'HR' WITH 'HER' IS 'HAR' - National HRD Network
'HR' WITH 'HER' IS 'HAR' - National HRD Network
'HR' WITH 'HER' IS 'HAR' - National HRD Network
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| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 2
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 3
<strong>IS</strong>SN-0974-1720<br />
Vol - 24 December 2008 Issue - 9<br />
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N<strong>HRD</strong>N Leadership Team<br />
AQUIL BUSRAI, <strong>National</strong> President<br />
DWARAKANATH P, Immediate Past President<br />
MADHUKAR SHUKLA, Regional President (East)<br />
GOPALKR<strong>IS</strong>HNA M., Regional President(South)<br />
SAT<strong>IS</strong>H PRADHAN, Regional President (West)<br />
RAJAN N S, Regional President (North)<br />
MURTHY P V R DR., <strong>National</strong> Secretary<br />
ASHOK REDDY B, <strong>National</strong> Treasurer<br />
SATYANARAYANA K, Executive Director<br />
N<strong>HRD</strong>N Elected Members<br />
HARI HARAN IYER, Elected Member<br />
PRAVEEN KUMAR K, Elected Member<br />
RAMCHANDER M, Elected Member<br />
Printed at:<br />
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This journal is on our Website:<br />
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| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 4<br />
Features<br />
6 ............................ President’s Message<br />
8 ......................................... Editorial<br />
9 to 14 ............... 12th <strong>National</strong> Conference<br />
Photographs<br />
30 .............. N<strong>HRD</strong> 12th <strong>National</strong> Conference<br />
32 .............. N<strong>HRD</strong> 12th <strong>National</strong> Conference<br />
Inaugural address<br />
44 ............................. Fascinating Facts<br />
45 to 47, 49 to 55........ Chapter News/<br />
Photographs<br />
47 ................................... Quiz Corner<br />
47 ............................... Cartoon Corner<br />
57 .......... How Can I Keep My Best People?:<br />
Monster Article<br />
Advertisements<br />
2 .......................................... Sodexo<br />
3 ................................. Inspire One/TMI<br />
5 .......................................... Genius<br />
7 ......................................... I I H R M<br />
15 ..................................... Alphastars<br />
17 .......................................... Probe<br />
19 .......................................... Matrix<br />
21 ..................................... Globarena<br />
48 ........ Delhi Chapter's 6th Young Managers<br />
Conference<br />
56 .................................. Monster Jobs<br />
59 ................................... Global Hunt<br />
Humour Review Department (<strong>HRD</strong>)<br />
58 .................... ‘HR’ <strong>WITH</strong> ‘HER’ <strong>IS</strong> ‘HAR’<br />
–– Col. P. Deogirikar<br />
Column<br />
16 .................. Trust - The Act of Letting Go<br />
–– Madan Srinivasan<br />
18 ........... Mumbai Terror Strike - A Crisis in<br />
Leadership<br />
–– Thothathri Raman<br />
20 ........... Managing HR in SLOW & DOWN<br />
Monthly Feature by GlobalHunt<br />
Case Study<br />
43 .................... Should Subhas be fired?<br />
–– R. Dharma Rao<br />
Articles<br />
22 .............. Winnovation - the new Mantra<br />
–– S.Deenadaylan<br />
24 .... "Don't Bring Your Personal Problems To<br />
Work" - Does it Really Work?<br />
–– Indranil Banerjee<br />
25 ............ Developing Leadership Through<br />
Experiential Learning<br />
–– Cdr Girish V Konkar (Retd)<br />
26 ...... Revolution At The Roots Zero to Hero<br />
–– Captain Pearl and S.Deenadayalan<br />
28 ..... Proactive Approach For H.R. Function.<br />
–– P.C. Sharma<br />
35 .... 'Training' - Let us not make it an expired<br />
drug<br />
–– Prof. Shulagna Sarkar<br />
36 ...... Coaching Executives Through Career<br />
Transitions in Corporations<br />
–– Pradeep Mukherjee<br />
38 ................... From BCause to DCause<br />
–– Ravikanth Balijapalli<br />
38 .................. Profession | System | Pride<br />
–– Vinay Kumar Chaganti<br />
39 ............. The Downturn in Aviation jobs?<br />
–– Deeksha Singh<br />
40 .................. HR- Rational or Emotional<br />
–– Nupur D Pandey<br />
41 .... How important it is to possess / develop<br />
positive attitude<br />
–– Dr.A.Jagan Mohan Reddy<br />
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| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 5
WELCOME ADDRESS<br />
by<br />
Mr. Aquil Busrai,<br />
Executive Director - HR, IBM<br />
India and <strong>National</strong> President,<br />
<strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> at the<br />
12th <strong>National</strong> Conference at<br />
Chennai on 28th November 2008<br />
Dear Delegate's<br />
The <strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> has<br />
been working towards<br />
progressively scaling up the<br />
development of human resources<br />
through education, training,<br />
research and experience sharing.<br />
The N<strong>HRD</strong>N's Annual Conference<br />
is the key event of the <strong>Network</strong><br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 6<br />
Welcome Address<br />
keeping in mind the above effort. In<br />
some senses it is the HR function's<br />
way of giving back to the function<br />
itself.<br />
The Annual Conference has over<br />
the years become the ideal meeting<br />
ground for HR professionals to stay<br />
contemporary, discover best<br />
practices and widen their horizons.<br />
The event also promises to stay<br />
true to the philosophy of the<br />
<strong>Network</strong> of focusing on emerging<br />
HR trends that can add value to<br />
businesses. This year the<br />
Conference is being hosted in<br />
Chennai, a city known for its culture<br />
and hospitality. The Conference<br />
theme of "What's Beyond - HR's<br />
Next Agenda" truly seeks to look<br />
beyond through the lens of its<br />
compelling sub-themes & next<br />
practices. While The 'Sub-themes'<br />
will take up the major trends that<br />
impact HR in India and will seek to<br />
provide answers to a range of<br />
questions that are top-of-mind for<br />
the HR professional, the 'Next<br />
Practices' sessions, will have HR<br />
& business leaders share their<br />
knowledge and experience on how<br />
they have moved their enterprise to<br />
the next level on contemporary HR<br />
issues. A mixture of plenary and<br />
concurrent sessions will help the<br />
participant see the overall picture<br />
as well as specific practice related<br />
inputs. The conference will put<br />
some innovative concepts into<br />
practice like "Power <strong>Network</strong>ing",<br />
"HR Service Directory" etc which<br />
you can experience at the<br />
Conference.<br />
In my capacity of <strong>National</strong><br />
President, I can assure you that we<br />
at N<strong>HRD</strong>N are committed to making<br />
this conference world-class with the<br />
confidence and backing of our<br />
respected sponsors and eminent<br />
speakers. The conference<br />
organizing team led by the N<strong>HRD</strong>N<br />
Chennai Chapter has been<br />
enthused about this entire effort and<br />
has been working towards making<br />
this event a special experience!<br />
Finally I would like to wish you an<br />
enriching, memorable and fun-filled<br />
2 days at this event; I am sure the<br />
benefits you derive will last far<br />
beyond the two days!<br />
Warm Regards<br />
- Aquil Busrai<br />
If you wish to be a member of India's largest HR <strong>Network</strong>,<br />
all that you need to do is to visit<br />
www.nhrdn.org or www.nationalhrd.org<br />
and<br />
Join as a member by paying the fee through your credit card<br />
or<br />
Send a mail to<br />
nhrdhyd@gmail.com or ksnhrd@gmail.com<br />
to get the contact details of the coordinator in your city
IIHRM<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 7
Editorial<br />
I<br />
don't know if you can, but I can't<br />
believe it myself - that I have not only<br />
written a book but it is also already<br />
available for the whole world through<br />
the internet! If you can't believe it,<br />
please do go and see it for yourself at<br />
http://sites.google.com/site/<br />
goadingtogobeyond/. What I want to<br />
share with you is how I came over one<br />
major hurdle I faced in coming up with<br />
this book. I am hoping that the insight I<br />
got in this process will be useful to you.<br />
One of the cribs I had about myself -<br />
and for many years - was that I have<br />
not authored a book on my own. It was<br />
not at all OK for me that, having been<br />
an academician for almost 17 years<br />
and a semi-academician thereafter for<br />
over eight years, I don't have book to<br />
my credit. And I lived with this<br />
dissatisfaction for more than two<br />
decades. I did not get to write a book<br />
all these years because I did not have<br />
enough original and profound material<br />
of my own on a single topic that will fill<br />
a book of at least 200 pages.<br />
As the pressure on me to write a book<br />
mounted - from within me and from my<br />
well-wishers, I introspected on what<br />
was stopping me from coming up with<br />
one. What I discovered was just<br />
amazing! What I discovered was that I<br />
had some notion of what a book is and<br />
that it was my notion! The notion I had<br />
STROKE IDENTIFICATION:<br />
Remember The 1st Three<br />
Letters... S.T.R<br />
During a party, a friend stumbled and<br />
took a little fall - she assured everyone<br />
that she was fine and just tripped over a<br />
brick because of her new shoes. (they<br />
offered to call ambulance) They got her<br />
cleaned up and got her a new plate of<br />
food - while she appeared a bit shaken<br />
up, SAROJ went about enjoying herself<br />
the rest of the evening. SAROJ’’s<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 8<br />
about a book was<br />
� A book should be about 200 to 250<br />
pages in volume<br />
� It should be on a single theme<br />
� It must add significant value<br />
� To add this significant value,<br />
❏ The contents of the book should<br />
be original thoughts of mine,<br />
and<br />
❏ These original thoughts better<br />
be profound and academically<br />
rigorous<br />
Given these, you can see the relevance<br />
of what I said earlier about the reason<br />
for not getting to write a book: "I did<br />
not have enough original and profound<br />
material of my own on a single topic<br />
that will fill a book of at least 200<br />
pages."<br />
What I got in touch with was that it was<br />
my view of a book, and that this was<br />
the Truth about what a book is/should<br />
be! Given this Truth, there was no way<br />
I was ever going to write a book, and<br />
thus never deal with my dissatisfaction<br />
(of not authoring a book). Once I got in<br />
touch with this, it was relatively easy to<br />
overcome that! All that I had to do -<br />
which I did - was to ask: "What is a<br />
book, fundamentally?" The answer was<br />
obvious: a bunch of printed sheets<br />
husband called later telling everyone that<br />
his wife had been taken to the hospital -<br />
(at 6:00pm , Saroj passed away.) She had<br />
suffered a stroke at the party . Had they<br />
known how to identify the signs of a stroke,<br />
perhaps Saroj would be with us today.<br />
Some don’t die. They end up in a helpless,<br />
hopeless condition instead. It only takes a<br />
minute to read this...<br />
STROKE IDENTIFICATION: A neurologist<br />
says that if he can get to a stroke victim<br />
within 3 hours he can totally reverse the<br />
effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick<br />
was getting a stroke recognized,<br />
diagnosed, and then getting the patient<br />
medically cared for within 3 hours, which<br />
is tough.<br />
RECOGNIZING A STROKE : Remember<br />
the ‘3’ steps, STR . Read and Learn!<br />
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are<br />
difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack<br />
of awareness spells disaster. The stroke<br />
victim may suffer severe brain damage<br />
bound between two covers. Against this<br />
answer, all those points in my notion<br />
of a book were of my making - and were<br />
the Truth for me! Given the<br />
'fundamental' meaning of a book, it was<br />
now possible to bring a book out - a<br />
collection of my editorials.<br />
The message I took away for myself<br />
from this experience is this: When we<br />
are stuck, get in touch with the<br />
meanings we make of the matter that<br />
we get stuck about, and how we treat<br />
those meanings as the meaning. And<br />
that this meaning, valid though it is, is<br />
just what we made up. And get the<br />
'fundamental' meaning of that<br />
matter…you will get unstuck.<br />
- C Balaji<br />
when people nearby fail to recognize<br />
the symptoms of a stroke. Now doctors<br />
say a bystander can recognize a stroke<br />
by asking three simple questions :<br />
S * Ask the individual to SMILE .<br />
T * = TALK. Ask the person to SPEAK<br />
A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)<br />
(eg ‘It is sunny 20out today’).<br />
R * Ask him or her to RA<strong>IS</strong>E BOTH<br />
ARMS .<br />
If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE<br />
of these tasks, call the ambulance and<br />
describe the symptoms to the<br />
dispatcher.<br />
NOTE: Another ‘sign’ of a stroke is<br />
1. Ask the person to ‘stick’ out the<br />
tongue.<br />
2. If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes<br />
to one side or the other that is also<br />
an indication of a stroke.
12th <strong>National</strong> Conference - What’s Beyond? HR’s Next Agenda - Chennai - 28 & 29 Nov - 08<br />
Mr. R.Shantaram, Vice President, delivering Vote of Thanks Mumbai team for the 13th <strong>National</strong> Conference<br />
Conference Organizers from Chennai Chapter on stage<br />
Students from the Welingkar Institute on stage with some of the<br />
members<br />
Conference Organizers from Chennai Chapter on stage with<br />
some of the members<br />
Student volunteers from Balaji Institutes, Pune on stage with<br />
some of the members<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 9
12th <strong>National</strong> Conference - What’s Beyond? HR’s Next Agenda - Chennai - 28 & 29 Nov - 08<br />
Registrations in progress The Stage is set<br />
A tribute to the victims of Mumbai terror attack<br />
Mr. Aquil Busrai, Mr. Rajesh Nambiar, Mr. S.Ramadorai, Dr. PVR<br />
Murthy and Mr. David Nallathambi<br />
Mr. David Nallathambi, speaking on the Conference theme and<br />
the context<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 10<br />
Delegates going through a workout during the session Beyond<br />
Wellness<br />
Mr. Aquil Busrai, welcoming the delegates<br />
Mr. S.Ramadorai addressing to the Conference
12th <strong>National</strong> Conference - What’s Beyond? HR’s Next Agenda - Chennai - 28 & 29 Nov - 08<br />
Dr. Arvind Agarwal, Introducing Mr. Rajesh Nambiar, Keynote<br />
speaker<br />
Mr S.Y.Siddiqui, Introducing Mr. Babu L.Lakshmanan, Chairman,<br />
Rane Holdings<br />
Mr. Rajesh Nambiar, VP & GM, IBM India,<br />
delivering keynote address<br />
Mr. Babu L.Lakshmanan, addressing the delegates<br />
A view of the delegates at the 12th <strong>National</strong> Conference Mr. N.S.Rajan, Presenting the results of the first ever 'State of<br />
HR' survey<br />
Prof. Madhukar Shukla, Mr. P.V.Ramanamurthy & Mr Rajesh<br />
Padmanabhan, speaking on Integrated Talent Management<br />
Mr. S.Varadarajan & Mr. Keith Bradford, speaking on HR for the<br />
new Indian MNC<br />
11<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 11
12th <strong>National</strong> Conference - What’s Beyond? HR’s Next Agenda - Chennai - 28 & 29 Nov - 08<br />
Mr. Kumar Krishnaswamy, speaking on Beyond Wellness Mr. P.Padma Kumar, Prof. Uday Salunkhe and Prof. Rafiq<br />
Dossani, speaking on Next Generation Talent: Where From?<br />
Mr. Sridhar Ganesh, and Mr. Ganesh Chella, speaking on<br />
“Coaching for Leadership”<br />
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Founder, <strong>IS</strong>HA Foundation<br />
Mr. P.Padma Kumar receiving the award for CEO of the Year<br />
from Mr. Aquil Busrai<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 12<br />
Ms Gangapriya Chakraverti and Mr. Sudhakar Rao, session on<br />
Beyond Automation<br />
Mr. N.S.Rajan, Receiving the award for Excellence in HR<br />
Prof. Ram Mohan Rao, receiving the award for<br />
Outstanding Academic Institution from Mr. Aquil Busrai<br />
12
12th <strong>National</strong> Conference - What’s Beyond? HR’s Next Agenda - Chennai - 28 & 29 Nov - 08<br />
Mr David Nallathambi, receiving the Best Chapter award from<br />
Mr. Aquil Busrai, Dr. PVR Murthy and Ms Devika Dharmaraj<br />
Mr. DNB Singh receiving a special award on behalf of the<br />
Mumbai Chapter Mr. Marcel Parker, Mr. GP Rao and Mr.<br />
Santosh Nadkarni<br />
Prof. Pritham Singh, Prof Emeritus, MDI Gurgaon with the<br />
award for Lifetime Contribution to HR<br />
Dr Pritham Singh and Ms Saagarika Rai, speaking on Bringing<br />
Inclusiveness on the HR Agenda<br />
Best Chapter Award; L to R, Ms S.Vijayalakshmi, Mr. R.Shantaram,<br />
Mr. David Nallathambi, Dr. PVR Murthy, Mr. Aquil Busrai, Ms Devika<br />
Dharmaraj, Mr. Shyam C.Raman, Mr. CV Gopinath, Mr. V.Suryanarayanan<br />
Ms Tanya Misra receives the Outstanding Young HR<br />
Professional award from Mr. Aquil Busrai<br />
Dr. PVR Murthy, CEO, Exclusive Search, with the award for<br />
Outstanding Contributions to the <strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong><br />
Mr. P.Dwarakanath, releases the first ever 'HR Services<br />
Directory'. Mr. B.Senthil Nathan and Mr. KS Rajasekar<br />
13<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 13
12th <strong>National</strong> Conference - What’s Beyond? HR’s Next Agenda - Chennai - 28 & 29 Nov - 08<br />
Mr. S.Ravindran, Mr. K.Shankar, Mr. Vivek Paranjpe, Member<br />
and Mr. Ranjith Ramachandran, speaking on HR<br />
Mr. R.Kannan, Presenting the results of the survey on<br />
Expectations from the Future Workforce<br />
Mr. Arvind Shrouti, Mr. P.Dwarakanath and Mr. L.Prabhakar,<br />
Speaking on The Future of Trade Unions<br />
Mr. Gurcharan Das, Management Thinker and writer, delivering a<br />
Special Session on The India Story<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 14<br />
Mr. Gopalakrishnan of ETA receiving an iPhone as the grand<br />
prize from Mr. Prasanth Shankaran, CEO<br />
Mr. V.C.Agrawal and Mr. T.Sudhakar Rao addressing the<br />
session on HR in the Public Sector<br />
Ms Isabel Doverty, Mr. Bimal Rath and Mr. Prithvi Shergill,<br />
Speaking on Shaping the New HR Manager<br />
Mr A.Vellayan, Vice Chairman and Director Strategy, Murugappa<br />
delivering the Valedictory Address<br />
14
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Mobile: 9811379590, 9313613547 Email: info@achievethebest.com<br />
Visit: www.indianlptraining.com<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 15
Trust is a word that we hear quite often<br />
at the workplace. It's a core value for<br />
most organizations, an integral part of<br />
teamwork lingo, the foundation on which<br />
interpersonal relationships are built and<br />
nurtured. Like the sea, where one has to<br />
travel several miles before even spotting the<br />
floor, trust is a concept that can be<br />
experienced only if we travel deep within<br />
our own hearts. After all, isn't that where<br />
our ability and willingness to trust springs<br />
from?<br />
There are several mirrors through which we<br />
can interpret the word that has its origin in the<br />
Old Norse 'traust'. It can mean assured<br />
reliance on the character, ability, strength, or<br />
truth of someone or something or dependence<br />
on something future or contingent. For the<br />
purpose of this column, I'd like to use the lens<br />
of the 'act of letting go'.<br />
One of the best ways in which trust gets<br />
demonstrated as the 'act of letting go' is<br />
during outbound and experiential training<br />
programs. Activities like the Trust Walk/Fall,<br />
abseiling or even letting oneself down the<br />
raft into the chilly swirling waters of the<br />
mountain river requires a good amount of<br />
letting go. Such tasks compel us to make<br />
conscious choices in our zones of discomfort<br />
that can many a time be accompanied by<br />
personal distress.<br />
What gets you to perform an action that<br />
you'd never otherwise have dreamt of<br />
doing? What REALLY goes on in your mind<br />
from the time you've been told to do a task<br />
- say walking down a rock perpendicular to<br />
the surface - to the time you ACTUALLY do<br />
it? Do you do it because you are confident<br />
that the trainer is equipped with safe and<br />
secure rappel devices, rope and harness?<br />
Or you've seen your colleagues do it with<br />
success before you?<br />
How long does it take you to weigh the pros<br />
and cons of committing yourself to the action<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 16<br />
Trust - The Act of Letting Go<br />
Column<br />
that you do not foresee yourself enjoying to<br />
do? When do you make the decision? Are<br />
you the first one to volunteer, or the last, or<br />
somewhere in the middle? Once you've<br />
made the decision, how do you feel -<br />
confident, relaxed, anxious, petrified…?<br />
Think of the MOMENT when you've done it<br />
- you've roped all the way down the rock<br />
surface, your body is immersed in the cold<br />
water; you fall into the strong and comforting<br />
hands of your colleagues. Did you<br />
experience an exhilaration, a joy that if<br />
mouthed would sound like 'Yippee! I've done<br />
it!'? Were you inspired to ask for an encore? I<br />
have come across colleagues - and I am sure<br />
you have too - who would be hesitant or even<br />
vehemently refuse climbing down a rope, but<br />
once they've done it and tasted success, they<br />
ask if they can do it another time.<br />
It is not very different at the workplace. When<br />
we encounter strange, ambiguous situations<br />
that we haven't experienced before, we may<br />
get into a denial or aggressive mode. In such<br />
cases, since we have decided for ourselves<br />
- whether true or not - that we are on a sticky<br />
wicket, our actions and behaviors may be far<br />
from desirable or what is expected of us.<br />
Instead, if we 'let go' of our compelling need<br />
for reassurance of the status quo - like we<br />
did in the outbound programs - and learn to<br />
make conscious choices, we can even start<br />
enjoying such situations. The more we make<br />
a habit of letting go, the more frequent we'll<br />
be saying "Yippee! I've done it!" and<br />
reposing trust in us and others.<br />
Let me try to illustrate this by sharing a<br />
personal experience of letting go! My family<br />
was on a short vacation in the hills of<br />
Himachal Pradesh. We were staying in this<br />
place that overlooked a vast tranquil lake<br />
nestled amid tall mountains of the Shivaliks.<br />
A mini sanctuary that was home to a vast<br />
flora and fauna that included deer and<br />
monkeys stretched around the lake. A 3-km<br />
Madan Srinivasan works with HCL Technologies and can be reached at: Madan.Srinivasan@hcl.in<br />
Anti Terror Squad’s All India toll free Number 1090<br />
– Madan Srinivasan<br />
concrete walkway zigzagged across the<br />
periphery of the still waters.<br />
It was 6 pm when we returned to the hotel.<br />
All of a sudden, I made up my mind to do a<br />
run in this stretch. It was obviously not a<br />
sensible thing to do. It was getting quite<br />
dark, the fog and chill was settling down,<br />
and it was jungle terrain. I willed myself to<br />
do it for those very reasons with a beating<br />
heart and a dread of the dark and the wild.<br />
Despite my wife's remonstrations, I soon<br />
found myself at the sanctuary gate. As I<br />
broke into a brisk jog, I caught myself<br />
wondering many a time if I should return.<br />
Soon, I had traversed too much distance to<br />
go back. The jungle sounds grew sharper.<br />
My body grew tense as I tried to spot lurking<br />
danger. My imagination was running amok<br />
as the shadows grew dark and ominous and<br />
seemed to have a life all their own. It was<br />
surreal.<br />
As I crossed a bend, loud and fierce roars<br />
suddenly rent the air and I thought I had<br />
reached my limits of endurance (I learnt later<br />
that the sanctuary also housed some lions<br />
in an enclosure). Shortly after that, my<br />
feelings rose, convinced that I was going to<br />
survive after all. The shadows, the fog, the<br />
sounds no longer seemed dangerous. By<br />
the time I reached the end, I literally yelled,<br />
"Yippee!"<br />
As I reflect back upon this episode, I<br />
remember the intense anxiety and fear, but<br />
also the joy and triumph at the end of it all.<br />
I also knew that it would not be so bad the<br />
second time, and another!<br />
Here's an invitation to you to reflect upon your<br />
personal experiences - at work or outside -<br />
when you chose to let go despite an initial<br />
lack of trust. Ask what motivated you to do it<br />
and what did you learn at the end of it all.<br />
You might have just embarked upon an<br />
exciting journey of self discovery. �H In case you come across any suspicious activity, any suspicious movement or have any information to tell to the Anti-Terror Squad,<br />
please take a Note of the new ALL INDIA TOLL-FREE Terror Help-line “1090”. Your city’s Police or Anti-Terror squad will take action<br />
as quickly as possible. Remember that this single number 1090 is valid all over India This is a toll free number and can be dialed from<br />
mobile phones also. Moreover, the identity of the caller will be kept a secret.<br />
Let us make each and every citizen of India aware about this facility.
