“HR Only Handles Paperwork and Employee Disciplinary Issues!!!” “HR Only Cares About Compliance and Enforcing Policies, Not People!!!” “HR Will Become Obsolete Soon!!!!”

If you have ever gotten an opportunity to work in a non-HR related work environment, we are sure you would have come across at least one of the above statements. There indeed are quite a few pre-conceived notions about HRs and their roles in several organizations including the ones above. We are not here to announce whether these views are wrong or otherwise. That of course will be for the readers to decide. All we are going to do here is present you with some facts about how the role has evolved over the past century, analyze its relevance in these unprecedented times, and try and foresee the way ahead for both the HRs and the employees.

Let’s start with a fun fact.

“Did you know that the 8-hour work shift originated in India?”

Yes!! In 1912, a time when a 12-hour working day was the legal requirement in Britain, Tata Steel became the first company to emphasize social stewardship by introducing an 8-hour work shift model then and free medical aid for staff in 1915. This idea turned out to be revolutionary amongst the industries and was even adopted by Henry Ford 2 years later.

Tata Steel did start a revolution, but it did not stop there. They should be credited for the inception of many more labor-friendly laws, thereby further advocating the importance of employee management. By introducing all important policies like Leave without Pay, Provident Fund, and accidental compensation for employees in 1920, they created a sense of satisfaction and security amongst the employees which in turn increased the productivity of the firm. The move of providing maternity benefits at a time when women’s rights were becoming a reality, proved pivotal in emphasizing the empowerment of women in a workforce.

The term Taylorism, which essentially meant breaking down of jobs into small, standardized, and repetitive tasks, had started to pick up wind. This decentralization process was proving effective in ending the authoritarian drive system that existed where employers were seen as owners of the employees thereby treating the employees as slaves and conscripts.

Can you even imagine what your workplace would have been like today if these laws were not introduced?

Owing to the positive results in the efficiency of employees on the implementation of labor-friendly laws, experts started to study human psychology and what motivated people beyond pure survival. Abraham Maslow, one such American psychologist, established all famous pyramid hierarchy of human needs early in the 1940s. Later that decade, several institutes were established which primarily focussed on workplace behaviour and employee psychology.

Some other major advancements that came in the later in the 20^th century included

The early part of the 21^st century showed an even greater focus on addressing the pain points of the employees. Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson co-created the “Results only” work environment, where employees were paid for results rather than the number of hours.

In 2012, Adobe abolished the annual performance reviews and replaced them with a regular feedback mechanism.

What we infer from above is that the various employee-friendly rules that exist today, were formed over a while after several deliberation and amendments as a part of human resource development activities. Our work-life would have been vastly different if there weren’t enough emphasis on these factors. Yet most of us, at some stage in our lives, have undermined or questioned the existence of HR in our respective firms and even in general too.

Today, amidst these challenging times, things have changed, and so have the perspectives. All of a sudden, HR has become one of the most important designations in a company. In these unprecedented times of COVID-19, all eyes have turned to the HRs.

In this VUCA – Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity– embedded environment, it is easy to blame it on the situation and create a tough situation for your employees to get something done. What’s not easy is to stand with the employees, cater to their needs and frustrations, and support them in whatever way possible. What does this achieve? Lifelong relations, commitment, and loyalty of their employees. That’s not it. When an employee is satisfied, he walks the extra mile to contribute to the success of an organization. There is a positive word about the firm and its belief system. There is trust. Employee centric HR policies bring about positive branding. So yes! There is business as well. Afterall it will down as a firm that stood for its employees when they need them the most. And who can make this happen?

No prizes for guessing!!

(Stay tuned for the next edition (Volume 2.1.2) of the three-blog series on HR Evolution.)

Written By
Utsav Mittal
Under the tutelage of The HR Club
IMI-New Delhi

Managing high performers has always been a big task for any company. It doesn’t take long for an asset like high performer becomes a liability for the company. To understand more let’s understand it through the story of Steve Jobs, a fired by his own board and how it changed his life

Apple was founded by Jobs, Wayne and Wozniak. In 1983 Jobs went to then Pepsi CEO John Scully with his ever-legendary pitch “Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world? During this period, Jobs wanted to be the CEO himself, but the board didn’t agree as they thought he was still not ready for the title. Under Job’s guidance, Apple released the Lisa, the first-ever computer with a graphical user interface (GUI) in 1985. Despite Lisa being a technical marvel, it was a total flop sales-wise. His follow-up project, Macintosh, sold better. Jobs was determined to make Lisa success. He invested more in the marketing of Lisa, still there were no results. This led to clashes between Job and Scully. A power struggle erupted between Scully and Jobs. To counter the Scully’s decision, Jobs went to the board of directors with the issue. Board of directors took Scully’s side and removed Jobs from command of the Macintosh group. Board stripped Jobs of all the responsibilities and gave him an office that he referred to as ‘Siberia’. Hence, he left his own company, a company that he founded.

