Dynamics of Human Resource Management

Employee Separation – Resignation, Termination and Absconding

2009-02-20T06:10:00.003+05:00

Employee Separation – Resignation, Termination and Absconding

Introduction

Employee Separation is one of the very important and crucial function / process of HR Department. This process, if not handled in an efficient manner, can lead to various legal complications.

Let’s understand the term employee. According to various definitions an employee can be defined as:
1. a worker who is hired to perform a job (wordnet.princeton.edu/Perl/webwn)
2. An individual who provides labor to a company or another person (en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Employees)
3. An individual who provides services for compensation to an employer and whose duties are under the control of the employer. (www.aspa.org/resources/res_news_glossary.htm)

An employee works for an employer and gets paid for his work and nothing else. The relation of an employer and employee has a beginning; they stay together for a while and then they separate. Beginning of the relation is called as recruitment process or talent acquisition that passes through selection phase and followed by induction. Staying together in the relation comprises the various phases such has performance management; career management; professional growth; development and etc. And the final stage of the relation is the separation.

Broadly speaking, in normal scenarios the separation between employer and employee can be due to any of the following three (this will be discussed in detail in subsequent paragraphs):
1) Resignation – Employee decides to leave the organization.
2) Termination – Employer decides to break the contract of employment.
3) Absconding – When the employee decides to leave the organization without tendering his resignation or following the proper process of separation.

Apart from the above mentioned, the relation between employer and employee can also be terminated during the lay-offs (Financial or economic crisis); during the process of mergers, acquisitions and take-over; or any other legal intervention by the state or central government.
Based on the type of employee that has been hired by the company, if local or an expatriate or a national of other country or if an employee is hired through outsourcing agencies, the process of separation and the documents involved in it also differs.

Later in this article we will discuss these things in more detail.

Types of Separation

Resignation – This is the most common way of separation. Employee leaves his job and employment with his employer to pursue better opportunities; a better position at a better compensation package in a branded company (or better known company) in a same city and country or in a different city or different country. So, an employee resigns for:

1) Better compensation and benefits
2) Higher position / level
3) Challenging role
4) To move from an unknown or lowly branded company to a highly branded and reputed company (Top 10 or 25 companies in the world etc)
5) For foreign or international assignments

Termination – Usually, this process is perceived negatively by employees. In termination, an employer uses his right to terminate the contract of an employment. There can be many reasons for an employer to terminate the contract of employment but some of the common reasons are:
1) Non-Performance
2) Indiscipline
3) Misconduct
4) Insubordination
5) Theft and etc

Absconding - This is one of the most unethical, unexpected and unprofessional way to terminate the contract of an employment. In this, on one fine day an employee decides not to go to work. He does not care to hand-over his stuff. In case an employee decides to abscond (or run-away), it becomes very important to understand his motives and intentions. Employees can abscond in either or all of the below mentioned circumstances / situations:

1) After stealing the confidential information or documents or database from the company.
2) If the intentions of an individual is to commit a crime.
3) If there is a work-pressure and stress and the individual is not able to cope-up with it (as it happens in call-centers, BPO and other high-stress industries).
4) If the employee has committed any crime outside the office and after working hours (such as murder or getting involved in terrorist activities or theft or any other civil crime).
5) Then, when priorities are different. Employee has asked for leave due to some urgency at his home (or might be he is trying to escape from his work responsibilities) and at the same time his team also needs him in the office and his leaves are not approved.
6) If he has got some exceptionally good opportunity that requires him to join immediately and he feels that the process of separation in his company is a bit too complicated. He assumes few things and do not really try to face the challenge.
7) Lastly, it is a personality issue. Employees that abscond have different personalities. They are low in confidence. They are too weak to face the reality and challenges of life. They feel that running away from the problem is as good as solving the problem. They are cowards to take the problems head-on.

The Process of Separation

Resignation

Once an employee gives his resignation to the department head or the management, it is important for HR to schedule the first meeting with him. Preferably the meeting should be scheduled within 24 hours or else it will give an impression that “no one really cares”. Being a neutral department, the meeting should be administrated by HR Manager (Employee Relations Manager) or anyone senior to him to understand the root cause of separation.

1. If the root cause is an issue with the reporting manager of an individual; or some conflict with a team-member or some other human issue, try to address the same with the concerned person.
2. If the reason for resignation is better opportunity or a higher position, explain to him the Performance Management System and Career Management System of the company. If possible, show him his performance records. Do not make any commitment that you might not be able to fulfill, such as, “we will give you a promotion in this appraisal” or “will send you overseas for an assignment” and etc and etc.
3. If an employee has given his resignation because he is getting a better compensation package, explain to him the grading system and compensation package of your company and also share with him the minimum possible increase that he might get in his next appraisal but do not give any hike immediately. You might be required to repeat this exercise after another couple of months. So, don’t show any blood to the lion.

Any other reason of resignation, such as policies of the company, benefits, branding and positioning of the company, working hours and etc are beyond the preview and scope of this discussion with HR. Such issues cannot be changed to suit the needs, demands and requirements of one individual. However, if more employees are leaving the organization for one specific reason then the management should address the matter but this should not be done for one specific employee.

After the meeting give your feedback to the department head and advise him on whether to accept the resignation or not.

Once the resignation is accepted, issue the “letter of acceptance of resignation” to the concerned employee and inform the IT, Payroll and Finance Department.

Responsibility of the Department Head: Now, the department head needs to plan the process of handover of duties, projects and assignments to other member(s) in the team.
1. Let the departing employee complete all the tasks and assignments he has in hand.
2. Do not assign any new project or assignment to this employee.
3. If there is nothing to complete and proper hand-over is done, then relieve the employee as soon as possible.

It is a proven fact that once an employee decides to leave the organization and gives his resignation, they show less commitment, sincerity and dedication in their work. Hence, it is important to relieve them as soon as possible rather than them coming to the office and wasting the time of people who are dedicated to their work and resources of the company.

Responsibility of the HR Department:
HR, on the date of acceptance of resignation letter, should instruct the IT department to keep track on all the outgoing emails from the system of separating employee. All IT permissions and rights should be withdrawn from that employee and he should not be allowed to send any email to any other email ID except the office email ID’s. He should not be allowed to copy or edit or delete any file from his system.
HR should ask the concerned employee to obtain no-due letter from all the concerned departments.
HR should calculate all the amount payable to that employee and the payment should be made on the last working day of the employee. On his last day, the company should also give him the relieving letter.

In case of expatriate employees

Even in the case of expatriate employees, the process will be the same except that the involved stake-holders will be more. An expatriate employee is a responsibility of employer and hence care should be taken to ensure that everything runs as smooth as possible, till the very last day of the employee in the organization. Therefore, in addition to various departments within the company, the HR should also inform:

1. the immigration office of the concerned country about the company’s disassociation with the employee;
2. the banker, healthcare insurance provider, landlord and other service providers;
(This is to ensure that these stakeholders shall not disturb the company to recover any cost or loss due to its ex-expatriate employee.)

Termination

Termination can be challenged in the court of law. Hence, care must be taken to document all the incidents that have led to the termination of an employee.

In case of disciplinary action, the company should take care that the proper procedure is followed. Warnings (oral and written) were issued to the employee and the whole incident is properly documented.

In case of non-performance, the required documents must include:
a. Tasks given
b. Expected performance level
c. Evaluation criteria
d. Actual performance
e. Shortfall
f. Action required

Parties involved in the termination process include:
1) The Reporting Manager
2) The Department Head
3) The HR and / or
4) Any other senior member of the department

Once the decision is taken to terminate the contract of employment, the company should seize all the belongings of that employee – such as computer, drawer, access cards, laptop, ID Cards, files and etc.

Employee should be given the letter of termination clearly specifying the reasons of termination.
Based on the severity of the case, the company might decide to pay the employee for the notice period. For example, in case of non-performance he must be paid for the notice period but in case of any disciplinary action, theft or misconduct, he should not be. The entire amount due to him must be recovered.

In case of expatriate employees
1. Company should recover all the required documents.
2. Inform the immigration office of the concerned country about the company’s disassociation with the employee. Company should also inform the banker, healthcare insurance provider, landlord and other service providers.
3. If possible, arrangements should be made to ensure that the terminated employee take the flight to his home country. This is to ensure that the concerned employee doesn’t stay illegally in the country or commit any crime before leaving the country.

Absconding Employee

This is one of the most complicated ways of separation.

In case of local employee:

If the employee did not come to the office and nor did he informed about his whereabouts, try to contact him on his mobile phone.

If he is not answering his calls or his mobile phone is not working then try to call him on his residence number. Even if that is not working then speak to his friends in the office to assess the situation.

In case you are not able to get any information about the employee then assume that he has absconded. As per the employment laws in various countries, send him three official notices starting from the second day of his disappearance and send every subsequent notice after every three days. If there is no response from his side then strike-off his name from your payroll.

On the first day of his disappearance, confiscate his workplace, his computer, drawer etc. Take the help of Systems and Networking department to analyze all the emails that has been sent from his computer and to whom. Stop his salary immediately.

Seek legal help to recover your costs and /or any other items or products that has been issued to him, such as access cards, ID Cards, Laptop, Corporate Credit-card, House, Car etc, as applicable.

In case of Expatriate Employee

If the employee did not come to the office and nor did he informed about his whereabouts, try to contact him on his mobile phone or any other phone number as available in company records. If he is not answering his calls or his mobile phone is not working and also there is no response from his house, then speak to his friends in the office to assess the situation. Check, if the person is still in the country or he has already left. Stop his salary.

Report the matter to the police within 24 hours. Sudden disappearance can be interpreted in many ways, such as – any accident; he might have run-away from the country for any of the reason listed above; he might have stolen the confidential information from the company; or he might have got himself involved in any civil crime or criminal activity. For all reasons and for the safety of the company, it is important to report the matter to the police. Submit the copy of the police report to the Passport and Immigration Office of your country and also send the copy of the report to the Consulate or high-commission of the respective country. Also inform the banker, healthcare insurance provider, landlord and any other service providers of the concerned employee.

Seek legal help to recover your costs and /or any other items or products that has been issued to him, such as access cards, ID Cards, Laptop, Corporate Credit-card and etc, as may be applicable.

Conclusion

The processes described in this article are just the general outline that must be followed in case of any separation and not any industry or company specific processes. Based on the employment laws applicable in the countries that they are operating in, companies can choose to be more stringent or lenient in their approach. The process described here is more amicable and ethically correct.

Once an employee decides to resign and leave the organization, whatever you may do but he will leave; if not today then tomorrow. On the other hand, if the employer decides to terminate the contract, he might change his mind, provided the case against the employee is not very severe.

Absconding, as mentioned above is in itself is a crime; something that only coward people do; such people just give-up without even making an attempt. These people run away from the reality of life and from the challenges that life offers to get best out of you and to make you master.

As an employee whenever you decide to leave the company, do it in a more professional and acceptable manner.

As an employer, whenever you decide to terminate the contract of employment of any employee, make sure that you document all the incidents in a chronological manner and have in your possession, all the required evidences. Unfortunately, decision of resignation cannot be challenged in any court and it is considered as a right of an employee but decision of termination can be challenged.

Employee separation is a big process and does not involve unilateral decisions. Be accurate. Be professional.

It will be nice to get your feedback and comments on this article and also your suggestions as how one can improve these processes.

I am looking forward to hear from you.

Sanjeev Himachali
Email: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com
BLOGS: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ and http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/
Link to the Article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Employee-Separation---Resignation,-Termination-and-Absconding&id=1996242

Valentine’s Day 2009 – Romance at 60

2009-02-14T08:30:00.003+05:00

"With you, my mornings are pleasant and my nights are cold; without you, my day is nothing. With you, whatever I eat, I enjoy my food; without you, every food is tasteless.
With you, even sleeping on thrones is also fun; without you, the cozy bed is also not comfortable.
With you, there are challenges, goals, successes and victories; without you this life is directionless and purposeless.
With you, life is fun and happy; without you, my life is nothing.
Thanks for coming into my life and loving me so much. I love you".

Introduction

LOVE is one of the widely used yet misunderstood and wrongly interpreted human emotion. We, human-beings can fall in love with almost anything and everything that exists in this world. The emotion of love can exist between any two objects and / or bodies. There can be love between parent and child; a male and a female; two brothers; with country and religion; with profession; with animals; with nature; etc and etc.

Love means different things to different people as they grow in age and maturity. Love can be interpreted as any or all of the following:

1. To care
2. To respect
3. To admire
4. To understand
5. To be faithful
6. To adjust and compromise
7. To trust
8. To romance
9. To celebrate
10. To get physical (Hug, Kiss and Sex)
11. To have kids
12. To face challenges
13. To grow together
14. To live together so on and so forth

In this article, we are making an attempt to understand the meaning of love that exists between a male and a female (Adam and Eve) in its totality and how does that interpretation changes over the period of time and with age. We are putting more emphasis on the meaning of love and romance at old age and its importance.

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Valentines-Day-2009---Romance-at-60&id=1968215

Growing in love

I am not sure at what age the love between a male and a female begins to grow and when they begin to get attracted towards each other but I think the love begin due to the basic physical and biological difference between the two genders. Since the time when we were kids, we have been told by our elders and family members that boys and girls are different and hence they should be treated differently. Hence kids being so curious (as they always are), they begin to find and explore that difference between a boy and a girl. I think those are the first few symptoms of getting attracted and falling in love.

The most important thing in love is to communicate and being able to interact with people of opposite gender without any hesitation but I know many people are not good in this. Remember that most beautiful girl of your class or the most cute and sweet boy of your class that you always wanted to talk to but could never; because you were not sure what to talk and how to begin. At that age, this is love. And if you are able to talk to that girl or that boy, your classmates will begin to say, "Hey, you love her" or "Wow, see your friend is coming". Then, that boy or that girl becomes the reason for you to go to school, attend class and do well in your exams. You always try to be in the limelight, so that you get noticed by that particular person.

As we move towards the late teen years of our life then through our interactions and school curriculum, we get to know and learn about basic differences between a male and a female body. It is a human nature that we don't accept new things without having a reason to do so. For human being to believe in things they must be able to see, touch and feel. Hence, people at this age begin to adventure and for them; love is to be able to see the body beneath those clothes. People at this age get more tempted to see the porn sites and magazines. They become more curious. Hence, at this age, love is to see the nudity. Not only to see nudity but also to touch and feel. Remember that first touch on your body; that first hug and kiss. At that age, this is the love.
But, do all girls look the same beneath their clothes or is there a difference? Are all guys the same? As we move from teens to early twenties, thoughts like this passes through our mind. At this age, people tend to flirt. Every quarter of the year, you can see them with different girl or boy. At this age, sex or the physical relations with different people become more important. It is not a need but curiosity.

Things move on and now after seeing and experiencing everything, you begin to notice other qualities in the person, such as, intelligence, family background, future prospects, ability to adjust and accommodate and understand and etc. You begin to see long term. You want to get settled down in your life. Now, you look for trust and faithfulness in your relation. You are also willing to adjust and compromise on a few things. You begin to look for someone with whom you can spend the rest of your life. Hence, you decide to get married; at times with a person that you have selected and sometimes with a person selected by your parents and family. So, you widen your scope of love and begin to look for most or all of the qualities in a person that I have listed above. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find someone with all these qualities and over that life also throws some new challenges at us and has some surprises in store for us. To counter this, most of us prepare our list of priorities and traits that our life partner must have. Hence at this age, love is to adjust compromise and understand, so as to face the challenges of life and grow.

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Valentines-Day-2009---Romance-at-60&id=1968215

As we move from early twenty to our thirty, the basic needs of our life and our aspirations, such as career, growth, recognition, fame, comforts, wealth accumulation, bringing-up kids, society, family etc take precedence over love and romance. Love between the two is still there but not as much as it should be. They work, so that they can give better life to their kids and to secure comfortable old age for themselves. To ensure this, they do not even hesitate to work during odd hours and moving to different cities and countries. They literally need to snatch a few moments of care and romance for each other. It is important that you understand your partner, trust your partner, celebrate every moment that you get and communicate with each other as often as possible. At that age, this is love.

...and life moves on and we continue to grow. We continue to run, day after day and years after years and in the process, though we continue to live together and stay in the relation but we hardly find any time for each other. We spend our time in our work, with our kids and in fulfilling our social responsibilities and in the process we hurt the one that we love most. We find it difficult to spare few moments for the one whom we love so much.

In this competitive world, we want to be ahead of others in our career and profession. In doing so, we don't take care of ourselves and carry few diseases with us. And in the process of completing our responsibilities towards our kids, family, society and country, we become old, weak and fragile. By the time we understand all these things, we have already knocked the door of our old age by completing our 60 years of existence. As we walk towards the sunset of our life, we realize that we are actually running short of time and we do not have enough time to love and romance the person who has been walking silently with us, in this journey of life.

Love at 60 - Moving together towards the sunset of our life

...and when we reach 60, we feel shy to romance the love of our life. We feel scared. We carry unknown fears of society. We begin to think what others will say and think about us. But basically, love and romance at 60 is a different experience. Some couples spend this time by discussing about their past and grown-up kids, grand children and etc and some are slightly different and they experience a new life. They are as creative and romantic as ever. Experience of this emotion at that age will not be very different from what we are discussing here. I think, irrespective of the country they live in and language that they speak, all of them will experience the similar flow of emotion.

One day, I was sitting and thinking if there will still be enough attraction, love and romance between us when I will be 65 and you will be 62?

By that time, I will be quite old and already a house of diseases. Wearing thick glasses and holding a walking stick. There will not be many hairs on the head and if any, they all would have turned grey. No teeth in the mouth. Coughing throughout the night and not letting you sleep. I wonder if you will still be able to love and romance this old person. I know that I will be able to love you and romance with you in a way no one else can.

When we will reach that age and already retired, we will move to a different place. Not in a very big house but a small one, just enough for two of us. At that age, I do not want to stay away from you. Wherever we need to go, we will travel together and live together and not separately.

Together, we will go for a walk in the morning and also in the evening. We will be holding hands and walking in a park or on a beach. You will not feel shy, right? Then we will have breakfast. After breakfast you must take your medicine. We will spend our afternoons and nights in our bedroom, just like the way we did on our honeymoon, right? In the evening, I will make tea for you, without sugar. Lunch and dinner we will take together and I will feed you by my hand. Dinner, we will always have candle-light.

Whenever, you will get sick, I will take care of you. In the middle of the night, if you will ask for water and as many times, I will get it for you. I will make sure that you take your blanket. You can also ask me to switch on and off the air-conditioner and as many times. Every year, we will go for honeymoon and every time to a different place.

I know that you like flowers, especially roses, so every morning I will get you fresh flowers. I will also be giving you some surprise gifts, jewelry, sexy dresses and etc. You will wear, right?

I will do these things and many more things for you, not only today or tomorrow but throughout the rest of my life. The romance between us will never die. I will never let the spark of our love, go off.

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Valentines-Day-2009---Romance-at-60&id=1968215

For the "Special" one out there

On this Valentine Day, I did not found anything more romantic than lyrics of this song and I hope that readers will like this. This is a special valentine day gift to all lovers.

"I love your eyes, which hold me captivated. I love the way you look at me.
I love your smile, which warms every corner of my soul.
I love your voice, which flows to my heart.
I love it when you talk. I love it when you sing to me
I love your hair, about which I dreamed cascading into my face, as you leaned over me.
I love your hands, which caress with such tenderness.

I love you when you're angry.
I love you when you're sad I love everything about you and I love every expression of yours.
I love your undying faith that keeps the flame out of love alive.

I love the way you make me feel, when I am feeling blue.
I love the way you make me laugh I love you because you bring the best out of me.
I love your small gestures that speak volumes about how much you care.
I love everything that you have done for me.
But most of all I love the way that you let me love you. Just being with you feels like I can defy the whole world.

You always make me feel that you are by my side no matter what. Love is, what you mean to me - and you mean everything to me.
"I Love you" for everything that you are, as you are, whatever you are and wherever you are.
"I Love you", today, tomorrow and will continue to love you till the time I am alive.
And even if I die, I will continue to love you and take care of you in one way or another".

Conclusion

Give love; shower love and more love on your spouse, your partner and your life. Don't wait for this day to say, "I love you" to them or let them know, "how important they are in your life"? You will never grow so old to not to love your spouse.

Love her today; love her tomorrow and love her till the moment you breathe your last. Romance him now; romance him tomorrow and romance him till the very last day, Irrespective of your high aspirations, responsibilities, duties and social burden, never let the spark of love between you and your partner go off. In spite of your busy schedule and target deadlines, just snatch away few moments to romance with the person, you love so much.

This Valentine's Day and every day, say, "I love you" to that person of your life who is very special to you and the one you cannot live without.

Have a great Valentine Day and take very good care of yourself.

Enjoy this "special" day with the most "special" person of your life and a very "special" way.

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Valentines-Day-2009---Romance-at-60&id=1968215

Lots of love
Sanjeev Himachali
BLOGS: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ and http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/
Email: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; and sanjeev.himachali@hotmail.com

The Making of a Great Company – Stages in the Life of a Company (Part I)

2009-02-07T16:46:00.002+05:00

The Making of a Great Company – Stages in the Life of a Company (Part I)

Introduction

The world that we are seeing around us has not been created or built in one day. In the beginning everything was new, fresh, and small in size, simple and fewer in numbers. With constant changes, evolution, improvements and collaborations things around us has become larger in size and more complex. In my career so far, I have worked in start-up companies; new projects; new ventures and new assignments and having been a part of HR Profession, I think it is just appropriate for me to share those experiences. In this article, we will not be talking about everything around us but about the corporate world, its evolution, growth and its analogy with human life cycle.

Types of start-up companies

Every big company around us, be it Microsoft, IBM, Google, GE, Cisco and etc were start-up companies at one stage or another. In the beginning, there were fewer employees, less capital, poor infrastructure and less facilities. Over the period of time with consistent growth and expansion these companies have become giants. So, what do you consider as a start-up company?

A new company that is starting its business from scratch is considered as a start-up company. It all starts with a dream and an idea.
A new subsidiary of an existing company or a new sister concern of an existing company is also considered as a start-up company. In this case, though the new company will be allocated some budget and some basic infrastructure will also be provided by the parent company but yet this will be considered as a separate entity because it’s a new business, new industry, different customer base and etc. It is like having your 2nd or 3rd child.
A new expansion branch or an office of an existing company in a new country and jurisdiction is also considered as a start-up company.

For the purpose of this article, we will be considering only those companies that begin from scratch.

The life-cycle of a company is very much similar to the life-cycle of a human being. It all begins with an idea and need proper research, preparation and planning to actually get into it. Just like human begins, even companies need proper care, guidance and motivation to prosper and grow. Even companies pass through different phases and stages. They too have family, parents, siblings, cousins and friends. Even their relations also evolve over the period of time. They also suffer from heart-breaks. They also make mistakes, errors and blunders. In fact, as per the company law of various countries, companies are considered as an individual.

Let’s discuss it further - Understanding the Analogy

Planning for a new child – first step to create a multi-billion dollar company

In the last two decades or so, most of the basic things that are required to live a comfortable life, such as health care, education, food, house and etc has become very expensive. Hence, it is very important to plan the birth of your child. Not all the parents are willing to take-up this responsibility. In a same way, we are living in a competitive market and it is the survival of the fittest; hence, it is important to do a proper research, market analysis, demand and supply analysis of your product or service, cash flow analysis and etc before taking that first step to create your own company. It has been found that those companies that are formed without proper research, analysis and planning are either forced to go for an abortion or they die soon. There is also a possibility of a miscarriage. Even if they are let to born they find it difficult to grow as a normal company.

Hence, just the way you plan for your first child; you are also required to plan for your company. It is a thrill. There is anxiety. There are fears. There is risk. Yet, it is very important to plan. Plans are not foolproof, yet there is a scope of improvement because you know where you are going wrong and what needs to be changed rather then doing something unplanned. That is suicidal.

Conceived – research and analysis is completed

Once you decide to add a new member in your family and you conceive, you are ought to feel differently. There will be health and medical issues. You might not feel alright. You might feel as if something is growing within you and that you are actually not prepared for it. Then suddenly you might find yourself surrounded by many friends, family members and relatives, giving you some advices and etc. These types of feelings are very common in those families that are expecting their first child.

