Employee Training: A Management Perspective

By: Maj. Gen. B.K. Bhatia
Date: May 10th, 2010

How does the management view employee training and what do they expect from it? This was a question which intrigued us; we wanted to understand how senior employees looked at the training function from a strategic perspective.

This article captures our discussions with employees in Operations, Management, HR & Training departments. We wanted to understand what companies did post the employee evaluations, during succession planning, manpower planning, recruitment and training budget allocation process.

The rest of the article discusses our approach and insights gained. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources | 19 Comments »

Getting the Performance Appraisal Right

By: Tushar Bhatia
Date: April 19th, 2010

Most companies want to appraise their employees on a periodic basis and their Human Resources department is generally responsible to manage this process. I have often seen that the buy-in and participation from the Line managers is not as much as one would expect. Based on my meetings with a large number of HR managers, Line Managers & Senior Level Executives, I have come to realize that there is much more to a Performance Appraisal than what is truly understood by all stakeholders.
This article discusses how HR Managers can create a Performance Appraisal System that adds true value to the organization and becomes a useful and strategic employee development tool. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Employee Appraisals, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources, Performance Management | 32 Comments »

Variable Incentive Plans: A Motivation & Retention tool

By: Tushar Bhatia
Date: April 6th, 2010

Since the past two years Variable Incentives did not work very well since most employees wanted the security of a high base-pay and meeting targets was largely unpredictable. The economy is on an up-swing again and employers & employees see new opportunities for increasing incomes.

Organizations want to curtail their fixed costs, hence salaries may not increase dramatically and immediately, but Variable Incentive Plans are coming to the fore to retain high-performers and encourage achievement.

As soon as we think of Variable Incentives, our thought goes to the employees in the sales department, but in my recent research I have found that each employee, irrespective of their department can be included in the company Variable Incentive Plan. Although the goals, their relative importance and the expected achievements may vary across job roles. The rest of this article explores the various categories of Incentives that can be applied to employees in different job roles and how HR can use this tool to motivate and retain employees across the entire company. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Compensation Planning, Employee Rewards, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Payroll, Performance Management | 18 Comments »

ROI on automating the Payroll Function

By: Tushar Bhatia
Date: January 6th, 2010

It is difficult to anticipate the benefits of taking your payroll online. This was a challenge faced by one of our recent customers where the HR department found it challenging to estimate the ROI derived from implementation of an integrated Payroll software.

This article describes some of the benefits analyzed and presented to the senior management such that critical purchase dollars were allocated for the procurement.

The exercise which started as a small initiative actually helped me dive deeper into how a CFO or CEO perceive their human resources department and what are their expectations from an HR platform.

What I will share here is a small part of the study in how organizations are managing their human capital assets and the challenges being faced versus what are the best practices. In this, I will share what are the different metrics and how can organizations save costs in this critical area.

Elements of ROI

To determine the ROI, we had to first understand how the payroll process works in a manual environment. Our interactions revealed that there are three distinct steps in the successful processing of a payroll which are:

1. Data gathering
2. Processing
3. Disbursement and Reporting Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Compensation Planning, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Payroll | 34 Comments »

Case Study: Performance Management System for Educational Institutions

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: November 5th, 2009

As the need for talented workforce is growing worldwide, so is the need for faculty & staff with requisite skills in the educational institutions to produce the base for generating such a work force. Businesses are continuously demanding fresh talent which can meet challenges of twenty-first century through innovative and out-of-the box thinking. Business leaders are counting on educational institutions: schools, colleges, universities and other training establishments for infusing well-qualified fresh talent into industry.

In turn, educational institutions are continually striving for improving their output both in terms of numbers and the quality of talent offered for varying jobs in different types of organizations. The excellence of output from an educational institution depends on the quality of their faculty, support services and infrastructure. To achieve higher levels of excellence, institutions need to set high performance goals for their academic and non-academic staff. These goals should be effectively measured at frequent intervals to bridge performance gaps, if any. Institutions which can effectively manage the performance of their faculty and other employees can leave their mark on industry.

Thus, having the best of class performance management software is not only a need of the hour but an enabler of excellence in an educational institution.

EmpXtrack team has published a case study on Performance Management System for Educational Institutions.

Download Case Study: Fill this form to download the case study:

Posted in:  Case Study/ White Papers, Employee Appraisals, Goal Setting, HR Technology, Human Resources | 32 Comments »

What Web 2.0 and SaaS Software offer that Legacy ERPs do not provide?