During his tenure in Apple, Steve Jobs earned himself a bad reputation for being difficult to work with. He was very demanding from people he worked with because he always wanted perfection and quality in the work delivered. He was brilliant in his work and expected the same from everyone. He was very pushy and drove people too hard, being gentle and polite was not a part of his demeanor. He was a fearless decision-maker. He showed all the traits that a high performer would. It was his in his personality to ridicule the idea of others, not willing to hear views contrary to his own. He became very arrogant and he had numerous outbursts on his team because of his bad temper. He was highly ambitious during his tenor in Apple. He was power-hungry since the start. He always wanted to be the CEO of Apple, and control the decisions of the company. Even after being the best in his skills, few things overpowered all of this. It’s well said that whatever he achieved to that point was a narrow view of what he was capable of achieving. When we are too narrow in the development of our traits, we limit what we accomplish.

After leaving Apple, Jobs didn’t know what to do for a few months. He felt disappointed in himself. But as time passed things began to dawn on him. He still loved what he did and that is what kept him going. He decided to start all over again. The heaviness of being successful was taken over by the lightness of being a beginner again. He again entered the most creative periods of his life. He formed two companies NeXT and Pixar Animation Studios. Pixar created the world’s first computer-animated film, Toy Story, and today it is the most successful animation studio in the world. Jobs proved that his early success was not a fluke, he wasn’t a kid who got easy and he was extraordinary.

This gap from Apple changed Jobs completely. In his speech, he said ” I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.” This transformed Jobs completely. He came back as a far better leader, less of go-to-hell aesthete, and someone who cared only about making beautiful objects. His management style changed drastically. He now relished other people’s ideas, surrounded himself with top-notch executives from all positions and held on them rather than driving them away. “The conventional wisdom was that Steve Jobs was a great visionary but not a good businessman,” Deutschman said. “But in his second time at Apple, he wasn’t just a visionary. He made a point of learning how to be a great businessman.” He became the most valuable asset Apple ever had that when the news broke that due to health issues Jobs is on medical leave, the company’s stock fell almost by 10%. Not only to the company he became the most valuable asset that this world ever had. People since then have looked up to him and aspire to be like him. He has inspired so many and is still a big part and brain behind the company that is now worth more than $1 trillion.

It’s never too late to learn and improve yourself. You might be good at your technical skills but till the time you become a good manager none of it makes sense. It’s very important to engage your high performers well and have a proper mentorship program for them. Stay hungry, stay foolish but before that be a good manager first. 

Written By
Sachi Gupta
Under the tutelage of
The HR Club : IMI-Delhi

Work from home or Remote Working is a trend that is sweeping the globe. With this change in the workplace culture, Human Resource Management is the key that binds it all together by reinforcing the company culture in a virtual setup. The key questions that rises here are – what prompted companies to adopt to virtual offices and why isn’t everyone else doing it?

Advantages of Virtual Work Spaces

Many young businesses, freelancers and entrepreneurs are adapting to the concept of virtual work space. This enables the employees to work from any location using a laptop, phone and internet access. Easy communication can be done using video-conferencing, teleconferencing etc. The driving forces for increase in virtual offices are reduction in costs, increase in economical outcomes and fulfilment of the preferences of workers. A young business might benefit multiple folds from a virtual office in terms of reduced costs and boundaryless pool of prospective employees.

This kind of work life entails that onus of maintaining a work-life balance is fully on the employee wherein they have the freedom and flexibility to work as per their will. Although, a workplace without boundaries might seem exciting, working in silos can be monotonous. This kind of work life is not everyone’s cup of tea. Which is why hiring the right employees is essential for the success of such a setup.

Communication is essential while working in a team and effectively communicating becomes more crucial in a tele environment. While hiring, excellent communication skills should be a major parameter of evaluation. They need to ensure that the employees can keep up with regular communication through technology.

A key benefit that comes from this enables the fire to hire remote workers as they can select from a wider pool of candidates. Studies have also revealed that working from home decreases the employee turnover rate. This is because working from home reduces the level of stress and keeps up the company morale. Since working from home is gaining so much wind, virtual offices were inevitable.

