When a person is trying to mould his natural behavior just to manage a particular situation or to look good in front of others then he is following the art of Impression Management. It makes us feel good if we claim to be an expert at something and people around you accept the same. This helps in increasing their self-confidence and raising their self-esteem. After making a good impression it becomes easier to influence others to dance on your own tunes. People, in day to day life, widely use this technique of Impression Management to effect a change in personality.
A real life example may be that a person who has a habit of wearing shabby clothes grooms himself very nicely just before going for a party, for an interview or for a date. This acts as a feel good factor for many individuals and thus increases their confidence. Somebody has rightly said, “First impression is the last impression”. This worldly accepted famous quote in itself tells about the need and importance of Impression Management. And a more assertive way to quote this is by adding, “And you never get a second chance to make the first impression”.
How to use Impression Management effectively?
There are several ways by which people can use the concept of Impression Management to make them look superior to what they actually are. Some of these are:
• People tend to talk about their personal characteristics portraying them in a manner so as to make themselves look superior amongst all.
• People often conform from a desire to achieve a sense of security within a group.
• People tend to give excuses or try to justify their acts so as to make them acceptable to everyone.
• These days people try to portray their deceptive nature of being courteous just to show how down to earth they are and how readily they accept their mistakes.
• If somebody has achieved something high and of great importance then people tend to take credit of that worthy act by telling everybody how they played a vital role by offering a helping hand to accomplish the task.
• Cajoling is the one way of making yourself likeable by everybody as it’s a typical human behavior of people who like being flattered. This is the best way to make things work.
• Returning favors of the good behavior that is showed to you can create miracles for people who do the same. This is “Good Tit for Tat’ method.
Why do people adopt the technique of Impression Management? There are basically two main reasons that drive people to adopt the art Impression Management which are:
1. Effectiveness: Many people feel that by managing their impression they can get by on charm on any person and make them work according to their wishes i.e. people show the other side of their personality to match people requirements from place to place. E.g. A boy coming out of a Mercedes Benz which is borrowed from one of his friend and branded clothes to pick up his girlfriend just to show how rich he is trying to make the girl flattered.
2. Conflict avoidance: The best way to avoid conflict is to act sweet specially to those who like people with soft voices. People who follow the art of Impression Management never try to win an argument. They believe in, “Never win an argument, you often lose a friend”. E.g. Reconciling with the other person in spite of knowing that he was wrong and himself believes in, “A reconciled friend is double enemy”.
Managing impression at a job interview
People take care of the following things for managing impression at the time of appearing for an interview:
1. Dressing Style: No matter how old or dirty shirt they usually wear but at the D-day, they will wear the best of their collections or many a times even a new shirt.
2. Punctuality: Some people have a habit of procrastinating work for the end moment which sometimes leads to overshoot the deadline but they will make sure that they reach the interview center well before time just to show that they are punctual.
3. Humility: Some people are very arrogant by nature but during those 15 minutes of the interview, to crack the interview, they try to act as humble as possible just because they know how much important this trait is.
4. Body Language: People take personality development classes before appearing for an interview. There they learn that no matter how much stressed the interview is, always try to carry a smile and try not to cross legs or to press hands.
On the contrary, these days many interviews are supplemented with psychometric tests of personality to know that, is the candidate faking the interview or trying to fit-in for the job?
As this it is likely to lead to problems down the line as the true self emerges.
I would like to explain my point of view by taking Satyam as an example. As you all are aware, they managed the impression of being a financially sound company which helped them to maintain their stock price to a high level. But internally the company was in fraudulent activities which led their debacle resulting in degrading its own reputation. Thus, Using Impression Management any organization can achieve success but it is always short lived. No matter how much you try to deceive, someday or the other the truth comes out.
