“My role here differs from my previous positions, particularly in its strategic focus. While HR responsibilities always encompass the full spectrum of functions, this role emphasises a more strategic approach, where I’ll be deeply involved in aligning HR initiatives with the company’s growth objectives. This involves everything from designing and implementing HR interventions to establishing a more systematic and structured operational framework,” Mohanty told HRKatha.

Prior to this appointment, Mohanty served as the head-people and culture at Medikabazaar. He joined the company in 2019. In this capacity, he established a professional and tech-enabled HR and a change-management department in startup and expansion situations. Through the skills gained, he re-engineered the entire HR system in line with industry standards by establishing a proper organisational structure, policies and processes.

Mohanty was the head of HR for the rural business segment at Reliance Jio. He has a total experience of more than two decades in the HR function.

At Reliance Jio, Mohanty lead various HR assignments and projects, including the green field telecom project, which was one of the biggest HR projects in the industry. More than 20,000 people were hired for the same, with 70 plus HR teams.

He has served in various HR roles for prestigious organisations, starting with Idea (which has now merged with Vodafone) in 1996. He has also worked with Tata Teleservices, Huawei Telecommunications and Uninor.
For three decades, Mohanty worked in the telecommunication sector and healthcare, but now he has moved into a very different industry—real estate.

“Although the organisation has been running successfully for two decades, there’s a recognition that to achieve growth targets, they need to enhance their HR capabilities and ensure closer alignment between HR and business goals. This shift towards a more strategic HR partnership underscores the firm’s commitment to evolving with the times while staying true to its core values,” shares Mohanty.

“With this narrative in mind, there are countless stories we could tell about this exciting journey ahead, each one highlighting the organisation’s dedication to growth and innovation,” he adds.

A skilled HR professional, Mohanty specialises in OD interventions, performance management, talent acquisition, grievance handling, policy formation, training and development, employee relations, disciplinary proceedings, conciliation proceedings and employee- welfare programmes.

The post Anil Mohanty joins DN Group as CPO appeared first on HR Katha.

As Ravi Kumar, CPO, Page Industries, rightly puts it, “It’s an adventure, because after graduating from college or school, one jumps into an unknown environment. It’s like being in a jungle. While many may have heard stories about it, they may not be entirely sure about what to expect. One does one’s best to learn and adapt to the situation, and this shapes one’s understanding of the industry and one’s place within it.”

It is important for everyone to have clear goals and understand the endpoint of the learning path, and this is where the first job always helps. “One’s first job can help one understand one’s interests and strengths, and give one a clearer idea of what one wants to do in one’s career,” says Rajeev Singh, CHRO, Solara Pharma.

The first job also gives the newcomers a learning trajectory that helps them become more valuable in the organisation. “The first job is a perfect launch pad for one to start one’s learning,” says Anil Mohanty, head of people & culture, Medikabazaar.

Singh also believes, “These individuals are new to the job and have been resourceful and entrepreneurial. They have managed various social systems and processes in the past, in their academic role. Hence, it’s important for the company to give them the right learning with a compelling career path.”

Kumar agrees and says, “It defines their character, shapes their understanding of the professional world, and influences their thinking for the future.” Therefore, it’s important to use the first job as an opportunity to build a foundation of skills and experience.

Singh also points out, “Each industry has its own unique characteristics and the first job helps in adopting those characteristics easily.”  For instance, a traditional manufacturing industry will have a set pattern of processes / systems catering to the manufacturing industry. On the other hand, service industries offer more flexibility and a different value proposition compared to manufacturing. The opportunities and requirements will depend on the specific segment within the industry that the person is joining.

One’s first job can help one understand one’s interests and strengths, and give one a clearer idea of what one wants to do in one’s career.”

Rajeev Singh, CHRO, Solara Pharma

“However, there are three common aspects that apply to all industries. These are, the need for a good manager, mentor and coach; a good career-learning path; and a compelling career path. These aspects remain crucial whether the person is undergoing training or is employed full-time. They are applicable across all industries,” Singh adds.

The first job also serves as the basic networking opportunity for the new folks coming in, especially in large companies. “It helps build a professional network, and enables newcomers to meet people who can help in advancing their careers,” says Mohanty.

It’s possible that the first job may alter a person’s perception of their career or their aspirations for the future. The first job also shapes a person’s thinking and aspirations for the future. One may have had certain expectations or plans before starting the job, but the experience on the job may cause one to alter or strengthen them. “The first job can either make or break a person’s career, depending on how it influences the individual’s future decisions,” states Kumar.

Starting a new job can be challenging, but the confidence gained in doing so is crucial. It gives people the much-required confidence in their abilities to perform well and meet the expectations of the job. This confidence helps them later on in their career. Kumar explains, “It’s similar to how a good childhood with supportive parents and teachers can make it easier to navigate adulthood. If one’s first job provides one with great mentors and support, it will be easier to navigate one’s future career and take risks.”

“It’s similar to how a good childhood with supportive parents and teachers can make it easier to navigate adulthood. If one’s first job provides one with great mentors and support, it will be easier to navigate one’s future career and take risks.”

Ravi Kumar, CPO, Page Industries

 

Every company has its unique culture and work environment. The first job helps a person understand how the professional environment works, which is different from the academic environment. Kumar explains, “In the professional world, it’s all about delivering results, teamwork, and meeting customer or stakeholder expectations. It’s like going from a theory class to a practical class, where one can apply the theoretical knowledge gained.” Similarly, in the first job, one gets the opportunity to apply one’s knowledge and skills and learn new ones.

While it is surely the job of the newcomers to adjust to the company’s culture and functions, it is also the role of the managers to help them do so. They play a crucial role in facilitating the learning of new employees, especially those transitioning from campus to corporate or from IT to management. “The manager should act as a coach and a leader to guide these individuals along their learning path, which could range from one to two years depending on the company’s programme. The learning path should be well designed and supported by the necessary infrastructure,” opines Singh.

It also makes a difference when an employee joins a startup or if one goes for a large company. Kumar believes there is no advantage of one over the other. It just depends on how one wants to learn. In small organisations, one may have more opportunities to learn immediately because of the smaller team and range of different roles. On the other hand, larger organisations tend to have more processes and procedures, which may take longer to pick up. However, they may have more detailed orientation programmes and may offer a wider range of experiences.

“The first job is a perfect launch pad for one to start one’s learning.”

Anil Mohanty, head of people & culture, Medikabazaar.

Mohanty believes that the new joiners should always try and go for large companies. Start-up culture is very different, where everyone does everything. Since the team is small, one may not get timely attention from the superiors. In start-up cultures, one learns from their own mistakes,” he points out.

Kumar points out, “Many young people prefer smaller organisations because the speed of learning is much faster, since newcomers get to work closely with their superiors”. However, he emphasises on the importance of having experience in both the setups. “If one’s first experience is in a large organisation, it’s great to consider working in a smaller or mid-sized organisation later in one’s career to gain a variety of experiences,” he enunciates.

It is essential for employees to have an open mindset towards learning, be receptive to feedback, and be willing to take on challenges. “While the company can provide a learning path and a promising career, employees should also invest in themselves by taking advantage of these opportunities. They should leverage their learning and career path even while enjoying the process with enthusiasm,” concludes Singh.

The post Importance of 1st job in shaping one’s career appeared first on HR Katha.

ADVANTAGES

Such special practice groups come with a lot of benefits.

Collaboration & engagement: “The top-most advantage of having such groups is the cross-functionality that leads to increased collaboration in the organisation,” says Pradyumna Pandey, CHRO, Mother Dairy. Cross-functional HR practice groups can bring employees from different departments and functional areas together to collaborate and share best practices. It creates more engagement and people help each other overcome every challenge.

“Involving employees in strategy execution is crucial for successful strategy formation. Failure to involve key people often results in implementation failure.”

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar

Focus & success: “By grouping employees with similar expertise and responsibilities together, HR practice groups can provide a more focused approach to addressing specific HR challenges,” opines Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar. Check spelling. This allows for greater depth of knowledge and skill in a particular area.

For instance, a specialised team or task force is required for the task of policy making in an organisation. Such a team drafts the policies, brainstorms on it, and even runs it through the employees to get a better and realistic feedback. With so much of effort and expertise involved, the task is likely to be successful.

Fast decision-making: By centralising resources and expertise, HR practice groups can improve the efficiency of HR processes and decision-making. The leaders managing the cross-functional teams are generally subject matter experts or SMEs. Their involvement leads to better decisions that are more aligned with the organisation’s overall goals. Therefore, the decision-making will be fast and more efficient.

Creativity & innovation: Creating such task forces is a part of design thinking. It’s a mixed team of impacted people who join together to improve the given task to the best of their abilities. “One derives inspiration from people who are most impacted,” says Vivek Tripathi, VP-HR, NewGen Software. Those impacted are the best ones to suggest the next step.

As Mohanty rightly states, “Involving employees in strategy execution is crucial for successful strategy formation. Failure to involve key people often results in implementation failure.”

Pandey opines that creating such groups not only delivers results but also brings a lot of creativity and innovation into the organisation, because the group or team members “are very much involved and immersed in performing the tasks at hand effectively.”

“Efforts are more streamlined and the strategies made are customised to people’s needs. Since they’re cross-functional, they help the new talent with the entry-level support but ensure they survive by giving them a better understanding of the organisation as a whole.”

Pradyumna Pandey, CHRO, Mother Dairy

Mohanty agrees and points out that “a single mind working at a task cannot be 100 per cent efficient or successful”. Different minds and perspectives are required, and all the possibilities need to be tried to perform the same task. That is what such teams bring to the table.

Members of such teams are very much detail-oriented and bring a lot of synergy with them. This creates an environment of learning, where knowledge is shared with one another.

Creating such task forces is a part of design thinking. It’s a mixed team of impacted people who join together to improve the given task to the best of their abilities. One derives inspiration from people who are most impacted as they are the best ones to suggest the next step.”

Vivek Tripathi, VP-HR, NewGen Software

“Efforts are more streamlined and the strategies made are customised to people’s needs,” says Pandey. Since they’re cross-functional, they help the new talent with the entry-level support but ensure they survive by giving them a better understanding of the organisation as a whole.

Additionally, the cross-functionality help them collaborate and share best practices to address broader HR priorities, such as organisational development and culture.

CHALLENGES

Creating HR practice groups to tackle specific and cross-functional HR priorities can be beneficial, but there are also potential challenges that should be considered to make these cross-functional teams effective.

Leadership: The foremost challenge in putting together such teams is bringing in the right leadership for them. “Strong leadership and management are essential to the success of HR practice groups,” says Pandey. It’s their responsibility to keep people engaged and motivated. Without strong leadership, the groups may lack direction and struggle to achieve their goals.

Tripathi opines that certain groups may also develop an over-ruling attitude. They may reject even factual insights saying they are out of context. Hence, it’s necessary to have effective leadership and management to evaluate and guide them.

Mohanty agrees, adding, “There should not be ownership, but clear leadership to help these groups understand each other and work collaboratively.” They must feel included and their ideas or opinions must be respected.

Clarity of goals: “A clear objective is another important part of creating such teams,” opines Pandey. Without clear goals and objectives, people may feel lost. There must be answers to the ‘why’s.

Bigger picture: Tripathi feels that it is important for the groups to set their sights towards their long-term goals. Sometimes, the group may develop short-sightedness which may negate the very purpose for which the organisation needed the group. Hence it’s important to guide them to look at the bigger picture.

Evaluation: Unless these special HR teams are regularly evaluated, their effectiveness cannot be ensured. Feedback should be gathered regularly to assess their effectiveness and make adjustments as needed. This will also help organisations work more efficiently with their limited resources.

Tripathi shares a real-time instance, “When we create a learning track, along with the growth prospect, we also tell people what learning is required to achieve that growth in the organisation. We don’t want to miss on the aspiration part. Rather, we take inspiration from those impacted”.

Recognition: Recognition is another important perspective to consider when creating such teams. The members come together to perform jobs that are beyond their described job roles. They are investing their valuable time. Hence, it’s important to give them timely recognition for their efforts or else there could be resistance to change or even demotivation.

Creating HR practice groups to tackle specific and cross-functional HR priorities can be a sustainable approach, but it all depends on the organisation’s ability to maintain the structure and resources necessary for its success.

For instance, in a startup, such teams may not work as the HR doesn’t have full control of them. Since they’re just starting up, attention is given more to revenue generation. However, in big conglomerates, where there are multiple verticals and divisions, such teams can be implemented to great advantage.

According to Mohanty, “HR has more control in big organisations and it’s easier to evaluate employees who are performing well and the ones who need more attention”.

Tripathi also agrees that in big conglomerates, there is more scope.  Learning tracks are created for technical employees. Valuable feedback can be obtained from them to learn whether they benefitted and how much they benefitted, and whether improvements are required. Such core teams can take suggestions from the impacted people and ensure easier and more effective implementation.

Strong leadership combined with impactful resources, and the flexibility to adapt the strategies needed to align with the changing priorities and goals of the organisation, can make these groups more sustainable and successful in the long run

The post How effective are HR practice groups in tackling specific workplace priorities? appeared first on HR Katha.

Whatever the reason may be, the important thing is to fill the skill gap at the earliest.

An organisation following the traditional approach would probably place an ad or hire a consultant to help identify a person with the requisite skillsets. However, this approach is not only a time-consuming one, but fails to guarantee accurate selection. In other words, the talent may not possess exactly the right set of skills. While some candidates may possess the right skills, they may not have enough experience or the required level of competency. On the other hand, some candidates may score high in terms of experience but very low in terms of competence.

In short, finding the right talent or the most suitable candidate for a role is far from easy. This is where technology comes to the rescue. While it cannot guarantee 100 per cent success, it can certainly help identify and shortlist the closest match.

“Companies can now tell their story, give the candidates a taste of the experience they can expect at the new workplace and also learn more about the culture of the organisation.”

Unmesh Pawar, CPO – South Asia, Denstu International

While skill matching has always been a challenge, the task has never been as easy as it is now. For organisations that believe in skill-first hiring or skill-based hiring, the focus is more on the candidates’ hard skills, experience and competency.

Efficiency: Unmesh Pawar, CPO – South Asia, Denstu International, observes how “Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has saved a lot of time and eased out the whole recruitment process”. He points out that “RPA can screen resumes, create letters and execute rudimentary assessments based on some pre-set specifications. This way, it helps streamline the hiring process, even while increasing efficiency and candidate involvement.”

Results: Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar, opines that such technology not only ensures that the process is smooth and efficient, but also gives the right result.

Experience: Once the right candidate or closest fit for the role is identified, it is up to the company to ensure a rich experience for the candidate. In a talent-first market, companies have to lure the candidates using various means.

Here again, technology has a significant role to play.

With metaverse and virtual reality (VR), it’s now easy to create ‘a day in the life’ experience for any potential candidate.

“Companies can now tell their story, give the candidates a taste of the experience they can expect at the new workplace and also learn more about the culture of the organisation. At the same time, the organisations themselves are able to assess the candidates’ ability to respond to the culture or a particular situation,” explains Pawar.

“With the data of right skills and experience, it also eliminates any possibility of bias during hiring.”

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar

 

Assessment: Remote interviews and integration of interviews through artificial intelligence (AI) have also opened up innumerable possibilities for the talent-acquisition process.

For instance, interviewers can now check the success rate of their interviews. They can check how well the candidates have performed and how much time they’ve spent within the organisation after their onboarding.

Tracking: Cloud computing and data analytics have also enhanced the talent-acquisition process.

“With cloud and data analytics, it has become so much easier to keep track of the candidates’ information and data,” observes Mohanty.

Data access: Employers no longer need to preserve candidates’ data locally, since cloud computing makes it possible to access information online. It is one of the most convenient recruitment tools and technologies, since it eliminates any repetitiveness and makes the talent search more streamlined and effective.

“With the data of right skills and experience, it also eliminates any possibility of bias during hiring,” adds Mohanty.

According to Pawar, “Analytics is one of the best ways to make better and smart choices.”

“This not only helps check the data easily, but also helps redirect the search for talent,” concludes Mohanty.

Internal mobility: Technology and data analytics allow talent mapping within the organisation and aid internal mobility.

“Internal mobility is the best hiring strategy that a company can adopt. The best companies know how to create a talent marketplace that connects or links people internally,” says Pawar.

Technology also allows companies to set the right context and create a gender-neutral job description (JD). This, in turn, helps companies lure the potentials.

“A gender-friendly JD allows companies to attract more diverse talent. When people associate with the JD, they feel the urge to apply for specific roles,” says Pawar.

“Social media is one of the finest and substantially growing trends in the talent-acquisition process.”

Deepti Mehta, head HR – Home Electrical Business, RR Kabel

Social media: Technology-aided social media has also helped recruiters or talent-acquisition specialists in a major way.

“Social media is one of the finest and substantially growing trends in the talent-acquisition process,” says Deepti Mehta, AVP-HR, Luminous. “It not only simplifies the recruitment process, but also saves both the recruiter and the candidate lots of time.”

Brand visibility: Companies can leverage media features such as posts, images and videos, and even push their current employees to share their accomplishments and experiences on social-media platforms. This is how technology helps provide brand visibility, points out Mehta.

She goes on to comment, “A lot of money is saved, which would otherwise have to be invested in publishing ads on online job portals and in newspapers”.

Technology is a great enabler, and simplifies the recruitment process making life easier for the talent-acquisition specialist. However, while tools can screen people, the final decision still lies in the hands of the people. Technology simply allows teams to be more proactive.

The post How technology is aiding skill-first hiring appeared first on HR Katha.

