5 ways to get more done in your Workday

A major complaint among HR professionals these days is a severe lack of time. This is a common concern across the professional landscape and something that we all combat every day. You probably find yourself hoping for more hours to get more done. This isn’t going to happen but there are ways you can make more productive use of your time to make sure that your “to-do” lists are completed by the day’s end. Here are five ways you can create this needed time:

1. Switch your hours. If the 9-5 shift isn’t providing you enough time to get everything done that you need to then consider working longer. Wake up an hour earlier and get to work that much earlier. The earlier you get to work the less interruptions you’ll encounter. While your free time will be cut into you’ll feel more satisfied that you got more done.

2. Multitask. This is the catchword of the day and it’s here to stay. If you’re trying to further your career then listen to audio textbooks while in the car. Waiting for a doctor’s appointment or your car to get fixed? Bring a book that is appropriate for your job or paperwork.

3. Cut out activities that eat up time. Turn off the television if you have one in your office. Cut out the twenty-minute chit-chat session in the morning with your friends by the coffee maker. Don’t surf the internet for anything not related to your job. Resist these temptations! These extraneous activities can severely cut into valuable time that you could be spending on getting stuff done.

4. Work faster. This may sound like a no-brainer but it’s hard for people to change their work habits. Learn to type faster by taking a typing course or tutorial online. Be a better reader as you scan for the details that you need and cut out the meaningless text that takes up your time. Make your own deadlines that are independent from the natural deadline attached to a project. This will create a sense of urgency that will make you work faster.

5. Preparation is crucial. If you have tomorrow lined up before you leave work today then you’re in good shape. The worst thing you can do is come into the office in the morning and have little to no idea what you should be doing. It will take you an hour to plan your day. Be prepared with your tasks for the next day and you’ll get off to a running start when you arrive!

This article is contributed by Heather Johnson, who regularly writes on the topic of career exploration. She wanted to share a guest post on HR Funda and I was more than happy to feature her post .She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email id: heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com . If you have any guest post to contribute, please drop me a mail on ajitchouhan@gmail.com

More than just HR...

Veritude came out with a survey titled “Working together, Working apart”which looked at business and HR leaders working relationship and common understanding of each other issues.

Overall, the research reveals that in many companies, HR must improve their business leaders' perceptions of theirs skills and abilities and business leaders must learn to turn to HR for support in addressing workforce issues. There is ample room for optimism that both business and HR leaders in this study recognize these trends are working toward effective plans.

1.Strategic Business Challenges: Both business and HR leaders agree that talent acquisition and recruitment top the list of strategic business issues, but one in five business and HR leaders see HR as only involved in "implementing " strategy, not participating in plan development. What's more, a common perception is that HR is lacking adequate financial aptitude and therefore is not asked to contribute to strategy development because they do not speak the language of business.

2.The Relationship between Business and HR Leaders: Many business leaders indicate they do not have an established relationship with HR or it world not occur to them to include HR in implementing workforce plans. In general HR leasers agree that business leaders minimize the role that HR plays in workforce planning and don't consider the full scope of HR's ability and expertise.

3.The Impact of Business and HR Leaders' Relationship on Operations: Business leaders perceive HR as "resource constrained" and, as such, unable to effectively implement workforce plans. In turn, HR believes business leaders set unrealistic timeframes, lack an understanding of workforce issues, and are inconsistent in implementing initiatives.

Frankly to me all these survey reports don’t come as a big surprise. I guess I’ve been reading about such “observations / findings” and “recommendation” and the more things change the more they remain the same. Off late I’ve become a big critique of the word “strategic HR” and terms like “HR leaders”. To me it doesn’t make any sense to have them in the best organizations around. No organization today would be great just because it has “strategic HR plans” or it has the “best HR leaders”. Any business challenge today is also a “strategic HR challenge”.

It can either be the growing competition to acquire talent or develop competencies or even explore new market opportunities. Its time so called HR leaders talk about business strategy and take ownership for the business plan rather than just the HR plan. No CEO of an organization expects that functional leaders like HR, Finance or quality should stick only to their piece of pie. Only the ones who dare to break the shibboleth and take the stride to add values with business insights are truly recognized asthe Business leaders and go beyond the cliché of “HR leaders”. I think the expectation today is very different as so called HR challenges are not just being handled by HR leaders .It’s a decision taken by the think tanks as the impact of such decisions are huge. So apart from owning the execution of the HR business plan, today’s expectation is what value one can bring to business plan and its execution.

