Author: Prof. (Dr.) KIRAN KAKADE

Kanika became really interested in digital about 6 years ago when she worked with a charity shop to improve the ways in which they could recruit volunteers and encourage them to stay longer. The shop-owners still used paper application forms but were looking to recruit nearby students who all apply to jobs online or through social media. She helped set up an online application portal and an incentive scheme. Applications went up 400% and the charity shop’s sales went up by 100% and it showed how such a simple bit of technology can make a huge impact to a business. In her career, Kanika has continued doing the same thing at a much larger scale – she has worked with one of India’s largest banks to transform the way they will be working in 2020 using digital.

It is common knowledge that successful businesses stand on the qualities and strengths of their workforce. When it comes to small businesses, the role and reliability of the employees take on greater significance, especially when it comes to keeping customers satisfied and fulfilling their expectations and demands. The challenges faced by small business owners are more because they have to juggle various roles. Even the smallest of mistakes, especially in the HR department, can shake the foundation of the business.

Owners of small businesses often have the required funds to invest and possess knowledge of the concerned field or product(s). But rarely are they able to manage their staff with the same dexterity and efficiency.

There are many things that call for attention in terms of human resources — the ideal number of employees, the technical vs soft skills level of the staff, use of headhunters to fill vacancies, detailed background checks, induction, training, orientation, and so on. The list of factors and challenges is endless. If each of these factors is not attended to at the right time, the workplace will be a chaotic mess and the business will end up suffering.

There are some important things that all small businesspersons should pay the necessary attention to:

Hire the right people

Small businesses have limited financial and human resources. So it is important that these should efficiently be utilised. This can only happen if there are the right people doing the right jobs. Small organisations can only run smoothly if the entire team works towards a common goal. In short, all employees should be well integrated into the work culture of the setup. Those who do not fit in at the very beginning, will definitely not last long, and if an attempt is made to make do with them, the existing team dynamics will also be adversely affected in the long run. The proverb, ‘one rotten egg spoils the whole lot’ is very apt for small businesses.

Invest in training

While it is important to hire the right people, it is equally important to train them well. They should be equipped with all the knowledge necessary to do their job well and also help train any newcomers who may join after them. To make the onboarding process of new entrants effective, the business should be well equipped with everything that is required for the same — equipment, manuals, workstations, desks, gear (wherever required), trainers, mentors, and so on. The new hires should be made to feel comfortable almost immediately by introducing them to the existing team. Regular follow up is also necessary to ensure that they are settling in at the expected pace.

The employee handbook should also be ready and available to be referred to. This will ensure that the organisation is following the standard rules of recruitment and induction. The handbook should be updated regularly to keep abread with changing laws and policies and reduce chances of noncompliance and violations.

Meet the workforce regularly

Only frequent interaction with the employees can allow entrepreneurs to feel the pulse of their employees. Therefore, communication lines should always be kept open. The staff should be made aware of important business decisions and their feedback should be invited and valued in all important matters. Trust levels should be so high that the employees should feel confident and free to share their opinions and also report issues without fear of being hauled up. They should be made comfortable enough to even report matters that they are otherwise hesitant to reveal in front of the entire team or staff.

Be good listeners

The primary factor of an open-door policy is the ability to listen to others. An open-door policy is founded on the freedom to express opinions. Employees should not be afraid to say what they feel, even if it something that goes against the thoughts of the management.

Stress on clarity

Matters should be conveyed in the clearest, unambiguous and specific manner possible. This is most significant at the time of hiring. All policies and rules should be made clear to the new recruit at the very beginning itself. All doubts should be cleared for the employee before he is formally inducted. What is required of the new entrant and what the recruit expects from you should be clear to both? No grey areas should exist.

Provide constant and meaningful feedback

Feedback is not something to be given to the employees during appraisal alone. The process should be constant and last throughout the year. But the nature of feedback is important. Simply pointing out mistakes should not be the aim. The objective should be to provide meaningful feedback and offer them time and opportunity to correct themselves, improve their performance and gain confidence.