Well, in the last few months, more than 60,000 jobs hae been lost in the US, in the tech sector alone. However, an examination of the facts and figures shows that India isn’t far behind. Close to 12,000 people in the country have been rendered jobless in 2022 alone. These job cuts have been witnessed majorly in the edtech sector, with companies such as WhiteHat Jr, Byju’s, Lido, Unacademy and many more having fired people in significant numbers. Even big brands such as Ola have laid off several hundreds of employees this year.

It’s raining Indian techies

Clearly, the axe has not fallen on US employees alone. Many Indians have borne the brunt of the recent layoff saga, as they make up a significant portion of the H1B visa holders employed in the Silicon Valley. Several stories of Indians left in the lurch in the US surfaced after Meta announced its layoffs. Some of them had only about 60 days in hand to find alternate employment.

“Tech talent remains tech talent, irrespective of where they are, because they are creating value for their company”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

There is a positive side to it all, though. Earlier, there was a war for tech talent, but now, there is a deluge of tech talent in the market, available for the taking. Thanks to these layoffs, companies are presented with a great opportunity to pick quality talent from this pool.

“This tech talent has the potential to work in all sectors, from tech product startups, services firms and e-commerce firm, to even traditional Indian companies that are riding the digitalisation wave,” states Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar.

Opportunities galore

While the US is bracing itself for an upcoming recession, experts feel that India is not much impacted and continues to hire. “India is in hiring mode and every sector in the country is growing,” says Praveen Purohit, deputy CHRO, Vedanta.

Purohit believes there is no dearth of opportunity for talent that is good and can be useful. “Though the traditional sectors may have limited offerings for these people, overall, they will be absorbed without any difficulty,” tells Purohit.

Harsh Jain, founder & CEO, Dream Sports, has expressed his company’s willingness to hire the laid off people, majorly Indians. “With all the 2022 tech layoffs (52,000+!) in the US, please spread the word to remind Indians to come back home (specially those with visa issues) to help Indian tech realise our hyper-growth potential in the next decade!,” tweeted Jain recently. The Company has asked people interested to join Dream Sports to send in their applications on Indiareturns@dreamsports.group.

“One will have to risk sacrificing a certain amount of salary to restart another job”

Rishav Dev, CHRO, Noveltech Feeds

Apart from the immense opportunities available across companies, such talent also has the potential and chance to become founders themselves. A capital investment firm in the US, called A Day Ventures, started a programme called ‘Funded not Fired’. The initiative will provide seed funding of $100,000 to 20 founders, and invest another $1 million in the best performers.

There is definitely no dearth of opportunities for those with potential and drive.

Minor challenges

However, there can be challenges as well. First of all, moving to another company or industry can be a challenge. As we are aware, demand for tech talent exists across sectors. While for companies such as Meta, Amazon and Google, this is core talent, for some other companies these may not form the core talent.

“Tech talent remains tech talent, irrespective of where they are, because they are creating value for their company,” says Mohanty, asserting that the only challenge that may arise is that of adjusting to another culture. “To adjust to another culture, one just needs to be agile and dedicate some time at work,” suggests Mohanty.

“Though the traditional sectors may have limited offerings for tech talent, overall, they will be absorbed without any difficulty”

Praveen Purohit, deputy CHRO, Vedanta

Salary correction

Salary correction is another major challenge these people will go through. As per experts, in the past two months, companies have hired and paid such talent in excess. Their salaries have inflated beyond imagination. Now, the industry is course correcting itself, and therefore, this talent may have to compromise on their compensation when they join another company. “One will have to risk sacrificing a certain amount of salary to restart another job,” admits Rishav Dev, CHRO, Noveltech Feeds.

For all those laid off techies out there, the advantage is that they will be presented with ample opportunities, but the disadvantage is that there will also be minor challenges. After all, the market which was once in their favour is now in favour of the employers.

The post One’s loss is another’s gain – The positive side of layoffs appeared first on HR Katha.

Once, Sheetal’s team was asked by the head of marketing to conceive a marketing strategy for a new product launch. Shaila came up with an idea, which the team liked and unanimously agreed to, and together they decided to flesh it out further.

When the idea was presented to the head of marketing, it was met with much appreciation and excitement. Sheetal immediately took all the credit, making up a story about how she had conceived the idea while travelling to a small town in UP. Not once did she acknowledge that it was Shaila’s brainchild.

A dumbstruck Shaila was left unable to speak her mind for fear of disrupting the harmony of the team before an important launch. She also feared that she would be blamed for unnecessarily blowing up the issue and creating a hue and cry.

Although it wasn’t the first time that Sheetal had unfairly claimed credit for something she hadn’t done, this time, Shaila felt truly wronged.

Being an important project, acknowledgement and recognition of her contribution would have given Shaila a much-needed career push.

Trying to maintain silence in the matter took a toll on her. She was heartbroken, demotivated and felt cheated.

Witnessing someone else being appreciated and lauded for work that is done by oneself can be very frustrating. Most professionals, at some point in their careers, have had to face situations where the credit for the success of a project — which resulted solely from their utmost passion and hard work — goes to someone else. More often than not, the applause is bagged by a senior. How should professionals who have been deprived of the credit that is due to them, deal with this?

What should be Shaila’s next step? Should she speak to the head of marketing separately? Would he judge her if she did? Or should she just keep mum and accept it as her destiny and consider it her sacrifice for the larger good of the company?

Should she resort to the last option and leave the company altogether? What should she do? Here is what some prominent HR leaders have to say:

Chandrasekhar Mukherjee, CHRO, Bhilosa Industries

I would never advise anybody to leave the organisation. Shaila was not unaware that her immediate boss had the habit of taking undue credit, or passing off others’ work as her own. Being a junior employee, she needs to learn how to navigate things without crossing paths with the immediate boss.

In my experience, with a little smartness, any professional can keep the super boss informed of each and everything. There are informal channels that can be used to keep the super boss in the loop. For instance, in this case, it would have been a good idea for Shaila to stay in touch with the key people in the organisation who are close to the head of marketing. It could have been either the secretary of the head of marketing or another colleague of his, whom he interacts with closely. Through such contacts, Shaila could have informally passed on details of what actually happened and how she herself had mooted the idea.

Had she been smart, Shaila would have marked the head of marketing in all the mail trails, while communicating the idea, and openly sought an opinion or feedback. It would also have been sensible for Shaila to chat with the head of marketing and convey the message casually, during informal gatherings in the organisation, about how the idea was conceived.

Going to the head of marketing and cribbing would be wrong. The message should be conveyed smartly to the super boss in a casual way without it appearing to be a complaint. All super bosses are very smart and are either aware of or manage to find out the truth.

An informal chat can also be routed through the HR. The latter can facilitate a meeting with the super boss. A last resort can be to informally communicate to the HR how one’s credit was stolen. After all, the HR does update the functional heads about such issues in their own way. One has to be cautious about how close the HR is to the concerned super boss, in this case, the head of marketing.

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

As a leader, the correct way is to give credit to the team for any success. In this case, it is very important for Shaila to convey to the immediate manager that whatever has happened was not right.

It is very important to let Sheetal know, in an indicative way, how a manager should behave when it comes to celebrating the success of a team.

Shaila should wait for the right opportunity, say a team meeting, and praise her boss in front of the marketing head. At the same time, she should smartly convey that it was a team effort which resulted in success. Shaila should make her boss realise the beauty of collaboration and team work, and the importance of ‘we’ rather than ‘I’. Also, if Sheetal’s attitude of stealing credit from others continues, then it should be smartly brought to the notice of the head of marketing.

Rajeev Singh, CHRO, Solara Active Pharma

Stealing credit for a junior’s work reflects the insecurity of a manager. The managers should always look at the success of a team member as the success of that particular person only, but in case of a team’s failure, the manager should own that failure. That is how cohesive teams are created.

This also fosters trust. In this case, the past relationship between Shaila and Sheetal really matters. If this incident has happened after Shaila has worked with Sheetal for two to four years, then there is a major issue. There is a definite breach of trust between the two. I think Shaila should first seek clarifications from Sheetal on why she took all the credit for the idea. Besides, Shaila could also take the emotional route. Taking Sheetal out for lunch or coffee would be ideal. She can then tell her how hurt she was at the meeting for not being appreciated for her effort. It would have to be a career talk, which would have to be dealt with in a very positive manner.

If there is no satisfactory explanation from Sheetal, then Shaila should speak with the head of marketing. Every company has a provision for a fire side chat with senior leaders. However, Shaila should not reach out to the head of marketing before clarifying matters with Sheetal first. Also, while speaking with the head of marketing, Shaila needs to be confident and believe in herself.

Such small matters can be detrimental to a person’s career. These instances can also lead to cultural changes in the organisation. In such cases, it is better to first clear the air by discussing with the immediate manager and then move on. If this does not work, and if Sheetal has a habit of perpetually stealing other people’s credit and Shaila has also been a victim of this in the past, then this is definitely not the place for Shaila to waste her talent in.

This is also an opportunity for the head of marketing to exhibit his ability to manage such situations. A lot also depends on the kind of relationship the head of marketing and Sheetal share. If they are high on trust, then there will be a higher likelihood of the junior employees not getting their share of credit or being often ignored.

The culture of the company also plays a role. If the organisation believes in sharing credit with juniors, there is hope. If the company has a culture where the bosses end up taking their team’s credit, then in all likelihood, the head of marketing will take all the credit from Sheetal as well.

An employee should resort to quitting only if the support of the super boss is also missing. This is then an indication of the organisation being a lousy one. In such an organisation, the employee should only stay to learn or till he/ she gets to work on new projects.

This article first appeared in the HRKatha magazine.

The post How to deal with credit stealers appeared first on HR Katha.

According to a 2020 survey conducted by employment platform Monster, 69 per cent of American employees were facing burnout symptoms while working from home. Likewise, global office design firm Unispace’s 2021 survey of employees in the Asia Pacific region indicated that 36 per cent had difficulty switching off outside work hours. With WFH and hybrid work models predominated by WFH set to continue indefinitely, how do Indian HR leaders propose to combat this toxic culture of ‘virtual presenteeism’?

Breaking the monotony with a hybrid work arrangement

Based on the responses of thousands of US employees, a 2022 study by Gallup shows that 38 per cent – or four in 10 employees – of fully remote workers would prefer hybrid work arrangements, with a mix of WFH and in-person office experiences. The survey further indicates that people’s reasons for preferring hybrid over perpetual WFH have partly to do with being more productive and feeling connected to their organisations and co-workers. Anil Mohanty, head of people & culture, Medikabazaar, suggests something along these lines to help curb the trend of presenteesim and overwork.

“It has clearly been communicated at our organisation that no meeting should go beyond 7 p.m. for an employee – whichever geographical time zone they may be in”

Amit Chincholikar, global CHRO, Tata Consumer Products

“Both exclusive WFH and work from office have their pros and cons,” opines Mohanty, elucidating that working from office consumes time due to commute and takes away the privilege of flexibility. “Likewise, WFH entails juggling home and work pressures at the same time. Besides, working in isolation does not allow collaboration to take place in the same way that a workplace does,” he points out.

“Organisations should adopt a hybrid work model in which employees come to office three or four days a week,” he suggests, adding that employees should be allowed greater flexibility in terms of timings and days, and neither be rewarded for coming to office nor be penalised for working from home. Elaborating on how a hybrid schedule will help combat the problem of online presenteesim, Mohanty explains that an office setup is usually marked by strict timings in which an employee is forced to switch off and go home. “This, by default, precludes working beyond the standard working hours,” he says.

According to Mohanty, completely switching to a work-from-office model isn’t feasible either. “Despite work life hobbling back to old routines, WFH isn’t going away anytime soon. Therefore, going forward, it is best to retain the flexibility,” he counsels.

Finally, Mohanty advises organisations to focus on outcomes instead of presence at the workplace or online, underlining that merely being present is no guarantee of productivity or output.

“The onus for putting an end to the unhealthy culture of virtual overwork, at any rate, is on all three-employees, managers, and organisations”

Maneesha Jha Thakur, senior HR leader & coach

Drawing boundaries

Maneesha Jha Thakur, senior HR leader & coach, largely attributes the rise of virtual overwork to a lack of guardrails and best practices for replicating the physical setup of an actual office. “The absence of physical demarcation of office space at home, the inability of most workers in India to say ‘no’ to overtime, and managers not respecting their subordinates’ timings are some of the factors responsible for this virtual overwork culture,” she says, further analysing the reasons for the creation of this culture.

Thakur offers a set of cogent solutions to battle this problem. She suggests having an alarm in place to indicate the end of office hours, encouraging people to switch off. “After the designated hour, managers should be discouraged from scheduling meetings, phone calls, or discussions”.

Furthermore, she underlines the need to create time-zones when working at home and making co-workers and managers aware of those. She cites the example of a child returning from school at a specific time. “There is bound to be some hustle-bustle at home at that point. Employees should be able to mark that time window on their calendars for others to know that it is a busy hour”. Likewise, she advises marking mealtimes on one’s calendar or anything at all indicating one’s unavailability during a certain time frame for a personal exigency. “There is a need for organisations to enable a culture in which employees are able to candidly communicate their genuine personal constraints when working from home. They should not be made to feel guilty for not being accessible all the time,” adds Thakur.

Thakur also points out the need to discourage employees from logging in when unwell or at the time of a personal emergency. “Many employees keep working when unwell or even during a family engagement simply because they want to save up leaves,” she observes. “Employees should not jeopardise their health, or neglect their family life for the sake of work. They should be encouraged to go on leave should a personal or health issue crop up”.

“The onus for putting an end to the unhealthy culture of virtual overwork, at any rate, is on all three-employees, managers, and organisations,” emphasises Thakur.

“An office setup is usually marked by strict timings in which an employee is forced to switch off and go home”

Anil Mohanty, head of people & culture, Medikabazaar

Developing a speak-up culture & other proactive steps

Amit Chincholikar, global CHRO, Tata Consumer Products, opines that such problems arise because work hours during WFH are not always well defined, making it difficult to follow start and finish timings. All the same, he mentions a series of steps implemented by his own organisation for combating the trend.

“All employees are allowed at least one hour of downtime during office hours. That downtime is flexible and can be for anything-a power nap, a stroll, a meal with the family,” he informs.

“Although differing downtimes could make intra and inter-team collaboration difficult, employees coordinate and schedule meetings or discussions among themselves in a way that the problem is never felt. It works beautifully,” declares Chincholikar, underscoring the need for organisations to implement broader guardrails and retain less structure and process.

“Employees must be treated as responsible adults who want to put in a hard day’s work. Organisations must focus on specific outcomes instead of micromanaging employee work timings,” he stresses.

Moreover, Chincholikar highlights the need for organisations to give adequate downtime to employees, particularly when downtime is contributing to mental wellness. “Getting seven to eight hours of sleep at night is intrinsic to wellness. We always encourage employees to switch off after work hours, and get some rest,” he adds. “It has clearly been communicated at our organisation that no meeting should go beyond 7 p.m. for an employee – whichever geographical time zone they may be in,” he shares.

Chincholikar also recalls how his company encouraged employees to prioritise children’s education when most schools were conducting virtual classes due to the pandemic. “This was our way of telling employees that we were not concerned with outcomes alone,” he says.

But what of the widespread problem of managers not respecting employees’ timings?

As a solution, Chincholikar cites the ‘Manager Engagement Score’ at his organisation. “This is a bi-annual assessment in which managers are evaluated on the basis of feedback from subordinates. Managers are assessed on the basis of whether or not they listen to others on the team, take their suggestions into consideration, or show respect for their timings and need for emotional well-being,” he says, describing the process.

“Finally, while efforts to fight virtual presenteeism must be made by employees, managers, and the organisations, the tone must, first and foremost, be set by the organisations,” opines Chincholikar. “Every organisation needs to encourage a speak-up culture in which employees are able to frankly express their problems and exigencies,” he concludes.

The post How to combat virtual presenteeism appeared first on HR Katha.

In 2021 and 2022, several major corporations including Twitter, Disney, Amazon, Pinterest, Starbucks and American Airlines saw their CEOs resign. While burnout may not have been the sole reason for their decision, Forbes cites “fatigue and lack of support” leading to burnout as a major factor for the spate of resignations. So, what is the solution to leadership burnout?

Three-pronged strategy

According to the Development Dimensions International’s Global Leadership Forecast 2021, nearly 60 per cent of leaders reported feeling completely exhausted and drained at the end of the workday, pointing unequivocally to burnout. Likewise, according to American survey giant Gallup, senior executives and managers are more likely than other workers to experience burnout, not least due to the myriad challenges that come with a leadership role. These challenges include multiple – often fuzzy – priorities, stress due to heavy workload, frequent interruptions at work and unsatisfactory performance reviews.

“People in leadership roles often believe that things won’t run smoothly without them. The pressure can get overwhelming, triggering burnout symptoms”

Amit Sharma, CHRO, Volvo India

Since leaders are crucial to ensuring performance, productivity, engagement and retention at the workplace, burnt out managers are definitely not good for the overall health of an organisation.

Amit Chincholikar, global CHRO, Tata Consumer Products, suggests a simple three-pronged strategy to tackle leadership burnout. “Most leaders are responsible for a range of functions at an organisation, and thus under tremendous pressure. However, it is important that they find a balance and learn ways to disconnect from work,” he points out.

“One, it is critical to always get a good night’s sleep. Two, engage in an activity that allows one to switch off and disengage from work – it could be a pastime or passion. Three, understand as well as demonstrate flexibility in work life,” he suggests. The latter, Chincholikar further elaborates, could encompass working from home, flexible work timings, or even adopting a non-rigid way of doing things.

