15 minute read
hR StRAtEgY
DR. Y SHEkAR
The sound of skills
In the late nineties, management guru Gary Hamel popularized the concept of ‘core competency'. As per this concept, organizations were expected to focus on what they were good at and outsource everything else
When the Science teacher in school taught ‘‘Sound’’, for the first time I heard the term ‘‘rarefaction’’. It is that phase where the waves are widely dispersed and cover a lot of distance but are not decipherable. This is followed by a phase of highly contracted waves called ‘‘condensation’’. This is where the audio can be deciphered. It is the alternating rarefaction and condensation phenomenon that lets sound waves travel in space and be audible too. Honestly, I understood this phenomenon only much later in life!
There was this odd occasion when I came in my father’s direct ‘‘line of sight’’. Appearing to be busy, I whizzed past him without making any eye contact. He stopped me and asked, “What are your hobbies?”
Self: “er, I play”
Father: “That’s an extracurricular activity. What are your interests?”
Self: “I am quite busy with my current activities. I have no time for hobbies.”
Father: “You need to develop some hobbies. They will be useful when you retire.”
Self (in the mind): “retire? I haven’t even started my career. Why should I think about retirement now?”
Era of core competency & specialization
In the late nineties, when the Internet was emerging as an option for conducting business transactions, management guru Gary Hamel popularized the concept of ‘‘core competency’’. As per this concept, organizations were expected to focus on what they were good at and outsource everything else. By doing so, they will achieve specialization and will be able to compete in the global market that was emerging on account of the Internet. Accidentally, India became the back-office for the world – call centers, contract manufacturing, 3rd party logistics, and several other companies emerged, offering specialized services and were called as Industry Verticals.
With the advent of the Internet, business models started to change, and when
business online, it became essential to dream about global leadership.
Jobs opened up for ‘‘specialists’’ at workplaces. Deep knowledge in a given subject backed by relevant experience became the criteria for advancing one’s career. Specialists, who fitted into a well-defined role, designated as ‘‘subject matter expert’’ (SME) were lured with astonishing salaries and perquisites. ‘‘Been there, done that’’, was the visa for getting hired. Such became the need for specialization that even the B-schools started offering career-oriented courses – MBA in banking, retail, insurance, software project management, etc.
Young professionals entering the industry were putting in a substantial number of hours at work to learn from the changing times. They were in pursuit of developing in-depth knowledge in their specific roles and were left with no time to pursue anything else. For instance, a salesman’s hobby was to network in the industry and develop more meaningful contacts that he met during events and in social gatherings.
The potential CFO was spending time understanding the new global financial policies, the standards for compliance, and reporting revenues. Likewise, the Operations and HR head were certifying themselves in six sigma, total quality management, and as specialists in compensation and benefits, employee retention, etc. Everyone was specializing in one chosen area and developing themselves for the global market.
From information technology to invasive technology
Over the last two decades, technology has made deep inroads into our lives. Social media, pervasive connectivconsume what kind of product or service based on her past interactions. Technology is invasive – we are now like a goldfish in the glass bowl – everything about us is already known and technology is enabling someone to use that information to induce us with a seemingly compelling offer!
Diversity in the digital era
The work-from-home concept has coalesced professional and personal
ity through the cloud, and the all-purpose device called the mobile phone have made access to information far easier. Data became Daataa (God), and gave rise to new business opportunities that we are now familiar with. Insights from the analysis of voluminous data started to drive business strategies toward ''hyper-personalization'' – where products and services appear to be personalized by using data models that predicted which customer is likely to identities. As professionals, we are expected to ‘‘manage’’ both responsibilities effectively. While everyone seeks to stay focused and organized, the routine day’s work has several distractions and surprises for one to deal with. It is clear, managers and business leaders are not solving an already solved problem by mere adaptation of the solution. The daily problems are different, vague, and most often, unprecedented. ‘‘What is the cause of a poor
customer experience?’’ requires the customer experience manager to know the entire process from sourcing to delivery and then about the usage, to attempt offering a solution.
Business challenges have also become very complex.
Solving them requires multiple skill sets – the ability to visualize the big picture; the impact of the solution on people, environment, regulatory authorities, and competition; a multi-disciplinary approach to harmonize processes across functions, and a capability to apply creative knowledge onto logical thinking. This can be the responsibility of a team in an organization. However, every member of the team is expected to know the ‘end-to-end’ process in order to propose a well-optimized solution. While SME is relevant, the individual also now needs to be able to connect the dots beyond the subject to arrive at a solution.
