HR Basics

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[INTRO TO HR STRATEGICS] 2012

Transcript of HR Basics

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[INTRO TO HR STRATEGICS]

2012

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http://corehr.wordpress.com/hrd-strategies/functions-of-hrd/

Core Human Resources1. Strategies ( field of HRD, HRD function, staffing)2. HR Planning (forecasting, retention, career planning, hris, HR accounting, job analysis, hr

policy)3. Recruitment (recruitment process, selection methods, induction)4. Training (training process, communication, training evaluation)5. Performance Management (PA Methods, evaluation in PA, coaching process, F/B skill,

appraising, mentoring process)6. OD Intervention (organization change, approaches, OD steps)7. Counseling Skills (Counseling skills, counseling strategies)8. Compensation (Reward management, planning compensation)9. HR Strategies 10. HRD Interventions 11. Learning Process 12. Succession Planning (succession planning, individual development plan, career

management, process of career planning, career development initiatives)

Field of HRD – Concepts, Goals, Challenges

1. Byers & Rue: “HRM is the function facilitating the most effective use of people to achieve both organisational and individual goals”

2. Michael Jucious: “HRM is that field of management which deals with planning, organising & controlling the functions of procuring, developing, maintaining and utilising a labour force such that organisational & individual goals are fulfilled”HRM is process of acquiring, training, appraising and compensating employees such that they are motivated to achieve both the organisational and individual goals

Importance of Human Resources can be discussed at four levels:

–   Corporate

• HRM can help an enterprise in the following ways:

• Attracting talent through effective HRP

• Developing necessary skills & attitude with training

• Securing cooperation through motivation

• Retaining talent through the right policies

–   Professional

• HRM helps improve quality of work life and contributes to growth in the following ways:

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• Opportunities for personal development

• Motivating work environment

• Proper allocation of work

• Healthy relationships between individuals & groups

–        Social• Society benefits from good HRM in many ways:

• Good employment opportunities

• Development of human capital

• Generation of income & consumption

• Better lifestyles

–        National• Drivers of development of a country

• Deliver economic growth

Functions of HRD Professionals•          The process of HRD consists of 4 basic functions:

–        Acquisition of human resources

• Process of identifying and employing people possessing required level of skills• Job Analysis• HRP• Recruitment• Selection

–        Development of human resources

• Process of improving, moulding and changing the skills, knowledge and ability of an employee

• Employee Training• Management Development• Career Development

–        Motivation of human resources

• Process of integrating people into a work situation in a way that it encourages them to perform / deliver to the best of their ability

• Understanding needs• Designing motivators• Monitoring

–        Maintenance of human resources

• Process of providing employees the working conditions that help maintain their motivation and commitment to the organisation

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• Satisfaction Levels• Retention

StaffingStaffing Action For New recruit

Before You Recruit Review the organization’s recruitment and selection policy and/or practices Review the strategic and operational plans to determine if the position should be filled Confirm that funding exists to recruit for and staff the position Obtain the necessary approvals to staff the position Develop a job description if the position is new Review and update the job description for an existing position Decide on the type of employment (full-time; part-time; permanent; contract; short-

term; etc) Identify constraints that will have an impact on the staffing process (need someone

soon; specialized skills; supply/demand, etc)

Establish the recruitment and selection criteria  Develop recruitment and selection criteria based on the job description Establish the minimum qualification for the position Review all recruitment and selection criteria to ensure they are job-related and

measurable Ensure that all recruitment and selection criteria comply with Human Rights

Legislation

 Recruitment process  Determine the best method for recruiting for the position Draft the job announcement using the job description, minimum  qualifications and

selection criteria Include the following in the job announcement:

o Application deadlineo Request for referenceso Start dateo Salary rangeo Contact informationo Format for submission

Ensure that the job announcement complies with Human Rights Legislation

Selection process Before the Interview:

Plan the interview process: Number of rounds of interviews Number of interviewers Length of the interview Location of the interview

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Date of the interviews Any materials the candidate should bring to the interview

o Ask colleagues to sit on the interview panelo Give the interview panel the logistical information about the interviewso Develop the interview questionso Prepare an interview rating guideo Develop a reference check guideo Prepare a reference release formo Ensure that the interview questions, reference questions and other selection

criteria comply with Human Rights Legislationo Prescreen applications using the selection criteriao Set up the interviews with the selected candidateso Forward the applications of those candidates being interviewed to the interview

panelo Forward the interview questions and interview rating guide to the interview panelo Meet with the interview panel to brief them on the interview process

Conduct the Interview Review the candidate’s application before each interview Welcome the candidate to the interview Introduce the interview panel Explain the interview process Rate the candidate’s responses to the questions Give the candidate an opportunity to ask questions Close the interview by explaining the next step and thanking the candidate for coming

to the interview Ensure that the discussion and the note taking during the interview complies with

Human Rights LegislationAfter the Interview

Finalize your interview notes

Select the right candidate  Use other selection methods as appropriate Telephone the references Use the reference checking guide to document the conversation

 Conclude the staffing process  Make your decision and review it Make a verbal offer of the position to the selected candidate Follow-up the verbal offer in writing Prepare the job contract and have it signed before the new staff member starts work Send out rejection letters to the other candidates that were interviewed Set up a competition file Complete the paperwork necessary for the new staff member to start work

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Importance of HRPImportance of HRP

Planning is very important to our everyday activities. Several definitions have been given by different writers what planning is all about and its importance to achieving our objectives. It is amazing that this important part of HR is mostly ignored in HR in most organizations because those at the top do not know the value of HR planning. Organizations that do not plan for the future have less opportunity to survive the competition ahead. This article will discuss the importance of HR planning; the six steps of HR planning that is : Forecasting; inventory, audit, HR Resource Plan; Actioning of Plan; Monitoring and Control.

Importance of Planning

Planning is not as easy as one might think because it requires a concerted effort to come out with a programme that would easy your work. Commencing is complicated, but once you start and finish it you have a smile because everything moves smoothly.

Planning is a process that have to be commenced form somewhere and completed for a purpose. It involves gathering information that would enable managers and supervisors make sound decisions. The information obtained is also utilized to make better actions for achieving the objectives of the Organization. There are many factors that you have to look into when deciding for an HR Planning programme.

HR Planning involves gathering of information, making objectives, and making decisions to enable the organization achieve its objectives. Surprisingly, this aspect of HR is one of the most neglected in the HR field. When HR Planning is applied properly in the field of HR Management, it would assist to address the following questions:

1.  How many staff does the Organization have?

2.  What type of employees as far as skills and abilities does the Company have?

3.  How should the Organization best utilize the available resources?

4.  How can the Company keep its employees?

HR planning makes the organization move  and succeed in the 21st Century that we are in. Human Resources Practitioners who prepare the HR Planning programme would assist the Organization to manage  its staff strategically. The programme assist to direct the actions of HR department.The programme does not assist the Organization only, but it will also facilitate the career planning of the employees and assist them to achieve the objectives as well. This augment motivation and the Organization would become a good place to work.  HR Planning forms an important part of Management information system.

HR have an enormous task keeping pace with the all the changes and ensuring that the right people are available to the Organization at the right time. It is changes to the composition of the workforce that force managers to pay attention to HR planning. The changes in composition of workforce not only influence the appointment of staff, but also the methods of selection, training, compensation and motivation. It becomes very critical when Organizations merge, plants are relocated, and activities are scaled down due to financial problems.

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Inadequacy of HR Planning

Poor HR Planning and lack of it in the Organization may result in huge costs and financial looses. It may result in staff posts taking long to be filled. This augment costs and hampers effective work performance because employees are requested to work unnecessary overtime and may not put more effort due to fatigue. If given more work this may stretch them beyond their limit and may cause unnecessary disruptions to the production of the Organization. Employees are put on a disadvantage because their live programmes are disrupted and they are not given the chance to plan for their career development.

The most important reason why HR Planning should be managed and implemented is the costs involved. Because costs forms an important part of the Organizations budget, workforce Planning enable the Organization to provide HR provision costs. When there is staff shortage, the organization should not just appoint discriminately, because of the costs implications of the other options, such as training and transferring of staff, have to be considered.

HR Forecasting

Models and Techniques of Manpower Demand and Supply Forecasting

A strategic human resource planning model

There is no single approach to developing a Human Resources Strategy. The specific approach will vary from one organisation to another. Even so, an excellent approach towards an HR Strategic Management System is evident in the model presented below. This approach identifies six specific steps in developing an HR Strategy:-

1. Setting the strategic direction2. Designing the Human Resource Management System

3. Planning the total workforce

4. Generating the required human resources

5. Investing in human resource development and performance

6. Assessing and sustaining organisational competence and performance

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The six broad interconnected components of this system consist of three planning steps and three execution steps.

The top three components represent the need for planning. Organizations must determine their strategic direction and the outcomes they seek. This is usually accomplished with some form of strategic planning. Classic strategic planning is a formal, top-down, staff-driven process. When done well, it is workable at a time when external change occurs at a more measured pace.

However as the pace and magnitude of change increases, the approach to strategic planning changes substantially:

First, the planning process is more agile; changes in plans are much more frequent and are often driven by events rather than made on a predetermined time schedule.

Second, the planning process is more proactive. Successful organizations no longer simply respond to changes in their environment, they proactively shape their environment to maximize their own effectiveness.

Third, the planning process is no longer exclusively top-down; input into the process comes from many different organizational levels and segments. This creates more employee ownership of the plan and capitalises on the fact that often the most valuable business intelligence can come from employees who are at the bottom of the organizational hierarchy.

Lastly, the strategic planning process less reactive and more driven by line leadership.8

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Once strategic planning is under way, a process must be undertaken by the organization to design and align its HRM policies and practices to provide for organizational success. The remaining step in planning is to determine the quality and quantity of human resources the organization needs for its total force.

The rest of the HR strategic system exists for and is guided by these plans, policies, and practices. These execution components contain mechanisms that generate the correct skill sets, invest in staff development and performance, and productively employ them in the organisation. The last component provides a means to assess and sustain the competence and performance of the organization and the people in it with regard to outcomes that the organization seeks.

Analysis

Using the process model discussed earlier, the specific components of the HR Strategic Plan are discussed in greater detail below.

1. Setting the strategic direction

This process focuses on aligning human resource policies to support the accomplishment of the Company’s mission, vision, goals and strategies. The business’ goals sit at the heart of any HR strategy and in order to align business and HR you need to answer one key question, “Can your organisation’s internal capability deliver the organisation’s business goals?”

Many organisations cite their people as their primary source of competitive advantage. Successful companies continuously identify and adopt innovative human resource management policies and practices to sustain that advantage. More importantly, they structure work and design training, performance management, pay, and reward policies to help members of the organization succeed in achieving desired organizational outcomes. In other words, they integrate and align HRM policies and practices to reinforce employee behaviors that can best realize the leaders’ strategic intent. In the most successful companies, the set of policies and practices that collectively make up a company’s HRM system is the critical management tool for communicating and reinforcing the leaders’ strategic intent.

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Recommended actions:- Conduct an external environmental scan and evaluate its impact on the organisation Identify the organisation’s vision, mission and guiding principles

Identify the mission’s outcomes and strategic goals

Consult all relevant stakeholders

Evaluate the impact of legislation on the organization

2. Designing the Human Resource Management System

This stage focuses on the selection, design and alignment of HRM plans, policies and practices. Various options may be open to the organisation such as drawing on industry best practices.

Emerging HRM policies and practices range from outsourcing certain non-core functions, adopting flexible work practices (telework, work from home) and the increased use of information technology. Not every industry trend may be appropriate for a specific organisation. In addition, it is essential that a cost-benefit analysis of implementing new HRM policies and practices be undertaken. For example, the costs (monetary and in allocation of resources) of implementing a new job grading system may outweigh the benefit of such an undertaking. There may be more cost-effective alternatives available to the organisation at this point in time.

Particular HRM policies and practices may be necessary to support strategic organisational objectives, such as improving the retention of women in the organisation or promoting diversity, especially the representation of designated groups amongst senior management.

A good approach in selecting the appropriate HRM policies, procedures and practices is to identify the appropriate HRM practices which support the organisation’s strategic intent as it relates to recruitment, training, career planning and reward management.

Recommended actions:-

Identify appropriate human resource plans, policies and practices needed to support organisational objectives

Identify relevant human resource best practices

Conduct an employment systems review10

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3. Planning the total workforce

Determining future business requirements, especially those relating to manpower requirements, represents one of the most challenging tasks facing human resource practitioners.

The development of a workforce plan is a critical component of any human resource strategy and one of the expected outcomes of human resource practitioners activities. Despite this, manpower or workforce planning, as well as succession planning, has only recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. To some extent this has been prompted by the need to develop employment equity and workplace skills plans and set numerical employment equity targets. The failure of many organisations to develop and implement workforce planning is rather indicative of the lack of strategic planning itself.

Workforce planning is a systematic process of identifying the workforce competencies required to meet the company’s strategic goals and for developing the strategies to meet these requirements. It is a methodical process that provides managers with a framework for making human resource decisions based on the organization’s mission, strategic plan, budgetary resources, and a set of desired workforce competencies. Workforce planning is a systematic process that is integrated, methodical, and ongoing. It identifies the human capital required to meet organisational goals, which consists of determining the number and skills of the workers required and where and when they will be needed. Finally workforce planning entails developing the strategies to meet these requirements, which involves identifying actions that must be taken to attract (and retain) the number and types of workers the organisation needs.

A workforce plan can be as simple or as complex as the organisational requires. Workforce planning can be conducted for a department, division or for the organisation as a whole. Whatever the level or approach being adopted, it must nevertheless be integrated with broad-based management strategies.

In addition to workforce planning, ensure that organisational structure and jobs ensure the efficient delivery of services and effective management of the organisation as a whole.

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Recommended actions:-

Determine the appropriate organisational structure to support the strategic objectives Structure jobs (competencies, tasks and activities) around key activities

Develop a workforce plan designed to support the organisations strategic objectives

Compile workforce profiles, identifying designated groups, an inventory of current workforce competencies, competencies required in the future and identified gaps in competencies

4. Generating the required human resources

This process focuses on recruiting, hiring, classifying, training and assigning employees based on the strategic imperatives of the organisation’s workforce plan.

A comprehensive workplace skills plan will identify appropriate training priorities based on the organisations workforce needs now and in the future. New recruitment practices may need to be adopted to increase the representation of designated groups, or securing essential skills in the organisation. A comprehensive “learnership strategy” may assist in developing future workforce needs, identified either in terms of the organisations workforce plan or required in terms of industry black economic empowerment charters.

Recommended actions:-

Evaluate recruitment and selection practices in light of the organisation’s strategic objectives

Develop and implement a comprehensive workplace skills plan (with a thorough training needs analysis)

Implement a learnership strategy

Adopt or clarify occupational levels and category classifications

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5. Investing in human resource development and performance

Traditional approaches to career planning, performance appraisals, reward management and employee development must be re-appraised in light of the vision, characteristics and mission outcomes as reflected in the HRM plans, policies, and practices.

Development responses will aim to increase business skills, the application of business skills (sometimes called competencies) and the behavioural elements – all of which contribute to an organisation’s effective performance. In many ways, the Skills Development legislation have required organisations to re-engineer their developmental methods and practices. New concepts such as lifelong learning and recognising prior learning should form an integral component of the process of investing in employees.

Clearly, where a workforce planning exercise reveals that there is little projected growth in the workforce or that promotional or career development opportunities are limited, strategies aimed at employee retention will be very different from organisations which are experiencing considerable growth and expansion.

Investment initiatives for the individual, team and organisation are all geared to achieve high levels of organisational performance. It is important that at an individual level, particularly for senior staff, that they feel their development needs are agreed and that they are provided with the skills to do their jobs. At a team level, it defines the individuals’ ability to work flexibly with others and align individual and team skills and activities to business goals – all of which ensures that the organisation is equipped to achieve its goals.

Reward strategies aim to align the performance of the organisation with the way it rewards its people, providing the necessary incentives and motivation to staff. Its components can be a combination of base pay, bonuses, profit sharing, share options, and a range of appropriate benefits, usually based on market or competitor norms and the organisation’s ability to pay.

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Recommended actions:-

Identify appropriate policies, procedures and practices in respect of

Career pathing Performance appraisals

Employee development and learning

Reward Management (compensation and benefits)

Promotions and job assignments

Separation

6. Assessing and sustaining organisational competence and performance

Finally, few organizations effectively measure how well their different inputs affect performance. In particular, no measures may be in place for quantifying the contribution people make to organizational outcomes or, more important, for estimating how changes in policies and practices, systems, or processes will affect that contribution. Implementing clear quantifiable measures, identifying milestones in the achievement of specific organisational goals, and using concepts such as a “balanced scorecard” will articulate the results of the HR Strategic Plan in measurable terms. Regular evaluation of the plan will also assist in fine-tuning the HR strategic plan itself.

Recommended actions:-

Evaluate organisation culture and climate Implement succession planning

Evaluate HR strategy using quantifiable measures, e.g. balanced scorecard

Revise and adapt HR strategy14

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5. Conclusion

While HR strategies must be developed to support the achievement of the organisation’s objectives, it is a two-way process. HR strategies can themselves be critical inputs in determining the strategic initiatives for the organisation. A fatal error, however, is to develop and implement HR strategies without having regard for the goals and objectives which the organisation has explicitly or implicitly identified. A common mistake is the development of workplace skills plans which are not linked to any strategic goals or objectives or which have no affirmative action components.

Similarly, the isolated identification of affirmative action numerical targets without first conducting a workforce and succession planning exercise is in most instances, simply meaningless

Retention

Retention

Effective employee retention is a systematic effort by employers to create and foster an environment that encourages current employees to remain employed by having policies and practices in place that address their diverse needs. A strong retention strategy becomes a powerful recruitment tool.

Retention of key employees is critical to the long-term health and success of any organization. It is a known fact that retaining your best employees ensures customer satisfaction, increased product sales, satisfied colleagues and reporting staff, effective succession planning and deeply imbedded organizational knowledge and learning.

Employee retention matters as organizational issues such as training time and investment; lost knowledge; insecure employees and a costly candidate search are involved. Hence failing to retain a key employee is a costly proposition for an organization. Various estimates suggest that losing a middle manager in most organizations costs up to five times of his salary.

Intelligent employers always realise the importance of retaining the best talent. Retaining talent has never been so important in the Indian scenario; however, things have changed in recent years. In prominent Indian metros at least, there is no dearth of opportunities for the best in the business, or even for the second or the third best. Retention of key employees and treating attrition troubles has never been so important to companies.

In an intensely competitive environment, where HR managers are poaching from each other, organisations can either hold on to their employees tight or lose them to competition. For gone are the days, when employees would stick to an employer for years for want of a better choice. Now, opportunities abound.

It is a fact that, retention of key employees is critical to the long-term health and success of any organisation. The performance of employees is often linked directly to quality work, customer satisfaction, and increased product sales and even to the image of a company.

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Whereas the same is often indirectly linked to, satisfied colleagues and reporting staff, effective succession planning and deeply embedded organisational knowledge and learning.

Employee retention matters, as, organisational issues such as training time and investment, costly candidate search etc., are involved. Hence, failing to retain a key employee is a costly proposition for any organization

The Importance of Retaining Employees

The challenge of keeping employees: Its changing face has stumped managers and business owners alike. How do you manage this challenge? How do you build a workplace that employees want to remain with … and outsiders want to be hired into?

Successful managers and business owners ask themselves these and other questions because—simply put—employee retention matters: ➤ High turnover often leaves customers and employees in the lurch; departing employees take a great deal of knowledge with them. This lack of continuity makes it hard to meet your organization’s goals and serve customers well.

➤ Replacing employees costs money. The cost of replacing an employee is estimated as up to twice the individual’s annual salary (or higher for some positions, such as middle management), and this doesn’t even include the cost of lost knowledge.

➤ Recruiting employees consumes a great deal of time and effort, much of it futile. You’re not the only one out there vying for qualified employees, and job searchers make decisions based on more than the sum of salary and benefits.

➤ Bringing employees up to speed takes even more time. And when you’re short-staffed, you often need to put in extra time to get the work done.

Retention Tool

1.       Offer fair and competitive salaries. Fair compensation alone does not guarantee employee loyalty, but offering below-market wages makes it much more likely that employees will look for work elsewhere. In fact, research shows that if incomes lag behind comparable jobs at a company across town by more than 10 percent, workers are likely to bolt. To retain workers, conduct regular reviews of the salaries you offer for all job titles — entry-level, experienced staff and supervisory-level. Compare your department’s salaries with statistically reliable averages. If there are significant discrepancies, you probably should consider making adjustments to ensure that you are in line with the marketplace.

2.       Remember that benefits are important too. Although benefits are not a key reason why employees stick with a company, the benefits you offer can’t be markedly worse than those offered by your competitors

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3.       Train your front-line supervisors, managers and administrators. It can’t be said often enough: People stay or leave because of their bosses, not their companies. A good employee/manager relationship is critical to employee satisfaction and retention. Make sure your managers aren’t driving technologists away. Give them the training they need to develop good supervisory and people-management skills.

4. Clearly define roles and responsibilities. Develop a formal job description for each title or position in your department. Make sure your employees know what is expected of them every day, what types of decisions they are allowed to make on their own, and to whom they are supposed to report.

5.       Provide adequate advancement opportunities. To foster employee loyalty, implement a career ladder and make sure employees know what they must do to earn a promotion. Conduct regular performance reviews to identify employees’ strengths and weaknesses, and help them improve in areas that will lead to job advancement. A clear professional development plan gives employees an incentive to stick around.

6.       Offer retention bonuses instead of sign-on bonuses. Worker longevity typically is rewarded with an annual raise and additional vacation time after three, five or 10 years. But why not offer other seniority-based rewards such as a paid membership in the employee’s professional association after one year, a paid membership to a local gym after two years, and full reimbursement for the cost of the employee’s uniforms after three years? Retention packages also could be designed to raise the salaries of technologists who become credentialed in additional specialty areas, obtain additional education or take on more responsibility. Sign-on bonuses encourage technologists to skip from job to job, while retention packages offer incentives for staying.

7.       Make someone accountable for retention. Measure your turnover rate and hold someone (maybe you!) responsible for reducing it. In too many workplaces, no one is held accountable when employees leave, so nothing is done to encourage retention.

8.       Conduct employee satisfaction surveys. You won’t know what’s wrong … or what’s right … unless you ask. To check the pulse of your workplace, conduct anonymous employee satisfaction surveys on a regular basis. One idea: Ask employees what they want more of and what they want less of.

9.       Foster an environment of teamwork. It takes effort to build an effective team, but the result is greater productivity, better use of resources, improved customer service and increased morale. Here are a few ideas to foster a team environment in your department:

Make sure everyone understands the department’s purpose, mission or goal. Encourage discussion, participation and the sharing of ideas.

Rotate leadership responsibilities depending on your employees’ abilities and the needs of the team.

Involve employees in decisions; ask them to help make decisions through consensus and collaboration.

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Encourage team members to show appreciation to their colleagues for superior performance or achievement.

10.    Reduce the paperwork burden. If your technologists spend nearly as much time filling out paperwork, it’s time for a change. Paperwork pressures can add to the stress and burnout that employees feel. Eliminate unnecessary paperwork; convert more paperwork to an electronic format; and hire non-tech administrative staff to take over as much of the paperwork burden as is allowed under legal or regulatory restrictions.

