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Cover Storyinspire

inform10 Chapter News

illuminate40 Column by Prof. Arup Varma

41 The Executive Coaching Conundrum!

44 Strategic HR for a Simpleton

48 HR Analytics: The Strategic Tool in Talent Management

18 Workplace Conflict and Resolution

54 Numbers

57 Amazed

incubate

imagine

February 2011

Over 1300 delegates, who attended the 14th NHRDN Conference at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon, in the first week of December, agreed that this was truly a conference with a difference. The theme of the conference- Towards the Next Orbit - and its location (The Kingdom of Dreams) distinguished it from the many other HR conferences that took place throughout the year.

Team

Editor

K Srinivas Rao editor@nationalhrd.org

Editorial Assistant Blessy Pais

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Mohit Gandhi Executive Director, NHRD Network on behalf ofNational HRD Network C-81C, DLF Super Mart I, DLF City, Phase IV, Gurgaon – 122009, HaryanaTel: 91-124-4217171-79 Fax: 91-124-4041560Email: ed@nationalhrd.org

Editorial Team (Minds in Motion)

Arathi Ponangi Kumar KMadan Srinivasan Rachna Gujral Ratna C. S. V.

Support Team

Anirudh Sen Rati MalikJasmine Sayeed Lipi AgrawalV. Mayan

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Lighting of the lamp at National HRD Network’s 14th National Conference

Dear friends,

A new year has dawned upon us and I take this opportunity to wish all of you a wonderful year ahead. Just a month ago, when over a thousand of us gathered at the kingdom of dreams, we had celebrated the need to move to the next orbit. It is then indeed opportune to welcome the unfolding year with intent to make a difference to the lives of those we lead. It is my submission that even as we are facing challenges of enhancing the HRD function, maybe it is worth contemplating our role in creating happy people and thereby happy organisations.

The pursuit of happiness has been an eternal quest of mankind, and it is my avowed belief that as custodians of human capital, we indeed have a reason to commit ourselves to the subjective and psychological well being too, of those we are responsible for. After all, a professional spends a significant portion of his wakeful day at work. Thoreau had bemoaned that men have become tools of their tools. This rings true often for the human resources function too. It is a necessary endeavour to unravel individual needs and personal aspirations of employees and find avenues to create and deliver happiness.

Today the HR function must go beyond the captivity of standard functions and learn to embrace new dimensions where psychic incomes are consciously created. In a world perennially bereft of good talent, employers no longer hire employees; rather people are hiring organisations they wish to work for. The brilliant satire ‘Brave New World’ penned by Aldous Huxley in 1931 depicts an England from which unhappiness has been completely eliminated. The conditioned citizens of this make believe world, set in contemporary twentieth century, are subject to chilling attempts to engineer an artificial paradise and imbibe the utopian wonder drug soma for a chemically induced state of wellness: “one cubic centimeter cures ten gloomy sentiments”. Aristophanes had aptly observed that we need others to complete us.

Thankfully the modern day alchemists of the HR function can discover that the real life transforming elixir of happiness is well within their grasp; heightened care, concern and compassion for those we are responsible for is what it takes. Research has observed that key facets of a workplace including the quality of environment, sense of purpose, feeling of ownership, social embeddedness, empowerment and autonomy could be real sources of happiness. Reciprocally much as success is being able to achieve what we want, desiring what we get could lead to happiness. When our employees are happy, even hard work can be effortless. “Happiness is an ideal not of reason but of imagination”, noted Immanuel Kant. I would urge our fellow travellers to reflect and imagine possibilities of taking our role to hitherto unexplored domains. Carpe diem!

Sincerely,

NS Rajan National President, NHRD Network and Partner, EMEIA People & Organisation Leader, Ernst & Young

National President’s Message

My Dear Fellow Travellers,

I hope the New Year has begun in all earnest with new Learnings, Joy, Challenges, Adventures and hope.

As we re-look at 2010, we have a lot of memories, beginning with the assembly of a like-minded team to lead the Editorial panel, designing and launching of the Newsletter in its new avatar, to having seasoned professionals contributing regularly as columnists; the journey is still in its initial stages and we have miles to go before we sleep. We hope that 2011 will be as memorable and hope to set new standards for the Newsletter.

2011 for the HR professional is going to be more challenging than ever, as the economy wakes up as sleeping giant, the challenges of attraction and retention will get further compounded with new horizons like leadership pipelines to manage future growth, managing expectations of a diverse workforce and the menace of business expecting HR to be more proactive, with a mindset of business and heart of employee champion. I am sure we all are geared up and looking to conquer these and many more.

In this edition of Newsletter the spotlight is on ‘towards the next orbit’ the National Conference held at New Delhi from December 1 – 3, 2010. We are thankful to Ms. Anuradha Sharma for taking out time to scribe down the memory lane in such a simple and vivid format; she spend time with other participants and tried to capture the happenings of the 3 days, for all those who couldn’t make it to the conference.

The keywords on the cover page capture the mood and essence of the conference, for many of us the cover page will act as an anchor sheet, to not only capture the learnings of the 3 days but also for future reference. Brennon Dowrick, the Australian Olympian, shared his insights on how we must strive to break our own records - not following the bench mark, but setting the bench mark.

The Illuminate section throws light on the topics ‘Executive Coaching Conundrum’, ‘Strategic HR for a Simpleton’ and ‘HR Analytics: The strategic Tool in Talent Management’. Prof. Varma’s column, in this section, engages the reader on his thoughts of how ‘Old is Not Always Gold!’ The Incubate Section features a solo article ‘Workplace Conflict and Resolution’ (so as to capture the proceedings of the National Conference in greater detail).

My personal favourite for this issue is Visual Voyage of the 3-day celebrations and learnings. I have always believed pictures speak more than we generally estimate; we have tried to capture the images as per the schedule of the conference for a visual walkthrough.

Once again let me wish you the very best for 2011 and share it’s pleasure to be your fellow traveller in this journey. Happy Reading and do write in to us with your feedback…

K Srinivas Rao

EditorChief Strategist and Partner – The Strategist

Editorial

In this edition of Newsletter the spotlight is on ‘towards the next orbit’ the National Conference held at New Delhi from December 1 – 3, 2010

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BhubaneswarThe monthly meeting for the month of December was held on December 11, 2010 at the conference hall of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. The meeting was attended by Ms. Bobby Patnaik, Life Member and DC HR Manager, Infosys Technologies and Mr. Anjul Pratyush, Co-founder and Managing Director of Think Careers Private Limited. Ms. Bobby Patnaik presented the takeaways from the 14th National Conference of NHRD Network held in New Delhi. Think Careers Private Limited is an organisation focused on creating high-quality learning solutions to support individuals in acquiring critical workplace skills. Mr. Anjul Pratyush discussed the proposed workshop titled ‘Developing Internal Consulting Skills for effective HR Business Partnering’ scheduled during January 2011 at Bhubaneswar.

The members’ meet for the month of January was held on January 8, 2011 at the same venue with a presentation on ‘HR Challenges in the Power Sector’ by the guest speaker, Mr. Santanu

Chapter News

BangaloreThe first ever Dr. Udai Pareek memorial lecture was delivered by Dr. TV Rao on November 30, 2010 at Bangalore on the topic, ‘Evolution of HRD over Three Decades’. Dr. Rao began with a quip, “his talk for the evening was as disorganised as the HR profession today!” Though armed with a presentation, he chose to use a compilation of over 300 pages of articles that had been published over the years by different people.

He then shared nostalgic memories and photographs of the early NHRD years. He referred to the keen interest demonstrated by CEOs to share, listen and learn about HRD experiences, which had helped the quick spread of the HRD Philosophy in the country.

While he was delighted with the recognition of HR Practitioners in terms of their progression to CEO roles in many Indian organisations, he however felt that progress in the function had got slowed down – especially when he sees

that the issues and topics of discussion (in the newsletter/chat groups/conferences) have not significantly changed over the last 20 years.

He said that often he and Udai had discussed whether HRD would have been served better if it was treated as a discipline (like economics); generic and common to all managers and not developed into a profession (pursued only by a few)? He exhorted all HR Professionals to continuously read, research and experiment in ‘the laboratory,’ namely an organisation for a HR professional.

The session ended with an extended Q&A session and an audience of close to 200 HR professionals staying engrossed till the end of the session.

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Delhi & NCRThe Delhi & NCR Chapter had the privilege of hosting the NHRDN 14th National Conference – ‘Towards the Next Orbit’ from December 01-03, 2010, and held at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon. The conference was attended by more than 1300 CEOs and HR Professionals from the entire spectrum of industry from India and abroad as well as by management students.

The Conference was marked with the presence of Mr. Arun Maira, Member, Planning Commission, as the Chief

Rath, who is a post graduate from PM & LW Department and LLB, Utkal University. An active member of NHRDN and NIPM, Sri Santanu has also been actively associated with Power HR Forum, a professional body of State Power Utility. With the advent of restructuring and formation of Orissa Power Transmission Corporation Limited, need-based recruitment has picked up in momentum. The strategic initiatives of OPTCL include incorporation of best management practices, IT enabled systems and above all, talent management, organisational and manpower restructuring to cope up with growth plans. He also announced the rollout of the HRMS module in the ensuing months. Sri Rath was felicitated by the President, Dr. Saroj Mahapatra.

The talks were followed by the monthly meetings.

Guest during the inaugural session on December 01, 2010 and a galaxy of 81 CEOs, Business Heads and Thought Leaders who participated as Speakers and shared their valuable insights. The course of the two and a half days witnessed deliberations on topics ranging from Orchestrating Change, Business Strategy and Leadership to Value Adding Governance.

The Principal Sponsor, Sri Balaji Group of Institutions, Pune and co-sponsors, Maruti Suzuki India Limited and Power Grid Corporation lent phenomenal support in making the Conference a grand success. S.K. Chaturvedi, CMD, Power Grid and Conference Chairman highlighted the significance of the emerging strategic role of HR as it relates to the world economy at large.

In a first of its kind initiative, the NHRDN Conference saw a special session where 26 senior and highly experienced HR professionals conducted one-to-one Mentoring Session with over 100 young professionals. Yet another highlight of the Conference was the B-School Conclave held at MP Hall on 01 December attended by Senior Academicians from all over India.

It was also another proud moment for Delhi & NCR Chapter to receive its 6th ‘Best Chapter Award’ for the year 2009-2010.

HosurAnnual Meet 2010: The NHRD Hosur chapter’s annual meet was held on December 18, 2010 at Radha Regent Hotel, Bangalore. The evening started with a prayer song. A short note on the NHRD and Hosur Chapter was disclosed by Mr. Sebastian, Student Coordinator which was followed by the welcome address by Chapter President Mr. Alphonse. Mr. John Robert, Vice President, imparted the code of conduct to the members. GRT Jewelers, Artha Properties and Hotel Radha Regent were the sponsors for the evening. A wonderful and enjoyable magic show was hosted by Mr. Sethu Raman from PMC Tech, Hosur. Mr.Selvam George, Former Secretary of NHRD Hosur chapter presented a memento to Mr. Sethu Raman.

NHRD Hosur Chapter organised a Cricket tournament where the Prabha Engineers team was the Winner and PMC Tech was the Runner up. Both the teams were awarded with mementos

by the Chapter President. A standing ovation was given to Mr. Nehruji, the Coordinator of Sports Committee for his excellent service and hard work. Mr. Israel Inbaraj, the Honorary Secretary, introduced the new members and felicitated the best volunteers Ms. Jeeva, Mr.Dinesh, Mr. Sebastian and Ms. Pavana with a memento for their outstanding contribution to NHRD Hosur chapter.

A Personal Talent Display Show was

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KolkataGender Issues at the Workplace: The evening of December 10, 2010 was very special. We had with us Ms. Beth Payne, US Consul General, Kolkata. She shared with us her thought provoking views on ‘Gender Issues at the Workplace’. The evening started with an introduction by our Secretary Abhijit Sengupta.

Ms. Payne spoke about the position of women in today’s workplace. She said that women, who are also our employees, can develop more without some ‘bars’ (of a cage). We don’t have to change the world, but look at ourselves and recognise the ‘bars’ of stereotypes and norms that we have. These are the ‘bars’ of discrimination. She cited the example of ‘language’ that we use. We always say ‘Chairman’, ‘Spokesman’. We should rather say ‘Chairperson’ or ‘Spokesperson’, which is more neutral.

