Power PeopleISSN 2277-2189Volume 5 Issue 2, APRIL - JUNE 2012

Development Centres to aid

Competency Based Organisations

Managerial Excellence through

Right Brain Management

and War on Waste

INSIDE STORY

The changing face of

Human Resource Management

HR – Technology Curve:

Human Resource Management Will it rise to new heights?

: Being global, strategic & human

POWER HR FORUM

Join

From Information to TransformationYour Open Source

Vision:

Serving Indian Power Sector

Through Excellence in HR

Not Competition, but is the Quickest Way to Competitive Advantage

Collaboration

The quintessential role of HR in the emerging

business dynamics is not confined to delivering

administrative work that can be done better in

other ways. HR needs to focus more on its

transformational role towards building a culture,

system and process which is instrumental in

organisational recognition and branding, so that

people working in the organisation feel special.

The challenge for HR is not about managing pay rolls, administering

benefits, coordinating company events, negotiating employee contracts,

handling staffing logistics, ensuring legal compliance and monitoring

training classes. These standardized and routine activities can very well

be managed by web-based technology or by external vendors through

outsourcing contracts. The real challenge for HR is to create strategic

value and improve the quality of workplace experience of the people so

that the organisation may aspire to get its name featured in the list of

‘best employers’ or ‘great place to work’.

Power HR Forum through its various activities and events aims at

creating a sense of urgency amongst the HR fraternity to build world-

class people practices towards enabling the business performance.

Through our journal “Power People” we compile and broadcast some of

the best practices in People Management. The present issue of “Power

People” also carries a mosaic of valued and enriching articles and case

study on the latest HR theme which I hope shall be quite useful to build

on HR capability in an organisation, in line with the burgeoning

expectations from HR. Happy Reading!

(A. S. Bisht)Director (Personnel), THDCIL &President - Power HR Forum

POWER HR FORUM

CHIEF PATRON

Shri P. Uma ShankarSecretary (Power),

Government of India

PATRONS

A. B. AgrawalChairman,

Bhakra Beas Management Board

R. N. SenChairman,

Damodar Valley Corporaion

P. C. PankajChairman & ManagingDirector, NEEPCO Ltd.

A. B. L. SrivastavaChairman & Managing

Director, NHPC Ltd.

Arup Roy ChoudhuryChairman & Managing

Director, NTPC Ltd.

Satnam SinghChairman & Managing Director,

Power Finance Corp. Ltd.

R. N. NayakChairman & Managing

Director, Power Grid Corp. of India Ltd.

Rajeev SharmaChairman & Managing

Director, Rural Electrification Corp. Ltd.

R. P. SinghChairman & Managing

Director, SJVN Ltd.

R. S. T. SaiChairman & Managing

Director, THDC India Ltd.

PRESIDENT

VICE PRESIDENT

HONORARY SECRETARY

HONORARY TREASURE

MEMBERS

Director (Personnel), THDCIL

Director (Personnel), NEEPCO

Executive Director (HR), POWERGRID

Executive Director (HR), REC

Director (HRD), BBMB

Director (HRD), DVC

Director, (Personnel), Powergrid

A. S. Bisht

I. P. Barooah

I. R. Kidwai

Vinod Behari

Gursharan S. Wason

A. Bakshi

Ravi P. Singh

R S Mina

S. B. Agarkar

S. P. Singh

A. C. Chaturvedi

S. Roy

M. K. Goel

Nand Lal Sharma

Sharad Krishna

S. K. Sharma

Director (Personnel), NHPC

Director (HR), NPCIL

Director (HR), NTPC

Executive Director (PMI), NTPC

Executive Director (HR), NTPC

Director (Commercial), PFC

Director (Personnel), SJVN

Director (HR), UPCL

Director (HR), PTCUL

MEMBERS OF GOVERNING BODY

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Contents

Editor: Lt. Cdr. (Retd.) D. K. UpadhyayPower HR Forum

www.powerhrforum.orgNo part of the journal may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher.

No responsibility is accepted for any accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in thearticles are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher.

Published by : Power HR Forum SecretariatAt : Power Management Institute, Plot 5-14, Sector 16A, Noida -201301 Telephone : 0120 6496197, Fax : 0120 2416860 e-mail : powerhrforum@gmail.com, Website : www.powerhrforum.org

Development Centers to Aid Competency Based Organisations

By - P Bhattacharya

Managerial Excellence through Right Brain Management and War on Waste

By - S. Gairola.

Effects of Spiritual Training on the Personal and Professional

Growth of Employees - A Study in POWERGRID

By - G. jawahar

You are as good as your DECISIONS

By - Nitin Bakshi

Organisational Restructuring and HRM Initiatives

By - Dr. Chandan Kumar Sahoo

Role & Importance of Communication in conducting

Successful Management Development Programmes

By - Kishalay Bhattacharjee

The changing face of Human Resource Management

: Being global, strategic & human

By - Ashutosh Anand

HR - Technology Curve: Human Resource Management Will it Rise to new heights?

By - Kunal kriti

Case Study: Metrics Based Project Management

By - Ribhu Nath Lavania

12th Governing Body Meet of Power HR Forum

Management Cartoons

By - Parimal Joshi

Book Review: You Don’t Need A God Father – Create Your Own Success

Take a Chance of Failure,

Contributed by Tata Mcgraw Hill

1

4

7

15

18

24

29

34

37

4244

45

Recent Bestseller Books on HR

News of Interest for HR Fraternity

Acknowledging the valuable contribution by SH. V. M. KAUL

Vice President – Power HR Forum & Director (Personnel),

Power Grid Corporation of India Limited

474950

Organisation’s today face a major

challenge in improving or even sustaining

the level of performance in light of the

globalization of competition. Facing the

changing market and tougher competition

imply that the organisations must

transform their functioning. Perhaps the

challenge lies in unlearning the old ways

and thinking, as well as learning the new

ways. An unmistakable priority in such an

environment is to view the individuals

directly; affecting the kind and amount of

value they are expected to add, as a key

competitive asset.

So far, the management and bureaucratic

approach to organising has been to

standardise the contributions of individuals

to organisation’s effectiveness. Inherent in

this process is the assumption that an

individual can add value only when fitted

in the structure of an organisation. This job

based approach suited ideally with the

mass production economy and in an asset

based organisation. However a look at the

existing business scenario indicate

e m e r g e n c e o f k n o w l e d g e - b a s e d

organisations and their rapid success in

today’s economy.

Development Centers to Aid

Competency Based Organisations

While the telltale evidence is seen in IT

sector, days are not far off when

competencies will be the primary focus in

managing organisational systems. Such an

environment necessitates viewing the

skills of individual employees as critical in

developing and maintaining performance

capabilities of an organisation. The need

therefore, is to create systems so as to

proactively support the development of

particular competencies necessary for

strategic directions.

Competencies-order of the day

But how do we define competency? More

important a question perhaps is “Can the

implications of competencies develop a

basis of HR Management?”

Competencies can be defined as “clusters

of Knowledge, attitudes and skills needed

to perform various jobs or functions”.

Linkage to performance on jobs or

functions is an indicative of an array of

competencies that may be personal,

functional (technical), business or

managerial. Useful lists of competencies

therefore need to be consciously evolved

keeping in view the organisational

objectives as well as vision.

P. Bhattacharya

Competences which are nothing

but combinations of knowledge,

skills and attitude as per our

earlier definition are available or

cultivated in people. These are

applied in job in the form of

actions, thoughts and feelings

that again can be termed as

behavior. Such behavior

produced outputs i.e.,

products and services.

"There are a lot of ways to become a failure, but never taking a chance is the most successful." - Anonymous

1

Dwelling on the implication part, let us

examine the following:

Competences are nothing but combinations

of knowledge, skills and attitude- as per

our earlier definition, are available or

cultivated in people. These are applied in a

job in the form of actions, thoughts and

feelings that again can be termed as

behavior. Such behavior produced outputs

i.e., products and services. In short, above

three steps produce result and the criteria

for managing the steps lie in the

competencies available in people

entrusted with such jobs.

Therefore, managing HR will certainly

entail looking for a developing the desired

competencies in potential employees to

affect organisational performance.

Assessing Competences

As may be seen above, competencies are

the reservoir and fountainhead of human

behaviour. Everyone has a unique

composite of competencies that enable him

to perform at a certain level of proficiency.

Task at hand is how to identify people with

such competencies to enable the

organisation to function at that level of

performance to keep abreast of the

competition.

Assessment centre approach is one that has

drawn attention worldwide in this respect.

It is far from the traditional performance

appraisal method and it is not a

geographical location or a building like a

training centre. It focuses squarely upon

behaviour and includes a set of exercise of

instruments to capture and simulate the

major aspect of a job. Further, it is flexible

and is designed to meet the needs of the

organisation. Depending upon the

inclination or purpose, the term

development center is used and

accordingly one or two features may be

changed while designing one.

Features Of Development Center

Ingenuity and creativity are the hallmarks

in the design of a development center.

However, a number of generalizations can

be made about the typical center.

First, participation of several people takes

place at the same time in the center. Six to

fourteen are generally convenient number

of assesses in each batch, but there can be

marginally more in case facilities and other

criteria are met with.

All these people in a batch take part

together in the group exercise and

complete the other tasks on their own.

However, for very senior level assessment

a different procedure may as well be

worked out.

Second, people are assessed by team of

assessors. Normally the thumb-rule is one

assessor for two participants in an exercise

as this ratio works well. With this ratio and

a minimum of six assesses, each participant

is assessed by three assessors in given

centre. No freedom however is available in

this dimensions being tested in a center.

Third, each of the competencies must be

consciously tested through at least one or

more exercise or instruments. Critical

competencies however should be tested

through more exercise. The assessment is

by a combination of methods and therefore

is unlikely to last less than half a day. With

internal centers and developmental

component the assessment may go on to

three days and more.

Lastly, all the information from the

assessment techniques will be brought

together, and this is usually done under

the heading of the competencies that are

crucial for high performance in the job. The

assessment involves use of multiple

assessment tools by multiple assessors and

pooling the observations together to

fac i l i ta te uni form evaluat ion of

competencies.

Selection Of Competencies

This is the most important aspect in the

entire methodology. While the target job

may indicate a broad dimension of the

competencies desired, it is necessary to

actually go down to details to facilitate

observation and assessment during an

exercise or simulation. For example, if the

broad dimension desired is Managerial

and Leadership competencies, further

breaking it down to analytical ability,

interpersonal effectiveness, communication

and so on. It is essential to select suitable

exercises/ instruments as well as observe

the same in a development center. Several

methods or approaches can be adopted to

finalise the list of desired competences for

a target job. Salient methods include Job

Analysis, Repertory-Grid Analysis etc. In

some cases committee approach to

competency selection can also be resorted

to if desired.

DEVELOPMENT CENTERS TO AID COMPETENCY BASED ORGANISATIONSPOWER PEOPLE

2

"Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability."- Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

Assessment Tools

Core to the development center approach

is set of exercise and instruments carefully

designed and prepared for assessors to

administer. As personality development

can be additional to assessment center

objectives, the exercises are necessarily

other than psychometric tests and are

either job related or simulated. A horde of

tests and exercise can be designed

depending upon the competencies to be

explored and the target job level. A

tentative list of such exercise include IN-

Basket exercises, role play, situational tests,

leaderless group discussions, behavior

event Interview, written report, personal

interview, case study, oral presentation,

fact-find and decision-making exercise etc.

Depending upon the desired competencies

and level of participants, 5-6 exercises are

selected in any given center. The assessors

use standardised formats for individual

and joint evaluation of the competencies

for each exercise to effect uniform

assessment. At the end, each participant is

informed about the finding and suitable

counseling is also carried out to facilitate

self-directed improvement process. While

the last step is not necessary in an

Assessment Center, the same is invariable

carried out in Development Centers.

Benefits

The method is widely used for both

selection and development purpose. As

the content validity of the methodology

score over 75% as against 19% found in

case of Interviews used for selection

purposes, acceptance of the same is

widespread all over the world. While in the

US it is used mainly as an alternative

selection method, wider scope was found

by the companies in Europe where it is

more frequently deployed. It is used there

as a diagnostic instrument for potential

evaluat ion, career planning and

management developmental needs. As

feedback is immediate after each center,

their understanding about overall

performance is more comprehensive. Most

of the participants find it informative,

challenging, revealing and stimulating.

When used with a development log and

other development tools the efficacy of the

method improves manifold and provides

useful insight to the organisation.

P. Bhattacharya

is working as

Assistant General Manager

in NTPC. He can be

reached at bpartha09@gmail.com

DEVELOPMENT CENTERS TO AID COMPETENCY BASED ORGANISATIONSPOWER PEOPLE

3

Children should be taught the art of getting enjoyment out of the common things in life.- Orison Swett Marden

“Managerial Excellence” is a management

tool and roadmap for achieving excellence

and global leadership in your business,

society and personal field. It is very

effectively used in organisations to

eliminate huge waste and bring about

world class efficiency without large

investments. .

Manager’s Challenges are:

• Time available is a big constraint.

• Internal/ external Customer Focus.

• Creative use of resources particularly

human resource - the goldmine that the

company already possesses.

• Waste elimination particularly hidden

type that is considered legitimate cost

of running the business.

• Mind set change to rectify certain

attitudinal inadequacies that all

employees possess. • Appraisal system that is honest, fair

and transparent.

Managerial Excellence through

Right Brain Management

and War on Waste.

Managers always complain of shortage of

time for doing very many things that they

would like to bring about but for non

availability of time.

How do you achieve customer delight,

often talked about?

Humans the world over possess certain

attitudinal inadequacies that affect the

performance let alone excellence.

Managerial excellence demands meeting

the global competition of today and

challenges of tomorrow.

Waste is taking place in each and every

department and corner of the company viz.

power, fuel, manpower, production,

quality, maintenance, material handling,

stores, administration, stationary,

marketing, design. R&D, purchase, finance

etc. However, the waste is usually tangible

in production and maintenance; it is not so

tangible in some other depts. The waste can

be “transparent” or “hidden”.

Waste that we are referring to hear is not

the environment waste or the effluent

waste. Waste here is meaning the hard cash

or the potential profit in an organisation

that is being wasted away in various

processing stages.

Shailendra Gairola

With a little care and mind set

change such waste can be

converted into profit. When

this happens all over the

company, huge amount of

profit can be generated with

no or negligible investments.

Unfortunately the present

mind set treats this waste as

legitimate cost of running the

business. The technique

specializes in discovering only

that kind of waste where

return on investment is

immediate.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

4

With a little care and mind set change such

waste can be converted into profit. When

this happens all over the company, huge

amount of profit can be generated with no

or negligible investments. Unfortunately

the present mind set treats this waste as

legitimate cost of running the business. The

technique specializes in discovering only

that kind of waste where return on

investment is immediate.

Mountain of Hidden waste

The more you treat the known waste more

this mountain grows. The entire

management science today is for attacking

the known waste that is based on

symptoms.

Every company by and large knows its

transparent waste and cost reduction

potential. However there are large areas of

hidden waste unknown to the company

and the hidden waste can easily be

eliminated with little or no investments,

only a mindset change is required.

Managerial Excellence is the only

Answer

It It is believed that for survival in India we

have to beat the global no. 1 company in

our product line without matching

resources and the technology of our global

competitor.

And we assure you with Managerial

Excellence it is entirely possible.

Here, molecular dosing of human brain

through structured, in duty experience is

enabled every month. The process creates

higher motivation and as a result Left Brain

gets highly activated while it awakens the

Right Brain which normally is in sleeping

mode. All human beings have the

capability to manifest creativity when

RBM is awake. This leads to excellence in

every department and work area.

“Managerial Excellence” is the technique

and technology that can achieve dramatic

waste elimination, improve productivity,

quality, profitability and process

consistency in an organisation etc.

Today, the hidden waste of a company is

considered legitimate cost of running the

business in the current paradigm of the

management. With Managerial Excellence

methodology huge recurrent and

avoidable waste in every department of the

organisation is traced out and eliminated.

Three good actions that are hindered by the

present mind set get corrected by the

technique which helps in identifying the

waste that is considered legitimate cost

presently.

Managerial Excellence has identified

common root cause (attitude related) of

this huge waste. The technique fully drives

home the means to eliminate the root cause

of this waste leading to improvement in all

walks of company life. Consultant gives

direct input about very low cost techniques

and technologies for dramatic waste

elimination resulting to significant

increase in success.

What are these three good

actions?

The ever growing trends of violence, crime

and human diseases can be reversed if

humans take good actions preached by our

holy books of, Geeta, Bible. Kuran and

other religions.

The same three good actions will lead to

phenomenal growth in productivity,

quality and profitability. But the humans

do not take these three good actions in their

homes, society or duty.

Managerial Excellence is a technique that

creates internal pressure on each and every

employee of the company to start taking

these three good actions in their duty,

society or homes.

“Right Brain Management” is a management

tool and roadmap for achieving excellence

and global leadership in your business,

Society and personal field. It is very

effectively used in organizations to

eliminate huge waste and bring about

world class efficiency without large

investments.

