HR Processes, systems, streamlining, automation...

15 Points to focus, while writing Requirements Specification

2011-11-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

Requirement specification requires a simple and rational structure, with a version track. Traceability is one of the success factors for any requirement specification. For major specifications, Requirement Engineer may use a spreadsheet

Each requirement shall be recorded accurately with the prime objective of not loosing the specific characteristic of the requirement.

Ensure single interpretation for each requirement, recorded and shall be precise, easy to read, clear, short and explicit.

Use simple and natural language, across requirement specification. However, Requirements Engineer can not avoid domain specific terms, which customer follows to explain the business case or problems. Here, explain the term under glossary

Prime objective of Requirements Engineer would be to state, requirements and deliverable to customer without ambiguity.

Giving emphasis to ‘How’ may make Requirements Engineer and user, biased and this may even damage the actual requirements flow and scope of the design. However, Requirements Engineer can include ‘How’ with less emphasis on technology, tools and design.

Each requirement shall be recorded with a specific purpose and commitment. Better to use 'shall' in sentences, as this can indicate commitment.

Be objective, when write requirements and never assume or undermine anything as far as requirements are concerned.

Requirement engineer shall give focused attention towards the specification and ensure that the problem domain has been understood, completely and then recorded functional/non functional requirement, system performance and constraints.

Requirement Engineer shall use references, scenarios, diagrams and tables, wherever necessary to explain requirements, rationale and background.

The requirement specification shall be verifiable. To make it verifiable, ensure that each requirement statement has been written with utmost care and once the product is delivered, customer can associate a feature with the requirement and verify the same.

Requirement Engineer shall specify the function envisaged by the user with performance expectations for each and every requirement. However, avoid getting in to technology, tools or physical attributes of the product under design and cost

The requirements shall be testable. So ensure that there are some quantitative mechanisms to test the requirements, recorded. More specifically, there shall be a scope for writing one or more test cases for each of the requirements

Avoid the following, while writing requirements

Refer Tables/figures, which are not part of the specification
Refer telephone calls/correspondence, which is not in record
Incomplete sentences, which ends with and/or, etc.
Words like normally, wherever applicable, may be, nominal, approximate, peak, achievable, coincidence, latest
Passive sentences
Words, which can't be tested - usually, reasonable, highest, earliest, flexible, adequate, efficient, possible, faster, worst, often, acceptable, compatible
Conflicting terms/characteristics
Repeat a requirement, more than once in the specification
Use of a pronoun (Eg: - it), without an explicit reference
Logical inconsistency and conflicting business logic

As any product can be made with in certain budget with the available tools, technology and resources, care shall be given to consider all these aspects, while write a requirement specification

Should we automate 'crazy' thoughts or address real business problems?

2011-07-25T00:37:00.000-07:00

Even though we are talking much about role of technology in business, process automation, outsource non-core activities and focus on core jobs, many times, it is quite usual to find some crazy automation requirements.

May be it is high time to get out of biased approach towards people processes and automation. We need to trust people and empower them to take ownership

If intention is not to enable transparency in people processes, cut down unnecessary steps in a process and at the same time introduce a fancy tool as part of the so called ‘OD’ or ‘Corporate Renovation’ programme or something else, for them automation can be just another expense. For others, this is going to be an investment

Let’s take a simple people process, employee leave

Typical employee leave process

When we use a good tool to automate leave process, things will change, automatically and in turn, help people to reorient themselves to save quality time

Automated Employee Leave process

Employee signs in via Employee Self Service
Checks leave balance, plan leave
Furnish leave request to immediate supervisor, online with automatic intimation to other required personnel
Supervisor reviews leave and accept or forwards to leave approver
Leave approver reviews, approves or rejects it.
As and when it happen, mail intimation goes to Employee, HR and Payroll
The same info gets updated in leave master for Payroll process

On top of this, users may come up with requirements like provision for a centralized user to apply for leave on behalf of all employees. Be careful, you are going to hamper the entire benefits of self service by making it centralized. Before getting in to these sort of peculiar requirements, get the concurrence of people those who drives the process automation

Before getting in to impulsive decisions on automation, think, brainstorm, scribble, plan about automation, then act.

Basic Tips

Make the process simple and hence the automation
Do not depend on process in ‘mind’, prepare a written blueprint
Fix the process first and then get in to automation
Do not go after the cheapest vendor. Evaluate, check for justifications and arrive at the ROI
Do not go after fancy advertisements, check references, read testimonials and evaluate the software

HR Professionals are not just 'entertainers'

2011-03-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

Recession clouds are away and once again HR Office is busy with exit interviews!!!

Why don't this office is not acting, proactively (certainly, not in all organisations)? If you look at some of the job advertisements for HR, we can never expect much troubles in people management.