Draw up a ‘to-do’ list and prioritise tasks

Good entrepreneurs and leaders are also very well organised. Since they have so many issues to handle, they have to know how to prioritise HR-related tasks. Constant follow up is also essential when it comes to sorting resumes, calling candidates for interviews and so on. This ensures a feeling of being in control and ‘clued in’.

Rely on HR tools

With the digitisation wave sweeping over corporate India, it is high time HR personnel took advantage of the available technology in this field. There is innumerable software available that can make life easier for HR managers. All they need to do is study the features, map the services they offer to the needs of their small business and then opt for the best and most economical solutions so that their burden becomes lighter.

Adhere to the law

Small entrepreneurs need to be aware of the important HR laws. They should take some time off to study the laws that are important and relevant to their line of work. They should be aware of laws pertaining to minimum wages and basic working conditions so that they do not have to face any legal issues in the future. Small businesses should not try to escape taxes or cut costs in illegal ways by classifying employees as contract workers when they are actually not.

Maintain a bond but set limits

It is not uncommon for small businesses to function like small close-knit families. However, too much closeness may lead to complications and indiscipline. Some level of professionalism and distance is essential between the workers and the management. This will ensure that the team stays loyal and sincere, and at the same time treats the management and owners with respect. This kind of arrangement also ensures the much-required discipline in the workplace.

 

Source: HRKatha.com

New-age learning organisations need to invest consciously on solutions that will facilitate delivery of learning anytime anywhere.

Gone are the days when learning was all about classroom sessions that lasted through the day. Learning is now sought in instant packets, easily consumable and conveniently applicable in dynamic work cultures. Same as everything else that has been transformed by technology to become more instant, interconnected and dynamic, learning in the digital world has also undergone a heavy makeover.

Organisations of the present and the future seek continuous learning and see it as the key to business growth and success. That is why, new-age learning organisations now need to invest consciously on solutions that help deliver learning that is available anytime anywhere over a range of platforms. The various e-learning or digital learning platforms that progressive organisations are increasingly leveraging are as follows:

Virtual Learning
In times when people work remotely and seek flexibility in everything from work hours to job roles, to learning opportunities, virtual learning comes in handy for organisations. It plays an increasingly important role in providing a new space in which to connect, engage and develop people. Virtual learning helps organisations preserve the beauty of traditional face-to-face learning in a modern virtual setup offering the benefits of flexibility, combining a strong learning architecture with virtual learning tools.

Mobile Learning
Although still in its niche stages of flawless implementation, mobile learning is gaining huge traction amongst employees as they see great advantages in the same. Organisations on the other hand are also developing stronger technology and content and course strategies to fully leverage mobile learning. While designing mobile learning programmes, learning professionals need to be mindful of the fact that course designs should consider small screens, and content production should support multiple devices and responsive design.

Social Learning
Many learning professionals are keenly interested in the topic of social learning but relatively few organisations have begun to implement it. One reason is that it is difficult to separate the hype from reality and focus on the elements that are really important. Successful social learning requires three elements— a technology platform, a vibrant community and great content.

In fact, social learning could prove to be the most efficient mode of offering learning as it helps engage and bring people together on one platform to share their expertise and experiences. Once fed with great content, employees feel motivated to jump in and offer their first comments on the social learning platform, and soon these comments turn into active learning discussions.

Gamification
Gamification is fast emerging as an effective technique to engage learners. It’s not simply about gaming and having fun while engaging employees, but about meeting serious business outcomes with the help of the learning programmes. It uses game mechanics and game design techniques in a non-gaming context and is a powerful tool to engage employees, customers and the public to change behaviours, develop skills and drive innovation. From immersive learning for induction and on-boarding to professional skills enhancement, compliance, soft skills enhancement, and behavioural change programmes, organisations are leveraging it well.