Disadvantages of Virtual Work Space

However, this kind of work culture is not preferred by all as it comes with its own problems. Even though it increases the geographic range of employees, it creates problems of diversity. People work with their own set of facilities and at their own convenience which might lead to conflicts. It also harder for managers to keep a track ofc their employees. Most importantly, it can create of an environment of loneliness due to lack of in-person interactions.

Despite these, we can say that virtual offices are here to stay because of technological advancements and agile work environment and it is the role of an HR manager to ensure that the remote employees feel connected to the organization and work towards the same goals.

HR Policies in this set-up

Human Resource plays a key role in virtual offices by setting the right culture in the organization. Building trust amongst employees as well managers leads to smooth functioning of the organization. Team building can be done virtually through establishing clear mission statements and goals and assigning accountability for these. The quality of work produced forms the basis of performance evaluation.

Creating a collaborative work culture by making communication a priority and holding team meetings regularly is the foundation of a successful virtual office. There are various discussion forums and chat rooms where employees can hang out with each other to reduce the monotony and socialize with their colleagues. Along with this, video conferencing allows the workers to get a face-to-face interaction which is much needed.

In short, every other HR practice that meets with the company’s strategy can be translated to the virtual workplaces with the use of latest technologies. And we will soon be seeing numerous companies adapting to this trend of virtual offices.

Written By
Bhavya Gupta
Under the tutelage of
The HR Club : IMI-Delhi

Over the years, we have seen some exceptional teams in different organizations in different functionalities. High performing teams are a group of individuals with specific skillsets who collaborate to create, innovate and consistently provide superior results. For example- the Treble winning Manchester United team of 1998-99, the history-making Golden State Warriors Team that changed NBA forever, the legendary Beatles who defined the 1960s or the most impressive of them all in my opinion – Leicester City winning the Premier league in 2015-16 beating the odds of 5000 to 1, even odds of Elvis being found alive were higher!!

But the question is how to create a high performing team and to make it sustainable? Every team goes through the process of Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing stages during their cycle of team development. 

But there are certain factors leading to the creation of such exceptional teams.

Let’s explore them. Let’s dive into this deeper……

• Clear vision and having the same goals– It is imperative for a team to have a certain fixed set of goals, to align their functionalities around that. Not every organization tries to achieve the same, hence working according to the demands of the goals that is set is important. The goals should be SMART that is, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
• Effective collaboration – Possibly the toughest part of them all. When you have a specific set of talented individuals working in a team, finding the right rhythm in which all can sync can be a hard task. Then again, the trick is to have constant feedback and discussion sessions, where they share ideas with each other in both a formal or informal setting. Transparency always helps!!!
• Conflict Management– Coming straight from collaborating with each other, disputes or conflicts should arise. If it doesn’t then you are definitely not being transparent and you are not doing it right, but the question is how you manage it. Constructive criticism should be appreciated, with members looking to solve disputes, remove obstacles and also it helps in generating new ideas. Disagreements are good as long as conflicts are managed.
• Shared leadership – A one-man team feels and looks good while phrasing it but success in the long-term only comes to those who have worked as a team with everyone taking the mantle of leadership at different times of need when everyone pitches in whenever it comes to critical decision making. To state it in short- No individual is more important than the team, the team is above everyone else.
• Respect– Perhaps the most important quality that needs to develop in every individual of the team for each other. If you let your egos come in between then the whole system becomes a house of card.

To explain this in a simpler manner I’ll quote a famous dialogue from the movie “Goal! The dream begins” where the coach explains this to Santiago Munez in one line- ” We’re a unit, not a one-man show. The name on the front of the shirt is more important than the one on the back“

Hence. in creating a high performing team, its crucial you imbibe all the qualities that it requires, and you follow them as it were the Holy Grail.

Now, coming to the tougher part -Sustainability of such high-performing teams, because if history has taught us something then it’s that creating high performing teams is difficult, but making them sustainable over a long period of time is more difficult.

Let’s take the teams mentioned above as an example- The Golden State Warriors team, The Beatles, the Leicester City team, the Manchester United team they all split up – mostly due to some individuals thinking themselves above the team, losing respect for each other. Hence, the enigma has always been as to how to create a sustainable high performing team.

On an individual level, achieving the pinnacle of sustainable high-performance results in members spending more time in a state of ‘flow’. This ‘flow’ is defined by psychologists as the state where we are fully engaged and can comfortably achieve optimal performance, enjoy good health and feel increasingly positive.