Likewise, Amit Sharma, CHRO, Volvo India, stresses the significance of taking frequent breaks in order to unwind. “Leaders must learn to effectively recharge their batteries. For instance, they need to stop carrying their laptops while on vacation,” he opines. He also underlines the importance of disengaging from work with the help of a constructive activity. “I know someone in a senior executive role who doodles in his free time,” he explains with an example.

Interestingly, Sharma notes that not many leaders participate in office activities meant to meaningfully engage employees and keep burnout at bay. “Leaders should also take part in non-work-related programmes and activities at office, just like other employees,” he says.

Importance of managing time

In May 2019, the World Health Organisation declared burnout an occupational phenomenon in its global standard for diagnostic health information, indicating both its inevitability and universality. Anil Mohanty, head of people & culture, Medikabazaar, characterises burnout as “common” in the private sector, and indeed difficult to avoid in certain sectors at certain times.

“Leaders must learn to exercise self-awareness”

Amit Chincholikar, global CHRO, Tata Consumer Products

“For example, there may be leadership burnout in the weeks before a product launch when working overtime becomes necessary for meeting specific targets,” he elucidates. “But perpetual, prolonged, or even frequent burnout suggests a systemic fault in the organisation or in the way things are being managed there,” he reasons.

Despite admitting that burnout isn’t easy to avoid, Mohanty opines that proper time management could effectively minimise – and even prevent – burnouts, both for managers and other employees. “Last-minute decisions and actions that lead to burnout can well be avoided by planning ahead, prioritising one’s time and learning to delegate tasks,” he advises.

Self-inflicted burnout

Five years after taking over from Steve Jobs, in a 2016 interview, Tim Cook, CEO, Apple, enunciated the challenges of running one of the world’s most prestigious companies. “It’s sort of a lonely job,” he confessed.

While the saying ‘lonely at the top’ may sound clichéd, studies have shown that leaders are indeed likelier to experience feelings of loneliness and isolation. However, there are leaders who choose to insulate themselves from others and carry their burdens single-handedly. This may be a surefire formula for burnout, say the experts.

“Leaders must learn to exercise self-awareness,” opines Chincholikar. Pertinently, by aiding leaders in setting boundaries, delegating work and reflecting on goals, self-awareness has been proven as helpful in combating burnout.

“Perpetual, prolonged, or even frequent burnout suggests a systemic fault in the organisation or in the way things are being managed there”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

Chincholikar further points out that leaders should not just have empathy for others, but also themselves.

Leaders commonly feel personally responsible for the success of their business. This is because they are expected to make major decisions that could significantly impact their organisation’s health. “People in leadership roles often believe that things won’t run smoothly without them. The pressure can get overwhelming, triggering burnout symptoms,” says Sharma, explaining the phenomenon.

However, he adds that leaders must take a break, disconnecting themselves from work at periodic intervals. “An ex-manager of mine actually practised this. Whenever he’d go on vacation, he strictly instructed us not to call him – unless absolutely urgent,” Sharma recounts. The team – entrusted with new responsibilities – efficiently took care of work in the manager’s absence. “We seldom felt the need to bother him,” he recalls.

“Leadership is an active role; ‘lead’ is a verb. However, the leader who tries to do it all is headed for burnout, and in a powerful hurry,” summed up American politician, Bill Owens.

Indeed.

The post How to deal with leadership burnout? appeared first on HR Katha.

Pitti’s tweet referred to an incident where a candidate who had been selected for a senior role declines the job offer at the last minute. What makes this even more unacceptable is that the candidate was to be onboarded at a VP level and would have eventually gone on to a CXO role in the future!

Without mentioning the name of the candidate, Pitti shares a screenshot of a WhattsApp message where the said candidate expresses his/her inability to join because of having received a better offer from elsewhere! And what makes this even more bizarre is that the text has been sent on the very date that the candidate was supposed to join!

“Declining to join at the last moment is morally and ethically wrong, but the hard truth is, employees are not legally bound by any contract”

Kinjal Choudhary, CHRO, Cadila Pharmaceuticals

Considering that it takes months to assess, select and onboard an individual, such a last-minute change of mind can be quite frustrating and enraging for any employer. Months of effort and time goes down the drain in such a case of last-minute droput.

In addition, the employer is then required to look for another candidate, which delays hiring plans by another three to six months.

Following this jolt, Pitti decided to find out how frequent such episodes are at the organisation level. He discovered that at EaseMyTrip alone, last-minute dropout rate, on an average, stands at 42 per cent.

None of the HR leaders HRKatha spoke to support the act of this senior resource. They unanimously declare it was wrong on his/her part.

Pitti mentions in his tweet that there is no difference in the percentage of employee dropouts when junior-level and senior-level positions are compared.

However, HR experts do admit that such incidents at such a senior level are rare but not unheard of. “Last-minute dropouts are not new. They happen everywhere, and I myself have been witness to such cases in the past,” reveals Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar.

Everyone is aware of the cost attached to a last-minute dropout. However, “the impact of a last-minute dropout is much higher at the senior leadership level since the bench strength at entry- or mid-level is much higher,” points out Anurag Verma, VP-HR, Uniphore.

After all, as Verma rightly says, “The company will suffer if that position stays vacant without a leader for a longer duration”.

As per industry experts, candidate drop-out rates stand between 40-50 per cent. In some functions and roles, this has come down to 20 per cent as opportunities have reduced, since a likely recession is around the corner and most companies are slowing down hiring.

“Last-minute dropouts are not new. They happen everywhere, and I myself have been witness to such cases in the past”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

What can be done about this?

“Such incidents are morally and ethically wrong, but the hard truth is, employees are not legally bound by any contract,” admits Kinjal Choudhary, CHRO, Cadila Pharmaceuticals. This means, no court of law can help.

“Such situations are not in our control,” states Mohanty.

Choudhary further mentions that unless and until there is a transaction between the two parties, no employee is legally bound to join the organisation. However, Choudhary admits to having seen certain firms giving advance salary or bonuses at the time of joining. In such cases, if the employee drops out at the last moment, a legal action can be taken based on the transaction that has taken place.

Mohanty suggests staying engaged with the employee during the onboarding process as the only way to have a finger on the pulse and recognise any signal.

At Uniphore, Verma always prefers to keep a backup candidate for each hire. “Since attrition in our industry is on a higher side, we tend to keep more than two candidates on stand by for a role,” says Verma.

“The impact of a last-minute dropout is much higher at the senior leadership level since the bench strength at entry- or mid-level is much higher”

Anurag Verma, VP-HR, Uniphore

Some HR leaders blame longer notice periods for dropouts where the employee gets a window to shop more offers.

While Verma is aware of many companies that blacklist such employees, he expresses a strong need for a collective movement by all employers in this regard.

This will enable employers to at least pose a threat to such candidates who will then fear being exposed in the industry, if they indulge in such an act. “The employers may choose not to reveal their names as it will have a negative impact on their careers, but at least it can act as a deterrent,” mentions Verma.

Now, Pitti poses another question. Can employees do the same with the employers? What if an employee is told by the employer on his very first day at work that the organisation has found a better candidate? Would that be right?

This is certainly not the right thing to do feel HR leaders. After all, it is a “matter of someone’s livelihood,” as Verma points out saying that the said employee’s entire family may be dependent on him/her for survival.

If a company loses an employee, the worst that can happen is that the business plans may get delayed. However, if employees lose their livelihood, it is a much bigger loss for them.

The post Is there a solution for last-minute dropouts? appeared first on HR Katha.

These leaders may be without titles, but know more about the working of the organisation than anyone else. While speaking with HRKatha, Chandrasekhar Mukherjee, CHRO, Bhilosa Industries, recalls his stint at Bennett Coleman & CO (BCCL), wherein he got to interact with many people without titles.

When he joined BCCL, Mukherjee was quick to recognise such people in his team. They were quite old in the system and had established a great network in the company, which often spread right up to the founders and owners.

“While such untitled leaders are very good at what they do, their education level often becomes a roadblock in their path to reaching a higher position”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

Though they were reporting to him, he treated them as equals. “I got to learn a lot about the organisation and how things worked in the company from them. Since these people commanded respect and had a reputation in the company, they were quite handy in certain situations and helped make some breakthroughs,” admits Mukherjee.

Despite not occupying a high position in the organisational hierarchy, such people serve as the change agents in a company. “I call such people ‘influencers’, as they are quite respected and popular amongst the people of the organisation,” says VDV Singh, CHRO, Rockman Industries.

Singh finds such people very useful in bringing about a transformation or a change in the company. This is because people follow them, and they have the personality that influences people to follow them. Therefore, they can be great change champions for the organisation.

It is generally observed that guiding and mentoring comes naturally to such people. Therefore, they make great mentors or buddies for the new hires and can actually be considered to spearhead the induction programme.

Moreover, Singh observes that people are so connected with such people in the company, that they end up being the binding force of the team they are part of. “The managers actually need them to keep the teams together,” observes Singh.

If these people are such great influences and leaders, why do they fail to reach the top level in the organisation?

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar, cites an example of one of his colleagues who had great leadership skills, was highly knowledgeable and was an exceptional individual contributor as well. “He had all the qualities and potential to become a CFO,” Mohanty recalls. However, since he was not qualified to be a CFO, he could not make it. Such examples abound across sectors. In management roles as well, many miss the opportunity for a higher designation simply because do not possess an MBA degree.

“Generally, organisations tend to focus on the high potentials and the best performers, and such solid citizens in the company are often ignored”

Chandrasekhar Mukherjee, CHRO, Bhilosa Industries

“While these employees are very good at what they do, their education level often becomes a roadblock in their path to reaching a higher position,” explains Mohanty.

Chandrasekhar feels that even personal reasons prevent such people from climbing up the corporate ladder. “There are people who refuse certain opportunities that come their way, as they do not wish to relocate and leave their families. Sometimes, they are happy remaining as individual contributors,” mentions Chandrasekhar.

Though HR leaders do recognise that these people are important for the organisation, companies fail to pay attention to them. “Generally, organisations tend to focus on the high potentials and the best performers, and such people are often ignored. I call such people ‘solid citizens’ who are the backbone of a company. I believe such people are the most important lot in the organisation,” asserts Chandrasekhar.

Managers cannot afford to disengage such people Singh says. “Though such people are a critical talent for the company, if they are not managed well, they can end up as the biggest roadblocks for the managers,” says Singh.

Sharing his experience, Chandrasekhar says that these employees do not demand much except for respect and fair rewards for their work. Apart from that, they need to be treated as managers.

“The managers actually need such influencers to keep the teams together”

VDV Singh, CHRO, Rockman Industries

When Chandrasekhar was with BCCL, he made sure to take out time to have lunch with these people in an executive cafeteria. If required, rather than calling them to his own cabin, as a manager, Chandrasekhar himself went to their desks for work. “After all, such people are seniors in the company, but got left behind due to various reasons. When they see youngsters as their managers, they do feel bad about it. Therefore, it becomes important for young managers to treat them as equals and not as if you are their boss,” shares Chandrasekhar.

Often, HR leaders find that such people are very well connected within the organistion. In older companies such as Tata, Mahindra or Aditya Birla, there are many people who may not have a high position in the organisation, but may have direct relations with the founders since they are very old in the system. For managers, messing with such people may backfire bigtime.

We can call them ‘leaders without titles’, or ‘influencers’ or ‘solid citizens’ of the organisation. What is most important is to recognise that they are central to the company — in certain crisis situations, these are the people who can bring about breakthroughs.

The post How leaders without title play a role in transformation appeared first on HR Katha.

The hiring process in all companies has several stages — sourcing of resumes, filtering, conducting interviews and evaluation. At every stage, the candidate goes through a certain experience in the company, which will likely be a key factor in building an opinion about the employer brand in the mind of the candidate.

Airbnb is a company that emphasises on providing a good candidate experience. The talent-acquisition team at Airbnb has actually storyboarded the entire candidate experience of a candidate. Just like how one storyboards the experience of a guest in a hotel.

“If big brands leave their potential employees disgruntled, it will hurt them in the long run because brand positioning doesn’t always remain the same. The number one brands today may lose that position in the future if things do not go right for them. That is when their poor track record, in terms of candidate experience, will return to haunt them”

Mahipal Nair, VP-HR, APAC, Trellix

The Company has managed to identify all the touch points where it needs to give feedback to the candidates and employees to ensure a better relationship.

However, India Inc. is still not doing enough in this area.

Talking to HRKatha, Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar, admits that in his two decades of experience, he hasn’t seen many companies in India putting any real effort to ensure a better candidate experience. “I do not think even half of the companies in India take candidate experience seriously,” says Mohanty.

Very often companies refrain from giving any feedback to the candidate after the interview or evaluation process in the company. That explains the innumerable social-media posts from disgruntled candidates.

Sometimes, these candidates are upset about receiving no feedback at all from the employer or they are disappointed because the company never got back to them despite exhibiting an intent to hire. What seems to be wrong?

Mohanty feels that companies do not have a solid process in place to even measure their candidate experience. “We do have thousands of ways of measuring the onboarding experience, but what about the candidates who are rejected? Companies never get back to them to ask them to share their candidate experience,” observes Mohanty.

He rightly points out that companies do manage to gauge the experience of employees who join the company, but not the ones who get rejected. Therefore, the true picture of the candidate experience is not obtained.

As per a research by CEB, a global advisory firm, 70 per cent of HR professionals feel that candidate experience is important, but only 40 per cent of them actually have some processes in place to measure it.

Companies who have a very high brand value or are amongst the pioneers in their field are the ones where people actually aspire to work. A job with them is the dream of every job seeker. Do such companies also require to provide a great candidate experience?

It is natural for one to wonder why a Google or a Microsoft may need to focus on candidate experience. After all, these are big brands people anyway aspire to work for.

“I do not think even half of the companies in India take candidate experience seriously”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

“If big brands leave their potential employees disgruntled, it will hurt them in the long run because brand positioning doesn’t always remain the same. The number one brands today may lose that position in the future if things do not go right for them. That is when their poor track record, in terms of candidate experience, will return to haunt them,” explains Mahipal Nair, VP-HR, APAC, Trellix.

As a Deloitte study reveals that 83 per cent people are certain that a negative experience during the hiring process would change their perception about the role and company. On the other hand, 87 per cent say that a positive experience will positively influence their perception about the role and the company. That means, a positive candidate experience does manage to win many hearts, while the vice-versa makes one vulnerable. Further, an IBM research also reveals that 80 per cent of people will likely apply again to a company where they have had a good candidate experience.

“These days, if people go on to write ill about a company on social media, it tarnishes the employer brand,” says Mukul Chopra, CHRO, ConveGenius.

Many HR leaders believe that while employers do make efforts to ensure a great onboarding experience, they tend to lag behind when it comes to candidate experience.

A bad candidate experience not only hampers the employee value proposition or the employer brand of the company, but can also impact customer sentiments and revenue.

To conclude, here is an example of a known media company that learned the hard way. The firm found that 18 per cent of the candidates it rejected were also its customers. Six per cent of them discontinued their subscription to the brand because of a poor recruitment process. As a result, the company lost about $5.6 million in revenue.

“These days, if people go on to write ill about a company on social media, it tarnishes the employer brand”

Mukul Chopra, CHRO, ConveGenius

Small gestures such as an automated feedback to all the candidates after the hiring process can go a long way in ensuring a good candidate experience. Even a token of thanks in some way can help. While it is hard to reach out to all the applicants or candidates, some effort can be made, considering the long-term benefits.

The post Why having a good candidate experience is equally important appeared first on HR Katha.

Of course, this disconnect and disengagement leads to low productivity. For the organisation, this phenomenon of low productivity of employees during the notice period proves to be expensive. After all, technically, the concerned employees would be serving the entire notice period but their output level, on a per day basis, would be low. Therefore, as an organisation, the cost incurred is more.

Why does this happen? Why has it become so common for employees to become lax and not serve their notice period with a fully engaged frame of mind?

“It is common human psyche, which pushes the employees to question themselves as to what is the point in putting in as much effort as before when they are now about to dissociate from the company”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

Human psyche: “It is common human psyche, which pushes the employees to question themselves as to what is the point in putting in as much effort as before when they are now about to dissociate from the company,” says Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar. The employees feel that there is nothing really left to prove in an organisation that they are about to move on from.

HR practices: Certain HR departments follow very old practices when it comes to serving the notice period. Some organisations even withhold the salaries of the employees and take away all their benefits, such as leaves. The employees cannot take leave during the notice period. “Such practices are actually very demotivating for the employees, which results in low productivity,” says Nilay Nilay, CHRO, India Shelter Finance Corporation.

Why do such practices exist in organisations?

“Generally, it is an issue of trust. Employers do not trust their employees. They fear that the employees may abscond. This fear is quite real since such cases have taken place in the past, but I still believe that companies can do away with these practices,” says Mohanty.

Talking from his own experience, Mohanty questions, “Out of 100 cases, 95 employees would actually end up serving their notice period genuinely and with sincerity. Why retain such demotivating practices only because of those five per cent who may not be genuine?”

How can the productivity level be kept high?

Stop withholding salaries and benefits: As Mohanty suggests, withholding salary can demotivate employees and keep them from giving their 100 per cent. So companies should actually consider doing away with this practice. In fact, Mohanty shares that one of his previous employers actually followed the practice of giving the full and final cheque to the employees on their very last working day at the company. “This was a practice we actually followed religiously,” says Mohanty.

“Whether it is handing over of responsibilities or helping the organisation find their replacement, managers will have to be clear about what tasks or responsibilities they would want the employees to fulfil before they leave”

Nilay Nilay, CHRO, India Shelter Finance Corporation

Communicate clearly: To keep the expectations right, managers need to be clear about what they expect from their employees during the notice period. “Whether it is handing over of responsibilities or helping the organisation find their replacement, managers will have to be clear about what tasks or responsibilities they would want the employees to fulfil before they leave,” says Nilay.

