Pehle Aap (People First) !

It’s been said that ‘Home is where the heart is’ well the same applies for any organization. Work, check; place, check; pay hike, check, office-they say. Be it sole-proprietorship, partnership, joint-stock, all initiates with money, material, machinery, method and Man. (err, women too). And the man being referred here as the company or the employee of the organization. The fact is the company grows, spreads gradually with the employees, along with them. Yes selection, recruitment are only process and types. Nothing beyond it. Man-made process, machinery, idea is all cost and figure but the real thing comes with the employees. An identity or existence of a particular organization is again through the employees, directly or indirectly. Company cultures are like country cultures’- Peter Drucker, and the citizens are working men. When we talk about the ‘aam aadmi’, it connects like nothing else.   

Research and experience clearly show it’s worth the time and money to build a high performing workforce. The cost of replacing an employee typically ranges from one to three times his or her annual salary and the average company loses about $1 million with every 10 professional employees who leave. The investment side is also affected. According to a recent analysis done by investment firm Frank Russell Co for the Great Place To Work Institute, money invested in a portfolio of stocks of Fortune 100 Best Companies in 1997 and held through 2003, returned almost three times more (72.9% return) than the same amount invested in an S&P 500 portfolio (25.2% return) during this six year period. Customers, contractors, advertisers, other agencies, shareholders, & valuation fluctuate but the employees are a bit more. Belonging-ness and esteem are two basic human needs, and if it is provided, things just fall into place. Grievance, suggestions, advice, interest, loss, advantage, risk all are primarily known, spoken, heard by them. Making sure employees are happy and satisfied with the job, the working environment, remuneration, and most importantly the sense of belonging does work wonders.

                                                                              

Because the security guard you pass by gives you that welcoming smile, or a ‘salaam’ while entering the office premises.      

Because the receptionist gives that warm gesture while passing his/her desk and comes forward to help.                        

Because the departmental manager stands informed about the records enquired the very last day.                               

Because the whole thing works, very much like this. So the first priority should ideally be to accurately gauge the true sentiment of the employee so that strategic and tactical changes can to put into motion to promote employee satisfaction which adds the real value. 

  -PEHELE AAP, dear employees.

Guest Writer Submission: The Author, Ankita P is currently pursuing English honours from Calcutta University. The views mentioned above belong to the author. © Never Grow Up.2011.  

The 10 Commandments !

No matter the size of your company, having a team of motivated employees is critical to your business success. There are 10 simple ways to ensure your team is enthused, productive and ready to give their all.

Build a foundation: It’s important to build a rock-solid foundation for your employees so they feel invested in the company. Tell them about the history of the business and your vision for the future. Ask them about their expectations and career goals, as well as how you can help them feel like a part of the team. Create a positive environment: Promote an office atmosphere that makes all employees feel worthwhile and important. Keep office doors open, and let folks know they can always approach you with questions or concerns. After all, a happy office is a productive office. Put people on the right path: Most employees are looking for advancement opportunities within their own company. Work with each of them to develop a career growth plan that takes into consideration both their current skills and their future goals. Educate the masses: Help employees improve their professional skills by providing on-the-job training or in-house career development. Allow them to attend workshops and seminars related to the industry. Encourage them to attend adult education classes paid for by the company. Employees will feel you are investing in them, and this will translate into improved job performance. Fun factor: Once in a while, put your work aside and do something nice for the people who work for you. Treat the office to a pizza lunch or take everyone to the movies. These little diversions can go a long way toward improving productivity. Acknowledgement matters: You can make a huge difference in employee morale by simply taking the time to recognize each employee’s contributions and accomplishments, large or small. Be generous with praise. Give out incentives: Offer incentives, either with something small like a gift certificate or something more substantial such as a performance based bonus or salary increase. Also, give out awards such as “Employee of the Month”. Such tokens of appreciation will go far in motivating employees. Deliver what you promise: Getting people to give their all requires following through on promises. If you tell an employee that they will be considered for a bonus if numbers improve or productivity increases, you’d better put your money where your mouth is. Failure to follow through on promises will result in a loss of trust. Helping hand: Help employees reach the next level professionally by providing on-site coaching. Bring in professionals to provide one-on-one counselling, which can help people learn how to overcome personal or professional obstacles on their career paths. Make the right match: You can improve employee motivation by improving employee confidence. Assign individuals with tasks you know they will enjoy or will be particularly good at. An employee who is successful at one thing will have the self-confidence to tackle other projects with renewed energy and excitement.