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 17
The terror attack on Mumbai has woken<br />
us up to the realities of leadership or<br />
the woeful lack of it in India. Thanks to the<br />
callous disregard to the leadership building<br />
process in India. The tragic and almost<br />
barbaric scenes that followed the three days<br />
of terrorist siege on the financial capital of<br />
India, however highlighted how the ordinary<br />
men on the street and the smaller officials<br />
from the defense, police and civilian offices<br />
are willing to sacrifice their lives for others<br />
while the leadership was starkly absent or<br />
worse totally oblivious to the need of the<br />
hour. The military, the NSG, the<br />
Maharashtra police and the Navy came out<br />
to be extremely effective while one could<br />
easily see that the leadership at the top, both<br />
political and administrative could not reach<br />
out to the people, leaving the job to the<br />
electronic news agencies by default leading<br />
to the expected confusion and a fair play to<br />
rumors and half baked theories gushing out<br />
like torrent throughout the harrowing three<br />
days.<br />
While it should be put on record that the<br />
youngsters manning the cameras and the<br />
mike did a phenomenal job of reporting on<br />
the events, the state system stood at a<br />
standstill and was unable to inform the<br />
"official version" to the general public of<br />
Mumbai and the rest of the world, with the<br />
Prime Minister himself choosing to "address"<br />
the nation some 18 hours after the first<br />
bullets were fired. The special secretary<br />
security took the cake by reading out like<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 18<br />
Mumbai Terror Strike - A Crisis<br />
in Leadership<br />
Column<br />
that from a grocery list the number of<br />
persons killed from United States of<br />
America, Germany …etc., while taking a sip<br />
of water from a hidden bottle of water with<br />
deliberate nonchalance. The Defense<br />
Minister Pranab Mukherjee launched a<br />
tirade against Pakistan albeit hours after the<br />
beginning of the terrorist siege leaving the<br />
Pakistani Foreign Minister in Delhi<br />
addressing the press offering an olive<br />
branch looking like an angel in white. The<br />
British foreign secretary who was present<br />
throughout the crisis with his team of<br />
metropolitan police was cool composed and<br />
extremely concerned about the human<br />
sensibilities. Clearly, something is seriously<br />
wrong with our leadership and the way they<br />
conduct themselves during a crisis like this.<br />
The Chief Minister of Maharastra who was<br />
totally absent during the entire day chose<br />
to "visit" the chaotic and congested lane of<br />
Nariman house towards the fag end of the<br />
operation Tornado causing much chaos and<br />
panic among the public and the policemen<br />
battling the terrorists. There was no attempt<br />
to establish a public information centre and<br />
periodic briefing by the government<br />
agencies, leaving the task of "getting" the<br />
information through the "sources" to the<br />
media men. Can't get worse than this!<br />
Even the business leaders exhibited the<br />
same trait of lack of sensibility and loyalty<br />
to the country while denigrating the nation's<br />
security and crisis preparedness in public<br />
demoralizing the defense and security<br />
Thothathri Raman is Consulting Editor, Business India based at Delhi E-Mail: atraman@gmail.com<br />
E-Mail: Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 7:28 PM<br />
Dear Mr. Deenadayalan<br />
Kindly be informed that your article in the<br />
N<strong>HRD</strong> (Oct. 2008) is thought provoking<br />
and vivid. Kudos.<br />
Justin Antony pjustinantony@gmail.com<br />
E.Mail: Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 6:21 AM<br />
Dear Satyanarayana Garu:<br />
I have gone through the article “Gandhian<br />
Communists with Balanced Capitalism -<br />
Zero to Hero - Series - VI in our N<strong>HRD</strong><br />
Letters<br />
Newsletter wherein I found the success of<br />
Pragathi Nagar with total transparancy.<br />
Great!<br />
Thank you very much for your wonderful<br />
contribution in bringing up this Pragati<br />
Nagar as a model urban village.<br />
May God Bless you for a Long and Happy<br />
Life.<br />
With high regards, G.V.S. GURUNADH<br />
GM–HR, Brigade Corporation, Hyderabad<br />
E-Mail: gvsgurunadh@gmail.com<br />
– Thothathri Raman<br />
forces engaged in the heroic combat to quell<br />
the terrorists. Even the Gujarat Chief<br />
Minister, Narendra Modi, the iconic voice of<br />
rabid Hindu fundamentalism came out like<br />
a lark offering compensation of Rs 1 crore<br />
for the slain officers from the police force in<br />
the tragedy.<br />
The usual rabble rousers for the cause of<br />
Mumbai, the Thakerays were totally absent<br />
from the scene and so were the "martyr" to<br />
the cause of democracy Sonia Gandhi and<br />
her newly found voice of young India Rahul<br />
Gandhi who both were busy counting the<br />
vote banks in the interior India. Even L K<br />
Advani the BJP Prime Minster hopeful, who<br />
made a brief appearance, was busy<br />
narrating how they handled terrorists during<br />
their time rather than offering any sensible<br />
words of wisdom or comfort to the people<br />
of Mumbai.<br />
The upshot is clear. The country urgently<br />
needs to be quick to get their leadership<br />
building process thoroughly revised and<br />
build strong foundations for training the<br />
young minds in ethics, values and human<br />
sensibilities. The HR community could play<br />
a major role here by instituting a strong<br />
mentorship program inculcating such values<br />
and offering it to the political class and the<br />
bureaucracy so that in future Indian<br />
leadership would also start reflecting the<br />
values and the show of friendship, kinship<br />
and the readiness for action which the<br />
common man on the street and minor<br />
officials show in India. �H From: vyoma bhatt<br />
Hi,<br />
I have been reading your <strong>HRD</strong> Newsletter<br />
every month and let me tell you its<br />
superb...It just gives me an entire picture<br />
of the current scenario of the corporate<br />
world.<br />
Waiting for your earliest reply...<br />
Thanking You,<br />
Vyoma Bhatt vyoma7985@gmail.com
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 19
Monthly Feature<br />
by Global Hunt<br />
Contributed By: Sunil Goel,<br />
The recession is about the creative Human<br />
Resources Management. The HRM<br />
Function is asked to bring new ideas, to<br />
change the HRM Processes and to develop<br />
or change the procedures. And this effort<br />
has to be cheap or it has to cut the costs of<br />
the organization. The HRM innovation is<br />
easy in times of the business growth, but<br />
the recession is not good for big innovative<br />
HRM initiatives.<br />
The HR Management has to focus on<br />
unpopular innovations during the recession<br />
as the role of HR during the recession is to<br />
save money for the organization. The senior<br />
management expects all the support<br />
functions to bring innovative ideas and<br />
solutions which will lead to stronger<br />
organization, when the next growth era<br />
comes.<br />
The point has to be focused by HR<br />
management during recession are as<br />
follows:<br />
� To optimize the manpower strength.<br />
� To take strategic initiatives to increase<br />
the productivity and efficiency of the<br />
entire organization.<br />
� To work on compensation benefits.<br />
� Redesign training and development<br />
programs.<br />
On the other hand the HR Management has<br />
to find some innovative solutions during the<br />
recession like,<br />
Mail us at: corporate@globalhunt.in, Visit us at : www.globalhunt.in<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 20<br />
� To identify the real key employees and<br />
to intact them in the organization<br />
� To identify the real top potentials and<br />
to strengthen their development<br />
program<br />
The HR Management has to have priorities<br />
in mind and the strategic impact of the HRM<br />
innovations in the recession time. The role<br />
of the HR Management is not to minimize<br />
the costs for the time being, but to make<br />
the organization stronger and ready for the<br />
future growth.<br />
Recommendations while your employer<br />
facing negative challenges during recession:<br />
1. Top management should know the<br />
contingency plan.<br />
2. Do the brainstorming session with your<br />
top management and contribute in their<br />
strategic planning.<br />
3. A complete or partial job freeze,<br />
however, communicate to the workforce<br />
that the company may continue to<br />
recruit key individuals even in difficult<br />
times<br />
4. Review the employee performance<br />
evaluations to determine the key<br />
people that company cannot afford to<br />
lose.<br />
5. Flow of Communication should be<br />
from top to down that will help in making<br />
Managing HR in<br />
SLOW & DOWN<br />
Need for Change<br />
conducive atmosphere within the<br />
organization<br />
6. Make prepare yourself for individual<br />
and group concerns therefore there<br />
should be a proper counseling session.<br />
7. Maintain a calm atmosphere<br />
8. Review all HR policies, processes and<br />
procedures to ensure that they are<br />
purposeful and contribute directly to the<br />
success of the company.<br />
9. Suppose the company has to lay-off<br />
staffs, ensure that there are no other<br />
opportunities for them in other functions<br />
or divisions of the organization.<br />
10. Advise managers to deal the process<br />
of managing change.<br />
Managing Human Resources (HR) in a<br />
difficult economic environment is even more<br />
demanding than working in times of rapid<br />
growth. Therefore the task of HR is very<br />
important to maintain equilibrium throughout<br />
the hierarchy.<br />
How to intact your employee during<br />
recession:<br />
Here is how to keep your employees with<br />
you and away from your competitors during<br />
tough economic times.<br />
� Differentiate Between Your Good and<br />
Average Employees<br />
� Redirect Your Employees to Other<br />
Departments (Job Rotation)<br />
� Listen To Your Employees<br />
� Keep Them Motivated and Busy<br />
(Communicate-Communicate and<br />
Communicate)<br />
� Show them the long term vision<br />
The above steps will enable the employer<br />
to hold its team together during a recession,<br />
and will even make bond between all of you<br />
stronger. Employees should be motivated<br />
enough to stick to the employer during tough<br />
times and put in the extra effort required for<br />
the organization growth.<br />
� H
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Is it fair to expect HR heads to tackle the ever-increasing demand<br />
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| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 21
Financial crisis - bliss or curse - the debate<br />
will be never ending. Few job losses will<br />
get magnified. India and all countries will<br />
be in a better situation - and it is time to<br />
take stock, course correct and take cutting<br />
edge decisions. Hence measured response<br />
and caution against overreaction are the<br />
need of the hour. Flaws of free market have<br />
also been exposed and the credit rating<br />
firm's credibility exposed.<br />
In today's context we need first class people,<br />
with good mind, a sense of social citizenry<br />
to do a good job with ability to execute. The<br />
statement of Infosys Chief on "Ban on<br />
Recruitment of Freshers in the next two<br />
years" in fact, is a good augury for country -<br />
as Engineers will do Engineering.<br />
Now there will be more pressure on rule of<br />
law, transparency and responsible<br />
compensation. The youth of today have<br />
higher aspirations than those of forty plus<br />
and that is both an opportunity and a threat.<br />
These youth have not faced the pressures<br />
of difficulty and have had more parental<br />
pampering and pub exposure than dealing<br />
with pressures. The down side could be<br />
depression and the up side is Winnovation.<br />
It is here, the CEO's and HR can play a<br />
pivotal role.<br />
Let us not panic.<br />
In such situations, immediate drive is to<br />
focus on cost cutting, stop training and air<br />
travels - a knee jerk reaction most industries<br />
do.<br />
We saw what happened in Jet airways and<br />
Kingfisher. Assocham has already come out<br />
with a threat of 25% job cuts in certain<br />
sectors. Latest buzz word is pay cut at senior<br />
levels, reduction of manning at middle and<br />
lower levels, lesser campus recruitments<br />
and the crowd behaviour will result in an Anti<br />
IT wave.<br />
Compounding this panic will be the political<br />
muddle, as the country will be facing<br />
elections for the Parliament and also in some<br />
states - and political popularism will result<br />
in anti employer statements. Government<br />
will force regulations, restrict job cuts and<br />
lobbying for labour reforms will get media<br />
hype.<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 22<br />
Winnovation - The New Mantra<br />
Inverted Pyramid.<br />
It is true outsourcing will suffer - and that is<br />
white collar collies will not be any more in<br />
demand. The warning bells are there as the<br />
likely US President Elect Obama has spoken<br />
on job protection for sons of the soils - and<br />
this would mean lesser outsourcing. But<br />
India and China have the largest population<br />
and consumers. Their needs are going to<br />
increase. Technology has created artificial<br />
but inevitable dependencies on gadgets and<br />
the needs for such gadgets are going to<br />
increase. Hence consumption will have to<br />
be met with Winnovation - as quality and<br />
pricing are going to be the winners.<br />
Winnovation<br />
If you see the evolution of industry in the<br />
last three centuries, Taylor's Division of<br />
labour will get reinvented and the focus will<br />
shift to collaborative division of prosperity.<br />
Competing to completing advantage will<br />
become the order of the day. Pressure on<br />
regulations, reinvention of Public sectors<br />
and social security will result in innovation.<br />
Collaborative pie sharing will become the<br />
customer and business necessity. (Like the<br />
Jet and Kingfisher route sharing).<br />
As CK Prahalad says, India will have an<br />
opportunity in the innovation space and that<br />
is directionality. CEO's and HR's have more<br />
collaborative roles to create more<br />
winnovators. HR practitioners will have to<br />
be proactive and take unthreaded paths for<br />
this Winnovative journey - and 2020 - India<br />
will be the world economic and people<br />
leader.<br />
Winnovation calls for new mindsets,<br />
emotional connects and customer value<br />
adds. If energies are redirected - collective<br />
prosperity will gain credence over<br />
competitive advantage. The Social<br />
Entrepreneurship models of Aravind Eye<br />
Hospital, Mr Kurians NDDB, or the micro<br />
finance model of Mr Mohamed Yunus will<br />
become the levers for inclusive social<br />
citizenry - empowered locals and lesser<br />
migration. The 2020 dream will be achieved<br />
only through this WINNOVATION.<br />
The recession-proof business<br />
Job losses and factory closures are myth if<br />
one sincerely works without reducing<br />
– S.Deenadaylan<br />
workforce. HR has a challenge in enduring<br />
the workforce as partners in this thought<br />
process and therefore - from industrial<br />
relations, HR has to redirect its role for<br />
"INNOVATIVE RELATIONS". If we believe,<br />
that this time as we have enough irons in<br />
the fire with our customer base to make sure<br />
all are employed then we are in the<br />
Winnovative journey. . More over - how do<br />
we make the business recession proof is<br />
the new mantra every entrepreneur has to<br />
work - and that is possible by enhancing the<br />
service delivery, driving price minus and<br />
INNOVATIVE products.<br />
HR should believe that it is not a deep<br />
recession .It might be utopian or shallow.<br />
The danger is in taking ourselves into deeper<br />
recession by not looking at the<br />
OPPORTUNITY or bliss of recession. Hence<br />
businesses have to be at the customers end,<br />
add value to their recessionary challenges<br />
and need to go out and provide value added<br />
support that will make the customer survive<br />
and therefore the business we are in, not<br />
only survives but excels.<br />
Good times will come and HR should advice<br />
companies that are struggling at the moment<br />
to draw in their horns. In the past we handled<br />
it by cutting salaries, remuneration and costs<br />
and ruthless approach to staying in<br />
business. Same will apply now, but through<br />
innovative partnership with workforce who<br />
becomes part of the solution - as good time<br />
will come again and more so in the Indian<br />
situation.<br />
You just have to survive and stay patient as<br />
lucrative times are just around the corner.<br />
Winnovation calls for different strategies -<br />
the past has to be buried, and the new has<br />
to be innovated. Let us look at some new<br />
HR challenges. Creative destruction will be<br />
the only cutting edge advantage and HR<br />
partnering with CEO's to build recession<br />
proof businesses can do that.<br />
HR to play a pivotal role in minimizing the<br />
effect of corporate caste system at the time<br />
of recruiting and seems to last a lifetime.<br />
e.g. Engg Vis Diploma, Vis 10 the grade vs<br />
selection thru process for elimination. I think<br />
we need to move to a model that rewards<br />
constant skills up gradation with right<br />
S. Deenadaylan is Architect - Organizational Capability, Centre for Excellence in Organization, Bangalore. E-Mail: deen@exploreceo.com
attitudes the qualification / background<br />
should not be delimiter for growth.<br />
Engineers will do Engineering<br />
The disservice IT did to the country in the<br />
last decade was - to divert Engineers to work<br />
in low value add roles with high salary and<br />
this, resulted in uneven work balancing in<br />
the non- IT sectors. With China dumping<br />
cost effective products, Indian manufactures<br />
went through a night mare and they were<br />
not able to retain their people. Reversal is<br />
going to happen and the campuses will get<br />
in to the reality band wagon where in<br />
manufacturers will be able to hire engineers.<br />
Focus will shift to Mini-Max and value added<br />
services. What can be done with less people<br />
to get higher output, lesser cycle times and<br />
product innovation will become the drivers<br />
for those who proactively grab the emerging<br />
opportunities. In fact BPR consultants will<br />
have a good demand with six sigma, TPM<br />
and lean management focus. India will be<br />
in the positive wicket in many manufacturing<br />
sectors. Two other areas where HR needs<br />
to play a pivotal role are<br />
1. HR to collaborate with business and<br />
make non-IT jobs more appealing and<br />
socially relevant. Why is IT jobs very<br />
appealing because society has accepted it<br />
as the in thing and marriages are linked to<br />
IT Jobs<br />
2. Vocational Skills paucity vs. Excess low<br />
quality knowledge workers running against<br />
this MBA hype, Can HR play a role at the<br />
recruitment stage to bring in some more<br />
parity and emphasis towards relevant<br />
vocational skills vs. just paper MBA<br />
IT will deskill and up Skill<br />
IT Jobs will no longer be rewarding. With<br />
lesser outsourcing ITES jobs, IT captains<br />
will look inwards for domestic back end work.<br />
Also the high paid, decade plus experienced<br />
people will undergo terrific pressure on<br />
retaining their jobs and the consequence<br />
management will have to be carefully dealt<br />
with. Campus recruitments will take a<br />
beating and that is definitely a great<br />
blessing. Retention will increase and this will<br />
add to continuity of business robustness.<br />
Yes - rolling stones will disappear. This<br />
would also mean deskilled people (12th std<br />
to graduates or diploma holders) will start<br />
taking on the engineers roles.<br />
While US and Europe can reduce<br />
outsourcing, they would still need high end<br />
R&D support for winnovating the products<br />
and services. India has a better edge in this<br />
sphere. These calls for upskilling with<br />
competent engineers finding opportunities<br />
to do high end work...<br />
IT industry will be forced to play a leveller's<br />
role - and peg the compensation to realistic<br />
terms. Luxuriates and frills will be cut.<br />
Humility will replace extravagance and<br />
arrogance. Lesser depressions, suicide and<br />
better harmony will prevail. IT Captains will<br />
lobby for more SOPS.<br />
Massification to Tailorisation<br />
We will move to individual tailoring mode<br />
than mass customization or mass product<br />
dumping. The hither to marketing led brand<br />
pull and the subconscious marketing USP<br />
under the value added guise will be replaced<br />
by Value needed at the customer end.<br />
Except the high end customer who will look<br />
at value added, the new mind set will be on<br />
Value needed in the current economic down<br />
trend, will become the order of the day.<br />
Every spend will be thought twice and hence<br />
cautious customer set will have to the top<br />
of the mind recall by producers of any goods<br />
or service. Hence - being in the customers<br />
spend mind will occupy the strategic space<br />
when comes to designing, derive and drive<br />
the business plan. Mantra is going to be<br />
VALUE NEEDED - at affordable cost.<br />
HR - Attrition and work life balance.<br />
The blessing in disguise is the power of HR<br />
now will be more visible. From mere<br />
recruiter, poacher and attrition manager,<br />
they will become proactive to work on<br />
genuine deskilling and upskilling. More<br />
Industry/Academic tie ups will happen to<br />
deliver cost effective solutions, product<br />
innovations and service quality<br />
enhancements. From Rat race to reflective<br />
solution delivery will become order of the<br />
day.<br />
HR will have to focus on enhancing outputs<br />
- even doubling outputs with existing people<br />
to reduce pressures on people reduction.<br />
Sensitizing every one towards the global<br />
reality will become a greater challenge to<br />
the HR Managers. Mindless MBA hire will<br />
be replaced with customized service<br />
deliverers. New leaders with resilience will<br />
emerge.<br />
Responsible Wage - the new paradigm.<br />
No more hi tech and high wage islands. It<br />
will be HIGH TOUCH. HR will have a more<br />
responsible role now. It will challenge our<br />
Winnovative capacities. Can both<br />
Individuals and Organisations win - How can<br />
HR shape these policies, to preserve the<br />
psychological contract as well as the<br />
sustainability of the organisation. Are<br />
number cuts the only way?<br />
How can seniors in organisations,<br />
irrespective of function and industry, show<br />
the way? Will they drop their salaries and<br />
benefits? Will they take temporary<br />
retirement and rejoin when situation<br />
improves, and until then be well wishers and<br />
advisers for the company. India is full of<br />
youth and we need to harness that energy<br />
or else the radicalism of 70's will take<br />
precedence. Already resistance and bullying<br />
symptoms witnessed and employers cannot<br />
escape under Government or other<br />
protections. The leftists will play a<br />
responsive role and that is needed and has<br />
to be anticipated.<br />
Therefore responsible compensation will<br />
replace variable compensation - and social<br />
security measures will get back its glory like<br />
the 70's and 80's with pensions and<br />
Provident fund becoming a key drivers than<br />
high risk wages. Pay for performance will<br />
be replaced by Pay for sustainability.<br />
CAN WE CREATE MORE<br />
WINNOVATORS??? �H Hyderabad Chapter Programs Calender - December 2008 and January 2009<br />
Sl. No Date Time Venue Topic Speaker<br />
1 04-12-08 6 PM <strong>HRD</strong> Hall Situation Defines Leadership Mr. Noor Mohammed Farishta,Training Consultant<br />
2 11-12-08 6 PM <strong>HRD</strong> Hall Employee Recognition Mr. Vittal Rangan of Satyam Computers<br />
3 18-12-08 6 PM <strong>HRD</strong> Hall Strategic Alignment of Workforce Mr. Nandan Vaidya of Pasayadan<br />
4 25-12-08 6 PM <strong>HRD</strong> Hall HR-Third Eye of the Business Mr. Ravindra Varma, CEO Formula HR Consulting<br />
5 01-01-09 6 PM <strong>HRD</strong> Hall “Self-Management” Mr. Manas Ranjan Pradhan, Yoga Trainer<br />
6 08-01-09 6 PM <strong>HRD</strong> Hall What does “D” stand for in <strong>HRD</strong>? Mr. V. Ranga Sai, MD, Empowerz,<br />
7 15-01-09 6 PM <strong>HRD</strong> Hall People Management Skills Mr. Vikramaditya Duggal, AGM, SBI Staff College<br />
8 22-01-09 6 PM <strong>HRD</strong> Hall “IT & HR” Mr. Ram Gopal, ADP, H R<br />
9 24-01-09 Inter Colligate Quiz<br />
10 29-01-09 6 PM <strong>HRD</strong> Hall “Leveraging HR Operations<br />
in IT Industry”<br />
Mr.Rambabu Pentyala, GM-HR & Operations<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 23
The Manager at early forty, the Supervisor<br />
at the fag end of career, two operating<br />
level ladies (A & B) recruited under<br />
deceased dependent category, around their<br />
forty working with an HR department<br />
basically looking after the complicated HR<br />
operation at corporate level of an<br />
organization of fifty years of legacy. The lady<br />
A, just senior to B is well settled at personal<br />
level. Lady B the better performer is<br />
struggling yet to get settled at personal level.<br />
The Supervisor has close working affinity<br />
with B as the nitty-gritty is known to her out<br />
of long association with the department. The<br />
Supervisor is having an attitude to give<br />
dictation the subordinate and just sign the<br />
proposal. The Manager is having strong<br />
objection as it is not developing the duo for<br />
independent functioning. He quite a few<br />
times had counseling with three individually<br />
and in group too but with limited success. B<br />
being agile in work does not hold much<br />
respect to A. However as the retirement of<br />
Supervisor is fast approaching B is<br />
becoming increasingly restless and applied<br />
for transfer on personal ground probably with<br />
a fear of being exposed of her dependency<br />
of writing. The Manager agreed and<br />
recommended to a nearer home location<br />
considering her long contribution to the<br />
department. The Manager also passed an<br />
instruction to both the lady to change each<br />
other job for smooth exit. However when the<br />
transfer was agreed she informally<br />
approached the Manager to retain her on<br />
health ground. Considering her contribution<br />
the transfer issue was kept in abeyance.<br />
One day the Manager told B to carry out a<br />
small but vital issue which she was<br />
conversant with. But the lady refused in<br />
presence of A since the job was not looked<br />
after. The Manager remained calm and<br />
assured that alternative measure would be<br />
taken or at most the work would remain<br />
undone, also reminds her to stop taking<br />
dictation and produce as the same neither<br />
helping her nor the organization. She left<br />
the Managers chamber, within few seconds<br />
the Manager also followed to discuss the<br />
work with supervisor and found the lady is<br />
complaining to the old Supervisor on the<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 24<br />
"Don't Bring Your Personal<br />
Problems To Work" - Does it<br />
Really Work?<br />
dictation issue. For a moment the Manager<br />
left dumb-stocked as otherwise he had good<br />
views for B, and the supervisor start blasting<br />
and created an awkward situation for the<br />
Manager in the workplace comprising of<br />
different operating level staff and sub-staff.<br />
The organization, with the strong unionized<br />
employees, has strong bureaucratic culture.<br />
It has own standing order to deal such type<br />
of insubordination. The Manager however<br />
preferred to sat opposite to the supervisor<br />
and patiently tried to draw attention to the<br />
work rather than passing any retaliatory<br />
comment. He also politely told the<br />
Supervisor to become calm and if any<br />
differences get it settled in the chamber as<br />
the open eruption would not bring any glory<br />
to either of them. He was requested to focus<br />
on the issue and the total issue was defused<br />
within moment and they started usual<br />
business. The Manager reported the<br />
incident informally to his superior. The lady<br />
B developed a frightening relation with the<br />
Manager. The lady A after couple of days<br />
told the manager that whatever happened<br />
it was out of such unbecoming reaction on<br />
the part of her colleague. The Manager<br />
advised her to remain focus on the materially<br />
relevant issue and ignore reacting to every<br />
individualistic issue.<br />
People can argue on the Manager's<br />
