JIGYASA

2015

JIGYASA 2015

JIGYASA 2015

About MBA (Human Resource Development)

The MBA program in Human Resource Development was started in the year 1995 by the Department of
Commerce, Delhi School of Economics with the objective of providing quality education to highly motivated
young men and women so that they can provide professional expertise to business and industry in the twin
areas of Human Resource and Organizational Development. Identified by NHRD and NTPC as premiere
course in the field of Human Resource, MBA (HRD) (Previously known as MHROD) is a two year full time professional program spread over four semesters, which combine grueling academic schedules with proactive
efforts to develop new perspectives and a higher level of knowledge and understanding. Going beyond
books, theories and case studies to open new windows, MHROD helps young HR and OD experts to enter
the increasingly competitive and constantly changing global economy equipped with the ability to face every
challenge head on and emerge victorious.

About JIGYASA
JIGYASA is an annual journal of M.H.R.O.D. The name signifies the nature and intent, Which is to arouse or
pacify curiosity i.e. Jigyasa. Being a non-profit, in-house, student initiative, first launched in 1997, the journal
has ensured wide circulation and garnered appreciation from both the corporate and the academia. It is the
compilation of articles, interviews, case studies and book reviews by stalwarts in their respective fields. It
provides valuable insights and viewpoints of specialists in the field of Human Resource, Organizational Development and Management, and thus secured a place for itself in famous libraries nationally as well as internationally. The objective behind the initiation and evolution of the journal is to provide the readers with
an idea of the complexities of working in the industry and to help broaden their knowledge base in the field
of Human Resources.

JIGYASA 2015

MESSAGE

MESSAGE FROM THE HEAD

Greetings to all the readers!

Heartiest compliments to all the editorial board members for successfully bringing out the 2015 issue of
Jigyasa. Knowledge is power. Jigyasa is one such valuable source of power that combines innovative ideas
of students with the wisdom of corporate leaders. The current issue presents thought provoking articles in
the area of Human Resources and Organization Development that will ignite your minds with ways to solve
problems and create new strategies for growth. It is expected that the present issue would provide a perfect platform for deliberations on how businesses can be handled and sustained, primarily focusing and
channelizing the most important asset of any organization, i.e. the Human Resource.
I am sure all the students of MBA (HRD) will soon create a greater vision not only for the organizations
they join, but for India too, making both a true superpower in all respects, be it humanity, knowledge,
technology or economics. Remain students all your life, each day, each experience has something new to
teach us. Those who stop learning, stop growing. I look forward to seeing each one of you reach the pinnacle of success and make your alma mater proud.
Wishing you all the best for your future endeavours.

Prof. J P Sharma
Head, Department of Commerce
University of Delhi

JIGYASA 2015

MESSAGE

MESSAGE FROM THE COURSE COORDINATOR

Dear Readers,
Greetings from Department of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi!

It gives me immense pleasure to announce that Jigyasa (meaning curiosity) is an annual journal of MBA (HRD)
(previously known as MHROD). The aim of this journal is always to foster the quality research work from different fields of Human Resource Development. It encourages researchers, practitioners, academicians and professionals to disseminate their valuable research work and knowledge to bridge the gap between the education system and the corporate world and to explore the new dynamics in the business arena.
Current Issue of Jigyasa includes articles on; Recruiters perspective, Rethinking on paradigm shift in performance assessment, Talent Planning and forecasting, Managing culture, etc. from the authors associated with
renowned companies like DSM India, HCL Technologies Ltd, Cisco etc.
Our budding managers encourage all categories of learners and learned to collectinnovation of ideas and a
cross cultural exploration in different facets of human resource management. The journal is an essential reading for everyone involved in personnel, training and other aspects of human resource management.
I would like to congratulate the editorial team for their thrilling hard work and dedication to releasing Jigyasa
on the occasion of the legendary convention of MBA (HRD). I also wish them all success in their future endeavors.
Dr. Urvashi Sharma
Course Coordinator MBA (HRD)
Department of Commerce

JIGYASA 2015

EDITORIAL

WISH YOU HAPPY READING !!

To our readers,

PATRONS :
Prof. J P Sharma,
Head,
Department of Commerce,
University of Delhi
Dr. Urvashi Sharma
Course Coordinator
MBA (HRD)
Department of Commerce

EDITORIAL BOARD :
Piyush Ranjan
Pranjal Yadav
Rohan Nijjar
Shreeja Kumar
Vanam Teja Harshini

The field of Human Resources is a dynamic one. With the

ever changing organisation, there arises the need to redefine the role of the manager to that of a leader and
change propagator. This dynamic nature of the organisation has transformed Human Resources to a strategic
business function. To expound upon the changing face of
Human Resources, we bring forth this year, the new edition of JIGYASA.
The current issue of JIGYASA has a whole new spectrum
of new world ideas, theories, experiences and range of
views relating to Human Resources.
We credit this edition of JIGYASA to the distinguished authors who have contributed with their knowledge,
thoughts, opinions and most importantly, time. We hope
this journal brings as much pleasure to you all, as it has
brought to us while working on it. We value the incomparable inputs of the contributors for this journal and thank
them for imbibing their knowledge and experience into
each article of JIGYASA.
We look forward to your valuable feedback and we are
optimistic this edition of JIGYASA would be a thought provoking.

TEAM JIGYASA :
Abhishek Chakrobrotty
Harshita Rai
Roli Jaiswal
Sehba Iqbal
Tanay Tondon

Jay Acharya
(Editor-in Chief)

JIGYASA 2015

CONTENTS
1. Be a Proactive Employee
Vinod Bidwaik, Director- HR, DSM India Pvt. Ltd.
2. For the Believers of M.A.G.I.C !!
Shaily Mishra, AGM- HR, HCL Technologies Ltd.

3. A Recruiter's Perspective on What is Wrong with the Life Insurance Industry?

Omar Farooq, CEO, AceProHR
4. Rethinking on Paradigm Shift in Performance Assessment
Vineet Kumar, HR Specialist, Elnefeidi Holding Company
5. Little Management Lessons See What Success does to People !
Madhvi Aggarwal, VP-Recruitment Operations, Archelons Consulting Firm
6. An Employees Take on Human Resources: What We Expect of You
Rapti Gupta, Content Ranger, Affimity Inc
7. Why Shared Services will Make You Question Everything?
Nitin Kumar, Manager - HR Delivery, Oriflame Cosmetics
8. Talent Planning and Forecasting An Integral Part Of Talent Management
Tarun Girdhar, Program Manager - HR, Cisco Systems (India) Pvt Ltd
9. Managing Culture on the Other Side of the Globe
Vartika Jaiswal, Student, IIM- Lucknow
10. Exploring New Growth Realms with Social HR
Uttara Karthikeyan, Student, SIBM- Pune
11. Psychological Helplessness
Arjun Mitra, Research Scholar, University of Illinois- Chicago
11. Transforming HR through Technology
Harshita Rai, Student, Department of Commerce, University of Delhi
12. Book Review Why I failed?
Vijay Kumar Shrotriya, Professor, Department of Commerce, University of Delhi

JIGYASA 2015

Corporate Article

Be a Proactive Employee
Vinod Bidwaik, Director- HR, DSM India Pvt. Ltd.

takes responsibility for his own decisions

and actions. The other-directed employee
adopts an I have to mentality, and responds only to direction.
Difference between proactive & nonproactive employees:

About the Author :

Vinod Bidwaik is the Country
HR Head (India) with DSM
India Pvt. Ltd. He has more
than 16 years of pan India
and global experience in
various industries, viz: manufacturing, media, automobile and life science & material science companies. A
recipient of prestigious Asia
Pacific HRM Leadership
Award 2014 given at Asia
Pacific HRM Congress held
at Bangalore.

Proactive employee are self-directed.

They believe at all times that they have a
choice.
Why few employees get very good or excellent rating during performance appraisals? Why few employees get promoted?
Why few employees dont get opportunities in spite of their so called hard work?
And why only few employees lead teams?

Other-directed people believe they have

no control over their own lives and instead
are controlled by people in authority. For
an other-directed person, the locus of control is external to himself.
On the other hand, the self-directed person sees the locus of control as internal: I
have control of my life. The basic underlying belief of the other-directed person is I
have to meaning there is no element of
choice in following what the authority has
requested. For the self-directed person,
the belief is I choose to.