Having shared all the above, the most effective and the most convenient mantra to successful digital learning is  to think big, but start small. Focus on building a foundation of experimental experience before trying to fully operationalise an e-learning method.

Source : HRKatha.com

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Digitisation has emerged as a key disruptor and game-changer, with enterprises leveraging the integration of big data, cloud computing and mobile, and smart technology becoming a key business priority.

Digitisation is creating tectonic shifts in the way individuals work and engage. The way employees interact—with the world at large, amongst themselves and with the organisation—has undergone a fundamental shift. Their perspective of engagement and learning is not what it used to be even five years ago! These behavioural changes are deeply impacting the cultural fabric of the organisation.

The question, of course, will be the extent to which the HR function will innovate, in order to make itself more relevant and create value in this changed reality.

HR technology, in a lot of organisations, is still quite nascent. One of the challenges faced is the integration of systems. Whilst some organisations have adopted state-of-the-art add-on HR applications, their basic data warehouses have not undergone the much-needed overhaul. Thus, they have multiple systems that do not communicate seamlessly with each other.

Nonetheless, the function has adopted mobile applications for more efficient recruiting along with tools, such as virtual interviews and applications to engage with prospective employees, to improve candidate experience. Internal social networking applications are changing the process of employee engagement, improving information access and knowledge sharing between employees, and fuelling innovation. Social technologies also play a big role in leadership access, increasing transparency, and building more neutral avenues for employees to share their opinions. Several bottoms-up organisation changes can be driven effectively through these.

Learning is becoming more shared, application based and bite-sized. The realms of learning are becoming wider and more outside-in with YouTube and MOOC platforms, such as Udemy and Coursera.

Technology-enabled delivery in HR will allow HR professionals to free up their time and utilise their skills more effectively in the areas of strategic advisory to business rather than operations.

Big Data

Big Data is everywhere and will be the foundation of all decisions. HR can be no exception to this. As a function, however, HR has relied heavily on the emotive/qualitative aspects of situations for decision-making. Data consumption has largely been restricted to the basics—reporting lagging indicators rather than predictive data.

The fragmented existence of data, as it is currently available, poses immense processing challenges and is vulnerable to errors, thus hindering integrated analysis and meaningful conclusions. Going forward, HR professionals will embrace technology to build the right metrics to track, analyse and report data-driven decision-making to redefine all aspects of talent and people practices.

Business and people managers are seeing value in HR analytics and starting to increasingly demand direct access to employee data on an ongoing basis. Manager portals on company intranets now empower managers with critical employee data and real-time updates on all employee lifecycle events.

In order to build the necessary inter-linkages that are scientific in their basis, qualified data scientists will be required. Advanced analytics teams can help uncover underlying trends in human capital data and generate transformative, compelling and actionable insights for informed decision support. Also, it will be necessary to present this data in a simple and intuitive manner, since the objective of big data is not to increase complexity, but allow meaningful insights to shine through.

The role of HR will then be to integrate data insights with their expertise in the qualitative and emotive elements of human behaviour, leading to much more holistic decision making.

As digitisation and analytics become more fundamental to business advisory—resulting in innovative and agile people management practices to stay competitive—HR will be truly digital!

Change is the name of the game!

In the VUCA world, the mandate for leaders is to be quick and decisive, taking the most appropriate actions in the least time. The HR function has been faced with the demand for transformation—to drive strategic changes in the way business operates. As one harnesses the power of technology and digitisation, one will free up one’s time to do this better. However, in order to do so, one will need to re-skill oneself and adopt a more flexible mindset. HR cannot just be playing a catch-up game in this fast-paced environment. HR people need to be early embracers and innovators in the true spirit. Agility in the way HR operates will underpin its success in the days to come.

Source :HRKatha.com

Digital transformation has to be a planned activity because even though a business is all set for this mega change, there could be digital shocks for functioning systems.

