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 | 23 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 | 38 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 | 60 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 | 47 Comments »

Employee Appraisal Scores can be DECEPTIVE

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: March 30th, 2009

Recession has done at least one good thing for organizations. Shifting the FOCUS from Gut-feelings to qualitative and quantitative analysis of business performance and decisions.

“I think Steve is a great guy.” doesn’t work anymore. It has to be “Look at John’s sales performance report. It says he is doing great job.”

The next thing that comes into picture is Employee Performance Appraisals. More than ever organizations are looking to set SMART goals and conduct performance appraisals honestly. But does HONESTY itself gives accurate results?

Consider the case of three managers in the same department of an organization in Year 2007. The performance of the teams of these managers was at par with marginal differences.

Manager A: Ram is one of the youngest managers and hails from Generation Y. He is very optimistic and looks for positive side of the employees. He believes in motivating by carrots.
Manager B: Sonia is in the middle of her career. She has high career prospects in the company and looking for promotion in 1-2 years. She likes to play safe.
Manager C: Johnson is an ex-government employee. For him discipline and loyalty come foremost. He cannot tolerate any deviation from policies and authorities. He believes in the stick.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Employee Appraisals, Human Resources, Performance Management | 12 Comments »

Case Study on HR Management in Retail Industry

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: March 5th, 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.

Download Counter: 908 downloads so far.

Posted in:  Case Study/ White Papers, Economy, Human Resources | 17 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.

Download Counter: 908 downloads so far.

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 | 9 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 »

Why employee performance appraisals are ineffective, sometimes?

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: January 12th, 2009

One of my HR Community friends, Basheer wrote to me:

> Dear Mr. Gireesh Sharma,
>
> When most people consider traditional performance appraisals a time consuming and expensive task, I also believe they are ineffective in the present work culture of organizations.
>
> I would like to hear from you the better ways to get the performance appraisals done effectively ,successfully and quickly. Or is there a way out of performance appraisals?
>
> Regards.
> A.A Basheer

Basheer’s concern was to a large extent genuine. I would like to share with you what I replied to him:

Dear Mr. Basheer,

Thanks for writing.

I (to some extent) agree with your thought that “most people consider traditional performance appraisals a time consuming and expensive task“. Is there a better way to do it? Yes it is! Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Employee Appraisals, Human Resources, Performance Management | 10 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 | 13 Comments »

Successfactors of a Leader – Remembering Names

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: December 10th, 2008

Sometimes back I wrote a post ‘What’s in the name? SuccessFactors for HR‘ where I mentioned the special skill of an HR manager who knows every employee by name. While I was reviewing a new feature in the software EmpXtrack, called Employee Hierarchy (similar to an Organization Chart), I recollected a motivating incident.

It was in the beginning of year 2002, I worked with a business process outsourcing organization. One day I was working quite late and trying to finish a training project before leaving for the day. The Managing Director, Mr. Aashish, just passed by and saw me. Five minutes back, he came back to my desk and said ,”Hi Gireesh, why are you working so late today?” The rest was a normal chit chat.

This incident left me highly motivated for many months to come. I was amazed by the fact that my Managing Director knew me by name, while I was merely a grass-root level executive, almost a nobody in the organization which was 2500 big. Sometimes later I discussed this incident with my manager and he revealed that on seeing me working so late, MD has called him just to ask my name.

Later on a friend’s recommendation I read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. In this book Dale Carnegie (Section “Six Ways to Make People Like You”)says, “Remember that a man’s Name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”, which highlights how important it is to remember and call people by name.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources | 1 Comment »

Do your rewards motivate or else!

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: December 4th, 2008

During one of my conversation with a CEO of a start-up company the discussion turned towards Compensation Planning to motivate employees, especially the talented ones. It was agreed that the most talented ones need a continuous motivation to maintain their momentum. During the discussion, the CEO narrated one of his bad experiences about one of his talented employees, whom he admired, wanted to reward, motivate and compensate appropriately.

Tom worked with John, the CEO of the company, and was a very talented employee who worked diligently. John being happy with the Tom’s work, rewarded him with a cash prize of $ 1000 (which was a significant amount ), in anticipation that Tom will be motivated to perform better. He also had lots of plans for Tom in the back of his mind. Both Tom and John seemed happy and thought that they did a good job.