Addressing the women in the audience she said, “We need to be strong”. She continued that in an organisation, those women who are strong should help other women to be stronger as well.

Ms. Payne believes that organisations should define their values like ‘equality’ and practice them across gender. Benefits like flexible hours of work not only gives women the time to manage their household, but also allows men ‘to have a life’ away from work. Further, HR should create ‘Support Groups’ within an organisation where employees can talk about their problems.

IndoreA Special Lecture on ‘Learning Skills and Career Development’ at PIMR: Prestige Institute of Management and Research organised a Special lecture on ‘Learning Skills and Career Development’ on December 18, 2010 in Association with National HRD Network – Indore Chapter. Dr. Santosh Ragnekar, Associate Professor, IIT, Roorkee was the keynote speaker on the occasion. In his deliberation Dr. Rangnekar emphasised that students should be more focused towards their career rather than on getting jobs only. Dr. Yogeshwari Phatak, Director of the Institute welcomed guests and Prof. Suyash Jhawar, Coordinator - NHRD Indore Chapter proposed the vote of thanks.

conducted wherein members actively participated and proved their talents. Treasurer Mr. Ravindran played Flute, which was followed by Mr. Murugesa Pandian’s singing, and poetry recitation by Mr. Gnanaprahasam and Mr. Manivannan. A quick gift entertaining show was conducted by Mr. Bharmanand, HR Manager, Wendt India Ltd. All the members were given goody bags as a complimentary gift.

Hyderabad HRInterACTBest Practices in developing Line Managers as effective People Managers was the theme for the month of November 2010. Mr. Subbaraju, Director – HR, Infosage Systems, Dr. Suresh Kumar, VP – HR, Aurobindo Pharma, Mr. Mukund Menon, VP – HR, Mahindra Satyam and Dr. Ved Puriswar, Head L&D, Cognizant shared their insights and experience on this topic.

For the month of December 2010, the chosen topic was ‘Trends in Learning and Development’. Mr. Ahmed, Head Talent Management at MNARC Group, Mr. R. K. Dinavahi, Manager Alliance, Global Talent Track; Mr. Sirish K K, HR, Core Logic; Mr. Sharat Sharma,

HR Manager, Brodridge and Prof. G. Surender Reddy, Visiting Professor, JNTU presented the latest concepts on learning and development and progress in this area. Both topics were well received and appreciated by the audience.

Meet the MentorMeet the Mentor session was led by Mr, Divakar Kaza, Head – HR, Lupin Limited on of December 10, 2010.

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On December 24, 2010, a one-day workshop on ‘Measuring HR Effectiveness’ was conducted by Mr. Sudhir V. Sohoni, Founder Director, Purple HR Consulting Pvt. Ltd. (Former Executive Vice President-HR, IR & Admin, Thermax Limited), at Hotel Airport Centrepoint, Nagpur. It was inaugurated by Mr. Arvind Jain, Sr. Vice President Indorama Synthetics (I) Ltd. and Patron-in-Chief NHRDN, Nagpur Chapter. Through various role plays, exercises and live examples, Mr. Sohoni covered many topics, such as,

• The tools for measuring HReffectiveness in the organisation;

• What is competitive advantage androle of HR in creating competitive advantage;

• Jobs design andwhatHR can do toenhance hit rate in sourcing talent;

• Whatiscostandwhatisinvestment.How to measure the cost effectiveness of HR;

• How does HR create value for theorganisation;

• How to use the Balanced ScoreCard as a Tool for tracking strategy implementation; and,

• HowtomeasureeffectivenessofHR.

At this occasion Mr. Ajay Sinha, GM Ispat Ltd. and Vice President NHRDN Nagpur Chapter honoured Mr. Shyam Laddha, CEO Amul’s Vasundhara Dairy and Patron, NHRDN Nagpur Chapter with ‘NHRDN Nagpur Chapter Leadership Award’ for his meritorious and exceptional contribution to the Chapter.

On November 26, 2010 Mr. Serge Sardo, CEO and MD at Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) Ltd., Australia, and Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Federation of Human Resources Management, addressed NHRDN Members on the subject ‘AHRI Operations and HR Issues in Australia’.

The fifth lecture under the ‘Speak for Smiles’ series was organised on 27

MumbaiNHRDN Mumbai Chapter and Trainers Forum jointly organised a workshop on ‘Professional Personality Profiling’ on November 12, 2010 which was addressed by Mr. Hemang Laheru, Programme Director – PRISM and Country Head Sanda Excellence, a Certified PRISM Practitioner and Business Coach. A highly enlightening and educative evening, wherein the participants learnt about:

• Psychology and neuroscience thedifferences;

• Brainstructuresandfunctions;

• The PRISM colours and theirmeaning;

• ThevalidityandreliabilityofPRISM;and,

• PRISMapplications.

NagpurNagpur Chapter organised a Members’ meet and an evening lecture by Mr. Suresh Pandilwar, Sr. Manager, Employee Relations and HRD, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. on ‘Innovative HR Practices for Enhancing Productivity’ at F.W. Taylor Hall, Central Institute of Business Management Research and Development on November 26, 2010. During his talk Mr. Pandilwar explained how Mahindra & Mahindra has been able to engage its employees more productively and quoted his experiences on innovative HR practices in the organisation.

November 2010 at WeSchool campus. Dr. Ashok S. Ganguly, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, Chairman ABP Pvt. Ltd. and former Chairman of Hindustan Unilever Ltd. delivered a speech on ‘How to Develop Leadership Qualities’.

NHRDN Mumbai Chapter and Trainers Forum jointly organised a screening of a very special movie on management, titled ‘The Shift - Conversations and Reflections’ on December 16, 2010.

NHRDN Mumbai Chapter Annual Get Together: To bid farewell to the current year and to welcome the New Year 2011, NHRDN organised a special programme , ‘Jashan – A Funfilled Evening of Masti and Dhamaka’ for all its members together with spouses on December 24, 2010 at Welingkar Institute.

The evening concluded with a vote of thanks by Mr. Indranil Banerjee and the presentation of a memento to Ms. Payne.

Advertorial

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Workplace Conflict and Resolution

As HR professionals, we’ve often come across issues arising out of workplace conflicts and needless

to state, they are one of the most difficult and persistent ones to handle. Not being able to effectively identify conflict and ensure its resolution within the stipulated time may lead to debilitating and potentially disastrous effects. The purpose of this article is to help you identify workplace conflict, understand how it arises and how to resolve it most effectively, as well as recognise the benefits of resolving conflict in its early stages.

Identifying Workplace ConflictIdentifying workplace conflict is not always as simple as one might think.

Conflict is regularly associated with acute and isolated incidents such as outbursts, arguments or verbal/physical altercations. However, it is important to note here that they are only indicators of conflict. In our attempt to identify conflict at the workplace, it is important to distinguish between ‘disagreement’ and ‘conflict’.

Disagreement or differences of opinion are regular occurrences, not only at the workplace but also in our everyday lives. In fact, disagreement is often the means through which creative and cutting edge ideas are generated. The process of developing, defending and reconciling opinions indicates a healthy and vibrant workplace. Even seemingly aggressive and intense disagreements should initially be looked upon as normal and acceptable. One should not

Samik Chakraborty

Conflict is entirely different from disagreement. Disagreement can be considered as an expression of confidence, enthusiasm or caring, whereas conflict is an expression of frustration, self-consciousness, and anger

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make the error of stifling a creative and exuberant environment by identifying disagreement as conflict.

Conflict is entirely different from disagreement. Disagreement can be considered as an expression of confidence, enthusiasm or caring, whereas conflict is an expression of frustration, self-consciousness, and anger. This brings us to the primary identifier of conflict. Those in conflict are unable to sustain a productive and stable exchange.

Let me explain with an example. Picture an interaction or conversation between two or more individuals where at least one person’s participation becomes increasingly rigid and short as the interaction continues. There is often a ‘breaking point’ where someone abruptly cuts off the interaction or erupts with anger. In both instances, the breaking point is usually taken as ‘irrational’, ‘inappropriate’, or ‘unbelievable’ by those on the receiving end and can lead to a vicious circle of conflict driven exchanges. Those of us who enter into organisational working environments on a daily basis would agree that it is precisely this vicious circle of exchanges that is disruptive to our workplace and destructive when left unresolved.

Unfortunately, workplace conflict can’t always be easily identified by these isolated interactions. Moreover, as an HR professional, we are rarely present to observe these exchanges. While we

can rely on the account of others, we can also identify conflict at the workplace by being aware of and watching out for the following signs:

• Lowmoraleandproductivity;

• Repeatedtimespentdealingwiththesame department or team (regardless of the reason);

• Transfer requests from productiveemployees;

• Concerns raised by employeesregarding other employees, managers, teams or departments; and,

• Client or customer feedbackexpressing dissatisfaction or inconsistencies with the organisation’s operating procedure, particularly when there have been no changes.

The above mentioned are just an indicative list and might not hold true in every scenario. In fact, you may already be on the look out for each of these events. However, keeping in mind that conflict could be the driving force behind these kinds of occurrences may lead you to take a different approach when dealing with them. For example, if you ascertain that a request for transfer is being fuelled by conflict, you can see to it that the situation gets addressed directly as opposed to simply addressing the symptom. Addressing the symptom does nothing to resolve the conflict or

protect the organisation. To the extent you can, always be on the look out for conflict that masquerades as ordinary HR issues. From my personal experience, I can surely vouch that asking a few extra questions will surprisingly reveal the presence of conflict more often than not.

How Workplace Conflict ArisesAlthough easily an article all on its own, the issue of how workplace conflict arises can be traced back to two distinct areas. These areas are ‘lack of effective leadership’ and ‘qualities and characteristics of individuals’. Lack of effective leadership refers to an individual or organisation’s failure to implement and utilise effective leadership skills and structure. If an individual in a position of leadership does not know how to lead others or an organisation does not have a clear leadership structure, then conflict will surface. Issues that stem from a lack of effective leadership fuelling conflict are: lack of trust; inconsistent application of policies and procedures; unclear communication; lack of appreciation; and, feelings of disrespect.

The qualities and characteristics of individuals also play a major role in how conflict arises. Personality traits and ego largely influence whether someone will initiate a conflict. The bottom line — individuals with a clear sense of self and a commitment to teamwork will be less likely to engage in conflict behaviour. Employees who are low on self confidence or morale and who are not comfortable working in teams are more susceptible to conflict.

How Workplace Conflict is Most Effectively ResolvedWorkplace conflict is most effectively resolved by the process of mediation where the mediator is an objective third party who is completely independent from the conflicting parties or the concerned team. Firstly, the process

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Mediation is most effective at resolving workplace conflict when the mediator is an objective third party who is completely independent from the organisational structure

of mediation is most effective because it allows the individuals in conflict to maintain control of the situation. In addition, participants are more at ease in the mediator’s presence because, as a third party, the mediator has actually no power or authority to control the resolution. Overall, irrespective of the magnitude of the conflict, mediation is an opportunity for those involved to resolve their differences which they usually do with the assistance of a competent and skilful mediator. This results in reduced burden on the organisation, since it does not need to formally intervene.

Second, mediation is most effective at resolving workplace conflict when the mediator is an objective third party who is completely independent from the organisational structure. This is because individuals in conflict are more likely to be open to speaking with and listening to someone who has no connection to the organisation other than for the purpose of resolving the conflict. When the mediator comes from within the organisational structure, participants will often be suspicious of bias and hidden agendas as well as have concerns about the internal mediator’s ability to competently handle the situation when mediation is not that person’s primary job. Having an unskilled volunteer from the internal structure responsible for resolving conflict in the workplace is an unrealistic expectation.

Effects of Workplace Conflict and Benefits of Early ResolutionThe single most important benefit of resolving workplace conflict early is avoiding its debilitating and potentially disastrous effects. The debilitating effects of workplace conflict which are seen regularly include:

• Decreased morale and productivityamong both employees and managers;

• Dysfunctionalteamsordepartments;

• Poorworkproduct;and,

• Increasedemployeeturnover.

