Talent related challenges for Small and Medium businesses

Indian small companies often face several talent-related challenges that can hinder their growth and competitiveness. These problems arise from structural issues in the labor market, the business environment, and organizational practices. Here are some of the key talent problems they encounter:

1. Attracting Talent

• Competition with Larger Firms: Larger corporations, multinational companies, and startups with better funding often attract top talent with better compensation, brand recognition, and growth opportunities.
• Location Disadvantages: Many small companies are located in non-metropolitan areas where the talent pool may be smaller, making it harder to find the right candidates.
• Limited Resources: Small companies often don’t have the resources for sophisticated recruitment strategies or the ability to offer competitive salaries and benefits.

2. Skill Gaps

• Mismatch between Education and Industry Needs: Many Indian graduates may not have the necessary skills or practical experience for the job market, particularly in industries like IT, engineering, and manufacturing.
• Emerging Technology Shortage: With rapid technological advancements, smaller companies may find it hard to source professionals with cutting-edge skills (AI, machine learning, blockchain, etc.).

3. High Employee Turnover

• Retention Struggles: Employees, especially young professionals, often see small companies as stepping stones, moving on to larger companies or those with better prospects after gaining some experience.
• Limited Career Growth: Small companies might offer fewer opportunities for career advancement, which makes retaining high-potential employees difficult.

4. Training and Development

• Lack of Training Programs: Many small businesses don't have the infrastructure to develop talent through formal training and upskilling programs, which limits employees' potential for growth within the company.
• Cost of Training: Investing in training and development can be financially burdensome for small companies. When employees leave soon after being trained, it compounds the problem.

5. Employer Branding

• Weak Brand Image: Small companies often struggle with employer branding, making them less appealing to potential candidates who may be unaware of their existence or their unique value propositions.
• Limited Recruitment Networks: They may not have access to the same recruitment platforms, industry networks, or placement cells that larger companies utilize.

6. Cultural Fit and Management Style

• Mismatch of Expectations: Many small businesses have more informal structures and decision-making processes, which may not appeal to all candidates, especially those with experience in larger, more structured organizations.
• Workplace Culture: The smaller workforce and lack of professional HR departments in many small companies can lead to issues with workplace culture, including unclear role definitions, inconsistent performance management, and communication breakdowns.

7. Compliance and HR Expertise

• Limited HR Support: Small companies often lack a dedicated HR team or proper policies in place for performance management, employee engagement, and legal compliance.
• Legal and Regulatory Challenges: Keeping up with labor laws, tax regulations, and employee benefits can be overwhelming for small businesses without the proper HR expertise, leading to potential compliance issues.

8. Limited Access to Specialists

• Challenges in Hiring Specialized Roles: Positions requiring specialized knowledge or high-demand skills (such as marketing strategists, data scientists, or supply chain experts) may be difficult to fill due to the limited budget and lack of visibility.

9. Work-Life Balance and Benefits

• Inadequate Benefits: Small companies might struggle to offer attractive non-salary benefits like flexible working hours, health insurance, or retirement plans, which many talented employees seek.
• High Workload: Employees in small firms often have to juggle multiple roles and responsibilities, leading to burnout or dissatisfaction over time.

Potential Solutions

While the talent problems are significant, there are ways Indian small businesses can overcome them:

1. Leverage Internships and Apprenticeships: Offering internships and apprenticeships can help build a pipeline of talent, while also allowing the company to train potential future employees.
2. Outsource Non-Core Activities: Outsourcing certain roles (HR, accounting, IT services) can allow small businesses to focus on their core operations while accessing expertise without having to hire full-time.
3. Emphasize Culture and Flexibility: Small companies can offer personalized work cultures, greater autonomy, and flexibility, which can be a strong draw for certain candidates.
4. Partner with Educational Institutions: Collaborating with universities, training institutes, or technical schools can create a sustainable talent pipeline.
5. Invest in Employee Development: Even with limited resources, offering mentorship, on-the-job learning, or partnerships with external training providers can improve employee satisfaction and retention.

By addressing these issues creatively, small businesses in India can better compete in the talent marketplace and secure the skilled employees they need to grow.

Leadership First - Key Principles

Leadership First is a concept that emphasizes prioritizing leadership development and support as a cornerstone for organizational success. The idea is that strong, effective leadership is fundamental to achieving high performance and long-term success within an organization. Here’s a closer look at what “Leadership First” entails:

Key Principles of Leadership First

1. Leadership Development as a Priority

• Investment in Training: Provide leaders with ongoing training and development opportunities to enhance their skills and effectiveness.
• Mentorship and Coaching: Implement mentorship and coaching programs to support leaders in their growth and address specific challenges.

 2. Creating a Leadership Culture

• Role Modeling: Leaders should exemplify the values and behaviors expected within the organization, setting a standard for others to follow.
• Encouraging Leadership at All Levels: Foster a culture where leadership qualities are recognized and promoted throughout the organization, not just at the top levels.

 3. Supporting Leaders with Resources

• Providing Tools and Support: Equip leaders with the necessary tools, resources, and support systems to effectively manage their teams and drive performance.
• Removing Barriers: Identify and address obstacles that may hinder leaders’ ability to perform their roles effectively.

 4. Aligning Leadership with Organizational Goals

• Strategic Alignment: Ensure that leadership development and practices are aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives and vision.
• Performance Metrics: Use performance metrics to evaluate and support leadership effectiveness in achieving organizational goals.

 5. Emphasizing Communication and Collaboration

• Open Communication Channels: Promote open and transparent communication between leaders and their teams to build trust and collaboration.
• Encouraging Teamwork: Leaders should foster a collaborative environment where team members feel valued and motivated.

By prioritizing leadership through the "Leadership First" approach, organizations can build a strong foundation for success, driving better performance, employee engagement, and overall organizational effectiveness.

Training - Performance Consultant

IF not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?

When the global economy is slowing crawling back to its original form, this situation offers a tremendous opportunity to those in training & development to rise up to this occasion. Management today seeks out those people who can partner them to install the performance required by organizations to win back the lost ground.
We must evolve from training to performance perspective. Performance consulting is the process by which we can work with the management to identify and achieve performance excellence linked to business goals.

Role of Performance Consultant

Following points can describe the role of a Performance Consultant
1. Focus: Identify and address performance needs of people
2. Output: Provide services to assist in changing or improving performance
3. Accountability: Held accountable for establishing and maintaining partnership with business leaders.
4. Measures: The results of training and non training actions are measured for performance change & cost benefit.
5. Assessment: Assessments are completed to determine performance gaps and reasons for these gaps.
6. Relationship to organizational goals: The function is viewed as producing measurable results like cost savings, increase in productivity etc.

Skills required for being a successful Performane Consultant

Four key areas of skill and knowledge is required by performance consultants to be successful

1. Business Knowledge
2. Knowledge of Human Performance Technology
3. Partnering skills
4. Consulting skills

Performance consultants are business people who specialize in Human performance.