11.    Make room for fun. Celebrate successes and recognize when milestones are reached. Potluck lunches, birthday parties, employee picnics and creative contests will help remind people why your company is a great place to work.

12.    Write a mission statement for your department. Everyone wants to feel that they are working toward a meaningful, worthwhile goal. Work with your staff to develop a departmental mission statement, and then publicly post it for everyone to see. Make sure employees understand how their contribution is important.

13.    Provide a variety of assignments. Identify your employees’ talents and then encourage them to stretch their abilities into new areas. Do you have a great “teacher” on staff? Encourage him/ her to lead an in-service or present a poster session on an interesting case. Have someone who likes planning and coordinating events? Ask him to organize a departmental open house. Know a good critical-thinker? Ask him/ her to work with a vendor to customize applications training on a new piece of equipment. A variety of challenging assignments helps keep the workplace stimulating.

14.    Communicate openly. Employees are more loyal to a company when they believe managers keep them informed about key issues. Is a corporate merger in the works? Is a major expansion on the horizon? Your employees would rather hear it from you than from the evening newscast. It is nearly impossible for a manager to “over-communicate.”

15.    Encourage learning. Create opportunities for your technologists to grow and learn. Reimburse them for CE courses, seminars and professional meetings; discuss recent journal articles with them; ask them to research a new scheduling method for the department. Encourage every employee to learn at least one new thing every week, and you’ll create a work force that is excited, motivated and committed.

16.    Be flexible. Today’s employees have many commitments outside their job, often including responsibility for children, aging parents, chronic health conditions and other issues. They will be loyal to workplaces that make their lives more convenient by offering on-site childcare centers, on-site hair styling and dry cleaning, flexible work hours, part-time positions, job-sharing or similar practices. For example, employees of school-age children might appreciate the option to work nine months a year and have the summers off to be with their children.

17.    Develop an effective orientation program. Implement a formal orientation program that’s at least three weeks long and includes a thorough overview of every area of your department and an introduction to other departments. Assign a senior staff member to act as a mentor to the new employee throughout the orientation period. Develop a checklist of topics

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that need to be covered and check in with the new employee at the end of the orientation period to ensure that all topics were adequately addressed.

18.    Give people the best equipment and supplies possible. No one wants to work with equipment that’s old or constantly breaking down. Ensure that your equipment is properly maintained, and regularly upgrade machinery, computers and software. In addition, provide employees with the highest quality supplies you can afford. Cheap, leaky pens may seem like a small thing, but they can add to employees’ overall stress level.

Show your employees that you value them. Recognize outstanding achievements promptly and publicly, but also take time to comment on the many small contributions your staff makes every day to the organization’s mission. Don’t forget — these are the people who make you look good!

Career Planning

Redeployment and Exit Strategies

Career Management and Career Planning

Effective HRM encompasses career planning, career development and succession planning. An organization without career planning and career development initiatives is likely to encounter the highest rate of attrition, causing much harm to their plans and programmes. Similarly without succession planning managing of vacancies, particularly at higher levels, become difficult. There are examples of many organizations that had to suffer for not being able to find a right successor for their key positions. With the increase scope for job mobility and corporate race for global headhunting of good performers, it is now a well established fact that normal employment span for key performers remains awfully short.

The term career planning and career developments are used interchangeably in most of the organizations. It is also correct that but for their subtle difference in the definitional context, their process remains the same.

1.1.1    Definition of Career

Career is a sequence of attitudes and behaviours associated with the series of job and work related activities over a person’s lifetime.

Yet in another way, it may be defined as a succession of related jobs, arranged in hierarchical order, through which a person moves in an organization. As the literal definition of career focuses on an individually perceived sequence, to be more accurate, career may be either individual-centred or organizational-centred. Therefore, career is often defined separately as external career and internal career. External career refers to the objective categories used by society and organizations to describe the progression of steps through a given occupation, while internal career refers to the set of steps or stages which make up the individual’s own concept of career progression within an occupation. For such two different approaches, in

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organizational context, career can be identified as an integrated pace of vertical lateral movement in an occupation of an individual over his employment span.

1.1.2    Important Elements of Career

Analysing definitional context, it is clear that career has following important elements-

1. It is a proper sequence of job-related activities. Such job related activities vis-a-vis experience include role experiences at diff hierarchical levels of an individual, which lead to an increasing level of responsibilities, status, power, achievements and rewards.

2. It may be individual-centered or organizational–centered, individual-centered career is an individually perceived sequence of career progression within an occupation.

3. It is better defined as an integrated pace of internal movement in an occupation of an individual over his employment span.

Overview

Career planning generally involves getting to know who you are, what you want, and how to get there.  Keep in mind that career planning is a continuous process that allows you to move from one stage to another stage as your life changes.  You may even find yourself going back to look at who you are again after exploring how to get there.  Learning to negotiate the career planning process now is essential, considering most people will change careers several times in a lifetime.

If a career plan is to be effective, it must begin with an objective. When asked about career objectives, most managers will probably answer by saying that they want to be successful. What is success? Definition of success depends on personal aspirations, values, self-image, age, background and other different factors. Success is personally defined concept. In order to plan your career, you need to have an idea of what constitutes career success.

Do you want to be president of the company?

Do you want to be the senior executive in your field of expertise?

Would you be happier as a middle manager in your area?

Whatever the choice it must be yours.

Career management is a process by which individuals can guide, direct and influence the course of their careers.

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Fig.1.2   General Periods in Careers

In the course of our career we move from one stage to another setting and implementing appropriate goals at each stage. Our goals differ from getting established on job at early career stage to career reappraisal, moving away from technical areas & becoming more of a generalist. Movement form one career stage to another will require individuals to update self & to appropriate change goals. When required danger exist that individuals may too long stay in a job they don’t like or miss career opportunity

A sensible early step in career planning is to diagnose. You might answer questions:

• What types of positions and career experiences do I need to achieve my goals?

• What personal traits characteristics and behaviors require change in order for me to improve my professional effectiveness?

CAREER PLANNING IN AN ORGANIZATION

Career planning is the process by which one selects career goals and the path to these goals. The major focus of career planning is on assisting the employees achieve a better match between personal goals and the opportunities that are realistically available in the organization. Career programmers should not concentrate only on career growth opportunities. Practically speaking, there may not be enough high level positions to make upward mobility a reality for a large number of employees. Hence, career-planning efforts need to pin-point and highlight those areas that offer psychological success instead of vertical growth.

Career planning is not an event or end in itself, but a continuous process of developing

human resources for achieving optimum results. It must, however, be noted that individual and organizational careers are not separate and distinct. A person who is not able to translate

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his career plan into action within the organization may probably quit the job, if he has a choice. Organizations, therefore, should help employees in career planning so that both can satisfy each other’s needs.

1.3.1 Career Planning vs. Human Resource Planning

Human Resource planning is the process of analyzing and estimating the need for and availability of employees. Through Human Resource planning, the Personnel Department is able to prepare a summary of skills and potentials available within the organization. Career planning assists in finding those employees who could be groomed for higher level positions, on the strength of their performance.

Human Resource planning gives valuable information about the availability of human resources for expansion, growth, etc. (expansion of facilities, construction of a new plant, opening a new branch, launching a new product, etc.). On the other hand, career planning only gives us a picture of who could succeed in case any major developments leading to retirement, death, resignation of existing employees.

Human Resource planning is tied to the overall strategic planning efforts of the organization. There cannot be an effective manpower planning, if career planning is not carried out properly.

1.3.2    Need for Career Planning

Every employee has a desire to grow and scale new heights in his workplace continuously. If there are enough opportunities, he can pursue his career goals and exploit his potential fully. He feels highly motivated when the organization shows him a clear path as to how he can meet his personal ambitions while trying to realize corporate goals.

Unfortunately, as pointed out by John Leach, organizations do not pay adequate attention to this aspect in actual practice for a variety of reasons. The demands of employees are not matched with organizational needs; no effort is made to show how the employees can grow within certain limits, what happens to an employee five years down the line if he does well, whether the organization is trying to offer mere jobs or long-lasting careers, etc. When recognition does not come in time for meritorious performance and a certain amount of confusion prevails in the minds of employees whether they are ‘in’ with a chance to grow or not, they look for greener pastures outside. Key executives leave in frustration and the organization suffers badly when turnover figures rise. Any recruitment effort made in panic to fill the vacancies is not going to be effective. So, the absence of a career plan is going to make a big difference to both the employees and the organization. Employees do not get right breaks at a right time; their morale will be low and they are always on their toes trying to find escape routes.

Organizations are not going to benefit from high employee turnover. New employees

mean additional selection and training costs. Bridging the gaps through short-term replacements is not going to pay in terms of productivity. Organizations, therefore, try to put their career plans in place and educate employees about the opportunities that exist internally for talented people. Without such a progressive outlook, organizations cannot prosper.

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1.3.3    Objectives

Career planning seeks to meet the following objectives:

i. Attract and retain talent by offering careers, not jobs.

ii. Use human resources effectively and achieve greater productivity.

iii. Reduce employee turnover.

iv. Improve employee morale and motivation.

v. Meet the immediate and future human resource needs of the organization on a timely basis

1.3.4    Career Planning Process

The career planning process involves the following steps:

i. Identifying individual needs and aspirations:

Most individuals do not have a clear cut idea about their career aspirations, anchors and goals. The human resource professionals must, therefore, help an employee by providing as much information as possible showing what kind of work would suit the employee most, taking his skills, experience, and aptitude into account. Such assistance is extended through workshops/seminars while the employees are subjected to psychological testing, simulation exercises, etc. The basic purpose of such an exercise is to help an employee form a clear view about what he should do to build his career within the company. Workshops and seminars increase employee interest by showing the value of career planning. They help employees set career goals, identify career paths and uncover specific career development activities (discussed later). These individual efforts may be supplemented by printed or taped information. To assist employees in a better way, organizations construct a data bank consisting of information on the career histories, skill evaluations and career preferences of its

employees (known as skill or talent inventory).

ii. Analyzing career opportunities:

Once career needs and aspirations of employees are known, the organization has to provide career paths for each position. Career paths show career progression possibilities clearly. They indicate the various positions that one could hold over a period of time, if one is able to perform well. Career paths change over time, of course, in tune with employee’s needs and organizational requirements. While outlining career paths, the claims of experienced persons lacking professional degrees and that of young recruits with excellent degrees but without experience need to be balanced properly.

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iii. Aligning needs and opportunities:

After employees have identified their needs and have realized the existence of career opportunities the remaining problem is one of alignment. This process consists of two steps: first, identify the potential of employees and then undertake career development

programmers (discussed later on elaborately) with a view to align employee needs and organizational opportunities. Through performance appraisal, the potential of employees can be assessed to some extent. Such an appraisal would help reveal employees who need further training, employees who can take up added responsibilities, etc. After identifying the potential of employees certain developmental techniques such as special assignments, planned position rotation, supervisory coaching, job enrichment, understudy programs can be undertaken to update employee knowledge and skills.

iv. Action plans and periodic review:

The matching process would uncover gaps. These need to be bridged through individual career development efforts and organization supported efforts from time to time. After initiating these steps, it is necessary to review the whole thing every now and then. This will help the employee know in which direction he is moving, what changes are likely to take place, what kind of skills are needed to face new and emerging organizational challenges. From an organizational standpoint also, it is necessary to find out how employees are doing, what are their goals and aspirations, whether the career paths are in tune with individual needs and serve the overall corporate objectives, etc.

FIG.1.3 The New “Portable” Career Path

1.3.5    CAREER PLANNING MODELS

There are many models one may use while career planning. The two main models are

1.3.5.1 Waterloo University Model

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FIG.1.5 Water University Model

1.3.5.2 The SODI Career Planning Model

Given the complexity of career development and the fluidity of the world of work, we need to be able to navigate our career paths with purpose and clarity.

Law and Watts (1977) devised a simple model of career education which has stood the test of time. This model has been changed slightly to become a career planning, rather than a career education model and named the SODI model where the last element is ‘implementation’ rather than ‘transition learning’, and ‘decision learning’ becomes ‘decision making and planning’.

The model encapsulates four concepts which are:

Self-awareness – individual having knowledge about and understanding of their own personal development. Self-awareness in a careers context involves an understanding of kind of personal resources (both actual and potential) they bring to world.

Opportunity awareness – an understanding of the general structures of the world of work, including career possibilities and alternative pathways.

Decision making and planning – an understanding of how to make career decisions, and being aware of pressures, influences, styles, consequences and goal setting.

Implementing plans – having the appropriate skill level in a range of areas to be able to translate job and career planning into reality

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HRIS

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Human Resource Information System

HRIS :- Human Resource Information System

Human Resources Management (HRM) is the attraction, selection, retention, development, and utilization of labor resource in order to achieve both individual and organizational objectives. Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) is an integration of HRM and Information Systems (IS). HRIS or Human resource Information system helps HR managers perform HR functions in a more effective and systematic way using technology. It is the system used to acquire, store, manipulate, analyze, retrieve, and distribute pertinent information regarding an organization’s human resources. A human resource information system (HRIS) is a system used to acquire, store, manipulate, analyze, retrieve, and distribute pertinent information about an organization’s human resources. The HRIS system is usually a part of the organization’s larger management information system (MIS) which would include accounting, production, and marketing functions, to name just a few. Human resource and line managers require good human resource information to facilitate decision-making.Application of HRIS

HR Accounting

Human Resource Valuation and Accounting

HUMAN RESOURCE AUDIT , An HR “Early Warning System” that works!Your tool to assess the present. Your blueprint for the future. Your commitment to excellence. A human resource audit reviews an organization’s policies, procedures, and practices. Its purpose is to examine the technical and practical dimensions of the HR function and to create a comprehensive system that adds value to the organization.

An audit is a means by which an organization can measure where it currently stands and determine what it has to accomplish to improve its human resources function. It involves systematically reviewing all aspects of human resources, usually in a checklist fashion, ensuring that government regulations and company policies are being adhered to. The key to an audit is to remember it is a learning or discovery tool, not a test. There will always be room for improvement in every organization.

Human Resource Audit is a systematic assessment of the strengths, limitations, and developmental needs of its existing human resources in the context of organizational performance – (Flamholtz, 1987)

NEED FOR H.R. AUDIT:Top Management saw solutions to their problems, issues and challenges in HRD to face business competition and to achieve organizational goals.

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PURPOSE OF H.R. AUDIT:

1. to examine and pinpoint strength and weaknesses related to H.R. areas and Skills and Competencies to enable an organization to achieve its long-term and short-term goals.

2. To increase the effectiveness of the design and implementation of human resource policies, planning and programs.

3. To help human resource planners develop and update employment and program plans.

4. To insure the effective utilization of an organization’s human resources.

5. To review compliance with a myriad of administrative regulations.

6. To instill a sense of confidence in management and the human resources function that it is well managed and prepared to meet potential challenges.

7. To maintain or enhance the organization’s and the department’s reputation in the community.

8. To perform a “due diligence” review for shareholders or potential investors/owners.

SCOPE OF HUMAN RESOURCE AUDITWhenever the H.R. Audit it taken up, the scope is decided. Audit need not be exhaustive, but should be focused on particular function of H.R.M. such as Training and Development, Performance Appraisal, Compensation, etc.. However, the objective and approach of H.R. Audit, more or less, remains the same, regardless of scope.What does a full HR Audit entail”:

1. Legal compliance2. Compensation/Salary Administration

3. Employment/Recruiting

4. Orientation

5. Terminations

6. Training and Development

7. Employee Relations

8. Communications

9. Files/Record Maintenance/Technology

10. Policies and procedures (including employee handbook)

11. Communications

The following lists the core HR functional areas and summarizes what will be reviewed during an audit; it is not all-inclusive, and it may be subject to change. The scope of work for the audit may include a review of internal policies and processes, a review of filing and tracking systems, and surveys and questionnaires of employees and managers on the

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effectiveness of the human resources operation in the department. The Audit Schedule outlines who will be audited, when the audits will occur, and the functional area to be audited.

HUMAN RESOURCES ORGANIZATION/ADMINISTRATION. Organization of HR office, including appropriate class of professional positions; delegation of authority to and within the department; quality control to ensure consistency in authorities delegated within the department; documentation of processes, operating standards, and internal controls; administration of retention rights, including notices, matrix, use of separation incentives, and outplacement practices; how staff remain current and up to date with the HR field and the state personnel system; and techniques for communicating with employees and appointing authorities in department.

SELECTION. Recruitment methods, methods used in workforce and succession planning, and use of turnover data; access to and quality of job announcements; quality of job analyses; exam development, administration, and scoring; length of eligible lists, including merged lists and notice of appeal rights; and referrals and interviewing practices.

JOB EVALUATION . Standards, processes, and internal and quality control methods for reviewing and updating PDQs including essential functions, FLSA notification, turnaround times, and repeat requests; internships for new evaluators; allocation process including quality of reports and employee notification; process to address concerns with non-appealable decisions; communication process for official system maintenance studies; and standards, internal controls, and processes for reviewing and exempting positions from the state personnel system.

TOTAL COMPENSATION. Standards, and processes used to develop and communicate internal compensation policy and plans; internal controls to ensure accuracy and consistency of pay and leave; policies on pay adjustments; pay differentials and incentive awards; overtime pay; premium pay awards including hazardous duty pay, housing premium pay, documentation on approval of requests to pay shift and on-call premiums to individuals in classes not designated by the state personnel director. Leave management standards, internal controls, and practices; confidentiality policies and agreements with those handling health-related information; leave tracking systems; FLMA compliance including designation and notification; leave sharing plans; and maintenance of annual SES performance contracts, including filing with state personnel director. Standards and processes for enrollment for new employees in benefit plans; communication methods for open enrollment; worker’s compensation reporting; process for reporting employment claims; and compliance with COBRA and STD benefits requirements.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT. Most current Performance Pay Program is approved and on file with the state personnel director, including methods of communication to new and current staff and plan for mandatory supervisory training; completion rate of plans and ratings including quality control and review for consistency of ratings; methods used to determine distribution of awards; efficiency and communication of the internal dispute resolution process; and compliance with requirements for sanctions.

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT. Orientation program for new employees and supervisors; training programs and delivery methods including courses, training staff, and

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cost; workforce development policies including drug-free workplace, workforce violence and sexual harassment prevention, diversity, FMLA and FLSA responsibilities.

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS. Number, type, and outcome of appeals, grievances, and director’s reviews; internal grievance processes; other forms of alternative dispute resolution used; communication methods and forms; number, type, and outcome of corrective and disciplinary actions; any methods used to address work environment issues.

[b]RECORDS MANAGEMENT. Content of employee, payroll, medical, and position files; internal controls to ensure accuracy and control access; compliance with IRCA (I-9); process for purging records; FLSA designations; a review of employee timesheets; posting of required notices; and methods to ensure timely and accurate reporting of information to the state personnel director.

HR AUDIT FORM

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

• Are the “Employer/Employee Guidelines for Wrongful Termination” followed?• Is there a formal Performance Improvement Program policy?

• Are terminations handled in a manner that complies with applicable laws and association policy?

• Is written performance documentation maintained?

• Are performance reviews done on a regular basis?

• Do employees clearly know upon what their appraisals will be based?

• Do you have an open door policy for employee complaints?

• Is the sexual harassment policy clearly communicated to all employees?

• Are employees provided with a comfortable work environment?

• Are personnel files retained in compliance with applicable laws?

• Are I-9 forms complete for all employees?

• Have all employees received a copy of the employee handbook? Have they signed a statement that they have received, read and understand its contents?

• Does the handbook have the appropriate “Employment At Will” disclaimer?

RECRUITING

• Is a standard application form used?• Do job descriptions exist for open positions?

• Does the job description drive the writing of the employment ad?

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• Does the job description drive the selection of behavioral interview questions?

• Are all qualified candidates interviewed?

• Is the selection decision made in compliance with the applicable employment laws?

• Have candidates given written permission to contact references?

• Are references checked before offers are made?

LEGAL

• Are all employee decisions based on Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications?• Are required employment law posters displayed in an appropriate place?

• Are you making employment decisions based on applicable employment laws and compliance thresholds?

TRAINING

• Is an orientation conducted for all new hires?• Do all new hires receive job-specific training?

• Are current employees allowed to take skills-based training as needed?

COMPENSATION

• Are employees appropriately classified (exempt vs. nonexempt, employee vs. independent contractor)?

• Is there compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act in terms of minimum wage, overtime pay and record keeping?

• Is there compliance with other applicable employment laws?

• Are employees paid a competitive rate?

• Is there internal equity among current employees?

• Is compensation tied to performance?

BENEFITS

• Are the benefits offered sufficient to attract the desired level of talent?• Are the benefits offered in compliance with the appropriate laws?

Job Analysis

Job Analysis and Job Description

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Job Analysis:

In simple terms, job analysis may be understood as a process of collecting information about a job. The process of job analysis results in two sets of data:

i) Job description and

ii) Job specification.

These data are recorded separately for references.

Let us summarise the concept of Job Analysis:

A few definitions on job analysis are quoted below

1. Job analysis is the process of studying and collecting information relating to the operations and responsibilities of a specific job. The immediate products of this analysis are job descriptions and job specifications.

2. Job analysis is a systematic exploration of the activities within a job. It is a basic technical procedure, one that is used to define the duties, responsibilities and accountabilities of a job.

3. A job is a collection of tasks that can be performed by a single employee to contribute to the production of some products or service provided by the organization. Each job has certain ability recruitments (as well as certain rewards) associated with it. Job analysis is the process used to identity these requirements.

Specifically, job analysis involves the following steps:

1. Collecting and recording job information2. Checking the job information for accuracy.

3. Writing job description based on the information

4. Using the information to determine the skills, abilities and knowledge that are required on the job.

5. Updating the information from time to time.

Job Analysis, A process of obtaining all pertaining job facts is classified into two i.e. Job Description and Job specification

Job Description is an important document, which is basically descriptive in nature and contains a statement of job Analysis. It provides both organizational information’s (like location in structure, authority etc) and functional information (what the work is).

It gives information about the scope of job activities, major responsibilities and positioning of the job in the organization. This information gives the worker, analyst, and supervisor with a clear idea of what the worker must do to meet the demand of the job.

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Who can better describe the characteristics of good job description?

Earnest Dale has developed the following hints for writing a good job description: -

1) The job description should indicate the scope and nature of the work including all-important relationships.

2) The job description should be clear regarding the work of the position, duties etc.

3) More specific words should be selected to show:-

a) The kind of work

b) The degree of complexity

c) The degree of skill required

d) The extent to which problems are standardized

e) The extent of worker’s responsibility for each phase of the work

So we can conclude by saying that Job description provide the information about the type of job and not jobholders.

USES OF JOB DESCRIPTION: -

Now we will see why job description is necessary in an organization,

There are several uses of job description, like

• Preliminary drafts can be used as a basis for productive group discussion, particularly if the process starts at the executive level.

• It helps in the development of job specification.

• It acts as a too during the orientation of new employees, to learn duties & responsibilities. It can act as a basic document used in developing performance standards.

Contents of Job Description :

Following are the main content of a job description it usually consist of following details or data.,

Job Description: A statement containing items such as

• Job title / Job identification / organization position• Location

• Job summary

• Duties

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• Machines, tools and equipment

• Materials and forms used

• Supervision given or received

• Working conditions

• Hazards

Job identification or Organization Position: – This includes the job title, alternative title, department, division and plant and code number of the job. The job title identifies and designates the job properly. The department, division etc., indicate the name of the department where it is situated and the location give the name of the place.