The outcome of each of the above effects points towards the organisation’s ‘bottom line’ getting affected which means less profitability. The disastrous effects of workplace conflict come in various forms ranging from dealing with employee complaints to something more severe and extreme like media intrusion

thereby tarnishing the organisation’s profit margin, reputation and overall success significantly.

Beyond the benefit of avoiding the negative effects of unresolved workplace conflict, organisations that remain disciplined in addressing conflict early also receive the following benefits:

•Increased morale and productivity(often above historic levels);

• Greater employee loyalty andretention;

• Clarification of corporate purposeand policy; and,

• Increased profitability, reputation,and success through superior products and services.

Perhaps the most fundamental benefit of resolving workplace conflict early, particularly through the use of mediation, is the opportunity an organisation gets to learn about itself. A tremendous value is added when a mediator communicates to HR and other employees what he/she has learned about the organisation. This kind of post-mediation discussion can help an organisation further reduce its exposure to the negative effects of workplace conflict as well as the resources necessary to deal with them.

In conclusion, the negative effects of workplace conflict are persistent and difficult to deal with. However, by being able to properly identify these situations and resolve them within the stipulated time, the organisation will benefit by becoming more aware of itself and being more profitable in the competitive marketplace. Many organisations are brought to their knees by allowing workplace conflict to go unidentified and unresolved. This should not happen. Resolve workplace conflict early and success is guaranteed. ■

Samik Chakraborty is Assistant Manager – Human Resources, TATA Consultancy Services Ltd, Kolkata; He can be contacted at samik.chakraborty@tcs.com

inspireHRD

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Over 1300 delegates, who attended the 14th NHRDN Conference at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon, in the first week of December, agreed that this was truly a conference with a difference. The theme of the conference- Towards the Next Orbit, and its location (The Kingdom of Dreams) distinguished it from the many other HR conferences that took place throughout the year.

Towards the Next Orbit A Crystal Ball Gaze into National NHRD Network’s 14th National Conference

Compiled by Anuradha Sharma, Founder and CEO, Fulki Communications Pvt. Ltd. and Anjali Raina, Executive Director, Harvard Business School India Research Centre with inputs from other participants

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Chapter, President - HR, SRF Ltd. before the conference when I was sharing my growing sense of anticipation with him, the reality more than met my expectations, as well as those of the delegates. The feedback was awesome, with food for thought and nourishment for the body over three action packed days. The discussions flowed fast and furious, through four plenary sessions, eight concurrent sessions and four special sessions, with speakers engaging with the delegates both within the conference halls and over coffee, tea and meals. The conference opening itself (which was in the evening on December

As December drew nearer and the dates for The National HRD Network’s three-day National

Conference drew closer, my sense of anticipation built. Having attended a number of the NHRDN conferences over the years I was expecting to connect with old friends and make new ones, as this conference attracts delegates from different facets of the HR community – academia, business, multinationals, NGOs, government and public sector. This time the theme – Towards the Next Orbit – resonated with a sense of possibility and optimism, (welcome after the 2008-2009 recession). The list of over 70 confirmed speakers included HR and business luminaries, many from overseas. The setting – the much talked about Kingdom of Dreams, described as ‘A Magical, Mystical and Memorable Experience of India’ – was very different from the usual five star hotels where conferences are usually held.

As promised by Suresh Dutt Tripathi, President, NHRDN, Delhi and NCR

1) was mind boggling, setting the tone for the next three days. Mohit Rao enthralled all present with mind bending exercises, mind games and mind reading. One delegate wistfully remarked that she wished she was able to wield these skills while engaging with her colleagues, family members and boss!

Most of the people present were in total agreement with N. S. Rajan, National President, NHRDN; Partner, EMEIA, People & Organisation Leader, Ernst & Young, who while inaugurating the conference shared his view that HR heads can contribute significantly in shaping the new India. “Intellect is a

new form of property”, he explained. “…and the NHRDN annual conference is special because it brings the entire HR community in India together in a learning space with thought leaders from around the world.” Sharing the 26-year journey towards growth of NHRDN from a small body of professionals in Hyderabad, to a network 25,000 strong with Indian and overseas chapters, Rajan emphasised

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the importance of building on the past, while moving towards a strengthened NHRDN. “How can we institutionalise an institution?” he questioned. In this context he shared the role that the three pillars of governance, engagement and network play in crafting the NHRDN of today; the success of the Learning Centre where more than 2000 HR professionals have been trained on HR competencies around the HR compass; and some of the new initiatives - webinars, refreshed newsletters, journals, and the launch of the new NHRDN logo. It made me proud to be a member of this community and a member of NHRDN1.

While the critical role of HR has often been spoken about, I confess that I have sometimes cynically felt that when it comes to the crunch, profits win out over people. Different speakers in those three days presented their perspective on business cases as to why the future demands an enhanced role for HR. This is what gave me some hope that going forward HR’s role would be appropriately recognised. S.Y. Siddiqui, Regional President, North, NHRDN and Managing Executive Officer – Administration (HR, IT, Finance & COSL), Maruti Suzuki India Limited exhorted HR practitioners. He said, “We as ‘proud Indians’ must strive to leave a legacy for the next generation by creating inclusive, sustainable and robust growth. How can we prepare our

nation for robust growth and remain up to date?” He suggested that rather than reacting or responding to change, one must build capabilities to anticipate it. He said, “The need of the day is for leaders who can drive this, who can look ahead and around, and beyond and not behind”. S. K. Chaturvedi, Conference Chairman, and Chairman and Managing Director, Power Grid Corporation of India agreed that HR’s role is pivotal. “Earlier only a peripheral and a support function, today people, and so HR, are critical in understanding and evolving strategies to take our businesses to the new orbit”, he said. Dr. Pritam Singh, Conference Academic Director, added, “The 21st century is the century of men and it is this power of men which will decide the future of the country or the organisation”.

One of the features that had attracted me to the conference was the promise that, being a confluence of global thought leaders, it would provide a space for

reflection on three important aspects – the emerging business landscape, the consequent challenges for today’s companies and HR practitioners, and evolving management practices. I was hoping to gain some insights into roadmaps and signposts that would help in managing HR in the future. This article is a distillation of my experience of the conference combined with my own perspective, but isn’t really a report of the proceedings (visit www.nationalhrd.org). I will therefore dwell on three major themes discussed at the conference – try to crystal ball gaze into the ‘next orbit’, i.e. the contours of the future, attempt to prioritise the 5 critical challenges, share my takeaways with next generation HR imperatives and dwell on the roadmaps and signposts which HR needs to watch out for.

Crystal Ball Gazing: Reflecting Backwards, then Looking ForwardBefore looking ahead, I took a quick peep into the rear view mirror and came to the sobering conclusion that twenty years ago we had no idea of what today would look like. In 1990 I thought I was privileged to have a landline at home, had access to a shared computer (which had a horrible green screen) at the office, and still typed letters on a typewriter. I had never heard of a cell phone, the World Wide Web, Google or Social media. I was still in my first job, and thought that, that was where I would be at ‘retirement’. I had a few friends of my age at work, but was the only woman, and the top echelons all wore black suits and Hermes ties. India’s coffers were

1 To become a life member apply at www.nationalhrd.org

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empty, we had mortgaged our gold to save the nation, and I was considered foolish not to flee overpopulated India and encash my opportunity to study and work in the United States.

In twenty short years there have been tectonic shifts, with the physical collapse of the World Trade Centre on 9/11 and the virtual collapse of Wall Street. Today India rising and reverse colonialism is the story, with Indian companies swallowing venerable brands like Jaguar and ‘Jai Ho’ winning an Oscar. The spectre of overpopulation has been replaced by the mantra of the demographic dividend. But the future is still unclear. Dr. Pritam Singh attempted to define the new orbit. “The contemporary world is very complex… and in this confluence of complexities, the business model has changed from one of vertical integration to virtual integration. In a war you know who your enemy is, but in the business world this is not clear...somewhere, someone is preparing a bullet in a garage! ...Co-partnerships and competitive collaborations are the need of the hour... but what is interesting is that smaller fish are swallowing bigger fish! Is it the power of size or the power of mind that is important?”

Crystal Ball Gazing: Different Skills for the FutureWhile the contours of the future are somewhat obscure, it is clear that managing the future will require different skills from the traditional. The problem arises because organisations are trying to get into this new orbit with skills which were meant for another bygone era. Arun Maira, Member, Planning Commission clarified this point with a metaphor. “For India to sustain its growth rate of 9 percent and take it to double digits, it needs to improve the design of its institutions. To launch these newly designed crafts (institutions) into the next orbit, we need the right staff (propellers) to sail them, and most importantly, the pilots of these crafts need to have the right competence.” Mr. Maira highlighted three mega forces shaping tomorrow’s world – the concept of economic progress and pursuit of GDP growth; the notion that citizens have rights – to information, to livelihood and to be heard; and the ubiquity of information. He suggested that leaders of tomorrow need to grapple with two fundamental questions – is it

“For India to sustain its growth rate of 9 percent and

take it to double digits, it needs to improve the design of its institutions. To launch these newly designed crafts (institutions) into the next

orbit, we need the right staff (propellers) to sail them,

and most importantly, the pilots of these crafts need to have the right competence.”

fair, and is it sustainable? No doubt India is seeing the emergence of a large and vibrant middleclass, but accompanying this is the increasing gap between the rich and the poor; on one hand a family of four building a 22 storey tower as their home while on the footpath 22 families occupy 4 feet of space. As he spoke, my mind drifted to Gandhi, who over a 100 years ago pointed out that the world has enough for every man’s need, but not for his greed. Mr. Maira referred to some research he had done with CII on future scenarios for India, and painted a vivid picture of the possible options. He said, “Each Indian needs to have his own light, like fireflies, so that when they come together, they collectively create sustained light and hope. We have to learn to make a difference together.”

Day 2 opened with a plenary session where R.C. Bhargava, Chairman – Maruti Suzuki Ltd., Chanda D. Kochhar, Managing Director and CEO – ICICI Bank, Manoj Kohli, CEO and Joint MD, International Operations – Bharti Airtel and Adam Werbach, Global Chief Sustainability Officer – Saatchi & Saatchi, USA, provided perspectives

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on the relationship between emerging global trends, the consequent new business landscape and the new models of organisations and business. What became clear to me was that the world to come will be a global world, where business models of interconnectedness and openness are likely to be most successful. Leaders who are comfortable with this will be able to craft the organisations of the future.

Critical Challenge 1: Inclusive Growth With the engine of growth in the global economy increasingly moving from developed to emerging countries, the impact is seen in the expansion of the middleclass, and in rising social aspirations. In this scenario the mantra of ‘inclusive growth’ moves from being a vote garnering political platform to an imperative for our continued existence. Mr. Bhargava eloquently drew attention to the fact that unless we include the majority of the population as beneficiaries in the eco system, there will be social turmoil. He shared that he had experienced many conferences and talks. “People come and listen, applaud the speaker but take little or no action... what changes can you bring about in your organisations as a result of this conference?”, he challenged. “How can you be the change?” With nightmares of the French revolution being re-enacted on Indian soil, I resolved to do my bit.

Critical Challenge 2: Demographic TrendsMrs. Kochhar pointed out that in India the ratio of dependants to the earning population is 50 percent while in other countries it has reached its peak. “We

are going to be a young country while the rest of the world is old,” she said. In my view, the prospect of a young populous India set in a rapidly greying world creates an exciting opportunity for India to be the labour market of the world; as well as the sobering responsibility for the HR fraternity to make this possible through creating an ecosystem for both skill development and re-skilling.

As multi-generational workforces become the norm, one often debates which elements of ‘youth culture’ are relevant in an organisational context, and also in what ways organisations need to grow and change as Gen Y employees form a larger and larger proportion of the workforce. A common challenge nowadays is the difficulties in dealing with the ‘culture clash’ of Gen Y employees working for Gen X supervisors. Mr. Kohli said, “Business needs to develop to meet changing demands, the aspirations and

the unarticulated needs of the youth.”

Critical Challenge 3: The War for Talent Many leaders struggle to find the right balance as the model of ‘employability’ assumes a direct link between higher education and the labour market. Indian employers are looking for ready to use trained employees rather than an ‘educated’ individual while historically universities have concentrated on broad competencies leaving organisations to impart knowledge and skills needed for specific roles.

