challenge the Engineeringdepartment. Otani sought the help of twoexecutive vice-presidents and team leaders toconvince Engineering department to supportthe steps to achieve the targeted 20% savings.After two weeks of hard work and toughnegotiations, Purchase CFT drew an actionplan that met Ghosn’s expectations.


• Any deviation from establishedroutines is seen as inviting trouble fromsuperiors/others.

• Absence of any direct feedback that theavailable solutions are ineffective.

• Lack of incentives or policies toencourage ‘out of box thinking’.

• Rigid boundaries across functions/hierarchical levels make people followreadymade solutions.


• Become role models by challenging thestatus quo to change the perception ofwhat is acceptable and what is not. Forinstance, when Tata ConsultancyServices set up operations in China, itchose to create a wholly foreign ownedenterprise rather than a joint venture.The idea was to gain understanding of

the Chinese market for long-termsuccess. The commitment was to makethe requisite investments of time,energy, effort and resources. Under thecircumstances, no half measures wereeven considered.

• Help people reflect on how the usualways of dealing with the situationwould not be able to achieve higheraspirations, and what the long-termconsequences of the actions could be.

• Form cross-functional teams to helppeople broaden their outlook andrealize the limitations of existingapproaches.

• Reward and communicate successfulinitiatives to encourage people to trynew approaches.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUDINGOBSERVATIONS

In this paper, we have presented a set ofcase illustrations and related concepts toexplain why employees occasionallyexhibit indifference to organizationalchallenges. As we have seen, when thefollowing perceptions exist, people don’tperceive the challenges as “their problems”– in other words, they don’t assumeownership of those problems.

• Individuals/groups do not recognizethat the situation is negative and couldhave an adverse impact.

• They do not perceive the problem ascontrollable at their level – in otherwords, they feel that they cannot doanything about it.

• They don’t think that they have the timeand resources to deal with the issue andso have little interest in dealing with theissue.

• They think that the existing solution isadequate and any new action couldresult in adverse consequences.



Consequently, leaders can createownership through “SCIP”: (a) “Stake” -helping people perceive a stake in the issueby strengthening the communicationprocess; (b) “Controllability” -empowering individuals and helping themexperience controllability and discretion toinitiate action; (c) “Interest” - creatinginterest and inclination among employeesto assume responsibility by overcoming

possible hurdles to employee initiative;and (d) “Purposeful Energy” - fosteringcommitment to try out new and differentapproaches not only by creatingappropriate role models, but also byenhancing aspirations.

In the Box 3 below, we present a summaryof what leaders can do to enhanceemployee engagement and ownership.

Box 3. Recommendation to enhance employee engagement and ownership

ReferencesGallup Management Journal (2006), available at: http://gmj.gallup.com; Seijts, G.H. and Crim, D. (2006), “What engages the most or,

the ten C’s of employee engagement”, reprint # 9B06TB09, Ivey Business Journal Online, available at: [email protected]

Landry, M. (1995). A Note on the Concept of ‘Problem’. Organization Studies, 16(2), 315-343.

Tucker, A., Edmondson, A., & Spear, S. (2002). When Problem Solving Prevents Organizational Learning. Journal of ChangeManagement, 15(2).

Excerpts from personal interview with APVN Sarma (5 Feb, 2011) by S. Ramnarayan and Neha Gupta

Nayar, V. (2010), Employees First, Customers Second, Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press

CommunicationReduce the information gap bycommunicating regularly and explicitlythrough multiple channels.Ensure that employees receive relevantinformation and regular feedbackShare the organization’s goals, priorities,and challenges with all the employeesEncourage two-way communication bysoliciting feedback and suggestions fromemployees

Structural arrangementsClarify roles and responsibilities withoutmaking the boundaries too rigid orbureaucraticMake organizational arrangements tofacilitate collaboration E.g. Crossfunctional teams (CFTs), online portals,employee blogs & forumsEmpower employees at lower levels toinitiate action by providing resources,support & information

Enable employees to invest resources bychanging work arrangements, providingautonomy, etc.Identify ways to align an individual’sinterests & aspirations with larger goalsof the organization

Culture and NormsInvest in trust building – trust people anddemonstrate your trust-worthinessCreate a ‘WE’ culture by makingconscious efforts to foster collaborationacross levels and functionsOpenly share successes and failures -celebrate successes, but alsoacknowledge inevitable setbacksInculcate a culture that encouragespeople to report problems without beinglabeled as cynics

Shift the culture & norms towards risktaking by encouraging the spirit ofexperimentation



MENTORING, COACHING & COUNSELING :VALUE CHAIN FOR HR

ANIL SACHDEV

About the Author

Anil Sachdev is the Founder and CEO of Grow Talent CompanyLimited. He has spoken at national and global conferences all overthe world and has written contributory pieces for leadingpublications. He has been adjunct Faculty to leading businessschools such as Indian School of Business, Kelly School of Business,Indiana University, GMI, Flint Michigan, Antioch University, Seattleand Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.

Anil’s career was with Tata Motors and Eicher. He worked in HR, operations andTQM. He is the Founder of Eicher Consultancy Services and was its CEO till 2001.

He is active in management circles and has held several public offices such a Chairmanof National Committee on Industrial relations and Regional Committee on HumanResource Development of Confederation Indian Industry.

He has received several National Awards such as “The HR professional of the year”etc. His biography appears in “Who’s who of the world” published by Marquis in 1991.

Aligning People-Power of PositivePsychology

Organizations with an “A Grade Vision andStrategy” and “B” Grade “alignment”

always lose out to competitors with a “B GradeVision and Strategy” but an “A Grade”alignment.

This is a well known fact and known tomost business leaders.

What is the reason for this effect?

What makes the subject of alignment socrucial?

How does one know the extent to whichthe process of alignment must be led?

How much leadership attention needs tobe paid to this aspect?

What are the best ways to enable this?

What are the critical elements to ensure itssuccess?

This paper will attempt to answer thisby sharing a case study about IndusTowers, a fascinating story of how a CEOand a HR leader can work together toenable real alignment within anorganization.