LEFT BRAIN POTENTIAL

Low Motivation

Use May be as low as 20 % Use May be as high as 85 %

Higher the motivation, higher is the utilization of the knowledge, skilland experience that your employees already possess.

High Motivation

MANAGERIAL EXCELLENCE THROUGH RIGHT BRAIN MANAGEMENT AND WAR ON WASTEPOWER PEOPLE

5

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.— James D. Miles

What are these three good actions

-root causes?

Right Brain Management is a technique

that creates internal pressure on each and

every employee of the company to start

taking these three good actions in their

duty, society or homes. This is capable of

producing world class efficiency in your

organisation.

1. Seed Focus – Action when age of the

problem/ opportunity is zero.

2. Continuous Self Correction- An

action to spot one’s own mistake in

one’s own duty, admitting it and

correcting it without any one else

telling him to do so. Humans are said

to be blind to their mistakes.

How to change this mind set?

3. Implementation attitude - Karm Yog

leads to Team Work. When some part

of the duty is performed without a

question in one’s heart “What is in it

for me.” In other words, when the

duty is performed to please the inner

self and not for the external reasons

like reward, recognition, appreciation

etc.

Mr. Shailendra Gairola

is working as Trainer

and Implementer.

He can be reached at

s_gairola@hotmail.com

RIGHT BRAIN POTENTIALSEED FOCUS

Stages of Problem

Use Creativity very small %

Right brain is mostly in sleeping mode.It is capable of bringing out creativity

at the place od work when it is awake, but that happens when it is subjected to

some pressure - internal pressure.

MANAGERIAL EXCELLENCE THROUGH RIGHT BRAIN MANAGEMENT AND WAR ON WASTEPOWER PEOPLE

6

40

Zero effort Infinite Alertness Zero Alertness

30 20 10

Seed Sprout Bud Flower

Without standard, there is no logical basic for making a decision or taking action—Joseph Juran

Manager’s Challenges are:

• Creative use of resources particularly

human resource – the goldmine that

the company already possesses.

• Waste elimination particularly hidden

type that is considered legitimate cost

of running the business.

• Mind set change to rectify certain

attitudinal inadequacies that all

employees possess.

• Appraisal system that is honest, fair

and transparent.

Do you know that huge hidden waste is

taking place in almost all

Organizations? People are presently

treating this waste as legitimate Cost of

running the business?

There are certain attitudinal in

adequacies all employees possess that

are the root causes of most of the huge

waste that is eroding away Your hard

deserved profits.

Abstract

The study intends to measure the

effectiveness of spiritual training

programmes conducted in POWERGRID.

With the commitment and involvement of

9800 strong and professionally qualified

human resources, POWERGRID is

responsible for transmitting bulk power

within and across the country. To enhance

the personal and professional well being of

its employees, a series of spiritual trainings

were conducted in which 310 employees

have participated across the organisation

during 2010 and 2011. After a gap of 8 to 12

months, a structured questionnaire

containing various personal and professional

development variables was circulated and

data from 188 respondents were collected

and analyzed. The results reveal that their

health, behavior and relationship with the

colleagues were improved after attending

the programme. The study results suggest

that such programme should be extended

to other employees as well. The paper

concludes that spiritual training programmes

plays a vital role and it is useful in two

dimensions namely individual and

organisation, as both are complimentary to

each other.

Key words: POWERGRID, Spirituality, health,

working relationship, personal excellence.

Effects of Spiritual Training on the

Personal and Professional Growth

of Employees - A Study in POWERGRID

1. Introduction

Studying spirituality in workplace is a new

phenomenon. It has now become an

interesting subject of discussion and

research for many scholars and corporates.

In the recent past, people see spiritual

growth as an important part of their life, as

it can have effect not only in their

personality but also on their professional

growth. Spirituality in the workplace may

manifest itself in several ways, but mainly

at two different levels: the personal and the

organisational (Claude and Zamar, 2003).

It is a vital and large topic which means

different to different people. Some merely

see it as growth opportunity and some

others view it as a way of life, and yet

others term it as part of their religions

ritual. Many corporations today emphasis

more of spiritual quotient (SQ) apart from

intelligent quotient (IQ) and emotional

quotient (EQ). There were many

definitions given by many spiritual gurus

and scholars at different times. Yet, the

topic is elusive. Nevertheless, in the

context of spiritual training being offered

in POWERGRID, the philosophy can be

classified into personal and professional

and its effects on the employees can be

examined. G. Jawahar

In order to enhance the

competencies of employees,

POWERGRID has been

organizing programmes with

the target of 6 man days in a

year. The programmes are

in the area of functional,

managerial and behavioural.

As a part of this employee

development strategy, a

need was felt to provide

spiritual growth training to

them, so that it helps them

in improving their

performance.

Intrinsic is the belief that quality does not happen by accident, it must be planned—Joseph Juran 7

POWERGRID Corporation of India

Limited (POWERGRID), a leading

Navratna Public Sector Enterprise under

Government of India, is responsible for

transmission of bulk electric power within

and across the regions. It has about 9800

employees posted in 132 substations across

the country. The organisation has also

ventured into telecom and consultancy.

The wide geographically located

transmission network demands high level

of commitment, dedication and hard work

from its employees. The highly qualified

technical professionals in the organisation

are dedicated in building and maintaining

India’s power transmission network. They

are constantly under pressure to achieve

their targets. In order to enhance the

competencies of employees, POWERGRID

has been organizing programmes with the

target of 6 man days in a year. The

programmes are in the area of functional,

managerial and behavioural. As a part of

this employee development strategy, a

need was felt to provide spiritual growth

training to them, so that it helps them in

improving their performance. The

programmes have considerable spiritual

contents. Yoga and mediation are integral

part of these programs. During the year

2010 and 2011, about 290 employees were

trained by Art of Living Foundation in a

programme titled ‘Achieving Personal

Excellence (APEX) and by Isha Foundation

in a programme titled ‘Inner Engineering’.

It is therefore felt necessary to find out

whether these programmes have served its

purpose.

In this backdrop, a study is initiated to

assess the impact of the above training

programmes conducted by these

organisations in different sub-stations of

POWERGRID.

Organisational spirituality has now

become one of the accepted areas for

academic research (Poole, 2009) .

According to Andrew Kim (2003), quality

of life consists of many things such as

health, economic resources (income and

wealth), social support, education,

employment and working conditions,

political and legal rights and housing. In

fact health, financial stability, job

satisfaction, a happy marriage, loving

relationships and good interpersonal

relationships are important elements of

well being of individual. While spirituality

mainly aims to bring well being among

human beings, it also searches for inner self

among themselves. The following

paragraphs will explain various aspects

and definition of spirituality, as given by

the authors in different times.

Business leaders in corporate world today

are facing daunting challenges of great

complexity. To meet these challenges, they

need multiple resources including those

that of spirituality offer (Silva, 2007).

Work place spirituality has been defined as

a ‘framework of organisational values

evidenced in the culture that promote

employees’ experience of transcendence

through the work process, facilitating their

sense of being connected to others in a way

that provides feelings of completeness and

joy (Carole and Robert, 2004).

Llyod (1990) in his article maintains that

organisat ions high in workplace

spirituality outperform those without it by

86%. Further such organisations reportedly

grow faster, increase efficiencies and

produce higher returns on investments.

Such organisations are also high in

motivation.

2. Objectives of the study

1. To study the effects of spiritual

training on the personal and

professional growth of employees in

POWERGRID.

2. To understand and report employees

opinion on spiritual training in

POWERGRID.

3. To suggest measures that helps the

improvement of training quality in

the organization

3. Conceptual background

Organizations believe that humanistic

work environment creates a win-win

situation for both employees and the

organ isa t ion . I f members o f an

organisation are happy, they will be more

productive, more creative and more

fulfilled (Jean and Zamar, 2003).It is seen

that workplace spirituality is a growing

concern for increasing number of

organisations, employees, and job seekers.

In today’s tumultuous business landscape,

number of people are looking to the

workplace to fulfill their spiritual needs,

while organisations are finding positive

work outcomes associated with a

workplace that augments workers

spiritual fulfillment. There is to date,

however, little research concerning the

relationships between culture, individual

differences, and workplace spirituality

(Winters Moore 2005).

EFFECTS OF SPIRITUAL TRAINING ON THE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF EMPLOYEES. A STUDY IN POWERGRIDPOWER PEOPLE

8

In a true Zero defect approach there are no unimportant items —Philip Crosby

Spirituality is about acknowledging that

people come to work with more than their

bodies and minds; they bring individual

talents and unique spirits. For most of the

twentieth century, traditionally run

companies have ignored that basic fact of

human nature. Now they explore spiritual

concepts such as trust, harmony, values

and honesty for their power to help achieve

business goals (Legh 1977 in Claude and

Zamar (2003).

How does spirituality affect the goal of

every business, which is to make a profit?

A Harvard Business School study

examined 10 companies with strong

corporate cultures (spirited workplaces)

and 10 with weak corporate cultures, drawn

from a list of 207 leading corporations. In a

11 year period, the researchers found a

dramatic co-relation between the strength

of an organisation’s corporate culture and

its profitability.

Lee’s study demonstrates that stronger

religiosity generally has a positive impact

on levels of satisfaction. Indeed, those

identifying themselves as deeply religious

and not so deeply religious were found to

be more satisfied with life than those

identifying themselves as slightly

religious. (Lee W 1991).

Every successful Corporate House knows

the importance of maintaining and

upgrading facilities and equipment to

obtain optimum performance levels.

Many companies, however, fail to give an

equal amount of attention to their most

precious resource – their employees. With

increasing competition and pressure to do

things in a cheaper, better and faster way,

the quality of an employee’s life is often

overlooked.

When problems of stress and conflict in the

workplace are not remedied, employees

grow frustrated, or feel overwhelmed, and

this leads to problems like greater

absenteeism, decreased motivation,

limited creativity and deterioration in

morale. Unless employees are centered

and balanced, a company’s economic

growth, and true potential cannot be fully

realised. Some of the unique features of

APEX programme are: It guides a way to

journey within ourselves, it is for knowing

and developing oneself, it encourages the

feeling of self awareness, belongingness

and commitment to oneself. It also helps a

person to be aware of his mind and body

and makes one connect oneself. It guides

one to maintain individuality and still be

successful, and facilitates us to learn how

easy our life can be, if certain guidelines

are followed.

Similarly, the Inner Engineering programme

is a unique programme propounded by

Satguru Jaggi Vasudev of Isha Foundation.

Inner Engineering is offered as an

intensive program for personal growth.

The program and its environment

establish the possibility to explore the

higher dimensions of life and offers tools

to re-engineer one's self through the inner

science of yoga. Once given the tools to

rejuvenate, people can optimize all aspects

of health, inner-growth and success.

Most strong and good families have

religious and spiritual basis. Most family

researches found that religion or

spirituality is important to make strong

families (Vela, 1996). In a study of 14 strong

families of various religious and

nationalities revealed that the main

spiritual and religious teaching for them

was love.

According to Chung (2009), spirituality has

been studied in relation to psychological

factors in health for the past decade and

has been found to promote positive effect

while possibly benefiting health. However,

multiple dimensions of spirituality need to

be examined systematically, before much

can be concluded regarding the influence

of spirituality on health.

4. Background of Training

programmes

To provide personal development oppor-

tunities, two programmes were planned.

Achieving Personal Excellence (APEX),

a n d I n n e r E n g i n e e r i n g a r e t w o

programmes being offered by Art of Living

Foundation and Isha Foundation

respectively. APEX programme, as the

name suggests, a programme designed to

achieve excellence in oneself. APEX

program helps the participants to harness

timeless wisdom, innovative processes

and advanced management techniques to

create workplace that nurtures leadership,

enhances creativity, inculcates team spirit

among participants and boosts produ-

ctivity. “Motivation comes from the

outside. Inspiration comes from within”.

You can motivate a person, but that

motivation is short-lived. Inspiration, on

the other hand, can last a whole lifetime. -

H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

EFFECTS OF SPIRITUAL TRAINING ON THE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF EMPLOYEES. A STUDY IN POWERGRIDPOWER PEOPLE

9

Successful people breed success.—Philip Crosby

For those seeking professional and

personal excellence, this programme offers

key for meaningful and fulfilling

relationships at work, home, community

and most importantly, within one’s self.

The approach is a modern antidote to

stress, and presents simple but powerful

processes from yogic science to purify the

system and increase health and inner well-

being. Programme components include

guided meditations and transmission of

the sacred Shambhavi Maha Mudra. When

practiced on a regular basis, these tools

have the potential to enhance one’s

experience of life on many levels. In

foster ing understanding of their

interiority, participants gain powerful

tools to cope with the hectic pace of

modern life and move into a new plane of

living and working. Inner engineering

empower participants to begin experience

their lives to the fullest potential.

5. Study Method

Keeping in view the above background

and objective, data are collected from

primary sources especially those employees

who have attended programmes such as

Achieving Personal Excellence (APEX),

and Inner Engineering during 2010 and

2011.The secondary resources such as

study material and circulars issued on the

matter have also been used to supplement

the data. A questionnaire with three

sections consisting of demographic

variables, use and impact of training, and

employee’s opinion was prepared and

distributed to respondents. The variables

included in the questionnaire are: practice,

health, state of mind, situations and

environment, participation by others

(colleagues /friends) and other suggestions

by participants. The respondents are those

employees who have attended above

training programmes in the organisation.

Therefore, purposive sampling technique

is adopted to collect the data. The data are

collected telephonically and in some cases

through personal interviews as well. The

collected data were analyzed using

descriptive statistics. The strength of

relationship between two variables are

also reported and analyzed.

6. Results and Discussion

As per the study objectives, the variables

related to effects of spiritual training have

been rated as per the values given by the

respondents. Table.1 given below

indicates the rating of variables by

respondents. It can be seen that

predominant number of respondents have

felt that they are feeling happier and more

peaceful than before, as the mean score

obtained for this variable is 4.09 out of 5.

The respondents in general have felt that

there is a positive sign and impact due to

their participation in the programme.

However, the score for positive change in

them after attending the programme is

lower than other variables as the score is 3.40.

Table 1. Rating of variables related to effects of spiritual training

Sl. No. VariablesMean Score Minumum Maximum

Std.Deviation

Std.Error

01 I am more healthier now than before 3.95 2 5 .715 .052

02 I feel I am more energetic than before 3.94 1 5 .725 .053

03 I find that I am spending less money than before on my health 3.59 1 5 .900 .066

04 I am overall happier and more peaceful than before 4.09 1 5 .844 .062

05 I feel I am more affectionate towards people around me than before 4.07 2 5 .672 .049

06 I feel I am able to handle situations better than before 4.06 2 5 .694 .051

07 People have remarked positive change in me 3.40 1 5 .966 .071

08 I feel other employees should also attend this programme 4.71 3 5 .466 .034

EFFECTS OF SPIRITUAL TRAINING ON THE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF EMPLOYEES. A STUDY IN POWERGRIDPOWER PEOPLE

10

Improving quality require a culture change not just a new diet—Philip Crosby

In order to find out the relationship between designation and the frequency of kriya being practiced by respondents, the questions

pertaining to their practice during last 8 months have been obtained. The results from the data are presented in the Table 2 as given below.

It can be seen from the above table

that there is no association between

designation and frequency of

practice of kriya as the P value

arrived from chi-square test is more

than 0.05 with 8 degree of freedom.

It can be concluded that the

frequency of practice of kriya is not

depending upon the level of

designation of respondents. It

means, irrespective of level or

position in the organisation, the

employees practice yoga kriya as per

their comfort and convenience.

It can be seen from the above table

that there is an association between

region and the kriya practice by

respondents since the p value from

chi-square test is .034 with 36 degree

of freedom, which is less than the

accepted significance level of 0.05. It

reveals that the respondents from

different regions are independent of

their way of practice that they have

learned from the yoga programme.

Irrespective of the region in which

they belong, the pattern in which

they practice does not vary.

01 NR-I 4(23.5%) 2(11.8%) 3(17.6%) 4(23.5%) 4(23.5%) 17(100.0%)

02 NR-II 10(33.3%) 6(20.0%) 5(16.7%) 6(20.0%) 3(10.0%) 30(100.0%)

03 ER-I 3(17.6%) 2(11.8%) 3(17.6%) 7(41.2%) 2(11.8%) 17(100.0%)

04 ER-II 4(22.2%) 2(11.1%) 5(27.8%) 3(16.7%) 4(22.2%) 18(100.0%)

05 WR-I 2(13.3%) 6(40.0%) 2(13.3%) 4(26.7%) 1(6.7%) 15(100.0%)

06 WR-II 10(38.5%) 1(3.8%) 7(26.9%) 3(11.5%) 5(19.2%) 26(100.0%)

07 SR-I 8(29.6%) 1(3.7%) 4(14.8%) 7(25.9%) 7(25.9%) 27(100.0%)

08 SR-II 1(11.1%) 1(11.1%) 3(33.3%) 1(11.1%) 3(33.3%) 9(100.0%)

09 NER 3(23.1%) 8(61.5%) 0(.0%) 2(15.4%) 0(.0%) 13(100.0%)

10 CC* 6(37.5%) 4(25.0%) 3(18.8%) 2(12.5%) 1(6.2%) 16(100.0%)

Total 51(27.1%) 33(17.6%) 35(18.6%) 39(20.7%) 30(16.0%) 188(100.0%)

Table 2: Association between Designation and Frequency of practicing the Kriya after attending the programme

Table 3. Association between Regions and Frequency of practicing the kriya after attending the programme

*Corporate Centre. Chi-square P value .035 with 36 degree of freedom

Frequency of practicing the Kriya after attending the programme

Sl. No.