How Performance Consulting moves beyond training

• Identify the primary forces, outside the control of the organization that will challenge the organizations ability to meet its business goals.
• Discuss the strategies and actions being taken by competitors and the implications of those actions for the organization.
• Skillfully use the business language- the language which is spoken throughout the organization.

Performance Consultant is a role and not a job. Its is distinguished from the role of a traiditional trainer by its focus on what people must do rather than on what they must learn

Recruitment & Retention- Mistaken Identity

Recruitment & Retention- Mistaken Identity

Poor hiring is not always about what one does, it’s also about what one doesn’t!

Key learnings:

1. A mistake-free hiring process is a rarity
2. This however does not mean organisations do little to prevent typical hiring mistakes

It is surprising how many organisations rave and rant about showing the importance of ROI of recruiting while indulging in actions that eat into the returns. But let’s cut them some slack. Most are ignorant of how they damage their recruiting efforts. This week’s mailer reveals a few common damaging activities that ail most recruiting processes. The hope is that once aware, organisations will tread the recruiting path with more caution than before.

What really happens?
In a recent finger-pointing research, analysts confirmed how the high-handedness of hiring managers and supervisors affect most recruiting functions. The objective to improve the recruiting returns is to target the hiring managers and supervisors since final hiring decisions lie in their kitty.

Here are a few mistakes that can easily be avoided with little awareness and effort.

Mistake: Rebuking recruiters about candidate quality only to reject the qualified based on gut feelings or resume information

Complaints on how only a few candidates match are rampant. But what hiring managers and supervisors overlook is the number of qualified candidates they reject citing reasons such as, “I don’t think he’ll like the job”, “I’m sure he’ll get bored with the job profile soon” and “He is overqualified for what we have to offer”. Maybe these reasons are not flippant but how many organisations ask their hiring managers to confirm their reasons for rejecting a candidate. Once this stipulation is in place, hiring managers and supervisors will be wary of rejecting candidates for unjustified reasons.

Mistake: Failing to make it to the interview

There have been instances when critical positions have been vacant for long and when ‘right’ candidates finally show up, hiring managers have done the disappearing act on the day of the interview. Good fits are always a rarity and competition for them is always on. Therefore, not showing up for scheduled interviews is the biggest mistake some hiring managers make. Most candidates are unwilling to reschedule their interviews or make reappearances. While their unwillingness has all to do with their market worth, hiring managers are quick to say, “The fact that he cannot reschedule or come on another day shows his reluctance to work for us”. It may not be true. Start pulling up hiring managers and supervisors for not showing up on scheduled interviews.

Mistake: Turning up ill-prepared for interviews

There have been instances when recruiters have had to resend candidates details while the candidate is seated across the interview table. Recruiters have not only resent resumes but have also attended those urgent; “Hey, quick tell me something about this guy” calls. A hiring manager or supervisor’s lack of interview readiness speaks volumes of how serious he is about hiring the best. Getting hiring managers and supervisors to share their interviewing schedules a week in advance and asking them to clarify their concerns about shortlisted candidates in advance should help hiring managers and supervisors get serious about their roles.

Mistake: Turning up late for interviews

Asking candidates to wait beyond their scheduled time gives them the impression the organisation is unorganised, ill-prepared or could not careless about them. Though most candidates would wait for the interview, only the desperate would wait to accept an offer. Typically, the desperate are not always the best. Hold hiring managers and supervisors accountable for sticking to their interviewing timetable.

Mistake: Getting to the interview only to ask dimwitted questions!

Asking interviewing questions is not akin to being a quizmaster! Questions asked should help hiring managers and supervisors make the right hiring decisions. However, most hiring managers and supervisors ask irrelevant, inappropriate and wrong questions. Interviewing questions have to be to-the-point and information generating. Blaming those in-charges of interviewing is unfair when they have had no formal interviewing skills training. Here is where more organisations falter. All organizations do not make artists out of their interviewers, interviewing skills is a recognized art. Hiring managers and supervisors must be trained with the dos and don’ts of interviewing and exposed to questioning skills.

Mistake: Delaying decision making Delayed decision is refuted decision.

Although not yet recognised as an idiom, it holds true in recruiting circles. Hiring managers and supervisors who delay hiring decisions stating, “We are yet to hear from our team” or “I am waiting for the green from my boss” are doing a disservice to recruiting. Although some have the courtesy to tell candidates about the delay, undue time lags between interviewing and hiring are the banes of recruiting. Most top candidates are lost during this time. Justifying their time lags is a must for hiring managers and supervisors. Also, penalising them for keeping critical positions unfulfilled even after interviewing.

As some experts rightly say, the success of most actions lie in not what is being done but what is not, in hiring too, success lies in avoiding the preceding mistakes. Hoping this week’s mailer will enable organisations to indulge in a mistake-free hiring process - happy hiring.

Ref: TheManageMentor.

HR practices- Customer Satisfaction and HR

HR practices- Customer Satisfaction and HR

HR is crucial to improve customer satisfaction-surprising but true.

The adage 'customer is king ', signifies the importance and value of customers. Customers are crucial for a business and a customer friendly culture drives a company's profitability. No longer is the sales team alone expected to determine customer satisfaction. HR too plays a major part in ensuring customer satisfaction by hiring the best talent and training them to serve customers effectively. An analysis on 800 Sears Roebuck stores in 1999 revealed that an increase of 5% in employee attitudes increased customer satisfaction by 1.3%.

The Workforce Optimas Award winner, NCCI Holdings trained its customer service representatives in insurance data software products because a survey conducted by them revealed that its customers wanted assistance to use their products. Consequently, there was a significant increase of 33% in the customer satisfaction rating.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty can take the company ahead even during a downturn. Southwest Airlines boasted of profit in the fourth quarter of 2001 despite the sudden decrease in air traffic due to the September 11 attacks. Kmart on the contrary was declared bankrupt because it could not provide a customer friendly environment like Walmart.

According to Michael DeSanto, a consultant for Walker Information, the cost of acquiring a new customer is equal to 5 times the expenses incurred for serving an existing customer. All these instances reiterate the need to build a strong customer relationship.

HR's Initiative

In order to drive customer satisfaction to an enviable level HR should concentrate on smart hiring practices and employee development.

Hiring the budding star performers

To build a customer friendly culture HR should hire only such employees who are capable to reinforce customer satisfaction. According to Ron Zemke, president of Performance Research Associates, a consulting firm, a successful customer service representative is one who is an optimist, flexible and able to manage stress and criticism. He should be able to strike a balance between his interests and that of the company and the customer.

Scrutinising a potential candidate should begin from the time he appears for the interview. The candidate's body language and attitude before and during the interview might give some cues about his capabilities.

Probing situations the candidate may have encountered during his earlier work experience during the interview helps to identify the candidate's abilities and attitude. Patrick Wright director of the Centre suggested this probing technique for Advanced HR Studies at Cornell University to Whirlpool.

Talent+ Inc, another HR consulting firm helped Ritz-Carlton in restructuring their hiring system. Previously, their customer complaints reached an all time high of 27%. After the new system was introduced, the complaints dropped to an amazing 1% in the year 2000.