Starting a new company is no different as it involves money, time and other resources and at times it might scare you. You might find yourself surrounded by many friends and family members giving you last minute advice sometimes even to the extent of asking you to change your product or service line. They give less comfort and motivation but install more fear of failure or uncertain future.

These are the external fears. Apart from fighting with your family and friends and convincing them about your choice and decision; you also need to think about and concentrate upon many other issues to ensure a simple delivery without any operation or last minute hiccups. At this stage of the business the main focus is on matching the business opportunity with your skills, experience and passions. Other focal points include: deciding on a business ownership structure, finding professional advisors, and business planning. Most companies at this stage will have to overcome the challenge of market acceptance and pursue one niche opportunity. Do not spread money and time resources too thin.

Time of Delivery, Growing as a Baby and Moving towards your adolescent – incorporation of your company, beginning of the journey and first five years of your survival

…and then the day comes when you become a parent. There is a smile on your face. Your happiness grew many folds. That day you were able to hold your baby, feel it, kiss and hug. You were finding it very difficult to express your feelings in words. But you were aware that this is just a beginning and there are many challenges that lie ahead for you to give a comfortable, secure and happy childhood to your baby. Suddenly you become very protective. You do things to ensure that your baby gets all the comfort and live a healthy life. Your baby is just a toddler and cannot differentiate between good and bad and cannot take decisions. Not strong enough to fight with the world. Hence, on behalf of your child you decide;

Which type of school your kid should go to?
What type of education can ensure that your kid can lead a successful and respectful life?
What type of people or peers he should interact with, just to ensure that he should not fall prey to bad company?
What type of habits and behavior your kid should cultivate to lead a healthy life?

There is a possibility that in future your kid might say that you have not done much for him but at present only you can take right decisions for him.

On the other side your company that has begin to take small steps to become the No. 1 company in the industry needs to be protected and cared for. You should decide what type of people should work in your company. You should decide what a right deal is for your company. More than anybody or anything else you should be worrying about your investors and banks that has lend you the money to do your business.

It is very important for you to get the right type of people in your company. Not an army of people but the experts in their field. There is a possibility that many seasoned and experienced people might refuse to work with your company because you are new and not one among the top 25 companies in the world, just don’t worry and ignore them.

Your employees, your vendors might not feel happy or comfortable with some of your decisions and policies; try to convince them if you can or ignore them, you know what is right for the company in order to make it the best company in the world. Today, they might say that your company is not good; they might even curse your company but tomorrow when you will be there at the top, these very people will admire your company and will feel proud to have got associated with the company.

You should rather concentrate on challenges and issues that you need to solve and address for the growth of your company. At this stage every decision need to be made carefully.

Adult age, Higher Studies and career – Growth Phase, Profitability

So now your child has reached the stage where he can take care of himself. He no longer needs to hold your finger to cross the road. You should not bother about him. Give him space to grow. Let him take a few decisions in his life. Give options and give advises but do not force your decision. Be there to hold him incase he falls; boost-up his confidence; motivate him but do not discourage him. You have done your job and now let him decide what he wants in his life. What type of career he wants to make? What type of profession he wants to enter in? You just sit and observe. When their kid begins to grow professionally and personally and when their kid becomes popular and respectable in the society, some parents take the back stage and they just feel happy with the every achievement of their kid. Someone who till few years ago was not able to walk on his own today has become so successful. Today, he is not walking but running.

In the same way, once your company starts making the profit, you should feel that half the job is done. Now, your target should be to make profit every year and every new profit should be higher then the profit of previous year. Now, you should think about expansions; more clients; more offices; more manpower and more profit. Keep on expanding and growing from one office in a city to many offices in the city to every city in the country to many countries across the world. It becomes very easy to get best of the talent in the world to work with you. Everyone out there will be interested to get associated with your company, in whatever way. Getting loans from the banks becomes a bit easier. Some companies decide to go to the public and become public limited company. Just remember that just the way it takes 20-25 years for a kid to grow completely; even companies take time at least 5-10 years to establish themselves in the industry and for a company to reach the type of growth that we have mentioned in this paragraph, it takes 20-30 years.

At this stage some owners quietly exist from the company and let their child for which they have slogged and struggled so much reach new heights and make new records. They feel proud with a thought that they have created a world class organization.

Old Age – Declining phase

Once their child begins to grow, some parents move on from the life of their kid and let him prosper. Some parents stay back and they look for alliances for their child. They expand their family; from a family of just parents and child they become larger when they add spouse of their child and the in-laws. The family becomes huge once their toddler becomes parent…and they keep on growing.

Similarly, once the company begins to make profits, grow and expand, some owners of the companies make an exit and start something new but many stay back. They like to enjoy the fruit of their tree. They also look for new alliances – mergers and acquisitions. They begin to enter into new related businesses by starting the subsidiaries and sister concerns. They grow with their company.

…and then when they die, their company continues to grow.

Conclusion

Just like human life, the life-cycle of a company also consists of different stages. The start-up phase is the most difficult one as it involves many challenges. In any journey, the most difficult phase is the starting phase because the direction is not clear and you are not aware of challenges that lie ahead. This article is a first in this series. In the following articles we will discuss about the challenges of a start-up company; other issues and complication.

Kindly share your feedback or give a comment.

Thanks and Regards
Sanjeev Himachali
BLOGS: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ and http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/
Email: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; sanjeev.himachali@hotmail.com

Boss is calling – Understanding the Psychology of Bossism

2009-01-14T20:51:00.002+05:00

Introduction

That day evening when you were enjoying that party with your family and friends, you received a call on your mobile and the screen was showing, “Boss is calling”. What did you do? Did you answer the call or did you let it ring? Did you call back after a while or did you send a message to him to check if there is anything urgent? Your response and the way you might react on these situations will be based on the type of boss you have and your relation with him or her. Bosses cannot be good or bad. They just oscillate between being good and bad based on the type of boss they have. It’s like holding the one end of a rope in your hand and swinging in the air; you can see the effect in the whole rope till the very end of the other side. In the same way the behavior of your boss swings between goodness and badness.

Believe it or not; accept it or not but in the corporate world, everyone has at least one person that he or she is accountable to or that he or she is reporting to until and unless the person is an owner of the company (in case of private limited company). In case of public limited company, the CEOs and the Managing Directors are answerable to the Board of Directors. Hence, always remember that even your boss is having a boss. No one has been spared. The way you are analyzing your boss in the scale of good, bad or horrible, be sure that even your boss is analyzing his or her boss.

In this article, we are making an attempt to understand and discuss the factors that affects the behavior of a boss; psychology involved and how one can become a good boss.

Few facts about your BOSS

Before we proceed with our discussion lets understand a few facts about your boss; this will help us to understand the psychology and behavior of your boss.
1) Just like you, your boss is also a human being and he has own emotions, aspirations, fears, insecurity, issues and problems.
2) The basic motive for any individual to become a boss is to control. He wants to control and manipulate people under him in the way as his boss wants to control his behavior and his movements.
3) Bosses can have any designation or position be it Captain, Team-Leader, Head, Manager, Vice-President, Director or CXO. The fact that he is on you and you are under him is good enough a proof to determine that he is your boss and you are his sub-ordinate.
4) Your boss is not only accountable and responsible for his performance, deliverables and targets but also that of yours.
5) Few of the roles of any bosses are to –
a) control;
b) direct;
c) make decisions (not only for self but for the whole team and take the responsibility);
d) manage (resources; time and people);
e) train (pass on his knowledge by way of training his sub-ordinates)
f) lead (set examples and being a role-model);
g) coach (so as to improve and performances of his sub-ordinates) and
h) mentor (pass on his legacy and experiences to the younger generation)

Your boss plays (or at least expected to play) all these roles in the span of his professional career and as he moves up in the hierarchy. However, many bosses in many companies are too content with their role of controlling, manipulating and influencing that they do not even think beyond it.

First time bosses

No one is a born boss. Yes, even at the school time you might have seen people who bully around; your class-representatives; school-captains etc but it is very different when you start at a corporate level. Doesn’t matter what you have done at the school or college level but in the corporate world you begin a new inning, which in many cases last for 30 or 40 years.

You begin your career and as you experience you new things and learn more about the dynamics of working in a corporate world, you also begin to curse your boss. You start thinking that your boss is an idiot who doesn’t know anything. You feel that he is bias; he doesn’t like you; he might harm your career and growth (which at times can be true also but not always). You keep on moving from one company to another in the search of a boss who thinks like you (not even thinking that had that person continued to think like you he would have stayed at your level and would not have reached the position where he has reached now).

…and then one day you get promoted as a team-leader. Just like a beggar who got lucky in the lottery draw of one billion dollars, not knowing what he should be doing with that money; now even you don’t know what you should be doing with your position. And then you remember your all bosses in the past and try to emulate their behaviors and process. You also try to force your decisions on your subordinates. You begin to enjoy the sufferings of others. You feel proud and respected when see your subordinates working late in the night. You begin to treat your subordinates in a same way as your bosses in the past used to treat you.

First time bosses are the most horrible. They feel insecure. With the power that they have gained for the first time, they become arrogant. They begin to feel that they are the best manipulators and can do anything. They begin to dominate. In short, they begin to do everything that they used to hate at one point of time. Now, their thinking process changes and they begin to think that their subordinates

a) are not hard-working
b) don’t listen to them or respect them (no attention for detail and disobedient)
c) in their absence talks bad about them
d) are planning something against them
e) are not as efficient as they are

The process continues

Welcome to the world of sandwich type of work-life!!! The promotion that you got in your last appraisal making you the team-leader after defeating three more contenders is just a beginning of this sandwich type of work-life. The sooner you grow-up, understand things and become matured, the better it will be for you and your growth. Going forward and as long as you will exist in this corporate world; you will always have one team under you and at least one boss above you.

In order to grow up in the hierarchy, you must always perform better than your subordinates and also push your boss up in the hierarchy, so that you can occupy his position. You must be a good boss for your team and a most reliable subordinate for your boss. It is not easy. Most of the bosses succumb here. It is at this position that you find that your boss is bad 8/10 times and not vice-versa.

Positive and Negative Motivation

We always learn. We learn the style of bossism. We learn how to handle pressure and how to meet deadlines. We learn from our bosses, our peers and our counterparts in other companies. Same thing can motivate few people in a good way and some others in a negative way. Some people, when they see some bad habit or behavior or work-style or management style in their bosses they emulate that style and practice it then when they reach at that level but there are also some other type of people who, when they see such habit or behavior of practice, promise to themselves that whenever they will reach at the level where their boss is, they will not do the same thing.

It is up to an individual to select or create his style and decide what type of boss he wants to be. No one can be 100% good or bad and there will always be shades of grey.

My experiences and my bosses

While I was preparing for this article, I just scanned through the internet and I found that there are ten’s of thousand’s of article about bad-bosses. The way it was presented, for a moment I felt that all bosses are bad and if all bosses are bad it means you are bad, I am bad and everybody around us is also bad because at some level we all are bosses or had been at that position once in our career.

In my career, I have worked under several bosses (five to be more accurate) and the goodness and badness in my bosses has varied from 9/10 times good to 8/10 times bad. But, all my bosses have at least one quality that I liked in them.

My first boss – my coach and mentor: He was not only my boss or manager but also my guide, coach and mentor. Fortunately for me, in spite of having so many levels in the department, I was reporting to my VP. It was a great combination of experience and energy (excuse me, what I said, energy?? In fact he was more energetic and in that regards can easily give competition to people half his age. Even at his age, he used to work from 8:30 AM to 9 M). If I was impulsive then he was patient. Sometimes we used to think about the same thing, at the same time without anyone knowing about it. Not that we never had differences or he never scolded me but now I know that behind every such discussion that we had, the intention was not bad. He wanted me to learn new things and understand the dynamics of corporate world. He was very caring, though he might not have said so even one single time. I think the one reason we had such a cordial relation was our levels in the organizational hierarchy. Between us we had around 7-8 levels and I would have taken at least 15-20 years to reach his level; hence there was no competition between us. He was the type of boss who can never say that I know everything. He always followed that in every one of us there is always a scope to learn new things. He was always willing to learn new things.

My second boss – intelligent bully: I think my corporate honeymoon was over with my 1st boss. My second boss was a bully. He was just a terror to have around. If he is under pressure, you cannot even make a guess how he might behave in the office. In the office, most of the time we used to see him in the smoking zone or playing cards on his computer or chatting with his friends. It is not that he was not intelligent or knowledgeable but I think he was at a stage of his career where his philosophy was to take the things lightly and pass on the pressure and tensions to the sub-ordinates.

My third boss – caring dumb: He was the type of boss who was very caring. Even if you call him in the middle of a night for some help, most likely he will come to bail you out. He was someone who can take you to parties; drink with you and get drunk. He was just a fun loving guy, someone we all like to have. But, when it comes to decision making, there will be no discussion, no debate, no brainstorming, just one way and that is his way. He used to get floored when people used to say good things about him; respect him and admire him. Later on we got to know that beneath his caring behavior and nature he was actually hiding his dumb personality. He was having zero or minimum possible knowledge of the industry and the corporate world.

My fourth boss – lazy and fearful: One thing that I like about him is his patience. I don’t know why but he always used to think that the pressure of the whole company is on his shoulders. He used to think that everyone around him is competing with him. It used to take months for him to get one file move from one table to another. He was the one who can create rift between two people to get his way. I am still not able to understand why he was like this but I don’t think that he can ever be in a strategic leadership role.

My fifth and the present boss – an entrepreneur with heart and emotions: My professional life, it seems to have come full circle for me. My present boss is a younger version of my first boss. Between us there is a mutual respect and mutual admiration. Sometimes we also agree to disagree with each other but that is always a way to a healthy discussion. He is caring. He is one among those few bosses who knows what they are looking for. And most importantly, he is the reason for me to be here. Common thing between us is that we both love challenges and we have similar dreams; a dream to be number one in whatever we do.

There is nothing personal against or in favor of any of my boss. I have learned from all my bosses. I love to emulate some of their behaviors and styles and I prefer not to follow some of their approaches and practices. It took the influence of all my bosses for me to be what I am today.

Becoming a good BOSS

In this section, we are not trying to preach anything rather we are trying to share and highlight some of the behaviors that might make you a good, admirable and respectable boss.
1) Always be ready to learn new things. We are not experts and we can never be. There is always a scope for improvement. Hence, no point in saying, “I know”. One must accept the fact that they cannot master everything.
2) Accept your faults. Just the way we cannot learn everything, we cannot be expert in everything hence accept your mistakes, faults, errors and even blunders.
3) Subject matter expertise. It is very important to be master of your own domain. This will get you respect and admiration not only from your team-members but also from others in the company and industry.
4) Be matured and be constructive. You cannot become a good boss if you are working as an open-ended pipe. If there is a pressure or if you have tensions or things are not good between you and your boss, try to absorb that. You will not gain anything by passing that tension or pressure to your team. Be assertive rather that than being direct. But in case of appreciation and recognition, pass that directly to the team.
5) Be true to your team. For you to get respect from your team, it is important that you always be true to your team. Do not take any decision about the team by keeping your team in dark.
6) Get your team in confidence.
7) Always be ready for competition. Once you are at this level, you will be challenged by everyone around you, sometimes even from within the team, so be prepared for that. Do not try to diffuse the competition but be ready to take it head-on. At your level you need to prove again and again to your team that you are best suited for the role.
8) Walk the talk. Don’t just make plans and share your vision but also work towards getting the things done.
9) Take responsibility and accountability. Always take the responsibility and accountability of each of your team-members, their work and even their behavior.

Conclusion

Having read so many articles and journals about bad bosses, I just thought that there is a need to share something which is unbiased and transparent. Bosses are not good or bad it is the way they react in certain situations or handle some other situations that makes them good or bad. Bosses are not God and they do make errors, mistakes and even blunders. The higher they are placed, the higher is their responsibility and accountability.

I hope this article will give an insight into the psychology involved in the behavior of that person, whom you call as your boss and think at least twice before taking his calls after the office hours.

I am looking forward to have your feedback and comments.

Take very good care of yourself.

Sanjeev Himachali
BLOGS: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ and http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/
Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com
Link to the original article: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Boss-is-Calling---Understanding-the-Psychology-of-Bossism&id=1868387

Global Economic Recession, Lay-off’s and its Impact on You – Survival of the Fittest

2009-01-07T21:33:00.006+05:00

Global Economic Recession, Lay-off’s and its Impact on You – Survival of the Fittest

Introduction

Most of the countries all over the world are going through this phase of economic recession. Many old and big companies have already been brought down on their knees to bite the dust. Many companies as well as countries have become bankrupt or are on the verge of it. Millions and millions of people have lost their jobs. Many people have lost millions and billions of dollars. People in general are scared and fearsome. This is not the first time that the global economy is going through recession and this is also not the last time. There is a pattern involved in it. On an average it is happening after every 8-10 years. This article is an attempt to highlight some of the issues involved and some of the possible solutions.

Dynamics Involved

In our life, there is a special place for money (be it in any currency). Most of the problems that we are facing in our life and day-to-day living are linked with it. Food, shelter, clothes, life-style, education, comforts and etc and etc, each and everything involves money. Money should be revolving; it comes, it goes and it comes back again. It should always change hands or else it is useless. It is this nature of the money that drives the economy of a country, a company or our life. And when you are going through recession, it means no money is coming in. Money is not coming in but yet you need to live and hence there is a need for cost-cutting. But you never know how long the recession will continue and hence more cost cutting. People drive the economy and when there is recession then it is these very people who suffer.

…and then you are laid off. Now what? What will you do? How will you survive? How will you take care of yourself and your family? Earlier there was less money coming in and now there is no money coming in, what will you do?

In such times of global recession when everyone is trying hard to survive and pass through one of the toughest phase of their life, no one thinks about making the profit out of adversity. Everyone is trying to survive and it will be survival of the fittest. Anyone who will be able to pass through this will come out as a stronger entity or person or country. Companies are no exception to this rule. They are also trying hard to survive. With them they are also trying to float and swim through as many people as possible but certainly not all. As a part of cost cutting, some of the employees need to be laid off so that the company and others can survive. Similar things happens in a lift, when it is overloaded; ship, when it is sinking and even airplane, when it is overloaded and etc. Something or someone needs to go out for the rest of them to survive.
But, what is the pattern? Who needs to be laid-off? When? How? There are many such questions that need to be addressed. Let’s move further and discuss.

The Pattern

There is a set process that needs to be followed at the time of laying-off. I am not sure how many companies actually follow it. Let me elaborate.

1) Freezing the recruitment. No new hiring.
2) Fresh graduates or those who are new to the market will find it difficult to get a job. More so, if they are not from A-grade institutes.
3) Last in, First Out. Among the employees who are already inside the company and are employed, the person who has joined recently will be the first one to go out. To be more precise, all those who are on their probation will be shown the door.
4) Average performers or difficult employee will also be shown the door. Performance records of last three years will be re-examined and reanalyzed and those with average or below average performance will be shown the door.
5) Outsourcing to increase. Most of the routine functions will be outsourced and those departments will be closed.

What more to expect?

1) Training and Development programs to freeze. No more expenditures on company sponsored training and development programs.
2) Perks, benefits and retention allowances to be withdrawn. The company will freeze all perks and benefits that has been extended to its senior employees.
3) Bonuses and incentives to be stopped. For the time being the companies will stop all the bonuses and incentives that are due to its employees.
4) Specialists are out and generalists are in. At the time when economy was booming, companies might have hired different people for different role within a function / department or most likely they have hired more than one person for a role, all these arrangements will go away and only those people who are willing to do the work of more than one person or those who can do multiple roles will stay in.

This is the basic process that is followed in many companies at the time of such economic crisis. What does it means to the people in general and what they should be doing? There is something to be learned from every crisis and this one is no different. Let’s discuss further.

Learning’s

It is not important to know what is happening across the world but it is important to know what is happening in your company. It is also important to keep an eye on the market situation and keep yourself updated with the latest. If you are the one who has been laid-off, then you must be the one falling in any of the above mentioned scenarios. I think you also need to take the blame of your current situation. However, there is no need to get panic. Hold your emotions and look around.

If you are the one who has been laid-off then you must do the following:

1) Time with family. Remember when you were working and working for 12-15 hours a day, how difficult it was for you to find some time for your family. Now is your time to be with your family. Spend some time with them. Strengthen your bond with them.
2) Improve your skills and personality. No one is perfect and there is a scope for improvement in everyone of us. Use this time to work on your areas of improvement and weaknesses. Sharpen your skills.
3) Work on your professional and personal network. Networking is very important for the growth of an individual. Use this time to build and strengthen your professional and personal network, so that whenever the market situation improves, you get the benefit of it.
4) Heading back to schools, colleges and institutes. This is also a good time for you to share your knowledge and experiences with new generation and to pass on your intellectual legacy to them. Get associated with some colleges and institutes to do so. There is a possibility that you might get paid for it, which in turn might give you the required financial support.

These are some of the ways you can spend your time during this phase.

Good time and bad time will always be there but when we pass through the good phase of our life we forget to prepare for the bad time. We get carried away. We do not plan for our future and difficult times lying ahead and crisis and adversities are part and parcel of our life that we cannot run-away from. Recession of one such crisis and we need to prepare our selves for all such adversities. We can do it in a following way:

1) Save generously and invest wisely. In such crisis, nothing but only your savings in the bank can save you. More the savings that you might have lesser will be your pain.
It is also important for you to invest wisely. The higher the risk the higher will be the gain and more higher will be the loss. Hence, one needs to think about it.

2) Both husband and wife should be working. In some conservative families, even in this 21st century, only males are allowed to work. But I think if both husband and wife works that also lessens the pain. If one person looses the job, the other will have and hence the money will still come in.

3) Keep updating your existing skills all the time and acquiring new skills. Don’t take anything for guaranteed. Learn and relearn. Keep the sword of your skills sharpen, all the time. Learn new things and that can help in your professional growth.

4) Have a hobby that can also be transformed into a profession. We all should have some hobbies. To do things in our spare time that we are passionate about. Painting, dancing, music, writing, acting and etc are some hobbies that can also be transformed as a profession, if required.

Now, these are few things that might help you to overcome any type of economic recession or crisis in your life.

Conclusion

I hope that the points discussed in this article will be of some use to the readers. We are in a situation where no one can actually help and there is no point in blaming the God or the circumstances for our situation. You cannot also blame the Government of your country or the company you was working for this situation. It is just a tough time and the fittest will survive, others will get washed away with the time.

Kindly share your views and comments.

Thanks and Regards
Sanjeev Himachali
Email: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com
Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Global-Economic-Recession,-Lay-offs-and-Its-Impact-on-You---Survival-of-the-Fittest&id=1844225

Disclaimer: This article is just an attempt to share the pain of those who has been laid-off in this economic recession. The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author.

Just for you and your love…

2009-01-07T21:02:00.004+05:00

Introduction

It seems that in 21st century no one has time to sustain their relations. People get married over the internet and get divorced through SMS. Everybody is carrying mobile phones but they do not have time to talk to their family members and loved one. People just do not have enough patience to understand those who care for them and love them. In the midst of all these when I was seeing such devaluation of Human Relations, I happen to meet one of my friend, who is currently based in Singapore, and was delighted to see that even today there are people who value their relations and can do anything to sustain their relations and to be with their loved ones. The story shared in this article is a story of one friend. The purpose of writing this article is to share with the readers the importance of Human Relations and to empathize with those who are forced to stay away from their loved ones.

Background

Our life is nothing but a story. The one sitting above is a story-teller and we are just characters of the story. Our story begins with our birth and ends with our death. All the people that we meet or get connected with for a short-term or a long-term get linked with our story and they also play an important character in the story. Within the voluminous story of our life, there are some sub-stories; story of our success, our family, our friends and our love. Every day in itself is a story that begins and ends.

This is one such sub-story – the story of love. Even in this story there is a beginning, journey, action, drama, fun, romance, emotions but as of now there is no end. I am not sure what will be the end of this story and I am just waiting for the climax to begin. I am also as curious to know the end of this story as you all will be after reading the story.

This story might not be as romantic as the story of Romeo-Juliet or any other love story that you might have heard in your life but this is today’s story. This is a really an interesting story. This is the story of you and me.