Job Summary: – This serves two important purposes. First is it gives additional identification information when a job title is not adequate; and secondly it gives a summary about that particular job.

Job duties and responsibilities: – This gives a total listing of duties together with some indication of the frequency of occurrence or percentage of time devoted to each major duty. These two are regarded as the “Hear of the Job”.

Relation to other jobs: – This gives the particular person to locate job in the organization by indicating the job immediately below or above in the job hierarchy.

Supervision: – This will give an idea the number of person to be supervised along with their job titles and the extent of supervision.

Machine: – These will also gives information about the tool, machines and equipment to be used.

Working Conditions: – It gives us information about the environment in which a jobholder must work.

Hazards: – It gives us the nature of risks of life and limb, their possibilities of occurrence etc.

Job Specification:

Job Specification translates the job description into terms of the human qualifications, which are required for performance of a job. They are intended to serve as a guide in hiring and job evaluation.

Job specification is a written statement of qualifications, traits, physical and mental characteristics that an individual must possess to perform the job duties and discharge responsibilities effectively.

In this, job specification usually developed with the co-operation of personnel department and various supervisors in the whole organization.

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Job Specification Information: -

The first step in the programme of job specification is to prepare a list of all jobs in the company and where they are located. The second step is to secure and write up information about each of the jobs in a company. Usually, this information about each of the jobs in a company. Usually this information includes:

1. Physical specifications : – Physical specifications include the physical qualifications or physical capacities that vary from job to job. Physical qualifications or capacities

2. Include physical features like height, weight, chest, vision, hearing, ability to lift weight, ability to carry weight, health, age, capacity to use or operate machines, tools, equipment etc.

3. Mental specifications : – Mental specifications include ability to perform, arithmetical calculations, to interpret data, information blue prints, to read electrical circuits, ability to plan, reading abilities, scientific abilities, judgment, ability to concentrate, ability to handle variable factors, general intelligence, memory etc.

4. Emotional and social specifications: – Emotional and social specifications are more important for the post of managers, supervisors, foremen etc. These include emotional stability, flexibility, social adaptability in human relationships, personal appearance including dress, posture etc.

5. Behavioral Specifications: – Behavioral specifications play an important role in selecting the candidates for higher-level jobs in the organizational hierarchy. This specification seeks to describe the acts of managers rather than the traits that cause the acts. These specifications include judgments, research, creativity, teaching ability, maturity trial of conciliation, self-reliance, dominance etc.

Employee Specification: –

Job specifications information must be converted into employee specification information in order to know what kind of person is needed to fill a job. Employee specification is a like a brand name which spells that the candidate with a particular employee specification generally possess the qualities specified under job specification.

Employee specification is useful to find out the suitability of particular class of candidates to a particular job. Thus, employee specification is useful to find out prospective employees (target group) whereas job specification is useful to select the right candidate for a job.

Uses of job specification: -

Uses of this job specification;

• Physical characteristics, which include health, strength, age range, body size, weight, vision, poise etc.

• Psychological characteristics or special aptitudes:- This include such qualities as manual dexterity, mechanical aptitude, ingenuity, judgment etc.

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• Personal characteristics or fruits of temperament – such as personal appearance, good and pleasing manners, emotional stability, aggressiveness or submissiveness.

• Responsibilities: – Which include supervision of others, responsibility for production, process and equipment, responsibility for the safety of others and responsibility for preventing monetary loss.

• Other features of a demographic nature: Which are age, sex, education, experience and language ability.

• Job specifications are mostly based on the educated gneisses of supervisors and personnel managers. They give their opinion as to who do they think should be considered for a job in terms of education, intelligence, training etc.

• Job specifications may also be based on statistical analysis. This is done to determine the relationship between

1. Some characteristics or traits.

2. Some performance as rated by the supervisor

HR Policy

HR Policy and Manual

WHY DEVELOP A POLICY MANUAL?

Policy manuals are developed to help staff and management teams run the organization. In best use situations, policies play a strategic role in an organization. They are developed in light of the mission and objectives of the company and they become the media by which management’s plans, rules, intents, and business processes become documented and communicated to all staff.

Carefully drafted and standardized policies and procedures save the company countless hours of management time. The consistent use and interpretation of such policies, in an evenhanded and fair manner, reduces management’s concern about legal issues becoming legal problems. There is more about the legal aspects of policy later in this section.

Policy manuals and their close relative the employee handbook should be an important part of the operation. They should be the first thing given to a new employee (either in hard copy of an electronic version). Consider the benefits of written policies; a set of written guidelines for human resource decisions. Better yet, think about the benefits of the process of developing policies. The process your company management team undergoes when  comparing the policy alternatives, understanding their importance, and evaluating your company’s current practices will help you to develop your company’s guidelines and procedures that will make your organization a better run entity.

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Consider the benefits of better communication within your organization. A policy manual is a means of communication with employees; it is first a way to communicate to employees the management rules and guidelines of the organization. Employees want and need that type of guidance in black and white. In addition, policies help to organize and announce management’s plans for growth, and they communicate the company’s investment in its employees by explaining employee benefits and workplace issues.

As a company’s policies are developed they become a framework for consistency and fairness. Polices define management’s standards for making decisions on various personnel and organizational issues. Clearly defined procedures and standards, spawned from polices that are well thought out, express the company’s intent to make consistent and evenhanded decisions. Not enough can be said about the value that comes from policy creation. Policy can help an organization run at its most efficient and effective level. That alone may bring value through cost savings and additional revenue. However, if done correctly, policies can bring more value by accurately reflecting the company’s philosophy of business and employee relations as they demonstrate your creativity in solving policy issues, the competitive position of the company in providing a variety of employee benefits, and respect and appreciation for human resource management. This type of message can go a long way towards promoting staff loyalty and everyone knows that staff longevity is a valuable asset.

There is also a legal aspect of policies. They are a means to protect the legal interests of a company. The company’s policies and procedures in many ways define the rights and obligations of the employee and the company. The policy manual is an expression of the rules governing the employment relationship. Today, more than ever, a company must protect its rights within that relationship by adopting policies that are fair to both sides, clearly stated, and legally permissible.

C O N T E N T S

BASIC GUIDELINES

1.Interview Process

2.Induction & Orientation

3.New Entrant Guidebook

4.Job Description & Kra’s

5.Employee Development Review

6.Performance Linked Rewards

7.Training & Development

8.Employee Cost

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9.Job Rotations

10.  Work Environment

11.  Employee Perception & Feedback

12.  Birthday Greetings

13.  Library/Books & Periodicals

14.  Internship/Project Styudents/ Guest Lectures

15.  Placement Consultants

16.  Dress Code

17.  Leave/ Comp Off/ Holidays

18.  Notice Period

19.  Exit Interview

20.  Arrangement/ Hospitality To Visitors

1. Hard Furnishing Entitlement2. Mobile Phone/ Residence Phone Facility

3. Car Loan / Car Facility

4. Marriage Gift

5. Salary Loan

6. Salary Advance

7. Housing Facility

8. Social Security Benefits

9. Annual Health Check

10. Perks For Social Status

11. Travel Rules

12. Foreign Travel Rules

13. City Compensatory Allowance

14. Transfer Policy

15. Local Conveyance Reimbursement

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16. Discount On Company Products

Recruitment Process

Recruitment and Selection

“Recruitment is the Process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. The Process begins when new recruits are sought and ends when their applications are submitted. The result is a pool of application from which new employees are selected.”

The Recruitment Process:

The recruitment process begins when you know you need someone new in the Department, either because an existing staff member has left, or because there is new work to be done. It doesn’t finish until after the appointment has been made.

The main stages are identified in the below flow chart –

Identify Vacancy Prepare Job Description and person

Specification Advertise Managing the Response Short-listing References Arrange Interviews Conduct The Interview Decision Making Convey The Decision Appointment Action

PRE-INTERVIEW

# Preparation of recruitment /selection document for the position

# Advertising

Preparing advertisement Media selection

Positioning

# Response handling

Initial interview online or telephone

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Short-listing for interviews

Interview arrangement

Sending emails or calling short listed candidates

Interview details to the short listed candidates

# During Interview

HR interview Technical interview

Conducting tests [Aptitude / Mathematical / Analytical etc.]

Initial final list of candidates.

Reference check (if required)

Selection Method

Leave a comment Go to comments SELECTION: -

MEANING OF SELECTION:

Selection is the process of picking up individuals (out of the pool of job applicants) with requisite qualifications and competence to fill jobs in the organization. A formal definition of Selection is as under

Definition of Selection: Process of differentiating

“Selection is the process of differentiating between applicants in order to identify and hire those with a greater likelihood of success in a job.”

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION:

Recruitment Selection 1.    Recruitment refers to the process of identifying and encouraging prospective employees to apply for jobs.2.    Recruitment is said to be positive in its approach as it seeks to attract as many candidates as possible.

1.    Selection is concerned with picking up the right candidates from a pool of applicants.2.    Selection on the other hand is negative in its application in as much as it seeks to eliminate as many unqualified applicants as possible in order to identify the right candidates.

PROCESS / STEPS IN SELECTION

1. Preliminary Interview: The purpose of preliminary interviews is basically to eliminate unqualified applications based on information supplied in application forms. The basic objective is to reject misfits. On the other hands preliminary interviews is often called a courtesy interview and is a good public relations exercise.

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2. Selection Tests: Jobseekers who past the preliminary interviews are called for tests. There are various types of tests conducted depending upon the jobs and the company. These tests can be Aptitude Tests, Personality Tests, and Ability Tests and are conducted to judge how well an individual can perform tasks related to the job. Besides this there are some other tests also like Interest Tests (activity preferences), Graphology Test (Handwriting), Medical Tests, Psychometric Tests etc.

3. Employment Interview: The next step in selection is employment interview. Here interview is a formal and in-depth conversation between applicant’s acceptability. It is considered to be an excellent selection device. Interviews can be One-to-One, Panel Interview, or Sequential Interviews. Besides there can be Structured and Unstructured interviews, Behavioral Interviews, Stress Interviews.

4. Reference & Background Checks: Reference checks and background checks are conducted to verify the information provided by the candidates. Reference checks can be through formal letters, telephone conversations. However it is merely a formality and selections decisions are seldom affected by it.

5. Selection Decision: After obtaining all the information, the most critical step is the selection decision is to be made. The final decision has to be made out of applicants who have passed preliminary interviews, tests, final interviews and reference checks. The views of line managers are considered generally because it is the line manager who is responsible for the performance of the new employee.

6. Physical Examination: After the selection decision is made, the candidate is required to undergo a physical fitness test. A job offer is often contingent upon the candidate passing the physical examination.

7. Job Offer: The next step in selection process is job offer to those applicants who have crossed all the previous hurdles. It is made by way of letter of appointment.

8. Final Selection

Induction

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Induction and Orientation

The Induction duly helps employees to undergo each and every phase of environment of Company and an introduction to his team and others. It gives them the platform of knowing and understanding the culture and knowing “ Who is who” .It is such a phase which gives a glimpse of entire Organization in that short span.

The process:

The Induction and Orientation program is done on the basis to make the employee

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Whether permanent or temporary or trainees get the feel of self-belongingness and work comfortably in the new culture.

The molding program might be different for different employees but the purpose is same.

Definition 1: Planned Introduction

“It is a Planned Introduction of employees to their jobs, their co-workers and the organization per se.”

Orientation conveys 4 types of information:

1. Daily Work Routine2. Organization Profile

3. Importance of Jobs to the organization

4. Detailed Orientation Presentations

Purpose of Orientation

1. To make new employees feel at home in new environment2. To remove their anxiety about new workplace

3. To remove their inadequacies about new peers

4. To remove worries about their job performance

5. To provide them job information, environment

Types of Orientation Programs

1. Formal or Informal2. Individual or Group

3. Serial or Disjunctive

Prerequisites of Effective Orientation Program

1. Prepare for receiving new employee2. Determine information new employee wants to know

3. Determine how to present information

4. Completion of Paperwork

Problems of Orientations41

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1. Busy or Untrained supervisor2. Too much information

3. Overloaded with paperwork

4. Given menial tasks and discourage interests

5. Demanding tasks where failure chances are high

6. Employee thrown into action soon

7. Wrong perceptions of employees

What is the difference between induction and orientation?

Induction referred to formal training programs that an employee had to complete before they could start work

Orientation was the informal information giving that made the recruit aware of the comfort issues – where the facilities are, what time lunch is and so forth.How long should the induction process take?

It starts when the job ad is written, continues through the selection process and is not complete until the new team member is comfortable as a full contributor to the organization’s goals.

The first hour on day one is a critical component – signing on, issuing keys and passwords, explaining no go zones, emergency procedures, meeting the people that you will interact with all have to be done immediately.  Until they are done the newcomer is on the payroll, but is not employed.

After that it is a matter of just in time training – expanding the content as new duties are undertaken.

Training Process

Training and Development

Training Process

Training is the systematic development of the attitude, knowledge, skill pattern required by a person to perform a given task or job adequately and development is ‘the growth of the individual in terms of ability, understanding and awareness’

Management of Training Function

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Training Needs Assessment

Identification of Training Needs (Methods)

Individual Training Needs Identification

1. Performance Appraisals

2. Interviews

3. Questionnaires

4. Attitude Surveys

5. Training Progress Feedback

6. Work Sampling

7. Rating Scales

Group Level Training Needs Identification

1. Organizational Goals and Objectives2. Personnel / Skills Inventories

3. Organizational Climate Indices

4. Efficiency Indices

5. Exit Interviews

6. MBO / Work Planning Systems

7. Quality Circles

8. Customer Satisfaction Survey

9. Analysis of Current and Anticipated Changes

Benefits of Training Needs Identification

1. Trainers can be informed about the broader needs in advance2. Trainers Perception Gaps can be reduced between employees and their

supervisorsTrainers can design course inputs closer to the specific needs of the participants

3. Diagnosis of causes of performance deficiencies can be done

Training Process

Training and Development43

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Training Process

Training is the systematic development of the attitude, knowledge, skill pattern required by a person to perform a given task or job adequately and development is ‘the growth of the individual in terms of ability, understanding and awareness’

Management of Training Function

Training Needs Assessment

Identification of Training Needs (Methods)

Individual Training Needs Identification

1. Performance Appraisals

2. Interviews

3. Questionnaires

4. Attitude Surveys

5. Training Progress Feedback

6. Work Sampling

7. Rating Scales

Group Level Training Needs Identification

1. Organizational Goals and Objectives2. Personnel / Skills Inventories

3. Organizational Climate Indices

4. Efficiency Indices

5. Exit Interviews

6. MBO / Work Planning Systems

7. Quality Circles

8. Customer Satisfaction Survey

9. Analysis of Current and Anticipated Changes

Benefits of Training Needs Identification

1.    Trainers can be informed about the broader needs in advance

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2.    Trainers Perception Gaps can be reduced between employees and their supervisorsTrainers can design course inputs closer to the specific needs of the participants

3.    Diagnosis of causes of performance deficiencies can be done

Training Evaluation

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The process of examining a training program is called training evaluation. Training evaluation checks whether training has had the desired effect. Training evaluation ensures that whether candidates are able to implement their learning in their respective workplaces, or to the regular work routines

Techniques of Evaluation

The various methods of training evaluation are:

• Observation• Questionnaire

• Interview

• Self diaries

• Self recording of specific incidents

Types of evaluation

 Evaluating the Training (includes monitoring) addresses how one determines whether the goals or objectives were met and what impact the training had on actual performance on the job.

Generally there are four kinds of standard training evaluation:

1. Formative2. Process

3. Outcome

4. Impact.

1. Formative evaluation provides ongoing feedback to the curriculum designers and developers to ensure that what is being created really meets the needs of the intended audience.

2. Process evaluation provides information about what occurs during training. This includes giving and receiving verbal feedback.

3. Outcome evaluation determines whether or not the desired results (e.g., what participants are doing) of applying new skills were Achieved in the short-term.

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4. Impact determines how the results of the training affect the strategic goal

Evaluation Methods

 

Evaluation methods can be either qualitative (e.g., interviews, case studies, focus groups) or quantitative (e.g., surveys, experiments)

Training evaluation usually includes a combination of these methods and reframes our thinking about evaluation in that measurements are aimed at different levels of a system.

Formative Evaluation 

Formative Evaluation may be defined as “any combination of measurements obtained and judgments made before or during the implementation of materials, methods, or programs to control, assure or improve the quality of program performance or delivery.”

It answers such questions as, “Are the goals and objectives suitable for the intended audience?” “Are the methods and materials appropriate to the event?” “Can the event be easily replicated?”

Formative evaluation furnishes information for program developers and implementers.

It helps determine program planning and implementation activities in terms of (1) target population, (2) program organization, and (3) program location and timing.

It provides “short-loop” feedback about the quality and implementation of program activities and thus becomes critical to establishing, stabilizing, and upgrading programs.

Process Evaluation 

Process Evaluation answers the question, “What did you do?” It focuses on procedures and actions being used to produce results.

It monitors the quality of an event or project by various means. Traditionally, working as an “onlooker,” the evaluator describes this process and measures the results in oral and written reports.

Process evaluation is the most common type of training evaluation. It takes place during training delivery and at the end of the event.

Outcome Evaluation 

Outcome Evaluation answers the question, “What happened to the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of the intended population?”

This project would produce both “outcomes” and “impacts.”

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Outcome evaluation answers the question, “What did the participants do?”

Because outcomes refer to changes in behavior, outcome evaluation data is intended to measure what training participants were able to do at the end of training and what they actually did back on the job as a result of the training.

Impact Evaluation takes even longer than outcome evaluation and you may never know for sure that your project helped bring about the change.

Impacts occur through an accumulation of “outcomes.”

Performance Appraisal Methods

Performance Appraisal Methods

“It is a systematic evaluation of an individual with respect to performance on the job and individual’s potential for development.”

Definition 2: Formal System, Reasons and Measures of future performance

“It is formal, structured system of measuring, evaluating job related behaviors and outcomes to discover reasons of performance and how to perform effectively in future so that employee, organization and society all benefits.”

Meaning of Performance Appraisals

Performance Appraisals is the assessment of individual’s performance in a systematic way. It is a developmental tool used for all round development of the employee and the organization. The performance is measured against such factors as job knowledge, quality and quantity of output, initiative, leadership abilities, supervision, dependability, co-operation, judgment, versatility and health. Assessment should be confined to past as well as potential performance also. The second definition is more focused on behaviors as a part of assessment because behaviors do affect job results.

Performance Appraisals and Job Analysis Relationship

Job Analysis à Performance Standards à Performance AppraisalsDescribe the work and personnel requirement of a particular job.

Translate job requirements into levels of acceptable or unacceptable performance

Describe the job relevant strengths and weaknesses of each individual.

Objectives of Performance Appraisals

Use of Performance Appraisals

1. Promotions

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2. Confirmations3. Training and Development4. Compensation reviews5. Competency building6. Improve communication7. Evaluation of HR Programs8. Feedback & Grievances

4 Goals of Performance Appraisals

General Goals Specific GoalsDevelopmental Use Individual needs

Performance feedback Transfers and Placements Strengths and Development needs

Administrative Decisions / Uses Salary Promotion Retention / Termination Recognition Lay offs Poor Performers identification

Organizational Maintenance HR Planning Training Needs Organizational Goal achievements Goal Identification HR Systems Evaluation Reinforcement of organizational needs

Documentation Validation Research For HR Decisions Legal Requirements

Performance Appraisal Process

1. Objectives definition of appraisal2. Job expectations establishment3. Design an appraisal program4. Appraise the performance5. Performance Interviews6. Use data for appropriate purposes7. Identify opportunities variables8. Using social processes, physical processes, human and computer assistance

Difference between Traditional and Modern (Systems) approach to Appraisals

Categories Traditional Appraisals Modern, Systems AppraisalsGuiding Values Individualistic, Control

oriented, DocumentarySystematic, Developmental, Problem solving

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Leadership Styles Directional, Evaluative Facilitative, CoachingFrequency Occasional FrequentFormalities High LowRewards Individualistic Grouped, Organizational

TECHNIQUES / METHODS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS

Numerous methods have been devised to measure the quantity and quality of performance appraisals. Each of the methods is effective for some purposes for some organizations only. None should be dismissed or accepted as appropriate except as they relate to the particular needs of the organization or an employee.

Broadly all methods of appraisals can be divided into two different categories.

Past Oriented Methods

Future Oriented Methods

Past Oriented Methods

1. Rating Scales: Rating scales consists of several numerical scales representing job related performance criterions such as dependability, initiative, output, attendance, attitude etc. Each scales ranges from excellent to poor. The total numerical scores are computed and final conclusions are derived. Advantages – Adaptability, easy to use, low cost, every type of job can be evaluated, large number of employees covered, no formal training required. Disadvantages – Rater’s biases

2. Checklist: Under this method, checklist of statements of traits of employee in the form of Yes or No based questions is prepared. Here the rater only does the reporting or checking and HR department does the actual evaluation. Advantages – economy, ease of administration, limited training required, standardization. Disadvantages – Raters biases, use of improper weighs by HR, does not allow rater to give relative ratings

3. Forced Choice Method: The series of statements arranged in the blocks of two or more are given and the rater indicates which statement is true or false. The rater is forced to make a choice. HR department does actual assessment. Advantages – Absence of personal biases because of forced choice. Disadvantages – Statements may be wrongly framed.

4. Forced Distribution Method: here employees are clustered around a high point on a rating scale. Rater is compelled to distribute the employees on all points on the scale. It is assumed that the performance is conformed to normal distribution. Advantages – Eliminates Disadvantages – Assumption of normal distribution, unrealistic, errors of central tendency.

5. Critical Incidents Method: The approach is focused on certain critical behaviors of employee that makes all the difference in the performance. Supervisors as and when they occur record such incidents. Advantages – Evaluations are based on actual job behaviors, ratings are supported by descriptions, feedback is easy, reduces recency

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biases, chances of subordinate improvement are high. Disadvantages – Negative incidents can be prioritized, forgetting incidents, overly close supervision; feedback may be too much and may appear to be punishment.

6. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales: statements of effective and ineffective behaviors determine the points. They are said to be behaviorally anchored. The rater is supposed to say, which behavior describes the employee performance. Advantages – helps overcome rating errors. Disadvantages – Suffers from distortions inherent in most rating techniques.

7. Field Review Method: This is an appraisal done by someone outside employees’ own department usually from corporate or HR department. Advantages – Useful for managerial level promotions, when comparable information is needed, Disadvantages – Outsider is generally not familiar with employees work environment, Observation of actual behaviors not possible.

8. Performance Tests & Observations: This is based on the test of knowledge or skills. The tests may be written or an actual presentation of skills. Tests must be reliable and validated to be useful. Advantage – Tests may be apt to measure potential more than actual performance. Disadvantages – Tests may suffer if costs of test development or administration are high.

9. Confidential Records: Mostly used by government departments, however its application in industry is not ruled out. Here the report is given in the form of Annual Confidentiality Report (ACR) and may record ratings with respect to following items; attendance, self expression, team work, leadership, initiative, technical ability, reasoning ability, originality and resourcefulness etc. The system is highly secretive and confidential. Feedback to the assessee is given only in case of an adverse entry. Disadvantage is that it is highly subjective and ratings can be manipulated because the evaluations are linked to HR actions like promotions etc.