If the investors or the people with the delegated rights are making HR Department just for employee engagement, time is up for them to rethink. At the same time, tremendous effort is required by HR fraternity to come out of their comfort zone and take away their 'entertainer' mask

Suggestion to Investors

1. Invest in HR Department if and only if you can fix goals for them
2. Even though HR Specialist function exists, need is here to give HR domain exposure/education to Line Management
3. Explore outsourcing non-core aspects of HR to specialists in that sector. Eg: - Legal compliance, Payroll Processing, Talent Hunt
4. You need not require a well experienced HR Manager, who worked previously with x LLC, y INC, z MNC to attract the best talent, if you can outsource talent management. In the same manner, do you require 20 people in HR department to check mails, answer employee queries, process reports and prepare letters? Not at all, what you require is good HR Software with Self Service.
5. Consider HR as a business partner and make use of its strategic edge for people development and hence continuous value add to organisation

Suggestion to HR Professionals

1. HR Function across the world is realigning for more organizational visibility and strategic edge
2. HR needs to be more empathetic and should be able to know the pulse of the workforce
3. Retaining Gen X workforce is going to be the toughest HR task and your score will never improve just by giving them pass to parties and discotheques
4. HR is no more a staff function, come out of the comfort zone, convince your investors and take initiative to drive the organizational performance.
5. Give 90% efforts for increasing employee output and value creation and just 10% to administration and statutory aspects

Put employees first, and customers will follow

2010-06-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

"Why should a CEO be respected, what is so special about him?... I want a problem to be our problem and not somebody else’s " This interview excerpt in Times of India 'corner office' made me to buy "Employees First, Customers Second – turning conventional management upside down", a book written by Vineet Nayar, CEO, HCL Technologies.

This is one of the finest management books, I ever read. You can feel the passion of Vineet and certainly more than that, his immense trust in people. Employees First, Customers Second (EFCS) is a book, free of show off and management jargons. Vineet’s narrating style will guide you through one of the daring and successful management experiments in this century.

More than a CEO, you will find a great Human Resource philosopher in Vineet. The changing needs of Gen Y, organizational realignments and recession troubles are demanding more from HR as an enabling function. The book is really an eye opener for any professional, who really passionate of people processes and development.

With a non-conventional practice, Employees First, Customers Second, Vineet has performed an honest attempt to explore the role of ‘value zone’ in a human intensive business and seamlessly convinced that the practice can make amazing results. By adopting simple catalysts, he has proved that organization transformation is achievable even without a million dollar budget.

The way, Vineet transformed the role of managers, enabling functions and above all making the CEO office – non conventional is going to make incredible changes in management practices, across the world.

The recent turbulence in corporate world, particularly recession, closures, and resultant pink slips had created flaws in employee – employer relationships. Today, post - recession resource race making the situation much worse. When you finish reading this book, you will understand the relevance of Employees First, Customers Second. Vineet’s book emphasizing the role of trust and transparency in corporate world and how EFCS can reinforce the same.

The way, stories and real life incidents stitched in to the whole text is highly enjoyable. "Employees First, Customers Second – turning conventional management upside down" is a must read for CEOs, Senior Leaders, HR professionals, Managers, Analysts, Academicians, and of course budding professionals of any stream.

Let this be the new management principle for corporate world - Put employees first, and customers will follow

To know more about the book, more thoughts on EFCS etc... you may visit Vineet Nayar's scrapbook

11 signals to revamp HR Office

2010-02-16T20:44:00.000-08:00

Getting requests from Business Heads to furnish comprehensive reports on Human Resources in short notice and failing to deliver
Spending more than 50% of your time on employee information update, repeated data entry, validating information, writing approval notes, signing/forwarding leave applications or indents
Finding it too difficult to manage the volume of employee queries or calls and accumulation of queries
Finding it difficult to spend time on core human resources management and its strategic aspects
Spending more than 25% time in 'search' of information and getting exhausted
Finding errors in monthly HR reports and spending too much time towards employee count - branch/location/division/state/country
Getting feedback from employees/managers/business heads, which reiterate HR as reactive and not proactive
Finding HR Analytics and arriving at accurate inferences, too difficult to achieve
Organization finding HR, not as energetic and supportive but a replica of a public service office of 80's.
Getting worst feedback in Exit interviews, attrition % is going up ahead of industry average and productivity figures are touching rock bottom
Struggling to manage post recession impact in HR Office

Just brainstorm, it is the high time to act. Shed the fatigue, reinvent and reposition HR Office to acquire the strategic edge. Go get a simple, intelligent and reliable HRMS. You may refer how to select the best HR Management Software before finalizing your vendor

Oh my GOD, I could have saved millions!

2009-12-11T01:39:00.000-08:00

This is the loud thoughts of a Lady CEO, Whom I met in "Oman Air", on my return trip from Muscat. I usually travel in economy class but this time, our delighted customer offered a business class. Being a talkative person, I usually dislike succumbing to books on board. Luckily the lady besides me was not the usual "book worm". As chief of an Arab Multinational Fragrance Company, she is expected to know her business operations well, but I was stunned by her knowledge in nanotechnology, cloud computing and world politics.

While talking about our business, she was so eager to know the latest trends in HR and possible value additions in HR by IT. There was nothing unusual but later she presented a problem. She got a 12000+ people strong organization, spanned across Middle East,India, Singapore and France with HQ in Dubai. She has been hiring and replacing Heads to look after the ‘people business’ since 2007 and she experimented more than 3 people. Unfortunately even the latest 'seasoned' VP-HR from India also demanding an additional pay hike (a whopping 30% to his existing $1,75,000 USD) even though he is not up to the expectation of the CEO in terms of results. She hired this guy as recommended by a management consultant who convinced her of his hands-on experience, MBA from Australia, previous experience in HongKong etc… but according her, he was not more than a person with20+ years ‘experience’ and 10/10 in British English.