1.

2.

3.

Designation

Workmen

8

3

40

51

40.0%

37.5%

25%

27.1%

5.0%

25.0%

18.8%

17.6%

20.0%

12.5%

18.8%

18.6%

25.0%

12.5%

20.6%

20.7%

10.0%

12.5%

16.9%

16.0%

1

2

30

33

4

1

30

35

5

1

33

39

2

1

27

30

Supervisors

Executives

Chi-Square = 5.195 at 8 degree of freedom. P value: 0 .737.

Total

NeverLess than 5 times

a monthOnce a week 2-3 times a week Almost Every Day

POWERGRID has imparted the spiritual development training in almost all the regions. Participants have represented from across the

designations. It is important and relevant to find out the impact of training region-wise and see how far the participants practice the skills

that were imparted from the training. To report the relationship between regions and the frequency of practice of kriya, we have arrived the

results from the cross table 3 as presented below.

Sl. No.

Frequency of practicing the Kriya after attending the programme (Percentages in Brackets are within Regions)

RegionsNever

Less than 5 times a month

Once a week

2-3 times a week

Almost Every Day

Total

EFFECTS OF SPIRITUAL TRAINING ON THE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF EMPLOYEES. A STUDY IN POWERGRIDPOWER PEOPLE

11

It’s only the last turn of a bolt that tightnes it –the rest is just movement — Shiegeo Shingo

Table. 4. The association between Sex of respondents and frequency of practicing the kriya after attending the programme

Frequency of practicing the Kriya after attending the programme

Sl. No.

1.

2.

Sex ofrespondents

Male

46

5

51

(27.4%)

(25.0%)

27.1%

(14.9%)

(40.0%)

17.6%

(19.6%)

(10.0%)

18.6%

(20.8%)

(20.0%)

20.7%

(17.3%)

(5.0%)

16.0%

25

8

33

33

2

35

35

4

39

29

1

30

Female

Chi-square p value is .060 with 4 degree of freedom.

Total

NeverLess than 5 times

a monthOnce a week 2-3 times a week Almost Every Day

Similarly, how far the gender has

influenced the way in which they

practice kriya has been examined.

It is important to find out the

above, because at times, female

employees are oriented towards

spirituality more than male

counterparts. The results as

arrived have been presented in a

cross tabular form as given in

Table 4. It can be seen from the

above that gender does not have

any influence over the spiritual

practice, as the p value of chi-

square test is above 0.05. It is

found that irrespective of their

gender, they practice the kriya as

per their convenience. 6.1 Reliability Analysis

The data collected are subjected to

reliability test before the same are further

analyzed. The reliability of coefficient

(Cronbach’s Alpha) is 0.791, which is an

accepted figure of reliability of data. The

value of Cronbach’s Alpha was collected in

respect of all the 8 variables.

6.2 Opinion of Respondents on

the effectiveness of Training

Programme It has been observed in general that a

majority of the respondents feel healthy

after attending the programme. Further,

most of the respondents spend less money

on their health, and their energy levels

have gone up considerably due to the

regular practice of kriya. While collecting

opinion of respondents, we have also

approached their reporting officers about

the impact of the spiritual training

programmes conducted in the organisation.

It is observed that most of the reporting

officers have noticed positive and

qualitative changes on their subordinates,

after attending the programmes as

mentioned below:

a) Living in the present moment

b) Accept situation and people

c) Be in harmony with oneself

d) Awareness about difference between

responsibility and duty

e) Sensitivity towards each other

f) No presumptions about any person

g) Elimination of stress, nervousness and

depression

h) Team spirit and being compassionate

towards fellow workmen

i) Breathing properly

j) Communication is the best way to

make or break things

k) Sources of energy are: awareness,

food, breath and rest

l) Seven levels of existence are: breath,

intellect, body, mind, memory, ego

and self

m) Three types of l istening are:

intellectual listening, awareness

listening and emotional listening

a) Work efficiency: Employees have

become more energetic, taking more

initiatives in work and they have drive

for performance.

b) Behaviour at Work Place: Employees

are affectionate towards their peers,

they show respect to their seniors and

they encourage and motivate their

subordinates.

c) Change in health: Employees are

feeling healthy and fit, become less

stressed, and have become cheerful

and happy.

d) Managing situations: Employees are

able to handle situations better and

they complete their tasks in time.

It is further found that those reporting

officers, who have mentioned the above,

have recommended imparting programmes

to other employees as well. However,

some of the superiors have maintained

neutral on the change of behavior of their

subordinates, and yet few have declined to

comment. The following are considered to

be the key take-away from the program:

EFFECTS OF SPIRITUAL TRAINING ON THE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF EMPLOYEES. A STUDY IN POWERGRIDPOWER PEOPLE

12

The best approach is to dig out and eliminate problems where they are assumed not to exist — Shiegeo Shingo

In order to achieve the above, the

respondents have learnt and practiced the

methods such as relaxing breathing

exercise, energizing breathing techniques

(ujjayi breathing), sudarsan kriya-

experiencing the vision of oneself,

meditation/relaxation and three types of

pranayama and various Asanas.

7. Recommendations

Based on the analysis of the results, it has

been observed that programme was

proved to be effective to most of the

participants. However, it was observed

that 26.9% of the participants did not

practice the kriya from the day of

completion of the programme. This may

be due to their poor memory about the

sequence of breathing technique, non-

interest and non availability of time.

Nevertheless, in order to improve the

effectiveness of the programme further,

the following suggestions were given by

the respondents:

1. Conducting a refresher course in every

three or six months, either in office or

outside the office.

2. The regular follow up course to be

organised atleast once in a month.

3. The duration of course was found to be

less. It can be extended to 4-5 days.

References:

1. Andrew Eungi Kim(2003), Religions

influences on personal and societal

well being , Social Indicators

Research.

2. Winters Moore(2005), Individual

differences and workplace

spirituality: The Homogenisation of

corporate culture, Indian Journal of

Marketing research, P-79-93.

3. Lloyd, T: 1990, The nice

company(Bloomsbury, London).

4. Jean-Claude Garcia-Zamar(2003),

Workplace spirituality and

organizational performance, Public

Administration Review, May/June

2003 Vol 63, No3 P.355-361.

5. Lee, W (1991, ‘Jonggyowa inseong

tonghap’ (Religion and character

integration), in W.Lee(ed), Jonggyo

sahoehak(Hanguksinhakyeonguso,

Seoul, pp.153-193).

6. Dorothy Gay Vela(1996), The role of

religioun/spirituality in building

strong families: Respondents

perceptions A qualitative, grounded

theory, Thesis submitted to

University of Nebraska.

7. Kuo-Yi Chung(2010), Moderation

effects of spirituality on stress and

health, A dissertation submitted to

Arizona State University Aug 2010.

8. David Carr(2006), Professional and

personal values and virtues in

education and teaching, Oxford

Review of Education, Vol 32, No.2,

May 2006, pp.171-183.

4. It is further suggested that the programme

should be conducted away from city

and office premises, preferably at the

Ashram itself.

5. The food offered during the programme

should be light and the eatables like

coffee, tea should be avoided.

6. This programme should be extended

to all the employees.

7. Before sending the employees for the

programme, they should be given a

brief within POWERGRID, so that

they are mentally prepared to attend

the programme.

8. Limitations

The The purposive sampling procedure

decreases the generalisablity of findings.

In this study the findings could be subject

to other interpretations. Since the opinion

of employees is subjective, it may be seen

as personally biased. Moreover, since the

data is being collected after more than 6-12

months from the date of completion of the

program, the respondents might recall

from memory which some time may not

provide desired results.

9. Conclusions

The The study is being conducted as a part

of the action research initiative of the

organisation. The study results will be

useful in two dimensions. Firstly, to

understand the utility of such spiritual

training in organisation and on the other

hand to learn from the study experience, so

as to extend such action research to other

area of training programmes conducted in

the organisation.

EFFECTS OF SPIRITUAL TRAINING ON THE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF EMPLOYEES. A STUDY IN POWERGRIDPOWER PEOPLE

13

Where there is no standard there can be no kaizen—Taiichi Ohno

9. Eve Poole(2009), Organisational

Spirituality – A Literature review,

Journal of Business ethics(2009), 84-

577-588.

10. James Simons Silva(2007),

Spirituality for buisiness leadership:

Framing Christian resources

developmentally, PhD dissertation

submitted to Graduate Technological

Union, Berkely, California.

11. Carole L. Jurkiewicz and Robert.A

Giacolone(2004). A values framework

for measuring the impact of

workplace spirituality on

organizational performance, Journal

of Business ethics, Vol.49, No.2(Jan,

2004) pp.129-142.

Dr. G. Jawahar, is working as

Dy. General Manager in

POWERGRID.

He can be reached at jawahar

@powergridindia.com

EFFECTS OF SPIRITUAL TRAINING ON THE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF EMPLOYEES. A STUDY IN POWERGRIDPOWER PEOPLE

14

No one has more trouble than the person who claims to have trouble—Taiichi Ohno

Life is all about taking right decisions at

right time. “If the decision and the time to

take decision happen to be right, then life is

exactly what you make out of it else it is to

be accepted as it is”. These punch lines,

which were used by Benjamin Franklin

during his illustrious time in the 18th

century, aptly advocate the all important

aspect of decision making in human life. If

we have to select one out of two or more

alternatives available before us, the very

process by which we select the desired

alternative can be defined as DECISION

MAKING.

This aspect has undergone several

analytical phases in different periods with

experts elaborating on various core issues

whether this is to be termed as an art or

science. Let us not devaluate the subject by

getting into details of this debate. The

American management expert George

Terry while putting an end to this debate

and stated that “decision making is an art

at the first place. At the outset, it needs to be

developed using semi-scientific methods

and then nurtured carefully for providing

the coup-de-grace to deliver great

decisions.

You are as good as

your DECISIONS

History has many pears when it is to rank

it’s heroes as well as the zeroes on the basis

of the decisions taken by them and the

consequent turnaround of the events that

was witnessed with awe by the generations

to follow. It has often been found that

persons with exceptional decision making

abilities have proved to be trailblazers and

left an indelible impression for others to

follow. Similarly history galores with such

persons who committed blunders while

taking important decisions and had to pay

very heavy price for not being able to read

the situation correctly.

To name a few outstanding decision

makers we can take example of Shivaji, the

great Maratha king of 17th century, who

took some courageous as well as

thoughtful decisions even when he seemed

to be in tenterhooks. His first decision to

establish separate kingdom for Marathas

was courageous. But his decision to invite

his giant enemy Afzal Khan to Pratapgarh

fort in dense forest should go down as the

decision of his life time. The defeat of Afzal

Khan ushered a new era not only for the

Maratha dynasty but also for his followers.

All these decisions were taken astutely by

the Maratha king by taking calculated risk. Nitin Bakshi

Gandhiji stood firmly by his

decision of non-violence even

when there was criticism all over

India by so many sections of

freedom fighters about the

usefulness as well as the power of

this weapon. But Gandhiji proved

everyone wrong by sticking to his

unconventional weapon to win

independence and then went on to

rewrite history for his the then

“outdated” method of non-violence

which is still being regarded as

an “out of box” idea by an extra-

ordinary man.

We make people untrustworthy by not showing them enough trust—Kaoru Ishikawa 15

Similarly Mahatma Gandhi proved to be a

master decision maker for brilliantly

timing his entry to India from South Africa.

His timings to take decisions about Dandi

March, Swadeshi Movement and Chale Jao

agitation spoke highly about his dexterous

decision making ability. His decision to

choose ‘Non-violence’ as the main weapon

to fight against the mighty British kingdom

proved to be the mile-stone decision, for

which our nation will ever remain

indebted to him.

Gandhiji stood firmly by his decision of

non-violence even when there was

criticism all over India by so many sections

of freedom fighters about the usefulness as

well as the power of this weapon. But

Gandhiji proved everyone wrong by

sticking to his unconventional weapon to

win independence and then went on to

rewrite history for his the then “outdated”

method of non-violence which is still

being regarded as an “out of box” idea by

an extra-ordinary man .

Having seen some of the greatest decision

makers of all time, it will be worth-while to

recall some of the worst decision makers as

well. Napoleon Bonaparte is known to

have taken some of the greatest decisions

of historical importance. But once you start

taking decisions out of emotional bursts,

you tend to go wrong. It was totally wrong

on his part to ask his de-motivated and

confused soldiers to fight the battle of

Waterloo against some disciplined and

motivated British army. He lost the battle

and was made captive.

History remembers Alexander the great, as

one of the most ambitious of kings. “I have

to conquer the world” was the statement of

his life. He had already conquered three

continents, but was not willing to go back.

He forced his tired and home-sick soldiers

to keep fighting against their wish and had

to lose ultimately.

It was an irony that the great Alexander

could not understand the feelings of his

dedicated soldiers against the back-drop of

his giant ambition and had to pay heavy

price.

The explanation given above clearly

emphasizes the paramount importance

that should be given to decision making,

because the important decision often either

makes or breaks the very existence of the

person who takes it. Broadly decisions can

be bifurcated into three categories.

1) Life keeping decisions: We have to

take some simple decisions on daily

basis. The decisions about wearing

formals or casuals in office, daily

menu for the lunch, right channel

selection of T V for watching daily

soaps or about any sari or Punjabi

dress to put on should be regarded as

the ones under this category. We need

to take these decisions instantly, as not

much importance should be given to

the activities which are part of our

daily routine.

2) Life facing decisions: There are certain

decisions which may be of lesser

importance but they do make

difference when it matters. Such

decision should be taken after

thinking for a while. Few decisions

such as selection of brand while

purchasing T V, computer, motorcycle

or AC, selection of school to select for

education of kids, selection of invest

measures for small chunk of money or

selection of proper place to visit in

summer vacations etc.. form the

pattern under life facing decisions.

These decisions may prove to be vital

but certainly are not part of making or

breaking your life.

3) Life turning decisions: These decisions

must be taken after seriously thinking

for considerable period. We have to

keep in mind these are the decisions

which are going to have profound

impact on our life. Some decisions like

choosing a profession as career,

choosing life partner, going for change

of current job or in case of problems in

married life – whether to take divorce

or not etc .. are the ones which need to

be taken only after prolong thinking.

These are examples of some extremely

important decisions and hence such

decisions must be taken after considering

pros and cons of the decision to be taken.

Having scanned the relevant details, the all

important question now is that whether

any full-proof scientific method has at all

been devised so far to help taking only

right decision. The answer to this million

dollar question unfortunately is “no”.

The Golden Rules : No formal method has

yet been worked out in this regard, but

following golden rules based on scientific

ways can be used to take near perfect

decisions.

1) Take your own decisions. Do not

depend on others to take decision on

your behalf. Take advice whenever

necessary but listen to your conscious.

Before taking any decision understand

the problem thoroughly and see that

your decision is based on importance

and gravity of the problem.

2) Do not change your decision every now

and then unnecessarily, if your

decision in similar situation in earlier

cases has proved right. Take decisions

only about those things which you feel

deserved to be reviewed. As for routine

matters do not waste your time and

take decisions instantly based on past

experiences as well as fixed routines.

YOU ARE AS GOOD AS YOUR DECISIONSPOWER PEOPLE

16

We make people untrustworthy by not showing them enough trust—Kaoru Ishikawa

3) While taking important official

decisions always make it a point to

keep the concerned person informed

and see to it that he understands your

decision properly. It will facilitate it’s

acceptance as well as its imple-

mentation.

4) While taking decisions take care to see

that your decisions are based on

rationales rather than opinions. All

professional decisions should not be

an outcome of emotional out-burst.

Let it be an outcome of scientific as

well as objective study.

5) Important decisions should be taken

after taking opinions from experts

from that particular field. If possible

collect necessary data, think about the

alternative and then choose the best.

Do not take important decisions

hastily. But once it is taken by you, do

not increase your tension by

procrastinating its implementation.

6) Make it a habit to keep the list of other

options ready with you and then take

decision. Some time it is the second

option that comes to rescue.

7) Always keep the reality in mind while

taking decision. It is to be ensured that

the decision does not have shades of

unnecessary ifs and buts. Keep in

mind that nobody except you will be

responsible for the decision, hence, try

to be as close to perfection as you can

be. Once a decision is taken have firm

belief in your abilities and stick to it. In

some cases it takes time to understand

the real motive behind the decision.

8. Learn from the decision that went

wrong. But never ever procrastinate

the decision making. It is rightly said

that it is always advisable to take

decision based on one’s knowledge

and experience without worrying

about the outcome rather than taking

no decision.

