Emerging Trends Being Witnessed In the Field of HR

 Advancements in few areas will heavily influence the future of Human Resources. These include technological changes, changes in demographics, and shifting employee expectations.

Here are five key trends that one can possibly see most visibly in the workplace today

1. On Automation: HR functions such as recruitment, onboarding, and performance management are becoming more automated, freeing up HR professionals to focus on strategic initiatives. Roles in HR as well as even what the function will be called in the future will change.
   
   
   
2. On EX: Positive employee experience (EX) will be shaped in a big way by HR. This will not just include fostering a sense of purpose but also promoting health, and well-being, and building a culture of inclusivity.
3. On the reskilling and upskilling focus: As the nature of work continues to evolve, HR will play a key role in helping employees acquire new skills and adapt to changing job requirements. This will bring a major shift in competitiveness and ability to respond quickly to the external forces.
4. On Data and Analytics at the Forefront: HR departments will increasingly use data and analytics to make critically informed decisions, constantly track employee engagement, and distill out several measures of the success of HR initiatives that are tied up to the organization's success. It's here that the investments in HR Analytics will pay off.
5. On Flexibility and remote work: With remote work becoming more widespread, HR will need to develop new strategies for supporting and managing remote employees, including flexible work arrangements and virtual team building.

I did a detailed study on the impact of work configurations on stress and stress-coping mechanisms in the Covid 19 context and will share detailed findings in a coming post.

While these are five trends that may be on top of the charts for some time, we should note that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated many of these trends, and their effects may be felt more acutely in the coming years.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR

 Enjoy the festive Season Coming Up.  Wishing all my friends their colleagues and families a wonderful season, Christmas festival and Happy and Success filled 2023

Addressing 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)

Learning from Zen: The Light of the Lamp

Here is a story that can be interpreted in various ways.  

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.

From a human relations perspective you can derive different meanings but the one I want to highlight is....

…if you are oblivious to something does not mean it is irrelevant to others.   What may be important to you may (at the same time) be of no use to the others.   Managers need this realization often in their day to day work.

You may have mastered the art but there are others around you who are at different levels on the learning curve and to each the way ahead will be different.  Apply that yardstick when you decide how to develop people.

Other interpretations I would leave to the discerning readers.

A Simple Perspective on Incremental Change

 In daily life at home, at work, or in other places change can be brought about in small steps. Many a time we might dread "Oh how can I bring about change? It's too big an effort"Wanted to share that it's often the power of compounding that can come in handy. 

Take for example in any activity, task, or effort a 1% increment may be more achievable and reasonable to our mind. It can bring down the resistance in our minds drastically. If we make a 1% improvement every day take a guess how much improvement in output, effort reduction, and task completion can one achieve in a month. STOP !!! Don't read further but pause and make a guess before reading further.

If you guessed it's about a third or thereabouts you are perfectly right.

You can bring about a 33% improvement in about a month just by a small incremental change of 1% daily. That's something that we fail to imagine and often end up overamplifying the difficulty of achieving targets.

Visually shown in the chart above is a trend line with a 1% increment for each day and end of the month you are 1.33 times where you started. This kind of change in a month is the envy of many organizations and surely worth pursuing. 

So next time you are faced with an uphill task think about how you can break it up in small incremental steps and bring about a significant change.

Big Bang is not always the best approach, compounding power can come to your rescue many a time.

For the nay-sayers who say my work cannot improve by 1% per day, suggest you should take a shot with compounding by the week or even month and the effort will seem to roll like a well-oiled wheel.

Happy Festival Season !!

Observations & Reflections... Life's Lessons

It was a hectic week.   Here are some reflections.  Simple Lessons learnt from a celebration called life

Ideas grow wild in the fertile plains of empowerment.


Your progress does not halt as long as the wheel of learning is in motion.


Don't let the perennial flow of positive thought be stopped even by the biggest dam of disappointments.


The seed of thought produces the best fruit of success when watered from within.


Unlike other journeys...In Life's Journey even the Red Signal of Failure should not prompt you to stop.

Shying Away from Asking is sometimes akin to writing an epitaph for my Learning!!!


Aim that your headline goal is nothing short of Breaking News !!! Success will be like a prime time event.


Only in the temple of learning can you make yourself the idol.

When you are done...burn the books. Your Learning should not be captured between the cover pages of the book,  but within the folds and crevices of your mind.


In the  graph paper of your life strive to ensure everything is in the first quadrant !!!

11th Oct 22
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Some Wise Ones to Reflect Upon !!!

"The real magic of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."                                                                                                                                                   - Marcel Proust

No wonder we have heard of things like reimagine as a powerful concept in the recent past.   Gareth Morgan talks about Imaginzation.  Wear a different lens and you will see the problem differently.  Isn't this what is taught in most leading B’Schools.

"Anger Is One Letter Away from Danger" 

                                                              -  Elanor Roosevelt 

And so said First Lady Elanor Roosevelt of United States.  Yes it is true that controlling your anger makes life much more simpler, much more calmer and a lot more easier.   Most big fights and misunderstanding are out of snappy thinking, getting angry and reacting.  No wonder they say “The sent arrow, the spoken word and the transmitted email can’t just come back, so think before you send, speak or Click”.   Never respond to mails when angry.

Few more to reflect on as we near the end of one more beautiful year.  Soon we’ll bid good bye to 2014 and usher another year of fine things to come.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that  counts.                                                                                                                                         - Winston Churchill

"The way to get started is to stop talking and begin doing" 

                                                                              - Walt Disney Inc.

"Kites Rise Highest Against the Wind, Not With It"  

                                                              - Winston Churchill

"A Man is But the Product of His Thoughts.  What he Thinks, He Becomes."                                                                                                                                                    -  Mahatma Gandhi

“Grinding a sword for ten years, but the blade is yet to be tried.”

                                                                            - Jia Dao , Chinese Poet (779 -843 A.D)

"Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. "                                                                                                                                                     - Anon