Life Always Takes Over Work (Emotions Overpower Reasons)

There are hundreds of articles on work life balance which explain how to prioritize work and manage ones’ day to day life. I teach Human Resource Management and discuss the need for work life balance. Perhaps as working mother, my ability to comprehend this theme assumes a degree of practicality.  

My six year old son in senior kindergarten is endowed with tremendous responsibility and understanding. Probably the fact that he has a working mother compels him to evolve these adult-like traits in order to adjust to his home environment.  Adjustment is the first word they learn from their parents. His school used to wrap up by 1 pm and then he would go to a day care. After four hours there I used to receive him to home at 5 pm. Then I spent time with him. His friends would call him to play and after eating snacks he rushed off to play. That was the mom- son TIMETABLE.

For me this lifestyle was synonymous with contentment and I felt proud about an accomplishment of a balance between professional and personal life. Friends would appreciate the way I managed my life.

One day the entire staff at office received a mail which made breaking news in the office. The management appealed to the staff to work an additional hour.  As an HR person, I understood the human economics and took the working hour vs productivity equation sportingly.

Next day onwards when everyone from office departed from office an hour later than usual I had to tell my accommodative son, “beta I will be late “. He calmly replied, “Fine Mom”… and I was pleased the way he responded.

Life was going on pretty well and instead of the earlier 5 pm, I now returned home only around 6.30 or 7 pm. One day his friends came home expecting him to join them to play and I told them that he cannot come as he was sleeping. Surprisingly all of them remarked “so early?” I said, “Shush…he is a good boy.” I was glad to go along with my TIMETABLE. It started happening repeatedly. And then it dawned on me, that he is a good boy but am I a good mother?

I told myself that I have to balance my life and these small issues were not to worry my head about. It was November and Bangalore becomes cold after sundown, sometimes accompanied by light drizzles in the evening. Last year every day in the evening it used to shower and I started getting late… I started to make excuses to my son he always used to says, “That’s ok momma”. I started showering more and more attention on him more just to make him feel that his momma loves him. But I did not realize that this was not to help him but for me to feel that I was a good mother.

But my guilt lead to introspection and again one day when his friends came to call him, he was sleeping on the sofa; he had not even changed his clothes with shoes still on his feet. At that moment, I felt like he had forgotten to play with his friends. It made we wonder whether or not I had snatched his childhood from him?

The next day similar thoughts flooded my head. Again I told myself do not be emotional and your son need to understand that his mom needs to work.

That day it rained heavily and led to a traffic jam and became darker than usual when I reached his day care around 7.40 pm. I looked around but could not find him. Then I quizzed the staff about him and they replied, “He was here only madam” and all of us searched for him. It made me irritable and tense. After 10-15 minutes I saw him, sitting on a swing alone while all the other kids had gone home. He was alone waiting for me.  It touched a chord in me and I ran and screamed at him, “What are you doing here? We were all searching for you?” He silently asked me, Mom did your bus break down today?   

After hearing him utter those words, my knees buckled and I sat down and hugged him…I had no answer to his question and remained silent for a long time.  

Next day after going to office, I promptly submitted my resignation letter. Naturally my boss wanted to know why I was doing so.  After listening to my work-life juggle, he as a father with a six year old was in tears. He gracefully accepted the letter and said,” Your son certainly needs you more than us.”  That evening the meaning of work life balance became crystal clear to me. Life always takes over work and emotions overpower reasons.

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Are you prepared emotionally for campus placements???

 

New academic year has begun where fresh batches are getting familiar to new institute and senior batches are enjoying their seniority. The time is flying and in few days companies will start hitting the college campus for placements. Institutes will train students on interview skills, GD techniques etc.

Every year placement experience is like a roller costar ride. In spite of providing academic and employability techniques students face emotional shocks during placement seasons at campus.  Good students need to wait for a long time to get placed. It is an emotional process which students go through. They face rejections and they face reality. This is a time they come across bewilderment and fell drifting.

During such turbulence they cannot deal with emotions and lead to frustration. This result in loosing opportunities on campus.

Here are few things which students can consider and prepare themselves emotionally:

Self- emotional analysis- You need to know what kind of nature you have. Do you get frustrate quickly?  Do you get emotionally disturb by looking at your friend’s success? Or you are fine with waiting for what you want?  i.e. patience or impatience.

Develop a strategy wait or grab –After conducting self analysis you may find yourself that you have patience then you can wait for an opportunity what you are looking for. That can be an industry, company, job role, expected salary or even location. But the disadvantage of this can be you may drop good openings and you may not get for what you are waiting. As actually no one know beforehand which all companies will come to campus.  And other possibility can be if these companies arrive whether they will pick you or not. You can consider past data of the companies who have visited regularly but still it is not 100% safe. But you have patience so you will handle the pressure very well.

