IIM Shillong TogetHR Nov-Dec 2012 by Zigu MBA

IIM Shillong HR Magazine

Issue 8 | NOV - DEC 2012

Interview by

Mr. C. Naveen Chandra Head-Compensation and Benefits Verizon Data Services

Balm to the Post Merger Bruises

Adhesive

Editorial Dear Readers, It gives us immense pleasure to present the new issue of TogetHR.

Faculty Advisors Prof. Rohit Dwivedi Prof. Sonia Nongmaithem

Senior Team usHR Ankita Shah KNK Srividya Noopur Borwankar P Padmini Sourojit Ghose

Junior Team usHR Apoorvaa P

The cover story of this issue - ‘HR as a Balm to Post Merger Bruises’, talks about the different issues that crop up when a merger between two organizations takes place. There are several concerns that the Human Resource managers need to understand and take care of, and they have been addressed in detail. Under the Concoction section this time, we have articles on diverse and fresh topics on Human Resource management which are sure to engage you. Considering the enormous response and support from our readers and contributors, from this issue onwards, we bring five different articles for you all. The article of the issue – ‘House Gate Analogy – HR’s New Role in Sustainability’ draws an interesting comparison in explaining the role of HR in translating the strategy and vision of the top management into reality. Teleworking is the new trend on the blocks and has changed the face of the traditional workplace, says ‘Global workplace and the coming Future’. ‘Diversity and Inclusion In The Workplace’ outlines a number of initiatives that an organization should take to get their diversity ratios right. ‘Increasing Gender Diversity at the workplace’ deliberates on the issues regarding increasing gender diversity in organizations. The importance of engaged employees and the role an emotionally intelligent leader plays in employee engagement, has been discussed in ‘Emotionally Intelligent Leader: A tool to enhanced employee engagement’. In the Conflux section, this time our interaction with of Mr. C Naveen Chandra, Head of Compensation and Benefits, Verizon Data Services has been presented.

Lokesh Malviya

A picture is worth a thousand words. Keeping this as the theme, Team usHR came up with a picture based intra-college quiz for the HR enthusiasts of the college. More details in the Campus Buzz section.

Romita Choudhury

An interesting contest awaits you, this time, in the Contest with the Best section. Answer a few simple questions and get the opportunity to win 500 bucks!!

Savitha B

Do write in to us with your feedback @ hrclub.iims@gmail.com.

Tanya Beniwal

Happy Reading!!!

Team usHR

Contents

NOV-DEC 2012

Coverstory 11

HR as a Balm to Post Merger Bruises Padmini Pasumarthi | IIM S In the competitive business scenario, expansion through mergers is inevitable. Contrary to expected notion, not always mergers result in desired synergic effects. The reasons for failure may be many but overcoming those is the major challenge faced by organizations. Through this coverstory, we would discuss how HR as a field can help alleviate the pain from bruises of a merger.

Conflux 04

Excerpts of Interview Mr. C. Naveen Chandra Head-Compensation and Benefits, Verizon Data Services

Concoction 06

Emotionally Intelligent Leader Shashank Malhotra | IIFT Delhi

Diversity and Inclusion Deba Prasanna Sahoo | XIM Bhubaneswar

Global Workplace and the Coming Future K Sudha & S Shyamala Devi | Thanjavur

House Gate Analogy Suganprabhu R | BIM Trichy

Increasing Gender Diversity in the Workplace Disha Gupta | MDI Gurgaon

Connoisseur Speaks 24

Ask the Expert

Contest With The Best 26

SuDoKu Extended

Campus Buzzz 23

Pick-a-Pic Campus Event

Disclaimer: The views presented are the opinion/work of the individual author and The HR Club of IIM Shillong bears no responsibility whatsoever.

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Head-Compensation and Benefits Verizon Data Services

CORPORATE

Mr. C. Naveen Chandra

corner Please tell us about your experience before joining Verizon After completing MBA from XLRI, I joined Mphasis where my role was that of an HR generalist. I took care of the daily operations of HR like performance management, compensation and employee relations. After working there for 2 years, I joined Verizon.

takes place, it is considered a new project. How tough/easy it is to switch jobs cross sector/industry at Middle & senior level position?

Switching of jobs in this domain is actually not very difficult. Industries might differ, but the work of an HR professional remains same. But Can you tell us about your role as Head of certain points need to be taken into considerCompensation and Benefits in Verizon? ation. Based on the industry, the type of employees HR professionals deal with also differs. I take care of CompensaFor example, in IT industry, tion and Benefits for InCompensation is always an output the employees are all techies dia and APAC regions. My of an employeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s motivation, nev- who work on different platwork includes formulatform, and have different er an input. ing the strategy to deeducational backgrounds. cide the compensation In the consulting industry, Job satisfaction, the relationships and benefit structures for most employees would be in the organization and career the employees. This stratMBA graduates. Therefore, growth are few of the aspects that egy has two main parts. based on this differentiaplay an important part in inspirThe important part is the tion the work of the HR will ing the employees and motivating benchmarking of the also change. Otherwise, the them to be a part of the organizacompensation structure variation is not that stark, as tion. across the industry so as it would be for perhaps marto provide a competitive keting managers. package to our employees. The second part is deciding the structural How difficult is it to design compensation and components of the pay structure. Also, an imbenefits for employees in your sector with portant task is to harmonize the pay structures relatively high attrition rate and sometimes across Verizon Data Services and Verizon EnterCompensation being one of the top reasons prise Solutions, since these two are two comfor attrition? pletely different companies. The work can be viewed as divided into different As mentioned earlier, a very important element projects. As and when major events like Comof designing compensation structures is the pensation revision or Performance management

TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

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benchmarking of the structures across different companies. The structural components remain more or less similar for all companies. But the game changing factor is keeping the variable component competitive so that employees do not leave the company due to better pay in other companies. However, attrition rate has stabilized a lot over the recent years and is not a very big threat to the industry. You have had vast experience in the field of HR over the last fifteen years. You have seen many HR professionals joining the industry every year. What are the changes you see in the current generation of HR professionals as compared to yours. What are the good things you see in them as well as the things they can improve? The current generation is very capable and there are not many things that they need to improve. The new set of professionals joining the industry has a point of view and is clear about their goals and thoughts. This is a great thing. What can be improved is, although adaptability is a good thing, they should not try to change themselves a lot.