The beginning

It begins at the time when I was struggling in my life. Doesn’t matter how much hard work I was putting in but nothing was going my way. No one was willing to help me in any manner. I was just walking in the journey of my life; there was no excitement, no motivation, no inspiration, and no love. As I am struggling, so there was also no support of family and relatives. In total the life was very boring, purposeless and directionless.

…and then she came into my life. And how she made the entry? Well, she made the entry through one of the greatest invention of our time – the internet or World Wide Web. But hold on the first meeting came with a possible end and I thought the story will end before the beginning it self. Well, we were living in two different countries; we were following two different religions; we were having contrasting careers, that time she was a lecturer in a college and I am a management guy and if that was not enough there was difference in our age and it was a reverse difference as she was elder to me.

On the other side I was not sure what her situation in her life was. What she was going through? What she was looking for in her life? What was she expecting from this relation? What are the problems she is facing in her life? And how she is planning to take this relation to its end? I really didn’t know anything.

Anyways, we made the beginning. But what began as an informal professional interaction soon turned into a personal and emotional interaction. We used to interact daily and for several hours and then we also used to wait for each other. After several days our interaction moved out of our computers and carried on to our mobile phones and fixed lines. Days were just flying. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. There was no day when we didn’t have any interaction. I think that was the time we began to miss each other. …and then she expressed her interest; I proposed and she accepted. But if love stories can be so simple and straight forward then how will they be called as memorable love stories?

Then one day after several months she informed me that she needs to travel to UK to be with her family. I thought this possibly is an end of our story. Once she leaves for another country she will not keep contact and THE END. But nothing like that happened, not only she kept the contact when she reached UK but she also kept me informed through her calls on en route to UK. That gave some strength to our relation and a bit of confidence to me. Our love story carried on for days and months. She used to interact with me as per my convenience and as per my time. She did all the adjustment. Professionally, I was not doing well so it was she who used to call me, initially every alternate day and then everyday.

…and then one day she shared something about her life and about her past and the fact was that she was married for sometime and that she is a divorcee. For a moment I was shocked and sad then I thought that probably she was feeling a bit unsecured to loose me or whatever she is getting in life and that made her to not to share that side of her life; but we carried on and this time with more strength, confidence and love. Several more months passed by and then she told that we should meet now. Financially I was not in a position to travel to UK. She said that she will come to India and she did. In a country where crime rate is so high and anything is possible, she decided to travel to that country to be with her boy-friend, someone whom she has heard and seen in pictures. I think she took the biggest risk.

The journey

…and then the day came when we were standing opposite to each other. That was the moment when we could touch each other and hold each other. It was something that we were waiting for a long time. It was very romantic. Love was in the air.

But, what is this? Where have I landed? I am sure these questions might have passed through her mind. In her life she had been living very comfortable life before she came to meet me. She has all the basic comforts that are required to live a decent and above middle-class life style. TV, refrigerator, air-conditioner, car, washing-machine, well–equipped kitchen and etc and etc; you name it and she had. On the other side, I was not having anything. I was not having anything that I have listed above. Together we moved to a house that was not clean and she took the broomstick to clean the house and later she washed the whole house. In the evening we had to put mat on the floor to sleep. With me she was living a life that she was not used to and she never complained. She did things that in normal circumstances she could not have done but she did. She did for me and for our relation. Later on I did manage to get few things but those were actually not enough. She spent six months with me in those circumstances.

On the other hand, at that point of time I was not as civilized as those people from west are. I was hard, rough, rude and at times even harsh. Like villagers in India, I used to piss anywhere on the road, behind the bush; throw things anywhere in the house; taking bath once in a day…doesn’t matter how much it is sweating; cross the road like an animal and I was in possession of many other uncivilized and bad habits. She never complained. Like a trainer and a true lover, she asked me to change those habits and I obliged.

And then when she was about to leave after spending six months with me, I thought that’s an end of our story. Once she is out of the country, she will not keep contact and why is she required to keep any contact, she is not getting anything in return of her love and moreover she was not required to undergo so much of hardship. She can easily find many other people and much better than this DESI animal.

Once again, I was wrong. At airport, we cried like small kids for the days of that were lying ahead. We not only kept the relation going but she also came back to India after two months to spend another two months of love, care and togetherness.

After nine months, she again came to India to spend another two months with me. In the process, I moved away from my family and relatives and now I am left with only two things in my life – my love and my profession.

In the mean time, I also began to grow professionally and personally. Now, the life is looking more meaningful, colorful and purposeful. The color in my life is nothing but the color of her love. In the process of my professional growth I did applied for some overseas opportunities and in most unlikely situation, I was able to hold one. I was not able to move to UK but yet it’s a good role with plenty of growth opportunity.

Once I moved here, she once again travelled from UK to be with me for six months. Then she moved back to her country and took up an employment in another university. Then, in last year I got an opportunity to visit her in her country and house for the 1st time since we began our relation four years ago.

After reading this far, you must be thinking that now the story is about to end; both of them will get married and then as they say, “they lived happily thereafter”. Nothing like that has yet happened; in fact there is a new twist in the story.

Problems, conflicts and related issues

All the while we were trying to know each other, understand each other and become acceptable, which we did to the best of our capabilities. Over the period of time the love between us has grown manifold. There is hardly any day when we do not interact.

…but the permission from parents was still pending. When everything was settling down and our story was looking for an end, she got caught in what appears to be a life long issue. Now, she says that we cannot marry each other. She is facing some personal problems in her family. She is caught in the web of her life in such a way that there is no visible way to come out. That day we cried a lot. She doesn’t want to hurt her parents and her family and in turn she is willing to leave me or let me go. I do not want to leave her in the middle of our journey. Together we have come so far that now it is just not possible to live without each other. For others the easiest way would have been to begin again but we are willing to continue in spite of our problems. We tried to find a solution but there was none. And then we decided that…

The future

…and then we decided that for the happiness of our family we will not get married to each other or to anybody else. We will continue to live our life the way we are living now. That is by staying together for 2-3 months in a year till the time she is able to solve her personal problems or we find a long term solution to our problems that is to get a job in a same city. For me and my love she has gone through lots of hardship. Now it is my time to do something for her and our love.

When I was struggling and when I was in problem, she took care of me and now she is saying that it is her life and her problems and I should live her in her situation to face the world. How can I do that? I want to tell her that it is not your life and your life and your problem but our life and our problem so for our life, our future and our love I am willing to do anything. Together we have come so far and together we will reach our destination.

…and it continued

…the story is still pending. It might take us 10, 12, 15 or 20 years or might be life time for us to see the end of this story. At this point of time it is very difficult to say what will be the end of this story but all I can say is that with each passing day, it is becoming more interesting. Now, even I also want to see the end of this story. Till then all I just want to say to her is, (what someone has already written in Hindi),

“tujhe dekh dekh sonatujhe dekh kar hain jagnamaine yeh zindagani sang tere bitaani tujhmein basi hain meri jaan”

(Translation: I always want you to be around me. In the morning when I wake-up I want to see you. In the night when I am about to sleep and my eyes are about to close I want to see you. I always want you to be around me because other then you I cannot see anything; other than your voice I don’t want to hear anything. You are my life and everything. I don’t know how I will die but I want to live only with you. For you and for your love I am willing to do anything.)

Conclusion

Human Relations are very important for anyone to live in this world. It takes years and decades to build a relation but it takes just few seconds to break it into pieces. All we are required to do is to be patient with our loved ones; understand them and give them space to grow and coexist with us or else they will die.

Save some time to get in touch with your loved ones before it is too late.

With lots of love and care…

Sanjeev Himachali
Email: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@gmail.com
Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Just-For-You-and-Your-Love&id=1844211

Resources, Tools and Methodologies for Talent Acquisition, Hiring and Recruitment

2007-12-30T09:03:00.004+04:00

Resources, Tools and Methodologies for Talent Acquisition, Hiring and Recruitment

Introduction

One needs to have dreams, plans, and strategies to be successful in any venture. This is a basic requirement. If you do not know what you want, where you want to reach and how you want to reach (your mode and plan for success), you certainly cannot reach there. In case you are starting a new venture or you are planning to diversify your existing business, you also need to identify the source for your capital (Financial Backing). You cannot do all these things on your own. You need "extra-ordinarily talented" and Highly Skilled people to help you to reach the goal that you have seen for your organization. For this, you need a jeweler (the talented, matured and exceptionally skilled HR Professional) to identify such DIAMONDS for you. It is one of the key roles of a HR Professional to identify, source, select, HIRE and RETAIN BEST of the talent from the market to work for the organization. If they cannot find talented people from the market then they need to groom the right type of people with the right type of attitude and aptitude. In 21st Century, we are in the era of "war for talent". It is becoming difficult to get right type of people and retain them. Many companies are losing their businesses because they are not able to hire "right type of people"; because they compromised with the "quality of the talent". In this article, we will try to explore and understand different sources to get "Best of the Talents". Any reference of HR Department" in this article, means Team of Talent Acquisition, Hiring and Recruitment.

Different Sources to Get Talented People

As a HR Professional (Chief Talent Acquisition Officer; Hiring Manager or Recruitment Head), one should be aware of all the sources and resources to get best of the talents and they should also be aware of as how to use those resources to the optimum level. You can use either or all of the below mentioned tools to get BEST talents.

1) Existing and "Active" Candidates Data with Company

This is primary, but if properly used, most important source and tool in the hands of HR Department to get right type of people. The HR department gets N number of profiles every day from different sources (including candidates who just drop-in their profiles at the reception. The HR Department needs to maintain and update this data on regular (if possible on daily basis). The details and data should be maintained in such a manner that one should be able to generate a MIS, stating number of profiles in the database, skills of the candidates (including education and experience level) and status of each profile (if short listed or not; if interviewed or not; date of interview; result of the interview; if rejected or selected etc). All these profiles should be considered as "active profiles" for six months from the date they were received in the HR Department of the Company. Any other profile older than six months should be deleted and destroyed. Such profiles are of no use to the company. The HR department should be able to use this data to fill the existing vacant position with a MOST suitable profile.

2) Employee References

In last decade and a-half, all the companies across various industries are facing a BIG challenge to retain the talent in their companies. People are resigning for various reasons. There is another challenge of FAKE profiles (People are faking about their experiences, salaries etc. Many people are just COPYING someone's profile and presenting it as their own, without even knowing what they have mentioned in it). To handle this, it has become apparent to do reference checks. Getting the reference check done in a proper way is very costly.
Considering the above two scenarios and just to counter it, it is important to hire a person through the reference of your existing employee. No one can present, market and brand your company, market the culture and policies of your company then a happy and highly motivated and engaged employee of your organization. Hence, hiring with the reference of your existing employees is an important source and tool to hire and retain Quality Talent.

3) Internal Advertisement (internal Job Posting)

Learning is a continuous process. Many people keep on learning new skills, updating their skills and acquiring higher degrees by way of distance mode of education. There by you might have "multi-skilled" and "multi-talented" people within your organization. Hence, it becomes crucial and important to post your job-requirement, internally for your existing employees. By doing so, you will be able to RETAIN good and talented people.

4) Jobsites and Job Portals

If the above three sources and methods are used appropriately, efficiently and to the optimum level, hypothetically you do not need to go outside the company to get good people, working for your company. However, that is actually not possible and hence, you also need to look for external sources to get MORE Suitable Talent for your company. There are many Job Sites and Job Portals, available in the market and you need to select the BEST one for your needs. Good Job Portals have huge database of millions and millions of profiles. You can source a "Suitable" Talent from that database. You can also post your job requirements on job-portals just to get more relevant profiles. You should learn how to use all the features of your job-portal for its optimum utilization.

You can also have the HR or Job Site of your company and post your requirements on that site. This will also give appropriate branding and advertisement to your company and will also help you in managing the "Candidate Database".

5) Campus hiring

In case, you like to hire "knowledgeable, talented and properly groomed" freshers then you should opt for Campus Hiring. This will give you Raw Clay and Material that you can mould as per the need and culture of your organization. You need to plan your "Campus Hiring" in a suitable manner to target right type of people. You need to decide, if you like to hire a plain graduate or a graduate with some specific trainings or Management Graduates or Engineering Graduates etc. If you provide right type of atmosphere, culture and processes, chances are that you will be able to retain these freshers, trainees for a long period of time. There are many Business Magazines which publishes lists of BEST institutes in different categories, locally, nationally and internationally.

6) Recruitment Consultancies

Most of the time, even recruitment consultancies also uses various job-portals to source talent for their clients. Hence, it makes more sense, if you buy one login on any of the relevant job-portal (or more than one job portal) and if you learn how to use it properly. You need the help of Recruitment Consultants if you are planning to hire a talent through head-hunting for senior profiles and from different geographical locations; for example, if you are planning to hire someone from international market. Hence, taking the help of Recruitment Consultants to hire talent for you should not be your first choice or option.

7) External (Newspaper) Advertisement

This is one of the VERY costly source to hire talent. External Job-Advertisement on media (Newspaper, Television, Radio etc), helps you in Branding and Publicizing your company but if not targeted properly and managed properly, this is one of the POOR but COSTLY source to get suitable talent. You need to understand and plan properly, what type of people you are looking for, from where you can get those people, which newspaper do they read, how you want to get and manage these profiles and what you will be doing with that database or else, you will not be able to get suitable talent.

8) Social and Professional Networks & Local Communities

There are few professional and social networks, such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, Orkut etc, that you can use to get right type of talent (of the listed networks, LinkedIn is highly recommended). You can also target few NGO's, Training Institutes and Local Communities to hire low-level, low-cost workers for factories and your companies.

9) Head Hunting (Also called as "Body Shopping")

There is this bread or group of talent, which are highly experienced, competent with great leadership skills but very passive in job market. They are very experienced in their domain and industry. Sometimes, they are also the founder member of the organization. Generally these are the people working in the capacity of Senior Managers, General Managers, CFO's, CTO's, CEO's, Vice-Presidents, Directors, and Managing Directors etc in their present roles. They do not post their profiles on jobsites. They do not even read job-sections of newspapers. They do not apply for any jobs opportunity. Only very few of their friends and close associates are in procession of their profiles. They need to be challenged by an opportunity. Such people need to be head-hunted. Generally, recruitment consultancies are EXPECTED to do this job. This is a way to get the talent when you are looking for rare and distinct talent that is when you are looking to fill positions like CFO, CEO etc. Here, numbers are not important but quality is. In a year, you might be able to head-hunt 15-20 people but they will be of high worth and value. Not everyone can be a "Head Hunter", you need to have "special" type of skills to be a "Head Hunter". Every type of sourcing is not called as head-hunting. For a sourcing to be called as "Head-hunting", this should involve "rare profiles"; profiles and skill sets not readily available in the market.

10) Talent-Poaching

This, according to some section in the industry, is considered as unethical mode of sourcing and hiring. For this, you need to understand the business of your company and also should be aware of the competitor companies in your industry. Just target those companies and hire in masses from those companies right from the entry level to senior level. This tactic is usually used to kill the competition. This is like a big fish eating the small fish. People across the globe are discussing and debating to ascertain, if the "Talent Poaching" is ethical or unethical. No doubt, this is one of the easiest ways to source trained and talented people within the industry when you have infrastructure and money.

Distinction between Headhunting and Talent PoachingSome talent acquisition managers as well as hiring and recruitment professionals are confused and are not able to discriminate between the two. Here are few differences between the two:

1) Headhunting is associated with senior and rare profiles. Talent Poaching is just sweeping and running through talent-wealth of your competitor.

2) Headhunting is planned. Talent Poaching is targeted.

3) In headhunting, the intention is to get the BEST person for your organization but in Talent Poaching, the intention is to kill your competitor and the competition.

4) Headhunting is about getting a person with "Leadership" skills with "Global Exposure". Talent Poaching is about "saving the training cost".

Conclusion

This article is not about "Recruitment Process" or to describe about "Steps involved in Recruitment Process" but just to share the resources and channels to source and identify talent. I have taken care to list all the possible channels. I am sure all the readers will gain from this article.

Do share your feedback and give your comments.

With love and care

Sanjeev Himachali
BLOG: http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/ and http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/
E-mail: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com
Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sanjeev_Himachali

First Impression is not the Last Impression - Changing your First Impression

2007-08-08T06:19:00.001+04:00

First Impression is not the Last Impression - Changing your First Impression

Introduction

Earlier, they use to say that “Your First Impression is the last impression” and now, they say that “your first impression is not the last impression but long-lasting impression. Hence, there is a scope to rectify your “first impression” and at times there is also a need to do so. There are times when we think that we have made a mistake…we should not have carried ourselves the way we did and then we look forward to one chance to correct our “first impression”.

In this article, we will be discussing about this and other related issues such as things you should do or should not do to make a “Perfect” first impression; what will you do to change your first impression and will you give one more chance to someone to rectify his / her first impression.

Understanding the term – “First Impression” (FI)

Before talking about “First Impression” (FI), lets discuss, what is “impression” to start with. Though, your looks and appearance is a part of your impression but that is not the only thing, which matters. Your impression means your overall personality and it consists of:

1) The Way you carry yourself
2) Your Dress-up
3) The way you express yourself
4) Your Mannerism
5) Your Behavior
6) Your Communication
7) The way you treat the other person

These all are the traits which consist of impression and thereby are related to your FI.

For an impression to be called as FI, this must be your first meeting with that person. FI can be of two types – Planned and Unplanned. It is planned, when you are aware of it. For example,

1) Your job - interview,
2) Business meeting with client,
3) Dating,
4) You are invited as a guest

FI can be planned, when you are not prepared for it. For example, people looking at you when you are walking down the street; when you are traveling; when you are just passing through a place, you are at a place where people around you hardly matters to you etc.

This first impression process occurs in every new situation. Within the first few seconds, people pass judgment on you – looking for common surface clues. Once the first impression is made, it is virtually irreversible.

The process works like this:

If you appear to be of comparable business or social level, you are considered suitable for further interaction.
If you appear to be of higher business or social status, you are admired and cultivated as a valuable contact.
If you appear to be of lower business or social standing, you are tolerated but kept at arm's length.
If you are in an interview situation, you can either appear to match the corporate culture or not, ultimately affecting the outcome.

For the purpose of this article, we will be concentrating on Planned FI because people making an impression about you, when you are walking down the street, hardly matters to anyone.

Changing your FI

Now, let’s discuss about this. Suppose you are at the receiving end, you met a person and he made certain opinion about you, it can be about your behavior or the way you carry yourself. Or he has read about you or has heard about you and based on that there was already some notion in his mind. You know that you are not what the other person is thinking or assuming about you. Will you make an attempt to correct that impression or assumption?

I asked this question in some of my training programs. I have asked this question to 748 people. I also discussed this with some of my friends. Around 67% of them said, “NO”. They will not make any attempt to change FI. They said that it hardly matter to us. Let anyone carry any impression that they want to carry. 26% said that once they know, what type of impression the other person is carrying, they might make an attempt to change that impression. 7% respondents remain neutral.

Some of the responses are:

Jim Lenahan (Owner, Data Basics International, Inc. / WebSecretaries.com): I do not try to correct someone else's opinion of me. Others' opinions of me do not matter to me.

Mayank Bhargava (Analyst at Infiniti Research): I actually don’t work on changing the opinion a person has about me. Work hard and eventually reality comes in the fore figure.

Steve Aditya (Account Manager at IMS Health): I think if I see no benefit for me in changing their opinion about me then I'll let it be but if I see future relationship with that person, certainly I'll try to make him change his view. How? - By building a relationship with him so as time goes by he can see my true personality
- Using third person (a common friend) to endorse me.

Ajay Prasad (Manager with Global Payments – HSBC): I would definitely not like to influence what the other person perceives me as. Because impression is two communications - one, what I show to others (need to find out what kind of mask we are wearing in front of others and second what kind of mindset or presumption the other person has). If you are a nice human being, you should let the show be a real and original. Masking ourselves and handling situation is always easy but to be real and then facing others is a bit difficult job.

Sheilah Etheridge(Owner, SME Management: Management and Accounting Consultant): I see no point in trying to change the first impression or the opinion formed as a result of that impression. People will believe what they want to believe. I will continue to be who I am and they will either maintain that opinion or they won't. That is their choice.

Mudassir Ehsan (Business Development Manager at Frost & Sullivan): If I feel, for whatever reason, Mr. X has got an incorrect impression about me, I would not take any immediate steps to rectify that impression....here is what I would think:
A) Why is that I gave a wrong impression about myself to anyone....now that someone has got a wrong impression...that means, I am capable of giving wrong ideas about myself to others? I would firstly work on that...find out why I did whatever happened.

B) As far as rectifying the impression is concerned, well...this certainly depends on who has got a wrong impression about me...is he/she an influential person...do I foresee any kind of opportunities with that person in the future ? Now then...some may argue that anyone in this world is important as they could provide you opportunities...don't shut the doors on anyone....Agreed...but these people are also like opportunities...I take some and leave some.... So my answer is that I will only try rectifying my image to people of immense importance mainly ! The rest would come to know the real-me automatically....in due course of time. How am I going to rectify my image...well if this person is of so much importance...I might create a situation to interact more with that person and give myself a chance to quickly portray my correct image.

Gerald Lo (Project Manager at Watson Pharmaceuticals):”An inaccurate first impression is, I think, nearly inevitable. Once people get to know me, I believe their impressions and opinions change. It is not something I feel I can change through effort; I believe that respect must be earned over time by action and attitude, not words. I try to conduct myself with some reserve during my first introductions to others, and presume that others may do the same. As a result, I try to condition my expectations regarding those first impressions, as they may sometimes be illusory. I also do not depend on someone new giving me the benefit of the doubt from our first meeting. Through coincidence, someone new to us may resemble someone from our pasts. A mannerism or physical likeness might remind us of somebody else altogether. It is human nature, I think, for our brains to associate the new person with that old impression of another one altogether. What might help distinguish us from certain animals may be our ability to reason and try to overcome our more primitive instincts of association. The circumstances might extenuate an individual's behavior on the occasion of the meeting. I find I am much more receptive to appreciating someone's company and character when we are not meeting under the conditions of an emergency. I think making an effort to present a respectful and respectable external demeanor is generally a good practice, whether being introduced to a new acquaintance, undergoing an interview, having dinner, or encountering a poisonous reptile. One doesn't need to love it, but it certainly demands respect, in my opinion”.

In my views, I think we are taking things a bit too lightly. It is true that, with so many people around us, it hardly matters what people think about you but if we take it in a positive manner, people will not remember who you are; they will not remember how you look like, but they will always remember how you made them feel like; how you treated them; how you behaved with them. I think it is very important to have a good impression. That is how people will remember you. Hence, though there is a very little possibility that you get “another chance” to rectify your impression but if you get, make a best use of it.

Giving a Chance to Someone to Improve the First Impression

Let’s be fair on this. We all know that your first impression might not be the impression that you want to create. Just, only in this article we also proved that. I asked one more question in my training programs. I have asked this question to 748 people. I also discussed this with some of my friends. We discussed the scenarios that suppose you are the person who is judging another person. You met a person and made certain opinion about him or her. Your assumptions about the person might not be correct. So, will you give that person another chance to rectify that “first-impression”? How easy or difficult will it be for you to change your first impression about that person? Around 34% respondents said that for them the first impression is the final impression and they will go by their gut feeling. 59% respondents said that they will give as many chances as possible to that person to rectify his / her FI. 7% respondents were neutral.
Some of the responses are as follows:

Around 63% of them said, “NO”. They will not make any attempt to change FI. They said that it hardly matter to us. Let anyone carry any impression that they want to carry. 21% said that once they know, what type of impression the other person is carrying, they might make an attempt to change that impression.

Jim Lenahan (Owner, Data Basics International, Inc. / WebSecretaries.com): I give people plenty of opportunities to prove my first impression right or wrong. Like I said, I'm wiring sometimes -- especially when reaching a conclusion on a paucity of data. It is thus easy for me to change my opinion (not my first impression -- that remains locked in history) due to my large amounts of practice.

Mayank Bhargava (Analyst at Infiniti Research): My personal experience says that people should be given more than one chance to be judged. I don’t say that you might find a gem of a person; however there are certain genuine cases who deserve 2nd chance. On the other hand there are some very smart people who never reveal themselves in the first meeting. In such a case one quick decision can jeopardize our situation.

