Inadequate Hiring Methods That Damage a Company

Hiring is an expertise discovered over time; it is simple to get the services of someone who will not fit into your business's perspective, but this could be all the more terrible for your business. Take a look at some typical beginner’s errors at hiring that could confirm to be terrible, as detailed by Wallace Immen on TheGlobeandMail.com.

“I do not need a plan”: You always, most definitely do need a strategy. Every business, especially a small one, relies on cautious cost management to endure the challenging economic system. What does this entail? It indicates cautious hiring and cautious techniques for storage. Choosing your buddies or people you proved helpful with previously may not always be an intelligent concept, as they may not have the essential abilities to take your present company further. Determine which way your company needs to go, and what type of a worker can guide it towards the objective.

“I recognize a good hire in the first look”: While it may be real that many HR professionals seek the services of depending on intuition, they do so after years of fact centered experience. For a starter in hiring, ‘judging a guide by its cover’, so to talk, may outcome in not hiring skilled people. They may be one-sided towards people who come from identical qualification or discuss identical philosophy.

“He seems like an awesome guy": Why check for references!” This is a big no-no and looking over these apparently minimal details could outcome in a courtroom action. Besides a former Yahoo CEO and IBM Chief executive, many professionals have been broken for relaxing on their resumes. The need for skilled people is large in a business. HRs may leap the gun and seek the services of easily to not spend. This could just pressure your business with additional expenses. Thorough testing is essential. So contact the sources and make sure you have an excellent applicant.

“He is just too excellent for this job”: It is very well-known for very excellent and certified applicants to not get hired simply because they seem excellent to be real. The typical air of mistrust around them rises from the point that they may stop and start a competing company or that they may take all your thoughts and go to a rival organization.

"Not allowing go of bad hires": As any well seasoned HR professional would tell you, bad employees do not just eat away the investment of the company, the effort invested in training them would also confirm to be bad for your business. While it may not get simple to get rid of a bad hire, this decision could preserve your company a lot of money.

Superstitions At Worplace

A nationwide survey of new-age workplaces has revealed that the highly educated, technology savvy workforce finds sanctity in its superstitious beliefs and even carries lucky charms to office desks. Most companies do not frown upon such practices as long as they are not offensive to others, the survey reveals.

The study covered 800 companies across top eight cities, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad and found that as many as 62 % respondents admitted to being superstitious in personal matters and as many as 51% respondents said they adopted superstitious methods at the workplace. The survey found Vaastu Shastra and Feng Shui most popular among Indian employees in these cities even as several others said they were happy keeping their stones, color specific and number oriented items and the ubiquitous bamboo shoot on their desks.

The study also states that managements in India are generally adaptive to various superstitious beliefs practiced by the employees and do not restrict them as long as it does not affect productivity negatively. In fact, senior management officials believe that superstitious practices are more prevalent among the company top brass.

The study found employees in Bangalore and New Delhi more superstitious compared to other cities. While Chennai had as many as 72 % respondents following a superstitious practice at their workplace, Mumbai disagreed dramatically with just 22% saying they followed any such practice at work. Cities like Pune and Ahmedabad too had few respondents agreeing to take their superstitions to work.

The age group of the respondents ranged between 21 and 45, with 60% of them employed at the junior level, 25% at middle management and 15% at a the senior level. The survey found more women employees (80%) practicing superstitions at work as compared to men (68%). Also, a majority of the respondents (63%) felt that female workers are more superstitious than their male counterparts.

"Given that India (even Asia for that matter) is a land of many cultures and ethnicities and people closely follow traditional practices and beliefs, a lot of us find solace in superstition." Vas added that her company doesn't prohibit employees from placing lucky charms or objects on their desks as long as they aren't offensive, don't cause any inconvenience and are in line with the office decorum. "If employees believe such a practice will help them excel at work, we have no qualms about it," she said.

Management consultant Surendra Deshmukh said it’s not just employees but even companies that follow many practices which would look superstitious. "Right from choosing the office and drawing the layout and designing the seating arrangement, an upper hand is given to the beliefs the top management holds about the building. Even submission of business proposals or application for loan from a bank is done according to auspicious timings," he said.

Helping Women Put Career On Par With Family

From 21-34 decades, females make up 34% of the workers. From 35-49 years, their share sections as close family members take priority. Increasingly, creches in workplaces are helping females put profession on par with close family members.

When it comes to daycare features in India, demand far surpasses supply. The dual-income family has become the standard, and working parents worry who will manage their children when they're out.

Help is hard to come by, as are relatives to babysit. Even as more and more private daycare agencies open up in the cities, India Inc hasn't kept up. Few organizations offer any kind of creche or daycare features today, even though it's clear that workers would rather leave their wards with office-certified minders, or have them available (especially if the children are young).

Companies need to pay more attention to this. Saundarya Rajesh, creator of seeking agency Avtar Career Designers, says 1.5 million females professionals have left the workforce in the last 20 years, to appropriately manage children or, in some cases, an elder in family members members. Most never return. Companies already wrestling with less females professionals who can be marketed can ill-afford a further hole in the skills pool.