Future is HuTech – Human beings and Technology will be working together. This will affect a new bio-rhythm in human beings relating to thinking and doing. Human beings will need to be creative and logical, practical, and emotional, focused on the long term while producing results in the short term... It is like managing two ends of the same spectrum almost at the same time.
‘‘Expertise’’ in multiple areas will be required. Such expertise develops over a period of time through experiencing and periodic reskilling. Dealing with new challenges will give newer insights which will provide inputs to new ways of solving an emerging problem.
The sound of skilling
The sound wave’s pattern of rarefaction and condensation is a ‘‘sound’’ example for us to look at. A couple of decades back, we were taught, advised, and even nudged to stay focused in one area – the ‘‘stick to your knitting’’ approach paid high dividends. This was the condensation phase of professional careers. In the digital era, and especially in the coming decade, specific expertise will come to us from technologies and we, human beings, will have to be broad-based – working as a generalist. It is the rarefaction phase that carries us through a distance. Adaptability and agility of the mind will be critical skills and the ability to deal with diverse topics will be richly rewarded.
By developing hobbies, we develop our abilities to deal with apparently diverse topics. Hobbies are activities of interest that lead us to think creatively and purposefully. Hobbies, however practical, are emotionally fulfilling activities and develop our capabilities to accept and deal with the inexplicable, the irrational, and the inevitable. It’s never too late to start a hobby!
Like Sound waves, skills in careers also follow the pattern of rarefaction and condensation. From general management to functional experts to multidisciplinary skills, management, and leadership traits have been transformed over time. Experts indicate that skills have taken shapes of ‘I’, ‘T’ and. In the future, will it be the shape of a comb? Perhaps yes! However, I believe it to be like the piano – there are the high and low notes, the melody, and harmony. While no two keys produce the same sound, each one by itself is an expert in creating a sound. When orchestrated, the same piano keys produce music. That’s what we need to do in the coming decade – learn to skill ourselves mentally and emotionally, through formal training, and hobbies.
Wishing you a wonderful decade ahead!
Dr. y SHEkar is a researcher with over three decades of corporate experience in IT. He currently heads the Centre for Digital Enterprise (CDE) at IIM Udaipur.
Past Month's events
People Matters Talent Leaders Confluence Malaysia
People Matters 21st January 2021 Online It is half-day virtual interactive sessions for an exclusive group of 80- 100 senior HR and talent leaders, passionate about people & work that come together to network, learn and contribute on topics that are most apt as per the talent trends the HR leaders are seeing emerge in their respective countries. We have some star speakers joining us from organizations like Axiata, S P Setia Berhad, TDCX, and more. Employee Engagement through L&D – Strategizing for 2021 & Beyond
People Matters & UpsideLMS 21st January 2021 Online This live webinar in association with UpsideLMS where our speakers discussed how learning and development can be a great enabler in boosting employee engagement in the coming years. The session delved into understanding Employee Engagement in the new normal and how learning and development is a critical element of EE.
Preparing for the upcoming 'Skills Shift'
People Matters
& Degreed 14th January 2021 Online (SEA) The new world of work that we are catering to is seeing new shifts every day. Organizations need to be all armed for these shifts and ensuring that it does not affect the business continuity and employee productivity. Keeping the employees updated with the current skills set requirement is the need of the hour. Preparing for the upcoming 'Skills Shift' People Matters
& Degreed 13th January 2021 Online (India) The new world of work that we are catering to is seeing new shifts every day. Organizations need to be all armed for these shifts and ensuring that it does not affect the business continuity and employee productivity. Keeping the employees updated with the current skills set requirement is the need of the hour. But are organizations game for it? The HR Agenda 2021: Critical Strategies to Prepare for the Future
People Matters & PeopleStrong 19th January 2021 Online Technological advancements have redefined the idea of “best practices” in almost all operations, including human resource management. This unstoppable force gained further momentum with the COVID-19 pandemic, which upended the priorities of HR leaders worldwide.
Managing Distributed Teams: What are the challenges?
People Matters
BeNext 12th January 2021 Online A recent Gartner survey shows that 80% of leaders plan to allow employees to work remotely at least part time postpandemic, and 47% will allow full time work-fromhome. In this session, we discussed the challenges of building, managing and engaging remote teams and why is it important to recognise and resolve them?
Upcoming events
New Workplace Operating Models in HR
People Matters
& Oracle 18th February 2021 Online The new world of work that we are catering to is seeing new shifts everyday. Organizations need to be all armed for these shifts and ensuring that it does not affect the business continuity and employee productivity. The operating model across industries and organizations need to take a 360 degree shift. But are organizations game for it? Talent mobility: Lessons from 2020 and what's ahead in 2021?