Companies have traditionally used either the cadre building approach or the poaching approach to acquiring talent. However both approaches have not served companies well. The cadre building companies have become talent factories supplying their top talent to other companies. The poaching approach has resulted in high employee turnover and assimilation costs. Dr. Ritu Anand stated, “Companies want successors, not replacements”. The challenge lies

The prospect of a young populous India set in a rapidly greying world creates an exciting opportunity for India to be the labour market of the world; as well as the sobering responsibility for the HR fraternity to make this possible through creating an ecosystem for both skill development and re-skilling

in developing an alternative approach to Talent Management; and adding to the talent pool and expanding it, instead of nibbling at the turf.

Further, leaders need to increasingly focus on how they can encourage the HR team to join hands with educators, policy makers and parents to build a knowledge economy that fully leverages the creativity and diversity of its youth thereby moving from producing talent to nurturing talent, and from quantity to quality. V.M. Kaul, Director-Personnel, Power Grid Corporation of India argued, “HR needs to build a strategy to prepare for the future; for globalisation.”

Critical Challenge 4: Multicultural Markets, Employees and StakeholdersIn the next 5 years, 25 percent of Indian companies will be global. Indian leaders also have to become global leaders. Kohli cited the example of Toyota which has a dedicated cell that studies ergonomics of the backbone of consumers so as to make their cars the most comfortable for people to drive. He shared that Bharti Telecom’s workforce is so diverse and widespread, that they need to develop capabilities to understand the cultures, travel requirements, languages etc. of over 45 countries! The major demographic shift which is metamorphosing every marketplace into a global microcosm makes the ‘one size fits all’ talent management model outmoded. Diversity and inclusion (D&I) agendas, customised for different groups of employees, have become a business-driven prerequisite for market success, especially in the face of globalisation, which drives greater interaction between cultures, within and between businesses. Organisations are developing strategies to fish in an increasingly diverse global talent pool, and also working on institutionalising inclusiveness and capitalising on diversity. We have much to learn from the best and unique practices of member

organisations of the ‘Hidden Brain Drain Task Force’ (Focus on women, Nurture global networks, Spread the flex etc.).

Critical Challenge 5: Speed and Sustained GrowthSushil Kapoor, CEO, Technical Textile Business, SRF Ltd. added that multi country opportunities, and multi cultural and lingual entities show us, that the need of the hour is to move from ‘a slow and steady organisation to a high speed evolving business’, in other words, ‘an adaptive organisation’. Dr. Arun Jain, Professor of Strategic Management, IIM – Lucknow, echoed this view when in another session he said, “The Asian Games success shows that India needs to move faster and faster to sustain its place”.

Mrs. Kochhar with her ICICI experience, shared, (where they focussed on both opening of employee mindsets and development of skill sets to drive transformation during the consumer business rollout and re-branding exercise) and suggested some options

to deal with the accelerated pace of change that India is experiencing. The Indian economy has shifted from largely agriculture based, and the historic 5 percent ‘Hindu’ rate of growth has accelerated to nearly 10 percent. And the people are also changing with increased innovation, and knowledge is broadening perspectives.

“Are we just struggling or are we trying to catch up?” Mr. Mukesh Khetrapal from the audience, questioned. Mrs. Kochhar responded, “We have a set of opportunities; it is in our hands. India is demand-led and other countries are investment-led. The continuum on which our country is based is much better and sustainable. What is important is that we must not become complacent.” She held that demographics, investments and implementation are the factors which will drive us to sustained growth.

HR Imperative 1: Establishing the Purpose of WorkHR strategy needs to connect business goals to a higher order purpose. This was a recurring theme. Werbach questioned how one can sustain an organisation in this time of chaos. “This is the time of transparency, engagement and networks. One needs to set the North Star goals”, and cited examples from Toyota, P&G, and Starbucks to explain this. Anil Sachdev, Founder and CEO of SOIL (School Of Inspired Leadership), in the following session continued with the thought that the purpose of the business is to save the planet. Community, ecology, employees and business strategy are the bridge to overcome the issues of the planet and strategy. He said, “Workplaces leave a profound influence on our culture. What are the differences that the organisations and businesses are making to the planet? Are we making the world a better place?” The Role of HR is to ensure that the vision is truly owned by all, to generate creative strategies and foster genuine openness

Companies have traditionally used either the cadre building approach or the poaching approach to acquiring talent. However

both these approaches have not served companies

well. The cadre building companies have become

talent factories supplying their top talent to other

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and transparency. While I have always known the importance of alignment between vision and strategy, Sachdev emphasised that inspired leaders also align employees’ personal values to the organisation’s vision and strategy, taking performance to unparalleled heights. This environment of ‘inspired work’ – where people come to work not because they are hired hands but because their minds and hearts have been inspired by the purpose they are serving, is the model of the workplace of the future. HR needs to help organisations deal with the challenge of inspiring individuals to understand the importance of balancing material rewards and the invisible fulfilment of knowing they have made a difference. Mr. Maheshwari spoke about ‘people energy’ in organisations and the challenge that lies in creating the energy in people to produce more.

HR Imperative 2: ‘Aligning HR at a Strategic, Business and Board Level’Two panels debated the different perspectives and challenges faced by the contemporary organisation and the role that HR is expected to play to align

with the organisation at a strategic, business and board level. Many believe that business in this new century has lost the trust of the people, and that leaders in all sectors are seen as self-seeking and self-serving, rather than driven by the larger interest. The panel dialogued on how HR should work with the top management of the organisation to imbue the institution with a sense of responsibility and accountability for the triple bottom line of profit, people and the planet. Dr. P.V. Bhide, Group President, HR, JK Industries stated that the HR team needs to develop ‘a deep understanding of the business’. Sonali Roychowdhury, Head-Human Resources, Procter and Gamble India, advised, “Participate, have a dialogue, then align”, to the larger organisational purpose.

HR Imperative 3: Sculpting the Future Today, the biggest business challenge is responding to a world in which the frame and basis of competition are always changing. Bhaskar Chatterjee, IAS, Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Public Enterprises, Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises commented, “…as we de-monopolise and de-regularise, we are shaking up the public sector like a grinder.” Confronted by the economic, social and technological forces shaping the global business landscape, most HR managers assume that their ability to sculpt the future is minimal. I believe that the ability of managers to systematically spot and act on these emerging trends is the key to the companies capturing market opportunities, taking risks and spurring innovation. In the face of intensifying competition, advances

in technology, and shifts in customer preferences, ‘learning organisations’ are more able to cultivate tolerance, foster open discussion and think holistically and systemically. This helps these organisations adapt to the unpredictable more quickly than their competitors can, and more successfully orchestrate change. Dr. Sripada Chandrashekhar, Vice President and Head HR, India & South Asia, IBM India quoting from the book ‘How to make an Elephant Dance’ said, “…what to change is as important as how to change.” Organisations need to develop a compelling vision and a shared sense of urgency for change in their people, so as to push them into action and steer them in the right direction.

Dr. Davide Sola, Professor, Strategy and Former Director, ESCP, London Campus, suggested that we should look at change through a different lens. “Orchestrating change is like orchestrating the human factor”, he said. Mr. Pramath Sinha, Founder and Managing Director, 9.9 Mediaworx Pvt. Ltd. said that change happens at two levels – changing the organisation and changing individuals. Sushil Kapoor opined that often people believe that – if you leave it, it will get done. However what is important is to get the right people onboard, because only then will there be a fair chance that the vision envisaged gets implemented.”

HR Imperative 4: Connecting InternallyCommunication too can play a key role in the success of organisational change efforts. As Mr. K.R. Kamath, Chairman and MD, Punjab National Bank said, “…in order to orchestrate change, your communication must make an impact. It is important to make people part of your vision and give credit to the team. Sincerity, walking the talk and approachability is critical for a leader. Change cannot be communicated through mail alone.” Based on my own experience where I have seen the critical role that well-crafted internal

HR needs to help organisations deal with the challenge of inspiring individuals to understand the importance of balancing material rewards and the invisible fulfilment of knowing they have made a difference

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communication can play in driving change, I found myself in total agreement with Kamath. Development of relevant activities, tactics and tools can help organisations move individuals from total lack of awareness of the problem to understanding and committing to the vision.

In summary, creating positive agents for change is vital. We need to provide skills and capabilities in people to cope with the change. We need to consolidate the changes and implement more change. So how can HR managers orchestrate this change, and implement the vision? How can they become leaders of organisations in the next orbit? Vinita Bali, Managing Director, Britannia Industries said, “… for example, any sales manager responsible for a territory is exercising leadership, because he is empowered to take decisions.” She reiterated that leadership is what we need and must exercise and said “…at the heart of Leadership, there are 3 questions – Where are we headed? Why are we headed there? And how do we get there?”

HR Imperative 5: ‘Towards Value Adding Governance’In the light of the dynamic business landscape, the age of transparency and globalisation, Organisational Boards can add tremendous value if they are focussed on doing the right things, better. Different perspectives on the same theme

were offered by panellists in a session chaired by Senthil Chengalvarayan, President and Editorial Director of TV18 Business Media; R.S. Sharma, Chairman and Managing Director, ONGC; Raman Roy, Chairman and Managing Director, Quatrro BPO Solutions; Balwinder Kalsi, MD, DuPont India; Armin Bruck, Managing Director, Siemens India; Anil Khandelwal, Former Chairman, Bank of Baroda; Harshpati Singhania, MD, JK Industries; Kalpana Morparia, CEO, JP Morgan; and, Gurdeep Singh, COO, Aircel, dialogued on how the Board can provide high-level operational oversight and on ways they can they assume accountability and ownership for operational matters. They were of the opinion that it is in the hands of the Board to select leaders who have the kind

of skills that can boost the energy of the organisation and take it to new heights of performance excellence.

Roadmaps and Signposts 1: From the Best to the Next In order to address shifting market opportunities and add exponentially higher value to their organisations, leaders need to fundamentally rethink their business model. Along with coping with the challenges of strengthening the bottom line leaders of today must also focus on creating and sustaining performance excellence. H.N. Srinivas, Senior Vice President, HR, Taj Group, echoed this view when he opined that the responsibility of managing performance should shift from HR to the business. He said, “Performance Management calls for building trust, understanding values, articulating vision and goals and most importantly, it makes sure that your employees know that their dreams matter.” S.V. Nathan, Director, Talent Deloitte Consulting India Pvt. Ltd. too stressed the importance of ‘meaningful conversations’ where leaders should reiterate that they are willing to hold their employees hand, take an interest in their personal lives, and invest in them.

While listening to this interesting discussion, I wondered if reporting relationships and performance measurement ensure that people are accountable for business results, and also whether in a world where ‘what gets measured gets done’, was enough being done to change measurements to reflect the new responsibilities of organisations. As if in answer, Mr. Ramkumar, Executive Director ICICI Bank while citing some interesting anecdotes from his childhood said that, “Managing performance is managing ability, not end results.” He said, “If you manage numbers, you manage business. Leaders must shift their focus from managing numbers to managing. Performance is nothing but strategy execution while numbers are guiding lines; while racing for it, focus on strategy.”

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Roadmaps and Signposts 2: The Right LeadershipMany agree that values, motivation, patriotism, volunteerism and other ‘higher-order’ needs play a pivotal role in driving excellence in performance. And it is this thought which was echoed over and over again by many as they described the several facets that leadership needs to reflect in order to take organisations to the next orbit. What makes one leader different from another? Why do some people inspire confidence naturally? What transforms ordinary men into extraordinary leaders?

General (Retired) V.P. Malik, Indian Army held the audience enthralled as he reiterated that commitment, camaraderie and patriotism are the core of leadership. He illustrated his views with the words and letters of young men who lost their lives, fighting for the country, touching the hearts of many in the audience. “In the defence services, life is so uncertain…,” he said, that every person is trained for the next two appointments, till they become chief. People are so committed; they have a ‘do or die’ mentality. They are ready to lay down their lives in order to achieve their goals. He was of the opinion that it is this commitment and training that needs to be built in leaders in the corporate world too. “Leadership is 12 percent knowledge and 88 percent attitude to deal with people to get their best. …the basics of leadership remain the same, whether you lead 5 people or 5 million.” He said.

