#GetTheBestOutofUs: Using Microlearning to Supercharge Employees

In our uncertain and dynamic world, every now and then, methods acclaimed to be modern and efficient are being challenged; tectonic changes are taking place around us. Rugs under our feet are being pulled off frequently. New possibilities are staring at us.

The only way to progress is to recognise these changes and be agile in grabbing the opportunities. Henry Ford had famously said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” What can businesses do to keep their employees young?

What’s new?

Our workforce is now composed of an increasing number of people from GenY and GenZ. Work processes are increasingly digitised and human communication has slowly moved from in-person contacts to video calls and asynchronous methods such as chats. We pick up our smartphones 50+ times a day and spend 3+ hours a day on the phone.

Many times, our phone distracts us because our mindset is gripped by a feeling that we might be missing out on knowing some information or responding to someone promptly. Given the pandemic situation, many people have started using their smart devices much more than what they used in the past. And they are delivering on their work-related assignments while they continue to remain distracted by the notifications and sometimes, the mere presence of many other apps on their phones.

How do we help our employees in learning?

Organisations in modern times have to rely on the innovativeness, customer-centricity and commitment of their employees. Gone are the days when senior leaders take action based on the insights they gather and their beliefs. Workplaces have evolved a lot more collaborative because they now believe that the employees across the rank-and-file bear tremendous potential that can be unlocked to generate significant value. As employees interact with the stakeholders of the business, a lot of insight gets generated there and must be leveraged.

We need to invest in building the capabilities of our employees. Firstly, we have to help them understand and appreciate the value of learning continuously. Secondly, we have to provide them content that is appealing to them, convenient for consumption in the manner they like and relevant. For example, some people learn well by watching others do it and hence, we have to give them video tutorials. Some want to learn from principles, theories and logical reasoning. So, we need to provide the same content in long-form articles and case studies. Most employees want the flexibility to choose when they want to learn and for how long at one go. Hence, we have to design a significant part of the content in such a way that can be consumed at the convenience of the employees.

Thirdly, our environment is full of distractions; hence, our attention spans are low. Hence, we have to impart the training in small snippets, otherwise called microlearning methods. We have to break up the learning objectives into small bits of learning so that they can understand the nuances of skill from these microunits of content and practise them accordingly.

Finally, we have to make sure that employees find it relevant and competitive to learn. So, leader boards need to be published and employees leading the boards need to be recognised and rewarded suitably. Results of the capability enhancement have to be showcased so that many employees feel inspired and attracted towards learning and staying young.

Is e-learning the only way for the current times?

Knowledge and perspectives can be shared by videos, talks and essays. Sometimes, we can get the learners on a digital platform to discuss a topic, hold online quizzes or run competitions so that they can appreciate the concept, gain knowledge and perspectives.

When it comes to learning a skill or practising some nuances and discovering one’s latent potential, one needs continuous grooming and coaching. E-learning is not the method one can rely on to achieve these objectives. People have to learn the skills from their managers or mentors by observing their behaviours, participating in the projects their managers lead and leading some projects their managers are interested in. Rigorous execution of these learning methods makes a huge difference in the learning of new capabilities and personal development.

For the times we live in and the next few years, to create a growth-oriented environment and supercharge employees, we need a blended approach, a significant part being microlearning.

Ref: https://www.cielhr.com/getthebestoutofus-using-microlearning-to-supercharge-employees/

#GetTheBestOutofUs : The Purpose-Led Brand

I like a quote by Mark Twain – The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find why.

India has about 1.4 million companies active and on an average day, 350-400 companies are born in India. How many of these brands are loved by their stakeholders? When brands and their leaders are clear about their purpose, they can certainly get a head start in the direction of earning the love, respect and patronage of their stakeholders.

Why should brands discover their purpose?

Some of us want to go with the flow without knowing where we are headed. Either we do not care to know about it or are too lazy to visualise the future and plan for it. Hence, we consciously decide to live life as it happens and unfolds each day and each moment. That is one way of living and finding peace and joy.