competency - his weakness or his leadership<br />
quality with high level of emotional<br />
intelligence. There may be debate on<br />
portraying the characteristic of individual and<br />
the role played by them. But larger argument<br />
is appropriateness of emotion at the work.<br />
"Don't bring your personal problems to work"<br />
is one variant of the argument. The business<br />
decisions certainly require to be based on<br />
information, logic and reasoning, with<br />
emotions kept to a minimum but what about<br />
decision when one handle people - can one<br />
expect prototype solution. Some may<br />
advocate the emotional neutrality and argue<br />
to keep feelings out of sight but it is<br />
unrealistic to expect that emotions are<br />
checked at the door when one arrives at<br />
work.<br />
The peoples' emotional response over the<br />
passage of time changes as it depends on<br />
– Indranil Banerjee<br />
number of variant and personal issues. So,<br />
argument of ignoring one emotional issue<br />
while tackling the people does not makes<br />
sense. The people think otherwise often,<br />
work as rigid, detached, fearful and fail to<br />
participate fully in the workplace. This is not<br />
necessarily bad in some situations, but it is<br />
generally not good for an organization for<br />
such people to play vital HR roles. The HR<br />
manager also being human spends a lot of<br />
time to their work place, it is natural to form<br />
a sort of bonding with employees. Should it<br />
or not have emotional bonding with the<br />
employees - is a complex question. The HR<br />
need to implement policy and practice with<br />
fairness and objectivity. It is also imperative<br />
to interpret the spirit and intention of policy<br />
rather than the content. There is nothing<br />
wrong of having emotional bonding with the<br />
employee unless it hampers the work. The<br />
manager needs to be cautious so that the<br />
policies are not overlooked and things do<br />
not go against the organizations wellbeing.<br />
One gets emotionally attached to the<br />
employees with no prior plan. It is the kind<br />
of empathy and concern one develop on<br />
interacting regularly.<br />
While concluding, it is how assertive and<br />
diplomatic individual projecting the practices,<br />
policies or rules is all what matters. The ability<br />
to make these judgments well is the difference<br />
between knowledge and practice. The<br />
employees find translucent environment when<br />
the HR shows concern to them. The HR role<br />
as both employee and employers advocate<br />
works as a bridge. Thus if he prefer to remain<br />
unemotional, develops a gap in perception<br />
which leads employee dissatisfaction and<br />
hampers organization productivity. The<br />
acknowledgement of employee as individuals<br />
with different needs, wants, moods, skills and<br />
knowledge and respond to individuals quite<br />
differently increases the organization<br />
effectiveness.<br />
Mr. Indranil Banerjee Manager (P&A) Corporate IR, WB State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd. Kolkata. He can be reached at<br />
indranil.hr@gmail.com<br />
� H
Leadership development is a continuous<br />
process - one that never stops. One of<br />
the most effective training methodologies<br />
is that of Experiential Learning. Why is<br />
Experiential learning considered a more<br />
powerful and effective learning tool?<br />
I am sure most of us have learnt to ride a<br />
bicycle as a child. But how many of us took<br />
notes while learning to ride? I don’t think<br />
any one of us did! What did we do? Some<br />
one held the seat, while we practiced the<br />
fine art of balancing and after sometime<br />
that person let go of the seat & with that<br />
great rush of adrenalin we peddled<br />
tentatively, then furiously – exhilarated with<br />
the joy of having learnt to balance – then<br />
what happened? Suddenly someone steps<br />
in front of us – the brain froze and we either<br />
jammed hard on the brakes and fell down<br />
or turned the handle hard left or right and<br />
dashed against a tree or the side walk – a<br />
few bruises, physical as well as to the ego<br />
and we were up again. We picked up the<br />
cycle, climbed on and got on with the task<br />
of cycling.<br />
Did we take notes? Did we make a note of<br />
what the rpm of the pedal wheel was, the<br />
gearing ratio between the pedal wheel and<br />
the sprocket wheel and the rpm of the main<br />
wheel – no! What about center of gravity,<br />
fulcrum, balance, the law of moments etc<br />
– once again – a no! In how many nano<br />
seconds did we press the brakes etc? We<br />
did nothing of the sort. Does all this come<br />
automatically or did the brain actually take<br />
notes? Ladies and gentlemen the brain did<br />
take notes – without us knowing it or even<br />
realizing it. It noted everything and the next<br />
time we cycled and someone steps in our<br />
path, the brain does not freeze, it<br />
involuntarily calculates all the options<br />
possible, which it has refined because of<br />
the previous experience and takes<br />
appropriate avoiding action – be it pressing<br />
Developing Leadership<br />
Through Experiential Learning<br />
the break in 2 nano seconds instead of the<br />
earlier 1 nano sec or giving a 21/2 degrees<br />
throw off instead of the violent jerk and at<br />
the same time slowing down the rate of<br />
pedaling to control the balance to ensure<br />
a smooth stop or a miss. Ladies and<br />
gentlemen, what the brain has done is<br />
learnt from the previous experience and<br />
that is experiential learning.<br />
Same is the case with swimming. How<br />
many of us learnt about Archimedes<br />
principle – negative buoyancy, positive<br />
buoyancy, and neutral trim – none of us,<br />
but we still learnt how to swim. Even after<br />
25 years, if we are again given a cycle or<br />
put in a swimming pool, we would be able<br />
to balance and ride the cycle and we would<br />
not go to the bottom of the pool. That is<br />
the power of experiential learning. The<br />
brain does not forget it easily until some<br />
other powerful experience causes the brain<br />
to rewire itself and unlearn the previous<br />
experience.<br />
My contention is that all behavioral skills<br />
are best imbibed experientially. How to<br />
stand, talk, walk, eat, all interpersonal skills,<br />
understanding of each other are behavioral<br />
traits best learnt through experiences of life.<br />
How to shake hands – experiential learning.<br />
One does not read an article ‘bring your<br />
fingers together, palm upright, apply<br />
pressure between 5 – 8 kg/ sq cm……’ –<br />
you can forget shaking of hands. One<br />
actually takes the hand and shakes it &<br />
learns the art of shaking hands for life.<br />
That experience of falling down the cycle<br />
and bruising our elbows or knees is a vital<br />
ingredient in the experiential learning<br />
process. Tougher your life experiences,<br />
more profound the learning.<br />
How does one develop into a leader? Gurus<br />
suggest that leaders are made - that one<br />
can learn the art of leadership. If it can be<br />
– Cdr Girish V Konkar (Retd)<br />
learnt how does one learn it? Leadership<br />
cannot be learnt by mugging up theory.<br />
From theory one can only understand what<br />
traits are needed in order to become a good<br />
leader.<br />
People learn about leadership<br />
experientially. The way we become leaders<br />
is by learning about leadership thorough<br />
life and job experiences, not with university<br />
degrees. It’s about on the job education.<br />
People learn to be leaders through difficult<br />
experiences and when they face adversity.<br />
They learn through the pain and agony of<br />
having to come up with hard answers.<br />
Ultimately the only way people learn about<br />
leadership is by being placed into situations<br />
from where they can learn and get feedback<br />
from valued sources around them. One of<br />
the best methods of grooming leaders is<br />
through the outbound experiential learning<br />
process and workshops designed<br />
specifically to bring about the leadership<br />
qualities required to be imbibed by the<br />
individuals. These experiences as<br />
mentioned above need necessarily to be<br />
profound and brain altering ones rather<br />
than simple games. More profound the<br />
experiences more powerful the brain<br />
understands them and implements them in<br />
leadership situations. Numerous<br />
experiences over time give the brain a<br />
library of responses and this develops into<br />
intuitive qualities of a person. Intuition can<br />
hence be developed from experiences and<br />
leaders are necessarily intuitive. As Warren<br />
Bennis, the Leadership Guru says,<br />
Leadership doesn’t come from genes. It<br />
doesn’t come from reading or listening to<br />
lectures. It comes through the hard earned<br />
experience in the arena than watching from<br />
the balcony.<br />
Leadership & Team building is hence<br />
imbibed through the crucible of life’s<br />
experiences – not through books and<br />
classrooms. �H Cdr. Girish Konkar is the CEO of Beyond Horizons-Institute for Leadership & Organisational Excellence,Pune. E-mail: girishkonkar@vsnl.net.<br />
<strong>IS</strong>TD Commendable Award to Dr. Pandu Naik’s Book<br />
The book, “<strong>HRD</strong> Solutions for Excellence in Training and Development” authored by Dr. Pandu Naik, Senior<br />
Manager – Learning & Development, Karle group of Companies, Bangalore and Former Elected Board Member of<br />
<strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> and published by Excel Books in 2007 has received <strong>IS</strong>TD Commendable Award.<br />
<strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> Congratulates Dr Pandu Naik on winning this award.<br />
Dr Pandu Naik can be reached on his e-mail: pandunaik@karlegroup.com<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 25
“All the wealth of the world cannot help<br />
one Indian village, if people are not<br />
taught to help themselves”<br />
- Swami Vivekananda<br />
Are you Involved or Committed?<br />
During the inaugural function of The Centre<br />
for Social Initiative and Management two<br />
years back, profounding thoughts in the<br />
simple analogy bringing out the difference<br />
between Involvement and Commitment<br />
was quoted giving the example of cost of<br />
omelets Vs Bacon by SVYM. It was said<br />
that hen contributes to omelets through the<br />
route of egg and while Hen is involved, in<br />
the case of Bacon, the pig is committed<br />
which means, its life is in the Bacon. Many<br />
of us have choice to be involved or<br />
committed – and probably the latter calls<br />
for a bigger purpose. And is Dr R<br />
Balasubramaniam involved or committed<br />
is what the Zero to Hero story is about?<br />
The authors are experienced and<br />
committed and as of now are only involved<br />
in writing this article. We need to work<br />
towards the commitment.<br />
A Socially Engineered Medico<br />
In today’s world more so in the last three<br />
decades, the choice for youth between<br />
Engineering and Medicine has always been<br />
a dilemma - and Dr. R. Balasubramaniam<br />
(Dr.B) is no exception. Meritorious – he<br />
automatically got in to Mechanical<br />
Engineering with BMS College. His high %<br />
marks and love for computers and NIIT<br />
deterred him into choosing Medicine. Being<br />
in the medical filed was more an accident<br />
than intention. Very few will have such<br />
liberty of letting go engineering and choose<br />
medicine when choices are today led by<br />
capitation fee, DR. B was an exception. He<br />
got every thing sans capitation fee.<br />
His experience on the first day in college<br />
was not worth going back again and he<br />
dreaded the very thought of it due to loss of<br />
confidence. So, he then walked into<br />
Ramakrishna Ashram nearby and later visited<br />
the library almost every single day where he<br />
spent hours reading and knowing about the<br />
life of Swami Vivekananda and his teachings.<br />
On Sept 30th the same year he got a call<br />
from Mysore Medical College and this he<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 26<br />
Revolution At The Roots<br />
Zero to Hero<br />
felt came as a Divine providence. Here he<br />
had the path being paved for him to prove<br />
his desire to do something different. He<br />
joined the Medical College on 3rd of Oct<br />
without hesitation and second thoughts. He<br />
qualified with flying colors as a professional<br />
Doctor from Mysore Medical College,<br />
Mysore. He has specialized in Hospital and<br />
Health Systems Management by doing his<br />
MPhil from BITS-Pilani.<br />
Inner Call of Swami Vivekananda<br />
through books<br />
May be it is a cosmic will, the spiritualist<br />
will say or mere accident, the rationalists<br />
will claim, the urban bred started thinking<br />
of the unsung tribal and their health.<br />
He had no idea what was in store for him<br />
and where the path chosen would lead him<br />
to.... he thought his life would now mean<br />
staying in a forest in a hut doing social<br />
service but never even realized vaguely<br />
that his initiative would grow into a huge<br />
movement in 25 years with more than 500<br />
volunteers and 20 offices both in India and<br />
outside India.<br />
Born on 04th May 1965 in the then<br />
Bangalore, and urban bred, had his early<br />
education in Bangalore.<br />
The two books that inspired him the most<br />
are ‘Call to the Nation’ and ‘To the Youth<br />
of India’<br />
In this Internet world - books and libraries<br />
are not the desired behavior. Books<br />
changed his path and a lesson for all the<br />
urban bred on how to move from<br />
involvement to a greater journey of<br />
COMMITMENT and that to in the pursuit<br />
of nation building. The teachings of Swami<br />
Vivekananda and Dr B’s personal life very<br />
well synchronized and the life learnings can<br />
be reflected philosophically<br />
� Ridicule (was mocked at for the path<br />
chosen)<br />
– Captain Pearl and S.Deenadayalan<br />
� Opposition (was beaten and even<br />
taken by the Police)<br />
� Acceptance (is what he sees now<br />
coming up gradually)<br />
Every Social worker needs to have<br />
� Purity<br />
� Patience and<br />
� Perseverance<br />
Today Dr .B proudly talks of his<br />
achievement in building an extra ordinary,<br />
great, committed and dedicated team,<br />
which gives him a significant sense of<br />
satisfaction.<br />
Power of Youth<br />
When Swami Vivekanada said give me 100<br />
youths, “I will change the world,” the power<br />
of youth was never internalized the way Dr<br />
B did it. And Dr B was not a Swami when<br />
he did – but his conviction resulted in his<br />
peer medicos joining him in the movement<br />
of nation building. At that young age of<br />
idealism pulled by materialistic pressures<br />
and pleasures with urban background, few<br />
can imagine the societal exclusion by the<br />
so-called elitists or the socially wise.<br />
The Medico team that sowed the<br />
movement along with him needs special<br />
mention. You see some of the early team<br />
members photo and their energy is still<br />
youthful after 20 plus years<br />
Sustaining Value Based Enrichment<br />
Dr Bs vision is to essentially develop the<br />
nation by providing security to all kinds of<br />
people be it Food and nutrition, ecological,<br />
Dr R Balasubramaniam, Dr Chandrasekhar,<br />
Dr Devraj Acharya, Dr Paul Selvam, Dr Minaketan<br />
Singh, Dr Chandrapa.<br />
Captain Pearl and S.Deenadayalan, Centre for Excellence in Organization, Bangalore. E-mail: deen@exploreceo.com
Political etc.and real development involves<br />
various entities like the Govt., the NGO’s,<br />
Corporates and the community home we<br />
live in. Hence the vision of SVYM is a caring<br />
and equitable society, free of deprivation<br />
and strife.<br />
Dr B focused on good governance and anti<br />
corruption. SVYM stands by its core values<br />
of Satya (Truth), Ahmisa (Non-violence),<br />
Seva (Service) and Tyaga (sacrifice). In<br />
fighting corruption, the SVYM uses the<br />
tools of Right to Information act and social<br />
audit route and this is the tool that educates<br />
the communities to enhance their right.<br />
The initial activities consisted of supplying<br />
free physicians to the poor patients,<br />
arranging blood for needy patients and<br />
patient counseling. In the initial years he<br />
ran rural health clinics in two villages near<br />
Mysore city. In 1987, the District<br />
Commissioner of Mysore who recognized<br />
his work drew his attention to<br />
Heggadadevanakote (H.D. Kote) taluk, one<br />
of the most backward taluks in Karnataka<br />
State and home of the displaced and<br />
dispossessed tribal.<br />
Health Care to Holistic Care<br />
As time passed, he realized that health care<br />
was only one aspect of bettering the tribals’<br />
life. Sustained enrichment could be<br />
achieved only through education, a steady<br />
earning and saving capacity, a broader<br />
social outlook and assimilation with the<br />
main stream. Responding to this, he started<br />
a non formal school which evolved into a<br />
the present ‘Viveka Tribal Centre for<br />
Learning’, a semi residential school,<br />
providing quality education to nearly 400<br />
children and acting as a nodal centre for<br />
educational excellence in the taluk. Further<br />
to this, increasingly his and SVYM’s<br />
assistance was sought by greater number<br />
of people in more and different ways. Thus<br />
the ommunity development program aims<br />
to create self-sufficiency and self-reliance<br />
through pooled resources, awareness and<br />
training.<br />
Moving the Mountain to Mohammed<br />
“Educate the people so that they may learn<br />
to be self-sufficient, frugal…if the poor<br />
cannot come for education, education<br />
should reach the poor”<br />
Urban to rural mind shift is a big challenge<br />
and to Dr.B, the commitment was such that<br />
he chose to keep the area of operation in<br />
Heggadadevanakote Taluk in Mysore<br />
District of Karnataka, India.<br />
SVYM has various institution-based and<br />
community based Health and Education<br />
projects and also undertakes several<br />
Community Development Initiatives,<br />
catering to a populace of about 300,000<br />
comprising both tribal and non-tribal. The<br />
reach of these activities also extend to the<br />
neighboring Taluks, namely Hunsur,<br />
Nanjangud and Gundlupet<br />
SVYM has a state-of-the-art training cum<br />
resource center at Mysore. This center also<br />
serves as a base for urban-based health<br />
and education initiatives and also for the<br />
students’ wing of the Mysore Chapter.<br />
SVYM also works in the most backward<br />
regions of North Karnataka, particularly in<br />
the districts of Bijapur , Raichur and<br />
Bagalkot. Here, in addition to direct<br />
intervention in Health and Education<br />
sectors, it also trains and builds capacities<br />
of like-minded budding NGOs.<br />
SVYM also works in Hassan district of<br />
Karnataka, mainly in the field of HIV/AIDS.<br />
SVYM has a pan-India foot print through<br />
its Training, Research, Advocacy and<br />
Consultancy activities. Emancipating and<br />
empowering is a challenge and SVYM has<br />
achieved this to a greater extent. Ordinary<br />
to Extraordinary is what DR B lives for.<br />
SVYM has chapters in Kodagu &<br />
Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka.<br />
These chapters, run by members of SVYM,<br />
carry out locally and contextually relevant<br />
projects, with guidance from the<br />
administrative office. The soon-to-be<br />
commissioned office at Bangalore will serve<br />
as SVYM’s liaison center and also as a<br />
focal point for all state level projects run by<br />
SVYM.<br />
An Indian Approach<br />
Indians have demonstrated to the world<br />
that our native intelligence is far superior<br />
and should not be mindlessly subjugated<br />
to the Western values. DR.B and team have<br />
done wonderful work in the interiors of the<br />
country when many of us are wasting our<br />
precious time on the high ways and traffic<br />
jams - and readers can draw inspiration<br />
from such elitist professionals who are<br />
making heroes in the un reached areas of<br />
the country. More so, India is going to lead<br />
the world in the youth movement and can<br />
1 % of Indian youth take such leads, the<br />
world will be different. Our team comprising<br />
Captain Pearl and Harish Reddy visited<br />
their Coorg facilities, spent time in their �H Mysore facilities and in a small way carry<br />
their message through this article.<br />
Vivekananda Institute of Indian Studies<br />
(VI<strong>IS</strong>), created for promoting and facilitating<br />
the study, Research, Development and<br />
Dissemination of Indian Culture,<br />
Spirituality, Arts, Dance, Music, and the<br />
like. Looking beyond the ‘art and culture’<br />
in itself, the Institute attempts to augment<br />
holistic Human Development Initiatives<br />
through the forum of Art and Culture.<br />
VI<strong>IS</strong> is located at Hebbal, Mysore right off<br />
the Ring Road, which makes it easily<br />
accessible. The academic activities of all<br />
courses of VI<strong>IS</strong> are conducted in the<br />
training centre, which houses the spacious<br />
classrooms, Library, Knowledge centre,<br />
Computer lab and the Administrative<br />
section. The well-organized Resource<br />
Centre in the Institute provides for<br />
appropriate resource support for the<br />
individual as well as academic requirement.<br />
Saragur , the place where SVYM<br />
headquartered, is well connected by road<br />
to the nearest town Mysore which is about<br />
60 km away. The nearest airport is<br />
Bangalore (200 km away).<br />
And spreading wings abroad<br />
An independent and registered body<br />
named Swami Vivekanada Youth<br />
Movement of North America (SVYM of NA),<br />
established by members of SVYM,<br />
coordinates activities in USA and Canada.<br />
Memorable Achievements<br />
Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement is<br />
the recipient of the following awards:<br />
<strong>National</strong> Youth Award for 1991-92 from<br />
Govt. of India<br />
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar State Award for 2002<br />
from Govt. of Karnataka<br />
Sat Paul Mittal <strong>National</strong> Award for 2003,<br />
from Nehru Siddhant Kendra Trust,<br />
Ludhiana<br />
Bhagavan Mahaveer Award for 2004,<br />
from Bhagavan Mahaveer Foundation,<br />
Chennai<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 27
01. Now the H.R. function has become<br />
one of the four main pillars of any<br />
organization after Operations, Finance<br />
and Marketing. In the past its role was<br />
mostly confined to Welfare, Personnel<br />
Management, Industrial Relations and<br />
Public Relations. Now the following<br />
subjects need more attention.<br />
(a) O.D (Organization Development)<br />
(b) Retention.<br />
(c) Motivation, Mentoring & Counseling.<br />
(d) <strong>HRD</strong><br />
(e) C.S.R (Corporate Social Responsibility)<br />
(f) Outsourcing.<br />
(g) Temping.<br />
(h) Outplacement<br />
(i) In-placement.<br />
(j) Corporate Communications.<br />
(k) Net working and Relationship<br />
Management.<br />
(l) Health Management of employees.<br />
(m) Employee welfare expanded to cover<br />
Cooperative Societies, Children's<br />
education, Conveyance,<br />
02.<br />
Accommodation, travel arrangement,<br />
event management.<br />
While the other three functional heads<br />
are busy in their technical and<br />
commercial working, the H.R. has to<br />
concentrate on making the best<br />
services available from the employees<br />
on sustainable basis. This has to be<br />
achieved as per the Constitution,<br />
Legislation and Ethics with due<br />
regards attention for safety, harmony,<br />
and cost. For this objective, we need<br />
proactive approach instead of<br />
conventional reactive approach.<br />
In the Conventional reactive approach,<br />
an H.R. Executive was busy with the<br />
day to day problems in preparing the<br />
Notes, replies, compromising<br />
negotiations, settlements and damage<br />
control. In proactive approach, the<br />
H.R. Executive has got definite<br />
schedule by preparing stock of<br />
answers/responses for different<br />
situations. Major share in the<br />
conventional H.R. was looking for<br />
precedents while the proactive<br />
approach depend on Initiatives,<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 28<br />
Proactive Approach<br />
For H.R. Function.<br />
Improvement , Imaginations and<br />
Innovations.<br />
Some steps are outlined which will<br />
help in improving harmony, team work<br />
and commitment in the organization.<br />
03. Pre selection stage. In these days<br />
competent persons are observing the<br />
responses of a company before they<br />
join. Treatment, etc. before selection<br />
is going to play a major role in<br />
attracting people. Utmost courtesy has<br />
to be extended for the candidates by<br />
offering Tea, Snacks, guidance /<br />
transport at the Venue. Courtesy has<br />
to be extended even for those who are<br />
not selected. Type of selection<br />
behavior of the selectors also will play<br />
major role. Bureaucratic approach is<br />
going to discourage freshers.<br />
04. Pre-placement - Selected candidates<br />
will have their own expectations /<br />
problems, etc. which may conflict with<br />
the induction program. Some of the<br />
problems / issues are listed below:<br />
(i) Studying Post Graduation - Wants<br />
extension to join.<br />
(ii) Needs 3 to 4 months to leave the<br />
present organization (Notice period).<br />
(iii) Ceremonies like Marriage or some<br />
other functions.<br />
(iv) Spouse's job.<br />
(v) Negotiating for some more Increments<br />
/ higher emoluments. There may be<br />
some more issues, but instead of<br />
looking to each situation, an approved<br />
policy frame work should be made<br />
available to the H R Executives before<br />
hand. Otherwise, H R Executive has<br />
to take approvals case by case which<br />
will consume precious time of the<br />
senior executives and may lead for<br />
non-uniformity. Any relaxation of<br />
duration for induction program will<br />
lower its importance and may lead for<br />
total negligence.<br />
(vi) Temporary accommodation to the<br />
freshers to be arranged in advance.<br />
(vii) School problems for children.<br />
Guidance or coordination is necessary<br />
for those who are strangers to the<br />
town.<br />
– P.C. Sharma<br />
05. INDUCTION PROGRAMME: In the<br />
Armed forces, some induction<br />
programs are there for every 6<br />
months. Hence, if a person seeks<br />
extension for joining date, he is given<br />
time to join in the next batch of<br />
induction, instead of giving extension.<br />
This is, because the induction<br />
programs are very important. Such<br />
programs may be possible for bigger<br />
organizations with more than one<br />
batch per year. In case of small<br />
organizations, it is better to be strict<br />
before joining time and communicate<br />
in the order itself that the dates of<br />
joining are non negotiable. It is better<br />
to mention as follows:<br />
In case, you are not joining on or<br />
before specified time ie. xx<br />
xx xx, it is presumed that you are no<br />
longer interested and hence, the order<br />
stands cancelled.<br />
Each organization has to give a booklet<br />
for different designations<br />
highlighting Mission, Vision and<br />
Historical background of the<br />
organization. Achievements, Awards,<br />
C S R (Corporate Social<br />
Responsibility), etc. It is not sufficient<br />
to give one or two pamphlets along<br />
with standing orders or issue Conduct<br />
Disciplinary Rules. Some<br />
organizations are giving temporary<br />
accommodation for 3 to 7 days, but<br />
ultimately the new recruit is asked to<br />
look after himself for accommodation.<br />
Since there are some agencies<br />
available nowadays to help in<br />
arranging accommodation also, it is<br />
better to have an understanding with<br />
such Agencies by paying service<br />
charges for searching. The employee<br />
will pay rent as per the hired<br />
accommodation, but he / she will not<br />
be having any worry because of<br />
exploitation by the Agencies. The<br />
problem is simple wherever township<br />
accommodation / leased<br />
accommodation is available. The<br />
Public Relations Dept. should be given<br />
to look after such things. In Western<br />
countries furnished accommodation is<br />
provided for tenants. This practice has<br />
P C Sharma is Chief GM - <strong>HRD</strong>, The Singareni Collieries Company Ltd E-Mail: hrd1_crp@scclmines.com/ hrd_crp@scclmines.com
not picked up in India. As a result, an<br />
employee has to follow up for Ration<br />
Card, Gas connection, School<br />
admission, Opening Bank Account,<br />
Procurement of furniture, vehicles, etc.<br />
before joining. For this purpose, the<br />
Executive has to apply leave, which<br />
may affect the work in the<br />
06.<br />
organization. Hence, it is better to hire<br />
some Agencies to do all these things<br />
as they will be doing for groups.<br />
Service changes can be collected from<br />