Leena Nair, professional home (HR) at Hindustan Unilever, says while there is no lack of skilled females at the entry-level or even the five-year mark, organizations face a challenge in employing females to the top groups, from among those who have worked for 14-15 years. "At this stage, there are just not enough females as they've dropped off the workforce," says Nair.

"This is where we need to provide help, to both women and men, many of whom have working wives." Adds Rohit Thakur, HR head at Microsoft: "Companies can pre-empt the element of their female talent not joining back by simply offering facilities like daycare." Indeed, in a 2012 survey by Avtar, workingwomen respondents rated daycare as a 'career enabler'.

Many companies do realise this, and either have onsite creche facilities or tie-ups with external vendors. Most companies report that male employees now want it too. A professionally-managed daycare facility might be a small trade-off for an organisation to retain its talent.

From Teachers to IAS officers to Ex-servicemen, India Now Hires Them All

Warm greetings to all my readers !! I hope your Deepavli went lightening and brightening !! Today I come up to you with the introduction of a new trend that has been noticed in recent recruitment sector in India. Read the whole story below and share your views about the same. I would be eagerly waiting for your feedback.

A few months ago, IT firm Wipro hired a missile expert for its learning and development team. His job is to create a challenging environment using graphic simulators and train employees to implement different strategies to overcome a crisis.

The company has tried more such permutations and combinations, including hiring a schoolteacher and an ex-navy officer. "The business scenario now requires one to work with different variables and getting people from diverse backgrounds helps," says Abhijit Bhaduri, chief learning officer.

Corporate India is looking outside the traditional box to meet its hiring needs as the work environment becomes more complex. The more diverse the candidate's experience, the greater the profile match.

Ex-servicemen, for instance, are being looked at for roles that involve people management, learning and development, marketing and sales. Indian administrative service officers (IAS) and teachers are being recruited for corporate strategy, counselling and training manpower.

"Defence personnel bring in the resilience that is most crucial to the corporate world today and are being hired for HR, marketing, project management profiles," says Jarmanjit Singh, who joined Wipro as a senior facilitator in 2011 after spending 11 years in the navy, including five postings in training units. The Essar Group plans to hire IAS officers for its marketing and sales profiles. People from the civil services are the best bet for remote locations, and to work around bureaucracies when new projects come up, says Adil Malia, group president.

Companies like Philips India have sent diktats to their search partners to look at diverse profiles. Under their year-and-a-half-old programme, 'New Directions', the company has hired doctors and teachers for its marketing, product management and customer education profiles. "The success ratio of getting such a candidate is one or two out of 10, but the result is an extremely diverse workplace, which is the goal," says Yashwant Mahadik, HR head.

The hunting grounds for such profiles are often management schools, where the officers enroll for executive programmes, social networking sites and copious amounts of networking to get the best fit, say HR heads of companies. IT company Infosys participated in a job fair for ex-servicemen this April for positions in purchase, administration and human resources besides security.

Mid-tier IT company MphasiS hired nearly five women on a sabbatical as part-time counsellors for its Baroda branch during Navratri. Their role was to act as employee arbitrators because the company, in the past few years, had seen a spike in employee altercations during the festival. The company was looking for freelancers who had some work experience, understood behavioural requirements and could give of their time.

The trend is not restricted to the IT and ITeS industries. Executive search firm Maxima Global's clients in the infrastructure space want ex-servicemen and teachers to help them motivate and retain engineers. "They are needed for teams working in tough locations, building hydel projects, highways, transmission lines projects, towers and laying roads in remote locations," says Srinivas Nanduri, partner, board and leadership hiring for the company's Indian arm.

However, this may not become a universal trend. "Such hires are like paramedics, not doctors," says S Kandula, HR head of iGate. The company has hired mathematics teachers for analytics departments too but the HR head insists that recruitments like this are possible only if the candidate's record shows the work is relevant to the post's demands.

Source: TOI

Deepavli.... More Than Just A Festival....

Deepavli is no doubt one of the biggest festivals in India. It is a time of gaiety, joy and a positive outlook towards the future and ofcourse, a celebration that encourages people to have a get together with family and friends. It is perhaps not wrong to say that this is the only event for which we start waiting almost one month prior to its arrival.

As per the Indian mythology, we know that Ram, Sita and Lakshman came back to their home in Ayodhya after 14 years of exile on this day and thus started the event of lights. This very tale has made Deepavli a chance for people who live far from their home to return to their beloved dwellings. People schedule a break from work mostly at this time so as to spend some good time with their loved ones. For those who are not able to get it this time, don’t be disappointed. You may celebrate this time with the families who are around you, may be at your workplace or neighborhood.

There are different outlooks associated with this bright occasion. Some consider this day to get back to their family or ancestral house. For some, this is the time to forget the dark side and coming back to the vivid world. Others may take this day for just fun. From the business point of view, this is one of the occurrences when the sales can touch skies limit and so are the endeavors made.

