Partha's Blog

Employee engagement refers to creating a work environment that empowers employees to make decisions that affect their jobs. Drivers of employee engagement include quality of work life, work relationships, career opportunities, ability to utilize skills and learn new competencies, direct involvement in contributing to company goals, total rewards, flexibility, and being part of the decision making processes. The advantages of employee engagement are clear – an engaged employee demonstrates commitment to the company and goes the extra mile in terms of time, effort and contribution toward the organization’s success. An effective manager helps in providing the strategic advantage towards increasing organizational productivity through employee engagement. Broadly this involves - 1) offering accelerated coaching and career support, 2) cultivating relationships, and 3) holding employees accountable for results by being clear about their expectations right at the start. Good Managers are clear...

With the economy gradually showing signs of improvement, the competition between organizations for talent are going to be high which makes programs like work-life balance a crucial business response to the changing workplace. Organizations that are interested in maintaining a diverse workforce, retain experienced and knowledgeable employees and attract new talent cannot afford to overlook the work-life balance concerns of today’s workforce. In fact many organizations have already started using work-life initiatives like flexi-timings, extended maternity/paternity leaves, concierge services etc. to recruit and retain employees. Senior Management and HR practitioners can affect recruitment and retention by first understanding the importance of work-life balance programs in today’s workplace and then championing strategies that maximize the effectiveness of work-life balance initiatives. Introducing such flexible work options can help in improving employee morale and retention, reduce uns...

Assessing an employees’ talent against a global, rather than a local standard, always helps in identifying, sourcing and retaining the right kind of talent, benefits of which are as follows: • Helps organizations capture the strength of its human capital. • Aids organizations understand candidate profiles that are more likely to succeed on the job, i.e. by identifying the right knowledge, skills and abilities required for a particular role. • Understand which selection techniques are more effective in hiring such talent globally. • Easier to move people between locations globally at short notice, helping in faster transfer of skills and knowledge where it is most required. • Productivity and work quality is likely to be uniform resulting in less rework and higher output The candidates also benefit from having a global ranking. Right from the start the candidates go through a clear and standard selection process - like aptitude/technical tests, structured and multi-rater interviews etc....

Due to the current economic recession, hiring patterns are going through a huge sea change. To lessen payroll burden while at the same time keeping an appropriate bench of skilled employees, organizations are moving away from traditional hiring for permanent positions and more towards hiring temporary (contract), part-time, trainees, interns or even outsourcing the function or position. By maintaining such a mix of staff an organization can also identify and control the quality of people it absorbs in the long term (permanent staff). Some of the emerging trends in organizational hiring are as follows: 1. Flexible work planning – Many organizations have started initiating flexible work hours which allows employees to have more freedom with the time they spend in the office. Working from home (telecommuting), alternate work schedule, job sharing, compressed work week and sabbaticals are being rapidly adopted and used. 2. New recruitment tools – apart from using the traditional methods li...

In most organizations HR personnel together with the Senior Management are jointly responsible for creating all employee related initiatives. However the charge of properly communicating and executing the same remains primarily with HR, hence even if HR personnel are not directly responsible for an initiative going wrong, they definitely remain accountable for it. Many organizations have adopted various forms of Management by Objectives (MBO) where the focus is on goals or outcomes rather than just activities. Hence if an initiative does not materialize, it affects the entire HR department’s goal sheet. Since in such transparent systems there is no option to pass the blame to some other department or person, it is always a good idea to take the responsibility and come up with corrective and preventive measures to ensure that such incidents do not recur. To mend such problems, the following steps can be taken: 1. Do a ‘root cause’ analysis – the first step is always to find out why the ...

Since training and development budgets are continuing to grow in most organizations and are often very easy to quantify, they are often the first to go during a cost reduction drive. As the output - Return on Investment (ROI) - is often not immediate and many training programs often fail to deliver what was expected, these are often treated by organizations as secondary activities which can be postponed till the revenues and profits improve. However such traditional approach to cost savings can be damaging for the organization in the long run. Because knowledge is more specialized and its shelf-life ever shorter, companies that have the ability to learn faster than their competitors by exploiting training and development initiatives as an integral part of their business strategy can have a significant competitive advantage. Reducing the training budget could often result in lowering the efficiency and effectiveness of staff which would in turn reduce the productivity and work quality...

The debate is still on whether organizations are back on the road to recovery or still beating the recession blues. Many organizations feel that the recession has bottomed out and are anticipating the recovery to start soon. They are upbeat about their business prospects and have already started recruiting. However others are still downsizing and are putting negative or reduced business growth forecasts, implying that it will take a while before they see any signs of economic recovery. I personally feel that the crisis will soon bottom out and with some rational fiscal measures that are already been taken by most governments around the world including India, it will be in a path to recovery within a year or two. Impact on HR The hiring choices are always limited during the times of economic boom; you hire the best from what you get through relative assessment. Candidates one would consider average at best also demand a high compensation package or a particular position/designation in t...

In economic downturns like the present, we depend highly on our employees to put their best efforts and help the organization pull through this crisis. To allay each employees fear and anxiety while at the same time keeping them motivated to perform at their best levels, special attention on maintaining employee confidence and maintaining a good work environment is highly essential. To have a confident and engaged workforce, clear communication and a proactive approach is essential for the following: • Infusing optimism on the current and future business, by sharing actual facts and figures, to ensure every employee gets the complete and accurate picture. • Setting clear goals on what needs to be done and when. • Demonstrating proactive approach to help employees cope with stress (through proper training and/or counseling sessions) • Have normal working hours to the extent possible for work/life balance, Practicing the above also increases the chance of improving employee productivity ...

I have often faced this debate of valuing versus recognizing employees. Though it is often used interchangeably in most discussions there is a significant difference between the two. Recognizing employees is the formal process of evaluating an employee for the work they have done. It is typically done during the performance appraisals or evaluation of an employee’s goal sheet. Valuing employees goes much beyond mere recognition, it means a commitment towards their development, success and overall welfare. Increasingly, this involves more flexible, high-performance work practices adapted to each employee having different professional and personal needs. Valuing employee means the organization is investing in their development and growth, which in turn adds to the organizations overall performance through higher levels of organizational learning and knowledge sharing. Recognition is the measure of this investment, wherein the qualitative measures (lead indicators like training and develo...

Due to the tight timelines for delivery and increased focus on performance outcomes through individual and organizational dashboards, many employees are unable to have a proper work/life balance. To compound this problem the current economic situation has impacted many company’s revenues and profits which in effect have put many jobs at risks resulting in frequency of counseling support and guidance going up significantly. Both formal sessions, involving a trained counselor, and informal sessions, with immediate boss or group HR, are becoming routine for employees who are unable to cope with such high stress levels. All employees face various types of issues that require counseling; these can be categorized as follows: 1. Psychological/Personal – stress at work/home, anxiety, depression, anger management, use of alcohol/drugs and marital or family issues. 2. Professional – job security, quarterly performance appraisal results, project completion deadlines, internal tests for evaluation...