Posts in category: HR Side Up – Theory

Andy, a recent graduate, joined our team with a spark that caught our attention. Eager to learn, he showcased excellent communication skills and creativity in presentations. However, as time passed, it became apparent that Andy struggled with timely execution, often placing blame on new team members for delays and inefficiencies.
As his manager, the choices would be to:

1. Ignore Shortcomings: Some managers might choose to turn a blind eye to Andy’s shortcomings, focusing solely on the positive aspects of his performance.
2. Provide Feedback and Targets: A proactive approach involves giving constructive feedback, setting specific targets for improvement, and providing support until ownership is built in his work. If improvement doesn’t occur, further steps might be considered, such as suggesting he leaves the role or exploring opportunities in other teams.
3. Re-align Responsibilities: Another option is to re-align Andy’s responsibilities, shifting towards more strategic activities that leverage his strengths in thinking and creativity.

Human Resources Perspective:

As an HR professional, it is our job to equip the Manager to make the right choice in a manner that aligns with both individual growth and organizational objectives.

1. Establishing Alignment: Managers need to align talent with the strategic objectives of the organization. This involves open conversations with employees to understand their aspirations and map them to the organization’s goals. If execution is a key need for the success in this organization, then Andy needs to buckle up.
2. Long-Term Employee Growth: Employee growth should be viewed from a long-term perspective. Focusing solely on weaknesses can demotivate individuals. Providing a holistic perspective on the importance of various skills, including execution, can inspire employees to work on their shortcomings. The silver lining- Managers need to be encouraged to look at the positives of every employee.
3. Understanding Team Dynamics: Team dynamics play a pivotal role, especially with high-visibility employees like Andy. Managerial decisions can shape the team’s behavior and future dynamics. HR professionals should guide managers to consider the broader impact of their choices on team morale and anxiety.
4. Supporting Managers: HR’s role is to support functional managers in navigating challenging situations. By offering guidance, facilitating communication, and providing resources for skill development, HR contributes to the creation of a positive work culture.

The Andy dilemma is not unique, and managers often find themselves at crossroads when dealing with contrasting strengths and weaknesses in team members. HR professionals play a crucial role in ensuring that decisions align with both individual development and organizational goals. By fostering open communication, encouraging a long-term perspective on growth, and understanding team dynamics, HR contributes to building a positive work culture that promotes continuous improvement and development.

Navigating Performance Management Setbacks

In the journey of a young HR professional, setbacks can be valuable lessons that shape not only individual growth but also organizational practices. This post recounts a pivotal experience where an Outstanding-rated employee faced the unexpected challenge of being put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The aftermath of this incident prompted a re-evaluation and reinforcement of the entire performance management system.

The Setback:

As the COE/SME of performance management for my unit, I found myself in the midst of a challenging situation. An employee, initially rated Outstanding, was placed on a Performance Improvement Plan. The shock and disbelief in the room during the ensuing meeting with functional stakeholders was my first experience of such kind.

The Organizational Response:

Post this incident, the organization embarked on a mission to fortify the discipline around each step of the performance management process. The lessons I learned led during that exercise, enables me to bring to you a set of recommendations:

1. Consistent Communication: Regular and clear communication around the organization’s PMS philosophy, process, and policy should be disseminated to all employees. This ensures transparency and understanding of the expectations.
2. Define Desired Performance Levels: The target-setting process should explicitly define the desired performance level for each rating, minimizing ambiguity and aligning expectations.
3. Feedback Throughout the Year: Regular feedback and developmental inputs should be provided to employees throughout the year, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
4. People Manager Orientation: Conduct orientation and development interventions for people managers to ensure they are equipped to conduct fair and accurate assessments.
5. Document Performance Evaluations: Performance evaluations should be thoroughly documented, providing a comprehensive record of an employee’s contributions and areas for improvement.
6. Dual Evaluation Process: Both the employee and the reporting manager should actively participate in the performance evaluation process, promoting a two-way dialogue.
7. One-on-One Conversations: HR teams, whether HRBP or PMS COE, should engage in one-on-one conversations with functional heads regarding both the highest and lowest raters in the team.
8. Thorough Evaluation Notes: HR teams should prepare detailed notes and reasoning for the highest raters. These notes should encompass stakeholder feedback, performance history, and key initiatives undertaken during the year.
9. Review by HR Head: The HR Head should review the performance ratings before the calibration process, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives.
10. Calibration Process: A calibration process should involve all functional stakeholders in a room, collectively discussing each case of the highest and lowest ratings, along with promotion cases.
11. Leadership Sign-Off: The CEO or the Head of the Business should sign off on the ratings of the year, reinforcing the commitment to the integrity of the process.