To my surprise, they have not yet introduced performance pay for Senior Managers and above! They have implemented a well known ERP but not procured HR& Compensation modules and employee self service.Just imagine, manually handling hiring, immigration, employee records maintenance,time tracking, payroll and benefits process, passage and employee movements,training, performance appraisals, full and final settlements etc.with the help of a team of clerks and officers...that too for multicultural workforce who work in different time zones. “You won't believe, some of them are still using typewriters!". Above all, 75% of hiring, training, immigration activities are outsourced. Their HR workforce consists of 50+ people in HR HQ and 100+ people across various country locations. When she shown me the Functional HR Org chart, it resembles that of a mid sized manufacturing facility.

She has been spending almost $3 Million USD for running their HR Function. Their annual turnover cross $40 Million USD but still the huge HR Management expense was not at all a 'reasonable figure' for me. As I was reluctant to be judgmental, I have asked couple of questions like “What was the attrition rate for 2007-08? Which are the quality standards they possess? When did they revise HR Manual? When did they start systematic appraisal? What would be the time required to come up with their group's people statistics?

The following answers made me to comment "your people management practices require thorough re-engineering".

* Attrition Rate: 21%
* Quality Standards: Hired a consultant for ISO certification, 1 year back
* HR Manual: Not available; this was one of the tasks given to the then HR Head, 2 years back
* Appraisal: No constructive performance tracking. Units will give increments, once in a year based on
some figures
* People Statistics: Require2 days to 1 week

Suddenly she shared thoughts of replacing their VP-HR again “Should I hire a new HR Head? Can you refer a good candidate?. I told her not to get into panic and replacing HR Head alone may not resolve the issues.

I suggested to hire a person with 75% of current salary of existing VP-HR for a job contract of 2 years with 60:40 take home and performance pay.

We have prepared a draft job description and key performance areas for HR Function Head. Some of the items in performance plan are shown here under

1. List out all regular tasks of HR Department, for HQ and for Country wise departments with required man-hours to finish each task : before end of Q1
2. Conduct a study across HR Departments and arrive at a plan with feasibility to outsource or in source various HR tasks: before end of Q1
3. Collect all the existing polices and procedures including statutory aspects : before end of Q1
4. List out the new policies to be framed : before end of Q1
5. Define Job profiles and maintain profiles in a systematic manner for all the positions : before end of Q2
6. Complete transition from traditional employee records to HRMS for records maintenance : before end of Q3
7. Complete transition to Software based attendance management system with the goal "SBU Heads, Function Heads and Directors should be able to view live attendance data 24x7" to be achieved : before end of Q3
8. Buy, implement and use a comprehensive Payroll Software to automate payroll process of all employees except SBU as well as Function Heads and Top management : before end of Q4
9. Buy, implement and use a standalone payroll software to automate payroll process and pay slip distribution to Top management folks: before end of Q3
10. Research across units to identify the possibilities of HR Process automation and come up with report : before end of Q2
11. Prepare the draft HR manual, employee handbook and vision statement : before end of Q2
12. Conduct a research on prevailing performance standards in concerned geographical areas and come up with recommendation for performance plans – geography wise, function wise and level wise : before end of Q3
13. Convert HR Department to a profit center with in Q3 of second year and get a reward of $25000 USD
14. ….

She seems to be very happy and even ready to accept our HR & Payroll products without seeing the demo.But we usually will not dump the software and vanish and always try our level best to match or exceed customer expectations. Otherwise we’ll say "sorry we can’t take it up". So I checked, whether it would be comfortable for her to attend a quick demo, in flight. To her immediate response "Why not?" I started my first non-scheduled, in flight demo.

Started showing Human Capital Management, Online HR Center, Leave Process Workflow, HR Planning, Attendance, Training, Performance Management and finally Payroll Software. Thanks to Acer…it cooperated well an did not create any trouble during demo.

Also I have assured her that for their exclusive group of employees, SaaS Payroll can be given with subscription pricing. Also given some of the existing customers of our software in India and Middle East as reference and encouraged her to speak to them before taking the buying decision.In addition to this, shared information on couple of software vendors which are actually competitors to us, for the group to compare with and select the right kind of software for her group. Because,tomorrow there should not be a feel that "If we would have gone for that software, I could have benefited more…"

The CEO was pretty comfortable with the software and almost decided to go with our software. The first job that she performed at Mumbai Airport launch was to transfer the job description, drafted for HR Head to her blackberry and send to her secretary in Dubai to start the recruitment process.

While saying good bye, she told me only this much but that communicated well enough "Oh my God, I could have saved millions!... Thanks man"*.

* All incidents, characters and roles mentioned in this article are fictitious in nature and any resemblance to any organization or persons is merely coincidental. I believe that promotion of ideas via story telling would be more interesting to the readers.

Are we tracking employee exits

2009-11-05T23:09:00.000-08:00

I was surprised to hear from one of my friends that he was getting payouts in his previous salary account even after joining a new company. It can happen in a large organization where no proper system in place to track employee exits. When I read "An expensive IT lesson", I was literally shocked.

In another company, a senior engineer in their construction division resigned. He has paid some amount towards notice pay and obtained release with in 2 weeks time and joined a company in Middle East. During this period their IT Manager was on leave and the person who has given IT clearance was not aware that the engineer took company laptop and not returned.They were not maintaining proper asset tracking records and there was no specific entry for this item (whether laptop is returned)

It would be a headache for concerned stakeholders to ensure effective knowledge transfer(KT), equipments handover, recovery of dues etc. when an employee quits the job. End of the day, blame game will end up in HR and Payroll.