Steve Aditya (Account Manager at IMS Health): I personally believe in second chances and I don't judge people by first impression basis. I don't believe in making the right assumption (judge) people that way.

Ajay Prasad (Manager with Global Payments – HSBC): This purely depends on the purpose of interaction. If there is a pre-defined purpose, then I would also be very clear of what I want out of the other person. During interaction I would definitely judge the person against the parameters set by me. But in case I do not find some of those required parameters in him/her, I would rather share those with him/her. As I mentioned earlier perception is a two-way communication, and it does depend on how communicative the other person is. There might be instance where the person has some attributes but does not show in his behavior. In those cases, we are at risk of loosing the right person (only because of perception).

Sheilah Etheridge (Owner, SME Management: Management and Accounting Consultant): I am fairly on target on the opinion I have of people. I have been proven wrong a couple of times but it is not often. I generally give people the benefit of the doubt and keep an open mind before really forming an opinion. But there are times that I will get an instant dislike for someone (they don't even need to speak). If that happens and I am not sure why I feel that way and nothing has happened to cause me to dislike them there is generally a valid reason I just haven't found yet. To date, I have never instantly disliked someone and then later found I was wrong.

Mudassir Ehsan (Business Development Manager at Frost & Sullivan) : Regarding myself giving others a chance.....well I will always give others a chance to build his correct impression on me. Coz, it is possible that the concerned person was right and my judgement was wrong....hence, I would never shut the doors on assessing anyone until we have interacted enough to know each other.

Kajal (Assistant Branch Manager at Citizens Bank): Yes, I would give more than one chance for a person to change their first impression. It depends on the situation......if you are interviewing someone and he showed up late.....I will first find out what happened and see how well everything else goes. And then, you can decide. Sometimes, you just get this "feel" for a person and I think no matter what that person does it is difficult to change your impression and I think that most of the times this” feel" is almost the right impression of the person.

Lucy Garrick (Principle Consultant at NorthShore Group): “Changing first impressions difficult for anyone. This is because our impressions are a result of a lifetime of memory and inferred meaning processed by the brain in less than a nanosecond. The question is perhaps not how to change first impressions, but how to change the meaning of 1st impressions.
Change begins with noticing that you have a 1st impression, then letting go of the story and judgments about those impressions to be curious and open to other possible conclusions. Another important question is "what is the impact of your first impressions or assumptions about another?

A simple skill to practice and remember is "Say Why, Ask Why" When you interact with another, tell them the motivation for your interaction. When their response is puzzling to you, test your assumptions about why they are responding as they are. Curiosity will open the door to better relationships and more effective interactions”.

As some people expressed above that though they will be giving chances and opportunities to other people to rectify their first-impression but at the same time they also agreed that with this the other person will only be able to change the opinion and the first-impression will remain unchanged and locked in the memory. Hence, it is very important to go that extra mile and make a knock-out first impression.

Factors one should consider while making first impression

Basic principles to make the BEST “First Impression”

A. A Winning Smile: “Smile and the world smiles too.” So there’s nothing like a smile to create a good first impression. A warm and confident smile will put both you and the other person at ease. So smiling is a winner when it comes to great first impressions. But don't go overboard with this - people who take this too far can seem insincere and smarmy, or can be seen to be "lightweights".

B. A Word about Individuality: The good news is you can usually create a good impression without total conformity or losing your individuality. Yes, to make a good first impression you do need to “fit in” to some degree. But it all goes back to being appropriate for the situation. If in a business setting, wear appropriate business attire. If at a formal evening social event, wear appropriate evening attire. And express your individuality appropriately within that context.

C. Be on Time: The person you are meeting for the first time is not interested in your “good excuse” for running late. Plan to arrive a few minutes early. And allow flexibility for possible delays in traffic or taking a wrong turn. Arriving early is much better that arriving late, hands down, and is the first step in creating a great first impression.

D. Be Yourself, Be at Ease: If you are feeling uncomfortable and on edge, this can make the other person ill at ease and that’s a sure way to create the wrong impression. If you are calm and confident, so the other person will feel more at ease, and so have a solid foundation for making that first impression a good one.

E. Be Open and Confident: When it comes to making the first impression, body language as well as appearance speaks much louder than words. Use your body language to project appropriate confidence and self-assurance. Stand tall, smile (of course), make eye contact, greet with a firm handshake. All of this will help you project confidence and encourage both you and the other person feel better at ease.

Almost everyone gets a little nervous when meeting someone for the first time, which can lead to nervous habits or sweaty palms. By being aware of your nervous habits, you can try to keep them in check. And controlling a nervous jitter or a nervous laugh will give you confidence and help the other person feel at ease.

F. Be Positive: Your attitude shows through in everything you do. Project a positive attitude, even in the face of criticism or in the case of nervousness. Strive to learn from your meeting and to contribute appropriately, maintaining an upbeat manner and a smile.

G. Be Courteous and Attentive: It goes without saying that good manners and polite, attentive and courteous behavior help make a good first impression. In fact, anything less can ruin the one chance you have at making that first impression. So be on your best behavior. One modern manner worth mentioning is “turn off your mobile phone”. What first impression will you create if you are already speaking to someone other than the person you are meeting for the first time? Your new acquaintance deserves 100% of your attention. Anything less and you’ll create a less than good first impression.

H. Present Yourself Appropriately: Of course physical appearance matters. The person you are meeting for the first time does not know you and your appearance is usually the first clue he or she has to go on. But it certainly does not mean you need to look like a model to create a strong and positive first impression. The key to a good impression is to present yourself appropriately.

Start with the way you dress. What is the appropriate dress for the meeting or occasion? For business and social meetings, appropriate dress also varies between countries and cultures, so it’s something that you should pay particular attention to when in an unfamiliar setting or country. Make sure you know the traditions and norms.

Appropriate dressing and grooming help make a good first impression and also help you feel “the part”, and so feel more calm and confident. Add all of this up and you are well on your way to creating a good first impression.

I. Small Talk Goes a Long Way…: Conversations are based on verbal give and take. It may help you to prepare questions you have for the person you are meeting for the first time beforehand. Or, take a few minutes to learn something about the person you meet for the first time before you get together. For instance, does he play golf? Does she work with a local charitable foundation? Is there anything that you know of that you have in common with the person you are meeting? If so, this can be a great way to open the conversation and to keep it flowing.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that your first impression is very important and most of the time you get only one chance to make that knocking impact. It is also true that usually you do not get another chance to rectify your first impression. However, if you are lucky enough to get another chance, hold that with both hands and make an everlasting impact. Here, there are two types of people…people at your workplace, people in your family and those with whom you meet occasionally, once in a year or so…one should take care of that.

At the end, I only like to say, that it is very important to know the type of person you are going to meet and what type of future you are looking forward, involving that person in your life; so based on that…one should be prepared. This is life and in life, there is no retakes…only one shot.

Looking forward to your comments and feedback
With Love
Sanjeev Himachali
(BLOG: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ and http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/)
(E-mail: ss_himachali@yahoo.com and sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com)

References

Managing First Impressions at Interviews - David Jensen
2. Making a Great First Impression! - Mind tools
3. Do You Make Your First Impression Your Best Impression? – Michelle Sterling, Global Image Group

Acknowledgement
I like to say a big and very special thanks to all the below listed people for sharing their views and thoughts. They are:
Lucy Garrick (Principle Consultant at NorthShore Group
Kajal (Assistant Branch Manager at Citizens Bank)
Mudassir Ehsan(Business Development Manager at Frost & Sullivan
Sheilah Etheridge (Owner, SME Management: Management and Accounting Consultant)
Ajay Prasad (Manager with Global Payments – HSBC)
Steve Aditya (Account Manager at IMS Health)
Mayank Bhargava (Analyst at Infiniti Research)
Jim Lenahan (Owner, Data Basics International, Inc. / WebSecretaries.com)
Gerald Lo (Project Manager at Watson Pharmaceuticals)

Measuring Your Personal Growth

2007-06-30T06:31:00.001+04:00

Measuring Your Personal Growth

Introduction

It was one of the Sundays and as usual, many thoughts were passing through my head and suddenly my thought process got stuck at one point and made me to think and re-think as how one can or how one should measure his or her personal growth?

1) Your success in exams is measured by the marks that you score (your percentile).
2) Your success in business is measured by revenues and profits that you earn.
3) The versatility of your business is measured by your expansion plans, both in terms of geographical expansion as well as venture into new industries.
4) Experience is usually measured in number of years.
5) Your height, your weight, your age…everything can be measured.

So, how can you measure your “Personal Growth”?

Things that you do

To understand and measure your personal growth, lets first list out and understand various activities that we do in our life. Once we understand that, it will help us in setting the measuring parameters and/or selecting the measurement scale. There is no second doubt in my mind that when we talk about “Growth”, it needs to be objective and not subjective. It should be measured.

As an individual, whatever you do, can easily be classified into two parts:
1) Professional
2) Private

As a child or a teenager we do certain things which either help us in our profession (give directions to our professional life) or make our private life, more satisfactory.
1) Professional Life: Basic Education, Professional Education, Salaries (Wealth), Promotions (Role, Power to take Decisions, Span of Control etc), Training and Development (Workshops and Seminars), your popularity (and demand) and Professional Network.

2) Private Life: Relations with family (Parents, Siblings, Relatives) and friends, Marriage (Success, Happiness and longevity of your married life), House and other comforts, Health, Children (Birth, Growth, Grooming and Values of your children), Love, Care and SATISFACTION.

(Note: Care has been taken to include everything that an individual should have or like to have in this life. However, this list is inclusive and not exclusive.)

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Measuring-Your-Personal-Growth&id=626032

Let’s Analyze and Measure

Well, the “Professional Front” of your life can be measured by following factors:

1) Number of professional degrees that you have.
2) Institutes that you have studied in (To study in good institutes, you should not only be intelligent and knowledgeable but should also have enough money to take care of expenses of your studies).
3) In Case, you are a salaried employee then what is your salary and how much increments you get every year. In case, you have your own business, then your profits and wealth.
4) The Position and Designation that you hold. In short, it is your ability to take and influence decisions that matters.
5) Your demand and popularity in your profession and industry, is another criteria to measure “Professional Front” of your life.

All these factors are part of your “Personal Growth” and all are measurable.

Now, let’s calculate your “growth” in “Private Life”. It is not possible to be successful at “Professional Front” without “sacrificing” and making adjustments in your “Private Life”. However, what you have sacrificed and how you have set the balance in relations determines and measures your success in “Private Front”.

Following are the factors that can be measured and calculated:

1) Longevity and happiness of your married life
2) Amount you spent on your medicines
3) Value-system, education and success of your children (Believe it or not, but if your children are good citizens of your country; if they are doing well in academics; if they are successful in life…that reflects in your success).
4) It is not possible to keep everyone happy, one need to identify (in fact, choose) people that they want to keep happy and then go all out to ensure their happiness. Hence, your success is measured on the choices that you make your judgment and setting priorities.

Though, there can be a slight difference, but all these factors can be measured and evaluated. As I said earlier, to measure your growth, you need to have a base. Measuring growth, starts from past and ends with present. Your dreams and goals, starts from your present and ends, somewhere in your future.

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Measuring-Your-Personal-Growth&id=626032

Discussion Table - Brainstorming

I asked several people from different countries, age groups and of both genders as what do they actually understand by “Personal Growth” and how, they think that one should measure the personal growth. Due to space constraint, it is not possible for me to include all responses, but instead, I have taken a sample size.

According to Marc Aniballi (Managing Director, Crack Method, Canada), your criteria to measure your personal growth changes with time and entirely based on the phase of life, you are passing through. A baby measures their growth in inches; A youth measures their growth by their peers; A young person measures their growth against their parents; An adult measures their growth against the world around them; A mature adult measures their growth against themselves; An elder measures their growth against ideals;

Maria Sheila Riikonen (Business Intelligence Consultants, Finland), gave a philosophical touch to her answer and said that the path to personal and professional success is seldom smooth sailing, so it's important to have a strong sense of self wherever the road leads you. I always like to recall my favorite mantra from American Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) : “To laugh often and much, To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

In the words of Mukund Toro (Director Engineering, Sasken, Bangalore, India), one cannot generalize parameters to measure personal growth and it all varies and differs from person to person and to an large extent, depends on the background of an individual. He said, “I find it difficult to answer your question. I think it depends upon the individual; Depends on his or her needs, aspirations, obligations and duties. I guess it depends upon what is central to your life. You could look at Steven Covey's habit two (2) regarding what are the various centers of life. I have found myself struggling between various ways of defining success. Sometimes it is career, sometimes finances, sometimes doing something for others etc. To quote (not verbatim) Dr. E S Srinivas of XLRI, some questions may never have clear answers. What is important is to raise these questions.”

Dinky (Denise) Durso (Business Development, Manager, Alliant Credit Union, Greater Chicago Area), is also of the similar opinion and says that the criteria to measure personal growth, varies from individual to individual and is largely influced by the personal convictions, ideology and principles. He says, “While I can appreciate the basis for your question, I have difficulty aligning my beliefs and values within the confines of your question and answer terms. Growth and success does not have to be measured, even within the terms you put forward; years, total revenue or total wealth (income) during the year. Rather growth and success have more to do with immeasurable personal wealth - (ideals, convictions, ethics) and personal successes, such as independence, work/life balance, personal growth, and income (which is measurable from one year to another - but not true measure within ones experiences.) I measure my growth with how engaged I am, how much support I receive from my manager/director, how successful I am within my business and personal relationships and goals, how much balance I have between my business and personal lives and how many relationships I have within all aspects of my life. I am sure I am missing something important within this answer; but the main point is ~ money or your bank accounts cannot measure your growth, satisfaction or success only your feelings, relationships and heart can measure your personal success.”

Jay Sison (General Manager, 1 & 1 Internet, Philippines) is of the opinion that in order to measure your “personal growth” one must clearly define his goals along with a time frame to achieve those goals. The views are expressed in the following manner, “The beauty of this question is that only the person alone can answer it and he/she can set the baseline and timeline. One just has to outline the desired goal that can be quantified objectively and subjectively. Once defined, then you can set out the timeline by which you want to accomplish and how aggressive one would like to accomplish. I would recommend short, medium and long term. So measurement is all up to the person's standards. The keyword in your question is "personal". "Growth" and "success" is relative to the person”.

In the words of Gary Sieling (Software Engineer at Thomson West, Rochester, New York Area), growth measurement differs from time-to-time and also based on the phases in life. A person is a complex entity and there are so many things (activities) that are involved in his life. One cannot measure those entire things with one measure scale. To measure everything, that is involved in an individual’s life, one need to use different scales. The thoughts are expressed as, “What I consider growth changes over time. Sometimes there are new things I want to learn or do, but sometimes you your perspectives totally change, e.g. after having a health crisis. You can set up metrics for those things - just not numeric measurements like you want. E.g. if you want to grow a relationship, you can say "I keep up with them at least once a quarter on average" or "I'd like to have a friend who I can talk to about personal issues." Those are just goals, and as long as you are achieving goals you are growing. Be careful about using a single measurement- tracking your progress over time is generally informative, but if you use it as a decision-making tool, there are unintended consequences (e.g. sacrificing health or happiness for more income). Unhappiness and lack of freedom are indicators of needed growth”.

However, Bjorn Martinoff (Managing Consultant USA/Global at IL International human Capital Solutions, California), wants to make a clarification and says that there is a difference between growth and satisfaction of doing something. He continues, “Many people confuse/collapse growth with success or growth and the results of growth meaning income or reaching goals. Never, ever confuse these two as they are so different. I can reach goals without personal growth, i.e. I could win the lottery, however no growth is needed for this or I could run into an inheritance, not much luck needed there either. So Money can be excluded as a reliable measure of growth. Money however is often, not always, a result of growth. To me the measures of growth and success are the level of freedom and happiness I experience in my life”.

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Measuring-Your-Personal-Growth&id=626032

Conclusion

Everything that can be measured can also be managed. Based on what you want to measure, there are different scales of measurement. Your Bank Balance (Your Assets and Wealth), Time, Education Level, Future and success of your children, your position in the society and the way people perceive you (respect and admiration) that you have earned…these are some of the scales and criteria’s to measure your growth in “Personal” life.

If you want to “manage your life”; you should also know how to measure it.

Keep learning. Keep Growing. Keep smiling.

Do share your views.

With Love
Sanjeev Himachali
(BLOG: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ and http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/)
(Email: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com and ss_himachali@yahoo.com)

Your Professional Growth and Types of Blocks in Career Path

2007-06-22T06:05:00.001+04:00

Your Professional Growth and Types of Blocks in Career Path

Introduction

Though I belong to northern part of India but in my professional life, for maximum number of years I have worked in southern and western parts of the country. It is only now, since 2005 that I shifted my base to northern India. Sometimes, people ask me the difference that I noticed in terms of work-culture, workplace environment and practices in northern and other parts of the country, during my professional journey. Usually my reply to those queries is: “People in western and southern parts of India compete for success and growth. They have constructive and positive approach. They value their and other’s time. Where as, in northern parts of India, people love to grow at the cost of others…by harming others. They have political mindset. They have destructive mindsets.

In western and southern India, the attitude is, “Lets grow together. You don’t harm me and I will not harm you; you have your own strengths and I have mine, we will grow together”. But in other part of the country, people want to be in lime-light. The philosophy is, “Only, I will grow. You, either perish or live in my shadow”.” This is the general attitude, perception and behavior of people. However, exceptions are always there.

Growing together – The Importance of Team Work

How good are you, when it comes to team-work? Do you understand the importance and synergy of team-work? To my knowledge, “We Indians” are very bad players of team-work. Each member of the team wants to hog the lime-light, wants to take the credit for the “Success” of the team and “Love to Blame” his team-member for the failure of his team. Be it any team; as small as a team of two members or as big as a team of fifteen members, we have always failed as a team. Hard to digest but this is a fact. Some of the factors our failures as a team are:

1) Personal Ego (Larger than life ego)
2) Its only “me” and no one else
3) Lack of knowledge (Subject Matter Expertise), Confidence and Self-Belief gives rise to self-doubt and “insecurity”.
4) They love to “Demand Respect” rather than earning respect.

When you have ego, arrogance and insecurity, you tend to block others’ success. You tend to harm them. You tend to play “Political Games” with your own team-members.

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Your-Professional-Growth-and-Type-of-Blocks-in-Career-Path---Which-Block-Are-You?&id=612639

Team-work in Corporate World

Now, let me narrow my write-up to “Team-work in Corporate World” and “Team-work within a department”. You cannot do all the work that is expected from you and hence, there is a need of a team. “Delegating your Work”; Outsourcing; Vendor Management is nothing but steps towards “Team Work”. We talk about man-hours and man-hands. For example, I as an individual is capable of doing X work in seven days but along with my team of three people, I should be able to complete the task in three days.

But it’s not me who has done that work in three days; it’s my TEAM. Many times, knowingly or unknowingly we harm our own team. In the process of showing others “my control over my team”, people hurt the team, insult the team and thereby affect the morale and sprit of the team. There is a saying, “Don’t kill the hen laying golden eggs”; but some people divide the team because they feel insecure. They divide the team. They back-stab their own team members; they gossip about one member to another and they insult their team-members in front of others. They do all this because, they don’t have subject matter expertise, and they are not sure about their position. They don’t have self-confidence and self-belief. They feel that the only way that they can survive is by using the old tactic of British India, “Divide and Rule”. Just like the British rulers of that time, these team-leaders and team-managers are aware that “if I let these people unite, I will not be able to survive. A very bad tactic, isn’t it??

Role of Team-Leader / Team Manager

There is a saying in Hindi, “Yatha Raja, Tatha Praja” (As the king, so the people). Hence, the Team-Leader or a Team Manager have very important role to play in “Team Development and Management”. As is understood that to be a Team-Leader or a Team Manager one should have at least one person to supervise and manage. Team Leader should have confidence in his own abilities, knowledge and skills. If he does not have enough confidence in himself, I will doubt his abilities and skills to boost the confidence and morale of his team. To be honest and fair and based on my personal experiences, I do feel that 90% of managers have sense of insecurity from their subordinate. They feel that their subordinates will grow faster. They feel that their position is not secured. They have very low Emotional Quotient. Hence they try “to block” block the pace of growth of their juniors / subordinates. Here are some blocks that Managers / Team Leaders put on the way of their subordinates growth:

Dam – When you construct a dam on a river, it does not stop the growth of the river; rather it generates electricity, helps farmers in irrigation and control floods. Similar is the role of this block in your profession. He guides you. He mentors you. He grooms you. He sharpens your skill. He helps you to grow. He is a catalyst. He knows that he is big enough for you to harm him in any manner. It’s like an executive reporting to a President. This is a positive hurdle.

Hurdle on the road (Rock, big & heavy stone) – Imagine a situation when you are traveling to some place and happen to face this hurdle on the road. What will you do? Either you will remove the hurdle or you will just pass by its side. Another example that I have is roundabouts in Chandigarh. You can not drive over them but need to drive around them to move on other side of the road. In a similar manner, there are blocks in your professional life and you can grow only by ignoring and avoiding them. They feel that they have put, big enough hurdle on the path of your career to slow-down you and/or stop you. It might take some time to over come this hurdle but this is not permanent. This is arrogant / egoistic but temporary hurdle.

Wall under-construction – This is a positive hurdle that you can face in your life. As you grow, the other also grows. He is intelligent and knowledgeable. He is willing to learn all the time. He is a person with high-self esteem. He has high expectations from himself and also from people around him. He is not afraid by the growth of his subordinates. He does not harm the growth of his subordinates. He does not sabotage their growth. The more his subordinate grows, the higher he increases his own level and his competencies.

Closed Door – This is a negative block. Whatever you do, you will face rejection. Things will just bounce on you. This person is afraid of your success and pace of your growth. When in open and competitive market, he feels insecure. He feels comfortable and secured when he is in closed room and that is why he keep the doors closed. If you want to grow in the presence of such superior / boss, you should either be pleading him or buttering him (making him comfortable) or requesting him or you should wait for the right opportunity. (You should look for the ventilator to enter in).

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Your-Professional-Growth-and-Type-of-Blocks-in-Career-Path---Which-Block-Are-You?&id=612639

Conclusion

If you want to draw a line, longer than the one which is already drawn, the best way and constructive way to do that is to draw a new line, parallel to existing line and longer than that. Same way, the best way to grow in professional life is to always keep yourself updated with the latest in your domain; to sharpen your skills; to have dreams and to have confidence in yourself. You cannot grow by suppressing someone lower to you. Even if you manage to grow in this fashion, you will not be able to sustain that growth. Be honest to yourself and to your team-members. Don’t lie to them. Share the credit. Most importantly, “Learn to Work in a Team”. Talent Acquisition is Important but Talent Management is Equally Important.

Gone are the days when people use to “butter” their bosses and use to say, “YES Sir” for every order / instruction of their bosses. This is the era of competition. You want to grow then come compete with people.

That’s an end of the write-up. Do share your views and comments.

Link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Your-Professional-Growth-and-Type-of-Blocks-in-Career-Path---Which-Block-Are-You?&id=612639

With Love
Sanjeev Himachali
(BLOG: http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/ or http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/)

Indian Marriages: A Choice between Wife and Mother

2007-05-27T15:00:00.002+04:00

Indian Marriages: A Choice between Wife and Mother

Introduction

Getting married is a stage in one's life, where two people decide to be together for the rest of their life and share their time, emotions and feelings. Decision can be taken either by the concerned couple, on its own or they decide to be together by the wishes and choice of their respective parents. The end result in both the cases is that you are accepting a new person in your life and by doing so you are trying to "change" the pattern of your life. We all know that "Change" of any kind has always been resisted and it require very high level of "maturity", "Understanding" and "adjustment". Many times, many people fail to address this issue and hence end-up with very high level of stress, resulting in burn-outs, violence and some health related issues. In this article, we will be reading about the position, situation, role, expectations and challenges of a Husband.