The PMS process is not just a set of steps but a crucial factor in shaping the culture of an organization. This case study emphasizes the importance of diligence and consistency in performance management practices. Ensuring the effectiveness of this process is essential, as one misstep can potentially derail the organization’s efforts in attracting and retaining top talent. By implementing these recommendations, HR professionals can contribute to the creation of a robust and fair performance management system that aligns with organizational goals.

Learning from Mistakes: A Case Study on Employee Engagement Surveys

Early in my second year of corporate tenure, I found myself unintentionally causing a significant disruption in our Human Resources department’s employee engagement score. This case study reflects on a pivotal learning experience that shaped my understanding of the impact of employee engagement surveys on team dynamics.

The Setting:

Our team of 12 HR professionals was exceptionally well-bonded, guided by an outstanding Head of Department (HOD). To manage his span of control, the HOD introduced Senior Managers, including an external hire, altering our reporting structure. The team dynamics changed, and the new Senior Manager’s presence began to bother many of us.

The Misstep:

During the annual Gallup Q12 survey, I, along with the entire team, seized the opportunity to express our frustration with the new Senior Manager. Without thoroughly understanding the questions, I marked them all low, inadvertently dragging down our department’s overall score.

The Consequences:

The results were shocking. Despite being the closest-knit team, our Human Resources department had the lowest Gallup score in the entire business unit. Our friendships endured, but the shared sense of achievement was tarnished. The survey results questioned everything we had built together, and the whole business unit seemed to be laughing at us.

The Learning:

This experience taught me a critical lesson: using one platform to address unrelated issues is detrimental. A single misstep can mar the collaborative landscape that would otherwise have been a testament to teamwork.
Key Recommendations for Employee Engagement Surveys:

1. Pre-Survey Communication: Conduct pre-survey communication sessions with teams to set expectations and clarify the purpose of the survey.
2. Shared Meaning Alignment: Discuss and align on the shared meaning of survey questions. Define terms to ensure a common understanding among team members.
3. Results Explanation: Clearly explain what happens with the survey results, emphasizing that it is a tool for improvement, not a platform for venting frustrations.
4. Regular Feedback Opportunities: Provide regular opportunities for employees to share concerns and feedback with HR and managers, preventing the survey from becoming a venting outlet.
5. Results Sharing: Transparently share survey results with teams, fostering open communication and trust.
6. Action Plan Creation: Collaboratively create action plans based on survey feedback, ensuring that employees feel heard and involved in the improvement process.
7. Action Plan Implementation: Implement the action plans diligently, demonstrating a commitment to positive change.
8. Status Updates: Regularly share the status of action plans with teams, keeping them informed and engaged in the improvement journey.
9. Follow-Up Discussions: Conduct follow-up discussions in smaller groups to understand if there are additional concerns or improvements needed.

This case underscores the significance of thoughtful engagement with employee engagement surveys. The experience highlighted the need for strategic communication, shared understanding of survey questions, and a robust action plan to address concerns. As HR professionals, it is crucial to approach surveys not as mere data collection tools but as catalysts for positive change within the organization.

CEO Appraisal Dilemma: A Case Study on Aligning Principles and Stakeholder Needs

Embarking on a performance management implementation project with a new client is an exciting yet challenging endeavour. Here’s my experience where a seemingly smooth project took an unexpected turn during discussions on the CEO’s appraisal process.