According to the company's managing director Lisa French, the new system appraises the prospective candidate's traits. This is done through open-ended questions in the interview and a comparison of their traits with those of well-known personalities in the same field.

Training the budding stars

On being recruited, a candidate should be trained to establish customer relationships. To serve the customer better one needs to understand his needs. For this the employee should be aware of the different personality traits and their behavioural patterns. The Meyers Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire is an effective tool in identifying personality types.

Effective communication skills need to be imparted. Further developing the voice tone of the employee and his body language take the lead here. Research shows that 55% of the total impact of an employee's interaction with the customers is by body language and 38% by his tone. In particular, employees serving customers telephonically need to improve their listening skills, as it is difficult to comprehend the same over the phone. Listening to the customer attentively and restating it concisely shows the kind of attention a customer is given.

The people at Rosenbluth differ here also. They insist that their employees speak in an amicable manner to customers. Words like 'certainly', 'it's been my pleasure' put the customer at ease and display the employee's zeal to serve.

Building customer loyalty through employee loyalty

Employee allegiance is crucial to build customer satisfaction and loyalty, because customer and employee satisfaction run parallel.

According to Michael DeSanto, new employees feel good about their company when they have the opportunity to acquire new skills and move up the corporate ladder. Once an employee stays with the company for about 3 years he gets restless if nothing new is happening.

Similarly, new customers feel thrilled by the attention showered on them by the company. Over the years, regular customers used to attention, however begin to feel neglected and explore new avenues.

An organisation that does not acquire the loyalty of the customer or employees might be left in lurch. The two are interdependent. If the employee is happy then the customer satisfaction is also high.

One touch solutions at Captain D's

Captain D's proves that HR's role is detrimental in the restaurant industry where customer service is crucial.The HR initiatives taken by Captain D's to lower their staff turnover, increase customer service and thereby increase their profitability is commendable. Shoney's Inc, started in 1947, provides family dining at Shoneys' and Captain D's chain of restaurants spread over 20 states with 550 franchises.

According to Matt Gloster, vice president of administration for Captain D's, around 8000 employees are trained in all the aspects of restaurant business every year. An uphill task because employees are spread over 20 states and training them from recipes to business operations is an arduous task. The wide geographical spread made a simple thing like communicating a change in the recipe of a dish a complicated process during training sessions. The problem was that the changes have to be communicated to all the branches and thereby requiring to reproduce the same data a number of times.

OneTouch solution, an application software that has a video and two way voice and data application was introduced to allow the employees to communicate with the trainer.

The solution can be applied to PC or non- PC environments so Captain D's and Shoneys used it at all places in the restaurant. This ensures that groups or individual employees attend the training sessions. The training programmes introduced the employees to different topics and a quiz ensured that the trainees comprehend the programme.

Top managements know the developments in the restaurants when they access the data stored by Matt Gloster. Moreover, they can easily update the training programmes by downloading them. OneTouch also helped the restaurants to maintain a productive workforce by training the employees to multitask.

Captain D's thus improved its productivity and customer satisfaction and decreased turnover. Glowing over the restaurant's success Matt Gloster recalls the phrase coined by the chairman 30 years ago, ' show and tell '. The approach states ' tell me, and I'll forget. Show me, and I'll try to remember. Do it with me, and I'll always know how '.

The case of Captain D's shows the importance of an effective training programme to improve customer satisfaction. It also establishes the need to hire potential employees, train them and keep them happy.

Reference:The ManageMentor

Importance of HR Outsourcing

Importance of HR Outsourcing

In today’s world of globalization, a new concept of Human resource outsourcing is coined so as to reduce the complexities of handling day to day human resource issues in more accurate and other hand it helps an organization can focus on its core business

Whatever your company's human resources requirements, there's an HR outsourcing firm out there to meet those needs. Some HR outsourcing firms are generalists, offering a wide variety of services, while others are specialists, focusing on specific areas such as payroll or recruiting. Depending on the size of your business and how much control you want to maintain over HR functions, you can either outsource all your HR tasks or contract for services a la carte.

The basic services offered by HR outsourcing firms may include:

· Overseeing organizational structure and staffing requirements
· Recruiting, training, and development
· Tracking department objectives, goals, and strategies
· Employee and manager training
· Benefits administration
· Employee orientation programs

Businesses that outsource HR are typically small-to-midsize firms with between 25 and 1,500 employees. These businesses view HR outsourcing as a strategic tool that relieves them of HR responsibilities and enables them to focus on what they do best. In addition to allowing you to concentrate on your core business activities, outsourcing provides some key benefits, including:

· Providing you with skilled professionals who are focused specifically on HR
· Helping you reduce and manage operating costs
· Improving employee relations

If you need to hand off the entire HR function, consider a professional employer organization (PEO). A PEO becomes the employer of record, handling employee relations, payroll, benefits, workers' compensation, and all the other areas that fall under the HR umbrella, while you manage the employee's everyday business responsibilities. In India the concept of Professional Employer Organization (PEO) is better known as Contract Staffing.

If you don't need the comprehensive services of a PEO, you can contract specific projects through an HR outsourcing firm to help you:

· Implement a human resource information system (HRIS)
· Create or update employee handbooks and policy manuals
· Develop and implement a compensation program
· Create or review a performance appraisal system
· Write and update affirmative action plans
· Provide sexual harassment training

In India, well known for the contract staffing is Laurent and Benon Management Consultant, as because of entire contract staffing works through software which enables the client to keep track on the day to day activities of the employee through the software.

Whether you're looking to outsource the entire HR function, a portion of it, or a specific project, it's good to know you've got options — lots of them.

Ref: http://blogs.siliconindia.com/laurentandbenon

Performance Appraisal - Management by Objectives

Performance Appraisal - Management by Objectives

Once an employee has been selected, trained and embarked on his duties, it is time for performance appraisal. What is performance appraisal? Why do companies need to take up this task?

According to Heyel, “it is the process of evaluating the performance and qualifications of the employees in terms of job requirements, for administrative purposes such as placement, selection and promotions, to provide financial rewards and other actions which require differential treatment among the members of a group as distinguished from actions affecting all members equally”.


This concept dates back to the First World War and was then called “Merit rating programme”. Over a period of time, this concept has been through an ocean of change. The areas of evaluation have also changed.


Importance and objectives: Performance appraisals have been considered to be the most significant and indispensable tool for the management as it,

1. Provides useful information for decision making in areas of promotion and merit rating and compensation reviews.
2. Links information gathering and decision making process, which are the basis for judging the effectiveness of personnel subfunctions such as recruiting, selecting and compensation.
3. Helps pinpoint areas of concerns in the primary systems like marketing, finance and production.
4. Enhances understanding for training and counselling needs.

Methods of performance appraisal


There are several methods for evaluating performance. Management by objectives is the most popular one.


Management by objectives is primarily to change the behaviour and attitude towards getting an activity or assignment completed in a manner that it is beneficial for the organisation. Management by objectives is a result-oriented process. In this system, emphasis is on results and goals rather than a prescribed method.