9) Do not take any important decision

when you are either very happy or

very sad. There is every chance that

your decision will not be based on

rationales and will have tinges of your

emotional mind-set. In case of wrong

decision, do not get discouraged. If

you start having an element of fear in

your mind while taking decision, that

will harm your entire decision making

ability.

10) Always try to take time bound

decisions after resorting to some

technological tools such as research

and developments. And yes, do not

compromise with your principles,

moral values or institutional rules.

That is because you will not be able to

have the satisfaction you deserve after

taking an important decision.

11) Always be prepared to face the

consequences after taking an

important decision in form of

problems, obstacles or retrogress.

While taking decisions see to it that the

decision is certain, effective and

rationally acceptable to all.

Remember that successful people take 90%

decisions instantly and only 10% decisions

are taken after taking all the important

aspects relating to that issue into account.

Since the decision taken by man either

makes of breaks him, one has no choice but

to learn this sublime art of decision making

to the fullest extent and make most out the

given opportunities. Do keep in mind that

you will always be remembered in the

back-drop of the decisions you have taken

in your life - Right or Wrong.

YOU ARE AS GOOD AS YOUR DECISIONSPOWER PEOPLE

17

An hour saved at the non –bottleneck is a mirage—Eliyahu Goldratt

Introduction

Restructuring is a wider concept and

mergers, takeover, acquisitions, disin-

vestment, privatization, strategic alliances,

etc. are the processes for restructuring

which includes the changes in technology,

proper allocation of funds for renovation,

and maximum utilization of desired

human resource. Restructuring leads an

industrial organisation towards all round

development by changing the management

style with respect to disinvestment,

privatization, technological up gradation

and downsizing/rightsizing of the

existing workforce (Rao, 2001). Acquisition

/ takeover leads to rationalization of

operations as well as renegotiation of

employment. Rationalization may lead to

restructuring, renovation, consequent

redundancies, etc. Announcement of

acquisition clears that the acquirer is

interested to expand business by

rationalizing the opportunities responding

to the increasing pressures of globalization

and technological change. Simultaneously

this also sends a message that whether the

employees will fit into the acquirer's

structure, how much pay they will receive,

how their performance will be measured, etc.

Restructuring and Organisational

HRM Initiatives

Plenty of attention is paid to the legal and

financial aspects of acquisitions. But it is

important that management of human side

of change is the real key to maximize the

value of the deal (Mariappan, 2003). The

top managements of restructured

organisations have felt that retaining key-

talents or skill and knowledge workers is

the most critical ingredient of takeover

along with communication, retention of

innovative managers, integration of

corporate culture, team work, individual

commitment and responsibility, multi

skilling, training and retraining (Day and

Jung, 2000).

The role of major actors, the management,

trade unions, workers, and the state has

become critical because of the change of

employer in taken-over companies. The

new work culture has invited mixed

reactions from the employees. The labor

relations have become individual oriented

based on understanding, cooperation and

trust. The role of trade unions has changed

to extend cooperation and motivated

workers to work for survival of the

organisation which ultimately help in their

survival.

Dr. Chandan Kumar Sahoo

Announcement of acquisition clears

that the acquirer is interested to

expand business by rationalizing the

opportunities responding to the

increasing pressures of globalization

and technological change.

Simultaneously this also sends a

message that whether the

employees will fit into the acquirer's

structure, how much pay they will

receive, how their performance will

be measured, etc.

Intuitive conclusion are marked by something that is not common sense… common practice —Eliyahu goldratt 18

Employers, as understood, have become

more careful about improving quality and

performance standard, decentralized

decision-making system, quality of work

life and welfare practices (Kay and Shelton,

2000). The role of government has been

changed from a proactive employer to a

responsible observer who is to see that

industries prosper without disturbing the

society so that the economy prospers in the

long run.

Effective ways for Restructuring

Restructuring has gained momentum in

India in recent times. This means that

today's organisation has become more

conscious of quality, aware of stakeholders'

expectations, seeking strategic alliance

with international and domestic companies,

etc. The various effective ways for

restructuring an organisation are de-

layering, downsizing, outsourcing, and

empowerment (Monappa and Engineer,

2003).

De-layering: It is a tool to dispense with

those levels in organisational structure that

serve no real purpose but creates rigid

bureaucratic phenomena. It leads to

quicker disposal of work, greater

empowerment of the employees, and

rationalized work flow.

Downsizing: One of the major challenges

that human resource management faces in

the restructuring process is that of

downsizing. Downsizing means reducing

surplus employees in an organisation.

Moreover, it has become necessary for

organisations to redesign themselves to

meet the demands of competition both at

local as well as global level.

Out sourcing: For proper growth and

development of an organisation, outsourcing

helps by hiring external services on

contract in a required situation. This helps

in cost effectiveness and service effectiveness

which is required for the organisation.

Nowadays the permanent non core

activities of organisations are carried out

by temporary, casual and contractual

workers.

Empowerment: This involves removing

limits on and recognizing the talents of

employees - thus reducing employee

dissatisfaction. Empowerment, thus,

inspires change. The important inputs for

positive results are training, education,

and counseling in order to create a new

work ethos. Empowerment helps to create

autonomy for employees, allows sharing of

responsibility and power at all levels, and

builds employee self-esteem and energies

the workforce - all of which enable better

performance.

Strategic Integration

Corporate strategy provides overall

direction to the organisation in terms of its

general attitude towards growth and

management of business. Business

strategy is followed at the business unit or

product level. It normally aims at

improving the competitive position in the

market served by that business unit.

Functional strategy refers to the approach

in a functional area to achieve corporate

and business unit objectives.

IIt is concerned with the development of a

distinctive competence to provide an

organisation or business unit with

competitive advantage (Weston, et al.,

1998).

As organisations become global, strategic

management becomes increasingly

important to track all round developments

and position the organisation for long

term competitive advantage. In other

words, organisations have to adopt

quickly the changes, by becoming learning

organisations. For this strategic human

resource management is the requirement

of the day. Strategic human resource

management came into force as a way of

thinking, which stressed on the role of

people in organisations. The Central

components of such are:

• The use of the planning

• A coherent approach for management

of personnel

• Matching HRM activities and policies

to some explicit business strategy;

• Visualizing workforce as a strategic

resource for achieving competitive

advantage.

ORGANISATIONAL RESTRUCTURING AND HRM INITIATIVESPOWER PEOPLE

19

To go along with the quote –different isn’t always better… but better is always different—Anonymous

A strategically integrated human resource

management function has the potential to

make a significant contribution to

organisation’s success through its capacity

to initiate, sustain, and facilitate strategic

change. Job design and multi skilling of

employees have increasingly made for the

survival of the organisation (Greer, 2001).

The various work design principles which

are contributing towards human resource

management are:

• Organizational restructuring including

de-layering, matrix structures, fewer

and broader job grades and revisions

to individual job grades and revisions

to individual job description.

• Horizontal restructuring or job

enlargement where the action and

responsibilities undertaken in any

function of similar levels of skill and

responsibility are combined.

• Vertical restructuring or job enrichment

where tasks involving higher levels are

introduced.

• Team working where the skills

required to handle every task are

assembled by combining the talents of

individuals.

Challenges of Human Resource

Management

Human resource management (HRM) is a

management function that helps managers

to recruit, select, train, and develop

members for an organization. HRM is a

series of integrated decisions that form the

employment relationship, the quality that

contributes to the abil i ty of the

organizations and the employees to

achieve their objective.

ORGANISATIONAL RESTRUCTURING AND HRM INITIATIVESPOWER PEOPLE

20

The desire to do good work is seldom satisfied by just getting by—Richard Sonnet

It is concerned with the peoples' dimension

in management, since every organization is

made up of people, acquiring their services,

developing their skills, motivating them to

higher levels of performance and ensuring

that they continue to maintain their

commitment to the organization which are

essential to achieving organization

objectives and goal (Ulrich, 1997).

The scope of HRM is indeed vast.

Specifically the activities included are - HR

planning, job analysis and design,

recruitment and selection, orientation and

placement, training and development,

performance appraisal, job evaluation,

employee and executive remuneration,

motivation and communication, welfare,

health and safety, industrial relations. Now

we can categories all these functions into

seven sections:

• Nature of HR planning

• Employee hiring

• Employee and executive remuneration

• Employee motivation

• Employee maintenance

• Industrial/Employee relations

• Prospects of HRM

The 1990s have brought revolutionary

changes in our business. Post-liberalization

is marked by a shift from command

economy to market driven economy, from

sheltered market to competitive market,

from monopoly to competition, from

domestic trade to global trade. Such a shift

calls for a different approach to HR

activities.

During the pre-economic liberalization, the

HR managers had adopted reactive

strategies to people's problems. The need

of the hour is proactive approach, a

strategy that helps HR professionals

foresee events and take appropriate actions

before the events occur. Proactive

strategies call for awareness about the

likely challenges the HR managers will face

in the days to come. The major challenges

are:

• Globalization

• Corporate reorganizations

• New organizational forms

• Changing demographics of workforce

• Changed employee expectations

• New industrial relations approach

• Renewed focus on people

• Managing the managers

• Interests of the weaker sections of

society.

Human Resource Management

Strategies

The success of HRM lies in its flexibility in

reorienting itself in tune with changing

internal and external focus of organisations.

Generally, organisations start with a

particular type of HR strategy and

continue with it regardless of change in

organisational focus. This continuation

weakens both organisational progress as

well as utility of HR efforts (Stace and

Dunphy, 1991).

Task Focused HRM Strategy: The task focused HRM strategies are implemented for:

• Strong bottom line orientation

• Emphasis on workforce planning, job redesign and work practice reviews

• Focus on reward structures

• Internal and external recruitment

• Functional skil ls training and formalized multi-skilling.

• Formalized industrial relations procedures

The workers are advised to follow the

safety measures provided by the organization.

To avoid decline in productivity which is

detrimental to the success of organizational

improvement systems, the management

has to be careful about working conditions

of employees.

Employees Welfare: Various welfare

measures which are provided and

maintenance for the well being of the

employees by the managements can be

divided into statutory and non-statutory.

The management must strictly follow the

statutory welfare provisions under the

Factories Act, 1948 for motivation of

employees. The non - statutory measures

are provided by the organization for the

welfare of the working community along

with their family members.

Human Resource Planning: HRP essentially

involves forecasting personnel needs,

assessing personnel supply and matching

demand-supply factors through personnel

- related programmes. The planning

process is inf luenced by overal l

organizational objectives and environment

of business. Specific requirements in terms

of number and characteristics of

employees should be derived from the

organizational objectives. Proper HR

planning ensures attraction, maintenance

and development of best manpower in an

organization which is construed as a part of

HR strategy.

Employees Training: An organization’s

philosophy and strategy are inextricably

linked with its approach to improve the

current or future performance of its

employees.

Performance Evaluation: It provides the

total information needed for strategic

decisions by assessing the fit between

current human resource system and those

required by a change in strategic direction.

ORGANISATIONAL RESTRUCTURING AND HRM INITIATIVESPOWER PEOPLE

21

Great ideas needs landing gear as well as wings—C.D Jackson

Developmental HRM strategy: This

strategy is jointly carried out by the

corporate HR unit and the business units

for the purpose of:

• Development of the individual and the

team• Use of intrinsic rewards• Strong emphasis on organizational

culture

Turnaround HRM strategy: Turnaround

HRM strategies are adopted when the

organization is not compatible with its

environment and when the business

strategy of the organization radically

changes. These are used for the following

situations like:

• Major structural changes affecting the total organization and career structures

• Downsizing and retrenchments

• Lateral recruitment of key executives from outside

• Executive team building, creating a new mind set

• Breaking with the old culture

Strategic Human Resource

Management Initiatives

It has become a widely held premise that

people provide organisations with an

important source of sustainable competitive

advantage. Competitive strategy based on

sophisticated human resource policies and

practices is seen as one of the major keys to

competitive advantage in the competitive

world. Achieving competitive success

through people involves fundamentally

altering how the management thinks about

t h e w o r k f o r c e a n d e m p l o y m e n t

relationship.

It means achieving success by working

with people, not by replacing them or by

limiting the scope of their activities.

Nowadays fundamental changes in the

business environment have created a

sudden shift of focus on HR functions

(Kandula, 2001) and such changes include:

• Rapid rate of business change

• Raising costs, increasing competitive

pressures and margins

• Rapid technological change

• Complex organization

• Flatter, leaner and more flexible

organizations

• Changing demo graphics, limited

labour availability

• Responding to external forces such as

legislation and regulation, litigation,

union relations, etc.

• Increasing multinational competition

and collaboration, multilateral relationship

Organizations have recognized the

importance of human resource to the

success of business. Human resource issues

are definitely influencing the success of

business in terms of profitability, survival,

competitiveness, adaptability and

flexibility. The strategic human resource

management initiatives that directly affect

the development of human resource are

discussed below.

Executive Development: The success of

organisations in the competitive environment

is largely contingent upon the performance

of its executive personnel. Therefore, these

organisat ions must develop and

implement an executive development

s t rategy that ensures a t t ract ion,

development and retention of competent

HR executives. The executive development

strategy would be useful as a practical

guide line in pursuing a systematic

executive development strategy that can

ensure right leadership competency

available at right time to the organisation.

Working Conditions: The management of

each organization has a strict out look

towards the working conditions as

unhygienic working conditions lead

towards frustration, fatigue, boredom and

ultimately affect the health of the workers.

ORGANISATIONAL RESTRUCTURING AND HRM INITIATIVESPOWER PEOPLE

22

Adversity is just change that we haven’t adapted ourselves to yet—Aimee Mullins

Performance evaluation is typically seen as

having two purposes; administration

comprising such actions as determining job

assignments, promotions and terminations

and development consisting of providing

continuous feedback, coaching and

identifying training needs.

Compensation: The process of establishing

fair and equitable pay practices is one of the

important activities of the organization.

The level of pay assigned to various jobs is

important to the organization because of its

impact on morale, retention and the ability

to attract the skilled employees as it acts as

the determinant for their life style, status,

self worth and attitude towards the

organization. The pay package should

always match the performance and

experience. Also, it should at par with or

more than what is given by other similar

organizations.

Career Planning: Managing careers, as

opposed to merely staffing jobs, is

increasingly a necessity in organizations.

Changing employee attitudes, competitive

labor markets, increased pressures to

manage employee re tent ion and

productivity have emphasized on actions

to plan for employees' careers. The career

development activities are those that pave

the way to integrate the needs of the

employees with the goals of the

organizations. Career development is an

important way to utilize a vast supply of

untapped human resource potential. Most

of the organizations are continuously

trying to provide meaningful jobs to its

employees to generate interest and making

the career goal clear for them. The

promotion policy and development

strategies leave no confusion among

employees as far as their careers are

concerned.

Job Enrichment: In the industrial age of

machine-controlled work, more machines

mean more routine and repetitive work.

Work becomes mechanized beyond the

endurance of the human nervous system

and that required job enrichment.

Job enrichment is used essentially to help the organization to accomplish its objectives more effectively. Several ways of enriching jobs so as to provide more meaningful work to the employees are:

• Formation of natural work units

• Establ i shment of worker-c l ient relationships

• Combining of tasks

• Vertical job loading

• Opening of feedback channels

Employee Communication System: In

recent years, management in a wide range

of industrial concerns has given increased

attention on communicating maximum

business information to employees. These

communications have taken diverse forms

including regular progress reports from

senior management, special employee

reports similar to the annual report to share

holders, letters and articles in company

journals and circular on notice boards or in

pay slips. The content of these communications

vary widely and cover issues such as

marketing, sales results, future developments,

company policy, industrial relations, pay

and conditions of service, etc.

Involvement and Empowerment: There

are three general categories of employee

participation programmes – encouraging

employee suggestions, job involvement,

and high involvement systems. It ranges in

scope from simple suggestion boxes to joint

goal setting and gain sharing bodies. The

employee involvement process has been

designed for various reasons.

These include, (a) increasing employees

trust and commitment to organization, (b)

to provide a forum through which

employees can express their beliefs and

attitudes about daily operations, (c) to

enable employees to identify and solve

problems so that they can improve their

own performance.

Employee Retention Programme: The

hire and fire system affects the IR system

in an adverse way. So the organizations

are trying to use the existing manpower

effectively and efficiently in order to

achieve the organizational goal and to

reduce the rates of labor-turnover and

absenteeism. For retention of existing

manpower, organizations are offering

attractive salary and fringe benefits like

bonus, LTC, HRA, housing loan,

educational facilities for the children of

workers, medical facilities, housing

facility, recreational facilities, etc. These

measures ultimately help the workers for

extending co-operation and make them

loyal towards the organization.

Quality of Work Life: It refers to the

favorableness or un-favorableness of a job

environment for people. This shows the

quality of relationship between employees

and total working environment. Quality of

work life is the degree to which works in

organization contributes to material and

psychological well-being of its members.

