Sustaining Knowledge Management: What HR Can Do

In an earlier post I had written about Knowledge Management and how it is relevant today and can't be ignored in the context of today's business.  Read Here.

In this post I will try to explore how HR can play a role in facilitating knowledge management.  While the context may be more specific to services industries it can be extended to any other industry.

As companies have diversified and spread their operations across geographical and state boundaries and as technology has provide ample ways to stay connected and share work seamlessly, it is very common to find teams working across multiple locations requires remote teams to come together and deliver solutions and it is here that knowledge management processes play a key role in the collaborative effort.   In such an environment the willingness of team members (employees in general)  the aspect of give and take needs to be forthcoming.   The willingness is addressed by driving the culture of sharing and caring.  Explained below, are seven areas of influence whereby  the HR function can play an important role in enabling learning and sharing knowledge through a collaborative effort.

Creating a Culture for Knowledge Sharing

Espoused Value of Learning & Sharing: HR Should Influence That

As highlighted earlier, culture plays a significant part in ensuring sustenance of the knowledge management effort.   The effort to create a culture of learning and sharing starts right from the directional strategy of the company. The organization should design and deploy experiential and cognitive learning programs are deployed throughout the year to sharpen the understanding of the core values of the organization understand how learning and sharing as a value is manifest in resultant behaviors and to  percolate the values into day to day working.  Through these programs employees can be made ready to deal with situations when there is a defocus or a deviation from the very values you want to promote and instill among your teams.  The knowledge management efforts get a key boost through the value of  Learning & Sharing.   Apart from a pivotal role of being custodians of the processes to ensure value adherence  HR can play a key role in embedding the knowledge sharing culture by reinforcing this in induction and hiring process.  

Create a Knowledge Sharing Platform

HR can influence knowledge sharing through appropriate reward and recognition programs that Communities of Expertise (CoE’s) can aspire for and thereby bring together people working on related areas of functional and technical expertise.  These can be areas for e.g. Engine Optimization and tuning in an automobile company,  or infection prevention post surgery in a hospital ICU, or process throughput design in a process plant. 

Apart from sharing explicit and tacit knowledge the CoE’s also help in creation of knowledge assets and artifacts like case studies,  white papers, Points of view etc.  Some companies have even gone to the extent of aggregating these expertise platforms and created learning universities or knowledge universities that drive creation and sustenance of knowledge within the organizations.  

HR needs to implement a structure to sustain these knowledge platforms by designing appropriate governance structures and putting right kind of metrics in place to drive effective implementation and roll out.  These kind of processes and structures are not easy to copy and duplicate.  It is culture specific and driven by the fact that the substance is more important than the form that these systems take. 

Capability Building

In a diversified multilocation organization dispersed organization learning will be effective only if it reaches the audience irrespective of time, space and distances.   HR Technology enablement  focus should ensure the deployment of learning through e-Learning modules accessible seamlessly across the globe.  Technology today can ensure right access to learning modules, libraries and other learning platforms that are accessible across the globe and available real time to employees.  

Compliance and Intellectual Property

Another important role for HR is by being an integral part of addressing any issues on violations of  knowledge copy rights and intellectual property. Any transgression or violations are addressed and necessary action is taken by the company's Ethics Redressal Committee of which HR is usually a key governance stakeholder.   The HR team should ensure  that principles of natural justice are followed during any such scrutiny in alignment with the corporate guidelines on value and ethics.

Staffing & Resourcing Intelligence

One of the key areas by which HR can influence knowledge management is by ensuring  visibility on availability of right competencies across businesses and ensure staffing on a real time basis.   HR can also play a pivotal role in creating this internal system that provides various resourcing and staffing managers and business leaders with information on the availability of right resources and capabilities that are required for the delivery of customers’ business requirements.

Facilitator & User

While HR plays a role in enabling knowledge sharing, the HR function is also a significant user of  the knowledge management framework and infrastructure.  All HR communication to the associates on various organizational policies, processes,  procedures,  change initiatives etc, are communicated through multiple collaboration mechanisms such as Email,  Bulletin Boards on the intranet, web chat tools,  the Knowledge Management portal etc.  There is a significant use of collaborative tools such as Pod Cast and Webcast Sessions for sharing and communicating information on real time basis with participants across the globe and these are extensively used by the HR teams.   By being an early adopter and consistent user of the KM tools HR has the onus to lead by example in driving the culture of  knowledge sharing.

Conclusion

As highlighted in previous sections HR does play a key role in driving an organization’s knowledge management efforts. HR can set an example by being both a proponent and user of the knowledge management processes.   HR can play an active part as a custodian of key processes that facilitate knowledge sharing as well as facilitate the creation of a culture for knowledge management.   Operationally organizations face a challenge of lack of time or less  band width of managers.  It is here that a robust communication effort and creating awareness by sharing and highlighting success stories, case studies, informal sharing etc., are vital.  HR can also influence the adoption of knowledge processes by including relevant component in the performance appraisal thereby driving adoption and usage in the early stages of adoption.  Thereafter it is the constant reinforcement of practices, recognizing and rewarding adoption of knowledge management processes that would play a key facilitation role.   In the coming years with more and more emphasis on knowledge and management of knowledge for competitive advantage HR will play a vital role in enabling a key and vital strategic lever. 