When we live this way, we discover and explore our relationships as and when they happen. Similarly, brands can choose this kind of life; thus, they do not build strong loyalties with their stakeholders and lose the opportunity of reducing the cost of acquiring an order or a customer, hiring an employee, leveraging one’s influence and relationship with society and government.

How do they discover?

Some of us keep wavering about the direction to take along a journey. It is because we have not been able to make up our minds about the direction we take. It is not uncommon to see people changing their goals in life multiple times. Some of them settle down on one path after some time of exploration.

Similarly, brands find new pivots and take new directions. They change their product offerings, target segments and markets. Sometimes, they adopt new principles in their life because they find those to be relevant at that stage of their life. However, the point is that they do make changes in their path and settle down on a path; stay focused on it for a long time to build, mature and leverage their relationships with their stakeholders.

Listen to the stakeholders

Customers hold many expectations of the brands they use; among these, the most important ones are convenience, efficiency, friendly service, value for their money, and reliability. They value innovative offerings from brands. These are the findings from a PwC study;  they merely reconfirm the information already known and highlight the relevance of the major expectations. Brands often do not review the experiences they are delivering to their customers and hence, do not know if they can improve and critically evaluate if they have deviated from the path of their choosing.  

Mobile phones started rendering companies making point-and-shoot cameras redundant. Feature phones started losing their significance when smartphones started hitting the markets. Green energy has started catching the attention of policymakers and consumers. Ecommerce channels have started drawing a larger share of the overall spend of the consumers. Cryptocurrency has started making its presence felt. Many such trends affect a company either positively or negatively depending upon its context. If we follow the behaviours of the customers, employees, business partners, suppliers, competitors, society at large and the government, we will be able to get a good sense of the changes happening now as well as those on the horizon.

The owners and leaders of brands have to listen to these changes and ask themselves if their purpose is relevant and if their actions reflect the purpose they are committed to. If they do, the brands live long and run their operations efficiently.

Ref: https://www.cielhr.com/getthebestoutofus-the-purpose-led-brand/

#GetTheBestOutofUs: Benefits of Leading with Values

Values are like Lighthouses. Leaders have to act consistently and Employees look at the signals from the Lighthouse to sail forward.

The journey of life has multiple paths; the path one chooses determines the destination. This principle holds good not only for individuals but also for enterprises. The way leaders act and lead reflect the values in action.

Ring-fencing the Market Share

Values are like lighthouses that show the direction; the sailors trust these signals and take the next steps of their journey accordingly. Do leaders always act like lighthouses?

When leaders lack consistency in their beliefs and actions, the employees get confused about the direction. Let us take an example. A leader is known to follow a consultative style; he consults with his team to finalise a plan for a new campaign but changes his practices in making decisions of similar importance. In this case, members of the team observe the changes in practice and get confused about the way they should respond.

Decisions across the ranks of the organisation either get delayed or haphazard, random and rudderless. Customers experience these misalignments while transacting with the organisation and remain open to offers from competing suppliers or brands. Ultimately, the loser is the organisation, its market share in the short term and its reputation over time.

Hence, the leaders must behave as lighthouses do. They have to remain consistent, take a balanced and holistic view of the situation while making decisions.

Building relationships with stakeholders

A recent study published in Forbes shows a global trend that customers are 4-6 times more likely to purchase, protect and champion purpose-driven companies. This study has covered more than 75 brands across 8 markets involving a sample exceeding 8000 respondents; hence, the results are quite reliable and comprehensive.

We see an increasing number of young people, millennials and Gen Z in the workforce. They are much more aware and concerned than the people in the previous generation about the impact an organisation and its products and services make on society and the environment apart from meeting the needs of the customers. We see children of family businesses either going for major revamps of the traditional methods or venturing into new business lines altogether. Directionally, this is aligned with what the study has found.

Consciousness among employees, customers, partners and suppliers about environmental impact, ethical behaviours, practices around human rights, equity, diversity, inclusion and such aspects is way higher than what we witnessed in the past. Thus, an organisation can retain and engage its stakeholders stronger and deeper if its practices reflect the values an organisation espouses.