The Challenge:

As an HR professional leading the performance management system (PMS) implementation, I encountered a setback when discussing the steps of the CEO’s appraisal process. The CEO expressed a strong reluctance to involve the Board in his assessment, citing a belief that they lacked a deep understanding of his day-to-day responsibilities. Instead, he insisted on having his direct reports evaluate his performance.

Identifying Gaps in the Approach:

Recognizing the major gaps in this approach, particularly from an experienced HR perspective, became imperative:

1. a) The Board, responsible for setting organizational goals, should be involved in the CEO’s appraisal process.
2. b) Mixing the appraisal and feedback processes by involving direct reports creates potential bias.
3. c) Direct reports’ assessments, typically done by the CEO, may result in inaccurate evaluations.
4. d) The PMS philosophy should be consistent for all participants, including the CEO, aligning with agreed-upon steps.

Navigating Intense Conversations:

What followed were intense conversations between the CEO and me. Despite his adamant stance against sharing his assessment with the Board, I, as an HR consultant, was firm in my belief that the Board’s involvement was crucial for a comprehensive CEO appraisal.

Leveraging Communication and Stakeholder Management:

In navigating these stressful days, my communication and stakeholder management skills were put to the test. I communicated the importance of aligning the CEO’s appraisal with organizational goals and principles. While risking the possibility of losing the client, I maintained a commitment to HR ethics and principles.

Finding Middle Ground:

After extensive discussions, the CEO agreed to share his assessment with the Board. To address concerns about feedback accuracy, we also decided to conduct a 360-degree feedback process to gather developmental inputs.

Signing Contract Extension:

Three months after the challenging phase, I signed an extension of my contract with the CEO, marking the resolution of the dispute. This experience offered valuable insights and learnings for both parties involved.

Key Learnings:

1. Solid Foundation in HR Concepts: Upholding HR ethics and principles is crucial, even if it means potential financial implications.
2. Understanding Stakeholder Needs: Recognizing and addressing stakeholders’ needs while maintaining a solid ethical base is key to successful project outcomes.
3. Leveraging Soft Skills: Soft skills, including effective communication and stakeholder management, play a pivotal role in navigating challenging conversations.
4. Role Playing Tough Conversations: Preparing for tough conversations through role-playing helps in being well-equipped for the actual interactions.
5. Mentor Consultation: Seeking perspectives from mentors provides valuable insights and alternative viewpoints that may not have been considered.

Conclusion:

This example will give you an understanding how complex the implementation of performance management systems can get for HR professionals. By staying true to HR principles, understanding stakeholder needs, and leveraging effective communication and soft skills, HR professionals can navigate challenges and contribute to successful project outcomes.

There exists multiple interpretations of the term talent management

Some say it comprises of the set of HR activities like Hiring, Training, Engaging, Motivating & Promoting employees of an organization to build a distinct Organizational Culture.

Others say it’s doing all of this but only for the top performers or high potentials of the organization.

However, in reality, a Talent Management is a process that builds a steady pipeline of talented people for roles of an organization. The expected outcome from the Talent Management processes is to ensure that the right people are mapped to the right roles.
Hiring, Training, Motivating, Engaging, Promoting are all part of this core concept of building this steady pool of talent.

To do this, they do the following activities:

A) From the Role’s Side
– Identification of Job Roles, Critical to Success roles of the organization.
– Creation of Role Competencies & Desired Experiences for success in the roles.

B) From the Talent’s Side
– Reviewing Performance Levels of employees.
– Evaluating Leadership or Growth Potential of employees.
– Mapping of employee’s skill sets- both soft & domain skills.
– Understanding of desired Career Paths of employees.

C) Bridging the Two
– Providing Career Progression opportunities in case of exact fit of role requirements & availability of internal skills.
– Providing learning and development opportunities to bridge the skill gaps. This is where Coaching, Mentoring, Training comes in.
– Designing retention strategies for internal talent.
– Building Employer Branding strategies to attract external talent.

Due to the volume & scale of this task, most organizations do all these tasks only for a selected pool of employees- could be for mid-senior levels or high performers or only for incumbents of critical positions.

I write regularly on human resources for the hr professionals. If you liked reading this, share this in your network & stay connected.

