Invite your CEO to wear HR’s Shoes

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: September 29th, 2008

I posted one of the Talent Junction blog posts to CiteHR.com titled “How HR Manager can improve Performance“. It was very well received by the HR community (Read by 2,879 HR professionals and 54 posted thank you comments and still continuing.) One of the HR professionals on reading this post sent a very interesting email seeking help. Here it is…An HR Executive

“Hello Mr. Gireesh,

I have read your Article. It’s Brilliant. I am working in an Airlines Sector as an HR Executive and doing routine work (Salary Processing, PMS, Recruitment etc.). I want to increase my work area in HR so that I can also give my contribution in increasing the performance and lowering the attrition rate of my company.

My biggest problem is my own Management. As they do not want to have Policies, Procedures etc.). Could you please give me some suggestion so that I can improve the performance of my company?”

This mail has two messages: One, the restlessness of a self-motivated HR Manager to improve the performance of his organization and two, her unsuccessful attempts to involve the management into development of Human Resources. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, Human Resources, Motivation | 5 Comments »

Leadership insights on “Budgeting for Growth”

By: Maj. Gen. B.K. Bhatia
Date: September 26th, 2008

I was invited to a attend a seminar conducted by a local chapter of a management group. The conference Budgeting-for-growthwas titled “Budgeting for Growth” where experts and industry leaders were invited to share their views on optimizing budgets for Marketing, Infrastructure, Information Technology and HR. Since my interest is in the area of HR, the viewpoints of a cross-section of the audience on budgeting for HR are shared below:

CEO of a Logistics Company: “Our IT budgets are managed by the IT department. They spend it mostly on hardware & support besides investing marginally on software purchases. Our VP – HR is exploring on-line systems through which he would be able to explore employee profiles quickly. I have no budgets allocated for this.”

MD of a Publishing firm: “My CFO feels that we have limited budgets for HR automation, but we may hire two additional executives in the HR department to manage the increase in workload as we expand. Additionally, our CFO is worried about hiring an expensive IT resource to manage any new HR system. We are in a dilemma!” Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources | 7 Comments »

What the hell has an “Axe” to do with Performance Management business?

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: September 23rd, 2008

Thomas, Karl, Steve, Martha, Matthew, Bill and so many others in the organization complained of work pressure, unachievable targets, peer pressure, time management and loss of work life balance. Training Need Identification Despite working hard, their performance was going down and impacting organization’s bottom line.

Who is to blame for poor performance of employees and business? Ask line managers; they blame it on HR for poor hiring. Ask HR; they blame it on line managers for poor management skills. Ask me, I would say, the Axe???? Now you will ask what (the hell) an Axe has to do in performance management business? Let me tell you a small story…

Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job to a timber merchant, and he got it. The pay was good and so were the working conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work. The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees “Congratulations,” the boss said. “Carry on that way!”. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, Motivation | No Comments »

You Can Only Improve What You Can Measure

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: September 11th, 2008

Going through a book on Six Sigma, I came across this very popular statement “You Can Only Improve What You Can Measure“. Does it hold true for HR also? Why not?

If the answer to above is ‘Yes’, then for HR to improve its processes it is important to measure the current effectiveness. Here is a tool at EmpXtrack’s website which can help you to measure the effectiveness of your HR.

‘CEO’s checklist for HR Effectiveness‘, a tool designed by Maj. Gen. B. K. Bhatia, helps the CEO or Head HR of an organization to measure the effectiveness of their Human Resources Management functions. It is based on 20 most important criteria which constitute the framework of modern HR. Each criteria has a unique weight determined by the size of an organization.

HR Effectiveness Tool

Click here to use this tool to measure the effectiveness of your HR.

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources | 3 Comments »

10 things about Technology every HR Manager should know

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: September 11th, 2008

After spending a lot of time working on HR technology, I have just tried to collaborate some of the technology knowledge that any HR Manager should know.

1. The Era of Excel is over, its no more the most Powerful tool.
There was a time when Excel Geeks were highly in demand. Everybody will approach them for a solution. However, with the arrival of softwares like SAP, where HR can ask the software team to create personalized reports, Excel has been moved to the corner. With the amount of analysis and metrics that appear today, Excel is just insufficient. Added to it is the cost of acquiring MS Office. Open Office and Google Docs have appeared as the free alternatives to Excel. Sharing Excels sheets is fun with Google Docs. Though none of these serves as an alternate to customized HR software.

2. Locally developed softwares are out of fashion.
The technology is growing at such a pace that the small and one-room-run software vendors are unable to infuse the technology and dynamics that world of HR needs. Don’t you remember the important updates that you required but your software vendor was unable to do. People are changing, become more tech savvy, blogs are swarming all over – so how can you expect your employees to appreciate your locally developed software. And then there is no need to worry, the latest SaaS technology offers high degree of customization to develop a system meeting your specific needs.

3. Web based Software is the new affordable tool
The huge success of Monster.com, Salesforce, EmpXtrack, SuccessFactors, et ecetra is enough to prove that the era of web 2.0 has begun. Most of these, especially, EmpXtrack provides updates to the software at the fly, the price of these softwares is unmatched and no need to keep in-house support staff. So why would anybody keep the old, poorly interfaced software in HR. Would you? Click her if you want to see how a web-based HR software works.

This was HR in 1960s

Paper Based HR Department

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HR Technology | 3 Comments »

Top 10 HR Best Practices

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: September 10th, 2008

Here is a collaboration of Top Ten HR Practices that can help you achieve your organizational goals every year. It was originally posted on our corporate website, but for blog lovers I thought to put it here also.

Summary of HR best practices

1. Safe, Healthy And Happy Workplace
2. Open Book Management Style
3. Performance Linked Bonuses
4. 360-Degree Performance Management Feedback System
5. Fair Evaluation System For Employees
6. Knowledge Sharing
7. Highlight Performers
8. Open House Discussions And Feedback Mechanisms
9. Reward Ceremonies
10. Delight Employees With The Unexpected

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices | 1 Comment »

Denying Leave can cause emotional distress – Granting Leave can hamper project deliveries! What to do?

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: September 9th, 2008

I read an interesting case study in Human Capital magazine that was titled ‘hey! I put in my papers!”. The Lack of Employee Self Servicecase study was about a brilliant engineer joining a big brand employer and leaving the organization within 2 years with dejected feelings. Among many unfortunate things that happened to this engineer, the most prominent was related to one of the most common problems in the organizations – employee leave and absenteeism. This engineer needed 1 months leave to prepare for his entrance exam to a business management school. Instead of being straight forward, he asked a leave on pretext of being ill. When he reported back, he was asked lots of explanations and was asked to report to HR. Whatever happened left him and others hurt . This incident prompted him to seek opportunities outside the organization. Lastly, he left – at a hefty 60% financial growth to one of the competitor. Who lost – individual or the organization? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, Human Resources | 7 Comments »