Expectations of a Mother

A mother is the one who gave you life and carried you in her womb for nine long months.
She was the one who understood your needs, wants and expectations, when you were not even able to speak.
She fought for you and defended you all the time, even when you were wrong. She was your first teacher.
She taught you lessons, which you would not have learned on your own or in any university of the world.
She fought with her husband, when you were in need of money.
She woke-up early in the morning to prepare breakfast for you and to pack the lunch for you. She always made sure that you eat on time.
She never slept on nights when you were sick, she just sat beside you.
She was your first friend.
When you were sad, hurt and in pain, she listened to you and motivated you…gave you hope.
You shared your emotions, feelings, experiences with her, without any hesitation and she always listened to you and never complained. She listened to you, even then when she was not even able to understand as what you are saying…but she never let you know that.
She did all this and many more things for you without complaining.

After your marriage her only expectation is that you continue to be the same person as you were before; talk to her, give time to her, share with her and should not hide anything from her. Once you get married, she starts feeling insecure. She treats your wife as an intruder in her relation with you. She becomes more possessive about you and feel insure when you do not behave the way she want you to behave.
She expects you to marry the girl of "her choice" (Not necessary or a compulsion but a hidden wish). She expects you to treat your wife the way she wants her to be treated (this includes many hidden and unspoken expectations).

Expectations of a Wife

Just like what your mother has done for you and has gone for you; even the mother of your wife has also gone through the same. She too has same feeling, emotions and attachment for her mother as you have for yours. Her mother also feels in the same way as your mother feels for you. But then, there is a difference. She has left that house, that comfort, that attachment to walk with you for rest of her life; to make your Home. She is linked to your house and family through you. It is for you and because of you that she is there in this home which was yours, all these days.

Always remember, what you promised her at the time of marriage. This is an important ritual in Hindu Marriages and it is very significant. It goes like this:

"The Bridegroom gets up from his seat holding his bride's right hand. He then goes around the Holy Fire (Agni) from the right side, by lifting his bride's right feet at each step. This is done for seven steps. With each step, he recites a mantra addresses to the bride. (This is also called as Sapta-Padi or Saat Pharey)

These are the seven vows which are exchanged.
1. The first for food,
2. The second for strength,
3. The third for prosperity,
4. The fourth for wisdom,
5. The fifth for progeny,
6. The sixth for health and
7. The seventh for friendship

In some regions, in stead of walking the seven steps, the bride touches seven stones or nuts with her right toe. A symbolic matrimonial knot is tied after this ceremony.

The idea behind this is to pray to Lord Vishnu, the protector of life, for his blessings in marital life. The groom then recites a mantra to convey the following meaning: After crossing seven steps with me thus, you should become m Friend. I too have become your friend now. I will never discord this friendship and you should not also do that. Let us be together always. Let us resolve to do things in life in the same manner and tread the same path. Let us lead a life by liking and loving each other, having good heart and thoughts, and enjoying the food and our strong points together. Let us have undivided opinions. Let us have same and joint desires.

I will be Sama (one of the vedas); you will be Rig (another Veda).
Let me be the Heaven; you be the Earth.
Let me be the Shukla (Moon) and you be its wearer.
Let me be the mind and you its spokesman (Vak).

After all, these promises, she does expects you to be with her; love her, care for her, listen to her, spend time with her and protect her.

Dilemma of Son / Husband

Getting married is nothing but a change. Change in the pattern of your life. Your marriage changes your views towards life. Very often, in this part of the world males, at the time of marriages are not very much matured to handle this change. Even though, things around them are changing. Even though things in their own life is changing and this change needs high level of maturity, understanding and adjustment but this husband is not ready for this change; neither mentally nor psychologically. He wants to live in the same manner as he was before and that creates lots of problems. He listens to his wife; he listens to his mother but is unable to make decision and take stand.

This actually shows that the male is emotionally very weak.

Solution and Conclusion

Get married only then when you think that you are "prepared" to take new responsibilities; when you are ready for "Change" in your life. Don't marry, just because "people around you wants" to get married. For others, including your parents, relatives and friends, your marriage is a function but for you its "Life Long Commitment"; don't make any commitment, if you are not very sure of fulfilling it.

Mother should ask her son to treat his wife in the manner as she wants her son-in-law to treat her own daughter (s).
Wife should ask her husband to treat his mother in the same manner as she wants her brother to treat their mother.
It is easy to say but I treat families and relations like this; for example, I have one son and one daughter. Once they get married, I will be having two sons and two daughters.

Your life is nothing but a choice that you make. These are my thoughts and views; you might or might not accept and agree with the solution and conclusion.

Kindly give your feedback and share your opinion.

Regards
Sanjeev Himachali
(BLOG: http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/ and http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ )
(E-mal: mailto:sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com)

Professional Life - Cycle: Different Phases of Your Professional Life...

2007-05-20T11:15:00.001+04:00

Professional Life - Cycle: Different Phases of Your Professional Life...

Introduction

Broadly speaking, our life can be divided into two parts:

1) Personal, Private or Family Life and

2) Career or Professional Life

Each of the above two can be further divided into different stages. The various stages of Private Life are: Infant, Child, Adolescent, and Adult (Husband / Wife), Parents, Feeder / Earner / Developer and Counselor / Guide / Mentor. Similarly, in a professional life, the different stages that we can have are: Trainee (Learner); 1st Level Executer; 1st Level Administrator / Organizer (Team Leader); Manager; Strategist; Chief Executor (CEO); Chief Administrator (CAO or COO); Corporate / Industry/ Business Leader; Coach; Mentor. In both the situations, it is very difficult to move from one stage (or role) to another; one needs to be mentally, emotionally and psychologically prepared for it. It is only due to the insecurity of an individual, his or her inefficiency to move to another role that we usually see people in the role of Patriarch and BOSS.
For the purpose of this article, we will be concentrating only on the different stages of Professional Life.

Different Stages of Your Professional Life

1) Trainee (Learner): This is the beginning of your career. Usually it comprises 2-3 years. During this phase, the individual learns about the expectations of his profession and expected corporate behavior. You learn about the practical aspects and implementation processes of the theory that you have learned in your graduation, post-graduations and during your management studies. This phase also gives you an opportunity to select the “Domain” within your profession that you want to “specialize in”/ Grow/ and become expert in.

2) 1st Level Executer: To some extant this phase might overlap with your previous phase. In this phase, you get inputs from different sections and you are asked to implement that process and then follow-up. It is like this, your reporting manager or your department head has initiated some policy or process and it is your responsibility to make sure that the policy and process is followed by everyone. You need to follow-up with the people on the floor or at the bottom end. You are also expected to “teach the employees” and make them aware about the processes and procedures, its purpose, impact, regards and punishment. During this phase you need to work very closely with your Reporting Manager and take his inputs and at the same time need to make your own identity. You need to take your decisions through your Reporting Manager. Here, you are process owner. Based on your efficiency, willingness to learn and grow, this phase might last for 2-3 years.

3) 1st Level Administrator / Organizer (Team Leader): Now, that you know the practical aspects of your profession, you have selected a domain with in your selected profession that you like to master and specialize in; you know the nitty-gritty of your domain…now its time to take bigger responsibilities and accountabilities; now, its time to take responsibility of a small team, small but solo and independent assignments and projects. In this phase you get accustomed to resource management. You get to know as how to run the show on your own.

4) Manager: In this phase, the area and scope of your work increases. You become accountable of 2-3 different but bigger projects / assignments. You are expected to manage following things: People Management (and Development); Infrastructure / Resource Management; Cash Management; Revenue and Profitability Management; and Statutory Compliance. Usually, a person stays in this role for 7-10 years.

5) Strategist: Now, you have lots of experience, knowledge and expertise. At this stage, you need to be a great planner, goal setter, creative, developer and innovative. Its time for you to align your domain with the core business. You need to smoothen the functioning of your domain. In this role, you work as a catalyst and as a facilitator. This is not a field job. Most of the time, people around you might not be able to understand, as what you are doing. This role expects a lot of mental strength, expertise of domain and understanding of the functioning of different industries.

6) Chief Executor (CEO): Just like the way we discussed the role of 1st Level Executor (who is a process owner); the role of Chief Executor is to execute the policies, process, strategies formulated and approved by the “Board of Directors”. He is the person who makes the “Corporate Culture” and “Workplace Ethics” for the organization. He is accountable for “workplace practices” that are practiced in the organization.

7) Chief Administrator (CAO or COO): You understand the basics of business; nitty-gritty of the business; people management; Cash, Revenue and profitability management, now its time to handle that at corporate level. As a chief administrator, you are accountable for one particular SBU or vertical or nation (if your company is very huge with millions of people, spread over N number of nations. It is your responsibility to generate revenues and profits. It is for you to plan Business Model for your Business and break-through for the success of your business.

8) Corporate / Industry/ Business/ Domain Leader: Now, its time to take a bigger leap. You have done enough for your team, your department, your domain, your company and your vertical / strategic unit. From now onwards whatever you do, will affect the Industry as a whole. You will be a trend setter in your profession / domain. You will be a LEADER.

9) Coach: Now, that you have gained lots of experience and knowledge and you are at that stage of your life, where you need to create many more people like you. Its time to pass your knowledge and experience to youngsters and create more people, Managers and leaders like you. Here, your role is to develop and groom young talent. You are a catalyst.

10) Mentor: Last, but not the least, after spending 40-45 years in an active “professional Life” now, its time to take a back seat and let the youngsters grow. Now, your role is that of a torch-bearer; guide; light-house; and pole-star. You are in a position where you can develop life of youngsters.

So, that’s in short is the professional life-span of any individual, irrespective to selected profession and domain. It spans from a trainee to mentor.

Conclusion

In order to move from one phase of your profession to another phase, one needs to be mentally and psychologically prepared. One need to know when is the time to move to another level. This also shows that irrespective of your profession HR, Marketing, Technical or Finance…one is capable of being and should be in all the phases of profession. It is only then when we are not confident about our abilities, or we are so comfortable with our present role and position that we don’t want to move out of that zone…that we behave like a BOSS. Bossism is nothing but forcing your views or ideas ONLY on your SUBORDINATES. They have NO SCOPE to Grow and Learn. Learn, grow and blossom in your profession. Life is short and sky is the limit.

Now, you are in which phase of your professional life???

Life is wonderful, if you believe that.
This world is beautiful, if you feel that.

Looking forward to your views and feedback
Regards

Sanjeev Himachali
(BLOG: http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/ or http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ )
(E-mail: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com)

Once Upon a Time … (Yeh Un Dino ki Baat Hai)

2007-05-02T16:10:00.000+04:00

Once Upon a Time … (Yeh Un Dino ki Baat Hai)

Introduction

We all have gone through this phase of life. There are many people who just give-up and there are some, who just continue. It is like shooting-in-the-dark. Here, I am talking about the time-period between the "completion of basic professional education" and "your first break…your first job". That is the time when
You keep applying for job, every day, and every moment
You keep on attending interviews, just to get rejected
All that you want is "Just one Chance". I have seen candidates, who say, "Give us work, we will work free, without any salary".
It has been more than eight years since I passed through those ways. I don't want to remember those days and when someone refers to those moments, it brings tears in my eyes. Although, what I have gone through is nothing new, it didn't happened for first time. I am not the only one to have faced that part of life and I am sure that I am also not the last person to have gone through that phase. It is actually a test of your character and determination. It is just the token amount that you pay to begin the chase of your dream.
I don't wish to remember those moments but something happened in last week and that just refreshed all those painful memories. Hence, I thought of sharing with you.

Background

Unlike the India that we are seeing today, in those days there were no ITES Industries, NO BPO's, Call Center or Contact Centers. To get a job in the corporate world, the minimum expected qualification was Graduation. And in this part of the world…one should have strong recommendation or backing to get a job. In those days, I was a young lad of 22 years of age, with Post Graduation in Business Administration specializing in Human Resource Management and Development; brought-up in conservative and over-protected family. Let me share, what I had; what I missed and what I was looking for.

What I had
1. Education
2. Knowledge
3. Intelligence
4. Lots of Energy
5. Never-say-Die Attitude

What I missed
1. God Father to Hold my Hand
2. Network
3. Financial Status was not so good
4. Non-Tech Savvy Family (We didn't had phone at home or mobile phone; even browsing internet was costly).

What I was looking for
1. Just One Chance
2. A decent job with a decent salary

The Beginning

I didn't graduate from a premier business school. There was no assistance in "Job Placements". So, after the completion of MBA, I started my job search. I approached my relatives, my family-friends and to my known for guidance and assistance but none was interested to help. People turned cold shoulder towards me. I kept on applying for jobs, sending my resumes through post or drop-in the reception of companies. There was no response. Every morning I use to begin with new energy, confidence and enthusiasm and every evening I use to return, all frustrated, broken, rejected and dejected. In the evening, after reaching home the first thing that my ears use to hear was, "Did you get any Job?" I was loosing my confidence. My motivation level was coming down. I use to consider my self as unwanted. But, I never lost HOPE and kept on trying; Day after day; Month after Month. I use to think that probably "Tomorrow will be better". The atmosphere in the house was enough to sum up the mood of the family. There use to be verbal duals and fights almost everyday. Sadness was visible on the faces of family members. This continued for four months and then one day I left my house.

Unknown territory

Once I left the house, I was not sure, where I will be going. What I am going to do? How long will I be able to survive? Will I be able to live? I knew that the things will not be rosy but I took the biggest step of my life. I was on the road where there was only one way traffic. No U turns. I moved to one of the metro cities and took shelter in one DIRTIEST hostel. The purpose was to start fresh, to make a new beginning. Again I started applying for jobs. Sometimes I use to walk for miles (10-15 miles) to attend an interview. "Hunger" is the worst enemy. I didn't had enough money and I didn't knew, how long will I carry on like this. I used to live on water. On some days, I used to take tea; but, usually survived on water. When it was difficult to satisfy the hunger of my tummy, I used to go to the hostel mess and eat the left-over food…food thrown by others.

The pain was unbearable. I lost all my hope and confidence. Thoughts, such as committing suicide or selling my kidney, did passed through my head but something kept me moving. Even today, I don't know what that was. After a struggle of three months I got my first break - A job with a salary of rupees three thousand and two hundred. On that day, I had good food at a nice restaurant.

Just Memory

It has been seven and a-half years, since then. Today, I am working in a good company at a good position. I am known to people. I have good network. Today, I have love of people, respect and also admiration. It is not an end of the struggle of my life but now it is different type of struggle. As I said earlier, I am not the only one to have gone through all this. I am not the first one to have gone through this. I am also not the last person to have gone through this. This certainly was one of the toughest times of my life. I just thought of sharing few moments of that phase with you.

At the end, I only like to say that, "It is easy to give-up but it is very difficult to continue".

You have a great day and take care.

With Love
Sanjeev Sharma
(BLOG: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ or http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/)
(E-mail: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com ; ss_himachali@yahoo.com )

Soft Skills for HR Professionals…

2007-04-02T07:29:00.000+04:00

Soft Skills for HR Professionals…

Introduction

To work in any profession, one should not only have “Subject Matter Expertise” but also personality, behavior, decorum, mannerism, attitude, professional approach, and thinking to work efficiently and to sustain in that given profession. Failing which, irrespective of your knowledge, education and background you will never be able to grow in that profession. This is also true for HR Profession. There are some minimum expectations from HR Professionals, in the way they carry themselves, behave and present themselves that can hamper or lift their image and professional graph. Some of those traits and attributes I have mentioned in this article. Though, to a large extent I have covered all the attributes but still I consider this list as INCLUSIVE and not EXCLUSIVE. The need is to benchmark your Personality and Behavior. Respect can only be earned and not “asked for”.

Nine Qualities all HR Professionals Should Have

1) Clarity of Thoughts – In most of the situations and circumstances, we come across two options; either we want to do or we don’t want to do; either we agree to it or we don’t agree to it; either it is acceptable or it is not acceptable; either you want or you don’t want. It has been seen that many HR Professionals are confused. They are not clear, where they want to take their company. They don’t know what role they like to play in the organization. They don’t have clarity of role. They don’t have clear expectations, neither from themselves, or from their team or from their internal customers (employees). With this confusion, they fail to take decisions. They fail to take stand.

2) Efficiency in Time Management - HR professionals is expected to be efficient in time management. They are expected to set time-frame and meet those expectations. Most of the time, I have seen that they don’t give any time limit. You approach them for any work and they respond by saying, “Ok, it will be done”. But when? I agree that “Good HR Professionals” have many things to do. Recruitments, Employee Relations, Talent Management, Career Development, Benchmarking, etc are the things, which takes lots of time. But, all goals, all dreams, all activities, all commitments looks good and are achievable, if there is a closing date for that. For Example, I want my company to be in top-10 companies in the world. It’s a Vision. It’s a good dream. But, if I don’t specify, by which year or in how many years, I want to achieve that goal, it will only remain as a dream and will never become a reality. Uncertainty, Ambiguity, Open-Ended commitment, Confusion, these are things, that are not expected from any HR Professional.

3) Compare Performances / Compare Situations & Circumstances but do not compare individuals / People – Knowingly or unknowingly but quite often, instead of Circumstances and Situations, we tend to compare two different people. Instead of analyzing the behavior of a person we tend to analyze them as an individual and take this as our right. The very basic principle of science and management says that no two individuals are same.

4) Knowledge about the Business and Industry – Everybody should be aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They should be aware as what they want in their life and career. It is a well known fact and has been proved in various surveys that HR professionals don’t care to understand the business of the company and the industry that they are working in. According to the survey done by Virgin Management Consultancy 67% HR Professionals in USA and 83% HR professionals in India do not know the nitty-gritty of their company’s business. They don’t know from where the revenue is coming. They don’t know the business model of their company. I think, as it is important to know about the city and country that you are traveling to; it is equally important to know and understand the business of the company that you are working with.

5) Vision and Goal for the Department, Team and Organization – What you want to do for the organization? Are you planning to implement a competitive compensation plan? Do you want to take your company in the bracket of 25 “Best Employers in the Country”? Are you planning to acquire best of the talent from market? Do you think that you need to control the growing Attrition Rate of your company? Have you thought about “Organization Development” and “Talent Management”? Usually, that is the confusion. HR professionals and HR heads don’t have that vision. They want to do something in HR but don’t know what they can do or should do. They should have vision for the organization for HR perspective and goals for their department and team. It’s a must have. Until and unless you are sure about your destination, you cannot take the path.

6) Love for Number / Data / Figures / Calculations / Analysis / Projections – You talk to any person in any other profession and tell them that you are in HR; two things will automatically flash in their mind – Theory and Politics. One reason why HR professionals in India have not been able to enter into the Board Room and make their presence felt in the organization is because though they have ideas, they have strategies and policies but they are not able to support those strategies with data. (It is because there is no mathematics and calculations involved in this subject that many people [mostly females] love to join this profession).

For example, if I have a “Retention Strategy” and I want to implement in the organization. I need to show, how much the implementation of that strategy will cost; by what percentage the company will be able to increase the employee retention and decrease the attrition; which are the companies that are using this particular strategy and how effective it has been in their cases. If, I am going with this data, calculation and analysis, I am sure that my strategy will be implemented.

Hence, HR professionals need to be more analytical, data oriented and good in calculations. They should not be subjective and theory oriented.

7) Enthusiasm to Share / Develop / Coach and Mentor – We have heard and read in our schools and colleges that “Knowledge is a wealth; the more you distribute/share the more you gain”. In this profession of HRM & D; we are privileged and are in a very unique position where we can develop people. We can develop their career. We can develop their life. We can help them in changing their perception and behavior. We can groom them, so that they can be successful in their life. Don’t you think that we have very important and crucial role to play?? How many of us have actually thought of those lines? Do, think about it, you have one life, give what you can. If 10 people will remember me once I bid adieu to this world for helping them in developing their life, I will consider my life as successful.

8) Self Discipline – This again is a common quality that everyone should have, irrespective of their respective professions, but it is more appreciable in HR Professionals and is like a must have. They need to set standards for others to follow; they need to benchmark their own behavior and if they start flowing with water, everything else will go for a toss and things will go out of control. I have heard, people saying that I am doing this or that because others are also doing it but that is not expected from HR Professionals. Discipline in life is a must to grow, prosper and being successful. So, set standards and don’t just flow.

9) Trust Worthy – This is very important quality and must have for all HR Professionals. Candidates, at the time of interview share important information with HR; Employees share lots information, personal, professional, ideas, suggestions, future related, dreams etc. Imagine, if the HR professional keep sharing that information with everyone in the team of HR; will that employee ever comeback to HR to share anything with him. NEVER. HR professionals need to win that trust and then maintain and keep that trust. This is very true for HR Professionals, who are working in “Employee Relations”. Relation of any kind, be it with employees, is based on trust and honesty. If ever, you break that trust, you will never be able to win it again.

You can read the complete article at: http://ezinearticles.com/?To-Work-in-Any-Profession,-One-Should-Not-Only-have-Subject-Matter-Expertise-but-also-Personality&id=510834

5 traits that any HR Professionals should not have…traits that can hamper their Growth

1) Ego or Attitude: Larger than role attitude – Well, where you are working with people, interacting with people and the number of people that you are interacting with is large, you cannot afford to have ego. You need to come down from your level and talk. It is not easy, just next to impossible to match with the expectations of everybody. In this profession, people will hate you, ignore your contribution, blame you but in spite of that you cannot afford to have ego. I have seen HR professionals who are over-flowing with ego. When they start talking, it appears as if they are doing any favor by interacting with you, communicating with you and updating you with new strategy or policy. This is another reason, as why HR professionals are not able to make that impact in this profession to make them counted.

2) Should not be emotional – “Touch everyone’s heart and don’t let them touch yours”. “Be empathetic but don’t cry with your employees”. Every human being is emotional and it’s only irony that to be effective and focused, HR Professionals should not be emotional. By emotional, there is a chance and high probability that they will not be able to do justice with their work. They are like that fish, which need to swim in water to survive but should not get wet.

3) I know everything (I don’t need to learn from you) – This is another negative trait of HR. They present themselves in a way, as if they know everything. That is not an end, the irony is that neither do they have “Subject matter expertise” nor they are good in “Human Relations” and nor do they want to learn anything. This reminds me one story of goat and lion. Goat, whenever she see or come across lion, she closes her eyes and assume that once I close my eyes, lion will not be able to see me. So, that is a situation of HR Professionals.

Read this axiom.
If he don’t know and don’t know that he don’t know, he is arrogant, AVOID him.
If he don’t know and know that he don’t know, he is a student, TEACH him.
If he knows and know that he knows, he is sleeping, WAKE him up.
If he know and know that he knows, he is a LEADER, Follow him.

I think, in this axiom, I have given the message that I want to convey to my fellow HR Professionals.

4) I am GOD; I am THE Kingmaker –
If you are hiring someone;
If you are paying salary to someone;
If you are giving promotion and growth to someone;
If you are nice to someone
You are not doing any favor to him. He deserves, that is why he is getting. If you are giving, even though he do not deserve, then you are CORRUPT.
Many of HR Professionals send across this message to the shop-floor that “Don’t mess with me, I can spoil your career” or “I have done favor for you. Respect me”.

5) Should not be biased (No Favoritism; No Grapevine; No Office Politics) – HR Professionals, most of the time keep themselves engaged in “Office Politics”. They initiate “Grapevine”, water this grapevine and believe in this grapevine. Whatever might be the reason but it is a gray area and they need to improve on that. This is another reason that no one take HR professionals seriously. I know, in one of my previous employment, when we started “Employee Relations” and “Employee Communication”, all employees use to consider this HR Representative as “Company ka jasoos” (Detective from management). In office politics, most of the time HR Department is considered as “Hub of All Politics”. HR Professionals need to come up, and increase their level of thinking. They need to be more matured.

You can read the complete article at: http://ezinearticles.com/?To-Work-in-Any-Profession,-One-Should-Not-Only-have-Subject-Matter-Expertise-but-also-Personality&id=510834

Conclusion

As I have mentioned in the introduction, this is INCLUSIVE list of qualities that all HR professionals should have. In one of my previous article, I have mentioned that for HR professionals to stand-up and get counted, there are miles to go. Some HR professionals have started this journey but many have still to take that “FIRST STEP”. Believe me, we are in a very good profession and if we can try we can changes in many ways. We have an opportunity to give jobs, give careers, professional growth, coach and mentor people. On other hand, we can increase productivity, motivate employees, manage talent, build brand for the company and also make the company “Best Company to work for”.

So, kindly stand-up, take that first step and get counted.