Do you see any change in the way companies perceive Compensation & Benefits as a core motivator for employees? The important point is that nowadays companies have started agreeing that compensation is not the sole motivator for employees to stay in an organization. Job satisfaction, the relationships in the organization and career growth are few of the aspects that play an important part in inspiring the employees and motivating them to be a part of the organization. We should understand that compensation is always an output of an employee’s motivation, never an input. In one line, what advice would you like to give to future HR professionals? I would just say that – Never hold back your opinion and change your stand easily. Be what you are.

How do you determine the benefits for the employees while designing the system? Other than the company’s policies what are the external factors which are taken into account while determining the benefits for an employee? Benefits are of two types. The statutory benefits are based on government norms and cannot be changed much. For the feel good benefits, two things have to be considered - the industry standards and affordability from the company’s point of view.

TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

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Emotionally Intelligent Leader

“Turned on” people figure out how to beat the competition, “Turned off” people only complain about being beaten by the competition” rightly pointed out by the famous Ben Simonton encapsulates the precise nature of the human capital of an organization. The severe crunch of human capital and the turbulent economy led to decline of overall engagement level of employees. The global engagement levels of 2010 were 56% as compared to that of 2009 which was 60%. Clearly the employee-organization association has been strained due to lack of harmony between employees and leaders/ managers, lack of career development opportunities and lack of challenging work environment etc. The focus of the article is to analyze the instrumentality of leadership for employee engagement. The study puts into perspective the typical characteristic of a successful leader dealing with the interplay of emotion management i.e. Emotional Intelligence. The article also dives into how an emotionally intelligent leader drives higher engagement. It also elucidates how such leaders can plan and implement better employee engagement strategies. The facts in Fig-1 exemplify that out of different factors, empathetic leadership has been a highly valued variable for engagement. It would be worthwhile to ponder over the relationship between the two in detail.

Macey.et.al (2009) argued that rarely has a term resonated as strongly with business executives as Employee engagement. Harter et al. (2002) defined employee engagement as an ‘‘individual’s

TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

A Tool to Enhanced Employee Engagement

involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work’’ (p. 269). Hence engaged employees are defined as those who endorse their organization as an excellent place to work and by their will perform beyond the expected level; remain loyal even in adverse times. After 20 years of research and 60,000 exit interviews, the Saratoga Institute reports that 80% of turnover is directly related to unsatisfactory relationships with one's boss. According to a Gallup Organization study of approximately 1 million workers, the number one reason people leave their jobs is because of “bad bosses.” A conclusion reached by Roger Herman is that 3/4 of people voluntarily leaving jobs don’t quit their jobs; they quit their bosses. (Herman, Roger. Winning the War for Talent. The ASTD Trends Watch: The Forces That Shape Workplace Performance and Improvement. Another recent Gallup study found poorly managed workgroups are an average of 50 percent less productive and 44 percent less profitable than well-managed groups. Being the victim of a brutal boss leads to clinical depression in 41 percent of victims, according to a survey by Bullybusters.org, an online nonprofit in Benicia, CA, that advises victims of workplace abuse. Fig 1: Leadership Makes a Difference: Statistics Worldwide

According to the employee engagement model by Aon Hewitt there are 6 drivers that lead to engaged employees in an organization Apart from the people (Leadership, Managers, Colleagues, Valuing People, and Customers) dimension the rest are the ones resulting/ originating through the people. Therefore the need for leaders and managers to be emotionally intelligent arises. Emotional Intelligence involves being able to handle emotions smartly. Salovey and Mayer (1990) said that it is a form of social intelligence

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that involves the ability to monitor oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own feelings and to discriminate among them and use this information to guide their own thinking and action.

McKinsey Inc in its Organizational Health Index (OHI) advocated that excellent organizations have two distinctive characteristics:

had their followers engaged less. The Aon Hewitt Survey of Global Employee engagement (2011) also discovered that along with career opportunities, among the top five global engagement drivers for 2010 was recognition by the leader. Almost 40% of the global workforce said that their leader behaviour affects their engagement level with the organization. It is worthwhile to look at what kind of behaviour characterizes an Emotionally Intelligent leader.

Above Average Leadership Highly Engaged Employees

Therefore to enhance organizational performance it is instrumental to develop a strong leadership base characterized by leaders having high Emotional Intelligence and highly engaged employees. If one tries to read between the lines one would understand that second factor is a consequence of the first. Harter et al. (2009) found out that high performing organizations whose earnings were 3.9 times per share as compared to their counterparts were majorly engaged organizations. The Global Engagement report (2011) generated by Blessingwhite Inc found out that managers who struggled majorly with their leadership behaviors

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Leaders with high EI are individuals who have a high level of self-awareness, empathy; effectively regulate and manage their own emotions and are a role model (Gignac, 2010a, b). More than being a superior they are partners, coach, mentor and guide. Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study (2010) revealed that employers can make a huge difference in creating a more engaged workforce-if they focus on the right things. The most important factor listed was to have an effective leadership. Among the overall engagement drivers for workplace globally across generations it is over7

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whelming to note that from the age group of 35 onwards majority of employees value relations with senior managers above factors like organization’s reputation, career development etc. The following diagram illustrates the gap between the existing characteristics of leaders and the characteristics of an Engaging Leader. Here Emotional Intelligence lies at the top of the hierarchy of desired characteristics.

The following pointers are steps that organizations can take. Firstly hire and promote those individuals to the higher levels who are not only highly skilled but also possess high EQ. Secondly managers’ EI can be augmented by exposing them to training and development. Research has proved that the emotionally intelligent workplace behavior of individuals can be enhanced to the tune of 10- 20 % approximately.

Hence there is a direct link between the level of emotional intelligence of a leader and the level to which are employees are engaged. Organizations which aim to increase the engagement level of employees should first scrutinize the leadership that exists.