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: October 27th, 2009

In the last few years, Web 2.0 and SaaS have captured a significant portion of the market led by legacy ERP systems. Even large enterprises (which only showered their love on ERPs) are now accepting the value of SaaS application over legacy ERPs.

A survey about SaaS conducted in August 2009 by Business Week Research Services found that four out of five managers and senior executives in North America are either interested in, or in the process of, adopting the Software as a Service approach to information technology. In fact, roughly a third of the 326 respondents’ companies have already fully or partially adopted the SaaS approach for at least one application. Read more … Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS) | 7 Comments »

Web-based HRIS helps in FMLA Compliance

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: September 1st, 2009

Introduction: This blog post mentions the benefits of using an HR Software (also called recordkeeping software) in maintaining compliance with FMLA, a law in United States about family and medical leaves. It is important for HR, CEO and CFO to know about FMLA law as employers in US have lost millions of dollars in FMLA violations.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is an act in United States that provides certain employees of an organization with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year. It also requires that employers maintain the group health benefits to the employees during the leave period. FMLA is designed to help employees balance their work and family responsibilities by allowing them to take reasonable unpaid leave for certain family and medical reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  FMLA, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources | 15 Comments »

Importance of HR Data for a CEO

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: August 9th, 2009

I used to believe that HR Data was useful for HR Departments only since the department was responsible for employee development & management activities. Alternately, the CFO and CEO were only interested in metrics such as cost of hire, total compensation, cost for training etc which were more oriented towards financial goals and treated employee costs as a “cost-center”. My perception changed in a recent customer interaction.

It was during an EmpXtrack training session for one of our clients in India, when their HR Director asked that we provide extensive HR dashboards to their CEO. While these reports were available for the HR Managers, I wasn’t sure if it could benefit the CEO in any way and hence I resisted.

Since the HR Director seemed to be a nice & patient gentleman, I thought of arguing a little and also better understand why he believed that the CEO would want to look at all this data. There were over 25 crucial dashboards already available for the CEO and what could be the benefits of having access to 100s of additional reports. Many questions came in my mind like –

• Will the CEO have time to go through the reports,
• What will be the implication of training him in using these?
• What if one of the reports doesn’t work correctly? (It does happen!!!)
• Was the CEO from an HR background or believed in Jack Welch’s theory of HR Management etc. etc.

The HR Director was obliging and I got some deep insights into how CEOs think and work. This also helped me better understand the needs of an effective HR department – especially for a company that has global ambitions and aggressive growth plans.

The HR Director said that they are into a Knowledge Intensive Business Services and their core strength lies in the quality of their people. While meeting potential investors and even large customers, our CEO is often asked following questions:

1. What is it about your management team / people that makes them uniquely capable of executing on this business plan?

AND/OR

2. Do you have the Right Leadership?

AND/OR

3. Does the team have passion for the business? Have they done it before: experience; market experience; intimate contact with potential customers, partners, and suppliers; etc. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Employee Appraisals, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources, Motivation, Performance Management | 1 Comment »

Strategic Benefits of Online Leave Management System

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: July 23rd, 2009

Leave Management is one of the most important HR processes, that consumes a small but significant portion of managerial time. While managers are usually overloaded with projects & hunger for resources, approving subordinates leaves is a tight rope walk. On one hand HR has to ensure compliance with leave policy & ensure availability of sufficient resources for business continuance; while on the other hand it has to improve employee satisfaction. Most of us have witnessed bitter manager-employee relation on issues of leaves. Thus, leave management becomes an important strategic task for the organization.

Strategic Value of Leave

While many companies may take the leave management “not so seriously”, research shows that poor leave management has had bad impact on business performance. It can impact project deliveries and employee morale negatively. Here are some of the critical business issues, that are directly related to leave management. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources | 19 Comments »

Web 2.0 and SaaS for Human Resource Managers

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: July 6th, 2009

Recently we were asked by “People and Management” a popular HR magazine in India to explain Web 2.0 and SaaS to their readers who are mainly senior HR Folks, CEOs and other management profiles. Our thoughts were published in the magazine as an article titled “Web 2.0 and The SaaS Factor for HR“. Here is the summary of this article. (Full version PDF available at request.)

If you visit Internet often, you will have, most certainly, come across the two buzz-words, Web 2.0 and SaaS. Let us discuss what these two actually are, how these are redefining the workplace and why as HR experts, should we be interested in these technology issues. It has to be borne in mind, however, that Web 2.0 and SaaS concepts apply to several domains. Here follows its application in HR Management.