At the last I want to quote that, “By Impression Management, you can get on by on charm on someone for just the first 15 minutes, after that you better know something”
/From Different Source /
28 April 2011
The One That Satisfies
‘Human Resources’- the magic words are murmured by everyone in one context or the other. All businesses around the world are continuously looking for better ways to recruit smart brains. Much has been said and written about the factors behind the HR factors. Many companies are considering some innovative ways to impart skills, train, re-train and motivate employees as they are the key issues. Why then in a country like India, recruitment melas are looked at as prestigious events while turnovers are more for every quarter in companies engaged in IT /ITES, Construction, Engineering, Manufacturing and the like. ‘The right man for the right job’ may be the HR mantra. On the lines of this saying, candidates are interviewed; the good or better among the brain pool is offered the letter. All is good for the first few months and slowly from somewhere a pungent smell of dissatisfaction spreads across the corporate floor. Where do the innings start? The functioning style of management,
the way projects are planned, in the impressive art of delegation of work, the manner in which constructive utility of manpower is exercised and the sense of job satisfaction blended with job security are the dependable factors for a lasting cordial relationship with the employer. The distaste initially starts with absenteeism, staying away from work without permission and the final renunciation of the bondage with one’s company result in an unhappy note. The recruitment team that relaxed for a while suddenly gets into feverish action and the team members stop not till the goal is achieved. On an average, an employee with rich experience in India or abroad also shows low enthusiasm and the heat is on the down beat. As India
is emerging successful in the global arena, it has been an improvement on the economical status of an individual – billing wise or growth wise. Many strategies were evolved over a period of 8 – 10 years but it has been not easy to analyze the psychological changes and attitude of an employee on the long run. We could call this run to span a few months as is the trend. A serious look has to be given to leverage the human capital and support them more effectively. Bucket with a hole or filling the overhead tank with taps open is not a healthy trend. This effect will drastically lead to saturation level of enthusiasm in Recruiters as well. How good is our Indian HR system? It is high time that the delivery model needs a revamp.
Ninety percent of the HR activities end up in the routine chores of paper, interviews, reference checks, hiring, payroll and firing letters. As this swallows the maximum time, HR professionals have little or no time to concentrate on other strategies or find time to keep abreast of the latest trends in HR. Hence soon they get stamped as ‘obsolete’. ‘On-line integrated management’ is a better remedy as it involves transparency, cost effective and paperless atmosphere. If this system which is in operation in some corporates is put to use in all the organizations in India, a quicker coordination would be achieved between employees, heads, departments and organizations. Through online integrated management and clear coordination
between HR and other divisions much of unsaid troubles could be mitigated. Now our HR professionals can foresee a progressive future in redefining HR intelligence. Here lay the analysis to identify explorable skills in existing employees and to deploy them in the appropriate positions for which they have been hired. This is the prescription for cost cuts, to boost performers, motivate and retain them. Whatever be the advancement, the so called human factors still remain a mystery and cannot be gauged through any profiling tests. The ‘sukshuma’ behind the understanding of the human psychology is still a puzzle. The HR professionals also fall in this category without exemption. They travel miles to set the ball rolling as long as they find it interesting. The mentality of the quitting employees happens to be contagious that they (HR) themselves are caught in the quick sand but appreciably resist from falling sick and emerge like a ‘phoenix’. Recruiters can only supply manpower and the satisfaction that a new employee derives in his work purely rests in the hands of his or her Group mentor. In every company HR builds up a healthy atmosphere but cannot always detect and eradicate the latent politics which are the ubiquitous characteristics of human beings. Are we heading in the right way? Being proactive in salary and compensation alone is not the solution to employee turnover but there is something else beyond. What is there behind the industry trends of boom – bubble –crash – survival –recovery – growth map? Perhaps it is the human satisfaction that matters.
/From Different source/
the way projects are planned, in the impressive art of delegation of work, the manner in which constructive utility of manpower is exercised and the sense of job satisfaction blended with job security are the dependable factors for a lasting cordial relationship with the employer. The distaste initially starts with absenteeism, staying away from work without permission and the final renunciation of the bondage with one’s company result in an unhappy note. The recruitment team that relaxed for a while suddenly gets into feverish action and the team members stop not till the goal is achieved. On an average, an employee with rich experience in India or abroad also shows low enthusiasm and the heat is on the down beat. As India
is emerging successful in the global arena, it has been an improvement on the economical status of an individual – billing wise or growth wise. Many strategies were evolved over a period of 8 – 10 years but it has been not easy to analyze the psychological changes and attitude of an employee on the long run. We could call this run to span a few months as is the trend. A serious look has to be given to leverage the human capital and support them more effectively. Bucket with a hole or filling the overhead tank with taps open is not a healthy trend. This effect will drastically lead to saturation level of enthusiasm in Recruiters as well. How good is our Indian HR system? It is high time that the delivery model needs a revamp.