INDUS TOWERS

Indus Towers is a company born out of apowerful innovative idea.

Three competitors joined hands in 2007 toshare their telecom infrastructure, there byconserving capital and bringing down the



cost of operations – resulting in tariff thatis the lowest in the world.

This required the leaders of these threecompanies - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone andIdea to collaborate, even though they werefierce competitors in the market place.

The idea was so powerful and the speed ofthe execution so fast that the entirecompany was co-created in record time andthe telecom towers and people from allthree companies transferred without theluxury of long-range planning and detailedprocess design.

The first CEO was an expat deputed byVodafone and he carried out the mandatewith great speed, the need of the hour atthat time.

The present day CEO, Shantharaju tookcharge in 2008 (he had earlier worked inHAL, Eicher, GSK, British Gas and GMR-last assignment as Head of DIAL-DelhiAirport) and was selected by the Board ashe had deep knowledge of the Indiancontext and had a proven track record ofbuilding high performance teams.

Many years back, I had hired him as acampus recruit in Eicher from IMI andmany years later, he had become a clientwhen he headed the British Gas subsidiary-Gujarat Gas.

As Founder & CEO of Grow Talent – theconsulting firm, I had led a large programof facilitating a transformation process,-which was ably led by Shantha - thisamongst other initiatives had made GujaratGas win the prestigious award of beingincluded in the list of top PerformingCompanies compiled by the global firm -AT Kearney.

Pankaj Mittal was brought in by Shanta ashis Chief People Officer or Head of HR. Hehad a proven track record of havingworked as an outstanding Business Partnerwith several leading firms.

In early 2009, I got a call from the twogentlemen to discuss the possibility ofinitiating a large vision led transformationprogram for building a high performanceorganization.

THE CONTEXT:

Here is how they described the situation

• The company was created as a result ofa break-through idea of competitorsjoining hands to conserve capital andprovide services at a low cost tocustomers.

• All the companies who had joinedhands were outstanding, professionallymanaged companies and had theimagination and vision to see the powerof this idea

• The company was managed by a Boardconsisting of representatives of all thethree companies and the MD hadcomplete freedom to decide whatwas in the collective interest of allstakeholders. The Board members(representing the shareholders)behaved professionally from“Governance” point of view and didnot allow conflict of interest to occurconsidering the fact that they were alsothe biggest customers of the enterprise.

• As the company was created almostovernight, without the time to thinkthrough all details, processes were stillbeing developed.

• The company had yet to develop itsown culture as all employees weretransferred from the three companiesand had brought their own “culture”and behavior to the organization.

They wanted to undertake an exercise todevelop a powerful shared vision thatbrought all employees together and createdthe glue of “shared values” that would



define the culture and identity of thecompany.

Thus began an exciting journey thatlasted several months. While I waspersonally involved in providing “thoughtleadership” to the assignment, my formercolleagues from Grow Talent Company’sconsulting division (now part of RightManagement) including the former Headof the LEADERSHIP Practice, ShyamViswanathan (now Executive Director ofSOIL) and Vivek Tripathi (The then Headof Gurgaon office of Right Management)were deeply involved in leading a lot ofwork done all over the country.

The 1st meeting:

We “kicked off” the Program oftransformation by inviting the top 40leaders to spend an afternoon with us atthe Trident Hotel in Gurgaon to share theirthoughts about what they expected fromthis intervention.

There was a healthy exchange of ideas andmany people shared their hopes, anxietiesand concerns.

We presented the overall approach for thework by sharing the two frameworks thatwe planned to deploy in the Program – the4D Framework and the LSIP Process.

Appreciative Inquiry – The 4Ds andThe Power of Positive Psychology atwork

Inspired by the early practitioners ofPositive Psychology, the “AppreciativeInquiry Framework” of 4Ds is divided intothe following phases:

a) Begin by studying people at their best.This “D-iscovery” phase is all aboutasking people questions with “child likeenthusiasm” about when they and theirteams were at their best and what wasunique about this experience and what

did it reveal to them about theirindividual and organizational gifts orstrengths. This is an exciting technologyof “mining for the gold” and the veryprocess of paying attention to people attheir best builds enthusiasm and thecapacity of people to excel and give offtheir best.

b) Get people to share the findings of their“Discovery” and “D-ream” about howthey could leverage their individualand collective strengths to create apowerful vision for the future thatinspires them to create an organizationof their own choosing.

c) Create a process for people to “D-esign”a road map for making the vision areality by thinking through all the stepsneeded.

d) Define roles and responsibilities,measures of progress, review process,etc to ensure that the design is“D-elivered in a timely way so that theorganization reaches the desired statethat everybody is inspired by.Researchers like Suresh Srivastava,Ronald Fry and David Cooperrider ofthe Case Western Reserve University inUnited States did the initial work on thisfascinating body of knowledge andI have been using this methodologyever since I began my consulting careerin 1991.

My colleagues and I began the “Discovery”phase by interviewing a cross selection ofemployees at different locations of IndusTowers. We also interviewed leaders of theshareholder firms and customerorganizations and also some businesspartners.

The enthusiasm created by this exercisethat took about 8 weeks was palpable!

The “SOIL had been prepared” to begin thenext phase of the work.



THE DREAMING PHASE ANDCREATION OF SHARED VISION ANDVALUES

This phase began by our facilitating a twodays retreat of the top 40 leaders of thecompany at the beautiful Westin Resort atSohna, Gurgaon.

In this event, the stories of the “Discoveryprocess” were shared and the group had ajoyful conversation of what allstakeholders regarded as the biggest gifts(strengths) of Indus. As these weresupported by real life stories, the processcreated a lot of positive energy &excitement.

They were then asked to visualizeindividually and in small groups howthey could leverage these gifts to createIndus of their own dreams. They drewpictures, made “collages” and presentedkey words and phrases to describe theirdreams.

Each team presented their output to thelarger group. We then collected thekeywords of each team and did an “affinity”process to group all ideas into families ofsimilar ideas and gave each one a caption.The large group then did a multi votingprocess to choose the most importantbuilding blocks of the draft Vision.

