Employee Engagement

I have been to attend an interview days back and was given an opportunity to elucidate about employee engagement.

I actually see short term and long term goals pertaining to this subject. I have discussed a lot, but are very few to detail as per my knowledge.

I request all of you to add valid points covering under this subject to meet long term objectives.

Increasing employee engagement is among the top three items of the to do list of many Human Resources Managers.  An engaged employee is defined as a person who is heartily involved in, and enthusiastic about his/her work. Employee engagement is the responsibility of business leader’s at all organizational levels. Organizations must invest on HRIS to hold high quality data to know the level of satisfaction in the organization and deploy new policies.

What will turn employee engagement into another short lived fad is if it is used by employers as a method to get people to work harder. My understanding of employee engagement is not that to treat it as just a duty, but practicing every day in every action, by front line leaders/Managers. There are many tools we are practicing, but some of my views pertaining to the subject are the below:

1. Offer volunteering opportunities to the employees to participate in CSR activities

Employee volunteering is the best employee engagement tool which is less conventional and often overlooked. During Employee volunteering activities like Tree planting, school renovation etc, lot of emotional bonding will develop between employees. We can also invite our customers to strengthening the relationship with our company and customers.

2. Servant leadership

Researches indicate that front line leaders play an important role in instilling a sense of engagement in co-workers. The quality of the connection between leaders and co-workers at all levels is crucial and touches the heart of each and every organization: relationships and the way people deal with each other.

Servant leaders’ statements like the following:

a)      The team member is the expert and he has done excellent job.

b)      Focus on the problem, not the individual.

c)       Mistakes are okay if they do not repeat and learn from them.

d)      You work for your team members, not for me.

3. Emergency Response

Personal assistance/presence in some of the emergency incidents such as accidents and serious sickness will always triumph employee's heart.

4. People Supporting Processes such as Clean & Safe Workplace, Problem Solving Teams/Groups, Visual/Transparent Management & Communication.

a)      Problem solving teams/groups will have two roles, one is to support individuals as they do their work and the other is to solve problems to improve how the work is done.

b)      Maintaining work environment safe Physically, Psychologically and Personal Health.

c)       "I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant", a statement by Robert McCloskey. Develop channels like Formal Communications (Information sharing from the company to the employees, from the employees back to the management, and between the employees), Human Resources activities to keep the communication channels open and effective and Informal activities that are designed to facilitate and improve communication.

Please add you comments.

Regards
Ram

 

What is the first thing you should do in the organization didn't have HR department and you are first HR manager!

Friends, here is my view and what I did on the above subject.

STAGE 1

Review the current practices / policies [if any].

Audit all HR activities that are performed [even the crude format].

HERE ARE THE CORE HR KRAs [ Key Result Areas]

KRA 1    :Recruitment / Selection.

KRA 2    :Workforce Planning and Diversity.

KRA 3    :Performance Management.

KRA 4    :Reward Management.

KRA 5    :Workplace Management and Relations.

KRA 6    :A Safe and Healthy Workplace.

KRA 7    :Building Capabilities and Organizational Learning.

KRA 8    :Effective HR Management Systems, Support and Monitoring.

STAGE 2

• Understand the organization.

• Understand the organization structure.

• Understand the organization systems.

• Understand the organization politics/influential people.

• Understand the organization / individual roles.

• Understand the organization / positions.

• Understand the individual job descriptions.

• Understand the job / job specifications etc…

STAGE 3

• Discuss the values / beliefs with senior management / CEO and the need for HR department.

• Discuss the expectations from HR department – short / medium / long term.

• Discuss with CEO, the organization's corporate objectives / strategies and how HR can contribute to the corporate objectives.

• Discuss / seek consensus on organization structure / management process.

• Discuss the current organization culture with senior management.

• Discuss with CEO / senior management the core activities / competences and business drivers of the organization.

