The Official Blog of Benifys HR Solutions

Social media falls under a larger umbrella term Web 2.0 which has fundamentally changed and is still changing the way that we work. From Fortune 500 organizations hiring people to blog or ‘tweet’ for them, to personal brand management and collaboration – these are just some of the things a new age professional in the fields of HR, PR, Media is expected to have at least some knowledge about.

So, what has the shift been?

And it’s all happening now; following are some things that Human Resource professionals and organizations are using Social Media for:

• Brand Management (Appearance/reach on the web, voice of the company, audio/video podcasting)
• Recruitment (Through Blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter)
• Knowledge Sharing (HRevolution, Carnival of HR, HRM Today, HR Guru etc.)

Specifically in case of Human Resources departments, there is also a commonly felt paradox. On one hand it is no more feasible to keep employees from creating and maintaining their personal brands online because it will ultimately (and supposedly) come back to the organization, on the other hand HR department is traditionally responsible for keeping a check on the drop in efficiency that is associated with ‘facebooking’ and ‘tweeting’. What do you think? All show and no go, or a shift in work culture?

Why do we think of energy in conventional terms? With right approach and motivation, humans can be as charged.

At the ripe old age of 81, Lal Krishna Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party had to travel to several places by air in the summer heat in the previous two months, as he was projected as the prime ministerial candidate by his party. When the Hindustan Times tried to probe the secret of Advani’s energy, he replied, “Food and sleep are two things I need very little of.” Advani’s frugal diet of curd and fruits would perhaps make him feel more energetic, since he has to travel a lot.

One often comes across the expression “saving time, money and energy” quite often. However, though it is possible to bump across articles and power point presentations on time and money management, energy management from an individual’s perspective are relatively rare to come by. When it comes to energy, we generally think of thermal energy, solar energy and nuclear energy etc.


Energy From Passion

One’s chances of success improve with the degree of high energy levels that one is able to generate and sustain throughout the day. Apart from one’s energy level, this would also depend on one’s interest in one’s work. The more passionate one is about one’s work, the more energetic one is likely to feel throughout the day. The grand old man from Bollywood, Dev Anand, who at the age of 85 is contemplating a new film called Chargesheet, has this to say in this context; “No drug can turn you high as your own work. I am always on the high. You cannot enjoy your life unless you enjoy your work.” Perhaps this is why the word “ever ebullient” is used for Anand since he epitomises the expression”zest for life”. One certainly needs to be charged up to make Chargesheet at 85. UK-based website http://www.careerenergy.co.uk/index.shtml states, “The key to a successful career lies in understanding four things: What we are good at, what we enjoy, what matters to us in life and what motivates us at work.” In the book Lead to Succeed, the authors states, “Each of us is pure energy and it is our personal responsibility as to how we direct that energy. When we involve ourselves in something that is not of interest to us, we are not channeling our energy effectively. Entrepreneurial leaders naturally raise the energy levels of people within an organisation because they ensure people are able to focus on what they are best at. Energy is always higher when what you have to do is what you want to do.”

Right Approach

In a more practical context, it may not be possible for everybody to be in the work that he enjoys doing, is good at, is motivated by or is in congruence with what one believes in. If this is the case, then drive and energy become two different factors unlike what is mentioned above. If you are not driven by your work, energy management becomes a top priority as it is bound to mitigate suffering. The choice of work may not be within one’s control but how one approaches one work is definitely within one’s control and one can try and generate and sustain high energy levels.

People like Advani or filmstar Shah Rukh Khan may need very little sleep but for an average person, getting a good night’s sleep is the first step towards high energy levels. One gets to read off and on how Yoga is very good for depression as well because of the secretions of the endocrine glands that are caused by the various Asanas. The problem is that unless one is really passionate about Yoga, it can be quite boring.