Keep notice period negotiable: Quite often, employees wish to reduce their notice period. Serving longer notice periods, such as three months or six months, can hinder the smooth joining of the employee with the future employer. Also, if the employees intend to leave early, holding them back forcibly may not serve any purpose as their motivation level would be anyway low.

Treat employees well: The engagement and productivity levels of employees would actually depend a lot on how well their employees have treated them during their tenure. If the employees share a good relationship with their managers and further wish to maintain it, they will definitely end up working harder during the notice period. “There are certain factors that trigger the decision of employees to move out. To mitigate those triggers, managers need to be thoroughly trained to maintain a good relationship with their employees,” suggests Nilay.

The post How to keep productivity high during notice period appeared first on HR Katha.

Initially, the role of HR in 2022 must take a two-pronged approach to address how leaders make decisions. First, organisations must redefine the criteria leaders use to make talent decisions, with a focus on eliminating bias. Work, workforce and workplace are the three main pillars of building a futureready workforce.

Work: We as an organisation need to re-evaluate their work and work environment and ensure that they are concentrating on tasks that add value to the company, keeping their health and safety at the top of the pyramid.

Workforce: With the rising demand for skilled workforce and demand-supply gap, one must then select who or what should be the deciding factor of that specific task.

Workplace: Finally, companies must consider where and how most of the work will be done. Experimenting with hybrid or remote model that builds on what one has learned and experienced throughout the pandemic will be very useful in the future.

Continuous learning to combat resignation and aid retention

Learning is of course a continuous process. Robust skill-development programmes, well planned learning programmes can prove to be lethal weapons to combat skill drain along with structured wealth creation. Any instant monetary programmes can be countered by others.

“Why should only IT and HR be the power couple? Every function is important and powerful in its own domain”

Marriage between IT & HR: the new power couple

Marriage means understanding, collaborating and not compromising. Why should such things be restricted to IT and HR? I don’t believe in power centre or power couple. Every function is important and powerful in their own domain. To scale up the business and to be competitive in the market, each entity is working towards digitisation and automation, which has given the IT industry more importance in recent times.

The change driver – information workers or tech workers

Every person is a change agent. Everyone’s contribution and function is a change driver. I’m not in favour of giving importance to one function only.

Working for money to working for a purpose

Everyone is ultimately working for money and to take care of their basic needs. However, one’s work should have some purpose, or else it will be mechanical.

The post “Skill building will be a wealth-creation weapon,” Anil Mohanty appeared first on HR Katha.

This is one of the most devastating examples of groupthink, a phenomenon wherein a group of people reach a conclusion without critical reasoning. The members of the group do not act with practical and common sense. Instead, they choose to act in a way that will not upset any of the other group members.

Of course, the Challenger space shuttle explosion was an extreme instance, but if groupthink can lead to such horrific consequences, it needs to be nipped in the bud so that any harm or negative repercussion can be kept at bay.

“Groupthink doesn’t allow for innovation or for expression of diverse opinions”

Ramesh Shankar S, HR leader

Groupthink can prove to be very dangerous for organisations where teams have to make critical decisions on a daily basis. It also stifles creativity and individuality.

Members who may have a problem with the group’s decision feel pressured to change their opinion so that it can align with the majoritarian order. In their pursuit of unanimous agreement, the members bypass moral quandaries and ignore future ramifications of their decision.

Groupthink is prevalent in many organisations for a variety of reasons, some of which pertain to the workplace and its leaders.

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar, says, “Groupthink is dangerous and a sign of unhealthy work culture.”

It also happens because sometimes a few senior individuals in an organisation who feel their opinions are superior to others, create groups with people who may support them and have no problem with the solutions they offer, Mohanty explains.

This kind of influence can be oppressive and rules out any possibility of dissent.

At other times, “employees who wish to remain in the good books of their seniors, refrain from speaking their minds because they fear that their views may spoil their image,” Mohanty adds.

“Employees quickly learn to agree and push in the prescribed direction rather than think of new ideas or challenge existing practices. It seems outwardly like great teamwork but it is actually a very stifling environment”

Maneesha Jha Thakur, HR consultant

“Groupthink can be kept in check if the leaders allow for a more democratic workplace,” states Mohanty. They also need to stress the importance of constructive criticism, and bring change in the mindset of employees who think that their seniors are always correct.

Criticism can be a good thing because it opens up discussion, and creates more possibilities for creative solutions, feels Mohanty.

The fear of going against the senior grain, or employees being too enamoured by their leaders can also result in groupthink.

Maneesha Jha Thakur, HR consultant, says, “The three main reasons for groupthink are strong leadership, organisational culture and fear”.

According to Thakur, strong leadership often means that everyone remains in awe of the leader. Whatever the leader says is taken as the last word. A culture of rewarding conformity, harmony, conflict avoidance, implementation excellence and derision towards those who want to discuss new ideas is strongly embedded in groupthink. “Employees quickly learn to agree and push in the prescribed direction rather than think of new ideas or challenge existing practices. It seems outwardly like great teamwork but it is actually a very stifling environment,” admits Thakur

Another perspective on groupthink is that when the workforce has a majority of long-tenured employees and homogenous composition of talent, that is, when the organisation lacks new blood and diversity, there is a tendency to fall into a thought process of ‘this is the way we do things around here’ aided by ‘we already tried it, and failed’, Jha enunciates.

“To address groupthink, organisations need to be aware of their culture,” Jha says.

She feels organisations “need to build decision-making processes that demand individual contribution and innovation. A culture of encouraging dissent needs to be built. The leadership should not set goals and paths in a top-down fashion but follow a bottoms-up approach. Finally, organisations must train and provide exposure to long-tenured employees, add new employees with varied perspective and profiles, and chase diversity seriously.”

“Groupthink is dangerous and a sign of unhealthy work culture”

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar

Ramesh Shankar S, HR leader, is of the opinion that “Groupthink doesn’t allow for innovation or for expression of diverse opinions”.

Shankar explains that when a group of people think that their decisions are correct, they start discouraging dissent that may arise because of difference in viewpoints. And because people are unable to think critically and come up with creative solutions, groupthink has a tendency to suppress experimentation and risk-taking as well.

It can be tackled if leaders encourage dissent and innovation, feels Shankar. “Dissenting doesn’t mean that a person is entirely opposed to the ideas presented by the other members,” he points out.

Sometimes, when people have a different opinion than the consensus of the group, they may feel that voicing their opinions could make them unpopular among others. However, it is the responsibility of the leaders to ensure that everyone’s opinions — right, wrong or absurd — are heard. “By fostering an open culture at work, encouraging debate, and giving employees the freedom to express themselves without the fear of censure, organisations can control groupthink,” Shankar suggests.

Clearly, to be able to overcome groupthink, organisations need to provide some degree of freedom of expression to their employees. They also need to bring a change in the leadership style so that group discussions don’t feel suffocating for the members because of their imposing seniors. Leaders should also ask everyone’s opinion again even if a majority view arises, and make sure that nobody is hesitant to speak what they feel. Only by creating an environment where everyone is free to express themselves can organisations curb groupthink and promote healthy and fruitful discussions.

The post How Groupthink can turn fatal for organisations appeared first on HR Katha.

If an organisation aims to grow and expand, it needs to not only focus on building its business, but also cultivating a strong foundation of core values that positively impact everyone inside and outside its boundaries. However, this is easier said than done.

Many a time, organisations forget that they even have a purpose outside of succeeding in their line of work. Their ‘purpose’ may be printed on a plaque outside their office buildings, but not actually practised inside. This dissonance becomes apparent when stories about misconduct and injustice start doing the rounds, about organisations that are otherwise known to promote pristine values and beliefs.

“An organisation should have a purpose beyond the business needs of the organisation”

Ramesh Shankar S, HR leader

So what can be done to promote a culture of purpose in an organisation, to actually push the ideas to the forefront and ensure that they’re practised by everyone?

1. Define purpose: Ramesh Shankar S, HR Leader, says, “First of all, an organisation should have a purpose beyond the business needs of the organisation”.

It should be a properly defined purpose that doesn’t clash with the business needs of the.

2. Involve employees: Shankar goes on to add, “Secondly, it should involve all employees”.

In some organisations, only the top management knows about the purpose of the organisation and they do not involve their employees or urge them to adapt it. “There is no engagement or emotional connection with the purpose,” he explains.

By keeping the employees out, organisations themselves push them away from the purpose, so much so that many of them fail to even recall it. Not surprising, because the purpose hasn’t been communicated with them in a clear manner by the upper management.

3. Link it all to HR: “Thirdly, it should all be linked to the HR functions,” states Shankar. All the HR processes of the organisation, be it rewards, recognition, training and development, induction, promotion or incentive schemes, should function around the purpose.”

4. Live the purpose: Fourth, and most importantly, everyone in the organisation should live by the purpose every day. “Only through regular practice of the beliefs can a culture of purpose be built,” stresses Shankar.

“An organisation is likely to have a strong culture of purpose if everyone at work personally identifies with that purpose, and is emotionally invested in doing the best to follow the values and beliefs”

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar, agrees that organisations need to create a purpose that goes along with their beliefs and values.

It is necessary for the management to help foster a sense of personal purpose in the employees as well. “An organisation is likely to have a strong culture of purpose if everyone at work personally identifies with that purpose, and is emotionally invested in doing the best to follow the values and beliefs,” he enunciates.

“Organisations should communicate their purpose by demonstrating them through everyday practices at work,” he suggests.

Sachin Narke, chief learning officer, head- talent acquisition, and head-HR, Forbes Marshall, says that every employee should know and be able to recall the core purpose of the organisation.

He explains this through a personal example. At his orgnaisation, Forbes Marshall, the management came together and discussed the purpose of their organisation. After defining the purpose, they started facilitating each department to come up with their own purpose statement. The organisation took a top-down approach here, where each leader defines his/her purpose.

“When one goes down the hierarchical levels, all employees realise their larger purpose in the organisation and are able to practise it in their work life.” Narke says. He also believes that the young generation of employees truly wants a culture of purpose in their organisations.

“When one goes down the hierarchical levels, all employees realise their larger purpose in the organisation and are able to practise it in their work life”

Sachin Narke, chief learning officer, head- talent acquisition, and head-HR, Forbes Marshall

Millennials, and Gen Z employees are driven by their own sense of identity these days, feels Narke. Since they are aware of all the choices available to them, that weren’t present during their parents’ time, they have become more flexible and want to see their workplaces follow the path of their beliefs.

Certainly, organisations need to practise what they believe in. It is important to put the values of the organisation first, and not let them be suffocated under the demands of work and business. An organisation is more likely to be successful in the long term when all the employees in it believe in the same values, work to achieve them and also adapt them in their lives.

The post How to promote a culture of purpose in an organisation appeared first on HR Katha.

It’s not surprising that organisations usually reserve the best facilities for their high-performing employees. After all, it does makes sense that employees who put in more effort and bring forth better results, be preferred over those who are medium or low performers. However, such an approach can also lead to friction among the employees, and give them a sense of being ignored.

If an organisation seems to be favouring only few employees and providing them with the best facilities to promote their growth, there is an obvious disparity in the workforce.

“We can’t define leadership using the narrow lense of high performance”

Amit Sharma, CHRO, Volvo Group India

High performers are usually known to be capable of achieving success and leading people even without the crutch of training, which renders the organisations’ emphasis on giving them the best of everything a little useless. In this process, organisations run the risk of losing the trust of their employees, and wasting the potential of all the talent that showed promise in the past but weren’t able to capitalise on it.

What if the high performers are not equipped with the inherent skills needed to become leaders?

So, is it fair that organisations should only provide leadership training to high-performing employees?

Performance vs aptitude

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar, says, “performance shouldn’t be the only parameter for judging an employee, because leadership involves many duties and requires the fulfilment of different roles, other than just being great at one’s job.”

“If an employee is very good at providing ICO’s (Initial Coin Offering), the company may grant him/her a managerial role, even though he/she may not be up to it for lack of the aptitude to communicate with people in an assertive manner.”

To be a leader, one doesn’t have to be the best at one’s job. Leadership requires different sets of skills, such as confidence, ability to dominate conversations, natural charisma, and so on, that are different from technical expertise at work. These qualities cannot be taught to people, and sometimes, any amount of training will not help achieve the desired result.

“If an employee is very good at providing ICO’s (Initial Coin Offering), the company may grant him/her a managerial role, even though he/she may not be up to it for lack of the aptitude to communicate with people in an assertive manner”

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar

Amit Sharma, CHRO, Volvo Group India, believes, “We can’t define leadership using the narrow lense of high performance. Today, many people can be leaders if they are given a valid chance.”

“Leadership training should cut across all hierarchies,” Sharma stresses, and not be restricted to only one strata of performers, otherwise the organisations will suffer in the long term by not exploiting their talent.

The inability or unwillingness to give a second look to the other employees is what results in a lot of potentially good leaders never getting the break and the platform to learn and grow.

Ramesh Shankar S, founder of Hrishti.com, and former EVP & head of HR, Siemens, says, “Organisations need to differentiate between potential and performance.”

Resources and budget

“If an organisation has unlimited resources, then it should access and enlist employees based on their potential, to be leaders, and not solely on their performance.” Shankar says.

“Organisations with limited budgets usually prioritise high performers because they don’t want to waste their money. However, this process can turn harmful if the employees don’t show the expected growth,” Shankar points out.

“If an organisation has unlimited resources, then it should access and enlist employees based on their potential, to be leaders, and not solely on their performance”

Ramesh Shankar S, founder of Hrishti.com, and former EVP & head of HR, Siemens

“If even 30 per cent of the employees show potential for leadership, then the organisation needs to invest in them rather than on the high performers who may not have the same aptitude.” Advises Shankar.

There is always a reservoir of talent in an organisation, and it’s the responsibility of the senior management to bring it out to the surface. It isn’t wrong to rely on high performers to gauge potential leaders, because they’re often the safer bets. However, by focusing on two or three per cent of the workforce, the companies fail to explore the hidden potential that may only need a little bit of coaxing to flourish.

By making the process of providing leadership training democratic, and giving more opportunities to employees to prove themselves, companies can avoid wasting potential, and gain extraordinary returns.

The post Why leadership training shouldn’t only be given to high performers appeared first on HR Katha.

For instance, Facebook, one of the biggest employers in tech, globally, offers tech talent, compensation which is 25 per cent more than the market average to attract and retain them.

“For critical roles or for talent possessing hot skills, many employers are willing to stretch their pay”

Chandrasekhar Mukherjee, CHRO, Bhilosa Group

Chandrasekhar Mukherjee, CHRO, Bhilosa Group, explains that offering compensation higher than the market average should be viewed strictly as a business decision. He believes that companies undertake such a decision to secure a dominant position in the talent market. Further, such commitments are generally made by the employer only for talent critical to business operation. “For critical roles or for talent possessing hot skills, many employers are willing to stretch their pay brackets and offer compensations higher than the market. This lures top talent,” he said.

Mukherjee clarifies that such business strategies are employed when an employer’s brand is either not popular or has no stand in the market. This generally happens when the business is still in the building phase.

Higher pay is often doled out to talent, which, in turn is expected to bring in value to the Company’s business at par with what they’re making. Further, employers can also offer higher pay when they are not in a position to match what their competitors may be offering in terms of other employment benefits.

The ‘hot’ or ‘in-demand’ skills, as Mukherjee mentions, continue to change for businesses as they grow and evolve. In today’s world, the ‘hot’ skills are primarily possessed by people with a background in tech. Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar, admits that he hasn’t ever seen the talent market as hot as it is for tech today.

“The primary issue here is supply and demand. As more and more companies emerge, there are more players in the market vying for the same set of talent. Hence, an advantage in any form — compensation being a big one — is a plus for a recruiter and is an important business strategy employed by the employer,” he says.

However, higher packages also have certain risks. The strategy may even backfire for the employer.

“There needs to be a shift in this ideology of offering more and more in terms of compensation. A mix of outsourced talent — people hired on requirement basis —and talent grown internally can be a welcome revision to the workforce, which can somewhat disrupt this trend”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

Mukherjee calls it a gamble, where the employer bets on an external talent, whose potential output is still a question. After all, he points out, that a talent’s high performance in the previous organisation may not necessarily translate into a high output in the new role.

Further, paying a new hire at a greater scale can also cause rifts within the organisation as the existing employees in different functions may feel discriminated against or disadvantaged.

Anil Mohanty explains that the phenomenon has peaked at the moment in tech hiring in India, as the scenario resembles the bidding process in an auction. One company offers x, while the other offers x+1, and so the figure keeps on growing. He, however, questions this trend and believes such recruitment and business strategy will be short lived.

In fact, industry experts tell HRKatha that the trend — which is primarily seen in the tech space and that too because of startups mushrooming everywhere— may last only for two to three years. Some of these new companies are able to obtain heavy funding, which they invest in developing an internal talent pool. The bubble will burst when the funds stop flowing in and when the direct competition with the already established bigger companies in the space — in terms of output — becomes more apparent. Then, maintaining the high pay scales may be difficult for these startups.

“There needs to be a shift in this ideology of offering more and more in terms of compensation. A mix of outsourced talent — people hired on requirement basis —and talent grown internally can be a welcome revision to the workforce, which can somewhat disrupt this trend,” suggests Mohanty.

The post Luring talent with higher salaries — a short-lived trend? appeared first on HR Katha.

