Sunday, November 12, 2017

My key takeaways during the session on “Emerging Business- Enterprise challenges with limited resources”

Written By Sachin Aute.

HR Futures- Pune was organized by The Guild, business media brand, in association with CNBC TV 18 and CNBC Awaaz, on Wednesday, November 8th, 2017 at Novotel Hotel, Pune.

I attended this event to listen the views of esteemed HR professionals and learn something new from speakers. It was also a nice opportunity to network with fellow HR professionals from different industries.

My motivation to write this article is to share my learning to the HR fraternity those who could not attend this event.

This write up is compilation of my learnings from the session HR future….

There were two sessions planned in the first half. This time, I find something practical which can be implemented by all HR professionals in their organization.

I am writing my learnings from the panel session “EMERGING BUSINESSES: ENTERPRISE CHALLENGES WITH LIMITED RESOURCES”.

There were six panelist having 15 to 25 years of rich experience.

Moderator
Vinod Bidwaik, Director-HR/HRBP, DSM India
(Panel session in Progress) 
(Seen in the picture are Shweta Chawala, Director Total Rewards, Smith Nephew Healthcare, Meenakshi Kaul, Director HR, People & Culture, Fare portal India, Sanjay Ambhorkar, Vice President - HR & Communication, Chassis Brakes International, Shirish Kulkarni, Director – HR, K S B Pumps, Ravendra Mishra, Head - Human Capital, Garware - Wall Ropes Ltd)

To understand the HR challenges facing emerging businesses, the HR leaders shared their experiences on what they are good at, what are their struggle, where they their focus is.
Some of the focus areas were:

  • Where emerging businesses believe their HR strengths and weakness lie.
  • Where they need to focus to grow profitably.
  • How they can get better at joining up the dots in order to recruit, develop and retain the right people.
  • How they can deliver the basics more effectively.
  • Technology & tools for HR at mid-sized companies.


Vinod Bidwaik stared the discussions as a Moderator. Before starting the session, he asked a question to the audience, “What do you expect from this session????”

The entire hall with 200 – 250 HR professionals was silent for few seconds… Exactly I don't know from where that sound comes, but someone from audience raised his voice and said, “something which can be implemented in the organization”.

Initially we were feeling that we may get only theoretical concepts which may be difficult to implement. I knew few speakers very closely, and was sure that audience will get practical wisdom. Moderator started very positively that for sure audience will be satisfied.

Vinod Bidwaik gave the structure to the session with five dimensions,

  • Direction: What is the purpose of the business and how employees are aligned with the larger purpose of the organization?
  • Culture: What should be the culture and how it should be built?
  • Power: How the power is distributed among different stakeholders and employees.
  • Communication: How the information is cascaded down the level and employees are kept engaged with the organizational goals?  
  • Ownership & Accountability: How the ownership and accountability is created among employees?

He mentioned that HR practices can be woven around these five dimensions.

He set the context by explaining the number of startups & emerging businesses and success ration based on the research published. There are successes but there are more failures because lack of vision and poor business model.

Further are lot of HR challenges like attracting and retaining talent; compensation and employees looking for big brand and career development. According to him, if we give the power and freedom to employees, for sure they do takes accountability and works with ownership to sustain and achieve the organizational objectives.

Shweta Chawala spoke about attracting and retaining talent in the industry. She emphasized on following:
  • Building internal capabilities instead of hiring from big brands;
  • Right pay mix: For example, higher variable pay. It is difficult to retain talent in startup industry. Many of the employees are getting offers from competitor companies with higher package with facilities. Speaker advised to keep higher incentives in the initial phase of the business. It helps to increase business as well as retain employees with his own growth.
  • To engage and motivate employees, start recognition schemes in the company

To summarize this, Moderator said in addition to all above, the office/ organizational culture also matters to retain and engage employees.

Other speakers, Meenakshi Kaul & Shirish Kulkarni also highlighted best practices to retain and engage employees:

Employee engagement is nothing but, how do we give experience to employees to feel good and engaged in our organization.