When seen from the perspective of an employee, Deepavli has got its own importance in a distinct way. This is the day when they expect their respective organizations to be a platform of celebration apart from the day to day professionalism. There are several corporations in India that especially provide bonuses for this very festival, therefore, making the employees anticipating for financial incentives. However, there are some companies that offer non financial treats to the staff members. Whatsoever may the situation be, this is the day when employers enriches their relationships with their personnel.

We, at Protatech Intelligence Manpower Private Limited, are also making arrangements to have lots of fun this Deepavli. May be when you’d read this article we’d be hoisting the flags of lights in our premises wishing each other and all of you a VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS DEEPAVLI….!!!!

Have fun….Enjoy….!!!!!!!!!! See you all this Friday….!!!!

India Among Five Most Difficult Markets For Recruiters

Employers around the world say that India and China are among the five most difficult markets to recruit talent highlighting the widely acknowledged skills gap that is prevalent in the region. Self-monitoring , intellectual curiosity , professionalism and confidence are some of the traits that prospective employees lack in India.

The ability to differentiate from competition is the foremost challenge today for companies and will remain that way for the next three years as per findings by Universum, a global consulting firm that helps employers improve their attractiveness to prospective jobseekers. Coming at a time when there is increased competition across India Inc for talent acquisition, especially at the leadership level, many companies are increasingly opting for honing talent internally to face this challenge.

"Over 85% of respondents affirm to have aligned their talent attraction strategy to their business plan and recruitment needs," said Joakim Strom , MD, Asia Pacific at Universum. Four out of 10 employers said they were currently facing the problem of finding the right and competent people and another four in 10 said that this unavailability of right talent could be an issue in the future as well.

Most HR heads across corporate India admit to facing a dearth of top notch talent more at the top level. "The big issue is of finding people who have a global view and a strategic foresight and that is the talent pool which is shrinking. In the context of our business which is rapidly evolving we need leaders who are capable of rearranging priorities," says Hari T, chief people officer at the IT major Mahindra Satyam. But now we are not waiting for people to come from outside we are building talent internally, in fact we have decided that 90% of the leadership will be from within the system and only 10% from the outside, he says.

The Universum survey pointed out that around 45% of respondents felt their primary concern was the ability to differentiate from competition. "Indian companies are becoming more open to hiring professionals from unrelated fields who may not be a fit right away but have the soft skills. Employers say they if people have had the right experience in the past even if it is not necessarily in the same sector they can be put at the helm...this is seen more across mid and senior level hiring ," says Kamal Karanth, MD of Kelly Services, a global staffing company.

The survey also revealed that employers in India believe the two main reasons why their top performers leave are for money, followed by new challenges for professional development in another company.

Source: TOI

Tornado Stress Hits Corporate Executives in India

This October, stress, deep fatigue and alienation from his family forced Vivek Gupta to quit his job as a vice-president in the institutional equities team at one of the biggest investment banks in Mumbai. He is 33.

All this, he says, is collateral damage inflicted by the punishing pace of work at his former employer. "My work hours were terrible...about 80-100 hours a week. I was not getting any time for my family and children. Health problems such as body aches and dizziness forced me to take a break," he says.

One month on, Gupta feels energized and refreshed. He wants to stick with this slower pace of life - helping his children with school admissions, concentrating on health and taking up things that interest him.

Tushar Sehgal, a 39-year-old advertising professional, has chucked his job not once, but twice, both for the same reason. The tipping point for his second break was being asked to work on Diwali. Sehgal was a creative director for a growing agency; this meant managing multiple assignments to steer the agency to a certain size. "I wanted to spend some time with my nephew and family on Diwali and realized that quality of life was far more precious than a fat pay cheque," he says. He took an off on Diwali and quit soon after. He is now a freelance writer and makes corporate films. "I keep getting calls from headhunters, but I will not go back to that life again."

Gupta and Sehgal (both names changed on request) had enough savings to throw away their jobs.

But thousands of India Inc executives, entrapped in their stress-filled jobs due to poor savings and high EMIs, are sinking into emotional distress every day.

Sixty-six per cent of working professionals in India are suffering loneliness, 77% wish they had someone to share their highs and lows with, and 63% feel they work harder than they want to because of competitive work environment, reveals a survey by Cadbury India. The survey polled over 2,100 professionals in the 25-35 age group in cities including Mumbai, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune, etc. The findings were released late last month.

Psychologists and counselors say they are treating more people for workplace-related emotional turmoil. "The numbers of such cases have doubled over last year," says Dr Puneet Dwevedi, head of department (mental health & behavioral science) at Fortis Healthcare "I treat three to four working professionals every day."

Cadbury did the survey as a part of an attempt to understand consumer psyche. It plans to use the data to craft its new advertising campaign this festive season.

Consulting firm PwC has also been studying work-life balance. Executives at the firm say the findings are alarming. "Our research tells us that around 72% of Indian professionals work beyond regular working hours and around 92% of the population takes work home," says Kaustubh Sonalkar, executive director, people and change practice at PwC. Ninety-five per cent of the working population, ranging from Gen Y employees to top leaders, all admitted to a new form of morning sickness - checking their smart phones immediately after waking up.