10. Essay Method: In this method the rater writes down the employee description in detail within a number of broad categories like, overall impression of performance, promoteability of employee, existing capabilities and qualifications of performing jobs, strengths and weaknesses and training needs of the employee. Advantage – It is extremely useful in filing information gaps about the employees that often occur in a better-structured checklist. Disadvantages – It its highly dependent upon the writing skills of rater and most of them are not good writers. They may get confused success depends on the memory power of raters.

11. Cost Accounting Method: Here performance is evaluated from the monetary returns yields to his or her organization. Cost to keep employee, and benefit the organization derives is ascertained. Hence it is more dependent upon cost and benefit analysis.

12. Comparative Evaluation Method (Ranking & Paired Comparisons): These are collection of different methods that compare performance with that of other co-workers. The usual techniques used may be ranking methods and paired comparison method.

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• Ranking Methods: Superior ranks his worker based on merit, from best to worst. However how best and why best are not elaborated in this method. It is easy to administer and explanation.

• Paired Comparison Methods: In this method each employee is rated with another employee in the form of pairs. The number of comparisons may be calculated with the help of a formula as under. N x (N-1) / 2

Future Oriented Methods

1.    Management By Objectives: It means management by objectives and the performance is rated against the achievement of objectives stated by the management. MBO process goes as under.

• Establish goals and desired outcomes for each subordinate• Setting performance standards• Comparison of actual goals with goals attained by the employee• Establish new goals and new strategies for goals not achieved in previous year.

Advantage – It is more useful for managerial positions.

Disadvantages – Not applicable to all jobs, allocation of merit pay may result in setting short-term goals rather than important and long-term goals etc.

2.    Psychological Appraisals: These appraisals are more directed to assess employees potential for future performance rather than the past one. It is done in the form of in-depth interviews, psychological tests, and discussion with supervisors and review of other evaluations. It is more focused on employees emotional, intellectual, and motivational and other personal characteristics affecting his performance. This approach is slow and costly and may be useful for bright young members who may have considerable potential. However quality of these appraisals largely depend upon the skills of psychologists who perform the evaluation.

3.    Assessment Centers: This technique was first developed in USA and UK in 1943. An assessment center is a central location where managers may come together to have their participation in job related exercises evaluated by trained observers. It is more focused on observation of behaviors across a series of select exercises or work samples. Assessees are requested to participate in in-basket exercises, work groups, computer simulations, role playing and other similar activities which require same attributes for successful performance in actual job. The characteristics assessed in assessment center can be assertiveness, persuasive ability, communicating ability, planning and organizational ability, self confidence, resistance to stress, energy level, decision making, sensitivity to feelings, administrative ability, creativity and mental alertness etc. Disadvantages – Costs of employees traveling and lodging, psychologists, ratings strongly influenced by assessee’s inter-personal skills. Solid performers may feel suffocated in simulated situations. Those who are not selected for this also may get affected.

Advantages – well-conducted assessment center can achieve better forecasts of future performance and progress than other methods of appraisals. Also reliability, content validity

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and predictive ability are said to be high in assessment centers. The tests also make sure that the wrong people are not hired or promoted. Finally it clearly defines the criteria for selection and promotion.

4.    360-Degree Feedback: It is a technique which is systematic collection of performance data on an individual group, derived from a number of stakeholders like immediate supervisors, team members, customers, peers and self. In fact anyone who has useful information on how an employee does a job may be one of the appraisers. This technique is highly useful in terms of broader perspective, greater self-development and multi-source feedback is useful. 360-degree appraisals are useful to measure inter-personal skills, customer satisfaction and team building skills. However on the negative side, receiving feedback from multiple sources can be intimidating, threatening etc. Multiple raters may be less adept at providing balanced and objective feedback.

Evaluation in PA

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Evaluation Criteria in Performance Appraisal

Organizational Support Factors for Performance Appraisal Systems

Performance appraisal serves many organizational objectives and goals. Besides encouraging high level of performance, the evaluation system is useful in identifying employees with potential, rewarding them equitably, and determining employee needs for development. All these activities are instrumental in achieving corporate plans and long-term growth, typical appraisal system in most organizations have been focused on short-term goals only.

From the strategic management point of views, organizations can be grouped under 3 different categories as defenders, prospectors and analyzers.

Defenders: They have narrow and stable product market domain. They don’t need to make any adjustment in technology, structure or methods of operations etc. They devote entire attention on improving existing operations. Because of emphasis on skill building successful defenders use appraisals as means for identifying training needs. It is more behavior oriented.

Prospectors: They continuously search for new products and opportunities. They experiment regularly to new and emerging trends. They more focus on skills identification and acquisition of human resources from external sources prospectors often use appraisals for identifying staffing needs. The focus is on results.

Analyzers: They operate in two type of product domain markets. One is stable and other is changing. They watch their competitors closely and rapidly adopt the ideas that are promising. They use cost effective technologies for stable products and matrix technologies for new products. Analyzers tend to emphasize on skills building and skills acquisitions and employ extensive training programs. Hence they use appraisal more for training and staffing purposes.

However performance appraisal systems has strategic importance in three different ways.52

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Feedback Mechanism: Performance evaluation is the central mechanism that not only provides feedback to individuals but also aids in the assessment of the progress of organization as a whole. Without appraisals managers of any firm can only guess as to whether or not employees are working towards realization of the organization goals.

Consistency between strategy and job behavior: Performance appraisal not only is a means of knowing if the employee behavior is consistent with the overall strategies focus but also a way of bringing to the fore any negative consequence of the strategy – behavior fit. Thus the performance appraisal system is an important mechanism to elicit feedback on the consistency of the strategy – behavior link.

Consistency between Values and Job Behavior link: Performance evaluation is a mechanism to reinforce values and culture of the organization. Another importance is to align appraisal with organizational culture.

Thus the purpose of performance evaluation is to make sure that employee’s goals, employees behavior and feedback of information about performance are all linked to the corporate strategy.

Essentials of a Good Performance Appraisal System:

1. Standardized Performance Appraisal System

2. Uniformity of appraisals

3. Defined performance standards

4. Trained Raters

5. Use of relevant rating tools or methods

6. Should be based on job analysis

7. Use of objectively verifiable data

8. Avoid rating problems like halo effect, central tendency, leniency, severity etc.

9. Consistent Documentations maintained

10. No room for discrimination based on cast, creed, race, religion, region etc.

Problems of Rating: 1.    Leniency & Severity

2.    Central Tendency

3.    Halo Error

4.    Rater Effect

5.    Primacy & Recency Effect

6.    Perceptual Sets

7.    Performance Dimensions Order

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9.    Status Effect

Coaching Process

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Performance Coaching Process

BEFORE THE APPRAISAL

Keep good records

Both praise and criticism are most meaningful when supported by factual examples

Review previous goals

Use previous goals to evaluate progress

Get input from others

Seek feedback from others who work with the appraisee in areas they will have objective knowledge of and get examples where available

Prepare carefullyPrepare in advance so that you can deliver the message that you intend to

Prepare administrative details

agree on a time – set aside at least one hour. Avoid postponing the appointment, and give the employee full attention.

select a location – office or conference room is best. ask employee to prepare – ask the employee to review

his/her goals, and come prepared with questions.

DURING THE APPRAISAL

Explain the meeting agenda

Outline what is about to happen for the session

Encourage communication

listen encourage two-way communication ask for ideas on how they can improve their performance ask for how they feel you can help them ask for feedback on the appraisal section

Stay focused Keep the session focussed on past and future performance, summarise discussion issues often to ensure agreement

Communicating shortcomings

The employee expects and should know what he/she needs to improve

Be open Be versatile and open-minded if you hear things that cause you to change your opinion

DURING THE APPRAISAL

Evaluation process

Begin with the positive things that were well done Follow this with areas that need improvement and a plan

on how to address them Conclude with a reinforcement of your desire to help the

person grow and improveMaking promises

Don’t make promises you do not have control over (e.g. salary increments, promotions, transfers etc)

Review goals Concentrate on a few areas- things that make a difference. 

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Try to encourage continuation and growth in the areas of strength. Set up “smart” goals that will build strength in areas needing attention

AFTER THE APPRAISAL

Administration Complete the paperwork required for the results of the appraisal

Make sure the appraisee signs on the bottom line Mark the calendar on when your next appraisal session

with the person will beFollow-up Follow-up on agreements made during the appraisalLearning Review what you have learnt about the employee, your

records and systems, yourself, the appraisal process and your management style

Feedback Skill

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Developing Feedback Skill

1. Feedback meetings that address people’s weaknesses can elicit anxiety and defensiveness, so start the meeting by stating the following expectations:

• The meeting is developmental – not punitive. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and should have the opportunity to continue to grow professionally.

• The meeting should lead to positive results and opportunities to further develop strengths and address blind spots. Everyone has areas they can improve.

• There will be an opportunity to develop goals and an actionable developmental plan.

• There will be further instances of 360 feedback to give the leader an opportunity to track leadership development over time.

• The leader should feel free to ask for feedback at any point; feedback conversations need not be limited to once a year.

2. Address the individual’s strengths and point out areas they received positive feedback, supporting these with examples of behaviors the leader has shown.

3. Address areas in which the individual received feedback that they need to improve, supporting these with examples of behaviors the leader has shown. Time should be allowed for discussion of the person’s feelings, possible disagreement, and understanding of the data.

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4. Areas in which there were large differences in the way the leader perceived him/herself and others perceived him/her should be discussed in order to increase selfawareness.

5. Areas in which there were large differences in the way different rater groups (i.e. subordinates, customers, peers) perceived the leader should be explored to increase self-awareness.

6. Opportunities for development should be outlined as a final step in the meeting. This should include an action plan, coaching or training opportunities that may be available for the leader, and times for follow up meetings throughout the year.

How to Give Effective Performance Feedback

Guidelines for Managers

Performance feedback is an essential element of the supervisor/subordinate relationship.  The vast majority of people want to make a difference in their place of work.  They want to be recognized for their accomplishments and learn how to become even better.  They want to know where they stand.  People crave feedback that is honest, positive, objective, and fair.

Surprisingly, something as simple and effective as performance feedback is often rare.  Even in the United States Air Force, where formal feedback is a mandatory part of the evaluation system, as many as half of the workforce say they rarely get feedback from their supervisors.

I see three main obstacles to giving effective feedback in today’s leadership environment.  First is the pace of operations; supervisors often say they are so busy they don’t have the time to devote to giving feedback properly.  Second is the collegial atmosphere in many modern workplaces.  The good news is that many supervisors have taken time to know their subordinates and their families.  Their “door is always open.”  The bad news is that this familiarity can make it hard to look someone in the eye and tell him or her they could be more effective.

The third obstacle might be the readiness of the subordinate to receive feedback.  Subordinates might have trouble recognizing there are areas in which they can improve.  They might be defensive or concerned for their jobs.  There might be personality differences or other issues between the supervisor and subordinate that interfere with communication.  An effective supervisor must be aware of all the dynamics of the relationship and make appropriate adjustments in the approach to feedback.

A formal feedback process has important advantages for supervisors.  It motivates subordinates and helps them become more effective.  By establishing a dialogue with subordinates, supervisors can better understand their individual wants and needs, and the climate of the organization.  In organizations like the Air Force, where retaining quality people is a high priority, an effective performance feedback system is essential.

Principles for Giving Performance Feedback

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Specific – Feedback must be based on observable behavior, not one’s feelings or the conclusions drawn from the behavior.  For example, “Last Friday morning I saw you help Mary fix a problem on her computer.  Your willingness to share your expertise is a great example of teamwork and makes this a more effective organization.”  This specific example, tied to a positive organizational outcome, is more effective than saying “You are a helpful person,” since the subordinate can link the feedback to an actual event.

Timely – Feedback should be given in a timely enough manner so that both parties can recall the specific behavior involved.

Actionable – Feedback should be based on something over which a person has control.  When necessary, the supervisor should identify ways to improve performance.

Measurable – Goals and objectives should be stated in terms so that both parties will know if the goals are achieved.

Achievable – Performance measures should be realistic and within the resources that are available to the subordinate.

Positive – Give both positive and critical feedback, but tip the balance in the positive direction.  The Center for Creative Leadership suggests a 4:1 ratio of positive to critical feedback.

Non-evaluative – Opinions, perceptions, and reactions should be differentiated from facts.  Don’t psychoanalyze; avoid inferences and interpretations.  Avoid labels.

Establish a dialogue – The effective feedback session is not a one-way communication.  The supervisor should ask the subordinate if he or she fully understands what is being said and then listen carefully to the response.  The supervisor should ensure the subordinate understands his or her role in the organization and how that role contributes to the goals and mission of the organization.

Initial Feedback

The supervisor should meet with the subordinate soon after the arrival of the new member.  In the Air Force, initial feedback is required within the first 60 days of arrival.  The purpose of the initial feedback session is to help establish the relationship between the rater and ratee.  It is also about setting expectations for the upcoming rating period.  It is not necessary to negotiate objectives with the subordinate, but the supervisor should help the subordinate take ownership of the goals and internalize expectations.  Both parties should leave the initial feedback session with a clear understanding of what is expected.  The supervisor provides a written record of the feedback session.  This written record is held in confidence between the rater and ratee.

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The Air Force requires that supervisors conduct a follow-up feedback session mid-way through the evaluation period.  This session should be conducted using the principles above, and should address the extent to which the expectations were met.  As before, a confidential, written record is provided.

The annual performance appraisal system is not a substitute for good communication within the workplace or for timely routine feedback.  For example, if the subordinate is consistently late for routine meetings, it makes no sense to wait until the annual appraisal cycle to make that person aware of the problem.  In the same way, workers who consistently perform above standards should not have to wait months to know that their work is appreciated.  Supervisors should not assume that, because certain behaviors are obvious to them, they are equally obvious to the subordinate.  Daily or routine feedback needs to remain consistent with the principles above.

Finally, supervisors who routinely give feedback (both positive and corrective) to subordinates may want to follow up with a personal note or memo.  It is possible that the feedback is so routine (or the subordinate so unreceptive) that the subordinate misses the message or doesn’t even realize that feedback has taken place.

Giving feedback is a key responsibility of a leader.  Work climate surveys strongly suggest that job satisfaction, morale, and retention are closely related to the ability of a leader to provide feedback.  Senior leaders must set the example for the organization by giving timely feedback and demanding that leaders at all levels do the same

Appraising

How and When to appraiseAlthough in day-to-day work, supervisors continually appraise their subordinates, the daily appraisal lacks summation and objectivity. To overcome these deficiencies most organisations opt for periodic appraisals through the process of ‘Performance Appraisal’, either annually or semi annually. In addition ‘Special Appraisals’ may also be carried out at the end of an employee’s probation period or at the time of his promotion. Some important points to be kept in mind while carrying out appraisals are:-

Frequency of appraisal must satisfy the purpose for which they are being made. Special appraisals must be made at the end of employee’s probationary period or at

the time of his promotion.

More frequent appraisal may be required for new employees.

In the case of an unsatisfactory rating the subsequent appraisal is generally carried out earlier than usual to assess whether the employee has improved.

Who Should Appraise

Performance appraisal is essentially a command function; hence it should be carried out by line managers.  HR managers should only be involved only in coordination of the activity. Traditionally appraisal is carried out by one or more superiors in the line channel; however

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they may also be carried out by peers, subordinates or even by the employee himself. In certain cases clients/customers are also involved in the process of appraisal.

What Should be Appraised

Every organisation has to decide upon the aspects to be appraised. Generally, the aspects to be apprised are determined on the basis of job expectation and established a plan for improvement. The aspects to be appraised may be in the form of personal attributes/characteristics of the employee, his contribution to organisational objectives like production, savings in terms of cost, return on capital etc. The aspects to be covered in appraisal may vary with the purpose of appraisal and type and level of employees.

Purpose Served by Performance Appraisal

1. Identifies personal attributes or characteristics of each employee. (elaborate)2. Helps to assess performance of each employee and their contribution to the

organisation during the concerned period.

3. Identifies strengths and weaknesses of employees and assists in formulation of appropriate programs for their training and development

4. Serves as a feedback to the employees. It lets the employees know whether his performance meets the standard expected from them and what improvements are desired.

5. Establishes an effective monitoring system in the organisation whereby the superiors and executives are required to be more observant of their subordinates because they will be required to periodically fill in the appraisal forms and would be called upon to justify appraisals made by them.

6. Serves as a tool to identify potential in employees for promotion to higher position or for transfer to another more suitable job.

7. Enables evaluation of policies adopted for recruitment, selection and placement as well as the policies adopted for training and development.

8. Leads to maintenance of permanent records of attributes, characteristics and performance of all employees, thereby avoiding subjective judgment by based only on personal knowledge at the time of taking important decisions.

Essentials of a Good Appraisal System

1. It should be simple i.e. easy to understand and should not be very long and time consuming. It should not be excessively verbose or use ambiguous terms and phrases.

2. The system must be explained to and accepted by employees at all levels.  All employees must be convinced that the system essential for their own betterment and in overall organisational interest.

3. There are various methods of ‘Performance Appraisal’. A method that works well for one company may not work for another. An organisation must adopt the method

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which conforms to their requirements and is most suitable considering the organisation’s structure and operations.

4. There can not be one common ‘Appraisal Form’ for all level of employees.  Separate forms should be used for different levels of employees.    Each form should be prepared keeping in mind specific requirements of that particular level.

5. The appraisal method adopted should be both valid and reliable. Validity of appraisal method is the degree to which it is truly indicative of the intrinsic attributes and characteristics as well as the standard of performance of each employee. Reliability of the appraisal method is the consistency with which the appraisals are made, either by different appraisers or by the same appraiser. Performance of an employee may vary from time to time but his basic – intrinsic attributes and characteristics can not change.

6. Appraisal should be based on performance of the employee only during the period of review, i.e. without any consideration of his past performance.

7. The appraisal must clearly bring out whether the employee is fit for promotion, the jobs or positions in which he can be suitably employed and also recommendations for training that the employee is required to be provided.

8. The system must be just and equitable.  It should duly protect rights and interests of the organisation as well as of the individual employees.

9. To prevent subjective reporting and vindictiveness every employee must be appraised by at least two or more persons.

10. All negative/adverse remarks must be conveyed to the employees and he should be provided an opportunity to represent against the same. A formal procedure must be established to process any such representations.

11. The appraisal system must be periodically evaluated, reviewed and modified to retain it’s validity, reliability and effectiveness.

Reasons For Failure of Performance Appraisal.

1 Unclear Objective.  An appraisal does not serve its purpose when the appraiser is not clear about objective or aim of the appraisal leading to highlighting of irrelevant aspects of the employee’s performance and exclusion of crucial aspects.

2 Strictness or Leniency.  Based on individual perceptions many appraisers are either too strict or too lenient. This leads to imbalance in appraisal pattern in the organisation. In an organisation an appraiser who is very strict may give five points out of ten to an employee who deserving seven. In the same organisation if there is another appraiser who is very lenient, he may give seven points to another employee who is less efficient and deserves only five points.  In such a situation because of strictness/ leniency of appraisers less efficient employee may be promoted.

3 Central Tendency.  This is opposite of strictness and leniency.  An appraiser having central tendency tends to avoid giving high or low points and instead rates all

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employees as average.  This leads to failure of appraisal system as all the employees, good, bad and average, end up with same raring.

4 Biased Appraisal.   It occurs when appraisal is influenced by individual differences like age, sex, caste, race, personal likings/relations etc.

5 Halo Effect.  The problem occurs when rating of one trait of the ratee is influenced by the appraiser’s favourable opinion of some other trait. For example an employee who is very well behaved may be rated high for sincerity even if he is actually not very sincere.   Another example of halo effect is that influenced by good or bad performance of an employee in one aspect of the job, an appraiser may rate him high or low in other aspects of the job e.g. an employee who is good in machine operating may be reported as good in maintenance also.  Halo Effect also occurs when influenced by good performance of an employee in the past the appraiser rates him high even though his performance during the period of review was average or below average.

6 Pitch Fork Effect.  This is exactly opposite of Halo effect. It occurs when an employee who has performed well during the period of review is given low grading because of his substandard performance in the past.  Similarly because of poor performance in one aspect, an employee may receive overall low grading or low grading in other aspects as well.

7 Recency Error.  Appraiser is supposed to honestly appraise performance of the employee for the entire period of appraisal. However, at times, instead of giving equal weightage to performance over the entire period, appraisal is influenced by happenings/occurrences in the recent past.  Such an error is called recency error.

8 Length of Service Bias.  It occurs when the appraiser thinks that employees having more experience or longer service are better and irrespective of their performance tends to rate them higher.

9 Competitive Appraiser.  Some appraisers compete with other appraisers in the organisation in giving higher rating than others leading to excessively inflated appraisals. Such appraisers are called competitive appraisers.

Mentoring Process

What is mentoring?

“Mentoring is advising, teaching, counseling and role modeling.  Formal mentoring matches a senior or more experienced person—the mentor—to a junior or less experienced person—the mentee.

Mentors focus on a mentee’s achievements, success in school and preparation for the workforce through a one-to-one relationship that is non-threatening and non-judgmental to both parties.

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It is a relationship that changes over time as each grows, learns, and gains experiences in the relationship.”

Types of Mentoring

Peer Mentoring

– Mentor/mentee—similar ages– Mentor experience > mentee experience

Group Mentoring

– Multiple mentees

Professional Mentoring

– Major difference in life experience

Foundations of Mentoring

Attributes —The mentor will demonstrate

1. Strong performances and continuous improvement on each performance that they mentor

2. Ability to grow the performance abilities of mentees

3. Professional behavior and attitudes

4. Commitment to improving the enriched learning environment project—both the team and the overall environment

•          Clearly defined educational goals• Measurable elements of engineering performance

•          Clearly defined expectations• For the professors• For the mentors• For the mentees•

•          Mentor Training• Mentoring is a learned performance (not an innate skill)

HOW TO SELECT PROMISING MENTORS

Effective mentors share a number of characteristics. The profile sketched below is based on a synthesis of observations described by many mentors and authors. While any single mentor may not possess all of the characteristics, effective mentors have many of these qualities:

Knowledge of Their Field

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They are considered by peers to be experts in the field. They set high standards for themselves. They enjoy and are enthusiastic about their field. They continue to update their background in the field.

Demonstrated Skills in Their Field

Their work demonstrates superior achievement. They use a variety of techniques and skills to achieve their goals.

Earned Respect of Colleagues

They listen to and communicate effectively with others. They exhibit a good feeling about their own accomplishments and about the

profession. They recognize excellence in others and encourage it. They are committed to supporting and interacting with their colleagues. They are able to role-play others and understand their views. They enjoy intellectual engagement and like to help others. They are sensitive to the needs of others and generally recognize when others require

support, direct assistance or independence. They exercise good judgment in decisions concerning themselves and the welfare of

others.

Some Characteristics of a Good Mentor

Approachable and welcoming Shares information and experiences openly Good communication skills Trustworthy Provides accurate and appropriate feedback Technical expertise Motivating, encouraging, positive and empowering Allocates appropriate time to mentoring Sensitive to the needs of the coach/official

The Mentoring Process

Goal setting Observation Analysis Providing feedback Action planning Review

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Organizational Change and Intervention Strategies

Organization Change

The change means the alteration of status quo or making things different. It may refer to any alteration which occurs in the overall work environment of an organization. When an organizational system is disturbed by some internal or external force, the change may occur. The change is modification of the structure or process of a system, that may be good or even bad. It disturbs the existing equilibrium or status quo in an organization. The change in any part of the organization may affect the whole of the organization, or various other parts of organization in varying degrees of speed and significance. It may affect people, structure, technology, and other elements of an organization. It may be reactive or proactive in nature. When change takes place due to external forces, it is called reactive change. However, proactive change is initiated by the

management on its own to enhance the organizational effectiveness. The change is one of the most critical aspects of effective management. It is the coping process of moving from the present state to a desired state that individuals, groups and organizations undertake in response to various internal and external factors that alter current realities.