Over the two and half days we were given ample opportunity to draw leadership inspiration from not only the army, but also sports and the theatre. ‘Zangoora’,

the theatrical performance put up on the second day, kept the audience riveted as true leadership values were displayed by a poor gypsy boy even before he realised he was actually a royal prince. Australian Olympian Brennon Dorwrick, in his session ‘Stretching the Limits’, said, “…what is required is that we must be an Olympian. We must strive to break our own records... not following the bench mark, but setting the bench mark.”

It is true that a leader must learn the art of being more focused on others, the organisation, and the nation as a whole. Only this can lead the contemporary organisation and the nation, into the next orbit. M. Damodaran, Retired IAS and former Chairman, SEBI; IDBI and UTI questioned the function of a leader, while commenting that it was to create an environment that enables

his team to perform to the best of their potential. “Power is a difficult animal, if you don’t know how to ride it, you can’t dismount! One can’t be a leader by remote control; one needs to face people and demonstrate one’s true actions to them.” He said. Honourable Shri Tejendra Khanna, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi commented, “Each one must do his best to provide genuine respectful service.”

Simple Answers to Difficult QuestionsIt was with a sense of regret, but deep satisfaction, that I saw the curtain fall on the third day of the conference. It had been an amazing experience. I had found simple answers to my many difficult questions while I connected the dots on the emerging business landscape, shared ideas on the consequent challenges for today’s companies, validated my views with global thought leaders and HR practitioners on evolving management practices, and networked with old friends and new, over lavish meals at the Culture Gully. The award ceremony hosted so well by Pankaj Bansal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, PeopleStrong HR Services, gave me the unique opportunity to reflect on the achievements of the different chapters over the previous years. As I drove away from the Kingdom of Dreams in the evening, I clutched in my hand a delegate bag, full of goodies I had collected during the conference - reading material, brochures from the exhibitors’ stalls, as well as a small memento of the conference for my daughter - a unique Indian artefact from one of the many shops I had browsed during the break.■

Anuradha Sharma can be contacted at anuradha.sharma@fulki.co.in; www.fulki.co.in

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Venue: Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon, India Hosted by: Delhi & NCR Chapter

Mohit Rao (right) Energizer session - MENTALIZER

Lighting the Lamp: (left to right) Mr. Arun Maira, Member Planning Commission Shri. S. K. Chaturvedi, Conference Chairman; Chairman and Managing Director, Powergrid Corporation of India.

Address: Dr. Pritam Singh, Conference Academic Director; Professor of Emminence, MDI - Gurgaon

Vote of Thanks: Mr. Suresh Tripathi, President – Delhi and NCR Chapter, NHRDN; President – HR, SRF Ltd.

Towards the Next Orbit - A Visual Voyage

Day 1

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Welcome Address: Mr. S. Y. Siddiqui, Regional President – North, NHRDN; Managing Executive Officer – Administration (HR, IT, Finance & COSL), Maruti Suzuki India Limited

Mentoring an HR practitioner - Mr. Aquil Busrai, Former Executive Director (HR), IBM; CEO, Aquil Busrai Consulting

Mr. Rajeev Dubey, President (Group HR & After-Market) and Member of the Group Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. – during the mentoring session

Mentoring Session in progress

The Mentors and Mentees

Registration Desk

Mr. Vinay Bassi, Chief Human Resource Officer at Onicra Credit Rating Agency of India Limited – during the mentoring session.

Mentoring Session for young HR Practitioners

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Plenary Session – Emerging Business Landscape: (left to right) Mr. Manoj Kohli, CEO & Joint MD, International Operations, Bharti Airtel; Mr. R. C. Bhargava (Session Chair), Chairman, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.; Ms. Chanda D. Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank, Mr. Adam Werbach, Global Chief Sustainability Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi, USA.

Concurrent Session on Crafting and Implementing Business Strategy for Creating the Next Generation Global Enterprises : (left to right) Mr. Sushil Kapoor, CEO (Technical Textile Business), SRF Ltd.; Dr. Gregory Prastacos (Session Chair), Professor of Management Sciences, Rector Athens University of Economics and Business; Dr. Arun Jain, Professor of Strategic Management, IIM – Lucknow; Mr. Anil Sachdev, Founder and CEO of SOIL (School of Inspired Leadership)

Concurrent Session on Crafting and Implementing Business Strategy for Creating the Next Generation Global Enterprises : (left to right) Mr. Vincent Swift, Chairman Asia-Pacific, TRANSEARCH, Dr. Frederic Frery (Session Chair), Professor of Strategy, ESCP Europe Business School, Mr. Rohtash Mal, CEO Escorts Agri Machinery Group, Mr. Mayank Pareek, Managing Executive Officer (Marketing & Sales), Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.

Concurrent Session on Performance Excellence – From Best to Next: (left to right) Dr. Anadi S Pande, VP (HRM) Corporate Planning & Strategy, Hero Honda Motors; Mr. H. N. Srinivas, Senior VP – HR, Taj Group; Mr. Vivek Paranjpe (Session Chair), Consultant – Vivek Paranjpe Associates; Mr. S V Nathan, Director – Talent, Deloitte Consulting India Pvt. Ltd.; Mr. Ramkumar, Executive Director, ICICI Bank, Mr. D. K. Bakshi, Chief Mentor & CEO, Global Talent Consultants Co. Ltd. & Executive Director India – Thai Chamber of Commerce.

Concurrent Session on Architecting Talent: (left to right) Prof. Dr. Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, Welingkar Institute of Management ; Dr. Mukund Vyas, Head Corporate Development Excellence, South Asia, Siemens India; Dr. Arvind Agrawal (Session Chair), Management Board Member, President – Corporate Development & Human Resources, RPG Enterprises; Dr. Richard S. Wellins, Senior VP, Global Marketing and Business, DDI (Development Dimensions International); Dr. Sunil Maheshwari, Advisor, Ministry of HRD, Government of India; Dr. Ritu Anand, Dy CHRO, TCS

Concurrent Session on Orchestrating Change: (left to right) Dr. Alfredo Behrens (Session Chair), Professor, Cross-Cultural Management, FIA, University of Sao Paolo, Brazil; Mr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, IAS, Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Public Enterprises, Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises; Ms. Vinita Bali, MD, Britannia Industries; Dr. Davide Sola, Professor, Strategy and Former Director, ESCP, London Campus

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Concurrent Session on Orchestrating Change: (left to right) Mr. Pramath Sinha, Founder & MD, 9.9 Mediaworx Pvt Ltd.; Mr. Serge Sardo (Session Chair), President, AHRI, Australia; Mr. K. R. Kamath, Chairman & MD, Punjab National Bank; Dr. Sripada Chandrasekhar, VP & Head HR, India and South Asia, IBM India

Plenary Session on Kaleidoscope of Leadership: (left to right) General (Retd.) V. P. Malik, Indian Army; Mr. M. Damodaran (Session Chair), Retired IAS and Former Chairman, SEBI, IDBI & UTI; Mr. M. D. Mallya, Chairman and MD, Bank of Baroda; Dr. Debashis Chatterjee, Director, IIM Kozhikode

NHRDN AWARDS

Mr. S Varadarajan, EVP and Chief Human Resources Officer of Quatrro BPO Solutions, receiving the President’s Award.

Best chapter award 2009-2010, Delhi & NCR Chapter

Ms. Leena Nair, Executive Director - HR for Hindustan Unilever, receiving the HRD Excellence Award for Seasoned HR Professional.

Mr. Rajiv Dubey, President (Group HR & After-Market) & Member of the Group Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, receiving the Special Commendation 2009-2010 for the Mumbai Chapter.

Marcel P Parker receiving the award

Mr. Siddiqui receiving the Delhi NCR Best Chapter Award.

Sonali Roychawdhary, Director (HR) for Procter and Gamble (P&G) India, receiving the HRD Excellence Award for Young HR Professional 2010.

Special Session – “Stretching the Limits”: Session by Mr. Brennon Dowrick, Australian Olympian

HR Panel Discussion on “Aligning HR at Strategic Business and Board Level”: (left to right) Dr. M. J. Xavier, Director, IIM Ranchi; Mr. S. Varadarajan, EVP & Chief HRO, Quatrro BPO Solutions; Mr. P. Dwarkanath, Director – Group Human Capital, Max India; Mr. YV Verma, COO, LG Electronics India; Mr. S. Y. Siddiqui, (Session Chair), Managing Executive Officer – Administration (HR, IT, Finance & COSL), Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.; Mr. Rajeev Dubey, President (Group HR & After-Market) & Member of the Group Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.; Mr. Vineet Kaul, Chief People Officer, Hindalco Industries Ltd.; Mr. Harish Devarajan, Leadership and Organization Consultant, People Unlimited

Day 3

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Towards the Next Orbit – “Go for Gold”: Session by Mr. Viren Rasquinha, former captain of the Indian Hockey Team.

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HR Panel Discussion on “Aligning HR at Strategic Business and Board Level”: (left to right) Ms. Sonali Roychowdhury, Head – HR, Procter and Gamble; Mr. V. M. Kaul, Director – Personnel, Powergrid Corporation of India; Mr. Yugesh Goutam, VP – HR, RPG Enterprises; Mr. Aquil Busrai (Session Chair), Former Executive Director (HR), IBM & CEO, Aquil Busrai Consulting; Dr. P. V. Bhide, President – Corporate HR, JK Industries; Mr. Sourav Daspatnaik, Director – HR & Strategy, Apeejay Surendra Group; Mr. Marcel R Parker, Chairman of the Board, IKYA Human Capital Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Plenary Session on Towards the Next Orbit: (left to right) Honorable Shri Tejendra Khanna, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi; Mr. B. K. Chaturvedi (Session Chair), Member, Planning Commission

Plenary Session on Towards Value Adding Governance: (left to right) Mr. Gurdeep Singh, COO, Aircel ; Dr. Anil Khandelwal, Former Chairman, Bank of Baroda; Mr. Balwinder Kalsi, MD, DuPont India; Mr. Raman Roy, Chairman & MD, Quatrro BPO Solutions; Mr. Senthil Chengalvarayan (Moderator), President & Editorial Director, TV18 Business Media; Dr. Armin Bruck, MD, Siemens India; Mr. Harsh Pati Singhania, MD, JK Industries; Ms. Kalpana Morparia, CEO, JP Morgan; Mr. R. S. Sharma, Chairman & MD, ONGC

Planning for Growth – Lesson from Change : EY Global Research Mr. Anurag Malik, Partner, People & Organisation, Ernst & Young

Contours of Conference Session: Dr. Asha Bhandarkar, Raman Munjal Chair Professor for Leadership Studies, MDI – Gurgaon

Valedictory Address:Mr. Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Industries

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Passing the baton to Mr. Harish Devarajan (Bangalore Chapter President) for the 15th National Conference

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OLD is NOT always GOLD!

Column by Prof. Arup Varma

in the name. ‘Long story short – it turned out the test had originally been designed to evaluate individuals’ mental health, and had very little to do with the corporate world. I realize some of you are probably thinking – well, some of our corporate leaders clearly have problems with their mental health – and I do agree with you. But, that’s another topic for another time.

In the meantime, I believe all HR departments need to stop and take a look at the systems/instruments they have in place for the various activities within their purview – namely, recruitment, selection, compensation, evaluation, and so on. A simple series of questions would help determine how relevant the systems are to current needs. First, when was the system or instrument initially implemented? Next, were the systems statistically validated before these were first used? If not, let’s stop and validate them now. If these were validated, great! Now, let’s see if there have been any major (or, even minor) changes in key factors, such as strategy, economy and competition, since that time? If so, did we at least tweak the instrument/system accordingly? Did we follow this up with re-validation? Let’s start asking these questions, so the systems may be able to help us find the right answers! ■

Arup Varma is Professor of Human Resource Management at Loyola University, Chicago. He has published numerous research articles in leading academic and practitioner journals and co-edited two books ‘Performance Management Systems: A Global Perspective’ and ‘Doing Business in India’. He has presented his research at Management and Psychology conferences around the world. He can be reached at avarma@luc.edu or arupvarma@gmail.com.