The Web 2.0

This Web 2.0 is a specific type of design of a web site that allows “communication, and information sharing” amongst the owner of the website and visitors. Unlike previous forms of websites which only allowed one-Way Communication (apart from filling a contact us form), Web 2.0 websites allow visitors to communicate with the owners about the content and also enables them to communicate with each other.

The Free Factor

The most significant thing about Web 2.0 is that it is free. Unlike yesteryears, when you needed to pay to create a web site, Web 2.0 works on the concept of free utilization of this powerful resource. Now anyone who has access to Internet can create a blog or website or open an account for free. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources | 33 Comments »

Free Human Resources (HR) Software Download Facts

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: April 22nd, 2009

Free HR Software

Many visitors on EmpXtrack’s website come to look for Free HR software. Because there are many softwares in different domains that come for FREE, they expect that there can be a Free Human Resources Software too. This post will discuss “Is there any free lunch (software) at all?” for Human Resources Management. I will also try to bust the myths about the softwares that are available for Free.

Why HR Software is NOT free?

Let me begin with why there can’t be free software in HR Domain.

My first argument is that it takes lots of efforts to develop an HR Software, because an HR Software is not merely a plain database of employees information fields (like in an Excel Sheet or MS Access) but a large collection of various types of information which are linked to each other in a logical way so that an output can provide a Common Sense View about the employees.

If I need to define HR Software I will say “HR Software is a process for the collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of employee’s data. It can provide tools for prediction and forecasting based on data. Thus it can be used for a wide variety of management decisions, financial decisions about manpower, performance of people, succession planning and removal of non-performers.” Such an important software, which provides a total MIS on human resources has to be created with great care. How can you get it for Free. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Employee Appraisals, Goal Setting, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources, Performance Management | 38 Comments »

Writing SMART Goals (also called KRAs) from Job Descriptions

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: April 14th, 2009

Many Managers (Including HR managers responsible for writing others Goals) often ask to help them on creating Goals (Key Responsibility Areas) for different designations, which they can use for setting Goals and/or conducting performance appraisals. While most of these managers are completely aware of their job profile, they find it difficult to shape it in a written form.

Knowing your Goals and writing them effectively is an all-together different game. To describe your Goals (KRAs) you need to have effective writing skills and sound knowledge of terminology. Unfortunately, some executives/ managers may not have a flair for writing and thus unable to write their Goals (KRAs). This is true for HR also. So here are some tips that will help Talent Junction users to write Goals (KRAs) from the Job Descriptions.

SMART: A Smart Goal (KRA) is one which is:

1. Specific : Clearly stated what to do and how to do?
2. Measurable: States how the performance for this goal will be measured.
3. Achievable: It can be achieved by employees if they work really hard (You can draw this conclusion by talking to employee, manager or someone who has done this job successfully).
4. Relevant: The KRA (Goal) is relevant to the job and the performance on this goal will improve productivity of the employee.
5. Time Frame: States a time frame to achieve the goals.

How to WRITE SMART Goals (KRAs)?

Here are the steps how anyone can write Goals (KRAs) from Job Descriptions: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Goal Setting, HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Human Resources, Performance Management | 29 Comments »

The Ray of Hope in Recession for Human Resources

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: March 4th, 2009

EmpXtrack HR Consultants team has released a new case study on the Human Resource Management in Retail Industry. This case study covers the challenges faced by HR in management of employees in an organization having chain of stores in multiple locations.

The organization in the study is one of the largest retail stores chains. They have around 100 retail stores in different locations and looking to expand further to more than 200 store across the country.

Organization has a centralized Human Resource Department located in Head Office. HR decision and process are controlled centrally. However, many HR tasks, policies and procedures are managed by retail Store Managers or regional offices.

The organization used excel sheets to exchange reports. Reports coming from various regional offices and stores were compiled in Head Office by a team of HR Executives and HR managers.

Keeping in view the nature of organization, the case study is equally applicable to organizations having retail chains in Consumer Goods, Health Care, Multi Locational sales offices etc.

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While reading Jon’s Carnival of HR titled ”Carnevale delle Risorse Umane: 18 February 2009 ” I realized how much clouds of sorrow surmount the Human Resources domain due to recession.