employees if they seek such services.<br />
HEALTH MANAGEMENT: Because<br />
of the present educational system,<br />
many persons are not aware of<br />
standard health parameters regarding<br />
Blood Pressure, Sugar levels, Eye<br />
sight, Heart condition, etc. Hence, in<br />
each induction program, the person<br />
has to be guided on health activities<br />
on the first day itself by giving a health<br />
card along with a book let. If this is<br />
not done, the organization has to shell<br />
out huge amount to look after their<br />
health at later stages. It can become<br />
an issue with Trade Unions. Even<br />
Vipasana and Yoga training are<br />
worthwhile in the initial stages.<br />
07. Net working & Relationship<br />
Management: Our employees<br />
shouldn't be introverts. They should<br />
have an image and competency to get<br />
things done internally and externally.<br />
Hence, they should be encouraged to<br />
08.<br />
have professional networking.<br />
Self Development - Promote Self<br />
development as follows:<br />
(i) Internet facility (ii) Library with books<br />
& Journals.<br />
(iii) Presentation of papers<br />
(iv) Encourage innovation<br />
(v) Reimbursement of fees for part time<br />
computer courses.<br />
(vi) Encourage study with in-house library.<br />
09. Domain Knowledge Management -<br />
Help in updating domain knowledge<br />
through (i) Books (ii) Journals (iii)<br />
Seminars (iv) Workshops (v) distance<br />
education with some incentive.<br />
10. I.T Knowledge -<br />
(i) Application of I.T for the Company's<br />
activities. (ii) Try to move towards<br />
paperless office.<br />
11. Career growth & New Challenges -<br />
(i) Project opportunities for career<br />
growth.<br />
(ii) Help in developing specialization and<br />
expertise.<br />
(iii) Prepare for new responsibilities.<br />
12. Recognition, Rewards & Awards -<br />
Financial, Non-financial incentives for<br />
(i) Excellent results (ii) Publication of<br />
Papers & Books. (iii) Competitions.<br />
13. Creativity & Innovation - Create<br />
opportunities for creativity,<br />
improvement,<br />
inventions.<br />
innovations and<br />
13. Corporate Social Responsibility (C<br />
S R) - Those who are associated with<br />
Corporate Social Responsibility can be<br />
encouraged to do better to help the<br />
needy and project good image of the<br />
Company as per approved budget and<br />
guidelines.<br />
14. Vigilance & Intelligence - Vigilance<br />
does a job of reporting on the frauds,<br />
lapses, wastage, sabotage, etc. But<br />
intelligence can be activated to know<br />
those who are going dedicated work<br />
and creating new records of<br />
excellence. Role models have to be<br />
identified to encourage others.<br />
15. Junior Board<br />
Keep a list of some talented<br />
youngsters (under35 years) as an<br />
informal group called "Junior Board".<br />
Encourage them to give inputs /<br />
decisions for the future projects,<br />
decision making, with documents, etc.<br />
16. Create and update Website with touch<br />
screen facilities for accessing the<br />
Company information.<br />
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT<br />
The author expresses gratitude to the<br />
Management of S.C.Co.Ltd. for the<br />
encouragement. The I T & M,<br />
Warangal has given this opportunity<br />
to present a paper on the latest in H.R.<br />
with futuristic approach. Suggestions<br />
can be sent to my e.mail �H Carried form Page 37 Coaching Executives Through Career Transitions in Corporations<br />
attitude, perspective and behavior that<br />
the Executive requires to be more<br />
effective. Training or projects can be<br />
more effective in developing<br />
b.<br />
knowledge or specific skills.<br />
Coaching is more effective at dealing<br />
with attitudes and perspectives. When<br />
talented executives move from<br />
responsibilities at one crossroad layer<br />
to responsibilities at another, shifts in<br />
focus require new perspectives, in<br />
addition to specific skills. Coaching<br />
addresses perspectives most<br />
effectively out of all other<br />
c.<br />
developmental inputs. As Robert<br />
Goodman3 has written, "perspective<br />
taking is a crucial underlying cognitive<br />
and interpersonal capacity that directs<br />
how leaders define, approach and<br />
implement their work."<br />
A coach acts as a thought provoker,<br />
sounding board and feedback<br />
provider among other roles. As<br />
Executives take on bigger<br />
responsibilities in an organizational<br />
pyramid, they get lonelier as they<br />
typically have fewer confidants they<br />
d.<br />
can share their concerns, issues and<br />
thoughts with. A coach can effectively<br />
provide an impartial and objective<br />
sounding board for the Executive to<br />
bounce off his or her concerns.<br />
Despite all the management research<br />
and studies which stress on how<br />
important feedback is for improving<br />
performance, a McKinsey study in<br />
2004 found that only 39% of executives<br />
surveyed by them had received candid<br />
feedback on performance. A coach, as<br />
a sounding board and feedback<br />
provider, can enhance the Executive's<br />
awareness of implications of his or her<br />
thoughts and actions which help in<br />
aligning perspectives leading to<br />
appropriate action.<br />
e. Coaching is action oriented and is<br />
focused on bringing about change in<br />
the client's perspectives, thoughts and<br />
behaviors. Sustainable change<br />
requires that an Executive recognizes<br />
and understands deeper motivators for<br />
his or her behavior. This is what a<br />
coach does by definition. Therefore,<br />
coaching is much more effective than<br />
other methods in bringing about<br />
sustainable change.<br />
7. Conclusion<br />
In a world where talent is considered one<br />
of the critical success factors for<br />
organizations, and at a time when various<br />
researches have concluded that shortage<br />
of leadership talent is one of the biggest<br />
concerns of corporations globally, planned<br />
and targeted executive coaching for<br />
executives and leaders will help<br />
organizations build a leadership pipeline<br />
to provide talent as organizations grow and<br />
evolve. The McKinsey survey referred to<br />
earlier revealed that the top performing<br />
leaders increase productivity, sales,<br />
revenues by as much as 40 % plus<br />
depending on the role. Coaching, as a<br />
developmental initiative can be structured<br />
to develop leaders in the organization,<br />
especially as executives make career<br />
transitions moving from one crossroad layer<br />
to another, enhancing the overall leadership<br />
effectiveness in organizations. � H<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 29
12th <strong>National</strong> Conference<br />
Beyond Challenges, the HR function<br />
rejuvenates itself!<br />
The <strong>National</strong> Conference of the N<strong>HRD</strong><br />
<strong>Network</strong> is the most looked forward to<br />
event on the calendar of any HR<br />
professional in the country. This year, the<br />
12 th <strong>National</strong> Conference, at Chennai,<br />
assumed even greater significance in the<br />
context of the overall economic scenario.<br />
The Conference was an opportunity to<br />
share experiences and gather ideas,<br />
especially on the challenges that the new<br />
economic order will throw up and what<br />
can be done to prepare for those<br />
challenges.<br />
The theme of this year’s Conference was<br />
“What’s Beyond? HR’s Next Agenda”.<br />
Within the broad ambit of this theme, the<br />
Conference addressed issues covering<br />
all aspects of the HR function: creating<br />
robust pipelines for talent acquisition,<br />
building leadership capabilities, the<br />
development of the new-age HR<br />
professional, the future of trade unions<br />
as well as HR for the new value chain of<br />
partners, channels and vendors. The<br />
differing expectations for varied sectors<br />
– the new ‘Indian MNC’ and the Public<br />
Sector – were highlighted and the means<br />
of meeting those expectations were<br />
shared.<br />
Despite the sombre mood after the<br />
attacks in Mumbai and the grey skies<br />
caused by a cyclone in Chennai, over<br />
700 delegates, including those from 11<br />
other countries, attended the<br />
Conference. The pre-conference<br />
features included the online N<strong>HRD</strong>N HR<br />
Quiz and Power<strong>Network</strong>ing, a unique<br />
feature allowing a delegate the<br />
opportunity to connect up with fellowdelegates<br />
even before arriving at<br />
Chennai. Delegates came to Chennai<br />
from all over – the two days of the<br />
Conference saw the diversity of the<br />
country represented in many ways,<br />
indicating a desire to propagate the best<br />
HR practices across industries and<br />
organizations, all over the land.<br />
Welcoming the delegates, Mr. Aquil<br />
Busrai, <strong>National</strong> President, N<strong>HRD</strong>N,<br />
touched upon the various initiatives taken<br />
by the N<strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> towards building<br />
up the body of HR knowledge in the<br />
country. Mr. David Nallathambi,<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 30<br />
President, Chennai Chapter of the N<strong>HRD</strong>N<br />
set the context for the Conference in his<br />
opening remarks.<br />
Mr. Ramadorai, CEO & Managing Director,<br />
TCS Ltd, the Conference Chairman,<br />
touched upon three foundational themes<br />
for building the HR Agenda for the future.<br />
He listed them as Leadership,<br />
Inclusiveness and Managing the People<br />
Life Cycle. Expanding on these themes, he<br />
urged HR managers to understand the new<br />
behaviours required to thrive in the new<br />
environment, to work with the communities<br />
outside the organization to understand how<br />
to foster inclusiveness and to view the<br />
People Life Cycle from the perspective of<br />
a single employee. Dr. PVR Murthy,<br />
<strong>National</strong> Secretary N<strong>HRD</strong>N, profusely<br />
thanked the Conference Chairman, Mr.<br />
Ramadorai for his active guidance and<br />
support all through.<br />
In delivering a keynote address, Mr. Rajesh<br />
Nambiar, VP & General Manager – Global<br />
Delivery, IBM India, stressed that the ability<br />
to manage change is an essential<br />
ingredient of the agenda for the new age,<br />
with organizations being disruptive with<br />
regard to their businesses and business<br />
models. Mr. Babu L.Lakshmanan,<br />
Chairman, Rane Holdings reminded the<br />
delegates that HR has a significant role to<br />
play in institution building, which should be<br />
the cornerstone when evolving new ways<br />
of working in organizations.<br />
The results of India’s first ever “State of<br />
HR” survey were shared by Mr. N.S.Rajan,<br />
Partner, Human Capital, Ernst & Young.<br />
This complete report of this survey would<br />
form the definitive report on HR practices<br />
in the country, covering a broad range of<br />
industry sectors and organization types.<br />
More than 30 other speakers dealt with<br />
various specific aspects of HR<br />
The Conference also saw the formal launch<br />
of the HR Compass, the authoritative model<br />
for assessing HR competencies. The HR<br />
Compass is a result of 5 years of in-depth<br />
research and has been jointly developed<br />
by the N<strong>HRD</strong>N, CII and XLRI Jamshedpur.<br />
With stringent tests and exhaustive reports,<br />
the HR Compass is geared towards<br />
elevating the HR practitioner to a globally<br />
competent HR professional. Also launched<br />
during the Conference was N<strong>HRD</strong>N’s<br />
completely re-designed national website<br />
(www.nationalhrd.org).<br />
Several of the senior HR leaders and<br />
academicians in the country served as<br />
Session Chairmen, helping to set the<br />
context for and moderate each of the<br />
sessions. The audience was eager to<br />
participate in Q&A sessions; though the<br />
questions had to be curtailed during the<br />
sessions, several delegates took the<br />
opportunity to continue discussions with<br />
speakers during the breaks. A brief<br />
summary of each session at the<br />
Conference follows, giving a sampling of<br />
the rich variety that was available to the<br />
delegates.<br />
Mr. Keith Bradford, formerly Global Head<br />
of HR of GSK, travelled from Singapore<br />
to speak on what how the HR function in<br />
India must do and adapt as Indian<br />
companies transform into multinational<br />
corporations.<br />
Mr. PV Ramana Murthy, Vice President<br />
– HR, Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages,<br />
and Mr Rajesh Padmanabhan, Executive<br />
VP and Global Head of Human<br />
Resources, Patni spoke about the need<br />
to maintain a strong talent pipeline, even<br />
during a phase where overall hiring<br />
appears to be slowing down.<br />
Mr. Kumar Krishnaswamy, Vice President<br />
– HR of Wockhardt Hospitals spoke on<br />
how organizations have begun<br />
incorporating wellness programs into<br />
their portfolio of benefits. Mr. Avinash<br />
Subramanyam, fitness trainer put the<br />
participants through some simple<br />
exercises during the course of his<br />
presentation.<br />
In an exciting session, Prof. Rafiq<br />
Dossani of Stanford University along with<br />
Mr. P Padmakumar of Saint Gobain<br />
Glass, deliberated on the possible<br />
strategies for industry-academia<br />
collaboration to create a pipeline for<br />
talent and increase the employability of<br />
students coming out of our educational<br />
system.<br />
Mr. Ganesh Chella of the CFI introduced<br />
the basics of the art of Coaching for<br />
Leadership Development while Mr.<br />
Sridhar Ganesh, Director – HR,<br />
Murugappa Corporate Board, provided<br />
real and interesting examples of how<br />
Coaching can work effectively in an<br />
organisational context.
Mr. Sudhakar Rao, Director – Strategy,<br />
SAP India and Ms Gangapriya<br />
Chakraverti, Business Leader, Mercer<br />
India, highlighted examples of how<br />
appropriate deployment of technology<br />
solutions has helped HR managers<br />
derive greater benefits.<br />
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Founder,<br />
Isha Foundation, delivered a Special<br />
Address on the evening of the first day;<br />
he pointed out that seeking ‘inner<br />
transformation’ is the first step towards<br />
achieving ‘global transformation’.<br />
The N<strong>HRD</strong>N Awards for Excellence in<br />
HR were also announced at the<br />
Conference. Mr. B.Santhanam,<br />
President – Float Glass (South Asia) and<br />
Founder MD, Saint Gobain Glass Ltd<br />
was honoured as the ‘CEO of the Year’.<br />
The Outstanding Young HR Professional<br />
award was won by Ms. Tanya Misra of<br />
ACC, while N.S.Rajan, Partner, Human<br />
Capital, Ernst and Young won the ‘HR<br />
Excellence’ Award. The award for<br />
‘Outstanding Academic Institution’ was<br />
won by <strong>IS</strong>B, Hyderabad; Prof.<br />
M.Rammohan Rao, Dean, received the<br />
award on behalf of the <strong>IS</strong>B. The Mumbai<br />
Chapter was recognized with a special<br />
award for the work they have done over<br />
the past year. The N<strong>HRD</strong>N also<br />
conferred the award for outstanding<br />
contributions to the field of HR to Prof.<br />
Pritham Singh, Professor Emeritus, MDI<br />
Gurgaon. Dr. CS Venktaratnam, Director<br />
IMI is recognized by the President of<br />
N<strong>HRD</strong> for his distinguished contribution<br />
to the field of HR as an academician and<br />
researcher.<br />
For the Chennai chapter, it was a<br />
pleasant dual surprise: The Chennai<br />
Chapter won the Best Chapter of the<br />
Year Award for 2008 and Dr. PVR<br />
Murthy, CEO, Exclusive Search, who is<br />
based in Chennai, received a special<br />
award for his Outstanding Contributions<br />
to the N<strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong>.<br />
One of the many ‘firsts’ that the 12 th<br />
<strong>National</strong> Conference achieved was the<br />
release of the first ever HR Services<br />
Directory. Covering a wide range of<br />
services that are of interest to a HR<br />
manager, the Directory has listings by<br />
service providers from all over the<br />
country. Mr. P.Dwarakanath, Past<br />
<strong>National</strong> President, N<strong>HRD</strong>N released<br />
this HR Services Directory.<br />
Mr. Krish Shankar of Bharti Airtel<br />
eloborated on how, in a world where<br />
most of the value chain is outsourced, HR<br />
can align the vision, practices and values<br />
of an organisation with its vendors and<br />
channel partners. A specific example of<br />
Nokia’s initiative in this area was shared<br />
by Mr. Ranjit Ramachandran and Mr.<br />
S.Ravindran.<br />
Keeping the light side of the Conference in<br />
mind, the N<strong>HRD</strong>N HR Quiz, which was<br />
offered online was also available as a penand-paper<br />
version for delegates to attempt.<br />
Over 100 delegates vied for the grand<br />
prize, an Apple iPhone. The winner of the<br />
quiz was Mr. P.Gopalakrishnan of ETA,<br />
Chennai, who answered 35 of the 40<br />
questions correctly. Mr. Prashant<br />
Shankaran, CEO, Blueshift Technologies,<br />
the online partner of the Conference gave<br />
away the prize.<br />
This Conference also had an important<br />
milestone that none of the delegates inside<br />
the Convention Centre were able to<br />
experience. For the first time, a few<br />
sessions of the Conference were available<br />
as a live webcast, thanks to Sify Ltd., the<br />
Technology Partner for the Conference.<br />
Ms Saagarika Rai, Chief People Officer,<br />
Reliance BIG Entertainment spoke on how<br />
organizations can be more sensitive to<br />
gender-specific issues. Mr. R.Kannan of<br />
AssessPeople presented the findings of a<br />
survey on ‘Future Workforce Expectations’.<br />
Mr. Arvind Shrouti of Option Positive, Pune,<br />
touched a chord in all IR specialists in the<br />
audience as he listed the challenges that<br />
Trade Unions are facing now and how their<br />
response will be shaped by the HR<br />
initiatives of companies. Mr. L Prabhakar,<br />
Corporate HR Manager, ITC Ltd., cut<br />
through the clutter to present a cogent<br />
picture of HR’s response to trade unions<br />
today.<br />
Two PSU stalwarts – Mr. Sudhakar Rao,<br />
Executive Director – HR, HAL and Mr. V C<br />
Agrawal, Director (HR), Indian Oil -<br />
described the strides that HR in PSUs has<br />
taken in recent years and helped to<br />
highlight the larger role that HR plays in<br />
the lives of employees in large public sector<br />
undertakings.<br />
Mr. D Harish of People Unlimited and Mr.<br />
Radhakrishnan Nair, Chief Human<br />
Resources Officer, Tata Steel, helped<br />
delegates understand the role of HR in<br />
turbulent times, defusing the tense topic<br />
with their special brand of humour.<br />
Ms Isabel Doverty, Group Head,<br />
Organizational Effectiveness, Standard<br />
Chartered Bank, Singapore and Mr.<br />
Prithvi Shergill, Lead India Human<br />
Resources, Accenture Ltd, discussed<br />
the implications of the rapid changes in<br />
business on the careers of HR and what<br />
capabilities an HR professional should<br />
build to succeed.<br />
While delivering the special address, Mr.<br />
Gurcharan Das, former Chairman, P &<br />
G highlighted the factors for growth in<br />
the Indian economy. He said that<br />
prosperity will grow in India but not<br />
happiness - until we fix governance. He<br />
pointed to challenges such as education<br />
system that needed to be fixed for India<br />
to sustain the growth. He concluded that<br />
unlike Asia’s “tiger economies” India is<br />
wise “elephant” that will preserve its way<br />
of life while sustaining a formidable<br />
growth of 8% or so in the years to come.<br />
Delivering the valedictory address, Mr.<br />
Vellayan, Vice Chairman & Director –<br />
Strategy, Murugappa Group, listed the<br />
seven challenges that faced the<br />
economy and governance in India -<br />
including issues such as agricultural<br />
productivity and lower employement<br />
spans combined with increased. While<br />
congratulating the HR community for the<br />
big strides it has taken in the recent past<br />
in supporting the growth of Indian<br />
business, he urged today’s HR<br />
professionals to become champions of<br />
HR within their organisation while<br />
creating some kind of sustainable<br />
advantage for the company that is felt<br />
by customers and share holders.<br />
Mr. R.Shantaram, Vice President,<br />
Chennai Chapter, N<strong>HRD</strong>N, proposed a<br />
vote of thanks to all the partners,<br />
sponsors, speakers and delegates of the<br />
Conference.<br />
The 12 th <strong>National</strong> Conference ended with<br />
the Chennai team handing over the flag<br />
of the <strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> to the team<br />
from Mumbai, which will be hosting the<br />
13 th <strong>National</strong> Conference.<br />
Even though the Conference is over,<br />
delegates can continue to enjoy some<br />
benefits from the same. Archives of the<br />
sessions, including some of the<br />
presentations made by the speakers, will<br />
be uploaded on the conference website<br />
shortly. Access to these will be restricted<br />
to only those who attended the<br />
Conference, for the next six months. For<br />
more details, visit the Conference<br />
Website at<br />
www.nhrdnconference2008.com<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 31
N<strong>HRD</strong> - 12th <strong>National</strong> Conference; Inaugural address<br />
-by S. Ramadorai, CEO and MD, TCS<br />
Theme : “What is beyond? HR’s next<br />
agenda..”<br />
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen,<br />
It is a pleasure to be here amongst you all<br />
and have the opportunity to share my<br />
thoughts on the role HR can, and should<br />
play for a better future for industry. I am<br />
not trained in HR so my observations are<br />
experiential; I have experimented with and<br />
succeeded, in bringing in operational<br />
people into HR and moving people from<br />
HR into operations. I also share with you<br />
what I observe from the vantage point I am<br />
in.<br />
It is for all to see, that the world is in a flux,<br />
a looming economic crisis has exposed the<br />
fragility of even, the world’s most powerful<br />
nation. If I had been speaking at this<br />
conference, a year ago I would have said<br />
very different things, however I cannot help<br />
see the future through today’s lenses, for<br />
HR and its role cannot be divorced from<br />
the economic and business environment<br />
and its needs.<br />
If one looks at the US election and the<br />
meteoric rise of Barrack Obama, his<br />
campaign was as much about the mind as<br />
it was about the heart. It was not just about<br />
policies, it was about people issues as well<br />
— equality, aspirations and hope. It was<br />
about the realisation that there was an<br />
America beyond Wall Street and it needed<br />
attention...desperately.<br />
In a globalised world, events of such<br />
significance are bound to have far reaching<br />
impact on countries around the world, India<br />
is no exception. For me personally, it had<br />
me reflecting on the changes that were<br />
inevitable in the business environment in<br />
the US, the impact on India and other<br />
countries and how these changes would<br />
super impose themselves on the changes<br />
that India was going through herself, due<br />
to her domestic growth.<br />
Considering India’s unique position in the<br />
developmental trajectory and its potential<br />
demographic advantage the area of Human<br />
Resources should really become the no 1<br />
item on the <strong>National</strong> agenda. Developing<br />
our resources, will be the gateway to our<br />
global dominance.<br />
When seen from this light, it appears that<br />
what all of you in this room achieve in your<br />
companies, how high you plan to climb,<br />
how wide you spread the net will determine<br />
our success.<br />
If I were to peep into the future I see three<br />
foundational themes upon which the HR<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 32<br />
agenda for the future must be built. These<br />
are-<br />
Leadership<br />
Inclusiveness<br />
Management of the people life cycle —<br />
recruitment, deployment, retention, exit<br />
These are in no particular order and each<br />
theme is important and infact interlinked. I<br />
would like to take each of these and<br />
elaborate further.<br />
Leadership<br />
Let’s start with the first — Leadership. Why<br />
is leadership important even more today<br />
than ever before? It is so, because in a<br />
globalised world, the repercussions of one’s<br />
actions reverberate across the world, it is<br />
also because lines between economics and<br />
politics are blurring, it is also because India<br />
has a window of a decade or so to capitalise<br />
on its advantageous position.<br />
Successful leaders sense the environment<br />
and are able to reach out to popular<br />
sentiments, they are able to perceive what<br />
others cannot, we all remember clearly the<br />
leadership of Harold Wilson during the<br />
World War, Mahatma Gandhi during the<br />
freedom struggle or Golda Meir during the<br />
Israel crisis. Business leaders on the other<br />
hand sense opportunities long before<br />
others see them, consider Henry Ford or<br />
even the Tata’s in India and more recently<br />
Larry Page of Google.<br />
The role of leadership and the desired<br />
character traits of leaders undergo subtle<br />
changes depending on the socio- economic<br />
climate of that point in history. For HR, the<br />
question you need to ask is what do we<br />
require from our leaders today? Tomorrow?<br />
The organisation and its training needs to<br />
provide opportunities for its people to<br />
acquire and grow into these roles right from<br />
the initial training at the time of joining to<br />
mid level to senior leadership training.<br />
To address the downturn we realised the<br />
need for us to be highly responsive and<br />
agile. This year we re-organised ourselves<br />
into Industry Service units, much like<br />
Strategic Business units, with their own<br />
budgets and targets. We created several<br />
mini TCS’ to put it simply, lending agility<br />
and efficiency, even as we enjoyed the<br />
benefits of a large organisation.<br />
More importantly each of these mini TCS’<br />
is run by a ‘CEO’ even if we did not term it<br />
that way, some of these so called units run<br />
a business of 250 -500 Mn, so it is fair to<br />
describe their role as that of a CEO. This<br />
structure ensures the grooming of the next<br />
line of leaders, through empowerment.<br />
These young leaders grew up when the<br />
going was good, today as they face<br />
challenging times they will mature and learn<br />
how to handle the not so good times.<br />
In such a scenario organisational HR<br />
should focus on understanding the new<br />
behaviours required to thrive in the new<br />
environment. How should this be dissipated<br />
and spread across the organisation, how<br />
can each employee be clear on his or role<br />
expectation. In conjunction with the Unit<br />
Heads, inputs on fine tuning the training<br />
program should be undertaken; they should<br />
persuade these leaders to share their<br />
experiences with new trainees so that they<br />
are better prepared for the challenging<br />
times.<br />
The India that we all foresee, the 7-8%<br />
growth, the global economic giant that the<br />
world talks about, cannot be created<br />
without the world’s best managers and<br />
engineers at the helm of the engine.<br />
Corporate India is becoming professional,<br />
it is also hungry to go global in industry<br />
after industry. The scale and ambition of<br />
vision are totally different. There is a<br />
chance for professionals to actually build<br />
world-class companies and their own<br />
future, the challenge to build up from<br />
scratch, scale it up. Sectors such as Power,<br />
Retail, Infrastructure, Steel, Automotives,<br />
have been forced to change by the sheer<br />
frenetic pace of domestic growth. Some<br />
new hybrid sectors have emerged such as<br />
Microfinance and Technology in<br />
agriculture. All of these offer the challenge<br />
to participate in their transformation. They<br />
also face a huge shortage of leaders, not<br />
your ‘run of the mill’ leader, they need<br />
Visionary Change Leaders. So companies<br />
such as L&T start their own training<br />
programs since civil engineers are hard to<br />
find and Public sector banks such as SBI<br />
work on people perceptions about them.<br />
HR professionals first need to become<br />
change leaders themselves before<br />
institutionalising this into their respective<br />
organisations.<br />
The general trend towards convergence of<br />
technologies, the widespread penetration<br />
of IT and globalization, has resulted in a<br />
new common set of skills in demand. So<br />
lateral movements between industries is<br />
not only possible but even desirable, gone<br />
are the days when a ‘steel’ guy was for life,<br />
today technology companies such as Apple<br />
has a non engineer at its helm, and it is<br />
