Recuperating ……..

Dear All,

I had to be hospitalised last week for an emergency gall bladder surgery. The offending gall bladder was removed last weekend through ‘key hole’ surgery, popularly termed clinically as Laparoscopic cholecystectomy. I’m back home and recuperating and wondering when I’ll be back to ‘normal’. My doctor says I should be ‘fit and fine’ by this weekend.

For me, getting hospitalized was a profound experience, like for many others! It was also a great learning experience …. you get to see the doctors, the nursing staff, the support staff …. all striving to achieve the the right balance of the ‘head and heart’!

I think it’s a good time for me to introspect and also to think about all my learnings last week at the hospital and try to relate it to different aspects of HR and Leadership at the workplace!

Thanks and Cheers!

More than a 1000 hits and counting ……..

Finally …… more than a 1000 hits in less than a month and counting! Thank you all for encouraging and supporting my fledgling blog.

Though I try to post on a diverse range of HR and Leadership topics …. primarily from my personal experiences, I would like to invite you to suggest topics which would be of interest to you. If you like to post on my blog, send me the content and I’ll gladly host it in my blog with due credit to you!

Thank you & Cheers!

Poll Results on Engaging a HR Consultant?

Hello Everyone,

On April 23^rd, I posted a poll, where I requested your votes on various functional areas of HR based on the question – “I would engage an external HR consultant for one or more of the following HR activities”. The results on date are –

1) Highest 5 areas voted in order of ‘high’ to ‘low’ –

a)     Leadership Development;

b)    Employee engagement study

c)     Compensation & Benefits study

d)    Competency Modeling & Evaluation

e)     Training programs – Soft Skills & Technical

 2) The lowest 5 areas voted in order of ‘low’ to ‘high’–

a)     Corporate Social Responsibility

b)    Performance Management

c)     HR Analytics & Governance

d)    Diversity & Inclusion

e)     Business conduct guidelines & Compliance training & governance

Thank you for your responses. This will help the HR Consulting community to better focus on their offerings to organizations. For those of you, who want to respond to the poll, please do so on my post below dated April 23^rd.

Thank you and cheers!

Thank God for an Eight-hour work week – the significance of May Day

For most of us, May 1^st is a welcome holiday, especially if it falls during the middle of the week. Over a period of time, the historical significance of May Day has blurred considerably, particularly for those working in the IT & ITES sector and Gen X employees. However, May Day or International Workers’ Day,  a national holiday in more than 80 countries is a resultant of an intense movement against the exploitation of human labor in the 18^th and 19^th century. So if you are enjoying a holiday today with your family and friends, please remember to pay a silent tribute to the struggle of thousands of people who shed blood, sweat and tears to make our working lives more manageable and happy!

The origin of May Day is can be traced to the struggle for a shorter workday which originated in the US, along with the demand for higher wages and better working conditions. In the late 18^th century, the industrial system was making workers work from “sunrise to sunset,” – sometimes extending to even 18-20 hours. The movement cascaded till the decision for the 8-hour day was made by the National Labor Union in August, 1866. In September of the same year the Geneva Congress of the First International went on record for the same demand in the following words, “The legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvements and emancipation of the working class must prove abortive….The Congress proposes 8 hours as the legal limit of the working day”.

May Day is a very important holiday for the labor activists the world over. In 1887, it was designated International Worker’s Day, to commemorate the mass labor protests and unrest in Chicago in 1886 known as the Haymarket Riots. These demonstrations, along with others, led to the institution of an eight-hour work day, an immense victory for workers in the United States. May Day is also linked to political ideology as the Communists and Socialists around the world commemorate May Day with marches, speeches, and festivals to champion the “working class”. Over time, May Day grew to become an important day for organizing and unifying the international struggle of workers across many countries, including India. The first May Day celebration in India was organized in Chennai by the Labor Kisan Party on 1st May, 1923. This was perhaps the first time that red flags were used in the country.

For those of us in HR who worked in the industrial sector, May Day continues to be a nostalgic part of our Industrial Relations experience!

Organization Culture – “of the people, by the people, for the people”

Hello All,

Lately, I have been working on a few proposals for conducting Culture Workshops for some organizations. A few have indicated that they want their Leadership team to undergo this workshop first, followed by the senior and middle managers. As I started the pre-work with some of these organizations, my perspective on organization culture training underwent some drastic changes. In this post, I attempt to articulate some of my thoughts around it.

Organization Culture – “of the people, by the people, for the people”

As usual, please feel free to comment on the post. Your valuable comments will help me structure these organization culture workshops better. Maybe, your thoughts will even change the way we are approaching this training in various organizations.

Thanks and Cheers!

The Starfish Story …. An Organizational Perspective

Hello Everyone,

I have often used the “Starfish” story while facilitating workshops on Personal development and Leadership. Today, while I remembered the story, a different perspective struck me from an organizational point of view. I present to you this short perspective and invite your comments on the same.

The Starfish Story – An Organizational Perspective

Thanks and Cheers!

Introducing People Performance Practitioners – New Slide Deck

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for writing in/ calling me with suggestions to improve the introductory slide deck for People Performance Practitioners. Based on your suggestions/ recommendations I have modified the content and format and uploaded the new slide deck for your perusal and further comments.

I welcome all your comments and request you to forward this within your network to all those who you perceive may benefit from our offerings.

Thank you and Cheers!

People Performance Practitioners

A few slides to introduce People Performance Practitioners

Hello Everyone,

Here is an introductory slide deck on People Performance Practitioners. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments, suggestions or recommendations on the content.

Cheers and Best wishes!

Introducing People Performance Practitioners

Engaging external HR consultants

Hello Everyone,

Before engaging an external HR consultant, most Heads of HR often evaluate a few fundamental criteria about the consultant (I mean, when I was heading HR for different organizations, I engaged HR consultants/ HR vendors after a thorough evaluation). Before I share my evaluation criteria, I would like to know from all HR professionals out there, your set of evaluation criteria before you engage an external HR consultant. Maybe, in my next post, I would start a poll on this subject based on the inputs from you all.

Cheers! And look forward to a lot of responses!!

Introducing People Performance Practitioners

Hello Everyone,

We at People Performance Practitioners are currently helping organizations to enhance their people performance at work. Our interventions are primarily aimed around 3 important areas – 1) Enhancing Employee Value Proposition; 2) Leadership Development; and 3) Change Management. We believe in creating sustainable value add to the business through simple yet effective transformation efforts which, though facilitated by HR are owned by the business managers. In short, we work with HR folks in different organizations to help them identify, create, reeengineer and reinforce sustainable HR processes and practices that add considerable business value and justifies their ROI on people resources.

We are a team of senior HR professionals who have all been Heads of HR of various MNCs and have considerable experience (both domestic and global) on managing HR in complex dynamic environments across Manufacturing, Automobiles, IT, ITES, FMCG domains.

In this blog, we are going to share our experiences and insights, HR case studies, HR trivia and HR polls which will not only allow you to apply our learnings to your workplace but also give us a chance to learn from you based on your comments and discussion.

We look forward to interacting with all of you!