Small groups were then requested to draftvision statements by combining all the keywords into powerful and inspiringstatements.

The large group then discussed eachstatement and in the end, chose the topthree statements and attempted to integratethem into one evocative and impactfulstatement.

We then started the process of defining thecore values of the company that wereimplied in the visualization and stated inthe vision statements in different words.

The participants had a very involveddiscussion and finally chose five corevalues that were being already lived andalso that they aspired to live in the future.

These were defined and a first draft wasmade to define “Dos” and “Donts” ofbehavior if these had to be lived by one andall on a daily basis.

This was done first by small groups andthen presented to the larger group anddiscussions held till everyone hadcommitted to the same.

The retreat ended by participantsdiscussing the road map of engaging therest of the organization in building a sharedvision and added with a strong sense oftogetherness and “family”.

The top 40 had got aligned on what theywere inspired to do together to build anoutstanding firm.

They were very clear that what they hadcreated was only a “draft” and they werenow to co-facilitate with the consultingteam the next phase of engaging the rest ofthe people of Indus.

The Next Levels of co-creation

Five unique events were then held inGurgaon, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennaiand Mumbai using the Large ScaleInteractive Process - LSIP.

This s a unique process designed byDr. Kathleen Dannemiller and herassociates (first discovered in the eightiesand applied in Ford Motor Company) atthe University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

In this process, a “Design Team” is formed-consisting of the microcosm of the groupthat is the target of change. This is crossfunctional, cross hierarchical, crosslocational and cross attitudinal, so that bothcynics and optimists are covered.



The entire LSIP exercise was designed withthe design team to visualize every part ofthe next workshop so as to ensure that theprocess had the ownership of the“macrocosm”.

My colleagues, Shyam and Vivek ablysupported by Isha Gera (Project Leader),Neha Singhal and Tuhina Pandaconsultants (all form Right Management)were involved in this work. They coveredthe next lot of 180 leaders at levels belowthe top 40 in these 5 workshops. As wasthe case in the Retreat for senior leaders,these groups of employees were involvedin co-creating draft visions and valuesstatements and “Do’s and Don’ts” ofbehavior. They were then shown the outputof the Leadership Retreat and then aprocess of integration was done to arriveat new draft vision statements anddefinitions of core values and behavioralindicators.

This was followed by 6 LSIP eventsin which the next lot of 900 employeeswas covered and they too recommendedvision, values & behavioral indicatorsstatements.

Finally, we were back at the Westin atSohna in a “confluence” LSIP in which weinvited representatives of all the LSIPevents that had been held.

The entire company had now developed apositive spirit of working together to builda company of their dreams. From acompany that had distinct culturesidentified with the three parent companies,they had evolved to the new “Indus” witha strong identity of its own.

In this workshop, we shared stories of allthe events through videos and the personalaccounts of the representatives who hadcome from each of the events.

We then adopted the final Indus Visionstatement and agreed on core values and

the ways in which they would be livedthrough behaviors.

From a position in the beginning in whichmany people doubted the power of thismethodology, there was hardly anyonewho had not been moved by the process ofco-creation and shared visioning.

The workshop ended with a detailed“Design and Delivery” Plan to link everybusiness process to the new vision andvalues and a way of building competenciesand assessing values at the time of hiringand linking these dimensions to thePerformance Management System.

The Design of the New Organization

Our team then trained “Value Champions”who, in-turn trained everyone on howthe values had to be lived on a daily basis.They were especially trained on howto elicit “value dilemmas” and facilitateconversations on how the employeeswould go about dealing with them.

This was a much needed step to close the“loop” and ensure that everyone was clearon how they would personally commit tomake the vision and values come aliveeveryday.

The Transformation of the People Systemsand the “Delivery” of the promise

Our team then helped the Indus leaders todo several things to ensure that thetransformation process would beinstitutionalized. These were

• Creation of a website in the employeeportal to share stories of how the visionand values were being lived on a dayto day basis.

• A series of symbols and artefacts andmetaphors were created in theworkplace from screen savers to postersto stationery items to “brand” the



workplace with the inspirationalvocabulary of the new vision, valuesand behaviors.

• A “Guide” was prepared for behavioralevent interviews to assist interviewerson how they would assess these valuesin candidates who were being“recruited” into the company.

• Values were incorporated into thecompetency framework of the company- as critical part of the PerformanceManagement System.

• Our team also assisted Indus to definethe roles, structure etc. for the office ofthe Ombuds person to whom cases ofviolations of values could be reportedwithout fear of reprisal.

• Finally, a quiz was developed to test theknowledge of how each employee hadinternalized the values and it wasplanned that each employee would takethis quiz every year to continuouslyremind himself/herself of these criticaldimensions of the “Indus way”.

Challenges and some questions

I have led and facilitated such largescale “Aignment” exercises in a numberof large and complex organizations. Ineach case, the impact has been beneficial,

ranging from raising positive “can do”spirit to break-through innovationand quantum jumps in productivity,quality and service levels with scoresof employees engagement showingdramatic increases.

Here is what I have learned are thepre-requisites for ensuring that thishappens:

• The CEO has to genuinely feel thatco-creation is the best form of creatingownership

• The HR Head has to work as a realbusiness partner and has to be willingto demonstrate personal behavior inline with the vision and values andhe/she is seen as the champions of thisprocess

• Business leaders have to feel “secure”and not feel challenged, if their juniorsmodify or alter the draft vision andvalues statements that they havecreated

• People have to keep aside quality timeto invest on this Institution BuildingProgram — no matter how many firesare burning

• The top team has to be very carefulnot to crack jokes or pass “loose”comments about why this elaborate

* Half day kick off workshop * 2 days leadership retreat * Training of values * Workshops on valuingfor top 40 leaders our values

* Appreciative Inquiry * 5 LSIP Events to involve the * Behavioral Interview * Stories on values Intensions involving next group of 180 guide captured and sharedStakeholders leaders

* 6 LSIP events to involve the * Website in employee * Annual Quiz to refresh remaining 900 employees portal to share stories knowledge

* Confluence workshop of 60 * New symbols & * Office of OmbudspersonLeaders – top 40 and 20 artefactsrepresentatives of LSIP events * Redesign of the * New Recruitment system

Performance and PMS implementedManagementSystem (PMS)

DISCOVER DREAM DESIGN DELIVER



Note from Pankaj Mittal,CHRO – Indus towers

In 2010, we embarked on the i-LIVE (I Live Indus ValuesEveryday) journey; a landmarkinitiative at Indus Towers whichdefined the ‘Reason for our existence’through our Vision and the ‘Way we live’through our Values & Behaviors! This hasbeen an institution building process, whichwill impact Indus for many years to come.