Common Senior Leader Characteristics •Rational, Analytical, Dispassionate •Directs and Delegates (but micromanages) •“I have said it once, people should get it” attitude • Afraid of “Soft Stuff” • High Ego needs Gaps

Common Engaging Leader Characteristics

Hence EI Enhancement Strategy is one of the reliable ways to improve the overall engagement levels. Best Employers not only provide a road map, but also have shown that these strategies work in both good times and difficult times. Lastly Employers can set themselves up for continued success by focusing on the key Engagement Drivers that make a positive impact on their workforce.

•Emotional Intelligence •Great Communication Skills •Coaching and Involvement •Ability to inspire •Authenticity and Humility Fig 3: The Ambidextrous Leader

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Shashank Malhotra, IIFT-Delhi

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Diversity means variety. In organization context, diversity refers to having people from different race, religion, ethnicity and gender working together under the same roof. This form of diversity is known as “old diversity”. There is a new way of looking into diversity is today’s modern workplace which is global, operates virtually, dynamic, incorporates different culture, uses advance technology, ephemeral and uses various communication modes, called “new diversity”. The “old diversity” focuses only on whom to hire and routing them into the organization through diversity training. Organizations having a bigger purpose behind their diversity efforts use “new diversity” to create an environment conducive of creating a high performance culture. This does not mean that “old diversity” should be put aside; rather both the diversity forms should be integrated together and incorporated into business strategy. Inclusion refers to engagement of diversity. This engagement of diversity provides an equal opportunity for everyone to contribute. Promoting ownership culture, the desire of being a perfectionist and the benevolent purpose of serving others are the pillars of inclusion. Employers having these three pillars are bound to have more engaged and high performing employees. Lee Gardenswartz and Anita Rowe, in order to explain diversity formulated a diversity model known as Four Layer of Diversity Model (fig. 1). It has Personality at the core which relates to individual style and characteristics. A person’s characteristics like introvert or extrovert, fast paced or slow paced, structured or un structured determines his/her treatment and progress in the organization. Surrounding to the Personality Layer TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

is the Internal Dimension Layer which comprise of gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race and physical ability. All of these factors are out of a person’s control, yet they define their roles, expectations from them and their influence in organization. Surrounding to the Internal Dimension layer is the External Dimension layer which consists of results of life experiences and choices such as religion, education, marital status, work experience and recreational habits. These are the

Fig.1, Source: SHRM, Lee Gardenswartz and Anita Rowe

areas around which an employee is valued or not valued, respected or disrespected. The final layer surrounding the External Dimension Layer is the Organization Dimension which comprises of Functional Classification, Management Status, Work Content, Union Affiliation, Seniority, Work Location and Department Unit. These aspects affect treatment of the employee and productivity of the organization. The above model is traditional in nature and is very relevant to organizations’ operating in a single country, however in the present scenario where the companies are going global two new layers should be added to the Four Layer Model as suggested by Ms. Pamela Culpepper, Senior 9

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Vice President, Global Diversity and Inclusion Officer, PepsiCo. The two layers are Civilization Orientation and National Identification. The Civilization Orientation circle includes Western, Hindu, Middle Eastern, Latin American, Salvic Orthodox and African Civilizations. The national Identification circle comprises of Social Hierarchy, Political Structure, National Values and Economical Status. Addition of both these layers gives a wider perspective and view point to the organization planning to go global. It would raise cognizance of things that were taken for granted like social class, caste, color etc. Organization in present scenario has Baby Boomers holding top most positions, Generation X holding middle management positions and Generation Y working for the Generation X managers. Conflict in ideology, thought process and way of doing business is inevitable. Thus organization has to make sure to reduce conflict and reap benefits from knowledge this diversity has to provide. It can be managed by inclusion. Every organization needs to focus on three things. Firstly, the focus should be on the attitudes and behaviors of individuals. Attitude of employees towards colleagues, company policies and working style

of top management determines their behavior. If the attitude is shallow then the behavior would be un-collaborative and un-responsive; which is detrimental to organization culture. Providing training to employees in this regard has proven to be a way out. Secondly, the focus should be on managerial skills and practices. There is nothing as perfect managerial skill and practice. It very much depends on organization’s culture and values. For example in hierarchical cultures it becomes impossible to ask a direct question or provide an honest feedback to boss, yet the same is expected from employees in most of organizations. Thirdly, the focus should be on organization values and policies. It is the most difficult part. For example how does an organization select recruiters who themselves are diverse? And if the recruiters are not open minded and are objective about others it becomes impossible to have on board diverse employees. Thus the recruiters should be sensitized on this issue. Diversity exists in real. If managed well it will take organization success to new heights, however if mismanaged it brings obstacles that can hinder organizations knack to succeed. DEBA PRASANNA SAHOO, XIM Bhubaneswar

Call for Articles & Participation Team usHR invites articles from B-Schools all across India. We are looking for original articles related to field of Human Resources. References should be cited wherever necessary. The best article will be featured as the “Article of the Issue” and would be awarded cash prize of INR 1000 Some of the good unpublished articles will be put up in our blog: www.iims-ushr.in Contest Winner of every issue gets a prize money worth INR 500 along with a certificate of appreciation For other updates, check our Facebook page – “usHR-HR Club of IIM Shillong”. The issue details can be checked on our blog www.iims-ushr.in

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Cove r Sto r y

Balm to the Post Merger Bruises

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HR 11

Cove r Sto r y

Merger involves two businesses integrating their organizations, cultures, processes, practices and resources into a single entity in order to achieve competitive advantage. In this new age of competitive business landscape, mergers have become an unavoidable way of achieving industry consolidation, coping changes in laws, regulations, political and economic conditions and benefiting from increased productivity and reduction in resource costs. The benefits from merger are plenty including increased customer base, increased product portfolio and synergic financial and operational benefits. Just like everything else, there is another side to the coin; mergers if not properly handled pose immense detrimental effects to the merged entity. A lot of analysis and due diligence goes in the background to ensure success. It is said in theory that top management from all the parts of the organization: Finance, Marketing, HR, Operations, and IT etc. involve themselves in the merger process but unfortunately HR actually plays a minor role, either due to lack of empowerment or due to lack of business perspective. Whatever might be the reason, HR practically does not get involved in the early stages of merger process. Only a crossfunctional and integrated approach to mergers with HR as a key professional partner will deliver most value. In order to understand how this can happen, few situations are listed with HR acting as a balm to the Post Merger Bruises.

