8/3/2019 Dont Let the New Year Catch You Napping ET 13th
December 2011
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Come December, everyone gets bu-sy with planning for
Christmasparties; on how to spend unspent
leave which cannot be carried forward
into the new year; for the dress to beworn on the new years eve
party; forthat last small family vacation for theyear; and if one
is an NRI, then forthose return trips to India to meettheir
relatives and so on. But one thing,which is not on anyones calendar
forDecember, is planning for the yearahead. In particular, it is an
issue forMNCs, which normally work on a Ja-nuary-December
calendar.
Have you ever walked into my officein December? asks Prem
Jumani, HRhead of an MNC. You would wonderwhere half the office has
disappeared.The silence is at times deafening, helaments. This is
true of almost allMNCs in India. Almost 35% of the staffgoes on
leave, primarily with intent toexhaust unspent leave, which
cannotbe carried forward to the next year.
And this is not without ramifications.Almost everyone who goes
on leave inDecember returns in the new year. The
first few days go in getting into thegroove. And even before you
realise it,January is gone. 10% of the New Yearis already past us,
without us even be-ginning to work towards delivering onour goals,
says Neeraj Mathur, a busi-ness leader with a foreign bank.
True winners do things quite differ-ently. In the last month of
the year, theytighten their nuts and bolts, fine tunetheir
processes, strategise for the new
and effective and harness any aspira-tions of building a
positive haloaround your performance, what bet-ter time than the
new year. Start work-ing on it now. Make sure your teamsare not on
long leave at this time of theyear. Remember the team want s
tosucceed as much as you do. And mostimportantly, if you are
planning a va-cation this December, cancel it and setand example
for your team.
While I admit that planning for par-ties is important , you need
to sit down
with your team and talk about how it isperforming, what your
plans are forthe next year and what you need to bedoing now to
prepare for success. Else,same time next year, you will be
sittingwith your team and ruing missed op-portunities. You would
rather do theformer than the latter.
The writer is author of The Incredible Banker
year, make hiring de cisions so that allcritical positions are
fully staffed,build momentum and energy in theirsales teams and
when the clock turnsover on December 31 and the new yearquietly
slips in, they hit the road run-ning real hard.
This gives them an advantage of notonly stealing a march over
competitionbut also within the organisation, andthey have a good
story to tell at the e ndof January. The positive energy thatthis
could drive in the team can become
a tool to be leveraged to your advantagein the balance 11 months
of the year.Contrast this with a situation where
you let December pass off as a semi-vacation and start preparing
in January you are sure to miss your January tar-gets. You will
also be playing a c atch upgame throughout the year. And
explain-ing the shortfall to plan, month aftermonth can be
frustrating and draining.
If you want your team to be efficient
Dont Let the New Year Catch you Napping
IIT-B GraduatesGet A Safety Net
Prioritize ValueoverVolume
RESEARCH HAS SHOWN that
multitasking results in mediocre
outcomes. By putting too little
attention on too many things, you
fail to do anything well. However, the
answer isnt single-tasking either. Single-
tasking is far too slow to help you succeed in
todays fast-paced world. Instead, identify
the tasks that will create the most value and
focus on those. By prioritizing value over
volume and sharpening your focus on tasks
that truly matter, youll increase the quality
of your work and, ultimately, the value you
provide. What to do with all those tasks thatdidnt make the
high-value list? Put them on
a do later list. If they continually fail to
make it to the high-value list, ask yourself:
why do them at all?
Management TipBy Harvard Business Review
NEXT TIP: Sell YourselfThe Right Way
AWARMPLACE: Graduates floating start-ups rather than take a job
to
be offered another shot at campus placement if their ventures
fail
Five Ways To...
Make TopPerformersFeelValued
TO RETAIN TOPperformers in a tough
business environment is a challenge.
There are many approaches that can
help, but all of them focus on driving
one key message: make top perform-
ers feel valued even when the business
is facing tough times. Shreya Biswas
suggests ways to do that.
Think Long TermDuring a bad market, companiestend to save cash
as there is a huge
strain on liquidity. In such a scenario,
some often tried and tested tools
like long-term incentives come in
handy. Stock options, deferred
payouts or phased bonuses are the
best options. It hedges the company
from the current drain on resources
and retains those valuable to the or-
ganisation, says Anita Belani, coun-
try manager, Russell Reynolds Asso-
ciates, India.
Reward the BestIn a year when the business envi-
ronment is negative, differentiate
more aggressively on pay and re-
wards. So while the overall pay lev-
els come down on an average for all
employees in bad years, the gap be-
tween the best and the rest tends to
widen. This ensures that top per-
formers are ring fenced and drives
home the message that the company
values them, says Animesh Kumar,
group head HR & corporate com-
munication, IDFC.