Ninety percent of the HR activities end up in the routine chores of paper, interviews, reference checks, hiring, payroll and firing letters. As this swallows the maximum time, HR professionals have little or no time to concentrate on other strategies or find time to keep abreast of the latest trends in HR. Hence soon they get stamped as ‘obsolete’. ‘On-line integrated management’ is a better remedy as it involves transparency, cost effective and paperless atmosphere. If this system which is in operation in some corporates is put to use in all the organizations in India, a quicker coordination would be achieved between employees, heads, departments and organizations. Through online integrated management and clear coordination
between HR and other divisions much of unsaid troubles could be mitigated. Now our HR professionals can foresee a progressive future in redefining HR intelligence. Here lay the analysis to identify explorable skills in existing employees and to deploy them in the appropriate positions for which they have been hired. This is the prescription for cost cuts, to boost performers, motivate and retain them. Whatever be the advancement, the so called human factors still remain a mystery and cannot be gauged through any profiling tests. The ‘sukshuma’ behind the understanding of the human psychology is still a puzzle. The HR professionals also fall in this category without exemption. They travel miles to set the ball rolling as long as they find it interesting. The mentality of the quitting employees happens to be contagious that they (HR) themselves are caught in the quick sand but appreciably resist from falling sick and emerge like a ‘phoenix’. Recruiters can only supply manpower and the satisfaction that a new employee derives in his work purely rests in the hands of his or her Group mentor. In every company HR builds up a healthy atmosphere but cannot always detect and eradicate the latent politics which are the ubiquitous characteristics of human beings. Are we heading in the right way? Being proactive in salary and compensation alone is not the solution to employee turnover but there is something else beyond. What is there behind the industry trends of boom – bubble –crash – survival –recovery – growth map? Perhaps it is the human satisfaction that matters.
/From Different source/
26 April 2011
Do Money is Motivation for Work
Herzberg's theory of Motivators and Hygiene factors( satisfiers) suggests that there are certain things that we need to do the job and if they fall below a certain level we will become dissatisfied - but increasing those factors will not encourage us to work harder or better - in fact there is clear evidence to show that above a certain level they result in reduced performance. For example if the temperature is too cold we stop working - when the temperature is comfortable we work efficiently - but if it gets too hot, then our efficiency drops - the same with money. Too little and we are reluctant to work - increasing money may initially encourage us to work harder - especially if the money is output related - but their is a great deal of evidence that once a person is earning enough to meet their needs they tend to seek to work less and have more free time.
Examples of Herzberg's satisfiers are
policy
relationship with supervisor
work conditions
salary
company car
status
security
relationship with subordinates
personal life
Herzberg's research indicated the following to be true motivators
achievement
recognition
work itself
responsibility
advancement
Examples of Herzberg's satisfiers are
policy
relationship with supervisor
work conditions
salary
company car
status
security
relationship with subordinates
personal life
Herzberg's research indicated the following to be true motivators
achievement
recognition
work itself
responsibility
advancement
25 April 2011
Recruitment - In my perspective
SCHEDULING
Basically a recruitment process in a company carried by different methods. Mainly
1.Face to Face
2.Telephonic
3.Video Conferencing
As an IT firm, resources are scare when companies are in a hurry to close the positions. In that case we would be scheduling a telephonic or video conferencing. When resources are plenty, we would be scheduling a face to face discussion once a candidate is open for job change.
But basically as a consultant we focus on F2F interviews since process is fast.
For Example
X company from Chennai has got a project form Y company, California. It is supposed to be finished at by next 8 Months. Project manager while calculating resource requirement mentions that it would demand a professional who is expert in Mainframe software testing using ABC tool. Merely it is very a niche skillset. Since this resoiurce is very critical for this project, it would require to search candidate across world. A professional basically from Chennai located in US, now he is looking for return is a right choice and can be interviewed . In these cases, a telephonic or video conferencing method is preferred.
This is a brief about the process of recruitment in scheduling. The role of consultant, preferences, matching skillsets, managing clients and candidates, proper maintanance of trackers or track records, transparency in selection and process and recruiters skill and domain expertise would be discussed in upcoming blogs.
Basically a recruitment process in a company carried by different methods. Mainly
1.Face to Face
2.Telephonic
3.Video Conferencing
As an IT firm, resources are scare when companies are in a hurry to close the positions. In that case we would be scheduling a telephonic or video conferencing. When resources are plenty, we would be scheduling a face to face discussion once a candidate is open for job change.
But basically as a consultant we focus on F2F interviews since process is fast.
For Example
X company from Chennai has got a project form Y company, California. It is supposed to be finished at by next 8 Months. Project manager while calculating resource requirement mentions that it would demand a professional who is expert in Mainframe software testing using ABC tool. Merely it is very a niche skillset. Since this resoiurce is very critical for this project, it would require to search candidate across world. A professional basically from Chennai located in US, now he is looking for return is a right choice and can be interviewed . In these cases, a telephonic or video conferencing method is preferred.
This is a brief about the process of recruitment in scheduling. The role of consultant, preferences, matching skillsets, managing clients and candidates, proper maintanance of trackers or track records, transparency in selection and process and recruiters skill and domain expertise would be discussed in upcoming blogs.