blend of the two to get the right mixture. The third of the many is the differences in HR policies such as compensation and benefits. Till the merger the employees might be working in various pay scales and bringing them all to the same platform will become a mammoth task. Fourth biggest challenge is managing the minor power houses and politics in the organizations. The existing power houses will fight with each other and also with the new entity formation for their own existence. Overcoming these issues and bringing a sense of belonging among the employees towards the single merged enterprise with which they can identify and to which they are motivated to contribute is a massive task for the top management. No doubt there is unimaginable complexity; a proactive and process oriented approach with wider involvement of HR will make the landing smoother than expectable. Though role of HR varies from the type of organizations and merger, a general approach might be used to divide the process into 3 phases with each phase consisting of different kinds of involvement of HR Departments of both the organizations. The 3 phases are Pre-Merger or the Pre-planning phase, Merger or Planning phase and Post-Merger or Implementation Phase. Active involvement of HR in all the 3 phases will ensure lesser post-merger integration issues.

One of the biggest post-merger integration issues is of employment uncertainty with possible job and employee redundancy. This issue is prevalent at all levels of the organization. Answering the question of who is required and who is not, forms an inevitable part of the merger process. Next big challenge is handling the differences in communication and working cultures and choosing the best to go forward with, for the organization. Some organizations might be hierarchical while some others might be collaborative in nature. But the major issue will be how to get a

TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

Cove r Sto r y

In the pre-merger phase, HR of both the organizations should be actively involved in the due-diligence exercise. Understanding the aspects of working of both the organizations is necessary to predict if the proposed synergic effects can be achieved. Having proper metrics and measuring the organizational cultures is necessary to evaluate deal makers and breakers. This provides a clearer future vision about future course of action. A robust diagnostic test should be done at this stage to understand the risks. This would also provide enough time to plan mitigation strategies. n the merger phase, firstly the new entity HR Department structure should be finalized by the top management. Then the combined HR department should make a clear long sighted organizational redesign architecture to ensure smooth implementation process once the deal is finalized. Along with the architectural design for implementation process, it should advise the top management on the possible integration issues and make sure relevant mitigation plans are in place. Some of such issues can be career and succession planning processes and systems for employees, new team structures, individual jobs and accountabilities at every level, conflict resolutions for people policies, work systems processes and procedures, designing new HRD elements, suggesting communications strategy for short, medium and long term and finally helping create good leadership, organisational development strategies and required working culture to achieve combined goals and objectives. In this planning phase, focus should therefore be to understand how to integrate culture, OD, people and benefits by strategizing ways to overlap the best practices from both the organizations. In the Post-Merger phase, the HR department should ensure proper implementation of all strategies formulated in the 2nd phase. Initially, outplaced employees should be taken care of by giving proper counselling and career assistance services to ensure their smooth transition. Next

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remaining employees should be taken care of by giving Training and Development sessions according to the needs of the new business entity. Along with that recruitment and selection of desired talent for the vacated or newly created positions should be carried out. Third important task is implementing a proper internal and external communication system. This will help in ensuring confidentiality, preservation of knowledge, maintenance of cordial relationships with various workforce segments, reducing fear and eliminating uncertainty about careers of employees. Next, team structures should be finalized and the same should be communicated with regular monitoring results. Organizational restructuring should be done to ensure effective and efficient delivery of desired business outcomes through an optimized workforce. Next, the decided HR systems should be put in place so that there are no differences in treating employees of both the organizations. Lastly, the most difficult of them all, HR department should regularly plan ice breaker sessions and other team building sessions so that the employees of both organizations gel together, the new culture gets into place, smaller power structures are broken and a sense of belonging appears among the employees towards the single merged enterprise. Whenever there is a change, employees feel resentment, anger, helplessness, and frustration. People are the building blocks of a business. It is very important to engage them efficiently in order to gain the financial and operational synergies. In the absence of HR, there is no one to provide timely information, to set a strategic course and to fully engage employees, also there is no new organizational culture, no productivity improvements and no â&#x20AC;&#x153;body to the processâ&#x20AC;?. HR truly is the special balm to all the deadly blows and bruises from a merger.

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L G

O R W K P L L A B A O

AND THE COMING FUTURE TELEWORK WORKING FROM HOME Every Organization understands that work-life balance is a great motivating factor for ensuring employee loyalty and retention. Now-a-days the popular offshore concept ‘Teleworking’ seems to be catching up all over the world. Many IT sectors opt for their employees working from their domicile. This would mean a saving in the office resources such as office space, power, water etc., which are spent during the office hours of an employee. During crisis, many enterprises have paid greater attention to their business continuity plans, but most focus on infrastructure and the ability to continue business by relocation or backup facilities. Few enterprises have addressed the type of crisis that results from a biological or health threat that affects employees’ ability to travel to the workplace. As a result, staff may not be able TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

travel to the office for a number of reasons: Fear, Taking care of children while schools are closed, Transport shutdowns, Travel delays. Another factor fuelling the teleworking trend is the high price of commercial real estate. Instead of leasing new office space or expanding existing office buildings, it is considerably less expensive to provide associates with notebooks and phone lines to work from the convenience of their own homes. Teleworking can be described as the practice of establishing, developing and maintaining successful off-site business practices through telecommunication. The image of the traditional workplace where employees permanently sit and work is being replaced with associates working wherever they can be most efficient and productive, whether at home or anywhere outside office. The availability of affordable technology has also been one of the major contributors to the ‘any time, any place’ teleworking trend.

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‘Working from Home’ is a Win-Win-Win solution for Employees, Employers and the Environment. Employees are expected to benefit in terms of reduced travel time and being able to maintain a better work-life balance. Employers would gain by way of lower real estate and administrative costs and availability of alternative talent pools, for instance home-makers, to meet their staff growth plans. The environmental and community impacts of widespread telework include decreases in traffic congestion, air pollution, parking problems and energy consumption.

WORK AT HOME:THE MAJOR CHALLENGES FOR TELEWORKERS Young people entering work for the first time may benefit greatly from working in a conventional team setting in their early years. For some people, “going to work” is an important part of their lives, and the “place of work” is where they make friends and develop their social skills and contacts.

