Dear Friends

It’s a pleasure to be part of this wonderful HR fraternity led by National HRD Network. Since it’s my very first interaction with the group, I thought I would start off by sharing a bit about myself and a few of my reflections on some other issues. I see this blog as a new two-way communication platform on the internet and I hope that this forum would help us share ideas and suggestions. I request your wholehearted participation to ensure that we can communicate meaningfully.

About Me: I currently head the HR function at Bharti Airtel Ltd. I started my career with Eicher Tractors in 1984 as Unit Personnel Officer and thereafter have held various roles in Hindustan Lever Ltd and Unilever, spanning the diverse areas of HR and Organization development. After spending 20 years with Levers, I joined Airtel. I have over 22 years of professional experience in enterprise level roles, change management, performance management, people alignment and driving the HR transformation agenda to deliver strategic value for the business.

I start off our journey of sharing ideas by seeking your thoughts on what do we need to do as HR professionals to make a lasting impact on our business performance? With increasing competition, the key differentiators for any organization are its people & capabilities. Therefore, our focus needs to be on ensuring that the best people continue to be with us and perceive our companies as ‘employers of choice’.. Hence, this is the time when we have to seriously re-evaluate the HR role and bring in cultural changes.
Which brings us to the next question-Are there any areas that we could work on to build a culture conducive to delivering high performance? One of the areas that has been recognized as a catalyst to this is ensuring a healthy work life balance for our employees. This topic wasn’t as important in the past as it is today because, in the past, people often were able to attend primarily to one major role in their life (eg, working, housework, etc.), rather than to several (eg, to a career, being a parent, pursuing hobbies, etc), such as today.

The importance of ensuring a good work life balance and adjusting patterns to help combine our work with other aspects of life can not be overstated. According to a study done by Gallup Inc, 76% of employees in a managerial positions want more time with their families & friends; 50% claim to be too exhausted mentally and physically to do anything but work and sleep; 30% said that their life is out of control and 20% said that they are too stressed to enjoy life at all.

As HR professionals, we understand that work has evolved from a matter of necessity/survival to also a source of personal satisfaction. Also, to me work life balance is not just about the amount of time you spend working vs. not-working or office vs. home. It is about Achievement and Enjoyment for each one of us. These two characteristics are the different side of the same coin. To lead a happy life, we need both these key ingredients in our lives.

Hence, how can we as leaders assist our employees to strike this balance- In order to be driven to give their all to their organizations?

With increased access to improved technology, options such as telecommuting have been instrumental in enabling increased work life balance for organizations. Organizations of today are also opening up to providing increased flexibility (in terms of work schedules) to employees- Which also helps them balance their lives. However, the success of any such initiatives lies in the willingness of the people managers to drive it as a personal agenda. Translating this intellectual awareness into day-to-day practice involves enabling your teams to prioritize their work and striking a balance. This would not only make them many times more productive, but would also provide them the time that they need to lead a ‘whole’ life.

Once again, this is a two way platform and should help us share our ideas and thoughts, so do contribute openly.

Krish

Managing Culture Design & Change, Performance Management Krish Shankar

Every manager is required to do Performance Appraisals. Generally, the season for this is once a year. The employees keenly look forward to this, because they are expecting a ‘good grade’ after a year of hard work and more importantly, their compensation increase would be based on this. The managers, usually, do not look forward to this season. During this time, all the ‘work’ stops and only this ‘HR activity’ happens. The 3rd party in this season is the HR team. This is their time, and they push the whole system to get the ‘job’ done. The ‘policy’ already exists, and all clarifications and questions generally are answered with the ‘policy statements’. All departments are required to meet the ‘normal’ distribution of the ratings.

So why do managers generally detest this? There is this huge emotional dialogue and debate with the team members. They get upset. Managers get emotionally overdrawn. Each review lasts for a couple of hours, without seeming to reach a closure (you thought you closed it and pop…there is an email in your inbox from the employee raising some or same points again!). A few even ask for group change and occasionally some even leave citing bad review! Who likes this anyway?

The more important question is – How to do this right? Let’s start with the expected outcome. The employee must feel good after the review and look forward to doing more in future with the manager and the company. The manager is very hopeful for employee’s growth and performance.

A manager has to play the judge and deliver a verdict about the performance of the employee. As a Judge, you carefully look at all the data, and make a judgment taking into account the law (in this case the policy). The big difference here is that the Judge is himself or herself involved – they provide the relevant data and then judge it too, and the employee is judging the Judge too (is my manager being fair to me?). Hence there is an inherent conflict of interest here. If the employee’s expectations are not met, then he/she gets frustrated.

In order to accomplish the goal, the manager, perhaps needs to become the coach of the employee. A coach is also making judgments. But there is a difference. A successful coach earns the trust of his team. The team knows that the coach is working towards their success. This is all the job of the coach is. Hence they listen to the coach. The coach gets to know the ‘game’ and the ‘capability’ of each of the members, and then helps each of them to make a plan to make this better. Trust means that the team does not doubt the agenda of the coach. The agenda is obvious – the team wins and this can happen only when each of the members gets better, and this is what the coach is working on. The coach is helping on a regular basis. He/she is giving pointed feedback, and then asking how the team member plans to improve. The coach gives his/her own suggestions too. A good coach is very demanding, much more than managers. But his/her team listens because they have unwavering trust in the coach – that he/she has their success in mind, and that he/she is competent.

A manager despite competence finds it hard to become as effective as a coach. The team members may not be sure whose success the manager is interested in – theirs or his/her own. Most of the time the manager spends time reviewing the task and not connect to the employee. Employee thinks that manager is focussed on the project success (i.e., his own success) and does not care about employee’s interests. It is hard to have a trusting relationship in this situation. Sometimes, there is also lack of clarity on the overall goal. And hence the feedback looks like a judgment, and team members could feel violated because they consider the manager as an outsider rather than aas one of them. To top it all, most managers do not give feedback for improvement until the ‘season’, that is once a year, through the review. The employee gets a surprise, and we all know that unpleasant surprises of this type do not build trust.

Perhaps we as managers must see ourselves as coaches who are able to demand high performance from their team because the team trusts them completely. The right way to measure the success of a review is that a manager mails the review document to his team members in advance and asks for a meeting. Many employees say they are willing to sign it off without the meeting. The meetings last for 30 to 45 minutes and are focussed on discussing the future, and not arguing about the past. And, the team wants to retain the same coach!

Irrespective of the strengths or limitations of the Performance Appraisal Policy of their company, good managers earn the trust of their team and are able to drive their performance, and make them successful. They are able to Make A Difference to their team. Everyone wants to work with these managers. And the HR team can perhaps focus on how to enable managers to be coaches.

Question 1: In your experience, what determines the success of a Performance Appraisal System?

Question 2: What is the main reason for failure?

Your thoughts and questions will be a learning opportunity for everyone. Won’t you like to (be) M.A.D.?

Performance Management, Talent Management, Uncategorized Aadesh Goyal