Looking forward to your comments and feedback

Sanjeev Sharma
(BLOG: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ )
(Email: ss_himachali@yahoo.com; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com)

Plan your Time. Manage your Time. Invest Your Time

2007-03-19T06:46:00.000+04:00

Plan your Time. Manage your Time. Invest Your Time.

Introduction

At one stage or another we all have heard or read all or any of the below mentioned, Time Related Phrases:

1) Time is money. Time is wealth.
2) Time is a river. Time is a wind.
3) Respect your time.
4) Doesn’t matter what you do…time will just pass away.
5) You never know, when your time will change. (Samey bada balvaan hota hai)
6) Each year, each day, each moment is unique in its own way. Once it passes, it will never come again.
7) Respect my time and I will respect yours.
8) With time, all wounds will heal.
9) If I had more hours
10) I don’t have time
There are many more.

But, like money or wealth or your assets can you save your time for difficult days? No, you cannot. Your time is now, invest it or waste it.
We are living in an era where researchers, philosophers and historians are talking, discussing and debating about “Life Management”…”Plan your life”. Every individual should know what he want in his life? Where he see himself after 5 or 10 years? One should know what he or she is expecting in his or her life. Hence, Time Management is an important aspect of our life.

How busy are you? - Your daily Routine

Let’s see, what we (Most of us) do in our daily life. How we are managing our day? As an example, I will take my daily schedule and I am sure that yours too will be closer to that. We spend time in following activities:

1) Rest / Sleep – 8 hours
2) Health: Yoga, Exercise – 1 hour
3) Prayers – 1 Hour
4) Food (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Snacks) – 2 hours
5) Entertainment – 2 hours
6) Knowledge / Learning / News – 1 hour
7) Socializing – 1 Hour
8) Work/Profession/Career – 10 hours
9) Traveling – 3hours
10) Time for Family – 3 hours

One should do all these activities to have a successful, purposeful, stress free and happy life. If I calculate above mentioned time, it comes out to be 32 hours, whereas there are only 24 hours in a day. So, how to manage? I don’t want to cut any of the activity.

Manage your Time

One can manage his time by using following skills and tools
1) Planning
2) Multi-tasking
3) Optimum use of Technology
4) Delegation
5) Self Discipline

Plan your day. Be disciplined. Respect your time and that of others too. Have proper schedule. Do multitasking. Use technology in a best possible manner.

Let’s plan your day

1) You wake-up in the morning and then go for walk or jogging. At the same time on your walk-man you can also listen to prayers, religious songs etc. Right or Wrong?
2) Once you come back from your walk, at the time of your morning tea or milk, you can scan through Newspaper or News Channels to keep you updated with the latest events and news. Can you?
3) While having your breakfast, you can also spend that time with your kids and family or listen to songs of your choice.
4) While driving or traveling to your office you can either listen to songs or use your mobile – phone to stay in touch with your friends and relatives through messages and calls. If you are at a senior level and really busy and your office is quite far away…you can also have one meeting in your car. You can also go through few reports, analysis; check those reports and also sign those documents that need your signatures and approvals. Can you do this?
5) In office, you do all of the following things:
A) Internal Meetings (There are three types of meetings – Briefing, Discussion / Debate, Review)
B) Routine work (It will be very useful for you to have well defined processes to take care of routine works)
C) Value Addition to your Function and Department
D) Client Meetings (Purpose can be any of the following: update them; get more business; grievance / query handling)
E) Interviews (To add a new person to your team; Employee Retention; Employee Grievance Handling)
Do you think that there is anything more that you do at your workplace; over and above the activities that I have listed???
6) During your first tea-break in office, have a brief meeting with your team-members and delegate your routine work.
7) You can have an important client or business meeting during your lunch.
8) For discussion / debates with seniors or your peers located at different areas, you can either use the technology of Conference Call or Video Conferencing. It will help you in managing your time and save your money. Same technology can be used for interviewing candidates from different locations. You can also use this technology for Induction, Training and Development and also for Media briefing. If you can solve a problem through a simple message on mobile phone or a simple e-mail; you don’ have to call for a meeting. So, use your mobile phone and internet to help you in managing your time.
9) Along with your second tea-break, you can also have another meeting (Review Meeting) with your team.
10) While moving from one office to another or one department to another, you can also send messages to your family members, relatives and friends and stay in touch with them.
11) When you are in a meeting, it is important that you prepare yourself for the meeting and keep it within the limits of discussion. Be there for the meeting, on time and you should also know when to end the meeting. It is a matter of discipline.
12) In the evening, while going home you can do any of the following: Listen to your favorite songs; go through the reports and papers or have meeting with client or customer.
13) Once you are at home, give your time to family. Listen to them. Solve their Concerns. Enjoy with them. Do not bore them by discussing about your day in the office.
14) At the time of Dinner, you can again update yourself with news and current updates.
15) Before, you retire for the day, read something.

Do you think, that you have things to do or to take care that I have not mentioned in the list?

What Busy People do?
1) They respect their time as well as that of the other person.
2) They manage their time in such a manner that they get time to do everything in their life.
3) They use technology in a best possible manner.
4) They are self-disciplined.
5) They plan their day and their time.
6) They know their limitations. They trust people, efficiencies & talent of people around them and delegate their work.
7) They take responsibility and accountability.

What Busy People don’t do?
1) They don’t scream or complain for lack of time.
2) They do not procrastinate or postpone their work.
3) They don’t gossip.
4) They don’t blame TIME for their failures and frustrations.
5) They don’t mix their work with family. They don’t carry their work to home and don’t bring their family emotions and fights to workplace.
6) They don’t blame others.

You can read the complete article at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Plan-Your-Time.-Manage-Your-Time,-Invest-Your-Time&id=492908
Conclusion

Number of hours in a day will not change. There will only be 86,400 seconds in a day. It is up to you, how you manage and use each of those seconds. One needs to invest each second. As, it has been rightly said, time once passed will never come again. Busy people are very satisfied, happy and do everything that they want to do in their life. Those, who show that they are busy, end up with frustration, burn-outs, stress and most of the time failure in life and profession.

Before I sign-out, I like to share few examples to let you know the value of Time, I studied these examples when I was in school,
To realize the value of one year; ask a student who has failed a final exam.
To realize the value of one month; ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of one week; ask an editor of a weekly newspaper or magazine
To realize the value of one hour; ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of one minute; ask the person who has missed the train, bus or plane.
To realize the value of one second; ask a person who has survived an accident.
To realize the value of one millisecond; ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Time waits for no one. Treasure every moment you have. You will treasure it even more when you share it with someone special.

Looking forward to your Comments and Feedback

With lots of love, care and affection

Sanjeev Sharma (Himachali)
(E-mail: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com)
(BLOG: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ or http://sanjeevhimachali.multiply.com/)

Valentines Day 2007 – Expressing My Love for You

2007-01-21T16:58:00.000+04:00

14th February is celebrated as Valentines Day in different parts of the world. This day is nothing less than a festival for youngsters’. The Valentines Day or “Day of Love”, they say is a day to express your love for that “Special” person of your life. That “Special” person of my life is far away but my love for her is not limited to few days or occasions. If Valentines Day is about expressing the love; then for us, every day is a Valentine Day.

Here, in this article (or you can say, letter) I am just making an attempt to make this day a very “Special” and memorable day for her. You may ask, “What is her name?” Hmmm, I call her HEER.

Dear Heer,

I don’t know if it is destiny. I don’t know how and from where. One day we met and started to interact with each other. But over a period of time, we started enjoying that interaction and wanted to spend time with each other. I don’t remember when but soon that casual interaction lit the flame of love in our heart. We never said anything but in our eyes, there was love for each other and it was then that we decided to walk together in this journey of life.

It is only because of this love and the special bonding that we have that we are able to survive these days…when we are millions of miles apart.

I still remember, in the initial days, you use to ask me, (you even ask now also) as how much I love you? So, tell me Heer, how you want to measure my love?

If you want to count my love, then my love is stars.
If you want to measure the length of my love, then my love is sky.
If you want to measure the depth of my love, then my love is ocean.
My love is in Fragrance. My love is in Beauty. My love is in warmth.

I still remember the time, before our engagement when you had to move to different country for professional reasons. There was depth of silence between us. There was sadness and fears too. That time, you told me, “Sanju, out of sight…out of mind. Once, I am far away you might forget me”. We had seen so many such cases in our friend circle as well. I was sad and then I told you,

“Kal tum Chali Jaaogi aur mujhse kehti ho ki mein uddas na hooun. Tum kehti ho ki kuch pal tum se door rehkar mein tumhey Bhool Jaaunga. Tumhey mein keisey bhool sakta hoon.
Mein apni saanse lena keise bhool sakta hoon; kya hua agar yeh dil tumhe ek saans mein hazaar baar yaad karta hai;
Mein apni dhadkan to keise rok sakta hon; kya hua agar yeh dil sirf tumharey liye dhadkta hai;Mein apni mann ka kya karoon jo har waqt tumharey baarey mein sochta hai;
Mein en aankhoon ko har waqt khol kar keise rahoon...kya hua agar yeh aankhey jab band hoti hai to tumhara hi sapna dekhti hain;
Tumhara payar jo meri in ragoon mein khoon ban ke daud raha hai...us khoon ko mein keise rok loon; Mein en perion ka kya karoon jo sirf tumhrey saath chalna chahtey hain;
Haan...mein tum se jayada payar nahi karta...tum mujhse jayda payar karti ho; per nahi janta ki tumharey bina keise ji un.
Mein tumhara intzaar karoonga, kyon ki tumharey bina to mein mar bhi nahi sakta.

(You will be leaving tomorrow and here you are asking me, why I am sad and quiet. You are telling me that I should move on and should forget about you. How can I do that? How can I forget that?
How can I stop breathing…what if, in each breathe, this heart remembers you millions of time.
How can I stop my heart-beat…what if this heart beats only for you.
I cannot stop my mind, which thinks about you all the time.
I cannot keep my eyes open all the time…you tell me, what I should do, if they dream about you…whenever they are close.
Your love is running in my body…how I can stop it.
What should I do to my feet…which want to walk with you and only you?
Yes, I don’t love you. You love me more. But I don’t know, without you, how I will be living each day…each moment of the day. I will wait for you…because I know in your absence; I won’t even be able to die. )

And now, we are engaged. Heer, I am a person of 21st Century, I will not say that I will get sun, moon or stars for you, but together we will be Happy. There will be more joy and less pain; more happiness and fewer tears. I might not have wealth of world. At present I might not have all the cozy comforts but if we are together…we can get all these. You are my present and you are my future. My love is for you and my happiness is with you.
Before, signing off, I only like to say…

“Agar tum ho to sab kuch hai; tum nahi to kuch bhi nahiAgar tum ho to zindagi mein har raat ke baad subah hai; tum nahi to yeh zindagi kabhi na khatam honey wali kaali raat ke siva kuch nahi
Agar tum ho to sapney hain, sapney poorey karney ka shahas hai, sapney poorey honey ki khushi hai; Tum Nahi to yeh zindagi berang hai, sapney dekhney ka bhi shahas nahi
Raastey keisey bhi hon, agar tum saath ho to har safar suhana hai. Tum Nahi to har taraf virana hai
Mujhe koi chah nahi ki mere aas-pass hazaroon, lakhon log hon. Tum ho to har din holi aur har raat diwali hai. Tum nahi to mein bheed mein bhi akela hoon.
Agar tum ho to sab kuch hai; tum nahi to kuch bhi nahi”

(Heer, if you are with me, I have all the happiness of this world. I don’t desire to have anything more. If you are not there, my life is nothing more never ending journey…a purposeless life…a journey without destination.
If you are there, I have hope, I have confidence, I know that there is light at the end of a tunnel. If you are not there then my life is nothing more than...”never ending life”.
If I have your love, I can dare to dream; I have Courage to Chase those dreams; I have confidence to face challenges of life; I have reasons to celebrate each achievement and success. If you are not there, I don’t even have courage to dream.
I don’t have desire to be surrounded by millions and billions of people. If you are there, even two can have party. If you are there, each day will be colorful and each night will be festival).

I am not Season that changes every quarter. I am not moon, which changes every day. I am not water which changes its shape and color as per container and added items. My love for you will never change.

Happy Valentines Day to You

With lots of love and care

Yours and only yours…always…Sanju

On this Valentines Day, 14th February, 2007, from
Sanjeev Himachali
E-mail: ss_himacali@yahoomail.com; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com
Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/

You…Your Appearance…Your Profession…and Your Selection or Rejection

2007-01-21T16:02:00.000+04:00

Introduction

It might look strange but it is a fact that your looks or appearance does affect your career or profession…it does (To an extent) affects the selection or rejection of your candidature. You might argue that it’s the knowledge and experience of the candidate that is important and I agree with you. It is knowledge and experience that is important and that’s the way it should be.

You might have read that in last election Tony Blair spent close to 5 million pounds on his beauty parlor…no his looks and appearance. Similar was the issue raised in USA during the last election when Hillary Clinton’s opponent talked about her cosmetic surgery. It is a well known fact the people who look good get a mileage and they do really well in their career … compare to those who are not that good looking. Yes, exceptions are there.

What does it mean?

When we talk about looks and appearance, what does it mean? It has nothing to do with your skin color, or color of your hairs and eyes. It means how present able you are…your appeal. Nobody is concerned about your height, weight or waist-line but you should look healthy. You should look clean.

The definition or parameters of looks and appearance differs from profession to profession and industry to industry. Like for a sports person, looks or physical features hardly make any difference but for a model, for a front office executive, it is important. In other professions it is an added advantage but it affects. For example in sales it is important to get revenue…to complete the target but good looking people get an advantage of getting an early appointment with the client than not so good looking people.

Then, what about knowledge and experience? It might sound sarcastic but it is true and logical that to know your experience I must get your profile. To know your knowledge, I must interact with you…I must speak to you. But, to look at you…to look at your appearance…I don’t need your permission or I don’t need to interact with you. Who don’t want good looking people in his team? Who don’t love to interact with good looking people? So friends, to an extent we get bias, even before taking an interview, just by looking at the candidate. Good looking people get more opportunities to prove his or her worth than not so good looking person.

A Proof

According to a Survey done by Virgin Management Consultancy in Asia, European Countries, Australia and USA,

1. Attractive people earn more than unattractive people;
2. Looks affect men as much as they do women;
3. Tall men, but not tall women, earn substantially more than their colleagues;
4. Unattractive people, earn substantially less than their colleagues.

The penalty for unattractiveness is around -15% for men and -11% for women. That means, if average male earnings are 60,000 USD Per Annum then an otherwise identical male who is unattractive will earn just 51,000 USD Per Annum, a penalty of 9,000.
Tall people earn more than short people.
This pay gap is 10% for men and 5% for women. Only men benefit from being tall. They earn around 5% more than others.
Women who are obese are penalized earning 5% less, but obese men are not.
The effects are widespread but their importance varies between jobs and type of industry.
The benefits of being tall or the costs of being unattractive are only seen in 'white-collar' jobs. For women the penalty for unattractiveness is greatest in clerical/secretarial occupations (-15% penalty).
These results indicate that prejudice may be greater in some jobs than others. Consumer prejudice may be important here making the effects of appearance greater in jobs involving face-to-face contact, especially those that involve selling. Here some aspects of appearance are especially important.
Attractive or tall men in sales jobs earn more than other people (+13% and +25% respectively). For women, being tall is also an asset (+15%).

So, where is your experience, your knowledge and your ability to do your work efficiently?

Your ability to do the job is only one aspect of what's being assessed during the interview. People are happier and more productive if they like the people they work with. Most of us will spend more time with our work colleagues than we do with our friends and loved ones.

So you weren't offered the job. Take a long, critical look at yourself in the mirror? That's what the interviewer saw. Did they see untidy hair, dull looking skin, tired eyes. Smile. What do you see? We can't all have perfect teeth but we can all practice good hygiene. Remember that outfit you wore, was it a good choice? Perhaps the last heavy-handed application of cologne didn't quite disguise the smell of that cigarette you had just before going in.

Interviewers are as likely to reject you based on what their instincts and senses tell them about you, as on your lack of skills. When you first meet with an employer you must give out the right signals in terms of how you look, behave, speak, and even smell. Having the right skills to do the job is merely the basis for further negotiation. Having the qualities that will impress clients and make you the person that other employees will want to work and socialize with, closes the deal. Prepare for the interview as you would for a new date.

Think Logically

Let me give you one example, how many of us like to get associated with not so good looking person? Will you go for a date, if your partner is not so good looking, probably not and you will look for an excuse to say no? Recently we also had discussion, “If males and females can be good friends or not”… people said that they can be good friends if they are not attracted to each other.

Now, let’s touch on a sensitive subject and try to think a bit logical and practical. Our senses supply us with a constant stream of data about other people. We form a first impression and do so instinctively.

Our ability to assess people quickly and make a judgment means that we can decide whether a stranger is potentially friend or foe. Think about it.

Sure you have the credentials to nab that new job, but do you have the right look to knock them dead at the interview? Too often when looking for a job, we concentrate on getting the resume just right and worrying how we look on paper - when we should be just as concerned with how we look in person. Bearing that in mind, people will judge you on the way you look and carry yourself. The time old saying, “Never judge a book by its cover” has never been as out of place as it is within work. People and perspective employer especially will be doing just that. More often than not, your appearance will play a huge part in the way you are perceived and treated.

At interview, it's only natural that those making decisions about whether or not to employ you should be concerned about whether or not they like you. That will include how you look and how you present yourself.

Concluding Remarks

If you can find out in advance how people within the organization typically dress, you can put together the right look. Try on your interview outfit and think about how accessories, your hair and general physical grooming will contribute to the effect. Work on this as carefully as you worked on your CV.

They also shared their views

Allen Woods Shared his Experience

"A very clever reply. And so true methinks. A tale, during my military service, I did a spell as a recruiter in Manchester in the UK. The job was very prestigious; we went through some two months of training on personnel selection, interviewing techniques and other related skills.

We were told, regularly, not to use "gut feeling" when selecting people. The tests we had were applied without fear or favor to potential recruits. In addition, during interviews, we would apply our own assessment of someone’s capabilities and advise them about the jobs they would be best suited to, some would want to do things that they weren't capable of given the evidence we had, some would be surprised at the range of jobs available because the evidence we had indicated that they were more capable than they thought they were.
There was no point in applying for the Guards if you turned up looking scruffy; there was not point in applying for REME or the RE if you weren't bright enough. However, if you were bright enough and you chose both, then your physical appearance mattered because the nature of the work varied enormously. Royal Engineers were and are more physical. There is little point in being 6''7" and applying to drive a tank, you would have difficulty getting in the things.

From day one, we would tell potential recruits to "smarten themselves up" (incidentally, mothers used to be pleased as punch to have their sons told, in no uncertain terms to get various bits of jewelry as piercing, out of their bodies).

In the case of the military, this may be seen as an extreme example of appearance mattering. But it does and very much so, for the reasons you describe".

Christie Mason shared her views

"I think that I do have a prejudice about hiring people. I prefer to NOT hire extremely attractive people. Attractive is good; just not extremely attractive.

Perhaps it's because I've never been extremely attractive. It probably bothered me in high school, but I don't remember it bothering me since then.

I'm just basically grateful to not have that burden. Think about what it's like to be extremely attractive. People focusing on your physical aspects and not hearing/seeing you. Focusing your resources on maintaining your physical gifts and realizing there's always going to be someone younger or more attractive no matter what you do. It's like the difference between using your resources to buy a car that decreases in value every year v/s making an investment in a financial account that grows in value every year. I like to be around people that grow, instead of depreciating.

I suspect my prejudice comes from 25 years of professional experiences. Many times attractive people are drawn to functions that reward them for being attractive. Those aren't the type of functions that I usually need to fulfill. I need people that know how to manage themselves, have the maturity to be responsible and committed, and who focus on developing their expertise, not their appearance.

I've seen a lot of inappropriate situations develop from the presence of extremely attractive people. Those situations tend to not be the fault of the attractive person; their presence just seems to attract the wrong type of focus. That focus can result in strong temptations towards inappropriate connections or unethical processes.

I've also been thinking about how the interview process is a mutual selection process. If you were being interviewed and you felt your selection was dependant on your looks, would you really want to work there?
As I think about it, there's a shrinking pool of careers that require attractiveness. There are some successful movie actors that are downright ugly. Tony Robbins isn't exactly beautiful, but he is tall. TV may be the last bastion for attractive people to find jobs. Reality shows – attractive people, day & evening soap operas - attractive people. Ah, but that's not quite true. In Donald Trump's "Apprentice", "The Donald's" not attractive (except for that aura of power and money), George seems to be authentically old, Caroline's improving, but ALL the apprentices are slender & attractive. Just thought of another reality show, "Project Runway" had some attractive and some not so attractive people competing and I'm willing to bet the winner never thought of himself as one of the "beautiful people."

Think about CEOs, there is the occasional good looking person, but they're not the majority. It occurred to me that there are certain racial groups that have a predominance of attractive features, but I don't see those races overly represented in the Forbes 500. I suspect there's a level of achievement where your accomplishments provide the aura of attractiveness, not your physical features.

I'm wondering if there's a difference between being considered attractive v/s sexy. I'm remembering one study that took one side of someone's face, reversed it, and made a composite of both sides that resulted in a perfectly balanced face. They then included those images with unmanipulated faces and found that the balanced faces were consistently rated more attractive than the unbalanced faces. I also remember another survey that determined the perfect ratios of different facial features and found they were the same ratios found in the faces of babies, or was it 2 year olds? That study always bothered me because it indicated that being sexy meant having the face of child. Can't figure out where we got stuck on the idea that a child's face was sexy but if you think of the people rated "Sexiest ...." it seems to be true.

And one more thought. Be careful of these types of surveys, we don't know how many organizations were surveyed, if all functional areas were included, what industries, how the questions were worded, or if the survey process had a built-in bias. These surveys are fine for getting an article published or to support marketing but probably not valid enough for determining how to live your life".

Paddy Landau shared her experience

"My father, who used to own a large business, told me a story about his highly competent secretary. He had interviewed a number of people for the position, all of whom were young women, sexily dressed. Except one, who was older, conservatively dressed, and had excellent references. As he was finishing the interview with her, she said, "I suppose you won't hire me, though, because I'm too old."

He did hire her, and was always pleased with her performance.

Regarding the study of perfectly balanced faces: This derives from an evolutionary fact that it takes energy to create a well-balanced face. A well-balanced face is indicative of "better genes" (i.e. genes that would predispose the offspring to a higher chance of survival). Although this is no longer relevant in today's world, our instinctive reactions remain. Of course, we do have the ability, unlike other animals, to overcome our instincts".

Rosanna Tarsiero also commented

"Though I am not extremely attractive, I am attractive and "taken care of" (in terms of skin care, make-up and clothes) enough for it to be a problem in real life, which also is why I prefer online settings. Online, I can be myself without clients/colleagues/bosses to look at me as if I was purple and with three eyes, JUST because I said something intelligent and I "wasn't supposed to". As a woman I met on the net once told me after having read my works, and just after having seen my pictures: "I couldn't imagine you were beautiful". Lord knows why.

Even when your focus isn't on your beauty, THEIRS still is, and they still suppose yours to be as well. Or you have to give your make-up up, as well as your clothes, just because THEY have "the problem", in terms of stereotyping you (i.e.: cured=stupid).

I think it's also because in order to succeed you have to depend on yourself, not on people's judgments. So, if you look at beautiful persons that also are successful (like for example Charlize Teron or Denzel Washington), you'll find out they thought they were ugly. Therefore, they focused on something else, which in turn made them less dependant on what people's think of them".

It's not easy to be beautiful and not exactly because beauty doesn't last.

Acknowledgement

I like to say thanks to Rosanna Tarsiero, Paddy Landau, Christie Mason and Allen Woods for sharing their perspective, experience and point of view. I also like to thank the team of Virgin Management Consultancy for sharing the vital statistics and giving more weight to this article.
Looking forward to your views and comments

Regards
Sanjeev Himachali
(Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/)
(E-mail: ss_himachali@yahoo.com; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com)

Factors that affects the Selection Process

2007-01-02T13:03:00.000+04:00

Factors that affects the Selection Process

Introduction

Recently on some of the forums we discussed some of the factors that affect the Selection Process. People don't want to accept that factors like mode of your master's or specialized areas; the type of industry that you are working in; and the salary that you are drawing in your present job can affect your candidature and can tilt the balance against you. Instead they think that the companies are biased; industries are not giving equal opportunities to all and somewhere, knowingly or unknowingly they are making a desperate appeal that…"Give me a chance" or "Kindly experiment with me". Irony is that they are not willing to accept that they need to change their perception; that they need to do their "Homework" before looking out for a change.