WORK AT HOME:THE MAJOR CHALLENGES FOR EMPLOYERS Home based telework is inappropriate for some people - for example those who have poor personal motivation and are not “self starters” may need the external discipline provided by set hours and a managed environment. Many homes are not well equipped for some kinds of telework. For example even the most highly motivated individual could have problems focusing on and completing a series of concentrative tasks in a small apartment with children underfoot and noisy neighbors on the other side of a flimsy wall. One of the biggest obstacles for employers is the issue of control. Many managers who lack confidence in their ability to “manage at a distance”, and also those who lack faith in their staff’s commitment and so feel that home based workers would be inclined to under perform. Monitoring performance is more difficult for those working at home. Telework devices are susceptible to the insertion of viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spy ware. Hackers are finding new and increasingly sophisticated ways of targeting teleworkers.

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Teleworkers may worry that reduced visibility will limit their potential for advancement due to isolation, the ability for longer work hours and diminished access to resources at the workplace. Because monitoring performance is more difficult for those working at home, managers often do not recognise the contributions made by teleworkers by way of good performance reviews and promotions. Someone with physical access to a telework device has many options for attempting to view the information stored on it. Another common threat for teleworkers is the loss or theft of the device. It is an added responsibility for a teleworker to care and protect the equipment and data.

EFFECTIVE WAYS TO HANDLE THE CHALLENGES The mindset of the employees is yet to be molded to achieve better co-ordination and without any

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apprehension regarding the salary factor. The effectiveness of the system has to be proved to the clients or the customers, to ensure permission from them for those working on customer projects as security-related issues are to be handled. To succeed in the future global workplace, individuals need flexibility, openness to new ideas and practices, initiative, commitment to quality work and an innovative spirit at the same time Corporate need matured industry standards to embrace interoperability. Organizations must look at the new and emerging security options in order to ensure network security and prevent attacks when working away from the office environment. This involves: issuing standard equipment and configurations, insisting on company-specified antivirus, firewall and remote management products, secure computers and data. When a teleworker will be teleworking more than 2 days a week, team building may include focusing on other activities such as: Scheduling staff meetings on days when the teleworker will be in the central office. Scheduling social events (e.g., going out to lunch or celebrating team member birthdays, etc.), Non-work related events (e.g., the company picnic, company sports teams). If a teleworker is the only one who knows particular information or who can repair certain equipment, their absence could cause problems for the organization. Avoid these potential problems by cross training another individual in key areas. Working at home can sometimes feel extremely isolated as the day-to-day interactions are with little people about topics important to them, not with co-workers about ongoing project developments. To avoid this, teleworkers must make an extra effort to have contact their employer and co-workers, either through regularly scheduled meetings or informal lunches.

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Work-at-home employees are especially torn by responsibilities as the line between home and work is blurred to the point of near invisibility. Work-at-home employees need to remind their spouses (and themselves!) that just because they are home, doesn’t mean you can do all of the chores, errands, meals, etc. Working still needs time and concentration, and all of these other tasks need to continue to be shared. Little research has been conducted that focuses on teleworking’s impact on home and family life-a deficiency observed. Several key areas of concern: the impact on rules, norms, and roles in the household; the blurring of spatial boundaries between home and office; and the disruption of time patterns in family routines; the blurring of the work/leisure time division; and the tendency for ‘overwork’ to occur. In contrast, it is found that limited use of teleworking arrangements may have positive home impacts. Reporting on a pilot program in which GTE Corporation allowed managerial employees to work at home 1 day a week for 6 months, the authors found that - “Of the 120 participants in the telecommuting pilot study, 75 percent reported increased feelings of satisfaction with their home life and 44 percent reported having more quality time with the family”. Teleworking allows employees to work smarter, not harder.

BEST CHARACTERISTICS AND JOB-CATEGORIES FOR TELEWORK Tele-working does not suit everyone. Employees with following characteristics generally make good teleworkers: volunteer for the program, self-motivated, satisfactory performance evaluations, function independent of direct supervision, can deal with isolation, well organized with good time management skills, have an adequate

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level of job skills and knowledge. Persons from most of the departments, including the CEO, software professionals, Marketing Director, HR, sales and finance, Accountant, Editor, Administrative Assistant, Engineer, Auditor, Financial analyst, Programmer, Data analyst, researcher, Data entry Operator can be allowed to work from home.

TELEWORK TRENDLINES Of the 85 Best Companies that allow employees to telecommute or work at home at least 20% of the time, CISCO have the highest percentage of telecommuters with 90 percent, Intel with 80 percent, Pricewaterhouse Coopers with 70 percent.

THE FUTURE POTENTIAL Imagine a work world with no commuters, no corporate headquarters and perhaps not even an office in the physical world at all. In the future, more companies with scattered work forces and clients may do marketing with its headquarters in cyberspace. Our belief is, if we bring like-minds together no matter where they are in the world we can actually create that connectivity as if we are actually at the same place at the same time. Reduced commutation results in stress reduction and increased productivity. Teleworking can also expand opportunities for people with impaired mobility or those tied to the home for any other reason. With latest unified communication services, information and collaboration between companies and teleworking teams can be made easier, thereby reducing the drawback of team spirit to some extent. Social networking tools like Instant Messaging, Interoperability and Open standards and virtual world meeting experiences will simulate the feeling on being there in-person. Employees reap the benefits of more time with their families and the ability to focus on projects. Companies save money in a number of ways. Workstations can rotate between those who work in the office and at home on alternate days, reducing equipment and space needs.

CONCLUSION

Fig. 1 List of Fortune 100 Best companies to work for 2012 – Best Benefit: Telecommuting Source: Fortune Magazine, Feb 6, 2012 issue

Working at home is a wonderful opportunity. The work goes to worker rather than worker to work. Get a toe hold in the future global workplace before the ship leaves the harbor and your window of opportunity has closed. Thus we envisage the application of enhanced “Teleworking” might rule the work scenario in the future.