Give Other BenefitsUse an array of non-monetary levers
such as exposure to senior manage-
ment through shadow boards, in-
volvement in key projects, global as-
signments and cross-functional
mobility to recognise top perform-
ers. That way, in a tough business
environment, good employers are
able to create a win-win situation for
both the employee and themselves
by testing and building the talent
pipeline without incurring signif-
icant costs, says Kumar.
Enhance SkillsBusiness downturns are the besttime to invest in
enhancing the skill
base of your talent pool. Most peo-
ple like to learn, grow and improve
their marketability. A short training
abroad or an annual workshop in a
top school can be limited to fewer
people, thus saving cost while keep-
ing people motivated, says Belani
of Russell Reynolds.
Use Soft RewardsRewards and recognition do not
necessarily have to be tangible. Soft-
er rewards can have great impact
too. For instance, recognising indi-
vidual/team performance for in-
novative ideas, efficient use of re-
sources or coming up with a
breakthrough in a difficult project
can be appreciated publicly in
town halls and open houses with a
certificate or a trophy, says Belani.
This will also inspire others to work
harder and on similar lines.
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10THE ECONOMIC TIMES | MUMBA I | TUESDAY | 13 DECEMBER 2011
Career & Business Life
ThebriefIwas given
andwhatIdid
I JOINED as a man-
agement trainee in
1988 with Reckitt
and Coleman in the sales and
marketing division. At that
stage, you are trying to make
a mark. I was posted in Bikan-
er and responsible for over 20
markets in that region. The
good thing was, I got to see
small towns in Rajasthan that
most people would not have
heard of, leave alone seen. I
lost nearly 15 kg in the first 25
days as the role required a lot
of running around.
Rajeev Chopra
CEO & MD, Philips Electronics India
Thebestleadership
lessonIlearnt
I LEARNT that if youmanage your role
and deliverables
you can do well. Another im-
portant attribute I learnt
was that to be effective you
need to be on the wave-
length of people you are
working for or with.
TheworstmistakeImade
I HANDLED a category that
had some issues and in my
overenthusiasm, I ended
up earning the wrath of some
unscrupulous elements, which
forced me to flee the town. How-
ever, my distributor later made
peace with them. Through this, Ilearnt a lesson that while it
is
good to be serious about your job,
you need to be practical too.
My First Year at Work
Mybiggestinnovation
NONE WORTH
mentioning. But I was
very focused on my
role and did my best to learn
about distribution
ThebestfriendImade
onthe job
I WORKED with lots of
people & made friends
with most of them.
HowImanagedmy
work-lifebalance
I HAD made an agree-
ment with my boss that I
would work non-stop for
25-26 days at a stretch, including
on weekends and then for four
days, I would take a break and
come to Delhi.
Sreeradha D Basu
Mix SeriousnesswithSome
Pra
cti
calit
y
MAHIMA PURI & SHREYA BISWASNEW DELHI
BONUS payouts for this year areexpected to be a mixed bag,
withsome businesses growing andothers reeling under the impactof
the global market turmoil.
While sectors like consumer du-rables, FMCG and pharma
willcontinue to offer good bonuses,information technology and
ITenabled services (ITeS) may offermoderate to good doles, and
oth-ers like financial services andautomobiles are likely to pay
tep-id bonuses.
According to Sridhar Ganesan,managing consultant,
rewardspractice leader at Hay Group In-dia, companies have
alreadystarted adopting a conservativeapproach towards both
hiringand payouts, as a result of which,there could be a 10-15%
deviationfrom last years payouts. Al-though we dont foresee any
dras-tic changes, corporates are be-coming cautious due to
severalreasons, including the euro cri-sis. He added that
variablepayouts at the senior manage-ment level are likely to be
hit har-der than the others due to their di-rect impact on business
outcome.
Companies in the consumer du-rables segment like LG and Sam-sung
have done good businessduring the festive season and arelikely to
stick to similar bonuspayouts like last year. LG, for in-stance,
offered a 100% bonus ofbasic monthly salary to its em-ployees in
November, both thisyear and in the previous year.This payout was
based on its salesduring the Diwali season, a timewhen consumers
are likely tospend on electronics applianceand gadgets.
Although sales do slow downonce the festive season ends, LG
ishopeful that a good harvest willperk up sales in December.
LGsnext payouts are due in January,which will be based on its
Novem-
ber-December sales. Things willbe much clearer only after
Decem-ber 10. If sales remain satisfactory,we will offer 200-700%
of monthlybasic salary to employees as bonusthis year as well, said
LG Elec-tronics COO, YV Verma.