It is better to play one sport, in which one is interested in, regularly and with intensely but if that is not possible, one can combine different forms of exercises than merely depend on Yoga. We are witness to the fact how our sportspersons in many categories have the talent but do not have the endurance to give good performance consistently. Talking of sports reminds me of a lady with whom I play Tennis on the weekends. I have seen her play non-stop for four hours in peak Summers several times which is surprising, since she must be somewhere in her mid-fifties. She also claims to do Yoga or cycling for one and a half hours on occasions, going on marathon runs, doing all the housework by herself (including washing cars) when the servant is not around etc. I found that her knowledge of exercise and nutrition was quite exceptional. Eventually it all boils down to good energy management.

Energy Drainers

There is a saying in management that arriving is more difficult than striving. Similarly, generating high energy levels in one thing, sustaining them is another. Energy drainers apart from the work itself are work relationships and bad office habits.

One is lucky if one is able to consistently work, with those people with whom one is able to bond better, but that is not often the case. Arguments are major energy drainers and one can try and avoid them to the extent possible but many times, one has to take a stand and one is perhaps better off with learning argumentation techniques or how to be assertive without being aggressive. This is normally done for good inter-personal relations but also helps prevents energy for being drained in futile verbal battles.

Right Questions

In February, I attended a three day seminar of Results coaching system, from where I learnt that coaching is about asking questions to a person about his own thinking about a particular dilemma in a manner that the solution comes from him rather than telling him or advising him what to do. Their book called Quiet leadership says, “The more successful a person is, the less you can tell him what to do and the more you can help them think better for themselves.” It reminded me of one quote from Sir Winston Churchill, “Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” This is a common day-to-day situation which causes friction.

I realise that asking questions even in general and not just coaching situations causes less friction than going around advising or telling people.

On listening to one of the recordings on coaching, I heard someone say that in their view, coaching was one of the ways to move towards silence. That reminded me of meditation.

According to an article Energy is the real healer in The Times of India, Paramhamsa Yogananda described the body as a battery. He taught that we need to learn to recharge the battery by drawing more on the divine source of energy. By consciously attuning with the healing forces of the universe, one could feel a dynamo of power flowing through one’s body. Prayer and meditation are a means to draw energy from that divine source.

In addition, silence and fasting can also help in quieting the mind.

Ayurveda speaks of Vata, Pitta and Kapha tendencies and having a pacing and restless mind is indicative of the Vata mind which should be avoided. One has to be careful currently because the pace at which change is taking place, are arousing Vata tendencies in even people with other dispositions. In negative moods, they can prove to be disastrous, apart from being harmful in positive phases, as well when they go out of control. Lifestyle also plays a major role in keeping oneself calm.

Back to Basics

In his wonderful book Success v/s Joy, seven-time world billiards Champion Geet Sethi describes how the standard of his game fell after his lifestyle had become dissipated and fragmented when he was overcome with materialism and acquisitiveness. He went back to the basics and his performance peaked when his mind became calm. He describes how a disciplined lifestyle helps in developing will power and concentration, which for all practical purposes is mental strength. Apart from that, what one eats, as also chewing food properly, has a significant effect on the mind, which reminds of the famous saying “Avoid hurry, worry and curry.”

The medical profession has begun to realise that energy is the real healer. The old approach is to kill the disease by attacking it, using medicines, radiation, surgery etc. The new approach strengthens the organism so that it won’t be vulnerable to disease, using herbs, diet, exercise etc. In order to make ourselves immune to disease, we must learn to strengthen the flow of energy in us and remove obstacles to its flow. The basic thing is to remove energy blockages — trains in Japan and Germany move at 500 miles an hour because of the concentrated force of superconductivity or electrons moving in one direction without any resistance. Reiki and Pranic healing are highly specialised energy healing systems and would probably justify a separate article devoted to them.

The Tight Spots

Coaching is one strategy but how one reacts to situations during the day is the most important factor in conserving energy. An acquaintance in the US told me, “People in India are so emotional that when we come on vacation, everybody in me and my wife’s extended family expects us to visit them, which is not practically possible. Therefore, I myself throw a party to gather everybody at one place, which saves time and energy considerably. I am not bothered about people who do not agree with this.” Though this indicates emotional fortitude, it is practical emotional intelligence in action.