Sometimes, the practices are not in sync with the stated values. For example, diversity is a value, but there is no specific method adopted to maintain diversity; professionalism is a value, but the promises made to customers are frequently not met and there is no clear practice of communicating with the customers proactively about the delay. In these cases, customers can see that the organisation is not aligned well and will not develop a strong relationship with the brand. Similar is the story for other stakeholders, such as employees, suppliers and partners.

Laying the foundation for a sustainable future

Protecting one’s turf and building relationships with stakeholders help an organisation in the short to medium term and lay the foundation for a long-term future. Leaders have to make sure that there is continuous tracking and monitoring of how their behaviours are permeating within the organisation and the impact it creates on the culture. There are a few organisations in the world that have outlived the founding team, gone to the hands of multiple leaders and transcended multiple generations.

In most of these cases, the organisations have changed their business line, products and services; undergone several transformations. However, it is noteworthy that they have been able to live long for the values they have upheld over time and the impact they have been creating on society and the environment.

Ref: https://www.cielhr.com/getthebestoutofus-benefits-of-leading-with-values/

#BuildingTomorrow: A Reliability Centric Organisation

Ability is important in our quest for success, but dependability is critical. This is common sense and many times leaders lose touch with this fact. Hence, a famous American author and motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar had to reiterate this.

Simple and critical

Organisations identify white spaces in the market and bring out their offering to occupy the vacant space. Their ability to understand the needs of their customer segment and develop a solution to address the need is critical for their existence and paramount for their start. However, for long-term success, they have to fulfil these needs on a sustained basis, time after time. Customers have to find what they need every time they place a request or an order.

Organisations who have been able to do this well have survived the uncertainties and volatilities they have faced over time. Not only they have survived but thrived. They have been able to create value for the stakeholders they deal with, right from investors and customers to employees, business partners and society at large. Investors have seen ROCE (returns on capital employed) higher than the market average; customers have consistently been satisfied, stayed loyal by placing repeat orders and advocated their brand; employees similarly love working for the company, become their brand ambassadors, stick to the organisation longer than the industry average and deliver output at a higher level than the industry norm. Business partners commit lion’s share of their attention and resources to deliver at their best and look for long-term association. Society wants the company to be successful and trusts the organisation to be fair and responsible.

Reliability as a concept is very simple and at the same time, critical for every institution. Zig Ziglar has summarised it well for us that ability is important but dependability is critical. What do organisations need to do to stay reliable?

In the Short Term

Firstly, it is the leadership team that has to believe in delivering a reliable solution and lead the efforts in defining the niches that the organisation serves and the unique strengths that the organisation combines to deliver what the customer needs. This is hard work and easier said than done; often this is something that needs periodic review and course correction. Manufacturing organisations will have a longer cycle time than services organisations; however, this process needs to be carried out periodically and the product life cycle has to be extended accordingly.

Secondly, we need the operational systems and processes to be aligned well in tracking our performance while engaging with customers across all transactions, right from handling queries and enquiring for orders to fulfilling the requirements and servicing them after the delivery. We need the right metrics in place and continuous tracking of the same. We have to align the rewards and recognition systems in the organisation aligned with these metrics.

It is equally important to measure how every customer is responding to our performance. Sometimes, customers do not reciprocate with the same level of professionalism that we are trying to benchmark ourselves against. For example, if a customer does not respect the payment terms, makes changes in orders after placing them and expresses dissatisfaction with the pricing, we have to assess if we are investing efforts in the right relationship.

In the Long Term

Markets keep evolving and so does the preferences of customers. Competitors or new categories challenge the business models and sometimes, the viability of the business itself. Hence, it is very important to observe the shifts taking place in the market and the patterns of demand; we have to keep our eyes open for the new opportunities that emerge in our markets. It is important to make changes within the organisation accordingly.

Listening to the voices of customers, business partners and employees will give an idea of the changes taking place. And at the same time, markets are to be scanned for new opportunities so that we can hedge the risks of obsolescence. It is important to use technology and sometimes, external experts to bring in efficiency and an unbiased view of the ground reality and at the same time, estimate the size of the unsuspected possibilities.

Building reliability in the organisation’s offerings and operations costs money and draws upon the time of the senior-most people in the organisation. Hence, this is an expensive programme, but it is critical to guarantee long-term returns to the stakeholders.