For instance, the number of quality articles to be churned out in a week, at a publishing house is, let’s say, five. This is the goal of the organisation. This goal has to be set in coordination with the writers. The emphasis here again would be on accomplishing this task flawlessly over the week rather than the setting of a method to accomplish the same. You are giving them a free hand to decide as to how they want to work in order to accomplish target. This gives the employee both responsibility as well as authority to do a job. The employees are now responsible for its success and failure and it is their baby. It is a VERY SMART MANAGEMENT TOOL where the employee is involved in the decision making process.


The fives magic sutras


The mystery of management of objectives has the following basic steps.


Set organisational goals. This envisages that organisational goals and business strategies are expressed clearly, concisely and accurately. They are periodically reviewed. They should be challenging enough to motivate the employee. Clear and attainable goals help channel energies towards desired behaviour and let the employee know the basis on which he will be rewarded.


Joint goal setting. This step establishes short-term goals, which are performance oriented, between the management and the employee. The responsibilities are clarified to the employees through organisational charts and job description. The goals decided by the employee need to complement the goals of the management. They also need to be flexible to accommodate new ideas without losing individual responsibilities. Moreover they should be easily quantifiable. For example,


To prepare, process and transfer to the office superintended, all account payable vouchers within three working days from the receipt of the voucher.

To hold weekly meetings with all employee.To use program evaluation and review technique (pert) for all new plant layouts.


Performance reviews. This step suggests frequent performance review between the manager and the employees. During the initial stages the meetings be held once a month and later could be quarterly. For maximum benefit these meetings should be scheduled for more than once a year.


Set check posts: Establishment of major check posts to measure progress. This is merely to check that the employee surges towards his premeditated goal without any disruptions. These check levels should be higher in the initial stages and then gradually reduce. This demands that the manager should be on constant alert and exercise sound judgment.


Feedback: The employees who receive frequent feedback about their performance are highly motivated than those who do not. However, one has to ensure that the feedback is relevant and specific. This helps the employee and the manager understand where they stand.


The five-sutra process of management by objectives ensures that the manager and the employee define and establish goals and objectives for an employee to be achieved within a prescribed period of time. The employee is to be supervised and evaluated, periodically. To this extent, a frequent feedback and superior-employee interaction model must be evolved.

Reference: TheManageMentor

How to Coach Your Boss

How to Coach Your Boss

At the core of every toxic working environment is the toxic boss, manager or supervisor that breeds it. All roads go back to the manager. And if the manager isn't willing to change, then it's a safe bet that nothing will.

That's why to impact long lasting change; managers need to upgrade their style and approach to managing their people. The toxic boss is still alive and thriving. Sure, no breakthrough news here but what if you, as the recipient of this type of management style, could actually do something about it?

Knowing the type of boss you have, their limitations, their management style, their priorities, what drives them and how they communicate, helps you determine exactly where you stand, and what you can expect from them. After all, if you're looking for more individualized attention, support and training it may not be realistic to expect that from your current boss or even possible for that boss to provide you the support and training you need. And if that's the case, at least you now have the evidence to make a more educated and informed decision regarding whether or not to stay in your current position.

So, what can you do to turn around your boss's style of managing and how they communicate with you? Here's a twist. Start by coaching and supporting them using these three simple steps.

First: Coach Up. What can you to do support your boss? Most are used to their employees coming to them with problems and complaints. It's an interesting reaction you get when you approach them with, "Hi Mary. Listen I know how much we're all under the same pressure to produce and for you I can only imaging that it's even more intense. So, I just wanted to ask you what I might be able to do for you to possibly take some of that burden off, or if there's anything you see in my production or performance that I could be doing better which in turn we'd all win."

Next: Create the Opportunity to Discuss Expectations: The law of reciprocity applies. After you've determined how you can make his life a little easier, eventually, your manager can ask what he can do for you, which is your opportunity to ask if you can discuss the management style that you best respond to and how you want to be managed.

Finally: Set Your Boundaries: Bosses don’t know boundaries. Like it or not, through many managers eyes, their #1 responsibility is to run the company, not worry about your feelings. So stand up for yourself and establish your role, but always give 100%. While most of the time not premeditated, people, especially your boss will continually test you, over and over again, in the sense of what they can and cannot get away with when it comes to making requests and demands of you and how they can treat you. While a large percentage of people might initially be scared or intimidated to say something to their boss, in fear of some type of consequence or fallout, most of the time, managers are clueless about how they treat people and often don't even know they're doing it! Don't be surprised when you drop off this article on their desk, and they in turn, thank you for it. So, re-train all the people around you, including your boss, how they can respond to you in a healthier, non-toxic way.

(About the author: Keith Rosen is the Executive Sales Coach™ that top salespeople and managers call first to develop a team of champion performers and boost their sales. A best selling author, Keith has written several books including the award winning Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions. Inc. magazine and Fast Company named Keith one of the five most influential executive coaches. He's been featured in Entrepreneur, Inc., Fortune, TheStreet.com, Hoovers.com, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Keith is a frequent guest correspondent on News 12 and has appeared on Fox Business )

Downsizing: 7 Steps to Help Employees

Downsizing: 7 Steps to Help Employees

The November 2008 U.S. job loss report was staggering. More than 500,000 jobs shed in one month, the worst one-month job loss since December 1974. That brings the 2008 job loss total to 1.9 million. And according to a New York Times report on the job loss situation, deeper cuts will probably happen in 2009.

The HR department isn't always involved in making the decision to downsize; however, HR is in the driver's seat when it comes to orchestrating a smooth transition for everyone who's affected. And although you may not make the layoff announcement, there are many things to consider as you prepare to deal with the anger, grief, and stress often associated with downsizing.

Emotionally prepare yourself. Recognize the fact that you may grieve along with the employees. Part of this step means getting ready for the psychological effect the layoff will have on everyone, including the "survivors." Employees who are left behind are often sad and anxious because they have lost friends and are concerned about their own job security. Some feel guilty that they are still with the organization when others are gone. In addition, they will be required to do more with less, a challenge that may initially seem impossible.

Prepare for the downsizing announcement. You may not actually make it, but you will be asked to explain to the employees what to expect. Always focus on layoffs with respect and dignity. Write down what you plan to say in describing your roll in assisting the employees who will lose their jobs. Then practice out loud until you feel confident. Expect anger and sadness in response to your message. The more prepared you are, the easier your job will be, and the more helpful you can be to the employees.

Consider how you can help. In-house outplacement services can assist those who must find other work. Find out what is available in your community to meet the needs of the unemployed. Be empathetic and willing to go the extra mile in helping your laid-off population. Keep in mind that your "survivors" are watching you and the way you handle those who are leaving.

Minimize the effect of downsizing. Do whatever it takes to win back the trust and commitment of your remaining employees. Show the "survivors" how to be change-resilient; it's essential to overcoming the obstacles. Define exactly what is changing and what isn't. It's not uncommon for your "survivors" to believe that everything is changing when, in reality, most everything is staying the same. You need the "survivors" on your side more than ever now that you are, in many cases, short-staffed.

