HR Knowledge: Job Analysis_How to Figure Out What the Job Actually Entails

HR Funda on Job Analysis

HR Knowledge: Job Analysis_How to Figure Out What the Job Actually Entails - SHRM India

View more presentations from SHRMIndia.

Employee Retention - Getting it right

Changing times needs different strategies to engage and retain key employees. Organizations adopt different approach towards managing talent and working towards improving deliverables for business profitability. 

Mckinsey study shows that too many companies approach the retention of key employees during disruptive periods of organizational change by throwing financial incentives at senior executives, star performers, or other “rainmakers.”The money is rarely well spent. Many of the recipients would have stayed put anyway; others have concerns that money alone can’t address. Moreover, by focusing exclusively on high fliers, companies often overlook those “normal” performers who are nonetheless critical for the success of any change effort.

Some of the key observations are:

Find the “hidden gems”

Once HR and line managers have generated a thoughtful and more inclusive list of key players (usually 30 to 45 percent of all employees), they can begin to prioritize groups and individuals for targeted retention measures— 5 to 10 percent of the workforce.

The key is to view each employee through two lenses: first, the impact his or her departure would have on the business, given the focus of the change effort and his or her role in it; and second, the probability that the employee in question might leave.

Mind set matters

One-size-fits-all retention packages are usually unsuccessful in persuading a diverse group of key employees to stay. Instead, companies should tailor retention approaches to the mind-sets and motivations of specific employees (as well as to the express nature of the changes involved).

Retention is about more than money

Executives mustn’t view employee retention as a one-off exercise where it’s sufficient to get the incentives packages right. Rather, best practice approaches build on continuous attention and timely communication every step of the way to help employees make sense of the uncertainty inherent in organizational change.

Ultimately, what many employees want most of all is clarity about their future with the company. Creating that clarity requires significant hands-on effort from managers, including the ongoing work of tracking progress so that companies can quickly intervene when problems arise.

Targeting retention measures at the right people using a tailored mix of financial and nonfinancial incentives is crucial for managing organizational transitions that achieve long term business success; it’s also likely to save money.

7 Talent Management Practices to Help You Survive a Downturn

Guest Post by Sean Conrad

To weather an economic downturn, companies need to focus on their core business and strengths, reduce unnecessary costs and be more efficient. Here are 7 talent management practices every company should implement to get the most out of their workforce.

1. Align Goals and Track Everyone's Progress

You need to make sure that every employee's goals are aligned with organizational goals. You also need to regularly monitor progress on goals so you can take corrective action as required. Finally, you need to be able to quickly and effectively communicate any change in focus, priorities or tactics. Your talent management system should allow you to quickly communicate changes that impact organizational goals to everyone who has a linked individual goal.

2. Conduct Regular Employee Reviews to Keep Employee Performance On Track

Employee performance reviews give employees an opportunity to talk with their manager about what they are doing well, areas for improvement, skill gaps, career plans, goals, competencies, development needs and more. It's one of the most effective ways to keep performance on track.

They also help managers and HR identify low performers and take action to improve their performance, so the company can get the most out of all its resources.

Finally, employee reviews make it easier for managers and HR to make critical decisions about workforce restructuring and right-sizing if/when needed. By providing a history of employee performance they allow managers and HR to accurately identify high and low performers and employees with critical knowledge/experience/skills.

3. Provide Ongoing Feedback to Maximize Performance

Ongoing feedback helps everyone maximize their performance. It allows for quick corrective action, so managers and employees can address any issues while they are still small. To formalize this process, you might want to do quarterly or semi-annual reviews instead of just annual ones.

4. Invest in Performance-Based Development

Make sure you're getting value from your investment in employee development. Start from your employees' performance appraisals and use them to identify skill gaps, so you can be sure you're offering the right, targeted learning activities. You should also consider which competencies are key to your organization's success and target training to build strength in these. Finally, you should always measure the change in employee performance ratings that results from a learning intervention to make sure your training is effective.

5. Identify and Reward High Performing Employees

Knowing who your high performing and high potential employees are is always critical. While you may not be able to reward them with salary increases, bonuses or other monetary rewards during an economic downturn, you can still demonstrate your organizational commitment to them and recognize their contributions through other means. These are the employees you can't afford to loose; make sure you're acknowledging their performance and potential.

6. Have a Succession Plan

Your organization needs to be prepared to replace people in critical roles at all times. It's even more vital in a downturn, when a vacant leadership position or shortage of a critical skill could cripple your organization. A talent pool based succession plan helps your organization to identify the critical skills and competencies it needs to succeed over the long term, not just the leadership roles it may need to fill. It then helps you identify and groom your high-performing and high-potential employees to fill these needs when they arise.