Source: Allbusiness.com , Expresscomputeronline.com , ET Special Issue, Nov 2011.

' Screw Dheela Hai ' Season 2

Its Back ! The legendary Screw Dheela Hai Contest is back with Season 2. A fun and kick a## contest with 3 simple steps and a chance to win loads of prizes!!!

1. Remember the day you were doing something looney, with a funny expression on your face and a friend or colleague was quick to catch u in the act? Or the day you had fun with your team @ work. (The stuff you laugh about now and say Screw dheela hai mera! (As in that was one whacked out – not in my character moment). Yes! Pick those photos. 

2. Send us these photos (jpeg/png) at info@willnevergrowup.com with your full name & city. And your pet name (if you have one). Also send us a small note on the incident in question!

3. Get Rewarded: Top three entries win some super cool prizes (priceless!). One of them is an IPod Shuffle while others include cool merchandise and gift vouchers. 

Contest Rules:

a. You can send in a maximum of 5 photos per person. These can be photos and images right from childhood to your perceived adult stage. Remember... being crazy and out of the box is the key. You can also create these moments now that you know there is a prize.

b. Last date for submission is 8^th December 2011 by 4:00 pm IST

c. Contest is open to people across the universe :) So don’t forget to tell your friends!

If u want to know what you are up against, check out the SDH Video from Season I. Remember though, this is just the tip of the iceberg :) 

The Mera Workspace Contest !

                                 Click on the contest poster to submit your entry ! 
© Never Grow Up. All Rights Reserved. 

To Tell or Not To Tell ?

The Gossip Paradox : We all do it. We like to share stories but the trick is to set boundaries at work. A sample of senior vice-presidents of communication at Fortune 500 companies stated that harmful rumours reached their ears on an average of nearly once a week. Gossiping at work is also about passive workplace aggression. Even those in leadership roles indulge in making remarks about others. Be cautious, because that’s how negative reputations are made.

The urge to gossip can get you in trouble. Billionaire Ray Dalio, Wall Street heavyweight, has a new stringent diktat! He’s banning office gossip and sacking employees who are caught gossiping more than three times. His policy is ruthless: If employees are caught tongue-wagging about their bosses or colleagues behind their backs, they get two verbal warnings. It’s an unlucky third time when they get fired on the spot. In the company email, he wrote, “Never say anything about a person you wouldn’t say to him directly. If you do, you are a slimy weasel.” Psychology Today reports, “Gossip is like sex. It is so much fun that people can’t stop themselves from doing it.

Can chitchat help you get ahead? 

Even though gossip gets a bad rap, experts also believe that nuanced chitchat may be essential to getting ahead in a career. “If you must be negative, be smart not only about what you say, but also how you say it. Anyone who is an achiever or has good looks or their boss’s favourite will be an easy target. Some disclosures are deliberately spread by senior management in the form of gossip to make people more alert (or so is rumoured). 

Edited from Times Life : September 2011.  

Do Happier People Work Harder ?

Do Happier People Work Harder?

Research shows that staff perform better when they’re happily engaged at work

Americans (And if we extrapolate this to our country) now feel worse about their jobs – and work environments – than ever before. And there’s no reason to think things will soon improve, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has been polling more than 1,000 adults every day since January 2008. Employee engagement may seem like a frill in a downturn economy. But it can make a big difference in a company’s survival. 

In a 2010 study, James K. Harter and colleagues found that lower job satisfaction foreshadowed poorer bottom-line performance. Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually. When people don’t care about their jobs or their employers, they don’t show up consistently, they produce less or their work quality suffers. 