not unusual to have an engineer in the
Retail sector. Even in the IT industry,<br />
beyond a point, apart from technology skills<br />
people need to have a strong business<br />
acumen, varied domain expertise and a<br />
global perspective. It is therefore not<br />
unusual to find a doctor in our Healthcare<br />
business or a banker in our Financial<br />
services vertical. At TCS we also believe<br />
in moving people laterally and sometimes<br />
into other Tata Companies. The TAS model<br />
of the Tata’s is another interesting way of<br />
giving exposure through a diversity of roles<br />
and key assignments in different industries.<br />
A general concern, further amplified by the<br />
current crisis is that of ethical behaviour in<br />
business especially amongst leadership. It<br />
is being asked in hush corridor<br />
conversations, whether the Wall street<br />
debacle was infact caused by some warped<br />
ethical practices. How can HR in an<br />
organisation tackle this? My own belief is<br />
that values must be lived and not taught<br />
as theory. It is learnt through inspiration of<br />
role models and systems that are fair and<br />
just. The HR person, irrespective of<br />
seniority, is likely to be interacting with a<br />
wide spectrum of employees within a<br />
particular organisation, the way they<br />
conduct themselves and interact with<br />
employees is in itself an opportunity to live<br />
these values. Remember in a large<br />
organisation like TCS with 120,000 people,<br />
the local HR is an important representative<br />
of the Management for the average<br />
employee, they are the vehicle of<br />
communication for management in many<br />
ways.<br />
Another idea and perhaps some food for<br />
thought for many of you is my contention<br />
that HR people need to realise that if they<br />
truly want to be the catalyst for<br />
organisational change, they should spread<br />
the message of every employee wearing<br />
the HR hat and explain how he or she can<br />
contribute, for example, an ethical violation<br />
is as much a fellow employees<br />
responsibility as it is of the HR person. In<br />
this way an HR person can widen the circle<br />
of influence.<br />
Inclusiveness<br />
That brings me to the next foundational<br />
pillar that of - inclusiveness. I use the term<br />
in its broadest sense to encompass — the<br />
creation of ecosystems externally and<br />
internally for diversity of cultures including<br />
women at work. Why is this important today<br />
and in the future? I say this because the<br />
more connected the world becomes, the<br />
more diversity we need to handle and the<br />
only way to do that is by embracing<br />
inclusiveness.<br />
As Indian companies become global, I<br />
mentioned earlier, the need to acquire the<br />
highest calibre of people and the right<br />
people for the job. Diversity and<br />
inclusiveness enables the finding of the<br />
right talent. Sometimes, like in TCS it is a<br />
necessity given our global footprint, we<br />
cannot survive in China without recruiting<br />
the Chinese for instance or in Latin America<br />
without Spanish speaking employees.<br />
Today we have over 9% of our employees<br />
who are foreign nationals. Foray’s into new<br />
geographies brings upon its own set of<br />
challenges such sharing knowledge across,<br />
replicating successes and exporting<br />
domestic learnings.<br />
At other times it can bring in a fresh way of<br />
thinking into the organisation. A couple of<br />
years ago, we began questioning the<br />
wisdom of only Engineers being qualified<br />
for the software business. Our premise was<br />
that possessing the basic skills of logic,<br />
cognition and reason coupled with high<br />
‘interest levels’ and ‘propensity to learn’<br />
was a good starting point. From here, an<br />
idea was born, the possibility of bringing<br />
the IT growth story to a new audience of<br />
science and maths graduates. So was born<br />
- IGNITE a 7 month transformational<br />
training program that groomed Science<br />
graduates into software professionals. It<br />
has been very successful, we have trained<br />
over 2500 so far. Interestingly 50% trainees<br />
are from rural and tier 3 towns and 65%<br />
women. Many of them are first generation<br />
learners and interestingly the Annual<br />
performance rating of the batches was on<br />
par with engineers sometimes better. Since<br />
they do not carry any baggage we are now<br />
experimenting with their abilities to<br />
innovate. After all innovating is about doing<br />
the same things differently. We are keen<br />
to see the results in the future.<br />
This kind of diversity enriches the fabric of<br />
the organisation and is key to delivering<br />
business advantage. From HR the<br />
expectation is therefore to help instil a<br />
culture where difference is valued. It could<br />
mean as simple a thing, like a vegetarian<br />
sitting at the same table as a non<br />
vegetarian or something more complicated<br />
as accepting a different way of doing things.<br />
HR can play a key role through awareness<br />
and skill-building, so that employees are<br />
sensitised enough to embrace these<br />
attitudes.<br />
The downturn is seeing frenetic M&A<br />
activity, partnerships and consolidation<br />
globally, Indian companies are also using<br />
inorganic means to grow. The transition<br />
process can be challenging on both sides<br />
and calls for an active HR role in the<br />
integration process. Unless all the oars are<br />
in synhc, the boat will never pick up speed<br />
defeating the strategic benefit of the<br />
alliance.<br />
As an information driven organisation we<br />
feel the need to use metrics to gauge views<br />
of employees, surveys can help indicate the<br />
level of inclusiveness experienced in the<br />
organisation or even identify the needs of<br />
specific groups. Inclusiveness is all about<br />
abolishing attitudinal and systemic barriers<br />
of age , race, disability and gender. Some<br />
of the most talented people within TCS are<br />
women, at 29% they are a growing part of<br />
the family. It would be interesting to study<br />
the impact of these women on TCS — its<br />
work environment, its culture, its<br />
productivity and other factors, thats an<br />
initiative I have been urging our HR people<br />
towards.<br />
We are an equal opportunity employer and<br />
let’s face it, the ladies are getting brighter<br />
by the day. Our approach therefore has<br />
been to get the best minds into the<br />
organization, once you get them, you<br />
create an environment for their best<br />
utilization and the best growth. In doing<br />
these you will need to put in place enabling<br />
policies. Flexi time, maternity leave<br />
policies, sabbatical opportunities all of<br />
these have emerged from this thinking.<br />
The women’s role as a mother and home<br />
maker is a physiological reality and the<br />
Tata’s have demonstrated great sensitivity<br />
to the choices that women make in taking<br />
a break from work. The Tata Second<br />
Career initiative — is a very unique offer<br />
and a very progressive move towards<br />
inclusiveness of women into the<br />
mainstream after a gap from work through<br />
their child rearing years. The initiative has<br />
been a great success and many intelligent<br />
qualified women have truly got a second<br />
chance at their careers.<br />
Moving from an internal perspective of<br />
inclusiveness to the outside reality, I believe<br />
that any business has several<br />
dependencies —they are your suppliers,<br />
partners, recruiting pools etc. An<br />
organisation’s growth beyond a point is<br />
limited if the ecosystem within which it<br />
functions is not growing its capabilities at<br />
the same pace. This calls for investment<br />
from both sides. Being in the knowledge<br />
business our Academic Interaction program<br />
which we just concluded only the day<br />
before in Chennai, is an important enabler.<br />
From faculty development, to student<br />
scholarships to curriculum inputs we are<br />
actively involved with premier institutes in<br />
India and overseas. With our partners we<br />
have joint marketing programs, with our<br />
customers we have Centres of excellence<br />
where we take their problems and find<br />
creative solutions to them. Today’s<br />
connected world has made this kind of<br />
collaboration a necessity. For each of you,<br />
the opportunity lies in looking within to<br />
understand the communities you need to<br />
work with from a business perspective and<br />
explore how HR and OD can positively<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 33
impact this, like TCS is doing with<br />
academia.<br />
Managing the people life cycle<br />
You have heard of a product life cycle, we<br />
have heard to these getting shorter, how<br />
about the people life cycle in an<br />
organisation? is that getting shorter too? It<br />
is not uncommon for people to change jobs<br />
like they do their mobile phones. This is<br />
obviously not in the interest of the<br />
organisation, hence the need to look at an<br />
individual’s association with the<br />
organisation right from recruitment,<br />
deployment to exit. This is the bread and<br />
butter of the traditional HR function.<br />
To give you a sense of how huge the task<br />
is in TCS, even while we are assimilating<br />
last year’s 22,000+ campus hires into the<br />
organization, offers are being made and<br />
plans finalised for on boarding 24,000<br />
campus hires next year. A strong hiring<br />
pipeline with certainty of talent availability<br />
is key for our business needs.<br />
Times though, have changed, people’s<br />
aspirations have gone higher and they are<br />
impatient for results. In this environment,<br />
one of the biggest challenges for HR<br />
remains its role in retention of employees.<br />
Employee friendly policies, performance<br />
management systems, exit interviews<br />
these are all text book terms that all of you<br />
know about. I am asking you today to avoid<br />
the pitfall of most HR folks fall into. Because<br />
you are the ones to conceive these policies<br />
and systems many of you think in terms of<br />
a policy being applied to the mass of<br />
employees in your organisation. Think<br />
instead of disruptions and interventions.<br />
I am asking you to think instead by getting<br />
into the mind of a SINGLE employee and<br />
re-look at your recruitment — deployment<br />
— exit process. What is the experience<br />
being offered by the organisation from the<br />
time he or she in the Institute, to his first<br />
day in office, to his role and responsibility,<br />
to his aspirations, to his frustrations, to his<br />
professional needs, to what the competition<br />
can offer him or her. In this analysis you<br />
will find areas of improvement. As<br />
organisations get bigger the significance<br />
of the individual seemingly reduces and<br />
that’s where the problems begin.<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 34<br />
TCS began as a family of half a dozen<br />
people, we worked together in the office<br />
and socialised with the families outside<br />
office, we knew our colleague’s children’s<br />
names. Today with 120,000 people, this is<br />
obviously not possible. So we used<br />
technology as an enabler. A single digital<br />
platform across the company, aptly named<br />
Ultimatix, serves to connect people in many<br />
ways. Internal news items, management<br />
messages, knowledge repositories, instant<br />
polls, employee feedback, non work related<br />
initiatives such as photo contests,<br />
volunteering for social causes all of these<br />
happen through a single interface and is<br />
common across the company. If there’s<br />
anything you want to know, Ultimatix has<br />
it. Let me hasten to add that digitization<br />
and automation cannot replace completely<br />
a people touch and high engagement, the<br />
corner stone of an HR person.<br />
Another initiative that aims to bring TCSers<br />
together is Maitree, originally started by<br />
spouses but now integrated into our HR.<br />
Maitree goes beyond employee<br />
engagement and reaches out to their<br />
families as well. From summer camps for<br />
employee kids, to celebration of festivals,<br />
social work volunteering and awareness of<br />
Aids and the environment, Maitree plays<br />
the role of a key influencer.<br />
Having policies on Aids and the<br />
environment are one thing but for the<br />
individual to be sensitised and embrace it<br />
is another. So a participative, bottoms up<br />
approach, is important.<br />
Self fulfilment is an important aspiration of<br />
employees today. What goes into self<br />
fulfilment ? Salary ? Professional<br />
satisfaction ? work environment ? or a bit<br />
of all ? My own experience tells me that<br />
most people are seeking a balance of all<br />
three, a balance that works for them in their<br />
personal situation. Sometimes they are<br />
willing to compromise one for the other. So<br />
if the work environment is excellent, an<br />
employee may decide to overlook to some<br />
extent the lack of a fat bonus or a youngster<br />
may desire to optimise the professional<br />
training opportunities that the company<br />
offers and not worry too much about the<br />
overbearing boss. My point is that policies<br />
do not appeal equally to all, they are seen<br />
through a window that is unique to that<br />
individual. The challenge for the<br />
organisation is do the balancing act and<br />
have the good sense to know when not to<br />
stretch it too tight for the situation to snap.<br />
Taking a page from psychology, I believe<br />
that a caring organisation begins to, at<br />
some point in time acquire a life like form<br />
in the employees mind, it becomes his or<br />
her friend, a living creature you would want<br />
to be loyal to and not hurt. You have to<br />
meet some TCSers who have spent 20 and<br />
30 years and see how emotional they get<br />
about the organisation and I am sure this<br />
is true for other companies as well. It is<br />
this status that all organisations should<br />
aspire to, not just for the sake of retention<br />
of its employees but also because such<br />
bonds are vital for the human spirit. The<br />
commonly used phrase ‘ he is a Tata man’<br />
says how these intangible over the years<br />
grows into equity for the Tata brand.<br />
Conclusion<br />
I promised you when I began that I would<br />
talk from experience and I have. Perhaps<br />
the last thing I would like to say, if you have<br />
not caught on already is the fact that any<br />
HR and business strategy are closely<br />
linked. If one is the head then the other is<br />
the heart and both need to work together.<br />
It is equally important for an HR person to<br />
keep ears to the ground, here & around<br />
the world; understanding implications of<br />
business and financial decisions and the<br />
regulatory environment in the geography<br />
of presence.<br />
The three foundations of leadership,<br />
inclusiveness and the people life cycle are<br />
in itself huge challenges to address. I must<br />
confess that while half my job is about<br />
strategy the other is pure HR, managing<br />
people, listening and being diplomatic, so<br />
I, by no means underestimate your jobs. I<br />
enjoy moments of interaction with<br />
colleagues, employees and the community,<br />
some of have been good moments some<br />
uncomfortable, I have learnt through every<br />
one of them. Influencing and managing<br />
people, requires great skill, so I learnt, very<br />
quickly in my role as CEO.<br />
Thank you. �H VOL -2, <strong>IS</strong>SUE — 4, OCTOBER 2008 N<strong>HRD</strong> JOURNAL<br />
NOT PUBL<strong>IS</strong>HED<br />
“Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to publish the October 2008 issue of<br />
N<strong>HRD</strong> Journal on the theme “Work Life Balance” in time and the inconvenience is regretted.”<br />
PUBL<strong>IS</strong>HER/EDITOR
'Training' - Let us Not Make it<br />
an Expired Drug<br />
Most people prefer<br />
e x t e r n a l<br />
medication only<br />
when one falls ill.<br />
– Prof. Shulagna Sarkar<br />
Many of us do not<br />
think of medication<br />
till the time a<br />
disease is<br />
tolerable and not affecting our daily life. Such<br />
is the case of organizations too. Most<br />
organization would prefer training as a drug<br />
only when it is surrounded by assortment of<br />
problems. We all have come across with the<br />
phrase that 'A stitch on time save nine' but<br />
when it comes to expenditure on training;<br />
most organizations prefer the later nine.<br />
'Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a<br />
day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him<br />
for life.' How true is this old saying! Well, it<br />
reveals the fact of the importance of training<br />
in organizations. Performance is an all time<br />
an expired drug which has its own harmful<br />
effects. The latest developments in the field<br />
should always be referred before designing<br />
any training program. Researches are<br />
upgrading the various concepts of<br />
management with the tick of time.<br />
Organizations must hire only those training<br />
providers who are continuously upgrading<br />
themselves. Many organizations make error<br />
while identifying the right training organization<br />
which ultimately results to inadequate<br />
training; leading to no change in performance.<br />
Role of an organization in conducting an<br />
effective training<br />
It is not only the responsibility of a trainer to<br />
make the training effective but the<br />
responsibilities of both the organization and<br />
the training consultants has been explained.<br />
This is with reference to organizations which<br />
do not have any internal training center for<br />
its employees.<br />
Conducting training programs for employees<br />
should not be the only motive of any<br />
organization rather; it should focus more on<br />
conducting effective training programs. Most<br />
of the HR managers of an organization are<br />
aware of the facts of how a training program<br />
should be designed and implemented. In<br />
spite of the awareness numerous errors<br />
voluntarily occur. Techniques of need<br />
assessment and evaluation are avoided by<br />
the organizations.<br />
issue in the competitive world. When a newly organizations are required to share equal Most organizations are having a global<br />
hired employee enters the firm, there are responsibility. The question that creeps in perspective. They also have specific<br />
characteristically many skills he is required is how a small organization which is performance objectives and to plan for the<br />
to acquire before becoming fully productive. outsourcing training to some external performance growth training acts as an<br />
A blue collared worker needs to be consultant can make it effective. The appropriate drug to the employees; to<br />
acquainted with machines and tools with greatest mistake that most organizations enhance their performance. Training will be<br />
which he will be working, while white collared make is that they believe that on outsourcing beneficial only if we make an effort to make<br />
workers usually requires to be familiar with; the training program; the complete it beneficial or else it may act as an expired<br />
for example the particular software package responsibility of the effectiveness lies on the drug which may cost to the life of the<br />
in place. Training is not just a remedy for all<br />
newly hired individuals rather it is a huge<br />
other side. In the table below the organization.<br />
�<br />
support in igniting continuous learning<br />
approach and easy acceptance to the rapid<br />
changes in the environment.<br />
Most organizations are aware of the need<br />
for organizing training programs for its<br />
employees but there are many smaller<br />
organizations which are still of the opinion<br />
that training is a mere cost and can only be<br />
used as a motivation for its employees.<br />
Training<br />
Need<br />
Identification<br />
Organization<br />
� Internal Analysis<br />
� Need for future<br />
organizational development<br />
plans<br />
� Organizational objectives of<br />
conducting the training for<br />
employees.<br />
Consultant<br />
� Organizational Analysis<br />
� Departmental Analysis<br />
� Individual Analysis<br />
Various organizations adopt cost saving<br />
strategies for training like following an yearly<br />
pattern for training employees where every<br />
individual is compulsorily made to attend a<br />
training session. In various governmental<br />
departments employees are dissatisfied with<br />
the traditional form of sending an individual<br />
for training on the grounds of his relation<br />
Training<br />
Program<br />
�<br />
�<br />
�<br />
�<br />
Providing required basic<br />
training amenities<br />
Creating awareness among<br />
the employees of the need<br />
for training<br />
Training Monitoring<br />
Ensuring that the employees<br />
�<br />
�<br />
�<br />
�<br />
Ensuring active participation of<br />
trainees<br />
Ensuring right training content<br />
Ensuring effective delivery<br />
Ensuring the interest of the<br />
organization<br />
with the superiors. Sometimes a particular<br />
are not given another work<br />
group of employees are preferred to be sent<br />
simultaneously which may<br />
for training which demoralizes other<br />
employees. Communicating the need for<br />
training to employees becomes a problem.<br />
Training consultancy services are streaming<br />
down in every city yet for the organizations<br />
the challenge lies in identifying the right<br />
consultant. There are various consultants<br />
who work schematically to develop the<br />
needed training program. However, there<br />
Training<br />
Evaluation<br />
�<br />
�<br />
act as a constraint to the<br />
effectiveness of the training.<br />
Allowing the employees to<br />
internalize the learning from<br />
the training<br />
Conduct training evaluation<br />
– evaluating the<br />
development in<br />
�<br />
�<br />
Evaluate the effectiveness of<br />
the training<br />
Continuously communicate with<br />
the organization for the recent<br />
developments among the<br />
employees<br />
are many who do not adopt the required<br />
techniques of need assessment and after<br />
training evaluation. Many organizations hire<br />
consultants based on the convenience and<br />
acquaintance. Training which is based on<br />
performance, achievement<br />
of objectives, behavioral<br />
transformation among<br />
employees<br />
�<br />
�<br />
Analyze the changes observed<br />
Identify the low lying areas and<br />
the which acted as a catalyst<br />
affecting the training<br />
the knowledge acquired years back is like<br />
Table No. 1. Responsibilities of organizations and the training consultants<br />
Prof. Shulagna Sarkar is Faculty, IBS, Nagpur. E-Mail: shulagnasarkar@gmail.com<br />
H<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 35
1. Introduction:<br />
Corporate Executives go through various<br />
career transitions within one or more<br />
organizations during their careers. This<br />
paper defines the kind of coaching needs<br />
that may arise as Executives move from one<br />
career transition to another. Recognizing<br />
such career transitions and coaching needs<br />
will help organizations provide "just in time"<br />
and appropriate developmental inputs to<br />
their Executives leading to more effective<br />
performance of the individuals concerned,<br />
and consequently, the organization.<br />
For the sake of clarity, career transitions in<br />
this paper refers to managerial / leadership<br />
roles that Executives take on, which<br />
significantly differ from one another in terms<br />
of leadership competencies demanded of<br />
Executives in those roles. For example, an<br />
Executive moving from managing a sales<br />
function within an organization to managing<br />
the whole organization as the CEO, requires<br />
to recognize the leadership skill sets,<br />
perspectives, and value addition demanded<br />
of the CEO's role is dramatically different<br />
than that of head of the sales function of<br />
the organization. This is an example of<br />
"Career Transition" for the purpose of this<br />
research paper.<br />
2. Defining Career Transitions: The<br />
Crossroads model<br />
The Crossroads Model1 of Leadership<br />
Development is a model that defines career<br />
transitions for Executives in Corporations.<br />
The Crossroads Model classifies the work<br />
done in an enterprise or corporation in terms<br />
of the key demands on the jobs by way of<br />
focus, time frames for results and essential<br />
value add expected from the jobs. The<br />
model described below could be used to<br />
classify all jobs in an enterprise along<br />
different crossroad layers as described in<br />
Figure 1 below. At each Crossroad, the<br />
nature of the jobs in terms of the leadership<br />
competencies required for success changes<br />
significantly. When one is "managing self",<br />
one needs to focus on excelling in applying<br />
the knowledge required to do the job,<br />
meeting deadlines, quality of output and<br />
work with others so that interfaces between<br />
one's work and that of others is managed<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 36<br />
Coaching Executives<br />
Through Career Transitions<br />
in Corporations<br />
smoothly and effectively. However, when<br />
one is responsible for the work of others<br />
("Manage Others" Crossroad Layer) then<br />
the focus shifts to how to get work out of<br />
others effectively, in addition to specific<br />
individual contributions one makes. Hence<br />
at each stage of the Crossroads, the<br />
demands on role incumbents change<br />
significantly. For example, when one moves<br />
to managing a business (defined as<br />
managing Profit & Loss) from being a<br />
Functional Manager (Sales Manager as an<br />
example), the focus shifts to profitabilty for<br />
the business and not just sales numbers. A<br />
Business Manager has to know enough<br />
about the overall business and each function<br />
to be able to make trade off decisions<br />
between competing demands for finite<br />
resources from the various functions in the<br />
interest of profitablity..<br />
Crossroads Model (Figure 1)<br />
Enterprise wise Manager: Focus should<br />
be on defining road map of enterprise for<br />
the future. Vision, scenario building, ability<br />
to make long term, strategic decisions,<br />
providing road map to organization and<br />
ability to deal with key stakeholders are key<br />
attributes for success. Gains satisfaction<br />
from creating an institution rather than<br />
product, profit or strategy.<br />
Manager of Multiple Businesses: Focus<br />
on providing long-term s trategy in line with<br />
vision, making trade off decisions with<br />
regard to investible resources amongst<br />
multiple businesses, connects segments /<br />
businesses to the corporation. Gains<br />
satisfaction from others’ successes.<br />
Pradeep Mukherjee is the CEO of Potential Unlimited, Mumbai. E-Mail: pradeepmukerjee@gmail.com<br />
– Pradeep Mukherjee<br />
Business Manager: Manages Profit &<br />
Loss of a business. Ability to develop<br />
business strategy and integrating plans and<br />
strategies of different functions in an<br />
organization to the overall business<br />
strategy is key to success. Needs to<br />
understand nuances of different functions<br />
and how they can be leveraged effectively<br />
for business. Has to change perspective<br />
from “can we do it” (functional perspective)<br />
to “should we do it and how”.<br />
Functional Manager: Focus should be on<br />
developing and driving the functional<br />
agenda for the business and working with<br />
others in dovetailing the functional agenda<br />
to the business strategy.<br />
Managing Others: Focus should be on<br />
planning, assigning work, coaching /<br />
developing others and measuring work of<br />
others for effective performance.<br />
Managing Self: Focus should be on<br />
effectively utilizing “technical” capabilities<br />
to do the work in the most optimum manner.<br />
Jobs of various sizes could exist along the<br />
continum of a Cross Road layer. For<br />
example, on the Cross Road of Managing<br />
Self, one could have a job of an<br />
administrative assistant at one end of the<br />
spectrum and also that of a world renowned<br />
Professor whose job in the university is to<br />
teach students, at the other end of the<br />
continuum. The Crossroad is not<br />
necessarily a model that reflects a<br />
heirarchy of jobs in the enterprise - it merely<br />
classifies jobs along some leaderships<br />
demands that are made of different jobs in<br />
the enterprise.<br />
3. The shifts in Leadership<br />
Competencies Required for Effective<br />
Performance at each Crossroad Turn:<br />
As Executives transition from one<br />
crossroads layer to another, key shifts in<br />
leadership competencies and orientation<br />
are required to demonstrate effective<br />
performance at the next crossroad layer.<br />
A generic and illustrative list of these shifts<br />
is given in Figure 2 based on corporate<br />
experience of the author in leadership<br />
assessment and development.