Communicate early and often. Honesty should play a major role in everything you do and say. These are the people you depend on to keep you in business. Tell them what you know and what you can share. If you aren't allowed to tell them some of what you know, try to explain why.

Be accessible to those who are left. As busy as you are, if employees feel they can't get your attention, you are in trouble. Commit to returning e-mails and phone calls, and make sure employees know when that will happen. During the time of uncertainty, the more accessible you are, the easier it will be for everyone to adjust to the changes.

Be a cheerleader. HR has a major responsibility in redesigning, training, and employee engagement, especially after a major layoff. Employees are looking to HR for guidance in filling in the gaps and getting the right people in place to do so while managing the social pressures that are inevitable with layoffs. Remain positive, set goals, and help others who are struggling with what they are being asked to do.

About the Author: Carol Hacker is an HR consultant and seminar leader who ranks among the experts in the field of recruiting and retention issues. She's the author of 13 highly acclaimed business books. Carol can be reached at (770) 410-0517 or carol@carolhacker.com.

Boost Engagement in a Financial Crises: Tell the Truth

Boost Engagement in a Financial Crises: Tell the Truth

The recent turmoil on Wall Street appears to carry more than just financial implication: It may be lowering employee productivity and engagement, as well.

In a new survey by Workplace Options, a work-life consulting and training company, half of respondents said they are experiencing stress because of financial concerns, and nearly the same amount said that stress makes it hard to perform their jobs.

"It's a critical issue because the first reaction is to hunker down, play it safe and try to not stick out," said Jim Haudan, CEO of Root Learning and author of The Art of Engagement: Bridging the Gap Between People and Possibilities.

"When fear, uncertainty and doubt reign supreme, people begin to get on the [anxiety] train," Haudan explained. "They look at turf control, they begin to catastrophize what's going on, and they begin to worry if [they're] next. All of these emotions are very real, and all of these emotions are exactly what you don't need at a time when you want people to unify, align, change and be agile.

"To help get employees back on track and to leverage workers' capabilities to the fullest, Haudan said talent managers should advise leaders to do the following:

1. Convey the reality of the situation.

Above all, leaders must be frank with employees. "People are amazingly resilient and able to deal with the downside, but the unknown is paralyzing," Haudan said. "The leader's job is to bring the facts into focus and create a perspective.

"To do that, leaders must engage in two specific behaviors: tell the truth and show the bigger picture. "[When leaders tell] the truth, people actually becoming more trusting," Haudan said. "It's when you're not thinking you're being told the truth that you become less trusting.

"There's a very emotional connection, too," he explained. "Telling the truth also conveys that we, leaders, understand the predicament our people are in in such an empathetic way it creates a connection [that allows us] to go forward rather than stay where we're at.

"But leaders also should be sure to convey the bigger picture to employees. Haudan said employees often complain they only receive bits of information that can often give them a haphazard view of what's going on, like disparate jigsaw puzzle pieces.

"They said, 'Why don't [executives] just send the cover of the box across to the puzzle, so we can see how it all fits together and then realize that some of these parts that seem to be in conflict may have their appropriate places?' I think more than ever in these turbulent times, getting people to see the 'box top' of the business and the state of the business is absolutely essential to tap into their capability," Haudan said.

2. Communicate the "score.

"When the financial crisis began to unravel, many employees were glued to their computers, constantly clicking for updates."I've never seen so many [people] check the market so many times in one day," Haudan said. "Human beings, in times of turmoil, want to know what the score is. There's never been greater curiosity about the score; use and leverage that curiosity to not only [get employees to] understand the business but to keep everybody in the game. The urgency can either tear us apart or be a catalyst to bring us together."

3. Prioritize.

Employees are likely to feel overwhelmed in turbulent times, and when upper management unwittingly leads them to believe every initiative is urgent or important, they're more apt to just give up. Leaders should focus on keeping things simple and direct to improve engagement.

Ref:Agatha Gilmore

Talent Intelligence During the Onboarding Process

It is widely accepted that, in small pockets around the world, the second iteration of the war for talent is well underway. Emerging companies in China, for example, are invading small rural villages in an effort to convert agrarian citizens into knowledge workers, and professional service firms are eagerly grasping at once undesired college new grads.

It would be logical to assume that growth-oriented firms would be devising new methods to uncover hidden sources of talent and fend off poachers from other organizations, but in reality few are. At a time when most organizations should be abandoning the conservative approach of continuous improvement and embracing innovation, too many are still focused on miniscule efficiency gains.

At no time since the final years of the Roman Empire has the world population mimicked its current state. With a huge population of aged workers and a significantly smaller influx of youthful workers, it is well known that something will have to change. Innovation will take place.

The world is full of people who look back and say, "If only I had thought of that," or, "If only I had leveraged that missed opportunity, where would I be today?" It is also full of people who routinely try to reinvent the wheel.

Unfortunately, the recruiting profession seems to be a magnet for these types of people. For years now, thought leaders have been advising organizations to embed formal competitive-intelligence-gathering activities into their onboarding processes, yet few actually have. When a recruiter learns of actions in a competitor, rarely do the managers who could leverage such information hear of it. What is even more disappointing is the lack of talent intelligence gathering that takes place during the onboarding process, and the shear volume of missed opportunities that go unnoticed.

The Problem With Most Onboarding Approaches

Like many programs in human resources, onboarding programs suffer from narrow perspective design. Quite frankly, they are designed by people who truly have no idea what value talent provides or how to maximize the value of that talent.

The most common evidence of this design flaw is the scope and direction of information flow during the onboarding process. In most organizations, information flows only one way, with the exception of benefits enrollment data. Few organizations look at the onboarding process as an opportunity for both parties to exchange in a dialogue where both parties learn something of value.

In short, we add another element to the list of missed opportunities in HR.

The New Perspective

The first week on the job can play a crucial role in motivating and retaining new employees, helping them contribute not only to their own success, but their new employer's as well. Organizations often spend lots of time and money recruiting and wooing new employees, but as soon as they start they turn around and treat them like barely welcome strangers.

In the new perspective, recruiting is viewed as only half of the task of hiring. Orientation is the other, often ignored element.

The new hire's first week on the job is too important to delegate to human resources or to devote to "reading the manual." Managers need to take control of the process of bringing a new employee on board and engage in what we call "talent intelligence gathering." Just like a parent adopting a new child, the role a manager plays during the first week is of critical importance if the value of the new hire is to be maximized.

Talent Intelligence Onboarding Areas

The following is a short list of areas for which managers interested in performance should take responsibility and for which they should make use of intelligence that is gained:

· Accelerating time to productivity. Coming into a new environment can be stressful for even the most adept change seekers. Any delay in providing new hires with the guidance, equipment, and training they need to get started on what they will be held accountable for can slow the time it takes for a new employee to reach a minimum expected level of productivity. Each day of delay can frustrate the employee and may also mean the loss of thousands of dollars in revenue if product development or sales are impacted. During the intelligence-gathering process, managers should engage with the new hire to uncover his or her desired management style, perceptions of company processes (good and bad), and insight about how other organizations may have approached the new hire's role differently.