To get a good start and hold on your credibility, you need these informations to start your work on HR department installation.

Get a copy of Corporate plan which outlines the Company's Vision, Mission, Corporate Objectives and Corporate Strategies. HR dept. is a support unit and hence must work closely with other depts.

STAGE 4

Even though there is currently no HR department, there are a number of HR activities are being carried out now. You have to know what they are / how it is being carried out / by whom. To collect and consolidate these, you need a quick HR Audit of the present situation.

AFTER you gather all the information and summarized, you should sit down with your boss [CEO] and discuss and prioritize the items, as follows:

• URGENT / IMPORTANT

• URGENT/ NOT IMPORTANT

• NOT URGENT/ IMPORTANT

• NOT URGENT / NOT IMPORTANT, BUT NEEDED DOWN THE LINE.

STAGE 5

Please REVIEW the HR MANUAL, as listed below.

Pick points out of it , as per your need, based on your discussion / audit results.

You may want to start up with

• HR DEPARTMENT OBJECTIVES.

• HR DEPARTMENT STRATEGIES.

• Draft on Recruitment / Selection Procedure / PROCESS.

• Draft on organization structure.

• Draft on job analysis / job descriptions / job specifications / competencies.

• Draft on payroll / compensation / administration.

• Appointment /Confirmation / Termination / Resignation / PROCEDURES / PROCESS.

• Induction program

• Orientation program

• Employee communications

• Training & development of the employees

• Performance Appraisals / management

Once you have the preliminary draft ready, you can start with your EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK

STAGE 6

Review the HRM Processes, make a note of what you think are important for the company and the priority ones.

Please add your inputs so that others will learn.

Regards

Ram

Founder & Director HR

ADR Group

Email: ram.k.reddy@adrgroup.in

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Invitation for campus recruitments - A non profit activity

Dear Sir,

Sub: Campus Talent Pool: Ready to be placed in Pan Indian Corporate: A Request to your organization.

Greetings!

We are aware that your organization has been very active in the recent past and bagged orders in various prestigious Projects and looking forward for good talented fresh engineers who are ready to handle project implementation successfully.

We, ADR Group is committed to help untapped students in semi urban areas across India under our CSR activity called "Upadhi". Our mission is "Aiming for better society through our vision of providing employment for people in rural segments." Upadhi is completely a non-profit bustle where we will not charge any service fee neither from the government nor candidates or Corporates. Under "Upadhi" we have helped more than 500 graduates/Management students and placed them in various Corporates in current financial year. Please visit our blog to view our activities on http://notforprofit2010.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html.

We now have a Database of Students who have > 60% Aggregate (max 95%) , Well trained in all possible needs of Industry, Soft Skills and Project Deployment and execution in the fields of Engineering ( BE, Diploma), Pharmacy , MBA & MCA and other Graduate Studies.

We now request your esteemed organization to join hands and pick up the talented students ready to be placed in your related jobs across Pan India. We assure you that after Campus Selection, we will further train the Students by industry proven personalities exactly for your organizational needs in coordination with your HR before we send them to you. By the time our Students join your organization they shall be ready to handle various techniques including technology, behavioural, communication skills and attitude.

We request you to instruct your concerned HR Authorities to arrange Campus Interviews for our Students exclusively for your needs. This helps us to deliver ready man power who can take up challenges across pan India.


Regards
Ram
Email: ram.k.reddy@adrgroup.in

Given employment to MBA freshers under Upadhi

Last week I have helped few guys and arranged interviews for them in various organizations where I have good contacts. Few of them got shortlisted and joined. All these guys are from rural back ground and below poverty line. I have done this under my dream project "Not For Profit - Upadhi", the idea to provide employment to the people in rural India.