Survival of even the most successful organizations cannot be taken for granted. In some sectors of the economy, organizations must have the capability to adapt quickly in order to survive. When organizations fail to change, the cost of failure may be quite high. All organizations exist in a changing environment and are themselves constantly changing. Increasingly, the organizations that emphasize bureaucratic or mechanistic systems are ineffective. The organizations with rigid hierarchies, high degree of functional specialization, narrow and limited job descriptions, inflexible rules and procedures, and impersonal management can’t respond adequately to the demands for change. The organizations need designs that are flexible and adaptive. They also need systems that require both, and allow greater commitment and use of talent on the part of employees and managers. The organizations that do not bring about timely change in appropriate ways are unlikely to survive. One reason that the rate of change is accelerating is that knowledge and technology feed on themselves, constantly making innovations at exponential rates.

Organizational change is the process by which organizations move from their present state to some desired future state to increase their effectiveness. The goal of planned organizational change is to find new or improved ways of using resources and capabilities in order to increase an organization’s ability to create value and improve returns to its stakeholders. An organization in decline may need to restructure its resources to improve its fit with the environment

The Imperative of Change

Any organization that ignores change does so at its own peril. One might suggest that for many the peril would come sooner rather than later. To survive and prosper, the organizations must adopt strategies that realistically reflect their ability to manage multiple future scenarios. Drucker, for example, argued that : Increasingly, a winning strategy will require information about events and conditions outside the institution. Only with this information can a business prepare for new changes and challenges arising from sudden shifts in the

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world economy and in the nature and content of knowledge itself. If we take an external perspective for a moment, the average modern organization has to come to terms with a number of issues, which will create a need for internal change. Six major external changes that organizations are currently addressing or will have to come to terms with in the new millennium are :

1. A large global marketplace made smaller by enhanced technologies and competition from abroad. The liberalization of Eastern European states, the creation of a simple European currency, e-trading, the establishment of new trading blocs such as the ‘tiger’ economies of the Far East, and reductions in transportation, information and communication costs, mean that the world is a different place from what it was. How does an organization plan to respond to such competitive pressures?

2. A Worldwide recognition of the environment as an influencing variable and government attempts to draw back from environmental calamity. There are legal, cultural and socio-economic implications in realizing that resource use and allocation have finite limits and that global solutions to ozone depletion, toxic waste dumping, raw material depletion, and other  environmental concerns will force change on organizations, sooner rather than later. How does an individual organization respond to the bigger picture?

3. Health consciousness as a permanent trend amongst all age groups throughout the world. The growing awareness and concern with the content of food and beverage products has created a movement away from synthetic towards natural products. Concerns have been expressed about salmonella in eggs and poultry, listeria in chilled foods, BSE or ‘mad cow disease’ and CJD in humans, genetically engineered foodstuffs, and the cloning of animals. How does an individual organization deal with the demands of a more healthconscious population?

4. Changes in lifestyle trends are affecting the way in which people view work, purchases, leisure time and society. A more morally questioning, affluent, educated and involved population is challenging the way in which we will do business and socialize. How will people and their organization live their lives?

5. The changing workplace creates a need for non-traditional employees. Many organizations have downsized too far and created management and labour skill shortages as a result. In order to make up the shortfall, organizations are currently resorting to a core/periphery workforce, teleworking, multi-skilled workers and outsourcing. A greater proportion of the population who have not been traditional employees (e.g., women with school aged children) will need to be attracted into the labour force. Equal opportunity in pay and non-pecuniary rewards will be issues in the future. How will an individual organization cope with these pressures?

6. The knowledge asset of the company, its people, is becoming increasingly crucial to its competitive wellbeing. Technolgical and communication advances are leading to reduced entry costs across world markets. This enables organizations to become multinational without leaving their own borders. However, marketing via the internet, communication viae-mail and other technology applications are all still reliant on the way you organize your human resources.

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Your only sustainable competitive weapon is your people. How do you intend managing them in the next millennium? The same way as you did in the last?  What is important, however, is recognition that change occurs continuously, has numerous causes, and needs to be addressed all the time. The planned change is not impossible, but it is often difficult. The key point is that

change is an ongoing process, and it is incorrect to think that a visionary end state can be reached in a highly programmed way.

Stimulating Forces

What makes an organization to think about change? There are a number of specific, even obvious factors which will necessitate movement from the status quo. The most obvious of these relate to changes in the external environment which trigger reaction. An example of this in the last couple of years is the move by car manufacturers and petroleum organizations towards the

provision of more environmentally friendly forms of ‘produce’. However, to attribute change entirely to the environment would be a denial of extreme magnitude. This would imply that organizations were merely ‘bobbing about’ on a turbulent sea of change, unable to influence or exercise direction. The changes within an organization take place in response both to business and economic events and to processes of management perception, choice and action.

Managers in this sense see events taking place that, to them, signal the need for change. They also perceive the internal context of change as it relates to structure, culture, systems of power and control, which gives them further clues about whether it is worth trying to introduce change. But what causes change?

What factors need to be considered when we look for the causal effects which run from A to B in an organization? The change may occur in response to the :

1. Changes in technology used2. Changes in customer expectations or tastes3. Changes as a result of competition4. Changes as a result of government legislation5. Changes as a result of alterations in the economy at home or abroad6. Changes in communication media7. Changes in society’s value systems8. Changes in the supply chain9. Changes in the distribution chain

Internal changes can be seen as responses or reactions to the outside world which are regarded as external triggers. There are also a large number of factors which lead to what are termed internal triggers for change. Organization redesigns to fit a new product line or new marketing strategy are typical examples, as are changes in job responsibilities to fit new organizational

structures. The final cause of change in organizations is where the organization tries to be ahead of change by being proactive. For example, where the organization tries to anticipate

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problems in the marketplace or negate the impact of worldwide recession on its own business, proactive change is taking place

Approaches

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Approaches to problem Diagnosis

The phases of OD programmes are as follows:

1. Entry2. Contracting

3. diagnosis

4. Feedback

5. planning change

6. Intervention

7. Evaluation

EntryEntry represents the initial contact between consultant and client; this includes exploring the situation that led the client to seek a consultant and determining whether there is a good match between the client, the consultant, and the problem atic situation.

Contracting Contracting involves establishing mutual expectations; reaching agreement on expenditures of time, money, and resources; and generally clarifying what each party expects to get and give to the other.

DiagnosisDiagnosis is the fact-finding phase, which produces a picture of the situation through interviews, observations, questionnaires, examination of organization documents, and the like. This phase has two steps: collecting information and analyzing it.

FeedbackFeedback represents returning the analyzed information to the client system. In this phase, the clients explore the information for understanding,clarification, and accuracy; they own the data as their picture of the situation and their problems and opportunities.

Planning ChangePlanning change involves the clients’ deciding what actions to take on the basis of information they have just learned. Alternatives are explored and critiqued; action plans are selected and developed.

Intervention

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Intervention involves implementing sets of actions designed to correct the problems or seize the opportunities.

EvaluationEvaluation represents assessing the effects of the program: What changes occurred? Are we satisfied with the results?

Cummings and Worley also explore implementation issues. They identify five sets of activities required for effective management of OD and OT programs:

(1)  Motivating change,(2)  Creating a vision,(3)  Developing political support,(4)  Managing the transition,(5)  Sustaining momentum.

These activities include specific steps for the consultant to take to ensure effective implementation. For example, motivating change involves creating readiness for change and overcoming resistance to change.

Creating a vision involves providing a picture of the future and showing how individuals and groups will fit into that future, as well as providing a road map and interim goals. Developing political support involves obtaining the support of key individuals and groups and influencing key stakeholders to move the change effort for ward. Managing the transition means planning the needed transition activities, getting commitments of people and resources, and creating necessary structures and milestones to help people locomote from “where we are” to “where we want to be.”

Sustaining momentum involves providing resources for the change effort, helping people develop new competencies and skills, and reinforcing the desired new behaviors. These are the details consultants and leaders must attend to when implementing organization development and transformation programs.

Strategies of organization development implementation:

Trust building :

Scholars have widely acknowledge that trust can lead to cooperative behavior among individuals, groups, and organizations. Today, in an era when organizations are searching for new ways to promote cooperation between people and groups to enhance the value they create, it is not surprising that interest in the concept of trust and, in particular, how to promote or actualize it is increasing. For example, many organizations have sought to increase cooperation between people and groups by reengineering their structures into flatter, more team-based forms, in which authority is decentralized to “empowered” lower-level employees.

Creating readiness for change :

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Readiness, which is similar to Lewin’s (1951) concept of unfreezing, is reflected in organizational members’ beliefs, attitudes, and intentions regarding the extent to which changes are needed and the organization’s capacity to successfully make those changes. Readiness is the cognitive precursor to the behaviors of either resistance to, or support to the behaviors of either resistance to, or support for, a change effort. Schein (1979) has argued “the reason so many change efforts run into resistance or outright failure is usually directly traceable to their not providing for an effective unfreezing process before attempting a change induction”

Models of organization development

The most commonly considered expression of power in organization research and practice in downward power, which is the influence of a superior over a subordinate. This kind of influence in the form of one having power over another is a central focus in much of our traditional leadership research and training, such as Theory X versus Theory Y or task oriented versus people oriented style. Upward power refers to attempts by subordinates to influence their superiors. Until recently, subordinates were considered relatively powerless. But a small and growing body of research indicates that subordinates can and do influence their superiors in subtle ways. A third direction, sideways power, refers to influence attempts directed at those people who are neither subordinates nor superiors in one’s immediate reporting chain of authority. Horizontal power, interdepartmental power, external relationships, and lateral relationships are all terms that reflect expressions of sideways power.

T – Group training

Efforts to improve group functioning through training have traditionally emphasized the training of group leadership. And frequently this training has been directed toward the improvement of the skills of the leader in transmitting information and in manipulating groups.

Impact of Organizational Intervention

As our knowledge increases, it begins to be apparent that these competing change strategies are not really different ways of doing the same thing-some more effective and some less effective-but rather that they are different ways of doing different things. They touch the individual, the group, or the organization in different aspects of their functioning. They require differing kinds and amounts of commitment on the part of the client for them to be successful, and they demand different varieties and levels of skills and abilities on the part of the practitioner. Strategies which touch the more deep, personal, private, and central aspects of the individual or his relationships with others fall toward the deeper end of this continuum. Strategies which deal with more external aspects of the individual and which focus on the more formal and public aspects of role behavior tend to fall toward the surface end of the depth dimension. This dimension has the advantage that it is relatively easy to rank change strategies upon it and to get fairly close consensus as to the ranking.

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Major Techniques of Planned change

Planned Change

Planned organizational change is normally targeted at improving effectiveness at one or more of four different levels : human resources, functional resources, technological capabilities, and organizational capabilities.

Human Resources : Human resources are an organization’s most important asset. Ultimately, an organization’s distinctive competencies lie in the skills and abilities of its employees. Because these skills and abilities give an organization a competitive advantage, organizations must continually monitor their structures to find the most effective way of motivating and organizing human resources to acquire and use their skills. Typical kinds of change efforts directed at human resources include : (i) new investment in training and development activities so that employees acquire new skills and abilities; (ii) socializing employees into the organizational culture so that they learn the new routines on which organizational performance depends; (iii) changing organizational norms and values to motivate a multi-cultural and diverse work force; (iv) ongoing examination of the way in which promotion and reward systems operate in a diverse work force; and (v) changing the composition of the top-management team to improve organizational learning and decision making.

Functional Resources : Each organizational function needs to develop procedures that allow it to manage the particular environment it faces. As the environment changes, organizations often transfer resources to the functions where the most value can be created. Critical functions grow in importance, while those whose usefulness is declining shrink. An organization can improve the value that its functions create by changing its structure, culture, and technology. The change from a functional to a product team structure, for example, may speed the new product development process. Alterations in functional structure can help provide a setting in which people are motivated to perform. The change from traditional mass production to a manufacturing operation based on self-managed work teams often allows companies to increase product quality and productivity if employees can share in the gains from the new work system.

Technological Capabilities : Technological capabilities give an organization an enormous capacity to change itself in order to exploit market opportunities. The ability to develop a constant stream of new products or to modify existing products so that they continue to attract customers is one of an organization’s core competencies. Similarly, the ability to improve the way goods and services are produced in order to increase their quality and reliability is a crucial organizational capability. At the organizational level, an organization has to provide the context that allows it to translate its technological competencies into value for its stakeholders. This task often involves the redesign of organizational activities. IBM, for example, has recently moved to change its organizational structure to better capitalize on its strengths in providing IT consulting. Previously, it was unable to translate its technical capabilities into commercial opportunities because its structure was not focused on consulting, but on making and selling computer hardware and software rather than providing advice.

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Organizational Capabilities : Through the design of organizational structure and culture an organization can harness its human and functional resources to take advantage of technological opportunities. Organizational change often involves changing the relationship between people and functions to increase their ability to create value. Changes in structure and culture take place at all levels of the organization and include changing the routines an individual uses to greet customers, changing work group relationships, improving integration between divisions, and changing corporate culture by changing the topmanagement team.

These four levels at which change can take place are obviously interdependent, it is often impossible to change one without changing another. Suppose an organization invests resources and recruits a team of scientists who are experts in a new technology – for example, biotechnology. If successful, this human resource change will lead to the emergence of a new functional resource and a new technological capability. Top management will be forced to reevaluate its organizational structure and the way it integrates and coordinates its other functions, to ensure that they support its new functional resources. Effectively utilizing the new resources may require a move to a product team structure. It may even require downsizing and the elimination of functions that are no longer central to the organization’s mission.

Change Agents

Organizations and their managers must recognize that change, in itself, is not necessarily a problem. The problem often lies in an inability to effectively manage change : not only can the adopted process be wrong, but also the conceptual framework may lack vision and understanding. Why is this the case? Possibly, and many practicing managers would concur, the problem may be traced to the managers’ growing inability to approximately develop and reinforce their role and purpose within complex, dynamic and challenging organizations. Change is now a way of life; organizations, and more importantly their managers, must recognize the need to adopt strategic approaches when facing transformation situations. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s organizations, both national and international, strived to develop sustainable advantage in both volatile and competitive operating environments. Those that have survived, and/or developed, have often found that the creative and market driven management of their human resources can produce the much needed competitive ‘cushion’.

This is not surprising : people manage change, and well-managed people manage change more effectively. Managing change is a multi-disciplinary activity. Those responsible, whatever their designation, must possess or have access to a wide range of skills, resources, support and knowledge. For example

1. Communication skills are essential and must be applied for managing teams.2. Maintaining motivation and providing leadership to all concerned is necessary.

3. The ability to facilitate and orchestrate group and individual activities is crucial.

4. Negotiation and influencing skills are invaluable.

5. It is essential that both planning and control procedures are employed.

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6. The ability to manage on all planes, upward, downword and within the peer group, must be acquired.

7. Knowledge of, and the facility to influence, the rationale for change is essential.

There are many terms that have been used to denote those responsible for the effective implementation of change : for example, change agents, problem owners, facilitators, project managers or masters of change. The focal point of a change needs not to be an individual; a work group could quite easily be designated as a special task force responsible for managing the change. However, generally within, or above, any work group there is still someone who ultimately is accountable and responsible. What are the essential attributes of a change agent/master and are there any guidelines for them? The need to encourage participation and involvement in the management of the change by those who are to be affected has been suggested. The aim is to stimulate interest and commitment and minimize fears, thus reducing opposition. It may also be necessary to provide facilitating and support services. These could assist in promoting an individual’s awareness for the need for

change, while counseling and therapy could be offered to help overcome fears. Management must engage in a process of negotiation, striving towards agreement. This is essential where those opposing have the power, and influence, to resist and ultimately block the change. If consensus fails then one has little alternative but to move on to explicit and implicit coercion.

Somewhere in between the two extremes, the management may attempt to manipulate events in an effort to sidestep sources of resistance. For example, they may play interested parties off against each other or create galvanizing crisis to divert attention. The techniques need not be employed in isolation. They may be most effective when utilized in combination. The core tasks facing a change agent or project manager are to reduce the uncertainty associated with the change situation and then encourage positive action. Some of the steps to assist are :

1. Identify and manage stakeholders (Gainsvisible commitment).2. Work on objectives (Clear, concise and understandable)

3. Set a full agenda (Take a hostile view and highlight potential difficulties)

4. Build appropriate control systems (Communication is a two-way process, feedback is required).

5. Plan the process of change (Pay attention to : establishing roles – clarity of purpose; build a team –

do not leave it to choice; nurture coalitions of support – fight apathy and   resistance; communicate relentlessly – manage the process;

recognize power – make the best use of supporting power bases;

handing over – ensure that the change is maintained).

The change agents exist throughout the organization (but are crucial at the top)

and constitute in effect a latent force. They have ability to :

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Question the past and challenge old assumptions and beliefs

Leap from operational and process issues to the strategic picture Think creativity and avoid becoming bogged down in the ‘how-to’ Manipulate and exploit triggers for change Further, some of the traits of change

agents as business athletes are :1. able to work independently without the power and sanction of the

management hierarchy.

2. effective collaborators, able to compete in the ways that enhance rather than destroy cooperation.

3. able to develop high trust relations with high ethical standards.

4. possess self-confidence tempered with humility.

5. respectful of the process of change as well as the substance.

6. able to work across business functions and units – ‘multi-faceted and multi-dextrous’.

7. willing to take rewards on results and gain satisfaction from success.

To summarize, an effective change agent must be capable of orchestrating events; socializing within the network of stakeholders; and managing the communication process. There is a need for competent internal change agents to be assigned to the project so as to ensure cooperation, effective implementation and successful handover upon completion. The role envisaged for the external change agent includes : to assist in fully defining the problem; to help in determining the cause and suggesting potential solutions; to stimulate

debate and broaden the horizons; and to encourage the client to learn from the experience and be ready to handle future situations internally; is complementary to that of the internal problem owner. It is the responsibility of the potential clients to establish the need for an objective outsider, by considering their own internal competencies and awareness of the external opportunities. The principal problem with using internal change agents is that other

members of the organization may perceive them as being politically involved in the changes and biased toward certain groups. External change agents, in contrast, are likely to be perceived as less influenced by internal polities. Another reason for employing external change agents is that as outsiders they have a detached view of the organization’s problems and can distinguish between the “forest and the trees”. Insiders can be so involved in what is going on that they cannot see the true source of the problems. Management consultants

for Mckinsey and Co. are frequently brought in by large organizations to help the top-management team diagnose an organization’s problems and suggest solutions. Many consultants specialize in certain types of organizational change, such as restructuring, re-engineering or implementing total quality management.

Unplanned Change

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Not all the forces for change are the results of strategic planning. Indeed organizations often are responsive to changes that are unplanned – especially those derived from the factors internal to the organization. Two such forces are the changes in the demographic composition of the workforce and performance gaps.

1. Changing Employee Demographics : It is easy to see, even within our own lifetimes, how the composition of the workforce has changed. The percentage of women in the workforce is greater than ever before. More and more women with professional qualifications are joining the organization at the junior and the middle management levels. In addition to these, the workforce is getting older. Many of the old retired employees from government and public sector are joining the private sector, thereby changing the employee demographics. With the opening up of the economy and globalization, the workforce is also continually becoming more diverse.

To people concerned with the long-term operation of organizations, these are not simply curious sociological trends, but shifting conditions will force organizations to change. Questions regarding the number of people who will be working, what skills and attitudes they will bring to the job, and what new influences they will bring to the workplace are of key interest to human resource managers.

2. Performance Gaps : If you have ever head the phrase, “It is isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” you already have a good idea of one of the potent sources of unplanned internal changes in organizations – performance gaps. A product line that isn’t moving, a vanishing profit margin, a level of sales that is not up to corporate expectations – these are examples of gaps between real and expected levels of organizational performance. Few things force change more than sudden unexpected information about poor performance. Organizations usually stay with a winning course of action and change in response to failure; in other words, they follow a win-stay/lose-change rule. Indeed several studies have shown that a performance gap is one of the key factors providing an impetus for organizational innovations. Those organizations that are best prepared to mobilize change in response to expected downturns are expected to be the ones that succeed. Further, one of the greatest challenges faced by an organization is its ability to respond to changes from outside, something over which it has little or no control. As the environment changes, organizations must follow the suit.

Research has shown that organizations that can best adapt to changing conditions tend to survive. Two of the most important unplanned external factors are governmental regulation and economic competition.

3. Government Regulation : One of the most commonly witnessed unplanned organizational changes results from government regulation. With the opening up of the economy and various laws passed by the government about delicensing, full or partial convertibility of the currency, etc., the ways in which the organizations need to operate change swiftly. These activities greatly influence the way business is to be conducted in organizations. With

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more foreign players in the competitive market, Indian industries have to find ways and mechanisms to safely and profitably run their business.

4. Economic Competition in the Global Arena : It happens every day : someone builds a better mousetrap – or at least a chapter one. As a result, companies must often fight to maintain their share of market, advertise more effectively, and produce products more inexpensively. This kind of economic competition not only forces organizations to change, but also demands that they change effectively if they are to survive. On some occasions, competition can become so fierce that the parties involved would actually be more effective if they buried the hatchet and joined forces. It was this ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’ reasoning that was responsible for the announced alliance dubbed “the deal of the decade” by one financial analyst. Although competition has always been crucial to organizational success, today competition comes from around the globe. As it has become increasingly less expensive to transport materials throughout the world, the industrialized nations have found themselves competing with each other for shares of the international marketplace. Extensive globalization presents a formidable challenge to all organizations wishing to compete in the world economy. The primary challenge is to meet the ever-present need for change i.e., to be innovative. It can be stated that organizations change in many ways and for many reasons. The norm of pervasive change brings problems, challenges and opportunities. Those individual managers and organizations that recognize the inevitability of change and learn to innovate or adapt to and manage it while focused on creating world class best value will be most successful. But people and organizations frequently resist change, even if it is in their best interest, especially in large and established organizations.

OD Steps

Organization Development Steps

Organization development is an effort (1) planned, (2) organization wide, and (3) managed from the top, to (4) increase organization effectiveness and health through (5) planned interventions in the organization’s “processes,” using behavioral-science knowledge – Richard Beckhand Organization development (OD) is a response to change, a complex educational strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values, and structure of organizations so that they can better adapt to new technologies, markets and challenges, and the dizzying rate of change itself.  Organization renewal is the process of initiating, creating and confronting needed changes so as to make it possible for organizations to become or remain viable, to adapt to new conditions, to solve problems, to learn from experiences, and to move toward greater organizational maturity.