Over the past decade, the research looked into the micro-level causes behind this macro-level problem. To gain real-time perspective into everyday work lives, nearly 12,000 electronic diary entries from 238 professionals in seven companies were collected. The analysis revealed their inner work lives – the usually hidden perceptions, emotions and motivations that people experience as they react to and make sense of events in their workdays. 

The results were sobering. In one-third of the 12,000 diary entries, the diarist was unhappy, unmotivated or both. In fact, workers often expressed frustration, disdain or disgust. Research shows that inner work life has a profound impact on workers’ creativity, productivity, commitment and collegiality. Employees are far more likely to have new ideas on days when they feel happier. Conventional wisdom suggests that pressure enhances performance; the real-time data, however, shows that workers perform better when they are happily engaged in what they do. 

Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Steven Kramer, an independent researcher, are the authors of The Progress Principle:  The New York Times / ET Mumbai , 13 Sept. 2011

Pay Not the First Priority Anymore?

Would you nix a high-paying job offer if it fails to assure career growth opportunities? According to a recent survey, the modern-day job-seeker is doing just that...

India Inc today is a fragment of an ever-changing corporate scenario and as its dynamics evolve, employees and job-seekers find their aspirations and incentives shifting. Mercer’s ‘What’s Working’ survey validates that out of 13 possible reward elements, Indian respondents say that career advancement is their most important reward element. Base pay is the second-most important followed by training opportunities. “Reward points in today’s scenario get far more complicated than the good old days, where you would have a son coming home to his parents with a box of sweets, proclaiming his salary hike, followed by the entire family breaking into a song and dance of how their lives have changed for good. Today’s youth demands are more focussed, planned and diverse. A macro point of view for reward schemes seems quite simple and can be generalised, but as you look closer, rewards need to be personalised and customised to suit needs and desires.”

So, what is it that makes career advancement the most sought-after reward element? 

“In a hyper-growth environment, ‘growth’ is the mantra for business success. For an employee, their organisation or manager working with them on a career development plan is imperative to their personal and professional growth. From an organisation’s perspective, career advancement is important for retention as also for attracting talented employees to the workplace. It increases employee engagement levels as well.” 

    

“Career advancement is one way in which employees believe that they can stay relevant. It ensures that employees can keep up with the changes. The age at which one becomes obsolete and redundant is decreasing. Hence, rather than chasing basic pay, employees understand the need to be relevant and have a ‘career’.” After career advancement and base pay, the third most sought-after career incentive was training opportunities, thus revealing that India Inc employees don’t just aspire to accomplish a good career, but also want to get better at what they do. 

Consequently, whether the bait for climbing up the corporate ladder is training opportunities, career advancement incentives or basic pay, one cannot refute the fact that India Inc today is more motivated than ever to be on top of their game. 

Condensed from the Times Ascent 07 September 2011

Help Employees Balance Home & Office

Stress At Work

Help Employees Balance Home and Office

Win-win situation: Employees who can balance roles are likely to be more productive and less stressed

How many times have we had a colleague at work who is bogged down by stress, not directly linked to workplace? Ira Mohanty was one such colleague. She woke up at 5 am, sent her two children to school and then by 9 am, was at her laptop answering mails and attending to work-related calls. From 1 pm onwards, Ira kept looking at the clock and from 2.30 pm, we could hear raised voices from her cubicle as she called home and shouted at her children who just kept watching television and did not finish their homework. They were home with easy-going grandparents and did their own thing till the parents returned home. And Ira is not alone. At the water cooler or in the cafeteria and even in the lift, one hears snatches of conversation on these lines: Kids these days are so opinionated… only does what she wants to do… eats only chips and noodles… refuses to dress by herself or polish her shoes… hates going to school… spends too much time on the net… has become a virtual stranger… difficult and moody… and so on. 