If you ask me, I will say that those who get Let see the personality details of both emgood career opportunities have potential ployees trough following visual:
and are more pro-active than others. Few
employees just follow what managers tell.
They neither try to change the system nor
give any suggestions & ideas to improve.
Most leaders and managers want employees who can manage themselves, make
decisions without careful direction, and
take responsibility. Whether it is front-line
customer service employees taking it upon
themselves to ensure that the customer
gets the best experience possible, or a
team leader engaging in creative problemsolving of their own, rather than bringing
every issue to the boss. Proactive employ- Personality of other directed employee
ees constantly find new and better ways of (non-proactive employee)
doing their work.
When employees comply and do someWhat exactly does it mean to be a proac- thing they do not want to do, their natural
tive employee?
feeling is to resent the authority for forcing them to do it. Even though the otherWe can identify this in two ways, first, we directed employee will eventually comexamine who and what a proactive em- plete the task, he will do it grudgingly, and
ployee is. Then we look at what a proac- only well enough to avoid trouble.
tive employee is not.
Underlying belief of the other-directed
You will find that proactive employee is person is I have to meaning there is no
self-directed and non-proactive is other element of choice in following what the
-directed. The self-directed employee authority has requested. For the

JIGYASA 2015

self-directed person, the belief is I choose to.

Either way, the feeling that self-directed people
Whether other-directed people comply or rebel, have is one of acceptance of whatever the outtheir attitude is: I am not responsible.
comes are of their decisions.
They either behave like victims, feeling sorry for
themselves and complaining to friends and coworkers about the boss, or they plot revenge.
Sometimes they will do both. In either instance,
their intention is to undermine, a leader, want to
accomplish.
Personality of self-directed employee (proactive
employee)
The central difference between other-directed and
self-directed team members is that self-directed
people believe at all times that they have a choice.
When you ask self-directed employees to do a new
task, their thinking is to either agree or disagree
with doing it.
If they agree to do the task, then they will do it to
the best of their ability, because it is their choice. If
they disagree, they will explain to their manager the
reasons why they disagree.

They accept the consequences of their actions because they feel ownership of them. If self-directed
team members agree to do a job and do not do it to
expected standards, then they will accept the consequences for not having given their best. If they
disagree with the task, and there are negative consequences for doing so, they will accept these consequences, too. Thats what self-directed people
do. Prior to making decisions they consider the consequences of the decision, then act based on their
understanding of those consequences. Since selfdirected people are responsible, they are only likely
to disagree when they believe that what they are
being asked to do is unreasonable, or is the wrong
thing to do.
If you are an employee, check in which category
you are and if you are a manager, make the strategy to deal with both type. As a manager, you dont
have much issues with Proactive employees, focus
on Non-Proactive employees.

JIGYASA 2015

Corporate Article

For the Believers of M.A.G.I.C !!

Shaily Mishra, AGM- HR, HCL Technologies Ltd.

What really drives the new age workforce? What will work in the new paradigm of Socially Anchored, participation driven lifestyles of the next gen?

About the Author :

Shaily Rampal Misra, AGM-HR,
HCL Technologies Ltd. is an HR
practitioner with over 10 years
of experience of having
worked in multiple areas of
HR. She currently leads the
Global Career and Talent Centre of Excellence at HCL Technologies Ltd. Shaily holds a
Masters Degree in HR and OD
from the University of Delhi.

How should Human Capital Management interventions be designed and implemented so that they will create a significant positive impact?
As we ask these questions to ourselves
and look around for answers, we would
find there are some clear trends emerging. If HR interventions are designed to
take impetus from these trends, ride on
this rising wave, they will have a huge
chance of becoming self-propelling engines of organizational effectiveness!
It may indeed work like M.A.G.I.C !!
Mobility

development.
What does it offer as a learning to HR
practitioners? The learning we can draw
from this paradigm is to create frequent
upgrades/ enhancements to our programs, interventions or initiatives that
are not seeing the desired results.

The cornerstone here seems to be having a hypothesis, creating a prototype,

quick validation of the prototype in
form of targeted pilot projects , followed by actual roll out, if the hypothesis is proved.
Gamification
The application of typical elements
of game playing (e.g. point scoring,
competition with others, rules of
play) to other areas of activity is the
way the dictionary would define
Gamification.

A trend emerging from the shifts in work

habits, that is changing the way business is This paradigm hold tremendous potential
being done in all segments and domains.
not only in employee engagement arenas
but HR domains like talent management,
What does it mean for HR ? With the work- learning and development, deploying the
force using mobile devices, cloud based right person in the right jobThe list
services, accessing Apps on the go could be endless
Availability and access ease have come to
obtain a pivotal Importance.
Quite an unexplored area from employee interventions point of view, this
HR systems that are designed keeping this holds tremendous potential.
aspect in mind are bound to see greater
user traction, quicker turnarounds. They Intelligence through data
will lead to huge savings in terms of time,
money and opportunities that would have As the world moves into Digitization,
otherwise been lost due to delayed action Data Scientist is emerging as a turn key
or worse still, no action at all !!
role in the new scheme of things.
Agile
As the dictionary would define it, Agile
means the ability to move quickly and easily. Agile is a methodology that is gaining
tremendous followership in the information technology world.
Most the product development across the
globe is moving to Agile methodology
from the traditional waterfall model of

10

Close your eyes and imagineIf we indeed study and analyze the humongous
data that we capture as HR fraternity
from the point where we offer a candidate, the period between offer and joining, from joining to getting settled in the
job, at the time of performance appraisals, increment cycles, taking up a higher
role etc.. like a Data Scientist only sky
is the limit for what it can do to our programs and interventions.

JIGYASA 2015

We can use this to customize our interventions

to talent segments, time them optimally, make
them contextual for the target group, so that
they become meaningful for their audience and
effective for their organization

Crowdsourcing

of path(s) that you can pursue in future. There

could be one or more career path that emerges
out of such a recommendation(s). Role referrals,
on the other hand, can be given by peers, team
members, and by MEME connections on a target
role/opportunity that the employee considers
appropriate in the future.

Researchers define Crowdsourcing as the

process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or
content by soliciting contributions from a large
group of people, and especially from an online
community. With the development of content
being faced as one of the most critical roadblocks for HR practitioners in learning and career management space, crowdsourcing can
come up as a great solution.

Making the choice

This platform enables employees to aspire for

jobs in line with their interest and skills. In line
with
HCLs
core
philosophy
of
Transparency ,our comprehensive Job Catalogue called CDEX having all the Jobs and with
Role Competencies has been put up for employees to view and reference while making their
choice for the next role .

Traversing the journey

After getting these inputs the employee can trigger a career counseling discussion with a selected
panel based on employee choice. The aim of this
discussion is to clarify selected target roles, identify one target role and define the developmental
inputs required to achieve the selected target
role. The counseling panel may comprise, of
manager(s), HR representative(s), and an exSocial career management framework
pert\Coach. The Employee can either finalize by
choosing from earlier selected aspired role or
At HCL, social platform and crowdsourcing prin- choose a new aspired role based on the discusciples have been used, together with HCLs core sion.
philosophies of trust, transparency and employee first to come up with what we call as Career Using Career GPS
Connect
Using the principles of Crowdsourcing and data
This Career Management platform was essential- science, the huge volumes of data we captured in
ly called as Career Connect as it capitalized on the form of referrals, recommendations from
the network of the 100,000 plus employee base respective Subject Matter Experts ; the multitude
of HCL that is spread across geographies, verti- of Career Development plans created by users,
cals, domains, service lines and technical exper- learning interventions recommended by experts
tise areas.
and peers etc, has been used to create what we
call as Career GPS
Some interesting facts about the experiment are
as follows We have also made available Trending Career
Development Plans formats which are derived
Employee being in the drivers seat for their own based on user generated content and frequency
career navigation
of use.

Seeking role and path referrals from the network

Career Connect enables the employee to connect

with their peers, colleagues and managers to get
information, guidance and references for the
growth and development of their career. It also
enables them to highlight their career preferences and collaborate with others on their career
goals. By Co-creating an actionable Career Development Plan and working towards the decided
and desired goals, they really become the masters of their own career journey. The CDP is a
document that lists the activities to be initiated
across five essential building blocks which are:
Knowledge, Skill, Behavioral Competency, Experience and Exposure.