How do we address this issue? Let's check out a feasible process

I would say, we should consider Resignation, Exit Interview and Final settlement as critical parts of Employee Exit Process. Normally employee submits resignation in paper or via mail to immediate manager. Why don't we route it through HR team member. If we insist employee to send the resignation request to HR, HR will get an opportunity to understand the core issues behind resignation (whether it is just out of frustration or for salary hike or something else which is beyond the control of company). Subsequent to this, if required HR can forward the resignation with suitable comments to Immediate Manager of the employee. Immediate manager can decide whether to accept it and forward for final approval. Usually final approval on resignation would be taken by the person who is accountable for the new hire, ie Unit Head or CEO.

Once Unit Head is approved, then the approved resignation would be pending at HR desk for Exit Interview and Settlement. If we insist a business rule - settlement needs to be initiated and dues to be collected from all departments on or before last working day and letters will be issued subject to satisfactory dues clearance, no employee can skip the process. For example, stakeholders like Department Manager, Admin/Facility Manager, Canteen Manager, Librarian, Finance Manager, IS&IT Manager etc. can intimate their Release clearance with/without recovery proposal to Payroll Department before full and final settlement (FFS).

End result would be proper KT, effective work handover, proper company assets transfer, 100% recovery of dues, perfect FFS etc. Over a period of time, HR would be able to identify the actual reasons behind attrition and effective propose solutions to reduce attrition. If we can implement a process either with the help of paper forms or as part of integrated HRIS, we can make all stakeholders in the process, accountable on clearance and release of an employee and entire process of exit/full and final settlement will be simplified and easily traceable

Please don't hesitate to share your feedback

Should we worry too much about CEO salary !

2009-10-15T06:15:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, read an article on ''Vulgar Salaries of CEOs'' @ Business Standard

''Having launched an austerity drive to check public expenditure, the government has advised India Inc to refrain from doling out “vulgar” salaries to CEOs''....No 'vulgar' salaries please, Khurshid tells India Inc (Business Standard, October 5)

I think intention of Hon'be Government of India to extend austerity drive to corporate sector is good? But I fear it may stop investment coming in. As of now in any public listed company, shareholders are aware of CEO salary and if shareholders are not comfortable with that, obviously it will reflect in the market.

In the same context, do Government controls spending by private firms, individuals, celebrities who earn and spend billions? Government can request them not to spend too much but do we need rules to control individual spending? I think rules will not work out and if Government initiates such rules, more money may go unaccounted ( or black money reserve will go up!).

More importantly Government should start checking fake money and black money reserves? CEO salary is taxable but how about billions of cash flowing in our system, without paying any tax, that too unaccounted.

We need to prioritize needs of the country? Are we looking at just austerity 'drive'? We need more investment, more employment opportunities, fast track poverty alleviation, 100% literacy, better health care facilities, better infrastructure etc.

We have more serious issues in our country. We need better disaster management systems (see how flood and drought made common peoples' life miserable), we need strategies to find and destroy fake money pumped to system ( India's fake bazaar by HT) , we need effective systems to stop corruption

Post Recession Challenges of HR Office

2009-10-15T06:12:00.000-07:00

Attract Talent

Before recession, young graduates were on a rush to get a job in IT. Now they (or their parents) are thinking twice before joining IT. Why state service selection boards are getting more applications? Why more aspirants for Non-IT sector jobs? Why parents do not prefer groom working in IT for their daughters? Why house owners are reconfirming “Are you in IT”? Answers to these will lead to the inconsistency in IT sector. So it is critical for HR to strategize plans to attract talent in the coming days.

Solution:
Conduct road shows (offline/online) to promote company and promoters. Start online groups and represent in social networking forums. Try to empathize with laid off workforce. Initiate product training or training cum placement programmes

Manage Attrition

Capital flow is improving, Stock market is going green, Employers are removing freeze on hiring. For the last so many months, recruiters were in deep agony - literally no business. Now the time is up for poaching, obviously many of your employees would be in their hit list. Employees in enrichment /recession schemes, dissatisfied with no promotion and incentives can be their target.

Solution:Start HR Counseling, Employee Surveys, Open Forums etc. Put systematic exit process in place and try to know the pent up feelings of employees resigned. Constantly evaluate people and processes with the help of Integrated HRMS

Motivate Workforce

Money is one of the greatest motivator but is not the only motivator. Job security,flexible policies, promotions, corner office etc. can also motivate folks. Layoffs and enrichment kind of schemes would have irritated employees and it is quite normal to search for a 'secure job'. So don't be surprised, when a .Net developer decides to take up a Government job

Solution: Host celebrations, Initiate training programmes, Announce Corporate Goals,Performance Plans etc. Set up recession management funds. Conduct in house campaigns and provide an ecosystem conducive to overall development of the employee. Provide Employee Self Service across the organization and let employee access payslips, leave information etc.online

Performance Management

Job security can influence productivity. Recovery from the 'insecurity feeling' is not that much easy. If we scan the blogsphere, we can see the arrogance of people towards layoffs and pay cuts.How you are going to ensure your people that next time employees will not be labeled ''bad performer" unnecessarily or at least act in a more responsible manner.