People Matters
& Sirva 24th February 2021 Online The wave of pandemic has brought up several instances wherein the organizations are bound to relook at their existing policies and strategies. Talent mobility is one of those crucial pointers which took a 360 shift. With WFH and remote working becoming the norms for each one of us, what does 2021 entails? How will organizations look at ‘return to office’? Preparing for the upcoming 'Skills Shift'
People Matters
& Degreed 26th February 2021 Online How will organizations look at the shifting nature of skill development? Is learning and development your top priority for your employees? With the onset of 2021, offices have slowly started to resume, will skilling still be a major priority for us? Join us to find out more about the major developments in this space and how you can prepare for the best.
People Matters LnD SEA Conference
People Matters 4th March 2021 Online In the digital transformation journey, having a detailed talent development roadmap will be as critical as having a technology one. Articulating critical skills for recovery, building the base of future digital skills, reimagining training at a scale in a distant world, and bringing on an experimentative mindset is the base to Rev-Up Growth for individuals, Organizations and economies. This Conference will bring our community together to help us reflect and find collective answers to one big question: How do we Rev-Up Growth through capability, through change interventions and through culture in a time of uncertainty, chaos, and disruption? In that exchange, we will charge up clarity, shed light, and uncover a new roadmap to build the foundation of a capability-driven business strategy for growth.
Blogosphere >> MiMi nicklin
Is ‘empathy’ the HR Director's new secret sauce?
Some predictions today believe that in 2021 we will see the biggest collapse of mental health in recorded memory. As we all increasingly focus on the role of the COVID-19 vaccine we must not forget that there is no vaccine for our mental health, and yet these health issues are equally likely to be impacting our teams and organizations in the year ahead.
According to Deloitte, eighty-five percent of employees around the world already confirm themselves as “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” from their jobs. It rationally follows therefore that a surge in anxiety, depression, and burnout threatens to unbalance the very fabric our businesses are built on; our people.
Balancing humanism and capitalism is still a relatively new concept for many executive teams in India however the employee requirement to speed up this conversation is moving from important to critical. Employee opinion and endurance surrounding workplace health and performance, and how these intersect, means that senior leadership teams can no longer wait to prompt a shift in organizational empathy levels.
Empathetic engagement at work has become table stakes for the millennial driven workforce in the year that has passed, and employee engagement is no longer a nice to have but a prerequisite for operational success in 2021.
Achieving this shift is not yet as fast as this dynamic empowered workforce would like it to be. According to the recent ‘’Businessolver 2020 State of Workplace Empathy Survey’’ there is
still a wide gap between the C-suite’s definition and ability to execute an empathy shift to make it in line with their team's expectation to do so. The report highlights that whilst 91 percent of CEOs say their company is already “empathetic”, only 68 percent of their employees agree! There is a clear gap, an empathy gap, in the understanding as to what this shift truly means for organizational behavior. Also of note is that beyond levels of motivation and morale this same report showed that 78 percent of employees stated that higher empathy directly leads to greater motivation, and 76 percent said it resulted in greater productivity. Employees who feel seen, heard and recognized, perform better, think more strategically, and stay in their roles longer. The picture paints a very strong case for HR teams to move empathy indexing and training far higher up the agenda as they map the months ahead. As the new requirement for empathy at work fast tracks ever forward, the necessity to expand on the types of programs that train this skill set will be 2021’s greatest HR shift. We will now need programs that teach and embed these emotional intelligence skills as well as establish them within the KPI and appraisal systems.
As 2021 opens with further disruption to our world we are all being driven by the need for leadership that goes beyond the rational, and proves connection with staff on a far more authentic and motivating level, within a context that values holistic employee health. Regenerative Leadership, leadership that heroes team morale, and its relation to output, is now the new normal. For the
senior leaders, this move to repurpose their culture and processes is an intense one and it will be vastly reliant on HR teams and systems to create the pathway for this shift. From the initial mapping of current organizational empathy to the road maps to roll out corporate understanding as a cultural currency at scale, HR teams will be responsible for turning this employee need state into a business status quo.
As we face the realities ahead in 2021 it will be the HR teams that embrace a higher order set of cultural team traits that will generate the levels of trust and loyalty required to futureproof their workforce. Understanding of our colleagues and teams is no longer a nice to have but a mandate for staff and stakeholders equally. A secret sauce, or the source of all corporate human potential? Either way, without empathy being deeply baked into our strategic priorities for 2021, as a baseline requirement across all teams and industries, we won’t only lose out to dwindling performance levels from our teams, but we might lose each other entirely.
MiMi nicklin is the Bestselling Author of Softening The Edge