7. Be as Efficient as Possible

In an economic downturn, no organization can afford inefficient processes. Systems that automate your talent management processes make these processes more efficient and cost effective. Many companies realize a return on their investment in talent management software in the very first year – often enough to more than cover the cost of the new system. They also usually see an increase the quality and value of their processes, typically resulting in higher employee satisfaction and engagement.

Sean Conrad is a Senior Product Analyst at Halogen Software, one of the leading providers of talent management solutions. He can be reached at sconrad@halogensoftware.com

Good Boss, bad times...

Its difficult being a good Boss in bad times when layoffs, pay cuts, and restructing have hit organisations everywhere .In this video interview, management professor and author Robert Sutton offers his advice on how to be a good boss in today’s difficult climate.

Strategic Planning in Uncertain Times

Strategic planning becomes a daunting nightmare in challenging economic times. Anticipating change and creating framework for future growth needs in depth understanding of trends which can indicate future changes with fair degree of certainty. Mckinsey article has few tips on planning during these transitioning times.

Be realistic about scenario planning

In a highly uncertain environment, the advantages of scenario planning are clear: since no one base case can be regarded as probable, it’s necessary to develop plans on the assumption that several different futures are possible and to focus attention on the underlying drivers of uncertainty. Senior executives outside the strategic-planning group—even those accustomed to developing scenarios—may find the diversity and complexity of this year’s scenarios bewildering. It’s critical to bring such executives into the process early: for example, by kicking off the planning process with a scenario-development exercise involving the full senior team. Similarly, as the process of reviewing business units gets under way, a company can inculcate an appreciation of the threats it faces and of its collective strategic response by inviting executives from a number of divisions to participate in the proceedings—rather than hold one-off events between the senior team and the leader of each individual unit.

Intensify monitoring

The company’s strategy, in short, must account for many more contingencies than it has until recently. Since the effectiveness of such a strategy depends on an organization’s ability to adjust rapidly as the fog starts to lift, managers must identify and intensively monitor key indicators suggesting which scenario might unfold.

Look beyond the crisis

Given the vastness of the economic change now under way, the temptation for many planners will be to gaze, mesmerized, at the unfolding crisis. That’s a mistake, for at least two reasons.

First, devastating as the current downturn may be, it cannot roll back fundamental market trends—such as the aging of consumers in Europe and North America or the continued economic development of Brazil, China, India, and Russia—which will continue to create strategic opportunities and threats. Managers must focus their eyes—and resources—on these trends no matter what happens.

Second, planners who become fixated on current economic events run the risk of overlooking a core responsibility: evaluating the effectiveness of current strategies. Although the crisis may force companies to suspend or redirect some of them, others will remain relevant even in the changed environment.

Given the background of the cataclysmic changes which have happened in the past few months, planners today are better prepared to anticipate and work towards a more change responsive plan of action.

Did you know ?

Interesting presentation on amazing facts which I’m sure we never come across in our daily lives. Few thoughts which immediately come to my mind are :

• Population is actually turning out to be greatest resource for a nation to have. Human resource will be the biggest source of competitive gain even in the days to come.

• At the same time the concept of a nation is blurring due to rapid exponential growth of technology, alternate sources of information like web based tools.

• While nations will continue to have economic and political interest, the power of connectivity has enabled the current generations to tide over the barriers of language and culture. As we grow our cultures will continue to grow locally with global flavor( some say glocalisation)

• If we do not connect the digital and real world at a rapid pace, we will be marginalizing a section of world’s population which would mean greater issues of governance and equitable distribution of wealth and resources.

• Empowerment will acquire a new meaning as the power distance paradigm will change.

• Future continues to be more uncertain despite all our efforts to predict and control changes.

• Mere information does not enables human beings to take most informed and best possible decision as uncertainty will create more information asymmetry and thereby greater chaos.

• Definition of specialization will surely change, people will get into multiple job, try multiple options before they decide to go for a vocation.

• Formal education process will slowly become redundant as future continues to grow uncertain. Growing uncertainties will force education curriculum to focus on developing functional and generic competencies.

• Small will continue to be beautiful.

Any other thoughts?

Managing Diverse Workforce

Managing a team with members from different cultural background and nationality has its own unique dimensions and challenges. Typically organizations have different training modules which train people on cross cultural aspects before they get exposed to the people of various nationality and culture.

Research shows that most of the organizations have few common issues which inhibit the advancement of diverse groups in the workplace : (1) negative attitudes and discomfort toward people who are different, (2) discrimination, (3) prejudice, (4) stereotyping, (5) racism, and (6) bias.

In one of the HBR series discussions, Navi Radjou, VP at Forrester Research shares his insight on why Indians score over their western counterparts.

