Succession Planning at low rung levels of the pyramid

A discussion with a friend ended up with a question, “When Bill Gates moved up the ladder, do you think he had a successor all ready and groomed for the position and responsibility?” Or when a chairman of group of organizations retires, does he have a successor waiting in line?

Strangely theory suggests that succession planning is the most important function in the organization and our Organization Behaviour, Organization Development and Organization Structure books back at college all talk about its significance. A relatively large chunk of strategic HR deals with useful succession planning tactics every HR Manager aspires to carry out as a part of his KRA. Yet are we really able to create a line of distinction of those people who would occupy critical spaces?

The FIFO principle (First In First Out) definitely gives way to positions going vacant and the scurrying HR Department on a lookout of a suitable tenant. Many times, change of orders take place from within the organization and still at times new entrants from a competitor industry are sought after. If both fail, some organizations prefer keeping the position vacant. Higher up the management some consideration on succession planning is still planned out, however at the lowest level or mid level are we planned on our needs? Do we have any such model being worked upon?

There are many organizations where the fear of attrition prevents fresh blood from being trained for processes and activities. They constantly face the dilemma - whether they should train and make new employees fit enough for new roles and they quit within 2 months. Or whether they should continue extracting work however not tune them for future needs and even if they quit the problem can be dealt with then and there. Or they believe very frequent job rotations can solve the problem and provide an exposure to all activities in a short span. However this leads to a frustrated employee who doesn’t understand where he fits and what process is calling his skill. Plus frequent readjustments make a sure shot make up of mind that the first best opportunity and he is out of his current workplace. But aren’t majority of employees similar, waiting for the next best opportunity and salary hike from previous? Would this mean that they never get proper training and grooming for the roles that may come up across the desk?

With the continuing tiff between high paying and extremely rewarding IT industry and not really matching levels manufacturing sector, recruitment is an easy step. But retaining fresh blood as in employees from fresher levels to below 5 years of experience is always a tough call. People keep looking across green valleys and in the process neglect assigned responsibilities. Or even if they so wish to fulfil them dutifully they are bound by a sea of non related work they get to do. Though grunt work is necessary and is a part of the learning process, however longer stances of dry runs disappoint them and assure quicker resignations.

One option is harnessing the training cell in all its strength along with delegation of authority. The other can be promoting and entertaining the freshers as well as people coming in for internships. At several organizations a proper internship is denied let alone being allowed to work on things. The Tier-I T-Schools and B-Schools do not have to worry, however Tier-II and below have some grave issues in their kitty. Instead of providing a certificate just to waive off the responsibility or lack of projects, one can instead think upon building competence and manpower through this resource found in abundance. They seem to be the most excited lot who would want to be a part of the organization force and seem very eager to learn. Besides training and development has always been seen as a mode to develop competitive advantage by the organization, so when operation flow is in stake why not give serious thought to the same. Why not be prepared for hard times that may come and situations that may require fresh ideas and brains! Why not have someone lined up and ready to take on the initiative without wasting much of organization’s capital and time!

Transparency and Compensation

Transparency of something that is important for an individual or an organization’s growth up to a desired level indicates the credibility of the team and openness to consideration and negotiation if any. It is understandable that many organizations may defer to being transparent for all work processes, however there are certain areas one cannot be totally discreet, especially things related to capital and money matters. Yet we may still find some where compensation & benefits always seem to be that part of the asset which cannot bare transparency at any levels. So much so, even when new recruits join for a particular position all they are aware of is the job responsibility, designation and the CTC involved. It may make sense if during process of selection; one may not want to disclose the salary components; however once when somebody is sent an offer letter for acceptance, then the prospective employee has all rights to understand the break up of the salary assigned to him. It cannot be something that can be passed as ambiguity and the employee realises the components only when he receives the first pay slip.

This kind of an issue is dealt by and large by small size and mid size industries, where it is hard to tap upon good resource and retain them for a long time. Chanced upon prospective employee who may prove to be assets need to be pulled in and engaged so that he doesn’t get swayed by competitor industries. It may sound foolish not knowing one’s salary components before joining, yet there are people who do not inquire and yet there are some who wish to gain an understanding however organizations refuse to quote. For fresh graduates it may not be of much concern as then they are just beginning the process of finding a footboard to stand upon, however for somebody making a career change it can prove to be disastrous and could well be a plunge in the career graph if he decides to blindly hop into one. There was this one person I came across sometime back, who had good experience and understanding of the industry he belonged to. Naturally his talent got recognised in the Organization he thought could lift his career. In the interview rounds a CTC was discussed, negotiated and finalised upon. However due to internal constraints the finalised amount was not given and a lesser CTC was zeroed upon. An effective communication could have taken place, yet the prospective employee was kept in the dark. Nor did the employee consider inquiring about the components and discuss on the plans. When he went for accepting the offer and casually got to know of a lowered CTC, he was in a dilemma whether to accept or reject. He did reject, but at a personal loss. Before joining he resigned from his present workplace and that left him unemployed till he would be in a position to convert one. He wouldn’t be in a dearth of one for long for sure, however a mere communication and transparency could have saved a lot many hassles.