For me personally the i-LIVE journey hasadded a whole new dimension to myexperience of over 23 years in the HumanResources field. The i-LIVE initiative basedon the Large Scale Change methodologyof Cathleen Dannemiller provided us withthe necessary freshness and impact,befitting the size and scale of our ‘new’organization.

The bottom up ‘Co-Creation’ approachused through the Large Scale Changemodel has been deeply invigorating andhas been responsible in infusing a greatdeal of positive energy and enthusiasm atIndus.

Each and every employee in theorganization felt involved in this epochmaking initiative. There is a sense of realownership and sense of pride in theoutcomes:

Our Vision – “We Transform Lives ByEnabling Communication”

And

Our Values ExCITE(Excellence|Customer|Integrity|Teamwork|Environment).

This ownership has made theinstitutionalizing process much easier asthere is complete acceptance due to the co-creation process followed.

The i-LIVE initiative has alsoinstitutionalized the ‘co-creation’ approachat Indus. A lot of our subsequent initiativeshave been based on this methodology andhas played a pivotal role in transformingIndus to an organization which ‘ActivelyListens’ and involves employees in theorganization building process.

References:• Appreciative Inquiry

• Real time Strategic Change

exercise of employee involvement wasbeing done.

• The company has to sacrifice leaderswho do not live the values of thecompany and do not believe inco-creation — no matter how brilliantthey are.

NOW SOME QUESTIONS

• Should such an “Alignment” exercisebe done if the company is in the midstof M&A?

• How often should this be done?

• At what part of the organizational lifecycle should this be done?

• Is it possible to do these processes“virtually”, by leveraging“telepresence” and technology?

I hope the readers of this paper willattempt to address these and raise severalquestions of their own in response to thissharing.

I look forward to your feedback.



About the Author

S. K. Chaturvedi, is the Chairman & Managing Director ofPowerGrid Corporation of India. He is a Graduate and PostGraduate in Science from University of Lucknow. He holds aPost Graduate Diploma in Personnel Management & IR and is aseasoned HR professional with varied experience of more than30 years in the area of Human Resource Management, IndustrialRelations and Organisational Development. He has also worked

with Steel Authority of India Ltd., NTPC Ltd., POWERGRID (for more than thirteenyears in POWERGRID from August 1991) in various capacities in HR and thenjoined NHPC Ltd. as Director (Personnel) in October, 2004. A strong votary ofhuman development, Chaturvedi has introduced several new concepts of employeedevelopment and was responsible for initiating several progressive HR policies inthe organizations he has served.

CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT TOWARDSORGANIZATION COMPETENCE

(CASE STUDY : THE POWERGRID EXPERIENCE)S K CHATURVEDI

The success of any organization dependson the capability of its Human

Resources. In the wake of the dynamicbusiness environment, every organizationhas to focus on its core competencies andenhance the value of human capital.

Our country has been ranked third in termsof its intellectual capital. Our populationthat was considered a major drag in theindustrial era can well prove to be ourgreatest advantage in the information age.We can achieve success through people,leveraging their intellect, loyalty andcommitment.

Against this backdrop, the POWERGRIDexperience is presented. POWERGRID wasformed as a result of amalgamation ofassets and associated manpower from six

organizations. POWERGRID faced biggerchallenges in terms of employee relationsas its formation brought divergent workcultures, different terms of employmentand service conditions, as well as multipleunions with different political linkages atdifferent places.

Accepting these challenges asopportunities, we embarked on anintegrated and comprehensive plan thatwould faciliate the harnessing of humanpotential for the purpose of organizationexcellence and vitality. This story ofPOWERGRID attempts to hoghlight‘people’ interventions and initiatives,customized to our business and humanresource environment and practicedeffectively in order to strengthenOrganization Competence.



POWERGRID: One of the largestTransmission Utility in the world

Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd.(POWERGRID) was incorporated in theyear 1989 with an authorized share capitalof Rupees 5,000 crores with a mandate toestablish and operate regional and nationalpower grids. POWERGRID becameoperational from the financial year 1991-92.We acquired the transmission networkon ownership basis from 6 differentorganizations, viz. NTPC, NHPC, NLC,NEEPCO, THDC and SJVNL alongwith their associated manpower. Today,POWERGRID with a strength of about9,800 employees is one of the largesttransmission utility in the world.

As opposed to the dominant perception,POWERGRID is not a monopolisticorganization. POWERGRID operates in anenvironment of stiff competition and in aregulated business environment. Forexample, POWERGRID like any othercorporate, borrows and raises funds forinvestment from competitive moneymarkets, it sources human resource froman open competitive talent pool, and thetransmission sector has been opened up forprivate sector participation. POWERGRIDis accountable not only to its customers, butalso to the Central Electricity RegulatoryCommission.