Similarly, businesses in the past merely recruited people on need basis, to fulfil immediate or current goals. Now, however, the talent landscape has changed totally. If we compare it to the factory era, the game has simply turned over its head.

Earlier, it was difficult to find employment opportunities but now, options are unlimited and businesses are finding it difficult to draw talent. Businesses have also had to change themselves and come up with new ways to not just source and recruit people, but also build a strategy around this activity, known as ‘talent acquisition’.

Most often, we use the term ‘recruitment’ and ‘talent acquisition’ interchangeably, but they have two different meanings.

“For roles which are specialised and also for leadership positions, a strategy is a must, because filling such positions requires time, and therefore, a long-term strategy”

Rajeev Singh, CHRO, Solara Active Pharma Sciences

Recruitment is the process of sourcing, screening and hiring someone for a vacant position. It is aimed at fulfilling the immediate needs of the business, and is very reactive and tactical in nature.

Talent acquisition, on the other hand, is a much broader term. By nature, it is more strategic in nature where the organisation formulates a talent-acquisition plan, builds relations with the existing talent in the market and hires people with a long-term strategy in mind and not just to fill a position immediately.

For instance, the shortage of talent in the tech space is a known fact. Many tech firms today are finding it challenging to draw good talent. Experts point out that hiring techies takes much longer. Therefore, an organisation needs to plan ahead for anticipated projects from clients. They have to figure out how they will hire people immediately when projects are bagged.

For this, one needs to have a well-defined talent-acquisition strategy in place, to predict the kind of skills one would need to fill future job roles and how suitable talent would be procured. Serious thought has to be given to whether one would hire fresh talent and further train them or hire experienced professionals who can start delivering from the work ‘go’.

“Recruitment used to be more of a traditional way of hiring people, just to fill positions without any long-term strategy in mind,” says Rajeev Singh, CHRO, Solara Active Pharma Sciences.

The long-term benefits of talent acquisition are more sophisticated, strategic and attractive in nature. Therefore, businesses would want to have a full-fledged talent-acquisition strategy in place rather than just recruit people.

“Many back-end roles or support staff positions at workplaces are filled on an immediate need basis and do not require much evaluation”

Anil Mohanty, head – people & culture, Medikabazaar

But are there any instances where a recruitment mindset becomes more important? If we speak of the more specialised and sophisticated roles, where skilled talent is quite rare and in short supply, a talent-acquisition strategy becomes a necessity. “For roles which are specialised and also for leadership positions, a strategy is a must, because filling such positions requires time, and therefore, a long-term strategy,” says Singh.

There are, however, some position or skills which are easy to find in the market. “Many back-end roles or support staff positions at workplaces are filled on an immediate need basis and do not require much evaluation,” points out Anil Mohanty, head – people & culture, Medikabazaar.

Not surprisingly, therefore, even the roles or the mindsets of recruiters and talent-acquisition specialists differ, while hiring. Recruiters may simply look at the CV and check for the basic criteria that match — such as years of experience and qualifications — but new-age talent acquisition specialists will assess the skills of the candidates, completely ignoring the qualifications or the number of years of experience. They may even hire someone on the basis of their attitude and take a chance on building skills, which can prepare the individual to fit the role in some time.

“A talent-acquisition professional would look at the individual as talent and not just as a worker, and hire holistically, examining all aspects including culture fit,” shares Mohanty.

Many HR professionals who come from the IR days and manufacturing era, have failed to transform themselves or even understand the new-age HR and talent. This only makes it more difficult for them to comprehend the difference between recruitment and talent acquisition. Businesses today, need to make a wise decision at this stage and ask themselves, ‘Are we recruiting or acquiring talent’?

The post Are you recruiting or acquiring talent? appeared first on HR Katha.

“With other functions in the business environment already digitised, the HR is supposed to build a mindset and competencies where people can use and adopt such digital tools to build a culture around it”

Chandrasekhar Mukherjee, CHRO, Bhilosa Industries

A 2021 global study has revealed that the intention of HR leaders to digitise their HR processes is quite high at 83 per cent. However, digital transformation at the workplace is a journey, which requires everyone to be in sync in order to be successful. That means, every function in the organisation needs to transform digitally. In a global conference at Paris, a representative of Orange, the global telecommunications company, revealed that the CEO hired an HR head to enable digital transformation in the company, instead of appointing a chief digital officer.

“If employees find that one function of the organisation is not as competent and digitised as the others, they will seek better employee experience elsewhere”

Ramesh Shankar S, senior HR leader

That means, driving digital transformation is not about technology but about the people in the company. As the HR department is connected to all other functions in the company, it needs to ensure that everyone is in sync with the process of digitisation. Let us see how the HR can facilitate this transformation journey.

Ensuring a seamless experience

Ramesh Shankar S, senior HR leader, explains that it is very similar to how people operate in a bank. Nowadays, all financial assistance to the customer is provided digitally. All queries are addressed digitally, and all monetary transactions, even loans, are facilitated digitally. If customers find that some areas of service are digitised and others are not, they will simply move to another bank for a better experience. This can happen with the workforce as well. If employees find that one function of the organisation is not as competent and digitised as the others, they will seek better employee experience elsewhere. “Now, people are used to enjoying a seamless experience at work. They want things to be accomplished with a single click of a button,” points out Shankar.

“True integration will happen when the heads of departments and managers drive the adoption of digitisation through a top-down approach to make it a success”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar,

Ensuring the right mindset & competencies

Chandrasekhar Mukherjee, CHRO, Bhilosa Industries, likens digital transformation to any other change-management process. He believes that HR has probably been the last function to be digitised in a business environment, compared to other functions. The reason is clear — larger cost saving processes were digitised first.

“With other functions in the business environment already digitised, the HR is supposed to build a mindset and competencies where people can use and adopt such digital tools to build a culture around it,” explains Mukherjee.

Ensuring a top-down approach

For the HR, however, undergoing digital transformation in the HR processes has been a big challenge, especially in the smaller companies. As per Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar, tech savviness and the eagerness to adopt digital tools flows from the top. Mohanty admits that he has seen people refraining from using digital tools for leave approvals and performance management, claiming them to be too complex. “True integration will happen when the heads of departments and managers drive the adoption of digitisation through a top-down approach to make it a success,” insists Mohanty.

The post Why other functions need to pace-up with HR for successful digitalisation appeared first on HR Katha.

In their research, Ryan and Haslam examined the Fortune 500 companies and firms listed on the London Stock Exchange and found that whenever organisations are in crisis, in terms of performance, it is more likely that they would turn to women leaders to lead the sinking ship.

A trend was noticed where women and other minority groups were brought to the forefront to get promoted to a leadership position at a time when organisations were in trouble.

There are several instances to prove this. JC Penney, a retail brand in the US, was going through a tough time posting losses quarter after quarter. Its retail stores were also shutting down. It was then, in 2018, that Jill Soltau was announced as the new CEO of the Company.

A similar appointment took place at Xerox in 2001, when the Company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Anne Mulcahy, who had served Xerox for a very long time, was promoted by the Board to the position of CEO, and she successfully essayed the role till 2009.

“In a basic household structure as well, when there is a crisis, a woman is expected to step in and keep things together, to support the family”

Shefali Suri, CHRO, Greaves Cotton

At Yahoo!, Marissa Mayer was designated as the CEO in 2014 when the Company was struggling to overcome the challenges that arose in competing with Google.

While in some cases, these women leaders did come out with flying colours by taking over the reins of a sinking ship and helping the firm sail through, in many cases they failed.

When Mulcahy took the reins of Xerox in 2001, she was able to turnaround the situation. She managed to bring the Company back on track and also went on to choose Ursula Burns as her successor, who became the Company’s first African-American woman CEO.

Some researches and experts suggest that companies tend to bring in a woman leader to power as they are more suited to the situation because of the gender stereotypical qualities that they bring to the table.

“In a basic household structure as well, when there is a crisis, a woman is expected to step in and keep things together, to support the family,” opines Shefali Suri, CHRO, Greaves Cotton.

However, very often, unlike Mulcahy, other women leaders who have faced the glass cliff phenomenon have not been as lucky. They have either fallen or been pushed off the cliff.

Mayer who took the reins of Yahoo! in her hands in 2014, barely received any support from the management team or the board at the time of the crisis. She lacked the much-needed internal support, due to which, in 2017, Yahoo was sold to Verizon and Mayer moved out of the crisis scene.

Carol Bartz, who was the earlier CEO of Yahoo! before Mayer, was also pushed out in two and a half years when the Company was in troubled waters in 2011. In fact, Bartz herself had said in an interview that women are more likely to get a directorship or a leadership position during troubled times.

Even Ellen Pao, the former CEO of Reddit had to resign after a backlash from Reddit users in 2015. She became the interim CEO at a time when Yishang Wong had resigned in 2014.

Sheri MacCoy had to quit as CEO of Avon Products in 2018, after repeated pressure from the investors as the value of the company’s shares kept declining during her five-year stint.

When MacCoy became the CEO, the Company faced heavy losses in North America and a penalty fee of close to $500 million in federal bribery.

“When a man fails, he ends up bearing the entire blame, but when a woman fails, people tend to empathise with her because of her gender”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

As per Suri, any leader, whether man or woman, is bound to fail if thrown into a crisis situation. The chances of them failing as leaders are equal, but as the research by Ryan and Haslam suggests, women leaders seem to be categorically pushed to the forefront in such situations. Why? “It can be just a coincidence. I do not think that any company would do that intentionally,’ says Suri.

No one would really want to be in a situation where the possibility of falling or failing is high.

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar, personally believes that women leaders are made to take up such roles, probably because people tend to empathise more with women, as the expectation from them to succeed in such situations is not that high. “When a man fails, he ends up bearing the entire blame, but when a woman fails, people tend to empathise with her because of her gender,” explains Mohanty.

The stereotypical traits associated with women are also one of the reasons why companies may push women leaders to the forefront in crises. Traits, such as discipline and high levels of honesty which are found in women can make companies think that they have what it takes to turnaround situations.

Suri, however, feels that leadership qualities are universal and hardly dependent on the gender of the people.

However, the fact remains, that when leaders fail to rise to the occasion, it impacts their mental state. There are high chances of women leaders falling prey to the glass cliff effect and becoming victims of depression. Their confidence may be so rattled that they may even turn down leadership opportunities in the near future.

The post How women leaders fall prey to the glass cliff effect appeared first on HR Katha.

A small study conducted in Philadelphia, with 20 senior-level executives from Fortune 500 companies, suggests that camaraderie amongst team members is fine, but too much of it has an adverse effect on performance. How? Many studies have emphasised on fostering great relationships between teams and amongst team members. In fact, it has always been a crucial part of the team-building exercise. Then how can too much of it be harmful?

“While too much camaraderie or strong affiliations are not bad on their own, the maturity of the individuals does matter”

Rajeev Singh, CHRO, Yokohama Off-road Tyres

When team members are too close to each other and value their relationships more than anything else, it leads to bad decision making. So much so that they start to give more importance to their relationships than the business. This leads to a situation where team members hesitate to question each other.

When leaders start valuing relationships more than the work, it becomes difficult for them to make tough decisions. For instance, when it comes to designating certain work or distributing powers amongst the team members, relationships can come in the way of taking the right call.

Let us take an example. During a new product launch, it was decided to change the colour of the product from red to blue, to differentiate it from the competitor’s product. However, when the product was launched, the product colour was still red in all the marketing communications, including advertisements and TV commercials. Why? During the meeting when the operations manager got hot under the collar — bringing up the financial challenges in implementing the colour change and new packaging, citing budget constraints — the president cut off the conversation abruptly, so that there could be no further arguments and so that peace and harmony would prevail in the team. As a result, the budget and packaging issue was never resolved.

When there is too much camaraderie between the leaders and their team members, the former may end up fostering a culture where tough deliberations or debates are avoided merely to maintain the camaraderie amongst team members.

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar, agrees that when there is too much emphasis on relationships, it does come in the way of tough decision-making, which hampers performance. However, he also points out that in most cases, the magnitude or impact of that bad decision making is not very high. “In such scenarios, the performance does get hampered but it is only a matter of five to 10 per cent, not more,” says Mohanty. According to him, people do tend to compromise in terms of work to foster relationships, but they only compromise on minor things which do not harm the business much. If they do realise that the magnitude of a bad decision can lead to big losses, mature leaders ensure that they take the right call. In fact, Mohanty recommends that leaders need to learn to say ‘NO’ to people for the sake of the business.

Rajeev Singh, CHRO, Yokohama Off-road Tyres feels that camaraderie can never be harmful, even in excess. He cites examples of family-run businesses where siblings or partners run the show. Having been part of such companies and businesses in his career, he believes that whatever the level of affiliation or camaraderie may be, people never really refrain from challenging each other or bringing diverse opinions to the table. “While too much camaraderie or strong affiliations are not bad on their own, the maturity of the individuals does matter,” points out Singh.

“In case of leaders focussing too much on relationship than work, the performance does get hampered but it is only a matter of five to 10 per cent, not more”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

Singh further states that if camaraderie were really bad, why would so many organisations have team-building exercises in place to foster strong relationships, and a culture of trust and cooperation? As he again rightly points out, “Don’t married couples argue or challenge each other? After all, the relationship between a husband and a wife is the best example of a strong and close human affiliation.”

According to Singh, it is all about alignment with the goal. If all team members are aligned towards achieving that common goal and are striving towards it, there will be no problem even if there is too much camaraderie. In fact, he feels that more than excess camaraderie, harm can come from team members not challenging each other or developing a ‘Yes Boss’ culture within the team.

He cautions that the maturity of leaders in handling professional affiliations has an important role to play. It is the leaders who need to understand how to foster a culture of deliberations and tough discussions for the good of the company.

We should foster strong relationships but not put them before work. Leaders have to handle their relations with subordinates in such a way that there is room for healthy arguments, which enhances the decision-making capability of the team.

The post Can good camaraderie amongst employees harm output? appeared first on HR Katha.

“The company culture should be built from day one. Why wait for the first 100 or 200 employees? With COVID coming into the picture, the need for an HR manager from the very start of the business has only grown”

Biplob Banerjee, CHRO, USV Pharma

Human resource leaders have different opinions on this though. While many believe this ratio/ formula is still followed and is very much applicable across companies, even in startups, others believe that hiring an HR professional at the very start is a much wiser decision, so that all HR processes are structured and run smoothly from the very beginning. “The company culture should be built from day one. Why wait for the first 100 or 200 employees? With COVID coming into the picture, the need for an HR manager from the very start of the business has only grown,” believes Biplob Banerjee, CHRO, USV Pharma.

“It is like first constructing an airport and erecting the air-traffic controller later. While few flights are able to take off and land, there is a severe catastrophe just waiting to happen,” cautions Banerjee.

There is a difference between establishing an HR department for a big conglomerate entering a new sector on the one hand, and a startup on the other. Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar, has experienced both the scenarios. Mohanty, who was earlier the HR head at Reliance Jio infocomm, established by Reliance Industries as a new brand in the telecom sector, later joined Medikabazaar, which is a growing e-commerce startup.

A company establishing a new brand will have its plans already set. It will have an HR department in place from the start, because it has all the growth plans laid out. There is no dearth of funds in this case. Also, big conglomerates will already have a set model of building an HR department, but startups — which are relatively new — may not have this privilege.

“If the company is growing, it will definitely need to hire more and more people, which will eventually decide how many HR professionals one will require at what stage of the business cycle”

Varun Upadhyaya, group HR head, Wockhardt

As described by Mohanty, startups generally have a very small team, such as four to five core members. For them, getting funds is the first priority and only after that do they think about setting up an HR department or a team, depending on the business size and the growth plans. “When I joined Medikabazaar, I was given a clear mandate for the first five years — that we want to grow teams and expand as much as possible,” shares Mohanty.

Varun Upadhyaya, group HR head, Wockhardt, also believes that the need for an HR department will depend on the growth and size of the company. “If the company is growing, it will definitely need to hire more and more people, which will eventually decide how many HR professionals one will require at what stage of the business cycle,” explains Upadhyaya.

In fact, Mohanty asserts that in case of startups, once the promoters have the fund backup, they will accordingly start thinking about growing teams and the business.

There are also subdomains in the HR department, such as payroll, employee engagement, talent management and so on. Generally, these teams grow with the number of employees. Talent acquisition and payroll being the basic needs from the start, HR leaders feel it is better to have a specialised professional capable of handling this role strategically, from the beginning itself. Other roles, such as employee engagement, come into the picture only when one has very large teams working in different locations. Learning and Development (L&D) is also a very strategic function. As businesses need new skills to sustain or grow, they can look to hire specialised professionals in this domain. There is no correct time to do so. It all depends on the needs of the business and the sector. There will be some niche sectors, where there is dearth of skills and ready-made talent, and then there will be sectors where talent and skill are ample but there is a lot of competition.

“Startups generally have a very small team, such as four to five core members. For them, getting funds is the first priority and only after that do they think about setting up an HR department or a team, depending on the business size and the growth plans”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

Another question that arises is, ‘When to hire a CHRO or a head of HR?’ Many HR leaders are of the opinion that one needs a mature HR lead from the very start. Mohanty shares that it all depends on how fast the company is growing or wants to grow in the next five to 10 years. “When one hires an HR head from a known brand or a company, it actually gives a very strong message to people that the company has the intention to grow, hire talent and build teams in the near future. It gives a positive boost to the employer brand of the company,” points out Mohanty.

“In fact, the hired HR heads help the company build the employer value proposition of the company. That helps people understand why they should join the firm,” enunciates Mohanty.

It is best for any firm to have an HR manager from the very beginning. It helps build the foundation of all HR processes from the start. Later, the company can look to hire more people in the specialised HR roles, according to the needs of the business and the size of the team.