Compensation is always a sensitive issue and those who handle it know of its ups and downs. Those who plan to get into an organization too need to understand the importance of asking for one, before making a decision. Yet it still lies as a major responsibility for an organization and non disclosure or reluctance of sharing one shouldn’t deter anybody from asking what he is destined to be paid.

Referrals - At Whose Costs?

Recruitments round the year always end up being a pain for those that belong to that specialization. Screening and selecting among hordes of unwanted resumes is indeed a tumultuous task. To ease out the process somebody introduced the Referrals policy and it started bringing out good results. Suddenly employees all so satisfied with the Organization started recommending near and dear family and friends. Then there were some Companies who started acknowledging the brilliance at ease and rewarding employees, some didn’t believe in rewarding but found the referral policy the biggest source or databank available, and there were still some who didn’t believe in the policy.

The 2 extreme positions are the best that could be carved out of this policy; however the middle position is the one that creates major issues, especially in Companies that believe in having local candidates on their payrolls. Hardly a speck in the crowd would belong to far flung places settled at workplace location. Here the referral policy is so much into the system that it has actually entangled the recruitment process.

Suddenly everybody is on a referring spree, and if one tries finding out the history behind their acquaintances, one would be surprised to know that among all things the only common factor was a common surname. Thus it made enough ground to approach the right person in the Company and be rest assured that one would certainly be on the rolls within a couple of days. If this kind of a business can sprout annoyance from just a two or three, then to imagining every single referral belonging to the same genre, it can prove to be quite troublesome for the HR as well as the Organization. As merit of an individual cannot be stated by common surnames, or can one perform any psychometric tests to separate out the desired from the undesired. Whether one looks to the left or to the right, numbers keep percolating with individuals of common surnames. What in turn goes waste is the Company’s resources in paying them salaries for the work they do not do (though this isn’t a generalized sweeping statement, nor do all referrals end up being on the same side of the sinking boat). The resources utilized to train them for the job, paying of the salaries, and once when they quit (that too prematurely) no suitable replacement comes around, hence training the new guy all over again. Besides the references being not so credible, yet following suit since the person whose referring is a top shot in the Company. Little realizing that in this great movement of doing something worthwhile and good for their communities, people are actually gathering dust around! The whole game of reserving seats in political stunts across States being so similar to the Corporate story of referrals. Has anybody benefited by these mindless games at the State levels? So be the case at Corporate level. The policy may seem all so rosy from the distance, but is proving to be a brain chewer from close by.

Maybe we need an alteration in the Referral Policy and we need to limit how many people a year can current employees refer (at those companies that have an open agenda throughout the year). Maybe we can even put some constraints upon who can be referred and put more emphasis on the idea that the referrer’s PLI would somehow contain some value of the referrer’s performance. Otherwise were these trends to continue, one fine day we would have the Company plagued by similar community or surnamed people taking over charges

Birds of The Same Feather Flock Together

They say, “Birds of the same feather flock together” and that is just precisely the tool we use to judge a friends circle or an association of people coming together as entrepreneurs. And since the validity of this concept is so strong, it’s more or less implemented in analyzing teams in organizations too.

However there is always a flip side to each conjecture that can be drawn out of a situation. This specifically applies to all those employees who report to multiple bosses. Either the bosses may be at vertical designation to each other or at horizontal. Vertical ones do not pose a grave situation if a hierarchy is part of the organization structure. A flat organization has no fuss at all. But where the structure is hierarchical and the multiple reporting bosses are placed on the horizontal lane, there’s more to it than mere sharing a subordinate. Needless to say competition stays put at each level and each one is trying to either out do the other or proving his concept and strategies feasible and profitable than the other. It wouldn’t affect the managers much as they always have their ways with their work. But then there is that shared subordinate who has no clue as to whom should he follow, in those moments when he is looking for a mentor. Perplex moments are shared in each of the cabins trying to maintain confidentiality and at the same time being transparent and obedient. Hours spent in one cabin can always send a negative message across the rooms about affinity and affiliations. And either end it’s always the same, with the other wanting to know the MoM.