Narrow The Intent-Content Gap !!!

When Content does not Match up to Intent,  you are likely to  lose credibility.  The writing on the wall is loud and clear.  If we fail to live up to the talk as HR professionals then we are seen as folks "throwing the cannon balls" at the party.

Have you experienced that people speak about some new concept they heard of,  bring in a whole lot of jargon and then quickly adapt and adopt what was working somewhere and which they claimed could be a cure all, a solution for tomorrow and then .... Bingo !!! it all fizzles out as quickly as it got created.

If this rings a bell then it is probably a case of intent-content gap at work.  What you wanted did not happen and what you expected did not turn out to be.  Here are four reasons why this happens.

a) The concept did not fit into your context:  Understanding the context is key to successful implementation.  What works for A situation does not apply to Situation B.   Try remembering the last time you tried a least common denominator approach to employee engagement.   Wont' work -  it has to be segmented if it has to work,  Not everything that motivates an employee in second year of his job career can motivate the one with a decade or more.

b) Concept not thought through:  If you tried an approach that resembles tunneling your way through the mountain then at best you can see the other side.  If you want to see the top you need to climb the mountain.  Ask few of your HR teams what a normalization process intends to achieve and see how much they can explain.... or even simpler ask what the philosophy for performance management is and if you have a common response you are doing well otherwise the concept is not clearly understood.

c) Rome was not built in a day:  Big Bang roll out without a prototype or a working model is a sure way to rework, or in all likelihood failed implementation.  Ever remember a day when your folks at work decided that you need a new process or system from the scratch, from the ground up to replace the current one.

d) You put the squirrel to do what the turtle was supposed to be doing.  Climbing trees is best done by the squirrel and swimming across the current in the river by the turtle. If you ever tried switching roles in the name of meeting goals of  job rotation then you will be in for a surprise. (Read More About This Here)

4P Framework for Career Choice Making

This is the time of the year when students studying in the final year of their graduate or post graduate degree courses would be making career choices on what they would be doing post college...To take up a job after graduation,  to pursue higher education, to follow their dreams, to take up something unconventional. However today the young generation at this critical point in their career are faced with abundance of choices.  When choices are many decision making becomes difficult, rather stressful and several interference's come into play. 

 These include Peer pressure,  popular choices of the day (remember the engineering and medicine craze of the 1980's and 1990's) , family pressures all play a part of being among the various interference's.   In such situations how does one bring back focus on their career choices.  A simple way is to ensure you are clued in to 4P's.  A simple yet powerful way to ensure that you are in synch with reality and make a more informed choice.   A brief discussion on the 4 P framework for effective career choice making is elaborated here.  

The first P is Purpose.  Sounds simple but you first need to have a clear purpose if you don't want to get swayed by the happenings around you else,  the slightest winds of disruption around you will distract you.   Most young college graduates think their purpose is clear but not more than 10% of them have actually written down their purpose.   Where do you want to go?  What do you want to do?  Writing down your purpose increases the chances manifold that you will achieve it or move in the direction to achieve it.   Writing down your purpose brings focus into your mind.   This is something you should take a few solitary moments to pen down.   Discuss it, if you need, with a close confidant - a friend, a family member.   State what you want to achieve and by when.  Write it down in a place where you can read it as often as once a day.  The mind has a beautiful way of rewiring itself when you are focused on your objective or purpose. (Read my Blog on Attention & Focus).  One thing that most students who are graduating worry about is what others will think of their choice.  It does not matter.  Your choice is something that is very important for you and if you don't make your choice to do what you want then you will only be living other's choices.  Your's or Others?  The Choice Is Your's.

Once you have your Purpose, you need to drive it to action.  This leads us to the second P which is Plan.   Plan helps give wings to your dreams.    You have to make deliberate attempts to make things happen and only a plan can take you there.   You need to understand your strengths, your values and how they align with your purpose.   Do you have what it takes to give wings to your dreams?  If not - Go Get It !!  It is never too late when you are making a choice for your life's dream.  A career is not a short term venture but something that where you can end up spending 3 to 4 decades of your life in a field of your choosing.   This can be the company you start your career with, the industry in which you want to work or even the field of profession you want to choose.    A plan needs to have milestones.  Break your journey to the destination into manageable bits.  For e.g. if you want to get into a career on animation and gaming it is not just enough to do a few courses.  Talk to a few experts who are already in the field of animation and design.  Spend a few hours talking to them, understanding what stumbling blocks they faced in their career and how did they overcome this.   Work on areas where you have assessed gaps vis a vis making entry into the career you are focusing on.   You also need to understand what would be the best place to start your career. Look for organizations that provide fertile learning ground and good training for early career starters.   Sometimes you need to trade this off with a few thousand rupees of salary that you may other wise get but with few training opportunities.   Finally just like you put purpose on paper you should try to do the same with your plan. 

The third P is very critical and most college graduates don't think about this till it is too late in the day.  Position...  It is like your brand promise.  What is that makes you different from others who are competing with you.  Chose something that is your strength.  Something which you can talk about as your USP.  Marry this P to the previous one if you want a job with a specific industry or have narrowed down to a particular choice of organization.   How will you position your key strengths during the selection process.   Things like Good communication skills,  hard worker and attention to detail are all given today.  You need to show how you are ahead of the learning curve,  what unique skill, capability or talent you have that is hard to come by.    This will help you stand out in a crowd.   You need to start working on this P early on in your college degree course.   Colleges where Training & Placement Departments drive this as a focus area to work on for their graduating classes will be ahead of the curve when it comes to fruitful placements of their graduating classes. 