To leverage on the strength of their social network, employees can Seek path and role recommendations. Path Recommendations can be
given by the managers pool consisting of Reporting Manager, Skip Level Manager and HR
Partner. These recommendations are in the form Meeting the aspirations

11

JIGYASA 2015

Post completion of the Career Development Plan,

the employee gets a view of open positions
(demand) against selected aspirations and skills
and can apply to such internal job postings based
on our Internal Career Opportunity Policy. Realization of Career Aspiration happens when the Workforce Planning Cell prioritizes deployment based on
CDP completion which is a status flagged on the
Organization Deployment Portal.

12

In the first year of its launch, the Career Connect

platform has seen active participation of over
20,000 employees coming from different industry
verticals, domains and skills and participating in
different role capacities like those pursuing their
aspirations, the subject matter experts acting as
coaches and mentors to others , the HR partners
and learning and development practitioners. As
they say, this is just the beginning and the journey
continues for us

JIGYASA 2015

Corporate Article

A Recruiters Perspective on What is Wrong with the

Life Insurance Industry
Omar Farooq, CEO, AceProHR

About the Author :

Omar Farooq has done his
masters in Human Resource
and Organisation Development(MHROD) from Delhi
School of Economics. With
over 17 years of experience in
HR, he is currently the Chief
Executive Officer of AceProHR.
He Specializes in Executive
Search, Employer Branding
and Talent Acquisition Strategy.

We hire across Industries and the hunt for

a- rare skill, change specialist, Industry
leader is what gets our adrenaline going,
and makes Talent Acquisition such a rewarding profession. But sometimes it becomes tough to convince great talent to
stay or enter an Industry like Insurance.
Here is our diagnosis and some things that
can be done to improve the situation

No Process on earth can bear the onslaught of an ethical compromise and constant wilful exception in the process means
that the exception becomes the rule. I have
seen excellent process experts sacrificed at
the altar of finding a process cure to a value ailment

Life insurance
The problem is ethics or the lack of it
The Mint report illustrated how investors
lost more than Rs. 1.5 Trillion but there is
no hue and cry because the perpetrators
are not the usual villain (read politicians)
but the elite middle class and yes, like the
product they sell it's tough to explain to
the public what went wrong. Insurance Retention percentages are atrocious and are I am told that at junior levels- When you
grossly inflated if we take into account the say a sales job in Insurance junior level
numerous customers who do not even they slam the phone down!
know they have been duped.
As Recruiters the symptoms are :
At middle and senior levels- In the beginning (early 2000) we were able to convince
folks from FMCG, Office Automation, Banking and MLM companies move to the Insurance because of growth offered and salaries- now when you approach anyone, unless they are about to get fired- they will
not talk to you.

Everyone talks about the mad push for targets, and I think more than the stress of
the numbers is the realization that the only
way it can be achieved is by making ethical
compromises. A corollary of this means
that the people who achieve targets and
get promoted are often those who bend
the system and used the lack of information to their advantage at the expense
of the customers.

Real Attrition rates of 30-45% at the Junior

level of sales teams mean they are treated
as cannon fodder. I ran an Insurance sales
process once and I realized looking at the
attrition data that if you have a person for
6 / 9 months their chances of becoming
successful increase dramatically most HR
teams are not able to give a cost of firing/
recruiting replacements, not to mention
Executive burnout is common and a lot of the cost of loss of morale and employer
good professionals are leaving even with- brand and end up firing people before they
out getting an alternative job- but just be- even start.
cause they have had enough!

13

JIGYASA 2015

What can be done

14

Someone needs to bell the cat and tell the promoters that the hunt for valuation and waiting for the
Godot of policy change may make them lose the
ball further on running an ethical business. Insurance both the product and Industry is a long term
investment lets not show profits at the expense
of the customer.

Diversify your leadership team- stop hiring just

bankers, find more women and maybe get some
expatriates in, and I am not just talking about the
folks implanted by your JV partners. Birla Sunlife
got a CEO from manufacturing to stabilize themand I think it's a brilliant move because no one understands costing and the value of a process better
than a person who has spent half his life in manufacturing.

A Corollary maybe that Insurance companies stick

to covering risk- through simple products like term
plans and Endowment plans and leave the Investment game to the Mutual Funds/ Equity brokers...
etc..

Start investing in the Employer Brand again- I think

Max Life Insurance killed two birds with the same
stone with their new marketing campaign on TV,
but it remains to be seen if it's just a gimmick or
they follow it up with some substance.

JIGYASA 2015

Corporate Article

Rethinking on Paradigm Shift in Performance

Assessment
Vineet Kumar, HR Specialist, Elnefeidi Holding Company

About the Author :

Vineet Kumar is a graduate
Physics(Hons) from Hindu
College, Delhi University and
an Alumnus of MHROD, Delhi
School of Economics. He is
currently HR specialist with
Elnefeidi Holding Company.
HE is a certified GPHR from
HRCI with 6+ years of experience.

Performance review event brings with it

hope-expectation, and anxiety- stress in
equilibrium of manager and subordinate relationship. It is the day when subordinate
recollects achievements in past whereas
manager recounts mistakes committed by
subordinate during the same period. Both of
them come prepared to convince each other
of their point of view. It happens most of the
time - if not all, even in so called performance driven organization.
This is the primary reason of failure of essence of performance review outcome
which is designed to build on existing capability of subordinate and to enhance individuals performance in subsequent cycles.
However, on the contrary, it ends up as a
take away of bad experience by subordinate,
decreasing in performance, and often looking out for new job. The question is - are we
doing it the right way as we intended it to
be? Perhaps, it answers why many organizations including pioneer of performance culture are now reluctant to continue this process in current format.
Performance assessment activity performed
in dogmatic manner often leads to employee
dissatisfaction, decrease in staff morale and
plummeting organization's performance.
Organizations decision of evaluating performance culminates in dissatisfying large percent of staff. This activity is fraught with
feeling of unhappiness among at least 6070% of staff in organization.

It is high time that we change ourselves and

redesign the process to meet its original purpose. Rather than making assessment ONLY
a year end activity, it MUST be a continuous
process. Regular conversations between the
parties make them aware of real issue on
ground. Senior should immediately address
issue brought by subordinate in real time.
Giving subordinate spontaneous feedback
immediately after incidence is more powerful than reserving it for discussion during
performance assessment. Underscoring past
mistakes during monthly, quarterly or annu-

15

al review defeats the purpose and strain

trusting environment. Last rite should be
crisp, crunchy and fulfilling.
Now as current practice, burden of proof lies
with subordinate that he performed in past
by showing results against KRAs, whereas
manager identifies grey area in which something important had been missed out by
subordinate. And that subordinate producing explanation of reasons or constraints
which hindered him from deriving desired
results. Manager give feedback on existing
strengths subordinate has and areas which
can be improved to further his growth as
well as organizations by removing bottleneck while detailing out development or
performance improvement plan (PIP) for
subordinate.
Lets reverse the tasks here, manager
should shoulder burden of proof that subordinate has performed during performance
cycle with all authentic purpose and results,
whereas subordinate ought to be recounting mistakes committed by him and
acknowledging the steps how it could have
done better. Manager explaining what constraints subordinate faced which were hurdle in his performance expected out of his
role. Subordinate introspecting areas of improvement while manager detailing out his
strengths and capability. Both parties identifying mutually right steps forward for development and performance improvement plan
with genuine intention to keep check on
bottlenecks.
By shifting the burden, it will first reflect to
subordinate that his manager has all records
of performances and is seriously keen on his
performance, thus reinforcing manager's
authenticity while manager will be deeply
moved by subordinates acknowledgement
of mistakes and fallout from desired performance, thus reinforcing subordinate's authenticity. With this new approach, it maximizes trust among all stake holders, creates
amiable environment, appreciates ingenuity
and openness , flexibility to adapt, courage
to change while bringing the real purpose of
performance assessment exercise as it was
envisaged.

JIGYASA 2015

Corporate Article

Little Management Lessons

See What Success does to People !
Madhvi Aggarwal, VP-Recruitment, Archelons Consulting Firm

About the Author :

Madhvi Aggarwal is a graduate
in Economic ( Hons ) from Delhi University and an Alumnus
of M.H.R.O.D , Delhi School of
Economics. With over 11 years
of experience in HR, she is currently heading the HR Operations and Technology, Recruitment practice at Archelons
Consulting.