Ref: https://www.cielhr.com/buildingtomorrow-a-reliability-centric-organisation/

#BuildingTomorrow: How Brands can use NFTs to reshape Digital Consumerism

Our world is going increasingly digital; from shopping and payments to booking appointments, meeting people, consulting a doctor and studying in a school or college, we are using the internet and digital tools. With the arrival of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies, we can secure transactions better and protect our financial assets. Now comes, another new format in the form of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) to protect our non-financial assets.

What are NFTs?

Non-fungible tokens are unique digital identities connected with an asset and are issued to people or organisations to mark their ownership over the asset. An NFT owned by a person on an organisation is unlike a currency note or crypto because the NFT is unique and owned; the rights can be transferred to someone else at the will of its owner. This is like someone’s home, mobile phone, jewellery, book, collection of music, email account and social media profile. Some of these assets can be transferred or sold in exchange for money or a consideration only at the behest of its rightful owner. Legal systems of the State ensure that the transfer of these rights is governed fairly and uniformly.

NFTs have been in use for a few years now; however, they have not been quite common in our discussions until recently when the Founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey monetised his first tweet (“just setting up my twttr”) by auctioning its NFT for USD 2.9 Million and at an auction at the Christie’s, an American digital artist, graphic designer and animator auctioned a piece of his digital art by its NFT for USD 69 Million.

Who is using them?

The point is, NFTs are new and there are enough fans in the world who want to be first-movers and pioneers in their circle. Hence, there is a demand for NFTs now; companies like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Nike are among these pioneers to have introduced NFTs.

Imagine a situation where Nike develops a limited-edition logo that entitles its owners certain privileges such as meeting some of its brand ambassadors as an exclusive event and life-long passes to premium booths in the sporting events it sponsors around the world. This super-exclusive club can be digital, by an auction among a curated list of participants and the winners of the auction are issued personalised NFTs. The value of the membership status of this unique club can keep appreciating and the fan club gets stronger over time. Nike will get the impact of the positive influence that the Fanclub members create on its brand, amplify the impact over time and can draw many other secondary benefits from these NFT-based memberships which can be transferred from the first owner to the next owner and so on.

How different it is from the traditional methods of marketing?

Firstly, NFTs are personalised and cannot be copied or faked unless there is a new technology that can break into the blockchain level of security. For example, a rare painting of Van Gogh can be copied or printed; however, the situation can change if there is an NFT of the painting and the museum sells just a few of these tokens. These NFTs will represent the original painting, an extremely precious asset and create significant revenues for the museum. As a part of the NFT, they can offer some special privileges for the owner to the museum, events celebrating Van Gogh’s greatness and public acknowledgement of ownership if the owner permits. This can make the owner of the NFT truly special.

For this situation, we cannot create a marketing program using the traditional methods to generate a similar impact. Hence, the NFT market is fast-growing. People are increasingly interested in buying NFTs for digital artwork, music, photos, multimedia, rare moments in history, video games and so on. Going forward, companies can issue NFTs to their customers and fans who contribute to co-creating products and influencing communities; engage with the society at large to raise money for charities and influence policies. It is a new line of thinking!

Ref: https://www.cielhr.com/buildingtomorrow-how-brands-can-use-nfts-to-reshape-digital-consumerism/

#BuildingTomorrow: Future of Business in a Digital Universe – Metaverse

In the last thirty years, information and communication technologies have developed at an amazingly rapid pace. We started with sending text and making voice calls; now, we express through videos, meet through virtual calls and conferences, play games on consoles and screens, shop online, try clothes and glasses online, take a virtual walkthrough of museums, heritage sites and buildings.

Metaverse is the next big thing which the tech giants around the world are hugely investing in. As a result, every human being will create multiple digital avatars or identities which will interact with other such profiles, human beings and machines. So, we will have billions of digital avatars fulfilling our needs of meeting people, engaging with them. Our needs of shopping, entertainment, education, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, construction and many such activities will undergo a huge change.

What it is likely to be?