Perseverance...the final piece of the 4P framework.  One needs to have a drive for perseverance in order to sustain  the focus or career interest area.   Perseverance helps to galvanize action,  overcome stumbling blocks, expand your horizon and achieve excellence.   When it is combined with performance it can create a transformation for individuals.  Remember the budding guitarist who strummed hours on end and became part of the rock band... or the avid writer at school who turned into a budding author or journalist.... or the accounting wizard who went on to become a seasoned Chartered Accountant.  All these examples can be found in real life.   What we are talking here is the never say die attitude that you carry with you and which will help aspirants sustain the quest for what they are looking in their careers. 

While it is important for individual students and graduates who are making career choices to consider these 4P's and strive towards using this simple framework to make a informed and aware choice, it is also in the interest of the educational institutes to set this focus as part of their mentoring the final year students.  Placement Counselors and Training Officers of colleges can subtly encourage students to think on these lines.  The earlier you make the start in college better are the chances that students don't get into last minute confusion and end up  enjoying the careers they strive for.

Merry X'Mas & Greetings for the Festive Season

Wishing Everyone for Christmas and  a  Wonderful New Year 2014.  May all the good things that we wish to happen see the light of the day.

BPS Industry: Need for a Mainstream Curriculum

Once called the sunrise industry of India (now it is already in range of 20 Billion USD revenues) and today well into  the second decade of existence.  The industry provides direct employment to about 1 Million People and is slated to almost double the employment by 2020 (To about 1.9 Million)

In spite of growing into a large industry by itself, BPS still does not have a mainstream curriculum at degree level both three year or four year level.

Now imaging what the field of medicine would have been without M.B.B.S (Bachelors level Degree in Medicine) degrees.   You would probably have a certificate course in pathology, or a bridge study of diagnosis, or diploma in pain management etc.   The Bachelors Degree in Medicine gave the industry a foundation.  Similarly we need a foundation level specialization for the BPS industry. 

There are sandwich courses,  short term certificates offered through distance as well as continuing education institutes and training centers.  However the specialization level curriculum is missing for those who get into the Business Process Services industry.

Now one may ask "What's the need to specialize after Higher Secondary or Pre Degree level in BPS.   When else will you want the employees getting into the industry to make a choice,  shouldn't  it be at the 12th class level like any other major stream of education.    That's when they make a good choice and commit themselves to studying something that they want to build a career in.  In this case it would be a career in managing business processes, running a business process or even setting up business processes.... which are some of the things that BPS industry works on. 

So the need today is for a mainstream specialization in BPS.  This will enable a whole new talent to enter the industry and we would have better quality of man power getting into the industry by choice.

The reality today is that by and large students are not aware of what the business process industry is.  The common myth is that it is a call center or a telemarketing firm.   This is far from true as BPS companies work across a spectrum of  capabilities ranging from business transactions, to optimizing supply chain costs, to  deciding price points to banking analytics to retail and pharma analytics, to clinical trials and pharma co-vigilance to name a few. 

So both the industry and the academia working together can solve the problem of lack of a specialization degree in BPS.   We don't need vocational courses but what we need is a mainstream degree level specialization to make the students understand everything about business process and provide them appreciation of how these work in different industries. 

You can also read the other related posts below.

BPS Industry : In a Sweet Spot

BPS Industry: Some Sectoral Challenges

Some Useful HR Links For All Ye HR Pros'

Here is a compilation of some of the interesting HR Reports and Insights That Professionals in the people management and related fields may want to browse through.  Have complied them based on both content and insights provided.

 Best Get Better: Critical HR Issues of 2012  from Institute for Corporate productivity

Future of HR : 8 Companies Insights 2013  Interesting one you can check out how these predictions worked out since the report came out.

HR 2020 Insights from Great Places to Work : Will HR Be a Facilitator or a Bottleneck.

Outsourcing, Downsizing and Remote Working:   3 Predictions for HR  (Bold?)

Future of Work 2020 PWC's report:  Some interesting perspectives on HR in next decade.

Trends Shaping the Future of HR:  Accenture Reports on HR Influencers, How HR Can bank on customization

Unstructured, Relaxed Environments will bring forth creativity:  Will the workplace of the future unleash that. Read this here.

Why Mobile Learning if the Future of  Workplace Learning:  Read this interesting one with trends and nos.

Humor: Selling to the CEO

Here's something to tickle your wits !!!

A very smart sales guy was put in charge of selling the new Learning Management System developed by SmartCo.   He was a street smart sales guy so his boss asked him to sell to the CEO's directly.  

One day he went to a CEO of a big organization.  His pitch went on for about fifteen minutes about this feature and that feature and this new functionality and newer module and so on.  He saw the CEO was not getting impressed as much as he expected. 

Finally he remembered his boss telling him about the "punch lines" that help you close the sale and so he started off

"Sir,  given all else,  If you chose our LMS,  apart from all the best expert technology, features and productivity gains and benefits you will have one fantastic benefit.... you can cut down your HR team size by 50%"

Suddenly it seemed the CEO's eyes went rolling up and he seemed very excited.