Solution:Try to provide more visibility in performance management processes. Link performance to compensation and benefits in a realistic manner and make it transparent. Use performance management systems through employee self service

What do you think, please come up with your suggestions

GAP Analysis @ Job Profile

2009-05-20T03:59:00.001-07:00

Normally HR Departments would be maintaining Job Profiles of all available positions in an organization. Profile description, skills, qualifications, competencies, certifications and experience etc would be part of this.

How many of us undergo GAP Analysis annually or half yearly?

If we perform Profile GAP Analysis on a regular basis, we can identify gaps in terms of competencies, skills, qualifications etc and will get an opportunity to avoid a career disaster or a major organizational disaster

Today many organizations would be doing training needs assessment (TNA) but getting inputs for systematic TNA is very difficult, if we don't have proper channels for employee information. So end of the day, HR might be forced to go ahead with tentative training plans, later business units will blame HR for not monitoring / coordinating TNA, ISO folks may find this as a non-compliance etc

Proper archive of Job profiles, Profile GAPA reports and regular analysis of job profiles are not easily achievable. HR requires dedicated efforts from concerned business units, top management and employees. HR should consider Job profile very seriously and don't ever think of a new hire without finalizing it. HR can make it mandatory for units to revise Job Profiles at least once in a year (probably with appraisal review)

Just look at the sample profile report.

By analyzing Profile GAP reports of existing employees, HR can identify the 'best fit’ profiles which company is looking for. This will avoid all possible recruitment errors and obviously it saves time, effort and money. Apart from this, GAP Analysis will enable HR and Line Managers to assess the employee efforts for self development, plan employee performance and career development in a better way.

What do you think?

Goals can speak about organizational performance

2009-04-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Goal setting would be a hot topic during board meeting, top management discussions etc. But are we getting expected benefits, end of the year? Are we approaching goal setting seriously? Are we really extracting KPA/KPIs from corporate goal statement or KPA/KPIs are just "well defined beautiful sentences"?

I am just trying to explore a workable approach which enables functions/departments /teams to relate to corporate goals and extract their goals and performance indicators and thereby improve the overall effectiveness of the organization. The virtual company I am considering has 4 Business Units and 10 Functions. For team goals, considering HR Function and HR teams for detailed analysis.

The channel I am looking at is "Corporate Goals – Business Unit Goals – Functional Goals- Team Goals – Individual Goals"

Corporate Goals

* Acquiring 3 Competitors in Middle East by Q3, 2010
* Improve overall plant productivity by 30% by Q4, 2010
* Reduce production wastage to 2% from 10 % by Q4, 2010
* Increase market share from 25% to 60% by Q4, 2011
* Achieve USD 150 million business turnover by Q4, 2010
* Achieve best employer award for 2010
* Realign workforce and reduce redundancy to 2% by 2010
* Achieve 6 Sigma certification by Q4, 2010
* Achieve cost reduction for USD 25 million by Q4, 2011

Business Unit Goals

Rubber EOU 1 - Goals

* Improve plant productivity by 35% by Q4, 2010
* Reduce production wastage to 2% from 10 % by Q4, 2009
* Realign workforce and reduce redundancy to 1% by 2010
* Achieve 6 Sigma certification by Q4, 2010

Rubber Domestic - Goals

* Improve plant productivity by 40% by Q4, 2010
* Reduce production wastage to 2% from 10 % by Q4, 2009
* Realign workforce and reduce redundancy to 1% by 2010
* Achieve 6 Sigma certification by Q4, 2010

Health care Products- Goals

* Improve plant productivity by 15% by Q4, 2010
* Reduce production wastage to 2% from 10 % by Q4, 2009
* Realign workforce and reduce redundancy to 1% by 2010
* Achieve 6 Sigma certification by Q4, 2010

R&D- Goals

* Renovate Product X54 to attract EU customer needs by Q4, 2009
* Test launch of 5 new products by Q4, 2009
* Add 2 more teams in R&D by Q4, 2009
* Develop a new QA tool for health care products by Q4, 2010

Functional Goals

Production

* Streamline production process; outsource non core activities by Q3, 2010
* Introduce night shift by Q1, 2010
* Reduce production wastage to 1% by Q4, 2010
* Redesign shop floors, introduce efficiency and reduce IR issues by Q4, 2010
* Add 50 new engineers in back up resource pool by Q3, 2010

Human Resources

* Streamline HR processes to realign HR to make a performance driven workforce by Q4, 2010
* Hire 5 HR coordinators, induct them in 5 shop floors to reinvent shop floor HR and IR activities by Q3, 2010
* Implement HRMS and outsource all non core HR activities by Q1, 2011
* Fill 150 positions (anticipating business expansion) by Q4, 2010
* Start in house training center by Q2, 2010
* Finish Training Need Assessment and Profile GAP assessment by Q1, 2010
* Trial run for audit for Best Employer Award by Q2, 2010
* Introduce retirement scheme for redundant jobs by Q1, 2010
* Achieve workforce realignment and reduce redundancy to 2% by Q4, 2010
* Achieve HR cost reduction for USD 10 million by Q4, 2010

In a similar manner we can prepare functional goals for Engineering & Technology, Quality, Finance, Admin & Facilities, IS&IT, Branding, & Marketing, Sales & Commercials and Customer Support & Promotions

Team Goals

HR - Corporate HR

* Streamline HR processes to realign HR to make a performance driven workforce by Q4, 2010
* Implement HRMS and outsource all non core HR activities by Q2, 2010
* Trial run for audit for Best Employer Award by Q2, 2010
* Introduce retirement scheme for redundant jobs by Q1, 2010
* Achieve HR cost reduction for USD 10 million by Q4, 2010