QWL refers to better work relations, fair

remunerat ion , sa fe and hea l thy

environment, opportunities for growth

and the like. Better QWL leads to

motivation and satisfaction of employees

and they have no reason to indulge in

strikes and gheraoes.

Bargaining Structure: The management

has to encourage bipartite negotiation like

collective bargaining, which is an

important tool to reduce the differences

between union and management and to

reach an agreement regarding implementation

of several labor policies. As recognition of

a bargaining agent is the backbone of

collective bargaining, the management

and unions should follow the secret ballot

method for this purpose. The recognized

union bargains with the management on

several issues relating to the interest of

employees such as wages, allowances,

bonus, working conditions, welfare

measures, etc.

Therefore, human resource management

being proactive and responsible towards

changes is an ideal strategy for an

organisation to inherit the best for

delivering the best for the organisation.

In the post liberalized era of LPG,

organisational restructuring is the most

common practice of the Indian Industries

for their survival. After change of ownership,

the organisations are developing

competitive strategies based on sophisticated

human resource policies and practices for

the sustainability of the organisations.

Now the companies are recognized the

importance of human resource for business

success. Human resource issues are

influencing the success and stability of

business in terms of profitability, survival,

competitiveness, adaptability and

flexibility.

Hence organisational restructuring with

respect to human resource is successful

only when the organisation looks after the

following HR practices such as working

conditions, occupational health and safety,

welfare measures, human resource

planning, employees' training and

retraining, performance evaluation, fair

compensation and incentives, career

development, proper communication,

employees' involvement and empowerment,

recognition and rewards, quality of work

life, cordial labor- management relations,

etc.

References

1. Day, Jonathan D. Jung, M. (2000),

“Corporate Transformation without a

Crisis”, The Mckinsey Quarterly, Vol.

4, pp. 119-136.

2. Greer, Charles R. (2001), Strategic

Human Resource Management,

Pearson Education Asia, New Delhi.

3. Kandula, Srinivas R. (2001), Strategic

Human Resource Development,

Prentice - Hall of India Pvt. Ltd., New

Delhi, p. 136.

This result in bringing both the parties

closure and realize the real situation and

work together keeping their interests

ful f i l led a long with that of the

organization.

Industrial Relations Scenario: Earlier

industrial relations scenario was confined

to the system with rules and procedures

and was being used by unions and

employers to determine the reward for

effort and other conditions of employment,

to protect the interests of both the groups

and to regulate the ways in which

employers treat their employees. For

healthy industrial relations, it is necessary

to have a clear-cut proactive strategy, as

because reactive strategy can't continue for

long. Growing competition, complex

economic environment, rising labor costs,

etc. compel organizations to adopt

proactive strategies towards IR, while

having proactive strategies, the organizations

have to ensure achievement of corporate

objectives through cooperation and

commitment of employees. The IR in

future does not need industrial unrest but

needs mutual understanding and trust

both at individual and collective level.

Conclusion

When globalization brings competitiveness

with it and competitiveness becomes

mandatory for survival and growth of

business organisation, HR professionals

have become and are to be strategic and

more concerned for the manpower.

Individual care, team development and

growth orientation become obvious parts

of strategic human resource management

along with better HR planning, job

enrichment and developmental strategies.

Proactive HR managers do not see

organisational restructuring or structural

transformation as a threat but rather as a

boon.

Economic growth depends on industrial

growth, which depends on effective and

strategic management of human resource

as the same is responsible for managing the

physical resources.

4. Kay, Ira T; Shelton, M. (2000), “The

People Problem in Mergers”, The

McKinsey Quarterly, Vol. 4, 2000, pp.

27-37.

5. Mariappan, V. (2003), “Mergers and

Acquisitions: The Human Issues and

Strategies”, Indian Journal of

Industrial Relations, Vol. 39, No.1, pp.

85 - 91.

6. Monappa, A. and Engineer, M. (2003),

Liberalization and Human Resource

Management: Challenges for the

Corporations of Tomorrow, Response

Books, New Delhi, p. 34.

7. Rao, H. (2001), “Economic

Restructuring and Employment

Adjustment: Lessons from Japanese

Experience”, Indian Journal of Labor

Economics, Vol. 44, No.4, pp. 772 -

779.

8. Stace, D. and Dunphy, D. (1991),

“Beyond Traditional Paternalistic and

Developmental Approaches to

Organizational Change and Human

Resource Strategies”, The

International Journal of HRM, Vol. 2,

No, 3, pp. 263-283.

9. Ulrich, D. (1997). Human Resource

Champions, Harvard Business School

Press, Boston (USA), pp. 134 - 136.

10. Weston, J. Fred. Chung, Kwang S;

Hoag, Susan E. (1998), Mergers,

Restructuring and Corporate Control,

Prentice - Hall of India Pvt. Ltd., New

Delhi, pp. 52 - 53.

Dr. Chandan Kumar Sahoo is

Working as an Associate

Professor in School of

Management, NIT, Rourkela.

He can be reached at

cks_pd@yahoo.co.in

ORGANISATIONAL RESTRUCTURING AND HRM INITIATIVESPOWER PEOPLE

23

The hunch is creativity trying to tell you something—Anonymous

ABSTRACT

At different points of time, many different

schools of thought were advocated by the

researchers and practitioners as to how a

business should be managed and the issues

that managers should know how to handle

for their survival and growth. The most

interesting observation is that, most of

these theories and opinions, propagated by

these researchers or practitioners are valid

and working even today even though some

of these are half a century old.

With the passing days, organisation

realised that unless these knowledge are

passed on to the managers they may not be

in a position to take appropriate decisions

which are all pervasive. The realm of

Management Development Programmes

(MDP) is exactly to cover those above

mentioned tasks. From the view point of

Training and Development professionals,

all those criteria mentioned above translate

into a few important milestones for them to

achieve so that MDPs are meaningful &

effective for an organisation.

Role & Importance of Communication in conducting

Successful ManagementDevelopment

Programmes

Firstly, the MDP should meet its objectives.

Secondly, there should be effective means

for evaluating any MDP to ensure that it

has met its objectives. Thirdly, as it is

meant for all tiers of management, it

should be acceptable to the participants.

In this backdrop, proper communication

during different phases of training

including pre course design and post

training have a big role to play. If a

participant is aware about the purpose,

usefulness and various criteria for

evaluation, he would be more responsive

and receptive towards the total process of

MDP to make it a rewarding experience.

Introduction:

‘Change’ is the only constant thing around

us. Today’s business is no exception. Only

difference it is the rate of change is much

faster today. The biggest challenge for any

management is to overcome these

uncertainties by the way of educating its

managerial ladder so that managerial

personnel are equipped enough to take

timely action at the time of certainties as

well as during uncertainties. Kishalay Bhattacharjee & Dr. Utpal Baul

When we talk about

educating the managers, they

should be told in no

ambiguous term the reasons

and objectives for exposing

them into various domains of

Knowledge, Skill and Attitude

and the expected pay off or

benefit the organisation

expects in return for such an

exposure as well as the

benefits for the managers in

particular.

All things are in a state of flux—Heraclites 24

Fundamentally, the primary duty of any

management is to steer the organisation to

achieve its objectives.

When we talk about educating the

managers, they should be told in no

ambiguous term the reasons and objectives

for exposing them to various domains of

knowledge, skills and attitudes. Also, the

expected pay off or benefit the organisation

expects in return for such an exposure as

well as the benefits for the managers in

particular.

In this connection the role of communication

is very significant. It is not only the

communication during the conduction of a

programme or when the programme is

over but also before the programme starts.

A manager must know precisely the very

purpose of the programme, the tentative

benefit of such an exposure so that they are

committed to the cause and are ready to

appreciate and understand the recognition

and responsibility the organisation

bestowing on them.

Changing Knowledge Paradigm :

Before the globalised era, mostly the

evolution of management and their

concepts were :

a) Scientific Management Theory:

Fredrick W Taylor, Henry Gantt, and

Frank and Lillian Gilberth were the

founders of this body of principles.

b) Classical Organization Theory: Henri

Fayol (1841-1925) advocated few

principles for managing a business

based on his experiences which are

regarded as fundamentals till date.

Scientific Management was concerned

with increasing the productivity of the

shop and the individual worker while

‘Classical Organization Theory’ grew

out of the need to find guidelines for

managing such complex organization

as factories.

c) Behavioural school of Organisation

Theory: Abraham Maslow (1970-

Hierarchy of Needs), Frederick

Herzberg (1966 - Hygiene &

Motivational Factors), Douglas

McGregor (1957 - Theory of X and Y)

are some of the major contributors

from that school of thought. These

school believed that when “employee

management” simulate more and

better work , the organization has a

more and better work culture and

thereby a better productivity.

d) Quantitative Approach of

Management: In spite of these different approaches

t o u n d e r s t a n d m a n a g e m e n t ,

managers desperately wanted to base

their decisions to some scientific and

logical parameters which are

quantifiable. Statistics, Operations

Research are the basis of this

approach.

e) System Theory of Management :

Some scientists thereafter tend to view

the business as a ‘System’ The system

approach to management views the

organizations as a unified, purposeful

system composed of integral parts.

With the advent of globalisation in early

90s, the business dynamics have

dramatically changed. The businesses

prior to 90’s were operating in a protected

environment with a lot of regulations and

statues in place. The interactions with

global business were minimal and the

concept regarding environment and

business stake holders were also limited,

mostly domestic in nature. Thus the

knowledge required to handle these

factors were mostly localised in nature.

After 90’s, suddenly businesses found

themselves surrounded by the presence of

a lot of stakeholders, formerly which were

not there or whose presence was

miniscule. These stake holders are no more

localised and anyone from any part of the

world could be a stakeholder. Constant

interactions with those stake holders and

their inter dependency made managers

wiser. They soon understood that the

environments in which a business

operates are no longer the same. It has

three layers of environment which are

interacting and dynamic. They are

Internal Environment

Task Environment (Industry)

Social Environment

ROLE & IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION IN CONDUCTING SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMESPOWER PEOPLE

25

The impossible is often the untried—Jim Goodwin

A manager’s task is to manage these layers

of environment which are often over

lapping . Managers found it challenging to

evolve appropriate interacting comm-

unication channels with those stake

holders as managers began to realise that

organisation is no more a set of fixed and

impersonal forces rather it is a complex and

dynamic web of people interacting with

each other.

Other related issues gained momentum

along with globalisation:

Quality:

Globalisation taught one distinct lesson to

the managers around the globe that in

order to sustain competition globally,

quality cannot be ignored and that quality

should be all pervasive.

Business Ethics

Business ethics (also known as corporate

ethics) is a form of applied ethics or

professional ethics that examines ethical

principles and moral or ethical problems

that arise in a business environment. It

applies to all aspects of business conduct

and is relevant to the conduct of

individuals and entire organizations.

Corporate Social Responsibility

(CSR)

Corporate social responsibility functions

as a built-social responsibility functions as

a built-in, self-regulating mechanism

whereby business monitors and ensures its

active compliance with the spirit of the law,

ethical standards, and international norms.

The goal of CSR is to embrace

responsibility for the company's actions

and encourage a positive impact through

its activities on the environment,

consumers, employees, communities,

stakeholders and all other members of the

public sphere.

Managers’ Wisdom

From the foregoing discussions we have

seen that at different point of time, many

different schools of thought were

advocated by the researchers /

practitioners as to how a business should

be managed and the issues that managers

should handle in order to survive and

grow. The most interesting observation is

that most of these theories/thought what

F.W. Taylor has propagated in his

“Scientific Theory” or Henry Fayol in his

‘Classical Organization Theory’ or those

contained in “Behavioural Era’ are valid

and working even today even though some

these theories are half century old.

Thus with the passing days, organisation

realised that unless these knowledge are

passed on, managers may not be in a

position to take appropriate decisions

which are all pervasive. The realm of

Management Development Programmes

is exactly to cover the above mentioned

tasks.

Need for Management

Development Programmes

In this juncture , the role of Management

Development Programmes assumes

significant importance. Management

Development Programmes (MDPs) are

traditionally defined as the programmes

that prepare and educate the managers to

effectively manage their people while at

the same time achieving the strategies and

goals of the organization.

From the view point of Training and

Development Personnel, all those criteria

translate into two very important

milestones for them to achieve in order to

M DPs to be meaningful & effective for an

organisation. These are:

• As it is meant for all tiers of management,

it should be acceptable to the

participants.

• The Management Development

Programme should meet its objectives.

There should be effective means for

evaluating any MDP to ensure

whether it met with its objectives.

In order to achieve these dual purposes, an

effective evaluation should be in place. In

addition, since this type of programme is

targeted for adults, the adult learning

principles should be integrated into the

programme to ensure its acceptability.

Adult Learners

The managers for whom the various M

DPs directed are all adults. First thing is to

be kept in mind that adults do not learn the

way school or college students learn.

Fundamentally, the following characteristics

of adult learning were identified by

Malcom Knowles, the famous contributor

in the field of adult learning and his

successors.

• Adults are autonomous and self

directed. They need to be free to direct

themselves. The trainers should

actively incite adult participation in

the learning process and serve as

facilitators for them.

• Adults have accumulated a foundation

of life experiences and knowledge:

they derive pleasure to connect

learning with the life experiences.

ROLE & IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION IN CONDUCTING SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMESPOWER PEOPLE

26

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective—Andre Gide

• Adults are goal oriented. They

usually know what goal they want to

attain.

• Adults will only learn when they

have a need to learn. Adults would

expend considerable time and energy

to see what benefits they would be

deriving of their learning something

and what the costs would be of their

not learning before they invest time

and energy to learn it.

• Adults expect that they need to be

respected, while acknowledging the

wealth of experiences that they bring

to the class room, both from the

professional field as well as from life

experiences.

In this backdrop, it is apparent that if these

principles are aligned with the different

principles of adult learning” in its different

interventions/sessions in a management

Development Programme, it will be more

acceptable by adult learners. There lies the

importance of Communication.

Traditional model defined Communication

as ‘sending the message from one place to

another by any means’. Later researches

replaced the word ‘message’ with ‘ideas’.

Thus it is not the sending of message but

the sending of ‘ideas’ from one place to

another. For doing so, the sender has to

frame the idea himself and then only can

send the idea to another person or place.

Role of communication in various

stages of MDPs

Now let us discuss the ro le of

communication into the whole process.

Communication has a vital role to play in

various stages of a MDP to make it

successful.

Communication prior to the programme:

Before beginning of any MDP, it must be

clearly communicated to the target group

regarding the purpose of the programme

and also corresponding needs of the target

group. The participants should clearly

understand the ‘Big Picture’ associated

with it so that they can relate to the

programme and clearly appreciate what

are the take off from the programme and

how the programme will work as a catalyst

and help them to become better managers.

The communication should be such that

they can immediately relate a particular

session or an activity. Adult will only learn

when they identify the reasons to learn.

These reasons when explained to an adult

target group yield more meaningful and

responsive interactions during the

programme.

Communication during programme: As

explained earlier, MDP basically aims for

enhancing skill, knowledge or attitude and

for doing that the role of communication is

vital in every segment. Before the start of

every component of skill/knowledge or

skill input, participants have to briefed

once more so that they can clearly identify

the need and benefit for such an

interaction.

Interactions should be made keeping the

Adult Learning Principles in mind and

there the role of trainer/faculty becomes

very vital. In the total interactions

/delivery process, the trainer should

remember that he is dealing with adult

learners. Communication for evaluation: Any

Communication for evaluation: Any MDP

is successful or not depends on whether

any appropriate evaluation process is in

place or not. Kirkpatrick DL, one of the

pioneers in the field of training evaluations

suggested that ‘Evaluation’ changes from

a generic term into clear and achievable

goal if these are broken into logical steps.

These steps are : Step I – Reaction (did the

participants like the programme?). Step II

– Learning (did participants learn

skill/technique or enhanced their

knowledge or their attitude changed?).

Step III – Behaviour (Is there any changes

in job behaviour?). Step IV – Results.

It is apparent that in order to make an

Evaluation Process meaningful, it is

necessary to plan the different techniques

of evaluation to be employed in the

conception stage it with regards to

parameters to be evaluated. This requires a

detailed exercises regarding the design of

questionnaires, different feedbacks on pre

designed forms and their related

parameters.

Conclusion :

Basically, communication is a process of

sending “idea” from one place to another.

Management Development Programme

consists of adult learners. Adult learning

principles say ‘Adults will only learn when

they have a need to learn’’.

ROLE & IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION IN CONDUCTING SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMESPOWER PEOPLE

27

A problem well stated is a problem half solved—Anonymous

Thus, an adult learner should be briefed

beforehand regarding the objectives of the

programme; need for the learners to

participate in such type of programme;

different ways by which the programme

would benefit the participants; what the

company intends to achieve by organising

such type of programme; what are the

parameters by which it can be measured

whether the programme has been

successful or not; how the learners can

help the facilitator to make the programme

successful. Such a disposition would go a

long way for an adult learner to feel

important and more respected and their

reaction will be more responsive, more

participative in the total process to make a

Management Development Programme

more meaningful.