And why not, after all it is the Human Resource Department that is bearing the burns. HR has to do the most disgraceful job of laying off people, because Businesses can no more afford to pay them. Employees that are chopped off curse HR, even though most HR Managers will be at no fault . HR that used to be hero at the time of a flourishing economy is now suddenly considered a villain making plans and strategies to show door to people. Adding to the sorrow, HR has also been ordered to chip off salary packages, incentives and benefits, making the life tougher for those who are fortunate enough to remain employed,,and to bear their blames and curses.

Sad, but it triggered me to search for the rays of hope that prove that Recession will not last long. Here is my list:

Hope 1: Determination of Leadership

There is a very strong determination amongst the political and business leadership to curb the recession. Never in the last few decades we saw such a global and massive effort to fight economic crisis. This determination is sure to find ways out of the recession and foray into another blooming decade 21st century. I think recession is the birth pang of human society into a new era.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Economy, HR Technology, Human Resources, Performance Management | 8 Comments »

The Future of Human Resources Management

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: February 5th, 2009

Prayag Consulting, a leading technology marketing firm, recently interviewed President of Saigun Technologies and the Chief Architect of EmpXtrack, Tushar Bhatia, regarding the trends in HR Technology, the future of HR Management and entrepreneurship. Here are some excerpts from the interview that appeared in their newsletter Focal Point.

What the future holds for HR Technology

With the baby boomer generation retiring, there is a massive talent shortage in the Western countries. Organizations will have to optimize their workforce to deliver at the lowest possible manpower requirements, and any solution that can help them do this effectively will be a sure winner.

The maturing of Internet based technology platforms, acceptance of the SaaS concept by the market at large, good security standards and low cost of bandwidth are further enablers. We are fortunately in a good period at the right time and hope to capitalize on the trend.  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Technology, Human Resources, Motivation, Performance Management | 3 Comments »

What is a bigger problem: Managing employee appraisals or writing accurate appraisals?

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: December 24th, 2008

While, I was organizing a software training workshop for a major Electric Power Distribution Corporation in New Delhi, I asked Vikram Singh, one of the participating Senior Managers, who has a team size of 150 employees for performance review, “What is the bigger problem when conducting employee appraisals: managing appraisals or writing accurate appraisals?“.

[Background: This 2,500 employee big company opted for EmpXtrack Performance Management System. Prior to using a web-based performance management system, they used paper based appraisal forms.]

“I have a team of 150 people to review, for me managing employee appraisals is a bigger problem. With an experience of 10 years, writing accurate appraisal is not so difficult. It may be difficult for younger managers but not for an experienced one.“, said Vikram. He continued, “For senior managers like me who also have to review appraisal of my juniors’ teams (I have 8 juniors managing teams of 15-20 each), managing appraisals is a far bigger problem. There is already a long list of urgent tasks with me and then managing 150 employee appraisals, usually in a span of 1 month. It makes me sweat.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Employee Appraisals, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources, Performance Management | 11 Comments »

Ten Tips For Downsizing with Grace in Difficult Economic Times

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: November 26th, 2008

Difficult economic times call for tough calls, and, downsizing is one of the toughest calls that leadership and HR have to take. Though downsizing is the most hated task and nobody wants to do it; it is a necessary evil for saving a company from an economic collapse.

With little efforts organizations can minimize the effect of downsizing on economy and employees to a some extent. Here are 10 tips that one can consider while downsizing:

1. Do a manpower analysis before you Downsize!

Think twice, do you really need to vacate those seats and happy faces. Do not make subjective decisions!

Work and re-work on your manpower requirements – for today and for tomorrow. A good manpower planning software can assist you and your mangers to accurately assess your manpower requirements. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HR Technology, Performance Management | 15 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 was 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 | 3 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.

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

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HR Technology | 2 Comments »

Evolution of the HR Function

By: Tushar Bhatia
Date: August 18th, 2008

Introduction

A few years back during a client interaction, while being quizzed on our capabilities, I was surprised by a question on security practices in our company. The reason cited was that the customer measured the maturity of their vendor on the basis of the security practices prevalent in the vendors premises. After all they wanted to entrust their data with us!

Around 5 years later, we were asked a similar question where another customer evaluated our HR practices at a significant level of detail to gauge our competence.

In subsequent discussions, I have found that the question on HR maturity is being asked frequently by potential customers, investors and even prospective employees. The answers indicate maturity, stability, long term sustainability and delivery capabilities of your organization and hence are very important.

So what is HR function growth? Read the rest of this entry »

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