Top 100 Career blogs

It was a nice surprise to find HR funda blog in the Top 100 Global Ranking of English-language Career Blogs. Currently the blog is ranked 47th and if you take 5 seconds of yours to vote for HR Funda it will help in improving the blog rating :D.

Thanks and Wishing you the very best for the New Year ahead.

Damn it feels good to be a .... :D

That's Steve Jobs for you

Steve Job's inspiring thoughts on his life and his journey so far.

Future of Management

So what the future of management going to be? Is it your organizational structure or scorecard that you follow?

There's a reason boards of directors can pluck so many CEOs out of one company and plop them into another: When it comes to management ideas and tools, many companies are surprisingly similar. They have the same hierarchies and budgeting processes. They have "balanced scorecards" that measure performance. They benchmark their peers, adopt "best practices," and seemingly all house an army of Six Sigma black belts standing ready to defend quality control.

Garry Hamel thinks that that new ways of managing people or organizing companies can lead to the most durable, "difficult to duplicate" competitive advantages. Such an approach differs from process improvement, which can be copied, or an emphasis on new products, which can be commoditized.

People are source of competitive advantage but how organizations organize and engage them to compete with new innovations are key to the future of organizations. Pool of good talent lays the foundation, but how managers adapt to new set of challenges leads to optimum utilization of available talent will eventually be the differentiator for organisations to win and stay competitive.

Talent hiring and retention

Interesting thoughts by Sullivan in his recent article on employee retention.Folks who are focusing on the monetary aspect of the new job are more likely to quit in near future even if you have hired them at a higher than market levels salaries.

Incidentally, individuals hired from executive search firms can fall into this "money first" category. If they left the last job because an executive search professional presented a "better money" offer, don't be surprised when they leave again when the next executive search professional calls with slightly more money to offer.

This makes me wonder, what is the validity of employee current salary as an indicator of his actual competency level?

Sometimes recruiters and head hunters even create a “Talent vacuum” in the market for certain niche skills. This talent vacuum is especially seen in the Senior and middle managers levels as employees are not always on move and tend to be little reluctant to switch jobs easily. However thanks to the marketing skills of our head hunters and the growing talent crunch one always tends to get what he aspires for.

Growing salary levels for a role create a bigger pressure on current employers and most likely a less competent person (as per the role requirement) will fill the same role at a similar or even higher salary level. This creates a vicious circle in talent market and the salary levels head north due to this trend in war for talent. Talk to any seasoned recruiter today and he will tell you how they moan the fact that majority of decisions regarding change of job has to do with the high pay packages.The focus has sihifted from role and job content to the salary components and benefits,perks which the new job may offer.

As a HR professional you often wonder is this shift due to markert factors ,peer pressure,or just changing times.

How long this will trend will continue?

What about the “hiring philosophy’ ?

The 3C Matrix of performance

"It" is talent, which is evolving into a science for some HR professionals and a passion for many line managers. A multitude of programs and investments have been made to attract, retain and upgrade talent.

HR guru Dave ulrich gives his 3C mantra of competence,committed and contribution on the talent cafeteria.

In this talent equation, these three terms are multiplicative, not additive. If any one is missing, the other two will not replace it. A low score in competence will not ensure talent even when the employee is engaged and contributing.

Talented employees must have skills, wills and purposes; they must be capable, committed and contributing. HR leaders can engage their general managers to identify and improve each of these three dimensions to respond to the talent clarion call.

Just indicates how HR functions in the organisation plays the most critical role of revisiting and reviewing the competencies and talent required to perform in organisations.HR role need not end with defining the competencies required for talents to give superior performance,it needs to be revisited and reviewed keeping in mind the new challenges and business requirement. Performance in the long run can be sustained and competencies can be developed only if the 3C’s are present.

Top 100 blogs on HR

HR Funda has been featured in the top 100 blogs on HR by Laura Miligan.

She rightly says that as your small business grows you will undoubtedly find that one of your biggest challenges is finding smart talented people to comprise your staff. Even if you’re lucky enough to land great employees, however, there are a whole host of other human resources challenges that startups and small companies must overcome. In this article we highlight what we believe to be the top 100 HR bloggers, listed in alphabetical order by category.

So take a look at the top 100 HR blogs.

HR News Links

Some of the interesting links in the past week on HR issues.

How training programs helps in employee retention.

Know when you are getting old in HR

The painful divide between Generation X and Boomers.

HR talent crunch

Madhukar’s views on HR transition from backroom to Boardroom

Flexibility at work : Good or bad

Know Your Gossip Quotient :)

Employee communication through informal means works fastest and rumor mills always reach faster than any formal channel of communication. Grapevines has been always considered as a powerful communication network and as per wiki a study quoted in Forbes magazine concludes that 75 percent of employees hear about matters first through rumors on the grapevine.

Robbins states that rumors flourish in an organization because of three elements. They are a response to situations that are important to employees, where there is some ambiguity, and under conditions that arouse anxiety. From a management perspective, the grapevine acts as a filter and a feedback mechanism to identify issues that employess consider important and relevant.

The Political Calculation blog has come up with an interesting tool which can help you decide if, and also how, you should join in the guilty pleasure that is office gossip at your company.

Managing Internal talent

Career planning and talent management in organizations are subject to various challenges today. Organizations may not always be able to attract and develop talent internally; especially it’s difficult to keep pace with the kind of growth organizations have seen in the last decade. At times home grown talent is often over looked in favour of outside talent in the name of fresh blood and out of box approach. This often leads to unhappy senior and middle management as they feel left out due to the fact that they have grown internally. Interestingly Jerry Yang co-founder of Yahoo who has recently taken over as the CEO faces this challenge as well.

"Being an insider is comforting to the organization as current employees see one of their own in charge," says Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli. "Insiders also know a lot, especially about the culture of the organization and what is important to preserve. Founders, in particular, have an advantage in that they remind employees of what were, in Yahoo's case, more glorious days."

Experts at Wharton say that Yang's biggest priorities should be boosting employee morale and finding key insiders to promote into leadership roles. Yang has said that recruiting talent -- internally or externally-- is one of his biggest goals. Yang should play to his strengths, including his knowledge of Yahoo's inner workings. Since Yang already knows the internal landscape, he's in the best position to identify future leaders from within. Wharton management professor Keith Weigelt agrees. "I would look for talent internally first rather than recruiting it," he says. "If you look externally first, people inside wonder, 'What's wrong with our people?' He has to mine Yahoo and then find the most talented employees."

Sometimes in the hurry to quick fix a problem organizations end up hiring outsiders hoping they will start afresh and bring a new perspective and fix deep rooted cultural issues which the organization has developed over the years. When organizations face crisis employees need some familiar face which represents the culture and values, it’s a kind of reassurance to them which helps to keep motivated and positive.Crisis situations demands a deeper understanding of the softer issues and a historical perspective of organisation ability to respond to challenges ensures that the decision maker is aware and appreciates the rationale for decisions taken, which may appear strange to external stakeholders but are made keeping in mind the organizational culture and dynamics .