Early morning hours in office and I am hav- is struggling to meet his KPTs. Which also
ing a quick tete-a-tete with one of my col- means a beaming, high-spirited person at
leagues. I cant help but instinctively notice work.
the exuberance that is radiating from him
today. He seems to be animated and highly Increased risk-taking & confidence A
buoyant despite the fact that his kid hasnt successful person is bound to take higher
been well for the past few days and he has risks and is infused with more confidence
barely managed a full night sleep. Then I that comes with a sense of achieving
reflect back and realize that this is how he something. Such a person will experiment
has been throughout this week. I ponder with ideas as he is less likely to be afraid
over the reasons as the person is definitely of failure.
not your Roberto Benigni ! ( remember
the movie Life is beautiful ? )
Positivity amongst others Successful
people have more good to talk about
And then it STRIKES me. ( No, not like the themselves, their teams and the organizabolt of thunder ). This colleague has been tion . Such people will have lesser comdoing well professionally for the past cou- plaints and will over-look the odd flaws.
ple of days. It is not that he has achieved However, those who are not successful
the coveted hat of a Rockstar Performer tend to focus more on what's missing.
or something. He is still far from that. But it The target of their pathos can be self if
is just that he has been faring fairly well in they suffer from low self-esteem or it can
his KRAs . So because of this little success at be the organization as it is only humane
work, I see a beaming, energetic person to attribute failure to external environeven though he is not having a great run at ment
home.
See, this is what success can do to people
ephemerally change their auras for good.
From someone who lacked the lustre in life
to someone who has got the spring back in
his step, this is such a welcome transformation.
And hence, here is a Lesson for all Leaders / Higher productivity A successful team
Managers
member is more likely to have higher levels of motivation and self-drive which
would automatically lead to higher
Make your people successful
productivity.
This is because the greatness of a leader is Lower attrition But of course, all of the
not marked by his own success. It is marked above would translate in dwarfing the
by how successful his team is. Also, a suc- people turn-over ratio.
cessful team member is so much more than
an addition to the bottom-line or a job well Satisfaction for self This follows from
done for you.
the first . Which manager would not rejoice to see a smiling and successful team
A successful team member is all of the be- member !
low
So just remember what Tony Dungy
A smiling face around you A team
once said The secret to good leadermember doing well would be happier ship is just about making the lives of your
and relaxed compared to someone who
team members better !

16

JIGYASA 2015

Corporate Article

An Employees Take on Human Resources:

What We Expect of You
Rapti Gupta, Content Ranger, Affimity Inc

I am the industry of PEOPLE. And that is marketing and HR streams were not as highwhom I can assist you getting the most out ly regarded as the number people were.
of. Park Allen.

About the Author :

Rapti Gupta is a correspondent with International Business Times, an up and coming content media firm that
she has been working with
since the past two years. Her
current field of expertise is
real estate and she now
manages a website singlehandedly. She also has experience in editing and publishing content.

A pile of papers neatly stacked in one corner of the desk while some lay scattered in
front of the computer. Probably resumes.
The computer has an MS Excel sheet open
on the current tab. Several other tabs and
windows lie temporarily unattended. The
office communicator is blinking - oh! Thats
probably Mr. Mehta is inquiring about a
deadline.

But what we fail to realize is even the

number people are going to need the human touch of human relations, which is
built on the foundation of good communication.

Meanwhile, the phone is ringing and the

boss wants you in his office right then. You
politely attend the phone, promise to call
back in some time, and attend to your boss.
By the way, that was a call from a potential
job candidate, whose number you would A few months earlier, I remember having an
probably want to save, to schedule an ap- intense conversation with a friend over the
phone. We were discussing the scope of a
pointment with.
profession in human resources and how far
The scenario I just described is only a frac- up the corporate ladder you could go, if you
tion of what a human resource executive of took it up. Though we agreed to disagree on
a typical organization experience, every day. several points, our discussion never really
Adept at multitasking, the HR has no bad reached a conclusion.
On further reflection, I slowly came to realdays. Nope, none.
ize the importance of an HR in an organizaHow many of you are asking yourselves if tion.
you are in the right field? Do you really
want to pursue this as a profession or is it You will probably learn several formal definitions and probably memorize some to
just another educational conquest?
write in your paper, but honestly, you will
The answer lies within you. Does the idea of never really know what it is like until you
human resources appeal to you? Do you are out there. So, this is just a little somefeel completely in element when you are thing that will help acquaint you with realigiven a task in that particular field? Does it ty.
excite you? Do you see a future in the proAn employees vantage point
fession?
If the answers to these questions, or at least I write from an employees point of view
two of them are yes then youve probably because I am one. And because I work for a
content media firm, I depend greatly on the
zeroed in on your passion.
internet first and then the HR.
As many textbooks preach, an HR is indeed
A profession in human relations
the bridge between an employee and the
A profession in human resource is often employer.
questioned. There has always been a subjective divide. For instance, when I was in In larger organizations, the hierarchy is usucollege, my professors were constantly urg- ally broken down and the work delegated.
ing me to specialize in finance because ap- But for startups and smaller companies, the
parently, thats respectable. Somehow, the burden of communication depends entirely
on the HR.

17

JIGYASA 2015

So imagine you are an HR of a small-sized company The HR is a shrink, a caretaker, an organizer and an
that employs just about 100 to 200 people.
employees go-to person. People are going to come
to you with their troubles or even just some ranSmall crowd, one might think, but smaller the firm, dom rant and you must be, by all means, ready to
larger the responsibilities because practically, the take them on.
company is not going to invest in more than two or
three human resources personnel. Not when it is Even if it is as silly as an Is that a bird or a tree?
employing just 100 to 200 people. The company question. So if you generally like listening to people,
expects you to do a stellar job of knowing and doing you are in the right place.
your job to the T.
One of the most important roles of the human resource personnel is hiring - finding the right talent
that will suit the companys requirements. There

When there is a new employee in the office, its like

a childs first day at school and you are the class
teacher or the class monitor. The responsibility of
helping them feel comfortable, introducing them to
the team and other crucial members of the organization, the rules and regulations of the company
and other mandatory stuff solely lies on you. That is
what induction is all about.
are going to be many applicants and when you do
factor in on the potential ones, theyre going to Sometimes, induction sessions can get boring,
need your assistance because you are the only which is why you need to spruce thing up a little.
source of information.
This new employee is only going to give you his or
her complete attention for some time and you need
There will be several back and forth calls, mails and to make your most important points in the first few
text messages. What an employee will expect of minutes of the induction. Dont blame the employyou is consistency and responsiveness. Once the ee; peoples attention spans arent very long these
whole interview process is done, the candidate will days.
expect to be kept in the loop about the job.
A new employee would always want to find friendSo if you were planning on sending that confirma- ly, like-minded people on his or her first day. It
tion mail a day later, or even two hours later would be nice if someone came up and said a sweet
thats just going to reflect badly upon your compe- hello to you in a stranger place, wouldnt it?
tence.
Thats where delegation comes in. Maybe you
should ask an old or relatively old employee whose
Communication
workstation is near the new employees to go make
some small talk.

18

JIGYASA 2015

Small talk helps! It totally does. It relieves the stress

of being in a new place and takes the burden off the
newbies shoulder at communicating first. Also, because you are the HR, you are going to have a thousand other responsibilities other than handling the
newbies. So delegating small jobs to induce a dialog

O.C. Tanner Co. in California says, It has a very demonstrable return on investment. This investment
is not just a good thing to do. It makes good business sense.

Everyone likes a pat on the back and a carrot at the

end of the stick; only if they can obtain the carrot.
Therefore, if there is a set task ascertained to a
group of employees and a reward promised on
completion, you must ensure that the rewards are
satisfactory and are as promised.
An HR also has to take up the task of performance
evaluation and to do that you have to keep yourself informed about every employee their pay
scale, their performance, conduct and other aspects. If you dont, you are going to find yourself in
an embarrassing situation. Let me explain how.

between the employees could be a good start.