Shifts in Leadership Competencies & Orientation Required with Crossroad<br />
transitions (Figure 2)<br />
Crossroad Additional Personal / Leadership Competencies Required<br />
Transitions<br />
Crossroad# 1:<br />
From Managing<br />
Self to Managing<br />
Others<br />
Crossroad# 2:<br />
From Managing<br />
Others to<br />
Managing<br />
Function<br />
Crossroad# 3:<br />
From Functional<br />
Manager to<br />
Managing<br />
Business<br />
Crossroads# 4:<br />
From Business<br />
Manager to<br />
Manager of<br />
multiple<br />
Businesses:<br />
Crossroad# 5:<br />
From Manager of<br />
multiple<br />
businesses to<br />
Enterprise<br />
Manager<br />
• Greater self awareness of strengths and areas of development<br />
• Managerial skills: setting goals, communicating with teams,<br />
delegating, managing for performance, motivating people,<br />
developing people<br />
• Key interest in people for understanding others and their role in<br />
one’s own effectiveness<br />
• Developing teams for effectiveness<br />
Value shifts from one’s own work to getting work from others<br />
• Defining functional vision and strategy and inspiring people<br />
around them<br />
• Assessing capabilities of people and building the right team<br />
with core capabilities<br />
• Influencing seniors and peers to buy into the functional vision<br />
and strategy<br />
• Building networks for benchmarking and leveraging<br />
relationships<br />
• In global organizations, driving synergy and advantages from<br />
global operations<br />
Values functional contributions<br />
• Assessing people and organizational capabilities and building<br />
the right team with core competencies required<br />
• Understanding the power of vision<br />
• The orientation to make tough decisions<br />
• Learn the power of focus – in thought and action<br />
• Ability to break down complexities to manageable areas of<br />
focus and action<br />
• Inspiring team for greater performance<br />
• Influencing various constituencies including external<br />
constituencies (regulators, industry associations, government<br />
bodies etc.)<br />
Values profitability and return to shareholders<br />
• Leveraging synergies and opportunities across businesses,<br />
across geographies<br />
• Assessing organizational and individual competencies across<br />
businesses<br />
• Inspiring competent and capable people who may be better than<br />
you<br />
• Building effective and powerful networks internally and<br />
externally<br />
• Leveraging power of the vision<br />
• Balancing internal and external focus<br />
Values entrepreneurship and focuses on returns to stakeholders<br />
• Defining and selling long term vision<br />
• Inspiring and influencing capabilities – internal and external to<br />
organization<br />
• Leveraging networks<br />
• Continuing focus on developing and maintaining relationships<br />
with stakeholders.<br />
• Focusing on organizational and societal interface: environment,<br />
value of products and services to society, public face of<br />
organization, enterprise brand creation and management<br />
Values institution building<br />
While Executives transition from one career<br />
transition role to another, they generally<br />
learn of the shift in focus through:<br />
� Their own observations of people who<br />
have played such roles before and who<br />
they respect - maybe role models they<br />
aspire to emulate<br />
� Their own experiences when they start<br />
performing the new role - what works<br />
and what does not work - and modify<br />
behaviors accordingly. For this, they<br />
need to be sensitive to their<br />
environment, have good self<br />
awareness and be willing to adapt to<br />
the demands of their new role<br />
� Feedback received from supervisors or<br />
others as they perform in their new role<br />
� Specific training programs they may<br />
attend to prepare them for the<br />
challenges of their new role.<br />
The learning curve for the new role can be<br />
shortened for greater effectiveness through<br />
structured inputs and interventions which<br />
can prepare the executive before or<br />
immediately after, the new role has been<br />
assigned. Such inputs can be numerous<br />
like specific training programs, mentoring<br />
within the organization, project<br />
assignments, shadowing a successful<br />
executive who has demonstrated success<br />
in a similar role or individual coaching.<br />
We shall deal with the coaching<br />
intervention and their effectiveness in<br />
preparing an executive in dealing with a<br />
career transition role.<br />
5. Coaching: how it can support<br />
Executives during Career Transitions<br />
As per the International Coaching<br />
Federation (ICF), "Professional Coaches<br />
provide an on-going partnership designed<br />
to help clients produce fulfilling results in<br />
their personal and professional lives.<br />
Coaches help people improve their<br />
performance and enhance the quality of<br />
their lives."<br />
Coaching as defined by Thomas Leonard,<br />
ICF Founder, "A coach is your partner in<br />
achieving your personal goals, your<br />
champion during turn around, your trainer<br />
in communication and life skills, your<br />
sounding board when making choices, your<br />
motivator when strong actions are called<br />
for, your unconditional support when you<br />
take a hit, your mentor in personal<br />
development, your co-designer when<br />
developing an extraordinary project, your<br />
beacon during stormy times, your wake-up<br />
call if you do not hear your own, and most<br />
importantly your partner in living the life you<br />
know you are ready for, personally and<br />
professionally."<br />
According to Jeremy Robinson2, Executive<br />
Coaching is "aimed at inspiring Executive<br />
leaders to make behavioral changes which<br />
transform themselves and people around<br />
them thereby increasing business results<br />
and performance."<br />
Coaching provides the following<br />
advantages over other methods for<br />
Executive development, especially in<br />
preparation for, or immediately post, a<br />
career transition<br />
a. Coaching, by definition, is focused on<br />
the individual's specific needs (as<br />
opposed to training which is targeted<br />
at meeting the general development<br />
needs of the group going through the<br />
training). Coaching is targeted and<br />
recognizes the specific changes in<br />
(Contd.. on Page 29)<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 37
Todays’ world is<br />
witnessing<br />
the domination of<br />
EFFECT in each<br />
and everybodys’<br />
life. We are<br />
interested in the<br />
Desirable Effect<br />
and when we do<br />
not achieve, we<br />
hang on to the<br />
Cause for a longer time. However, when<br />
we do achieve the Desirable Effect, we tend<br />
to forget that this Effect can be treated as<br />
DCAUSE for the next Desirable Effect.<br />
These statements do sound confusing. If<br />
most of us go on giving BeCAUSE<br />
REASONS for failures, probably they are<br />
trapped as a Prisoner of the Past and may<br />
not aim to become an Architect of the<br />
Future. So, there should be a shift in<br />
paradigm from BeCAUSE to DCAUSE.<br />
Dcause is a short form of word to signify<br />
the Desirable Cause. Because is a word<br />
to Reason any of our activities. Take a look<br />
at the following verse given by J.R. Miller..,<br />
All the days seem alike as they come to us.<br />
But, today comes with its own<br />
opportunities.<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 38<br />
From BCause to DCause<br />
Its own calls of opportunities. Its own<br />
privileges.<br />
It is holding out hands offering us<br />
radiant gifts.<br />
Today will pass and it can never come<br />
again.<br />
Other days as bright will come.<br />
But, today will never come a second<br />
time.<br />
If we do not take the gifts it offers,<br />
we shall never have another chance to<br />
get them,<br />
and shall always be poorer for what we<br />
have missed.<br />
— J. R. MILLER.<br />
Most of us (including me) feel that we lived<br />
for ‘n’ number of years. Of late, I realized<br />
that we don’t live for years but we live for<br />
every second of the time. Explanation for<br />
this statement is quite simple. The wheel<br />
might be looking big enough but its utility<br />
– Ravikanth Balijapalli<br />
is realized by each spike touching the<br />
ground and passing the turn to the next<br />
spike. So, next time, if somebody asks us<br />
how old are we? We should say that I am<br />
this “Second” old. By the time you say, that<br />
second completes and you are lucky to<br />
‘Survive’ for another second. This is quite<br />
unrealistic to say. But, mind you, every<br />
second makes a minute and every minute<br />
makes an hour and every hour makes a<br />
day i.e TODAY and so J.R. Miller is right to<br />
say that today will never come a second<br />
time. We should accept the fact that what<br />
we are today is the result of yesterdays’<br />
thoughts and actions and what we shall be<br />
tomorrow can be a result of todays’ thoughts<br />
and actions. Instead of constantly looking<br />
for excuses or reasons for our previous<br />
mistakes or failures, let us commit ourselves<br />
to strengthen the Desirable Cause of<br />
today for tomorrows’ effect. � H<br />
Ravikanth Balijapalli is Asst. Professor - MBA Dept., Sri Vasavi Engineering College, Tadepalligudem. A P E-Mail: balijapalli@gmail.com<br />
In 21st Century, though intellectuals extol<br />
about the change in management and<br />
entrepreneurial paradigms, profit motive still<br />
remains dominant; where providing value for<br />
stakeholders at large should be the<br />
proposition. Considering the fact that few<br />
organizations have actually exhibited an<br />
initiative to break the paradigm, there is<br />
immense need for the leaders to think if their<br />
motive of doing business is appreciated the<br />
way it is. While there are numerous reasons<br />
to go beyond the paradigm in reference,<br />
Employee Level Profession attributes<br />
Self Actualization<br />
Esteem<br />
Tangible and<br />
Love<br />
Intangible<br />
Safety<br />
Physiological<br />
Profession | System | Pride<br />
Appropriate<br />
integration of<br />
needs would<br />
lead to Pride<br />
finding the competitive edge has also only<br />
become complex. Very well understanding<br />
that the basic need of profitability has to be<br />
satiated to imagine farther, a better<br />
community, the questions that remain are:<br />
"How then we find our fortune??" - "It is<br />
good, but how would it be great??"<br />
Critical analysis of the organizations and<br />
opinions of various business leaders,<br />
subscribe to the fact that people are the<br />
core, and have undeniably a major impact<br />
on the system compared to any other<br />
components in it. The appetite satiated at<br />
people level of a system is directly<br />
proportional to how much its own appetite<br />
is satiated. Correlating this equation to the<br />
System attributes<br />
Tangible and<br />
Intangible<br />
System Level<br />
Evolved<br />
Valued<br />
Branded<br />
Profitable<br />
Survival / Break-even<br />
– Vinay Kumar Chaganti<br />
prevailing business paradigm, the difference<br />
in how the organization evolves is<br />
distinguishable from one to another.<br />
Getting back to basics, and extending<br />
Maslow's Need Hierarchy to the systems,<br />
the above correlation would seem more<br />
valid. From the equation, the lesson drawn<br />
out is to go beyond safety needs of<br />
individuals. So pragmatically, what then<br />
would make the individuals feel the love for<br />
the system?<br />
Research often proved that productive<br />
people are happier, and therefore carry more<br />
pride in the profession - leading to love for<br />
the system. Hence the answer to the above<br />
question is, 'Instill pride in the profession -<br />
Make the employees productive - See the<br />
people happy'. This may not be the only or<br />
complete answer, but certainly one of the<br />
most effective arguments that a leader<br />
would consider.<br />
Execution, as the key to this school of thought,<br />
can really break free from all limits, and would<br />
let the leaders step into the future. �H Mr. Vinay Kumar Chaganti, Sr.Consultant, ATG Organizational Consultants,, Hyderabad. E-mail: nenevinay@gmail.com
Shivani Mishra, a home science graduate<br />
from Delhi University overlooked her<br />
parents' advice to pursue higher education<br />
in favor of joining a leading private airline<br />
as cabin crew in March 2008. The first 7<br />
months were the best comprising of rigorous<br />
training, frequent travel abroad, coupled with<br />
a handsome package. The dream run turned<br />
sour when she was handed the pink slip in<br />
October 2008 by her employer. "I regret not<br />
having pursued the PG course in Advertising<br />
& Mass media that my father had<br />
recommended back in Feb of this year" says<br />
a visibly disappointed Shivani.<br />
Once considered a lucrative career option,<br />
the aviation sector has witnessed a major<br />
slowdown in the last 3 months. The increase<br />
in mergers & operational alliances between<br />
most airlines does not spell good news for<br />
aspiring & current aviation professionals. If<br />
you are part of the aviation sector, here are<br />
some tips to ride the recession:<br />
What to do if just lost your job?<br />
Take time to figure things out. This is the<br />
perfect opportunity to put things into<br />
perspective and realise what you want to<br />
do next. Do you want a job in a related field<br />
or is it time to make a career change. Call<br />
friends and relatives that might be able to<br />
help you find another job, but more<br />
importantly to help you in understanding and<br />
coming to terms with this sudden change in<br />
your career. Update your resume and post<br />
it on various job portals. Reach out to<br />
recruitment consultants and update your<br />
profile on social networking sites like<br />
Linkedin.com & Orkut.com to reflect the fact<br />
that you are job hunting.<br />
Begin the recovery process<br />
Take a stock of your skill sets. Make a list of<br />
atleast 7 professional skills that you posess<br />
that you think some employer will be willing<br />
to pay you for. These could range from -<br />
Customer service skills & verbal<br />
communication to specific skills like -<br />
disaster management, problem solving<br />
ability etc. once done, read this list out loud<br />
to yourself. This will give you a sense of<br />
confidence and propel you in the direction<br />
of finding a new job. Another idea is to<br />
specifically identify an area you would like<br />
to work on and select a book that addresses<br />
that subject. Reading one book per month<br />
will greatly improve your knowledge and<br />
your professional skills. Many of these books<br />
are relatively easy reading, and don't feel<br />
discouraged if some of the material is not<br />
immediately processing or if you are<br />
struggling to apply the new techniques at<br />
work. Situations will arise, weeks or months<br />
after reading the book, to trigger the<br />
knowledge.<br />
Know the facts<br />
There is a difference between 'getting fired'<br />
and getting 'laid off' and a sound<br />
understanding of the reasons why you were<br />
laid off will prepare you for upcoming<br />
interviews and professional discussions.<br />
Employers are disinclined to risks and don't<br />
enjoy dealing with unsure prospects. If they<br />
have to choose between hiring someone<br />
who has been "fired" or "laid-off", they will<br />
probably opt for the latter. There are several<br />
reasons why Aviation jobs are being<br />
downsized like - rising cost of airline fuel,<br />
route rationalization, and lack of economies<br />
of scale etc. Do some research and learn<br />
about the nuances of each of these factors.<br />
"I recently interviewed a Senior Air Hostess<br />
for the position of a Store Manager. While<br />
she was visibly upset at being laid off, she<br />
had little clue about the reasons why the<br />
aviation sector is going through a downturn<br />
and could not talk authoritatively about the<br />
overall industry challenges. The lack of<br />
awareness and an intrinsic focus on just her<br />
own job made her lose points in the interview<br />
before the panel" says Dashraj Shetty,<br />
Senior Manager-HR with a leading Delhi<br />
based Retail company.<br />
Prepare for the next interview<br />
Employers are likely to ask themselves why<br />
you are currently on the job market if you<br />
are so perfect for the position. In other<br />
words, if you are so good for this line of work,<br />
why is it that you are currently unemployed?<br />
"The more you know the more valuable you<br />
are and the less likely the company will be<br />
to let you go. You may also be able to use<br />
these new skills to earn some extra income<br />
by freelancing or doing some other work on<br />
the side. Cabin crew can offer to train<br />
aspiring candidates at leading aviation<br />
academies. Most academies will be open<br />
to the idea of hiring experienced cabin crew<br />
The Downturn in<br />
Aviation jobs?<br />
– Deeksha Singh<br />
as personality development, grooming &<br />
etiquette instructors. If you have lost your<br />
job and you don't have anything else<br />
immediately lined up, pursue a short term<br />
certificate or diploma program that can add<br />
value to your time & career. Short term<br />
management courses or courses in<br />
marketing, & retail are good bets for aviation<br />
professionals" says Nisha Majumdar, a Delhi<br />
based recruitment consultant<br />
Focus on the distinct personal experiences<br />
you had as aviation professional. Most<br />
aviation professionals travel a lot as part of<br />
their job. You could focus on how traveling<br />
has helped refine you as an individual with<br />
more favorable characteristics, polished<br />
skills and mature understanding -- which<br />
you' can contribute to a new organisation. If<br />
you visited foreign countries, you may have<br />
gained an understanding of that culture and<br />
basic language skills. In addition to making<br />
you well-rounded, your travel experiences<br />
may come in handy in the era of<br />
globalization and international business. The<br />
idea here is to be in charge of your career<br />
and making things happen, not just sitting<br />
back and living the consequences<br />
Track the other sectors<br />
There are several sectors which are still<br />
hiring and aviation professionals can look<br />
at them for employment. Retail & Hospitality<br />
are the common hunting grounds. There are<br />
several BPO's that specialise in catering to<br />
the Aviation & Travel industry and could offer<br />
relevant profiles to aviation professionals.<br />
Companies in the education business with<br />
a focus on travel & tourism courses and air<br />
hostess grooming academies are also<br />
sectors that can be targeted. "The trick is to<br />
keep your eyes & ears open and not be<br />
myopic in your hunt for jobs. Sometimes an<br />
opportunity may come from the most<br />
unexpected corners. Attending job fairs may<br />
also be beneficial especially for<br />
professionals with 1-2 years of overall<br />
experience" says Vipin Bisht, a Delhi based<br />
Recruitment consultant.<br />
A job loss may seem like an insurmountable<br />
challenge however a depressing time in your<br />
life might actually fuel your much needed<br />
career change. So, remember that "there is<br />
nothing so bad in life that cannot be<br />
overcome". All the best! � H<br />
Deeksha Singh is a Managing Partner at WCH Training Solutions, a New Delhi based Training & Consulting. E-mail: deeksha.nagi@gmail.com<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 39
"Mujhse bacchon ke ansoo dekhe nahi<br />
gaye- Naresh Goyal (after taking back the<br />
termination orders of 850 sacked<br />
employees across India)"<br />
Talking to a friend of mine few days back,<br />
who also happens to be a fellow HR<br />
professional with a multinational, we<br />
somehow touched on the topic of HR being<br />
emotional or rational. My point was that any<br />
HR person needs to be emotional in order<br />
to understand the employee psyche better.<br />
However my friend did not share my<br />
opinions on HR and his take was that HR<br />
cannot afford to be emotional. Unless and<br />
until the professionals in this field have a<br />
rational bent of mind, it would be very difficult<br />
for them to take any decisions. He cited an<br />
example of HR's role in termination of an<br />
employee. And that set me thinking. Even<br />
though we could not carry on this discussion<br />
for long, or continue it some other time, I<br />
believe my period of unrest had begun and<br />
until I sort out for answers to the above said<br />
question I would not be comfortable.<br />
In fact this was not the first time I have had<br />
to dabble with this question of HR making a<br />
choice based on reasoning or sentiment. In<br />
my career span handling HR issues, and<br />
especially termination issue, I have had to<br />
time and again come up with the right<br />
reasons for my decision. Not just for the<br />
management and the employees but also<br />
for myself. Going back to the previous<br />
example, the reason for terminating a<br />
person can be very many, ranging from non<br />
performance, to behavioral issues, to<br />
misconduct or indiscipline to resource<br />
availability. Though on one hand, to come<br />
to a decision that an employee needs to be<br />
terminated needs a very rational process<br />
taking into account all necessary instances<br />
and documents which commensurate the<br />
decision. However communication of<br />
decision is a process not isolated of emotion.<br />
Why because, all HR professionals need to<br />
understand, and to a very large extent do<br />
understand, that any person who is being<br />
terminated or is being asked to leave the<br />
organization is not just loosing a "JOB"; but<br />
a life. May sound very dramatic but is true.<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 40<br />
HR- Rational or Emotional<br />
To most of us job means not just regular<br />
income, but our children's education, our<br />
lifestyle expenses, and everything else<br />
under the sun. All of us in working life today<br />
spend most of our waking hours in office or<br />
thinking about office. I have seen a friend<br />
who was living under constant pressure of<br />
keeping up with office work load and<br />
parental care pressure more so because<br />
both his parents were suffering from severe<br />
depression. The need for constant medical<br />
attention made it impossible for him to<br />
concentrate fully on work, and the fear of<br />
loosing his job was making his problem<br />
worse. He was worried if he lost his job, how<br />
will he fulfill his duties towards his parents,<br />
and that is the case in almost all Indian<br />
home. Under such circumstances if an<br />
employee is asked to leave the organization,<br />
it leaves him not just frustrated, defeated<br />
and sometimes shocked but also scarred<br />
for life. So how can HR actually handle it in<br />
a best possible manner? I believe when an<br />
employee is terminated based on non<br />
performance, the reasons are many. I don't<br />
believe that any person would not want to<br />
work. Call me a die hard optimist, but that<br />
is what it is. Every person wants to work<br />
and every person can perform. What creates<br />
a problem especially in case of non<br />
performance is the reason or environment<br />
in which employee is working. Sometimes<br />
an employee does not perform, because the<br />
environment is not conducive for him, or his<br />
style of functioning does not match with his<br />
manager or he does not gel in with the team<br />
mates etc. As a result an employee looses<br />
interest in working and eventually leaves the<br />
organization. And if he needs the job badly<br />
enough then he would continue to work with<br />
the organization until his performance starts<br />
to be noticed by higher ups and finally one<br />
day he is asked to leave. Under the above<br />
mentioned circumstances, sometimes as we<br />
see the case is simply that of mismatch or if<br />
we may call it, recruitment error. If that is<br />
the case how can HR be emotional? Firstly<br />
by accepting that there has been a<br />
recruitment error and the fault is not<br />
completely of employee. Secondly by talking<br />
about him in the industry and finding a right<br />
Ms. Nupur D Pandey is an HR Advisor and Management Consultant based at New Delhi. E-Mail: nupurpandey@gmail.com<br />
– Nupur D Pandey<br />
place for him in some other organization.<br />
Now why would a company take a non<br />
performer of another company? For the<br />
same reason that a company would take<br />
any other employee of another company.<br />
What industries across need to realize is that<br />
all companies have different work cultures<br />
and it is sometimes that work culture which<br />
may prompt an employee to under perform<br />
or over perform? I was in a job once where<br />
I was an underperformer. But as soon as I<br />
switched jobs, I became an over achiever.<br />
Now how did that happen? Simply because<br />
one organization was unable to bring out<br />
the best in me and other did. Similarly if an<br />
employee is asked to leave because of<br />
behavioral issue, HR needs to take extra<br />
effort to find out the real reason behind the<br />
same. And if something can be done to help<br />
the employee that I believe HR should do<br />
just that.<br />
The previous paragraph might sound a bit<br />
utopian in approach. And more so all of us<br />
are looking at the ROI now days. Even HR<br />
has come under the purview of audit and<br />
metrics. So let's look at the benefits of being<br />
an emotional HR person.<br />
Improved image of HR professionals and<br />
HR as a function: - I am in no way trying to<br />
suggest that rational HR is a deterrent to its<br />
positive image, but definitely hold an opinion<br />
that if HR professional are taught to look at<br />
a situation with both a rational and emotional<br />
approach, they would deal with a situation<br />
in a much more affective way. Let me take<br />
on from the same example of termination<br />
of an employee, there are always situations<br />
where an employee is found guilty of non<br />
performance and misbehavior then reaching<br />
to the conclusion would mean taking a<br />
rational approach. However action on the<br />
finding would essentially have to be based<br />
on both rationale and emotion. Unless that<br />
happens the final decision taken may not<br />
the best possible answer to any situation.<br />
Employees would feel more connected<br />
with HR:- A friend of mine calls HR a group<br />
of 'Hired Rascals'. I am not sure I should be<br />
using this language for my article, but this<br />
(Contd.. on Page 42
“The most significant decision I make<br />
everyday is my choice of an attitude.<br />
When my attitudes are right there is no<br />
barrier too high, no valley too deep, no<br />
dream too extreme and no challenge too<br />
great”<br />
– Charles Swindoll<br />
Introduction:<br />
All of us are aware that when a child smiles<br />
it is an indication of its happiness and when<br />
it frowns it is an indication of its<br />
unhappiness. As the child matures it<br />
develops attitude. Further, its behavior<br />
reveals the fact whether it is acquiring<br />
positive or negative attitude which will<br />
eventually govern and control its<br />
development into a mature, responsible,<br />
productive, successful individual.<br />
When a child grows in a positive<br />
environment its natural disposition will be<br />
cheerful and happy and when his growth<br />
is affected by a negative environment its<br />
growth warped. In other words it is a<br />
environment that shapes the kind of<br />
attitude it develops.<br />
As we grow we acquire three basic types<br />
of attitude<br />
� Attitudes we have about ourselves.<br />
� Attitudes we have towards others and<br />
the objects around us and<br />
� Attitudes we have towards life itself<br />
What is an attitude?<br />
Attitude is defined as the position or bearing<br />
as indicating action, feeling or mood. And<br />
it is our actions, feelings or moods that<br />
determine the actions, feelings, or moods<br />
of others. Our attitude is the way we<br />
communicate our mood and tell the world<br />
what we expect in return. It must also be<br />
noted that while positive attitude attract<br />
positive results, negative attitudes<br />
positively attract negative results.<br />
Ok its fine….but why is it so<br />
important????<br />
Marceus Aurelius, the great philosopher<br />
who ruled the roman empire said it simply:<br />
“Our life is what our thoughts make it” Dale<br />
Carnegie, speaking to this quote said “Yes,<br />
How Important it is to Possess /<br />
Develop Positive Attitude<br />
if we think happy thoughts, we will be happy.<br />
If we think miserable thoughts, we will be<br />
miserable. If we think fear thoughts, we will<br />
be fearful. If we think sickly thoughts, we<br />
probably will be sick. If we think failure, we<br />
will certainly fail. If we wallow in self-pity,<br />
everyone will want to shun us and avoid us”.<br />
In addition to having the right attitudes<br />
towards others and life around us, it is<br />
always best to have an overall positive<br />
attitude. Only an overall positive attitude<br />
has the power to attract good fortune from<br />
the world around us. It is this attitude that<br />
can help us to brace ourselves when<br />
difficult circumstances come our way and<br />
help us not to get over wrought by them,<br />
and maintain a positive calm.<br />
Attitude determines Altitude:<br />
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude”<br />
– Scott Hamilton. There are people who,<br />
despite their physical disability, have led<br />
extraordinary lives and in the process made<br />
a difference to other lives as well. Let’s look<br />
at few such instances:<br />
� A visually challenged British adventurer<br />
Miler Hilton – Barber completed an epic<br />
21, 700 km flight from London to<br />
Sydney in what friends called “a<br />
motorbike in the sky”<br />
� Mr Rajan Mishra after losing his right<br />
arm, while in the army, learnt to write<br />
with his left hand, appeared for CAT<br />
and GMAT and after securing a seat is<br />
presently pursuing a Post Graduate<br />
Program at IIM – A<br />
� We are all aware that now-a-days<br />
people past 40 are confronted with<br />
several ailments / deceases and feel<br />
as if sometimes, the complete energy<br />
drained out. , this is the case with most<br />
of us. Remoon, who is 80 years old<br />
affected by polio and undergone a<br />
heart operation, won the <strong>National</strong><br />
Amateurs Body Building Championship<br />
recently conducted by Australia.<br />
What is a Right Attitude?<br />
In the verse given below, Chanakya gives<br />
us an idea of the right attitude and mental<br />
framework with which a manager should<br />
work: He says:<br />
Dr. A. Jagan Mohan Reddy is Associate Professor(HR), IPE, Hyderabad, E-Mail: adamareddy@yahoo.co.in<br />
– Dr.A.Jagan Mohan Reddy<br />
“He should turn away from another frightful<br />
(words by the King) and should not himself<br />
use frightful words to another, and should<br />
tolerate (such words) addressed to himself,<br />