A recent study reported that people in South Korea change their cell phones every eleven months.

Indeed, all over the world, people are known to want to get the latest versions of all those exciting electronic gadgets, from cell phones to TVs, to what-have-you! Rarely do you hear anyone excited about the fact that they still proudly use Betamax systems, or VCR’s, or rotary phones, and so on!

So, what does this have to do with HR? Well, a lot! I have been amazed at how many HR folks seem proud of the fact that they are still using systems that have been in place for a long time. So, what is the problem? Exactly that! Just because something has been in place for a long time does not mean it is still relevant. Note that I did not say, “… does not mean it is still working.” I am sure it is working, and working well. But the question is – could updating or upgrading the system give better results?

There have been many cases in the U.S. where organisations were merrily using HR instruments/systems put in place a long while ago, and did not see the need to review or update them until someone challenged the relevance of the system or instrument. In one case, an organisation had been using a well-known personality test as part of the selection process. One of the candidates who took the test looked at some of the questions, and believed he had been given the wrong test, in error. When he approached the HR associate asking that s/he take a look at the test that was given to him, he was informed very confidently that it was the right test. After all, the test did include ‘personality’

I believe all HR departments need to stop and take a look at the systems/instruments they have in place for the various activities within their purview – namely, recruitment, selection, compensation, evaluation, and so on

The Executive Coaching Conundrum!

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trained and certified to be an executive coach, to coach an executive/manager who is already a high performer, but has some developmental needs. These developmental needs are often not technical in nature, but behavioural and interpersonal.

In my recent article to a leading daily, I have articulated a point of view that the professional credentials of the coach are perhaps much more important than the fact the coached contracted for service has any certifications as executive coach. This article can be accessed at http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/manager/2010/11/22/stories/2010112250140600.htm.

Understandably, the ideal coach is one who has great professional credentials and is well-respected for their

C. Mahalingam

Corporate corridors are afire with another interesting (and intriguing for some) management

intervention. You guessed it right: Executive Coaching! As a leadership service, executive coaching is a fairly established practice in United States and Western Europe, but it is still barely out of diapers in a country like India. You may raise your eye-brows as to why I am saying so while the fact remains that for many years now we have been practicing coaching, mentoring and counselling in India. No gain-saying the fact relationship-oriented developmental interventions like coaching have been around for a long time. But then executive coaching is very different than normal coaching. In simple terms, it means and involves engaging a paid coach with the right credentials, often

Executive coaching is very different than normal coaching. In simple terms, it means and involves engaging a paid coach with the right credentials, often trained and certified to be an executive coach, to coach an executive/manager who is already a high performer, but has some developmental needs

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contributions in his or her chosen field of work and is as well a certified coach and therefore adept at coaching principles, tools and techniques and code of ethics that govern coaching as a helping profession or leadership practice.

In this article, I would like to focus on why there may be hesitation on the part of organisations, or even individual executives, who stand to gain a lot from being coached. I call this the coaching conundrum or riddle since the inherent benefit of executive coaching is well understood and appreciated, but when it comes to investing in and helping an already successful executive become even more successful, there is marked hesitation. I set out on finding an answer to this riddle by speaking to a host of professional friends doing successful coaching practice and learnt that one or more of the following myths and mistaken beliefs may actually be the reason for such a situation. While a web search will yield a lot of good reading material on this subject, I have captured my conversations with practicing coaches on the subject. Of the five coaches spoken to, two of them were highly successful CEOs, two were very accomplished HR leaders and one was a partner with a leading consulting firm

Coaching builds on strengths and makes weaknesses irrelevant or less harmful. Therefore, coaching is not for those in trouble, but meant to prevent successful managers from getting into one, if at all!

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prior to becoming fulltime executive coach. Initial list of reasons or mistaken beliefs shared by the interviewees/coaches crossed a whopping twenty three and after removing similar sounding reasons and closely associated ones, I have arrived at the following six mistaken beliefs (I call them Syndromes) on the part of organisations and/or individual managers who could have been potential targets for and beneficiaries of executive coaching. To make it interesting and easy to remember/recall, I have branded them with interesting titles!

Overdosed Feedback Syndrome: Performance management systems, 360 degree feedback, skip level conversations with up-line managers, internal blogs, external blogs, whistle-blowing policies, management roundtables, HR pulse check, employee satisfaction surveys and oops, give us a break… we have enough and more feedback. Need we one more through the executive coaching? The reality is that executive coaching goes beyond feedback and helps the executive concerned address problems with appropriate changes in behaviour. It is an established fact that the successful executives do not enjoy feedback particularly if negative. While surveys and other HR systems are useful, they also come with limitations. And motivation to overcome weaknesses that can potentially become de-railers is not much left to the executives themselves. Jim Collins (co author of ‘Built to Las’t and ‘Good to Great’) makes a point when he says level 5 leaders need strong egos and not big egos. Learning to understand this distinction is critical to accepting feedback that throws light on weak areas and an executive coach can help in this process as opposed to self reflection and correction.

Surrender-the-Freedom Syndrome: Resistance to coaching also can emanate from the fear of losing the freedom of choice and action. While any of the helping relationships including coaching, counselling and mentoring runs the danger of becoming prescriptive, trained executive coaches exercise a lot of care

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and caution to preserve the independence of their clients. Good coaches are great facilitators and do not prescribe. At the same time, they are assertive enough to make the client confront the reality which is half the solution to solving the problem. Coaches help their clients explore the unexplored options rather than letting the clients play ‘wooden leg’ or ‘yes, but’ games that Dr. Eric Berne so eloquently covers in his best selling book ‘Games People Play’. Freedom of choice and action actually enlarges with executive coaching intervention and not otherwise.

The Ambulance Service Syndrome: Another mistaken belief is that executive coaching is for managers in serious trouble! Far from real, coaching actually benefits most the hugely successful managers who are poised for higher levels of success and significance in their careers provided they care to take help and resolve some of their nagging behaviour flaws. Coaching as a practice has its roots in sports. And coaches out on the field will confirm that it is difficult to coach someone who has no strong fundamentals. A friend of mine used to criticise coaching classes that prepare students for securing admission into institutes of higher learning such as IITs and IIMs for their practice of taking in admissions after a tough entrance test. His argument is that students seek admission into coaching institutes because they are poor in some subjects and rejecting them based on entrance scores defeats the purpose of the very existence of these coaching centres. I went around with him to a few of these centres and guess what the response from these centre managers could have been. It was a uniform message that they can only prepare a 70 percent scorer into becoming a 90 percent scorer and not a 30 percent scorer into a 70 percent scorer leave alone a 90 percent scorer! My friend is still unconvinced, but truth does not change because of what he believes! Coaching builds on strengths and makes weaknesses irrelevant or less harmful. Therefore, coaching is not for

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4those in trouble, but meant to prevent successful managers from getting into one, if at all!

The Nuts and Bolts Syndrome: It is also a mistake if you believe that the coach ought to have the same background as me before I could accept him as my coach. This may be true when it comes to a coach on the playing field or if you are learning to hone your skills in playing Tabla (or any other instrument!). But when it comes to executive coaching of a senior manager, he or she is already good at technical skills. Executive coaching rarely focuses on technical skills, but on the interpersonal and leadership skills. Senior managers across various technical and domain backgrounds have benefited from experienced executive coaches with varied backgrounds in enhancing their effectiveness on the job. A practicing HR manager friend of mine was on the lookout for an executive coach for one of his engineering Vice Presidents and when he went with suggestions of potential coaches to his colleague; all the names were turned down by the VP citing that none of the suggested coaches had an engineering background. It took a lot of persuasion and explaining both on the part of the HR manager, but also on the part of the CEO-manager of the VP

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concerned before one of the coaches was contracted. Now, the VP of engineering is a happy man having benefited from the coaching he received from the coach whose background is in banking – a successful stint at that!

The Know it All MBA Syndrome: MBAs seem to live in a world of their own worldwide! How can my coach be someone without an MBA degree? What does he know about management and leadership? This was uniformly expressed by all my five interviewees as at least the initial hiccup before eventually signing up with these MBA-ed Senior Managers in need of coaching. Part of the problem is the high pedestal the candidates put themselves on thanks to their high profile MBA degree (in other words their MBA-triggered egos) and part of the problem is innocent misunderstanding that successful coaching has to do with an MBA degree or even a psychology background, neither of which is a prerequisite for becoming a successful executive coach! This is also often the case with clients who have doctoral degrees and the coach being contracted is not even a post graduate degree holder. This is a mental barrier that needs a lot of perspective building on the part of the sponsor – often the manager of the coachee candidate.

6The Indian Fig Tree (Arasa Maram) Syndrome: In some parts of India, there is a belief that going round the Indian Fig Tree and offering prayers help realise prayers including becoming pregnant. The Fig Tree is supposed to remove any dosha that may be the cause of all problems. While the belief needs to be respected, it is important to recognise in the context of coaching that the coaches are not magicians. They do not have any of the powers attributed to the Indian Fig Tree. Executive coaching has proven impact and produces measurable return on investment. However, it works best when the client takes the coaching seriously and considers behaviour change seriously. The best of coaches cannot deliver results when the client does not have enough awareness and conviction as to how changing behaviour produces positive relationships at work and morale in the team or even improves personal productivity and enhanced confidence.

In a nutshell, executive coaching matters. For an executive who is a high performer with high potential but has certain interpersonal or behavioural challenges, it proves very effective. Here lies a key role for the executive sponsor of the coaching intervention to help the colleague being recommended to take a coach to understand what executive coaching is all about including its limitations and opportunities and the need to accept the coach carefully selected with an open mind. With the afore-mentioned syndromes addressed and overcome, executive coaching offers a bright future for the executives in need of help. Long live executive coaching and its effectiveness! ■

C. Mahalingam is Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer with Symphony Services Corporation. He can be reached at mahalingam.c@symphonysv.com. The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions from the 5 successful coaches he spoke with in preparation for this article.

A practicing HR manager friend of mine was on the lookout for an executive coach for one of his engineering Vice Presidents and when he went with suggestions of potential coaches to his colleague; all the names were turned down by the VP citing that none of the suggested coaches had an engineering background

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Strategic HR for a Simpleton

Rohini

The word ‘strategic’ sounds huge and gigantic to the smaller and fast growing Companies. Though

repercussions of recession are still being faced by the world economy since 2008, we have seen startups emerge and divulge into the bigger picture worldwide. Now what makes them keep HR Management, Strategic HR take the back seat while the management drives the whole business. Management is relishing the cash cows of the business but it’s the need of the hour to build an Organisation Culture and bestow the responsibility to an HR within the organisation to nourish it. We will look into the challenges and

the processes that one can follow in implementing the strategic HR in small and fast growing Organisations.

Brief introduction to Strategy and Strategic HR

Strategy is the process of determining a company’s long-term goals and then identifying the best approach for achieving those goals. Keep the profit motive aside; goals can be categorised into various facets from institutional, technical and functional. We will look at the integration of the three areas with the HR Systems.

Environment Factor Business Decision Strategic HR Decision

External Competitive advantage (Institutional )

Organisation wants to be technically competent

•Benchmarktherecruitmentpractices

Aggressive growth (Technical)

Rapid sales and marketing exercises

•Internal training for better customerservice and account management

Internal Controlled environment (Functional )

Year wise team meetings roosters

•Skiplevelteammeets

•More responsibility to middle levelmanagers

Reliability (Institutional ) To be more caring and accommodative of employee needs

•Flexiworkpolicies

•Bettergrievancehandling

•More mature approach towards theemployee-manager relation

Specific strategic decision to HR function means:

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Strategic Human resources management would be the alignment of the decisions about people with decisions about the results an organisation is trying to obtain. To elaborate this we may look at the task metrics.

About the Mid Size and Fast Growing CompaniesHere the categorisation is not only on the strength of the firms but also the tendency of the new startups who are in the growth spree where the environment is more dynamic with new focus areas, and challenges they face day in day out as they work with their teams from the single digits to the 20-30’s to the 100’s. Below are the major contributing parameters:

Leadership Styles Most of the private owned Companies, CEO’s have the Coercive or the Authoritative Leadership style. It makes the environment to be more closed,

Most of the private owned Companies, CEO’s have the Coercive or the Authoritative Leadership style. It makes the environment to be more closed, controlled and leaves a lean chance for strategic HR ideas from the HR Department into the system

controlled and leaves a lean chance for strategic HR ideas from the HR Department into the system.