"Wow" remarked the CEO... "Are you sure of the last bit on the HR Team size".

SalesMan:   "Yes Sir"

..

 CEO:  "In that case I'll buy two LMS'es  ".

Questions HR Should Ask in Difficult Times

In times of boom and rapid change organizational strategists recommend that your key ingredient for successful business performance are your people and that the threat of losing them to competition looms large. Business writers and academics advise organizations to sharpen the focus on engaging your employees or face the risk of losing them [voluntary attrition..]

Attrition rates have come down considerable in the past year and a half  since the threat of another slow down has raised its ugly head but, even in cases where there has been lesser degree of drop in attrition, it is more involuntary in nature [recession driven lay-offs, downsizing].

How do you deal with your people in time of economic downturns. Jobs will be hard to come by, attrition will drop. Should you turn the other way on people management as you have a lesser risk in downturn of losing employees. What can HR do in this situation? What should be the HR point of view?

One view of the HR fraternity is "Recession is a much more easier time for HR". Recession can be good time but not for the reasons by which the organization can squeeze the employees-ask more for every dollar; push for greater productivity at any cost; come up with more stringent work norms; put the fear of the devil taking away their jobs in the mind of employees; employees will cooperate more and not raise voices.

This is a risky way of dealing with your employees during a down-turn. 

Hence the two things that are very important for a HR practitioner in these times is to understand how to align your business to the changing needs and how your people strategies should change based on this alignment.

A structured set of questions given below will help...

a) What is the implication of the current business context on my organizations strategy?
b) Given these implications how will it affect my employees?
c) What will the negative impact on employees and how should that be addressed?
e) What do I need to do so that when the sine curve changes direction and we are headed towards an upswing, employees who were with us through the down turn start loving the company so much that they can't think of leaving just for a few dollars more.
f) Leading from point e above the important question is "How do I retain my top talent after the down turn?" ; the risk is high that they will leave if you don't treat them well in the bad times.
g) What are the downside implications of tough actions taken during the down turn ; action such as lay off's ,  counselling out,  letting go of poor performers and whatever be the other such actions.... The emotional impact does linger on and good times bring more problems when people are disconnected with the organization.

Cooling off Window in Talent Management

Performance Management is a key process in the talent management repertoire.   If this key process is done well most of the other processes will fall in place and align beautifully.   One of the down stream processes that depends to a large extent on a robust performance management framework is the employee development process. One part of the learning needs comes from what was mirrored in the PMS outcomes; i.e. the areas for improvement and enhancement in the coming year based on the observed performance in context.

The problem most designers don't notice is that this key process is bound to fail if you couple it too tightly with the performance appraisal.   The best strategy would be to keep the two distinct and separated in time by what we can call as a "Cooling off Window"   The best would be to have the development discussion after a 3 to 4 month window down stream from the appraisal process itself.

That way you would avoid a lot of unwanted discussion around the gaps in the performance observed from feedback.  Normally you would notice that when it comes to the appraisal process most people get very defensive about areas of improvement and so it gets difficult to have any meaningful dialogue.  On one hand employee is defensive about improvement areas as it is tied down to appraisal scores and performance bands which ultimately determine compensation rise and other downside related to pay.  On the other the same points go into determining what areas could be improvement focus.

However this does not mean that you can short cut the performance appraisal and feedback. The rigor of the feedback mechanisms - timely, periodic (2 to 3 times in a window of  6 months) and context specific still holds good.

By keeping a cooling off window the two processes get done at different times.  The feedback at time of learning needs should also factor in context specific inputs given to the employees when working on their job and performing their roles.  This reinforces the inputs on improvement areas.    Combine this with multi rater feedback where the employee is given feedback on areas to improve and areas of strength and this becomes a design synergy.   

So next time you find that people are not forthcoming and development needs identified were not relevant to the context of the employee double check if you had the cooling off window or did you try to combine the performance appraisal with the development discussion. 

Knowledge Management & HR

In the last two decades the views and writings of thinkers on strategic management shifted the understanding of the sources of sustained competitive advantage for organizations from an “Outside Driven Perspective” to an “Inside Driven Perspective”.  It was no longer markets, competition or technology that created sustained competitive advantage for your organization rather, competitiveness was driven from hard to implement, rare, inimitable sources like high performance work systems,  well defined internal processes, robust organizational structures, strategic customer acquisition and servicing etc., that get created within the boundaries of the firm. (Barney, 1991,  Jackson & Schuler, 1995).

Although sustained competitive advantage may seem to be an oxymoron - since what you have today will be eventually copied by others and therefore, your competitive advantage would no longer exist as it was intended to be,  the fact is that organizations do gain what is called a ‘fast mover’ or a ‘first mover advantage’.  

Knowledge assets [read as people, their skills and knowledge] as sources of competitive advantage are more difficult to imitate and remain your organizations sources of advantage for a longer time than other physical,  technological assets or financial assets. Weave this into a processes for acquiring,  developing, disseminating and utilizing the knowledge and this becomes all the more difficult to imitate, as it is the substance behind the form that these systems and processes take that is difficult to copy.  It implies that it is easy to get finances, buy technology, systems or other infrastructure to manage knowledge creation and sharing,  and hope you have arrived at achieving the advantage however, it is not easy to exploit some of the other facets like - getting the willing participation, the proactive contribution, the sustained commitment of stakeholders etc.