Food and beverages giant Pepsi-Co India is also optimistic on
itspayout. The companys chief peo-ple officer Samik Basu said it
hasachieved its sales targets for thisyear and is doing better
businessthan last year in the country. Thebonuses will be decided
only afterthe year ends. The payouts will bemade around March.
The story is, however, differentin automobiles. Maruti
Suzuki,which saw declining revenuesand labour unrest in the past
fewmonths, did not dole out anypayout during this festive
season.The company typically gives outvariable pay around Diwali
andin April/May. On the other hand,
Honda says its sales are expectedto grow and the company is
likelyto stick to its quarterly payouts toemployees, even in
December.
[email protected]
BonusPayouts aMixed Bag in 2011
DEVINA SENGUPTABANGALORE
Fly or fail those were the only conse-quences for Indian
Institute ofTechnology (IIT) Bombay students
who took the entrepreneurial plunge af-ter graduating. There was
no safety net tofall back on if their start-up ideas failed.Such
failures are not uncommon and, inthese cases, IIT graduates were
left tofend for themselves. That was a huge de-terrent to
entrepreneurs being birthed inthe campus.
But now, select graduates are being giv-en the option of taking
a shot at a start-upidea, with the assurance they can comeback for
campus placements two yearslater if the idea fails. This is a
first-of-its-kind initiative in any IIT.
The Mumbai-based engineering insti-tute is also creating a panel
of facultymembers and industry experts who willselect the students,
go through their ideas
and help them get seed funding as well.The institute is planning
to put the pan-el in place early 2012, but since the
finalplacements have already started for theClass of 2012, the
panel and deferredplacements will be effective next year.
An advisory board will act as a referencepoint to get the
initial investment as well.If I knew that a student has been
men-
tored by an expert it will become easier todo the first round of
seed funding, saysKanwaljit Singh, senior MD at Helion Ad-visors.
For Singh, advisory bodies likethis will also provide an ecosystem
that isotherwise underdeveloped in India.
The move is both an incentive for entre-preneurship and some
sort of an insuranceagainst failure in it; is aimed at creatingand
nurturing more entrepreneurs from
the campus. This has beendone after students re-quested they be
given anoption similar to that insome of the Indian Insti-tutes of
Management,says Ravi Sinha, place-ment head for IIT Bombay.
Till now the institutesgraduates whose ventures failed did not
geta second chance at placement which isabout to change, says the
placement head.Deferred placement is an option where astudent who
had opted out of the process is
allowed to sit for interviews after a stipulat-ed number of
years. At IIM Bangalore, forexample, this is granted when the
entrepre-neurial venture does not take off. The man-agement
institute provided this choicefrom 2010-2011 onwards.
The panel being set up at IIT Bombay willalso have
representatives from Society forInnovation and Entrepreneurship, a
busi-
ness incubation centre at IIT Bombay thatpromotes
entrepreneurship where eventhe alumni pitch in. SINE will help
tomake the ideas concrete and convert theminto ventures, says Poyni
Bhatt, chief ad-ministrative officer of SINE.
It may be a while before the other IITsadopt a similar method.
This will signifi-cantly increase the number of entrepre-neurs as
students will have the confidenceof something to fall back on, says
LS Ga-nesh, dean of students for IIT Madras andin charge of Cell
for Technology Innova-tion, Development and
EntrepreneurshipSupport. Ganesh has seen a huge increasein
curiosity about the entrepreneurialworld but, because of the risk
involved,many opt out. The Chennai-based engi-neering institute as
of now has no plan tooffer deferred placements to its students,says
Ramesh Babu, Advisor for trainingand placement for IIT Madras.
For IIT alumni who became entrepre-neurs, such choices would
have helped
them as well. One gets a first hand expe-rience early on how
entrepreneurial ven-ture works out in the long run and thegrowth
opportunities along with thechallenges, says Mukesh Bansal, CEO
ofonline retail store Myntra and an IITKanpur alumnus.
devina [email protected]
The move isboth anincentive andan insuranceagainstfailure
MOSTLY GOOD; SOME PLAY SAFE
RAVISUBRAMANIAN
A recent study reports that more thanhalf of fresh MBA graduates
leave the job they have bagged from B-schoolswithin a year or two
of their joining.While critics may lament the self-defeat-ing
restlessness of todays youth, theproblem may be deeper. Companies
aredriving the process of placement with anaim of getting
candidates they prize themost. They are completely ignoring thefact
that they also need to pick up candi-dates who prefer them the
most.
