Reflections--the stoic way!

Our first encounter with the word HR happens at campus interview time. Sometimes earlier if you went for an interview at internship time. It really was difficult for me to figure out 'how does an HR person look like, what an HR person would like to look at? What will he/she ask me and how should I answer that? They are normal human beings, they look, feel, believe and think as any other human being. They also interview for jobs, they also meet HR people at interview. Now normal? Good. One more thing, HR people, who are those in HR function/role. They may be HR people by qualification. What does that mean? That means, they have a degree or a diploma or a certificate course in HR. They may have read some HRM books, lots of articles, some HR concepts and therefore, they become qualified by learning HR books, theory, concepts, case-studies, research papers, would have participated in many projects in HR and would have learnt ropes of the HR business and how an HR evangelist, s

HR does orientation and training and they help new folks learn how to get to speed and performance in any organisation.  They help people know what makes them successful and how they can expedite their learning and contribute at their peak performance. HR folks help people feel great about the workplace by creating a lively and welcoming environment that promotes learning, excellence and culture of reward. All that looks like the management book dream expectations from HR and we find  them not playing such roles in words, spirit and passion. Why? Because they most of the times struggle to make sense to people as people know what is there in the policy books and all such information which HR used to master as they were written and interpreted out of secret HR books and vaguely written HR policy books. Now all this information is available and people manage all their needs on HR side easily. Now HR feels like, what to do, as people hardly need anything from these super specialty peop

1.   When your top leaders shy away from talking about HR.  2.   When no one cares what the hell HR is doing these days. 3.   When your top performers tell you they do not remember, when was their last talk with HR. 4.   When your vendors tell you that it is very difficult to reach and get response from your HR. 5.   When your new employee is too hesitant to ask HR about something as small as, when would I get my NEO plan? 6.   When your HR guy talks at employee gatherings, as a speaker and people dig into phones or food. 7.   When HR is just a 'dropbox' which sucks questions of significance and cannot give solutions on the fly. 8.   When your HR managers and senior positions talk 80% time about admin stuff. 9.   When your HR gets to know of people issues from employee's managers as escalation. 10.  When it does not matter when HR people come and go to office and what they do through the day. Interesting read below when you know what Richard Rekhy, CEO, KPMG I

In one of the exit interviews, someone told me that, initially in his career, he used to feel like he is working with friends, but later he realized that he actually worked with 'colleagues'. This statement has shaken me up, as a truth that most of us do not realize. While friends can be your colleagues, all colleagues , not your friends! As Gallup employee engagement survey also asks out of 12 important questions, one which asks, "do you have a friend at work?'. Would this not mean that you may have colleagues but they may not be your friend. Also heard of collegiate work culture. We keep reading and listening about  'friendly' work place, etc. They all mean that, though humans have an emotional need to have a friend, colleagues are social relations only. Things like these do not erupt all of a sudden when one hits the workplace. They actually exist even in schools and colleges. I have found many of my schools horrible in terms of emotional value. I saw l

When I look at how attrition has been categorized, I see two ways, if not more; voluntary vs. involuntary and functional vs. dysfunctional. Up or out philosophy vs. life-time employment firms, rare skills and hard to build competencies to average operations skills, what suits your business and structure can be very different. Company A's top performer joins company B and here he becomes a poor performer and then he moves out or is shown the door. Puzzling to categorize this attrition. Attrition driven by culture and business and people values? Lot many companies wish, their identified laggards and petered out (On whom Peter Principle has applied) leave but they remain there, creating glass ceiling for a performer and then he quits looking for a place that provides growth opportunities. Here I see a relationship between a desired attrition and incidental attrition. All companies would agree that their desired attrition shall be 'x' percentage, identified by stack ranking

Reward is what anyone looks for, for a job done well! What if we are all move to incentive compensation model for salaries and the ratio of fixed to variable (performance linked) hinges heavily on the variable side?  It will be a nightmare, chaos, as this would mean, everyone is measured and paid for performance.  Performance and results evaluated  closely/objectively and may be brutally honestly, against set goals.   But you know you cannot do this now. Why? Because an employee will not come for a high variable structure as you propose. An employee is not a commission agent. He deserves consistent and guaranteed income. Everyone looks for a fixed pay guaranteed and therefore they prefer to work for a company which can pay them well irrespective of whether they are profitable or not. Nothing wrong as employee mind-set will be different from owner mindset. And if owner has to see business through thick and thin and only he should take risks and invest based on business prudenc