Author: Arindam Goswami | HRKatha

A leader in the role of a chief operating officer (COO) needs to have a good understanding of business, people management and the industry as a whole. With HR playing on the front foot in today’s time, it may be safe to say that CHROs are well equipped to take on the role of a COO. Just like any other function in a business, the role of HR has seen a staggering shift in responsibilities over the years. The people element has become all the more crucial today and organisations are looking at their HR heads to steer at the…

Succession planning is a lengthy ongoing process in any organisation. A successor is often groomed over the years to be able to step up. Yet, due to the uncertainty that the pandemic has brought in, companies are now working on emergency succession planning. It is not just restricted to the leadership roles, but is done for all critical roles across levels. A few months ago, when the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson contracted the coronavirus, the country sprung into action to decide on a quick successor, in case the Prime Minister was unable to recover. The pandemic may have alerted…

The Alliance Tire Group (ATG), subsidiary of the Yokohama Rubber Company (YRC), has decided to reward its employees before the financial year is over. Employees will receive their annual increments and promotions applicable from January 1, 2021. The rewards cycle at the Company consists of the three components — the first is the merit or salary increment linked to inflation and market rate among other things; the second is the annual promotion cycle; and the third is the variable pay incentive, all payable after a financial year is over. In this case, as a temporary measure, the leadership at ATG…

Loyalty as a concept, as understood in traditional organisations, will only breed mediocrity. Loyalty needs to have a performance angle to it. Loyal employees should be identified in terms of how hot their skills are, and how high their demand is in the market. Despite high demand if people are willing to stay with their current employer, then they can be deemed loyal. Emphasising tenure over performance will lead to tenured managers hiring tenured employees and both coming together to create mediocre solutions. It will lead to a dysfunctional cycle, which can send companies into a death spiral of obsolescence.…

Employees become red-circled whenever their pay rate is above the maximum salary identified for the position. These workers are at the top of the compensation structure, going by their role, and can create financial problems for the organisation including affecting employee morale. How do employees enter the red circle? There are multiple reasons why employees may enter the red circle. It can become a frequent occurrence if the organisation does not set clear definitions of minimum and maximum compensation for each unique job family. If the job evaluation system is not upgraded periodically and the correct market price for a…

Not much has changed in the world of compliance training even after the shift to remote working. At the same time, HR pundits agree that in certain areas, the importance has increased because the onus of responsibility on the remote employee is much higher than before. Usually, when dealing with compliance training, no learning takes place, because it is considered as just another task, which the employees have to check off their list. However, in the area of IT, the emphasis on compliance training has increased due to its importance in the new way of work. Organisations need to drive…

The new-age non-banking financial company (NBFC), Avanse Financial Services, has focussed on building a culture of learning within the Company. In a conversation with HRKatha, Amit Gainda, CEO, Avanse Financial Services, reveals how the Company focussed on learning in the period since the lockdown, and shares the kind of learning trends emerging in the NBFC space. “We not only want generalists, but specialists as well, and considering that, we launched learning avenues for our employees realising that this is the lean time they can use to upskill themselves,” says Gainda. At the outset, the people practices team and the marketing…

Be it a bottom-up culture, a culture of courage or an innovative organisation, they all need one thing in common — employees who are not afraid to speak their minds. Leaders talk about the importance of giving employees the space to voice their opinions, which allows the company to innovate and progress as an organisation. Why not award the employees, who speak their minds? It will be a direct and visible way for the organisation to say that it follows the principle of encouraging a ‘speak up’ culture in practice as well. Employees can be given incentives in many forms,…

Julie Sweet, CEO, Accenture, revealed mid-August that it plans to lay off five per cent of its global workforce, affecting around 10,000 in India. The exercise is to take place post the appraisal cycle, wherein the bottom performers will be asked to leave. The organisation is not hiring anytime soon and has put a hold on expenditure in other areas as well. Similarly, in July, there were reports of Cognizant laying off almost 18,000 employees — it had asked them to resign voluntarily, failing which they would risk termination. While the Company claims that it was laying off employees for…