The post How HR departments are built in a growing company appeared first on HR Katha.

Currently, it has over 600 employees, including off-roll employees. By taking on about 600 more, it hopes to meet the growing demand for its offerings. Over the coming months, the Company plans to hire skilled candidates from the IITs, IIMs and other prestigious institutes as part of its growth plans.

Medikabazaar has witnessed a significant rise in its operations in the previous fiscal. With over 100,000 established corporates, hospitals and government bodies, and more than 1,50,000 individual small buyers and over 15,000 seller partners already on board, the Company hopes to achieve 300 per cent growth through FY 2021-22.

Vivek Tiwari, CEO, Medikabazaar, reveals that the Company will continue to focus on “strengthening core offerings in various categories and catalysing the supply chain, operations, and technology to ensure business competitiveness. The expansion of the team will ensure that we continue to build on our proven success and prepare for a sustained growth phase.”

The new hires will be a “right mix of skills for the digital future that will include AI, ML, IoT and AR/VR technology-based services to enhance customer experience and make it more intuitive.”

Founded in 2015, by Vivek Tiwari and Ketan Malkan, Medikabazaar has grown exponentially to become a prominent digital platform in India’s medical procurement and supply chain.

The post Medikabazaar to double its 600-strong workforce appeared first on HR Katha.

As gratifying as this is for the referee, it is a goal accomplished for the organisation. But what after that? Despite an exhaustive interview process and thorough scrutiny, the referred hire may turn out to be a misfit. The reasons could be many — from underperformance to misconduct. In such a case, like the referral rewards, should there also be a referral penalty for recommending a wrong hire? That’s the question we asked HR leaders, who unanimously agreed that the referees should not be held at fault.

“It is important to remember here that the person who is deciding has faith in the person who is recommending. If irresponsible references are made, it may break this trust and at times even affect relationships”

Adil Malia, HR leader and chief executive, The Firm

SV Nathan, partner and chief talent officer, Deloitte India, believes that the blame, if at all, should fall on the hiring manager and the reporting manager. They are the ones at fault for hiring the wrong candidate and failing to develop him or her. “People are good, but circumstances change their performance and managers are responsible for that. The referees should never be blamed. When employees recommend someone, they put their reputation on the line. By taking the referees to task, one burns the bridge of talent referrals for good. A reference is a reference. It is for the HR and managers to check out their worth,” Nathan asserts.

Recommendation is a representation made in favour of a person, a party, a process, a resource or a programme, strongly suggesting its consideration to the decider for use or appointment. It is the prime responsibility of the decider to ensure that the right resources/ processes are used or the right person is employed for the task, irrespective of recommendations.

Adil Malia, HR leader and chief executive, The Firm, segregates the whole process between two people — the ‘recommender’ who recommends and the ‘decider’ who takes the decision to hire a referral. He says, “The deciders have the option to accept the recommendation or not. However, having accepted the recommendation, the decision is solely theirs, and therefore, they continue to be responsible for the outcome of the decision. They cannot pass the buck to the poor person who recommended a candidate during a crisis. Why the decider accepts a recommendation will remain the rhetoric.

“The referees should never be blamed. When employees recommend someone, they put their reputation on the line. By taking the referees to task, one burns the bridge of talent referrals for good. A reference is a reference. It is for the HR and managers to check out their worth”

SV Nathan, partner and chief talent officer, Deloitte India

However, Malia does outline some responsibilities for the people who recommend. First, they should recommend only if they have first-hand experience and knowledge. Second, due diligence to the referral’s relevance and suitability to the role should be considered before making a recommendation. Third, there should be full disclosure of facts to the decision maker to whom the recommendation is being made. “It is important to remember here that the person who is deciding has faith in the person who is recommending. If irresponsible references are made, it may break this trust and at times even affect relationships,” cautions Malia. He finds a penalty unnecessary as it can kill the culture and spirit of recommendation altogether.

In the opinion of HR leaders, there shouldn’t be a penalty because it is a learning. The organisation makes decisions based on interviews and background checks to gauge whether a candidate is suitable for the position or not. So how can a person who has recommended the candidate be penalised? The referees do not influence the hiring manager. They merely provide a talent source. It goes without saying that a person who has been an underperformer or has been found to indulge in some kind of misconduct, will not be referred anywhere else.

“People tend to go on recommending people irrespective of whether they know the candidates well or not. When such referrals turn out to be bad choices, future referrals from such reckless or incautious referees will be viewed cautiously”

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar, shares that many people working in organisations that give out referral rewards, tend to go on recommending people irrespective of whether they know the candidates well or not. When such referrals turn out to be bad choices, future referrals from such reckless or incautious referees will be viewed cautiously. “Alternatively, the referee too will be cautious while referring in future.”

Clearly, HR leaders are against any kind of penalty on the person who recommends candidates. After all, at the end of the day, it’s the job of the hiring manager to find out whether a person is fit for the profile or not.

The post Should there be a penalty for wrong recommendations? appeared first on HR Katha.

A USA Today report from 2019 claims that as much as 20-50 per cent of job applicants and workers fail to report on their joining dates. Another 2019 survey reveals that 28 per cent of candidates back out of offers. Receiving a better offer from another organisation has been seen as the key reason, along with a higher counter offer from the existing employer. These are reasons enough for organisations to look for means to stop ghosting. After all, some of these hirings are a result of months of interviews and discussions. A no-show takes the employers back to square one and the process has to be started from scratch. However, is a penalty clause the only solution?

“While a penalty clause can act as a deterrent, its efficacy in preventing ghosting is insignificant. Sensing abilities of a recruiter aided by AI can predict the likelihood of a candidate’s joining. It is more effective to have a panel of candidates to fall back on — the second best — in the event of the first one not joining at the last moment.”

Lalit Kar, senior VP & head-HR, Reliance Digital

Is a penalty cause feasible?

Subir Verma, HR head, Tata Power DDL, says, “In the event of a candidate not joining after accepting the offer letter, the company can initiate action and claim cost of recruitment, provided such a clause is mentioned in the offer letter. Although difficult to quantify, some companies are known to ask candidates to pay an ad hoc sum of eight per cent of CTC, or some fixed amount. There have been cases, especially in the Middle East, where companies have taken candidates to court for not joining after accepting the offer letter.”

Is a penalty cause legal?

“Legal implications are time consuming and not preferred by candidates or companies. Some companies, especially in the IT sector, have started the practice of blacklisting the candidates for future employment with the company. Legally, the offer letter is an offer of employment and does not indicate the actual commencement of employment. Hence, one has to prove that the employment relationship has started. Section 5 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 says ‘A proposal may be revoked at any time before the communication of its acceptance is complete as against the proposer, but not afterwards’,” explains Verma.

Verma also cites the case of Bhagwandas Goverdhandas Kedia vs M/S Girdharilal Parshottamdas (1966 AIR 543, 1966 SCR (1) 656), where it was noted that “In the case of a contract which consists of mutual promises, the offeror must receive intimation that the offeree has accepted his offer and has signified his willingness to perform his promise.”

“In the event of a candidate not joining after accepting the offer letter, the company can initiate action and claim cost of recruitment, provided such a clause is mentioned in the offer letter. Although difficult to quantify, some companies are known to ask candidates to pay an ad hoc sum of eight per cent of CTC, or some fixed amount.”

Subir Verma, HR head, Tata Power DDL

Is a legal route advisable?

Lalit Kar, senior VP & head-HR, Reliance Digital, says, “There is no specific employment law, which can be invoked to punish such behaviour. It is not likely that there would be any law in the future, as there is no issue of violation of fundamental rights or involvement of a larger public interest. However, some organisations do incorporate a penalty clause in the offer, which states that in the event of the candidate not joining after having signed and accepted the offer, he will have to pay a definite amount.”

“In such cases, the organisation is free to move a civil court in the given jurisdiction, as stated in the offer, under Section 74 of Indian Contract Act, 1872. Normally, however, organisations may not prefer the legal route as getting relief from a civil court can be time consuming and the litigation expenses can far outstrip the loss arising out of the candidate not joining. Again, it is difficult for the organisation to express the notional loss in monetary terms, to make a claim, which is equally refutable,” he adds.

Kar further says, “While a penalty clause can act as a deterrent, its efficacy in preventing ghosting is insignificant. Sensing abilities of a recruiter aided by AI can predict the likelihood of a candidate’s joining. It is more effective to have a panel of candidates to fall back on — the second best — in the event of the first one not joining at the last moment.”

“It is not possible to eliminate dropouts completely, but that doesn’t mean there is a need to introduce a penalty clause. Everyone has the freedom to accept or reject an offer, or join or not join a firm. There is no question of forcing anyone.”

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar

Rely on backup

Personally, Verma believes acceptance of the offer is as good as the candidate promising to join them, just as the company gives the person an offer with a promise. The best way to avoid such situations is to find out the reasons for not joining, addressing those reasons, ensuring transparency and trust, and proactively having a back-up candidate ready.

Most of the dropouts are due to skill gaps. That means, skilled and qualified candidates literally have the power to choose where they want to work. Young techies are drawn towards better salaries, and opportunities to learn from and be mentored by their leaders. Ghosting can happen to any recruiter, irrespective of the process one has in place. Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar, however, feels that if an organisation is becoming a regular victim then chances are that it is not keeping pace with the evolving jobseeker mindset and hiring trends.

“It is not possible to eliminate dropouts completely, but that doesn’t mean there is a need to introduce a penalty clause. Everyone has the freedom to accept or reject an offer, or join or not join a firm. There is no question of forcing anyone,” Mohanty adds. He believes that although it is a painful process, the organisations will just have to accept the candidate’s decision and start looking for another suitable person all over again.

The post Can a penalty clause in offer letter stop ghosting by candidates? appeared first on HR Katha.

The argument was that when companies cut short their team strengths, there will be only place for specialists and generalists will have to make way. Besides, it was believed that specialists are not required to be supervised all the time. The need was more for a leader rather than a manager.

“The significance of managers has only increased in this scenario of constrained working. At dispersed locations, the role of the middle managers is to integrate and understand the requirements from the senior colleagues and disseminate the information to the frontline team members. They also have to manage their productivity as compared to earlier days.”

Jayant Kumar, head- HR, ports & logistics, Adani Group

Also improved business intelligence tools are further expected to reduce the relevance of the middle- level managers in future, irrespective of whether the work is out of office or home.

It’s been around 15 months now, and contrary to the earlier belief companies have reemphasised on the importance of the managers.

It’s not for monitoring but they are the real bridge between the employees and the organisation during the difficult times. There were the ones who were in constant touch with the team members providing them support.

For many managers there was collaboration overload – juggling between the constant deluge of meetings, chats, and emails.

Agrees, Jayant Kumar, head- HR, ports & logistics, Adani Group.

He believes the significance of managers has only increased in this scenario of constrained working. At dispersed locations, the role of the middle managers is to integrate and understand the requirements from the senior colleagues and disseminate the information to the frontline team members. They also have to manage their productivity as compared to earlier days.

“Is it possible for a single leader to manage multiple resources or multiple regions? Someone has to monitor them from an output point of view. For instance, if a TA executive is in charge of sourcing, then who will do the validation? During HR interviews, who will do checks before presenting to the management?”

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar

“In this setup, clarity of goals is very important and it is a manager’s responsibility to ensure that this clarity seeps down to the team members as well,” asserts Kumar.

He is of the opinion that as long as there is a hierarchy, the role of managers will never go redundant.

Managers are not for managing people physically or putting discipline in place. They have to plan, organise, direct, control and monitor. They are responsible for integrating all activities, and filtering out many, before they reach the management. They act as problem solvers.

That makes Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar, ask a very relevant question, “Is it possible for a single leader to manage multiple resources or multiple regions? Someone has to monitor them from an output point of view. For instance, if a TA executive is in charge of sourcing, then who will do the validation? During HR interviews, who will do checks before presenting to the management?”

“Managers aren’t drill masters, rather they act as span breakers. The role of managers has substantially changed to that of a coach and guide.”

Lalit Kar, senior VP & head – HR, Reliance Digital

Hence, whether it is work-from-home or work-from-office, a manager will always be needed, according to Mohanty.

Having said that, many also believe that the typical manager’s role needs an overhaul.

Lalit Kar, senior VP & head – HR, Reliance Digital, says, “Managers aren’t drill masters, rather they act as span breakers. The role of managers has substantially changed to that of a coach and guide.”

It’s given that in the new environment, managers need to buckle up and change themselves in this new format of work.

“The role of managers is being re-imagined post COVID-19. For managers to lead remotely, they need to build a fundamentally different relationship with their team members, which involves a lot of critical elements.”

Amit Das, CHRO, Bennett Coleman & Company

Amit Das, CHRO, Bennett Coleman & Company asserts that employees do not want to be ‘managed’.

They’d rather be ‘empowered’ and ‘taken care of’ while ‘staying connected’, especially while working remotely. The role of managers is being re-imagined post COVID-19. For managers to lead remotely, they need to build a fundamentally different relationship with their team members, which involves a lot of critical elements.

He lists them out saying, “Empowerment and trust — equipping team members with resources so that they don’t just ‘survive’ but ‘thrive’ in the new normal; frequent and transparent communication— by being more intentional about reaching out to team members, keeping in mind that social distancing is not the same as emotional distancing; Empathy, care and compassion —by providing emotional and social support, and helping team members manage stress and prevent burnout.”

The post Contrary to the belief, managers have gained more importance now appeared first on HR Katha.

“Competencies available internally are limited and not apt for an organisation to fulfil certain L&D goals. One requires the help of a subject-matter expert in such cases, to fulfil objectives. For senior leadership development, in particular, subject matter experts are required to bring credibility and seriousness,” says Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar.

Now the question is how do organisations choose between one L&D partner and another. Even here there is a problem of plenty – some are individual led companies and some have large corporate set up and each one has its own plus and minuses.

Here is what we could gather after speaking to several HR and learning heads across companies.

“Competencies available internally are limited and not apt for an organisation to fulfil certain L&D goals. One requires the help of a subject-matter expert in such cases, to fulfil objectives. For senior leadership development, in particular, subject matter experts are required to bring credibility and seriousness.”

Anil Mohanty, head of people, Medikabazaar

Experience in learning programmes

By outsourcing their L&D function to a third party, organisations try to address their specific needs and problems. Therefore, it is natural for them to want to find out whether the potential vendor has adequate experience addressing similar needs or whether the vendor has resolved similar L&D problems for other organisations in the past.

Organisations would also want to know whether the vendor has worked with similar clients, and whether the vendor possesses thorough knowledge of their industry. They would prefer a vendor that understands the culture of the company in depth.

Quality of work

Quality learning definitely matters to all organisations, for they wish to provide the best learning experience to their employees. To achieve that, they would want the vendor to possess apt resources, content, quality mentors, faculty and subject-matter experts to provide the kind of learning, which directly meets the organisational learning requirements.
Cost

When an organisation is satisfied with the product orientation and services of the vendor, the next important step is to see if it can afford that vendor. It will have to evaluate its budget before signing up the vendor or assess whether the presented product or services are worth the spend.

“Depending on the need and size of reskilling activity, the period is finalised and the cost also varies depending on the number of employees who are getting reskilled.”

A senior L&D leader from the telecom sector

EVALUATION PROCESS

The evaluation process, whether it is of a learning management system (LMS) or a learning product, is more or less the same. Slight modifications may be required as now it is all about integrating or implementing the product in the organisation. Some points that need to be considered are as follows:

Analysing the need

The L&D leaders first understand the goals and priorities of the organisation by taking a feedback from the management. Then, by talking to the users and training groups they also get an idea of the operational needs and finally they try to comprehend the technical needs by engaging in a dialogue with the IT department and gauging their technical constrains.

“If a sales team goes through a training programme, the impact will be measured after a few months, based on the total revenue generated. When a client-servicing team or customer-care team goes through a learning programme, customer satisfaction reports or reduction in customer complaints are measured.”

Divaker Pulkuri, head of learning, Café Coffee Day

Meeting the requirements

The requirements are generally divided into three different buckets. The first is, functional — which addresses how one wants the product to be from a learning management perspective. The second is, technical, which focuses on how it will fit into the IT infrastructure of the organisation, and the third is cost, which should meet the budget constraints, considerations and expectations.

Vetting

Next, companies get down to making a list of all the vital features or requirements they wish to see in the product and start shortlisting products, which fulfil the criteria. This is done to evaluate which product fits the best, taking into account the functional and technical requirements of the company. As there are so many products in the marketplace, everyone may not support multiple languages or every product may not comply with accessibility and security regulations.

Other factors and final selection

Companies may also talk to other clients to take referrals and feedback about the product to find out what they feel will improve their experience with the product. Organisations may also request a demo or a trial period to evaluate the UI and UX of the product.

Finally, after considering all the aforementioned factors, an organisation will zero in on the final product, which will meet all their requirements.

Generally, these are annual deals but it depends on the need of the organisation. Some may only require the help of the external vendor for a specific project.

“Depending on the need and size of reskilling activity, the period is finalised and the cost also varies depending on the number of employees who are getting reskilled,” shares a senior L&D leader from the telecom sector.

Most companies look to partner with multiple vendors to fulfil their L&D needs, as one vendor alone may not have the capacity to address all the L&D issues of the organisation.

“One vendor cannot fulfil each and every need of the organisations. Therefore, organisations collaborate with multiple companies specialising in specific domains or sector, for varying needs,” says Divaker Pulkuri, head of learning, Café Coffee Day.

This also creates competition between the vendors, which allows for negotiation and offers an opportunity to demand the best prices.