Organization development (OD) is a prescription for a process of planned change in organizations in which the key prescriptive elements relate to (1) the nature of the effort or program (it is a long-range, planned, systemwide process); (2) the nature of the change activities (they utilize behavioral science interventions of an educational, reflexive, self-examining, learn-to-do it-yourself nature); (3) the targets of the change activities (they are directed toward the human and social processes of organizations, specifically individuals’

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beliefs, attitudes, and values, the culture and processes of work groups-viewed as basic building blocks of the organization (4) desired outcomes of the change activeities (the goals are needed changes in the target of the interventions that cause the organization to be better able to adapt, cope, solve its problems, and renew itself). Organization development thus represents a unique strategy for system change, a strategy largely based in the theory and research of the behavioural sciences, and a strategy having a substantial prescriptive character. There are eight characteristics of organization development interventions from more traditional interventions:

1. An emphasis, although not exclusively so, on group and organizational processes in contrast to substantive content.

2. An emphasis on the work team as the key unit for learning more effective modes of organizational behavior.

3. An emphasis on the collaborative management of work-team culture.

4. An emphasis on the management of the culture of the total system.

5. Attention to the management of system ramifications.

6. The use of the action research model.

7. The use of a behavioral scientist-change agent, sometimes referred to as a “catalyst” or “facilitator.”

8. A view of the change effort as an ongoing process.

Another characteristic, number9, a primary emphasis on human and social relationships, does not necessarily differentiate OD from other change efforts, but it is nevertheless an important feature

Emerging concept: Organization Transformation (OT)

Over the years the practice of OD has evolved and matured, clarifying its values, theories, methods, and interventions, as well as adding new values, theories, and so forth. These paradigm-shifting changes were referred to as “organization transformation” or Organizational Transformation.” Some authors believe OT is an extension of OD; others believe OT represents a new discipline in its own right. It is too early to categorize organization transformation; for now, we see it as an extension of OD. Some forces leading to the emergence of OT can be identified. Organization transformations can occur in response to or in anticipation of major changes in the organization’s environment or technology. In addition, these changes are often associated with significant alterations in the firm’s business strategy, which, in turn, may require modifying corporate culture as well as internal structures and processes to support the new direction. Such fundamental change entails a new paradigm for organizing and managing organizations. It involves qualitatively different ways of perceiving, thinking, and behaving in organizations

The Laboratory Training Stem

Laboratory training, essentially unstructured small-group situations in which participants learn from their own actions. It began to develop about 1946 from various experiments in

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using discussion groups to achieve changes in behavior in back-home situations. In particular, an Inter-Group Relations workshop held at the State Teachers College in New Britain, Connecticut, in the summer of 1946 influenced the emergence of laboratory training. This workshop was sponsored by the Connecticut Interracial Commission and the Research Center for Group Dynamics, then at MIT.

Survey Research and Feedback

Survey research and feedback, a specialized form of action research constitutes the second major stem in the history of organization development. It revolves around the techniques and approach developed over a period of years by staff members at the Survey Research Center (SRC) of University of Michigan. The results of this experimental study lend support to the idea that an intensive, group discussion procedure for utilizing the results of an employee questionnaire survey can be an effective tool for introducing positive change in a business organization. It deals with the system of human relationships as a whole (superior and subordinate can change together) and it deals with each manager, supervisor, and employee in the context of his own job, his own problems, and his own work relationships.

Action Research Stem

Participant action research, is used with the most frequency in OD. The laboratory training stem in the history of OD has a heavy component of action research; the survey feedback stem is the history of a specialized form of action research; and Tavistock projects have had a strong action research thrust, William F.Whyte and Edith L.Hamilton used action research in their work with Chicago’s Tremont Hotel in 1945 publication; Kurt Lewin and his students conducted numerous action research projects in the mid-1940s and early 1950s.the work of these and other scholars and practitioners in inventing and utilizing action research was basic in the evolution of OD.

Sociotechnical and Socioclinical Stem

A fourth stem in the history of OD is the evolution of socioclinical and sociotechnical approaches to helping groups and organizations. The clinic was founded in 1920 as an outpatient facility to provide psychotherapy and insights from the treatment of battle neurosis in World War I. A group focus emerged early in the work of Tavistock in the context of family therapy in which the child and the parent received treatment simultaneously. The action research mode also emerged at Tavistock in attempts to give practical help to families, organizations, and communities.

Second-Generation OD

Practitioners and researchers are giving consider able attention to emerging concepts, interventions, and areas of application that might be called second-generation OD. Each, to some extent, overlaps with some or all of the others. Second generation OD, in particular, has focus on organizational transformation. Increasingly, OD professionals distinguish between the more modest, or evolutionary, efforts toward organization improvement and those that are massive and, in a sense, revolutionary. Smith, and Wilemon differentiate “incremental” change strategies and “fundamental” change strategies. Organizational transformation is seen

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as requiring more demands on top leadership, more visioning, more experimenting, more time, and the simultaneous management of many additional variables.

Managed teams and cross-functional teams get started. In addition, as selfmanaged teams have assumed many functions previously performed by management, supervisors and middle managers have used team-building approaches within their own ranks to help reconceptualize their own roles.

Counseling Skills

Counseling Skills

Approaches to counseling; Counseling Process – Beginning, Developing and Terminating a Counseling Relationship and Follow up

What is Counselling?

Counselling is a process through which one person helps another by purposeful conversation in an understanding atmosphere. It seeks to establish a helping relationship in which the one counseled can express their thoughts and feelings in such a way as to clarify their own situation, come to terms with some new experience, see their difficulty more objectively, and so face their problem with less anxiety and tension. Its basic purpose is to assist the individual to make their own decision from among the choices available to them. (British Association for Counselling, Rugby 1989)

Counselling is discussion of an employee’s problem that usually has an emotional content to it, in order to help the employee cope with the situation better. Counselling seeks to improve employee’s mental health. People feel comfortable about themselves and about other people and are able to meet the demands of life when they are in good mental health.

Why is Counselling Needed?

“HR initiatives only look at the organizational perspective, but the well being of the workforce depends just as much on the individual’s well being. And stress, from home or from the routine of work affects not just the individual, but the workplace in turn,” says Dr Samir Parikh, consultant psychiatrist at Max Healthcare

What are the objectives of Counselling?

According to Eisenberg & Delaney, the aims of Counselling are as follows:

1. Understanding self2. Making impersonal decisions

3. Setting achievable goals which enhance growth

4. Planning in the present to bring about desired future

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5. Effective solutions to personal and interpersonal problems.

6. Coping with difficult situation

7. Controlling self defeating emotions

8. Acquiring effective transaction skills.

9. Acquiring ‘positive self-regard’ and a sense of optimism about one’s own ability to satisfy one’s basic needs.

When to counsel?

An employee should be counseled when he or she has personal problems that affect job performance. Some signs of a troubled employee include

• Sudden change of behavior• Preoccupation

• Irritability

• Increased accidents

• Increased fatigue

• Excessive drinking

• Reduced production

• Waste

• Difficulty in absorbing training

What are the traits of a good counsellor?

The set of attitudes required for an efficient counsellor are:

• Respect i.e. High esteem for human dignity, recognition of a person’s freedom & rights and faith in human potential to grow.

• Sincerity, authenticity.

• Understanding

• Non-judgmental approach towards the counselee.

The set of skills required for an efficient counsellor are:

• Decency skills i.e. social etiquettes, warm manners• Excellent communication skills which also include non-verbal communication and

listening skills

• Objectivity

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• Maintaining confidentiality

• Empathy

What’s the process of counselling?

Types of counseling processes are Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Therapy; Carl Roger’s Client Centered Therapy; Carkhuff Model of Personal Counselling; Gestalt approach to counselling; Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy by Albert Ellis.

The Counseling Process

• Step 1. Describe the changed behavior. Let the employee know that the organization is concerned with work performance. The supervisor maintains work standards by being consistent in dealing with troubled employees. Explain in very specific terms what the employee needs to do in order to perform up to the organization’s expectations. Don’t moralize. Restrict the confrontation to job performance.

• Step 2. Get employee comments on the changed behavior and the reason for it. Confine any negative comments to the employee’s job performance. Don’t diagnose; you are not an expert. Listen and protect confidentiality.

• Step 3. Agree on a solution. Emphasize confidentiality. Don’t be swayed or misled by emotional please, sympathy tactics, or “hard-luck” stories. Explain that going for help does not exclude the employee from standard disciplinary procedures and that it does not open the door for special privileges.

• Step 4. Summarize and get a commitment to change. Seek commitment from the employee to meet work standards and to get help, if necessary, with the problem.

• Step 5. Follow up. Once the problem is resolved and a productive relationship is established, follow up is needed

Counseling Strategies

Counseling   Strategy

COUNSELING is defined as discussion of an emotional problem with an employee, with the general objective of decreasing it. Therefore, Counseling: 

Deals with an emotional problem. Is an act of communication.

Is generally to understand and/or decrease an employee’s emotional disorder.

Can be done by both, the managers and the professionally trained counselors. 

It is generally observed that nine out of every ten people suffer from a mental or emotional disorder. We recognize them as people who are high-strung, over sensitive, and angry with

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the world.  Others include alcoholics and the drug addicts.  Many others still have temporary upsets due to certain events.

Counseling is warranted when one notices an inability to cope with the environment. This inability manifests in behaviour disorder which in turn  does  lead  to  harm  to  self,   the organization  and  others working therein. Feelings can not be ignored.  They are facts and more so to the individual concerned.   Managers desire the employees to maintain a reasonable emotional equilibrium and to chanelize the emotions to constructive activities.

Any condition, on or off the job, may need counseling.  These conditions can be from:  

Job dissatisfaction, Resistance to change, or,

Alienation, Disorientation etc.  

Other major conditions that must be clearly understood are:  

Frustrations, Conflicts, or,

Stress.  

Frustration occurs when the motivation is blocked preventing one from reaching the desired goal. Frustration can be short term-event related or long term-aspiration related. The longer the frustration, greater the problem. Frustration usually is reacted to in any of the following ways. 

Aggression, Apathy,

Withdrawal,

Regression,  

Fixation,

Physical disorders, or,

Substituted goals.  

Counseling can help reduce frustration, by helping the employees to choose a mature course of action to remove blockages preventing goal accomplishment, or by helping them to reconcile with the reality. Counselors will have to work with both, the employee and the Management.  

Conflicts: Both the interpersonal and inter-group conflicts may cause emotional disorders. When people of different backgrounds, points of view, values, needs and personalities interact a variety of conflicts may arise.  

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Conflicts are not always bad. We must, while handling conflicts, try to reduce the disadvantages and to increase the benefits. Conflicts stimulate people to look for better approaches for improved results. Often, hidden problems surface and a deeper understanding may develop.  

On the other hand, cooperation and teamwork may suffer, distrust may grow, and the loser may attempt continuance of the conflicts to settle the score. The organization’s basic goal is to move the conflicts into a win-win possibility, so that no one feels lost and in fact all feel having won.  

Counseling assists conflict resolution by reducing emotional blockages.

Other effective approaches are Organization Development, Supportive Leadership styles, sensitivity training, and job and organization design.

Stress:  It is condition of strain on one’s emotions, thought process and/or physical condition that seems to threaten one’s ability to cope with the environment.

What counseling can do: General objective is to assist the employees in dealing with their emotional problems, so that they grow in self-confidence, understanding, self-control  & the ability to work in the given organizational environment.  

Counseling objectives are achieved through performing one of the following counseling functions: 

Advise. Reassure,

Communicate,

Release of emotional tensions,

Clarified thinking, and,

Reorientation. 

Types of Counseling: 

Directive, Non-directive, and Cooperative.

Who should do the counseling?

Supervisors/Managers or (Superiors in hierarchy), Specialists, and Professional counselors.

Cautions in Counseling:  

The counselor’s approach depends upon his own assessment of the situation, and the personality of the counselee.  

A counselor may:  82

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Identify himself with the counselee and help him  decide, motivate him to do what is jointly decided, OR,

Do the most of the above but help him  make  up  his  mind to  act  as  he   thinks fit.

BUT, in any case, in the counseling relationship, the following conditions are essential:

 Counselee should psychologically accept the counselor.  Counselor must be able to listen well and communicate effectively.

 An atmosphere of trust and confidence.

 Credibility & Sensitivity of the counselor.

This in nutshell is what counseling is about. It is upto us how, we can use these skills as a strategy in Work Places.

In the strictest sense of the term, counseling to be considered as a strategy may meet raised eyebrows!   But, applied innovatively, conducting inter-personal relations with a counseling approach will have a positive effect on blocked or inadequate performance by the employee. It will also help generate a climate of comprehension of reality, acceptance of mutual roles alongwith their relationships and interdependence. It can and does achieve an organizational need of ensuring uniformly high, accurate and enthusiastic performance levels, by building and strengthening the superior-subordinate relationships as also help create an atmosphere conducive of stable, positive relationships and strong work culture.

An emotional problem, like any other problem, disturbs the mental equilibrium of a person, making him disgruntled, and producing an affected behaviour on and off work.

Let us now consider the process of Inter-personal Relations. For the sake of simplicity, we define this process as “Work related Inter-personal relationship exercises within an organization necessary to achieve coordinated, high level, collective performance, to achieve organizational goals”.

We know that the Behaviour is a function of Personality and Environment.

Affected Behaviour (in this case, misdirected efforts, shoddy, below par performance,  a kind of carelessness that is unmindful of consequences to self and to the organization) and indicates a need for assistance.  Mostly assistance can be offered in the area of the environmental factors (like training, nature of assignment etc.) and not in the Personality factors (like advice, healthy discussions, counseling etc.), even though attributes of the Personality are amenable to such treatment.

Behaviour can be considered as an individual or collective phenomenon.  A sum total of the outcomes of the relationship transactions at individual levels help us predict the shape of collective performance at the organizational level.

Problems of grow out of many roots.  Every affected behaviour whether on or off the job, has the potential to influence the Collective Performance of the organization. 

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Commonalty of objectives so very essential to the growth and success of the organization is virtually lost sight of and attempts are made to pursue limited (individual) goals at the cost of the larger (organizational) goals.

Role gets precedence over the Goal.

Parties usually end up in a situation that despite knowing that there is no alternative to working together, they are forced to accept a state of strained relationships, tensions, suspicions and many such undesirable ingredients in the situation that continue to affect individual and collective performance..

It does not require any special expertise to realize that this state of affairs is obtained invariably where the process of managing people is defective.

We all know many approaches to managing people. At one extreme is to equate people with the machines and on the other extreme is accept that in any matter people alone will justify management action. All extremes are bad. But we do seem to be going to extremes when the conventional methods or the methods that we believe in do not produce the desired results. We must accept the fundamental truth of the matter that people need to be managed.  One can not manage anything without understanding it. So we must understand the people!

People represent the only animate resource-capable of feelings, thinking and acting independently sometimes even at variance with the organizational objectives.

We as managers of men do not have an absolute control over human behaviour to be able to influence, modify or predict behaviour either by itself or in the industrial-technological system. When it comes to human behaviour, we always find a state of flux and that is what makes our job more and more difficult. The one significant factor that we should learn more and more about is the phenomenon of change and the way it tends to influences human behaviour.

The profile of an average employee over the years has undergone great changes.  The basic tenets of behaviour that were valid yesterday are generally invalid to day. Let us take a closer look at some of the significant points of the profile and the changes they have undergone.

These are as follows: 

Sr. Trait Old Pattern New Patterns

1 Education Low Better

2 Exposure Low Greater

3 Authority High Low

4 Respect High Low

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5 Previous Training NIL Good

6 Abilities Less More

7 Cultural Orientation Rural Urban

8 Values Conservative Modernistic

9 Receptivity Low OK

10 Ambitions Limited High

This is an effort to understand the difference between the people belonging to the two different generations. Understanding these will give us better insights into the psyche of the people we are dealing with.

In the ultimate analysis, we have various approaches in which to deal with people in typical Industrial situations. To sum up, these are:

Institutional-Transactional.   Paternalistic.

Legal-Impersonal.              

Benevolent, and,

Human Resource Development.

Counseling.

Whatever the choice, the understanding of people will always give us an advantage to influence the situation in favour of the desired goals.

Counseling Strategies

Counseling   Strategy

COUNSELING is defined as discussion of an emotional problem with an employee, with the general objective of decreasing it. Therefore, Counseling: 

Deals with an emotional problem. Is an act of communication.

Is generally to understand and/or decrease an employee’s emotional disorder.

Can be done by both, the managers and the professionally trained counselors. 85

Page 86: HR Basics

It is generally observed that nine out of every ten people suffer from a mental or emotional disorder. We recognize them as people who are high-strung, over sensitive, and angry with the world.  Others include alcoholics and the drug addicts.  Many others still have temporary upsets due to certain events.

Counseling is warranted when one notices an inability to cope with the environment. This inability manifests in behaviour disorder which in turn  does  lead  to  harm  to  self,   the organization  and  others working therein. Feelings can not be ignored.  They are facts and more so to the individual concerned.   Managers desire the employees to maintain a reasonable emotional equilibrium and to chanelize the emotions to constructive activities.

Any condition, on or off the job, may need counseling.  These conditions can be from:  

Job dissatisfaction, Resistance to change, or,

Alienation, Disorientation etc.  

Other major conditions that must be clearly understood are:  

Frustrations, Conflicts, or,

Stress.  

Frustration occurs when the motivation is blocked preventing one from reaching the desired goal. Frustration can be short term-event related or long term-aspiration related. The longer the frustration, greater the problem. Frustration usually is reacted to in any of the following ways. 

Aggression, Apathy,

Withdrawal,

Regression,  

Fixation,

Physical disorders, or,

Substituted goals.  

Counseling can help reduce frustration, by helping the employees to choose a mature course of action to remove blockages preventing goal accomplishment, or by helping them to reconcile with the reality. Counselors will have to work with both, the employee and the Management.  

Conflicts: Both the interpersonal and inter-group conflicts may cause emotional disorders. When people of different backgrounds, points of view, values, needs and personalities interact a variety of conflicts may arise.  

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Conflicts are not always bad. We must, while handling conflicts, try to reduce the disadvantages and to increase the benefits. Conflicts stimulate people to look for better approaches for improved results. Often, hidden problems surface and a deeper understanding may develop.  

On the other hand, cooperation and teamwork may suffer, distrust may grow, and the loser may attempt continuance of the conflicts to settle the score. The organization’s basic goal is to move the conflicts into a win-win possibility, so that no one feels lost and in fact all feel having won.  

Counseling assists conflict resolution by reducing emotional blockages.

Other effective approaches are Organization Development, Supportive Leadership styles, sensitivity training, and job and organization design.

Stress:  It is condition of strain on one’s emotions, thought process and/or physical condition that seems to threaten one’s ability to cope with the environment.

What counseling can do: General objective is to assist the employees in dealing with their emotional problems, so that they grow in self-confidence, understanding, self-control  & the ability to work in the given organizational environment.  

Counseling objectives are achieved through performing one of the following counseling functions: 

Advise. Reassure,

Communicate,

Release of emotional tensions,

Clarified thinking, and,

Reorientation. 

Types of Counseling: 

Directive, Non-directive, and Cooperative.

Who should do the counseling?

Supervisors/Managers or (Superiors in hierarchy), Specialists, and Professional counselors.

Cautions in Counseling:  

The counselor’s approach depends upon his own assessment of the situation, and the personality of the counselee.  

A counselor may:  87

Page 88: HR Basics

Identify himself with the counselee and help him  decide, motivate him to do what is jointly decided, OR,

Do the most of the above but help him  make  up  his  mind to  act  as  he   thinks fit.

BUT, in any case, in the counseling relationship, the following conditions are essential:

 Counselee should psychologically accept the counselor.  Counselor must be able to listen well and communicate effectively.

 An atmosphere of trust and confidence.

 Credibility & Sensitivity of the counselor.

This in nutshell is what counseling is about. It is upto us how, we can use these skills as a strategy in Work Places.

In the strictest sense of the term, counseling to be considered as a strategy may meet raised eyebrows!   But, applied innovatively, conducting inter-personal relations with a counseling approach will have a positive effect on blocked or inadequate performance by the employee. It will also help generate a climate of comprehension of reality, acceptance of mutual roles alongwith their relationships and interdependence. It can and does achieve an organizational need of ensuring uniformly high, accurate and enthusiastic performance levels, by building and strengthening the superior-subordinate relationships as also help create an atmosphere conducive of stable, positive relationships and strong work culture.

An emotional problem, like any other problem, disturbs the mental equilibrium of a person, making him disgruntled, and producing an affected behaviour on and off work.

Let us now consider the process of Inter-personal Relations. For the sake of simplicity, we define this process as “Work related Inter-personal relationship exercises within an organization necessary to achieve coordinated, high level, collective performance, to achieve organizational goals”.

We know that the Behaviour is a function of Personality and Environment.

Affected Behaviour (in this case, misdirected efforts, shoddy, below par performance,  a kind of carelessness that is unmindful of consequences to self and to the organization) and indicates a need for assistance.  Mostly assistance can be offered in the area of the environmental factors (like training, nature of assignment etc.) and not in the Personality factors (like advice, healthy discussions, counseling etc.), even though attributes of the Personality are amenable to such treatment.

Behaviour can be considered as an individual or collective phenomenon.  A sum total of the outcomes of the relationship transactions at individual levels help us predict the shape of collective performance at the organizational level.

Problems of grow out of many roots.  Every affected behaviour whether on or off the job, has the potential to influence the Collective Performance of the organization. 

88

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Commonalty of objectives so very essential to the growth and success of the organization is virtually lost sight of and attempts are made to pursue limited (individual) goals at the cost of the larger (organizational) goals.

Role gets precedence over the Goal.

Parties usually end up in a situation that despite knowing that there is no alternative to working together, they are forced to accept a state of strained relationships, tensions, suspicions and many such undesirable ingredients in the situation that continue to affect individual and collective performance..

It does not require any special expertise to realize that this state of affairs is obtained invariably where the process of managing people is defective.

We all know many approaches to managing people. At one extreme is to equate people with the machines and on the other extreme is accept that in any matter people alone will justify management action. All extremes are bad. But we do seem to be going to extremes when the conventional methods or the methods that we believe in do not produce the desired results. We must accept the fundamental truth of the matter that people need to be managed.  One can not manage anything without understanding it. So we must understand the people!

People represent the only animate resource-capable of feelings, thinking and acting independently sometimes even at variance with the organizational objectives.

We as managers of men do not have an absolute control over human behaviour to be able to influence, modify or predict behaviour either by itself or in the industrial-technological system. When it comes to human behaviour, we always find a state of flux and that is what makes our job more and more difficult. The one significant factor that we should learn more and more about is the phenomenon of change and the way it tends to influences human behaviour.

The profile of an average employee over the years has undergone great changes.  The basic tenets of behaviour that were valid yesterday are generally invalid to day. Let us take a closer look at some of the significant points of the profile and the changes they have undergone.

These are as follows: 

Sr. Trait Old Patterns New Patterns

1 Education Low Better

2 Exposure Low Greater

3 Authority High Low

4 Respect High Low

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5 Previous Training NIL Good

6 Abilities Less More

7 Cultural Orientation Rural Urban

8 Values Conservative Modernistic

9 Receptivity Low OK

10 Ambitions Limited High

This is an effort to understand the difference between the people belonging to the two different generations. Understanding these will give us better insights into the psyche of the people we are dealing with.

In the ultimate analysis, we have various approaches in which to deal with people in typical Industrial situations. To sum up, these are:

Institutional-Transactional.   Paternalistic.

Legal-Impersonal.              

Benevolent, and,

Human Resource Development.

Counseling.

Whatever the choice, the understanding of people will always give us an advantage to influence the situation in favour of the desired goals.