He asked senior execs at both Western and Indian multinationals with R&D operations across US, Europe, and India what challenges they face in managing their firms’ transnational innovation networks. They pointed out that the biggest hurdle is socio-cultural, as Indian engineers think and act completely differently than their Western colleagues. The former, growing up in a red-hot economy, are animated by a “growth mindset” whereas the latter, operating in mature economies, are stuck in a “settled mindset.” These two opposite approaches clash when they are asked to collaborate on a R&D project. Why? Because Indian and Western engineers completely differ in their:

1) Reasoning. Unlike Western engineers,who reason with a predicate logic (a statement is either true (1) or false (0),Indian engineers solve problems using a fuzzy logic,the degree of truth of a statement can range anywhere between 0 and 1.

2) Problem-solving. Given their average age (mid-20s), Indian engineers belong to the Generation Y, or the Millennials, who learn through hands-on experiments (think video-games) and peer-to-peer interactions (instant messaging anyone?). When solving a problem, these grown-up “kids” harness the multiplicative power of social networking tools to experiment with multiple solutions simultaneously, and select the optimal one based on peer input. You can call this problem-solving approach “Collaborative Darwinism.” By contrast, Western engineers, many in their 30s/40s/50s, theoretically weigh the pros and cons of every single solution before even trying it, and feel too proud to ask for help when stuck solving a problem. It’s the “ostrich-style” problem-solving.

3) Market expectations. It’s hard for Western engineers living in rich economies with advanced infrastructure to design products for use by customers in developing economies with poor roads and unreliable electrical and water supply. But that’s second nature for Indian engineers in Bangalore, with its ever-congested roads and frequent power cuts. As a US tech multinational’s exec eloquently puts it: “Western engineers’ product ideas are shaped by laws of abundance whereas Eastern engineers’ inventions are motivated by the rules of scarcity.

Just to add to this , it’s also interesting to look at the famous Geert Hofstede™ Cultural Dimensions when one tries to do a comparative assessment of diverse workforce. His assessment is based on five primary Dimensions to assist in differentiating cultures: Power Distance - PDI, Individualism - IDV, Masculinity - MAS, Uncertainty Avoidance – UAI and Long-Term Orientation – LTO.India scores fairly different when compared to western countries when one looks at all these dimensions, so the differences are expected. When it comes to product designing or any solution perhaps the awareness and better understanding of cultural diversity, language barrier and different socio economic approach towards consumption and consumer behavior drives Indian mindset.So instead of terming it mindset of scarcity versus abundance it would be appropriate to term it as informed and sensitized approach towards ideas and conceptualization.

Salary Compression – A HR Nightmare?

If there's one thing that's tipping the scales for fresh employees and leaving the veterans out in the cold, it's salary compression. There's no room for loyalty to the company when market conditions have to be taken into consideration and new hires have to be paid according to industry standards. With the internal annual rate of increase between 4 and 7 percent and the industry annual rate of increase touching 10 to 15 percent, there's a huge disparity between what more experienced workers earn and what their fresh-faced counterparts just setting foot in the company make.

The situation is compounded year after year, as those with the company for a longer period of time continue to earn comparatively less than those who've come after them. HR professionals and managers have been put in a bind by salary compression – they're forced to pay the going rate for the best of the new talent to hit the market even as they risk the ire and resentment of individuals who have slogged for the company for more than a few years, but who are earning a significantly smaller amount than those coming in, even with the annual hike in their salaries.

Older employees are forced to change jobs then, since they are likely to be paid the higher market rates by new employers, which means that more new employees have to be hired at current market rates, and more money has to be spent on recruitment and training costs and on higher salaries. This leads us to the questions - Isn't it more rational to increase the salaries of older employees on par or at slightly higher rates than those of their newer colleagues? Is it worth the low morale, frustration and reduced productivity that older employees exhibit when faced with the news that their juniors, people they have to take under their wings and train, are taking home more money than they are? Does this make for a workplace conducive to harmony and cooperation?

Employers are struggling to address these issues without emptying the company's coffers on salary alone. In an attempt to retain valued and experienced employees, they are offering perks like the use of company transport, phone bills at the company's expense, access to health clubs and paid vacations. Some companies are restructuring their pay levels in a new attempt termed broad banding where employers assume more flexibility in defining job descriptions and adjusting pay scales accordingly. Others offer bonuses and incentives on a performance-based model.

A job market with a limited amount of skilled labor and a large number of jobs that require highly skilled professionals gives employees the upper hand – they are able to dictate terms and threaten to quit if they're not paid what they think they're worth. But then, too much of job hopping is seen as a sign of instability in industry circles, unless the employee has something really special to offer in terms of skill and ability. At the end of the day, it's up to organizations to affect the trade off between retaining experienced employees at a higher pay or spending more to bring in new ones and train them well.