· Continuous recruiting. Having recently changed teams, the new hire has an innate interest in helping their new team succeed — and that gives both managers and recruiters a perfect opportunity to discover leads for other potential hires. By asking new hires on their first day who else is good at their former firm, managers can easily increase their supply of talent. New hires can also be asked (when appropriate) to directly help in recruiting their former colleagues.

· Competitive intelligence. By asking new hires about the best practices of their last firm, their new managers can gather some new benchmark.

· Setting a manager's expectations. On the first day, it is important for the manager to make sure that the new employee knows the manager's expectations, the departmental goals, and what important contributions the employee can make to the product and the firm.

· Understanding the employee's expectations. It is equally important for the manager to find out what expectations the new employee has in the areas of training, promotion, and preferred management and communication styles.

Conclusion

Innovation is an activity without boundaries, so there truly are no limits as to what opportunities can be created and leveraged during the onboarding process. But organizations must abandon the useless activities that most onboarding programs consist of, and instead embrace programs that immediate create value for both parties.

Gone are the days when an organization could afford to wait six months or longer for a new hire to become productive, or when they could pay recruiters to spend months researching potential hires when the information could have been mined in a matter of hours from existing employees. Take advantage of the opportunities before you to map the competitive landscape, using the expatriates you have just recruited. A war is underway, and you need to adopt warrior-like approaches.

Ref: Dr. John Sullivan and Master Burnett.

HRM Effectiveness Audit

The HRM Effectiveness Audit: A Tool for Managing Accountability in HRM

Definition:

HR Audit means the systematic verification of job analysis and design, recruitment and selection, orientation and placement, training and development, performance appraisal and job evaluation, employee and executive remuneration, motivation and morale, participative management, communication, welfare and social security, safety and health, industrial relations, trade unionism, and disputes and their resolution. HR audit is very much useful to achieve the organizational goal and also is a vital tool which helps to assess the effectiveness of HR functions of an organization.

Scope of Audit:

Generally, no one can measure the attitude of human being and also their problems are not confined to the HR department alone. So it is very much broad in nature. It covers the following HR areas:

. Audit of all the HR function.
. Audit of managerial compliance of personnel policies, procedures and legal provisions.
. Audit of corporate strategy regarding HR planning, staffing, IRs, remuneration and other HR activities.
. Audit of the HR climate on employee motivation, morale and job satisfaction.

Benefits of HR Audit:

It provides the various benefits to the organization. These are:

. It helps to find out the proper contribution of the HR department towards the organization.
. Development of the professional image of the HR department of the organization.
. Reduce the HR cost.
. Motivation of the HR personnel.
. Find out the problems and solve them smoothly.
. Provides timely legal requirement.
. Sound Performance Appraisal Systems.
. Systematic job analysis.
. Smooth adoption of the changing mindset.

Approaches to HR Audit:

There are five approaches for the purpose of evaluation of HR in any organization:

. Comparative approach
. Outside authority
. Statistical
. Compliance approach and
. Management By Objectives(MBO)

Conclusion:

The auditors always prepare and submit an audit report to authority of the organization, which may be clean or qualified. The clean report indicates the appreciative of the department's function, but the latter one represents the gaps in performance and therefore contains remarks and remedial measures. HR Audit is very much helpful to face the challenges and to increase the potentiality of the HR personnel in the organization.

References:
William.B.Werther and Keith Davis, Human Resource Management and Personnel Management, 5th edition, McGraw-hill, 1996.
K. Aswathappa, Human Resource Management and Personnel Management, 4th edition, McGraw-hill, 2006.

HR as an Arbitrator

Human Resources is exactly it says: resources for humans – within the workplace! Its main objective is to meet the organizational needs of the company it represents and the needs of the people hired by that company. In short, it is the hub of the organization serving as a liaison between all concerned. Depending on the size of the company, the HR Department might be called Personnel with a manageable workforce that can be handled by a personnel manager and a small staff. For larger, more complex organizations with hundreds of departments and divisions, the task is much more demanding, taking on a life of its own. Some companies have more than one HR Department - Corporate and Union. For example, a food service industry might have a Corporate HR Department that oversees “white collared” employees and an HR Department that oversees the “blue collar” workforce with an emphasis on labor relations. The organization will, thus, institute these two HR Departments to manage the unique needs of both union and non-union employees.

Organizational Development:

To ensure its success, a company must establish a hierarchal reporting system. The funnel of responsibility is critical to the efficiency of a smoothly operating business entity in which there is a clearly defined understanding of who is responsible for what. They provide consultation to a company's management team to identify what the company's core business and culture is about, and proceeds to plan and map the company's organizational infrastructure to support those needs.

Employee Recruitment and Selection Process:

There are many steps to recruiting and selecting qualified employees. First, a department head must inform the HR manager of an opening in their department. Then the HR manager must obtain the job description to formulate a Job Description Sheet for publication either internally, publicly, or both. Then HR must field the (many) responses to that job announcement to weed out the qualified from the unqualified applicants. Once that is completed, the interview process must be coordinated. They prepare the job description, contact the newspaper, run the ad, field the calls, compile a list of potential candidates, submit that list to the department's hiring manager for approval and selection, contact the chosen candidates to set up preliminary interviews, and interview the candidates! Although most interviews are with the hiring manager or their associates, not all applicants get to meet with the department's hiring manager right away. It is not uncommon for a company to filter out those who fail to impress the HR manager first. For those select few who make it through, the HR manager schedules interviews between the department's hiring manager and potential candidates, and follows up with the hiring process to establish the new hire with the company. Employee Training & Development: As a company and the requirements of a position evolve, a company needs to take certain measures to ensure a highly skilled workforce is in place. The Human Resources Department oversees the skills development of company's workforce, acting as an in-house training center to coordinate training programs either on-site, off-site, or in the field. This might include on-going company training, outside training seminars, or even college, in which case an employee will receive tuition reimbursement upon earning a passing grade.

Employee Compensation Benefits:

This covers salaries, bonuses, vacation pay, sick leave pay, Workers' Compensation, and insurance policies such as medical, dental, life, and 401k. The Human Resources Department is responsible for developing and administering a benefits compensation system that serves as an incentive to ensure the recruitment and retention of top talent that will stay on with the company. When an employee is hired, the company's Benefits Coordinator is required to meet with employees one-on-one or in small group settings to explain their benefits package. This often requires an employee to make an informed decision and to provide their signature for processing purposes.

Employee Relations:

With the increased rise in unethical practices and misbehaviors taking place in today's workplace such as age, gender, race, and religion discrimination and sexual harassment, there needs to be mandatory compliance with governing rules and regulations to ensure fair treatment of employees. In short, employees need to know they have a place to turn when a supervisor abuses his or her authority in anyway. Whether corporate or union, the HR Department will get involved to act as arbitrator and liaison between legal entities, regulatory agencies such as Human Rights, supervisors (who might be falsely accused), and employees to properly address and resolve the issue at hand.