Details below:

SL NO	Company	No.of     Selections	Qualification	Position Offered
1	Yashoda Hospital	7	MBA (Fin)	Exe-Auditing
2	CA firm	3	B.Com	Exe-Accounts
3	SVR Projects	3	D.Civil	Site Engineer

       
Since most of the companies are not ready to participate in public events like job fairs/Job melas, we have chosen few Engineering & Management colleges in semi urban areas and conducting campus selections to help students in those areas. Upadhi is completely a non profit bustle where we will not charge neither from companies nor colleges or candidates.

Till now I have helped more than 500 students with suitable employment under my charity activity. I request you to kindly support my vision of providing employment to youth in the rural areas. Please let me know if you have contacts in the industry to visit campus for selections. We have huge number of students from Graduation/BE/MCA/PG/MBA/Pharmacy etc. back ground. 

Regards
Ram K Reddy A
Email: ram.k.reddy@adrgroup.in

Resume screening. What should we check for in a resume!!

Dear HR Colleagues

Thought of sharing my knowledge on resume screening.

Resume is the best source for investigation of a guy's attitude and seriousness on his career. I usually consider the below parameters while screening the profiles. 

• Appearance of the resume. See format and approach.
• Focus: Prospective candidate should demonstrate on his career or job objective. The objective is specific and focuses on the needs of the organization.
• Spelling errors: More than two got immediately round filed. If you cannot even be bothered to spell-check your resume, you are not employable.
• Large employment gaps.
• Short periods of employment/too many jobs: Unless the positions were specified as contract positions, the person just looks like a job-hopper and or unemployable.
• Growing responsibilities from one employment to another.
• Check for accomplishments in his current and past employment.
• Check domain knowledge: Candidate will mention so many technical skills in his resume. Check his projects for these skills whether implemented or not. Also check for relevant domain experience.
• Consistency in educational percentage.
• Check email address which he mention in his resume. If the email id is unprofessional like "sexyram@xyz.com" or "hiremenow@xyz.com" or "anotherdayanotherjob@xyz.com" etc.

I may be missed out some more points. I request all of you to add your inputs.

Regards

Ram

 

ADR GROUP

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Manager must be a coach to help improve performance of his team

If manager do not become skilled at coaching their team, it is doubtful that they will be able to attain the long term results not only for themselves but also their organizations. If a manager wants to be a leader, he or she must develop the ability to coach others. Coaching is an essential skill required by every successful manager in this new business era. Command or control leadership of managing team have gone long ago.

Coaching demands skill and time. Or I can say Knowledge and patience. Before playing a coach role managers must understand the purpose of coaching.

Let’s refer a quotation on leadership “Leader is not a person who can perform better than his team but the person who inspires his team to perform better than he can". This can be achieved exactly by good coaching. The objective of coaching is the same. In simple words, coaching is the act of helping his team to perform better.

Through coaching we can either target to develop entirely new skills or helping to improve the performance of a non performer or enhancement of existing skills. However, good coaching by managers will surely speed up the progress of employees and take their organizations a head high in the competition.

The question here is "why all the managers will not become coaches?" I see the below reasons.

1. They don’t understand the value of coaching.

2. Lack of skills.

3. Due to work pressure they may not get time.

How to overcome these barriers is the question. Here are the solutions.

1. Apply the rules on self: You cannot force the managers coaching responsibilities those whose attitudes always see "what is in it for me?"  So showcase them the success stories of managers or business man in their organization to seize the opportunity to learn how to become an effective coach. Once they understand "something in it for me" then they achieve stronger results through the efforts, they will understand results can be yield not from commanding the employees but from coaching others.
2. Coaching is compulsory: Tell the managers very clearly to take coaching as a basic responsibility to create a coaching organization. As I described, coaching required time and skill. So provide them to the managers.
3. Train the managers on coaching skills and make them to practice.
4. Assign a coach to every manager: I suggest organizations to assign a coach to every new manager on day one of his joining, as a part of induction. Practical course is more effective than class room training. He will experience the benefits of coaching and become more committed to the practice. If you don’t have coaches, hire external coaches to work with your managers.
5. Reward the best coaches: Managers who are top performers are obviously best coaches. Encourage them by providing challenging roles and reward them. Message goes to entire organization.