In a 2017 HBR Article, the author said, “Free the goal-setting process from any rigid requirement that individual goals must be tightly linked to the supervisor’s goals.”

A McKinsey 2017 article suggested that Managers should jointly develop goals that are SMART.

A recent research by @thetalentstrategygroup finds out that Employees set their own goals in just over 50% of companies, with Managers setting them in about 40% of organizations.

If you, as #HR partner, are about to introduce a goal setting process in your #workplace and are confused with what approach to take, here are some tips:

Let your Employees create their Goal Sheets if you have:

– Lean teams, with specialised role holders.

– A culture of regular discussions across cross-functional teams where every one has information of what’s happening in the organization/function.

– No major hiring plans for the year.

Ask Managers to create goal sheets for their team members if:

– Their span of control is less than 5 reportees.

– They know the organization’s performance philosophy.

– They have clarity on the company goals and objectives for the year.

– They are trained on how to write goal sheets, monitoring performance, coaching and giving feedback.

If your workplace doesn’t have either, then make the goal setting a collaborative exercise. Let any one of the two create the goal sheet and the other should help make it exciting.

#PMS

#performancemanagement

#HR

A June’23 report by AON gives out some interesting trends which every humanresources professional must know:

– Attrition and offer-decline rates are lower compared to last year across digital & non-digital roles.
– With recent rounds of layoffs, employees are looking for long term stability over short term monetary benefits.
– Hyderabad and Chennai are emerging as locations with highest ease of hiring, since Mumbai, Bangalore & Delhi are getting saturated from a supply stand-point.
– Tier 2 cities are emerging as preferred destinations for hiring of non-tech talent.
– A large number of organizations are indicating a conservative approach to hiring this year.
– Overall voluntary attrition is around 17% (was 22% last year).
– Out of cycle corrections, offering retention bonus & providing accelerated career growth opportunities continue to be popular measures to reduce attrition.
– Offer Decline Ratio stands at 24% (used to be 31% last year).
– 22% is the average increment being given to new hires (was around 43% last year).

Which hat should the HR Manager wear: the employer’s or employees?

It changes from one set to another set of people and from one situation to another, to the aggrieved and oppressed. For the factory labour, he/she is the management’s henchmen- self-serving and unscrupulous. To the enraged trade union, he/she is the villain of the piece holding back an acceptable settlement and a representative of the exploiting class. To the unsuccessful job seeker, he/she is unfair and unresponsive. To the employees who have been coached, mentored & well-guided by a good HR Manager, he/she is a good Samaritan. To the students of HRM he/she is purposeful, tenacious and bold. Thus, the image is never the same.

Here are some of the qualities desired in an HR manager:

• Fairness and Firmness. This is a basic quality of the HR manager he or she should be fair in matters of promotions, demotions, transfers layoffs and be firm in enforcing discipline.
• Tact and Resourcefulness. The HR manager must be tactful in dealing with difficult situations that implies determining what is good and fair and trying conditions and skill in dealing with the most demanding situations. Often tact is misunderstood as cunning. People with these wrong perceptions resort to unethical practices of dividing workers setting one group against another using unlawful means to deal with bold workers or strong union leaders. Such practices are justified quite unjustifiably, by the argument that they are necessary when workers are not amenable to reason or when they resort to violence. But such thinking is highly dangerous to say the least. People particularly the HR managers should never give up their belief however trying the circumstances maybe they should remember that violence begets violence, that wrong deeds do not breed good deeds that fairness pays and pays well. And that respect for lawful cause of action often draws workers on strike to the negotiating table. The HR manager must be resourceful too, he or she should have an open mind objectivity and adjustability to tackle a difficult matter from different angles.
• Sympathy and Consideration. The HR manager must be guided by sympathetic attitude towards employee demands.
• Knowledge of labour laws. The HR manager must possess a sound knowledge of the laws of the land.
• Broad social outlook. It is desirable that the HR manager has a Social Outlook and contribute towards the betterment of quality of life of the employees and those who live around and beyond the company.