Digital transformation is not just two fancy words. It’s a full-fledged exercise that organisations need to undertake with clarity, vision and a lot of planning and preparedness. There are companies which equate digital transformation with a software upgrade. That’s the biggest blunder one can do. Digital transformation has to be a planned activity because even though a business is all set for this mega change, there could be digital shocks for functioning systems.

1. Assess and evaluate
According to a study, 90 per cent of CEOs know that digital technology is impacting their industry, but less than 15 per cent are digitally transforming with a clear plan. There is a lot of me-tooism that follows without a clear mandate and foresight on how the individual business is going to get impacted.
It is very important for any business to assess how and which part of its process, should undergo a digital transformation. Yes, there could be a few processes where digital transformation is not possible. There is nothing wrong in that. One has to identify digital models that simulate the nuances inherent in its procedures. It’s important to purposefully model processes with tools that enable creative and empirical simulations.
There is no hard and fast rule, which says that all processes of the businesses will have to go digital. The fit is necessary.

2. Business Plan
Yes, digital transformation is not an activity indulged in just for the sake of it. If certain processes or functions within the business cannot be digitised, let them be.

All a business should worry about is market share, revenue, profit and how the transformation will affect its customers. No digital transformation is worthwhile if any of these elements are negatively impacted. Every digital transformation should have a business case and an organisation should be able to foresee that the transformation will successfully streamline some of its key processes.

3. Prepare your team
People often talk about the skill set required for digital transformation of businesses and organisations. Yes, indeed it’s a great challenge to have and retain that skill set. However, what’s even more important is the cultural transformation within the company. Every employee should willingly and happily accept this transformation. Only then will the entire exercise be fruitful.

What organisations need to do is communicate what lies ahead. Every employee from across functions—be it HR or sales or supply chain—must anticipate the change, foresee the benefits that lie ahead, be in sync with the business strategy to get there and also be aware of their role in the entire process. All this can happen only when a company creates this culture of ownership and collaboration. One missing link can destroy the entire effort.

Look into these sample courses if you wish to successfully navigate the shift to digital and prepare an organization’s talent base for this shift, which are the most significant challenges facing today’s learning leaders.

4. There is no perfect moment
Now or later, digital transformation is bound to affect businesses across the world. If an organisation is waiting for the right opportune time to initiate this digital transformation, it’s digging its own grave.

Digital transformation has to start today, and now. Yes, there will be a few failed attempts, or mistakes on the way but organisations need to show agility and learn from their mistakes. Remember, technology changes faster than organisations can change themselves.

5. Traditional businesses can also transform digitally
Digital transformation isn’t only for new-age technology companies. There are a few examples where traditional brick and mortar businesses have transformed themselves. All thanks to data.

Experts call data the new crude oil and the currency of the future. Digital transformation will allow traditional businesses to collect more and more data, which can then sharpen the insights and business intelligence.

The paints sector follows a very traditional model of business. However, one of India’s largest paint companies has successfully digitised its business processes and reaped the benefits. It implemented call centres and mobile device deployments, utilised data-based decision making and expanded its service offerings along with its geographic footprint across Asia. The company gained on two fronts — revenue increased dramatically, while it also improved the speed and efficiency of its delivery.
Source :HRKatha.com

Your online profile and what you post on social media is of interest to your present and future/potential employers.

Be very careful of what you share or post on social media. You are being watched, monitored and also judged on the basis of your social-media profile, not just by your friends but by your current and prospective employers as well.

And if you think, it is better to not have a social-media profile at all, you are wrong. In the absence of a social-media profile, you will be treated as anonymous, which makes it less likely for you to be called for an interview.

If you believe that your deleted posts will not be visible, you should know that it’s hard to erase your digital footprints, and employers today use deep scan to find out all about a prospective candidate.

