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The Curious Case of the Lazy Achiever! “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it!” (Bill Gates) I read about this quote from Bill Gates a while back and could well associate it with some of the professional achievers I have seen throughout my career. Yes, some of them have achieved a lot despite coming across as primarily lazy or laid back persons. It totally flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which says to be successful one should be a disciplined hard worker apart from having the other core competencies to be successful in their roles. However I do find a few possible drivers that catapult them to their success, despite their seeming lack of effort. From my past experiences, an example that I can cite relates to a 7 day hackathon that we had on upgrading a product feature. The most productive employee was almost twice as effective as the second best one. This takes significance as the two of them put together accounte...
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Don’t Burn the Bridges – The right way to quit your job! Lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act II, sc.1) Times are changing and it is reflected best in the separation trend in the IT industry. Till the 1990’s most professionals had a linear thinking pattern; acquire a skill (engineering, accountancy etc.) and then choose an organisation (typically a PSU) where one could work for a long period of time, if not till retirement. With the opening up of the Indian economy in the mid-90s, came the era of the IT boom which continues to this day, albeit at a much faster pace. With several opportunities rising due to the industries getting more integrated to global markets and economy, job stability is a thing of the past. People have realised that...
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Let’s Stop it! - Workplace Trends That We Don’t Want To See In 2017 As we welcome the New Year, I find a lot of people predicting the workforce trends that we are likely to see. Some interesting ones include improving the candidate/ employee experiences, multi-generational (yes, Generation Z is here!) and multi-skilled workforce, continuous assessments, HR Big-data analytics and Artificial Intelligence in HR. Very interesting times indeed if we believe the Issac Asimov’s in the field of HR! On the contrary, I strongly feel we still need to unlearn old practices before we learn and adopt the new ones. There are a lot of aspects we need to either minimise or completely stop to ensure that our people in the coming year will be able to balance their work-life priorities and also be happy and productive at the workplace. This becomes critical when we are going to see almost 4 generations of people - with different needs, working styles, and aspirations - rubbing shoulders (and brains) ...
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Cabbages and Kings – the lighter side of categorizing people The time has come, the Walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — (Through the Looking Glass; Lewis Carroll) These lines have lingered with me since the first time I read ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ in my childhood. Though the words are simple and comical at first look, I have realised over the years the deep thought behind them once you scratch the superficial layer. As children we enjoy the superficial’, like the rhyme and the absurdity of the poem, but subsequently we find quite a few life’s philosophical gems hidden in it. It also goes to show that human nature has not changed much, though the times apparently have. Being a HR professional with around two decades of experience, I have seen this never ending segregation of people into Cabbages (average performers) and Kings (top performers) by Managers. Annual Performance appraisals are often used as ...
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Peer Interviews – The Good & the Bad

There are no two views about the fact that for maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage, an organization needs to attract, hire, engage and retain the best talent relevant to the industry or the competitive landscape it operates in. To ensure that the recruitment strategy aligns with this philosophy, it is very important to properly assess and filter the right candidate to the mapped or anticipated positions. The generic strategies used to minimize recruitment errors include assessment tests (aptitude, technical/functional, behavioral, case studies etc.) and detailed interviews (techno-functional, managerial, HR etc.). In theory it all looks good and comprehensive, however the effectiveness of a good strategy is primarily based on how well it is executed and whether it helps in achieving the desired goals. Interviews can be conducted in multiple ways ranging from one-on-one interviews to cross-functional panel interviews. One of the interview type’s that is gradually growing in ...
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Celebrating Diwali - A Corporate Experience

Diwali, the festival of lights, is a not only celebration of the triumph of good over evil, but is also a celebration of positive synergy, camaraderie, optimism and goodwill within the teams and across the organization. Set right at the onset of the mild and pleasant winters in the South, Diwali welcomes in the festive season which continues till the end of the year. At Four Soft we understand the significance of Diwali, as a time to celebrate our success and achievements, put all negative performance (if any) behind us and look with optimism to the year ahead. Right since the initial days, we understood that to be a successful organization we have to use occasions like Diwali to announce all important things to the staff so that they understand and continue their engagement with the organization having the right amount of faith, hope and belief in the future. The Diwali celebration is typically done a day before Diwali at Four Soft, a tradition which has been continuing right from t...
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Market standard for Salaries

The often used term when benchmarking salaries are “market” or “industry” standard, however these terms are often vague and the salaries ranges (upper-lower limits) quoted are often huge to make any real sense either to a prospective candidate or to the organization in general. Though in essence it is a handy tool to have, it often loses significance when the job requires high levels of technical or functional skills and/or it is in a knowledge intensive industry like IT or Pharmaceutical. Even for a standard role like software engineer in the IT industry, the average or median salary can fluctuate hugely based on parameters like education (including graduating college), experience, technical skills (including certifications), city, organization worked (type, reputation, size etc.) etc. Moreover the demand and supply of qualified resources in the market based on the prevailing macro-economic conditions also impacts the market standard salary significantly, wherein in a recession marke...
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