K.SUDHA and S.SHYAMALA DEVI THANJAVUR

TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

Co n co c t i o n

House Gate Analogy HR’s new role in Sustainability Every often, in organizations the Strategy flows from the top level to the bottom. But not all the time the strategies are completely translated into actions by the employees. Even the managers in the middle encounter a lot of misunderstandings and confusions in the stretch of strategy execution. The basic reason for this has been identified by experts and it is called the “Information Gap”. It is not difficult for Organizations to find Talents, Resources, Material, etc if proper price is paid. All these being available, organizations are still fighting to envisage what exactly is missing to achieve what it desires. To understand that, consider this simple approach called “house gate” analogy. Unclosed Unclosed Link Link Closed Link Closed Link

Operations StrategyStrategy Operations

Model: House Gate – Open and Closed gates

In this approach, a house gate is seen with the perspective of an Organization. One side of the gate is the top management which decides on the strategies and the other side is the operations which just executes whatever been formulated. The ‘link’ at the centre is many times ignored because of its smaller magnitude to attract importance, or those which are not perceived attractive to show interest of high magnitude. The missing smaller links could be - Difference between Organizational and Native culture - In understanding Employee Mindset - Understanding Local Culture - Ignoring the Individualism among employees

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Both the gates along with the link should function properly in order to enable “sustainability”. A stronger house gate provides a better feeling of security to its employees, Stake holders and of course the owner. Deterioration to any one of these sides of gates or to the link will result in overall insecureness to every stakeholder. All these missing links (the latch) can be linked but involves lot of human and cultural interferences. Though strategy and operations are performed by different entities, internal information gaps can be addressed by HR only more efficiently than anyone because of the fact that internal human (not IT) communication is been carried out only by the HR currently in organizations. ANTI GRAVITY ORGANIZATIONS Under gravity, things fall down easily and if to fly up, an external force is required. An anti-gravity organization is where stuffs prominently move upward (against gravity) and it is difficult for anything to move downward without an external application of force. Up moving things are profits, talents, and reports etc which move seamlessly with little effort. Meanwhile things that actually should flow down easily, like strategy information, vision, motivation, empowerment etc are not moving easily and are given massive forces to make it move. In organizations, people innovate and adapt forward changes only if they are either satisfied or used to the established practices and have a thirst for newer processes. That thirst is created only if they are empowered, motivated, understood strategy, vision, and mission etc to explore existing processes. One important way to accomplish all these is to loosen up restrictions to access required information. In this highly competitive environment, immense amounts of differentia-

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tion is demanded and achieving that is possible only if we make sure all the processes run at par with employee satisfaction levels. Once they are at that level, because of the thirst, eventual innovation happens. But these innovations should be in such a way it sticks to the strategy, vision and mission. LEARN THE FUNCTIONS Here it is like learning things which are at the front and the back of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s respective function. In those organizations with highly interlinked and cross linked functions, learning spans its wings in more directions. All the employees must be informed with the internal operations and functions about the one preceding and one or two succeeding functions. For example, a person in machining department knows nothing about the assembly department. If people work like this without any connection, they lose their ability to think beyond their present levels. So learning is essential. 1 2 3 4 Learning UnderInnovat- Routing standing ing

5 Sustaining

If done, he will be able to establish a route to direct his imagination and innovation. For instance, if the manufacturing person has a fair idea about the assembly operations, the next time an innovation comes to his mind, he will automatically think about the possibilities and difficulties in assembly department and may tweak his innovation to accommodate those difficulties. By facilitating one to know about other functions, a Route for his thought process is paved so that his imagination flow is streamlined towards perfection, suitability and sustainability. A well connected system will thus ensure an easier translation of strategy into operations.

DO CUE-MINING Cue Mining is a simple process which involves simply finding the cues, collecting them, scrutinizing, concatenating, inferring, and reacting. Improvements can be made only if faults are identified. Faults are always hidden. But some cues will be definitely there to indicate that some fault is there somewhere. Any person in the organization should have that sense of Cue Mining. If he reaches the fault spot by cue mining, then using his learned knowledge, he can let his imagination flow in the proper strategic direction and ultimately rectify the flaw or improve the system. Huge amounts of common sense, interpretation skills, cognitive strength, process knowledge etc are needed to do cue mining. LINK THE GATES In any anti-gravity organization, the movement of down moving things are made easy if they 1. Make employees understand the strategy, vision, mission etc 2. Make them learn the functions that precedes and succeeds 3. Make them capable of doing Cue-Mining To enable these above mentioned points, the role of a HR is immense. By enabling these, organizations will become better capable of exactly identifying that Missing Link or Unclosed link and doing Innovations. And everybody knows what benefits a better innovation brings. Though it initially takes a deluge of planning, time and patience, it brings at the end high amounts of innovation, competitive advantage, superior brand image, sustainability, operational excellence and many more.

Suganprabhu. R, BIM Trichy

TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

Co n co c t i o n

Increasing Gender Diversity in the Workplace Increasing gender diversity is a growing priority of companies across the globe. While some do it because of legal obligations, others recognize the value of these initiatives in driving workforce effectiveness. Inclusive work environment improves business results by increasing employee retention, facilitating collaboration, and inspiring employees to work slightly harder. Organizations often struggle to know what works when it comes to increasing gender diversity in the workplace. Those that design and execute the right diversity strategy have a clear competitive advantage. Few of the strategies that organizations can adopt for increasing gender diversity are as follows:

1. Foster an inclusive workplace to improve diverse hiring

Organizations that foster workplace inclusion in addition to diversity hiring alone are more effective at diversity recruiting effectiveness than those that only focus on diversity hiring. The goal of hiring diverse talent is to increase diversity representation in the workforce. The goal of fostering workplace inclusion is to embed inclusive values and behaviors in the workforce to support diversity and drive business impact.

2. Only slight differences in what attracts men and women to a job

The top five attraction drivers in considering a job(Work–Life Balance , Respect , Stability , Loca-

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tion , Compensation) are the same for men and women. Therefore, organizations’ efforts should be better spent focusing on how their employee value proposition is received by women, rather than tailoring their employee value proposition for women.