The story of General Electric’s downfall from being an indomitable behemoth to a tier-II company, has been well documented. At the turn of the 21st century, the 128-year old company, which was valued at $600 billion, began losing its immense wealth right after the former CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, stepped down in 2017 after 16 years at the helm. In a book documenting the organisation’s collapse, the authors paint a portrait of Immelt pursuing a series of bad decisions that led to GE’s mounting problems. It was Immelt’s successor, John Flennery, who found out that the well had been drained of…

Everybody makes mistakes in their professional lives. Sometimes, those mistakes are huge and have severe consequences. Even so, it is important to own up to them, accept them and learn from them. Bhaskar Bhat, former MD of Titan and board member, Tata Sons, believes, “It is important to welcome mistakes and errors as they provide important learning opportunities. One cannot learn as much from success as from failures.” Acceptance in such cases becomes a two- way street, with acknowledgement from the person who made the wrong decision and an acceptance from the leadership to forgive and give them a second…

It is a tough job to keep one’s boss happy. Tougher still, when there is more than one! Dual reporting is a reality and the concept is often praised for its many merits, which any number of scholars will readily point out. However, in day-to-day terms, it is a delicate balancing act, which many young professionals may find a tough pill to swallow, initially. Let us take an example. A consumer goods company is preparing for the launch of a new product in the country and a mid-level executive is assigned to manage the launch. With an immediate boss over…

The pandemic has brought employees’ health and safety to the front and centre making it the top priority for employers. In fact, to ensure they cover all bases, many organisations have decided to take the full onus of employee medical costs on themselves, should any member get infected.   Like most, the 45-year old Indian company manufacturing technical textile, Garware Technical Fibres, has committed to providing full coverage of medical expenses, above and beyond the usual coverage provided by the medical insurance to its employees. In case any employee contracts the COVID-19 virus, the organisation has promised to cover all treatment…

Software company, JFrog, has decided to give its employees one long weekend for the month of August and September. Implemented on a global scale for all employees across the organisation, the second Friday of every month until September will be a paid holiday. Noticing how employees were experiencing physical and mental exhaustion and had no way of stepping out to take a break, the Company had launched this new initiative in the first week of August itself. Therefore, employees have been able to enjoy two well-deserved long weekends, and will continue to do so in September too. Kavita Viswanath, GM,…

To survive and thrive through the current pandemic, the job of the HR leader is of paramount importance. The level of disruption in the past five months, let alone five years, has already brought us to the brink of exploring new and exciting job descriptions, which were previously never thought of. The pandemic has accelerated the transformation of today’s workforce and HR is going to be key as we drive headfirst into the job roles of the future. As we twist and turn through the titanic shifts in the way of work, there is increased anticipation regarding the kind of…

The role of the chief information officer (CIO) has undergone change of incremental nature over the past five years, which has only accelerated in these past five months. Holding the keys to drive digital transformation, CIOs have begun to step into roles, which were traditionally outside their purview. The CIOs and the CHROs are shaping organisational issues together now. Both functions have stepped into a more strategic role over time, and have begun to work in tandem to make the employee experience as great as the customer experience. At a higher level, both the functions are aligned towards the same…

Indian electric vehicle company, Ather Energy, conducted its first quarter performance review. Called PitStop, it relooks at the performance evaluation system. To make things easy, the Company focussed on shorter milestones for its employees so that it is easier for them to pursue and achieve. As part of Ather Energy’s plans to expand, a few critical details were examined, including having the plants up and running for the production of its flagship model 450x, and focussing on communicating the goals extensively to all individuals. “Everyone was made aware of their role and of the leadership’s role, and how they link…