These above facets are an outcome of creating what we can call as a culture of learning and sharing, whereby knowledge is created, shared and leveraged without inhibitions and barriers in order to drive the business pursuits of the organization.  This blog attempts to show how HR plays an important role in creating and sustaining an environment for collaborative learning & knowledge sharing which is an important element of managing knowledge in an organization.

Knowledge Management: What is It?

There are various views when it comes to defining Knowledge Management.  In literature one can find several ways to define knowledge management.   One way to look at this term is - “ability to create sustaining mechanisms including procedures, processes and systems to acquire, create, capture, share and access knowledge that we can leverage to provide best in class services and solutions to customers.”  A simple framework for knowledge management implementation will have four distinct elements -  People, Technology, Process & Culture.   The first three are a triangulation elements of design and are embedded in the fourth element which we call as the culture, the sustenance element.   Pictorially one can visualize it as given in Fig 1 below. 

Fig 1:  Knowledge Management Framework

From an organizational design point of view organizations find it easy to work on the first three elements but without the crucial element of culture built into the design the other three elements would be set up for failure.

In my next blog I will share seven ways in which human resource function can help shaping and establishing knowledge management practices and adopting the same for organizations.

References

Barney, J. (1991). Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, 17 (1), 99-120.

Jackson, S. E., & Schuler, R. S. (1995). Understanding Human Resource Management in the context of Organizations and their environment. Annual Review of Psychology, 46, 237-264.

Urgent Versus Important

President Eisenhower once said "The Urgent Problems are Seldom the Important Ones".  This can't be more true even in today's context .  Incidentally life is much more complex, much more fast paced, urgent and demanding than earlier days.  

Further the internet boom has brought in so much information at our finger tips and at the click of the button that one cannot find time to focus on something without getting distracted. If you are working on a word document for an hour you must have felt the urging need to go online and inform your friends on Facebook or Twitter of how you are enjoying every minute of your writing or,  the tingling urge to browse the internet.   Coupled with those distractions is the temptation to respond to that beep on your hand phone or tablet alerting you of a message waiting or a update from one of your favorite apps. 

Given this urgency and sense of distraction how do you remain on top of your priorities.   These priorities stare at an average person every hour of the living day.  Be it a professional working in office, a lawyer, or even a script writer.  How do you handle your day to day priorities becomes the top issue many times.   Missed deadlines,  abandoned personal goals,  a fuming boss,  a irate customer are all downsides of not being able to keep pace.   This leads to more and more accumulation and you end up with a Himalayan task of prioritizing and re-prioritizing.    What would help is to step back and think about that long to-do list you have.  Just having one does not guarantee you are moving well on the tasks to be completed.   Are you effective or trying to be efficient in the process. 

Here are few things you can do to make most of the avalanche of items on your  to-do list. These simple steps will soon make you more effective in your daily tasks and can lead you towards improved overall performance and reduced urgency and stressful moments.

a) Pareto to the Rescue:  Use the 80:20 principle to segregate the list of your pending items into vital few and trivial many.   Pick up the top 3 to 5 things you want to sort as key priorities among the several awaiting your action.  Call them your Top Priority one's.  Remember the key is that it is not enough to know what to do but also know what not to do. 

b) Use those Ever Increasing Constellation of Apps:  Be it android or iOS you will find several hundred planning tools, to do lists which can help you with alerts, alarms and reminders.  Put these Top Priorities into the calendar and keep coasting along as you finish them one by one.  For the technologically uninitiated there's always the daily diary or the planner book that can come in handy.

c) Distance Yourself  from Those Digital Distractions: You need to put away these distractions like the SMS to waiting to be read, the latest Tweet from your rock star hero or the latest update on weather, or the email from office  all arriving incessantly into the digital device.  Keep a time window for such activity and stick to it.  If you follow that routine then it starts getting ingrained in your mind, in a few days the sub conscious sub system of the mind learns to rewire our brain circuit

d) Make Time for Reflection:  In the hurry and pace of daily life we rarely stop to look back on the day gone by.  It would be a good idea to look at how you had done on the things you did each day.  You would need not more than 5 to 8 minutes and this exercise also helps you to identify any priority items that you may have to focus on the next day.   The human mind has a uncanny ability to tune out what is not in focus and one could easily avoid missing out something which might fall between the no light hours that separate the two days.

e) What Are the Other Distractions:  Do you have too many things going on at the same time.  It is said that human's multitasking are more likely to make mistakes.  This is due to context switching leading to reduced attention.  However it is not impossible and people can be trained and become better at multitasking but that is only after training.  Otherwise several studies do show the down side of effectiveness while multitasking. So try to focus on the tasks one at a time as the brain needs to refocus as you switch between tasks making use of mental energy.   So this goes back to making a priority lists as in point a and re-look at what's important, whats not before you race ahead.   Some of us think we are experts at multitasking then you need to have a shared understanding - it is about doing two unrelated tasks.  Second the brain has an ability to switch rapidly between one and the other task so we should not confuse that with multitasking.

So next time think when you are overwhelmed by a long list of to do items.  Remember that efficiency can be in contrast with effectiveness and the choice is in our hands.