Reward Management

Reward Management is concerned with the formulation and implementation of strategies and policies that aim to reward people fairly, equitably and consistently in accordance with their value to the organization

Objectives of Reward Management

• Support the organisation’s strategy• Recruit & retain

• Motivate employees

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• Internal & external equity

• Strengthen psychological contract

• Financially sustainable

• Comply with legislation

• Efficiently administered

Basic Types of Reward Extrinsic rewards

– satisfy basic needs: survival, security

– Pay, conditions, treatment

Intrinsic rewards

– satisfy higher needs: esteem,development

Rewards by Individual, Team, Organisation Individual: base pay, incentives, benefits

– rewards attendance, performance, competence

Team

– team bonus, rewards group cooperation

Organisation

– profit-sharing, shares, gain-sharing

Role of Compensation and Reward in Organization:

Compensation and Reward system plays vital role in a business organization. Since, among four Ms, i.e Men, Material, Machine and Money, Men has been most important factor, it is impossible to imagine a business process without Men.

Land, Labor, Capital and Organization are four major factors of production.

Every factor contributes to the process of production/business. It  expects return from the business process such as Rent is the return expected by the Landlord. similarly Capitalist expects Interest and Organizers i.e Entrepreneur expects profits. The labour expects wages from the process.

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It is evident that other factors are in-human factors and as such labour plays vital role in bringing about the process of production/business in motion. The other factors being human, has expectations, emotions, ambitions and egos. Labour therefore expects to have fair share in the business/production process.

Advantages of Fair Compensation System:

Therefore a fair compensation system is a must for every business organization. The fair compensation system will help in the following:

If an ideal compensation system is designed, it will have positive impact on the efficiency and results produced by workmen.

Such system will encourage the normal worker to perform better and achieve the standards fixed.

this system will encourage the process of job evaluation. It will also help in setting up an ideal job evaluation, which will have transparency, and the standards fixing would be more realistic and achievable.

Such a system would be well defined and uniform. It will be apply to all the levels of the organization as a general system.

The system would be simple and flexible so that every worker/recipient would be able to compute his own compensation receivable.

Such system would be easy to implement, so that  it would not penalize the workers for the reasons beyond their control and would not result in exploitation of workers.

It will raise the morale, efficiency and cooperation among the workers. It, being just and fair would provide satisfaction to the workers.

Such system would help management in complying with the various labor acts.

Such system  would also bring about amicable settlement of disputes  between the workmen union and management.

The system would embody itself the principle of equal work equal wages. Encouragement for those who perform better and opportunities for those who wish to excel.

Planning Compensation

Forms of Recognition

FORMAL

INFORMAL92

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EVERYDAY                                                                           

Examples of Formal Recognition

1. Milestone Service Anniversary Awards (5,10,15,20, 25 years of service)

2. Ideas, Improvement & Performance Awards

3. Service Awards

a) Teamwork/leadershipb) Customer Service

c) Citizenship

d) Innovation

e) Attendance

4. Awards would include:

a) Plaques/Desk trophiesb) Certificates

c) Gifts/Certificates

d) Picture in the webpage

Examples of Informal Recognition

1) Team Building Retreats

2) Acknowledgement of Dept/Division goals achieved

3) Committee Involvement

4) Project Completion meals

5) Birthday cakes and cards

6) Picnics

7) Staff Appreciation Day

8) Holiday Parties

9) Dress-Up Days

10) Corporate Merchandise

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11) One night sponsored at a Disco or Pub ( For individual or Teams!)

Examples of Everyday Recognition

1) Communication & Interpersonal Skills workshops

2) Personal and Professional Development workshops

3) Email Thanks

4) Letter from manager or supervisors

5) Gift items

6) Thank You Notes

7) Verbal Feedback

8) Face-to-Face Thank you

9) Thank you cards (both hard copy thank you card and e-thank you card)!

Others

1) Performance awards can also include peer-to-peer nominations ( May be called “Warm Fuzzy Nominations” or “Buddy Nomination”)

Reason:

a) While peer-to-peer recognition may not be as powerful as management recognition, it helps build a strong work culture.

b) Peers work more productively with one another when they sense sincere appreciation from their colleagues for their contributions.

c) The nomination will be done by the staff

d) Award selection will be done by a Committee

e) Limited involvement of management

f) Fun Event Planned for employees every month, For ex: June (Free movie passes for all ),Feb (A inter-department Cricket Match), April (A team picnic)

g) Smiling Faces programme

Recognizes teams or departments who demonstrates values of teamwork, respect and dedication in customer Service

h) Surprise By programme

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Funds can be used to surprise random departments with treats, cookies or small gifts or goodies just to  thank them for being  a part of  the company!

1. Informal ways to increase Motivation:

a) Personally congratulating employees who do a good jobb) Writing personal notes about good behaviour or performance

c) Using performance as the basis for promotion

d) Publicly recognizing employees for good performance, and

e) Holding morale-building meetings to celebrate successes.

f) Naming a program after your employees

g) Keeping the work environment fun ( This doesn’t mean that business doesn’t get done, just that its enjoyable to be there)

2.  Some more inexpensive ways to reward the employees!

a) Ask for adviceb) Reward with a Goodie bag

c) Use staff ideas

d) Featuring staff in training videos

e) Creation of “WOW” cards for employees

f) Hall of fame photos

3.  Some rewards that employee liked to see given to them:

Certificate of appreciation Mugs, other items with a special mention of your department Flowers Electronics (DVDs, iPods, etc.) T-shirts Two-three day holiday packages Dinner gift certificate Tickets to events Shopping vouchers Membership at clubs/gyms Lapel Pins

4. Casual Mondays: Employees generally believe that declaring it a “Casual” dress day can minimize the Monday blues!

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5. Use of Company Logos:  Employees like wearing T-shirts, Sweat- Shirts with the Company logo on it (This can even be a nice way of advertisement for the company free of cost)!

Some ideas that can go a long way to increase employee motivation (No Cost)

Posting a thank you note on an employee’s door. Taking time to explain to new employees the norms and culture of the department.

Giving special assignments to people who show initiative.

Arranging for a team to present the results of its efforts to upper management.

Encouraging and recognizing staff who pursue continuing education.

Creating and posting an “Employee Honor Roll” in reception area.

Acknowledging individual achievements by using employee’s name when preparing a status report

Giving employees an extra long lunch break.

Establishing a place to display memos, posters, photos and so on, recognizing progress towards goals and thanking individual employees for their help.

Swap a task with an employee for a day – his/her choice.

Establish a “Behind the Scenes” award specifically for those whose actions are not usually in the limelight.

Give a shiny new penny for a thought that has been shared.

Nominate the employee for a University formal award program.

Present “State of the Department” reports periodically to your employees acknowledging the work and contributions of individuals and teams.

At a monthly staff meeting, award an Employee of the Month and invite co-workers at the meeting to say why that person is deserving of the award.

Recognize employees who actively serve the community.

Have staff vote for top manager, supervisor, employee and rookie of the year.

Name a continuing recognition award after an outstanding employee.

Allow employees to attend meetings in your place when you are not available.

Create an Above and Beyond the Call of Duty (ABCD) Award.

Ask your boss to attend a meeting with your employees during which you thank individuals and groups for their specific contributions.

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Pop in at the first meeting of a special project team and express your appreciation for their involvement.

Send a letter to all team members at the conclusion of a project, thanking them for their participation.

Start an employee recognition program. Give points for attendance, punctuality, teamwork, etc. Provide gift certificates to employees who reach certain point goals.

Find ways to reward department-specific performance.

Plan a surprise achievement celebration for an employee or group of employees.

Start a suggestion program.

Write a letter of praise recognizing specific contributions and accomplishments. Send a copy to senior management and the employee’s personnel file.

When you hear a positive remark about someone, repeat it to that person as soon as possible (Face-to-face is best, e-mail or voice mail are good in a pinch).

If you have a department newsletter, publish a “kudos” column and ask for nominations throughout the department.

Publicly recognize the positive impact on operations of the solutions employees devise for problems.

Acknowledge individual achievements by using employee names in status reports.

Express an interest in employee’s career development goals.

Post a large “celebration calendar” in your work area. Tack on notes of recognition to specific dates.

Create and string a banner across the work area.

Practice positive nonverbal behaviors that demonstrate appreciation, such as smiles, or a handshake.

Support “flex-friendly” schedules.

Encourage employees to identify specific areas of interest in job-related skills. Then arrange for them to spend a day with an in-house “expert” to learn more about the topic.

Encourage employees to participate in community volunteer efforts.

Share verbal accolades – forward positive voice mail messages.

Actively listen to co-workers, especially when discussing their accomplishments and contributions.

Use 3×5 cards to write “You’re special because…” statements. People can collect the cards and refer to them when things aren’t going perfectly.

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Have a recognition event created by a peer group that decides what they will give and why they will give it.

Keep a supply of appropriately funny notes that can be given as immediate rewards. Keep the supply visible – in a basket or box in your office.

Widely publicize suggestions used and their positive impact on your department.

When someone has spent long hours at work, send a letter of thanks to his/her home.

Acknowledge and celebrate birthdays.

Arrange for an outstanding employee to have lunch with a dean or director.

Allow an employee to choose his/her next assignment.

Recognize a team accomplishment by designating that team as consultants to other teams.

Recognize those committed to personal health and wellness

Smile. It’s contagious.

Employee Recognition Ideas (minor to moderate cost)

Plan a surprise picnic. Create a Hall of Fame wall with photos of outstanding employees.

Make a photo collage about a successful project that shows the people that worked on it, its stage of development and its completion and presentation.

Find out the person’s hobby and buy an appropriate gift.

Make and deliver a fruit basket.

Inscribe a favorite book as a gift.

Give the person a membership or subscription to a journal that relates to their work

Design a “Stress Support Kit” that included aspirin, a comedy cassette, wind up toys and a stress ball – or design your own.

Serve ice cream sundaes to all of your employees at the end of a project.

Once a year, have a “Staff Appreciation Day” where the managers supply, cook and serve food.

Serve a team a hero party sandwich at the end of an assignment, for a job well done.

Give flowers to an employee at their home or office as a thank you.

Purchase a unique pin to serve as a memento for a task well done.

Hold informal retreats to foster communication and set goals.

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Provide a lunch for project teams once they have made interim findings. Express your appreciation.

Give a personalized coffee cup.

Give an employee a blue ribbon for achievement.

Design and give magnets with appropriate messages.

Give a deserving employee a mug filled with treats.

Give a framed poem (poster or card) as a thank you.

Throw a pizza lunch party for your unit.

Give a note reading, “Thank you. You are a ______!”

Serve popcorn and lemonade on Friday (especially after a particularly hard week).

At an employee meeting, distribute gift certificates.

Give a puzzle as an award to a problem solver.

Have weekly breakfasts with groups of employees.

Treat an employee to lunch.

Give out gold coins for a job well done.

Bake/bring a gift (cookies, bread, etc.) for an outstanding employee or team.

Send birthday cards to employees’ homes

Planning Compensation

Forms of Recognition

FORMAL

INFORMAL

EVERYDAY                                                                           

Examples of Formal Recognition

1. Milestone Service Anniversary Awards (5,10,15,20, 25 years of service)

2. Ideas, Improvement & Performance Awards

3. Service Awards

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a) Teamwork/leadershipb) Customer Service

c) Citizenship

d) Innovation

e) Attendance

4. Awards would include:

a) Plaques/Desk trophiesb) Certificates

c) Gifts/Certificates

d) Picture in the webpage

Examples of Informal Recognition

1) Team Building Retreats2) Acknowledgement of Dept/Division goals achieved

3) Committee Involvement

4) Project Completion meals

5) Birthday cakes and cards

6) Picnics

7) Staff Appreciation Day

8) Holiday Parties

9) Dress-Up Days

10) Corporate Merchandise

11) One night sponsored at a Disco or Pub ( For individual or Teams!)

Examples of Everyday Recognition

1) Communication & Interpersonal Skills workshops2) Personal and Professional Development workshops

3) Email Thanks

4) Letter from manager or supervisors

5) Gift items

6) Thank You Notes

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7) Verbal Feedback

8) Face-to-Face Thank you

9) Thank you cards (both hard copy thank you card and e-thank you card)!

Others

1) Performance awards can also include peer-to-peer nominations ( May be called “Warm Fuzzy Nominations” or “Buddy Nomination”)

Reason:

a) While peer-to-peer recognition may not be as powerful as management recognition, it helps build a strong work culture.

b) Peers work more productively with one another when they sense sincere appreciation from their colleagues for their contributions.

c) The nomination will be done by the staff

d) Award selection will be done by a Committee

e) Limited involvement of management

f) Fun Event Planned for employees every month

For ex: June (Free movie passes for all ),Feb (A inter-department Cricket Match), April (A team picnic)

g) Smiling Faces programme

Recognizes teams or departments who demonstrates values of teamwork, respect and dedication in customer Service

h) Surprise By programme

Funds can be used to surprise random departments with treats, cookies or small gifts or goodies just to  thank them for being  a part of  the company!

1. Informal ways to increase Motivation:

a) Personally congratulating employees who do a good job

b) Writing personal notes about good behaviour or performance

c) Using performance as the basis for promotion

d) Publicly recognizing employees for good performance, and

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e) Holding morale-building meetings to celebrate successes.

f) Naming a program after your employees

g) Keeping the work environment fun ( This doesn’t mean that business doesn’t get done, just that its enjoyable to be there)

2.  Some more inexpensive ways to reward the employees!

a) Ask for advice

b) Reward with a Goodie bag

c) Use staff ideas

d) Featuring staff in training videos

d) Creation of “WOW” cards for employees

e) Hall of fame photos

3.  Some rewards that employee liked to see given to them:

1) Certificate of appreciation2) Mugs, other items with a special mention of your department3) Flowers4) Electronics (DVDs, iPods, etc.)5) T-shirts6) Two-three day holiday packages7) Dinner gift certificate8) Tickets to events9) Shopping vouchers10) Membership at clubs/gyms11) Lapel Pins

4. Casual Mondays: Employees generally believe that declaring it a “Casual” dress day can minimize the Monday blues!

5. Use of Company Logos:  Employees like wearing T-shirts, Sweat- Shirts with the Company logo on it (This can even be a nice way of advertisement for the company free of cost)!

Some ideas that can go a long way to increase employee motivation (No Cost)

Posting a thank you note on an employee’s door. Taking time to explain to new employees the norms and culture of the department.

Giving special assignments to people who show initiative.

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Arranging for a team to present the results of its efforts to upper management.

Encouraging and recognizing staff who pursue continuing education.

Creating and posting an “Employee Honor Roll” in reception area.

Acknowledging individual achievements by using employee’s name when preparing a status report

Giving employees an extra long lunch break.

Establishing a place to display memos, posters, photos and so on, recognizing progress towards goals and thanking individual employees for their help.

Swap a task with an employee for a day – his/her choice.

Establish a “Behind the Scenes” award specifically for those whose actions are not usually in the limelight.

Give a shiny new penny for a thought that has been shared.

Nominate the employee for a University formal award program.

Present “State of the Department” reports periodically to your employees acknowledging the work and contributions of individuals and teams.

At a monthly staff meeting, award an Employee of the Month and invite co-workers at the meeting to say why that person is deserving of the award.

Recognize employees who actively serve the community.

Have staff vote for top manager, supervisor, employee and rookie of the year.

Name a continuing recognition award after an outstanding employee.

Allow employees to attend meetings in your place when you are not available.

Create an Above and Beyond the Call of Duty (ABCD) Award.

Ask your boss to attend a meeting with your employees during which you thank individuals and groups for their specific contributions.

Pop in at the first meeting of a special project team and express your appreciation for their involvement.

Send a letter to all team members at the conclusion of a project, thanking them for their participation.

Start an employee recognition program. Give points for attendance, punctuality, teamwork, etc. Provide gift certificates to employees who reach certain point goals.

Find ways to reward department-specific performance.

Plan a surprise achievement celebration for an employee or group of employees.

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Start a suggestion program.

Write a letter of praise recognizing specific contributions and accomplishments. Send a copy to senior management and the employee’s personnel file.

When you hear a positive remark about someone, repeat it to that person as soon as possible (Face-to-face is best, e-mail or voice mail are good in a pinch).

If you have a department newsletter, publish a “kudos” column and ask for nominations throughout the department.

Publicly recognize the positive impact on operations of the solutions employees devise for problems.

Acknowledge individual achievements by using employee names in status reports.

Express an interest in employee’s career development goals.

Post a large “celebration calendar” in your work area. Tack on notes of recognition to specific dates.

Create and string a banner across the work area.

Practice positive nonverbal behaviors that demonstrate appreciation, such as smiles, or a handshake.

Support “flex-friendly” schedules.

Encourage employees to identify specific areas of interest in job-related skills. Then arrange for them to spend a day with an in-house “expert” to learn more about the topic.

Encourage employees to participate in community volunteer efforts.

Share verbal accolades – forward positive voice mail messages.

Actively listen to co-workers, especially when discussing their accomplishments and contributions.

Use 3×5 cards to write “You’re special because…” statements. People can collect the cards and refer to them when things aren’t going perfectly.

Have a recognition event created by a peer group that decides what they will give and why they will give it.

Keep a supply of appropriately funny notes that can be given as immediate rewards. Keep the supply visible – in a basket or box in your office.

Widely publicize suggestions used and their positive impact on your department.

When someone has spent long hours at work, send a letter of thanks to his/her home.

Acknowledge and celebrate birthdays.

Arrange for an outstanding employee to have lunch with a dean or director.104

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Allow an employee to choose his/her next assignment.

Recognize a team accomplishment by designating that team as consultants to other teams.

Recognize those committed to personal health and wellness

Smile. It’s contagious.

Employee Recognition Ideas (minor to moderate cost)

Plan a surprise picnic. Create a Hall of Fame wall with photos of outstanding employees.

Make a photo collage about a successful project that shows the people that worked on it, its stage of development and its completion and presentation.

Find out the person’s hobby and buy an appropriate gift.

Make and deliver a fruit basket.

Inscribe a favorite book as a gift.

Give the person a membership or subscription to a journal that relates to their work

Design a “Stress Support Kit” that included aspirin, a comedy cassette, wind up toys and a stress ball – or design your own.

Serve ice cream sundaes to all of your employees at the end of a project.

Once a year, have a “Staff Appreciation Day” where the managers supply, cook and serve food.

Serve a team a hero party sandwich at the end of an assignment, for a job well done.

Give flowers to an employee at their home or office as a thank you.

Purchase a unique pin to serve as a memento for a task well done.

Hold informal retreats to foster communication and set goals.

Provide a lunch for project teams once they have made interim findings. Express your appreciation.

Give a personalized coffee cup.

Give an employee a blue ribbon for achievement.

Design and give magnets with appropriate messages.

Give a deserving employee a mug filled with treats.

Give a framed poem (poster or card) as a thank you.

Throw a pizza lunch party for your unit.

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Give a note reading, “Thank you. You are a ______!”

Serve popcorn and lemonade on Friday (especially after a particularly hard week).

At an employee meeting, distribute gift certificates.

Give a puzzle as an award to a problem solver.

Have weekly breakfasts with groups of employees.

Treat an employee to lunch.

Give out gold coins for a job well done.

Bake/bring a gift (cookies, bread, etc.) for an outstanding employee or team.

Send birthday cards to employees’ homes

HR Strategies

Developing HR Strategies

Steps to build up HR Strategy

Step 1: Get the ‘big picture’

Understand your business strategy.

Highlight the key driving forces of your business. What are they? e.g. technology, distribution, competition, the markets.

What are the implications of the driving forces for the people side of your business?

What is the fundamental people contribution to bottom line business performance?

Step 2: Develop a Mission Statement or Statement of Intent

That relates to the people side of the business.

Do not be put off by negative reactions to the words or references to idealistic statements – it is the actual process of thinking through the issues in a formal and explicit manner that is important.

What do your people contribute?

Step 3: Conduct a SWOT analysis of the organization

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Consider the current skill and capability issues.

Vigorously research the external business and market environment. High light the opportunities and threats relating to the people side of the business.

What impact will/ might they have on business performance? Consider skill shortages?

The impact of new technology on staffing levels?

From this analysis you then need to review the capability of your personnel department. Complete a SWOT analysis of the department – consider in detail the department’s current areas of operation, the service levels and competences of your personnel staff.

Step 4: Conduct a detailed human resources analysis

Concentrate on the organization’s COPS (culture, organization, people, HR systems)

Consider: Where you are now? Where do you want to be? What gaps exists between the reality of where you are now and where you want to be?

Exhaust your analysis of the four dimensions.

Step 5: Determine critical people issues

Go back to the business strategy and examine it against your SWOT and COPS Analysis

Identify the critical people issues namely those people issues that you must address. Those which have a key impact on the delivery of your business strategy.

Prioritize the critical people issues. What will happen if you fail to address them?

Remember you are trying to identify where you should be focusing your efforts and resources.

Step 6: Develop consequences and solutions

For each critical issue highlight the options for managerial action generate, elaborate and create – don’t go for the obvious. This is an important step as frequently people jump for the known rather than challenge existing assumptions about the way things have been done in the past. Think about the consequences of taking various courses of action.

Consider the mix of HR systems needed to address the issues. Do you need to improve communications, training or pay?

What are the implications for the business and the personnel function?

Once you have worked through the process it should then be possible to translate the action plan into broad objectives. These will need to be broken down into the specialist HR Systems areas of:

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Employee training and development Management development

Organization development

Performance appraisal

Employee reward

Employee selection and recruitment

Manpower planning

Communication

Develop your action plan around the critical issues. Set targets and dates for the accomplishment of the key objectives.

Step 7: Implementation and evaluation of the action plans

The ultimate purpose of developing a human resource strategy is to ensure that the objectives set are mutually supportive so that the reward and payment systems are integrated with employee training and career development plans.

HRD Interventions

HRD System Design Principles & HRD Interventions

Applying criteria to goals

Here the leadership establishes objective criteria for the outputs of the organization’s goal-setting processes. Then they hold people accountable not only for stating goals against those criteria but also for producing the desired results.

Establishing inter-unit task forces

These groups can cross both functional parts of the organization (the “silos”) as well as employee levels. They are ideally accountable to one person and are appropriately rewarded for completing their assigned task effectively. Then they disband.

Experimentation with alternative arrangements

Today organizations are subject to “management by best-seller.” The OD practitioner attempts to get leaders to look for changes that may take 3-5 years to work through. The meta-goal in these interventions is to create what is being called a “learning organization,”

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one that performs experiments on organizational structure and processes, analyzes the results, and builds on them.

Identifying “key communicators”

The OD professional here carefully determines who seems to be “in the know” within the organization. These people often do not know that they are, in fact, key communicators. This collection of individuals are then fed honest information during critical times, one-on-one and confidentially.

Identifying “fireable offenses”

This intervention deepens the understanding of and commitment to the stated values of the organization. The OD professional facilitates the work of the organization’s leaders to answer the critical question, “If we’re serious about these values, then what might an employee do that would be so affrontive to them that he/she would be fired?”

In-visioning

This is actually a set of interventions that leaders plan with OD’s help in order to “acculturate” everyone in the organization into an agreed-upon vision, mission, purpose, and values. The interventions might include training, goal setting, organizational survey-feedback, communications planning, etc.

Team Building

This intervention can take many forms. The most common is interviews and other prework, followed by a one- to three-day offsite session. During the meeting the group diagnoses its function as a unit and plans improvements in its operating procedures See J. E. Jones & W. L. Bearley, TEAMBOOK, published by HRDQ, for a catalog of team-building interventions.

Intergroup Problem Solving

This intervention usually involves working with the two groups separately before bringing them together. They establish common goals and negotiate changes in how the groups interface. [See J. E. Jones & W. L. Bearley, Intergroup Diagnostic Survey, published by HRDQ, for a catalog of intergroup interventions.