By embracing organizational practices that encourage high productivity in the long-term, teams can create a valuable culture of trust. This culture paves the way to real effective outcomes: higher productivity, feeling of belongingness and employee retention.

Then again, easier said than done – but the trick is to find the sweet spot where everybody finds comfort in to perform their best. It’s up to every different team to create their own sweet spot because it will differ from one to another, but the onus is on you!!

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is  success” –Henry Ford

Written By
Arit Lodh
Under the tutelage of
The HR Club : IMI-Delhi

Well, the answer is no! We shouldn’t hold on to our dream job for too long. It’s fine to have a dream, but reality shouldn’t be ignored. Is getting stuck on the dream job, and letting go of everything that comes our way really worth it? In the initial years of our career, what would we follow? A planned approach or just taking a leap of faith would suffice? Sometimes settling today can turn out to be a better choice in the far future. If one is currently unemployed then according to the statistics, they will have to face a harder time to find a job than employed people. And above that, if we are holding on to the dream job with every passing day, we are making it tougher for ourselves, even when we have someone to back us up. We often connect our happiness with a perfect dream job that we have planned for ourselves. Google, popularly being the dream company, talks about bringing your whole self to work. But do we really have to? Is work-life the only life we are supposed to have? We need to have a life outside workplace and be happy with it. This leads to the most common issue of our era work life and personal life balance. Also, with great aspiration comes great expectations from these big giant companies. Often these expectations become unrealistic. That’s the problem with a dream job. We fail to understand that every job will have parts that we won’t like. Jobs will not always be exciting and fun. Hence, every job has aspects that are boring. Jobs that sound fancy comes with the same aspect peers, customers, subordinates, and supervisors. Dreams take huge amount of time, hard work and determination, to get paid. No-one is saying to give up on them, but we can’t be living on our parent’s money for that one job, instead must behave like responsible adults. One might want to launch a company, and in the future, it will be fabulous for sure, meanwhile, we have to lay off our parent’s burden and pay our bills. Is our dream really our dream job? It’s a saying when we travel the less taken road, it makes all the difference. We end up exploring new paths and ourselves more. We might stumble upon something that was only made for us by taking the less ideal and obvious path. Not having a job in hand can lead to mental and health issues. There’s some satisfaction in having a job in hand, it gives a purpose. We have a sense of relief and hence can plan our future better. One needs a job for meaning, not a dream job in a dream company. Its high time we all should understand work is work. We need all profiles of job regardless of company, salary and dream job. All work is to be honoured. Whether you are the CEO of a company or sweeping floors at that same company, till the time you are justifying your job and helping other people, it is helping someone else to carry out their work in a more efficient manner hence you are making a better place to live in. What might not be your dream job, might be a dream for someone else.

Written By
Sachi Gupta
Under the tutelage of
The HR Club : IMI-Delhi

Netflix – The buzzword of today. A company that has been the endowment of success since its inception has some ground-breaking policies which helped them carve a niche work environment. With employees at the core of its performance, Netflix does it uniquely right from hiring and creating an innovative approach to HR.

Just like every leading organization today, Netflix believes in hiring the right people, however, where major companies worry about the small segment of employees who are underperforming, if at Netflix they feel that they have made a hiring mistake, they let go off that employee immediately with a generous severance package. Therefore, it also becomes imperative in this situation to have a cautious hiring practice.

From having 10 vacation days, 10 holidays and a few sick days policy, Netflix transformed into one of the few places where the employees can take off for whatever time they felt was appropriate. Employees and their bosses were asked to work it out with one another. However, some guidelines were set in place like someone working in finance or accounting shouldn’t plan their offs during the beginning or the end of a quarter or if someone wanted to take 30 days off in a row then they needed to meet with the HR.

The company encourages bold communication and adult like behavior. Netflix’s unlimited paid time off would work only if the employees clearly communicate their plans with their supervisors. Also, they expect the employees to spend the company’s money frugally, just like it was their own. Their expense policy is: “Act in Netflix’s best interest”. They believed that creating clear expectations regarding responsible decision-making behavior will make the employees comply.

Another interesting fact about Netflix is that they have eliminated formal performance reviews. Conversations regarding performance are now carried out as an organic part of their work. Their chief talent officer, Patty McCord believed that the point of performance reviews is majorly to place the low performers on “Performance Improvement Plans” (PIPs) which he detested. Clear communication is the way to go forward. However, by ensuring the employees get a generous severance package when they are let go creates a more positive culture. The company instead has an informal 360-degree review where people identified things that their colleagues should stop, start or continue.