24 February 2011
Learn to Think
Learn to Think – Part 1
Kalyan Kumar Banerjee, Senior Vice President Mindtree //Copied from different source//
A new firm selling a new integrated HR tool was asked “who is your competition”? They said “no one”. What they really meant was – there’s no equivalent tool in the market that has the features we are offering. They have impressive credentials and admirable track record, but probably they do not understand what competition means. Contrast this to the Coke CEO’s statement that they view Nokia as competition. Why Nokia? Because Coke is fighting for a share of the teenager’s wallet, and Nokia is their biggest threat, fighting for a large piece of the same wallet.
Such thinking as Coke’s leads to innovation. This becomes a completely new way to think. So my first rule on thinking is:
1. Think customer and think of the whole customer, not just as a consumer of your product.
And when we do this, understand your customer is a human being – this means your customer has moods and emotions, has aspirations, and is of course, not always rational! It also means your customer’s needs change with time.
IT professionals in Bangalore may have heard of Career Net. They are a bunch of youngsters who do focused recruitment for young technical people. How did they begin? First they focused only on campus recruitment – they used to give free career advice to final year students in the best colleges in the country. So their recommendations on which job to choose carried a lot of weight, and trust was established.
They kept in touch with the students, and five years later, as you can imagine, these young graduates had five years’ experience. At this moment, if they look for a job change, who do they go to? Career Net, of course. Career Net, thus built and possessed the most impressive and coveted engineers in the land in their contacts list. And it was a qualified list, one built on years of trust.
That leads us to our second rule on thinking:
2. Thinking in Time and Space – imagine what happens to your customer, or your system, in the future.
When you think in time, you understand that your customer grows in time, and needs change, too!
The “free” advice that Career Net provided led to interesting possibilities. That leads us our next rule:
3. Think Ideality – Ideally, what does any customer want? Any customer ideally wants “free, perfect, and now”. Now this sounds impossible? That’s why it is called ideal. But it’s not impossible. Imagine the free or almost for free services you enjoy. Google of course comes to mind, but they are not the only example. The newspaper you enjoy every morning comes for a pittance of its real cost, so do the 150 channels on your TV – thus you do have almost for free examples from the non-internet world also. How do they achieve giving something free? They changed the perspective of who is the customer. You think you are their customer, but they are being paid by someone else. Are you important? Yes, of course you are important – without you reading the newspaper, or using Google, they will not make money. Similarly, Career Net, made their money from the companies they helped recruit from campus, and not from the campus students.
There is another example from a different sector. At Mysore, 140km from Bangalore, you will find an organization called Rudsat. They teach self-entrepreneurship to unemployed youth in the age group 18 to 45. The students receive free lessons, free boarding and lodging for upto 45 days, and then they are ready to start their own business. This model is in existence now for almost 2 decades, and they have 23 institutions now, in 14 states. They have trained more than a 100,000 youth, with 69% success rate. It is funded 20% by the Dharmasthala Trust, but the other 80% comes from Syndicate Bank and Canara Bank. Now is it all charity? Of course not. Where do you think the trained youth will take the loans from, after the training? So these banks have created a new market that did not exist! And you’d believe this when you hear from them their repayment default rates are marginal, compared to the normal segment that did not have this relationship with Rudsat. “Free” does make sense! This leads us to our next rule:
4. Think “who else” – that thinking creates new market segments that did not exist.
In creating such new markets, ITC probably is the most innovative. Typically, when thinking of market for consumer products, you’d ignore the rural Indian base, specially poor farmers who toil hard with no savings. ITC reached out to these farmers directly, and gave them fairer prices for their produce. Thus farmers made more money. With the resultant savings, they could now buy consumer goods. Guess where they buy it from? Of course, ITC is there to sell it to them. Notice how ITC created a market where none seemed possible.
5. Think “what else” – How many of you have not bought a Moser Baer movie for just Rs. 39? Notice how Moser Baer has so comprehensively driven the pirates out of business. Why did they do it? Of course, they have an asset – they are in the storage business and they want to sell more discs – so they created a new market at attractive prices – Again a model of win-win-win, where the seller, the buyer, and the content providers – all benefit. The only losers are the pirates!
There are free under-leveraged “resources” available all around us – the question is: do we think of utilizing these? Take Rail Net – the railway communication network – it existed before we used mobile phones, and it has access to anywhere our railways have reach – that means almost every village in the country. Won’t they have free bandwidth for other stuff? NPTEL figured that out. NPTEL is a government project creating free learning content for anyone to access, and Rail Net bandwidth helps in giving universal access. You’d think these are examples in hindsight, so let’s think what else is freely available?
Well, now think of post offices, or State Bank of India (SBI). They have reach in almost every village and small town in the country. Today, they are even connected! Are they under-leveraged? Of course they are. How can someone leverage on them?
The post offices, already squeezed by private courier companies on one side and threatened by mobile and SMS culture on the other, are probably looking out anyway to redefine their purpose.
