It is interesting to think about the fact that Marketing departments don’t really control how employees understand the brand or display the brand values or deliver the customer value proposition. And yet, company brand and reputation are typically drivers of talent attraction. Similarly, the HR departments don’t exercise much control over company brand, customer perceptions etc. And yet, employees are the key factor in delivering the customer value proposition.

More than anywhere else, I think this is particularly relevant in service sector industries like say financial services, hospitality, healthcare, professional services, retail etc. In these industries, every employee is a representative of the company brand. And every employee creates or destroys brand value at each customer interaction point. Companies need to think about how they can get HR and Marketing teams to work together to design and deliver an integrated value proposition to their employees and customers. Have you come across companies who are doing this effectively?

I stumbled upon an old article by Professor Gary Hamel, where he talks about “The Hole in the Soul of Business.” In his compelling style, he asks us to re-think the language of business. Here are some excerpts:

Here’s an experiment for you. Pull together your company’s latest annual report, its mission statement, and your CEOs last few blog posts. Read through these documents and note the key phrases. Make a list of oft-repeated words. Now do a little content analysis. What are the goals and ideas that get a lot of airtime in your company? It’s probably notions like superiority, advantage, leadership, differentiation, value, focus, discipline, accountability, and efficiency. Nothing wrong with this, but do these goals quicken your pulse? Do they speak to your heart? Are they “good” in any cosmic sense?

Now think about Michelangelo, Galileo, Jefferson, Gandhi, William Wilberforce. Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa. What were the ideals that inspired these individuals to acts of greatness? Was it anything on your list of commercial values? Probably not. Remarkable contributions are typically spawned by a passionate commitment to transcendent values such as beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor.

I talk to a lot of CEOs, and every one professes a commitment to building a “high performance” organization—but is this really possible if the core values of the corporation are venal rather than venerable? I think not. And that’s why humanizing the language and practice of management is a business imperative (as well as a moral duty).

Again, there’s nothing wrong with utilitarian values like profit, advantage and efficiency, but they lack nobility. Reflect for a moment on the avarice and irresponsibility that produced the recent banking crisis, and wreaked havoc at Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia and a host of other scandal-plagued companies. If corporate leaders and their acolytes are not slaves to some meritorious social purpose, they run the risk of being enslaved by their own ignoble appetites. An uplifting sense of purpose is more than an impetus for individual accomplishment, it is also a necessary insurance policy against expediency and impropriety.

Every organization is “values-driven.” The only question is, what values are in the driver’s seat?

There was a time when Disney was in the joy business. Animators, theme park employees and executives were united in their quest to wring gasps of wonderment and delight from children across the globe. Today, Apple is in the beauty business. It uses its prodigious software and design talents to produce products and services that are aesthetic stand-outs. There are many within Google who believe their company is in the wisdom business, who talk about raising the world’s IQ, democratizing knowledge and empowering people with information. Sadly, though, this kind of dedication to big-hearted goals and high-minded ideals is all too rare in business. Nevertheless, I believe that long-lasting success, both personal and corporate, stems from an allegiance to the sublime and the majestic.

Now, more than ever, companies and leaders need to build a greater sense of purpose to create great workplaces and produce sustainable results. After all, “meaning” is the new money. Oh! Let me stop writing now before I, inadvertently, start using my own frequently-used-terms!

So, how are you changing the language you use at work? What questions & answers are you rephrasing?

I would like to propose a some key analytical skills for the HR professionals of tomorrow:

• Research / Hypothesis Design: HR needs to understand how it can design experiments to validate hypotheses or come up with alternative explanations to organizational phenomena. At the same time, knowledge about effective sample design techniques can come in handy as well. It can help HR design research studies which can be administered to statistically representative samples, instead of the entire workforce. This could help generalize findings and help save on precious time & efforts.
• Correlations & Regressions: I cannot count how many times I have seen these two key techniques completely misinterpreted or used senselessly. Most importantly, we need to distinguish between the two. Correlation is, simply, two variables moving in the same direction. For instance, employee engagement and financial performance might be positively correlated implying that both generally, move in the same direction. However, we cannot say that one causes the other for sure. On the other hand, regressions help us to form models to explain causality i.e. variables moving in the same direction because one causes the other to happen. For instance, among an employee engagement survey of 50 questions, you can use this to analyze what factors have the largest influence on engagement levels.
• Financial Analysis Techniques: Now, this is a potentially long list, but there are a few key things that help in working out the business case for key initiatives / decisions. Firstly, there has to be a fine appreciation of costs – fixed costs, recurring costs, and variable costs. Secondly, skills around conducting cost-benefits or break-even analysis would be extremely helpful. And speaking of that, if HR professionals can master concepts around “the time value of money”, they can really start demonstrating the rigour of their analyses.