Management/leadership training

Many OD professionals come from a training background. They understand that organizations cannot succeed long term without well-trained leaders. The OD contribution there can be to ensure that the development curriculum emphasizes practical, current situations that need attention within the organization and to monitor the degree to which training delivery is sufficiently participative as to promise adequate transfer of learnings to the job.

Setting up measurement systems

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The total-quality movement emphasizes that all work is a part of a process and that measurement is essential for process improvement. The OD professional is equipped with tools and techniques to assist leaders and others to create measurement methods and systems to monitor key success indicators.

Studies of structural causes

“Root-cause analysis” is a time-honored quality-improvement tool, and OD practitioners often use it to assist organizational clients to learn how to get down to the basis causes of problems.

Survey-feedback

This technology is probably the most powerful way that OD professionals involve very large numbers of people in diagnosing situations that need attention within the organization and to plan and implement improvements. The general method requires developing reliable, valid questionnaires, collecting data from all personnel, analyzing it for trends, and feeding the results back to everyone for action planning.

“Walk-the-talk” assessment

Most organizations have at least some leaders who “say one thing and do another.” This intervention, which can be highly threatening, concentrates on measuring the extent to which the people within the organization are behaving with integrity.

Learning Process

Learning Process

On the Job Trainings: These methods are generally applied on the workplace while employees is actually working. Following are the on-the-job methods.

Advantages of On-the-Job Training:

It is directly in the context of job It is often informal It is most effective because it is learning by experience It is least expensive Trainees are highly motivated It is free from artificial classroom situations

Disadvantages of On-the-Job Training:

Trainer may not be experienced enough to train It is not systematically organized Poorly conducted programs may create safety hazards

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On the Job Training Methods

1.            Job Rotation: In this method, usually employees are put on different jobs turn by turn where they learn all sorts of jobs of various departments. The objective is to give a comprehensive awareness about the jobs of different departments. Advantage – employee gets to know how his own and other departments also function. Interdepartmental coordination can be improved, instills team spirit. Disadvantage – It may become too much for an employee to learn. It is not focused on employees own job responsibilities. Employees basic talents may remain under utilized.

2.            Job Coaching: An experienced employee can give a verbal presentation to explain the nitty-gritty’s of the job.

3.            Job Instruction: It may consist an instruction or directions to perform a particular task or a function. It may be in the form of orders or steps to perform a task.

4.            Apprenticeships: Generally fresh graduates are put under the experienced employee to learn the functions of job.

5.            Internships and Assistantships: An intern or an assistants are recruited to perform a specific time-bound jobs or projects during their education. It may consist a part of their educational courses.

6.            Off the Job Trainings: These are used away from work places while employees are not working like classroom trainings, seminars etc. Following are the off-the-job methods;

Advantages of Off-the-Job Training: Trainers are usually experienced enough to train It is systematically organized Efficiently created programs may add lot of value

Disadvantages of Off-the-Job Training: It is not directly in the context of job It is often formal It is not based on experience It is least expensive Trainees may not be highly motivated It is more artificial in nature

Off the Job Training Methods

1.            Classroom Lectures: It is a verbal lecture presentation by an instructor to a large audience. Advantage – It can be used for large groups. Cost per trainee is low. Disadvantages – Low popularity. It is not learning by practice. It is One-way communication. No authentic feedback mechanism. Likely to boredom.

2.            Audio-Visual: It can be done using Films, Televisions, Video, and Presentations etc. Advantages – Wide range of realistic examples, quality control possible,. Disadvantages – One-way communication, No feedback mechanism. No flexibility for different audience.

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3.            Simulation: creating a real life situation for decision-making and understanding the actual job conditions give it. Following are some of the simulation methods of trainings

a.    Case Studies: It is a written description of an actual situation and trainer is supposed to analyze and give his conclusions in writing. The cases are generally based on actual organizational situations. It is an ideal method to promote decision-making abilities within the constraints of limited data. Role Plays: Here trainees assume the part of the specific personalities in a case study and enact it in front of the audience. It is more emotional orientation and improves interpersonal relationships. Attitudinal change is another result. These are generally used in MDP.

b.    Sensitivity Trainings: This is more from the point of view of behavioral assessment, under different circumstances how an individual will behave himself and towards others. There is no preplanned agenda and it is instant. Advantages – increased ability to empathize, listening skills, openness, tolerance, and conflict resolution skills. Disadvantage – Participants may resort to their old habits after the training

.

4.            Programmed Instructions: Provided in the form of blocks either in book or a teaching machine using questions and Feedbacks without the intervention of trainer. Advantages – Self paced, trainees can progress at their own speed, strong motivation for repeat learning, material is structured and self-contained. Disadvantages – Scope for learning is less; cost of books, manuals or machinery is expensive.

5.            Computer Aided Instructions: It is extension of PI method, by using computers. Advantages – Provides accountabilities, modifiable to technological innovations, flexible to time. Disadvantages – High cost.

6. Laboratory Training

Barriers to Effective Training:

1. Lack of Management commitment2. Inadequate Training budget

3. Education degrees lack skills

4. Large scale poaching of trained staff

5. Non-coordination from workers due to downsizing trends

6. Employers and B Schools operating distantly

7. Unions influence

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2. Training & Business Strategies Integration

3. Comprehensive and Systematic Approach

4. Continuous and Ongoing approach

5. Promoting Learning as Fundamental Value

6. Creations of effective training evaluation system

Succession Planning

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SUCCESSION PLANNING

Meaning of Succession Planning Succession planning is the process or activities connected with the succession of persons to fill key positions in the organization hierarchy as vacancies arise. The focus of attention is towards ‘which’ person the succession planning is needed. The focus is not more on career development but it is more towards what kind of person is required to fill the future vacancy. Succession planning focuses on identification of vacancies and locating the probable successor. For example in succession planning the key concern can be who will be next CEO or what will happen if the Marketing Manager retires in coming March.

Importance of Succession Planning

• Succession planning helps when there is a sudden need arises due to reason or retirement of a key employee.

• Individual employee comes to know in advance the level to which he can rise if he has the ability and aptitude for it.

• Individual employee or successor feels happy when he feels that organization is taking care of his talents and aspirations.

• Succession planning helps create loyalty towards the organization and improved motivation and morale of individual employees.

• Organization gains stable workforce and low employee turnover. • Ultimately organization becomes successful in accomplishing its goals effectively.

Individual Development Plan

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Creating Individual Developmental Plans

Growing your managers requires a customized developmental plan for each manager. Thomson outlines five essential steps for creating individual developmental plans:

Introduce the idea of a developmental plan. Identify the developmental priorities.

Create the action plan.

Conduct monthly progress meetings.

Have your key managers engage in this process with their people.

To help implement the plan:

Make sure you have buy-in from the manager. You can’t force development on someone who doesn’t see the need for it.

Pull, don’t push. Development works best by leading people into the process, not by dragging them kicking and screaming.

Start out slowly. Select a couple of your best managers and start working on a plan with them. Once they are fully on board, extend the process to others in the organization.

Model the behavior. The best way to demonstrate your commitment to development is to start with your own development.

Keep your plan visible. Sharing your action plan with an objective third party and keeping it visible (so you can refer to it frequently) will greatly increase your chances of accomplishing your developmental goals

Career Management

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Career Management Best Practices

Some of the programmes recommended are given below:

Challenging initial Tasks. Information Dissemination. Assessment centres. Career counselling. Mid-career correction seminars/workshops. Training and Development. Job Rotation. Deputation/Long Leave.

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(a)        Challenging Initial Tasks: Career success has shown significant relationship with challenging job assignment in the initial periods. In other words, an employee who faced challenging tasks during the initial period of engagement and has become successful has better chances of career success during the later periods. This shows importance of initial placement and socialisation.

(b)        Information Dissemination: Free flow of information regarding career prospects in an organization is very important. Management must publish documents containing information such as eligibility conditions for promotion, appointment  to key posts, special training or experience required in a particular field/area as a prerequisite for promotion of a given post, etc. Such information serves the following purposes:

How Development Occurs in Organizations

It prevents spread of rumour and half –truths spreading through word-of mouth regarding promotion and career prospects.

It stimulates /motivates employees to acquire special skill knowledge or experience well in time.

Improve knowledge and skill of employees of organisation and make available right talents at the right time.

(c) Assessment centres: Assessment centre provides an opportunity to assess the knowledge, skill and ability of employees. Since managers and supervisors are acting as assessors, this centre provides an opportunity for assessors to observe the behaviour carefully and draw inferences. The feedbacks to assessee also help him to improve his ability. It also gives better insight in performance appraisals to managers. More than anything else, it gives better opportunity to observe and learn the process of development.

(d)Career counselling: Career counselling assists the assesses to know his performance against the standard expected by organisation. Some of these objectives are given below:

1. Assess employee’s hopes, aspirations and expectation.2. Assess employee’s performance, achievements and shortcomings.

3. Assist employee to know organisational expectations and take a “realistic picture” of his expectations vs. opportunities available.

4. Assist training and development needs of employee’s and steps required thereof.

5. Assist employee to overcome anxiety and fear.

(e)Career guidance sessions/seminars/workshops: Such seminars must be organised by management which give an opportunity for managers and supervisors to interact with each other, air their respective views of their expectations and perceive problems standing against their aspirations and objectives.  This provides a very useful common platform of interaction between management and employees which generate free and frank discussion. Many things can come out from such seminars which are not otherwise possible to elicit, in one-to-one official transactions. Such workshops can bring together persons of similar background and

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length of service for introspection and self-analysis in regard to future prospects within the organisation or outside. This seminar can also identify training and development needs of some of the participants of a given category or area of specialisation, without which career stagnation is predicted. Based on diagnostic analysis in such conferences following are recommended for removing obstacles to career paths of employee:

Identify potential mismatches between employees and jobs. Identify Training and Development programme to overcome mismatches. Recommend changes in organisations career development programmes and practices. Recommend the need for individual employees to change their career aspiration being

unrealistic.

Such seminars are very useful for employees in the following occasions:

Time of entry of employees in the organisation during the socialisation /induction period.

Mid –career correction of employees. Late career assurance of employees.

(f) Training and Development: Training and development is an important means of updating skill, knowledge and competence of employees. This helps organisation to improve its knowledge base, to become successful in market by attaining and sustaining competitive advantage. This step also helps the individual employees to meet their aspirations of career prospects.

(g) Job Rotation: Job changes can prevent obsolescence and simulate career growth. There are two types of job rotation viz, vertical or horizontal. Vertical movement involve job enrichment and more authority through leave vacancy or temporary promotion or assistantship. Horizontal rotation exposes variety of job which involves job enlargement and more experience in allied fields or specialisation. It increased confidence and knowledge of persons which in turn increases one’s promotion chances.

(h) Deputation/Long Leave: Employees who have put up less than average performance carryout self-assessment and introspection. There are two options for them. These are:

Improve their performance to assure individual career objective. Look for career opportunities elsewhere, which better their prospects in life. Undergo further training programme. Look for an opportunity to relax and recuperate their energies and rejuvenate their

spirits.

Deputation on longer duration on seminar –cum-workshop is one such method. Another method is to go on long leave for relaxation. A change of place and relaxation, at a different location other than the normal workplace, aid such exercise.

Process of career planning

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Elements of Career Planning

The process of career planning

Career planning is the key process in career management. It uses all the information provided by the organization’s assessments of requirements, the assessments of performance and potential and the management succession plans, and translates it in the form of individual career development programs and general arrangements for management development, career counseling, mentoring and management training.

Career planning - the competency band approach

It is possible to define career progression in terms of the competencies required by individuals to carry out work at progressive levels of responsibility or contribution. These levels can be described as competency bands.

Competencies would be defined as the attributes and behavioral characteristics needed to perform effectively at each discrete level in a job or career family. The number of levels would vary according to the range of competencies required in a particular job family. For each band, the experience and training needed to achieve the competency level would be defined.

These definitions would provide a career map incorporating ‘aiming points’ for individuals, who would be made aware of the competency levels they must reach in order to achieve progress in their careers. This would help them to plan their own development, although support and guidance should be provided by their managers, and HR specialists . The provision of additional experience and training could be arranged as appropriate, but it would be important to clarify what individual employees need to do for themselves if they want to progress within the organization.

The advantage of this approach is that people are provided with aiming points and an understanding of what they need to do to reach them. One of the major causes of frustration and job dissatisfaction is the absence of this information.

A competency band career development approach can be linked to

Aiming points

1. Competence band 1 definitionBasic training and experience

2. Competence band 2 definitionContinuation of medium training and experience

3. Competence band 3 definitionContinuation of advanced training and experience

Career planning is for core people as well as high-flyers

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The philosophy upon which career plans are based refers not only to advancing careers to meet organizational and individual requirements, but also the need to maximize the potential of the people in the organization in terms of productivity and satisfaction under conditions of change, when development does not necessarily mean promotion.

career planning is for individuals as well as the organization

Career planning procedures are always based on what the organization needs. But they have to recognize that organizational needs will not be satisfied if individual needs are neglected. Career planning has to be concerned with the management of diversity.

Career plans must therefore recognize that:

members of the organization should receive recognition as individuals with unique needs, wants, and abilities;

individuals are more motivated by an organization that responds to their aspirations and needs;

individuals can grow, change and seek new directions if they are given the right opportunities, encouragement and guidance.

Career Development Initiatives

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Key Steps in Career Development Initiatives

A career development plan is totally different from a performance appraisal. Performance appraisals focus on your supervisor?s perception of your contributions and your developmental needs over the course of the past six months to a year.

A career development plan is future-focused and details what you as an employee would like to learn and contribute. A word of caution here, career development plans are not created in a vacuum. It is essential for employees to take into account departmental and organizational needs, objectives and goals when creating their career plans.

Personal and professional growth are important factors for keeping your career moving in a direction with which you are satisfied. Prior to setting up a meeting to discuss your plan with your manager or supervisor you will want to engage in self-assessment so that you will be able to clearly define and articulate your goals and developmental needs.

As you begin your self-assessment, keep in mind , The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.? Take some time to reflect on the following factors:

What are your motivated skills and talents? Which skills do you enjoy utilizing most? How would you like to expand your knowledge and your ability to contribute?

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What specific aspects of your job, the department and the overall payroll function are the most interesting to you? What would you like to learn more about, and how will this bring more value to your department and make your boss?s life easier?What are your work/life values, and how do your values overlap with the values and priorities of your department and your organization?What could you do to increase your satisfaction, and decrease factors that are not sources of satisfaction? Steps to increase your satisfaction could be as simple as rearranging your office to get out of the draft caused by the heating and air conditioning system, or as complex as researching, crafting and presenting a job sharing proposal. What would make you a happier, more productive employee?What ideas do you have for enhancing your current efficiency and effectiveness? This might include learning how to perform functions that other team members perform in case they are out of the office. Also take into account, ways you could train other team members to enhance their effectiveness and/or knowledge base.

When creating your plan, consider:

1. Results from a 360? assessment instrument which gives you feedback from not only your manager, but also from your peers, subordinates and customers

2. Your previous performance appraisals

3. Future trends which will be impacting the payroll profession and skills/knowledge needed to adapt to and thrive in the forthcoming environment

4. Customer feedback and letters of appreciation

5. What one thing more than anything else is holding you back? Work out a strategy for overcoming that roadblock/obstacle.

Develop both a short-term and a long-term career development plan. The timeframes for such plans vary from individual to individual. For some, short-term means the steps they will take over the next three to six months while for others short-term might mean completing a degree or certification that takes much longer than six months so they could reach their long-term goal of obtaining a promotion.Your development plan is a road map for plotting your career future. Don?t leave your future to happenstance. The magic begins when you set goals. A switch is turned on, the current begins to flow, and the power to accomplish becomes yours.career development planning is for individuals as well as the organization

Career development planning procedures are always based on what the organization needs. But they have to recognize that organizational needs will not be satisfied if individual needs are neglected. Career development planning has to be concerned with the management of diversity.

Career development plans must therefore recognize that:

1. Members of the organization should receive recognition as individuals with unique needs, wants, and abilities;

2. Individuals are more motivated by an organization that responds to their aspirations and needs;

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3. Individuals can grow, change and seek new directions if they are given the right opportunities, encouragement and guidance.

Career development planning techniques

Career planning uses all the information generated by the succession plans, performance, and potential assessments and self-assessments to develop programs and procedures which are designed to implement career management policies, achieve succession planning objectives and generally improve motivation, commitment and performance. The procedures used are those concerned with:

Personal development planning .Training and management development.MentoringCareer counseling

In addition, career development planning procedures may cater for the rising stars by ‘fast tracking’ them, that is, deliberately accelerating promotion and giving them opportunities to display and enlarge their talents. But these procedures should pay just as much, if not more, attention to those managers who are following the middle route of steady, albeit unspectacular, progression.

1. Career counseling

Performance management processes, should provide for counseling sessions between individuals and their managers. These sessions should give the former the opportunity to discuss their aspirations and the latter the chance to comment on them – helpfully – and, at a later stage, to put forward specificcareer development proposals to be fed into the overall career management programs.

2.Personal development planning

Personal development planning is carried out by individuals with guidance, encouragement and help from their managers/HRM as required. A personal development plan sets out the actions people propose to take to learn and to develop themselves. They take responsibility for formulating and implementing the plan, but they receive support from the organization and their managers in doing so. The purpose is to provide a ‘self-organized learning framework’.

3. Management Development

Formal approaches to management development

The formal approaches to management development include:

Development on the job through coaching, counseling, monitoring and feedback by managers on a continuous basis associated with the use of performance management processes to identify and satisfy development needs, and with mentoring;

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Development through work experience, which includes job rotation, job enlargement, taking part in project teams or task groups, ‘action learning’, and secondment outside the organization;

Formal training by means of internal or external courses;

Structured self-development by following self-managed learning programs agreed as a personal development plan or learning contract with the manager or a management development adviser – these may include guidance reading or the deliberate extension of knowledge or acquisition of new skills on the job.

Mentoring

Mentoring is the process of using specially selected and trained individuals to provide guidance and advice which will help to develop the careers of the ‘proteges’ Allocated to them.

Mentoring is aimed at complementing learning on the job, which must always be the best way of acquiring the particular skills and knowledge the job holder needs. Mentoring also complements formal training by providing those who benefit from it with individual guidance from experienced managers who are ‘wise in the ways of the organization’.

Mentors provide for the person or persons allocated to them :advice in drawing up self-development programs or learning contracts; general help with learning programs; guidance on how to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to do a new job; advice on dealing with any administrative, technical or people problems individuals meet.

Career Development Process

.This Career Development Guide provides employees and their management with a reference document that:

Offers a general “road map” for continuing career and professional development.

Provides an understanding of the behavioral and technical competencies that are required to effectively perform tasks in their occupations, and to use for career planning.

Presents a reference document on learning and other developmental opportunities which may be used in preparation of Employee Development Plans – a component of the Employee Work ProfileWhat it is Career development is an ongoing process where employees:

• Explore their interests and abilities• Strategically plan their career goals, and

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• Create their future work success by designing learning and action plans to help them achieve their goals.

Career development involves being aware of one’s personal goals and values as well as work goals. It involves continuously learning and applying new knowledge, taking advantage of opportunities, and taking risks in order to help the organization be productive and effective chieving one’s career and personal goals.

The purpose of career development is to:

• Enhance each employee’s current performance• Enable individuals to take advantage of future job opportunities

• Fulfill their employer’s goals for a dynamic and effective workforce.

• We live in uncertain times. Factors outside of the employee and employer’s control may affect the outcome of career actions. But one thing is true – the best career development move is to perform well in one’s current position.

Consistent, high quality performance along with thoughtful career planning will help ensure continued success on the job.

Who’s responsible

The employee has the lead responsibility for his or her career development.Supervisors, managers, and the organization can provide meaningful assistance in this process.

The following are examples of career development actions:

Employees:

Decide what they want from their careers now and in the future Take actions individually or with their supervisors to assess individual interests,

strengths, and areas for development

As part of the performance management process, develop a yearly Employee

Development Plan (EDP) with supervisor input, including current job development and longer term career objectives

Work with supervisor to identify on the job learning and training opportunities, continued education, and/or avenues for professional development

Managers:

Identify the job-related knowledge, skills, abilities, competencies and experience that employees need to be effective in their positions

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Help employees define short and long term development needs that support organizational objectives and employee career goals

Support Employee Development Plans by indicating specific steps that need to be taken and by whom to accomplish the learning goals.

Organization:

Provide a job and compensation structure that supports the organization’s goals and allows for individual development and growth

Provides time and available funding for development activities

Use the knowledge, skills and abilities of each employee to support organizational objectives

Develop a proactive approach to meet future staffing needs

Employee Development Plans

The Employee Development Plan (EDP) is part of the performance management system. On an annual basis (or more frequently), supervisors and employees meet to discuss the career and personal learning goals of the employee and the organization, identify the learning steps and resources needed, and put together a plan to achieve those goals over the coming year.An EDP should include short and long term career goals, and the training, education, and learning that is needed to achieve them.The keys to success in developing an EDP are information, communication, joint decision- making, and willingness to learn:

Information:

Employees need to understand their own strengths, preferences and career goals as well as options for future career progression within the agency or elsewhere in state government. Creating a career development plan is a good way to keep track of this information so you are prepared to discuss your career with your supervisor. The Career Maps feature being developed for this provide a good way to understand potential career moves within the organization.Supervisors need to understand the organization’s current staffing and performance needs, as well as the knowledge, skills, experience and competencies needed to perform in the current role and in the future.

Communication:

The employee is responsible for making supervisors aware of their career and professional development goals, especially if they change.There are rapid changes in today’s world: missions and projects begin and end; budgets go up and down, and the need for skills and abilities can change quickly. It is up to the supervisor to

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communicate the current and anticipated needs of the organization so that decisions can be made that are in the best interests of the organization as well as the employee.

Joint Decision-making:

Although EDPs and career development plans are unique to each employee, they do not exist alone. Employees need to consider important issues like available funding, workload, and the needs of other employees when making decisions and career plans.Supervisors need to take employees’ goals into consideration as they consider what development initiatives to support, and how to allocate available funds within their units. Understanding employee career goals may help supervisors identify alternative development activities that meet those needs when budgets are tight.

Willingness to learn:

Gone is the time when good employees can expect to automatically move up a predefined career ladder. Employees need to be agile in finding the right jobs throughout their careers. A demonstrated willingness to continue to learn and use new skills, particularly technical skills, is critical to long-term career success.

Organizations are moving toward flatter structures, and the traditional movement “up” the career ladder is no longer the only way to achieve success. Employees need to be creative in identifying ways to move along in their career – such as lateral moves, learning or experiential opportunities or even career changes that will broaden their experience or help leverage them into a different area.

Supervisors need to stay aware of individual employees’ development needs, and make opportunities available to employees that will help them achieve their career goals and contribute to their work unit’s success.

You are UniqueThere is no single career development path that is right for everyone. People have different skills, interests, values and goals – and each person’s career and individual development plans must take these differences into account.

The same is true for individual jobs . Although two jobs may have the same general role description, the mission of the organization , and the specific circumstances and environment of one job, may differ from a job with the same role name in another organization.

As you progress through the ranks, different skills and behaviors may be needed in different combinations in order to be successful. For example, as an employee progresses from entry level, to journey level to a senior or executive level, the need for increased competency in leadership, or understanding the business, will be much greater than as an entry level person in their career group.

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