HR-Shop floor

* Finish Training Need Assessment and Profile GAPA Q1, 2010
* Achieve workforce realignment and reduce redundancy to 2% by Q4, 2010
* Trial run for audit for Best Employer Award by Q2, 2010
* Achieve HR cost reduction for USD 10 million by Q4, 2010

HR Recruitment, Training & Development

* Hire 5 HR coordinators, induct them in 5 shop floors to reinvent shop floor HR and IR activities by Q3, 2010
* Fill 150 positions by Q4, 2010
* Start in house training center by Q2, 2010
* Trial run for audit for Best Employer Award by Q2, 2010
* Achieve HR cost reduction for USD 10 million by Q4, 2010

Individual Goals

HR - Corporate HR (Process Manager)

* Collect information on existing processes, copies of forms, policies, rules etc by mid of Q1, 2010
* Feedback from functional heads and HR team to prepare draft process manual by end of Q1, 2010
* Arrive at a consensus on processes and policies at functional management level with recommendation for streamlining by end of Q1, 2010
* Feedback from Employee representatives on processes and policies with recommendation for streamlining by start of Q2, 2010
* Feedback from Business unit heads on processes and policies with recommendation for streamlining by mid of Q2, 2010
* Draft of new processes and policies by mid of Q3, 2010
* Feedback from all stakeholders on new processes/policies by end of Q3, 2010
* Finalization of processes and policies by end of Q3, 2010

Further to this, KPAs and KPI/s for each KPA can be extracted from Individual Goals
Eg: - If you take goal - "Draft of new processes and policies by mid of Q3, 2010", following KPA and KPIs can be extracted
KPA - New processes and policies - Draft
KPI1- Draft process for Employee communications by Jul 2010
KPI2- Draft process for Industrial Relations Aug 2010
KPI3- Draft Policy for Leave and Attendance Sep 2010
KPI4- Draft Policy for Performance Incentives and Bonus Oct 2010 etc..

If you have a systematic approach in managing goal setting, identifying KPA/KPIs, over a period of time, you would be able to know, your organization’s real strengths and weaknesses and ‘Goals Data’ can speak about organizational performance.

What do you think? Is this feasible? If not, please share your suggestions for improvement?

Why HR folks are acting indifferent?

2009-04-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

I would say ‘HR should be detail oriented and caring’.

During the last 9 years of professional life, I have met many HR professionals and I felt most of them as caring, motivating and enthusiastic. Most of them were finest people with the right attitude. But I have met /heard about couple of indifferent people too with no attitude, no interest in HR but highly egoistic and full of arrogance and sarcasm.

Last week while interacting with a Software Architect, she added ''If you speak to them for 5 minutes, you will loose all your interest in job. Do you like somebody checking their mails in laptops or chatting with their buddies during an important demonstration? To be frank, I hate it’’.

Being a business analyst, my output is very critical to rest of the team. Quality of output from analyst depends on inputs from stakeholders, the amount of seriousness that client stakeholders are showing towards requirements questionnaire, interviews, teleconferences and above all the key contacts' resourcefulness and drive towards automation. Sometimes even without conceptualizing leave policy and business rules, some HR Folks will ask us to automate their Employee Leave Management process. They will provide deadline to go live but if we ask about policies and rules, they'll get irritated. I still remember this dialogue '' Hey what do you think, we can't create a policy from thin air''. This sort of behavior is very difficult to handle because you are there to gather requirements and not to correct people and be part of their politics. If HR folks respond in this manner, we should say ''This is not the expected behavior from HR professionals''

Some HR folks will never become detail oriented even if you force them to do so. One of my friends in Printing Business had shared his bitter experience. They had series of discussions on a particular project with HR team of a reputed company and at one point they had 4 versions of agreement. Finally both the parties agreed upon version 4 of the agreement and printing started. After 1 month, when he shown the printed stuff for proof checking, client HR asked us to go back to version 2 of the agreement ( deviation on printing design, layout, color combination etc ) stating that their requirements are not matching with final version of agreement but version 2. What should be our response towards such irresponsible behavior?

Another interesting behavior is communicating with arrogance and sarcasm. When you interact with another individual or team, if you are using sarcasm or showing arrogance, the person at the receiving end would be demotivated, demoralized and exhausted. This reveals that either you are guided with fear or you are practicing art of damaging. Both these techniques will fail in long term. A sales professional from CRM once shared his experience with HR Manager of a services company. After completing 99% of implementation, over a discussion on customizations for free of cost, client HR asked the sales professional (passed out from IIM) '' what sort of rubbish stuff you are selling, if this was the case, we should have opted for 'x'. 'X' is the competitor of this vendor and a premium product which costs 500% more.

If it is a matter of poor service, Ok we can agree to client's remarks but here client contact got irritated just because of the fact that vendor tried to stick to mutually agreed proposal, requirements and purchase order.

HR folks are supposed to do R& D on BeMod, motivation, soft skills etc and be the role model for rest of the employees. When they lack attitude for the job, how do you trust the resumes shortlisted by them? How do CEO entrust them with strategic HR? If they fail to develop trust in people, how do they learn people and their issues? How do they support CEO to achieve corporate objectives?

Rakesh is getting sound sleep these days!

