IMPRESSIONS-OCTOBER 2018

OCTOBER 2018

IMPRESSIONS -The Future of HR -Cross Culture Management -Students Corner -HR Terminology Crossword Puzzle

HUMANE -R CLUB(IIM ROHTAK)

THE FUTURE OF HR

- Rutvij Shah XLRI, JAMSHEDPUR

They hold your hand as you climb aboard.

They guide you through the induction.

They brief you about the company values, inculcating a sense of oneness and belonging. We ensure you have the right mentors, the most suitable training and plenty of opportunities to develop yourself holistically. They facilitate your career aspirations and walk with you, every step on your journey from a fresh recruit to an established achiever. From securing a seamless integration to safeguarding your interests, educating you about your rights to instructing you about your responsibilities, providing a learning experiance at work to protecting your work-life balance, we got your back. They are the HR Management Team.

The Age of Technology has truly arrived.

We are inundated with these wonders of science and automation and we find these marvels at every step of our corporate journey.

Computers today can perform a billion calculations in a matter of nanoseconds.

Supercomputers can predict market conditions by extrapolating the current scenario given a set of conditions and within given constraints. Machines perform tasks flawlessly. AI today can map the ideal candidates to the vacant jobs. One is almost coerced into wondering if technology will replace HR Managers. And yet, HR Managers are the most adaptable of the human race. And technology does not mitigate the need for a human hand, on the contrary, it offers new avenues for us to explore. Delegating the administrative chores to machines, we are free to pursue the quest to understand the working of the human capital.

Leveraging our experience, and human capacity to empathize, we can forge an environment where we promote sustainable development and utilize the tremendous potential of machines to create positive synergy

“As the pace of change increases in every aspect of our lives, HR professionals have become change champions in many companies around the world, and this has generally been much to their employers’ advantage.”

I believe that we are entering the Era of Human Understanding. Gone are the days when the demand for talent far overshadowed the supply. The modern-day organizations demand specialists with a generalist outlook. People who are masters of their domain and yet can seamlessly integrate their expertise into the larger picture. And for this, we need to map the right talent for the right role. The onus lies on the HR manager to identify the right prospects, arrange for the interview, facilitate the selection, partner with the line manager to provide the right onboarding experience and then help the recruit translate his untapped potential into results. Hiring Right is the new success mantra. In a future where personal freedom is treasured and the expression of such freedom is a fundamental right to dignity, the organization becomes a cauldron of diversity where inclusion is the norm and organizational growth is a common driving force binding all disparate elements into one great entity.

Lionel Messi trains for 10 hours a day. Virat Kohli practices for 8 hours a day. P V Sindhu hones her skills for 8 hours a day. Dr. William Abdu still attends medical conferences to keep himself updated. What is common between them is that they are unquestionably at the top in their respective fields and despite their achievements, still believe that there is scope for learning. Drawing a parallel in the corporate world, when talent meets great training and development, it leads to the creation of something special.

NOTHING WE DO IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HIRING PEOPLE. AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU BET ON PEOPLE, NOT STRATEGIES.” -LAWRENCE BOSSIDY

Providing appropriate training interventions is integral to the development of an individual.

This also leads to a better person – role fit and eventually leads to a high performing employee. These interventions can be skills enhancing exercises or behavioral in nature. A valuable human resource is the consequence of right hiring, the right training, and the right opportunities. Collectively, as a species, we are the most dominant life form in existence. Complex, highly individualistic and yet with a compulsive need for social

.Apart from having an organization-wide intranet to encourage employee involvement, there must also be avenues of in-person interactions. War rooms, brainstorming sessions, family day, celebrating festivals and momentous occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries are all acceptance, aspirational ways to infuse a healthy dose and yet fearful of the of life in a workplace and unknown, human beings unlock one’s inherent are a set of contradictions creativity. A timely reminder and inconsistencies. And of who the person is outside the HR Manager has to the 4 walls of his cubicle. This make sense of these series responsibility of providing of anomalies. A successful every employee with a family manager has a grasp of at work lies with the HR what motivates his manager. In a future that workforce and knows the seems to be foreordained to right levers to push be eclipsed by the rise of ensuring high productivity technology establishing a without compromising on person to person connect employee engagement. Ironically, while social media keeps us constantly connected across geographical boundaries,it has led to a dramatic drop in social interactions in person. This trend is unhealthy as it leads to a sense of social isolation.