Policy Formulation:

Regardless of the organization's size, company policies and procedures must be established to ensure order in the workplace. These policies and procedures are put in place to provide each employee with an understanding of what is expected of them. Similarly, these policies and procedural guidelines will assist hiring managers in evaluating their employee's performance. These policies can be established company-wide or used to define each department's function. It is Human Resource's responsibility to collaborate with department managers on the formulation of these policies and regulations to ensure a cohesive organization. A common practice is the development and implementation of an Employee Procedure Manual or Employee Handbook that is either distributed to each employee at the time of hire or a master copy allocated one to a department.

The Human Resources Information Systems keeps track of the vast amount of data, a human resources department must have a good HRIS in place to automate many functions such as planning and tracking costs, monitoring and evaluating productivity levels, and the storing and processing of employee records such as payroll, benefits, and personnel files. It is very important that you, the job seeker, understand how the HR function works – specifically in the area of candidate recruitment. If you are considering a career in human resources, you can choose to become a Generalist or a Specialist. Whether a job seeker or an HR professional, research a company well before applying for a position.

Key Orientation Planning Questions

Human Resource professionals and line managers first need to consider key orientation planning questions before implementing or revamping a current program:

1. What things would new employees need to know about this work environment that would make them more comfortable?

2. What impression and impact would I want to make on new employees' first day?

3. What key policies and procedures must employees be aware of the first day to avoid mistakes on the second day? Concentrate on vital issues.

4. What specific things can I do to ensure that new employees will begin to know their co-workers without feeling overwhelmed?

5. What special things (desk, work area, equipment, special instructions) can I provide to make new employees feel comfortable, welcome and secure?

6. What positive experience can I provide for new employees that they could discuss with their families? The experience should be something to make the new employee feel valued by the organization.

7. How can I, as the supervisor, ensure that I will be available to new employees on the first day to provide personal attention and to convey a clear message that they are important additions to the work team?

Remember, first impressions are crucial. Here are some tips for putting your best foot forward.

1. Begin before the new person does. Send an agenda to the new associate with the offer letter so the employee knows what to expect. Stay in touch after he or she has accepted the position to answer questions or help in other ways. Also, make sure the new person's work area is ready for the first day of work.
2. Make sure everyone knows the employee is starting and encourage them to come to say hello before orientation begins.
3. Assign a mentor or partner to show the new person around, make introductions, and start training. Let the mentor have sufficient notice so he or she can make preparations.
4. Start with the basics. People become productive sooner if they are firmly grounded in the basic knowledge they need to understand their job. Focus on the why, when, where, and how of the position before expecting them to handle assignments or big projects. Don't overwhelm them with too much information.
5. Provide samples on how to complete forms as well as the individual's job description with the orientation packet.
6. Have some fun. Do not spend time on every aspect of the handbook, only on the very important topics. Play some games because this can help the learning process. Games such as:
   a. Photo match after the tour. Each employee is provided photos of other employees and a list of names. The object is to match the name with the face.
   b. Signature hunt. While employees are touring the facility, provide them with a piece of paper with names of several associates they will be meeting. They are then asked to obtain the signatures of the people they meet. The employee who obtains the most signatures, gets a prize.
7. Provide a list of frequently asked questions with a contact person/department, and phone number or extension.
8. Plan to take them to lunch. The first day on the job the new employee is left in the lurch. This is a good time for the manager/supervisor to take the employee to lunch; include other co-workers, making sure the employee is at ease.
9. Give the new person some responsibility for his or her own orientation. Offer opportunities for self-directed learning, under appropriate supervision.
10. Keep the new person's family in mind. A new job means adjustment for the entire family, especially if they have relocated. Do what you can to ease the transition and help them feel comfortable in the community.
11. Ask for feedback. Find out from former new hires how they perceived the orientation process, and don't be afraid to make changes based on those recommendations. You can send an evaluation two to four weeks after the employee has started, saying something such as: Now that you have been with the company awhile, did the orientation meet your needs? After they have been working there awhile they find out what they should have known but did not. At Mecklenburg County, one of the trainers, Allyson Berbiglia says, "We recognize that we have to continuously improve orientation to meet the changing needs of our customers. What works now may not serve our employees well next month or next year."

NEW TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL HRM

International HRM places greater emphasis on a number of responsibilities and functions such as relocation, orientation and translation services to help employees adapt to a new and different environment outside their own country.

. Selection of employees requires careful evaluation of the personal characteristics of the candidate and his/her spouse.

. Training and development extends beyond information and orientation training to include sensitivity training and field experiences that will enable the manager to understand cultural differences better. Managers need to be protected from career development risks, re-entry problems and culture shock.

. To balance the pros and cons of home country and host country evaluations, performance evaluations should combine the two sources of appraisal information.

. Compensation systems should support the overall strategic intent of the organization but should be customized for local conditions.

. In many European countries - Germany for one, law establishes representation. Organizations typically negotiate the agreement with the unions at a national level. In Europe it is more likely for salaried employees and managers to be unionized.

HR Managers should do the following things to ensure success-

. Use workforce skills and abilities in order to exploit environmental opportunities and neutralize threats.

. Employ innovative reward plans that recognize employee contributions and grant enhancements.

. Indulge in continuous quality improvement through TQM and HR contributions like training, development, counseling, etc.

. Utilize people with distinctive capabilities to create unsurpassed competence in an area, e.g. Xerox in photocopiers, 3M in adhesives, Telco in trucks etc.

. Decentralize operations and rely on self-managed teams to deliver goods in difficult times e.g. Motorola is famous for short product development cycles. It has quickly commercialized ideas from its research labs.

. Lay off workers in a smooth way explaining facts to unions, workers and other affected groups e.g. IBM , Kodak, Xerox, etc.

Strategic Human Resource Management

In today’s intensely competitive and global marketplace, maintaining a competitive advantage by becoming a low cost leader or a differentiator puts a heavy premium on having a highly committed or competent workforce. Competitive advantage lies not just in differentiating a product or service or in becoming the low cost leader but in also being able to tap the company’s special skills or core competencies and rapidly respond to customer’s needs and competitor’s moves. In other words competitive advantage lies in management’s ability to consolidate corporate-wide technologies and production skills into competencies that empower individual businesses to adapt quickly to changing opportunities.

In a growing number of organizations human resources are now viewed as a source of competitive advantage. There is greater recognition that distinctive competencies are obtained through highly developed employee skills, distinctive organizational cultures, management processes and systems. This is in contrast to the traditional emphasis on transferable resources such as equipment. Increasingly it is being recognized that competitive advantage can be obtained with a high quality workforce that enables organizations to compete on the basis of market responsiveness, product and service quality, differentiated products and technological innovation.

Strategic human resource management has been defined as ‘ the linking of human resources with strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business performance and develop organizational culture that foster innovation and flexibility ‘. Strategic HR means accepting the HR function as a strategic partner in the formulation of the company’s strategies as well as in the implementation of those strategies through HR activities such as recruiting, selecting, training and rewarding personnel. Whereas strategic HR recognizes HR’s partnership role in the strategizing process, the term HR Strategies refers to specific HR courses of action the company plans to pursue to achieve it’s aims.