Even the client model of HR partnership is something which needs to be re-looked at considering the varied situations which the decision makers may find themselves. As far as the transactional and operational activities are concerned the client approach works well to bring about speed and quality in execution and resolving operational issues. However when it comes to business decision making the “consultant approach” is something which HR leaders must do away with. It reinforces the notion that the HR continues to adopt “global approach” to solve and own challenges. The funda is simple “take ownership, go beyond your role, and challenge the conventional wisdom”. Trust me you’ll never be called just another “HR leader” as you would be respected for being a business leader who knows HR and comes from HR background :)

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.

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.

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 .

What HR does ?

This Business week article made me think how challenging and diverse can be the job of a Human resource professional.

Apart from conveying really bad news—a workforce reduction or a painful reorganization—there are a few other less-than-sensational aspects of an HR career, depending on your temperament and the companies you work for. Lots of HR people I know, for instance, complain about the constant cost-cutting that turns them into the bad guys who must inform employees on a regular basis of reductions in everything from travel allowances to flavors of tea in the break room.

Other HR people wish that the role they play could be more instrumental in making the company a great place to work and less focused on policy and documentation. Still other HR folks spend more time than they'd like protecting the company from employee-relations lawsuits and wage-and-hour claims.

The attention which HR gets, challenges it faces and kind of impact which HR actions have on the employees in the organization is profound and long lasting. I am sure if we all look back at our career as in HR we truly cherish those moments of great joy when we see people dreams come true and also have learnt few lessons when we have to take some tough human decisions at time.

Be it business partner, decision enabler, championing people’s cause or defending policy decisions it’s a challenging and ever demanding job. One has to walk on a tight rope; you are everyone friends yet can’t afford to take sides. You have to stand for fairness and consistency, be mentally prepared to face challenges and answer all odd questions. You are the quintessential nice guy yet some may look at you as part of them (management). You are the change agent and also the custodian of culture and values.

The role has been evolving continuously and best part is that you have the scope and space to scale new challenges by bring about change and move from trusted business partner to transformation partner.

HR as Leading Indicator

I'm sure some of us have seen or heard it before in our profession.

Makes me wonder how many of us come forward and take ownership of our actions.

Accept failures when things go wrong.

Come forward and say yes this is my idea and I have a plan to achieve this result and have this target in mind for this action plan.

One can't expect HR to be a leading indicator unless we have leadership which is driven by metrics and linked to bottom line results of the organization. I’m sure we need more HR leaders who lead by end results rather than mere thoughts.

In case if you are doing this then you need to share your experiences and train the rest of the HR folks around. I’m sure we can do better as a professional community by sharing our learning and experiences on this account and raise the levels of HR benchmarking and best practices.

Talent Retention Challenges

As organizations grow they face the challenge of attracting and retaining top talent. Talent strategies may work fine when the organization is small and has the space to offer challenging and fast growing opportunities. It becomes difficult to sustain the organizational growth and continue to offer the same kind of challenge and career growth for talents.WSJ reports how the Google is also facing this challenge of attracting and retaining top talent.

Google had more than six times the number of workers at the end of the first quarter than it had at the same point in 2004, which some former employees say tends to slow decision-making and make it harder for individuals to feel like they're having an impact.

Google stock option are beginning to finish vesting for thousands of employees brought on during a big Google hiring spree in 2003 and 2004, lessening the financial incentives to stay.

On top of all this, a new generation of Internet start-ups has matured enough to attract top technical talent and offer a real possibility of riches from a stock offering or sale to a bigger company. In contrast, Google's shares hit a record level this week, suggesting the stock simply doesn't offer the same potential gains it once did. The concentration of many of the start-ups within a few miles of Google's headquarters, which Google itself has exploited in the past, can make poaching staff a faster and easier pursuit.

Still, Mr. Bock says Google executives spend a lot of time thinking about how to attract and retain top talent as the company grows in size. "We don't want to become a victim of our own success; we're aware of that risk," he says.

The company acknowledges that creative and entrepreneurial people are the core of its success -- that's one reason Google lavishes them with extravagant free food and other perks. "If we do not succeed in attracting excellent personnel or retaining or motivating existing personnel, we may be unable to grow effectively," Google has acknowledged in regulatory
filings.

