Ria Dua's Blog

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

Some "REAL RESUME QUOTES" I found while going through the magazine Human Factor. "I have an excellent track record, although I am not a horse" ;) "I am LOYAL to my employer at all costs. Please feel free to respond to my resume on my office voice mail" ;D Courtesy: Human Factor, October issue.

Had a test on Cross Cultural Management recently where Father Joe Arun gave us the following question: "Discuss 10 variables of your cultural ethinicity and their impact on managing people." This is what i wrote: Here we are not discussing Sikhs but arya Punjabis/ Hindu Punjabis. They are the descendants of the Indo- Aryans who settled around the Punjab and Sind area and belonged to the Kshatria(warriors) Clan. However, the political and economic stbility forced them to look for different avenues. Thus they took to merchantalism (merchants) and became very successful in this field. 10 variables of the Punjabi Culture and their impact on Managing People: 1) Brave and Risk Taking: Yes, Punjabis are very brave as they were fighters once upon a time. They do not mind taking risks and like experimenting. They have the ability to face loss which is not easy for everyone. They also love challenges. If u wanna get them to work, challenge them! 2) Good Business Intellect: ...

It is interesting to see how Chetan Bhagat’s fourth book is selling copies after copies. It is hard to believe that the copies of the book are stacked in Landmark near the billing counter with the Impulse products and people are buying it as if it was just another chocolate. Two reasons why readers are getting attracted are:  It is priced as low as Rs. 95  People look forward to the humour in Bhagats writings which is usually a light read.  Catchy for the youth like always Chetan Bhagat draws the story line from his own life but prefers to call his work fiction. The tale is about the two States of Delhi and Chennai coming together. The connecting link is love between two IIM A graduates who want to get married. The catch is that the guy is Punjabi from Delhi and the girl is a Brahmin Tamil from Chennai. An interesting match I must say. Chetan with a hint of sarcasm explains how the conventional love marriages take place in India. It is indeed a long process. First the guy f...

It is funny how your daily life makes you face certain situations that teach you a lesson for life. This was an experience I had at the beginning of my 2nd year. The Beyond Management team of our college has taken the responsibility of organising guest lectures for the students every Thursday. They invite industry experts who share their experiences with us and also help us keep up to date with the happenings in various industries. As a custom, the juniors always occupied the first half of the audi and the seniors the second half. It was assumed that as we are in 2nd year now, we would be at the receiving end and would have the privilege of occupying the last few rows (it gave us a chance to fool around a little if we dint find the lecturer interesting without offending anyone). But things did not turn out that way. The same rules were not applied this year. Everyone had the liberty to occupy which ever seat they wanted and the last rows were always the first to be occupied. Don’t...

The trial of Kasab, the lone terrorist survivor of the “The Mumbai Terror Attack”, keeps reminding us of the disastrous day when 179 people including 22 foreigners lost their lives. It fills our hearts with horror, anger and anguish at the same time. Being a management student, I would like to bring your attention towards the role of the management (especially HR) in this entire catharsis with special reference to The Taj Palace and Hotels. Mr. H.N Srinivasan, Vice- President HR, Taj, who reported to the venue on 27th November enlightened us with the role and duties of an HR head at times of crisis during the monthly meet of NHRD, Chennai. He mentioned that the most important thing is to be in complete self control with a calm mind in order to act in the right direction. Companies need to devise effective measures to handle the situation. Some measures like Safety and security of the guests as well as the employees go unsaid. Besides that the victims go through a lot of stress. Thu...

Hi all, The first post in my blog has to have the mention of two important people who motivated me enough to start blogging. One is my dear friend Saikat Saha who is a regualr blogger since 2007. We share the same interests and HR is our primary connect. Thanks a lot buddy. I hope i continue with it. The second person is Mr. Kiruba Shankar, Director, Wikimedia (India). He came to our college to give a lecture on social networking and motivated us enough to act on the same lines. Thanks a lot Sir. The blog will be centric to what I ria-lize in this journey called life...