Service ratings of the L&D providers: After the learning intervention or the training initiative is concluded, the L&D providers are evaluated on the following parameters:

Reactions of the participants

The best people to give feedback regarding whether actual learning took place or not, are the participants in the programme. They are in a position to rate the training or learning session through scores and rating scales.

Behavioural change

The organisation analyses the performance of the individual on the job and the changes he/she is experiencing before and after the training session.

ROI

After a couple of months when the training ends, the business impact is analysed where ROI is measured in terms of monetary terms or tangible returns.

“If a sales team goes through a training programme, the impact will be measured after a few months, based on the total revenue generated. When a client-servicing team or customer-care team goes through a learning programme, customer satisfaction reports or reduction in customer complaints are measured,” explains Pulkuri.

As learning is a continuous process in all firms, organisations will look for the best learning partner considering all the above factors.

The post How organisations choose external L&D partners appeared first on HR Katha.

“They are an ideal way to feel the pulse of the people, which can then be followed up. Effectiveness comes only if it is two-way, transparent and authentic. There has to be an openness to embrace some difficult questions. They help develop a sense of trust in the organisation.”

Abhay Srivastava, CHRO, IKS Health

The question, however, is how effective are these communication tools that organisations swear by? It goes without saying that the format of town halls is designed to let employees participate. This is their only medium to connect with the senior leaders and get their concerns addressed. Webinars may not be as elaborate, but they do help disseminate information on a particular topic. So do these tools do their job well? Do they build a bridge between the leaders and the employees?

Abhay Srivastava, CHRO, IKS Health, reveals that it’s a clear agenda-driven communication platform on a specific period basis. The state of things is communicated to the larger groups in a transparent manner. Usually, it is a two-way communication. Town halls are also used at times as R&R platforms for recognising some great work. “They are an ideal way to feel the pulse of the people, which can then be followed up. Effectiveness comes only if it is two-way, transparent and authentic. There has to be an openness to embrace some difficult questions. They help develop a sense of trust in the organisation,” he asserts.

“Virtual town halls and webinars are effective, but not to that extent as we cannot connect to each other physically. If it is driven by founders or CEOs then it’s more of a one-way communication, with people asking questions simply to please the CEO.”

head of people and culture, Medikabazaar

Nobody is a fool. Everyone can see through what the leadership is doing. What they can do now is align people’s energies to communicate well. In case of webinars, Srivastava feels they are effective for knowledge dissemination on certain topics, “but what we saw during the pandemic is that initially webinars worked as important tools, but eventually they were overused, resulting in people going through a webinar fatigue,” he points out.

Srivastava also questions the authenticity and quality of webinars. “I see each and everyone participating in it. We have to find out whether real experts are coming in to present their views. As it is, one is sitting for 8-9 hours in front of the screen,” says Srivastava.

He also mentions here that some of the organisations have used webinars for internal communication. They have picked up issues, which were real for them, and got people from within the organisation to share their opinions. Such webinars have proved to be an important way of solving problems. In his experience, they can be used to gauge the climate of the organisation by throwing questions during virtual town halls.

“We tried building the same enthusiasm, but it isn’t happening. Unfortunately, the seriousness of the pandemic outside isn’t helping either. It hasn’t given any relief to the corporate world. What stories does one have to share? Where are the breakthroughs or mergers? That camaraderie or bonding of the physical town halls is lost.”

Debjani Roy, CHRO, Mind Your Fleet

Anil Mohanty, head of people and culture, Medikabazaar points out that before the pandemic employees generally waited for this activity, of course in physical, every quarter. “Virtual town halls and webinars are effective, but not to that extent as we cannot connect to each other physically. If it is driven by founders or CEOs then it’s more of a one-way communication, with people asking questions simply to please the CEO,” he explains.

“It is an open forum to take feedback with transparency and give some resolutions then and there. There is no scope of escape. However, many leaders just ignore and consider this a populist campaign,” adds Mohanty.

That means, they only use this forum to convey their achievements and plans, whereas the feedback session is just a formality wherein employees generally don’t come up with real issues, nor open up. Most end up saying something which pleases everyone.

However, the pandemic did put a spoke in the wheel of these town halls even when webinars continued unabated. Debjani Roy, CHRO, Mind Your Fleet, tried to align people’s work hours with those of the leadership in the hybrid culture, but it didn’t work. “We tried building the same enthusiasm, but it isn’t happening. Unfortunately, the seriousness of the pandemic outside isn’t helping either. It hasn’t given any relief to the corporate world. What stories does one have to share? Where are the breakthroughs or mergers? That camaraderie or bonding of the physical town halls is lost. Town halls are a viable and palpable communication tool, to address issues fairly amongst maximum number of people. Webinars fall far short. Half of the people are working from remote locations, where connectivity itself is a big issue. They may have to be really lucky to log in,” says Roy.

Webinars may be the in-thing now due to the virtual way of working forced upon everyone by the pandemic, but town halls will always be a favourite because they connect the ends of a broad spectrum in an organisation.

The post Are town halls & webinars effective tools of communication for senior leadership? appeared first on HR Katha.

Year 2020 was a year of extraordinary uncertainty and unprecedented events. One thing that turned out to be a boon in disguise was ‘connect’. Employee engagement and productivity have definitely increased manifold. The one thing I would like to erase is the term ‘WFH’. What was earlier tagged as some sort of leave — and very hesitantly allowed by managers — turned out to be a more productive way of working.

HR has shown great agility and business acumen

COVID-19 repositioned the HR function, which is currently under tremendous pressure due to the impact of COVID-19. In many companies, HR was often seen as a back-office function. COVID-19 has become a catalyst to reinvent the future of work for managers, who take the opportunity to make things better than they were. The world’s response to COVID-19 has resulted in the most rapid transformation of the workplace. Working from home has become the new normal, and we’ve gone from digitising the relationship between firm and customer to digitising the relationship between employer and employee. Human resources was on the forefront, enabling all transformation for business continuity, connecting the employees and their families for their health and safety; monitoring reviews, holding daily gate meetings, ensuring engagement and ensuring business hygiene. The perception of HR has definitely changed 360 degrees, and should be treated at par with the business function.

Managing hybrid workforce is more challenging

Every model has both advantages and challenges. We have to look at the advantages more than at the challenges and work towards minimising challenges. We have to focus on productivity, outcome and deliverables rather than presence in the office premises. Our strategy should be focused on productivity with self discipline, and any model will do.

“Earlier, we were only concerned about employee experience; now it is time to focus on the life experiences of the employees”

Blurred work-life balance: managing employee experience to managing their life experience

Yes, the sudden shift from work-from-office to work-from-home left many management boards concerned, not only about ensuring effective workflow but also about maintaining employee productivity. However, a few weeks into the new circumstances, we realised that the problem was the exact opposite. Instead of struggling to find the motivation to work from home and stay productive, employees were actually having a hard time preserving healthy boundaries between their professional and personal lives. In fact, many of the team members continued to work beyond the official work hours, sometimes sending e-mails as late as 10 p.m. This had an unintentional snowball effect on other employees who felt compelled to respond right away, even when the e-mails were not urgent. In my opinion, there is no shift. It was just that we were never focussed on employees’ life experiences. Until yesterday, we were concerned about employee experience, which is the employees’ perceptions about their journey through all the touchpoints, starting with selection and onboarding to their exit from the company. The company’s physical workspace, culture and technology are all important components of the employee experience. Now, it is time to focus on the life experiences of the employees. Managing home while working for the organisation is not an easy job. If one is working from home managing one’s boss, team as well as spouse and children, one cannot ignore any one of them.

Getting the employees out of the pandemic fatigue

Regular engagement, connect with the employees and asking them to be in office will definitely help. However, keeping a mask on throughout the day is not easy. My experience is that over a period of time we have to accept the new normal — as many have already done — and the day is not far off when we will overcome the fatigue.

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Recently, there have been several news reports of companies providing salary hikes including organisations in the government sector. Companies namely Quickheal Technologies, TCS, Axis Bank and some others have announced a probable increment for their employees. The Tripura Tea Estate has signed an agreement with the workers to pay 17 per cent increment on their wages. Vodafone reportedly adjusted the wage cut during the pandemic by paying an extra month’s salary to its existing employees.

SV Nathan, partner and chief talent officer, Deloitte

Talking about the importance of such efforts on the part of companies to sustain the renewed competition, Sunil Singh, founder and CEO, MindStream Consulting, says, “What happened last year was similar to reducing the extra fat from the body. All the employees who were laid off were not necessarily laid off due to COVID. The pandemic gave the organisations a reason to rectify their mistakes. Many people were laid off due to lack of productivity. However, in the process of reducing the extra fat, if people start losing muscles, then it takes a toll on the health. Similarly, if the companies failed to retain the right muscles —manpower and the right talent — then it will have a negative impact on their productivity now. In order to be in the running, the companies need to keep the existing employees with them.”

He further explains that just like the human body doesn’t get adversely affected if the fat is shed scientifically, the business of the companies will not be affected the laying off was undertaken in an unbiased manner. In case of biased layoffs, there are high chances of organisations losing the right talent, which is rare to find. So, if the leaders have been on the right path during the process, it shouldn’t have affected the business. Stressing the importance of retaining the right talent now he says, “Everybody is back in business and to face competition, organisations require to move ahead at fast pace with the right manpower. Therefore, retaining the existing employees is a necessity.”

Anil Mohanty, head – people and culture, Medikabazaar

Talking about the issues of the remote-working process and training people amidst a remote work culture, SV Nathan, partner and chief talent officer, Deloitte, says, “Under normal circumstances, with people sitting in their respective offices, training is much easier. Normally, a person — even if he is a specialist — takes approximately six months or so to get accustomed to the function and the company culture. This time period increases if he is hired for a remote position, hence affecting productivity. It has been found that many people hired during the pandemic have not yet been trained properly.”

Nathan adds, “Under such situations, if organisations do not retain their existing employees they naturally lose out on their wealth. Companies have now realised that in the process of saving costs, wealth has walked out to a great extent.” Nathan also points out that “companies cannot be blamed for the layoffs. Whatever happened was unforeseen. Many organisations resorted to layoffs out of sheer panic, not knowing how to deal with this. They assumed a long-term effect on the business, and thus ended up laying off people to save costs in order to save capital. However, as mentioned earlier, new people take time to learn and it also takes time to find the right skill, and therefore, companies are retaining their employees. This is because, at the end of the day an organisation needs competent people to earn profits. Having suffered huge losses, no companies can afford to face any more losses due to people walking out.”

Sunil Singh, founder & CEO, MindStream Consulting

Anil Mohanty, head – people and culture, Medikabazaar, casts light on the humanitarian ground of retaining people. He says, “The companies belonging to the essential services sector, such as media, e-commerce and pharmaceuticals, should put in efforts to retain their employees because they have worked throughout the pandemic, risking their lives. They have given their organisations business at the most needed time. If such employees are not treated well after the crisis is over, it will have a long-term impact on the company’s image in terms of employee relations. Yet another reason to retain instead of hiring new faces is to save the cost of providing a hiked salary. It is easier to retain an existing employee with some increment instead of providing a hike of 10 to 15 per cent on the same pay scale to hire a new one. Therefore, it is a win-win case for employers in both ways.”

Now that the world is back in business, it is evident that organisations are racing ahead to compete against each other. And, as is known, competent employees are the pillars of any organization. They apply their talent to help their organisations reap profits. So, employers are now investing on the retention of the existing employees to remain on the profitable track.

The post Why is retention a big deal post the 2020 layoff drive? appeared first on HR Katha.

While speaking to HR professionals, it became abundantly clear that reskilling and upskilling are the buzzwords. They have always been an important aspect in this constantly changing tech age, but the pandemic has fast-forwarded several needs, which were earlier expected to be realised only after a few years. The antipathy towards China, has also made corporations look inwards for their infrastructure needs, which could be cashed in to not just boost the economy but create jobs as well.

Anil Mohanty, head – HR, Medikabazaar

Insurance and medical benefits

Ravi Mishra, senior vice president – HR, global epoxy business, believes that the insurance coverage should extend to contract workers as well. “Most companies have Rs 1 lakh to 2 lakh cover for contract workers or whichever area is covered by ESIS scheme. However, workmen or supervisors cannot afford the cost areas that are not covered by the scheme. Many places do not offer any insurance cover. They have a namesake insurance policy of not more than Rs. 1 and half lakh. That amount covers absolutely nothing. They should have a fair coverage and ensure that 50 per cent of the premium towards this should be borne by the company and the rest by the Government authorities.”

Mishra further elaborates that the workmen’s compensation in the event of death or injury, partially or fully, does not offer any medical benefit. Hospitals affiliated to ESIS have 4.5 per cent company contribution and 1.5 per cent contribution from the employee’s side. “This is viable for the organisations and also ensures the employees and their parents receive medical benefits. Therefore, similar policies should be extended to other workers in tier-2 or tier-3 cities. The pandemic highlighted the challenges faced by people in the urban areas and bigger cities, but the fact remains that smaller cities seen worse,” Mishra points out.

Skilling, upskilling, reskilling

In the European countries, companies give tax benefits if the organisation is spending on learning and development. “This way, the companies grow and so do the employees. Today, if I hire an engineer from a college, and do not invest in his upskilling in the next five years, he will become irrelevant in terms of skills. It should be a tax-free element for the employees and employers, whatever the case maybe,” Mishra lists out.

Lalit Kar, Sr. VP & head – HR, Reliance Digital

As per the 2021 Workplace Learning Trends Report, Udemy mentions unemployment was as high as 7.8 per cent in November 2020, while youth unemployment surpassed 20 per cent. However, the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna was aimed at training only 10 million by 2020, when official estimates hint that there are nearly 300 million youngsters who need upskilling. As if that gap wasn’t enough, the upsurge in acquiring digital skills to survive during the pandemic-induced remote working has exaggerated this need further. This is one area that the Government should look into feels Ranjith Menon, SVP- HR, Hinduja Global Solutions.

“Upskilling and reskilling of the existing workforce is really important. There has been a lot of change in the way we operate and do business post COVID. It’s quite clear that skill gap from education to corporate remains quite huge. We aren’t much focused on vocational training as such. In Europe, apprenticeship is extremely important. It actually helps the young workforce to bridge the gap between what they learn and what is required for a job. This gap is now increasing with the AI-driven work culture setting in. Youth unemployment is close to 20 per cent and that’s alarming. Adequate allocation for upskilling and reskilling could be looked into,” Menon says.

In the post-COVID context as well, Menon’s suggestion makes sense because as per the Udemy report, an estimated 14 per cent of the workforce was upskilled in 2019 against 38 per cent in 2020. It is pretty clear that in the last year, many corporations and employees themselves took initiative to broaden their skill knowledge to become more future fit.

Paramjit Nayyar, CHRO, Bharti AXA, General insurance

“If one looks at some European or North American countries, even in the counties the government gives certain tax grants if they create jobs in those areas. It’s a huge incentive for the organisation to not move from there,” Menon informs. So according to him, the questions that need to be answered here are, ‘Will there be any labour reforms to maintain a hybrid workforce?’ or ‘How will it be seen in the eyes of the law?’

4 Es – employment, employability, ease of business, exemption

Paramjit Nayyar, CHRO, Bharti AXA, General insurance, has summarised his expectations with four ‘E’s. “First is Employment. In a situation where we are just about getting over the pandemic and vaccination coming in, many people have lost jobs. Now how can the government generate employment to make the economy prosper? Next comes Employability. They need to also help people become employable. Just an intent to work is not enough, one needs to have skills to do that job. Third is Ease of doing business. Corporations do not want to go to China now. How does one get this lion’s share of business diverted to India? Only by setting up plants in India and keeping the processes simple. The Government has to think of ways to ease out the system of getting licenses in a manner comfortable for the corporations setting up businesses, so that they get attracted to India. Last but not the least is, Exemption. We are happy tax players but at the same time, 35 to 40 per cent is not sustainable. If such an amount of money goes into taxes, they lose the charm of working itself. How can the Government make tax planning friendly for employees? There need to be avenues for better tax planning.”

Ravi Mishra, senior vice president – HR, Global Epoxy Business

Vaccination and ‘Make in India’

Post the various unlock measures, businesses slowly and steadily reverted to pre-COVID levels. This even prompted many organisations to announce incentives and bonuses during the festive period. But that had very little influence on employment growth. It didn’t rise with the recovery. Now, with the beginning of the vaccination drive, this could change. Lalit Kar, vice president & head, HR, Reliance Retail, believes the slow growth of employment can be equated with the slow recovery of the service sector. “My first wish is to vaccinate every Indian, funded completely by the Government. That will assuage the fear: malls, hotels and tourism will kick off and will help the service sector bounce back, improving the employment levels. Moreover, to build an Atmanirbhar Bharat, we need to accelerate skill building in some targeted and specific skills. For instance, out of around 67 billion dollars of annual import from China in 2019, the share of electronics was around 55 billion dollars. I hope the Finance Minister
makes the budget outlay for building electronics parks, which will promote a complete eco-system of component and chipset manufacturers. This will also encourage investment in accelerated skill building so that global manufacturers, such as Apple and Qualcomm can start producing from India.”

Ranjith Menon, SVP- HR, Hinduja Global Solutions.

Tax relief

Tax relief is one other aspect that HR experts are looking forward to with the Union Budget and the Government has taken initiatives in this regard. It has brought down the corporate tax and introduced changes in the personal income tax slabs. However, it seems there is still more scope.

Anil Mohanty, head – HR, Medikabazaar, says, “Income tax slabs need to be relooked at to reduce the tax burden on the salaried class, which in turn, helps the economy by increasing purchasing power. Relaxation of tax from ESOPs vesting and some special benefits / income tax relaxation for people working in metros, such as Mumbai can also be considered.”