The steps that we are going to discuss here are applicable in all functions and industries, across the globe. It is not possible to discuss all the available positions, in all the industries, across the world. So, for the purpose of this write-up, we will be concentrating on all the positions above the level of Assistant Managers (People with at least three years of work Experience) and will concentrate on HR related openings in India.

Crucial Factors in SELECTION PROCESS
Relevant Experience is important and not the total experience
Industry type (The extent to which your present industry is related to the industry of your prospective employer)
Relocation (Are you willing to relocate?)
Your education and mode of your education
Salary Budget

Rare and General Domains

Just to help the HR people and let them know the various domains where they can explore opportunities, I have classified all available jobs in two domains – General and Rare. Rare domain is the area, where companies need specialized people and the competition is less…as there are not many people who have expertise in these domains.

General Domain
HR Generalist (HR Operations)
Recruitments
Employee Relations
Training and Development
HRIS Specialist
Labor Law Experts or Industrial Relations Experts

Rare Domain
PCMM Consultants
Six Sigma Experts
Compensation and Benefits Specialist (In some companies they might need two different person…one each for Compensation and Benefits)
Organization Development
Salary Tax Specialist or Employee-Investment Planner/Expert
Human Behavior or Workplace Behavior Expert

You can also read the article at You can read the article at :

http://ezinearticles.com/?Factors-that-Affects-the-Selection-Process&id=400693

Let's discuss

Relocation

Whenever there is an open position in any company, they prefer to source the candidate from the local market. This is done for the simple reason that the person who is already settled at the place will not face any difficulty in joining the company. On the contrary, if the company is planning to source a person from different city, they might have to arrange for his accommodation; the person might face difficulties in adjusting with the environment and making adjustments etc. So, hiring a person from local market will surely save the time and money of the company. But, we are in Global Market and in the competitive market, where quality is a perquisite; it might not be possible to look for a prospective employee in the local market. Hence these days' companies are open to search for a relevant talent in an open Talent Market. However the order of preference is as follows:

1) Local Market (within the city or state of operation)
2) Regional Market (within 500 Kilometers of the area of operations)
3) National Market (within the nation)
4) International Market

Based on the above mentioned factors, a company in Bangalore will look for talent in following cities (In Order of Preference):

Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
Mumbai
Pune
Delhi-NCR

Not only the companies, even the candidates are not willing to relocate and they have different reasons. Some of the reasons are: Family, Infrastructure, and Future Growth Prospects. Most of the females show their unwillingness to relocate to another place or city because of their families. However, males consider the following options before relocating to the city of prospective employer:

Salary
Infrastructure of the City
Future Growth Prospects
Safety

Based on the above mentioned, in India, a person might show his willingness to move from Delhi to Bangalore or Mumbai but not from Delhi to Jaipur or Ludhiana or Dehradoon. I don't know why but most of the people have this mentality that they should get a job in their city of Birth; in a good company; at a good salary and with good salary. It is a well known fact that those who have moved out of their home town (Comfort Zone) have done really well in their career, profession and life. This world is full of such examples.

Relevant Experience

You think that you are master's in Human Resource Management and Development and can handle all the domains of HR with ease, right? No, it is not that way. Let me explain. Company XYZ is having an opening for HR – Manager (Generalist) and they are looking for someone with at least 5 years of experience in same. You have 6 years of experience. Three years in Training and Development, before your MBA and another three years in Recruitments, after the completion of your MBA. You are not even eligible for the open position of HR Manager (Generalist). That is the importance of relevant experience.

There is little doubt that you might not be able to handle the HR Operations but no one likes to take the risk or play gamble for such a senior position. It will be the wastage of time and money, both for you as well as the company. They like to play safe and will hire a person with relevant and desired experience.

You may argue that in such scenario you will get type-cast and will not be able to grow. Once a recruiter, you will always a recruiter. That is not the case. Expand your horizon. Diversify you experience, with in a company and then look out for desired profile. It will help.

You can also read the article at You can read the article at : http://ezinearticles.com/?Factors-that-Affects-the-Selection-Process&id=400693

Mode of Education

These days, the competition is so high that you will not be able to grow, if you are not Post Graduate or Master's. Recently we had one debate on the Importance of Your Mode or Education.

Many people are of the view that Candidates with Distance Mode of Education are not getting similar weightage as their counterparts with regular MBA.
People also argued that those who have done their MBA through regular mode of education are less experienced and knowledgeable then their counterparts with Distance Mode of Education. People with distance mode of education are feeling ignored and neglected and their argument is that they are not getting fair treatment from the employers.

So, first thing first, in this fast paced world and cut throat competition, no company like to take any chance or experiment with the talent. The order of preference that is followed in many companies at the type of screening is as follows:

1) Full Time MBA's from Good Institutes...with good CGPA and relevant experience.

2) Full Time MBA's from not so good institute but with good percentage and slightly more experience.

3) Correspondence MBA...from Good Institutes (Like Executive MBA's from top institutes)...with good experience.

4) Then comes...Correspondence MBA...from other institutes.

Secondly, here I am making an attempt to clarify as why regular MBA's get more weightage then those with distance mode of education? So, doing MBA is not about knowledge. It is about Grooming. It is about
Building Leadership Skills;
Strategizing the goals and vision
Building Entrepreneurship
Planning Business Models
Planning Strategies
Planning Profits
Risk Taking
Time Management
Handling Finances and other related things

Other factors that are in favor of regular MBA's are:
Entrance Exam
Cost and
Other little sacrifices

Most of the people, if they want to get an admission into a good Management Institute, need to face an entrance such as CAT; XAT; GRE; TOFEL etc. Such entrance exams are followed by Group Discussions, Presentations and personal interviews. That shows the competitiveness in those people. Not many institutes, offering MBA through Correspondence or Distance Mode of Education have such an exhaustive mode of selection.

Two Years, regular full-Time MBA Courses are much costlier than correspondence or Distance MBA.

Lastly, those people who do their MBA in a regular mode make more personal sacrifices than those with correspondence or Distance MBA.

I have made an attempt to explain why people with regular MBA get preference over those with correspondence or Distance MBA. Let me take an example from day-to-day life. When you like to eat out, where you like to go? Don't you get advices from your elders in the family to eat at a decent place and Hygienic place?? Will you take your food or lunch at a road-side shops or unclean restaurants?

It is not that all 5-star hotels cook good food, they also make errors but chances are less. It is not that all small hotels are unhygienic or cook unhealthy food but chances are more.

It is not that those small hotels or restaurants are not doing any business. They are earning well. There are chances that one day some good and rich person will come to one of those hotels and will eat there. He might like the food and might get so impressed to do business with that hotel guy. He and might sponsor him to change his shop to a nice place by financing him. Until then, he needs to wait.

Selection process of a "Human Capital" in this competitive era of Business Environment is very much similar to selecting a Greeting Card from the Gift Shop. You don't need to go and see all the cards. Do you? Go to the section where you can find your type of cards; Look at the cost or range; Then you consider as for whom you want to buy the card therefore look and appearance of the card is important; then comes the content of the card. The other cards…that you didn't even saw…don't feel neglected, because they know that if they are in the Gift Shop then one day someone will surely come and pick them

Same way, those with distance education or correspondence MBA... need to wait for the right time and right opportunity. They don't need to get frustrated or be impatience. Have patience. Wait for the right opportunity. Don't try to jump...immediately after the completion of your Correspondence MBA but continues with the same company...grow within. It will help.

Relevant Industry Experience (Moving from One Industry to another)

Recently we also had another debate on the necessity of having experience in relevant industry. People argued that as the work of HR Professional is more or less same, it doesn't matter from which industry he or she is coming from. I am of the opinion that the pace of the work, culture, type of people, expectations of the people and time of work (your office hours) differ from industry to industry. There is a huge difference in the Industries of Old Economy and Industries of New Economy and that difference very vast. It is like managing illiterate workforce and knowledgeable or intelligent workforce.

Yes, you are an expert in HR functions but that doesn't mean that you can work and adjust with any industry and adopt any culture with ease. It is like asking a normal car driver to drive a Formula-One Car. Just because you know driving doesn't mean that you can drive any vehicle. Does it?

It is not that people cannot move more one industry to another but the preference is given to the one with similar industry experience. Just like a cook who is cooking in a small restaurant, though he know cooking and can cook in a 5-Star hotel as well but if there is an opening in a 5-Star Hotel the preference will be given to the one with experience in a 5-Star Hotel.

Similarly, though a HR-person with a non-IT experience can handle HR activities in an IT company...but preference is given to the one with an experience in IT Company. The major issue or challenge that one face while moving from one industry to another is "Cultural Shock". So, you can move from one industry to another but first you have to compete with those people who are from the same industry and need to prove to the interview panel why they should take you, when they are getting people who are more likely to adept with the company or industry culture.

Salary Budget (Cost to the company)

Have you ever thought…have you ever wondered that at times when you appear for an interview, they reject you because of your present salary? Because if they will hire you that might disturb the Internal Equity of the company. Example: Suppose I want to hire a HR Manager, and my budget is 12-15 Lakhs. Don't you think that to get that package and to get into that range…your present salary package should be a minimum of 7-9 lakhs. If you are below that range and even if all other things are as per the requirement of the company they might not hire you. Your relocation and other factors will be taken care of.

As per the practices...all over the globe...in a normal case...companies offer 20-25% hike on your last salary. If you are extremely good and best of the best...you can expect 50-75% hike. Not many companies offer 100 or 200% hike (Until and unless you know some senior person in the company), because that disturbs the balance in the system...better known as internal equity. Argument: You may argue that the companies should feel happy that they are saving the money by hiring someone with low salary, but that is not the case. It will disturb the balance. It will affect the internal and external equity of the company. Tomorrow, you only will come and say that the other person…having similar experience (even lesser experience), from similar institute is getting more salary. If you fall in the category of rare domains or skill sets…then there are chances that the companies might offer you 100 or 150% hike but not otherwise.

Miscellaneous factors

If all the above mentioned things are positive and in your favor but still there are some miscellaneous factors that affect the selection process. These factors are your presentation skills, your leadership skills and your knowledge. In short, it all depends on your skills to "Sell Yourself". The following factors will be of great help to you to impress the interview panel:

If you come prepared;
If you have studied the business model of the company;
If you are aware of the growth pattern of the company;
If you know the competitors of the company;
And knowing all this…if you are able to tell them that how you can help the company in achieving its goals.

If you have done your home-work, I am sure…they will give you the salary that you will ask for…without even asking your present salary. As I have mentioned earlier...you should be able the impress the interview panel in such a manner that if you have applied for the post of HR-Manager...the panel should be convinced that you are worth for the post of VP-HR. In such scenario...the company and employers won't mind to offer you a salary...more than 100% of your present CTC. You need to prove your potential...your worth. If you are just an average candidate and the company is in need...they will just give you 20-25% hike.
There is an old saying...which says, "Deserve, before you ask for".

You can also read the article at You can read the article at : http://ezinearticles.com/?Factors-that-Affects-the-Selection-Process&id=400693

Conclusion

This article is an attempt to figure out the factors that affect the selection process. This is to give a bigger picture to the readers. Exceptions are everywhere but most of the time, the above mentioned are the factors that plays an important role in rejecting or selecting a person.

Looking forward to your views and comments

Regards
Sanjeev Sharma
(Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ )
(E-mail: ss_himachali@yahoo.com ; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com)

New Year 2007 - Hopes, Dreams, Learning and Human Relations

2006-12-29T13:39:00.000+04:00

New Year 2007 - Hopes, Dreams, Learning and Human Relations

Every Day is a New Day.
Every Experience is a New Experience.
Every Game is a New Game.

Friends, we are on the verge of saying "Good Bye" to the year 2006 and ready to embrace the New Year…Year 2007.

I am sure that in the year passing by…you all have learned a lot and achieved a lot. There must be few celebrations; few rewards and awards too.
We all know that not all days are same. You too might had a mix of feelings and emotions in your life, in the year 2006…hurt, pain, celebrations, joy, feel of pride and achievements, many smiles and pampering too.

We all know that life is a best tutor, it teaches you…lot many lessons and continue to teach you, till the time you become expert. Here, I like to share few incidents, thoughts and experiences; you can choose some of these as your resolution for the year 2007, if you wish to.

1) Continue to Learn: Are you expert? Do you know about everything in this world? Leave alone world… do you know about everything in your country, in your profession, in your family?? I know that I am not an expert. There is so much to learn; so much to know; so much to gain; so much to experience.

What I know is just negligible. The world is changing. Every day there is new technology. Every moment comes up with new and unexpected experience.
Situations are changing. Culture is changing. Circumstances are changing. If I don't learn; If I don't adjust; If I fail to match with the pace of life…I will be left behind and I will become like Dinosaurs (Existing Only in History). So Friends, Keep on Learning. No age, No Experience, No Designation or post is big enough for you to stop learning.

2) Are you God?: Recently, we had some debate and argument and someone asked me, "Do you think, you are God?" Let's not venture into an unknown area. We all know that in present world Human Beings and not even Humane. Humanity exists only in books. We all make mistakes, in fact, at times I make blunders. So, accept it. Say, "Sorry". By saying, "Sorry", you will not become small; your status will not fall. But, what to do, we all are ruled by our ego and false pride. Let's change our approach, change our thinking and learn from our mistakes and the first step towards that is "Accepting our Fault and accepting our Mistakes".

You can also read my thoughts at: http://ezinearticles.com/?New-Year-2007---Hopes,-Dreams---Learning-and-Human-Relations&id=392955

3) Lets Appreciate: Its not that only I can do good things and it is not that only I can be successful in life. I have studied from Good School; Have great family Background; have graduated from best institute in the world; working in a great company…what does it suggest? Does this suggest that whatever I will do, will be correct; whatever I will achieve will be a landmark, certainly not. Let's not get into that type of mindset. Let's not have that type of attitude. People from not so good families; those who have not studied from good institutes and are not working in good companies are also doing well in their life and career. At times, even subordinates can perform better than their bosses; youngsters can achieve what their elder never even though. Let's start appreciating all the good work, done by people, irrespective of our relation with them, their caste, gender and location. Let's not be bias; let's not practice hypocrisy and let's not have double standards.

4) Power of Dream: Be positive in life and always hopeful. See dreams. See big dreams (But certainly within your reach).

Always remember that if you don't love yourself unconditionally...nobody will. If you have lost the hope in your life...you attend N number of motivation seminars...it just won't help. There is a great power in dreams.
The world that we are seeing around ourselves has not been built in a day.
In fact, at one point of time it was a dream. Some people worked on those dreams and gave this wonderful and amazing world to us.

Though, having a dream is a first step…but just seeing a dream is not enough. We need to work hard to make that dream – a reality. So, continue to work hard, harder, and hardest and never ever give-up hope. If you fail…its
OK, continue and try again. Raat Kitni hi lambi kyon na ho…subah jaroor hoti hai . (Just because you are in the middle of the tunnel, doesn't mean that there is all darkness. If you look properly, you will surely be able to see…light at the end of the tunnel).

So, friends…have dreams, be positive and more importantly, be hopeful.

5) Learning from Past: Life is a journey. You cannot continue to live in the glory of past. At the same time you cannot sit and continue to brood over your past failure. Can you change your past? I certainly, cannot. So, today you celebrate your success and move on; learn from your past and carry on.
Work on your present and that will certainly lead to bright and successful future. Keep your happy memories for the old age. Let others remember you…once you bid adieu to this world.

6) How big are you? : You are very elder in age; you have lots of experience; you are occupying a senior position in your organization…does that mean that you are always correct; does that mean that you cannot make mistakes?

How many times you have seen an elder person accepting his fault and mistake and saying sorry to the younger person?

Have you ever heard your parents saying "sorry" to you when they did silly mistakes while helping you in your homework?

In my 30 years of age and 7 years of work experience, I have never heard or seen any of the above mentioned things.

Usually, they feel that they are too big; too experienced; too senior to say sorry and accept their mistakes and failure. Probably, at that age and at that level they find it too difficult to admit that "No, I don't know".

Probably, they too are ruled by their ego. No, don't get me wrong. I am not expecting my elders and seniors to say sorry but we can change this perception with our youngsters. Can we? Let's continue to learn from everybody and anybody, irrespective of age, position, relation etc.

7) Power of Human Relations:
We are human beings and hence emotional.
We feel hurt, when we fail;
We feel the pain, when we get rejected;
We feel like celebrating, when we achieve something;
We feel like laughing, when we are happy;

These emotions are there irrespective of geographical boundaries, age and experience. We need comfort, when we are sad, rejected; when we are in pain and such comfort we can draw from our family and relations, our parents, siblings, spouse and friends. But irony is that in present environment we are moving away from these relations; we are just not able to spare time for those people who are very important to us. So, lets in this New Year…we make an attempt in moving closer to those people who have loved us…so much. Let's strengthen these basic relations.

Whatever I have mentioned above, is not theory. It is not a Philosophy. It is not something that we cannot practice, provided, if we want to learn and grow.

You can also read my thoughts at: http://ezinearticles.com/?New-Year-2007---Hopes,-Dreams---Learning-and-Human-Relations&id=392955

I hope that the coming year too will bring in its fold...lots of happiness, prosperity, success and love for you, your family, your friends and all those who are associated with you. Let there be:

Many Occasions to Celebrate
Many reasons to smile
Many moments of happiness
Many experiences of satisfaction, achievement and pride
Lots of loves from people around you, close to you and "special" to you.

Keep learning. Keep growing. Keep scaling new heights in your life and career.

Have a great day and take very good care of yourself.

Stay in touch.

Regards

Sanjeev Sharma

Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com
E-mail: ss_himachali@yahoo.com; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com

Kindly Write Few Lines of Appreciation...Thanks

2006-12-29T13:16:00.000+04:00

Kindly Write Few Lines of Appreciation

Introduction

Appreciation, awards, recognition, respects and love, everybody needs these things in life. They are the heart, soul and life of Human Beings. Is there anybody among the readers, who can say with confidence that these things are materialistic and they can survive and live without these things? We need appreciation, we need respect and we have seen that some, in fact, many people can go to any extent to get noticed; to get appreciated and get respected. Hosting parties and functions is one such common and mostly used tactic to show-off to people, get noticed and appreciated.

Ladies are known to use all the possible ways, tricks and tantrums to get noticed, particularly then when they buy new dresses and jewelry, to make sure that they get noticed and appreciated. There are many stories revolving around various villages which show such desperation among females and one such story talks about a lady who put her house on fire to show her diamond ring to people.

You can read the complete article at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Kindly-Write-Few-Lines-of-Appreciation& id=397542

It is not that males don’t need attention and they don’t do such tantrums or dramas. When they buy new bike, new car, new house, even new shirt…they make sure that people notice them and appreciate them.

Same is true for respect. Most of the time and at most of the places, it is forced respect. Armed forces and companies of Old Economy are examples of such “Forced Respects”. Thanks to our urge to copy the western culture and New Economy Companies that now people can address their seniors by their first name.

I am not writing this write-up to discuss as what people do in their personal life, if their behavior is good and acceptable or not. Neither, I am trying to compare males and females, who seek more attention. I am very much focused and will be discussing about such things at workplaces and the role of HR.

Importance of Appreciation and Respect

Appreciation is related to motivation. We all know that few words of appreciation can go a long way to motivate a person. Similarly, respect is associated with self-pride, more knowledge and experience in company, family and team. But, is it necessary to ask people to appreciate you and respect you? Do you think that the respect or appreciation that you will be getting by asking for it will be true and genuine? Why not earn your respect, deserve appreciation and face the truth? Let your work; let your personality and not your position earn the respect for you. That reminds me one of the dialogues from one of famous Hindi Movie, (Kabhi Khushi, Kabhi Gam), “Paisa to har koi kama leta hai; izzat kamana har kissi ke bas ki baat nahi” (Anybody can earn money but earning respect is that much difficult).

I have seen people at work-places, blunt and straight forward enough to ask for appreciation. They ask their clients, colleagues and subordinates to write appreciatory mails to their bosses and seniors. Other, who are a bit intelligent and shy, they keep on reminding you about the good things that they have done; about their achievements; about the manner in which they have helped you, till the time you acknowledge it and appreciate it.

Respect

Respect can be classified into two – Respect for the position and for the person. I can have high respect for someone who is younger to me and have achieved a lot and is successful in his life; a person with high integrity and credibility. I might not respect a very senior or elder person for his arrogance, ignorance and ego.

Suppose, there is a person who is a CEO of the company and he has been positioned on that post just for the fact that his father owes the company. He don’t know much about the business, have no leadership skills, unlike is father, he is not a visionary; I don’t think that his “employees” will be able to give him the actual respect. They might be respecting the position but not the person.

Ours is a society, wherein we have been taught to respect the elders for their experience and age.
Doesn’t matter if their experience is worth to learn from or they have just piled up the years of experience. Doesn’t matter if their knowledge is still relevant or has become obsolete.
Doesn’t matter if they have ego and arrogance and they have stopped learning…way back.

In armed forces, an experienced solider, who have 30 years of experience and have faced two wars is expected to respect and obey his senior but young officer who is fighting the first war and is not even aware of border areas. Respect, should come from the bottom of your heart and should not be just a gesture or a word in the mouth.

Appreciation

In Bhagwat Gita (One of the most sublime of world scriptures), it says, “Karam Kiye Ja Phal ki eecha mat kar aie insaan; jeeisa karam karega weisa phal deega Bhagwaan” (Work is worship. Do your work sincerely and don’t bother about the rewards). We all know that proper appreciation motivates a person but choice of appreciation is also important. Let me explain. During the year, you have been assigned 12 assignments and you did extremely well in each of the assignment. You exceeded the expectations and in the process, also benchmarked your own performance. You set the example for others to emulate.

Your boss appreciated you, after the completion of each assignment by sending you appreciatory mails, marking copies to all the team members. He also announced some ad hoc bonus for you.

Or, you want to get loads of appreciation at the time of appraisal for your perseverance, along with exponentially high increment, with promotion; best employee award (mentioning about your importance and achievements in front of all the employees) with a holiday package. Which one of these will keep you motivated for a long duration?

In appreciation, for it to have longevity and effectiveness, time of appreciation; manner of appreciation; platform of appreciation and the person who is appreciating you are equally important.

You have done a great job; you are happy about your work; you are feeling satisfied…its good but might be your work is not “exceptional” to get any appreciation; might be it is not as per the set guidelines; might be you took lots of time or your boss need to give you many inputs to help you…in such scenarios you won’t get any appreciation.

You have achieved something big; you are on seven sky; you are delighted; you want to share your achievements with others…its OK. Go ahead. But can you ask people to accept your achievement and appreciate you for that. I don’t think so. For example, I appeared on TV, covered by some channel for some good things that I did in my life or career. I am thrilled. In the interview, I was sitting next to Karan Thaper. So, what? I should not expect others to appreciate my achievements or recognition. I should not “ask” them to acknowledge and appreciate me. Should I?

Role of HR

HR people are expected to be generous with their appreciation, while appreciating others work, particularly the youngsters and fresher. In the case of fresher and employees of other departments, the chain should be like… Acknowledge every effort
Appreciate the result or completion of the task
Celebrate the exceptional achievement

In case of HR Professionals and other seniors the chain should be like…
Acknowledge the result or completion of the task.
Appreciate the exceptional achievement
and celebrate, when such exceptional performances are repeated again and again over a period of time.

Regarding respect, in companies and corporate…it is advisable to go by the culture and value system of the company but in civil life you can choose as whom you like to respect to whom you don’t want to respect.

You can read the complete article at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Kindly-Write-Few-Lines-of-Appreciation& id=397542

Conclusion

Asking for appreciation or forced respect reduces your status. You become like a beggar on the bank of Ganga at Sangam in Uttar Pradesh, who beg for money, if you don’t give, he start following you and irritate you and if you still don’t give, and then they pronounce some ill-wish for you. So, deserve your appreciation and earn your respect. These are some of the thoughts and views that I thought of sharing with you. You may agree or disagree.