being full of forbearance like the earth”.<br />
By analyzing the above verse three<br />
inferences can be drawn, which are of<br />
much use to our today’s young managers<br />
in their managerial pursuits.<br />
� When the boss expresses his anger, it<br />
necessarily need not be towards you.<br />
Just keep calm and let the time pass.<br />
Probably some previous event might<br />
have affected his behaviour. On<br />
analysis if you find mistake on your part<br />
then correct it and only then go back<br />
to the boss.<br />
� When you get angry, postpone every<br />
activity and thought till you are calm<br />
and quite.<br />
� When juniors / subordinates abuses<br />
you despite you doing your best to<br />
them, remember your parents. You<br />
only have to look around to see how<br />
children all the time ask of their parents<br />
“what did you do”.<br />
Never get frustrated, just remain calm,<br />
forgive them and let life go on. Things return<br />
– back to normal as, all of us realize<br />
eventually that we need each other.<br />
What happens if someone doesn’t<br />
possess it?<br />
We all know All Rounder Andrew Symonds<br />
of Australia and how important he is to the<br />
Australian team especially for their current<br />
series with India. But he was dropped from<br />
the side for the one day series with<br />
Bangladesh in Darwin in September 2008,<br />
after he missed a team meeting and went<br />
wishing instead. Further, he was also not<br />
included in the team currently touring India.<br />
This is a typical case of not possessing<br />
the right positive attitude.<br />
If a positive attitude is so important, why<br />
does everyone not have it?<br />
There could be three reasons:<br />
a. Pride – some people think they<br />
deserve better in life, that everyone<br />
should serve them.<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 41
. Perfectionism – if the world is not what<br />
you wish it to be, you will always have<br />
reasons for negativity.<br />
c. Purpose – if your purpose resolves<br />
around your needs, pleasure and future<br />
with no thought for others, then yours<br />
will be a sorry and aimless life.<br />
Let the hard times not dampen your grit<br />
What do you first do when you learn to<br />
swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And<br />
what happens? You make other mistakes,<br />
and when you have made all the mistakes<br />
you possibly can without drowning – and<br />
some of them many times over – what do<br />
you find? That you can swim? Well – life is<br />
just the same as learning to swim! Do not<br />
be afraid of making mistakes for there is no<br />
other way of learning how to live!<br />
– Alfred Adler<br />
Life is not a bed of roses, there are thorns<br />
lurking, waiting to poke and test us. A<br />
broken relationship, an argument with the<br />
boss or not getting the raise one expected<br />
often makes us depressed. However,<br />
unless we prove ourselves amidst such<br />
circumstances, we can never attain<br />
greatness. In this regard, let’s see if we can<br />
learn something from Ants.<br />
The Ant philosophy:<br />
1. Ants never quit – if they are headed<br />
somewhere and you try to stop them<br />
by placing an obstacle they will either<br />
climb over, climb around but keep<br />
moving so never quit looking for a way<br />
to get where you are suppose to go.<br />
2. Ants think winter all summer – in<br />
summer it plans for winter, which speaks<br />
of its tremendous planning ability.<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 42<br />
3. Ants operate as a team – they have<br />
the humility to follow the leader<br />
4. At any time they do all that is possible<br />
thereby conveying the lesson, do all<br />
you can… and move<br />
Let not set backs make you sit<br />
back………..<br />
We have all heard of the often used saying<br />
that failures are the stepping stones to<br />
success, yet how many of us when faced<br />
with failures have the courage to accept<br />
them and move ahead in life? Whether it<br />
is failing to get a coveted job or a lost<br />
promotion or even a raise, we are<br />
immediately disappointed and due that<br />
failure and worse may consider ourselves<br />
as failures. This attitude to failure affects<br />
our motivation levels and our ability to<br />
take progressive steps in life. This is<br />
because we view everything in relation to<br />
failure. This can change only if we change<br />
our attitude to failure. Look at Abraham<br />
Lincoln, the former Great President of USA.<br />
His life is full of failures but kept on moving<br />
ahead to become the President of USA.<br />
In India we have one of the finest<br />
example of the indomitable human<br />
spirit, of the dogged determination.<br />
A shepherd boy hailing from a small village<br />
in Kaithal, Haryana and fondly called Bhura<br />
(the fair one) by villagers could not have<br />
perhaps dreamt of studying abroad<br />
teaching research students and dooming<br />
the hat of a Vice Chancellor. But the<br />
Shepherd turned his dreams into reality.<br />
He has grown up to become one of the<br />
highly acclaimed academicians in Russian.<br />
Abhai Mourya, the first Vice Chancellor of<br />
English and foreign languages university<br />
became what the villagers in Kaithal call a<br />
Carried form Page 40 HR- Rational or Emotional<br />
always makes me think as to how<br />
aggrieved this guy would be to use such<br />
harsh language when he himself is a very<br />
senior HR professional. The reason behind<br />
his 'frustration' about the practice is that<br />
he himself was a victim of HR policies of<br />
his company. In an era of profits and cut<br />
throat competitions, it is understood that<br />
nothing but the best can survive and<br />
sustain. So when he fell severely ill and<br />
had to go on a three months' bed rest, his<br />
position was taken away from him due to a<br />
HR policy. On the face of it, this is a very<br />
simple situation. But the after affect of this<br />
played havoc on his personal life. Had his<br />
organization considered his position once<br />
before blindly following the policy, may be<br />
this gentleman would be in a much better<br />
condition? Emotional perspective to any<br />
situation would help HR professional look<br />
at a whole than just the organizational<br />
perspective.<br />
<strong>IS</strong> BEING RATIONAL EASIER<br />
There is no clear cut answer to this question.<br />
It is a very personal question. Some people<br />
are more comfortable being rational and<br />
others are naturally emotional. However one<br />
thing is very clear rationale can offer<br />
explanations that emotions need not<br />
necessarily accept. Why was the employee<br />
terminated, because there was a financial<br />
crunch. why was only this employee given<br />
the pink slip, and not others, er…er… his<br />
performance was an issue, she was having<br />
behavioral issues. Rationale can help us<br />
come up with a lot of sane and sometimes<br />
not so sane reasons. I personally think being<br />
rational is easier. Why go through the trouble<br />
of thinking emotionally, being involved,<br />
miracle and what the modern world calls a<br />
self made man.<br />
Conclusion:<br />
In addition to having the right attitude<br />
towards others and life around us, it is<br />
always best to have an overall positive<br />
attitude. It is this attitude that will see that<br />
life can suddenly reverse and connect a<br />
problem or otherwise bring about sudden<br />
instances of good fortune.<br />
Let me conclude with a very beautiful poem<br />
by Lao Tzu:<br />
Men are born soft and supple<br />
Dead, they are stiff and hard,<br />
Plants are born tender and pliant<br />
Dead, they are brittle and dry,<br />
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible<br />
Is a disciple of death<br />
Whoever is soft and yielding<br />
Is a disciple of life<br />
The hard and stiff will be broken<br />
The soft and supple will prevail<br />
May the New Year, that is going to dawn<br />
shortly bring all of you cheer, happiness<br />
and prosperity through positive attitude<br />
towards life.<br />
References:<br />
1. Bhavan’s Journal, Nov 15, 2006<br />
2. Cricinfo, 31 st August, 2008 Vedoday,<br />
Vol1, No.2 December, 2007<br />
3. Daniel W Jarvis, “Your attitude<br />
determines your altitude”, Marco Island<br />
Sun Times, 7 th July, 2005<br />
4. Harvard Business Review, May 2007<br />
5. Sharma, V, “Complete Chanakya<br />
Neethi”, Manoj Publications, Delhi,<br />
2004<br />
6. The Hindu, 5 th Sept and 21 st Nov, 2007<br />
7. The Times of India, 9 th Oct, 2008 � H<br />
trying to change the situation, carrying a<br />
guilt when all of it could very well be avoided<br />
on the pretext of rationale. The Jet Airways<br />
announcement of termination of employees<br />
was a classic example of the same.<br />
Rationale worked but emotions prevailed.<br />
In fact this discussion brings us to a very<br />
vital question of who is HR accountable to?<br />
The organization or the employees.<br />
Rationally I would have answered it as<br />
organization. But adding to it the emotional<br />
perspective has made me realize that even<br />
though HR needs to be accountable for<br />
managing the workforce in a manner that<br />
is best suited for the organizational growth,<br />
unless and until the personnel feel a<br />
personal touch with the organization, all the<br />
other efforts to keep an employee motivated<br />
would not bear any fruits. �H
QUESTIONS FOR D<strong>IS</strong>CUSSION.<br />
Case Study-27<br />
Q.No.1.Why the MD did not want a Union<br />
for Management men? What are the<br />
advantages and disadvantages?<br />
Ans. The MD did not want a Union for<br />
Management men because he was taking<br />
care of them in all respects and was<br />
managing them efficiently. If this was his<br />
opinion, he could take pride. Another point<br />
he might have had was that in case they<br />
had a Union, some of them would involve in<br />
those affairs with a high priority and thus<br />
might lose some productive hours. Further,<br />
the in charge of the Union would have to<br />
devote much of his time to fulfill all legal<br />
formalities which could take lot of time.<br />
There were instances where government<br />
and employers did not favour recognition of<br />
managerial associations as trade unions.<br />
Instead, they favoured formation of welfare<br />
associations. The subject became a<br />
controversy as freedom of association being<br />
a fundamental right under the Indian<br />
Constitution was denied by top<br />
management. If formation of Union was not<br />
allowed, there could be annoyance,<br />
dissatisfaction and indifference amongst the<br />
executives whenever certain arbitrary<br />
decisions were taken by top management.<br />
It may be noted here that Officers<br />
Associations in banking industry, aviation<br />
and other areas have been in existence.<br />
Some executives felt that workers enjoyed<br />
more benefits because of their Union.<br />
According to the experience gained by IR<br />
experts, advantages were numerous when<br />
they promoted a Union. The MD, in this<br />
case, must have had seen in the past the<br />
extreme risk-aversion factors while dealing<br />
with IR tribulations resulting in aggressive,<br />
radical and unconventional issues. That<br />
need not be the case in all Union affairs.<br />
Subhas, who was arguing to form a Union,<br />
viewed the first advantage was to attain<br />
economic security. Second was to improve<br />
the bargaining power. There were many<br />
advantages with an organized,<br />
conscientious and responsible Union. In this<br />
connection, readers should know a relevant<br />
information. In 1978, government introduced<br />
"the Employment Security and<br />
Miscellaneous Provisions (Managerial<br />
Should Subhas be fired?<br />
Employees) Bill. They proposed that<br />
'managerial employee' was any person other<br />
than a 'workman' as defined in the Industrial<br />
Disputes Act of 1947. However, the bill could<br />
not be passed and the Parliament was<br />
dissolved. The Second <strong>National</strong><br />
Commission Labour recommended in 2002<br />
a broader definition of employee and<br />
protection for managerial employees against<br />
unfair dismissal.<br />
Q.No.2.If you are the MD, how you would<br />
like to deal this case?<br />
Ans. To handle a peculiar state of affairs<br />
like this, one should have a thorough<br />
comprehension of the whole situation.<br />
Before issuing a charge sheet, the MD rightly<br />
verified with his vigilance department who<br />
confirmed that it was Subhas. They enquired<br />
from others who were close to him in the<br />
photograph and recognized him as the right<br />
person. Further, if it was established that<br />
he was present at the meeting shouting<br />
slogans along with the Union members and<br />
workers, it was surely a breach of trust that<br />
existed between the MD and his executives.<br />
MD appropriately ordered for a domestic<br />
enquiry to know the authentic and genuine<br />
facts. The MD was right in his approach.<br />
Q.No.3.If you are Subhas Mazumdar,<br />
what type of behaviour you would adopt<br />
in this organization?<br />
Ans. Subhas, right from the beginning felt<br />
that he was being victimized by picking up<br />
an unjustifiable proof mentioning that he<br />
participated in a workers demonstration. It<br />
was a fact that he came up from ranks and<br />
was for some time in the Union category.<br />
The Management, therefore, could believe<br />
that his earlier status as a Union member<br />
influenced him to form a union for<br />
executives. If I were Subhas, I would search<br />
out for a lucrative job outside and quit the<br />
organization.<br />
Q.No.4. Are executives of any<br />
organization proscribed not to attend the<br />
meetings of the Workers' Union?<br />
Ans. The right to attend any meeting by any<br />
executive could not be taken away by any<br />
organization. It would be the sweet will of<br />
any individual, worker or executive, to attend<br />
any meeting, be it a political, cultural or<br />
union. Any Management cannot therefore<br />
restrict any of their employees not to attend<br />
Mr. R. Dharma Rao, Head, HR, ICBM. He can be reached at: ravidharma_icbm@yahoo.co.in<br />
– R. Dharma Rao<br />
meetings conducted by Unions. Participation<br />
could be restricted.<br />
Q.No.5. Should Subhas be fired?<br />
Ans. This is a difficult question. The charge<br />
was proved in the domestic enquiry.<br />
Naturally, the employee deserved a severe<br />
punishment including discharge. The<br />
continuous denial of Subhas that he was<br />
not that the person who appeared in the<br />
photograph should be carefully considered.<br />
He could be right in his argument that a<br />
person resembled exactly like him, may be<br />
from one side of his face that appeared in<br />
the photo, attended the meeting. If it was<br />
so and he was fired, it would be very unfair.<br />
Before taking any decision on this matter, it<br />
would be better that MD called a meeting<br />
with some of his executives for a brain<br />
storming session and a decision taken.<br />
However, Subhas deserved justice. If he<br />
was discharged, as the charge was proved,<br />
it was erroneous. But if an executive<br />
(Subhas) was under surveillance constantly<br />
by the Management, there was no point for<br />
him to stay in that organization.<br />
Q.No.6. Imagine that Subhas was<br />
discharged and he went to the Labour<br />
Court. How the case would be dealt by<br />
them?<br />
Ans. Labour Court would view the entire<br />
affair differently. As a first step, they would<br />
verify all documents and other exhibits<br />
produced in the Domestic Enquiry to<br />
establish that Subhas was given full<br />
opportunity to defend himself. The main<br />
charge against Subhas was that he actively<br />
participated in the demonstration organized<br />
by the Workers Union. The proof of his<br />
involvement was the photograph appeared<br />
in the local newspaper. In spite of his denial,<br />
Management took an arbitrary decision and<br />
discharged him. The Labor Court would not<br />
give full importance to the photograph and<br />
could ask the Management to reinstate him<br />
with full back wages. Photograph was not<br />
an infallible document to discharge an<br />
employee from the company's services.<br />
The author does not claim that the way the<br />
problem was dealt with is the best or the<br />
only way of dealing with the problem.<br />
Further, he shall be highly obliged if the<br />
readers sent any other solutions to this case<br />
study to the email given below. �H | <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 43
233. Hyperinflation In<br />
North Korea<br />
In July 2002, the<br />
government of North<br />
Korea increased wages<br />
and salaries of<br />
employees as much as<br />
20 to 30 fold. Soon after<br />
prices of staples like<br />
rice, corn and pork were raised 20 to 40 fold.<br />
North Korea is facing acute shortage of food,<br />
clothing and consumer goods. Too much<br />
money is chasing too few goods. Its currency<br />
won has become increasingly worthless. In<br />
October it printed 10,000-won note, worth<br />
around $66. North Korea, an economic<br />
disaster is living on the edge. You see mile<br />
after mile of derelict factories and smoke<br />
stacks with very little smoke. The factories<br />
are rusting and decaying. The signs of<br />
economic life in North Korea come largely<br />
from investments by South Koreans. Labor<br />
in North Korea is very cheap. They are not<br />
ready for capitalism. It is doubtful, whether<br />
the communist government of North Korea<br />
will ever follow the path of China and<br />
liberalize its economy.<br />
(Source: The New York Times,<br />
March 11, 2003)<br />
234. Yearly Scholarships To New York<br />
Students By The New York Times<br />
One of the highly reputed newspaper of<br />
America, The New York Times, has been<br />
giving scholarships of $7,500 a year for four<br />
years to young men and women for the last<br />
five years, to fulfill their college dreams.<br />
Each scholar will also get a computer, a<br />
printer and a $500 a week summer job at<br />
the newspaper. This year's 20 scholars are<br />
selected from out of 1400 applicants. They<br />
come from a background of severe<br />
adversity. They are selected for their triumph<br />
of spirit over hardship and their will to<br />
succeed against daunting odds. In addition,<br />
a teacher named by each scholar will be<br />
recognized, with an award and a $3,000<br />
grant. The scheme is partly financed by Starr<br />
Foundation, an arm of the insurer American<br />
International Group, which provided $4<br />
million endowment.<br />
(Source: The New York Times,<br />
March 8, 2003)<br />
235. Effects of Vitamin D Deficiency<br />
We are living amid an unrecognized<br />
epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. Scientist<br />
are linking low levels of vitamin D to cancer,<br />
hypertension, diabetes and osteoporosis.<br />
Vitamin D plays an absolutely pivotal role in<br />
all aspects of human health. Sunlight is the<br />
best source of vitamin D. Rickets - a bone<br />
bending disease especially among children<br />
is caused by vitamin D deficiency. African<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 44<br />
Americans face higher risk as their dark skin<br />
makes absorbing UV rays harder. People<br />
are advised to take a blood test for D levels<br />
once a year - just as they check their<br />
cholesterol regularly.<br />
(Source: Reader's Digest,<br />
June 2003)<br />
236. Losing The Battle To Bring Down<br />
The Weight Makes You Live Longer<br />
When you lose the battle of the bulge, you<br />
may win a consolation prize: a longer life.<br />
Researchers at the Center for Disease<br />
Control and Prevention followed 6,391<br />
overweight and obese people for nine years<br />
and found that the death rate was 24% lower<br />
in those who at least tried to lose weight -<br />
even if they were unsuccessful - than in<br />
people who did not try to shed pounds. While<br />
it is still best to actually lose weight, it is the<br />
process that is most important. In other<br />
words, the things you do when you are trying<br />
to drop a few pounds like eating less junk<br />
food, more fruits and vegetables, doing more<br />
exercise etc. are not only good for your waist<br />
line, but for your own life line.<br />
237. Human Race As One Huge<br />
Gossiping Family<br />
Fifteen years ago, Arthur C. Clarke in the<br />
science-fiction novel "2061: Odyssey Three"<br />
predicted a future as follows: "With the<br />
historic abolition of long-distance charges<br />
on 31st December 2000, every telephone<br />
call became a local one, and the human race<br />
greeted the new millennium by transforming<br />
itself into one huge gossiping family." His<br />
prediction is coming true, only a few years<br />
behind schedule, as a result of the telephone<br />
industry's declining economic fortunes,<br />
increasing competition and recent<br />
technological advances. Starting with MCI,<br />
which introduced its neighborhood plan in<br />
2002, most leading phone companies in<br />
U.S. - AT&T, BellSouth, Qwest, SBC and<br />
Verizon - have rolled out programs that allow<br />
customers to make unlimited local and<br />
national calls for one flat monthly price. New<br />
customer habits also make selling unlimited<br />
plans easier. With wireless phone industry<br />
selling plans with unlimited access,<br />
customers are demanding similar packages<br />
from their landline providers. Usage is likely<br />
to double on unlimited wireless calling plans.<br />
But there will be a limit, of course. There<br />
are only 24 hours in a day.<br />
(Source: The New York Times,<br />
May 23, 2003)<br />
(Source: Reader's Digest,<br />
Fascinating Facts<br />
Mr. K. Satyanarayana is the Executive Director, <strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> and can be reached at: ksnhrd@gmail.com<br />
– K. Satyanarayana<br />
June 2003)<br />
238. A Wrong That Needs To Be Righted<br />
Lenny Bruce, a man of letters succumbed<br />
to a drug overdose in 1966 at the age of 40.<br />
Two years before he died, a New York court<br />
found him guilty of obscenity charges of<br />
uttering certain words, which we hear these<br />
days on every street corner and in every<br />
television program. Just for speaking his<br />
mind before a paying audience, not only he<br />
was found guilty by the court, but he carried<br />
the stigma of criminal conviction to his grave<br />
as his appeal against the sentence never<br />
came up for hearing during his life-time.<br />
A campaign has now begun in May 2003,<br />
by lawyers and scholars to urge New York<br />
Governor to grant Lenny Bruce a<br />
posthumous pardon. The petitioners argue<br />
that a pardon even now would set the record<br />
straight and there by demonstrate New<br />
York's commitment to freedom - free<br />
speech, free press and free thinking. They<br />
recall another institutional wrong that was<br />
later set right. This was an<br />
acknowledgement by the Roman Catholic<br />
Church that it had wrongly condemned<br />
Galileo in 1633 for showing that the earth<br />
moves around the sun. It took 359 years,<br />
until 1992, for absolution to come. They<br />
hope Governor of New York will not take<br />
that long to give his pardon in this case.<br />
(Source: The New York Times,<br />
May 23, 2003)<br />
239. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy<br />
(B.S.E) or Mad Cow Disease.<br />
A cow infected with mad cow disease was<br />
slaughtered in Canada in January 2003, but<br />
not tested until May 2003 has prompted the<br />
United States, Japan, Australia, Russia,<br />
Singapore and Indonesia and other nations<br />
in banning imports of Canadian beef.<br />
Canada is losing $8 million a day because<br />
of the scare. The disease is usually spread<br />
through the consumption of the feed<br />
contaminated with meat and bone meal<br />
made from animals that were afflicted with<br />
B.S.E. This disease appeared in Britain and<br />
most parts of Europe during 1980's and<br />
1990's when the outbreak led to the<br />
slaughter of 3.7 million cattle. About 130<br />
people, mostly British, died from a human<br />
version of mad cow disease, which scientists<br />
believe could be caused by eating infected<br />
beef.<br />
(Source: The New York Times,<br />
May 23, 2003)
Chapter News<br />
AGRA<br />
A lecture on Intellectual Wealth was<br />
conducted on 6th November 2008 at<br />
Ramnujam Hall, BMAS Engineering<br />
College, Agra of North Maharashtra<br />
University. Dr. Gautam during his talk gave<br />
tips for the improvement and preservance<br />
of intellectual wealth of our country and<br />
emphasised that we must promote this<br />
wealth. The intellectual wealth should be<br />
transformed into real money. There is a<br />
need to carry on basic research required for<br />
the improvement of quality of life and to<br />
promote research activities. He made the<br />
audience understand the impact of research<br />
with the interesting live examples.<br />
One day outbound training was organized<br />
for the N<strong>HRD</strong>N members and MBA students<br />
of BMAS Engineering College, Agra on 8th<br />
November 2008. The training programme<br />
commenced with the demonstration<br />
followed by life time practical experience for<br />
adventure programmes.<br />
Members were shown demonstration in<br />
Para Sailing, Para Gliding and Para Motor<br />
is first phase. Selected few members were<br />
able to undergo the Para Sailing launches<br />
involving Sailing through the wind with the<br />
help of Para Sail and Flying up to the height<br />
of 150 to 300 feet above ground. Since<br />
visibility was poor it could not be possible<br />
for the members to have a view of Taj Mahal<br />
from Para Sailing ground after being<br />
airborne.<br />
The Para Gliding was carried with the help<br />
of winch. The Para Motor flying was also<br />
conducted as part of demonstration. Each<br />
and every member enjoyed the thrill.<br />
In the second part the members were given<br />
demonstration of Battalion weapons. The<br />
heavy load parked and kept ready for Para<br />
drop for actual operation were also shown<br />
to the members. The heavy load included<br />
Gypsy, Jeep and BMP (a sort of mini tank)<br />
in ready packed position for drop by the<br />
aircraft with the help of cluster parachutes.<br />
In the third phase of the out bound training<br />
was Rock Climbing and Rappelling<br />
demonstration on artificial fibre glass wall<br />
was conducted. Thereafter team building<br />
games were conducted which included<br />
negotiating obstacles.<br />
The out bound training programme was a<br />
life time achievement for the members. It<br />
helped them developing the spirit of<br />
adventure and to energies the dormant<br />
qualities of the participants by making it<br />
dominant. Chapter President Col (Dr.) C K<br />
Singh thanked Brig. V N Prasad,<br />
Commander Para Brigade for arranging<br />
such educative, thrilling and interesting<br />
demonstration and adventure programme.<br />
AHMEDABAD<br />
<strong>HRD</strong> DRIVE FOR YOUNG HR<br />
PROFESSIONALS BY NATIONAL <strong>HRD</strong><br />
NETWORK, AHMEDABAD CHAPTER<br />
<strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> - Ahmedabad<br />
Chapter organized full day workshop on 11th<br />
October 08 at Ahmedabad. Approx 175<br />
students and professionals participated in<br />
the workshop.<br />
The management students from B-Schools<br />
& many young HR Professionals were<br />
benefited by the one day exclusive workshop<br />
on "Changing Role of HRM" jointly organized<br />
by N<strong>HRD</strong>, A'bad Chapter & IBMR, A'bad at<br />
Mahatma Gandhi Labour Institute on<br />
Saturday, 11th October 2008.<br />
The Chairman of Standing Committee,<br />
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Mr.<br />
Hasit Vora inaugurated the event with his<br />
remarkable address to the students on how<br />
best one can work for his Organization with<br />
complete Honesty & Commitment. The<br />
President, A'bad Chapter of N<strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong>,<br />
Mr. Nilesh Dave welcomed guests of honor<br />
& invited speakers to this workshop.<br />
Hon.Secretary Mr.Arun Harne, as usual<br />
played very vital and important role in<br />
making the workshop most successful event<br />
of the chapter. Mr.Sanjay Chakraborty an<br />
expert on Branding, Prof.Balyan of IBMR,<br />
Mr.N.R.Vyas an expert on HR management<br />
and Mr.Sharma of Adani Power Ltd were<br />
the esteemed speakers of the day. They<br />
addressed on the Topics like, 'Employer<br />
Branding', 'Challenges for young HR<br />
managers' 'Role Analysis & Competency<br />
Mapping' & 'Employee Engagement'<br />
respectively. The Asst. Resident Editor of<br />
Economic Times, Mr. Ashwin Walunjkar,<br />
concluded the event by briefing on<br />
competencies require to become successful<br />
journalist. Students of IBMR managed the<br />
frontend and back stage of the function very<br />
professionally. Immediate Past President<br />
Mr.H.K.Gupta gave vote of thanks on behalf<br />
of the chapter.<br />
HOSUR<br />
The N<strong>HRD</strong> Hosur Chapter Monthly evening<br />
talk was held on 18-11-2008 at Ashok<br />
Leyland Management Development Centre.<br />
N<strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> members, representatives<br />
from industries and students from<br />
Adhiyaman College of Engineering have<br />
participated in large numbers. Mr. B<br />
Alagesan, Deputy Chief Inspector of<br />
Factories addressed the gatherings on "<br />
Statutory Compliance - Labour Enactments<br />
". He explained the salient features of<br />
Factories Act, Contract Labour (Regulation<br />
and Abolition) Act, Payment of Wages Act,<br />
<strong>National</strong> and Festival Holidays Act and<br />
Conferment of Permanent Status to<br />
Workmen Act. He underlined the importance<br />
of maintaining statutory registers and also<br />
reporting about the accidents to the<br />
Inspectorate on time. He explained the spirit<br />
behind the labour enactments and sought<br />
cooperation of industries for strict<br />
compliance with respect to health and safety<br />
of workers in industry.<br />
The presentation generated lot of interest<br />
and some heat from the participants. They<br />
interacted with Mr. B Alagesan seeking<br />
several clarifications.<br />
Mr. V Nagarajan, Vice President of Hosur<br />
Chapter introduced the speaker and Mr.<br />
Sudhakar Kesavan of SK7 Management<br />
Consultants proposed vote of thanks.<br />
Mr. R Rajaram, President of Hosur Chapter<br />
summed up the meeting stating that there<br />
are 13000 factories in Tamil Nadu and the<br />
accident rate is 1.7 %, the lowest in India<br />
comparing to other states. He raised a point<br />
that laws also have to change according to<br />
the needs of the time. He pointed out that<br />
in India there are several labour enactments<br />
and the definition of 'workman' varies from<br />
one to another. He felt it is the right time<br />
that policy makers should consolidate all<br />
acts and bring out a labour enactment with<br />
least confusion.<br />
Mr. F Isreal Inbaraj, the executive committee<br />
member of the Chapter has created a website<br />
for N<strong>HRD</strong> network members to<br />
exchange views and it was highly<br />
appreciated by the participants.<br />
ICICI Bank has sponsored the meeting and<br />