Are you thinking these are not technical examples? OK, let me suggest one example from Samsung. BOM cost reduction is a key element in the consumer electronics industry. One technique they use is to just remove a component, and then tell the designers to manage without it. Usually, there’s available redundant power in the remaining processors or components, so the same functionality can be achieved with less.
Again in “what else” thinking, see what Infosys has done. First they built the best infrastructure for an Indian company, and their office became a destination for every visiting Head of State or Prime Minister. Now they have an excellent training campus in Mysore, and see what happens. It hosts all kinds of meetings including Ted.com and ones involving Sonia Gandhi, and even hosts Ranji Trophy. Imagine the kind of branding leverage it generates.
A beautiful example of “what else” is how Apple gives you location information on the iPhone, without the GPS. See how they have done more with less. There’s still opportunity to innovate further. When we are lost and call someone for directions, usually we don’t know where we are. Imagine how easy it gets if the directing party knew the exact location of the lost guy!
What else can the television do? We know it can be used to access the internet, but does it? BSNL provides both internet as well TV access. Why can’t the TV reach the internet? We know there are challenges, but that’s what you need to figure. The key in these is to think consumer, and think applications. Imagine a rail or flight booking application straight from the TV, and paid for through the mobile? And all being achieved using the mobile as your remote control to the TV. Thinking of TV+internet now gives other ideas – We surf the internet based on content, not on IP address. Why can’t we search the TV based on content? I want to watch a Jo Lo movie, give me a choice of channels running such movies, and of course, with ratings and feedback downloaded from the internet. If none is running right now, let me know when one will run, or download one for me, at a price, of course. Or just download clips from youtube. We are no longer captives to the programming strategies of our TV channels.
This leads us to the next rule: “Think Connections” – which I will discuss in the next blog as I continue this post forward.
Kalyan Kumar Banerjee, Senior Vice President Mindtree //Copied from different source//
A new firm selling a new integrated HR tool was asked “who is your competition”? They said “no one”. What they really meant was – there’s no equivalent tool in the market that has the features we are offering. They have impressive credentials and admirable track record, but probably they do not understand what competition means. Contrast this to the Coke CEO’s statement that they view Nokia as competition. Why Nokia? Because Coke is fighting for a share of the teenager’s wallet, and Nokia is their biggest threat, fighting for a large piece of the same wallet.
Such thinking as Coke’s leads to innovation. This becomes a completely new way to think. So my first rule on thinking is:
1. Think customer and think of the whole customer, not just as a consumer of your product.
And when we do this, understand your customer is a human being – this means your customer has moods and emotions, has aspirations, and is of course, not always rational! It also means your customer’s needs change with time.
IT professionals in Bangalore may have heard of Career Net. They are a bunch of youngsters who do focused recruitment for young technical people. How did they begin? First they focused only on campus recruitment – they used to give free career advice to final year students in the best colleges in the country. So their recommendations on which job to choose carried a lot of weight, and trust was established.
They kept in touch with the students, and five years later, as you can imagine, these young graduates had five years’ experience. At this moment, if they look for a job change, who do they go to? Career Net, of course. Career Net, thus built and possessed the most impressive and coveted engineers in the land in their contacts list. And it was a qualified list, one built on years of trust.
That leads us to our second rule on thinking:
2. Thinking in Time and Space – imagine what happens to your customer, or your system, in the future.
When you think in time, you understand that your customer grows in time, and needs change, too!
The “free” advice that Career Net provided led to interesting possibilities. That leads us our next rule:
3. Think Ideality – Ideally, what does any customer want? Any customer ideally wants “free, perfect, and now”. Now this sounds impossible? That’s why it is called ideal. But it’s not impossible. Imagine the free or almost for free services you enjoy. Google of course comes to mind, but they are not the only example. The newspaper you enjoy every morning comes for a pittance of its real cost, so do the 150 channels on your TV – thus you do have almost for free examples from the non-internet world also. How do they achieve giving something free? They changed the perspective of who is the customer. You think you are their customer, but they are being paid by someone else. Are you important? Yes, of course you are important – without you reading the newspaper, or using Google, they will not make money. Similarly, Career Net, made their money from the companies they helped recruit from campus, and not from the campus students.
