NHRD April 2013.pdf - National HRD Network

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Stale Beer and the New Workplace Harish Bijoor About the Author Harish Bijoor is a brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. Earlier he was with Zip Telecom Ltd., Hindustan Lever Limited, Tata Coffee Limited in Sales and Marketing and Brand Management. Life in the old days was simple and pure. I started work as a Group Management Trainee with what is today Hindustan Unilever Limited. This meant starting work with a big name in the FMCG category not only in India, but worldwide as well. It meant working for a multi-national. When that terminology became a bad word, one started taking pride in working for a “trans-national corporation”. It meant the same thing, but sounded more politically correct. So be it. Life was really simple those days. You had a boss. The boss had a boss and the chain went on, right to the top. The boss was a human being. He had his follies, but nevertheless, the boss was normally right and correct. Right on many an issue in which he was learned and experienced. And correct on issues that came to ethics, way to behave and the softer side of being a manager at large. One therefore learnt the simple things first. The boss was a great teacher. Life in the new workplace, in contrast, is a different ballgame altogether. Life today is all about a different workable approach and a different work ethos altogether. Life is really about change. Change in processes and approaches. And guess what, in most of our cases, the boss is not even a human being. The boss is today a technology, a process, an approach and in some cases even “a way of doing things”. The boss is therefore not one anymore. In some organizations we work with, the boss is not one as well. The guy sitting in the corner cubicle where he gets his tea delivered at the table (as opposed to the other cubicle-Wallahs who have to go to the corner vending machine to top up their mugs) may be called your immediate boss, but then, is he your real boss? Think. Your boss at times is the client you are working for. And he sits some 8000 kilometers away, and comes alive normally on video-screens, Skype chats and long and laborious telecoms. He is the guy you rarely see as well, but hear all the time. And then, your real boss might as well be the guy who is really at your own level in terms of work-profile, but the one who has been designated the virtual peer project lead. And then your boss may as well be the piece of technology you work for. 24 April | 2013 NHRD Network Journal
In short, life in the workplace today is different. Different, diffused, amorphous and fluid. Change in many ways is your real boss. Remember, your boss in real terms is the position you report to, the remote client you work with, and at times it is also the end-product your software finds itself an integral part of. In many ways, from softer world of FMCG, it is like saying that your real boss is not the man you report to or the company you work for, but the consumer who actually bathes with the cake of soap you peddle. In any case, the boss you report to is a position, and with attrition being what it is, this position has a new face every year. Right? If change and the technology you work on are your real bosses, how do you survive and how do you thrive in the New Workplace? How do you build your personal brand as well? Or for that matter must you at all? Must you as an employer encourage personal branding as well? What are the key principles here at play? What must you focus upon, and what must you gloss over? Are there also marketing concepts you as an HR practitioner can use to advantage? Let’s go. Let me lay out two points I do believe an HR practitioner needs to follow. POINT 1: HR is just too important to be left to the HR guys. Ouch! That pains. I do believe HR is an all-embracing domain. HR is not only about the humans you deal with, it is also about all the Resources that make your Human Resource what they are. To that extent, your human resource is a function of who she is, what her educational background is like, what her experience profile looks like, what technology governs her work, what processes systematize her, what approaches guide her at the workplace and most certainly how comfortable her personal life is and looks to be. HR therefore is just too broad a domain to be managed by the HR function at large. The best HR practice is possibly the one that offers the HR function as a generalization and possibly not a specialization. The HR department that is manned by a cross functional team of the core HR specialist, the recruiter, the marketer, the technology specialist, the process control specialist and the communications specialist is possibly that much more broad-spectrum a department than the narrow-spectrum specialists’ orientation in what I call OLD HR. Let me not belabor this point though. The point is made, and let me move on and delineate a set of thoughts that I do believe are critical to manage the future of the future. POINT 2: Internal Branding is a must for everyone! Most certainly it is. I promote internal branding in an end-to-end services company and a BPO enterprise, as I do in a consumer durables marketing company. Internal branding that is different from the overtly external branding one is normally exposed to in our contemporary commercial lives. Internal branding that is all about creating that distinct identity that will set apart one work environment from the other. And guess what, the distinction points that create for this difference can be many. In a recent project, we have identified as many as 347 different points that add up to the big picture of a wholly different end-to-end services entity that will stand out like an exclamation mark. God is in the details of Internal branding. April | 2013 NHRD Network Journal 25
Page 1 and 2: ISSN - 0974 - 1739 NHRD Network Jou
Page 3 and 4: profe sion. Donn Doongaji Anil Sach
Page 5 and 6: CONTENTS S.No. Title of Article Aut
Page 7 and 8: Editorial Comments Dear Reader, Wha
Page 9 and 10: opportunity for organizations to go
Page 11 and 12: Picking up weak signals in the new
Page 13 and 14: or https://twitter.com/rossdawson/
Page 15 and 16: In a company, this “making sense
Page 17 and 18: Resonant Leadership for Results Dr.
Page 19 and 20: Leadership for Results has touched
Page 21 and 22: Day Two, then, is highly customized
Page 23 and 24: Enabling Learning through Technolog
Page 25 and 26: letting go the control mindset and
Page 27 and 28: exhibit a positive view of the tech
Page 29 and 30: The Employer Brand: A Truth Lived E
Page 31 and 32: In an ideal sense, every element in
Page 33: cynicism, under-ambition sloth. Mak
Page 37 and 38: of knowledge, passion and ownership
Page 39 and 40: time to offer to an executive ridin
Page 41 and 42: Buchanan. With a team of uniquely g
Page 43 and 44: This paper seeks to demystify gamif
Page 45 and 46: l l approach to create opportunitie
Page 47 and 48: Learning Employee engagement l l l
Page 49 and 50: 5. Yardstick: An HR professional ca
Page 51 and 52: l Move beyond formal learning proce
Page 53 and 54: having the ability to hold the tens
Page 55 and 56: HR, Social Media and creating the o
Page 57 and 58: l mistakes? Can leaders be question
Page 59 and 60: and visions of the future, to look
Page 61 and 62: A business within the business Dave
Page 63 and 64: of which can function as a complete
Page 65 and 66: customers successful.” Customers
Page 67 and 68: and readable by everyone; second, t
Page 69 and 70: those who routinely introduce new i
Page 71 and 72: competencies as part of the organiz
Page 73 and 74: ABOUT THE JOURNAL The National HRD

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