If you find yourself impatience- The strategy may be that is focus on broad industry or job roles or even salary. Eg. You want marketing job in IT industry then do not look for brands, salary, locations etc. just apply and grab that job when IT Company is on campus. But in this strategy there are few drawbacks like better brands may come in future and they may offer better packages/ role. But if your strategy is ready with you these things will not matter to you.

Digest rejections- Prepare you emotionally for rejection. If company reject you that does not mean you are not a good candidate. It just that you are not fitting in the job requirement or someone has performed better than you. Try to keep yourself positive and give best in the next interview.

Wish you all the best for your campus placements !!!

Should CSR be mandated by Govt.?

I still remember one question asked during my NCC selection interview in my school days, “Should we make the attendance compulsory on 15th Aug and 26th Jan for students? And I my answer was , “No we should not.” Because I used to believe that the patriotism should come from within and people should not work out of compulsion. People should be self motivated but they rejected me and I kept thinking where did I go wrong?

Now I realize that there are very few people who are self motivated and to bring them to action legislation is necessary.
India may make CSR law this headline making news in corporate world. CSR activities are still taken as charitable initiatives by most companies in India. The government will look at all options, including legislation, to make more companies adopt corporate social responsibility (CSR), Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said.
"You can't hope that everything will work without a basic legislative line drawn. But where that line should be drawn must come by way of consensus from industry," Khurshid said.
CSR activities are still taken as charitable initiatives by most companies. But there are a few which have embedded their CSR activities with their existing business models. Among these are the ITC group, the Tatas, Bharti Airtel and state-run firms like the State Bank of India.
But many people are against this bill. In their opinion CSR should not be compulsory but corporate should feel responsibility from within and take actions accordingly. But will this work? Are there self motivated companies except few? Are they giving back society in proportion to what they take from society like nature.. The money..???? And if yes then why didn’t I get selected for my NCC interview?

Latest update dated 23rd Dec. 2010 ET: CSR spending may not be mandatory. Companies will have to have a policy as to how they will spend the 2% of their profits on and there must be disclosure if the money has been spent,

Retain me if you can….3 months Notice Period Makes a Big Comeback

Techies have made HR’s life miserable in IT. HR is applying all possible tactics to hire as well as retain high-quality workforce. Recently new policies are popping out to retain these job hoppers. To counter the high attrition rates plaguing them, domestic and MNC technology firms are introducing – or returning to- a three-month, notice regime mandatory for all exist except for some very few senior positions.

Now markets have improved significantly techies have started getting good offers and pouching is in its peak. The one month notice system was a blessing, in that also many employees used to leave the organizations by giving 2 to 3 days notice and just run away And new firm used to ‘buyout’ by paying the loss of pay. ‘Buy-out’ refers to the practice of hiring companies giving the employees the money required (normally one month full salary) so that the employee can pay off his current firm and join the new one immediately. Now 3 months regime makes buy-out tougher for poachers.

Attrition rate update:
Tier I firms- 17%
Tier II firms- 25% to 30%

What do you think will it work? Yes it will make going tough. If one wants divorce is there any point in dragging the relationship? I think it will be just holding someone to show the numbers on roll. But will they give the expected productivity. There used to be one month honey moon period when someone used to resign which now h/s will enjoy for 3 months. There is a possibility that employees will use unethical practices and will just run away.

It may work on paper but will it be a good policy?

HR folks working hard all the best… Retain them if you can…

An evening with Abhijit Bhaduri…

I was fortunate to be present at the session by Abhijit Bhaduri on Organizational Culture. He works as the Chief Learning Officer for the Wipro group. Prior to this he led HR teams at Microsoft, PepsiCo, Colgate and Tata Steel and worked in India, SE Asia and US. He is on the Advisory Board of Wharton’s prestigious program for Chief Learning Officers that is run by the Univ. of Pennsylvania. He is an advisor on Social Media usage for SHRM in India. He is also a great fan of R D Burban He has also authored the books like Mediocre But Arrogant, Married But Available. He is an actor, writer, RJ and HR manager too.
Abhijit has a charming personality and blessed with enormous level of liveliness. At some stage in his speak he touched topic like employer branding. Abhijeet believe that everything which is tangible can not be a competitive advantage for an organization, its intangible which gives competitive advantage. Human Resource Management is all about working about dreams. HR is meant for working on intangible to accomplish people’s dream. And then he began to talk about organizational culture. The definition of organizational culture is organizational values, also known as "beliefs and ideas about what kinds of goals members of an organization should pursue and ideas about the appropriate kinds or standards of behavior organizational members should use to achieve these goals. But Abhijit defines organizational culture in simple two word i.e. culture is all about organization’s stories. Stories which employees or outsiders talk discuss or raise their eyebrows at. The stories can be pleasant or horror but those stories talk about organization culture. He mentioned fabulous points in simple language:
1. Need outsider to see culture. - To feel organization’s culture you need to look at your own culture as an outsider. Many times outsiders find extremely hierarchical culture or cool and open culture but that may not be the reality. The true culture can be been only when it comes to decision making. So consider outsider’s perception when you are working on your culture.