The present-day HR connect becomes manager must create increasingly critical to ensure opportunities for we retain our humanity even employees to regain that in pursuit of lost human touch. They excellence. There are good must facilitate the exchange leaders, and then there are of ideasopinions and the great ones.What sets the overcome inter-functional truly great ones apart from boundaries the rest is the legacy they leave behind.It is human destiny to leave behind what

what was once ours. Realizing this, the visionary leaders plan for the eventuality well in advance. This they do in collaboration with the HR Managers.

Securing the future of the organization by meticulous succession planning and preemptive replacement strategies is one of the most integral HR functions. The selection of the heir to the critical position is merely the beginning, the chosen candidate must be groomed for the role, guided through a carefully choreographed sequence of assignments and given optimal exposure and mentoring to develop an integrated perspective. Just like the Hand of the King counsels the King in Game of Thrones, the HR must be the chaperone that ushers in the future of the organization. In a storm, it is the arrogance of the mighty trees that result in their fall, even as the adaptable shrubs bend but survive. This analogy represents how the HR Manager must not resist changes owing to the wave of technology that threatens to make all HR functions redundant. Instead,

Some ways to adopt technology is using mobile apps to stay connected with the workforce beyond the organizational walls, take advantage of Big Data to make smarter, more intuitive interactive digital platforms, employ blockchain technology to facilitate safer transactions of money and data and avail the benefits of Artificial Intelligence to make the best of available data by way of HR Chatbots. Motivation is the key to an individual’s performance. A satisfied employee is a productive employee and the HR manager must design the right combination of monetary rewards and non-financial benefits to enable an employee to deliver her best. As the world transitions from mass production to personalization, HR managers must tailor each compensation plan and Rewards and Recognition initiative to suit every individual. The customized compensation package is the new buzzword and is set to become not only a globally acceptable practice but a universally expected norm. Allowing work

79% of executives rate redesign of performance management system and practices to incorporate elements like continuous feedback, goal-setting, and employee-driven communication as a high priority.

The HR Manager is a friend, guide, mentor and kin to every employee in the organization. The future is exciting and it brings with it its fair share of challenges. From communicating the company vision, mission and strategy effectively to the stakeholders, to aligning every member with the organizational values, from partnering with the IT Team to manage the HR platform, to conducting awareness drives about sensitive issues such as POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment), LGBT inclusion etc, from designing the most efficient process flow to coordinating different centres of Excellence, the HR manager of the future must wear multiple hats as he becomes the glue that binds the family together.

Ruthless competition, the breakneck pace of life, sacrosanct deadlines and an ever-volatile technological landscape make today's corporate life exceedingly demanding. And the rising cases of managers committing suicides and young business executives suffering from serious heart ailments are a testament to the excruciating stress levels at work. Thus, today's Human Manager is expected not only to perform transactional roles but also act as a strategic partner. His job demands that he not only align his decisions to the vision of the company but also ensure an ideal culture at the workplace.

The job description of an HRM has seen a paradigm shift from a function that was considered a mere embellishment of the Employer Value Proposition to being an integral cog in the corporate machinery.Therefore, the criticality of a Human Resource Manager cannot be overstated in the present context and it is a powerful tool that if utilized effectively can propel an organization to the zenith of its potential.Â

ALENT PROFESSIONALS ACCEPT THE AI IS THE MOST USEFUL IN TASKS LIKE SOURCING (58%), SCREENING (56%) AND NURTURING (55%) CANDIDATES.

STUDENTS CORNER - Acing the Campus Placement - Group discussion (Shivani Gupta) This student corner deals about the initial battle that needs to be fought to get your Dream job i.e. Group Discussions.

As Campus placements are in full swing, GD is the entry door to your dream job and most of the campus placements, GD is a rejection round and not a selection round. Everyone around you compete with same energy and enthusiasm, so it is very tough to make your mark and sail it through. But some Tips and Trick can definitely help in sailing through.

Tips and Tricks: Acing the GD In B-schools, most GD topics are on various economic, business and social issues. It can range from latest developments in Business & Economy, Current Affairs, and Social Issues, International events to abstract ideas which are directly or indirectly related to current political, educational, social and other issues.

So, read newspaper daily, especially the business sector. Keep updating yourself with Economics Times, Mint or Business Standards on daily basis .Editorial sections of newspapers are equally important to formulate your ideas and have different point of views on a single topic.

CONTENT IS KING: Most importantly, in GD whenever you speak, make relevant points, which can drive the GD or give it a new direction. Do not be in a hurry to be the first to speak or panic if you haven’t contributed early on. Do not waste the opportunity you get to speak by blabbering out as much as you can.

PRE-PARATION : Preparation of GD requires no intensive study, just a little discipline. Just make sure you read any business newspaper daily or if you are a social media buff, you might follow various news feed on Facebook and Twitter.