There is another example from a different sector. At Mysore, 140km from Bangalore, you will find an organization called Rudsat. They teach self-entrepreneurship to unemployed youth in the age group 18 to 45. The students receive free lessons, free boarding and lodging for upto 45 days, and then they are ready to start their own business. This model is in existence now for almost 2 decades, and they have 23 institutions now, in 14 states. They have trained more than a 100,000 youth, with 69% success rate. It is funded 20% by the Dharmasthala Trust, but the other 80% comes from Syndicate Bank and Canara Bank. Now is it all charity? Of course not. Where do you think the trained youth will take the loans from, after the training? So these banks have created a new market that did not exist! And you’d believe this when you hear from them their repayment default rates are marginal, compared to the normal segment that did not have this relationship with Rudsat. “Free” does make sense! This leads us to our next rule:
4. Think “who else” – that thinking creates new market segments that did not exist.
In creating such new markets, ITC probably is the most innovative. Typically, when thinking of market for consumer products, you’d ignore the rural Indian base, specially poor farmers who toil hard with no savings. ITC reached out to these farmers directly, and gave them fairer prices for their produce. Thus farmers made more money. With the resultant savings, they could now buy consumer goods. Guess where they buy it from? Of course, ITC is there to sell it to them. Notice how ITC created a market where none seemed possible.
5. Think “what else” – How many of you have not bought a Moser Baer movie for just Rs. 39? Notice how Moser Baer has so comprehensively driven the pirates out of business. Why did they do it? Of course, they have an asset – they are in the storage business and they want to sell more discs – so they created a new market at attractive prices – Again a model of win-win-win, where the seller, the buyer, and the content providers – all benefit. The only losers are the pirates!
There are free under-leveraged “resources” available all around us – the question is: do we think of utilizing these? Take Rail Net – the railway communication network – it existed before we used mobile phones, and it has access to anywhere our railways have reach – that means almost every village in the country. Won’t they have free bandwidth for other stuff? NPTEL figured that out. NPTEL is a government project creating free learning content for anyone to access, and Rail Net bandwidth helps in giving universal access. You’d think these are examples in hindsight, so let’s think what else is freely available?
Well, now think of post offices, or State Bank of India (SBI). They have reach in almost every village and small town in the country. Today, they are even connected! Are they under-leveraged? Of course they are. How can someone leverage on them?
The post offices, already squeezed by private courier companies on one side and threatened by mobile and SMS culture on the other, are probably looking out anyway to redefine their purpose.
Are you thinking these are not technical examples? OK, let me suggest one example from Samsung. BOM cost reduction is a key element in the consumer electronics industry. One technique they use is to just remove a component, and then tell the designers to manage without it. Usually, there’s available redundant power in the remaining processors or components, so the same functionality can be achieved with less.
Again in “what else” thinking, see what Infosys has done. First they built the best infrastructure for an Indian company, and their office became a destination for every visiting Head of State or Prime Minister. Now they have an excellent training campus in Mysore, and see what happens. It hosts all kinds of meetings including Ted.com and ones involving Sonia Gandhi, and even hosts Ranji Trophy. Imagine the kind of branding leverage it generates.
A beautiful example of “what else” is how Apple gives you location information on the iPhone, without the GPS. See how they have done more with less. There’s still opportunity to innovate further. When we are lost and call someone for directions, usually we don’t know where we are. Imagine how easy it gets if the directing party knew the exact location of the lost guy!
What else can the television do? We know it can be used to access the internet, but does it? BSNL provides both internet as well TV access. Why can’t the TV reach the internet? We know there are challenges, but that’s what you need to figure. The key in these is to think consumer, and think applications. Imagine a rail or flight booking application straight from the TV, and paid for through the mobile? And all being achieved using the mobile as your remote control to the TV. Thinking of TV+internet now gives other ideas – We surf the internet based on content, not on IP address. Why can’t we search the TV based on content? I want to watch a Jo Lo movie, give me a choice of channels running such movies, and of course, with ratings and feedback downloaded from the internet. If none is running right now, let me know when one will run, or download one for me, at a price, of course. Or just download clips from youtube. We are no longer captives to the programming strategies of our TV channels.
This leads us to the next rule: “Think Connections” – which I will discuss in the next blog as I continue this post forward.
02 December 2010
Hawthrone Effect and Theories – My Intrepretations
Basically this is the factor of productivity of workers with respect to pay,light, humidity and rest breaks. It is eventual that all the factors have worked in different time and with different combinations. With reference to Elton Mayo, any productivity model should be a factor in intangable attributes like human behaviour.
The Yerkes-Dockson law depicts and law of Dimnishing Marginal utility, when motivation does increases productivity to certain point, any more motivation would not be effective due to satururation of utility.
The Pygmalion Effect: it is self-fullfilling prophecy, building trust on others and to make them to perform accordingly.
The Placebo Effect: Creating beleif among the people by ineffective treatment, by which individual believes that it will work.