1. A lot of NRI’s (Non-Resident Indians or Indians living abroad) are looking to return to India due to a combination of better opportunities, visa problems, aging parents etc. However most of them find it difficult to land a job. What advice would you give them in their endeavour to come back to India?
2. What advice would you give to expatriates looking for career opportunities in India?

I must confess that I am no expert when it comes to these issues and there are much-more experienced people on this subject. Nevertheless, I tried to reach out to my network and am attempting to answer Aseem’s questions.

This slightly dated article that appeared in The Economic Times points to the fact that the demand for senior roles is being driven by industries such as IT, Pharma, Financial Services, Retail, KPOs etc. The article also mentions that “living and working in India is no cakewalk. It poses diverse challenges that require a degree of adjustment and realignment, which NRIs often under estimate.”

Gurprriet Singh, a senior HR leader based in Mumbai, shared his thoughts with me.

At work, the largest challenge is work-culture. Returning Indians need to be aware of this. Very often they come back with so many “dreams of the good old times” they forget that those good times had a lot of pain as well. Cultural adjustment, inequality in the workplace, subjectivity in decision-making over objectivity (people or other work decisions) etc. are all challenges in the Indian workplaces. If at all possible, a 3/6 month secondment will give an idea of how things are, and may help you decide whether or not to move.

Money is another issue. The tax structure, the breakup of salary and how much is really net-take-home, what are the benefits – these are all relatively unclear and complex to some. Equally important is to have a clear understanding of costs and expenses. Most returning Indians assume India is a cheap country to live in. Not true. They forget their tastes and lifestyles have changed. India is cheap to live in, if you eat ‘vada-pao’. But, higher tastes require money. Simple example – a good restaurant in Mumbai has the same charges as one in New York. Most returnees miscalculate their costs disastrously.

For expats also, more than anything else, they need to be sensitive and adjusting to the culture. They’re used to delegating. They’re used to managing by exception. That doesn’t work in india. The most successful expats are those who realize that Indian organizations have little or no systems and processes.

Some Indian workplaces are process-averse; they will always do their best to avoid/circumvent process steps. This kind of culture requires the manager to have an eagle-eye on execution at all times and not just on whether execution is happening, but HOW its happening.

Achyut Menon, from Options India, a search firm with a strong focus on returning Indians says “Look at a career in India- just like the options one considered when going abroad for the first time. Don’t expect everything on a platter. Yes, some get dream jobs. Most others have to work their way through levels/movement/responsibilities.”

I also have felt sometimes that Indians residing abroad tend to lose touch with the Indian business environment. If you are looking for opportunities in the country, you need to be fully aware of what’s happening in the country. How is the economy changing? How is the business environment shaping up? What are the business drivers in your industry? And so on.

Overall, an “India mindset” is required to get an entry and thrive in one of the world’s fastest growing major economies. One needs to remember that you are competing with a very large pool of people for the same jobs.

Earlier, I was also on their list of “Top 25 Online Influencers in Leadership”. The lists are drawn based on unbiased research by tracking keywords and ranking people based on audience size, resonance and relevance. As they say “the list is always a snapshot.” And that keeps me continuously motivated to create and share the best content on management philosophies, human resources, employee engagement and building the ideal enterprise.

Again, THANK YOU for visiting my blog, connecting with me and spreading the word. Thanks for all your support. Without YOU, this was not possible.

When it comes to job titles, we live in an age of rampant inflation. Everybody you come across seems to be a chief or president of some variety. Title inflation is producing its own vocabulary: “uptitling” and “title-fluffing”.

And, it appears that title-inflation is particularly acute for titles which are a subset of  “president” (vice president, assistant vice president etc.) as compared to “chief”. Here is an outstanding piece of statistics:

The number of members of LinkedIn, a professional network, with the title vice-president grew 426% faster than the membership of the site as a whole in 2005-09. The inflation rate for presidents was 312% and for chiefs a mere 275%.

So, what’s happening? What are the reasons?

What is going on here? The most immediate explanation is the economic downturn: bosses are doling out ever fancier titles as a substitute for pay raises and bonuses. But there are also structural reasons for the trend. The most basic is the growing complexity of businesses. Many not only have presidents and vice-presidents for this or that product line, but also presidents and vice-presidents for various regions. Put the two together and you have a recipe for ever-longer business cards: vice-president for photocopiers Asia-Pacific, for example.

The cult of flexibility is also inflationary. The fashion for flattening hierarchies has had the paradoxical effect of multiplying meaningless job titles. Workers crave important-sounding titles to give them the illusion of ascending the ranks. Managers who no longer have anyone to manage are fobbed off with inflated titles.