I have often heard people say that one can’t change people but can only change one’s responses to them. That may be true for certain situations but one should effect change in others whenever possible. This is true both in personal and professional life. I read in a Harvard Business Review book how the management should try and modify the behavior of six personality types when excess of the behavior pertaining to each type starts to prove counterproductive. The book Power of Now says it very well, “If you find the current situation intolerable, you have three choices — remove yourself from the situation, change it or accept it totally.” In my view if there is a mistake in reading the situation and responding to it correctly, there is considerable waste of energy. Acceptance of severe tragedies is never easy and in absence of a sufficient level of acceptance, Yoga and meditation remain mere tools and techniques. The better the acceptance, the sooner one can get to normal energy levels and is able to sustain them.

This article is written by Hiren Shah and was published in the October issue of Management Compass.

By outsourcing HR functions, a company can unleash its energy for its core areas of function

GOOGLE as a search engine provides an excellent common platform for personalised consumer experience, as individual users decide how to use it to suit their particular needs. Giving other similar examples, the top ranked thought leader in the world, CK Prahalad explains in his book The New Age of Innovation that unique personal experiences are permeating industries as diverse as toys, financial services, travel, hospitality, retailing and entertainment. He further says that no company has all the resources to create unique personalised experiences and flexible systems are a prerequisite and must be developed to access talent, components, products and services from the best source. In this context, he mentions outsourcing as one way to access low cost, high quality talent and explains that it should not be seen only as a means to reduce cost but also give personalised service.


In the book, the head of ICICI human resources function describes his job thus, “ICICI now faces a challenge in our aggressive growth and HR emerges as a strategic function in this increasingly competitive battle for talent. We run HR operations and recruitment as a production factory. We scan more than 3,50,000 applicants annually. We hold monthly recruitment planning meetings that resemble demand forecasting meetings by a manufacturer.” Considering the complexities involved, one wonders whether it is possible for all companies to manage HR operations of this magnitude in house. In a world where business suddenly grows astoundingly, not only recruitment but training and development of the staff along with compensation and performance management also have to be handled aptly. As people are supposed to be the most important resource and management of people involves a lot of subjectivity, any inefficiency in this area can prove to be disastrous. Can it not be done by outsourcing HR services?


Normally when one thinks of outsourcing, the BPO industry comes to mind. Apart from call centers, there are many companies which outsource financial accounting and legal services as well. HR outsourcing is relatively rare but has been taking fervent steps in recent times. One of the best companies to emerge in recent times is Benifys, which claims its mission to be “to provide value-based outsourced HR solutions, enabling client organisations to optimally deploy their people and fiscal resources by leveraging simplified, quality HR practices cost effectively.” The basic idea is that organisations should be able to outsource their activities to HR companies to enable them to focus their attention on their core competency and develop variable capacity or increased flexibility to meet changing business demands.


Bill Gates had said in an interview to Time magazine, “As a business manager, you need to take a hard look at your core competencies. Revisit the areas of your company that aren’t directly involved in those competencies, and consider whether web technologies can enable you to spin off those tasks. Let another company take over the management responsibilities for that work, and use modern communication technology to work closely with the people — now partners instead of employees are doing the work. In the web work style, employees can push the freedom the web provides to its limits.” Though this was said in the context of IT, it can be true for HR as well if the work is outsourced.


According to Benifys, the existing team in the client company might be working out fine, but there are no comparators to their performance, they operate on benchmarks that have been internally set, based on the limited knowledge of the HR function that most line managers possess. To enable dramatic growth for any organisation, and to have access to specialised expertise in each of the HR domains, a much larger team is required, which can work on a need basis, rather than add to the salary bill that’s probably already a large part of the client’s total expenses. The most important thing is that with outsourcing HR becomes a variable and not a fixed cost, which can impact profitability considerably, especially in adverse situations. For any client, costs are linked to their capability to pay. If the client company is growing, the probability is they are now able to allocate a larger portion to support services like HR. If they are shrinking, they would like the support services costs to come down as well. For recruitment, HR companies can help negotiate better rates, and put in place a vendor management practice that one might otherwise not have access to. They also have a pool of recruitment partners, and will be able to obtain better terms for recruitment requirements.
Where training and development is concerned, the expert trainers and content developers in an HRO company will understand the particular need for the client organisation and design customised training programmes to address the training requirements. Benifys has different methodologies for all scales of operations — start-ups, middle and large. For better effectiveness and efficiency there are many benefits like leveraging shared services, access to innovation and thought leadership, tighter control of budget through predictable costs, accurate and secure data flow etc.