Contrary to John’s belief Tom submitted his resignation within a much shorter span. During his exit interview, Tom did not state any specific reason for his resignation too (although, it was found later that he left for a better compensation package). His resignation came as a shock to John, who was genuinely interested in retaining good employees and did all what he could do to ensure it.

‘Where was the mistake?’, questioned the CEO to himself and to me too.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  Compensation Planning, Employee Rewards, Motivation | 17 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 | 17 Comments »

Top Ten Bad HR Practices

By: Maj. Gen. B.K. Bhatia
Date: October 14th, 2008

Every body talks about the best HR practices, it is good, but merely bringing in the best cannot give the desired results if some Bad HR practices co-exist in the organization. So what are those Top Ten Bad HR practices which caution & alert an organization.

1. Employee has no access to personal data (over-confidentiality): Can’t view, can’t update personal information; has no access to his/ her Leave records, salary data, attendance record, training & promotion details. Not sure if the management’s decisions are based on correct information. This breeds suspicion since there is a perceived lack of transparency.. Impact is on employee-employer relationships.

2. Lack of clarity on Deliverables: Absence of a well-defined job-description leads to lack of accountability. Nether the employee nor his/ her immediate superior (boss) are able to define the job-deliverables. Result is the loss of focus & interest.

3. Absence of Goal-based performance: Employee is unaware of the goals to be achieved during the year. There are no quarterly targets and no process to track their completion. The organization carries out merely an end of the year postmortem of an employee’s performance. The unaccomplished tasks go unnoticed. Difficult to build a performance culture in such organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

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

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…

“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 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 | 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. 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.

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 | 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 case 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 »

Performance Driven Culture – Key to Organizational Success

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: August 22nd, 2008

At the core of each successful organization you will find a culture that strives for better performance every day. Organizations that excel in their domain are nothing but the result of their leaders’ painstaking efforts to inculcate a performance driven culture.

A performance driven culture is deep rooted at all levels in the organization

Successful organizations have a focus on the performance of their employees. Here employees are rewarded based purely on their performance on a set criteria. Their performance goals and targets are clearly defined and communicated to them in a formal way. The employees feel motivated and accountable for their performance and strive to achieve/exceed the targets set for them. The only thing that pleases the managers and leadership is higher achievements and performance delivery.

Here performance management is not only an HR responsibility but all departments and managers take ownership of the performance management system. Employees at grass root level take self-initiatives to improve their individual and team performance and are often engaged in a die-hard competition with their peers; and raise the performance bars on a regular basis unless they have reached or exceeded the industry bench-mark.

A bumpy road

Nevertheless, the road to success in performance driven culture is not smooth and easy. Here are some of the challenges that an organization faces while nurturing a performance driven culture: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices | 3 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 | 5 Comments »

SaaS gets its due recognition

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: August 14th, 2008

It was refreshing to see the perspective of a leading monthly magazine DARE which talked about SaaS as a

way to lower IT costs. Makes me proud since we were covered as one of the top provider in HR. You can read about the article and even view the coverage here.

And to begin with, we faced our set of challenges too. Many companies are skeptical about security of data, continuous availability of Internet, bandwidth limitations, etc. but many have hopped across to try the new business model. Google’s soaring profits are a testimonial to this.

While reviewing my list of clients in India, I was surprised to see that almost 75% of our customers had adopted the SaaS way of doing things. And most of these companies are not really small. The smallest is about 30 employees (who are using us to manage their sales force) and the largest has over 3,500 employees using our system.

Continue to look here for a detailed cost-benefit-analysis of using the SaaS model vs. an outright purchase of software.==============

Posted in:  Goal Setting, HR Best Practices, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources, Performance Management | No Comments »

What’s in the name? SuccessFactors for HR

By: Gireesh Sharma
Date: June 25th, 2008

I stepped into the corporate office of Book Cafe, one of the largest chains of niche book stores, hoping to meet some white beard editors and publishers.

Against all my odd thoughts, while sitting in the lobby next to a training room, I saw a very smart guy conducting a training session – on sales etiquettes, sales strategies, motivation, and so many other strategic issues related to book business. In the middle of discussion, he would also discuss the personal problems of employees and give suggestions to resolve them at organizational level, giving reference to some third person, who faced a similar problem. It was a mesmerizing training session!

After the training session, the guy relaxed himself on a table that was just below a signboard that said ‘Human Resources Department’. Being an HR analyst, it was my turn to get amazed. Is he really from HR department? I wondered. I could not resist the temptation to meet him. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in:  HR Best Practices | 9 Comments »