Caught between the thundering of bosses, what should the shared subordinate do? Resist compromise or be succumbed to becoming the eye candy by divulging serious information and high priority details? Managers are there on those seats because they have that capability to persuade and manage human resources in the right way. So they are very capable of extracting information that may not be meant to be floated at that moment. Apart from being a subject to cross fire from both ends, the subordinate always has the dilemma of whom to follow. Both make sense at many a times and both have experiences of their own, quotable and non-quotable. The subordinate like every other employee wants to learn lot many things, do substantial work and wants to derive a meaning out of whatever he has been allotted as job responsibility. However his progress or promotion in the organization is largely affected by the ‘Halo Effect’ that is generated by the number of hours spent in a certain cabin. Though there is every chance that the subordinate may not necessarily endorse the views of his boss, but has no option to beg himself pardon from his presence. Between the wars of the lords there is always a chance that he is just a spectator trying to move the papers and empty his incoming mail box. And when the war gets worse and the bosses cannot look eye to eye, there’s always a question posed before the subordinate – so which one of them would you like to align with? ‘Which party do you belong’ is the only sentence that is volleyed back at him!

But if it were to choosing a party, one might as well be running for the Parliament. Since one isn’t there, it’s obviously other way round – an organization needs people to work in teams! And all that the subordinate can do is being honest to the organization’s interests at every moment. When faced with trouble of deciding which work is priority, regardless to the worry of being reprimanded; the best say would be in the interest of the organization and the urgency of the task. And the one important thing that sandwiched subordinates should always bear in mind is that be ethical and do not loose your reputation as a sincere employee just for small gains and favours, as bosses keep changing and so do their notions and fancies. What remains is the reputation you build!

The Meets And The Misses Of The Eye

Almost every HR blog that I have read talks about the qualities an HR person should have in order to be the one in true senses. Be professionally qualified or not, there are some aspects anybody can guess, which an HR person ought to have. One of them is a prominent eye contact with whomsoever one is talking with. Infact it's something so quintessential and absolutely important not just to prove you’re an HR person; but also to show respect to the fact that we are handling humans who deal with emotions and feelings every moment of their lives. An eye contact simply means we are listening to you and we care enough.

Yet there are some of us who don't bother letting eyes meet nor do they glance at people's faces. That is out rightly called to be so rude and undignified. Many reason it out to be shyness or being busy to hearing the grievance and leave it at that. Some have very low self-esteem and dipping confidence levels that interaction is a part of their job; however the body language cries out loud about their personalities. Some also believe that making an eye contact may actually increase the intensity of the issue being talked about, as once the humane connects, apart from present woes, past one's also start pouring into the mind which requires just a series of being vocal and some hearing the other end.

However there are some people who have the cheekiness and audacity to come out with funny and weird reasons for many situations that lead to an unexpected behaviour, which no doubt can be labelled under the ridiculous clause. And they are so unabashed at their acts that they confidently smirk when they cite it to others. I recently came across one of the weirdest excuses of not making an eye contact. The person claimed that he had hypnotising powers within himself, so majority of his conversation went such that he would look deep down into the ground and the eye movement would oscillate towards the left and then the right. But he never looked once in the eye, as he knew that if he did, within next 5 minutes the other would get hypnotised. And he confirms his theory with an unashamed laughter which is followed by a very confident smirk.

Indeed this is called Confidence!

The High Performing Employee & The Halo Effect

It would have been so wonderful if man had learnt how to keep his personal and professional life poles apart. And what if there ever was a switch to turn oneself off out of workplace into a different mode? Living a split personality life, would feel all so fresh and rejuvenated for a new day. Sadly the complexities of leading multiple lives is straightened out by a simple fact that however hard we try we end up intertwining our personal and professional lives, be it even by 2%. We tend up being so professional and efficient at one place that we end up messing the other largely coz of the halo effect of the supremely larger part of us. I once read a statement that goes something like ‘People who are professionally very rich, are on a personal front very poor!’

To better understand how this halo effect affects the lives of people, I borrow this piece from Gautam Ghosh’s recent post on ‘Tiger Woods and the Halo Effect’. True to Gautam’s observations many of us are enveloped by the greatness of a person’s effectiveness at something he’s meant to do, such that this high performing one may personally not be even close to being effective. Something which Gautam has defined as - a psychological shortcut that causes human beings to infer good things about a person based on a single area of achievement. How does this matter to us as organization? Nope it doesn’t to a large extent as long as we stop thinking an organization as a family setup. But the moment the mere thought of a one big happy family emerges, we tend to go beyond project deadlines, deliverables, client handling and inch closer every minute to exploring the human interactions with one another.

