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HR Generalist to Specialist - Division of Labor

It's just two weeks that i joined my work place. Have not started working full fledged as yet since we have been assigned projects which are to be completed within one month. Well will just pen down a few recent observations. What I have observed is a recent shift in the trend of the profiles being offered to HR graduates .Initially freshers were easily given HR Generalists role. However, lately there has been a shift from Generalist roles to Specialist Roles. Most companies of late have been in an expanding spree. As the no. of employees were increasing, the need for a proper HR dept was being felt. The Generalists were doing a good job but suddenly to get things done in a better way, a need for proper division of labor was felt. it was at this point that the specialists came into the picture. These days most new HR hires are assigned one special HR vertical (if I may call it).Be it recruitment, T&D or Comp & Ben. After getting proper exposure and experience in one ve

CHRYSALIS 2010 presents "Business In Technicolor"

Last week LIBA got over with its annual B School Fest CHRYSALIS, and the theme this year was "Business in Technicolor". It was the time of Lights... Camera..... and Action...... in the campus. We decided to go beyond the texts and classrooms.It is here that the learning from movies begins...... Its a classic example of management being fun and management leading to fun! A brief on the HR Game will help you understand how we went about it. We required teams of 3. There were 3 main rounds in the game. Round 1: The 1st round was a quiz round to test the intelligence of the participants and to churn out the cream from the lot. Quiz had 30 questions which were to be answered in 20 minutes. 6 teams qualified for the 2nd round. Round 2:  It is here that the actual test began. Its quite easy to use HR jargon like downsizing, benchmarking etc but the test begins when one has to communicate these terms not in words but in actions. Yes! this round was DUMB CHARADES . It tested how

QBQ- The Question Behind the Question

An interesting book authored by John Miller which discusses the questions people ask and how it effects their mood and attitudes towards certain situations. The book QBQ urges individuals to practice Personal Accountability in work and life by asking better questions . Questions to be avoided: All questions which begin with "who, when and why" should be avoided and have been categorized as lousy or incorrect questions. - A who  questions usually leads to a blame game. This is a very common problem seen  in organizations where departments and individuals keep passing the ball to the other. - A when question leads to procrastination and lack of efforts from individuals. - A why questions encourages victim thinking thus affecting the employee's morale and performance.   How to frame the right questions: - Begin your questions by " What or How" .This helps you to look out for the solutions available. - The question should always contain an "I". This

Never Stop LEARNING!!!!!!!!!!

Well, the past 3 months have been a roller coaster ride and have yet another lap to go in January. But the best part is that in every high and every low that i went through, I learnt something. Something about everything. The "10 -20 minute conversations" which I have had recently with some of the experienced people from varied industries, made me learn certain things about myself. The questions that they put forth made me delve into myself to find the answers. Not that I have all the answers now but I am sure sooner or later I will find them. Their questions dint just help me know myself better but also increased my knowledge about various indutries. Also had to refer to some HR related books to increase my HR knowldege and I also got to learn quite a few interesting tricks of my trade ;). Quite a lot of knowledge enrichment!!!!!  It's the flip side u see :). Starting from April, this year, my life took a complete new turn. A special thanks to all the "friends

Just like that ...

Huh.. finally me back to blogging but this time its not on any particular topic. Its just a sneak peek into my life. With the outset of Novemeber, Life bacame all busy. Mid terms , INSIGHT 09 , projects, Mid terms and now placements. Crazy life! Too much happening all at the same time..  Guess this is the best part of being a Management student. You have too much of workload ,too many activities and the worst part being you cant ignore any of it . One has to handle all of it smartly. The key being time management. Once you master that, life becomes simple and easy. But mastering that in itself is a big deal my dear friend. Anyway I am in no mood of gyan talk now. The mood in college for a change is pretty sober. The 2nd years are gearing up for the placements. The library is more or less full most of the time with people flipping through various magazines and news papers. Guess the fact has started sinking in. Placements is not far n all of us have to give in our best shot. At time

The Firewalk!!!!

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Last Saturday I attended a conferance organised by SHRM and MTHR Global where i got an opprtunity to walk on fire. Surprised???? i really did. The speaker was PRIYA KUMAR, one of the most impressive motivational speaker I have ever come across. Before we went 4 the firewalk, she laid some basic rules: 1) Everyone has to walk. No one could chicken out. 1) There is no coming back once you place your foot on the walk 2)Do not try to jump out of the path since both the sides would be set ablaze. ;) Interesting, Isn't it? This was enough to raise our pulse rate. There was fear as well anxiety.Finally it was my turn to walk. With a lot of courage I took a deep breath and put my 1st foot forward and quickly walked across. It got over too soon I guess as it dint hurt much. But still I failed to understand the motive behind it.Once we went back to the hall, Priya cleared all doubts. MORAL: - In life we do not try a number of things because we have this fear of failing. At tim

A different aspect to Appraisals- AMBITION

Recently I attended the NHRD, Chennai, October meet.The guest speaker was Priya Gopalakrishnan, Director- HR, ING Vysya.She spoke on Talent Management where she covered all topics from acquisition to retention. When she touched upon Appraisals, she mentioned something very ineteresting. She said like all other companies we measure the Performance, Leadership etc but she added a new parameter which was AMBITION. They adjudged the AMBITION of the employees which helped them to undertsand the willingness of the worker to stick to the company and sacrifice for the company. They have a signalling process called RAG( red, amber, green)which tells them which employees are planning to stay and which are set to leave.Some advantages are: -Companies facing high attrition problems can be prepered with fresh talent when required. -It will also aid their Succession Planning especially for the business critical roles. - There will be no need to maintain a bench for evry function. This will a