Best talent continues to aspire more as they achieve success and try to repeat the same experience at a faster and more ambitious pace. Organisations typically find it difficult to keep pace with the growing aspirations of its top talent and this is when the point at which companies needs to rethink the ways they plan to engage employees. As this article clearly outlines that when it comes to human resources, one size no longer fits all.

One set of rules dictated everything from the kinds of benefits and rewards the company offered to how employees were trained and evaluated. That approach made things easier for the human-resources department and ensured a degree of efficiency, equality and fairness. Now some executives are finding that this model isn't adequate for getting the most out of existing talent or attracting and keeping new people. To be competitive in the marketplace and in the race for talent, companies must understand and address the diverse needs of their work force. In fact, they must treat each employee as a "work force of one."

Following this efforts are being made by HR folks to ensure more flexibility, create more opportunities for career growth ,allow individuals greater space in deciding and planning different career paths within the organization .

Sun Microsystems Inc. asks employees to identify the type of physical setting that suits them best -- a private office, team room, satellite center or their home office. Microsoft Corp. goes so far as to ask certain types of employees to design their own career paths. The company offers software engineers both a management-focused and technical-specialist career track and allows them to move back and forth between the two.

Surely this indicates a marked shift in the way talent is being retained and developed in organizations. Career decisions are not just being made on the challenging role and compensation and ESOP’s being offered but how one gets the opportunity to plan his career and try different things in the same organization.

Global HR Transformation

“The definition of HR transformation has evolved out of a number of perceived and real pressures on the HR function. The function is expected to support the business, provide the right direction for the people management strategy and then execute the strategy. It also has to demonstrate an improvement in value, yet at the same time carry out cost-heavy administration.

In response to these challenges, the transformation process that many companies have embarked on involves examining the HR strategy and how it supports the business strategy, and then changing the HR operating model to achieve optimum delivery.”

According to the 2006 Global HR Transformation Study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, half (50%) of organizations are in the midst of transforming their HR functions, while 12% completed a transformation within the past year and another 10% plan to begin the process within the next year.

HR transformation is the process of recreating or reinventing the HR function with the specific intent of enhancing HR’s contribution to the business.

Technology and service delivery improvements were the focus of the first wave of transformation activity, 5 to 10 years ago, coupled with an expectation that this would enable HR to transition into a more strategic role," says Mike Theaker, principal in Mercer's HR Effectiveness Business. "HR functions are now challenged with delivering against the expectations set--to deliver human capital strategies and initiatives that demonstrate a significant contribution to business operations and the achievement of business goals."

HR leaders reported that their top challenges are: acquiring key talent (43 percent), driving cultural and behavioral change in the organization (40 percent), and building leadership capabilities (40 percent).

Just as HR activities have remained traditional, so has its skill sets. According to Mercer’s survey, 53% of organizations worldwide list skills and competencies of the HR staff as one of the most significant obstacles to enhancing the overall role of the HR function. The capability of line managers to supervise staff and the business’ perception of HR’s value are other leading barriers holding back the development of HR.

“In order for the HR function to move forward with its transformation, organizations must implement a talent strategy that arms HR with a range of skills, especially those that relate to finance and business, so that they can be more effective business partners,” explained Ms. Piercy

HR competencies and future ahead

HR competencies and its impact on the role performed by HR has been evolving at a very fast pace, the fast pace of business growth has meant that HR function also reinvents and moves from basis transaction oriented role to more meaty and result driven function having tangible impact on business results and facilitating organization growth and talent development .

SHRM article talks about Dave Ulrich, and his associates who have been on a quest to provide the answer to the competencies required for HR professionals. This year, they’ve released an all-new 2007 Human Resource Competency Study (HRCS). The findings and interpretations lay out professional guidance for HR for at least the next few years. The study outlines six future competencies for HR professionals in the days to come.

The six competencies and the elements that make them up offer the outlines of what it takes to be successful. The Credible Activist is respected, admired, listened to and offers a point of view, takes a position and challenges assumptions by:
• Delivering results with integrity.
• Sharing information.
• Building relationships of trust.
• Doing HR with an attitude (taking appropriate risks, providing candid observations, influencing others).

The Cultural Steward recognizes, articulates and helps shape a company’s culture by:
• Facilitating change.
• Crafting culture.
• Valuing culture.
• Personalizing culture (helping employees find meaning in their work, managing work/life balance, encouraging innovation).

The Talent Manager/Organizational Designer masters theory, research and practice in both talent management and organizational design by:
• Ensuring today’s and tomorrow’s talent.
• Developing talent.
• Shaping the organization.
• Fostering communication.
• Designing reward systems.