An HR is also responsible for promoting diversity,
culture and cheer in a company. A recent study by
Stanford Medicine proved that happier employees
are twelve percent more productive than their unhappy counterparts. Therefore maintaining the
cheer is absolutely necessary.
How you ask? Celebrate.
Celebrate milestones, celebrate festivals, celebrate
birthdays celebrate people. Employee recognition
is crucial to the health of the company. Even a bad
worker can be transformed into a good worker given he or she is motivated.
Michelle Smith, vice president of business development for rewards and recognition services provider

Suppose, employee A has been promised a certain

hike in pay for outstanding performance. The hike is
going to be minor, maybe just two percent but on
an annual basis, its going to still reflect in the pay
scale. Lets suppose you dont keep record of this
two percent hike and when time comes for the employees annual appraisal the difference in the pay
and all those numbers are going to confuse you.
The management and the employee will both expect you to know of it and you will be in limbo, literally and trust me that isnt a very good place to be.
An HR is also entrusted with all the dirty work of the
organization like conflict management and firing
an employee. Most of us - as humans - are not really confrontational, especially when it comes to
settling a grievance or stripping people off their
bread and butter.
Settling a conflict between the management and
the employee is much easier than resolving problems within a team. The team interacts everyday
and could be prone to the Hedgehog/porcupines
dilemma. The Porcupines dilemma is an interesting
analogy that explains intimacy issues like no other.

19

JIGYASA 2015

In such cases, counseling should help resolve the

issue. I believe talking things out can straighten any
problem, even political conflict for that matter.
Some companies have office romance disclosure
policies where if two employees are dating, are in
a relationship or are a couple they need to disclose it. The HR, being the wise old man, will never
assign a couple in the same team for obvious reasons.
during winters, hedgehogs or porcupines usually
want to huddle to share heat from one another.
However, these creatures need to maintain a certain distance in order to not hurt the others with
their sharp spines.

It takes greater professionalism to tackle a termination.

To be on top of your game, you need to keep reading up about the latest trends in human resources
Similarly, team members of a group can harm each and workplace management. Especially in the era of
other professionally and sometimes even emotion- technology, where everything works with a touch or
ally if they come too close. It is best to take precau- swipe and is available at your fingertips literally, it is
tions and prevent a bad environment as much as
just a Google search away.
possible. Even if two members of a team are involved in a lets say- ego battle, it is bound to
In just a matter of months you are going to step into
effect the other employees and the overall morale the corporate world. Some of you may have prior
of the team is definitely going to go spiraling down- experience already, but for those of you who havewards.
nt, you are eventually going to find a job and get
hired.
And then work will happen to you. You might
think in two years, this job is going to get monotonous, but the way I see it since human resources
is a peoples profession - there will be no dearth of
challenges and interesting scenarios. Enough to
keep your engine oiled.
After all, how boring can meeting and interacting
with people of different personalities everyday be?
I suggest a few list of books that all of us should
read, regardless of our profession. We are all human after all and we are complex little beings.

20

JIGYASA 2015

Corporate Article

Why Shared Services will Make You Question

Everything?
Nitin Kumar, Manager - HR Delivery, Oriflame Cosmetics

For the past few years many organizations

have implemented shared services with a
vision and mission to meet their projected
targets. For few of them it was successful as
it helped them to meet the deliverables in
cost effective manner as an internal service
provider. Many of them are still striving to
improve their SS (shared services).

companys approach towards employees

how they handle such situations.
Strong Leadership required as they have to
ensure that each and every department
which would be a part of the transition is in
line with them

Most Important One Ownership & Accountability should be clear throughout the
It might seem easy to have a vision of SS transition
Nitin Kumar has done his MBA with a hope to set it up in one part of the
organization and having the funding/
(HR) from Symbiosis Internaresourcing shared by different departments
tional University. With over 8
but in reality the outcome may differ for
years of work experience in
HR, he is currently HR manager different sectors.

About the Author :

at Oriflame Cosmetics. He specializes in HRIS (Oracle, PeopleSoft, IFS HR) and other HR
related systems, supporting its
implementations within the
organization.

I would like to mention few of the challenges here what I have viewed or experienced:
Challenges:
Organizations need to be clear what their
objectives are Cost cutting, creating valued services, restructuring or finally being
an internal service provider charging internal customers?

Contracts Contracts should be flexible

enough to meet various service levels complexity. They should be handy to strive for
clear governance so that services can be
evaluated based on costs or can be added/
removed later.

Collaboration, Compromise and Adaptability

All the stakeholders must collaborate to
Below are some of the very common chal- achieve the vision and agree on the fact
lenges or the basic scenarios where compa- that should allow a certain degree of comnies still lack.
promise and adaptability to meet the deliverables.
The start-up and implementation costs are
high in first two years depending on the
scale/level. It should create value henceforth delivering quality with reducing costs
less than the localized or previously implemented services.
The transition phase is tough some roles
have to go away and it might be difficult for
employees to adjust. This will also show the

21

To bring everyone in line especially all

the stakeholders/departments/employees
where there are geographical/cultural
differences maybe a very difficult task for
the company but can be achieved with
proper plan and change management.

JIGYASA 2015

Corporate Article

Talent Planning And Forecasting An Integral Part Of

Talent Management
Tarun Girdhar, Program Manager - HR, Cisco Systems (India) Pvt Ltd

About the Author :

Tarun Girdhar is a Program
Manager HR at Cisco System
Pvt. Ltd. He has done MBA
from SIBM Pune. He graduated with a specialization in
Computer Science and Engineering from Panjab University, in the year 2009 and
worked with Infosys Limited
for a period of 45 Months, as
a Senior Systems Engineer.

Talent Management

ternal and internal stimuli.

Talent Management is a broad spectrum

that encompasses a lot of initiatives that
organizations take to ensure retention,
development, training and promotion
of key talent. Though seen primarily as an
HR intervention, it is not only the onus of
HR department, but practised at all levels
of the organization, with line managers
sharing responsibility to develop skills of
immediate subordinates, divisions and departments openly sharing information
about with other divisions and departments in order for employees to gain
knowledge and information about the inter linkages, collaboration and an overall
organizational objective.

Talent planning And forecasting: being

prepared is better than being surprised

But what exactly is talent?

Some organization refer Talent to those
involved in leadership or executive positions. For others, Talent includes those
who have been identified as having the
ability and aspiration to assume those
leadership roles in the future. But, from
organizational viewpoint, it should be believed that all employees, regardless of
their position or aspirations, possess talent
that should be identified, utilized, managed and developed. Talent Management
seeks to focus on an employees potential,
meaning an employees future performance, if given proper avenues for skill
development and increased responsibility.
But, the first touch-point for any organizations talent management capability is the
ability of the organization to efficiently
plan and forecast the talent requirements.
A strategically devised Talent Plan reduces
the chances and risks associated with Talent Surplus and Talent Deficit trade off and
keeps organizations ready to deal with ex-

22

Talent planning and forecasting are organizational processes that involve proactively
planning ahead the organizational talent
needs to avoid talent surpluses or shortages.
It is based on a true premise that a company can be staffed more efficiently if it forecasts its talent needs as well as the supply
of talent, which is presently available or
will be available in future.
While most workforce planning efforts are
reactive and focus only on reacting to current and anticipated positional vacancies,
talent planning and forecasting is aligned
with the overall business strategy and
helps to solve the full scope of talent management challenges and create a highperforming and sustainable organization. If
a company is more efficient in talent planning and forecasting, it can avoid the need
for layoffs or panic and unplanned hiring.
Integration with the organizational objectives
The intent behind talent planning is to
translate the organizations business strategy into the capabilities and skills required
for the organization to succeed.
One important aspect of talent planning is
to identify critical skills and competencies
required to transform business strategy
into ground reality and action. Critical skills
vary from industry to industry and have a
strong bearing on overarching organization business strategy and future goals and
organizational aspirations. The Coca-Cola
Company, Microsoft, Deloitte and WalMart have different business strategies
and different definitions of critical

JIGYASA 2015

skills. E.g. the skills required to develop a new beverage or promote it to the consumer market are not
the same as the skills needed to develop a solution
for transportation and distribution systems.
Thus, one can unarguably keep the below aspects in
mind while devising a strategy for talent planning
and forecasting:

Succession planning Designating the progression

plan for key positions, finding key talents within/
outside the organization for replacement / succession of the key talent clusters / positions of the organization. This is to avoid surprises / shocks due to
sudden vacancy of a key organizational position as
well as to plan in advance for possible retirements /
exits from the company.

Identification of organization objectives

Identification of the resources and competencies Leadership development Using developmental

required to achieve them

Analysis of current workloads, workforce resources and available competencies
Identification of future workloads, available resources and needed competencies
Comparison of current and future states(Where
You Are?? Where you want to be??)
Implementation of an evaluation methodology
to monitor and measure the plans success

programs like coaching; mentoring; rotating people

into different projects are some of the key requisites for effectively developing the potential talent
in the organization.