I am not a coach but stood as a successful manager and honoured with titles including leadership excellence award from President HR when I was working with Reliance Communication as a Head HR for Andhra Pradesh. Please leave your comments.

Regards

Ram

ADR Group

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Why incentive programs in organizations frequently fail??

Have your past incentive programs been a disappointment to both you and your salespeople?  

Sales incentive programs under perform or fail as a result if elements of the technique are executed improperly. Often, incentive programs fail miserably because of innate complexities either in their recording and reporting systems or in how rewards are won. If you put the salesperson in a position where he or she is forced to assess "To get this, I first have to sell this, plus these and not these and they must include these," you are creating a recipe for confusion, sales frustration and failure. In the end, the incentive program becomes a disincentive!

The monetary values of incentives are often not the critical factor in motivating salespeople to succeed. In my view, the money and the goodies were not primary motivation and not all salespeople are motivated the same way. Consequently, not all incentive programs work. Why is that?

The remedy? There can be no ambiguity. Anything less will result in a lack of interest, as well as a waste of time and money that can sometimes spill over into other departments whose task it is to administer and account.

From my experience, I'll make the following observations:

1) The 70-30 Rule: Thirty percent of the salespeople make seventy percent of the sales and profits. Too often, sales incentives - perhaps in an effort to be fair - are geared to the entire sales force. Enlightened marketing strategists know that the top thirty percent are already motivated. Simply put, a strategy that's geared to light a fire under the next thirty percent - the next logical group - doubles the business in a more cost efficient manner.

2) Salespeople by nature are like electricity. They naturally take the path of least resistance. That's not to say they are lazy or untoward. In fact, it's just the opposite. Good salespeople look to simplicity to make things happen.

3) Edison may have invented the light bulb, but it never went anywhere until a salesperson understood its benefits and made the first sale… and probably sold a lamp to go with it! Incentive programs don't just sell themselves. Too often, expensive motivational programs are overlooked in the field because representatives either don't understand their value and/or are unsure how to sell them. Many times, good incentive programs are written off as having missed the target, when in reality, they just weren't rolled out and managed properly.

4) Reward: Any reward-value can become an unmotivated, anticlimactic activity if the time span between winning and getting is too long. Successful incentive programs reward immediately! As a rule, the faster the reward is delivered, the greater the enthusiasm for the incentive program.

Although on some levels, salespeople are a complex breed, when it comes to incentives, they are - for the most part - quite predictable. Their nature is to react to excitement or challenge faster than most, and then move on. One way to maximize their natural bent and ensure greater program success is simply to cater to their natural motivators. "Get them their stuff QUICKLY!"

I have noticed huge attrition in the sales division in one of my previous organizations though attractive incentive policies were placed just because of this reason.

5) Recognition: At the risk of making salespeople appear shallow or monolithic (they are not), recognition amongst their peers is still the typical motivator, whether there's an incentive program or not. The rule again, is, there is no such thing as too much recognition! Salespeople by nature gravitate to the limelight much like other performers, and so there should be no shortage of achievement and overachievement recognitions that find their way - in a timely manner - to the public's eye.

Another fact that is frequently overlooked is that recognition, whether part of an incentive or not, is the least expensive means of motivation. In many cases, it's free! Often, shaking the hand of the president in front of the company is all it takes to galvanize the need to overachieve.

The Bottom Line: Manufacturers and Distributors must take greater care when designing motivational incentive programs. Find out what they want, then, give it to them. But make sure to keep it simple, keep it clear, promote it properly, reward immediately, don't try to target everybody, and, recognize, recognize… RECOGNIZE!

Regards

Ram

ADR Group

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Enquire on ram.k.reddy@adrgroup.in for any kind of support on the above services.