References :

1. John Sheldrake, Management Theory,

2nd Edition, 2003, Thomson Learning,

P- 3 to 57

2. Dr. M. Thenmozhi, Article on

“Evolution of management Theory,

Professor, Department of Management

Studies, Indian Institute of Technology

Madras. (website: http:

//nptel.iitm.ac.in / courses/IIT

MADRAS / Management_Science_I)

3. T. R. Jain & M Trehan, Business

Environment, 2nd Edit5ion, V K

(India) Enterprise, 4. Dr. B. B. Hriyappa, Theories and

Concept of Business Environment,

2009, Booksurge Inc, P-15 to 25,

5. Mumford Alan, “Management

Development Programme: Strategies

for Action, Jaico Mumbai, p.7)

6. Mishra R. K, Prof & Dean of Institute

of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad,

article “ Management Development

and Training: The Indian Experience”,

P: 1 & 2)

7. Eastburn R. A. titled‘ Managemant

Development’ (Chapter 33) included

in “Training and Development

Handbook” by Robert L Craig , 3rd

Edition (1993).

8. Knowles Malcolm S. article titled

‘Adult Learning ‘ (Chapter 9)

included in “Training and Development Handbook” by Robert

L Craig (1993).

9. Stephen Lieb, Article on ‘Principles of

Adult Learner” published in

“VISION”, Fall 1991, South Mountain

Community College, USA.

10. Shri M. M. Monippally: Business

Communication Strategies, 1st Edition

(2001), Tata McGrew Hill Publication,

P -25 to 84).

11. S. P. Robbins, Organizational

Behavior; 12th Edition, Chapter

11,Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi

P- 367 to 397

12. Philips J. J. titled ‘Training

Evaluation’ (Chapter 9) (P 136-146) ,

Jaico Publication, 3rd Edition, 2004.

Kishalay Bhattacharjee

is working with Indian Institute of Coal

Management Ranchi as Sr Faculty & Dr

Utpal Baul is working as a Professor in

Management , Birla Institute of

Technology, Mesra, Ranchi. Both can be

reached at kbhattacharjee@iicm.ac.in

ROLE & IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION IN CONDUCTING SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMESPOWER PEOPLE

28

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not act but a habit—Aristotle

We are, today, residents of a global village.

The phenomenon called globalisation has

made national contours extremely porous.

Businesses aspire for global presence. The

increasing proliferation of technology has

made enterprises geographically dispersed

yet virtually connected.

Such an international integration makes

the management of human capital all the

more challenging for organisations. One of

the most pertinent issues for HR personnel

today is managing change. The volatile

business environment calls for restructuring,

rightsizing, mergers and other interventions.

These call for a prudent handling of people

processes. Moreover, as more businesses

become knowledge organisations, a

proactive management of information and

events is required for a competitive

stronghold.

The global financial crisis has further

pushed this issue to the forefront. The

continuously evolving nature of business

has greatly transformed the demands

placed on HR Professionals.

Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell

you that Microsoft would become an

unimportant company.

- Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft in Fortune

The changing face of

Human ResourceManagement

: Being global, strategic & human

It calls for a deep understanding of people

processes and implementing strategies in

accordance with the same.

With the dissolution of national frontiers,

more people are migrating to other

countries in search for promising avenues.

Managing diverse global human resources

is fast becoming a crucial determiner of

organisational success. Diverse pool of

employees requires an appreciation of

cross cultural differences to formulate

appropriate HR policy. The very nature of

workforce is changing.

The role of human resources has been

evolving for some time. The shift from

"personnel" to "human resources," for

example, was part of the movement to

acknowledge the value of employees as an

organisational resource, and was an

attempt to remove some of the stigma that

was coming to be associated with slow,

bureaucratic personnel departments. This

shift in label was accompanied by a call for

HR to become a strategic partner with the

leaders of the business-to contribute to

significant business decisions, advice on

critical transitions, and develop the value

of the employees-in short, to have a seat at

the table. Ashutosh Anand

The volatile business

environment calls for

restructuring, rightsizing,

mergers and other interventions.

These call for a prudent handling

of people processes. Moreover,

as more businesses become

knowledge organizations, a

proactive management of

information and events is

required for a competitive

stronghold.

Never confuse Motion with Action—Heming way 29

Usually, in the past, HR has had the

misfortune of being considered as a

necessary, but yet unessential or

unproductive department in an organi-

sation. It was considered an administrative

doer rather than a strategic partner and

catalyst. HR in that context merely meant

regular administrative and record-keeping

functionalities. This perspective though,

has rapidly changed in today's knowledge

era.

The traditional functions of HR which

were limited to meager staffing functions

like doing regular recruitments, day to day

administrative works and that of fire

fighting in the area of Industrial Relation in

earlier days has now changed. Some

industry commentators call the Human

Resources function the last bastion of

bureaucracy. Traditionally, the role of the

Human Resource professional in many

organisations has been to serve as the

systematizing, policing arm of executive

management.

Today, the HR is not only looking from

issues related to ‘Hiring to Retiring’ of

employees but how to sustain, retain, train,

and use again and again the scarce

resource of any organisation i.e. Human

Resource.

In the ‘90s the role of HR was primarily

accepted to be that of a support and an

administrative one. The HR professionals

focused on activities and deliverables. The

decision makers of companies also thought

it to be sufficient to have them at line

manager levels or limited to staff functions,

and not have them involved in strategic

business activities.

Globalisation has forced companies to

grow at a faster pace, grow business across

the globe, look at optimizing all the

business processes, and has even forced

companies to look at strategic mergers and

acquisitions.

These changes have had varying effects on

all resources, most so on the "human" type.

Studies have shown that mergers and

acquisitions which have failed have been

primarily because of the failure in

managing the human resources; either

having key employees separating, or teams

not able to integrate and work together as

planned.

Hence, the twenty-first century has

brought about the thought of seeking the

involvement of HR professionals at the

strategic planning level.

The use of technology has brought about a

revolution in the routine activities of HR.

Additionally, HR outsourcing has become

increasingly popular and the erstwhile

back-office functions of HR are now often

managed outside the company.

The Changing Global Business

Scenario

Change is an inevitable phenomenon and it

is being experienced today in almost all the

fields. There are several factors influencing

change in today’s business scenario. Some

of the factors may be enumerated as

follows:

Globalization

Globalisation has made world a global

village and has pushed companies to grow

at a faster pace. Companies are now

finding that the normal growth levels of

the past years are insufficient for them to

survive in the face of global competition.

They would now have to find ways and

means to grow a lot faster. In today’s world

it is required that all the resources are

managed optimally and. While all other

resources can be planned and managed,

the "human resources" are not so easy to

manage; especially when it comes to

factors like effective and efficient

performance.

Mergers and Acquisitions

In keeping with the market demands of

fast growth, companies have been forced

to look at strategic mergers and

acquisitions. Often, these acquisitions

have had to be overseas. Studies have

revealed that over 85% of such acquisitions

have failed to meet their strategic

objectives, and the analysis has found the

main reason to be the inability to

effectively manage the human resources.

Managing diverse Human Resource is an

uphill task. In changed economic scenario

it is essential for Human Resource

Managers to think strategically and

manage diversity.

Technology

Innovations in technology have given a

simple and new way of doing standard

tasks. The application of this has resulted

in automation of transaction, even in the

field of HR. The major trends in technology

fall in the following dimensions:

THE CHANGING FACE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT : BEING GLOBAL, STRATEGIC & HUMANPOWER PEOPLE

30

The quality of expectation determines the quality of our action—Andre Godiva

1. Speed: things are getting faster and

faster.

2. Efficiency: cost per transaction is

reducing.

3. Connectivity: stakeholders are being

tied closely together.

4. Customization: translate requirements

into customized services.

5. e-HR: software and systems that have

helped automate some of the HR

processes.

Outsourcing

The trend of outsourcing as a cost

reduction measure is now commonplace.

HR Outsourcing is no exception. Global

trends indicate that this phenomenon is

gearing up. The administrative and

transactional functions of HR can easily be

taken care of externally at lower costs.

Keeping in tune with the trend of "doing

what we do best, outsource the rest" would

thus see the role of HR diminishing in this

area.

Workforce Demographics

The change in the way of doing business

today has brought about a significant

change in the workforce demographics.

Some salient points that bring the role of

HR in focus are as follows:-

a. Increasing age of workforce

b. Changing gender balance

c. Increasing ethnic diversity

d. Migration of people

e. Migration of work

f. Technology enhancement

HR must therefore necessarily deliver

value to the stakeholders, like investors,

customers, managers, and employees. This

calls for HR transformation.

HR Transition & Transformation

The days of traditional HR professionalism

are over; today successful HR professionals

have worked to become business partners.

They have started interacting with

stakeholders outside of the business as

well, as they have realized the importance

of getting inputs from these sources to plan

their actions. They have started aligning

their work with business strategies of the

company, and have been trained to work in

a manner that helps deliver business

results.

Ulrich presents his approach in terms of

deliverables, or outcomes, for which HR

should be responsible: strategy execution,

administrative efficiency, employee

contribution, and capacity for change. In

the course of delivering in these four areas,

he describes four corresponding roles for

HR to play within a business: a) as a

strategic partner working to align HR and

business strategy, b) as an administrative

expert working to improve organizational

processes and deliver basic HR services, c)

as an employee champion, listening and

responding to employees' needs, and d) as

a change agent managing change

processes to increase the effectiveness of

the organization.

While e-HR is a part of the overall HR

transformation, it is only a way to deliver

the administrative services of HR. True

transformation happens when HR sees its

role in delivering value to investors,

customers, managers and employees. HR

transformation must be more than

rhetoric; it must contribute to shaping

behaviour and enhancing stakeholder

value.

Dave Ulrich provides a clear path to the

next generation of HR with Human

Resource Champions: The Next agenda for

Adding Value and Delivering Results.

Source: Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank, (2005), Harvard Business School Press

THE HR VALUE PROPOSITION

One of unique things about Ulrich's

approach is that it includes all of the ways

that HR can deliver value to an

organization, rather than shifting focus

from one area to another.

Making the shift to a new HR role will raise

unique issues for every HR group that

attempts it, but there are some common

steps and activities that will increase the

likelihood of success. Some of these steps

and activities are:

KNOWING EXTERNALBUSINESS REALITIES

SERVING EXTERNAL ANDINTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

ENSURING HRPROFESSIONALISM

CRAFTING HR PRACTICEBUILDING HR RESOURCE

HR VALUEPROPOSITION

THE CHANGING FACE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT : BEING GLOBAL, STRATEGIC & HUMANPOWER PEOPLE

31

The end result of a service is a feeling—Karl Albrecht

l

is required for any change. As with any

major change effort, a strong leader can

develop a clear vision, motivate others

to share that vision, and help them work

toward achieving it. In order to change

the role of HR in an organization, the HR

leader will need to work both within the

HR group and with the organizational

leaders to reshape everyone's expectations

of what HR can and will deliver. The

success of the change will depend upon

HR's ability to meet the real needs of the

organization and the credibility it

develops.

l Acute future orientation. One of the

ways that HR can provide value is to

understand how changing environmental,

organizational, and workforce factors

will likely influence the business,

anticipate the associated HR needs, and

be prepared to deliver appropriate

solutions to meet those needs. By

maintaining a focus on workplace

trends, for instance, HR can prepare to

evaluate the impact that particular

changes are likely to have on an

organization's people and processes,

and be prepared to work with the

business leaders to decide how to

respond-being ahead of the curve, not

behind it.

l Flexibility and creativity. An HR group

that is successful in the future will likely

be one that is responsive to the changing

needs of its client organization.

Responsiveness in the changing world

of work will require being flexible-as the

organizations change, so will their

needs and priorities.

Strong HR leadership. A strong leader In addition, traditional activities and

processes may not be sufficient to meet

the unique needs of the future-HR

leaders will likely rely on creativity of

their groups to achieve effective results.

Increasing globalization of the market

will create a need for both flexibility and

creativity as businesses try to succeed in

new locations, with a new workforce,

and with new customers.

l Delivering value. Although this is not a

new challenge for HR, it remains a

critical one. HR is still perceived by

many within today's organizations as

simply a non-revenue generating

function. It is important to make

apparent the value provided by working

with the management team to hire the

right people, manage them well, pay

them appropriately, and build a

working environment that encourages

success.

Today, the HR wants to be treated as a

'valued partner'. When HR operates as a

valued partner in an organization it can:

- Work with all the stakeholders to ensure

that only the best talent is acquired.

- Team up with the leadership to define

and implement talent management

doctrine that would enable world-class

talent to be engaged, delivering best in

class products or services.

SHIFTING PARADIGMS IN HR

- Partner with everyone to ensure that the

technical, managerial and leadership

competencies are nurtured and

developed to reach higher levels of

performance.

- Push to achieve organizational goals.

India's changing HRM horizon

The outlook to Human Resource

Management in India too has witnessed

sea-change in last two decades. Economic

liberalization in 1991 created a hyper-

competitive environment. As international

firms entered the Indian market bringing

with them innovative and fierce

competitiveness, Indian companies were

forced to adopt and implement innovative

changes in their HR practices. Increasing

demand for skilled performers forced the

companies to shift focus on attracting and

retaining high-performing employees in a

competitive marketplace.

WHAT'S OUT WHAT'S IN

Job Analysis Competency Assessment

Personnel Management HR Management

Rule maker Consultant

Functional Orientation Business Orientation

One Size Fits All Tailored Programs

Centralized Decisions Framework for Others to Decide

Mutual Distrust Partnering

Focus on Activities Focus on Impact

THE CHANGING FACE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT : BEING GLOBAL, STRATEGIC & HUMANPOWER PEOPLE

32

Training turns good intentions in to good result —Thomas Berry

To deliver such a value proposition, the HR

team would have to undergo a

transformation and deliver value as

perceived by all the stakeholders of the

company. The blue print to deliver this

value has five elements, external business

realities, stakeholder interests, HR

practices, HR resources, and HR

professionals, that need to work in an

integrated fashion.

India is a country in transition. Historical,

socio-economic and cultural factors

strongly influence Indian HRM and talent

mindset. India has been identified as one of

the biggest emerging markets in the world.

Indian organizations have increasingly

begun to understand the importance of

human resources and have started to take

into account the motivation, commitment

and morale of its workforce. Over the last

decade, India's vast manpower has played

an instrumental role in its economic

success story. The success of Indian

companies is not based on superior access

to raw materials or technology or patents,

but fundamentally upon human skills. The

HR has undergone transition from talent

retainer to talent nurturer and an

instrument in building a culture of

sensitive and responsive organization.

Today HR managers have knowledge of

the market and not just the internal

processes. The synergy between the

strategic planning and innovative HRM

practices will be pivotal as Indian Inc.

embarks itself on the global journey. India

Inc. is responding in positive way to adapt

to this changing role.

MNCs like PepsiCo are providing

flexibility so that female employees at

various life stages could benefit from these

policies like working from a different city,

sabbatical from corporate life, and

extended maternity leave.

Entrepreneurship by employees

India Inc. is encouraging 'entrepreneurs' or

employees who have ideas that could

potentially become a venture. Companies

like PepsiCo, NIIT, and Adobe are actively

promoting practice of entrepreneurship by

employees within the organization.

Human Resource Management has taken a

leading role in encouraging CSR activities

at all levels. Companies like Wipro

inculcate CSR values amongst its

workforce right at the beginning during the

induction process. Corporate presen-

tations and keeping employees updated

through regular newsletters are the

instruments used by HR to keep employees

energized about the organization's socially

responsible initiatives.

Conclusion:

Earl ier HR has been playing an

administrative role and was seen by the

management as a support function. This

support function had a cost implication

and the question being raised is "what is the

return on this cost?"

In the event of HR continuing to do what it

had been doing, they would also be faced

with a situation of whether to outsource

their work, the consequence of which

would be the department being shut down.

If the HR can come back with an

appropriate answer that delivers value for

the cost incurred, then they would not only

find a place in the company, but also move

on to being involved in the business of the

organization.

Emphasis on employees

Indian companies have realized that in

today's competitive business milieu, the

quality of people you employ can make all

the difference. In the last few years, the

Human Resource has become a key player

in strategic planning – it has come a long

way from traditional HR operations like

managing the recruitment process,

handling staff appraisals. That is why

Infosys CFO T. V. Moahndas Pai and

Marico CFO Milind Sarwatewas were

moved to head the human resources (HR)

function in their respective companies.

Rajiv Dube, CEO and managing director of

Rallis, left his position to join as HR chief at

automobile major Mahindra & Mahindra.

HRM Challenges

One of the challenges HR managers face is

issues of up gradation of the skill set

through training and development in the

face of high attrition. Indian companies are

recognizing their responsibilities to

enhance the employee's opportunity to

develop skills and abilities for full

performance within the position and for

career advancement.

Progressive HR Policies

In 1974, an angry Sudha Murthy had to

write a letter to JRD Tata to protest against

job discrimination against women in Telco.

Today, most Indian companies are

c o m m i t t e d t o p r o v i d i n g e q u a l

employment opportunities for all. The

employers are increasingly realizing the

value of trained human resource,

especially women in India. Some

organizations are changing their HR

policies to stick with their valuable

employees.