Keeping the above things in mind, HR can play an

important role in providing managers with the right
number of people, with the right skills, in the right
place, and at the right time. However, Talent Planning should never happen in silos but as an integrated function in consultation with the line managers.

Retention - Forecasting turnover rates; identifying

who is at risk of leaving and how to retain them in
the organization. Not only this, it is imperative for
an organization to ensure that employees find ample opportunities to grow and develop, get rewarded for their contribution and be involved in participative decision making, to name a few.

Recruiting - Estimating needs for head count, positions, location and timing based on business requirements is very important to bring in the right
quality and quantity of talent into the organization.

No one fit size all strategy

There is no standard format or formula for talent

planning. Some workforce plans contain many
components, while others contain just a succession
plan for senior managers. While there are some
basic components that all plans should include,
there are some supplementary components that
can and will work better for some companies than
others.
The following is a list of the most common components of talent planning

Redeployment Identifying the talent ready for

redeployment and take on newer responsibilities
and opportunities.
Potential retirements - Figuring out who is eligible,
when they are eligible, who Increase product development speed because the company has the brightest people with the right skills take up and lead new
projects to execution.

Internal placement - Developing the job-posting

systems for internal employees to get a leg up on
Forecasting and assessment- Estimating the inter- new openings within the organization to take up
nal/external supply and demand; labor costs; com- new responsibilities that interest them. Nothing
demotivates an employee more than the monotony
pany growth rates; company revenue.

23

JIGYASA 2015

of the job. Hence, there should also be opportuni- Preventing problems - Having to fix problems is exties for employees to be involved in small assign- pensive and painful. Talent forecasting and planning
ments and tasks beyond their KRAs, often known as provides preventative solutions that stretch assignments to break the monotony and
letting employees pursue their interests.
Environmental forecasting - Forecasts of industry
and environmental trends, as well as a competitor
assessment is also paramount in ensuring a good
talent planning.
The impact of good talent planning :
Eliminating surprises - Proactive talent planning
limits the stressful trauma that comes from changes in the business cycle and gives ample time to prepare, so that production or services dont miss a
beat.
Smoothing out business cycles - By developing processes and systems that can ramp up and down the
talent inventory based on the changes in business Lower turnover rates: Employees are continually
cycles, the organization can:
groomed for new opportunities
Lower labor cost: Rapidly reduce labor costs without
Ensure that the company can meet production the need for large-scale layoffs of permanent emgoals by employing the right number of people. ployees
Increase product development speed because Reduced layoffs: Actively managing head count enthe company has the brightest people with the sures that the company wont have a surplus of
right skills.
talent
Take up and lead new projects to execution
Taking advantage of opportunities - Efficient workIdentifying problems early - If the organization can force management enables the organizations to not
detect the changes in the internal and external fac- only prepare for the negative scenarios beforehand
tors that can impact the talent within the organiza- but also makes then equipped to take advantage of
tion, it will be much easier to minimize the potential positive opportunities.
damage

24

JIGYASA 2015

Student Article

Managing Culture on the Other Side of the Globe

Vartika Jaiswal, Student, IIM- Lucknow

Let my house not be

walled on four sides, let all
the windows be open, let
all the cultures blow in, but
let no culture blow me off
my feet.

-Mahatma Gandhi

About the Author :

Vartika Jaiswal is a MBA student in IIM Lucknow.She
graduated from Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Noida
with a Bachelor's degree in
Biotechnology.

Wal-Mart, the worlds biggest retailer entered Germany in 1997 by acquiring 21 hypermarket stores from Wertkauf, a German retailer. It later in 1998 acquired 74
more stores from another German retailer,
Interspar. But Wal-Mart failed to show sensitivity towards the local German culture.
US has an anti-union and free-market culture, where hiring and firing at the companys will is acceptable.

Culture is a patterned way of thinking, feeling or reacting that exists within a particular group, organisation, subgroup or nation. It involves both tangible aspects like
food, dress, dance, and intangible aspects
like values, beliefs, norms. In words of Hofstede, culture is the collective programming of the mind-the software of groups in
society. Culture is learned and developed,
and not innate.

On the other hand, Germany is known

around the world for its educated workforce and thus they are given power and
respect. The country pioneered the concept of work councils, where workers participate in making company decisions. WalMarts ten-foot rule of greeting and offering help when within ten feet of a customer was more than service an infringement
in the Germans privacy. Their imposition
of English as the communication language
was also not appreciated by the employees.

Organisations are influenced by national

culture and the culture of the parent
organisation. Companies and Managers
while working with a firm on some other
part of the globe ought to understand how
to work with them. Communication styles,
values, etiquettes, negotiation styles, food,
everything varies from place to place. Cross
-cultural management is about managing
these differences when working with more
than one culture.

Ultimately in 2006 Wal-Mart closed its operations in Germany. The CEO of Metro,
Germanys biggest retailer said, Wal-Mart
cant simply apply its home-market principles to the German market.

Globalization has created a boundary-less

world. Companies are expanding their operations to other countries and emerging
as global brands. Except North Korea and
Cuba, Coca-Cola today is available in all the

25

countries in the world. May it be working

with a foreign client or catering to the global mass consumers, the phenomenon is
very common. Then why do some firms like
Wal-Mart fail in doing so while others like
Coca-Cola succeed. A very major role here
is played by cross-culture management.
Firstly, let us understand what culture is.

Culture stretches beyond verbal communication. Albert Mehrabian, a US psychologist, stated the rule of 3 Vs. He proposed
that receivers base their impression on
three cues: Verbal 7%, Vocal 38% while
Visual 55%. While accepting business card
with one hand and scribbling on it may be
perfectly acceptable in US, it is considered
a taboo in Japan. Chinese do not mind
eating anything that walks, while Indians
restrict to vegetarianism or only certain
kinds of meats. Practices and preferences
vary from country to country.

JIGYASA 2015

In order to access the culture, one must study the

The challenge is to incorCultural communicapracticed values of the other organisation, their
tions are deeper and porate it in your employmore complex than ees or your products.
physical settings, how they greet each other, how
spoken or written mes- Mattels Barbie doll with
they spend their time, how the content is discussed
or written, learn their stories and anecdotes, underblonde hair and long legs
stand career progression and recruitment of the was a failure in Japan. Market research found that
employees, hierarchy, and what the company says the girls there couldnt identify with it. Mattel then
about its culture.
adapted the dolls with dark hair and short legs to
capture the Japanese market.
Before making a move in another market it is essential to discover others cultural profile and compar- It is indicated by research that it is extremely uning it with our own to understand the differences comfortable to act against your natural style.
and communicating it to the team.Is this it? NO! Hence, cross-cultural training prior to starting a
This is just the beginning. Acquiring and internaliz- global program is a must. Do not restrict your training are two very different chapters. While many ing to manuals and WebPages. Managers must intecompanies successfully learn the differences and grate them via role plays and case studies. The idea
plan how to manage them, they fail to internalize is not to just understand, but to adopt and adjust
them.
and be successful wherever you step on the globe.

26

JIGYASA 2015

Student Article

EXPLORING NEW GROWTH REALMS WITH SOCIAL HR

Uttara Karthikeyan, Student, SIBM- Pune

Introduction

About the Author :

Uttara Karthikeyan is an MBA
student from SIBM Pune. She
worked with Cognizant Technology Solutions as a Programmer Analyst Trainee for
over a year. She has a Bachelors Degree in Engineering from Amrita University.