Few practices are:
  • Clear communication by CEO – Top management should communicate company’s vision to all employees to make them aware on business situations & aligning on      common targets.
  • Management should work on improving Manager – Subordinate’s relationship.
  • Reward and recognition - every quarter get nomination for team and individuals for best achievements, and reward them for good work.
  • Work on improving employability of employee.
  • Employee satisfaction/engagement survey – Every organizations conducts an employee satisfaction surveys. Some are doing this as a formality or else we could say as a mandate by top management. However, few organizations are really conducting this understand employees.
According to me, attrition only could be controlled by HR of the company. We should have good relations, understand their concerns & his personal issues too. If we really can understand them and try our best to develop him, I am sure, he would not think of the leaving the organization.

Sanjay Ambhorkar emphasized on culture building and giving the purpose of job. Revendra Misra spoke on leadership development and building the internal talent pool.

At the end moderator said that everybody should do everything in the organization. People should be trained to lead by example and not by the power. He explained the concept of Leading without Title. With this concept not only Mangers/ Leaders but any employee can become a role model in his work.

I feel the biggest challenge is to manage and retain multi-disciplinary and diverse workforce with more effective and efficient HR capabilities.

My takeaways from this session are:

  1. To keep employees engaged, have discussions with them, understand and helps to resolve issues on priority.
  2. Ensure their employability is improved with the growth of the organization.
  3. Your exiting employees should get good treatment as they brand our company outside.
  4. Exit interview is reactive and whereas stay interview is proactive – this is a best tool to keep our employees engaged with us. If you do have discussion with them while in service, employees may share their issues with you regarding career, problems or any cultural issues which could lead him to leave organization. By stay interview, you can resolve such issues and I am sure, if we able to do so, employees will not leave.
  5. Invent your own practices with relevance to organizations requirement - It doesn't mean all above techniques are applicable to all industries. Every organization has different culture inside and we should understand the organization issues, culture, and inter relationship and frame interventions accordingly.
I don't know who had asked the question as “He expect something which can be implemented” from this session. But, I am sure, my simple five key takeaways may help all of us in our organizations.


(Author is working as Sr. Executive - IR at DSM India Pvt. Ltd.)

Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Be ready for future capabilities :- My Speech

I got the opportunity to interact with student managers of Balaji Society on 18th Aug 2017. Almost 1000 students were present to listen my views of challenges in corporate world, new way of working, future trends and new capabilities required to manage these challenges. 

The session is recorded by the management school. Please watch this video...




Some pics of this session.






Tuesday, July 25, 2017

स्वयंविकासाची स्वयंप्रेरणा

"कॉलेज टू कार्पोरेट व्हाया इंटरव्यूला मिळालेल्या अफाट प्रतिसादनंतर मी मराठीतील माझे दुसरेपुस्तक "स्वयंविकासाची स्वयंप्रेरणावाटचाल संपूर्णत्वाकडेहे नवीन पुस्तक घेऊन येत आहे

हे पुस्तक सर्व वयोगटातील व्यक्तिसाठी असूनमानवी विकासासाठी गरजेच्या असणार्याप्रॅक्टिकल टिप्स सोप्या भाषेत दिलेल्या आहेत.

"स्वयंविकासाची स्वयंप्रेरणावाटचाल संपूर्णत्वाकडेफ्लिपकार्ट वर उपलब्ध आहे.




Saturday, April 15, 2017

Do you have right capabilities to handle IR of new era?

Industrial Relations is not everybody’s cup of tea.


Industrial relations is one of the most important function of Human Resource; however, it was always ignored by organizations. The old generation who handled the IR in factories are not able to come out from their conventional mindset. They believe on compliance, negotiations. When any workman comes to them, their first reaction is denial.  After globalization and during good times (from 2000 to 2007), the more focus was on hiring, training & engaging workmen. Due to attrition, focus on building IR skill set got ignored. The hardcore HR professional took the charge and missed the important aspect of future IR challenges. After 2007, when great recession started, the insecurity among blue collar workmen lead forming unions in organizations. Even the debate started on if Software Engineer is workman or not. The old school of thought forgot that the workmen demography what they used to handle (in 1970 & 1980s) has changed dramatically. 