hosted dinner for the participants.<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 45
BENGALURU<br />
Monthly Evening Lecture Program<br />
October 23, 2008- 6:30 PM @ Hotel<br />
Regaalis<br />
Mr Suresh Nair– CEO & MD – Spheris India,<br />
Bangalore took an enthralling session on “<br />
HR Challenges in the Healthcare BPO”. He<br />
touched upon various BPO/KPO<br />
opportunities in Healthcare. Mainly based<br />
on personal experiences and learning, he<br />
stated the challenges were:<br />
Young employee base<br />
Demanding quality standards<br />
Compensation at early stages of career<br />
tends to be lower than other BPO services<br />
Cost pressures<br />
Industry size is small so career growth is<br />
restricted to a few large players<br />
Investment is OK but spend is not<br />
Employees demand quarterly promotions<br />
Providing job width and depth in a flat<br />
organization<br />
Lesser budgets for fun based activities but<br />
need to enable greater motivation<br />
Increase performance based pay while not<br />
affecting employee morale<br />
The speaker also stressed on the fact that<br />
Healthcare is a more stable career option<br />
as large part of GDP’s of most nations are<br />
kept aside for health and that healthcare<br />
budgets are not subject to vagaries of other<br />
sectors especially during an economic<br />
downturn.<br />
HYDERABAD<br />
See Page No. 23 for "Weekly Programs"<br />
NAGPUR<br />
KUDOOS …..INDORAMA SYNTHETICS (I)<br />
LTD - a noble organization with noble<br />
cause<br />
<strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> Nagpur Chapter in<br />
its unique endeavor under the leadership of<br />
its President Mr. Arvind Jain, Vice President<br />
(HR), Indorama Synthetics (I) Ltd,<br />
conducted two days workshop for the<br />
functional heads of Shree Saibaba<br />
Sansthan, Shirdi . The whole expenditure<br />
incurred for this great gesture was borne by<br />
Indorama Synthetics (I) Ltd. Shree Saibaba<br />
Sansthan, Shirdi is one of largest religious<br />
trusts, in the world, which is visited by the<br />
approximately 60 thousand devotees per<br />
day on the normal day and around 1.25<br />
lakhs per day on the Festival days,<br />
Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays etc.<br />
This two days work-shop at Shree Sai Shirdi<br />
was conducted by Mr. Ramesh Sangare,<br />
President, Human Resource Development<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 46<br />
Corporation (<strong>HRD</strong>C) & Prof Shyam Shukla,<br />
Head Training & Corporate Relations,<br />
Central Institute of Business Management<br />
Research & Development (CIBMRD). Mr.<br />
Ramesh Sangare is Chairman Professional<br />
Development Committee, N<strong>HRD</strong>N Nagpur<br />
Chapter. The workshop had been a great<br />
success and was well received by Shree<br />
Kishore More Ji the Chief Executive Officer<br />
of Shree Saibaba Sansthan, Shirdi and all<br />
his Functional Heads. The workshop was<br />
inaugurated with the overwhelming<br />
inaugural lecture by Mr. Arvind Jain and Sh.<br />
Kishore More Ji, He brought it out that there<br />
is a need for such N<strong>HRD</strong>N culture building<br />
movement at such huge organizations. The<br />
management of Shirdi Sansthan is<br />
managing a giant task with their very high<br />
capabilities, as the record of safety, security,<br />
housekeeping, hospitality without any<br />
blemish. All the people working are definitely<br />
blessed with the Divine Blessings of Shree<br />
Saibaba, who is all pervading, divine,<br />
omnipresent, encompassing the entire<br />
universe. Effectively headed by the Chief<br />
Executive, HODs, hundreds of supervisory<br />
staff, many thousands of regular workers<br />
and contract workers. Shree Saibaba<br />
Sansthan is indeed a huge organization with<br />
functionally well identified departments,<br />
taking care of day to day task of Temple<br />
Management in efficient manner, in its own<br />
way. Howver, N<strong>HRD</strong>N Nagpur Chapter<br />
empowered their functional heads to know<br />
them the gap between their <strong>HRD</strong> practices<br />
and the practices outside world. In<br />
valedictory session, Dr. Y Mane District<br />
Collector Shirdi said that N<strong>HRD</strong>N should do<br />
this activity on regular basis. This was a<br />
good beginning for Nagpur Chapter to go<br />
for religious endeavor in the service of Shree<br />
Saibaba Sansthan, Shirdi.<br />
PUNE<br />
Annual N<strong>HRD</strong> Conference Held in Pune<br />
Role of HR Crucial during Global<br />
Meltdown————<br />
Ganesh Natrajan— Nasscom Chairman<br />
Pune22nd November’2008…A day long<br />
annual conference organised by <strong>National</strong><br />
Human Resource Development (N<strong>HRD</strong>)<br />
Pune chapter brought smiles to the delegate<br />
companies and participants from the HR<br />
industry as the panel comprising of Dr<br />
Ganesh Natarajan – CEO Zensar<br />
Technologies and Chairman NASSCOM, Mr<br />
Deepak Ghaisas – Vice- Chairman and<br />
Director ;I-flex solutions ltd, Ms Anooba Kini,<br />
HR Head Future Money and Mr Pradeep<br />
Bhargava – Managing Director – Cummins<br />
Generator Technologies India Ltd. clearly<br />
indicated that good companies which have<br />
their value propositions in place will continue<br />
to do well and tough times do not last but<br />
tough people do. Taking forward the panel<br />
discussion Dr. Natarajan put emphasis on<br />
the fact that in trying times the role of HR<br />
becomes all the more crucial and the most<br />
important aspect is to understand, respect<br />
and listen to your work force. Elaborating<br />
further Mr. Pradeep Bhargava of Cummins<br />
said that in past few years people have seen<br />
unexpected growth across all quarters and<br />
that has raised the aspirations of the people.<br />
Employers and employees got pampered<br />
and that is the reason things re looking<br />
negative now, but it is not all that bad.<br />
Ms Annoba Kini Head Human Resources –<br />
Future Money laid more stress on the<br />
relationship aspect in trying times and<br />
slowdown phase. Taking the issue of layoffs<br />
and salary cuts forward, she said that all<br />
organizations go through this phase but<br />
important aspect is the manner in which HR<br />
tackles the issue of lay-offs and salary cuts.<br />
Smart sizing and not downsizing should be<br />
the core of any HR activity in the times of<br />
recession.<br />
The panel clearly mentioned that HR should<br />
play the role of a strategic partner<br />
irrespective of the size of the company<br />
specifically during recession. Its time to look<br />
at opportunities for strengthening bonds with<br />
your employees and recession is more of<br />
an opportunity for the HR in employee<br />
relations than a challenge as being<br />
presented currently to the industry and the<br />
academia.<br />
Other distinguished speakers for the annual<br />
N<strong>HRD</strong> conference were Dr. Uma Ganesh –<br />
CEO Global Talent Track, Ranjan Sinha –<br />
CEO and Chairman Summit HR India, Priti<br />
Rao – Global Services and IT Dell<br />
International; Pavan Sriram –AVP Sales –<br />
Global Talent Metrics, Kavita Kulkarni –<br />
Head HR Pune and Head HR for SI and ES<br />
Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Bhaskar Das<br />
– Head HR Cognizant Technologies<br />
Solutions.<br />
The annual conference served as a platform<br />
for exchange of ideas, experiences, insights<br />
and perspectives from the distinguished<br />
leaders and from across corporate India and<br />
the academic world. The theme for the<br />
conference NXG – Next Generation HR was<br />
rightly picked up as the members of N<strong>HRD</strong><br />
Pune chapter have been consciously<br />
moving beyond looking at just the immediate<br />
challenges that the Indian Industry is dealing<br />
with and instead look at a future that all of<br />
are going to be a part of and see how the<br />
HR professionals can play a more proactive<br />
and impactful role in shaping the future.<br />
Highlight of the annual conference was the<br />
award ceremony by N<strong>HRD</strong>. Participating<br />
academic institutions were Indira Group,<br />
IBS, Sadhana Group, Bharatiya Vidyapeeth<br />
and the Vaikunta Group. Participating
Corporate partners were Zensar<br />
Technologies, WNS and Suzlon. The award<br />
for the best case study report went to<br />
Bharatiya Vidyapeeth for their study on<br />
effectiveness of Training Programs in<br />
collaboration with Suzlon.<br />
The speakers addressed the forum which<br />
comprised of participants from a diverse<br />
group of Indian and Global corporations on<br />
critical HR issues ranging from the role of<br />
HR in current trying times to Human<br />
Resource outsourcing and the role of Public<br />
Private Partnerships in creating Talent for<br />
Corporate India. Over 30 companies<br />
participated in the annual conference from<br />
all over India.<br />
According the President N<strong>HRD</strong> Pune<br />
Chapter, Ms Prameela Kalive who is also<br />
VP and Global HR head for Zensar<br />
Technologies; “We at the chapter see an<br />
opportunity for us to play a critical role in<br />
bringing together the various stakeholders<br />
of Corporate India – the Industry which will<br />
continue to be the prime mover for growth,<br />
the talent ecosystem which is and will be<br />
the backbone for Industry and the<br />
government and public enterprise which<br />
have a great role to play as enablers,<br />
facilitators and catalysts.” HR fraternity has<br />
a critical and impactful role to play in<br />
partnering with business in these trying and<br />
uncertain times. So while the flood lights are<br />
all focused on the CFOs and CIOs, the<br />
N<strong>HRD</strong> Pune Chapter came up with this<br />
annual conference to be able to go back to<br />
the Business Leaders and tell them (not ask<br />
them) to wait as this phenomenon is not just<br />
about toplines and bottomlines, its about<br />
people who are core to whatever business<br />
the company is into .So the way top bosses<br />
react now in these times can go a long way<br />
in shaping the future of the organization–<br />
from HR perspective there is a great<br />
opportunity in the form of a serious<br />
challenges. For Further Information Please<br />
Contact: Pradnya Malushte ICE PR / 020 –<br />
25459602 / Cell: 9226363942.<br />
HR QUIZ – 6<br />
Quiz Corner<br />
1) Who is known as the Father of the Poultry industry in India?<br />
2) What is the full form of NCTVT, with reference to skill development, in India ?<br />
3) What is the meaning of 'Sandwich Method' in speech/communication?<br />
4) What is special about the organisation. Bharat Vikas Prathishtan?<br />
5) Which well known architect designed the Indian Institute of management<br />
campus at Ahmedabad?<br />
6) Who said, 'Lead, follow or get out of the way?"<br />
7) What is full form of LIBOR?<br />
8) Which company manufactures the Blackberry phone?<br />
9) What does EPFO, in Indian Labour Law stand for?<br />
10) Which is the oldest registered trade union in India?<br />
Quiz Master:<br />
Mr. P Vijayan, Director-HR, CHEP India, Mumbai<br />
E-Mail: vijayan.pankajakshan@chep.com<br />
Answers to Quiz – 5<br />
1) Tiny base station on the aircraft- to facilitate mobile communication, from<br />
handsets of air passengers, through satellite, 2) Big Mac from McDonalds, 3) Mr<br />
Jack Welch on Management Guru Mr Ramcharan, 4) Section 9a, 5) Large Scale<br />
Interactive Process, 6) Kolkatta/Chennai, 7) Systems Analysis and Programme<br />
Development, 8) Aditya Birla Group, 9) Mr G Ravindran, 10) Paid leave- to employees<br />
quitting- during non competition time clause<br />
Simran Rana<br />
Pune Chapter Coordinator<br />
Tel: 9823382729<br />
E-Mail: nhrdpune@gmail.com<br />
Y. Bhaskar Rao, Member <strong>National</strong> <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong>, Warangal Chapter,<br />
Head, Department of Business Management Vaagdevi Degree and<br />
Pg College, Warangal has successfully completed his Ph.D in Human<br />
Resource Management, topic entitled "<strong>HRD</strong> Strategies For Improving<br />
Work Environment In Mining Industry-a Case Study Of Singareni<br />
Colleries Company Ltd" under the supervision of Prof. K.Seetha Rama<br />
Rao, UGC coordinating Officer Kakatiya University, Warangal. On<br />
receiving his Doctoral degree Dr. Bhaskara Rao wrote the following<br />
letter appreciating the quality of articles in <strong>HRD</strong> Newsletter that helped him in getting<br />
his Ph.D.<br />
"I appreciate the efforts of N<strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> for bringing the <strong>HRD</strong> news letters and articles<br />
contributed by the Authors, which are quite useful to all the scholars who are doing<br />
their research in HRM and the allied subjects as reference. Once again, I am very<br />
much thankful to the <strong>HRD</strong> <strong>Network</strong> for their excellent job.<br />
Thanking you. Dr. Y. Bhaskar Rao, E-Mail: ybraohr@gmail.com"<br />
CARTOON CORNER<br />
Col. P Deogirikar, Indore<br />
p_deogirikar@ruchigroup.com<br />
It appears that the latest book<br />
of Chetan Bhagat was on<br />
physical fitness as you have<br />
been insisting<br />
on going for long walks with<br />
family after that. However, I<br />
did not understand why you<br />
are so fussy about being on<br />
the left of all of us!<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 47
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 48
Bhubaneswar Chapter<br />
Greetings from the Bhubaneswar Chapter. It's been a long time since you'll heard from us and we would like to share the happenings at our<br />
chapter. We have been organizing our monthly meetings at the Xavier Institute of Management. We have had members making presentations<br />
in the meetings and have had guests speakers too. Last month we sponsored 'Kshitij-08' the national level annual inter B-school event for<br />
presentation of summer projects in the HR domain. The event was organized by XIMAHR, the student HR association of the Xavier<br />
Institute of management. The prize for the best summer project presentation went to Rahul Kandhal from MDI Gurgaon, for his project -<br />
"Retention Strategy: Employee Engagement Study, and Technical Competency Framework Development for "Staff" level employees.<br />
Dr.Isha Mishra, delivering a talk on 'Best HR<br />
practices in the telecom sector' during the<br />
monthly meeting.<br />
Ms.Ellora Panda making a presentation on<br />
'Emotional intelligence' during one of the<br />
monthly meetings.<br />
Speakers at the inauguration of 'Kshitij - 2008' The winner of "Kshitij 2008" Rahul Kandhal<br />
from MDI Gurgaon<br />
Mr. Bishwanth Babu (left) receiving a gift from<br />
Mr.Sankarsan Acharya, president, after a<br />
presentation on 'Neuro linguistic programming'.<br />
Mr.Mangesh Dash, secretary, looking on (right)<br />
Other finalists of 'Kshitij 2008' : From left : Ms.<br />
Minal Soni - Symbiosis Institute of Business<br />
Management and Sharad Kapoor - Pune<br />
University, Dept. of Management<br />
Tiruchy Chapter<br />
The N<strong>HRD</strong>N, Trichy Chapter monthly meeting was held at Hotel Ramyas, Tiruchy on 15/11/2008. Dr. Lazar, Rector & Sr. Lecturer, St.<br />
Joseph's College, Tiruchy spoke on "Spiritual Intelligence and Human Resource Development". Dr. Lazar delineated the characteristics of<br />
a person with spiritual intelligence and explained how this would be very useful in creating a performance culture in an organisation. He<br />
also put forth five steps as to how an organisation can infuse spiritual intelligence in the workplace. Shri. Venkateswaran, General<br />
Manager / IR, Sanmar Engg welcomed the gathering, Shri Premanand, Director, Arrant HR Solutions, introduced speaker. Shri. M.S.<br />
Michael Raj, Treasurer, proposed vote of thanks.<br />
Shri. Venkateswaran, General manager / IR,<br />
Sanmar Engg welcoming the gathering<br />
Dr. Lazar answering a question raised by a<br />
member<br />
Shri Premanand, Director, Arrant HR Solutions,<br />
introduced Dr. Lazar to the audience<br />
Dr. Lazar addressing the N<strong>HRD</strong> members<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 49
Jaipur Chapter<br />
Vedanta Today: Holistic Approach for the Global Society<br />
N<strong>HRD</strong>, Jaipur Chapter, in association with<br />
Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR)<br />
Government of India and IILM Academy of<br />
Higher Learning, Jaipur organized on<br />
November24, 2008 a special lecture on<br />
Vedanta Today: Holistic Approach for the<br />
Global Society by eminent scholar and<br />
Member, Rajya Sabha, Dr. Karan Singh,<br />
which was followed by a scintillating cultural<br />
program presented by students of IILM<br />
Academy and professional artists<br />
sponsored by ICCR.<br />
Dr. Karan Singh addressing the audience<br />
While welcoming the<br />
Chief Guest, Dr. Ashok<br />
Bapna said that the<br />
pursuit of materialism<br />
has led to many<br />
distortions and violence<br />
in the society. Therefore,<br />
there is a need to<br />
balance our pursuit of materialism with a<br />
tinge of spirituality.<br />
Delivering his address<br />
on the relevance of<br />
Vedanta to our modern<br />
globalized world, Dr.<br />
Karan Singh said that<br />
society has undergone<br />
tremendous changes in<br />
the recent past and we<br />
have lost sight of our rich cultural heritage<br />
and traditions. As no new alternatives have<br />
come up, we seem to be facing a crisis of<br />
direction. It is evident we cannot move<br />
backwards but we can be discreet enough<br />
to cull the best from our cultural tradition<br />
and look at its relevance and importance<br />
to our modern daily life.<br />
Dr. Karan Singh said that there are six<br />
prominent Vedantic ideas or principles<br />
which are highly relevant to today’s<br />
globalized society.<br />
1) Only one Energy pervades the entire<br />
universe. Not only this earth but the millions<br />
of suns in this universe get their light from<br />
this one Great source. The energy of Brahm<br />
resides in everything and everywhere. This<br />
energy originated with the Big Bang.<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 50<br />
Vedanta gives the philosophical<br />
perspective of the unified field theory.<br />
2) This unified energy resides in all beings<br />
and is embedded in every thing in the<br />
Universe. In human beings it is present in<br />
the form of atman which can uniquely<br />
enable them to achieve self realization<br />
which is not possible in the case of other<br />
beings.<br />
3) The unification of atman and pramatma<br />
is possible through Yoga. According to<br />
Vedanta there are four types of yoga:<br />
i. Gyan Yoga – It enables you to<br />
discriminate between truth and untruth,<br />
wherein you use your intellect.<br />
ii. Bhakti Yoga – Heart plays a greater role<br />
in this route to unification with Brahm.<br />
You have to have a focal point in the<br />
way the great devotees like Meera and<br />
Surdas had.<br />
iii. Karam Yoga – This pertains to the<br />
realm of hands. Go on working as long<br />
as you live and dedicate your work to<br />
God as ahuti in a yajna. One who<br />
performs bhakti through karma,<br />
achieves realization.<br />
iv. Raj Yoga – Sage Patanjali has<br />
analyzed Raj Yoga in detail. Hatha<br />
Yoga and asanas are also a part of Raj<br />
Yoga. You can make your breathing<br />
systematic and rhythmical in such a<br />
way through Raj Yoga that it can<br />
enhance your inner powers. You should<br />
remember that each and every breath<br />
is important and it can contribute to<br />
your spiritual enhancement.<br />
There is a need to combine and practise<br />
all the four yogas in order to derive the<br />
maximum benefit and increase internal<br />
powers.<br />
4). Dr. Karan Singh pointed out that the<br />
Vedantic message contained in the words<br />
“Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam” is very relevant<br />
to our globalized world of today for we seem<br />
to have realized that ultimately the entire<br />
humanity forms a family. He said there are<br />
still people whose consciousness is not<br />
evolved and they are narrow minded. It<br />
takes an evolved consciousness to see how<br />
the world is one family. For some people<br />
the global village is a big market to be<br />
exploited for economic activities. But our<br />
goal should be to see the common link of<br />
all-pervading consciousness among the<br />
human beings and not to categorize them<br />
as rich and poor.<br />
5). The learned speaker also talked about<br />
the diversity of religious faiths and was<br />
sorry to point out the devastation caused<br />
in the name of religion. He said the truth is<br />
one. There may be different ways to<br />
express it or achieve it, but the ultimate<br />
goal is one. Until we realize this fact, it is<br />
not possible to have harmony and peace.<br />
There is no place for hatred for any one<br />
because we are all children of God. Even<br />
otherwise, whatever happens in one part<br />
of the world affects people in other parts of<br />
the world also whether it is a tsunami or an<br />
economic recession. Therefore, there is a<br />
need to take care of the concerns and<br />
needs of others. Dr. Karan Singh also<br />
referred to social evils of female feticide<br />
and burning of daughters- in –laws. He said<br />
the reason behind our down fall is the gap<br />
between what we profess and what we do.<br />
6). Dr. Karan Singh said that a very<br />
important message that we get from<br />
Vedanta is that we should not live for<br />
ourselves alone. It advocates the principle<br />
of bahujan hitay, bahujan sukhay. We have<br />
to keep in mind the interest and happiness<br />
of all. We cannot call ourselves truly<br />
independent if millions of people go hungry<br />
everyday.<br />
India, though we have a lot of potential,<br />
will not be fit to act as a leader for other<br />
countries of the world unless we make use<br />
of our centuries-old treasure of Vedantic<br />
knowledge to rebuild ourselves into a new<br />
society, a new world with a new<br />
consciousness.<br />
Speaking on this<br />
occasion, Prof.<br />
Dayanand Bhargava,<br />
an eminent Vedantic<br />
scholar, said that we<br />
should give up our habit<br />
of unnecessarily<br />
criticizing others and<br />
finding fault with them and try live in total<br />
harmony.<br />
Padambhushan Prof.<br />
V.S. Vyas, a well-known<br />
economist, in his<br />
presidential message<br />
said that economists of<br />
the world are now doing<br />
a rethink over the policy<br />
of profit maximization<br />
and are looking for alternatives for<br />
sustainable development which is human<br />
centric. He said we should all strive not only<br />
for excellence but also for relevance and<br />
this is the message of Vedanta also.
Being greeted by Mr. Samuel<br />
Mawunganidze, Chief UNICEF,<br />
Rajasthan<br />
Being greeted by Mr. Anil Pawar,<br />
Regional Officer, ICCR, Jaipur<br />
Felicitation of Dr. Karan Singh<br />
Being greeted by Mr. Apurv<br />
Kumar,President CII, Rajasthan<br />
Being greeted by Mr. Praneet Kumar,<br />
COO Fortis Escorts Hospital, Jaipur<br />
Being greeted by IILM Academy student Dr. Ashok Bapna Presents Memento to<br />
Dr. Karan Singh<br />
The talk was followed by a colourful cultural programme consisting of folk songs, solo dances, Ghoomar, Kalbelia dance, Tera tali<br />
dance, folk fusion dance and a thrilling group dance by the students of IILM Academy to the delight of the audience. The cultural<br />
performance was coordinated by Ms. Dhwani Mishra of IILM Academy and the overall programme was coordinated by Mr. Sudhir<br />
Upadhyay and compeered by Mr. Vikramjeet Singh of IILM Academy.<br />
Glimpses of Cultural Programme<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 51
MBA students, Col (Dr.) C K Singh with Dy. Cdr. Para Brigade<br />
Col Kuljinder Singh at Outbound training demonstration ground<br />
Dignitaries lighting the lamp and inaugurating the Seminar President Mr. Nilesh Dave welcoming the guests participants<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 52<br />
AGRA<br />
AHMEDABAD<br />
Members and MBA Students with Para-Motor<br />
Members undergoing Team-Building Excercises Members undergoing Team Building Exercise<br />
Hon. Secretary Mr. Arun Harne addressing the audience Mr. Sanjay Chakraborty delivering his speech on Employer Branding
BENGALURU<br />
BENGALURU<br />
PUNE<br />
Question answer session<br />
Committee and guests<br />
Esteemed speakers<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 53
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 54<br />
NAGPUR<br />
Prof Shyam Shukla being honoured by Dr.Mane session Mr. Ramesh Sangare addressing the session<br />
Mr. Ramesh Sangare(in middle), Shri Kishore More Ji & Prof<br />
Shyam Shukla<br />
Welcome fellowship<br />
PUNE<br />
Prof Shyam Shukla during inaugural<br />
Distinguished gathering<br />
Active participation Interactive Games Session
Mr. F Isreal Inbaraj, Executive Committee Member welcoming<br />
the gatherings<br />
Mr. B Alagesan, Deputy Chief Inspector of Factories addressing<br />
the audience<br />
HOSUR<br />
HYDERABAD<br />
A view of audience<br />
Mr. H Gopalakrishnan, Executive Committee Member handing<br />
over memento to the Chief Guest<br />
Mr. B.S.Rao, Addressing the audience Audience<br />
Audience Mr. B.S.Rao, receiving a memento from Dr. Rajaiah<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 55
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 56
Article<br />
Exclusively provided for N<strong>HRD</strong> readers<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 57
1. My wife was desperately (they always do)<br />
looking for a ‘Bai’ (domestic help) to work at<br />
home. One was almost finalized and was<br />
to start from coming Saturday. She did not<br />
come that day. We thought she is not interested.<br />
Next day, Sunday, my wife was away<br />
for some time when she (prospective ‘Bai’)<br />
surfaced along with her husband who was<br />
asking all questions about the jobs that<br />
would be required to be done by her, the<br />
timings etc. I thought that I was smart<br />
enough to handle this small recruitment<br />
issue and asked some questions of mine. I<br />
let her skip a medical examination but put<br />
my foot down on the police verification.<br />
She did not even know about it. In fact, the<br />
very mention of ‘police’ disturbed her (did<br />
she have some police record?) and they<br />
quickly walked off never to be seen again. I<br />
had the wisdom of not telling my wife about<br />
this episode but when this ‘bai’ met her by<br />
chance in the colony, she narrated the story.<br />
You can imagine what would have been my<br />
wife’s reaction when she felt that I ‘ensured’<br />
that she does not get a domestic help! “ You<br />
should restrict your HR to your office.” remark<br />
was also included to good effect.<br />
2. I was crestfallen and wanted the ‘professional<br />
damage’ to be repaired. So, after one<br />
training session came home and bragged<br />
on the subject of the interpersonal skills,<br />
especially the ‘Johari window’. Her response,<br />
“Forget that window, are you bothered<br />
about the broken window in our bedroom<br />
for last four months?”<br />
3. I was not always pro-employer in my attempts;<br />
I prided myself to be a ‘balanced<br />
HR guy’. So, when we were finally ‘blessed’<br />
with a Bai, I had the wisdom (?) to mention<br />
Col. P Deogirikar is General Manager with Ruchi Group, Indore. E-Mail: p_deogirikar@ruchigroup.com<br />
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 58<br />
‘HR’ <strong>WITH</strong> ‘HER’ <strong>IS</strong> ‘HAR’<br />
to my wife in Bai’s presence, “How come<br />
she is here on Sunday morning? All are to<br />
be given one day leave in a week.” So, my<br />
‘worker support’ resulted in me getting a lot<br />
of domestic chores on Sunday mornings!<br />
4. Once I came home after a satisfying session<br />
on ‘Communication skills’ and<br />
bragged to my wife yet again. “You get angry<br />
on small unpredictable issues and then<br />
stop talking to any of us for the next 3-4<br />
days. Even if you do, it is ‘work to rule’ type.<br />
(I suspect she read the ‘Man from Mars,<br />
Women from Venus’ book and was describing<br />
my time in the ‘cave’!). Then it becomes<br />
so difficult for all at home when you are not<br />
in the ‘mood’; what right do you have to<br />
teach communication to others?”<br />
5. Tried another topic ‘conflict management’.<br />
It appeared that she was listening<br />
rather attentively when she blurted out ‘<br />
“Now I understand that you were never interested<br />
in ‘resolving’ the conflicts between<br />
your mother and me, you were, in fact,<br />
stimulating the conflict between us!"<br />
6. Did I give up? No, Sir, I am made of a<br />
different clay. One day I told her about the<br />
motivational theories including Maslow. She<br />
looked interested in maslow so I tried to<br />
show off. “ERG - Existence, Relatedness<br />
and Growth -theory is an extension of<br />
Maslow. It proposes that more than one<br />
need can coexist” and so on. She did ‘dance<br />
on the chance’ when she exclaimed, “So this<br />
is the theory you believe in! You want me to<br />
satisfy my higher order needs without fulfilling<br />
my lower orders (basic) needs like few<br />
small pieces of diamonds and jewelry!”<br />
– Col. P. Deogirikar<br />
I have been a Human Resource person for quite some time now after leaving the Indian<br />
army in 1994. While in army, I had ample resources to impress the most important person in<br />
my life - my wife, what with a shining vehicle outside accompanied by a driver, glamour of the<br />
uniform, salutes all round and what not! I thought that my impression in my ‘civil avatar’ was<br />
fast declining at home - I was being taken to be a Babu! So, I started trying to impress my<br />
wife from time to time by applying my HR ‘gyan’ at home. With disastrous results! Read for<br />
yourself -<br />
7. Next, I was reading the newsletter of our<br />
office which contained the story of the HR<br />
person going to pearly gates after death,<br />
shown both the hell and the heaven and<br />
choosing the hell being more exciting. That<br />
he was undergoing the tortures at hell later<br />
and when asked was told, you were in the<br />
induction phase yesterday, today you are<br />
an employee. My wife commented, “I<br />
should never have got married to a HR person.<br />
You never honoured the commitments<br />
that were made during our courtship period.”<br />
8. My last attempt of showing my worth was<br />
when there was yearly performance review<br />
in the company and I was telling my wife how<br />
important it was for the performance to be<br />
graded. And did you know what she said this<br />
time? “Well, if we wives should discuss your<br />
‘performance’ openly, how would you take it?<br />
How about talking regarding<br />
'performance' now?<br />
After that I never had the courage to show<br />
off! Consoled myself that role playing is no<br />
joke. Even Mahatma Gandhi, father of the<br />
nation, could not play the role ‘father of the<br />
family” well, if the movie “Gandhi my Father’<br />
is to be believed. So what if my HR<br />
role cannot extend to home. That HR is actually<br />
a ‘Har’ (defeat) with ‘Her’!<br />
� H
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 59
| <strong>HRD</strong> News Letter | December 2008, Vol.24, Issue:9 60