According to a recent study by The Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder, 70 per cent of employers use social-networking sites to research on job candidates. Out of these, 57 per cent have decided against hiring a candidate based on what they had posted on social media. 66 per cent of employers have used search engines to conduct their research on potential job candidates.

It is not just your posts, employers also evaluate you on what others are posting about you or on your page—34 per cent of respondents have agreed to have done that.

The trend of scanning social-media profiles of potential hires is more frequent in IT companies (74 per cent) followed by manufacturing (73 per cent) and in comparison less by retail/non-retail sales (59 per cent).

Nearly half of the employers (47 per cent) say that if they can’t find the candidate online, they are less likely to call that person in for an interview. 28 per cent say that is because they like to gather more information before calling in a candidate for an interview; 20 per cent say they expect candidates to have an online presence.

Here are the top reasons why candidates are rejected or hired post evaluation of their social-media profiles.

Reasons for rejection

Candidates are rejected if they are found to have:

1. posted provocative or inappropriate photographs, videos or information: 40 per cent,

2. posted information about them drinking or using drugs: 36 per cent;

3. made discriminatory comments related to race, gender, religion: 31 percent;

4. links with criminals or criminal behaviour: 30 per cent;

5. lied about qualifications: 27 percent;

6. poor communication skills: 27 percent,

7. bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employee: 25 per cent;

8. an unprofessional screen name: 22 per cent;

9. shared confidential information from previous employers: 20 per cent;

10. posted too frequently: 12 per cent

Reasons for selection

Candidates are often selected for a job if:

1. their background information supports their professional qualifications for the job: 37 per cent;

2. they are creative: 34 per cent;

3. their site conveys a professional image: 33 per cent;

4. they are well-rounded, and show a wide range of interests: 31 per cent;

5. they possess a good personality, and appear to be a good fit within the company culture: 31 per cent;

6. possess great communication skills: 28 per cent;

7. have received awards and accolades: 26 percent;

8. other people have posted great references about the job candidate: 23 per cent;

9. they have interacted with the company’s social-media accounts: 22 per cent;

10. they post compelling videos or other content: 21 per cent;

11. they have a large number of followers or subscribers: 18 per cent

It isn’t over yet

If you are thinking that your employer will stop monitoring you after you have been hired, you are mistaken. Research reveals that 48 per cent of employers continue to scan social-media profiles of employees and 10 per cent of them do it every day! Around 34 per cent of them have found content online that has caused them to reprimand or fire an employee.

Source :HRKatha.com

New technologies are changing customer and employee behaviours and eventually rewriting the rules of engagement. It is important to see how HR will transform itself in the new era.

Right from the time we get up in the morning till we enter the workplace, we may shuffle through various apps on different devices. However, the digital age is not only about technology, but about how customer and employee behaviours are changing in response to the rapidly-evolving technologies. For businesses, it is about leveraging technology to provide superior customer experience and unlocking the hidden potential of value creation. And to think only 10 years back we had mobile phones with only the ‘calling’ and ‘messaging’ features! Now artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), internet of things (IoT) and robotics are rewriting the rules of engagement—for customers and employees. On-demand economy,
personalisation and connectedness are some of its key manifestations.

Organisations are all about short-term planning, fluid structures, relentless innovation, iterative and incremental product development, shorter and frequent customer-feedback loops, and holistic and integrated usage of technology across the value chain. Organisations should be able to course correct and pivot frequently in a short duration, according to external and internal environment changes. For this, people in the organisation must develop an agile mindset and follow agile people-management practices.

Only agility can provide the required competitive advantage, for which HR will have to transform first. The same HR that was responsible for implementing rigid structures, processes and systems to ensure standardisation and efficiency, will now have to break those very systems to ensure more agility and flexibility—no doubt a huge challenge!

How can HR make its people practices more agile? By learning from the companies, which have effectively climbed up the digital curve, and are the leaders in their respective domains —the torch bearers of the agile movement! These companies are highly agile in business, organisation design and people management. They have dovetailed the following principles of agility in the way they design their people practices.