Employee Involvement and CapabilityDevelopment

The emerging business order of the powersector; the focus on reliability, security,economy and commercial principles in theMission statement, required us tospecifically focus on

• Alignment of a diverse workforce

• Optimum utilization of resources

• Building requisite skills andcompetencies

• Inculcating a mindset and orientationtowards customer delight, and

• Involvement of line managers onpeople matters given the disperseddeployment of people

POWERGRID has therefore continuouslyand consistently endeavored to developand implement integrated HR systemsfocusing on Involvement, Capabilities andPerformance for the creation andsustenance of Organization Competence.Some of the key ‘people’ interventions arediscussed below:

1 Delegation of Powers (DOP): POWERGRID has business operationsacross the length and breadth of thecountry manned by it’s geographicallyspread out 9,800 employees. In such ascenario, waiting for approvals frommanagement to initiate and executeprojects can cause enormous delays andpoor maintenance of transmissionsystem, apart from giving a senseof helplessness to the front-lineemployees. In realization of this fact,POWERGRID had created an employeeempowerment framework through aclearly articulated Delegation of Powers(DOP) instrument. This instrumentclearly details the powers that can beexercised at different levels startingfrom the junior most executive tothe CMD of the company. Employeesare empowered to take operationaldecisions which encomapass financial,people and customer imperatives. Whatis important is that all employees havebeen communicated, trained andenabled to use this DOP in the mosteffective fashion. These powers comewith responsibility and accountability.A periodical internal and external auditsystem ensures the proper use ofDOP. The DOP has provided greatopportunities to our employeesto exhibit leadership mettle and



communicated the trust that theorganization reposes on them.

2 POWERGRID National Bi-PartiteCommittee: POWERGRID is probablythe only company in India, with such athin human spread and largeoperational network with employeesscattered in all parts of the countrymaintaining about 82,335 Ckt Kms oftransmission lines and 135 sub-stations.Only 2 or 3 employees work at many ofthese locations. In such cases, it is quitelikely that employees feel alienatedfrom the company. This thinking haspaved the way for involving employeesin the organizational managementthrough a formal joint consultativebody at the corporate level.POWERGRID National Bi-PartiteCommittee (PNBC) was constitutedwith top management representativesand employee representatives. ThePNBC developed the guidelines forchoosing representatives of employeesthrough a ‘secret ballot’ system once in4 years, which thus provides an equalopportunity to all employees toparticipate in the PNBC. PNBC hascontributed to the development ofhuman resource management policiesin the areas of rewards and recognition,training & development, promotions,incentives, employee welfare andsetting up of performance targets. It isalso extensively used to communicatethe company’s vision, business plans,core values and important businessdevelopments. PNBC stands as one ofthe best example of employeeinvolvement and empowerment in theIndian corporate world. For employeeinvolvement and empowerment to becascaded down to all levels,POWERGRID Regional BipartiteCommittees (PRBCs) were constitutedat the regional level to identify the areasof improvement and prepare action

plans for implementation in the pursuitof operational excellence. Thisorganizational democracy has furthercascaded down to work locations,namely the sub-stations, where about20 to 30 employees work together in ashift system. This local body isprimarily engaged in identifying theareas for improvement at the sub-station level, manages and coordinatesamong employees working in differentshifts. Issues discussed here range fromcleanliness of work premises to savingof operational costs.

3 POWERGRID Employee SuggestionScheme: This is an integral part of ourendeavour of Capability Developmenttowards Organization Competence. Itprovides an opportunity to allemployees to influence the decision-making and involve themselves inorganizational functioning. Suggestioncommittees evaluate suggestions andacceptance and awards for suggestionsare announced following a well-definedcriteria. Over a period of time this hasproved to be an effective instrument foremployee involvement.

4 POWERGRID Employee WelfareAssociation (PEWA): POWERGRIDalso has more than 135 employeewelfare associations operating atdifferent work locations mainlyconcerned with improving the facilitiesin townships in the areas of sports &culture; participation of employees’families in township maintenance andrunning cooperative and thrift societies.This forum is open to all employees andtheir families. POWERGRID offersfunds and matching grants to supportthe PEWA activities. PEWA over aperiod of time has generated good willand contributed to the voluntaryinvolvement of not only employees, butalso their families.



5 Open House Sessions: The CMD of thecompany and the Functional Directorsaddress all employees in an open forumsharing with them business issues of thecompany. Employees can raise anyissue; offer their views and suggestionsfor growth of the organization.

6 Integrated Developmental Plan (IDP):POWERGRID believes that in thisturbulent business environment, onesingle factor that will provide theorganization a major impetus is itsHuman Resource. With this view,POWERGRID has developed anambitious plan for integrateddevelopment of its employees withfocus on nurturing the inherentpotential of an individual for the overallgrowth of individual along with theorganization.

In tandem with, business environmentof Power Sector, a comprehensiveOrganization Training Needs Assessmentis conducted with the help of keyexecutives to identify the macro and microcompetency requirement at organizationaland departmental level. This is followedby an Employee Training NeedsAssessment to assess training needs of eachemployee based on skill and competencyprofiles. Line managers are continuouslyinvolved in selection and assessment oftraining and development programmes.Annual training plan titled as LearnersPlanner is followed to conductprogrammes to bridge the gap betweencompetency requirements and availability.POWERGRID regardless of its businessfortunes and availability of financialresource allocates suitable budgets toemployee development since we treat thisas an investment.

Knowledge Management System has beenenvisaged with a view to share theknowledge across the organization,whether it is the execution of a major

technical project or an organizationalclimate survey. It is an integration of basicknowledge system with the organization’sweb portal. Resource persons fromrespective fields evaluate and review theknowledge system so that employeesspread across the length and breadth ofcountry can use the knowledge system toimprove their working.

It is a well established that success ofmanagers largely comes from personalattributes such as inter personalcompetency, motivational levels,attitudes, values, self clarity and decisionmaking orientation. Even the best oftechnocrats, tend to perform sub optimallywhen motivational level or interpersonal competency quotient is below therequired level. Performance Appraisal,Competency Mapping & Role Directory,thus, has been a major developmentalactivity to enhance the performance ofemployees, capitalizing on strength ofindividuals to develop teams, putting rightpersons on right jobs and overalldevelopment of competency based HRsystems.

To encourage Self Development amongemployees, we have clearly spelt outpolicies such as Study Leave for pursuinghigher education; Incentive on acquiringhigher qualification; and Sponsorship forfurther studies.