Operational CostsThese companies would end up hiring a mediocre or an average HR professional

seeking for the mundane activities that need to be taken care and rather don’t think beyond scope of what HR can bring to the table. Or rather they are least bothered. As per the traditional thinking cost of hiring more experienced person would hit their cost centre. On the flip side a Management Graduate from a top line B-school looks for more established firms for faster career advancement. Hence the gap exists like the egg-chicken dilemma.

Alternately, hooked to this issue is the career path of the HR professional who choose a mid size firm for the next few years to build their career in the corporate world. They are stuck with the mundane admin facilitation jobs rather than bringing a value add to the team as they are being hired in place of three positions - an admin, finance-operations coordinator, employee relation and the least job responsibility in the Core HR activities who will be the face of major HR activities of the organisation. But sadly the core HR activities are well defined by the senior management; they

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only need to represent the ideas what the management thinks about process.

Over all Organisation The employees are clue less what is happening to them and likewise they don’t know if they can believe the HR for any changes they can introduce into the system. They are often left with thoughts that influence them from the management. Hence it becomes the rescue source of driving the HR Process which will address most of these questions in the minds of new hires.

The existing employees have the most common questions like why am I working for a small size firm if only I could make it through the big brands? And ultimately am I at the right place...?

Why these Issues Exist The small, mid size and the fast growing firms are in the tendency of aggressive growth where focus is on the external market and they fail to strike balance to look internally if they are justifying the environment within to manage the growth.

• High Confidentiality about thegrowth details, operations data is kept very confidential;

• They are striving towards thesustainable business;

• TheywouldhavestereotypedtheHRas a cost center.

Why is it required? The context and the classic example:Moon Mission: President Kennedy made the statement that man to land on moon within a decade during a meeting in 1961, and then three men successfully landed and returned back safely in 1969 making the most historic event of the world. To achieve something, we need to work towards a goal and never shy away from making most challenging goals.

Process of implementing strategic HROrganisations can start with simple questions like:

• Whatisitsstrategicachievementforthe next one year?

• What activities will it do to buildbrand recognition for itself?

• CanitdefineaWorkCulture?

In addition, we can also talk about advancement plans, company policies, administration, working condition etc. It can also be as simple as interpersonal relation, financial benefits to employees etc.

The Process - what the HR personnel will be doing The HR personnel can jot down the most influential factors of the organisation based on the industry, work style that they have adopted and choose the three most critical attributes and work on building the design HR programmes around it.

The three areas where an HR can deliver their programmes/ideas are - the HR functions itself, may it be the performance management, organisation

President Kennedy made the statement that man to land on moon within a decade during a meeting in 1961, and then three men successfully landed and returned back safely in 1969 making the most historic event of the world

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structure, organisation development, recruitment etc.

The HR system and Employee Relations We can summaries it as mentioned below:

• Study the existing culture in detailsby informal meets, one on one, feedbacks and other sources.

• Identifywhatneedstobeeliminatedfrom the organisation, as it is said ‘nip it at the bud’.

• Put focus areas as to what shouldbe the process initiatives from organisation to impart a positive vibes into the system to enhance the business strategy.

Examples:Company ALet’s take a fast growing consulting firm that support contract staff for MNC’s like Accenture, IBM, MS etc. Here the organisation size is of 50 odd or so. Here the most critical influential factor would be ‘administration’ as the employees of the company would look for professional services from the Company. Hence the strategic decision from Management should be to delivery service within SLA’s and maintain high standards towards responding to the employee request, cutting down process time and closure.

Strategic decision should enhance employee satisfaction who in turn will perform at the client site to earn a good repute for the organisation. Here it becomes a strategic decision because the company is investing in the goodwill of the employee who are in turn the blood

of the organisation. Hence service and satisfaction will be the key strategic HR decisions.

Company BOther example can be of an Engineering firm that provides services to automobile spare parts. Here the most influential factor would be ‘working condition’. An engineer would anticipate best work environment and work culture where his skills are highly respected and acknowledged. Hence Management should design an employee friendly environment. The strategic HR decision will be on employee needs like work condition, acknowledgement of skill, upgrading of scope and overall team building activities.

How to Implement The key is communication: The more you communicate the better is the relation. It requires both the bottom up and top down communication channels. Management can formulate an agenda

for the formal top down communication and employees to be given a channel where they can voice out their opinions, ideas and comments on the process.

Create a platform to collaborate at common level: Jam sessions, open forums and debating issues will help in getting the questions answered but leaves more confident environment for further collaboration and integration of the company goals to personal goals.

Focus on the bigger picture: Dare to compete with the organisation cultures of the biggies, the best of the lots are Microsoft, Dell, Proctor & Gamble and IBM. Give the employee the chance to feel proud of the unique and special HR systems that you have, after all they only want to flaunt about the organisation which in turn brings a better brand awareness to you.

Invest for Future: A little bit of budgeting for the organisation building activities will be a big wins that you can aim at, i.e. a better employee retention, employee satisfaction and committed employees.

ConclusionA committed HR can diagnose the problem better and treat it in a more specific way. There is zeal inside every matured HR professional, and I am sure if given an opportunity they will bring out great result with their ideas and build a sophisticated HR architecture to protect the patents of the company and beautify it according to the changing needs.

It invites for more involvement from the management and call for a debate to these issues faced by the organisation as a whole. ■

Rohini can be contacted at rohini.mede@inspirage.com

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HR Analytics: The Strategic Tool in Talent Management

Radha Mohan Chebolu

AbstractIn recent times, there has been a major shift in HR operations in some global corporations towards applying the best of available talent that makes them to beat the market competition with renewed interest and enthusiasm. Also the amount of research being available now on HR and their rededication to the growing business issues forms the core of attention for strategists. Rather than going for new talent acquisition that involves an additional cost, some companies are focusing more on management of available talent by drawing new work profiles and configurations. Research on the firm’s HR inputs and outputs has helped create a new roadmap towards talent management with the help of IT systems and applications. Popularly known as ‘HR Analytics’, the intensity of addressing human-centric issues in the firms now rises to new levels of attention by the board room members. HR analytics, being one of the most discussed HR topics in the management of organisational resources, has the power of aligning business priorities with people imperatives. This article attempts to bring to the readers

various facets of HR Analytics through the experiences of those who have been using them effectively.

What is Analytics?The simplest definition of ‘Analytics’ is ‘the science of analysis’. A practical definition would be how an entity (i.e. business) arrives at an optimal or realistic decision based on existing data. Business managers may choose to make decisions based on past experiences or rules of thumb, or there might be other qualitative aspects to decision making; but unless there is data involved in the process, it would not be considered Analytics.

Common applications of Analytics include the study of business data using statistical analysis in order to discover and understand historical patterns with an eye to predicting and improving business performance in the future.

This article focuses mainly on Analytics that is being used in the domain of HR with a view to synergise the available efficiencies and behaviours. Also the latest trends specific

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to HR Analytics are captured by locating them in the context of organisational effectiveness.

Benefits of HR Analytics…For years, companies have analysed data of all types – customer, product, financial – with one important exception: Human Resources. In fact, for decades, HR departments have largely shunned analytics altogether, instead focusing on automating previously manual personnel processes. That needs to change, and fast. Especially during post-recession, HR must manage their workers like strategic assets, and one way to do that is using HR-based data analytics. HR Analytics can help HR model their workforces and ensure they have the right skills and competencies to meet the organisation’s business objectives.

Most large organisations now have in place HR Information Systems (HRIS), which record basic HR transactions such as Hiring date, Compensations, Promotions, Performance Ratings etc. Some go well beyond that level and record skill levels on a variety of aptitudes and learning programmes to improve skills as well as Talent Management and Succession Planning decisions. Companies increasingly have the ability to relate their investments in Human Capital to their returns on Financial Capital. Whether companies have the desire is another question. They may say that people are our ‘Most Important’ assets, they may even be a company’s most expensive assets, but they rarely are the ‘Most Measured’ asset. Many companies are slowly beginning to employ HR Analytics, but they are hardly ‘competing’ on them.

The obvious exception is in professional sportsmen/teams, where high salaries are paid to players depending on their individual talent and ‘win-ability’. Here, we are talking about ‘players’ in an organisational context.

Examples of How

Organisations Use HR AnalyticsAt American Express, which has employees in 83 countries, everything has a ‘metric’ attached. Whatever they do uses globally consistent processes, measurements and databases. Such discipline is a prerequisite for HR Analytics. Another organisation using HR Analytics is Sprint, the Forbes 500 wireless telecom company in the US.

The HR team at Sprint discovered that employee relationships follow a predictable life-cycle that is very similar to that of their Customer Relationships. The HR team created a 6-stage life cycle into the HR process such as:

•How do employees learn aboutSprint?

•Howdowemakesurewefindandhirethe most qualified candidates?

•How are we going to get them theirfirst paycheck and make sure they are happy with that first paycheck?

•Howarewegoingtogettheemployeeup and running and get them productive?

•Howarewegoing to intervenewhenthe employee is unhappy?

•Howarewegoingtogettheemployeerecommitted year after year to the business?

Sprint attempts to measure as many of these issues as possible for employees and has found that the insights gained from this analysis help the company optimise each stage of its relationship with employees and promote a motivated and positive workforce.

What Hinders HR Analytics?The major barrier hindering companies from implementing human resources analytics is not lack of data on employees – salary information, performance reviews and education level – but

compartmentalised employee data. Many HR departments have bypassed IT and use SAAS-based (Software as A Service) applications to manage different types of employee data, which are difficult to connect to internal data sources like payroll systems. The result is a mishmash of disparate employee data that is nearly impossible to aggregate for analysis.

Calculating the ROI of HR Aanalytics is also difficult precisely because many HR systems and applications are not integrated with the financial system. A lack of historical data against which to compare HR analytic results, also makes measuring ROI tricky, as a change of even a percentage point or two in employee retention or turnover can have a significant financial effect. This involves a critical dimension that has been neglected for quite a long time.

A Five-Step Process of Using HR Analytics to Analyse Data:Step 1: First and foremost, companies need to do a thorough accounting of all their employee and human resources data, identify where it resides, and plan for integration. There are numerous data integration tools on the market to aid companies in this effort, and the emergence of Web services has made the job even simpler.

Step 2: Once employee data is integrated and discrepancies reconciled, companies must determine what metrics to measure. This involves a three-step process, starting with backward-looking metrics; moving towards predictive, forward-looking analytics; and finally resulting in KPIs based on historical data. These metrics should be linked directly to business outcomes and not laser-focused on cost cutting.

Step 3: Companies have to choose one of three technology strategies. The first and least effective approach is to use widely available but limited tools from

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the major ERP vendors such as SAP and Oracle. The second and most expensive option is to create a custom human resources data warehouse and leverage business intelligence applications on top. Or third, companies can tap a best-of-breed talent management vendor - Taleo Corp, Workscape, SilkRoad Technology Inc., for a suite of human resources analytics tools, which is probably the best approach for most companies.

Step 4: With analytics in place, the next step is to determine in which format to present the results to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Step 5: Finally, companies have to be ready and willing to change and refine their human resources data analytics approach to meet changing demands. Just six months ago, you could have been evaluating recruiting processes, but given the ever-changing economic

1. Strategic Reporting

Do all of your managers understand how workforce capabilities and behaviours drive strategy execution?

2. Operational Reporting

Have you identified (and collected) the right measures of strategic workforce capabilities and workforce success?

3. Tactics Reporting

Do your managers have the access, capability and motivation to use these data to communicate strategic intent and monitor our progress towards strategy execution?

4. Service Delivery Reporting

Do you have a clear view on the performance of your outsourced service delivery model?