2009-02-28T02:54:00.001-08:00

Rakesh is a young business man. He has graduated from IIT and started a Retail Gold Plated Jewel and Antique Business in 2002 together with one of his childhood friends Devyani (who obtained MBA from the prestigious BIM). Over a period of time, their business got established across India and now they have 100+ stores and 1000+ employees. As his workforce is scattered across the country, monitoring performance, handling employee issues etc. with a personal touch and processing attendance and salary was a big time headache for the management team. Every month, more than 50 complaints were received regarding non-payment of salary, late salary, unattended disciplinary issues and Rakesh fears that this will end up in employee dissatisfaction, end of the day.

One of his friends associated with a MNC IT company suggested him to go for Enterprise HRMS software but the price was not affordable. By running a business with low margin, Rakesh was not in a position to think about investing a huge sum of money at a time for IT infrastructure and HRMS and Technical Staffing. He almost abandoned the idea of implementing HRMS until he read about SAAS in a blog. The idea of ‘pay per use’ and ‘pay till use’ was very much attractive for him and decided to go for a trial for 3 months. The results were amazing. No server maintenance, No Techies and no worries over data back up. To enable e-commerce Rakesh has already subscribed for broadband internet across shops and he is utilizing the same connection for accessing HRMS too. Every month he is paying Rs.25000 for maintaining Basic Employee Information and managing Employee Leave, Employee Grievance Tickets, Payroll Process, and IT Calculations and for generating Salary Statements, PF/ESI statements and returns, HR reports etc. Above all Rakesh has enabled Employee Self Service across the company (think about employee located in Shillong sending an instant request to HR in Corporate office, Chennai).

It is a good deal for Rakesh because he has not invested any thing towards IT infrastructure and in case finding the software as useless he can dump it.

Now when his HR Manager go on leave, his stress level will not go up because no need to dig files from store room and the age of 'information hunt like treasure hunt ' is over, everything at one mouse click away. This is the magic of software as service (SAAS), making intelligent solutions affordable for all.

What do you think?

Try Payroll Software Service just for @Rs.40 per month

Setting up of HR Department

2009-02-28T01:34:00.000-08:00

Your responsibilities may vary based on the manpower size, nature of business and business locations. Handling change in management would be a big task. In a traditional PSU, HR manager can expect assistance from couple of clerks, steno/secretary and junior management guys. In a private establishment, you need to change your mind set (if you are preoccupied with 'sitting duck' management style). Demand for pro-activeness would be more. For eg: - in a PSU, attrition is not a critical issue and HR manager is not going to be appraised on the grounds of attrition chart.

Get inputs on corporate vision, HR plan, strategies and policies from your investors, put it in black and white and go for approval
Get approval for Annual HR Budget (board may ask you to submit a plan, then you need to have a thorough understanding on all aspects of the department- you can request for 2/3 weeks time)
Based on the budget you need to plan your activities; also there will be questions like (should I hire couple of HR folks or should I manage the entire HR department activities with the help of integrated HRMS etc.)
HR head would be responsible for certain forms and returns with regard to employee laws (national as well as local)(get everything verified by labor law experts) and keep track of these returns (high priority)
Employee bonds and agreements (get everything verified by legal experts)
Prepare list of tasks (annual,quarterly and monthly) and schedule tasks
Learn the existing HR processes and identify non-value adding elements and suggest for HR Process streamlining
Maintain good relationship with all employees and try to learn the employee satisfaction levels, develop channels for informal employee information
Evaluate yourself on a weekly basis against the accomplishment of your tasks (you may use MS Projects or Google Docs)
Collect feedback (positive as well as negative) from your team members, boss and investors and learn and improve on a continuous basis

Best of luck

HR can save IT Industry

2009-02-28T00:07:00.000-08:00

IT business decline in India due to economic slowdown in US is not a new issue. We faced turbulence couple of times before and managed to survive

We can expect more competition from China in the coming years. Chinese are good in mathematics and when they manage to handle English for IT business, the result would not be unanticipated. Today we can go for a brand new mobile handset for Rs.1500 (nobody can deny the Chinese impact).

An IT enterprise operating from a Chinese plug-n-play state of the art IT park (with 50% less operational costs than India) with IT folks trained by British English teachers would have the potential to wipe away many of our dreams built up on unrealistic expectations [Chinese guy may not ask 50% hike every year, may not change 3 companies a year, may not dream for a duplex apartment at the age of 25, may not dream for a luxury sedan at the age of 22]. Either our investors will shut the shop in India and open one is China or forced to reduce the cost of production here. So finally we have got the problem to be addressed, it is nothing but the prevailing compensation structure in IT industry

Unfortunately we have not learned anything from past mistakes. Laying off employees or shutting down the entire operations was the ultimate solution to many companies during recession. But still we are not addressing the root cause of this problem or in a better way, not searching for a sustainable solution. We are aware of the fact that why we are getting big outsourced IT support/development projects from US. Our IT professionals may argue that we got super brain to design complex architectures or write millions of lines of code. Even though competency is a plus point, the management decision to outsource would be their intention to reduce cost of operation and to add more value to the core processes.

Many companies increased compensation packages just to attract skilled people from their competitors. The huge salary and perks offered and hundreds of cold calls obviously will force the IT guy to frequently change companies (don’t get shocked...there are people who worked for more than 3 firms a year and thanks to mushrooming recruitment firms). For sure win in talent war, companies are forced to maintain 20 to 30% people as backup (bench folks) and their prime responsibility would be to swipe for attendance and collect salary.