In the words of the Benifys CEO, Ajay Chowdhury, “HRO need not remain restricted to transactional activities, even though that is already an established market in India, but needs to move into an end-to-end solution space, where the executive management of an organisation, specially in the SME space, can sit back and concentrate on what they do best — develop strong go-to-market and strengthen business processes. For larger organisations, there is obviously a need to outsource the transactional HR activities, and bank upon people like us to implement specialised projects, or customised L&D initiatives. Having successfully gone through the proof-of-concept stage, we’re on the verge of a big leap forward.”


One of the most well known corporate figures in recent times, former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch had adopted a philosophy of getting out of all the businesses except those areas where the company could be first and second. Outsourcing to my mind is extending the same philosophy internally — get out of all the areas except where you are best, your core competency. Welch had a 70:70:70 rule. He has decided that 70 per cent of GE’s work will be outsourced. Out of this, 70 per cent will be done from offshore development centers. And out of this, about 70 per cent will have to be done here in India. One of the reasons of his stupendous success could have been his efficient outsourcing. Peter Drucker’s book Innovation and Entrepreneurship describes how the great Henri Ford’s empire began to crumble after James J Couzens, the man who used to look after all other management functions to enable Ford to focus on his engineering core competence, left the company. In his book The High Performance Entrepreneur, Subroto Bagchi, vice-chairman, MindTree Ltd, says, “Many times a startup fails when it tries to be too big too soon and does things which are not its core competence.” Bagchi is right. Outsourcing is actually in-resourcing; whether it is a start-up or otherwise, the shift in focus to core competence can unleash forces that can be one of the factors which can actually make the entire company a high performance entrepreneur.

This article is written by Hiren Shah and was published in the October issue of Management Compass.

Background

The schools of today are very different from even 5-6 years back. Today, schools need to operate like full blown organisations and are faced with the same challenges as any other for-profit corporate organisation operating in a competitive environment. Schools have to begin to think of themselves as Organisations, competing with other schools, even other education imparting institutions, trying to sell their product (education) to a static-for-a-year buyer’s (students and parents) market. It is not by accident that the forward looking schools have begun to look upon their employees (teachers) as their differentiating factor in attracting the most number of buyers (applicants for enrolment). It is no longer the infrastructure or the historical glory that some schools used to enjoy that matters. Today’s parents and students are far more selective and discerning than earlier, when distance and ease of admission (and yes, absence of a ‘donation’) used to be the deciding factors. Today, what matters is the competence and attitude of teachers, and this is where most schools miss the bus.

With this in view, it is imperative that the Human Resources function begins to contribute in a game-defining manner to enable the schools to leverage the strength of their human resources (the teachers) to become institutions of repute and standing in the society.

Scope

All schools desirous of providing a conducive environment to the teachers, while developing or retaining the cutting edge in the education market.

Coverage

The typical activities in the Human Resources function that every school can benefit from can be summarised as follows:

• Attracting and recruiting appropriate teachers – appropriate in terms of qualification, experience and attitude
• Inducting the teachers in the processes/practices and ethos of the school
• Personnel records maintenance for teachers, complete with entire documentation pertaining to previous employment, experience, qualifications, etc.
• Continuous development of the teachers to remain above the bar
• Salary fixation and payroll processing, including implementation of government regulated scales and annual increments
• Performance Management of the teachers, setting goals and targets, and monitoring their performance with a view to bring about continuous improvement in the school teaching standards
• Query resolution for teachers, where face time is provided by the HR function for interaction pertaining to common or individual issues faced by teachers
• Separation process management – implementation of the separation process in a professional manner with templatised exit interviews and attrition factor trend analysis.