2. Organization culture has many sub cultures- Organization will have different culture in different departments and sub culture grows. Culture is not about rules and regulations. Here he mentioned beautiful example of parking story of Premji. Premji said,” there is no need to reserve parking for me. If I come first I will park or I will search for the parking.”


3. Perception creates brand in our mind while mentioning this point he mentioned Pepsi and Haldiram case. People may not have a idea about Pepsi or Haldiram’s turnover but still outsiders find Pepsi is better as it can be perception about Pepsi brand.

4. Perception takes time to change. – But during M & A change the perception fast otherwise you will loose your talent.

5. Listen to the stories which employees discuss and what is the moral of the stories.

6. Add value to reward, story of Mudra- Advt. Company. When he paid stipend to management trainees which was a very small amount. But while giving that sum on the envelope he wrote that,” it’s the lowest amount which you are earning in your life but it is most valuable money which you have earned in your life.” Most of them have still not spend that amount and have kept the that envelope as it is.
So culture is all about stories. I learnt great lesson of HR... Create good stories.. which will talk more about your culture than documenting it somewhere…

The Guy In the Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn't your mother, your father or wife
Whose judgments, on you most pass.
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest
For he's with you clean to the end
And you've passed your most dangerous and difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and chisel a plum
And think you are a most wonderful guy
But the guy in the glass says you are a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.

You may fool the whole world down the path way of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But the final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you have cheated the guy in the glass.

Gloomy reality of HR in young minds…

In HR community all HR professionals constantly converse about the latest role of HR. The web sites are burdened with the information on innovative role of HR. These days HR is no more nervous systems but it is action oriented. HR is all concerning change champion, strategic partner and business partner. We H R lovers converse about business partnering role. HR practionnars believe that HR role has grown to be very challenging. But the ground realities are dissimilar.
The expedition of HR from personnel management to Human recourse management / development is very topical in India. Human Recourse Management gained esteem in last decade. But HR has faced a lot of challenges and it is still in a transition phase. In the recession time the only job was talked about was HR because of workforce cost and layoffs. And the foremost question was asked to HR professionals that where was manpower planning went off beam? But as per the experts estimation HR is imminent role. And it needs more and more idiots (passionate) to take the job passionately.
The future of HR in the hands of youthful HR managers If we want young minds that will be ground-breaking and innovative form where can we get these kind of super executives? The answer is with B Schools. But the story at B school is disappointing. Aspiring managers in management institutes do not prefer to pick HR specialization. Very small number of students wish for HR just for the reason that neither they are fit for marketing specialization (not aggressive & communication) nor good with figures which is the inevitability of finance area. The most awful fact is that their interest judgment depends on faculty too.
Year after year the fraction of students opting for HR specialization is declining, on and average barely 19% (collected data last three years data from B-schools) students prefer to do HR specialism. After discussing with student community the reasons for not perusing HR specialization they mentioned the following concerns-
• Lowest paid job-Students find that HR job will not give them better remuneration as compared to marketing and finance. They feel that after few years of experience in HR the salary rise will be there but for that they have to wait for few years.
• No say in decision making-According to them line managers have more say in decision making than HR. As line managers contribute directly to business HR have least say in decision making.
• No growth-There is less growth or slow growth in HR.
• HR job is not safe-As HR does not contribute to business distinctly HR is the high cost to industry. As a result of this HR people will be the first to whom organization will ask to leave in downturn.
• Not a challenging job-HR job is still involves lot of administrative responsibilities. It is a care taker job.
• No pat on the back and less respected job-HR people hardly get recognition for their contribution. They are the one generally conveys the bad news rather that good news. Their job involves lot of policing that is the reason employees are more afraid to approach HR.
• HR is meant for females-HR is known for care taker and people oriented, office job. This kind of job is most suitable for ladies.
• HR professionals are more idealistic/ philosophical than action oriented.
• HR specialization is not an obligatory to be in HR.
Looking at the above perceptions it is really bloodcurdling for HR elite. But guys this is the fact. These are the myths or facts it is dubious issue. But as communal responsibility HR professionals require to move toward for the changeover of HR occupation.
HR community can work on subsequent things to have better impact on future HR professionals.-
• Expose student to HR work through live projects.
• Be open with the students during internship.
• Review HR compensation.
• Review the job description of fresh HR executive.
• HR needs to talk in numbers and business terms.
• Need to have more role models in HR community.