HR management can play a role in environmental scanning i.e. identifying and analyzing external opportunities and threats that may be crucial to the company’s success. Similarly HR management is in a unique position to supply competitive intelligence that may be useful in the strategic planning process. HR also participates in the strategy formulation process by supplying information regarding the company’s internal strengths and weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses of a company’s human resources can have a determining effect on the viability of the firm’s strategic options.

By design the perspective demands that HR managers become strategic partners in business operations playing prospective roles rather than being passive administrators reacting to the requirements of other business functions. Strategic HR managers need a change in their mindset from seeing themselves as relationship managers to resource managers knowing how to utilize the full potential of their human resources.

The new breed of HR managers need to understand and know how to measure the monetary impact of their actions, so as to be able to demonstrate the value added contributions of their functions. HR professionals become strategic partners when they participate in the process of defining business strategy, when they ask questions that move strategy to action and when they design HR practices that align with the business strategy. By fulfilling this role, HR professionals increase the capacity of a business to execute its strategies.

The primary actions of the strategic human resource manager translate business strategies into HR priorities. In any business setting, whether corporate, functional, business unit or product line a strategy exists either explicitly in the formal process or document or implicitly through a shared agenda on priorities. As strategic partners, HR professionals should be to identify the HR practices that make the strategy happen. The process of identifying these HR priorities is called organizational diagnosis, a process through which an organization is audited to determine its strengths and weaknesses.

Translating business strategies into HR practices helps a business in three ways. First, the business can adapt to change because the time from the conception to the execution of a strategy is shortened. Second, the business can better meet customer demands because its customer service strategies have been translated into specific policies and practices. Third, the business can achieve financial performance through its more effective execution of strategy.

In brief, a strategic perspective of HRM that requires simultaneous consideration of both external (business strategy) and internal (consistency) requirement leads to superior performance of the firm. This performance advantage is achieved by:

. Marshalling resources that support the business strategy and implementing the chosen strategy, efficiently and effectively.

. Utilizing the full potential of the human resources to the firm’s advantage.

. Leveraging other resources such as physical assets and capital to complement and augment the human resources based advantage.

Keep employees' morale up in difficult times

Motivating employees is always important, but inspiring your team takes on increased significance during challenging economic times. When business results are less than promising, emotions, such as fear and anxiety, can bring employee performance to a standstill.

Here are some suggestions from the Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants (TSCPA) to help foster productivity, high morale and loyalty in your work force during the best and worst of times.

Give them vision.

To keep up morale, make sure employees know and understand the organization's mission, vision, values and goals. These concepts represent the organization's reason for being and, as such, help workers focus their efforts in the right direction and see that their contributions matter. Be sure they know who benefits from the work of your organization.

Don't hide the target.

Setting clear expectations is a great way to motivate employees and keep them on track. Clearly establish goals with each employee. Indicate the results you expect and how those results contribute to the overall performance of your business. To confirm their understanding, ask employees if they have any questions or need any resources to complete the tasks you assign. Finally, make sure if the organization's goals change, you let your employees know how these changes impact their roles.

Provide regular feedback.

Conducting an annual employee performance review is important, but it's not enough. Employees need to know, on an ongoing basis, when they have done a job well and when you expect better or different results. Keep in mind that the more immediate the feedback, the more effective it is. Try to catch people in the act of doing what you want and acknowledge their performance immediately.

Make employees part of the solution.

Employees need to be involved. Empowering employees to make decisions about their work and to solve day-to-day problems demonstrates your confidence in them and motivates them to live up to your expectations. Another bonus: When you make employees part of the solution, it is easier to get their buy-in and commitment for the long term.

Focus on people development.

Since most people thrive when skill building and learning are part of their daily experiences, investing in your staff's development should remain a priority. Training, career development and other learning opportunities don't have to cost a lot, particularly when you use internal resources. The best way to ensure the growth of your team is to create an individual development plan for each employee and work with them to carry out the plan.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

You cannot overcommunicate, particularly in uncertain or difficult times. Sharing information and building your staff's understanding of what's happening in the business and in the industry is key to engaging them and to aligning their efforts and performance with the organization's objectives.

What's more, sharing information with employees sets a good example and encourages them to do the same with one another. Since not everyone processes information the same way, it's helpful to use multiple forms of communication, particularly when the information is critical.

For example, you might follow up an e-mail message with a voice-mail reminder. And don't assume that, just because a communication has gone out, that it has been understood and accepted. Instead, ask questions to confirm comprehension.

1. Don't overlook the power of praise. Recognizing and rewarding workers is one of the best ways to impact morale. Acknowledge good effort, not just results. Keep in mind that different things motivate people, whether it is money, travel, training, promotions or a flexible work schedule. The best way to find out what motivates your staff is to ask them.

2. Build fun. There are important milestones in the life of every business. Be sure to mark them. Throw a party and celebrate your workers' accomplishments. Don't ever allow yourself to get so caught up in the daily routine that you fail to see the good work being done.

3. Be positive. Every day millions of people arrive at their workplace ready to contribute their best. The attitude of business leaders can greatly impact employees. Be positive and supportive and your employees are more likely to act similarly.

Types of Training Program

Types of learning can be categorized into three groups:

Cognitive learning.

This means knowledge learning. It not only includes the knowledge per se, but also what to do with it or how to apply it. Thus the investigative process and the principles of problem solving and decision making are part of this group.

Much learning of this nature is imparted by the lecture method, but can be reinforced by a variety of methods such as private study, process reviews, role plays and case studies.

Psychomotor learning.

These are the physical skills that are required in order to complete a task. Examples would be driving a car or giving an oral presentation.

The most effective environment in which to gain these physical skills is in the 'laboratory', in which students actually gain hands-on experience. The lecturer only prepares the student by giving him the knowledge before entering the arena to practice. It is only in the arena that the real learning takes place. This experiential approach is used in the training of airline pilots in simulators.

In no area of learning is the old Chinese proverb more appropriate:

I hear, I forget, I see, I remember, I do, I understand.

Affective learning.

This is related to attitudes, values and interests and is the most difficult training of all, mainly because it is difficult to measure.

Designing a Training Program

1. Area of training content (What type of behavior or material is to be learned?)

a. Cognitive learning

b. Psychomotor learning

c. Affective learning

2. Extent to which the training program incorporates key learning principles

a. Does program provide knowledge of results?

b. Does program reinforce desired behaviors?

c. Does method provide practice opportunities?

d. Does method motivate employee to learn and apply new knowledge and skills to the job ?

e. Does the program facilitate transfer of new behaviors to on-the-job situations ?

3. Trainee characteristics

a. How many employees need training now? In the future ?

b. What level(s) of ability do trainees possess?

c. What individual differences exist in employees who will be receiving training?

4. Cost of the program

a. What is the size of the training and development budget?

b. What does the program cost?