Bell Curve in Action: It isn't about Belling the Cat

Some time back I wrote about the  Bell Curve and how employees resent it when not used in right manner.  It is interesting to know how people see red when it is not implemented properly or done with the sole  intent of letting go of people who fall in the lower tail.   It is not about "belling the cat" but rather the bell curve is about driving  high performance and managing expectations towards that objective.

Interestingly in the past week there were two well known names in the news for their tryst with the Bell Curve for managing performance.   Microsoft apparently is moving away and Yahoo is moving in with the Bell curve.   So the pendulum continues to swing one end to the other.

While Jack Welch used the Bell Curve process at GE in the 1980's  it is said that it worked well.  Reason being that people understood what relative performance meant, what it meant to be in bottom 10% and what it meant to be in Top 5% and so in the context of the organization.  This has to be a deliberately discussed and understood concept. 

Recently it is reported that at Yahoo Inc.,  there has been a lot of noise about the bell curve being brought in just to get rid of people.   If this is not the case then the CEO and HR teams should have handled the objective,  implementation and rationale on how to approach the bell curve very sensitively.   If not it fires up an environment of mistrust and loss of faith in the HR process.   You can read the Yahoo Story here. 

In fact a well managed bell curve process actually can be used to distribute pay rises by linking payout to the position on the curve.  Managers can also understand where people fall on the curve and in case of extremes (outliers) managers should use it to find reasons as to why someone is performing at extremes which can be both over performing or under performing.  This can help moderate the employees performance with suitable action to improve or to move the employee to more challenging roles.  

It is sadly understood from the article link above that most high performance companies no longer use the bell curve.  Perhaps they don't understand it well or have implemented it badly and giving up.   However many of those who are using are fine using a flexible normal curve based on how the company performers with skew changing to left or right depending on how the company fared. 

The Bell Curve is not a fad that came and went but is still around and companies like Yahoo are only paying attention to it.  Managed well it can be a very useful tool to drive up performance and take the organization to the next level of performance.   In a later post we'll discuss how this can be one. 


Other articles on PMS

Is Promotion a Reward for Performance Part I

Is Promotion a Reward for Performance Part II

How Gullible do Job Seekers Get? Recruitment Frauds

Every now and then you hear of a scam in recruitment.  The innocent and gullible job aspirants are taken for a ride and lose several thousands of rupees.   The fundamental problem is that the aspirants are not even aware of the fact that no company worth its salt ever gives job offers by asking for money or taking fees from candidates    In fact,  none of the well known and reputed companies even charge any amount during the entire recruitment process.  (No Hiring fees, No Deposits, No Service Charges, No Medical Fees, No Incidentals whatever)

People need to know this and be aware lest they fall prey to more and more such scams. One way to do this is to share widely on social media.   Facebook,  LinkedIn,  Twitter,  Email whatever such medium so that the news reaches as many people as possible.

What to Look For?

1.  If you get a unsolicited call from someone saying that they got your resume from someone or a job site and calling you to some town / city for interview,  Beware !!! 

2.  Any time someone asks you to come for an interview and tells you that you need to pay just INR 1000 or so  medical check fees,  please beware they will slowly ask for more and more to make you pay. 

3.  If at any stage in the process you are told that the HR managers or some other managers can do the needful to get you a job offer and all it needs is some kickback (bribes) beware. You are on the verge of being taken for a ride.

4.  Some may even send you an offer letter (which looks like some original company document)  and later ask you to deposit a sum to get it processed.  Beware, nobody ever offers you a job by just applying and without any interview and selection process. 

Below are some recent scams for your reference

Some gullible candidates were fooled thinking they got offers from KPMG

People Duped Saying Jobs available at Maruti Suzuki

Gang Dupes Wipro Aspirants

Do spread the awareness by sharing this post on your social media pages.  It will help create the awareness. In case you have friends in colleges, or those in early career searching for jobs it is all the more important to share this post with their networks.

What Can You Infer from This Story

There are many things to learn about human relations,  people management and general human behavior from this simple zen story you find on the internet. Your thoughts ... welcome

In early times in Japan, bamboo-and-paper lanterns were used with candles inside. A blind man, visiting a friend one night, was offered a lantern to carry home with him.

"I do not need a lantern," he said. "Darkness or light is all the same to me."

"I know you do not need a lantern to find your way," his friend replied, "but if you don't have one, someone else may run into you. So you must take it."

The blind man started off with the lantern and before he had walked very far someone ran squarely into him. "Look out where you are going!" he exclaimed to the stranger. "Can't you see this lantern?"

"Your candle has burned out, brother," replied the stranger.

What MBA Graduates Lack : The Indian Context

A  field of study which landed students with very lucrative career options this field grew leaps and bounds -  attracted so many investors and several institutions started offering MBA programs and the growth was so rapid that by 2013 we have about 4000 colleges with capacity of over 3.5 Lakh students each year.   Incidentally it is a vertical zoom upwards from 200+ colleges in 1990's.

Now, the tide has turned and there are large number (over half) where as many as 30 to 40% of students graduating in recent years are unable to get a job placement when they complete their MBA course work.   While the mushrooming of colleges did bring about lot of capacity this came at a cost of quality and big gap in employability.

According to the report on MBA employability by Aspiring Minds shows a dismally low 10% employablity in functional areas.   Employability in Operational roles was over 30%. 