HR Function Performance

•Employeesatisfaction

•Jobevaluationfactor

•Workforcestabilityfactor

Workforce Demography

•Headcount in different divisionsand locations with gender/age composition

•Distributionofemployeeswithrespectto skill sets

•Managementtoworkerratio

Recruitment

•Number of applications received,offers made and accepted in a particular period

•Costincurredduringtherecruitmentprocess

•Averagetimetofillrequirements

•Effectiveusageofchannels

Training and Skill Development

•Training expense as percentage ofrevenue

•Percentageoftrainingbudgetspent

•Average training hours and trainingcosts per Employee

•Departmentaltrainingcostsvs.budgetallocated

Leave and Absenteeism

•Leaveandtypesofleaveavailed

•Costofleaveavailed

•Detailsonunauthorisedabsencefromduty

Compensation and Benefits

•Averagecompensationratio

•Payrollcostperemployee

•Deviationinsalarycostsfromindustrybenchmark

•Cost comparison over periods to

identify growth trends

Employee Performance

•Number of employees appraised atdifferent levels

•Employee performance acrossdivisions

Employee Relationship

•Grievancesreporting

•Average time taken for resolvinggrievances

•Details on locations/divisions withmaximum grievances received

•Number of employees’ suggestionimplemented

Attrition

•Attritionrate

•Criticalresourceattrition

•Averageemployeelifeinthecompany

•Reasonsforexit

List of HR Metrics that can be measured by HR Analytics:

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challenges, the focus will most likely shift towards succession and development. Data analytics must take these changing goals into account.

Emerging trends in HR AnalyticsIn recent times, the growing awareness on the subject of HR Metrics had revolutionised the corporate performance by means of multi-tasking and multi-strategies at various junctures. This made the firms to invent various tools and technologies catering to the needs of business strategists. Prominent among them is the HR Dashboard which is the most sought-after by today’s HR executives.

The HR Dashboard: An HR Dashboard is simply a collection of charts, reports and other metrics displayed in an organised manner and presented to business users. An HR Dashboard is typically hosted in a business intelligence system and is part of a performance management initiative designed to use dashboards to measure company performance vs. strategic goals. In this case the HR Dashboards might measure key performance indicators (KPIs) related to employee information. An HR Dashboard might measure employee off-time as a percent of total available or other key metrics vital to an HR organisation.

Benefits of an HR Dashboard •Improving overall profitability

through more effective workforce cost control. Managers can understand how to optimise staffing levels to ensure satisfactory delivery of service while maintaining the lowest effective headcount.

•Providing HR executives and linemanagers consistent and integrated talent insight to better manage workforce performance and capabilities. HR and business leaders can gain visibility into top or bottom-

performing employees and internal mobility to better develop and retain key talents, understand the impact of workforce turnover on performance and costs and proactively identify and remove retention trouble spots.

•Providing the capability to correlateworkforce information with operational measures to better understand the causal effect of workforce investment on operational results.

Below is a pictorial example of HR Analytics/Dashboard used at Sonata Solutions Inc., an American marketing company.

Talent Analytics: Talent Analytics is another major off-shoot of HR Analytics. Leading edge companies are increasingly adopting sophisticated methods of analysing employee data to enhance their competitive advantage. The best of the best American employees such as Google, Best Buy, Sysco etc. are beginning to understand exactly how to ensure the highest productivity, engagement and retention of top talent and then replicating their successes. They also understand that if you want better performance from their top employees, who are their greatest assets – they’ll do well to favour Analytics over

Source:http://www.dashboardinsight.com/dashboards/screenshots/hr-dashboard-somatica-soltions-inc.aspx

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pure gut instinct.

For example, Harrah’s Entertainment Corp. (US) is known to use Analytics to select customers with greatest profit potential and to refine pricing and promotions for selected segments. Also it uses metrics to evaluate the effects of its health and wellness programmes on employee engagement and bottom-line. Many companies favour job candidates with stellar academic records from prestigious institutes and Universities.

However, AT&T and Google have established through analytics that a demonstrated ability to take initiative is a far better predictor of high performance.

Employee Attrition is also a lesser problem when HR Managers see that it is coming to Sprint, which we read about before, is a prime example.

All these examples prove without any doubt, that analytics can be used to uncover data that hitherto no one could have unearthed, in order to use to make the organisational working more effective and efficient. Percentage wise, speaking the number of companies making use of analytics as the popular form of performance management system (PMS) is quite low and still there is a long way to go.

Six Uses of Talent Analytics: Analysing talent is not significantly different from analysing customer relationships or supply chain management. It starts with the delivery of historical facts and ends with real-time deployment of talent based on rapidly changing needs. Following are the different types of Talent analytics:

Conclusion Future organisational performances are inextricably linked to the capabilities and motivational levels of a company’s workforce. As such, organisations that used HR Analytics extensively have already gained a good competitive advantage over the rivals as seen from the examples discussed above.

Unfortunately, apart from a handful of companies, the broader scenario with regard to the awareness on analytics mode of HR operations in most of the firms is quite disappointing. Even if they are aware of its utility but the real usage of it is a question of big surprise. Perhaps the real emphasis on this will come in due course of organisational growth and development. But what seems to be lacking most is the management’s desire to compete on HR, in the first place. Perhaps as people costs continue to rise and constitute higher percentages of the organisations’ total costs, and as executives realise that their people are ‘truly their most critical resource’, Analytics will catch on and proliferate more and more in the field of HR. ■

References

• Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris.‘Competing on Analytics – The New Science of Winning’. Harvard Business School Press, 2007.

• JacFitz-Enz.‘TheNewHRAnalytics-Predictingthe Economic Value of Your Company’s Human Capital Investments’. AMACOM Publishers, 2010.

• ThomasDavenport, JeanneHarrisandJeremyShapiro. ‘Competing On Talent Analytics’. Pages 39-44, Harvard Business Review – South Asia Edition, October 2010.

• www.wikipedia.org

• www.searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com/news/1507118/Human-resources-data-analytics-brings-metrics-to-workforce-management

• www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au/articles/ee/0c02cbee.asp

• www.northgatearinso.com/hr-analytics-reporting

• www.russellconsultinginc.com/docs/PDF/ASTD2003.pdf

• www.oracle.com/us/products/057353.pdf

• www.emanio.com/HR-Dashboard.html

Radha Mohan Chebolu, IBS Mumbai, can be contacted at radhamohan@ibsindia.org

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754

7 Days of the weekWonders of the Ancient worldContinents of the worldNotes in musicThe Atomic number of Nitrogen Days of the weekWonders of the Ancient worldContinents of the worldNotes in musicThe Atomic number of Nitrogen

Habits of Highly Effective People (- Stephen Covey)Pillars of Wisdom (- T. E. Lawrence)Seeds of meaningful work (- Dave Smith)Ages of Man (- William Shakespeare)

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7- Pointed star on the flag of Jordan

symbolising the seven verses of the opening Sura (Al-Fatiha) of the Holy Koran; the seven points on the star represent faith in One God, humanity, national spirit, humility, social justice, virtue, and aspirations

(- Enid Bylton) Secret

Deadly SinsColors of the rainbow – VIBGYOR (identified by Isaac Newton)Kingdoms of the United Arab EmiratesIs the original diameter in inches of the 45rpm format gramophone record

And the connection with Michael Jackson7th of nine children7 letters in his first & last names7 weeks, Black & White and Billie Jean were the Number One on the charts7/7/09 – date of memorial service7 is the total of the date he died (25th i.e. 2 + 5 = 7)

The winning number on a slot machine

7 7 7

7Islands of BombayIsle of BombayColabaLittle ColabaMahimMazagaonParelWorli

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77

77

77

Is the International Dial Code for Russia

Is the number of times that a sheet of paper can be folded

Is the number of games that a tennis player must score to win a set

Is the number of players in the starting lineup for a water polo team

The number of saints appearing in a constellation called “Saptharishi Mandalam” in Indian astronomy.

Rounds (Pheras) and Promises in a Hindu Wedding

The Boeing Aircraft Series3747677787 (Dreamliner)

Sisters – the seven states of Northeast IndiaIs the month in 1776, when United States declared IndependenceIs a Card GameIs the release of Windows series of operating systems from MicrosoftAre the types of virus according to Baltimore classification

Types of Intelligence

(Howard Gardner’s MI theory)Linguistic Logical-Mathematical Bodily-KinestheticSpatialMusicalInterpersonalIntrapersonal

Use in phrases..“Sail the 7 seas…”“On 7th heaven…”“The 7-year itch…”

Is an international chain of convenience stores

- Sided British 50 pence coin

made it the world’s first heptagon shaped coin.

5656

India Inc has weathered slowdown and has ramped up its operations. Many corporates across industries and many multinational companies which have forayed into India are

taking first mover advantage by recruiting people in volumes for implementing their projects. But, simultaneously firms are keeping a very cautious approach for recruitment, as they do not want to compromise on quality of candidates. Lessons learned during slowdown have helped firms to re-focus on cost, quality, time and efficiency, which are present in RPO. For large no hirings, organisations are increasingly turning to Recruitmenet Process Outsourcing providers.

In ‘Recruitment Process Outsourcing’, not only employers transfer entire procedure of recruitment services like sourcing, screening, testing, interviewing, background checks, coordinating offer letters, and orientation but they also transfer their worries.

The market is flooded with numerous service providers but a right way of opting for a partner is by assessing service provider’s experience, resources, bandwidth, infrastructure, expertise, technology advancement and by knowing how much pace that company can keep up with your requirements.

If your company is strengthening its presence and is recruiting people in large numbers, then here is why your company should go for an RPO:

Guarantees closure - RPO companies are answerable for closing positions unlike other recruitment firms and also save human capital cost for internal hiring as recruitment are done in volumes. Besides, RPO companies also implement best practices such as orientation, retention, employee branding etc.

No additional resources – When companies hire in volumes, they also need to get few additional people on board to hire next few people in hundreds or even more. By selecting a right RPO company, your firm does not need to go for additional resources. Here, you save your time.

Transfer your worries - Time is money. Yes, it is true. Thus, by saving your time, your company can focus on its strategic initiatives; leverage its core competencies, without any worry of getting on board high-quality staff members for all positions.

Aligns procedures – Unlike your Internal HR department, for volume based hiring, where metrics like time-to-fill, cost-per-hire, quality of hire are left unmeasured, RPO manages entire gamut of services and bring into line all procedures like candidates’ tracking system, calendars and schedules, and document-sharing tools.

Flexibility – Oh, so your company has just started R&D division for one of your brands, and is need of only few people. And in next quarter you get to know that the brand is doing well and more investment in terms of manpower is required. So, based on your company’s requirements of scaling up and down, RPO will offer complete flexibility to your organisation.

RPO is the new buzz word among HR professionals and there is already a lot of noise about it in the market. GlobalHunt suggests that if your company wishes to save human capital cost, carry operations with speed, aligns procedure and implement best practices, then do not delay to opt for a right RPO provider.

Mail us at: corporate@globalhunt.in, Visit us at: www.globalhunt.in

Recruitment Process Outsourcing

Advertorial

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ACROSS3. Raise in pay because upon a favourable review of

an employee’s performance (5,8)

6. Workers, both skilled and unskilled, engaged primarily in physical labour. (4, 6,)

8. It refers to the regular day shift, which is paid on the basis of time rather than output.

10. A simple reproval of an employee by a supervisor

11. Stands for reassignment of an employee to a position requiring lesser responsibilities with a lower rate of pay.

12. Short-cut process of reasoning that hunts for a satisfactory, rather than an optimal, solution to a very large, complex and/or poorly defined problem.

14. Special wage rate for production above a previously fixed standard of performance (9,4)

15. Work schedule intended to give employees an equal share of both day and night work (8,5)

16. A person who frequently changes jobs (3,6)

17. It is a process of adjusting the raw statistics obtained from a particular sample to corresponding statistics obtained for a base group or reference population.

DOWN

1. It is an aggregated term used for all government employees who are not members of the military services (5,7)

2. Dismissing an employee while at the same time providing him/her with a large cash bonus. (6,9)

4. Latin abbreviation for et alia: (“and others”). (2,2)

5. These are findings or conclusions derived from direct and repeated observations of a phenomenon under study.

7. Work site where employees worked long hours for low wages usually under unsanitary conditions (5,4)

9. Mental measurement and/or testing

13. Is the basic element of work motions; basic ones are search, select, grasp, reach, move, use, unavoidable delay, avoidable delay, plan, and rest to overcome fatigue.

Solution

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