Next step can be done to get a group of friends and have some mock civilized GD once or twice a week. They can also take interviews and make evaluation of each other in the process.

On D-Day: On the D-day before beginning of process, just Google and read the 2 latest news articles about the company and inculcate some numbers with it. It reflects your prior hard work and confidence on the topic. This works even if you don’t know much about the company. Try not to be anxious thinking about others.

Preparation for Campus placements is a marathon and small steps taken daily is better than a short sprint.

CROSS-CULTURAL MANAGEMENT Case by- ROHIT DUDI, IIM LUCKNOW INTRODUCTION Marta Rudkowska joined the Poland office of a global consulting firm as a Team Leader in the firm’s Procurement practice in April 2015. She was responsible for managing a team of more than 25 analysts. One of the most important tasks assigned to her was to lead this team through a digital transformation of its offerings. Leading this transformation would prove to be a challenging experience for her since the analysts had diverse cultural & geographic backgrounds, as they were based across ten countries.

Team Role: The company helped its clients reduce their procurement spend on certain projects. A major saving lever for cost reduction was global sourcing, for which the company had a dedicated sourcing center with numerous experts to guide clients on sourcing in different geographies. The team had multiple analysts across India, China, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Americas which advised and helped the firm's client teams conduct global sourcing for clients. Marta had been hired to lead this team when the previous team leader got promoted to a new role. The team had access to multiple internal tools dedicated to capturing knowledge, analysis, and

Digital Transformation: As part of an ongoing

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS : After joining

industry trend towards digitization, the firm decided the team, Marta quickly realized the mammoth that it needed to better capture insights from its

task she had at hand. As the global team lead,

engagements with clients, and provide these results her responsibilities were large in number and in a digitized manner. This digitization would

managing a team of 25 analysts present across

require better capturing of knowledge generated at the world was not going to be an easy task. Not engagements & also a codification of expertise with only did she need to connect with her team but analysts. The development of a digital platform with she also needed to evaluate their performance, all the analyses and insights predefined would

motivate them when their spirits were low and

completely transform the delivery model for the

work on her new project idea. All these

team. The firm could use the digital platform as a

responsibilities along with a continuous flow of

starting point to work with clients, and numerous

ad-hoc tasks left her with a time crunch.

analyses could directly be done by the client

She also needed to communicate with analysts

without needing the help of an analyst. This change across different time zones. She had no face time would also help in improving the team's

with them and she could only connect with the

functioning. Most analysts reached a peak in their

team digitally. She had to compensate for this by

roles after 3-4 years and ultimately left the firm

cultivating interpersonal relationships with all her

since the opportunity to grow their expertise

team members through regular calls.

beyond a point was restricted by the need to

For the first 3 months as a team leader, she built

conduct similar analyses multiple times. The

one-to-one relationships with all members across

transformation of these internal tools could enable

six geographies. Her call to each one of them was

the team to provide better service to firm’s clients

an attempt to get to know about them, their

by doing higher order work, and in the process grow personal life, hobbies, concerns, life at the firm, their expertise further.

what makes them happy and what doesn't. In a call of 45 minutes, she dedicated 40 minutes to

Being new in her role, Marta faced numerous

this conversation depicting the value of building

challenges in undertaking the transformation. The

interpersonal relationships. While these calls

distance between her and her team, and the

were essential they took up a large part of her

diversity in culture, aspirations, goals & motivation

operational day and the varied cultures that she

of the team makes her situation complicated. How

interacted with expected her to change her

should she solve the numerous challenges ahead of communication style in each one of them. She her?

faced a lot of language barriers while interacting with the Chinese team as their dialects were hard to interpret.

Also, she did not always receive a positive response from these conversations as different cultures took her personal calls in a different light. While the Indians felt that she was bonding with them, the Ukrainians considered her attitude to be somewhat nosy. The Chinese were also resistant to the idea of their lead making small talk with them and preferred a more taskoriented approach.

TIME MANAGEMENT After attempting to establish identification-based trust with all her team members she decided to shift her focus to identifying and appropriating timelines to the knowledge transformation project.

This required her to devise a strategy to ensure that all the tasks get actual plus some surplus time and also there are achievable yet competitive timelines.

She decided to delegate her daily calls to one person who would coordinate with the team and give a daily update to her. However, she decided to keep up the weekly connect with the team. Apart from this, she needed to spend time in resource allocation and networking to get the best of resources for the project.

Another objective of networking was to gain the support of other stakeholders that would benefit from the knowledge transformation project. Many ad-hoc tasks, example, issues in her client project kept popping up and throwing her off schedule from her currently overflowing set of responsibilities. While managing her subordinates is important, upward managing was another task on her plate. She had 3 managers whom she reported.