Leadership in title inflation, as in so much else, is passing to the developing world, particularly India and China. Both countries have a longstanding obsession with hierarchy (fancy job titles can be the key to getting a bride as well as the admiration of your friends). They also have tight labour markets. The result is an explosion of titles. Companies have taken to creating baffling jobs such as “outbound specialist”. They have also taken to staging public celebrations of promotions from, say, assistant deputy director to principal assistant deputy director.

And, what are some of the possible implications of title inflation:

The snag is that the familiar problems of monetary inflation apply to job-title inflation as well. The benefits of giving people a fancy new title are usually short-lived. The harm is long-lasting. People become cynical about their monikers (particularly when they are given in lieu of pay rises). Organisations become more Ruritanian. The job market becomes more opaque…

And, far from providing people with more security, fancy titles can often make them more expendable. Companies might hesitate before sacking an IT adviser. But what about a chief scrum master? The essence of inflation, after all, is that it devalues everything that it touches.

What do you think are the implications of title-inflation? Is it worth it?

Enjoy the Talk.

Update: Here is a quick review of Clay Shirky’s latest book on the subject of Cognitive Surplus.

I have proposed a hack – let’s look at sharing the cost of attrition between the HR and the individual manager, in order to build accountability for people management and engagement. Unless, people’s “P&Ls” are not affected directly, no one takes notice! Typically, HR bears the costs of attrition (training, recruitment etc.) from its own budget. But, isn’t the individual manager responsible for it too?

You can click on the screenshots below to directly go to my hack on the MIX website. And, please, if you like it, do rate it. And, in any case, I need your comments and inputs to build up this hack.

Some of you might have heard about Kiva – an organization founded by a passionate couple which allows people to lend money via the internet to fund microfinance institutions in developing countries, which in turn lend money to people in need of funds for small businesses. I simply loved the idea, but was a bit disappointed that they have not yet been able to develop this model strongly for India.

In comes Rang De, which makes a bold attempt to recreate the model in the Indian context. Here is a quick link from their website on what really is micro-credit. So, the concept is dead simple. Rang De puts up profiles of needy people on their site with details about the business they want to start. The business plans are simple – tea-kiosk, grocery store, weaving business, cattle rearing etc. Next, people like you & me review these profiles and provide the funds for these businesses. You can start with as low as Rs. 100 (USD 2). The micro-credit agencies collect all the funds and disburse them to the people, who then pay the money back to you in equal monthly installments (current repayment rate is 99% !!!). And yes, you earn a nominal 2% interest on your social investment.  So, this is no donation, it is an investment. This is our opportunity to become social investors and earn much more than interest on our investments – an opportunity to change lives.

And, it’s all doable at the click of a button, without paperwork. So, whatever the occasion, rise up to it in a meaningful way – whether its birthdays, anniversaries, pay days, celebration of victory, festivals or simply a day when you feel passionate about doing something good. Support someone and let’s share better.

Overall, this has been a great year for this blog, as I got more and more readers and was featured on Alltop as one of the top bloggers on HR. I thought it will be a good idea to put together a list of the most interesting and popular posts for 2009.

• So, you have an employee engagement program. But have you looked at the key ingredients of a successful engagement program?

• We all intuitively understand motivation. But, let’s get the basics straight and evaluate all motivational initiatives against these simple criteria.

• Are performance appraisals any good? Find out.

• Should your employee engagement program focus on workgroups or enterprise level factors? My 2 cents.

• Still. Still, hard-nosed executives don’t buy into the concept of employee engagement. Here are some data to make your point.

• The economic climate took us all through a journey like no other. Here are some thoughts on managing through it

• It is super critical to understand what drives employee engagement. Remember, your organization has its own set of unique drivers.

• “We are not ready for something like engagement” – is the statement you hear several executives making, especially when they are not so confident of internal HR processes. But, it does not matter. You need to focus on employee engagement.

• One of the toughest bits about employee engagement initiatives is “accountability”. Here is an example of how a company did it very well.

• And another potential framework for moving from insights to action.

• Yes, I can hear that – “We need a better HR team“! And maybe, this team should even have an “HR Blog”!

• If you are a people manager, please try to remain accessible by following these simple tips. It means a lot to your people.

• Have you thought about crossing the concepts of employee engagement and employee well-being? Who knows, your engagement strategy may be unsustainable!

I hope you enjoy reading this blog and I will endeavour to create meaningful content going forward into 2010. You can subscribe to this blog by grabbing the feed or even by getting fresh posts delivered to your email instantly. It’s dead simple!

Finally, you could always connect with me across different social media websites (like Twitter, LinkedIn etc.) by going to this page.

Happy holidays! And have a great 2010!