The 'No Learning' Employee

An employee everywhere is mostly categorized as either satisfied or unsatisfied and there goes the entire talent development team busy trying to build the environment that engages the employee and converts him to a satisfied breed.

Then there is another classification that labels employees as somebody either landing up on a job or making a well intentioned move towards professional growth. The former ones couldn’t fathom anything better, or just weren’t interested in previous occupations. Overtime exposure allows them to master the attitude and skills required for the profile. The latter ones have been living each moment of their wake hours wondering how to grab the opportunity and reach the zenith of success.

So far so good, there’s the ‘Yin and Yang’ of the taxonomy of the mental frame of an employee. The unbalance occurs when the consequences of a confused mental frame brings about a third category. Those of them, who have been engaged on a particular job for good number of years, have struggled in their lives to reach to that point and upon reflection of how the journey with the job has been – give a blunt answer - “haven’t learnt anything on the job”.

In fact I have personally come across people who try their best at acquiring worldly knowledge about all skills that can be remotely associated with their profile. For example if John was a wood cutter; he can always say he’s good at wooden sculpture and carpentry too. In technology terms a VB DotNet professional, within no time can portray his exposure on ASP DotNet and C# DotNet technologies; nevermind he was stuck for good with VB. There’s always that quest to show how much one knows about things happening around. Yet they always feel they’ve not learnt even an ounce from their current profile.

Such employees are hard to address, as they live in a make-belief world where the external attracts them and grasses always look greener the other side. However, the way they look at their current profiles is an inside-out reflection of how they perceive about themselves. The graduation friends’ profile is always more lucrative. The peers task is always more interesting. The colleague in another project has the best learning curve. The manager elsewhere gives the best opportunity. Best lies everywhere, but where you lay your hands! If this is the case, do whatever, you’d always be the one not learning!

The best such employees can do is find a job where they truly believe they can learn something or if they think that’s what they want in life, they need to learn the art of appreciating how the smallest of the experiences can be the biggest of the lessons. Further, never disregard the period they’ve been associated with the profile or the company. One may deserve a better profile and may have conceptualized a better opportunity for oneself; however, before this, one never knew how it would be like being here!

Can't Quit Dropping Names?

Last time I spoke of over quoting one’s previous employer and the amount of irritation it would generate among colleagues and superiors. However there can still be more ways of saturating one’s peers, one among them being inability to quit dropping names of references that pushed your case all the way through your orientation in the Company.

These days Companies look forward to recruiting a large chunk of prospective employees through employee referral scheme. What better way can they get to attract friends, relatives and acquaintances of existing loyal employees; to become a family of strong values. This means every second person joining the organization has been referred by somebody and times like this there are people who love to flaunt their references.

What people forget is that references can help as much as pushing one’s CV across the recruiting team, getting an interview fixed and to some extent bypass the background verification process (if the reference is strong and higher up the hierarchy). The rest of the story of a happy ending or screw up depends largely upon the individuals’ capabilities.

People who tend to drop names also forget the fact that those very individuals who are being quoted would very much be placed in the highest discomfort level finding their names being tossed around conversations and across board meetings. The discomfort level exists equally among other employees who find it disbelieving to be subjected to such influence levels.

It isn’t just the colleagues and people associated in one’s project that start keeping a distance; but the HR dept. also keeps a note of such boasting chaps. At the end of the day it’s the person who’s performing and no matter through which channel he/she lands in the organization; he/she can be shown the gates!

So if one thinks it’s fancy to show your connections and get privileges out of situations, think again – Are you performing or are you making enough background to be despised and cornered!

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!

Stiffening the Loosened Handshake

Early morning when I cross you, I acknowledge your presence with a smile, and an extended hand indicating a ‘Good Morning’ handshake. Pleased you offer your hand, and we retract our hands at the end of the 3^rd shake. We move ahead to our respective ways, with a warm feeling conveying trust, balance and equality among us. Probably this being the most apt defined purpose of a handshake at the end of the day.

Handshakes are an important introductory ritual in all manner of social contacts, and the research shows that the quality of the handshake makes a real difference, as quoted in “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology” by William F. Chaplin et al., 2000. In fact the ‘Handshake Psychology’ has been an interesting phenomenon that has been several times under the scanner of research and easy ways of deciphering about people.

Our corporate houses are the places closest to observing the Handshake Psychology, as and when we come across several people/employees. And we cannot help but form an opinion about an individual and make judgments with the kind of grip, vigour, texture, strength and eye contact that follow.

Maybe one fine day we would find an altogether strong and enthusiastic handshake, and we would smile back at the new intern, or the employee who just received an incentive, or the employee who began his day wonderfully. Other days we came across a grip very much dead and wet conveying a nervous person, or an employee who just received some reprimand. All said and done, everyday we come across several hands that indicate the kind of mood and atmosphere the employee is going through.

Nevertheless a parallel interpretation exists as well, which talks about the spirit of togetherness – an enhanced version of equality, specially at places or offices whereby each morning the very first thing an employee entering his department does is, shake hands with all those already present in the department. More or less it becomes a ritual every morning, and more than a hand extended in pleasure, it becomes something out of mechanical habits. The employee entering the door, goes around each table/cubicle calling names of the concerned people, shaking hands; and before somebody decides to respond vocally the employee is already at the next cubicle. In the days that come, the employee merely goes and stands at the table/cubicle, pushing his hand across the others ' personal space; and quietly moving to the next. The routine gets so much in the system, that with a few more days that progress, the handshakes now resemble a three-finger grip, no eye contact, and worse a mere touch of the fingers. Plummeting goes their self-esteem and confidence, each passing day. Lack of trust heightens in the months and years that follow. Employees of the same department have very less to share and talk about, and they are busy suspecting the intentions of their colleagues. They despise each other and office politics is raking high in demand. But what doesn’t change is the mechanical handshake every morning, to mark the camaraderie and the culture that began with the vision of the top management. But what really makes the difference is now all the human touch is diminished, and the employees see each other as competition. Or maybe not, instead just robots working endlessly trying to achieve the set outputs and production levels. Missing the human feel and missing out calling on assistance to act on synergy at departmental and organizational levels.