We have watched sci-fi movies, read fiction and heard mythological stories. Our reality in the future could be similar to the situations imagined in these stories.

During the pandemic time, travel came down by 90%. However, the lives of the travellers were not impacted by 90%. Their objectives and efficiencies were not adversely impacted by 90%. This shows, we spend a lot of our time and energy in activities just to socialise and physically be with others. Metaverse promises to bring us a new world of experience where we can feel the presence of the others in their respective 3D spaces rather than through a grid on the surface of a phone screen.

For companies, it is going to be a new world. Today they are still figuring out how to implement a hybrid work environment; some of them have gone back to their old norms and practices. Given this backdrop, it is not easy for companies to imagine the changes which are likely to take place when metaverse becomes a reality. Yet this is coming; we have to accept this reality, take it in our strides and prepare for the new world.

What preparations are needed?

Every business survives based on its interactions with the stakeholders. Tomorrow’s business environment is going to have stakeholders who are sometimes going to interact with them as real people and sometimes as their digital avatars.

Firstly, businesses have to transform their interaction systems which are secure and intelligent enough to recognise who they are engaging with. They need to understand the profile of the physical or digital persona in terms of the past interactions, the tenor and tone of interactions, transactions if any and the analytics of those transactions. Further, their systems have to be intelligent enough to project what the future interactions are likely to be and hence, run appropriate programmes to engage the stakeholder.

This holds good for customers, suppliers, employees, government authorities, competitors and society at large.

What’s going to change in the real world?

We can see the need for a huge transformation in the technology environment and all the business processes in an organisation.

Companies need to review the relevance of their products or services in the metaverse. Like the companies making cameras and selling them went out of business due to the mobile phones, some are likely to face risks of extinction. Hence, they need to quickly plan the next line of business or introduce new products and services.

Manufacturing and delivery of services are going to undergo major changes in the metaverse because of the extensive use of AI (artificial intelligence), robotics and mixed reality. Large areas of a factory, warehouse, store and office are likely to remain in the format of dark themes because the handling of materials and products is going to be automated. Ordering processes will undergo huge changes where customers could directly place orders on platforms that seamlessly flow into the manufacturing and supply chain systems.

Further, the sales and marketing function has to engage with customers directly and customise offers for them based on the understanding of their consumption patterns and their context at that time. They have to be intelligent enough to project the needs of customers and bring those proactively to them.

On the whole, it is going to be a play of information and insights among multiple entities, humans included!

Ref: https://www.cielhr.com/buildingtomorrow-future-of-business-in-a-digital-universe-metaverse/

#BuildingTomorrow: Sustainable vs Rapid Growth

#BuildingTomorrow: Sustainable vs Rapid Growth

John F Kennedy famously said, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” The world has moved on at a rapid pace since then, especially in the 2000s. The development has been so rapid that the nature around us has been changing and so are the behaviours of all living beings, plants, birds and animals included. The question is if the development model needs to change.

Business Leaders want rapid growth in the business and at the same time, they want the business to last long. In recent decades, we have witnessed some of the brilliant minds in the business have taken strategic directions either with recklessness and haste or with a deliberate attempt of making windfall gains in the short run. The subprime crisis and then the global financial crisis is the case in point.

Why do companies ignore sustainable growth?

In a mere 19% of the world’s largest public companies, CEOs last for 10 or more years. This was found by a PwC study of the world’s largest 2500 public companies for 1999-2018. Further, the study found that the average tenure is 5 years. A similar study in 2020 of BSE-500 companies shows that the average tenure of the CEO is a mere 3.4 years. Less than 2% of the BSE-500 companies had their CEOs last for more than 10 years! Hence, a typical CEO of a large public company cannot plan for a time horizon longer than 3-4 years to deliver results and create value.

Naturally, the CEO will drive the entire organisation to squeeze the most value out of the ecosystem in these 3-4 years. While the virtues of long-term thinking are well-known, he or she sees a mandate for a very short time.

We know that sprinting is for short distances and marathons are for long distances. CEOs make their best efforts to convince their Boards that the company is on a marathon when they were sprinting. Probably, many Board members are not thinking if the rapid growth is sustainable!