GE Collab, a custom social media platform

that is fundamentally changing the way GE
In the hubbub of todays life, in order to employees communicate and collaborate.
compete, it is not only important for a company to bring in some prevalent elements App-ification
like enhancing team work, bringing commitment in people, and encouraging the con- According to Kleiner Perkins research there
cept of participation, but also to innovate in are now 5.2 billion mobile devices and 1.6
these fields to catch the eye and carve out a billion smart phones, while only 789 million
niche before ones competitors. Although it laptops and 743 million desktop PCs. This
appears that allocation of a good amount of means that employees, most of whom are
budget on R&D and advanced engineering is more than likely to have a Smartphone, are
the factor common to all successful organi- 2-5 times more likely to access HR applicazations, the real reason for their sustenance tions on their phone than they are on their
in this competitive world is the intense focus PC. The ones who most benefit are those
on people and human capital. As generation working in industries such as manufacturing,
Y employees are joining organizations in construction, transportation, etc since they
profusion, it has become imperative to pro- dont have access to PC all the time. A comactively reinvent and restructure the HR pro- pany called Peoplefluent has an iPad app
grams for the changing profiles and cater to called Workforce Explorer which features a
their needs. Apart from this, companies comprehensive functionality for managing
want to create a micro culture of the outside talent in an accurate and highly visual manworld to adapt to the changes and prevent ner. The unique feature about it is that the
losing the competitive edge and going into a HR managers who handle this app are made
stage of marketing myopia.
to learn to use it by playing games instead of
just reading a deplorably uninteresting manBearing these in mind, companies have al- ual!
ready passed into a phase of social HR, realizing how social media has become a cyno- Interruption marketing
sure world over. Just as how the end consumers are becoming more and more de- Recruiters are finding even before the candimanding with the presence of buyers mar- date looks for a job. This trend is already
ket, the employees working in an organiza- seen wherein candidates arent writing retion are also demanding for a change in HR sume anymore, but uploading on LinkedIn.
software systems to have a more consumer- Resumes are dying a slow death. HR execulike feel. Also, according to recent news on tives will soon be trained on how to use soET Now, with the ubiquitous use of cial tools to their advantage. Startups like
Whatspp, more advancement in the technol- Entelo and TalentBin help companies in
ogy will soon lead to the use of Whatsapp spotlighting eligible candidates by scanning
for business processes.
through various social networking sites. The
transition is soon going from knowledge
The basic shifts from traditional HR soft- economy to social economy.
ware systems to social HR are as described
below:
Company alumni
Polite and police to partner role
Adoption of employee engagement system:
The goal management system seen in many
companies today is more agile and always
in use helping employees manage their
weekly, monthly, and quarterly objectives.
An example is General Electrics launch of

27

Hype Cycle report in 2011 by Gartner found

that a large number of organizations are
looking to build online communities through
social networking to tap into alumni since a
stronger organizational focus on talent
shortages in key roles now exists. Interacting
with a senior HR manager at TASS, as a part
of primary research, opines that he and his
team collated the contacts of about hundred

JIGYASA 2015

women who had left their jobs in their early life due
to personal reasons. While giving them a project to
work on for three months and providing a very flexible time so that they dont infringe on the womens
personal lives, he realized that the potential that
these women had was much more than even the
men who were handling senior roles!
Conclusion
Thus Social HR has truly started to soar, and with
recent M&A activity like IBMs purchase of Kenexa
which greatly depends on a social agenda, it is becoming quite clear that the emergence of social HR
as more than just a point solution is upon the organ- Table I: Various tasks of HR where social media is
izations. However social media presents the enter- used
prise with internal and external risks, making it a big
challenge to integrate social HR in their policies and
capitalizing all of its benefits.

28

JIGYASA 2015

Student Article

Psychological Helplessness
Arjun Mitra, Research Scholar, University of Illinois- Chicago

About the Author :

Arjun Mitra is a PhD student
in Organizational Behavior
and Human Resources in the
Department of Managerial
Studies at the University of
Illinois at Chicago. He recently graduated from Xavier Institute of Management with
an MBA in HR. Prior to his
MBA, Arjun worked as a Consultant at PwC, Kolkata for 22
months.

Every individual wants to achieve success,

though one differs in the level of perseverance one exhibits in the journey towards
achieving ones goals. Some accept defeat
or helplessness on encountering difficult
circumstances, whereas some see these
failures as learning opportunities and
bounce back from these adversities and
continue their journey towards success
with renewed enthusiasm.
The subject of helplessness and its remedies has caught the attention of psychologists and researchers over the past few
decades.
Martin Seligman, a pioneer in the field of
positive psychology has done significant
research on Learned Helplessness. While
experimenting on rats in a platform, he accidentally stumbled upon an interesting
finding. The platform had two compartments one of which was mildly electrically
charged. Now when the rats were placed in
the electrically charged compartment, the
rats immediately jumped into the other
normal compartment.
Seligman was inquisitive to see how the
rats would react when both the compartments were electrically charged. He found
out that when the rats were exposed to
such a scenario, they initially jumped two
and fro between both the compartments
but soon became helpless and stayed in a
particular compartment. The most interesting part was that even when the electrical charging was removed from one of the
compartments, the rats did not make any
further attempt to move to the safe compartment.
Similar experiments were tried on humans
where they were given complex difficult
puzzles to solve. After trying for some time,
they became helpless and gave up and didnt make any further attempts even when
changes were introduced in the puzzles
and made simpler. This shows that helplessness is a behaviour which is demonstrated by humans as well. The inability to
control the environment can be considered
as the root cause of this helplessness syndrome.

29

Psychological helplessness is predicted to

have four major consequences in the areas
of learning, motivation, feeling and selfconfidence. The learning incapacity can be
demonstrated in organizational settings
where when an employee doesnt find any
relation between his efforts and outcome,
he/she tends to give up learning new skills.

Similarly the employee doesnt find any

motivation to pursue his goals on perceiving a dead end in terms of results. Also employees tend to display social withdrawal
and indicate high chances of falling into a
state of despair. When the employee sees
he is unable to control the environment, he
tends to lose his self-confidence and faith
in his ability of achieving set targets.

However different individuals tend to show

different levels of helplessness when exposed to uncontrollable adverse situations.
This can be explained in terms of pessimistic and optimist explanatory styles
(Seligman). In case of bad events, when
individuals are asked the question that
who is responsible for it. Some people tend
to use internal explanations blaming themselves for the bad event while some tend
to blame the external environment for the
cause. The former tend to show more helplessness than the latter.
One must note here that internalityexternality is a continuum and people place
themselves on different points of this continuum. The next question focuses on the
duration of bad events. While pessimists
tend to see these bad events as permanent, optimists believe that the bad events
are unstable and will be short-lived. Lastly,
the discussion shifts to the pervasiveness
of the bad events. This can be explained
with the help of an example.

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If suppose a student has scored bad in a subject exam, the pessimist here will try to give a global explanation that he/she will score bad in other exams too
and will become panicky.

A pessimist unlike an optimist will believe that the

good event is short-lived and will become gloomy
instead of enjoying the present. A pessimist will limit
the happiness arising out of the good event while an
optimist will use the positivity derived from the
On the other hand, the optimist will attribute a spe- satisfaction in other areas of life.
cific explanation to the situation and will try to give
more dedicated effort in the preparation for other Conclusion
subjects so as to score well in them.
overcoming the sense of uncontrollability of events
The above questions were analyzed in the light of is very critical to counter helplessness. One should
bad events. Similar explanations can be extended to also have an external, unstable, specific approach
good events as well. A pessimist will argue that oth- while dealing with bad events and an internal, stable
ers are responsible for the good event while an opti- and global perspective when encountered with good
events.
mist will credit himself/herself for the good event.

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JIGYASA 2015

Student Article

Transforming HR through Technology

Harshita Rai, Student, Department of Commerce, University of Delhi

Ever since the technology in terms of computers, software and internet penetrated
the corporate walls and became the integrated part of each and every process in the
organization, soon the debate started
whether technology should be incorporated
in Human Resources as well.

About the Author :

Harshita Rai is a first year
student of MBA (HRD) at Department of Commerce, Delhi
School of Economics where
she is also a member of Student Development Committee and Media and Public
Relation Cell.

There are various dimensions to view this

new trend in HR. lets first consider the challenges and learnings in implementing Technology: The benefits include first reduction
of cycle time of processes and streamlined
decisions making because software used are
highly precise, analytical and logically designed with very high processing speed as
compared to humans, second increased
transparency as all the HR transactions, data maintenance, and all the information can
be accessed by all the employees which give
them the job satisfaction by justifying every

sonal contact decreases which might hamper effective communication and relationship, third employees of other department
in case of Human Resource Information System need to acquaint themselves with this
new technology and the interface and failure of which may lead to conflict and dissatisfaction in the workplace environment,
and other challenges include privacy concerns since too much transparency cannot
be there, demand of more and more data
by the employees, inacceptable by some
conservative people etc.
Another parameter that may give a different dimension is ROI on HR Technology
which is quite unquantifiable and difficult to
justify that it has good returns but no
doubts it is crucial. There are three factors:
time, employee satisfaction, and Hiring Success and turnover rate can be considered to
determine ROI. Time because it will illustrate how the automation of the HR processes helped in reducing time through easily approval processes and less paperwork.
Employee satisfaction again because of
lighter paperwork and make their job easier
which is a selling point for recruiting. Hiring
Success by investing in recruiting tools and
analytics will help in less hiring time and
easy on boarding.

step and action that HR dept. takes, third

use more data to get answers where the
third generation HR systems can analyse
and respond to advanced questions related
to performance, retention, and profitability.
So in short we might say that HR technology
can improve cost reduction, boost service
levels and aid strategic focus and potentially
improve employee engagement.