Depending on the size of the organization, the HR department may comprise of one or all of the domain areas:

• Statutory Compliance
• Operations & Payroll Management
• Hiring/Talent Acquisition
• Onboarding & Background Verification
• Training/Learning & Development
• Talent Management (Performance Management/Career & Succession Planning)
• Compensation & Benefits

Status of the HR department in the total organisation structure depends on whether an organization is small or large. In most of the smaller organisations there is no separate department to coordinate the activities relating to human resources. In fact, there may not be any human resource managers at all. Services of outsiders who specialise in maintaining statutory requirements or basic needs of human resources are used for a fee. Alternatively, a low-cost resource may be entrusted with the task of managing some basic needs of the employees.

Earlier, HR departments were called health and happiness departments. The people assigned to deal with personnel issues were often individuals who were past their prime. The personnel department was seen as a place where the lesser productive employees could be placed with minimal damage to the organization’s ongoing operations. Individuals in the personnel department were perceived as those responsible for planning company picnics, vacation schedules and retirement parties. Personnel as an activity was seen as a necessary but an important part of the organisation.

Fortunately, things have changed for the better and the status of the personnel department has improved enormously over the years.

A large-scale organisation we’ll have a manager director heading the HR department, his or her status will be equal to that of any executive in the organisation. This arrangement holds good when the company has a single unit where the company has multiple plants located in different parts of the country. There may be a centralised HR department at the main or Registered Office and each plant will have a separate HR department. Routine activities relating to each plant are handled by the HR department attached to the work whereas the broad policies matter concerning executives and the like are handled by the central departments.

The primary objective of HRM is to ensure the availability of a competent and willing workforce to an organisation. Beyond this, there are other objectives to specifically HRM objectives are fourfold societal, organisational, functional and personal.

• Societal Objectives: to be ethically and socially responsible to the needs and challenges of the society while minimising the negative impact of such demands upon the organisation. The failure of organisations to use their resources for the society’s benefit in ethical ways may lead to restrictions. For example, the society may limit HR decisions through laws that enforce reservation in hiring and laws that address discrimination, safety or other such areas of societal concern.
• Organisational Objectives: to recognise the role of HRM in bringing about organisational effectiveness HRM is not an end in itself. It is only a means to assist the organisation with its primary objectives. Simply stated the department exists to serve the rest of the organisation.
• Functional Objectives: to maintain the department’s contribution at a level appropriate to the organization’s need. Resources are wasted when HRM is either more or less sophisticated to suit the organization’s demands. The department’s level of service must be tailored to fit the organisation it serves.
• Personal Objectives: to assist the employees in achieving their personal goals, at least in so far as these goals enhance the individual’s contribution to the organisation. Personal objectives of employees must be met if workers are to be maintained retained and motivated. Otherwise, employee’s performance and satisfaction may decline and employees may leave the organisation.

The textbook definition of Human Resource Management (HRM) is that HRM is a management function that helps managers Recruit Select, train and develop members for an organisation. Obviously HRM is concerned with the People’s dimension in organisations. There are certain code points which must be understood about human resource management:

• organisations are not mere bricks, mortar machineries or inventories, they are people it is the people who staff and manage organisations.
• HRM involves the application of management functions and principles, the functions and principles are applied to acquisition during developing, maintaining and remunerating employees in organisations.
• Decisions relating to employees must be integrated. decisions on different aspects of employees must be consistent with other human resource decisions.
• Decisions made must influence the effectiveness of an organisation effectiveness organ of an organisation must result in betterment of services to customers in the form of high quality products. applied at reasonable costs.
• HRM functions are not confined to business establishments only. They are applicable to non-business organisations too, such as education, health care, recreation and the like.

Thus, HRM refers to a set of programmes, functions and activities designed and carried out in order to maximise both employee as well as organizational effectiveness.

– A Big Ego
– Poor Communication Skills
– Lack of Domain Knowledge
– Low intent towards self-development
– Lackadaisical Presence
– Uneven interest in Processes
– Doing Lobbying/Office Politics
– Lack of customer centricity
– Showing unnecessary weight of the role
– Playing Favouritism
– Not sharing information
– Not understanding the objective of doing something
– Not visioning the impact
– Underestimating Stakeholders

Avoid as many as of these as possible.