Window of opportunity

We are living in a hyper-connected global environment where changes in technology are taking place rapidly, capital is flowing in and out fast, consumer demands have remained volatile and governments use the regulatory framework to reflect their respective international relations. In such a situation, the opportunity available for an organisation to seize upon is for a short time. Hence, we need to sprint in all directions to seize upon the opportunity.

We see it in action when a start-up organisation receives a round of funding, they start expanding at a breakneck pace, they drive their sales and marketing team over time to acquire new customers, crush their competitors and expand their wallet share with every customer. Every part of the business gets fired up on high octanes to deliver more and faster. Their investors are concerned and anxious if the tide will turn soon and hence, drive the CEO to deliver the highest possible returns on the investment.

Should we be worried about sustainable growth?

Everyone is in a hurry and doesn’t mind if someone else is getting hurt in the process! Members of the company’s Board look the other way because the opportunity might be seized by someone else while one blinks. They talk about sustainability and so does the CEO because it is expected of them.  Every responsible citizen in the world is concerned about it. They announce several measures to protect the climate, reduce energy consumption and contribute to society in the name of sustainable practices. While we welcome affirmative practices for making our world a better place to live, the moot question is if organisations should run marathons or focus on sprints.

The point is that no organisation can deliver consistently if it is sprinting all the time. The runners will get tired, fall and retire. CEO could go away citing personal reasons or retirement and can be replaced. But we cannot be replacing the runners often because the cost is too high and over time, we cannot attract people to join our run for we will be known as a not-so-good place to work. An

Each one of us has come across people who were wonderful and promising like Vinod Kambli or Narendra Hirwani were in cricket, and they flopped soon. Their success streak was short-lived; there are many in every walk of life. Similarly, organisations can be extremely successful in the short run (the case of Zynga has been written a lot about), but the real test is their ability to create long-term value for their stakeholders.

Ref: https://www.cielhr.com/buildingtomorrow-sustainable-vs-rapid-growth/

#BuildingTomorrow: Data Literate Organisation

All of us have moved on digital platforms and consequently, an unimaginable amount of digital footprint is being created. Smart enterprises and their leaders have been able to leverage the data and draw insights from them to redesign their products and services, change their strategies to engage existing customers, draw new customer cohorts, expand into new segments and optimise their operations. How can every organisation follow these practices?

Why can’t organisations and their leaders implement the obvious?

All leaders are seeing the digitisation around them right from the way we organise our travel, buy goods and services to the way we manage our money. However, all of them have not been able to get their business to take advantage of the possibilities offered by digital. From the smallest of businesses to the large ones, data helps in shaping business decisions – operational as well as strategic. There is no uncertainty around the ROI (returns on investment). Business leaders need to understand this and drive the business accordingly.

Some others have digitised their workflows and asked their ecosystem to go digital. And they want to analyse the data around them, but think that the capabilities and technologies needed to do that are expensive and hard to build. As cloud-based technologies galore, they have been caught contemplating and procrastinating. Forrester says that 74% of businesses want to be data-driven, but only 29% are successful at putting analytics into action.

All businesses do not need to buy a supercomputer or invest in data lakes and hire the smartest engineers to analyse the data their businesses generate. Several tools and systems are now available for each industry sector; these are fairly easy to implement and adapt. We need the leadership team’s belief and resolve to monitor and leverage whatever happens around them objectively.

Making a start is not enough!

Many companies have invested a good amount of effort and money in creating the analytics. The biggest challenge in these firms has been to get the rank and file to absorb the information and analytics being presented to them. Like we need to have the capability to read, write and speak in a certain language, our workforce needs literacy around data to be able to understand and appreciate them; leverage the insights drawn from the information.

A study by McKinsey shows that a large number (~70%) of digital transformation projects don’t meet their objectives. Hence, billions of dollars spent by enterprises failed to deliver the ROI. One of the reasons behind this is the fact that most organisations lack AI and data literacy. Thus, they fail to use the systems provided to them, do not appreciate and understand the reports that come out of the systems, let alone the possibility of leveraging data.

What can we do?