More and more parents are coping with the challenges of how to manage professional and personal lives — how to be better parents, how to stay abreast of what is happening with their children in schools and their social lives, how to be there for them in their time of need while juggling their careers and job-related challenges. All of us grapple with balancing multiple roles but our biggest responsibility is towards the next generation. Being a parent, I could empathise with them, but the enormity of the issue came to light last month when in a focused group discussion, the members of our Global Work Life (GWL) team broached the subject of having parenting workshops to help colleagues and other employees cope with different issues. These issues stemmed from the fact that most employees have nuclear families where care givers may not be part of the family system. The findings of the 2010 Global Work Life Issues (GWLI) Survey, conducted among IBM employees, indicate that almost half (46%) of IBM India employees have a child under the age of 18. Among parents of children 0-5 years old, 12% have their child cared for at home by a nanny, babysitter or maid. 

Another 14% of these parents have their child cared for by a relative (other than their spouse or partner). "In-home" care by a maid or nanny can be quite flexible and affordable, but may also be very unreliable and of poor quality. Caregivers often lack knowledge of child development and have poor social-relationship and literacy skills. Parents using this type of care reported the lowest satisfaction rates in the GWLI survey compared to parents whose child was cared for by a relative or in a child care centre. Employees across the world are sharing similar concerns about managing work and family. Magazines and the Internet provide information and counsel, elders at home advise you differently while friends have a totally contrary opinion. 

So how do you cope? We put together a panel of experts in child care and decided to host parenting workshops for parents to address their queries and discuss issues relating to their children. The workshops stressed that it is equal responsibility, which means both the father and the mother have to be involved in child rearing, as against the misconception that only the mother is responsible. What parents at work learned were different aspects of quality parenting, like laughing with the child, spending time with the child, playing with her/him, listening to what the child has to say and not just existing together in front of the television set. Care givers must also be equipped with basic information to handle difficult situations at home. Employees who can balance roles are likely to be more productive and less stressed, so it is a win-win both for the organisation and the individual. A workplace that encourages an individual to balance different roles is likely to have a happier and more productive workforce. 

The author is Diversity Manager at IBM India, South Asia Source : ET Mumbai 06 September 2011

What your HR will never tell you Directly !

About your Resume!

1. “Once you’re unemployed more than six months, you’re considered pretty much unemployable. We assume that other people have already passed you over, so we don’t want anything to do with you.” –Cynthia Shapiro, Author

2. “When it comes to getting a job, who you know really does matter. No matter how nice your résumé is or how great your experience may be, it’s all about connections.” –HR director at a health-care facility.

3. “If you’re trying to get a job at a specific company, often the best thing to do is to avoid HR entirely. Find someone at the company you know, or go straight to the hiring manager.” –Shauna Moerke, an HR administrator

4. “People assume someone’s reading their cover letter. I haven’t read one in 11 years.” –HR director at a financial services firm

5. “We will judge you based on your e-mail address. Especially if it’s something inappropriate like kinkyboots101@hotmail.com or johnnylikestodrink@gmail.com.” –Rich DeMatteo,

6. “There’s a myth out there that a résumé has to be one page. So people send their résumé in a two-point font. Nobody is going to read that.” –HR director at a financial services firm

7. “I always read résumés from the bottom up. And I have no problem with a two-page résumé, but three pages is pushing it.” –Sharlyn Lauby, HR consultant

8. “Most of us use applicant-tracking systems that scan résumés for key words. The secret to getting your résumé through the system is to pull key words directly from the job description and put them on. The more matches you have, the more likely your résumé will get picked and actually seen by a real person.” –Chris Ferdinandi, HR professional

About the Job Interview!

1. “It’s amazing when people come in for an interview and say, ‘Can you tell me about your business?’ Seriously, people. There’s an Internet. Look it up.” –HR professional

2. “A lot of managers don’t want to hire people with young kids, and they use all sorts of tricks to find that out, illegally. One woman kept a picture of two really cute children on her desk even though she didn’t have children [hoping job candidates would ask about them]. Another guy used to walk people out to their car to see whether they had car seats.” –Cynthia Shapiro,

3. “Is it harder to get the job if you’re fat? Absolutely. Hiring managers make quick judgments based on stereotypes.  They’re just following George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, who said ‘I stereotype. It’s faster.’” –Suzanne Lucas, a former HR executive