I would say this is the high time to think about compensation structure in IT. Globalization coupled with technology education and telecom/internet boom helped us to get lucrative business. But one should be beware of 'survival of fittest' phenomena. It is the right time to discuss about this issue because if we wait further, then we may not be part of this industry. With people as the only competitive advantage in IT, Industry leaders should take the initiative to have a consensus on compensation packages and code of ethics for IT professionals as well as corporations.

Please feel free to share your views

John's Story : Goodbye to complaints from Boss, Employees and Department Heads

2009-01-01T00:24:00.000-08:00

Today Mr. John, HR officer of a 3000 people multi-location company is not spending his late nights at office, his never ending fight with old paper files is over and he is free from dust infection too

But 6 months back, the story was something else…let’s rewind

Even though john’s company is a multi billion enterprise, they were still traditional in management information systems and processes were not automated. Email usage is negligible…less than 5%. As John is handling Employee Leave, Travel and Clearance, holiday/vacation season and payroll cycle closing days would be so hectic.

Can you imagine the ‘process to avail leave’ in john’s company?

First employee will send a request for leave balance information to John through employee’s immediate manager
John will check the paper records and intimate the leave balance to employee
Based on this employee will request for leave to immediate manager
Immediate manager will forward the request to Department Head through proper channel
Aagain 2/3 managers in between immediate manager and department head will put their signature on request
Approved leave request will reach John
John will prepare a leave statement and send to payroll team
Apart from this if a Department Head wanted to know how many people planning to go on leave for a particular period, John needs to spend hours on record room
At any point of time, john will be having 30-40 requests pending with him

But today things are different… let’s examine john’s work

John switches on his personal computer
Checks mails and see alerts with regard to approved leaves
Signs in to HRMS suite and monitor overall status of leave applications
Generates Leave Reports for HR data analysis purpose

Goodbye to late nights at office and dust infection

Goodbye to complaints from Boss, Employees and Department Heads

This is achieved by streamlining and automating employee leave process. John’s boss is happy with the Return on investment too

Current Employee Leave Process in a nutshell

Employee signs in to HRMS - Employee self service
Checks leave balance
Submit leave request online to immediate manger with copy to other managers
Immediate manger reviews and forwards to Department Head
Department Head reviews and when approves, John, Employee and payroll officer receives mail alerts
Payroll officer processes salary
Automatic Leave grant happens (if required)

What do you think?

Organisational Change - A typical case

2008-12-21T01:04:00.000-08:00

Company 'x' has started operations in 1968. The company was quite successful in terms of profitability during pre modernization era. But at the end of License Raj, they have suffered a lot in order to manage multinational competitors and forced to go for manpower rationalization, improve quality and to introduce strategic pricing. Being a workforce intensive enterprise, people were the only distinct competitive advantage.

Like any other process based manufacturing company, attendance and shop floor discipline were critical deciding factors for the company to ensure optimum productivity and quality as per global standards. Being a company started in late 60's, bureaucracy coupled with power politics and resistance towards change was critical problems for the company.

They have got 5 shop floors with manpower ranging from 100 to 300 for each and have deployed around 20-25 people exclusively for managing manpower allocation to shifts, change shift timings, monitor attendance (swipes), process leaves and to manage time office. Personnel Department was just acting as coordination wing for certain employee activities and there was no reasonable budget allocation for training department. Performance tracking systems were not in place and still following once a year confidential reports for appraisal.

The company had 3000 permanent employees and 500 contract workers. They have partly automated payroll, accounting processes, commercial processes and packing process.

Previous CEO of the firm had tried to automate the processes, decided to go for ERP but unfortunately the management team was not competent enough to either map the processes to the ERP software or define the process to make customizations. Finally the organization and dropped the project in mid way and lost almost 20 Lakhs. Then board has hired some new operational heads from top business schools to spearhead the organizational change process. That too failed and most of them suggested either closing down the operations or merging with MNCs to save face. Finally 5 out of 7 newly hired heads quit. The resultant impact on company was heavy...lost 60-75 Lakhs.
The quarter results were poor and the news spread across the company and senior people started submitting resignations. Their share price crumbled to the lowest in history.

Finally board decided to do one more experiment. But this time they have managed to get the expected results

Results

1. Reduced manpower to 2500 (voluntary retirement, outsourcing and contract labor)
2. Revised productivity agreements (30% increase in production targets)
3. Reduced wastage from 20% to 4%
4. Signed MOU for productivity, salary revision and other employee benefits - Management & Employee Associations
5. Increased annual turnover from Rs.100 Crores to 150 Crores and profit from 7 Crores to 15 Crores

Sounds interesting? express your views

HRIS : need of the hour for business effectiveness

2007-06-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

Information is the key element which holds together structure of any business and quality of Human Resources department in any organization largely depends on the quality of information held by HR professionals as well as line managers.

A well designed, feature rich HRIS help the HR folks to update HR info with out wasting much time, save good amount of time by replacing avoidable manual work and to generate online reports without spending hours in front of your office computer.

Today's dynamic business enviroment demands systematic way of storing data, processing data and delivering information of/for each and every employees to support planning, decision making, returns/reports and to host other HR functions and to make strategic HR decisions.

Please feel free to share your valuable opinion here?