Ashutosh Anand is working as

Personnel Officer in THDCIL.

He can be reached at

anandashutosh7@gmail.com

THE CHANGING FACE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT : BEING GLOBAL, STRATEGIC & HUMANPOWER PEOPLE

33

Take away the cause and the effects ceases—Cervantes

Human Resource Management has

undergone tremendous change in this fast

and competitive business world. Since

long, HR professionals are talking about

changing HR role from traditional record

keeping, personnel administration, system

policing to that of a strategic business

partner. The knowledge economy has

based the human aspect of business

management primarily on communication

and collaboration. This is the reason why

competing in the internet economy of

today requires very powerful HR systems

and services.

Although HR intelligentsia has been

talking about these concepts frequently,

very few have successfully gone to

implement this theory into practice. This

answers the question that why most of the

organisations are in early stages of

technology transformation in relation to

HR?

The reason for failure is lack of holistic

view on the part of HR leadership. It would

be futile for HR leadership to take a

piecemeal approach to technological

changes in the various HR functions.

HR - Technology Curve:

Human ResourceManagement

Will it rise to new heights?

HR has to take lead and use information

technology as a weapon to create value and

help the organisation achieve its business

goals. It may not sound great to many HR

intelligentsias in the organisation but one

has to be realistic in this environment.

Systems will not improve overnight as

nobody can provide one time solution for

system improvement. It will take its own

time and HR has to play its role as

facilitator and change agent.

Creating an integrated system

We all know that disparate systems create a

nightmare situation that chokes the flow of

information within and around the HR

function. HR should have its own

integrated system of database, business

logic and presentation to contribute to and

collect information that is necessary from

other parts of the enterprise and create an

information reservoir on the enterprise

network as well as create information links

with the external vendors. The need of the

hour is to upgrade HR systems by having

effective Human Resource Information

System (HRIS).

Kunal Kirti

It is probably not unfair to

say that many HR managers

are proving to be myopic in

their approach. Human

resource management, as

opposed to the traditional

view of the personnel

function, should be

considered a total system

that interacts with the other

major systems of the

organisation viz. Marketing,

Production, Finance & the

external environment.

Progress is impossible without the ability to admit mistakes-Masaaki Imai 34

The objective behind having HRIS is to

develop & manage information resources

to support the office of human resources in

its role of developing & implementing

programmes, policies & services for the

effective management of the organisations

human resources.

HRIS is a comprehensive offering for

managing core human resources.

Companies can improve the speed & cost

effectiveness with which they perform key

human resource processes, such as hiring,

appraisal, salary planning. It also helps in

decision making.

It is probably not unfair to say that many

HR managers are proving to be myopic in

their approach. Human resource

management, as opposed to the traditional

view of the personnel function, should be

considered a total system that interacts

with the other major systems of the

organisation viz. Marketing, Production,

Finance & the external environment.

Indeed, the primary purpose of HRM is to

service these major systems. Forecasting &

planning the personnel needs of the

organisation, maintaining an adequate &

satisfactory work force, controlling the

personnel policies & programmes of the

company are the major responsibilities of

HRM.

Culture Change-A prerequisite for

information system

When any change is introduced in an

organisation, it should be done keeping

human resources in the forefront. Result of

a research study reveals that major

problems which occur while implementing

an information system in organisations are

a result of communication breakdown.

More strong is the impact of an

introduction of newer technology.

Organisations which have an open and

adaptive culture would welcome

introduction of newer techniques and

technology.

Adaptive culture would encourage more

sharing of information which would be a

consequence of change in information

system. Such culture would breed highly

motivated employees who would embrace

change whatever be the nature and extent

of change involved.

Probably, all organisations cultures suffer

from varying levels of technology phobia.

One is concerned not so much with the

direction of change, but with the rate of

change. Rapid changes have a very

unstablizing effect on people and these

effects are manifested in a variety of

unusual behaviour patterns.

Management, therefore, should realise that

information system development is

controlled not only by technical, economic

and schedule constraint but also

‘operation’ that deals mainly with the

people element in the organisation. For

successful design and implementation of

MIS, understanding human behaviour and

culture of the organisation is an essential

prerequisite.

E - business flow :

Recruit to Hire (Fig-1)

Organisations strive to hire the best &

brightest. In order to create efficient

business operations during the hiring

process, companies need to get new

employees up & going on day one. The

business flow from recruitment to hiring

has been shown in Figure-1.

To streamline & facilitate the on- board

process, the HR systems must be

integrated with the finance & purchasing

systems so that business best practices can

be coordinated & executed with ease.

Fig 1 : Creating an integrated system with HRBusiness Flow : Recruitment to Hiring

HR TECHNOLOGY CURVE: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. WILL IT RISE TO NEW HEIGHTS?POWER PEOPLE

35

Identify Describe Initiate PrepareJob Offer

Analyse Staffing and Hiring Information Opening Job/Position Personnel

Requisition

HR Charge Update Cost Accounts Centre Payable

Financials

HR Specialist

Business Intellect

ManageRequisition ofOffice Suppliers

IssuePurchase Order

Issue Staffing

and New Hire Reports

Procurement

Establish New Employee

The starting point for improvement is to recognize the need-Masaaki Imai

Mr. Kunal Kirti is

working as Personnel Officer

in POWERGRID.

He can be reached at

kirtikunal@yahoo.com

From Individual to serving the

whole enterprise

The HR focus is shifting from individual

employees to serving the entire enterprise

and successful technology integration is

the key to it. Once new technology

processes are in place, HR can begin to use

these systems to offload administrative

tasks and focus on strategic initiatives that

add value to the organisation.

Benchmarking HR

People in organisations think that HR

functions cannot be quantitatively

measured. It may look appropriate up to

some extent where qualitative aspects are

more required but saying that HR cannot

be monitored effectively merely due to this

reason, seems inappropriate.

The question arises that how can we utilise

Information Technology to quantitatively

measure and improve the performance of

HR?

While generating various reports, HR

managers have to keep in mind the

performance parameters and get involved

in the design and development of systems

that perform as people want rather than

performing as the system wants. This will

help HR professionals judge their own

performance as ‘where we stand’ and

make their own way for reaching new

heights in the organisation.

Every section of HR has to define their

parameters of achievement and should

review these parameters periodically for

improvement e.g.- performance of

recruitment section of an organisation can

be measured on the following parameters.

In today’s scenario the challenge is both for

employees and employers. While

employees find it difficult to find the right

employer and perform to stay in their jobs,

employers face the challenge of not only

finding the right employees but also

training and retaining them. Organisations

following traditional ways of HR

management will have to use information

technology effectively to take care of the

communication and collaboration needs

and ensure the optimal utilization of the

human capital to achieve organisational

goals.

• Success Rate of Recruitment %

[ (Candidates Attended/ Called)* 100]

• S u c c e s s R a t e o f s e l e c t i o n %

[( Candidates joined/ Vacancy)*100]

• Total Expenses per selection

• Average time to fill one vacancy

• Company rank in terms of its

reputation in professional institutes

during campus visits

Adaptability and agility

Virtual offices, dispersed personnel and

expanded access to information will

require more flexible business rules. It is

evident that Web portals , video

conferencing and other IT tools have

revolutionized the way HR services are

offered to employees. The HR framework

must adapt to situational changes resulting

from the external environment, new

technologies, business patterns and

changing requirements.

In short, HR systems of the future should

enable managers to evaluate ‘what if’

scenario based on a number of internal and

external factors to determine the best mix

of available people from the total force to

optimize organisational performance and

reduce cost.

HR TECHNOLOGY CURVE: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. WILL IT RISE TO NEW HEIGHTS?POWER PEOPLE

36

Of all our human resources, the most precious is the desire to improve.-Anonymous

Metrics are an integral part of the state-of-

the-practices in Software Project

Management. More and more clients of

Quality Mentors are placing significant

emphasis on metrics based project and

process improvement. We emphasize role

based dashboards for „Project Monitoring

and Control. Activities, rather than

verbose reports. Standards and models like ®ISO 9000, ISO 27001, CMMI and EFQM are

being used as enablers to better

understand, track, control and predict

software projects, processes and products.

Goodman defines software metrics as,

“ T h e c o n t i n u o u s a p p l i c a t i o n o f

measurement-based techniques to the

software development process and its

products to supply meaningful and timely

management information, together with

the use of those techniques to improve that

process and its products.”

Overall scenario of metrics implementation

is poor in the software industry if you

compare it with others like manufacturing

and pharmacy

Case Study:

Metrics Based Project Management

We have designed MS Excel based metrics

trackers to capture relevant metrics for

Development, Enhancement, Maintenance

and Support projects being undertaken by

our client organisations. They were

successfully used by larger clients too in

the initial few years of their process

improvement journey. This provided them

in-depth understanding of their metrics

requirements. Only after the initial phase

and reasonably understanding their own

m e a s u r e m e n t r e q u i r e m e n t s , w e

recommended them to select automated

project progress tracking tools.

This article presents the common

challenges we faced while designing and

implementing metrics in our client

organisations. It does not deal with

automation of metrics based project

management. It also doesn’t deal with

formulae for various metrics which are

directly related to project and organisation

related measurement needs. A given

metrics may have different formulae in

different organisations, depending upon

their organisational and customer needs.

Ribhu Nath Lavania and AKM Desai

There are a small percentage

of project teams who are like

hardened criminals. No

amount of persuasion works

with them and they won.t

budge from their non-

cooperative style, even at the

cost of loosing credentials in

their appraisals. Even such

cases can be settled if the top

management is convinced

with metrics based project

management and remains

consistent with metrics and

its implementation.

We must understand variation-William Deming 37

1. Metrics Based Project

Monitoring and Control

Project Monitoring and Control works on

something similar to this spiral model. The

Project Manager obtains updates regularly

in formal meetings, say at weekly intervals,

and reports fact (data) based metrics and

their inferences to the management and the

client (if contractually required). The

internal reports may be different from

client reports for various reasons,

including a mismatch in client required

parameters and internal business needs.

For example, the effort deployed in a

project may not be of interest to the client of

a fixed price project while it is of upmost

importance to the project manager’s

management.

1.1 Metrics Trackers

Schedule, effort, cost, defects, and review

comments are the basic metrics tracked by

the projects all over the world. Some of the

organisations measure project-wise

customer satisfaction data and link it with

Project Team’s appraisals. The usefulness

of this practice is however debatable. There

may be so many other metrics which needs

to be tracked depending upon the

customer or business needs.

Software industry mainly deals with

following types of projects:

a. Development,

b. Enhancement,

b. Maintenance, and

c. Support or Product Support (e.g. 24x7

Support for a running web site).

Different metrics are suitable for these

categories to monitor their progress and

lead them to success. In some cases, the

metrics may be different for various

projects in the same category.

a. Development Projects

Development projects follow a

particular Software Development

Lifecycle and are monitored phase

wise or milestone wise, depending

upon the organizational practices and

/ or contractual requirements.

Common metrics the organization

focuses on Schedule, Effort, Defects

and Cost. In so many organizations,

the cost is monitored by the finance

function or the PMO, not by Project

Managers . Defec t dens i ty i s

measured either as a ratio of function

points or per hundred lines of code.

b. Maintenance and Enhancement

Projects

TThe maintenance projects provide

ongoing maintenance support to

running applications. The individual

tasks or assignments in such projects

are of shorter durations i.e. typically

of 5 hours to 7 days. The biggest

challenge in this category of projects

comes when some of the tasks

received from the customer in the

name of maintenance are actually

product or application enhancements

of, say 5 days to 2 months. The life

cycle activities to be followed for

enhancements are similar to those

followed in development projects.

Convincing the customer on which

task should follow the maintenance

or enhancement life cycle invariably

proves challenging, more so as

enhancements may not be covered

under the contractual terms and life

cycle activities for enhancement tasks

may be more elaborate compared to

maintenance tasks-which means

customer has to pay more. Change in

lifecycle activities often lead to

different metrics parameters to be

monitored.

c. Support Project:

These projects typically have smaller

tasks of few minutes to a few hours

each. Most of the support issues find

solutions in the organisational

repositories or FAQs available online.

Some need small patches to be added

and a few are escalated as maintenance

or enhancement tasks. An example of

support tasks is the call centre (verbal

or email based) support being

provided by a bank to its customers.

All the supports calls are logged at one

place, mostly using a software application

which generates a unique ticket number

for each call and tracks its resolution within

agreed upon timelines. Support calls are

typically divided into Priority (P) 1, 2, 3 or 4

calls, each having pre-defined resolution

times. Typical metrics for such projects are:

1. The call acknowledgement time.

2. No. of calls closed within the SLAs,

priority wise.

Different trackers have to be designed and

implemented for each category of project.

They should be able to meet the

management needs of respective

categories.

CASE STUDY: METRICS BASED PROJECT MANAGEMENTPOWER PEOPLE

38

The job of management is not supervision but leadership -William Deming

2. Challenges

a. Low conviction in the value of

metrics based project management

Universally, not all project managers and

their teams have convictions in the value of

metrics. Younger the team, lesser remains

their convictions. Since the fundamentals

of subjects like quality and metrics, are not

taught in the universities, these young

professionals think their profession is

limited to engineering activities like

design, coding, product integration and

delivery.” With that mindset, all other

activities are considered as overheads. It

takes quite a number of years with bad

experiences, firing from jobs or being

shunted out from preferred projects to

understand the concepts of metrics based

management as an essential part of their

careers.

The law conviction results in two types of

behaviors:

1. Not all projects consistently collect

their metrics data. Even those who

collect it are not consistent in doing it

on a daily basis, resulting in

approximate and rounded off data

being logged in the data collection

tools. Such projects also tend to show

up same data against planned Vs

actual parameters being monitored.

2. Some of the projects that collect their

data regularly, may not be matured

enough to put true data in the metrics

tools. Data collection is mainly done

by such projects to meet organisational

discipline. Someone junior in the

team is asked by the project manager

to fill data for all the team members in

about ten minutes time at the day end

(sometimes during the week end).

3. Team members in remaining projects

meticulously collect metrics data

consistently, and analyze it to draw

meaningful conclusions for the benefit

of their projects. Such projects are

invariably run by matured project

managers and it is not a surprise that

almost all of them are successful ones.

b. Effort towards metrics, reviews and

tests is not planned

No wonder these activities are not

considered while planning and adequate

effort is not allocated for them, with a

mindset which considers these essentials

as overheads. Since they don’t find a place

in project plans and schedules, the project

team invariably takes short cuts to

complete them somehow with least effort.

c. Confusion between maintenance

and enhancement tasks

Only a few enhancement tasks are clearly

defined and most others have the potential

of subjectively being considered as

maintenance or enhancement based on the

perception of customer and the project

team. This remains an ongoing confusion

causing delays in the resolution of

customer tickets.

3. Solutions Quality Mentors

found along with its

customers

a. Low conviction in the value of

metrics based project management

Consistent training and awareness

sessions, email circulars, quizzes and

allocation of a certain percentage for

business benefits driven out of metrics

based initiatives in the annual appraisals

helped changing organisational behaviors.

All this required consistent hard work and

management support for years in each of

the organisation which succeeded.

A few others who lost focus after their ®CMMI appraisals or ISO audits or got

busy in high priority activities lost the

benefits driven during initial months.

There are a small percentage of project

teams who are like hardened criminals. No

amount of persuasion works with them

and they won’t budge from their non-

cooperative style, even at the cost of

loosing credentials in their appraisals.

Even such cases can be settled if the top

management is convinced with metrics

based project management and remains

cons is tent wi th metr ics and i t s

implementation.

CASE STUDY: METRICS BASED PROJECT MANAGEMENTPOWER PEOPLE

39

Nothing is good or bad but comparison-Thomas Fuller

b. Effort towards metrics, reviews and

tests is not planned

Here again, with the management support,

projects were encouraged to plan for these

and other essential activities. Plan

documents were not approved till the

schedules appended to plans included

necessary activities like various reviews,

tests & metrics collection and the effort

allocated to those activities either matched

with international benchmarks or with

organisations own benchmarks (in a very

few cases). Indicative benchmarks for

development and enhancement projects

are being provided in the table on the right.

Those approving the project plans must

take into account the indicative nature of

benchmarks and should not in any case

force them on the projects. For example, the

time and percentage effort planned for

testing a development application and a

half an hour support task will not follow

the same benchmarks.

In the absence of allocating adequate effort

for these activities during the planning

stage, it becomes a vicious circle. Metrics

Council or the Quality Function can’t draw

meaningful conclusions from the data half

heartedly collected by project teams.

Without presenting meaningful metrics

based analysis, trends and inferences, it

becomes a real challenge to win the hearts

of non-believers in metrics.

Only way out is to start moderately based

on the data from some of the projects who

take interest in metrics based improvements

and showcase the benefits they have

driven either for their project and/ or for

the organisation. Building of a metrics

based initiative with this approach takes

years to institutionalize.

c. Confusion between maintenance and

enhancement tasks

The SEPG was encouraged to finalize

criteria and thresholds for declaring a

maintenance tasks as enhancements.