This article suggests an alternative ap-proach based on the
celebrated Gale-Sha-pley algorithm from Game Theory. Atpresent, the
process starts with studentsranking the companies coming to
cam-pus. Based on the individual ranking, acollective raking is
derived. While theprocess of coming up with the collectiveranking
is not fully transparent, it woulddefinitely involve some
rule-based ag-gregation of individual ranks combinedwith some
discretionary modificationbased on companies relationships withthe
B-school.
The collective ranking is used to sched-ule the visit of
companies to campus dur-ing placement days. The earlier a compa-ny
is scheduled to visit, the greater itschances of snapping up prize
picks fromthe batch. At the same time, companiespublish job
profiles for which students ap-ply. The entire process takes three
to fourdays. The companies shortlist the appli-cations and if a
company does not want to
risk losing him/he r to another company, aspot offer is made.
Other than spot offers,acompany publishes a list of offers for
se-lected and waitlisted students at the end ofits selection
process. Candidates arebound by the B-schools rules to accept
the
offer and sign out of the process.While companies who are high
up in the
collective rank appear to meet theirshort-term objective of
getting prize can-didates, there are several shortcomingsin the
process. Students typically applyto some dream companies, some
satisfac-tory ones and some safe bets. The satis-faction of the
student with the companydepends upon his/her ranking over
thecompanies he/she has applied for, beingthe same as the
collective ranking.
As the number of students increases,the divergence between
individual and
group ranks is likely toincrease. As per ArrowsImpossibility
Theorem,all voting schemes aresubject to inconsisten-cies. As an
example, sup-pose the ranks assignedto a company are addedup to
arrive at its finalscore, then if a companyoriginally on the list
de-cides not to come, theranking over the remain-ing companies
may
change. Further, the possible modifica-tion of the collective
ranks based on theB-schools discretion may further skewthe
individual and group rank. A candi-date whose family is based in
Mumbaiand wants to join JP Morg an may have toaccept a spot offer
from Goldman Sachsin Bangalore, leading to high possibility
of attrition. This kind of possibility mayinduce students to
manipulate their pref-erences over companies, thus
furtherdistorting the collective ranking. Com-panies which are
scheduled later in theprocess may also suffer: they lose out on
candidates who like them better than thecompanies they are
forced to accept.
This is a classic problem of what iscalled unstable matching in
game theo-ry. Two celebrated g ame theorists, Galeand Shapley, have
come up with an algo-rithm that yields a matching that is sta-ble
and proof against attrition: if a can-didate likes another company
betterthan the company they have been pairedwith, it must be the
case that the pre-ferred company likes their own assignedcandidate
better. That algorithm is basedon the rankings of companies over
appli-cants, and applicants over companies.
Acomputer program simulates an iter-ative procedure of students
making pro-posals to join to their top ranked comp a-nies in turn,
and companies keeping thetop offers with themselves till a better
of-fer comes along. Impor tantly, it hasthe desirable property of
inducingtruthful revelation of preferences on thepart of
students.
It is possible that all companies are vy-ing for the same set of
students and hencethe others do not get placed, and compa-nies who
are less preferred by the chosenfew students, do not get
candidates. In or-der to mitigate this problem we suggest,running
the stable matching algorithmon a daily basis. This would remove
stu-dents from the process, and allow the re-maining students to
apply to the remain-ing companies and for both companiesand
students to assess each other realisti-
cally in the light of the students who havealready got
placed.
RohitPrasad, facultyat MDI Gurgaon, andstudents Darshan Mehta
and Rahul Aggarwal
Take a Shot at Game TheoryB-school selections: A prof and his
students suggest Game Theory can offer solutions
Gametheorists Galeand Shapleyhave come upwith analgorithmthat
yields amatching thatis stable andproof againstattrition
BlowHot,BlowColdRange of Variable Payouts
Likely in 2011
LG
200-700%of monthlybasic salary
MTS
Up to100%annual variablesalary
HCLTechnologies
100%variable pay
Samsung
Up to200%of monthlybasic salary
Lupin
10-12%of existingpayscales
HCLBPO
100%variable pay
IIT BOMBAY to allow deferred
placements to those students whose
ventures do not take flight in the
two years
TO NURTURE entrepreneurs, a panel
of industry experts and faculty will
be created who will select the
students, go through their ideas and
help them get seed funding as well
DEFERRED PLACEMENT is an option
where a student who had opted out
of the placement process is allowed
to sit for interviews after a stipulated
number of years
MANAGEMENTIN STITUTES like
IIM-Bangalore started deferred
placements from 2010-2011 onwards
BackHome
ARINDAM
Students at IIT Bombay discuss a cracking idea BHARAT CHANDA