There may be this very generous manager who can at the drop of the hat shell out resources and capital wherever he sees a need felt. But the very next moment this unhappy and disillusioned manager may leave the organization in pretty much a mess and creating troubles for the others. Would we say we never saw this coming our way? Or maybe we never thought he could stoop so low? Or was it a simple fact that he always protected the other side with a screen of generosity and empathy for others?

These screens are so thin and transparent however we are trained to not look beyond perfection! For what may seem like a mirage may have an ugly face behind the illusion.

Coming to the point how the halo effect can create problems for us and how to deal with it. Many a times when professionally rich employees decide to job hop due to unhappy decisions, chances are certain one may expect a rebuke in hand. Whereas dealing with the issue is not an easy task, as we never know what the mind behind the smiling face is thinking. But we can walk on the lines which says ‘When everything is going all so very right, stop yourself, think, and think over again. Everything may not be that right to pursue!’

So the next time if we see a highly efficient executive working with perfection and tending to be reliable on all accounts, and one has no reason to be alarmed by her. Maybe one should check her drawers and desk to see if there lies an underneath behaviour that she is hiding. Or one can explore her speediness on the job, or the way she interacts with people who aren’t her peers.

Being a Techno Geek

The routine of a mid twenty / thirty year old at workplace is sit for those blissful 8 hours of work in front of a desktop. Not even for a minute flinch away from that insane stare and the lunch hour seems like we are missing a lot of things. 7 pm back home and after another hour we have our home desktops switched on, either for work from home purposes or merely for the fact that some of us are computoddicted!

We can imagine no task complete without a few clicks here and there and rap tap goes the keyboard. We form the brigades of employees who are completely paralysed when power failures occur.

But to imagine a whole large chunk of those employees, who have taken onto manual working all their lives. So much so even today with the advent of this revolutionary technology they still find themselves among piles of papers, innumerable files and cupboards full of 3 decades old stock of data maintenance that nobody ever would give a glance to! Layers of dust gathering on those historical data that form the base of the Organization’s inception and the well laid out building plans.

A manufacturing sector somehow tends to a clear demarcation of two genres of employees. One being the old horses that grow along with the aging organization and the other being the newbies. It’s said that it’s hard to get in-depth technical competence from the newbies when compared to the golden period of engineers of the 1970’s, 80’s and early 90’s era. Similarly it’s like taking the horse to the river but unable to force it to drink water, when the old horses suddenly find a rectangular inanimate object on their tables with a mouse. From right away dismissing the idea to initial hiccups and slow motion clicks around in vain; many ultimately end up resorting to following their old ways. Along with an explanation that 5 years more and retirement knocking their doors, these rectangular objects best lay assured at newbie desks. The hindrance seems to be pushing limits when critical data needs to be retrieved and the concerned person wishes how lucky would he be if they were a click away, rather than flipping pages amidst a land full of dust. Compiling information also feels like a Herculean task, as years need to be matched and the corresponding data needs to be fed and worked upon. Lot many things have no information, as back then nobody thought it could lead to a link in the new strategy background work or maybe the CEO wanted to see the attrition levels of the last 10 years.

What’s a predominant feature of not being techno geek for some is that their great ideas face premature death, because of the inability to present them in the sweetest and shortest way. How would a VP of the organization devote some 30 minutes to listen to a new thought if the same idea can be caught within a span of 2 minutes via a presentation? Afterall things seen visually are recalled stronger than pages of thesis work on the matter which ultimately land up in some corner of the office. Similarly being techno geek can save a lot of time in hand to do more work that could help clear out backlogs if any and give in more space to think of the innovative and untried. By and large the whole of 8 hours is consumed in doing the routine task and when does one have the time to think something new and fresh? What may form to be 6 points of a job description when examined closely may turn out to be just 2 points when computerization of the same collective is implemented! What management may think is eating up their financial resources and adding onto the weight of employees may be eventually sorted out such that the manpower count is reduced, kind courtesy disinterest in learning the technology!

So if the fear of getting redundant by introduction of technology is of prime concern, then how about the fear of getting redundant by not knowing the ways of the techno world? Why when one doesn’t shy from acquiring new machines for increase in production, is there a hesitating human in front of a rectangular inanimate object?