Principle-1: Working in short loops
Traditionally, most people practices work on annual or bi-annual loops. For example, goal setting in most companies happens at the start of the year, with employees getting feedback on these goals during the middle or at the end of the year. In the digital age, the goals set at the beginning of the year may no longer remain valid at mid-year or year end because of multiple unforeseen changes, which may occur during the year. Similarly, the training needs identified at the start of the year may no longer remain valid after a few months. Thus, there is a need to continuously pivot these people practices multiple times during the course of the year.

Principle-2: Relentless employee centricity
HR’s traditional love for processes and systems was justified at the time when process efficiency and standardisation were the key success metrics for HR. But in the digital age the focus is on innovation, informal collaboration and speed. Many existing HR processes and systems tend to add unnecessary inertia and inhibit the free flow of ideas and speed of decision making. HR will have to shift focus from process efficiency to employee motivation. All decision making in HR has to revolve around making employees more motivated and productive.

Principle-3: Transparency
Traditionally, HR has been slightly apprehensive of sharing critical people decisions or decision-making methodologies with employees. For example, in many companies high-potential employees are rarely told that they possess high potential for fear of offending those who do not possess the same. This was fine in the age when employees worked in tight hierarchies and were used to receiving partial information. In the current digital age, however, employees work in flat hierarchies and understand the big picture. They are also more connected than ever before. Lack of transparency erodes trust, and trust is essential for informal collaboration and employee motivation.

Principle-4: Regular feedback & reviews
Business deliverables stand the risk of becoming obsolete if they do not fit the requirements of the external market. Similarly, HR deliverables can become obsolete if they do not fulfil the needs of the business and the employees, especially in the digital age, when things are changing so fast. Imagine a system where we create a very basic version of the HR product, test it with employees (and business leaders), incorporate their feedback, work to create the next version, test it with employees, incorporate their feedback till the point there is a perfect fit between the HR product and the employee. This will drastically improve the acceptability of the HR product. Interestingly, Google also tests its HR products first, with one per cent of the workforce, before a company-wide release. This can be done for anything and everything that we create for employees within the HR function, such as training programmes, reward philosophies, PMS, talent management, engagement framework, and so on.

Principle-5: Working in cross-functional teams
Traditionally, HR is used to working as an independent function. With the functional boundaries getting blurred in the digital age, HR will be expected to work more and more on cross-functional projects with people from diverse areas, such as marketing, sales, product management, technology, and so on. Each team will be empowered to solve a particular problem for the organisation. Some of these problems may be business related, such as creating a due diligence framework for M&As, while some may be more people related, such as designing a learning strategy for the technology function. In either case, a cross-functional team of subject matter experts is most suited to solve these issues. Gone are the days when only the HR team used to solve people problems for the organisation, and only the business team solved business problems. In the digital age, HR is business and business is HR.

Principle-6: Loosely coupled HR operating model
HR operating model is the way the HR function delivers value to its employees. Broadly speaking, there are four typologies of the HR-operating model. First is the in-house model, where all the HR-related tasks are carried out by the HR function; second is the outsourcing model, where a portion of the HR- related tasks are carried out by an external vendor; third is the employee self-service model, where a part of the HR-related tasks are carried out by the employees themselves; and fourth is the shared- service model, wherein multiple business units leverage common/shared HR services. Each of these typologies is supported by the right type of HR technology platform, and this is where the maximum scope of innovation lies. Confluence of technologies, such as social, mobile, analytics and cloud can work wonders for HR. More often than not, most of the organisations use a combination of these typologies. However, more agile HR functions are skewed towards the outsourcing model and employee self-service models which can support rapid scaling up and scaling down of HR services, as is the need in the digital age.

All of the above principles, if applied effectively and simultaneously, can make HR more agile. Agility in people practices is the fundamental pre-requisite to make an agile organisation and an agile business.

Source :HRKatha. com