This article is contributed by Heather Johnson, who regularly writes on HR manager. She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email address: heatherjohnson2323 @ gmail.com

On ROI, HR Skills & Perception about HR Function

ROI on Training and Leadership programs

Training evaluation usually takes into account the following factors.

• Reaction-How the participants reacts to the program

• Learning-Depending upon the nature of the program ways to measure the learning has to be worked out.

• On Job behavior -To access the effective changes for the desired result on the team and the individual.

• Business result-how the change in behavior has positively impacted business result.

• Calculating the return on investment (ROI).

Most of the organizations focus only till stage 4 of the evaluation process. Typically there are 3 aspects which are considered to be looked at under ROI.

• Desired Impact- has the training program been effective it facilitating change as it was desired. Training is one of the many tools available; it must justify its effectiveness as a viable business solution to remain relevant and viable.

• Cost –to substantiate that the cost incurred leads to positive impact of profitability.

• Improve the design and content of future training programs on the basis of feedback received.

The best way to evaluate the ROI on training is to do a control group experiment and evaluate the performance of both the teams on the basis of pre identified hard and soft data points like absenteeism, productivity, morale, enthusiasm etc. Only if the pre determined targets are achieved for the group which has undergone training is evident it would be viable to have effective ROI assessment. However ROI assessment has its own challenges since the effectiveness also depends on individual willingness and openness to change behavior through structured intervention.

In my personal experience the best training programs are run by people who have demonstrated exceptional leadership ability and have proven track record of being a performer and great achiever in any field of life. Only those who are exceptional achievers can inspire others raise the bar and achieve new heights.

New Skills for HR Professionals

HR function in itself is the core of any entrepreneur activity. For any organization to be effective it needs great managers and great managers must be great team leaders having exceptional people capabilities. However Marketing (Business development and Sales) and finance are two functions which HR professionals must have to become quite essential entrepreneurs. In one of my earlier post on my blog I had opined on “selling skills for HR professionals”. Cross functional expertise is a core competency for HR professional as it is involved in Hiring, training, mentoring, developing career path and designing robust performance management system and policies for all functions in the organizations. Unless it has the necessary know how of business, functional, operational and strategic goals of teams it will never succeed in performing its role effectively.

Perceptions about HR department

Depends on what we are trying to achieve, we keep reading lot of surveys and findings on the role of HR in organizations and what is expected from HR teams .Perception of employees will change only if the expectations are aligned to the common goal. As long as HR leadership in your teams are able to differentiate and successfully execute the employee value proposition and integrate the same with organizations people’s philosophy ,in my view it would have done its core function.

HR must re-define and change the way it sees itself, it ought to articulate its business value proposition and strategic contribution more effectively. It should become a viable change agent in driving the strategic goal of organizations. Only when these goals are achieved we can expect changes in the way HR function is perceived.

Inflation's impact on HR function

Inflation is a cyclical economic phenomena, in a globalised world inflation in not just driven by internal economic variables but also get influenced by common economic concerns like global oil prices, entry and exit barriers to economies, food grain production etc. The current inflation trend is cost push inflation which is more driven by the rise in the cost of essentials goods and services. It even leads to rise in wages in excess of any gains in labor productivity, this leads to increase in unit costs of production and thus further spiraling prices.

Generally when Inflation is more demand driven (total demand for goods and services in an economy exceeds the available supply) it leads to increase in the production of goods and services. This means more employment opportunities and higher demand for skilled labour and if supply fails to match the demand for skilled and highly skilled labour, wages move northward and it also leads to higher attrition in organizations where even demand for labour is more.

In case of Cost push inflation the demand for labour does not necessarily goes up,on the other hand organizations looks for ways to reduce cost and reduce redundant work force as the cost of services and managing a non productive workforce goes up. Cost push inflation also leads to demand for higher wages to meet the growing expenses and organizations face dual challenge of managing external as well as internal cost push .This often leads to wage price spiral which means increase in wages will drive cost of goods and services.

In such situations it becomes very critical for the HR team to take the right decisions on:

• Hiring the best talent-To ensure that the value added is more than the cost
  

• Improving productivity - Initiate ways to enhance productivity per employee, to have better retention programs to engage the high performers.
  

• Review the compensation and benefits applicable: Change in economic scenario drive the compensation structure, too much of market uncertainty would mean that variable and bonus component of employees needs to be aligned to marked realities.
  

  
  

• Partner with leadership on decision making- Don't forget the role of the ear piece of senior leadership in your organization, HR has to come up with relevant findings and metrics which helps the organization meet challenges better.
  

  
  

• Communicate effectively and timely: In such economic scenario it becomes very critical that right information reaches employees at the right time. Even if it's a decision which is likely to negatively impact the compensation or benefits of the employee, it's very critical that the rationale for change and how it will help the organization and its workforce to meet the challenges are well articulated by leadership and HR teams.