It will be wrong to call it a wishlist as every demand or ask that the HR professionals spoke about is rational and based on a year of extreme crisis, panic and experimentation — 2020. How many of these expectations will be fulfilled by the Government, still remains to be seen.

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“In a smaller team, you expect a person to do more than one task, and hence, there are blind spots. In a larger team, you can even split processes to bring in efficiency.”

It’s true that productivity does get better with smaller teams, however the size depends completely on the scale and deliverables of an organisation.

Amit Das, director-HR & CHRO, Bennett Coleman & Co., believes it all depends on the functions and deliverables. “The team size depends on the type of role and functional deliverables that one has to achieve through collaborative teamwork. The span of control is directly proportional to the team size and can vary depending on the type, scope and deliverables of the role in any organisation.

However, Das also mentions how, courtesy technology, organisations can now effectively manage larger teams, despite being far away from each other.

“In today’s knowledge-driven networked organisation, we can leverage new-age technology to manage large, dispersed teams distributed across geographies and multiple workplaces. The enterprise-collaborative technological platforms are leveraged by managers to drive their deliverables, and enhance the effectiveness of the outcomes through a networked and unified team across multiple locations. This has enabled managers to have much larger teams than what they could optimally manage in the past,” Das opines

“New-age workplace technology has redefined the spans and layers for today’s agile organisation structure, enhanced productivity of teams by leveraging distributed capabilities across locations, and also equipped managers to handle larger team size, with enhanced effectiveness of supervision, control and guidance to create more value for the organisation,” informs Das.

“When you have smaller teams, interpersonal relationships are far more informal and deeper. Less people, so more time to spend with each other.In larger teams, the relationships are more formal and task oriented. You tend to get close to only those people who will help you achieve your task.”

Productivity is the biggest factor cited in these researches, which say that small teams are better than large ones. In the business fraternity, it is believed that restricting the team size to five to eight employees, scales up their potential, which, in turn, improves productivity.

Anil Mohanty, head of people & culture, Medikabazaar, explains, “For productivity, one has  to ensure the denominator is lower, so that productivity is higher. Why do people always look at productivity norms based on head counts? When they see productivity is almost stagnant, most organisations release the manpower. This automatically increases productivity. Employees, who are fully engaged for eight hours, are the truly highly-engaged employees. That should be the real engagement. If they take two to three-hour breaks, I don’t think they are engaged. More team members means more leisure time and more people indulging in unnecessary gossip.”

Like Das, Mohanty also agrees that size depends on the business. For specific projects, micro teams are allotted while for large-sized businesses, more hands are employed. However, he also admits smaller teams are more successful. “They possess the right skills, and can be focused on and monitored properly. In larger teams, monitoring can be a challenge. It all depends upon the business or product size.”

“For productivity, one has to ensure the denominator is lower, so that productivity is higher. Why do people always look at productivity norms based on head counts? When they see productivity is almost stagnant, most organisations release the manpower. This automatically increases productivity. “

Till now, it has been established that HR leaders believe that the size of a team depends on ask of an organisation, while accepting that smaller teams do bring an edge to the entire setup.

Jayant Kumar, Jt president – HR, Adani Group, adds here the human element. “When you have smaller teams, interpersonal relationships are far more informal and deeper. Less people, so more time to spend with each other. In larger teams, the relationships are more formal and task oriented. You tend to get close to only those people who will help you achieve your task. That’s a very transactional view of relationships at workplaces. In smaller teams, the relationships aren’t for the task, but people develop strong bonds, which are sustained for a long period of time.”

“In today’s knowledge-driven networked organisation, we can leverage new-age technology to manage large, dispersed teams distributed across geographies and multiple workplaces.”

However, it would be wrong to think that a larger setup does not have its pros. Although Pawan N Setty, Head HR, APAC – Technology, Visa, strongly believes large and small teams cannot be compared, he opines that a bigger team brings in efficiency.

“If it’s a larger team, you will have the benefit of scale. You can bite size the work and make it extremely measurable. In a smaller team, you expect a person to do more than one task, and hence, there are blind spots. In a larger team, you can even split processes to bring in efficiency.”

Human resource experts unanimously believe that both small and large teams have their benefits, even when some agree the lesser the people, more the engagement and hence, better efficiency.

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The idea of a ‘staycation’ is to do all the things you would do if you were to travel somewhere, but finding ways to incorporate those experiences within your own home. Re-creating those relaxing vacation vibes at home can help decrease stress and strengthen your mental well-being. Hands down, employees can happily, still score that vacation feeling without ever leaving the house.

“The entire concept of remote working today is on the way to becoming a way of life in the years to come. The distinction that earlier existed between work and home, is now missing in the lives of many employees. As a response to that, the concept of ‘staycation’ will emerge and employers will have to help employees distinguish between work and personal life, in order to create an effective and productive workforce in the new normal,” says Sailesh Menezes, senior director & head – HR, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India.

“In a couple of years, employees will get used to remote working with the changed paradigm. In the coming times, employers will need to make a special effort to ensure that their employees take time off. As most of the organisations are now rethinking strategies, the idea of staycation may be looked at as a possibility.”

For Menezes, ‘staycation’ now makes sense due to the pandemic, as many employees have not taken leave this summer.

“It’s important for employees to take leaves, because with work-from-home, there is no boundary between work and office. You are available 24/7, and as a result, expectations have also increased. Organisations should now make it mandatory for people to take time off and relax at home, as going out is not an option at the moment,” asserts Reetu Raina, CHRO, QuickHeal.

Right now, it is nothing better than injecting some fun and relaxation into your home when employees already have several leaves pending. Before the year ends, it is the perfect way to dial back some of those negative associations and make your home feel like home again.

Anil Mohanty, head-HR, Medikabazaar, rightly believes that as employees have several leaves pending, it is better to utilise them and take breaks with families before they lapse. “It is obvious that no one has taken any leave during the pandemic,” he adds.

“Confined within the four walls, it has all come down to managing home and work. It is an altogether different way of working, with a lot of pressure when it comes to deliverables. Employees cannot survive on just virtual conversations.”

Importance of ‘time off’ from work

No one wins when employees do not take time off. Taking vacations is correlated to experiencing less stress, decreased absenteeism, and increased job satisfaction.

Call it a human tendency, people generally tend to neglect a few things when busy. They have come to forget to give time to themselves. Be it stress or mental pressure, humans have always searched for happiness outside home.

“Organisations should urge employees to take leaves and communicate that the remaining leaves will not be carried forward. This step may seem forceful, but the tendency to not take leave and work round the clock will not vanish otherwise.”

According to Raina, “The biggest learning from the pandemic has been to stay indoors and avoid stepping outdoors. People are bound to be anxious with frustration and mental pressure, which is why this is the best time to spend some quality time with yourself, at home and create your own space.”

Raina further explains, “The trend of staycation will soon pick up. It will not just be about chilling or relaxing but it will be more about your own mental window in which you will be able to be with yourself and away from work.”

All these years employees believed that work should be done at the workplace alone, and fun and leisure were associated with a vacation, somewhere far away from home. Menezes believes that the minute we break that notion, employees will be able to work remotely and cease to struggle with the idea of whether or not to take a break. “Most of the employees find it difficult to make the mental transition about such aspects. Employees today are facing a mental gap. The fear that taking leaves will affect productivity needs to go,” he adds.

In fact, Raina stresses on the fact that if employees fail to take time off, it may result in fatigue and poor engagement, which will then impact productivity.

For Mohanty, the current situation is extremely grave, as people are neither going out nor meeting anybody at home. “Confined within the four walls, it has all come down to managing home and work. It is an altogether different way of working, with a lot of pressure when it comes to deliverables. Employees cannot survive on just virtual conversations,” he adds.

How should organisations react?

For countries such as the US, the work-from-home concept was successfully tackled over the years. In India, it is a relatively new concept. Most employees here used to work from the office, and hence, there was a clear demarcation in the mind between work life and leisure time.

Menezes believes, “In a couple of years, employees will get used to remote working with the changed paradigm. In the coming times, employers will need to make a special effort to ensure that their employees take time off. As most of the organisations are now rethinking strategies, the idea of staycation may be looked at as a possibility.”

Experts suggest that if the high pressure and longer work hours have been taking a toll on health lately, and if one needs to experience better health and increased job satisfaction, short breaks, once in a while, are better.

The pandemic has forced people to go without leaves or breaks for a longer period of time, as the entire work culture has transformed. This has caused a lot of fatigue and stress among employees.

“Employers will have to recognise that work-from-home as the new normal will come with a very different paradigm. They have to look at processes in terms of employees’ downtime,” points out Menezes.

Interestingly, for Raina, policies and guidelines are more about the mindset of the leaders and the managers of an organisation. “Organisations should urge employees to take leaves and communicate that the remaining leaves will not be carried forward. This step may seem forceful, but the tendency to not take leave and work round the clock will not vanish otherwise,” she adds.

Managers need to play a key role here. They need to first accept the fact that employees should take their time off and there can be several ways of doing it.

“Organisations should make it compulsory for employees to utilise their leaves by figuring out their work and planning it in a phased manner. Employees can select the days and not be a part of any calls or meetings held during that time,” Mohanty adds.

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The operations team at Medikabazaar — the B2B online platform for medical supplies and equipment — which consists of the supply chain and logistics units, is the backbone of the business. At this time, when employees are working from home, operations employees at Medikabazaar are going to office, to central distribution centres (CDCs) and also facility centres to keep the business running. The Company also employs third partners called the Indigo riders, who form the last-mile delivery team responsible for delivering to the customers.

In a show of gratitude, Medikabazaar has given bonuses to all its employees, most of whom comprise the frontline staff with salaries ranging from Rs 15,000 a month to Rs 5,00,000 lakh per annum. They include everyone from the housekeeping staff at the office, the security guards at the warehouses, the warehouse in-charge, the quality and assurance checks personnel and the delivery riders at the end of the supply chain.

For both direct and indirect employees (those who are on third-party payroll) the Company has granted a bonus amount, which is equivalent to 50 per cent of the monthly salary for each worker.

The employees are being compensated for the whole month of April and for the last six days of March, after the lockdown came into effect. For the six days in March, around 60 employees received the bonus.

We are encouraging everyone to help our logistics team, and anyone who wishes to volunteer can join. Any employee helping support business will be receiving the bonus amount

It is not just the supply and logistics teams that are lending support to the business — in a show of solidarity, employees across functions are volunteering to help the logistics team in delivery. Anil Mohanty, head-HR, says, “We are encouraging everyone to help our logistics team, and anyone who wishes to volunteer can join. Any employee helping support business will be receiving the bonus amount.” Mohanty estimates that the number of volunteers will increase to 75 in April.

Employees are going the extra mile

Delivery has not been easy with airlines and cargo businesses not operational. Employees have had to go the extra mile to ensure that the goods reach the customers. Sharing an example, Mohanty talks about the time when the employees had to deliver a supply crate of personal protection equipment (PPE) kits to a client in Himachal Pradesh, and they had to use a vegetable lorry to make the delivery.

In another example, the Bhubaneshwar municipality had requested the supply of hospital beds to set up a couple of quarantine hospitals in the area. The supply chain management (SCM) head who was from Bhubaneshwar was back in his hometown when the order came in.

Unable to find labourers for assembling and setting up the beds, the SCM head along with the sales manager for Bhubaneshwar got down to work and helped set up the beds and other equipment for the hospitals.

“It is times like these that makes us realise the importance of picking talent with dedication and a positive attitude. I am glad i invested time and effort to bring top-notch industry professionals on-board in the HR department. We cannot miss the human touch, especially in these desolate and lonely times”, says Vivek Tiwari, founder and CEO, Medikabazaar.

Medikabazaar’s Andheri office in Mumbai has been converted into a PPE-assembly centre as most of the office is empty during this time. Mohanty himself went down to motivate and encourage the employees at the office. Around 30 per cent of the 350-strong workforce is working in the field right now.

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This was primarily because the leadership never truly trusted the subordinates with decision-making. Leaders across levels – from a team leader to the functional head to the CXO to the CEO or MD of the company— hesitated trusting those below them. As a result, the final decision was always made by the big boss. For years, this practice has made employees look up to their bosses for solutions and decisions.

This model worked well in a structured office environment.

However, the lockdown, like any other calamity, has disrupted the work environment and opened us up to new possibilities on the horizon.

“The leaders are thinking beyond the normal and approaching a work culture, where load will be distributed and no individual will be solely in power”

The physical distance between leaders and their subordinates has left the bosses with no other option but to learn to trust the juniors. People have also learned to work in silos and smaller teams, and deliver at the same time.

The question, is whether the learnings from the lockdown will transit to the post-lockdown phase.

As things have become more transparent at the workfront, Ganesh Chandan, CHRO, Tata Projects, opines, “There is great empowerment, greater delegation and less critical structures. It will be interesting to see how the new organisational structure will deliver without too many constraints.”

Chandan says that when the work processes are reorganised, some parts are decentralised and the remaining are eliminated.

Biplob Banerjee, chief people officer, Allied Benders & Distillers also agrees with the fact that remote working during lockdown has built a lot of trust and communication between employees and leaders, which was earlier missing. He says, “With the quality of employer-manager relationship improving, the latter has become more accepting and lenient in terms of giving responsibilities to the junior employees.”

“Earlier, people had restricted themselves to blindly following the instructions of their managers, without thinking beyond to find solutions for their problems”

Anil Mohanty, head-HR, Medikabazaar, agrees that the present lockdown situation has given the employees a chance to think rather than just perform tasks as instructed by the leaders. “This crucial situation has taught the employees to think beyond their problems and come up with effective solutions without seeking a helping hand from their leaders,” points out Mohanty.

Banerjee believes, “Distant working has made employees come up with a lot more innovative and relevant solutions that are used for everybody’s survival in extreme situations.”

With this sudden and unprecedented shift at the workplace, the way employees deal with challenges and situations has also changed. Working remotely has given us a chance to realise that employees too can deal with problems on their own, without involving the leaders in every stage.

As Mohanty rightly says, “Earlier, people had restricted themselves to blindly following the instructions of their managers, without thinking beyond to find solutions for their problems.”

“There is great empowerment, greater delegation and less critical structures. It will be interesting to see how the new organisational structure will deliver without too many constraints”

Chandan prefers to speak of this change as ‘redesigning’ of the workplace. “Organisations will need to revisit and modify their work processes for employees to maintain their efficiency, after the lockdown is over,” he foresees.

Now that this episode has definitely helped the employees gain confidence, leaders can safely make a leap of faith in the long run.

Banerjee believes that, if you practice certain things beyond a certain period of time, it becomes a habit. So once offices reopen, these habitual changes will tend to remain even when there is no more remote working.

“The changes have made the leaders trust and rely on their employees in any given situation. The leaders are thinking beyond the normal and approaching a work culture, where load will be distributed and no individual will be solely in power,” Banerjee concludes.

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The candidates will be selected on the basis of psychometric tests and role-specific interviews.

The employees who lost their jobs at Zomato were mainly from the customer, merchant and delivery partner support teams. Medikabazaar is also looking to fill up positions in the technology department, and invites candidates with the required drive to be part of the Company’s mission to provide cost-effective and standard healthcare to people across India.

As Medikabazaar works in a very niche market and hardly has any competitors, ready baked talent is not available in the market for them. That is why they are looking to hire readily available talent from other industries which can be moulded to work.

“It is not as if we are going to hire all Zomato laid off employees but first preference would be given to them. They will be evaluated through all the hiring tools and processes,” says Anil Mohanty, Head HR, Medikabazaar.

Founded about five years back, this startup sells medical and hospital supplies to more than 20,000 hospitals and clinics across 23 Indian cities. It has been invested in by Delhi-based venture capital fund, HealthQuad, the VC arm of Japanese insurance company, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, and Belgium-based Kois Invest.

With 14 fulfilment centres in the country right now, the Company aims to take this number up to 44 by 2021.

It is looking at growing five times in terms of overall revenue, with a targeted revenue of $100 million for FY2019-20.

Not only does it stock more than 250,000 categories of medical and hospital supplies, including devices, consumables, disposables, dental products and furniture, it also caters to customers outside India— Africa, Pakistan, Nepal, West Asia, Seychelles, Indonesia, and Bangladesh.

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“I have always worked in big establishments, where everything was aligned and organised. We just had to execute everything accordingly. But, with Medikabazaar being a young company, I will get more opportunities to bring innovation and creativity in my work here,” Mohanty told HRKatha.

Prior to this appointment, Mohanty was the head of HR for the rural business segment at Reliance Jio. He has a total experience of more than two decades in the HR function.

At Reliance Jio, Mohanty lead various HR assignments and projects, including the green field telecom project, which was one of the biggest HR projects in the industry. More than 20,000 people were hired for the same, with 70 plus HR teams.

He has served in various HR roles for prestigious organisations, starting with Idea (which has now merged with Vodafone) in 1996. He has also worked with Tata Teleservices, Huawei Telecommunications and Uninor.

For two decades, Mohanty worked in the telecommunication sector, but now he has moved into a very different industry—healthcare, and that too, online.

“While I do not expect challenges to be much bigger, one of the difficulties would be talent acquisition and I will learn to tackle the same over time, working with Medikabazaar. Another challenge will be to understand the business,” shares Mohanty.

“I wish to take this company to a certain level of success,” he adds.

A skilled HR professional, Mohanty specialises in OD interventions, performance management, talent acquisition, grievance handling, policy formation, training & development, employee relations, disciplinary proceedings, conciliation proceedings and employee welfare programmes.

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