Moreover, Social Media also has gained importance in Recruiting, Talent Acquisition,
reinforcing the supply chain through collaboration with the employees, customers,
suppliers, and candidates which ultimately
leading to increased organisations effectiveness and efficiency and great employee
branding. Even considering the ROI factor,
Social Media seems a much profitable strategy to harness the creation of internal
knowledge sharing and social capital is the
Lets move to another direction where we biggest picture.
seen the challenges of adopting technology
which are first is the introduction of new So even after analysing all the pros and cons
roles and new skills of HR professionals of HR technology, there is still a question
where not only they should have increase mark on each and every organisation about
technical skills and vendor relationship skills the implications of introducing and using
but also should know which decisions technology in HR since every company has a
should be made on the basis HR information different structure, hierarchy, environment,
system like routine task but not complex HR culture, philosophy, ethics, people and mispolicy decisions, second isolation between sions. It is the decision of strategic planner
HR staff and employees as all the crucial HR of the company to decide when, where and
content is available online, the need for per- what technology should be used.

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JIGYASA 2015

Book Review

Why I Failed (Lessons from Leaders)-Shweta Punj

Vijay Kumar Shrotriya, Professor, Department of Commerce,
University of Delhi

sports, movie making or pure business, they

followed their passion, they have gone beyond rules and made their own rules, they
are all first movers and have taken risk beyond and capitalized on the opportunity
available in the market.

About the Author :

Vijay Kumar Shrotriya is professor at Department of Commerce, University of Delhi. He
is an M Com, LL B, PHD. Prof.
Shrotriya is a recipient of
Young Researcher Award. His
area of interest is Organisational Happiness, Leadership,
CSR and Training & Development.

32

How Thermax was revived against odds by

Anu Aga and how she recognized her weaknesses and overcame them is a well briefed
story of her entire experience. The journey
charted out and the road followed by Kiran
Mazumdar Shaw (of Biocon), Dr Pratap C
Reddy (of Apollo Hospitals) and Narayana
Murthy (of Infosys) and the resistance and
red-tape they faced during their effortful
and challenging trail is an excellent account
We have grown with the story of Thomas on the background of taking up initiative
Alva Edison on the learning from fail- and holding on to that till it gets through.
ures. Few months back I came across a
statement by former Indian President Ab- In the Indian corporate circles sacking of a
dul Kalam that it is more important to read CEO is something quite unheard of. The
failure stories than success stories as they plight of Sunil Alagh after being shown the
teach you better insights into the reasons gate by Wadias of Brittania is quite known
of failure and help avoid them in order to by the followers of Indian business stoachieve greater heights. Kalam says FAIL ries. The contribution that Sunil made in
means First Attempt In Learning. Though I developing Brittania as a prominent brand
had read about many failure stories of great is not unknown to many and it is believed
people through their autobiographies or that it was during his tenure that Brittania
other articles published in periodicals and gained the competitive advantage that it
other publications, however when I came still capitalizes on. Sunils dealing with this
across the title of this book WHY I FAILED, I setback and coming out of it successfully is
just ordered the title and got it shelved in discussed in the book nicely.
my collection. Around a week back I picked
it up from the shelf and started reading The man behind the Lavasa township prothrough. I have no hesitation in saying that ject Ajit Gulabchands (of Hindustan Conthe book kept me on till I turned its last struction Corporation) constant belief in the
page.
project and how his perseverance paid him
in dealing with the bureaucratic and politiThe book narrates the journey and experi- cal pressures successfully has been narratences of sixteen successful personalities ed by Shweta very lucidly in the book. He
from varied fields and focuses on their re- learnt that at times speed, overconfidence
spective failures. There are hardcore entre- and preposterous actions may bring down
preneurs in the real sense of the term even one of the most strong leaders and his
whether they belong to fashion world or decision so one has to be over cautious at

JIGYASA 2015

over cautious at times while taking strategic deci- of ekla chalo, though later people involved in the
sions.
process understood the conviction reposed by
Sanjiv and his honest intention of rebuilding CESC
The lady behind the success of Jindals SAW plant, and cooperated with him. The fate of Shankar
Sminu Jindal has been able to control the affairs Sharma and his wife is well explained in the book
and followed some of her original practices over- and their admission of a mistake about their incoming her personal physical weakness.
vestment in media firm tehelka makes their story
conciliate and convincing.
She has shown immense courage and perspiration
in managing her plant and office successfully. The Gold medalist Olympian, Abhinav Bindras reasonpopularity of the brand called Fabindia is the result ing of the loss in the subsequent olympics provides
of hard work, personal belief and commitment of an excellent insight and psychological defense for
William Bissell who have dealt with many challeng- the loss. I have reasons to believe that there must
es and developed an unique company based on be theories around this phenomenon defending
community entrepreneurship. The growth of the that the efforts and rigor are determined by the
company in last ten years is the fruit of involve- force to prove. Passion driven Sabyasachi Mukherment of the communities at different locations in jee who defied his fathers decision and went
feeding Fabindia stores through their collective ahead with pursuing his career in fashion designing
craft culture. I am sure this needs replication by is an inspiring tale between traditional and modother entrepreneurs in different other segments of ern choices of career and the believe in oneself to
the market and it shall certainly help build self- pursue ones dream. The journey of Madhur
sustaining India and connect the market with the Bhandarkar and Subhash Ghai (both from movie
back-end suppliers and craftsmen. Fabindia stores world) traversing through disturbed past in probare an excellent modern day version of khadi ash- lems of poverty in one case and of poor upbringing
rams, which are spread across India. I am sure in another case reassures a belief that suppression
these stores shall be able to provide the texture of both material as well as emotional drives one to
khadi with experience of Indian culture and craft prove a point and put forth all of the energies into
and expand its reach to the modern day urban that direction. The story of these duo reminds of
youth.
the past of many great people in different fields.

Goenkas of Kolkata have a rich history of entrepreneurship and enterprise when we look at the business history of India in last two hundred
years. They have been operating in different businesses and have provided job opportunities for
sizeable population. The story of Sanjiv Goenka in
taking up Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation
(CESC) is well told in the book as in case of
Sabyasachi Mukherjee in going against the decision of their respective patriarchs. A strong resistance from the employees and workers initially
did not deter Sanjiv from his belief that he can reconstruct CESC and make it a viable and profitable
venture. His approach showed the strong spirit

33

Many times in our lives we tend to take decisions

based on our gut or based on hearsay or fall victim
to herd behavior. Many times we get carried away
with our previous achievements. Many times we
do not plan things in right earnest and it all results
in failures, though with some few exceptions. At

JIGYASA 2015

the time of the event, decision or action we do not

realize the shortcomings and mistakes but at a longer span of time we tend to relate things and actions,
we then compare and realize the mistakes that we
have committed. The realization of accepting the
reason for failure is the first step to correct the future course of action. This book tends to help the
reader to reason out the failures through these stories that if one is determined one can learn from
mistakes and act cautiously towards achieving higher goals.

The basis of selection of these personalities is not

mentioned anywhere however the common thread
that I could find is that all of them have been first in
marching out of the way and established themselves
in their respective domain. I missed the presence of
Kishore Biyani, Subhash Chandra, and Vikram Akola
in this volume. But I can understand the limitations
of the author and it is extremely difficult to have
many or to come up to the expectations of every
reader. She has really toiled hard to document these
stories and for that she deserves appreciation. May
be we can expect some similar stories in the times
Ups and downs of life are very important to keep to come profiling other achievers.
us going, because a straight line even in an ECG
means we are not alive - Ratan Tata
The future of failure is success and the future of success is achievement. I recommend this book to eveThe chapters are well planned and leave the reader ry individual who believes in failure and success as
with the nuggets on why they failed and an advice two different islands. I am sure their belief shall get
to avoid failure. Shweta Punj has written this book transformed as they read this book.
and her approach has been very candid.

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Contact Us :
Team JIGYASA
MBA (Human Resource Development)
Department of Commerce,
University of Delhi, Delhi 110007
Phone : +91 11 2766 2037, 2766 2608
Email : jigyasa@mhrod.in
www.mibmhrod.com
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JIGYASA 2015