She was expected to do her due diligence to them on bi-weekly to monthly basis. After all this, she had to find time to develop her core team for the upcoming project and the case she planned to present to the firm for her new project idea.

TEAM COMMUNICATION 2 weeks after her joining the team, Marta realized the gaps in team communication. At multiple points of time, the team members reached out to her to resolve conflicts arising out of misunderstanding or lack of clarity regarding work distribution and assignment. Analysts were frequently getting into stressful conversations due to different communication styles and behaviors. This was affecting both team performance and team satisfaction. This incident made Marta realize the need to track her employees’ satisfaction and get regular feedback. However, she also recognized the challenge of the distance between her and the various teams reporting to her and the

resulting disconnect it caused. How should Marta resolve this lack of communication and difference in workstyles within the team? How could she ensure that this situation does not arise again, after all, this challenge could significantly stall the transformation she was hoping for?

TEAM BONDING When Marta had joined, the team was facing issues while collaborating during the day to day work and it was becoming increasingly difficult for Marta to get the team to perform. During team meetings, Marta realized the need for bonding among team members beyond work so that team members start respecting and celebrating their diversity. It was rare that team members interacted beyond work commitments and this made working in a team monotonous. They did not get time and platform to connect with each other on a personal level to know each other and understand each other's work style. Most team members knew only the name and work profile of others and had no idea what culture or heritage the other person belonged to. The team had little to no idea about what went on in members' personal lives, what kind of family background they had or if they were married or single. This was a problem because the team could not empathize towards members in such a situation.

The team hardly had any

face time with members due to geographic barriers.

If somebody was unable to deliver on a work commitment on time due to a tragedy in his or her life, the team would not be there to support the person and would, in fact, look at him in the bad light. This made for an increasing need to increase cohesiveness in the team so that people perform.

Marta could not expect the team to collaborate with each other for digitizing their expertise in this situation. How could Marta enhance team bonding, and also ensure it is maintained during the day to day situations?

MOTIVATION A major part of the team lacked any incentive/ motivation to work towards the project. There were many reasons that contributed to this phenomenon.

Some of the team members were working at a good position in the organization and were not looking for a promotion anytime soon. They also felt that this would not even improve their prospects in a very big way. There was a blend of many cultures in the team and different set of people had diverse aspirations and while Marta had been trying to understand them better, the team members found it difficult to establish a strong connection with each other. The lack of cohesiveness often led to small misunderstandings between diverse sets of people. This further brought down the morale of the team. Also, the team based out of Latin America got very little to no overlap with teams from other geographies and often felt isolated. As the overlap was minimal, the supervision and acknowledgment of their work also used to get overshadowed at times. They did not feel valued.

How and When Marta detected the lack of motivation in her team How and When Marta detected the lack of motivation in her team When Marta announced the project to the team, many practitioners were not enthusiastic about it.

They reacted in an uninterested manner to the value proposition suggested by her. When Marta divided the project into eight parts based on team member’s abilities and interests and invited people to volunteer for different segments of the project, a lot of people did not come forward pro-actively and had to be assigned roles forcefully. When she organized individual calls to follow up on team members’ assignments, a lot of people would back out before the call or reschedule it.

The excuse accompanying the rescheduling was invariably about how they did not get time to work on their deliverables and would get back at the earliest. Also, within a short span after the commencement of the project, an employee opted for an internal role change, one resigned and 2 senior analysts exited the teamWhen Marta announced the project to the team, many practitioners were not enthusiastic about it. They reacted in an uninterested manner to the value proposition suggested by her.

When Marta divided the project into eight parts based on team member’s abilities and interests and invited people to volunteer for different segments of the project, a lot of people did not come forward proactively and had to be assigned roles forcefully. When she organized individual calls to follow up on team members’ assignments, a lot of people would back out before the call or reschedule it. The excuse accompanying the rescheduling was invariably about how they did not get time to work on their deliverables and would get back at the earliest. Also, within a short span after the commencement of the project, an employee opted for an internal role change, one resigned and 2 senior analysts exited the teamWhen Marta announced the project to the team, many practitioners were not enthusiastic about it.

They reacted in an uninterested manner to the value proposition suggested by her. When Marta divided the project into eight parts based on team member’s abilities and interests and invited people to volunteer for different segments of the project, a lot of people did not come forward pro-actively and had to be assigned roles forcefully. When she organized individual calls to follow up on team members’ assignments, a lot of people would back out before the call or reschedule it. The excuse accompanying the rescheduling was invariably about how they did not get time to work on their deliverables and would get back at the earliest. Also, within a short span after the commencement of the project, an employee opted for an internal role change, one resigned and 2 senior analysts exited the team.