When the first MBA course was launched at Harvard over a 100 years ago (early 1900's)  the objective was to help people who were well trained in their profession to sharpen their understanding of business and therefore run successful businesses.   MBA programs across the globe mirrored this and as the decades unfolded the objective changed.  Today Business Schools aim at building capability in decision making and leadership skills in a Global Environment, Most schools have a spattering of those who come with some prior work experience thereby forcing the learners to attempt a surrogate - try to learn from others experience, whatever value add that may bring about.  

The paradox - when there is over abundance of supply you would expect lot of innovation and improvement in curriculum it is not the case.  Reason for this can be attributed to the ingrained Indian' psyche to earn degrees.   Social pressure pushes students to opt for a PG degree like MBA even if it is not of high quality.  So what could be gaps in ability of the students who come to the corporate world after completing their MBA.  We discuss some of these below both from curriculum perspective as well as from the perspective of skills, knowledge and attitudes.  While all of these may not be equally representative  generalization across all colleges, especially among the top 100 or so colleges in India, it provides some aspects to reflect as some of the those graduating  in the lower ranks in these institutes also reflect these gaps.

a) Quick Fix and BOOM BOOM...Approach:  Business Management Graduates who join the industry afresh are full of ideas.  The problem.. solutions are configured in couple of hours.  What should have followed a set of decision making questions is often done in a jiffy.  Result:  Unworkable and impractical solutions.  Often the risk considerations are missing,  how the decisions impacts other parts of the organization are missing.... Systems Thinking.   Today's Solutions are Tomorrow's Problems.... Remember.  We can attribute this quick fix to the speed at which they are used to results.... Google Your Way in 0.052 seconds... seems to be transposed to real life too.  Look for quick fix.... solutions.  

b) Inference at Cost of Tools & Techniques:  More emphasis is placed on learning tools, techniques and so in straight situations the fresh MBA's seem to be very agile in application, but when it comes to drawing inferences,  there is a big gap.   Taking numbers sorting them into a organized information happens well but drawing inferences and linking the various concepts comes at a premium.

c) Synthesis as a Key Ability:   The ability to synthesize, link knowledge they gained across different areas to their decision and analysis is low.  While they are very fond of marketing,  QM and Operations Management integrating concepts of economics and social and behavioral aspects is much more lower.  Complete analysis and reports are prepared focused on strategy,  marketing concepts, operations parameters,  scenarios etc but economic principles, long term impact,  social and behavioral implications,  down side risks are left aside maybe unknowingly or assuming they are not that important pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.   Therefore the down side is that managers often expect that with new MBA's you need to spend lot of time  coaching them (hand holding) and this period of working along side goes for long duration even stretching 2 to 3 years into their career.  This can cause pressure and frustration among the new entrants as they look for being able to work independently much earlier.

d) Latest Concepts Inducted Late:  New trends in industry and business are slow to get into the curriculum and lag by anything between 6 months to 10 years. So at times it looks like Osmosis of Concepts from practice to class room.   For e.g. if you did a quick scan of the number among the top 100 B' Schools in India which have a full fledged course on Social Media on their MBA curriculum as a compulsory subject it is a very small fraction.   On a sample of 12 of the 100 only 2 had a full fledged compulsory course listed.   Even if they do have it they are not listed or among the electives which are easily avoided by the students who don't want to go through the grind.    This is so when today every industry and every business is faced with reality of  digital and social media strategy being part of the business realities. 

e) Ethics & Temporal effects:    When working on decisions in business it important that one learns to think analytically,  critically,  temporally as well as ethically.   While students are very good at the first two aspects when it comes to ethical considerations there is a big gap.   Similarly the ability to think historically as well as futuristically  is restricted.   This kind of tilt towards analytical and critical thinking leaves solutions less practical and often end up ... at the discussion level.  

f) Communication:  While written and oral communication do get sufficient focus in Business Schools it is a problem when it comes to how...  How does one communicate critical issues with employees,  how do you handle communication around issue management.   Fresh graduates are a a loss when it comes to this  aspect of communication - including those from premier Business Schools.  Communication with employees,  issue management,  strategic negotiation are important.  How communication in virtual and globalized context are different from communication in a factory where people work in one location are very different and need to be clearly understood.

g) Attitudes :  You may have great knowledge and skill repertoire but the attitude you have is often the success factor.   MBA's these days may think that the degree is a short cut from Class Room to The Board Room.  This is far from true.  One really has to go through the grind, get his or her hands dirty,  learn the ropes quickly and you will surely have a faster career, make better decisions or scale new and uncharted heights for the organization.  However today's fresh graduates want to move fast and consider the degree as the propeller for success but that's again a short sighted view.  You can get a foot in the door,  but post that it is your competitiveness, spirit and contribution that sets the MBA apart. 

g) Competitive versus Collaborative Mindset:   You are molded to be very competitive. Relative grading,  competing with others for marks in the presentation, staying ahead of the curve to get shortlisted for the plum jobs on campus, all tend to stoke the individual person and not the collaborative person in the young students.   This is carried forward as they enter the corporate world from their campuses.  The need in MBA curriculum is to design ways to encourage and visibly see how collaboration is rewarded.  Any success in organizations is culmination of efforts by several functions coming together to work on and delivering.