POWERGRID has collaborations withthe best B Schools & TechnologicalInstitutes within the country & overseasand also with its manufacturers for thecapability development of its employees.The Future Cadre is developedfrom amongst employees throughcomprehensive development modules.Top management including CMDparticipate in the developmentprogrammes and attend international andnational conferences to update theirbusiness and leadership skills.



Similarly, we have adopted 4 it is atBargi (Madhya Pradesh), Bhadravathi(Karnataka), Buxar and Marthoura (Bihar)to upgrade their infrastructure forproviding quality vocational training,which apart from enhancing employabilityalso helps mitigate skill shortage.

POWERGRID’S approach to issues ofEnvironment and Community are asignificant source of employee andorganizational pride. POWERGRID wasthe first PSU to develop Environmental andSocial Policies and Procedures in 1998 andthe first company in the power sector topublish a Sustainability Report in 2009. TheESPP amongst other aspects also coversResettlement and Rehabilitation activities.

HR in POWERGRID is considered as acritical business activity and is included asa vital performance parameter in theMemorandum of Understanding signed byGovernment of India to set key businesstargets of a Public Sector Undertaking onan yearly basis.

Great business results

Today, POWERGRID is one of the largesttransmission utility in the world with asignificant presence in the global powerarena. POWERGRID has excelled in all theareas of its activities: project execution,operations, load dispatch, commercial,finance and human resource. Standardsset by POWERGRID in its journeytowards forming of national powergrid are considered as benchmarks intheir own right. The key to many ofthese achievements is our Employee

Involvement and Capability DevelopmentInstruments. The financials, transmissionnetwork, MVA, Sub-stations thatPOWERGRID added in the last twodecades of its existence without addingmuch manpower are testimony to therecord of POWERGRID’s achievements.POWERGRID made a net profit of Rs 2,697crores against Rs.237 crores and enhancedthe turnover from Rs. 634 crores to astupendous figure of Rs. 9,100 croresduring the period 1992-93 to 2010-11.Similarly, number of sub-stations has risenfrom 38 to 135 and length of transmissionlines from 22,228 Ckt Km to 82,335 Ckt Kmduring the same period. The profit peremployee has increased from Rs. 4.19 lakhsto Rs. 28.00 lakhs.

Today, POWERGRID has been ranked asthe 8th fastest growing company in Asiaand 18th fastest growing company in theworld in the Platts Global EnergyCompany’s ranking.

POWERGRID has been conferred with theNational Award for MeritoriousPerformance in Power Sector for 4consecutive years and the prestigiousMOU Excellence Award for 9 years, ofwhich 6 years in a row by the Departmentof Public Enterprise.

We have also been conferred the NationalTelecom Award 2010; Award for“Excellence in learning 2011”; Award for“Talent Management 2011” and the GlobalHR Excellence Award 2010-11 for theOrganization with Innovative HRPractices.



RESEARCH & BOOK REVIEWS1. THE WHY OF WORK: HOW GREAT LEADERS BUILD ABUNDANT ORGANIZATIONS THAT WIN

Author : Dave Ulrich / Wendy Ulrich

So, is this one more book about Leadership? Well, you could say that. Isthere a ‘new framework’ or a ‘new, improved framework’ for Leadership thatyou can get out of this book? Yes, but you’ll have to find it – within yourself.

That’s probably the best thing about Dave & Wendy Ulrich’s recent book,“The Why of Work”. Shifting from the intimately personal details andanecdotes to the broad frameworks they exemplify, the authors bring to lifeseveral of the leadership principles they postulate in the book. As MarshallGoldsmith says in the introduction, that’s possible because of a happymarriage of the ‘micro’ perspective of a psychologist (Wendy) and the ‘macro’perspective of a business thinker (Dave).

Combined, they build the picture of a leader as a person who “shapes andcreates’ meaning” for others. They offer a set of seven meaning drivers, which will help the leadercreate space for “abundance”. They define abundant organizations as those where individualemployees create meaning for themselves, value for stakeholders and hope for humanity at large.That’s quite a stretch goal to set for someone who is looking to be ‘merely’ a business leader –which is why this book is more about personal mastery than about “7 things you do to become aleader”. It boils it all down to that one thing: creating meaning at work – around seven aspects ofworking in organizations.

Those seven aspects are: Identity, Purpose, Relationships, Culture, Contributions, Evolution andDelight. Each of them is explored from a personal perspective as well as from that of value to theorganization. While there are enough checklists, questionnaires and other tools to help you put theprinciples of abundance into action, they can all be set aside, as long as you are focusing on thecore of creating meaning for oneself. The framework, therefore, is as exciting as you personallyintend it to be.

The principles here are thus unique enough, and powerful enough, to provide a boost to anyonewho displays traditional leadership traits. If that’s not your thing, the book will still give you enoughleverage to transform yourself – and that’s a good way to begin changing the world!

Reviewed by :

Shantharam R.Co-Founder, Kelsa Solutions

2. EMPLOYEES FIRST, CUSTOMERS SECOND

Author : Vineet Nayar

To quote CK Prahlad from his foreword to the book, this book is a narrative oforganizational transformation and a practical guide for managers who wish toachieve similar results, as well as a story of the personal transformation ofa CEO.

What struck me as significant about the book were the following aspects:

It is about the journey of an organization very Indian in its origins and cultureand about the experiences of an Indian CEO in bringing about change withinthis psyche – this means it is a journey we can all relate very well to and drawa lot of practical lessons from.

NHRD July 9 Books Review.p65 8/12/2011, 4:13 PM85


Every step in the journey comes across as radical and bold, sometimes egregiously so, but alsoflavored with the right degree of pragmatism in its execution.

The approach chosen by HCL for the change was Employees First Customers Second (EFCS) –the title of the book. The essence of this approach was to prepare employees through variousinitiatives - discussed further in some detail here and at length in the book – to deliver greater valueto customers resulting in long-term strategic partnerships for IT rather than the regular delivery ofIT outsourcing services, which was the industry norm and practice among Indian companies atthat point in time.