My Intrepretations
In recent times, factors which are supported by external environment (Salary, AC room, Personalized laptops, Salary hike every quater, Bonus, Special offers) works, but it should be bounded by individual's traits. Traits are characteristics which support individual to retain the temporary motivation or thrust by external environment. Traits include loyalty, dedication and so on. If an individual built with all these traits then above theories work and firms should focus on inculcating such traits within their employees.
The Yerkes-Dockson law depicts and law of Dimnishing Marginal utility, when motivation does increases productivity to certain point, any more motivation would not be effective due to satururation of utility.
The Pygmalion Effect: it is self-fullfilling prophecy, building trust on others and to make them to perform accordingly.
The Placebo Effect: Creating beleif among the people by ineffective treatment, by which individual believes that it will work.
My Intrepretations
In recent times, factors which are supported by external environment (Salary, AC room, Personalized laptops, Salary hike every quater, Bonus, Special offers) works, but it should be bounded by individual's traits. Traits are characteristics which support individual to retain the temporary motivation or thrust by external environment. Traits include loyalty, dedication and so on. If an individual built with all these traits then above theories work and firms should focus on inculcating such traits within their employees.
29 November 2010
Recruitment - Introduction
//Data's from WikiPedia//
Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job at an organization or firm. For some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies.
The recruitment industry has five main types of agencies: employment agencies, recruitment websites and job search engines, "headhunters" for executive and professional recruitment, niche agencies which specialize in a particular area of staffing, or employer branding strategy and in-house recruitment. The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by advertising or other methods, and screening and selecting potential candidates using tests or interviews.
Headhunters
A "headhunter" is industry term for a third-party recruiter who seeks out candidates, often when normal recruitment efforts have failed. Headhunters are generally considered more aggressive than in-house recruiters or may have preexisting industry experience and contacts. They may use advanced sales techniques, such as initially posing as clients to gather employee contacts, as well as visiting candidate offices. They may also purchase expensive lists of names and job titles, but more often will generate their own lists. They may prepare a candidate for the interview, help negotiate the salary, and conduct closure to the search. They are frequently members in good standing of industry trade groups and associations. Headhunters will often attend trade shows and other meetings nationally or even internationally that may be attended by potential candidates and hiring managers. Headhunters are typically small operations that make high margins on candidate placements (sometimes more than 30% of the candidate’s annual compensation). Due to their higher costs, headhunters are usually employed to fill senior management and executive level roles. Headhunters are also used to recruit very specialized individuals; for example, in some fields, such as emerging scientific research areas, there may only be a handful of top-level professionals who are active in the field. In this case, since there are so few qualified candidates, it makes more sense to directly recruit them one-by-one, rather than advertise internationally for candidates. While in-house recruiters tend to attract candidates for specific jobs, headhunters will both attract candidates and actively seek them out as well. To do so, they may network, cultivate relationships with various companies, maintain large databases, purchase company directories or candidate lists, and cold call prospective recruits.
Niche recruiters
More and more we are seeing the emergence of specialized firms which only staff for a very narrow specialty. Because of their focus, these firms can very often produce superior results due to their ability to channel all of their resources into networking for a very specific skill set. This specialization in staffing allows them to offer more jobs for their specific demographic which in turn attracts more specialized candidates from that specific demographic over time building large proprietary databases. These Niche firms tend to be more focused on building ongoing relationships with their candidates as is very common the same candidates are placed many times throughout their careers.
Job analysis
The proper start to a recruitment effort is to perform a job analysis, to document the actual or intended requirement of the job to be performed. This information is captured in a job description and provides the recruitment effort with the boundaries and objectives of the search.[2] Oftentimes a company will have job descriptions that represent a historical collection of tasks performed in the past. These job descriptions need to be reviewed or updated prior to a recruitment effort to reflect present day requirements. Starting a recruitment with an accurate job analysis and job description ensures the recruitment effort starts off on a proper track for success.
Sourcing
Sourcing involves 1) advertising, a common part of the recruiting process, often encompassing multiple media, such as the Internet, general newspapers, job ad newspapers, professional publications, window advertisements, job centers, and campus graduate recruitment programs; and 2) recruiting research, which is the proactive identification of relevant talent who may not respond to job postings and other recruitment advertising methods done in #1. This initial research for so-called passive prospects, also called name-generation, results in a list of prospects who can then be contacted to solicit interest, obtain a resume/CV, and be screened (see below).
Screening and selection
Suitability for a job is typically assessed by looking for skills, e.g. communication, typing, and computer skills. Qualifications may be shown through résumés, job applications, interviews, educational or professional experience, the testimony of references, or in-house testing, such as for software knowledge, typing skills, numeracy, and literacy, through psychological tests or employment testing. Other resume screening criteria may include length of service, job titles and length of time at a job. In some countries, employers are legally mandated to provide equal opportunity in hiring. Business management software is used by many recruitment agencies to automate the testing process. Many recruiters and agencies are using an applicant tracking system to perform many of the filtering tasks, along with software tools for psychometric testing.