The above are some of the key gaps in graduating MBA students in recent years.   The world of business is changing so rapidly that what we call as gaps today may be dwarfed in next five years by something very different.   Society has many expectations from educational institutions and the curriculum is the best benchmark of the pressures acting on the educational institutes being fulfilled.   One has to be constantly aware of what those pressures are and how they can be addressed.   

Business Process Services Industry: Myth Busters

There are lot of myths about working in the Business Process Services industry (aka as BPO / ITeS industry) 

For the BPS industry has been a story of rapid growth in India having grown  from less than a Billion US Dollars in  revenues around 2001 to about 20 times that revenue by 2013. Truly with the forecast for 2020 being 50 Billion US Dollars the industry is in a sweet spot.

Some popular  myths about this industry:

Myth 1:  It is an industry where work is low end and run of the mill.


Reality:  BPS industry is a very diverse spread of work ranging from F&A,  Supply Chain Management,  Analytics & Insights spread across several industry verticals ranging from Pharma, Manufacturing, Banking, Insurance etc.  Also the industry offerings include managing various business processes of client organizations e.g.  reorder in a store or manufacturing facility; or improving the cash flow management in a business and so on.   Remember Cash flow is a major problem faced in many industries and several organizations are willing to put their money where the mouth is.


Myth 2: Educational Qualification, Degree's not very important.  Anyone can join.

Reality:  This is one of the most diverse industries in terms of skill and educational background.  Employees come with background ranging from Graduate to Post Graduate to Advanced Doctoral Studies ranging from Commerce,  Finance,  Marketing, Pharma,  Economics, Statistics,  Business Management,  Arts, Literature,  Medicine, Law and So on.   The industry has a very good ratio on gender diversity also.  While many companies may have about 30 to 40% women employees overall the industry has over 40% women working. Every industry will have jobs where qualification is not very important and you just need to have a school or pre-college certificate.  This industry is no different.  So Remember: Opportunity in Diversity is what this industry is all about.   

Myth 3: Not safe place to work;  Not good for women

Reality:  Absolutely misplaced understanding. The industry has over 40% women as part of the workforce.   Companies in this industry serve to work for customers in different time zones and so we have employees working in various time slots.   So almost every one gets a pick up and drop facility to their homes,  there is enough emphasis on safe commute with companies playing a very active role in security provided to employees both at work and to and from home to work.   Also being an industry which works on client data there is a highly secure and safe environment with very little scope for unsafe conditions.    Women employees being a big constituent companies have given lot of emphasis on policies that are women friendly and have made it a matter of ease, comfort and convenience for empowering women.

Myth 4:  Industry will not survive long.

Reality:  The industry which grew rapidly from about < 1 Billion USD in 2001 has now clocked nearly 20 Billion USD in revenues and slated to grow to over 50 Billion USD by 2013.  Moreover every country, every industry and every business needs to have better, smarter and newer ways of managing their processes and this industry will find opportunities even in the times of down turn.  Remember when growth was stunted across industries in recent years BPS grew in double digits.

Myth 5:  Low Growth, Low Attractiveness

Reality:  The industry has enormous opportunities,  serving clients across two dozen or more industry verticals.   Given the forecast and nature of work this industry can only expand with more and more industries seeking opportunities for bettering their processes.   With rapid growth comes opportunities. The industry has a matrix of opportunities in a combination of domains and functional areas which span from sales, marketing, operations, transitions, quality,  customer engagement,  risk and compliance and a host of other business enabler functions 

Myth 6:  Bad for Health due to Night Shifts

Reality:  The difference is no more than for e.g. what Bangalore was in the 1980's and early 1990's.  Most of the large companies in Bangalore, Mumbai (textiles) ,  Chennai etc worked round the clock and a host of people worked in the night shifts and rotating shifts.    A range of industries like hospitality, medical care,  transport, airline,  telecom, petrochemicals and other manufacturing all had night shifts and a whole lot of people working in different shifts.  The problem is not about night shift or rotating shifts making you fall ill, rather it is the change in lifestyle in general today that has made people prone to some of the hazards of low sleep levels,  poor diet and exercise regimes,  lack of  revival through breaks and holidays, etc not because they work in shifts but because the world in general has become fast paced.   Imagine you want to do your work, spend hours on Facebook,  Hangout in chat rooms,  celebrate at eateries, coffee shops and do all this in 24 hours -- the victim is sleep.   This is a problem all round not just for those in shifts but a society's challenge.


Myth 7: Strange people,  Work There

Reality:   Thanks to Chetan Bhagat's novel One Night At A Call Center which is a story woven around lives of a few strange people working in a call center and their complex ways and lives, this perception was created.  Reality is that the people in this industry are from diverse segments,  diverse backgrounds and are as good or as bad as people in any other industry.   It's the lens you wear that counts.

finally

Myth 8:   It is a call center. / Telemarketing space

Reality:   The spread of work done by BPS companies ranges from transaction processing to analytics and insights to legal process services to providing inputs on pricing decisions to global retail companies, to helping companies improve their cash flow, to allowing pharma companies launch drugs, vaccines faster and so on.  Today the BPS industry also involves call centers but that is one aspect of the industry and surely one where people enjoy varied opportunities.

You may also like to read.

Business Process Services: Need for a Mainstream Curriculum

BPS Industry In India: In a Sweet Spot

BPS Industry in India: Some Sectoral Challenges