So what was the trigger for change? The fact that Vineet Nayar took over as CEO of HCLTechnologies on invitation from Shiv Nadar, the founder, of course, after some reluctance on thepart of the former was one immediate trigger, as well as the assessment that HCL’s growth hadslowed down and its competitors were threatening to overtake it.

Nayar came up with this change process, which he later classified into the following four stages,while reflecting back on the journey. The four stages are as follows:

Mirror, Mirror: Creating the Need for Change

Trust through Transparency: Creating a Culture of Change

Inverting the Organizational Pyramid: Building a Structure for Change

Recasting the Role of the CEO: Transferring the Responsibility for Change

The salient points and important learning are outlined here.

Mirror, Mirror: Creating the Need for Change

This was the starting point – sensitizing people to the need for change, aligning multiple sets ofpeople and preparing them to stop simply basking in past glory and start looking into the future.This really is the most difficult step in any change process, the one that creates the much neededinitial momentum and gathers critical mass for change.

Nayar used this step to surface issues that were facing the organization, issues that most peopleknew about, but were reluctant to discuss. He did this by having face-to-face meetings across theorganization, both in India and overseas.

This process also helped him classify people into three categories – Transformers, Lost souls andFence sitters – Transformers being the ones wanting change, Lost souls being the naysayers, andFence Sitters being in a ‘Wait and Watch mode’.

Some important observations made by Nayar here, that are valuable lessons for change, are:

There was a need to hold up a mirror not just to the employees, but also the leaders.

In defining the agenda for change, it came through that Point A – where the company stood at thatpoint in time, was itself unclear and needed to be defined.

He found active support amongst Gen Y employees and used them as catalysts in a big way.

Trust through Transparency

Here again, Nayar’s unconventional, yet pragmatic thinking and action shows through.

After coming up with a bold blueprint for change and allowing the management team to debateover it to reach a consensus, he says he realized that the team did not trust him or each other toexecute the plan successfully.

He takes a pragmatic view to say, “Why should anybody trust anybody? Trust needs to be built.”He also cites the family as a place to look to for tips on how to build trust. His view is that someunwritten rules of corporate actually inhibit trust, such as:



Do not trust your manager.

Do not get too emotional about anything.

Remember, it is not personal, its only business.

Having understood and accepted the need, Nayar went about creating a culture of transparencyin the organization. U & I, an online forum was created, where any employee could ask any question,which Nayar, along with his leadership team, would answer. Both the questions and the answerscould be seen by everyone.

There were several other initiatives launched across the organization to build an environment ofopenness and trust.

After creating a culture of transparency within, HCL went on to create transparency with its customersby explaining the changed business model – Employees First, Customers Second (EFCS).

Inverting the Organizational Pyramid: Building a Structure for Change

This seems to be one of the most radical steps in the change effort – creating ‘reverse accountability’– that of senior managers to employees down the line who were actually creating value; as well asof enabling functions like HR and Finance to the customer-facing functions.

And quite obviously, communication formed a very essential part of the entire change initiative.

Recasting the Role of the CEO: Transferring the Responsibility for Change

Nayar uses an interesting metaphor to explain his thinking behind this step 0 HCL had to becomemore like a starfish than a spider – a starfish has every major organ replicated across every arm.In toher words, HCL had to become more decentralized.

A few interesting and again unconventional steps taken by Vineet Nayar were:

He started posting questions in the U & I forum and seeking responses to issues he was strugglingwith. Responses apparently poured in. He did this to:

Acknowledge and learn from the knowhow that resided with value creators across the organization,

Break the myth of an all-knowing CEO

Get people to take more ownership of problems and seek solutions.

He created Employee First Councils to come up with new ideas and implement them.

Subsequently, he also worked actively with customers to make them partners in the change processof HCL and the customer organization.

This is how his goal of what he defines as “creating a self-governing, seld organizing company”was achieved. Of course, in all humility, he signs off by saying that the journey is far from complete.

What struck me here was Nayar’s confession that he had always had a problem with hierarchicalstructures and that he was fortunate in having been groomed by teachers who served as enablersof learning. Perhaps it is this perspective that made it possible for him to think so radically. And histrust in the value of people enabled him to take them along to implement these radical ideas.

Employees First, Customers Second is a personal account of a transformation journey, but can bequite far-reaching in its impact if we care to take learning from it. In its honesty and radical thinking,it is reminiscent of the book “Maverick” by Ricardo Semler written way back in the 80s – a firstperson account of how a second generation entrepreneur achieved change in a company steepedin problems and nested in an economy (Brazil) that had even more problems – 200 percent inflation,rampant corruption, inefficiency and so on. The simplicity of the narrative in the book by Nayar caneasily lead one to miss out on the complexity and the impact of what Nayar achieved. In reality, thebook carries powerful lessons for all leaders of organizations, HR professionals, change agentsand students of organizational dynamics.

Reviewed by :

Vidya MuralidharanHead – HR Product development – Ashok Leyland Ltd.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our profound thanks to all the contributors of articles and book reviewers whohave taken time off from their busy schedules out of their dedicated interest to thefield of Human Resources.

We are grateful to the Guest Editor Mr. SY Siddiqui for his excellent contributiondespite multiple pressures on his time.

Similarly, this issue would not have been possible but for support from Mr. AnilGaur and Mr. Prateek Bhargava.

Our special thanks to Mr. Prabhakar L., VP-Human Resources, ITC, Agri-BusinessDivision, for meticulously screening every article word by word out of his passionfor the profession.

We acknowledge the support from Sunathy of Exclusive Search.

We thank Prof. (Col) A. Balasubramanian of Balaji Society for his continuoussupport.