4. “I once had a hiring manager who refused to hire someone because the job required her to be on call one weekend a month and she had talked in the interview about how much she goes to church. Another candidate didn’t get hired because the manager was worried that the car he drove wasn’t nice enough.” –HR professional at a midsize firm

5. “Don’t just silence your phone for the interview. Turn it all the way off.” –Sharlyn Lauby, HR consultant

6. “If you’ve got a weak handshake, I make a note of it.” –HR manager 

7. “If you’re a candidate and the hiring manager spends 45 minutes talking about himself, the company or his Harley, let him. He’s going to come out of the interview saying you’re a great candidate.”  –Kris Dunn, chief human resources officer

[Condensed from Reader’s Digest Magazine, April 2011] 

Work Place Festivities !

WORKPLACE FESTIVITIES

Festivals have become a big part of the office culture nowadays. In the first of the two-part series, Mithila Mehta explores how organisations today celebrate festivals, outlining the professional implications. India is a country that loves its festivals and this sentiment extends to the workplace as well. Most organisations celebrate festive occasions with all the rituals and traditions in an extremely enthusiastic manner. "My organisation celebrates all major festivals, right from Holi to Eid, Parsi New Year, Christmas and Diwali. The HR department does an excellent job planning the festivities," says Suruchi Baliga, a journalist. Apart from the traditional celebrations, organisations are organising festivals in innovative ways. "Last year, we had a secret santa game at work. Everyone was assigned a colleague and you had to be his/ her secret santa for a week," shares Seema Koshi, a media research analyst. 

Today, occasions like Valentine's Day are also being celebrated. "On Valentine's Day, we had a red dress code. There were huge heart-shaped decorations, and the canteen made heart shaped cakes. It was meticulously done," recalls Baliga. Koshi shares how her organisation celebrates Children's Day by asking employees to bring their young ones to work. "Last year, we had about fifty kids at the office. We played games, saw an animated movie and had a party," she says. 

DASH OF COLOUR 

Festive celebrations at workplace are most welcome because they provide a respite from the routine. "Let's face it; office does tend to get monotonous at times. Festivals add a dash of fun and colour. It gives us something to look forward to," says Bharat Ramanujan, senior copywriter at an ad agency. For the organisation, festive celebrations can go a long way in building a happy, positive corporate culture. This is important in today's context, when organisations are more people-focussed than ever before. Says Samay Taneja, HR manager with an IT solutions company, "We get an opportunity to bond with our employees in a more informal setting.” Interestingly, the globalised nature of organisations is also reflected in the festivals and events being celebrated. "A few years ago, the focus was only on Indian festivals and ceremonies. However, now international days like St Patrick's Day, the year of the rabbit and the Chinese new year is celebrated,” informs Ramanujan. 

BREAKING BARRIERS 

Festive celebrations at the workplace help break existing hierarchies and boundaries. "This is one of the few occasions when people let their guard down and are willing to mingle. The entire mood is light and laidback. The usual office rules don't apply, and everyday dynamics are ignored," expresses Upasana Jain, risk analyst at a FMCG company. Agrees Baliga, "The entire organisational hierarchy is suspended. You can simply go up to the CEO and wish him. It is the perfect networking opportunity. Not only is the upper management approachable and 'around', but you have a perfect reason to strike up a conversation." At most workplaces, employees rarely get an opportunity to interact with colleagues from other departments. Festive occasions allow that as well. "We tend to become very comfortable in our own departments, forgetting to consider the organisation as a whole. So when there's a festival, it feels really nice to have everyone together. The same finance guys who I bicker with everyday are singing and dancing with me,” laughs Koshi. 

WE'VE GOT TALENT 

Festive occasions are also a chance to shed the sober and serious office appearance. It is also a platform to showcase some of your talents at the workplace. "I make the most intricately beautiful rangolis. So, during the Diwali celebrations, I offered to make a rangoli for my office. Colleagues, who had never spoken to me before, got to know me," says Jain. If you're an excellent organiser, help plan the event. If you cook well, carry some festive goodies to work. In this manner, festivals needn't just be about the holidays they bring, but also about fun at the work place.

[Mumbai Mirror, August 29,2011]