Onboarding
"Onboarding" is a term which describes the process of helping new employees become productive members of an organization. A well-planned introduction helps new employees become fully operational quickly and is often integrated with a new company and environment. Onboarding is included in the recruitment process for retention purposes. Many companies have onboarding campaigns in hopes to retain top talent that is new to the company; campaigns may last anywhere from 1 week to 6 months.
Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job at an organization or firm. For some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies.
The recruitment industry has five main types of agencies: employment agencies, recruitment websites and job search engines, "headhunters" for executive and professional recruitment, niche agencies which specialize in a particular area of staffing, or employer branding strategy and in-house recruitment. The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by advertising or other methods, and screening and selecting potential candidates using tests or interviews.
Headhunters
A "headhunter" is industry term for a third-party recruiter who seeks out candidates, often when normal recruitment efforts have failed. Headhunters are generally considered more aggressive than in-house recruiters or may have preexisting industry experience and contacts. They may use advanced sales techniques, such as initially posing as clients to gather employee contacts, as well as visiting candidate offices. They may also purchase expensive lists of names and job titles, but more often will generate their own lists. They may prepare a candidate for the interview, help negotiate the salary, and conduct closure to the search. They are frequently members in good standing of industry trade groups and associations. Headhunters will often attend trade shows and other meetings nationally or even internationally that may be attended by potential candidates and hiring managers. Headhunters are typically small operations that make high margins on candidate placements (sometimes more than 30% of the candidate’s annual compensation). Due to their higher costs, headhunters are usually employed to fill senior management and executive level roles. Headhunters are also used to recruit very specialized individuals; for example, in some fields, such as emerging scientific research areas, there may only be a handful of top-level professionals who are active in the field. In this case, since there are so few qualified candidates, it makes more sense to directly recruit them one-by-one, rather than advertise internationally for candidates. While in-house recruiters tend to attract candidates for specific jobs, headhunters will both attract candidates and actively seek them out as well. To do so, they may network, cultivate relationships with various companies, maintain large databases, purchase company directories or candidate lists, and cold call prospective recruits.
Niche recruiters
More and more we are seeing the emergence of specialized firms which only staff for a very narrow specialty. Because of their focus, these firms can very often produce superior results due to their ability to channel all of their resources into networking for a very specific skill set. This specialization in staffing allows them to offer more jobs for their specific demographic which in turn attracts more specialized candidates from that specific demographic over time building large proprietary databases. These Niche firms tend to be more focused on building ongoing relationships with their candidates as is very common the same candidates are placed many times throughout their careers.
Job analysis
The proper start to a recruitment effort is to perform a job analysis, to document the actual or intended requirement of the job to be performed. This information is captured in a job description and provides the recruitment effort with the boundaries and objectives of the search.[2] Oftentimes a company will have job descriptions that represent a historical collection of tasks performed in the past. These job descriptions need to be reviewed or updated prior to a recruitment effort to reflect present day requirements. Starting a recruitment with an accurate job analysis and job description ensures the recruitment effort starts off on a proper track for success.
Sourcing
Sourcing involves 1) advertising, a common part of the recruiting process, often encompassing multiple media, such as the Internet, general newspapers, job ad newspapers, professional publications, window advertisements, job centers, and campus graduate recruitment programs; and 2) recruiting research, which is the proactive identification of relevant talent who may not respond to job postings and other recruitment advertising methods done in #1. This initial research for so-called passive prospects, also called name-generation, results in a list of prospects who can then be contacted to solicit interest, obtain a resume/CV, and be screened (see below).
Screening and selection
Suitability for a job is typically assessed by looking for skills, e.g. communication, typing, and computer skills. Qualifications may be shown through résumés, job applications, interviews, educational or professional experience, the testimony of references, or in-house testing, such as for software knowledge, typing skills, numeracy, and literacy, through psychological tests or employment testing. Other resume screening criteria may include length of service, job titles and length of time at a job. In some countries, employers are legally mandated to provide equal opportunity in hiring. Business management software is used by many recruitment agencies to automate the testing process. Many recruiters and agencies are using an applicant tracking system to perform many of the filtering tasks, along with software tools for psychometric testing.
Onboarding
"Onboarding" is a term which describes the process of helping new employees become productive members of an organization. A well-planned introduction helps new employees become fully operational quickly and is often integrated with a new company and environment. Onboarding is included in the recruitment process for retention purposes. Many companies have onboarding campaigns in hopes to retain top talent that is new to the company; campaigns may last anywhere from 1 week to 6 months.
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