– Dr. PVR Murthy, Managing Editor(On behalf of the Editorial Team)


NHRD Network Journal

People Power – Draw, Drive and Deliver

Volume 4 Issue 3 July 2011

NHRD Network Board Members

National President: Sy. Siddiqui, MEO (Admn - HR, Fin & IT), Maruti Suzuki India

Past National Presidents: Aquil Busrai, Chief Executive Officer - Aquil Busrai Consulting

Dwarakanath P, Director-Group Human Capital - Max India

Dr. Santrupt Misra, Director - Aditya Birla Group

NS Rajan, Partner, Human Capital and Global Leader – HR Advisory,Ernst & Young

Regional Presidents:

East: Sourav Daspatnaik, HR Director, Apeejay-Surrendra Group

South: S V Nathan, Director U.S. India Talent, Deloitte

West: Rajeev Dubey, President (Group HR & After-Market) & Member of theGroup Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra

North: S Varadarajan, Executive President - HR,Tata Teleservices

National Secretary: Prince Augustin, EVP-Human Capital, Mahindra & Mahindra

National Treasurer: L. Prabhakar, Head-Human Resources (Agri-Business Division), ITC Ltd

Editorial Board Sy. Siddiqui, MEO (Admn - HR, Fin & IT), Maruti Suzuki India

(Guest Editor for this issue)

Dr. PVR Murthy, Managing Editor,CEO, Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants,[email protected]

Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Director - Human Resources Citrix R&DIndia Pvt. [email protected]

Aquil Busrai, Chief Executive OfficerAquil Busrai Consulting, Human Resources, Gurgaon, [email protected]

Publisher, Printer, Owner Executive Director on behalf of National HRD Network,and Place of Publication National HRD Network Secretariat, C 81 C, DLF Super Mart, DLF City,

Phase IV, Gurgaon122 002. Tel +91 124 404 1560

Printed at Nagaraj & Co. Pvt. Ltd., 156, Developed Plots Industrial Estate,Perungudi, Chennai 600 096. Tel : 044 - 66149291

The views expressed by the authors are of theirown and not necessarily of the editors nor of thepublisher nor of authors’ organizations

Copyright of the NHRD Journal, all rights reserved.Contents may not be copied, emailed or reproducedwithout copyright holders’ express permission in writing.

NHRD firmly believes in and respects IPR and we appeal to thecontributors and readers to strictly honour the same.

For any further clarifications, please contact :

The Managing EditorDr. P V R Murthy, CEO, Exclusive Search Recruitment Consultants,

#8, Janaki Avenue, Off 4th Street, Abhiramapuram, Chennai 600 [email protected]

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

The National HRD Network publishes a semi-academic quarterly journal where in each issue isdedicated to a theme.

The journal publishes primarily three categories of articles :

• Conceptual and research based

• Contributions from thought leaders including a limited number of reprints with due permission

• Organizational experiences in HR interventions/mechanisms

Publications so far include on the themes “IT in HR”, ”Performance Management”, “Attracting andRetaining Talent”, “Career Management”, “Organizational Change”, “Global HRM”, “Women in CorporateLeadership Roles”, “Organization Development”, “Learning and Development”, “Leadership”, “Work-Life Balance”, “Institution Building”, “Coaching For Performance and Development”, “Human ResourcesManagement in Rapid Growth Organizations”, “HR Competence”, “HR and Employee Relations” and“CEO and HR”.

The current issue is on the theme of “People Power – Draw, Drive and Deliver”.

The following persons have agreed to anchor as guest editors for the future issues :

1. October 2011 issue by Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, Vice President -HR (India/South Asia), IBM India, onthe theme “Getting HR Ready for Gen Y”

2. January 2012 issue by Mr. Rajeev Dubey, President (Group HR & After-Market) & Member of theGroup Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra on “CSR & HR”

3. April 2012 issue by Mr.Vivek Paranjpe, Group HR, Reliance Industries Limited, on “HR Challengesin the Knowledge Economy”

Editorial Board Members :

Dr. P.V.R. Murthy, Managing Editor is a product of I.I.T., Kharagpur and IIM, Calcutta with close to thirtyyears experience in H.R. field. He is founder and runs an executive search firm Exclusive SearchRecruitment Consultants. He is associated with a number of academic institutions. He is trained inTQM in Japan and in human processes from ISABS and NTL, U.S.A. He is the Past National Secretaryof National HRD Network.

Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay is Director - Human Resources Citrix R&D India PVT Ltd. A doctoral fellowfrom XLRI and AHRD, he is trained in OD and Human Processes from NTL, USA and he believes inapplying HR concepts to practice to make it more meaningful and effective. He is a mentor and coachto many young HR professionals.

Aquil Busrai is Chief Executive Officer at Aquil Busrai Consulting. He has over 36 years HR experience,both in strategic and operational HR with blue chip organisations like Unilever in Kenya and India,Motorola in Asia Pacific and Shell in Malaysia. He was Executive Director, Human Resources at IBMCorporation, National President at National HRD Network, HR Director Shell Malaysia and MD ShellPeople.


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NHRD Network JournalJuly 2011 Volume 4 Issue 3

www.nationalhrd.org

A Quarterly Publication by The National HRD Network

Dr D Prashanth Nair

V M Kaul

K Ramkumar

Vineet Kaul

Dr Y V Verma

C Mahalingam

Dr Arun Kumar Jain

Sourav Daspatnaik

Sonali Roychowdhury &

Romit Roychowdhury

S Varadarajan &

Alok Narain

Dr Sandeep Krishna

Dr S Ramnarayan &

Neha Gupta

Anil Sachdev

S K Chathurvedi

People

Power –

Draw, Drive

and Deliver

www.nationalhrd.org

National HRD Network

The National HRD Network, established in 1985, is an

association of professionals committed to promoting

the HRD movement in India and enhancing the

capability of human resource professionals, enabling

them to make an impactful contribution in enhancing

competitiveness and creating value for society.

Towards this end, the National HRD Network is

committed to the development of human resources

through education, training, research and experience

sharing. The network is managed by HR professionals

in an honorary capacity, stemming from their interest

in contributing to the HR profession.

The underlying philosophy of the NHRDN is that every

human being has the potential for remarkable

achievement. HRD is a process by which employees in

organizations are enabled to:

• acquire capabilities to perform various tasks

associated with their present and future roles;

• develop their inner potential for self and

organisational growth;

• develop an organisational culture where networking

relationships, teamwork and collaboration among

different units is strong, contributing to

organisational growth and individual well-being.


NHRD Journal July2011 Final

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