3. Increase the authenticity of diversity messaging

Workforce diversity is the second most emphasized diversity attribute in employment brand messages. However, the ways in which most organizations talk about workforce diversity are not very transparent. This ultimately fails to provide candidates with a clear view on the true state of diversity in the workplaces of potential employers. For example, Sodexo makes its employment brand messages for diversity authentic using a show-don’t-just-tell approach. By doing this, Sodexo increases the authenticity of its diversity messages to the labor market. Typical “Tell” Activities

Sodexo’s “Show” Activities

> Profile a diverse group of employees

> Involve female and minority employees in online branding activities, such as blog authorship and newsletter features > Report workforce diversity representation by level and compared to the national population > Involve employees in long-term partnerships with diverse organizations

> Include Generic Statements about Workforce diversity at the organization > Describe workforce diversity in materials and conversations at events with diversity partners

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4. Build broad, not board diversity

Build workforce diversity at the employee and management levels before focusing on leadership or the board of directors. Organizations should focus on building workforce diversity from the bottom up. Focusing efforts on the general employee population drives maximum satisfaction and attraction.

5. Establish measurable goals for increasing gender diversity

1) The Economist Intelligence Unit for the Society for Human Research Management, “Global Diversity and Inclusion: Perceptions, Practices and Attitudes,”

For example, IBM conducts Diversity Town Hall Meetings at different business locations. They are driven by senior leadership to ensure that the business case for gender diversity is clearly understood and to build enthusiasm for the diversity mission. It helps to demonstrate to employees that diversity is something that truly matters to the organization.

Best-in-class organizations track key metrics through both scorecards and dashboards to surface gender equity issues, track goals, and ensure accountability. For example, an initiative that succeeds in increasing the attraction and retention of women in leadership roles may be reflected in higher employee satisfaction scores on a quarterly employee engagement survey.

6. Ensure demonstrated top-down commitment rather than merely “promoting” diversity

Merely “promoting” diversity is failing to significantly impact the low number of women on executive committees; senior leaders need to demonstrate their commitment to diversity for real change. More than one-half (55%) of organizations say their organization promotes diversity either “strongly” or “very strongly.” Yet, women represent only 8.7% of the membership of executive committees of listed companies.

2) McKinsey & Company, “Women Matter, 2010,”

7. Promote manager commitment to diversity A manager’s commitment to diversity is one of the top drivers of employee retention and effort. As such, evaluating management candidates on their ability to champion and manage diversity is important. Assess managers’ inclusion competency by asking targeted questions about their diversity knowledge, values, experience, and actions.

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8. Approach diversity as a change management initiative

Diversity and inclusion initiatives often require fundamental cultural change and should be approached as a change management initiative. For example, Nokia recognized that increasing gender diversity involves managing organizational culture change rather than imposing diversity targets from above. It used a crowdsourcing initiative to stimulate demand for gender diversity from the business. Nokia asked employees to share ideas for how they could make their products and services more appealing to both men and women. The initiative helped prompt employees to demand a more gender-balanced workforce to help them better understand how to create products and services that appeal to both men and women. Nokia India won the coveted “Excellence in Gender Inclusivity 2010” award in the category of most innovative program by National Association of Software Companies (NASSCOM), India’s top software industry body.

9. Use mentoring to further women’s professional development

Female executives report that mentors are critical to their career development. According to a Catalyst survey of female executives, 81% of respondents report that a mentor was either critical or fairly important to their career development. Furthermore, an Ohio State University study revealed that women with mentors were 60% more likely to be promoted than those without mentors.

in which junior-level employees of diverse backgrounds mentored the firm’s top executives. The Connections! program consists of a series of oneon-one conversations designed to spark discussions about diversity issues between mentors and their protégés.

1) “Women in U.S. Corporate Leadership,” Catalyst, 2003, 2) Barbian, Jeff, “The Road Best Traveled,” Training, May 2002

10. Build diversity into succession planning Women represent only 8.7% of the membership of executive committees of listed companies owing to a “leaky pipeline.”

Vodafone- Vodafone has a “plus one” female target (rather than quota) for their top senior leaders whereby leaders should add to their direct reports one female direct report over a 12 month period. Schlumberger- Schlumberger builds diversity into its succession planning and ensures that women are not impeded by “glass walls” that prevent them from accessing experiences that would develop the full skill set required for management at the higher levels.

For example, JPMorgan Chase developed Connections!, a diversity reverse mentoring program

Disha Gupta, MDI Gurgaon

TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

Camp u s Bu zz

Any competition signals enlivening the spirit inside each person who craves to strike a mark and it resonates a healthy beginning as well. IIM Shillong organized a club week from Dec 2-8, in affiliation with Google+ which witnessed the marathon efforts of 7 clubs of our institute, striving to incite hunger of knowledge in the minds of participants. Team usHR planned a strategy to arrange an online event highlighting the core principles and concepts of HR. The idea revolved around posing questions that hint at a personality, principle or movie that closely related to the underlying fact of the subject. The answer would be a picture that describes the question, so the event was named Pick-a-Pic. We wished to inject

interest into the people who participate, by including significant events that are important in the world of Human Resources. This strategy analyzed and formulated, we set out to garner attentiveness among all eager to engage in the event. The registrations poured in and there was anticipation in the air as the days moved by. A teaser video outlining the event along with a poster was released for harbingering the D-day.

The solvers were expected to strain their grey cells at the puzzling questions, come up with a picture that is indicated by the same and submit the link that will reveal the pic. We firmly believed in the reach of the event and were proved quite right. Lot of people expressed enthusiasm in participating in our event that went so soon like a swift dream. Evaluation phase arrived and as usHR had asserted earlier, winners were announced with pomp and splendor. The crowning glory went home to Team 2515 - Abhishek Nanda and Ankita Kushwaha and proving that they were ‘second only to one’ were Team Sleepsters - Saiprasad Shetye and Bhaskar Kris. These triumphant groups were awarded with Google goodies and certificates for picking the right picture and having a learning process of enlightening HR along the way!

Finally just as time has an irresistible urge to unravel things, the day dawned quite soon and it brought along tons of excitement as we were going to launch a ‘One-of-a-kind’ event. The teams consisted of two members and it was designed to be a quiz of 25 minutes with 20 innovative questions which kept the solver glued to the screen.