Firstly, the leaders have to align their teams on the significance of data literacy and show them what they can do if they are data literate. The leaders across the spectrum need to understand that they need to develop the desired skills to interpret data and take decisions based on the data. Then, the entire organisation from the top to the bottom needs to cultivate the habit of reading the data, relying on the information that stems out of the data and drawing the underlying trends and insights from the information. This is the hardest part of the execution.

Last, but not least is to identify opportunities for gathering data, building systems for it and developing the layer of analytics on top of it so that new insights can be generated. Business leaders have to anchor their annual operating plans on data-driven insights rather than gut-level presumptions, feelings and opinions. They need to call out the continual improvements they will make in their business in terms of systems and processes.

Organisations capable of making their organisation data-literate will win in the marketplace of tomorrow. It will be a competitive advantage that creates superior value for their stakeholders.

#getthebestoutofus #dataliteracy #buildingtomorrow

#BuildingTomorrow: Data Literate Organisation

#BuildingTomorrow: Growing a Company with Job Hoppers

Job hopping is a reality. We have to deal with it.

Opportunities galore for many sectors and companies are trying their best to seize upon them by growing their investments in people. The business environment is now fraught with various micro and inter-dependent factors that make decision-making complex. We cannot afford to wait for the disruptive forces to settle down before we decide to make changes in our working styles and approaches. What changes do we need in our people processes?

Context: Great Resignation

Acquiring new talent is one of the commonest tools used by companies to grab the opportunities the market presents them with. Secondly, given the current investment climate, many companies have rich coffers and are in a hurry to deploy those funds to go to market fast and grow their market share. This has resulted in fierce competition among employers to attract and retain talent. These companies have many more jobs open than they ever had in the past. For the jobseekers with skills matching the demand of these fast-growing sectors, it is a situation of plenty.

Moreover, new-found remote working and virtual methods make it very easy for candidates to explore job opportunities in the market. In a demand-led market, the supply side tries to maximise the returns for itself. Hence, it is natural to expect that salaries go up and candidates will trade offers from competing employers.

According to a Gallup study, half of the workers in the US are following the open job roles or actively searching for jobs and 60% of the millennials are open to new opportunities. These are largely in the roles of technology – new tools and methodologies to drive efficiencies and adapt to the new world of working remotely, shopping online, e-sports, new ways of entertainment and the like.

Companies are challenged to innovate and adapt to the new reality. Despite their best efforts, they have been losing people. This is the time of great resignation.

Let’s embrace this new reality

Traditionally, businesses raised their eyebrows and despised profiles with frequent job changes. They believed, job-hoppers are impractical and inflexible; lack adaptability; are not adequately seasoned and hence, lack the depth of experience.

Currently, candidates are surrounded by multiple stimuli and attractive job offers; our social environment encourages quick decisions and fast-paced growth. So we see employees taking quick decisions to leave as soon as they face discomfort in their job even if it is not too intense or they see greener pastures elsewhere. This is a new reality that business leaders and HR teams have to embrace.

Job hoppers are not necessarily what we believed in the past; we have to listen to the candidate empathetically and determine if the person is habitually impulsive, generally inflexible and shy of facing challenges or was a victim of the situation. We have to deep-dive, peel the onion layer by layer to know the personality traits. This is a higher-order challenge in recruitment and selection; leaders who are selecting people for their teams need to embrace the reality that job hoppers aren’t misfits and upgrade their skills in selecting the right candidates.

We have to grow with job hoppers!

There is no choice! We have to take several steps proactively rather than react to situations. What could they be?

We spoke of the right selection already. Secondly, we need to make sure that our employees have the trust in our HR team that their voices are welcome, heard and acted upon. Often employees do not think that their feelings of discomfort aren’t welcome and hence, they should do whatever best they can. They spread the word about their negative experience, distance themselves from the long-term goals of the company, lessen their efforts in achieving the short-term objectives and start hurting the organisation. This is a vicious circle that any organisation has to protect itself against.

Most people around us are looking for instant gratification, quick results and timely feedback. Hence, the organisation has to build a culture of transparency, frequent communication, recognise good work and quick feedback. In order to achieve this, leaders have to take a deep interest in their team members, build a personal rapport with them, co-create the solutions needed at work and genuinely care for their lives at work as well as home. They have to understand the ambitions of their team members, gently shape those and be honest in mentoring their team members in shaping their careers.