Value-add services

In addition to the above, there are many activities that do not classify under the core-competence bucket for a school, whose sole and undivided attention should be on making the students worthy human beings – knowledgeable, curious, capable, and contributors to society when they grow up. It is easy to let go of the activities mentioned below that require either a templatised, transactional approach, or special expertise or training. These activities can be as follows:

• Complete child dossiers
• Parent-teacher interaction co-ordination
• Communication charter development and implementation between school and parents
• Child and teacher counselling

Detailed offering

Benifys offers a bundled service offering that is easily deployable in a plug-and-play mode. Obviously, some aspects of this offering need to be suitably modified to reflect the culture and requirements of individual schools. The offerings mentioned above can be depicted in detail in the following manner:

Attracting and retaining teachers

The school has to have strong and robust processes around recruiting the right teachers. The right candidates have to be identified through a detailed market scanning exercise and a database that is unmatched in tapping into the right resources. The interviewing techniques not only need to measure the aptitude of the candidates, but equally importantly, measure the attitude. In the final reckoning, the differentiators will not solely be knowledge parameters, but the way that the teachers approach their roles. It is critical for any teacher to project the image that the school wants to project amongst the student and parent community.

Benifys provides robust behavioural skills based interviewing techniques that all our representatives have undertaken rigorous training on. The recruitment processes are managed through an integrated back-end support mechanism that will delight the candidates. Whether they succeed in getting employment at the school or not, they will go back thinking highly of your institution.

Induction of teachers

The first ‘moment of truth’ is the first few days after joining. Benifys recognises that the induction process has to be appropriate and should serve the needs of both the employer and the employee. Beginning from a formal reception to enabling the new hire find a place in the new environment, the induction process should facilitate a quick cultural shift to the new ways of working of the new workplace.

Benifys has a templatised approach to induction. We provide face time in the first few days to take the new hire through the new policies, processes and formalities, along with an induction schedule that covers the entire spectrum of activities befitting an organisation of repute.

Personnel records

One of the most important facet of organisation life, and one which is most often neglected, is maintenance of proper personnel records in safe custody. The criticality of this activity is often overlooked, to the detriment of the organisation.

Benifys has a robust mechanism of collecting the relevant documents, following up to complete the desired documentation, and then storing the collated documents in a safe and tamper-proof manner, with strict controls over accessibility.

Developmental activities

Constant development is the key to success – of individuals and organisations alike. It is imperative that constant endeavours are made to uplift the skill levels and behavioural aspects of all employees.

While Benifys provides a committed one day of behavioural training for teachers on a topic chosen by the partner school, we will be glad to assist with the co-ordination aspects towards organising skills based workshops.

Salary fixation and payroll processing

While there are Government regulated scales for teachers in most schools, there are nuances of the salary structure that have to be captured, leave and attendance data fed into the payroll system, and adjustments made for arrears and deductions. At the same time, the most appropriate salary structure has to be implemented so that the school is adhering to all compliance and statutory matters.

Benifys provides support in managing the payroll through its payroll processing team, professionally managed and with previous experience of managing large projects. We are committed to providing timely and accurate payroll support o every school that we partner.

Performance management

Performance management in schools is a vital component of the value proposition that it offers to the students and parents alike. Through a rigorous mechanism of performance evaluation, skill/attitude gap analysis, and chalking out a developmental plan for all teachers, schools need to pay special emphasis on the development of the teachers on their rolls.

Benifys offers a committed one day training workshop coverage of all teachers on the rolls of each partner school within this offering. This means that the school can choose the developmental workshop that it wants to create and run for its teachers. This workshop can be one of the staple products from the Benifys offerings, or customised according to the specific needs of the school. More than this, the school can choose to run different workshops for different sets of teachers.

Query resolution

However good an environment and however supportive the management, there will always be human issues that teachers are faced with. There needs to be a self-propelled mechanism that lends a ‘listening’ ear to the teachers and other employees, and this mechanism needs to be driven by an agency external to the management.

Benifys representatives provide the human touch to the running of a school. We know what it takes to present a humane approach to the employees of the school, and work extra hard to make sure that everyone feels wanted and cared for. The resolution might lie with the school, but the vehicle of carrying the concern to the management and the resolution to the employees is the Benifys ‘face-of-HR’.