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Co n co c t i o n Speaks Connoisseur

I am a 30 year old man working with a private firm in Chennai since the past 5 years. The company is one of the best places to work in. The management has also been very flexible with all its employees. But the problem has begun only since the appointment of a new manager. The new manager has been showing favoritism to me in particular. His attitude is such that any work completed by others is criticized and if the same is done by me, he appreciates it. Also he insults others badly in front of me and often asks me to comment about them. This has created a rift between me and the other employees in the organization. My co-workers have started to avoid me in all the activities within and outside the company. I tried talking to him but he is not ready to listen to me. If this continues, the synergy in the company will be lost. Please give your suggestion on how do I tackle him and also ensure that there is no misunderstanding between me and the other employees.

I am a 25 year old person working in ABC Company, located in Mumbai. I have five people working under me, who report to me about their developments on the projects allocated to them. I have a manager who is in the next level of hierarchy and whom I am supposed to keep posted about whatever is happening at my end. I was quite content until sometime back, when something emerged which is disturbing and tough to talk about. I was working overtime considering the fact that we had to work on the culmination of a project which had a deadline drawing close. My sub-ordinates had submitted their work

TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

This is a situation that arises in every company. But what is surprising in your case is that, in spite of having an upper hand in the company, you have written to us asking us for help on how to ensure that there is a smooth relationship between you and the other employees. We would like to give you a few suggestions which might help you. The next time when your manager appreciates you in front of everyone, tell him that this work was not done by you and by one of your co-workers who was also involved with you in the project. Make sure that you give the name of that co-worker to the manager. This is a doubleedged sword. It will make your co-employee feel nice about you as well as earn the wrath of your manager. It is up to you to handle your manager in a proper manner in such a scenario. Also try to strike up a casual conversation whenever possible with your colleagues. Make them feel that you are not a side-kick to the manager but one amongst them. Last but not the least, walk up to the manager and talk to him about what you feel. In most of the cases, talking out the problem is the best solution. Hope it solves your problem.

We believe the stigma of having been hurt in a very negative manner has kept you secluded from interaction happening with your manager. And any issue that is nagging your mind must be absolved of uncertainty and fear, so we recommend that you talk about the incident to your manager as soon as possible. Find a suitable time to sit with him and discuss the same. Make the person understand that you felt uneasy when he spoke to you at that time and insist that this is not the way you want to be talked to. Be calm, but be firm in telling him that such behavior from him (mention that you felt sexually harassed or at least harassed) would never be tolerated in future

Co n co c t i o n Speaks Connoisseur

to me and I was compiling them to make sure everything fell into place, before we delivered the same to the top level. The manager was also present and there was a rift between us which started to widen, as a result of which he started harassing me dragging my gender into the fray. I felt highly uncomfortable when he addressed me and I was too stunned to react. This happened sometime back and now he reacts as if he is oblivious to the fact, which is all the more difficult as I am finding it hard to interact with him afraid that such an argument leading to harassment might happen again.

I am working in a multi-national company for the past one year. The company demands working hours which are inflexible to most of my co-workers. Of course this is what the job requires and we are only doing what is asked of us, that is for the development of the company and which obviously results in our growth as well. But, of late I have been experiencing constant stress and pressure from all quarters possible both in my work place and in my family. I have been facing failure in maintaining my work-life balance, which is having repercussions on every job that I undertake. In addition to that, my team leader is proving to be a difficult person to work under, considering the fact that he is allocating more and more work than I can handle and sometimes I am pushed to doubt that he has turned sadistic towards me in particular. This has resulted in duress, resentment and I am unable to focus on anything at all these days. I would be coerced to consider quitting my job and moving into a new one if this situation continues in a similar manner, draining my energy and enthusiasm completely.

TogetHR | HR Magazine of IIM Shillong

and the event of such a thing happening again will compel you to forward your complaint to the higher level. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t worry about the incident as there was no mistake on your part and be confident of the problem getting resolved after the one-one talk with the person concerned.

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Contest With the Best

Use all your THINKING HATS and solve the SuDoKu. It does not end there: SuDoKu circled numbers have a message in them....Read along for more details...

Solve the SUDOKU... The 5 circled numbers give the month and year, in “m/yyyy” format (single digit to represent month and 4 digits to represent year). Move from Left to Right Row wise and Top to Bottom Column Wise to get the answer For example the 1st circle: in 2nd row and 9th column gives the month and so on In “m/yyyy” the new COO of a motor company was appointed The person brought major organizational change with a plan Give the following answers for winning the Contest With the Best: the “m/yyyy” the company’s name the person’s/ COO’s name the name of the plan the Company’s CSR initiative (Hint: colour)

Last date for sending the answers for Contest: January 10th, 2013 Email ID: hrclub.iims@gmail.com Subject of the email: TogetHRContest8_CollegeName_Name of Person

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Announcement of Results The prize for “Article of the Issue” has been awarded to Suganprabhu R from BIM Trichy for his Article “House Gate Analogy – HR’s new role in Sustainability”. He is awarded a cash prize of INR 1000 and Certificate of Appreciation. All other authors whose articles are published in this issue shall also receive Certificate of Appreciation. The prize for “Contest with the Best” of SEP-OCT 2012 Issue has been awarded to Keshav Sridhar from IIM Shillong. He is awarded with a cash prize of INR 500 and a Certificate of Appreciation. Last Contest Answers: It was a subjective Question which received numerous witty answers

Instructions for Submission Article should not have been published anywhere earlier • The Article should have a single author • Kindly email your article with the file name and the subject as <Title of Article> _<Institute Name>_<Author’s name/Group’s name> by January 10th, 2013 to hrclub.iims@gmail.com Article must be sent in Microsoft Word Document (doc/docx), Font: Times New Roman, Font Size: 12, Line spacing: 1.5. The size of the article should be between 700-1000 words The cover page of the article should only contain the Title of the Article, the Author’s Name and the Institute’s Name. Results of this issue contest and selected artilces shall be announced in the next issue of TogetHR

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Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management Shillong Mayur Bhanj Complex, Nongthymai Shillong - 793014 email: hrclub.iims@gmail.com Mobile: +91 89740 52909 c Team usHR, IIM Shillong

Published by usHR, HR Club of IIM Shillong www.iims-ushr.in