We have to embrace reality and adapt our ways of dealing with them rather than being imprisoned by our past experiences.

#BuildingTomorrow: Growing a Company with Job Hoppers

#BuildingTomorrow: Key to Attracting the Right Talent

War for Talent is never over!

Covid19 has been a black swan event for the world making several changes in the way we lead our lives. Organisations have discovered new ways of working and the employees have learnt the hard way the importance of taking care of their health and nurturing relationships. In the US, a huge number of people have left their usual jobs and trying to find alternate sources of livelihood. The same is seen in various parts of the world as well.

Understanding the context

The disruptions are on multiple counts – some industry sectors such as hospitality, tourism, retail and the like are yet to get back to pre-pandemic situations. Some employees are yet to come to terms with the loss of human lives they have witnessed around them and want to lead their lives in a place that seems more secure for them; they are leaving their regular jobs to take up assignments that pay them poorly. And at the same time, companies in the sectors such as technology have several positions open, are in a big hurry to fill those roles because their investors want them to deliver revenues quickly and are willing to go to a great length in attracting people. As a result, there is huge mobility of people across companies. This is the time of ‘Great Resignation’

Possibly the leaders are caught up in solving the challenges posed by the uncertain and volatile environment and fast-paced aggression from the competing forces in the market. Hence, they are unable to engage with the workforce enough and nurture the social capital they built in the past. Hence, employees are willing to move out to pastures that look greener and more exciting in terms of pay and a few other novelty factors. What can leaders do to attract the right talent?

Knowing what one is known for

All of us know that our workforce is composed of a significant number of young people who seek quicker feedback, clarity of purpose, independence, transparent communication and empowerment. To succeed now, we have to make sure that our leaders are transparent, our communication is clear and timely; the feedback has to be quick and we have to give them the freedom and the space to perform their tasks. These have to be the elements of culture in an organisation, almost like the hygiene factors. We cannot highlight these in our employee value proposition. We need to be more discerning in bringing out our speciality. Else we will drown in the crowd and not be able to draw the right people to our organisation.

This is easier said than done. Ideally, a team with sharp attention to detail have to observe the behaviours of managers and team members in various parts of the organisation to define the special characteristics. Statements and opinions by the management team and HR team are at best claims and intents.

In today’s hyper-connected world, employees – current and past, candidates interviewed in the past, vendors and partners who have experienced the behaviours of some employees and the customers who avail services and buy the company’s products spread the word about the company. If there is a gap between the claims and intents expressed by the company’s representatives and the experiences described by the other stakeholders, employer branding takes a beating.

Hance, leaders have to keep their eyes and ears grounded, know what they truly stand for and make sure that their behaviours each day reflect what they truly stand for. If there are differences, they have to re-examine their beliefs about what they stand for and transform if there is a need.

Building the practices right and following them rigorously

The value proposition needs to be communicated to candidates and potential employees. If an organisation works with multiple recruiters, it is a challenge to communicate the story consistently. We need to recruiter to understand the purpose, recent achievements and immediate priorities; keep them in the context while telling the story compellingly. Companies undermine the import of this aspect often.

Secondly, the people involved in sourcing, screening and assessing (SSA) the candidates need to look for the same set of parameters. They need to know the tools to use; the behavioural indicators to look for and the contra indicators to be watchful for. Sometimes, the people involved in the SSA steps inject their own biases related to educational institutes, qualification, company pedigree, family background, prior relationships, hobbies, interests and many such. Often organisations do not have this piece in utter chaos.

Last but not the least, we need to be cognizant of the contemporary pressures and trends. For example, as we speak, employees are seeking flexibility, attracted towards an environment that deploys technology, promotes camaraderie, pays fairly, respects professional stature and so on. We need to make sure that our practices tick all these boxes.

The great talent war is acutely competitive now. We have to prepare well and battle hard.

Ref: https://www.cielhr.com/buildingtomorrow-key-to-attracting-the-right-talent/