The old school of thought which includes IR professionals are professionals who are in 50 & 60s now. They are reactive and their focus is on compliance, discipline, negotiations, labour laws, entitlement etc. The new generation who came in HR in during 2000 to 2007, mainly worked in HR handling reactive recruitment, coordinating trainings, policies etc. They were not inclined to work in difficult circumstances like handling union and participating in collective bargaining. Old school of thought IR professionals never developed their subordinates in hardcore IR. They never allowed to participate in negotiations. They kept the exposure of IR with themselves. Subordinates used to work only on data and preparing minutes of meeting. That is the reason HR professionals are lacking the skill sets in handling unions and workmen on shop-floor.  There are professionals, who leave the organization when settlement is in progress and joined where the settlement is already done… by every three – four years they keep moving & taking credit of settlements. 

IR professionals with old school of thought were not much relied on labour lawyers. They know minute details of Labout Laws. They used to take the help of lawyers & consultants only in domestic enquires and court cases. However missing HR dimensions of IR. 
New generation of IR professionals are fully dependent on lawyers and consultants which is creating lot of internal issues. If you observe incidents happened last few years, you will see the inability of management and IR professionals of creating conducive atmosphere for negotiations. Sometimes even paying unreasonably more during negotiations. 

The new generation of workmen is technology savvy, they are more connected than IR professionals and they come to know what’s happening in other organizations. They have high expectations and ready to learn new things, if they are convinced properly. You can't threaten them by punishment. At other side companies are in different mindset. Digitization, automation, flexibility, cost, productivity and profit are on their day to day agenda. 

The word is changing fast…few dimensions should be considered…

  • Attitude towards job security is changing, there are no permanent employment but organizations are putting efforts on employability…
  • Employers wants more with minimum resources, but believe on engaging right talent, 
  • Employers are putting more efforts in building capabilities among employees,

While above dimensions are more prominent, IR professionals should come out from their conventional mindset. They need to take pro-active approach. I have not yet heard any written IR vision and strategy. The approach is always reactive and nobody would like to engage workmen and line managers how they would like to handle the IR scenario in their organization irrespective of having union or not.   

IR professional (or HR managers handling IR) should change the mindset on difference mindset. I have elaborated this in following table.   


I believe IR needs specific skills sets. HR manager handling all HR functions may need the full support from IR expert who should be the full- time IR professional. Companies need to train them on strategy and should focus on their development and of course they should be paid at par to other HR guys.      

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Future of work...

Few days back, I was at IIeBM with the students of Management. I interacted on future of job, impact of automation on jobs, new way of working and new capabilities required to survive in the new world.  

Friday, January 27, 2017

Feedback on "Password to Enriched Life"


Dear Sir,

I have read your book 'Password to enriched life'. I have started reading and language and put things in so simple way that I have finished it in 2 days of leisure time. 

Your story narrated subjects linked with management fundamentals/learning are highly appreciative and applicable in day to day life working.

I would definitely read this books some more time to grasp the learning objective.

Sachin Sontakke
 

Dear Sir,

When I started to read book - "Password to enriched life" I came to know, what is password mean in our life. every person wishes to grow and reach at other side as expects everyone. When I read this book I came to know I am already at other side (how is it?) to understand it more, I would suggest all to read this book.

Your personal stories are really motivational to others. When I read stories of Sonu your Son, I learned how we can learn from our children and also how we should deal with them.

There are many stories which are really motivational that would  help us to understand the password of our life to become enriched.

I would say these experiences might be happened in many/every peoples life, but only few of them can recognize it. But when we read this book, will memorize our own past experiences and I am sure will get the password for our own life………….

Thanks for writing such a useful and motivation book……

Regards,
Sachin Aute & Manisha Aute


Dear Sir,

I just finished book " Password to enriched life ". Sundar, dusra Shabda nahi ", So simple and so enriches.

Ashok Jagdale

I read your book half way through, very nice and inspiring. Short little stories, and very very meaningful. Felt like going on and on. You have put it in a very simple language. 

Vaishali Shetty.


I have completed password to enriched life.... It was awesome.. 😊😊

I felt in love with it.

Remind me many such same incidents happened with me 👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾

For some time I was seeing like actually it's in front of me.

Wonderful book. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Yogesh Khatade










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