The Strategy Architect knows how to make the right change happen by:
• Sustaining strategic agility.
• Engaging customers.

The Business Ally contributes to the success of the business by:
• Serving the value chain.
• Interpreting social context.
• Articulating the value proposition.
• Leveraging business technology.

The Operational Executor administers the day-to-day work of managing people inside an organization by:
• Implementing workplace policies.
• Advancing HR technology.

It’s also interesting to see how the role of HR has been facilitating and encouraging the culture of Innovation, productivity and high performing organisationals.Consider this , according to a survey by Human Resource Executive over half (54 percent) of respondents to a survey on "HR's Role in Fostering Innovation" indicated innovation is very important to their businesses' success.

In other areas, the significance of HR in the processes was rated as follows:

* Fostering innovation -- 36 percent indicated a somewhat significant role.
* Training and developing talent -- 49 percent indicated a very significant role.
* Making innovation a part of the performance-management system -- 47 percent indicated a significant role.
* Establishing incentive and reward systems that are tied to innovation -- 44 percent indicated a significant role.
* Communicating successes to management and employees -- 56 percent indicated a very significant role.
* Tying innovation to succession and promotion - 41 percent (the highest percentage) indicated a significant role.

When asked whether the HR leaders in their organizations participate in brainstorming sessions related to business and product innovation, over half (56 percent) of respondents indicated yes, while 39 percent said no and 5 percent of respondents were not sure.

Clearly indicates the significant impact which HR can have on future of business as Innovation is has been driving growth for organizations.

Previous Posts on Innovation.

Future of Innovation

Key to innovation

Focus on Innovation

HR Talent and Attrition

HR talent and competency development has been a cause of concern for industry over the past few years and the growing requirement for quality HR professional is evident by the increasing HR attritions numbers over the last few years. It would be really interesting to analyze the HR attrition data of the organizations in India and look at the reasons for high exits. Gautam , Sanjay and Astha have already discussed this alarming trend which is eroding the credibility of HR professionals due to lack of retention plans for HR attritions.

HR as a career option has evolved over the last few years and HR professionals are no more content playing second fiddle as facilitators.Mostly they are continuously struggling to keep pace with the ever growing challenge of managing operational efficiency and contain attrition. Over the years some organizations have been very successful in integrating HR practices as part of their long term business strategy and have even gone to the extent of making HR a profit centre. This has made HR as an attractive career choice and it has become more competitive than ever before. The evolution of HR as a business partner also means that today HR also plays effective role in managing business and ensuring that it’s no more just a cost centre and a maintenance function.

Some organizations have not been able to make the transformation and HR continues to play the role of glorified administrators. Many organizations have failed to respond to the HR paradigm which goes beyond the cliché of generalist vrs the specialist or as Anuradha puts it as push vrs pull role. The challenge lies in finding a more comprehensive and integrated HR roles in organization today.HR career development and learning is also something which needs to be addressed within organizations. Some organizations give HR function the space and support to become the driver of change and strategy execution. Lack of well defined career path with adequate reward and compensation at par with other business functions is also a cause of high attrition in HR. In some organization the specialist and generalist functions lack collaboration approach and always a cause of internal discontent within HR. It’s almost similar to left hand not knowing what right hand is doing or blaming each other in case things don’t work out.

The other possible reason for high HR attrition is the growing need for skilled HR professionals in the country. As this report suggests that the supply-demand gap in the HR industry is overwhelming. The country produces around 5,000 fresh HR professionals every year.

According to industry estimates, the economy is expected to generate 80 million jobs in the next five years. Assuming that the industry needs one HR manager for every 500 people (the ideal ratio being 1:200), there would be a shortfall of more than one lakh professionals in the area.

To bridge the numbers and the competency gap among HR professionals, NHRD along with CII and XLRI has embarked on a unique initiative to identify competencies required for the profession and also help people develop them. NHRD and CII have worked on a framework of competencies required for a HR manager. They have now partnered with XLRI, Jamshedpur, to start a development centre based on the framework. HR professionals will be assessed based on four competency types: functional, behavioural, technical and generic. The development centre will position HR managers at four levels: basic, competent, advanced and expert. The process, however, does not end with the assessment.

Sure we are heading for exciting time ahead ;o)

PS: Posting has been low due to high professional commitments and other pending projects. I was also away on a short holiday trip and you can check out some of the pictures here and here.