BUILDING CONSENSUS To gather firm support and resources for the project, Marta decided that the team would present an investment case at the firm’s competition for creating new ventures. . For this task, she created a core team to drive the project centrally. There were three main members - Marta, Gaurav , and Liza.

Gaurav was a junior analyst in the India office who had started his career at the firm one year back and had shown high support and enthusiasm for the transformation project. Gaurav was ambitious and had quickly made a mark at multiple clients in his tenure. He worked day in and day out for the project and was increasingly being seen as an expert. He consistently tried to find ways to improve team productivity in the long run through the project.

Liza was a Polish senior analyst who had been five years into the company and had deep knowledge about the working of the team and its processes.

Being in the same office with similar backgrounds, Marta and Liza had quickly bonded together and had a good working relationship.

While building the investment case, the core team had to take numerous strategic decisions that would decide what the new delivery model of the team would be and what would be the team's role in the new scenario. A major decision revolved around the depth to which the team should digitize and what would be the role definition of analysts. Gaurav felt that they should digitize as much as they can, and create a fundamental need for the analysts to continue to develop their expertise to be useful to clients. He felt that using the digital tool analysts should be able to visit clients and share their expertise since they did not need to do fresh analysis in the office.

When Liza came to know about Gaurav's plan to change the working style, she resisted the change suggested by Gaurav and told Marta "There is no need to take that much onus and changing team's working style. It will take a toll on the work-life balance of the employees and may not give better results". Liza believed that they should not digitize completely, and should aim to make a delivery model in a way that does not require the analysts to travel to clients or take more responsibility.

How should Marta get Liza and Gaurav to arrive at a common ground without feeling alienated?

though every analyst was supposed to be a part only 1 sub-team. In all the teams, he ended up being the dominant contributor of ideas and backed it up with execution. Marta felt that this was creating a discord within the team wherein other analysts felt less responsible for the project and wanted to leave the work to Gaurav. She felt such a workstyle was not acceptable in the company which was supposed to be much more collaborative. She had a feeling Gaurav was doing this for an upcoming promotion.

She decided to talk to him about the problem and scheduled a feedback call with him. She explained to him how she felt about her work style on the project and asked him to take a step back and let others take more ownership. She also mentioned to him that he shouldn't worry about his promotion as he significantly exceeded what was expected out of a junior analyst.

Gaurav, however, felt taken aback. He believed he was right in his approach and had to take up so much work only because others did not volunteer when things were required. He mentioned to her that he felt others were not enthusiastic and passionate enough to create a really useful tool, and while that had been demotivating for him, he wanted to ensure the project maintained its timelines. Gaurav wrote a really long email to her explaining his perspective.

Marta felt conflicted between her opinion of the situation and Gaurav's perspective on team operations. Should she push Gaurav to restrict his efforts and risk de-alienating a critical member from the project, or should she let the situation continue?

How should she handle the conflict between her and Gaurav without demotivating him?

ESTABLISHING APPROACHABILITY Marta had hired a new analyst named Ramita in the firm’s Thailand office in June for handling South East Asia clients. First three months, Ramita was performing very well and had taken ownership of multiple client projects. She was also involved in one of the sub-teams developing the digital tool .To improve team bonding and collaboration for the CONFLICT MANAGEMENT project, Marta had organized a team meeting in a Over time, Marta started feeling that Gaurav was resort in Prague for a week for everyone to work & over ambitious and volunteered to do too much bond together.However, the meeting had a work on his own. He usually ended up staying late in counterintuitive effect on Ramita. Post the meet, the office, and always seemed to have too much to Ramita cut ties with the team and stopped do. Due to his drive and enthusiasm for the project, responding to any communication from the team and he had ended up being a part of 4 out of 8 subalso her local office colleagues. teams formed to develop the tool, even

Marta had thought that she had been really supportive of Ramita and had inducted her into the firm very well, and this was a surprise to her. The team was unable to get Ramita to open up, and within a month, Ramita resigned. Â This incident made Marta realize that she had not made herself available to the team to connect with her for sharing problems & feelings. Being geographically separated and culturally and behaviorally different meant that people did not feel comfortable sharing personal issues and feelings with her. To add to it, her enthusiastic nature while building relationships could alienate certain members of the team who had different personalities & cultural traits. How could she make her team comfortable to reach out to her on a personal level to share their emotions?Â

HR Terminology Crossword Puzzle

ANSWERS