Choice is still yours whether you like to ask or earn.

Looking forward to your comments and feedback

Regards
Sanjeev Sharma
(Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/)
(E-mail: sanjeev.himachali gmail.com ; ss_himachali yahoo.com )

The Art of Taking Interviews: Benchmarking Interviews

2006-12-18T14:53:00.000+04:00

The Art of Taking Interviews: Benchmarking Interviews

Introduction: Very often we see interviewee’s scratching their heads to find a way, as how they can crack an interview.

Get tensedTake Coaching's Speak to elders and experienced people Take advices Read Books, Magazines...wherever they find some information as how to crack an interview

They just don't want to leave any stone unturned in their preparation for the interview. But, have you ever seen an interviewer to prepare for an interview? Many times, I have seen, many of the interviewer's don't even care to scan through the profiles/resumes of the candidates, before sitting "Across the Interview Table". Probably, they think that take interview is not a big-deal. Many interviewers just ask the questions as it comes to their mind, without even knowing the purpose of those questions. What do you think how many interviews you can take in one day? If properly conducted, even if you are recruiter and hiring people for entry level positions…you can take more than 35 interviews in a working day of 10 hours. If you are taking more than 35 interviews…then I am sorry, you are not taking interviews but just making a fool of yourself and misrepresenting your organization.

Taking interview is an art and not everybody can take interviews. In this write-up we will try to explore this art for the benefit of readers.

You can read the complete article at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Art-of-Taking-Interviews:-Benchmarking-

Let's make a beginning

What do you understand by interview? An interview is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked to obtain information about the interviewee. Interviews can be divided into two rough types, interviews of assessment and interviews for information. So, do you think that you can take an interview of a person having more than 10 years of experience? I don't think so. If a person is having more than 10 years of functional experience than you are just belittling his image, expertise and stature by taking his interview. At that level, it can only be discussion or interaction for mutual growth and benefit.

I have seen in some of the companies Fresher (People with less than 2 years of experience) taking an interview of a person for the position of HR-Manager (with experience of 6+ Years). What is your Locus Standi…is very important. Here I like to share one incident/case. ( Case Study: A Great Company plus a Great Recruitment Consultancy Firm...And A Great Goof-up; Link: http://ezinearticles.com/?Case-Study:-A-Great-Company-Plus-A-Great-Recruitment-Consultancy-Firm...And-A-Great-Goof&id=291674) As I have said earlier in my write-up "Employee Retention Process and Your Marriage" (Link: http://ezinearticles.com/?Employee-Retention-Process-and-Your-Marriage&id=368554) that recruitment is a first step towards the retention of an employee. You are marketing your company.

First Step: Before Starting the Interview

Prepare for the interview: Take some time to go through the profile of the candidate. Try to understand his role and also prepare a list of questions that you like to ask. Schedule your time. Don't give same time to more than one person. Start the interview on time. If you think that you will not be able to start the interview on specified time then inform the candidate. Even if you have informed the candidate about the expected delay…apologize before you start the interview.

Environment for the Interview

Don't take interview at a place, which is either too noisy or too congested. If possible, put a tag "Do not disturb "outside your cabin or room. Ensure that the lights are proper and the person sitting there is comfortable. Record the proceedings of the interview. If you have voice recorder, that will be excellent but if you don't have…then write in down.

Begin the Interview

The candidate might think…Who are you to take my interview?

Introduce yourself. Your NameYour DesignationYour Total Experience A brief about your role in the organizationSince how long you have been associated with your present organization.

Introduce the company that you are representing. How big is the company? What are the various interests and businesses of the company? How it has grown in last 3-5 years? What was profit after tax…in the last financial year? What are the future growth plans of the organization?

Discuss about the profile/job opening for which you are interviewing the person sitting opposite to you. Specify the qualities and knowledge level that you are looking for. Also, care to inform him…why his resume has been short listed. What will be the Recruitment Process that you are going to follow? Lastly, approximately how many days will it take to close the position?

Discuss about the career growth of the position for which you are taking the interview. What are the growth prospects? Don't make false commitments.
Now, smartly put the ball in his court by asking him to give a brief about his family, followed by his education.
Start asking the questions about his present job and then move to the previous assignment or job.

Concentrate on following things:

1) His role
2) His span of control
3) Organizational Hierarchy
4) Major achievements in that particular job/ role.
5) Major Challenges that he has faced in his present job; in his career; in his life
6) Why he want to change his job and why he has changed his jobs in past?

Appreciate him, when he discusses about his achievements. Make him comfortable and provoke him to speak as much as he can.
Ask him about his strengths and his personal achievements.
Don't forget to ask him about his goals, aspirations…where he sees himself in next 5-6 years. What is his purpose in life? What are his dreams?

Closing the interview

Tell the candidate that it was a pleasure to talk to him and you are through with the interview, however, if he have any question; if he want ask or know anything…he can do that.
Tell him that someone from your team will get in touch with him for future course of action.

You can read the complete article at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Art-of-Taking-Interviews:-Benchmarking-

Conclusion

During the interview…don't frown at him. Carry a smiling face. In that interview cabin…you are trying to sell the vision of your company; the policies and procedures. Once the candidate is out from the interview cabin, he will be doing an advertisement for your company…Good or bad…choice is yours.

Taking an interview as an Art; if you are expert, you can literally take anybody's interview. For me the purpose or outcome of the interview should be, "Doesn't matter whether I select the candidate or not; doesn't matter if he joins me or not; but we should be able to stay in touch with each other". That should be the impact he should have; that should be the impression that he should carry with him; that should be the pleasure he should be able to draw from that interaction.

Remember, while taking interviews...you are actually an unofficial ambassador of your company; you are representing your company; you are creating an image for your company and you are building a brand for your company. Doesn't matter whether you select that person or not...unknowingly you are doing an advertisement for your company.

If you are able to represent your company is a proper and professional manner he might join your company...if not now....might be in future. He might recommend you in his company or in his contacts but if handled in an unprofessional manner...he will not join your company and will tell others in his circle to not to join your company.

I am sure, you will like this write-up. Do share your views.
Keep Smiling. Keep Learning and Keep Growing.

Regards

Sanjeev Sharma
(E-mail: http://mail.google.com/mail/h/dkoc92a4xw36/?v=b&cs=wh&to=ss_himachali@yahoo.com; http://mail.google.com/mail/h/dkoc92a4xw36/?v=b&cs=wh&to=sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com)
(Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/)

Self-Motivation : You Are The BEST...You Are Unique...You Are Different

2006-12-03T14:09:00.000+04:00

Self-Motivation : You Are The BEST...You Are Unique...You Are Different

All days are not same...some days are good and some are bad;
All people are not same...some appreciate and some criticize;
All relatives are not same...some love us and some hate us;
We give our best to all assignments...to all projects...to every thing that we do...to every moment of our life...to every minute of a day but the results are not same...sometimes we succeed and some time we fail.

There are also days of frustration and disappointments.
There are also people who harm us, hurt us and criticize us.
There are also people who accept us and others reject us.

Sometime the disappointment, frustration, fear, thought of failure and pain of rejection is too deep and it hurt our self-esteem and self-confidence. We feel useless, worthless and dejected. Just during such days and such moments look into the mirror and tell your self, "I am the BEST". Why only during such times, everyday...once in a day you should tell yourself, "I am the best".

Doesn't matter what the situations are;
Doesn't matter what type of people are around you;
Doesn't matter which phase of life...you are going through;
You are THE BEST. You are Special. You are Unique. You are Different. You are Lovable.

Take positives from everything. Learn from your experience. Love yourself and love people around you. Respect yourself...for what you are and as you are.

Today might not be your day, but be hopeful, continue to dream...tomorrow will certainly be yours.
Agreed that today is a bit dark, look the other side...some light is coming.

Be positive. Be thoughtful. Continue Your Learning. Love yourself.

Don't let anything hurt you;
Don't let people take away your self-esteem and self-pride;

Have a great day and fantastic week ahead.

Take very good care of yourself...because you are the BEST...you are Special..you are Unique...you are Different...You are Lovable.
With lots of love and care
Sanjeev Sharma
(Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/)

Employee Retention Process and Your Marriage...

2006-11-25T13:39:00.000+04:00

Employee Retention Process and Your Marriage...

For me, weekend is a time to think and be creative. So, this weekend, I got the idea of linking "Employee Retention Process" with "Successful Marriage". First I thought that people will laugh and may give nasty comments, but I don't think that there is any harm in sharing the idea.

Let me ask two questions to you:

1) It is whose responsibility to retain "good employees" and work on "Retention Process"? The Department Head, the HR Department or the Management?

2) When the retention process actually starts?

Do you know, "Retention Process" is related to "Successful Marriage"? The relation of "Employer-Employee" is like a marriage.

Sourcing and Selecting the Candidate - Wooing the Girl

Retention doesn't start from the day person join your organization. Retention starts from the "Interview Process".

1. The way you carry the interview

2. The practices and processes you use to interview candidates

3. The selection tools that you use

4. The communication process that you adept to interact with the candidate

5. The steps involved in the selection process

6. Number of hours you made this person to wait

7. Time you take to issue the offer letter

8. Hassles and problems you create to give the offer and appointment letter

9. The credibility of the information that you have provided to this person at the time of interview about the company and about the job.
10. You need to convince the person as what your company is having that others are not having? What is your competitive edge? What type of future or growth that person will get if he decides to join your company?

Each of these factors decides the time this person will stay with your organization. So, you need to adopt the same process and practices as you do to woo a girl. Be prepared. Be your best. Present a good but true picture of the company. Share the growth prospects and growth plans. Always be on time, maintain your commitment, start the interview on time, don't let the candidate wait and if you are late and say sorry. Let there be less hassles.

You need to convince your partner, how you are different from other boys or girls? What type of future that person will get if he/she decides to marry you.

You can read the complete article at

1. The way you welcome your new employee.

2. The way his team members treat him.

3. The information your provide to him.

4. Which senior managers interact with him?

5. Setting the clear expectations.

6. Criteria to measure the performance.
7. In brief, job description, KRA's; Performance Criteria; Performance Management System; Performance Evaluation; Reward System; Career Planning8. In total, the comfort level that you extent to this person.

Just like your engagement, where it is important to decide as what is expected from each other. 1. If both of them will work or not

2. If both are working then how they will share the household responsibilities...who will take care of cooking, cleaning, washing; who will take care of kids, their homework, their school commitments, who will keep the track of their growth in school; who will take care of grocery and other day-to-day expenses; who will take decisions related to other investments, house, car, holidays etc etc etc

3. What is expected and what are the things to be avoided?

4. If both are working...then they should not have any other commitment for the weekend.

5. If they will be staying in a joint family or separately (I think, usually these are things we share.)

You can read the complete article at

Though it is very late, you was not able to give enough growth to the person; you was not able to give a balanced work-life; your reward system is not good enough to keep him motivated. On the other side, you was not able to give enough time, love, care and space to your partner; you failed to understand and adjust with your partner; there was breach of trust. Still, you can make efforts...make attempts to RETAIN YOUR EMPLOYEE and SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE.

At least learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat such mistakes in future.

HR Department - Your in-laws

1. HR Department can give you infrastructure, facilities to ensure that you give you best.

2. They can make employee friendly policies, processes and procedures to ensure that you grow in the organization...as a person, as a professional.

3. They can appreciate your work.

4. They can ensure proper communication process; make sure that you are heard.

5. They can give regular feedback, appreciation and recognition.

6. They can give training to your boss; give coaching to your boss, if his management style is not good.

Just like your in-laws, who take care of your house, your kids, when you go out to work? They help you, in preparing the dinner. They ensure that you get respect and care in the family. They ensure that you are heard for your ideas and opinion. Get appreciation for your work.

Conclusion

Just look at the employer-employee relation in this perspective. Your boss is your spouse. Your Team Members are your in-laws. Other Colleagues in the organization are your relatives. Doesn't matter what others talk about you...it is important what your boss...your spouse think and talk about you. Before making cordial relation with your relatives...it is important to have positive relations with your team-members. As you know people don't leave organizations...they leave bosses. Similarly, if marriage is not working...people go for divorce because their partners are not good. No one go for divorce because of the reason that their in-laws are not good...or their relatives don't like them. Think about it and share your comments and feedback.

You can read the complete article at : http://ezinearticles.com/?Employee-Retention-Process-and-Your-Marriage&id=368554

Stay in touch and take care of yourself.

Regards

Sanjeev Sharma

(Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ )

(Email: ss_himachali@yahoo.com ; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com

Performance Appraisal for HR Professionals

2006-11-17T10:45:00.000+04:00

Performance Appraisal for HR Professionals

Introduction and Purpose

Today, on 12th Nov. 2006 as I am sitting in my study-room, a thought just passed through my mind. The thought was that what will happen:

If the HR Team is evaluated by the employees of the company (Read: Appraised by those who are directly getting affected by their work?)?
If the employees are asked to decide the "percentage increment" and "promotions" for HR Staff?
If at the time of appraisal, employees are asked to decide as which HR person is professional and competent enough stay with the company and who need to be shown the exit-door? Or should be sent for training?

By doing so,
Will there be any change in the quality of work of HR Person?
Will there be any change is the attitude and behaviour of HR Person?
Will they be able to concentrate on actual work rather than bullying around?

In my opinion, I think it will help in changing not only the quality of work, attitude and behaviour but also the way in which most of the HR people work. Through out my career I have advocated that my appraisal has to be done by the employees …those who are directly affected by my performance (or non-performance) rather then going for Self-Appraisal or a Appraisal done by my boss (my superior).

You can read the complete article at
http://ezinearticles.com/?Performance-Appraisal-for-HR-Professionals&id\u003d356871

Need for such system

Marketing department is appraised by revenue generated by them (Number of Unit Sold)
Production department is evaluated by number of units produced and the quality of each unit (Number of units returned)
Efficiency of a Customer Service Department can by known by the number of customers retained by them and number of customers lost.
IT professionals are judged by the number of projects handled by them, time they have taken to complete each module and of course the quality (which, is judged by clients)
The efficiency of a lawyer is known by the number of cases won by him.
The market value of a Movie Actor can be evaluated by number of hits or flops of his movies and revenue generated by each of his movie.
Players of any game are judged by number of matches won by them. (In India, success rate in the fiekd also decides the endorsement assignments for these players)
The efficiency of a teacher can be known by the number of students passed or failed in his or her subject.

Even politicians (whether they like or not) at least once in five years (in India) they are appraised by public and need to get elected by public votes.

So, how HR Department, which is a "Service Center" for "internal customer" (read as employees) can run away with just Self-Appraisal or one-to-one appraisal done by their bosses (or superiors)?

Readers may think that such practice of "appraisal by employees" is impossible or is difficult to administer. For some it might look funny. But, it is possible and not "so difficult" to handle.

Proposed Process and Step-by-step Path

To start with we can divide companies into following categories

1) Small Companies (with less than 500 employees)
2) Mid-Size Companies (more than 500 employees but less than 2000 employees)
3) Large size Companies (more than 2000 employees but less than 10,000 employees)
4) Mega-large Companies (more than 10,000 employees)

It is understood that all mid-size, large-size and mega-large companies are also multi-national, multi-location and multi-central organizations and each center or location they don't have more than 500-700 employees. Ideally speaking each center is managed by one HR-Manager (Call by any name, HR-Head or General Manager or just Manager) along with a team of 5-7 HR personnel taking care of various functions of HR (HR-Operations, Employee Relations, Recruitment, Training and Development etc etc).

Step-1 : Prepare an Appraisal form (or format or questionnaire) based on the role of the HR person handling particular function…listing the grades, evaluation criteria etc. It should clearly specify that people with so and so rating will get this much of increment and people above X rating will be considered for promotion.
Step-2:

Take a random sample based on the size of the employee strength at that particular center. Ideally speaking there should be one representative for a group of 10 employees.
Step-3: Collect the filled appraisal forms. Tabulate the data and analyze the same by using simple statistical tools.

So, here you are, with the end result and this will decide as who will stay in the company and who will move out. Who need training? Who will get increment and promotions?

You can read the complete article at http://ezinearticles.com/?Performance-Appraisal-for-HR-Professionals&id=356871

Involving more people in Appraisal Process

Not only employees but your team-members should also appraise you, because your performance (or non-performance) also affects the productivity of these functions. For example; the work done by HR-Operations team directly affects the work of Employee Relations Team; in a similar manner the data supplied by recruitment team affects the speed and efficiency of HR-Operations Team.

We can give different weightage for different "evaluation center" and it should we such that it should not dilute the actual purpose.

I propose that the weightage should be as follows:
1) Employees or Clients – 45%
2) Team Member or internal Customers – 25%
3) Self-Appraisal – 10%
4) Appraisal by boss – 20%

Explanation: If total marks are 10, employees can give you marks out-of 4.5; your team members can assign of marks out-of 2.5 and your boss…out of 2.

Evaluation Criteria (Just an Example)
Like our schools and colleges lets keep 35% as passing marks.
So, anybody who is getting less than 3.5 on a scale of 1-10 need to be shown the "Exit Door".
Person whose score is between 3.6-5.5, need a lot of improvement in his work and hence need to given "Functional Training" and cannot be considered for Increment or promotion.
Anybody who scores between 5.6 – 8.0 can be given increment from 1% - 50% of their salary.
Only those whose score is more than 8 should be considered for promotions.

Conclusion

Such system can bring transparency in the system.
It will remove the "favoritism" or "buttering" practice from the system.
It will increase the "team-spirit" and "team cohesiveness".
It will increase the "need to learn" and update themselves.
It will also increase the quality of work.
And last but not least, it will take out (change the psychology of) some HR people from the position, where they consider themselves as GOD and think that they can "make or break" the career (or in large sense, the life) of anybody.

I know that many HR personnel don't like to have such system. That is the reason why processes like "Balance Score Card" or "360-Degree Appraisal System" has not been implemented by most of the HR-Departments and are just used for study purpose. I understand that majority of HR-Personnel's are not even aware of various HR-Metrics, which are applicable on HR department.

These are my views and it will be nice to have your comments and feedback on the same. What do you think?

Awaiting your comments and feedback

Regards

Sanjeev Sharma
(E-mail: ss_himachali@yahoo.com ; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com)
(Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com./ )

Why You Joined HR Profession ???

2006-11-17T10:24:00.000+04:00

Profession of Human Resource Management and Development – Who Should Join and Who Should Not

Profession of Human Resource Management and Development (HRM & D), call it by any name - HR Operations, HR-Generalist, Recruitment, Talent Management, Training and Development, Employee Relations, Industrial Relations, Organization Development, Performance Management or Compensation and Benefits...they all come under the umberala of HRM & D. So, let me start with one question for HR Professionals across the globe, why you joined HR Profession? Was it your first choice or you joined because you didn't had any other choice? I like to ask the HR aspirants, why they want to join this profession? What do they think is the skill required to enter into this profession and excel in this profession? Is it that anybody or everybody can join this profession and there are some qualities that one must posses before even thinking of joining this profession? Recently we had discussion that many people hate HR, so what you have in you…as a professional that people should love you and this profession.

These and many more similar questions just stormed into my mind and I thought of discussing these questions with you. Let's start with a set of skills which, I think a HR Professional should posses, first do be in this profession and secondly to excel in this profession
.
Why should you join HR Profession? Who should join?

One should join HR profession, if they have any of the following qualities:

1) You are very good in legal aspects particularly Labour Laws. You have thorough knowledge about various provisions of Labour Laws, Various forms associated with those laws and implications.

2) You are excellent in Database Management and can Generate N number of reports in just fraction of seconds.

3) You are very good with Number- statistical tools, Mathematical Formulae, Income Tax Provisions (particularly those related to Salary), Costing (Cost Analysis).

4) You have a sharp eye for recognizing the talent, talent identification, talent management and talent development. (Just like Bhuvan did in movie Lagan - Oscar Nominated Movie)

You can read the complete article at http://ezinearticles.com/?Profession-of-Human-Resource-Management-and-Development---Who-Should-Join-and-Who-Should-Not&id=358805

5) You are great negotiator and can negotiate a best deal with management and employees (Read it as Trade Unions)

6) You are an excellent motivator and can motivate any person to get best out of him. You have a talent to motivate and inspire a non-performer in such a way that over a period of time that person gets counted in the high-performers of your organization and starts getting rewards for his performance.

7) You are a great strategist. You can think like "Chankaya"; you are clever "Birbal" (Both are characters from Indian History) and an Cajole people like Lord Krishna (A mythological Character)
8) You are much matured. You don't think from your heart but you are empathetic. You are not emotional but can understand the way people think. You can solve any work related or professional problem of any of your employee, without getting carried away.

9) You are great in crisis management. If there is any incident or accident in the organization; if there is any rumour in the organization or any crisis…you can ensure that a minimum possible damage is caused…keeping in mind the interests of the organization and its people.

10) You have deep knowledge about various industries. You are like a knowledge hub. You know all about who's who in the field; business models; success stories (case studies) and best practices being adopted by different companies in different industries.

11) You are not a great leader but an excellent leader, who can inspire their team and can get best out of them. No one wants you to be Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela but yes, you need to be like Ricky Pointing or Steve Waugh (Cricket Captain of Australia ) or like Hansie Cronje (Former Cricket Captain of South Africa) or like Saurav Ganguly (Former Cricket Captain of India).

12) They are life long learners. They never think that…it's enough. They keep on learning…new HR related Techniques, HR Strategist, about new-new businesses etc.

But, why people join this profession?

I spoke to few people, those who are freshers or who are just pursuing their MBA's with specialization in HR and they mentioned that they want to be in this profession because it is a "Tension Free Profession".

Most of the females join this profession for following reasons:
a) Of course they want to work and this is the only "decent job" in corporate world which, gives them respect and dignity.
b) They don't want to join "field jobs" (Marketing).
c) They hate mathematics so don't like finance and
d) This is the only profession where time suits them…as per the family needs and restrictions.

Some people say "we tried to get into many professions…my father wanted me to be a doctor; my mother wanted me to be an engineer; my brother wanted me to be a Chartered Accountant and I wanted a scientist; my brother asked me try in Hotel Management and my uncle who is a Air force wanted me to be a pilot…I tried all…but I failed. Now, I am living…so need to do some work to earn and grow hence at last I joined HR".

You can read the complete article at http://ezinearticles.com/?Profession-of-Human-Resource-Management-and-Development---Who-Should-Join-and-Who-Should-Not&id=358805

What others think about this profession?

1) "Oh, your job is not that difficult. What you people does, anybody can do and for that you don't even need MBA. Even a graduate can do this job.

2) "Oh, ok, so you job is that Na…which involves filling so many forms, maintaining files and settling the claims".

3) "Ok, so you give the salary"

4) These days HR is a Synonym of recruitment. Tell anybody that you are in HR and they will reply, "Oh, ok so you are a recruiter".

5) There was one CEO (my friend) looking for HR Manager for his company (He is a CEO of one IT company, where they have 150+ employees) and he asked me to help him in finding a right person. They one day he said, "Sanjeev, I have dropped the idea of hiring a HR-Manager, Admin guy is doing the "HR Work" and he is handling it in a better manner. Now the things are running smooth and I don't want to complicate the process by hiring a HR Manager. Earlier, I had one HR Manager and at that time my organization was in mess".

Conclusion

Image of HR Profession in the public or in the corporate world is not very good and we are not doing much to improve the same. I feel sad when people ask queries like:

What is the concept of CTC?
What is the difference between Offer-Letter and Appointment-Letter?
How many leaves we should give to our employees?
How to calculate attrition rate or rate per hire?
What components of salary are taxable?

And then when someone comes and says that we hate HR...such people just look at their face. It looks silly and sad. We need to raise our own standard, attitude and style of work. Nobody can help us. We need to help ourselves. Or else the day is not very far away, when the companies will be outsourcing the total HR-Functions and HR will only be there as "Consultancy Firms" or "Outsourced Company". Nobody wants to hire and keep problems. I think, that will be good. Companies will be having choice to choose BEST (Consulting firm or Outsourcing Partners) from the market.

Looking forward to your comments and feedback

Regards
Sanjeev Sharma
Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/
E-mail: sanju_himachali@yahoo.com ; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com