At Netflix building a great team that produces great work is a top priority. The managers are pushed to “envision how their team would look like in the coming six months” by setting the goals for the team and what skills would be required for the same.  To avoid any mismatches in the team, recruiting the right people and honest conversations are the key.

Be honest and treat people like adults is Netflix’s mantra for its employees. The company believes that employees are adults who put the company first and annual bonuses won’t lead to smarter work and hence, they don’t have any pay performance bonus. They believe in market-based pay and unlike other companies, encourage their employees to talk to other recruiters to get a good sense of the market rate for their talent. Netflix also uses the equity compensation in an innovative way where they let the employees choose how much compensation would be in the form of equity. The stock option is not used as a retention tool as they don’t want to “hold anyone hostage” in the company. They are allowed to take whatever they have earned and leave.

At Netflix, HR professionals are required to think like business people and determine how to improve the company’s performance plan and other policies. With an innovative HR, whose best practices stand out where the employees get the opportunity to express their opinions through open communication, it is surely “the organization” where anyone would like to work in.

Written By
Bhavya Gupta
Under the tutelage of
The HR Club : IMI-Delhi

Most people reading this probably have watched movies like “Zombieland” or “Go Goa Gone”, for people who haven’t, those are movies where we see the protagonists in pandemonium because of zombies.

Now think if the protagonists were an organization and the problems it has to go through if it is surrounded by zombies.

Zombies don’t just exist in movies they exist in workplaces too.

Do you know who these Zombies in a workplace are ?

The people that Gallup’s survey refers to as “actively disengaged”, the ones that obviously don’t want to be there.

Now the question is, how do Zombies affect your organization?

Actively disengaged workers are employees that are most damaging in a workplace. They are always unhappy and let that discontent show in words, attitudes and actions. They undermine the progress of their peers by constantly voicing their discontent and listing their reasons why they are so miserable in their jobs. This results in poor customer service, lowers your profits and they scare away potential customers.

According to Gallup’s study there are nine performance indicators that get directly connected to employee engagement.

• customer ratings
• profitability
• productivity
• turnover (for high-turnover and low-turnover organizations)
• safety incidents
• shrinkage (theft)
• absenteeism
• patient safety incidents
• quality (defects)

But now the question is, how do you influence this type of intangibles in a meaningful manner?

Collaborative leadership is monumental in creating successful businesses in the 21^st century.

“Just do your job” may have been the default response to dissatisfied workers in previous times. But then, as even now, that kind of attitude has never inspired any kind of satisfactory improvement in the workplace.

1. Employee Engagement is most influenced by the organization itself. In other words, the structure of the management in the organization and their processes heavily influence an employee’s job.

2. There is no single “right model” for a high-performance culture; the most effective approach depends on an organization’s priorities. “One-size-fits-all” approach to influencing workplace environment should be avoided by all organizations.

3. Employees need to understand what’s in it for them if they are to invest more of themselves in seeing the company succeed. If employees feel they have no road to advancement or achievement, that’s a big obstacle when it comes to engagement. What’s the point in trying harder and pushing your limits if there’s no end game in sight? Who wants to play a Kobayashi Maru? Captain Kirk was an exception, employees don’t want that, they want proper benefits in return for their service.

4. Organization leadership should take up a more inspirational and engaging style of leadership to help make a more engaging environment. The more the management makes a genuine and meaningful effort to connect and motivate employees, the more employees will feel aligned to the organization and its goals. What history has shown us that Inspiration draws followers, and the followers start working for the cause more diligently. Hence, employees look for an inspirational figure in the senior leadership, once this environment is created, employee engagement will improve leaps and bounds.

5. Organizations need to understand their employees as well as they understand their customers to design a work environment that will drive higher work engagement and satisfaction. What if the Organization starts thinking of its employees as its customers- You motivate and engage your customers and anticipate their needs to cater to that. Why not do the same for employees? It’s not that difficult to manage and motivate your workforce at a higher level via the same process.

Relationships drive Organizations. It’s no secret how relationship drives behavior, both personally and professionally. The fact is that organizations can bring out a lot more from their employees by demonstrating a higher degree of care for them. To some management, paycheck the employees receive is the first and last of any consideration they get. This behavior in turn reduces employee enthusiasm, ultimately harming the bottom-line.

Now talking of the bottom-line, it will always remain a fact that “EMPLOYEES ARE THE MOST VALUABLE ASSET”.

-By Arit Lodh
The HR Club, IMI New Delhi