Alstom India has increased its efforts to hire more women across the organisation and on the shopfloor. A part of its global 2025 vision was to ensure that at least 25 per cent of its workforce comprised women. At a global level, according to an HRIS survey posted on the official website, as on March 31, 2020, the Company had close to 21.4 per cent women in the workforce across managerial and professional roles. However in India, women employees comprise 16 per cent, while on the shopfloor, they account for a little more than 13 per cent in total. In…

There have been a few unusual realisations for every organisation during these past few months. For the manufacturing sector— across apparel, paint, auto and other heavy industries — the possibility of running operations from home was serendipitous learning. Yet another fortunate discovery was that manufacturing units could run with reduced staff. So then, is this an opportunity for manufacturing units to rightsize? Ever since the lockdown in March, many companies had been unable to go back to work. Operations resumed only in June as the Unlock opened up factories and plants across the country. However, it has taken some time…

Often, when businesses are in turmoil, the leadership is faced with the task of making some tough choices, and downsizing is one of them. In a few instances, where the leader is unable to execute the decision, there is a swap with a new leader or HR head who can execute the decision with much more ease and objectivity. Whether it is right or wrong is debatable and we are not getting into it now. Such changes in leadership are seen as necessary by the board because they are critical to the survival of the business. Layoffs are usually the…

As organisations are making the transition from ‘working from home’ to ‘working from offices’, there are a lot of considerations to be made, for the employees in particular. Although there have been positive reports of a vaccine underway, we are still a long way from living in a COVID-free world. In such cases, there is one role in particular which will be of significance, that of the line managers. It is not difficult to understand why. While going back to work from the office, employees are bound to seek answers to innumerable questions. They will require a lot of reassurance…

As a part of its learning efforts, Akzo Nobel, the paint and coating manufacturing major, took measures to ensure that employees were able to work from home without any hindrances and that managers were capable of being up to the task of leading virtual teams. “There was a lot of focus on teaching managers how to lead virtually. Being a hardcore manufacturing organisation, the concept was quite unusual for us,” says Anushree Singh, country HR director, India Subcontinent, Akzo Nobel. Own your family A particular initiative that stands out is the ‘own your family’ initiative pushed by the organisation for…

Discussions around the concerns and challenges for employees while working from home, have filled the internet in the past few months. There is seldom any talk of what life looks like beyond the white collar. While most of us are working from home, the men in blue have been trudging around in their boots working to keep organisations running. What would be the biggest concern or priority for an employee at a plant or a factory at this point of time? Well, for the most part, it would be the same as any other employee — to keep their jobs.…

Under the flagship programme of the company, called ‘AI Accelerator’, all employees at OLX India have been given quarterly targets to learn different aspects of artificial intelligence (AI) in addition to their regular functions. While it is a voluntary and open course, targets have been set for each quarter to ensure that the employees cover a base. The goal is to have every individual understand the value of AI and machine learning (ML) for the business in the future. Therefore, aspects such as, the difference between supervised and unsupervised data or the importance of big data will be learnt by…

These past few months have been witness to multiple layoffs across companies, in various sectors. The remaining lot feel relieved, yes, but they also feel a multitude of other emotions. Naturally, no employee will be completely relaxed, because they will all be waiting for the next round of layoffs. A layoff survivor experiences a cocktail of feelings —relief, stress, guilt and gratitude. These culminate to form what we understand as survivor’s guilt or syndrome. Are the layoffs, which have occurred in the past few months, different from the ones before the pandemic? In a few ways, yes, but mostly not.…

Engineering services company, Tata Technologies, had recently benched nearly 400 of its employees until December 31, due to business constraints brought on by the pandemic. These employees will continue to be on the rolls of the Company and be covered under medical insurance until the stipulated time. To ensure that they continue to earn, the firm has allowed them to work for other companies in the time being. “We have encouraged those on the bench to pick up any job they can find, as long as client confidentiality is not compromised, so that there is flow of cash. Non-compete has…