Depending upon the kind of projects

handled, the criteria varied between the

organisations. For example, one company

decided that maintenance tickets having

more than 15 days estimated effort would

be treated as Enhancements. For such

enhancements, the metrics trackers used

for development projects were followed.

Finally, with varying amount of problems,

the metrics based monitoring and control

took place in about 7 out of 10

organisations. Others were gone cases. As

a consulting organisation we think we

achieved what we wanted to and the

metrics trackers of projects started having

meaningful data in them. Most of the

s u c c e s s f u l o r g a n i s a t i o n s s t a r t e d

publishing PPBR (Project performance

Baseline reports) at quarterly intervals.

These included even those having no plans ®to go for CMMI which rightly and

aggressively promotes PPBRs.

4. Best Practices in Metrics based

Monitoring and Control

Let us also consolidate certain best

practices we consolidated during the

journey so far.

First and foremost is being

details oriented. Metrics based

management is not a dry and

meaningless statistical exercise.

One has to continuously remain

vigilant to find ways to provide

inferences based on the analysis

of statistically valid and correct

data. Small things make a big

difference. Insignificant and

unintentional errors may ruin

the whole initiative.

Requirements management 3

Proj. Planning and management 9

Initial design 3

Detailed Design 4

Design Reviews 3

(Design activity- total) 10

Coding 24

Code reviews 8

Verification and validation 2

User documentation 8

Unit testing 4

Functional testing 4

Integration testing 3

System Testing 3

Field (Beta) Testing 2

UAT 2

Independent testing 3

Activity%age Benchmark Effort

CASE STUDY: METRICS BASED PROJECT MANAGEMENTPOWER PEOPLE

40

Brevity is the sister of talent-Anton Chekhov

Other best practices are:

1 Align metrics goals with business

objectives- both at organisation as well

as project levels.

2. Don’t start with complex metrics like

.Earned value.. These are typically

used by large defense development

projects.

3. Measures risks quantitatively and

prioritize them accordingly. Act on

highest risks first.

4. Measure one or two indicators of

quality in your projects. Successful

projects and organisations always do.

5. Dashboard based project monitoring

is invariably much better than report

based.

6. Measure defect removal efficiency

(DRE) when applicable. Average DRE

is 85% and maximum 95%.

7. Initiative preventive and corrective

actions as soon as metrics data

significantly (say 10%) varies as

compared to planned metrics goals.

8. Avoid measures that are not effective.

Don’t go for them just to meet

organisational rituals.

9. Managements should take the blame

to continue with poor software

metrics. It can comfortably be called as

professional malpractice across

industry.

10. Finally, no milestone should be

defined for delivery of a product,

product component or a service. It

must be defined for ‘reviewed and

validated product, product component

or a service’.

CASE STUDY: METRICS BASED PROJECT MANAGEMENTPOWER PEOPLE

41

Ribhu Lavania

isworking as a consultant.

He can be reached at

ribhu@qmentors.com

AKM Desai

heads the Quality

and Information Security

functions at Velocis India Pvt.

Ltd. He has been

defining project metrics

collection and analysis

processes since the year

2005. Both the authors have

designed and implemented

consultancy inputs to

clients of QualityMentors. This

series presents articles on

®CMMI , metrics,

benchmarks, audits/

appraisals, ISO 9001,

EFQM and other topics

of readers’ interest.

Readers are welcome to

suggest new topics and

share their comments at

info@qmentors.com

Prices are forgotten, quality remains-French Proverb

12TH GOVERNING BODY MEET OF POWER HR FORUM.

VENUE: RAJIV GANDHI COMBINED CYCLE POWER PROJECT

FACILITATOR: NTPC

42

12TH GOVERNING BODY MEET OF POWER HR FORUM.

VENUE: RAJIV GANDHI COMBINED CYCLE POWER PROJECT

FACILITATOR: NTPC

43

MANAGEMENT CARTOONS

44

In a lucid, conversational book, “you don't

need a god father - create your own

success”, Elango R. pens his experiences

and learning's on how to create one's own

success. A mentor to leader as well as new

entrants in the corporate world, Elango

writes and coaches on organisational

culture and leadership practices. He is

currently chief resource officer at Mphasis,

a global technology service company.

This book is dotted with anecdotes that

will nudge you to take the road less

travelled and help you make it in a

complex and competitive workplace. In a

chapter titled play to fail, Elango suggests

that the first lesson for success lies in

coming out of your comfort zone. He

begins with an example of his seven- year-

old son Agastya who, with his own

childish ingenuity, tries to avoid racing

with his friends but confidently invites

them to play word games - something he

knows is his strength.

This book says real success comes

with moving out of your comfort

zone and forging your own destiny.

You Don’t Need A God Father – Create Your Own Success

Contributed by Tata McGraw Hill

Take a Chanceon Failure

But that is not just childish behaviour,

Elango says the human brain is “wired to

avoid failures and maximize wins. In the

dark recesses of our brains, winning is

GOOD –failure is BAD. Yet in workplaces

and in life, staying in our comfort zone can

only promise limited success and growth.

Play to fail encourages us to stop playing it

safe and take chances. In the following

extract, Elango suggests how we can BOW

to failure and reach success.

Back against the wall - Make the

situation a 'do or die' one

Many years ago, Vishnu, a young

professional I was coaching, was offered

the Chief marketing officer (CMO) in his

company. He had never done this in the

past and was scared of failure. His friends

and family echoed his thoughts, saying

“Are you mad? What do you know about

Marketing? Don't be stupid!” But he took

the job, with no safety net, with just the fear

of failure to drive him forward. Vishnu

confided that his reason to take the job was

the realization that this chance would not

come again.

You don't need a

god father – create your

own success:

Elango.R,

Tata McGraw hill,

108 pages,

`250

It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn’t-C.W Barron 45

BOOK REVIEW - You Don’t Need A God Father - Create Your Own Success POWER PEOPLE

I wish I could tell you that he succeeded

widely. But this is not the movie and

Vishnu is no Shah Rukh Khan. His

marketing stint was TERRIBLE! The only

reason he didn't quit was because he didn't

have another offer. But what he learnt there

set him up for something bigger and better

and most importantly landed him a job he

loved!

Today, he runs a small company of his own

and is doing quite well. He believes the

CMO move set this trajectory in motion.

Own the result –take the risk

A very successful business leader once

approached me for a role in human

resources (HR).Huh? A business leader

moving to HR? This is not an occurrence

that people normally experience. So I

requested his peer to confirm if he knew

what he was getting in to. Here is what he

had to say:

The business leader wanted to move to the

next level, but knew that it would take

forever. He saw that the chances of

growing in this new role would give him

global contacts and networks that his

current business role would not. The

change to an unknown area was to achieve

focused goals.

But the risk was calculated; he had a clear

objective which would lead to defined

results.

Wear it like a badge - Make your

risks and failures unknown

Failures are indicative of our capabilities,

our knowledge, our weakness and it would

do us well to treat them as signposts, read

the sign well, reorient and move on. Wear

them as battle scares. A colleague with

whom I was discussing this idea actually

said that we should “relish” failure

“savour” it. Profound, a little hedonistic

may be but there is truth in it.

What is the worst….Apocalypse?

Ask, this at the end of the day, what's the

worst that could happen? We'll just be

more aware of what works and why.

Many of us get so wound up with the

“what –ifs” that our minds over

–exaggerate the consequences.

A colleague recently returned from a

sabbatical and confided in me that before

he decided to go on his sabbatical, he was

so worried about his job –how they would

manage their monthly bills and what

would his mother-in – law think of him.

He realised a month into the sabbatical

that his fears were unfounded. His

mother- in law still thought her daughter

was nuts to have married him and didn't

really need a reason that judgment.

His daughter made up for it by saying she

loved that her Dad was with her all the

time. When he finally did return to the

“daily grind” and succeeded widely, he

credited it to this - he no longer worried

about losing his job and sitting at home.

He had been there, done that and enjoyed

it!

While I start planning my sabbatical, start

your success journey with bravado, for

“only those who dare to fail greatly can

achieve greatly”. Throw choices out of the

window and take a BOW!

46

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problems in a way that will allow a solution-Anonymous

Title

An Idea Whose Time Has Come: The Story of

the Indian School of Business

Cover Author Publisher Price in `Why you should

read this

Pramath Raj Sinha Portfolio 499

Comprises the information about the

how ISB came up

It chronicles how IIM Ahmedabad

conceptualized and set up and progressed so far.

Help us out for better understanding & manage our Emotional life- internal

emotion & interaction with others.

Provides readers with an insight on leadership and innovation and introduces Apple business concepts

like the 'DRI' .

The Classic CEO Guide to calling the Shots without

Getting Shot.

How to draw strength from vulnerability as well as focus

on break the cycle of behavior that gets us nowhere and how important it is to be

introspective and vulnerable.

Brick by Red Brick T. T. Ram Mohan Rupa & Co 386

Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for

Creating Happiness + Success

Chip Conley Piatkus 695

Flying Without a Net Thomas DeLongHarvard Business

School Press734

Inside Apple Adam Lashinsky Hodder & Stoughton 374

CULT: Leadership & Business Strategy,

Ruthlessly Redefined

Arindam Chaudhuri, A Sandeep

Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd

371

Recent Bestseller Books on HR

47

Title

The Lean Startup

Cover Author Publisher Price in `Why you should

read this

Eric Ries Portfolio 550

577

Most startups fail. But many of those

failures are preventable.

Focuses on How to manage a company's most valuable resource - people. Step by step guiding to determine

compensation and letting go of poor performers.

Carries the disciplined process to discover opportunity by the

research and field work with company like Procter & Gamble.

Examines three separate issues: intuitive thinking

versus calculative thinking; how we

gamble; and how we evaluate.

Focuses on the Leadership quality on every aspect .

Highlighting the primacy of quality of Entrepreneur by new, smart thinking

towards positive change for community.

How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals:

Simple, Effective, Done Right

Dick Grote Harvard Business School Press

The little black book of innovation: How it works, How to do it.

Scott D. Anthony Harvard business 750

Screw business as usual Richard Branson Oxford 599

Thinking Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman Penguine books 499

The Leadership ChallengePosner Kouzes Wiley India Pvt Ltd

337

This book is all about initiative

and innovative thinking.

The Game changers: 20 extraordinary

success stories of entrepreneurs from

IIT Kharagpur

Yuvnesh Modi, Rahul Kumar, Alok Kothari

Random House India

113

48

P&G Retains Returning Mothers[Source: The Economic Times, New Delhi, March 23, 2012]

It Procter & Gamble India has earned a unique distinction for the

third year in a row, it has reported zero attrition among returning

mothers. The company has managed to retain all the women who

went on maternity leave, a crucial talent pool, through sustained

solutions. The solutions P&G came up with, were built around

flexible timing, working from home, reduced work schedules,

parental leave, six months paid maternity leave and location-free

roles, among others.

Cash-rich PSUs can now buy stakes in peers[Source: Business Standard, New Delhi, March 19, 2012]

Cash-rich public sector companies have been allowed to buy

equities of other central public sector enterprises (CPSEs). Till

now, public sector companies were only allowed to invest in

mutual funds, apart from putting money in bank fixed deposits,

but the Cabinet had now approved the proposal to allow these

companies to buy equities of other CPSEs. Coal India, NTPC,

SAIL, NMDC, Oil India, BHEL and MMTC are among the

companies with substantial cash. These companies can buy back

their own shares and the equities of other CPSEs.

Flexi jobs get a new design[Source: The Economic Times, New Delhi, March 16, 2012

Companies across industries are adopting the concept of split

shift work timing, wherein employees can log out of work for up

to four hours, using the time to run errands, look after children or

attend classes, and return to office later in the evening. Borrowed

from a practice in the hospitality sector where restaurants are

typically shut in the afternoon, a split shift or break shift is

turning out to be an efficient way for companies to attract those

who can devote just a few hours each day, like homemakers and

college students and manage star talent. Bangalore–based

information technology-enabled services firm Mphasis has

introduced this option on a pilot project for its domestic business

process outsourcing unit. Healthcare chain Apollo introduced

this practice in Bangalore where many of their front-end staff

were joining the IT industry.

No appreciation drives attrition[Source: Hindustan Times, New Delhi, March 13, 2012]

The real reason people quit their jobs and look for a new one is

that they feel underappreciated. In surveys by the American

Psychological Association, half of all employees who said they

did not feel valued at work also said they intend to look for a new

job in the next year. Overall the research showed that employees

who do feel valued are more likely to have better physical and

mental health and higher levels of engagement, satisfaction and

motivation.

PSU Staff Wages on the Rise[Source: The Economic Times, New Delhi, March 07, 2012]

Wages of public sector employees, which account for almost a

fifth of organized employment in India, rose in 2008-09 in line

with the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission,

according to a report by ratings firm Crisil. Besides permanent

increase in salaries, PSU employees also receive lump-sum cash

payments as arrears. In real terms too, public sector wages rose

by 11.8% during 2007-08 to 2010-11, compared to 1.6% in the

previous four years.

Govt staff can't be denied promotion arbitrarily: HC[Source: Hindustan Times, New Delhi, March 05, 2012]

Government employees cannot be deprived of promotion

"arbitrarily" and without any reasonable ground, the Delhi High

Court has ruled. The HC held that "It is true that no employee has

a vested right to promotion, but respondents (employer) cannot

act arbitrarily and without any reasonable excuse defer the

meeting of Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) and,

thereby, deprive an employee of his legitimate expectation for

being considered for promotion to a post if he is eligible."

News of Interest for HR Fraternity

Practice without improvement is meaningless- Chuck Knox 49

Sh. V. M. Kaul has contributed immensely

in all the Human Resources functions of

POWERGRID, which is one of the largest

transmission utilities in the world. His

valued contribution in all the domains of

HR including HR Planning, HRD & OD

interventions, Policy formulation and

Implementation, PMS and Compensation

Management, Employee Relations,

Recruitment, Managing CSR projects have

been exemplary with HR productivity

constantly going up and at par with

international peers.

Apart from HR, Sh. Kaul has also headed

various other functions in POWERGRID

namely, Corporate Planning, Joint

Ventures and Business Development. Sh.

Kaul was instrumental in developing the

Public Private initiative in transmission

sector through joint ventures and IPP

transmission projects, which have been

considered as model projects in Asia to be

emulated by other entities.

Acknowledging the valuable contribution by

Vice President – Power HR Forum & Director (Personnel), Power Grid Corporation of India Limited

SH. V. M. KAUL

Before joining POWERGRID in 2002, Sh.

Kaul had worked in NTPC, and Engineers

I n d i a L t d . S h . K a u l h a s h a d

multidisciplinary experiences of over 37

years in Human Resources, Joint Ventures,

Contract Management, Project Manage-

ment and Quality Assurance and

Inspection and has been associated with

the power sector for over 30 years,

developing power and transmission

projects.

Sh. Kaul an alumnus of IIT-Delhi has

contributed significantly with his valuable

direction, guidance and support during the

course of his years of rich involvement

with Power HR Forum, in different

capacities.

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another-John Dewey 50

Access Experts from a Member Organization to re-engineer your

l Recruitment System

HRD & Training System

Performance Management System

Compensation System

IT enabled Systems

l

l

l

l

Improve Your HR Processes by

l

l

l

l

Getting Easy Access to Member Organization’s Areas of

Strength, Policy, Best Practices

Participating in Regular Information Sharing Programs

Participating in Organizational Research and Surveys

Taking part in studies by Joint workgroups/ Task forces

Optimise your expenditure by

Solve a Sectoral Issue of Common Concern by

Addressing it Jointly.

Reap the Benefit of Single Door Collaboration with

External Bodies.

Get Your Outstanding Work Recognized Through Forum

Awards.

l Pooling Common Facilities

Jointly Negotiating With External Agencies

on HR Services.

l

From Another Way of Thinking to Another Way of Seeing

From Another Way of Learning to Another Way of Working

Script Growth Out of Box

Reduce the Learning Curve of Your HR Function &

Employees through

l Forum Meetings, Training & Information Sharing

Programs

l Overseas Exposure Programs/Study Tours

l Forum Annual Competitions

l Forum publications

l Journal

l e-News Letters

l Compendium of Best Practices

HOW POWER UTILITIES MAY BENEFIT FROM FORUM

Organization

BBMBDVCNEEPCONHPCNTPCPFCPOWERGRIDRECSJVNTHDCIL

Associate Members

NPCILPTCULUPCL

Chief Patron

Secretary - Power, Gol

Patrons

CEOs - MemberOrganisations

Members

Heads of HR-Member Organisations

Website

www.powerhrforum.org

Members

Published by :

Power HR Forum Secretariat

At : Power Management Institute,

Plot 5-14, Sector 16A, Noida -201301

Telephone : 0120 6496197,

Fax : 0120 2416860

e-mail : powerhrforum@gmail.com,

Website : www.powerhrforum.org

Designed & Printed by:

Tiger Ninjas Communications Pvt. Ltd.

E-mail: info@tigerninjas.com

Serving Indian Power Sector Through Excellence in HR

Vision

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