Separation process

When employees leave, and they sometimes will, it is important for a free flow of communication to take place between the employer and the leaving employee. Separation is not about settling the financial dues at both ends, it is about parting in a manner that is becoming an institution of repute. We highly recommend a mutual parting of ways that allows both parties to get back together at some point in time, if it works for both. Finally, remember that the leaving employee is the best ambassador of your school.

Benifys not only takes care of the financial aspects of separation, but involves itself in understanding the real reasons behind people leaving. It could be as innocuous as marriage, or shift of towns; but it could be as critical as the working environment, or the employee relations practices that the school follows. Whatever it is, the school should know, and Benifys provides the ideal mechanism, through its templatised exit interviews, and exit analysis, for the school to understand trends behind attrition, and take corrective measures while there is time.

Value-add services

We recognise that there are a host of other transactional, or specialist, activities that are required by the schools. In our endeavour to provide a complete bouquet of services, enabling the partner school to avail of all such services through single window, we also offer the following services as our value-add proposition. These services are priced separately from the above suite of offerings, and can be implemented on a project mode.

• Complete child dossiers: all relevant and updated information about each student in your school is collated and maintained in a secure environment by Benifys
• Parent-teacher interaction co-ordination: setting up schedules, sending out messages, and physical co-ordination of the PTA/PT Meetings is done by Benifys
• Communication charter development and implementation between school and parents: any other communication channels that the school wants to open and maintain with the parents is handled end-to-end by Benifys
• Child and teacher counselling: specialist services by qualified counsellors provided through Benifys

Benefits

• Best practice implementation
• Templatised, yet customised approach
• Execution finesse of specialists
• Cost of uniform ‘best-in-class’ solution dependent on size – no investment ahead of time
• Variable capacity
• Value-add services from single window

The month is almost about to end, and we are just gearing up for the finalization and distribution of the Fourth Edition of our in-house Newsletter HR@Work for which we have been consistently getting great feedback; well, this issue is extra special then… why you ask? That’s because the newsletter now has a completely revamped look and let us tell you we just absolutely love it, and know that you will too! So here come the updates:


When we conceptualized HR@Work, we were not sure how it would be taken and whether we would be able to pull it off to any degree of success, now fourth month into it’s run, it now has a circulation of around 2000! The primary target audience and majority of the opt-ins that we get are from people working in the HR leadership domain in India with the occasional sign-up from professionals overseas who happened to stumble upon the Blog.


As I said earlier, the Newsletter has a complete new look and will have a guest column starting this month. We plan to use this space to not only get experts to talk on varied aspects of business like management, motivation, workforce management, people issues, organizational climate and the likes, but also as a space where our clients and partners can talk about the challenges they face in their day-to-day business affairs and what is it that keeps them going.


We love experimenting with Web 2.0 and believe there is a vast latent potential to it, once the targeted users reach a critical mass; taking action on that thought we are now on Facebook and Twitter (and are about to cross 4000 followers on the latter!). Eventually, we also plan to open a support group on LinkedIn where business professionals and budding entrepreneurs can discuss the problems they face while implementing their HR, or the lack of it.


This update is rather special, thanks to Shauna Moerke of the HR Maven Blog, we are now participating members of the “Carnival of HR” community and besides being featured in that space, we will be hosting it on our Blog on the 14th of April, 2010! Check out the latest carnival post hosted by Effortless HR Blog here.


A little late in the day to mention, but we signed a content partnership with HRguru (Part of the Monster.com Worldwide Company) for syndication of our articles on their website. HRGuru is an online community dedicated to advancement of current and future human resources professionals and of the improvement of HR as a whole. We plan to help each other in our online promotion efforts besides content sharing.


Lots of birthdays this month in our team, three to be precise and what fun it was! We wanted to share the photos but then someone suggested (smart thinking indeed) that posting our cake covered faces all over the internet might not be a very good idea and it for sure wouldn’t do any wonders for our branding effort! So I guess we wait until we can get some no ‘cake on the face’ photographs of us, fat chance of that I think! You can check more information about our team here, for once we have clean, bright faces .